An Old Boiler

Lots of book reading here in la-la-limboland. I finished the Roger Deakin book - Wildwood: A Journey Through Trees which included a magical sojourn to various Ex-Soviet Republics for the Walnut harvest - more magic realism than a straight travelogue and have now found out that Alice Roberts is planning a programme about another of Deakin's books - Waterlog: A Swimmer's Journey Through Britain. Having finished the Wood book I was planning some light relief in the form of Emma Kennedy's The Tent, The Bucket and Me but there was a last-minute substitution in the form of Lizzie Siddal: The Tragedy of a Pre-Raphaelite Supermodel though this seems to be a bit pedestrian compared to Desperate Romantics and of course a model of decorum when compared to the TV version of Desperate Romantics. There hasn't been this much bare flesh on TV since Mary Whitehouse died. Hook her up to The National Grid quickly!

Lots of ideas as well though mostly just as scribbled notes. I had another thing to note last night but it sank back into the murk of my cortex almost before it had surfaced leaving me quite upset at its loss. I have this though :

A plotless description of a town in a Magic Realist style. Imagine a town you know but process it in your mind until it seems like a picture on a scraper board - a barley populated place, seemingly set in a permanent afternoon - describe all the places, all the routines, and all the people you can be bothered to have living there inside your mind. Have events but only those which are regular - make it like a travelogue - a travel book like Last Letters From Hav. Imagine it perhaps in the detail that Sylvia Plath gives to the hotel room in her Journal exercises; make nothing bad happen and make nothing related to bad things be a part of the routine.

This article chimes exactly with how I feel about rain. Why does the rain put the kibosh on almost everything? I love being out in the rain - inside watching the rain. Maybe getting absolutely soaked isn't that nice but that rarely happen. Forecast is heavy showers and then prolonged rain. Happy days.