THE PLANTING OF FLOWERS

My interest in gardening is minimal but I like to look at nice bright plants from my window as I wash up this involves putting them on stands or tables  – I enjoy washing up it is the nearest I get to bringing order from chaos – let the piles of paper grow as long as the dishes are clean. I also find the mindlessness of it to be stimulating with new ideas popping into my mind – some of them remain long enough to write down when I have dried my hands – a lot of them are gone in an instant. My mind becomes an open thoroughfare at these times – something about the alpha state I believe enjoyable to watch the new wheezes come - and go.

I also love going to an out of town garden nursery that is a magical place of greenhouses and grumpy old gardeners filling their barrows with plants of all kinds, ancient couples and a few younger family types but mainly middle aged blokes with the wife along, I expect we all find this place a treat after the ones in town which are twice the price and tarted up with bookshops, gross fancy goods and  foul cafes. Here  deep(ish) in the coutry you can pretend you are a horny handed son – or daughter – of the soil for a little while and grub around in the earth while you choose your plants. You can pretend to yourself that you have an acre of two( terrifying thought) I even adopt a Hampshire Hog accent briefly and they do of course take Visa!

So this week I spent an hour or two getting in touch with my rural side And bought rather a lot of plants. Then we saw a guy with a barrow outside his house so we bought more. Then yesterday I went to the Co-operative and discovered they had far cheaper petunias in particular  buy two trays get the third one free. Not one to miss a bargain I bought them. What a saving! My kitchen s now filled with trays of Lobelia, petunia, and tomato plants and I must go and buy growbags, pots, plant food and compost. I must acquire an old table from somewhere to put said pots etc on and  arrange for somebody to water the buggers while I am away at the weekend on my –‘escape the royal wedding’ mission!

I am off to the tip and expect to do some skip diving and pillaging of friend’s gardens – I think I saw a stray table somewhere local – now where?

I am so delighted to have got a bargain!

THE SCENTS OF SPRING

The Scents of Spring

I took my Polo in today for a new dashboard. The old one had given up the ghost weeks ago and in spite of an ultra helpful mechanic stuffing the fuse back it collapsed and died again almost instantly many times. So no speedometer or petrol gauge and every day I forgot until I was on a road where speed matters as I know to my cost. I was recently given the opportunity to relearn my driving techniques and somehow it cost me over £100 plus an afternoon of extraordinary, mind shredding boredom while two nice old boys revamped bits of the Highway Code. I was only doing 34 MPH. but didn’t want points on my licence.

So I walked back from the garage and among the delightful diesel and petrol I was hit by the scent of flowers all the way home. The lilac was wonderful as were some shrubs and there was an overall perfume of cut grass. Normally I am in my car still redolent of dog. Though she died six months ago I can’t bear to have it cleaned. I was going to give her basket away too but it is languishing in the boot a sort of moving memorial to Saffie. There is also a smidgen of fox in there somewhere she loved rolling in essence of fox. I quite like the general odour of my car – gawd know what the nice mechanic will make of it.

The grass scent got me thinking about scents of all kinds firstly of New Mown Hay perfume by Floris  a nice subtle one this and they would create an individual scent just for you at one stage. Then on to a perfume called Poison so pungent as to make you recoil. I have been put off my pint by intrusive perfume, it has invaded my nose and made its way into my taste buds I think it was ‘Youth Dew’ and seemed to be the pong of choice for every middle aged woman in my local. It was fine in moderation but I think the publicity and name encouraged women to believe that instant youth would result and the more they splashed on the more youthful they would become. It actually inserted itself into my Guinness and made it unpalatable although I think I remember making the effort and drinking up.

Now, and this is new, I am assailed by the cologne of young males early evening as they approach me surrounded by an almost solid miasma of pungent pong that remains in the air long after they have gone. At such times I tend to say that I prefer an armpit aroma but I am not serious. I do wonder about differentiation of smells in the case of these chaps, I do still believe that we humans are attracted to one another by our natural scent and this must be very confusing for their potential mates. Could this have an effect on the high breakdown or relationships? Inaccurate identification of natural mates? Probably not.

