melt water pools, hail stones and at least 4 guns in the woods above the
path - all between me and the next cup of tea.
I tried to look as little like a pheasant as possible, and made it to
the cottage in one piece.
I'm not sleeping here this week; my sister is in the last week of
pregnancy and I am on standby to babysit in case she needs to make a
dash through the snow to a maternity ward in the middle of the night.
Actually, I can't bring myself to be bored with this.
Perhaps I should relocate to Lapland.
The SolarVenti:
No mould. No weasels. No birds' nests. 'nuff said.
Crocs:
as ugly as sin, but over the past 3 years they have survived fire,
flood, burial in several inches of mud, squatters, attack by starving
mice - and, after a rinse, they came up as bright and and yellow and
obnoxious as ever. They are warm, non-slip, keep my feet toes and
practically glow in the dark.
LEDs:
Bright and white and tiny and cheap, and all the power they need can be
supplied in a few cranks of a handle. Who needs electricity?
The wind-up radio:
I just wish it would charge on sunlight while I was away; the old one
did, but this one is stubborn, and likes me to pay attention to its
handle if I want to hear some Handel.
Paper Towels:
I buy recycled and use it for *everything* before it goes into the fire.
Hand sanitiser:
The blow-poker!
This is a superb invention - a long hollow steel tube with a mouthpiece
at one end and two prongs on the other. Wedge it between the logs, blow
- and rouse the dampest fire into action in seconds...
An insulated travel mug:
Keeps tea warm for at least 40 minutes.
Whisky.
It's snowing again.
The SolarVenti solar dehumidifier has transformed the place - on the
opening the front door the air that rushes to greet you from the
darkness is as cold as ever - colder perhaps - but fresh and as sweet as
the air of an 800 year old building could ever be. The rugs and
blankets hanging from hooks (beyond the reach of mice) are chilly, but
crisply dry. The matches light first time. The pages of books curl
like dry leaves, not like a day old salad.
There is still moisture here - at least enough to frost the inside of
the windows; even now, at midday, the North facing window is white with
ice flowers.
It's pumping away in the sunlight right now - or would be if I hadn't
discovered how to switch off the fan (cold dry air being a good thing
when I'm out, not so good when I'm sitting 5 feet from the outlet in
thermal underwear, trying to get warm.
Best £500 investment I've made to date. I can now strongly recommend
one to anyone with a dank spot in the house, a cellar, or north facing
wall, or condensation plagued cupboards.
Moving back in was tricky - the ground has thawed enough to leave the
pasture as soft as chocolate mousse under the crust of snow, and the
landrover, stuffed with bedding and warm clothing was bogged down in the
slope within minutes. I had to reverse back, all the way to the farm
and abandon the attempt until this morning, at 8, when there was enough
frost to keep the wheels free.
Now the fire is hissing, as is the kettle, and I have a hot water bottle
stuffed under my fleece to keep the vitals from freezing. Ugg boots
look after one end, a cap the other, and my fingers are left to fend for
themselves while I type (fingerless mittens perhaps?).
I have chocolate, bread, cheese, chutney, beans, tea, cigars (it's
Christmas) and whisky. Oh, and oranges to see off scurvy.
Plenty of work to do (the laptop keeps my fingers a little warmer) and
plans for the next big project - conversion of the old defunct range
into a wood burning stove with cooking rings!
Imma gonna have to pull a copy of Pickwick off the bookshelf when I get
in and settle by the fireside!
Is this what living in the real North is like? Because if so, I'm moving!
You'd think writers had the shiniest kettles and best sorted socks in
the UNIVERSE.
(So why can I never find a matching pair when I need one?)
In other news
- I left bread dough rising in the Saucepan Drawer in the kitchen
overnight. Yummy yeasty smells all over the kitchen.
Will bake it tonight - and take pictures if at all possible.
- Leave for the Cottage at 6.15am tomorrow. Will probably need snow
shoes, Thermos and emergency rescue flares.
At least I'll have bread to keep me alive in the snow drift my train
will be lodged in for the next 36 hours....
I'm functioning - but slowly, and I know I'm going to hit "the wall" before the evening is over.
Let's just say - 48 hours after landing, I am still running on empty (or
rather, coffee)
Things keep appearing and disappearing. Today I managed to find my
missing power cable and lose all my business cards.
Oh, and walk into a plate glass door while holding a cup of coffee.
The only person who saw this humiliation was a charming Emirati producer
who swapped stories of similar mishaps with me.
So, it's possible I am hallucinating the whole festival.
Fragmentary impressions.
It's raining - the first rain here in 20 months. Go figure.
I saw "Un Prophete" by Jacques Audiard. It is a masterpiece. Even
after 36 hours without sleep every minute gripped me. Magical, gruesome
without being glum or grim.
Lovely laid back atmosphere - there are none of the scrums of papps,
herds of fans and packs of wannabes that make Cannes so frenetic and
unproductive. (No one is here pitching their trilogy of low-budget
torture porn).
Also, its hugely refreshing not to have the debate dominated by the US
market.
I like doing business in a culture that respects women for what they
have from the neck up rather than down, and is not obsessed with 18 year
olds. It's also wonderful to socialise without alcohol. This leads to
wonderful conversations with some very interesting people - and some
great opportunities to collaborate with writer/directors from the region.
I need a month's worth of sleep.
Squinting at the timetable, It's doable, but only if nothing goes off
schedule in the next 5 days, and I don't make any bread.
Oh, and I don't try to find time to eat this week.
Ok, back to the schedule now...
It *must* have been good.
I decided to take half the loaf into work to distribute at the breakfast
meeting (just showing off really) and flung it into a bag this morning.
Halfway across the park I look down - and there is a small crowd of grey
squirrels (I.e - 3) around my ankles, looking expectantly at the bag.
I half expected one to start tugging on my sock in supplication.
Today I went home at 6.15 because I had bread dough rising in the
kitchen, and realised that if I didn't get it punched down and shaped by
7 I would be pulling out of the oven at midnight.
I was shocked to get a seat.
The train wasn't empty by any means, but 2 years ago, at 6.15, I would
have been travelling on my hind legs, with my nose pressed against
someone else's back or armpit.
Anyway. The bread is punched down and rising again, and I am in my
local boozer, drinking a very nice red wine and hacking about at Act 3
AGAIN.
Because I can still hear you suck your teeth at this distance, and if I
want to smack you over the head within 5 minutes, it is clear that any
marriage would have ended in spousi-cide over the breakfast table a
decade or so ago.
Also, woman sitting opposite. If I can tell from the tinny thud from
your ear buds not only that you are listening to Maggie May by Rod
Stewart, but *also* recognise the exact recording....
a.) you are playing this much too loud.
b.) you will be deaf before you reach 25.
c.) if an irate commuter doesn't kill you first
(* until 10 hours ago the National Express East Coast line, now
re-nationalised!)
