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A couple of days off have left me feeling far more human. I still can't wait for my holiday at the end of the month. But a quiet weekend, a couple of long telephone calls with my mother, a pleasant meal out at Bistro One in Southampton Street, some brilliant contemporary dance from Northern Ballet at the Linbury Studio (& what a gorgeous little theatre that is; I'd give my eye teeth to be able to use it >sigh<), plus getting my fantasy western past the 100,000-word mark today; yes, after two days of that, I feel more like me.
I've also discovered that crying jags are, like non-specific bouts of depression, frequent symptoms of the perimenopause. While not exactly cheerful news, this does at least help me to place my weird attack on Friday evening in perspective. Yup, I'm a menopausal woman, folks. Be afraid, be very afraid...
The only alternative to going through the menopause is to die first. Which I should prefer not to do. Even when it is chaos, even when I am worn out and depressed, and work is hectic and I am trying to get used to using a ticketing system that has the electronic equivalent of several limbs in plaster (& one perhaps tied-on with string), even then, I enjoy my life. I know I will die one day; maybe tomorrow, maybe not for another forty years. Why wish it any sooner, when I have so much I want to do with my time?
Anyway, if anyone was worried (& I know one person at least was; bless you, dear heart), don't be. I'm okay. It was just one of those days, a day that started well and went sour. We all have them from time to time.
I've decided to step off the 5:2 diet wagon again for a while, though, since I don't know that this is a good time for being hungry. It isn't as if anyone but me cares if I am stout or not, after all. I was trying to diet because I dislike finding it harder to run for a bus, not for my looks (or lack of them). But right now I think self-care is the order of the day. That needn't mean self-indulgence, but it's not self-denial either. It means enjoying that lovely fresh grapefruit I had for breakfast, and the extra pumpkin seeds I put in my cereal. It means not feeling harried into doing things I don't want to do, not feeling I have to apologise for being an introvert. It means showering in the morning and using conditioner in my unruly rag of hair, and wearing my good clothes even on non-work days, not because anyone is looking, but because I will feel better if I am clean and do not look like a windswept tramp. It means going out of the office for some air, and taking the time to say hello to friends and not sit in a slumped heap feeling sad in the summerhouse like a neglected toy. It means all sorts of things, but it does not mean trying to lose weight. Not at this moment in time. Life is too pressured to add any more pressures just now.
On with the motley tomorrow, anyway. Little by little we'll get there. My life seems to be full of half-resolved stories, and little by little I'll get to tell them all, or have them told to me.
Who knows, tomorrow I may get a breakthrough of some kind at work. I may learn that my job is secure (gods, I hope it is!). I may get a procedure for a month-ahead report on unconfirmed provisional bookings, or one for last month's figures, or a new process to simplify another task. If work stays hectic, nonetheless I may find something wonderful in bloom, or be paid a compliment, or run into a friend; I may have the chance to help someone, or simply hear a good joke. Someone may like my singing or my writing, or may just need a cup of tea that I can make them. Of such small incidental things much happiness is composed.
Meantime, all of you who I cried over on Friday; I'm sorry if I worried or embarrassed you, and I hope you are all well, and I love you all. Even the ones I don't know. Look after yourselves.
I'm not going to delete Friday's post. I've thought about it, but it seems a false note somehow. One should not hide from the shadows; they will still be there, notwithstanding, so better to be comfortable with that. It's all part of life's rich pattern.
Showing posts with label recovery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recovery. Show all posts
Sunday, 11 May 2014
Thursday, 18 March 2010
Spring cheer and wintry bleakness
I went for a walk in the gardens in my lunch break. It was warm enough that I was okay with only a sweater, no coat. Spring bulbs are coming out everywhere and birds are singing, and the air smelled of wintersweet and viburnum blossom, and of pine trees in the sun. Heaven is coming; it’s spring. This has felt like a long winter, what with the successive snowfalls, the colder than average temperatures, and my bl**dy broken wrist. To see the wheel of the year turning is such bliss at these times. It spurs me on to keep working at my physio exercises as the gardening season approaches again.
Last night I had the first dose in a short course of Janacek shots; “Katya Kabanova” at the ENO. Wintry despair to contrast with my own spring cheer. Gorblimey it’s bleak stuff, guvnor.
It’s a bleak story, of toxically unhappy families, adultery, betrayed passion and suicide, and it's a bleak production, of barren open spaces and crowding, bare walls; a solitary lamp-post, a room full of angular shadows, an icon of Christ that is swiftly turned to the wall...
Patricia Racette is Katya, who has married (god knows why) the spineless, mother-fixated, deeply knotted-up Tichon Kabanov, played by the ever-reliable John Graham-Hall, and is now tormented daily by his truly horrible mother (Susan Bickley having a whale of a time being a poisonous old toad). Katya is a good-hearted woman who wants to be a good wife; she is deeply religious, with a mystical sense of connection with God, but she is also passionately emotional and longs for a freedom of experience her small-town life can never give her. Unable to escape her mother-in-law’s endless demands, she tries without success to get some demonstration of her husband’s love, or even some sort of reaction from him. When she meets neighbour Boris, Stuart Skelton’s six-foot hunk of red-haired Australian beefcake, well, what with his magnificent rich tenor and all, she is lost.
Listening to him, I don’t blame her. I don’t normally go for the beefy type, but Mr Skelton could rock my boat any day. What a voice! And he can act (and he’s ginger!). This is the third time I’ve seen him in action; roll on the fourth – it can’t come soon enough. Stuart Skelton is the heroic tenor for me.
There are a secondary pair of lovers in the story, as well; Tichon’s adopted sister Varvara is in love with the amiable local schoolmaster Kudriash; rather like Anne and Simon to Katya and Boris’s Gabriel and Rose, they are saner and more balanced, in both their love affair and their general way of dealing with life. Shortly before the final scene they decide to run away to make a new life together in Moscow. Their directness and good humour in the face of the situation is a touching contrast to the superficially more romantic but utterly self-defeating passion of Katya and Boris. In their music, simple folk-dance melodies and ballad-like lyrics express their healthily cheerful attitude to love. Boris and Katya, however, have fabulous music of great dramatic outbursts, lyrical and wildly emotional, full of wonderful characteristic Janacek sounds I haven’t the technical vocabulary to describe. It tells you everything you need to know about the uncontrollable intensity of their feelings, and the thoughtless passion with which they rush into their affair.
