****

It’s a four-letter word.  You can’t live with it, you can’t live without it.  What is it?

WORK.

Woodcraft…..

folk!

 

By oak and ash and elm

by something something something

the Woodcraft folk are we

 

Last night, a Woodcraft extravaganza with all the Woodcraft folk across the city giving performances. Some were uneven, some spot-on, particularly a climate-change film made by Holly’s group in which Ruadhan starred as a manic scientist.

 

We were supposed to bring food, so I’d stopped off at a Sainsbury’s local which hadn’t been there last time I visited. (Sainsbury’s are going in for these unmanned tills, which seem to need constant supervision from staff. I don’t like them because they’re really noisy and will lead to staff redundancies.) When I arrived I not only had to walk all round the school twice in order to find the entrance which, like the entrance to the Museum of Thought in one of my stories, is practically underground, I then approached a guy behind a table and asked him where I should put the baguette and hummus I’d brought.

 

I don’t know if you’ve ever known anyone like this guy. I’ve known him for years, though only as a nodding acquaintance – nonetheless, he’s the kind of person you can have a really good impression of through being with them at groups, on committees, at demos, and so on. Anyway, this guy makes a virtue of incompetence. Not that he is incompetent, but (which is worse) he pretends to be because – I imagine – he thinks it’s endearing. I once knew him to bring a violin to a home ed group in order to lead some singing. He walked around with this violin for a while, so everyone thought, “Great! He’s going to play!” When the time came for the singing, he put it to his shoulder, flourished the bow, lowered the bow to the strings, and played just one note. Then he let the violin drop down by his side and started singing. So last night when I asked him where I should put my food, he said, and I quote:

“I don’t know anything, really.”

Aaargh!

On the plus side, we saw Margaret, whom I haven’t seen for years and who is always a fund of useful information – besides being a very pleasant person to chat to. Also successfully avoided a couple of people I really didn’t want to talk to. So – good!

Steve wants to make dinner for me tonight. Sounds good. Also, Holly and I are going to Leicester College for their open day.

Have a good day

TTFN

 

Good Morning my little bloglets

 

How are we today? I’m having a late start as we are going to see Holly in some Woodcraft Extravaganza. For those who don’t know, Woodcraft is a sort of alternative Brownies/Guides/Cubs/Scouts/Sea Scouts/Women’s Land Army/Salvation Army – erm, anyway, it’s vaguely hippy-ish and Holly loves it. She’s been going since she was four or five and is now one of the oldest.

 

Yesterday I didn’t seem to get too much done apart from reading through my stories and feeling that they were not good.

 

Daniel and I have reached Series 8 of Friends – the one where Rachel is pregnant. I started to write a series of limericks about Friends. It went:

 

It starts with a Rembrandt or two

who say that they’ll be there for you

a fountain, some jiving

a bride who is skiving

‘cos everyone says she’s a shoe

 

The idea was to write a verse for every series. I’ve got a few more verses in the pipeline – the difficulty, particularly in the early series, is finding a main event. Also, as Phoebe discovered, nothing rhymes with “Chandler”.

 

Ah well. Enjoy your day. And sing, Bing, sing!

TTFN

At the reference library today

Definitely need to think of some snappier titles for these posts.  Back to working at the library today as Mark seems to be better.  had an email from Artichoke, the people who ran the Plinth project, asking me if I would like to talk to some women’s magazines about my experience.  I said I would.

Working on my stories today.  Some of them seem very lame indeed, and all of them need lots of work.  The radio play is stuck at the moment – but when things are going well I get a real sense that it all works together.  Not feeling terribly inspired today tho.  Tired.

Have you ever noticed how few indoor seats there are?  If you want to sit and have a packed lunch without getting rained on, there are not too many options.

Reading a book called “Mezzanine” by Nicholson Baker.  It is something I read years ago and nearly bought for Mark, even though at that time we weren’t together.  It concerns the minutiae of life, the things we all notice on a subliminal level but don’t pay attention to, such as the nature of the hole in which you insert your straw in a cup of take-away coffee; and what happens to plastic straws when inserted in a cup of fizzy pop (not a problem I ever have to contend with) and how they have designed them to fit exactly into the lid so the straw doesn’t bob up and out of the drink.

I call it Proust for shoppers.

I am also reading Proust again, first in the English, then in the French.  I only have one volume in the French – in fact, it turned out to be the second part of  volume 5, La Prisonniere – and it starts, bizarrely, in the middle of a paragraph.  Took me ages to find it.

Took Mark ages to find the book, too.  It was my Xmas present last year.

I love Proust.  If I had a second life running alongside the first, I’d use it to read Proust, and write all my responses to him.  And  write down all the quotable stuff.  Actually, I’ve found you begin by writing the odd sentence and end by copying it all.

That’s all folks!  See you next time on the Muppet Show.

woe and twice woe

Ill-health has struck the Grayure household.  Mark was throwing up all night, we’re not sure why – which meant that nobody else got much sleep.  Daniel has been watching Friends videos all day, and I have had to abandon plans to work at the library and fail to write anything very much today, though I did organise all my short stories.

