An outing to the cinema

I love films, but most of the ones I'd like to see never come to Ramsgate, so I am left with the ones that do come: most of these are not my sort of thing, violent action thrillers or kiddie films.  The Exotic Marigold Hotel threatened to be a bit heart warming - and indeed it was, but it was still quite enjoyable.  Firstly because it had several fantastic actors in it.  Secondly because it was set in Jaipur and part of it was filmed in Udaipur... and I got glimpses of places I'd seen and been to.  It made me want to go to India again - up to a point.

The best thing about it was a wonderful indian saying:  Everything will be fine in the end, and if it's not fine, it's not the end yet.

Very cheering somehow. I shall have it written in pokerwork and hang it over the mantelpiece  (it will look silly on top of the mirror, but hey...)

Weather

The English are famous for writing about the weather, or talking about it.  I have largely eschewed this in this blog, because it can be boring.  However today it is just pissing me off and I will comment.   For the last two weeks the weather has been intermittently wet and windy - there have been several days of beautiful sunshine - Friday was one - but it was also blowing a gale.  Last weekend was rather lucky.  

I am rather a wimp about bad weather - and seaside bad weather is much much worse than London bad weather.  Our roof has held up - although a laminated slate came down in the front garden, and the really heavy rain/hail has put some pressure on the vulnerable spots.

But I particularly hate high winds at this time of year - clumps of leaves and blossoms and rosebuds litter the ground - the red crabapple flower is opening - but also being blown to bits.

I feel the need to stay indoors - but I also hate it, because I need the outdoors - not in a dramatic way, but if I don't at least have 10 minutes in the garden every day I feel disconnected.  Going out and looking at the developments in the garden is incredibly energising - it consoles my anxieties to see that, for example, the omphaloides cappadocia is finally flowering, or the buds on the sambucus niger are growing larger.   I still have several plants to plant - and some plants to dig up.    The campanula I planted a few years ago is desperate... I planted it as ground cover in an attempt to smother the oxalis, but it's almost worse.  I want to get a clump of it up and plant an uvularia grandiflora.   I also want to reduce the ranks of the geranium macrorrhizum once it has flowered.  It is ground cover too - but has gone mad, and even the geranium endressi has gone beyond its bounds and is smothering the batalini tulips and provide a hostel for snails.

However today will not be the day to tackle these problems.   Maybe we can go to the cinema this afternoon - if there's anything on.

Melancholy

I had a productive day: cleaned up the kitchen, prepared food, washing, returned glasses, bought a new kettle and went to Pegwell Bay to the pub to correct my MS.  I sat there for about an hour and a half, with a large and delicious gin, engaged in this story - then M came.  I found it hard to adjust to the reality.  I found it hard to talk to him, I felt like those middle aged couples who sit in silence, because they said all they had to say about 27 years ago and there's nothing left.   In our case it's not true, we did talk about his marketing exercise - and how much he was learning from doing it.  (He's doing a trawl for new potential clients, due to the failing nature of one or two of his old clients).   But I felt tired - it was very windy so I had been sitting inside in a bright sunny window, overlooking the sea.  I thought it was the gin, I thought it was the sunshine, I had a soft drink, we each had a plate of food and then went home, had a further snack (we'd only had starters) and felt gloomy, I decided it was because I was tired, so I went to bed and slept for about 90 minutes, and hoped I'd feel better when I woke up.

I woke up, I sat at my computer, I looked at my emails...I felt empty and sad.  I did the I Ching.  Now I feel on the edge of tears - which is unusual for me in my medicated state.  Is it the book?  Is the autobiographical nature of it making things more painful for me?  Will I feel better when I've finished the edit?  Will I feel better when I've got going on the next book?  Will writing 17 Years make things better...?  The on-line I Ching asks this: (42, Increasing)


What would you do if you knew you were blessed?
What if there were no limits?
What could change for the better?

I have answers to these questions, although I can hardly dare express them.  And some of the things that would make things better might involve another person, who might not want to participate in the project!  And some of the things that would make things better for me, would make things worse for other people.


‘True and confident, with a benevolent heart,
No question: good fortune from the source.
Truth, confidence and benevolence are my own strength.’

Truth and benevolence are probably features of my nature, confidence is only a recent acquisition, but my emotional life is not an area where I have any confidence, because I cannot assert myself there.  I can't even send an email and get a reply.  I could text I suppose - but what:?

