Acting the Goat in Greece

Veiw from Shoestrings

I apologise for the silence.  These last two weeks I have been researching the impact of tourism on the Greek economy – well, mainly my impact on the beautiful island of Zakynthos.  Turns out that the major impact is on local rose wine sales which went up by at least a third....

It is a lovely island. The sea is all turquoise and aquamarines and in August the skies are bright fierce blue with the occasional build up of cloud over the hills.  It is hot, of course. Very hot. White rutted tracks wind through the olive groves and vineyards and up into the hills if you care to explore.  Many don’t and in the resorts tourists stumble along pavement-less roads between tavernas and bars and shops, eating ice-creams and comparing insect bites.

Myrtle, water and wine

 Currently, excuse the pun; they are drying grapes by the roadside in the sun to make raisins. The thick dark blankets of fruit smell delicious. The next crop is for wine.  They will certainly need more after we have left....

Last Sunday, had you been a seagull gliding high on the warm wind over Alykanas, its long narrow strip of beach littered with sun beds and people bobbing lazily in the warm water, you might have seen the little taverna perched overlooking the sea.   If you had flown past the taverna and a few hundred yards further inland to the nearby fields, you would have glimpsed a middle aged woman running after a goat in her knickers.

Err... that would have been me.

I was trying to lasso the goat with my skirt.  It’s a long story but suffice it to say I had been horribly conned by a kid.  Over the two weeks of our holiday (the couple watching me chase down the goat are my sister and brother-in-law) we had made the almost daily pilgrimage through the white rutted paths amongst the olive groves to our very favourite beach hang out, Shoestrings ( more on that gem to follow.) Being me and in full Disney operational mode, I had begun to befriend the horses we passed with carrots and stolen sugar and had also made passing acquaintance with a couple of goats, a mother and her young daughter, tethered in the field. 

It happens that on the Sunday we find the goats so tangled up together by their ropes that they can barely move. 

‘We can’t leave them like this!’ I say.  I have been listening to far too much ‘Game of Thrones’ on my kindle. If I had a sword I would be waving it.

We all give it a go but we still can’t figure out how they got into such a knot. The rope is wound around the mother goat’s horns and around the younger goat’s legs. They look up at us pathetically.  The little one almost falls over.

Then I have a brainwave.

‘I’ll just take off the little one’s collar,’ I hear myself saying. ‘And we can undo the knot.’

‘Is that wise?’ asks my brother in law.  He is a scientist and likes to debate the evidence and think through consequences.

Too late I realise he has a point.    

The little goat feels the thick leather slide from her neck and leaps gleefully just out of reach.  Freeee eee eee she bleats rapturously and dives on some fresh grass.

‘Shit!’ I say.

‘Holy shit!’ says my sister, the vicar.

She watches horrified as the goat feints sideways as I try a rugby tackle.

‘We will go and get someone to help,’ I hear her and Steven sighing as they pull out the Greek-English dictionary to look up the word ‘goat’ and head away from my shameful attempts at kid wrangling.  By this time I have taken off my skirt and twisted it into a useless kind of lasso and am running around the field like a crazy person.  I wouldn’t blame them if they didn’t come back.

Goats are nimble aren’t they?  This one dances just out of reach of my skirt and disappears into the grape vines and maize.  No amount of swearing or cajoling can get her out. I realise the tangle thing was a ruse. She had this whole thing planned.

Luckily for everyone I had put my skirt back on before my sister and brother in law had got hold of the farmer who took less than a minute to catch the kid and re-tether her. Goat farming was his second job, it turns out. In high season he was mostly off hiring jet skis to tourists.

‘Thank you for untangling the goats,’ he says.  ‘Would you like a jet ski?’

‘We are leaving today,’ says my sister.

The farmer looks rather relieved. The goat bleats something rude.

The Greek word for goat is ‘katsika’, apparently. I however am called an ass.

Next blog involves graphic descriptions of seafood platters, the terrors of turtle spotting and more annoying pictures of sun and sea from Shoestrings.  

