We visited Isaac Newton’s apple tree a couple of weeks ago. It’s in the orchard of his childhood home, Woolsthorpe Manor, a couple of miles off what’s now the A1, the Great North Road. These days it’s a couple of hours’ drive from Cambridge (we started a little further north than that). It would have taken considerably longer in Newton’s day; nevertheless, he made the journey.
Woolsthorpe is a lovely place. It’s in the care of the National Trust now, and they’ve managed to find a satisfying balance between hands-on science and palpable history. The volunteers (apparently there is no shortage) are a mixture of enthusiastic students and gentle retirees. It’s not exactly quiet – it couldn’t be, with children spinning balls down funnels and laughing at distorting mirrors and all the rest of it – but it feels extraordinarily peaceful. You wouldn’t think there were lorries hurtling north and south just over there. This cat was snoozing away happily in the café; later we saw it touring the yard, seeking homage from the other patrons.
I hadn’t twigged that the reason that Newton was sitting under an apple tree at his family home in the first place was that the University of Cambridge had been closed. If I’d known the year – 1665, see if you’re faster than me – I’d probably have made the connection. Bubonic plague. He was self-isolating, we might say now. Lucky to be able to do so, of course. I was conscious of a fellow-feeling: I too ended up leaving Cambridge to find a garden of fruit trees when our epidemic struck, although that was March, not apple season, and that was just the way things worked out for us.
Newton’s Cambridge was different from mine, too. He’d still be able to find his way around the city centre, and no doubt he’d be fascinated by much of what has appeared since his time. He wouldn’t have encountered tourists, or the Silicon Fenizens. It would have been much smaller, less crowded, but still a heck of a culture shock after Woolsthorpe.
And it’s interesting, isn’t it, how that massive breakthrough struck not in the intellectual ferment of the university, but in the peace of the orchard. There’s something to be said for not being where the action is.
A family trip around the Isle of Wight on the Waverley. I love to encounter venerable old craft still joyfully doing the job they were built to do, and Waverley is pretty much the epitome of that. It was a gorgeous day, too.
The difficult and perplexing
Several times it seemed that everything was dreadful, and it turned out I needed to have eaten something half an hour ago. You’d think I’d have learned by now, but no.
Also, two rail replacement buses in one journey seems excessive.
What’s working
Staying at whichever Premier Inn is most convenient for the trip. The staff always seem to love babies regardless of how much toast ends up on the floor, and if you tick the box requesting a cot, then lo and behold, a cot appears.
Reading
Consider Phlebas (Iain M. Banks). It is very White Bloke Science Fiction, but I am enjoying it very much. It feels extremely visual; cinematic, you might say. It’s big both in page count and in imagination.
When that all got a bit too exciting for four in the morning I returned to the Chalet School. I have got to The Chalet School Does It Again and slowed right down. Prunella annoys me, and also I find it a little disheartening because we have got to Switzerland, which feels like the beginning of the end, and yet there is still half the series to go. And even though it’s quite a while before the books start getting really bad (or really bonkers) Joey’s already become irritating.
I started The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Deborah Moggach, original title These Foolish Things) on the train south, but haven’t got very far with it. (I haven’t seen the film.)
Making
Finished: one pair of baby socks. Started: one baby hat (for all the good it will do). This will also be on four double-pointed needles, but at the moment I’m knitting earflaps on two.
Watching
I caught up on all of this season of Only Connect and finished Rob and Rylan’s Grand Tour, several months after I began it.
Looking at
Apart from all the edges of the Isle of Wight, an art exhibition examining the Russian propaganda machine in the Crypt at St Pancras new church. ‘Did you like it?’ the attendant asked me on the way out. I said that ‘like’ wasn’t exactly the word, but it was fascinating and thought-provoking.
Also the inhabitants of the extremely luxurious aviary/rabbit hutch in Victoria Park in Portsmouth. I was particularly taken with one very raffish looking bunny with lopsided ears and a furry face. It looked as if it ought to have a smoking cap and a hookah.
Noticing
Lots of wildlife from the train. Heron. Cormorant. Deer. And sunflowers.
In the garden
Trying to keep the wisteria within bounds.
Appreciating
My grandfather and the rest of the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society. All my family, actually.