There is an astounding difference in public hygiene in these last many years. I travel a lot on buses stuffed full of people and it is rare that BO offends and even on the tube with strap hanging arms fully extended just  at nose level it is usually pretty OK. In the old days (!) before everybody used deodorant (yes, there was such a time!) travel by tube, particularly in the evening after a day of festering in the heat; liberation and an outstretched arm would cause foetid and obnoxious odours to make their way into nasal passages and remain there immovable  for hours and it would interfere with natural consumption of anything liquid or solid.

 I reckon that it is probably healthier to sniff the perfume but I so wish that people would desist from using quite such liberal doses of the stuff.

MY brain is in down mode

My brain is in down mode.

Been racking it which it doesn’t appreciate. So what do you do when your brain is   taking industrial action? You negotiate. You let it play around a bit, in my case I read ‘social networking according to ‘The Wire’’ which I hardly understood at all on Flowtown blog. It appalled and fascinated me in much the same way as the programme, that I loved, did. A lot of the language was a mystery but the essence was the truth. I am not sure about Social networking according to the laws of Baltimore gangsters; we live according to Whitehall gangsters here in Britain. And now it looks as if we may be going to war – again.

And we watch, some of us compulsively, as the Japanese suffer one disaster after another, ‘bring it on god’ if you believe in deities but what ever have the Japanese done to deserve this? And what is the point of us being served up photographs of this disaster on every channel at every hour of the day and night – do they think we will forget the sight of this hideous series of events? I feel like some kind of vulture woman picking at the bones, like when there is an accident on the motorway and I slow down to see the gory details but one look is enough, I don’t stop and rubberneck, I drive more carefully for the next couple of hours. I guess this is a learning experience.

So what have we learned about nuclear energy from this? That it is dangerous? That although we don’t have earthquakes of tsunamis here(yet) it is never completely safe and when it goes wrong it is tragic, we are all subject to human fallibility – that’s what makes us human. No! It would seem we have  not learned a thing. Nuclear power it is still vaunted as the cleanest option of energy production. I reckon that this is dubious at least. Could be we should cut down on our energy consumption?

And as for us engaging in yet another war in yet another Middle Eastern country – I despair. And no I have no solutions in my sterile mind. I just have visions of us romping through territories engaging with other violent thugs, all using weapons that were made in England and killing. And who is going to do this? Not the politicians you can be sure! And who is going to be killed? Young guys who just needed a job (and women and children of course.)  I can’t help thinking that there has to be a better way. 

SUNDAY

SUPER SUNDAY

‘So we’ll go to the South Bank early.’ Were her last words to me on Saturday night. This from a woman who can happily stay in her pit until midday, yeah yeah I thought. Went about my business up at 6.30, having a Twitter shufti for five then email & Facebook for 2 then settle in to write while radio 4 talks of crises in the world – I will wait to get my reality check later with Aljazeera – I reckon to get the BBC and Aljazeera plus a little Russia Today and then believe none of it but with a definite bias toward Aljazeera. Mainly because the journalists question more and appear to take less bullshit and most of them are women. It’s a method!

When at 7.20 she appeared, and vertical I was stunned. She whacked the cereal bowls too close to my laptop for comfort, I stopped writing and took up eating stance and within fifteen minutes we were flying through a near deserted Greenwich, Deptford, Bermondsey and all the other beauty spots of South London – when I say ‘flying’ I mean it as a comparative term the chariot no longer flies but it goes well and looks terrifying so people don’t usually mess with us and she is an Italian driver with all the verve and nerve that this implies.

The South Bank was near deserted and the cinema fairly empty. I knew the project was called The Clock and that it involved film. She tells me I am culturally unadventurous – because she once took to some show where we were shepherded round a building and expected to be scared, excited, interested, on command. I just wanted to sit down and get a pint   - I don’t do audience participation. Also she is not a great explainer – in fact I had thought we would dive in and out of this clock thing in a half hour but no – this was a twenty four hour gig that still had hours to run. The project is in real time and the time is always on the screen in various forms. Station clocks, alarm clocks watches; with people responding - they are late; they are waiting, rushing, getting fractious. Every response to time is represented.

The artist who created this is called Christian Marclay and he is a genius. The entire show is made up of thousands of clips of films .This sounds dull but it is riveting, funny, fascinating and totally absorbing, we stayed for three hours and if we hadn’t had a lunch date I think I would have stayed all through until 6.30 when it ended.

