Typical! You cross the border into Wales and the sun disappears.

I swear it dropped 3 degrees within seconds.

A-musing

It's fun having a muse.

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.

By a muse, I mean someone (a living individual or a personification) who inspires confidence in an artist's own ability.

Dante had Beatrice, Petrach had Laura, Givenchy had Hepburn, Sappho had...  anyone know if Sappho's adored was ever named?

Mine seems to be a 20 something hipster, with great taste in shoes… 

I'm trying to make a list of other muses, so I can try to pin down the essential features of the beast.

Any ideas?

I have worked out why the bastard ironing board broke...

.... roomie off the hook this time.

Still need to buy a new one though!

How the $@*^% do I manage to find the ironing board broken - twice!

Twice. In four months. Two boards, identical damage. Twice.
And not cheap ones, either. Two £35 ironing boards.

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.

Weird and nasty things, writers

- but only if you confuse the work with the creator.

 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. 

 Now, clearly I must be interested in the tattoos, in their visual impact, the way the record moments in time, the way their permanence contrasts with the impermanence of the of the human body.  But that doesn't mean I have - or mean to get - a tattoo myself. 

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.

 

 

 

September has to be the best month in Northumberland

I'm sitting outside the cottage in warm - almost over warm - sunshine,
cooled just enough by a silvery breeze that smells of grass and honey
(honey? No, no idea why, but it's gorgeous). The sky is enamel blue,
with the faintest curlicue of cloud high away in the south. Everything
that should be green is still green - but with the sense that the
fireworks of red and gold and brown are just waiting, breathless for
ignition.

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.

Should I?

I am wibbling over buying one of these:

Solarventi Solar power dehumidifer

 If it works it would be the answer to so many problems.

 The theory is simple.  When the sun is shining the humidity outside the house, 10 feet off the ground is always drier than the air inside.

 The gadget is an PV panel, attached to a South East facing wall, which powers a fan to draw this relatively drier air into the unit, drive it through the body of the panel, where it is passively warmed, and then push the fresh, dry(er) and warm(er) air into the house at floor level.

The introduced air displaces the stagnant damp(er) air out of the house through the chimney and other leaky bits.

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...

 

Must be feeling better -

- I have the energy to put lippy on.

Uggh. I just want this cold to go away

That is all.

In other news

I have arrived back in London with a vile cold.

The cottage is finally fit for human habitation - and I am shivering and
coughing in the city.

Toads need love

Turns out Barry the builder isn't the only one who isn't keen on toads.

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?