Patricia
Yes, there is no doubt that the mind mirrors gloom outside the window. There is also no doubt that life is filled with opportunity should one seek it out. And there lies the root of many problems: initiative falls away with greyness. Summer presents an entirely different mental panorama - just being outside the four walls cheers one up no end.
Alone. Well no, I don't really think I feel that way; I do not even feel abandoned, which some have suggested I might, because things happened before she died that demonstrated that even at the end of her life she was more concerned with how I would fare on my own, than of herself. The one thing I never had to doubt was love. And that's probably the hardest bit to take: that someone could care so much and then be gone, physically if never in spirit and legacy of everything else that I now share with me, myself and I.
I look out of the french windows and see the signature of all the green finger magic she wove; I see there also the decay that I seem to be unable to delay or cancel out in any effective way: some empty pots where there would be seasonal flowers; terrace furniture for which she made the cushions; tablecloths for outside lie unused on the shelf, even those for indoors are unused and, horror of horrors, snacks on the sofa are become commonplace as are the crumbs and now a single olive oil stain from an errant piece of sardine-on-toast. I can hardly believe what I've just confessed: sar-effin'-dines! Out of a tin, when the real deal awaits in any fish shop.
Justin
I accept your expat position as pretty much a reflection of my own, with the difference that after a hopeless attempt to work within the local economy, I retreated to the previous status quo and did what was available from outside the country.
So, I justify my continued presence as being a total plus to the economy, in that everything I spend comes from outside and gets injected (too fast!) here. To compete with the local people is not a good idea – I would have objected to anyone else coming into my little corner of the Glasgow-that-was and trying to steal my clients as I expect the folks here must feel about the many bar owners from abroad, even though many of them fail to realise just what they have attempted to undertake and then vanish, leaving unpaid bills behind them.
But I can not agree about the rôle of government: I feel the less it does the better, and as far as ensuring work for the citizens, that is the job of the individual to organize for himself. Real, valid work comes from one source: the need for a product or service, and that can occupy the time of a single person or, should he/she need the input, provide employment for others, too. But the flaw that seems to have crept into the mind of many is that this ‘employment’ has some statutory right to exist. No, it only exists as long as somebody needs the employee. And that, basically, is it. Tough, but real life. It’s up to the individual to create work for himself or be so valued for his attributes that others beat a path to his doorway bearing offers of employment.
In the end, the fit and able useless have only themselves to blame for their predicament.
So what’s for government to do? Provide and ensure public safety, keep the nation protected from external (or internal) threat; provide the framework, the legal system within which people can live their lives in peace without fear of nightfall and unlit streets; look after the needs of the sick if they can’t manage for themselves, provide the means to raise public funds to ensure all of that and, perhaps most of all, allow and encourage the freedom to express views on any topic at all. And to do all of this with the minimum of public employees and the fewest governmental organisations possible. Anything beyond that is probably fine-tuning or even intrusion. In other words, less is more.
Bikes
My son had a scrambles bike whilst he lived here for a short while, I rode it once or twice, having had a licence for many years, but didn’t really take to the vulnerability of being on it. It isn’t about the self, it’s about the other guy in the car or truck or bus: he doesn’t know you exist unless you have a Harley, when he knows you are around, even if you are actually on another street around the corner. In a post-apocalyptic situation, yes, if I could figure out how to get the gas station stuff to work.
Rob C
