Its a hard call and the birdsong

 I am still being the Hermit.
the day started as stated before, with awful pain.
its tiresome this, waking and trashing and feeling mad and getting madder.
Its tiresome this, tired and tireder and tireder and never ending.
but the day has to be started and so be it.
It was blustery outside, but that i expected.  We are in January and bloody lucky not to be knee deep in snow and ice and more of that.
I got the last of the cornflakes, some for myself and some for the birds.
i got the blankets, woollen.
Also the chair, hot water bottle, stool and camera.
I forgot the hearing aid. This i realized when i was settled looking the right eggit i felt.
wrapped up like a regular mummy, and no teeth in, i forgot them as well.
The cornflakes were put out for the birds on a nearby ledge and i sat and watched and ate and then i sat and held the camera and held it more and crooked the neck and also creaked it.
I cranked the wrist and bloody wrecked it.
So it was and so it is when you want the wonder of seeing a bird and a better wonder to snap it close.
I saw the bird, and i snapped.
I saw a treecreeper and took a credible image to at least ID the thing, but possibly not get in National Geographic.
A treecreeper no less!
These birds are secretive and shy and i have not seen one in decades.
Some have never seen em, and i even snapped a critter!
Two more hermits were here for the weekend.
The male of the species wondered by looking pensive and holy and young, so devout.
About three quarters of an hour later the female of the species walked hastily by.  She looked one way at the gate, "where the hell did he go?" i guess she asked herself and with that she chose right, and went right.
Two robins came for the cornflakes, both at the same time.
I have to ask about this for these birds are very aggressive and territorial and usually not seen so close together but maybe needs must in winter.
Cold and tearfulness got to me and i came in.
I took my morning load of the medicine and decided to pay a visit to the priest.
A motive in mind - "Father, would you be able to lend me a pair of binoculars for the period of my stay?"
He opened the door to me.
He looked a bit dishevelled and rather grubby and rough.
He seemed to have had some surgery to his face and he also seemed worn as in weary worn.
He wasn't impressed with me saying i had seen a treecreeper, he had seen them in these parts.
Possibly more times than he cared to remember.
He had the air of loneliness, it takes one to know the one.
I was saddened and it upset me so.
I felt it was bloody ridiculous to park a single man in a 'Wuthering Heights' type residence on the side of a mountain in all weathers, alone, lonely.
Men i feel, but i wouldn't really know, don't do 'alone' very well.  Women, i feel do, but then i wouldn't really know that either.

Off i scooted in the van towards the lakes of glendalough.  Suddenly deciding to drive on past the round tower, over the roads round the youth hostel and parked up there high in the ~Upper Lakes car park - for free.
Disabled, you see.
Anyway, out i got and tried to wrap in a better more aesthetic fashion than the day before.
This was not a success.  I was brave to launch forth, and it took a broad smile and "oh gud, you understand too, eh, its a mad day up here!"
i felt they did, actually, for we had that understanding.
All had that understanding but some were more polished in the effects than i was.
The wind would knock you down, the metal stick was a godsend. Three legs always better than two and three legs made of whatever even better.
One at least was made of steel.
Small mercies.
I followed two young men to the lake shore.
It baffled me why two young men should take a mechanical jeep for a walk in such wonderful scenery, surely these 'toys' for boys can be left at home to play with in the back yard, not in Glendalough.
Yes, in Glendalough!
-At the lake's lapping waters.
It was hell fun to make it head for the waves and try defeat them.  The little blighter didn't and became consumed and stuck.
Sorry, but i giggled and wondered what did that do to the mechanics?
They plucked the thing up and moved on.
One man though seemed bored and possibly was just dragged along for the ride. oops.
I also moved on.
I got a latvian to take a pic of myself by the shore in my wrap of clothing, this for my american friends.
he said he was Latvian and didn't understand, so i mimed.
He took the image but i wasn't in it.
He was be-fuzzled.
His lady friend took hold of the camera and managed to get me in shot and straight!
What that says, well, is anyone's guess.