Hoping to go and see Citizen Kane in a couple of weeks – very excited about the new Phoenix opening.  Apparently there are also good plans for the old Phoenix building.

Enjoy your good health

TTFN

To my waiting public…

Just realised I didn’t tell you about our plans for the weekend.  So sorry to leave you hanging on like that.  Today we have been shopping, collected Mark from his stint on the CND stall, failed to buy any dinner-plates, succeeded in buying Daniel’s Xmas present, plus some t-shirts for me and slippers for Daniel.

I am hankering for the Saturdays I used to have – meeting my mates in the pub, hanging out, being social.  Nowadays everyone has a Life (with a capital Li*).  Tomorrow I am going to the Martyrs and Mark is going to the cathedral for something relating to his Lay Reader’s course.

Saw Joan (Mark’s mum) on Thurs.  She is waiting for an operation on her knee.

That’s all the news.  Oh!  I am recently getting into Daphne du Maurier, whom I avoided for decades for no better reason than because my mother liked her – and finding her much better than her reputation suggests.  I think I would almost class her than a great writer.

Also reading Proust in French (!)  reading the English first, then the French.  Awesome!

Enjoy your weekend.

*   By which I mean, they have families and houses and gardens and shopping and cars and mortgages and, above all, Work.  Oh, the work!  We have friends who used to be a big part of our lives whom we never see now, because of Work.  I could do a whole Proustian thing on the nature of work and how, pac-man-like, it gobbles up your cookies of time and energy, but I’ll save it for another post.  You know what I mean, anyway

And a short time was had by all…

Rather truncated evening at the ill-fated Pump and Tap in Leicester.  Present: Noel, Peter, Andy, Liz.

Apologies: Noel (for buggering off), Peter (for smoking)

Matters arising:  imminent destruction of a much-loved pub

All of this reminds me of IPAS.  What was IPAS? I hear you cry.  Well, IPAS was a loose collection of individuals led by Scoutmaster Bob.  I have written a short story about him which I am currently revising.  It all started in the pub with what I thought was a joke about setting up an India Pale Ale Society (a sort of reconstructed CAMRA) and before I knew what was going on Bob had produced an agenda, minutes and elections for officers, as well as turning up in a very nice woggle.  Bob was also very keen on buses.  I was familiar with train-spotters, but a bus-spotter (apart from one standing fed-up at a bus stop) was a new one on me.

We had a car this week, which has now gone back – consequently I was at the chalet every day.

Here’s a recent poem:

Onion

Peel placenta

nothing there

cup the stillness

fry the air

…..

Plans for the weekend:  Oh!  Don’t know if i told this joke before:

Mark was always banging on about barbers and how they used to offer all manner of dodgy surgical procedures, and how (in a much more controlled way) he would like to go back to this, and have them offer, say, vasectomies while you wait.

So I said, after the haircut the barber would turn to the customer and say:

Something for the rest of your life, sir?

You’ll probably only get that if you’re in Britain.  And maybe not even then

TTFN

Liz

Oo-er! Pass the buns, Mrs Miggins

Mark is doing rocket science tomorrow.  It ain’t – erm -

It ain’t hard.

Today I am feeling very wobbly.  Writing is hard – it’s like excavating layers of yourself and digging up all the junk you threw down there years ago and hoped to forget about.  It is becoming clear to me that there are powerful reasons why I haven’t made a success of writing before ie deep-seated fears.  Not quite sure where these fears come from but they seem to centre on being afraid that success will equal losing something important – either someone close to me or – perhaps – my sanity.  So spent an unpleasant afternoon at the chalet in the company of these fears.

The radio play is coming on, and I am working on some short stories, as well as the novel.

TTFN

 

That was the week that was…

Busy this week.  At library working in the day.  Have a collection of poems now which is all dressed up and has nowhere to go.  About half-way through a radio play about some people stuck in a lift – I’ve got the beginning and the end, just need about 20 mins in the middle.  Also getting on with the novel.

Hired a car for a week and will be working up at the chalet next week.  Teacher training tomorrow.

Had a brilliant afternoon at Regent College discussing Holly’s options.  They were great!  Very positive about Home Ed and trying to work with us.  If all goes well Holly will be applying there.  So great to meet some people who are flexible, interested in you and not in making you jump through hoops.

A very positive experience.

Also, breakfast at Tomatoes this morning, a sort of church cafe with newspapers, cooked breakfast (including veggie), live music and chat.  Great!

Stay cool.  Have a good week.

TTFN

Yes! I have a fan-base

Just had three really complimentary comments from someone in Luxembourg.  Finally, I thought, someone gets it!  Someone outside friends and family has read my stuff and likes it.  It felt great.  She is also writing a novel and has found a publisher.

A good afternoon in town today – took Daniel for muffins and planned his 13th birthday party (bowling, pizza and sleepover)

Enjoy fireworks if you’re going

TTFN

PS to the Donkey for live music tomorrow