#different rhythm this time? good stuff. its trundling

[srbachchan]

DAY 4451

Jalsa, Mumbai                       May 14,  2020                      Thu 11:27 PM

Birthday  EF - Brinda Shah ..  Pawan Randhawa .. Friday, May 15 .. and our wishes go out to the birthdays of the two .. may you remain safe in these times and be happy .. .. love from the Ef

Old times of the past times .. remembrances of the School times .. moments of the lasting times .. of class mates and dormitories .. of theatre plays and farewell concerts .. of singing ditties .. of humour among all .. of a recapture of the events of the year .. of still knowing the moments that went by then in 1956-58 .. names , pet names, and the happiest days of our lives ..

..a picture from the School records .. the School play of 1957 .. The Government Inspector by Nikolai Gogol .. I played the Mayor of the city .. this picture is after the play finished and our Principal the Rev R C Llewelyn , the tall collared on the right reading the results of the Best Actor Kendal Cup results .. and  .. yooo hooo .. its moi .. and I am dumbfounded and cannot move .. Ma and Babuji in the audience .. especially come up to see me during our Founders Week .. 

find me .. found me .. our Drama teacher Mr Berry the tall figure right in the middle .. well just behind him with a smile on my face .. uniformed ..

moment of pride for Parents .. when you achieve they are filled with a most peculiar emotion .. its tears and happiness .. happens often .. see a film where you appreciate your sons work and you cannot speak for quite a while .. just choked with emotion .. the Hall is Milman Hall , named after an important contributor to the School .. the Hall where we held all our theatre and farewell concerts .. where the odd film was shown on an 8mm projector .. where we all recovered when the flu of 1957 hit the nation and the world .. the Hall where our prize distribution took place .. the Hall where we were instructed at the prize giving ceremony to look into the face of the dignitary giving the award .. the Hall where on the class of ‘58 get together after 50 years , yours truly is made the Chief Guest and does what he has been witnessing when in School as a student ... time and life brings so many changes and challenges ..

.. and this new challenge .. looms large now .. a DIGITAL release ..

.. Amazon Prime .. June 12, world wide release .. 200 plus country’s .. a first for many reasons .. a situation that cannot be altered .. theatres opening could take time .. or not open at all .. uncertainty .. 4 complete films in line for release .. must do in this year .. contracts severe .. finances and other contractual obligations need consideration .. not just my films there are other artists too .. they also need to space out their films .. recovery of investment .. cannot take forever .. if the digital price is amicable then they go for it .. it is the future .. the option to release in theatres later always open .. that contained in the terms .. so yes in time there could be theatre  release as well .. others wait for the results of digital release to make decisions on their films .. will find out by June 12, 2020 .. some complain why on Amazon only and not of Netflix .. but the deal has been struck with Amazon .. so Amazon .. cant have two different distributors of the same film in the same city .. yes imagery is reduced to the mobile or TV screen .. but most of the stuff these days is seen thus is it not .. patience then .. a few more days and we shall see ..

gosh !!!  almost started putting down the words of our School farewell song :

“ a few more days and we shall be .. rejoicing at our liberty .. and when the moment comes to scram .. we’ll trundle down to Kathgodam .. “

‘then the bells will ring .. and the boys will sing .. as the boxes are being taken away ..

‘and the girls will cry .. as we bid them goodbye .. and we wish them a happy holiday ..’

Goodness ... never ever imagined that I would remember the words of the singing .. that was 1956 .. its 2020 now .. 64 years .. !!! 64 .. thats a life time !!

brought to tune by our Vice Principal Mr Thomson, and written by him too .. he would also write the farewell ditties too .. a compilation of all the events that had taken place and were of some importance .. put together in a humorous manner .. and the students involved in that moment had to come up and sing their portions on stage .. such fun .. still remember my lines ..

the matter was somewhat .. err.. dubious .. breaking bounds .. the girls sister school had come for a picnic on the hill above Sherwood, on Dorothy Seat .. thats the name of that location on the hill, at the edge of a spur, where a young girl named Dorothy used to sit and paint the Himalayas that could be seen from there  .. she fell over tragically and died and the Hill was named after her ..

So some of us enterprising Lotharios during our lunch break broke bounds, stealthily went out from behind the School up the Hill to simply get a glimpse of the girls and return in time before the bell rang for class .. as we were negotiating some bushes on reaching the top of the location, one of us saw a Teacher of the girls School, coming across in our direction .. we , thinking that she had noticed us panicked and scrambled down the hill, in some velocity, making a lot of noise in the rubble and stones that came our way  .. the Teacher we came to know later had not actually seen us but was coming to pick up a pullover of one of the girls which was lying close to or vantage point .. but because of the scramble she reported the matter to our Principal who at dinner when the entire School sits for their meal in one Hall , came and announced that some boys had been seen going up to Dorothy Seat and to own up and stand up .. all of us stood up, much to our embarrassment .. for the rest of the School boys had not known of or escapade .. 

