South of France - who needs it?

Much of Sandy's time has been spent with the new (secondhand) Lazer that arrived Tuesday from  Bournemouth. The old one  was irreparably leaking

Cloutie Well.

The habit of turning pretty springs into somewhat sordid repositories for old clothing is not one I can find romantic in the least. This well near Munlochy on the Black Isle is an example. There was even what looked like a mattress attached to two trees with 'Big Problems' written on it. I wish the owners well but a strip of cloth would have done just as much good. (As the item of clothing or cloth rots away so the illness or problem disappears, hopefully.)

Dizzy dog at seven months

At seven months Dizzydog has a big personality and anteating skills (middle pic) but not show-worthiness. Her stickup ears and cheerful tail rather spoil the Kennel Club look, so she got only the  disappointing green rosette in the show on Saturday. Still, it was fun for the two doting humans.
We saw some very odd-looking dogs. the winner looked like something you might pull out of he bath plug. Sweet though. They are all loveable.

My ex garden is looking very green.

No enhancement of colours! This is after a long, very hot, dry spell.

'tis the season....

'tis the season to be jolly.......

....careful to shake out all clothing and towels before using to eliminate the dreadful possibility of that enormous spider arriving on my body. (I met it, or a mate, for a second traumatic moment on the way to the bathroom this morning. We both screamed and ran off in opposite directions. Now it is hiding in the spare room, possibly in the bedding, waiting for me to make up the beds for my grandsons so it can get its own back.)

....careful to pull down all the blinds to keep out the sunshine we have been waiting for these last two years.

....careful to choose lunching places that don’t have Cullen Skink as a staple because, much as I like the soup, a fishy smell this weather hangs in the nostrils for hours.

....careful to wear cotton. Linen itches. Don’t even think of man made fibres.

Such beautiful weather

Feed me

Well well.

Pictish Well Burghhead. Well, it's a well anyway, whether Pictish or not who knows, but why they call it Roman when there is very little evidence the Romans had much of a settlement here it's beyond my comprehension. We couldn't go down to it - health and safety reasons. Sad. It looked so cool.

Violent thoughts.

A virus has floored me, physically and emotionally. I Feel Sorry For Myself. Without reason, which is always hardest to tolerate. Could the concentrated season of Hannibal Lecter films followed by ‘Collateral’  (Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx) on Saturday have anything to do with these sudden black tinted glasses? On the whole I think not. N and I watched ‘The Young Mr Lincoln’ (John Ford, Henry Fonda, 1939) on Sunday which made me all gulpy and sentimental. I do love it when Good conquers. They made black and white films in all senses in those days. It must have been one of the earliest courtroom dramas. 

N lent me Collateral with the warning it had violence in it. I lent him the Lecter trilogy and am waiting for a reaction. 

On-screen violence and violence in novels I find acceptable and even enjoyable in the right context. I’ve been trying to define the context that makes it acceptable for me. Car chases and numerous gunned-down bodies turn me right off - I’m just bored by it. The violence has to have some form and structure and be a part of the development of character and plot. The current ‘Luther’ killer who started off killing only evil-doers is a good example. He has degenerated into wholesale killing from a place of rage and the quest for revenge (which he calls justice).

On a strictly personal level the violence mustn’t engage my emotions too much, or be part of a true story. Hence my preference for vampires and the supernatural. It takes it out of the realms of the possible. 

All that said, I really can’t explain why I prefer crime novels above all else, and can happily watch a man eating his own brains whilst nothing will make me watch the Hurt Locker.

Blessed be!

Zombie, Brunhilde and Nero.

A couple of aged bikers are missing.
For no special reason a friend decided to have a dress-up party (she's been listening to a lot of Wagner and wanted to be Brunhilde though she's not built for the part.) It made a much better party than the usual sit-around-and-chat affair. We enjoyed our sub personalities.

Blessed be! I don't even recognise myself.

Sun, sand and sea.

Sandy- will he won't he go all the way?

This bank of sand arrived in a recent storm.

