Aw Diddums

Well, I finished Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence, and had mixed feelings about it. Some of it I agreed with, some of it made me uneasy. Parts of it were uncomfortable reading… descriptions of the hurtful rows couples can have makes you curl up in a ball. It’s not just couples, of course; you can have these painful clashes with anybody whose good opinion you value.

I haven’t had any huge arguments lately, or ruined friendships (that I’m aware of), though the other night I didn’t understand something Mum was trying to say till she blew up and stamped about and threw things. I thought we were having a chummy evening in, so it was a shock. What did I do? Turned out she was asking me to stop playing with the cats, as it was distracting her from the TV. I thought she was saying other things, and kept right on…

It sounds both funny and stupid, but it made me feel quite ill. It reminded me of something on TV about a deaf Dalmatian dog; it couldn’t hear warning growls from other dogs and would keep right on… and got attacked. It haunted me at the time, and I couldn’t help remembering it.

I did some stamping and door-slamming myself (retreating upstairs to watch my own TV), and didn’t forgive Mum for two or three hours.

The book said you can get blazingly angry about something all in an instant, but if you stop and think about it, you realize there’s an underlying emotion such as hurt or fear. People get angry because they feel threatened in some way. I didn’t have to think about it very much, I knew about it already. It came before the anger.

The treatment meted out by other people to their friends and partners is not pleasant reading. It makes me want to reach through the pages and shake some of them till their teeth rattle.

It’s purely opinion, but I was dubious about some things in the book. I giggled when reading about a study of one particular group of patients. Some received therapy along with their treatment; others did not. The ones receiving therapy left the hospital an average of two days earlier than the rest. I said to Mum “do you suppose they were trying to escape?”
“I’m quite sure of it,” she said.

I imagine I would have been one of the schoolchildren hinted at (further along) who consider mediation and therapy at school to be an invasion of privacy. Ironic… here I write to the whole world what I’m thinking, but clam up when therapists/consultants/whoever are talking nicely to me in a quiet room. I even clammed up when the university tutors were trying to discuss my thoughts about things I’d read, which was completely missing the point of having tutors… but that’s by the way.

There was a bit about timid cats catching smaller mice than their more courageous brethren; I took issue with that use of the word ‘courageous’. It’s supposed to mean you’re scared but go for it anyway; not that you weren’t particularly scared and waded joyfully in. Mum said it showed a basic misunderstanding of cat behaviour.

Finally I finished the book and handed it over to her in case she wanted to read it, and she dropped it in the bin. “You’re supposed to make up your own mind about it,” I protested, and she said “I have… I’ve had bits of it read to me!”

Finally she relented and pulled it out again, but I don’t care what she does with it. I’ve begun reading Cat on the Edge by Shirley Rousseau Murphy and it’s wonderful. I already see the hero cat (Joe Grey) as being my own Sharky, though Sharky wasn’t ugly and grey with half a tail. It reminds me how I would go off my chump when he (or any of the cats) disappeared. I could just imagine him doing some of those things… but I won’t give away any more, except to say that the pretty girl cat (Dulcie) reminds me strongly of Delilah. Nobody could be cross with her for any reason.

Am taking it to bed, along with cuddly moose, cuddly mouse etc.

I’m reading Dean Koontz books again – the last one (One Door Away from Heaven) was as unputdownable as Brother Odd. I won’t give away the plot. Odd things annoyed me slightly, but not enough to spoil it for me (except somewhat at the end, but we can always change the ending in our minds).

Near the beginning, a mention of Ghost Riders in the Sky was inspired. The tune that came into my head was the Shadows’ version, Riders in the Sky. It was one of my favourites when I was a teenager, and it greatly added to the novel’s atmosphere: power, speed, technology, hope, vigour, love of life… and an underlying menace. Perfect.

The main annoyance I had with the book was that the print disappeared into the crease. It was too big a book to be constantly pushing the pages back… quite a strain on the hands. Though I call it ‘unputdownable’, sometimes I had no choice. Sensible people would probably just break the spine but I can’t bear the thought! I’m sure the pages would have started to fall out.

