Jane Brocket's Blog, page 30

light verse

[photograph of Paddington Station by John Gay]

The train at Pershore station was waiting that Sunday night
Gas light on the platform, in my carriage electric light,
Gas light on frosty evergreens, electric on Empire wood,
The Victorian world and the present in a moment's neighbourhood.

(Opening lines of 'Pershore Station, or a Liverish Journey First Class' by John Betjeman)

The London-bound train from Pershore comes into the still-spectacular Paddington Station, but there is only electric light nowadays. No-one writes about stations and trains as well as John Betjeman, and in this poem he captures the different lights beautifully. He and John Gay also produced the wonderful Historic Railway Stations of London (1972) which is a much-loved part of my railway book collection.

The historic stations of London are just as atmospheric as ever, particularly in the early evening at this time of year. On Wednesday evening I went up to the new balcony at Waterloo and spent a few minutes gazing at the scene below and beyond; it's like looking at a crowd-filled painting or watching a film, and quite different to looking around at ground level. St Pancras is also lovely (and contains a statue of JB), but my favourite of all is Marylebone, which was also close to JB's heart and which now has a blue plaque dedicated to him.

light grey

Or maybe pale grey, silver grey, or dove grey. I'm knitting a grey hot water bottle cover, and it grew and grew yesterday at Persephone Books where I sat amidst the piles of light grey books and knitted and chatted and met many lovely people. Thank you to everyone who came and said hello and bought books.

I can't go to bed in winter without a hot water bottle; every night as I read in bed my nose freezes but my feet are beautifully warm. I've just re-read Greenery Street which is ideal reading-in-bed material. It's a truly delightful book, a little arch at times perhaps, but charming and very London-specific. Once I'd looked up Walpole Street on a map (Greenery Street in the novel, and where Denis Mackail lived at no 23 when first married), and seen photos of the street, it was so easy to picture Felicity's comings and goings in London (some of my favourite scenes are set in Andrew Brown's aka Peter Jones of Sloane Square). I'm now choosing my next bed and hot water bottle read; I tried Anderby Wold by Winifred Holtby but think this is a daytime book. It has the most brilliant opening chapter - quite astonishingly good - but the novel is at times laboured and campaigning, and at times resembles a tract. (A shame because WH was a tremendous force for good, but politics don't mesh well with the human story in the novel.)

So, what to read next in bed? I'll decide when I'm boiling the kettle tonight.

light fantastic

Richmond Green, 4.40 pm yesterday.

A fabulous address all year round (Virginia Woolf once lived at no.17, so this is the type of dusk she wrote about in her diaries), but particularly beautiful in winter.

light relief

A surprise on my desk this morning (above).

A day at Persephone Books tomorrow.

Mrs Miniver. I could read the opening chapter over and over again and never tire of it. It's short and beautifully formed. It's really a prose poem about the pleasures of home and domesticity. 

Ben Pentreath's blog. In the best possible taste, and often very funny, too.

The Infinite Monkey Cage. I heard it for the first time yesterday. I don't know if it's always as entertaining and thought-provoking, but this edition certainly made me laugh and think. Radio 4 at its best.

Chocolate with sea salt.

light therapy

Still with low light levels and the problems they cause...

:: In the Guardian this morning I read about the light boxes that have been installed at bus stops in a town in northern Sweden in an effort to reduce SAD. It makes me wonder if people will go and stand in the shelters and deliberatley miss buses in order to get some UV rays. They could become hubs of social life; I see coffee and cake stands, mulled wine, a DJ perhaps, all popping up around the bus stops as locals in sunglasses crowd into the shelter and party like it's summer.

:: I tried reading The Emotional Calendar by John Sharp after hearing him speak very sensibly on Radio 4, but the book failed to change anything for me. It contains too many anecdotes, and is oddly superficial considering the author's credentials. The premise is interesting and a fascinating area of study; I'm sure there's a good book waiting to be written on the subject, but this was too upbeat and cheerleading-self-help-positive-style to be really insightful or useful.

:: It might help to arrange a business trip to somewhere warm and sunny with nice spicy food. Simon packed his swimming trunks and a pair of shorts yesterday, and flew off to visit to Kuala Lumpur this week - after he's been to the not-so-warm Shanghai. Friends ask why I don't go with him on these trips, but someone needs to stay with Phoebe and take her to the bus stop in the dark, and pick her up from the bus stop in the dark. She brightens up my day, anyway, and I wouldn't miss that for anything, so I'll just have to wait until she's gone to university before I can gad about in search of unseasonal sun.

:: I'm using the dark to force hyacinth bulbs in vases. No point in not taking advantage of it.

