Tits and Balls

It's so sweet !
As for several years recently, a pair of blue-tits is building a nest in our neighbours' gatepost ball finials. We can see the tits going in and out of the ball from our bedroom window, with moss and grass in their beaks. (Picture to follow, I hope)

Packing

Twice a year, for several years, we have gone away to a youth hostel or bunk-house with a score or so of friends; a mixed bunch of adults and teenagers. We're spending this coming weekend in Leominster. I'm a little nervous about how well we will all get on, this time. Last time ended in acrimony. Big J drank too much and played his music too loud and too late, annoying and upsetting the petulant Little J. The latter swore never to return but after lots of negotiating and placating, he has just about changed his mind. But has Big J changed his ways? Will he get pissed again & get stroppy? Will the weekend be a wash-out? Will we have any friends left afterwards? And can we stop the teenagers from drinking too much? Finding out will be fun.

It's time for me to pre-cook the curry and pack the case of wine. And, of course, the waterproofs. It's been raining madly the last couple of days.

Moving out

A couple of months ago, our next-door neighbour died. She was in her late 70's, frail and shrunken, with two grown-up sons in their 50's living at home. One had never married and the other was divorced. Both had lived in the house for most of their lives.

Now, they will have to move out. The house is being sold. Whether it is the two mens' choice or that of their four siblings, we don't know. Rio and I were disturbed yesterday afternoon by the noise of the post for a "For Sale" board being hammered into their garden.

So, in a month or two, we will have new neighbours. Bridie & her children have been fine. We chat, but it's a very reserved relationship. Typically English, except that Bridie is (was) Irish and retained her accent throughout her life. I spoke to the estate agents and they said - but who believes an estate agent? - that they intend to sell to a family rather than a developer, but who knows? The house is certainly large enough to convert into several flats, but whether it would be economic to do so is a different matter. We hope for a family.

Oh, and the price being asked implies that I'm a dollar (and Euro) millionaire. Or rather, Moonface and I are jointly millionaires! So why aren't we rich, eh?

Spring

After several weeks of dry cold weather, it's now mild wet and windy.
It's Spring. There are frogs fucking in our pond. There is frogspawn and there are newts.
A woodlouse crawled across the living-room carpet! And that is a real sign of warmer weather.

Priddy again

Often, when Moonface and I have discovered a walk, we repeat it soon afterwards to fix it in our minds. So at the weekend Moonface and I walked the Priddy ponds, Nine Barrows, Priddy, Ebbor Gorge route again but this time clockwise.

Instead of being frozen and windswept, we got soaked after the heavens started to pour about half-way round. This meant that Moonface's shoulder wasn't hurt, though. The last time we walked here, she hurt her shoulder from hunching against the wind and chill for too long. It's still not right, and she has only just started to cycle to work again after five weeks. The round is a good length for a gentle walk: 8 miles or 4 hours if we go right into the Ebbor Gorge. THe rain wasn't too much of a pain, but the low mist above the Barrows meant that I lost my bearings. Fortunately Moonface's sense of direction is good and she kep me on the correct path.
We experimented a bit with kit. I tried out a different rucksack and found it perfectly comfortable, so I will take it away to Leominster for the hostelling weekend on Friday. Cheers, Drive. I also wore gaiters for the first time, and kept my trousers clean. That made a change!

Single & Single.

I’ve just finished reading the John le Carre novel, Single & Single.
He captures the pains of loss and middle-age perfectly. His key characters are souls adrift, betrayed or betraying, unable to settle in a complex world. They are unsure of their place or the people around them, accepting a fate that they cannot influence.

And sometimes I feel like that, but without the resolve to start afresh because that would mean losing everything I hold dear and love.

When I was younger, I used to read his pre-Wiedergutmachen spy novels, and I enjoyed the grubby grittiness of his Cold War characters, with all the protagonists suspicious of their colleagues and neighbours. He describes worlds built on sand, ordinary men and women being bulldozed aside by malice or power. None of his stories are resolved completely; like life itself. I’m feeling pretty buffeted myself at present. Mournful, betrayed, angry at the bastards controlling the purse-strings.

