Friday, February 28, 2014

Day vs Night

I had a lovely time with my big sister yesterday.

My days are fine. It’s my nights that are vexing.They are a patchwork of wakeful pain, Letterpress, mugs of Yorkshire tea, episodes of Frasier, messaging loved ones in another time zone…such as Lux via Isaac…

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and rootling in the medicine box, wondering why all our painkillers are past their Use by date.

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Have you ever…?

Have you ever…

……Lain awake with a weird pain you’ve never had before for three nights running, searched the net for the reason, self-diagnosed and then gone to the doctor the next day and been right, and given anti-biotics? That’s me.

……Given in to temptation and ordered a blouse from Wrap and when it arrived, loved it to bits – not least because of the colour -  but it is just, just, just, too small, and you keep trying it on and looking at yourself in the mirror but don’t think losing weight would help… and someone hanging around asks what those frills on the shoulder are for, and doesn’t it look as if it used to be sleeveless and has suddenly sprouted sleeves?

blouse

…and you decide to so order the bigger size but know in your heart of hearts that when it arrives, it will be too big to look perfect in that style? That’s me.

…..Sat in bed in the morning wondering if you feel robust enough to do the two things booked into your diary – your sax lesson and visiting your sister 50 miles away? That’s me.

…..Worried that the tenses in your latest blog post are all to cock?

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Quote for today

"I'm not telling you to make the world better, because I don't think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I'm just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave's a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that's what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it."

Joan Didion

 

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Now I’ve named the beast…

…I’ve tamed the beast, and I can return to being my sweet Pollyanna self (?)

I’ve checked my ESTA status for the upcoming trip, and how many dollars I need, and now I am assembling presents to take.

Lux is the easy one, as she is currently listening to an audio version of Winnie the Pooh, over and over:

jam 

Yes, she really does want more of our jam.

Monday, February 24, 2014

A bad case

I was in a bad temper for much of last week. Did you notice?

By Saturday, I decided I should try to figure out why. I finally realised it was critical when I was brusque on the phone with someone totally undeserving of brusqueness; and when ALL the characters in my favourite soaps were annoying me, not just the usual suspects  (such as the new Tony in The Archers).

My life is relatively easy, and although we have suffered the vile vile wind and rain for weeks, we have not been flooded, so a bad mood was not justified. Why on earth was I dyspeptic? Was it:

1/ a tantrum at my car being scrapped and my having to drive around in Dave’s car (which I am struggling to get used to)

2/ not being able to decide whether to buy another car of my own (and if so, should it be new or used?) when we ought to be able to manage with just one, anyway…

3/ was it because I have not been away anywhere at all for more than three months and I am sick of the same old, same old?

4/ was it about something more fundamental, namely hating getting old

5/ or was it simply a severe case of February-itis?

I suspect it is the latter. Long time readers of the blog will know that by the middle of February I am usually climbing the walls. The absence of snow and ice has made the winter a little easier to bear, but the long term greyness has been just as bad. And I haven’t yet moaned about February this year, have I?

February is foul. February is the calendar equivalent of the early hours. To quote from Fleur Adcock’s poem, Things,

“…It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in
and stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse and worse.”

I HATE FEBRUARY!

There, that’s better.

Now, here is a nice pic of the Bakewell Bridge over the Wye that I took in another February:

bakewell bridge

and here’s another bridge (plus the personnel in the foreground) I’ll see in two weeks time – YAY!  gals

p.s. If you think I am petted and spoiled and far too moany to be nice – say it. It is surely true.

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Sunday’s inspiration and other bits and bobs

You know how I sometimes sink under the weight of bad news and weltschmerz, don’t you? Well, this morning I came across the blog of a young woman who spends her free time on taking a young boy with autism out for the day. It renewed my hope.

I am really enjoying The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West.

