A damp Sunday morning

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I wonder what you are doing this morning Anna. And with whom.

I am sitting here looking through the square window at a damp Sunday morning. Funny how you can always tell it's Sunday. There's something about the atmosphere, the feel of a Sunday.
I bet I could be alone in the middle of the Ghobi desert or at the  North Pole and I would know if it were a Sunday..

A neighbour walks past with two small children. She is on her way home from church. What on earth does she think she is doing; inculcating two small children (not even her own) into a myth; getting them to believe a fairy story to be fact.

It strikes me how like Father Christmas is God: a benevolent old gentleman with a white beard, somewhere up there in the sky, ready to bestow  upon us wondrous gifts - if we are good. Ah, there's the rub, as Shakespeare might have said. (I wonder did Shakespeare believe in God? I guess you had to, in those days - or at least pretend to .Otherwise you could have been in for an early morning fry-up, at the stake.).

And who will define what "being good" is for those two children who have just walked past? Those two children who don't really understand the ritual, the bit of theatre they have just been put through? The vicar? The priest? Aided and abetted by parents; those unwitting agents of the establishment?

And by the time they are old enough to realise it is not" Father Christmas" who brings the presents, they are hooked into the myth at a deep level. Disappointment and confusion awaits.

If only the could be taught 'reality' instead.

But we must look on the bright side, Anna, and so I shall finish with a few lines that came to me from the back of my head:


She didn't respond when I kissed her -
In fact she said: less of that, mister,
I am pledged to another -
So I gave her another -
She's gone - now I'm kissing her sister.

Here's to our coming weekend

George

I'm not afraid of Virginia Woolf

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In fact, I am immersed in her; and I would never have thought I could become so enthralled in a novel in which nothing really happens. Well, that's not quite true; but most of it happens in the minds of her characters

Some people find Virginia Woolf's writing depressing. But she wrote about how she saw life; and she saw so much more than most. Maybe her "depression" gave her greater insights, and her command of language the ability to express and share those insights with others.

I sometimes wonder if we are like rats in an experimenter's cage: running around pressing levers to get food pellets, but what we don't know is that the levers are not connected to anything; the food pellets are delivered randomly. We think we have control - but we haven't.

But surely it's not like that, Anna - is it?

I like the idea of the Cycle-track Hotel. Perhaps we could hire bicycles and go for a spin. What do you say?

I don't mean to turn the weekend into an 'activity holiday'. In fact I have always seen activity holidays as a contradiction in terms. But 30 minutes pedalling is wonderful for getting the endorphins going.

I am tired, and my bed awaits.

I shall dream of the Cycle-track Hotel.

George

This bloody awful English weather is making one wish to be back in Sweden. Also with the depressing Dave who is still in state of suspension from employment and is getting under one's feet all the time, is pissing one off and no mistake.

Well, Georgie, what you say about other way of knowing, this I think is correct. I always go with what you call gut reaction:
I have got to know a lot of things by feeling them.

And one is of the opinion that sometimes all this talk talk gets in way of real stuff. I am reminded of song which say "Don't talk of love - show me." That will do me, buster.

I look at this page 3 in paper what Dave is now reading and see these girls which look like big plastic dolls what have been pumped up in pneumatic manner. Totally non sexual are these women to me.

I tell this to Dave and he says, well I will not pin behind lavatory door then. And then he laugh and say he is joking.

I remember how you tell me previously about this girl with diminutive breasts called Polly, who work in circus as contortionist and you call her your flexible friend. Am I correct? You say she dump you because you can never see things from her angle?

I think you are perhaps making up this story - not the breasts bit but circus and contortionist part. Because how come you get to know circus peoples? You will be telling one next as how you did work yourself in circus as human canonball. Ha, ha. Just because I come from Sweden do not think I was born day before yesterday.

But to come back to breasts - I am agreeing with you as how size of bodily components do not matter. Except perhaps in adult movie business. Although example of democratic nature of such business is how it cater for ladies who are not well blessed in this respect, having created what one might call a niche market especially for these ladies. But that is by the by.

Now we are coming to the more important question of our next venue.

Well, I have surprise for you. I have been working part of the time in Railway Hotel as barmaid, in order to be substantiating my income while doing student work at same time.

Recently I do small favour for landlord in cellar. Time has come for taking inventory of all stuff in hotel, and Mr Wormold (that is his name) his wife is on skiing holiday. So I lend him my hand.
I count all barrels of beer and bottles of wine and spirit and other stuff and writing down.

