Day 31 - The Professor

 THE PROFESSOR

Prompt - The professor : Write about a teacher that has influenced you.

Simon expected the next instruction from Control would be telling him to taxi to the runway, but he was disappointed.

"Lima Tango 325, please hold position until further notice, incoming emergency means all take offs delayed indefinitely.  Will update you on estimated time when things become clearer."

"Roger Control."  There wasn't much else he could say.  Whatever the emergency might be, they'd be too busy with it for any unnecessary questions from him, and he'd probably see it soon enough.  Sounded like a flight with a problem needed a runway urgently.  He informed the passengers about the situation, answered their unanswerable questions as best he could, and settled to wait.

Giving himself another chance to ponder on what he was about to do, and how he'd come to this point.  This was it, his first solo flight in charge of a commercial passenger aircraft.  There were only six other people on board, the flight time was just forty minutes, and he'd be back in Inverness in plenty time for dinner.  But it was all his.  After a couple of years of co-piloting he'd now be solely responsible for the safety and comfort, and confidence, of everyone on board, trusted by the airline to do the job to the standards they demanded.  It was a place he thought he'd never be in, a chance that so nearly fell away from him, but for one man.

Fourteen year old Simon had only one ambition in life, with no plan B.  He would become a commercial airline pilot, the natural outcome of the absorbing fascination with aviation he'd already had for eight years.   It was time to choose the subjects he'd take next year, the ones he'd go on to take O-grades in, from which he'd select the Highers he'd sit, which would help shape the degree course he's be able to take, which would be his gateway to flying school.  Maths and Physics were top of his list, the essentials for his future.

At parents evening McCartney, the Maths teacher, had made encouraging noises, confident in Simon's abilities to progress.  English, French, Chemistry, the same, no problems foreseen if he kept up to the same standards he'd met so far.  Their final stop was with Harrison, the Physics man, and the one teacher Simon found hard to get on with.  He knew he hadn't excelled in Harrison's class, but felt it was down to the teaching as much as his own ability.  Harrison thought otherwise, and explained to his disappointed parents that Simon stood little chance of passing the lower level exam two hears hence, never mind the far more important one the year after.  His father put up a half hearted defence, emphasising how important this was to the boy's career aspirations, but he was no match, in intellect or authority, for the teacher.  Telling Simon to leave it, they'd work something else out, they shepherded him towards the way out.

The evening was coming to a close and Banks, Simon's French teacher and also his form master, was shuffling his papers into order, stuffing them into his bag.  He looked up to see a  boy who'd been smiling eagerly twenty minutes before, and now had the look of one heading for the scaffold, morosely shuffling along between his stoic parents.  

"Simon."  

He looked across blankly, a weight around his neck.

"Can we have a chat before you go home?"

Simon looked at his parents.  They, used to giving way on educational matters, urged obedience, and moved with him towards the trestle table.

"Just Simon on his own if you don't mind please, if you could wait outside we'll only be a few minutes."  

Simon wondered what was coming, but didn't much care.

"So who's given you some bad news?"  

"Mr Harrison doesn't think I can get my Physics O so I shouldn't take it next year."

Banks understood the implications immediately.  He shared some of Simon's interest in the world of aircraft, so he knew exactly what an obstacle had been dropped into the boy's life plans.

"And what do you think?"

Simon stood open mouthed.  This wasn't a question he was prepared for, for his opinion was so rarely sought by anyone.

"Come on, you can tell me.  I know how much of a blow that would be to you and everything you want to be.  So what do you think - could you get your Physics or not?"

"Mr Harrison says no."

"I'm not asking Mr Harrison, I'm asking you.  Do YOU think you'd get it?  How much do you want it?"

Simon struggled between the his maternally-inculcated humility and an adolescent desire to realise his dreams.  He looked at Banks, a concerned, encouraging expression on his face, and decided to take a chance and see where it took him.  he couldn't be any worse off than he was already.

"I'm sure I can sir, but I seem to have problems with the way Mr Harrison explains things."

"Have you been to any of Mrs Baker's classes, or Mr Cheam's?"

"We had some lessons from Mrs Baker, and I found her a lot easier to understand.  Not that I mean Mr Harrison doesn't know stuff or anything, but..."  Banks stopped him.  

"Leave it with me Simon, let's see what can be done.  No promises, but I'll see if we can get a second opinion, OK?"

Simon nodded, not able to trust the lifeline being thrown his way, and went off outside.

"What was that about?" his mother asked.

"He wants me to do some extra reading." he lied.

Simon never really did understand what Banks had done.  But two days later he was summoned to see Baker, questioned intently for an hour and, feeling like he'd been under interrogation, left none the wiser.  Two days later a letter arrived at home, telling his parents that there had been a revised verdict on Simon's Physics capabilities, and if it was still one of his preferred subjects he'd be in Mrs Baker's class next year.  And that was that.

"Lima Tango 325, please taxi to standpoint A and prepare for takeoff."

Simon's instincts threw him from his reverie.  "Roger Control."  And he went through his procedures and set the plane in motion, to a desultory cheer from the waiting half dozen behind him.  As the lift took hold off the wings and soared them skywards Simon's inner voice said "Thank you Mr Banks."

Day 30 - Shopping

 SHOPPING

Prompt - Shopping : Write about your shopping wishlist and how you like to spend money.

I'm not sure if it's really a plus or a minus point, but one thing this pandemic has given me is more money at the end of each month.  Unable to do the things we want to do, would usually be doing throughout the year, it's mostly lain fallow, waiting for real life to kick off again.  There have been a few daft lockdown purchases - like a leather backpack from the US, a pair of Vans customised in Edinburgh Rugby colours - but mostly there is no shopping list.  Nor is there travel, with no chance of a holiday for many months gone and to come.

In times gone by this money would have gone on tickets.  To gigs and plays and films and festival and rugby matches.  Instead some tickets to online gigs, a subscription to premier Sports so I can still watch my team play, and...  I've bought a lot more music and books than I might normally, trying to provide some support to acts I love and local shops.  

But there's little point in clothes shopping.  With nowhere to go what would be the point?  The cafes were open for a while so we returned to our old coffee and cake habits for a bit, there were a couple of meals out (which never felt entirely safe), these too have been pleasures denied us.  We might have had a few more takeaways, or cake deliveries, but that hardly stretches the budget.  So once the food and basics are taken care of there's what's left.  Contributions go to worthy causes, cash goes to homeless people, and still there's money left.

So it gets saved, ready for the days of 'going out' to reappear.  And when it does...

The shopping list is pretty simple.  Get out to see live music and comedy and drama, share the experience of watching films, become part of the crowd shouting my team on, take a holiday.  Have cake in cafes.  Visit TK Maxx and search for clothes and shoes.  

My future shopping list is one of random focus.  I do not know what I will be buying, only that I'll be buying it and enjoying the results.  Get back to spending money as it should be spent - living life.

Day 29 - Good Vibes

 GOOD VIBES

Prompt - Good Vibes : What makes you smile?  What makes you happy?

So many happy memories, so many moments of joy.  And across the past decade so many of those moments came from music gigs, or comedy shows, or plays or sport or the shared experience of watching a film in a cinema.  Then 2020 came and those sources of pleasure were denied us.  No euphoria at the crescendo of a Lau composition.  No stuck on grin and aching chest after a Stewart Lee gig.  No sense of wonder at a Traverse play or a Mike Leigh film.  No shouting myself hoarse as Darcy Graham scores the clinching try against Glasgow.  

No complaints though.  The pandemic is here for now, will one day be gone, and those pleasures will return.  Meanwhile so many artists have found diverse ways of sharing their talents online, often creating an experience that's near live - but never quite.  There is no substitute for mass participation, for being part of a crowd, of the performers feeding off our reactions and making us feel a part of their world.  

Instead we have, for now, to lower the bar of our expectations, to seek joy where we can.  In the small things, in finding excitement in the mundane.  So it was yesterday.  

Edinburgh's tramworks continue, will keep going for another two years yet, extending the line from the city centre out to Newhaven.  The work, and the major disruptions it brings, have been with us for a couple of years already.  A few weeks back they announced that the first rails had been laid, outside Ocean Terminal, and that felt like an important step forward.  Yesterday I walked along another section of the works and, to my surprise, found rails where none had been when last I passed that way.  And that made me smile, made me just a little bit excited.  It brings a little closer the time when we can walk up the road to get a tram to the airport and fly off somewhere new. Or being able to get to Murrayfield Stadium, and Edinburgh's new home ground, in one hop

Some metal lines on a road gave me joy.  I think I've lowered that bar successfully.

Day 28 - Shadow

 SHADOW

Prompt - Shadow : Imagine you are someone's shadow for a day

I am caught by the surprise of being conjured into existence as he rises from bed.  It must be late, for the sunlight is already strong enough to give me the strength to follow.  He goes to the bathroom, skipping the light for his eyes are yet to fully open, and leaves me to wait, a shadow-self of myself once more.  Then we get on with our day together.

It's a sunny day, so I remain a close companion, a lively swinger of direction, keeping myself between him and my creator.  A brisk journey, in constant step together.  Passing bus renders me invisible, but I'm still there, still glue-close.  

He enters the shop, and that's when things get confusing.  The lights come from all angles and I am like an amoeba, splitting into cells that weaken me with every new incarnation, then suddenly rushing into one again, before subdividing once more.  I feel I am thinned out, spreadeagled, a victim of circumstance.

