S.C.U.M.

Along with ‘Achilles Heel’ was a copy of ‘S.C.U.M. (Society for Cutting Up Men) MANIFESTO’ by Valerie Solanas.

Published in 1971 she had already shot Andy Warhol and her sanity was questioned. Everything about her that I have read so far, including her manifesto, reminds me strongly of the character Helga in Heimat who joined the left wing terrorist organisation Baader-Meinhoff. She even looks like the actress chosen to play Helga. Always in love, attention-seeking, always intense, mostly angry, her search for the unattainable (in whatever form) drives her into more and more radical paths until she forsakes art for politics and begins killing. Maybe Valerie Solanas had that same restless passionate discontent. I wonder if the character of Helga owed anything to Valerie.

There is a very good introduction to ‘Manifesto’ by Vivian Gornick which is easier to read than the rant itself. This claim for the Women’s Liberation movement particularly interested me:

The Point of Women’s Liberation’ is not to stand at the door of the male world beating our fists and crying “Let me in damn you, let me in!” The point is to walk away from that world and concentrate on creating a new woman who will take no place in that world, a woman who will make that world fall merely by refusing to populate it, a woman who will remake herself - and her daughters - in a far more divine image (i.e. more recognisably human) than the one she now occupies.

If that truly was the point of WL then it has utterly failed. Women are still battering at the door yelling ‘Let me in. Let me do what you do. Provide crèches so we can park our babies. Pay me equally for what doing what YOU do but give me more maternity allowance. Don’t penalise me for being a women (in fact treat me better than men).’ Only young women in extreme situations (Malalai Joya for one ) are challenging the world created (or so WL would have claimed) by men. So far we have bred Margaret Thatcher and Condoleeza Rice. Women doing men’s job’s like men.

Maybe that’s fine too - we’re all human beings struggling to make a living and hack out a life for ourselves and our families. It just gives the lie to what was generally thought back in the day that to give women power would change the world.

The position of women in society never really entered my consciousness and when it did, through the media, it was of academic interest. I hadn’t wanted a career badly enough to care who got more pay than me, I wanted a secure home and a family. My husband was far better suited to provide the security I hankered for than I was, and I was better at cooking. I didn’t mind spending the day watching the infants in the park, getting up at night to see to them etc. and etc. I would have minded having to go out to work and leave them for someone else to look after, which is what so often happens now. Why have the children in the first place if I was going to hand them over to another woman? Added to this I had always perceived women as the centre, the ruling force even, of their world. My mother’s will was paramount in our household. In the homes of relatives and my parents friends I saw much the same thing happening. The women were queens in their houses and everything happened in relations to their wishes; everything rotated around them. The men I came into contact with may have had power in their work life but took a back seat in the household, furthermore the work they did was FOR the household so that meant they were constrained by their wives and the needs of the children to work at whatever job they could find.

Valerie Gornick acknowledges this last point: “However when it’s all over what one is really left with is a deep and widening sadness for all of us - men and women - caught as we all are in the labyrinthine mazes of sexism. For, quite apparently, the men described by Solanas’ fire and ice are as much prisoners as they are jailers, as much victims as they are victimisers, as much the bewildered dupes of their own superior position in the system as they are its profiteers.

It looks from where I'm sitting as if the movement succeeded in its pratical and political aims (rights, pay, creches etc.) but failed to achieve the aspirations of its sub-text. Both men and women seem to be suffering in their roles now - exhausted, stressed, struggling to live up to expectations, their own and those of society, and struggling to make ends meet. It ain't good.

Achilles heel

I'm now the proud owner of the first issue of this organ. It makes interesting reading. I was too busy having babies and being an ex-pat wife to even know of its existence at the time. The story of my lfe. It seems to have run for 7 issues then folded until 1987 after which it ran steadily until 1999. I can't believe that what it set out to do has been accomplished. It aimed to create a discussion forum and support for men in an era when the defining roles of the sexes were blurring, the power of men over women was diminishing and masculinity was becoming a bad word. Inspired by the women's movements of the time and Spare Rib its opening chapter takes example from the tediously gynaecological tone of women's magazines and talks openly, frankly and at length about men's bits. I never knew they were prone to so many nasty infections and problems!

The opulent, succulent, potentate of the vegetable world. (Or is it a fruit?)

Subpersonalities again.