Of course, their love is poignantly brief, doomed from the start. Boris turns out to be a man of straw; Katya loses her marbles, confesses all, loses some more of her marbles, meets Boris one last time and then, flattened by his farewell, drowns herself. So it’s hardly laughs all evening by the Volga; but well-done, as last night’s performance was, it makes for a very powerful, deeply upsetting evening.
On Monday, I’m off for my Janacek booster shot; “The Cunning Little Vixen”. Again, bliss; and it will give an antidote to yesterday’s tormented gloom. It’s as full of green growing life and natural cycles as “Katya Kabanova” is of fractured hearts, denatured relationships, and death.
And so the wheel turns, and the way of things goes as it wills; and we go on.
Last night I had the first dose in a short course of Janacek shots; “Katya Kabanova” at the ENO. Wintry despair to contrast with my own spring cheer. Gorblimey it’s bleak stuff, guvnor.
It’s a bleak story, of toxically unhappy families, adultery, betrayed passion and suicide, and it's a bleak production, of barren open spaces and crowding, bare walls; a solitary lamp-post, a room full of angular shadows, an icon of Christ that is swiftly turned to the wall...
Patricia Racette is Katya, who has married (god knows why) the spineless, mother-fixated, deeply knotted-up Tichon Kabanov, played by the ever-reliable John Graham-Hall, and is now tormented daily by his truly horrible mother (Susan Bickley having a whale of a time being a poisonous old toad). Katya is a good-hearted woman who wants to be a good wife; she is deeply religious, with a mystical sense of connection with God, but she is also passionately emotional and longs for a freedom of experience her small-town life can never give her. Unable to escape her mother-in-law’s endless demands, she tries without success to get some demonstration of her husband’s love, or even some sort of reaction from him. When she meets neighbour Boris, Stuart Skelton’s six-foot hunk of red-haired Australian beefcake, well, what with his magnificent rich tenor and all, she is lost.
Listening to him, I don’t blame her. I don’t normally go for the beefy type, but Mr Skelton could rock my boat any day. What a voice! And he can act (and he’s ginger!). This is the third time I’ve seen him in action; roll on the fourth – it can’t come soon enough. Stuart Skelton is the heroic tenor for me.
There are a secondary pair of lovers in the story, as well; Tichon’s adopted sister Varvara is in love with the amiable local schoolmaster Kudriash; rather like Anne and Simon to Katya and Boris’s Gabriel and Rose, they are saner and more balanced, in both their love affair and their general way of dealing with life. Shortly before the final scene they decide to run away to make a new life together in Moscow. Their directness and good humour in the face of the situation is a touching contrast to the superficially more romantic but utterly self-defeating passion of Katya and Boris. In their music, simple folk-dance melodies and ballad-like lyrics express their healthily cheerful attitude to love. Boris and Katya, however, have fabulous music of great dramatic outbursts, lyrical and wildly emotional, full of wonderful characteristic Janacek sounds I haven’t the technical vocabulary to describe. It tells you everything you need to know about the uncontrollable intensity of their feelings, and the thoughtless passion with which they rush into their affair.
Of course, their love is poignantly brief, doomed from the start. Boris turns out to be a man of straw; Katya loses her marbles, confesses all, loses some more of her marbles, meets Boris one last time and then, flattened by his farewell, drowns herself. So it’s hardly laughs all evening by the Volga; but well-done, as last night’s performance was, it makes for a very powerful, deeply upsetting evening.
On Monday, I’m off for my Janacek booster shot; “The Cunning Little Vixen”. Again, bliss; and it will give an antidote to yesterday’s tormented gloom. It’s as full of green growing life and natural cycles as “Katya Kabanova” is of fractured hearts, denatured relationships, and death.
And so the wheel turns, and the way of things goes as it wills; and we go on.
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Busy busy bee...
It's been a busy few days. At work, the sunny weather has brought people out of hibernation and into Planning Mode; we are humming with enquiries about spring flowers, Easter children's activities, what will be looking good next Tuesday week, do we have hanami sessions, and so on. A few people are even planning what they'll be doing in July, August, October...
The colleague who seemed to be cracking up has come back to work, distinctly manic and not her normal self, but insisting she is fine. She's not quite off-beam enough that she can be required to go home, so we are all watching her with trepidation as she rushes about in an alarming display of hysterical energy, knowing that at any moment an ill-judged remark may infuriate her and precipitate an outburst. Poor woman; I don't know what's triggered it, though I have my suspicions, but it's deeply worrying to watch, and there is nothing any of us can do to help - especially since she denies vehemently that anything is wrong...
On the home front, Mauro, the pleasant but terribly self-absorbed Italian guy who has been running a catering business from home (in complete violation of both food safety regs and the terms of his tenancy!) has suddenly moved out. Hurrah! We no longer have to work round the edges of "Mauro's Italian Kitchen"! That "hurrah" would be in bold were it not for the fact that, on moving out, he has nicked a couple of the household saucepans, the colander, one of the wooden spoons and about a dozen clothes pegs. He also tried to take the throw from the living room sofa, and all of my teatowels, but was stopped by Lana who just happened to come home early and noticed them among his boxes of stuff. I don't condone his stealing some of the pans (and it is bl**dy inconvenient suddenly having fewer pans than one used to have - oh, and of course he has left behind the scratched and battered ones and taken the decent quality fairly new ones) but I can see how someone might think selfishly "I want some saucepans, I can't afford to buy my own, why shouldn't I take these?". But to pinch a wooden spoon? A plastic colander from Poundshop? Clothespegs? That takes petty theft to a whole new level...
I continue to make very slow improvement with the wrist. I can now lift about two kilos, provided I do it very carefully and at the right angle. I am confident enough of handling a sharp knife to have resumed a bit of cooking; at the weekend I made a spinach pie, some banana and chocolate chip buns, and a lot of carrot soup. I've eaten a lot of mass-produced food in the last few months, with the inevitable higher fat and salt intake (& I have the extra lbs and fluid retention to prove it), so it is particularly satisfying to get back to doing some normal cooking, however clumsily.
And the sun is out, and the daffodils are just starting to open, and in my back garden I have four Narcissus "Tête à tête", a polyanthus and about sixty crocuses out. Spring is coming!
