Back to Normal + Book of the month!

Here we are again, work, decorating, cleaning, washing sheets, hoping the weather will stay fine enough to dry them, and searching for time to write in the cracks. Weekend visitors, and more students coming shortly.  Seeing friends a bit, and trying to deal with the in-tray, summon up courage to talk to the Nationwide and the Council about Council tax... so it goes.

Having had a great jag of reading I suddenly came to a grinding halt and couldn't settle to any book.  After a very social and busy Easter (lots of cooking for Looping the Loop theatre fest and another trip to my father's) I hadn't had a chance to read.  In the last few days though a real appetite for reading has returned, although sadly not the time to do it in.   I have even borrowed books from the library - a Balzac (have read very little of the Comedie Humaine - must do better!) and "How Bad are Bananas?" by Mike Berners-Lee.   This is really interesting book, about carbon footprint.   It gives a discussion on a number of everyday items and activities and discusses the carbon footprint.  It uses a measurement of CO2 e - i.e. the equivalent to CO2 but looking at methane and nitrous oxide (both worse greenhouse gases and heavily implicated in some of my favourite things - e.g. cheese).   For the last few years I've been aware that our life styles probably doesn't consume the 17 tonnes of CO2 common to the average UK citizen - poverty, the lack of air travel and not owning a tumbler dryer have more or less guaranteed that.  Berners-Lee suggests we all try to get our levels down to a more sustainable 10 tonnes p.a. and I think on the whole, we're nearly there.   However, I was distressed to find what a difference a relatively small amount of regular car use could make.  Unfortunately there really is nothing I can do about this - the public transport options are ludicrous, just as expensive - yes, better for the footprint - but.... And this is the trouble.  We all have our "buts" - "But I had to go to the international conference in Mexico about climate change.  But it was raining so I had to get the kids' clothes dry for tomorrow. and so on.   I can pat myself on the back about the lack of air travel (none for 4 years - last time a single flight to Madrid - returning on the bus!) but I expect we will do a couple of trips in the next few years.

Looking at the book and feeling smug that one's not too bad is hopeless, because even if we are doing "well" how would we choose to do better - what else could we give up?   Cheese, lamb, beef?  I am delighted to discover that keeping our old cathode ray tv is terribly green, as is the old car, I am delighted to find that my text messages aren't too damaging and that I can drink all the water I like really.  And that bananas aren't too bad at all, and thin plastic bags are actually better than paper (gulp!).   But the question ought to be - what shall I give up next?  Can I give up the electric fan heater I sometimes use during the day in winter when the heating is off?

The book is not about guilt tripping us - just about challenging us to reduce our carbon footprints - but you realise how difficult it is.  All the things we do, we "have to" do.  M is very good about getting on his bike to perform errands, and I walk about a bit - but I have yet to decide to get the shopping on foot (we did try it on bikes once... not easy).  I could use the car less for really short distances - I already try to amalgamate trips - i.e. don't go to the recycling place unless I am going in that direction anyway - don't go to the big supermarkets unless I have another mission in that part of the island... and I've stopped taking "scenic" journeys - which used to be one of my little treats.  Clearly driving to Sittingborne to have my hair done ought to be reconsidered in the light of this info. But...

I do like this book - it explains things fairly clearly, and outlines alternatives.  It prioritises reducing carbon footprint and thus, it is hoped, affecting the course of climate change.  This is useful, for years I've been prioritising not exhausting the fossil fuel supply and refusing plastic bags in favour of paper.  The energy involved in the production of the latter is far greater.  I have now learned about "embodied" CO2 - i.e. the stuff used in manufacturing the vehicle or tv or bag.   This is all pretty basic stuff - and the fact that it comes as such a revelation to me now is an indictment of my assumption that I know "all about" green issues, simply because I was an early adopter - I knew all this stuff 40 years ago...

The terrifying thing is, we could do a lot - but will we?  If even a fairly motivated person feels resistance to losing any of her CO2 producing activities or objects, how can we expect the less motivated, or the frankly sceptical to change their ways.  I hate to think that we really might be going to doom ourselves; I am always confident that we'll pull something out of the hat eventually, but given what one knows of human nature, and the extent of the problem, then one can't help feeling less than totally sunny about the outlook!

