Pictures

Time for some pictures - so far I have managed to have the most boring looking blog on the internet, due to my limited DTP skills.   So a few pictures will occasionally enliven this.

This is my back garden, taken last year 1st May.   Looking at it I am wondering what has happened to some of those plants - a cold winter and the terrible way that tulips seem to disappear after a year or so, and the sad fact that my favourite narcissus, pheasant's eye - and all its variants, don't seem to like my garden - that clump has come up blind this year.

And this is my front door - the peeling pillars are an inheritance from the former owners, who painted the red brick pink and the stone top of the pillars gold - nice for 70's Copenhagen, or 60's California, or Islington, but  not for Ramsgate in the late 90's.  One day I will manage to remove that paint... there's a product specially for getting paint off brickwork.

A view of Ramsgate beach.... too many flints for totally relaxed entry to the sea, but it's lovely once you get in,  and usually lovely throughout July, August and September: take one bottle of chilled wine, a pile of olives, some tomato foccacia and some reading material and you have a perfect day on the beach.   On leaving the beach you may stop at the Belgian Bar for a drink - or anywhere else along the Harbour... a few more olives a bit more wine... then toddle home, a ten minute walk... why I love living here.   However, it begs the question, what does one do in the other 9 months?

And here is a lovely thing... a metal sculpture of a boar - rootling around the spring flowers at the Salutation gardens in Sandwich... a wonderful combination of nature and culture, which I suppose is what gardening is all about.

That's enough pics for the present I think.

Haircut

I went to have my hair cut at Toni and Guy's in Canterbury, because my brother Ben gave me vouchers for it for Christmas.  Very loud salon - white, MTV on, nice hairdresser - interested in antiques and vintage stuff - had extraordinary 70s looking hair and sideburns... quite a nice hair cut, but all the interesting features (curls around the edge, disappeared by lunch time).   When I came home Mark admired it.   Finn came in and said "is that your hair cut?" and  "How much did it cost?" "£52 - it just looks like someone's tampered with it."

Maybe I'd better return to the bosom of Marcello - in a while...

Cats and birds

As long as there are cats and birds in the world I can never be completely bored.  I was sitting here when I saw two collar doves mobbing a magpie - the magpie settled in our crab apple tree - then a second one joined.  They hopped around avoiding the collar doves, who after a while returned to their nest in the roof.  The magpies jigged up and down in the tree, hopping about, one sitting in the sun, with the light catching the iridescent feathers in the tail... they stayed there for a while, squawking and clucking - until I saw some violent movement, and saw that Tac - a local cat was storming up the tree towards them.   He was halfway up but they moved to the top branches, and he clambered about looking for a way of getting up to the top level.  The magpies taunted him, until he made the leap up to the next section - one flew off, the other moved to the thinnest outermost branches of the tree.  From there he seemed to be teasing Tac, daring him out to the branches that would not bear him.   Tac boldly advanced, benefiting from all the crossing branches to make his way across to the magpie, but couldn't quite reach him - he flashed his tail furiously until the magpie flew off.  Tac then began to retreat gingerly, he could easily have fallen between the twigs - and was dithering about how to take his next step, when he noticed another cat at the foot of the tree.   Furious to see "his" territory encroached on, he found a renewed celerity and sped down the tree, leaping from branch to branch to see off the usurper.

I should be grateful to our neighbour Julian for feeding cats in his front garden, it provides an endless cat circus - not always this exciting, but there is usually some cat life to be observed.

This is not a blog

I don't know what a blog is - I am sometimes invited to write one, sometimes there are conferences where you pay money to be told how to write them.  I write what I like, there isn't a theme, if you see the opening blog last year, you can see that there was an agenda of sorts.  It was never intended to form the basis of anything.  In someways it was just a useful place to hide my diary.

Now, due to my somewhat belated understanding of "how it works" , and of course the fact that the last place to "hide your diary" is on-line I know better.  In fact it is now eternal, until they run out of energy to run the archives, or the space required to archive this stuff runs out... So what I have noticed, looking back over the year is that it provides me with a useful aide-memoire for what I've been doing.   And of course when an astrologer says "some of the themes that were playing out in June will return to haunt you" I can now check what I was considering last June... and see if that's true.

But this is basically a censored diary - I could just start keeping a proper diary again, but I've got out of the habit -so is it worth it?  One writes in the hope of engaging - but no-one is engaged with this - it's read, but not engaged with.   Perhaps people who read blogs don't write comments - just as those who write them don't usually read other blogs much (or perhaps they do).

I've had a very idle day today - I tried to find something I wanted to do, but I really couldn't.  What is wrong with me?  My brain is absolutely dead.  It has come to a full stop.  I think I dreamed about dying last night.  I am in a flux over the book - I ought to be pleased I've got this far, but instead I'm feeling angst and dread of what the Agent will say.  Not that she'll be seeing it until the next edition has been prepared...at least.