Acquisitions
Another badge for the camp blanket. I don’t usually collect duplicates, but this is the third from the Waverley. When I’ve sewn it on (ha!) I intend to tell you about all three.
Line of the week
Consider Phlebas is, I think, effective in a cumulative kind of a way rather than in any one particular moment, but here’s a line from one of the most effective bits.
It was like the biggest wave in the universe, rendered in scrap metal, sculpted in grinding junk; and beyond and about it, over and through, cascades of flashing, glittering ice and snow swept down in great slow veils from the cliff of frozen water beyond.
A trip to Sheffield for the annual Ultreya GB. I missed last year’s, though I hadn’t intended to (in retrospect, my ideas of what would be possible with a small baby were somewhat unrealistic), and it was good to be back. It was quite a different experience: I was very tired (see below) and also I don’t usually spend the event climbing up and down all the available steps in the cathedral. But it all came together for me in the last hymn – a very lively Amazing Grace – with the banners lined up and the baby clapping along in delight.
Some delightful fellow passengers and some railway staff who may in fact have been angels.
The difficult and perplexing
A month’s worth of interrupted sleep has trashed my immune system, the nursery germs have pounced, and I was very wobbly earlier in the week. And I’m not a nice person when I’m ill and tired.
Two hours and forty minutes on a train, each way. The way back was more trying than the way out.
What’s working
Sloggi long pants. Do they make me feel about a hundred and two? Yes, particularly the beige ones. Is it worth it to make bare legs bearable in hot weather? Absolutely. (Yes, I am aware of the Snag ‘chub rub’ shorts. Quite apart from the hideousness of the name, I can’t see that synthetic material next the skin would help in any way, however much I like their tights.)
Reading
Quite a bit!Having read She Who Became The Sun earlier in the summer, I picked up He Who Drowned The World (Shelley Parker-Chan) when it was on offer a few weeks ago. Equally fun (in its extremely dark way); the magical realism has more of an active influence on the plot this time round. I wasn’t convinced it stuck the landing, but the overall experience was sufficiently enjoyable to render that largely irrelevant.
Also on offer recently was Sea of Tranquility (Emily St John Mandel). This was a bit of a disappointment. I read Station Elevenearly in 2020 and was very struck by how vivid and alien the post-apocalyptic world was. Sea of Tranquility, by contrast, all seemed extremely twenty-first century in terms of the way that the characters thought and spoke, with the different settings just so much window-dressing. The time travel plot also didn’t work for me; I think the aim was to subvert the usual clichés, but it just felt like a cop-out.
And Kobo also suggested Consider Phlebas (Iain M. Banks) for 99p, so I decided it was probably time I tried the Culture series.
Yesterday I started One Pair of Feet (Monica Dickens) which is very entertaining so far.
Then today I picked up N or M (Agatha Christie) because it was on the floor. I am less fond of Tommy and Tuppence than I am of most of Christie’s other series detectives, so missed this one on last year’s epic re-read. But I breezed through it and then picked up Postern of Fate to remind myself what happened to the family afterwards.
Writing
Nothing to speak of, though I have been doing a little worldbuilding in my head.
Making
One ridiculously huge baby sock, and now most of one more sensible one. I also converted a little binder into an earring holder (I will try to remember to post pictures of this).
Watching
The Paralympics, on and off. I was pleased to catch Sarah Storey’s umpteenth win, as Channel 4 also showed a decent chunk of the race. (I have found both the BBC and Channel 4 very frustrating in their tendency to show fragments of an event that have a Great British Medal Hope and nothing else. But it’s probably just as well this year, because I’ve had very little telly time.)
Looking at
Ely Photographic Club’s exhibition at Babylon Arts. There were a few pieces there that made me smile, and several that were clearly very technically skilled even if not really my thing. Also, Sheffield cathedral.
Cooking
A very hot vegetable curry: the veg box contained a bag of Padrón peppers, every single one of which was the ‘really quite spicy’ variety, so unsuitable for serving as a main/side dish in the usual way. Not one of my most successful dishes, though I’m pleased with it as a creative response to a problem.
Eating
This year’s fancy Magnum flavours, an impulse buy when they were on offer in Co-op. I’m still not entirely convinced that ice cream and popping candy is a happy combination, but it’s different, I’ll give it that.
Moving
We continue our WalkRuns (being runs that are in fact mostly walks).
