Autumn is definitely the sexiest season of the year. Rotting leaves, drizzle, bonfires, roasting chestnuts, leather boots and firelighters – these are all smells that conspire to unfurl big passions in me. Particularly firelighters. I have to throw them into the grate at arm’s length when I light the fire each evening so that I don’t suddenly becoming a quivering wretch. They are devilish things. I long for and yet fear the invention of a firelighter incense stick or a room spray entitled ‘eau de petrol’. Indeed, I’m getting all hot under the collar thinking about it. I think that’s why I love old cars so much. The slightly decaying smell of old leather, years of leached out petrol drenching the air and the imagined smell of wooden dashboards easily rival Ernest Beaux’s ‘Cuir de Russie’.
I keep on coming back to the subject of smells and I just can’t help myself.
I can remember my mother's smell when I was very young. It was sweet, powdery and aldehydic and was combined with the harsh, nostril-tinging notes of Elnett hairspray and the soft violet scent of her face powder.
When I was fourteen I had a friend called Teresa, who was very womanly and very attractive to boys. I was a late developer and the local boys were wary of me as I wore crinolines to play table tennis with Teresa at the local sports centre while she wore very becoming short shorts.
Teresa had crushes on lots of boys at the swimming pool. We only ever knew them as ‘bluey’, ‘greeny’ or ‘blacky’ depending on the colour of their trunks. I only liked dead poets and dead composers.
One day Teresa and her family took me to a rugby dance. Teresa had a swarm of strapping rugby players lining up to dance with her while I was sitting next to her granny talking about rationing in the Second World War. Suddenly a grown man appeared in front of me and asked me to dance. Without waiting for a reply he pulled me firmly onto the dance floor and then manouevred me firmly against his body and started to slow dance with me. To my surprise he seemed rather pleased to see me. His face was pressed close to mine and his cheeks were rubbery smooth and scented with the most divine perfume I had ever smelt. I can’t remember how many songs we danced to but I soon found that his tongue seemed to be dancing in my mouth and then shortly afterwards Teresa’s dad was prising him from me and threatening to see him outside if he didn’t leave me alone.
It transpired that he had just come out of prison and I never saw him again. But I was on a mission from that day on to identify that wonderful smell. It took me a long time but I eventually found it. I bought a bottle with several weeks' pocket money and kept it hidden away. A few years ago I smelt it on a stranger and instantly had a vivid image of entwined tongues!
Thursday 5 November 2009
Tuesday 3 November 2009
Butternut Tornado
I’ve just been bought a camera for skyping sessions. It's quite disconcerting. I’m not sure about it. I feel obliged to put my lipstick on before calling anyone and it’s strange bringing vanity into telephone conversations. But it’s free and I have to admit that it can be good fun. Zelda and I dressed up as fantastic witches on Halloween and skyped all our friends to scare them.
I’ve just made up a really good recipe using butternut squash. I stole some of the ingredients from a Jamie Oliver recipe, but I kept on adding to it until it was really delicious. I’ve decided to give up red meat, particularly cow meat, to save the planet so I’m trying out lots of new vegetarian recipes.
Here is my Spicy Butternut Pasta Bake
1 butternut squash
2 teaspoons coriander seeds
2 teaspoons dried oregano
½ teaspoon fennel seeds
2 small dried chillies
1 teaspoon Maldon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 cloves garlic
2 cloves smoked garlic (if you can find it) otherwise add 2 cloves of normal garlic
Olive oil
2 red onions
Fresh pasta
Double cream
Parmesan cheese
All you do is cut the butternut squash in half and scoop out the gunge and seeds. Lay them in a baking tray.
Put all the spices into a pestle and mortar and give them a good pounding until the seeds turn into fine powder. Add the 2 unsmoked garlic cloves and pound again.
Then add enough olive oil to make a nice pesto consistency paste. Smear this all over the butternut squash, cut the onions in half unpeeled and tuck between the squash and drizzle some more olive oil on top of everything. Put two cloves of smoked or unsmoked garlic in whole and unpeeled too.
Cook in a preheated oven (200 degrees centigrade) for about 40 minutes.
Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and cook the pasta for however long it takes. I used Waitrose’s Trompetti pasta which is really lovely for this. Drain the pasta and put it in a large ovenproof bowl. Cut the squash up in chunks scraping it off the skin first. Squish the garlic cloves in the mixture. Add all this and the onions (peel them from their skins) and mix up gently with the pasta. Grate in some parmesan and pour in just enough double cream to make the mixture moist. Mix one last time and then grate some more parmesan on top.
Put back in the oven and leave until the cheese is bubbling and melted.
While this was cooking we had an extraordinary mini tornado outside. It has wreaked havoc in the space of just a few minutes. Nearly all my pots in the courtyard have fallen over, some have broken alas, and every one of my bay trees which are at least 7 feet tall and in huge great troughs has been knocked over. It was just like the beginning of The Wizard of Oz. I'm going out now to clear up the devastation. I've put on my red shoes.
I’ve just made up a really good recipe using butternut squash. I stole some of the ingredients from a Jamie Oliver recipe, but I kept on adding to it until it was really delicious. I’ve decided to give up red meat, particularly cow meat, to save the planet so I’m trying out lots of new vegetarian recipes.