I ought to be feeling very good: the sun is shining, a miraculous pay ment of £4,000 has appeared in our bank account, courtesy of HMRC (yes, it must be a mistake - but it's a very timely one) which means we can make a lot of payments and not panic about money we owe... and I have a novel... but instead I am feel scrunched up inside and very anxious indeed.  I have been through a period of very major change in the last few months, I thought I knew where I was going, but now I am having a crisis.  yes, I know I can write, but I'm feeling so frustrated with what I've written.  Tomorrow I will get a hard copy of the novel from the printer and then I can read it properly.  Maybe that will make me feel better.

TV Rubbish

Ach, the horror of ailments - I now officially have gastro-enteritis - the labyrinthitis is linked with it, in other words another virus... I have felt bored all day - tried to edit TRF a bit but uninspired to improve it much, then tried to read, no concentration, dozed a bit, got woken up - stayed awake, v.v. bored, so I have turned on the TV - and found a slightly higher level Friday night offering - it's Sport Relief - on of those charity fundraising nights - weird items, interspersed with appeals.  Currently - underwater ball room dancing...

I have found it difficult to latch on to a book, but finally found Smollet's A Journey through France and Italy provides just the right level of stimulation and familiarity... it mentions the Boulogne lighthouse (the lost Roman one), for example.  Sometimes it's really hard to find a book to read.  Perhaps I have become a history buff without meaning too - it seems so much easier to read history sometimes than anything else.  

Underwater ballroom dancing is rather boring, slower than the regular kind... but probably of great interest to afficionados.

Before I die

There's been such a wave of 1000 things to do/eat/read/see books in the last few years, and I have rather disdained them.

When I was in my 20s I was going to go up the Amazon and visit the Far East etc.etc.  but I realised a few years ago that all that flying about was bad for the planet, and that really I didn't want to go all over the world.   I realise Australia and New Zealand have spectacular scenery but I'm not that interested in going there.

I developed the principle that I would only visit places in the Roman Empire or Alexander's Empire, by train.  Since then I have pretty much stuck to that by not going anywhere except Madrid - only the trains were booked up so we had to go by plane (we returned by coach thanks to the volcano).  However there are still a couple of places I would like to go to outside that category - namely Costa Rica, the Galapagos, bits of Africa that aren't accessible by train, even for Michael Palin.

Although I love the natural world I don't need it to be big and astounding - I get just as much pleasure watching a couple of sparrows squabbling on a station platform, or a colony of lizards living in Roman ruins.  The progress of the quince and apple buds in the garden is just as engaging as anything tropical might be.

I think the reason I'm not that interested in seeing "the rest of the world" - the places beyond the Eurasian/Mediterranean limits are simply lack of understanding of their culture and iconography - there is so much pleasure in seeing buildings and pictures in Europe - because of understanding them and reading them... the Near East and India (can't seriously imagine getting there by train somehow) also have historical connections that engage me, but when it comes to other places I'm less interested.  I don't think I really care so much about novelty - just making connections.  Only connect...

Africa!

I realise sometimes how extremely narrow my life is - I know that writing the book has made it worse, having to endlessly focus on a particular topic has made me live in a sort of fuge state some of the time, where my intellect and other bits don't seem to be engaged.  My most frequent utterance in the day time is something like "Mmm" in different tones of voice "yes, quite, now go away" "I'd like to respond nicely but you're interrupting my train of thought" "Shut up" "please go!"   My external life - when I go out and socialise (or stay in an socialise usually) is also a bit limited.  I wonder how I would cope with someone saying something challenging or interesting... sometimes I feel like I am living in a latter day edition of Flaubert's Dictionary of Received Attitudes - safe, predictable, bourgeois...

Last night I retired early as my stomach was unbearably painful - and oh joy! there was the perfect tv programme on - a wildlife documentary about the Zambezi.  It had the most brilliant photography - and I had that almost hallucinatory sense of ephiphany.  Hey man, the colours! as Mark would say.  I don't know when I have enjoyed anything so much.  I am utterly starved of such things.  There were sensational aerial shots - I especially liked one of a vast group of hippos stretched out along the stream in the last deep places available as the river dried up.  A sinister shot of crocodiles gathering to feast on a dead hippo.  There were some wonderful scenes of carmine bee-eaters making nests in the river banks, and a fish eagle coming among them to prey on them.  Lots of shots of the Victoria falls, but most interesting was a brief shot of the VF dried up - I didn't realise they did that.  Important to ensure one goes at the right time of year obviously.    What I found odd was very little sign of human life - apart from a tribe who lived on the river (impressive feats of catfish spearing) - were there no towns? no farms, no cattle?  It gave the impression that Zambia and Mozambique were just giant wildlife reserves, with more elephants and buffalo than humans. And of course it made we went to go there with a fierce desperation, that all thoughts of large flying insects and snakes could not shift.  I should explain that as a teenager I was alarmed by a very large flying insect in South Africa.

Thinking about that trip to SA it seems hard to connect it with what happened before.  I think the new experiences drove all the old misery out of my mind - and it only returned when I got back to England.  Nevertheless, I slightly wonder whether I may have exaggerated some of the misery and longing I felt in the novel... I mean, I've picked out the bad bits I remember, but forgotten the most satisfactory and enjoyable parts of my life at that time.

