tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4849152680928129452024-02-19T02:04:25.062+00:00From the Desk of Bee DrunkenBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.comBlogger221125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-29530077056885882062012-01-02T19:52:00.000+00:002012-01-02T19:52:17.638+00:00A bit of earth<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPyQPuIShkxeempKnBXD0GXx_RgnJz6J-zFfoBAZo3EaLBGEobMvE7L6KwrMWezvAwasVKmV9nCQX0P4edJFG2TcxSAxtQsdIj99DBZKv-Qvo8oNNr9eHg4l1knkZegSTSGXUQO1r1dS3y/s1600/DSC_1277_694early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424px" rea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPyQPuIShkxeempKnBXD0GXx_RgnJz6J-zFfoBAZo3EaLBGEobMvE7L6KwrMWezvAwasVKmV9nCQX0P4edJFG2TcxSAxtQsdIj99DBZKv-Qvo8oNNr9eHg4l1knkZegSTSGXUQO1r1dS3y/s640/DSC_1277_694early+flowers.JPG" width="640px" /></a></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><em><strong>The seasons have gone by faster than usual this year</strong></em>, my daughter said to me as we were walking down a narrow, mud-slippery lane. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Not quite 14 is my daughter; have enough years gone by for her to utter this commonplace? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But then I reflected:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>perhaps she doesn’t speak of time at all, in the sense of a seasonal round that seems to speed up with every passing year, but rather of the word that she actually uses. Seasons, not time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The seasons – their expected shape, their accustomed progression -- have blurred. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That topsy-turvyness has been a feature all year long. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">January now, and winter has still not come properly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fresh plants, not of this time, are presenting themselves in the garden:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a daisy from the summer, a pansy from last spring, patches of grape hyacinth usually associated with late February and spring green shoots everywhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An inexplicable mound of flat-leaf parsley has self-seeded itself by the porch . . . blown, no doubt, from the nearby pot where it failed to thrive during the cold, wet summer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Spring already, if judging by all that activity underground and not the low, gray sky.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There are some years when it is a relief to turn the page, to buy a blank calendar and pin it to the wall like one’s colours to the mast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I still have enough optimism to expect and hope that this year will be better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That which has been stuck will be forced to shift and change.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This picture has to be decoded, explained.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The green shoots are obvious, what is not so apparent is the quality of the soil itself.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In December, the first “batch” of home-grown compost was spread on our garden. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t mind sounding ridiculous here; it was a great satisfaction to me.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This compost took two years to accumulate, in a purpose made bin behind the garage:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>countless trips with a pail of kitchen scraps, not to mention leaves and grass cuttings from many seasons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then two years to marinate in its own heat and weight, to break down, to become a dense rich brown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we lifted the heavy canvas I was thrilled (in the most physical sense of the word) to see what eight seasons had wrought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Is two years a long time, or a surprisingly short one, for such a transformation?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So often it is our small, consistent efforts that gradually, so gradually, amount to some really worthwhile change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All year I feel like I have been making compost of various kinds, and sometimes the effort has felt rather futile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No doubt I have been nourished all along, even if the more obvious effects have been deferred.</span></div>Beehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com38tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-52186386861686275322011-11-09T19:51:00.000+00:002011-11-09T19:51:00.819+00:00Through a Glass Darkly<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ3veSGm4I53eCuh0BeuwoS5cm3tKNIZAcNZK-pS-RGzaA5pV8gpm0CQGQjLJFEr00gF8qSw4yqy4F-oLCqyoaJgesxGDv_XUzUCtblXNxkVBNZcVGpr8S2g2qGdtvnF0w_duxThhnCKxr/s1600/DSC_1082_597early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="468px" ida="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ3veSGm4I53eCuh0BeuwoS5cm3tKNIZAcNZK-pS-RGzaA5pV8gpm0CQGQjLJFEr00gF8qSw4yqy4F-oLCqyoaJgesxGDv_XUzUCtblXNxkVBNZcVGpr8S2g2qGdtvnF0w_duxThhnCKxr/s640/DSC_1082_597early+flowers.JPG" width="640px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From the sculpture gallery at Chatsworth<br />
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<div align="left"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Many bloggers (who I greatly admire) have explained that their blog is a space for counting blessings, for appreciating simple pleasures, for capturing moments of beauty. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I completely understand that; this is our chance to show our best side. Many of us prefer to sing a hymn to happiness; most of us prefer to hear that song.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I would just like to say that maybe there is also a need for a hint of disquiet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just occasionally, a murmur of pain or a streak of ugliness would not go amiss. </span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">I know that I should know better, but sometimes a beautiful blog will make me feel that there are those amongst us who live perfect lives. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t mind (well, not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">too </i>much) that other people’s lives are more aesthetically pleasing and creatively engaged, but what really causes a pang is when other people’s lives seem <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">happier</i>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know, realistically, that there must be a shadow side to every beautifully lit image, but it is so easy to be beguiled.</span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">A couple of weeks ago, I received the sad news that an old schoolmate had died.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Actually, he committed suicide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I read the obituary, it described a life that seemed perfect in every conceivable way: Happy marriage; healthy children; successful business; great friends; loads of fulfilling hobbies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps that was all true, but it read like a big whitewash of what was probably a normal human life that had become unendurable for some reason. </span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hadn’t seen this man in years, but his death has haunted me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was he the sort of person who always had to tell you how GREAT everything was?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was he afraid to fail, to be frail?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Last year I read </span></span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Barbara Ehrenreich's <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jan/10/smile-or-die-barbara-ehrenreich"><strong><em>Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World</em></strong></a><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><em> ,</em></span> and I remember thinking that always looking on the bright side can be so downright tyrannical. Surely sadness and struggle are as much a part of life as the brighter, lighter side of the spectrum. A positive attitude won't necessarily cure cancer, calm a surly teenager or lead to a good job offer in a bad economy. What a comfort it is to say, "I feel low; I'm angry and sad," and have someone reply that they feel that way, too, sometimes. <em><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span></em><em><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-style: normal; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span></em></span></span></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">I think that there can be an incredible pressure on women, especially, to focus on the positive, and eliminate the negative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I often feel like a cross between cheerleader and peacekeeper, always ready with the pep talk or soothing word – whichever is required.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know that many women feel this way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I really want to tell the truth and let it all hang out (emotionally speaking), then I have to find a female friend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I mentioned in my last blog, I’m feeling a bit drained of buoyant spirits right now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thank you for your supportive comments; they helped.</span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
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</tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"></div>Beehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com47tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-77809362057834055232011-11-02T14:28:00.001+00:002011-11-02T14:47:04.023+00:00Pensive<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju2ohpuaFrmFQCu6NHMIAKU2RXRfK_qYDvSSbqSAuL-63znReVRDfoSl6WVXbb1jIyHfmF4of_bWWfv28VGSugXSwt6MvNDng76dk0qQRbNXDe78HIU44SQAVJf9mKSx5Ao3Q-fxs-YP8T/s1600/DSC_1167_650early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640px" ida="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju2ohpuaFrmFQCu6NHMIAKU2RXRfK_qYDvSSbqSAuL-63znReVRDfoSl6WVXbb1jIyHfmF4of_bWWfv28VGSugXSwt6MvNDng76dk0qQRbNXDe78HIU44SQAVJf9mKSx5Ao3Q-fxs-YP8T/s640/DSC_1167_650early+flowers.JPG" width="486px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My youngest daughter at Chatsworth<br />
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<div align="left"></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">An entire season of months has ebbed, and so many thoughts and experiences have just dried up and blown away . . . rather like the leaves, which are being shed with dispatch now that it is November.</span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">We’ve had big things going on in our family life: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>huge transitions in the youngest and oldest generations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I’m here in the middle, feeling battered by it all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My husband has some pressing worries, and last night he twitched for hours until just giving up – long before dawn -- on the attempt to sleep. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That sort of sleepless night is more common than not at the moment. I don’t feel that the details are necessarily mine to share; so unsatisfactorily, I offer nothing but a tentative mood, an emotional residue. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even though I’ve experienced only the most kind and sympathetic side of blog-friendship, it’s no use pretending that what I share here can be held in confidence.</span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Stress has made me selfish and solitary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Certainly the act of blogging is as elastic as you want it to be, but for me, at least, the reciprocity of it is essential.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over the past couple of months, I’ve been in this inward-looking state that hasn’t really lent itself to lots of external exchange. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t feel that it is right “to talk,” if I don’t have the time or energy “to listen.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does this make sense? </span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hopefully, I will tunnel out again – and soon.</span></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhORH0pkWlYM5MGESL1Jt0-mlquqJvZkgVwBADv4ir4WbP-w1_fzCBeZZdy3WVKkwqZ1h5kz8MeZ_KrBLmxtry2ayQZa_OTPto9xgplnZBXCELdPNPCcuwJXtp5COzpckaVVNQblVw33ljV/s1600/DSC_1178_656early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="424px" ida="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhORH0pkWlYM5MGESL1Jt0-mlquqJvZkgVwBADv4ir4WbP-w1_fzCBeZZdy3WVKkwqZ1h5kz8MeZ_KrBLmxtry2ayQZa_OTPto9xgplnZBXCELdPNPCcuwJXtp5COzpckaVVNQblVw33ljV/s640/DSC_1178_656early+flowers.JPG" width="640px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chatsworth gardens, Derbyshire</td></tr>
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</div>Beehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-79612248347082128982011-07-29T15:29:00.000+01:002011-07-29T15:29:24.201+01:00Getting my feet wet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3ophmz33sYngTP-Aoe8qWkLkPdrCTYq9MKBpJEyfL2TuQGkHxr1LA37CELCNpCLiQHUoU5DnoHmzKfDMPWWqQZ_ickndzriFPwQvbbgJ0vV-BNfzsAgox4h1IHqP1V2ddKE7dRqH8GugZ/s1600/DSC_1001_546early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3ophmz33sYngTP-Aoe8qWkLkPdrCTYq9MKBpJEyfL2TuQGkHxr1LA37CELCNpCLiQHUoU5DnoHmzKfDMPWWqQZ_ickndzriFPwQvbbgJ0vV-BNfzsAgox4h1IHqP1V2ddKE7dRqH8GugZ/s640/DSC_1001_546early+flowers.JPG" t$="true" width="640px" /></a></div><br />
It seems like about a minute ago that we were plunging into summer . . . and now August is already looming.<br />
So many important experiences have just been waves on the sand: roll on, relentless time.<br />
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I've been on a blog vacation -- not by any plan or design, but just because I haven't had the time/space to order my thoughts. Many years ago I had a dream of becoming a journalist, but one of the many flaws of that career plan is that I need time and space to write. I don't "think" well under pressure. I've never been any good at soundbites or punchlines; I can't come up with the first, and I can't remember the second.<br />
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My youngest daughter "graduated" from school a few weeks ago. Not many children change schools at age 13, but there is something wonderfully appropriate about 13 as the age of transition. After weeks of farewell dinners and concerts and plays and exhibitions, there was a beautiful ceremony designed just for the "leavers" and their parents. The children chose their favourite hymns and scriptures, including those true and memorable lines from Ecclesiastes: <strong><em>To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under the sun. </em></strong>A simple, powerful truth.<br />