And I am looking forward SO MUCH to seeing this little person in two and a half weeks time. This is her yesterday, travelling on a plane to her hols, checking the emergency procedures.

lux on hols

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Missing Wensleydale

The only one of my novels not set in Derbyshire is Zuzu’s Petals, which is set in Sheffield and in Wensleydale (where my parents lived.) Since they died, I still go up to Wensleydale several times a year, usually with one or more of my sibs. In the in-between times, when I am missing the place - as I am this morning - I take comfort in Rosemary Mann’s photographs which she posts on Twitter @1SouthViewHawes. She has a lovely holiday cottage in Burtersett near Hawes, which you can rent. She has kindly given me permission to post a few of her delicious photographs here. These are some of her recent ones:

sheep above hawes RM

towards Ribblehead

Wensleydale RM 2

Wensleydale RM

Oh, Wensleydale, I miss you….

Friday, February 21, 2014

grey (bike) and beige (car)

I’ve chosen a new bike! I’m slightly disappointed because they only do it in charcoal grey, and driving around in Dave’s beige car is bad enough. (Tell me – why would anyone even dream of making a beige car?) But hey – I’m having a new bike!
The other problem yet to be solved is what width of seat to have. You may as well know that when I was first pregnant with Isaac (42 years ago) the doctor examined me and said “Plenty of room in there for a nice ten pounder.” Jim in the bike shop said “We have a device for measuring what size seat you should have.” My mind reeled. Not wanting him anywhere near my bum with a tape measure, I said “Oh, I’ll just try a couple of seats, shall I?”
I tried a couple and still hadn’t found a comfy one so I asked him exactly how they measured customers in order to find the right seat.
I needn’t have worried. It’s a broad strip of gel that you sit on and your ischial tuberosities dent it more than the rest of your bum, and they measure between the two points and look on a chart and hey presto – this is the size of seat you need. But they hadn’t got my size in stock (which i must tell you was not the widest)  and nor could they order it, and I ran out of time. I had to pick up my grandsons from school. But the bike is ordered, and when it gets here, I’ll sort out the seat.
ridgeback-meteor-2010-hybrid-bike

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Why do we have children?

I’ve been thinking a mish-mash of stuff about parenting ever since Tuesday morning when Isaac (my son, and a father of two) sent me the link to a piece by Jennifer Senior in New York magazine called All Joy and No Fun. The subtitle: Why parents hate parenting.

It’s a thoughtful piece which includes a collection of research about parents’ experiences of, and feelings about, being parents. The conclusion appears to be that these days they don’t like the day-to-day experience of it much. 

So what’s the pay-off? In my mind it’s the company of your lovely adult children you like to spend time with, the sense of pride in seeing what lovely human beings they turned out to be, and what loving parents they are. And the other pay-off is – of course – grandchildren.

I know that in the past I’ve compared making a patchwork quilt and knitting a Fair Isle jumper to writing a novel, and now I am thinking that being a parent is like writing a novel and then publishing it yourself. There’s a lot of fun in the early stages and there’s satisfaction and a sense of achievement in the end product but boy is it hard work along the way. There are times that you wonder why you thought it was a good idea – what were you thinking? Is it worth all the worry, the sleepless nights, the huge expense, the fire fighting, the obstacles to be overcome, the problems to be solved? You learn a lot and there are flashes of joy, but there’s no denying it’s bloody hard. 

zoe and lux

Also on Tuesday, I had a lovely lunch with Zoë (my daughter and a mother of two, pictured holding Isaac’s daughter, Lux, a few years ago). She is such a talented and accomplished woman with her sewing, knitting, printing, DIY, design and woodwork, and a multitude of other craftwork, and it made me sad that my mother is not here to see all this. But then I guess my mother got satisfaction from looking at my sibs and me.

 

p.s. I am lucky to have three wonderful adult “children” but the third prefers to remain unmentioned and anonymous.

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Front garden floorshow

Did you have a lovely warm spring day yesterday, as we did here?

So there we were in the back garden at 4.15, oiling my (old) bike chain (which means that I was watching Dave do it) and a loud unfamiliar noise started somewhere on the lane.

Dave said: “What’s that rushing water? It sounds like a burst water main.”

I said: “No it doesn’t, it sounds like some kind of farm machinery.”

We finished oiling the chain and then Dave disappeared round the side of the house in search of the noise. Two minutes later he was back.

“It’s starlings in the field across the road!”

We stood on the lane in front of our house and saw and heard a HUGE flock of starlings sitting on one of the trees. You see those two trees on the left that look as though they have leaves on them? Those “leaves” are starlings. The noise was weird and wonderful.