Here is my Spicy Butternut Pasta Bake
1 butternut squash
2 teaspoons coriander seeds
2 teaspoons dried oregano
½ teaspoon fennel seeds
2 small dried chillies
1 teaspoon Maldon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 cloves garlic
2 cloves smoked garlic (if you can find it) otherwise add 2 cloves of normal garlic
Olive oil
2 red onions
Fresh pasta
Double cream
Parmesan cheese
All you do is cut the butternut squash in half and scoop out the gunge and seeds. Lay them in a baking tray.
Put all the spices into a pestle and mortar and give them a good pounding until the seeds turn into fine powder. Add the 2 unsmoked garlic cloves and pound again.
Then add enough olive oil to make a nice pesto consistency paste. Smear this all over the butternut squash, cut the onions in half unpeeled and tuck between the squash and drizzle some more olive oil on top of everything. Put two cloves of smoked or unsmoked garlic in whole and unpeeled too.
Cook in a preheated oven (200 degrees centigrade) for about 40 minutes.
Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and cook the pasta for however long it takes. I used Waitrose’s Trompetti pasta which is really lovely for this. Drain the pasta and put it in a large ovenproof bowl. Cut the squash up in chunks scraping it off the skin first. Squish the garlic cloves in the mixture. Add all this and the onions (peel them from their skins) and mix up gently with the pasta. Grate in some parmesan and pour in just enough double cream to make the mixture moist. Mix one last time and then grate some more parmesan on top.
Put back in the oven and leave until the cheese is bubbling and melted.
While this was cooking we had an extraordinary mini tornado outside. It has wreaked havoc in the space of just a few minutes. Nearly all my pots in the courtyard have fallen over, some have broken alas, and every one of my bay trees which are at least 7 feet tall and in huge great troughs has been knocked over. It was just like the beginning of The Wizard of Oz. I'm going out now to clear up the devastation. I've put on my red shoes.
Thursday 15 October 2009
Away and back
I have just returned from Lisbon, where I made a quick dash with my sister for a few days. It was the first time I had ever been to the lovely city. Everyone was very friendly and attentive and I fell in love with the little electricos – the trams that whizz recklessly up and down and around the city – and the tiled houses and crumbling facades. I came back with some minimalist tiled coasters, a strange dusty pink dress by Ana Salazar that has a belt under the arms, an electrico snow globe for Zelda and a box of lovely custard tarts. Oh and some very nice Portuguese wine – quite a discovery in fact.
From now on I shall only be eating grilled sardines and custard.
Here all is beautiful and autumnal. And I’m smelling of Black Hemlock.
Today I watched three deer outside munching on our trees, two herons flying over the lake, rabbits galore, pussies rolling in the goose poo, the geese creating lots more, several big fat ghost carp churning up mud clouds and I found a dead devil’s coach horse in front of the fire – hurrah! Talking of fire, I've just filled up the log store with lots of lovely birch, oak and ash and will be warming myself with them later.
Going away really cleared my head. It feels lovely and free and .... empty?
From now on I shall only be eating grilled sardines and custard.
Here all is beautiful and autumnal. And I’m smelling of Black Hemlock.
Today I watched three deer outside munching on our trees, two herons flying over the lake, rabbits galore, pussies rolling in the goose poo, the geese creating lots more, several big fat ghost carp churning up mud clouds and I found a dead devil’s coach horse in front of the fire – hurrah! Talking of fire, I've just filled up the log store with lots of lovely birch, oak and ash and will be warming myself with them later.
Going away really cleared my head. It feels lovely and free and .... empty?
Tuesday 29 September 2009
Devil's Coach Horses and other country delights
The newspapers have been full of warnings of record numbers of spiders preparing to invade our houses this autumn. I can announce that they have well and truly arrived in Sussex and they are looking in rude health.
However, there is another insect that seems to be gathering its troops in numbers far greater than the simple arachnid. It is black and lethal (to snails, earthworms and spiders that is). This rather sinister-looking creature is called a Devil’s Coach Horse. It squirts a stinking brown fluid from its mouth and anus when provoked. And it bites. It munches its prey to a pulp. The record number of spiders moving in to my house must be enticing it inside as I’m finding the devilish creature everywhere. As I was rooting around in the long grass earlier I even found one eating a dead robin’s eyeball.
I’m doing my best to live in peace amongst all these carnivorous creatures now that I’m a country girl, but I only seem able to sleep at night if my face and body are completely covered by the duvet. This means coming up for air at regular intervals which is proving somewhat disruptive to my beauty sleep. Oh well, you only live once as they say.
However, there is another insect that seems to be gathering its troops in numbers far greater than the simple arachnid. It is black and lethal (to snails, earthworms and spiders that is). This rather sinister-looking creature is called a Devil’s Coach Horse. It squirts a stinking brown fluid from its mouth and anus when provoked. And it bites. It munches its prey to a pulp. The record number of spiders moving in to my house must be enticing it inside as I’m finding the devilish creature everywhere. As I was rooting around in the long grass earlier I even found one eating a dead robin’s eyeball.
I’m doing my best to live in peace amongst all these carnivorous creatures now that I’m a country girl, but I only seem able to sleep at night if my face and body are completely covered by the duvet. This means coming up for air at regular intervals which is proving somewhat disruptive to my beauty sleep. Oh well, you only live once as they say.
Monday 7 September 2009
Silt
There is honesty in my house. It is as beautiful and as delicate as mother-of-pearl and semi-transparent, just like honesty usually is.
