Busy busy bee, encore une fois (or, busy poseur, perhaps)...

I want to say that I have been on the go for so long I feel slightly disorientated.  I want to have a little moan about that.  But that “for so long” refers to a period of about three weeks.  There are people in this world whose lives don’t provide them with a break and a decent rest for several years at a stretch, never mind weeks.  Heck, there are plenty of people who never get a holiday in their entire lives.  I should grumble.  Heavens, what a wimp I’m becoming.

Work has been busier this month, which is good.  The weather has been – well, British.  Since I last wrote any notes here I’ve been gripped and thrilled by a magnificent performance of “Peter Grimes” at the Proms (Stuart Skelton in harrowingly good form in the lead, the chorus practically blasting off the roof of the Albert Hall when they let rip, all this and the lovely Iain Paterson to boot); I’ve also spent a blissful afternoon at the Science Museum (no longer just for kids), I’ve written my arse off all the bank holiday weekend, and I’ve dashed down to Kent to help my mum celebrate a big birthday – you know the kind - one with a number ending in zero. 

The latter is a bit of a “good grief, really?” moment for me; presumably a hell of a lot more so for her.  She never really seems to change that much, much less age particularly, and it is weird to realise how the numbers are still stacking up notwithstanding.  Well, I hope I have inherited her life span genes, and not my father’s. 

Mum’s birthday was fun, and would have been more fun if the weather hadn’t been so up itself.  It’s still August, for crying out loud.  What’s with the howling gales, persistent heavy rain and thunder and lightning?  But there was plenty of champagne, as well as both vanilla and maple-pecan fudge (she’s allergic to chocolate) and several kinds of cake, and curry for supper, and bouquets of flowers, and potted phalaenopsis, and a nice stack of greetings cards to prop along the front room bookcase.   And gin and Pringles, without which no family gathering seems to be complete these days.  Whatever did we do before the advent of the Pringle? 

Outings (it being way too dodgy, weather-wise, for the planned picnic on the beach either day) were instead spent partly sitting in the car listening to the rain beat on the roof, and pondering the intricate patterns very heavy rain makes on a windscreen in a very heavy & horizontal wind (like quivering water-lace; rather beautiful in a wet way), and partly indulging in the atavistic pleasure of blackberry picking.  So what with the dear UK climate doing its absolute nut, and the blackberries leaving all of us with lacerated burgundy hands, and champagne going to everyone’s head, it was a mad but very happy couple of days off. 

This weekend I’m cat-sitting (for the cat who is scared of farting – note to self, do not fart at the cat.  As if I needed telling.  But then, I’m no lady, me).  Then next Friday I’m off to Cornwall, for the second half of Mum’s birthday celebrations (I told you it was a big one) – a family week in Polruan.  Beautiful Cornwall, beautiful Fowey River, beautiful clean sea air and peaceful walking, silent country nights, lovely pubs, and good Cornish cider, yarg cheese, and pasties from Niles Bakery... 

The road you didn't take...

Do you ever wonder if there are alternative universes?  That wonderful staple of so much science fiction (albeit generally at the cheesy twaddle end of the spectrum), the alternative world where your life could have been different, where the entire history of humankind could have been different, where evolution itself could have been different...   Perhaps this is simply further evidence of my being a bit of a saddo, but I do wonder about it.  What if there really were numberless, infinite, endlessly variable alternative worlds?

I don’t wonder much about the perfect life I’m not leading (& that is probably pretty revealing, come to think of it!).  But I do wonder about all the universes in which I didn’t exist, or didn’t exist past the age of four, or fourteen, or twenty-two, or twenty-nine...  I could have been drowned, the first time I saw the sea (I threw myself into it headlong in my excitement, and was pulled out literally by my hair).  I had a mysterious fever when I was fourteen; it went away after a few days, but there could be universes where it didn’t...   It feels as though I am bending my brain and squashing it through a slot in a thick steel wall, when I try to imagine how I can imagine a world in which I am not there to imagine it.

