29 things for the 29th

 Dried liquidambar

 Red green and blue baking dishes

 Our 10% off day at the DIY store

Oily brown wood-pulp firelighters in an old tea caddy with Notre Dame on it

The odd word 'caddy'

Prototype

'Terracotta warriors with an artistic twist'

Deciding not to order bathroom tiles even though it's our 10% off day

Glad to have finished A Place of Greater Safety

I like the flat lid shells of scallops better than the dish-shaped bottom shells

Mind my car

Molly munching pea pods

Sun through the red plastic funnel like a red balloon

Big bags for garden clearing

Saladings

Rubi the labrador is thirteen, and rather overweight.  He lay down too much and got bedsores, but now he's much better

Vermeer's Lady at a Virginal; she looks a bit drippy

Black leggings under purple yoga pants.  Bug-rug-snug

Where did the hills stop and the clouds begin?

Garlic mushrooms good, baked beans better *

Little boat: best (non-edible) thing ever in an ice cream

Yellow glints of sallow leaves

Two packs of chestnut wood floorboards

Pepitas

Thinking about birthday lunch

Thinking about Christmas dinner

Soft foxtail larch tops against the hill

Just one more thing...

Bwha- ha-ha-ha!

* with baked potatoes

Through a glass smearily, or otherwise, with an inconsequential glimpse of domestic ordinariness.

Sitting at the table playing with the camera, trying to find what could be done with different settings.  'Glass envy' my friend called her passion for lenses;

Glass can come in many forms, and I wondered what other glasses one could look through.

Or sometimes inspiration can come from the bottom of a glass, they say.  Though I was only drinking tea, from a cup.

This old blue cup is, remarkably, still going.  It chips and chips again, and the handle is cracked at the base, so I'm taking a risk using it really, but the stoneware and glaze seem to be so soft and friable that the chips quickly smooth down to a familiar wornness, and as long as no one else uses it they are nothing to worry about, and the cracked handle seems to be holding up all right by friction.

So here is the whole scene.

Foreground:- my very small notebook computer, on which I was trying to find forums and help pages to give me advice on the use of the camera;
- my reading glasses, which I have to take on and off, alternating with distance ones - ah the joys of middle age! - between screen and camera;
- pen pencil and notebook with the intention, rapidly abandoned, of noting which settings I was using for later reference;
- teacup, as aforesaid.

Middle ground: - Tom's reading forelimbs;
-his teacup, which is even older than mine and was a free gift from the Folio Society, which I am, truly, ashamed to admit we were lured into joining at a time Before Internet when English language reading matter was at a premium (unbelievable now, when there are more interesting things to read immediately to hand than can successfully be accomplished in both our remaining lifetimes).  The Folio Society entrapped us with introductory offers of good reference books then subsequently forced us to buy those awful pretentiously bound overpriced things which are their raison d'être. Still, Tom got a free mug out of it which is still going;
- salt and pepper, we sometimes try to acquire and get into the habit of using classier s&p sets but always seem to return to a plastic pot and a very scuzzy old pepper mill which still seems to grind better than any other, I don't care for coarse sea salt at the table, it's a foody pretension too far IMHO;
- paper napkins and foil takeaway/freezer containers - paper napkins are the scourge of drawers and cupboards, I've decided, once out of their silly ineffectual cellophane wrappers they scatter and bung up every available space, rendering themselves crumpled and useless in the process. These were waiting to be removed, along with the scores of lidless plastic containers and containerless lids, to to a secondary holding facility, a Curver® storage unit out the back, where their movements will be monitored and contained, or that's the plan;
- the large candle glass, an object which I believe truly fulfils Morris's Golden Rule.  The Molés gave it to us years ago and we use it all the time (this is the glass through which the first two pictures are taken, it could probably do with a clean but maybe the smeary bits add interest);
- a yellow cellophane bag of Grenoble walnuts, Tom's current favourite treat and better for him than sweets, plus he gets the exercise of cracking the shells;
- a pink azalea in a pot from B the German Doctor just after Christmas, she said it might grow in the garden afterwards, though I have my doubts, but a flowering plant growing is always nicer than a bunch of cut ones, I think, even if they all wilt and die in the end.

