Letters...

Saturday 16th January, 2021

What a wonderful surprise. Four letters and two looked like the usual unwanted everyone mutters about. So I opened the two from friends. Then off to the village to buy the Telegraph. In the shop I noted some sausages reduced in price and also some GU cheesecakes so I added those to my basket. Back to the house and the sun was out and it felt fresh. I grabbed some breakfast of muesli. Then turned to the unwanted junk mail and to my surprise one was from the Post office. Some weeks ago I had posted a letter to a friend in a pink envelope. Having posted it I realised I had failed to put the address on it but had put a stamp on it. Well, three weeks later the Post office returned it to me. I was thrilled and will send it on to my friend on Monday. The P.O. had opened it and my address was at the top of my letter. Good for them...a real service.

Then I read the newspaper just to capture the flavour not to read in depth. I noticed and absorbed two articles. The first I read mentioned the Duchess of Cornwall and the launch of her own book club, The Reading Room. As a lover of reading and as a man always looking for recommended books I was delighted. Already Hilary Mantel was on the list and I have read all hers. Then Delia Owens, William Boyd and Elif Shafak. Some more authors and individual works were mentioned...I now have an increased reading list and feel less isolated and indulgent as I read my way through the Pandemic.

I then looked in on my landlady who was in Ljubljana in Slovenia on a Virtualtrip. I was not intending to stay but was captivated by the narrator who started by mentioning that any tips given to her would be going in their entirety to the victims of a recent earthquake. She was interesting and lively and the City deeply impressive. As it ended it was noted of the 17 trips my friend had taken this one was the only one not to go on and on, or mention, the Covid pandemic. Such a relief for one could simply enjoy and appreciate the architecture and history and sights. We know the pandemic is there but want some relief and escape.

Then for my walk. I took my litter grabber which again caused comment as I walked. Over the next hour I collected three Tesco bags of rubbish. This time much of the bulk was large plastic bottles of coke and Ironbru.

At one point I saw an old friend from my days volunteering in the Charity shop in Tayport. She hailed me and I asked about her daughter who had suffered mental stress and challenges. She told me that things had gone very wrong and that she was in an appalling state and having periods in hospital. I recalled reading the other article in the Telegraph entitled 'The mental health pandemic bubbling under lockdown'. All of us in some way are being affected by this and my sympathy and prayers go out to so many. We need as a society to be aware. These are dark days for many, very dark days.

I returned home and grabbed some rye bread and cheese for lunch. A gift of home made Danish bread was sitting on the kitchen table....a favourite of mine. I then lay down as I was a little cold and with a back ache. I continued to read Daniel Holmes's Memoirs from Malta's prison. It continues to shock, upset and inspire.

Then I went to YouTube and to Episode 4 of Young Heretics, a look at Western Culture. This episode was based on Plato's 'Symposium' which is a fascinating dialogue on love. Klavan the podcast man explained how Plato and Socrates saw true knowledge as being born of a deep relationship over time. The discovery or unfolding of truth is about living it not just writing it down. It is a living organism. Aristotle was to make truth a little more static. So to them dialogue is more living than writing, more unfolding than just stating. I was impressed but also befuddled as yet more thoughts, ideas, beliefs poured in to the maelstrom I call my mind.

Finally I took a breather not long ago outside on the terrace overlooking the Tay. A cold wind but the snow capped hills in Perthshire were almost luminous. The moon was strange, almost outlined but only a crescent of it dazzlingly bright. I recalled then the derivation of the word lunatic. Yes, it does effect us and more so I feel as the virus lurks.