Typical! You cross the border into Wales and the sun disappears.

I swear it dropped 3 degrees within seconds.

A-musing

It's fun having a muse.

I found one the other day - rather in the same way I found the toad; it just popped up and looked me in the eye.

By a muse, I mean someone (a living individual or a personification) who inspires confidence in an artist's own ability.

Dante had Beatrice, Petrach had Laura, Givenchy had Hepburn, Sappho had...  anyone know if Sappho's adored was ever named?

Mine seems to be a 20 something hipster, with great taste in shoes… 

I'm trying to make a list of other muses, so I can try to pin down the essential features of the beast.

Any ideas?

I have worked out why the bastard ironing board broke...

.... roomie off the hook this time.

Still need to buy a new one though!

How the $@*^% do I manage to find the ironing board broken - twice!

Twice. In four months. Two boards, identical damage. Twice.
And not cheap ones, either. Two £35 ironing boards.

Two people live here. One buys ironing boards and then 4 months later
has to throw then away.

(I tried repairing the latest - but I really don't fancy taking a risk
that the board will collapse while I'm working on it. Those irons are
*hot*.)

So - what the hell do I do now?
Go to work crumpled until I can buy another one - and then keep that one
locked away in my own room.

The Ironic thing - I HATE ironing. Hate. Hate. HATE.
I just hate being crumpled at work just a teeny-tad more than ironing them.

RAGE.

Weird and nasty things, writers

- but only if you confuse the work with the creator.

 I catch myself doing this from time to time myself - confusing fiction with the writer's own conscious thoughts and desires.

For example I woke up in the middle of the night last week seriously freaked out by something a certain young writer/performer I know had written on a flyer for a gig he was playing.  It was silly and scatological and shocking, which was the whole point - It really isn't likely that it reflects his social self, even if it does titillate and/or gross out his imagination. 

And as soon as I had woken up enough to brew up a pot of coffee I knew that.  What a relief.

It's like me and my tattoo thing.  Quite independently three of the pieces I've written - including two I have been paid for - have featured protagonists who acquire tattoos as part of their journey. 

 Now, clearly I must be interested in the tattoos, in their visual impact, the way the record moments in time, the way their permanence contrasts with the impermanence of the of the human body.  But that doesn't mean I have - or mean to get - a tattoo myself. 

In short - what we write may come from our unconscious desires, but should never be confused with what we are or want.

Anyway - here is a snippet from one of those tattoo stories:

 +++++++++++++++

"I wrote to you, every day.  I had such stories to tell – about the sea of ice at the cape, and the lightening strike, and the albatross that followed us for 17 days, and exactly why the Otahitians made the Barber’s pigtail into a belt for their king, and what the stars look like in New Holland, and why, when everyone else was deciding whether to go in the boat with the Captain or stay on the ship, why George and I stayed behind.  About George.  I think I wanted to tell you about my friend George.  And about how scared I’ve been all this time. 

"There was one afternoon, when I was lying in the house we shared on Otahiti, face down in the leaves, and my Tayo –Tayo means Friend, Godfather – My Tayo was tattooing the feathers on my shoulder.  The needles felt like fire.  Going in and out, hammer, hammer, hammer without rest, and I was not going cry out. George held my hand, and the needles burned away, driving the soot into the skin.  I didn't cry out, but somehow tears kept running down, and into the leaves until I could taste the salt - and suddenly I thought – “At last, now, something is changing me.  All those maps and letters and journals and drawings I made – now they are making me.  It will all be on me, in me, for ever."   

"No one will listen to this now.  My Uncle Pasley and Mr. Const do not wish to hear of it.  They tell me I must never speak of why, and how, and what I was thinking or feeling.  They tell me I’ve to be discreet, mute, or else they’ll not have the power to save me. Because I stayed behind on the ship, and now I’m the only officer they have, and they cannot but hang me for all the rest.  I’m sure they’ll hang me. 

"The letters I wrote to you, the dictionary, the maps - they all floated away in the wreck. I couldn't hold them.

"The Barber could not break the chain we sank, and he drowned  there in the cage.

"George swam with me, but a staved plank struck him.  I turned, and he was gone. 