Railway Hotel does the bed and the breakfast, and Mr Wormold say we can have two nights free! On account of all extra effort I put in to him.

Is not that splendid? (Actually, hardly anybody stay here because place is crap. Still it will do for our purposes admirably, I am thinking.)

Do not worry about possible noise because hotel is no longer near railway. That part of line have been closed for many years and rails removed and is now cycle track. So I am thinking hotel should be called Cycle-track Hotel. I say this to Mr Wormold but he say brewery would not like this name. This is trouble with you English you are so binded by tradition.

Anyways you just needs tell me when you can make for the weekend here.

Hope shitty weather not causing you depression. more than usual,

Action is antidote for depression so let us get with it, eh?

Yours who can hardly wait

Anna

ps. One other good news piece - the university people have agreed  my dissertation on Swedish porn industry. So I shall now get one's teeth into it, as you say.

Thoughts on a cold morning

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Frost on the shed,
Ice on the car -
I think I'll spend today in a bar...

Can you imagine, Anna, - Ice in September! Admittedly he sun is now shining and the ice melting but - Ice in September?

That Dave should eschew the Guardian in favour of the tabloid press is not good news.

Is he reading the Sun? This newspaper is noted for its Page 3 girls, endowed, as they are, with enormous bosoms. Personally I cannot see the attraction of these busty beauties. Is size really important? 

I once went out with a girl who had no breasts, to speak of. So we didn't speak of them. And I can honestly say that her breasts never came between us.

In a more philosophical mood, Anna: I was thinking: Can we know something by feeling it? Sort of intuitively? I mean instead of logically deducing it? Women's intuition is sometimes seen as a bit of a joke. But are we foolish to ignore this other way of knowing? I think men also have this ability but perhaps it has been submerged in  them, more than in women, under logic and rationality.

I think logic and rationality - the tools of scientific method - are very valuable and we owe much of our civilisation to them. But scientific method could be expanded to take in this other way of knowing.

(Maybe before we had language we had to use other forms of communication, and these have since withered - a bit like the appendix now that we no longer eat grass - or something like that)

We would have to be careful though, because it could open the door to all sorts of superstitious nonsense. Nevertheless, ignoring it because of this danger is a bit cowardly - and not really scientific. Science should be prepared examine (without prejudice) this soft evidence (largely anecdotal) as rigorously as it would any hard evidence (the evidence of the 5 known senses).

The avenue has broken out in a rash of estate agents' "For Sale" boards. Funny, but when I was at school and they asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up, I can't remember anybody saying they wanted to be an estate agent. Now there are millions of them. I wonder if it is a sort of 'second choice' profession. Like when you fail at being a used-car salesman or a debt-collector. Just a thought.

I have checked out cheap deals for Premier Inns, and the best I can get is £19 for one night in Budleigh-Salterton on the second Wednesday in November. I think this is too far away, both in distance and time. Any ideas?

Yours frustratedly

George

ps. I felt a bit iffy yesterday so I had an early night. I opted for the ibuprofen instead of the whisky. I think I made the right choice.

Please do not think because I am reversing to the usual black print that this post is not important. It is important but not as urgent as the one in red. If you see what I mean.

I am worried about Dave. He sits in the house all day watching the crap television except when sometimes in afternoon he goes to public house and play pool with bunch of deadbeats who do not have jobs.

This is most unsatisfactory situation for him because he now lacks motivation like what you were saying when you have a job to go to, although Dave don't work in office, he is teacher - no, he is college lecturer, which is different. 

Anyways, I say to him, do not lie stinking in bed but be getting up and getting one's arse in gear. Just because you waiting for tribunal hearing don't mean you should allow yourself to fester (note new word I learn) in misery and idleness because if you do this your brain will quickly rot.

Another worrying thing is that he is no longer reading Guardian newspaper, saying it is the Parish Magazine of Social Workers (what   does this mean?) and instead is reading what he previously have been calling the Gutter Press. And I say to him this is where you will be ending up - in the gutter - if you do not sort yourself out buster.

But at same time I comfort him because he is going through most stressful time, this I realise.

And then also I worry about you Georgie, with all these quick changes of mood similar to what your friend Virginia is writing about. This is woman who suicided herself by drowning in river, is not this so? Then why do you read stories by such a woman? This will not cheer you up but make you feel worse.

Also why are you wondering where all people in street going in opposite direction are off to? Next thing thing you will be forgetting where you are going yourself. And you do not wish to be detained in secure hospital for one's own safety, like was before necessary? 