:: And black and white films look so much better in winter when the light and dark and shade seem to come into play more vividly. I just watched Victim (again) which was remarkably subtle and forward-thinking for its time.

 

light adjustment

It's so difficult to take photos in the cool, grey, wintery light we have at the moment. Especially if you don't adjust the light levels in any way, or play around with the resulting images. I still leave my photos just as they are when taken (as above). In many ways the low light and deep shadows in them are useful reminders of seasonal variation and the fact that contrast is good.

It's taken many years for me to be this sanguine. For as long as I can remember, I've hated this season with its short days and lack of sunlight, and I've always been pretty miserable during the run up to the end of the calendar year. But at last I'm beginning to adjust to the gloomy light levels, mainly by means of playing psychological tricks and mind games, plus the simple act of getting outside to enjoy fresh air and any paltry sunshine on offer.

I also now realise that for a long time I've been reading accounts of Antarctic exploration and expeditions without fully understanding why I'm so interested in them: it's because I need to know that there are ways of coping with the cold and the dark (hence, also, why I enjoyed Names for the Sea so much). So now I have made myself consider all the positives of the season. I want to enjoy the dusks and sunsets without bemoaning the fact they happen far too early in the day, to read more books that make me grateful for thick curtains, warm fires, hot drinks (I've just bought Winter for this reason), to check the daily temperature in Helsinki and wish I was there to see the city in the snow and remind myself that the Finnish deal admirably with icy cold conditions with pragmatism and style (great furry boots, wonderful coffee and buns in beautifully lit, warm cafes), to get oustide and feel the tingling cold or the downright bone-chilling cold in order to embrace rather than deny the weather.

It's taking time, but I'm beginning to feel the glow rather than the chill. And spring and tulips are never far away from December,

you know you're old when...

...on your birthday, your husband goes to buy a rose for every year, and the huge, well-stocked flower section of the garden centre doesn't have enough of the gorgeous peach variety he has chosen. So I was a few roses short of a full birthday bunch. It makes me wonder if perhaps it's time to start knocking off the years like Joan Collins and other 'celebrities'? (I think not. The teenagers would soon put everyone straight, and probably add a couple of extra years for good luck.)

next wednesday

Next Wednesday, December 12th, I shall be at Persephone Books for the Christmas Open Day from 10.30am onwards. This will be the third time I've been at this event so I speak with confidence when I say that it's worth making a detour to do your Persephone book-shopping on that day. The shop glows, the mulled wine flows, the mince pies are delicious, and the atmosphere is warm and welcoming.

If you need further inducement, consider an omelette and chips at Sid's cafe next door (one of a dying breed - a local, independent cafe with character, tables squeezed together, generous portions, and fair prices), a visit to Ben Pentreath's shop on Rugby Street (Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath spent the first night of their honeymoon at no. 18), a drink in The Lamb (with Victorian fittings and 'snob screens'), an architectural walk round the surrounding streets as described in Bricks and Mortar, or a Dickensian Christmas Walk and Museum tour on the same day organised by the newly refurbished Dickens Museum on nearby Doughty Street (where Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby shared a flat for a time at no 52). Visually, it will be London in December at its best, especially when the day fades and the lights are switched on, and Virginia Woolf's wonderful descriptions in her novels and diaries of London at dusk come to mind and have the power to transform an ordinary walk or bus journey into something quite extraordinary.

Do come and say hello. I'll be knitting, talking (as ever), and selling copies of my cake and stitching books. I look forward to it.  

[Paintings by Delphin Enjolras who, in many paintings, captures the atmosphere and pleasures of tea at dusk/lamplight/reading, although I have my doubts about some of his other work.]

challenge

For some reason, at this time of year I tend to set myself a making challenge. This needlepoint cushion cover was a December challenge a couple of years ago. I like needlepoint a great deal, but I don't like the way it can take forever to finish. So I wanted to prove to myself that I could stitch a cover in a week, and I did. I used tapestry wool used double, large-hole canvas, a nice thick stubby needle, and all the leftover colours in my thread drawer. I can't recall exactly which films I watched while making it - they are just a blur now - but I do remember being pretty much tied to a seat for a week. It wasn't exactly hard-going as Cary Grant was involved in the challenge, too.

The details and instructions for this and another needlepoint cushion (single thread, 10 hpi canvas, completed in three weeks) are in here.

This December's challenge is a big courthouse steps quilt.

no thank you

Let me say straightaway that this tray does not belong to me (although the teenagers own some hideous royal masks) but it does amuse me with its lack of verisimilitude and 70s kitsch style. It reminds me that when I need further cheering up, I can always have a look at the list of people who have declined an honour. (LS Lowry, one of my favourite painters, holds the record for the greatest number refused, and Alan Bennett has always said no thank you - very politely, I'm sure.)