It was 6 of the best for us .. 6 cuts of the cane , from the Principal, a Tennis Blue from Cambridge or Oxford .. had a most devastating forehand .. we were taken into a side room in his office as was the drill with all these cases and were given the cane .. a wheel barrow lay in one corner, we were made to bend down and hold the handles so our posteriors were nice and tight .. and then .. whack .. 6 cuts from the well oiled bamboo canes safely kept in a separate drawer .. dark black bruises, lines of the cuts, would appear on our backsides despite the frantic rubbing to ease the pain, we would indulge in .. the morning baths were a site for us all .. for the entire dormitory bathed together under showers in a line and the rest of the guys would giggle and laugh at our black bruised stripes on the skin of our behinds .. !!!!

ahhhhh .. the happiest days of our lives ..

oh  .. heck .. so .. forgot to mention what was written for us in the concert .. there was a piano ditty played by Mr Thomson .. and each of us that had a verse written for us came up on the stage in rhythm and said our line and went back .. mine and another co artist that broke bounds with me had this . .. after the description of the event that took place was sung out in tune , ours was ..: like a culmination of what we did on that day and what the end result was .. of getting caught and being punished .. so we had to sing :

‘we’re now confirmed misogynists, and worthy of the name .. we’d rather run a thousand miles than meet a blooming dame ..’

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

the innocence of those times and the factor of fun and enjoyment even in the most adverse conditions .. not a care, not a concern .. never again to be relived .. which is why they be the happiest days of our life !!

Amitabh Bachchan

[upstartpoodle]

The Cornish Way (Chapter 4)

Rating: G

Pairing: George x Elizabeth, Francis x Demelza (background), Caroline x Dwight (background), Verity x Blamey (background)

Summary: The fourth chapter of my coffee shop AU, in which in which Elizabeth takes George to the beach, cream teas are bought and their relationship progresses.

Previous chapter

“Oh very well, you win” Elizabeth sighed at the large oncoming tractor that had been sitting defiantly in the middle of the little lane leading up to Rowantree Farm, waiting for her and the two other cars behind her to give in and back up into the closest passing place so that it could continue on its journey. Though she loved her home county with all her heart, the one thing she had never much liked about it was the inevitable standoffs one always found oneself in should they need to drive along any of the narrow roads that made up a large part of the countryside. She had grown used to it over the years, of course—she had once got stuck behind a fifteen-minute standoff between two overly stubborn tractor drivers, which had been frustrating to say the least—but it didn’t mean that she enjoyed the prospect any more than she had as a nervous young girl learning to drive for the first time. Just that she was better at dealing with it.

She backed carefully into the passing place that she had driven by a little way back, much to the chagrin of the people behind her, who then had to follow suit, and allowed the tractor to trundle slowly past. Even with her own car pressed almost right into the high hedge at the side of the road, it was a tight squeeze, and Elizabeth couldn’t help but wince as it passed by far too close for comfort. Once it was gone, she gingerly manoeuvred the car out of the passing place and back out into the road, hoping that she wouldn’t have to do that again for some time, though she realised all too well that she was being optimistic to the point of wishful thinking on that score. 

She and George had spent a fair amount of the first week of his holiday in each other’s company, having now shared several lunches and pleasant afternoons together. The day before, however, she had suggested that they do something a little different. Now that the summer was here, she was keen to take advantage of the good weather in the time before the kids broke up from school to go down to the beach and paint a few seascapes, and she had asked George if he would like to come with her for the day. He had agreed, and so they had made arrangements for her to pick him up from the farm the next morning.

Well, made arrangements was perhaps not the right phrase, she considered as she turned left into the drive leading up to the farmhouse and cottage, watching in amusement as one of the farm’s sheepdogs came bounding up to the car to greet it. George had protested, not wanting to feel as if he were imposing on her by making her go out of her way to pick him up, but Elizabeth’s greater experience with driving along the narrow lanes of rural Cornwall had effectively settled the matter.

The dog followed her as she pulled into the drive of the holiday cottage beside George’s sleek black car, and as soon as she had stepped out of the door, she was beset by an excitedly barking whirl of hair. She laughed in delight, stroking the collie’s thick, soft fur as its tail wagged frantically and it strained to lick her face.

“Oh I’m sorry, miss! Bessie, down!”

The dog barked in consternation but complied nevertheless, tail still wagging furiously, and Elizabeth glanced up to see a young man who she knew by sight as Jim Carter rushing towards her with an apologetic look on his kind face. He bent down and took hold of the dog, apparently named Bessie, patting her gently on the head.

“Sorry about that, miss,” he said again. “Bessie’s super friendly but she wants to say hello to everyone she meets. She can give some people a bit of a fright.”

“Oh it’s alright—I don’t mind,” laughed Elizabeth. She adored all animals but she loved dogs especially—she had always wanted a dog as a child but her mother hadn’t wanted a puppy messing up her nice clean house. “Can I?”

“Oh, of course” said Jim, and Elizabeth reached out to scratch Bessie behind the ear. She was a lovely dog—all bright blue eyes and fine, soft fur patched with black and white.

“Aren’t you beautiful? Yes, yes you are!”

“Having fun there?”

Elizabeth jumped at the sound of the voice and turned around to see George standing in the open doorway of the cottage, leaning casually against the frame with a soft, affectionate smile on his face. He was looking very handsome, she noticed, dressed in a pair of thin, dark jeans, a crisp white shirt and a tan jacket which nicely complemented his neat blond hair. Her eyes couldn’t help but travel up and down his form, coming to rest on the long line of his throat where it was exposed by the open collar of his shirt, and she blushed slightly.

“Oh yes,” she replied with a teasing grin. “I think I’ll just take Bessie to the beach instead.”

Both George and Jim chuckled at that.

“Usurped by a dog—oof!”