Noticing
Loads of dragonflies this year. Or possibly damselflies. They don’t stay still long enough for me to be able to tell the difference.
In the garden
Ripe apples. I’ve pruned all the apple trees bar one. The next job is to take out the dead box (or was it privet?) bushes that got eaten by beetles last year.
Appreciating
Cursillo. It’s totally bonkers, but there is space in there for people to be Christians and also themselves, and that is something I was missing for a long time and something for which I continue to be grateful.
And, needless to say, every night when I get to sleep before midnight and get to wake up after six.
Acquisitions
I found a little makers’ cooperative shop in Sheffield and picked up a fabric patch (to join the several I have still to sew on), a sticker, and a pair of teal stud earrings.
Line of the week
Monica Dickens, weighing up her options:
The Land Army? One saw oneself picking apples in a shady hat, or silhouetted against the skyline with a couple of plough horses, but a second look showed one tugging mangel-wurzels out of the frozen ground at five o’clock on a bitter February morning.
This coming week
The emerging routine is slightly disrupted by a committee meeting, and then at the weekend there’s an exciting sea voyage. And that’s the last excursion for a little while, and that’s probably just as well. I might even update this blog more.
I’ve had a week off work, and have spent more or less equal parts of it getting things done and taking naps. I had tea with a friend I haven’t seen since before Covid (and met her daughter, who’s getting on for three, for the first time). Went to Brighton to pick up a banner from fabric conservationists, and got to hear about the other things they’d worked on – far more interesting than mine.
The mixed
I’ve spent an awful lot of time on trains this week. This has been good for writing, not to mention getting home, collecting things from Brighton, and seeing a friend, but my lower back is not impressed at all. I have come to a new appreciation of the fact that the seats on Thameslink trains are made of ironing boards, while the Cross Country ones are elderly armchairs that have been sat in by generations of dogs.
The difficult and perplexing
A mild but intensely irritating cold.
What’s working
Summer pyjamas. Reminding myself that not all possible scenarios can happen to one person at one time.
Experimenting with
The idea that this stretch of time (maybe beginning with the pregnancy, maybe beginning back before the pandemic) is new and different from what came before, and I therefore can’t expect everything to work the same way as it previously did. Rather late in the day, but there we go.
I finished and submitted a poem! I shall now do my best to forget about it, but I am pleased, because it’s been a very long time. Also another five hundred words or so on Don’t Quit The Day Job.
Watching
The Giro d’Italia, though truthfully I’ve mostly been falling asleep in front of it. (This is testament more to my physical condition than to the quality of the racing, as I’ve been falling asleep in exciting and boring stages alike.) Also videos explaining the various different stages of labour. (There was a balloon. My mother approves.)
Looking at
Garden centres. At the first one we went to today there were an awful lot of slogans (on signs and plaques and doormats and all sorts of things) saying things like Don’t come in if you don’t have gin and Love is a state of temporary insanity curable by marriage. One rather came away with the impression that the typical garden centre shoppers were alcoholics in desperately unhappy relationships, and this was an expected, even desirable state of affairs. Are the normals OK?
Cooking
Not much, though I did come up with the genius idea of dropping frozen gyoza dumplings into packet chicken noodle soup for an ideal sniffle day lunch.
Eating
Tesco have introduced cherry bakewell cookies, which are very tasty if somewhat oversweet.
Playing
Catan, with my mother and youngest brother, with a pause to wave at the ferry containing my eldest brother and his family as it passed the south coast of the Isle of Wight.
In the garden
Everything is extremely green. The copper beeches have put out new leaves. The apple blossom is almost over, and there are small fruits happening on the pears and the plums too. Lemon balm has self-seeded all over the place. This afternoon I pulled up a load of violets and put in some new herbs – tarragon, chervil, lemon verbena, lavender, thyme.
Appreciating
Being married to someone I like. Having a family I like.
Acquisitions
Herbs, as mentioned above. A little metal garden table with two chairs. Books: Wings On My Feet (Sonja Henie); Born to Dance (Margot Fonteyn); Hymns and the Faith (Erik Routley); The Morville Year (Katherine Swift).
Also brought many things back from the Isle of Wight. The family christening gown. The toy octopus I gave my father a decade or so ago. Various baby clothes originally made for various babies by various people. A maternity dress originally made by my mother for herself. Another ancestor portrait. A repro HMV record catalogue (this is for Research).