And so the day passes.  I, we, see him greet the customers, banter with colleagues, move around as he works through his shifts.  While saying nothing, content to be largely ignored, until we can go out again, into the sun, and I stand proud before him, thirty feet tall, and I sense my own importance, how he is nothing without me, how he needs me to make him visible as much as I need him.  

We will go home together, I will dissipate myself around the flat, I will dim and cower and fade, until the lughts go out, and I leave him in peace, now a part of the whole surrounding him.

Day 27 - Closed Doors

 

CLOSED DOORS 

Prompt - Closed Doors : What's behind the door?  Why is it closed?

It should have been perfect.  I'd got the cottage to myself for two weeks, had arrived with enough food and drink to get me through, and the laptop and the notebooks and all the scattered bits of paper that held together the timelines and characters and those little questions that always come up during the writing process.  A short walk each morning and then I'd close my door upon the world and set about the work, until hunger took me away.

For a week it had worked perfectly and the novel finally had a shape, my people brought to life with habits and traits and personalities.  Then it came to a halt.  Stuck fast.  I needed a device or passing character to move things on, to give my victim a sign of hope in their despair.   But everything I tried crumbled before me within a paragraph.  Write, delete, write, delete, write, delete, it went on for most of the day.  By eight pm I was tired, hungry and had been staring at a blank screen for an hour.  When it happened.

A knock at the door.  More of a banging than a knock.  An intrusion on my solitude, an invasion of the silent space I'd create every day when I shut my door upon the world.  If I ignored it maybe  they'd go away.  But the knock/bang came again.  And again.  And I thought, 'what if this is the device or person I need?'.  So I opened the door.

It was a goat.  Two horns, brown coat, two white stripes down it's face, ragged beard and a quizzical look in it's eye.  I'd opened my door and although I didn't know what or who I'd been expecting to see, it certainly wasn't a goat.  The surprises didn't end there.

"Sorry to be a nuisance, but do you have any Weetabix?" said my visitor.  The specificity of the request stupefied me even more than the fact of a talking goat come knocking.  His accent was a curious unmixture of French and Indian and Swedish, a smooth ungoatly kind of a voice.

"It happens that I do" I replied cautiously.

"You wouldn't be able to spare a few would you?  I know it's a bit strange, but I have a weakness for those flaky wheaty biscuits, and sometimes the cravings get the better of me."  His eyes practiced their sincerity.  "Please." he added politely.

I could have said no.  But he seemed so friendly, so genuine, so goatey, that I felt an obligation to satisfy his request, and I ushered him into the room.  He looked around him, took in the scene.

"Writer, eh?"

"How'd you know?" I responded suspiciously.

"Well they don't call me Sherlock for nothing."

"Is that your name - Sherlock?"

"No."

"Oh."  I stared at him.  A memory of men who stare at goats came into my head and I looked away, embarrassed by my humanity.

"Look, don't worry, I know our reputation, but I'm not planning to scoff all your notes and plots and whatnots.  I really just wanted some Weetabix.  If it wouldn't be too much trouble."

I nodded blankly, and moved over to the kitchen area, pulled out the yellow box.

"How'd you like them?  Milk?"

"No milk thanks, as they come will do me.  Maybe a touch of sugar would be nice."

I took out three, no four, bix and placed them in a bowl, then sprinkled the sugar over.

"That OK?"

"Lovely.  Perfect.  Thanks."

I put the bowl down, he looked up, winked, and proceeded to savour the delicacy he'd been so looking forward to.  The savouring took about three seconds.  He did a little dance of pleasure.

"Thank you so much, you've been a real goataider, I am in your debt.  Is there anything I can do for you?  If I haven't already."

From my limited fund of goatish knowledge I couldn't come up with any way he might be useful to me.  I shook my head and, as he turned back to the entrance, felt unaccountably sad that he was about to leave.  He walked out and broke into the curious bouncing trot of his species, soon to be gone from sight.  I turned back into my own little world and pondered.

He'd said "If I haven't already."  As if he really had done something for me.  Strange, even for a goat who spoke English.  

It was only as went to bed I realised.   He was my missing plot device, my horned interlocutor who would move things smoothly along.  A talking goat had been the obvious answer all along.

Day 26 - Fear

 FEAR

Prompt - Fear : What scares you a little?  What do you feel when scared?  How do you react?

I am easily scared.  That's certainly true of physical pain, and has been throughout my life.  It would be daft to be otherwise, wouldn't it?  Fear of asphyxiation is probably my greatest worry.  Having slightly restricted lung capacity (due to a weird chest bone) I have occasionally been prone to breathlessness.  Never to the point of being asthmatic, but enough for the thought of being unable to breathe properly bringing me into panic mode, where it becomes hard to make rational decisions.  And usually making my breathing worse...  

That will probably never change, and I do sometimes wonder what I will die from.  If it involves long term problems with breathing then I hope that assisted death legislation is in place by that time.  I have no desire to live in constant fear.  My brief flirtation with covid, when I had  a struggle to get my breath for a couple of days, and has left me much more prone to heavy laboured breathing if I exercise, was enough to remind me how much of a fear this is.

The fear that has lessened with age is that of humiliation, or embarrassment.  I care far less about what people think of me than I once did.  I blame my mother, who was self effacing to the point of invisibility at times, for that early conditioning.  I would shrink back if someone called my name loudly in a public space.  I would choose not to do things simply to avoid the possibility of failure and the subsequent feelings of wanting to hide myself away.  

I still avoid party situations where I don't know many people.  My inability to come up with small talk hasn't altered much.  (Whereas i could go into meetings, even social groups, that were work related with some confidence because there I was no longer just Blyth Crawford, but the Project Manager or whatever job title I had at the time.  Hiding behind an official alter ego gave me the social confidence I lacked, still lack, as me.)  I am happy to accept my social awkwardness and adjust my life accordingly.  But I no longer fear others criticism of my failures - but I still fear my own.  I am harder on myself than anyone else is (although if my mother were still alive...).  But at least I don't scare me.

Day 25 - Dread

 DREAD

Prompt - Dread : Write about something you don't want to do.

They're there in front of me.  The one that's shining out, so much white there waiting, the other teasingly patterned, challenging me to make some sense from it.

So I ignore the challenge and go to the loo, taking my book with me.  When I come out I haven't finished the chapter I'd begun so I'll make time t read to the end.  Bit of a cliffhanger there, so I must read the next chapter.

Can't do this all day, can I?  I return to my desk.  There's a wee tasklist sitting there.  Nothing urgent, is there?  Depends on how you define urgent.  I can see plenty reasons why they should all be done, not just soon, but now.  So I play a bill, buy those CDs I'd been promising myself, browse through possible PC replacements.

That took more thought, and time, than I'd realised.  I should go and get a glass of water.  Or maybe a hot drink?  Bit of toast?  I read my book as I eat and, of course, finish the chapter.  And the next one.

Best go back.  The snow blinding blankness of that white screen is there again.  Does it look angry?  Impatient?  Or merely resigned to my terror?  I have some hand written notes to be captured, so if I do a bit of typing I'll have my fingers loosened up when I come to start.  I'll have flow.  It will be so much easier.  But they don't take long.

I sit there, breathing heavily, flexing fingers, angling my head from side to side, a bizarre warm up routine.  I am ready.  I am not ready.  I can do this.  I cannot do this.  I want to do it, I don't want to, I have done it before, I have not done this before, it was always this hard, was it always this hard?

It is the same as last time, and the time before.  I am the same as last time, and the time before.  Time.  I am running out of it, running away from it.  Dread takes me into a place where my head refuses to make the fingers hit the keys, gives me false guidance, allows fear to take control.  Fear of starting, fear of failing, fear of being unable to end, fear that I will have forgotten how to do it.

I cannot, must not, put it off any longer.  A deep breath, type in the title.  There are words on the page.  I begin, I move on, I stop, I start, the word count grows, the sense of there being some meaning to the syllables, the growth of sentences and paragraphs, the unfolding narrative giving me the courage the white space had sucked away.

I will be as scared tomorrow.  Writing is always like this...

Day 24 - Numbers

 NUMBERS

Prompt - Numbers : Write a poem or journal entry about numbers that have special meaning to you.

365

750

11000

12000

Different numbers acquire different meanings, and importance, at different stages of our lives.  Times, dates, ages.  Identifying numbers, bank accounts, addresses, phone numbers, road numbers.   So many aspects of our lives are numerically linked, defined, measured.  

Of course I still have many of those in my everyday life.  But the figures that much of my daily existence revolve around are the four set out above, and they all play a big role in maintaining my physical and mental health during these strange pandemic times.

Physically, while I try to do some stretches and exercises every morning, maybe even lift a few weights, my fitness, such as it is, largely comes from walking.  I can't really run any more (I might try running for a bus, but there isn't even that possibility in lockdown) due to knee and breathing annoyances, but my body benefits from getting out every day and putting in a few miles.  Or even just keeping moving a lot when at home.  And the primary incentive to do so comes from those two larger numbers.  My fitness tracker is set to a target of 11000 steps per day.  But I will usually try to do more than that, the 12000 target being the average number of daily steps I want to record at the end of each month.  (Much easier once Spring and Summer come and I do some serious mileage to prepare myself for Kiltwalk.)

And here's the first importance of the smallest of my quartet.  Driving me to do the 11k each and every day is an aim to record a streak of 365 days.  As I type this that streak figure is at 227 days, so there's still a few months to get to my target.

