H'Ash Browns

Why do they keep coming to the door when I am mid nap?
Obviously they clutch some kind of Star Trek scanning device to scour flats and houses for people who are in deep slumber (or what I like to term ‘research’.) They ring the bell again and again knowing that the person shambling towards the door is going to be at their most vulnerable, confused and potentially apathetic having been woken up from a deep unconscious and only wanting to return to the warmth of their beds. Like pirates they rely on the element of surprise giving them the edge and pounce with pens poking from their fingertips, clipboards activated, eyes narrowed in case of defensive manoeuvring.

‘Ah. Hello. May I ask if we can count on your vote? ‘

Me, with matted hair, smeared make up and creases from the pillow still on my cheek just dribbling and nodding.

‘Absolutely.’

Each time.

I think I’ve agreed to vote for the main three now and possibly the Greens. I might have signed up for the residents association, a local dairy delivery and Sky TV too...I forget..

Only the Labour canvasser had the audacity to try and get me to actually tick a box and take a poster, gently leaning forward and trying to insert it between my inanimate fingers. She touched me. A crucial mistake. I began to wake up.
‘Eh?’ I burbled. ‘Wha...? ‘
She saw I was rousing from my semi conscious and fled.

But then again there have been more pressing things then listening to insipid white men in ties on TV. My nephew whom we cherish because he is lovely and smart but also, if we are honest, mostly because he is very, very tall (and for us in the family under 5’ 4 ‘’ this is a truly marvellous thing.. we are genetically programmed to worship anyone over 6 ‘ 2’’ as a minor deity); anyway my nephew has been trying to get back from Lusaka for days. He went to visit my Dad for a couple of weeks over Easter and started back on Thursday. He got as far as Nairobi before ‘Iceland’s Revenge’ struck with a sky full of pumice ash and then had to improvise Cairo, Istanbul Rome...where he got stuck looking for space on a train. He has run out of phone battery, is low on dosh and not quite sure what and where to go next. There is a plan afoot for my Mum’s partner Silent John to go and pick him up from the Italian border.... its all sounds very exciting but possibly more than a little harrowing Hopefully he’ll be back afore my next post!

The sun came out at the weekend and immediately everyone got drunk. Kids went berserk on bikes and skateboards, roller-skates, and scooters. Exhausted parents clutching bottles of wine hunkered down on pavements to watch. Pub gardens overflowed with woozy adults, shoulder straps slipping off, t-shirts discarded, sunlight blindingly reflecting off fish-white skin.
Grace and I walked down by the river. Since her illness she has become quite shy and defensive with other dogs. She desperately wants to play and will whine and yelp and start a nervous approach before losing her nerve and jogging back to me looking embarrassed. I had met up for a quick shandy with a pal (I am keeping my toxicity levels as low as possible as the mo) but my friend on her second pint of Leff (an extremely strong wheat beer) got leery. As Grace edged towards a handsome retriever attached to a man and his two young daughters she started howling what she thought would be encouragement.
‘Go get ‘em Grace! Grrr!! Yeah Grace! Take ‘em down!’

This as you may guess is rather against the ‘guide dog code’.

‘Shut Up!’ I hissed furiously noting that the man was standing between Grace and his children with his hands spread out in a protective gesture and Grace was tearing towards him wagging her tail and thinking his outstretched arms were for her. In the end all was fine and Grace and the retriever went for a leisurely lollop and we got home before we were arrested.

I am staying in Cambridge this week ensuring that Grace rests and has fully charged mojo before we begin trekking back and forth to Bath again. I am missing my seminar group but the manuscript is slowing coming along and I have found my Tonga researcher who has accepted payment in Arsenal T-shirts! This is wonderful as my main character is a Tonga child from Monze who has found herself on the streets of Lusaka.
With thanks to her and in light of current events I thought these might tickle you

For the politicians out there: ‘Basokwe bakasekana bukolo’ ( equivalent to the pot called the kettle black but translates literally into 'The monkeys laughed at each other's backsides')

An for the voters: ‘Sibuzya takolwi bowa’ (one who asks never got poisoned by mushrooms - as in, you need to ask questions/directions and you won't ever get lost)

Thank you Beene! And thank you readers. How are you all doing out there under the ash cloud? Do let me know.