I move on again finding it difficult to protect the camera from the sprays sent toward me by a hurtling wind which gusted so badly.
As i moved away, i chanced to look to the right and saw the Mountain Rescue Ambulance go up the side road and that worried me.
I moved away.
A few steps further along the shore i stopped again.  Leaning on a tree and taking a picture was not the best idea for even the trees were moving.
It didn't help much either to wrap a leg around the trunks to steady myself - no brainer.
A dustbin was the next support and that worked quite well.
I found another broken down church from the 11th century covered in lichen and moss and weeds and shit.
It also had a small graveyard attached with stone crosses at various degrees of the vertical too.
Even near a graveyard the wind, the burnt and brown colours of the mountains made me immeasurably happy.
Lost to the wind and the chaos of beauty, the drenching of breeze flying droplets from the lakes and the crows struggling badly on bent and flattened feathers, we all were game for this as we pretty much flapped along.
But one does have to stop, eventually.
One has to begin to feel again, eventually.
I feel and most do.
What is it that we have different types of feelings and yet one is the most pervasive, depending on the personality and life circumstances.
We all enjoy such beauty as Glendalough as was evident by the amount of people out on this gorgeous day.
There were a lot of people out, children running and fathers pushing the prams and buggies.
Dogs chasing and everyone at peace with laugher in the air over the wind and the blustery.
I sit down in a pub and i feel again.
Oh how dreadful.
I order the meal alone.  I sit and watch what i was to believe after decades, the 'normal' people.
The couples with a new baby.  The traveller people all preparing for a ballroom 21st birthday party (i remember mine, a trip to the fliks to see 'paint your wagon," with my older sister and her then boyfriend, wojous)
my body didn't behave as i tried to skoop the peas with a silly spoon, and the legs went into  contraction with the effort, the feet clamped one on top of the other to help the errant legs, to no avail.
Did or do they see the way my arms fly and the hands crunch uncontrollably?
They do!
Shit!
I pretend not to be there, every so breezy.
I don't succeed at that, for i am there and I FEEL it.
Also the aloneness and wondering after the feel of the pain wracking up the spine contorting the neck and the bloody bent knees on fire.
The feeling of, oh jaysus will i manage this last belt out of life in any decent shape or form and will i or can i afford it!
Getting up in my carefree way was equally unsuccessful.
A man directly opposite watched it all.
Putting on the coat and the knees clamp together and bend and bend further as the effort of the upper body increases so do the legs move further toward the floor, as the knees bend.
The whole body is supported by the bench i have just arose from. I go, with a stutter and shuffle of the feet first, before they become aware of their real job, to put one foot in front of the other.
The relief back in the van.
Off i go, back to the hermitage.
i collapse on the bed and immediately try to get the twin on the computer, type talking we did and i felt a lot better after that.
I then decided to try and work out how i could afford the last belt at life.
ON the way back i called to the secular holy rooms and picked up felt tip pens, (no, we are not doing this Kev's style at all, wonder what he would have thought of this).
I draw the new home, the dimensions correct after pulling the floor plan still on 'myhome.ie'
i biff out some walls and join rooms and extend the front a bit.
then back to the computer to ask the basics on some of the 'ask the basics' sites, that is stuff like 'rewiring queries, in ireland.\
Finally i scrape myself up.
its getting dark and i have no supper and no milk.
I dont do the milking the cow job here on the mountain so must go out in the van to collect it at the petrol pumps.
On the way i see all the lights on in the priest's vast house.
i peek in the nearest lit window.
The poor guy is asleep in an armchair.
Fast asleep and it was only 5.45pm.
I was deeply saddened.
This was the trend of the day, unfortunately.
A wonderfully hopeful presence at the lakes and a hopeful mind and spirit all free like every other.
Alas this free spirit was in goddam awful pain and worry and i guess this is the way i will have to blast the last belt of life.
whether this is the OLd age thing or complete disability stuff of Congenital Rubella Syndrome and other, i shall never know.  but I do Feel.
Very much feel.
I did not get the binoculars off the sleeping priest either.