19/28

Not a lot of colour to the day
blue or black, text on white.
Three unremarkable (and unremarked) T10s.
Re-reading cheap and nasty childhood copy
of Wuthering Heights
red beneath its long-lost (probably horrid) dustjacket.
Heathcliffe's deeds as dark and indiscernible as ever.

Image of childhood

It was big - maybe three and a half feet by two and a half, and would have  dominated the small room had it been the first thing one saw on entering it, but the engraving of Luke Fildes 'Village Wedding' was hung on the same wall as the door into the room, so one needed to enter before seeing the picture in its full glory.   It was above a prickly green settee whose pampas grass embroidered antimacassar gave a small measure of smooth relief.  
Full of interest too - the shy bride and top hatted groom and crowds of villagers, including a cocky soldier and clinging girl, following them, waving them on their way along a rutted street past thatched cottages.   I hadn't seen the image  for some forty years - had forgotten its existence - until I spotted it on a wedding day greetings card in a shop in York.   Bought immediately, and I learnt for the first time that it derived from a painting by Luke Fildes, one of four major Victorian social realist artists.
Seeing the picture instantly recalled the rest of the room:  my parents had married straight after the war when both jobs and houses were scarce and although they tried to buy a house it was too ambitious once my brother and I arrived - accidents both - so they finished up sharing a house with his parents - not likely to have been a happy experience for anyone.   They slept at night in this same sitting room, and during the day it was our living room - overcrowded and dominated not only by this picture but all the other paraphernalia necessary for coping with small children.   I well remember being washed one morning, a bowl of water brought in from the kitchen, the big brown Bakelite radio, round-edged and yellow dial - suddenly blaring out Puccini's 'One Fine Day' and me covering my ears with fright at the screeching sound.   That was something that had another lasting effect - regrettably, the experience put me off opera for years!

[This also appears on Thinking Ten]

Last day of November

Apparently one person in the Darlington & Tees NaNo region has written 460,000 plus words .... and there's another I think with 150,000 plus.   It's something to do with World Wars but I can't find out more detail.

Ten o'clock and I have already done my T10 piece for today and posted a well-polished piece ('Cast list for a Play') on 6S.  This is the third in a newly focused series of Shenanigans which, among other things, will possibly give me some novel-writing practice.   I should like to dive in blindly for the NaNo next year.

Now back to 'Holding steady' - tightening and attempting to put more in for Sean.   Also intend to re-size the pages as Julia suggested for easier on-screen reading.

Thursday now

All I've done this week is have thoughts about different facets of my characters, based on what went on with them in Reunion, and occasionally earlier.   These have been scribbled on Post-it notes and stuck into my notebook.   I like to use pencil but have noticed these notes do seem to get rubbed away over time - hope the words don't disappear before I get them typed up!

For JM Prescott's weekly Dare I've submitted a piece of dialogue from Reunion - part of the 'Conversation on the summit of a hill' - having removed all the extra pieces of description, and it still works fine, as far as I can tell.   In contrast, on T10 today Leviathan has posted an excerpt from a novel - Burn it well - and the detail there seems to add a great deal to the dialogue - I must re-read and work out how he does it.

Lunch on North Peters Street

Felix's Taqueria - Julia's choice of lunch venue - and while I sat on one of the stools at the small, high table, bags on the floor beneath my feet, she selected a plateful of pick and mix tapas to share between us, luckily remembering that my tolerance of chillis was a lot lower than hers so making a balanced selection.
While we ate we watched a window cleaner with the air of a madman, leaping and jumping to reach the higher parts of the windows, climbing onto the sill and holding on precariously to the fragile ironwork, spray container of water and sheets of newspaper for polishing off tucked into his belt ready to be used alternately. From the number of passers by who stopped and spoke to him he was well-known, however such were his antics that the proprietor was eventually forced to go and ask him to desist - or find something to stand on.
The oval mirror not only enabled us to watch him but also exaggerated the apparent darkness of the corner we sat in - the stained and ancient appearance of the plaster must have been intentional, as was the area of exposed brick, partly to retain the 'genuine antiquity' appeal of the French Quarter. Whatever the falseness we both felt ourselves immensely fortunate to have spent a week in New Orleans, and were sorry that this was our final lunch.

Initial doubts

"Gran, you're not listening ... I didn't say his name was Bud, I said his initials were Bud - B U D, like my initials. And anyway you can be called Bud, strange as it sounds, it is a name in America - wasn't there someone called Bud Flanagan or something?"

She looked back over her shoulder at her grandmother, sat at the table doing the crossword, and trying to beat her self-imposed 30 minute deadline, then turned back to the task in hand: getting the fire going, the wind was in the east and it was hard to get it to draw, despite sitting there with a newspaper held up against the chimney breast for what had seemed ages.

"Well what is his name then, what do the initials stand for?"

"Benedict Ulrich Dohl - his father's father was German apparently."

"Well, you certainly can't be marrying him then .. "

" Whyever not? - not that I've any intention of doing so, for heaven's sake! - stop trying to marry me off to every bloke I mention .. but why not this chap?"

"Because with your name - Barbara - you'll become a Barbie Dohl," and Rose triumphantly laid down her pen. "Finished! Finished in 28 minutes - and that newspaper's going to burn if you're not careful."