COVID Coracle 8 or 9? 20th November

 Today I had early lessons from 7.30 am again, and my bum felt so sore, that I had to lie down for my last lesson. I honestly don't know why more lessons aren't given in bed or from a bed, it really is much more comfortable in my opinion.

The main thing I find that is hard is getting to sleep with this pain in my ass, I think somehow I deserved it, perhaps it was for coming hre in the first place.

So Today I slept in after my last lesson which finished at 10.30 am -I slept until about 1500 and then start to think how to solve the pain. So I phoned up the Hungarian Doc -dr Maynart - who quite rightly proceeded to check my credentials as a Hungarian resident - in general he seemed fed up to hear from me - who I assume he thought was another stupid bloody tourist asking for help, and really he can't give it until he knows you have a Hungarian health card - though he seemed to take a somewhat obnoxious attitude as to condescend to me, slightly as if I were  a child - like he simply couldn't understand my name Scully - it was virtually impossible to spell it out for him, and his rather brusque and bruising attitude made me even less sure of my telephone number - so each of these things I had to repeat several times in English and then I tried saying them in Hungarian but found I have forgotten most of my Hungarian knowledge through lack of use.

It is not really so useful, but anyway he got to the end of his questions and then I noticed my TAj - Hungarian health card expired in April this yearso effectively I am not insured, except I pay tax and should be - but there was a pandemic and I left the country. 

The second thing I did was to book my train ticket from Luton to Bristol on Sunday, that was worrying me - it leaves me a very small window inwhich to find somewhere else, and if I need to I suppose I could change the ticket back again.

The thing is accommodation here probably won't be ready until January and then if it is I need to survive here until then.

So the other problem if I choose to stay here is how do I pay for extra stay, when Natwest have kindly cancelled my card as they suspect fraud and re-issued it to a UK address? This poses a problem as my Hungarian money is nearly all gone. I could ask for it to be forwarded to me and stay here or I could just return back there.

If I go back there I will need to continue with care work - unless I get the car park job - in which case I'll have moved slightly forward in nature conservation ladder from volunteer to car park attendant in what ten years? - ok the last 4 years I haven't been trying but still that is a hard slog. Still it is worth it if you want to work outdoors.

Then again here - there seems to be a potential job through some company in Batorbágy near Etyek Budapest. And then I could stay put here. I would need to pay another 300 pounds roughly, but from my UK account and that could get me to January when I could move into Ágnes's house, and then I would still need a job to cover it.

I miss the rain

 I've walked along the lonely roads

I've walked there time and time again

But I don't know what those old odes

Have to say of pain

All I know is: I miss the rain

I've stepped upon the merry-go-round

Gone round time and time again

But I don't know who's wearing the crown

If it's the king or someone insane

All I know is: I miss the rain

This old Earth is dry of course

And it's rivers dry and dry again

And I don't know if I am worse

But the good I try to retain

All I know is: I miss the rain

And is it that you can here it coming?

That lonesome whistle train?

Is it that you see me thumbing

A lift with you again

All I know is: I miss the rain

A signal left in the box

A feather on a weather vein

An individual case of chicken pox

A letter sent in vain

All I know is: I miss the rain

Each single drop is some full stop

Each trail is a wagon train

And it rolls on until it pops

Up upon a desert plane

All I know is, I miss the rain

A change it must be coming

As the moon begins to wane

For I hear the sound of drumming

And the soldiers march in Spain

All I really know is: I miss the rain

Covid Coracles 7

 So last night - being the 17th November I heard back from the car park job with the RSPB and the fact of an interview on the 23rd. For me I was really happy about this. It is a move away from teaching - but I could still continue online teaching I think or just cut it out altogether which would be a shame, but perhaps I am finding it rather difficult to use computers so much. So anyway I had a morning lesson early from 7.30 - it was hard to want to do this so early but it is work I suppose. The thing is it is only two lessons per week.

So then I was more free - I tried to feel motivated to study - well to make these English articles which someone else very clever has written and then I pick out the interesting words and make gap fill exercises based on their definitions. It is fine and it was by adam Rutherford - he loves saying how Humans are animals - and very closely related but then at the same time we are not - this is my overall impression - basically we share many genes or DNA sequences with a cuttle fish or a shark or a chicken, but at the same time he refutes the apparently alt right psychologist ....who says we are all like lobsters - and we have an in built hierarchy. So basically this is all the same kind of thing connected with gender bias and equality of work roles for men and women - there is the point blank concept or belief that we are all equal - this is the fact that we should all be treated equally - and then there are those who don't think that who sue evidence as they see it to prove this from Science - like the lobsters- then Rutherford comes along and says yes but lobsters also urinate through their faces which is obviously also disgusting and any way you get the idea. I actually think even if we find all this proof both sides of the argument - it will still divide people because proof and the truth are things that are in doubt internationally - we each have a right to believe in something or at least you have a right in a free world or country, the fact is in these free worlds the liberal agendas flourish and in the countries where there is no right to believe anything you like then people are scared to say what they think and that is like it is in Hungary.