I suppose wildlife documentaries fuel the safari tourism business - people go to see baby elephants snorkelling across rivers, not to see urban squalor and have power cuts.  But I expect things are better now, there seems to be a feeling that many African countries are beginning to get their act together.  I would really like to go to Africa again, just for the smell and the colours. It's not something I think of much because it is well beyond the  possibility of planning, but something like that programme makes me feel I would be sorry not to go to Africa again before I die (whereas I could happily leave other places out).   New entry for that I think.

Diet bore: scrambled eggs

Well, having the trots for 3-4 days is a great aid to weight loss.  When I woke up this morning I felt fine, and ravenous, having had nothing for about 16 hours apart from a glass of wine and some pork scratchings (I know all about healthy eating, me).  I had to go for a fasting blood test - so I went, then went to have a coffee and something to eat at the supermarket... (and a life of luxury).  Trying to adhere to a vaguely Atkinsy regime I had scrambled eggs, tomatoes, mushroom and bacon.  It is mysterious how the scrambled egg can be made to resemble little yellow rubber pellets.  Why?  It is apparently freshly cooked - so why kill it?  What happened to the lovely buttery stage - did they ever pass through it?  Or did they look undercooked at that point and concerned about health and safety they decided to boil the mixture to ensure not one soft melting bit remained?  God knows, nobody likes scrambled egg like this - so why do they do it?  The mushrooms tasted a bit odd, the bacon pale and flecked with that pale foam that wet bacon exudes, but the tomato was fantastically nice.  There was wholemeal toast - I ate a bit thinking that it didn't really matter today.  I couldn't eat the whole plateful - my stomach began to grouse about the food input.  So I stopped.

Last night there was an interesting programme on tv about fat - the discovery that people who have gastric bypasses find themselves less interested in food psychologically...the operation affects the stomach's "brain"... I suspect it is something very simple: the stomach has been traumatised, and just as when you have some sort of gastric upset you lose your appetite (if not your hunger), the stomach is not interested in coping with any more food at present while it recovers.  Does it - in the long term - ever recover from the trauma of gastric by-pass?- interesting to see whether that effect is as marked in people who had the op. 10 years or so ago.

The other interesting revelation was about how eating-related hormones are switched on... a classic case was in utero - where a mother eats little during pregnancy (keeping her figure!) the baby is born small and weedy (like me) and as a result eats because it lives in permanent fear of starvation.  This is something so atavistic that it must take years before one can rationalise one's way out of it.  I certainly don't consciously fear starvation now, but I do remember when I was younger eating things "in case".  I don't know where that idea came from - I don't think it was ever consciously expressed by my mother or grandmother.  It never occurred to me that perhaps an 11 stone teenager was unlikely to die of hunger because there would be no food available at her next meal time.


I spoke to A-M last night - she has lost 10.5 stone in 18 months - quite extraordinary - she was very overweight, a size 30-32 - and now she's normal.  She did this with Weight Watchers (where they have changed their values to ensure people don't eat too much carb now).  She is not a major exercise freak - but believes in "moving about" - something I would do well to adopt.  This encouraged me to think that I could and would do it.  The feeling that a lack of exercise will scupper me makes me feel guilty and un-motivated.  She also pointed out that living on her own and just cooking for herself made things a lot simpler.  I unfortunately am currently cooking for one food-loving man and 3 teenage boys... on a tight budget... life would be so easy if I could live off slabs of salmon, lamb chops and spinach and broccoli... with the occasional piece of fruit and lump of cheese.  Will I ever get that freedom?  Once the boys have left I suppose.  But actually I intend to lose this weight by October 2014...not an unreasonable goal.   If I can just force myself to walk around the block occasionally.  

Is it a waste...?

I spent most of the day in bed, snoozing, with a gripey stomach and feeling weak and feverish... hope it's not cholera!

I wonder whether it's good to have a day off?  There are so many things I need to do that I find it hard to rest.  I have been reading some Germaine Greer - since I need to revisit my teenage opinions on love...  Actually, perhaps Marilyn ?'s The Women's Room might have been a better bet - or Betty Friedan... I ought to name check those in the novel.  I think I'll go back to bed - I tried to eat a cheese sandwich - since it was 24 hours since I'd last eaten: it was great, but my stomach doesn't seem to agree.

Rowan Williams

I am sad that Rowan Williams is resigning as Archbishop of Canterbury.  There are so few wise and thoughtful people in public life that they need to be cherished.  That said, in personal terms, 10 years is enough of a martyrdom, and going into academic life is obviously going to be a great relief for him.

The "rent-a-quote" woman from the General Synod, Alison someone, commented that he didn't have great leadership skill and failed to mention "the Lord Jesus Christ" very often.    Those were predictable criticisms from a moderately conservative evangelical and no doubt she will get an archbishop more to her taste next time.  But I wondered about "leadership" - it's such a very worldly virtue - I wondered whether Jesus had "leadership" skills - he was clearly charismatic - but there's a sense that "leadership" wasn't a priority for him.  Also, when it came to the crunch, everyone ran away - and of course, he recognised that you couldn't make people follow you - that's what that verse about "shake the dust from your feet" means to me - if people won't listen to you, don't waste time with them.