Background: - a tub of glucosamine tablets, a book of 365 sudoku puzzles, and a packet of Victory V lozenges, yes, I know, it sounds like the contents of a Saga Holidays goody bag (that's a thought, since turning my half-century I guess qualify for Saga now...);
- barely visible here but you can see it in the first pictures, a wineglass with a couple of stems of winter flowering honeysuckle and wallflowers, picked for their fragrance, the frost will have nipped the wallflowers now;
- tray with some oddments of fruit, apples and oranges, which as we all know are incomparable, and a Christmas bauble found on the floor after its companions had been packed away on Twelfth Night;
- and beyond that, window on the world outside, also smeary, but irredeemably so, since Tom applied some silicone product to it in the hopes of stopping it leaking in the unremitting prevailing wildness and wet of the weather on the south-west facing front of the house, and we have never been able to clean the stuff off. Baked dry as driftwood in summer, pelted and soaked at most other times, we almost wished we'd kept the horrid old PVC windows and never replaced them with wood. We've remedied the water ingress as best we can (the silicone didn't work, new seals did to a point), now we just mop up and shut up.

What an untidy table we have.

~

Then I went out and played with the exposure, or was it the shutter speed? Perhaps it was. Or are they one and the same?  Anyway, the terrace and garden in ghostly over-exposure, somewhat tweaked, which for some reason I rather like.

~

So this is the way life goes just now, peaceful, with little of excitement or remark.  I wonder if there's really a place for this kind of 'chatty letter' trivial blogging, which rather gives the activity a bad name, and presumes on one's readers' time and patience, but not to worry, there are few rules, or obligations on either side.  In truth I tend to think that this is inevitably a time of dormancy, of clearing space and making order, of catching up and conserving and waiting.  I've a great yen to read, all over the place, to satisfy curiosity and browse, more than to try to make anything much of my own.

The frost has gone, but there are still some frosty photos to go over, so more of those anon, I guess.

23 bullets

Someone suggested bullet points, there are numbers too, I notice, so I'll try to get 23 done for the 23rd of the month. ( I've got other stuff, really I have, it's just not edited properly...)

1. Hanging out a small load of washing, I understand I've become fond and possess quite a number of clothes of a slate blue colour.  Though mostly winter ones.
2. Cleaned the swatted flies off the kitchen window.
3. Clean the dog-nose marks off the front window.
4. Bugger it's a non-drinking night.
5. As a youngster I wrote a list of things I hated.  I told my mum.  She said 'When you've got a piece of paper the size of a postage stamp why don't you write a list of the things you like?'  This has stayed with me.
6. Wholegrain, Dijon or Coleman's English.
7. My father once said 'That was nice I must have been hungry'.  This was never forgiven, or at least not forgotten.
8. I'm wearing brown pyjamas (which I wish I could spell 'pajamas') and a blue fleece robe, not a dressing gown as it doesn't have a front opening but pulls over my head, with a hood.
9. The British Corner Shop have just made me an offer of a Christmas pudding which I can refuse.
10. I think perhaps when it comes to risotto I have no limit of capacity, but I haven't tested this out.
11. Jeremiah Coleman, I've heard them repeat, made his fortune from the mustard that folks didn't eat.
12. Today I saw a very new-looking Citroen in a deep chocolate brown colour, a true brown.  Can it be that brown cars really are making a comeback?
13. I get caught out time and again.
14. Constable didn't come from Dunstable.
15. Barking mad dog.
16. That helicopter really copped it.
17. Jeremiah Coleman, of Norwich late and great, made his fortune from mustard that folks left on their plate.
18. What on earth am I supposed to do with a large bottle of orange-flower water?
19. If in doubt use the past simple.
20. Find out more about gall wasps.
21. No one knows where the word 'bap' for a soft round bread roll comes from, but I wonder if it is related to 'kebab'? They sell the big soft rounds of bread for those here as 'kebap'.
22. I'm going to get myself a cherry syrup fizz.
23. A dear little blue silicone spoon (shown near life-size)

which came with a twin spatula, but they had to be separated.  It shoulders its way around the awkwardest corners of jam jars, and licks the mini-blender as clean as a whistle.

~

That'll do for today.

Time for a meme

Catalyst has slapped me with two.

The first is the middle name one. The object is to form a kind of acrostic with the letters of your middle name, each one being the initial letter of an adjective (or perhaps adjectival phrase) you think describes you. If you don't have a middle name, use the middle name you would like to have. Mine is a short one: Anne.



A - Ambivalent. I am, about most things, most of the time.

N - Nit-picking. Ask Tom.