My mental health benefits from a lot of activities, not least reading for good chunk of time each day.  But it's writing that feels like it benefits me most.  A daily diary entry at day close, but there's also a piece of writing which can take several forms.  Sometimes it can be little more than a stream of consciousness mind dump, some days that's all I'm capable of.  But every day I type it, whatever 'it' is, into the 750words.com site.  Which, obviously, requires me to type in at least 750 words.  This too records a streak for the number of consecutive days that objective has been met.  Currently at 1110.

That's a lot of words, buy few of them get to be seen by anyone else.  In an effort to start writing things that might be a bit more interesting to others, and to stretch my own creativity, This year has seen me take on a 365 challenge.  I found a prompt list of subjects for every day for a year and will do my best to work through them, one by one, and see what comes out the other end.  So far there have been stories and poems and thought pieces.  And this, whatever you might call it.  

Some days I do 'just enough', on others I make more effort.  Depends on how I'm feeling, and how much time is available to me - those pesky numbers dominating again.  But it's already something I can feel the benefit from, stimulating my brain to go down pathways it doesn't normally follow.  

So I have daily challenges, and those feed into 365 day long undertakings that keep me and my motivation going.  I'm lucky to be one of those people who find hitting these numerical targets provides the impetus needed to keep on going.  Life enhancing numbers.

Day 23 - Sugar

 SUGAR

Prompt - Sugar : Write something so sweet, it makes your teeth hurt

I'd had that job for six years.  I was good at it.  I was very good at it.  Everyone said so, the boss, my colleagues, the customers.  They couldn't do without me, could they?

And so it seemed.  The pandemic hit, the lockdown froze us out of business, the company shut down for who knows how long?  There were redundancies, but not for me.  Instead I was put on the furlough scheme nd, to begin with, the boss man topped my salary up to full pay.  But when it became clear, after the first three months, that even without a full lockdown any more we still wouldn't be able to get back to work, that luxury came to an end.  

No real worry, I still got more than enough to pay the mortgage, pay the household bills, feed myself and... well, there wasn't much to spend the rest on anyway.  Going out?  Don't make me laugh.

But the months dragged on the end of the year loomed, and another big wrecking ball headed our way.  Brexshit.  The boss kept us informed of what he needed the deal, if there was ever going to be one, to give us to keep us viable.  It was soon clear that the dog's breakfast of the end product was a killer blow.  The red tape would have soon wrapped around us in a slow death of strangulation.  This was the end.

Redundant.  No matter how much the word was sugar coated, no matter that I was released ever so reluctantly and with such huge regret.  I was still out of work for the first time in my life. During the biggest recession, with rocketing unemployment in a country that was going backwards, under a government that blended heartlessness, greed and incompetence into a mediocre cocktail of despondency.  I'd never claimed any benefits, but I knew the scare stories about universal credit and how badly it had been implemented.  With few savings my mortgage was going to become an immediate problem.  I saw myself becoming one of those people who have to make decisions about whether to feed myself or keep warm.  In a world without hugs.

Morose about my uncertain future, aware of how easily I could let myself roll about in a mud pit of self pity, I took myself out into the daylight.  Trying to avoid the idiots walking along with their heads down looking screenwards.  Or the couples who were too oblivious of others to walk single file for the five seconds it would have taken.  I tuned into the local park, where at least the pathways were wide and there was space to get away from people.  

I didn't see her at first, hidden behind the approaching pair of legs.  I sought eye contact with the woman approaching, seeking to determine which side we'd each be safest on, but she turned away, looking back.  And then I saw her, a scurrying leg-whirl of white.  I moved to my left, the lady to hers, and her companion stopped in the middle, and looked at me.  Little brown ears, soft eyes, frantically excited tail, and so, so tiny.  

"How old?" I asked.

"Nine weeks, too wee for a lead yet.  And she's curious about everything and everyone."

I crouched down to get a closer look, and little Ms Nosey came right on up to my outstretched hand.  Trusting, fascinated, expecting to be loved.  She was gorgeous, cute, infectious in her 'the-world-is-wonderful-cos-I'm-in-it' confidence.  I wanted to pick her up and take her away in my pocket, and never let her go.

"She's lovely."  

"I know."  The dog walker grinned her delight at this addition to her life.  

"Maybe I'll see you both again." I said, rising, thinking it was the puppy I really meant.  But when she said "I hope so.  I'll be round again this time tomorrow.  Best be going now, too cold to stand around."  And she walked off up the path.  The pup, uncertain who offered most, stopped to look up at me, looked up the path, and bounced off after the one who would feed her.  Her owner looked back to check.  On me and the dog.

I completed my walk with smile welded to my face, and a lighter step.  Was that all it took to make my world seem a brighter place?  Yes.  The cutest bundle of joy turning up, an attractive woman who didn't see the darkness I'd felt possessed by, and a future that, however uncertain, would always throw up a life that needed to be lived.  There's always a way.

Footnote : We encountered just such a puppy in the park earlier today, and it really was a boost to the spirits.

Day 22 - Smoke, Fog and Haze

 SMOKE, FOG AND HAZE

Prompt - Smoke, Fog and Haze : Write about not being able to see ahead of you

At times we take risks, thinking we've calculated the odds to be in our favour, though we know in reality the dealer always wins.  Well, nearly always.

I'd been on the road for five hours and needed food.  And a rest from the concentration behind the wheel.  At least, I thought, the worst was behind me.  The traffic around Birmingham, and later the Liverpool-Preston stretch, had been bad, slow moving although never really coming to a halt.  But now, past Lancaster, the rest of the trip would be less stressful, even in the dark.  I knew the route by instinct now, and felt I was not so far from home.

As I turned into Tebay services the dusk was falling, but the scenery to either side had already started to fade away into the mists.  I had my food, and a walk around to ease the weary muscles, before heading back to my car.  It was dark now, the car park was already less far populated than on my arrival, and I felt confident I'd be stopping outside the door before midnight.  The mist was still around, thicker now, but it was only as I pulled away that I realised just how much it was reflecting my lights back at me, and how the exit out of the services faded into a shimmering grey wall.  

By the time I got within a hundred metres of rejoining the motorway I knew it was going to be bad, that there was hard work ahead, and that this could be a long, long night.  Any attempt to go above thirty five felt perilous, like walking blindfold along a narrow alley.  When I came up on red lights ahead the lorry was already much closer to me than I'd expected.  The tension grew in my shoulders, as I involuntary hunched forward in the forlorn hop that another ten centimetres closer to the screen was going to improve my vision...

White lights in the mirror, gaining rapidly, suddenly alongside, already gone past.  What speed was that one doing?  Sixty?  Seventy?  Insanity?  I slowed further, anticipating a crash scene ahead.  But none came, and I passed a few lorries going even more cautiously than I.  I checked the dials.  I'd done less than fifteen miles in the half hour since leaving the safety of the car park.   Home seemed far away.

Another set of lights rushed to come by.  Did these guys know something I didn't?  Or were they desperate?  Indifferent to life?   But another thought coalesced in my mind, forcing out all others, and began to make calculations.  A white Transit van came by, cab in darkness, but with, crucially, fog lights doing their best to pierce the gloom behind.   The 'If I...' in my head became an 'I will...', and my foot pushed the pedal down in pursuit.  Red lights ahead were swallowed up in the swirl, but only for a couple of seconds as I found the belief to stick to my plan.  I stayed back far enough to maintain visual contact, and concentrated on matching my speed, now around seventy, to his.

My internal sophistry had convinced me.  My brakes were almost certainly much better than a heavier van.  As long as I kept the fuzz of those red lights in sight I'd be able to watch out for any untoward movement of the vehicle, or the brake lights suddenly coming on, and be able to react in time.  Otherwise I'd keep on following, for as long as he kept it up or my powers of concentration allowed.  The road, I already knew, was quiet, so surely those odds were on my side?

It was a tiring way to travel.  My single minded focus on those life lights, and continually monitoring the distance between us, was headache inducing, arm stiffening, grip clenching, despite all efforts to try and relax a bit.  I wondered how long I'd be able to keep this up for.  After fifteen minutes it was starting to feel like a seriously bad idea, my body rebelling against the tension being piled upon it.  And then we were through.  Just like that the world went from opaque shining greyness into soft universal black.  The white van slowed noticeably, and I thought the driver must be trying to bring himself down from the adrenaline rush he'd subjected himself to.

While I could feel only relief at the immediate sense of freedom that moment gave me, of surviving my game of Cumbrian Roulette.  Pulling away from the van, the driver probably unaware of how grateful I felt towards him, I settled down to a comfortable eighty and looked to pull back the lost time.  Midnight looked on again.  And the dealer looked on in despair.

Day 21 - Foreclosure (Eviction)

 FORECLOSURE

Prompt - Foreclosure :  Write a poem or short story about someone who has lost or is about to lose their home.

It's dark now, and time to go

A silent flit, I know the rules,

The 'only take what you can carry'

Curtains twitching in good riddance

And I wonder when we'll go again

But Mum says it will be different this time

Fly by night, arrive by night

Secret creatures of the dark 

Concealing shame and flapping shoes

Is how we came to this bare place

We'll leave the same, but

But Mum said it would be different last time

Always running from some past,

Go before the present's here,

Futures that all look the same

Bed amongst the bugs and rats

Then some man who's wanting more

But Mum says it will be different next time

Time and time and time again

It wasn't much but it was home

I had to choose what's left behind

"I'm ready now" the waited words

As she pours the last drop into her cup

But Mum says it will be different this time

Footnote - I'm getting used to the Americanisms in these prompts, and then translating, in this case to Eviction.

Day 20 - Missed Connections

 MISSED CONNECTIONS

Prompt - Missed Connections : Have you ever read the Missed Connections section of personal ads on Craigslist?  Write a romantic story inspired by one of the ads or write about your own missed connections in life.

