Like I say, all’s well here.

Hey ho.

On our return from our errands today Graham decided he needed a break from construction work and turned his hand to laundry instead.  Dolly took a break from sitting with gritted teeth watching the construction work in progress and turned her attention to a good long doze on the bed.  So long that, when she woke and came down to see what all the silence was about, she was stiff-legged and dizzy with sleep still.

“You’re supposed to wake yourself up with a bit of a grooming, Dolly,” I said.  ”Not stagger about the house looking like a fur rug trying to imitate life.”

She just huffed and went to stand by the kitchen door until we let her out for a breather.  Then she had a bit of a groom, groaned, and threw up a massive hair ball on the step.

I suppose you could describe that as being a bit dolorous if you were that way inclined.  I didn’t, though.  All I did was to tell her what a good girl she was, take a handful of kitchen tissue and dispose of the product of her groaning.

Me?  I just meandered through my day, happy as can be, looking after and picking up after my companions.  Doesn’t take much to make me happy, and I can’t be doing with dolorousity even at the worst of times.

Hope your day is as quiet, happy and sun-filled as mine.

It’s funny how these old things stick around, becoming an essential part of family tradition.

Other than that it’s a lovely sunny day, which should never happen in Wales on a Sunday, there’s a nice little chicken sitting in the fridge all stuffed and dressed ready for the oven, and all’s well in our green and pleasant valley.

Iechy dda!

I’m told that I will be called for my swine ‘flu jab some time in early December which is fine by me.  I don’t like the idea of having two lots swimming around in my system at the same time.

It’s quiet in all other regards.  Graham has washed all the windows.  I’ve been noodling at a new poem.  Dolly has decided it’s too chilly out for a self-respecting mega cat who’s been robbed of great clumps of her coat.  And there’s a bloke across the road doing something noisy and protracted with a power tool of some kind.

Normal for Neath, I think it fair to say.

It’s turned really rather chilly now, and the days of standing outside with just a t-shirt between me and the elements are coming rapidly to an end.  Yesterday was fine and, out of the wind, there was a real force in the sunshine still.  Today, the clouds have closed overhead once more and there’s no relief to be had.  I have lots of warm tops, and that’s just as well.

We’ve all become rather soft when it comes to cold weather.  In the house we just reach for the central heating controls, raising the temperature of all the rooms.  Today I read that we can expect 40-60% increase in domestic gas and electricity prices by 2012.  That’s going to be hard to finance.  Bleak prospect, and we shall have to come up with a way of heating just the rooms we’re using at different times during the day and night.  Whatever the solution I think it safe to anticipate another long line of open hands waiting for us to drop money into them.

Ah, to the dickens with it.  Sufficient to the day and all that.  See what happens when you sit around waiting for something?  You get to worrying over things when there’s no present need.  I’ll wait another hour before I phone the surgery to ask what’s happened to my call.  I can feel my gratitude for this particular instance of medical care evaporating rapidly.

The heating soon took the chill off the house and then the sun came up in full St Luke’s Little Summer glory and now the place is deliciously warm once more.  Actually, it’s rather early for St Luke, for his saint’s day is in mid-October, but with weather patterns these days you can’t really blame the old guy for getting his calendar out of synch.  And nobody should complain about warm Autumn sunshine.

So, as our morning creaks and groans respond to the warmth, Dolly and I are revelling in it.  It’s good to be alive.

Taking advantage of the sun-given grace of minimum creakiness I’m planning to give the kitchen, cloakroom and bathroom a good scrubby clean today.  That’ll be it then for such in-depth cleaning before Graham comes home.  Just care and maintenance for the next week and then I shall be able to hang up my dusters.

There’s a distinct need for optimism these days, with the Labour government folding its hands and waiting for defeat in the Spring at the next general election.  It looks as if they’re going to gift us with a new Tory government, damn their eyes.  And the British people, bereft of long-term memory, seem to think it’s a good idea.  Well, I don’t.  I suspect it’ll all end in tears once more.

When Labour fought the 1983 election the then leader of the party–Neil Kinnock–told us what to expect if the Tories won:  “I warn you not to be ordinary. I warn you not to be young. I warn you not to fall ill. I warn you not to get old.”

He was right.  He didn’t win the election, but he was right.  And now it looks as if it’s all coming round again.  It’d be funny if it were not so damned predictable.  And circular.  I hate circular even more than I hate predictable.

I hope that I’m wrong.  Otherwise it might be best for us to wait for the Tory-engineered property boom, sell up here and go to live in a more sensible country.  Denmark would be good.

~~+~~

in the autumn sunshine
late flowers bloom–
loud bee song

~~+~~

“You’ll be fine, just you wait and see.  I know you hate the telephone but this is in a very good cause.”

“Really?  What good cause is that, then?”

“Saving you from being beat up when I get home.”

“Oh.  That I can understand.  Ok, then, I’ll do my best.”

It’s this Muse concert, you see, in London at the O2 Dome [used to be called the Millennium Dome].  Graham has a ticket for the second night of the two-day gig and had just heard yesterday that there were tickets on sale for the first night and so had conceived a desire to see them two nights running.

And, while he was trying to get through on the bookings website, and failing along with thousands of others, he thought that I ought to try on the phone booking line.

I got through almost immediately, spoke to a nice young man, and purchased a ticket without any problem at all.

I sent Graham a text message:  GOTTIT!

Moments later the phone rang and a delighted Graham was congratulating me for being a clever boy.

“Does this mean I won’t get beat up when you get home?” I asked.

“Yup.”

“Not even when you see all the bits of dust I haven’t dealt with?”

“Nah.  What’s a bit of dust between friends?”

~~+~~

road sweeping machine
clatters past house
old grey cat swears loudly

~~+~~

Oh well.  There you go.

~~+~~

in the long afternoon
a poet and his cat
snore gently

~~+~~

It certainly feels like the beginning of autumn.  Not in any sense of crossing a boundary, but in terms of light and temperature.  It’s a collodion-yellow kind of day, and strikes chilly around the legs.  Not long-john weather yet, but certainly time to change to long-legged pyjama bottoms.

Yesterday it rained.  All day.  Not a dramatic kind of rain, just a continuous drizzle on the rainy side of mist.  The branches and eaves dripped in a friendly, reassuring manner, and the drains gurgled as they took it all away. Several times during the day Dolly and I took up our station side-by-side on the back step, and she slipped out once during a lull for a nibble at the big pot of sedge grass, got all damp and demanded to be towelled.  Not so much for the sake of drying as for the comfort of a warm towel and a bit of attention.

I’m hoping the leaves will hang on until Graham gets home because I want him to see how the tall trees at the back of the garden have made that end of the house rather dark.  That’ll ease my job of persuading him that they need to go or to be heavily pruned back at the very least.  Neither one of us like to see trees fall but sometimes the need for light in a house outweighs other considerations.  The tall holly tree will not be touched, however.  Even if it were not laden with berry, we don’t cut holly trees down.  They may make a bit of shade but they do help to keep the witches away and hold the luck in.

Graham says it’s been windy in Somerset but down here in the valley there’s been hardly a whisper.  Oh, the wind is there alright, but it runs across the valley, leaping up from the top of the hill to the east and down again to hit the hills to the west, conveniently missing us.  Now and again I get the impression that it pauses momentarily overhead, toying with the idea of diving down to stir us up in passing but thinks better of it, reserving that fun for later in the season.

~~+~~

sumer is a’going out
and autumn coming in–
no more bloody cuckoos

~~+~~