Synchronicity or what?

I’m a firm believer in synchronicity. By synchronicity I mean that what happens in the external world mirrors what’s going inside us, that we create our future with our intentions and that everything that happens is part of a web of meaning. This has been borne out so many times in my life that I’ve given up doubting it in spite of the majority view that the whole idea is complete boxxocks.

If you’re clever you can use consciously this quality of the universe – you can tap into the web, getting exactly what you want and finding signs everywhere as to what’s going on. Sometimes however – like now, for me – the whole blinking thing is a mystery.

I’ve told you about Ellie and her injury.

I’ve told you about our building work inside and out – the new bathroom, the knocking down of wall, the earth-moving - and I've told you about the sorting out of shed, garage and house.

The new bathroom

I've told you about my mother's death earlier this year and about my mental and emotional clear-outs – the two events from 40 years ago that have haunted me ever since and of which I want to be free.

I haven’t however told you about my email and computer problems. (Skip this bit if you want.)

During the summer I lost all my old emails and destroyed the email programme I was using through my own carelessness. Then, around the time Ellie was injured, I was unable to send or receive messages with the new programme I'd installed. (Not my fault this time.) I'm now unable to keep any records of messages sent, received or deleted and have lost my email address book.

Two weeks ago I got a new computer and as soon as it was plugged in up in my room it started to misbehave. Because our computer expert Ian had had no problems with it in his workshop, Frog and I then tried every possible combination of peripherals (luckily Frog-the-hoarder has a good supply) – screens, keyboards, mice, leads, connectors, sockets, printers, scanners – at the same time running my old computer as a control. The old computer which had appeared to be on its last legs behaved impeccably while the new computer continued to crash. It’s now gone back to Ian for re-testing.

My study looks like computer repair shop. I’m limping along with half an old computer. My files and pictures are all over the place on memory sticks. I'm using four different email programmes. We think we're going to have to try a completely new system of broadband.

The computer repair shop (my study)

Yes, now I come to think about it, there probably is a connection somewhere in all that. But what it means and what the heck I can do about it I don’t yet know.

Colour everywhere

On Saturday,  Frog, Ellie and I go for a walk by the sea.

Even though it’s a grey day and nearly winter, there's colour everywhere.

I think she's feeling better . . .

I’ve received so much kindness and concern about Ellie that I thought I’d better update you about her condition.

She’s off the lead and out of her onesie. Her stitches are gone and the wound’s nearly healed.

Here she is today helping me level an area behind our shed that’s going to be decked and turned into an area for Frog to store stuff out of sight (or at least that’s the idea).

I couldn’t decide which picture to use so I’m afraid you’ve got them all.

A place of magic

It’s a funny thing but good art – whether writing, painting, music or anything else – is inspiring, in the sense that it inspires you (or rather me) to do the same. It makes me feel creative. You’d think it would be the opposite. You’d think it would make you despair of ever reaching those heights. But it doesn’t. I suppose it’s the same with people. Good people are the ones who make you feel better about yourself and the world, and bad people – however beautiful, rich, famous or talented – make you feel worse. Or at least that’s my yardstick.

    Yesterday evening quite by accident I caught a feature on BBC2’s ‘Autumnwatch’. A nature writer (I didn’t catch his name) was talking about a man in the 1950s (I didn’t catch his name either) who wrote about the peregrine falcons of his native Essex. Both the commentary and the extracts read out were fabulous, and while watching I felt those familiar creative stirrings and remembered an incident from earlier in the day that hadn’t seemed important at the time but I now realised was a highlight.

The last nine days since Ellie was injured have been ghastly.

    Because the gash is in her side she hasn’t been allowed to run or jump as this might rip it open, so can’t be let out except on the lead and can only be walked for three ten-minute episodes a day. Because she is on the lead, so am I. Because she can’t run and jump, neither can I. Neither of us is free.

    We have to try and roll up her onesie as much as possible so that the wound gets some air but with her onesie rolled up she has to be watched because if she licks the wound it could get infected. Even worse, she could tear out the stitches. So, if Ellie is to have any fun at all and any fresh air during the day when she’s not walking, I have to be in the garden with her and there’s not much you can do when you have to keep your eyes on a licky dog.

Ellie with her onesie rolled up and her wound exposed

I’ve felt that my life was on hold and plunged into a depression that I hoped had been left behind with my orphaning.

Yesterday because Frog was at home I disappeared into Exeter saying I had to do some errands. He could look after the dog for a change. I needed a break.

    I didn’t enjoy Exeter. It’s always swarming with people but yesterday because of half-term it was even worse. I didn’t find anything I wanted in the shops so decided to buy some lunch and sit somewhere nice to eat it. I had an hour’s parking left and didn’t want to go home.

    In the past I would have gone to the cathedral green but most of it is now fenced off while the Royal Clarence Hotel which burnt down last November is rebuilt. And anyway, the last time I sat on cathedral green a seagull swiped my sandwich out of my hand. (It was a rather nice prawn one too and, as the woman sitting next to me drily remarked, the seagull had good taste: it didn’t want her pasty.)

    As I wandered, sarnies firmly clasped, I passed some ruins. I’d never explored them before so stopped to read the information board. It was all a bit complicated but as far as I could make out they were the remains of a medieval church and almshouses bombed in the war, with Roman remains underneath. They’d been left in the centre of Exeter as a memorial to those who had died in the war.

    I ventured further in, sat on a bit of ruined medieval wall in the sun and wrestled with the sandwich packet. No one else was around. A blackbird fluttered out of a tangle of clematis and hopped further into the ruins to a barred-off place not open to the public where some feeble-looking grass and a handful of wildflowers straggled through the gravel. I could probably squeeze through those bars, I thought. If I were homeless I might pitch my tent in there. The sounds of the city had vanished as if a perspex wall had slid up between me and the crowds that surged past. And, suddenly, I was in a place of magic.

Exeter's ruined medieval almshouses.*

That feeling was what I remembered when I watched the feature on ‘Autumnwatch’.

    Was it the place that created the feeling or is it a part of me that I don’t go to often enough? How long is it since I’ve taken time out – really out – just for myself?

If you want to visit the ruins for yourself, they're behind Wagamama.

* Sadly this isn't my picture as I didn't have my camera with me. It comes from this site.