When you express of the essence of the script-
- is it an image -
- or an idea?
The best, is of course, at the end of the month, when for once the
entire world does revolve around the correct axis, in a stupendous
celebration of the anniversary of the birth of - ME!
Why, I believe in the US they are so overwhelmed by the amazing event
that they call the festival of my birth "Thanksgiving" - and sacrifice
many Turkeys in my honour.
In the past I have tried tagging and colour coding them on the page to
visualise they way they interact... Or writing 6 different threads and
reintegrating them.
But just like that engine on the kitchen table, I always end up with a
widget that gets left behind.
But I have just started to "grey out" any scenes that don't relate to
the thread I am concentrating on - literally changing the colour of the
words on the screen to the palest grey MSWord can provide. I can still
see the other scenes, I can still calculate the rhythm, the counterpoint
of one character's story against the other, while only editing the
single story as it winds it's way across 8 years and two continents...
Then, when I'm done - highlight the whole document, chose black - and
voilà! the whole script reappears.
I can't believe it took me so long to work this one out!
Either makes the idea of going out to stack my woodpile very unappealing.
And I get to spend tomorrow stacking my woodpile!
Luckily I noticed in time - I had a 7am train to catch this morning, so
tumbling out of bed by 5.50am was a must...
Unluckily, I only noticed at 1am, when I turned over and woke just
enough to register the weird display...
So - new alarm method needed. Easy - mobile phone... uh-oh, phone down
to one bar (was planning to recharge on train).
So, light on, unpack, find USB charger and laptop, plug in both, start
to charge... Just enough juice to ensure that the phone will wake me in
time.
Try to get back to sleep. No go. The minutes tick by, trips to
bathroom, check on phone, try again...
Finally fall asleep at 2.30, wake at 5.50, repack all the gear, dress,
sneak sleepily downstairs, cross London, catch train with 5 minutes to
spare.
Of course, if I had been 5 minutes late I would have forfeited the train
ticket and been forced to buy a £110 return to get North.
Which makes it even more ironic that the Train I worked so hard to catch
is now running... 45 minutes late, and the best National Express can
offer for the inconvenience is £15 worth of non-negotiable vouchers,
which can not be used for online bookings.
- Yawn -
And that makes life so much more pleasant.
Alarm clock fail? Well that means the sun didn't come up, so either the
world has come to an end, or it's raining.
Why would I get out of bed for either event?
Radio fail?
See above for lack of sun. Get cranking on the handle if I want to
listen to the Archers.
Plumbing fail?
Splash to spring with bucket, and remember to boil the water for coffee.
Coffee fail?
Well that will teach me to forget to put the coffee in my backpack,
won't it. Where's the rum.
Transport fail?
The landrover's stuck in the muck again. Gravity is my friend - on a
slope this steep it will just it will roll out again. And then, walk
dammit, 'cos that's the only way I'm going to get coffee today.
One of the firedoor release mechanisms jams during the fire drill I am
marshalling, so that all my ducklings are trapped at the bottom of a six
storey iron staircase, and I am left outside in a stupid tabard,
wondering where they are....
Also, the scanner is down - just when I have to rely on emailing scans
of invoices/receipts/expense claims etc because of the ongoing postal
strike...
b.) 7am: (having overslept because of a.)above ) - The bathroom light
switch snaps, and I have to brush my teeth in the dark.
c.) 7.50 am: (running late because of a.) and b.) above) - The cashpoint
is out of order.
d.) 8.05 am: (running still later because of a.), b.) and c.) above) -
The coffee machine at the cafe is out of order.
e.) 8.10 am (now 60 mins behind because of a.), b.) and c.) and a touch
irritable in light of d.) above.) - My propelling pencil ceases to propel.
f.) 8.30 am Finally, with cash and a coffee in front of me - my netbook
starts to grouch in the few minutes of writing time left before I clock ...
If you know of any entities I should sacrifice, pray or plead to, please
send forwarding address, plus a list of suitable bribes for said being.
I was going through some writing exercises I scribbled in a class 2004 - when I was rather scarily unemployed and trying not to panic.
One of these was to describe an ideal environment…
I couldn't read the whole page (at some point coffee must have leaked into the notebook) but what there was described the Stone Caravan.
The fire, the coffee pot on the hob, the book, the sound of water, the view of the sky, the bench by the door for watching weather…
the only thing the Stone Caravan lacks from the list is access to the sea for walks and swimming.
The only thing the list lacks is - a toad under the bed.
I never showed the list to anyone, and I wouldn't discover the Stone Caravan for another 18 months after I wrote it.
But my sister must know me very well, because as soon as she saw it, nestling high above her new home in the North, she said "this is Tanya's".
This is when I learn the following:
When Brits have a glut of fruit - plums, cherries, apples etc - they make jam. Or chutney.
When Hungarians have a glut - they ferment the fruit at home, and then take it to a local distillery, where it is legally and expertly turned into 60% proof spirit…
This is taxed, and there is a limit by volume - but how a wish we had the same civilised system here!
Meanwhile - at least I can toast Hungarian good fortune in some seriously fiery brew.
Cheers!
I got a phone call at lunchtime yesterday from Angela (a lawyer when she isn't writing) "I have just been given two tickets to see Spandau Ballet at the 02 tonight - are you coming."
Hell yes, (even if the response from the infant American lad sitting next to me, born while I hanging out at Blitz, was, "Um, who? What sort of music do they play…?"
(My dad did better, by the way - he remembered Spandau Ballet as the soundtrack to the Falklands Conflict.)
But, oh, my generation has not aged well. It was an extraordinarily matronly affair, with a lot of pillowy bosom, echoing the Dome, and more cigarettes than HRT.
Seems to have had a strange subliminal effect. Last night I dreamed of a decidedly ex-boyfriend, from circa 1988. The dream was neutral enough, but the recollection in the morning made me want to gargle with something strong and minty. Ick.
"Hello, we're just going about the area delivering literature. Here is
a list of questions some people ask and the answers, with scripture.
Goodbye!"
And she was off with a cheery wave.
You know, the chick-lit about the prada wearing latte sipping urbanite
who decamps to a damp mould sprunkled hovel in the country, expecting
agas and dog roses and free range eggs from fluffy hens - and gets
instead toads and outdoor plumbing and a shop which only sells parmesan
ready grated in cardboard tubs and an industrial pig unit moving onto
the land next door.
The deep contented sigh of this happy rural slum dweller, toasting her
dirty toes while necking rum isn't all that entertaining… but the life
is perfect.
Now if I could only get the toads to wipe their little feet when they
come in from the rain.
I mean - curling up in the sun warm heather with a book and an orange and sleeping the afternoon away?