"We swam on, through a slick of paper and wood and bread, two hours, to reach a tiny strip of sand and coral. 

"And when we got to the cay, pickled in salt water, and naked under the sun, like lobsters on a fire, our skin came off in strips, great handfuls of it.  Hanging off our backs and snagging on the coral, leaving little scraps behind, with ships, and names and dates and feathers still black on them."

The swallows have gone, leaving mounds of feathers and poo - and another little corpse, trapped between the panes of glass.  This time I can't get the cadaver out by pushing or pulling, so it will have to "shrink" a little first. The maggots will help....

 
The curious thing is - I never feel sick in the cottage.  It's dark, damp, dusty and full of wildlife - and in January well below freezing for a large proportion of the day.

 
But I have never had a stomach upset, or a sniffle, or a headache or a cough while I was there.

 
But as soon as I leave for the rest of the world -  The germs just pounce.

 

 

 

September has to be the best month in Northumberland

I'm sitting outside the cottage in warm - almost over warm - sunshine,
cooled just enough by a silvery breeze that smells of grass and honey
(honey? No, no idea why, but it's gorgeous). The sky is enamel blue,
with the faintest curlicue of cloud high away in the south. Everything
that should be green is still green - but with the sense that the
fireworks of red and gold and brown are just waiting, breathless for
ignition.

And it is dry. The pasture is firm, the garden is barely boggy, the
cottage is sound and clean (and dark and cool and owl free).

No decision on the solar panel yet - because it has been pointed out
that it might be subject to a development grant.

I confess - I'd rather spend the money now, and keep the cottage
dry(ish) over the winter, than wait 3-4 months and get half the cost back.

But I might apply for a better loo.

Should I?

I am wibbling over buying one of these:

Solarventi Solar power dehumidifer

 If it works it would be the answer to so many problems.

 The theory is simple.  When the sun is shining the humidity outside the house, 10 feet off the ground is always drier than the air inside.

 The gadget is an PV panel, attached to a South East facing wall, which powers a fan to draw this relatively drier air into the unit, drive it through the body of the panel, where it is passively warmed, and then push the fresh, dry(er) and warm(er) air into the house at floor level.

The introduced air displaces the stagnant damp(er) air out of the house through the chimney and other leaky bits.

Which means (a) the cottage would be dry(er) and (b) less mouldy and (c) a teeny weeny bit warmer throughout the year and (d) I could close most of the windows that the owl and swallows etc are using.

I have the ideal wall, it's around £500 and Barry would be the ideal man to fit it.

If nothing else - it would be a fascinating experiment!

So - buy or not buy?

ETA - rats, just noticed, they had a 10% discount offer which ran out yesterday...

 

Must be feeling better -

- I have the energy to put lippy on.

Uggh. I just want this cold to go away

That is all.

In other news

I have arrived back in London with a vile cold.

The cottage is finally fit for human habitation - and I am shivering and
coughing in the city.

Toads need love

Turns out Barry the builder isn't the only one who isn't keen on toads.

People are intrigued by the owl. Only one neighbour winced, and nodded
sympathetically , and said "lot of mess, owls"

But almost everyone has flinched at the mention of the darling, mild
little toad, who only squatted under a spare bed and ate flies, and who
heaved himself so obligingly away when I carried him from the danger zone.

Grown men, farmers, soldiers, diplomats, men who have rescued sheep from
15 foot snow drifts, drunk tea with the Taliban, or sat face to face
with Gaddafi, have turned pale and swayed at the mere thought of my toad.

Just what is the toad's terrible secret?

One for the toad...

Five minutes ago Barry jumped as he moved the old divan base in the back
bedroom - and so did the toad who was crouched beneath.

I don't know who was more surprised.

I scooped up the smaller, wartier of the two, and carried it to the
door. It was cool and light and a little cobwebby, and gazed at me with
yellow and brown eyes.

Last seen dragging its dusty tum into the rockery.

"I'm not so keen on toads" said Barry, and fetched his thermos.

