Eighty-four is easily divisible. But does that make forty-two more important? For me times were happier. After many stupid, almost accidental, detours and one big geographical transplantation I was on the verge of my first editorship. Ahead lay a magazine with all its pages blank; it would be up to me to fill them. Wasn't that mildly horrific? Might I run out of ideas? The answer was no. This was what I was born to do.
And half of forty-two is 21. Three sevens, said to be highly significant, some kind of transition from childishness to adulthood. Chance would be a fine thing! I lay on a hospital bed, steadily reading my way through the sparse library, unimpressed by Malaya's mountains which surrounded me. The night before I'd played bingo for the first and last time; won a can of fifty cigarettes (Hospital attitudes have changed since then.) which I gave away since I didn't smoke. Why was I in hospital? Because the space between the fourth and fifth toe on my right foot was sore.
Time like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away,
They fly forgotten as the breeze,
Dies at the op'ning day.
Hid by early-morning mist, but only four hundred yards away, is the gorgeous River Wye. Might I ever have foreseen such propinquity?
Clever musing on age. What were you doing at age 10 and 1/2? Having been raised Catholic, pre-Vatican II, I am utterly unfamiliar with these Protestant hymns. I hate missing anything, so I am grateful for the introduction. I'm also checking out pictures of the River Wye for the first time. Your blog is a joy to me.
ReplyDeleteWell, happy birthday, congratulations for getting here/there (with all that hair!) and writing and commenting and singing and enjoying life and love and gorgeous rivers.
ReplyDeleteI hope your birthday celebration is/was everything you hoped it might be, plus a lot of fun! (What flavor is the cake sitting before you?)
ReplyDeleteMany happy returns from little brother. I can't do much with 79 - is it a prime number? I failed O Level maths, no wonder I'm not sure. You've not done bad - better than being "Down and Out in Paris and London."
ReplyDeleteALL: VR has been getting deafer and deafer for several years. Was becoming socially isolated unless the conversation was directed to her, face to face. No hearing aid had proved satisfactory. Granddaughter Ysabelle has a friend, Harley, who specialises in prescribing hearing aids; Y's partner, Daniel, suggested VR made an appointment. I sent the following email to them both, minutes ago.
ReplyDeleteDaniel/Ysabelle,
Obviously it started in Harley's "surgery": I was sitting two metres to VR's left and was asked to say something. Instead I recited the first two lines of Shakespeare's most famous sonnet:
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
And VR immediately knew what I was saying.
Out in the mall where the surgery is located people were babbling as they walked past. And VR could separate what I said from the background noise.
On the return drive she sat in the back; Sarah and I talked in the front. Every so often VR interrupted - cogently.
Thank you both for the suggestion. It couldn't have worked out better. And on my birthday too.
Cheers,
Robbie
Best wishes Robbie, from a juvenile 80 year old. You enjoy an impressive head of hair and your blog is a joy in the arid "blogosphere". I turn to it each morning. Sometimes I disagree, sometimes I am unable to participate, but always you produce something for me to think on.
ReplyDeleteI, too am getting increasingly deaf (mostly in the higher registers - probably the result of constant wind-roar motorcycling before "ear defenders" became de rigeur) and I find the NHS aids which were prescribed fiddly to use and ineffective. I suppose I should spend money on "specials" as per VR, but the only thing I really miss is being unable to hear bird song. All TV programmes seem to provide sub titles these days.
To quote Alan Bennett, "Keep on keeping on".
Avus: I'm truly shocked. Apparently you don't give a toss about what someone might say to you. Since you can't hear such a person you can't respond to them. It's called conversation and it's one of greatest blessings we are endowed with. You have, in fact, retreated from one of the most important stimuli in the world. And never mind music.
ReplyDeleteWhat would we do if we met?
VR's new aid cost a lot of money but not as much your ebike. Time may prevent you from using the bike and then where'll you be? You may read of course but what you read will be fixed; a conversation may go anywhere. Revelations are possible. Could you also be rejecting all that is new - verily, one of the greatest tragedies of old age?
One of our acquaintances less formally educated than me (and there aren't many of those around I can tell you), when told about the cost of VR's aid, said "I'd rather be deaf." Never have I encountered such personal pathos.
TV programmes with subtitles? A couple of weeks ago you were trashing TV to me.
Birdsong? Proof that the bird is alive and is - perhaps - keen to communicate with other birds. Could there be a lesson there?