It’s impossible to blog with an insane kitten jabbing her claws into your armpit. Samson has run off into the night, so Delilah has latched onto me. I placed her in her comfortable cot downstairs and came up to bed, but even as I went, my back was stiff… as I expected, there was a ferocious drumming of paws and she shot past me up the stairs, her tail held high. She didn’t want to sleep alone.

I’m worried she’ll sink her teeth through the downie into my feet, she pounces so enthusiastically. Furthermore, I have hopes that she won’t bite my nose off while I sleep, or shave my hair, or something of the kind. No wonder Samson skedaddled.

Iain’s book-related post Ordeals led me to the following reflections.

I tried very hard to read Old Mortality by Sir Walter Scott and couldn’t stick with it. Nor was I fond of the only Brontë books I ever read – Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. One classic I keep meaning to read is Middlemarch by George Eliot. It’s been staring reproachfully at me for 23 years.

Troublesome books aside, I recognize the formless, hungry desire to read everything as soon as it’s brought to mind. Only two days ago I was pining after The Wind in the Willows, which was being talked about on someone’s blog. I’ve read it more than once, but always feel I remember it imperfectly and need one more go to get it absolutely crystal clear. I feel that way about most books I’ve enjoyed.

Around the house are hundreds of books waiting their turn. I have four on the go right now… Hippopotamus by Stephen Fry, The Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George (so heavy it makes your wrists ache), Know Your Cat by John Horsford Hickey and Priscilla Beach (dates from 1946) and a fourth book I’m keeping quiet about for now.

I have difficulty figuring out which to go for. I would read them simultaneously if I could, but settle for reading them in different rooms.

The only reason I didn’t say I was reading five books is that I stopped in the middle of Rest Upon the Wind by Gill Twissell. I kept waiting for it to start and couldn’t get interested in any of the characters. Possibly the novel came together further on, but I was exactly halfway through and still not hooked. It has five stars in Amazon so maybe I was just impatient; my experience of the book is the exact opposite of at least one UK reviewer’s.

Regarding something else the reviewers hinted at, I did get the feeling that the two main characters were the same, but I hadn’t (at that stage) spotted any overt suggestion of reincarnation. It could be that everything falls into place at a later point, but the blurred boundaries between the two women was one of the things that made it seem so monotone.

Moving on to reading sources, my main difficulty with libraries is that I never remember to return the books until the deadline. I’ve had to walk to town and back when my plans for the day did not involve going out. That’s a real shortcut to putting me in a foul mood, especially when I’ve not finished reading. I could renew, but usually feel I might as well get rid of them now, as they would only drag me out again at a later date.

Bought books, on the other hand, can be returned to the general reading pool at my leisure. Foul moods neatly sidestepped – till the next thing goes wrong.

As for not cluttering up the house with books I’ve read and enjoyed – that’s something I’m really struggling with. It’s fine to pass the more ordinary paperbacks to charity or to someone else, but I tend to want to keep the ones I liked. Such as Brother Odd by Dean Koontz – it’s sitting in my bookcase, flanked by The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon and Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson.

One way I’ve got round my reluctance is to pass the best books to my sister. I don’t even give her the chance to refuse them – I just give her a bag of books and say “these were very good – that’s why I picked them out.” I feel then that they’re still in the family, being enjoyed by someone else. I know it doesn’t stop there, but I don’t have to think about them any more. Either she reads them or she doesn’t; she keeps them or passes them on. I’ll never know, and I don’t particularly want to.

As for the Odd books by Dean Koontz… the aim is to collect them all and then give them to my sister with the words “these are wonderful, you’re not allowed to not read them.” Gives me the excuse to hang on to them a little longer…

I began Brother Odd by Dean Koontz at lunchtime yesterday, and was completely hooked from page 3 onwards… didn’t put it down till I finished it in the early hours of the next morning. I’d meant to write a letter and didn’t need the distraction – still, we can’t always predict these things! Brother Odd is quite an unusual book to me, though it seems there are other ‘Odd’ books by the same writer; I’ll have to look them out.

