one can have an incredibly nice evening - especially when one has had low expectations. The fact is, some of one's friends are able to provide brilliant conversation and fun and are just better on their own - they long to come to dinner parties, but they are just more interesting when they are not in a crowd.
I spent some time today agonising about why no one wanted to come to dinner on 23rd September (otherwise engaged - or still making their minds up) - and then tonight Alex came around and suggested all manner of delightful events. He can be rather unreliable (was v. late tonight, and had forgotten it was supper, not just drinks). We now have a very full diary for the next few weeks, in part due to him - so it's another case of "love the one you're with". We seem to be victims of "one dinner party" syndrome. Someone invites us - we invite them back, end of.... now it appears that even people who we owe dinner to are otherwise engaged. Must be something about 23rd September - perhaps it's a new moon or something. No matter, things will happen eventually. If people don't want to come, tant pis. I don't actually yearn to have dinner parties, the idea is often more appealing than the actuality - but there have been some crackers - I remember that the Poker memorial party was very good, and some others... maybe they are going out of fashion. Will I never cook Salmon en croute sauce a la creme again? - apparently, people used to ring up The Hole in the Wall in Bath to see whether it was on the menu - I can understand it, it's totally delicious... I need to find a few more reliably stunning dishes like that...I must confess all the dishes I really like to give people because they are reliably delicious are things which have a certain amount of sweetness - venison casserole, the great game pie, agnello al agrodolce - and all those ME dishes with apricots etc.
Must find the hunter and ring him about wild boar!
Reading while dead
Showing posts with label Friendship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Friendship. Show all posts
Tuesday, 6 September 2011
Tuesday, 5 July 2011
Summer blogging...
Well, for a start no one reads blogs in summer. Not many people read mine under normal circs. and now they've all gone out into the sun and stopped - even the ones in Singapore.
I would like to wind down my activities, but until the great financial crisis is under control, there is little prospect of that. Also, my involvement with the Summer Squall (ramsgatearts.org) means that there is no prospect of a really relaxing time until September.
We have won a trip to Belgium, thanks to Mark's photography - this is exciting. Don't know what to do about it, but we have 9 months to enjoy it - best bet is hoping for a couple of days there in October half term. It's a 4 hour ferry trip. The weather is likely to be better now than in October - or is it? The fact is that we are finally getting back onto our feet again - but a trip to Belgium could easily eat £1,000 if we spend two nights in a hotel. How? Well, 2 nights in a hotel and 2 evening meals for 4 people - and then a lunch or two, some entry tickets, some coffees and drinks, and buying a few foodie items to bring home... true no travel costs, and not much petrol (just the drive down to the harbour - and Ghent is apparently about 30 mins from Ostende). I believe the euro is a bit weaker now, but not back to the happy days of it being about 63p. What to do? I suppose it's a relatively pleasant dilemma - the first for a while.
Meanwhile, Simon has decided suddenly to go back to Greece; we were getting to the 8 emails a day stage and his were coming more frequently than mine. I suggested we meet because emails are just more time-consuming than proper conversations - and they make discussion difficult. I like him very much, not least because he writes rather similarly to me and is often considering similar issues, but I detect a certain bitterness in him. Not really surprising perhaps given what he's hinted at about his upbringing, but I imagine that one might get bitten occasionally if one got too close. What I expected would be our first occasional meeting is now likely to be our only one. I hope he didn't misconstrue my interest in him, it was purely friendly - I am having a slight feeling of deja vue - I think I dreamed about a meeting with someone on the Sandwich by-pass in full summer and saying something about not meeting again.
This leads to the ever-interesting topic of male-female friendships. At present I am not really interested in anything more than that with anyone (and I am sure the feeling is mutual). Given my past romantic propensities there has been a tendancy to fall in love with anyone who was a remotely kindred spirit. If I had met Simon 20-30 years ago I certainly would have fallen in love with him, but not now. Whether it would have been mutual then is another question of such a speculative nature that it need not detain us now. But I do remember when I was about 30 going out to dinner for the first time with Nick B - and almost as soon as we sat down he rather awkwardly said he wanted to make it clear that he did not regard this as "going out" with me. I remember being amazed by his presumption, as he was (to me) deeply unfanciable (although attractive to others I should say). I generally assume that if you don't fancy someone they probably don't fancy you (the reverse is not invariably true) so Nick's helpful start was amusingly offensive - but he was conversationally gawky. A bit aspergic? I now think.
Some great French writer said that there had to be a degree of physical antipathy between a man and a woman for a friendship to exist between them. Could it have been dear old Stendahl? I'm sure that's true. But it is also true that all the male friends I saw frequently before my marriage had been objects of varying degrees of sexual interest before the relationship had settled down. And some of them had shown no especial physical antipathy to me...
We were younger then though. What happens now? Past life re-emerges occasionally, like the return of Ian into my life around early 2009... he was writing frequently and sending me photos. Why did he send me photos of himself looking so uninspiring? I have only about 3 reasonable photos of myself and I wouldn't distribute them to my male friends promiscuously (or indeed at all). Why do people do this (Ian isn't the only one). Or rather, why do men do it? Is it just the Facebook era we live in? That we must make everyone aware of our every move and expression. Keeping a blog hardly makes me a woman of mystery (although of course, no one really knows about it) but I feel a bit of privacy cannot go amiss.