My digits?  What kind of message is that?  I didn't know if he meant me or not, but I wasn't about to reply to something so...curt, so lacking in any hint of romance.

I did know he meant me.  I remembered him, sort of.  There were two of them, forlornly together as I brought my shopping cart back to the car.  They were parked in the bay right behind me, the Nissan with the hood up, the guys with their mouths down.  I set about shifting my purchases into my Merc and struggled to get the pressure washer box up and over the wire (so how was i going to be able to use it? - but that's another story...).   The guy in red parka came over and offered to help, got it where I wanted it, and I thanked him.

"Are you in a hurry to get away?" he suddenly asked.  When a random man asks you that in the parking lot you the alarm bells start to ring, so I played it cautious.

"I do have someone waiting for me so I really need to get going."

"Oh, OK, it was just in case you had time to help me out.  I'd left the lights on too long and battery's flat.  If I could find someone to give me a jump start |I'd just be so grateful."

He seemed genuine enough.  He had helped me out.  And I'd lied, there was nobody waiting and no rush to be anywhere.  I looked at red parka man, a spaniel waiting to be petted.  Then at his mate, blue puffa jacket guy, looking... at me, intently.  He looked away quick enough when our eyes met.  Harmless, or at least harmless enough, said my antennae.

RPM connected with my hesitation.  "It wouldn't take long, I've got the leads right here."  The smile half hopeful, half encouraging.  I looked around and there was nobody else he could ask for now, and one Samaritan deserves another, don't they?

So I closed the trunk lid, shifted my car around to be nose to nose, released the hood and he did the rest.  In less than four minutes the Nissan was purring away, my hood was back down and I was on my way home to my imaginary someone.  RPM had given profuse thanks, while BPJG never said a word.  He did look though.  A lot.  Positioned himself so that he could always sneak a glance.  I thought I saw him grin as I pulled away.

It was Thursday when I was back into Craigslist.  I've no idea what made me have a sneaky look at the Missed Connections ads.  Sometimes I'd gone in there just for the laughs, the desperation that oozed from every one.  

'Tractor Supply Friday (Stephensville)'  I'd been there on Friday so clearly my brain would want to click.  And there it was.  Words springing from the sparse sentences.  Shy.  REALLY want you number.  Fate.  Friend a jump start.  I really want them - your digits.   

Surely not me?  Surely it had to be.  Otherwise the coincidence level...  This was my grinning silent admirer, Mr BPJG.  Had I thought him cute?  I really couldn't remember much beyond the sly glances and that final grin.  No, he couldn't have my digits.  Really, he couldn't.

I forgot all about him.  I almost forgot all about him.  OK, I sometimes wondered if I'd made a mistake.  It wasn't like I had admirers queued up at the door, and dating in your forties was more of a challenge than I could mostly handle.  But if I'd made a mistake it was just another one in a long, long line.  So?

Four months or so passed.  I was back in Tractor Supply again. It was a hot day, it was a Friday.  Looking in Lawns & Gardens for fertiliser and a new hose cart.  Looking, looking, and then looking up.  At a shopping cart stopped dead centre of the aisle.  At a stupid grin above it.  At those eyes which had watched me so intently.

He came towards me, opened his mouth, and I waited for sound to emerge.  And waited.  The look sinking from joyful to crestfallen.

"Still shy?" I asked.  He nodded, still dumb.  "Still REALLY want my... digits?"

"You read it?"  My turn to nod.  The puppy looked happy again.  "I can speak, really, it's just..."

He'd made me laugh and that was enough.  

"I'm nearly done in here."  I looked at his empty cart.  We looked.

"Err... I'm done too."  I couldn't help my quizzical expression.  "I don't come in to buy.  I've been coming most Fridays since, you know...  Sometimes weekends."

"For me?"  He looked into the emptiness of his basket.  "Just to say thanks for getting your buddy's car going maybe?  Or do haunt this place for the atmosphere?"

"No, no, it's just that you wouldn't go from my head and I wanted to see you and I knew the ad was a long shot but maybe coming here I'd see you again and even if I didn't it helped me keep your face in my head and I always thought that maybe there was a chance and sometimes i didn't and..."  He stopped himself, somehow, eyes lit up and shining, body waiting.

"Sounds like I just gave another jump start.  Always good to know i can still do it.  Think it's time to head for the register?"  I smiled.  I smiled a smile that let him smile back, that turned Mr BPJG into Mr Mine.

We don't go to Tractor Supply much.  But when we do we get two carts.  And one of them stays empty

Footnote :  The relevant Craiglist ad, from the Dallas listings, went as follows -

"Tractor Supply Friday (Stephensville)'    I wish i wasnt so shy . cause i REALLY want your number!! Maybe fate will let you see this !! You gave my friend a jump start ... So can i have them please?! Your digits?!"

Day 19 - Great Minds

 GREAT MINDS

Prompt - Great Minds : Write about someone you admire and you though to have had a beautiful mind.

Until a few years ago if you'd said the name Hedy Lamarr to me I'd have vaguely recalled a beautiful Hollywood actress of black and white days, and a running gag in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles.  Then I listened to the opening track of Findlay Napier's excellent album, VIP : Very Interesting Persons.  The title is 'Hedy Lamarr', the melody memorable, the lyrics simple.  

"You know your place, You're just another pretty face."

"Every time the lights shine down, you disappear"

"If only they'd seen beyond that silver screen."

The sleeve notes hint at the person behind the image, saying she invented the process which became Bluetooth and WiFi.  Clearly there was much, much more to Ms Lamarr than my scanty knowledge even hinted at.  So I did a bit of reading, watched a documentary, and felt sad for the frustrations she must have suffered in her life.

Lamarr, originally Hedwig Kiesler from Vienna, was once touted as the most beautiful woman in the world, a big name Hollywood star who never really got the roles her thespian talents deserved.  She achieved a major success as Delilah to Victor Mature's Sampson in 1949, but was mostly typecast as the femme fatale because of her East European accent and astonishing beauty (and her refusal to have sex with the powerful men who dominated the industry).  As the Napier lyric says, "too beautiful".

Bored with the limited demands acting made on her, she frequently turned to inventing.  Early in World War 2 she and composer George Antheil came up with a radio guidance technology for naval torpedoes that would be impossible for the enemy to jam.  But it wasn't adopted, partly because the  insular military was guilty of not-invented-here syndrome, partly because a (mere) woman was involved in it's origins.   Their invention would eventually be adopted in the fifties, and became the basis for the aforementioned protocols we all use now in our everyday lives.  She and George were finally, posthumously, inducted into the national Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.

There is so much more to the remarkable Lamarr's life, but those frustrations I mentioned must have a huge influence on the way she saw the world.  Would such a major talent have had greater recognition in today's world?  Hollywood is still misogynistic at times, as the #MeToo revelations have shown, but has still seen huge improvements since the forties and fifties where the stars were so much more closely controlled by the studios.  It isn't hard to imagine Lamarr becoming a much bigger name, and a director, in the twenty first century.  And that the intellectual resources and access to collaborators the internet can provide would have seen her practical imagination and inventiveness able to thrive.  A modern Hedy could find it easier to overcome those frustrations.

Lamarr is largely remembered as a beautiful face, a beautiful body, a beautiful woman.  Findlay and others are doing their bit to have her best known for having a beautiful mind.

Day 18 - Cleaning

 CLEANING 

Prompt - Cleaning :  Hey, even writers and creative artists have to do housework sometimes.  Write about doing laundry, dishes, and other cleaning activities.

Still slightly breathless from the excitements of the ninety minutes just ended, she closed the door behind the departed Malcolm and thought through operation clean-up.  She thought through which rooms he'd been in, what he'd touched and handled (mostly her...), which traces of his tumultuous presence might need to be removed.  He'd come into the hall, straight through to the kitchen where he had wine, swiftly up to the spare room where he had her, and briefly into the bathroom for his own tidy up.  She decided to work back from where he'd last been.

In the bathroom there was nothing she could see.  He'd put the toilet lid down (good boy!), but she quickly checked for splashes on the seat itself, and that he'd flushed.  No mess around the sink or on the mirror, nothing looked to have been moved.  One more check in the mirror.  Was she herself passable?  She nipped through to the en suite, brushed her hair, tidied her makeup, enough but not too much, and decided her clothes were just as they should be.

She moved on to the room where they'd had sex.  And stood dreamily in the doorway for several minutes, reliving the passion and gymnastics that had taken place.  No, she must get on.  The sheets were predictably stained, but once covered up and the bed made there was nothing to see.  She hoovered the pillows for hairs as a precaution, but there really didn't seem to be anything that would be easy to spot.  Henry never came in here anyway.  May and Doug were coming to stay in a couple of weeks and she'd use that as an excuse to refresh the bedding before their arrival.   All was well in the bedroom.

Back down to the kitchen and the most obvious giveaway that she'd had 'company'.  Two wine glasses, and a half finished bottle of reisling.  And a decision to make.  Did she wash both glasses, dispose of the bottle (or hide it? - no, she didn't want her husband thinking his wife was an alcoholic)and hope Henry didn't notice a bottle had gone missing?  Risky.  Or wash just one, and offer Henry a glass as soon as he got in?  She'd rarely got to the point of drinking in the afternoon in the past, so why would she have done so today?  This was a question she'd pondered before, and still wasn't sure which option to go with.  It would be hard to convince henry that she'd had a legitimate visitor she'd plied with alcohol, so there had to be a reason for her to open the bottle herself.  She'd already dropped any idea which might be undone by somebody else failing to back up her story, so it had to be about her.  Or Henry.  Or because she was cooking something special that merited wine? - except that she had omelettes planned for dinner.  In the end the best story was the one that was impossible to prove wrong.  She'd simply felt like it.  And why not?

