Where I'm from; at halfway.

Thanks to  Rb in the  last comments for pointing out I'm halfway through the month now.  It's not been particularly onerous, but then I don't feel that I've been challenging myself all that much, and you have all been marvellous about stopping by.  I hope it's not too onerous for you either, and my apologies for not getting around you all as much as you deserve.  So, onward.

One of the things I'd been thinking of doing this month was scanning some old family pictures which I only recently realised I had in my possession, having been telling my family for about the last 15 years that no, I hadn't got them and I didn't know where they were... (one of my nephews had scanned many of them and logged them carefully, so their absence wasn't too much of a cause for concern).  I have mixed feelings going through that kind of old stuff; it really depends on my mood.  Another blogger I know has said more than once that depression thrives on looking back, and I am aware that this is so; on the other hand I think sometimes you can put your toe into the bathwater of memory and find it's cooled down enough now for a brisk splash if not a full wallow.  And I am blessed in not having too much of a painful or difficult nature to look back on, even if I am of a nature that gets rather easily defeated and bogged down. 

So I thought I'd start with a photo from when I was about 5 I think.  It's quite an unusual one in that I am not actually scowling, most of them I am, partly the result of a somewhat serious/surly character as a child, partly from a congenital pronounced underbite barely fixed by protracted othodonic treatment in my teens. Then I thought I'd give 'Where I'm from' a go.

This idea's been around since long before I started blogging, most people have probably done it and forgotten it by now, but though I tracked down the template and kept it, I didn't get around to trying it, partly because I thought it was probably old hat to everyone, and also I suppose I felt a bit resistent to using a pro-forma.  But now I'm not so proud.  The template is here; it's worth using it but not too slavishly I think.

~~~

Where I'm from.

I am from Clarke's t-bar sandals, and a Mobo horse called Misty, from a house with many steps and landings, and a tufted red stair-carpet that my father made before I was born.

I am from a worn oval in the flagstones where the gutter had dripped forever, from flint and chalk and gravel,
from box hedges, London Pride and philadelphus, from Michaelmas daisies and from golden rod.

I am from sherry trifle, with one side without sherry because the kids didn't like it, from the kitchen door wide open to the night in summer as the great aluminium pan of raspberry jam bubbled on the stove.

For I am from self-reliance, making your own, it's what's inside that counts, from markets and from second-hand shops, Kitty Goode's and Mister Anstey's stall, and the Jewish fabric man, because bargains are more fun, from a conservative and self-effacing non-conforming.

I am from Harry who was really Henry, Marjory who was really Nelly (wishing that she wasn't...), from Uncle Jack who was Stanley, and Aunty Mary the nun, who was sometimes Philomena, from Davy who won races, and Ellen, whose father called her Rachel when she made him angry.

I am from the fields of Glastonbury and the tenements of Norwich, not really from the dull Home Counties where they raised me; from Snap the Dragon, Gasworks Hill and Colman's mustard, from Priddy Horse Fair and the Mendip Hills.

I am from green lorries with our name in red on them, from the oily yard and the smell of coal and diesel;
from men with lodges and with chapels and a longing for God, and women with inexplicable, or, rather, unexplained, sorrows, grievances and shame.

From people limited by circumstance, by hardship, fear and their own resentment.

From people of kindness and determination, of generosity and stoicism, who left things better than they found them, who liked to worship and have children, keep dogs and cats, to camp and cycle, fish and forage, to take photographs and cine films, write uncertain poetry and make truly awful puns.

I am from knowing it was safe to be ill, because Mum was a nurse and she knew what to do, and just when it was time to be better.

I am from the gateleg table, and the chairs that were too big for it, the china cupboards and the little brass gong in the hall.

I am from them and then and there, and I am from me and here and now.  And I am from knowing that it doesn't really matter where you're from.  Because that's what they showed me.

~~~

Things I once believed, including some I still might believe.

This is an idea I got from Alison McGhee's blog. I'm continually amazed with so much in blogging that this is all free, everyone just does it for the love of it, but never more so than when I visit there.

It's one of those places that I go where I never see anyone else I know, in fact I don't see many other visitors there anyway, which is not to say they aren't there, just that perhaps they don't comment. This would be fairly incomprehensible except that Alison is, I suppose, a writer first and a blogger second, so she doesn't really do it for the chitchat (though she frequently leaves very friendly, warm responses to comments left...). I imagine she does it because she simply can't stop herself writing wonderful things.

And when I say a writer, I mean a proper one, Pullitzer Prize nominated, stacks of awards, a pile of published books, for adults, young adults and children. But starstruck as I am by all that, that wasn't why I first went there, or why I read it now.


I'm sorry to say I didn't know of her before discovering her blog (and here I imagine some people, especially perhaps American readers or those with youngsters, rolling their eyes and saying 'What, never heard of Alison McGhee?'), and I did so quite by chance when I was doing an image search a little while ago for a photograph of wild strawberries to use in a painting to make a card for someone who liked the Bergman film of the same title, and she happened to have one, along with this post on the subject.


I go on reading there for the captivating, luminous magic of the writing. Which is filled with joy and love and humour and also piercingly sad and filled with loss in ways that most people can't or daren't get close to. She seems to be one of those people who vibrates on a different frequency from the rest of us, and who knows what to do with it, takes all the raw material of memory and imagination and experience, holds it and turns it into gold, or dreamstuff, or what you will.


