Thursday 29 July 2010

Can anyone recommend a cheap, small but robust digital camera?

I can't use a camera-phone; not one that I've tried in the past was any
sodding use as, you know, an actual PHONE.

(I couldn't understand why the signal in my London flat got worse with
every passing year, until I was unable to make or take a call at all
unless I walked 50 yards from the front door - then I realised it wasn't
the signal, it was the annual phone upgrade. I bought a £13 Nokia 3310
- the model I had 7 years ago - and BINGO! - a working phone! No
camera, no mp3 player, no apps, no internet, but dammit, I can call the
fire brigade if I need to.)

Anyway, back to the camera - I want to be able to carry something small
that will snap household snakes, and the lesser known North Tyne turkey
bird, and the fairy castle I found in the woods.

There are freaking TURKEYS in the woods!

I though I must be seeing things - that the weird beast dodging among
the sheep was just a very ugly pheasant.
But no, the woods are full of turkeys. Escapes from a local small
holding? No such luck.

Someone has deliberately released turkey chicks onto the land so that
they can run a novelty "shoot your own Turkey" event in December.

Because of course, the practise of releasing non native species into the
wild for sport and profit and shit and giggles has never caused
ecological disaster before now.

After all, it's not as if the land is in a NATIONAL PARK or anything.
It's not as if the local river bank is invested with imported mink, the
water with imported signal crayfish, or that the red squirrels of
Northumberland are disappearing under pressure from imported North
American greys - oh wait!

Luckily for everyone (except the poor Turkeys and unwary drivers) the
birds haven't mastered the green cross code, and are being squished
flat, daily.

Turkeys. Wild Turkeys. Released in the Northumberland National Park.
Without even touching on the ethical issues of shootin' huntin' and
fishin' - who does that?
WHO DOES THAT!!!!

Wednesday 28 July 2010

In honour of my Adder

A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.

In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before
me.

He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of
the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.

Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second comer, waiting.

He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.

And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.

But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?

Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.

And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!

And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.

He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.

And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.

I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

I think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste.
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.

And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.

And I thought of the albatross
And I wished he would come back, my snake.

For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.

And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.

Taormina, 1923
DH Lawrence

(Honestly - I haven't got over the intensity of the pleasure at meeting the Stone Caravan's adder at last.  It was just so magnificently other and like  Lawrence I felt obscurely honoured )

Tuesday 27 July 2010

Also I have learned that a small bright fire of twigs will boil a kettle in less than 10 minutes -

- now I keep a basket of dry twigs and bark, gathered beside the grate,
and throw a few on when ever I want boiling water. It's almost as fast
as an electric kettle.

Picking up an armful while I walk across the field is now a pleasant
daily chore, and they smell wonderfully sweet as they burn.

Shifting challenges

When I took on stewardship of the Stone Caravan, the issues I was most
concerned about were damp, spiders and mice.

Four years ago the cottage was festooned with webs, great brown bellying
curtains of them, hanging from every window, across the stairwell, from
the low ceiling beams.

I feared they might be one seasons worth - but I've never found the
cottage to need more than two de-webbing session a year, and then I am
only wiping away the very smallest wisps of white from window frames and
keyholes (it's the draught - it carries small insects through the gap,
into the waiting spidey jaws)

Of course this could be the result of the all conker-ing horsechestnut
eco-friendly spider repellent - I've only sprayed the windows twice in 2
years, but who knows.

The first day I visited my new cottage I found a poisoned mouse expiring
on the doorstep (the same doorstep the adder was sunbathing on last
week). As I cleaned I found little splayed out mouse skeletons in hard
to reach places. And later, when I first lived in the cottage full
time, I just managed their presence - keeping them out of food supplies,
using peppermint oil to deter them, wiping down and sweeping daily,
never allowing food or equipment to come into contact with unwashed
surfaces...

They disappeared entirely 18 months ago, when the cottage was left
uninhabitable by floods, and weasels and owls moved in. And they have
yet to move back in...

The damp?

Well, it's a different place now, I open the door, warm fresh air
streams out, biscuits stay crisp, sugar pours, the bed is dry and aired.

But it is summer, and the winter was a dry one, so I have my fingers
crossed for the months to come.

Monday 26 July 2010

It's pretty noisy at night right now -

- the ewes are slowly moving away from their adolescent lambs, and no
longer respond instantly to their bleating.

So the dusk is full of horny (literally - they have the cutest iddle
widdle horns) teenagers yelling "Muuuuuuuuummmmmm!
MUUUUUUMMMMMMM!!!!!!" and being ignored.

(I notice that Mum does eventually turn up - when I locked up last night
the sheep were all settling down in pairs and triplets to sleep)

Stone Caravan Summer Pudding

Step over adder.

Chase sheep out of blackcurrant bush.

Pick a mixed bowl of black- and red-currants.

Pick over the currants, (removing wisps of wool as well was twig). Rinse.

Put 3/4s of the currants in a pan with sugar, and pop on a slow fire.

Make tea. Read "Sharpe's Rifles".

When the currants start to bubble, take off the fire, cover and forget
for a while. Read.

Slice a good but slightly stale loaf of white bread. (I got one from
waitrose, reduced to 20p)

Line a pudding basin with the slices of bread, trimming them to fit, and
filling any gaps. Cut a lid and put it aside.

Fill the breadybowl with the cooled fruit, pop on the breadylid, a
saucer, and a tin can to weigh it down.

Forget about it.

Next day - cook the rest of the currants and let them cool down in their
juice.

