Turner Contemptible + Princess Beatrice's Hat

I admit that I watched the Royal Wedding on telly.  My excuse is that I wanted to see the Goreing Hotel and whether John appeared in any of the shots.  He didn't.   But I enjoy a good wedding, and trying to work out who was royal and who was merely an ambassador was interesting. 

The hats were really the best, I found some of them extraordinary, especially the roccoco brown number sported (it was sporting of her to wear it - she must have done it for a bet) by poor Princess Beatrice - it looked like (credit here to Mark for this fine joke) like an explosion in a Viennetta factory.  Pause - while everyone tries to remember what Vienetta is/was.  I ROFL'd - well, actually we were still in bed having a lie-in.  It made me wonder why that particular branch of the family are so especially un-soignee... they have a reasonable amount of dosh, she's quite pretty, surely they could have some clothing advice?  I know I spend most of my time dressing like a particularly impoverished Irish pig farmer's wife, but I can scrub up appropriately, and if I had money and wasn't so fat, I could dress very agreeably indeed.   My dear sister Coellie said I was "elegant" the other day - I don't think she meant in general, just that particular day. 

I was having a moment's naive wondering about why women my size feel able to wander around in bikini tops and shorts on hot days in Ramsgate.  They could make themselves look nicer.  I think there must be a tendency for people to buy clothes that are too small for them regardless, because they can't get what they want in their size, and then push as much of themselves into them as they can and let the rest go where it will.  I don't want to criticise other people's sartorial choices exactly - I can only assume that they must think they look nice, and maybe it is just another eye of the beholder   issue - like the Viennetta headgear.

I fear I may have subtly ranted about the Turner Contemptible already.   There is an awful problem, which concerns my role as part of Thanet's leading communications agency.... we are dedicated to "re-branding Thanet" - and the TC is a major flagship (yech) for the regeneration of Thanet... so of course I cannot ever criticise it in my official capacity.   I have now been there 3 times.  The first occasion I felt I hadn't been entirely fair to it.   The second time I felt I might have been in fact, and on Wednesday I felt I had to defend it from the scathing critique of Nick and Marietta. 

When I first went I had an enormously negative critique of it, but I thought "this is just me".  I am being elitist and super-snotty again, so I felt I must try again.  It was still full of apparently delighted people.   The boys thought it was rubbish and Coells and Pa said "are there any more rooms?"  Nick disliked the building, and the art in it, Marietta was similarly underwhelmed.   In the meantime I had an email from Lorna deriding the booooring speeches on the preview night, so overall I felt that it was OK not to like it, since reasonably intelligent people of high culture didn't like it either.

I still wonder whether because I am an autodidact when it comes to art history that I've never bothered to engage with the 20th C (as John Dufton once said)... but I honestly think conceptual art takes up a lot of room - and doesn't have much to detain one once one has grasped the concept (unless, unusually, it is stunningly beautiful).    The last art gallery I went to was in Manchester.  It was a thrill, two hours was insufficient to do it justice, it was full of things that made one think, that connected one to other bits of art and culture.   Some of the work in the TC does that, but not very interestingly.  Ellen Hervey's work Arcadia was good, well done, and made connections, the Shawcross made connections between spirals and musical intervals... but it was a bit so-what?  And Binet's 8.7cm coloured stripes - well, they were coloured stripes. (Yes, there is more to them, but nothing interesting enough to write about).  In short I expect to get a notebook out in an art gallery - and I think it will be a long time before I do in the Turner.

OK - I have now trashed the Turner.  It is Emperor's New Clothes all over again, but it makes me wonder something else (warning, I am ascending to the ivory tower now).  I've always known that I was lucky in having a Catholic upbringing and a classical education because I got Renaissance art quite quickly and painlessly,  and from there gradually eased into Baroque and Romantic art.  I am happy enough with Picasso and Braque and Miro and people, but this art became referential to itself or to the contemporary world, rather than to the tradition.   Which I suppose is why schools only teach art from Picasso onwards... then they don't have to explain too much.    But this art, the revival in conceptual art of the last 20 years or so, seems idiot art to me.  No real cultural sense is required, no real cultural hit will be received.  It is extremely accessible, but just not very interesting.  It needn't detain us very long... we can get down to the cafe and the shop and spend some money.   Poor Victoria Pomeroy.   Does this represent the summit of her ambitions?

