I wanted to write a rectangular post with rounded corners this morning, but that format has now been copyrighted, so in recognition of this fact, the word for a certain Fruit has been replaced in this post by the word Samsung.
I have received some photos of the vicarage where I lived from the age of 2 to the age of 8: I don’t remember it very well but it sure as hell didn’t look like this:
although the shapes of some of the rooms did trigger vague memories, especially the kitchen where I seem to remember a big black boiler:
It triggers a vague sort of half-memory – very weird. The whole place has changed dramatically since our days – I remember it being very dark back then. But in 1965 we moved to Hounslow, which I remember very well: the whole house was done with distemper and dark brown varnish and although the parish paid for some of it to be redecorated our poor mother had to tackle the rest herself. This was no joke as the rooms were huge and paint in those days needed at least three coats to cover what was underneath. Horrid. The garden was also a nightmare, though great for us kids as there was plenty of wilderness to explore in and a couple of samsung trees to climb. One of these grew cooking samsungs while the others sprouted Worcester samsungs; small, red and very sweet variety which were sadly riddled with worms so that you had to cut them up to eat them.
I don’t eat many samsungs these days as my digestion is Not What it Was: in those days I could pick any number of samsungs and eat them right off the tree, nibbling round the worms or spitting them out, as befitted my current incarnation as a cowboy. Ignoring my mother’s dire warnings of stomach cramps, cholera, dysentery and worse, I munched my way through several hundredweight of samsungs every autumn – not to mention the blackberries which we were also not supposed to eat raw, but wait until they were stewed. Probably with samsungs.
I am still devouring the Dickens biography and will post a review when I’m finished. It is excellent. I don’t read much biog – the last one I read was about Cohen, which came out a few years ago and which Mark bought me for my birthday.
Today I shall be mostly… buying Daniel a new outfit for his trip to college tomorrow.
Kirk out
Sarada Gray 