The colleague who seemed to be cracking up has come back to work, distinctly manic and not her normal self, but insisting she is fine. She's not quite off-beam enough that she can be required to go home, so we are all watching her with trepidation as she rushes about in an alarming display of hysterical energy, knowing that at any moment an ill-judged remark may infuriate her and precipitate an outburst. Poor woman; I don't know what's triggered it, though I have my suspicions, but it's deeply worrying to watch, and there is nothing any of us can do to help - especially since she denies vehemently that anything is wrong...
On the home front, Mauro, the pleasant but terribly self-absorbed Italian guy who has been running a catering business from home (in complete violation of both food safety regs and the terms of his tenancy!) has suddenly moved out. Hurrah! We no longer have to work round the edges of "Mauro's Italian Kitchen"! That "hurrah" would be in bold were it not for the fact that, on moving out, he has nicked a couple of the household saucepans, the colander, one of the wooden spoons and about a dozen clothes pegs. He also tried to take the throw from the living room sofa, and all of my teatowels, but was stopped by Lana who just happened to come home early and noticed them among his boxes of stuff. I don't condone his stealing some of the pans (and it is bl**dy inconvenient suddenly having fewer pans than one used to have - oh, and of course he has left behind the scratched and battered ones and taken the decent quality fairly new ones) but I can see how someone might think selfishly "I want some saucepans, I can't afford to buy my own, why shouldn't I take these?". But to pinch a wooden spoon? A plastic colander from Poundshop? Clothespegs? That takes petty theft to a whole new level...
I continue to make very slow improvement with the wrist. I can now lift about two kilos, provided I do it very carefully and at the right angle. I am confident enough of handling a sharp knife to have resumed a bit of cooking; at the weekend I made a spinach pie, some banana and chocolate chip buns, and a lot of carrot soup. I've eaten a lot of mass-produced food in the last few months, with the inevitable higher fat and salt intake (& I have the extra lbs and fluid retention to prove it), so it is particularly satisfying to get back to doing some normal cooking, however clumsily.
And the sun is out, and the daffodils are just starting to open, and in my back garden I have four Narcissus "Tête à tête", a polyanthus and about sixty crocuses out. Spring is coming!
Thursday, 11 March 2010
Random scatterings...
There was another bit of blue sky this morning, but it went away again.
The red and yellow apple was rather cotton-woolly when I ate it. It's okay, though, because The Rox only got it from a basket of free apples left in the staff kitchen, so someone else is responsible for buying mushy apples, not Her Roxiness.
I simply have to pass this on as despite the strong language it is so funny and so true, even for those who are not professional/succesful/published writers. Once it is known that you write, people say "Will you read my writing and tell me what you think of it? I really, really want an honest critique" - and then they hit the roof, or cry themselves to a saturated solution, when you do give them an honest critique. So you try giving a dishonest, fuzzy one (and know you have cheated, on many levels, just to avoid hassle) or you start saying "I never read other tyro writers' stuff" and sounding horrendously smug instead. Thanks to Hellie in Cape Town for putting me on to that link.
Thomson Holidays are still prejudiced against solo travellers. Their website now announces there are no seats left on the plane if you try to book as a single; then if you try to book for two people, suddenly the plane has plenty of room. They are stupid for turning away custom. And I am equally stupid for hoping they'll change their ways.
Watched half of "Contact" last night; saving the rest for Friday as I'm out tonight. What an interesting film; it explores the tension between scientific detachment and spirituality with sympathy for both sides. It's intelligent and exciting in equal measure, has lovely special effects (and shots of the real - and spectacular - Very Large Array in New Mexico), lovely Jodie Foster, lovely William Fichtner (sadly only in a small part) and Matthew McConaughey proving he can underact if he wants to... Science Fiction is a great genre when it is this well used.
I can now lift a small tray with two coffee cups on it - cups actually containing coffee, that is. I have been given a piece of pink Squeezy Therapeutic Exercise Sponge by the physiotherapist at Charing Cross Hospital. By the middle of the month I may graduate onto Squeezy Therapeutic Putty - or even Squeezy Balls... I soldier on with the two-minute-stretching exercises and the labourious lifting of half-kilo weights. I often ache by evening, but I won't give in.
There is a gorgeous white dog with a black patch on one side of his head, running about on Kew Green in the misty grey light.
Someone I was at grammar school with has written to me out of the blue. Hello, Carol!
Life is weird. Wouldn't change it for anything else, though. And even with this dull sky and chilly wind, and all the seagulls inland (scattering before the excited arrival of that eager little dog), it is still, slowly, edging towards spring.
The red and yellow apple was rather cotton-woolly when I ate it. It's okay, though, because The Rox only got it from a basket of free apples left in the staff kitchen, so someone else is responsible for buying mushy apples, not Her Roxiness.
I simply have to pass this on as despite the strong language it is so funny and so true, even for those who are not professional/succesful/published writers. Once it is known that you write, people say "Will you read my writing and tell me what you think of it? I really, really want an honest critique" - and then they hit the roof, or cry themselves to a saturated solution, when you do give them an honest critique. So you try giving a dishonest, fuzzy one (and know you have cheated, on many levels, just to avoid hassle) or you start saying "I never read other tyro writers' stuff" and sounding horrendously smug instead. Thanks to Hellie in Cape Town for putting me on to that link.
Thomson Holidays are still prejudiced against solo travellers. Their website now announces there are no seats left on the plane if you try to book as a single; then if you try to book for two people, suddenly the plane has plenty of room. They are stupid for turning away custom. And I am equally stupid for hoping they'll change their ways.
Watched half of "Contact" last night; saving the rest for Friday as I'm out tonight. What an interesting film; it explores the tension between scientific detachment and spirituality with sympathy for both sides. It's intelligent and exciting in equal measure, has lovely special effects (and shots of the real - and spectacular - Very Large Array in New Mexico), lovely Jodie Foster, lovely William Fichtner (sadly only in a small part) and Matthew McConaughey proving he can underact if he wants to... Science Fiction is a great genre when it is this well used.
I can now lift a small tray with two coffee cups on it - cups actually containing coffee, that is. I have been given a piece of pink Squeezy Therapeutic Exercise Sponge by the physiotherapist at Charing Cross Hospital. By the middle of the month I may graduate onto Squeezy Therapeutic Putty - or even Squeezy Balls... I soldier on with the two-minute-stretching exercises and the labourious lifting of half-kilo weights. I often ache by evening, but I won't give in.
There is a gorgeous white dog with a black patch on one side of his head, running about on Kew Green in the misty grey light.