Vision Slip

A few years ago...well maybe more than a few...I was on a train at some daft time in the morning on my way to San Francisco.  I hadn’t slept much the night before anxious about the trip and was a bit woozy.  The carriage was almost empty and I thought no one would mind me snoring so leant down to pull out the foot rest.

Whumph!

Something seemed to both punch me in the arm and pull me at the same time.  I pulled up my arm and held my hand up to my face.  As I watched, waiting, time became putty and pulled into a long, sticky mess.  My racing heart pumped the blood up and through and around and a beaded red line appeared half way down my middle finger on my right hand between the first and second joint.  The beads swelled and merged and then my finger seemed to break away from its reality, topple sideways exposing flesh.  I glimpsed white within the maw of red.

Instinctively I grabbed my finger to hold it in place and blood began to slither and drip down my arm and into the crook of my elbow and onto the floor. It would seem that the footrest had a sharp metal edge and had cut my finger to the bone.

Scary eh?  The pain came after the ‘whumph’ and it was bad!  And of course no one would treat me in case of litigation.  Some kind but appalled young family handed me a couple of nappies to sop up the blood. The steward said he couldn’t give me painkillers but he did get a doctor who told me I needed stitches immediately and should get off in L.A.  I didn’t.  I was too scared to get off in L.A. on my own with a suitcase and a hand that didn’t work. I stayed put feeling my whole body throb with each beat of my heart hour after hour.  I made it to San Francisco and got some first aid at the youth hostel I was booked into.  It was a very clean cut and eventually it healed even without stitches. I had a smashing time in San Francisco, especially one I felt my finger would stay on my hand.

Why am I sharing this?  Well, I have had a vision slip. In some ways this is just annoying, a little like having a woolly sock slip down into your shoe at a crucial moment or being unable to find a sharp knife when you are prepping supper.   All it means is that I have to readjust as the tunnel of sight is a smidgen smaller. I knock into things I saw just a month ago. I walk past people previously I would have seen. I can’t use the new lap top I was loaned because the screen is too small.  Annoying but not impossible tp cope with.

Only each time these little sight slides happen the world recedes further and the possibility of complete sight loss shuffles up behind me and breathes a little too heavily.   Colours become milkier and dark greens,  blacks, blues and browns are now impossible to differentiate.  I can’t see myself clearly in a mirror. The outside world’s dreamy Vaseline texture closes in when I least expect it.

So I have been having that same ‘whumph’ sensation, similar to the one on the train and the same as the buzzing sensation after falling out of a tree or from a horse and waiting for breath to come back. The same wait to know the damage. The same heart throbbing throat clutching nauseating ‘whumph’..

It will stop I am sure and I am still far off total sight loss....at least I am pretty sure I am.  Plus and you may think I am mad but it is, genuinely,  a fascinating and in some ways, magical experience.  Am I a chrysalis and if so what will I become?  A different kind of 'Through The Looking Glass' .  It is just  that  riding out the ‘whumph’ is a toughie. 

Thank goodness for Grace.  And for Jenniefromtheblock,  Becky, Helena and the wonderful Corsham admin staff who regularly trip me up with tea and cake and lots of laughter.

Michelle, Me, Grace and Ali
 



Ready for anything!

And then of course there are the mad women of Springfield with whom I have made a devilish pact to do daily torturous high intensity training sessions (called ‘Insanity’ just in case you didn’t know what you were getting).  I am the fittest I have ever been in my life and so blinking knackered that I haven’t got the energy to be scared by the ‘whumph’ Hooray!

Tomorrow the BBC will disclose the identity of the new Doctor Who.  For many us in the real world this will be more life changing than royal babies, Zimbabwean election fraud, bedroom tax and even racist buses chugging around London with ‘Go home ++++!’ emblazoned across the sides.

