Robin McKinley's Blog, page 89

KES, 25

 

TWENTY FIVE  

I trailed behind Hayley as she strode across the parlour to the front door.  It had only just occurred to me that the big square heels on Hayley’s femicidal shoes meant she wasn’t leaving punch-marks in my floor.  My floor.  I’d better get used to it:  the possessive pronoun had moved in.  I discovered that I was reluctant to leave, although I wasn’t sure if that was because I was already fond of the place or because I was afraid, once I left, I wouldn’t want to come back.  Although the discovery of Caedmon seemed to have done something (tentatively positive) to my attitude.  With the Silent Wonder Dog, there would be three of us.  Three didn’t seem quite so ludicrous in a house this size.  Especially if you then included Yog-Sothoth and the stove-delivering fairies.

            I stared out over my new domain as Hayley locked the front door.  Ron’s truck was gone, and there were no cars in either of the other driveways.  “Do you know anything about my neighbors?”

            “We sold the house next to yours, five years ago.” 

             Yours, I thought.  Yours.

             “I was working at HH part-time as receptionist and chief stat-machine wrestler before I graduated.  Most of the time I was worrying about whether I’d copied the right contracts and got the right names, but I remember these two.  She thought the country would be good for her nerves, and he wanted her to shut up.  They’re never here.  He works in Washington DC, or he did five years ago.  Type A-plus personality.  I guess she still has her nerves in Washington.  The people on the corner are okay.  He has a construction company in New Iceland and she teaches first graders.  I went to school with their oldest daughter.  She married a plumber in Bittern Marsh.”

            Small town life.  I would have to hope that the first time I walked in to the Cold Valley drugstore for a newspaper or a postcard there weren’t any other shoppers, so I wouldn’t have to listen to the conversation stop while they all turned around to stare at me.  Who needed hard copy anyway?  Unless Caedmon required wadded-up newspaper to light his kindling. 

            I stared at my house as Hayley backed down the (long) drive and turned my head to keep it in sight as she drove away.  I just barely stopped myself from turning around and straining for the final glimpse, like a kid leaving the house she’s had her vacation in to go home and back to school.  I was only going back to the Friendly Campfire for as long as it took the paperwork to go through.  Although the prospect of turning on my phone and my laptop was a lot like going back to school.   Never mind my agent and editor, Norah was going to be biting large chunks out of me for not telling her what was going on.

            I kept Hayley talking by a few judicious questions.  The girl from around here knew everything about everything about everyone, and now that I was moving in I had every reason to want to know as much of it as possible.  Including that the Cold Valley drugstore was called Mightyfine and carried, not merely aspirin and newspapers, but a good selection of chocolate.   And the famous local ice cream made by the Willendorf Dairy, the biggest dairy farm in the area (it had been some of their cows that had caused me armrest-clutching angst on the way from New Iceland.  On our return journey I tried to pretend that cows in a field right next to the road where you could see how gigantic they were was normal and ordinary).  “So you don’t have to come in to New Iceland to get your Venus ice cream fix,” said Hayley, having ascertained that I’d had my cherry pie a la mode last night. 

            She parked in exactly the same place just down the street from the Homeric Homes office that her car had been in when I arrived over two hours ago.  One of the minor fascinations of small town life was going to be the parking.  That there was parking.  That owning a car was not (I hoped) going to be a source of permanent daily anguish and frustration and close examination of civic street cleaning schedules and/or renting space in a parking garage that would cost as much as your house.   Hayley had taken her briefcase out of the back seat, the car had locked itself zeeeep and I had followed her back through the Homeric Homes office door before I’d pulled my courage and my wits together sufficiently to have my mouth open to ask her about renting or buying a car.  With Serena’s strictures in mind I was hoping that Rick of Odin’s Autos was not her second cousin or her brother’s best friend. 

            But I forgot what I was going to say when Hayley tossed her red briefcase in her chair and turned to the person at the next desk.  “Hi, Lena.  We don’t need the info on those new listings after all. Ms. MacFarquhar is going to take Rose Manor.”

Sunday afternoon at the abbey

 

I rang Stedman Doubles at the abbey for service this afternoon.* 

            Now doubles is only six bells (five working bells and tenor-behind) so for service ring at an abbey with forty-nine bells and two accidentals** this is pretty pathetic.  But in the first place the abbey rings with what it can get on Sunday afternoon which often isn’t much, which is why they let me live and pretend to be glad to see me, and in the second place there are two local festivals going on plus Wimbledon, the Tour de France, the frelling mass-media run up to the frelling mass-media Olympics, the Inter Galactic Big Truck Rally***, and the finals of the Guess How Many Pears a Partridge Can Eat competition which they’re running in 3D this year at a cinema near you.  I was the third person through the door of the ringing chamber and when the fourth turned up he said lugubriously, we may be all there is:  it’s the men’s finals this afternoon.

            Gemma (who was not there) has said that the abbey, being an abbey and having face to maintain†, doesn’t ring at all if fewer than six rope-pullers show up.  This afternoon we had seven—which is six with one left over:  you mostly don’t ring on seven.††  So I rang some not-too-awful bob minor while Leandra stood out, and then I stood out while the rest of them rang Stedman Doubles.  The thing about Stedman, which long-term readers of this blog may remember, is that it’s a bit of a holy grail—it’s not the only holy grail of ringing, but it’s one of them.  If you can ring Stedman you can at least consider calling yourself a ringer.

            I can ring Stedman Doubles in other towers.  I can ring touches of Stedman Doubles . . . in other towers.  I’ve even been known to ring a plain course of Stedman Triples (seven bells plus tenor-behind) when it’s offered.  In other towers.  Gaaah.  Today Albert asked me what I wanted to ring††† and I, seizing my courage with both hands, said, there’s seven of us, give me a minder and let me try Stedman Doubles.  I could see Albert considering whether this was a good idea or not—it’s not just that I’m a shaky and unreliable ringer, you can read it all over me that I’m terrified—and then he said okay.  And then, bless him, gave me Wild Robert for a minder.  Yaay Wild Robert.  He comes to Sunday afternoons at the abbey when he’s not ringing at one of the frelling invitation-only towers in frelling London—but that doesn’t work out all that often in practise.  But he was there today and just having him there—he who taught me Stedman years ago at Ditherington—is a steadying influence.