I really should be trying to get some sleep because I’m very tired but the day doesn’t seem complete without a visit to the journal. The new yoga regime is waking me up in the mornings and I get so much done by the time the shop opens that the day seems bottom heavy with activity. When I finally I sat myself behind the counter today I had driven the g’son over to his pony and done an enormous amount of shopping, mostly in preparation for the week with the family in the time share lodge in Ballater. The mother in me cannot let this opportunity pass without lots of home cooking which will have to be done in this house, frozen and carted over there because I also want to be able to help with the babes. My programme of cooking for the next ten days is daunting. I wish I could rid myself of this subpersonality who has to cook for everyone, but she is very strong.

The way these subpersonalities haunt us - that’s turned into a theme for this week, beginning on Sunday when I watched John Cassavetes ‘Opening Night’ in which an ageing actress Myrtle, played by Gena Rowlands, is reacting badly to a new lead role as the older woman. She drinks heavily and generally messes up as she battles with this transition. She is literally knocked around by her younger self in the hallucinatory form of a young girl, a fan of the actress, who was killed in a car accident after one of the performances. It was all too easy to relate to that battle with the young self who is angry at having to die.

On Monday a young friend whose gender foxed me for two days when we first met at a workshop came into the shop. A puckish, funny, self-deprecating creature, she was meant for the theatre I think and hankers to be there, whilst trying to be ‘grown up’ and a massage therapist. She entertained me with a spontaneous performance, quite good enough for the Edinburgh fringe, of her battle with the seventeen year old boy who lives in her, sabotaging her professional mien and generally driving her nutty. Strangely and very sadly a young boy she shared a house with a year or two back was killed in a car crash. That affected her badly and took her a long time to get over.

People’s lives - I see a lot of them from my seat amongst the books. A lovely friendly kindly lady, who is literally a ‘Lady’ but would never ever make anyone aware of that, brought in some books to show me in the hope I could buy them because her children, she is sure, will not appreciate them, have only small houses and, what she doesn’t say but somehow says, have taken paths in life that are beyond her understanding. The son when I last heard of him was clowning (literally) in France. He used to run a restaurant in town rather well and maybe is back in that business, but anyway is an eccentric, very charming. One daughter has lead a colourful, rather frenetic life, often teetering on the edge of looking quite mad, living once for a while in a gypsy caravan; another married a very ordinary local lad and is leading a very normal ordinary life in a small house with several children. None of them however are doing what their mother and father, he the head of a house with a long and illustrious history, might have expected them to be doing. I don’t think she minds, she is just a little bemused.


I did once locate a subpersonality who is a nun but I’ve no martyrdom in my make-up whatsoever. I have so much admiration for Malalai Joya who is speaking out against the ‘war lords’ in her country Afghanistan in the face of death threats. It’s hard to imagine being so motivated to speak a truth that death seems a small price to pay. I don’t even like it much if speaking my truth makes me a bit unpopular. I just hope they listen - Obama et al - but hold little hope. There was so much mulch in the press about the ‘Last Tommy’ dying and the need to keep their memory alive but very little mention of his opinion of war and warmongering.

Enough already...

Something fishy.

Help urgently needed. I was given a very lovely, very long, string of wooden beads for my birthday. They go with everything and I love wearing them except - when warmed by proximity to my body they smell fishy. The first time I noticed it I was holding g'son the 3rd and blamed his nappy. Instructions say not to spray with perfume - which is fishy in itself as I suspect instructions are the result of disturbed owners spraying for the same reason so WHY DON'T THEY CHANGE THEIR GLUE OR PAINT OR WHATEVER??

It's Monday. I'm grumpy. I found out yesterday that anything ending in 'ise' should read 'ize'. Now I thought that was an americanised (sorry, ized) spelling and have been avoiding it for years supercilliously.

That's what you get for watching day-time TV (Morse in this case).

It has stopped raining which is lovely but I have to sit in the shop which isn't and just shows someone is out to get at me personally.

On top of that - my body is screaming. A bit of yoga for a couple of mornings never did this in the past. What is different now?

Don't answer that.

Added later: Maybe Morse was wrong about the 'ise'v 'ize' question. 'ise' seems to be the good old British way, but that's terrible. He solved a crime on the strength of his knowledge of the dic. re ise/ize. (Which dic? Not sure but surely British?) Oh dear. All my foundations are crumbling. My sense of identity is threatened....

