Happy Christmas everyone

Our Christmas Hearth

Yesterday we went to Rae and Malcolm's for mince pies, and now it is Christmas Eve. Edwin and Andre are here to share Christmas and prepare for my grand 80th birthday bash. A large number have said they will come, so we hope the weather holds out. If the snow returns, we may be limited to a few local people. Christmas is upon us, meaning more work for Ann and not much change for me, now I am mostly retired. We have a large box of fruit in the kitchen, and Ann has been so busy she watered the pineapple. As always, the hearth and its warmth take the centre of the room, and Ann has decorated it in beautiful simplicity. It is surely no coincidence that the hearth contains the heart. Christmas shopping this week, Edwin was next to a young couple with a pile of wrapping paper in their trolley when an older man walked past. "Oh," he said, "are you only just doing it? I have a wife and four children and a full-time job, but I got all my presents wrapped a week ago!" 

I always welcome the winter solstice with its hope for longer days and a promise of regrowth. We have passed the turning of the year, and "as the day lengthens so the cold strengthens," as my mother used to say. We must hope we don't get the weather they're experiencing in the US, or our boiler will never cope, even without an energy crisis. It has been quite a year, with three primeministers, a change of monarch, a major European war, and a cost-of-living crisis, all additional to the passing of sentence of execution in my own case. 

I have been watching His Dark Materials, the third part of which is now being broadcast by the BBC. Many have criticised it as blasphemous, but I interepret it as only anti-organised religion. I have always thought it a gross arrogance to presume that any one religious doctrine is the absolute truth and all others are a lie. No one person, surely, can have no more than a glimpse of the unknown. So many glimpses give us a hint of a shadow of truth, but the whole truth is hidden. I attempted to explore it in my book, Girders in the Sand, suggesting that there is a reality beyond that of which we are conscious, His Dark Materials chimes with this, Suggesting as it does that organised religion seeks to control the minds of its adherents, yet beyond it is a deeper truth, wherein there is a mysterious connection between living beings and the universe that created us. It is a book of great depth and thought-provoking subtlety.

A gay wedding

 On Friday, Ann and I were in Middlesbrough for the event of the year - the marriage of Mike and Ryan. The wedding was scheduled for 11:30 in the registry office. We arrived at 11:00, where we gathered on the steep steps to the old Victorian  Town Hall. 

Mike and Ryan with Theo

Ben and Luke

 The two special men were dressed in matching suits and very smart. They and the two fathers were taken into the registrars room where a gentle, patient woman guided us through the brief requirements for the ceremony and verified that all names were correct for the register. Ryan and his father went first to wait before the table, then I walked Mike down the aisle; the first time I have had such a special privilege and I was honoured to be asked. Each father was asked in turn if we were happy to support the wedding, answering "I do"; we then sat as the ceremony proceeded. It was a moving event, with great commitment from Mike and Ryan. The registrar asked if anyone present knew any reason why the marriage should not go ahead, at which point Mike turned to look at us all and said, "if any of youse lot says anything, I'll kill yer!" making everyone laugh. Then little Theo, dressed to match the two men, shyly brought up the ring box with the two rings inside for each to wear. 

Ann and I at the wedding

The two men at the reception

The wedding meal was limited to the immediate families, but as each groom was one of five siblings, this was still a large number. Ann and I sat next to Mike and opposite Ryan's parents. To our surprise and an emotional delight, they gave us each a book marked "John" and "Annie", carefully put together by Ryan with some of our poetry illustrated with appropriate images. We were moved to tears at such consideration.

The reception was held in a large venue in Middlesbrough, so large indeed that Ann and I wandered into someone else's reception, and Richard and Chris went into a 50th birthday party upstairs. Mike and Ryan's venue was quite special: tastefully decorated with a dance stage backed by a "Mr and Mr" silver sign. The disco was loud, the food plentiful, and the cake huge. We had returned to the hotel after the meal where I fell asleep, so we were a little late and missed the cake cutting, but not the eating thereof. Almost our whole family was present, including my two brothers, Richard and Peter, and Peter's daughter Laita, whom we hadn't seen for many years. There is so much hatred, bigotry, prejudice and oppression in this world, it was truly wonderful to see so much support for this wedding, where even old traditionalists could see two people committing to each other in love, and celebrate their happiness.

