Posts filed under 'Imagination'
Here’s a thing: last weekend we had a food-related party, swapping jams, chutneys and so on. Yesterday I caught up with some newspapers from a few weeks ago, and found an article relating to people living in the country, with ‘any social occasion’ (including meeting at the school gates) resulting in frenzied jam swapping.
The part of the paper this was in has two regular columns - one is a country perspective (written from someone who seems to have started living in the country more recently, and at times is rather bemused by it), another a very townie perspective (particularly that week’s one, where life anywhere other than in London is treated with a certain suspicion).
Nothing new, eh, but given that most of us swapping jams etc live in or near cities, I wondered if that makes us city bumpkins? Perhaps there’s a lot of us in that situation - we may have grown up in smaller places, have come to the city to study or work. Several years on, here we still are, enjoying a lot of the benefits of the larger place but hankering after some of the aspects of smaller places, such as being a bit closer to nature.
Maybe instead those of us who got together are foodies, or environmentalists, or both, responding to this particular economic phase: looking at the recession, natural resources reducing and so on, and having a spot of home production to go with it. Or it may be a stage in life, if trying to feed growing families. (Maybe we can get a group grant from Good Housekeeping, or the Guardian, if we feel particularly self-righteous about it…)
Maybe it’s part of (early?) middle age - enjoying the little things in life, simple pleasures like watching the colour of elderberries as they’re cooking away; doing a task that allows you to slow your brain down a bit. Maybe it’s the belated fun of the pick ‘n mix - swapping things means that I get to try other people’s food that maybe I wouldn’t have thought to make, or to sample something new amid the other familiar items.
For my part, it’s also part of a growing desire to be creative - to make things, have fun doing so, and share a bit of that with others, particularly if they enjoy that too. Yes, I’m doing it in part to avoid too much Christmas present shopping later, but also because I like the process of making things - particularly food-related things.
All of the above. But what matters this weekend is that the apple chutney I made in September is now tasing very good with cheese…
October 11th, 2009
Everyone likes a happy ending - or a happy beginning. It’s been a week of good news for various friends, and even if the enjoyment of that is as an onlooker, it’s still good. Darker mornings, political parties trying oneupmanship in how much they want to make public sector cuts, need for central heating that bit earlier in the evening, we can all do with a bit of cheer at times like this.
Sometimes, in the midst of waiting for various things to happen in other quarters, life takes a slight turn, and I find my own green shoots - small perhaps, not a ‘green shoots of recovery’ moment, but still worth celebrating. Spending time with family, doing new things with friends, trying new recipes…
For all of my struggling with decrease of daylight at this time of year, somewhere along the line I find that this year’s autumn has a bit more of the mellow, less of the mists of the same time last year. Blogging at that point was an escape, a place to rail a bit at life. This year, I restart the blog again…and then find I am doing things again, away from writing, and that there is perhaps a better balance.
A friend of mine is also exploring new directions, like me a little at a time. Neither of us necessarily sought out these things, whether hobbies or new approaches, but we’re finding life in them, and turning to find others encouraging us on. That helps me breathe a bit easier - enjoy what’s in front of me.
Sometimes hope is stronger than we realise. The green shoots may seem thin, but we see them there one day, return to them the next and find them still there. Sometimes they stand out because of the earlier days spent looking at ‘bare ground’, waiting for something to change - but not just because of this.
Much of this experience is tenative, a little fearful still. There is not the big rush of the large celebration, the milestone in life. But it’s still there, still real, a small harvest.
October 8th, 2009
None too good at lucid thought in the mornings on the way to work. There’s a reason why they put free papers on the buses in the mornings. It gives us something to hide behind.
I’m usually not even awake enough for that, more about staring out the window and hoping to wake up after the mid morning coffee, at least. But every now and then, I see a few sights from the bus that wake me up a little: if only to try to work out what I saw.
Large man approaches the nursery near the entrance to Granton Road. He is carrying a small girl on his shoulder, and her rather pink rucksack in one hand. As the bus pulls past, I realise that he has a tabard on the back which says “Security”. Is this a metaphor for our society’s fear of harm to children, or just a man dropping off his daughter at nursery before going to work?
Passing a group of commuters, one reading a paper while standing at the bus stop, I realise that he appears not just to be reading it but sniffing it…Is he hoping to impart the information more quickly? Are there any lingering solvents he’s trying to take in?
Another man stands at a bus stop, with a small child in a sling on his front. The child gets gradually larger as the weeks go by. I never see him interact with the child. The child never looks up at him either. But the child does seem peaceful. Perhaps they are just allowed to be as vacant as I am in the mornings.