Walking by starlight in ancient oak woods, while a Tawny owl hunts overhead, all the while knowing that there is a fire, a bottle of rum, a lime and a kettle of hot water waiting at the end of the pull uphill? (Not to mention a teeny-tiny little saucepan of venison stew on the mantelpiece, poised to hop down and nestle itself between two blazing logs.
Or Sunday morning, curled in a big wooden chair, wool blanket wrapped around the shoulders, toes propped on the fender, a pot of coffee on the hearth (ok, not so great coffee, but still hot and black), two fat rashers of bacon and a piece of bread toasting on the log, and a really absorbing brick of biography of Hogarth to sink into…
All dinner and no responsibility.
It's a hobbit's life, I swear. Except that the toes on the fender aren’t as furry as those of some other members of the family.
Don't tell anyone else how much fun I am having up here!
The sun was still above the horizon when I started, and the woodland was
still, with patches of gold/green between the long shadows. Almost
nothing was moving, even the sheep were content to let me pass through
them, and I saw no birds excepts the raptors, kestrels and kites above
me, crows below in the valley floor.
By the time I emerged, with the duvet on my back the sun was gone, and
the valley was in shadow, although light still lingered on the fell top
to the North, where the cottage was waiting, about 30 minutes walk away.
I'd thrown a large log on the fire when I left the cottage an hour
earlier, and hooked the kettle against the bars, so as to have a mug
full very near boiling when I got home.
As I passed the small holding behind the hamlet, a little party of geese
were forming a conga line around their water trough, wandering wither
and thither in a patient waddle, quite unlike the mild curiosity of wild
geese at dusk. They didn't even look up as I passed.
It's amazing how much you can see in the dark. The colours have gone,
but the form survives, in close-up, in shades of grey. I just couldn't
see more than 10 feet ahead - except where, in the distance, the
landscape rolls away in places towards the river, and the last last from
the west made a bank glow a ghostly silver some way ahead. An owl
swoops past my head, westward.
I do always carry a headlight at night - with a red light setting, so
that if I have to use it my night vision won't be too badly affected.
But I didn't need it. I must know every step of the route by now, even
if it is eighteen months since I last walked it past nightfall. And I
have a mobile phone, so if I did roll an ankle...
Anyway, I didn't need the light on the railway track (although in place
the cutting is deep and almost all in shade. And I didn't need it on
the footbridge over the cutting towards the hay meadow.
That's where I stopped to check which stars are out. There were one or
two - but a sense of the billions points of sun waiting just beyond the
veil of atmosphere, thinning to nothing, second by second.
Now that is a lot more terrifying than being the only human being in the
sheep's line of sight - being the only apparent human being on a patch
of rock in sight of all the suns.
I only needed the light once; after crossing the oak wood and the Roman
ruins the paths (carved out by sheep) divide and dip down to a small
stream, which is bordered here and there by wire. Hit in the wrong
place, or at the wrong angle, and you get wet, or stuck, or both.
But after that, it's a short walk up and through two pastures to the the
clump of pines which hides the cottage from almost every angle. Not even
fire light spills out - until I open the door - because from this angle
the cottage has no windows...
When I've made the tea I sit on the bench by the door, watch stars and
listen to the thump thump of falling leaves, and the rustle of small
unseen animals.
Northumberland is in its most gorgeous outfit - "bonny" as the guy who
picked me up at the station said. Tunnels of gold and red oak crowding
over the sun-lit road, a blue sky full of crows and kestrels. But cold
- it will freeze tonight!
My toad-love is sealed when a find a toadlet - smaller than the first
joint of my littlest finger - on the door step. It glares at me a
wiggles away with adolescent energy.
Door open, into the hall - and I discover that Crocs are not quite as
destructible as I'd believed - there is a little pile of bright yellow
chewed Croc resin, as much as a mouse could produce if it worked very
hard - next to one, the right I think. I hope it was tasty, as I doubt
it was nutritious!
But oh crap - I've remembered the rum, but not the duvet. I'll have to
trail back down the hill to collect if - if it can even been found after
10 months in storage!
I'll be packing thermals and whiskey, just in case.
Of course I will also be taking the new netbook, and a sack full of
battery. So when I'm not scrubbing the kitchen floor (sharp sand, to
clean off generations worth of mud and mould) I'll be writing....
I just discovered "write-or-die" by Dr Wicked
http://lab.drwicked.com/writeordie.html
Fabulous - gets me typing every time. Just try out those eeeevil sounds
on the normal mode.
And he's working on an off-line version, which will be even sweeter!
Working hard to finish the Ethiopian script, it just seems to crawl along.
I'm also transcribing a stage script which I put together 10 years ago (Oh crap, 10 years? I am soooooo old!) - which exists only as a photocopy of the Stage Managers notes, some scribbled diagrams and a handful of excellent photographs.
My Lead Actor was single but dating at the first read through - by the last night he was pregnant and engaged. I bumped into Mrs Lead Actor a few months ago, and the strapping pre-teen who was conceived one night after rehearsals. So old! So very very old!
Making a stage play is so much quicker than writing a film - you just need a room, some people with excellent memories for movement and language, and lots and lots and lots of gaffer tape. You can do it in a weekend.
I wonder if carrying gaffer tape will speed up the writing?
Best day of the year so far - I have to get out of the office and down
to the river bank.
Must be a side effect of all that swimming.
In the sea.
In September
Northumberland is the officially the coldest county in England, but it
does average 1350 hours of sunlight a year, and that is 1350 hours of
dry (warm(ish) air being drawn into the stone caravan. And some of
those hours occur in the winter. Honest.
Then I walked a while longer, through St Paul's and down Fleets street, and had tea with a friend in the Courtauld Gallery in Somerset House - there is a basement courtyard there, embedded in the classic stone work, like something Piranesi might have designed as a catering outlet. And lovely fresh scones with home made plum jam and sweet disorganised service.
Saw an GINORMOUS jellyfish washed up on the sand. On the Pembroke coast.
I found one the other day - rather in the same way I found the toad; it just popped up and looked me in the eye.
Mine seems to be a 20 something hipster, with great taste in shoes…
Still need to buy a new one though!
Two people live here. One buys ironing boards and then 4 months later
has to throw then away.
(I tried repairing the latest - but I really don't fancy taking a risk
that the board will collapse while I'm working on it. Those irons are
*hot*.)
So - what the hell do I do now?
Go to work crumpled until I can buy another one - and then keep that one
locked away in my own room.
The Ironic thing - I HATE ironing. Hate. Hate. HATE.
I just hate being crumpled at work just a teeny-tad more than ironing them.
RAGE.
I catch myself doing this from time to time myself - confusing fiction with the writer's own conscious thoughts and desires.
