The photograph of hands posed on a pub table, which was missing from yesterday's post. Much else was missing, including a few lines in praise of Skype, (much more efficient and less embarrassing than I had imagined, if you can find other users). The central heating was missing too, and, lame excuse, I was typing with an unaccustomed chill in the air. And I still am, though the warm breeze of a fan heater is restoring my circulation.Accustomed to communicating with Barrett Bonden by email, over a curry at the restaurant we call The Bloggers' Retreat, or via comments in our respective blogs, by way of a surprise, I use the telephone this morning for a brief 50 minute conversation, while the fan heater warms my feet. He tells me about a blog called Duchess (of ) Omnium - Island to Island. I read the author's description of how she guided the barge on which she lives to a refilling point for her water tank, and of an evening with neighbours in the pub. It warms my heart (for that needs warming too) as a piece of writing about present day England which echoes the England of Geoffrey Chaucer and in a strange way, all the eras (the Trollope - Anthony as well as perhaps Joanna, - reference fits too) that have intervened.
The beanie with which Heidi presents me today in view of the central heating problem is piece of headgear that I have not yet experimented with. This one has black and pink horizontal stripes and comes to a point which topples fetchingly over when you put it on. It is one of several compensations for the kaput boiler. If I wear it in bed, it will not, I imagine, be far removed from the night caps worn by chaps in Victorian times.
4 comments:
Well, thank you very much indeed for the mention. You are very kind.
I love your photos of hands, and hope to see many more! It's reminded me that I've often thought of doing such a series but still have not done so.
I've been enjoying reading Duchess for some time since I learned that she is a daughter of another blogger I love to read: 20th Century Woman.
Your heart needs warming too? That surprises me.
On a winter visit to Germany soime years ago, Tom found a very sturdy grey balaclava, and open-faced one not a sinister SAS of bank-robber style one. He has seldom had to resort to it since, but it's somehow good to know it's there.
You could always raise BB appearing at the Bloggers' Retreat in a nightshirt by wearing your beanie there...
Someone knitted a balaclava for me during the war when I was 10. Apart from the Crimea War, it had not sinister associations at that time. I was glad of the comfort it brought.
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