One glass washed and dried and put away, another, for Henry, brought out and ready to use beside her own dirty glass.  She worried it might give him 'ideas', but that was such an infrequent event nowadays, or why else would she have turned to Malcolm.  Another look around the kitchen, but there was nothing to worry about.  Mission accomplished.

Henry came in a usual and called out her name.  She came into the hall as usual and came up to give him a hug.  But before she did they both saw it at the same time.  Bright blue, snaked across the top of the console table.  She stopped, he spoke.

"Hello, where's this from?"  He picked up the tie and looked quizzically at her.  She hoped she looked composed, she hoped she looked innocent, she hoped and hoped and her brain raced to provide an explanation.

"I found it beside the gate when I got back in.  Do you think I should have left it hung up there in case the owner passed by again?  I thought it was a strange thing to lose."  And stopped herself grinning at the memory of pulling it off her lover the moment he came through the door.

"Must have fallen out a pocket or something.  I doubt he'd know where to look.  Nice tie, I might just keep that for myself."  He gave her  a smile of acquisition. 

"OK.  Come and have a glass of wine.  I've already started." she said slyly.  And thought 'I've gotten clean away with it'.

Day 17 - Dictionary definition

 DICTIONARY DEFINITION

Prompt - Dictionary definition : Open up a dictionary to a random word.  Define what that word means to you.

PAPRIKA

Paprika is such a useful spice, one I've been using in cooking for all my adult life, but the word itself brings up three main associations for me.

The first goes way back to my childhood.  My mum got a herb and spice rack for the kitchen, something she clearly regarded as a sign of her modernity and progressive thinking (and perhaps her aspirations), a cooking aid the previous generation would never have thought of having.  At least not in working class households.  One of the spices in the rack was, of course, paprika.  I forget what dishes she used it for, it wasn't a commonly used ingredient, but I do remember that she also used the word to describe peppers.  Or called them 'paprika peppers'.  Now it's true that paprika spice comes from dried peppers, albeit not from the same varieties we commonly find in our supermarkets, but I have no idea where she got the idea that the word could be used for the vegetable as well as the spice (you know, the one that was clearly marked PAPRIKA in her prized spice rack).  

But then my second paprika-related recollection also features an abuse of the language.  In the eighties I frequently cooked a dish that included liver, tomatoes, peppers and paprika in the list of ingredients.  It was one of my specialities - probably because liver was so cheap and in the early eighties I was so broke.  I always called it liver goulash.  Why?  I don't recall it being based on any actual goulash recipe.  But I knew that goulash had meat and it had paprika and that was good enough for me to be pretentious.  You might be able to guess who I got that trait from.

And back to the present.  There are four varieties of paprika sitting in my spice cupboard, but only one of them has become a magic ingredient.  Doesn't everyone have a few magic ingredients in their cupboard, the ones you always turn to when something you're making requires that extra bit of oomph?  Smoked paprika falls into that category for me, a spice of magical properties that gets thrown into so many dishes.  Yesterday it was a rich vegetable casserole - onion, garlic, carrot, parsnip, kale, pepper, butternut squash in a tomato sauce and topped with thinly sliced potato.  And flavoured with a generous spoonful of smoked paprika.  

It finds its way into soups, frittatas, risottos, sauces, fish dishes, anywhere I think that smokiness might bring something different.  It's a delight to experiment with, like sprinkling it on haddock pan fried in butter.  

A random word from a dictionary, but one that has played a bigger role in my life that I'd have realised without this prompt.

Footnote : I struggled to find a dictionary on the shelves, having thrown out a vast number of them, and other word-related volumes like Roget, as part of the downsizing exercise when we moved north and the recognition that I'd always go online for what I needed.  But I had kept one, so that shows some prescience!

Day 16 - Addict

 ADDICTION

Prompt - Addiction : Everyone's addicted to something in some shape or form.  What are the things you can't go without?

Addiction is a terrible affliction.  In most cases it'll harm the addict themselves, sometimes even ending their life prematurely, and can often cause huge problems for the people around them, or even to complete strangers.  Clinical addiction is a disease that needs to be treated.

So when we say there's something we "can't do without" we don't usually refer to the kind of chemical dependency that addiction covers.  We mean things that feel as if they make our lives better in some way, be it exercise or chocolate, and there are times when those will become almost obsessive, compulsions we can't shake off without feeling as if we've given up.  Over the past year of lockdowns and a life devoid of much in the way of social interaction I've found that having a few obsessions has been not just benign, but beneficial.  So here's four of mine that have made my pandemic life a little bit better, helping to maintain my physical health, mental health, emotional health, and... whatever.

Firstly, with most of our entertainment now online, it would be easy to slip into full on couch potato mode and allow my fitness to decline.  I, like so many people nowadays, wear a step counter on my wrist, set to a target of eleven thousand steps each day.  It would be simple to accept that, with all the guidance telling me to stay at home and there not being anywhere to go anyway, I should accept that not hitting that target every day is inevitable.  I was forced to when  we were ill and had to self isolate.  But once I was able to get out again, and my fitness gradually came back, I soon regained the habit of wanting to hit my target.  Every day.  With the good weather we had in Spring and Summer it was easy to get back into it, less so in recent months.  

But I kept going because it's become an obsession.  Each day adds to the streak, and as that grows so does my determination to extend it to 365 consecutive days.  There are days when it becomes more chore than challenge, when it's cold and wet and there's not even a reason to go to the shop.  But I've kept it going, even if it means the hall carpet gets a battering some days, and that few days ago I only hit the magic 11k figure about 23.45.  Obsession does that. 

My other must-do daily target is writing 750 words into the fittingly named website 750words.com.  That's something I've now done for over 1100 days in a row.  But with so little in my life for the past nine months it was also becoming a chore.  So I've upped the stakes.  I found a list of 365 (there's that number again) writing prompts, giving a basic subject from which to create a story or poem or description or, well, whatever you feel like writing.  I started on the first of January and already it's become an action I MUST undertake.  Each night I look at the next day's subject and start thinking about it.  Each day I am forced to think creatively, so use bits of my brain that might otherwise lie dormant.  The resulting prose and verse has been, shall we say, of inconsistent quality (OK, I mean a lot of it's shite...), but in this case it really is the taking part that's more important than the winning.  

My emotional life is doing just fine, has perhaps even benefited from so much time at home, as Barbara and I have been reminded that, really, we do quite like each other.  But you can't get everything you need from one person, so it's good I have this wee face in my life.

My daily life needs time with Zoe.  Be it as a playmate, a lapcat or a solid lump on my stomach in bed, Zoetime is another must-have.

Which leaves the whatever.  A bit of sweetness.  Most nights, before I go up and brush my teeth, a spoonful (or so...) of chocolate spread seems to find it's way from jar to mouth.  It's like I'm not involved in the process.   

Compulsion, obsession, Pavlovian habit, call it what you will, but it's what helps keep me fit and happy.  What do you do?

Day 15 - Eavesdropper

 EAVESDROPPER

Prompt - Eavesdropper : Create a poem, short story, or journal entry about a conversation you've overheard.

Culture clash.  You can hear it on a bus, in the supermarket, in the street.  It can sometimes have serious aftereffects, set people off on wrong pathways, but it can also be very funny, both for those taking part, and, perhaps more so, for those listening in.  The latter may come away totally confused, having only heard a snippet of the conversation, the words strung along the soundwaves shorn of all context in which their meaning lies.

""It's the supermarkets, see?  They go for big breasts.  Like fellers. - Did you see that woman on Big Brother." said an English accent.

"Who is big brother?" said a Polish accent.

And so it begins.  

"Don't you know Big Brother?  What do they have on telly where you come from?  It's where they lock 'em all up together in a house and you can watch 'em."

"Chickens?"

You know where this is going...

English accent man doesn't twig."Yeah, yeah, just like chickens.  I like that.  And there's this voice telling 'em like what they've got to do.  And they're not supposed to have sex, but one of 'em did - that one with the big, like, knockers I was telling you about."

"Big like knocker?"

Yeah, massive."

And then they're gone.  You wonder how long it will be for one of them to realise that if they're both talking about birds they're not from the same species?  Or did Mr Polish accent leave thinking there was a TV programme where you could watch chickens being ordered about, but forbidden sex?  And then where would the eggs come from?  Big Brother never thought of that.

Footnote : In these lockdown times I keep away from people so overhearing is almost impossible.  I have used a short piece of dialogue from Marina Lewycka's Two Caravans, where the two participants quickly end up at cross purposes.

Day 14 - The Found Poem

 THE FOUND POEM

Prompt - The Found Poem : Read a book and circle some words on a page.  Use those words to craft a poem.

When the snow starts, 

My body won't be there

You'll miss the warmth you need from me

When I have gone elsewhere

I suppose not, you said, 

I have solid warm clothes,

I'm from the north, we understand cold 

I do know how it goes

You heard my words

But you didn't hear me

And saying what I wanted to say?

It's not who I can be

When the snow starts,

My body won't be there

Is it just the warmth of me you'll miss,

When I have gone elsewhere?

 

Footnote -  The original words are from Nicolas Freeling's Valparaiso :

"When the snow starts, my body won't be there to provide warmth."

It jarred on him; nothing had been further from his thoughts

"No, I suppose not.  I have plenty of solid warm clothes.  I thought about it carefully.  And I am from the north, you know.  We understand cold, there."

