Exotica

Rare pic of RR going rural at snail's pace

Brother Sir Hugh's long solo walk from Berwick-on-Tweed to somewhere in Somerset (Check out the map, it's rather more than a step.) came to a painful end when he fell and broke his arm quite badly. A metal plate and all that. We picked him up from his home in Arnside and had him convalesce with us for a week.

The sun shone on Saturday and he suggested a gentle walk suitable for invalids or, in my case, unwalkers. Familiar with his obsessions, I knew it would have to be quantified - numbers play a huge role in his perambulations. I also sensed I must push against notional targets however piddling the distance.

A loop was devised around Dore Abbey (Cistercian, 12th century, thoroughly modernised in the 13th.) The first problem was parking: Herefordshire's rural roads are one car's-width wide and snake between high impenetrable hedges. The pedestrian route lay between a mini-river (name unidentified) and a seemingly endless field of early wheat - a word that always invites me to pronounce its internal h. Then an orchard, then narrow roads with a surprising amount of uphill.

Back in the car, surrounded by electronics, we got down to the good stuff: measurement. The walk covered 3.27 miles and took 72 minutes. Our rate was calculated as 2.85 mph which I regarded as pathetic - in my swimming days a mile's crawl took about 55 minutes. Sir Hugh, who seemed impressed by my gait ("As if you wanted to get if over with."), said it was OK... considering.

MORE ATYPICAL RR. Bought myself a stainless steel dibber, nominally £16 but reduced somewhat. Used it to plant cosmas, candytuft, Californian poppy, etc. Sir Hugh took the pix. That's it, Tone Deaf doesn't do horticulture.

Even rarer pic: RR gardening with expensive new dibber

Cleverness takes a rest

Not a good year but it's what's happened to others that makes it so. Champagne and burgundy tonight together with "bitings on", since there'll be just the two of us and time spent in the kitchen is time apart. The Neff can take the day off.

The circle of Tone Deaf's other voices has ebbed and flowed. Not everyone shares my obsession to be clicking away, practising, showing off, playing with words. I understand that. New voices have joined in. All distinctive since TD's "choir" I suddenly see is a self-created meritocracy. A line in the Inbox and I can already hear the tone of what I will shortly read. Those other voices are not in any sense tone deaf.

I wish everyone well. Thank you all for riding out my inconsistencies, lack of judgment and a fatal need to be clever. I'd apologise but it would be like regretting my grey hair, my accusatory paunch, my turkey wattle. Cheers is how I usually end letters  so cheers it is.

Looking on the bright side

Felt a surge of optimism yesterday morning. True the thermometer said 24 deg C but I try to ignore weather. More important I was en route to French (a raison d’etre  right there) and the book we’re doing is often hilarious. The drive took in somnolent rural Herefordshire and involved a Wye crossing.

Also Blest Redeemer is nearing 90,000 words (since past). Another ten-thousand would be six figures but 90K is good. I suspect The Great Gatsby has fewer. Just checked: a mere 47,000. And yes, I know what hubris is.

Blest Redeemer comes from a LUGUBRIOUS HYMN (not enhanced here by the Bahamian congregation I fear):

Our blest redeemer ‘ere he breathed

His tender last farewell.

The theme is secular redemption. The title may not survive but, for the moment, that archaic “blest” is important. I don’t know why. Plutarch approves of the title since unlike other titles attached temporarily to my two earlier novels, he insists he will remember this one. Plutarch read the first 20,000 words when I wasn’t sure anyone would be interested. Encouraged me to continue. So did Mrs LdP, the first time I have ever asked her to look at my fiction.

So, optimism. It’s a sometime thing at age 77 and deserves celebration. But which music best expresses optimism? For my money a passage from Britten’s Spring Symphony. Here’s Wikipedia: “The crowning glory of the work is the enthralling moment when the children’s voices re-enter the scene and sing the 13th century round Sumer Is Icumen In.

That passage isn’t available on YouTube and this PALE SHADOW (Top of the Pops in AD 1260) will have to do. But, please, I beg of you search out the real thing some day.