            In terms of the method I rang it flawlessly.  Yaay me.  I can do this.  Even at the abbey.  I can.  The accuracy of my striking . . . not so much.  And Wild Robert nearly derailed me by having a pleasing but dangerous faith in my grasp of the method and therefore whispering sweet nothings about how to improve my striking.  My striking did improve—somewhat—and I didn’t go wrong.‡

            So then, of course, I came home and frolicked . . . and then Darkness didn’t eat his dinner.  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH.‡‡ 

 * * *

* I have this vision of all the knitters going, Bellringing!  Aaaugh!, as all the bell ringers last night went, Knitting!  Aaaaugh!

            Sorry, you knitters.  You might want to go catch up on some other blog tonight.  I’m going to go on fizzing about Stedman Doubles at the abbey for paragraphs.  

** I have always liked, since my first gruesome, brief, sausage-fingered venture as a piano student when I was a kid, the concept of sharps and flats as accidentals.  They certainly were the way I played. 

*** The Cardassians are tipped to win. 

† How many months have I been toiling at the abbey rockface?  But I still, driving in, every time, look out over the town with the abbey looming majestically up in the middle of it, and think, I ring THERE?  You’ve got to be joking.  And struggle with the impulse to turn around and go home.    

†† Unless one of you is Wild Robert, who can ring two tower bells at the same time.^ 

^ And he doesn’t much like handbells.  How frustrating is that? 

††† A touch of Plastic Fantastic Ergonomic Quaternary Spliced Surprise.  In my dreams. 

‡ We finished with about five minutes of just ringing rounds on the back eight—with Wild Robert on the one and the two and me on the three.  I am only slowly getting over being deathly afraid of ringing rounds at the abbey.  The problem with rounds is that you have nothing to think about.  Ringing a method, you’re at least busy panicking about where your next blow goes.  Ringing rounds you’re standing there contemplating how paralysingly gigantic the space is and how you’re out in the middle of it^ and something really huge could be creeping up behind you^^ . . . and furthermore most of the bells are slightly oddstruck^^^ so following Wild Robert on two bells is even more confusing# than it is anyway.##

            Yes.  Since I quit New Arcadia I have spent rather too much time wondering why I do this to myself.  And even if I wanted to keep my hand in ringing a bit, I didn’t have to choose to pursue the frelling abbey.  Except . . . I did.  I’d be bored rigid by only ringing (say) call changes for weddings.  And the abbey remains pretty much the only tower in this area that can teach me stuff.  Unfortunately . . . it’s the abbey.

            I was talking to Southdowner about this—she also rings, she is also not hugely naturally gifted, she is also stubborn.  Really the downside of stubbornness is the way it makes you keep doing stuff.  Which is also the upside.  Eh.  

^ I am still trying to convince myself that this is irrelevant.  You don’t lean on a ringing chamber wall, and you wouldn’t like it if you could.  But somehow I feel all flimsy and vertiginous on any of the abbey bells except about three near the front which are decently close to a wall.  

^^ As I was driving in—as I was, in fact, belting 70 mph down the motorway—there was something tickling my wrist.  I glanced down and there was a GIGANTIC FRELLING SPIDER WALKING UP MY ARM.

            I didn’t run off the road.  I hope you’re impressed at my fortitude.  I can be brave when I HAAAAAAAAAVE TOOOOOOOOOOO. 

^^^ Which basically means that their bong doesn’t come at quite the usual place in the stroke.  The individual, unpredictable oddstruckness of bells is one of the things that makes ringing interesting.  

# and vertiginous 

##  The other thing I haven’t told you is how Darkness pulled me over a few days ago, going after a duckling.  AAAAUGH.  This was always going to happen some day—the frelling ducks on our frelling river are way too tame because people from all over Hampshire bring their stale rubbish bread here in vast quantities and lower the vitality levels of our waterfowl with it like they’re supporting wildlife diversity and doing the biosphere a favour.+  In this case I was preoccupied with a grandmother and her six-year-old who is afraid of dogs and was not paying attention to the path in front of me.  Darkness was paying attention.  And he never could resist birds.  Hellhounds haven’t pulled me over in YEARS.  There was (human) blood everywhere because the frelling river path is frelling gravel . . . and I’ve kind of done one shoulder in, or rather, Darkness did, dragging me down the path++, and I’m sure the kid who’s afraid of dogs will be needing additional years of psychotherapy as a result of this incident.  I just need a good sports medicine specialist to tie my shoulder back into place.  I can still ring, just about, but . . . 

+ Soapbox?  Rant?  Me? 

++ A dog that weighs slightly more than one third what you do should not be able to drag you, dead weight as you are, full length on the sodblasted path as you are, anywhere.  Tell that to Darkness. 

‡‡ He did.  Finally.  But only after my hair was several shades greyer than it was yesterday and I had chewed one of the legs of my chair nearly through.  Bleaugh.  Varnish tastes really nasty.

 

Look! Look! Looklooklooklook!!!

 

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It’s the BACK OF A CARDIGAN!  First Cardi LIVES!  (Well, the back of it lives anyway.) 

            And no, actually, this isn’t its good side, both sides look pretty much the same—slightly lumpy and irregular but usable.  This is, of course, the back, but if the front(s) isn’t any worse I’ll be able to WEAR IT.  Which is the POINT.  I want to WEAR THIS THING THAT IS TAKING MORE TIME TO CREATE THAN ANYTHING BUT NOVELS EVER HAS.  Gods, you knitters.  Such valour of patience.  Eeeep.  I am still pretty much in the early I can do this!!! stage . . . but little kids get bored of their fabulous new accomplishments and revert to wanting mum to tie their shoes.*  So ask me halfway through the second sleeve.  Supposing I do survive those fronts.  The first one, which I have begun:

I love this stage when there are just enough rows that the pattern is beginning to show--ooh! There's a pattern!

. . . is very straightforward—it’s exactly like half a back, with an armhole to shape just slightly differently than I did the first time, not, you know, because I mean to shape it slightly differently . . . sigh . . . I didn’t mind the casting-off and knitting-two-stitches-together decreases but I did not like it when I was shifted into every-other-row decreases, because my nice (relatively) smooth curve promptly developed an unsightly zigzag.  As you can see in the photo.  Feh.  So, that will become invisible when I sew the sleeves in . . . theoretically.  It’s a good thing wool is stretchy.  I’m not convinced, given the semi-matchingness of my first attempt at a pair of shaped armholes, that the opposing pair of armholes plus the sleeves are going to anything LIKE fit together.  I’m thinking maybe I’d better stay with the stretchy-wool option for any future projects for a while and leave the beautiful but unforgiving cotton Rowan Summer Tweed till I get my license to . . . frill? 