Ann and Chris

With brothers Richard and Peter

Lucy with Lucia and Mateo

Rosie and Matthew

The next day, we dropped Ann to see her sister, Jane, while I slipped down to Middlesbrough to see Arwen and Nye, the grandchildren we had missed on the day. Then, a tiring drive home down the long A1 to two mad dogs thrilled to have us back. Altogether, it was a fantastic day and worth the great effort of getting there. We wish them both well in their commitment to a life together.

Cataract consternation

I have had my cataract for years. It has been my constant, blurry companion, forcing me to squint or close my right eye to look critically at anything, including traffic where the confusing blur of the bad eye distorted an assessment of any oncoming danger. For years, too, ophthalmologists have opined that it "would need dealing with" in the future. Finally, that future arrived, and I agreed to be listed for surgery. To blot out the terror, my mind went numb to the oncoming onslaught, refusing to think of it or discuss it. Ann has had cataract repairs in both eyes, but in vain were her protestations that "you don't feel a thing", and "you'll be glad you had it done". I know how fearful she was of anything to do with her eyes, yet she bravely went through the procedures with no sign of distress. Well good for her! I am not of such metal. 

The cutting was booked for Ipswich, and Edwin volunteered to drive me to the place of torture, as I huddled tense in the car, making guttural one syllable responses at his gently attempted distractions. The receptionist welcomed me in, her smile concealing a malicious, pitying, knowing look that I know must be being their kind exterior. They had a large television on the wall, playing a video of coral fish in a profusion of colour endlessly swimming round their reef to distract us. If I were such a fish, I would have forgotten why I was there, and could also flap around aimlessly and carefree. Instead, I wondered if I had made a grave mistake, and perhaps the cataract was something I could live with. I should call Edwin back and tell him the clinic had overbooked, or a surgeon hadn't turned up, and I had to go home. But I gritted my teeth and numbed my mind, to be led like the lamb to the pre-op room where they filled my eyes with many drops, perhaps hoping to freeze my brain along with the eye.

Finally, I was taken through to the operating theatre. The surgeon was fully gowned and gloved as if about to do major heart surgery, such is the danger of infection. They lay me on the couch, and I wondered if I ought to just admit I'd changed my mind. They brought a bright light into focus, and the surgeon told me to keep looking at it. Ann had said that I wouldn't see anything but the light, but she was wrong - round the periphery of the light I could see silhouetted the bulk of the surgeon wielding his scalpel as he approached. I am not a brave man, and even as he began slicing I thought of telling him I wanted to leave, but instead I gritted my teeth and clasped my hands tightly as he cut deeper, and the light became a blurred vague pattern. He kept telling me to just look at the light, but every time he touched the eye, the light jerked from side to side. There was the soft sound of a muted dentist's drill as he did unspeakable things, constantly calling for "more irrigation", as water seemed to cascade constantly into my eye socket. Suddenly, the light seemed to grow sharper again as I guessed he put in place the plastic lens. I don't know what else he did, but eventually, after the longest ten minutes of my life, he said it was all done and had gone well. 

My God. What a nervous jelly I was. I shook as I stood up, and was led from the room to "recovery", a quiet chair with a cup of sweet coffee. I was even offered a biscuit, but was too shaky to take one. At last, I was back in the car with Edwin. He lent me a pair of sunglasses to protect from the glare of the late, low winter sun, but I didn't open my eyes for the whole of the journey home, glad to be able to keep them closed and rested after their ordeal. 

The most striking effect from the resulting visual correction came that evening when I watched  football replays on television. Suddenly, I saw a vivid effect whereby the bright red jerseys of the players moving across the green grass was thrown into stark three-dimensional relief. I know from my basic physics that this effect, called chromostereopsis, is caused because red light with the longest wavelength is refracted less than the shorter green and blue wavelengths. Even when physically only existing in 2-D on a flat TV screen, red images are therefore displaced on the retina relative to green ones, giving the illusion of 3-D. My poor cataract-stricken right eye had never allowed me to see this effect before, but now it is stunning!

A welcome visit, and a disappointing repair

We celebrate a delightful lunch

 A delightful weekend with Ben and Kaz, with a great evening drinking and putting the world to rights. They not only stayed with us, but cooked for us - even buying the food on the way over. We had a delicious full Sunday lunch with all the trimmings, including home-grown carrots and parsnips in honey and orange. Absolutely delicious, and wonderful to see Ann able to rest for once while someone else does all the work. The dogs, normally given only dry food, were salivating with excitement as they sniffed something they hadn't realised existed in their little world - the smell of roasting beef!

