Dancing in my Dreams

The Theatre sent some photographs that were taken during rehearsals for the performance of Dancing in my Dreams, so here is a picture of the group of young people from the Musical Theatre group. M is the one sitting at the back looking wistfully into the distance. This is the only nice picture as they were singing in most of them so all had silly open mouthed expressions. They all look rather waif-like as the play is set during the war and the children are evacuees.

J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

I felt a bit of a fraud reading 'The Catcher in the Rye', it's almost as if you have to be an angst ridden teenager to read it. It is spoken about as one of those books that's supposed to help you understand the meaning of life but although I read it first time around as a teenager I did not have a strong memory of what happens in the book, other than the meeting with his little sister. It felt like I had merely metaphorically ticked it off the 'The Books you are Supposed to have Read' list. I read a news article recently linked to someone's blog about Salinger coming out of wherever he is in recluse to try and prevent the publishing of a sequel to 'The Catcher in the Rye', and I was struck by this quote from him; "There's no more to Holden Caulfield. Read the book again. Holden Caulfield is only a frozen moment in time." And on reflection that is exactly right. And it is right that the author should be the person who decides such things, and it is right that Holden does not need a future.

As I read it I was reminded all the time of 'L'Etranger' by Albert Camus, a novel that I read during A level french. The protagonist, Holden Caulfield, describes in minute detail what he does over the two days, and his emotional reactions to everything he experiences. He most definitely experiences his own existence as being an 'outsider'. He refers to other people consistently as 'phoney', sees them pretending to be friendly or interested when they really aren't. And at the same time he seems desperate to make contact with other human beings. He seeks out the company of a boy he does not particularly like, chats to people on the train, in cafes and in bars, and he makes a date with a girl he knows, but mainly it seems to keep himself from being alone. In other ways it also made me think of 'We have Always Lived in the Castle' because it is a book that lets you inside someone's head, into their thoughts, with total honesty. There is not much to say about the story. Holden has been expelled, not for the first time, and decides to just leave school rather than wait out the final few days in anticipation of his father's angry reaction to the news. He thinks a lot about his brother who has died, he obviously still experiences the loss quite acutely. After a night and a day of hanging around, not really knowing what he wants or what to do, he goes to his home in secret to see his sister. She seems to be the only person who understands him, or at least that is what he feels. Theirs is the only real close relationship that he has. He makes a decision to 'run away' and forge a life for himself on the periphery of society, somewhere where he can pass unnoticed, and it is her reaction to this decision that changes him. She packs a bag and announces she is coming with him. It is almost as if being forced to think about her, rather than himself (as he has been doing rather intensely the rest of the book), makes him appreciate the value of their relationship and it puts his rather negative view of human relations in some perspective.

In a way this is partly what the book is exploring, how hard it is to know other people. Or the process of learning how to know other people. Young children are very egocentric, they don't really think about other people except in relation to their own lives and experiences. It is part of adolescence that you begin to really look outside yourself, but also to be inside your head more, to reflect on your own thoughts and behaviour. Holden is described as a rebel and an anti-hero but I did not see him like that at all. He is just an ordinary teenager. I guess when it was written (1951) there was no such thing as 'teenagers' and it was quite unique to be writing a book based on the experience of such a young character, not a child but also not an adult. I think it stands the test of time because it continues to speak to the young people who read it. The disarming honesty is both what made it shocking at the time but is what ensures it's enduring appeal. We do not need to know Holden's future because you are left with the certainty that whatever it is he will not be going through life thoughtlessly.

Midsummer's day with Will and Lyra

Today we had the most perfect visit to Oxford. It is midsummer's day and M had requested that we go to the Botanic Gardens to go to Will and Lyra's bench. For those of you not familiar with Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' trilogy I should probably just tell you to go and read it because it is far too complex to explain in a few sentences. At the end Will and Lyra agree to meet every midsummer's day at midday at a particular bench in the botanic gardens, since it is a place that exists the same in both of their worlds. There is quite a detailed description of how they reach the bench and I was not totally convinced that it was a real place but we decided to go anyway. We were hoping that it was long enough since the book was published for there not to be hoards of people thinking the same thing.

"There was an ornate gateway, with stone seats inside, and while Mary and Serafina sat there, Will and Lyra climbed over the iron fence and into the garden itself. Their daemons slipped through the bars, and flowed ahead of them into the garden.

"It's this way," said Lyra, tugging at Will's hand.

