nam 29 April 2008
Well, there was only one way to get him back – I have been forced to make a trip to Ukraine. Tis like a dawn raid to recapture a fallen soldier/comrade (there’s a soviet joke available but won’t go there as we live in modern times and thank goodness too) so, dawn raidy except lovely and fun. Yup, I am in Odessa. I have been here once before in the freezing cold and LOVED it and I must report it’s even nicer in the warmer weather. So cosmopolitan. Over a hundred different nationalities live here and the architecture is incredibly European (well, of course it is, most of the historical stuff was built around the same times and eras as those of Paris and Italy and so on). At present I am in THE coolest basement bar I have ever encountered with free wifi. Had a fantastic meal in the city’s top place to eat (my opinion and that of anyone with any sense) Klara Bara. Most extraordinary is that we met a wild cat who lived outside it two years ago and he’s still ‘in residence’ – clearly clever enough to use us humans to feed him and yet also retain his roving ways. He is Top Kot (male cat, pa russki). Now, comrades, back to a lively pale local beer (YES I WROTE SOME NOVEL EARLIER – crikey, you lot are getting even worse than my own conscience)
austria 28 April 2008
I am completely gobsmacked by the emerging story from Austria where it seems a father kept his daughter prisoner in a cellar for over 20 years and did all sorts of terrible things to her. Some of the children she had never saw daylight before this week. It is very hard to get one’s head around. Whatever about the absolutely incredible feat of keeping such an incarceration secret and the rearing of some of the children upstairs with his wife, what I’d like to know is how is it no one else knew there was a basement in this house? and how did he kit it out without anyone at all noticing? Pictures show it had electricity, plumbing, all sorts – how did he get all that in there without detection? Either that man has had the most amazing run of luck (I don’t know what else to call it, but I don’t mean it in any positive way, given the circumstances, I assure you) or else someone else/other people know more than they’re saying.
grey 27 April 2008
I am a bit freaked as I am certain I am getting grey hair – there are a few strands that are suspiciously silvery around the temples. I can convince myself tis a mere trick of the bathroom light, but…chances are that, at my age, these are indeed straightforward GREY HAIRS. I always thought I was doing very well in that department and said as much to a hairdresser some years ago, who replied ‘ah you have a few out the back’. I chose to ignore the remark as I very rarely see the back of my head therefore only have other people’s word for it that it exists at all. A further fear in all of this is that I hear it ain’t just the hair on the head that ‘lightens’ with age – oh, the HORROR…I may have to go quite blonde with grief (again)
distraction 26 April 2008
I should have mentioned that while at Annamakerrig the most you’ll get your hands on is a newspaper of a day. There is a television in the drawing room but it is simply for watching research videos or dvds. There are no radios. There should be no distraction, and it works in that although you can check news etc online, the signal is slow and you’re more likely to spend the day working. Now I am home I am prey to far too much distraction. I have the tv on and I’ve been surfing nonsense on the net. I sometimes wonder if I have any discipline at all. The other strange thing about being away for 5 days is that I can find nothing. I did a quick tidy-up and have no recall where I put lots of the things I need now that I’m ‘back’. On the plus side the cat was thrilled to see me and lay across my arm while I was working at the kitchen table purring so hard she got to sounding strange and distorted, and a bit hilarious. The garden has gone mad in my absence and I realise that there is very little grass left out there – it’s now mostly dandelions. They are very jolly though. It’s time to tackle the weeds in the flower beds. There is much to be done that didn’t impinge while I was away, even making meals was largely dealt with by someone else. And next week is a tad of a nightmare as over the 7 days I will be be flying on 6 of them. Too many airports, as one of my friends wants to call her autobiography should she ever write one. Me? I’ll settle for finishing this latest ‘will i ever be done with it?’ novel. Though I feel the next week will be a fairly major challenge to that. I think I might start the preparation for it with plenty of sleep (and as that’s my all time favourite activity, it’ll be no hardship at all…at all…)
days 25 April 2008
It’s turning into one of THOSE days, and a nippy reminder that you cannot hide for long from ‘real life’. I have had my five days of artistic loveliness but even on this, the 5th, day next week has started to encroach. And it is impinging on the old writing and no mistake. I have not got half as much done as i’d like. And I am letting it get in the way too, which is bad. It reminds me totally why people cut themselves off in order to finish a work. Even though I will continue to write next week (and until the novel is done) there will be so many other things able to get at me and need to be dealt with. And today is beginning to be all about the calls that are facilitating all of this incoming interference. Ah well, I’ve had some lovely days here and I hope the work has been good. I worry when I read a lot of poetry, as I have been doing here, that I take on far too ‘artistic’ a bent and come over all flowery. And I am not always the person who can see that. Well, of course, there is help at hand in the form of my lovely editor and those who will read the drafts…now if i could just finish one we’d be on the highway to happiness (as opposed to hell, which is where I have been awhile till now). One good thing is that the word count looks healthy and at this stage if that’s helpful or encouraging, which it is, I’ll take it.
poets 24 April 2008
There are a lot of lady poets here at Annamakerrig presently. The talk at dinner (large communal table and everyone gathers) might be about work or art or whatever and that’s always very instructive and lively. There is a great solidarity amongst us inmates and help is at hand for a number of problems you might be experiencing. But most lively of all at the moment are the debates on two questions to which we all have slightly different answers…they are
1) what is the difference between dessert and pudding?