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They took off and flew around for a couple of minutes and then alighted back on the tree. Then after another 3 or 4 minutes, they took off and flew over the hill to join the main roost – that one I told you about a couple of weeks ago.

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One day, I’ll have the camera with the zoom lens all lined up and ready. I wish you’d seen them with us. It was breathtaking.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Fresh air and sunshine

Do you ever wake up from a night that was far too long, because it was full of uncomfortable dreams and one really bad one just before waking, so you felt gloomed from the start of your day?

I just had one of those nights and am sitting here with the laptop and the Yorkshire tea, talking to you and trying to shake off the night. I need some fresh air blowing through my brain.

It’s been so busy here for the last few days I haven’t been out on my bike, and I’m missing it, so even if it’s raining, I’m going to be out there on the Trail by 9 a.m. Later I’m having lunch with Zoe, and we’re going to her local bike shop to see if we can find a new one for me. I hope that even if I have to drive around in an ugly, dirty, beige, truck-like vehicle (Dave’s choice) at least I will have a sleek new bike, and the ancient one with the mudguards held on with plastic ties will be the spare in the shed.

This is me in sunny California, riding Wendy’s bike over the Golden Gate Bridge: an actual video. It was one of the best days of my life. Thank you, Ise.

Isaac in New York Oct 09

In three weeks time I’ll be there in the sunshine again – staying with the West Coast Hepworths. Oh yes.

Monday, February 17, 2014

Such a great letter

Yesterday I came across this wonderful letter in the book – Letters of Note. I wish I’d written it.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Happy Saturday

happiness is…

…cooking boeuf bourgignon and chocolate mousse for old friends coming to Saturday lunch, while listening to a Getz Gilberto CD (oh, that sax) …

…eating said lunch and talking for five hours…

…and then checking your book’s ranking on Amazon and finding it’s still near the top of the charts…

…playing Scrabble with Dave and watching Cagney and Lacey and thinking – Blimey, that episode has aged well!

… and checking your book’s ranking before bed and finding it is just as good…

…and waking up to photographs of your Californian grandchildren…

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and outside the bedroom window – silence. No wind, no rain: pure silence. Actually, there are birds, now. Yes.

 

AND

The offer of a free copy of Plotting for Grown-ups will end soon, so grab it now!

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Old and new

Before I start, the offer is on till the end of the weekend:

a free copy here of PLOTTING FOR GROWN-UPS.

Tell everyone!

Phew, now I can get back to a quiet font…

The scrap man came and took my car on Wednesday and I was sad.

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…and surprised at being sad. Dave kept saying “It’s only a car,” and I kept replying, “I know. But I am sad. Please just try to pretend you understand.”

The car was 18 years old. The central locking had gone; the window seals leaked, so the boot smelled as if twenty tom cats had been trapped in there for a fortnight, and worse, the whole car steamed up horribly on cold days; the aerial was broken so I couldn’t listen to the radio; my big sister said it was too scruffy for me – an author trying to publicise her latest book – to drive;  the repairs on it have cost a fortune; but I liked the car. I still don’t understand why I was so sad, though. Was it because:

1/ I bought it from my sister (my other sister)

2/ I bought it with some money my mother left me

3/ It was my private space (like my study) where I could listen to my sax music and no-one would complain

4/ I could listen to Fun playing We are young REALLY REALLY LOUD, and pretend I was Sally in Plotting for Grown-ups, driving along with Kit

5/ I could run away whenever I wanted, even if Dave was out with his/the family car

6/ Although it needed money spending on it to fix it, it wasn’t rusty. It seemed like a huge waste to scrap it.

But there we are. It is gone. And for the moment (and maybe forever) I shall be sharing the beige (ugh!) car with Dave.

On a different tack, a couple of weeks ago on this blog, Marmee commented that one of her favourite books was The Fountain Overflows. So I ordered it, and yesterday it arrived, and I am loving it.

book

I also think the cover is beautiful. Thank you, Marmee.

Friday, February 14, 2014

Don’t stop!

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

The plan (see my last post) is working.