I have a headache again, I’m not sure where it comes from.

Delilah strained her paw a couple of nights ago and left poor Samson to bat toy mice around by himself for a while.

Cheeky is the adult cat who is chasing the kittens, but today she came prowling in here, looking menacingly under things… “here kitty, kitty, where ARE you?”… and she didn’t notice one of the ‘kittens’, quite a large tomcatty Samson, was treading on her heels. When she caught a whisper of something, and glanced behind, she got such a shock that she spat violently and galloped off with Samson pelting delightedly behind.

He looked so pleased with himself, whereas Cheeky was anything but. Perhaps Delilah’s opting out made him all bored, full of himself and ready for new adventures. Talking of which, I can see exactly how Delilah would have hurt herself – undeterred by her sore paw, she flung herself across the gap between the back of the sofa and a shelf. She slammed into the shelf and slid to the floor.

While moving my blog, I discovered it’s full of stories about my older cats, especially Sharky. Mostly I avoid talking about the cats too much, as I worry that it’s dull – but it made me happy to reread the posts about isolated moments I might otherwise have forgotten.

Here’s one from a night ago… Mum came up about 21:00 (unexpectedly) with some coffee for me, then toddled off. Samson came yawning and stretching from wherever he had been resting, and looked in his empty dish, then stared from it to Mum’s disappearing back. He couldn’t believe she hadn’t brought him refreshments as well.

I think he’s quite enjoying himself – he’s gone from being a terrified Invisible Sulk to an accepted and respected member of our group – no longer just hanging around in the background of a large crowd of kittens.

I discovered to my delight that it’s back-to-back Red Dwarf with subtitles on TV… goes on till nearly 3 in the morning, so I’m recording some for later. I wondered if I’d ‘grown out’ of it but was yelling with laughter the way I always used to, so it seems not.

Smoke me a kipper – I’ll be back for breakfast.

I’ve been trying to get over my case of the winter blahs.

Yesterday it was bright and sunny, so I went shopping… but it didn’t help much; just made me realize how lethargic and fed up I still felt. I was tired of visiting the same old shops, and there wasn’t anything I was looking for, especially now that my house is set up and inventoried – still looking for someone to rent it.

Stumbling across the road, yawning, I suddenly thought how different my attitude was from some months ago when I was feeling distinctly agoraphobic – unable to go anywhere without wobbling slightly. And now I was bored with the entire place. It’s an improvement! That Chinese saying “may you live in interesting times” is supposed to be a curse.

Feeling flat, tired, and bored out of your skull is another type of curse, however.

I’ve got these lovely kittens, getting friendlier and more playful by the day; I’m getting very fond of them but you would think I would be brighter than I am. I feel guilty because I know one day I will be looking back to now and wishing I could have these days all over again. Fear of the future…

Today I got a letter, tore it open, and it was an invoice from the animal hospital reminding me that I still haven’t paid for the last item on the list… ‘euthanize and cremate cat - quantity: 1.’

Looking at that, I didn’t feel as though I’d received a nasty shock out of nowhere – it was more as though someone had pressed a fist into a sore that was already there. It convinces me that what I have is not purely the winter blues.

One way or another, I was saying to Geosomin that one might as well give in to this listlessness – relax, read books and watch TV. Unfortunately my Freeview set top box has gone phut. Again.

There are still books, of course – I’m currently reading Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson. It’s very good, and I’m impressed and engrossed by the amount of detail – except that there’s a touch too much detail here and there that causes my attention to wander. I bought it from a charity shop for £1, and there’s a slight tear on the margin more than halfway down p79. Looking at the content of that page, I have to say it made me wonder…

The paperbacks I bought today:
The Mask of Ra - Paul Doherty
A Winter Book - Tove Jansson
Brother Odd - Dean Koontz
Don’t Bet on the Prince - Jack Zipes (ed, I think)

They were £2 each (except for the Jack Zipes, which was £1.99 from another shop), and each of the £2 ones had a big yellow sticker on the cover saying something like “read then return”. I peeled them off, saying crossly to Mum that part of the money they get from us is probably spent on these stupid stickers. I suppose my peeling them off doesn’t slow the money burn, but I don’t like stickers on books. When I return them to the charity shops, I’ll choose one that doesn’t do that.