Day 13 - The Letter

 THE LETTER

Prompt : Write a poem or story using words from a famous letter or inspired by a letter someone sent you.

CLEAN-CUT HEROES

The clean-cut heroes made it easy for us then

Black and brown, fasces and swastika

Swagger on parade, dirty work out in plain sight

We saw them coming, saw their dark souls

Knew to weigh anchor and sail for safer shores

They still stand in plain sight.

They still hate, still scape the handiest of goats,  

In softer voices now, in pastel shades and gaudy rags

Cherry chinos and mustard cords

By way of Zuckerman's Home for Inglorious Patriotism

Fight or flee, the choice is still there

Force the clean-cut to reveal snarling fangs

Drag the black and brown from behind their suited bluster

Shine the light on the creeps beneath the stone

Their heroism is paper thin

Footnote :  Inspired by a letter Albert Einstein wrote to his friend and colleague Paul Habicht in 1935.  He described the timeliness of his leaving Nazi Germany in 1933 with the line "I weighed anchor just at the right moment from there, so that I at least didn’t get to feel the claws of the clean-cut heroes in my back".

Day 12 - Greeting

 GREETING

Prompt - Greeting : Write a story or poem that starts with the word "hello" or other greeting.

"Hello" she said, in a voice tinged with exasperation and defeat.  

I looked at her cautiously, checking that it really was me she was addressing, surprised that it might be.  And wouldn't we all, in these socially distanced times?  I gave her my friendliest "Who - me?" expression.

"Can you tell me how to find Iona Street please?"  

"Of course.  It's been a long time since anyone asked me anything like that.  In fact it's been a long time since I talked to a stranger.  Weird times, eh?"

She nodded.  "People have either avoided me or been so quick giving their instructions that I soon lost track of what they were telling me."

"You've done OK then, you're not far off now."  And I gave her the information she needed, checked she was confident with where she was going now, and said I hoped she'd be careful of the icy patches.  As if she didn't know that already, but the novelty of a street conversation made me overly verbose.  I watched her head off down the hill, and turned back to my own short journey.

Smiling.  I was smiling.  I'd talked to someone somewhere other than home, or in a shop, or through a screen.  The rarity of the exchange added value, transforming it into one of the high points of my samey day, my samey week.  I cope just fine with lockdown, but sometimes there were poignant reminders of what we are missing out on.

2020 will be remembered as much for what didn't happen as what did.  The Festival City left festivalless, the tourist sights left sightless, the jam packed streets unstuck.  My passing stranger had reminded of how many times each summer I would be asked for directions, or might offer them to those looking lost or bewildered.  Such a small part of life, but one that brought contact with people from around the planet and a sense of being of use.  Sometimes it takes the trivial to remind us of the all encompassing nature of the changes we are living through.

Day 11 - Dragon

 DRAGON

Prompt - Dragon : Envision a dragon.  Do you battle the dragon?  Or is the dragon friendly?

I still miss the good old days, when I was truly useful.  When they needed me.  But I'm useful once more, perhaps not as much as was once the case, but it's good to feel those centuries of isolation coming to an end.

Once upon a time they couldn't have managed without me.  I'd watched so many creatures change over time, hoping one or another would develop the brainpower that would appreciate the possibilities of what I had to offer.  It was never clear it would come from the monkeys, until they shed much of their hair, learned to walk on two legs, and developed the ability to grip and wield.  They were my chosen ones.

Fire was something they feared, one more uncontrollable element in a terrifying world, a wall of heat and destruction that swept across woodland and grassland and left a black smoking wilderness, with the black smoking bodies of those who could not escape.  I thought about how I could introduce them to the magic, without the fear, and awaited my opportunities.

A wandering group of these early humans, hungry, cold, night falling.  In a dip in the ground I swept some wood together, breathed upon it gently, and created a warming fire.  In the clearing I scattered more wood, and left a small antelope nearby.  Gentle hints.  The band approached, warily, scouting out threats, assessing the situation, and found that the warmth and light made them feel better, and kept away predators.  They let the fire die down.

It would a take a few goes before someone thought to try putting more wood on the pile, to keep the flames going longer.  That made them more adventurous and some tried building their own piles of wood, but they never lit.  Some tried warming the meat of the antelope (or whatever I'd found convenient nearby), and recognised the improvement in taste.  Unable to recreate the fire elsewhere, they settled in the spot they'd found, kept it going and this became home.  Some understood they could take burning wood in their hands and use them to take light elsewhere, and then to set another fire going.  But if it rained...

I still hadn't shown myself, but observed from high in the sky, far enough that they would mistake me for a great bird.  Revealing myself for what I am would require much thought if they were not to be terrified.  Eventually i chose a grouping that had settled by the sea, when their fires had all been put out by the weather.  I landed as softly as my beating wings allowed.  There was fear in their eyes, but I kept some distance, dropped the wood I had carried with me into a neat pile, and, checking their wary eyes were still on me, gently breathed my magic upon it.  I stepped well back.  They stepped forward, cautious, fearful of a trap.  One stuck his stick into the flames, drew it out ablaze, and rushed back to start relighting their own dark pyres.

This had happened several times, and I had gained their reluctant trust, but they remained cautious.   Who would not be, seeing my size and majesty and powers?  A dragon is not a sight humans ever become fully accustomed to.  The time was right for the next stage in their fire education.  When the fires were out once more (although they had steadily developed ways of  preventing this from happening too often) I returned.  Instead of setting a fire I dropped rock on rock to create sparks.  They looked bewildered.  I did it again.  And again.  One of the sparks dropped into some sticks and grass which was briefly alight.  And the spark lit up in one head.  A man rushed to get some rocks and banged them together next to a pile of wood.  No luck.  Another added grass.  And they created their own fire.  I flew up, hovered above, and could see that they knew now.  I was their friend, not their master.  

More groups received the same lessons.  The news spread, of how to create and master fire, of the uses it could be put to, and that the dragon, if you ever saw it, was a friend of man.  I did not want worship, just the knowledge that I had helped.  

All was well between us, my legend strong, my reputation untarnished.  Until the incident.  One man who changed it all, and changed it for the worse.  His story spread, the dragon became an evil one in the minds of humans, and my usefulness ended.  I hid myself away in these mountains, kept my distance.  But let me tell you what really happened.

I discovered a young woman in trouble.  Lost, far from home, at the mercy of the beasts of the hillside forest, hungry and tired and very, very frightened.  When she saw me she knew who I was and that I would be her friend, although she lacked the power of speech.  She let me pick her up, and, holding her warmly in my softened jaws, fly her back towards the nearest humans.  I spotted one on a horse, and thought he might be the one to help, and carry her back to safety.  A strange creature though, in metal clothing that made him look like a poorly constructed shiny scarecrow, with a bright red cross on the board he had strapped to one arm.  

I put her down before him, and stepped away.  The distressed woman looked at me gratefully, and at him expectantly.  He looked on grimly, angrily, with reason deserting his face.  Which he hid as his face covering snapped shut, he pressed his horse to charge forward, and he came at me with his puny stick.  I could have, perhaps should, roasted him then.  But I bore no ill will towards the horse, not did I want to frighten she I had so recently rescued.  So I ascended, and hovered above the scene, immune to his idiocy.  He shouted insults, called me coward and claimed what he called victory.  I stopped myself from laughing.  Chuckling too often results in unexpected busts of flamey breath, and I didn't want the situation to get worse.

He turned back to the woman, now on her feet.  Instead of alighting to check on her condition, he didn't even stop, just bent down to grab her clumsily and heave her painfully across his saddle.  Administering a couple of smacks to her buttocks, he spurred his charger on and went off into the woods.  I thought to follow, to check on her safety, but, shamefully I admit, my vanity had been rattled, my pride roused, and I flew off in the other direction.  The arrogant, ungrateful boor was best left alone, I thought.  Wrongly.

My next appearances before humans were greeted with fear and loathing and aggression.  I even had to singe a couple for my own safety.  What had changed?  It was my friend the unicorn who told me enough to piece together the story.  The tin man had returned to his people with a fantastical tale about how he had rescued the poor maiden from the evil dragon, her bruises and the clear evidence of despoilment being shown as evidence against me.  He was a persuasive orator, a man who could spin lies and deceit into a credible Farago, and the word of my supposed wrongdoing spread rapidly.  This despicable creature built up such myths about himself that he became the hero of a people, their knight in shining armour.  What sort of folk choose a bullying and uncaring falsifier as their icon?

But that was then.  The bully is still seen as a hero by many of the descendents of those imperious fools, and they have brought much havoc to the world of humans, but their neighbours see through them, and accord myself, and my unicorn friend, our due credit.  And now, in these hills and valleys, I still light upon people who are lost and tired and hungry and fearful, and I light them a fire and guide them to shelter.  They are grateful, but will not tell the story when they return to their families, for fear of ridicule.  I prefer it that way.  I am a myth, a legend, and a friend of man.  But not of the tin men.

Day 10 - Friendship

 FRIENDSHIP

Prompt - Friendship : Write about being friends with someone

To paraphrase Harper Lee, you can choose your friends but you don't get to choose your family.   A broad, but necessarily simplistic, truth.  If the 'family' is referring to blood relatives then it's truer still, but even then it's possible to disassociate from those relatives, either consciously or by accident.  I have eighteen first cousins.  Several I have never met, a couple I don't think I ever even knew the names of (there were two who were always referred to as 'the twins'), and I haven't seen or heard form, or of, a single one of them in more than thirty five years.  Not wholly by choice, although I've no regrets that it's turned out that way.