Bonjour

Now I have to foray into French - unless it's someone on holiday there.  This is such a silly blog, since my major hobbies are watching the map turn green and looking at the neighbourhood.   I really must learn to take a leaf out of Tara Moore's book and write amusing things about Thanet.  So, since she is coming around shortly, I will keep this short, but remind me to do an amusing piece about the Turner Contemporary.  I've been there 3 times now and it isn't getting any better....

Visitors & Easter

I was lying in bed trying to get back to sleep at 6.10 when himself decided to draw the curtain, making all further sleep effort futile.  

I was thinking how nice it was to have my father and Coellie here, since for a change I have had a bit of nurturing...I realise with horror how little nurturing I get.   I am afraid Mark is ill again, he has a stomach bug that has continued for 3 days - I would be more nurturing to him, only he is ALWAYS ill when any of my family come to visit, and sometimes when members of his family come to visit.  Needless to say, I was not prepared to nurture him since I was too busy cleaning and tidying and cooking. We had lovely day on Saturday - Ramsgate was en fete with the opening of the Great Wall of Ramsgate... and Pa took us out to lunch at the Belgian bar... then we went over to the Turner Contemptible and saw the exhibition, but missed the singing.  Saw a few people, had a cup of tea and came home. 

Yesterday was Easter Sunday - went to St Laurence, nice service, hymns, and a church member fainting during the sermon (not going down in the Spirit apparently).  Then the lunch after which I retired to rest.  When I came down, Coells had totally cleaned the kitchen, including the top of the stove!  What a saint.  I was so grateful.   We have tea (gummy simnel cake, chocolate things) and then watched tv - a bit of the repeat of the History of the Church series - had no idea what Syrian Christian missionaries set up churches in China in the 7thC... fascinating.  We had wine and crisps, but didn't bother with supper.  I had a small farewell piece of chocolate cheesecake (which the boys will be eating for days).

Boys were pretty good - talked sensibly, behaved nicely. 

It is strange having such a late, hot Easter - we were out in the sun with hats and sunglasses on Saturday.  No daffodils to fill the church... everyone around here obsessed with Turner C opening.   A second look at the art didn't excite me any more - although I quite liked the ideas behind the Conrad Shawcross work - and one of the Russell Crotty spheres was attractive... I still thought the Ellen Harvey work was far away the best.   Nice friendly gallery staff.  Just at the moment everyone's world is focussed on the Turner - but it will all be back to normal on Tuesday I suppose.

I have been praying about M - I don't know what to think - I nearly said something of a life-changing nature to him, but I heard a very clear message "Bide your time".  I found this reassuring, a sense that things would change somehow.  I just seem to have been biding my time for a while. 

Meanwhile, I have been wondering about my drug, Citalopram.  It does keep my feelings on a level plain, I don't get as cross, I don't have hissy fits, or get emotional, but I miss other things.  I used to enjoy my occasional visits to church more and feel very emotionally/spiritually moved by them, this doesn't happen now.  Does this mean that one's "spiritual" response is largely emotional?  and that it's dulled by drugs?   Or does it enable one to experience a clearer spiritual response, released from emotional baggage?  When I heard those words, I felt a positive sense of God still being there for me... despite a certain recent distancing (on my part).  Maybe the fact that I have been buckling down and trying to work on the domestic life is being supported.   I forgot to mention that M did not profer so much as a chocolate to me for Easter... I was quite cross, I said, in front of Coellie "I suppose I am less upset because I am used to it, but I don't see why I fucking should be."  I contented myself with that and some sulking.   

