The rain gods - are they with me or agin me?

I go to hang some washing out . . . spots of rain . . . so I think maybe I'll make a start on clearing the shed . . .and I just heave a load of stuff on to the lawn, and it pours. . . back to old faithful computer, and lo! the skies are clearing.   Maybe it's time for a coffee and a scone?  And even better - Harry's just volunteered to make it!

At the risk of rabbiting on about nothing to a greater extent than usual - yay, I cleaned out the shed, and stuck two loads of washing out, and had scones with clotted cream at coffee time.

And I managed to take a carful of wood, plastic and metal rubbish to the recycling centre - local tip.

Another random entry:

Written as part of an article about self-editing for the aborted WD mag.

'A poem is never finished', said Paul Valéry, 'only abandoned.' This is the current abandoned version. To be fair the whole enterprise this was planned for was abandoned too!

How do you get your poem to scan?
Do you bang with a spoon on the base of a pan?
Do you count all your words or just hope that they flow
Do you edit, fuhgeddit, or let it all blow?

Do you sing words along to the tune of a song?
Do you bounce rubber balls or yourself off the walls?
Whatever you do keep it up if it works,
Make poetry fun with these physical jerks.

Do you let raw emotion roar out on the page
or force the caged tiger to swallow his rage?
Do you prune out the clichés with merciless knife
and throw out excess words that drain it of life?

Can you rhyme all the time or is rhyming too pat?
Do you scour the thesaurus, or do without that?
Sometimes you may find that a word from a book
can lead you up roads where you’d not thought to look.

March 08

The original was more fun, because the mechanism was visible.

From car boot to Mozart

A varied day - sunshine blessed the car boot sale, and then we went to Stamford to see the film of Glyndebourne's performance of Don Giovanni from 2010.


Shame they had to break the atmosphere up with interviews at the beginning of the second half of the film - we went back, all ready and eager to be plunged into the story again - and lo! analysis and explanation . . . I thought these guys were supposed to know about dramatic tension.

Clutter - and what to do about slides?

Why is it so hard to throw things out? Once I'm in the mood, it's easier - been going through old photographic slides from my father's stuff!  I've chucked everything except for the ones with people on. Now how do I make slides visible without a viewer?

Jack in South of France from a slide - attempt 1.

Jack, my dad, in the 1970s, I think  - in which case,  he was in his (early?) fifties.
I did this on an improvised lightbox, with plain white paper as base - slide placed on top.  You can see the texture through the slide. I used my 'normal' lens, not macro.  I shall try tracing paper for my next experiment.

Then I pruned some packs of photos of my mother's - I reckon that when the person who took the photos is dead, the scenery is meaningless.  And if any of the photos are works of art - if the photographer doesn't do something with them, no one else will.
Simplicity before all? In fits and starts.

Books and clutter

Reading moondreamer's post on de-cluttering sparked these thoughts.

Are books disposable? It all depends on the book - I quite happily take books to Oxfam when I've read them. Not sure what the authors would feel about this one...

I also had a light-bulb moment when I realised I could write in cookery books, and tear apart camping site guides.

In school they encouraged us to make pencil notes on texts we studied. I suppose regarding the book as disposable is not such a big step.

Some of mine should definitely be disposed of.


As for clutter - I wouldn't try to list it, but know the feeling of being unable to discard.

I read somewhere there are three questions to ask.

1. Is it beautiful?

2. Is it useful?

3. Do I love it?
Hmm. That takes care of most stuff then.

I could add a question.
4. Does it make me feel guilty?
Answer yes, and then what - throw it away and feel its presence in your head? Keep it and hide it? Write about it, then throw it away?

Another poem - from July 2006. Luckily for me, my sister took the tea-set. I wrote the poem in her house. My thoughts, not hers.

The weight of old china

Once upon a time
great-great-aunt Jane
bought a "half tea-set",
fluted cups, sugar bowl,
proud with painted peacocks .

It sat for years,
grew old and heavy.

Ah, yes, this belonged to Aunt Jane.
The things it must have seen,
the years
the tears.

She left it to my mother,
who left it to me.
I can't give it away
or sell on eBay
so it squats behind glass,
unwashed and unwished,
on a shelf
on the edge of my life.

Just because it's old
doesn't make it mean a thing
-
cuckoo
sucking food
eating space.

No use,
no beauty,
no sense but duty
to dead hands.

I want to be free
to be clear to be me
to know my history
not carry artefacts
like sacks of coal
heave-heavy.

No reason to hoard
crocks in a cupboard
out of sight,
out of mind.

Did she think she was refined
a century ago?
Was it just for show?
Did it sit on a shelf
peacock-proud of itself?

Used or abused
in life's rough and tumble?

I don't want it
you can have it.
Take it away
snapshot it
file it
smash it
trash it.
It's nothing to me.

An update September 2011 - the teaset was sold, a year or so ago,  in a charity shop for £12.  Much better for it than sitting on the shelf. And now it's lost the emotional baggage, methinks, set free to sink or swim in this wide world.