Walk Photies

Thursday 3:50 p.m.
Bliss diary: I sat in the hut for an hour between feeding the birds. It's good to sit in the hut in the sub-zeros because it makes you realise that it's not too cold to sit in the hut when you're wrapped up. It's colder walking about outside, particularly on your face, although there is no wind. Also, it makes you realise that you are nowhere near being able to raise inner heat properly. However, it was a fabulous meditation. My mood has been getting better the longer the day has gone on.

10:50 p.m.
Bliss diary: Probably only did about five hours today, but the day started late and the Domestic Bliss did not go singing and dancing this evening. We're both coming down with colds, I think. Anyway, the last meditation finished about nine. Everything goes great, except my concentration could be much better. The nicotine withdrawals have been non-existent today. Hmmm? Wasn't expecting that so soon. After Skye I think I was crabbit for about two weeks!! Still, this is the third night of going to bed sober and straight! Hurrah!

In the photie of me feeding the birds, I'm standing on Inverleith Pond.

Sweet Thursday!

12:50 a.m.
Bliss diary:
I have wakened up feeling happy. I've even wakened up feeling blissful. But not for some time, it seems! There's been an underlying not-quite-rightness about things today.

I read once that Milarepa was able to sit in caves half way up Everest because his "channels" were fully open.

What does that mean, Jack? Buggered if I know, Hotboy!

How long is a piece of string? How much bliss can you actually experience? How fully open can your "channels" get? Surely, this malarkey could just go on forever.

Though certainly feeling of dissatisfaction underlay it, the first meditation of the day (just finished).... the effects of vase breathing are just going off the scale. Then you stop and there is still that mild feeling of dissatisfaction. At least, it's lessened. Time to feed the ducks!

Twelth Night

Wednesday 11.26 p.m.
Bliss diary.

The nicotine withdrawals have been hardly any bother today. My concentration is a wee bit better, but there has been a big effect on the meditations, the vase breathing particularly. Purification always does it!I have got a slight bug, but it's not bothering me though I do feel tired. This is only my second day sober and straight. God knows what I'll feel like by Monday when I have to go back to the jobbie. Between now and then I have nothing in front of me. The auld maw phoned today and said not to come on Friday due to the inclement weather problems with the transportation. I'm feeling quite happy all things considered. Didn't do much meditating this evening as I wanted to enjoy my partner's company. Tomorrow evening I'll be on my own again. This is going to be some year for the juju!! Right now I don't want to see another bottle of beer, or a joint, or any of the Unfortunate Ones at all.

Alexandra David-Neel talks about the wonderful feeling when the passes in the Himalayas became blocked and she could look forward to a whole winter of peace and quiet, and meditation. Who can tell? Maybe one of these lifetimes.

The Santa posters were done by the kiddo when she was about seven. The red one with the grumpy, crumpled face is one of my favourite things at this time of year, or anytime. They get put up at opposite ends of the lobby. Tonight they come down for another year.

The Prologue

Can you spot any punctuation mistakes in this?

It doesn't copy properly, so I've had to fiddle with it a bit. Can't get the paragraphs to indent. Also, I can't remember if uppers dilate your pupils or not. Why would anyone expect me to know something like that?

PROLOGUE


The walls of the Saracen’s Head hadn’t been repainted in over forty years. The double doors were straight across from the bar and the only patrons, apart from the man asleep with his head on a formica tabletop, were sitting in the corner, more or less facing the doors. The barman had just slipped through the back.

The detective was wearing a dark suit with an overcoat more expensive than you might expect and he was flanked on either side by two other men of slightly smaller stature. None of the three men seemed seriously intent on their drinks and gave the impression of waiting for someone, or something.

The double doors burst open and a traffic warden came running into the bar then stopped. He wore a beard, which seemed on the point of falling off, and his face underneath was reddened, his eyes like saucers on stocks, the pupils hugely dilated. The massive dose of multifarious stimulants on top of the whisky had the sweat bursting, pounding out of him. Pulling a gun from inside his tunic, he started quickly towards the table where the three men sat, firing as he went.

Bullets went into the throat and head of the men on either side of the detective, and he was shot in the shoulder, but then the gun jammed and the man dropped it. He pulled a sharpened chisel with a custom made hand guard from inside his tunic and he grabbed the detective by the hair, knocking over the table as he dragged him onto the floor, stabbing him on the head and neck as he went.

A furious madness gleamed out of the face of the man doing the stabbing, his lips pulled back, the gnashing teeth bared. He held the head down by the hair and the detective came to rest on his back as he was stabbed in the throat, then many times in his face, then several times through both eyes. He was dead by the time his forehead was stabbed and stabbed and stabbed and stabbed and the stabbing didn’t seem to ever be going to end. The skull collapsed there and the traffic warden didn’t stop stabbing then. There was blood all over the traffic warden, the corpse and the floor by the time he finally stopped stabbing and scooped out a handful of the detective’s brains. He stood up and threw the brains, still in a mad fury, at the wall. Then he stretched out his arms, one hand still holding the chisel, and shouted in exultation.

"Traffic Wardens, ya bass! Traffic Wardens, ya bass! Traffic Wardens, ya bass!"

Two other traffic wardens came running through the door then, one with a red blanket which he threw over the killer’s shoulders. The other picked up the gun and the beard, and then all three traffic wardens rushed out.