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Our move to Oxford has been put off for a year, and maybe longer. All signs have pointed to <em>stay</em>. Although my youngest daughter will be moving there for school, she started digging in her heels at the thought of <em>too much change</em> all at the same time. Meanwhile, we didn't have even a nibble on the house. I have a new job close-by, and Sigmund is still looking for the right opportunity. It took me a few months to accept this change of plan, but I've come around now. I've started making plans for the garden again; it's time to weed and replant. There are holes to fill.<br />
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Meanwhile, summer.<br />
We've already done the back-to-school shopping: but the new woolen kilt and leather shoes can be packed away for now. It's time to plant our feet in the surf . . . and let the sand run through our fingers. I'm embracing what's here and now.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Beehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com33tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-82731610723718946162011-06-17T06:17:00.002+01:002011-06-17T06:17:01.575+01:00Many happy returns<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcWa-awnEBlE3sPY9mOF7PliFhlgf3rt2xwP-zvt8ueMktre5_pLxo0QaGR5cjSTtlR3ZFcC1LBmyKxLoX2nSKi5GHhtJL2icSinbmFNjZ7UzoAJdkz1DhC0Lu6PiNq8DNCEkUWMenuCsy/s1600/PICT0011.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="520px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcWa-awnEBlE3sPY9mOF7PliFhlgf3rt2xwP-zvt8ueMktre5_pLxo0QaGR5cjSTtlR3ZFcC1LBmyKxLoX2nSKi5GHhtJL2icSinbmFNjZ7UzoAJdkz1DhC0Lu6PiNq8DNCEkUWMenuCsy/s640/PICT0011.JPG" t8="true" width="640px" /></a></div><br />
Today is my oldest daughter’s “golden” birthday:<br />
She is seventeen on the 17th of June.<br />
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We moved to England when I was 7 months pregnant with Rebecca, and I remember, so vividly, that last long week of waiting . . . and how the days seemed to be suspended, caught in amber, dragged out into long golden twilight.<br />
<br />
I remember feeling really impatient to know what this unknown person was going to be like . . . and the answer was smart, strong, fierce, quick-witted, opinionated, stubborn and charming. She looked like her father; still does, but never more so than the moment she was born. She was quick to walk, to talk, to read. She was impatient and bossy – but with an endearing giggle, and an unexpected tender side. I hardly remember life before her, and I’m amazed at how quickly the years of her childhood have gone by; how clichéd is that?<br />
<br />
At this time of year, I’m always really conscious of the fact that we are climbing ever nearer to the summer solstice. Does anyone else feel slightly melancholy when we tip over to the other side -- and the days begin to gradually diminish? <br />
<br />
And now, as my oldest daughter nears adulthood, I think about how we are nearing some sort of zenith – but a kind of falling-off point, too. And unlike the seasons, my daughter’s childhood won’t come around again. That funny little person – my little Beccalou, who always had her nose in a book – is just a snapshot now.<br />
<br />
In a week, my daughter will be going to Ghana – and who knows how that challenge will change her? Later on this summer, she will experience job internships, university applications, a trip to Cyprus, a long weekend at the Reading Festival. Solo adventures, all. Not unaccompanied, but unaccompanied by me. I’m happy for her, and delighted by her growing confidence and sense of her own powers. There is nothing, at seventeen, but a world of possibility . . . and mothers need to make way and step aside. (But she knows where to find me!)<br />
<br />
<strong>Happy Birthday, Rebecca!</strong> <strong><em>And many happy returns</em></strong>Beehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-43944502232465529222011-06-02T18:43:00.000+01:002011-06-02T18:43:32.439+01:00Best of show<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ9ubrXSMCY71Y22aD-lhP9TzHT4Ss284o9ZIYlPfdlcWsT_frR3ATPRIHdTQ-qYuKBMQOykpyJWkm3jcC7M54jSLNd82b5uPIy8E26RYR2L2o0kftXIz-E4xtf3cdQp0mnTkB5m9LYQcu/s1600/roses1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ9ubrXSMCY71Y22aD-lhP9TzHT4Ss284o9ZIYlPfdlcWsT_frR3ATPRIHdTQ-qYuKBMQOykpyJWkm3jcC7M54jSLNd82b5uPIy8E26RYR2L2o0kftXIz-E4xtf3cdQp0mnTkB5m9LYQcu/s640/roses1.jpg" t8="true" width="640px" /></a></div><br />
Despite the intermittent rain, <em><a href="http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/j/juneisbustinoutallover.shtml">June is bustin' out all over</a></em> here in our little West Berkshire corner of England.<br />
May is usually my busiest gardening month of the year, but this spring I've been resting on my laurels. Except for a frequent circuit with the watering can, and very occasional weeding, I've let well enough alone . . . and my roses and peonies have rewarded me anyway. <br />
<br />
I spent most of May sowing a different kind of seed, and it's kept me so occupied that I've had little time for gardening, blogging or anything else. (Like my generous roses, I hope you will excuse my neglect.)<br />
<br />
As a brief explanation: last September, I organised a Book Club for my youngest daughter and her friends. This venture has mushroomed into several new book-related projects which started in April: another Book Club, for 11 year olds this time, and two reading classes. All of a sudden, I've been given free rein to develop what amounts to three different reading lists -- and not just for this spring, but for next year, too. Reading for pleasure, reading for enrichment, reading to encourage more reading: these are my only imperatives. <br />
<br />
It's a dream job for me, really. As one of my best friends said yesterday, "You get to read all day and justify it as WORK." <strong><em>Yes</em></strong>; exactly.<br />
<br />
But it's a responsibility, too, and I really want to get it right. I've always thought of the age of 11 as one of the golden ages of reading. It's the age of <em>unconscious delight</em> -- of really getting lost in a book. Most readers are outgrowing predictable texts and series books and discovering books with much more emotional and intellectual richness. In England, at least, it's the age <em>before </em>cell phones and social networking -- and thus maybe the last, or at least the best, chance of turning a child into an avid reader.<br />
<br />
I've often talked about book-love in this space, and it has been gratifying to realise that my blog-friends are a bookish bunch. I can't resist, then, asking for some recommendations. <br />
<br />
<strong><em>What books (classics or contemporary; British or American) did you love best when you were 11, 12 or 13? What books have your children or students loved best?</em></strong>Beehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-37300374717572771292011-05-04T14:53:00.003+01:002011-05-05T08:38:09.792+01:00War stories: The Cazalet Chronicles<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh1GVZ22W_tWhGCQdbWR_L4NyKGvb1kzVGYcC3ozvdGcs_Lq38BqPM_VmofwF-Ap2EwxCnGlTmTwsGnKWFWlKSb_rnxXwzQuiISV-n9Z3D4IBq3O2RP1s1tAUYfEn_dv27T8DUuGWtXoJv/s1600/DSC_0848_443early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh1GVZ22W_tWhGCQdbWR_L4NyKGvb1kzVGYcC3ozvdGcs_Lq38BqPM_VmofwF-Ap2EwxCnGlTmTwsGnKWFWlKSb_rnxXwzQuiISV-n9Z3D4IBq3O2RP1s1tAUYfEn_dv27T8DUuGWtXoJv/s640/DSC_0848_443early+flowers.JPG" width="640px" /></a></div><br />
Next week I am taking a group of students to see the theatrical production of <em><strong><a href="http://warhorselondon.nationaltheatre.org.uk/">War Horse</a></strong></em> and to visit the <em><strong>Classic War Stories for Children</strong></em> exhibit at the <strong><a href="http://london.iwm.org.uk/server/show/conEvent.3544">Imperial War Museum</a></strong>. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been reading the five children’s novels which feature in the exhibit – and it feels like the culmination of a year of reading novels which feature war (especially World War II) as the backdrop. These are war stories, but they don’t concern themselves with warfare or famous battles; rather, they focus in on the privations and struggles of the home-front. I hadn’t planned on this reading theme, but my interest in <a href="http://www.persephonebooks.co.uk/">Persephone novels</a> – <em><strong><a href="http://www.persephonebooks.co.uk/pages/titles/index.asp?id=7">Saplings</a> </strong></em>or <strong><em><a href="http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/21139/posh-and-common.thtml">The Village</a></em></strong>, for instance – has landed me squarely in the mid- 20th century period which was so dominated by the long years of the war . . . followed by the long fall-out, economically and emotionally, from the war. It is a period that still grips the imagination, and shapes the national character, of Great Britain. For instance, at last week’s Royal Wedding, the balcony scene was as much about the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-13210483">“flyover” </a>(the RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight which featured a Lancaster, Hurricane and a Spitfire) as it was about a kiss. How many times have you wedding newshounds (and I admit to being in your company) read about Queen Elizabeth’s “austerity” wedding in 1947? Rather infamously, even a royal princess needed ration coupons to buy the material for her wedding dress.<br />
<br />
If the recent wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton has aroused in your interest in England’s <em>finest hour</em>, I would thoroughly recommend the<strong><em> Cazalet Chronicles</em></strong> by <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/nov/09/classics.biography">Elizabeth Jane Howard</a>. The Chronicles are actually four novels – <em>The Light Years</em>, <em>Marking Time</em>, <em>Confusion</em> and <em>Casting Off</em> – and none of them are short. But unlike the war, they don’t drag on. Although the first novel might feel a little crowded, as Howard introduces the many voices of her sprawling cast of characters, by the time I got to the final novel I was reading with a sort of absorbed frenzy – and then suffering from withdrawal symptoms. If only there had been another one! I could entirely identify with the person, as recounted in Howard’s memoir <em><strong>Slipstream</strong></em>, who wrote the author and begged her to reveal what was going to happen next.<br />
<br />
In her memoir, Howard explains that she wanted to write the novels in order to show how England had changed during the war (p. 434, <em><strong><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/elizabeth-jane-howard-all-your-life-you-are-changing-603545.html">Slipstream</a></strong></em>). The device of a family saga is a perfect one for her purpose, because it features three generations of a family – neatly encompassing the cultural shifts of each generation. The wealthy grandparents, whose summer home in Sussex becomes the family base, are Victorian: theirs is a world of comfort and order, made possible by a vast web of loyal domestic help. The next generation, that of the parents, has been blighted – physically and emotionally – by World War I. They are still dutiful to the old traditions, but their lives – especially as represented by their relationships -- are rather frayed at the edges. The youngest generation, represented by three young female cousins, come of age during the war. They don’t exactly raise themselves, but in many senses – some of them quite literal – their parents are absent. By the end of the series, it is obvious that they will have to make their own way in a very changed world. One of three female leads, the character of Louise, has a life which closely parallels that of the author.<br />
<br />
Howard has a fine touch with detail, and all through the novels I felt immersed in the complete atmosphere of the world she recreates. If you want lots of domestic detail – to know how what an upper-middle-class family ate, or how the garden looked and smelled – these are the right books for you. Nearly all of the characters are finely rendered, even the more minor ones. As with <em><strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstairs,_Downstairs">Upstairs, Downstairs</a></strong></em> (and the more recent <em><strong><a href="http://www.itv.com/dramapremieres/downtonabbey/">Downton Abbey</a></strong></em>), the “staff” are emotionally fleshed out. Indeed, one of the most vivid characters in the books – and perhaps my favourite – is that of Miss Milliment, the ancient family governess. <br />
<br />
After I finished the Cazalet saga, I read Howard’s memoir and discovered how heavily she had drawn from her own life. I suppose she was following that famous dictum to write what you know, but I also felt like these novels were a life’s work in the very best sense. She wrote them quite late in her own writing life, a decade after the breakdown of her marriage with Kingsley Amis, and they have an emotional authenticity that has been, perhaps, tempered by the detachment wrought by time and plenty of reflection.<br />
<br />
I read too much, and too quickly; and much of what I read is lost before too long; however, these novels – and their characters – have really stuck with me. I think of them; some of them have become friends. As I was reading Michael Morpurgo's novel, <a href="http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/m/michael-morpurgo/war-horse.htm">War Horse</a>, I was reminded of Howard’s work. For those of you don’t know it, <strong><em>War Horse</em></strong> is a story about the relationship between a young English soldier and his horse during World War I. One of the war stories in her novel, which Howard borrowed from real life, concerned her real-life father and his older brother. Apparently they came upon each other, by coincidence, on a country lane in Ypres. They didn’t recognise each other until their horses (brought from home) neighed at each other.<br />
<br />
If you've never heard of Elizabeth Jane Howard, or are unfamiliar with her work, you should really do yourself a favour and discover her. Her life has been a long, full one, and it has intersected with many of the most fascinating characters of the past century. Howard's mother, an infamously critical person, was quoted as saying that it was a pity that Howard had nothing to write about. I disagree entirely.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsk64bH8AnuhgNT-cH6al68Tv7Cd07pggTjsF2J8fCm3sr1nXmP9qxCEfJvCl7jYyTguYC7DmTJ4E7kZ49GnavszWgMLzuzzR4QAPJj1PwoIbRH6rg-879DLacPnwuX_75Dfy3bSD3qDFA/s1600/DSC_0853_445early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsk64bH8AnuhgNT-cH6al68Tv7Cd07pggTjsF2J8fCm3sr1nXmP9qxCEfJvCl7jYyTguYC7DmTJ4E7kZ49GnavszWgMLzuzzR4QAPJj1PwoIbRH6rg-879DLacPnwuX_75Dfy3bSD3qDFA/s640/DSC_0853_445early+flowers.JPG" width="640px" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal; text-align: center;"><a href="http://barriesummy.blogspot.com/2011/05/book-review-club-may-2011.html"><img src="http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk225/goofygirldesign2/BookReviewClub-Button.gif" /></a></div><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">Click icon for more<br />