Someone I was at grammar school with has written to me out of the blue. Hello, Carol!
Life is weird. Wouldn't change it for anything else, though. And even with this dull sky and chilly wind, and all the seagulls inland (scattering before the excited arrival of that eager little dog), it is still, slowly, edging towards spring.
Friday, 19 February 2010
TGIFriday
No, not the steakhouse. Just the sentiment. Thank the gods, it's Friday.
This week has rushed by, which I ought to be concerned about. Isn't it horrible how time passes faster and faster as one gets older? Since it has been rather a rough week I'm relieved to reach Friday and see my two days of rest ahead. Although the weather forecast is for more bally snow tomorrow - rats!!
I had another physio session this morning and was commended on having made good progress with my flexibility exercises, but then told I had a good long haul still to go, and that after the first two weeks progress normally slows down a lot >loud and heartfelt sigh<. My wrist has ached for most of the rest of the day after being asked to do exercises with weights for the first time. Still, I've now got an extended exercise programme, and will push on with it. There isn't much else I can do, anyway. I want my hand back... please...
Tomorrow I have a concert at the Festival hall; Janacek and Suk, should be good. At the moment I'm thinking I'll go up into the West End a bit earlier and take a leaf out of Jana's book by having a sketching session in a café somewhere, with a light supper perhaps. She and her cohorts in California seem to do this regularly and I like the idea; and it does my aching and frustrated creativity good to get a little exercise. I know, because I managed to do a little bit of creative activity yesterday.
I was watching "The Culture Show" after an early supper. There was an item about the Royal Ballet and on impulse I picked up my sketchbook and tried a little drawing; to my immense pleasure I was able to produce a thumbnail sketch of Jonathan Watkins that actually looked like Jonathan Watkins! Yippee! So I did another, rather sketchier one (he moves a lot). Then I started one of Laura Morera, but the interview cut away from her before I could finish that, leaving her with no eyes (eeee, zombie ballerina ahoy). Finally I managed to grab a hasty back view of one of the dancers Watkins was rehearsing. After that the programme went to an interview with Anthony D'Offay, who is considerably less easy on the eye, but I drew him too, anyway.
The lines went where I wanted! The sketches of people looked like people! Yes, yes, orgasmic yes - I will be able to draw again!
It gave me such a buzz that I followed on by typing another page or so of the Work In Progress. So it was a good evening, and it has inspired me to try some more this weekend. Wish me luck; and have a peaceful weekend yourselves, out there...
This week has rushed by, which I ought to be concerned about. Isn't it horrible how time passes faster and faster as one gets older? Since it has been rather a rough week I'm relieved to reach Friday and see my two days of rest ahead. Although the weather forecast is for more bally snow tomorrow - rats!!
I had another physio session this morning and was commended on having made good progress with my flexibility exercises, but then told I had a good long haul still to go, and that after the first two weeks progress normally slows down a lot >loud and heartfelt sigh<. My wrist has ached for most of the rest of the day after being asked to do exercises with weights for the first time. Still, I've now got an extended exercise programme, and will push on with it. There isn't much else I can do, anyway. I want my hand back... please...
Tomorrow I have a concert at the Festival hall; Janacek and Suk, should be good. At the moment I'm thinking I'll go up into the West End a bit earlier and take a leaf out of Jana's book by having a sketching session in a café somewhere, with a light supper perhaps. She and her cohorts in California seem to do this regularly and I like the idea; and it does my aching and frustrated creativity good to get a little exercise. I know, because I managed to do a little bit of creative activity yesterday.
I was watching "The Culture Show" after an early supper. There was an item about the Royal Ballet and on impulse I picked up my sketchbook and tried a little drawing; to my immense pleasure I was able to produce a thumbnail sketch of Jonathan Watkins that actually looked like Jonathan Watkins! Yippee! So I did another, rather sketchier one (he moves a lot). Then I started one of Laura Morera, but the interview cut away from her before I could finish that, leaving her with no eyes (eeee, zombie ballerina ahoy). Finally I managed to grab a hasty back view of one of the dancers Watkins was rehearsing. After that the programme went to an interview with Anthony D'Offay, who is considerably less easy on the eye, but I drew him too, anyway.
The lines went where I wanted! The sketches of people looked like people! Yes, yes, orgasmic yes - I will be able to draw again!
It gave me such a buzz that I followed on by typing another page or so of the Work In Progress. So it was a good evening, and it has inspired me to try some more this weekend. Wish me luck; and have a peaceful weekend yourselves, out there...
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
A revelation and a mystery
It's so cold and wet, and my right wrist aches and creaks and my left thumb twinges at odd moments, and yesterday evening thanks to all this I lost my grip on all my resolve and slid into feeling thoroughly blue. Coming equal first with Emmanuel College Cambridge in University Challenge couldn't assuage my mood. Even a piece of apple pie with clotted cream didn't help. So I took refuge in the world of romantic love; or rather, in the bittersweet, romantic-yet-anti-romantic version that you find in the films of Powell and Pressburger. Those magic words on the screen in the opening titles - "A production of The Archers - Written, produced and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger", with the arrows thumping into the target behind, are an instant guarantee of quality...
I once wrote an essay on the Archers films for college - rather to the surprise of my tutor, who didn't think Michael Powell had made anything worth considering apart from "Peeping Tom", and so hadn't seen any of his other films (and this was a professional lecturer in film studies - shame on her!). I was able to burble about them to my heart's content with impunity, since she couldn't criticise my work without first working her way through more films than she had time for. I probably displayed the depths of my nerdiness to great advantage, but I was happy.
Last night I put on my dvd of "I know where I'm going!", which is one of the most wholeheartedly romantic of the Archers films. Tonight I'll probably follow it up with "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp". Movie heaven; my perfect cinema date would be these two films, in a double bill at the Riverside Studios with a good meal first and a glass of shiraz in the interval.
"I know where I'm going!" is a love story, filmed in 1944 and released in 1945. Joan Webster, a confident and self-possessed young woman (played by Wendy Hiller) has by the age of 25 convinced herself that the way to happiness is to marry a wealthy man who she does not love and enjoy all the good things his money can buy her. On her way to the planned wedding in the Hebrides, however, the great British climate intervenes, stranding her on Mull for a week. Under the influence of a mystically beautiful landscape and of the friendly local people, and especially of Roger Livesey as the handsome but impoverished local laird, she is forced to face the folly of her dreams. As the film ends she decides to give up her planned marriage and acknowledges her feelings for Livesey. Returning up the hill from the little port accompanied by three pipers she joins him in the ruins of Moy Castle - and I have a lump in my throat the size of a tennis ball.
