The Twelve, July 2024

 

Another six books have been completed since I last posted.

Two by Tana French, The Secret Place and The Likeness. They were enjoyable although both were far too clever for their own good. As crime fiction should be. I think that itch has been dealt with for a while although I do have a Denise Mina waiting in the wings.

And speaking of crime - I'll Be Gone  In The Dark by Michelle McNamara, a true account of the search for a serial rapist and killer in California. I liked it. Very well written. McNamara died before it was published and I found myself more interested in her than the killer who, like most of his ilk, was mediocre and underwhelming.

I raced through Pet. Five stars. I want to read everything Catherine Chidgey has written and I am grateful to my Irish/Kiwi cousin for the recommendation.

Then I completed reading According to Queeney by Beryl Bainbridge. It didn't grip me as much as some of Bainbridge's other books. Still a decent read. And, at times, bloody comical. I shall read it again when I'm eighty.

I picked up a copy of The Seventh Son by Sebastian Faulks somewhere last week. Tesco charity bookshelves, Oxfam? Cannot remember. Read it in four days. (Remember I'm also reading eleven other books concurrently.) Could not put it down. There were some of the same themes as Human Traces but it was much more accessible. An exhilarating and enjoyable read that left me thinking about what it is to be a human being. I loved it.

Not reading but I did start listening to All Quiet On The Western Front. I will never be able to gather strawberries again without recalling the suffering of horses on the battlefield. I know the men suffered too but there must be something less harrowing to listen to whilst gardening. 

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

Wassup?

The self-hypnosis thing is going terribly well. I don't eat biscuits, I physically cannot overeat, Bert's clarinet playing does not faze me in the least and I can fearlessly call people and talk about their overdue accounts.

On the downside maybe it's not such a good thing that I have recently drenched a keyboard and a printer in Pinot Grigio. Didn't do them a lot of good I have to say. Shall I give up drinking? Not yet. I shall stop drinking out of champagne flutes. They are so unsteady.

The grandmotherly thing is good and getting better. I had a promising first experience of baby-sitting. Martha slept and I watched trash TV. All good. I hardly ever watch TV so it mesmerises me when I do.

I do watch stuff from Lovefilm. Bert and I finished watching Tess of the D'Urbervilles last night. It was the BBC version with Gemma Arterton and we enjoyed it immensely. Bert hadn't read Tess (nor any Hardy) and he reckoned it was going to have a happy ending. I didn't disabuse him of the notion. I think I spotted a sad little tear in his eye at the end. I asked him if he thought he could watch the Polanski version and he said he thought he could. I love listening to my books then getting the film or TV series. Listening to Oliver Twist at the moment but I'm not for watching that damn musical. Recently listened to Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain. It was OK. How could anyone actually read it though? There were so many opposition party leaders that I'd completely forgotten about. I'm stuffed if the Geriatrician ever asks me who led the Labour party before Tony Blair. And for some crazy reason I cannot remember what Jim Callaghan looks like - I just cannot bring a mental picture of him to mind. Must remedy that.

Callaghan Schmallaghan

What Bowers Are For

But on a lighter note...

The current audiobook I'm plugged into as I go about my household tasks or taking my wintry walks is The Pickwick Papers and I'm finding it very amusing. In fact I often laugh aloud which must seem odd if I'm out in public. I liked this part where the amorous Mr Tupman and the Spinster Aunt were heading in the direction of that most romantic and delightful of garden features, the bower, which Dickens describes thus,

There was a bower at the farther end, with honeysuckle, jessamine, and creeping plants--one of those sweet retreats which humane men erect for the accommodation of spiders.

A droll description!

I May Have Omitted To Mention

Barnaby Rudge and Grip the Raven

I finished listening to Barnaby Rudge and I have to say I enjoyed it very much. I particularly liked that illustration as it fitted very well with the image of Barnaby that I had in my mind.

I have changed my car. I now drive a Peugeot 307 estate and Matty is very pleased with it. Bonnie does not like it as much as my VW Polo as she has been confined to the boot so far. It's a very big boot but it's still a comedown for her.

My granddaughter is one calendar month today. She is even more beautiful than she was. I really do hope she doesn't peak too soon!

We are looking forward to having Katy and her fiance come to stay. We expect there shall be a great deal of talk about weddings. We shall try to bear it.

The pigs went away a week ago today. They will be coming home in the form of sausages and other yummy things in the very near future. There has been no word of the Kune Kunes but - trotters crossed!

We brought a little light into our lives with the help of Pascal the Rascal. (This is cryptic and will only be understood by a very few, mostly called Joe)

Hannah has discovered a new fascination for the natural world. She still can't tell a plant from a tree but she's very keen on parasitic wasps.

There are some other things going on which are not a matter for levity. As always, in the midst of Life....

And that is all.... for now.

A Desprit Hoor For The Culture

Tonight Bert and I went to Ballymena and found ourselves in an entirely spide-free zone. And it wasn't even a church! We went to see the Lyric Players perform The Beauty Queen of Leenane in The Braid. We thoroughly approved. Sure what else would a body be doing on a Thursday night? Watching The Sopranos and drinking gin? A change is as good as a rest, as they say.

Recently we've been having a fly at Kurosawa's The Idiot. Dem heavy going we thought. We were glad to get back to The Sopranos.

Bert says,

That Tony Soprano's a whingeing bastard.

D'ye think?

Mind you I wouldn't like to tell him that to his face.