Jane and I were emailing each other all last evening –

We’re at number 17!”

“We’re at number 9!”

I sent her an email at 5.30 this morning to tell her we were at number 5 in the US women’s fiction humour category, and now we’re at number 4.

Please don’t stop. Please tell more people if you can.

Today I have to decide what to price it at when it goes back on sale. Can we make this work?

Here’s a summer picture of my front garden, to remind you how lovely the world is, when it isn’t February.

front garden 1

And here – a propos of nothing – is a wonderful recording of A A Milne reading a Winnie the Pooh story.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

The Plan

I hope you are all safe and warm and dry, wherever you are.

OK. Here’s the thing. I need to sell more copies of Plotting for Grown-ups, and in order to do it, I’m offering it for free.

What?

For the next five days, you can get the ebook of Plotting for Grown-ups for free - from Amazon. Follow this link.

Even if you already have a copy – hard or virtual – please will you go to Amazon and get your free copy? The theory is that if enough people do this, the book will zoom up the charts and become visible to people who have never heard of it, and at the end of the five days it will be high in the charts and people will see it and actually buy it.

I really hope you want to help. Would you also publicise this offer to everyone you know who might be interested? You can email them a link or Facebook it or tweet it, or maybe just tell them face to face. (Radical.)

And for all of you lovely people who like to see photos of the Monsal Trail, here are some I took on Tuesday.

Cressbrook Mill from the Trail:

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Cressbrook Tunnel:

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The flooding river Wye from the viaduct:

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Monsaldale:

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The river Wye – from the other side of the viaduct:

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And this is my drain on the lane – nicely cleared:

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I’m thinking of putting up a blue plaque –

Drain looked after by Sue Hepworth, local author.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Could you say which of your children is your favourite?

Another writer recently asked me which of my four novels was my favourite, and I couldn’t say. It felt as if she was asking me which of my children is my favourite.

How could a mother choose?

How can a writer choose?

And now I’m thinking about it I’m wondering whether the reason she, a writer, could ask me such a question is because she has only one child, and she hasn’t yet had a novel published (although I am sure she will do soon.)

Which of my novels is your favourite? And why?

I love Plotting for Beginners because it was my first. And because it cheers me up to read it now. And I love the characters.

I love Zuzu’s Petals because it’s based on my bereavement journal that I wrote when my father died. It has huge chunks in it which are real and which are there to say – this is how it is – this is how it feels to lose a beloved elderly parent. I think it is good and serious writing.  My aim was not to make the reader laugh, although there are many jokes in the dialogue between the minor characters. But I do feel sorry for Zuzu’s Petals. The blurb does not sell it, and neither does the cover.

I love But I Told You Last Year That I Loved You because it is full of things that Dave has said that have made me laugh. Basically, it is full of Dave. Sol and Frances are not Dave and me, but there is a huge overlap.  I’m proud of it because it’s the first novel I wrote (successfully) in the third person. I’m also proud because the National Autistic Society named it as one of their favourite novels about autism.

I love Plotting for Grown-ups because it was such fantastic fun to write, because I love the characters (mostly the same as in Plotting for Beginners), because it’s a Rom-Com* – a genre I like when it’s done well - and because I fancy Kit.

books

*One of the last arguments that Jane (my co-author of the Plotting books) and I had in the writing of Plotting for Grown-ups, centred on whether we should describe it as a romantic comedy in the back-cover blurb. I said we should. Jane said we shouldn’t. She won. I can’t recall her reasoning now, except that I think (and forgive me if I’m wrong, Jane) it was because she said it would put off our target reader. Also, that Rom-Coms have got a bad name as there is so much trash out there.

According to Billy Mernit, my Rom-Com screenwriting guru, "a romantic comedy is a comedy whose central plot is embodied in a romantic relationship" and "the central question posed by a romantic comedy is: 'Will these two individuals become a couple?'"

So based on that, I’d say PfG is definitely a Rom-Com.

Monday, February 10, 2014

Deleted Scene

My big sister, who lives 50 miles east of here, says the weather’s been kind and she’s been gardening. Here we’ve had relentless rain and wind for days and days, the rivers are broad and swirling, and the fields are flooded.