The other half of the I Ching reading - is Nourishment - what is nourishing you?   This is always pertinent.  It doesn't answer my question - it reflects it.  What nourishes me is writing - and close relationships with people... that is why life is difficult often, because I have gradually become lonely.   This is such a contrast to my feeling of rejuvenation last week.

Last night there was Festival Club - which is fun, I talked to people I liked a bit, and Emily Tull gave a good talk... but but but...I felt outside, not part of it.  Is that my nature, is that reality? or is it the fact that I am so closely engaged with the inner life of the novel, that anything else, other social contacts, don't work.  Which is partly why I am not enjoying reading so much, but that said, I am really enjoying The End of the Affair by Graham Greene - it is striking a lot of chords with me.  I nearly fainted when I started reading it - the opening lines were extremely similar to one of my (now discarded) possible openings for The Romantic Feminist.  It was consoling to see that love stories can be written by great writers too.  Oh what nonsense, so many great novels are love stories.   Er, well, perhaps not.  Manon Lescaut, all of J Austen, Brontes, oh, I can't be bothered to do a list. But the point is, I felt there was a tradition, and perhaps the Catholic conscience of GG was something we had in common, which might create a similar slightly anguished attitude towards love, especially of the adulterous kind.

Dieting

I am always dieting and now I'm fed up with it - but I still have to do it, because I have the horrible example of my mother to consider.  I realise I am more at risk of stroke/heart disease/diabetes etc. if I don't lose weight.  On the other hand, I am fairly healthy, although not at all fit.  I have lowish cholesterol, ok blood sugar, and v. good heart function and good levels of good cholesterol.   Against that I should set all the "creaking gate" joint pains (what the hell is going on with my knee?).

For the last year or so M has been urging me to have some surgical intervention (gastric band type thing).  I love the idea of using a lot of weight, but can't stand the idea of telling myself that I really haven't got the grinta  to lose the weight myself.   It seems wrong that the only way you can lose weight is to cede your autonomy to a process/the medical care.  However, last autumn I told myself that if I hadn't lost a "substantial" amount of weight by June that I would inquire into baryatric surgery... perhaps the balloon thing wouldn't be so bad.  M has had the implications of the gastric band explained to him and has become less keen on it.  Personally the thought of all the health issues and discomforts and implications are not making it any more attractive:  " 'Tis flying in the face of nature!"

Somehow I have to get back to the place I was in spring 2009 when I was losing weight and doing exercise and feeling really happy.  Writing helps, I am not distracted by the kitchen. I get quite bored with food.
The trouble is that I have been on a low carb regime on and off since about 2009 -  I had a "holiday" from it in summer 2010 and never got back on top of it again.  Must never take a holiday again - maybe the odd dish of pasta (it was pasta with fresh sardines etc. that did it!).

Anyway, having dieted in a vague way since Christmas, losing 5 kg and putting most of them on again, I have decided the only way to go is extreme - that way you know you can't have anything... so I have gone on to the original Dr. Atkins diet - which I first did in 1977!  It is just protein and water - and nothing else.  I am only going to do it for 2 weeks, to give myself a kick start.  The only good news is that when I finally weighed myself, I find I am at the bottom of the range - so only about what I was in 2009 when I started the diet.  With any luck two weeks of this should shift 4-5 kg and I will feel better, and perhaps try the odd walk.   The great thing about the extreme diet is that having 5-6 green beans is actually cheating - so you wouldn't dare have cake... although I did have a small piece of the latest loaf yesterday - because I wanted to try it, it looked so good.   I think dieting would be easier if I didn't make bread and cakes - I can resist the commercial versions of these so easily, but home made cake is almost impossible...

The other thing in 2009 was that Mark was "dieting" because he'd just found out about his blood sugar (I think?) and so it was easier for me to cut stuff out.  Now that his blood sugar is back to normal, he is eating fairly normally, including puddings etc.  He still calls himself "diabetic" - but technically he isn't.  Meanwhile Finn is getting stouter again - and wanting to diet - but he is a carbs addict, it will be hard for him.  And he doesn't like that many veggies.

Losing weight makes me feel happy - I should do it more often!  But eating really delicious food (like freshly baked bread!) also makes me feel happy - no matter what thin people say about dieting, it is more difficult and complex than eating less and moving around more.