We were roaming round that same charity shop – I looked at the shirts and blouses, and there was a rather droopy, worn looking T-shirt on a hanger for £4.50. It looked as though it cost £2 new. As for the DVDs, I’ve always had my doubts about them – they tend to be about £4 each, but Woolworth quite often sells them for £3 each. They’ve probably had a bit of a price hike since hitting the charity shop shelves. Mum picked up a £4 DVD and said “that is definitely £3 brand new from WH Smiths – I saw it today!”

Caveat emptor. Or just go home to sleep. Both methods save money.

It’s exactly 4 days almost to the minute that I brought my new kitten home, and he’s still hiding. His favourite spot is amongst the books on a shelf (I still haven’t sorted those out – they’ve been there since I moved in).

It didn’t look all that comfortable (I wouldn’t like to have to squat there for hours while someone read or watched TV) so I moved some of the books out and put a bit of Vet Bed down. I don’t know if he’ll still hide there now, but I tried. We heard a crash from downstairs, and when I came up, he had knocked down some of my journals then fled to lurk behind my computer desk.

It occurred to me that later we would be nudging each other and saying “remember when he was just a kitten and he wouldn’t come out and talk to anybody for days?” and laugh reminiscently. Well here’s a photo of it. I didn’t upset him with a camera flash – I used the manual setting, a tripod and no flash. It shows how still he was sitting, as that was quite a long exposure.

He might not be bonding with me yet, but I’m getting fond of him. When I was going to bed last night, I crooned a little song I used to amuse my old cats with. Don’t imagine I’m going to sing it on my blog, though… not a hope of it!

In Oxfam today I picked up a paperback copy of The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd. I read it some time ago but got rid of my copy when I was downsizing my book collection. I was just curious to know if this was exactly the same copy – I didn’t think I would be able to recognize it, but opened it anyway.

The scrawled signature inside said ‘Best wishes, Oswald Wynd’.

Wordlessly, I showed it to Mum.

“We’ve already got one or two copies of The Ginger Tree,” she said.
“I got rid of mine,” I said, and continued to hold it open.
“Is that your copy?” she asked.
“No,” I said, still holding it open.
“What’s that?” she said, frowning at the signature.
I flipped the book shut so she could see the writer’s name.
“Ahhh,” she said, the penny dropping.

Now I seem to have a copy of it again… I don’t even approve of collecting autographs and signatures; it’s such a senseless thing to do. But I need all the good wishes I can get.

I wrote this a while back but didn’t have the energy to post it:

Wednesday 16 Jan 2008

Arose relatively early because a plumber was coming to mend the basin in the bathroom. He went away to fetch something, and we were drinking coffee and waiting for a phone call from the vet. I was reading Vinyl Cafe with a blanket over my knees. Mum suggested the vet might have emailed me, so I came up here to check. There were no emails, but I noticed today’s horoscope.

“Even though lots of exciting and important things are going on right now, you will be gifted with a nice chunk of free time in your day – maybe a meeting gets canceled or your flight gets delayed. This oasis of time is not something you should waste!”

I thought, “oh dear, I was sitting downstairs reading. I wasn’t getting on with things.”

The horoscope went on: “Be prepared for the lull with a good book, magazine or your journal. Savor the chance to get out of your routine and into a more reflective, intellectual course of thinking. You will get recharged by the practice.”

I was annoyed by all the ‘gets’ in that, but… AH HA! I’m glad they said reading is not a waste of time. I should fall out of the habit of thinking that it is. I got into feeling that way that at school and university… it was something to do with studying for exams. Reading for exams isn’t the same as reading for pleasure, and so I learned to feel guilty whenever I sat down with a book I was enjoying for its own sake.

A guiding light that shines in the night
Heaven’s gift to me
You are so beautiful to me

It’s been in my head the past couple of days.