It would be impossible for anyone to lead the CofE in a traditional way - it is so divided that it is impossible to imagine a unifying figure - Jesus himself would find it a bit of a job.  How can you lead people in the same direction when they are straying off to belt each other and argue with each other?

As for "the Lord Jesus Christ" - well, that lack of familiarity with him, giving him the full title suggests something vaguely uncomfortable to me - like Catholics who say "the Blessed Virgin Mary" in conversation.   It shows reverence of course - but not intimacy - and when people are "showing reverence" in their everyday speech in what seems an unnatural way then one wonders if they are trying to impress their own piety on you. Or setting themselves up as a better Christian or whatever than people who don't.  Reverence should be a private thing - the language is the language of prayer - not everyday discourse I feel.

This Alison is not much older than me, and is probably not a convert like me, and this may just be her style, but if she is talking for the Church, she needs to think how she is presenting it - and, implicitly, Jesus.

Anyway, Rowan has been the best Archbishop of my time, and I could not hope for a better one, sad to think there are probably only 3 or 5 more left in my life... I doubt if there'll be another like him.

Eventful...

Really these have been a nice few days - Thursday's Roman dinner was great fun - despite the mysterious Kip - whom I fondly expect never to see again.  And I made a bit of money, and my father sent me a helpful cheque, Mark got a tiny job and went to London.  Then I met my cousin Terry and his very nice wife Elizabeth... and this morning I completed the story of The Romantic Feminist.  I will need to edit, add a little here and there - but overall, it is finished in all but name.   Today is a day for chores and tomorrow my mother-in-law comes to have a nice Mother's Day treat... i.e lunch and a visit to a nursery... I think we may have done the same thing last year on Mother's Day - except minus Stella.  I am foregoing my right to have a lovely luxurious lie-in to get up and make lunch...

I have discovered that Kip has been here since June - and nobody knows where he lives - apparently Alex and Keith meet him in various hostelries... Anna thinks she met him at Alex's before - perhaps it was the time I couldn't go.  Anyway, I doubt whether I'll be staying in his Cape Town establishment any time soon, even if we had the money for fares. No one can tell if he's for real or not.  He was wearing a nice shirt that I would swear he couldn't buy around here.  

Rich man, poor man...

Well, the most extraordinary man came to dinner tonight... at first I thought he was a performance artist.  He kept telling me how extraordinary I was - and it got a bit boring, like a stuck record.  At the end of the evening he said that he would never ever have people in his house he didn't know.  How did I know they wouldn't sue me if they slipped and hurt their ankle...?  I said I had to trust they wouldn't be so silly - it was England after all.  He said "in America...?"  I really couldn't make him out.  I felt there was this huge barrier between us (of his making), M said he was aspergic, but I felt it was the kind of barrier people put up to protect themselves.    I have to say, he is the first intriguing person I have met for a long time, and I rather hope he keeps to his plan to take me and Keith (our local PC) out to lunch.

He kept saying "this is the most extraordinary thing that has happened to me in 57 years"... Since he appears to be rather rich and has made money on Wall Street and has 4 houses, I find this difficult to believe.  Perhaps he is just wondering about the normal life we have. Apparently he is a rower and a member of the Leander club.  He will probably get bored with me before I get bored with him, since I don't mind telling people about myself, and he obviously is more discreet.  Anyway, I was glad he came - he made life interesting... and we made £120 which was a good haul... I haven't done the sums, but I'm sure that's a really decent profit.    I wonder if Kip will take me out to lunch in Whitstable... I think he's looking for a guru rather than a woman... so I'm probably safe.  Especially if I have a police bodyguard!

Local vs. London

The demolition of the cooling towers on Sunday brought something home to me: that living here we now live in a "proper place" where people have roots and links and connections.  The thing about London is that although we knew our own area well, and other parts we had lived in, we didn't belong - All the hype nowadays about London being a "world city" is true in a rather negative way.  One doesn't feel it belongs to oneself - because one has no stake in it - one only has a stake in Camberwell or Highgate or wherever.  We have our small communities, but the vastness of it is alienating.  No one says "I remember when this was all fields" or some equivalent statement.  Because very few people have been there long enough to remember.  I am sure there were people in Walworth whose ancestors were living there when the Normans arrived - but I doubt whether many of them knew or cared about it.   There is local history in London - but it's not quite so grounded somehow.  Or maybe I just never met the right people.

Arguably there is just too much local history around here - but it was interesting hearing about how people had connections with the power station at Richborough.  And how they linked the demise of the towers to personal events or emotions.  There is a connectedness.  Of course the downsides are well known, but I won't go over them again here.  At least we do have an art gallery to go to on Sunday afternoons now.

Dreams - Morning

It is - at 6.00am - a beautiful morning - a clear blue sky gradually brightening - a seagull drifting across...Outside the window the quince tree is budding - and the white clematis flowers climbing through the apple tree seem to glow slightly.

