The Cat @ Moonlight...

I found last week exhausting.

Returning to a (part-) week at two places of work after so long languishing on the sofa over the holidays, gently grazing over the remnants in the kitchen at will...

I am still finding it hard to get back into certain routines and to 'return to normal' - Hah! Whatever that is?

What does my 'routine' consist of these days, post-Empty Nest?

1. Monday and Friday - Working in my 'proper' job, still within the heart of government. My office is going to close at the end of March, so there's not long to go with that part of my routine;

2. Tuesday to Thursday - Working at my charity voluntary placement which my office is sponsoring, to enable some of us to have some recent work-experience to put on our CVs!

I love it at my placement, where they do wonderful things for and with young people. I'm helping them to gear up for some strategic stuff - I didn't know I would love it before I got there, as I trembled on the doorstep before gingerly pressing the buzzer to go up the steep Victorian stairs, but I'm really hoping that my work will lead to something more permanent for me post-March... Fingers crossed! I'm putting these words out into the Universe now, to this avail. Wish me luck, black cat!

3. Tuesday evening - My Psychotherapy coursework commences - This is going well, although it's still very new and a bit scary, to be honest... There's loads to read and absorb and I'm trying to get to grips with the difference between the practical requirements, the academic expectations, and how much self-reflection is needed... Such a balance to meet...

4. Wednesday evening - Now Group Therapy has begun - Once again, I'm not really certain what to expect, however, it is an essential part of the training programme, to take part in therapy yourself. I'm not sure how much I shall be able to share here... We'll see.

5. By Friday, I'm now feeling a little like the Cat at Midnight, as in this enchanting picture above... My head buzzing from the rigours of the week, I feel like strolling the streets in search of excitement and interest, eager for the weekend, where I squeeze in chores and necessary shopping, an outing to a Farmer's Market or 'antiquing' in slightly better weather than we've got at the moment - What a laugh that is - The reality being that some Sundays I visit something that looks like a motorway cafe for Sunday Lunch with my close family, with a week's worth of vegetables on my groaning plate, then stagger next door to what looks like half an aircraft hangar, corrugated and nightmarishly cold, filled to the rafters with furniture and treasures culled from country homes and house clearances, at home and in France, policed by lovely octogenarian ladies in floor-length vintage fur coats and granny-knits.

How they move any of the heavy furniture around, I'll never know. I suspect they have an army of ancient male help-meets, drilled into service and catering to their every whim.

I wish I did!

I need to build in some time to my routine for more exercise, as previously hinted. There's still time. I found myself toying with trotting in to a Wool Shop this weekend - Anxious as I am to try a return to crochet, heavily inspired by Mrs Jones Home Thoughts From Home and her fabulous achievements - CLICK HERE - Maybe I'm being too ambitious with plans for my routine!

Routine turns out to be essential to the human condition. Some of the practice around Psychotherapy is based in routine - Weekly meetings, therapeutic contracting, games and strokes. Did you know that, mes braves?

I am asking you to consider what your own routine consists of - Which of it is essential, and which is habit that perhaps doesn't do our souls any good really.

Not nagging, just curious. Honestly!

Don't give up!

This advert for Marketing and Sales Giant, IKEA, and its lilting and beautiful, borrowed, music makes me feel a little more at home, a little more like the me I want to be...

This short film shows you how the advert came about!

Herding cats indeed!

Hope it makes you smile today...

Just the facts, ma'am: Mara Carlyle, a singer and composer working at the New Horizon Youth Centre for the homeless in Euston, London, a struggling artist just about to be let go by her record company, provides the Erik Satie-like, musical soundtrack...

"The Ikea advert came at a time when I was about to give up entirely," says Carlyle. "The struggle to get my album out had taken over my life, so I had decided to forget about it and move on. Then this came along, out of the blue."

Fhina's IKEA kitchen (story to be continued!) was not harmed during the process of herding cats...

Today is brought to you by the Number 13

Of late, I have found myself checking the number of comments on my bloglets...

Not unusual, you might say. Possibly it's something we (mostly) all do.

And this is not a random piece of writing, asking for more comments, or for lurkers to de-lurk - No, please read on!

This is actually about my relationship with the number 13.

When I step over into the world of A Woman Of No Importance, to see if lovely friends have dropped by, or said something really funny, which they usually do, for they are all excellent friends, I find myself over the next day looking at how many comments have been left, and if the number is about to reach 13, I feel myself getting a little angsty...

And if the number of comments falls over into 14, having been stuck at 13 for a time, I breathe a sigh of some relief. It's crazy, non?

And yet it isn't crazy. Apparently, I'm responding to centuries of memories and conditioning, burned into my very soul, my own psyche.

I am talking about superstitions, like tossing a pinch of spilt salt from my right hand over my left shoulder, so it hits the devil that sits on the sinister side!