Alan Bennett is also - still - a great conversationalist.
I'm slightly ashamed of myself, the 26th went well and was crowned with VR's re-discovered world. Yet here I am spitting in church. But Hell's teeth, Avus, this is bloody important.
Well, I did, a while back, sell my beloved BMW and used the cash to purchase "smart" hearing aids (at £1,600 each!). But quite frankly found them little improvement on the fiddly NHS items I already had. So I exercised my 30 day return option and the money went to buy my grandson his first car.
ReplyDeleteMusic, I can still, and do, enjoy. It doesn't seem to be a problem and there are always earphones for personal use.
TV - is mainly box sets these days but there are a few digital channels I enjoy - and I could manage OK without the subtitles if they are not some of the latest BBC drama offerings where non-stage trained actors seem to mumble through their parts. Indicative that older films with rep-trained actors are no problem for me.
I must confess I do sometimes ask for repeats during conversation, particularly where there is a lot of undercurrent background noise and chatter. I have found that hearing aids can make this situation far worse, although a flush friend, stone deaf since age 11, has overcome all this by paying out over £5,000 for special aids which can be adjusted for every situation by a wifi pocket box. But his is a desperate case.
I suppose I shall have to persevere with my little-used aids for the sake of others. When the family calls I can find it hard to participate in the conversational flow as it surges around me.
Avus: "persist... for the sake of others" Hey, if it's no big deal for you, why bother? For me true conversation, where there is a mutual desire to advance the subject being discussed (instead of fight about it in an argument), is a rare and testing delight. Where choice of style as well as subject can encourage reciprocal graces in the other half of the discussion. And where allusion can displace ponderous detail and allow the exchanges to flit along. Continuing proof that we - the two halves of the conversation - have been born with skills that are unique to humans and should feel obliged to exercise them wherever possible.
ReplyDeleteAs VR grew deafer such conversations were more and more difficult. As if a light had dimmed in our marriage. I could tell her things but it was hard to bring about periods of egalitarian exchange. After all, they weren't strictly necessary, only delights that could easily be dispensed with. The three occasions I cited: speech directed to the side of the head, speech competing with a multi-sourced background chat, and finally - most difficult of all - speech between driver and passenger in the front of the car becoming audible to someone on the back seat... when they were seen to work they were like flashes of light.
I was, by analogy, back in The Blogger's Retreat with Plutarch (Joe Hyam) and the intensity was reborn.
Of course I speak as the other "non-deaf" half (although my hearing is deteriorating). I discussed some of the points we've raised with VR. She said, "Of course, things are going to be fiddly. For obvious reasons." But the key question is what value do you place on the things I have mentioned in this re-comment? Is relaxed, informed, allusive discussion a low prioriity compared with box sets?
Mein lieber Robbie! jedes Jahr bin ich spät, aber ich wünsche vom Herzen Alles, Alles Gute zum Geburtstag!!! I'm in awe of your sexy shirt (the young ones here should learn from you). I've been attempting to teach them that a young man need never be lonely if only he dresses with a sense of flair. Alas, they are content with wearing T-shirts, baggy shorts, and flip-flops.
ReplyDeleteTomorrow, I've got a date at the local brewpub and shall raise a pint or two of quality ale to you with a hearty Prost!
RW (zS): Liebe "Zu schwer" - ich muss sagen, sein spät ist, fur mich, nicht wichtig. Tatsächlich, mein Geburtstag ist nicht wichtig. Wass ist wichtig - im Welt - ist unser Gespräch. Gute Verabredung!
ReplyDeleteIt's no good I can't keep it up. My German grammar is sixty years old; each time I use it another wheel falls off. I could do French but that wouldn't help you. I can, however, borrow. Somehow this seems appropriate:
Frühling, sind das alle deine Blümelein,
Sonne, hast du keinen hellern Schein
Ach, so muss ich ganz allein
Mit dem seligen Worte mein
Unverstanden in der weiten Schöpfung sein
Alternatively here's a sexy German speaker to stand in for me. Travelling at 300 kph in an AMG Merc. He'd never choose the wrong shirt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKmObgrNSs0
Oh Jonas (swoon) :)
ReplyDeleteLieber Robbie! Ich verstehe Dein Deutsch sehr gut! Es hat Salz und Pfeffer! Deshalb hat unser Gespräch ummpff! Ja! Huzzah!
Thank you for the verse and the song. I love the way you put me in touch with my heritage.
Hugs!!