And she likes dogs


I could go on, and on, but better to go over and read for yourself, and I'll get on and order some of her books. In response to a comment on her 'Things she once believed...' she suggested other people might like to write about things they used to believe, so I picked it up. It wasn't exactly a meme, but why not try it ?

~~~

Things I once believed, including some I still might believe.

That I was born at Sandy Bay.

That I would die when I was twenty, having been told by a friend that the dandelion juice I'd just licked off my hand was poison, but a very slow one. I wouldn't die today or tomorrow or soon, but probably...

That certain things I said or did were unforgiveable, and certain others weren't. Wrong on both counts.

That the bath salts we found in a jar by the bath really would taste like lemon snow, just like Kevin Palmer told me before I swallowed them.

That when my dad retired, we'd go and live in the country, and it would be like 'Jerry, the Story of an Exmoor Pony'

That certain things could be fixed, and I was just the girl to do it.

That eating flies gave cats worms.

That only stupid people are happy. This one still hangs around, mostly in a rather inverted way: I am frequently happy, ergo...

That talking, and straight talking, must always be a good thing.

That maybe I had a musical bone in my body.

That certain losses and disappointments must inevitably be terminal and irrecoverable.

That, having lost all that weight when life was awful, I wouldn't put it all back on and then some when life got better.

Things my sister's charming boyfriend told me, such as that his little sister was eaten by a giant spider to which she was feeding pieces of bread. He told me these things because we were not a family who indulged much in fibs and fantasy, so I was extremely gullible. Even so I think I was quite dubious about this one.

That I was cut out to be some kind of people person. That I was cut out to be some kind of recluse.

That we would not still be renovating this house twelve years after moving here. That if we were it would be some kind of shameful failure, or matter much.

That, through no effort on my part, life would begin for real some time in the future, or that the world would change in such a way as to find a place for me, and then ability, hope, motivation, willpower, and, of course, recognition, would all be mine.

That there was some use for the concept of Utopia.

That White Ted really did make his way back to me in Hertfordshire when I was ill, from the car park in Dorset where I'd dropped him.

That the box elder tree was a field maple.

That loving Tom was such a piece of egregious and undeserved good fortune that I could not possibly be allowed to hang on to it, and that he must, very soon, be taken away from me.

That, being last, I was always destined to be least.

That I could never be happier.

~~~

(In the end I made this kind of amalgam of a number of wild strawberry pictures, and only used Alison's as reference. No matter.)

More of spring.

This really is the last one before we go away, in a quick bit of time snatched between a trip to the launderette to make Molly's bedding presentable for the very chic looking B&B we'll be staying at in Chartres, and a trip to the dentist for a check-up for me and an appraisal of a broken crown for Tom, then I'll be packing. The early May drive across some part of France has been a part of our life almost every year we've been married, even before we lived here; I look forward to it so much.

The first thing is a spring melodies meme, passed on from Jonathan, who hovers in virtual space between Paris and Norway, to name seven favourite musical things to be listening to in this season. This was actually rather nice,as it made me think about what I actually fancied listening to, to accompany my vernal musings, as well as the earworms that were already wiggling about in my head.

I am not a seriously musical person at all; I have no talent for the performing of it and limited discrimination. I have scarce any knowledge of current pop, I have never really succeeded in acquiring a taste for jazz, except when I'm at Tall Girl's place, where the jazz always sounds wonderful. Though I've come to classical music a lot more of recent years mostly through Tom, my tastes in it are generally pretty middlebrow and obvious. I like early music probably because it's often a bit less complicated, and also frequently melancholy and solemn, and I like melancholy and solemn. However, I have been fortunate enough to have had many people in my life with a real gift for music, so inevitably some osmosis has happened.

Even for spring I like some melancholy; however joyful the season, it is always so exquisitely, poignantly fleeting, but I have looked for things with some lilt and lift too. So:

1) The Messiah, a bundle of mixed arias and choruses, enough so that the earworms show some variety. We often seem to have a Messiah Day or two at this time of year, which I love. We have yet to find the Perfect-Messiah-as-Tom-Remembers-It, which I think is without too many of the (authentic) twiddly bits. This may be something like Parsley-Liquor-for-Pies-Like-the-Pie-Shops-of-his-Youth-Used-to-Do-It, which is to say, a piece of lost time impossible to retrieve, but we enjoy the ones we have anyway. (The Messiah recordings, not the parsley sauce).

2)Bax, Spring Fire Symphony. I just put this on. It is nice in parts, but I think I'm partly beguiled by the title, which seems so redolent of the blazing bright urgency of it all, as well as those welcome fires one still sometimes lights on chilly evenings in early spring ...

3) Canteloube, Songs of the Auvergne. We took a holiday there at this time of year a few years ago. Actually it turned into something of a nightmare, because the place we were staying at, which was pretty and luxuriant and green beyond imagining, and full of lovely wildlife, also turned out to be full of ticks, not so lovely wildlife. The only day Molly and I didn't acquire any was when we visitied Vichy, which is a delightful town, its historical associations notwithstanding. The paintings by Alphonse Osbert in the old pump room reminded me of Cantaloube's music(that link is fun, you can fly around the room!).

This music also reminds me of my mum; not that I ever remember her listening to it. She always said she liked it, and I bought her a cassette of it late in her life, but in fact she rarely listened to music at all. Partly because she was deaf, partly because, like me, she didn't think to do it, the music-playing equipment wasn't so handy then, but also I think because she wouldn't allow herself the indulgence of it, the time to do something pleasurable just for herself. So I got a CD of it a while ago, and took the time to get to know and enjoy it, as it were for her, though I'm not sure in quite what spirit I have done this...

It's samey in places, and irritating in others, but there's something about that opening phrase of 'Baïlero - lero -lero!', that makes my heart soar.

4)Van Morrison. Some standards - And It Stoned Me ('oh, the water...), Bright side of the Road, Have I Told You Lately... you know the kind of thing.

