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helenicI am not supposed to be writing this. What I am supposed to be doing is sorting out the clothes which currently sprawl from my half-open suitcase across my bedroom floor; I am meant to be doing laundry, packing for Student Cross and for next term, because I am only at home for another two days now, not including the week on pilgrimage, before I go back to Cambridge. I always intend to unpack properly during the vacation, put posters up, sort out my boxes of assorted useless - but important - personal things, but it rarely happens. I emptied the boxes of books, in a fit of industry, on my second day back, but the rest remains untouched. I delve into them when I need a particular thing and leave a trail behind me - small bottles from The Body Shop, rechargable batteries, cassette tapes, pens, an electric razor. The myriad smallnesses which, on the last day of term, are swept unsorted into boxes until I remember a notebook I need, my camera, my tweezers (I always panic when I cannot find my tweezers; I'm something of a compulsive hair-plucker). It's an odd mixture of organisation and chaos. I know the precise location of every thing in that mess of junk, I can find it in an instant, but then, absent-minded, I bear it off to whatever I need it for, scattering unwanted items as I go. Somehow, I never quite remember to either arrange them in my room or return them to their boxes; they remain on the carpet, and I know exactly where to put my feet so as to avoid them when I get out of bed in the morning.
Outside it is white-skied and rainy. The grass is very green. I drink tea and work my way through huge piles of ironing in front of Kenneth Brannagh's Henry V, go to folk clubs with my dad. My tin whistle-playing has improved immeasurably in the past two weeks; I'm much faster, have pretty much got the hang of Irish ornamentation, and have learned about fifty new tunes. I want to be good enough to take a whistle to Trowbridge and not be ashamed to play it. Perhaps at last I'll investigate some of the Cambridge sessions this term, which I've been meaning to ever since the summer of 2002, when the bassist of the Kate Rusby band recommended a number of pubs to me and I promptly forgot their names. I'll take the whistle with me next week as well; it's that sort of crowd. Real ale and Islay and lock-ins, songs like Come Landlord fill the Flowing Bowl and There's Whisky in the Jar.
I'm trying to make a list of things I'll need for pilgrimage. Clothes are always a problem. Jeans and corduroys are out of the question - when it rains (and it will) they stay wet and heavy for hours afterwards. I have tried skirts, but without much success. I have one pair of combats and one pair of jogging bottoms. Fashion is no object, but two pairs of trousers for six days of walking? I shall to go into the village tomorrow and scour the charity shops for some minging ones I can throw away once we get to Walsingham. Charity shops have been kind to me lately. The other day, in a Scope dedicated to books and music, I found a three-volume Complete Works of Shakespeare, a Dean edition dating from about the fifties in red faux-leather embossed with gold. There was a matching Crime and Punishment. When I got to the till I discovered everything was half-price, and apologising to the shopkeeper dashed back downstairs to the shelves of classics, returning with an armful: Roget's Thesaurus, Middlemarch, a new translation of Goethe's Faust, the Complete Works of Byron, the Penguin Book of Love Poetry. They came to a total of £7.25. I'm currently reading a biography of Casanova by Derek Parker. It's appallingly written; sensationalist, suspiciously sympathetic and entirely uncritical (the author's sole source seems to be the subject's History of my Life, the accuracy of which he doesn't think to question) but quite entertaining. I'm always intrigued by portrayals of 17th century Venice, however unlikely. It's the main reason I liked Cry to Heaven by Anne Rice. That, and the hot Catholic boy-sex.
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no subject
on 2004-04-01 07:34 am (UTC)Yes, do ring me tomorrow, or I'll ring you. Though because of my random pessimism, I'm not *really* expecting to hear until next week.
Mmmmmm... Thesaurus. Sexy.
no subject
on 2004-04-01 07:58 am (UTC)As for the Thesaurus - that was exactly what I was thinking when I bought it. The girl behind the till had no idea what I was smirking about. Thank god it's just us lot that have that reaction. I can just imagine the headlines: Shocker! Cambridge Undergraduate Spotted Buying Illicit Pornographic Thesaurus! I suppose this is what you meant by "things you can write about without people who don't know you well realising you're getting off on them". Still, it isn't as saucy as the Latin Sexual Dictionary, which is an absolute must for any academic bookshelf.
no subject
on 2004-04-01 08:10 am (UTC)no subject
on 2004-04-01 09:12 am (UTC)(I used to use it to look up various whipping-related synomyms. Yes, am sad.)
no subject
on 2004-04-01 10:19 am (UTC)april showers
on 2004-04-01 07:42 am (UTC)jogging bottoms, if you mean the fluffy sort, would be a bugger to dry n very heavy if they got wet... but i guess they'd be good at keeping you warm in the dry... (though tights under thin trousers works well)...
you camping out at night? or being more civilised? How far are you going?
xxxxxx
Re: april showers
on 2004-04-01 07:48 am (UTC)no subject
on 2004-04-01 10:32 am (UTC)no subject
on 2004-04-01 01:26 pm (UTC)That's what Yves is for.
Catriona, who's back would probably have fallen off by now if it weren't for Lord of the Rings.
no subject
on 2004-04-02 04:48 am (UTC)girl? Is that meant to be an insult? *raises eyebrow* No, when I'm in full pack I'm not "delicate" about changes of clothes, but as I'm not I have no reason not to be. Smelling bad doesn't make you hardc0re. Although it might make you a boy. :P
no subject
on 2004-04-02 06:16 am (UTC)The only times I've been on pilgrimage to Walsingham, it's been by coach, so I'm not one to talk about hard-core. Mind you, I still only had one pair of trousers.
Good luck, and joyous Easter!
no subject
on 2004-04-02 06:22 am (UTC)you too, my dear. xxx
Oooo!
on 2004-04-01 11:24 am (UTC)no subject
on 2004-04-01 03:22 pm (UTC)I wish I had found something like that in a Charity shop. Once I found a first US edition of A Clockwork Orange for £1, that was probably the best thing I ever got. And once a really old textbook on Roman Law from the 1940's for £3 or something, which is quite good as I'm studying it.
no subject
on 2004-04-02 04:51 am (UTC)I've never found any academic books in charity shops. Unless you count the bookshops in Hay on Wye, which I don't because they aren't for charity. You should go there though. Now that's the kind of place people should have pilgrimages to.
oh and
on 2004-04-01 03:23 pm (UTC)Re: oh and
on 2004-04-02 04:52 am (UTC)no subject
on 2004-04-02 12:40 am (UTC)no subject
on 2004-04-02 04:53 am (UTC)no subject
on 2004-04-02 02:49 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2004-04-06 01:12 am (UTC)Simon will be going to Cambridge for work on the 19th, incidentally, but it is the day before my awful essays must be in so I am afraid that I will miss you again. We must meet up in May or June!
no subject
on 2004-04-09 05:25 am (UTC)no subject
on 2004-04-11 08:53 am (UTC)*boggles*
My goodness, someone else has heard of it... my copy was bought when I was in Germany and looking for something readable in the English section of a bookshop when I wanted something fun to read and knew Rice through the Vamp Chronicles (I am a great fan of the early ones, although the later ones scream 'cashing in'). The porn was a pleasant surprise :)
no subject
on 2004-04-14 12:01 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2004-04-15 10:45 am (UTC)I was innocent *cough* and seventeen, and had only read the first three of the Vampire Chronicles which are surprisingly low on porn.
Beauty had yet to make my acquaintance ;)