91热爆

I have no idea what wuthering is. But doesn`t it just sound like a wild weather word?
If it means being outdoors in a gale, sandblasted and hail pelted, stumbling backwards trying to keep upright by holding your arms out wide for balance thus looking like a tightrope walker that mislaid their rope..then that`s just the perfect word.
It`s probably a weird English word though, something romantic meaning..um...moody skies and soft balmy winds..kinda thing...
No doubt someone will be able to tell me *grins* cos, yes, am too lazy to look it up today! *pokes out tongue*

Today is an indoor day, the umpteenth day of gale force winds, of stormy weather and the occasional splattering of sleet and hail that is so hard, when it pelts the windows you couldn`t hear a town crier yell, indoors.
I went out to get my cat in..you know how cats are, they train you to do their bidding soon as you `own` them...
so she goes out to do her business but because we have no catflap (can you imagine the wind getting in that!) she then goes round to the livingroom window and sits there, giving me `the glare`..you know the one...it`s surely meant to be hypnotic...it`s multi functional, doing double duty for the orders to `feed me NOW`..but this one means `fetch me in NOW`...so off yours truly goes, at risk of life and limb, out into the freezing cold..and you KNOW that because you`re only going to be a peedie blink you never put your coat on....and I slip my way through the mud the ducks have dragged onto the path to the door, go round the corner of the house to pick up said cat...and get blown flat on me ar..um...behind....*blushes*
And does the cat show the slightest bit of concern? Does she jump down off the windowsill to come see if her owner is injured or dead?
Oh hell, no!
She sits there, I am sure, sniggering quietly, waiting patiently in the gale for me to get creakingly, groaningly up, and go pick her up, where she then gives me the `other glare` which says ` Drop me and I`ll have you mate!` and in I bring her...
she, of course, goes straight to her feeding dish. Nary a word of thanks..sorry, I meant, a miaow of thanks..not even a tiny wee purr....
selfish cat.
Me dog, on the other hand, is a different kettle of fish (yes, this blog is animal flavoured today)..
she gets let out and no matter there`s a wind I cannot stand up in, no matter my teeth are chattering and I`m hugging myself and fidgeting on the spot to keep warm, because I`m an eejit and don`t bother to put a coat on...she bounces all across the garden looking for just THE perfect spot to do her business....it can`t be there, the closest, oh no...or there, where she visited three weeks ago, or there, where there`s a handy wind shelter with the rose hedge...nope, it`s gotta be behind said rose hedge where I can`t see her, as I stand and wait..and wait...and wait..
Then I gotta go find her, so I traipse down the not tiny garden to find out she`s slipped through the fence into the field and is investigating the stone dyke for mice and suchlike things, having fun....
Isn`t it amazing how dogs suddenly turn stone deaf when they are having fun?

Back indoors now, and I`m not shifting from this stove today! I`m cold, had to change cos I got covered in mud, and am glaring back at both cat and dog who just..don`t..care...both are grinning happily, having had their daily dose of fun with the dumb human....
*mutters*..they ought to remember who feeds them......
If it`s stormy where you are, I hope you are all hunkered down nice and cosy like.
Ride it out, the sun will come back one day.
(in that two days of summer we usually get, but hey, am being optimistic here y`know...)

Still keeping up the bellydancing. Still loving it! *grins*
And still getting fitter by it too.
The history of the dance itself is rich and interesting, and many countries have their own version of the belly dance.
But most of the West only knows it through films and sometimes seedy cabaret acts. (not saying all cabaret bellydance acts are seedy though!)
Shame that, because it has a proud and beautiful tradition among women from those countries.
Like any other dance, sport or talent, there are the snobbish, elite element, and then those at the other end who demean it by thinking anything goes.
I reckon the best way to approach it is somewhere in the middle. Don`t dismiss the wealth of tradition and heritage behind the dance, pay it some respect. But don`t get so hung up on the technicalities of it you become terrified to even start!
So some days, the shimmy doesn`t work....apparently you need to have a bit of flesh to shake.....ahem...
well, okies, so it works when I`m shimmying me backside then!
And other days it just seems to go so fluidly, so much a part of the music, that you know you broke the back of the jinx that kept you thinking you`d never master such a basic move, an essential part of the dance, you felt like giving up.
That`s usually the point you think, `Oh, to hell with it` and just relax and have fun, then it all comes together and before you know it that coined scarf is shimmering and jingling and you`re shimmying across the floor like you`ve done it all your life.
The discipline in the dance is amazing..much as it can look like the dancer has just went wild and frenzied, each move is calculated, each move is part of the music, and can`t be seperated from it.
I learned, today, isolated rib rolls.
Yup.
Sounds painful and almost was....
Drawing graceful circles with your ribcage and breast whilst keeping your lower half still and serene isn`t so easy.....
But I did it. *grins again with total smug pride, well earned*
Am very much better with my hips though. And have found I can do amazing things with my hips I`d never have thought them capable of doing!

