To be fair…in many ways, this is what retirement is like! For all of you young dudes and dude-esses…if you are not a key worker, you are kind-of, sort-of retired from society…in a way! The part that’s kind-of, sort-of similar is…that you get to relax about the things you can’t control. You know the Serenity Prayer? (I’m an athiest but I recognise the wisdom in it):

…grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

courage to change the things I can,

and wisdom to know the difference.^[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer

This lockdown requires us to accept the things we cannot change, which is exactly like ‘retirement’ – Being put out to grass means you need to get used to eating grass or smoking grass (or in my case, drinking beer). It also requires us to change how we live…adjust or make the required changes to how we do things. As a society, we can only hope that we can make the required changes.

There’s a Stephen King quote from The Shawshank Redemption – “Fear can hold you prisoner – Hope can set you free.” I definitely agree with that…however, it’s also true that hope can hold you prisoner too! Imagine you are heading for a bus stop, late for work or whatever, and there is a bus which has just passed you but there is someone at the stop, so the bus will stop and you might catch it…if you run…as fast as you can. I would argue that once you decide that you won’t make it…then you are free to relax, walk, light a fag (if that’s your thing), take in the scenery and get the next bus. You are released from the hope of catching it! However…if someone else makes it to the bus stop, then that means the bus will have to delay maybe another 20 seconds while they get on-board…you might still make it! Dun Dun Duuuuuun! Run sucker! The point I’m trying to make is that while there is hope you have to try…but while there is no hope, there’s no expectation of making it…take the time to construct the excuse you’ll have to give to your boss/ manager/ wife/ dentist/ CIA handler! There is no hope of things returning to ‘normal’ and it would be wise to get used to it. On the plus side, who knows, maybe this will help local communities develop? On the one hand, people seem to be genuinely trying to help each other. While, on the other hand, heightened anxiety means heightened suspicion. If you are out in an open space, everyone sees each other as a potential Bio-Hazard – another example of fear keeping us prisoner.

Another thing which keeps us prisoner is Greed! Isn’t it quite sad that the UK and US aren’t prepared to share their research on the Coronavirus because they want to make money from it? I have to agree with Craig Murrays blog on the article in the Guardian – “On 5 May, the British security services released to their pet media the claim that Russia, China and Iran were attempting to hack into British research institutes conducting coronavirus research.” Craig suggests that the real story isn’t the attempted cyber-crime but the UK and US failure to share their research during a Pandemic. Craig suggests that British Security Services released the story – “The BBC reported it. Britain’s shameful copy and paste media all, without exception, just copy and pasted the government press release.“

Especially sad because it’ll take the combined efforts of all nations, to help people adjust to a ‘new normal’ – living with this virus. In fact, if we think about this objectively, it has been recognised for years now that we (us, you, me, everybody) have been vulnerable to a virus threat. And, as Peter Bell points out in his blog “It’s the end of the world as we know it“, we might consider ourselves lucky that the Coronavirus wasn’t worse – The emergence of ‘a’ virus was predictable but the virus which emerged, as bad as it is, could have had a greater damage-potential on us. If you want to understand what the Coronavirus does inside a body, have a look at the Ninja Nerd Science channel on YouTube.

Meanwhile, we sit on our spreading arses, bloated to buggery and red-eyed from Netflix, or whatever colourful beads of distraction we choose. My chosen distraction is writing, recording and mixing, however I’m currently cooking my arse off (I believe that’s the term), trying to learn Gaelic and taking pictures of things I never noticed before. Here’s a picture of a Field Mouse…I shall call him Boaby! You’re welcome!

That all seems a bit random…

The rain is easy to elaborate on because our local Sheep Farmer, Ginny, wants to put sheep in the field. What’s the sheep got to do with the rain??? Well, she was waiting for rain in order for the nutrients, that were spread recently on the field below us, to get absorbed by the grass…in order that it would grow better…in order that she could move some sheep with lambs into the field. Everything in order! Now, we can recognise the connection between the rain and the sheep. That’s kind-of how things work in our human understanding of the world – we make linear connections – cause and effect – if/then/else.

For example, I was chopping wood again yesterday with the short-handled, heavy axe – it’s an old 1lb axe-head that I found outside and I think it would have originally had a long shaft but I’ve attached it to a small shaft from an old hand-axe that I had. Anyhoo…I was chopping with this axe…and I should explain that have adopted a Kung-Fu chopping style, where I lift the axe to shoulder height and…once I have visualised the exact strike line after having a good look at the woodgrain…I push the axe high and extend my arm in a widening arc while increasing the strike force. There is a kind-of block on any feedback information until the wood is struck – essentially time stops…you might have noticed…well, yes it’s my fault…we are talking milliseconds here! It’s all very Ninja and efficient and, generally, my aim is good and my visualisation and understanding of the wood is good. But, occasionally…because my arm gets tired…or because I didn’t read the wood well enough…or because I didn’t place the wood in a good position…or, there’s a passing alien spaceship or whatever…Anyhoo, occasionally things don’t go to plan! Yesterday contained such an occasional moment and I didn’t place the wood well enough…or whatever, so the axe deflected a little which meant…my hand hit the wood. (Which it’s not supposed to…it’s not that kind of Kung Fu!) No big deal…a couple of finger knuckles were bleeding, requiring Dettol and Elastoplasts! Anyhoo…while I was fussing over my hand…I recognised how similar my Dad’s hands were to mine. Okay, my hands are soft and gentile compared to his – He worked as a Scrap Dealer most of his life and had a wee shop in the Gorbals, under Gorbals St Railway Bridge.

