Three days holiday

We went to my father's last week - and I am going to give a brief itinerary - more for the purpose of record, rather than to fascinate the readership.

We drove there on Thursday - we started late and predictably everyone was starving by 3.00 when we came to a motorway service station - so we stopped and had "lunch" - from a weird new phenomenon, a noodle stall - rather like the somewhat ersatz ones run by angry Essexmen at country fairs and other public entertainments - this one was run by a fairly pleasant African woman.  Why I would expect it to be run by people from a noodle-making race is odd, but I suppose it is because I still vaguely hope for some sort of authenticity.   The noodles were average, my sushi was less good than Waitrose sushi (tragically this is my chief point of comparison) and we were not overwhelmed by joy.

The traffic was heavy and we turned off the M25 and drove through the great stockbroker belt around Sunningdale and Ascot remarking on its beauty.  We drove through a considerable amount of woodland, and past some horsey establishments.  It was sunny and everything looked remarkably green and lush for late August.

When we arrived at my father's I suggested we went out to eat at the nice bar above the river in Maidenhead.  The pleasure of the place is in its situation, although the food isn't bad either.  There is a terrace above the river, and a very rivery smell.  We sat outside and drank modest amounts of SA rose (because I was driving) and ate various sharing platter things - then burgers, mussels and salads.  My salad - "crayfish" was a bit insipid - tasteless fish, thin sauce - but not utterly unpleasant.  The boys enjoyed their burgers and Pa enjoyed his mussels - so it was a nice evening experience.

DAY 1  OXFORD

It was a quick drive to Oxford - and I decided that for a change we would do the Park and Drive thing - so we went into town on the bus - Finn was free, it was £6.90 return for the rest of us - so pretty good value, compared with parking charges.  I went to see S&L while the boys went to the Pitt-Rivers museum, which they really enjoyed.. S was looking really well and I heard that he is on a different treatment which seems to suit him well, and he is talking about things in the future so that's encouraging.  We talked a great deal about books and writing and some family topics, and it was all thoroughly enjoyable.  It was lovely to see them both and their youngest daughter - who has some rather extreme views on womenswear... actually they are views I have occasionally espoused myself - but hearing them from someone else I realised I didn't agree with them.  Taken to their logical extremes they would result in us all wearing burquas.

I left S&L's house and took a taxi to the Pitt-Rivers... the taxi driver said very dubiously that there was no where to eat around there,  He hung around, perhaps expecting I would jump in and return to the centre.  However, once I had the map I saw we were about 4 minutes walk from a place with shops etc. and we found a nice cafe where M and I again ate salads and the boys had something else, we also ate sticky buns of a very high quality... delicious coconut and chocolate flapjacks, really lovely.  It was a short walk to the Ashmolean which we all enjoyed greatly.  They have very little original Greek sculpture, mostly Roman copies and plaster casts, but still good to see.  M was pleased at some giant candelabra from Hadrian's villa which had elephants supporting one of the levels.  We looked a lot of Egyptian stuff and I was forced into a discussion about phalluses (the God Min!!) in antiquity... the boys had much useful info about scarification in tribal cultures and what it's function was, so we were able to have some discussion about that.

I got into a bit of a panic because we had to find cash - but once we'd got some we relaxed and walked about, went to the covered market - very different now - and then to a lovely art bookshop in Broad Street, where I bought a number of birthday items for future use.  Then we went and had a drink and went home.  Back at the old homestead my father was planning a curry takeaway - and my sister C joined us.  It was a fantastically good curry - hope my father doesn't do his usual trick with the rice!  We had a vaguely disturbing chat about inheritance - and then went to bed very early.