My chilli plants are pushing out lots of new flowers to make lots of lovely hot cherry bombs. But I’m concerned there won’t be enough heat to entice the fruit to develop fully. So I have just ordered enough seasoned logs to last through the winter. The warmth and heat from real wood, plus the smell, is truly wonderful and I’m sure my hot little peppers will like it too. I have a super-efficient new Danish log burning stove embedded in my bee hive fireplace and I can’t wait to watch the flames lick against the glass and warm the cockles of my heart.
I fell in the lake yesterday trying to rescue Zelda’s remote controlled speed boat. I usually end up in the water at some stage. I think I shall die drowning. I have had dreams about drowning all my life. I was always falling in the water throughout my childhood on my step-father’s boat. One moment I would be sitting on the top of the boat engrossed in my book and the next I would be in the river holding the book out of the water desperate for it to stay dry, calling out ‘Wait For Me!’. Luckily I haven't yet got entangled in the blades.
The bottom of the lake is very silty and I had silt in my knickers and silt in my hair. I was wearing an old but lovely Pierre Cardin dress to go down to the lake and it was covered in the ash grey matter but it has washed up well and the silt seems to have been removed from all the other places it visited. I felt sorry for the ghost carp. It must have been an awful sight for them seeing their beloved silt, which is where they sleep and dream, disappearing down someone’s knickers.
Another really delicious recipe with just three ingredients:
Take some lovely, small, ripe strawberries
Cut off their green bits and slice them in half
Put them in a glass bowl
Add some creamy natural yoghurt in big dollops on top
Drizzle over some amber maple syrup.
You really will be amazed. Maple syrup is my secret ingredient. It’s smoky, sweet, sharp and gorgeous. Please try it if you’re not already addicted. You can put it on literally anything.
My chilli plants are pushing out lots of new flowers to make lots of lovely hot cherry bombs. But I’m concerned there won’t be enough heat to entice the fruit to develop fully. So I have just ordered enough seasoned logs to last through the winter. The warmth and heat from real wood, plus the smell, is truly wonderful and I’m sure my hot little peppers will like it too. I have a super-efficient new Danish log burning stove embedded in my bee hive fireplace and I can’t wait to watch the flames lick against the glass and warm the cockles of my heart.
I fell in the lake yesterday trying to rescue Zelda’s remote controlled speed boat. I usually end up in the water at some stage. I think I shall die drowning. I have had dreams about drowning all my life. I was always falling in the water throughout my childhood on my step-father’s boat. One moment I would be sitting on the top of the boat engrossed in my book and the next I would be in the river holding the book out of the water desperate for it to stay dry, calling out ‘Wait For Me!’. Luckily I haven't yet got entangled in the blades.
The bottom of the lake is very silty and I had silt in my knickers and silt in my hair. I was wearing an old but lovely Pierre Cardin dress to go down to the lake and it was covered in the ash grey matter but it has washed up well and the silt seems to have been removed from all the other places it visited. I felt sorry for the ghost carp. It must have been an awful sight for them seeing their beloved silt, which is where they sleep and dream, disappearing down someone’s knickers.
Another really delicious recipe with just three ingredients:
Take some lovely, small, ripe strawberries
Cut off their green bits and slice them in half
Put them in a glass bowl
Add some creamy natural yoghurt in big dollops on top
Drizzle over some amber maple syrup.
You really will be amazed. Maple syrup is my secret ingredient. It’s smoky, sweet, sharp and gorgeous. Please try it if you’re not already addicted. You can put it on literally anything.
Tuesday 1 September 2009
Holy Grail and Spelt from Sibyl's Leaves
I need to add Herefordshire to my road trip. I’ve noticed something about people’s home-grown vegetables. All is fine when the weather has been behaving itself. But not so fine when the garlic has rotted in the ground, the celery stalks are as skinny as pencils and the Brussels sprouts are being devoured by thousands of cabbage butterfly caterpillars. All the trouble that goes in to growing these vegetables is rarely rewarded. This is usually due to the weather, slugs, snails, caterpillars, lack of watering etc. Some crops will be wonderful and all is fine if you don’t mind having green beans and tomatoes with every single meal you eat. But I still think I'd rather go to the market once a week and meet the people who really know how to grow vegetables and choose the most wonderful specimens for my plate.
I had a Reiki session today in Herefordshire that was quite wonderful. It’s one that helps you find your very own holy grail. I think it worked! Watch this space.
It was one of my daughter's eight grandparents who was doing the Reiki (it's a long story...). He is a mystic and has discovered a new way to practice Reiki. I get along with him well and after the session I asked him to recite this Gerard Manley Hopkins poem to me:
Spelt from Sibyl’s Leaves
Earnest, earthless, equal attuneable, vaulty, voluminous..
stupendous
Evening strains to be time’s vast, womb-of-all, home-of-all,
hearse-of-all night.
Her fond yellow hornlight wound to the west, her wild-hollow
hoarlight hung to the height
Waste; her earliest stars, earl-stars, stars principal, overbend us,
Fire-featuring heaven. For earth her being has unbound, her
dapple is at an end, as-
tray or aswarm, all throughther, in throngs; self in self steeped
and pashed – quite
Disremembering, dismembering all now. Heart, you round me
right.
With: Our evening is over us; our night whelms, whelms and
will end us.
Only the beak-leaved boughs dragonish damask the tool-smooth
bleak light; black.