The benefits of a slow week.

Whilst my fellow bloggers have been getting out and about I have been sitting somewhat grumpily in the shop so have no photos to show of airy places or fascinating heritage. Oh well. The off-shoot of all this doing-nothing-without-even-a-computer-to-amuse-me has been an effort to return to the morning meditation-and-yoga routine of the olden days. It did feel rather like coming home. The yoga was easier the first day of course, after that the body stiffened and became more resistant. I shall try to overcome my natural distaste for routine and persist. It has the undeniable attractions of being both cost-free and energising.

Yoga is the only excercise I have ever enjoyed. I do love the feeling of stretching my body and getting all the messages from it; also the focus it generates. No competition from anyone else. Lots of satisfaction. This week I was also interested to hear the g'son say about archery that it was his 'best sport' next to riding. Coming from an almost-11 year old who might be expected to want fast-moving, competitive, high impact stuff I thought that was quite encouraging. Archery involves the same sort of body-mind focus as yoga as far as I can tell. To discover the pleasure in that is to have an ever-present resource for satisfaction and renewal.

Memo to self.

Pigs might fly.

I did catch myself thinking that this might be my last autumn/winter on earth as the chances of my lungs coping with swine flu seem remote. However after a chat with the doctor about the availibility of Tamiflu and the onset of a vaccination programme (my turn comes in the third wave) it seems I might not have to succumb. When I'm really bored (as I probably will be at about 3pm today for instance) I wonder why continuing to exist is so important but curiousity pulls one on.

I've been putting a little thought into what I might plinth (it just HAS to become a verb now: To plinth: to express; to communicate; to showcase; to give form; to provoke thought...

Don't hold your breath. So far I have come up with nothing.

Monday morning blues.

After a thoroughly nice weekend (carvery at a local hostelry on Sunday) I woke yesterday with the mother of all depressions hanging above my head. Now where did THAT come from? Not hormones surely, but the chemical composition of our bodies can't be discounted. Maybe it was that delicious dark chocolate pot with kirsch cherries.I rarely feel like chocolate but when I do it has to be good (like the chilli choc recently.)

It didn't help to remember the Banksy painting of the starving African waifs in their T-shirts with "I hate Mondays' across their shrunken chests. Guilt doesn't dissipate gloom.

With the cloud hanging over me it was bound to be a bad day in the shop, but right at the end, just when I thought my backside couldn't take any more sitting upon, a chap came in looking for H V Morton books. I had the two he wanted, 'In Search of England' the very first that this eventually prolific young journalist and poetic travel writer wrote when he had taken a tour around the country in his Morris named Maud. The copy I had to offer was a Folio Soc. and thus rather more expensive than it might have been. The other was 'In Search of Ireland.' Happy customer, happy patron. Day not entirely a waste.

H.V became a bit of a joke with booksellers. 'In Search of..' titles were fetching up in scruffy condition everywhere for a while and it was popular to try to catch each other out with news of a bogus find - 'In Search of Transylvania' might be an example. A dubious title would appear amongst a list of the Morton's for sale in the once essential, pre-internet, magazines for booksellers where books available and books wanted could be found. Never say we book dealers don't have sense of humour.

The nice Red Cross manager K sent me in a couple of boxes of annuals to tempt me. I wasn't much tempted - don't have the space - but did pull out a few copies of "Ideal Book for Boys' from a long-past era. I'll post some pics when I get my camera back. The illustrations alone are enjoyable - to me anyway.

Brahma Kumaris

K & I went to a very nice session given by a young Indian women from the Brahma Kumaris centre in Oxford. It was odd be part of such a group in what felt like a board-room situation in Elgin library but ultimately very invigorating and positive. The talk was on restoring, or finding, confidence in oneself and the importance of so doing.

Neither of us checked out BK before we went. In retrospect I'm surprised K didn't as she is quite hostile to any path not Christian in base - very critical of the Foundation down the road for instance. I'm glad I didn't. It might have got in the way of a really pleasant and helpful afternoon. Now I have checked and ... well, for me what I have read won't stop me going to their meditation course to be held in the Budhist Retreat Centre locally in September. I don't think it will stop me benefitting from it either. Further than that I shan't go. According to Wikki they believe in the coming Destruction during which most will perish and the Earth will renew itself populated only by the 900.000 Hindi speakers who will survive as gods and goddesses.