Summed up like that, it sounds like the worst, most formulaic Hollywood sludge, yet it couldn't be more different. It is subtle, ironic and delicate, treating its gold-digging heroine with sympathy even while pulling holes in her values, and allowing her to retain her astringent determination to the end. Her relationship with Livesey's warm, sardonic, honest hero is human and credible. I want to cheer when they get together.
Visually the film is absolutely sumptuous, creating more richness with black and white than many a colour movie achieves, and offering a succession of haunting images. The first entry of Pamela Brown's character Catriona, whistling on a hillside in the thick fog, surrounded by wolfhounds; the shots of the local girl Bridie waiting on the quayside, afraid her sweetheart has been drowned trying to earn the money to be able to marry her, her tension and grief conveyed through her stillness; countless outdoor shots of the local scenery; perhaps above all the wonderful sequence of the ceilidh at Ardnacroish, where the locals dance and sing puirt á beul and the lovers watch first the dancing and then one another (Powell having a lovely time here mucking about with all those po-faced theories about "the fetishistic Gaze"); over and over one is jolted by simple yet stunning imagery that tells much through little and draws you imperceptibly into the film's quiet magic.
Trying a while back to write a query letter for "Gabriel Yeats" I found myself thinking it would appeal to fans of Powell and Pressburger; watching this film last night I found myself thinking how accurate a description that was. It's almost as if I had been trying, unconsciously, to script my own Archers' movie. It's rather embarrassing to realise how much "Gabriel Yeats" pulls together themes and motifs from all my favourites.
One other thing I had never realised until last night was how much my protagonist owes to that wonderful actor Roger Livesey, who appears in this and two other great P&P films. I'd never seen it until now, but just as "Gabriel Yeats" is a fantasy Powell and Pressburger film, so Simon Cenarth is a dream Roger Livesey rôle. It's a revelation to me. How oddly the mind works; I've been looking for "the right face" for Simon for years, when all the time he had been right in front of me in three of my favourite films. If that hyperlink has come through okay, by the way, it's a still from "Colonel Blimp"; the beginning of the duelling scene.
There's a long-standing family mystery about Roger Livesey; according to the story, his family and my father's are connected. But no-one now can fill me in on the truth of it; my father couldn't remember the background when I asked him shortly before he died, and went off onto a tangent about the school his stepfather ran; my mother only knows the gist of the family story and none of the facts; the grandparental generation, who would have known the truth, are all dead now.
There is one piece of evidence, if one can call it that. When my parents married in 1962 they were given, by someone (no idea who) in my father's extensive family, a wedding present of a piece of glazed stoneware made by a potter called Evelyn Livesey. My mother still has the piece of pottery - it's gorgeous, a large dish shaped like a flattened cylinder seal, decorated with incised patterns and abstract shapes in a rich greenish glaze. It always serves as the main fruit platter on the Christmas dinner table, and I have adored it since I was a kid. My mother was told at the time that that Evelyn Livesey was a relative of Roger Livesey's and that the Livesey family were connected to my father's family, and I have always cherished this tentative connection, though I do wonder if it is not in fact a case of Chinese whispers. I've tried looking up the name "Evelyn Livesey" online but have got nowhere. I'd love to find out the truth about this someday.
I once wrote an essay on the Archers films for college - rather to the surprise of my tutor, who didn't think Michael Powell had made anything worth considering apart from "Peeping Tom", and so hadn't seen any of his other films (and this was a professional lecturer in film studies - shame on her!). I was able to burble about them to my heart's content with impunity, since she couldn't criticise my work without first working her way through more films than she had time for. I probably displayed the depths of my nerdiness to great advantage, but I was happy.
Last night I put on my dvd of "I know where I'm going!", which is one of the most wholeheartedly romantic of the Archers films. Tonight I'll probably follow it up with "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp". Movie heaven; my perfect cinema date would be these two films, in a double bill at the Riverside Studios with a good meal first and a glass of shiraz in the interval.
"I know where I'm going!" is a love story, filmed in 1944 and released in 1945. Joan Webster, a confident and self-possessed young woman (played by Wendy Hiller) has by the age of 25 convinced herself that the way to happiness is to marry a wealthy man who she does not love and enjoy all the good things his money can buy her. On her way to the planned wedding in the Hebrides, however, the great British climate intervenes, stranding her on Mull for a week. Under the influence of a mystically beautiful landscape and of the friendly local people, and especially of Roger Livesey as the handsome but impoverished local laird, she is forced to face the folly of her dreams. As the film ends she decides to give up her planned marriage and acknowledges her feelings for Livesey. Returning up the hill from the little port accompanied by three pipers she joins him in the ruins of Moy Castle - and I have a lump in my throat the size of a tennis ball.
Summed up like that, it sounds like the worst, most formulaic Hollywood sludge, yet it couldn't be more different. It is subtle, ironic and delicate, treating its gold-digging heroine with sympathy even while pulling holes in her values, and allowing her to retain her astringent determination to the end. Her relationship with Livesey's warm, sardonic, honest hero is human and credible. I want to cheer when they get together.
Visually the film is absolutely sumptuous, creating more richness with black and white than many a colour movie achieves, and offering a succession of haunting images. The first entry of Pamela Brown's character Catriona, whistling on a hillside in the thick fog, surrounded by wolfhounds; the shots of the local girl Bridie waiting on the quayside, afraid her sweetheart has been drowned trying to earn the money to be able to marry her, her tension and grief conveyed through her stillness; countless outdoor shots of the local scenery; perhaps above all the wonderful sequence of the ceilidh at Ardnacroish, where the locals dance and sing puirt á beul and the lovers watch first the dancing and then one another (Powell having a lovely time here mucking about with all those po-faced theories about "the fetishistic Gaze"); over and over one is jolted by simple yet stunning imagery that tells much through little and draws you imperceptibly into the film's quiet magic.
Trying a while back to write a query letter for "Gabriel Yeats" I found myself thinking it would appeal to fans of Powell and Pressburger; watching this film last night I found myself thinking how accurate a description that was. It's almost as if I had been trying, unconsciously, to script my own Archers' movie. It's rather embarrassing to realise how much "Gabriel Yeats" pulls together themes and motifs from all my favourites.
