Winter has arrived. I am cold and I have a cold.

Nobody is commenting, very few are blogging.

I give up

teething

Went to the dentist today, check up, but terrified I was going to have to sacrifice another tooth. I never imagined aging included all these indignities. However I am allowed to hang on for now.

Have been working on my Creative Writing course with the OU, absolutely love it. When I get stuck at the stitching I can reverse the chair to the opposite table and diddle with words. My work room is obviously now in an even worse state of chaos as paper and books pile.

The diversions are necessary what with Ireland sinking, Royal marrying and snow forecast.

Sent the Glorious grandson his presssies and b. money for his second birthday coming up Thanksgiving w/e. Decided to send a couple of beautifully illustrated children's books, plus a soft toy of one of the characters.

Daughter warbles later that day on the phone " oh by the way, don't send books, we have loads" Too Late!

Must remember to keep a cheery face when we Skype him tearing into the parcel.

Have been reading and tossing aside books myself, not my usual practise, I was brought up to finish what you started [often got me into trouble] but finally started a book by a guy who was sitting for his portrait by Lucian Freud.

The artist fascinates me, it is just as well he is too far gone in years and distance for me to make a fool of myself, but the book is great, a meditation on identity and and an"interesting" life.

it's all mark making

It's been, for me, a heavy week of moving around among the tribes. People every where, I am an only child after all.

Had to go to the Car tribe on Monday and get the car MOTd, I have finally found a place where I do the talking in an office and am treated just as a customer, rather than a mad old lady who knows zilch and should really have a minder.

Didn't stop them informing me I had been driving on three wheels. Those what know me will remember that i did indeed drive a Robin Reliant 3wheeler for years, on my motor bike licence. Too chicken to take the Test and too broke to buy a grown up car.

However I am now properly authenticated to drive 4 wheels and I put it to the mechanic that perhaps he was exaggerating. He admitted he probably meant the brake pad was sticking on one wheel, but regained supremacy by charging me £455 for all the bits for Ronnie Renault to continue to maraud the streets.

Wednesday I went to hand stitch class for the last of the series and lo.......I have joined another group. We decided to continue to meet and so are now called Stitched Up!

Trailing clouds of glory I drove Ronnie to the Guild meeting where two stout [in every meaning] British ladies explained how they took a two knicker suitcase to Romania [to leave space for fabrics] and bully the Roma women in a pit of a village into making things for the ladies to come back and sell for them [the village].

They do this a dozen times a year [as unpaid volunteers] and told many merry stories of bucket and chuckit loos etc.

The Romanians are amazed the reviled Roma can walk straight what about learn to read, write and make things, so have celebrated by giving the village wheelie bins [as opposed to the trash pile they used to endure].

Friday I had my stitching group and we did printing and Saturday i went to a "conference" of another group to explore Concept and Meaning.

We had three speakers, the first "the galloping major" was billed as a story teller, which is always the knell of doom for me. He talked about himself and sang to his guitar, but he was saying there is a thread of creativity which goes thru all our lives which was an interesting concept to examine further.

The woman had a swell piece of work based on Ben Britten's piece 4 sea interludes and discussed crossover of interpretation. I was amazed at her confidence and delivery, good to see in the female of the species embroderer.

Finally we had a bloke [very] he talked of the concept "book" which he widened and widened until it could encompass a brick wall........linked sections, beginning and end, a time span etc.

I was high as a kite with tiredness by then so I did stand up and shout a bit. Expect there is one at every lecture he gives.

C pointed out later that perhaps he was talking about construction and I was yelling for the intrinsic communication..................he did make some lovely tree books with hand made paper, and wooden seats which had the line of a poem on each as you walked thru the village.

It was challenging, and I challenged. Maybe not sensibly but there you are, a tired woman is a dangerous species too.

PS Who is Marcia?

another day, another year

To mark the fact that I am another year more ancient we went to Norwich, Norfolk is full of gnarled old peasants so I don't stand out too much.
I bought three vests with my birthday money, need I say more?



Apart from wandering round shops thinking, I am so old I don't really need to buy any more anything, we went to the flics to see Made in Dagenham, a British film about how the lady workers in the Ford car plant struck for equal pay. This was 1968!




I had heard it wasn't strictly accurate but was amusing and informative. Largely it was neither, unless the sight of large women working in their huge bras amuses you [because the machine shop was swelteringly hot in summer, freezing in the winter and leaked all year round].
The women who did actually strike were on news programmes of the time and shown at the end, nothing like the skinny young actresses taking their part.
A borrowed pillar box red dress, supposedly from Biba had a part in the fiction, looked nothing like the stuff I used to save up to buy from Biba at the time. Hairstyles seemed to range from perms to beehives with a page boy for the star, basically I hated it.
I grew up on a council estate [but not in a cardboard box] surrounded by Fords workers telling tales of men falling into the molten metal in the foundry shop. We lived out of the women machinists catchment area I guess, as they would cycle or bus to work, so no tales from the sweat shop of the time.
Happily we got a taxi back and the driver was a London cab driver transplanted into what he regarded as the sanity of the countryside. We had a good rant about it all.
However it got me out and about after midnight [only one late showing, though Norwich has 4 cinemas] which is an extremely uncommon occurrence so basically a tick.

Next day we went to the castle, thus the tapestry at top.
There is an strangely hung exhibition there of Art of Faith thru the ages. From medieval paintings to patchwork quilts. The pagan wheel was interesting, wrapped twigs and ribbons, sat somewhat uncomfortably with the other more formal stuff.


Back home, as everywhere, the leaves are going yellow, orange, bronze, bang, as they crash down It is going to be a quick autumn. Took Hatters for a walk this morning after the hail storm and got all the way round before the next deluge.

Should have gone to a tutorial yesterday [doing this creative writing course - always wanted to so I thought I had better get on with it while I can still tap a key] but the other dozen or so students in this region are young and effusive, judging by their on line comments. I know I would just have sat up the back and grumped and come home with a headache so decided to remain a recluse.

My next piece is possibly going to be about Lady Chatterly publication and Sabrina [not Arthur Askey] and the non sex life of teenagers before the 60s....................