Reading in the Bath - Final Draft By Shelley Burbank

 Lying in a warm bath, in my right hand my copy of Final Draft by Shelley Burbank - a brand-new novel just imported from the USA - and a glass of sauvignon-blanc in my left, should be sheer luxury. 

Certain facts could diminish these luxurious elements, in some people’s eyes. Starting at the top, the dated Artex ceiling and polystyrene coving are slowly parting company with each other and the plastered walls. The spider plant atop the bathroom cabinet has browning tips, its trailing babies are all brown and mama spider is calling, loudly, for water and light. 

There is the wash basin which doesn’t drain properly no doubt due to something grim lurking down in the U-bend.  The shower cubicle is slowly growing its own dark ecosystem, not helped by the charcoal soap somebody gave us for Christmas. Charcoal soap stains everything grey and is the ultimate gift that nobody needs, ever.  The 1970’s green wall tiles (every random 10-15th of them covered in ambiguous flowers) are detaching themselves from the walls and the corner I’ve painted to pretend it never was tiled doesn’t even convince me. Meanwhile the carpeted chipboard floor is slowly disintegrating just behind the toilet… who puts carpet in a bathroom…?

I'm well aware of all these negatives and I don’t care! I've always loved to read in the bath, whatever the state of the bathroom. Today I have this new book in the genre I’m currently into, detective fiction, written by an author I know, well we chat online.  And the book is immediately engaging, I’ve reached page 56 before I notice that the water is cooling down. I could chose to stay put, deplete the reservoir further and vastly increase the gas bill, but not tonight. 

Washing is in order. I’ve been gardening and don’t fancy sleeping with my pollenated, earthy and leaf mould dusted self.  There is an ingrained order to washing which does seem mostly logical. Around the eyes first, then the rest of the face. Next the hair, then moving down the body ending with cleaning between the toes. My grandmother would not approve of hair washing in the bath. 

In my grandparents household, time was an element to be obeyed. Getting up time, breakfast time, teeth-cleaning time, playtime, elevenses – a time by its very name. Then after lunchtime there was walk time, a march to the creek to feed the swans and ducks with rice, crusts and fly-walk. Teatime was followed by bath-time, with absolutely no reading. All ablutions were timed even more carefully than meals. Hair-washing-time was not the same as bath time. It involved a twice weekly ritual of standing on a stool bent double over the wash-basin while Granny poured enamel-mugfuls of warm water over my head and, inevitably, up my nose.  Grandfather even tried to control his bowel movements to a strict timetable, with pots of senna-pods stewing on the Aga every evening. Luckily he didn’t attempt this regimen on anyone else.

And now I'm clean. I still have 236 pages of this novel still to read. The writing is fresh, easy and engaging, the story intriguing and the protagonist identifiable. I have five more bath times to look forward to, before the pages start to sag in the moist heat. Luxury!

The Incoming Tide

 My mother wrote this poem in 1982, about two years before she divorced my father.  She had been reading Christina Rosetti. I'm not saying it's the greatest poem ever, but it was hers.

The Incoming Tide          by Pam Wilson      3.3.1982

The waves kiss the shore and hold it close

As I would thee, forever more

My world in a shell

Can be held in thy hand

As I stand beside thee, on the sand

Thine eyes are like stars

That shine on the sea

Bringing thee ever closer to me.

The moon in her glory

hangs in the sky

beckoning me down

I know not why

I bare my body and soul for thee.

 

My arms ache, my senses fail

My body yearns and in my ears

The sound of thy breathing, gears

My responses, more and yet more

Until the stars burs on this moonlit shore

And we come at last to rest in peace

Entwined in a love which will never cease.

Decluttering vs. Stuff

Decluttering, rejection of  'stuff' and the Kondo type of minimalism have become so fashionable, one is expected to feel guilty if disinclined to comply. But this fashion not only ignores individual creativity, it ignores the history that so many people keep safe, around them. 

Possessions are about so much more than style. I have my grandmother's sari, I never wear it but that's not the point. I have more things belonging to her and others of her generation, and subsequent generations. I have things which my children have made, things I've made including many clothes. I don't wear those clothes now and I don't look at the children's creations very often, but I know where they are, and what they signify. 

And I have books, so many books they'd give Ms Kondo the heebie-jeebies! They're not ornaments, they are culture. 

Scarves I Have Loved

 A rectangle of cloth has a different name according to its purpose. On the floor it’s a mat, at the window a curtain, on the table a tablecloth. Rectangles of cloth for the person also have purposeful

names, if you’re  too cold you don’t want to wear a sarong, if too hot a shawl is unnecessary. 