5) Bhundu Boys - Jit Jive. Their 'True Jit' album, which I used to have on vinyl but lost along the way, is difficult to obtain now on CD or download (which I don't do anyway). Lilting and joyous, I listened to it obssessively at a time I seemed to recall was not particularly joyous, but it has completely transcended the memory. I have this one track on a World music compilation, though there were others I liked better. While listening, I also rediscovered ...

6) Hugh Masekela. Tall Girl gave me a cassette of 'Waiting for the Rain' more years ago than I care to remember, which I wore out listening to on a clunky old Walkman every night going to sleep on sometimes tense visits to the parental home.

7) Yann Tiersen's soundtrack music for 'Amelie'. Very winsome!

No time for many appropriate links, I'm afraid. Now, I have to tag 5 more people, so I'll choose those I know are considerably more musically literate (if that makes sense), than I am. Tall Girl, Sheila, Julia, Rosie and Barrett Bonden, seven spring melodies, or collections thereof, if you please.

And of course, and I know this makes 8, what is more appropriate the Vaughan Williams? Not my beloved Tallis Theme or Dives and Lazarus, say, which are solemn and wintry, but the English Folk Songs Suite, for example. Here's a video I made the other day, as a kind of round-up of the season. I still can't make head nor tail of the Windows Movie Maker, so it's done with Picasa again. I put the slides together first, then loaded the music, which helps with the jumpy scratchiness, though it's not perfect.

~~~

Finally, and my toothbrush is calling, my response to Joe's demand for lunch, is over at Compasses.

~~~

Sorry if I haven't got around to visiting everyone before I go. See you soon!

Phew, and six of six.

Sunday afternoon, and since yesterday I've made it round everyone's blog who's been here and been so wonderful in the last couple of weeks, and a few more places besides, and I've put some pictures on Flickr and started Out-with-Molling again. I am somewhat bog-eyed but deeply satisfied!

Tom is doing very well, resting and being gentle with himself but very positive, and enjoying life and looking forward to things. As well as being happy to have him home, I'm happy to be home myself, and feel as though I'm setting about reclaiming things. Molly is happy that we're all pups in a basket again.

I have something of a backlog of memes and pro-formas to keep me busy. This one is doing the rounds. You take the sixth photograph from the sixth folder, simple as that, and don't mess with it.

My sixth folder is a selection I put together a couple of years ago, and I can't for the life of me remember why! This is the sixth photo in it.

It's some tracks in a field on a hilltop a few miles from here called, not strikingly originally, Bel Air. It is the highest point in Côtes d'Armor, the département wherein we live, and, though it is a plateau and rather wooded, there are some fine views out to the coast and into the interior. There is also a wind farm, very creepy little church and a somewhat seedy nightclub, and a few houses. The nightclub is a weird thing, I suppose it's sited there because it's miles from anywhere and so there aren't many people to be disturbed by it. The lycéens I used to teach had horrifying tales of roaring down from there at all hours of the morning in old cars with dodgy brakes and lights. However, it is a well known beauty spot, and the wind farm is an object of interest, and a lot of hikers and families trail up there at weekends especially, so there ought to be a nice pub serving food, or a tea room or even an ice cream van occasionally, but this is France. Still, at least over-development isn't a problem.

There were some rather more interesting pictures in that folder, and I was tempted to cheat and substitute this one for another, but that would completely defeat the object.

While the tea's brewing...

I think I've just got time for a quick meme that both Spiralskies and Lesley at Peregrinations tagged me with. In fact it's very similar to one I did a bit over a year ago, but some of the questions have evolved and changed, and it's quite a satisfyingly quickfire one, so I'm up for doing it again.

(There was a little picture award thingy that went with it, but I must say I don't usually bother much with those. I heard somewhere recently they sometimes have nasties in them, is this so?)

Hair colour - grey getting greyer, we've talked about this.

