tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53025292011-04-21T20:10:48.673ZBlue, with StarsThe robes of Wizardesses are blue with stars. The robes of Wizards are green with stars. And there are still Others, of whom little is known and less is said, whose robes are beyond description being of all the colours of the rainbow, and none. But all have stars.Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comBlogger2251100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1161522689372873932006-10-22T13:05:00.000Z2006-10-22T13:11:29.386ZHaving a bad day today - or maybe, as Ex used to say, a Lying Fallow day. He was an artist and usually worked all the time, but occasionally he used to have a Tidying Up day, and even more occasionally, a Lying Fallow day, which involved slumping half on and half off of the sofa, thinking. Just can't get going. It's Sunday, it's raining, it's October. Cats Lying Fallow too. However, am in Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1161458200077385142006-10-21T19:00:00.000Z2006-10-21T19:16:40.093ZHere I am, back after a long absence, having moved house from an estate to a village - sort of - been without internet for almost a year; having with much sweat and tears and with the help of a nice Indian lady on the phone at something past midnight, managed to set up Outlook to accept the new email address; having wiped everything off and got it back on again; having crashed my computer and Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1117293224693312192005-05-28T15:04:00.000Z2005-05-28T15:20:29.303ZDIY Fringe-cuttingAs one of my drastic (in fact draconian) economy measures prior to moving house and probably having somehow to pay a bigger mortgage, I have determined to cut my own fringe. To this end, I spied on the hairdresser as she cut my hair, possibly for the last time. All these years I have been having my fringe cut and generally day-dreaming my way through it. It wasn't till I Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1116683455506452792005-05-21T13:35:00.000Z2005-05-21T13:50:55.513ZA Brush with HerbertStill reading the book of post-war reminiscences (Mass-Observation Project). It's surprising how they do come out as characters, even though no one is 'writing' them. Each person is just rambling on happily through his or her diary, commenting on everyday things, and yet you can almost see them. Pensioner Herbert Brush is the best - sometimes intentionally, sometimes Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1116603072471356292005-05-20T15:15:00.000Z2005-05-20T18:10:55.960ZIt's a long time since I posted anything on any of my Blogs. I seem to have created three. And now it looks as if I may not have the internet at home for much longer, as I will be moving house when I can sell this one and will need to save money to pay for the bigger mortgage. I thought about reverting to a traditional handwritten (yes, actual writing) diary but somehow I can't bring myself to doMerlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1073810878599024412004-01-11T08:47:00.000Z2004-01-11T08:49:44.076ZPS
I'm glad to be back. I see from the entry dates that there was a gap of almost a month over Christmas. No excuse really. Christmas was sort of depressing. You'd think, the one time of the year I actually have some 'material' - work's Christmas Dinner, Christmas itself - I'd be writing fit to bust. But no.
TMA 01
I have at least managed to finish my first maths OU TMA (Tutor Marked Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1073810402879270882004-01-11T08:40:00.000Z2004-01-11T08:42:44.996ZTerror Management, Bluejacking, Gadget Porn ...
These are all new words - ah, a treasure trove - discovered in a site called Wordspy. I can see I'm going to have a lot of fun with that. Furthermore, it emails you free with new words several times a week. I shall ask it to email them to me at work too - one way to fill in those boring moments.
I just love new words/phrases. I only found the Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1071581506178189562003-12-16T13:31:00.000Z2003-12-16T13:34:39.670ZThis is a bit I wrote last week, and then forgot to paste in:
And while we’re on the subject of looking up long-lost guide and brownie songs, I remember one which began
“There’s a long, long worm a-crawling
around the pole of my tent
round and round the tentpole in the night it went”.
I’ve just Googled that, it it turns out to be a popular WWI version of a song to the same tune, which wentMerlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1071389223305743162003-12-14T08:07:00.000Z2003-12-14T08:08:12.373ZOver Will's Mother's
Had another Christmas lunch with my parents and godmother yesterday. We don't usually have two. I'm not sure why we've had two this year. We ended up swapping old expressions (probably loudly so that Mum can hear, but luckily the pub was nearly empty). Someone mentioned "Will's Mother's" as in "It's as black as yer 'at over Will's Mothers", ie it looks as if its going toMerlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1071237972854966442003-12-12T14:06:00.000Z2003-12-12T14:09:56.246ZJust looked up the words to Kookaburra and have added a link. See I got the words slightly wrong, substituting oak for gum. I suppose that's because oak trees would have been more familiar to me than gum trees when I learned it, which must have been when I was seven or eight.
I was also trying to remember the words to another song we used to sing at Brownies, Were you ever in Quebec, and have Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1071237237375903552003-12-12T13:53:00.000Z2003-12-12T14:02:22.716ZHairdresser came last night. Rosie vanished into the blackness beyond the catflap and did not come in for ages. Had quite a lot chopped off (to make it last!) and now look like one of those Mabel Lucie Atwell children.
Teresa was sent a fluffy toy Kookaburra from Tasmania. When you press its tummy it starts to laugh. She carried it round in her handbag for a day and set it off secretly when Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1071235680924467882003-12-12T13:28:00.000Z2003-12-12T13:30:13.826ZI'm reading Baudolino by Umberto Eco. I've tried reading Eco before but found him difficult to get into, but then translations often have that effect on me. The trouble is with translations that translators aren't writers, and there is a subtle but essential difference.
