Bluecat

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Everything posted by Bluecat

  1. Ye...es. I wouldn't draw any conclusions from it. After all, the one thing we know for sure about people who report these experiences is - they didn't actually die. On the other hand, if our last seconds of consciousness involve pleasant illusions, that's absolutely fine by me. Dr Livingston, the 19th century explorer, described an African culture who considered it kindest to attach the ears of criminals who were going to be decapitated to a springy sapling. When the head was cut off the springy sapling would fling the head into the air. The idea was that the criminal's last sensation would be of happily flying off into the beyond.
  2. My old friend is leaving. Years have sometimes passed without us doing anything but exchange messages, but knowing he was around somewhere doing what he does has always been good for me to remember. He was diagnosed with oesophagal cancer on 21st December. Nothing to be done, so he didn't mention it to anyone until after Christmas and his birthday on 26th. Goes into hospital today: needs to be on a drip as he can't swallow liquids. I hope to get to see him next week and tell him I love him.
  3. I've read long ago that one of the visible stars in the group became extinct: ie there used to be seven visible, now there are six. In Greek mythology, one of the sisters was supposed to have exiled herself from heaven for love of a mortal. I believe a similar myth appears in Chinese tradition.
  4. Cute squirrels! They are a bit of a pest in Britain, unfortunately... but apparently quite tasty in a pasty or roasted. I like Bill Bailey's comment on squirrels...
  5. I've been storytelling - first at a kids' Halloween party on Sunday, and then at a new storytelling group last night.

  6. I've just read through this. Gripping stuff! For this non-smoker never-smoker never-wanted-to-smoker (but with many bad habits of other kinds) it makes me realise how tough it can be. Thank you for documenting it Murph. And we're rooting for you! My Mum gave up smoking in 1975. My Dad (also a smoker) had died suddenly the year before, leaving her with four kids aged between 11 and 16. She had smoked for 30 years and enjoyed every moment up until then. She took us on holiday to France, caught a chill on the ferry, and spent 14 days laid up with bronchitis in a French pension. Went home and never smoked again. It was the question 'Who will bring up my children if I die now?' that really motivated her to do that. As it was, she had another 26 years of life, lots of activities, travel, a second marriage, and four grandchildren to look forward to.
  7. You're in our thoughts! Chemo is no fun at all (a friend is having it at the moment - horrible and embarrassing side effects.... terrible wind! and the skin on his lips keeps breaking, which doesn't hurt but makes him look like Dracula after a good meal! and all sorts of things keep getting sore which shouldn't be sore!) but it can do a terrific job bashing cancer. 80% survivablility (and he's a young guy) is good odds. Hang on in there.
  8. B has won 3rd prize in one of the UK's most prestigious short story competitions! The first time he has ever entered a fiction comp too! Yeehaw - what an encouragement!

    1. RevRainbow

      RevRainbow

      good to hear. congrats.

    2. murphzlaw1

      murphzlaw1

      "like"

      congrats to him!