One of the many, MANY reasons that I love Corsham is that it could indeed be a town in a Dr. Who episode. People are jolly, eerily nice. The setting is too idyllic. There are not enough tourists or yobs and children on scooters avoid running down the elderly.  Everyone knows the names of everyone else’s dogs and I am sure the Deli is a front for the next cybermen invasion. Add to this the fact that Corsham is Ministry of Defence territory with secretive installations all around and hardly any buses run at night..... uh oh.  And hang on...come to think about it...I have seen people

Badly disguised Darlek in Corsham High Street

worshipping at this alter over the past couple of months.......

 

So who do we think, eh?  Peter Capaldi?  Sue Perkins?  Russell Brand (Holy Vashta Narada, NO!)?  

 

 Actually, I have an on-going dream that Stephen Moffat pops over tonight to say that Helena Bonham Carter has pulled out at the last minute and they would like me to go for the part...would I mind?  And you know what...even if this doesn’t happen I can pretend..I already have my K9!



I'll do the lab reports.....

 

 

Mixed Emotions

It is hot. Very bloody hot. Not that I am complaining but Grace has a black fur coat and is finding it all a little much. She is floppy and there is much panting.  Here she is with her homies...hot dogs.  



Usher, Grace, Terri, Albert and Monica at Corsham Court

Last week we were volunteers at the very cutting edge MIX conference here at Corsham Court.  I had volunteered last year when I first arrived in Corsham and it helped me figure out the layout of the campus. Not that anyone approached me for assistance.  More the other way around which was a bit embarrassing.  I’d be standing there with Grace trying to look informative and perky and delegates would sidle up to ask me if I needed help getting anywhere and could they find me a volunteer?



One of the smelly volunteers.

 This time we– the volunteers-had big blue polo shirts with ‘Student Ambassador.  Here to help!’ emblazoned on our sweaty backs.  We were recognisable as official assistance even with guide dogs. And after three days by the smell of the t-shirts…

So I am in my huge blue polo shirt with a floppy dog and a clipboard. And I forgot to mention that I have offered to do some photography so I am also carting about cameras along with dog bowls and treats, poo bags (you never know when a delegate will get caught out) and water bottles. I could probably survive for two weeks on just what is in my handbag.

This is the MIX conference blurb...  ‘Text on Screens: Making, Discovering, Teaching’ we will continue the conversation that began at MIX 2012; through a series of high quality papers and presentations of creative works we’ll be talking about text on screen in the many forms it takes including fiction, videopoetry, mobile, locative, and site specific works, non-fiction, games, text-based digital art, and other electronic, hybrid forms. We’ll discuss classic texts as they are re-imagined for digital platforms. We’ll look at how these works are taught and what they mean for the future of literature

Exciting stuff eh? But here is where things star to unravel slightly for me.

 (c) T.Bush 2013

The conference has been expertly organised and I had asked to get a couple of minutes at the official opening to explain to the delegates about the etiquette of working dogs...don’t approach her unless I give permission etc. and also to give a very quick explanation of how I see - as it is confusing to see a woman bundle in after a guide dog and then proceed to whip out her SLR and take photos..and I do it like a pro...clicky whizzy sounds, down on one knee, the works.  (Sometimes I even remember to take the lens cap off).

That first morning I waited anxiously to give my little spiel but I am passed over due to what I later find out are ‘time constraints’.  This is where Bath Spa could potentially do with upping its disability awareness.  Without that talk, delegates find me a curiosity.  I get confused sideways glances, stared at or avoided.  No one knows how to approach me and Grace or whether I am visually impaired or not.

I spend a lot of time wondering if I was an idiot to volunteer in the first place.  Am I putting myself into situations that make for stress?  I direct the delegates to lunch for instance but don’t go myself because I know that the pub they are eating at is dark inside, that I would have to ask for help to get food from the buffet and that Grace wouldn’t have anywhere to sit.

Buffets are a nightmare for the visually impaired.  It’s no game trying to get through the throngs of people without spearing anyone with a fork or trying to balance cherry tomatoes and lettuce leaves on a tiny plate whilst reaching for what we hope is a spring roll but turns out to be a rolled up paper napkin.  