        I see this because if I look at responses in face book - there is not a great free discussion - people are afraid to say what they actually like because of being criticized. I also felt somewhat criticized today -18th when I said that the police made me feel a bit nervous because they carried guns. People acting in a certain way makes me feel nervous - not the guns. But if you add guns into the equation then you add the risk. If you encounter somebody who has a screw lose and they are unarmed then you are not as worried as if you encounter them when they have a screw lose and they weild a knife or carry a gun.

So getting back to the 17th - I did some more on the climate change application too and then Mate the y guy from next door and shares the same birthday as me except 6 years earlier he was bringing in wine and offered me some. I had had a fairly sedate birthday and so I thought why not and found my self famished so I over drank, mixed it with left over birthday beer we discussed the house, smoked a bit and then I left him to write his book. After this I watched a film about police actually very good - called End of watch about a tough US neighbourhood with a high mexican population and people traffiking and two cops who were best buddies and discovered some bad things that it would have been easier for them to look away from, but obviously they didn't because that is why they are heroes and they do the right thing.

Anyway actually I watched that the day before I think - it doesn't matter -so I definitely also watched Avengers infinity wars on the previous night and then last I watched avengers End game. Then I cooked some potatoes, beetroot and carrots or undercooked them ate them and at 330 am woke and had diarheoa for an hour. The result was I felt ok for a bit did some work wrote a poem, went back to sleep for an hour got up at 7 ish cooked some leftovers but more fully and ate that for dinner. After this I had a lesson with someone  yes. Around the middle of the day I realized I needed a shower and while doing so discover pain in the ass I felt was indeed a thrombose haemorrhoid. It is still with me now as I write and so I may need to lie down to write.

Covid Coracles Blog 6?

 Saturday I filled in RSPB Ham Wall car park job

Sunday I applied for Climate change officer in Glastonbury

Monday was my birthday spent in Quarantine. Rather a difficult situation, but mostly nice, my room is small, but I had some lessons in the morning. The Chinese student was sick when I called her so that was cancelled. A bit of a relief actually as I find it quite difficult to speak with her at the moment. It may be my patience - she is very nice, but I get the sense I speak too fast, and I find it hard to teach below intermediate level students. The lesson before that was interesting and with a Hungarian student who is an expert in water melons, and we previously discussed Mary Reynolds who was the youngest person to win the Chelsea flower show and had a film made -Dare to be Wild - no actually that was last Mondays lesson so actually it was on the meat free diet and the impact this can have on climate change.

So this vegetarianism idea she also previously prompted me to watch The Game Changers which tries to repain the male stereo-type Macho man because he eats meat into it being acceptable for him to be a vegetarian. That is a good thing and I watched this on my birthday- and for that day I felt a renewed resolve to become a vegetarian - I found it such a convincing film, but alas these feelings don't last. It is probably lacking the echo chamber of friends or simply other humans being on your own so long - that a video can influence your mind to the extent you do not want to listen to your own body - and in fact that was exactly what Brigi said who works here, when I went downstairs to meet the police I think. That it is a dangerous thing to watch these kind of well marketed films. The other one I watched was the social dilemma and that was similarly disturbing and not so inspiring. I mean it made me want to quit facebook. Because of how everything is tracked and it is polarizing society because it is only providing you with your friends who think like you. One advantage of Hungary is that people here are very different from me - and many facebook friends here are from very different backgrounds and I feel I have a much broader range of options here -although my British sensibilities come up against harsh realities.

There are clearly times when it is important to stare and stand your ground - such as if an angry dog is attacking you - or maybe a bear...I think at least - and then the occasion in 2018 here when a Budapest man who seemed crazy and I was staring I think just at the size of him and the fact of his appearance and evidently clocked me - I was on a bike and then he some how engineered it for his dog to collide with my back bicycle wheel as I was turning the corner across the erzebet street and Jokai something or other and he was on the crossing any see Ballad of a Budapest cyclist for this https://scullychristopher.blogspot.com/2018/11/ballad-of-budapest-bicyclist.html

Anyway I can't remember where I was  oh yes - so the fact is this quarantine has been pretty ok generally - the police come everyday -sometimes in the evening mostly in the morning in the past few days - and they are nice and friendly. The thing is today - and it did not effect me too much - but there is one police guy who came before with two recruits or at least more junior officers and they said please show us ID - which no one else had done -since they call my number and ask to see me -but this guy wanted to see my ID -I didn't have it on me as I don't normally show it. So a slight delay I have to go all the way back up the stairs to get it and come down - they are all down their smoking by this time and I show it to them and I feel there is this intimidating presence to this policeman - then today 18th November two of them are back but with a military soldier who is carrying a gun - I do not really notice this since I just go straight out and hand over my passport - but the receptionist looks actually visibly pale and a bit frightened - I think just the presence of a soldier there when it was completely unnecessary for the job.

