Springtime (pre-equinox)
Loud t-storm; air so warm, we have windows open. When Samuel’s school bus arrived, he paced the aisle, unwilling to disembark in what was then a light rain. I had to climb aboard to coax him out. Earlier, I’d gone with Karin, Abel, and Daniel to meet the boys’ new physician. (The previous one, a Seventh-day Adventist, has moved to Guam for a three-year religious tour of duty.) Upon our return to Toad Hall, the alarm was blaring. It took us a good while to turn it off. Daniel ran down the block, did a round of hopscotch, and ran back. Our door was locked when we arrived, so there probably hadn’t been any burglar; in any case, no one would have stayed long. The noise was deafening and there’s nothing here to burgle but toys and used books.
I’m tempted to try reading Virginia Woolf’s Orlando but the schedule is just too packed.
“He – for there could be no doubt about his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it – was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters.”
(The opening lines.)
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
I’m reading Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction, set just before Britain’s 2003 invasion of Iraq. Adrian is a die-hard, blind Blair supporter. He believes there will be no war because that’s what Blair tells Britain. Adrian’s seventeen-year-old son Glenn has joined up and trains in Aldershot with other soldiers, running in full battle-dress on builder’s sand. Adrian has just used a Barclaycard blank check (29% interest) to obtain down payment funds (I forget how many thousands of pounds) for his trendy canalside loft, which he is furnishing with store credit (almost £10,000 at 20% interest). His parents have sold their property to a developer and bought a pig-sty to convert, “DIY,” into their new dwelling (“the Piggeries”). Meantime they live in a tent.
It’s a cheap trick, relaying what’s in other people’s books, but this stuff is too good to keep quiet about.
I’m tempted to try reading Virginia Woolf’s Orlando but the schedule is just too packed.
“He – for there could be no doubt about his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it – was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters.”
(The opening lines.)
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
I’m reading Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction, set just before Britain’s 2003 invasion of Iraq. Adrian is a die-hard, blind Blair supporter. He believes there will be no war because that’s what Blair tells Britain. Adrian’s seventeen-year-old son Glenn has joined up and trains in Aldershot with other soldiers, running in full battle-dress on builder’s sand. Adrian has just used a Barclaycard blank check (29% interest) to obtain down payment funds (I forget how many thousands of pounds) for his trendy canalside loft, which he is furnishing with store credit (almost £10,000 at 20% interest). His parents have sold their property to a developer and bought a pig-sty to convert, “DIY,” into their new dwelling (“the Piggeries”). Meantime they live in a tent.
It’s a cheap trick, relaying what’s in other people’s books, but this stuff is too good to keep quiet about.