Doggedly Trying

Last week I was utterly useless. Utterly. Useless. I sat in front of the computer and couldn’t even find the impetus to fill in my status bar on Facebook. It was something to do with the cold and sleet and the constant audio backdrop of radio news from Haiti; the sound of so much terror and pain.

After sitting like someone drugged I would get up and make coffee or walk in circles or stare with exasperation at the huge pile of filing growing exponentially next to my desk. Sometimes I even went outsdie and stood around glumly in the garden or cleaned the kitchen but writing wise I remained loggerheaded.

On Thursday, to try a new tactic, I went out with my brilliant buddy L and got totally smashed. I vaguely remember loudly debating positive psychology versus religion, the probabilities of meeting either a soul mate or a lunatic by on-line dating, buying double rounds of Dalwhinny whiskey on my debit card and talking in Zambian pigeon English to the poor taxi driver on the way home.

‘Kukamba Chinyanja my brother? I kept asking.
‘I’m from bloody Bangladesh,’ he kept telling me looking over his shoulder for support from my equally wasted buddy L who was gesticulating wildly in the back seat in a rant about small change.

The hangover on Friday was monstrous but that didn’t help kick start my writing again either. So much for Fitzgerald / Hunter Thompson School of Creative Writing.

Today thank goodness the rusty cogs started creakily turning but it is still like trying to squeeze the last of the hand cream out of a tube when your hands are already slippery.

Grace, having been banned from the park for an entire month due to her five weeks of near continuous free-running whilst on holiday, (guide dog trainers rules..not mine I promise) is not helping. Every few minutes she brings over a stinky soft toy and sticks it on my lap with eyes huge and solemn, in an effort to get me to play with her. A pile of half gnawed rubber rings, fluffy elephants, teddy bears and rope pulls has built up next to the filing. When I don’t respond she stands at the door and whimpers to be let out. Five minutes later she whimpers to be let in. The door to the garden is next to my desk and every time I open the door the temperature drops by several degrees forcing me to get up AGAIN and find extra socks, shawls, jumpers etc which sets off the cycle of coffee, washing up...
I end up barking at her (in a strange role reversal), ‘Not NOW I am TRYING to WORK!’

So today she is lying in her bed with eyes rolling, sighing dramatically and looking forlorn. All together now..’Its a dog’s life..!’

Attaining Grace

‘How many times have you been shat on by a bird?’ My friend M is gingerly swiping the top of his head with his hand. Its only water dripping from the overhead pub awning but still he looks across at me, his eyes darkening.

‘Well, how many?’ He is insistent and I note his fist is clenched.

Startled I shake my head. ‘Errr …nefariously onceI think. Splashed in passing. ‘

‘Yes yes,’ M leans forward. ‘That’s the usual response.’
His breath comes out in a hiss. ‘And how many times do you think I have been shat on..? ‘

‘Err …’

‘Eighteen!’ He blurts out wildly.

‘What!!’

‘Eighteen times! ‘

‘But… surely that’s not possible…. ?’
Image from internet

He slumps back on the bench, his handsome face pale, his terrible secret out. ‘Once it even happened twice…. in the same day.’

I gasp. That’s less the odds on a lightning strike!

We sit silently for a moment sucking on warm beer. I glance, with a phoney casual pretend flicking of my hair, at the sky over his head. Its empty but I still feel we are being watched.

Could it be the same bird every time? I am imagining some serious starling vendetta or a love-sick tern but he tells me that it started way back when he was a child and a bird managed to spatter him through the open roof of a car. (That takes some serious co-ordination and aim.) Ever since then he has been regularly ‘blessed’. Its even been caught on camera, on film.

Birds poo on this man.

‘Its lucky.’ I am trying to be up beat. He sighs. I think he has heard that one before.
‘Good thing pigs can’t fly..’ I think.

M has taken me out to this London pub after a long day’s photographic workshop and he is actually doing a very fine job of distracting me from my current state of emotional stir-fry as I have just made a decision that might completely change my already rather baffling life. I am going with the Guide Dog.