For any good bellydancers reading, please don`t forget, I`m learning this all on my own, from professionals on dvds, but still, there isn`t anyone here to let me know if I make a wrong move or if a small nudge in the right direction would make things more fluid.

Most of all? It`s fun. It gets the endorphins going, makes you feel fitter and marvellously relaxed.

And you get to wear pretty, girly costumes.
Two passions in my life...archery and bellydancing. I just can`t for the life of me figure out how to combine the two..maybe that is a good thing.....

It`s awfy wet here the noo...
It`s pelting doon, whit will ah do?
Ah cannae find me wellies, tae,
So ah will get wet feet, the day...
They say it`s raining cats n dugs
But a` ah git is soaking wet lugs...
Ah need a boat tae gaun ootside
Or mebbe a spell, tae turn the tide.
Ah`ve no` seen sae much rain afore
It`s comin` in under me door!
So tae save me puir auld head
Ah think ah`ll chust gaun back tae bed.....

Can you believe it? It stopped raining!
No, neither can I....but then again, just look at those clouds out there...it`ll likely not be long afore it rains again.
In the meantime, I`m still beating the auld drum of mourning real, proper winters where the snow falls and the cold bites with that drier tooth, rather than the nibbling, gnawing ache of the damp.
Yesterday it chucked it down! And so I stood at my window, and watched the garden get muddier and muddier....I have ponds in it that were never there before, because it`s on a gentle slope. So where the garden meets the corner of the field, there`s a pond against the fence and the geese love it and congregate in and around it like auld men at the pub playing dominos...oh wait..does anyone play that anymore?
(I do)
And against the stone dyke beside the track is a chain of little ponds and rivulets where the ducks splash and so I also stood and watchd a row of ducks, bums up, thoroughly enjoying the weather, the rain, the mud, the puddles and ponds....
And there, in the scant and bare branches of the rose hedges, stood my chooks, drookit, miserable, scrawny looking like wet dogs....
just standing there in the vain hope the bare branches would keep the rain off.
Chickens, sometimes, are really dumb....
Because they HAVE places to go! They can get into the byres through the pop-hole next to the sheeps stall. And there are three hutches, with the wee doors open, scattered about the place, cosy with straw bedding and sheltered from the winds.
But nope. They stand there in the lashing rain, hunched up and looking like wee orphans from a Dickens novel.....
Eejits....
I long ago gave up chasing them indoors, because the wee bug*ers just came right back out again, and all that happened was that I got wet and muddy and, I`m sure, laughed at by the hens....
Do you know, it`s only a scant few years ago I could stand outside this time of year in a sea of white, soft, powdery snow, and look at the pond..the real one..beside the track and see how iced up it was, glittering diamond bright in the low winter sun.
And I still have the pictures of the drifts all down our track, which meant if we wanted to go anywhere, we`d to walk past six foot high drifts, and then there was that wonderful year we got snowed in with guests for a week and I was out there, with the shovel, making igloo blocks out of the snow...well, that wasn`t my intent..some eejit had tried to drive their car down the track and got it stuck, so we`d to dig it out..but then that somehow turned into, `oh look! This snow is just right for doing this!` and making igloo blocks and then, well, you just had to build a wall with them, don`t you?
And I remember still standing out the front of the house in the mornings, before anyone else was up and about, and watching the sun rise over the fields, watching the snow blow across the open stretch of land in front of us looking for all the world like an Arctic scene or some fantasy landscape set upon an Ice world...and the sun would catch the glitter of the drifting snow and the sparkle of it was something magical to watch.
Of course, I stood there too long so couldn`t feel my feet or hands by the time I got back indoors..and I stared at it too long so had this strange kinda glare behind my eyes until they adjusted back to normal seeing again...

But you know something?
I want to do that again.
But some horrible feeling tells me it might be many a year til I can stand and watch the snow drift here again.
It isn`t so much fun, watching mud gloop......:-(

Well, that`s my pleep over with for the day....sigh...I miss real winters....
Off out to feed the drookit chooks now, hope everyone has a fantastic day.