Other cultured things I've been doing include listening to Barnaby Rudge. You know, I'd never even heard of the Gordon Riots before! But does listening to audiobooks count? Although I always have the hard copy to hand to properly read parts I sort of missed out on because I saw an interesting bird or the cat did something funny or Bert tried to engage me in conversation.

I've been doing some proper reading too - Flann O'Brien, the Ikea Catalogue and the discusion boards on Lexulous and Wordscraper. Some of the discussions on those last two are a horror movie. I can hardly believe that adults say that sort of stuff to each other. Little wonder they need alter egos.

Off to bed now with a Killer Sudoku and the NME death issue. This culture stuff can be very tiring.

Listening Not Blogging

Thoughts on Blogging & Audiobooks

The last time I blogged about audiobooks I'd notched up six books. Since then I have listened to
the following works -

• The Wind In The Willows
• Don Quixote (Volume I)
• Queen Lucia
• The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
• Tess of the d'Urbervilles
• David Copperfield
• The Quiet American

And I'm presently nearly finished with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. But there is a snag with all this book-listenin' and it is this:

All that time, all those hundreds of hours whilst I was driving, or walking, or doing mundane tasks I'd have been thinking, and while I was thinking I'd sometimes get ideas for blogposts. Now I just listen. And listening is very different from reading and it is very different from just thinking about whatever comes into my head. Listening is good. But is it as good as reading? I'm not sure.

That is part of the reason why my blogging has become sketchier. A lot of my thinking time is taken up with listening. I still think a lot but they are important thoughts, personal thoughts, maybe not for general sharing. I think about work, ageing, Zoe's pregnancy, my mum, my family, Katy's wedding, Bert's cabin fever, the dire-dish-of-the day prediction of imminent global disaster, the weather, Hannah's general happiness, food and whatever book I happen to be listening to.

Things I Bought Today



Today I bought a vintage postcard portraying nasturtiums which I did not need. I also bought six tins of dog food which the dogs needed. Or so they said.

What I Did Today

Dirt Bird came for her tea and I made a vegetarian pasta with vegetables freshly harvested from the garden. I also made buttermilk pancakes to please Bert as he does not relish pasta. I discovered that Dirt Bird could eat her way through the Cave Hill if it was made of pancakes. In honour of our guest (to be renamed The Pancake Queen) we drank our tea from my vintage nasturtium-patterned teacups.

Negativity

I've always found Ariel Leve’s writing a tad joyless and after reading The Positive Side Of Being Pessimistic I felt so downhearted that I ate three chocolate biscuits. Then I felt even more hopeless so decided to have a good chat with myself.

Do you not hate yourself for eating three chocolate biscuits?

I do so. I’m a disgusting greedy slob.

Do you feel lower than a snake’s belly?

Indeed I do. I feel so disgusting that I should be scraping myself off my shoe.

According to the gist of Ms Leve’s argument, are you feeling better or worse for applying a bit of negative thinking and giving yourself a hard time by imagining that you are going to turn into an enormous blimp?

You know, I actually feel better because I am facing up to facts and not wearing myself out pretending that I hold myself in the highest regard at all times and on every occasion.

So I went for my lunchtime walk resolving that I would walk even faster than usual to work off the three biscuits. Sheesh! This positive thinking thing is hard to keep at bay.

The brisk walking was giving me a funny feeling in my chest and I wondered if I was mad setting off on a bicycle for the Rhinns of Galloway if I couldn’t even walk briskly for five minutes without getting a tight feeling in my chest. Then I wondered if it was the start of Swine Flu or congestive heart failure. Oh well. At least I had Tess of the d’Urbervilles to take my mind off my worries.

It was a beautiful sunny day. The sky was bright, the verges thick with beautiful scented meadowsweet and the air buzzed with happy insects. The road I’d chosen was near the forest, the fields were full of lambs and ewes, there was the cutest picture book donkey in a field, there were even goats and a pretty little silver unicorn tied to a gate. Okay, okay – the unicorn had no horn, it might have been just an ordinary grey pony but it did remind me so strongly of Maria Merryweather’s Little White Horse.

I very nearly started to feel cheerful. Even Tess of the d’Urbervilles was lightening my mood. The part were Tess’ parents were drinking in the bedroom of Mrs Rolliver’s Inn was almost droll. Never mind that Mr Durbeyfield had just been told that his heart was failing, or that Mrs Durbeyfield had deserted her children for the evening or that Mr Durbeyfield was so poorly from drink that he couldn’t deliver his wagon load of beehives and Tess and Abraham had to go instead. It was still amusing me. But then! Then poor Prince met with his terrible accident, dying in his harness and leaving poor Tess guilty and distraught. Then there was his pathetic funeral with all the little Durbeyfields in attendance. I knew that Tess was going to be a sad book but no one had told me just how harrowing it was going to be!

I won’t be taking Tess to Scotland with me. It will just be Nellybert and bicycles. This is how I imagine it. Bert and I will be cycling along quiet coastal roads in sunshine. We will explore caves and forests and visit beautiful gardens. We will lie on grass verges eating oranges and chocolate. We will be happy.

This is what I fear. The roads will be crazy with traffic. There will be other cyclists far, far fitter than us and they will sneer. It will rain all the time. There will be no shops. We will fight and bicker. Bert will not be able to find any caves to explore and the beds in our B&B will have nylon counterpanes. One or both of us will die.

If we survive it I’ll be back here on Monday. As Bert says, it’s only Galloway we’re going to, not bloody Mongolia!