    3. Songster
  9. So Joe gets there and the whole Eastern seaboard is immediately shaken by an earthquake. Bit of family history: his great-grandfather's two brothers arrived in San Francisco just before the great earthquake and fire of 1906. They not only survived but, being skilled builders, were in work for the next ten years. It was the making of them. Joe's Dad tried to trace remaining members of the family in California in the early 60s but couldn't track any of them down.
  10. He got there to find his apartment rental has fallen through, so he's busy house-hunting...
  11. Best wishes for young Joel, who is setting off to the USA on Friday to do a Ph.D in Philosophy...
  12. B and I have between us a spanish guitar, keyboards (we'd like a piano, but no room), a flute, several penny whistles (flageolets if you want to be posh), a couple of recorders in different keys, a strange wooden reed whistle thing I got in Jerusalem, a bodhran, tamborine, a couple of maracas, a rainmaker-shaker, and I suspect a mouth organ lurking around too. I no longer have the fiddle - I tried to learn a bit but made horrible noises for too long. B plays guitar and is learning the flute, but needs to find a good teacher. He had a great teacher in the UAE, a Colombian/Italian working in the Middle East who buys all her sheet music from - a small shop about five minutes walk from our house in England. I can do a few tunes on the whistles and recorder, and I can shake those things and mind the goatskin, but I can't really play... We also have two cats that make interesting musical noises, many of them intentional...
  13. What kind of pipes, Koki? If full Scots pipes - the most difficult thing is likely to be finding a field or a mountain big enough to stand in. I have a couple of friends who play the pipes, one of whom learnt as an adult, and he said that never in his life had he so often been told to... er... go forth and multiply (the other friend learnt it as a little red-headed kid in Wester Ross in the Highlands, when all her schoolmates were learning too...). It doesn't sound great when you're learning Northumbrian pipes are smaller and sweeter sounding, and interestingly furry...\
  14. Ramadan started last night in much of the world, with the appearance of the New Moon. It lasts one lunar month, during which Muslims abstain from food, water, smoking, sex and various other kinds of behaviour - gossip and backbiting are often mentioned as no-nos - during daylight hours. I'm in the UK at the moment, and though I have no Muslim students myself, there are many around in this university. Many are in high latitudes for the first time in their lives (having grown up much closer to the equator) so for some the very long summer hours of daylight are going to be a problem.
  15. A leather-bound copy of "Goodbye To All That" printed in London - the poet Robert Graves' memoir about his experience as a young officer in the frontline trenches in France during the First World War, in which he befriended Siegfreid Sassoon, and was injured and listed as dead on his 21st birthday. Inside, my mother wrote that she took it from a burnt-out building in Potsdammer Platz, Berlin, May 1945 - when she was there in Churchill's entourage in the aftermath of the German surrender in the Second World War. My Dad's edition of Shakespeare's complete plays - the Everyman edition with his pencil notes... (I think he misunderstood Hamlet, actually).
  16. Hey Brother Michael - I've seen pics of Virginia and it looks lovely! We're lucky people!
  17. I wish I could show you just how beautiful it is around here: North Norfolk, UK...
  18. On Sunday the beloved and I had a beautiful walk, about 4 miles to a farm where we picked our own strawberries, before walking about 2 more miles back to where we could catch the bus home. At one point, us carrying about 12 lbs of strawberries, the footpath runs between a hedge on the left and a wire fence on the right. Beyond the fence was some overgrown bushes and weeds rising up to a train line. As we came down the path, a small furry critter dashed through the hedge, whisked across the path, and disappeared into the weeds beyond the fence. It looked like a long thin ground hugging rat, but with pleasanter ears. A second later another one hurtled across the path into the weeds. B was back up the path a way, having a P. I stood quite still and saw the weeds moving about: the critter was creeping back down the slope. It lifted up its head and looked at me. I could see its nose twitch and the sunlight shining through its ears as it peered at me. Suddenly it turned tail. The other one was also creeping up to have a closer look at me. I couldn't see it, but I heard it make a noise - something between a squeak and a sneeze from a very small nose. I mimicked the sound back at it. It came nearer (still out of sight) and vocalised again, louder. I repeated the sound. It came closer again, and again repeated the sound - it seemed to me more vehemently. I saw the leaves move as it sat up to look at me. (picture me standing in sunlight with a weasel saying 'You're another one" to each other, with me trying not to giggle). Then B came down the path and the two vanished again. It all amused me very much. When we got to the corner of the hedge we saw that there was a poultry farm behind it, which probably explains the weasels' interest: fresh eggs. Also on the walk we saw two hares in a field, crowds of swallows, and quite a lot of skylarks. But I only managed any back-chat with the weasels. Then we went home and made strawberry jam... mmm mmmm mmmm.
  19. Thank you! It's not quite the market for a big Hollywood production, alas being ghost stories in easy English for students of ESOL. But as soon as Spielberg starts ringing up about the film rights, I'll start on my guest list for the opening nights...
  20. Got home last night to find the long-awaited Publisher's Agreement on the mat. That's a Publishing Contract to you and me, but Oxford University Press can't use easy words. It commits 'the Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Oxford', bless them, to pay me for my little book - the advance is miniscule, but I don't have to give it back if they decide not to publish, unless I fail to turn in the manuscript - and they've had that since June 15th. And if they bring the book out, and if anyone buys it, I get 10% roiyalties on books/e-books sold and 7.5% on books with audio. Yippee yiy yay!! It's still not totally certain, but it looks a bit more as if "Ghosts International: Troll and other stories" is really going to happen. If it does, and if it sells, my plan is that it will be part of a series. Publihsers LOVE repeat custom.
  21. Writing and re-writing and writing and trying to write.

  22. Applying to become an assessor in ESOL, which I have taught as a college lecturer. The form offers the option "Lecturer" for job, but for subject only options I have not taught (including "Astrology" I kid you not). Yet the form accpts "recent graduate" with no experience... very odd.

  23. Yes indeed! However, he does seem to know it now.
  24. Well, the week is now over and Sam has come through it, physically, extremely well: running 6 miles a day, and a couple of days when we took him to the swimming pool, he swam fifty lengths. He's very lucky: his liver is somewhat damaged, but if he stays off the booze, should correct itself. The main thing is that he's doing this at 28, rather than later and with more damage done. Psychologically he's been fairly down, feeling he's screwed up his life badly. But he's making plans for the future which don't involve drinking or getting high - to run in a marathon, to do an initial course as an EFl teacher, and (perhaps most important) to get out of Norfolk, where all his old friends are drinking and drugging friends. For Bendigo, it's been good to spend a lot of time just hanging out with his son day after day. Especially in the last few months, when the drinking has been really self-destructive - and B has had many unhappy memories of putting his own father to bed completely legless - B and I have kind of dreaded having Sam with us, but when he hasn't been with us we have also dreaded the phone ringing. Both B and Sam's mother have commented on how they are seeing glimpses of "the old Sam" - their pre-boozing son - back again. For me, I've never known Sam entirely sober before. I like him a lot. We're back home now, but we'll continue to see Sam every day this week - his sister is there too, and we don't want him to feel that now his chemical detox is over we're no longer interested. Thank you all for your prayers, support and good wishes. It has really helped us.
  25. I'm so sorry Sky. Not surprised you feel broken up about it: this kind of news affects everyone, even when they are only slightly acquainted. Blessings and best wishes to the survivors - and to all those affected.