               But the second front of First Cardi, you’re pottering along humming to yourself and suddenly it says:  PATT 34 STS, TURN, LEAVE REM 22 ON A STITCH HOLDER.  What?  Turn? Rem? Stitch holder?**

Care about proofreading details is always so reassuring when you're following directions

              I am glad to have SOMETHING TO BE CHEERFUL ABOUT because it has not been a great day in other ways.  Starting, of course, with last night.  I finished the back of First Cardi last night . . . oh, ah, erm, I seem to have forgotten to mention the part about ripping back about two inches when I belatedly discovered that I was off by about two inches how long my extended hand reaches.  Arrrrgh.  See, I went to a concert last night.  And knitted.  Well of course.***  And I couldn’t yank my pattern out† in the middle of proceedings, so I was measuring by my hand’s length.  Got home and . . . AAAAAAAUGH.  So I gritted my teeth and FROGGED.  Ow ow ow ow ow.  When you knit as slowly as I do, two inches is a lot.  And then I had the joyous task of getting all those frelling little stitches back on a needle before they disintegrated.††  Which, rather to my surprise, I accomplished . . . at the cost of somehow getting most of them on backwards.  Or something.  I’m not sure what I did.  I was moaning to Fiona about this who said that I could turn them back round again—move them onto the right-hand needle and then flip and move them back.  

             But . . . I ended up casting off last night at like . . . well, let’s say after dawn, and after my military neighbour was up and organising the universe, because he doesn’t believe in sleeping in on weekends.  Chaos stopped eating yesterday.  OH.  GODS.  WHOSE IDEA WAS DOGS.  And when he refused to touch his supper, having barely eaten either lunch or dinner, I freaked out . . . just a trifle.  I tried going to bed but it didn’t work so I got up, presented Chaos’ supper to him again, and cast off.  By which time I was so tired I couldn’t see, and hey, I said to myself, it’s just casting off, who cares?  So the cast off is maybe a little . . . unusual.  But it’ll disappear when it’s sewn into the collar flap (which is apparently what all that Rem and Stitch Holder business is about).  So feh.†††

              I was supposed to go to another concert today—there’s a big festival going on—but I’m just slightly short of sleep.  Just slightly.  And it’s raining.  Dear evil ratbag rain gods, is it ever raining.  This area isn’t having the dangerous flooding that a lot of places are, but we’re still very wet.  And tonight’s concert’s car park is in a field as I know from experience.  I’d got First Front, which is itself shorter, re-cast onto shorter needles‡ so I wouldn’t be poking my neighbours if I didn’t get another aisle seat.  And then I took hellhounds out for an afternoon hurtle . . . and the heavens not only opened, they mounted an offensive.  I wasn’t quite carrying crushed-to-the-ground-by-the-weight-of-falling-water hellhounds under each arm, but we were certainly all wet to the skin through our raincoats (and cranky) and I was looking at the geysering storm drains and thinking . . . hmmmmmm.  Part of it’s the ME.  I really don’t like additional, unallowed-for effort, and even if I got there despite brand-new rivers and lakes and fords and things, and I parked successfully, I was going to spend the concert worrying about getting back out again after 1,000,000 SUVs driven by 1,000,000 idiots have poached the hell out of the wet ground.  And, meanwhile, it will have rained more. 

           So I didn’t go. 

           Arrrrgh.

           But at least Chaos is eating again.  And I have my knitting. 

* * *

 * Although perhaps not any more because it’s all Velcro.  I am horrified at the idea of an entire generation growing up not knowing how to tie shoelaces.  How will they ever discover All Stars? 

** Yes, I applied myself to one of my knitting books and got this translated.  I can probably even do it, when I get there, although I may be a little creative about the stitch holder since I am trying to stay out of knitting stores because they all have yarn.  Still.  The shock was very bad for my blood pressure. 

*** My companions didn’t seem to have any problem with this, but the two women in the next row up, when they saw me in flagrante at the interval clearly wanted to disapprove but weren’t quite sure how to express this in a correct British manner.  I smiled in a mild and friendly way and kept knitting.  Yes I knit silently.  In a situation like last night, this is an additional reason why I’m so SLOW. 

† Yes of course I’d brought it with me 

†† Note that one of the yo-McKinley-how-dumb-are-you-really? surprises about knitting large objects is the way they weigh and take up space.  Not just in your Mobile Knitting Unit at concerts and bell practises but in your lap and hanging off the needles.  I need to develop an approach to knitting with a hellhound in my lap.  Hellhounds get restless about trailing yarn.^  And the drag as the thing accumulates rows has an effect on your knitting.  At least it does if you’re a beginner. 

^ Although with the return of winter they don’t mind a tactful fold of knitted fabric that just lies there and doesn’t twitch. 

††† And Chaos still didn’t eat. 

‡ I don’t seem to have short rosewood needles in this size.  Sob.  But these are very nice . . . whatever they are.  They’re not bamboo:  they feel like a hardwood.

Another edition of forum KES

 

Glanalaw

AAAARRRGGHHH. You can’t DO cliffhangers like this!!!!  

b_twin_1

Yes.

For someone who “doesn’t do cliffhangers” she’s getting darned good at it!! Grrrr! 

Heh heh heh heh.  Writing a blog can do very strange things to your . . . oh well let’s call it mental health.  Or at least it messes with your lobes something fierce.  Between learning those wretched method lines for bell ringing and this blog I am sure I have become someone else.*  And the new, additionally deranged Robin McKinley really likes cliffhangers.  Who knew?  It’s not like I’d’ve ever discovered this buried and reprehensible propensity** if I hadn’t started writing a blog and then had the really over the edge*** idea of writing serial fiction for it. 

            I tend to write episodes ep by ep.  I keep an eye on how long this one’s getting and then start looking for a good place to break it off.  If there’s a cliffhanger option of course I’m going to take it.  But that’s just Storytelling 101.  You want them to keep turning pages.†  But I’ve just been writing a one-ep scene that is three so far and looks like it’s going for four††, and as I’m going back to find places to break it I discover that I’m thinking, okay, I can change that line there and make it a cliffhanger. . . .

            But as I’ve also said, the way I do it, because it’s the way I can do it, this blog is a lot of work.  Cliffhangers are fun.  I get to have fun.  And it’s not like you have to wait more than a few days.†††  Mind you the cries of the anguished are highly enjoyable.  Please continue. 

LadyGrace

I’ve never read Lovecraft, and I’ve been missing out on Cthulu jokes and the like for years. Can anyone recommend a good place to start? 