For example I woke up in the middle of the night last week seriously freaked out by something a certain young writer/performer I know had written on a flyer for a gig he was playing. It was silly and scatological and shocking, which was the whole point - It really isn't likely that it reflects his social self, even if it does titillate and/or gross out his imagination.
And as soon as I had woken up enough to brew up a pot of coffee I knew that. What a relief.
It's like me and my tattoo thing. Quite independently three of the pieces I've written - including two I have been paid for - have featured protagonists who acquire tattoos as part of their journey.
In short - what we write may come from our unconscious desires, but should never be confused with what we are or want.
Anyway - here is a snippet from one of those tattoo stories:
"I wrote to you, every day. I had such stories to tell – about the sea of ice at the cape, and the lightening strike, and the albatross that followed us for 17 days, and exactly why the Otahitians made the Barber’s pigtail into a belt for their king, and what the stars look like in New Holland, and why, when everyone else was deciding whether to go in the boat with the Captain or stay on the ship, why George and I stayed behind. About George. I think I wanted to tell you about my friend George. And about how scared I’ve been all this time.
"There was one afternoon, when I was lying in the house we shared on Otahiti, face down in the leaves, and my Tayo –Tayo means Friend, Godfather – My Tayo was tattooing the feathers on my shoulder. The needles felt like fire. Going in and out, hammer, hammer, hammer without rest, and I was not going cry out. George held my hand, and the needles burned away, driving the soot into the skin. I didn't cry out, but somehow tears kept running down, and into the leaves until I could taste the salt - and suddenly I thought – “At last, now, something is changing me. All those maps and letters and journals and drawings I made – now they are making me. It will all be on me, in me, for ever."
"No one will listen to this now. My Uncle Pasley and Mr. Const do not wish to hear of it. They tell me I must never speak of why, and how, and what I was thinking or feeling. They tell me I’ve to be discreet, mute, or else they’ll not have the power to save me. Because I stayed behind on the ship, and now I’m the only officer they have, and they cannot but hang me for all the rest. I’m sure they’ll hang me.
"The letters I wrote to you, the dictionary, the maps - they all floated away in the wreck. I couldn't hold them.
"The Barber could not break the chain we sank, and he drowned there in the cage.
"George swam with me, but a staved plank struck him. I turned, and he was gone.
"We swam on, through a slick of paper and wood and bread, two hours, to reach a tiny strip of sand and coral.
"And when we got to the cay, pickled in salt water, and naked under the sun, like lobsters on a fire, our skin came off in strips, great handfuls of it. Hanging off our backs and snagging on the coral, leaving little scraps behind, with ships, and names and dates and feathers still black on them."
The swallows have gone, leaving mounds of feathers and poo - and another little corpse, trapped between the panes of glass. This time I can't get the cadaver out by pushing or pulling, so it will have to "shrink" a little first. The maggots will help....
The curious thing is - I never feel sick in the cottage. It's dark, damp, dusty and full of wildlife - and in January well below freezing for a large proportion of the day.
But I have never had a stomach upset, or a sniffle, or a headache or a cough while I was there.
But as soon as I leave for the rest of the world - The germs just pounce.
And it is dry. The pasture is firm, the garden is barely boggy, the
cottage is sound and clean (and dark and cool and owl free).
No decision on the solar panel yet - because it has been pointed out
that it might be subject to a development grant.
I confess - I'd rather spend the money now, and keep the cottage
dry(ish) over the winter, than wait 3-4 months and get half the cost back.
But I might apply for a better loo.
I am wibbling over buying one of these:
Solarventi Solar power dehumidifer
Which means (a) the cottage would be dry(er) and (b) less mouldy and (c) a teeny weeny bit warmer throughout the year and (d) I could close most of the windows that the owl and swallows etc are using.
I have the ideal wall, it's around £500 and Barry would be the ideal man to fit it.
If nothing else - it would be a fascinating experiment!
So - buy or not buy?
ETA - rats, just noticed, they had a 10% discount offer which ran out yesterday...
The cottage is finally fit for human habitation - and I am shivering and
coughing in the city.
People are intrigued by the owl. Only one neighbour winced, and nodded
sympathetically , and said "lot of mess, owls"
But almost everyone has flinched at the mention of the darling, mild
little toad, who only squatted under a spare bed and ate flies, and who
heaved himself so obligingly away when I carried him from the danger zone.
Grown men, farmers, soldiers, diplomats, men who have rescued sheep from
15 foot snow drifts, drunk tea with the Taliban, or sat face to face
with Gaddafi, have turned pale and swayed at the mere thought of my toad.
Just what is the toad's terrible secret?
I don't know who was more surprised.
I scooped up the smaller, wartier of the two, and carried it to the
door. It was cool and light and a little cobwebby, and gazed at me with
yellow and brown eyes.
Last seen dragging its dusty tum into the rockery.
"I'm not so keen on toads" said Barry, and fetched his thermos.
Halfway through the day:
-replace the glass in the living room window. DONE.
- scrub and air mattress DONE
- wash the bedroom and living room floors - 1/3 DONE
- stitch and render the interior of the back room - about to start,
after a toad-free teabreak.
Didn't get to make shortbread last night, thanks to an infestation of
ankle-biting rug rats, aka my nieces.
But I did drink whisky, and discover that "Twilight" the movie is as
inane as I had feared.
While I was on the step ladder scrubbing the wall above the open window
Papa Swallow flew straight into my bobbies. At least there were shock
absorbers to take the impact.
He flew straight out again, and seems to be flying unimpaired...
Jobs tomorrow:
-stitch and render the interior of the back room (the swallows will just
have to cope)
-replace the glass in the living room window (it's been gaffer taped in
place for at least 3 years...)
-wash the bedroom and living room floors
-scrub and air my mattress
-order propane (hot water! Yay!)
Jobs tonight:
Make shortbread, drink whisky, sleep (well)
I thinks its just not knowing where to start work next - I'm hitting
dead ends, where I can't clean "this" until "that" is done... and
"that" needs to be fixed, or bleached, or moved...
Barry is at work stitching up the cracks in the back wall, and devising
long term plans to improve the drainage - I'm just very aware that
another summer has slipped by without me spending time up here doing
anything but sweeping and washing and shovelling out bird poo...
Actually - it's definitely the cough. I need whisky. Everything will
look rosier through the bottom of a tumbler of amber fluid!
And swallow mum and swallow dad swooping past my ear. Which is nice.
I need it to stop soon - sometime tomorrow Barry the Builder is going to
try to get his van up through the pasture (past the cows) and start
repining the Victorian half of the cottage, and if the ground is too wet
he's not going to get half-way before he slides to a muddy slushy stop.
I love the way my housemates have moved up the food chain:
spiders - mice -swallows - weasels - owls...
Now the mice are in the owl pellets, and I am wondering what will move
in next week.