Mother - the same age when I was born as I am next birthday. I suppose I was a miracle child, though I've never had that impression...
Father - brought me tea in the mornings. Advised me to look up at the sky through the leaves of the trees.
Favourite thing - just one? Looking at the sky throught the leaves of the trees. (There are many more...)
Dream last night - mm, no very nice ones, mostly involving hopitals and unpleasantness. The night before I had a good one about how Zhoen was actually a pilot, and all the difficult painful exercises she's had to do lately were really training for that, and she was very happy and very competent and flying us somewhere nice.
Dream goal - don't follow football.
Room you're in - intermediate space between kitchen/eating space and sitting room space, location of bookshelves, computer desk. We don't really do discrete rooms here.
Hobby - small fast-flying falcon, the only thing that can catch a swallow, French faucon hobereau. Occasionally one swings by here in late summer early autumn, bringing intense wonder in its wake.
Fear - violent death. Well, you did ask.
Where you want to be in 6 years - why 6? Roughly where I am now would be fine.
Where you were last night - roughly where I am now, give or take a few metres.
What you're not - oh, many things, probably more than what I am...
Wish list item - Don't have a wish list. A rug for the sitting room space would be nice, but we haven't seen one we both like.
Where you grew up - small town, Home Counties, down in a valley between a woodyard and a pet-murdering main road. Not quite as bleak as it sounds.
Last thing you did - read those words.
What you're wearing - grey jeans, nurdy brown fleece top, Jim Thompson silk scarf Lovely Sister brought back from Thailand in every subtle kind of blue/green/purple/grey. I love it I love it I love it.
What you're not wearing - a boxer's gumshield, hair lacquer.
TV - mostly crap.
Pets - Molly rejects that job description.
Computer - necessary to do this. Touchwood no blue screens lately
Mood - sometimes enhanced by wine.
Missing someone? - My youthful self? No, that's bollocks, I was a pain. No, no one specially at the moment.
Car - rusting red thing with four wheels out on the drive. But since the arrival of the Xsara, mine all mine!
Favourite shop - oh lord I don't know. The one that's got what I'm looking for at the time. Oh, I know, Tartapain bakery, but it's a den of iniquitous temptation, what with lemon tarts and bacon and onion baguettes and kouignn aman...
Summer - not the easiest I ever had. Still, mustn't grumble.
Love someone? - What me? Nah, can't be doing with that sort of thing.
Favourite colour - that which is appropriate to the object whereon it is. Yellow is lovely on daffodils but awful on me, for example.
Last time you laughed - probably at something daft.
Last time you cried - probably at something daft.

~~~

I shan't tag anyone, but pick it up if you fancy.

Lucy likes...

This is a meme I picked up a while back at Rosie's, but hadn't got around to doing anything about beyond the research stage.

What you do, put your name, assumed or otherwise, followed by 'likes', into the search engine of your choice (which phrase ie Google, is reminiscent of Blue Peter's 'rubber solution glue' with the brand name 'Copydex' blanked out; we all knew what it was but they weren't allowed to say, in the days of the Reithian ban on advertising being observed to the letter...), and see what comes up. This is a selection from mine. Different names seem to lend themselves to different activities, some people seem to have names which lead into all sorts of salacious areas, another complained that her given name all seemed to belong to ladies of a certain age who like to knit, crochet, make jam etc (nothing wrong with that, I hear you protest, and I am with you totally). Many of the Lucy's I found seemed to be dogs and cats.

Lucy likes her science diet ... I can't say I usually like any kind of a thing called a diet, but apparently this one's good for furballs, so perhaps I should consider it...

Lucy likes to hide behind storage shelves ... depends what 's on the storage shelves really.

Lucy likes to dine... well I'm afraid I do rather. Rather too much, in fact. But this is actually a very funny and ultimately heart-breaking story by a graphic novel writer, Mike Baron, on his website, about how he decided it was grossly unfair he couldn't take his dog, Lucy, to eat in restaurants with him, so he decided to disguise her as a guide dog in training so he could. It's written a bit like a review of the restaurants in question, but Lucy was of a somewhat feisty nature and frequently acted in a far from impeccable guide doglike manner... you can read it here, I enjoyed it very much.

Lucy likes big expansive things - think beaches and skyscrapers... this was a blog or some such of two women called Lucy and Emily who I think worked for something like the Board of Film Censors or whatever they're called now. Emily by contrast liked 'small perfect things like photos and jewels'. On reflection, I think I'm probably rather more like Emily in this regard, though one needs contrast and variety. I prefer big natural expansive things to man-made ones; beaches, mountains and canyons leave me feeling awed and happy, whereas big human ones like skyscrapers and ocean-going ships can make me feel small and powerless and worried at the hubris of the human race. Of course, photographs, though small in themselves, can be of big things, but I think they are mostly better when of small things, especially if they succeed in making the small seem big ... ok, I'm digressing now, back to...

Lucy likes lovers - hmm, no thanks, give me a dog and a camera any day. Or perhaps it means likes seeing other pairs of lovers, which is OK, I suppose, depending on what they're doing and how in-yer-face they're being, and if they're too young and gorgeous and show-off about it... I like seeing middle aged to elderly lovers, makes me feel a bit hopeful. In fact this is the name of a garage band that probably everybody's heard of but me, since I don't even have an Ipod and wouldn't know what to do with it if I did ...

Lucy likes to play with milk bottle rings, fuzzy mice and ribbons... oh yes please! Much better than lovers I'm quite sure.

Lucy likes to sleep on Jason's clothes... Who's Jason?

Lucy likes to hold Ricky down by the tail and he likes to peck... enough enough already! Jason, Ricky... I deny all knowledge...

Lucy likes to bite her ears... well, having one's ears bitten is sometimes quite nice so I daresay if I could bite my own it might be fun, though it might be like tickling your own feet, doesn't really work. I can, as I may have bragged here before, touch my own nose with my tongue, and here's a picture to prove it. I've rendered it in black and white and uploaded it small to spare you the full horror...

Hmm, think I've probably lowered the tone enough now, I'll be back to poetry and pensive high-mindedness next time, be assured. Finally, to restore some of my dignity and use this as an excuse for a pretty photo post after all