Some point in the afternoon - turn out the pudding dish, and pour over
the extra currants and juice.

Admire the purpley yumminess.

Eat.

I 'ad an adder in tha house!

Yes folks, after 4 years I finally got to meet the snake what lives
under my house.

I found him/her sunbathing on the doorstep on Saturday afternoon - as I
approaches he/she slithered under the door and into the cottage.

Gorgeous creature, pale gold with a zig zag of dark brown down the back

Snake definitely more freaked out than I was - after all, I as a.)
wearing boots, b.) able to step straight over that arrow shaped head c.)
aware that Adder venom, though painful and temporarily disabling, is
almost entirely non-fatal to fit human adults, and d.) snakes dislike
the presence of humans almost as much as they dislike the proximity of
Gruffaloes.

I just sat on the steps watching Ada (or Adalbert) the Adder, turn tail
and slither back outdoors again.

I must get a new camera for moments like this.

Saturday 24 July 2010

Slow sad tears of frustrated greed

Oh - imagine the anticipation - real life evening events at Royal
Festival Hall! Not just the busy crowded terrace, bar, cafe, gift shop,
exhibitions, libraries, displays and real honest to god mini-favela
built out of brick and leg and fairy
lights...(http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/hayward-gallery-and-visual-arts/visual-arts/tickets/project-morrinho-southbank-centre-favela-1000045
- awesome!)

Surely now, as the sunsets over the river, and thousands of Londoners
flock to play on the decks and terraces, and to dance to the
gutpunchingly wonderful beat of the AfroReggae Experience
(http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/dance-performance/tickets/the-afroreggae-experience-54247),
surely now, they would open up the cabinet and exchange the £2.50 in
loose change hoarded in my hot sticky palm all day for the the
specially commissioned Brazil themed Lime and Cacacha nummy nummy
ice-cream ...

At least that's what I told myself ALL yesterday. The thought sustained
me through weary hours of bookkeeping, tick tock on the clock, fly
buzzing on the dusty window sill at work, "ping - you have mail."

6.30pm, there I am, I'll write for an hour, maybe two, to be sure that
I've earned it.

The hall is rammed, everywhere the "ching, ching" of tills, the bars
serving coffee and wine and cakes and pencils which are also drumsticks,
and hot soup....

And in one neglected corner, an icecream chest, with "Festival Brazil"
sticker, and a listing of wonderful icecreams. Unlit, unloved,
unstocked, just un-, un-, un- icecreamed.

Never mind.

I'll make Summer Pudding tonight, with the currants harvested from the
wilderness behind the stone caravan.

Thursday 22 July 2010

Anyone know about car cigarette lighter sockets?

All my stone caravan power woes would be resolved if I could charge my
laptop from the cigarette lighter in the (borrowed) landrover.

But I can't find a plug that fits it.

I understand there are two standard sizes for the sockets, but does
anyone do an adapter to help me plug the charger on one standard into
the socket on the other standard.?

And to add to the angst and frustration....

The Royal Festival Hall is stocking a Caprinha Icecream, by Mingella
Ices, as part of "Festival Brazil".

That's cream, sugar, lime and cachaca - frozen. In a pot. With a
spoon. I want SOOOOOOOO much.

But, because the Royal Festival Hall has no concerts this week, the ice
cream remains locked up in the freezer.

I can buy beer, wine, coffee, sandwiches, soup, pizzery things, and a
selection of gifts.

But no lime and cachaca ice-cream. Even on the lovely yummy HOT
evenings on the river.

All I can do is press my nose to the locked Ice Cream stand and drool a
little, sadly, and wait.

Aghhh Aghhhh Aghhhh

So having arrived back from Ireland with a mountain of work on the
script and no clean clothes, I am praying for an easy week at the
office.... (and not just me, one of the evangelical flatmate's
evangelical mates offered to pray for the same....)

And well, knock me down, what I get instead is an emergency report to be
completed, and FOUR DAYS working from 9am - 10pm, without a lunch break,
to deliver it.

And still no clean clothes...

I'm cream crackered.

Tuesday 13 July 2010

How to start, how to start...

I've worked everyday for some 30 or so days (time off during the day, but never the whole day)

The deadline was originally July 7.  I met that (sort of) and got the feedback, and now I have to respond to that with the rest of the draft by August 1.

So I know I'll be working 10-14 hours for the next 17 days.

And I don't know how to start. 

Last week was definitely better spent in Ireland...

... rather than in an isolated off-road two room cottage in woodland in
the Northumbrian countryside.

I left the North on Monday night, just as the first sightings of the
gunman were being phoned in from Rothbury, and watched the search and
the stand-off the next day long distance, from London and Galway,
between meetings at the Film Fair.

Galway was cold and wet and fun and very very successful.

Now London is cold and wet - and I have a mountain of work to catch up
with and I am feckin' well knackered!

At least I'm used to "cold and wet" - growing up in Wales does prepare
you for a life spent under water!
I have gills!

Thursday 8 July 2010

Trust me, this is one of the few occasions when living in a remote cottage in Northumberland does not feel comfortable!

The Stone Caravan is not in the area the police are searching - but it
feels close enough.

I was there until Monday night, before heading to Ireland - if I had
stayed, I reckon I'd be snuggled down in my sister's place, with all mod
cons and neighbours in clear sight!

But, as it turns out, I'm in Galway, for the film festival - after
working 25 days without a break on the latest draft.

I hope I don't nod off, mid-pitch!