I woke up early because I had an anxiety dream about moving house: whether this reflects an underlying anxiety that we will have to have our house repossessed if we don't pay the mortgage, or perhaps the issue of housing that affects my heroine in TRF, I don't know.  Of course, it could be more symbolic - that I am moving on in some way.  But in the dream we were moving from a rented property where we had to ensure we took all our stuff away and left the landlady's stuff behind - and we kept finding more and more things to pack when we thought we had finished.  We were moving to Devon - a friend had found a place for us.   It was a strange dream, it ended with me hearing a child on a bike in a garden braking suddenly and Bernard (our cat) miaowing angrily.   I woke up - Bernard was not miaowing or anywhere around, so that was a relief.

The moving on theme is an underlying one in my life.  M is being both thoughtless and irritating and sweet and conciliatory.  I feel like a bully. He wants desperately for me to reassure him that we will be together forever - and I can't.  I wonder whether we will reach a sort of age-related tipping point, after which I will never be able to "move on".  And there is something rather hideous about that idea - that you discard people you've outgrown.   I am not sure if I've really become such a wise and intelligent person that I cannot be expected to stay... the unkindness involved in going would be too horrific - I expect a lot of people would think the worst of me.  Oh dear, sometimes it is very difficult to divorce fantasy from reality.  The fact is, I think about this separation occasionally, and when I do, I immediately shiver at the thought of being so unkind.  I think one's daydreams about these things are very unhelpful: they show you the "before" and "after" picture of your life - without all the "in between" bits - where you explain to your husband and children why you are doing it, and the logistics involved.   Anyway, it isn't really an issue at the moment.  I am too much of a serial monogamist to walk out on my own. As someone said to me "if you really wanted to, you would have done something about it now."   I suppose it is a "Good Enough" marriage - there is no urgent need to depart.  I wish I felt more positively about it and him.  I've been praying that I will get back what we used to have - but I need to change back to who I used to be - and that's difficult since I no longer have dependent children.

Eating & Writing

This is a sequenl to "Constraint" which I wrote a few days ago.  Last week I wrote properly, every day, and produced a great deal.  As a result, I seemed to need less food... and I lost about 5 cm on my waist... and I am beginning to feel thinner.  Have I finally cracked how to live properly?

The Cooling Towers

We woke up really early this morning - so that we could go and see the cooling towers come down.  Mark thought very few people would be out, but as we came to the Westcliff there was a solid stream of walkers and the whole area above the bay was full of people - some on top of the cliff, others at the  bottom.   We spent a lot of time trying to get the right photo - and position - etc.  The demolition was scheduled for 9.00am, but I didn't think it would really happen on time, so while we were fiddling with the cameras there was an "oooh" and I looked up to see the first tower falling - then the second, then the third - finally the great chimney.  All that was left was a great cloud of dust - and then we heard the four explosions.

I felt a bit unengaged by it - because I was too busy worrying about the camera.  When we first came here we hated them, then like everyone we began to see them as a sign of home: one could see them from afar - like Avebury Hill - they acted as a signpost to Ramsgate.  I am curiously sorry to see them go - I wonder what they will do with the land - perhaps more solar fields.

It was a beautiful sunny day and we went to the Belgian Bar for breakfast - along with everyone else, which is why we had to wait an hour to be served!  But it was nice to be out together, although M clearly had low blood sugar and was a bit agitated - he wanted to sit outside...kept going on about it.  I realise it is quite wearing the way he insists on saying or doing something again and again even when I have told him... last night he kept trying to give me a glass of wine at the theatre even though I'd said "can you wait until my hands aren't full (tickets, money, programme, change, purse, etc.) - 4 times he tried to give me the glass - even though my hands were full and I didn't have a free hand.  Why?  It is some sort of brain damage I fear... or not engaging or noticing.  I don't think it is getting worse, but I fear my patience has completely worn away...

Last night we had another cultural highlight - a performance of La Traviata - in Broadstairs!   It was wonderful.   I have to write a review about it for Stage Corner... which I haven't done yet.

We are going out again this evening - to see Robert's Eidophusikon - based on works by de Loutherberg - he has been talking about this for a couple of years and I am intrigued to see what it will be like - whether just a panorama - or something more engaging?

Robert is a great artist -  but in an art so reliant on the artist's presence that I fear he will disappear after his death - unless other theatre people take up and revive his work.  Still, he's only a few years older than me, so I hope to enjoy much more of his art before the end.

Opera!

We went to the opera tonight - in Broadstairs.  It was a small touring updated production of La Traviata, directed by Kit Hesketh-Hardy - I dreaded that it might be naff - it seemed rather short - and very gripping...I haven't felt as engaged by an opera for a long time.  Best of all, we got free tickets thanks to the fact that I am going to review it on the Stage Corner blog... and perhaps do one for ThanetWatch...

It is a very long time since I went to the opera on a regular basis: this is not a good area for opera - I have seen one since I moved here, I Capuleti e I Monticchi at the Theatre Royal Margate... Inevitably, we will be seeing smaller "chamber operas" but on the basis of this evening's experience - this is a good thing.  There is an intimacy and engagement, that one doesn't get in the upper slips at Covent Garden or the Upper Circle at ENO... I can vaguely remember what they are like.... so long since we went, but in 2003 we saw The Trojans  at ENO... I would love to see some Mozart again - perhaps next year...

