What's For Afters?

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.  Each year I promise myself faithfully I will blog here more often and then pow, a month or more goes by.

I can't imagine that a blog where I just go on about what I've been doing since I last blogged is going to be at all interesting, but hey, it's my blog and I'll post what I want to.

1) Birthday.  I am now the answer to life, the universe and everything.  Didn't organise any celebrations.  Have organised my own parties for the last umpteen years, couldn't be bothered this year.  However I clearly can't let go entirely, so I organised a leisurely boozy lunch with a couple of friends who didn't need to be behind a desk in an office that day.  Was cooked dinner by my brother and sister-in-law; taken out for dinner and theatre by my father and step-mother and then had a weekend away with friends in Stroud and Cheltenham.  Nice.

2) Culture.  Oh yes.
- Alan Bennett's People at the National Theatre.  Brilliant.
- Some random play about Moby Dick at the Arcola Theatre.  With sea shanties.  Fun.
- Alice Russell at Scala.  Superb.

3) Books.
Read Alan Garner's 'Weirdstone of Brisingamen' at Stroud friend's at the weekend.  Can't believe I never read it as a child.  Loved it.
Currently reading Stella Duffy's 'Theodora'.  Brilliant and mesmerising.
There have of course been many more.

4) Decluttering.  One massive binbag of clothes to the charity shop.  Shoe cupboards purchased.  Not exactly decluttering but at least making the clutter a bit tidier.

5) Garden.  Planted two tomato plants, one courgette and one chilli.  All got chomped by slugs within days.  Gargh.

6) I have a lovely Mon-Fri lodger.  She introduced me to the glory that is Alias.  Hours have disappeared.

7) Gorgeous niece and nephew continue to be gorgeous.

Loneliness
John Betjeman
The last year's leaves are on the beech:
The twigs are black; the cold is dry;
To deeps byond the deepest reach
The Easter bells enlarge the sky.
O ordered metal clatter-clang!
Is yours the song the angels sang?
You fill my heart with joy and grief -
Belief! Belief! And unbelief...
And, though you tell me I shall die,
You say not how or when or why.

Indifferent the finches sing,
Unheeding roll the lorries past:
What misery will this year bring
Now spring is in the air at last?
For, sure as blackthorn bursts to snow,
Cancer in some of us will grow,
The tasteful crematorium door
Shuts out for some the furnace roar;
But church-bells open on the blast
Our loneliness, so long and vast.

I danced on a Friday when the sky turned black,
It's hard to dance with the devil on your back.

























Tony O'Malley, 1964 (one of his Good Friday paintings)

Tonight we eat and drink.
We feast.
We talk.
Tomorrow...?
Is tomorrow,
as they say,
another day.
Or does it begin now?


















Photo: David LaChapelle "Last Supper" 2003

Usually we have to wait until Easter Sunday for resurrection but I am rejoicing at the moment as my laptop, my beloved MacAir, that I drowned with the dregs of a cup of tea, has finally* returned from the Genius Bar and lives again.

Not without some considerable cost mind you.  Is there an Easter  / Lenten moral in that?  Probably.

I am now keeping all food and liquids well away.

*Longer than the three days originally mentioned (yes really, three, I know, it's almost like they knew I'd be making Easter references) as the technician managed to crack the screen whilst replacing the motherboard and had to get a new one which didn't work so had to get another new one........**

** May I also have a whinge about poor customer service.  Seriously how hard it it for companies to realise that the heart of good customer service is communication.  If only they had called and kept in touch with me I'd have been ok. But they left me in the dark and I had to chase with endless phone calls, being kept on hold for c20mins each time before getting through.  And then they tried to charge me for the new screen.  They were fine when I pointed out they broke it so I shouldn't pay but really it should never have appeared on my bill in the first place.  And quite frankly given the extra days delay and the fact they broke it I would have liked at least a grovelling apology and preferable some small extra thrown in for free.  But no, nothing.  Difference between great, good and poor customer service is small but important.

So it turns out that when one has given up cakes and biscuits and sweets and, well, pretty much all things sugary, for Lent, oranges taste unbelievably delicious.