His hands were so rough and cracked that he used to wash his hands with DAZ soap powder when he came home. Incidentally, he once hit his left, index-finger with a hand axe and ended up with a 2 inch scar!!

In his shop, he would buy old lead piping and some of it would have solder-joints or solder repairs on it…and because solder was worth more than lead, he used to chop off the solder joints for melting down later (a Saturday job I used to enjoy doing with a blow-torch!) Anyhoo…If I shut my eyes and feel my own hands…I can imagine holding my Dad’s hands! Cool!

So, getting back to ‘order’ and how it affects our understanding of the world… You’re struggling to understand why my Dad’s hands are being used as an example. What have they got to do with ‘order’? What’s the connection to anything?? I can reveal…Everything and nothing! Not joking! Actually ‘everything’ and ‘nothing’! You might have struggled to make any connection because there is nothing obvious in the story connecting chopping wood to my Dad’s hands in the same way as the rain/grass/sheep story does. However, I went from chopping wood, damaging knuckles and feeling my own hands as my Dad’s. I have 50% of his genetics, which helped to shape my hands…so, of course…I feel a kind-of genetic reproduction of his hands. They are a modelled on 50% of his genetics! We…Us…Humans make the connections! Everything we ‘know’…all of Science…even everything we believe…are because we make all the connections. We construct our own understanding of the world by the connections we make. We make ‘order’ of the world (Note: We don’t make order ‘in’ the world 🙂 ).

Personally, I think everything is connected and we only gain an understanding of a thing when we ‘make’ a linear connection, which we think explains it – Then, we think we know. (I think!) That’s how, what we call, ‘knowledge’ works! Knowledge and Belief are essentially the same!

And what about Anne’s Kaleidoscope eye?

Well, this morning (and I am going to use Anne’s words here!)…this morning, she described her left eye like having a fragment from a Kaleidoscope in the corner. When asked to clarify, she said it was like blurry, fizzing bubbles! Now…we don’t do drugs (we don’t need them!) although we occasionally drink alcohol (I’m just learning still!) But, we think she had an Ocular Migraine (Different from the migraine you jokingly suggest is a result of reading this blog, 😛 ) And…according to the diagram of connections in Wikipedia, it turns out that Ocular Migraine is caused by ‘dis-order’! Jeez…wid ye look at that? I’ve even made another connection to ‘order’. Must be time for more beer! Thankfully, none of these apply in Anne’s case and, if you have ever had a Migraine yourself, you will probably decide that the diagram is a bit ‘over-the-top’ in a doom-and-gloom, dis-orderly sort of way! It doesn’t allow for a Migraine connection to ‘too much coffee’ or ‘de-hydration’ or ‘me talking too much’! It turns out…it’s only someone-else ordering their migraine world, in a rain/grass/sheep sort-of way!

Yesterday was a day for Vitamin D…

Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that is naturally present in very few foods, added to others, and available as a dietary supplement. It is also produced endogenously when ultraviolet rays from sunlight strike the skin and trigger vitamin D synthesis.

https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessional/

…and in most parts of the British Isles there has been some sun! Sorry if you didn’t see it…but we are very lucky living at Loch Earn because we were already fairly isolated before Covid-19…and we can go out in the garden. We do have neighbours – the Gamekeeper’s cottage is 50 yds from us and they’re hosting another couple who were trapped here during lockdown and haven’t been able to go home – but we are lucky to have the garden and a little greenhouse. The greenhouse acts like a little conservatory in the morning, where we can have breakfast, before it gets too hot (Yes, even in Scotland, the greenhouse can get to 40c) But, it’s important, very important during these lockdown-days, to get some sun. Whether that’s from being out or by pushing some flesh out through an open window. So, while it’s sunny, we have been outside most of the day…and, because of lockdown, we have taken to watching the birds.

So far, the birds we have seen are: Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Great Tit, Pied Wagtail, Woodpecker, Red Kite, Buzzard, Dunnock, Pheasant, Pigeon, Seagull, Shag, Oyster Catcher, Heron, Crow, Blackbird, Sparrow, Swallow, House Martin, Wren, Owl, Canada Geese, Grebe, Mallard, a Skuar? And…an Osprey! Oh, and we have also heard a Cuckoo but haven’t seen it. We may have seen other birds of prey as well…that we have been mistaking for Buzzards. I am using the royal ‘we’ because I know hee-haw about birds! (They fly, they sing and they shite.) The Chief Science Officer here at Findoglen, whose birthday is today, is Anne 🙂 …and she has a book which helps her identify what we’re seeing. (“The Complete Book of British Birds” by the AA and RSPB, Foreword by Magnus Magnusson)

Currently, the small birds are great to watch but, because I’ve been chopping some ‘old’ wood for the fire, I have had an enthusiastic audience in Prince the pheasant. Prince has been hanging around the birdtable with his missus (Philomenea) and he is getting more confident! He was getting enthusiastic because as I was chopping some old wood and there were beetles and slaters falling from it, which he was interested in. He was happily coming very close (3 ft) and I think I’ll have him eating out of my hands soon. He makes some adorable little happy-noises when he’s eating!

We also were out getting more wood yesterday. Whichever company it is that owns the power-lines to the house , (can’t remember who it is but we’re supplied through Pure Planet) Anyhoo… they were out recently cutting-down any trees/growth within the long, 10 metre, clearway along the length of their cables. So, they left lots of chopped tree-trunks some up to 7 inches thick and we were out with the trailer collecting them. (That was our exercise for the day!)

Tomorrow’s exercise will be a walk down to the shoreline around noon to see if the Osprey comes back (we’ve seen it twice around that time!) *** Update: It didn’t! ***