Halfway through the day:
-replace the glass in the living room window. DONE.
- scrub and air mattress DONE
- wash the bedroom and living room floors - 1/3 DONE
- stitch and render the interior of the back room - about to start,
after a toad-free teabreak.

Didn't get to make shortbread last night, thanks to an infestation of
ankle-biting rug rats, aka my nieces.
But I did drink whisky, and discover that "Twilight" the movie is as
inane as I had feared.

ok, better now...

I scrubbed down the living room, the last (but one) major patch of black
mould in the house. (there is still quite a bit in the "kitchen"...)
So everything looks just a little less grey and blotchy, and I can get
on with cleaning the floors tomorrow.

While I was on the step ladder scrubbing the wall above the open window
Papa Swallow flew straight into my bobbies. At least there were shock
absorbers to take the impact.

He flew straight out again, and seems to be flying unimpaired...

Jobs tomorrow:
-stitch and render the interior of the back room (the swallows will just
have to cope)
-replace the glass in the living room window (it's been gaffer taped in
place for at least 3 years...)
-wash the bedroom and living room floors
-scrub and air my mattress
-order propane (hot water! Yay!)

Jobs tonight:
Make shortbread, drink whisky, sleep (well)

Not so cheery today

It might be the hacking cough, or the runny nose or dull grey weather,
or the thought that I won't get the cottage clean and habitable before
the end of my week here, but I just don't feel chipper up here at the
moment.

I thinks its just not knowing where to start work next - I'm hitting
dead ends, where I can't clean "this" until "that" is done... and
"that" needs to be fixed, or bleached, or moved...

Barry is at work stitching up the cracks in the back wall, and devising
long term plans to improve the drainage - I'm just very aware that
another summer has slipped by without me spending time up here doing
anything but sweeping and washing and shovelling out bird poo...

Actually - it's definitely the cough. I need whisky. Everything will
look rosier through the bottom of a tumbler of amber fluid!

Northumbrian rain is pretty hard core

Yesterday was all golden light and soft breezes. Today is all green and
grey stair-rods, a solid sheet of water imprisoning me indoor with a
shovel and heaps of beetle infested swallow droppings and an owl wee
tideline.

And swallow mum and swallow dad swooping past my ear. Which is nice.

I need it to stop soon - sometime tomorrow Barry the Builder is going to
try to get his van up through the pasture (past the cows) and start
repining the Victorian half of the cottage, and if the ground is too wet
he's not going to get half-way before he slides to a muddy slushy stop.

to clarify on the subject of owls

The only evidence of owl is the pyramid of pellets, pools of white wee
and drift of feathers around my desk and mantelpiece.

I love the way my housemates have moved up the food chain:

spiders - mice -swallows - weasels - owls...

Now the mice are in the owl pellets, and I am wondering what will move
in next week.

O bugarit - I've got owls in the living room

...and a whole new family of infant swallows in the back bedroom.

Argghhhhh!

It's nicely dull in the country. Its not quite warm, not quite wet, and
I am allergic to something in the vicinity - because my nose explodes
every time the door opens to the outside world. Something damp and
fungusy, probably. Hope it passes soon.

I have a new pet - a pot of fermenting milk. I was given a handful of
Kefir grains, a strange gelatinous mushroomy culture, which lurks in a
plastic pot in my suitcase. Every day I feed it fresh milk, and 24
hours later it gifts me a few glasses of fizzy sour mildly alcoholic
liquid which is oddly addictive. Its nice plain, nicer with a few
berries crushed into it, and now I'm looking for recipes...

Kefir is apparently well known and widely drunk in Russia and Poland -
all and any recipes from that region very welcome!

Back Up Back Up Back Up part 5

The really great discovery to emerge from the whole debacle was that
Mozy delivered on the promise.
I had all my files backed up, even the music files and the stuff I'd
saved just 12 hours before the disaster.

All I needed to do was download Mozy's interface onto the new baby and
log on (I'd forgotten my login details, but mozy emailed those to me
within 5 minutes)

As soon as I logged on I was asked if I wanted to register the new
computer and restore.
It took 24 hours, non stop, but I went home with all my data.

I will never, NOT NEVER, work without a continuous online, offsite
backup EVER again.

And neither should you!