writing fifty: adventures everyday and extraordinary
Up before the sun. Who ever thought I’d be celebrating that?When I first imagined doing 50 things, watching sunrise was one of them: I had a romantic notion of being somewhere warm enough, and verdant and lovely, preferably with a long view; there would be a flask of tea and a sense of wonder, perhaps with a side of epiphany. But that particular version of (more…)
This would be a fine place to spend eternity.From the lichened drystone wall where I sat the land rolled away to the horizon, a series of gradual grassy undulations punctuated with clumps of shrubs and trees. In the distance the peat browns and heather purples of the moor spread their muted patchwork; within the tiny churchyard itself, oaks, ashes and other trees were stretching (more…)
Of late my memory has become a sort of penny falls: I put one new thought in and several others get pushed out to make room. Unfortunately the displaced items don’t fall usefully into that collect-your-swag slot where you can reach down and reclaim them; they slide instead down that chute-to-oblivion at the side where those promising, teetering piles of coppers used to end up. That thing I had to remember… What thing? Did I have to remember something? (more…)
I know. Sounds most unlikely as a special or celebratory act, right? But stay with me. It’s been a pretty thorough tidying up, with some surprisingly lovely and unexpectedly profound things involved.It all started when my landlady was getting people in to quote for redecorating my house, and one of the decorators thus consulted had a look in the front room where all my books and bookbinding equipment and supplies live—and we are talking a lot of paper here, friends—and said, ‘Hmm, when we’re done, you’ll have a chance to put things back nicely, won’t you?’. Patronising git. (And he left the seat up, too.) (more…)
‘… and then you’d think aha! something interesting is going to happen and then someone would mention Derrida and it would all be over…’Thus my friend Simon, speaking about his time reading English at Oxford and the death-by-theory thing which can so often happen during formal study. I know what he means. In my very first group supervision at Cambridge we were issued copies of a poem—I have repressed the knowledge of what it was, if I ever knew—and the Director of Studies’ opening gambit (more…)