Hankering
We are still considering a larger garden table. (The little one will do very nicely for evening drinks under the pergola, but we want something to put on the lawn and eat dinner off.)
Line of the week
Not something I’ve read this week, but this line from The Painted Garden (Noel Streatfeild) has been going through my head:
Days on land are like beads threaded on a string, big beads, little beads, gay beads for Christmas and birthdays; but days on a ship cannot go on the same string. They are different somehow and feel as if they need a special thread all to themselves.
Saturday snippet
This is from Don’t Quit the Day Job. I am getting to the point.
Nevertheless, unscrupulous institutions – and plenty that think of themselves as scrupulous, too – are entirely to take advantage of their employees’ sense of vocation, to take in general, to take, take, take, until there’s nothing left to give.
This coming week
I reach the end of the dashing around. There’s a trip to Essex tomorrow; then I go back to work, with a couple of days in the office; there’s the last of the antenatal classes, and an appointment with the midwife.
Anything you’d like to share from this week? Any hopes for next week? Share them here!
Wedding! One of my brothers got married yesterday; it was a lovely afternoon in the sunshine by the river. There was a bus jaunt and a ceilidh and dancing to Pa’s 45s at the end of the night (hello, Mary Lou, goodbye heart…).
I couldn’t help noticing how much better I was yesterday than at the last ceilidh I attended, thirteen months ago. Back then I was a month out from COVID and managed three dances, with extensive sit-downs between them. This time, seven months pregnant, I did two thirds or more (though my goodness, I was feeling it in my hips all night afterwards).
The mixed
Rail strikes made travel more complicated than it needed to be, though in practice this just meant an extra night in Portsmouth and a relaxed amble to the hovercraft.
The difficult and perplexing
I felt dreadfully flat afterwards. I think this was mostly tiredness, as I’m more cheerful today (also helps to have seen, and had longer conversations with, more of the family over lunch today). But the other part of it was that this was the last big thing before the baby arrives, and suddenly the calendar, which up until now was full of little islands of events and excursions, is all unexplored territory.
What’s working
Letting other people sort themselves out.
Reading
The Third Policeman (Flann O’Brien), which, at two chapters in, is already engagingly weird. Elephants Can Remember (Agatha Christie); I remembered the entire solution, which rather spoils it, though Mrs Oliver is always good value for money.
Writing
Little and not very often. I have a week off so maybe I’ll get some down when I get home. Or maybe I’ll rearrange the study. Or just nap.
Making
Nothing, but I note here that the person who previously owned my frock clearly had exactly the same problem with the neckline, as I found the remains of some stitching just where I was putting a safety pin.
Watching
The Giro d’Italia, though not so much the last few days. Maybe I’ll catch up. Maybe I’ll catch up with Eurovision, too.
Looking at
The delightfully eclectic mix of buildings in Old Portsmouth: eighteenth century pubs and 1960s council houses and the cathedral which has been a church for a very long time but a cathedral only for a century or so all rubbing shoulders. And the end of the A3, which runs out in a narrow street, laid with setts and disused tramlines, at the harbour.
Eating
Things with chips in pubs and various sorts of breakfasts in various different cafés (the Spinnaker at Portsmouth and the Blue Door in Newport were both very good). Wedding cake. And so forth.
Drinking
Warsteiner Fresh (alcohol free) – really not bad at all. And an excellent cup of coffee while we were waiting for the hovercraft at Southsea.
Moving
Dancing. Lots of it. And walking around Ventnor, which takes no little effort.
Noticing
Lizards! I always go looking for lizards when I’m in Ventnor during the summer months, and I spotted three or four when I was walking back from the seafront today. Yesterday I saw four impressively large fish in the river after the wedding ceremony (I do not know what species they might have been).
In the garden
It got a lot of rain last week, and I didn’t do much to it before we went away.
Appreciating
My family, and how we generally get on with each other and like seeing each other (not universally the case, as a conversation with my taxi driver on the way to the station on Thursday morning reminded me). A lift home from Tuesday’s antenatal class, saving me from a prolonged downpour. Having the disposable income to book an extra night in a hotel without having to worry about it. My frock fitting (another week and I think it would have been too tight). Modern technology meaning that I could participate in a discussion that I was at least partly responsible for initiating.