Sharky wasn’t improving as rapidly as we hoped and we took him back to the vet. He was kept overnight on a drip and returned to me today… along with renal cat kibble and tablets.

He seems brighter – his eyes have cleared.

There was black ice today; looks like tomorrow will be the same. At least it’s not raining any more. The rain yesterday did excuse me from walking Thundercloud, which I was grateful for. I felt shell-shocked about Sharky, having just left him at the vet, and though I could have accepted a dog walk if the day had been bright, I couldn’t face one in the lashing sleet. I would have caught whatever Marianne got in Sense and Sensibility. A case of the fainting Willoughbies.

Last night there was nothing on TV so while Mum watched something, I was reading Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. In it was a chapter about someone very ill achieving her greatest wish. I’d been feeling numb up to that point, but that was just too much – and I hadn’t even finished the story. Mum was in the next chair and I didn’t want to get all teary and whimpery while she was there. Escaping quietly was a huge struggle. Upstairs I hid in my dark cubby hole and mopped my eyes, which just got wet again.

When I returned to the book and finished the chapter, there was a twist to the story that made me giggle – it wasn’t at all what I thought it was.

But I was so tired.

The next morning we received ‘more optimistic’ news from the vet over the phone, but I was still bushed and rather moody. We met my sister in a coffee shop in town, and (having struggled to find somewhere to put my shopping trolley) I whipped the conversational notebook out.

Me: ♦♦This is ridiculous – there should be more room – you wonder what happened to the DDA.
Mum: ♦The DDA?
Me: ♦♦Disability Discrimination Act.

Pause while the girl came and served our coffee and hot chocolate.

Me: ♦♦I think the only coffee I like now is mocha – everything else tastes like liquid sawdust.
Mum: ♦You often drink liquid sawdust?
Me: ♦♦Here and in Starbucks.
Mum: ♦Is everything wrong this morning? Chilblains? Headache? Blue-tinted specs?
Me: ♦♦Non-pink clothes and sickly 10-year-old cats. And horrible TV with the same shows over and over.
Mum: ♦What’s that about pink clothes? You’ve lost me.
Me: ♦♦I think something red was washed with them and turned them muddy.
Mum: ♦Red with pink means pinker.
Me: ♦♦Not rust red.
Mum: ♦Big Sister says would we like a trip to Fuddyduddytown?
Me: ♦♦I suppose – Fuddyduddytown is not my numero uno town. How can Thingy live there?
Mum: ♦People get stuck in places. It’s not the worst. Remember Yobtown?
Me: ♦♦Not really. When did we go there? I remember Thingyside Leisure Centre as being stuck in a bubble of stark. Probably because they wouldn’t let them build it anywhere nice (can’t blame them).
Mum: ♦Yobtown had most of the shops at either end of the town boarded up. Graffiti everywhere.
Me (distracted): That dark photo of the poppy… it’s like a puddle of thick paint that my eyes have got stuck in. When I pull them away with a *squelch*, it leaves that pattern there.

You get the picture. I shouldn’t blog in this sort of humour.

Yesterday I found a bear sitting in my seat on the sofa. It was a Ty Attic Treasures bear called Samuel, dressed up like Uncle Sam of the United States.

I knew Mum had a bear like this, and didn’t pay much attention, but Mum said “it’s for you.”
“Oh, thank you,” I said – “I thought he was your bear”.
“I’ve got one too,” she said.
I looked inside his heart tag – it said “I WANT YOU!”

Seems like he’s got it all sussed out.

He was holding a book for me – a copy of Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis. The gift label said “Last Day of Christmas present.”

I’ve been wanting one for years, ever since I saw a Harrius Potter in the Roman Baths tourist shop in Bath. I was going to buy one from Amazon if nobody got me it this Christmas… the scary thing is that I thought “well I didn’t get it for Christmas, so I could order it. But who knows what will happen on New Year’s Day?” (My family has a habit of giving New Year’s Day gifts too; could be anything from a lump of coal to a DVD).