N - Nice. Sometimes, or in the old sense, nit-picking.

E - Earnest. I can be a little over-. But sometimes it's important to be.



The next stage is to tag as many people as there are letters in said middle name. I don't mind doing memes but I don't much like tagging people in them, feeling like I'm being a nuisance, though of course no-one has to pick up the tag. Anyway, four isn't too many, so I'll do so when I've done the next one, which is a set of questions.



1. If you could have superpowers, what would they be? There is no obligation to be unselfish, save the world etc.

I would have the power to levitate and position large and heavy objects such as sheets of plasterboard, barrowloads of gravel, furniture up stairs etc, and to levtate and manipulate smal ones such as screws to screw them in. In fact this would have been more use still ten years ago when we started the house renovation, but could still be handy. I would also like to be able to eradicate weeds, sorting them from the benign plants, and destroy slugs and snails with a thought. I realise this is a little ecologically unfriendly, so perhaps I would just teleport them to another place.



2. Stranded on a desert island with a CD player and 10 CDs, what would they be?

I seem to recall that the original idea devised by dear old Roy Plomley was that these would be 'gramaphone records', and that each individual piece would only be as long as would fit on an old 78 rpm recording. This necessarily limited you to perhaps one pop, rock or jazz number, and perhaps one movement from a classical piece. However, CDs allow for more freedom. I always find these music choices difficult; my current favourites are not necessarily the only ones I would want or need if separated from my world. Some music belongs so strongly to a certain period of my life that I choose not to listen to it any more, think perhaps I would find it quite difficult to do so, and often don't even own it any longer, yet if I found myself in the hypothetical desert island limbo, I might well have to have it along. So here goes -



1. Bob Dylan, second period, perhaps, early to mid 70s, 'Blonde on Blonde', 'Blood on the Tracks', I might even dare to face up to 'Planet Waves' or 'Desire'. This most certainly belongs to the category I described above; I currently own none of them, haven't done since CDs came in; one of these days I'll replace them, but not just now.



2. Some Van Morrison, no sentimental problems there, as perennial as the grass. The 'Greatest Hits' album would be fine, though it has got one or two awful ones from when he was with 'Them', and the Christmas one with Cliff Richard.



3. Paul Simon's 'Graceland', age shall not weary her, and lively enough to jump around to.



4. Some Beatles, for old times' sake. Probably the Blue compilation would do, or why not the red, if they still exist, or perhaps the white album. despite all the Yoko inspired weirdness and nasty associations, it still has 'While my Guitar Gently Weeps' on it and more besides.



5. Lots to remind me of Tom, Sibelius 5th, though it wouldn't be the same without the coda of weepy nose-blowing, or Shostakovich 5th, or some Handel, 'Did you not see my lady', a Beethoven symphony or two, and many many more.



6. A good Vaughan Williams pastoral compilation which must have the Tallis theme and 5 variants on Dives and Lazarus, and probably Greensleeves Variations, and some more I don't know as well.



7. The Tallis Scholars 'Renaissance Giants' album which has got so much on it, Spem in Alium, Western Wind Mass... Josquin, Palestrina, and also some really tasty photographs of Michelangelo's David in the artwork.



8. Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble's 'Officium'. Though 'Mnenosyme' is probably better value this is the original and best for me, with very precious associations.



9. A Loreena Mckennitt, probably 'The Mask and the Mirror' for the setting of St John of the Cross, but I like 'The Visit' too; 'The Lady of Shalott' reminds me of my lovely sister.



10. Hmm, too many possibilities for a last choice. Perhaps some more challenging classical stuff I always mean to apply myself to but don't get round to, like Beethoven String Quartets, or maybe just something else from back when, some Joan Armatrading perhaps... or the music from 'Amelie'...

(Sorry, no time to do links for all those)

3. If you were a smell, what would you be?

Box hedges and philadelphus.



4. If you were a bird, what kind would you like to be?

The bird I think I most resemble is probably a dunnock or hedge sparrow. They are commonplace, small and unremarkable, lack any distinguishing features of noticeable beauty or virtuoso musical talent, but on the other hand they have a very pretty and quite bold song when they put their minds to it, which always surprises and pleases, and though they are retiring, they are cheerful, adaptable and confiding creatures, who don't pick fights with anyone. At least I hope I'm a bit like that, most of the time. However, the question is, what bird would you like to be, so I think I would choose to be a heron. They are so larger than life and primeval looking, also slightly menacing, their flight is majestic. I like the way they stand there by water, quiet pools, riversides, even on the seashore, looking ancient and contemplative and monumental, occasionally spearing something with those amazing great beaks. Wonderful birds.