It was started as an all-female sect, the Daughters of Krishna, and even now there are few men involved. Chastity is considered necessary for purity of thought and the channelling process their meditation aspires to. Breaking away from the family is also recommended as a way to find the true soul self. We are not the identities that seem so important to us, mother, sister, artist, book seller, old, young, English, whatever. None of these define us. Finding our soul, which is existing beyond the distractions of the earthly is what we are here for. I have to say I don't follow last bit.. why leave the place in which we are only soul in order to find it again? Does the soul benefit from the experience on earthg? I'm sure I can find the answer somewhere..

As I've experienced in the past, the vessel doesn't always matter - it's what's inside that counts and the woman who spoke yesterday definately carried something profound and beautiful in herself.

It's worth a shot.

Booted up

I enjoyed the boot sale although boots were there none as it was peeing down with rain. Only the indoor mart was functioning. The first person I saw was the excellent mole-catching drum major who has the cleanest and best organised stall of the lot. We had a friendly exchange and I found several titles to buy, just for me really, amongst them 'How to Drink Wine out of Fish Heads While Cooking Lobster in a Volkswagon Hubcap' which will make an appropriate pressent for my son who has a VW van kitted out to take his surf boards, windsurfers and his sleeping body when overnighting somewhere. I also found, elsewhere, a Reginald Hill 1st ed. of a Dalzeil and Pascoe I haven't read and a couple of local books that will sit well on the shelves. There was quite a nice facsimile of 'The Beggar's Opera,' Dominic Behan's 'Life and Times of Spike Milligan' an Observers Book of Heraldry and so on, and so on. Disconcertingly, when I was half way round the stalls I was greeted with 'Oh you're the dealer. I've got some 1st editions here you'll like.' Yikes. No such thing as incognito in small towns. I didn't like his 1sts anyway. Too grubby and scuffed. And actually not 1sts either. I needed a bath when I got home.

It takes two to blether.

Looking for a book to replace the Stieg Larsson an unlikely candidate popped up - ‘Gillian the Dreamer’ by Neil Munro. Munro probably wins the prize for the ‘most unread’ author in my collection of Scottish authors, certainly unread by me. I have judged that past Scots writers who didn’t make it on the international scene probably didn’t make it for good reasons that have nothing to do with the dastardly English conspiracy blamed by many, and I’ve yet to feel that’s an unfair judgement. However a friend urged me to read this particular book because it’s her favourite, the hero reminding her strongly of herself. This lad sees things differently to other people and is dismissed by most as unfit to live in his world, impractical and useless. In the pre-Napoleonic War days, before the loss of the Gaelic traditions, he might have become a bard but by the time he is grown there is no place for him. My friend tells me she felt like that as she grew up. She is an artist now and has found her niche, is allowed to be who and as she wants to be, both by herself and those charmed by her art. She is most comfortable reading Victorian fiction, loves Dickens, loves the Scots writers I dismiss in so cavalier a fashion, has recently embarked into the Restoration plays, is not of this world.

I confess I haven’t yet managed to get into the book but I’ll make an effort for her sake and also because thoughts of ‘To the Lighthouse’ have given me a different perspective on the people around me, a perspective which I hope will last at least for a while now. Lily Briscoe, the artist in TTL, sees Mrs Ramsay as the lynch-pin in their group, and tries to paint her, to put her feelings about her into the composition. Mr. Ramsay and the odious Charles Tansley scarcely see her at all, in fact they scarcely see anything that is going on around them, only the intellectualising that is going on in their heads. Tansley anyway dismisses women as incapable of producing anything meaningful in art.

Now Virginia had an axe to grind, as did many women of her generation (and we have to be grateful that they honed it so sharp). This axe causes her to present the tableaux within her novel with the subtitles: Women are discounted as important; men are talking heads.

That’s all a bit too simplistic in my opinion (and VW can never be accused of that sin in a final assessment. I’m only extracting bits now for the sake of my thought-line). I see the interaction between the men and women in this novel more as a result of personality differences, but that doesn’t mean a very important section of humanity isn’t getting overlooked. They are the listeners; the observers; the seers. They don’t form policies or express thoughts in a way that changes the world order, they are simply catalysts who, by gentle degrees, enable others to do that. In VW's novel they are the women but recently I’ve been noticing some men in the groups around me who were performing the same function, observing, enabling, supporting, and doing it almost unconsciously, with absolutely no motives or agenda that they have consciously formulated; they simply do it. Without them the memorable moments would not have happened, the group may even have failed, there being no cohesive element to hold it together.