However, I am persisting with Baudolino. I think the idea is that a medieval man, with a gift for visualisation/imaginationMerlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1071129287972793772003-12-11T07:54:00.000Z2003-12-11T07:58:31.153ZI got up this morning and wrote a poem. Goodness knows why, I haven't written one for years. Here it is:
This is our town now
This is our town now.
sparrow in hundreds and thousands
sprinkled on four spires, take fright occasionally,
four golden arrows
point wherever the wind might like to go.
God could be below - we never thought to venture.
This is our town now.
This is our town now. In theMerlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1071093478422823412003-12-10T21:57:00.000Z2003-12-10T21:59:02.280ZBrief impressions of the week so far (due to extreme tiredness!)
Discovered that fridges (posh ones, anyway) now like to be known as Food Centres.
Decided that my house is coming to resemble the Osbornes, only with cats instead of dogs. And much smaller. And without the money and the tattoos.
Spent quite a few hours doing remedial maths whilst listening to Byrd masses. Good for concentrationMerlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1070891831086270592003-12-08T13:57:00.000Z2003-12-08T13:58:11.860ZJanice has been telling me about her visit to Father Christmas, with her nephew and grand-nephew Jack. They went for a weekend only, and it was very expensive, but worth it. Janice (who is 61) sat on a stool beside Father Christmas and you could tell by the way her eyes were shining when she described this, that for that moment Father Christmas had been as real for her as for Jack. Jack asked Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1070468961204523852003-12-03T16:29:00.000Z2003-12-03T16:32:08.170ZThis is my third and final day off work, keeping an eye on Rosie. She seems OK - fur still glossy (except the shaven bit) but a bit deflated and sore. She seemed so relieved when she got back from the vet, and running around all over the place, purring, I think she thought I had abandoned her there for ever. But now she is less happy. At least she's resting.
Felt I ought to do any number of Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1070360883085973322003-12-02T10:28:00.000Z2003-12-02T10:28:56.343ZJust noticed, two "slightly apprehensives" in the same post, below. And I thought I could write, once!Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-107036027958708512003-12-02T10:17:00.000Z2003-12-02T10:32:18.903ZLa Sciarpetta has returned
Good news, the trolley-collecting gentleman at Tesco (the "trolleyologist" according to the over-educated son of an ex friend of mine) must have found it yesterday and handed it in. I had to repeat the words "long pink scarf" to the lady behind the Customer Advice counter several times, which makes me slightly apprehensive that I have lapsed into senility and started Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1070300238856895192003-12-01T17:37:00.000Z2003-12-01T17:38:10.983ZSpent the rest of the morning wrapping Christmas presents and writing out cards - a boring job I never usually have time for, but one that's much easier to accomplish without the help of a small black cat.
My OU course seems to have arrived. I found the cardboard packages leaned against my door, though I had been in all afternoon and I'm not that deaf. Good thing it wasn't raining, really. AtMerlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1070299985534528322003-12-01T17:33:00.000Z2003-12-01T17:33:57.716ZRosie is home from her operation and is sitting on my knee with her head draped over my right arm, purring. She seems absolutely delighted to be home, and doesn't seem to blame me in the slightest for having her reproductive possibilities removed. Poor kitten. I was in such a state of worry about her this morning after I dropped her off, I went to Tescos to get some bits and pieces and I thinkMerlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1070277397694179142003-12-01T11:16:00.000Z2003-12-01T11:17:29.810ZJust a quickie (ha, I always tell myself that) because I'm afraid the vet will ring. Took Rosie in for her spaying op early this morning. I have to ring them back at midday, if I haven't heard. Am trying to concentrate on other things, such as wrapping Christmas presents which would be almost impossible to do with Rosie around - but of course I can't concentrate on that either. I should be Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1070133715798989712003-11-29T19:21:00.000Z2003-11-29T19:23:51.966ZOf course, this morning Frodo won't let me stroke him. Maybe he had a senior moment last night, and is now restored to his normal growly self.
Went to see the specialist on Thursday morning, at a hospital in Maidstone. He is assessing me, sort of, for the insurance claim. He was very nice and I was there for about 1 3/4 hours! Realised afterwards this is the longest a man has either talked Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1070051331663293942003-11-28T20:28:00.000Z2003-11-28T20:29:40.200ZBlogger is being very badly behaved today. It just lost my whole post, yet again.
Nevertheless I am so pleased about Frodo (below) I have decided on a change of template, to celebrate! What the hell! Push the boat out! Give the cat another goldfish!Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1070050909931194842003-11-28T20:21:00.000Z2003-11-28T20:22:38.543ZFrodo let me stroke him. I've been feeding that old wild moggie for the last hundred years, and every time I've even held my hand out to him he's jumped back, hissing and growling. I talk to him and he ignores me. I feed him and he gobbles it down and then walks away, with a flick of his white-ended tail. But today he let me stroke him!Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1069790965211450372003-11-25T20:09:00.000Z2003-11-25T20:14:33.013ZA pool of accidental quiet
Walked round to the dentist at lunchtime today. Some roads and some places tend to affect me. Railway stations always do. I start to get thoughtful. Why doesn't this feel like my real life? I thought. Why do I feel as if I've been in some kind of waiting room all these years? I sat and waited in the actual waiting room - me and a single old lady who was mooching Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1069581844646414672003-11-23T10:04:00.000Z2003-11-23T10:08:02.860Z"The thing is", boomed the chiropodist, her large white-nylon legs splayed around the end of the couch, her eyes never lifting from the soles of my feet, "people were never meant to live so long. They were meant to be dead long before they got to the stage of being unable to reach their feet".