One other thing I had never realised until last night was how much my protagonist owes to that wonderful actor Roger Livesey, who appears in this and two other great P&P films. I'd never seen it until now, but just as "Gabriel Yeats" is a fantasy Powell and Pressburger film, so Simon Cenarth is a dream Roger Livesey rôle. It's a revelation to me. How oddly the mind works; I've been looking for "the right face" for Simon for years, when all the time he had been right in front of me in three of my favourite films. If that hyperlink has come through okay, by the way, it's a still from "Colonel Blimp"; the beginning of the duelling scene.
There's a long-standing family mystery about Roger Livesey; according to the story, his family and my father's are connected. But no-one now can fill me in on the truth of it; my father couldn't remember the background when I asked him shortly before he died, and went off onto a tangent about the school his stepfather ran; my mother only knows the gist of the family story and none of the facts; the grandparental generation, who would have known the truth, are all dead now.
There is one piece of evidence, if one can call it that. When my parents married in 1962 they were given, by someone (no idea who) in my father's extensive family, a wedding present of a piece of glazed stoneware made by a potter called Evelyn Livesey. My mother still has the piece of pottery - it's gorgeous, a large dish shaped like a flattened cylinder seal, decorated with incised patterns and abstract shapes in a rich greenish glaze. It always serves as the main fruit platter on the Christmas dinner table, and I have adored it since I was a kid. My mother was told at the time that that Evelyn Livesey was a relative of Roger Livesey's and that the Livesey family were connected to my father's family, and I have always cherished this tentative connection, though I do wonder if it is not in fact a case of Chinese whispers. I've tried looking up the name "Evelyn Livesey" online but have got nowhere. I'd love to find out the truth about this someday.
Monday, 8 February 2010
Determined to be buoyant
You will gather, I'm trying resolutely to be cheerful and to look for things to laugh about. It's meant to keep me from fretting, since I have reason to fret just at the moment.
Yesterday afternoon, coming home from Morrisons in Acton (yes, apart from The Geek's birthday bash it was that exciting a weekend), I dumped my bag of shopping in the rack near the driver and was making my way down the bus to find a seat, using the overhead straps for balance. The bus jolted; I lurched and wrenched on the strap, and a sharp pain stabbed through the Mount of Venus on my left hand. The good hand. Or perhaps I should say the "good" hand, since it now isn't very good at all; it hurts like heck and I can't move my thumb properly any more. So I now have two damaged hands and am feeling pretty frustrated and frankly a bit scared.
What happens if whatever it is I've pulled in my left hand gets worse? Because my right hand, twitching about on the end of the rigid rusted-shut hinge that is my right wrist, ain't much use at present.
Managed to sublimate these self-absorbed worries for a while last night by watching "La Belle et la Bête" and marvelling again at what an extraordinary piece of film-making this is. How much Cocteau achieves with such slight means! How weird and wonderful the psychology of the story is, and how rich the black-and-white photography looks! And how marvellously sexy and scary and moving The Beast is. By gum, Jean Marais had presence, even under that make-up job. Perhaps I should say, especially under that make-up job...
Friday, 5 February 2010
Emotional barometer going down again
Feeling rather low after a physiotherapy session this morning which was a mixture of encouraging and deeply dispiriting. There are not going to be any quick fixes with this wrist of mine.
Some aspects of the session were encouraging. My flexion is "pretty good considering" and my finger strength is "excellent". My pronation and supination - the pivoting-from-below-the-elbow movements - are much as expected. But my extension - the bending-back movement - is non-existent and my radial deviation is poor, and both of these may be affected by the position of the plate in my arm. I have a list of exercises as long as my arm, and two different types of massage; all of these have to be done several times a day. No starting on strength exercises until I have more flexibility, since strength exercises will not lengthen the muscles but if anything shorten them; I need to lengthen them back to a good normal standard before i do anything else. I've also been given a night-splint to wear; rather like a brace for one's teeth, only to stretch the tendons instead of straightening the gob.
I came out feeling tired and shaky and rather dismal, got as far as the tube station saying "Pull yourself together, woman" to myself, and then gave up, and limped into Starbucks for a large coffee and an apple doughnut. It's no good; when you feel weepy and wimpy sometimes you just have to accept it. I dropped my teaspoon in the café and nearly cried at that; so clearly I am hardly emotionally robust at present and I'd do best to be honest with myself about it.
Last night's Philharmonia concert was exhilerating; George Benjamin's "Dance Figures", which I didn't know and liked enormously; a dazzlingly icy and bravura Stravinsky concerto from Viktoria Mullova (in a very strange nightdress-like frock worn over black cigarette pants - not sure this was a good look, though it did leave her arms free), and the Bartók "Concerto for Orchestra", which I adore and was duely blown away by once again. The brass practically lifted me out of my seat. The first time I heard this it was being played by the amateur orchestra my godfather Jim Clinch used to conduct - it's probably one of the most ambitious things they'd ever tackled - and at the end, in the split second before the applause started, Jimmy could be heard hissing "Well done!" as he laid down his baton. I think that was the concert when he lost a dress-shirt button ten minutes before the start and I got hoiked into the Green Room to sew him back together (I am one of those odd people who carry needle and thread, and sticking plaster, and a rubber band, and a pencil sharpener...). Sadly I don't think I'll ever get to rescue Maestro Salonen from a sartorial whoops, but one can't have everything in this life of ours.
I know the Benjamin piece was choreographed (by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, I think) on its première, but someone ought to play it to Wayne Macgregor anyway; I'm sure it's right up his street. For that matter, I don't think anyone's ever made a dance piece to the Bartók, either, and it practically cries out for movement.
I came home on a high, trying to write a poem about Bartók. Must remember that, when I feel low. There is so much beauty in the world, so much of excitement and passion. My little woes amount to less than a grain of sand in comparison.
Some aspects of the session were encouraging. My flexion is "pretty good considering" and my finger strength is "excellent". My pronation and supination - the pivoting-from-below-the-elbow movements - are much as expected. But my extension - the bending-back movement - is non-existent and my radial deviation is poor, and both of these may be affected by the position of the plate in my arm. I have a list of exercises as long as my arm, and two different types of massage; all of these have to be done several times a day. No starting on strength exercises until I have more flexibility, since strength exercises will not lengthen the muscles but if anything shorten them; I need to lengthen them back to a good normal standard before i do anything else. I've also been given a night-splint to wear; rather like a brace for one's teeth, only to stretch the tendons instead of straightening the gob.