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@Barrie Summy</div>Beehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-76733602656580051332011-04-28T19:58:00.000+01:002011-04-28T19:58:04.927+01:00Bluebell spring<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeq8AilRidxo_voPg1pj4nCKHHsaEyd2UHEgNN3GEf3kqWRuieD6dB_vMmmZCL371jU-k4uNchN5CDESiggFhErIPcX53AS-CJTRFhVu8WIwguE80kDBPyHyHXZYLbpltN2HqoRDBPbyPO/s1600/DSC_0794_409early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeq8AilRidxo_voPg1pj4nCKHHsaEyd2UHEgNN3GEf3kqWRuieD6dB_vMmmZCL371jU-k4uNchN5CDESiggFhErIPcX53AS-CJTRFhVu8WIwguE80kDBPyHyHXZYLbpltN2HqoRDBPbyPO/s640/DSC_0794_409early+flowers.JPG" width="640px" /></a></div><br />
I didn't get any pictures of Texas bluebonnets this year, so I offer you some English bluebells instead.<br />
They are <em>not at all the same thing</em>, but they do belong in the very small category of <strong><em>blue</em> </strong>flowers.<br />
Rarer that you might think.<br />
<br />
I have lots of thoughts about my Texas trip (which seems about as substantial as a dream now) . . . the Royal Wedding tea party that my daughter is hosting tomorrow . . . the new class that I am teaching . . . all of the books I have read in the past month . . . and whoopie pies with clotted cream and strawberry jam. These thoughts are Wordsworthian, though -- and I require a bit more tranquility (rather scarce at the moment) to bring them forth.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsiENEdN-jHS8DD2RTusylG-mrOWtsqme6viTnGPr9LETgLw3F121aSDP5lP6t6Robd6YKHYlevvwHS_fBJyseo6cGnjkfekI5fF2eIMc35deq7jMOd1qcOZXizL257LMssXPjd5fN3fco/s1600/DSC_0800_413early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsiENEdN-jHS8DD2RTusylG-mrOWtsqme6viTnGPr9LETgLw3F121aSDP5lP6t6Robd6YKHYlevvwHS_fBJyseo6cGnjkfekI5fF2eIMc35deq7jMOd1qcOZXizL257LMssXPjd5fN3fco/s640/DSC_0800_413early+flowers.JPG" width="640px" /></a></div><br />
But how's this for immediacy?<br />
I was in this bluebell wood just an hour ago. <br />
The sun was low in the trees, and there was a fragrant chill in the air -- an indescribable smell -- that is somehow the very essence of English spring.<br />
<br />
I never saw bluebells when I was a child, and yet I perfectly understand Anne Bronte's description of them as a <em>fairy gift</em>.<br />
<br />
<em><strong>O, that lone flower recalled to me</strong></em><br />
<em><strong></strong></em><br />
<em><strong>My happy childhood's hours</strong></em><br />
<em><strong>When bluebells seemed like fairy gifts</strong></em><br />
<em><strong>A prize among the flowers.</strong></em><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5kbewy1fB0UxW4ZknWjOhCj-fTO_E6rmWaEaeXsBEINiPTaPrAwRP3liTEb-5aa9XfLUnMxzVGfTevWV50PQ02tOyMhbonuzNjK4CpEy6GWraDj6N1hFey7obP39nP0vd6q_7ZXAtSNIA/s1600/DSC_0776_406early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424px" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5kbewy1fB0UxW4ZknWjOhCj-fTO_E6rmWaEaeXsBEINiPTaPrAwRP3liTEb-5aa9XfLUnMxzVGfTevWV50PQ02tOyMhbonuzNjK4CpEy6GWraDj6N1hFey7obP39nP0vd6q_7ZXAtSNIA/s640/DSC_0776_406early+flowers.JPG" width="640px" /></a></div><br />
Somehow, I doubt that the blue markings on this tree mean: "Bluebells! Straight Ahead."<br />
But I prefer to believe that is the case.Beehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-3655177316487979692011-04-03T22:23:00.001+01:002011-04-03T22:23:00.590+01:00Gone to Texas<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio7ntvtEE8voFeiJr2btx8zRc05m6eLD_5UBIzd11FPlwJYbv6PoGr2wP-ZqnzlIvj2CuE7EmYzTf8UzWdcH-L7BFuzS7eIZQZ3RXjyJ7_ogoaRiQ_XZuzx2z5KvKwCgvRW8oH1rRflbJT/s1600/Texas+trip+March+April+2009+018.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="466" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio7ntvtEE8voFeiJr2btx8zRc05m6eLD_5UBIzd11FPlwJYbv6PoGr2wP-ZqnzlIvj2CuE7EmYzTf8UzWdcH-L7BFuzS7eIZQZ3RXjyJ7_ogoaRiQ_XZuzx2z5KvKwCgvRW8oH1rRflbJT/s640/Texas+trip+March+April+2009+018.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Just for fun, I made a <em><a href="http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/3401377/texas">Wordle</a> </em>from the <a href="http://beedrunken.blogspot.com/search/label/Texas">writing I've done over the years</a> about the annual trips to my home state of Texas.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The most frequently recurring words?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Texas. drive. bluebonnets. Houston. home. parents. cow.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Seems about right.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">(Gone to Texas . . . April 2-20)</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij_9Y2hRKT6UMXCPYE10R1gVSGIea3bJuEnI1IeESiu13YKu0Y1Zg9sCrVN8uvEg8rJjf9GHGQfn2W_SXROUAJAhcWVd4qezYjmkyXhG2kIjffCrY6YNbgxbTzsezsBeKkB7mgYE0XI0Tj/s1600/Texas+trip+March+April+2009+057.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij_9Y2hRKT6UMXCPYE10R1gVSGIea3bJuEnI1IeESiu13YKu0Y1Zg9sCrVN8uvEg8rJjf9GHGQfn2W_SXROUAJAhcWVd4qezYjmkyXhG2kIjffCrY6YNbgxbTzsezsBeKkB7mgYE0XI0Tj/s640/Texas+trip+March+April+2009+057.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Beehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-9842659496506427592011-04-01T22:06:00.001+01:002011-04-01T22:08:08.213+01:00Bookshelves<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVdMZR6rmUfwmOcRn2FD2HApztqpcaOogwkJsFG_U46yJFD2A5WTjDB_8IvGWG7FhU6NzOwI2b29iJXcZ_JfA3Wu7E0c9uWxQn2obFyv6ZqvsjIaN4SPucgS-XkXzsUy9cBhe8jbmGLGTs/s1600/bookshelf3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVdMZR6rmUfwmOcRn2FD2HApztqpcaOogwkJsFG_U46yJFD2A5WTjDB_8IvGWG7FhU6NzOwI2b29iJXcZ_JfA3Wu7E0c9uWxQn2obFyv6ZqvsjIaN4SPucgS-XkXzsUy9cBhe8jbmGLGTs/s640/bookshelf3.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<em><strong>Are you the sort of person who checks out other people’s bookshelves?</strong></em><br />
<em><strong></strong></em><br />
<em><strong>(Do you feel an immediate affinity with those people who love the same books that you do?)</strong></em><br />
<br />
Earlier this week I had dinner in a lovely home. The sitting room had nearly all of the attributes of an attractive, cosy room: a wood-burning fire, soft sofas, interesting pictures, ancient (but good) carpets . . . but sadly, no bookshelves. I noticed it right away, and the absence somehow detracted.<br />
<br />
<em><strong>Are you the type who believes that bookshelves are not only useful, but also beautiful?</strong></em><br />
<em><strong>(Furthermore, would you add this proviso: that the books must be obviously read and enjoyed . . . and not merely decorative?)</strong></em><br />
<br />
I’ve just counted:<br />
Eight of the rooms in our house have bookshelves, and all of those shelves are overflowing.<br />
<br />
In the recent de-cluttering drive, I managed (not without some pain and suffering) to take about five bags of books to the charity shop. Sadly, it didn’t make any visible difference to the crowded conditions as most of the discarded books had been stacked on the floor, hidden under the bed or crammed in my daughter’s closet. In our next house, I am hoping for entire walls of bookshelves. <br />
<br />
(One commonality I’ve noticed about Oxford houses is that they tend to contain lots of books. Considering the ever-present temptation – there are a lot of bookstores in that small city -- I predict that an increase in my personal book collection is inevitable.)<br />
<br />
There are public bookshelves and there are private bookshelves; some more so than others.<br />
I don’t have what I think of as “properly” public bookshelves: nothing leather-bound or colour-coordinated; no first editions; no careful artistic groupings. Sadly, my bookshelves do not reach such lofty heights as would require a ladder. My “best” bookshelves do look more substantial, though. In their ranks you will see my nicer hardbacks, the lovely cloth-bound fairytales that I inherited from my father, the sturdy biographies and histories, and those books of a philosophical nature. My private bookshelves are junkier, and more various. Here lie the paperbacks, but also the most frequently read favourites.<br />
<br />
<strong><em>Can a bookshelf be read like a palm, like a face, like a narrative of its own?</em></strong><br />
<br />
The pictured bookshelf is in my study – and in front of the shelf of enduring favourites (my Austens, Brontes, Colwins and Mitfords), you will find stacks of what I have read or written about recently.<br />
There are also cards and curios, pictures and postcards . . . remembrances, really. When I think of the phrase “surrounded by my things,” I immediately think of books.<br />
<br />
If you would like to share a glimpse of one of <em>your</em> bookshelves, please contact Malena of <strong><a href="http://thebookshelfproject.com/">The Bookshelf Project</a></strong>. manjamalena@gmail.comBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-64121296280946489822011-03-21T12:30:00.000+00:002011-03-21T12:30:29.667+00:00March is . . .<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPQngUOe9fWsgITx0lqIZ-GYcJSEi_zO7w0Ih_hHOSN5CTYqpO1HXlugo-dYyVuwK-vm-vwQfngVHtXxW3kPDn3ALdf22GViHfj8O_HLRi-Xbn4O1zlUad2Z9cKZ_bh_Qy2QW87gA-ttyS/s1600/0191.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPQngUOe9fWsgITx0lqIZ-GYcJSEi_zO7w0Ih_hHOSN5CTYqpO1HXlugo-dYyVuwK-vm-vwQfngVHtXxW3kPDn3ALdf22GViHfj8O_HLRi-Xbn4O1zlUad2Z9cKZ_bh_Qy2QW87gA-ttyS/s640/0191.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Daffodils -- or, botanically speaking, the entire genus of narcissus -- are one of <em>the most delightful</em> <em>things </em>about March in England.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">All year long, they lurk under the ground . . . </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">and by mid-March </span><span style="font-size: large;">there are clumps of yellow everywhere.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Very cheering, don't you think?</span>Beehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-91862720925042232192011-03-14T16:38:00.008+00:002011-03-14T19:08:17.026+00:00Meeting Henrietta Garnett at the Albion Beatnik<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGobqOvESiFEPXhEAsu6jGI66Irx3gexSdkm8OWKJNHn4B6DYWIfgpYf61x42CWy2xUYgn-QpKgBorXWZ28A7IFqqsSQGROMZnd4SGVwFoRkDgU4PFHty0eges6FFDsg2-vWO0VAJ-T-oU/s1600/vanessa_bell_gallery_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGobqOvESiFEPXhEAsu6jGI66Irx3gexSdkm8OWKJNHn4B6DYWIfgpYf61x42CWy2xUYgn-QpKgBorXWZ28A7IFqqsSQGROMZnd4SGVwFoRkDgU4PFHty0eges6FFDsg2-vWO0VAJ-T-oU/s400/vanessa_bell_gallery_1.jpg" width="330" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong><em>Interior with the Artist's Daughter</em></strong> c.1935-6</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Vanessa Bell 1879-1961</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When I was 21, I lived on the seedy edge of Bloomsbury – and it was probably not surprising that I became interested in the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomsbury_Group"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Bloomsbury Group</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have always been susceptible to what </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/nov/25/culture.features"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Anne Fadiman</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> calls <strong>You-Are-There-Reading</strong>:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“the practice of reading books in the places they describe.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That year, I was studying Literature between the Wars – and it became, and remains, one of my favourite cultural and literary eras.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I read George Orwell and D.H. Lawrence, and T.S. Eliot and Yeats; but most importantly, I read all of Virginia Woolf’s novels for the first time. My best friend lived in a tiny room just down the hall from mine, and we spent almost all of our time reading, writing and discussing books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Living, in other words, what we liked to think of as “the life of the mind.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Michelle had the famous picture of Virginia Woolf, as a young girl, on her wall, and I spent many hours contemplating that pure profile.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguCtmKXCBHjVC_JE94O-0Q74XohQd4clU4p3m9XEapBNUqvjFYrokdjuNon7v9Y-F3w2giC0c_AJMYWLgMoI5SW7mWQbDT6jq5KAxngelqriZEQn2Bf2I-XNBcmFzrVzBhGxKwsa-n7ZFX/s1600/24430-virginia_woolf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguCtmKXCBHjVC_JE94O-0Q74XohQd4clU4p3m9XEapBNUqvjFYrokdjuNon7v9Y-F3w2giC0c_AJMYWLgMoI5SW7mWQbDT6jq5KAxngelqriZEQn2Bf2I-XNBcmFzrVzBhGxKwsa-n7ZFX/s400/24430-virginia_woolf.jpg" width="287" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Two decades later, I am a frequent visitor to Bloomsbury – sometimes to the British Museum, but mostly to the bookshops. <a href="http://www.persephonebooks.co.uk/">Persephone</a>, on Lamb’s Conduit Street, is a frequent destination; and several years ago, I found a card there which features Vanessa Bell’s <em>Interior with the Artist’s Daughter</em>. It is a hugely appealing image to me, perhaps because it captures my ideal landscape: to be reading a book, whilst surrounded by books and the other domestic comforts. The painting has a richness to it, and there is a wealth of detail in it, but there is also something balanced and quiet in the image that speaks to me. I’m not a particular aficionado of <a href="http://www.charleston.org.uk/">Vanessa Bell’s work</a>, but I would very much like to own this painting . . . and maybe more so to dwell in it.</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div>One of the particular pleasures of blogging is serendipity. The connective nature of the Internet is such that a writer can send out tentacles of interest, words and images, and then they can be picked up by like-minded people. Independent bookstores are a particular interest of mine, as anyone who regularly visits this blog will know, and a couple of years ago I wrote about <a href="http://beedrunken.blogspot.com/2009/06/oxford-bookstore-fantasies.html">Albion Beatnik in Oxford</a>. From time to time, someone will Google that name and end up visiting my blog. A few weeks ago, a very kind woman wrote to me and asked if I would like to come to Albion Beatnik for a talk to be given by <a href="http://www.hanburyagency.com/authors/henrietta-garnett.asp">Henrietta Garnett</a> – the granddaughter of Vanessa Bell. Would I? Would I just!<br />