I have jay-walked across so many busy roads in my life.  Every time I have ever taken a risk – whether jay-walking or something more serious - it could have worked out differently; and from each of those branching points, how many alternatives could have come? 

There are positive possibilities, as well as all this “I might not exist” stuff.  Things I look back on as horrible low points in my life could have been far worse, with the smallest twist of fate or shift of decision.  Several relationships that didn’t work out could instead have worked for longer, and then have failed far more dramatically and messily, than they did in this life.   We were pretty poor when I was a child, but we could have been far worse off.  My parents fought; but they could have fought far worse.  I hated school, but I could have had far more reason to do so.

If there are other universes, I’ll never know, anyway.  The song says “The roads you didn’t take run through rotten ground – don’t they?”  But I’ll never know.  My road has had its bumps, but by and large has run through good ground – or at least, through an interesting terrain.

There might be a universe somewhere in which I have always enjoyed perfect health and perfect self-confidence, a universe in which I got a great degree, made a wonderful marriage, had four lovely children, owned a beautiful home, was successful in every career choice and every pastime, and never had to lose anyone I loved.  Would that blessed lotus-eater me have been bored rigid, though? -  maybe even have been dissatisfied with her lot?  She might not have been aware that it was perfect, after all. 

And would she have wondered about alternative universes, in which she and her perfect happy life had never existed at all?

Mystified and busy with Grimes and Bourne

Can anyone enlighten me as to why this:
http://imogenscreativefire.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/i-hasten-to-add.html
appears to be my most-viewed blog post ever?  As the saying goes, how weird is that?  There must be a lot of people out there who really love the word "purple"...

It's been a busy patch: work has picked up again; the hot sunny weather got completely overwhelming last weekend and has only just become bearable again; I met a friend's gorgeous new cat and fell for him heavily (he's snow-white and fluffy, very sweet-natured and slightly daft), and then scared said cat rigid by farting loudly after drinking far more cold cider than was good for me on a very hot afternoon; I ate almost a whole Walls Vienetta on my own; I went to a brainstorming session in a pub (good venue!), the new Bourne film (ace!) and a fascinating marketing workshop, and had lunch with Jane; and tomorrow I've got the afternoon off and am heading into South Ken for "Universe of Sound" with the Philharmonia at the Science Museum and a prom performance of "Peter Grimes".

I have also, needless to add, been cramming a bit of writing in around the edges.  Since it is forecast to rain for most of this Bank Holiday weekend, I may well end up doing a bit more of that.

No prizes for guessing why I'm going to "Peter Grimes" - I'll probably have a good cry, since Stuart Skelton is singing the lead.  The glorious Mr Skelton in full flow, and all that stunning Britten music and painful emotion, in the heightened atmosphere (& probably elevated temperature) of the Proms; irresistible. 

No prizes for guessing why I went to "The Bourne Legacy", either.  I would probably have gone anyway, but perhaps not as soon after it opened!  I loved the other Bourne movies; they've been a welcome blast of clarity and grittiness in a field that tends towards the bloated and ludicrously unlikely (see: pretty much any Bond film, ever)...

The latest one is, like the previous three, intelligent and exciting.  The script requires you to pay attention, listen and think, as well as assuming you know what "vector" and "metastasise" mean.  There's a very pleasing sense of a new spiral swinging off from the circles of the previous storyline, and a fascinating touch of "Flowers for Algernon"...  Rachel Weiss is, as always, excellent.  And having always found Matt Damon's who-me-I'm-just-an-Everyman good looks just a tad too doughy-faced for my tastes I am very happy indeed that with the arrival of Mr Renner's grimly brooding hunk of a new hero the eye-candy quotient has been much improved!  Along with the acting intensity.  I'm beginning to wonder if there's anything this man can't do?  I gather he also sings and play several instruments (& does DIY, and can cook, and loves dogs - hell's teeth, I'm looking at perfection here).  Maybe he can't tap dance?...

