Weekends are irrelevant to a cat other than the fact that we have a human around under our feet, or hoovering our beds and rearranging our water bowls for a couple of days. The recent 'work from home' thing made weekends even less relevant than they had been - for that time the human was around 24/7.
Long weekends do seem however to be especially prized by humans because I gather they involve an extra day of not going to the office (even if the office is just the other chair beside the dining room table). In F's case that is a mere formality; she is on call any time someone wants to discuss a bill of lading or an LNG terminal contract somewhere else in the world (where it is not the middle of the night, or a long weekend).
Despite that she does make plans for long weekends (oh the joys of mobile phones), and sometimes they involve me in my backpack - especially when Mr B is here. That is when I get to be 'Travel Writer Tigger'.
We haven't been anywhere for a while.
Today it is blowing an absolute 'hoolie'. It is blowing straight up the Gulf and in our front doors. We can't open the back doors; a hurricane goes through the apartment. F has brought a couple of less sturdy pot plants indoors. The sea is crashing huge waves onto the rocks and we can't go beach-cleaning - but when we do there will be loads of debris to pick up; we can see it floating in long rafts in the inlet.
It's really grey out there, but it isn't cold.
People in UK called long weekends 'Bank Holiday' and held a widespread believe that Bank Holiday meant a guarantee of cold/wet/windy weather. The funny thing was that if a Bank Holiday Monday did produce sunny warm weather, half the population spent more than half the day stuck in a traffic jam on a motorway somewhere going to or coming from a sliver of beach. That too seemed to be a well-held tradition.
My ear stuff finished this morning; I saw F throwing the bottle in the bin. It will be a few days before we are friends again, but I'm proof-reading this as she types it.
Hari OM
ReplyDeleteWell, Tigger, if it is any consolation, it is blowing a hoolie up here by The Hutch, too! Lots of wet stuff with it. I was interested to see that F has maritime interest... I am a keen amateur ship watcher, and that is helped by the fact that The Hutch sits right on the edge of the Clyde! (I used to have to deal with bills of lading, too, from the logistics side - back in early corporate days...that was last century - ancient history as far as you are concerned!!!) I hope you get to go out and about in the backpack soon. Hugs and whiskeries, YAM-aunty xxx
Thank you Aunty YAM. It's going to get hot soon and back-packing with me might be out of the question. F tells me Clyde is a good place both to watch ships and for shipping history. I can see ships and fishing boats from my condo. The other morning a warship, container ship, small tanker, geared bulker, 2 car carriers and a couple of inter-island ferries all at the same time. At night we can see all their lights at the outer anchorage, and that's nice if you don't think about what it really represents. New clean fuel laws kind of help, but there is room for more innovation like ECOCLIPPER. Look it up, F is really excited about it. Anyway furrings and head-butts to you too.
DeleteHari OM
DeleteOh yes, Tigger, I'm with mum - I actually posted about the mess shipping can create and about the ECOCLIPPER and wouldn't it be wonderful if that could really and truly 'set sail' everywhere!!! You are lucky to see all those ships just now. I have seen only two in the last four weeks since I have been back in my Hutch. When I go back to Edinburgh this week, I shall not see if that number increases much ... (all I see from my father's house is the backs of other houses!) Yxx
Ahhhh - sail powered cruising. Interesting read. This ECOCLIPPER is a cargo ship enterprise (https://ecoclipper.org/). Some sail powered cargo ships (like Tres Hombres) are actually already operating carrying Fair Trade cargoes from the Americas to Europe.
DeleteEnjoy your visit to Edinburgh - F is from Dunedin (Edinburgh of the south).
Hari Om
Deleteoooh ooooh ooohhhh.....I had missed finding this one - thank you for letting me know about it!!!; and how wonderful to also have the connection of the 'edins'!!! Yxx
Hope the wind has gone down. As usual we just got the tail end of your weather. In fact it is getting hotter here by the minute.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure half of Piraeus and Athens have come here for the day. I am in self isolation in the peaceful hills.
I do hope you are put in your back pack again soon and taken off somewhere so F can write all about it
I'll try to convince her - maybe we can go somewhere by train. You realize of course that my travel writing is only a cat's-eye view. I'm interested in what motivates the feline inhabitants, and their history with the places we visit. Motivation is probably the same the world over, enough food, warm safe bed, something to keep the weather off, access to clean water, good sanitation, and education for your kids. What do humans want?
DeleteTigger you may be interested to know it's a long weekend here in Melbourne as well. Queen's Birthday weekend (not her real one but good for a day off). After being cooped up in lockdown for weeks on end most Victorians seem to have forgotten they're still supposed to be following the guidelines but opted for days out instead. We drove up to Healesville this afternoon to get a proper coffee, there were so many people wandering aimlessly about (really close to each other as well)we turned around and came home. Supposed to be the start of the ski season just up the road at Buller, put back because of you know what, but cold enough to happen
ReplyDeleteTake care
Cathy
I got F to type a reply and internet crashed. She remember;s Queen's Birthday weekends in NZ - yes often start of ski season. (She doesn't ski.). We are sorry you missed out on your coffee - the social experience of connecting with people over food drink and music is so important. We read some study on measuring distances travelled by the stuff humans breathe out, and without getting too complicated about it outdoors is a whole lot safer than indoors (social distances can be a whole lot less) but don't suppose you could have taken coffee outdoors at this time of year . Stay warm.
ReplyDelete