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As I was waiting for the talk to begin, I struck up a conversation with a young man called Simon. We spoke about books, of course, and it didn’t take long for me to realise that I had visited his blog, <a href="http://www.stuck-in-a-book.blogspot.com/">Stuck in a Book</a>, several times. I found him by Googling Persephone/Oxford Book Club; like me, he is interested in women’s writing from the 20th century – particularly the period between and just after the wars. Like me, he began blogging in order to find the bookish companions that he lacked in his “real” life. This is “small world” stuff of the very best kind.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRwGTvSHU4gE8aVdwwxWkVCtXSiO9_a-n-n0TE2n_AJNTK-fCbkKqm5rUFOgmWyqlv9sg5LmURtN1HV_ST9uLVKempdIlH8twtDDYmhqV00iApTk451uO_s7-0eX9cCe25RJEsQvRr5it1/s1600/May+2009+009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRwGTvSHU4gE8aVdwwxWkVCtXSiO9_a-n-n0TE2n_AJNTK-fCbkKqm5rUFOgmWyqlv9sg5LmURtN1HV_ST9uLVKempdIlH8twtDDYmhqV00iApTk451uO_s7-0eX9cCe25RJEsQvRr5it1/s400/May+2009+009.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It was hardly a surprise, then, when Henrietta Garnett began her talk by praising the charms of that endangered thing: the independent bookstore. It is no secret that bookstores are finding it harder than ever to survive -- “in these barbaric days,” as Henrietta describes them -- but in some senses that has always been the case . . . just as the future has always looked bleak and frightening to every generation. Henrietta’s own father had a bookshop in the 1920s, and she admitted that his advice was to “never be a bookseller.” But there are people in the world with ink running in their veins, which is one way Henrietta described her own family, and I suppose those people just can’t help it. Running a bookstore might not be a financially sensible thing to do, but there will always be people compelled to do it. (And I, as much as possible, endeavour to help them stay in business.)</div><br />
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Unlike most literary talks, this one seemed to exist merely for the pleasure of bringing people together in this splendid little shop. Most atypically, there was no prominent display of the speaker’s latest book to sell . . . and then be signed. Dennis, the bookstore’s owner, did let me buy a few books, though – and I came away with a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/apr/05/frances-partridge-biography-review">biography of Frances Partridge</a> (Henrietta’s mother-in-law), a journal collection of Partridge’s from World War II, and a beautiful book called <em><strong><a href="http://www.harpercollins.com/books/London-Scene-Virginia-Woolf/?isbn=9780060881283">The London Scene</a></strong></em>, which contained six essays on “London Life” by Virginia Woolf. Henrietta Garnett generously signed all of these for me, and I particularly appreciate her inscription of the Woolf essays. On the flyleaf there is a quotation from Mrs. Dalloway which reads: <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">“I love walking in London,” said Mrs. Dalloway, </div><div style="text-align: center;">“Really it’s better than walking in the country.”</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div>Henrietta then wrote: <strong><em>Well; I suspect so in Owlight Twilight & any other night</em></strong> and <strong><em>So might V.W. have thought about Kitty Lushington . . .</em></strong><br />
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How wonderfully elliptical! What riches to decode there, although it didn’t take me long to discover that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon_Lushington">Kitty Lushington</a> was the real-life inspiration for the Clarissa Dalloway character.<br />
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One of the old-fashioned touches of Albion Beatnik is that they still wrap their books in plain paper. My little stack was covered in a dark William Morris green paper, and then decorated by a label that featured the famous words of Jack Kerouac: <em><strong>The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are made to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved </strong></em>. . . and on and on. How appropriate, I thought. For Henrietta Garnett, and that huge tribe of interconnected and interrelated people who are her family, are surely those sorts of people: the ones who <em><strong>“never yawn or say a commonplace thing.”</strong></em><br />
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When Henrietta came out to her stage, she did a little dance for us – and it seemed both theatrical and natural at the same time. She was very slender, with straight dark hair and the fine features that are always described as “carved” in certain writing.<br />
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She seemed a bit shy, but more than capable of putting impertinence in its place – much like her Aunt Virginia, I thought. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNQU47cGFQU79q04CmaRaU9WplsxMzCZaKKy52Kq2ughWoMscCpMWho5j1G31RLgcUX5aM6WGsycwWQFir3QaYbuwVtqxCCoVRgghhyphenhyphend2JDxf978Mj6iszfvB6pjuBUtURPzK7qHkLliST/s1600/Henrietta+Garnett+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNQU47cGFQU79q04CmaRaU9WplsxMzCZaKKy52Kq2ughWoMscCpMWho5j1G31RLgcUX5aM6WGsycwWQFir3QaYbuwVtqxCCoVRgghhyphenhyphend2JDxf978Mj6iszfvB6pjuBUtURPzK7qHkLliST/s400/Henrietta+Garnett+%25282%2529.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Henrietta Garnett</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">who would pose "for sixpence"</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">for Vanessa Bell, her grandmother</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">She spoke – rather elliptically here, too – of many of the members of her famous family. She described her “spindly Strachey relations” – with their “brittle bones,” and “high-pitched voices” -- as living in a “spindly house in Gordon Square.” Best of all, she referred to their propensity for asking “corkscrew questions” which showed that they were still interested in the “business of living.”</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div>There was a great sense of being from another age, although Henrietta actually came of age during the 1960s. She mentioned that her father had been born in 1892, the late Victorian era, and that she had grown up in a huge cold house in Huntingdon, outside of Cambridge. It was described by someone as “nobly grammatical in a Puritan landscape.” In the winter, the windows froze from the inside. (I later asked her what she had slept in as a child in the that frigid bedroom, because I am always interested in that sort of detail. She just replied “naked,” with a raised and dismissive eyebrow. Do you suppose she was teasing?) Despite these discomforts, though, she described a childhood home filled beautiful furniture and paintings, and lots of books, and flowing wine and homemade cider. There was a wind-up gramophone, and the dance music of the 1920s was often played. Maybe it’s fanciful of me, but she had a look of the 1920s flapper to me. Henrietta claimed to have never been educated, much, except from the extensive library belonging to her father. I immediately thought of Jane Austen and the Mitford girls, who were also educated predominately from a home library – and being in constant company with good thinkers and talkers.<br />
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One of my favourite descriptions from Henrietta’s talk was of the intellectual atmosphere at Charleston – the home of Vanessa and Clive Bell and Duncan Grant, and of course her own mother <a href="http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article6988234.ece">Angelica</a>. She spoke of “delicious dinners,” “the smell of toast and turpentine,” and the quality of conversation which swooped and soared from subject to subject, without any inhibition whatsoever.” She spoke of the great fun, always, and lots of “cackling” -- how absurdity was never far from the surface, no matter how serious the speaker or the subject.<br />
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At a small supper, with just the six of us, she invited us to “ask her something intimate” – but her tone seemed provocative more than sincere, and I suppose we were all too shy to take advantage of the offer. When so many of the secrets of one’s family life are a part of 20th century legend, I would guess that a person needs to develop a good front as protection. She said many interesting things in conversation, but they were always snippets . . . and never a line of thought or narrative. At one point we discussed the importance of friendship, and Henrietta threw out the question of whether or not former lovers could become friends. (Not in most cases, seemed to be the table’s consensus. She took the opposite view, but then gave a very unconvincing example to defend it.)<br />
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She reminded us of the Dorothy Parker quotation: <strong><em>Bloomsbury paints in circles, lives in squares, and loves in triangles.</em></strong> Henrietta’s own life was deeply affected by two of the most famous triangles, but she barely alluded to them. If you are interested in learning more, the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/frances-partridge-549406.html">obituary of Frances Partridge</a> touches on several of the salient points. But none of this was mentioned, by Henrietta – or by any of the audience. She did say, by way of introduction, that as a child she could only think of her unusual family life as completely normal. She didn’t mention when her consciousness of the extraordinariness of her family began to emerge, but she did allude to the “the intellectual soap opera” which belongs to anyone interested in literary history. One can only imagine how it feels to be part of such a storied family. At one point she mentioned how she hated being compared to people, as she had been subjected to that all of her life. She also told me that she had spent more of her life outside of England, than in it, and I wonder how much a part the heavy Bloomsbury legacy played in that decision.<br />
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Henrietta is a tactile person, and frequently clasped my hand as we were chatting. I couldn’t help but think: I am touching the hand that has touched so many of the great figures of the age. It felt, in a literal sense, like reaching back into the last century. It felt like touching the pages of a beloved novel that has suddenly come alive. “You have small hands,” she said to me. And one cannot help but feel rather small next to such an interesting, vivid person. <br />
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As Mrs. Dalloway so famously said: <strong><em>What a lark! What a plunge!</em></strong><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">If you are interested in attending a talk at the Albion Beatnik bookstore:</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>Paul Edwards, leading authority on Wyndham Lewis, will be giving a talk at</strong></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>The Albion Beatnik Walton Street Oxford </strong></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>24th March 6.00pm</strong></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div>Beehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-1312028811078791142011-03-08T19:27:00.001+00:002011-03-08T21:02:35.667+00:00Bucklebury (the unofficial tour)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHvoSnbY71KgbLAgERTx4VKtguzupxgN79pBB4p4Uy6fQCeTjNhEEPqBzbfGTMqZNtk40EQ3UNaIUXnTx2xqXq1qvif5Dyrs7uU315LhYqc6sTGf7KMzKcL48DxIThlA4kyQxwV8YkWQTw/s1600/DSC_0459_249early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHvoSnbY71KgbLAgERTx4VKtguzupxgN79pBB4p4Uy6fQCeTjNhEEPqBzbfGTMqZNtk40EQ3UNaIUXnTx2xqXq1qvif5Dyrs7uU315LhYqc6sTGf7KMzKcL48DxIThlA4kyQxwV8YkWQTw/s400/DSC_0459_249early+flowers.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong>This way to Bucklebury: the little Berkshire village where Kate Middleton's family lives.</strong></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong>The avenue of oak trees were planted for Queen Elizabeth I's visit, </strong></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong>quite a few centuries ago.</strong></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I don't think I've ever mentioned it, but we happen to live a couple of miles away from Bucklebury -- the village that a certain princess-to-be has put on the front page. Although I've yet to see any tour buses, our local newspaper assures us that Kate Middleton tours have commenced. For the many of you who might find it inconvenient to travel, (not to mention those who lack<em> quite</em> such fervent interest), I humbly offer up a modest tour of my own. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Of course she has been the royal girlfriend for years, but last week the usually low-key locals were abuzz about wedding invitations. I gave a birthday lunch last week, and most of my friends knew at least one person who will be watching the ceremony in person -- instead of on the television, like the other several billion of us. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Ryan, who is possibly the world's chattiest postman, received one of the coveted invitations -- and the news spread like wildfire, several days before the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1361070/Kate-Middletons-Bucklebury-Bunch-Royal-wedding-Berkshire-village-affair.html">national news</a> picked it up. I was collecting my youngest daughter from a sleepover in Bucklebury, and I heard it from a friend, who had just heard it from the favoured man himself.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">There is never more than one degree of separation in any small village, and even though Ryan is not my postman, I've met him several times. One of my dearest friends used to live at the bottom of a track that runs off Bucklebury Common, and Ryan made it a habit to stop for a cup of tea and natter most days. He is the most singularly cheerful person you can imagine -- whatever the weather -- and he has probably set records for the length of time it takes him to make his rounds, as he seems to be friends with everyone on his delivery route.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgycqoYlzfZhy5phKeoJkYd4n5fvJnemaKGqDc1Scq9GxMHbwuqeesQv_jVb0CdhDmgFGY7DEbdYHHHZvLW7ekD6BCG5pA9rgBbetDlf0pCs2koKgFB-sh5rYpT4ZCZsoMNobAbMcdzq8B4/s1600/DSC_0456_246early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgycqoYlzfZhy5phKeoJkYd4n5fvJnemaKGqDc1Scq9GxMHbwuqeesQv_jVb0CdhDmgFGY7DEbdYHHHZvLW7ekD6BCG5pA9rgBbetDlf0pCs2koKgFB-sh5rYpT4ZCZsoMNobAbMcdzq8B4/s400/DSC_0456_246early+flowers.JPG" width="265" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Another invitee was Martin, the local butcher. I met him once at a friend's barbecue; unsurprisingly, he provided the meat. Bucklebury is the kind of village where many people still go to a butcher for their Sunday roast. I noticed that his signboard advertises "venison" and I couldn't help but wonder if the meat comes directly from the local deer, which are plentiful -- not to mention hazardous to drivers and pesky to gardeners. Deer stalking may be common, but camera stalking certainly isn't. I felt terribly conspicuous taking pictures by the side of the road. So far, this rural village seems as quiet as ever.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkg6f6yHWe23xqKDUzEFXCNRu6vWZk5BHDrFuAoTiL-vTiPWCs5gyrutfHiLRtH8FXHe8S9szU75icww7Jwo1DEatfXiDW_wUZX7xmcCIoWkssoqkVizuUjj8_e40ALyppa8WtvGlVqzyi/s1600/DSC_0469_259early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkg6f6yHWe23xqKDUzEFXCNRu6vWZk5BHDrFuAoTiL-vTiPWCs5gyrutfHiLRtH8FXHe8S9szU75icww7Jwo1DEatfXiDW_wUZX7xmcCIoWkssoqkVizuUjj8_e40ALyppa8WtvGlVqzyi/s400/DSC_0469_259early+flowers.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Kate Middleton's family lives just off "the Common" -- 344 hectares of land which has been owned by the same family since 1540. Until the 20th century, the villagers had open grazing rights. These days, it is more woodland than field, but 139 "commoners" have rights of "firebote" (to collect fallen dead wood for the fire) and "hedgebote" (the right to cut wood for fencing or hedging). Everyone has the right to use the many footpaths, and at any time of day you will see a variety of dog-walkers. It is not a <em><strong>law</strong></em> that you have to own either a black labrador or a Jack Russell terrier, at least as far as I know, but it does seem to be the accepted practice.