Publishers appear to be giving up on fiction and practicing only accountancy, therefore in protest I am joining them by giving up on hairdressers.
I wonder which will become apparent to the greater populous first…. I suspect there will be a negligent impact felt on both scores.
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On the other hand the absence of salt from HP sauce has been noted and vigorously protested by said salt deprived tongues.
Once salt is restored to HP sauce the uptake of literary fiction can be re-examined.
We must be reassured by the HP dilemma that attention is being paid to certain appetites and any attempt to diminish them will not be tolerated.
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I am now a certified peach canner. Certified by helping the peach canning expert Leannej in 500ml jars, without the need to blanche.
Earthquake was felt here at mrsokana. The couch jumped and my knitting bag rose. There was also a bang. I immediately thought Earthquake! Turned left to check out the light — sure enough it was swinging.
I happened to be sitting on the couch at the time so was equally elevated.
This has merely confirmed what I thought about this building that any earthquake will undoubtably flatten it. The poor product of 1980’s Vancouver special type leaky throw ups. I must now do the hoovering incase there are aftershocks. All tremors must be met with a clean carpet.
Skookum Chuck
I chanced upon Skookum Chuck by Stuart Edward White (he wrote mainly Cowboy adventure novels, naturalist, travel writings and his wife’s channellings…) set in Vancouver and published in 1925. Here is the opening paragraph. Ignore the twee opening and note the final lines of that paragraph they feel so contemporary and relevant. They are also a common reaction that I encounter to the city from people who’ve recently arrived from elsewhere to settle.) Two fascinating things about this book 1) it’s episodic 2) there are some pretty accurate weather descriptions in it, the following is not the best example of them.
On a sunny afternoon in early May a young man strolled along a back street of Vancouver. It might have been supposed that he—or any other human, for that matter—would be savouring the fine weather that marked the break of the long winter rains, or enjoying the sight of glittering snow peaks and the twinkle of waters on two sides of the peninsula on which Vancouver is so fortunate as to be situated. But if so, his appearance strangely belied him. He looked bored. Or perhaps bored is too active a word, implying too positive a mental state. Let us substitute. He looked uninterested, indifferent, vacant.
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Here are the titles of The Episodes in the book:
Of all the challenges I might have imagined my raising a teenager would bring, I did not envisage the auditory onslaught of Northern English accents my small Canadian male currently speaks in and medley of quotes from Top Gear and constant demand in said Northern accents “can we go to ASDA and buy some jaffa cakes”, not least because we live in Vancouver, Canada and I, who lived many years in London, can’t ever remember ever going to ASDA.
Even more startling is his invocation of Terry Wogan. Eventually I will have to introduce him to Terry Wogan on youtube. Ironically the biggest stand off between my mother and her offspring was her insistence on listening in the car only to beeping Radio 2 and none other than Mr Wogan. I will never forgive Terry Wogan for standing between me and the possibility of listening to Culture Club.
I did have quite a jaffa cake habit in 1990’s Dublin, so perhaps that sailed down the genetic lineage.
Fortunately my son does not take my haphazard approach to baking and cookery — which will be a blessed relief to his tastebuds. I take my cooking instructions from him these days to better outcomes.
First time Tule
I saw my first bout of Tule Fog (thick ground fog) on Saturday morning on Cortes Island.
Quite the beauty she was too.
American asylums documented
“For some reason, everyone left their toothbrushes there,”…
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The unclaimed urns and autopsy room are equally stirring. And the general blankness of what is left and what was once.
Pickled herring and reading how to build a Canadian Woodframe House book (CMHC) at Refuge Cove, a place only accessible by boat, inside a house built by a woman using mainly hand tools.
On the way back in the boat I lay down in the hull and had jelly-belly bouncing across the waves.
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Oscar Wilde took a dim view on Tuesdays but they were kinda important to the French Revolution. Other than that they remain unremarkable.
An overnight low of 8 degrees, the culprit? North Westerly winds?
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I was just thinking how Tuesdays will henceforth forever be associated with a certain flatness, a risk averse day. I must research and find out what historic things of note have taken place on a Tuesday to see whether this notion deserves countering. Hmmm.