Edwin and Andre finally returned from Brazil after a wonderful holiday, only to come back to cold, dark rain, a baggage handlers strike at Heathrow, the Heathrow Express stopped, and full cancellation of the Kings Cross to Cambridge service. When finally through customs at Heathrow, they had to take an Uber to Liverpool Street and pick up the slow stopping service to finally reach Cambridge and rescue their car. To crown it all, Andre was ill and vomiting and now has confirmed Covid, so we won't be seeing him for a while.

I now know how useful en-suite bathrooms are. Our bathroom basin has been leaking since the plumber repaired it. Yesterday, I plucked up courage to tackle the job and succeeded in removing the basin, to find it had small cracks in the base. We therefore decided it was time for a new one, so I was in Sudbury this morning traipsing round every plumbers' suppliers looking for a new bowl. Most didn't have anything at all, but even those that did have some on display said it would be five to seven days for delivery. My final visit was to Plumbers City, which again was negative, but next door to Wine City. I was more successful there, coming out with a box of assorted white wines to cheer us up. Finally, we have found a bowl on Amazon which promises next day delivery, so hopefully only one more night of having to traipse down the hall in the middle of the night.

Celebrating Abdul

Abdul reaches the final!

One of Andre's good friend and workmate, Abdul, has reached the final of Bake Off. It is not a program we normally watch, but we have watched this series faithfully in tribute to Abdul, and this week he got through the semi-final to reach the last test. The contestants are each allowed to invite a number of family and friends to the final, and I know Andre and Edwin went down to the marquees in Berkshire this summer to watch it with Abdul's partner. They all had to sign NDAs and had their phones confiscated, and they have both been faithful in refusing to drop any hints about how Abdul got on. They will still be in Brazil next week, so won't be able to watch the final, nor catch any glimpse of themselves in the crowd of supporters, but we will watch it. The semi-finalists feature on the cover of Radio Times this week, so we will buy a copy for them to keep.

Our son Dan paid a flying visit yesterday, on his way back to Yorkshire. We went into Clare for lunch at the Swan, before he headed for home, but coming out of the Swan, the road was blocked for about twenty minutes while the meat wagon unloaded carcasses for the butcher's shop. Dan said he'd come all the way up from London without getting into a single traffic jam, until he hit Clare.

I often wonder why non-scientists have such difficulty with basic concepts. I get a copy of Artnet news in my email each week, generally filled with new artists' work, or interesting stories. This week had an article titled  “The World’s Oldest Map of the Stars” by Sarah Cascone. There have long been rumours that Hipparchus, the inventor of trigonometry and greatest overall astronomer of antiquity, had drawn one of the first star maps, but it has been lost to antiquity. Now a new document has been found in the Vatican Library that is a palimpsest, i.e a parchment on which old writing has been erased and overwritten. A clever student researcher has discovered that the original scratched out writing was probably a copy of Hipparchus's star chart, thus confirming its existence. This is a fantastic discovery, and well worth writing up in an arts newscast. However, Hipparchus's other great discovery was the precession of the earth’s axis. Precession is the slight wobble we see on anything that is spinning round, such as a gyroscope's wobble. Sarah Cascone repeatedly called it "procession", as if the earth and the other planets were marching round the sun like a coronation parade. By studying Egyptian historical records, Hipparchus found that the appearance of Sirius in spring had grown two weeks later every 1,0000 years, until it no longer coincided with the flooding of the Nile. He then correctly predicted the earth's precession every 26,000 years. It is even mentioned in poetry:

Canto IV

   Though no one man could dare compute the course of heaven,

   Yet some there were who puzzled at the wayward signs:

   Slight noted shifts within the ordered span of lights;

   While agile planet wanderers would errant run,

   Charted by watchful men through scores of centuries.

   Egyptian goddess Isis named bright Sirius,

   Whose dawn approach foretold the rising, fertile Nile:

   Yet even she would lag two weeks each thousand years,

   Until too tardy to predict a flooding land.

   This long, through dynasties of Pharaohs, did it take

   To chart numerous regressions in the mystic seven,

And note a perturbation in the spin of heaven.

 from Girders in the Sand

Another minor infringement is in The Importance of Being Interested: Adventures in Scientific Curiosity, a wonderful book I am reading by Robin Ince. Even he mixes his units in one place, quoting the speed of light as 300,000 kilobits per sec, instead of kilometres per sec. Perhaps he thinks light travels through a computer at the speed of information.