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhICVfDVeOtFQM6LH-cwyUydncKkq0YtLw-MbjzEP9xBrMfWZYGsrqQWk11KvzlCKE7oQ6wFOZadD1QPgH_LK3pEOP2rdeKFouOhsoQZVyN6ouZs7xFVAN9K1Z5GavqmXh1F9caSjeCmG9o/s1600/DSC_0455_245early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhICVfDVeOtFQM6LH-cwyUydncKkq0YtLw-MbjzEP9xBrMfWZYGsrqQWk11KvzlCKE7oQ6wFOZadD1QPgH_LK3pEOP2rdeKFouOhsoQZVyN6ouZs7xFVAN9K1Z5GavqmXh1F9caSjeCmG9o/s320/DSC_0455_245early+flowers.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Peach's is the local newsagent . . . what Americans would call a "convenience store," but without the coffee pots, fountain drinks and bait. Unlike an American convenience store, it also doubles a post office. You can buy your milk and bread and newpapers there, not to mention a hundred other odd and unexpected things. In a much larger version of this picture, I can just see that the little boy is holding a comic (maybe the Beano?) and a KitKat. Truly, it is a prosaic place. All of the local children, including my own -- when they are playing with their Bucklebury friends -- have walked up to Peach's to get some sweets.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The proprietors of Peach's were also invited to the wedding, and collectors of wedding-related trivia may be interested in Prince William's snacking habits. According to Mrs. Shingadia, the Prince particularly likes Haribo (do you think he likes <a href="http://www.haribo.com/planet/uk/startseite.php">Starmix</a>?) and <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/squeakywheel/2410365810/">mint Vienettas</a>. I assume he doesn't bother with Lotto tickets, though.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwgF2tziwwl7ZwBInkDX_dTaN_yE48pskyH8-wCy8aGXKhIrwNS0Wg0um_2vkkHVJ7ak-K2VfGbZX04xVq_hsMJ6MSCVQhDzBjFltQqZKKO7jg2smhEx0c60oe8g4j6gmZQSP2qKjb431d/s1600/DSC_0467_257early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwgF2tziwwl7ZwBInkDX_dTaN_yE48pskyH8-wCy8aGXKhIrwNS0Wg0um_2vkkHVJ7ak-K2VfGbZX04xVq_hsMJ6MSCVQhDzBjFltQqZKKO7jg2smhEx0c60oe8g4j6gmZQSP2qKjb431d/s400/DSC_0467_257early+flowers.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The road from Bucklebury to Stanford Dingley is narrow and windy and definitely not bus width.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Nevertheless, I've read that The Old Boot Inn (more commonly referred to as "the Boot") is on the tourist circuit.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A couple of years ago, we were eating dinner at The Boot and Kate and her father were there as well. No one seemed to give them a second glance, but I was terribly aware of them. Not so my oblivious husband . . . who spoke to her at the bar, and never even realised who she was! When we heard that she and Prince William were engaged, my daughter said, "Just think, Daddy. One day you can say that you've spoken to the Queen."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWOD14qjR61vtqoGDMZt3o2bZMhInOOVQ_vWFfdkIiFVhACQ288yqL44YY7fahAday2wHdMIbghFCBf9y4J9lr0YmUsaW_ixDk4PKoTVqCQ5eCPNMjY7SXmAxnGd9J6N0TS0H-4lZec61S/s1600/DSC_0461_251early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWOD14qjR61vtqoGDMZt3o2bZMhInOOVQ_vWFfdkIiFVhACQ288yqL44YY7fahAday2wHdMIbghFCBf9y4J9lr0YmUsaW_ixDk4PKoTVqCQ5eCPNMjY7SXmAxnGd9J6N0TS0H-4lZec61S/s400/DSC_0461_251early+flowers.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">As I was taking this picture, John, the pub's owner, came out of the front door. He said hello to me, quite graciously, but I was totally mortified. I must have looked like a Daily Mail photographer in my long wool coat and sunglasses. I felt like quite the stalker, with my Nikon camera trained on his humble establishment.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">(I definitely don't have the temperament to be paparrazi.)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I guess that he will get used to the extra publicity, though, as he has also been invited to the royal wedding.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I wonder if he will rush back for this Royal Wedding Party?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I doubt we will be attending, but it would be fun to see who wins the <em>Best Royal Wedding Hat</em> contest.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQRsU4gUrChZYXcJQ2bhLkjH2jldqa2JviITsrZ5kxtFLHY9mfp5B3-Y3wYzvelKq-X5VIwVYMCZCyMXQhXG7SNV5Z5uyJLLuR0vzug0irul5U0bdJRy9y_HhBTSOyLF3hgruT7QmPOnh1/s1600/DSC_0466_256early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQRsU4gUrChZYXcJQ2bhLkjH2jldqa2JviITsrZ5kxtFLHY9mfp5B3-Y3wYzvelKq-X5VIwVYMCZCyMXQhXG7SNV5Z5uyJLLuR0vzug0irul5U0bdJRy9y_HhBTSOyLF3hgruT7QmPOnh1/s400/DSC_0466_256early+flowers.JPG" width="265" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><span id="goog_677192636"></span><span id="goog_677192637"></span>Beehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-70520154925841110262011-02-25T00:23:00.000+00:002011-02-25T00:23:58.525+00:00Just-spring<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbNrqeRCcRSqEA-7ht5c7PBFiFSKeLgAqa9P8iURlNgzO65zA0IXiA0MzpxdTVdsuvcvc3BWcu3P_cUd-1zQGH_z6ZcZpRhdKpg10Y89lP6g1QvARQ5MFzNjx01XOEDN33nXRNEIy5fYa7/s1600/DSC_0410_219early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" l6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbNrqeRCcRSqEA-7ht5c7PBFiFSKeLgAqa9P8iURlNgzO65zA0IXiA0MzpxdTVdsuvcvc3BWcu3P_cUd-1zQGH_z6ZcZpRhdKpg10Y89lP6g1QvARQ5MFzNjx01XOEDN33nXRNEIy5fYa7/s400/DSC_0410_219early+flowers.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">According to the BBC weather website,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">we've had 30-40% less sunshine</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">than usual</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">in January and February.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I would say that it has felt 40% grayer;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">yes, at least that.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Cheers for a day of "sunny intervals."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGosaPqoZ4jP-z7GauT-qOljI7mK0q0NaLN-SgLQu0ypZXrKM9vbzT3lKG28vjE9KAF5l3s0ToKnhsNlyqQYb81mJVTvbCJar6TRzdx7Z1sgjJ7Qv1XS_wgSuR3IK_1Ebtqr2KKDEs-E5P/s1600/DSC_0398_211early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" l6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGosaPqoZ4jP-z7GauT-qOljI7mK0q0NaLN-SgLQu0ypZXrKM9vbzT3lKG28vjE9KAF5l3s0ToKnhsNlyqQYb81mJVTvbCJar6TRzdx7Z1sgjJ7Qv1XS_wgSuR3IK_1Ebtqr2KKDEs-E5P/s400/DSC_0398_211early+flowers.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Cheers for snowdrops</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">and purple crocuses.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Is it purple prose to say</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">that English spring is paved with flowers?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Here comes the first wave.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJlC28c9B7RtvLVd6K2_P5Ay82JYTf8yptZDfEGjW4GripMq2Ha3eBoD0rix_AT_bxcFIn6HwrkZELznG2fv-P0Z__-c1dA3CISRMg7UmMIWdOhcrYHwl_-1o-CEC3_DQHF8ZJl89NjIZ3/s1600/DSC_0386_203early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" l6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJlC28c9B7RtvLVd6K2_P5Ay82JYTf8yptZDfEGjW4GripMq2Ha3eBoD0rix_AT_bxcFIn6HwrkZELznG2fv-P0Z__-c1dA3CISRMg7UmMIWdOhcrYHwl_-1o-CEC3_DQHF8ZJl89NjIZ3/s400/DSC_0386_203early+flowers.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">At <a href="http://www.welfordpark.co.uk/">Welford Park</a>,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">the snowdrops are nearly as dense</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">as the drifts of snow</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">for which they are named.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJYs4_dEPcNuN_kcH_CG2YlgrHFKnljoUgsErUz8TGyo2MXP7-PONZa85QI5GRIgcpOLFlH7TqaPzWIp6lMkbz8aZJak-rdvFUE3y_8r9XJPANNmSm2nwMfUMUuO_9xa87JOwwRmom9n1r/s1600/DSC_0418_223early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" l6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJYs4_dEPcNuN_kcH_CG2YlgrHFKnljoUgsErUz8TGyo2MXP7-PONZa85QI5GRIgcpOLFlH7TqaPzWIp6lMkbz8aZJak-rdvFUE3y_8r9XJPANNmSm2nwMfUMUuO_9xa87JOwwRmom9n1r/s400/DSC_0418_223early+flowers.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I've been coming here every February</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">for years. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">And never, never has the sun shone.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It's usually quite a shivery experience,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">cold hands and chapped cheeks,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">but today we took tea outside.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX3YJ4w4D8Ovs1Pe5elNjSw0sz2HZqTFq0DwxWuHRpkS80WgDkgMt_5_fmDcxDGsBPvH0EVc5A9VcD63hIyZgNzQKRRHbJbK5rVg263fgQNMgvEJSYAupn1E1AJBUaV3yLviGWNlqkpxi6/s1600/DSC_0389_206early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" l6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX3YJ4w4D8Ovs1Pe5elNjSw0sz2HZqTFq0DwxWuHRpkS80WgDkgMt_5_fmDcxDGsBPvH0EVc5A9VcD63hIyZgNzQKRRHbJbK5rVg263fgQNMgvEJSYAupn1E1AJBUaV3yLviGWNlqkpxi6/s400/DSC_0389_206early+flowers.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The many visitors,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">mostly old and young,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">did mostly obey the dictates</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">to keep off the grass.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">But there were a few rule-breakers.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Keen photographers will do <em>anything</em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">to capture their prey.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgklHDOIpMhUgIlG_gvGLIUhLMCNfaXua-_6cM3_TVIfelXyX36BEdOgdxG5BtEa7L2qvw3HhD8enqp1sHFSBoTqhXvqF4iWu2zk0RRjxxhRewBbl1jL-6br8sqvo8frkb3kFI0B1nqOJAU/s1600/DSC_0423_227early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" l6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgklHDOIpMhUgIlG_gvGLIUhLMCNfaXua-_6cM3_TVIfelXyX36BEdOgdxG5BtEa7L2qvw3HhD8enqp1sHFSBoTqhXvqF4iWu2zk0RRjxxhRewBbl1jL-6br8sqvo8frkb3kFI0B1nqOJAU/s400/DSC_0423_227early+flowers.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Wellies are an absolute must,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">as the mud to grass ratio</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">(not to mention the temperature)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">does not favor bare feet just yet.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I did hear this, though:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em>Mom, can I take off my coat?</em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHTZ1VAPpsz-imPZl7EshBvy9b0oDkyO_Fyvd9YBseC6Urx9asQd01tVe9vcj24nPaBkF2oOYA_PBZoYqtvNpfB-ytxs-Wd_2SVN7yPJ51EEDeJ2_H8rXmdAgALAOZpYwd8DRKHVTB-EuK/s1600/DSC_0419_224early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" l6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHTZ1VAPpsz-imPZl7EshBvy9b0oDkyO_Fyvd9YBseC6Urx9asQd01tVe9vcj24nPaBkF2oOYA_PBZoYqtvNpfB-ytxs-Wd_2SVN7yPJ51EEDeJ2_H8rXmdAgALAOZpYwd8DRKHVTB-EuK/s400/DSC_0419_224early+flowers.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It's still February, of course</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">and the sun is a big tease</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">because rain will be back tomorrow.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">But just for today, it is <strong><em>Just-spring</em></strong></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">and the world is not just muddy,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">but <em>mudluscious</em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwa-lfKziYcOJZLqyHbRHa9rPsa5_UF46fs2I9_bXtq5-LEQXGdyo10sd6t1PnJMx-lpWGuIuXyTicosFY3bR1YZysJhrpMYdG3HELqFi6YCuHvtkptsr-qp1dTqHEC61OZ6AXO6FJBGzH/s1600/DSC_0427_230early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" l6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwa-lfKziYcOJZLqyHbRHa9rPsa5_UF46fs2I9_bXtq5-LEQXGdyo10sd6t1PnJMx-lpWGuIuXyTicosFY3bR1YZysJhrpMYdG3HELqFi6YCuHvtkptsr-qp1dTqHEC61OZ6AXO6FJBGzH/s400/DSC_0427_230early+flowers.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">For those who could not resist</div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;">fresh spring green</div><div style="text-align: center;">and the year's first warmth</div><div style="text-align: center;">there was one grassy verge.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">I wonder which child</div><div style="text-align: center;">first had the notion</div><div style="text-align: center;">to roll down it?</div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWVq-g_UXVgw9uCcZ-sR9oSjeVyaiV9-Dx0lI-3rXfd1Z0Lzqvryunojk6CDJ5AwBHAXsVbb54zn7KegJ5k2NLYCDjnuT10JYKhSepW8NmFNlIdYHwyyoJZ7kAmrb6w6N9qb4KLZcc0uTL/s1600/DSC_0431_232early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" l6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWVq-g_UXVgw9uCcZ-sR9oSjeVyaiV9-Dx0lI-3rXfd1Z0Lzqvryunojk6CDJ5AwBHAXsVbb54zn7KegJ5k2NLYCDjnuT10JYKhSepW8NmFNlIdYHwyyoJZ7kAmrb6w6N9qb4KLZcc0uTL/s400/DSC_0431_232early+flowers.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I was almost tempted, too,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">to try my forwards roll.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Long forgotten skills:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Let's dust them off</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">and bring them out</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">for spring.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ2KxyflcnK5gD1-jAsVx9CHQBDISlqOgG_dFtAqyneR4M9EB16FeBTkQsC8hM1u3ozgsMyXdcR8UutDKe-VI7T_5u8NbvT-hbmp2himHv7mskCnwy0_JhqqztO-AZU-6akYDjank0LEij/s1600/DSC_0446_239early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" l6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ2KxyflcnK5gD1-jAsVx9CHQBDISlqOgG_dFtAqyneR4M9EB16FeBTkQsC8hM1u3ozgsMyXdcR8UutDKe-VI7T_5u8NbvT-hbmp2himHv7mskCnwy0_JhqqztO-AZU-6akYDjank0LEij/s400/DSC_0446_239early+flowers.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">In two more weeks</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">there will be an explosion of daffodils --</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">always a more reliable source of yellow</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">than the sun, in spring.</div><div align="center"></div>Beehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-68359304428520202092011-02-17T18:41:00.001+00:002011-02-18T11:39:08.288+00:00Dwellings<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-rsjNYMrTvW5TLnw1VpY9ouxXQ9qyZNHP2jGxW-kqN6PT-8T_UFgE2bsnDCof4SFJQPsVHRDTRZ9CVjGCukHFxPXrWXeNkOgtVmxdq9QaOcfDtXlGYDf-Va9kwnPTVIQ9fbBxOz-SR_Y5/s1600/P1010367.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" j6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-rsjNYMrTvW5TLnw1VpY9ouxXQ9qyZNHP2jGxW-kqN6PT-8T_UFgE2bsnDCof4SFJQPsVHRDTRZ9CVjGCukHFxPXrWXeNkOgtVmxdq9QaOcfDtXlGYDf-Va9kwnPTVIQ9fbBxOz-SR_Y5/s640/P1010367.