Black Bear

I’d say honestly that HPL’s short stories are the best place to start; there are a lot of anthologies of those available at your local library from Arkham House publishing. (I say library because some of them are Out of Print, I think.) “The Call of Cthulhu” itself is quite good, but tedious in spots–the nice thing about his short stories is that they give you the flavor of his writing and 1920′s pulp horror genre without bogging down. Then if you really like it, try out some of his longer stuff like The Call of Cthulhu or At the Mountains of Madness. 

I agree with Black Bear that you want to start with the short stories.  I had what I remember as an old Modern Library—can Modern Library have done Lovecraft?—anthology culminating in The Dunwich Horror, which remained my favourite, and my touchstone Lovecraft, for many years.  It has all the crucial Lovecraft elements—horrible secrets, nameless perversions, dysfunctional families . . . REALLY GREAT MONSTERS.  And silliness.  Which is the warning I want to extend.  Lovecraft is very silly, and therefore perfect for my purposes in KES.  His stuff is creepy and weird and sometimes genuinely scary—perhaps especially if you’re a somewhat emotionally retarded thirteen-year-old—but it’s also WAAAAAAY over the top—scenery-gnawing, hysterical and ludicrous, and perhaps especially painful for those of us who were feminists from an early age, notably short on women.‡   There are classic horror writers who are ‘better’—M R James, for example, Arthur Machen, Oliver Onions—E Nesbit!—Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle.‡‡  But only Lovecraft can do the Lovecraft atmosphere, which to those of us who are fans, sometimes against our own better judgement, is worth the price of admission (your brain at the door).  He is a trifle sui generis, and not to everyone’s taste, even people who like classic horror. 

            There’s also a lot of Lovecraft on line, if you like reading electronically, much of it (I believe legitimately) free or near-free, and some of it not unreadably full of typos.  I’ve got a cheap ed from amazon on my iPad. 

Alannaeowyn

Kes has deinonychus on the brain! Has she been reading XKCD too much?  

Harrumph.  When JURASSIC PARK first came out everyone was velociraptor mad, but some of us, who had adored dinosaurs since we were about four and old enough to make specialised book requests for birthday presents, suffered a vague sense of unease . . . weren’t velociraptors, you know, small?  Now my memory is not what it was and, in fact, never was even when it should have been, but when I wanted medium-sized carnivorous dinosaurs under Kes’ porch I retained a faint recollection that velociraptors was not what I wanted.  http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/carnivorousdinosaurs/p/velociraptor.htm  

http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/carnivorousdinosaurs/p/deinonychus.htm

I’ll take your word for it that xkcd likes deinonychus too.  I didn’t know.  

Katsheare

“An author would much rather see a book that’s been carried around for luck and dropped in the bath than the pristine copy that lives on a shelf,” I said. “We’re vain, you know. We like the idea that our stuff is appreciated.”

Oh, Ms McKinley would adore my collection, then. The hardbacks are okay. The paperbacks… Most of them have the front cover as the bookmark. 

::Beams::  That, by the way, would be my first paperback edition of THE LORD OF THE RINGS.  FELLOWSHIP eventually disintegrated entirely and was joyfully replaced in a still-usable but desirably dilapidated form from the 25-cent table at the late lamented Brattle Bookshop‡‡‡. 

Glanalaw

I was expecting something quite different — something, well, alive, for a start, 

Mwa ha ha ha ha ha.  You maybe want to be a little careful about your assumptions.  This is fantasy, you know, even if it’s taking a hellgoddess’ own time to get onto it. 

and probably malignant. This is much better! And I’m beginning to quite like Hayley. 

Oh good. 

If she can like good literature and be an awestruck fangirl and be savage about inventories – and not kill herself in 4-inch heels – then she’s a keeper! 

I like people who surprise you.  I’m hoping we’ll see more of Hayley.  NO.  I DON’T KNOW.  I OFTEN DON’T KNOW STUFF ABOUT MY STORIES.  And I’m in a horribly exposed and betraying situation publicly posting only a few thousand words behind where I am still writing the thing.

And I cannot tell you how glad I was to find a new episode of Kes tonight when I got home from work. Why is it that the howling masses in general treat you as less than human if you work in food service? 

My experience of crap level jobs (which I’m leaping to the conclusion this is) is that whatever your crap level job is, you will be treated as less than human.  Sometimes it’s worth it (in my case, I was going home to write stories having not wasted a lot of brain on my job).  Sometimes it’s just what you can get.  Good luck. 

SO not a good day. Kes makes things better. 

::Beams::  ::Beams more:: 

EMoon

Having Kes face down a monster coal & wood stove…perfect. 

Snork. 

Having  Hayley annoyed….perfect.  

Oh, but—!  Remember that she’s about . . . oh, 22 or so.  Who among us was not a bit of an assho—er, a bit unfinished and still looking for a persona that fit comfortably at that age?  Hayley is hot to be doing something, and at the moment it’s coming out in four inch heels, blue blazers, and real estate.  She gets points for trying.  With respect to any 22-year-olds reading this who are already perfectly and wholly themselves and comfortable with it.§  I like Hayley. 

jmeadows

I like Hayley so much. 

Oh good.  You not-yet-thirty-year-old person, you.  

* * *

* It’s probably just menopause.  Hey, when does embracing the inner crone and having fun begin?  

** AT THE SPEED I WRITE (REAL) BOOKS?  NOOOOOOO.  I AM NOT GOING TO WRITE CLIFFHANGERS.  NOT.  BESIDES, I NEVER WRITE SEQUELS.  EVER.^ 

^Pegasus?  Oh, he’s a winged horse out of Greek mythology, isn’t he?   Perseus rides him, I think.  Of course I’ve always thought it was kind of a waste of a good idea just to make him a winged horse, and that there’s only one of him, and . . . 

*** Vikkik

::sets up a large trampoline at the bottom of Robin’s cliff to catch unwary blog readers as they plummet over the edge…..:: 

† So to speak. 

†† SIIIIIGH.  I can’t even write serial blog fiction in 800+ -word chunks short.  

††† You guys have a real fixation on this Pegasus idea, don’t you? 

‡ And fairly universally politically incorrect.  I can almost roll with the misogyny because it’s so of its time, but his racism, for example, is beyond merely of its time and into the seriously offensive.

‡‡ And Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker.  Although I have to say that Bram Stoker is pretty far into the scenery-gnawing, hysterical and ludicrous most of the time.  I adore DRACULA but it also makes me giggle, and (say) LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM?  Approach warily, with tongs. 