Anyways I am back at universary for the completing of final year in which I have dissertation to do. This is like very long essay (20,000 words) on topic of one's choosing. I chose to do phenomenological  study of Swedish Pornographic Industry, but don't know if they let me yet. It is being discussed.

This Premier Inn is where they are guaranteeing you good night's sleep, is it not? Well this is of no use to us Georgie!!! ( exclaming marks indicate this to be little Swedish joke).

Bring it on

Anna

Yo Yo

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This susceptibility to impressions had been his undoing, no doubt. Still at his age he had, like a boy or a girl even, these alternations of mood; good days, bad days, for no reason whatever, happiness from a pretty face, downright misery from the sight of a frump.

Virginia Woolf talking about one of her characters in Mrs Dalloway. 

I am on an upper this morning. Even though it's raining. Don't know how long it will last. (the upper, not the rain - in fact the sun is coming out already)

I went out earlier and saw people driving to work in their cars, waiting for buses to take them to the office. And I thought, wistfully of when I had a proper job (you can't call writing a proper job).  It was nice on a rainy morning to be going to a warm office, seeing all your colleagues, pushing a few papers around, making a couple of telephone calls and waiting for eleven o clock when the trolley came around with tea and coffee and biscuits.

There's something comforting about having a job to go to every morning. Routine. Stability. (although, as you know, I am not a great one for routine.)

Your wisdom is of the wisest kind, Anna, and I do take heed of it, although it is not always easy.

When I was at school, the teacher used to write words of wisdom in red ink on my work; usually: See Me. They didn't appreciate me at school; didn't realise what a creative genius they had on their hands.

The creative genius stands always outside the circle of experts.

Do you know who said that, Anna? It was Hitler.

Have you ever been walking down a busy street and everyone seems to be going in the opposite direction? And you wonder where they're all going? And you think perhaps you've made a mistake? That you're going the wrong way?

It happens to me. And I think, do they know something I don't?

What is the position regarding Dave and his suspension?

Oh, and by the way, I think Premier Inn has the edge on Travel Lodge. For our next assignation, I mean.

Yours, straining at the leash

George

I write this in red, Georgie, because of importance.

You cannot go back. Because back is not there. Back has moved on too. Just like you.

If you try go back you find back has become now,  and is not same as back you knew.

I hope this is understanding to you.

I will write further but had to get this off my breast.

Your concerned Anna

When did it start to go wrong?

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Do you ever wonder that, Anna? 

I don't mean you and me... that could never go wrong!

I mean One's life. Your life. My life.

Sometimes you can put your finger on a particular time, or event and say: That was a turning point. A watershed. A significant change.

I can think of a few, but the one that comes to mind tonight is when Georgina and I sold our first house. It was me that wanted to move so I take responsibility. Of course I had my reasons but they were many, and too complex to go into now.

But I can remember one evening - the sale had been agreed but we hadn't moved - I had taken my daughter to bed, read to her as usual, and she was asleep. I stood at her bedroom window and looked out over the fields (they hadn't built the houses yet and you could see across to the airfield) and I somehow knew that things would never be the same again. Everything was changing.  I had put the train in motion and I couldn't stop it.

Looking back I could have stopped the train - or at least slowed it down. Of course you can't stop children from growing up and I wouldn't want to, but there was no real reason to move at that time - and I knew it. But I felt I had made a decision and should stick to it.

One thing I have learned is that decisions can be reversed. Or, as a friend of mine liked to say: Everything is fixable. Well, maybe it is - if you act quickly enough.

Funny (but perhaps not) this is just about the time of year that I stood in that bedroom, centuries ago, and just let things happen. And the irony is that I thought I was making things happen.

In the words of the song Blackberry Way: What am I supposed to do now?

Sorry to hear about Dave. This teaching game is a bit of a minefield nowadays. Still, I am sure he is glad you are there to support him.



I saw an advert on the back of a bus. It showed the picture of a handsome, fit young man - someone called Mark Foster - and it said he was 7 times world champion. The bus drove away before I could find out what Mr Foster was 7 times champion at. (should that be 'of'?)  or what the advert was selling. 

And I thought: I would like to be world champion just once. Of anything.

Now obviously one cannot be a world champion at writing novels but one could at least achieve fame. And that would do me.

So I have started to write my blockbuster. It starts with a woman on a train. (already I have two sure-fire elements for a best-seller: sex and travel.) I don't want to give any more away at this stage but would love to read chapter one to you, Anna, snug in bed.
(even in a Travel-Lodge).

See you soon

George

I thought British Police were supposed to be best in world??