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">from the <strong><em><a href="http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/architecture/past/smallspaces/exhibition/Built%20Structures/index.html">Architects Build Small Spaces</a></em></strong> exhibition</div><div style="text-align: center;"><em>Victoria and Albert Museum</em>, London</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">Last summer, I took a picture of this small treehouse: </div><div style="text-align: center;"> described, by its Japanese creator, as <em>Beetle's House</em>.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"> <em>The charred pine exterior of this elevated teahouse</em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em> resembles the tough, blackened shell of a beetle.</em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Tomorrow, we sign the papers that will put The Barn on the market. After five blissfully settled years, we will somehow gather our things and move them . . . again. I immediately have a visual image as I write those words: Just how large would a two-arm's span need to be in order to gather up all of our multitudinous belongings? The size of a small English county, surely.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Last night I had the first (of what will probably be many) "moving" nightmares.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Eleven years ago we bought The Barn. My husband likes to say I cried, (because it was so ugly and needed so much work); I don't remember <em>actually</em> crying, but I'm sure that I wanted to. What hideous rows we used to have in front of the architect. And even before, before the decision had been made: when I said, "but it's so ugly" and Sigmund said, "yes, but it's a lot of house for the money."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">After a year of work, the house became a place that I wanted to live in -- but even as we moved into it, there was rumbling about a new job, another move. </div><div style="text-align: left;">And so we moved, back to Texas -- but we kept the house, for five long years, and never really expecting to live in it again.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Five years again, (and six houses in the meantime), we moved back to The Barn . . . and the refiguring and refashioning began again. This time, I concentrated on creating a garden. We moved the garage around, and so many square feet of gravel became herbaceous borders. Grass was dug up to make herb beds. Roses were planted. You know that Joni Mitchell song about paving Paradise and putting in a parking lot? Well, we did it the other way around.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">In June, (although certainly not in February), it looks something like this:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivJZsIFlgqAbfjSDhiLmRTOWHkYL_InsVSdRZITRLXv7QFIecrOo7I70gl9ZdcoXNyaVZ8oByK2HNr6DoM3hTdxoupbWQCZV0VdEkyCtfFadiKIOirT8SObnSnzN2J1oStWwS-58c_qKCk/s1600/June+garden+037.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" j6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivJZsIFlgqAbfjSDhiLmRTOWHkYL_InsVSdRZITRLXv7QFIecrOo7I70gl9ZdcoXNyaVZ8oByK2HNr6DoM3hTdxoupbWQCZV0VdEkyCtfFadiKIOirT8SObnSnzN2J1oStWwS-58c_qKCk/s400/June+garden+037.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Best to sell a house in June, but better to leave it in January.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">We have created this little paradise, and the house encases us and our things nearly perfectly, but it is not in the right place . . . and it never has been. I've never really liked where we lived; it's never felt quite right to me. I've never felt quite right in it.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">In almost twenty years, we've never moved <em>just because we wanted to</em>; such decisions have always been a job-driven and imperative. I guess that's true of most people.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">But now we live in a place where we have no jobs, and soon we will have absolutely no reason to be tethered to it anymore. Familiarity, yes; and after five years, some friends; and a garden that still hasn't matured. But we've decided that what basically amounts to inertia (a comfortable inertia, true) is not quite enough reason to stay.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Everyone asks me why we are moving to Oxford -- a place of notoriously high house prices.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Because my daughter is going to school there (the most obvious reason).</div><div style="text-align: left;">Because our teenagers need a town, and more scope for independence -- and we are tired of driving them everywhere. And speaking of cars, we don't want to be so dependent on them anymore.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Because I want to ride a bicycle.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Because I want cinemas, and museums, and bookstores, and parks and cafes and concerts and something to do on rainy days. Because there are so very many rainy days in England.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I've been looking at houses in Oxford for more than a year. I know the offerings by heart; I can tell you which houses have been on the market since last summer and <em>why</em>. (Any really nice house will hardly surface on a property website; and if it does, it will disappear in a week.) I realise that we may have to rent for a year, so we (too) can pounce as cash-in-hand buyers. I realise that, no matter what, I won't have a house as capacious as this one. (The dining room furniture will definitely have to go. And where will we put all of the wedding china, and the crystal glasses that my husband loves?) Compromises will have to be made. But still, I want a bicycle -- with a wicker basket in front to put the shopping in. I want to know bookish people, because I've never really fit in with the horsey/shooting types who vote Conservative no matter what.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I want this move, but I'm a veteran when it comes to moving and I don't underestimate the cost of upheaval.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">It would all be so much easier if we could just fit into a little treehouse . . . or like the beetle, take our house with us. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div>Beehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com41tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-20766643077222676522011-02-06T16:42:00.003+00:002011-03-21T18:14:57.246+00:00This is not a snow story<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjRaa6itEXdGI3ocRWBwVm4ee0BLLvYgK6l2NZ1TwCEG7Mh0qUhbPs3E6DdBan6C2_IVxFE-ESxn8V0Hz9l7ssxBaRJu_8qGmpcmAr2KWXqV7WnUqhFo_zpSrREcRgcWhJiy8AfI9HFlLq/s1600/015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjRaa6itEXdGI3ocRWBwVm4ee0BLLvYgK6l2NZ1TwCEG7Mh0qUhbPs3E6DdBan6C2_IVxFE-ESxn8V0Hz9l7ssxBaRJu_8qGmpcmAr2KWXqV7WnUqhFo_zpSrREcRgcWhJiy8AfI9HFlLq/s640/015.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div align="center"><strong><em>Definite signs of life in the February garden:</em></strong></div><div align="center">poppy leaves, dwarf iris, grape hyacinth</div><div align="center">witchhazel, viburnum, primrose</div><div align="center">azalea buds, tulip shoots, snowdrops<br />
(click on them twice to enlarge)</div><div align="center"><br />
</div><div align="left">It's one of those bleakish, windy days despised by people with fine (ie, "difficult") hair.</div><div align="left">Wintry and dull, still, but there are definitely signs of burgeoning green life in the garden. <em><strong>This </strong></em>is the compensation for English winter, with its long string of gray days. The damp earth, hardly ever frozen, is so fertile -- even in February.</div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><em>For the past couple of weeks, I feel like I have been making all sorts of preparations for what is to come:</em></div><div align="left">New passports and endless forms have been filled out for my oldest daughter's trip to Africa.</div><div align="left">The house is being touched up for its launch on the spring housing market.</div><div align="left">My youngest daughter has been prepped, for countless hours, for her scholarship exams this month.</div><div align="left">And every day, sending out feelers about new jobs and work studies and a new house.</div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left">We're laying the groundwork, but time still has that suspended "waiting" quality to it.</div><div align="center"><br />
</div><div align="center"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPAHLuKt81FYTL1S175F0ASY3Im1X4ZW4aQzN84bJsGDUBWkNiS5vXwat5f-gHAcktq86nR9cgnTguREa4FaC-0QobZKZMv6Q9b5_MGcnk9WSrURde0Q5NH9g1A_bXcdixUfzwVoa0V8c7/s1600/DSC_0299_189early+flowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPAHLuKt81FYTL1S175F0ASY3Im1X4ZW4aQzN84bJsGDUBWkNiS5vXwat5f-gHAcktq86nR9cgnTguREa4FaC-0QobZKZMv6Q9b5_MGcnk9WSrURde0Q5NH9g1A_bXcdixUfzwVoa0V8c7/s400/DSC_0299_189early+flowers.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div align="center"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I've been asking advice (from all and sundry) about how to keep the muntjac deer away from my tulips.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Our gardener suggested putting a radio set on a low volume into the beds.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Apparently the deer have keen hearing and shy away from human noise.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><em>Do you think this will work?</em></div><div style="text-align: left;">(Sigmund is highly doubtful,</div><div style="text-align: left;">but that is his reflexive position on many questions.)</div>Beehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-44019513206847721532011-01-19T19:17:00.001+00:002011-02-06T14:02:43.162+00:00It's terrible to be between books<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV-jXOjLlR9dGqP6OV44_230Y4jMqEGUzhEQ6Loxk_eyJrCAJ-9yCgWfUJccHh3b3h1QS2W8ozyi8po1UDGy2PsqlpI4ZLuPXyE6M30_hgS_wVK-ZVIxexYU1Or4tbDqoPr-1A51eic-mI/s1600/DSC_0002_084christmascookies.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV-jXOjLlR9dGqP6OV44_230Y4jMqEGUzhEQ6Loxk_eyJrCAJ-9yCgWfUJccHh3b3h1QS2W8ozyi8po1UDGy2PsqlpI4ZLuPXyE6M30_hgS_wVK-ZVIxexYU1Or4tbDqoPr-1A51eic-mI/s400/DSC_0002_084christmascookies.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">On January 6, as I was dismantling the Christmas tree, I was also listening to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00x3pv9">Bookclub on Radio 4</a>. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The recent Booker Prize winner, <a href="http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/stories/1459">Howard Jacobson</a>, was talking about one of his novels -- and to tell the truth, I was listening half-heartedly until he got on to the topic of failure and its relationship to readers and writers. He started off by saying, quite reasonably, that he was only interested in writing about failure because success didn't make for very interesting characters or plots. But then, quite startlingly, he flung out the idea that we <em>are</em> writers -- and readers, even -- because we are <em>failures at life</em>.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Did I imagine that the collective intake of breath from his live audience turned into a sort of hissing . . .?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Maybe I remember it wrongly, but I do recall that he start "explaining" (backpeddling, in fact) rapidly.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Apparently <em>what he really meant</em> is that we are readers (and failures at life) because we want the world to be another (different and better) place. Writers (and also readers) have <em>gone into the imagination to remake and relive the world</em>.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I have been ruminating on this assertion, especially because I find myself hiding out in books at this time of year. Do I read more when I am depressed? Well, yes. But then I <em>always</em> have a book on the go, whether happy or sad, and my involvement in it has more to do with<em> its </em>own intrinsic interest (I will venture to say) than<em> my</em> own emotional state. Do I actually want to remake the world through reading? No, I don't think so. Relive the world? Well, of course; I appreciate the access to all of those other worlds I would otherwise be ignorant and deprived of.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This time last year I made a resolution to keep better track of what I read. (Like any avid reader, sometimes I consume books so rapidly that I can barely remember the plot -- much less character names -- by the following month.) My dear blog-friend <a href="http://comesitbymyfire.blogspot.com/">Relyn</a> recommended <strong><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/about/how_it_works">goodreads</a></strong> -- and although it took me a while to get started, and to be consistent with my recording, I have come to thoroughly enjoy and appreciate it.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I was looking through the list of books I read last year, and I started thinking about how some books create such a compelling world that it is always a bit of a wrench to leave that place. In most cases, it's not that I would want to live there -- even if I could; but rather, that I have been so thoroughly immersed in that imaginative design that it becomes, for a time, more real than the "real world." I think that I know the characters; I'm swept up into the plot; and yes, I feel a sense of loss when the words run out and I turn the final page. Do I prefer books to real life? (Does it make me a failure to admit that is sometimes the case?)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">On <strong>goodreads</strong>, the reader gives each book a starred rating -- from one stars to five (the rather cheesy "it was amazing" rating). The books on the following list weren't always a FIVE, and I wouldn't claim that they were perfect books and that anyone would love them, but they were the books that transported me to a fictional world that felt quite, quite real. I was a tiny bit bereft when I finished them.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong><em>The Priory</em></strong>, by Dorothy Whipple</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong><em>The Group</em></strong>, by Mary McCarthy</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong><em>The Help</em></strong>, by Kathryn Stockett</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong><em>The Corrections</em></strong>, by Jonathan Franzen</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong><em>Freedom</em></strong>, by Jonathan Franzen</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong><em>A Gate at the Stairs</em></strong>, Lorrie Moore</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong><em>The Line of Beauty</em></strong>, Alan Hollinghurst,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong><em>The White Woman on the Green Bicycle</em></strong>, Monique Roffey</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><strong>The Cookbook Collector</strong></em>, Allegra Goodman</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong><em>Any Human Heart</em></strong>, William Boyd</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It strikes me, looking at this list, that I'm partial to a reading experience that begins with <em><strong>The . . .</strong></em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I leave you with some borrowed words from another delightful book that begins with <em>The</em>:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><strong>The Love Letter</strong></em>, by Cathleen Schine</div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>"I need something to read," a man said to Helen.</strong></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>Her attention shifted to him instantly and completely.</strong></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>"It's terrible to be between books," she said.</strong></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>And Johnny marveled at the tenderness of her voice. It suddenly seemed</strong></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>terrible to him, too, to be between books, though he was</strong></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>often between books for months and had never really noticed it before.<br />