Cousins!

While I was waiting for the Full Moon in the 11th house to make all my wishes come true, I received an email from a first cousin once removed who lives about 30 minutes drive away.

I have always wanted to get to know more of my Irish family - we're all in the diaspora - and I knew I once had a great uncle in Dover... but I was amazed that this cousin was so close, and so closely related.  Of course I have loads of cousins I've never met of a similar degree... and they were put onto me by a cousin in the US... I wonder if its' one of Frankie's children...so weird having all this genetic material in the world without any contact.  So glad to put something right.I hope to learn a lot, since Terry Carroll is Uncle Joe's son, he must have heard a great deal.

Really mad astrology...

I am currently reading a rather odd book that I found in Norwich and borrowed: it is about how astrology was used during WW2 by the Germans and the British secret service.   It starts with a long discussion about early 20thC German astrological movements, one of which found a lot of events were happening which they couldn't explain - they therefore posited that there must be another, invisible planet, that hadn't yet been discovered, influencing events - so they invented one, and an orbit for it - which would account for things.  However, this still didn't account for everything, so they posited a second undiscovered planet, different orbit etc.   Eventually they had 8 additional imaginary planets that needed to be included in a horoscope and provided ephemeris charts for all of them.

Hmmm.... of course this didn't work, because astrology isn't a science - but I couldn't help being reminded of cosmologists using a similar method - if the maths doesn't work there must be another factor, say "dark matter" or "dark energy" - these remain to be proved, but in some cases probably cannot be proved.   I suppose the German astrologers were using some sort of scientific process on unscientific matters - presumably the cosmologists are on firmer ground?

The magic

This is from the Only Writing blog - but since this blog has more readers, I thought I'd duplicate it here.

On Sunday I was in a terrible state of gloom, despair, ennui, lassitude - full on depressive symptoms in short - it didn't help that it was raining heavily... we tried to go out, got half way there, then gave up.  So, we came home, had a row, and generally Sunday was write-off.

Yesterday I spent nearly all day writing and completed 3,000 new words including the dreaded sex scene.  I felt positive and cheerful and even phone conversations with creditors didn't shatter me.  At the end of the day I could watch tv with a cheerful heart.   This morning I awoke early and put my light on and read... today I have spent all day at the desk and have managed another 3,800 - which includes a re-cycled section. I may write a bit more later.  I am still feeling cheerful and practical and functioning well. 
#
There is a great magic in doing what one likes, when it also happens to be what one ought to do.  I think I was unhappy at the weekend because I was really frustrated at not being able to write.  I am hoping if I write solidly all week I may be able to enjoy next weekend.  Fortunately this week I have "no engagements" - so apart from a bit of shopping (which I could do on-line) I don't have to go out at all.   The other great joy is that when I am writing properly I am liberated to read more.  I often don't read because I feel I shouldn't - now I think I can, because I've put in the hours during the day.

My writing methods are erratic.   Usually I sit and listen to Radio 4 for a bit - then I turn it off and type furiously, for an hour or so.  Then I see I have mysteriously acquired 1,500 words or so - then I play Spider Solitaire for a bit - then type a bit more - have some tea, have lunch - listen to a radio play - type more - another chunk - then look at emails, FB, Twitter and this blog.  Then I make supper.  Sometimes I write after supper, usually I don't.  Unfortunately, I am probably killing myself by sitting down too long. Must try to walk about a bit - perhaps I could do some ironing between bursts of writing?  Ha!

Cosmology - an apology; religion; gay marriage.

A few months ago I was feeling rather gleeful at the prospect of a discovery that there was something - a particle - that appeared to be moving faster than the speed of light.  It now appears that this was probably a defect in the experimental equipment.    I was just listening to Prof. Martin Rees on the radio, and it reminded me of this.  I think at the time I had two reasons for feeling gleeful: firstly because it was very intellectually exciting - even though I was in no position to extrapolate anything from it - but secondly there is something very atavistic about my response.   I feel that cosmology is an intellectual discipline which has some paralells with religions - yes, it is underpinned by maths, while religion is underpinned by common experience - but it is speculative, it is based on an attempt to understand the universe, just as religion is (sometimes) based on an attempt to understand the nature of God and then do what is right in accordance with that understanding (some religion is based on something much more primitive - but that's un altro discorso)  So my second source of joy was at the discomfiture of a rival system of understanding...

What I liked about Martin Rees was that he does not dismiss religion - but says it's a system which has no overlap with science and therefore can't really be discussed in scientific terms.  This is exactly what I believe too - but what I don't understand about the New Atheists (yes, that is what they are called) is their apparent desire not to rest until any scrap of belief in God has been roundly destroyed... why are they so keen to demolish our views?  Actually, I know why - it's because they think we (people with faith) have a pernicious effect on liberal society.   And this week a Catholic Cardinal - Keith O'Brien has come out with a scorcher about gay marriage.

