Sunset

Friday 5th March, 2021

Today has been another indulgent one. It started off cold so I had an extra slice of toast from a Roman Bread loaf baked by my landlady. It is a bit soggy, and I use her own description, because she was unable to beat the olive oil thoroughly in to it. I like it and partly because it has firmed up by going mildly stale. Covered in butter and MaMade home made marmalade it was good.

Then I went to Dundee. A money emergency called me over. I headed for a Building Society and was met with strictures beyond compare: no face to face meetings, masks, gel and barriers galore over the counter. Whatever it took ages longer than expected and I grew impatient, but it was done. Almost as a finger wagging from elsewhere, as it were, a letter awaited my return. It was from a close friend with whom I correspond about poetry and spirituality. The subject matter was partly about patience and my rage at things impossible to affect. I get so angry at the atrocities I claim to see and read of in the world and I truly get worked up. As my correspondent noted I am impatient but that does not help anyone or anything. Do what you can and hand the rest over to God. I would love to get the Government to reverse its withdrawal of funds from Yemen but all I can do is write letters, say my prayers and look to any apposite Charity I can give to and then trust and accept. I claim to have been an impatient demanding child and I have not changed which is sad and needs rectifying.

On my way across the Tay Road Bridge I was overtaken by 8 Amazon vans. Dundee was almost empty, the high street boarded up and with for sale or for rent signs outside many shops. Life has gone online. The vans were speeding off to all sorts of places and two of them were in my village and the adjacent one. I met one of the delivery drivers and he told me he had 1,000 parcels to deliver. I must accept. But with all sorts of commentary in the Budget may I ask if Amazon pay tax or rates to the same extent as our shop keepers and chains? It is such a complex world.

Before going for my walk I checked the fatball situation. Over the morning every time I looked out a pigeon (or two ) was stuffing its face. I am getting in to a rage with the pigeons! When I knock on the window and they fly away then the robin returns or even a blackbird. I cannot even get nature to conform to my idea of justice and fairness! There is a learning parable in all this.

The walk was good. Litter was down but the dog pooh bags won the booby prize of most discarded detritus! The sun came out and the public play ground was full of small children and parents. As I returned through the village and down the hill near the school so I realised that parents, mainly Mothers, were streaming up to collect their children. I have not seen that for months. Is it a return to more normalisation?

On arriving home I had a telephone call. It was from the local Medical Centre. Would I like to have the Shingles vaccination? I am now of the age when it is offered. My Mother suffered once from that dreaded disease and was in huge discomfort. I also recall that Cardinal Heenan suffered excruciating pain as he had shingles in his brain. So I accepted. March 24th, 13.00.

Finally I looked to Rilke again. Serendipity:

" My eyes already touch the sunny hill,

Going far beyond the road I have begun,

So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp:

it has an inner light, even from a distance-

And changes us, even if we do not reach it,

into something else, which, hardly sensing it,

we already are; a gesture waves us on

answering our own wave...

but what we feel is in the wind in our faces."

Then I watched the sun set for over half an hour. The whole sky across the Tay was alight with ever changing colours and hues. I felt it was the sunny hill, going far beyond the road I am on....