Argghhhhh!
I have a new pet - a pot of fermenting milk. I was given a handful of
Kefir grains, a strange gelatinous mushroomy culture, which lurks in a
plastic pot in my suitcase. Every day I feed it fresh milk, and 24
hours later it gifts me a few glasses of fizzy sour mildly alcoholic
liquid which is oddly addictive. Its nice plain, nicer with a few
berries crushed into it, and now I'm looking for recipes...
Kefir is apparently well known and widely drunk in Russia and Poland -
all and any recipes from that region very welcome!
All I needed to do was download Mozy's interface onto the new baby and
log on (I'd forgotten my login details, but mozy emailed those to me
within 5 minutes)
As soon as I logged on I was asked if I wanted to register the new
computer and restore.
It took 24 hours, non stop, but I went home with all my data.
I will never, NOT NEVER, work without a continuous online, offsite
backup EVER again.
And neither should you!
I was going to swim, but I think I'd better give that a miss, and get
some zzzzz instead.
Better still, I will be in the Stone Caravan for 10 days from Saturday
night onwards - that's the longest stretch in over a year, and the first
in (cross fingers) warm weather.
I look down at my puffy ankles and think "this is what my limbs will look like 40 and more years from now, peeping from under a tartan
rug." It's like gazing down a time-telescope and rather sobering.
I am popping anti-histamines, to stop me from scratching down to the bone.
We fell on the corpse with ghoulish enthusiasm, and dissected it
together, discovering after a very few minutes (and a cup of tea) that
the harddrive had just about ceased to be.
No problem - I could slot a new hard drive in myself, what could that
cost? £30 - £50 max. We hopped on line to check - and learned that the
cheapest HD on offer for my X40 was $285, plus shipping, from the US.
Oh well, so this was going to be one of those expenses failures - and
there was still no promise that I could restore the data after the event.
At 12.30 I crashed as suddenly as the computer, just about hitting the
spare bed on the way down.
I slept surprisingly well - because there was one spectacular upside to
our autopsy.
.
We managed to get the harddrive turning for all of 5 minutes before it
went for eternity into that dark night which awaits us all. And five
minutes was just enough to snatch the finished draft and splat it onto a
borrowed thumb drive.
Everything else might be gone, I might not have the means to edit or
send it - but the script was safe.
Until last week I had a fairly limited back-up via Mozy
<http://mozy.com>. It was free, but limited to 2GB, so I just set up to
copy the crucial bits (work in progress, admin etc).
Then, out of the blue I realised how much I would miss the other 30 odd
GB of stuff - pictures, music, etc, and signed up for the paid option,
at $5 a month.
For days the laptop chuntered away to itself, uploading all my rubbish
to mozy's servers, bit by bit, until early last week it flashed up COMPLETE.
Talk about timing!
So, on that last leg of the delayed train into darkest Hereford, I was
left with 4 questions:
1.) Had I been on-line in the morning, between 10 and 11, to ensure that
the Film draft was backed up with the rest? (Mozy runs in the
background every morning - no connection, no backup)
2.) Would Mozy live up to its promises and allow me to restore all the
files it had so laboriously backed up a week earlier?
3.) Was my baby repairable or would I have to buy yet another little
machine to save my life?
4.) And just how long would all this take?
Thursday. 10.00pm - Finish draft - the very first time in 18 months
that I get to the end of my character's story without scratching my
head and thinking "I know what they are doing but not why the freak
they would!"
I stare into the darkness of the park with a sort of exhausted wonder.
Friday. 7.30am. Overslept. Understandable. Shower, pack, get to
work, planning to clean up the formatting at lunch time, and email the
copy to my first line editor before she heads off for the weekend (she
asked for a copy for her long and dull train journey on Saturday.)
Friday. 12.00pm. Team lunch. I let slip that I have finished the
draft, and several glasses of prosecco get ordered. Nice. Very nice.
And earned. But the clean up doesn't happen, naturally enough.
Friday. 4.00pm. Start cleaning up. Rush job comes in - we need to
create a sales brochure by midday Monday, and I have a train to catch
at 7.00pm. I get stuck into to Adobe InDesign to create the
template. this is what I am paid for, this is what allows me to take
the long lunch breaks on quiet days and get the writing done.
Friday. 5.00pm. The office wifi is down. This makes it impossible
to email the draft over before I leave for the station. I call my
editor. She disappointed but sweet.
Friday. 6.00pm. I leave the office and head to Paddington.
Friday. 7.00pm. No train.
Friday. 7.30pm. Still no train.
Friday. 7.31pm! Train, yay - only 16 minutes late, and they can't
leave me stranded in South Wales if we miss the connection. Can they?
Friday. 9.15pm. Oh yes they can....
Friday 9.30pm. Never mind. There's another train in an hour which
will get me *almost* all the way home. And I have done all the
formatting on the draft!
Friday 10.30pm And here it is! And I still have a hour's juice on
the laptop.
Friday 10.45pm. BANG.
My laptop is DEAD. TERMINAL. NO MORE. GONE WEST. TIT'S UP.
DECEASED.
And all my lovely data with it.....
To be continued....
Afterwards I lay on the beanbag in St James Park in the dark, listening
to invisible geese on the invisible lake, and the clock on Horseguards
striking 10.
I don't think I'll last more than another 2 hours without hot strong
java....
I mean - I just spent 30 intense minutes immersing myself in two lovers,
having a soul-scarifying last conversation in an iced-up Berlin cafe, in
1947 - and now I have to decompress enough to dive into an action
sequence in African sunlight seven years earlier.
I need more coffee.
(No gin for at least another 10 hours!)
(*These are the best storage boxes I have ever encountered. These are at
least 3 years old, and still going strong; practically indestructible in
a freezer or a microwave, and all of about 10p each from on the
Chinatown supermarkets).
So - lunch today was a courgette, kale, celery, spring onion and
coriander soup.
I shredded all the veg, packed them in the box to steam in the microwave
for 3 minutes, then added stock, soy sauce, lime juice, more coriander,
pepper...
Desert was pineapple - half price in the market today.
It's getting to the stage where I might as well have the weekly veg box
delivered direct to the office!
a.) trapped overnight on a train by a downed electrical line, finally
reaching home at 6am, after 11 hours on a train, 1 hour on an open
platform at 2 am, and 2 hours queuing in freezing fog with 700 other
exhausted passengers for a taxi.
Made it into the office by midday, and pretty much sleep-walked through
the day.
The Good News - I was entitled to a 100% refund on the ticket!
The Bad News - the ticket only cost £12 to begin with.
b.) trapped for 24 hours by snow
c.) quarantined for a week after exposure to Swine Flu...
He must wonder what possible disaster (wind, flood, meteor strike or
mutiny) will strike our small but hardy community next.