Silent bliss

After a hard day's editing, cooking and keeping on top of kitchen mess, we had supper and a couple of glasses of wine.  I then, finally got to go into the garden.  It has rained all day virtually, and so it was damp, slightly fragrant and covered with snails.  But it was just bliss somehow to see all the different leaves opening and the flowers gradually emerging.  The incredible sense of potential never ceases to amaze me, and it makes me feel full of potential too.  There is something so perfect about this time of year - the quince tree has more buds on it than ever this year, the apple leaves are coming out bright green ahead of the blossom.  The best tulips are still to come, there are buds on all the rose bushes, and the winter flowering shrubs all have excellent bright new leaves; the honeysuckle leaves are hiding buds.  It's just lovely, and quiet - just a couple of seagulls flying over, calling each other.  It makes me feel as if I am in love.  Sadly not.  Perhaps that's the fate of the second half of life - the feeling of love gets attached to the inanimate, given the lack of suitable human material.

I should perhaps say it was more like the feeling I had as a child - seeing a flower and sensing the Ideal that lay behind it... one wants to see plants simultaneously in bud and in flower... the potential and the fulfillment. It made me feel extraordinarily happy.

Rejuvenation!

Had such a great time yesterday.  M took Finn out in the morning - Ned was engaged with music etc. and I did some gardening - the sun shone.   At 1 ish Anna G came over and we decided we would go to the Grange - but have lunch first - so we had a bottle of wine and some stuff at Caboose - a newish cafe in the town - and had great crack.   So why spoil it with a trip to the Grange - which we'd both been to before?  We left Caboose, loud surfaces meant I couldn't hear so well - and she was talking in a low voice because the waitress is one of her neighbours (the joys of small town life).  So we went to another bar and had another bottle and some prawns... Then I went home to make pizza for the masses.  Knowing I would "have drink taken" I prepared the dough in advance - so just a matter of calling M to put the oven on and a wander up the hill...

Made pizza, Rafael was there - although he had just eaten (he keeps odd hours at the weekend) and Ned brought Dudge (spelling unsure?) back with him - so lots of pizzas (and a couple of glasses of wine), and nothing left over for sourdough (however, the sourdough mix is going well at present - keeping up nicely!).  Then Mark and I leaped up and went to collect Anna - we had decided to go to see an "Irish" band called The Trotwoods at St. Ethelbert's Church Hall (does that sound utterly naff?) - £3 - a bargain - and the music was tremendous - it was proper Irish music, 2 accordians, guitar, harp, banjo, 2 violins, bass and a bit of singing - a Frenchman, his wife, 2 teenage children and an older couple - a family - possibly an Irish grandfather?  Most of the music was Irish - with a couple of deviations into Americana (Does Your Chewing Gum Lose its Flavour... Shenandoah) - and some great songs.  It totally avoided the "sentimental repertoire" that I had feared - it was played with verve and a sense of fun and my feet tapped furiously, I even spontaneously began to hand clap - and I joined in the standing ovation.

I had wanted to go to the 45 RPM night at the Farmhouse in Canterbury - but Mark had shown little inclination - it started at 10.   But the urge to dance had been v. strong during the Trotwood's playing... so I asked Anna whether she would like to go.  She was up for it, so I told M she and I would go.   He then insisted on driving us there.  He had his grimmest, grumpiest expression and had decided in his wisdom that I had drunk too much..  He was tired and in my experience does not drive well when tired.   I told him as we went through St. Laurence that he should not take us - so he got out and walked home.

We then drove to Cants, found the pub eventually (I remembered the car park it was near!) and we went in.  It's an extraordinary place - furnished in vintage style - a Tretchicoff painting on the wall, old radios, G Plan beech tables and chairs... but the music was so loud that we couldn't talk to each other and furthermore, instead of being wonderful old R&B, Northern Soul, Afrobeat mix that they promised it was stuff way too obscure for me - and none of it made me want to dance (not that I would have dared to!).    We stayed 40 minutes, nothing improved so we went.   Such a disappointment - had been longing to go, but the music really underwhelming.  I thought it was going to be like the R&B thing I used to go to in Islington.

On the way home Anna (who is 10 years younger than me) said "I love the way I always feel younger when I'm with you."  I feel exactly the same - ludicrously young.  Actually, what I think it is, is that when we are together we always have fun - and that makes us both feel young...  Not in an undignified way - there were plenty of people our sort of age there, as well as a handful of young hipsters...  But we both have husbands who are a bit less interested in "fun" than we are (God knows, I have weeks of hermiting and generally doing my impression of Simon Stylites) and so when we are together we refresh each other.  I know other friends who do this, but are less available - actually, sadly Anna hasn't been available for a while since she's been in London...but her studio there has given her a lot of freedom and happiness, I wish I could do something similar.... but the children...Efforts to teach them to feed themselves are proceeding slowly... must get back on track!   Actually, if I had £600 a month to rent a studio with I'd do better to spend it on a cleaner and some trips to France.