Acquisitions
A charity shop top with a design of leaves and leopards.
Hankering
Nothing, really.
Line of the week
I have a cat on my lap; this feature may follow when I don’t. Or it may not.
Sunday snippet
As above.
This coming week
One day of attacking the contents of my father’s house (I thought I might do some of that this afternoon, but I had a nap in a chair instead), then home to get my own house in order.
Anything you’d like to share from this week? Any hopes for next week? Share them here!
There is one country in the world in which you can travel almost all the way along the coast in a single tram journey. It’s Belgium.
This is made possible by the fact that the Belgian coastline isn’t actually very long. If you were to think of Belgium as a cartoonish stegosaurus with its head facing north-west and its spines interlocking with the Netherlands and Germany and its tail slipping under Luxembourg, only the smooth top of its saurian skull would be up against the sea. You can travel from one end to another in a couple of hours. It doesn’t go quite all the way to the frontier at either end; you could, if you were feeling particularly pedantic, walk the extra bits. We weren’t, so we didn’t.
We were staying in Bruges (Brugge, to the locals): a city built for trade and now operating almost entirely for the benefit of the tourists. The Kusttram is, if anything, the opposite. While its website makes some attempt to sell it as a tourist experience, the material on the ground and, above all, the clientele, make it clear that it’s now used pretty much exclusively by the locals.
We started in Knokke, at the Dutch end of the line, bought day passes from a machine, and got onto a waiting tram just as it started to rain. Result. It swung around a turning circle (the middle planted with sunflowers and cosmos) and I caught a sight of some of the older trams hibernating in a shed. I believe they come out sometimes for heritage days. After a brief glimpse into back gardens, we joined the main road along the coast.
We ran behind the docks at Zeebrugge, seeing various interesting looking cranes and boring lorries. Then we got into sand dunes. For a long way, the dunes were between us and the sea and mostly blocked the view of it; every now and again there were footpaths with signposts pointing to the strand. The exceptions were the towns: a wide open square at one end of Blankenberge; a marina at the other.
Tony was falling asleep as we approached Oostende, so we got off and found a health food café where we bought a distinctly unhealthy coffee (me) and Diet Coke (him). There was also a market of the sort that sells cheap socks and garish T-shirts, clustered around a bandstand decorated with the names of illustrious composers of bygone centuries. We glanced at this briefly, then, finding that there was quite a wait until the next tram, looked into a sportswear shop.
West of Oostende we finally got to see some beach. The road and the tramway ran on the north side of the dunes here, and there were campsites and wartime fortifications to look at too.
After that there were a lot of high-rise seaside flats, mostly between us and the sea. These were a running theme all the way along. I can’t say I thought much of them. They blocked the view when we were on the tram, and when we got off they made textbook urban canyons and sent the sea breeze hurtling along the streets. Towards the end of the line the flats shrank down to detached houses, and then the buildings gave out altogether and we were into trees.
The penultimate stop was Plopsaland, which is a name to conjure with. It’s a theme park. From the tram we could see an artfully crooked house and various roller coastery things. It looked quite fun, as theme parks go. And the car park was full, so it’s obviously popular.
The way back was an opportunity to stop at all the places that had looked interesting on the way through. Also to get some lunch in central De Panne, which hadn’t looked particularly interesting, but which had looked as if it might sell food. It did. We found various options on the seafront and ended up eating omelette and chips in, whenever the door was opened, a stiff breeze. I realised too late for it to be of much use that we were back in French-speaking Belgium. Our waiter was called Guillaume; it said so on the bill.
Then we got back on the tram. Niewpoort had looked interesting. The trams stopped under a big glass roof and there were a couple of restaurants I’d noted as possibilities for lunch. We were no longer in need of something to eat, but we wandered a few blocks inland and found that it was a very pleasant little town, mostly built in the 1920s for, one supposes, the obvious reason. There wasn’t much going on at that time of day, though as we approached the main square the bells were ringing cheerfully. Tony went into Carrefour and came away with a commemorative notebook. I never found out what the occasion was. Meanwhile, I ate an apple and tested myself on the flags of EU nations that were flying alongside the tramway.