I am explaining badly. The clips of films came from all over the world, as far back as the twenties and the juxtaposition of clips was marvellous. Some clips lasted long enough to get engrossed in the story – a door would open and an explosion came that tore at your mind – which hadn’t had time to jettison the last image. There was one intriguing clip of Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren that we felt we should have heard about and there was Tony Hancock – gloom personified pulling a lever over and over and then… so it went on with no moment of boredom, no ennui just total engagement and then the market on the South bank for great cheese and ginger and fig cake.

On to lunch with some mates at their house – and me in me track suit bottoms and hair stuffed into a beret, no time to change. Brilliant conversation and a decision to all go to Sicily together, and lots of good wine and fabulous nosh.

I tell you I get a better class of Sunday since I took up with my bird!       

MICE TAILS

MICE TAILS

I begin to wonder about my life before mice. They have become a fascinating part of my life. I could do without them very easily but the sheer volume of material they have supplied makes me feel I owe them one. I also reckon that mine are exceptional mice. We seem to be running a kind of hotbed scheme with either myself or the mice in residence at any one time. Not exclusively of course, there is the case of the stock cube orgy. I had been making some soup that day and whacked a stock cube in – along with the herbs I get in jars from my love’s sister near Turin and ancient veggies, new veggies and a bit of this and that. I am rather good at soup I’m told but that might be to keep me cooking. Anyway I enjoy it, it makes me feel I am taking part in a rural idyll  - odd because my raw materials come from Aldi ( We all need our illusions!) anyway I must have left the top off the glass jar that I keep stock cubes in (because the thought that the mice got together in a  team and removed the top is far too  worrying) I was putting the washing on when I noticed nasty brown marks on the counter.

I investigated further and found eight cubes chewed at the corners and evidence of the little mothers in the jar. I emptied it out and saved the damaged cubes with a view to putting them in mouse traps. That was the day I bought ‘humane’ traps. I tried to set the wretched thing, caught my finger and it didn’t feel even remotely humane to me. They are now empty on the window ledge, I had hoped that my cleaner may care to take responsibility for mouse murder and I think she would but she had caught her finger before and refused. Then I saw no evidence of them for a few days, though the guy next door swears he hears them in the wall (his paranoia or my loss of hearing?) I know they make their way from house to house under the floorboards so I endeavour to keep a food free kitchen, the stock cube slip up was an aberration.  But I know they are around. In fact they have a taste for plastic which might mean they are building nests or they are rather dim mice with eclectic tastes.

I spend up to four days at a time in London and when I go home I am greeted with a powerful essence of mouse, pungent and unmistakable. The little varmints have been in occupation in my absence. As I enter the kitchen I sometimes see a mouse in fast motion tiny and fleet of feet, it scuttles away in the direction of the back door though I have blocked all holes – I think. I am convinced that decamp when I am home but they have frequent recces  

to suss out if I have made a slip up of the stock cube variety. I imagine them alarmed at this large creature invading their territory and making it her own. I expect mice have different time scale to human beings and four days allows them to settle in nicely then along I come to disrupt them. I will get some of the traps that they walk into next and take them walkies to the river – but the river has big rats to imperil their safety. A cat seems to be the answer but the Cameron cat turned to be  a non combatant cat so there are no guarantees. I shall report back.

BAD TRIP?

LONDON FURY

The train was not running from my local  station so we were bussed to the next station. This involved humping my heavy wheelie bag and far from light self up into  and out of different vehicles all stuffed full of discombobulated travellers in filthy moods. There were a few plucky wartime spirit characters, I was not one of these. Most of  us were grumpy sour faced buggers. It brings out the worst in people to have our plans disrupted.

The driver was unnecessarily jolly particularly with any young females  who got within his vicinity – clearly his flirt opportunity for the week. This notwithstanding he dumped us all on a nice fast secondary road so we could run the gauntlet of traffic speeding on their way to the Saturday shopping orgy that takes over Southampton each weekend. We galloped across to the sound of squealing brakes, I brought up the rear because I‘m not great at galloping so I caught the curses of drivers – and I enjoyed retaliative action. It seemed essential that we rushed to the train that was waiting in the station. In fact we all pushed and shoved our way on and sat for at least fifteen minutes, time for me to fillet my newspaper of its dross and establish myself (I am very territorial) we muttered about being late but softly – we are British after all.