2.  BRISTOL

After a lot of good architecture in Oxford I wasn't sure what to expect from Bristol - but after leaving the nightmare parking/mall zone of Cabot Circus we broke away towards the old town, parts of which are like Bordeaux (unsurprisingly).  We had a second breakfast - then went over to the Cathedral - an unusual building, heavily restored, but also with a great deal of surprisingly fresh looking medieval Decorated carving - uneroded due to the quality of the stone (like the stuff in Lecce I suppose, which hardens on contact with air).  I did not take enough pictures, and there was no guide book either, so I found it hard to understand mmuch about the history of the cathedral, but it had some impressive features.  The shop was closed for a month - hence lack of guide book.  One remaining side of the cloister lead to a sadly Anglican coffee shop - they do this "simplicity" thing which somehow looks unwelcoming.  Are they suggesting the coffee shop should be a place of worship too?

We then walked down to the waterfront area, and investigated the Arnolfini - the cheap food on offer in the caff there was no to Ned's liking - although I would have liked it.  So we went to the next place we could find, a tapas bar with a haughty waitress.  We had about 5 tapas and a couple of glasses of wine and a beer.  It was a bit "mass catering" so not very interesting - then we went back to the Arnolfini and saw the Ian Hamilton Finlay exhibition.... why was he so obsessed with Saint-Just?  His work is amusing, I saw my favourite post card "A Tribute to Victor Sylvester" - as well as other agreeable images.

There is a good bookshop at the Arnolfini - yet even there amongst the small publishers and quirky novels I was apalled to see a copy of Harold Fry - a book so average that perhaps I would not have thought it possible.

I then sat by the water and made notes about TRF - something L had said about it had piqued me to feel I should expand on it... I was planning to go and get indoors, as there was a brisk wind, when Finn called to say he wanted to leave his event.  I went to get him - an interesting walk down some odd little streets on different levels.  One sight was very Bordeaux - a church tower that spanned a street with an arch beneath it.  Once I had collected Finn and heard his tale of woe, how he had renounced fingerboarding forever... we went and had yet another coffee and waited for M&N.  And so home, via the Clifton Suspension Bridge.  Because we took the wrong turning we did not arrive at the top, but, more spectacularly drove along the road beneath it - it's a bloody long way up.  It was very impressive - and we saw the Avon Gorge - the most rocky thing I've seen for years (East Kent is not rocky at all, anywhere.  The nearest rocks are Tunbridge Wells, if you're desperate).  I realised that I missed rocks, missed Ireland, missed holidays - but enough.  Gradually the Gorge turned into suburbia - but it was good while it lasted.
We returned home and had very good fish and chips.

DAY 3  SUNDAY

There was a certain amount of aggro about what we should do.  Lunch had to be Dim Sum - and Finn didn't want to walk a lot because of blisters, there was a move to go to the National Portrait Gallery (although Finn, astonishingly, wanted to go to the V&A)  so we went to Soho - spent a small fortune on parking... and strolled around various bits of the newly-enlarged NPG - which always seems to have something new and fab - currently seemed to have a bit of a Philippa Gregory theme - main characters from The White Queen were on show.  The usual BP portrait competition - the fashion for "photographic" portraits continues - occasionally with a nod to the fact that they are actually painted - like sticking in an obvious brushstroke or two.  Then we went to have dim sum at "the cheap one" - which I think is called The China Harbour... it was pretty good.  Afterwards we brought a number of buns at the bakery next door, mine was called "sausage and salad" - mysterious.  We didn't go to CCK because of funding issues, but we walked past it to discover it has been rebranded as "The Dim Sum Palace" and looked thoroughly vile - ugly posters outside, but interior still full of unsmiling, cart pushers.

Finn and I sat in Leicester Square while Ned and Mark went to have a look at Thorn House, a famous modernist building on St Martin's lane, largely designed by Edward apparently, with a little help from Sir Basil Spens.  Finn smoked, and gave a guy a light.  I am sure this makes him feel grown up - both of the boys are now fully part of the "orright mate" culture - I envy them their relative ease with it.  We then returned to the most treacherous multistorey car park I have ever been to - and managed to fight our way out of it, and home.