Ever so black on it. Our tale, O our oracle! Let life, waned,
ah let life wind
Off her once skeined stained veined variety upon, all on two
spools; part, pen, pack
Now her all in two flocks, two folds-black, white; right,
wrong; reckon but, reck but, mind
But these two; ware of a world where but these two tell, each
off the other; of a rack
Where, selfwrung, selfstrung, sheathe- and shelterless, thoughts
against thoughts in groans grind.
I had a Reiki session today in Herefordshire that was quite wonderful. It’s one that helps you find your very own holy grail. I think it worked! Watch this space.
It was one of my daughter's eight grandparents who was doing the Reiki (it's a long story...). He is a mystic and has discovered a new way to practice Reiki. I get along with him well and after the session I asked him to recite this Gerard Manley Hopkins poem to me:
Spelt from Sibyl’s Leaves
Earnest, earthless, equal attuneable, vaulty, voluminous..
stupendous
Evening strains to be time’s vast, womb-of-all, home-of-all,
hearse-of-all night.
Her fond yellow hornlight wound to the west, her wild-hollow
hoarlight hung to the height
Waste; her earliest stars, earl-stars, stars principal, overbend us,
Fire-featuring heaven. For earth her being has unbound, her
dapple is at an end, as-
tray or aswarm, all throughther, in throngs; self in self steeped
and pashed – quite
Disremembering, dismembering all now. Heart, you round me
right.
With: Our evening is over us; our night whelms, whelms and
will end us.
Only the beak-leaved boughs dragonish damask the tool-smooth
bleak light; black.
Ever so black on it. Our tale, O our oracle! Let life, waned,
ah let life wind
Off her once skeined stained veined variety upon, all on two
spools; part, pen, pack
Now her all in two flocks, two folds-black, white; right,
wrong; reckon but, reck but, mind
But these two; ware of a world where but these two tell, each
off the other; of a rack
Where, selfwrung, selfstrung, sheathe- and shelterless, thoughts
against thoughts in groans grind.
Saturday 29 August 2009
Russian Blackberries
Today I got ravaged foraging for blackberries. I was perfectly fine while I was on my own land, but as soon as I trespassed onto my Russian neighbour’s land to pick his riper fruit (his bushes face south) it was as if all his brambles had been instructed to punish any intruders. Thorns pressed into my knees and hands and nettles insinuated themselves into small apertures where clothing was unable to protect flesh. I don’t know why his brambles behaved so badly as he never picks his own fruit and I always offer an exchange to the birds for their berries. I give them titbits from my house (sunflower seeds, bread, apples) while I take only the ripest fruit from the bushes.
Anyway, I returned injured but triumphant with well over a kilo of beautiful blue-black fruit. Crumbles and bramble mousse will be emanating from my kitchen this autumn.
The Russian Neighbour has recently allowed a local farmer to graze sheep on his land and today the sheep (gorgeous chunky creatures) came rushing towards me as soon as they saw me. We just looked at each other and carried on with our activities. I felt safe in their presence and they seemed to feel the same way about me. Later I took them a big bucket of fresh water to their field as the water in their trough looked very green and unappetizing. They seemed to appreciate the gesture.
I’m learning a lot about the world at the moment. I’m re-reading ‘The Karamazov Brothers’ by Dostoevsky and I love it. I'd like to get to know my Russian Neighbour so we can talk about Fyodor Dostoevsky and Igor Stravinsky, Marc Chagall, Andrei Tarkovsky, Mikhail Bulgakov and so many other Russian artists who have inspired me...
Anyway, I returned injured but triumphant with well over a kilo of beautiful blue-black fruit. Crumbles and bramble mousse will be emanating from my kitchen this autumn.
The Russian Neighbour has recently allowed a local farmer to graze sheep on his land and today the sheep (gorgeous chunky creatures) came rushing towards me as soon as they saw me. We just looked at each other and carried on with our activities. I felt safe in their presence and they seemed to feel the same way about me. Later I took them a big bucket of fresh water to their field as the water in their trough looked very green and unappetizing. They seemed to appreciate the gesture.
I’m learning a lot about the world at the moment. I’m re-reading ‘The Karamazov Brothers’ by Dostoevsky and I love it. I'd like to get to know my Russian Neighbour so we can talk about Fyodor Dostoevsky and Igor Stravinsky, Marc Chagall, Andrei Tarkovsky, Mikhail Bulgakov and so many other Russian artists who have inspired me...
Friday 28 August 2009
Wednesday 26 August 2009
Goosegrass
I’m already looking forward to next Spring so that I can stick goosegrass onto unsuspecting friends’ shoulders when we are taking a walk together. It gives me a great and almost uncontrollable thrill. I can’t quite explain it. Earlier this year I was walking with my father in Oxfordshire and I kept plucking it from the hedgerow and sticking it on his back when he wasn’t looking. I found it truly hilarious, seeing the green sticky sticks hanging off his shoulders and couldn’t stop giggling. He was getting crosser and crosser and couldn’t understand why I found it so funny. In the end he went off to play golf with his friends with various fronds hanging down his spine. It was a fantastic role reversal.
When I was seven he taught me to swim in the sea at Borth in Wales. He kept on going under the water and coming up under me like a shark, making me scream. He couldn’t understand how terrified and disconcerted he made me. I could hardly breathe. I was thinking about it today as I was in the pool, doing aqua exercises with the old ladies of West Sussex. Now I can create the same sensation with goosegrass! Only 8 months to go!