I don’t leave though. It is a fascinating conference. I love the talks, even though I can barely understand a word.  My friend Amrita who is an internet whizz of note would be in seventh heaven with all the creative apps and the flashy lingo. 'RFID technology'….'.RDA'. …'Inklewriter'… 'SPARQL'…'Frankenstein' apps…  Me?  Well let’s just say I spent an hour trying to print a document by pressing ‘paste’ over and over again getting more and more baffled as to why my document was still not printing  but instead growing exponentially longer…

And, thank goodness,  on the morning of the final day I am  given my two minutes to 'explain myself'. It is like a weight is lifted both for me and many of the delegates. ‘Thank goodness you spoke out!’  people say.  ‘I wanted to ask you but wasn’t sure.... ‘ and people stop distracting Grace (who anyway is far too busy trying to cope with the heat to care.) And I get to take part in a inspirational workshop involving a spool of blue thread, an artist’s trowel and an old hair brush…you kindofhad to be there…….



Don't ask!

 

 

And she's back! Did ya miss me?

 

Corsham Court. I work from here! Really!

 

The up side about doing a PhD is:

·      Telling people you are doing a PhD

·      Going into Corsham Court to my lovely little office to do said PhD

·      Researching and thinking about PhD

The down side about doing a PhD is

·      Actually  DOING the PhD.

Holy Swotting Hell Hermione!  You may think you have a cracking idea but it would seem that a great many people have already had a version of your original idea and have written vastly on the subject and often in the language know as ‘Freakouttheignoramus’.   As a ‘for instance’ look at this impenetrable and frankly completely baffling bit of academic swank by Griselda Pollox, a feminist scholar who should know better.

 ‘The matrixial gaze emerges by a simultaneous reversal of with-in and with-out (and does not represent the eternal inside), by a transgression of borderlinks manifested in the contact with-in/-out and art work by a transcendence of the subject–object interval which is not a fusion, since it is based on a-priori shareability in difference..’

What the hell, Griselda? Manifest this...!

It doesn’t help that a lot of the articles and books I am sourcing are in a difficult format for me to read. I like to have hard copies still rather than reading from a computer or being read to.  This means all has to be in 20 font and arial and there is a hell of a lot of time taken up with just making things accessible and printing. The university, Bath Spa, and my supervisor have been wonderful and as I am the only blind in the village this is all new to all of us. I am trying Dragon Dictate and will eventually have another look at Supernova and Jaws (screen readers). I also have, this year, study support in the graceful, wise and very, patient guise of Jennyfrommyblock.  (Turns out she is my neighbour)  She gets the near impossible job of trying to help me ‘organise’ myself.  Apparently there is something called..’filing’....? Who knew?

And what I hear you cry am I actually doing my PhD on?  It is a damn good question.... As it’s a creative writing PhD the main bulk of my time is to be spent writing a fiction novel.  Mine is an experimental thriller set in a dystopian UK.  More on that another time.

The critical component of the PhD, which should both inform and influence the novel is called:  Blurring the Image; a comparative study of the representation of visually impaired women and children within selected literary genres.  Good eh?  Took me three months to come up with the title. It’s tough being a student.

But I am not really complaining I LOVE this stuff!  I am having fun. And I love this crazy small Corsham town as does Grace who seems to have her own celebrity following.  So much to tell....but as this is the first post in a very long time and all that, I will keep it short and more shall follow! Hope you are all still out there!  Let me know,

Tanvi x

 

 

My Post Doc

Two months ago Dad died. It was the 17th March 2012 at 3pm, Pretoria time almost exactly. He was buried in Lusaka, Zambia on the following Thursday and his memorial was held at the UNZA chapel on the Friday. This is the first thing I have written, apart from unreadable journals and my speech for the memorial since.