Coincidence ?

As I wrote and mentally rehearsed my last posting, one of the two women of whom I was thinking, was suffering the same angst about her weight and appearance as Rio did.
She even wrote about it in her own blog.
And as she lives alone and far away I feel for her as well, perhaps even more than for Rio.

But she's hiding from me.

Dressing up

Tuesday evening was dreadful.
My daughter, Rio, the light of my life, will go to a formal dinner and ball on Saturday night for which she needs to wear a ball-gown. She bought one last year which looked lovely: floor-length crimson satin with a full skirt complete with linings. She looked lovely. She wore it again in November, but decided to shorten it as it had become rather tight. On Tuesday, disaster!

She has put on so much weight over the last four months that it was just too tight and her shoulders bulged like muffins.
She was devastated, as it was the first time she had truly realised how much fat she has put on. Not only is she mortified about her appearance, but she had to find a new dress by Saturday, involving shopping under pressure and lots of money. She cried herslef to sleep that night, and was inconsolable by either Moonface or myself. It's not as if she's really fat, just a bit overweight. I guess she doesn't see it like that.

On Wednesday morning, Rio's temper was vile as she made plans to go shopping after school. She was snappy and tearful. However.....

As I left home in the morning to walk to a meeting, I bumped into one of her favourite friends, R. (Well, R is my favourite of her friends. ) We talked as we walked together, and I explained the situation. Then I asked if R if she or anyone she knew had something the girl could borrow. Success! R is artistic and theatrical, and has a hoard of dresses, and had something that might suit. After a few phone calls and texts, followed by girlie bonding and cups of tea, Rio had a wispy flowing Monsoon dress in chestnut which looks beautiful.

On Wednesday evening, Rio's temper was calm, peaceful and her demeanor affectionate.

And all the stress lifted from my shoulders when I knew that she was happy again.
I hadn't realised how much her moods affect me and how much I adapt my behaviour to hers. I think there are only two other women who have that effect on me, and I've seen neither of them for a few months. Phew!

Come to think of it, both of them worry about their weight, as well......

More Art

...on Sunday, but this was a pleasure.
We walked over to the City Museum to have another viewing of the Paint travelling exhibition, which included works by Sargeant, Degas, Monet, Seurat, Rubens, etc. Wonderful contrasts of style. Then up Brandon Hill again and home via some Georgian backstreets. It's good to be a tourist in one's own town occasionally.

Bath

Ye gods! It was bloody horrible out there today. Moonface and I spent most of the day in Bath, primarily to see an exhibition of Paula Rega prints. I'm not sure whether I enjoyed it, but the experience was worthwhile. Her art makes me feel rather grubby, unwashed, unclean. The prints were of her intepretations of nursery rhymes, but mostly with an unpleasant twist. There seem to be so many currents of a sordid and perverse sexuality in the drawings. These were the ones with supposedly family themes; next week the gallery will show another batch of her prints.

As the attendant said: if you think these are weird, wait for the next lot. There's a whole series called "The Abortion".

I'm not sure whether we will go to the next series.

There was also a small exhibition of some pictures of Bath by Sickert, who lived here between the wars. They were pretty unremarkable sub-impressionist urban landscapes. Of course, he was supposed to have been Jack the Ripper by some people.

After that we wandered the streets admiring parts of the city that even Moonface hadn't been to, had a decent Nepali meal and bought Moonface's birthday present, then shuffled off to the station for the train home, hunched and shivering against the cutting wind.

A day out

My oldest friend - by which I mean, the friend whom I have known for the longest time - came to Bristol today. He's not been here since Moonface & I were married, nor has his wife. They visited with their daughter to look around the town and for her to see something of the University prior to her deciding where to study next year.

For me, it was an opportunity to take a sneaky day off, and to show something of the city. I think that my friends were impressed, even though we only had a few hours before they had to take the train back to London. We did a little of the best bits: Brandon Hill, the docks, the Suspension Bridge. Moonface joined us for lunch and the early afternoon.