...It's like avoiding walking under ladders propped precariously against any building and touching wood - Yes, I do both things, and more... I once, in my hasty teens, walked under a propped up ladder, and then something bad happened. I can't even remember what it was, so it can't have been that bad, but I've never walked under a ladder since.

Crackers, isn't it?!

I've had to go and bow to Lady Wiki herself (and other sources) to find out more about my peculiar condition. And here we are, "Of all superstitions, perhaps the most pervasive -- and yet least explicable -- is the aversion to the number thirteen.

It's called, "Triskaidekaphobia (from Greek tris=three, kai=and, deka=ten); It is a superstition and related to a specific fear of Friday the 13th, called paraskevidekatriaphobia or friggatriskaidekaphobia. (Friggin' heck!)

Many buildings (particularly hotels) tall enough to have a thirteenth floor will not number it as such. So firm is its grip upon us that even hospitals, usually bastions of rational thought, decline to label their operating theatres with the number...

What is it about the 'devil's dozen', as it is sometimes termed in Scotland, that poses such evil portent?

The answer, as with so many superstitions, is biblical. Thirteen gathered in the upper room on the night of the Last Supper. 'And in the evening he cometh with the twelve. And as they sat and did eat, Jesus said,

"Verily I say unto you, One of you which eateth with me shall betray me.' (Mark 14: 17-18).

And, in terms of guilt by association, what about Friday the 13th, ...it is a "lamentable intersection of unlucky number and dire day.
Triskaidekaphobia may have also affected the Vikings —it is believed that Loki in the Norse pantheon was the 13th god. More specifically, Loki was believed to have engineered the murder of Baldr, and was the 13th guest to arrive at the funeral. This is perhaps related to the superstition that if thirteen people gather, one of them will die in the following year.

This was later Christianized in some traditions, describing Satan as the 13th angel. Another Norse tradition involves the myth of Norna-Gest: when the uninvited norns showed up at his birthday celebration—thus increasing the number of guests from ten to thirteen—the norns cursed the infant by magically binding his lifespan to that of a mystic candle they presented to him.

A superstition existed long before the Christian era. Ancient Persians believed the twelve constellations in the Zodiac controlled the months of the year, and each ruled the earth for a thousand years at the end of which the sky and earth collapsed in chaos. Therefore, the thirteenth is identified with chaos and the reason Persians leave their houses to avoid bad luck on the thirteenth day of the Persian Calendar (a tradition called Sizdah Bedar).

'And on a Friday fil al this meschaunce,' wrote Chaucer in 'The Nun's Priest's Tale'.

The superstitions surrounding this fateful day -- particularly Good Fridays -- are numerous: a child born on Friday is doomed to misfortune; do not feed anyone butter churned or eggs laid that day. Courting, and especially marriage, on Friday is a folly. Do not move to a new home or new job on that fateful day; do not rise from an illness; and please, please do not take a journey -- for as the fishermen say, 'Friday's sail, always fail."

(Adapted from NARROW HOUSES, Douglas E. Winter)".

However, the number 13 is not uniformly bad. For example, the 13 attributes of God (also called the thirteen attributes of mercy) are enumerated in the Torah (Exodus 34: 6-7).

And, this tradition or superstition does not hold in some other cultures, e.g. in Romanian, Greek and Spanish cultures, Tuesday the 13th is considered unlucky".

And did you know,

Industrialist Henry Ford wouldn't do business on Friday, the 13th.

Multimillionaire Paul Getty stated, "I wouldn't care to be one of thirteen at a table."

President Roosevelt would not dine in a group of 13 people.

Many hotel guests refuse to stay in Room 13, so rooms are frequently numbered 12, 12A, and 14.

Most architects have the humility by bypass the thirteenth floor of most buildings,

On April 13 1970, NASA launched Apollo 13 at 1313 hours central time. An oxygen tank exploded and if you've seen the movie, you know the rest. NASA was also forced to abort a launch in November 1981 scheduled for Friday the 13th due to a glitsch in the fuel cells.

The ancient Hebrews thought 13 was unlucky because the thirteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the letter M, which is the first letter in the word "mavet," meaning death.

Years ago, London bakers were subject to harsh penalties if they were caught selling bread in what was called short weight. The bakers would add an extra loaf to each dozen to be sure the sale met the minimum weight requirement. They process of adding an extra loaf became known as the "baker's dozen."



So, there you have it, while Friday began as a good day, often a sacred day, our love became despoiled, and now the day brings unlucky portents.



So too the number 13!

So, if perchance you stop by, and the comments are set at 13, please feel free even just to leave your name - A calling card, if you like... Anything to stop me comments sticking at 13. It's doing me head in, honestly, and I wouldn't even call myself superstitious!

We all need a little bit of good luck from time to time, non?!