I love..loved...him with all my heart and right now the shock of it all is beginning to wear off and the acid grief is giving me constant belly ache. Ho hum...  He was my Dad, my friend...we made each other laugh and I think we made each other proud.  It was a privlilege to be there when he headed off and an honour to see the courage and kindness of my siblings, Rachma, Zoe and Ben, my Mum Ruth, my aunt, Jackie, his dear cousin Irving and Dad's great friends and colleagues in Lusaka; Adam, SJ, Vernon, Guy, Charlotte, Caroline, Grant, Mwitchi, Patricia, Wille,  Luo, Simon, Cynthia, Alan, Shenda, Mwangala, all the Team Hospice Chilanga. the Travelling Rabbi, Michael Galaun, Seb and all the wonderful folk, to many to mention, that helped with his burial and the memorial  Thank you so much.
Next week I move to Wiltshire. Life's funny that way.
Long Life! Take care and if you love someone give them a bloody great hug and tell 'em so. 

Phone In Freak Shows on the BBC.

Dear All – Dad has taken a bad turn and I will be flying over to be with him at the weekend.  I don’t want to write about it this time. Instead I have distracted myself by doing a piece on the BBC Late night radio show I ended up doing a cameo on. T x

Disclaimer: This is my recollection of the show last Friday.  It is written without recourse to transcripts or copies and has been flamboyantly reworked.  I may have got it entirely wrong. Just saying...

Last week the policeman who had been shot and blinded by the killer Raoul Moat hanged himself. For two years he had been struggling with the trauma and pain of the attack which had conspired with his sudden blindness to form a dark riptide of anxiety, fear and self hatred that eventually dragged him under.

PC David Rathband

24 hours later it’s Friday night and I am waiting on the end of a phone line; a guest on Radio 5 Live’s late night Steve Nolan show.  I and a couple of others have been invited to discuss the impact of visual impairment and coping strategies..or at least that is what I had thought but then I had never listened to the show before....... 

Previous to the ‘blind’ bit is a discussion about the singer Englebert Humperdink and his chances for the Eurovision Song Contest.

  ‘Ooohhh I love this I love this!’ coos Mr. Nolan, the erudite host, as the song ‘Please Release Me!’ circa 1970 something blares over the airways.  ‘This is the best stuff I have ever heard!’

He means it as well which for some reason makes me a teensy bit anxious about his grip on contemporary culture. But there was no time to dwell on it...news comes next, then there is a short introduction to the tragedy of PC David Rathband and boom our slot is underway.

In preparation for the show I have been reading some of Rathband’s previous interviews, thinking about what might have helped him, what interventions could have been taken if any, looking at independent living and the recent government changes to the welfare bill  I have a couple of pages of notes to hand although I still don’t feel prepared.  There is so much to say...

The very first caller is a silken voiced, middle aged man, Dr. K, who had been working as a cardiologist when he was attacked and blinded with acid fourteen years ago.  Blimey! I think. This is exactly the right man to talk this through. Go Dr. K!

Dr. K however is still, fourteen year after his attack, brooding and depressed.  He begins to list all the professional bodies that have let him down, turned their backs on him over the years.  They wouldn’t let him practise medicine.  They had no respect for him as a doctor. Next he moves onto how his friends have left him one by one.  No colleague stood by him.  Now people only come and sit with him for a minute and then move off..he knows in his heart that they don’t want to waste time with a blind man.

Dr K is exhibiting much of the depression and paranoia that David Rathband hinted at in his various interviews. Only it seems to me that there is something more - a hardened, flatter, peevishness; an ‘it's not fair’ on a constant loop that fourteen years have done nothing to diminish or transform.  I wonder how his wife is coping.

Mr. Nolan is rapt.  ‘David Rathband committed suicide..do you ever think of taking your own life K?’ he asks gently.  I can hear his pale cheeks flushing from excitement from where I sit clutching the phone in horror. Dr K pauses but then tentatively agrees....anyone faced with this would feel the same he is saying.

There is a brief pause before the host passes judgement. ‘You are the most inspirational man I have ever talked to on this show!’ he declares. ‘So many people will want to talk to you K! Please stay on the line.’

We all stay on the line.  My palm is now damp with sweat where I grip the handset.  

After more news they read several messages from people saying how inspirational Dr K is. Mr. Nolan obviously knows his audience. ‘You are amazing!’  ‘That is the most incredible story I have ever heard’. Texts and emails come thick and fast.