"It's so disorienting, isn't it? Helen was saying.</strong></em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>"Like a divorce. An amicable one, but still."</strong></em></div>Beehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-76000841475160606282011-01-13T12:00:00.001+00:002011-01-13T12:03:16.328+00:00Slouching towards 2011<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge0oSKUdLA7yBntAatjnrK-fCg_aOvLMQKifXmIioGxicAHmQs1Vw0-Wztmb0g0Al1YvhXKZscyl6AJlH16gcp6BoK-7arFoIyhdhuolH5ntbbdVjH8Nx5HOqhcl3pik4Zn9ieLGeJAATz/s1600/DSC_0087_094christmascookies.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge0oSKUdLA7yBntAatjnrK-fCg_aOvLMQKifXmIioGxicAHmQs1Vw0-Wztmb0g0Al1YvhXKZscyl6AJlH16gcp6BoK-7arFoIyhdhuolH5ntbbdVjH8Nx5HOqhcl3pik4Zn9ieLGeJAATz/s400/DSC_0087_094christmascookies.JPG" width="315" /></a></div><br />
For the past two weeks, my daughter has been working on a sculpture inspired by <em>Winter</em>.<br />
She started with dead tree branches, and a sketchbook full of assocations, and ended up with something rather spidery and menacing. Here, it looks rather like a large and upright praying mantis.<br />
<br />
I'm not phobic about creepy, crawly things, but I do have an uncomfortable relationship with January.<br />
This year it seems to be particularly bad, although -- as one of my friends tactfully told me -- "you are <em>never</em> very good in January.<br />
<br />
We had an excessively sociable December, and maybe part of what I'm experiencing is a natural burn-out.<br />
Winter is the time for renewal, as we all know, but I do hate the diminishment of my natural energies and enthusiasm. I've had no energy for resolutions this year; and no desire for anything other than sleeping, reading and -- while the fleeting pleasure lasted -- watching episodes of <em><strong><a href="http://www.itv.com/dramapremieres/downtonabbey/">Downton Abbey</a></strong></em>. It's not that I'm lying prone on the sofa, and in fact I've had some hurry-scurry days, but still I feel like I'm just going through the motions . . . waiting, somehow, for things to begin.<br />
<br />
It doesn't help that dusk seems to come at 3 pm, and the sky is a mass of smothering weeping cloud. I do love England, my adopted country, but my native Texan self does suffer at this time of year.<br />
<br />
Still, getting to the point of being able to write about it, is probably a sign that I'm beginning to emerge from the worst of my annual winter funk. Here is a poem, which I dedicate to my fellow SAD sufferers, by the wonderful Linda Pastan.<br />
<br />
<div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">SAD</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><br />
</div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">Is is seasonal affective disorder</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">I suffer from? This special lamp</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">I bought doesn't help at all,</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">but I do light up whenever</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">the sun itself appears. you say</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">the blossoms are most themselves</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">on a cloudy day, as if contrast </span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">is what flowers are about.</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">But I feel as swollen with useless tears</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">as the clouds must be with rain,</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">projecting their shadows</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">over fields that are simply waiting </span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">to blaze back to green.</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><br />
</div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">The world is always going to pieces,</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">and we're all growing rapidly</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">towards our deaths, even the children.</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">But just one hit of sun,</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">one almost lethal shot</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">of pure, yellow light</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">(like the hand of some saint</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">I don't even believe in</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">touching my face)</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">and I'll forget the whole broken world,</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">forget the impermanence of beauty.</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">I'll simply catch on fire from</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #073763;">a single spoke of sun.</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><br />
</div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left">With a single exception, everyone in my family has a January birthday. When I am in a wintery mood, (see the beginning of the second stanza), that seems like an exceptionally grim thing. Please forgive me; I'm having a morbid moment. The forecast is nothing but rain, rain, rain, but hopefully I will be myself again soon.</div><div align="center"><br />
</div><div align="center"><strong>January: I can't wait to see the back of you.</strong></div><div align="center"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKbap3qOFT2_OzYAJUpausow_0mkGUr3tIPw9Fq0BNFPHu4CkkLbxkp5JKTsJoD9sr8e1JSVFjqtd1o4chsxTFu_6d-kxTSOrXB5lBzvaKyxZVu7J3tlAj20BkQkMB2K44J22Y_aYsvLN7/s1600/DSC_0082_091christmascookies.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKbap3qOFT2_OzYAJUpausow_0mkGUr3tIPw9Fq0BNFPHu4CkkLbxkp5JKTsJoD9sr8e1JSVFjqtd1o4chsxTFu_6d-kxTSOrXB5lBzvaKyxZVu7J3tlAj20BkQkMB2K44J22Y_aYsvLN7/s400/DSC_0082_091christmascookies.JPG" width="265" /></a></div>Beehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-30656870320324797062010-12-24T17:33:00.000+00:002010-12-24T17:33:47.317+00:00Happy Holidays<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbVN2cQ6Z07plFosB8Zvam6kVq8kgBhRTe2CX74-Gk-7eVBrhgUNeItCIw-OwJPQwHy3oJ8peYcnBJbtFSq716Mlaz5d3vLkGLrmkfAPdYJiNqyPSOuSUROSuca8QJGu-MUQvVzNN20kpd/s1600/DSC_0634_057christmascookies.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbVN2cQ6Z07plFosB8Zvam6kVq8kgBhRTe2CX74-Gk-7eVBrhgUNeItCIw-OwJPQwHy3oJ8peYcnBJbtFSq716Mlaz5d3vLkGLrmkfAPdYJiNqyPSOuSUROSuca8QJGu-MUQvVzNN20kpd/s400/DSC_0634_057christmascookies.JPG" width="265" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong><em><span style="color: #990000; font-size: x-large;">Warmest wishes</span></em></strong></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2D79hOpZPu5ylqigd4gJwdccZC6JYB6gMgmhDSm8c2Ojrl44TJTkMbYxmEqcgrehGvtJ3BwYctkIZe2e_HnfMmlKmUhnF9usoHhTg79tliLYyV9sLM9fgcvWRVEgApDHw3OqMJwn0EqFc/s1600/DSC_0648_058christmascookies.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2D79hOpZPu5ylqigd4gJwdccZC6JYB6gMgmhDSm8c2Ojrl44TJTkMbYxmEqcgrehGvtJ3BwYctkIZe2e_HnfMmlKmUhnF9usoHhTg79tliLYyV9sLM9fgcvWRVEgApDHw3OqMJwn0EqFc/s400/DSC_0648_058christmascookies.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000; font-size: x-large;"><strong><em>from our house to yours </em></strong></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyWUC72BM8WtSnkcs3u8hHmJVErF7Sz9D0EAR4ig6AKAT8VTWMHdCWaJV_2ilIjlC_lCMzFzakv6e5CJriMirMV6RNewKWXZ16N_sjPDkmJE2P2q_HaSlRr1Sgd-O_gU8TQCtniVXTGAv1/s1600/DSC_0660_059christmascookies.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyWUC72BM8WtSnkcs3u8hHmJVErF7Sz9D0EAR4ig6AKAT8VTWMHdCWaJV_2ilIjlC_lCMzFzakv6e5CJriMirMV6RNewKWXZ16N_sjPDkmJE2P2q_HaSlRr1Sgd-O_gU8TQCtniVXTGAv1/s400/DSC_0660_059christmascookies.JPG" width="265" /></a></div><br />
<div align="center"><strong><em><span style="color: #990000; font-size: x-large;">this holiday season.</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><br />
</div><div align="center"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;"><strong><em><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">with love </span></em></strong></div><div style="text-align: right;"><strong><em><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">and thanks for your friendship, </span></em></strong></div><div style="text-align: right;"><strong><em><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">Bee x</span></em></strong></div>Beehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com40tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-35283721136352051532010-12-16T23:43:00.001+00:002010-12-17T11:33:45.854+00:00Happy Birthday, Jane<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDiOWJeBu5BIDvHyzXmA7xpfXa-fUD-tZ1pVdIOjGiKiHqey4O4M3eYciN8qZT5csozLitJMMpc8cCLYNQzgRUXrQKoocJoKh4b7knF_wrukwvDAVJoZRfmqqoPMbnzlrCE-C8DqDW5IRf/s1600/DSC_0607_052jausten.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDiOWJeBu5BIDvHyzXmA7xpfXa-fUD-tZ1pVdIOjGiKiHqey4O4M3eYciN8qZT5csozLitJMMpc8cCLYNQzgRUXrQKoocJoKh4b7knF_wrukwvDAVJoZRfmqqoPMbnzlrCE-C8DqDW5IRf/s400/DSC_0607_052jausten.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong><em>Today was the anniversary of Jane Austen's birthday, maybe you've heard?</em></strong></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">At <strong><a href="http://www.jane-austens-house-museum.org.uk/news/news.php">Jane Austen's House</a></strong>, we honoured the day with an open house:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">mince pies, cups of tea and free admission.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">For the past 18 months, I've spent most of my Thursdays in Chawton, Hampshire -- talking about Jane, thinking about Jane, and of course, reading about all things Austen. Having said that, I'm not one of the dedicated miniaturists in life. I don't read the six books over and over, as some of her fans do. I'm much more likely to read a novel that's been obviously influenced by the Austen style or plot-lines. (<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/books/review/Browning-t.html"><strong><em>The Three Weissmans of Westport </em></strong></a><strong><em> </em></strong>comes immediately to mind.) There is one novel that I do read almost every year, though, and that's <em><strong>Persuasion</strong></em>.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It is not unusual for Austen lovers to nominate a favourite novel, and by a long chalk the front-runners are <strong><em>Pride and Prejudice</em></strong> and <strong><em>Persuasion</em></strong>. I like and admire <em><strong>P & P</strong></em>, but without hesitation I would choose <strong><em>Persuasion</em></strong> as one of my desert island books. I recently read an interview with <a href="http://www.redonline.co.uk/red-women/cover-interviews/nigella-lawson">Nigella Lawson</a> and she named the following as her all-time favourite books: <em><strong> Persuasion</strong></em> (listed first), any Nancy Mitford, <strong><em>Little Women</em></strong> by Louisa May Alcott, and <em><strong>I Capture the Castle</strong></em> by Dodie Smith. I didn't really need any other reason to adore Nigella Lawson, but discovering that we have the same short-list of favourite books did make me feel that extra bit of kinship to her. (I would argue that being influenced and formed by the same body of books does create a sororal bond.)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Not everyone is similarly persuaded, though. A friend recently asked for a recommendation for her Book Club and I encouraged her to choose <em><strong>Persuasion</strong></em>. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Her feedback was not, to put it delicately, enthusiastic.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I can't remember the particulars of what she said . . . probably because I was too busy refuting them, both in mind and mouth . . . but I do recall that she didn't care for Anne Elliot, the heroine. Something about "wimpy;" something about wanting to shake her and why didn't she take more control of her life.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I immediately went into my professor mode, trying to explain the aristocratic confines of life for an on-the-shelf and not-quite-rich-enough woman like Anne. There is no denying, though, that Anne has a certain passive quality. I'm quite susceptible to characters who are good and kind, but a little prone to being pushed around -- but not everyone shares that taste, I realise.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Some biographers believe that Anne Elliot was partly based on Jane's sister Cassandra, who had her own experience of "loving longest, when existence or hope is gone." (Cassandra's fiance died, and apparently she long carried a torch for him. At any rate, she never married -- nor even seemed to contemplate marriage.) If so, the dénouement of <em><strong>Persuasian </strong></em>-- in which two lovers, long separated, are reunited -- was the ultimate in wish-fulfillment. Although it is not the most obviously romantic of Austen's novels, with its slightly melancholy and autumnal tone, I think it<em> </em>is the most <em>profoundly </em>romantic. It is the novel for every shy girl (or wallflower woman) who thinks someone will come along and see her for what she really is. Don't we all want to be loved for our intrinsic qualities? In a world that admires surface gloss more than ever, the idea of being seen and recognized <em>and chosen</em> is still heart-thrilling.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><strong>Why not seize the pleasure at once?</strong> </em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong><em>How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation.</em></strong></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><strong>(</strong></em>from<em><strong> Emma)</strong></em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><em><br />