So that was our holiday.  It was deeply enjoyable, just to be somewhere different, but I think on the whole I enjoyed the rocks most - because they weren't demanding anything of me, responses, thought, money.  They were just rocks, Old Red Sandstone I suppose - and they'd been there for millions of years, and would remain for millions more - long after humans have destroyed the planet.  How few things there are in my life that are demanding nothing of me.  Oh well, plenty of time to relax when you're dead I suppose.

An observation on sulking

Over the Summer Squall I worked with a couple of people I find rather hard work - and many whom I really like... but the one I found hard work was the one who sulked.  It began reasonably well, but things deteriorated - the whys and wherefores are not particularly necessary - although I know some people would like to hear the details.  Most of the unpleasantness occurred between her and my colleague on Saturday - I managed to avoid her ambit on Sunday and Monday, but at Tuesday I was back at her establishment.  I was not looking forward to seeing her - noticed she was wearing some hideous shoes and said admiringly "Wow - X____ , what amazing shoes!"   She blanked me.  I made another attempt a little later on but she did the same so after that I contented myself with smiling and staring out of the window in "a superier way" as Daisy Ashford would have said.  Meanwhile X was marching about - that particular way of stepping to show one's annoyance - it works better for men - doing it in yellow plastic shoes doesn't quite have the same effect, petulance rather than authority is conveyed.

I was glad to leave her ambit, and I was both amused and disappointed that she felt sulking was an appropriate way to behave.  Sulking is childish, that goes almost without saying, it is a way of attracting attention, a demand that others placate you.  It sort of works in children, because you want to jolly them along out of it - but as a strategy it does not work on people who don't love you, or care that much about your good opinion.  On the whole, I can think of few people whose good opinion I care less about.  I wonder if she will cross me off her invitation list.  It is a shock when people perform a great fall in your estimation.  I started the weekend with one view of her, and ended it with another.  I wasn't personally involved in any of the aggro on Saturday, but to see such unnecessarily unpleasant behaviour was shocking.

What we did at the weekend will have brought her advantages and footfall to her business.  She probably had more people there on Saturday than had been in the place for the last month.  Perhaps that's why she was cross.  

Barber (of Seville) at the Harbour

Yesterday I was mostly enjoying opera.

I woke up horribly early and then had hostly duties to perform (we had a very interesting woman staying, as well as 2 Spanish volleyball players).   By about 10.30 I was back at my desk trying to finish off the talk I was to give at 6.00pm, "A Close Shave: the Barber of Seville and the French Revolution".  Although I had written 3/4 of it and had got most of my slides together I still couldn't quite tie it all up... also I hadn't really written it beautifully, because I was hoping to be a bit spontaneous... eventually, after sketching out a description of what happened on the first night - which was funny - I suddenly had an idea for a paragraph which would tie everything together.

I then had a couple of hours, so I had a bath and a 15 minute nap.  It was magnificent, I had got into bed feeling confused and still scratchy from yesterday - and woke up feeling almost a new person - talking about "knitting up the ravelled sleeve of care!".  M and I went down to the theatre, I was set up, had a glass of wine (some very nasty provencale chardonnay unfortunately) we switched on the overture - to get me into the mood... and off I went.  This year I had quite a large audience - about 30 which was enormous.  I got through it - not always audible because I forgot to get a mike - but apparently there was lots of interesting stuff.  I was happy to see Eyvor and Michael and Rick and Kate in front, but on the other hand, it was slightly unnerving to be lecturing one's friends... however, a great many people were there who I didn't know - so that was OK too.  Later I discovered another friend had been there - fortunately the lighting prevented me seeing much of the audience.

Afterwards we went down to the front and Gina found us some concealed spare chairs and we sat down.  It was a little chilly but we sat there cheerfully.  There was a Pimm's and beer tent, but we opted for sharing a box of fish and chips and some water (trying to cut back the drink) and while we were sitting there I scanned the crowds and recognised various people.  It's a funny thing about the "square" people - the little sets that establish because they live in the same square or lawn - they are consistently fairly middle class and comfortably off, they consume the arts rather than making it - and they sit in groups. When I first lived here I felt I belonged with those people - they didn't share my vision.  I now feel that I definitely have very little in common with them.  I definitely like people who are rather more rackety and intellectual/creative - not that there aren't racketty/intelligent people living in the squares, but they tend to be not part of those groups.  I remember dear Paul C talking with asperity about the set in his particular square... unfair that they are still sitting there drinking Pimm's out of plastic cups, when he's gently decaying (actually, heaven probably is more fun than a chilly night at the opera!).

