Neighbours

A family of husband and wife, three daughters and a son is growing up in the crowded suburb of mostly "temporary" houses which can be reached on foot or by motor cycle by continuing on past our house and round the back, along the dirt path under the steep hill formed when they removed much of the slope to obtain filling for the new seaport. The wife is fat and bigger than her husband, and she forces a thin smile when she passes me on the road.

The father recently towed some big bamboos, some fifty or sixty feet long and four or five inches in diameter, up the river with his boat. Upon disembarking he tied the bamboos under the hulls of our catamaran using one of our mooring ropes, which he had apparently untied for the purpose. Tackled about this, he denied untying it, saying it was already untied, perhaps by children, when he used it. Since we have never found it untied before or since that occasion, we formed our own opinions about the matter. You can just see this rope in the photo of our catamaran with sails set (lower down this blog) as a thin dark line crossing the nearer hull diagonally.

Up until two years ago the eldest daughter, whose name I do not know, always gave me a smile and called out my name in greeting as she passed (that is the custom here, even the tiny tots call out “Malcolm!” as I pass). Eldest Daughter also tended to fat, and was often seen with food in her hand, eating as she went along.

Then there came a period when she no longer greeted me, but averted her eyes. This period lasted about a year and a half, and coincided with a noticeable slimming and other body changes. Dressed in majorette clothes, a close-fitting satin skirt and calves trimmed with fur, she looked scrumptious in fact, which surprised me when I happened to see her pass in one of the many parades that happen in this town. Meanwhile her younger sister was getting very pretty, was not getting fat, and had started greeting me with a fetching smile.

About six months ago the shy period for Eldest Daughter came to an end, and she now greets me with a smile again, though it’s now not often the spontaneous one it used to be, but rather formal. Younger Daughter, less often in company with her elder sister, sometimes smiles that lovely smile, and sometimes passes with eyes averted. My attention is always transfixed by this girl, especially when she is dressed in her well-chosen casual clothes and not in her elementary school uniform. Not only is her face attractive and smiling, but her hips twitch as she walks in the most interesting, unaffected way. It’s off-putting when one feels the twitch is exaggerated for effect, don’t you think? The spontaneity of children is a precious thing, I find it a shame that it so often disappears never to be seen again.

Is your brain really necessary?

The ongoing fuss about Terri Schiavo has reminded me of a very interesting snippet I found on the web a couple of years ago. I'm not going to take sides over Terri, I don't know what is going on in her mind, and I have no intention of opposing either of the two sides in the struggle. I give this link as it casts a light on the very interesting matter of the function of our brains. The idea that thought is just a movement of electricity in the brain, and that memory is a matter of neurons acting as on/off switches as in a computer chip, is not at all convincing to me and has anyway fallen out of favour recently.

If you have not already clicked the link, I will give you an added incentive to do so: for some people, the brain seems not be necessary. Those people can function well, even sometimes more than well, without it. As all students of logic must know, if event B happens even once without event A, then A is not always necessary for B.

For those who are willing to re-think their "knowledge" (unfortunately, not many so-called scientists) this fact encourages us to come up with a whole different idea of what the mind is and how it functions. Such new ideas are very much needed. The idea that has found most favour with me is that expounded in "The Disappearance of the Universe", by Gary Renard (and other books, too). It's a very readable book and contains a lot of clarifications. Rupert Sheldrake, too, has made laudable efforts, with different results.

Philatelic sex talk

I mentioned a few weeks back that Rosie is learning the internet. This is because I recently upgraded my connection and now have a DSL connection - Digital Subscriber Line”, I found out that means. So instead of paying exorbitantly per minute, I now pay even more exorbitantly per month, but it'’s connected all the time (except when it’s not). Now there'’s no problem with Rosie and Claude using the internet, an activity I want to encourage anyway.

Rosie joined an online stamp collectors group, it has been a hobby of hers since she was a child. The interaction with group members has revived her interest in this hobby. Last night when it was time to go to bed, I undressed and crawled into the mosquito net, lying down on my back naked and hugging my knees (our bed is a mattress on the floor, we sleep without clothes and often without covers, as it’s very warm here at this time of year) and waiting for Rosie, who was squatting on the floor outside the net close to the fan, still with her skimpy shorts on, sorting some British stamps. I was eager for her to join me but she kept showing me stamps and asking whether the portrait was of Queen Victoria or Queen Elizabeth, King George V or George VI.