Lucy likes to watch the goldfish ... I do indeed. I can spend far too long gazing into the garden pond when I'm supposed to be weeding or whatever. Not only do I watch goldfish,

but also other flora


water plants, and lily pad leaves, which I continue to photograph obsessively in all kinds of forms,

and the worlds contained in them,

and fauna, like this dragonfly nymph (which turned out to be dead, though I didn't know that when I first photographed it. I'm telling you this in the interests of authenticity and transparency. I did then consider setting it up in some dramatic attitude so you would all gasp and say 'amazing capture Lucy!', but I didn't.)

The newt is one of our little eath-and-water dragons. We often find them in piles of leaves and even rubble around the garden the rest of the year, but these have been in the pond for a month or two now. I keep meaning to look up their life cycle so I know what the young ones look like.

and there was even this narcissistic snail, which seemed drawn inexorably to its own reflection.


Any excuse to hang out by the pool!

Within 24 hours...

... the frighteningly clever Marly had guessed the book I'm reading from which came yesterday's extract, which was 'God Knows' by Joseph Heller. I first read it about 20 years ago when I picked it up after someone I lived with, who was a Heller and Vonnegut fan, had finished it. It stayed with me and I fancied re-reading it. At about the same time I also read the one about Rembrandt, 'Picture This', but I can remember little about that. I've never read 'Catch 22' , it's never much appealed.

But I did enjoy 'God Knows'. It's narrated by King David ( yes, the King David, the one who slew Goliath), at the end of his life, as he is ministered unto by Abishag the Shunamite, reflecting on his career and that of his people. Though one has the impression that Heller's biblical and historical knowledge is spot-on, the book makes no attempt to be historically authentic, as the extract shows, he is telling the story with the full knowledge of all the history, culture and literature that came after, makes references to the King James Bible, interjections in Yiddish, complains about Michelangelo misrepresenting him not least in giving him a foreskin, and generally revels in anachronism and anomaly to great comic effect. Bathsheba, it is revealed, is a callous, go-getting WASP; his first wife Michal a shrewish Jewish American Princess; Solomon is a boorish, literal-minded nitwit who really did want to cut the baby in half and whose best lines in the Song of Songs were really written by his father. David himself is brash, rash, pragmatic, sexy, arch and very funny, and ultimately movingly, tragically human, in his final irretrievable loss of his children and his God.

Well worth a read. And a re-read, so I lately got a copy from Amazon Marketplace for a penny and the postage.

So I've tagged Marly, who, as well as bringing up her lively brood, and writing proper books and gardening and heaven knows what else, is reading about five books at once, to give us an extract from one of them.

I think I'll also tag:

Avus - who's an impressively erudite fellow and usually up for a meme.
Joe / Plutarch - who doesn't usually get picked on for such things, but as he writes of three beautiful things a day, and often seems to be reading something interesting, one of the beautiful things could perhaps be an extract from what he is reading?( And yes, it can be in French, you can translate it if you want...)
Spiralskies - who's turned up in this neck of the woods quite recently. I know she's a bit shellshocked at returning to the world of full-time work, but she still manages to blog, has finished her novel... that's a point, she's supposed to be editing it now, she could give us an extract of that...
Jonathan in Paris, who comes up with some rare and wonderful poetry, his own and others', and must have something interesting to hand.

So with Marly, that's five. The basic rules are:

1. Pick up the book you are reading, or else the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

However, you can vary them as you wish, including not tagging other people or doing it at all.

***

Talking of memes, Tristan did a lovely seven random facts about himself. He's an enigmatic, self-effacing, thoughtful chap, who takes beautiful photos, often on nostalgic (for me) tours of south-east England, with a great eye for architectural detail. He doesn't write a lot but when he does it's never enough. Well-read and wears it lightly like a flower, you know. I remember hearing he once left a litre bottle of walnut oil - a real, in-the-flesh one, not a virtual one, at Joe's house with a recommendation to use it on goats' cheese, which I thought was the most incredibly stylish, impressive thing I was stricken with envy! When he shows up here (virtually that is to say) I always feel all overcome and sillily pleased. I'm half-afraid of sounding patronising here, I don't mean to. In fact, I might have tagged him for the meme, but I know he's rather busy and preoccupied with what he's going to wear when he goes to Madrid!

Talking again of memes, some fun over at Mrs Chili's I came by indirectly. A challenge to write your autobiography, or, at least, sum up your life, in just six words. Mine was ' Here I am. So what happened?'

Book meme

Leslee tagged me for this. I quite like it as it doesn't require a lot of thought or jumping through hoops, but it's rather interesting to see what people are reading and also if they don't tell you beforehand, trying to guess what it might be.

The rules go like this:

1. Pick up the book you are reading, or else the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences (I'm going to do seven, I'll tell you why...)
5. Tag five people.

So, here goes.

' Now, frankly, we artists do not normally write well when we are distraught, if we can bestir ourselves to write at all. But my famous elegy is a glorious exception. Though composed rapidly, it's a better elegy than Milton's to Edward King or Shelley's on the death of Keats, which is pure dreck - revolting, sentimental dreck. 'Oh weep for Adonais, he is dead.' What kind of shit is that? Adonais instead of Adonis? Shelley needed that extra syllable?'

Now, to make this meme more interesting, I'm inviting submissions for what the book is, which is why I made the extract a bit longer. Clue: It's a biblical character narrating, and the author died in 1999, on my birthday, I just found out.

I'll publish the answer... when I feel like it, if no one gets it first, and decide who to tag then!

7 things

Rosie my good friend in the world and the realm of the cyberspirit, has produced a splendid Seven Random Facts about herself, which I highly recommend, and has subsequently tagged me. I seem to recall I did this about a year ago when it was first doing the rounds as Five Things People Might Not Know About Me, if indeed it is the same phenomenon. Do these things mutate and evolve, or occur spontaneously at the same time in different places then cross-fertilise, as I believe is akin to some theory of human evolution?

