Lo-text Monday Revisited, or Possibly Exhumed

 

I remember, long long ago in a galaxy . . . no, damn it, it wasn't very far away.  It was right here.  And right here I inaugurated Lo-Text Monday in another of my flimsy, laughable attempts to cut down on the time (and the word count) I spend on the blog.  It went the way of all such innovations which seek to save me from myself.

            But it's back.  And just like [superhero/ine of choice HERE] it's bigger and meaner than ever.  Which is also to say, especially now that I have people writing me emails and the occasional tweet saying that PEGASUS is the first McKinley novel that made them cry,* I'd better be getting on with PEG II in all haste, due and undue, right?**  And on a Monday night when I'm not still writing tortured guest blogs about writing fiction, I might even get a few more syllables expelled into another file***

So another GIGANTIC BOX OF SPRING FLOWER BULBS arrived a few days ago, and fortunately we haven't had any frosts lately so they could take up most of the space on the top of the Winter Table†—most of this particular gang are for indoor forcing, although there are lots more waiting in the greenhouse.  I'm not ordering them all—I can't possibly have ordered them all.  I have clearly got on some mysterious 'send all surplus bulbs to this address' list.††  I assume I'm part of a great experiment in (a) the life enhancing properties of gardening (b) the ease with which middle-aged control-freak women can be driven round the twist.

            So today I decided I was going to do something about . . . at least some of them.†††  And I did.  Which required a surprising amount of going outdoors into the pouring rain‡ for things that shouldn't have been out in the greenhouse in the first place . . . which then lead to detours . . . oh, never  mind.  There are lovely smelly narcissi, hyacinths ditto, and hippeastrums that merely knock your eyes out, all primped and ready for action.  I'm dreaming of a bright Christmas.

             PS:  And one of my favourite fantasies about being rich and famous?‡‡  Having a greenhouse with electricity and running water, so I don't have to do this in the kitchen sink.

* * *

* I'm sorry!  I know the ending's a ratbag!  It wasn't my idea!  I never have any ideas!^  The story made me do it! . . .

            . . . Wait a minute.  First?  The first McKinley novel that made you cry?  FIRST?  You mean you didn't cry when  . . . or when . . . or when—or when!  First??

            I'm really insulted.^^

^ Er—could we maybe have that banner/ballgown/magic potion/forty-headed monster pink? —No, no, forget I said anything.

^^ But the ending of PEGASUS is still the story's fault.  Although, of course, so are all of those unspoilered whens . . . when you should have cried already.

** Not to mention the small but perfectly formed flood of emails—again, and a few tweets—saying, Oh!  So you do write sequels!  So you'll do SUNSHINE and Damar next, right?  —You really can't win in this business.  Which is why I'm about to finish my homeopathic training/get an MA in horticulture^ and set up shop in the real world. 

^ I can't wait to find out how many hours they'll give me for my BA in English lit

*** I have this vision of something like spitting watermelon pips into a bin.  I wish.

† Winter Table.  Oooh.  Suddenly it's romantic to have a great hulking piece of furniture taking up all the remaining room in your infinitesimal kitchen:  the great hulking piece of furniture Atlas made to order^ to fit over the hellhound crate, to take the weight of the indoor jungle.  The hellhound crate which already takes up three-quarters of the floor space of my tiny kitchen.  And when said table is loaded down with jungle . . . well.  Barring extricating hounds for hurtling and watering the visitors, I become unpleasantly superfluous.

^ Out of the timber equivalent of bin ends

†† I also have a hideous weakness for J Parker Wholesale http://www.dutchbulbs.co.uk/ They're cheap, and they have stuff I can't find anywhere else.  Unfortunately you have to buy at least 25 of most of it.^  I have the fattest mice in Hampshire.  You know it would be worth buying 25 at wholesale prices if the mice would simply eat the first twenty and leave five.  But mice are notoriously bad negotiators.  They'll promise you anything and then, whoops, somebody has an unscheduled litter—they're even worse at birth control than they are at negotiating—and they lose all sense of proportion and fair play.

^ Except, somewhat bafflingly, amaryllis/hippeastrum bulbs, which you can buy one of.  Which explains why, so thrilled by this freedom from oppression, I usually buy about six. 

††† There's also a continuing pansy problem. 

‡ And high winds.  Two days ago I took my last apple off my little tree, and today it didn't have any leaves left.

‡‡  Bag the famous.  Rich.  Just rich.