Self-Winding · A Sort of Progression

René Magritte: La Lectrice Soumise. 1928.
And for your further surreal pleasure - Paul Simon

AWOL - a dyslexic owl
Curator - someone who assesses snooker equipment
Giggle - a small musical event
Elevenses - Welsh bullfighting family
De-mister - castration device
Daunting - an alarm clock
Melancholy - fruit and veg
Delaware - to have seen "Only Fools and Horses"
Dunstable - to have shaved
Ghoulish - a Hungarian stew that comes back to haunt you

I must get something written if I want to retain any credibility here, not just this conversational stuff, but, soon, something that requires a bit of work. Through any given day a dozen ideas present and then fade away because no note of them was taken, my hands at the time being invariably covered with soil, or flour or on a steering wheel. I have been a bit creative in other ways - most notably filling pages with murky pastel sketches or trying to draw draped material that obstinately looks carved in stone. Lots of reading's been done.

At last I'm getting stuck into Proust and, further down the fiction spectrum, have just devoured the 4 Cazalet novels followed by Elizabeth Jane Howard's autobiography which informs them. They are hugely enjoyable, she has the appealing habit of filling out narrative with generous, almost woman's mag' descriptions of clothes, flowers, furniture, faces. I've been making coffee & toast early and slipping back to bed for a few hours of saga-wallowing.

In her memoir she is admirably honest about her indiscretions; as a specialist in filching the husbands of friends she inflicted and received pain in almost equal measure. The dying of her marriage to Amis is laid open, as is an unlikely late affair with an appalling con-man. Her interesting friends, big-name writers, painters, musicians stroll through the pages, all in thrall to her talent and beauty. Some people get dealt a fine hand to play with.

Six months ago I joined the local community car scheme as a driver and get several bookings to various medical venues most weeks; some trips are dull but the majority have added a lot of fun to life. There are single mums, kids dreading the dentist, ancient blokes with bow ties and legs, elderly ladies with flaming henna hair or very little hair at all. Today I took a lady in her seventies to King's Lynn, an ex-lecturer, well-travelled, she has just lost the lover she took after her husband died and wanted to talk about it. After two hours of intense conversation on the journey we are at the threshold of a friendship.

Dud and Jonathan co-operate to great effect in teasing out the mechanics of playing the piano. Why did no-one see the potential for Dud to play in a bio-pic of Franz Liszt? He looks just like him here. Sexy Dirk did it instead, rather well on the keyboard actually.

"We've bonded so well, he's a lovely little dog. Don't know where he came from, some old woman, I think. Alright then, come up on my lap. You're a real baby. No licks, I don't like licks. Anne, that man has been here again helping himself to the vegetables, he gave up the garden but he keeps coming back."

"He's just gathering the last of his crops, then he won't come again, I've told you all about it, you musn't be rude to him you know."

"That's alright then, as long as I know. Look at my hats I'm knitting for Catherine, they're for South Africa. Bright colours. She's a live wire, Catherine, never sits still, always on the go. Get down now, you're a real baby. We've bonded so well, he's a lovely little dog. Don't know where he comes from, some old woman I think. We always had dogs, I was always the one to train them; Charles was hopeless; he always said I could make any dog crawl to me on its belly. We had 'Heinz' dogs, mongrels. This one's scruffy, not a proper dachshund, not smooth."

"He's a pure-breed long-haired dachsie, he'd cost a fortune to buy, we got him from the shelter, remember?"

"Oh? We've bonded so well, he's a lovely little dog. Did I say, that man has been in the garden again taking vegetables? I told him where to get off. He's no business. Get down, I don't like licks. That Catherine, she's a live wire alright, she's got me making hats, for South Africa, have you seen them? Look, lovely bright colours. She's a real live wire, never still. This dog's scruffy, I wish he was smooth like a dachshund. But we've really bonded so well, he's a lovely little dog. Needs training, when we go out he keeps pulling. Charles always said I could get any dog to crawl to me on its belly. We always had 'Heinz' dogs, you know, mongrels. I don't know where he came from, some old woman, I think. I couldn't do without him now. We've bonded so well, he's a lovely little dog."