Anyway, the Five Things was a while ago now, and I was then a very green and desperately earnest blogger who shrank and blushed at the unsolicited attention, even though hardly any bugger read it anyway, except darling rr who tagged me and lovely, loyal, dear Andy, with whom I enjoyed a follow-up conversation on the subject of Biggles.

I am still quite earnest. I reserve the right to remain so, figuring there are some bloody funny, witty, hilarious, satyrical, clever so-and-sos out there with whom I can't really compete so I think I'll carry on being rather serious on the whole. Does that constitute an Artist's Statement?

So, seven random facts, which I scribbled down last night after coming in from an evening out and a surfeit of fish pie and asparagus, chocolate mousse and kouign amann and of course a drop or two of wine. Some good advice picked up at Dick's once - write drunk, polish sober. Only I'll largely skip the second part of that.

1) I have always resisted having any kind of statcounter or similar here, thinking that would be conceding too much to the addictive, narcissistic, attention-seeking element in this activity which I fear is there for me at least, deny it how I may. I do, however, as a sop, sometimes sneak across to my profile page to see how many profile views I've had. When I did so last night, on observing the total was standing at 1,998, I went back and forth twice more to bring it up to 2000.

2) I have never eaten sauerkraut, or even choucroute, the Alsace-derived version by which a funny foreign dish is made acceptable to Gallic palates because it can be seen to have a French regional origin. One or two people have offered to prepare it for me so I may fill this gap in my gustatory experience, but so far they haven't delivered. I'm not sure I would like it, since...

3) ... I have tried to, but can't, like pickled things. I used to look longingly at pickled eggs in fish and chip shops, finding them utterly horrid the one time I tried to eat one. Pickled onions look positively ambrosial but make my eyes water (raw onions I also struggle with, so I am doubly handicapped here). I can only really enjoy gherkins chopped very small and added sparingly to a salad or sandwich with something very rich like pate or smoked salmon, which doesn't stop me reaching with my fingers into the jar of cornichons in the cupboard and pulling one out to munch on, only to be disappointed every time. Pickled walnuts sound delicious and sophisticated, but I find them fairly resisitible as they look a bit like something's droppings in a jar. This contrary seeking to acquire a taste for something I can't acquire a taste for is the antithesis to the old comic conceit, as expressed by Tom about pasta: I don't like it and I'm glad I don't, because if I liked it I'd have to eat it, and I don't like it.

4) I have been lurking on the blog of someone I last knew about twenty years ago. I am uncomfortable and slightly ashamed of this, and keep intending to take her off my bookmarks and not go back, but I don't. I am fascinated by how clever, funny, well-written, bitter and acerbic it is, so different from the person I thought I knew. I don't intend to reveal myself, and am very glad of the potential of a married name ( the taking of which, I felt, occasioned a few disapprovingly raised eybrows here or there at the time... the changing of the name, not the marrying of the husband, you understand) in the covering of tracks and burning of bridges. I have tried to write about this, and its ramifications, at more length, but am dissatisfied with what I've written.

5) I am the last of six children, three boys and three girls, with twenty years between myself and my eldest sibling ( blogged a bit but found life got in the way). My mother was 47 when I was born, my father 55. This may account for why large age gaps, between my spouse and myself (24 years) or between friends, bother me not at all. None of us siblings has ever fallen out with each other, though I can be an awkward and sanctimonious little cuss, and heaven knows we should have inherited a falling out gene from my mother and maternal grandmother.

6) Both the aforementioned eldest sibling and I sustained fractured skulls as very small children in life-threatening accidents. He fell out of a first floor window, and I think may have a plate in his head. I was run over by a car on Hemel Hempstead High Street and flew through the air with the greatest of ease. The West Herts Hospital failed to check my head until my mother, who had been a nurse, insisted, saying she could smell skull fracture. The x-ray revealed I did indeed have one.
The remaining four siblings survived their childhoods without broken heads.

7) I am torn between a) I hate letters torn open with fingers, rather than a letter opener, and b) I grew up under a box elder tree.

***

On review, I notice two of these are about blogging and two are about food, which may indicate something about the focus and compass of my life...

I shan't tag anyone, but anyone can pick it up if they want to.

Time for a meme

Catalyst has slapped me with two.

The first is the middle name one. The object is to form a kind of acrostic with the letters of your middle name, each one being the initial letter of an adjective (or perhaps adjectival phrase) you think describes you. If you don't have a middle name, use the middle name you would like to have. Mine is a short one: Anne.



A - Ambivalent. I am, about most things, most of the time.

N - Nit-picking. Ask Tom.

N - Nice. Sometimes, or in the old sense, nit-picking.

E - Earnest. I can be a little over-. But sometimes it's important to be.



The next stage is to tag as many people as there are letters in said middle name. I don't mind doing memes but I don't much like tagging people in them, feeling like I'm being a nuisance, though of course no-one has to pick up the tag. Anyway, four isn't too many, so I'll do so when I've done the next one, which is a set of questions.



1. If you could have superpowers, what would they be? There is no obligation to be unselfish, save the world etc.

I would have the power to levitate and position large and heavy objects such as sheets of plasterboard, barrowloads of gravel, furniture up stairs etc, and to levtate and manipulate smal ones such as screws to screw them in. In fact this would have been more use still ten years ago when we started the house renovation, but could still be handy. I would also like to be able to eradicate weeds, sorting them from the benign plants, and destroy slugs and snails with a thought. I realise this is a little ecologically unfriendly, so perhaps I would just teleport them to another place.



2. Stranded on a desert island with a CD player and 10 CDs, what would they be?