I never used to sulk, but recently I realise that a prolonged sulk is about the only thing that gets M's attention.  Actually, I don't do it to get his attention, I do it because I wish to impress upon his memory that I have been hurt, and that my pain and feeling of being neglected are now resulting in me shunning him.   Oh what a happy household we are!   Actually, my sulking is far nicer than anyone else's.  It isn't really sulking, it's just treating him the way he treats me, with a marked lack of interest, and scant enthusiasm.  Bloody hell, is it any wonder that I think J would be a better bet were he available (or interested).  Oh dear, I've made myself cry now, self-pity.   Even the Citalopram has its limit - it doesn't totally overcome hormonal misery.   Really the last two years, every period has seemed to be my last, and the latest one, that began a month ago, is still going on, in fits and starts, dying off, then getting refreshed, each time coming along with back pains and fresh bursts of hormonally induced feelings. 

Oh dear, he came in just then and said hello - so I said hello, rather grudgingly because I was crying a bit, but he didn't notice.  So that's all right then.

Did I say this was meant to be amusing?

In a way I shouldn't publish this, but no one will see it anyway - so what does it matter?  Arrgh - that's the crux: one says what does it matter? - not out of a sense of ataraxia - a state of being above and beyond caring, an emotional stylite - but because it does matter, but one has begun to believe one's feelings don't matter and are best stuffed away out of sight. Not very emotionally healthy "Ramsgate woman kills husband with Sabatier kitchen knife".   That won't happen.  M has never inspired such murderous feelings, perhaps that's significant, or perhaps I'm just not especially murderous, or just stick to words.

The thing about visitors - usually - is that we both enjoy them and have a nice time with them, as we did with the SoA dinner a couple of weeks ago, as we do when we go out.  It gives me a pleasant feeling that we have an existence as a couple.  Only this time, we haven't especially.  M is still ill.  He says he is going to Waitrose - I assume he is going to buy a guilt egg for me.... no, he's looking for medication. Well, I don't think you can buy immodium over the counter.  But he's milking it like mad.   It's not as if he's spending the day rushing to the loo.  He has slightly gripey stomach pains and an occasional prolonged visit to the loo.  He doesn't think it's worth ringing NHS Direct - so in my book this doesn't count as a proper illness.  He is using it to eat what he wants to eat - oh, bloody hell, now I'm breaking it all down into detail.  These are things I don't normally feel like going into.   But on this occasion, I feel guilty about not being a nurturing wife, so this is my justification.  "Why I stopped being nice to my husband"?  Could I sell this story to one of those women's magazines?

OK - I have spent an hour on this, very self-indulgent and naughty.  Publish and be damned!

How to write a book?

Grrr.  I was about to write a smug paragraph or so about how pleased I was that I had done another 1100 words on Conscience this evening.   However I was interrupted by a strange message about 'cookies'.  Yes, I was told years ago what they were and I decided I didn't like them, but I don't think I've ever done anything about them.  Now I am being told that I have disabled cookies - to a British person that sounds like broken biscuits to me.   I am old enough to remember seeing bags of broken biscuits for sale in shops.  Perhaps they still do sell them... but damn it.  

Anyway, I am very pleased I have written so much, since I was just sitting here idly and then I thought, well I might as well write, I am a bit bored and it's the thing to do.   If I don't write I might have to do some housework.  Unfortunately, it is time to go to bed, so I won't be able to do that.  The thing that upsets me is that although I am enjoying it, I am not in love with it the way I was with TFY - I think the problem is that there are so many problems to address in the book - I already know the plot, so all the surprises are only small ones, but gratifying nonetheless.   Unfortunately I have just discovered that JohnMcCormack was on tour in the US in 1915-16 so he may not have been singing at the Queen's Hall in autumn 1915... blast and damn, what do I do about that?  Perhaps they can go to the concert before the summer.   Or maybe I can put a footnote about this being a fantasy---- it's the sort of thing people would do,  they just couldn't have.