I was delighted when civil partnerships became possible - it seemed fair and just and good that gay people should have the opportunity to make a public commitment to someone they loved.   Gay marriage is a different question though - not because I anyway am trying to exclude them, more trying to understand why homosexual people should wish to participate in what is - speaking anthropologically and sociologically - a very heterosexual ritual.  Weddings are great - but marriage is intended to provide a legal structure for inheritance and legitimising children.  Presumably a civil partnership already does this.   Marriage as a sacrament is simply the church taking over the Roman marriage rituals and claiming it for its own - then extrapolating a theology around marriage... I do not believe churches should be forced to "marry" homosexuals - but I do not believe churches should entertain any prejudice against them either.   Unfortunately, it is rather difficult to separate these things... inevitably those churches which will not marry homosexuals will tend to be the prejudiced ones. 

Traditionally radical gays refused to ape heterosexual practices - such as monogamy - now it appears that the majority of gay people want this right.  I don't see why they can't have civil marriage services if they want it - but individual churches will have to make their own choices.  I am not much looking forward to the anodyne words of the gay wedding service that the Church of England will create - or will they just edit the current one - with the inappropriate phrases removed.  I am sure that there are plenty of traditionally minded gay people who might like the 1666 amended BCP service at their wedding: with my body I thee worship etc.   What I do know is, that if there is any move towards this in the CofE the African church will go mad and probably secede, so we shall have that kerfuffle to look forward to.

Fantasy Husbands

Last night I dreamed I was at a party in Ramsgate, talking to Elvis Presley - I don't think I've ever dreamed about Elvis Presley before.  He certainly isn't Fantasy Husband material either - being dead.  A certain amount of liveliness is required in FH candidates.

And why are we thinking about FH's again?   Because I have had a row with Real Husband again, nothing very significant, it's just that whenever we do have a row I can't bear to think about being with him for a minute longer. 

There is a more serious underlying issue here.  I realised, having more or less come off the Citalopram, that I am actually depressed and need to speed back onto them.  I am not impossibly terribly depressed, but I feel grim when I wake up - I spend a lot of the time feeling as if I am crying internally, I am irritated, any moments of cheerfulness I feel are easily dissipated by a few cross words and I have lost interest in virtually everything.   That ticks quite a few of the boxes...

This afternoon we tried to go to the Turner - but it was raiing and it just made me feel miserable - we drove to Joss Bay - sat in the car, talked, stared at the sea and then drove on, intending to go to Turner, but I begged Mark to turn around so we could go home.  I thought sitting by the fire, having tea and watching a film would be nice and cosy and we could encourage the boys by buying cakes.    We  buy cakes, M becomes progressively more grumpy, by the time we get home he is ranting about his blood sugar, how he could go blind etc.  I point out that nothing stops him eating sugary foods if he feels like it.  Then I got cross, because in my effort to build bridges with the boys, I was being pulled down on the other side of the family.   I thought "sod it!" and came upstairs and started writing.  I cannot get Mark to take anything like depressions seriously, I am trying really hard to be nice and be good... but it is hard with a bit of depression, and harder still when no one is being very supportive.

Mark is of course very good about lots of things - DIY - despite a marked tendency to start new projects before he has completed old ones.  But at the moment I really find myself wanting to be alone - and he spends all his time either wanting to be with me, or picking fights with me (last night it was a critique of Anna G).   We've had quite a social time lately - and I really need to work - not be distracted by endless phone calls etc. and chit-chat.  I was hoping we'd have a pleasant w/e this weekend, but we haven't.  So there it is.

Would I be doing better with an FH?  Well - some FH's would find themselves things to do and people to see and leave me alone.   The boys are a problem, because they no longer want to go out and do things at the weekend.  The FH would have a bit more money of course, so he could offer them outings they'd like - like trips to London or France.  I could stay at home and write.

Perhaps it's a Fantasy Self I want: someone who has regained her mojo and is not jaded and miserable.  Predictably my diet has broken down again... so even more reason to loathe myself.  Argh, self-pity - nothing can make it attractive can it?

Constraint

All day I've wanted to write - and all day things have interrupted me.  First there was book group - that was fine, then it was time to clear up the spare room to show the estate agent. Then I had a bit of break - and when I was thinking of getting down to some work I had boys coming home from school to tend, and then I felt tired and had a snooze.

I really need a good chunk of time to do stuff... I don't like feeling I'm going to be interrupted.  So I need to schedule things all for the same day, so that I can ensure I have some free days for writing - and the other "sacrificial days" for when I know I can't.   I am completely amazed how much this sense of "commission" from The Agent has impelled me to write with such intensity.  It's also a commitment to The Romantic Feminist - I really want to make it into something good - and I can't see how to do that until I've finished the first draft...

These constraints are not good - they reduce my commitment to the diet - and make me grumpy and resentful of the nearest and dearest who wish to engage me in conversation on matters of interest to them.  I think, in all honesty, that this would be true whoever my N&D was... it's not just Mark, it's my need to write being frustrated by whomever... men are so demanding.

Today I was troubled by drifting thoughts on the ever interesting subject, but I think it's just a reflex. 

