Feel as though I’m running on empty today – which reminds me of that Jackson Browne song of the same name. Never fails to make me smile when I hear it on the radio as it takes me back to another perfect day in my life: 14th July, 1985. Don’t do the maths! It was the day after Live Aid and we were leaving London – Richmond, to be precise – to drive back home to Edinburgh in a hired van. All our worldly possessions in that van. Now it requires a removal and storage company plus two containers! Small mercies, I’m not a tortoise!!
My brother had come down to help us and so it was that the three of us set off, on a blistering hot summer’s day, for home and our first flat in Stockbridge costing all of £28,500! I couldn’t have been happier. The lasting memory, though, is of reaching Scotland and all but running out of petrol; if not running out! The song playing on the radio was Jackson Browne, Running on Empty, and we laughed. Nothing could dampen our spirits that day and I have never forgotten it. Isn’t it strange how the song on the radio often mirrors the situation, though? On another occasion, my car had a flat battery outside John Lewis and I had to call the AA. Once charged up, my new CD was playing – Van Morrison – and the track was Stranded! Little things.
What have I done today to make me feel proud? Well, mashed up an over-ripe avocado and squashed it all into my hair for an hour – on the instructions of my dear friend, Emily, who is just a wealth of knowledge on everything but, particularly, everything holistic and herbal. I think of her as my equivalent of a Native American shaman! She so needs to write a book … How does my hair look? Still overgrown aka the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz but it is definitely soft, thick and feeling rather proud of itself, I would say. Good move.
Walking around in Kate Middleton’s cowboy boots – not, actually, hers (her feet are much bigger than mine!) but the same as hers – still endeavouring to break them in after several years, they have featured in my blog on many an occasion, previously. When I first got them, I did the very same – wore them round the house to break them in – but, on my own, when it came to going to bed, I could never get them off! How I struggled, desperate not to end up sleeping in them, and it prompted my search for a boot pull. No such thing in the whole of Edinburgh, ironically, I fell upon one (not literally) in St Wolfgang that Christmas. What were the chances? Suffice to say, I am still breaking in Kate Middleton’s boots but am no longer required to go to bed in them. Jammies and cowboy boots? Quite honestly, I love anything and cowboy boots!
I can weed the garden in them, for one, and that’s the other thing I have been doing today. So unfit, it almost crippled me. Too much bending over, every bone in my body aches only serving to remind me of my advancing years – and not to undertake such a task again! It is a really pretty garden focusing on a walled patio area, rather bohemian in nature. As such, it has quite a wild look and I am not entirely au fait with that which is, or is not, of the weed variety. Becoming a little gung-ho, perhaps, as I limped inside, I did feel that it has adopted a new, much tidier demeanour, regardless. Task 2. Tick.
Here I am, back at my table beneath the window. Hair, garden … Look, there’s a definite domestic theme, here, so let’s get the Ecover situation off my chest! Returning, once more, to my supposed insistence on the organic and handmade, I have long been a fan of Ecover, the non-biological alternative to submerging one’s clothes in powerful chemicals. Not only detrimental to clothes and body, as with Sure deodorant for men, these chemicals stink, virtually precluding the more favourable aroma of a chosen perfume or aftershave. Not so Ecover – that is until now. Originally, a gentle, natural laundry liquid devoid of any toxic smell, I washed everything in it, going to great lengths to indoctrinate Manny and Becca to do the same. I could have chosen it as my specialist subject on Mastermind, such was my allegiance to the brand (and had I wished to be certified!), but then the unthinkable: it was revamped! Now concentrate only, it comes in a choice of two aromas, neither of which match those of the two fabric softeners! One can only imagine. People would smell you coming – Oh, here comes Trish sporting Ecover’s Lavender & Sandalwood! Why? The other night, I was nearly asphyxiated by my newly-washed jammy top, as I went to bed, ensuring that I didn’t get a wink of sleep. You see, never under-estimate the trivial. There can be far-reaching consequences …
Contrary to supposition, I have allowed myself to be subjected to the news and latest figures – it doesn’t go away, become any less depressing or less confusing! On the one hand, there is a desperate shortage of PPE equipment and yet millions of masks, respirators etc continue to be packed onto lorries heading for the EU as, reportedly, the Government ignores offers of help from the suppliers. Then there is the question of the 15,000 people flying into UK airports, daily, with no attempt to check their medical condition on landing? What is going on? The world has all but ground to a standstill as we, in the UK, enter our fifth week of enforced lockdown and for what? None of it makes any sense.
What, too, of the news that a US government agency awarded a $3.7million research grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology? The lab which carried out Coronavirus research on bats? The same lab which is at the centre of several conspiracy theories suggesting it is the original source of the outbreak? It would seem the whole world is corrupt. Devoid of truth – and trust – we are nothing more than pawns in the game. I mentioned the Native Americans, earlier, and I can’t help but think of their wisdom, their spirituality and their values: simple, wise and, above all else, at one with Nature. We stole their land, treating them with contempt. The same could be said of the Aborigines and the native Africans. Those from whom, ultimately, we had the most to learn, we cast aside. Look at the mess we are in now. We should be ashamed.
‘Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish been caught and the last stream poisoned will we realise we cannot eat money.’
Cree Indian Prophecy
This is Trish, signing off.