My love was away and I was off to warm the flat up for her return so I had to get on two buses the first to the Elephant then another to Watt Tyler road, I love the name but the journey was hell with more and more people clambering aboard at every stop until the bus was crammed to bursting and my large cumbersome trolley taking up valuable foot room. I apologised  profusely shoved it hither and yon out of one lot of feet into the next persons ankles gathering glares along the way.  When it came to getting off the bus I had to fight my way through a phalanx of backs and a few resentful fronts to the door that was being held open by a kindly couple who must have heard my panicky squeals of distress. I shoved the case out in front of me and followed it unsteadily, thanked them and, restored to sanity marched over the lawn speedily.

The thing that had sustained me on this entire trip had been the fact that I knew I had a  half -full bottle of gin waiting for me and I was nearly sure that I even had a bottle of tonic. I could almost taste the fresh zing of a stiff gin. I thumped up the stairs with no regard for the noise factor or computer safety and practically fell in the front door. I collapsed in a chair to catch my breath and went for the gin. It was gone. I did a futile search in which I looked in the same places again and again until eventually I was convinced that it was gone. I was furious. I telephoned Turin to quiz my love who said she ‘must have drunk it’ but I  had asked her the week before if it was still there and now it occurs to me that my enquiry had alerted her to the fact that it was hidden beneath the kitchen table. I slammed the phone down and opened a bottle of Chablis and guzzled a fast glass – not the same thing at all.

My disappointment was profound, my apoplectic rage probably out of proportion. it  was just as well that  I had a day  or two to recover a semblance of good humour before she got back. Forgiveness? 
Forget it!

ONLY IN LONDON

Last week I went home to Southampton for a day or two, see how the mice are doing( not a lot ) get my parking permits pick up letters, see friends. Meanwhile my love went to yet another opening where she met a charming actress who was reading some poetry. She talked to her, said I might need a reader in the future,’ I am reading some poems at the Royal Court on Saturday  evening come along if you like!’ said Rebecca, the actress( no bishop figures in this tale!) So it came to pass that we trolled up to Sloane square and I wasn’t keen, I like poetry but..and I was quite certain that it wouldn’t be main stage and when the guy in the box office knew nothing about it I was all for finding the nearest boozer and my mind was focussed upon the inflated prices of beer and other mundanities so I didn’t hear the very lovely very young girl ask the guy about poetry, my love is a far better focussed woman and talked to her. She knew a director and telephoned  her telling her that she had TWO OLD LADIES who had also come to see the poetry.

This was a pivotal moment in my life. I have never knowingly been called an ‘Old Lady’ before, at least not in my hearing. I was shocked. I have been called old bag and various other terms of abuse mostly in anger but never LADY. There is something incredibly ancient in that term, irretrievably old. I think I may have a secret belief that there is a switch somewhere that I will hit one day a become forty again( one of my finest years) and I know now that I am .in the eyes of the world, indeed an old lady I dislike the word ‘lady’ but it is the conjunction that really got me.

When we got to the bar I told Rosanna ( the beautiful girl)  that I had never been called an old lady before she told me that she was describing us in case somebody was looking for us. And that’s another thing, my love is my love not a bloody old lady! My irate mind churned over my G&T an old lady’s drink and I explained that I Ioath the word lady, and I do. Then I bought her a drink because I realised that it is not her fault that I am an old lady.

We found the director Sophie Ivatts and went into the back room, filled with chairs all full and we were witness of  An eye for Cupid… in two acts of fifteen pieces of poetry all written by Simon David that was marvellous in its variety, had me moved in all directions from ‘To see me wee’ hilarity and the most witty trumpet I have ever encountered played by Caleb Frederick in Why eye my thigh. To the most moving depiction of the result of rape that had  me near to tears through to two men getting in and out of touch with their very feminine side,. Simon David also acted and I counted twenty three actresses on stage for the finale. (I prefer ‘actors’ but everybody I spoke to said actress so I am clearly out of date with my daft feminist attitudes – my age you know!)

It was the most enjoyable evening in a theatre ( kind of) I have spent for years and so many gifted professional actors knocked me sideways with their talent the writing and direction was superb and – it was, sadly, a one off!

 Such a very lucky privilege and as I say – only in London!