I met her on Tuesday. I went out to the car to greet her expecting the usual gorgeous, dewy-eyed beast and out lolloped a stocky, black and brown grinning mutt acutely resembling a small rottweiller.
I sat on the pavement and we bashed heads in greeting. The trainer, a stern woman with a skin tanned to leather, was all action and within seconds I took up the handle on the dog’s harness. The dog confused, looked around a couple of times for the trainer who insisted, in that ghastly British way, on calling herself the dog’s ‘mum’ as in; ‘ she’ll keep looking for her ‘mum’ so you will have to use your voice to push her forward.’ I do and the dog shrugs and we are off.

We walk the block passing interested neighbours and disinterested cats and the dog happily snuffles and galumphs and tail wags her way ahead of me. Later back at the flat she is splayed out on the floor and my feet. Her ears are soft and cool, dark brown. She snores.

Taking on a working dog is incredibly tough. There will be three weeks immersion training in a crumbling hotel in darkest fenland with visitors restricted and no access to a decent pub to start with. If I survive the training, then there will be six months adjusting to my local routes..except there isn’t time because I start my MA course in October. She will have to commute back and forth to Bath with me and sit under formica tables on nylon carpets bored out of her mind whilst I attend lectures and indulge in endless conversations about composition and structure.

She will need feeding, cleaning, pooper scooping, walking every day.

And she’s not a pet. She’s a working dog. I won’t be able to nip off for a few days. I won’t be able to stay in bed all Sundays. And I will have to think twice about all my plans for the rest of my life.

And my blindness will be ‘official’.
Bollocks.

Interestingly several people including M, are confused. ‘Do you really need a guide dog?’ they ask. ‘You seem to get around fine with chutzpah and cane. ‘

Then, ‘ Won’t you stop using your useful vision as you start relying on the dog?’

And I can’t answer either of those questions and I suppose all these things will become apparent during the training.

But I do know I need help and could certainly do with some animal magic and am immensely lucky to have been even given the chance to learn a new skill and find a new route through the world.

So I just say ‘lets do it.’

You will not find your mission by standing still. The way to find it is by challenging yourself in something – I would almost say it does not matter what. Then by making consistent effort, the direction you should take will open up before you quite naturally, just as wide new horizons before someone walking up a hill. Little by little you will come to understand your mission. That is why it is so important to have the courage to ask yourself what it is you should really be doing now, at this very moment.
Daisaku Ikeda; President of the Sokka Gakkai International
'Prayer Flags' (c) T. Bush
And by the way, the brown dog with the small, smiling, gold eyes, dodgy eyebrows and velvet ears is called Grace and I know I could always do with more of that!


'Saving Grace' (c) T. Bush '09

Blackbird in Blue

I am watching a juvenile blackbird. She is incredibly excited having recently discovered the concept of flying and launches herself at everything with huge enthusiasm but seems to have still a bit of a problem with depth perception. She doesn’t care though. She’s just kind of..well …‘plummeted’ from the roof, smacking into the top of the fence and whammed down onto the grass popping back up, yellow beak high, with a Russian gymnast’s flourish Ta daaa! . It’s bloody glorious!

It makes me feel better which is good as I am sore. At 8:30 this morning, I, a woman with a truly pathological fear of needles, find myself desperately trying to console a near hysterical Irish nurse called Maureen.

‘Its okay.’ I say soothingly. ‘ Really. I had a riding accident when I was nine. My veins are tricky on that arm… ‘Here you go..’.
I slowly and without making direct eye, in case she bolts like a lunatic horse, lower my right arm to within range of her glinting needles, twitching in her shaking hands. .

‘Here you are Maureen..how about this arm. There you go…’ I proffer my remaining arm hoping my relaxed and expansive attitude will stop her hyperventilating.

20 minutes later I am forced to suggest I lie down to stop myself from passing out. Strangely I am still relatively calm.

‘OK..got all you need now?’ I ask kindly not looking at the bruising spreading up to my armpits. ‘Please stop apologising..please. Your weeping is shaking the examination table. ‘

Seriously the worst blood lett..I mean ‘taking’ I have had in many years. She even managed to put the sticky plaster on the wrong parts of both elbows.. I didn’t even get a sodding lollipop. At home I had to lie down for 45 mins until I could raise my arms above my head again. Thank goodness I don’t earn a wage as a shot putter.

