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.

 

PREVARICATE - word of the day

 Word of the Day, and of the year so far - Prevaricate - to behave indecisively and avoid important decisions, is from the Latin ‘praevaricari’, to ‘plough crookedly or haphazardly’.  

Thank you to Susie Dent for the etymology

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan - book review

 On Chesil Beach

by 

Ian McEwan

Sue Gilbert's review

Jan 03, 2021  ·  edit

really liked it

bookshelves: might-read-again, favourite-authors

Nearly a five star. Stories like this are why Ian McEwan is one of my favourite authors, I read it almost at one sitting. On Chesil Beach is not a long book and its 166 pages are full of beautiful characterisation, detailed yet uncluttered description and sparse, telling dialogue.

Edward and Florence are innocent, just married and in love. But it's 1962 and even though they are intelligent, educated young people they are stuck with the almost Victorian codes and mores of previous generations. Sadly for them, the summer of love is still a few years away, although their emotional and, in Florence's case physical reserve seems so deeply ingrained, they may have been unable to take advantage of so much liberation.

Intensely moving and intimate story of how love can go so easily wrong, when people won't/can't talk about sex.

Monty the Osprey - a true story for children by Susan Gilbert

     Monty was an osprey. He was a clever, strong bird with dark feathers on his back and wings, white feathers on his front and dark stripes across his chestnut brown eyes. When he lifted his neck feathers into a crest at the back, he looked like an eagle in a fairy story. In spring and summer he lived in Wales, in a beautiful valley with hills, trees and green meadows and the River Dyfi flowed through the valley. 

Now, there are three things that all ospreys need and the most important of these three things is fish. Monty only ate fish, he didn’t like anything else. He was a very good fisher-bird, with long, strong legs and sharp, curved claws to grab a fish. He would dive feet first into the River Dyfi to catch trout, sometimes he even went right under water but he didn’t mind getting wet. He flew up from the river and with his powerful wings he could carry a fish almost as heavy as he was. Sometimes for a change Monty flew to the sea to catch different kinds of fish.

The second thing that ospreys need is a nest, and Monty had a good one. There was a high-up platform which some nice people had made for him when he was a young osprey and Monty had built his nest there. Every year the people watched the nest to make sure it was safe.  In April, Monty arrived from Africa, where he spent the winter, and he tidied his nest. He brought big branches and sticks to make the sides strong and plenty of moss and grass to make the centre comfy.

The third thing that every osprey needs is a mate. That’s why Monty made his nest look so comfy, he wanted it to be nice for his mate who was called Glesni.  They had  both been away in Africa and Monty came home first to make the nest ready. He made the nest look splendid, and he waited. He was a very tidy osprey. 

 Monty waited a long time, he was very patient, he knew he had made the nest really nice, but still Glesni didn’t arrive.  She had died in Africa, only Monty didn’t know that, which was very sad. She had been his mate for five years and they’d had lots of lovely chicks, so he really missed her. 

The Nutshell and the Oyster, or Why I Won't keep a Dream Diary

  When it's been suggested that, as a writer I really ought to keep a dream diary, I make excuses.  I'm told that writing down my dreams, just after I wake, can help my creativity, open up new horizons, instil a sense of discipline, routine etc.  I just know that I can't.  All I can do with the dream diary idea is try and explain, to myself, why it won't happen.

     The opposite of 'putting it in a nutshell' could be to 'have the world as my oyster', but for all its pearly sheen, an oyster is just another container. Another shell to cut me off from the universe outside. Dreams are like this, maybe they contain a kernel of truth or a pearl of wisdom (though I seriously doubt that) but they don't connect me to reality, they cut me off from it. 

      Since I was tiny, my imagination has been my constant familiar. I love it dearly, it has almost always been the most important thing in my life.  Maybe this makes me borderline certifiable, but I usually feel I am in charge of it. I began controlling and experimenting with my imagination from before I can remember and it mostly does what I want. It has carried me through stormy days and sleepless nights. But when I can sleep, dreaming is seldom helpful.

