2007 — 19 December: Wednesday's question
On a card given to me by Cathy last night: How many blogs would a weblog blog if a weblog could blog blogs? Good one, isn't it?
Late starter
A late hot bath is obviously good for what ails me. I only got out of bed at 09:20 or so, and I've spent the two hours since composing one of the most difficult notes I've written for a very long time. It is now whizzing down to my sister-in-law on the other side of the planet. It says some things that can only be said now that Christa is dead, but is merely Mounce dysfunctional family business, so let's move on! And getting some brunch, I suppose, would be the more appropriate move now (it's already nearly 11:30).
I have another layer of ice to scrape off the car and then a couple of cards to deliver that will exercise the sat nav, albeit only within a one-mile radius. Isn't it strange how you can live in a place for 26 years and hardly know some parts of it? My own cards this year are going to be a bit late, but they will at least be hand-crafted and personal.
My main co-pilot of yore has just sent me one of those wonderful (but surely apocryphal?) stories about an RAF Tornado's missile system engaging with a traffic cop's radar gun. Good stuff!
New Feynman quote
Any day with one of those is slightly more precious than the average, surely:
Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.
I do love to be beside the seaside... department
It's now just after 14:00 and, as I've just said in a note to a good friend: Being a freshly-minted widower at Christmas totally sucks, but at least the sun is shining at the moment. And I can drive around... I think I'll head out to see the sea for a few minutes And — why not? — take a sprinkling of Christa's ashes with me to share this little adventure. I hope my reader won't think that too bizarre! On my return, I think I shall treat myself to the newly-arrived DVD of Stardust — Christa fully understands my feelings about Michelle Pfeiffer! But I have to wait for Dusty and "The look of love" to finish playing and the tea to cool before I set off...
Didn't quite make it this time... department
When I looked at the map on my dinky little Garmin sat nav I decided on a change of tack. I've done the Bournemouth journey very many times (though, I admit, never as the driver). I still intend to step out to the end of the pier with a sprinkle of Christa-dust but not today. Instead, I swung by what's going to be the venue for an evening meal on New Year's Day in Verwood — as an unexpected bonus, I've been lent a copy of Gibran's The Prophet which I shall read and return. I was a bit startled to see that the section on "Marriage" is amazingly similar in sentiment to the Rilke quotes I unearthed a few days ago:
But let there be spaces in your togetherness. And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love...
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Then I found this: And ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation. He got that right!