When I was seven he taught me to swim in the sea at Borth in Wales. He kept on going under the water and coming up under me like a shark, making me scream. He couldn’t understand how terrified and disconcerted he made me. I could hardly breathe. I was thinking about it today as I was in the pool, doing aqua exercises with the old ladies of West Sussex. Now I can create the same sensation with goosegrass! Only 8 months to go!
Tuesday 25 August 2009
Knot Update
My second favourite is the Monkey’s Fist. Sailors will know what I’m talking about. Especially pre-19th century sailors.
Knots
When I swim I think of the sky. When I fly I think of the sea.
When I am on a boat I float.
I have been reading about knots. I think my favourite is one called a Camel Hitch. It was used by the famous 19th century circus Ringing Brothers’ Circus to tie up their performing camels. It was a knot that was particularly suited to camels because being ruminants they have a tendency to slobber uncontrollably and this knot is highly resistant to excessive wetness.
Let me know if you’d like me to describe how to do it to you.
When I am on a boat I float.
I have been reading about knots. I think my favourite is one called a Camel Hitch. It was used by the famous 19th century circus Ringing Brothers’ Circus to tie up their performing camels. It was a knot that was particularly suited to camels because being ruminants they have a tendency to slobber uncontrollably and this knot is highly resistant to excessive wetness.
Let me know if you’d like me to describe how to do it to you.
Monday 24 August 2009
Hound Dog Day
I have been on an English road-trip for the past few weeks, encompassing the Isle of Wight, London, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, Somerset and Yorkshire. During the long blue hours of car-contained-day-dreaming, I decided to adopt a greyhound. Phone calls have since been made and it is likely that soon I shall be the guardian of a beautiful ex-racing hound from the now defunct Walthamstow Stadium. I am waiting for the person in charge to identify one that won’t eat our cats. It doesn’t really help that the hounds are used to chasing small white fluffy things at speeds of over 40mph. But I am sure the right one will be chosen and that it will be sprawling on the sofas very soon.
Apparently greyhounds don’t like stairs. But they love sofas to sprawl on. I don’t have any of the former (apart from the slatted ones to my eerie) and I have two big orange ones of the latter. So it is looking as if it is pre-destined.
During my road-trip I bought some shoes that have been a runaway success. They have the effect of making adults, cats and children smile. They look like steam liners due to their beautifully proportioned cork platforms and streamlined appearance. When I tried driving the car in them recently it felt as if the car was floating. Strangely at that moment no one was smiling any more. The only problem with the shoes is that I can’t runaway in them. I also have some difficulty walking in them. But when I am wearing them I attempt to glide along nonchalantly and that seems to add to the fun.
Apparently greyhounds don’t like stairs. But they love sofas to sprawl on. I don’t have any of the former (apart from the slatted ones to my eerie) and I have two big orange ones of the latter. So it is looking as if it is pre-destined.
During my road-trip I bought some shoes that have been a runaway success. They have the effect of making adults, cats and children smile. They look like steam liners due to their beautifully proportioned cork platforms and streamlined appearance. When I tried driving the car in them recently it felt as if the car was floating. Strangely at that moment no one was smiling any more. The only problem with the shoes is that I can’t runaway in them. I also have some difficulty walking in them. But when I am wearing them I attempt to glide along nonchalantly and that seems to add to the fun.
Monday 10 August 2009
Dead Spider
The complicit spider is dead. Last night as I was sitting reading on the sofa, she came towards me out of the blue seemingly with great purpose and I froze with horror as I hadn’t realized how terrifyingly big she actually was. Her legs were as long as Carla Bruni-Sarkozy’s and she had a presence that was knowing and menacing at the same time. Had she read my confession about the praying mantis and/or the story about my mother’s shockingly violent crimes of passion towards her ancestors? Did she want real atonement this time? I climbed over several pieces of furniture to avoid putting my toes anywhere near hers and raced to bed.
Several hours later, i.e. early this morning, I found her shrivelled body by the door, with one of her Carlas a few inches away from the rest of her body. The cats must have attacked her during the hours of darkness unless she had been overcome by a gang of giant bluebottles.
An hour later, another huge great spider appeared, this time while I was in the bath, spiralling down the side of the bath at great speed, unable to prevent the inevitable slide into the steaming hot perfumed water. Horrified, I took my cup of Love™ tea, poured the liquid into the bath water and caught the spider in it. I then lay the flannel over the top of the cup and ran bare wet into the courtyard to set the spider free. For a while it lay on the grey stones shrunken, strangely fragrant and immobile and I thought that I must have put a curse on the whole of the spider kingdom. But then the morning sun seemed to penetrate its limbs and without warning it rose onto all eights and tip-toed away into the tomato plants.
Gosh, it really is all excitement here in the country.
After the brief burst of morning sun that dried up all the water from the not so insy winsy spider that had fallen down the spout, a big mist descended from the hills and suddenly drizzle and strong gusts of wind appeared. I felt a strange disappointment that it wasn’t going to be a Mediterranean kind of day after all. I had thought I was in the mood for cicadas, salade composée and pastis. But when it is a Mediterranean kind of day I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t know what to wear or how to keep myself out of trouble. You would think that having lived in the Mediterranean for over ten years I would have learned something of the art of staying as cool as a concombre in the heat. But no, I didn't, and I think that this is exactly the kind of summer I deserve. In fact, hurrah for this damp squib of a summer - it's so much more fun dressing up than down - and who wants salade composée when you can have roast chicken and potatoes instead.