I always come back to the same observation: Many can talk; very few can listen.

Yesterday a chap came into the shop at the same time as the local minister and joined in our conversation (it’s such a small space that that is almost inevitable behaviour; maybe I should call the shop 'The Wee Blether'). Once the minister left this man continued to talk for nearly two hours. If he had been boring or hard work I would have found a way to extract myself (there was no way HE was going to extract himself) but he was actually very interesting, having spent time in the US and in Belarus from whence his wife hails. As I know nothing about Russia and am always interested in people’s reactions to the overgrown and rather scary spawn of our loins across the Atlantic I enjoyed what he had to tell me. The hands-on reality of life in Belarus seems to be in marked contrast to the life now lived in our country and the States where there is less and less direct connection between money, food and labour. Money is represented by plastic cards; the labour involved in making it is done through numbers on a computer; food is shrink-wrapped commodity to be found in the supermarket and bought with the plastic.

The Talker told me that his mother-in-law earned three fields from the communist party for her work with them, her area still being run on largely communistic lines. One field produces potatoes for trade (to eat and make vodka). One field is for grazing; one for growing vegetables for the table but also for trade. She tills them herself. This is the norm. There is industry but little export. The land is still being ‘cleaned’ of caesium-137 fall-out from Chernobyl. There’s no internet connection where his ma-in-law lives, and to get a mobile phone to work involves climbing onto the roof of the house. Another world, yet not Africa!

Less enjoyable were some of the facts about Belarus during WW2 when the Nazis killed 2 - 3 million of the population (about a third) and destroyed 209 out of 290 cities. Sometimes it becomes hard to forgive the Germans their efficiency at everything they undertake.

It also brings me to another train of thought...

but that’s enough for now.

The Lighthouse

I had no idea, when I was walking the dog and trying ineffectually, to help Sandy fly his kite (Is it a man thing, kite flying? I just get in knots) that the lighthouse we could see from the dunes was THE lighthouse of Virginia Woolf fame and the beach around it up for sale - now sold at £70000 I think). I still remember the impact that book had on me when I read it 46 years ago (oh help!) It was the first novel I'd read that was at once poetic yet still a novel, many-layered, peopled with characters I came to know intimately and in some case (Charles Tansley) to hate with a frustrated, impotent, fury.

I wasn't to be a mother for another 10 years or more but I felt Mrs Ramsay's irritation and distress as her husband callously, thoughtlessly, with gloomy forecasts of inclement weather, destroyed the hopes and dreams of James, their young son, who so wanted an expedition to the Lighthouse the following day.

The other more complex themes I suppose I've either experienced myself or watched others going through in the many years that have passed since that first reading. The position of people who apparently arrive spontanteously and haphazardly into our lives and the influence they have over our subsequent passage, or the more permanent personalities we almost deny affecting us (I'm thinking of Mr. Ramsey here who, once cut adrift without his wife, suffered the anguish and fear which he scarcely acknowledged she had been softening and cushioning for him all their married life.)

The book has been a touch-stone for me - but rarely acknowledged for its influence on my life.

Pottering along.

A pleasantly social week so far. I caught up with J over wine and nibbles Tuesday and with K last eve. The first mentioned is much as usual, back at work after an operation on her inner ear and planning a trip to Mexico in the autumn. She works as a sort of concierge to a block of retirement home flats she calls 'Happy Valley'. K has a new addition to her household, a very pretty young cat. Perhaps it was the cat's witchy presence that caused us to have a slightly hysterical evening; the grilled salmon got dropped on the floor (very useful for puss) and I spilled a whole cup of coffee over a beautiful pale bue tablecloth. Apart from - or maybe because of - all that we had fun.

In the shop there have been a few tourists and one elderly gentleman who browsed long and intently the Scottish stock, raising my hopes for a sale but spending a modest £3.50 eventually. He was good value in other ways though, jovially telling me of the falsehoods in some of the accepted local source-books. He is an historian of some note it seems and amused by local councils (Perth was mentioned) who ignore the facts in order to have centenial anniversaries when it suits their calendar rather than when they should arise.