Another lady boards the bus in a smart outfit, all vintage dress and flowing shawl. She carries what seems to be a wheeled suitcase, and at first I think she is a tourist. Then she keeps turning up with the same suitcase, but different outfits each day.
She still wears the shawl on a day which is tipping it down. I still wonder if she is in fact a tourist, as opposed to a resident, who will either wear a wind and rainproof jacket all year round (like me) or a T shirt all year round (like some of the people who wait at my morning bus stop).
When I was a waitress full time, for part of my gap year before university, I worked in a cafe which had a lot of regulars. As members of staff, we knew to expect them. Some of them even gained nicknames in time (whether they knew them was another matter).
As a usually daily commuter, at times I feel similar to this, spotting the regulars as well as the ‘irregulars’, in terms of the unusual. Certainly I don’t think I dress in an exciting enough way to stand out to other people watchers. But maybe I’m a regular to someone else, caught in their own dream of morning on the move.
September 14th, 2009
The nights are drawing in, and so on. Myself, I think the days are drawing in, and the nights are sneaking up behind and getting in on the act. However you view it, I thought it was starting to get sufficiently seasonal to write this post.
Stew vs. mash is not my evening meal quandry (particularly as Dan is kindly off cooking something completely different), but more of a musing on terms used to indicate when a cup or pot of tea is ready. Brew, draw, etc, all fine - but how likely is it linguistically to get two terms that get used for other food activities AND actually fit with each other, in terms of their other meaning?
Purists will tell me that stew is the point when the tea has gone beyond ready, but it just interested me to see this little pattern arising, in relation to that beloved drink of the UK. I was going to write national drink, but a) coffee may have overtaken it and b) the news is now in the papers that Diageo will not keep jobs in Kilmarnock (for Johnny Walker whisky), so those viewing whisky as the national drink have enough to worry about without a rival claim from tea today.
Meanwhile, the Scotsman did one of its longer pieces on a forthcoming book about an enterprising Scot who did lots of exploring (and/or smuggling, according to your viewpoint) of plants in China, ultimately leading to the identification of a wide range of tea plants. The article tried to hang it on the idea of the man being responsible for tea coming to the UK - perhaps not, but another of those popular science stories that turn out to be fairly amazing.
Dan is reading “Connections” - not an English text book (ah, all those travel-related titles beloved of ELT editors) but the book accompanying the James Burke TV series of many moons ago. The gist of it is that one invention or discovery, big or small, may lead on to many others, and the cumulative effect may be far more than anyone would have thought at the time of the original discovery.
I don’t know quite what you would trace as a line of inventions coming from tea, but I do know that I would ‘invent’ far fewer documents or other items of hopefully (useful) purpose without a certain reliance on tea in the afternoons. Maybe that’s enough connection. From stew to mash, and hence to gravy (train)?
September 10th, 2009
Through to Glasgow - and beyond! The bright lights of Glasgow Queen Street Lower Level - and the even brighter yellow plastic seating - are good for keeping you awake when heading from A to B.
But what I’d noticed last time I used this station, and was reminded of today, was the almost constant injunction over the tannoy: “Always hold the handrail - and take care on the stairs.”
Now this is all well and good, all risks assessed and dealt with. What interests me is the little light attempts at poetry that public announcements offer. It could be a missing verse from Paul Simon’s “50 ways to leave your lover”. If only he’d taken care on the stairs, he might not have needed to slip out the back, Jack…
Some of these announcements are so ingrained, you almost feel you could slip them into conversation to change the tone, if you weren’t sure what to say next. The melody of them, familiar as verse because we hear them so much, is comforting - as well as becoming fairly devoid of meaning, after a while. Some of them even slip into everyday use, usually to parody ourselves: “exits are here, here and here…”
You can probably add your own, but here’s my selection of ‘public poetry’ options for your next cocktail party:
- “the person you are calling knows you are waiting”
- “a trolley service…of drinks and light refreshments…is available on the train”
- “or why not send a text?”
- “…and…Glenrothes with Thorntons.”
They don’t really say Thorntons. But I live in hope that the trolley service might hand them out some time, as we prepare to uplift all our personal belongings.
September 9th, 2009
I know I’ve said before that this blogging lark is more for me than it is for you (though I hope that’s not a selfish statement). Having come home stroppy two nights in a row, part of what made the difference yesterday was sitting and writing, and having a chance to calm down.
But then, when people do comment, it makes it all the more worthwhile - particularly where I learn more about them, or their thoughts on life as a result. Last time I restarted the blog, I had comments from male friends - maybe not so surprising given that it’s still more the men than the women who blog.