Several hours later, i.e. early this morning, I found her shrivelled body by the door, with one of her Carlas a few inches away from the rest of her body. The cats must have attacked her during the hours of darkness unless she had been overcome by a gang of giant bluebottles.
An hour later, another huge great spider appeared, this time while I was in the bath, spiralling down the side of the bath at great speed, unable to prevent the inevitable slide into the steaming hot perfumed water. Horrified, I took my cup of Love™ tea, poured the liquid into the bath water and caught the spider in it. I then lay the flannel over the top of the cup and ran bare wet into the courtyard to set the spider free. For a while it lay on the grey stones shrunken, strangely fragrant and immobile and I thought that I must have put a curse on the whole of the spider kingdom. But then the morning sun seemed to penetrate its limbs and without warning it rose onto all eights and tip-toed away into the tomato plants.
Gosh, it really is all excitement here in the country.
After the brief burst of morning sun that dried up all the water from the not so insy winsy spider that had fallen down the spout, a big mist descended from the hills and suddenly drizzle and strong gusts of wind appeared. I felt a strange disappointment that it wasn’t going to be a Mediterranean kind of day after all. I had thought I was in the mood for cicadas, salade composée and pastis. But when it is a Mediterranean kind of day I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t know what to wear or how to keep myself out of trouble. You would think that having lived in the Mediterranean for over ten years I would have learned something of the art of staying as cool as a concombre in the heat. But no, I didn't, and I think that this is exactly the kind of summer I deserve. In fact, hurrah for this damp squib of a summer - it's so much more fun dressing up than down - and who wants salade composée when you can have roast chicken and potatoes instead.
Saturday 8 August 2009
Intimidating Nature
Today is a lovely day. Birds are singing, deer are frolicking, ghost carp are jumping and the cotton is high. And my in-box has some lovely messages for me.
My house looks over the Blackdown Hills where Alfred Lord Tennyson’s beautiful gothic mansion sits majestically surrounded by ancient woodland. It is always illuminated by the morning sun - when the sun is shining - and Tennyson’s golden statue sits in the grounds looking out over the shimmering valley. I can’t see the statue but I know that it is there. I saw it in a magazine.
‘Flower in the crannied wall’ by Tennyson
Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower - but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
I have a love/hate relationship with insects. I love them and I am scared of them too. Now I welcome them into my life and respect their way of doing things. I have a big spider here, who lives in the living room and who kills the flies. She kills the flies and I leave her web alone. That is how we accommodate each other.
When I was 20 I lived in the south of France in a little house in the hills that had dangling beaded curtains over the front door. One hot day a praying mantis had climbed up the beads and was lying in wait for something, perhaps a male lover to devour. As I walked into the house from the garden the mantis became horribly entangled in my hair. In a mad moment of confusion and terror I knocked the insect onto the ground and before I knew what I was doing I was pounding it with a broom head, just like my mother had done with spiders when I was young. Until all that remained of the miserable creature was a disgusting green stain on the stone path outside.
I have never forgiven myself for that episode, and now I love searching for new insects and understanding more about them. One day I told Ivor Cutler this story and the next day he gave me a book entitled 'The Life of Insects' by Sir Vincent B. Wigglesworth. We spoke for hours about them every time we met. He liked the fact that I had been violent with them in the past but that I had atoned for my sins. He liked to examine cause and effect.
My house looks over the Blackdown Hills where Alfred Lord Tennyson’s beautiful gothic mansion sits majestically surrounded by ancient woodland. It is always illuminated by the morning sun - when the sun is shining - and Tennyson’s golden statue sits in the grounds looking out over the shimmering valley. I can’t see the statue but I know that it is there. I saw it in a magazine.
‘Flower in the crannied wall’ by Tennyson
Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower - but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
I have a love/hate relationship with insects. I love them and I am scared of them too. Now I welcome them into my life and respect their way of doing things. I have a big spider here, who lives in the living room and who kills the flies. She kills the flies and I leave her web alone. That is how we accommodate each other.
When I was 20 I lived in the south of France in a little house in the hills that had dangling beaded curtains over the front door. One hot day a praying mantis had climbed up the beads and was lying in wait for something, perhaps a male lover to devour. As I walked into the house from the garden the mantis became horribly entangled in my hair. In a mad moment of confusion and terror I knocked the insect onto the ground and before I knew what I was doing I was pounding it with a broom head, just like my mother had done with spiders when I was young. Until all that remained of the miserable creature was a disgusting green stain on the stone path outside.
I have never forgiven myself for that episode, and now I love searching for new insects and understanding more about them. One day I told Ivor Cutler this story and the next day he gave me a book entitled 'The Life of Insects' by Sir Vincent B. Wigglesworth. We spoke for hours about them every time we met. He liked the fact that I had been violent with them in the past but that I had atoned for my sins. He liked to examine cause and effect.
Thursday 6 August 2009
Pure Love
Now I’ve started there’s no stopping me. Food.
God, I could talk and write and write and talk and dream about food all the time. But I have to control myself.
Let’s have a recipe.
Usually I’m a three ingredient kind of girl.
This time I’m pushing the boat out and it’s two. That’s right. Two ingredients. Follow them to the letter and you will have grown adults falling at your feet. Trust me.