On the whole I am thanking the Overlighting Ones it's Friday and looking forward to visiting the car boot and indoor mart in Elgin tomorrow to scare up some stock. If I'm going to keep this shop going again I'll have to make an effort. I had one very nice surprise. In a 'what's on' publication for the Grampian area there is a page of advertisements for the other secondhand bookshops in the area (the ones who weren't planning to close this year) and there is my shop too, appearing as a recommended 'small but perfectly formed' place to visit - all for free!! That seldom happens. They say the owners (sic) have a good sense of humour, which I hope all my regulars, who laterly might have found me a bit on the surly side, will believe.

I'm deep into the first Stieg Larsson now. Very absorbing. Not sure what it says about me but I can take the sexual violence (as mentioned by Chillsider) in the context of the tale without it doing more than make me shudder, as of course it should.

Sleepless in Scotland.

It seems I'm back to being unable to settle at night. in Cornwall I was so exhausted at the end of each day I was unconscious within minutes. Melatonin does the trick with no hang-overs but can't be found off-prescription here stupidly enough. G'son was prescribed it so I had a couple of his to try before we went away and each time got a good seven hours kip. I tried Nytol but it knocked me out for half the next day and then I noticed that it's contra-indicated for asthmatics. I can't serously believe it would be strong enough to cause one to sleep so deeply as to forget to struggle for breath, the organism has a will to survive doesn't it? Nevertheless, once I'd seen the words I was too chicken to try again.

I've spent the time reorganising the shop, at least in my head, and now am about to do something physical toward the changes. The paperback and Book Club fiction is going to be 'Read & Return'as prompted by the shop friend Neil has taken over in Exeter. Seemed to be a popular move with the customers who were told about it yesterday. I just have to iron out some details. 'One price fits all' I think is the way to go, then there will be no temptation to alter the price. Though I don't think many folk would bother there are always one or two..... To be able to purchase a new copy of 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' for £3.99 from Amazon (and no postage) when I spent £12.99 on the 'Played with Fire' tome was a bit horrendous for us bookdealers who have to pay for the copies on our shelves. The choice would be to give up fiction altogether or do this thing. Fiction is popular so that doesn't seem the best way.

The other random thought that came to mind, which has nothing at all to do with books, is that we are very badly served with clothes shops in this end of the country. Shops that sell clothes that fit my odd shape in other words (and I can't be the only one surely?) In Ludlow I had not a single thought in my head about visiting the castle only spending a glorious half hour or so browsing a tiny shop on three floors with German, French and Italian labels that actually manage to look interesting whilst still being graceful, well cut, in good material and not TOO expensive. Without much money to spare I had to restrict myself to one jacket but oh how my wardrobe would change if I didn't have to make do with the conventional stuff sold in these towns.

Between the shafts again.

So today I sat through my hours in the shop waiting for time to pass, doing crosswords and sudoku, wishing I had a book to read. At Bristol airport I paid the horrendous full price for Steig Larsson's 'The Girl Who Played with Fire' and finally found out what a number of my customers had been telling me before I went away - that this Scandinavian wrote great crime fiction. I've just ordered the earlier book in the Millenium trilogy at a much more modest price knowing, sadly, that I won't be doing the author out of any royalties because he died before he could know just what a hit they were to become. There wasn't much time to read whilst I was away so his story kept me going each night until the return journey when I had to borrow a P.D.James from the hotel shelves. It seemed tame stuff in comparison. The characters became real people for me. I'm half in love with Blomkvist the male protagonist and fond, growing fonder of the difficult, brilliant, Lisbeth Salander. I don't think it matters at all that I have read the second first.

But, for the moment, no book to read so I automatically filled in clues and reflected on the past couple of weeks. Other things have happened beside the family celebrations, karting and the Flambard experience. For instance daughter No. 2 was not part of the cull of 100 that Penguin has been forced to make. Very fortunate for her but sad for colleagues who have to 'reapply for their jobs.' This seems to be the soft option (for whom?) Not immediate redundancy but competition for the decreasing number of positions available. Rather like musical chairs only much less fun.

