Little sleep got. Where does sleep go that is lost? There needs to be some insomniac abacus that keeps a record and returns it you some other way. Extra strawberries on a plant or that when it rains, a little patch would refuse to rain on you, or that a bird would sit that little bit longer on a tree and let you look at him.
Yesterday I attended an interesting forum at the cemetery called Final Disposition. On the way home I passed a table outside a charity shop and bought a novel in French for a friend. An hour later I passed the table again and noticed a title by the recently deceased Michael Foot. A biography of Aneurin Bevan. I had to0 much to carry but couldn’t pass it. It cost 25 cents.
Early evening I learnt the writer Alan Sillitoe had died. (RIP)
The co-incidence of all occurring on a day so primed with mortality was like circulation.
Fan nomad
Not as disastrous as smoke suggested. There’s some disagreement with the basil that I believe has nothing to do with being in my oven. The front room is full of smoke which again has little to do with my cookery I am assured. Just a bit of cheek happening around here with all the elements….. my cooking being a blessing upon them. Giving them all something to heat up and smoke about. Go on ya pans, electricity …
Cupla nomad
I have a bad feeling about what is happening inside my oven right now. Am exerting extreme discipline to not approach its handle and inquire as I did on Tuesday evening when, having no bad feeling whatsoever, I pulled the darn thing open and billowing black smoke and unsatisfying noises came out to greet me. I remain utterly perplexed as to what could cause a lamb shephard’s pie to behave in such a manner.
There was some disagreement down below in the pyrex, some kind of hostile resistance between the chicken broth (error) and the lamb rest and it was shooting up and out and transforming the business into a kind of culinary gangland.
Today’s union or attempt at merger is just two pieces of a chicken and a bit of basil. (What the bloody hell can be going wrong in there?) I have put a hat on it and will just take a deep breath or wait for the smoke alarm to insist I open it.
Cookery is not something I will conquer in this lifetime. But it’s a great provider of odd and anxious momentitos.
I will not…
The left handed curve, the repetition, even the old hiss. Sunday morrow treat for those who enjoy the comfort of again and again or you can UBU the piece here in a larger screen
As those who read the last 4 or is it 5 yrs of posts here may gather I am a victualler of the ordinary, batty and odd moment. I cherish or trap it in life and in fiction. I enjoy it in a glimpse or happening and probably imagine it when it’s not actually happening. I’m also endeared to what comes before and after it. Thus the other night there was a great moment or two before the unfortunate plunge to back banjaxing with the backflip.
At first the coach asked me to demonstrate how to throw it over this large roly poly cheese thing to the other mainly men who haven’t yet learnt it. He was full of the bravura over this which was rather catching and I said as I watched these various blokes going back and side and crash over the foam this is a rare moment where I am stronger than them. It won’t last because they, of course, when taught, will master the move. But then, at that moment, I was the strongest.
He and I then took the backflip to the sprung tumbling run and did them in twos. Then he said ok take a break. Breaks are not a major occurrence in my vocabulary, so I took the solo move over to the industrial trampoline where I knew I could continue it unaided.
I threw a few and stood off. A young man who began training at the same time as me before xmas asked “What goes through your head as you throw that move” so I explained that if anything goes through my head it is to not let thinking interfere to just rely on the body and be aggressive and determined. If I contemplate it, I will surely screw it up, because rationale interferes. I told him not to be in a hurry to achieve it, it would come and to work on his strength and how mighty he was doing. And he is really doing mighty this fella, since it is hard to enter a place and watch people doing much more advanced moves than you’re able to and to take the time to learn the basics properly.
Over empowered by compliments and inquiry and I returned to the trampoline threw one good one, collected a compliment and an instruction and then the next one I threw, screwed it up mightily and have spent the past 72 hrs apologizing to every torn muscle in my back. Clearly it pays to take a break!
Today in sharply different circumstances (a funeral forum) I saw a man refuse to give up his moment. He would not hand back the microphone and he dug in there and delivered what he’d come to say (he was v frustrated by the system and the govt and regulations around burial it sounded like). God bless him, I admired him. Earlier we’d been chatting about the acoustics in the room, which were difficult and he was having a hard time hearing. He had told me lightly …. “When you get older, you don’t give up, you give it to them.” He read what he’d determined he wanted to say aloud from the back of a rectangular aquatic blue diary (day planner). It was great. He was great. And since he was on his two feet rather than a sprung unpredictable piece of fabric trying to twist upside down, well the outcome was more of a ruction than a rupture.
Supine, divine 39
Well there was much to be said for 39 and the, for the most part, supine birthday. The salmon dinner cooked by my beloved was divine. The dodge of the hockey play offs by me (not he) was equally divine. I took a brief foray into Mark’s Work World to ogle the talking tire gauge and discovered it is no more to be ogled. I did notice a peculiar line of clothing called figure enhancing which appeared to offer false padding to women who would have no use of such padding based on the regulars who enter the place. Frankly who in their right mind would be going to Mark’s Work World to get their bust fashionably enhanced. You tend to go their to buy steel toe boots, or illuminous traffic vests or scrubs or thermals or/and or/and not to come out looking plus busty!
I did not dally due to me banjo’d back. I’d several film recommendations from friends and decided on Godard’s Pierrot Le Fou and Swept Away (Lina ? hold on a minute til I watch it). It was moi and the couch and my knitted blanket. Icepack, advil, glass of wine and Godard. It was quiet and dandy. My males were busy and joined me when they were finished being busy. It suited all of us and we all suit each other.
One moment it was going so well. Then there followed an instruction. The next moment it was no longer going so well. The reluctant backflip that was not reluctant and will not be reluctant the next time. The incursion was the brain on the backflip.
Or is it the gliss to middle age that is reluctant?
Whichever, whatever, however, in the meantime an icepack and back reassurance pills and the robust determination to be back at the mat next week or some week soon. Strangely undefeated! Supine but undefeated!