I came out feeling tired and shaky and rather dismal, got as far as the tube station saying "Pull yourself together, woman" to myself, and then gave up, and limped into Starbucks for a large coffee and an apple doughnut. It's no good; when you feel weepy and wimpy sometimes you just have to accept it. I dropped my teaspoon in the café and nearly cried at that; so clearly I am hardly emotionally robust at present and I'd do best to be honest with myself about it.
Last night's Philharmonia concert was exhilerating; George Benjamin's "Dance Figures", which I didn't know and liked enormously; a dazzlingly icy and bravura Stravinsky concerto from Viktoria Mullova (in a very strange nightdress-like frock worn over black cigarette pants - not sure this was a good look, though it did leave her arms free), and the Bartók "Concerto for Orchestra", which I adore and was duely blown away by once again. The brass practically lifted me out of my seat. The first time I heard this it was being played by the amateur orchestra my godfather Jim Clinch used to conduct - it's probably one of the most ambitious things they'd ever tackled - and at the end, in the split second before the applause started, Jimmy could be heard hissing "Well done!" as he laid down his baton. I think that was the concert when he lost a dress-shirt button ten minutes before the start and I got hoiked into the Green Room to sew him back together (I am one of those odd people who carry needle and thread, and sticking plaster, and a rubber band, and a pencil sharpener...). Sadly I don't think I'll ever get to rescue Maestro Salonen from a sartorial whoops, but one can't have everything in this life of ours.
I know the Benjamin piece was choreographed (by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, I think) on its première, but someone ought to play it to Wayne Macgregor anyway; I'm sure it's right up his street. For that matter, I don't think anyone's ever made a dance piece to the Bartók, either, and it practically cries out for movement.
I came home on a high, trying to write a poem about Bartók. Must remember that, when I feel low. There is so much beauty in the world, so much of excitement and passion. My little woes amount to less than a grain of sand in comparison.
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
Not-so-good day
I'm feeling rough.
I'm not sure why, but my wrist has swollen up badly and is very uncomfortable today. It aches all the time, and I am back on the paracetamol because life is too short to sit around in pain all the time. But it has really depressed me to be like this. I realise how "close to the edge" I am. I've used inverted commas there because I don't want to give the impression I may suddenly top myself or strip off and run screaming through the office; it isn't that bad an edge. It's the edge of tears and the edge of wanting to pull a sickie, that's all. But the thing is, I don't do those things, so I am up against my own standards, and that is a hard, flinty wall to be backed up against. I cry at the theatre, I cry at books, I cry at funerals; but I don't cry for self-pity. Self pity is for babies and the gutless, and tears are for those who like to play helpless because it makes life easier if someone else will deal with your problems for you. Pulling a sickie is for the lazy and the undisciplined. Good grief - where did I get my standards from? - Rooster Cockburn's School for Masochistic Machismo?
I am tired; just so tired.
Last night I tried to draw something; just a quick sketch of the man on the tele. Let's just say, the results were more tangled spaghetti than usual. This morning I wake to a painful, puffy hand that is even more immobile than before. I arrive at work to find the place reeks of carpet glue and the usual collection of weirdoes are writing and telephoning me, and I want to hide. I want to cry. I really do want to cry.
I want to be able to draw a line on the page that I shape, not my f***ing raspberry rippled hand; I want to be able to draw a line through the air with my fingertips, too; and to be able to open a screw top jar by myself. Oh gods, I want to weep; everything is still so difficult, and there is such a mountain ahead of me still to climb.
I will come through today, and the next day; I know this, rationally. I wish I had a little more strength to go and actually do it, though.
Plenty of people (Lance Armstrong, Amitabh Bhachchan, Alina Cojocaru, at least half the England cricket team, to name but a handful...) have come back from far worse injuries or health problems than this. I am being a total wimp. I am gutless and have no self-discipline. And I went to Rooster Cockburn's Masochism School. Please feel free to ignore me until I get my act together again.
I'm not sure why, but my wrist has swollen up badly and is very uncomfortable today. It aches all the time, and I am back on the paracetamol because life is too short to sit around in pain all the time. But it has really depressed me to be like this. I realise how "close to the edge" I am. I've used inverted commas there because I don't want to give the impression I may suddenly top myself or strip off and run screaming through the office; it isn't that bad an edge. It's the edge of tears and the edge of wanting to pull a sickie, that's all. But the thing is, I don't do those things, so I am up against my own standards, and that is a hard, flinty wall to be backed up against. I cry at the theatre, I cry at books, I cry at funerals; but I don't cry for self-pity. Self pity is for babies and the gutless, and tears are for those who like to play helpless because it makes life easier if someone else will deal with your problems for you. Pulling a sickie is for the lazy and the undisciplined. Good grief - where did I get my standards from? - Rooster Cockburn's School for Masochistic Machismo?
I am tired; just so tired.
Last night I tried to draw something; just a quick sketch of the man on the tele. Let's just say, the results were more tangled spaghetti than usual. This morning I wake to a painful, puffy hand that is even more immobile than before. I arrive at work to find the place reeks of carpet glue and the usual collection of weirdoes are writing and telephoning me, and I want to hide. I want to cry. I really do want to cry.
I want to be able to draw a line on the page that I shape, not my f***ing raspberry rippled hand; I want to be able to draw a line through the air with my fingertips, too; and to be able to open a screw top jar by myself. Oh gods, I want to weep; everything is still so difficult, and there is such a mountain ahead of me still to climb.
I will come through today, and the next day; I know this, rationally. I wish I had a little more strength to go and actually do it, though.
Plenty of people (Lance Armstrong, Amitabh Bhachchan, Alina Cojocaru, at least half the England cricket team, to name but a handful...) have come back from far worse injuries or health problems than this. I am being a total wimp. I am gutless and have no self-discipline. And I went to Rooster Cockburn's Masochism School. Please feel free to ignore me until I get my act together again.
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Another little bit of progress...
I actually had enough energy yesterday evening to do some typing after work. I no longer have to type completely one-handed - I can now use the side of the middle finger on my right hand as well. This speeds things up considerably. There is a downside, unfortunately; I've got so used to typing with my left hand only that my bilateral thinking is a little askew, and I find some very odd spelling errors appearing as the two hands sometimes get out of synch with one another. Thus "cosnitsnet" for "consistent" and "etdnecyn" for "tendency".
