Hestia...and it's all Greek

Brace yourself Rodney.....

So we're hurrying down past the castle last night on our way to meet my friend The Day Carer and her hubby.

The wind is tugging at my hood like a vile playground bully threatening to make my already unruly hair less 70s Kate Bush more Psychotic Crystaltips; Sonshine has his woolly hat clamped down so far you cannot see his eyes.  He looks like a character from the cartoon Southpark.

We are late.  I am harassed.

I notice the swans gliding around on the moat (very grand name for a shallow donut of water that surrounds the castle)

Me (trying to make friendly conversation as I drag him along):  Look - there's the swans! Can you see how many cygnets they've produced this year?

Sonshine pauses at the black railings: 'One......two ......three....no, wait - that was a crisp poke.......three, ah that was another crisp poke....' Poke is the Scottish word for packet, I hasten to add.

We hold hands to cross towards the restaurant and Sonshine stops dead again.  I try to drag him forwards.  WE ARE LATE!!  He has noticed a tortoiseshell cat padding purposefully up the middle of the road towards the castle.  Possible towards the cygnets.  I can tell by the set of its bony narrow shoulders, it's that sort of a cat.  Hell, they're all that sort of a cat.

Sonshine:  Mum - look there's that cat AGAIN!!!  Every time I come down here on my bike I see THAT CAT!

Me: hmmmm?  Come on, honey - we're late!

Sonshine reluctantly pulls himself from his cat reverie and falls into step beside me again.

Sonshine:  Do you think he could be a halloumination?

Me: Sorry? A what?

It is now my turn to stop dead in the middle of the street.

Sonshine:  A halloumination?  Could the cat be a fig of my imagination?

I struggle to remember what the correct word is.  It's not anything to do with a firm Greek cheese, or figs but I'm damned if I can unearth from the morass of my mind what it is.

I am suddenly reminded of  a holiday in Dublin with Tartarus 20 years ago and being called into an impressively formal state room at some Big House we were wandering around.  Don't worry, there were other people there.  We hadn't broken in or anything.

'Come in here,' he whispered, taking my mitten-clad hand and dragging me into a brightly lit ballroom. 'LOOK at those chandelabras - they're STUNNING!'  Tartarus pointed to a massive crystal chandelier.  Once I had stopped laughing like a demented hyena,  I decided that henceforth, a chandelier would now be known as a chandelabra....and now none of us can remember what it's really called.  Which causes some pitying titters from strangers.

Actually, now that I think on it, he had on a similar woolly hat to Sonshine that day too.

I am also reminded of the fact that Tartarus, for no reason whatsoever, always puts a 'd' onto the end of the word museum.  So we visit museumds quite often.  Weird.

Ah yes - the word I am looking for is HALLUCINATION, but what's the point in correcting him?

Like father like son:    Like no language you've ever had to learn before.

Please tell me that it's not just my two chaps that do this?

Hestia....and what's buzzin with the bees?

Bee afraid, very afraid.....

The week after the bees arrived, I had to inspect them with one of the other club members.  Although I had remembered my wellies, matches (to light the smoker) and two black Gucci towels (to keep the bees quiet while we manipulated them) I completely forgot that I'd need to protect my nethers.

Unperturbed, we strode up to the hive and decided to light the smoker.  Two million struck matches later, the smoker wasn't smoking and the rain was coming on.  'Oh let's just get a look at them anyway,' I breezed, lifting off the top of the hive and the supers beneath.

Holy effing God.

I've never SEEN so many bees.  And they were very pissed off at someone taking their roof off. They buzzed around our heads angrily and then I realised that my my skinny-jean clad groin was totally VIBRATING with angry honey bees.

Hestia...is indisposed

I wonder if he can power-hose out the blockage?

Things have not gone quite according to plan since I got out the hospital a fortnight ago.

The first thing that ticked me off was that I still weighed much the same as I went in.  I was hoping for a massive weight loss or at least a sympathetic secret tummy tuck while I was under the blade.  

I would have settled for a gastric band.  

Or even a strategically placed rubber band.  

Hestia says....sadly, normal service has resumed

So, ok, I've had a little bit of fun at the expense of the people who were convinced that the universe was going to end on Saturday.  It actually gave me a little pause for thought and today's blog submission was going to be all about the power we each have to start our lives afresh - every day.  And how we should draw a line under all the bad shit in our lives up until Saturday and treat Sunday and every day thereafter as a beautiful gift of life.

Yes, well that's what I was GOING to blog about until I went up the hospital to get my dressings removed this morning.

Hestia and the Rapture, part II

Well, it's just after 6pm and I'm terribly disappointed to report that The Rapture has not happened. Not on this tiny hell-bound island anyway.

Hang on, what's that noise that sounds like a hundred Welsh Male Voice choirs outside the hou......

*abrupt cessation of typing*

Attention Reader:  Hestia's planned blogpost cannot be with you this evening as she was spirited away to heaven by Me at around 6pm this evening.  She was mightily pissed off at missing Dr Who and the next episode of Game of Thrones, let me tell you.