Talking of young hipsters, Ned has done a great montage (specially recommended to fans of the Ramones) of friends and family.  I toyed with putting up a link, but as it shows unattractive pix of me eating (on a cross-channel ferry), I haven't.  I liked seeing the photos of Etaples - I wish we could go to France again - or anywhere.  Coells is going to Crete for a week - a mere £300 - but obviously for 4 of us that would be £1200 and we would have to eat and live while we were there.  I know that this phase will soon come to an end - I just need to learn patience (It's easier to be patient with people than with situations).  I'm wondering now if setting up a business in 2010 was really a good idea or just a complete waste of time?  Did it delay my writing efforts, or actually help firm up my resolve, by making me feel I'd tried "everything" and nothing was working.

Weekend

I've dealt with the difficult things - I feel liberated - and happy!  No need to cook much this evening - so we're going out for an early evening drink with Finn.   This feels so unusual and agreeable.   And I have plants for the garden to plant.  It's all good.... first time I've felt really weekend ish for ages.  I only have one thing I have to do - which is visit an exhibition and write 500 words.  No sweat!

Due to technical difficulties with the new Blogger - this post actually refers to last weekend... but hey - do you really care?

Cleverness

It's a bit of a received opinion really, but in Britain being "clever" is not a respected characteristic.   Other languages have words for clever with connotations of "cunning" "devious" or "sly".   "Clever" doesn't have those connotations in British English... "that's clever" is a phrase usually used with admiration about something practical.   However, the actual state of cleverness is suspect.  "S/he's very clever" is usually a phrase qualified by "but..."  It is connected to the famous British desire not to be seen to "show off", which is why educated British people often find it so difficult to take Americans seriously.  The phrase "if you've got, it flaunt it" is gaining popularity with the broad mass of the people, but the older, more educated minority don't believe in that sort of thing at all!

Yesterday I was struggling to remember a word when I was talking to Finn - I had to Google to find it!  The word was "anthropomorphism".  It's a word I've known since I was about 18-19, it's used in literary criticism obviously and also called "the pathetic fallacy".  When I was studying Greek religion it got used a fair old bit - and since it's a Greek word it would be expected that anyone with knowledge of Greek would understand it.  It isn't a word one uses to show off - it has a very precise meaning and function and there isn't (as far as I'm aware) an Anglo-Saxon word that can be used instead.

When I woke up this morning I was thinking about this struggle to remember the word (sign of old age???) and remembered this incident.    I was about 20 and staying with a friend at Oxford; she was studying Classics there, and had invited me to a party.  It was quite a boring party, everyone asked me what college I went to, when I said I was at London they had nothing more to say.  Mostly they talked about bicycle mishaps.  Conversational skills are not part of the Oxford entry requirements.  The following morning at breakfast in her house a slightly more interesting conversation took place - the 3 or 4 other people there were also studying Classics (i.e. Latin & Greek).   I used (in context) the word "anthropomorphic" and they all went "ooh -clever! that's a big word!".  I felt at the time what a ludicrous response it was and tried to continue my point.

I had forgotten this incident - but it was curious.  Maybe it was a personal response to me - I was being too clever by half (a very disapproving phrase) and it was necessary to take me down a peg.  But I felt that it was a more general problem, these people were clever themselves, but perhaps they didn't want it known.  However, they had decided collectively (or rather developed a social habit) of deriding any manifestation of culture. I don't know, when I first thought about it, I thought it was simply a general British upper middle class philistinism - we don't like art, we don't like culture and we don't like signs of depth of thought so shut up!  But now I think there are lots of other more subtle reasons, perhaps personal/psychological.    I know that Charlotte, easily one of the cleverest people I know, gets incredibly embarrassed about cleverness... she did Classics at Oxford too.   I must ask her one day what she thought was going on.

Politics

Why am I not writing about politics? I think it is because UK politics are so depressing at present.  One feels things getting worse.  This wretched government have been in for two years and things are definitely worse than when they took charge.  They've cut jobs in local government and the civil service, they're cutting everything they can find - there's nothing left to privatise apart from the post office and the National Health Service - so they have their claws into those.  As for their attempts to be green, they seem to do nothing but back pedal.