I seem to recall that the original idea devised by dear old Roy Plomley was that these would be 'gramaphone records', and that each individual piece would only be as long as would fit on an old 78 rpm recording. This necessarily limited you to perhaps one pop, rock or jazz number, and perhaps one movement from a classical piece. However, CDs allow for more freedom. I always find these music choices difficult; my current favourites are not necessarily the only ones I would want or need if separated from my world. Some music belongs so strongly to a certain period of my life that I choose not to listen to it any more, think perhaps I would find it quite difficult to do so, and often don't even own it any longer, yet if I found myself in the hypothetical desert island limbo, I might well have to have it along. So here goes -



1. Bob Dylan, second period, perhaps, early to mid 70s, 'Blonde on Blonde', 'Blood on the Tracks', I might even dare to face up to 'Planet Waves' or 'Desire'. This most certainly belongs to the category I described above; I currently own none of them, haven't done since CDs came in; one of these days I'll replace them, but not just now.



2. Some Van Morrison, no sentimental problems there, as perennial as the grass. The 'Greatest Hits' album would be fine, though it has got one or two awful ones from when he was with 'Them', and the Christmas one with Cliff Richard.



3. Paul Simon's 'Graceland', age shall not weary her, and lively enough to jump around to.



4. Some Beatles, for old times' sake. Probably the Blue compilation would do, or why not the red, if they still exist, or perhaps the white album. despite all the Yoko inspired weirdness and nasty associations, it still has 'While my Guitar Gently Weeps' on it and more besides.



5. Lots to remind me of Tom, Sibelius 5th, though it wouldn't be the same without the coda of weepy nose-blowing, or Shostakovich 5th, or some Handel, 'Did you not see my lady', a Beethoven symphony or two, and many many more.



6. A good Vaughan Williams pastoral compilation which must have the Tallis theme and 5 variants on Dives and Lazarus, and probably Greensleeves Variations, and some more I don't know as well.



7. The Tallis Scholars 'Renaissance Giants' album which has got so much on it, Spem in Alium, Western Wind Mass... Josquin, Palestrina, and also some really tasty photographs of Michelangelo's David in the artwork.



8. Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble's 'Officium'. Though 'Mnenosyme' is probably better value this is the original and best for me, with very precious associations.



9. A Loreena Mckennitt, probably 'The Mask and the Mirror' for the setting of St John of the Cross, but I like 'The Visit' too; 'The Lady of Shalott' reminds me of my lovely sister.



10. Hmm, too many possibilities for a last choice. Perhaps some more challenging classical stuff I always mean to apply myself to but don't get round to, like Beethoven String Quartets, or maybe just something else from back when, some Joan Armatrading perhaps... or the music from 'Amelie'...

(Sorry, no time to do links for all those)

3. If you were a smell, what would you be?

Box hedges and philadelphus.



4. If you were a bird, what kind would you like to be?

The bird I think I most resemble is probably a dunnock or hedge sparrow. They are commonplace, small and unremarkable, lack any distinguishing features of noticeable beauty or virtuoso musical talent, but on the other hand they have a very pretty and quite bold song when they put their minds to it, which always surprises and pleases, and though they are retiring, they are cheerful, adaptable and confiding creatures, who don't pick fights with anyone. At least I hope I'm a bit like that, most of the time. However, the question is, what bird would you like to be, so I think I would choose to be a heron. They are so larger than life and primeval looking, also slightly menacing, their flight is majestic. I like the way they stand there by water, quiet pools, riversides, even on the seashore, looking ancient and contemplative and monumental, occasionally spearing something with those amazing great beaks. Wonderful birds.

In view also of the next question, also, size is important.



5. If you were a bird, whose head would you poo on?

Well, by this time I should imagine George W. is so oversubscribed as a candidate for this honour that he must have more bird poo on his head than Nelson in Trafalgar Square, so I'll leave him and his cohorts to one side, and anyway, when it comes to politicians, where do you start, or rather where do you stop? The next person that came to mind was Peter Mayle, author of 'A Year in Provence'.

I have sometimes considered having a category label here entitled 'I hate Peter Mayle', but thought perhaps that might come across as somewhat gratuitously offensive, though surely we're all allowed to have our moments? I would label my posts with this as a kind of disclaimer when I thought I might be construed as becoming too glib and hackneyed in writing rosily about French rural life and my living here. By the psychological principle of projection, as I understand it, one dislikes in others the negative qualities one knows on some level one is guilty of oneself. By this token I suppose I must see Peter Mayle as a caution. Smug, facile and self-satisfied writing, patronising, unfunny accounts of quaint locals, with scant real knowledge or penetration, a dismal lack of evocation of atmosphere writing about a place that should be redolent of it, from someone who seems to think he has done something clever by securing enough private income through no particular application of talent or hard work to be able to decamp to a pleasant part of France... remind me of anyone? There but for the grace... or don't I? Nuff said. ( Sorry if it's anyone's favourite book.)



6. Are there any foods your body craves?


Garlic, anyhow: roasted with potatoes, in butter, on clams, in chicken, in garlic bread, on steak... good thing I depend so much on my virtual acquaintance for friendship and support.


Chocolate, of course, milk rather than dark, unfashionable and immature though that may be. There is a particular Ritter Sport bar which has a yogurt filling which seems very hard to find.

All forms of complex carbohydrate.



7. Favourite time of year?

Most of them when I'm there, though not so keen on late summer and late winter.



8. Favourite time of day?

About 6 pm, when the wine is poured. Sometimes first light on a beautiful morning when I'm not dreading or even apprehensive of anything in the day ahead.



9. If a change is as good as a rest, which would you choose?

A change, obviously, if it's as good.



10. If you could invite five people living or dead, past or present to a dinner party, who would they be?

I'm not so good on this kind of thing, probably because I am nul at any kind of fantasy life really. I'm not very starstruck, fearing that anyone I really admire as artist, writer, musician etc would be either intimidating or a disappointment in the flesh, and the thought of bringing back long gone near and dear ones is quite literally the stuff of nightmare. Anyway, I'd be worrying too much about the food to benefit from the occasion. I thought about dear old Geoff Hamilton the TV gardener who died too soon for Tom, then I started thinking about Dinner Parties from Hell scenarios, beginning with St Bernard of Clairvaulx and Richard Dawkins. But St B. would be a real drag, tiresome God-botherer that he was, and wouldn't enjoy the food one bit, but would only throw it up afterwards if he ate it at all, and conflict is only funny in the abstract, in reality I don't care for it.