Signed:  God


PS - she asked me to let you know that Sonshine has been spirited away too, so they're quite happy.  She enquired about someone called Tartarus too, but his name wasn't down so he's not getting in.

Unfortunately, if she carries on in current vein (I suspect it was she who brought the crate of Bacardi Breezers and the vuvuzelas) she'll be back with you on planet earth as quickly as I can beam her back there.


PPS - You will notice that the universe has NOT ended as planned.  I did not fancy Hestia's threat to wax and vajazzel Me if I did.

Hestia and The Rapture

Bring on the spitfires!!

For those of you who spend too much time on Facebook and Twitter, it may have come to your attention that at 6pm on Saturday evening, God is apparently going to descend from heaven and basically stub the universe out on the sole of his sandal.  Yes, The Rapture will be upon us and the universe will be ended!

Repent ye sinners, yes Simon Cowell, creator of The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent, I'm looking at YOU.

I am assured that the faithful will be caught up in a glorious whirlwind and taken up to heaven, but the rest of YOU will be condemned to the fiery BBQ of Hell.  So my dilemma is this:

a) what should I pack in my overnight bag for spending eternity in heaven (what do you mean, household goddesses aren't on God's Getting In To Heaven list?). What is the SS11 catwalk look for saved souls?Sackcloth and ashes isn't really me, I'm afraid.

b) should I buy more than half a pint of milk today when I'm out? Just in case?

c)  Will God wait until after Dr Who is finished tomorrow night?

c) who wants to sit beside me at the back of the bus?  Bring Your Own Bottle.

Hestia and the baby crow

Yesterday afternoon, I ventured out to the library for my first jaunt on foot after surgery.  The visit went well - my slave son dutifully pulled books from the bottom shelves for me to peruse and soon I had a rucksack stuffed with low-fat cookbooks, books about Making Myself Happy and How to Avoid Procrastination.  I suspect that the making myself happy books will involve ceremonially burning the low fat cookbooks. At some point.  That'll be where the Procrastination book comes in, I expect.

Anyway, as I hobbled back through the front gate, I noticed a large young crow in the front garden.  He was bouncy and noisy as well as big, so I wasn't unduly bothered about him.  Crows are pretty good parents and since I live amongst hundreds of them, I was pretty sure that there were parents hopping around nearby.

Hestia is not dead....but feels a bit sorry for herself

So, I schedule a blog post to entertain you on the day I get sliced and diced and Blogger throws a tantrum and the damn thing doesn't post.  The best laid plans of mice and men and all that....

Anyway, as you can see, I am not dead although I am walking like Mrs Overall from Acorn Antiques.

Hestia and......The Easter Story

AS you read this, I'll be under the knife.  Slightly worried that I might have bigged this up a bit too much in my previous post!  Enjoy it anyway:

The Scottish education system has been admired and emulated all over the world.  For centuries it has produced some of the world’s finest thinkers, engineers, artist and musicians: Robert Adam, Alexander Graham Bell, Robert Burns, Joseph Lister, Thomas Telford, Gordon Brown, Jackie Stewart, Colin McCrae, Billy Connolly, Sean Connery, Brian Cox (The Hanibal Lecter one, not the rubber-lipped physicist), Robert Carlisle, Deacon Blue, The Proclaimers and, erm, Andy Stewart.  No women, as you can see: They were all stuck at home, ironing sporrans, hand-pressing the Irn Bru and trying to be Sheena Easton. Anyhoo, I digress.....

Bearing this proud educational history in mind, Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Sonshine’s Easter Story, courtesy of the 21st Century Department of Education in darkest Argyll ……P4/5 stylee:

Picture one starts off with a fairly traditional image – the three crosses on the hill at Golgotha, a MASSIVE Easter Bunny and some less-than-traditional crucifixion chat.

While the thief on the left moans ‘oh God’ which is perfectly understandable given the circumstances, Jesus takes the opportunity to express regret at not taking that super cool spy job.  This little known fact that Christ could have been a MOSSAD-conscript  is, somewhat strangely, omitted from the original Easter Story and shamefully neglected in The Greatest Story Ever Told (my own version of the King James in celluloid)

A spot of undercover spying could really have lifted Christ's life story, in my opinion.  Would have done wonders for the paintings of Leonardo Da Vinci, don't you think?  Imagine it - the Book of Matthew, Mark, Luke and Bond, James Bond.

The thief hanging on the other side of Christ manages a street-wise ‘Tell me about it' which makes me think that a) Monty Python's Life of Brian is going to go down a treat with Sonshine when we show it to him and b) he is watching way too much American telly.

They bake in excruciating agony under a very unhappy-looking Palestinian sun - not quite an eclipse, but close enough for me.  As you can see, we've attempted some colouring in here, but it's a bit half-assed and quickly abandoned.

This first narrator is Jesus himself, who says ‘Jesus was crucified.  Life is crule (isn't it)'.  Let's overlook the shocking spelling and just embrace the sentiment - even at 9, kids know life is crule.

Cut to Picture 2, where our narrator is now the Devil.