In view also of the next question, also, size is important.



5. If you were a bird, whose head would you poo on?

Well, by this time I should imagine George W. is so oversubscribed as a candidate for this honour that he must have more bird poo on his head than Nelson in Trafalgar Square, so I'll leave him and his cohorts to one side, and anyway, when it comes to politicians, where do you start, or rather where do you stop? The next person that came to mind was Peter Mayle, author of 'A Year in Provence'.

I have sometimes considered having a category label here entitled 'I hate Peter Mayle', but thought perhaps that might come across as somewhat gratuitously offensive, though surely we're all allowed to have our moments? I would label my posts with this as a kind of disclaimer when I thought I might be construed as becoming too glib and hackneyed in writing rosily about French rural life and my living here. By the psychological principle of projection, as I understand it, one dislikes in others the negative qualities one knows on some level one is guilty of oneself. By this token I suppose I must see Peter Mayle as a caution. Smug, facile and self-satisfied writing, patronising, unfunny accounts of quaint locals, with scant real knowledge or penetration, a dismal lack of evocation of atmosphere writing about a place that should be redolent of it, from someone who seems to think he has done something clever by securing enough private income through no particular application of talent or hard work to be able to decamp to a pleasant part of France... remind me of anyone? There but for the grace... or don't I? Nuff said. ( Sorry if it's anyone's favourite book.)



6. Are there any foods your body craves?


Garlic, anyhow: roasted with potatoes, in butter, on clams, in chicken, in garlic bread, on steak... good thing I depend so much on my virtual acquaintance for friendship and support.


Chocolate, of course, milk rather than dark, unfashionable and immature though that may be. There is a particular Ritter Sport bar which has a yogurt filling which seems very hard to find.

All forms of complex carbohydrate.



7. Favourite time of year?

Most of them when I'm there, though not so keen on late summer and late winter.



8. Favourite time of day?

About 6 pm, when the wine is poured. Sometimes first light on a beautiful morning when I'm not dreading or even apprehensive of anything in the day ahead.



9. If a change is as good as a rest, which would you choose?

A change, obviously, if it's as good.



10. If you could invite five people living or dead, past or present to a dinner party, who would they be?

I'm not so good on this kind of thing, probably because I am nul at any kind of fantasy life really. I'm not very starstruck, fearing that anyone I really admire as artist, writer, musician etc would be either intimidating or a disappointment in the flesh, and the thought of bringing back long gone near and dear ones is quite literally the stuff of nightmare. Anyway, I'd be worrying too much about the food to benefit from the occasion. I thought about dear old Geoff Hamilton the TV gardener who died too soon for Tom, then I started thinking about Dinner Parties from Hell scenarios, beginning with St Bernard of Clairvaulx and Richard Dawkins. But St B. would be a real drag, tiresome God-botherer that he was, and wouldn't enjoy the food one bit, but would only throw it up afterwards if he ate it at all, and conflict is only funny in the abstract, in reality I don't care for it.

So, reasoning that he'd have to be there too, to lay the table, which is his forte on these occasions, I threw it open to Tom. He came up with Jesus and Judas, Albert Einstein, Roger Penrose and Meister Eckhart. I said wouldn't the two Js be a bit fraught, but he said he wanted to know what really happened there. I said what about Geoff Hamilton, so he said OK he'd forego Judas since he could get the story from Jesus anyway. I wondered if Geoff might be a bit out of his depth in such rarefied company, but Tom assured me otherwise, saying that they were all mystics in their own way.

Then we realised there were no ladies present, so we thought we'd double up to get a balance, which would make twelve altogether with us, which is quite a good number. To keep the mystical end up Tom wanted Evelyn Underhill, and we decided we'd both really like Beatrix Potter, who wasn't Rene Zellwegger but was no slouch as artist, conservationist and scientist, and also the wonderful watercolourist Hazel Soan. I've been a bit torn between George Eliot and Jan Struther but concluded I'd steer clear of the predictable Great Women of History and Letters and go for the latter. She wrote 'Mrs Miniver', and she wasn't Greer Garson, but really clever and sharp and observant and human. I suggested we invite any one of the poor bloody women who stood behind the Great Men so she could have a good moan and get it off her chest, but then decided on Heloise, so she could tell me whether she wrote all, any or none of the letters, how old she really was, and whether it was the most satisfying relationship intellectually, emotionally,physically and spiritually ever or whether Abelard was really just a total git. Meeting Meister Eckhart she might decide she could have done better... meeting Geoff Hamilton she might have decided she could have done better...meeting Tom...

