Saturday, March 13, 2010

Wearing the world were you?

This image is from Wiki as I found it difficult to take my own photograph whilst also holding the world. Note how the colours compliment my blog scheme.


My plan to take over the world failed. Joshing you! About the plan. There wasn't one - not that I succeeded. I didn't. At anything.

I am no Atlas but I do seem to have been attempting to carry an awful lot lately, hence the absence, only, well, as I said, I am not of globe carrying strength and I dropped a lot of stuff. It was heavy. Picking up what and where I can now in more manageable pieces. There.

So, I am back... I should probably grrrrr there in a leo sort of way but I feel like a prat just thinking about it...how's this instead - hullo you.

Well where have I been? What have I been doing? Who am I and why am I typing as though anyone is reading this and or gives a monkeys? Do I like avocados?

Nowhere and here. Everything and nothing. Me and um? Yes and um?

That last one you may remember me asking some of you a while back and not for no nothing neither. The reason was all to do with my plan to grow the world's biggest avocado plant to generate my unique recipe for a totally environmentally safe, recyclable and biodegradable avocado mobile fuel. No. That's a lie. There is a really good reason for me asking about avocados but I'll tell you another time. I know, I shouldn't keep you hanging on like this but, in the current narrative arc of my blog it shouldn't take much to get you all hooked and inject a little excitement into the plot...yeah...I have a plot....plot, plotty plot.

Obviously I thought long and hard about my magnificent return to blogging.


Anyway, that's enough about me. Oh, except, did you know that I can write backwards and forwards with both hands? I can, but only with a pen. Here's what happens when I try to type my name like that: rtsavcghrekl. It'd be grand if there were two of every letter though.

Really building the suspense now aren't I? No? Well, that's because there is none. Nothing happened -  that I can blog about. Well, that's not true. Some things happened that I can blog about. I will do. Just not now.

What I can do now is this:

a little while ago (here used in the style of Lemony Snickett to indicate an exaggeration in entirely the opposite direction to indicate a period of exceedingly long and painful separation) I was "tagged". No, I wasn't sure what it entailed. I was relieved, however, to discover that it didn't mean I had to wear a bread bag clip on my ear and dangle my udders at passing farmers. I once read that farmers blamed hedgehogs for spreading TB around farms by "stealing" cows' milk - ha - imagine how long their legs would have to be! And besides, everyone knows it's badgers who are the real robbers - they even have the masks. I digress. So - ray me far so la tea doh...here are ten things (and here I have used "things" to pertain to actual three dimensional objects - artifacts - hereby excluding all persons, literature, activities, music and such like which may render me liable to ridicule and or prosecution. Ooh - sounds naughtier than it is meant to. Good. Never been a rebel):

P) My satchel.
I) Grandma's 1950s evening bag.
Y) Granddad's paint tin.
H) Map.
T) Grandma's chest of drawers.
N) Great grandma's cast iron frying pan.
A) Spiral leg table.
P) Red boots.
H) Midnight blue pendant.
G) George Elliot's Scenes of Clerical Life.

H. This map belonged to my grandparents, like many of my treasured things which make me happy, and it is a map of an area which hold many special memories for me. I have written poetry about some of these places and this map is very dear to me.

A. I've already blogged about the spiral leg table here.

P. My red boots are five years old but I am never so pleased as when the weather is cool enough for me to tap the sidewalk happy.

P. My satchel was bought from Sheffield's Castle Market on one of my many Saturday shopping excursions with my Aunt May. I was eleven when I purchased it. It's getting on a bit now and the leather is worn so thin in places it feels like rabbit ears. My eldest brother nicknamed me after this bag.

Y. My granddad taught me to paint with these watercolours. I was never allowed to touch the tin without his supervision. You would have thought it had once contained the crown jewels and not shortbread at all.

T. These drawers have featured in several poems of mine and they are what I first look at when I am stuck for words with my WIP. Every time I use them I think of my grandma. You have to hold both handles and pull evenly to open the drawers - just so - and I can't help but smile. Everything else in my home is haphazard and thrown about but not these drawers!

H. This pendant was made for my eighteenth birthday by a man who, I later realised, was in love with me. I had once described to him my favourite colour: the summer night sky.

I. Social clubs were, evidently, all the rage in the fifties. I have photographs of people lost in a fog of fag smoke smiling and looking more relaxed than I ever saw them in life - probably on account of their being much older when I saw the real them and me being much younger then. Logic, eh? This bag makes me smile because it is the last thing I would have expected my grandmother to accessorize with.

N. This pan has many MANY uses and it is everything proof. It makes me very happy - except for when I forget it is cast iron and I pick it up without a cloth around the handle!

G. I know I said not literature but I only included this because it was given to me by a complete stranger and symbolises - to me - the generosity of my fellow book lovers. The story is tosh in my wee opinion but it is not here for its literary merit anyway. The reason it is here originated thus. I was reading in my car. In a car park - well, cars need to have fun too - and a chap and his missus asked me what I was reading and we got to chatting and it just so happened that the chap was more than a little fond of books himself and - even more coincidental - had a book or two with him. Actually he had a boot load full. And he picked out this said copy to give to me. I hasten to clarify that this was not my over romanticising a car boot sale. He was just "an ordinary fella" - like Alan Bates turning out not to be Jesus in Whistle Down the Wind).

Will post picures soon. Soon as I find someone else to hold my things for me. At last.

17 comments:

Dave King said...

I had noticed the complimentary colour schemes, but you don't say how you achieved that.