This time, great to hear from female friends straight off - so perhaps I can encourage some of them towards their own blog writing? Many have really interesting thoughts to share.
One of the other things I’ve enjoyed for myself, and am now trying to spread a little further, is the art of sending parcels. When I lived in Poland the first time, I was working in a school for the blind, and my mum learned that you could send up to a kilo of parcel for free (in most post offices) if it was marked ‘for the services of the blind’. She must have kept the local post office very busy, anyway, because I got some great parcels! And the kids I worked with got benefits too from sheet music and other things she sent over which I could use in teaching.
I’ve been reminded of it when sending parcels to friends in Italy. Being both frugal and enjoying a spot of tesselation (that’s cramming multiple items into boxes to you), I’m having fun seeing how much can be fitted into the standard boxes you can buy from the post office.
Book reviews torn out of the weekend newspapers make great padding for smaller items, I’ve discovered, and I have a suspicion that squashy bags of ground coffee might work well too. (Coals to Newcastle, I’m sure, sending coffee to Italy, but it’s part of a particular theme for that parcel.)
The memorable parcels were ones we used to get on holiday on the Isle of Jura. It tending to be somewhat wet in the west, shall we say, relatives who knew we were going on holiday would put together parcels, knowing that there would be a wet day (or more) AND that the books we had taken with us would run out at some point. Getting a parcel part way through, with new books, but perhaps also sweeties or a game…great excitement.
The ultimate parcel? A sofa bed, which was in the cottage on Jura for many years. One time, those staying in the cottage were told by the postmaster that there was a ‘parcel’ for them at the pier…the sofa bed had been delivered and was waiting to be collected. It was known forever more as ‘the parcel’, which allowed you to have somewhat opaque conversations with nearest and dearest about the relative merits of ’sleeping on the parcel’.
September 9th, 2009
Only one more this evening, I promise…that’s the trouble with writing about food, you always think you can fit another one in…in this case, one more blog post for the night.
One reason for blog absence in the last few months has been because of doing more stuff to our flat: this time, taking out the lovely fake fireplace in our bedroom (70s brickwork, anyone?), getting the wall replastered, plus new paint and carpet. A variant on the kind of things we had done last year, but with the added satisfaction of gaining a tool called a gorilla, for levering under bricks (and in the process worrying a few people who were trying to work out what on earth we were talking about on Facebook).
With the best of intentions, building projects don’t always finish when you intend…and some don’t quite get finished. But yesterday, we got some pictures back up on the walls, and had a sense of things being nearly done. Sometimes the list of DIY tasks sits unaltered for months, looking back at me reproachfully when I check in my useful notebook. But it’s great not just to tick them off the list - but enjoy the benefit of them as well.
One of the big gains, although not so much in feet and inches (or metric, for that matter), is some extra space in our bedroom where the fireplace and corner unit used to be. Now we can fit an armchair in, and start using the room for being somewhere quiet during the daytime or evening - in fact, I am writing from there. Sofas are quite fun for blogging from, but for now, armchairs are even better - particularly when I get a nice view of the sky when getting home from work early enough.
New rooms for old.
September 8th, 2009
So, hello! It must be the autumn, time to stay indoors, and maybe write a few blog posts again…
I’ll do a wee update blog in a bit, for anyone particularly concerned with chronology and Frydman activities in the last few months. For now, I’ll start with what’s been on my mind this week:
Started going through a whole collection of cards, birthday cards, postcards, letters, you name it - some recent, some going way back. I knew that my mum was good at sending cards of all kinds, but starting to stack them all up…really brought home her ongoing care towards me.
At this point, you may be wondering why I keep all this stuff anyway. But don’t we love rediscovering ‘treasures’ of various kinds from the past? Don’t we love receiving things through the post? According to a short piece in the Saturday Times recently (fount of a certain amount of my knowledge, as regular readers will know), there’s something of a renaissance going on in letter writing.
Email, texts, instant messaging, all good - but what happens when you turn off the device? I speak as one whose courtship partly started online (yes, there was a key email from Dan, and a lot more emails between us after that), but what I love to look back at is the cards and letters he sent me during our long first year apart, when I was teaching in Poland.
So far, so good, on the warm fuzzy feelings front. What feels stranger, and I’m still thinking over, is the potential for revisionist history when going back through all the letters. Friendship didn’t work out or only lasted for a time? Do I get rid of the letters they sent, and alter the history between us, as it were, or keep them but know I won’t necessarily read them again?