Elizabeth burst out laughing. Bessie, having just spotted George, had chosen that exact moment to turn her enthusiasm on him, and had practically tried to leap into his arms.

They set of awhile afterwards, the car followed all the way down the drive by a disappointed Bessie and a slightly harassed-looking Jim, who managed to catch her just before she left the farm entirely. Luckily, no more tractors appeared to force them back into any passing places, and from there on the journey went fairly smoothly.

“Where exactly did you have in mind?” George asked curiously as thy turned onto a main road, heading south, and it occurred to Elizabeth that, though she had suggested a trip to the beach, she hadn’t specified which one.

“I was thinking Nampara Cove,” she said, tapping out a soft rhythm on the steering wheel as she drove. “Not a lot of people go there since it’s not too easy to get to compared to some of the larger beaches, so it’s always pretty quiet. I thought we could have a picnic.”

“You can go to Nampara Cove now?,” replied George with a slight frown. “I thought it was Poldark land.”

“Oh it was. Ross sold it all when he moved to America so it’s all public access now. People tend to go to Hendrawna for their days out though since it’s bigger.”

“And because it’s easier to get to?,” said George, and she noticed there was a hint of apprehension in his tone as he spoke. “How difficult is Nampara Cove to get down to?”

“Oh not very difficult really,” replied Elizabeth airily, keen to put his worries at rest. “The path down from the cliffs is just a bit steep and rough in some places. It’s not a problem unless you’ve got a pushchair or a wheelchair, but a lot of people don’t want the bother of getting down there and then back up again when they could go to somewhere that’s a bit quicker to get to. And besides, Hendrawna’s closer to the teashop so people tend to gather there in hordes.”

“There’s a teashop?”

“Oh yes. They do cream teas there, and earl grey as well, so that should keep you happy!”

George chuckled. He had confessed to her after lunch in the coffee shop in Truro that he had always been more of a tea drinker himself, at which point she had correctly guessed his favourite blend on the first attempt. She had been insisting that she’d make sure he’d get his cup of earl grey at some point in the holiday ever since.

“I’m sure I shan’t need tea for that” he said with a gentle, sincere smile, and Elizabeth ducked her head slightly to disguise the shy grin that was beginning to creep over her features.

A short while later, they pulled into the little carpark beside the viewing point on the clifftops above Nampara Cove. It was a glorious day, the sun bright, the sky cloudless and the sea below a deep, rich blue. As Elizabeth stepped out of the car, she took in a deep breath of fresh, salty air, the wind whipping through her curls, carrying the calls of seabirds up from the rocks beneath them to the cliff path. George followed suit, glancing around him, eyes squinted against the glare of the sun.

“Could you carry the picnic stuff?,” she called to him, moving to open the boot of her car. “I need to get my equipment.”

“Your equipment?”

“Yes, my climbing equipment,” Elizabeth couldn’t quite resist teasing him as he followed her to the back of the car. “I lied about the path. We’re going to have to abseil down.”

George let out a soft huff of laughter as she pulled the boot open, handing him the hamper and blankets.

“No, I meant my easel and stuff,” she said, taking out the item in question and tucking it under her arm. “It’s not a very big one but it’s a bit awkward to carry when I’ve got a lot of other stuff.”

They headed carefully down the cliff path, Elizabeth leading at the front and George cautiously picking his way over the gritty, rocky ground behind her. Eventually, they reached the beach itself—a long, curved, sheltered strip of land which was, to her surprise, completely abandoned save for themselves. Elizabeth smiled as she stepped onto the soft yellow sand at the beach’s edge, turning back to watch as George joined her. His usually neat hair had been ruffled by the wind on the way down and was sticking up in all directions. His cheeks flushed with a soft pink and his blue eyes bright, she thought the look suited him very well.

At Elizabeth’s direction, he laid out the picnic blanket on a dry patch of sand in the middle of the beach and they both sat down, enjoying the gentle, cool breeze now that they were sheltered by the cliffs and the soft lull of the waves lapping gently against wet sand. Once they were settled, they dived straight into the picnic, enjoying the food that Elizabeth had prepared, laughing and chatting about nothing in particular. Then, once that was finished, Elizabeth set up her easel and paints, taking out a sheet of watercolour paper and sticking it methodically to the board with masking tape, and began to sketch out a rough outline of the view before her.

“You’re very quiet” she commented after a while, just as she was beginning to mix up a soft, light blue for the sky on her palette.

“Oh, I thought you’d want to concentrate on the painting,” she heard George reply from beside her, and she turned to look at him where he was laying on his side, head propped up on his hand and watching her mix her colours with interest. “Do you…?”

“Oh, I do these all the time,” Elizabeth replied with a nonchalant shrug, moving to apply the colour to the paper she had coated with water just moments beforehand. With a long, broad stroke, she watched in satisfaction as the colour bled freely from the brush and across the page. “They’re just quick little things so I’m fine talking and painting at the same time.”

Her practised hand filled in the sky quickly and easily, and she mixed a newer, darker shade on the palette, replacing her large, square-headed brush with a small, thin, pointed one to add some darker highlights to the edges.

“So, do you sell all of these?” George asked, his eyes following the process as she dabbed off some of the excess water with a tissue to create a slight mottling effect.