Which left me feeling obscurely guilty, but what for? For having feet? For sometimes finding it Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1069573900847036752003-11-23T07:51:00.000Z2003-11-23T08:05:40.576ZA very fine cat indeed *
There is a separate, though occasionally overlapping, vocabulary for kittens (ref: yesterday's posting):
a poddle is a small furry creature, so young that it can only totter around and bump into things.
a little widden is a kitten who is being extremely charming and beautiful at that particular moment.
a big widden is what you call an older, female, jealous cat - as Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1069537040472513952003-11-22T21:37:00.000Z2003-11-23T10:14:02.093ZDog-language
Reading back over that last entry, I am reminded of the elderly lady in the James Herriott veterinary novels (what on earth was her name now?) who owned a grossly spoiled and troublesome pekinese called Tricky Woo, which suffered from various illnesses imaginatively named by his owner, including Crackerdog and Flopbot, as in "He's gone all flopbot".Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1069536597162723512003-11-22T21:29:00.000Z2003-11-22T21:33:35.530ZI was thinking this morning about cat-language. It's like eskimos having all those different words for snow, when we have only one. When you live with cats - lots of cats - they have things they do, routinely, that there is no human word for. You find yourself inventing a vocabulary for it as you go along, a set of new verbs, adjectives and the nouns to accompany them.
A wetticat is a cat whoMerlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1069535748484172642003-11-22T21:15:00.000Z2003-11-22T21:55:34.110ZToo much information
Funny how the answer to a small mystery you never really expected to know the answer to, suddenly appears sometimes. Apparently to phrase "Too much information" comes from Quentin Tarantino's film "Pulp Fiction" and was spoken by Uma Thurman to John Travolta when he told her he was going for a pee. "... the words now supply an all-purpose reflex protest to anything that Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1069400508060772492003-11-21T07:41:00.000Z2003-11-22T21:42:16.996ZLove, Actually
Drove up to Cineworld after work last night. Got stuck in the world's worst traffic jam, gridlock at the roundbout, and in the dark, headlights coming at you from all directions. But I did manage to get three tickets in exchange for my birthday gift tokens, which have been languishing on my bookcase since last February because of the accident - for next Wednesday for Love, Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1069399907382092472003-11-21T07:31:00.000Z2003-11-21T07:34:25.030ZOh woe - and a wet morning
I read somewhere recently that you're only grown-up when you realise talking about your troubles doesn't make them go away. Maybe I grew up somewhere along the line, by accident. I've always seen myself as somewhere between 7 and 14! And anyway, this trouble can't be talked about, and it will pass.
Got up early again this morning to do some maths in preparation for Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1069146388363805992003-11-18T09:06:00.000Z2003-11-18T09:07:02.280ZNicholas Nickelby
Took Teresa to see the film of the above last night. A one night only showing on a Monday night, which means they don’t expect there to be a great demand for it, and indeed there wasn’t. Probably about 20 other people in Cinema 3. All the way through I kept trying to remember where I had seen the lead actor before. Something odd about his accent – English, but like no knownMerlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1068976132953554752003-11-16T09:48:00.000Z2003-11-16T09:50:11.733ZVisit ... visit with...
Just watching a snippet (all I can stand) of President Bush being interviewed by David Frost about his forthcoming invasion of (sorry, visit to) this country.
Or maybe that should be visit with. He came out with this sentence, something like:
Whenever I visit with Tony Blair, whether by telephone, video or in person ...
I love linguistic differences. Now visit withMerlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1068899733425565202003-11-15T12:35:00.000Z2003-11-16T09:53:15.360ZHeadlights, bossy pasengers and buffalo mozarella
Another quiz last night, this time at a golf club. Long drive in the dark, lots of headlights, with one of my ex-bosses for company, which last item made the whole thing even more tiring than it would have been. She's a bit of a back-seat driver (except from the passenger seat). This didn't surprise me in the least, considering what she used Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1068668832460622692003-11-12T20:27:00.000Z2003-11-12T20:34:11.700ZZam Buk consignment from Yorkshire!
Talking about smells, as I was in my last posting, this evening when I got home I found my order of Zam Buk herbal ointment had arrived from Rose & Co in Yorkshire. Zam Buk has a very distinctive smell - and anyone who has had it smeared on them since childhood can recognise it instantly! My first instinct was to open the tin and sniff. It didn't smell Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1068652441310320282003-11-12T15:54:00.000Z2003-11-12T15:54:27.903ZWent to lunch with Denise at the bookshop café.