Today (or was it yesterday) they announced they would permit fracking on the mainland..  I hate that idea so much.   There is a local village called Wodnesborough - near Sandwich, where they are exploring for shale gas already.  It's not the most beautiful village in the world - but the thought of it is upsetting.  There is also a certain history of earthquakes (only very tiny ones) in the East Kent area - one of which, in the 15th C I think, half destroyed St Mary's church in Sandwich, which was re-built as a result.  Given that fracking has caused mild earthquakes in Blackpool then the chances of it happening here are better than good.

The reason I haven't been writing about politics and the environment in the last few months is because it makes me despair - I can't bear it. The interconnection between the domestic economy and our economy is too painful. There is nothing we can do.  Conservative governments always do this, inherit a difficult situation and make it worse, close off all the possibilities for real change, the kind of change this country needs.  It hardens the class differences - I think it's made me more determined to write - because they can't do much to stop that.  

Moodscope: is this sound advice?

Thought for today: Minimize your exposure to things that cause distress.

This came up on my daily lecturette from Moodscope - it's meant to be helpful advice.  Yes, it's quite good - but it avoids the distinction between the things that cause distress and one can do nothing about (for example, the hideous snuff video one of Finn's friends showed him yesterday - on his phone!) - and things which cause distress perhaps because one is doing nothing about them.

I love hiding from upsetting things - when I am in a sunny cheery mood that's probably why.  I have elected to forget all sorts of upsetting things.  However, one needs to confront the stuff that one's doing to distress oneself (not dealing with certain things - things one has done which induce guilt, things one should say "sorry" for).  So although hiding from things that cause distress might be good advice for a day or so, it's not really the best long-term strategy.

A sunny day in the garden

Yesterday was good - spent a lot of time in the garden - and today again I intended to go into the garden, but it's now nearly 3.00pm and I've been sleeping.   Think it's still this weird post-viral, labyrinthitis thing... I felt really fit yesterday, today nothing.

The garden is really small - about 20 x 30m - but there's an extra strip beside the house about 8m x 2m.  The strip doesn't get much sun - so I am always experimenting with shade loving plants - many of which seem not to survive the the conditions.  There's a lot of ground cover - woodruff asperula (also known as Snailheim) in which tiny snails reside, dashing out to destroy flowers... all my erythroniums were eaten before they had a chance to flower.

An epimedium - currently flowering in my garden - this was taken last year. Not perfectly in focus - might take some more today.

We dug up a great deal of ivy - so that we could put a trellis in to put a clematis tangutica on it.  I also discovered that it is almost certainly true that the tulips and daffs that came up blind had not been planted deeply enough, so I am going to replant some of them and hope that next year they'll do much better.

Mark mowed the lawn, I moved some plants around and need to finish planting today.  I also discovered a packet of 5 white lillies I had ordered in autumn which had over wintered in the shed by accident.  I know have about a dozen lillies in pots, which is great - and another 5 to plant in one of the flower beds - if I can risk it.   I have discovered that camassia like damp soil - so I'm thinking of transferring them to the spot near the camellia and put others near the pond.

Meanwhile the apple tree and the quince tree are about to burst into flower.... and the red and black tulips should be out by next Sunday - I am really looking forward to it.   The early roses (Lady Hillingdon, Mary Rose) have visible buds.  And the red leaves on the crab apple are out - the pink blossom will follow soon.   Spring is quite exciting.    The only problem is the water situation.   We are not allowed to use hoses, and it's been dry for a week.  Heavy work with the watering cans required I think.!

Great Result!

Am now a totally international blog - no one in the UK has read me this week, which probably means that my readers are all flipping through the pages and just land on mine intermittently - although that doesn't explain why they are reading the old entries.  Actually, still have a lot of US readers - so am assuming some of the readership has English as a first language.  Hello people!  

Still wondering what happened to the Latvian/Finnish readers from yesterday.

Tedium/Boredom.

Have spent most of the day forcing myself to fill in a charity registration form online.  It was tremendously tedious and I found it mind-numbing, especially when having composed a definition of our activities and their public benefit the website "timed out" and deleted the text, which, foolishly I had not composed in a document and so had no copy of.