Eventually they introduce D who, not only lost her sight suddenly due to meningitis in her 20s, but moved from South Africa to UK on her own and began life all over again as a blind woman. However Mr. Nolan doesn’t ask her about this.  Mr Nolan gets this remarkable woman on the line and asks her what she thinks ....about Dr K.  ‘Isn’t he AMAZING?’ he enthuses.

‘Eerrr.,’ .D improvises and tries talking about her key decision to never to let things get her down no matter what .. but she is cut off by Dr K. ‘That’s all very well for you he says peevishly... you were younger when it happened.’

Actually Dr K is only 54 and, if we take the 14 years into consideration, was only 40 years old at the time he lost his sight.  But D is not asked to respond because more people are calling in to tell Dr K what an inspiration he is. She does not come back on the line.

At some point as I am grinding my teeth a young man, blind from birth, gets a chance to try and pep Dr K up. ‘Nothing has ever stopped me,’ he says but then makes the mistake of quipping that he can’t get a girlfriend. And he is off air.

Another woman, an innovator and campaigner who has  also assimilated, taken on, transformed her blindness gets a few seconds to tell everyone what she thinks ......of Dr K 

 ‘Well you mention you can’t work but you still have all the skills?  How about lecturing?’ She asks very politely and that brings another weary finger pointing tirade from Dr K about how he tried years ago but more people turned their backs on him, let him down. Mr. Nolan cuts in to read a few more ‘you are a hero, an inspiration’ messages. The woman gives up.

A producer comes on my phone line at last

‘Ahh miss Bush.. are you still there?’

‘Yes but I don’t think there is anything I can add to this...’

Two minutes..’

‘Really I can’t..’

Gone

I check the clock. It’s nearly midnight. I bite my tongue looking down at all my scribbled notes. Is anyone going to offer Dr K counselling? Is anyone going to actually discuss coping methods –ways to prevent people like Dr K and David Rathband falling into paranoia and topping themselves? That stuff is out of my league but it needs to be covered surely...?

‘You are definitely the most incredible guest we have ever EVER had on this show in all my years as a journalist,’ Mr. Nolan is saying with a slight break of emotion in his voice.  ‘..and we want to bring on now a  Mrs. L Go on Mrs L what do you want to say to Dr  K?’.

A woman’s voice, very posh accent, slightly hysterical, gasping with tears ‘Dr K you are the most incredible man I have ever...ever......well i just ...I can’t’...’  She dissolves into what seem slightly chardonnay induced tears.

Gently Mr Nolan cajoles her ‘Go on Mrs L.  You said you were a widow?  Is that right? ‘

‘Yes,’ gasps Mrs L.  ‘My husband died but now I know I haven’t really faced anything compared to this extraordinary man...’..’

‘And?  Go on, go on..’ Mr Nolan interjects with ghastly sympathy. ‘Do you remember what you wrote in your email?  You are quite far gone with cancer..?’

Once again the woman weeps ‘yes; praising Dr. K for showing her the way.

Sweet Jesus, I think trying to unlock my spasmed fingers from around the phone receiver.  The producer is suddenly speaking in my ear..

‘You’re next. ‘

No no (under my breath I am now singing ‘Please Release Me!’)

‘So now we have a Tanvir on the line,’ comes Mr. Nolan’s nasal tenor. ‘Tanvir what do YOU think about Dr K? ..’

Later on face book I message my brother.  ‘It was the weeping widow.  I say.  With cancer.  You just can’t top that.’

‘Some things shouldn’t be topped,’ says my brother wisely.

What did I say?  Well I remembered that right at the beginning Dr, K had mentioned that it wasn’t fair that he hadn’t been allowed to practice cardiology because ‘I have lost my sight but I still have vision’. So I riffed on this for a mere matter of seconds, about how important that was, how powerful before I was cut off mid sentence my Mr. Nolan saying ‘Sorry about that callers but we have come to the end of a truly remarkable show.’

P.C. Rathband RIP