“Yes, usually,” she replied. “You can actually make a fair bit of money on things like this if you’re smart enough about it. I’ve got an online shop where I sell all my prints so I get money from them there, but there’s a big market for art cards and postcards and all those sorts of things, especially in somewhere like Cornwall during the big tourist seasons, so I can often get them sold in those forms in visitor centres and places like that as souvenirs. Tourists like that—Cornish places painted by Cornish artists and all that. And of course that helps promote my art as well, so it becomes more visible for anyone who might want to request a big commission.”

George nodded thoughtfully, his eyes following her brushstrokes as she moved onto the beach at the bottom of the picture, filling in the space with a soft ochre.

“And do you always use these kinds of paints for them or…?”

“Oh, yes I tend to use watercolours when I’m out and about,” Elizabeth replied, blending in a soft blue grey into the point where the sand met the sea. “You don’t really need a lot of extra stuff like you do with oils and they’re easier to get off than acrylics so they’re quite easy to bring with me to places like this—and they dry pretty quickly as well so that’s a bonus. They’re my favourite medium to take about with me if I want a colour picture. I mean, I suppose you can get stuff like watercolour pencils and markers and everything now and they’re very easy to carry around with you but I’ve tried them and they’re just not the same.”

“Really? How come?”

She paused to think about how to word her answer, her brush now picking out patterns as she drew long, undulating strokes along the paper, filling in the shimmering blue of the waves. The paint bled, leaving feathery little lines in the white of the blank spaces, but she did nothing to stop them, allowing them to create the effect of the frothing white heads of the waves as they rolled in over the sand.

“I think it’s to do with how you apply them on the canvas,” she said pensively, adding a darker blue to the edges of the shapes created by the larger brush, highlighting the white. “You usually add the water afterwards with pencils or markers, but even if you put the water on first and then draw over it, you’ve still got more control over the shapes you’re making. When you paint with watercolours rather than draw with them, you need a lot of water to get the right colours and consistency so they really flow and spread and blend on the page, and because of that they sort of create patterns and shapes on their own. You really have to work alongside the paints rather than just using them, if you see what I mean, and, well, I guess that some artists don’t like that so much but it’s always been something that appeals to me.”

She cut herself off, her cheeks reddening slightly as she realised just how much she was yammering on about something he probably wasn’t very interested in. When she turned to look at him, however, he was wearing an expression of open fascination on his face, his bright blue eyes alert and curious. All of a sudden, her attention was pulled away from the painting entirely, and all she could focus on was him—the soft look in his eyes, the way the light played across his skin, the stray lock of hair that had fallen across his brow, unsettled by the wind. Before she could stop herself, she had reached out and brushed it away from his face, fingertips ghosting over the soft strands and trailing down over the arch of his cheekbone. He stilled at the touch, his eyes wide, but he did not pull away.

“Your painting will dry out” he said, his voice suddenly hoarse.

“It’s nothing I can’t fix” murmured Elizabeth, and with that, she leaned down and kissed him.

His lips were soft as they parted underneath her own in a quiet gasp. It didn’t take long for him to respond, however, the hand that wasn’t propping himself up coming up to cup the back of her neck. A shiver ran down her spine as she felt his fingertips stroke gently along the sensitive skin below her hairline, and she shifted closer to him, eyelids fluttering closed. Her own hand moved to cradle his cheek, her thumb stroking a soothing rhythm over the smooth skin, and he sighed into her mouth as she slipped her fingers into his soft hair, titling his head back and pressing herself flush against him.

Eventually, they both had to come up for air, and they broke apart, breathing heavily. George glanced up at her through his long lashes, lips parted, suddenly shy. His cheeks were dusted with pink, gaze soft and a little dazed and, with an affectionate smile creeping over her face, she couldn’t help but lean down and kiss him again, all else forgotten in favour of the feel of his silky hair and soft skin and his lips moving gently against hers.

As it turned out, George had been quite correct in predicting that her painting would dry out—not that that surprised her. It was hardly a disaster, however, and she managed to complete it well enough, filling in the highlights and shadows and details, and finally painting in two little dark blue figures along the shoreline in the distance once the rest of it had finished drying. Turning back to George as she peeled the masking tape from the edges of the paper and pulled it away from the easel, she noticed that she noticed that the fascination on his face had returned, coupled by a look which could only be described as admiration.

“I don’t understand how you can do that,” he confessed upon seeing her questioning look. “How you can go from nothing to something like that in such a short space of time.”

Elizabeth couldn’t help but beam at the praise. It was always nice to hear her work complimented, of course, but coming from him it just sounded so sincere and genuine that she couldn’t be anything but delighted by it.

“Would you like to have a go?”

George huffed in amusement, raising an incredulous eyebrow at her.

“Well, if you want me to waste your paper,” he said wryly. “I’m afraid I’ve never had much of an artistic touch.”

Elizabeth tutted.

“I’m sure you underestimate yourself,” she replied, moving over to allow him to sit in front of the easel. “And besides, it’s never too late to learn. Here, I’ll show you.”

It turned out that, though it was clear that fine art didn’t come particularly naturally to him, George was not nearly as bad as artist as he thought himself to be. He had a good eye for detail and colour, even if he lacked the knowledge and experience to express them on paper. He did struggle a little with the blending and the larger, broader strokes, although she suspected tat had something to do with the arm she had wound around his waist, pressing close against his back as she reached over to gently guide his hand over the page. Both their efforts began to deteriorate from there, distracted from the painting in favour of pressing soft little kisses to each other’s lips, nestled close against one another, and were abandoned entirely when, with Elizabeth laughing into the skin of his neck, George threw up his hands and painted two large stickmen over the half-finished image.

