Shores of Night

 Just a quick note to wish the handful of readers I have a Happy Yuletide, a Merry Christmas, a Peaceful Hanukkah, and a Harmonious Kwanza. Please add my best wishes for any celebrations I've missed.  I wish you a happy, contented, and fulfilling New Year and all the best for 2023. 

 

 Sorry for the short silence. I got caught up in the day job, and the weekend before last, went up to house sit for one of my exes in Wolverhampton. It was a pleasant weekend, though sadly a couple of friends I'd hoped to catch up with weren't available. I saw my ex's daughter and granddaughters, which was lovely. I also saw lots of the chihuahua and Manx cat (and apparently I have allergies to one or both of them, which sucks), who basically superglued themselves to me while I was there. I also met a new kitten, who was charming. I got some work done for my PhD stuff - at least in the sense of now knowing I don't want to reference  Marie de France's  work in my research - which means focusing on Charles Perrault's stories and got some basic research done for the divorce which I have to get rolling. I feel I'm ready to do that now, and to move onto something new, though I'm also scared of what the process is going to be like.  I have to admit, by Sunday ...

Recently I've embraced the idea of going slowly. I suppose its partly a reaction to a world that seems to move ever faster, almost to the point that nothing matters except the speed that things get done. There's probably an element of getting older in it too - it feels as if fast all too often equals corners being cut or the thing concerned not really being worth it if there's not waiting involved.  One area in particular that I want to go slowly is in dating. Part of that's because I'm conscious I have to get divorced, but also that I have attachment issues. I tend to fall in love, or perhaps just become infatuated, very easily and that works against my better judgement. As a consequence, I'm telling myself that I have to go slow and just start with meeting with someone to have cups of tea and go book shopping with. Maybe with a side thing of going for walks and wandering through graveyards (because they're beautiful). I want to be someone's friend who ...

 Am I just too much... am I enough?  I have to tell myself I'm not and that I am, respectively, but I really don't know. I worry I share too much with people, that my sense of humour is too much - that I am too silly. At the same time I worry that I let people down a lot, even though I know it's not true. My inner critic - Negative Norma - tends to go into overdrive with these things and I just end up worrying about if I'm imposing on people... or alternatively that I'm too reticent and hang back too much. There's no real happy medium, unfortunately, and I always seem to be overly familiar and over sharing or aloof and not sharing enough.  I hope I can find a way around this, eventually.  

 So it goes, the annual 12 days of Misrule, Death, Remembrance, and Defiance in the UK have come to an end. We have 4 holidays in close succession to each other, starting with Halloween (or All Souls' Day... or if you're one of my fellow travellers, Samhain), followed by All Saints' Day - which is usually overlooked - then Guy Fawkes' Night and finally, Remembrance Day. The season, for it would be foolish to deny that that's what it is, is united by an idea of defiance either against the encroaching winter or mortal authority, and by a clashing solemnity as we grow closer to today. It travels from the supernatural to the mundane, from monsters to the sacrifice of the flower of youth in a war so horrible that we don't dare forget it.  That element of misrule is a point of much contention - the Church of England never fails to warn about demons and the dangers of the occult, while in many ways the Guy - the figure burned on bonfires on November 5th - is a way of c...

 I'm cat-less at the moment and really miss having a wee beastie around (I can't get one as I live in a small flat and it's against my contract - I have asked and been told no).  As a consequence I'm watching a lot more cat videos on YouTube (as well as enjoying the chances I get to say hello to my therapist's cat).  This means I've discovered a lot more lovely cat channels and I'm going to post one here... Aren't these puss cats so cute?