‡‡‡ Which rose phoenix-like from its own ashes not long after the fire, I believe.  But I was one of the long-standing clients who went round while the embers were still pretty much smoking to mourn.  http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2209&dat=19800202&id=y50rAAAAIBAJ&sjid=KvwFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5532,343526 

§ Also, I hate you.  You’re not allowed to have it nailed at twenty-two.  It’s too depressing for those of us who are still a little crumbly around the edges decades after twenty-two.  Arrrgh.

 

KES, 24

 

TWENTY FOUR    

There was the tap of heels.  Hayley stopped beside me and sucked in her breath, and then let it out in a “What?”

            Which was more or less my feeling on the matter, and I’d only been in this kitchen once before, about half an hour ago.

            “Where did that come from?  I’ve never seen it before in my life!” —from my professionally outraged companion.

            “Well, it is very dark back here —” I began.

            “It’s not so dark that entire—entire —”

            “Stoves,” I said.  “Gigantic ancient wood-burning stoves —”

            “—can disappear,” finished Hayley.  “I think it’s probably wood and coal.  It’s got two fireboxes.”

            “As well as twelve ovens,” I said.

            Hayley was counting.  “Well, four.”

            “Four is plenty.  Four is more than plenty.”

            “But where did it come from?” said Hayley.  “I’m sure it wasn’t there before!  And it’s not on the inventory!”  —But I could tell she was wavering.  This was real life.  Cthulhu (and Flowerhair) happened in books.  Which was just as well, given the sorts of things Cthulhu got up to (and while I’d be happy to have a cup of tea and a chat with Flowerhair any time, I didn’t want to meet most of the people she hung out with, starting with her bad-tempered enchanted sword).  But could a monster stove, even a black cast iron one in a dark alcove, really make itself invisible to a bunch of expert realtors officially engaged to rent the house it lurked in to some innocent member of the public?

            What other explanation was there?  Fairies?

            Hayley stepped forward and began investigating it in what looked to me like a knowledgeable way.  “Yes,” she said, opening doors and lifting lids.  “This one is wood and this one coal.  They’re even laid, for pity’s sake.  There’s still a coal hole in the cellar, but I don’t think there’s any coal in it.  Or maybe it’s hiding in the shadows too,” she added savagely.  Savagely was interesting from a cheerleader in a navy blazer and four-inch heels. 

            “Um,” I said.  “Does this thing count as the woodstove you were going to ask Mr D to install?  I have no idea how to use it.”

            “It’s a very nice stove,” she said grudgingly.  “And it looks really well maintained.  Of course we’ll get someone out to look it over and sweep the chimney.”

            I guess I was looking at her equivocally.  She gave a little barking noise that was third cousin to a laugh.  “Hey, I’m from around here.  There are a lot of old solid-fuel stoves in my family.  They’re not hard to use:  you set fire to your whatever and then fiddle with the draft till it burns the way you want.”  She pulled on a lever that went rrrrrrr and the stovepipe juddered.  She glared at it.  I was beginning to feel sympathy for the stove, which was just standing there, minding its own business, ready to produce heat in the manner for which it was intended.  Heat was good.  I wanted the stove to feel welcome.  Maybe it should have a name.  Sigmund.  Gideon.  Caedmon.   Hmm.  I thought it looked like a Caedmon.

            “Mr Demerara can install a new woodstove in the master bedroom,” Hayley said decidedly, and gave the lever a final yank.  I thought the rrrrrr sounded placatory.  “A house this enormous should have at least two.”  As Hayley spun on one tendon-snapping heel I sidled closer to the stove and gave it a pat before I followed her.

            I caught up with Hayley as she stood in front of the fireplace in the parlour.  She was still glaring.  She looked up at me and smiled.  “I’m sorry.  But I don’t understand how . . .”  Her voice tailed away.  “I don’t know why the floor in here is so gritty either, unless it’s backdraft from the chimney.  We’ll have this one checked too of course.”

            “Hey, I write fantasy for a living,” I said.  “Maybe the fairies who brought the stove forgot to wipe their feet.  I’m not bothered.  As long as it’s, you know, benevolent.”

            “It’ll be your best friend in January,” said the girl who was from around here.  “Is there anything else you want to see?  Look at again?  Ask your realtor about, who won’t know, because it’s not on her inventory?”

            “I drove up here with all my stuff in the back of a van.  And I’m really tired of this sweater,” I said, “but I seem to have mislaid the van inventory.”

            Hayley, distracted, looked at me, and then looked around at the empty parlour, which would have been big enough to park two vans in, if the front wall rolled up like a garage door.  “All your stuff?  I hope it’s a large van.”

            I laughed.

            Hayley grinned.  “Okay.  Then let me tell you there’s a great junk—I mean valuable items previously owned—shop in Amity.  My sister-in-law works there three days a week.”

            “What does your brother do?”

            “Teaches English at Cabell High.  His elective seminar on H P Lovecraft is very popular.”

 

The organ of Eglise Notre-Dame La Dalbade – Part I

Guest post by equus_peduus

PART ONE

This post is all Robin’s fault.  After all, if she hadn’t mentioned folding origami the other day, I would not have desired to fold some origami myself, then gotten lost looking for a little paper shop, seen an intriguing old-looking building in the process of finding the correct street, gone around to the front of the intriguing old-looking building, gone inside, and discovered that there was going to be something that involved organs the next day.

And if Robin hadn’t, in the past, posted occasionally about Oisin and his obsession about organs, and a little bit about how organs are really cool, I might not have gone to said event involving organs.  But being sort of a musician, and thinking that organs might be kind of interesting, my boyfriend and I went.

I was expecting a recital or something.  What we got was a brief recital… followed quickly by the opportunity to go up into the organ loft, see the keyboards, the stops, the pedals, hear the organ from the galleries as well as from the organ loft, go into the back and see (some of) the insides of the organ, see and hear the various pipes, hear how the different stops affect the sound of the instrument, watch a little of how the mechanics of this incredible instrument work, and then get to doodle around a little on the instrument myself.

—

Front of the church

The Eglise Notre-Dame La Dalbade is in the Carmes neighborhood of Toulouse.  Surrounded by other old buildings*, it stands on one of the many twisty streets that meander through this medieval city.  When I made a wrong turn looking for the paper store and saw the high walls with the old gothic buttresses, I had to investigate.  Built of the red brick that gives the city its nickname of La Ville Rose, it has an entrance with carved columns and a beautiful mural depicting the coronation of the Virgin Mary surrounded by angelic musicians.