There was a winter walk by just such a swollen river in the first draft of BUT I TOLD YOU LAST YEAR THAT I LOVED YOU, but in later drafts it was cut.

Here it is – my very own deleted scene….

They walked along the Monsal Trail, a disused railway track reclaimed by the Peak District National Park as a bridleway. They got as far as Monsal Dale, where the sky loomed over them, a charcoal grey. Her feet were wet and cold and she was ready to turn round and make for home, but Sol wanted to carry on, and they had a bad-tempered spat. He was usually very considerate, but since he’d found the letter, he’d not been quite the same.

As they crossed the bridge over the mill race at Water-cum-Jolly, she looked at the fierce, noisy torrent and shuddered. How easy it would be to lose someone by throwing them in.

jan08 005

"You won't ever chuck me in here, will you?" she said as a joke, trying to smooth things over.

"You don't need to worry about that," he said. "The barrier's too high and you'd struggle too much."

They climbed up onto the ridge and trudged along the sheep track through the bare trees, whipped by the January wind, and down again to cross the swollen river on another bridge.

"Look how the river's flooded - look at the way it's swirling around those trees," she said.

"The current's much slower," said Sol. "Do you think someone could be swept away just here?"

"You’re not really thinking of throwing me in, are you?"

"Don't be daft. You'd make too much noise."

Sunday, February 09, 2014

Quote for today

quote

Saturday, February 08, 2014

One pass, one fail

These are testing times.

I had the dreaded over 40s (apparently – not over 60s) health check this week. My cholesterol level was good, but my waist was 1 and a half inches too big. It wasn’t in the RED DANGER ZONE, but in the yellow zone, which means the nurse doesn’t thrust diet pamphlets at you, and look appalled, but points at the tape measure and says mildly, “It would be good if you could get it down to this.”

She asked me all about my diet, and also, how much I drank. I said (truthfully) one glass of wine a day.

“And do you have an alcohol free day?” she said.

“Only when the bottle runs out.”

april 09 045

My 18 year old car has definitely run out of bottle. Yesterday, it failed its MOT. Dave has almost convinced me it should go for scrap. I am so fed up. I like my car. I think the lichen on the window seals adds character. Who cares about the broken central locking? And I have learned to live with the damp problem. There is no sign of rust, because I bought it from my sister in the sunny south. I am so fed up. I have liked having a car that no-one wants to steal.

Now I have to decide if we can manage living in the country with just one car, when that car was not my choice, and is really a van masquerading as a car, and actually feels like a truck, and in order to reverse, you have to use the wing mirrors, rather than turning round and looking through the back window, and what is more it is BEIGE. 

Thursday, February 06, 2014

Thoughts before breakfast

All through last evening’s merciless wind and rain I was thinking about someone I love who had to work outside in it.

And under the duvet this morning at 5.50 after a long night of annoying dreams, I was wondering how my parents and grandparents lived through the World Wars. How do people manage to live through gruelling conditions of any kind – chronic bad health, crushing home lives, poverty, insecurity – and do it without complaint?

Then I sat up and found some inspirational thoughts on the net, drew the blinds and saw a bright sky with a pink streak in it and heard the birds.

Then I turned back to the net and found this report: that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has stopped giving tents to Palestinians when the Israelis demolish their homes.

The ICRC spokesperson said:

“…we will not be able to distribute shelter materials such as tents to people affected by house demolitions in the Jordan Valley and that is because we see a pattern of obstacles and confiscations since early 2013 of these tents and materials.”

ICRC had responded to 16 incidents of home demolitions involving some 70 households since the beginning of 2013, and the Israeli authorities had confiscated or destroyed the emergency housing materials of more than 30 of those households. This affected about 200 people. 

House demolition, Al-Mayta, Jordan Valley, 20.01.2013

picture credit – © Keren Major/ Active Stills

This is just one reason I boycott Israel.

Wednesday, February 05, 2014

Love and all that bullshit

There’s a lot of soppy tosh written about love.

Fran in BUT I TOLD YOU LAST YEAR THAT I LOVED YOU speaks for me when she says:

Made for each other. What a ridiculously sentimental expression, and it wasn’t even true. Sol and she weren’t made for each other. No-one was made for another person. There were no perfect matches. That was a load of twaddle. But they loved each other – that was the point. He drove her up the wall, and she loved him.