I've also seen two really good recently (fairly recently... recently for me..) released films. Firstly,'The Reader' in which Kate Winslet, of whom I always expect much, was brilliant and made me proud. It should have been grim to watch, and was, but also touching and tender. Surprising in the circumstances. If I'd known in advance about the woman she portrayed I wouldn't have believed that possible.

Then Woody Allen's 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona' which I loved too. I've never rated Penelope Cruz much - she might be terrific in the Spanish films she's made but I haven't seen them and she hasn't been more than an interesting face in the US roles IMO. In this she was perfect. Evidently she enjoyed being quite mad. The story line was thought-provoking. Two women with widely differing ideals of love, the one who opts for passion and romance (which can only continue to exist when the connection is unfulfilled) seems finally to be the stronger as she has accepted pain to be a companion of her chosen way, whilst the other sees boredom and regret ahead of her on the path but takes it anyway from a lack of courage.

I saw quite a lot of myself in both and had some more of those 'if I could lead my life again' moments throughout! The passion route does demand a more open mind than I have had, along with the aforementioned courage, but also more discernment. If a partner exhibits fondness for someone dull then that should be a warning!

Maybe Hollywood isn't so completely dumb after all. Those two seemed as good as any of the foreign films I've seen.

The day also brought in a 1942 copy of Mein Kampf half-inched by the good lady's husband from Germany during the war. It has an all-black slipcase which makes it look very portentous. In English it would be easy to sell but in German - not so sure.

Pimms moments and others.

The driftwood horse.

The babes.

Both pics taken by cousin Alex. Theo, at 8 months, is gettiing very cross about being face to the ground all the time and won't be long in walking I predict. Lucky parents.

Banksy

A couple of shots I got before I was told not to. Inside the main exhibition hall it was dark - perhaps to simulate the conditions under which he generally worked? The politico-social comments where impressive of course but the one I liked best of all was a painting of Thomas the Tank Engine with his eyes wearily closed and a sardonic curl to his lip suffering a hooded figure to paint on his flanks.

Lots of clever middle class comments from the visitors in the queue around me - sorry Banksie, you are now officially claimed by the Establishment.

Tintern.

There's nothing like a good ruin. So much softer and more atmospheric IMO. Again, not great pics but I'm a sucker for a view through a lancet window. Probably much more beautiful than the original stained glass (though I'm a fan of that too when the light shines through a sliver of blue).

Bad Bun.

Not the best pic in the world but this bunny has to be named and shamed. She (Olive) was rejected by her former owner for kicking him in the unmentionables and causing him to have several painful days off work! She's now in my sons' back yard and approached with great caution.

The Eden Project

Lovely cool looking bananas.

I was amused by the cardomom plant. It's huge but has skinny fragile looking shoots at the bottom which put out really small flowers that turn into the seed pods we eat. Interesting to see chillies growing too (and later to eat the most delicious chili and ginger 80% chocolate). Cinnamon trees,and nutmeg - it was all rather wonderful to be able to see and touch as I'm never going to be in the tropics.

When it came to it I couldn't manage to go up to the top of the Tropical Biome - I felt my lungs and blood pressure just weren't going to cope so drifted around happily on the lower levels whilst they sweated up into the 35+ degrees with 90% saturation at the top. Alex took all these photos for me. The waterfall was spectacular from the top I'm told. Grandad came down still wearing his pullover - that's the stuff we (some) Brits are made of!

The sculptures were fun. Just two here but lots more around and about.

This is what we were there for.

Costa and Georgie promise to be good parents then sign on the line!
Sophie, Chloë, Henrietta (G's sister) and three family friends became un-godly parents (guardians?) making promises to be there for Theo and Fin throughout their lives helping them to grow strong in body, mind and courage. The grandmothers read poems (mine was 'If' by Rudyard Kipling at my request) and then we all had a jolly good feast overlooking the sea and St. Michael's Mount, with lots of champers and oysters (hm..? ), wine, Cornish fishy dishes, yummy puds and cakes after which some people went down to the beach, paddled and swam then, very very tired, we went home.

Vacation over.

Here I am again with the usual resolution never to make that drive by road again - it always lasts until I consider the options the next time.

A very intense fortnight with our entire family and Georgie's entire family and various friends of both parents for the Naming. The boys are now well and truly named and the young prince, formerly known as Sandy, has decided he would like to be Alex and his mother would rather like to be Tabitha. It brought up a lot of stuff!!