It seems that the original church, built in the 6th century, was white – hence its name**.  After being destroyed in a fire in the 15th century and rebuilt in the 16th, it acquired its current red brick and the tallest bell tower in Toulouse.  It houses an organ, built by Eugène Puget in 1888***.  In 1926, the bell tower collapsed, taking a small secondary organ and a large portion of the church with it****.  Luckily, the main organ was minimally damaged, and the church was rebuilt in the 50s (some of the organ’s restoration at that time was performed by Eugène’s grandson Maurice).

When I ventured inside Friday afternoon, I admired the vaulted ceilings, the stained-glass windows, the paintings and statues in the alcoves… all the usual things I look at when I enter these old churches.  Some churches, including this one, have fabulous organs – the detailed carving of the dark wood is always amazing to behold.  This organ was designed to frame a beautiful rose window.

Rose window

I was a little surprised to hear someone playing on it, though – all the other organs I’ve seen have been silent when I visited.  They were clearly practicing – the same run was played several times, the music stopped and started, and after a while, I became aware that there were two people in the organ loft – the player and someone who seemed to be instructing the player.  I enjoyed the music, such as it was, and after taking several photographs of the church’s interior, I prepared to leave.

As I turned to the exit, I took a quick look at the bulletin board.  A poster caught my eye – Presentation de l’orgue historique Puget 1888, it said.  The date was, serendipitously, that of the next day.   I took a picture of it (so I’d remember) and showed it to my boyfriend that evening after he got home.  He thought it might be interesting – why not go?

Flyer. Background is a drawing (I believe by Puget) of the original organ’s conception and/or construction (I am not completely clear on that part).

And so, as the morning turned to noon on Saturday, we entered the church. . . .

* * *

* The building across the way, for example, has a plaque on it dating it to the 16th century.

** That would be the Dalbade part (dealbata = whitewashed in Latin)

*** According to this website ( http://www.toulouse-les-orgues.org/le... ), Puget actually rebuilt and expanded on a previously present organ built in 1850 by Prosper Moitessier.

**** The French Wikipedia site has a couple photos of the tower before and after its collapse.  http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89glise_Notre-Dame_de_la_Dalbade

 

Mottisfont in the rain

 

Peter and I went to Mottisfont today.  http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/mottisfont/*

In the sheeting rain.  The sheeting rain.  Hey, gardens in the rain:  the traditional English experience.**

            Between Peter’s bridge playing and my bells and singing*** and, you know, earning a living, there aren’t a lot of free(ish) days in any given week.  And we’d planned today, including booking the dog minder to give hellhounds their afternoon hurtle.†  Peter said, to the drumming of the rain on the roof, what do you want to do?  I said, I’ve booked the dog minder, I’m going somewhere.  Fine, said Peter, I’ll come with you.

            So we went to Mottisfont.  It’s after midsummer:  the roses won’t keep.

            There are advantages to famous public gardens in the rain:  you will probably have them to yourselves.  There were half a dozen other stalwarts/crazy people there, but Mottisfont in high summer is usually frelling jammed.  I shot off more photos in less time than I probably ever have there, and was feeling quite smug till (a) MY CAMERA’S BATTERY DIED†† and (b) I got home and discovered that despite compulsive lens-wiping better than half my photos have large grey raindrop blobs on them.  ARRRRRRRGH.†††

Wet border.

Another wet border. There were lots of these.

Wet border with man. The man adds interest.

This is one of those photos you get every year when I go to Mottisfont. This year I didn't have to wait and wait to get a clear shot without a mob.

Still another wet border.

 

There's that man again. (Also there's a grey raindrop blob. But I had to include this photo.)

Serious roses. Golly.

Wet clematis to go with the wet roses.

That man is trying to hide behind his umbrella. Silly man.

 

Another annual photo. This year it's wet.

 

* * *

* And we, or at any rate I, have to go back for the E H Shepherd show.  

** I should perhaps officially declare that while I like to complain, I don’t actually mind all that much, barring the immediate sulky-hellhound situation, and that not being able to get into the garden at all due either to imminent drowning or the likelihood of being smothered by very happy, very lush foliage does eventually^ make me CRANKY, as does sinking more than ankle deep on any/all local footpaths.  Waiting for me to flounder back out of the latest morass also tends to deepen and enrich wet hellhound sulkiness.  This is not a self-aggravating cycle likely to make any of us better human/canine beings.^^

            But I will take cold and wet to hot and dry ANY DAY.  ANY YEAR.  ANY CENTURY.  

^ ‘eventually’ being one of those mutable concepts 

^^ There is possibly nothing more FUN in this world than getting tangled up with some wet aggressive off lead brute whose so-called owner is slogging on with his/her head sunk between his/her shoulders and his/her hood pulled well down against the grievous misconduct of the weather and the screams of the assaulted.+ 

+ Pam Adams

Perhaps that’s what you need on your hurtles is a bully-bodyguard to protect the hellhounds and you from idiot owners with off-lead dogs. 

::Sighs::  Only if I can hire Southdowner as wrangler. 

Fake Frenchie

LOL I understand that the hellhounds were worried. I would be too, even though I know that bully terriers are not dangerous. 

Well . . . Alex/Southdowner may want to put me right about this but (a) ALL dogs have the potential to be either sweethearts or dangerous and (b) bull terriers were originally bred to be fighting dogs and it’s unwise to forget this.  Bullies were actually on my short list when I was between dogs this last time.  They do tend to be people dogs, and I like the twinkle in their eyes, and I told myself that I could cope with one.  Alex has 1,000,000# bullies and they all get along fine, so it can be done, but Alex is also a professional dog behaviourist and, as she says herself, socialises the bzrgm out of her critters. 

# There are photos  

*** Nadia is about to go on maternity leave.  As you might say, waaaaaaaaaah. 

† In this weather it’s easy to tell she’s been.  There are streaming harnesses hooked over the rail in front of the Aga, dripping raincoats hanging over the hellhound gate by the front door, and muddy towels on the floor. 

†† My camera’s battery died because I took it into the camera shop on my way to Nadia yesterday, to buy a new lens cap, since I have managed to lose mine.^  Not only did they not have a lens cap that would fit, but the Nice Man behind the counter took about twenty minutes to decide he couldn’t figure out how to de-set some of the weirdnesses that this camera has constructed for my benefit.  Siiigh.  My beautiful no-longer-new camera has not been the greatest success of my life:  it has TOO MANY BUTTONS and trying to deal with the thing and (for example) hellhound leads is a disaster, and as I’m frantically juggling all the buttons go squeeeeeeee and reset themselves in fabulous new patterns . . . unknown even to Nice Men behind the counters of dedicated camera shops.  Anyway.  There had apparently been severe battery drain as the settings all ran around hiding behind things so the Nice Man couldn’t find them.   

