Robin McKinley's Blog, page 210

Sunny Sunday

 

Fortunately I had a pretty good night last night, and when the alarm went off much too early it was agonising but not unendurable.  And it’s been another thrillingly beautiful day so I tottered down to the tower completely failing to be in a grim, lowering mood suitable for having had to get out of bed early to ring bells.*  Ringers were outside hanging around the font and soaking up sunshine while the early service spilled out.**  I arrived with one other, which made us five, and by the time w

Beam

 

Sometimes, despite one’s best efforts to concentrate on the half-emptiness of the glass, things do turn out pretty well. 

            Sometimes someone’s beloved (ex-) maiden bitch has six fat gorgeous healthy puppies smack on due date and with no trouble AND turns out to be an exemplary mum.  And someone else gets a blog entry out of it.

            Sometimes southern-England weather is so glorious you involuntarily stop in the middle of a field to stare around in disbelief.*

            Sometime

Guest Blog from B-Twin-1

PUPPIES!!!!!!!

[Robin added the headline title:  B-Twin-1 is obviously Very Tired and Understandably Subdued]

This is the special “puppy edition” blog entry.  :-)

Day 59 of Belle’s pregnancy dawned clear and sunny.   (Again. This weather is really stuck in a rut.)  However, fine weather is good because there were a few hours of shearing left to do and sunny weather is always nicer for us and the sheep.

Trying to stop Belle from working is nigh impossible and exercise is excellent for an expectant b

Immortal Muffins

 

I am ravaged by exhaustion.  Today I have done house painters*, hellhounds, PEGASUS, A New Little Thing for Organ**, gardening, more hellhounds, and handbells.*** 

Meanwhile I am still mourning last weekend’s muffins, so cruelly sacrificed to the welfare of society.†  I’d originally been going to post the recipes I used on the fete Sunday they were eaten.  But then I thought I’d immortalise them here anyway.

 Apple-cornmeal muffins 

1 ¼ c plain flour

2T - ¼ c sugar

1 T baking powder

1 c yellow cornme

Aggravating blokes*

 

Another racing-downhill day, with your feet trying urgently to get ahead of the rest of you, and ploughing-the-sward-with-your-face looms dangerously.**  This included the frelling phone ringing tonight as I was trying to get out the door again, but this time I eyed it in deepest distrust and said, you’re the painter again, aren’t you?, and answered it in my best dulcet tones. ***  Yes.  It was the painter.  The painter who (according to him) the builder told that I wanted to get going . . . wi

Pet-friendly

 

. . . Have just wasted the better part of TWO HOURS looking for pet-friendly self-catering cottages in the Brecon Beacons area of Wales:   a great wodge of Peter’s family has started hiring a small county every August for a week or two and everybody’s invited.  This year it’s Powys.  Not being mob-oriented* we want our own retreat somewhere on the edge of the festivities.  Peter went to the clan gathering once, two years ago, when the hellhounds were still puppies, and still streaming lavishly

Peter Grimes

 

(Is this the 22:35 or the 22:39?  It makes almost twenty minutes of difference.  I got to Waterloo, saw the destination I wanted first place on the board, which means it’s leaving NOW and ran for it.  And ran, and ran, and ran, since it was one of these deals where the train nosed in to the station is empty and the train you want is in . . . Vauxhall Gardens, or possibly Kent.  The platforms keep getting longer and longer, especially when you have a computer, 1.5 million pages of THE ART OF NOI

Life is so frelling swell

 

I have been so enjoying my Saturday nights off. *  Last night partly because the guest post was about music and partly because I’ve made a fresh start on Just a Little Thing for Organ ** and partly because I’m going to see Peter Grimes tomorrow at the ENO***, which is getting spectacular reviews† I did a little cruising around the web on the subject of opera, and booked a ticket for the ENO’s The Turn of the Screw†† this autumn.  This is a revival of the production from 2007 which I wanted to g

Guest post by Jeanne Marie

“Jours Passe” and The Unscripted Fermata

 

One of the things I do a lot of is singing in front of other people, and teaching other folks how to do the same.  Very often, people will tell me how frightened they are of making mistakes.  The truth of music-making of course, as I am quick to point out to everyone, is that EVERYONE makes mistakes, ALL THE TIME!!  Even in big time, high-dollar performances!  The real trick is in not letting your audience realize that you have made a mistake.  My persona

Entitlement, continued

 

I need to lead off by saying (again) that the VAST majority of my reader mail is POSITIVE, and it’s a rare week that goes by that I don’t receive at least one really moving one.*   But the ones that make you start reading adult-ed catalogues for career change opportunities tend to stick, like a splinter under a fingernail, and cause intemperate howling entirely out of proportion to the actual damage they’re doing. 

KFoster writes

I must admit I really don’t get that letter — Sunshine seemed to me