Rachel Fox said...

Was wondering where you'd got to.
Hello.
p.s. badgers line made me laugh. Have you seen the 'Fantastic Mr Fox' movie. We watched it last night...expecting duffness...but it was really good.
x

Thomas Taylor said...

Hey, I'd give a monkey! He could carry your satchel.

I like your list. I suspect it reveals a lot about the kind of novel you are writing. Am I right?

Leslie Morgan said...

Oh, it is very good to have you back blogging! Fascinating post. You may have done the "10 Things" tag better than any of the others I read.

Mike McLaren said...

Good to see you. It's about time you put down the world. Other people want their turn at carrying it around for awhile! (Had a fgood time reading this post.)

Kass said...

Oh Rachel - I'm aghast to think that I was responsible for a writer's block lasting since January 22nd. I'm somewhat relieved though, to realize you've also been holding up the blog-design-matching-world.

With this post, I'm as delighted as I am codependently guilty. This piece has triggered so much that I could write about that I actually feel I might be able to get off the obsessive subject of my mother's end-of-life plight. A few of my readers have expressed boredom with my downer subjects lately, and like you, I felt less than inspired to write.

Your humor and delightful style of writing is a real uplift. Can't wait for your novel.

Anonymous said...

YAY, you are back. Now the next time you disappear with Mr. DeTamble, give me a heads up.

As for Atlas, well who wants to be a bulging, sweaty Titan anyway?

Rachel Fenton said...

Well, Dave, it was easier than you are probably imagining. Forst of all I made myself a pair of snowlikethought colour match goggles through which only those images perfectly complimenting my blog's colour scheme could be viewed. Then I searched the entire free image file of Wiki - and there you have it! The difficulty was making the goggles compliment my face shape!
(Thanks for your last comments, btw, you cheered me).

T'other Rachel - unfortunately I have yet to see this fantastic Rufus movie but as that is my son's second name I do feel like I have had a bit part in it already! Didn't like the book - it just banged on and on about farmers - like listening to the conservative back benchers! Will watch the fillum avec me young sprogs and see if they managed to put the fantastic into it!

Thomas - how many you got? Nine or ten monkeys can get you a lot of satchel these days!
Your eyes are not only keen for observing imagery but are rather insightful, too. You will have to wait and see!

Les - good to be back! It is probably a good thing this is npt a ten things competition then as I would have just won myself a big fat 0. Instead I got visits from all of you lovely bloggers - much better than any prize. Yipee!

Mike - Let it always be said that I did my best to give everyone a good time! Um...then again....
The world is big and heavy, isn't it? You'd think someone would have designed a pocket version by now. After all, we have the i-Pad (titter) instead of an apartment full of wires and chips so why not a travel size globe? They could use the inflatable ones as a template....now, if I had a spare lifetime to devote to this project and was as close as cross keys with Bill Gates I could come up with a patent I'm sure....what the heck - I'm generous - a leo no less - I'll pass this one out to you guys. This idea is up for grabs. The world is in your hands!

Kass - you have no idea how difficult it's been to make those snowlikethought colour match goggles! I think they'll catch on soon though!

"A few of my readers have expressed boredom with my downer subjects lately" - shame on them - do they think you are writing fiction? They don't have to read - they could skip a few pages, turn your blog upside down and start reading from the middle to the end then start back at the beginning. You could be the first post-modern blogger! I am glad to have given you a boost however and anytime I can be of boostment I am happy to!

Donna - I have spent so much time analysing at close range various features of this "feature" film that I might well get lost - only it won't be down any fox hole! What i should have done was to time travel to the future first and watch the movie of Time Traveller's Wife and then travel back to read the book - thus improving both experiences! Eric Bana is also in the t'other Bolynne girl....read that book and ejaculated with incredulity, too...must watch that film next....in answer to your Q....um....

Andrea said...

That is an intriguing list of ten objects. They could belong in a story. I really love stories that revolve around particular objects. I like things. And also writing silly little sentences like that.

Glad to see you back in blog land :)

Rachel Fenton said...

Thanks, Andrea. I like things, too. I don't know if I like them more the older they get or the older I get but I have a stock of objects which I treasure and which seem to improve the more tatty they get!

I seem to write a lot about things and their meaning in various ways.

Good to be back! Cheers me dears!

Titus said...

Great to have you back, Rachel.
It was the long-legged hedgehogs and badger bit that got to me too!

Rachel Fenton said...

Ha - thanks, Titus!

It just so happens that I have had close contact with a number of hedgehogs and they do have jolly long legs - just watch one walk up himm if you don't believe me - but they are no where near long limbed enough to suckle from a bovine of even the most diminutive stature!

I think I could have a story in there :)

steven said...

rachel! it was fascinating to tag along the convoluted shoreline of your unpacking of your thoughts! go further inland and drop the results right here. nice to have you back. steven

Rachel Fenton said...

Thanks, Steven, that was lovely put.

Unknown said...

There you are, missed you!

Group 8 said...

Those hedgehogs are referenced (minorly) in my novel.

Love the list. Would like to see pics.

Welcome back!

Rachel Fenton said...

Thanks, B - that's sweet to know (a little of me thought no one would notice and i could just creep back in....but people did notice, which was nice yet odd), getting myself (slowly) back in gear!

Hey, N, got to read it for the Tiggywinkles alone then! Ha - I bet you had the same book bought for you as a kid as I did...with pic of hedgehogs rolling on their backs in the orchard?

Cheers...pics in the pipeline...