We stopped again in Oostende, this time getting off at few stops before the city began in earnest so that we could walk a little way along the beach. A tall ship was darting about a little way offshore. The beach was a generous sweep of pale sand, scattered with seashells. I thought about paddling, but decided against it. The sea was quite a way out, and the wind was cold.
We hopped back on the next tram and then off again closer to the city centre, walking up toward the casino and through the streets, often coinciding with a couple of women trundling enormous suitcases. It was a pleasant wander through Oostende, looking at fantastic twiddly art nouveau buildings, and ending up at the railway station, where we got back on a tram.
Our next stop was De Haan, and it was magnificent. We got off at the main stop – which preserves some beautiful cast-iron signs and a fantastic little hut – and walked seawards. The 1930s had gone to town here. The 1930s had built a town here.Stockbroker’s Tudor, but by the beach. Kingston-upon-Sea. My only regret was that it was getting late and so it didn’t make sense to stop for an ice cream.
I looked with envious eyes upon someone who had brought a pizza box on the tram with them, and the rest of the journey was taken up with thoughts of dinner. Night was falling when we reached the end of the line. It took longer than we’d expected to find somewhere to eat in Knokke, if only because I wasn’t in the mood for giant lumps of meat. We did in fact end up at somewhere that called itself a grill, but they served me a huge dish of seafood pasta, and very nice it was too.
And that, apart from the train back to Bruges, was the end of the day.
Why do this? Well, obviously the main reason to do this is because you can. ‘The only reason’, my neighbour said when I told him where we’d been, but I think that’s a little unfair. There are other coastlines traversable by public transport with far better views (the bus around Land’s End, for example). But why not? It’s a cheap day out, you get a unique snapshot of a nation in a few hours, and it makes a change from the boat trips around the Bruges canals. (To be clear, we also took a boat trip around the Bruges canals.) You could even paddle.
I very much enjoyed our last couple of days in France – exploring more of Avignon (including the covered market) on foot and by tram, and then visiting Marseille. The latter was very sunny and very windy. We took a bus a little way along the coast so that we could look at the Chateau d’If from the shore. Of course I now need to reread The Count of Monte Cristo, but then I always do.
Also, an extremely positive and useful vision and planning day with my Cursillo committee.
The mixed
I wouldn’t have chosen to take a rail replacement bus at 7.20am – but looking back to see the towers and walls of Avignon sharp against a hazy gold sunrise, and then driving through Tarascon and Beaucaire as it brightened into a clear sunshiny day, with the old walls basking in the light, made it worth it.
Got caught up with work and didn’t make it to Evensong on Thursday. But I learned today that Candlemas was not marked at Evensong on Thursday, so I have in fact been saved disappointment (and other people have objected).
The difficult and perplexing
Dealing with a jam containment failure on the TGV. My fault. Probably.
Not sure I will ever catch up on my emails. Oh well.
What’s working
The lectio divina on community from Fifty Ways To Pray. Embracing the idea that sometimes all choices are good (and therefore that dithering over where to eat lunch is a waste of time).
Reading
At Nîmes station I found a machine that dispensed short stories at the touch of a button. So I pressed the button and received a copy of Fleur Sauvage by Thierry Covolo on a long thin strip of paper.
The European figure skating championships. I have to say it’s nice to be able to watch the final group in the women’s competition without constantly wondering whether it’s making me complicit in child abuse.
Looking at
More Provençal crib scenes, not to mention the churches that contained them – Ste Marie Majeure and Notre Dame de la Garde in Marseille. I liked them both, flamboyant nineteenth century edifices that they are. Notre Dame de la Garde in particular is quite remarkable. It’s right at the top of the hill (we took the bus up) and even when you’re inside you can hear the wind howling around. It’s more or less wallpapered with votive plaques and representations of Our Lady’s miraculous interventions, including several model boats and aircraft. But particular kudos to Ste Marie Majeure for having an actually convincing flock of sheep in one of its crib scenes.
Cooking
I made jam tarts for Candlemas. (I forget now where I read about this tradition, and it may be a complete myth. Still, at worst I get jam tarts.)
Eating
More delicious French food, including cromesqui (a sort of deep-fried potato ball) and entremets (a cake made of chocolate mousse). Things I’d actually heard of included salmon and poached egg.
Noticing
Cats sitting on the roof of a hire van in a suburb of Avignon. A deer sneaking across the path ahead of me when I went for a walk on Thursday. A bus in Nîmes that thought it was a tram.