So, reasoning that he'd have to be there too, to lay the table, which is his forte on these occasions, I threw it open to Tom. He came up with Jesus and Judas, Albert Einstein, Roger Penrose and Meister Eckhart. I said wouldn't the two Js be a bit fraught, but he said he wanted to know what really happened there. I said what about Geoff Hamilton, so he said OK he'd forego Judas since he could get the story from Jesus anyway. I wondered if Geoff might be a bit out of his depth in such rarefied company, but Tom assured me otherwise, saying that they were all mystics in their own way.

Then we realised there were no ladies present, so we thought we'd double up to get a balance, which would make twelve altogether with us, which is quite a good number. To keep the mystical end up Tom wanted Evelyn Underhill, and we decided we'd both really like Beatrix Potter, who wasn't Rene Zellwegger but was no slouch as artist, conservationist and scientist, and also the wonderful watercolourist Hazel Soan. I've been a bit torn between George Eliot and Jan Struther but concluded I'd steer clear of the predictable Great Women of History and Letters and go for the latter. She wrote 'Mrs Miniver', and she wasn't Greer Garson, but really clever and sharp and observant and human. I suggested we invite any one of the poor bloody women who stood behind the Great Men so she could have a good moan and get it off her chest, but then decided on Heloise, so she could tell me whether she wrote all, any or none of the letters, how old she really was, and whether it was the most satisfying relationship intellectually, emotionally,physically and spiritually ever or whether Abelard was really just a total git. Meeting Meister Eckhart she might decide she could have done better... meeting Geoff Hamilton she might have decided she could have done better...meeting Tom...

We then developed the Anti-Dinner Party theme a bit, which I feel could perhaps be the subject of another set of meme questions. To Dawkins and St Bernard we added our Dismal Dutch Bulb-growing Neighbour, a man of singularly little charm and grace, a recent acquaintance who for reasons of harmony and tact shall remain nameless, and Anne Widdecombe.

Or alternatively I would be really happy to have to dinner any of innumerable combinations of blogging friends who I may never actually meet, together at any rate, but who I'm sure would be marvellous company, without the problem of whether they spoke mediaeval German or Latin or Aramaic or whatever.

So now it's time to tag four more. Rest assured you do not have to blather on at the lengths I have, I just don't know when to stop, that's my trouble. I think I'll tag:

My old friend Tall Girl - I'm not sure if she still has a middle name, she certainly used to, which could be revealed without compromising her understandably necessary anonymity.. The issue of naming is a somewhat complex one altogether with her, wasn't there a story about a stroppy grandfather, or someone, or was it the vicar?

Jzr - because the 'z' sounds potentially interesting, and I've only lately discovered her lovely blog which takes me off to dreamy, fascinating, remote landscapes of the Far North, and makes a cri de coeur for their preservation.

Isabelle - who's wise and witty and fun, and I seem to recall that is her middle name, and she's so faithful and conscientious about getting round lots of other people's blogs that she shouldn't have any trouble finding eight other to tag.

Bee - who I don't think has ever been meme'd before, so needs to be blooded, and I have the impression the blogging world still seems a bit like a mass of spaghetti to her, so hopefully this might help her to twizzle a few strands. Her middle name is very familiar to me, though I doubt it was after me, charmless nine-year old that I was at the time of her birth, it was in the family before.

You don't have to do all or any of it.

What, mememe ?

There I was, happily languishing in obscurity, certain that this thing wouldn't happen to me, when rr went and memed me. This, it seems, is a kind of game of tag, where the person tagged (that is I, in this case) has to perform the forfeit of telling 5 things that people don't know about them. Like anyone else, I naturally have things few people if any know about me. There is usually a good reason for their not knowing, that is the things in question are/were sordid, painful, embarrassing, stupid or just plain boring. And I certainly can't compete with sexual cavorting with spies in embassies and the like! However, in the interests of being a good sport, and in acknowledgement of notice kindly taken, here goes.

1) When I was 5, I won a postal order for 5 shillings in a painting competition. My picture was exhibited in Berkhamsted Town Hall, and was titled "London". It consisted of a wide arc (London Bridge) being traversed by many little men sporting bowler hats and umbrellas. I doubt that it was an accurate depiction of the capital at that epoque: if the denizens of the city did still wear bowler hats, I don't suppose their arms were growing from the middle of their torsos.
The work is now lost.

2) When I was old enough to know better, I used to want to be Biggles.

3) On a birdwatching expedition to the Norfolk Broads when we were about 15, rr and I were fortunate in seeing all three species of British swan - Bewick's, whooper and mute, on one stretch of water.

4) While working in a shoe shop on the King's Road in the mid-eighties, I sold a pair of lemon yellow pixie boots to Grace Jones.

5) The first autumn we were here, Tom and I completely re-roofed the house, completely on our own, slates and batons, using a death-trap lash-up of borrowed scaffolding - rusting poles and pegs, rotten planks and bits of string - and a rather novel and acrobatic way of balancing on the timbers to avoid walking on the slates. In fact, everybody knows about this as we haven't stopped talking about it since. I can't think why, it wasn't courageux , it was just foolhardy. Tom fell off a ladder shortly afterwards, then went down with a fever and nervous exhaustion, and spent much of the subsequent winter laid out on the sofa - our only seating at the time - so I read "Vanity Fair", and many other classic English novels by firelight sitting in a laundry basket.


-Well, there we are. Unfortunately I can't participate in the next part of the game, which is to tag 5 other people who must also carry out the forfeit, because I don't know anybody. Or, more to the point, they don't know me. The other bloggers I read have either recently been tagged anyway, or are far too enigmatic or stratospheric to be importuned in this way by an upstart parvenu such as yours truly, so, alas, I must break the chain.