This is the difficulty of writing a novel set in an historical period.  It isn't meant to be exact factual chronicle, but people will want to know how accurate it is.  It doesn't really matter now, but I think I'll have to do something about it when it comes to the second draft.

What is interesting at present is that I am trying to write this in a different way.  More the way I wrote TFY - i.e. just write it, don't go back and edit the previous section all the time, like I used to with The Tapestry.  I spent so much time revising and correcting and polishing that I did very little new writing, I was doing that with the early (pre-TFY chapters) so I have determined I will not do that, I really want to finish it, get the whole book done, solve some of the problems it poses, and then see what happens.   The real problem is whethe I include the whole story and write a mega-book - or whether I divide it into two.  Does it make 2 books?  I'm not sure how long it is now, perhaps I ought to count, 7 chapters.  Still have a long way to go just to get to the divorce... that will definitely be a book in itself... but, but, oh hell.  I can't think about it now, just keep writing and see what happens.  I may have to chuck out all the stuff I wrote about Bessy's childhood - pity it was that kind of writing you do when you just don't realise what you know until it comes out in a reasonably convincing way.

Enough.  I'm off to do a word count, I hope it will cheer me up. I certainly haven't written 2,000 words a week, but at least I am still writing it.

The Neighbourhood 4

Annther couple of evening strolls around the blog neighbourhood reveals that there are extraordinary differences in style between British and US styles.  There is a great deal of rather perky writing on the US blogs - words like cute, adorable, beautiful and the phrase "I love" occur very often.  I recognise this style from the Authonomy website.  I realise that although I am reasonably used to US literature (Jonathan Franzen, Michael Chabon etc.) and occasionally seeing the International Herald Tribune, I am completely unfamiliar with domestic style.  I suppose it's nothing drastic - we prefer adjectives like lovely, nice and sweet to describe babies/puppies etc. perhaps that's all it is.  

Interesting to note in what ways the Englishes will drift apart... just preferences for different adjectives, some slight differences in grammar that have probably been noticeable since the C19th, and, well really is that all?  It isn't the language, it's the sentiments.  I don't think the English are especially gloomy, but I can't see many people like me writing like that.  On the other hand there aren't many people like me in the UK anyway - so inevitably I am reading the blogs of people a bit like people I was at school with - the Middle England equivalents who live nice wholesome lives (on the surface) who like children and animals and golf/skiing/football and - well, I don't know what else they do, enjoy shopping probably, and spend way too much time on Facebook.  (I say this with the smugness of one who has made only one visit this week, and as a result have no idea what is going on in Ramsgate!).

In another part of the town is Headscarf Haven - a large number of Indonesian(?) female blogs... presumably there are a lot of Indonesian blogs - since my pages have been viewed by some Indonesians in return, but given that its the 3rd most populous state in Asia (?) the world (?) this isn't surprising.

Meanwhile, I am still trying to find an interesting British blog - or a US one or a Canadian one (I found a series of Canadian ones earlier - they were not in any obvious way distinct from US ones).  Instead I found a set designer's blog, a jogger's blog, a golfer's blog, and a gay man's blog.   There is also a special sub-genre of "Films I have seen" blogs and "Music I have heard" blogs.  Neither of which have grabbed me.   I am tempted to follow even half interesting blogs since I may never find another one - so I am now following a writing blog, although in all honesty I may never go back to any of the blogs I am notionally following again.

A final stroll around before bed, I think.

Altera dies, nulli denari

I wonder if that's good Latin.  I really regret not having learned it "properly" sometimes, i.e. doing translation into Latin.   And a year on I rather miss teaching Ned Latin - but at least this year I don't have to worry about his exams.  Only he does.... he's predicted to get Bs - which is fine, but he'll need a couple of A's probably for a decent university.

So, this week has been full of work, not a bit of it generating money directly, but we have had two business meetings - one of which required a quote, and one of which was a head-banging session in which we realised that our associates could do nothing and we could do nothing for them.   The economic climate is not quite ready for the Winter Wonderland in Margate yet - but next year, it's a definite goer.  They need way too much money, about £50K - and who is going to give them that?  Yes it's a community activity for which they will only ask their own fees and any profits will go into next year's event, but still.  It's getting that first push that matters for them and no one is giving it. I think they need to turn it into a separate not-for-profit company.