She led him past a pool with a fountain under a wide spreading tree, ......

... and then struck off to the left between beds of plants towards a huge many-trunked pine.
There was a massive stone wall with a doorway in it, and in the further part of the garden the trees were younger and the planting less formal.
Lyra led him almost to the end of the garden, over a little bridge, to a wooden seat under a spreading low-branched tree.

"Yes!" she said. "I hoped so much, and here it is, just the same.....
Will, I used to come here in my Oxford and sit on this exact same bench whenever I wanted to be alone, just me and Pan. What I thought was that if you - maybe just once a year - if we could come here at the same time, just for an hour or something, then we could pretend we were close again - because we would be close, if you sat here and I sat here in my world -"

"Yes," he said, "as long as I live, I'll come back. Wherever I am in the world I'll come back here - "

"On Midsummer's Day," she said. "At midday. As long as I live. As long as I live ..."

He found himself unable to see, but he let the hot tears flow and just held her close." (P.511-512)

We arrived at the bench and found it occupied by a young man. We waited around a bit thinking he would leave, but he didn't. So eventually I went up to him and asked if he was sitting there for some reason. And he said yes, he was waiting for his girlfriend and he was planning to propose to her right there because the book was special to them both. We were all so overwhelmed at something so romantic that of course we gave them the moment there on the bench with Will and Lyra. His young lady was five minutes late and we sat at a discrete distance and hoped everything was alright. But it turned out just fine and she said 'yes' and here they are:
After a little while we did get to have our moment on the bench too, not too long however because there were quite a few other people all coming for the same reason. One young girl from Ireland had come over specially and had waited several years for the opportunity.
M reading the book right there.
And someone had carved Lyra's name in the arm of the bench.
While we waited this robin appeared and hopped about our feet as we sat on a nearby bench. It seemed kind of appropriate to me. He seemed a bit like a daemon.
As we were walking back up into town M paused and looked down the adjacent side street and spotted this lovely gateway, which just happens to be the college where the open casting was held for the part of Lyra in the 'Golden Compass' film. Every time we have been to Oxford since M has insisted we try and find it but we never have, obviously because it is farther down the high street than we might be bothered to walk. We came here in April 2006 with Julie and R and stood in line for four hours in the rain.
To finish off our trip to Oxford we went to Yo Sushi for lunch to celebrate Tish's graduation from college. We had a lovely meal, but in trying to stack up all the bowls to take a photo we knocked them flying and made a huge mess!

Free Form Needle Felting

The felting needles arrived a couple of days ago along with a nice thick sponge mat. I didn't really have much idea what I might do with them so was just tinkering around with some little bits to see how it worked. I made one little piece, then another, then attached them together and added some blobs. It wasn't looking like anything so I just kept making shapes and attaching them and adding loopy twists of roving around the edges. And I invented 'free form' needle felting. Ok, probably not invented, but I have seen lots of people doing free form crochet and knitting but not needle felting. No use to anyone but strangely satisfying.

This is how the second one started off; the main bit was lengths of different colour roving woven loosely together then needle felted.
Then I attached the whole thing to a lovely piece of backing felt that I made ages ago. It is made from alpaca with bits of sari silk fibre snipped on to it randomly. I am pleased with this one, it actually looks like a piece of fibre art.
Then I made the mistake of giving my daughter M a 20 second lesson in how to use the felting needles and now I have to buy another felting mat as she is absconding with the original one. She started off with a little circle and made it into this lovely felted cuff:

working week

These photographs were not all taken the same day but I have put them in the order that they occur during the round. Some are 'typical' postie job images and some are just things I found interesting. My round this week has been through Little Compton, Chastleton and Barton on the Heath.

First one had to be a dog really didn't it. They punctuate my day; the merely noisy (like this one), the enthusastic biscuit lovers (but I am not a biscuit giver so they are sorely disappointed), the indifferent and the downright nasty.
I stopped in the woods because on Monday a buzzard swooped down amongst the trees in front of the van and I hoped to see it again, but alas, having seen several this week I have been unable to get a picture. I like the fact it looks so dense and impenetrable.

This one is the 'historical interest' photo. It is of the Four Shires Stone. It stands about a mile outside Moreton in Marsh and is unique to us. It marks the only point in the country where four counties meet at a corner. The counties are: Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire, though in fact the counties no longer meet at this point due to boundary changes. One theory concerning the name 'Moreton in Marsh' is that it was originally 'Moreton in Mark' i.e. the marking point for the meeting of the counties, but there are no doubt many differing opinions on this subject (though there is definitely no 'marsh' here and even more definitely no 'the' in the town's name.)