Then why do I happily write my innermost thoughts where they can be seen by a casual passer by? Of course I wouldn't want my nearest and dearest to see these things - well, no, most of it is OK, but there is stuff in here that was described as "near the knuckle". It's the privacy of the crowd where one is anonymous, but secretly wants to shine. I sometimes write because I am bored - and if it is true that only the boring are bored, then - well, oh dear! Boredom is a good spur to creativity, and much as I love living here I am much more bored than I have ever been. I really miss good conversation, of course, I may no longer be capable of giving it. I was a junior member of the chattering classes once - I feel as if I failed to renew my membership when I came here, and now find it really impossible to get back into the swing of it. Of course, I am a bit bored with myself, just as M's observations and so on are predictable, I daresay mine are.
This morning at breakfast he asked me how Britain had benefitted by not being in the Euro. I was gobsmacked, I used to know what I thought about things like this, but this morning I was unable to think of one benefit, except that we didn't have to contribute quite so much to the Greek bailout (although we gave a lot to Ireland - despite not being in the euro, because of our economic links). I doubt whether there has been much benefit in not being in the euro, but perhaps there wouldn't have been much advantage in being in either, apart from exchange rate stability for business, which is always longed for by UK managements.
Enough, I am boring myself again.
I would like to wind down my activities, but until the great financial crisis is under control, there is little prospect of that. Also, my involvement with the Summer Squall (ramsgatearts.org) means that there is no prospect of a really relaxing time until September.
We have won a trip to Belgium, thanks to Mark's photography - this is exciting. Don't know what to do about it, but we have 9 months to enjoy it - best bet is hoping for a couple of days there in October half term. It's a 4 hour ferry trip. The weather is likely to be better now than in October - or is it? The fact is that we are finally getting back onto our feet again - but a trip to Belgium could easily eat £1,000 if we spend two nights in a hotel. How? Well, 2 nights in a hotel and 2 evening meals for 4 people - and then a lunch or two, some entry tickets, some coffees and drinks, and buying a few foodie items to bring home... true no travel costs, and not much petrol (just the drive down to the harbour - and Ghent is apparently about 30 mins from Ostende). I believe the euro is a bit weaker now, but not back to the happy days of it being about 63p. What to do? I suppose it's a relatively pleasant dilemma - the first for a while.
Meanwhile, Simon has decided suddenly to go back to Greece; we were getting to the 8 emails a day stage and his were coming more frequently than mine. I suggested we meet because emails are just more time-consuming than proper conversations - and they make discussion difficult. I like him very much, not least because he writes rather similarly to me and is often considering similar issues, but I detect a certain bitterness in him. Not really surprising perhaps given what he's hinted at about his upbringing, but I imagine that one might get bitten occasionally if one got too close. What I expected would be our first occasional meeting is now likely to be our only one. I hope he didn't misconstrue my interest in him, it was purely friendly - I am having a slight feeling of deja vue - I think I dreamed about a meeting with someone on the Sandwich by-pass in full summer and saying something about not meeting again.
This leads to the ever-interesting topic of male-female friendships. At present I am not really interested in anything more than that with anyone (and I am sure the feeling is mutual). Given my past romantic propensities there has been a tendancy to fall in love with anyone who was a remotely kindred spirit. If I had met Simon 20-30 years ago I certainly would have fallen in love with him, but not now. Whether it would have been mutual then is another question of such a speculative nature that it need not detain us now. But I do remember when I was about 30 going out to dinner for the first time with Nick B - and almost as soon as we sat down he rather awkwardly said he wanted to make it clear that he did not regard this as "going out" with me. I remember being amazed by his presumption, as he was (to me) deeply unfanciable (although attractive to others I should say). I generally assume that if you don't fancy someone they probably don't fancy you (the reverse is not invariably true) so Nick's helpful start was amusingly offensive - but he was conversationally gawky. A bit aspergic? I now think.
Some great French writer said that there had to be a degree of physical antipathy between a man and a woman for a friendship to exist between them. Could it have been dear old Stendahl? I'm sure that's true. But it is also true that all the male friends I saw frequently before my marriage had been objects of varying degrees of sexual interest before the relationship had settled down. And some of them had shown no especial physical antipathy to me...
We were younger then though. What happens now? Past life re-emerges occasionally, like the return of Ian into my life around early 2009... he was writing frequently and sending me photos. Why did he send me photos of himself looking so uninspiring? I have only about 3 reasonable photos of myself and I wouldn't distribute them to my male friends promiscuously (or indeed at all). Why do people do this (Ian isn't the only one). Or rather, why do men do it? Is it just the Facebook era we live in? That we must make everyone aware of our every move and expression. Keeping a blog hardly makes me a woman of mystery (although of course, no one really knows about it) but I feel a bit of privacy cannot go amiss.
Then why do I happily write my innermost thoughts where they can be seen by a casual passer by? Of course I wouldn't want my nearest and dearest to see these things - well, no, most of it is OK, but there is stuff in here that was described as "near the knuckle". It's the privacy of the crowd where one is anonymous, but secretly wants to shine. I sometimes write because I am bored - and if it is true that only the boring are bored, then - well, oh dear! Boredom is a good spur to creativity, and much as I love living here I am much more bored than I have ever been. I really miss good conversation, of course, I may no longer be capable of giving it. I was a junior member of the chattering classes once - I feel as if I failed to renew my membership when I came here, and now find it really impossible to get back into the swing of it. Of course, I am a bit bored with myself, just as M's observations and so on are predictable, I daresay mine are.
This morning at breakfast he asked me how Britain had benefitted by not being in the Euro. I was gobsmacked, I used to know what I thought about things like this, but this morning I was unable to think of one benefit, except that we didn't have to contribute quite so much to the Greek bailout (although we gave a lot to Ireland - despite not being in the euro, because of our economic links). I doubt whether there has been much benefit in not being in the euro, but perhaps there wouldn't have been much advantage in being in either, apart from exchange rate stability for business, which is always longed for by UK managements.
Enough, I am boring myself again.
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