Sunday 28 February 2016

Glass half full

This post is going to be as light as a soufflé. I decided that anyone who could be bothered to read yesterday's needs a break. When the soufflé sinks, I will write in italics - thus.

Someone has written the word 'FRANCE' in red lipstick on the wall of the art gallery opposite. This is intriguing -  is it a personal name, the name of the country, a message about where to meet up? Why lipstick, and why underlined? Were they male or female, and were they drunk or sober? Like Sherlock, I am jumping to no conclusions, just because it is lipstick.

I learned yesterday that a friend of mine died recently of lung cancer. He smoked about 60 cigarettes a day and his lips went blue through lack of oxygen.

Green Eyes has got her dream job, following very toppy results in all her exams. From tearing her and everyone else's hair out who happened to be near her, she is very happy. I couldn't wait for the Christmas Round Robin to tell you. Did you know that the old postmen were called 'robins' because of their red jerkins?

I worry sometimes that I live my life through younger others and that I am only mildly content when drunk and smoking.

I have just been commissioned to restore a garden feature originally commissioned by Capability Brown. I will source the materials needed and oversee the whole thing, which will - in the main - be done by younger others.

I cannot remember the last time I became so involved with my work that I forgot the time, and I cannot remember the last time I leapt out of bed looking forward to doing it.

I have decided (for both of us) that this year's Summer holiday will be spent somewhere in the British Isles, and I am truly excited about this prospect. Ideally, it will be spent in a 16th or 17th century building, close to the sea.

I have lost all desire to holiday abroad and the ability to withstand temperatures over about 70 f. I would be happy to never set foot in an airport again, and the current global turmoil has rid me of all sense of adventure.

The older I get, the more I enjoy the company of children, who I used to avoid for the sake of what I thought of as 'peace'.

The older I get, the more I am irritated by the company of adults. I am pretty sure that this condition is reciprocal.

There are two entrances to the art gallery over the road, or - more appropriately - one main entrance and one exit which doubles-up as a disabled entrance if you ring a bell on the wall next to it. It is very amusing to see all the foreign visitors ignore the message on a brass plaque which tells them where the main entrance is just around the corner (with a large arrow pointing the way) and who press away at the bell until someone lets them in whilst the doors open automatically, accompanied with a loud beeping sound! This happens every few minutes during the day!

Why can't the fucking idiots work out that you should walk round the corner to the main entrance?


21 comments:

  1. "
    The older I get, the more I enjoy the company of children, who I used to avoid for the sake of what I thought of as 'peace'."

    Ditto

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  2. You're coming to Norfolk for your holiday I thought. I don't know how I get the older I get. I never have been particularly tolerant of people, young or old. Green eyes are the best.

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    1. Cromer could be a possibility, but I am veering toward the West in my head right now. Maybe it could be Wales, but somehow I feel more attuned to England.

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    2. Blakeney is nice, wild and windswept part of the coast, or as wild as it can get across the east coast marshes. Cromer is ice cream, candy floss and slot machines now.

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  3. A contentedly resigned post, to the last egg. If it were a game of which idea does not belong in this series, that is it. I have an idea for FRANCE, which is my grandson's name. He's broken another heart.

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  4. I guess Australia is off your list . Stinking hot it is here too. Just a bit of trivia, I have green eyes.

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    1. For some reason I have never been drawn to Australia, though I have friends who love it so much that they went to live there. Green eyes, eh?

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  5. Such a fine post, Tom, it goes right to my heart!
    And interesting insights. And congratulation to Green Eyes! And Capability Brown: such a wonderful landscape architect! I rummage in my photos to find one of a very, very old vine he planted in Hampton Court glass house (I think). And what you experience looking forward to your work is "flow" - one of the nicest things that can happen to us.

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    1. I am in two minds about Lancelot Brown - in the creation of all that naturalism, he destroyed many formal 17th C. and earlier parterres. Quite a few in the Bath area. Oh well, progression must progress, I suppose. A gardener who live around here said that if you want formal gardens, go to France. I would like one or two left here to look at.

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  6. I suppose that it is not suprising that parterres have a bit of the Fr. about them - even if it were only their owners that spoke the language. After L.(C.)Brown had done his bit for the better we move on via G.Jekyll to A. Titchmarsh and Charlie Dimmock to remodel the domestic garden.

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    1. Smaller and smaller. I think it properly came to a stop with Jekyll, apart from the upkeep of country houses. I don't think you are allowed to use those 30 foot-high ladders for topiary any more. At the house I work, they put up scaffold, for heaven's sake.

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  7. Congratulations to Green Eyes.
    I'm catching up on posts, and wanted to let you know that once again I learned something from this post of yours.
    And now I notice that you've got another post posted. I might have to wait until tomorrow to have a look at that one.
    Best wishes.

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    1. I tend to move on pretty quick and quite often not see comments left a day or two later.

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  8. What a delightful post, froth and all. Congratulations on your new commission. I also am finding it less and less appealing to travel abroad. No 17th century VRBOs around here, but I have learned that one can stay in a modernist house on Cape Cod.

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    1. You have some late 17th century places on the East Coast, don't you? Pretty scarce though, I expect.

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