Take one pot of Green and Black’s Organic Vanilla, Caramel and Nut Ice Cream. Take one bottle of Gutierrez Colosia Pedro Ximenez Muy Dulce Sherry. Put two scoops of the ice cream in a lovely glass bowl (it's really so much better in a glass dish as you get to see the contrast of colours), pour a shot of sherry over the top and fall into a swoon. Really. It’s one of those experiences that makes you believe in magic. Not that I don’t already. But if you are feeling a bit cynical and fed up, please try this. Alchemy.
Don’t compromise on the ingredients. If you are a three ingredient type of person, you may add a shot of espresso to the ensemble. But only if you really feel the need.
If you don't have glass bowls, go on ebay and pick some up really cheaply. That's where I get most of my glass from.
God, I could talk and write and write and talk and dream about food all the time. But I have to control myself.
Let’s have a recipe.
Usually I’m a three ingredient kind of girl.
This time I’m pushing the boat out and it’s two. That’s right. Two ingredients. Follow them to the letter and you will have grown adults falling at your feet. Trust me.
Take one pot of Green and Black’s Organic Vanilla, Caramel and Nut Ice Cream. Take one bottle of Gutierrez Colosia Pedro Ximenez Muy Dulce Sherry. Put two scoops of the ice cream in a lovely glass bowl (it's really so much better in a glass dish as you get to see the contrast of colours), pour a shot of sherry over the top and fall into a swoon. Really. It’s one of those experiences that makes you believe in magic. Not that I don’t already. But if you are feeling a bit cynical and fed up, please try this. Alchemy.
Don’t compromise on the ingredients. If you are a three ingredient type of person, you may add a shot of espresso to the ensemble. But only if you really feel the need.
If you don't have glass bowls, go on ebay and pick some up really cheaply. That's where I get most of my glass from.
My virtual friend
I have a virtual friend. He knows who he is. He is very sweet, very lovely and very talented and he likes a whiskey mac. He used to paint walls and introduce new loo seats to people’s lives, but finally his talent has been recognized and hopefully he will hang up his painting/loo seat changing clothes for good. He makes wonderful music that has illuminated my life over the past year and he is up for a big, shiny prize. Whether he wins or not is irrelevant. His talent has finally been recognized and he should take the kind of confidence that comes with being nominated for a big prize, wear it for a while and then march confidently to where he wants to go next. His dream is to go through passport control, to be frisked because he is a musician, and then to walk through customs with his head held high. One day I will share a whiskey mac with him and be his real friend. But in the meantime, I am so very happy that everyone loves his music as much as I do.
Life in Sussex
Here I am after a rather long absence. No longer in Somerset, but in Sussex. I am perched on my pale leather and blond wood, ergonomically designed Scandinavian stool (the kind you kneel on rather than sit on) in my office that is perched above the living room and I am looking through a skylight at a dark and threatening sky. It’s lovely. A pied wagtail keeps looking in at me, although I think it might be looking at its reflection instead. In fact I’m being extremely narcissistic even thinking that I have any part to play in its life. It just wags its tail up and down all day and collects insects from the grass and parades in front of the skylights. I play no part in its life whatsoever. Although I do think it might live in the roof of the barn, so we could be housemates. Possibly.
The barn in which I live is full of my Jack in the Pulpit glass collection and early 20th century paintings by obscure artists. As well as a new piece by a fantastic artist called Meryl Donoghue. It depicts a girl with a stag’s head and perched on the antlers are magpies with beautiful blue streaks in their feathers. The girl is standing next to some mushrooms that look rather poisonous. She is wearing a little girl’s dress but she has women’s legs (tanned and toned, slightly Californian perhaps). Her red shoes are a bit ‘Don’t Look Now’ and add to the discomfort produced when perusing it. It’s huge and I love it.
I am listening to Strauss's Four Last Songs (Jessye Norman) and the rain is coming down. I’m on my own, which is rare, and I’ve put some vivid lipstick on my lips just for my own pleasure. The doors and windows are open and the air smells of tomato plants and geranium and dirty rain. I have a lovely courtyard in which I’m growing various things in pots. There’s an expanse of wild grass beyond the courtyard and something that could be a garden if it were not full of weeds. Then there’s a small lake where our geese live when they’re not pooing directly outside the house. Goose poo is quite fragrant. It smells of undigested grass and has that potentially sexually alluring smell of horse manure. I often find myself wandering around the land in a vaguely aroused state. I’ve only just realised that.
Today brown water is coming out of the cold tap. I think I might have boiled some inadvertently when I made my pot of Love™ tea this morning. You should try Love™ in the morning. It’s calming and seems to get better the longer you leave it in. I hope it’s not sewage that is coming out of the pipes. The lady on the phone said that one of the utilities must be messing around with the pipes. I had a look along the road but nearly died three times due to big lorries whooshing past and making me lose my balance. The verge is not a safe place for humans, nor for deer or rabbits (or two foxes last week).
Zelda, my daughter, is full of love and is getting a taste for Love™ too. She told me last week that she learned to love in heaven before she was born. When she was four she told me that John Coltrane was God as his initials were JC. She has always been obsessed with ‘A Love Supreme’. She is an old soul. She knows far more about the world than I do. This must be my first time around as a human as I just don’t understand other humans and this strange life of ours. On the other hand give me a geranium or a horse to converse with and I’m fine.
