Skip to main content

Driving, dogs and disappointments

Son's status has altered (barring accidents, speeding transgressions and eventual infirmity) forever and he is now a fully certified driver.

Fully certified, but not yet fully insured ...

The increase in premium is eye-popping, not double, but almost triple the pre-pass rate. Risk has to be covered, and the risk for teens in the first year of driving is sadly, extremely high - about 1 in 5 having an accident. But it could cost us about £5 a day just to have him insured to drive the car. What would we see back for that investment? - occasional supermarket shopping errands, heartache and worry (mother's prerogative), petrol pouring into an open drain of jaunts to visit friends, and anxious clock watching (mother again).  Little chance of balance in the cost-return analysis.

So, until we find a cheaper insurer (hopefully tomorrow), the bicycle (and helmet!) will still be in service.


Dog worried by insects today - earwig invasion of his outside run (dozens of which, in training for earwig Olympic swimming event in dog's water bowl, have drowned, making for a crunchy drink) and spiders in the house (the sort of  monster big, black ones that would have my sister walking around her house, with an umbrella up over her head, to avoid the risk of one falling into her hair).


Disappointments - what are those? And frustrations - why? I am reminded of a toy we had as children: a Donald Duck with a weighted, rocker bottom - no matter how hard, or how often you pushed it over, it would always right itself (unless you held its head down with a cushion). Life's a bit like that  - feeling frustrated, hating work, worries snowballing - always, (as long as you avoid the cushions) there will be a self righting moment: pictures of innocents caught  in riots, jumping out of windows, eloquent and full of grace in their loss, or of children caught up in poverty and starving in Africa, and a story, in the paper, of a normal boy bravely fighting to busy himself with living a new life, totally dependent on others, after an accident on the sport's field - these bring us back, re-strike the balance, and make us realise we should be smiling more. Gratitude and charity perhaps, instead of disappointment and frustration. Message to self (and others if they want to listen) - change what you can change, do what you're best at, procrastinate to your heart's content ... but be content.



Lastly, haven't told four legged friend that he will soon be enjoying another stay at his holiday camp - disappointed dog, driven there by whom?



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Colour, Delacroix, flochetage and why don't we all have a go at inventing words

Yes - it is a real word. Flochetage. Well, a real-ish word. One invented by the painter Delacroix, when he found the dictionary cupboard bare and required a word to describe his technique of layering different coloured paints, using lightly pulled brush strokes to create texture and pattern and thereby enhance his base-layer colours (... lost? - stick around, read on and all will become clear. Or perhaps muddier ...). Flochetage implies both stringiness and threadiness. Apparently. And it sounds good - in a filling-the-mouth-with-sound sort of a way. Try it ... flochetaaaage. Not that I speak French. So I am probably mis-pronouncing it. Nor am I an artist. So what do I know about painting techniques - except that I think this one works. What I do like is the concept - you invent a new technique in whatever it is you do, hunt around for the vocabulary to describe it, find the dictionary is lacking, so make up a word of your own and announce to the world what it means. Delacroix isn...

My beloved boy, how lucky I have been

It's an odd thing that when we are waiting for someone to die ... and I say someone here even though the one in question was a dog - but to us he had character and a place forever in our hearts and was more of a familiar someone than some of the people in our lives. So, I'll start again - it's an odd thing that when we are waiting for someone to die, our senses go into overdrive. We notice things that normally would be part of the background of our every day. We breathe more - or rather, we don't but what we do is notice our breathing more, as we watch his. We pause. We think. We listen to ourselves and our inner voices speak. Memories flood our dreams ... though sleep is fitful.  Why am I telling you this? ... ... we lost this beautiful boy today And in the hours before he went, I saw perfect spheres of dew on blades of grass - little orbs holding micro-images of our world; a bumble bee drunk on nectar, yellow-dusted with pollen, resting in a crocus; ten - yes, ten! ...

Bollockworts

Ah, spelling! Or more accurately mis-spelling. And in particular, my near mis-spelling of the title above. As AA Milne said with the voice of Pooh, or Piglet, or maybe wOl, 'My spelling is Wobbly. It's good spelling but it wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.' He went on to say that 'spelling isn't everything.' But ... Mark Twain said that 'anyone who can only think of one way to spell a word lacks imagination.' But ... hmm ... Unfortunately, I can think of two ways to spell the title of this blog - the homonym for wort would create a major Wobble and would turn an innocent blog about plants - yes; plants ... you have the homonym in your head, don't you? ... to something entirely different; unpleasant skin eruptions in unspeakable places. All entirely ... still stuck in your mind? ...  yes, entirely unintended. Yes, un-in-ten-ded. Absolutely. Not a w- a -rt in sight. Bollocks on the other hand. You didn't see that comin...