“Well I’m not sure how successful that was” he chuckled, leaning back against her as she tightened her arms around him.

“Oh I don’t know,” said Elizabeth with a grin, pressing a soft, whispering kiss to his temple. “I thought it worked out quite well for both of us.”

“Well now for the moment of truth. Will it be jam first or cream?”

“I would never commit such Devonian heresy.”

Elizabeth laughed into her teacup at George’s wry reply, watching as he very pointedly spread a neat layer of jam over each half of his scone, followed by the cream. After a little while spent curled up on the beach, enjoying the sun and the sand and the feel of their bodies pressed against one another, they had decided to walk up to the teashop along from Hendrawna Beach and buy some cream teas. George had insisted that he pay, pointing out that it was only fair as she had both driven them there and provided the picnic and, unable to come up with a suitable argument to contradict him, she had given in and let him. Now they were sat at one of the small wooden tables in the outside seating area, under the shade of a large parasol, with two large, fruity scones each and a pot of earl grey shared between them, a cool breeze from the sea carrying the chatter of sunbathers up from the beach.

“Well that’s a good job,” she said with a soft chuckle. “You might have been dragged right back over the Tamar if you’d been spotted doing things the Devon way.”

“Heaven forbid.”

Elizabeth grinned at him, applying the jam and cream to her own scones in suitably Cornish fashion and watching as he poured himself some tea, adding a dash of milk to the cup and swirling it into the mix with his spoon. He suddenly looked a little shy, she couldn’t help but notice, and she wondered why.

“Thank you for today,” he said quietly. “I had a lovely time and…well…I don’t think I would have enjoyed this holiday nearly so much if we hadn’t met.”

Elizabeth felt a pleasant warmth in her chest at his words, her smile soft and gentle as she reached out and took his hand in hers, her thumb stroking rhythmically over his knuckles.

“I’m glad that we met too.”

He ducked his head shyly, a smile of his own curving on his lips. She couldn’t help but find the action rather endearing, and she squeezed his hand affectionately before she withdrew, picking up her teacup and lifting it into the air.

“To the Cornish way” she said with a glint of mischief in her eye.

George laughed lightly, lifting up his own cup so that its rim touched hers with a soft clink.

“The Cornish way.”

Next chapter: Elizabeth visits the holiday cottage for dinner, and she and George take the next stage in their relationship.

[stevecoleridge-posts]

SPANISH LOCKDOWN …DAY14

Saturday night s all right for fighting.. on Facebook of course,

i was just casting my mind back to a Ninurta  Night , as there called their Saturdays Night in Uruk, capital of Sunny Sumeria, and  imagining what a great time they were probably having 5000 years ago , getting pissed on the local beer, because they invented that ,as well as the seven day week. Of course they did nt have Netflix, but they got to go out more..i don’t have Netflix either , yet , but have axs to lots of stuff including Music documentaries , which we are watching in order , chronological order that is..starting with The Birth of Country music .. and Mr Ralph Peers,from new York, who looked a little like Brian Epstein by the way , who set up a temporary recording studio above  furniture shop, there you go agin , NEMs , well no, it was nt , but anyway I digress, and into this temporary Studio  walked The Carter Family..3 of them .. and Jimmie Rogers.. yes.. that Jimmie Rogers , the Singing brakeman..i mean ,Okay , i can hear you mumbling about Sam Phillips, and the Chess brothers etc.. but this was Bristol, Tennessee/Virginia..a place no-one who doesn’t live round there has heard of..its like discovering the Beatles and the Rolling Stones..or rather signing them..   After that we watched a newish doc about the King , E.V. Presley..and it was mad by some guys driving round America in his Rolls royce..great stuff   That led to the Fab Four , Eight days a Week.. which was about their touring years and the whole world has seen it except me… its absolutely.. the F word , second letter A..anyway this time 55 years ago they were filming Help. inSt Margarets..Twickenham..and taking photos for the infamous Butcher cover , in the Vale , Chelsea, where my first nursery school was located..ah well.. don’t want to get too carried away on Beatles Lore..or i ll bore you to death , because i don’t mind admitting i am well versed in that subject…   The Beatles represented the 60s in the same way Elvis represented the 50 s…and someone told a story about how the disgusting Colonel Parker, in inverted commas,used to put a cover over Elvis Cadillac so the girls could nt see him when he drove on to the Movie lot in hollywood… well once the Beatles arrived the Colonel still put the cover on , so Elvis could nt see there were no longer any girls..A sad figure..but  his mantle of  loneliness was later to be worn by Michael jackson and especially Prince..Do these Royal titles always end with a solitary death on the loo or in a Lift

From there we moved too the Seventies… and surely the quintessential Seventies hero is Bowie..well now it so alluringly sunny outside ill have to go and play guitar on the terrace .. and leave David for another time..

No i don’t want to see the News..