What I enjoyed most was the ease with which we all slipped into each others' company; we hardly see each other these years yet there was a companionship and comfortable acceptance that is hard to achieve. It's wonderful to know that a friendship can be sustained over 40 years.

Alastair's wife is unusual: although she has lived in England for more than 20 years she is still very French in her mannerisms and looks. She works in health safety studies, and has been very successful in NICE over here . And Alastair? Lean, gaunt, craggy, lanky and very fit. He roller-blades like a demon and at 50+ has taken part in winnning marathon teams. We should see more of each other.

Knowledge or nerdiness ?

Browsing on the internet (as you do) I read a little about the French playwright, Jean Anouilh.
And I found that all the reference sources including the Encyclopaedia Britannica had mistaken the date of one of his plays.

Yep. They all wrote that L'Arrestation (The Arrest) was written in 1975, whereas I know that it was in 1974 at the latest. So I wrote and told them.

And how did I know this? Because in November 1974 I was a stage-hand at the Bristol Old Vic, where I got to be on stage with the star, the little-known John Hurt, in the world premiere performance of The Arrest. We even had Prince Charles in the audience on one evening.

John Hurt has since gone on to greater things.........

Self-indulgence

It's 6 o'clock in the evening. It's been peeing down with rain all day long. Moonface is at work. Daughter is at work. It's time to cook just for myself, for a change.

Bacon, egg, fried bread, peppers, mange-toutes. A mug of tea. The "Guardian". Bliss. Burp.

And back to this machine to prepare for an interview tomorrow.
Wish me luck.

Portishead

The cold, clear, dry weather continues.

Yesterday Moonface and I walked along the coast of the Severn estuary south from Portishead.
The views were spectacular. From vantage points on the low cliffs above the mud and rocks, we could see 30 miles North across the Severn to the snow upon the Brecons in Wales, to the sun glinting off the bridge over the Usk in Newport, the bright towers of Cardiff, the clean lines of both Severn bridges, and far to the south; the Quantocks.

The pathway itself wasn't much fun. It was narrow so that we had to walk in single file, restricting our conversation and cutting the companionship of the walk. The trail was also muddy, with too much dogshit in the areas close to Portishead. Vile!

A few ships passed us, taking advantage of the falling tide to take them southwest towards the open ocean. But there were so few. Two hundred years ago, pre-railways the Severn would have been thriving with boats, taking trade from Bristol to the rest of the world, and connecting upriver cities like Gloucester with Wales and Devon. We walked past a memorial to those days, the huge Naval College built to train the seamen who ran Britain's fleets when we owned half the world's ships. When we first lived in Bristol, the building was a run-down school. Now, it's been beautifully refurbished as smart flats, looking lovely.

On our return leg, the light of the low sun on the muddy water was subtly beautiful. The clouds were white and shades of pink, with reflections upon the brown waters shading gently into blues and flesh tones. Nothing could have captured it; not a camera nor a watercolourist.

Moonshine

I realised yesterday that moonlight radiates cold, just like the sun radiates warmth.
That's why clear moonlit nights are colder than cloudy nights, when the moon is obscured.
It's also why winter is colder than summer, because the moon is visible for longer at night.

Sex and lies

On Monday evening, I had a drink with A, a long-time female friend whom I haven't talked with properly for years. She is single, 50-ish, good-looking with a taste for insecure married musicians, preferably tall, dark and handsome.

We talked about affairs between married people, and she vehemently denied ever having an affair when she was married. Another female friend, C, told me that about 10 years ago, both A and C had both slept with the same man whom they had met via their childrens' primary school. C heard about A's affair from the man.

So, who was lying, and why?

A, to protect her idea of herself as a faithful wife?
Bloke B, to help get C into his bed, or as a boast?
or C, to get at A or to help excuse her own transgression?

In the last ten years:
A was widowed,
B is either dead or in a wheelchair with ME,
C has divorced and has also run a string of married men.

As for me, life is ordinary by comparison.