I have such mixed feelings about the festival this year.  I have lost my urge to "belong", to be part of something, which was part of my motive in getting involved...now all I want is to be left alone to get on with stuff.   Eagle-eyed readers will have noted that I am not writing my book at present.  This is because it is still the Easter hols and I have to keep the house nice, food on the table etc. etc.  So I can't go into overdrive on TRF at the moment - but next week - once I have sorted out the alarming tax query.... OOOH.

I wanted to join the Ramsgate Arts thing because I thought it would be fun to work with other people doing something for the community - and it is, but as with so many things, I've got a bit bored with it.  This is not RA's problem - the people are still nice, the ideas are still fun, but I do get bored with things.  I guess I feel I've done as much as I can and it has nothing new to offer.   It's probably not true, but what I feel is that what new things it can offer are not terribly exciting.

Boredom is a bit worrying - I've spent years saying "only the boring are bored" - this may be true of children, who have yet to experience much, but the fact is that I have experienced a certain amount, and sometimes repetition does not inspire much.   I don't like to think that I am easily bored - I can watch creatures interacting for hours.  But I worry that my boredom is rather selfish.  Or do I?  Perhaps I secretly exult in my boredom, secretly believing that it exists because I am such a very superior and sensitive creature... Actually, I think it's really a product of frustration - I'm not really bored as such, it's just that so much of my life consists of things I have to do for other people, that the annoyance I feel at not being able to do what I want manifests as boredom with it.

Than again, perhaps boredom is a natural state of mind - or anxiety?  I mean that thinking too much would promote anxiety - so one needs to dope oneself into a state of boredom - therefore sudoku etc. were invented.

Is this coherent?  I wonder.  On writing, the fact is, I need to feel I have a bit period of freedom to write - so I  tend not to write on days when I can only spare an hour or so (unless I have an overwhelming urge to get a scene or an idea down).

Understanding Blog Stats....

This is something I've always found mystifying.   Earlier this morning, I had a reader in Australia - now he/she has disappeared, as has the reader in Ecuador who appeared (first ever Ecuadorean!) yesterday.    Also why is the number of pageviews always much more than the total of the pages viewed? And why is everyone reading an entry about stagflation which isn't really about stagflation - and why does no one, apparently, ever look at the latest page...

Why do I have lots of readers in the US and none in Canada?  Lots of readers in Russia and Germany?

Meanwhile - hello Slovenia, Colombia, welcome back Japan.

This entry can tell you that I don't have enough to do.  Actually, I am extremely busy watching my new neighbours move in and worrying about whether they have any books.  All their boxes are suspiciously light and they have golf clubs.  I don't suppose books and golf are mutually incompatible (I call PG Wodehouse in evidence) but it isn't a very frequent pairing.

Nature notes: Bees

I am slightly proud of the fact that our garden has a lot of different varieties of bees in it.  At one point I guessed that there are at least 12-15 types, but now I'm not so sure.  Anyway, at the risk of this blog becoming like White's Natural History of Selbourne (which could be a good thing), I will attempt to outline the types of bees - although being a non-specialist this might be a bit ho-hum.   I think we are blessed with bees because we have a lot of winter flowering plants so on sunnny days in January and February we have bees hovering around the lonicera purpusa and the clematis balearica.  And this camellia, though I've never seen bees around it, perhaps because it's in a rather cold dark part of the garden.

Anyway, list of bees to follow:

1. Regular honey bee?
2. Honey bee shaped bee but with much lighter fur on the back
3. Honey bee shaped bee but rather dark
4. Small dark round bumble bee (very loud buzz)
5. "Regular" bumble bee
6.  Enormous bumble bee - very ponderous in flight
7.  The special red bees that live in holes in the ground and come out only in April-May
8.  A honey-bee shaped bee with red fur on the back
9.  A honey-bee shaped bee with stripes
10. A long dark bee with loud buzz which seems to be a sort of bumble bee
11. A light, fragile looking bee - about the size of a honey bee but might lighter in colour and physique
12. A long bodied bumble bee with rusty red-brown fur on its back (different from 8 - larger, darker)
13.  Er, those are all I can remember at present, but I know there are more...

It is lovely and sunny - and I have been gardening - also saw my first Red Admiral butterfly (saw a tortoiseshell and a peacock a couple of weeks ago).