DAY 15..Sunday…

The clocks have gone on to sensible time..even in lockdown this is cheerful news.. I was wondering how long it will take for people with imaginary ailments to return to their plastic chairs in Hospital waiting rooms throughout the Western world.. these people presumably will be the ones most frightened of Covid 19..there s nothing imaginary about that..but if you have ME and you re lying on the sofa all day, and you feel depressed , and your bones are aching etc.. well how do feel different from everyone else..and as for food intolerance .. that should be interesting when the statistics come in about consumption in Supermarkets..i know there are allergies and allergies.. but the possibility of imminently drowning in ones own mucus does concentrate the mind wonderfully, and a lot of people will find themselves in the second category once shortages begin of certain previously essential items..suddenly one has to be tolerant of a whole raft of things one had previously considered unacceptable ..two weeks ago i could not have imagined four days without bread.. but its no big deal.. onions likewise..thats what happens when you shop with no list.. bit like going on stage without a playlist.. its a gamble … it can produce unexpected benefits in that you try stuff you had nt tried before.. but you often forget the best songs..

We watched the film about the Kursk, the Submarine which was on the seabed and owing to bureaucracy and politics the Crew were allowed to die..even though t5here was a foreign Ship with equipment nearby that could have saved them.. reminds me of something..are we the mariners or are we the mariners wives?

Does the Chinese government have a cure? are they just waiting for the US economy to completely collapse?..Will we ever know?

Day 16

Each day just goes so fast , i turn around , it s past..

One of my fave tracks from Revolver..anyway playing in E7 , as usual , in fact I’ve been stuck in E 7 since Lockdown started..Catfish , Smokestack lighting ,Good Morning Blues , Take Out Some Insurance..however now the time has come to expand ..and try Freight train..the classic finger picking song..so ,if i observe radio silence for a while you ll know why..

Saw the news…The government had adopted some economic measures which seemed very well thought out , in the sense they were are determined not to let the mistakes of the last crisis , where the poorest people got the rawest deal. I won’t go into details , its all online if you re interested..it was more a sensation than anything  logical , but it made me feel a bit less pessimistic for the first time in a few weeks,i found i was nt thinking about Death quite as much , even in the abstract. that may sound overdramatic , but i think everybody is thinking about it subconsciously a great deal more than they were, say, last Christmas..well actually in our particular situation , where we had been frequenting cancer wards and the like , maybe i should go back to 2018…but  the awarerness of death affects every facet of how you think about everything else..i don’t just mean concentrating the mind wonderfully..anyway its half past two, and tomorrow ill probably delete all this..The gist was that for some reason things don’t feel quite so bleak..

Day 17

Yesterday was a 3 own a scale of  ten as far as ding anything worthwhile was concerned. After watching a film i unreservedly recommend..The vanishing.. about  3 men who disappeared from a Scottish island where they were repairing th elighthouse , i watched Tolkien , the movie about one of my heroes , but not one of Auroras heroes apparently as she fell asleep during the first reel, so to speak, anyway she s not huge Tolkien fan , having been made to sit through the fellowship of the ring seven times..be that as it may , the sofa is not designed for sleeping comfortably so she had a severely cricked neck the next morning and stayed in bed, leaving Tina and i to our own devices..this meant i ate a packet of chocolate biscuits for brunch and did nt eat again till midnight , which goes to show how lucky I am not to be on my own.

  to entertain myself between bouts of fingerpicking i decided to9 look up on google what English people disliked the most.. while i did nt find the answer to this question i did get seriously sidetracked and found out the answers to several more pressing questions about Europe,and i m proud to say the british isles scored very highly

The Dirtriest City..Yay .. London The Ugliest people..The British and the irish  and the Germans ..okay , so we cant beat the Germans but at least we drew The Rudest people..That was easy..The French win every time, when i lived in  Paris  i prided myself on becoming Parisian, and adopting local customs , but one day , in a moment of absent mindedness , and for a subconscious second imagining myself in Spain , i said Good Morning to my next door neighbour, a short fellow with a mop of dark hair and glasses, who i passed on my way to the metro in Boulevard St . Germain… i am not a Physiognomist.. he replied…i made a not e of that , hoping i could use the phrase Je ne suit pas Phisionome, myself on some future occasion..but sadly , said opportunity has not arisen. Most boring City..Brussels .. for the third year running…Hasve nt these people been to Oslo? Most Friendly Country..wait for it… Scotland..most friendly capital .. Dublin Worst Cuisine..Malta , tied with Kosovo Best ..Italy Most Beautiful Women ..Norway ..and Bulgaria..i would have voted for Madrid..but you cant argue with Norway Most ignorant Country in Europe ..italy. Most Rapes..Sweden..well that was no surprise..however i won’t analyse those statistics or Ill be done for Isamolophobia Most ignorant country in the World ..Indonesia Most depressed ..World..China , India, Brazil,..what??..USA.. and Bangladesh Most mental Illness..Estonia,Belarus , Russia Most Obese Europe..Yes We won agin .. Britain

And so on .. there was more , i could nt stop , but i did check the criteria..and obviously ruled out anything from the Daily Mail or the Independent.. which are not really newspapers at , but sheets of opinions conforming to the prejudices of their readers.

When i got tired of this i got the Scythe out of the tree and  cut the grass for half an hour .. feeling like a peasant woman in Quiet Flows The Don..its quite restful when you get in rhythm. Aurora was still ill so i made her some chicken soup.. well , packet chicken soup with some noodles and chicken added.. anyway , she did nt eat it .. so i had it saved for my supper.. I did nt watch TV..i could nt be bothered to work out how turn it on to be honest , thats how lazy i felt, and i just sat by the fire and went through all the fingerpicking songs again.