Trying again!

I've had another go at it.  The new blog launch, that is.  It's called "I see W", aka ICW, or Imogen's Creative Writing.  Check your inboxes, people.  You might have received unsolicited mail from me.

It's sunny and boiling hot here at Kew, and the forecast is for it to get hotter over the weekend.  I'm trying to put together a shopping list, but all I can think about is salad and cold beer.  Going home, then, to eat salad and drink cold beer, and (of course) write...

Well, I did it...

... but it doesn't seem to be working properly.  Dear heaven, I wish I were a tad more technology-savvy.

Might do this - what do you think?

I’m thinking of launching a second blog. 

No, not re-launching the joke one I started and then scrapped when I realised the joke was too singular for general consumption (botany/lechery fusion humour, anyone? – no, I thought not). 

No, this would be a very occasional blog, for very occasional updates of – well, creative writing.  That stuff I keep gabbing on about but never show you.

It will have to be “subscribers only”, and anyone who wanted to see the contents would have to sign-up in response to being invited by me.  No charge!  I don’t do that out of any mistaken impression that I or my writing are of any importance, at least to anyone other than me and my friends; it’s just a security thing.  I don’t want to stick it in the public domain, completely unprotected.  But I’d like to be able to let those who want to see it do so, without having to dispatch horrendously long email attachments to them which they then never get around to printing out. 

However, if you’d be interested, or just fancy a laugh, remember I need an email address in order to send you an invitation.  So if you don’t get an invitation from me when you would have expected one, a) check your spam folder, and b) send me your current email address, just in case I don’t have it. 

The plan is for the first item up to be a fairy-tale/ballet mash-up called “Trouble with Bridegrooms”.  What happens if Dandini falls in love with Cinderella, and Benno falls in love with Odette, and the Prince wanders off into the forest and finds a completely different story altogether? 

If that makes you want to chuck, then ignore the new blog, and retain your lunch, and be happy! 

Post-Olympics blues...

Very tired after sitting up till midnight watching the closing ceremony of the Olympics.  What a riot!

I hate to utter such a cliché, but looking back over the last two-and-a-bit weeks I feel rather proud to be British.  I really think London has done a damned good job at staging the Games.  All the venues looked fantastic, and seemed to have clear sight-lines (& very loud acoustics).  Transport has run much more smoothly than we anticipated.  The BBC tv coverage has been excellent, too.  They managed to make Dressage interesting, which is quite an achievement.  I even spent one evening glued to a handball game, when I hadn't previously known there was such a thing as handball (except as an illegal move in football, that is).

And the Opening and Closing ceremonies were both, in their totally different and bonkers ways, glorious fun.  Good music (okay, some of it better than other bits!) and mad theatre, perfectly organised chaos, and wall-to-wall British eccentricity.

To finish off with Darcey Bussell arriving as a phoenix to dance the Olympic Flame to its rest was a lovely final touch.  She flew in, trailing fireworks from her wingframes, to join four gorgeous flame-coloured cavaliers (led by the unmistakeable figure of Gary Avis - I'm pretty sure I recognised the other three as well but won't mention names in case I'm completely wrong) and dance with them, being lifted and flung dramatically through the air, until at last they gathered round the great unfurling torch and waited; and like a huge fading chrysanthemum it shed petal after petal of flame, and died away.  Call me a sentimental sausage by all means, but it was real lump in the throat stuff.

And if I am rather sleepy this morning, I cannot imagine how tired the participants and the audience must feel.

I did also get some writing done, I'm glad to say.  I got over a little bump that had been intimidating me.  I had realised it had to come from a different point of view, and it flowed much better for it.  I'm at about the 45,000 word mark, though I'm sure extensive revision will be needed; still, that's not bad after two months.