New Year’s Day came and went – I got a stick of Toblerone and some money for the sales.

“Well, I better get onto Amazon and order that Harrius Potter book. On the other hand, I’m going to the dentist soon; I don’t want my Amazon parcel to coincide with the dental appointment.”
So I waited…

Moral of this story: Christmas isn’t over till the last day.

On Wednesday night we watched the Miss Potter DVD that Mum gave me for Christmas. Next day we had a ‘notepad conversation’ about it in a café, while a tableful of other people’s kids screamed and rushed around next to us.

NB: if you intend to watch Miss Potter later, you might not want to read our conversation – it will give away elements of what happened…

Me: “Miss Potter was certainly easier to watch than The Hogfather.”

Mum: “Ewan McGregor is an actor who can get into very different roles. Can’t say the same about Renée Zellwegger. She was much the same as the other one.”

Me: “As the other what? And who’s Ewan McGregor?”

Mum: “The chap who was Norman Warne who died. Whatsername in the Edge of Reason.”

Me: “Not such a different role, actually. Single woman makes good despite insufferable mother.”

Mum: “Role model for you??”

Me (after a glare): “Her life was more interesting than married women’s (and some of the single women her friend was complaining about). Mostly ‘cos she made it so.”

Mum: “If she was 32 when the film began and waited 9 years to marry Will Heelis, she must have been mid 40s to 50s.”

(When she what?)

Me: “Who was Will – a childhood holiday friend?”

Mum: “I think they said ploughboy, but that wasn’t likely as his cousins were farmers and he was well enough educated to do law.”

Me: “I think they said her father was discouraged from art and had to do law. That’s exactly what makes me so cross… everybody has to do the ‘profitable’ thing.”

Mum: “It wasn’t that. He had enough money to do nothing… not getting into doubtful company – going to Paris – drugs – peculiar friends. Law was respectable. They said he didn’t practise. Only lived at the Reform Club during the day.”

Me (rather judgementally): “Seems like his daughter accomplished more.”

Mum: “You had to have ‘good family’ (which the Potters didn’t) to be successful in the Army or politics. Law was the next best.”

PS: Good news – Sharky has come to sit on the printer beside me. First time he’s done that for days…

We finished watching The Hogfather DVD and I’ve decided I like it. Not just a little, but a lot. I appreciate his message – and the second episode seemed less dark than the first. There was plenty to chuckle at (seeing as my complaint in Terry Pratchetty Thoughts was that we weren’t laughing).

When we watched the first part, we were tired and not paying that much attention to the details, which is a mistake. When you’re processing them in your own mind, the story makes more sense.

Yesterday we were still confused (and still are about a few things, but that’s like having further gifts under the tree). We stopped the DVD at the end of Episode One, and I said to Mum “why was the Oh God of Hangovers in the Castle of Bones – and what was the Castle of Bones supposed to be anyway?”
“Why are you asking me – how should I know??” she screamed.
“You know it better than me,” I said, sulkily.
“True, I read The Hogfather more recently, but not that recently.”
“You know how you said last night you weren’t sleeping well because you heard jangling, and you didn’t know what it was?”
“Yes?”
“Maybe it was the Oh God of Hangovers popping into existence.”
“Oh.. don’t start confusing The Hogfather with reality!”
Heh heh…

She said tonight she worked out what the noise was – it was Grumble, scratching his ear. Every time he did that, his bed grated against the radiator.

Hmm. I prefer my theory.

I will read The Hogfather again to try and figure out all the things I’m still confused about, though that Mr Teatime depresses the heck out of me. He’s a sort of Bill Sykes, only sharper and deadlier.

One of the gifts I gave Mum this Christmas was The Hogfather DVD. We watched it last night but had to stop halfway through as it goes on for 185 minutes. I should probably have paid attention to the Episode 1 / Episode 2 choices in the menu.

Anyway, we got around to discussing it. I said it reminded me of Dickens – stories like Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol. That’s probably no accident, but it’s a while since I’ve read The Hogfather. The DVD is actually pretty sober, and we didn’t laugh very much.