Appreciating
Warm blanket, fluffy cat. Bed.
Acquisitions
More badges for the camp blanket (still missing Avignon). Interesting flavoured salt, and truffled olive paste, from the covered market.
Hankering
So much unsuitable cheese. And the wine, too. (We did bring some back for purposes of future celebration.)
The minute we bless same-sex couples, people’s prejudice will be challenged by real, living people, right in front of them, living ordinary, faithful, loving, honest lives of love and faith, to coin a phrase.
This coming week
Back in the office. And maybe I’ll decide what to do with the butternut squash and sweet potato that have been hanging around for ages.
Anything you’d like to share from this week? Any hopes for next week? Share them here!
We are on holiday! We are staying in Avignon and visiting other towns in the vicinity as well. There is a great deal to see and the food is excellent. Also, the sun has mostly been out, and getting more sun was the object of the exercise.
The mixed
There is, inevitably, not enough time to do everything and see anything, and I am compiling a mental list of things we didn’t get round to this time/that were closed for the winter/would have needed a car/etc. So we will just have to come back and take slow trains along the Côte d’Azur/see the Pont du Gard/look for flamingoes in the Camargue.
The difficult and perplexing
It is cold. The place we are staying at is called La Vie de Bohême and my hands are doing the Che manina gelida bit. The mistral is blows straight through me. Just like home, really. But why do all the hand driers in the public lavatories insist on getting in on the act?
What’s working
Trousers over tights. Having a lie-down in the afternoon. Accepting the fact that really any establishment with a menu outside will feed me adequately and will be happy to do so.
Reading
I forgot to mention Winters in the World (Eleanor Parker) – following the cycle of the early mediaeval year and quoting a lot of literature along the way. I’m really enjoying it.
On the e-reader, I have These Violent Delights (Chloe Gong) – Romeo and Juliet, except older and more jaded, in 1920s Shanghai, with monsters and possession (sort of). I’m enjoying the story; the prose tends towards the clumsy (but see below). I’m also continuing with Death in Cyprus and returned to The Master and Margarita (the latter has now shown up). I’m not sure I’m really getting it.
Looking at
Lots of Provençal monuments! We went around the Palais des Papes, and out as far as you can along the famous bridge (there was an exhibition, with quite an interesting film about how they have worked out where the rest of it originally was). This morning in Nîmes we went around the Roman arena and I learned a lot about gladiators, and into the Maison Carrée. This afternoon in Arles we looked at the outside of the Roman arena (two in one day seemed excessive) and through the railings at the theatre.
My favourite thing, though, has been the crib scenes in the churches. The one in the cathedral at Avignon is currently showing a Candlemas scene; the one in Saint-Trophime in Arles is a magnificent multi-level edifice occupying an entire chapel and featuring locals in traditional dress coming to visit the crib. It even has a windmill at the top of the hill.
Eating
I said there’d be pancakes. There have, in fact, been three: one with chilli con carne at My Old Dutch (Chelsea) on Wednesday night; one with ham and Gruyère and an egg on top yesterday lunchtime, and one (‘crêpe Mont Ventoux’) with chestnut and whipped cream and chocolate sauce for pudding yesterday night. That may be enough to be going on with. I have also eaten onion soup (very, very effective when I was tired and cold the night we arrived), lamb stew, and quiche with leeks and bacon. It’s all been delicious.
Moving
Climbing up and down a lot of steps of various antiquity.
Noticing
A set of gallopers with black bulls alongside the usual horses. Young men with a shopping trolley full of puppies (I don’t know why; I hope they meant them no harm). Goats in a garden next the railway. Snow on the ground as we crossed the middle of France on the TGV. Two swans and a cormorant in the Rhône.
Appreciating
Having an apartment to ourselves. The SNCF app (when it’s been working). The friendliness and patience of pretty much everyone we’ve spoken to.
Acquisitions
Badges for my camp blanket (though not, so far, one saying Avignon).
Hankering
I keep passing shops full of soap and hats and shoes, and haven’t gone into any of them. Yet.
Line of the week
One really good one from These Violent Delights:
He was born with pride stitched to his spine.
This coming week
A little longer in France, and then home. I have quite a lot to sort out before next weekend, the beginning of a very busy February.