In spite of the unpredictable Italian (or faux Italian) who runs it – one minute snapping at you and the next minute all over you – I enjoy those lunches. We had a good gossip about work, some of the gossip going back way before my time. There is always history to be caught up on, gossip and money are what holds legal firms together, and ours Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1068635216413702952003-11-12T11:06:00.000Z2003-11-12T11:07:22.606ZThe disappearing court case
Yesterday was supposed to be the court case but it was cancelled, though not until mid-morning when we (prosecution witnesses) had been penned for ages in a room the size of a bus stop. I suppose it might have been designed for ten people but there were at least that many children waiting to give video evidence in two separate trials, giggling and mucking about, and Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1068374916913906882003-11-09T10:48:00.000Z2003-11-09T10:52:39.403ZThis blog is turning out to have an actual use, apart from being somewhere for me to write, constantly, which I seem to need.
I've just been out to check the water level in my car water-thing and once again the water has all gone. I filled it up again, and decided I would have to call the garage to ask if such frequent filling-up was normal or maybe a symptom of leaks in the radiator. But I Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1068366567795464662003-11-09T08:29:00.000Z2003-11-09T08:29:49.733ZPS Have temporarily abandoned On The Road in favour of To Kill A Mockingbird. Have finished Winnie The Pooh. Read a lot of that during the power cut at work. I shall have to take a book or books with me to the Court on Tuesday as I don't know how long I will have to occupy myself waiting to be called. Will probably be too terrified to concentrate on reading anyway. I was shown into the Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1068365322872206852003-11-09T08:08:00.000Z2003-11-09T08:23:37.436ZPrince Charles stuff
This really annoys me. Not what Prince Charles may or may not have been doing, but the fact that everybody else in the entire world (apparently) seems to be able to read about it in their daily newspapers, but we can't. And we have always told that we have a free press, we have freedom of speech, and pity all those poor other countries whose press is censored! It's the Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1068189217270131762003-11-07T07:13:00.000Z2003-11-07T07:13:56.653ZNasty dream last night.
Arrived at the Magistrates Court, waiting to be a witness in the careless driving case against the man who caused the accident in February. But the ground floor seemed to be crammed with unexpected people - railway porters, women with children in puschairs, shoppers. There was some kind of eastern bazaar set up in the hallway, with strips of coloured material hanging Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1068139472832773932003-11-06T17:24:00.000Z2003-11-06T19:23:00.920ZHave found Zam Buk herbal ointment on the web. I grew up with Zam Buk - my mother used it for all our little cuts and bruises and we've never found anything that works quite as well. (I know, it's sad even to be caring about such things, isn't it?).
Anyway, they stopped making it a few years ago, much to our horror, and since then Mum and Dad and I, and even Ex, have been trying to eke out Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1068126668054349582003-11-06T13:51:00.000Z2003-11-06T16:59:26.466ZAm reading Winnie-The-Pooh by A A Milne together with On The Road by Jack Kerouac. Just an experiment - pairing off books that are diametrically opposite to one another! Shows how bored I am.
I wish I'd come across Winnie-The-Pooh earlier. I do like the way he speaks, round in circles, going off at tangents. I talk like that, but most people don't, and because I know they're going to laugh Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1067896568544034262003-11-03T21:56:00.000Z2003-11-03T21:59:25.436ZI seem to spend most of my life doing things I don't want to do.
Today I had to get up early, in order to get petrol.
Having got petrol, at the Tesco filling station, went into Tesco and got fruit.
Having got fruit, I went home and phoned the doctor's surgery to cancel my physio appointment.
Having done that I loaded Ozzie into the cat basket and drove him round to the vets to have his Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1067783395142355122003-11-02T14:29:00.000Z2003-11-02T14:30:39.496ZFeeling little pain
I was just wondering whether happiness was merely the absence of pain. I think not. Still, the absence of pain is not to be sneezed at.
We (the marital We, that is) used to have a friend, in our village pub-going days, and this friend used to get drunk fairly frequently. He was an entertaining man when sober, but when drunk became gloriously entertaining. When people Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1067781964488442512003-11-02T14:06:00.000Z2003-11-02T14:06:17.793ZA fractious morning
Spent most of this morning working on my elementary maths in preparation for the OU course. Still on fractions! Started off getting them all wrong - just as in my miserable youth. I mean, they look easy, little kids can do them, therefore they must be easy. It's just a mental block. However, I've got the hang of them now, and have been whizzing through exercise after Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1067633467038593832003-10-31T20:51:00.000Z2003-10-31T20:51:17.483ZHalloween
Forgot to mention, I'm hiding. I hate Halloween. I particularly hate roaming gangs of children knocking on my door, or sitting outside on the pavement chattering until all hours. So on Halloween I turn out as many of the lights as possible and retreat upstairs, to listen to the radio or read. There's a ridiculous little window in my front door which all callers tend to peer throughMerlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1067632922035636932003-10-31T20:42:00.000Z2003-10-31T20:44:00.326ZStill having problems ....