Another postie picture, this is a King George post box in Little Compton. There are still some from Queen Victoria's time but they are very unusual.
Gorgeous roses, that strangely seem to have two different colours on the same bush.
Because of the rather overcast lighting I found this guard goose somewhat menacing.
At the weekend this lovely thatched cottage was totally gutted. Fortunately no-one was injured but it took the firemen two days to damp it down. Amazingly the thatch on the porch seems to have survived intact!
And this morning these nice men laid a new road surface ... just for me.
I have never had occasion to drive down this road (the farm has an old metal box by the gate) so have not had to brave the dangers awaiting me around the blind corners.
My favourite kind of dog ... made of china ... but pretty life like before the plants started to take over, he did stop me in my tracks the first time I called there.
And so back to yarn:-) Three alpacas in a field on the edge of Barton.

Back in Moreton for my final photo. This is the St David's Centre (it used to be the school and is now a community centre). It is remarkable because this is how it was redesigned after the flood damage in 2007. The first time I walked past after they put up this lovely glass entrance I was absolutely gobsmacked that Cotswold District Council would allow them to build something not clad in cotswold stone. I find it depressing that the obsessive need that the planners seem to have for any new construction to 'blend in' with the existing buildings means that there is absolutely no variety in our built environment. This extension to the original schoolhouse is just so refreshing and I love it.

Proud mum post.

Tish had her college prize giving day today. She was awarded a National Diploma in Animal Management at Distinction level. I am very proud of her. It has been a hard two years for her, especially the three hours a day she has spent traveling back and forth. It was a very dull ceremony, marked by the man with a very thick neck sitting right in front of me and a horsey woman who did the shaking hands with all the students and who definitely should not take up public speaking.

M is appearing tonight in her first (of many, I hope) professional stage performance. She goes to the Youth Musical Theatre group at Chipping Norton Theatre and they were asked a few weeks ago if any of them were interested in participating in a performance with the Oxfordshire Theatre Company. So she jumped at the chance (or did I push her?), and having had a couple of rehearsals to learn the songs a group of ten of them will be appearing tonight, then Wednesday and Thursday this week in Dancing in my Dreams by Neil Duffield. She is having to wear a very ugly brown dress but I insisted she must get a photo as she will want a record of everything she appears in over the years to come. I will try and nag her into blogging about the experience but having got her signed up a few months ago to Blogger I have yet to persuade her that it is a fun way to record and share what goes on in your life.

Day off felting

I made myself do the ironing before doing any fun stuff on Friday (telling you far more about me than any soul searching blog post might do) ... anyway, in putting stuff away I came across some precious things I had not been able to part with tucked at the bottom of the wardrobe. One of them was a lovely hand printed cotton dress that I bought many years ago in Chandni Chowk in Exeter. It is all thin and very faded but has a lovely paisley type design. So I decided to try another nuno experiment. Here it is all laid out using roving colours to match the design:

Then I had some inspiration for the rolling. I had this cardboard tube with some fabric still wrapped round it on top of the wardrobe, so I covered it with parcel tape to make it waterproof and used it. And it was excellent, very sturdy and meant that I could sit on the sofa ......
and watch Gilmore Girls for the afternoon. And I did end up rolling it **all** afternoon. This was not a good idea as I slipped down the stairs on Monday and bruised my back, so rolling felt for a few hours did me no favours whatsoever.
Again (yet again) in spite of all the hours and checking and turning round, I am only partly pleased. It is bonded quite well but, although when I laid it out it looked like there was quite a covering of roving over the fabric, there are bare patches and the roving had clumped a bit in places. I suppose the plus side is that you are getting the effect of both the fabric colours and pattern and the roving. The down side is that I am getting quite a heap of 'experiments' gathering in my bedroom and am not sure what I am going to do with them.

My other experiment was with a ripped silk skirt. I had to cut it down to remove the damaged fabric so it was this long curved strip. It felted really beautifully, lovely nuno texture on the reverse side, but (there is always a but) I was then not sure about the orange that I used. The fabric was the dark purple and mostly I used other darker roving but then added the orange as an afterthought and now wish I hadn't.

and here is me wearing it. The plus side is that because it is already curved it sits nicely around your neck.