So family to me means my wife (and cat!).  She also happens to be my best friend, and we choose to be with one another.  Her own blood family are people I know, but none of them have become (what I would define as) friends of mine, simply acquaintances.  Although I did make friends with my brother in law during my first marriage, but when my wife's sister left him we were never in touch again.  I didn't choose that outcome. 

So it's true that you can at least try to choose your friends, but circumstances might turn out to be against you.  Before I moved down south, at the end of the seventies, my best friend was a guy I'd worked with for a while.  We had a lot of interests in common, especially musically and watching rugby, and had a lot of good times.  When I moved away we kept in touch, he came to my wedding, which was nearly six years after I'd left, so we didn't do a bad job of staying in touch.  But married life led to fewer trips north, and those I made were shorter than previously and generally given over to spending time with my parents.  The links to my friend faded away, as they did to most of the people I'd once known in Edinburgh, as they tend to do as the years pass and we change as people.

Move on thirty years and I'm once again living in my home city, and didn't know many people here.  Were there old friends I could look up?  What about my one-time best mate?  Fortunately he has an unusual surname.  I quickly tracked down his mother, but she was no longer fully in control of her faculties and had difficulty in taking a message from me.  A bit more online digging eventually turned him up, living in Peebles, and one of the luminaries of the Peebles Festival, where he gave origami demonstrations and tuition (which should have been the clue I needed to see I was dealing with a different person from the one I'd known well all those decades ago...).

I went to see him, accosting him at the end of the paper folding session he'd been doing in a village hall.  He looked much the same as I remembered, apart from there being a lot more of him than there once was.  It took a few moments for it to dawn on him who I was, with no context to work from, but once it sank in he was all smiles and hugs and genuine pleasure at our reunion.  We went off and had cake and talk and catchup and I had a photo taken of the pair of us together.  Numbers exchanged, promises made that he'd be in touch the next time he was up in the city.  

But it never happened.  And he never responded once to the several messages I left.  What happened?  I've no idea.  I hope he's well, I hope he's happy.  I wish we could have still been friends.  It's what I would choose.  But two choices are needed to make that work, and it seems that, on reflection, his was that he didn't need me in his life.  Oh well.  

You can choose your friends, but only if they choose you back.

Day 9 - Animals

 ANIMALS

Prompt - Animals : Choose an animal, write about it

I demand routine, I demand difference.  But more routine than difference.  If I've not been shut out, and it's abundantly clear that NOW is breakfast time, I'll go and see him.  She never wakens, or pretends she doesn't, so I gave up on that a long time ago.  But he can be made to respond.  I walk over him a bit, then settle down for while, give him time to come to and take the hint.  If he starts stroking me I at least know he's awake.  But he usually needs a bit more prompting to come round to my way of thinking.  

Rise up, stretch, stomp a bit, paw the duvet cover a bit.  That can sometimes be enough.  If not it's time for more extreme measures.  Walk up the bed, close in to his dopy head, and circle the pillow.  Be loud.  Having a drink from his bedside glass of water is a useful tactic, he doesn't seem to like that much so it's almost guaranteed a reaction.  Almost.  If all that has failed, and there's no sign of a foot sliding to the floor, I have to go nuclear and start flicking the blinds.  He'll shout my name, I'll do what I do best and ignore him, and only when there's a clear sign of him becoming vertical will I jump down.  And look at him.  Cutely.   He loves a bit of cute.  Stupid man.

If I'd been shut out for earlier misdemeanors I have to be patient.  I can do patient if needs be.  But he needs to know just how much he's inconveniencing me, so I'm there as the door opens, I'm vocal, and he better be waking up quick because I won't let him get down those stairs without a bit of furry obstacle avoidance.  (Although that's a tactic to be used sparingly, because I don't want him falling down stupidly and injuring himself - who'd feed me then?)

So he slops down my breakfast.  I really like the flavour of that stuff he adds for my teeth, and they work well with those tablets he splits up over whatever mush I've got going for me today.  And then, with breakfast out of the way, it's time for the first big decision of the day.  Where to sleep?  In the middle of the upstairs hallway is a good one, it's fun being half aware that they are always having to step round or over me.  And other days I like the darkness and solitude of that strange wardrobe, curled up beside the big box.  Even if one of them opens the door they hardly ever notice me.  I can hear them searching sometimes, and I think good thoughts.

Getting up time is around four.  I might have moved somewhere else for a bit of variety, a gentle stretch, but now it's time to warm up for the next beg event of our day.  Stretch and stretch, strut about a bit, and seek out the humans, remind them that their sacred duty is due to be served soon.  If I'm being ignored I have ways.  My favourite is when he's at this desk, looking at whatever nonsense comes off the big panel of light.  It's much better for him to be looking at me, but he doesn't always seem to realise that.  Stupid man.  

They might know when it's time, but be forgetful.  So it's as well I'm there to remind them, to tell them exactly what they should be doing, and get that empty saucer up and replaced with something new, fresh, tempting.  And gone in seconds.  What would be the point in waiting?

And suddenly it's time once again to think where to sleep for the next few hours.  All this decision making is tiring, so I make for somewhere really comfy.  A discarded hoodie is a good one, with a familiar smell and residual warmth already in place.  Why does he never see the wisdom of my choice?  Stupid man.

How long I'll stay there depends on how tiring the day has been so far, and if I think they deserve my company.  They used to have strange people appear, some noisy and rude, others who gave me the appreciation I deserved, but that was long ago now.  If they've been good I'll go down, circle for a bit, make sure I'm noticed (properly noticed) and choose a lap that looks like it needs me.  Lucky people.  On a good night she has a bit of wool out, and moving, for me to play with.  Kind of her.  He never does anything like that.

And then it's time for the holy trinity to be realised.  Supper.  I love the crunchy bits he adds then, to round out yet another full day of catting.  Time for a sleep.  Somewhere close to where they lay down, so I have the option of somebody warm if needed, and not far to go if he's not yet realised what time it is.  And so the cycle begins again, for without me how would he manage?  Stupid man.

Day 8 - Dream-catcher

 DREAM-CATCHER

Prompt - Dream-catcher : Write something inspired by a recent dream you had

Where are we?  Why are we here?  How did this happen to us?

I looked out of the window.  The sky was a deep, deep blue, a universal blue, a cloudless azure, throwing down a penetrating light from an unfamiliar sun.  It lit upon a sparkling green sea and radiating silver sands that were blinding to look upon.  To my left I could see the shoreline curve round and tall palms and dense vegetation pushing down towards the beach.  I recognised none of it.

Then there was the room.  It was my bedroom.  Had been my bedroom.  It was the way my bedroom had been until I was eleven.  Bunk beds, matching wardrobe and dressing table, a cupboard for toys and books.  Faded yellow wallpaper, compete with damage repairs from my early years, the navy blue carpet that was the only element I knew from my present.  But that room was in a terraced house, my outlook one of narrow back gardens, sheds, the back doors of the semis in the parallel road, and near perpetually grey skies.  It couldn't be here.

Bewildered, I left the room, through the plain single door that should no longer be there, and moved to my right.  The geography fitted, the timeline held together.  It was my parents' bedroom, as it had been.  The furniture, the wallpaper, the fifties ambience all fitted in with the appearance of what I had to think of as 'my' room.

And there stood my parents.  Younger versions of those my teenage self was familiar with, but with looks as confused, and even more fearful, than that I'd adopted.  Dumbstruck by what they saw, when they saw me all they could do was point me to the view they'd been looking out on.  Same sky and baking heat.  Same sandy beach leading up to the dense greenery beyond.  No hint of a garden or tarmacked road or Mrs Simpson's place at number 33.  But there were people.  In keeping with the climatic conditions they appeared to be African, all men, all clad in little more than loin cloths, probably from the southern half of the continent.  They also appeared to be very angry, chanting en masse an undecipherable, but unmistakably aggressive song of war.  And brandishing a fearsome array of finely sharpened weaponry.  

We looked at each other.  We looked at the vocal group before us.  And we looked around the room, even more bewildered to see that a rack of early nineteenth century muskets had shown up on the wall above a bed that was now shrinking.  To fight or not to fight?  To dream or not to dream?  We would never know.

Footnote : This wasn't a recent dream, I can't recall any from the past few months.  But it was one I had when about thirteen or fourteen, and remains the most vivid of my whole life.  I can still see the white stars on the old red wallpaper of the front bedroom, and the bloodthirst looking assembly on the beach.  I can still recall the fear and total lack of understanding.  Maybe it's as well I can recall no more...

Day 7 - The Rocket-ship

 THE ROCKET-SHIP

Prompt - The Rocket-ship : Write about a rocket-ship on its way to the moon or a distant galaxy, far, far away.

Eighteen hundred and fifty days.  Just over five years.  Not that 'days'  or 'years' held any meaning now.  It was the numbers that mattered, not the units.  Eighteen fifty activated the first decision window.  Her decision.

There had been four of them to begin with.  Alexei had been first to go.  'Day' nine hundred.  A routine check and maintenance walk.  Every ninety 'days' they took it in turn, but this one refused to be routine.  The stickiness of the airlock door should have alerted them, but omens don't belong in space.  And anyway, it wasn't the door that did the damage.  The odds on what happened happening must have been billions to one against.  Space debris.  In deep space.  Hitting the exact spot where their colleague was checking the secondary comms array.  Had been checking.   He was long gone before any of them could even react to the images on their screens.  Long gone.  As was their ability to talk to each other.  