I found that even during the opera I was still casting around the crowd, noting who was there and what they were doing.  I realised that this experience of the opera was a much more authentic one - it was probably like being in an Italian provincial opera house in the 18thC - seeing and been seen - less like sitting at Covent Garden or ENO - but being amongst one's friends and neighbours and gossiping and observing.  "He's here - but his wife hasn't come" - "Where's _____, he's usually mad for this sort of thing?" "Oh, they've brought their children - that's nice."

The performance itself was suitably spirited, with a very good Figaro - and a slightly less good Count - Rosina's voice was on the shrill end of the soprano spectrum... but for these "boutique" operas acting often counts for more.  The accompaniment was on piano keyboard - which obviously makes it cheaper, but I suppose I've always found the orchestra one of the deep joys of opera - and being at Covent Garden and listening to a familiar overture as the curtain rises has often provided a dose of what used to be called "the tingle factor".   Still, one was close to the action - especially when we all had to move our seats forward, because the radio mikes weren't working - and also when Figaro sang "largo al factotum" around the audience.  It is true the opera does slightly wind down before the end - the beginning has much of the best music - but the acting helped keep it fun.  Somehow sharing a cultural experience with a lot of people you know, rather than an auditorium full of strangers is just a much better experience.  

I hate everyone

Well, I don't , only a certain select handful of people.  I simply adore some other people.  I have drink taken - chiefly as antidote to other people's bad behaviour... I could have spent the evening chatting to chums - but I was "on duty" - and suffering the weird experience of seeing people behaving irrationally badly - and irrationally well.   And seeing really quite sensible grown up people reduced to rage by bad behaviour, and for once thinking that Ned - who is usually a tad on the volatile side,  might have been right when he described someone as a "psychopath".

I should be dancing in the streets - there is so much to celebrate - my stint at the UpDown Gallery is OVER. I don't know why that should be such a cause of rejoicing, but it is.   I have observed some very erratic behaviour... I make allowances, people are tired, stressed, and so on.  Yet, one sees a dynamic that one doesn't feel at all comfortable with... we have been riven assunder as a group by a couple of very driven, very desperate people who have been unnecessarily nasty to us, whose superficial charm covers some very disagreeable behaviour.  I have seen a room full of really upset teenagers - almost frightened by the verbal criticism.  No one should have to put up with that.  These kids had done nothing wrong, apart from fail to observe some weird, made up on the hoof protocols that no one had told them about, largely because the people who made them up had only just decided to implement them.   Arrrrrgggghhhh.   I hope I won't have to confront these people - but there may be a point at which I will have to defend the kids and their work and efforts against the forces of market capitalism... or whatever it is that this delightful couple stand for.

Facebook despair

I think I need to block a few more people on Fb - there are so many squabbling types, and lots of unpleasantness when one goes on there.  Instead of feeling cheered and surrounded by cheery acquaintances, one becomes privy to everyone's sniping, envious nastiness.  Perhaps I am guilty of it too... don't think so, normally keep that sort of thing to myself!

Have just withdrawn from one group because of people slagging off a friend of mine, someone who does rather more good for the place than them.  Easy to criticise, but if a couple of other people put in the unpaid hours she does, then we might really see some changes here.  It is depressing, because if we don't work together and spend all our time sniping at other people - then we are actually undoing the good that is being done.  There is a grand tradition here of people not wanting to work together or collaborate - they are hyper-individualistic and want to do their "own thing" - and be in charge.  I suppose since I work on my own most of the time and don't have to collaborate, I don't mind doing collaboration/team work in my spare time... but not every creative/artists seems to share this idea.  Depressing.