Sand Martins nest in the banks of the dunes. Interesting exposure - what made that upper dark line?
The lines either side of it are continuous yet it is curved. Strange.

Heat

The temperature in my sheltered little garden was 35 yesterday - in the evening. I'm moving to the Arctic Circle. 

Breakfast and supper in the garden then, and a good part of the day wandering the beaches. Thank heavens for a cooling sea breeze. The water isn't warm so I shan't be tempted to break the 27 year record of living by the North Sea without actually going in it. Just nice to wet ones feet.

Otherwise I've been pursuing my recent obsession with Pope Joan. The www leads from one thing into another, and then into side roads, and that's where I met her again. Many years ago I swept through, at speed, my mother-in-law's copy of the Lawrence Durrell translation/rewrite of the C19 Greek novel by Emmanuel Roydis. It was Roydis's only novel and led him to infamy and excommunication. He accepted both with equanimity and uncaring because he was in love with Joan. Or all that she stood for. In the preface Durrell calls it a 'brief record of the history and misfortunes of Eros after his transformation by Christianity from a God to an underground resistance movement.' That, for me, makes Roydis a Hero.

Joan was the daughter of a monk and a nun so she fulfilled her genetic obligations to blaspheme by becoming the only female pope in history (and if it is all a fiction as some think then I see it as evidence of the need for such a phenomenon.) She, like many intelligent young women of her time, had entered a nunnery when her father died, seeing it as the best way of coping with complete poverty and lack of relatives. With the help of a few visions and dreams, the arrival of a young monk who had come to the convent for help scribing a document in gold leaf, and some intense study of the Song of Solomon, she discovered that the best way to worship the Almighty is by enjoying what is given to us to enjoy. 'The All Highest, according to the holy Augustine and Lactantius, does not look askance at the choice of more liberal paths should they leads us toward Him. So what point is there in hunting Paradise through thorns and thistles and boiled vegetables?'

How wise.

There have been several extramural pleasures for me in this obsession. The first being flashbacks to my much loved Greek father-in-law who was anti-clerical in the extreme and must have relished this tale. (Maybe the book was his. He wouldn't have need translation to the original but I suspect Durrell's is even more humorous than the original.)  The second pleasure was the way the uncut Czech version of the film about her life arrived beribboned and with a beautiful postcard of Olomouc.

Book collectors O.C.D.

It's such a pleasure to me these days to get a shelf of books all the same height and of similar design. I'll even buy again my favourites when they are republished in a new format just to see them lined up in orderly fashion. (Peter May is not a favourite. He plots well but isn't otherwise much of a writer, it's just that the books are coincidentally all hardback.) I'm catching up on new Elizabeth George paperback editions. She is definitely worth the expense. Ann Cleeves - why oh why did 'Raven Black' have to be white? Very distressing for me. Later paperback editions of Phil Rickman are much easier to read with larger, clearer typeface, but that matters less than their neat uniformity. I completely understand why people collected Penguins and had them organised, greens, blues and Kings across their walls. Of course the original Penguins have become impossible to read. Eye-wateringly small font size on yellowing paper, and they fall apart in the hands. 

Some, like poetry, refuse to conform.

Surprise party

A friend organised a surprise party for herself. This is the way it worked: She booked a table at a restaurant in town for herself alone, told all her friends and acquaintances via Facebook and invited them to join her if they wished by booking themselves at her table - but without telling her. If it had been me I would have been convinced no-one would come and been in an agony of embarrassment about it for weeks beforehand. Not so Marieta, and she had no need to worry being a popular and outgoing soul. It's a small restaurant, very quiet normally on a Thursday, so when 24 people booked they were all of a tizz. The food was VERY slow arriving (we realised afterwards that the chef was in the restaurant chatting up one of the younger party-goers when he should have been cooking) and the noise and heat got too much for me, but I think everyone else had a good time so that was OK.

Other than that there isn't much to report. The time fills up nicely but not with adventures, which might be a good thing remembering the Chinese curse. 

Chloë

 

Party girl