Because I’m writing a screen adaptation of BUT I TOLD YOU LAST YEAR THAT I LOVED YOU, I’m currently watching a lot of romantic comedies. But I’m only watching the best ones. Helpfully, Billy Mernit lists these in the back of his excellent book Writing the Romantic Comedy. (Yes, well spotted! It is the book that Sally Howe is always referring to in PLOTTING FOR GROWN-UPS.)

I have to watch each film several times, to see how they work. And on third viewing I’ve decided that Moonstruck – which up to now I didn’t quite get – has become one of my favourites. Not much happens in it, unlike Working Girl, which is stuffed full of plot – and which I also like. But there is a lot to think about in Moonstruck – stuff about love and death.

The first time I watched it, the hero’s histrionics got up my nose. But now I like him.

I particularly like this quote from him:

Loretta, I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn't know this either, but love don't make things nice - it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die. The storybooks are bullshit. Now I want you to come upstairs with me and get in my bed!

 

moonstruck

OK, Ronnie, whatever you say!

Tuesday, February 04, 2014

You don’t have to be perfect to be lovable

It’s so liberating to wake up this morning having had a good night’s sleep. I feel ready for anything.
Yesterday morning I felt dire, and when my friend rang up to ask if we could cancel lunch and eat at her house instead and would a poached egg be OK, I said “I hate poached eggs. I’ll bring my own lunch.”  I knew this wouldn’t offend her, and it didn’t. That’s the kind of friend she is. Later, she commented on my being grumpy – but not as a complaint, merely as a statement. She loves me, even when I’m grumpy.
Also, I can tell her anything. I am so lucky to have her as a friend.
This quote is dedicated to her:
Oh, the comfort --
The inexpressible comfort of feeling
safe with a person,
Having neither to weigh thoughts,
Nor measure words -- but pouring them
All right out -- just as they are --
Chaff and grain together --
Certain that a faithful hand will
Take and sift them --
Keep what is worth keeping --
and with the breath of kindness
Blow the rest away.
Dinah Craik


Monday, February 03, 2014

Stuff

I had a productive weekend.

I made lemon curd:

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I finished one of Zoe’s arm warmers (though it needs pressing and sewing up):

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I cleared clutter from the shelf in the kitchen and found two more bookshop bags to add to the one I didn’t want to throw away in January. I think I’m going to frame them as a collection.

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I washed the bathroom floor and the kitchen floor (unusual activities worth celebrating), I cycled, and I cleared drains on the lane again.

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I should have put drain clearing down on that plan I made for my next life: it is such a wonderfully satisfying activity.

Saturday, February 01, 2014

Oh my God - Stoner

I have just got up after reading Stoner for an hour in bed. I feel extremely bad-tempered, despite the fact that it is the first bright sunny morning we have had in what seems like weeks. Stoner is a MISERABLE novel. It is well written, and everyone seems to be making a fuss about it so I thought I would give it a go, despite hearing it described as sad. I can do sad. But I can’t do miserable, even if the misery is beautifully written.

I once came out of a Mike Leigh film and blasted my dearest friend with “Why would ANYONE want to go and see such a miserable film? Why do YOU want to watch such miserable films?” She laughed.

This friend is a filmaholic with a catholic taste (which does not include violence) and enjoys watching all manner of movies, including subtitled things about abortion in Romania  - you know the kind of thing? – as well as more acceptable films designed for intellectual low-lifes and unashamed optimists like me.

When we’re planning a trip to the cinema, she will sometimes say – “I’ve checked the programme and there’s nothing suitable for you, Sue.”

sausalito

Do I take things too seriously? Do I become too involved? Why can I not cope with this kind of stuff?

My view is that life is tough enough without reading, or watching, misery as a pastime. There is far too much misery in the news. (And just so you know –  Inside Llewyn Davis is an excellent film but I found it profoundly depressing.)

Now I am going to have a mug of Yorkshire tea in the sunshine and shake off that wretched book. I shall enjoy the daffodils on my desk, and the rest of my day.

Happy Saturday!