I suppose the "despair" aspect is that I don't really want to see human nastiness so clearly displayed.  I dislike people being unkind, and as soon as I think that I wonder if I have been guilty of being unkind recently - about the slightly annnoying colleague... But the fact is that on the whole, the bitterness and nastiness that I'm complaining about is perhaps a reflection of people's disappointments and disillusions. It's hard to keep going, to find new meaningful projects, when one isn't succeeding - and other people around one seem to be more successful.  Perhaps what I don't like seeing on FB is a reflection of my own less agreeable self. 

What the stars foretell

Having ranted on about astrology, I must do a "scientific" test.  So - the major transits - according to my chart - i.e. personal to me, the hour of my birth (and a few thousand others born at the same time) which are coming up are as follows:

Pluto trine Mars: ends December 2013 Great feats, energy, drive for success, influence over others, making tremendous efforts to succeed and working very hard; this will re-build my self-confidence and enable me to believe in myself again

Have certainly been working fairly hard... and making efforts to succeed.  The transit does not suggest one will succeed however. Self-belief was doing OK - but have had several massive blips of despair.  These predictions (from the astrodienst website) don't bother about which houses the transits effect - perhaps because it doesn't matter - but given that Pluto is in 2nd/3rd house (money, possession, communications,siblings, cousins, local travel) and Mars is in 7th (partnerships) one would expect to see some sort of progress there.  But maybe the houses and their rulerships matter less (this wouldn't surprise me). 

Neptune trine Neptune: ends January 2014 (also Neptune trine Ascendant)  Greater empathy, sensitivity to others, compassion, sympathy.  An attraction to mysticism - increased idealism. Willingless to support others for no return...  Tending to idealise people, the need to escape to an inner world, also reflecting on one's own inadequacies.  A teacher or influential person may enter your life

Actually, I have been very supportive - but usually support not wanted, I have had sympathy for those I previously thought rather tough.  I have also had less and less time for really annoying irritating people and have had little empathy for them.  I don't think I've idealised people much - feet of clay have been appearing everywhere - escape to an inner world?  I do that all the time.  No gurus so far... Neptune in 4th house - trine Neptune in 1st - suggests personal stuff and domestic stuff - fair enough.  Don't think I've been idealising the family - support for no return just about sums up the housewife's lot (but M has been v. good recently).

Most of these are transits that are nearly over; the only one just starting (Jupiter sextile Mars) that could be subjected to some sort of scrutiny is this one.  I am putting it here in full so that I can pick it over when it ends in March. I have highlighted the more positive bits - which I would particularly like to be true.  We will see.

This is a time of high energy and independent initiative. You feel very self-confident and capable of tackling almost anything within reason. It is a good time to start a project, and most activities that you take up now should have a successful outcome. However, you must take some positive action in order to get the most out of this influence. It brings you opportunities, but you have to pick them up. However, this should not be much of a problem because this influence usually makes you feel like taking action.

You are unusually clear now about what you intend to do in any situation. Your will is strong, and you aim at achieving certain very definite goals. You can act decisively and with conviction. Under an influence like this you can convince other people of your point of view and get them to follow your lead. In fact, this is an unusually good time for working with other people because you can get others to identify their interests with yours.

Everything you do is aimed at enlarging your sphere of interests. You do not act out of petty motives, always having high-minded and high-level goals in mind. Others will respect your obvious integrity, which will make them more willing to help you.

If you have to go to a court of law at this time, the proceedings should turn out to your benefit. In fact, the chances are that you will be able to work out a compromise that will be advantageous to both parties.

Professional success is likely at this time, because of your excellent sense of timing and your ability to take advantage of every opportunity that comes along. You should be able to advance yourself without alienating others. They will recognize that your success is well deserved.

