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.