Nesting: jackdaws, starlings and seagulls

I'm not sure if I've ever seen a jackdaw before - but there are two hopping slowly about the chimney pots and aerials on the roofs of the houses opposite.  There are also a couple of pigeons and a starling.  It is odd to see a solitary starling - but that's what its silhoutte suggests it is.  It clearly wants a chimney pot for its own nest and his hopping about looking for nesting materials.  One jackdaw was sitting quietly on an aerial - while the other inspected the chimney pot - and menaced the starling.  Eventually the jackdaws decamped to the next set of pots - as they settled down there a seagull flew in low and they took fright and flew away.  The starling's persistence has been rewarded: he is now in possession of the original pots, and another starling has come to inspect his site.  No doubt in due course my neighbours will be rewarded with a starling nest bunging up their chimney, but this will be fine as long as they don't have a fire for a while.    Meanwhile the seagull has settled in her nest between the eight chimneys further down the terrace - and the jackdaws have flown past - continuing their search.

After the most wet, soggy and grim Easter weekend (apart from Good Friday of course, which is nearly always sunny) today is lovely - thin, high cloud, but nothing too serious.  I might get into the garden and plant a couple of things: Coells brought me a heuchera, a primrose and a sedum.  It the sedum can survive the Gobi desert in the front garden, it will be great... it will just have to take its chances.

Moodscope & Dungeness

There's an interesting website called Moodscope on which you can measure your moods every day.  I have been doing it for 5 days, you get feedback from them - which is helpful - and you can share it with friends (no one I've asked so far has been that interested!).  I started low - peaked on Easter Sunday - and have now declined (due to drinking! which does have something of a knock-on effect).   On Easter Sunday I think I felt good because I felt reasonably in control, and had the happy anticipation of seeing my father and Coells and her newish boyfriend... I had also had some ideas about the next novel re-write - and felt much more perky about that...

I suspect my "guilt" score is going to get higher as the arts festival approaches (a guilt inducing email arrived this morning, which I did not reply to as I was "on holiday").  The site sends you feedback - I wonder if I know my "guilt" score is going to rise does that indicate I should not offer to do these things?   I don't want to let other people down, but I also definitely don't want to get distracted from writing etc.  There's also the question of the PR - I can't be arsed to do it - wonder if Sam would be up for it?

Today we went to Dungeness - Mark wanted to go there and we had a nice long drive enabling my father to see the Royal Military Canal and a bit of Romney Marsh - they all went up the lighthouse - except me.  I dislike spiral stairs (vertigo coming down usually).  I sat in the car, read, dozed, stared at the rainswept landscape, the nuclear power station standing in the misty near-distance and the small scale trains of the Romney Dymchurch and Hythe railway.  We saw Derek Jarman's cottage... we went to a pub and decided not to eat there - it didn't look very thrilling and was a bit costly for what was on offer.  Since I had the most fantastic 3 course meal a few weeks ago for the price of one portion of lamb shank (probably the cash & carry frozen ones) I thought it was better for us to do what the boys wanted: go to Dover and eat at the ludicrously cheap Chinese place Chapter Eight.   So we did, then dashed into the museum and enjoyed the Bronze Age boat (still amazes me) and a nice exhibition of childhood in the past.   After that we felt as though we'd had a full day's entertainment.   I have to say that it rained all day and was very miserable: a great contrast with the baking days of last Easter.

Boat Race 2

The Boat Race swimmer who screwed the whole thing up was a privately educated 30-something, a graduate of LSE who runs an anti-elitist website... Personally I wish he had saved his efforts to undermine the IOC officials who are unbelievably arrogant and will be lording it over everyone when the Olympics start.

The most shocking thing about the boat race was the obvious fact that both universities are "buying in" talent from abroad, rather as US universities give football scholarships.  All those strange doctorates/post-grad studies... do they have time to work, or are they too busy building up their strength in the gym, eating and rowing?  I'm not saying Oxbridge aware "Mickey Mouse" degrees - but one can't help wondering about their validity.

Easter

This seems the perfect picture to me - the crucifixion with great light and open space behind it - suggesting the Resurrection.  No chocolate was involved.  I am intending to send it to a number of people as an Easter greeting.  The photo was taken at Botany bay - one of our local beaches - by my friend Jeremy Hall - who doesn't get enough credit for his work.  I'll probably put it on Facebook too.

The Boat Race

I haven't watched the boat race for years - it was a regular fixture when I was a child and I would watch it with my mother; we supported Oxford because my grandfather had been there for a year as part of his theological training.