Luckily, this week, the train is only running 33 minutes late - and the
refund on the delay is a slightly more proportionate £25.00
I found her wedged between the two frames of the half open sash window.
It took several minutes of window wiggling to free the tiny corpse. Then
I removed the empty nest, and started to scrub the stairs clean of
swallow poo.
This is the last year I will host the nursery; I have pinned a mesh
screen over all the open windows, so that air can circulate where
fledging can not.
My niece told me she wants to be a pirate.
A fierce girl pirate. In a hat.
She is two.
I am soooo proud!
The stone caravan is noisy enough; stream, wind, hawks, mice enjoying
midnight skinny dips in my sink, swallows, helicopters - surprisingly
often, sporadic gunfire, even, when the wind is in the right quarter,
the sound of an artillery range. It can be very light - full moon in
June means 24 hours of bright light streaming into the window. There
are definitely nights up there when I don't sleep well, and have to
resort to the radio (rewound every 20 minutes or so) or a book by
torchlight.
But there are also days and nights when I hit that deep cool white
double bed under the eaves, and stretch out in the happy knowledge that
I will sleep 12 hours through. Longer, if necessary
I always arrive there with a sleep debt to pay - because a night of
sleep in the city is like zeno's arrow, never quite reaching the
target. 300 hundred people sleeping, snoring, partying, peeing,
weeping, throwing up, within 200 yards of your bed, street lights
winking on and off, trains, planes, automobiles, the hum of a hundred
fridges, the sizzle of a hundred charging phones, the drip of a
hundred taps... and the 6am alarm, drawing you out only the almost
empty street to start the day all over again.
Here's to lying in bed today, paying off debts
Like many of the businesses in West Kensington this is owned by a
Iranian - and as I spread out the map, I admired the beautiful lute he
moved aside.
This, he said, is a Tar <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_%28lute%29>,
made of mulberry wood, with goatskin, deer antler, camel bone and sheepgut.
And he played it for me, and audience of one in a quiet little workshop
in West London.
Lunch in Greenwich used to be Pie, Mash, Peas and a bottle of beer at
Goddards.
It was always crowded and always scrummy.
I knew that it had closed after 70 years (The Goddard family is still
baking wholesale- http://www.pieshop.co.uk/about-goddards/)
<http://www.pieshop.co.uk/about-goddards/>
What I didn't know was the shop (interior circa 1680) would have been
gutted (all save the listed stair case) and a chain burger restaurant
cloned into the site.
The foyer was dirty, and worn, none of the screens opened on time,
leading to long queues for the escalators, the place was scattered with
notices apologising for the broken air-con, broken lights etc etc. I
got to my seat at last, the film started ... and the emergency lights -
bare florescent bulbs- came on overhead and stayed on for the entire
film. If it hadn't taken 90 minutes to get there, I would have walked out.
As it was, I stayed, and squinted at the screen, and even enjoyed the film.
Then headed out to the loos - just in time to see them *both* being
closed for cleaning. So another 10 minute queue, in preparation for a
long bus ride.
Odeon still haven't acknowledged my last letter/email- so I expect
bugger all this time.
I'll just take my £10-£20 a week elsewhere.
The damp brings the slugs out. Lots and lots of slugs. Shiny pitch
black ones, as big as my thumb. Hundreds of them.
In one square metre of turf I counted 11 of them, curled and twisted
like half sucked licorice chews.
I was at a supper party last night, a farmers' fundraiser for the local
agricultural show; cheese, bread, wine and a raffle, and one of the
locals brought his owl along. Naturally enough it attracted a lot of
attention...
I stayed a few feet back, wine glass in hand. Owl are lovely things, but
don't seem to get any particular gratification from being stroked and
chucked under the chin, so I didn't feel any need to do so. They are
patient beast; this one, 13 months old, had been raised from the egg
submitted to the many caresses with only a slightly harassed look.
Occasionally it eyed the petting hands as if were so many plump white
mice, nicely crunchy and only just out of reach.
At some point it all got to much for Wol, and he launched himself into
the air, talons extended, jesses slipping - and landed on my wrist, just
abaft the glass.
I felt nothing but the lightest brush of a claw before he had been
scooped up again, back on the handlers hand.
But my arm felt suddenly wet. I looked down. Blood was running freely
over my hand.
Those talons are like the razor of a Brighton Racetrack thug - bright,
fast and very very fast.
A horsefly bite is more painful - but an owl strike is pretty spectacular.
I'm on the doorstep again. Did I say this was a quiet spot? I was
lying. The toad is quiet enough, but the honeysuckle hums with bees,
the grass throbs with crickets, the field are full of the conversations
of ewes and lambs, and the stream is constant babble.
The swallows are gone, I think for good. Fledged and away in a single week.
The toad has also just slipped away into the grass.
PS - I found out how the visitors got in during the winter. The
windowsill into the privy has rotted away, leaving the window swinging
free. The work of a moment to slide through, and into the porch. The
Privy is now bolted from the outside, so that route is blocked.
But now a company, acting within the letter of the laws on privacy and
data-protection, but certainly not the spirit, plans to publish all our
mobile phone numbers to anyone who has a name and a vague location for
us, and £1 to spare.
Here is the BBC report with more details.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/working_lunch/8091621.stm
And here is the website of the offending spam-enablers.
http://www.118800.co.uk/
The good news is - you can opt out - but you need to act before the
service goes live next week...
The bad news is - as of Thursday July 9th the website displays only the
following information:
The 118 800 service for mobile phone connections is currently
unavailable - from this website and by phone - whilst we undertake
major developments to our 'Beta Service' to improve the experience
for our customers. We'll be back as soon as possible with the new
improved service.
All ex-directory requests made by people in our directory to date
are being processed. There will be no need to resend these requests.
And we will take further ex-directory requests when the service
resumes. We will not be taking ex-directory requests by phone or
text whilst the service is not operational.
Please do not call us on 118 800 for anything other than landline
directory enquiry requests as you will be charged for the call.
Sorry for any inconvenience caused.
So, in other words, they have removed the opportunity to remove a number
*before* they make it available to the first set of sticky-fingered
stinking spammers and stalkers to line up on Day One of their vile
"service".
I will have to find a way of dissuading Mama next year - swallows are
lovely, but swallow lime is very caustic, and I have shovel loads of it
on the staircase, lifting the paint. I like to leave the windows open
when the cottage is unoccupied, to improve air flow and reduce damp. I
have bars to prevent human intruders, but nothing to stop swallows.
Fruit netting perhaps? Or folding trellis? I could wedge expanding
trellis in the gap between window and sill...
It's hard to know where to start with the cleaning in the knowledge that
there is building work taking place (fingers crossed) in the very near
future - so more dust and grime and disruption to come.