In other cases, there are friendships that have drifted - but I still think of the other person happily. The letter is a link with them - worth hanging onto a bit longer? And in a few cases, the other person has even taken the time to say that what you did, at a particular time, helped them or meant something to them. That thing may be long forgotten to them now - but it’s good to be reminded that you can help at points, even in a small way.
And in some situations, musing over a relationship that is not so good just now, the cards and letters remind me of another person’s care and attention, maybe over a long period of time. Is it not worth giving it another go?
I’m still working through the paper - and my reactions. I’m reminded of a quote I’ve used before, but this time to focus on another part of the quote:
“Sometimes the poet says to hell with words//And longs to dig ditches
She writes of her longing, and you, who are her friends, write back.”
September 8th, 2009
So, who got the latest Guiness Book of Records? More to the point, who’s prepared to own up to it? For years, it seemed to be standard issue that someone, somewhere, would be understanding of small boys’ needs for Facts, and make sure that the latest collection of Useful Information was dispatched. Henceforth, and, indeed, forthwith.
We happened to see a current Guiness Book of Records earlier in the year. Dan quickly checked key info - world’s oldest man, world’s tallest man etc. It’s rather more glossy now, and probably all highly weblinked, which partly defeats the point, in a way. In pre-internet times, that was why you needed the book, with all key info in one place, to be able to ensure that the world was still spinning as before, with the correct number of baked beans in a bathtub, and so on.
So, I didn’t receive the book, though my brother did, and I peeked over at it from time to time. I did however gain a love of facts, particularly offbeat ones which can be brought out as conversational morsels when the need arises. Which is more often than you think - particularly if you are in the company of others who also like facts.
Imagine therefore my happiness in discovering a new fact, courtesy of the Economist, in a book review. The book was all about hedgehogs, and I discovered that not only does North America not have any native hedgehogs (ie all imports), but also that hedgehogs have species-specific fleas. How mindboggling is that?
Sadly, I don’t think these elements are incorporated into Trivial Pursuits (favoured category brown (literature), general preference to avoid all questions on sport), but the flea one should definitely be incorporated into a family version. Small boys everywhere will be in agreement on the importance of knowing about fleas (if not, hopefully, being too closely acquainted with them).
This just leaves me time to pass on my favourite piece of information of this kind: that Sweden imports dust for use in scientific experiments. (I think it has something to do with not weighing things in a vacuum, so you add dust to an experiment so that it simulates normal conditions, or something like that.) Yes, I knew you’d thank me for that one.
I leave it to Robert Louis Stevenson to add his stamp of approval to the value of facts:
“The world is so full of a number of things// I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.”
January 1st, 2009
Christmas tree a go go. After a few years of being in London at Christmas time, the fixture is back to Scotland, and we’ve got ourselves a tree again. I can peer at it happily over my laptop as I type.
The nice ‘green’ feature writer in the Times made me very happy recently when she confirmed that it’s better to get a real tree than an artificial one - real trees put oxygen into the atmosphere while growing, can be pulped down afterwards (should your council be so obliging) and can of course be replanted if you buy one with a root one. My family tried this one year, but the tree lasted until November, and then went yellow, which was particularly sad with only a month to go.
The whole point of real trees, it seems to me, is the smell. For others, scent of pine is reduced to male bath products (or possibly loo cleaners), unless you’re out walking in the woods on a regular basis. But if you are prepared to sit under the tree for a while, preferably when it’s already dark and the only light in the room comes from the tree, then it’s nigh on perfect. (The second scent of Christmas, incidentally, is the citrus of satsuma. You can sit under the tree to consume your satsuma - and if it’s come from your Christmas stocking, so much the better.)
I’ve written before on knowing I can’t go back to earlier experiences. But somehow, scent always gives you that hope that, in fact, you have, even if the rest of you is saying something different. Yesterday, Dan only had to bring the tree into the house, and I knew, before I had even seen it, because of the scent of it, stealing ahead into the sitting room, working out where it was going to be placed.
It’s in our study, in fact, and because there’s no door between that and the sitting room, you can sit on the sofa and see the tree. I’m quite pleased with that, as the thing of being by the tree seems to be one of being quiet, even on your own, and putting the tree into the study seems to allow for that. We went and sat under it last night, just for a while.
So is it real? It’s a ‘real’ tree. It’s a real memory. And it’s a real tree in the here and now, evoking this set of responses right now, as well as triggering memories. Some may be unhappy at the symbolism of the Christmas tree, but I think we are all hoping for a little mystery at this time of year, something that pulls us beyond our surroundings, and our immediate thoughts, into other notions of how to view this strange and wonderful time of year.
Merry Christmas.
December 24th, 2008
Previous Posts