</em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I long to be the sort of person who <em>seizes the pleasure at once</em>, but I have the feeling that I am too often caught planning and worrying and second-guessing myself . . . definitely more of an Anne Elliot. Happily, Jane Austen -- who only wrote six completed novels -- provides more than one kind of heroine.</div>Beehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-10452459244667927112010-12-14T23:33:00.000+00:002010-12-14T23:33:28.641+00:00frozen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUUk3099AZMel6pCIPQHrb0GkI_BWScRFGseQppGnJThgmpqIhyphenhyphenqH7MbqI3YqRYOQZTgSHscvEHwAz6zFNJdzoBPlBYqmXL7l6YXU-E2fW7C-GvgEIkNm_aEIPi85vw_GCUUfujbBH8pkP/s1600/DSC_0558_041fruitcake.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUUk3099AZMel6pCIPQHrb0GkI_BWScRFGseQppGnJThgmpqIhyphenhyphenqH7MbqI3YqRYOQZTgSHscvEHwAz6zFNJdzoBPlBYqmXL7l6YXU-E2fW7C-GvgEIkNm_aEIPi85vw_GCUUfujbBH8pkP/s400/DSC_0558_041fruitcake.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">We live on the edge of a forest, and in the winter we sometimes get what I think of as <em>frozen fog</em>.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A thick mist seems to rise from the ground, and if it's cold enough, it encases every leaf and blade of grass and hedgerow twig in silvery ice. The effect is magical.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This year, the big freeze came before the oak trees had shed their leaves and we've had a rare display of bronze mixed in with the more usual shades of pewter-gray. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Last week I had spent the morning shopping for a party . . . (I utter the word "Costco" only so you may appreciate the contrast) . . . and on the drive back home I was arrested by the sight of these ghostly trees. Although it was only mid-afternoon, the dusk was purplish-dark already. It was as if Winter had cast a spell of enchantment and all of the world was frozen in its tracks. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I'm not immune to winter's charms, but sometimes I have to be reminded that chief amongst them is that deep blanketing silence that is not experienced at any other time of the year.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I've had two solid weeks of almost unceasing activity, and way too many evenings which have ended in morning -- surely not a good thing at the darkest time of the year -- but funnily enough, I think that it is these few quiet moments that will stay with me:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">my daughter's purely sung solo (in candlelit darkness) at the Christmas concert tonight,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">and the world stilled and silenced by frozen fog.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY_lveCgA1oo8uLIhtUaP5gJHib0K0Vxu0tUVum4-pD-VzxmSaXWH4JZ_rJlVfCzDD06cBXy-qznpoDj12rdNelctuhwN1w_ESNtFa5PHvUkmesIUxmNrxrxg-KbY1Tx1IslbVVtSJeUhj/s1600/DSC_0561_042fruitcake.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY_lveCgA1oo8uLIhtUaP5gJHib0K0Vxu0tUVum4-pD-VzxmSaXWH4JZ_rJlVfCzDD06cBXy-qznpoDj12rdNelctuhwN1w_ESNtFa5PHvUkmesIUxmNrxrxg-KbY1Tx1IslbVVtSJeUhj/s400/DSC_0561_042fruitcake.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>Beehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-91868569944750970842010-12-08T12:31:00.000+00:002010-12-08T12:31:41.400+00:00Launching Christmas<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmEKBNzY9dkRvXJLPBvXApKOmBYK3EunIDcG2iM_bQDCqE9V4THZ9ETwD0w8bXjxBrFXbXXskETcdaH1vKvSEftoTx6IoI-HfIHm_zWjKpCmDV_cIWpJwKhN4e9PKJrN7gu9BEZQcmzBpS/s1600/DSC_0509_030fruitcake.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmEKBNzY9dkRvXJLPBvXApKOmBYK3EunIDcG2iM_bQDCqE9V4THZ9ETwD0w8bXjxBrFXbXXskETcdaH1vKvSEftoTx6IoI-HfIHm_zWjKpCmDV_cIWpJwKhN4e9PKJrN7gu9BEZQcmzBpS/s640/DSC_0509_030fruitcake.JPG" width="424" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong><em>So how's it going . . . all of you Santa's helpers out there?</em></strong></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Do you have<strong><span style="font-size: large;"> lift-off</span></strong> on the Christmas preparations . . . </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em>the cards</em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em>the presents</em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em>the concerts</em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em>the parties</em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em>the baking </em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em>the decorating</em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Or are you struggling to breathe in the de-oxygenated atmosphere?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">My brain feels like it is in perpetual orbit</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">around Christmas Planet.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Only my lists keep me anchored</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">to the solid (but icy!) ground.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjME9Cl3p0enZ1wYkUSTD636qkUY12cJAfq4T8N40d7MXZFCD9DZxxiJblhq_8M6piM4_ub497y-fF9E5hkKa_oiP_V6SiKI9NU2uy8DrbxK1RN_lbaX79nj_NfNNVcINFwI6ZVpPfookbk/s1600/DSC_0511_031fruitcake.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjME9Cl3p0enZ1wYkUSTD636qkUY12cJAfq4T8N40d7MXZFCD9DZxxiJblhq_8M6piM4_ub497y-fF9E5hkKa_oiP_V6SiKI9NU2uy8DrbxK1RN_lbaX79nj_NfNNVcINFwI6ZVpPfookbk/s640/DSC_0511_031fruitcake.JPG" width="424" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>Beehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-7445433358558775172010-11-30T00:46:00.000+00:002010-11-30T00:46:58.049+00:00Cold season<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsEczGyz2d1stYFxpTa2LlMjm9fTbof__W05DnCmzSYi-vZjpyDKiz6qDmx8vLTj-2FX4-DWQzXaR8JyFdusd61r-77Nw0R5xBwNos2zku5PhPwso_OUPq8Q7ovAiwLHFIwz4JzgKY6Evb/s1600/DSC_0442_009autumn+fruit.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="263" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsEczGyz2d1stYFxpTa2LlMjm9fTbof__W05DnCmzSYi-vZjpyDKiz6qDmx8vLTj-2FX4-DWQzXaR8JyFdusd61r-77Nw0R5xBwNos2zku5PhPwso_OUPq8Q7ovAiwLHFIwz4JzgKY6Evb/s400/DSC_0442_009autumn+fruit.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">There is a nasty Two Week Cold that is making the rounds in England. And it's really <strong><em>cold </em></strong>here, too; unseasonably, record-breakingly cold. The one thing is not supposed to have anything to do with the other, and yet why did ancient language-makers decide that the one word would suffice for both conditions?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">More than two weeks ago, when I first got sick, I was reading a charming book called <strong><em><a href="http://www.faber.co.uk/work/period-piece/9780571067428/">Period Piece</a></em></strong> -- written by Gwen Raverat, who was Charles Darwin's granddaughter. One of my favourite chapters is called <em>Aunt Etty</em>, and it covers, among other topics, the Darwinian tendency to the "cult of bad health." Raverat describes how a young Aunt Etty, who was suffering from a "low fever," is advised to take her breakfast in bed. As a precautionary measure, perhaps, <em>she never got up to breakfast again in all her life</em>. Aunt Etty's attention to health, both her own and that of everyone in her orbit, is scientifically precise. Raverat remembers how her aunt's personal maid would put a silk handkerchief over one foot if it felt slightly colder than the other. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Truly, it made me feel that hypochondria (not to mention persistent ill health) was a luxury of a bygone age and class -- one that enjoyed the ministrations of lots of servants. Certainly we have the Internet now, which contributes greatly to the pleasures of self-diagnosis, but for sheer wallowing in illness there is nothing like the Victorian Age in which Aunt Etty lived. Whether slightly sick, or well and truly sick, most of us just have to soldier through these days. But if you have the chance, and are feeling slightly off-colour, do read <em><strong>Period Piece</strong></em> and see how illness used to be done.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">As my Two Week Cold persists into a third week, I sorrowfully acknowledge that I could have been a bit more Aunt Etty-like in my dedication to my own health. There should have been more cups of warm broth, more shawls, and definitely more mornings in bed -- and far fewer shopping trips, houseguests, long sweaty walks, transatlantic flights, temperature extremes and opportunities for sleep deprivation. I'm sure it doesn't do the sinuses (not to mention one's ears) any good to be assaulted by 87 degrees in Texas on one day -- and freezing temperatures in England on the next. And as I can't seem to stop coughing, I'm sure the person next to me on the plane would have appreciated if I had been wearing the Aunt Etty patented anti-cold mask.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em>And when there colds about she often wore a kind of gas-mask of her own invention. </em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em>It was an ordinary wire kitchen-strainer, stuffed with antiseptic cotton-wool, </em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em>and tied on like a snout, with elastic over her ears. </em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em> In this she would receive her visitors and discuss politics in a hollow voice</em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em> out of her eucalyptus-scented seclusion, </em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em>oblivious of the fact that they might be struggling with fits of laughter.</em></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em>(from <strong>Period Piece</strong>, by Gwen Raverat)</em></div>Beehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-52495873074952158202010-11-12T20:35:00.000+00:002010-11-12T20:35:04.257+00:00Overlearning<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM-fyEWSOiVa-JIqrHMOnLhspbzLyb-YhYfqwLbHG4Y4HyfeNIRZTLQ0R8PPH5YCarbJl3Rib2sIHe-dtP7bp_xFA4JEsBgqx1GJMoj6DCQHtcCyvVFzqO47Zsn9tmIHB2knbBehi3GudJ/s1600/DSC_0342.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM-fyEWSOiVa-JIqrHMOnLhspbzLyb-YhYfqwLbHG4Y4HyfeNIRZTLQ0R8PPH5YCarbJl3Rib2sIHe-dtP7bp_xFA4JEsBgqx1GJMoj6DCQHtcCyvVFzqO47Zsn9tmIHB2knbBehi3GudJ/s400/DSC_0342.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Several afternoons a week, I tutor struggling readers. </div><br />
<br />
I’ve worked with one little boy for three years now – and in a progress that has been halting, and at times excruciatingly frustrating, he has slowly, slowly learned the alphabet and basic phonics and a small memory store of “sight” words. Just in the last month or so, he has come close to being able to string enough words together that it is almost reading. (Lots of qualifiers here, still.) Every week, his painful efforts force me to really notice and think about what a mysterious and huge undertaking it is to learn the English written language.<br />
<br />
I can’t really remember that lightbulb moment when letters became sounds and sounds became words . . . because for such a very long time, reading has been as natural as <em>breathing</em> to me. And yet, when I am in the act of explaining reading strategies – and okay, that’s another word which doesn’t follow the rule or the pattern – I have to acknowledge that reading is nothing if not <em>laboured</em>. <br />
<br />
For instance:<br />
<br />
<strong>Ow</strong> sounds like m<strong>ou</strong>se, but not like fl<strong>ow </strong>– which has the same spelling pattern.<br />
Thr<strong>ough </strong>sounds the same as thr<strong>ew </strong>and thr<strong>u</strong> – but not a word like tr<strong>ough</strong>, which has the same spelling pattern, and hardly looks any different . . . especially for a little guy who likes to look at the first letter and then guess all of the rest (because the letters are dancing around).<br />
<br />
For goodness sake, even the word <strong>READ</strong> has two different pronunciations. You’ve got to know the context first, but you can't rely on it entirely. (Isn’t that true of everything?)<br />
<br />
Some of us learn to read quite easily, while others – more than you might think – have to <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overlearning">overlearn</a></strong> every little thing to reach that magical mastery called automaticity. Automaticity: where there is no gap between the seeing/recognizing/processing/understanding/doing.<br />
<br />
I’ve been thinking about <span style="font-size: large;">overlearning </span>a lot this week.<br />
<br />
What have I had to learn, over and over again, and yet I still don’t have that absolute understanding – that mastery? I keep coming up short, and making the same mistakes, time after time.<br />
<br />
Here’s a few <em>life lessons</em> that come to mind:<br />
<br />
<em>Impatience never helps the process.</em><br />
<em><br />
</em><br />
<em>It is pointless to speculate too much about the future.</em><br />
<em><br />
</em><br />
<em>Procrastination rarely (if ever) makes the task easier.</em><br />
<em><br />
</em><br />
<em>It is fruitless to force a conversation with someone when you know he (mostly he) is not in the right frame-of-mind for the conversation.</em><br />
<em><br />
</em><br />
<em>Emails and phone calls that aren’t answered promptly will probably never be answered at all.</em><br />
<em><br />
</em><br />
<em>If you go to bed late you are going to be tired and grumpy the next day.</em><br />
<em><br />
</em><br />
<em>Too much sugar, especially in the form of raw cookie dough, is never a good idea.</em><br />
<em><br />
</em><br />
<em>It is not necessary to voice every thought that comes into your head.</em><br />
<em><br />
</em>Beehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com37tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484915268092812945.post-77464676542536887152010-11-11T07:25:00.001+00:002010-11-11T07:25:00.645+00:00Is it a sign?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7IE5QCqYAN0IegwhREuLOfOWKu8g1KFK8tH2TTRgSZOWKuXuKFh0ctgKW5TBt_ohUQ7ajCNJgKewiLhNKZxD-EVgnjDLDwUlEX9rSzCggd6-p3PCkxbDjYpRbc1DNA2oFd9jCvgnFTDgM/s1600/006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7IE5QCqYAN0IegwhREuLOfOWKu8g1KFK8tH2TTRgSZOWKuXuKFh0ctgKW5TBt_ohUQ7ajCNJgKewiLhNKZxD-EVgnjDLDwUlEX9rSzCggd6-p3PCkxbDjYpRbc1DNA2oFd9jCvgnFTDgM/s640/006.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Almost every day, no matter the weather</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I walk the same walk</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">down the busy farm road we live on.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Me -- the trucks, the cars, the horses, and the odd bicycle.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I've had to jump in the hedgerow</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">more than once.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I can be amazingly, embarrassingly unobservant</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">but in five years</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I've never noticed so much variety</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">in the hedgerows.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Doesn't lots of berries mean</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">a harsh winter to come?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Or is that</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">just another old wive's tale?</div>Beehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02375981493145612394noreply@blogger.com32