a million times a trillion more (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dolorosa_12) wrote2021-08-25 11:14 am
dolorosa_12) wrote2021-08-25 11:14 am
Entry tags:
The paths we follow, along the river road
Hello and welcome to all the new people who have subscribed to my Dreamwidth as a result of superborb's 'interesting people to subscribe to' post. It's lovely to see you here. I have a sticky introduction post which is pretty up to date. I'll just draw people's attention to the friending policy: Feel free to subscribe and add as you like. I generally won't add people back unless they introduce themselves (or unless we met in a friending meme or similar), so please do feel free to say hello, either in the comments of this post, or elsewhere.
(Obviously there is no pressure to comment and say hello, but I don't subscribe back unless people do so.)
*
I feel as if I've seen more people in person in the past few days than I have done in over a year. We had our first houseguest since moving into the new place, and it was Former Housemate D, with whom both Matthias and I had shared a house over a decade ago. And then, on Monday,![[instagram.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/profile_icons/instagram.png)
joey.josephine.13 came up from London. She's the daughter of one of my mum's best friends — our parents met before any of their children were born, bonding over the fact that they were Australians living in New York in the 1980s and very involved in the music scene. My sister and I very much grew up with joey.josephine.13 and her older sister coriburford, and the former has now moved to the UK to do a master's degree at Glasgow. She flew in from Australia to London, and, as I say, came to visit me for a day on Monday.
With both visitors, I did variations on the same thing — wandering along the river and watching the waterbirds and houseboats drift by (plus marvelling at the excellent dogs living in the houseboats), eating filled bagels and drinking cup after cup of coffee (the bagel bar is by far and away the best lunch spot, and does the best coffee in town), and, when available, soaking in the sunshine. With Former Housemate D, we also went to the tiny local art gallery (which, amusingly, had a sculpture by an artist who had been a housemate of D's in a different sharehouse), and withjoey.josephine.13 we did a tour of the magnificent and massive cathedral. I like hearing people point out interesting architectural features and tie them in with history (and the history of religion), but I was less impressed with the fact that the guide assumed both of us were Christians, which was a) incorrect on both counts and b) awkward. In any case, the cathedral was beautiful, filled with light making the stained glass windows dance, and had cows grazing in the field outside.
The garden continues with its late summer abundance. We are swimming in zucchini (thankfully, my absolute favourite quick and easy meal involves fried zucchini, tomatoes, and some form of alium served with a fried egg), the butternut pumpkin vines are beginning to grow fruit, and every time I go outside I help myself to a handful of fresh peas or some fennel seeds. Here's a photoset.
*
I've got just a couple of books to discuss since my last update in this regard, both very different!
Meg and Jo by Virginia Kantra is, as is probably obvious from the title, the first half of a modern retelling of Little Women. (I'm going through a phase at the moment of basically wanting to read every modern retelling of classic literature available, like the literary equivalent of all those '90s teen movies that transposed Shakespeare, Austen, or Nathaniel Hawthorne to American high schools.) It was a fun enough book, and I enjoyed the dual points of view and the ways various aspects of the original work were updated (Jo is now an impoverished journalist in New York, eking out a living working in a restaurant kitchen and writing a pseudonymous food blog in her spare time; Bhaer is a well known chef), although some changes made me raise my eyebrows (like the shift from Massachusetts to the US south). For the most part Kantra doesn't do anything particularly innovative with the source material, but it was a fun light read.
I've also finally got around to reading The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, pushed to do so by the existence of the TV adaptation. I assume the premise of the story is well-known — a young black woman in the US south escapes enslavement, fleeing on a literal underground railroad which takes her on a sweeping journey through several states, each of which represent different types of horrors done to black people in the United States during various points in history (and still ongoing). It's a harrowing alternate history, beautifully told, and I'm only sorry that I didn't read it sooner.
*
That's about it from me for now. I write this nestled at the top of the house, coffee in hand, looking out across a sea of green leaves, and the fruit of our apple and pear trees. Autumn is well and truly around the corner.
superborb's 'interesting people to subscribe to' post. It's lovely to see you here. I have a sticky introduction post which is pretty up to date. I'll just draw people's attention to the friending policy: Feel free to subscribe and add as you like. I generally won't add people back unless they introduce themselves (or unless we met in a friending meme or similar), so please do feel free to say hello, either in the comments of this post, or elsewhere.(Obviously there is no pressure to comment and say hello, but I don't subscribe back unless people do so.)
I feel as if I've seen more people in person in the past few days than I have done in over a year. We had our first houseguest since moving into the new place, and it was Former Housemate D, with whom both Matthias and I had shared a house over a decade ago. And then, on Monday,
joey.josephine.13 came up from London. She's the daughter of one of my mum's best friends — our parents met before any of their children were born, bonding over the fact that they were Australians living in New York in the 1980s and very involved in the music scene. My sister and I very much grew up with joey.josephine.13 and her older sister coriburford, and the former has now moved to the UK to do a master's degree at Glasgow. She flew in from Australia to London, and, as I say, came to visit me for a day on Monday.With both visitors, I did variations on the same thing — wandering along the river and watching the waterbirds and houseboats drift by (plus marvelling at the excellent dogs living in the houseboats), eating filled bagels and drinking cup after cup of coffee (the bagel bar is by far and away the best lunch spot, and does the best coffee in town), and, when available, soaking in the sunshine. With Former Housemate D, we also went to the tiny local art gallery (which, amusingly, had a sculpture by an artist who had been a housemate of D's in a different sharehouse), and with
joey.josephine.13 we did a tour of the magnificent and massive cathedral. I like hearing people point out interesting architectural features and tie them in with history (and the history of religion), but I was less impressed with the fact that the guide assumed both of us were Christians, which was a) incorrect on both counts and b) awkward. In any case, the cathedral was beautiful, filled with light making the stained glass windows dance, and had cows grazing in the field outside.The garden continues with its late summer abundance. We are swimming in zucchini (thankfully, my absolute favourite quick and easy meal involves fried zucchini, tomatoes, and some form of alium served with a fried egg), the butternut pumpkin vines are beginning to grow fruit, and every time I go outside I help myself to a handful of fresh peas or some fennel seeds. Here's a photoset.
I've got just a couple of books to discuss since my last update in this regard, both very different!
Meg and Jo by Virginia Kantra is, as is probably obvious from the title, the first half of a modern retelling of Little Women. (I'm going through a phase at the moment of basically wanting to read every modern retelling of classic literature available, like the literary equivalent of all those '90s teen movies that transposed Shakespeare, Austen, or Nathaniel Hawthorne to American high schools.) It was a fun enough book, and I enjoyed the dual points of view and the ways various aspects of the original work were updated (Jo is now an impoverished journalist in New York, eking out a living working in a restaurant kitchen and writing a pseudonymous food blog in her spare time; Bhaer is a well known chef), although some changes made me raise my eyebrows (like the shift from Massachusetts to the US south). For the most part Kantra doesn't do anything particularly innovative with the source material, but it was a fun light read.
I've also finally got around to reading The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, pushed to do so by the existence of the TV adaptation. I assume the premise of the story is well-known — a young black woman in the US south escapes enslavement, fleeing on a literal underground railroad which takes her on a sweeping journey through several states, each of which represent different types of horrors done to black people in the United States during various points in history (and still ongoing). It's a harrowing alternate history, beautifully told, and I'm only sorry that I didn't read it sooner.
That's about it from me for now. I write this nestled at the top of the house, coffee in hand, looking out across a sea of green leaves, and the fruit of our apple and pear trees. Autumn is well and truly around the corner.