^ It’s in the garden.  Somewhere.  Sigh.  

†††As I was leaving the garden, Peter having sloshed on ahead for a cup of tea at the café, I met a bloke coming in, carrying a lot of photography equipment and looking gloomy.  The rain had got harder over the course of our visit, and was at this point running down the peak of your hood, caroming off your nose and thundering off your shoulders.  Gardens in the rain, I said, at least there’s no one else around.  Hmmmmm, he said. 

 

 

Visitor(s)

 

Peter, hellhounds and I had a visitor yesterday. 

Meet Nemo.

This is Nemo.

This is his Facebook photo [sic].  Nemo has more followers than most humans do. 

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Robin-McKinley/149327572983#!/nemo.bullterrier 

(There is undoubtedly a way of bringing this up without going through one’s own FB page, but I can’t seem to claw it out of Google.)

But if you ask him nicely he may come lie on your kitchen floor in an alert manner.

THERE IS CHEESE IN THAT HAND.

Oh yes, and Alex, our southdowner, was attached to the other end of the lead.  But, you know, another human.  Eh.   He brought her along to carry the cheese.

I ask very nicely for cheese.

Alex says she didn’t teach him to sit up.  He figured out this was a way to get cheese by seeing one of her other bullies ask for desirable ingestibles like this.  IT MUST BE REALLY TERRIFIC HAVING FOOD ORIENTED DOGS, SO YOU HAVE A HOPE.

Why yes, thank you, you're very kind, I'd love some CHEESE.

There's another dog in our kitchen. Havent you noticed there's another DOG in our KITCHEN?

Hellhounds were somewhat nonplussed.

Cheese? What would a dog want with cheese?

SIIIIIIIIGH.  Nemo is, you understand, lying down at Alex’s request so as not to intimidate the hellhound. 

                 Apologies for awfulness of photography.  Conditions were somewhat challenging.

You're just not getting it. There's another DOG in our KITCHEN.

I am therefore going to sacrifice my serenity and repose for the greater good and lie in the doorway to the kitchen outside my comfortable bed and keep an eye on things.

                 And while I’m at it, I’ll protect your knitting stash.  Which hasn’t fit either in that tote bag or under that table in months, but I’ll do my best.

Humans are, as we know, peculiar. You want me to give you my paw for cheese? Fine. Whatever. CHEESE.

 

Eventually we all went for a hurtle together.  Don’t let those little short mini-bull-terrier legs fool you, the only panting in wakes going on was from us two-legs.  (And Nemo weighs about the same as a hellhound—it’s just differently arranged.)

            It was pretty gorgeous yesterday and partly in a foolish desire to show off some of New Arcadia and partly with some ridiculous notion that three dogs counts as a pack and if there were any roving malfeasants we would be left alone, we went across one of the big recreation grounds with grass and trees and copses and verdant whatsit and tweeting birds and a general sense of nature happening even within town borders.  We don’t usually go here—any more—because it’s been repeatedly wrecked for us by off lead dogs with agendas and owners with none.* 

            So we sauntered up through the gate and. . . at the far end, there was a Man and a Large Black Dog.  Alex immediately said, the dog’s off lead.  Alex has much better vision than I do.**  So she suggested hellhounds and I hug the hedgerow and she, with her bull terrier, would run interference, if interference was needed.  Even I could see the bloody dog go into (you should forgive the term) bully mode:  head, ears and tail all went up, and you could assume the hackles.   Alex and Nemo were closer, so it went strutting up to them, all chest and attitude.  And Nemo proceeded to bounce all over it.  If one weren’t already furious (and worried) about the situation it would have been funny.  Have I posted the ep of KES where she comments that terriers have bedsprings where most dogs have legs?  Nemo, without any sign of aggression whatsoever, was bouncing pretty much as high as Alex is tall and at land speed record rate, and the other dog didn’t know what hit it.  The moron of an owner was finally jogging toward the scene of the action having somewhat belatedly noticed that there was a bull terrier involved—Alex had shouted to please call his dog—and was probably having visions of his all-mouth-and-no-trousers animal being an hors d’oeuvre.  Nemo has better taste.***

            Nemo came away from this encounter totally jolly and pleased with himself—as well he might be, of course, but hellhounds and I were skulking along the hedgerow being delicate and sensitive and I’d rather just have a nice walk in the park, you know? 

There is no CHEESE in this bed. Saaaaaaaaaaad.

 

 * * *

* This was where the one occasion Chaos ever snarled and went for another dog occurred, I think because he thought the other dog was going for me.  I was cluelessly dubbing along, not noticing what was going on behind me/us.  I had clocked the dog in question but it was way on the either side of the field—it had to have a major attitude problem to cover that amount of ground to give us a hard time.   Only it did.

** Alex is younger than I am.  Most people are, any more.  She also reads dogs better than I do, not surprising in a dog behaviourist.  

*** Of course Nemo was full of cheese.  But I don’t think I’d count on this.

KES, 23

TWENTY THREE

 

Hayley tucked FLOWERHAIR THE INVINCIBLE, now worth at least $.69 on eBay because it was signed by the author, back into her bag, I put my pen away, and we turned back toward the house.  “I still want it, you know,” I said.  “The house.  In spite of how hard it’s going to be to heat in the winter.”

            “We’re going to ask the owner about putting in a woodstove,” Hayley said briskly.  “It hasn’t been on the market that long.  Some cousin or something lived in it till two years ago and it’s sat empty since.  Mr Demerara only approached us about it about six months ago and Sally almost turned him down because she doesn’t like properties on her books that she can’t shift, or landlords that live in Italy.  The rest of us sort of ganged up on her because it’s old and unusual and has some kind of story, even if no one knows what it is.” 

            I wondered if the Homeric Homes employees were a secret coven of Lovecraft readers.  Although I would have thought a close acquaintance with Lovecraft would mitigate against wanting to get involved in the fate of a mysterious old house with an owner no one ever met.  I also wondered how many realtors this area could support.  Perhaps my views of population density were skewed by having lived all my life in a city of modest geographic dimensions containing eight million people.

          “And it makes a change from ranch houses, you know?” she went on.  “Sally did get him to agree that if we found—er—someone to sign a contract he’d plough a few months’ rent back into the house.  As if he needed the money,” she added scornfully.