Mum said when she read it, she felt it was a good idea but…. it didn’t quite cut the mustard for some reason.
“Something was missing,” I agreed.
“I don’t know why that Susan was so involved in the plot.”

We thought about it for a minute, rather sadly.

“What I think is,” I said, “Terry Pratchett stretched himself too thin. There are all these different characters in his books, but the ones you got fond of sometimes disappeared, never to be seen again, and then you would have to try to be interested in a different group of characters.”
“Yes, I think that’s true,” said Mum.
“One of the characters I was fond of (but disappeared) was Rincewind.”
“And the Luggage, and the little dog,” said Mum.

Actually I forgot about the little dog… but not the Luggage. Jolly the Trolley is related to him.

That’s Jolly the Trolley on the left.

I just had to squeeze that in, didn’t I? It’s a joke of ours – but Terry Pratchett did base the Luggage on a noisy trolley some lady was pulling along, rattling and bumping busily (a very ‘Jolly the Trolley’ habit) so for all we know, they really are relations…

“Also…” I said, getting into my stride, “something I remember thinking about some of the books is that the plot was hard to follow. He had a tendency to say ’such and such happened’ then abruptly switch to something else without explaining it. You had no idea what any of it meant till you got to the end of the book and then, IF you looked back, you might understand what some of those odd episodes were about.”
“You don’t fully understand some of the jokes till you read it for the second or third time,” said Mum.

She HAS read them two or three times. I read some of the earlier books twice but the rest of them just once. Mum liked them enough to reread most – and I think that’s a point worth making.

This blog post is not a complaint about Terry Pratchett – I love his books. I did sometimes lose my way in them, but I appreciate the whole idea of the Discworld; I understand that it wouldn’t be a ‘world’ without all those characters in different areas and countries to meet and find out about. We have our special favourites amongst the books – Mum likes Wyrd Sisters and Interesting Times. I’ve not made up my mind yet, but Wyrd Sisters is high in my regard too, and I loved the one where Greebo the cat went to the opera… Nanny Ogg was in that, though Granny Weatherwax was more my cup of tea.

I’ll read them all again (in order) – I might understand them better next time round. Something that Mum keeps talking about is worth mentioning here as well… people say they don’t find the prospect of dying quite so frightening after being introduced to Death in the Terry Pratchett books. I have to say, of all the Discworld characters who romp through the books, Death’s the one constant.

Anthropomorphical personification - it keeps us from going off our trolleys. Or is that a paradox?

I hope everyone who reads this had a wonderful warm Christmas.

Our oven door broke off on Christmas Eve with an agonized squeal, and we had to cook our turkey in the oven of Bella across the road. Our house didn’t smell like Christmas without that steaming aroma of roasting fowl.

We were watching Christmas dinner tips on TV the night before, and one of them was that roast potatoes could be done in the turkey fat. I don’t think they stopped to remind us “don’t do that if you have a vegetarian coming for dinner”… we didn’t make such a mistake, as my vegetarian sister was coming, but I suspect it would be too easy for someone to exclaim “that sounds a good idea!” and completely forget that their vegetarian guests would disagree. The ‘joining up all the dots’ process doesn’t always work if we dash off in too much of an impulse… anyway, Mum said she followed the tip for roasting the potatoes in quite a lot of NON-TURKEY fat (almost deep frying them) and they were very nice indeed.

A few of the gifts I got:

• (from a cat client): some turkey-flavoured snacks for Sharky and a booklet entitled The London Cat II (Plus: By Public Demand, Return of the Cat-Sitter)
• Vinegar: 1001 Practical Uses by Margaret Briggs
• 3 hardback and dust-jacketed Anne of Avonlea volumes by L.M. Montgomery: 1941 copies with a very 20s looking Anne on the cover. Of course she was a 20s heroine, at any rate it was a 20s series of books. I think of her in 70s/80s terms, so that’s a fascinating new view of her (for me).
• various cookbooks
• Jesus Christ Superstar CD (Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber)
• framed tapestry of a fantastic wizard

◊
The tapestry came from a coffee morning – the lady who made it used to hang it on her wall, but she got rid of it when she changed her decor. I wouldn’t have, especially if I’d stitched the picture myself. I possess one framed cross stitch of my own… sat up till 4 in the morning to finish it for a competition, burning my hands under the standard lamp. It was worth it in the end as it came third out of around 30 entries. It had small stitching, which might have been a factor in its success. I can’t imagine letting it go just because I’ve changed the decor.