The major event this week was the Turner Contemporary thing - I went to the first preview with Sam.  I felt we were there slightly on the rag-tag-and bobtail night, but having said that,. lots of nice people there, so - wait a minute, I've written about this already.

Wednesday I went to the Funding Fair - another new and interesting world which is only mildly demanding, and on Thursday I had two meetings, another about funding, and one at the Yacht Club (which already uses PR people - of no great competence).  Then I wrote two funding applications - and finally went to bed. Today I worked on the funding applications and endless emails, then had the meeting with Kent Events about their funding issues, and then - rather surprisingly - Sam and I found ourselves sitting in the garden eating cashew nuts and drinking a bottle of white wine.    It was a lovely afternoon - the first of the season.  The birds sang, the bees buzzed, and it was warm.  The lonicera tartarica is flowering, no scent, but very pretty.  The omphaloides nitida is also very pretty, and I discovered a strange variegated violet, which I must preserve... clearly a hybrid, I suddenly realised that, apart from a coaching session on Monday, I was free - on holiday for a bit!  M is working in Dover next week, but I might, weather permitting, go for a few short bike rides around the place just to improve my skills.  

My health is being boring - back agony - laid out on sofa on Tuesday, and odd foot twinges.  I have however managed to lose a kilo! Not great, but first time I've lost weight since .... god knows when.  Perhaps I've finally stopped the rot - now need to get a bit moving a bit.

The Neighbourhood 3

Went for another stroll around the leafy burbs of Middle America - everyone is having babies.   I wondered would I have blogged if I had a baby - I might have actually, I remember I used to keep a list of Ned's vocabulary as it developed.  I could have made people feel rather inadequate with that...

I have now been read in China according to my stats.... the map is gradually turning green.  I  still don't quite get how people find your blog.  If, like me, they simply press the next blog button, then the chances of anyone who likes my blog are about the same as me finding a blog I like on here. This morning I found one which was both interesting and UK-based, written by someone in a band - unfortunately she had stopped writing it about a year ago, so that was another non-starter.  I'll just wander out and sample a couple more before bedtime...

I was there!

Came home to the unusual experience of hearing a discussion on Radio 3 about something I had been to a preview of - in this case the opening of the Turner Centre in Margate.   It is a rather dull building - not interesting enough to be called hideous, which I think looks a bit like an out of town warehouse.  It would not look out of place on the great, soon to be abandoned, Pfizer estate.  It dwarfs poor little Droit House, and is a generally unattractive addition to the Harbour area.   However, it is the great white hope of local regeneration, and everyone had told me it was fabulous inside.  Well, that turned out not to be true - it is just more concrete inside - but there are fabulous views of the sea, and the horizon is used a part of the architecture: that was the only appealing thing about the architecture.  It is clearly a work of great utilitarianism.  I have never seen a public building on this scale with such unimpressive and dark stairs: sticking "the sun is God" on to them, and then jumbling the words up with good and bad to make, inter alia "God is bad" so that each riser contains a variation on the phrase, is no compensation for their design.  I suppose they are a bit like the stairs at the Hayward, but those are open so that one can see other sights as one goes up. 

Anyway le tout Thanet was sort of there - or rather 25% of it - since we have been spread over 4 nights.  And in addition, there was L&D surprisingly, which was nice, but tricky since I was with S and couldn't just dive into my usual self.  But lots of nice people there - and I enjoyed it mildly - although not the speeches, as it was rather hot and stuffy in the area where these were given, in front of a striped sun stuck on the glass... a bit dull, and reminiscent of that installation at the Tate Modern.  Not a great night for networking - and lots of fascinating people trying to look interesting and posing in weird ways... I could just have talked to them as per usual I suppose, but I got the impression that lots of people were with their "plus guest" and stayed in their pair for the evening.   Some people were actually interested in the art.   There was one thing I liked very much - beautiful views of Margate etched onto perspex... the style, like woodcuts was really appealing.