I rather like "cosnitsnet", actually; wonder if I can find a use for that one? If it were "cosnitset" it might be something statistical...
Anyway, I turned on the old laptop, opened up one of the Works in Progress, and moved things on a little. I had been thinking about "Fortitude" and it had occured to me that one other character was as important as the three I had been forgrounding, and that he needed to be a pov character. But he was being sidelined - as things stood Iain Siward's lawyer got more "screen time" than him. So I have left Iain & co chugging through space and gone to see how James Fairlight is coping. And he is having a rough time; aliens who meddle with your brain (not from sadism but because they are trying to figure out how your species communicates when, bewilderingly, you appear not to be telepathic) are pretty hard to cope with. So it was an interesting evening's writing.
I rather like "cosnitsnet", actually; wonder if I can find a use for that one? If it were "cosnitset" it might be something statistical...
Anyway, I turned on the old laptop, opened up one of the Works in Progress, and moved things on a little. I had been thinking about "Fortitude" and it had occured to me that one other character was as important as the three I had been forgrounding, and that he needed to be a pov character. But he was being sidelined - as things stood Iain Siward's lawyer got more "screen time" than him. So I have left Iain & co chugging through space and gone to see how James Fairlight is coping. And he is having a rough time; aliens who meddle with your brain (not from sadism but because they are trying to figure out how your species communicates when, bewilderingly, you appear not to be telepathic) are pretty hard to cope with. So it was an interesting evening's writing.
Monday, 1 February 2010
I make progress...
On Friday my cast came off!! Hurrah, free at last, free, free...
Actually, while I may be technically free, my right forearm is almost completely immobile, and my wrist is aching more than it has done in weeks. But the wretched, chafing, clunking, bally great cast is off. Gone. Kaput.
I have a Fortuna splint, but have been advised not to use it more than is absolutely essential. I'm practising gently pivoting my arm through the limited degrees of the circle that it will cover (about 55 degrees out of the usual 355 or so) and waggling it back and forth through the roughly 35 degrees (out of the normal 170-ish) that it will flex laterally. And still doing my tendon exercises. And hoping for the best.
At least I'm now allowed to lift small items. I can raise an apple to my mouth! - though once there, I have to move my mouth round the apple rather than turning the apple about in front of the mouth. Still, this is progress. But it is bizarre to reflect that the wrist is in normal circumstances one of the most flexible joints in the human body. It sticks out, this limb of mine, a frail flipper, swollen and nobbly, its scant remaining muscles floppy with weakness, its pallid skin dry and pimpled. Down the soft fleshy side runs a dramatic scar, pinkly puckered, rigid and tender. But free, free, free...
The best moment was when the consultant held out his pinkie finger to me, as one would to a baby, and said "Will you hold my finger, please?" I reached up and gave it a good squeeze, and he beamed; "Excellent grip, well done!" So the creepy-looking finger exercises have paid off. I'm not used to going around squeezing strange men's fingers...
Friday afternoon, when I got out of the hospital at last, I took a train down to my mum's in Kent, feeling rather shell-shocked, and spent most of the rest of the weekend sleeping on her sofa while the heavy white frost fell in the garden. Now I'm back at work, and back discovering what I can and can't do; all of which has subtley but definitely changed from when I had the cast. I am slower at getting dressed, for instance, but I can now walk briskly without jolting myself painfully. It will be a long time before I go dancing again, though. But by Thursday when I go to the Festival Hall to hear the Bartok "Concerto for Orchestra", I just might be able to applaud, at least softly, at least for a few seconds, in the normal way, instead of thrashing my left leg resoundingly. Which feels quite as weird (and painful), and looks just as kinky, as it sounds.
Plenty of great sportsmen have made full recoveries from worse injuries, as has Favourite Baritone, and as have innumerable dancers. Now I get to share what thay have been through.
And there are more snowdrops out at work. Progress all round; every day, and every experience, a new piece of the richness of life to savour.
Actually, while I may be technically free, my right forearm is almost completely immobile, and my wrist is aching more than it has done in weeks. But the wretched, chafing, clunking, bally great cast is off. Gone. Kaput.
I have a Fortuna splint, but have been advised not to use it more than is absolutely essential. I'm practising gently pivoting my arm through the limited degrees of the circle that it will cover (about 55 degrees out of the usual 355 or so) and waggling it back and forth through the roughly 35 degrees (out of the normal 170-ish) that it will flex laterally. And still doing my tendon exercises. And hoping for the best.
At least I'm now allowed to lift small items. I can raise an apple to my mouth! - though once there, I have to move my mouth round the apple rather than turning the apple about in front of the mouth. Still, this is progress. But it is bizarre to reflect that the wrist is in normal circumstances one of the most flexible joints in the human body. It sticks out, this limb of mine, a frail flipper, swollen and nobbly, its scant remaining muscles floppy with weakness, its pallid skin dry and pimpled. Down the soft fleshy side runs a dramatic scar, pinkly puckered, rigid and tender. But free, free, free...
The best moment was when the consultant held out his pinkie finger to me, as one would to a baby, and said "Will you hold my finger, please?" I reached up and gave it a good squeeze, and he beamed; "Excellent grip, well done!" So the creepy-looking finger exercises have paid off. I'm not used to going around squeezing strange men's fingers...
Friday afternoon, when I got out of the hospital at last, I took a train down to my mum's in Kent, feeling rather shell-shocked, and spent most of the rest of the weekend sleeping on her sofa while the heavy white frost fell in the garden. Now I'm back at work, and back discovering what I can and can't do; all of which has subtley but definitely changed from when I had the cast. I am slower at getting dressed, for instance, but I can now walk briskly without jolting myself painfully. It will be a long time before I go dancing again, though. But by Thursday when I go to the Festival Hall to hear the Bartok "Concerto for Orchestra", I just might be able to applaud, at least softly, at least for a few seconds, in the normal way, instead of thrashing my left leg resoundingly. Which feels quite as weird (and painful), and looks just as kinky, as it sounds.
Plenty of great sportsmen have made full recoveries from worse injuries, as has Favourite Baritone, and as have innumerable dancers. Now I get to share what thay have been through.
And there are more snowdrops out at work. Progress all round; every day, and every experience, a new piece of the richness of life to savour.
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