Spanish lockdown..Day 18

Aurora s feeling a wee bit better, but cant eat anything , so cannot take Iboprufen, or whatever it is in English ..but says she could probably handle bread.. so..that means a trip to the heart of Fukushima, err..well ...on with the masks , gloves etc  and to the shop in El Llano.. small village near here , a lot more isolated than Carboneras..I was feeling fairly confident as i trundled along the track  , that the town hall had tarmacked before some election or other..anyway , rounding a corner there was a woman of un certain age in the road waving me down,.,.

What to do?…You re are not allowed passengers , plus she was not wearing gloves or a mask..

Should i observe the Law, or basic good manners? i d vaguely recognised her.. and had she she been a total stranger i would have passed on by , but , hell , she was Local, so i had to pick her up..

She did nt recognise me.. obviously , as i was wearing a cap , two masks with a scarf on top, and polo neck unrolled over the bottom half of my face , like a character in the Bash Street Kids..an way i had the window down , and was almost sticking my head out as i drove..

@ Chilly out @.. she observed…

i pretended not to understand this hint that i should close the window..

@ Do you think it s going to rain ? @

@ I  think probably not @

@All these people with masks @  she observed ,as a car squeezes by us, going in the opposite direction . I began to wonder if she knew there was  such a thing as Covid 19,and  saw the driver  studying us..I was hoping he  would nt recognise me either.. and was weighing up whether what i was doing would meet with his approval. i.e. helping a distressed local, or would be considered a breach of community sprit. On coming into the village we received more enigmatic looks..and i  felt uneasy as i got out in front of the shop and followed her to the door … pausing  to read the safety notices outside.and thus give her a head start . i won’t reproduce them ..wherever you are you ve probably seen the equivalent..anyway ,no sooner did i enter the shop than she was next to me selecting suit and veg..and ignoring safe distancing, which i agree was academic , as we d just been in much too close proximity,..thus forcing me to leave the fruit and go and study the options in frozen fish..while she was having a conversation wi the owner

  @ Do you think it will rain?@   @ Its chilly out @ etc..

As we went about our purchasing i saw more and more foodstuffs i would nt normally consider..and soon had over a weeks supply..which , considering how much we already had at home made me hope this lockdown was going to go on for  a while ..or otherwise id feel a fool .. no , i did nt really think that.. Much as i wanted to prolong my shopping experience there was queue forming outside , so felt obliged to go more quickly that i would have liked..especially as i hoped to delay long enough not to have to take the woman back to her house..vainly as it turned out as she was a quarter of a mile along the track when i was obliged to pick her up again..

We passed the garbage truck.in a lay-by. @ My nephew..@ she explained..I began to feel id made the right decision..as i doubted she d been more than a mile from her house in the past few months… nonetheless i observed full protocol on arriving home..even disinfecting the car having a shower and putting all my clothes in the machine.

[tehlaen]

Day 25: “Home”

Day 25 of the 30 Day Star Wars OC Challenge from @smuggler-captain that I’m doing with @lessdenied! Previous posts are tagged with #30dayswchallenge. 

In the very recent past...

“Home’s wherever they’re least likely to shoot you outta the sky soon as they see ya.”

The insistent warning-beeps from the ship’s console summoned Vinkess’ words from Teh’laen’s memory. She grinned to herself as Essix calmly input and transmitted her clearance codes as the Yimeh’Dizoh came in for its final approach. Setting the Krayt’s Den’s air-defense cannons to automatically target any unauthorized craft that got too close had led to a number of unpleasant misunderstandings, she had to admit. On the other hand, given how many times her overzealous security arrangements had prevented the previous owners of the items she stole—not to mention disgruntled customers—from turning her little slice of Tatooine real estate into a glassy crater, she counted it as worth the trouble.

The smuggler, thief and occasional privateer smoothly centered the XS Freighter over the hangar’s opening with practiced ease, and the ship descended gently on its repulsors. She and Essix ran through the power-down sequence barely seconds after the landing gear touched the deck plating. Twi’lek and droid were both anxious to get out of the cockpit, having long since run low on energy. Hopping from one planet to another did her body’s rhythms no favors; she wasn’t sure what time it was locally—and “dark” didn’t really count as a time. The horizon was just barely starting to lighten as they landed, and without looking at her chrono, she suspected it was a couple of hours ‘til dawn.

Essix whistled a question at her and a fierce yawn kept her from answering for several seconds. “Yeah, go ahead and power down to recharge. I wanna get this stuff unloaded first, then I’ll do the same.” Her droid chirped an acknowledgement and whirred out of the cockpit and down the open loading ramp.

Teh’laen followed at a significantly more sedate pace. The three loader droids waited patiently at the foot of the ramp. She wracked her sleep-deprived brain, trying to remember what she’d been thinking just moments earlier. Oh, right. “Boys? Would you be so kind as to unload Aurek Hold?” The three massive, quadripedal droids—half again as tall as she was and three times as broad—beeped in response and trundled up the ramp.

It was a testament to just how many hours had passed since her last sleep that one of the loaders had to gently nudge her awake. Not even the clanking of their footfalls had brought her back to wakefulness. One of them made a questioning sound and she nodded. “Yeah. Right. Sorry. Uh, put the  munitions…” She looked around the hangar and the various and sundry goods stacked in bays around the perimeter. “Put those in Bay Eighteen.”

