Friendly reader, prepared be
Perhance death next may aim at thee

Tom Tom.

Always handmake my cards, usually about 45 every year.

Choosing paper and stuff – 30 minutes
Messing around with them until I make something I like -   4 hours
Making them – about 6 hours
Writing them – about 1 hour

Total time – about 11.5 hours

Several years ago, one of my friends lost his mother. We went out in Brighton and he got wasted – one night of many like that. At the end of the night there was a fight breaking out outside the club and I had to use all my strength to hold him back.

He said he just wanted to feel something; he was so full of grief and pain that he felt completely numb. Cut off from everything around him. As if being beaten to a pulp would make him feel real and alive again.

I can relate to that in some ways at the moment, but in reverse. I feel so full up, so overwhelmed with all the events in my life that I would like to feel numb, be able to block it all out.

According to Sainsbury’s: “a Europe-wide shortage of lard”.

“His name, for the warlike Norsemen, was synonymous with battle and warfare, for it recurs throughout the myths as the bringer of victory.

“Odin was a shape-changer, able to change his skin and form in any way he liked. He was said to travel the world disguised as an old man with a staff, one-eyed, grey-bearded and wearing a wide-brimmed hat and called Gangleri – ‘the wanderer’.

“The god is believed to be manifest in a noisy, bellowing movement across the sky, leading a host of the slain, directly comparable to Vedic Rudra.”

“The god of the common man, often siding with mortals against other gods.

“Thor was an outright hero for mankind, powerfully defeating his enemies. Thor’s many conflicts with the race of giants are a main source of plots.”

It said: “The last few days have been hell. Don’t know how much I’ve got left. Emotional kamikaze.”

Dawn happens late up here in the winter. Orkney.