2) what is the difference between a frock and a dress?
There is much information to be swapped here on these topics, I think you’ll agree.
some croppers 23 April 2008
I am working with the composer Neil Martin again, while here at Annamakerrig (the wonderful artists’ retreat in County Monaghan). Yesterday, we came a cropper on our opera, two days in. But the work has not been wasted and will be revisited – we started too big, with the beginning (as it happens) and in fact it’s probably the section that should be tackled last. No mind, we are tackling another area now. While Neil writes music to my words I go to Lady Guthrie’s room, which is mine for the week, and write some novel. That’s the plan, at any rate. This morning, I was contemplating a chipped mug with one of the ladies who works here and telling her my own plan for the halt and the lame of my crockery world is to attach wire to them and hang them from the small rowan tree in my back garden, possibly also use them as tea lights. She said ‘you must have a lot of time on your hands’ to which I, truthfully, replied ‘No, I have a lot to avoid.’
In the meantime, the student in Ukraine was given a character test by a tutor today. He was to make a person from shapes – circles, triangles and squares. He used one circle, one square and five triangles (good choices I thought and perhaps my own selection) but the result according to his teacher is that he is ‘very determined, very stupid and lacks emotion’. We laughed hard at this. And, although I fundamentally disagree with her analysis, it’s wonderful ammunition to have for the future.
writing 22 April 2008
I am sitting looking out at a beautiful view and writing away. I have always been able to write wherever I fetch up (when the inspiration is flowing, that is – some days it just ain’t there) At home at the moment I am generally at the kitchen table either looking out at the garden or at the middle island where the cat is not supposed to be but always is. And I haven’t ever been bothered that the view is not more spectacular. But today I am at Annamakerrig in County Monaghan where Tyrone Guthrie had a house – in fact I am in Lady Guthrie’s room and the view is stunning and I have to say it’s proving quite inspirational. I’m not writing what I see but when I do lift the head and look out of the window the beauty is balm for the soul.
Also there are a lot of yellow flowers from the gorse to daffodils to primroses. Yellow makes me happy.
No crisps in the house, which is probably a good thing – I can wean myself off.
I have jettisoned the new and expensive eye cream and the puffiness is going…though my skin is still like an alligators. My face would make a rough auld handbag currently. Ah well, there’s always the view…
got me 20 April 2008
DOH, it gets me every time. I love the bit in the Oscars and, tonight, the BAFTAs when they show who has passed away during the year. It is always beautiful and heartbreaking: we are diminished to have lost such people.
On the upside, tonight there were no good frocks, really, though sadly no absolute howlers either – though maybe that’s cos the BEEB are kinder than US tv?
As to the rest of the day – got an email telling-off from Joyce for being late with these musings – SORRY.
My skin is gone to shit but I do rather think it might be the two nights recently when i didn’t take off my make up…and it COULD be something to do with the regular cheese n onion crisps (see below). Feck.
Also, my eyes are looking not only tired but more puffy than they should. This is VERY bad news as I recently spent a fortune on eye products and none of them seem to be either a)working or b) suitable for my skin. It may be time to send suggestions to Gok Wan for things he might put to a road/face test (also see below).
I am now texting Richard in Russian whenever I can. Today he told me a thing that I responded ‘bolshoi xarasho’ to, which I hope means very good (big good, actually, but surely same thing?). He got the gist.
A day of rain so no more planting done in the garden and I am likely to forget that I have some summer bulbs and perennial stool-thingies* to put in and find them dried up and disappointed in a month’s time. The birds loved the weather though and the robin was very good value.
*ever technical, that’s me…and the boasting recently about how I had a bit of Latin which you’d‘ve thought would be perfect to throw into a gardening piece of info. DOH!
crisps 19 April 2008
One of the unexpected bonuses to the Hubby’s absence is that I can eat cheese and onion crisps at home with impunity. I have to boast that Ireland has THE greatest variety, called Tayto. I usually avoid them because they linger with me, a long time, and I truly honk after eating a packet. But when it’s just myself and the cat there’s no one to mind. Of course I am always filled with disgust after a packet though I thoroughly enjoy the eating. And I actually slightly mind the honk…but, hey, I’m dealing with it.
Himself is getting on great in Ukraine and cannot disguise the delight in his voice when he calls to report on his day. And he always speaks a bit of Russian to me which is very hot I can tell you – I think it’s the sexiest language ever. I am trying to learn two words a day but I don’t think I will be taking it all to the grammer stage.
And the Mammy is loving Tenerife, where she is staying for five weeks.
Me? It’s back to that 7th novel in a damp Dublin, after a few days in a damp London. Ah, the glamour. And the crisps.