I’ve just put on a scent, Sonia Rykiel's 7me Sens, that a French woman I used to know used to wear. It has long been discontinued but I found a small sample on French ebay recently and I wear it whenever I’m on my own. I don’t dare wear it around other people as it seems a bit strange (and inappropriate) smelling like someone else. Even though no one I know knows her, I feel something of her spirit comes out in me when I’m wearing it. She was a very beautiful woman and she used to take me to nudist beaches where I hid in her tent eating medjoul dates, pretending that my skin was too white to expose myself to the sun. She was the mother of a French friend and she told me all her secrets. I knew her and her husband’s bodies better than I knew my own as whenever I stayed with them they took their clothes off as soon as they got home. Given that I have never managed to see myself naked from every single angle I still think of her body more than I think of mine (very wishful thinking). I have a vision of her standing naked in her bathroom, lifting up an enormous bottle of her scent which was in the shape of a Waterman inkpot, dabbing the scent on her bare arms and chest. We drank tea together all day and she sprinkled sugar substitute on French toasts in order to stay slim. She taught me how to pluck my eyebrows and stop biting my nails. Her husband had big feet and a slug-like smile. I was convinced he was unworthy of her love. It was she that introduced me to the great French perfumes. In her tiny lavatory was a fabulous collection of perfume samples on a glass shelf. I would shut myself in there smelling all the vials and trying the most delicious ones on various parts of my body. Later I would lie in bed smelling myself and trying to remember which one I had dabbed where.
My house is lovely and sparkling as my cleaner has just been. She is a beautiful Romanian girl who is studying to be a psychotherapist. It is somewhat discomforting to think what she might be thinking as she wields her mop.
The others are back now, I can hear the gravel crunching, so I must go and wash my wrists and greet them. Goodbye for now.
The barn in which I live is full of my Jack in the Pulpit glass collection and early 20th century paintings by obscure artists. As well as a new piece by a fantastic artist called Meryl Donoghue. It depicts a girl with a stag’s head and perched on the antlers are magpies with beautiful blue streaks in their feathers. The girl is standing next to some mushrooms that look rather poisonous. She is wearing a little girl’s dress but she has women’s legs (tanned and toned, slightly Californian perhaps). Her red shoes are a bit ‘Don’t Look Now’ and add to the discomfort produced when perusing it. It’s huge and I love it.
I am listening to Strauss's Four Last Songs (Jessye Norman) and the rain is coming down. I’m on my own, which is rare, and I’ve put some vivid lipstick on my lips just for my own pleasure. The doors and windows are open and the air smells of tomato plants and geranium and dirty rain. I have a lovely courtyard in which I’m growing various things in pots. There’s an expanse of wild grass beyond the courtyard and something that could be a garden if it were not full of weeds. Then there’s a small lake where our geese live when they’re not pooing directly outside the house. Goose poo is quite fragrant. It smells of undigested grass and has that potentially sexually alluring smell of horse manure. I often find myself wandering around the land in a vaguely aroused state. I’ve only just realised that.
Today brown water is coming out of the cold tap. I think I might have boiled some inadvertently when I made my pot of Love™ tea this morning. You should try Love™ in the morning. It’s calming and seems to get better the longer you leave it in. I hope it’s not sewage that is coming out of the pipes. The lady on the phone said that one of the utilities must be messing around with the pipes. I had a look along the road but nearly died three times due to big lorries whooshing past and making me lose my balance. The verge is not a safe place for humans, nor for deer or rabbits (or two foxes last week).
Zelda, my daughter, is full of love and is getting a taste for Love™ too. She told me last week that she learned to love in heaven before she was born. When she was four she told me that John Coltrane was God as his initials were JC. She has always been obsessed with ‘A Love Supreme’. She is an old soul. She knows far more about the world than I do. This must be my first time around as a human as I just don’t understand other humans and this strange life of ours. On the other hand give me a geranium or a horse to converse with and I’m fine.
I’ve just put on a scent, Sonia Rykiel's 7me Sens, that a French woman I used to know used to wear. It has long been discontinued but I found a small sample on French ebay recently and I wear it whenever I’m on my own. I don’t dare wear it around other people as it seems a bit strange (and inappropriate) smelling like someone else. Even though no one I know knows her, I feel something of her spirit comes out in me when I’m wearing it. She was a very beautiful woman and she used to take me to nudist beaches where I hid in her tent eating medjoul dates, pretending that my skin was too white to expose myself to the sun. She was the mother of a French friend and she told me all her secrets. I knew her and her husband’s bodies better than I knew my own as whenever I stayed with them they took their clothes off as soon as they got home. Given that I have never managed to see myself naked from every single angle I still think of her body more than I think of mine (very wishful thinking). I have a vision of her standing naked in her bathroom, lifting up an enormous bottle of her scent which was in the shape of a Waterman inkpot, dabbing the scent on her bare arms and chest. We drank tea together all day and she sprinkled sugar substitute on French toasts in order to stay slim. She taught me how to pluck my eyebrows and stop biting my nails. Her husband had big feet and a slug-like smile. I was convinced he was unworthy of her love. It was she that introduced me to the great French perfumes. In her tiny lavatory was a fabulous collection of perfume samples on a glass shelf. I would shut myself in there smelling all the vials and trying the most delicious ones on various parts of my body. Later I would lie in bed smelling myself and trying to remember which one I had dabbed where.
My house is lovely and sparkling as my cleaner has just been. She is a beautiful Romanian girl who is studying to be a psychotherapist. It is somewhat discomforting to think what she might be thinking as she wields her mop.
The others are back now, I can hear the gravel crunching, so I must go and wash my wrists and greet them. Goodbye for now.
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