Happy Birthday Pugin

I went to Pugin's 200th birthday party tonight.  It was fun - and quite interesting.  The food was a bit odd - and everyone thought I'd been involved with it.   I think that Suzy has taken my novel writing v. seriously and never asks me to do anything like that any more.  I don't think it matters: I just want to be a consumer these days - not a producer, apart from the writing of course.

It was quite fun because although I ostensibly went with Alex and Anna we talked to a number of different people.  The main aggro was that it was matter of sitting around tables and when we arrived (late) there was no obvious room - but we managed to find a spot between Tricia and Jamie who I met at the Festival Club last week - and Thomas Brown, one of the local journos, and his friend Sam who is another journalistic trainee.

All in all, quite a jolly evening - although I don't think I learned much.  Clive's performance as MC was great - but I think "Seatof thePants Theatre" might be a good name for the group.  He is trying to perform a play about Pugin - but this wasn't an evening for the preview - only a sketch... It's interesting that Robert P decided not to do anything about Pugin - he felt his life, while full of drama, somehow didn't seem theatrical in the "right way".  On the whole I trust Robert's judgement - but that's because we have a lot in common.  I also heard the Indigo Quartet for the first time (Jonathan F's mob)... lots of religious music.  I found the Gregorian chant Dies Irae  very touching - but I could see some of the audience getting restive.  There was also a lovely setting of the Psalm about Jonathan - with the refrain How are the mighty fallen - appropriate for Richard Dawkins' funeral perhaps...

But Pugin, for goodness sake - I can't decide about Pugin - I think part of me is a bit contrarian about it all - I like St. A's abbey, which he designed, but I don't think it's proper medieval Gothic at all - he seems to have had no real historical sense.  He claimed Gothic was a true English architecture - although in fact it was French/Continental.  And to be honest, give me Sant Ivo alla Sapienze by Borromini against any building by Pugin.  I've always liked real medieval architecture - and learned to distrust and dislike the lumpy Victorian substitutes.  Pugin hated Wyatt's "restorations" - but looked at from the 20thC they don't seem much worse than his designs.   Yes, he was a fascinating person - but a lot of his work seems lumpen compared with real Gothic.   Great at doing tiles though - I like his tile designs quite a lot.

All architectural styles pre-19thC seem to have derived from the Continent.  I guess Pugin was very influential - all those Victorian terraces owe something to him... their details, the terracotta tiles, the elaborate fretwork on the barge boards - cruciform bas-relief patterns on window mouldings etc.  But is the Victorian terrace really that different from the Regency terrace - apart from the matter of mouldings and details?  Discuss.

A visit to a museum

I went to a gallery yesterday - the Sainsbury's Centre at UEA in Norwich.  I usually love museums and galleries and feel energised and inspired by them.   However, on this occasion, I wasn't.  I think this is partly because I was hot and bothered... and also because I had an irresistible urge to write, so that dominated.

However, when I'd had coffee, finished writing etc. I went around the collection.  I'm not sure whether the collection I saw is the permanent collection, or whether they change the displays regularly and have a lot more stuff in store.  I suspect the former.  The collection was largely about the human body and faces so there were lots of "primitive art" pre-Columbian stuff, items from 15th C Benin, some Chinese and Egyptian items and a lot of Native American things. There were also some 20thC paintings (a lot of Bacon, some Giacommetti and a Modigliani), the pride of the collection is clearly a Degas bronze of a young dancer.  It was an interesting collection, although there was no classical stuff in it - so I wondered what it represented exactly: how "primitive" art influenced 20thC painting?  Or was it just about the face and the body.  Actually, there were other items - carved fish and a conch shell made out of glazed terracotta.   I don't think this is the whole collection, as there were postcards of other items in the shop, but perhaps those came from exhibitions. 

There were 4 exhibitions: I saw 3 of them, one of Art Nouveau - attractive but underwhelming - I sort of "did" Art Nouveau in the V&A a few years ago and this display didn't really tell me anything new - except how some of the artists had been inspired by engravings of flora and fauna in natural history texts.  Darwin had a prominent place - but I'm not sure we can really say On the Origin of Species was the major influence for the development of Art Nouveau - it's just a fashionable trope.   Another exhibition was a quite interesting photography one - with pictures of houses in the US and in Calcutta - details such as shrines, plates of food, sofas etc. The third one (I skipped the Manga exhibition) was a display of characters in Japanese comic books etc. this was mildly amusing - especially the characters who were real kittens dressed in vaguely superhero costumes.   Wonder if I can get pictures of them.

Why wasn't this trip inspiring?  Don't know - I like making connections - but in the exhibitions all the connections were made for me - in the main display it was so heavily themed that one could do nothing but make the most obvious observations: doesn't that Native American mask look exactly like the face on the Modigliani?   One thing I did notice was a tiny Egyptian relief carving - dating to 2,300BC - in exactly the style of all Egyptian work up to the time of the Ptolemies.  Another observation was that it was rather more beautiful than a great many other things on display.  It is fascinating how many cultures develop an ugly style and stick with it.   I really find the "lumpiness" of most Pre-Columbian art rather horrid.  Yes, I can understand its fascination but I wouldn't give it house room.