It’s nothing serious. I am still trying to figure out why I am always so knackered and am sure it is not just that my eyesight makes things ‘soooo’ much harder. I mean for Gawds sake! Other people cope with much more then this…and only a few years ago I was bloody running my own charity in Zambia..so come on! I am hopeful for a strange and exotic Zambian parasite feeding on my guts… or a strange brain fever. How about consumption? That’s relatively romantic. But NOT bloody ‘ tired eye syndrome’.. Hell!

Anyway..on the very up side , I have had a call about a potential guide dog. It is all very coy. I get to meet her (she’s a black and tan Retriever/Labrador bitch) in a couple of weeks with a chaperon on hand (for the dog…not me) and then make a decision if I want to carry on to the three week immersion training in August.
She will have to like me too- after all she is worth a hell of a lot more then I. Guide dogs are specially bred for smarts and wit and start training at 6 weeks old. They start professional guiding at 2 years old and have to have the best food and vet treatment until and during their retirement five years later. I on the other hand was a rubbish toddler,..well lets not even mention potty training..bad student, fail every mathematical test I’ve taken and spell sideways..plus I have dodgy medical treatment and self medicate with gin and tonic. I don’t have a pension.

The dog is younger then me better looking and probably has more friends on her Facebook page. Bitch. Yes. Quite.

My first thought was, would you believe… ‘Is it going to impact on my love life?’

Oh stop bloody laughing. I did ONCE have one..a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. It is still possible, I’ve seen ‘How Stella Got he Groove Back.’ I’ve seen ‘Amalie’..more appropriately I’ve seen all the ‘Shrek’s’ and all the ‘Aliens’. However pitching up led by a Guide Dog..?
Relatives – especially those still gunning for grandchildren - say ‘Oh Tanvi, the right man will look PAST the dog.’
Yeah right.
Us ‘disableds’ (to coin a Zambian expression of note) know that that right man doesn’t exist. Many blokes (sorry..he/she or transgendered) are going to be put off by
1. a fear that others will see them as ‘lesser’ for going out with a ‘lesser’ person or even see it as a way of getting other women (men/ transgendered) by being seen as ‘compassionate’. (I’m not being daft here.. Sadly I talk from direct experience) ,
2. a fear that they might have to keep plucking the ‘disabled person’ from burning buildings, traffic accidents, exploding toilets blah blah.
3. or worse want to rescue us from our own cynical angst. Me? Cynical angst? C’est moi mojo n’est pas?
4. or ..and unfortunately (and yes I know I haven’t had much luck with blokes –) be rather too interested in the dog.

'Noir' (c) T. Bush (all other images from internet)

But strangely and out of the blue I still want to be open for the possibility. It’s partly the weather: concrete-cracking heat, humidity at 60% and storms like tiny, black smoke signals gathering on the horizon. Its also in part the fact that I have absolutely no idea what might happen next in my life. I am totally free falling. And i love the feeling and I bloody love storms! And that’s the problem. Stormy heat and a completely unreadable future does up my level of erotic greediness and that addictive and bizarre compulsion for romance. Call it the 'Year of Living Dangerously' syndrome.

Oh - the lovely 'Lemonade Award' from marvellous Val from Monkeys On the Roof.. I need to nominate ten blogs with attitude and gratitude.

Therefore the following blogs are officially nominated:

Tinku Tales

Velo Gubbed Legs

Siren Voices

Epicblogue

Fleeing Muses

Fush and Chips

123 I Love You

Up The Hill Backwards

The Gold Puppy

The Times Of Miranda

I want to wish my blogger friend The Gold Puppy much much love and strength. And she of Times Of Miranda much joy with the new baby.

Dogging

Its summer and I know this not just because there is actually sunlight! Not only because everyone is out in vest tops even though there was a frost this morning. Not only because someone actually nodded a greeting at me but essentially because my neighbour opposite has begun to 'share' his music. He does this each summer placing his speakers carefully in his windows and pushing the dial up to G20 riot police mode. Luckily his taste is not as bad as the Status Quo fundi down the road or the ghastly fizzy popped mass produced puke flooding from most radios (At the moment it's Red Hot Chili Peppers; last summer it was endless Mark Ronsen remixes. )

Annoyingly it is still loud enough to overpower my TV even with all the windows and doors shut. There will be reaction. There is every year. Most of my neighbours have small children and after 9pm a lone voice will begin screaming at the neighbour's open window. Sooner or later there will be screaming back and then potentially - should he not turn the volume down- the low explosion of an air rifle fitted with a nappy silencer.

