I realise that I have let far too many days lapse since I last wrote a blogpost. I started several and discarded them as it seemed pointless to be writing about the minutiae of one woman's life in these turbulent and dangerous times, with North Africa and the Middle East in turmoil, and the forces of nature in wild tumult on the other side of the world.
So I missed the opportunity of telling you about the pleasure of being involved in World Book Night and giving away 48 copies of the wondrous Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to young and adult students at my local further education college.
And I missed the opportunity to tell you that Christmas Holly made an almost instant and seemingly complete recovery from her stroke. I too am recovering, slowly and gradually, albeit at not quite such a remarkable rate but then I'm not a dog.
And I also missed the opportunity to tell you what a joy Griff Rhys Jones's television programme on the history of Indian textiles was. Celebrity presenters can often be intensely irritating but Hidden Treasures of Indian Art - one of a series on tribal art - was exquisitely shot and thoughtfully presented by someone with due respect for the subject. UK viewers can still catch this and other programmes in the series on BBC iPlayer - although not for long. If textiles, especially embroidery, are your thing, you will be salivating.
But these, inevitably, were small oases in weeks dominated by coverage of the cataclysmic events happening in New Zealand and Japan, especially Japan. As a representative of Save the Children in Sendai reflected, nothing in the aid organisation's previous experience of working in disaster zones could have prepared staff for dealing with an earthquake, followed by a tsunami, rising radiation levels and a potential nuclear meltdown.
So, we have watched these ghastly events with growing disbelief, finding compassion in our hearts but wondering what, sensibly and practically, to do with it. And while all this has been happening half a world away, people close to me have been going through hard and painful times. My dear friend, the Only Other Blonde in the Village, lost her much-loved mum last week; her mother had a long life, had lived for her family, and died peacefully in her sleep, aged 100. But a mum is a mum and irreplaceable; their passing leaves a deep wound.
Today someone I love very dearly rang me with sad and distressing news and I have been wandering around in that place of ice and lead where shock dwells. The Only Other Blonde and I had to do much mutual comforting on this morning's dog walk; thank goodness for the balm of friendship.
As is so often the case in times of disaster and enormous upheaval, poets can express individual and collective feelings far better than most of us, as we grapple to find a word, a phrase, a sentence that doesn't smack of mawkishness or cliché. It must be more than 40 years since I first read The Second Coming by W B Yeats but it has stayed with me ever since. Other bloggers have quoted these lines in recent days but they bear repetition:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned . . .
I was thinking about these words when an email arrived from my Friend in New Zealand following her most recent visit to Christchurch, where she holds a monthly homeopathic clinic. She described the scenes of devastation and the experience of aftershocks, which were continuing, and sent thoughful, sensitive photos. This was one of them:
Opawa, Christchurch Photo: © Jane Parkin
One of those random acts of kindness that reminds us of what it is to be human.