It was all very lovely as well as being intense, and I had some First experiences.

Here they are, not necessarily in order of event but as they come to mind.

1) I discovered Compeed. Now this scientific medical marvel will transform a heavily blistered foot into one that can be walked on without pain whilst eliminating the danger of gangrene. I got the HUGEST blister pounding the sizzling pavements of Bristol in search of Banksy (well, gosh there are 4 Bristol City Museums and Art galleries madam... and, yes, they're all up hills...) It was worth it. Couldn't take photos sadly - not allowed flash.

Anyway, Alex-Sandy has appropriated my camera and filled the memory. I suppose I'll get it back eventually.

2) I swallowed my first oyster. The jury is still out on that experience. I've eaten them well-cooked in steak pie before but though this one was supposed to have been cooked I didn't like the feel of it in my mouth. Sluggish. Soft. Shan't be envying any gulls.

3) Visited the Eden Project, which I have done before but this time I got further than the restaurant and gift shop. The first time I went I was with my daughter-in-law and we spent such a long time talking over wine and salad we forgot to visit the biomes. It's a lot bigger now than it was then (5 years ago I think) and extremely crowded. We had to queue for everything, including lunch. The tropical biome was impressive but as the day was stinking hot the mediterranian bubble was cooler inside than out.

4) On the way down I stopped in Monmouth and saw the 12th century Mappa Mundi & the chained library. The cathedral was so wonderfully cool and the heat outside so cruelly hot at the time I thought I might sleep there along with the effigies of crusaders and knights. I stopped in Ludlow and at Tintern and browsed happily along the Wye valley knowing I was still en route but avoiding the excitement of Birmingham traffic.

5) On the way back I had finally allowed myself to be talked into travelling with Jane the Satnav lady and am completely charmed. My ex was also impressed and like all men who love gadgets was wondering if he could justify getting one. He hardly travels fUrther than 10 miles in any direction nowadays though so probably not. His first comment: 'At last a woman who only speaks when she has something useful to say.'

With two daughters, a wife and an Ex he's living dangerously coming out with that sort of remark.

Nothing else new to this wordly-wise granny. I had a wonderful B&B and learned a lot about the underbelly of Cornish life. The landlady's daughter is being bullied by local girls who gave her such hell at school she had to leave so now goes to a school in the next town, but she's still jumped on when walking from her bus to home and kicked. These charming specimins of femininity have also burned the faces of fourteen year old boys in the skate board park with lighters. Nobody seems to be able to do anything about it. The Head of the school washes her hands of it, the police have never got enough witnesses. The girls are third generation scumbag families who pick fights in the pubs at night - the mothers that is. The daughters eventually make their way up the ladder and break away from it all by marrying drug dealers. As Costa and Georgie have both had their cars trashed whilst in Cornwall I am SOOOO glad to be back in Forres. My verdict is as ever - bits of England are very nice but much too crowded.

The Lakes and moors I saw from the M6 looked empty and beautiful 'tis true.

This little town looked beautiful when I arrived after 500 miles of hard road (I stopped somewhere in Shropshire.) The High Street was calm and pretty with its summer flower baskets, the beautifully manicured lawns in front of the church edged with very healthy looking annuals of every colour. It seems to have rained a lot upp this end of the world.

There was Karting for Alex and the Flambards Experience (roller coasters and demon drops and so forth) and a world of babydom which will eventually find its way in pictures to this place. Today I have to chill, take baths - several I think - and sort clothes.

The car needs attention too. It limped rather on the home run. It had been grumpy about the 750 mile drive down when all it was expecting last Monday week was a Tesco expedition (yes, yes, I anthropomorphosise my car). On the way back - before we got to Bristol airport to unload the flyers - it started coughing and The Light came on. I have no idea what this light means, something to do with 'engine management' but, whatever, it flashed constantly for the next 650 miles and the engine started to feel as if it had fur balls it needed to get rid of. It lost power just when I was about to do something essential like overtake farm machinery and altogether was a bit of a drag, but we made it. I suppose it has to go into the garage on monday. I'll also have to get the gull pooh off it. Hayle gulls have unerring aim and a very dodgy diet. They are (I swear) twice as big as gulls here and have warning notices about themselves all over the coastal towns. They'll lift food from your mouth if you don't get it in fast enough (wish I'd thought of that before I popped the oyster in come to think of it).