Friday, December 22, 2006

Last day at work before slumping into the Christmas sofa...work? Call that work?

Well, I call it work.
Home, cook the tea, try to make Garageband work on the Mac. Very nearly succeed. Resolve to try again. Have glass of wine and resolve not to.
Interesting observation from Gerry, one of Susan's oldest friends. Why do people fae sooth, like us, come to live in Shetland? Because, he says, they see it as a blank canvas where they can come and repaint the picture of their ife. Or, a clean sheet of paper where they can rewrite their story.
It is, he says, a strange and magical place, and there's no doubt that's true. I came here, undoubtedly, to reinvent myself. Or find myself. Actually, I came here to default on a a mortgage on a flat in Summerston, which then mysteriously sold, I sometimes think to an anonymous friend...oh, and to escape the violent threatenings of various aggrieved Glaswegians. And, err...to reinvent myself. And because Foula lamb is the best food I have ever tasted.
Sadly, or perhaps more or less happily, the reinvention failed. No matter where you go, no matter how glorious the Lang Ayre or Tingon or Muckle Roe, how splendid the music or the home brew, it's still you. Or for that matter, me. And now I'm here, I feel myself settling, not in or down. Just settling, like a sinking building, or a grounded ship. Who would seriously want to be anywhere else?
Happy Christmas shopping!

2 comments:

hoolet said...

hi tom
aye you're well oot o' summerston , and jist aboot any bit o' glesca, at least up therr you can see the neds commin a mile away and set the dugs on them , or meet them aff the ferry and turn them roon , cos as you know every body knows every body else up therr and a "stranger" sticks oot like a sair thumb , you're lucky you work fae hame , jist aboot anywey, inhalin the fresh air , tryin tae keep upright in the gales , you lucky lucky man.
awra best tae you and susan and the weans and dugs .
merry christmas aand a happy new year
colin

Tom Morton said...

Cheers Colin! Frank McAvennie (in his poverty stricken days)used to stay in the Barratt flat next to mine in Lynne Gardens, Summerston. He used to terrorise the neighbourhood by playing keepie-uppie with his pals at 4.00 am