My dreams lately are very vivid and disturbing. Ann says I no longer snore, but have started shouting out in my sleep, which disturbs her even worse. The first night, I dreamt of being chased and attacked by a great bear; the second night, I was swimming desperately with a huge crocodile beside me; the third night it was an oversized serpent, looking more like the Basilisk, baring its fangs at me. Then I dreamt I was attempting to tackle some rough terrain in something like a camper van. It required two people to pull the tarpaulin over the frame to create something of a shelter, but I was struggling to do the job alone and failing badly. 

A call from Cassandra

The Addams Family: Hand in the woods

The dogs fail to comprehend the concept of summertime and winter time. They had been fed regularly at 8:00 am and 5:30 pm throughout the summer. Now they insistently nudge me to be fed at 7 am and 4:30 pm. I am gradually extending the wait time, now at 7:30 and five but they give me such a pathetic look as they wait, as if to say, "why are you starving us?"

We visited the boys' house today to water the plants, so I could walk the dogs in a lovely, wooded walk behind their house. Although a town, Bury-St-Edmunds has more and better walks than our village - but that isn't difficult, as Hundon doesn't seem to have much of anything. 

Four times the appointment for my cataract operation has been changed. The first time was because it would’ve been late in the afternoon when I came out and Ann has difficulty driving in the dark, so I changed it for a morning appointment at 8:30 am. They then phoned to say it had been booked in error as that day was a training day that hadn’t been put into the diary. I chose another date, but we then realised this coincided with Mike and Ryan's wedding plans, so they gave me yet another date. Now they have phoned with a cancellation, and as it stands, I will have my cataract done on 25th November. Hopefully this will be in good time to have healed in time for the wedding on the 1st of December.

A Threatening Theo

Ann has tested negative for Covid! She is still off-colour but feeling a little bit better. Meanwhile, Halloween has passed us by, but it was celebrated in the North, where Lucy sent this lovely picture of Theo scaring all the neighbours!

Today, the consultant oncologist phoned for my telephone appointment. She is very blunt and told me directly that they were going to discharge me from the oncology department as there is nothing more to do for me. She said they wouldn't arrange any more scans, as it was a waste of resources and I now require terminal care. She explained that I will go through a period of tiredness, loss of appetite and weight loss, but if anything else happens to me where I need medical care, I must contact St Nicholas Hospice. Oh thanks, Cassandra; but like that harbinger of doom, I find it hard to believe, as I feel reasonably fit at the moment. But following the doom-monger's gloomy prognosis, Ann and I went for a drink at The Globe, a fine old pub already filled with regulars, with a roaring fire in the grate, a huge selection of whiskies, and a wonderful ambience of rural Suffolk.  

Our boys in Brazil

Sao Paulo celebrations

The boys landed in Brazil on the day of the presidential election, and last night they were out celebrating with the masses. São Paulo, where they are staying for a couple of nights, is home to the new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who visited the street party after winning. Yet for all the gaiety, music and fine food, Brazil is on the list of the world's most dangerous countries. Unlike many poor countries in Africa and the Middle East, it is a wealthy country, but suffers from the usual problem of inequitable wealth distribution through corruption, greed and mismanagement, so such a degree that many citizens are in poverty and turn to crime. Naturally, the ones with the wealth are the big company bosses who are reluctant to share it, so da Silva may have difficulty wresting it from them, despite his socialist ideals. In Brazil, as in Britain though to a lesser degree, entrenched self-interest backed by 'the establishment' have many ways to hide money and avoid taxes and responsibilities.

Edwin is arranging a grand, costumed, 80th birthday party for me in December. Already we have 39 people who've agreed to come, so it promises to be a grand do. Costumes are optional, but there is a wide theme, with anything from the past eight decades. Making the most of the warm sun and my improving strength, today I delivered two more invites while walking the dogs locally. At home, Ann remains ill, clammy and with a poor appetite. Additionally, she has anosmia. Loss of the sense of smell is a profound loss, yet is unremarked compared to other sensory losses. It renders food tasteless and limits our guard against noxious substances. At a social level, Ann can't smell if she has perfume on, or if the room needs airing or the dogs are causing a problem. We just hope it is a reversible side effect of this Covid.