Electricity went off again today, this time on the top floor, where I work. Yet it was OK in my room, and in the room next door only one computer out of two went off. Some people had lights but no machines. The kettle couldn't be boiled for coffee, the vending machine went off so not even access to plastic cups of chocolate, coffee or tea (these are interchangeable Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1067547381540288912003-10-30T20:56:00.000Z2003-10-30T20:57:10.793ZStill having problems with the electrics
Stern emailed warnings going round about not overloading this mysterious 'yellow phase' zone of the office by plugging in electric fires to supplement the (antiquated) gas fires. We do not, of course, have central heating. Bill, the handyman, comes in at 8 am and lights all the gas fires, with matches. Especially on Mondays in winter the air is damp Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1067513152215053772003-10-30T11:25:00.000Z2003-10-30T21:02:48.483Z[Written yesterday but couldn't post because power cut cut me off from Blogger.]
Funeral at the crematorium.
Autumn leaves everywhere, rain. Everyone shuffling about in the damp and cold impatient to be allowed in but too solemn to say so. Seemed a waste of a a rather beautiful park to have undertakers lurking, fags cupped discreetly in their hands, waiting to “do the business”, and no one Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1067371089471424052003-10-28T19:58:00.000Z2003-10-28T20:11:26.216ZYou can check out any time you like
But you can never leave
Where I work, it's like the Hotel California. People just can't seem to get away. Tomorrow I'm going to the funeral of Ken, who finally retired when he was 80 and has now died. He wanted as many people from the firm to go as possible, so they are virtually closing the office and we are all whooshing off to the crematorium in our Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1067268504091168742003-10-27T15:28:00.000Z2003-10-27T15:32:31.280ZBIOGRAPHY
Adrienne Rich was born on May 16, 1929, in Baltimore, Maryland, to a "well-off" Jewish family. She began to write well-crafted poetry at an early age to suit her taskmaster father. She graduated from Radcliffe in 1951 where she studied exclusively the work of male poets. Adrienne married Alfred Conrad, an economist at Harvard, in 1953 and had three sons before she was thirty. In Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1067261641482165862003-10-27T13:34:00.000Z2003-10-27T13:37:06.983ZAdrienne Rich - Diving into the Wreck
First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.
There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1067260988921502182003-10-27T13:23:00.000Z2003-10-27T13:39:12.233ZAt the Fishhouses
by Elizabeth Bishop
Although it is a cold evening,
down by one of the fishhouses
an old man sits netting,
his net, in the gloaming almost invisible,
a dark purple-brown,
and his shuttle worn and polished.
The air smells so strong of codfish
it makes one's nose run and one's eyes water.
The five fishhouses have steeply peaked roofs
and narrow, cleated gangplanks slant upMerlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1067105292928163842003-10-25T18:08:00.000Z2003-10-25T18:19:54.826ZCatty co-operation
Have just returned from visiting Mum and Dad. Finished two more knitted squares for my Frodo-blanket. Came home to catch Frodo actually in the Frodohome, something he never admits to doing. He shot out and half way up the garden, and sat there blinking sleepily into the middle distance as if to say "What me - in that kennel-thing?" Found an email from the editors of The Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1066907940148190452003-10-23T11:19:00.000Z2003-10-23T15:03:39.000ZLast time I went down to see Ex he had Guy Fawkes out again, sitting on a chair in the living room.
Ex, being an artist, is very clever at making things, and Guy Fawkes is a work of art. It has the blackest, fiercest expression and wild black hair. No one would dare burn this chap on a bonfire, and indeed he is not going to be burnt. He will be exhibited in a stationery shop window in East Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1066905320700970192003-10-23T10:35:00.000Z2003-10-23T10:36:20.270ZTo blurt or not to blurt
I have seen the kind of entries I make dismissed as ‘blurts’ by real, cool, serious bloggers.
I do rather object to this term; as it happens, I spend quite a lot of time editing and amending what I have written, and often accumulate a mental list of things to post as the days go by – I’m sort of ‘recording’ even when I’m not actually typing.
Anyway, who are they to Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1066837688422257982003-10-22T15:48:00.000Z2003-10-22T15:48:08.126ZBrooktrout
(see below)
This one is about movement, and speed - in a way about magic and sleight of hand, about triviality and significance. The brooktrout sways, leaps, drops. It is about invisibility and nothingness - the fish "invisible there/In water empty as air" - it drops back into "swift glass" and "resumes clear nothingness". When out of the water it is corporeal, a fish, but its Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1066831462596720862003-10-22T14:04:00.000Z2003-10-22T14:04:22.706ZBrooktrout
The Brooktrout, superb as a matador,
Sways invisible there
In water empty as air.
The Brooktrout leaps, gorgeous as a jaguar,
But dropping back into swift glass
Resumes clear nothingness.
The numb-cold current's brain-wave is lightning -
No good shouting: 'Look!'
It vanished as it struck.
You can catch Brooktrout, a goggling gewgaw -
But never the flash God made
Drawing the Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1066831404501727432003-10-22T14:03:00.000Z2003-10-22T14:03:24.630ZGreen Mother
I am the pillow where angels come for the sleeper.
Grey-long-eyed and silvery-limbed, a tremor, a girl, strong-fingered
With the washed voice of a thrush,
Glistening wet - the angle of the ash
A toppling tower of gargoyles and ogres -
With a voice of splitting, a sulphur-glare
And a numbness
The angel of the oak lifts his trophy
Slow and charred from the furnace, in Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1066831359738397482003-10-22T14:02:00.000Z2003-10-22T14:02:39.880ZI found this poem in the Guardian Review, or to be precise the internet version, which I am reading at work at the moment because I don’t have enough to do. I am not sure what it is about but I like the language because it is pure and clear and masculine.