The accident which took Lungowe was even more bizarre.  But when everything in their little world was routine it was hard to stick to procedures.  She should have been wearing a full heat suit in the core room, but it was only going to be five 'minutes', wasn't it.  But.  Always but.  But it wasn't five minutes, and as she battled to renew one of the lower hydroponic circuits the time stretched out.  They called to her to leave, thrice, but each time it was "nearly there".  But nearly wasn't as close as it should have been.  By the time they got to her it was already too late.  One of them should have been near at hand of course, but...

That had been 'day' fifteen hundred and eight two.  Two hundred and sixty eight 'days' ago.  What would once have been about nine months.  Whatever they were.  She and Paul said little now.  It was all about waiting, and performing what had to be performed.  The contingency routine allowed for half crew, no less, so they got by.  She got by, for Paul did what he had to do, no more, and avoided any other responsibility.

So the decision was hers now.  They were around a hundred and twenty 'days' flight time from taking up orbit around their destination.  There were two hundred and eighty other human beings on board, in cryogenics stasis.  There were guidelines on how quickly they could be reactivated, and reintegrated, returned, refreshed.  They would have to be revived in batches, the size and frequency to be determined by the views and experiences of the transit crew.  Which, now, really just meant her.

She'd been pondering it for days.  With Paul's personality gone AWOL it would be down to her to perform the orientation procedures.  She didn't think she could cope with more than three at first.  She needed a leader, someone who would relieve her of the burden of command.  A technician to take on a share of the maintenance workload.  And - this was the tricky one.  She'd have liked  the wellbeing specialist, who had always been intended to be in the first batch, to help the four work through the impact of half a decade in intergalactical transit.  She needed her.  But.  Always but.  Paul needed proper psychiatric care.  Maybe she did too.  Maybe?  Huh!  The decision was made.

She punched in the codes.  The beginning of the end had begun.

Day 6 - Eye contact

 EYE CONTACT

Prompt - Eye Contact : Write about two people seeing each other for the first time.

I'd been walking around for almost four hours already.  Covered all the rooms of the convention hall, earmarked stalls for later deep exploration, and gone about my mission as boldly as I could, searching for 'the one'.   There had been nods of recognition, brief exchanges of conversation, deceptive appearances too many to relate.  Every time I thought I'd found 'him' there was always some detail he hadn't got just right - the stance, the angle of the head or the cold arrogance of the persona lacked perfection, this element or that element jarred or simply pissed me off.  Dozens upon dozens trying to be 'him', but lacking commitment.  I'd gone to way too much trouble, spent too much of my life in mastering my role, to accept any hint of second best.

But I wasn't about to give up, and my scan continued to take in any and every imposter in this constellation of the good, the bad and the ugly.  Many impressed me with their devotion to the cause, their personal need to realise the truth of the stars, that made us all feel a part of this journey into the unknown.  Their faith and belief  kept me going in my quest.  I'd not yet reached the point of thinking "I cannae take it any more".

And then I saw him.  'Him'.  This was a man for the minutiae.  A man who'd mastered his character, who inhabited that half alien being.  I could see him sucking in my appearance, the rightness of my uniform and hair, sardonic confidence I projected.  Our eyes met, the final step in our mutual appraisals, and we had the same thought.

He was Spock, I was Kirk, and that's all either needed to know. 

Day 5 - Food

 FOOD

Prompt - Food : What's for breakfast?  Dinner?  Lunch?

"What'll we have for dinner?"

It's a recurring theme, an itch that won't be scratched, the annoying child that won't go away.  Almost every day one of us will ask it.  Knowing that neither has any immediate answer.  After decades of the same question arising, why are we still so bad at providing a confident response?

And then there's the "What did we used to eat?" approach, another phrase that makes me yawn with recognition.  It's true that there were a lot of dishes that rely on that no longer hit our table, since we gave up on eating most forms of meat.  But that's not much of a restriction, is it?  There are always vegetarian versions of old favourites, and fish is still very much on the menu.  There are cookery books in the kitchen bookcase, and a near infinite number of recipes available online.  We could easily eat something different every single day of the year.  So why is it so hard?

Inertia?  Laziness?  Lack of imagination?  A reluctance to make a choice that the other might disagree with?  Yes, yes, yes and yes.  Sometimes it's easy to go with the most basic of options - egg and chips; fish fingers and chips; pasta with a basic tomato sauce.  Of course there are nights when it feels like easy is best, for neither has the urge to spend much time doing the physical cooking bit of the daily chore.  

Yet I do, most of the time, enjoy cooking.  As a creative outlet, as a way of giving some focus to the transition for daytime to evening, as a validation of my culinary skills.  And to provide for my wife something I hope she'll appreciate.  There's love going into the chopping of veg and seasoning of a sauce.  Choices sometimes offer themselves up based on what's left over in the fridge, what needs to be used up if it's not to be wasted, or because a clear vision is there in one of our minds.  But too often it's a long drawn out slog to reach the decision, despite our constant promises to ourselves to plan ahead.

Contrast this potage of evening uncertainty with the simplicity of the morning.  There is variety, but only within a limited scope.  True, there's the very odd occasion when a cooked breakfast seems like a good idea, or for exotic (!) additions like croissants, but mostly the main components of breakfast are wholly predictable.

A bowl of freshly prepared fruit.  And something cereal based.  An Actimel drink.  With a glass of fruit juice to complete the ensemble.

The fruit will change all the time, depending on what's in season, what looked best, what's on offer.  There will almost certainly we some kind of berries (black, blue, rasp or strawb), or perhaps some cherries.  A few grapes.  Something citrus, most likely a satsuma but grapefruit is an occasional variation.  And two or three other items from a long list of possibilities - pear, apple, mango, plum, apricot, kiwi, nectarine and others that have slipped my mind.  Add some chopped ginger and it is frequently the taste high spot of the day.

The cereal, for me, switches between a heavily oat-based homemade muesli mix, and porridge (with salt of course - I am a Scotsman from the fifties).  Filling, sustaining, tasty.  

And it's that simple.  But adopt the same approach to the evening meal and it sounds boring.  Why is that?

Day 4 - Dancing

 DANCING

Prompt - Dancing : Who's dancing and why are they tapping those toes?

As soon as I opened the door I knew what day it was.  Not just Tuesday, but Stairsday.  Not just Stairsday, but Inasday.  So not only would all our stairs and landings get the best, most thorough, dowsing and sudsing and mopping they'd get for the next ten weeks, but we could savour the floor show as well. Until Inasday returned again.

There were the sounds that were common to every Stairsday.  A metallic drag of the bucket, the dripping wheeze of the mop being squeezed dry and the slosh as it landed on stone fully water replenished, the swish of mop on step, the grunt of carrying the bucket up each flight.  And then there were the sounds unique to Inasday.  A blast of tinny sound from the shouldn't-even-be working-anymore cassette player, the confidently off-key soprano accompaniment from the mop wielder, and the rhythmic clatter of shoes on well worn walkways.

Ina was (probably, maybe) somewhere in her seventies.  Ina was a dancer.  Ina had probably always been a dancer.  Not a pro, not even a gifted amateur, just a compulsive, joyful, foot shuffler and tapper.  I sat on the top step, knowing I had to get on and get out, knowing I wouldn't move until Ina was in sight, so I could partake in the pleasures of her dance and experience the vicarious joy she spread.  Knowing I'd get told off for walking across her freshly swabbed surfaces, knowing she'd playfully threaten me with the mop at first, but then grab my arms and birl me round to share in her rapture.  I listened to Davy Jones and Ina duet on Daydream Believer, I felt my toes unable to resist joining in, and I knew today would be a good day.  An Inasday.

Day 3 - The Vessel

 THE VESSEL

Prompt - The Vessel : Write about a ship or other vehicle that can take you somewhere different from where you are now.

2020, the year of limited horizons.  It began with short trips away, to Dublin and London and Glasgow, with plans bubbling for hotter climes, and overnight stays in other cities and towns in my own country, and day outings of modest explorations.  The lockdown came and plans melted into memories as the viral restrictions shrunk the world, made home the safest place to be.  

So those thoughts of buses and trains and planes became walks, and more walks.  Around parks and graveyards and the same old familiar, increasingly familiar, streets.  It wasn't Edinburgh that was my home now, it was North Edinburgh, it was Leith and Newhaven and maybe, pushing the boundaries a bit, Meadowbank.  The two kilometres into the city centre is now a serious journey, to be savoured for the unusual sights it offers.  And the very thought of the Southside... even Liberton and Morningside and Corstorphine take on an alien allure when they become no-go areas.   While a trip to the time-bending, energy-sapping planet of IKEA was to enter a place of danger and wonder. 

So I find myself wondering, when the restrictions begin to lift and the world around me becomes a pin cushion of potential destinations, where will I want to go?  What transport will lead me to a fresh new view that reignites imagination?  It's both the curse and the advantage of the year gone by that my answer should be so prosaic.  My aims have got lower, but my appreciation of the simple things, and of places that have gone from everyday to unattainable, has risen.  Which means the journey I most look forward to making is on the train that leaves Waverley heading west, past Linlithgow and Falkirk and the bleakness of Harthill and through the East End high rises to deposit me in my Weegie destination.

I was there in February, so it will be more than a year between visits.  What was then a confusing building site is now the finished article.  The photos suggest a space of light and air and architectural grandeur.  Which feels like a fitting beginning to a nascent desire to reclaim life put on hold.

Less than an hour in a Scotrail carriage and I will find my place to be in 2021.   Queen Street Station.  We have to start, and end, somewhere.