Words from an Hirsute Antiquity

"Making A Splash", my blog posting for today, can be found on 'Words from an Hirsute Antiquity'!

A Place Not Quite Like Home

You know that feeling, when you sense that there are intruders in your property? Well, I’ve been feeling that kind of stress the past couple of days, with three semi-invited non fee paying B&B clients. The clients in question are three females, aged 18 – 22, who arrived on Friday night and, will be disappearing tomorrow; nieces of Helen’s owing to the chance connection of bloodline from her first husbands side of the family.

We rarely have any contact with these “guests” but, Cathy likes to keep in touch as it’s a link to her late father. The invitation was only proffered (?) at last minute, as their prior free board arrangements had to be cancelled and, Cathy only had room to accommodate their Mum & Dad. I’d already been at a quite low ebb, energy wise, before this imminent arrival was imposed on us but, I didn’t quite realize how stressful it would prove having three strangers sleeping under the same roof. In one way we hardly see them, as a strict itinerary for their visit had been established by the ex-military father, with Cathy arranging a bit of socializing for the girls.

Perhaps, the increased muscular pain levels and, the occurrence of vivid dreams disrupting my less than perfect normal sleep patterns, are a reflection of raised stress levels. With the extra bodies in the house, I’m quite reluctant to respond immediately to the demands of my erratic colon and bladder. Furthermore, I’m reluctant to enter the bedroom of strange females to switch on the modem and router located therein so, my impulsive requirements for a bit of surfing or biological demands have to be put on hold.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve nothing against our guests, no more than I have against any other stranger! Quite simply, an alien presence in one’s abode militates against it feeling like home!

Waiting

Changes elsewhere

Todays' posting, CH-CH-Ch-Changes, can be found on 'Mal's Murmurings'. This posting incorporates an update on "PTSD - Cause Unknown" (May 2nd 2007)

Idle Words

A light bright sunshiny morning greets me, after a night of restlessness (or at least fitful bouts of vividly naturalistic dreams scattered amongst seemingly endless periods of wakefulness); the bright and airy morning is welcome but, the real surprise is that I should feel wide awake at such an unearthly hour! Malcolm and alertness by 6.00am have not, of late, been considered the most usual of bedfellows.

Both my better judgement and the wisdom of my beloved, militate against removing myself from the duvet lair and getting dressed. Perhaps, the odd occasional aberration from my abnormal normality is permissible but, one must always reckon on the hidden cost; I’m still recuperating from the most recent setback so, it’s probably more sensible to err on the side of caution.

Helen brings the laptop to her Lord and Master, enabling him to tap out these few idle words from his divan comfort zone.

For life, love and sunshine, I give thanks.

Postings elsewhere

A new (love) Poem, THAT DAY, can be found on Mal's Factory. Meantime, I've also been posting up more pictures on Mals Paintings

Mal's murmuring again

Today's blog posting, AND SUDDENLY - But not unexpectedly!, can be found on 'Mal's Murmurings'.

Posting on Hirsute Antiquity

Today's posting, Back In The Swing, can be read on Hirsute Antiquity.

PTSD - Cause Unknown

Several years ago, whilst looking out of the living-room window, Beth (my eldest step-daughter) and myself were somewhat startled to see a heron launch off from the garden pond. For the following two or three weeks, no matter what hour I visited the pond, there were no sightings of any fish in the pond; come to think of it some frogs, which had been present the previous couple of days, were no longer in evidence. It was with a great sense of relief, and joy, that I observed the fish once again after the aforementioned interval.

So much for the fabled short memory span of goldfish; they’d managed to stay in hiding until such time as they assumed the coast was clear. Could they have been in a depressive state for all this time, a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder?

What has brought this memory to the fore is the lack of piscine sightings for the past couple of days. With the recent warmer weather, and the clarity of the water, sightings had been impossible to avoid; yesterday morning – zilch! At their usual feed time, I scattered a few floating foodsticks but, by the end of the afternoon, nothing had been touched so I netted the food out again. I caught a glimpse of one of the small fish, half hidden in the aquatic compost and pea gravel in one of the water-lily containers then, as soon as I knelt down beside the pond, it darted away. Later in the day, I caught a glimpse of one of the medium sized goldfish hiding beside one of the drainage pipes at the bottom of the pond.

Whatever has happened, I know that there are at least two fish there but, today yielded no further sightings, even of these two! One possibility is that one of the neighbourhood moggies had made a deliberate lunge for one of the piscine inhabitants; on several occasions these cats have been seen in the vicinity of the pond and, one of them, Peanuts, had recently devised a way of tilting an overhanging decoration to enable him to get a drink … strange that this feline ability to use/devise tools seems rarely, if ever, to have been recorded. This overhanging platform has now been removed!

It hardly seems likely, with present weather conditions (the lack of overly swollen rivers etc – which seems to deter them from those particular hunting grounds), that we have had a further visitor from the heronry. I live in hope that, trauma forgotten by the piscine inhabitants, I will once again be able to observe, and feed, the full glorious company. If their numbers are diminished, from whatever cause, re-stocking may be in order.

If anyone out there is aware of any research papers into “post-traumatic stress disorder” in goldfish, it would be interesting to find where they can be viewed online.