More, better, days

So many good, agreeable days - Tuesday was a goodie - as well as being the momentous anniversary of my first kiss, AND Mrs Thatcher's death - it was also the day Ned came home from UEA - the last day of the students - the day we got on with planning the webzine - and the day the paintings by Olly arrived.  And the day that Finn narrowly missed going under a bus.

I was slightly taken aback by the weight and size of the box - once the two strongish men had lunged it up the front steps and rolled it on a trolley into the sitting room, Kirstie, Tara and I descended on it.   I got out the oil paintings first - done on hardboard - the first 8 or so were all of nudes or sexual scenes.  I was slightly worried that there might be some sort of message in the box!  However, after that there were plenty of respectable landscapes and figures.... I felt impelled to comment to the donor that I hoped I hadn't had more than my fair share of the soft porn - hope no one had been deprived!  He hasn't replied - hope he's not feeling miffed, but perhaps he'll get around to it.

Yesterday I worked most of the day and now have about 10,000 words of the novel.  I am feeling a bit annoyed because I know I'd written a whole scene in which D encounters Shayla - but I can't find it anywhere.  Tomorrow I hope to do more, but today was another lost day.  I woke early, finished the blockbuster I was reading (Fatherland by Robert Harris - not as good as the hype suggests) and then had another doze, a leisurely breakfast, a fight with the laptop - something not write with Google Chrome I fear... and then out to see Anna T - I was to give her advice about suitable plants for the garden, and she was to give me lunch - and so it came to pass.  We went to a very good garden centre in Blean - quite a nice variety of plants, much stronger on shrubs though - but I didn't understand the rationale.  Anyway, we found some suitable plants and hope they'll work for her.

We had lunch at the Gulbenkian - some of the nastiest ciabatta I've ever had...Anna insisted on complaining - it didn't make much difference.  The other naughty was their vinaigrette dressing - the oil was slightly oxidised.  However, there was a delicious tomato salad - compensation!   Anna talked a lot, I didn't mind, but eventually it became tiring.  She is a great mate, but perhaps I was just tired anyway - I realise how I value being able to have quiet time to write, to be untalked to --- then a quick trip to the supermarket and home, where I went to admire the garden and sing to the cat.  I don't really think he is very moved by my singing... but I enjoy it.

I couldn't be arsed to cook, so I got all the left overs out of the fridge, fried sausages and onions, baked some ready made garlic bread and got out some frozen snacks... very disgusting meal.   Ned for some reason picking a fight, so I made my excuses and left.

A really Good Day

I woke horribly early - to make students' packed lunches, having gone to bed very late having made bread.   Then I went back to bed and read, just as I was drifting off to sleep again M began to talk to me... so I had to wake up and then we had some tea - then we had breakfast with Belgian visitors (Philippe, Madeleine & Bruno) and talked to them for ages...which was fun.

Mark went out to have a military history walk with his chums... and I did some gardening, cutting plants back furiously.  Everything is glorious - the echium is almost visibly growing, most of the roses have buds already - the daffs are over, the tulips are coming out in succession.   As usual I am lamenting the over-supply of oxalis, celandine and various rampant geraniums, but over all it is looking fab.  The quince buds are all there, ready to open.   Some plants have disappeared - and others have been odd: why did the pulmonaria not flower this spring?  Not a single one.  April - it is the most happy-making month, and so lovely this year.  I have been enjoying the drive to work, watching all the tiny changes in the vegetation, which is getting lusher by the day.

After gardening I decided to ignore the breakfast table and went upstairs to work..  I thought I'd have a really good session on GATD.  I found an email from Tara suggesting coffee at 12.30 at the newish chocolate lounge... I decided it would force me to work for 2 hours so I said yes.  I then set to write an outline of GATD - and did one which tied up the lose ends...what a great achievement.  I now feel I can start writing with some confidence - and know where I'm going - approximately.

Then I walked - yes, I actually walked all the way (10 mins to the uninitiated, my amazement is that this is the first time I have walked any distance without keeling over since the dreaded virus).  It was very nice, and the cafe was pleasant and T and I had our usual interesting combination of gossip about our mutuals, and discussion about "literary" matters - which includes social media, our webzine project etc. but also dealt with work in progress.   Then we went home in a disciplined way at 3.00pm - and I travelled in T's Mazda - a sportscar of such minuscule proportions that I feel I need a crowbar to properly get into it... perhaps I will be able to descend from the roof when it's summer and she has the top down.

