Bumper and Grind

‘All that Jizz’ has now flown off in the direction of Mslexia Towers (that’s what they call it, though I suspect it’s an office in a little back-street somewhere) though it is no longer called by that offensive title but had a re-fit and a new front bumper added and is now called ‘What the Heron Saw’.  It has become a story about migrants, which makes it much better I think.

And so it’s back to the novel, which at the moment is feeling like a bit of a grind.

Whenever I use the word ‘grind’ I think it sounds like a posh way of saying ‘ground’.  I once had a book on how to ‘move upper-class’.  It was called ‘High Taw Tawk Propah-leah’ and it advised verbal exercises such as grimacing continually so as to sound (and presumably look) like Prince Phillip (Preenz Feelp).

I’ve just blogged the title and I’ve found my own post, reblogged by someone else.  Which was nice..

http://book-reviewsnews.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/high-taw-tawk-propah-leah.html

So here’s a link to the reblog so we can all go round in circles…

Last week was fun: we went to Foxton Locks for a day.  If you haven’t been there it’s a quite staggering feat of engineering getting canal-boats from the top of the hill to the bottom via a seriously steep lock-staircase.  There’s a cafe at the top (what was once the lock-keeper’s cottage) and no fewer than three pubs at the bottom.  We rejected two of these as being too posh and touristy, and entered the third, Bridge 61.  This was a proper pub, patronised by proper people and although the grub wasn’t brilliant the company was good.  I struck up a conversation with an old guy who looked the epitome of a narrow-boatman (which he was) but who surprised me by saying that before he retired he’d been a doctor!  He was into holistic therapies and we had a really interesting chat: he said as he finished his cider that he’d recently been thinking about going back into medicine but had decided he might be a tad old at 76!

I love canal-life.  I realise that in the heyday of canal-traffic it was a hard life, and for some who live all year round on unheated boats (like Chris, who comes to Drink and Think) it still is, but I’d really like to experience that.  It’s a way of life with its own traditions and its own people and according to our doctor friend, they all know each other.

So after lunch I went walking and picked some more elderberries, and now I have enough for my next batch of wine.  The blackberries are already simmering in the demijohn.

Anyway, here’s Foxton Locks:

http://www.goleicestershire.com/outdoors/foxton.aspx

TTFN

Kirk out