...................................................................................................

I’m keeping a low profile today as I also upset my neighbours this morning by stomping in a showy kind of way around the block several times holding onto a man who in turn was wearing a dog harness. A nice thick leather harness with a sold lead and chunky silver studs…..and a long yellow handle. Fetishism and all before lunch time…

Luckily I had already been through this ritual humiliation back in 2005 when I first thought about a guide dog so I was ready for the gasps and tutts, the dragging away of the children, the stifled giggles of the crowds around the supermarket. The idea is that the Guide Dog Man (or woman – they call them ‘beetches’) knows the guide dogs are worth a phenomenal amount of dosh what with all the breeding, training and vet bills and so before handing one to a ruffian such as myself they do an assessment of MY walking speed, ability to learn basic instructions and –obviously- ability to ignore a taunting mob. This is to ensure the dog doesn't end up with the wrong human.

'Wait.' I say firmly holding the yellow handle and therefore the nice Guide Dog man. The man waits by the kerb. A passing granny falls off her zimmer frame. I take a step back, raise my arm, gesture . 'Forward!' I command, my voice ringing out above the ice cream van and the open mouthed children. I tug the harness and the nice man crosses the road. 'Good boy.' I say. He is well over 6 foot tall or I would pat his head.

'Straight on,' I call and on we go, a trail of curious teenages following. He is walking too fast. A sharp tug on the harness and a warning ‘Steady’. He slows and I reach for a biscuit.
You think I am kidding.
I am not.


At least he didn't need to pee................

You Lookin' At Me?

Taxi driver: You got tunnel vision then..

Me: I..err. well ye…..

Taxi driver: Its that stick what give it away. I saw it and I thought that one’s got tunnel vision. I was going to give you a hand but then you was in already.

Silence

Me: (realising I was supposed to comment) Err …so you know about …tunnel vision..

Taxi Driver: Yeah I meet lots of them people and their dogs. In fact I am in charge of organising a training thing…um..whasit called?

Me: An awareness training?

Taxi driver: Yeah, yeah that’s right. Awareness training.

Me: That’s great. What on earth made you decide to do that?

Taxi Driver: Well we have to really. One of our drivers ..he’s foreign ..he wouldn’t take this woman in his cab..it was the dog. He just refused..and it was raining and that.
Poor thing. She ended up going on her way crying and it was even night…and then there were complaints.

Me: (Poor, poor, poor woman) Poor woman.

Taxi Driver: The bloke wouldn’t believe he had done nuffink wrong. He took it all the way to Crown Court before they threw it out.

Me: What an ass…idiot. So its because of him..?

Taxi Driver: Not really. His mate. See, he gave his taxi insurance over to his mate and his mate won’t take them people either. I’ve given him a warning..I’ve told him that as a licensed cabbie he bloody has to unless he applies for special dispensation for allergy or that.
(pause)
I mean I take them all the time. Just have a hoover in the back for the dog hair. Its no trouble. With a hoover. I like dogs.

Silence

Me: (Oh good grief..more?) So you are organising an awareness…

Taxi Driver: Yeah that’s right. That one will be there. The one what won’t take them people. He’s foreign too. I think they probably eat them dogs or something in their country…that’s the problem.

Me: (Sweet Jesus!) Yeaaahh….I think it is to do with issues of cleanliness and purity..some conflict with religion although I have not ever met a mullah who says Guide Dogs are unclean..

Taxi Driver: Mu..wha?

Me: Never mind..It’s great what you are doing.

Taxi Driver: Well..as I say I had to really. There will be this blind lady telling us stuff and her dog and her daughter. You know and we’ll even take her out for a nice pub lunch after.

Me: I am sure she’ll be really pleased..

Taxi driver: Yeah well.. its hard for these people..they don’t have much of a life do they…

Me: (?!!!***?) Apparently not…Oh sorry..must answer my phone….….