'to end yet again' (the embers)

horsemouth is up. (good morning! good morning! good morning!)

it is a saturday (notionally) but the end of the year supplants all that.  the new year begins with a monday. later today in theory zoom beers with howard. 

last night a dream about waiting in the foyer of a hawkwind gig. duncan busto (dj spirit) was there (with an old college tutor of horsemouth's). there seemed to be some delay with hawkwind going onstage. eventually horsemouth got lost wandering round west london for some reason. 

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review of the year - the 'embers'

september, october november,  december 

(incorporating the autumn equinox, samhain, and the winter solstice).

a lot has happened for sure. a lot of it is tucked away while horsemouth tries to get on with the new dispensation. 

september 

our humble narrator wandered round hereford. he bought kojève's the notion of authority in a verso hardback in oxfam and a stash of V7 pens (that soon stopped working). he is about to return to the wen (he has much of september off). 

september in the city was glorious. 

soon enough he is back in his bed in his shady basement flat in sunny hackney after an evening out over the park catching up with friends.  a walk with TG (coffee and some cake over at the olympic village). howard visited.  john from porto came to visit. a wander up to the sally army in walthamstow (and a quick peek into the william morris museum), the hackney museum exhibition at home in hackney: a community photographed 1970s-today.

horsemouth was fascinated by the multiplication of poverties that now goes on - food poverty, energy poverty, housing poverty etc. (but not actual poverty you understand). 'poverty can hide in london better than anywhere else' remarked ernest dowson. 

the bid died. given the withdrawl of the lead bidder the forces of good were simply not able to resuscitate it in time to the condition that would satisfy the awarding body and leave themselves with enough time to actually do the thing the consortium was created to do. horsemouth spent a fair amount of time thinking about net zero (in a general kind of way). 

met up with enza. zoom meetings. an actual face-to-face mancom. a morning walk with andrew minty. saturday (autumn equinox/ birth of john coltrane), the journey back to herefordshire. 

'one cannot have everything (inasmuch as one thing sometimes excludes another)' 

and horsemouth was back out in the countryside again. it was rainy and grey. september ends. (now read on). 

october (8 bears)

we are into horsemouth's first month back in the herefordshire countryside. we are into octo-ber or 8 bears (one of the -embers even if it doesn't literally say so). 

horsemouth had reminded himself to notice the sunflower - he brought it and its sibling back from the plant and produce sale at the village hall (back in may? or june?) and planted it in one of the flower pots. it has come up and even flowered (its sibling was uprooted by a storm). 

horsemouth often sees rabbits when he gets up in the morning. mind you he has also seen a number of myxie rabbits over the summer. he does hope that a population can re-establish itself. he views it as an auspicious beast. it is currently the chinese year of the rabbit. next year is the year of the dragon (beginning 10th february 2024). 

success! the heating oil was delivered (1000L of it 5th oct). with the third of the tank there already horsemouth hopes this will hold the house out until spring/ summer (when prices are cheaper) but it may not

'it is no longer a question of satisfying the flesh (or the spirit), but of responding to things which from being commonplace and insignificant have suddenly become precious...' 

another quick visit to hereford (before it rained). horsemouth made book purchases. one was the history of the runestaff (michael moorcock) one squid. a friday the 13th. 

walks around (and a few gardening tasks). we moved from the equinox towards the celtic quarter day that is halloween. we moved towards november. we are moving down the dark half of the year, the long dark tunnel that is the journey down to the winter solstice and then back up towards the light. here in the wilds of herefordshire it is a steady diet of rainy grey days.

horsemouth  reset all the clocks (curiously, in a PKD moment, despite their widely differing appearances they all had exactly the same little plastic mechanism powering them). 

november

the sun races through the treeline up into the woods on the hill above the house. the sun off to the south east on the horizon (low on the horizon). often a red sky in the morning (it's cold). a week when horsemouth and his mum were down on the abbey rota (opening and closing the abbey) at the weekend his brother and his family were up visiting. horsemouth needs to write things down (or type them in)  otherwise he forgets almost immediately. 

his brother (and his brother's family) arrived. (ok ok the youngest didn't arrive until the next day). saturday they scattered horsemouth's father's ashes into a hole and planted a shrub on top of them. dad was into growing things that makes sense to horsemouth. 

horsemouth and his mum selected the spot.

december

horsemouth is two and a half years into his redundancy/ retirement. it doesn't feel too bad.  survival requires him to dip his savings (such as they are). he was on holiday from it for the last six months or so. then he was back to the wen for a few days  to meet and greet. 

and then it was back to the countryside to the winter solstice and to christmas and to the new year. he got hideously drunk over christmas and as a result was hideously hung over boxing day and thereafter.