    I think this is why I mentioned it on facebook - I felt a little nervous of these people -this specific guy who was very serious - I wonder whether he is pissed off at having to do this job. In the UK police are not going around enforcing quarantine so strictly - they are eating donuts and drinking coffee. Then again there are a lot more of them probably and there is nothing to do. I don't think policing means throwing your weight around unnecessarily because that is plain bullying and intimidation. Perhaps Hungarian police are stretched, but really what is going on for them to police, hardly anyone is out on the streets - there is a so called night time curfew in which everything is shut -and yet they are acting like they in some kind of police state and all the rules of decency break down - I think that is slightly what I find frightening here -there is not a web of decency among people that I can understand that means when normallife of commerce or picking your kids up at school goes - there is not much of a community left. I am sure my saying Hungarians are not decent will put peoples' backs up but I am not saying that I am saying that there is a common level of human dignity that I know in the UK or have grown up to believe exists between people and I just haven't had that experience here - I mean maybe I would feel it if I had grown up here. The fact is being an alien here somewhat is trying to navigate so many pitfalls of social graces and customs - if I say police authoritarianism then people will spout the rule that police must carry guns and they are accompanied by soldiers as part of supporting their work. The question of can citizens be trusted to stay in quarantine is a whole other thing. 

For me it is especially weird because I have no sickness, but perhaps it would be weirder if I were sick being visited by armed police.

First time/Last time

 I tried it first time, since an hour ago, first time

Since an hour ago

First time since I let you go

Oh first time since I walked on the moon

First time since I came back too soon

I loved you first time, oh but did you love me too?

I loved you first time I saw you in the bar

First time with your arms around that jar

First time, but was it the first time you got into my car

First time since the time before

First time and since then I loved you even more

First time

First time drilling for your heart in the room

First time I asked if I could borrow your broom

First time I watched her move in your womb

First time I saw a baby born on zoom

First time a zombie president won a district of doom

First time for me, but was it your first time too?

First time I got an electric shock

First time the floor boards knock

First time since I looked at the clock

It was my first time I turned my key in your lock

But was it your first time oh my lover my friend

Now I'm so sad this is the first time it must end

Last time I bit my lip on the spoon

Last time I walked in while you were starting to swoon

In no time did I hear the cock croon

It was the last time for him, was it your last time too?

Last time I knew just what to do 

Last time I noticed you doing it too

Last time we were both breathing on cue

But it was nil point to the monkey

And nil point to the zoo

Last time I stuck my hand in my wallet

When I pulled it out it was like it had come from swallet

And I don't know if you knew about it too?

Was it the first time for me, the last time for you?

Fresh Air

 Out of whack, hay stack

I'm in a field without a meal

In the can without a plan

On the straight and narrow arrow

I'm in a jam with a little lamb

Down the pan and far from real

Making an appeal

To an orange peel

Too much to grind its rind

I'm asking it to slip and slide

Off the edge of the tide

And be my bride, be on my side

In the war to end all wars

I've got my Goat, but whose got his?

Is it yours or is it the Kid's?

I've asked you twice now I can't write

The potato blight has blotted my ink

And I can't think inside the sink

No I can't stink on the brink

Its in my brain I've got the grain

Its all this toil in the soil

Washed down my drain with the rain

In the forests of the night

Its off the leaf and suffered relief

It's dripping, tripping donkey brief

As Ehor, or Elron, deltron, electron

Mastercard poor

American express, is useless, unless

You can self-express first

I don't mean breast milk

But the best silk or satin sleeves

When the shore rises and you can't believe

Your luck to be where you were born

Inside the truck driving through the storm

And suddenly bright lights are torn

From the dawn's hue, as cascading

Valleys of thorn criss-cross in virtue

Of being new

Or solidarity of what we've all been through

Before, before the storm

There was no time

And 

We wait it out

And give up doubt

Because somewhere, somehow

We must come out

Into fresh air

Lucio, Lucio

 Lucio, lucio

Like a tornedo, coming on

Sweeping through the town

Lucio, Lucio

Everyone makes roomeo

Can I be your romeo

I don't know if I'm so strong

Lucio, Lucio

The times That I see you so

Far from the brink I know you're gone

Well Lucio, Lucio

Life's no joke you know

You gotta take the bull by the horns

Before it's all gone

Lucio, Lucio

This feeling does ever grow

Like the ferns and evergreens of the garden

And who can hold hands with the poor understands

How fleeting life can be deep in his bones