 An unusual choice of narrator, but what the hell, let's EMBRACE it.....

Jesus is now dead and two people roll up the stone to the front of the grave – with a ‘Jesus - Do Not Disturb’ sticker on it.  The Devil also has some hitherto unhinted at Biblical facts at his fingertips – that Jesus was ‘wraped’ in TOILET PAPER.  I'm thinking that 'Wraped' might be a sort of violent sexually-charged wrapping perhaps? Then Satan quickly admits that he’s just JOKING.  About the toilet paper, not the wraping.  That Satan, what a prankster, always up for a laugh.  And let's draw a veil over the spelling of 'actually'.

I CAN shed some light on this toilet paper thing.  The previous Hallowe'en, Sonshine went out as an Egyptian mummy and I used crepe bandage and toilet roll and copious lengths of sellotape to complete the look.  So it's not all quite as bonkers as one might think.  But it does get bonkers, quite soon.

Cut to Picture 3 where we see what I thought was the newly risen Christ having a bit of a stretch outside the tomb.  I have since been corrected.  It is in fact Mary, weeping outside the tomb.

Sonshine explained that he HAD put ‘bosoms’ on Mary, but then rubbed them out because he didn’t want to get in trouble with the teacher.  I pointed out that even some long hair might have helped with the gender issues.  He never thought about maybe adding long hair, only bosoms. I can see where his future interests will lie.

The narrator for picture 3 is now an angel who says: 'After my vacation, Jesus wasn't in the cave.  in fact, he had risen from the dead.'

I can't quite remember the angels going for a fortnight in a caravan to Bognor..... but still..... who really knows, with angels (or as Sonshine likes to call them, 'angles').

Our final image in this quartet shows that touching moment where the weeping Mary is startled in the Garden of Gethsemane by the appearance of the risen Christ.

I really like the fact that he has placed Jesus with his head out of shot. Seriously, I thought this was a very inventive angle (angel?) to take.

Note the rubbed out bosoms in this image of Mary too. So far, so traditional but now, bafflingly, our narrator is now a skate-boarder called Fred who concludes: 'Mary walked away and then Jesus said Mary' *ponders Sonshine’s tenuous grip on reality, even Biblical reality*.

I obviously have to work on the beginning. middle, end thing in stories and sort out the spelling issues - but that's for another day.

Finally, I'd like to leave you with the teacher's comment on this tableau of tragedy

I blame the parents m'self.....

Hestia and..... the hospital

Well dear reader, the Big Day is almost upon me and I admit to being as nervous as a Lib Dem on Election night. 

I get my gallbladder removed on Thursday.

I am seriously hoping that the gallstones weigh about a stone so that I don't have to worry about any kind of weight-loss programme when I get out.

I'll be AWOL from blogland from Wednesday pm until I feel fit enough to tell you all about my sojourn and, if you are really unlucky, show you a picture of my gallstones. My lovely friend Di has suggested that I post them down to her and she fits french wires on to them to turn them into earrings.

I don't think that I've got any clothes that will go with gallstones....but we shall see.

Hestia is ......pleased

Happiness is:  A message pinging into your inbox that says: 'Justin Currie has sent you a message on Facebook'.  And Uber-happiness is to discover that the message is not 'Bugger off and leave me alone you mad stalkery woman.'

Not yet anyway.

I don't want you to think that he just decided to get in touch out of the blue.  I messaged him on FB to ask if he was going to be playing at The BIG F  (Bute International Guitar Festival) in September and he was simply being a gent and replying.  No.

Here he is anyway and this is why I think he MUST be part of this festival.



And yes, I'm watching JC's video wearing my love-struck face.....

I'm sure the police will be round with an injunction directly.

Hestia does a podcast

I think I need a mic like this one

The scene:  9pm on a wet May evening.  We have the blinds pulled down, even though it's light outside; we don't want anyone to see what we're doing.....

Sonshine flips open the laptop and expertly opens Garageband.  He clicks on the appropriate icon and makes a flamboyant bowing gesture.  I wonder again whether he might turn out gay.  Right now that's not important.  Right now I have to learn how to use this package to make.....a podcast.

Hestia has hives.....

Does my bum look big in this?

Not the big red welts that appear after accidentally brushing against nettles as you skulk around the garden looking for a neighbour's pesky cat to soak with the water pistol as retaliation for pooping in my strawberries.  No - a hive, a proper BEE hive!!!

Technically, it's not my hive at all and it's not even in my garden, but to all intents and purposes, the bees that were delivered to the island yesterday were mine for a whole day.  And I think I luff them as much as I now seem to luff Kate Middleton.

At 10.45am yesterday morning, I stood under the frantic whirring of Jenny, the wind turbine, feeling that the rise and fall of the rotors' speed pretty much captured my own bursts of panic/calm as I waited in the increasing heat for the bees to be delivered.

Soon Tony and Elizabeth from the Ayrshire Beekeepers Association pulled up in their 4x4 and threw open the doors with a smile.  A couple of bees flew out of the car behind them.