Well, I did not think this really, but you British this is what you always saying. What a load of cobras.

Anyways I do not wish to dwell upon hypocrisy of British. For I have more important fish to batter.

This word... slipperifies what you use in poem. I check dictionary and can find no such word. I hope you are not making up words again. This is partly why they put you in the hospital for treatment all that time ago.

I like poem though.

Dave is not very well. They send him home from college with what you call 'suspension'. This have something to do with events at summer camp. Dave does not wish to talk about such (alleged) happenings which he say did not happen. Anyways, man from union came to see him yesterday and he will represent Dave at hearing which is to be heard in near future. He advise Dave not to talk to newspapers as this will only muddy waters (what strange sayings you English do use.)
Unfortunately Dave has already muddied waters by speaking to gentleman from certain newspaper which he wishes to remain anonymous at this stage but which I know to be Daily Mail. This is newspaper noted for crusading for the underdog and for not mincing the words (or so Dave say).

Anyways I will be keeping you abreast of things as they happen unless you read in newspapers about it first.

But you are sounding a bit downish to me. I wish you would tell me what is really going on.

Travel Lodge do a very nice room for two people sharing at reasonable cost. Why do we not - as temporaneous solution to our problem - meet for one night and you can tell me about what has really been happening.

I have bought new toothbrush in anticipation.

Yours to be seen soon

Anna

Comment

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I'd like to be a fly on the wall in South Yorkshire Police headquarters this morning.

Looks like they've done for policing what Fagin did for child welfare.

Thank you...

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....Anna for your birthday wishes. Also thanks to Mr Adams for his (belated) greeting.

I have been embroiled in matters fiscal, Anna, for the past weeks. Meetings with my accountant have taken up much of my time and, I am sorry to say, my ship of fortune is listing rather badly.

I have listened to Martin's Money Tips on the radio and considered bankruptcy as a possible solution. A last resort?

The thing that's puzzling me is where has all the money gone?  I was, perhaps not rich, but reasonably well-off when you knew me in the olden days. Ok so I spent some of it on you but I don't begrudge a penny of that. You could have chipped in with a few bob here and there but I gave you the impression I was wealthy so it's understandable that your hand rarely went into your pocket. (actually I don't think you ever wore anything with pockets).

But that couldn't account for the vast sums that have disappeared down the plughole. Where did I go wrong?

Perhaps I have spent too long dallying in the leafy glades of academia. I was busy worshiping at the altar of metaphysics while others were making money.

A blind man in a coal cellar, looking for a black cat that isn't there?

Ah, but the cat may be there, and if I am the one who finds it...

I think I've been too generous - by far. But where are all those upon whom I bestowed largesse in the past? The bookmakers;the brewers; the pub landlords; the homeless; the destitute; the fallen women...
Where are they now, eh?

I am reminded of a song written by an old folk singer...

First you lose the rhymin'
Then you lose the timin'
Then you lose the money
Then you lose the friends.

I don't remember losing the rhymin' or the timin' ... but I know what he means.

So yes, Anna, I am feeling the wind of change blowing up the old trouser leg, and things do not bode well.

Also winter draws nigh. Not my favourite time of year.

I penned this poem a few days ago:


Through the soft mist of an autumn morning
I see winter, crouching in the copse
At the end of the avenue.
Waiting.
Waiting for the dark evenings
When he can steal silently, unnoticed
Up the paths and driveways
Of sleeping suburbia,
And in the morning -
Spring out, and hit you
With his frost and fog.

Oh you mindless citizens,
Why do ignore my warning?
Why do you say: It is still summer,
Let us play and take no thought for the morrow?

Then suddenly, Winter is upon us,
And we cry as icy rains beats
Against our double-glazing, and
Frost and snow slipperifies pavements,
And we flinch
At the sound of cracking hips.

Too late, too late -
You should have listened to me.
And now Winter has you
In his grip

But there's nowt we can do, when all's said and done,
So I am off out, to have me some fun.

I have thought of picking up where I left off with my autobiography. The first part, dealing with my early childhood in a mining village, is called In the shadow of the slag heap.
I think it's quite promising. In fact I may post the first page, here on this blog!

I went away for my birthday - on my own - to Llandudno. It is good, now and then, to wake up in a strange bed (of course you know that)

There is lots more I want to talk about, Anna - need to talk about but it will have to wait.

Oh, and I have decided to take up Dave's offer - yes I know he will be back from summer camp but he originally said he would sleep on the sofa if I wished to visit.  Does the offer still hold good?
Sound him out, Anna.