We then developed the Anti-Dinner Party theme a bit, which I feel could perhaps be the subject of another set of meme questions. To Dawkins and St Bernard we added our Dismal Dutch Bulb-growing Neighbour, a man of singularly little charm and grace, a recent acquaintance who for reasons of harmony and tact shall remain nameless, and Anne Widdecombe.

Or alternatively I would be really happy to have to dinner any of innumerable combinations of blogging friends who I may never actually meet, together at any rate, but who I'm sure would be marvellous company, without the problem of whether they spoke mediaeval German or Latin or Aramaic or whatever.

So now it's time to tag four more. Rest assured you do not have to blather on at the lengths I have, I just don't know when to stop, that's my trouble. I think I'll tag:

My old friend Tall Girl - I'm not sure if she still has a middle name, she certainly used to, which could be revealed without compromising her understandably necessary anonymity.. The issue of naming is a somewhat complex one altogether with her, wasn't there a story about a stroppy grandfather, or someone, or was it the vicar?

Jzr - because the 'z' sounds potentially interesting, and I've only lately discovered her lovely blog which takes me off to dreamy, fascinating, remote landscapes of the Far North, and makes a cri de coeur for their preservation.

Isabelle - who's wise and witty and fun, and I seem to recall that is her middle name, and she's so faithful and conscientious about getting round lots of other people's blogs that she shouldn't have any trouble finding eight other to tag.

Bee - who I don't think has ever been meme'd before, so needs to be blooded, and I have the impression the blogging world still seems a bit like a mass of spaghetti to her, so hopefully this might help her to twizzle a few strands. Her middle name is very familiar to me, though I doubt it was after me, charmless nine-year old that I was at the time of her birth, it was in the family before.

You don't have to do all or any of it.

Questions meme

Just picked up a list of questions over at Lee's , who has nothing worse to fear than folk dancing, which in my current creatively challenged state I'm inclined to answer.

Mobile phone? Breizh Mobile, in my bag in its special wee pocket.
Relationship? Married. Very.
Your hair? Greying and obstinate.
Work? Paid - English teaching. In general, what I'm always supposed to be doing when I'm in fact doing what I like.
Your sister? Coming to stay tomorrow, hooray!
Your favourite thing? Peace of mind.
Your dream last night? Can't remember, last one I do was the night before. The people in the giant modern faceless office building where I often find myself had taken Tom and Molly away with a lot of others to put them in the gladiatorial arena, for which, they told me, the modern world had an insatiable appetite. I would never see them again, and further, they had taken every shred of my own identity too.
Favourite drink? Tea in the morning, red wine in the evening.
Dream car? One that works.
Room you're in? Kitchen/dining room, by the window.
Shoes? Manky old corksoled sandal things I wear instead of slippers because they've a shaped footbed. (Flat feet).
Fears? Loss.
What do you want to be in 1o years? Alive, emotionally and physically intact.
Who did you hang out with this weekend? Tom and Mol
What are you not good at? Too many things to go into. Coping with people being pissed off with me.
Muffin? English wholewheat with a poached egg on top. Or a crumpet.
Wish list item? Time, more of it.
Where you grew up? Berkhamsted, Herts, England.
Last thing you did? Put the kettle on.
Wearing? Old red pyjamas, red fleecy top.
Not wearing? False teeth. That's to say, I don't wear them, present simple not continuous.
Your pet? Black cocker spaniel, 7 years old, often infuriating but much, too much, loved.
Computer? Dell laptop, liked more than I ever imagined it could be.
You life? Ongoing
Your mood? Hopeful.
Missing? Not much, a bit more sun wouldn't go amiss.
What are you thinking about? Boiled egg and bread and butter.
Car? Beaten up red Citroen BX, still going.
Your kitchen? Blue-grey, gold and cream, sunny, bit cluttered. One of my favourite places.
Your summer? Hasn't really shown yet.
Favourite colour? Depends on the shade, most colours if that's right. Least fond of pink, perhaps. There are colours I like to see but wouldn't wear, colours I'd wear I wouldn't want on walls... These days I prefer sludgy, deepened or darkened versions of colours to brights or pastels.
Last time you laughed? Don't really notice, perhaps this morning at Molly.
Last time you cried? Don't recall. Probably the last time Tom did, he sets me off sympathetically.
School? Of life.
Love? The price we pay for love. ( Salley Vickers originally, but ain't it the truth?)

