A Return to Farfrae's Erection

It is a sure fact that your beloved Nelly has a rather puerile view of the world. Some might even call it twisted. But it really does give me pleasure that the Google search term 'Farfrae's Erection' has this blog in first and second place. Yay! Result! Nelly Moser takes the fore road of Thomas Hardy. I wonder if I can do the same with Shakespeare? Although that might be setting the bar a bit high.

The Headmaster was asking me the other day how to get a look at the oul' blog. I told him all he had to do was search for 'Nelly's Garden' in Google. I had to warn him to avoid any blog that had the words 'milk' or 'boys' in it as any resulting website would be highly undesirable for a man in his position to be looking at.

So, Headmaster, if you're reading this I advise you to search for 'Farfrae's Erection' instead. Much safer.

And of course this post will ensure that I stay in the top couple of places for a while longer anyway. So sorry Mr Thomas Hardy, your books are great and all, but when it comes to Google ratings it's carnage out there.

Farfrae's Erection* and Other Matters

So this is me on the countdown to finishing at Moonchaser (anag.) I wonder if I will be very sad when the last day comes?

Today I decided that I will eat less crap, walk more and drink less alcohol. So far it has gone well. I also decided (after reading, before sleeping last night, a little chapter of St Germaine) to do much less housework. St Germaine argues that more than an hour a day is excessive. No doubt there are others who'd argue that even an hour a day is too much. We shall see how it goes.

Now that the weather is getting brighter it's easier to walk and I managed 40 minutes in Tardree forest at lunchtime. I am very happy with my current audiobook which is another Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge. How did I get to be over fifty and not read this before?

By the way, I still have another 30 minutes of housework to do, and an orange to eat.

*'Passing to and fro the Mayor beheld the unattractive exterior of Farfrae's erection...'

and earlier in the book the Mayor 'having shut the door... sat in his dining-room stiffly erect.'

As you do. The illustration shows Farfrae and Elizabeth Jane dancing under the erection

Wessex Tales

I was very keen on Hardy when I was a teenager but life got in the way and it's only recently that I have returned to him. Now Bert has also become a fan. Oh we are such a literary pair and you would not believe the intellectual conversations we have. When I'd finished 'The Woodlanders' I rushed sobbing into Bert's arms. "What's wrong?" says he. "Woodlanders," I sobbed. "I just finished it. It was so sad!"

Bert said, "The GOOD man."

And I said, "He was a good man and he was like you, he was brilliant at planting trees."

"Aye," says Bert. "But he was a fucking eedjit, lying out in the rain till he died!"

See! I told you we had intellectual conversations!

Before I read 'The Woodlanders' I thought 'Tess' was the greatest story ever told but now I'm not so sure. That ending was incredibly moving. Neither the babies dying in 'Jude' nor Tess getting hung affected me as much as Marty standing all alone at Giles' grave. I was very upset when the the Durbeyfield horse died and heartbroken when Jude and his wife botched the killing of their unfortunate, trusting pig. 'The Woodlanders' is the first, so far, where the plight of the humans moved me to tears.