The drunken man asleep with his head on the formica topped table claimed later that he never heard a thing and neither he did.


Why would a thirty year old woman want to read that on the bus? Dearie me!

Start to the Day!

Wednesday 2:00 p.m.
Slept for a full ten hours last night!! That never happens.

I started getting up at six in the morning nearly twenty years ago now to meditate before going to work. At first, I used to do some of Mr Iyengar's sun salutations before sitting, but realised in this climate that's a good way to get into hospital before breakfast. Then I just sat.

When things are going well these days, I usually pause for a while flat on my back and get into the bliss by doing yoga nidra. Then I sit up for a bit before moving out of the bed. This is a good way to start the day!

Today because I wasn't going to the jobbie, blah de blah .... I got up and was going to go for a paper first off. So there's a pile of book tapes the Domestic Bliss asked me to return to Stockbridge library. I didn't want to go out twice today then so I took the tapes and went to the library first. Still baltic out there. And I'm a bit crabbit since ... well, I just am! Dodging the Bulgarian gangster who's selling the Big Issue outside Scotmid, I got down to the library. It's closed. So I'll have to go back later, I think. None to pleased by any of this now. Turning away, I thought the basturns must have a letter box and I turn back to stuff the book tapes into the opening. With the last one in, the flap clamped shut like a mousetrap and got the middle finger of my left hand. We're talking blood here. I'll definitely lose the nail. So I'm dripping blood in the chemist shop and get elastoplast. £2:50 the basturns charged me for a roll of elastoplast!! £2:50. Basturns!

When I finally started meditating at half eleven, it went like a dream really. Nearly two hours straight off. A terrific meditation. I should have done that first of all.

Why didn't you do that first of all then, Hotboy? Stupid basturn lying thoughts, Jack!! It's really hard not to believe anything you're thinking first thing in the day!

For the last half hour I've been trying to get connected to the computery thing in the living room so I can start working on my new blockbuster.

Actually, I don't read blockbusters. The Dom Bliss bought one yesterday. If I was going to write blockbusters, I should try reading one sometime. But is life not too short to start with that sensible malarkey now?

I still have heard nothing from the agent about the last blockbuster. The only person who's got back to me about it is some old guy who likes nothing better than reading computer manuals. The folk who read most popular fiction are women of about thirty, I believe. So I can discount the first reaction. But if you're one of the women I sent this book to and you don't like it, don't tell me about it, please. Just keep mum.

I've been reading Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk. In three months I've got jsut over half way through it. Really good bit of writing. I think the sensei and reverend must have recommended it to me. Pop 1920 by Jim Thompson, also recommended by the sensei and reverend, was superb. Maybe the answer is just to write really well, but that takes a lot more time than I have right now. Even writing crap takes too much time. Anyway, I'm going to read what I've got of the new blockbuster now with a certain amount of despair in my heart. In an hour and a half I'll start meditating again. Hurrah!

Ice Warrior Photies Again!

Tuesday 9:30 p.m.
Waitrose sells bread flour for £1 a kilo, the cheapest anywhere hereabouts. Unfortunately, it aint stoneground 100% wholemeal and the loaves are not nutritious enough for a joe who, when there is no soup, lives on bread alone. I made a loaf with the stuff that comes in at £1:45 and took what was left of the first loaf up the park for the birds.

Feeding the birds up by Inverleith pond was one of the joys of having a toddler. Practically every day, I was up there throwing bits of bread into the air for the wee gulls to swoop on.

I got up today with a mild disease and decided not to go to the jobbie. Hurrah! I stayed in until it was getting dusky around about four and went to the pond and walked round the pond. That's where the photies came from. There were three geese maybe who got most of the bread. Anybody know what a goose with a red bill might be called?

Sometimes today I was a bit antsy with the nicotine withdrawals and clenched my teeth a wee bit. Allah Akbar.

Tapering Off!

Monday 6:44 p.m.
The best time I had over the holidays was two nights ago drinking beer and on the bloggy. Last night was very good since I was seeing some McDucks. I haven't seen the auld maw or anybody else from my extended family since before Christmas.

Facing down the Nicotine Dragon may make the next few days a bit of a bummer, but I'm most pleased to be doing it. Buying a packet of something that says it will kill you on the packet ... dearie me!!

Tomorrow I go back to the jobbie and the kiddo leaves for London to continue her scholarship stuff with the Worshipful Company of Glass Painters and Glaziers.

Sometimes I maybe sound angry at the world and at all the Unfortunate Ones in it, but I'm really angry with myself.

There's something not quite right with me, Jack! If you know how to be happy, why don't you just do that, Hotboy? It's not other people who are stopping me, Jack. Other people are wonderful. It's moi!

We went to see our friend with the MS and her husband on New Year's Day. I've known these folk since they were teenagers. The man has had big problems with clinical depression. I don't think he wanted to open the door on New Year's Day. He was doing all the stuff over the holidays. No carers coming in. In some ways I hope his wife doesn't have long to go, but I wonder if he'll be here much longer than that. No bliss. Total saint.

I know I am a fortunate creature, Jack. This year I'm totally not complaining about other people, except on this blog!

The allotment shot was taken yesterday. The other two were today. It's fabulously baltic out there!