At home I was pottering - cleaning surfaces, packing the dishwasher, washing on line etc. when M came home.  Unfortunately his arrival coincided with an urgent need to go and consider some writing - but we did have a sarni in the garden first and some more coffee.

Then an afternoon of FB, Twitter (new followers) and generally  tidying up and looking at GATD research plan... then cooking vast roast dinner (pork and apple, veg, treacle tart and custard) with the boys... who had been to the London Eye and Madame Tussaud's... shameful when you think of the treasures of London that these two moronic inferno destinations are the place to go - still it means the BM is a tad less crowded. And after all, what 13 year old boys really want to go to see Titians and Veroneses or even Egyptian mummy cases?  That said, I used to manage to drag the boys to the BM at every stage of their lives - recently Finn even requested we go to the V&A - I nearly fainted.

I became exhausted during the cooking of dinner - long standing up causing back pain at present.  But now I am quite restored - a bit of an aperitif with cashews.  Then I blogged a bit - and now here I am ready to retire to read.  A really well-balanced day (although dear Finn didn't get much of a look in... except to argue with me earlier).

Books of the Month

March was a bumper reading month - I finished the Andrey Kurzov Penguin novels - Penguin Lost was even better than Death & the Penguin - I thought it was a great story, wonderfully detached style - no back story about the narrator - just straight in.  A sort of alienation which perhaps engages one's curiosity better?

Then I finally finished "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" by Michael Chabon - which was sensational.  True there were moments when the language was so dense I found it hard to take it in.  There were some excellent jokes, amazing characters, and after about 40 pages I began to get engaged - then it gathered pace and I got absorbed in it.  One thing was a little annoying: sometimes there were lines that "strike you as particularly fine" but the editors had not taken Johnson's "Strike it out!" advice....some of the lines were just a little bit OTT... but overall, a thoroughly enviable book, and enjoyable.

Finally I read, at top speed, Rohinton Mistry's "A Question of Balance" - it's a book that flows, you are just carried along, interested in the characters, and saddened by the events.  It seems very authentic, set during "the Emergency" and Mrs Ghandi's rule.  It reminded me in some ways of "A Suitable Boy" - but without the happy ending - yet it was curious how it ended - a surprise a few pages before the end, then a strangely almost cheerful last scene of a "life goes on" type.  I really enjoyed it.

I read more - but can't remember off the top of my head.   Too much arguably, after which I now find it difficult to settle to another book - so I am reading bits of non-fiction.

Update

This is all I can do at present - retain a few reminders of what has been happening.

I am still rather buoyed up by having booked a holiday in France in August - the first time I have been confident that we will be going away (if I can get around to doing the passports). I am assuming we will have the money, because Mark's mother is going to "help us with our mortgage" - which should mean we can siphon off a bit for the holiday and repay it from my father's largesse.

I had a fairly miserable Mothers' Day because I was at my father's and he was gloriously ignorant of it, even though he went to church for the Mothers' Day service... he then felt guilty and gave me some very welcome dosh.   Afterwards I was worried that he might have given me the cash intended for his cleaner.  I was rather angry and ate too many carbs. over the weekend.  When I got home Finn had bought flowers - v.nice, but the place was a tip because he had had his friends in.   We went out to Ruth's and got tiddly - very nice afternoon - nice people there.  Then we came back, I went to bed and slept for a couple of hours - I woke up COULD NOT get back to sleep - thus losing another couple of hours pay.  Grrrrrrrr.

Yesterday I got two agent rejections on the same day - is it the New Moon?  One of them was nice, the other one was brilliant...but I am getting a bit bored with praise for my writing... or rather it just makes me think "what's wrong with the rest of it then?"   It's a bit like that Jewish mother joke - she buys her son two casual shirts, the first time he wears one she ask him "The other one you didn't like?"   I am still holding out hope for the other agent who has the book... but not much hope.  He'll probably think David is a milksop.  "Chesil Beach meets Parade's End"  - no, that's not a pitch I will be adapting.

The LO has been in touch - we are having a cautious correspondence, I have thoroughly atrophied my heart, and have even been feeling fondness for Mark recently.  Better the devil you know, eh?

Tonight 2 Austrian boys are arriving in the wee small hours... hope this goes well.

Curiously, I am feeling much happier and more positive than I have done for a while...maybe it's the sunshine.