This was a much better beginning to the weekend than the last four
where’s the paper?
because this week The Times finally found somebody who could read the numerals above my door on a Saturday, so the paid for paper was delivered. Since the flu, I have not walked up the road to get the paper because I couldn’t face getting there and not getting it – distribution problems of long standing in small shops.
I am wary of addiction, physical or psychological, but if I have an addiction, it is to print. I prefer a newspaper. I won’t bore you with how I chose one except to say that my choices rarely mean open and shut, and mostly new ideas and more thought.
So a neighbour steamrollered
me into buying via subscription – he had to because the online transaction began with non-acceptance of my email. At that point, I would have given up. AJ worked round it. The paper was paid for and began to arrive at the house which was a pleasure. Except for Saturday – and for the ensuing four Saturdays.
Reporting it so I could have credit to my account led to everything from “the driver’s off” to “I don’t know.” I stayed patient (mostly) though when Cheerful Chappie said “you could always buy a copy”, I hauled off and explained that if that were reliably possible, I wouldn’t be going through this dance – and why.
However, the run of can’t/don’t/shan’t/won’t is dented and that let in light as from a brighter sky. Everybody I know likes spring
except me. I respect it and try not to anticipate it. Though I do try too not to walk around looking like a deathshead – kind of damned if I do/damned if I don’t – having been told long ago, that when I smiled, it was like a hungry tiger.
But yesterday I saw a new dog whose outline was familiar even to my fading eyes. And I greeted it with respectful affection – till I saw it was attached to John who said he would never have another after Tiny a rose gold mastiff cross died. “But this is Shelby.” And like some pit pulls, she has green eyes
and her wits about her. I spoke to her gently, lowered my face and she licked my cheek.
A couple of weeks ago (only noticeable for height and colouring) a young black man beamed at me as I was walking in the opposite direction and I said smiling, as I often do – “I like the smile – keep it !” Not to reject but to say “persist.” He came up beside me a couple of weeks later, as I walked slowly home carrying the duvet I was lent for Christmas and said “Let me carry that, you’re having trouble with it” and did. His name is Timothy, he is from Zambia. We parted at the corner, he asking “Are you sure you can manage ?” While I assured him I could, and must, and he had really helped.
While on Friday night, end of a busy week by his own witness, AJ knocked at the door to see if I was all right. And I counted my blessings
all over again.
A new routine means I wake on “spring time” ie 6.30 and take a cup of coffee and the paper back to bed for half an hour (small decadence). And that’s where I read the interview with Sam Fender
from North Shields (thank you Jonathan Dean of the Sunday Times) and Sam Fender has a way with words and apparently songs.
You can’t fault the story behind an album called Crumbling Empire (how a driver in Detroit described the city). Or a line on Amy Winehouse and the music industry “they love her now/they bled her then.” And with savage accuracy “… I’ve noticed that my drug addict friends who are posh go into rehab but my mates with issues from up there (where he’s from) just die.”
And this, from a new song, which made my morning ”People are going to hate you, whether you’re a saint. sinner, giver or a taker/but a big old heart is all that it’s worth.”
Annalog 