Birthday tag

I had volunteered to be tagged by my very old friend (inasmuch as that we've known each other a long time, not that she herself is very old, indeed she is a little younger than I am and it seems to me she is wearing disgustingly well, as well as writing like an angel and doing all sorts of exciting things up there in Yorkshire...), Tall Girl over at Smoke and Ash, in an exercise ( I hesitate to refer to it as a meme, following GrannyJ's attack on such sloppy usage!) where you find people who share or have shared your birthday, other events that have taken place on it, a couple of deaths and a festival or holiday or two (it all seems fairly flexible in the interpretation). Then I found I had also been tagged by Avus at Little Corner of the Earth, who had many illustrious things like the abolition of slavery, the death penalty etc going on on his birthday. I've taken ages about getting on with this, but I seem at last to have amassed enough considering 12th December, 1961 appears to have been pretty quiet.

Historical event:


On the day and date itself, as I was just coming into the world, the first amateur radio satellite was put into orbit, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. It weighed 10lbs, was of extremely low power and only lasted for 22 days before its battery ran out, and was heard by 570 people in 28 countries - I have no idea whether this was a lot or a little. All this according to the Philip B. Petersen Collection . I was never an amateur radio person myself, but I've noticed a few other people in this realm seem to have been, so perhaps this might be of interest, anyway it sounds as though it was a noteworthy if specialist achievement.



The date was chosen because 60 years earlier, on December 12th 1901, Marconi (above, seems to have been photographed in his garden shed, where they say all the best inventors work)succeeded in the first ever radio transmission ( conveying simply the letter 'S') from Newfoundland to the Lizard Point in Cornwall. It was previously thought that the curvature of the earth would make this impossible. As a child I remember going to the Lizard and being told about this, the significance of which was rather lost on me. However, for better and worse, the use of radio waves has been one of the major developments of the last hundred years or so.

Other events of the 12th of the12th:

In 1098 in the First Crusade, the crusaders breached the walls of Ma'arrat al-Numan. Not having enough food for the campaign, they resorted to cannibalism. Lovely.

In 1787 Pennsylvania became a state. The only part of the US I know personally, my GI Bride aunty who died last year having settled there.

In 1950 the first woman rabbi to practise in the US, Paula Ackerman, led her first services. She happened to do so because her husband, the usual rabbi, had just died.

Birthdays

The only person I have found who shares the very same birthday and date as myself seems to be the actress Sarah Sutton who played Nyssa in Dr Who. I know about as much about Dr Who and those who featured in it as I do about radio waves, they both being lumped together in my mind in the category of The-Sort-of-Thing-My-Brother-was-Into (and therefore I wasn't), but doubtless the mention of her name may send others into a rhapsodic and nostalgic swoon.

Honor Blackman who will be 80 this year, just fancy. My second sister worshipped her as a youngster and is reputed to have escaped from the clutches of a Funny Man who Lived Down the Road from Granny by imitating one of the moves she had seen H.B. perform in The Avengers. Diana Rigg was my Avenger.

Fabulous Bill Nighy (the link is for the official website, amusing but a little overwhelming, from now on I think I'll stick with Wikipaedia; an odd and somewhat arrested world, that of fan-clubs and official websites...) was born on 12/12/49. He just gets better and better as an incorrigible old roue ( sorry, plutarch, still haven't got round to sorting out that accents folder from characters; it occurs to me seeing it written without the acute e that it's only one letter short of 'rogue', which I suppose would do just as well). I just loved him in that adaptation of Trollope's 'He knew he was right', when he was going about his mischievous purposes and said in one of his asides "But what could be more innocent than to visit my old friend, the vicar of Cock Chaffington?"- enough to get any girl's crinoline in a crinkle.
I also find it funny to think he was in that Radio 4 'Lord of the Rings' as Sam, and very good too, if you didn't think about it being him.

And just for Tom, who still has rather a soft spot, Dionne Warwicke was born 12/12/1940. I still insist on pronouncing it 'Worrick'.