She walked over to the droid hefting a long crate. The lid had been blasted partially open during the fight; it was only Teh’s incredible luck that the transport’s emergency bulkheads slammed shut before it, too, could be sucked out into space. Through the charred hole in the crate’s lid, she saw the golden glimmer of auradium bars, stamped with serial numbers and the seal of the Imperial Treasury. “These go in the vault.”

The droids turned and went about carrying out her instructions. With that taken care of, she strode to the blast door that Essix had left open and stepped out into the central plaza of the Den. She should have turned left and taken the lift up to the terrace and her quarters; her body badly needed sleep. Instead she turned right and went up the stairs, wandering through the Den for reasons she couldn’t explain.

Teh’laen had lived in a lot of different places, after she and Rai’laen had fled Ryloth. Some she’d liked and some she very much had not. Aside from the Yimeh’Dizoh, though, she’d never really had a place that felt like it was where she belonged. The old warehouse the Stormriders had used as a base of operations was the closest she’d come, but even that… Nah.

She found herself wandering to the far end of the Krayt’s Den. The wristlink on her left gauntlet had synced up with the Den’s internal sensors as soon as she’d landed. Aside from herself and the staff, there were only two other humanoid life signs in the place. Naga’se and Lystra had apparently made up from their latest difference of opinion and were occupying one of the guest rooms. Maybe I should just stop calling that one a guest room and call it their room. The couple spent the night at the Den practically every night they were in Teh’s little portion of the Outer Rim and always in the same room. They’d accidentally left behind so many of their belongings that the staff had taken to collecting Naga’se’s and Lystra’s things when they left the Den, and as soon as they heard the two were inbound, putting the room back the way it had been left.

As she retraced her steps, she passed one of the loaders making its way to the room she called her vault. Teh’laen patted the big droid on one of its arms and, with a smile, muttered, “Thanks, big guy.” The defense systems guarding the entrance to the vault recognized both owner and helper and stood down, and the droid stepped inside. She grinned to herself; on any planet less arid than Tatooine, she’d call the contents of that room her “rainy day” fund. As it was, she thought of it as her “When I Want to Retire and Buy Myself a Small Moon” fund.

Silence greeted her when she stepped off the lift on the terrace that, to her mind, formed the heart of the Krayt’s Den. The weapons-check kiosk had been locked up tightly. From the look of it, a few blasters had been left behind by patrons who left the bar in such an altered state that they either couldn’t remember or couldn’t be trusted with weaponry. The Krayt’s Den attracted a certain clientele that could charitably be described as shady; Teh’laen had discovered long ago that alcohol, shady characters and blasters were a volatile, often explosive mixture. “No guns allowed in my bar” was a hard and fast rule of hers, and for the most part, her customers respected it; those that didn’t were removed.

The main bar and dance floor were dark, quiet and empty of all save the tiny vac-droids that waged a never-ending war on the sand that blew onto the terrace. And except for Ket, Teh’laen mentally added as a sound like a rockslide crushing a porcelain shop ripped through the still night. How can someone so small snore so loud?

The Twi’lek dancer with the pale orange skin was curled up in a tight ball on Teh’laen’s favorite sofa, in the owner’s private booth. A couple of the Den’s other employees had mentioned that Ket sometimes stayed past closing to take advantage of the HoloNet connection and get some studying done; the holographic, annotated mockup of some sort of molecular structure slowly rotating in the air above the table confirmed the rumors.

The Lethan padded over and bent over, flicking off the holoprojector. The young woman asleep on the couch shivered lightly in between snores; the desert nights could get positively frigid. Teh’laen slipped out of her jacket and laid it over Ket like a blanket, murmuring a soft “good night” in Ryl before turning to the door to her own chambers.

The door slid shut behind her and she made her way by instinct to her bed. Hanging and folding could wait for when she was feeling inclined; as it was, she left a trail of discarded clothing from the door to the bedside. The soft glow of the chrono on her bedside table both confirmed her suspicions—she was laying down just as the suns were coming up—and gave her enough light to make out the form of someone in her bed.

Teh’laen smiled warmly at the sight of Cassbria sprawled across Teh’s side of the bed. The Echani with the azure hair lay with Teh’laen’s pillows hugged to her chest. Her head was propped on a small, handmade stuffed bantha the two of them found last time they were in Anchorhead. The husband of one of the moisture farmers Teh bought the Den’s water supply from made the kitschy little things to sell for extra  creds, and Cass had been immediately enamored of it. Unbeknownst to her love, Teh had gone back and bought a dozen more of the endearingly-hideous things. It had taken Cass nearly two full weeks to figure out how “her” bantha kept moving from room to room—and on a couple of notable occasions, stowed away aboard her ship.

She came around to her side of the bed and paused with one knee resting on the edge of the mattress. Cass had been spending more and more nights at Teh’s place, even staying over when Teh’laen was offplanet. Her partner hadn’t known the Twi’lek was coming home tonight; for that matter, neither had Teh. Her heart swelled as she gazed at her lover’s expression of gentle restfulness, and it began to race when Cass’ opalescent eyes fluttered open and she gave the Lethan a sleepy smile.

“Teh? ‘S that you?”

Teh’laen climbed into bed and swapped places with the pillows. Cass’ arms tightened around her, and Teh gave her partner an affectionate squeeze.

“Hey, gorgeous,” she whispered softly. “I’m home.”