Oh, it’s true that we can’t take it with us… and possibly the wizard was stitched by a prolific embroiderer; always another picture being completed and framed – maybe she just got tired of it. We think it’s lovely.

If I put the wizard in my room somewhere, he might zap any evil spirits who try to enter. I also have a soft ‘cuddly’ Hagrid from Harry Potter (not a Christmas present) – he is standing square, with a stern and forbidding expression, so I think of him as a kind of bodyguard! It crossed my mind after I had been reading the feng shui books. Modern symbols of safe-guarding…

Mum said as my PC is so old and uncertain, she would get me a new one! (Jumps for joy). But have you looked at the PC market recently?? It’s confusing. I’m studying it carefully, finding out what I need to look for, but that oven was an unexpected casualty and we need to replace it. Mum’s found that the oven world is pretty confusing as well, and nothing she likes is under £600. I said I won’t be in a big hurry to choose a PC; I’ll just watch the market for a while and hope the old PC doesn’t collapse. The oven is more urgent – and getting my house on the rental market. After that, if I have any money coming in at all, maybe I could club together with Mum to get a slightly nicer PC than I might otherwise have looked at.

We’ll go with the flow…

Mood: Tired
Listening to: Ghostly song in my head: ‘Classic’ by Adrian Gurvitz

I don’t know what it is, but these days when I start out to write a nice short blog post, it ends up going on and on and on forever.

And… usually I know why a particular song is in my head, or can work it out, but so far I’m puzzled by Adrian Gurvitz. All this recent talk of books, surely – I was deciding to keep some classics but not others. Many of the ones I chose to keep were written by women (e.g. Jane Austen), while the ones given the push were by men (e.g. Thomas Hardy). I didn’t intend to discriminate but it certainly looks that way!

I didn’t even like all the ones by the female authors (Wuthering Heights, aargh! but keeping. Why?? Because the writer was a gurrl?)

Meanwhile I’m wandering around sadly, singing

And it’s not what I mean
I mean it’s not what it seems
I just keep living for dreams
And it’s not what I mean
I mean it’s not what it seems
I just keep living for dreams

All Mum’s cats and mine blink kindly.

It will pass.

Edit 8 March 2007:

Last night I switched off the computer and walked away, and suddenly I understood, like a lightbulb turning on, why I have that Adrian Gurvitz song ‘Classic’ in my head! You know those lines

Got to write a classic
Gotta write it in an attic

Someone mentioned the books in the rafters, referring to my mother sending most of our books into the loft. At that moment I had an image in my mind of War and Peace balanced on a beam. That’s where I was going to put it if there was no more room on the shelves.

Ah. The books are singing.

Edit 8 March 2008 (a whole year later):

Comments to this post when it was on the old site:

1. kateblogs wrote at Mar 8, 2007 at 16:44:
It’s nice to meet someone else who isn’t keen on Wuthering Heights. I did it for A’level and (letting you in on a secret now) I didn’t read it. I made a start, but soon realised Cathy and I were never going to get along, so I winged it using what I remember from the film and the York notes. Don’t tell anyone LOL

It’s not a patch on Jane Eyre, which is a far superior book IMO.

2. Diddums wrote at Mar 8, 2007 at 21:35:
I admire anyone who can read the whole of Wuthering Heights and keep his/her focus. Though I read it all, my mind definitely wandered. The best thing to come out of Wuthering Heights was Kate Bush’s song…

I should really let the book go. If there’s another ‘book sweep’ in our houses (which seems likely) I’ll send it to the charity shops – maybe it will find a home where it’s appreciated.