Some of the lines are beautiful – ‘Many heavens, none of them fallen’ – ‘Every flower sends an angel’. The feeling I get from the poem is Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1066558257342208712003-10-19T10:10:00.000Z2003-10-19T10:19:55.576ZThis is The Big Read Top 21
I have put in bold the ones I have actually read.
1984, George Orwell (Read a borrowed copy in 1971. Mother threw it away because she happened to open it at the rat scene. Embarrassing because not my book.)
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks (didn't like)
Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
Catch 22, Joseph Heller (but it is in that great pile of books Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1066557939767189842003-10-19T10:05:00.000Z2003-10-19T10:05:39.930ZMeant to make a note: that logo is short for logogram. Don't suppose it will interest my solitary reader, whoever he or she is, but it interests me.Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1066557488348238532003-10-19T09:58:00.000Z2003-10-19T10:02:28.823ZNostalgia - sort of
Other people's washing tends to irritate me.The new people over the back have been hanging some out and they have just kind of draped it, all saggy. Why can't they spread it out so that it will dry properly, with a peg at each corner? And they left it out all night to get damp and dirty all over again. The Fat People used to do that too, and always leave their pegs on the Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1066488266733935202003-10-18T14:44:00.000Z2003-10-18T14:46:32.463ZSaturday/Neighbours
Strange day. I always have this feeling that I'm not doing anything, not getting anything done. Yet today I have been over to Tesco to do some shopping, gone round to the vet to get some flea stuff for the cats, de-flea'd four out of the five, done three lots of washing and hung it out - everything in and dried now - lifted all the miscellaneous-shaped slabs that make up myMerlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1066389486638297592003-10-17T11:18:00.000Z2003-10-17T11:18:06.616ZAncient Hippie strikes again
I bought a third jumper from the charity shop yesterday. Charity shop jumpers are only only for wearing at home, of course, but they save money. My strategy is to buy two or three new jumpers at approximately £4.50 each, each autumn. The following autumn (or sometimes the autumn after that) I bequeath the old jumpers to Kitten for her sleeping-tray and invest in Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1065971805452813462003-10-12T15:16:00.000Z2003-10-12T15:16:45.476ZHope I haven't lost that entire last entry, the one about the Mid Life Crisis. Either I pressed a wrong button or Blogger is having a miniature crisis of its own.
Alice Munro
Have just discovered Alice Munro, writer of short stories. Read an article about her in the Guardian Review last week and sent for one of her books - Open Secrets - from Amazon. As soon as I dipped into it I knew I had Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1065970566710062332003-10-12T14:56:00.000Z2003-10-12T14:56:06.116ZA bit of a Mid Life Crisis
Went to visit another friend yesterday, who has just lost her husband and is having memory problems. She invited me for lunch at 1.30 but when I got there she asked me if I had eaten, seemed puzzled when I said I hadn't, and made me a sandwich. Actually it was a nice sandwich but I was embarrassed to be eating it, alone, in her nicely-hoovered living room, and no Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1065809005899230472003-10-10T18:03:00.000Z2003-10-10T18:06:27.853ZLast day of the hols
All week I've been going back and forth to the farm chalet to visit Mum and Dad who have been given a free week there to make up for the one in June, which they had to abandon because Dad was taken ill. Have eaten far too many pub meals - chips, ice cream, chocolate this, chocolate that. Next week I'll have to revert to fruit and long walks! The weather has been Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1065382809999559282003-10-05T19:40:00.000Z2003-10-05T19:42:13.026ZA parcel arrived containing my new calculator on Friday, but I was too distracted to open it since no sooner had I thrown it on the passenger seat (the postman arrived as I was on my way out to work) and wound down the window to clear the mist on the outside, than the window gave a loud crack and jumped out of its - socket, or whatever windows are contained in. So I was focussing on ringing the Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1065335616276537322003-10-05T06:33:00.000Z2003-10-05T06:33:36.003ZMerlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1065333738472450332003-10-05T06:02:00.000Z2003-10-05T06:35:40.296ZSeven Sisters
As I mentioned before – or rather below – I am currently reading The Seven Sisters by Margaret Drabble. I had a phase of reading Margaret Drabble, along with Edna O’Brien, in the early 70s when they were both rather popular, but have always found both slightly unsatisfactory. Difficult to put your finger on what is unsatisfactory, exactly. Something elusive and ephemeral, a bit Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1065103241386822752003-10-02T14:00:00.000Z2003-10-02T14:01:19.300ZHandy hint
Apparently the way to tell the nurses from the patients in the psychiatric unit is to look at their feet. The nurses, so I am told, wear trainers, the patients slippers. But I keep forgetting to look. The only feet I have so far happened to notice were bare ones in sandals, rather grubby, with nasty neglected toenails - overgrown with cracking nail-varnish.
Presumably a patient.Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1065097575349515922003-10-02T12:26:00.000Z2003-10-02T12:26:44.466ZFrodo has since turned up, you will be pleased to hear, though of course my house-moving dilemma has returned with him.