Anything you’d like to share from this week? Any hopes for next week? Share them here!
Lunch out with friends. Sharing good news. A really interesting discussion about John the Baptist.
My brain is coming back! Slowly, but it’s on the way. I have been reading things. I have been writing things. I have been watching things.
The mixed
It’s just as well that I’ve been working from home all week, because I’ve been collapsing into bed as soon as I clock off. I’m a bit worried about how I’m going to cope next week.
The difficult and perplexing
I’m becoming increasingly aware that for my next trick I need to become much better at delegating. But at this stage I’m still very much in the ‘it’ll only take five minutes; might as well do it myself’ phase, and delegating (and chasing the people I’ve delegated to) is also work. Improvement needed.
What’s working
Going for the easy option. Zoom rather than a dash to the South (this is tomorrow but I’m already glad I’m not taking a train to Guildford). Lunch in the pub that is nearest. And so on.
Reading
Lady B- is back! And I’ve just started Snow Ball (Brigid Brophy): cynical and scintillating.
Writing
Most of an interview for my alma mater, and a little more on the blog about the Belgian Coastal Tramway. Coming soon. I hope.
Mending
I got the darning loom out again and mended holes in: my favourite navy Guernsey jumper; one of Tony’s long-sleeved T-shirts; a pyjama top.
Watching
Charade: a self-consciously silly caper film starring Audrey Hepburn and the Parisian urban transit network. Mostly the Métro, but there was an excellent moment where Cary Grant leapt onto the back of a bus, as is entirely correct. I guessed the solution of the mystery quite early on, but there were plenty of other twists to keep me amused.
Continuing with Detectorists. I also started Our Flag Means Death. I’d been rather put off by hype backlash (a constant weakness of mine) and the earnestness of the fandom discourse, but it turns out to be delightfully silly (as well as Good Queer Rep and, what I hadn’t heard so much about, a clever commentary on the place of pirates in popular culture). I continue to get earwormed by the Horrible Histories Blackbeard song.
Cooking
An extremely bland and comforting tuna pasta bake. And then the thing with pearl barley, chorizo and kale (the only way to make kale interesting that I have yet discovered).
Eating
Today at the pub I had a chickpea curry (forgettable) followed by peach tarte tatin (very nice).
Moving
It feels rather depressing to be noting what used to be my standard morning walk as an incident of record, but there we go.
Playing
This afternoon I was taught to play Bears vs Babies. Rather fun.
In the garden
The squirrel has discovered the peanut feeder. I shall rearrange the feeders and leave the nuts out of it for a bit.
Appreciating
Intelligent theological conversation. Friends. Being able to nap.
Acquisitions
Merino wool long johns in the Mountain Warehouse sale. Will it get cold enough again to wear them? We shall see.
Line of the week
Almost every line of The Snow Ball has been quotable. What about:
He was short, and hollowed out by middle age; and his sporran leapt hectically, leapt breathlessly, up and down, not keeping time with the lighter leaps of his jabot.
Saturday snippet
The beach was a generous sweep of pale sand, scattered with seashells. I thought about paddling, but decided against it. The sea was quite a way out, and the wind was cold.
This coming week
Four days in the office. Will I manage to stay awake? And will I get the hang of the (heretofore unmentioned) Instant Pot? Stay tuned!
Anything you’d like to share from this week? Any hopes for next week? Share them here!
You get to see the journal. I spilt hot chocolate in my handbag a month or so back and it went all over my Filofax. Anyway, this is far more interesting.
I started keeping an agenda journal in 2017 after seeing the technique on The Soul of Hope, and it’s the only form of diary I’ve managed to keep up with any kind of regularity. I don’t make an entry every day, but to date I have been able to make an entry for every day. It serves as a repository for all the silly bits of paper that are too pretty to throw away and too silly to keep around, it serves as a record of what I’ve been up to and tells me when I last emptied the compost bin, and it’s fun. I’ve never yet got more than a week behind, and if I do find that I just can’t remember a day (or if it was just too boring to record in detail) I fill the gap with stickers.
This spread comes from the week we travelled down the Rhine – a most excellent trip, and one I’m glad to remember. This year’s journal is rather fatter than last year’s, although not so much so as I originally thought before I compared them.
Kathleen Jowitt 