Seems safe today

Look what I saw on my wanders today?

Doesn't look like I'm going to get run over today! OK I thought that one was a bit mean so I took this one as well.

On a separate note, this new hobby of mine is going to be a bit expensive: 4,50€ for a pot of tea today! It came with a wee biccie which I made sure I scoffed before I left. Anyway here is today's offering from Kafe K.

Camille fiddled with the antique dress ring she had picked up in the market that weekend as she waited for her document to open.

Buh dup: Hiya Camille. A little box in the corner of her screen bleated.

Ros!!! Camille typed back

Her phone began to ring. “Camille Delon,” she answered.

Read the rest here. I fully intended this to be a 'free' writing exercise, but oh well. I also finally sat down in the shade rereading the book that is currently going nowhere. I think I need to stop adding new beginnings and just get on with it.

Ok, a demain.

Journey into the Past

So I’m back. On Sunday night, it was (finally) hot and muggy over London and as I tossed and turned I started to think about how to summarise the trip. For a start it wasn’t exactly a ‘trip’ in the sense that I usually use it. Yes, I crossed London and bits of Southern England during my week away, but it was to ‘visit’ people, so this was more a visit then a ‘trip’. I also wondered about the mass of memories that were continuously flowing through my head during that sleep deprived night. I would think about something that I had done during the week and then ping: I’m seventeen years ago. Ping: we stopped at that pub. Ping: it was the night of the fire in my room! It’s funny how walking past the spot where we had parked the car in Exeter all those years ago enabled me to think of one day in my life that I had practically forgotten. OK, I haven’t forgotten the fire, you don’t forget waking up and finding your bedroom on fire, but all the other pedestrian details of the day had been buried.

The whole week has been like that. Even on the train I was wondering if the sky was different in the 70’s. I just don’t remember it being so blue and balmy. Is that a sign of global warming, or is it just those Kodak prints?

And then when we went to the Prologue of the Tour de France; now, I grew up in London but somehow I just haven’t been to (eh hum) Buckingham Palace since I was: what? Four? When Mum took me and my brother to see Trooping of the Colour. There I was wheeling around getting ‘atmosphere’ shots and I saw this hideous block of a building and had to ask Big Bro: “Is that Buckingham Palace?” and then I turned round and it was like a flash back, I remembered it all. Well, not exactly, I remembered the road and the horses and stuff, I don’t remember the bit where I embarrassed my mother by announcing to one of those soldiers with the white horse hair pouring out of his helmet that he was rude because he wouldn’t talk to me.

On the Eurostar back, I let the guy next to me read ‘The Weather Makers’ over my shoulder as I wondered some more. I guess the reason that it was more like a journey into the past is that most of the people I visited are kind of from the past. The time when we used to spend lots of time together was years and years ago, nowadays we meet and ‘catch up’. I know this isn’t particular to me just because I live in a different country; we’ve all moved on. It just seemed weird that the two people I met where I have an ongoing relationship with nowadays were Debi and Estrella and isn’t that weird because most of the time the two of them are just little photos in my comment box or Messenger window! I suppose I’m just missing my friends because I’ve seen them. Silly, I know.

So on a separate note I’ve joined Friends of The Earth. I was on my way to Monoprix and I’ve become very adept at spotting the charity workers (I generally lump them all together) and I’ve discovered that if you stare up into the air and look vacant you are generally taken for a tourist. Unfortunately when you’ve got your Monoprix bag and recycled toilet paper tucked under your arm it’s not so easy. I knew I was going to get caught, so I read their t-shirts. “Have you heard of Friends of the Earth?” Flo asked me. “Eh, YES.” Sorry, couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice, but man who knew? The next thing I was surrounded by a posse of ‘friends’ who announced that I was the first that morning! “And the five minutes for the Earth?” Were they trying to catch me out? “I did it.” So I joined and now I’m finding out how crap my bank is.

I also did the first of a little writing exercise I created for myself before the holidays began. The idea is to sit in a café and people watch until a little vignette pops into my head. So I listened to the crusty sax player’s mellow vibes and deliberated between the guy whose hand shook as he furiously tapped away at his mobile phone and the kid who was eating breakfast as if there was no tomorrow. The music was like a sound track from a film noir and this popped into my head:

He was looking into the not so distant past as he ploughed through his fried eggs and ham. He was still annoyed with Keeler: Keeler the middle aged, middle grade, middle sized lump who couldn’t stand the fact that he was better at the job.

Read the rest over here.

Toodlepip

Right I'm off to London. Tomorrow my Dad and I will be off to see the Prologue of the Tour de France. Apparently Red Ken is putting on quite a show. So I'll see you all in just over a week. Please feed Tibo, whisper in Endelyn's ear and water the sunflower. Cheers. See you soon... Some of you sooner maybe!

Just Looking

Quite a number of years ago I sat on my sofa with a bemused expression on my face while a friend told me what he saw in my painting. “It’s like a journey, see there is a bridge and ...” and I don’t remember what else he said, but he liked what he saw, so much so that I gave him one of the two copies I had made of the painting (the original hangs on the wall in my parent’s bedroom).