Went to see my depressed friend in hospital, with her boss, in work time. You forget what it is like to be going anywhere with a man, even a not particularly attractive one who's married to someone else. It made a nice change to have a non-female conversation, and I don't Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1064946982051130942003-09-30T18:36:00.000Z2003-09-30T18:38:11.000ZGiven up on the knitting needle project. Lots of tapestry sets, with needles - just as confiscateable by the plain-clothes nurses in the mental ward as metal knitting-needles would have been. Not to worry (of course I always worry, about everything, all the time). Two of us from work have got a dispensation to go up to the hospital at 2 o'clock tomorrow, for another half an hour or so. It Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1064862770202704872003-09-29T19:12:00.000Z2003-09-29T19:13:31.920ZTomorrow I think I might try Woolworths. Maybe they still do those cheap little children's knitting kits my ancient aunties used to buy me for every year Christmas - some plastic needles and a few skeins of multi-coloured wool in a pink plastic case. I could always replace the wool with some proper stuff. Or maybe that educational toys place - can't remember the name. A good excuse to go in Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1064862037979330572003-09-29T19:00:00.000Z2003-09-29T19:06:06.566ZJust Another Manic Monday
Went to work today half expecting to have nothing to do, as I'm starting work for Ruth, who is just starting out herself and therefore has no files to speak of. But unexpectedly she came up with quite a lot of dictation, and my old boss's new secretary started today too, so I had to help her, and do some of my old boss's work, and tiddle around with the computer Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1064754150568828772003-09-28T13:02:00.000Z2003-09-28T13:02:30.696ZReading Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis. Will have to stop myself (somehow) buying books from now on as have grossly overspent. I have a heap that I haven't read yet so it's not as if I will be without reading matter. I just hate to miss anything - I think I am just as much a compulsive book collector as a compulsive reader.Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1064753750608574152003-09-28T12:55:00.000Z2003-09-28T12:58:52.713ZReading back over my last entry - pleased to note that I thought something that the critics have since confirmed. It says in the Radio Times review something about Chaucer not being known for his believable plots, and some of the diaglogue sounding really odd in these modern-day scrips, as if it had been lifted directly from the middle ages. I haven't watched the Knight's Tale yet, but have it Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1063959290377580412003-09-19T08:14:00.000Z2003-09-19T08:14:50.376ZThe Wife of Bath's Tale
On TV at the moment they are doing modern-day adaptations of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and last night was the Wife of Bath - I think last week was the Miller. I was made to "do" the Wife of Bath at school but it was heavily censored. I remember many words were only represented by lines of stars, and the definitions of others was mysteriously missing from the index. I Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1063561264093606672003-09-14T17:41:00.000Z2003-09-14T17:41:03.990ZI have just had a red light come up in my car on the way back from weekly flying visit to Ex. Hate red lights. Instant panic. It's the one with the thermometer. The handbook says that's engine coolant top-up, so presumably the engine is getting too hot. Rang father, asked what to top up with - water? He said yes, then book in at garage and have the coolant checked before winter in case the Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1063529774578014462003-09-14T08:56:00.000Z2003-09-14T17:46:13.380ZThe window cleaners haven't arrived yet, but they did say within six weeks, and the letter with the bar code in it didn't arrive until 2nd September. My windows have gone uncleaned for years, but now I can imagine them being cleaned at some point, they are beginning to look dirty. I did start yesterday going round cleaning the insides in anticipation but jobs like that I find so boring I have Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1062011917684391652003-08-27T19:18:00.000Z2003-08-27T19:21:31.780ZAm arranging to have windows cleaned. Have never cleaned the outside since I have been here! Can't reach. Too tired. As Quentin Crisp said, after the first four years, the dirt doesn't get any worse. However, these are new high-tech window cleaners. You have a bar code in your window which they scan, so you don't have to wait in for them, or leave money out in little envelopes, or hunt Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1061930331013823892003-08-26T20:38:00.000Z2003-08-27T19:36:09.423ZLong, tiring day starting off with a visit to the vet with Rosie & Ozzie. Got told off by the receptionist for bringing Ozzie as well, even though they had sent me a card to remind me his booster injection was due. Then the vet, having done Ozzie, decided Rosie might be too young after all for her first injection and come back next week. Of course, every time you come back it costs more money.Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1061666605404503952003-08-23T19:23:00.000Z2003-08-23T19:28:41.860ZI'm getting very remiss with my posting. I just don't have the energy to sit down in my stuffy little front room, after a long day in front of a computer, in front of another computer ...
Rosie is asleep on my lap. I wonder if all kittens are red hot, or is it only this one? She doesn't seem ill or anything. She did get a bit of a fright this afternoon when the carpet-fitters finally arrivedMerlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1061063516713326262003-08-16T19:51:00.000Z2003-08-16T19:51:56.713ZJust remembered it's my Wedding Anniversary, or would have been if I was still married. Spoke to Ex on the phone this morning. He doesn't remember of course.Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1061063044906982322003-08-16T19:44:00.000Z2003-08-16T19:48:36.933ZOne ring to rule them all, one ring to find them,
One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the land of Mordor, where the shadows lie..."