Eventually Rosie took off her shorts and joined me. While I started caressing her in the right places, handing her compliments on the tactile qualities of her body (it is extraordinarily sensuous to touch) her side of the sex talk was:
"“The silver Jubilee was in 1935, so did George VI start his reign in 1910?” "
"“That’s right.”"
"“Who was the first King of England?”"
"“Not sure, Rosie (It does feel delicious just here) - I remember there was a Queen Boudicca very early on: she was a warrior.” You have to remember England was very fragmented at that time, occupied by different tribes"
"“What was the first stamp?”"
"“Penny black, I think. (Your back view is so delightful!) Then there were penny reds, you cut them out of the sheet with scissors, they didn'’t have perforations.”"
Various questions along these lines took the place of moans of pleasure for the first fifteen minutes or so. Fifty years ago I would have been annoyed at this preoccupation with stamps when there were more important issues pressing, but nowadays I take it all much more lightly, even go along with it. As it happened, our love-making turned out excellent well, despite our last session having taken place only that afternoon. Rosie eventually excelled herself at the kind of vigorously lascivious and exciting movements she does so well and so instinctively, and ended up very well satisfied; and I was delighted with her, too. I am thinking of keeping a small album of stamps by the bedside.

Some of the harpsichords I have made

While I lived in England I made a number of harpsichords, starting with a well produced kit and graduating through the designs of others to designing and making my own.

My first harpsichord, made from a kit, a replica of an instrument by the Flemish maker Hans Moermans


A spinet in the Italian tradition, with a pretty sycamore case


An instrument designed and made by me for playing the music of D. Scarlatti


Another view of the same instrument showing wrestpins and jacks

Here in Philippines harpsichords are not found, but I did bring one half made when I came to this country, and finshed it so that it plays.

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boat building

This is my catamaran moored in the river.

I started building this boat in early 1999, finished one hull, and overwhelmed by the thought of starting another hull just like it, branched off into several other boats, the last of which was a sharpie designed by Phil Bolger. That boat was stable, convenient, safe and easy to sail, and I made a tour of the local islands with it; but it was too sluggish, and I sold it.

Finally I got up the courage to build the second cat hull, beams, mast and spars and we finished it in August of last year. Sanny and a team of men and boys trolleyed it along the path between the fishponds, shown in the picture below, and we assembled it on the bank and pushed it in at high tide.

I made a suit of sails out of nylon canvas and they work reasonably well. It's fun to sail! This boat could travel around the world.



Here is a native style boat I made about nine years ago, sitting on its raft in a fishpond. Notice the outriggers. It now has an engine, but it was originally driven rather inefficiently by a "crab-claw" type of sail, the usual type here (although sailing craft are rare here.)
The river is beyond and you can just see the back end of another boat I built at the far right behind the bamboo fence. This shows the path between the fishponds where we trolleyed the cat hulls. Children love swimming in the fishpond.

A long distance telephone call

Jo called me yesterday morning, to wish me a (belated) happy birthday. It was actually still the right date where she was calling from, eight time zones west of us.

Jo is my previous (and second) wife, and since our divorce about fifteen years ago we have remained very good friends. I lived with her for twenty-five years, we brought up my two children from a previous marriage and the two boys from our own. She keeps me up to date with those members of our family or friends that I don’t hear from much, tells me what she has been up to and what her life is like these days. She loves choral singing and sings in at least three choirs, and some of the music is quite demanding. I do miss the singing I used to do when I lived in England, there isn’t that opportunity here

A few years after leaving me, and after one or two false starts, Jo fell in love with a lovely man, a retired mining engineer a couple of years older than me and sixteen years older than her. She moved in with him and became his devoted partner. Two years ago he fell dead on the golf course while enjoying a round with his friends. He left Jo his very serviceable house, which has been a great blessing to her. Jo has remained a widow since.

Rosie and I visited Jo and her man while we were in England on the only occasion we have travelled there since I came to this country in 1991. They were very friendly and hospitable to us, I am glad to have met them both together, and glad that Jo had those years of fulfilment with him.

Birthday greetings

I am a lot older than my wife – twenty-nine years older, in fact. I sometimes express misgivings about this. Yesterday was my seventy-fifth birthday and Rose sent me this message on a Yahoo greetings card:

“No matter how old you are, you will always be my one and only love. Whatever happens, you will always be cherished and treasured deep in my heart. Diamonds are forever, they say, but you are valued more than a diamond to us- so you are beyond forever... Happy diamond birthday our dearest! We love you more than forever..

Always, Rosie and Claude

“
Here are Rosie and Claude

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You mean having sex results in pregnancy?