But I am having great success removing the black mould from the casein
lime paint - I paint it with bleach, which kills the mould and removed
the stain, wash with water - et voilà - white walls again.
The kitchen-scullery will soon be cleaner than it ever was before - it
is the only part of the cottage which has its original stone flag floor,
and I am determined to get down on my hands and (dammit!) knees and
scrub them bright clean.
Ah - the weasel has left some mice living! One just peered under the
front door at me (I'm sitting on the doorstep enjoying the open air). I
wonder how many generations have passed since I left wool under the
Christmas tree for mouse nests?
I can't make the cottage homely right now - so the solution is probably
to invest in a sleeping bag and a primus stove, and camp in the single
upper room until the building work is done.
I made Rillettes last night; 1lb pork shoulder, 1lb pork belly, sliced
and simmered overnight in the back of the aga, with cloves, bay leaves,
thyme, until almost melted away, then shredded, seasoned (heavily) with
salt, pepper and nutmeg and packed in pots, under a cap of clean white
fat.
Not for the faint of heart, or those not willing to spend a week on
celery to work off the extra calories - but - but -
in a few days time - pure pink poetry, sliced and spread on crusty bread
with tiny pickled cornichons and a glass of cider....
We are all happy and getting fatter.
Except, sadly, the mice.
Do I a.) finally get down to work scraping mould from the wall in the
kitchen and living room, and trust that Mama S will stop scolding me
every time she flies in, and settle back raising the sprogs when I leave
b.) take the hint - she is very vocal about it - and sit outside in the
sun for 3 hours, drinking tea and watching clouds, safe in the knowledge
that Mama and babies will be safe and undisturbed inside.
(The good news is that the damage to plaster and flooring is less
extensive than we had all feared. As soon as the swallows move on, and
the back wall has been pinned, the cottage should only take a long
weekend to put back to rights)
And I have weasels.
(Must fix camera)
A night club (aka "Champagne Bar") opened in our street a few months
ago, on the site of an old pub and snooker hall.
Our street is entirely residential, lined with pre-war council blocks
and mansion flats, housing hundred of residents of all ages, whose
windows face the club.
The club is right next door to a children's library and backs onto a
school.
There is very limited parking, and no public transport after 1pm.
So residents were alarmed when they learned that the owners of the
club had applied for a lap-dancing license and a 5am opening license 6
nights a week. When were they supposed to sleep? I don't hear the
club at night, I'm on the far side of the building, but my neighbours
do, and I was planning to attend to support them.
The lap dancing license was opposed and the application suspended - but
the late night application license continued, and looked likely to be
passed It turns out that the only grounds on which the council can
refuse the 5am opening license is the risk of serious crime and
disorder in the neighbourhood.
Not noise, not the rights of people in bedrooms 20, 30, 40 yards from
the club to an interrupted nights sleep, not the participation of a
community in decisions about the way their home neighbourhoods and
businesses should be supported and developed.
Only "Serious" crime and disorder.
I wonder if the murder of a customer in the doorway of the club 3
nights before the license hearing is serious enough?
Because that's why my street is festooned in incident tape this
morning, and why the library garden is being searched by forensic
teams in white-all-in ones this morning.
Ugh. Not nice.
But at least it is cool under the slate roof, and only the owls disturb the silence. (and I mean - really disturb - the owl in the
tree by my door hunts with a hoarse scream like a bull beneath the earth. The rocks seems to shake).
But this week I am in London, with a security light outside my bedroom window, and I cannot achieve blackout without also stifling the last
breath of air in a still room.
So I woke at 3, and stayed that way, listening to the traffic, and eventually creeping downstairs to drink tea and read.
I daren't shower and dress and go out - my flatmate (the evangelical) is a very light sleeper, and gets little enough rest as it is.
And there is no where to go at 3.30 anyway, not even a night bus to whisk me away.
I now solutions to three of the biggest headaches;
- How Lily the Irish Hoyden and Michael the Ethiopia Public School Boy
end up in the highlands together at the end of Act 1
- Why Paul the anti-heroic academic is so highly motivated to get
back home to Europe
- Exactly what his guilty secret is.
These are the pebbles I've been tripping over all year; I knew these
things happened, just not exactly why, in a way I could show and not
tell.
Now, all I would have to do it but these events in the right order,
and I might be able to put this MF to bed at last.
But, after all these months, I am far to nervous to say so out loud,
in case I hex it.
And - the solution to my writer's block was... ?
Watching really well-made "popcorn" movies, with absolutely no
relevant political or historical content what so ever.
(In my case with a flask of iced gin and some pretzels, rather
than popcorn...)
Fantastic Writers Therapy!
Cheers!
Seriously. Stop it.
They'll all still be attached when you get home to the privacy of your
own bathroom I promise.
scooped up and dumped on my head.
Seriously my coat was 3 times heavier when I took it off than when I
put it on, and I had to wring out my hat in a basin.
I hate getting cold and wet in away from home summer because nothing
is geared up for comfort - the B&B, though wonderful, didn't have the
heating on (why would it - in June!) and it took a hot shower and lots
of coffee to stop the shivers.
In Paignton, while waiting for a train connection (a steam train
connection) I discovered a truly awesome fast food nightmare.
Battered Chip Shop Chips.
Lovely fat chips, parcooked, then dipped in a light batter before
being finished and served. The sample I had were deepfat heaven. I'd
have stayed for more, but at that point the ceiling in the chip shop
started to bulge and disintegrate under the apocalyptic rainfall, so
I slipped out to find a cup of tea in the station buffet instead.
At the station the locomotive was steaming happily - and so was I,
sitting in a little puddle in the (unheated) buffet.
This was my first ever steam train trip (this is honestly the only way
to make a train connection to Kingswear/Dartmouth), and what amazed me
most was the noise - or rather, the lack of it. With no electric
motors in the carriage the trip was silent except for the wonderful
"clickety-clack", and at station halts dead silence would fall, except
for the hiss of rain and steam. I saw a Sparrowhawk on a fence post,
but most of the view was lost in the cloud and water. (Did I mention
it was wet?)
At Kingswear I struggled up the land to the hotel, ankle deep in a new
formed stream, dragging the suitcase behind me.
Yet - just two hours later, the cloud had gone, the sky was blue, the
river dart was sparkling gold. Weird.
I'll call him White Van Man - I have no idea what he drives, although
I can guarantee that he does drive, and that he is "not a man to
tangle with"
He was 50 odd, and seemed to have been angry for most of that half
century.
Anyway, as the parakeets sang overhead, as children splashed in the
shallows, as lovers curled together in knots of content, WVM head
forth to his companion on the evils of Direct Debits. For 45
minutes. Non stop.
He had only two complaints - that he liked to pay what he owed, when
he owed it, and that the didn't like giving access to his account to
strangers - and he performed infinite variations on this his outrage.