A scarf on the other hand can serve more than one purpose. It can keep the neck warm, hide a stain or compliment an outfit. If tied around the head it can make you look like Audrey Hepburn or Paloma Faith or, if you call it a bandana, like Jimi Hendrix. 

I’ve got a lot of scarves, probably over 50 although I haven’t counted them all. A couple are knitted winter scarves which were given to me. They’re useful when it’s cold, mostly for lending to other people!  I don’t really like wearing them, reminds me of the icy trudge to school in the freezing winter of 1962. My scarf collection began when I was 18 and in college. I visited Maidstone market in my lunch hour and found stalls selling second hand and vintage clothes. I first bought two scarves, a 1930’s one, long and narrow with an art deco design and one longer and very soft, in pink. Both were silk and the soft pink one was obviously old, the silk perished quite rapidly as I wore it out. 

My favourite scarves are pashmina style, beautiful, soft, fringed scarves which drape beautifully and are just wide enough to cover the shoulders if necessary. I have eight or ten of them, one or two I bought new but most came as gifts or from charity shops. I doubt if any of them are genuine cashmere, I hope they're not, but I think one of the second-hand ones may be silk. All of them have beautiful designs and I chose them because the fabric is beautiful. I prefer vivid colours too, tasteful greys and subtle blues aren’t me, never have been. Reds, oranges, yellows, rusts and greens all feature, sometimes on the same scarf.

Some rectangular garments are very large, incorporating many yards of cloth. Togas don’t count, they were not rectangular but more semi-circular and went out of fashion with the decline of the Roman Empire. Today the longest rectangle of fabric in daily wear is the sari, that nine yards of skilfully folded, tucked and draped cloth which can make any woman look more elegant. Its origins can be traced back to the Indus Valley civilisation almost 4,000 years ago. The everyday sari was made possible by the first cultivation of cotton in that area, without which only the very wealthy could have worn many yards of expensive silk and the general fashion might never have caught on.

I had two saris, both belonged to my granny who had roots in India, though I never saw her wearing them. One was silk and rather beautiful, with intricate designs in blue and gold on a deep pinkish red ground. The other was in a lacy fabric and pale green, I didn’t like it very much, the fabric wasn’t as soft and I gave that one away. I’ve tried to wear the silk one but am too inexperienced to fold and wrap it confidently.

Another thing I have from my grandmother is a large paisley-patterned shawl in wool, with fringes at either end, it looks great and I wear it occasionally but the wool is a bit itchy. She had several of these shawls and, when I was a teenager she cut up two to make me a coat and a jacket. She’d noticed that I liked beautiful fabrics, especially Indian ones. I loved that jacket, in its paisley rainbow of colours, so much that I wore it for years, before I managed to leave it on the tube. The fabric of the coat, while still paisley is more austere, in greens and greys, I wore it when I got married and still have it to wear occasionally  but I mostly keep it in the wardrobe, with cedar rings and a cover to keep the moths away.

Now I’m the age Granny was when she made me the coat and jacket, I sometimes wear scarves to hide a few undesirable neck features, but mostly I wear them because I love their beautiful fabrics. They make me happy.

At Random - My Blogging Topics

 I've decided to introduce a new topic for some pieces in this blog - 'At Random' for thoughts, essays, rants etc. which don't really fit in with any existing named labels/topics.  I already have 55 labels which is unwieldy and introducing a new one for every random entry seems impractical. 

I do need to reduce the whole list, for a start I have reviews under three separate labels which is probably unnecessary.  Some topics are self-contained and explanatory, The Fair Weather Gardener seems obvious, while Unsuitable Authors is ambiguous. Unsuitable why and according to who? The answer to the latter is my grandmother who, after being partly instrumental in teaching me to read before I was five was very censorious about what I read.

...remarkable things... is an open ended label, but only used very occasionally, for things (mostly books) which I've found truly impressive or moving.

Project 31 Women is my ongoing research into 31 specific artists, who all exhibited at one ground-breaking exhibition in 1943. My research into these artists has become more desultory since I produced the first of a flurry of entries in 2013, but it's been my most important project, sharing it has allowed information about some unknown artists to be seen and many people have followed it and used it for their research etc, which I'm very pleased about. The whole point of Project 31 Women was to get these artists known and I won't allow it to fade away.  Ideally I'd like to see the project become a book.

Other labels I will juggle with, is it necessary to have Animals and Wildlife separate? What about Conservation and Environment? I will have to think on't.