I'll have to go back when it's quieter.  So that was it, the great event.  The official opening is on Saturday, but I won't be going.  Funny though, Gerry White, old long-lost school friend is, she got in touch and said she was coming down for it.  So hope we'll see her on Friday.  Evidently it is attracting Londoners!  But how often will they come?

A trip to London

Feeling like a country mouse now when I go to London.  Things seem to have changed every time I go, and it's only about 2 months since I last went.  This time was another of Finn's fingerboarding meets - in Peckham again.  This time we got the roads right - and found an excellent car park just near the 12 bus route, which was very inexpensive - £8 a day - so after I'd dropped him at Rafi's house I got on the bus and went to the Imperial War Museum.    It seemed a good opportunity to do a little research - but I hadn't had time to book a seat in the documents room, so I had to content myself with their other resources in their "Explore History" section.  These resources included all their on-line stuff, and the sound archive, so I listened to a lot of characters talking about their experiences in joining up, training, getting to the front etc.  It was very helpful.  Gave me a much better picture of things.   I also discovered that the library does have a history of the RAMC which I could use to trace the movements of different bits during the war.... on a negative side, there was nothing on RAMC cyclist messengers and I wonder if I should make David into a stretcher bearer, as there seems to be more information about them. 

While mooching through the books on the open shelves I was pleased to see two of Tony and Valmai's books, "I had dinner with them on Friday!" I thought.  Another very strange coincidence, I saw a vaguely familiar middle-aged man wandering around, and then a teenage boy in shorts! came and sat at the computer next to mine, but I didn't take any notice of him until he walked away with the middle-aged man and as they reached the exit I realised it was William (son of M's cousin Dora) and Jeremy his father.  Too late to run after them, and anyway Jeremy never seems to recognise me even when we're at the same party. I no longer expect to bump into people I know in London, so it was rather a surprise.

I came away with a rather odd bibliography which a helpful, but not very focussed librarian made for me - she seemed to be concentrating on finding info. about the Etaples rebellion and VADs, despite the fact that I'd told her my interest was in the RAMC... I also found a couple more books I can probably order through inter-library loans, I scribbled dozens of notes and leafed through a catalogue of Women's Work in WWI so it was a useful time.  I think I'll have Mrs Ellison involved with the Belgian Refugees Hostel in Tulse Hill.

Came home in almost catatonic state - car has decided to pump hot air in all the time, not very nice as weather currently rather warm.  Arrived at home, ate risotto M had made (his first new dish for about 20 years - adding to his repertoire of spaghetti carbonara and eggy bread), drank nice glass of wine and collapsed into bed, fell asleep at about 9.30.

This morning finished reading The Bank of the Black Sheep by Robert Lewis and am now in theory ready to work, but I am really not in the mood.  However, I have some MUST dos to sort out.

Lovely Morning

Weather is really great, I awoke at 7.00 despite a late night last night, with the SoA meeting/dinner, and did a lot of washing up.  Now I feel I ought to be allowed to sit down and write a bit.

Last night was great fun - 11 of us, and a really enjoyable evening.  It is nice to be at table with people who can mention Proust without other people rolling their eyes... it is a great combination of people, with lots of overlapping interests and references and experiences.  The thing about mentioning Proust locally is that it is beyond the pale around here - I know from my experience with the book group, and even with the 100-best group that we've formed, that mentioning Ulysses causes - not exasperation exactly, but a definite sense that to claim one loves it is to provoke disbelief, and underlying suspicion that one is being intellectually dishonest or pretentious.  Even M said "Well - I've never seen you reading it."  Well, mush, I've read it three times and when JH and I used to have evenings together we'd discuss it endlessly and read bits of it to each other.... true I haven't read it since I married M - but there are a lot of things I haven't done since then. 