---from "The Lord of the Rings", by J.R.R. Tolkien
Got it. That in the darkness quote at the entrance to Blogger has been bothering me for some time but it's been just too hot to look it up. I knew I'd read it somewhere. Mind you, it isMerlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1060547580440263842003-08-10T20:33:00.000Z2003-08-10T20:33:00.346ZRecord broken at 2.43 this pm at Heathrow airport - 37.9C, 100F - hottest temperature recorded in Britain ever. Too hot.Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1060527922145285312003-08-10T15:05:00.000Z2003-08-10T15:07:33.376ZHeard on the radio that we have today finally broken our previous national record for temperature, which was somewhere around 99F - and, the weather-person continued smugly in his no doubt air-conditioned office - temperatures will continue to rise during the afternoon.
I find myself fantasising about flurries of snow, and winter boots, and long woolly scarves! I find myself imagining how nice Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1060518568521012902003-08-10T12:29:00.000Z2003-08-10T12:29:28.420Z(This bit was written on or about last Thursday. I emailed it home to myself and forgot about it. Skip down 2 entries for the most recent.)
Mist in our veins, snow on our boots
We’re having a heat-wave, but we’re still winter people. Even wading through a heat so still and thick that just to move is enough to bring a body out in a sweat, still we have in the back of our minds memories of Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1060518451263701072003-08-10T12:27:00.000Z2003-08-10T12:29:48.563Z(This bit was written on or about last Monday. I emailed it home to myself and then forgot about it.)
It’s 92 degrees in the office so presumably even more outside. The solicitors next door allowed their staff to go home at 5.00 but we had to sweat it out till 5.30. We did get ice creams in the middle of the afternoon because it’s one of the Partners’ birthday, but the chilling effect didn’t Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1060518172376266552003-08-10T12:22:00.000Z2003-08-10T12:24:22.513ZCan't believe it's been a week since I last posted an entry. It's just been so hot, it's a pain to move. Poor Rosie has had diarroeha (if that's how you spell it - can't face looking it up at the moment) ever since she arrived and so I'm taking her back to the vets tomorrow morning to try and get it sorted out. So, it's been one long round of washing, scrubbing little blobs of the carpet etc, Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1059934679257782382003-08-03T18:17:00.000Z2003-08-03T18:22:32.273ZKitten arrived about 10 to 4 yesterday after a long journey from Norfolk and hours stuck on the M25, but seemed OK. It's tiny, though obviously not just born because it's eyes are open and no longer blue, which I think means they are weaned. It's very affectionate and by some miracle doesn't seem to be afraid of my cats, even the two huge ginger toms. It drinks a lot of cat-milk and eats some Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1059768426619383022003-08-01T20:07:00.000Z2003-08-01T20:08:48.293ZKittengate
I am going to be in so much trouble with Mum and Dad - I've agreed to another cat, well, a kitten. Catherine, the girl I work for, rang up from Norfolk and said she had found it on the road and couldn't find an owner and did I know anyone who could give it a home, and of course ... oh, that'll make five - six if you count Frodo. They don't know whether it's a boy or a girl, it's Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1059507054459332892003-07-29T19:30:00.000Z2003-07-29T19:37:06.236ZA bit of a muddle all round
It's not that I have forgotten you, my regular readers (if I have any!) it's just that my life is a bit of a muddle at the moment and in working to sort it out I have got very tired. Well, I am a poor old biddy after all, and somewhat lacking in stamina. Also, because I've been so busy I haven't been able to read much, or go through the Review looking for Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1059162007675476832003-07-25T19:40:00.000Z2003-07-25T19:43:28.960ZI haven't yet got back into driving mode. I have the car, but I still think in terms of having to catch the bus. Like it suddenly occurred to me this morning that I could go to Sainsburys, I could go and sit in the wood again with a flask of tea. So many places have simply been outside my universe for months. I had almost forgotten they existed. And yet it almost seems like tempting fate to Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1058906462397801622003-07-22T20:41:00.000Z2003-07-22T20:44:04.876ZA day distinguished by having almost NOTHING to do. I tried going slow of course, but there's a limit to how much time you can waste without annoying other people, who have got work. Had to go round asking for scraps and got landed with deeds scheduling. Next to filing, the task I least enjoy. But tomorrow afternoon is the firm's French trip, upon which I am not going ("Up with this I will Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1058819642293481942003-07-21T20:34:00.000Z2003-07-21T20:39:28.070ZStrange, muddly times at the moment. Working some 'temp' hours at weekends, in an office block on the outskirts of town. Very modern, not a bad design but ugly coloured brick, deserted, silent. Lone gatekeeper in a concrete bunker at the edge of a huge, empty carpark, waiting to sign people in, smoking endless cigarettes and stubbing them out in a saucer. watching CCTV footage of locked doors Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5302529.post-1058466768574439212003-07-17T18:32:00.000Z2003-07-17T18:32:48.476ZCat dreams
I dreamed about Frodo the other night. That’s nothing unusual – I have been dreaming about cats since 1973, and they’re not usually happy dreams. Sometime the cat has escaped in a strange place – in one dream Kitten had got out of some French windows in America, and I was going to have to search the whole of America to find her – I was distraught. Sometimes I have poisoned the cat Merlynnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583163701715268501noreply@blogger.com