©copyright, 1999, Verilion

As I wandered home today I decided to take some pictures of interesting things.

I noticed that there was a rash of sandwich/wrap/salad shops that have opened up that seem to signify the end of the traditional two hour French lunch. I noticed the model shop with the train sets in the window and the antique shop with all the Art Deco lamps, and then I looked on the other side of the road and felt like I had just stepped back a century. I’d never noticed this shop before and yet how many times have I walked up this road?

I was getting into this exercise now, so I knew what I wanted to take a picture of next. It’s been intriguing me for months. I thought it had been removed from the cemetery, but as I waited to take the picture, I realised that the workmen were coming from the building around the corner that’s being knocked down, or rebuilt – it’s kind of difficult to tell. So I suppose this is part of the façade that they are going to preserve. I can’t wait to see exactly what it looks like. I wonder if I did ever see it, but just didn’t perceive it.

Again I knew what I was going to take next when I realised that the ivy was hanging low over the wall. When did it grow? I walk this way home everyday and again I wasn’t aware that there had been an ivy growth spurt. And the trees, I never look up into the trees.

But ahh, he’s still there. Maybe he’s a little remainder of the squat that was across the road but which is now sealed with breeze blocks.

So that’s why I got back to thinking about that painting. I know what it is, I had spent months working on it, planning it, trying out stuff, I knew what it was. I was so into it, I couldn’t see anything else and it took someone else telling me something completely different to ‘look’ at it again.

Conversation

Awen: He came back.

Aduviri: Who did?

Awen: HE did.

Aduviri: NOOOOO!!! When?

Awen: Yesterday.

Aduviri: Did he say where he’d been? It’s been what... almost a year, no?

Awen: Yeah, almost. No of course he didn’t say where he’d been.

Aduviri: Man! What are you going to do? Are you going to let him in again.

Awen: I don’t know. There’s the other one now. He’s sulking, I don’t think he’s gone away, he’s just sulking... I think.

Aduviri: What do you mean you think? Have you even tried to get in touch with him?

Awen: A little bit.

Aduviri: A little bit. What do you mean a little bit?

Awen: I got his book out and I kind of flicked through his notes and that.

Aduviri: And?

Awen: And then Alex arrived again.

Aduviri: So?

Awen: Do you think I can do both of them?

Aduviri: Well... Alex isn’t just Alex is he? There’s that tall hairy one, and the other tall hairy fatter one, and the girl and his brother. I mean he doesn’t come alone.

Awen: No, I know that.

Aduviri: And then the other one (sighs)?

Awen: I think he may have stopped sulking, or he’s beginning to (nods).

Aduviri: OK (nods too).

Aduviri: But Alex is never going to go away for good is he?

Awen: No (slowly). Not till I've got him all out, no.

©copyight, 2007, Verilion.

Leonism

Sunday Scribblings prompt this week is: What’s your Sign? Well, unless this is the very first time you’ve been here I’ll let you off; otherwise it should be no surprise to anybody that I am a Leo.

But what it is it that makes a Leo a Leo? I don’t know. I’ve read all that astrology stuff and I’ve met people that are well into it, but I don’t go for all the 'your ascendancy is in Uranus' and 'rising moon' thing. Well, for a start I just don’t get it and secondly the horoscopes that we read in the paper are aimed at millions of people. They may as well say: ‘You’ll have a good day today’, because it will probably still be applicable to the same amount of people. I read one horoscope about a month ago that told me it was time to get my teeth cleaned! In a way that one was kind of amusing because there was no pretence in reading the future, no, it was just openly saying: We are sponsored by Colgate.

Anyway, that’s my point. That stuff that says ‘A typical Leo is...’ will probably have one sentence that says something about you, but it might have twelve that have nothing to say about you. So are you typical or not?

Really, at the end of the day I like to think that I am an atypical Leo:

Atypical Leos like cats of all shapes and sizes the reason being that an atypical Leo generally likes to snooze in comfortable places. Uncomfortable places do not equal the number of hours an atypical Leo needs to sleep. Atypical Leos relate to their feline counterparts. Note the ‘fe’ in feline like ‘fe’ in female. Tigers have stripes; atypicals have wardrobes full of stripy socks, t-shirts, tops, hair bands, jumpers. Lions have manes; atypicals generally have hair that cannot be tamed. Big Cats roar, atypicals have been known to roar. Cats tend to be independent, apart from the atypicals, which pretty much sums up the atypical Leo. Leo the constellation sparkles down on us, flickering inspiration into open heads and atypicals live with their heads in the clouds a little closer to the stars than most. Leo’s are a fiery sun sign, atypicals can live with that.

You are what you are: a snippet of Leo, a whisper of meaning in the vowels of your name, your eastern side described by the Chinese, your number, your colour, whatever. There are so many different ways to discover our true inner meaning, except actually there’s only one way. Only you can go on the journey and find out who you really are.