Deaths

Carloman, king of the West Franks, in 884 while out hunting( seems to have done for more members of European royalty than warfare, a pity Prince Charles is obliged to observe the Ban...). He was the youngest son of Louis the Stammerer, and united with his (presumably big) brother Charles the Fat to attack Duke Boso the elected king of Provence.

Clementine Churchill, in 1977, at 92. She went to my school. Not at the same time as I did.

Robert Browning, in 1889. A life of faith diversified by doubt or one of doubt diversified by faith... either way, there it was gone. I should really read more of him; I was brought up on 'The Pied Piper' of course, and 'I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three...', though I always have felt that if it was good news thay were bringing then it could have waited a bit and there was no need to nearly kill the horses. I love the line in it 'At Aershot we leapt of a sudden the sun...'.

Holidays and Festivals

Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Ignorant as I am, I knew nothing of this personage, familiarly known as 'La Lupita', or of her importance in Mexico, where, it has been said, the people only now put there faith in her and the National Lottery. Her apparition was in 1531, and it is thought that she was an amalgam of the BMV with a couple of indigenous goddesses, rather as was done in Europe perhaps a thousand years earlier.

The Baha'i Feast of Masa'il, the Day of Questions, which sounds an admirable thing to have a festival about. I encountered some middle-class English Baha'is in my teens, Tall Girl will remember it well! They were very nice, but I thought a bit soppy, and failed to convert me.

Jamhuri, or Kenyan Independence Day, marking independence in 1963 from the British.

Well there it is. Of vague numerological interest, to me anyway, is the fact that three generations of women in my family were all born on days were the ordinal number of the day is the same as that of the month: my mother on 9/9, myself on 12/12, and my niece on 5/5, thereby facilitating notation in both European and American systems. Of possibly more interest is that all the women in my family and none of the men have the ability to touch their noses with their tongues, which may be a meme in the true sense of the word, although the evolutionary advantage of it is not clear.

I am always happy to be tagged, but always feel rather backward in coming forward about tagging, lest I make a nuisance of myself! I think perhaps Marja-Leena might quite enjoy doing this, she's so interested in everything, or Catalyst perhaps while he's laid up might be able to derive some amusement from it and make it funny, Zhoen seems to have an astonishing and admirable capacity for responding to others, whilst blogging excellently herself AND doing a highly demanding proper job too. And RLC, I no longer think of you as so stratospherically distant from myself that I can't tag you in a meme - not to say I have any less admiration for your formidable wit, intelligence and achievement, but you've been so nice... there, I've buttered you up so much you'll have to be gracious and respond! Or anybody else come to that. It doesn't have to be done at such length, Wikipaedia's the best place to go, and it is quite interesting.

I think I shall have to go off-line for a couple of days. It's been a really wonderful spring holiday, we've had some lovely walks, a trip to Rennes I'll try to get some pictures up from, and I feel quite reinvigorated! But I've finally get around to asking some people over for lunch tomorrow, which means I'd better tidy the place up just a bit, and peel some potatoes and garlic, and the shelves and cupboard containing clothes have become so chaotic that that end of the house is threatening to become part of the unquantifiable mass of dark matter in the Universe, and then I really had better think about next term's lessons. And, big mistake bearing in mind the list of tasks above, I've just picked up the latest Salley Vickers novel, 'The Other Side of You', and by the time I'd finished the first chapter I knew there really wasn't anywhere else I wanted to be for the moment. Few novels get me like that these days, there are so many worlds I want to inhabit, losing myself in that kind of fiction is not so compelling.

I am longing to get round to reading so many other blogs, commenting, re-reading, re-commenting, and the number of interesting places to go and people to get to know seems to be growing all the time. And I do want to do them justice, I don't like dashing things off, I always think of things I meant to say or should have said, or occasionally shouldn't have said, afterwards. I have e-mails I want to write, but again, I like to take a bit of time, if not a Bear of Little Brain I am a fairly slow-moving and ponderous one, so please bear (!) with me for a little. Broadband has finally found its way to our backwater, the Livebox is on order, and, fingers crossed, it should be up and running here in the next week or so. While not actually enabling me to type, read or think any faster, it should mean I can get round a bit more quickly, and with those of you with lots of delicious pictures to enjoy, I won't have to get up and make a cup of tea and read the Bhagavadgita while I'm waiting.

A bientot. ( and I might even get around to sorting out that accents file...)