Why? Because IT`S SNOWING, YAYYYYY!
And yes, I know it won`t lie or will melt the minute it touches the ground...
but for now? I`m watching proper, soft, fat, old fashioned snowflakes out there, drift gently down to the mud that is my garden....
sigh....*big happy grin*

...Is almost over, in fact. It only really lasts for that brief midnight hour, the dark of the night, the time we often consider to be the `dead` of night...
Insomnia sucks, like a vampire that we can`t see...it steals your energy, your enthusiasm, and sometimes your heart. It stretches time so that an hour can seem like a whole night. It colours what you see so that the night looks darker, somehow...
It also revs your mind up when what you really, truly, need, is an "Off" switch...and you know, I can hear men up and down the country going, "Oh yes, women need an Off switch, alright..."
*giggles at the thought*
Being honest, there have been sleepless nights when despair grips you round the throat and you wonder if the night will ever end.
That`s how rough insomnia can get. It isn`t, you see, just the occasional sleepless night. It`s whole time periods of only sleeping enough to stop yourself going absolutely crazy with it, of hours spent trying to fill them with things to distract yourself from the fact that the whole world seems to sleep, leaving you alone with the dark and the howling wind outside the house, clutching at the doors, sneakily thudding at the windows...
So old friends of books are made aquaintances again.
Old movies reintroduced to your weary eyes.

Or sometimes you just take a midnight walk, off down the curve of the track, watching the pond shine like silver in the soft glow of the moon, crunching the thin layer of thick frost and scant snow underfoot.
And sometimes you`re glad you took that walk, wrapped up for an Arctic expedition, muffled against the chill the lack of sunshine gifts the night, an antidote for wakefulness, supposedly....tsk...
And you walk the track to the beach, listening to lonely curlews wing their way across the fields, hearing an owl beat her wings, on the hunt, watching the flash of white as the tails of rabbits clear out of your path, because the crunch of your feet alerts them in plenty time to shift....
And sometimes, you stand there, shivering in the cold in spite of your bundling up, and just watch the sea under the moon, rolling eternally to kiss the shore, and you see the black heads of seals, eyes glinting at you like merfolks, and watch gulls swoop across the low undulating waves as if they ride air just above them.
And you look across the Peedie Sea and see the small lights of other islands, little orange specks that sometimes foul the landscape with light pollution or sometimes bring a bit of comfort into a lonely night, because they show that other folks are `there`, just over `there`, and no, you`re not alone out here after all.....
because you hear a soft whuff and find your dog has followed you down the track, across the road, onto the shore. And she has her ears up and is watching you, no doubt thinking, silly twofoot, what the hell`s she doing out here this time of night?
But her bright eyes and friendly look bring you back from the bite of loneliness that is sleep deprivation.
So you pat her head and wave your hand in the direction of home, and oh aye, she kens fine where to go, and sprints ahead of you up the track.
So you follow her, and watch the bunnies scatter, white tails bouncing away into grassy verges under moonlight, and hear the flurry of watery wings put up into air as Lassie frightens gliding ducks and dozing moorhens by her running, padding paws.

And then you open the door into a warm and lamplit room, the stove ticking away nicely, the quiet of a household asleep.
And sitting by the window, you think that sometimes, a sleepless night isn`t so bad, after all.
Only sometimes though....

I have a visitor here to Sanday. He is called Den, and is from Yorkshire. For a Yorkshireman, he`s ok. He hasn`t wimped out at the weather :D
and he brought guns and bows to shoot, woohoo! :D
(don`t worry, please folks, the guns are legal and licensed)
For the past week there has been gales. So I gave him the obligatory tour of Sanday...that took a good half hour.....
and the rest of the time has been spent in a little shooting (at targets, no wildlife or residents were harmed during this man`s visit....)
and driving around the island looking for photo opportunities...which I reckon is easy enough to do..given the raging seas, high winds and dramatic skyscapes........
but to a Sassenach, these things are merely sea and more sea and cloudy sky with the occasional bit of sea....;-)

There are many English folks I actually like, despite my yearning for Independance...this is because you cannot tar an individual with the same brush as you do their government....:-)
This one, I like.
But still went to war with........
I beat him at chess not once, but five times in a row. And he isn`t a bad player.
But I was on a roll. So.....WOOHOOO I beat him FIVE times....yay....*insert happy little face here*
Bragging, me?
oh hell, yeah........hee hee...

Now, if only the future of Scotland`s Independance could be decided by a game of chess........