Flossie’s Tales

I like the anticipation of seeing you. There emotions involved in waiting are wonderful. That we spend an age knowing the next time we see each other is far away means that knowing it will soon be leaves me with this slightly giddy feeling that the world is turning out right again.

The occasional texts as one of us is travelling reminds me that soon I get to see you. Soon, I get to hold you. Soon.

Last night it was cold and clear. I caught the last hour of twilight and drove towards the setting sun, Jupiter and Venus dominating the darkening sky. I can’t remember the last time I saw Venus so bright; just dazzling. The sky darkened and without streetlights the stars shone through.

I remembered Rathsallagh.

I joined the motorway at Carlisle. Ahead, low to the horizon was the Plough. I grinned. My strongest association with the Plough is that it points to the North Star. I was glad the stretch ahead had few streetlights.

Ahead was North. You were North. Soon, I would be North, too.

There’s no coffee in the coffee.

Then what’s it made of?

Dark water.

I’m worried about some music recently composed for some work I’m doing. The worry is that I’m working with a composer I don’t know and he prefers to work alone. I’ve always had input before. Blindly accepting what he offers seems a little nerve-wracking, if I’m honest.

This one is run so tightly to the wire for tweaking. Even if I hated it, theres nothing I could do.

It has arrived and I’ve had a listen. There are two main themes. One is a bit too predictable and the other I quite like.

Last night, I went to bed with a tune in my head. This morning, on my way into work, it was still there. Humming itself away.

The theme I like appears to be rather catchy.

I think it’ll be OK.

Cutting nails is a pleasurable past time. I like my nails short. I have rather ugly hands at the best of times and long nails just draw unnecessary attention towards them. I don’t bite nor chew my nails, so it means I get to cut them fairly regularly.

Cutting toe nails is much easier as you have both hands freely available. The only minor concern is whether or not you’ve cut your little toe-nail so short that it’ll hurt, but frankly, I don’t need to cut my toe nails anywhere near as often as I do my finger nails. Why is that?

I digress.

Cutting the nails on my right hand is easy. Although my left hand is doing the cutting, my right hand fingers are dexterous enough to also pin down the nail enabling me to easily throw it away. The left had proves trickier. The fingers on my right are busy with the scissors, a simple job, but preventing them collecting the errant nail. My left hand fingers can manage most, my thumbnail is easy for example, but as I move along my hand they become increasingly challenging.

I recall this as, a few days ago, I had call to trim my nails. As I cut them, I placed each nail in a neat pile by my side. I only managed to collect nine. The action of flattening the nail with the scissors caused the nail of my little finger to spring wildly as it was released with a snip. I was nowhere near fast enough. It flung off in a direction I wasn’t aware of as it vanished swifter than my ability to spot it. Leaning over, I patted my bed. I patted further. Resigned to my inability to find it, even in such a small room, I threw the other nine nails away.

This morning, when I rose from my slumber I found the nail, sitting proudly beside me. It wouldn’t have been so jolly had it known it’s immediate fate. I was happy to find it, but the question remains:

Where has it been for three days?

How many pipecleaners are used for cleaning pipes?

I am currently trying to research the legends behind the Pleiades, the seven sisters.

In my mind’s eye I can see the bookshelf with all my relevant books on it. It is several hundred miles away. I am particularly interested in the Japanese legend, as, so I have been told, the logo of the car maker Subaru depicts six stars in the configuration of the star cluster. I was led to believe that Subaru derived from the legend of the six wise men -  the six brightest stars.

So-I-have-been-told and led-to-believe are not good enough, so I hit Google.

Subaru - 83,600,000: Obviously and not at all usefully.

Subaru legend - 4,320,000: Still car based.

Subaru star legend - 163,000: The second hit is ‘Astronomy in Japan’ a useful resource, but still not pinning it down with enough detail. The rest are all about cars.

I know what will knock out the vehicle manufacturers monopoly:

Subaru astronomy - 140,000: Sadly, there is a large telescope called Subaru. It has made lots of discoveries. Discoveries that have themselves become Google hits. Damn.
One of the more likely hits claims the cluster is called Mutsuraboshi (sound familiar?). More damn.

If you can’t beat them, join them:

Subaru car name meaning - 1,150,000: Fourth hit: Bingo.
In the West the cluster is called Pleiades, in China, Mao, and in Japan, Subaru (”to govern” or gather together”). In Japan, it also goes by the name Mutsuraboshi (”Six Stars”), under which title it appears frequently in very old Japanese documents such as Kojiki and Manyosyu and literature such as Makura-no-soshi. Clearly, this is one of the clusters much loved by the Japanese from ancient times. Interestingly enough, FHI was created by the merger of six companies, so you can see what a truly evocative name Subaru is.

I even managed to find three sources (although how independent anything is these days is debatable).

What the internet search engine taketh away, it giveth back. Faster, it seems, than it would have taken me to pick a book off a shelf and find the relevant chapter.

No, I haven’t just stubbed a toe. I’m watching rugby.

On opening the curtains this morning I experienced two conflicting emotions within mere centiseconds of each other.

Firstly, misery: It’s raining

Followed by excitement: It’s *snowing*

What a difference a degree makes.

That just made me happy.

x

When removing an awkward shelf, unscrew the most difficult bolts first - before you also need to support the weight.