            You could probably be poor in Italy too, I thought.  Wealthy old families didn’t always stay wealthy.  Although you could wonder why someone from Cold Valley had ended up there.   Italy must have lots of haunted villas.  Maybe that was the attraction.           

            “The insulation doesn’t come up to modern standards, of course, and I think the furnace is nearly as old as the house, and he’s already refused to replace the central heating.  But even if they have to line the chimney, a woodstove would be less expensive than a new furnace.  And wood is still pretty cheap—I can give you the name of someone who’ll bring you a couple of cords and stack them for you—there’s lots of room under the porch.”

            If it doesn’t annoy the deinonychus, I thought.  “Thanks,” I said.

            I watched her in her four-inch heels climbing the stairs to the kitchen door:  there weren’t as many stairs as out front, but they were steeper.  I decided that Hayley’s pelvis was double-jointed.  She opened the kitchen door, waved me through, and put another gigantic key in the keyhole.  Solid brass locks were probably proof against malign witches and soul-seeking demons but I wondered if the doorframes were up to a determined attack by a family of pissed-off deinonychus.  This key didn’t want to turn and Hayley took it out again, looked at it, and started doing all those things you do when a lock misbehaves:  opened the door, closed it, rattled the handle, stared at the key . . . I wandered a step or two away to take another look at the kitchen, now that I was pretty officially the sucker who was going to sign that contract with the enigmatic Mr D. 

            The old porcelain sink was nearly big enough to take a bath in and the elderly refrigerator was one of those bulgy things that look like a small 1950s Cadillac standing on one end.  The stove rather let down this picture of domestic bliss of half a century ago, however, by looking like something that had been pulled out of a college dorm last week.  I wondered if there was a melted rubber between the burners, as there had been in my freshman dorm third floor kitchen.  Stories varied as to how it got there, but as long as you didn’t use the left front burner you were fine. 

            There was a dark alcove in the wall opposite the door into the big parlour.  Hayley was muttering things that I guessed Sally wouldn’t want a client hearing, so I ambled toward the alcove.  It was deeper than I thought—and darker, at least this time of day with no curtains on the windows, because of the way the sunlight slanted in past it, adding a layer of shadow as thick as the bogeyman’s cape, the one that he wraps up bad children in, to steal them away forever.

            There was something in it.  In the alcove.

            Something huge.  Something that loomed. 

            Something with a mad, irregular outline. . . .

            I stopped breathing, and then, with an effort of will, started again.  If it was Yog-Sothoth, having escaped from the cellar, he’d had plenty of time to leap on us and smother us with loathsomeness or whatever his deal was, and he hadn’t.  Hayley was still muttering.  I took another step forward.  I may have clutched at the front of my jacket for reasons that didn’t have to do with the temperature in an empty house in spring in a place called Cold Valley. 

            There was a clunk behind me, and an exclamation of satisfaction from Hayley.

            “Look,” I said.  “Come look at this.”

 

Arrrgh plus photos

 

The bride was over forty minutes late.  And she was heard to say something to the effect of ‘gee golly gosh gorblimey I didn’t realise how long everything would take.’

            !!!!!! _)(*&^$%”£#£”$”%£@~~???>

            Okay, generally speaking you don’t get married often enough to learn how long getting into a wedding dress and having your hair redone and your make-up trowelled on and your fake nails reglued and your hem where you’ve trodden on the train stapled back up and so on takes* but I find it impossible to believe other than that frelling most of these kittle-cattle just can’t be frelling bothered to jerk themselves out of their little stupor of total self-absorption** and remember that ordinary people with lives are contributing to make their one-off day special.  ARRRRRRRGH.

            I had a wedding to ring today.  You may have gathered.

           OF COURSE I had brought my knitting.  OF COURSE.  Although I’d brought the second green leg warmer, poor thing, it’s been crushed to the bottom of the Mobile Knitting Unit in the excitement of First Cardi.  But I have to begin Shaping Armholes on First Cardi*** and I thought attempting this would probably be a mistake, waiting to ring a wedding, either because your ears are straining for Mendelssohn’s wedding march on the organ, which is your cue to leap to your rope, or because you are in a violent temper because the bride is late, and your mind might not be sufficiently free to concentrate on the arcane instructions of your knitting pattern.   

            So I found a nice bench in the churchyard with a nice view of the countryside and some nice wildlife to commune with† and knitted.  Second green leg warmer is almost done.

            But the wildlife part reminded me that I never finished our baby robin series.

Okay. We are definitely cute now.

I love the feathers at this stage. The Huh? What? How do you do this feather thing? look.

There are FIVE of them. Aren't there FIVE of them??

 

FIVE.

We're teenagers! We want our OWN ROOMS!

 

I bet I can fly. I bet I can fly. I bet I . . .

 

* * *

* Have I mentioned recently that we got married at a registry office?  You show up at a scheduled time with your two legally required witnesses and it takes about ten minutes.  Primping strictly optional, although I had a very nice dress.  Which you can see by clicking the ‘about’ button on this blog.  Which I assume you’ve already done at some point. 

** And it’s not that accidents don’t happen.  They do.  Cars break down, trains don’t run, people fall downstairs.^  But I’ve rung close to a hundred weddings at this point—not all of them were late, of course—but I don’t recall any tower I’ve rung at ever receiving a letter of apology from a late bride.  This is the sort of thing a tower secretary would be extremely punctilious about passing on to the troops—tower secretaries want the troops in a good mood toward the successful outcome of future engagements. 

^ Or pour boiling water over their feet the night before they’re due at the registry office.  It didn’t work.  I married him anyway.  

*** I spent last night in the bath reading up on knitting language.  Have you ever tried to READ a pattern?  Iiii aj dork fescule 65 [101 212 4306] drm gggdp sts at each end.  Farg.  Work 9 [808 9542 12833] 1 zunk each bllg dom tyrpx ending with arrrgh.  Cast off in patt.^ 

^ All patterns insist that you use their yarn.  I’m sitting here staring at the large bold caveat on this particular pattern—and no, I’m not using their yarn, I don’t like THEIR yarn—which reads:  ZINGOBIBBAB CANNOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE RESULT OF USING ANY OTHER YARN.  Wait a minute.  You mean they are going to accept responsibility if you make a howling botch of their yarn?      

† I tried to get photos of the pleasing wildlife but failed.  The most pleasing, if not very wild, was a donkey, but he would stay in the middle of the field, invisible to his ears in tall June grasses.