journal of a writing man

Tuesday July 31, 2007

A somewhat disjointed day, marked by the accomplishment of two major desirables.

First, Graham came out of the doctor’s clutching a pack of powerful oral antibiotics prescribed to blitz the stye prior to an appointment with an ocu-something-or-other consultant with an aim to get rid of the darn thing once and for all. Hoorah!

Second, the gas engineer came to give the heating and hot water installation its annual service and to issue the system with a certificate giving it a clean bill of health. Now our continued warmth is assured, and I have one of the pieces of paper ready for the house sale.

Graham came down stairs this afternoon, saying: “We’re not going to have a problem selling this house. It looks really good.”

On timing, however, he’s leaning back towards the original idea of doing an over-winter clean-up and marketing job on the house, sticking with the holiday camp until the end of the season and through to the New Year. He makes the point that, by the time he’s worked his notice, he’ll be through the heaviest part of the season anyway.

Which is fine. Has to be.

In a perverse way I rather like the uncertainty. There’s no real uncertainty in retired life unless it’s imposed by externals.

On the strictly unimportant side of the ledger, I was delighted to see that Amazon will have the complete boxed set of Northern Exposure in October so I’ve booked a copy and, by hook or by crook, intend to find it in my stocking for Christmas.  Graham tells me that the second series of Rome, now finished, will be available in another boxed set in September.  I intend to have that, too. Then, much as I hate to say it, I shall have all of my truly loved TV drama series on the shelf, ready for a constant cycle of one show a day when I need it. I’ve not actually reckoned it up but the probability is that it comes to a year, more or less. Which is just as well. There’s precious little on TV otherwise.

I have a really heavy poem itch going on at the moment. Rather uncomfortable, it is.

Early this morning I looked closely at Graham’s eye, to find it much improved. The antibiotic is working, just as it always does once we can persuade a doctor to prescribe it.

I don’t really mean it, of course, but if they offered me an antibiotic guaranteed to eliminate the poetry itch, I’d be sorely tempted. I’d refuse the offer in the end, of course, but oh, it’d be nice to just sit back in the sun, smile happily, and let the world go about its business whilst I go about mine. Poem-making is the stitch-work that joins the world about me with the pleasant place in which I live. I’d not truly want to have the seams come undone.

Monday July 30, 2007

“Have you finished cleaning?” Graham asked at about 10 o’clock yesterday evening.

“Probably.”

“What kind of answer is that?”

“Best you’re going to get. Whaddya want?”

“My stye’s come up again and the staff sent me home. Would you like to come over and fetch me?”

“Ah. Poor sausage. Yup, I’m on my way.”

This stye is getting to be beyond a joke.  It’s clearly stress-related but that doesn’t dimish the thing. When I got there the upper eyelid looked like something from a bad boxing movie, with an enormous head that looked like it was about to burst. He was bathing it in a hot antiseptic solution, and looking dreadful.

It burst not long after we got home.

“You really must go see the doctor about it, and don’t let yourself be fended off with another useless ointment.”

“Okay. Promise.”

This morning, though, his resolve weakened, and I had to resort to gentle but remorseless nagging. He has an appointment for this evening. I hate the thought that I’m become an effective nagger.

Sunday July 29, 2007

Oh dear. The poetry’s come back. That means I wander about the place, blundering against words, sounds and sights, and acting like a demented bath sponge on Radox. Hey ho. A stiff upper lip will doubtless see me through the attack.

I suppose I ought to be more serious about it. Sorry. Can’t manage to keep a straight face when I think about poetry.  It’s a strange game, with no winners.  Or perhaps it’s more a matter of everybody wins.

So. I was standing at the kitchen window yesterday, looking at the sky, and there was a tiny, transient patch of blue. Gave me another poem. Thank you, Muse.

SWALLOW
 
In an only too rare
patch of blue sky
a single swallow
dreams
of summer.
 
John Bailey
Somerset, July 2007

Saturday July 28, 2007

There’s peculiar, as the little old Welshman said when they built a Hindu temple in Llanpumpsaint. Today the date trickled off my fingers like it’d been waiting urgently for release. There’s no understanding these things. Mind you, I’m not sure I really want to come to anything more than a working understanding of my brain. Or anything, really, Not just yet, anyhow.

I think it must have rained at some point since yesterday morning for there’s a large squelchy patch in the grass that wasn’t there when I cut the grass on Tuesday;  no actual water on the surface but a careful press of the foot and there it is.  The worst of the rain is over for a while now so natural drainage will take it away, hopefully.  Meantime I’m avoiding walking on it.  So far the grass looks perfectly happy.

There’s a lot of squelch about these days, and we’re a lot better off here in Somerset than many places around the Kingdom.  Even so, like most Brits just now, I cast an anxious eye up at the sky when the clouds gather, and every time I drive over the bridge I check the river levels.  Nothing seems much different than my observations from last year except then it was sunny and hot and now, mostly, it’s wet and pleasantly cool.

I grow weary of hearing government spokesmen and ‘infrastructure experts’ telling us that the weather has been ‘exceptional’ and ‘unprecedented’ and that the resulting floods could not have been prevented.

Well, mayhap. It’s the exceptional and the unprecedented in life that justifies us having a government at all.  I have to tell you that if nothing exceptional or unprecedented ever happened we’d need no more government than a dozy policeman in each village to chase stray dogs and act upon vagrant, summer-dreaming swallows. If you lot don’t jolly well get something done to fix the drainage systems PDQ we’ll vote you out and elect someone who will.

These dark days are playing the very devil with my diet and appetite. Fruit does not appeal, and salad seems to lack substance. I seek out comfort food for my meals, falling back far too often on the frying pan for potato hash and such.  I fear that I shall have to throw the bottom half of this week’s fruit bowl out for composting.  Hey ho.  When I go provisioning later today I’ll pick up a big pack of dried fruit salad (figs, prunes, apples, apricots, pineapple…) and knock some nice stewed fruit dishes together.  Nothing like a bowl of warm fruit stew with a dollop of good old British custard to cheer you up when the dark clouds loom.  And with prunes and custard you’re not far from ambrosia.

I’m doing fine, though, all things considered. I’ve been nursing a new poem these past few days and it popped out yesterday, to my great delight. I think it’s about cooked in its published version. I don’t recommend looking to it for any great significance, though you never know with these things.