For 45 minutes. A virtuoso performance, by any standard.
Meanwhile his companion, a comely lady with a patient sigh, laid out
the picnic, poured tea from a thermos, shifted as the shade of the
tree moved across the grass, and sighed, sympathetically when a
response was required of her.
Then - suddenly - the evil of direct debit was forgotten. Two tiny
figures had caught WVM's attention, two diminutive ladies, in ankle
length black dresses and shady white head dresses walked past, eating
ice-creams.
Here was a subject dear to WVM's heart - "what are they doing here", he spluttered, "in a English park, in England, all covered up like that. This was a Christian country,
after all - do they think they are ..."
His companion screwed the top back on the Thermos. "They're Nuns, dear"
"What?"
"I said - they're Nuns."
"But, what - " WVM spluttered, the natural flow of his spleen
disturbed, "what? Why are they here?"
"It's a convent, dear."
And she stood up, popped the rubbish in the nearest bin, and left.
I would like to tell of you my severe disappointment in visiting your
cinemas.
You are "fanatical about film" – so am I.
I have cash, I live within easy walking distance of one of your
cinemas, and I love watching films on the big screen. Last year I spent
over £1000 (gulp!) attending film festivals, in the UK and overseas, and
in the last 7 days alone I have spent more on cinema tickets than
groceries – and more still on the extras, drinks, snacks, a meal before
or after.
Surely, I fall within some parameter defining a target customer for the
films you are showing this week: Star Trek, Synecdoche or State of Play
for example, all films which should appeal to adult audiences. Surely
you want to entice me in, and syphon the cash off me during the 2.5
hours I will be in your hands.
Apparently not.
On the screen, James Bond may order a well-made chilled Martini, in the
space bars of the 23rd Century James T Kirk can down Bud Classic and
Jack Daniels – but in the foyer James and Jane Public are offered
primary coloured counters offering only infantile treats in massive
quantities. Barrels of Popcorn, Buckets of tooth-piercingly sweet iced
Soda and dayglo Hoppers of Pick n' Mix.
Oh. And Nachos. With Gloopy Orange Cheeze-greeze on top.
I'm 30+ years old damn it, not FIVE.
I'm allowed to stay up past 8pm these days, without asking Mum first,
and these infantile treats no longer hold much appeal.
I like grown-up movies - and beer, wine, gin, coffee, dark chocolate,
cashew nuts, pretzels.
Not Candy, Nachos and Cola.
I'm not whining, honestly - I want to give you lots more money than I
already do, I am itching to hand over my cash for a single shot of real
coffee, but, oddly, you do not seem to want it!
Don't tell me that other customers don't feel the same. Clearly you
also see the oddity here. Why else would there be a tatty photocopied
notice in the Box Office, window advertising wine and beer?
But on a muggy bank holiday Monday evening, no actual drinks on sale, no
one to take my cash and hand me a cold beer in a plastic mug.
Your staff just shrug "Sometime on Saturdays we have a little cart with
wine, but only when we have the staff.".
So, I've learned my lesson. If I want to spend an evening watching a
movie, I'll stick to the Independents, to the BFI, to the Curzon, wait
three weeks until until the film reaches the Prince, or god-dammit, rent
a DVD, and avoid your hellish crèche.
a medieval bestiary.
I got up close and personal with a stray Pelican in St James Park.
I was walking across the Horse Guard's end when I saw it - walking
along the pavement on the wrong side of the temporary fencing erected
around the pond, and beyond the crash barriers set up for the trooping
of the colour. It was in imminent danger of walking into the path of
traffic, which would be unpleasant both for the bird and for everyone
else.
I mean - these birds are BIG. Its head was at chest level, its wings
span was at least as great as mine, and its bill - oh boy!
As we peered at each other, I remembered that at least one of the St
James Pelican's has previous for eating pigeons. Whole. Alive. And
wriggling.
It didn't seem distressed - it was neither flinching from , nor
snapping at passers by, of which there were many. It was just waddling.
But it was bleeding, from a point somewhere under its left wing, where
the feathers were stained, and dipped its bill at intervals to worry
the site.
This was an odd echo of something I saw last week - a painting of a
crucification in Florence which was crowned by an image of a Pelican
feeding her young with her own blood, drawn from her breast. This
mythical aspect of Pelican parenting was widely believed in the middle
ages, and led to the pelican being adopted as a symbol for the
Eucharist. Now I was perhaps seeing the origin of that myth.
Anyway, it couldn't be left where it was, so I an another couple of
passers-by, herded it gently back into the park, and towards the
water, at a slow and stately pace, and alerted the park rangers to its
injury.
Looking into that dark, perfectly round eye, cocked with cold
curiosity at the antics of the humans surrounding it, was a
thrilling reminder of the *otherness* of the living world.
36 hours on I am still startled by Star Trek. I really do have to see it again, and soon.
Other people, better qualified and more articulate, can discuss its
qualities as a film, and its relationship to canon.
But - I think I know how the good citizens of Wittenberg must have
felt the morning Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the door of his
church.
It is exciting, the dawning of a whole age - but oh, if we embrace it,
suddenly all those years of study, the painstakingly gathered
mysteries of Trek priestcraft, the crypts stuffed with holy relics,
glorious art works and revered texts, are rendered dusty and
worthless.
No wonder my ancestors remained devout Catholics to the point of
martyrdom.
Yet as a film rather than a reinterpretation of gospel. Star Trek
purely is gorgeous and thrilling to watch, intelligent, witty and made
with an admirably light touch.
It doesn't have quite the humanistic sensibilities of its 1966
incarnation - but it holds its own in the same universe as Firefly, or
the Culture novels.
The casting is a triumph - with Zachary Quinto the standout
performance in a talented ensemble. He doesn't impersonate Spock - he
simply embodies him, and the result is astonishing.
(BTW - I suspect Nimoy was wearing prostheses to emphasize his
resemblance to Quinto, rather than the other way around.)
Now, here comes the personal revelation.
I've loved Star Trek for 40 years - but I have just only just realised
that I never actually wanted to serve on Enterprise, or any of her
sister ships.
I'd take the king's shilling to man the yards of Surprise with Lucky
Jack Aubrey, would jump at a chance to crew on Serenity, I long to be
recruited to Special Circumstances and have my own knife missiles.
I've learned to hand, reef and steer, have taken helm of a square
rigger in a force 9 in the straits of Gibraltar. I even considered
applying to the Merchant Navy.
But Enterprise and its five year mission left me cold.
No longer. This is a now a ship on which I long to serve/
I'll be on the next shuttle to the Academy*, ta very much!
*Actually I'm flying to Europe, with my mum for 3 days. But I'll wear a mini-skirt and boots, and backcomb.
