AUTUMN KARMA

The Stuff of Life has a habit of coming along like the buses: there's nothing then they all come at once.

THE FIRST HALF OF THE WEEK:  Good Stuff

Another lovely day at Balloch Thursday where tree planting has been taken over by other types of input e.g. building bird boxes (Mary-Anne sees that we don't get so knackered at the end of the day!) 

Last week Ishbel helped me make a prototype and so next time she's over we will do another one.

It's the turn of the year, actually the Solstice, with the wonderful early autumn colours just starting to appear. Spending a day in Balloch Park lifts my spirits immensely, like getting a jump start with the car battery cables.

As we move into Autumn I bask in the fact in all it's been a good summer: good folk and good craic... what Ellie calls 'Good Karma'!

In the 40 minute drive I listen to Classic FM. Today it was this cantata of J S Bach on the subject of thanks.  [Cantata BWV 17 part 2 no.7 Wer Dank opfert, der preiset mich].

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SECOND HALF OF THE WEEK: Bad Stuff

Things came to an abrupt halt: our sailing and fiddling friend Bob, emailed us, individually, to say that Kate was in hospital with serious injuries due to a very bad road traffic accident Friday morning when she was coming home from her usual Friday morning swim in East Kilbride.  She's in the Trauma Unit at the QE2 Hospital on a ventilator having sustained internal injuries, fractured pelvis and ankle.

We are still trying to process it all.  What has been quite uncanny about all of this is that I was thinking about both of them at the very time Bob had been issuing his message.  What happened was that I arrived at the BR station to buy my ticket to go into the city (and hadn't looked at my phone for messages) and had asked the ticket man about extending my ticket to Rutherglen so I could visit them. [a long and different conversation ensued due to it being quiet - that's for another time!]   I got on the train which was empty and phoned Bob to see if they were going to be in.  I had not read his email and he was put in the position of spelling it all out to me.  Dreadfull! 

I had also been recently talking to someone about 'Survivor's Guilt'  where we agreed that at our advanced age we could be "hit by a bus tomorrow" so had better enjoy each day.

I ended up in town giving myself enough time to get into  John Lewsis's as I had to get back to Milngavie for my afternoon 3 pm flu and Covid jabs.  I bumped into  Anne B so we enjoyed a coffee together.  It really was rather bizarre, however as we spent much of the time talking about the fact that I was in middle of dealing with Don about the Salmon Arm Booth family plot in the Mt ida Cemetery. (I couldn't bring myself to mention the car accident.) It's all good; I have to give formal permission, as the eldest of the current family, to have urn (space for 5) or casket (space for 1) placed there.  We are all done and dusted on that but Anne and I compared notes on the topic of what did we want done with our ashes or whatever.   It's all Work in Progress. Again, this has come along with all these other events that crop up when you least expect them (or when it's not a great time  to have to think about it!)

So the week is over. It is Sunday and we are both feeling a bit 'flu-y' from our jabs.  The remedy:

A's soothing Rosehip Syrup in front of the fire listening on my iPad to some Bach that I need to prepare for tomorrow morning's piano lesson.