On holiday, some of the things I like at home I positively enjoy being without: BBC News, East Enders, TV in general (we never switch on the set in our hotel room); the Archers; the vegetable garden, the weather forecast, the Grove, the local pub, Sainsbury´s, even Marcel Proust, whom I reluctantly left behind on my bedside table. This blog, however, which thanks to the laptop for visitors´use on the reception desk of the hotel, is something which I can enjoy equally at home and on holiday.
Looking down from the balcony of our room on to the balcony of a neighbouring flat, I see just an old fashioned, wooly mop dancing outside the door on the clay tiles, where, before withdrawing, it leaves a shiny damp island.
It is a windy day and out at sea there are occasional splashes of white against the blue, what we call white horses, and the French moutons, sheep. What do the Spanish call them? My dictionary says palomas, doves. I ask at the reception desk for confirmation, but neither of the women there at the moment is familiar with the term. For the time being, I must hope that it is still in use, because it is a pleasing metaphor. One wonders, meanwhile, if national characteristics are revealed by the different ways of describing the same thing.
3 comments:
You are still blogging on your holidays! It says something about our addiction to the medium, eh?
I could have accessed my blog in Diafani but with a mincing sense of self-virtue I avoided both available systems. Instead I wrote things I may or may not use on random bits of paper. The sheer atavism of it, as the text became blacker and blacker from deletions and interpolations inserted into smaller and smaller inter-line spaces. Cheap wine poured from an anodised aluminium carafe played an essential part in all this. Only being on holiday justified this self-indulgent and - let's face it - inefficient form of expression. I am writing this at home using my computer and delighting in the concave surfaces on the tops of the keys as they engage with my finger tips. Nor am I drinking cheap wine. I don't need to and that's probably the point.
I would have let it go for a week, but the lap top on the reception desk of this extremely friendly hotel, which has become a bit of a home from home, is too great a temptation. How good to hear from you Marja-leena, and you, Barrett, in what seems a distant outpost.
I look forward to returning to my blog reading routine, in a few days.
Those deletions and insertions! Wasn´t it you, Barrett, who used the word "palimpcestuous" to describe my pre-wordprocessor manuscripts.
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