      In my dreams, my imagination is not merely beyond my control, it's out of synch with where I need it to take me. Sometimes the intensity of a dream, even though I've almost forgotten the subject, can invade a whole day, making me useless. I know that there are accepted reasons for people to believe that dreams are a way out of the nutshell or the oyster or the cave with shadows on the wall, I just don’t happen to believe them. For me, it feels like the opposite.

      When I was a child, for a time I became petrified at the prospect of sleep, because my worst nightmare was waiting for me. This dream, recurring time after time, was of walking down a dark stairwell, down almost endless staircases, descending into catacombs or cellars or dungeons, spiralling out of my control and I knew there was something terrible and nameless at the bottom, waiting just for me. I would have welcomed Esher’s staircases, they make complete circuits, therefore there is no end. That would have been preferable to the knowledge that there was indeed an end.

       I finally invented a way to escape from the horror of this nightmare. When my fear reached a certain pitch, I learned to very deliberately tell myself, this is a dream and now I am going to wake up. It worked, I did wake up. And a mere shadow behind the door was just my dressing gown hanging there, and the creak of the tree branches outside held no fear for me. And after a while the dream became less frequent. It has left me with an abiding horror of enclosed spaces, and a suspicion of staircases.

      I have no desire to analyse this dream. I’m not interested in Freudian or spiritual interpretations of it. Dream imagery is bound to differ not just according to culture but also personal experience and associations. My nightmare is simply about an uncontrollable fear, which must be a pretty universal emotion. This is what I get from memorable dreams, emotion, not imagery.

      I know that I do have pleasant dreams, but they seldom last into daylight, beyond a certain feeling of well being or satisfaction. Memorable dreams are of frustration, or fear, or exhausted anxiety because I have to perform some mundane task which is nevertheless so enormous as to be impossible. I often wake with a clear memory of sobbing my heart out from anxiety and frustration, so maybe I am still telling myself to wake up.

       Such are my excuses for not writing a dream diary. So as a writer how do I go about “making the darkness conscious,” without this apparently invaluable tool?  When writing fiction I find it comparatively easy, I make my characters suffer, putting myself into their heads, their minds, so that I can feel how they respond to the suffering. Perhaps this is where my dreams come in, enabling me to heighten the emotional intensity that my characters feel, but I don't need a dream diary to remind me of this. 

St Leonards Writers Survives Lockdown and Bears Fruit.

Our small writer's group has, after a hiatus in the Spring, sprung up again. Even before lockdown began a few members were becoming anxious and avoiding meetings. Then 26th March and lockdown, for a few weeks none of us knew what to do. Luckily an email conversation began, eventually leading to an agreement that at least some of us wanted to have a go at Zoom meetings, which we began in May. 

A major fruit of lockdown is our new anthology, 'Forty Stories High'. Most members had submitted before our self-imposed deadline in February, and April-May was spent collating and proofreading the stories and poetry.  Editorial rigour may have been a bit lacking, the group not meeting up meant that in the end the production of the book was down to just two members, David and me, we felt we needed to just get on with it, for everybody else's sake. I proofread, he did everything else. Proofreading is not the same as editing.

So the now book exists, it looks great and contains a lot of excellent stuff.  It was published in October and though it's not completely perfect, I'm pretty pleased. It's the first time any of my stories and poetry have appeared in print. £7.99, please contact me or  http://stleonardswriters.com/ for a copy. We're also now on Facebook, please like us and message us.  

Despite a few hiccups, meeting via Zoom seems to be working for most of us. A few members haven't yet been able to join us on Zoom, but nine or ten have managed at least one meeting and most of these have become regulars. We have had up to eight per meeting which is more than we often had when meeting in person at St Ethelburga's Church, especially in the winter!  We did manage one social gathering, socially distanced of course, during the summer; a group picnic was enjoyed by members and partners the in the gardens by West St Leonards beach. 

http://stleonardswriters.com/