I no longer support anyone in particular, Mark's family has strong Cambridge connections.  However, I thought it would be nice to watch it for a change and was rewarded by a particularly exciting race.   Well, it seemed quite exciting, everyone said Cambridge was a shoo-in, because they were much heavier... they had 2 British people in their team, as opposed to Oxford's one (both the coxes were British).  However, Oxford started extremely well - they seem to have the edge there and were leading most of the way, although Cambridge were very close.  I was shocked by how close together they were rowing at various points and they had to be steered away from each other.   The race was quite interesting.  Then everything stopped because a swimmer appeared near the Oxford oars, risking decapitation! - After a lengthy period of faffing about, the boats went back to the beginning of the Chiswick Eyot and the race re-started.  Again Oxford started briskly, the two boats got in each other's way - and clashed, an Oxford rower lost the blade of his oar - about 30 seconds after the re-start.  I thought they'd re-start, but that didn't happen, so Cambridge just waltzed away with the race, and watching Oxford heaving away, one oar short, was a depressing sight.  I felt sorry for the cox: the commentators first described her as "experienced" and then as "aggressive" - it may have been her fault - she may have been adjusting her path and Cambridge were scuppering her... I doubt it though, it would be such a risky strategy, they could just as easily have lost one of their blades.

Rowing is perhaps the only bit of the Olympics I will watch, but charging about the Dorney tank won't be as exciting as going down the Thames - no swimmers either.   I wonder what he was protesting about.

Nigel Farage...

Oh dear, saw a video of the dreaded Nigel Farage, a right-wing politician of dubious credentials who was speaking locally, being asked about equal marriage (the pc name for gay marriage - it is better I admit) - he made exactly the point I've made (and everyone else no doubt) that equal civil marriage will immediately result in European Human Rights cases - he claims that Peter Tatchell lines up issues like this... I admire Peter Tatchell, he's done a lot of good things, and seems to have some vague respect for the church... but I think what horrified me is the fact that I was agreeing with NF (and indeed a great many other people whom I actually know and like).  

I maybe ought to reassess my politics, I don't feel anything will ever eradicate my innate Marxism, but I cannot share the popular attacks on any established group just for the sake of it.  I might have agreed with some of it when I was in my 20s, but I guess I have developed a less polarised position, able to see more sides of the question.  Able to accept that people are not as we wish them to be, or as they ought to be.  Is this inherently conservative?  Not exactly, but I want people to be protected and educated, rather than having their noses rubbed into things.  On the other hand, the tactics of Gay Liberation in the 60s onward has lead to far greater acceptance of gays -or LGBT as they are now known.  I don't know what the answer is, I'm just unhappy with the conduct of the argument.

Gay marriage continued

Part of me thinks the government has thrown up this issue to distract everyone from the really bad stuff that they are doing.  What I said about it before stands, but I am being put into a little dilemma, since people have started sending me pro gay marriage petitions to sign and circulate and I feel what I believe is too nuanced to do either.  I think if gay civil marriage comes in - and I would be very happy for that to happen - it will not take long before some vicar is hauled over to the European Court to answer Human Rights charges.   And I doubt if the vicar would win in the current climate.  I think this would be unfair - you cannot expect to overturn cultural practices that have lasted centuries in less than a decade.   There was massive opposition to civil partnerships ten years ago, why do they think those people will have changed their minds?  It takes longer than 10 years - for some people, they will never change their minds.

What upsets me is the thought of people deliberately asking clergy to marry them so that they can bring a test case.  I much dislike homophobic people - but the definition of homophobic has broadened so massively in the last few years that probably this blog entry would be categorised as homophobic by some people.  This seems to be a reflection of an immature political situation/level of awareness.   It's rather like a black person dodging any disagreement with "you're racist" - which used to happen a bit  (the answer to the "you're saying that because your're racist" is of course "no, I'm saying it because I don't agree with you"...  or "it's not that, it's because yu're an idiot" - I'm sure that would calm the situation down - not.

Ned said "if you were gay, why would you want a homophobic person to marry you?"   This is the crux of the matter - if all sides would accept each other's positions, however benighted, then we might get somewhere, but as usual the whole thing has become savagely polarised so that it looks like evil Christians vs. saintly gays.... I haven't heard much about Muslims and gay marriage yet... I remember when the Sexual Equality legislation came in in 1975? that private clubs were excluded from admitting women equally - and there are still gents' clubs (and perhaps working men's clubs) that exclude women from membership...presumably churches could be excluded from this legislation.  It might seem unfair to outsiders, but really the churches need to work this one out on their own - without external pressure from people who have nothing to do with them.