I have been reading a lot recently, and although it has been good to re-connect with a lot of mid-range fiction and fun stuff, the books that have really made an impression on me have been, surprise, surprise! the "classics" - the Harold Bloom Western Cannon books, such as Kim - because they provoke you to read more around the subject, and provoke thought.  Wolf Hall was another such book, since it provoked me to read Cavendish's Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey.  I heard Martin Sheen on Desert Island Discs yesterday saying that reading The Brothers Karamazov had changed his life and made him return to Catholicism.  I really enjoyed it - but for some reason I never finished it... something radical must have happened (maybe I got married).  So I will finish the fun detective novel The Bank of the Black Sheep - author's name unremembered, and crack on with Karamazov - or the second vol. of Proust, which begins with The Guermantes Way.  Someone was saying last night (E I think) that the new translation of Proust is not as good as the Scott Moncrieff because whereas Swann's Way is a perfect translation of Du Cote du chez Swann - since it has a double meaning that describes the book's contents the new translation was something clunkier like The Path past Swann's   but I suppose people love to do new translations, and people love to read and compare them, and there is always a feeling that "we must have a NEW translation" because stuffy old Scott Moncrieff or Constance Garnett just won't do anymore.   But no one in France is saying "we must re-write Flaubert - his style is so old-fashioned, it just won't do anymore" or perhaps they too are being affected by dumbing down.   Not that I'm saying new translations are dumbing down, but the sense that we need them is a bit.  And of course some traditional translations are a bit wonky...

I guess the nice thing is being in a room with people who have similar cultural references and aren't afraid to use them.  It's not that local chums aren't bright and interesting, but I suppose because we are all involved with local stuff, we all tend to talk about that, and the wider world doesn't get a look in - also because I tend to see them at things like private views and public meetings, rather than having proper relationships with them, it's an odd set up.  I'm sure they'd come to my funeral, but they never invite us round for supper...But of course I do have actual friends here now, I mean people I have one-to-one relationships with like A, and er... Sam of course, and L and are getting on well, and D, who curiously has linked up with TM - our new potential client...

Today's plan is to go and get a cat from Cats in Crisis.  That's such a great name for a charity - I wonder if there is an equivalent called Giraffes in Jeopardy?  Dogs in Danger, Tortoises in Trouble... According to KE you can practically order your cat, they have so many there.   I want a ginger/tabby neutered Tom with strong mousing qualities...

April - not cruellest month... yet

It has been too nice to blog.  And I have actually been working, not on Conscience (well only about 500 words) but on work related things, and voluntary stuff, and having a re-think about 17 Years which although I liked it, I never thought the beginning was right - I wanted to jealousy to be age-old, to start in teenage years... danger of making the opening chapter a bit like The Formative Year - but a teenage party can be a turning point - in so many ways... and I'm sure I can't be the only person who has found this.  In fact, I realised that Rosamund Lehmann had dealt with some of this material many years ago.... no one has ever seen that parallel with TFY, probably because no one reads her any more. 

Weather is fabulous.  Garden is fabulous.  Today I am "relaxing" i.e. cooking for 11 and having the SoA around - although I keep wanting to call them inappropriately the SOE... I am trying to judge what sort of intensity of housework needs to be done.   Fortunately, last week we had RP's toy theatre production of Valsha the Slave Queen - and 20-odd people for that, and so the house is reasonably tidy.,

The garden smells heavenly: narcissus, the last of the hyacinths and the viburnum burckwoodii, and the clem. amandii.  If I wasn't so busy I would feel really quite happy.  Even M has been less of a pain since he has been out on site most of the week.

Next week we are all at home, as the boys have just broken up - and I think I will be on holiday mode, except that I ought to be doing things, I do have 3 business meetings, some other things as well, and the coaching.    I decided yesterday I didn't want to do it any more.  And now, magic, N says he can't take F to London... so, like magic, I have stepped into the breach!  It will mean driving, since the trains are really expensive first thing in the morning... but it means I can go and do something, perhaps have lunch with Amanda... must go and email her.