let my thoughts fly on wings

Thursday, August 04, 2011

The other day a lady from the Marsden Club, a day facility for dementia patients, invited me to come and play violin for them. I went along for the first time this morning and they were a great crowd: when I stood up and introduced myself, one old bloke struck up 'Glory, glory Hallelujah', so I joined in on the fiddle. This he enjoyed so much that he continued singing it with great gusto long after I'd finished and moved on to other songs. There was much exasperated shushing at this, but everyone sang along enthusiastically and the requests kept on coming: the slaves' chorus from Nabucco from the elderly Italian gentleman came a little out of left field, and I didn't even know I knew how to play 'Onward Christian Soldiers', but I got by. And am looking forward to going back next week.

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3BT - school holiday edition

Sunday, July 31, 2011

• 'How did you know my name?' yells Rumpelstiltkin. 'WE'VE READ THE BOOK!' bellows the Firstborn; the little girl next to her thrusts out her programme and taps at the title authoritatively.


• My sister-in-law hands me the new nephew to hold while she pays attention to her still very young Firstborn. I turn him outwards so he can boggle at the noise and colour and light; he grabs my thumb, shoves it into his mouth and gums it until it goes wrinkly.


• Even though we know how it ends, J and I watch the highlights of the final stage of the Tour, mostly (for me at least) for a last dose of commentator Gary Imlach's good-natured sarcasm.

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James Eric

Sunday, June 05, 2011

• From upstairs, the sound of a metal spoon being whacked on the edge of a glass bowl means that Jack and the girls have gone ahead with the plan to bake.


• The Johnsonville Library has set up a corner for a Knitting Bee. There are a couple of armchairs, a basket of wool and needles, and instructions and a template for peggy squares. A sign on the window explains that there will be some refugees arriving in Wellington on 17 June, and that the squares will be made into blankets for their beds. Library visitors are invited to sit down and contribute a square or even a few rows.


• I take Becca to meet her new cousin James at the hospital. At two days old, he's the size of a loaf of bread, with a tiny, red, scrunched-up face like a bemused turtle. He has rather a lot of hair, the colour of liquid honey.

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your voice in my head

Monday, March 14, 2011

From Litlove's review of Emma Forrest's memoir Your Voice In My Head. Forrest, who was dating the actor Colin Farrell, recounts a comment from a troll on a fansite, wishing she would overdose on lithium. Litlove observes:

This made me wonder about all the madness that never gets properly named as such, the common or garden ugliness that lurks inside so many minds, and so many of those writing anonymously online. But madness directed at others seems to be something that can easily be lived with, and it’s only when the madness turns inwards in a self-aware way that medication and therapy become a necessity.

It's a beguiling viewpoint, but the division between inwardly and outwardly directed madness seems a little too neat for me: no matter how hermetically sealed inside their misery the sufferer may feel, their illness will always spill out onto others, in one way or another. And that can sometimes get ugly, too.

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which reminds me

Friday, March 11, 2011

When my friend Nik, who teaches alienated youth in Bristol, was pregnant with her first, the following conversation took place in her classroom:

Alienated Youth 1: You're big for 24 weeks, incha Miss?
Alienated Youth 2, reprovingly: That's the am-biotic fluid, you TWAAAT!

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aerosolized caffeine

From the comments section of a little pregnant's post on things not to say to expectant or new mothers:

Oh, there are so many stupid things it's hard to narrow down one, but my favorite "advice" was from my large, loud stepfather to my husband.

DON'T LOOK DOWN THERE! YOU MAY BE TEMPTED TO LOOK DOWN, YOU KNOW, WHEN THE BABY COMES OUT, BUT THEY HAVE MIRRORS AND IT'S GROSS! AND HER HOOHA WILL BE STRETCHED AROUND THE BABY'S HEAD -- WHO WANTS TO SEE THEIR WIFE'S HOOHA ALL STRETCHED OUT LIKE THAT?

And then the waiter asked him to please be quiet.

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the plot clots

Monday, February 14, 2011

Just knocked off my first bit of paid work for the year; now know far more than I ever needed to about anticoagulants.

[Edited to add] Noticed the date on the post; feel I should explain that J and I don't do Valentine's Day: our wedding anniversary being only six days afterwards means we feel we can safely pass on the whole candy-coated palaver.

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but i must also feel it as a man

Friday, February 11, 2011

• A freshly rehaired bow. Klez is hard on horsehair; this'll be good for a fair few gigs, though.


• The Hutt River sparkling over its pale grey rocky bed. Someone's been busy; along one stretch, there's a cluster of middens and small pyramids.


• The last ten pages of I Married A Communist.

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