I hope I won't have to go to court - I am not sure about convincing other people of my point of view, but it would be nice if I could persuade agents and publishers that The Romantic Feminist was a novel they really wanted to publish.   The only problem is how to remember to check this prediction in March.  But no doubt I will be too busy fending off admirers, gurus and others to be maintaining a blog.  Jupiter is in 9th, Mars in 7th - again suggesting publishing/partnerships ... it's another of these "if not now, when?" transits - which seem to perfectly reflect things happening in your life... but don't necessarily predict a great outcome.  We shall see.

The question is...
Why favour one transit over another - why not highlight Uranus sextile Venus - surprising lurve opportunities? Or Uranus trine Saturn - which sounds potentially exciting to me... I've got Saturn in 2nd house (money) - so that might suggesting positive surprises/opportunities in that area.  There are a whole lot of transits going on...Saturn opp Mars might be a bummer... especially with Mars in 7th house - but no one's highlighted that one.  Oh dear, if I carry on like this, I may find myself persuading myself to do it myself - a bit more carefully.  The object of this exercise was to give up astrology - not do it harder.  Perhaps what I should simply do is give up Susan Miller

Astrology - a denunciation

I have always been interested in astrology - but it was something I renounced not long after Ned was born - I was persuaded by the more ardently Christian members of the family that it was the "devil's work" - and I ought to have faith in God.  So I obeyed this - sold my expensive astrology books to second hand bookshops - I made about £60 from this - nearly 20 years ago, and actually disposed of one of them in a bin in Burgess Park (or did I just dream that?)

The fateful events of 2009 drove me back to astrology in a big way - and I felt my choice was vindicated as I consulted ephemeris charts, found that Uranus was heavily implicated in the turns of events that year.  I thought that much of my "madness/love/delusion/creativity" that year was due to Neptune - things seemed to fit.  Unfortunately it was not enough to be aware, I came to lean on it - and expect things from it.  After my mother's death there was a crisis - partly because I had "predicted" her death that autumn - and I extricated myself a little - took a more objective view.

Then I became a follower of the dreaded Susan Miller.  Having previously dealt with my own chart and transits - and found them helpful, if not particularly exciting, I was suddenly dragged into a wildly optimistic monthly outlook - which usually, around this stage in the month began to look increasingly ludicrous.  This coincided with a point at which everything seemed to be coming up nettles - so I became fairly desperate for something to lighten the atmosphere.  The lure was that she made everything sound as if this was going to be the time when the tide turned.

A few nights ago I decided I would give it up.  (Until the September horoscope comes out).  I felt it was feeding expectations and adding to depression (see blog passim.).  It seemed to me that very few of the transits that were meant to be helpful were any help at all - Jupiter could do what it liked, nothing it did seemed to benefit me.  I watched our domestic/financial situation go from bad to worse, while the skies beamed upon me and told me I was living through a fortunate phase... God save me from the predictions of disaster.

And yet... underlying the perky chat from S Miller, there was a sense that some things were allied with the stars - the need for hard work and resilience - the underlying gloom engendered by Pluto-Uranus square, (my 3rd and 5th houses at odds might explain why communication, creativity and family matters are not going well).  And now, waking at 4 am and feeling the need to write this - while the Full Moon shines down.  Some sort of ending, some sort of crisis.  Having said all this, what difference will it make?  Well, I have deleted a number of files - but I can't help hoping that the  Jupiter sextile Mars  transit will have a positive effect.

Am I an idiot?
Well, yes, in scientific rationalist terms I am an idiot - I don't mind being a fool for Christ - but being a fool for a transit of Saturn is ludicrous. On the other hand, I would have to be in complete denial if I didn't notice that there had been certain correlations at significant times in my life with planetary activity.  Yes, I know... there isn't a direct "effect" - it's simply that the positions seem to reflect what's happening - not cause it.  And if you see a particular pattern coming up - you can anticipate certain conditions.  But the problem is not in our stars, but that we follow them, or believe in them too much.   I would still love to believe in the Jupiter/Mars transit - but I am fed up with disappointments.  And because of that, I will be reading my September horoscopes as usual, and wondering whether new moons will bring opportunities etc. and trying very hard to bury my hopes under several buckets of salty realism.