April 4: Out and About - Take us on a walk through your town. What are the sights you see when you are out doing your daily or weekly chores, or when you are out for some leisure? (by Barb)
Today (April 3) when passing through town, I noticed that they had started planting spring flowers (pansies) on the river bank in the Town Park. (The photo taken with my mobile phone; unedited.)
A few weeks ago, Frances wrote a blog post about Women and Shopping. It popped up in my memory this weekend, because her way of doing it (with a companion, and including coffee and lunch) is not mine. With me, it’s more typically like this:
With the arrival of the Spring Sun (at the end of last week), I open my wardrobe and say to myself (because there’s no one else there): “I have nothing to wear!”
Now that phrase, in itself, I know is not very original. Millions of women must have said it before me!
However, just now it happens to be true (or at least it was last week); because since last spring, I have lost a lot of weight. From spring to autumn, I went down two sizes; and in September got started on exchanging my whole winter wardrobe. Most of the summer clothes I just left hanging, though – as there was no way to predict what size I might be when we got round to spring again!
Which brings us back to the Opening the Wardrobe scene above, and the exclamation “I have nothing to wear!” Because by now I’m down about four sizes compared to a year ago.
The way my mind works, this constitutes a Serious Shopping Situation, requiring Full Concentration; which means restaurants and chit-chat do not fit into it.
With or without companion, the fact is also that I don’t have the stamina to keep at it for very long at a time. Trying on lots and lots of clothes is not what my right (bad) shoulder likes best. So instead (in a Serious Situation like this), I find myself going shopping several days in a row; but only one or two shops at a time, and usually targeted on one kind of thing (even if of course I might just as well come home with something else).
This round of shopping frenzy went like this:
Friday: A pair of spring denim jeans was at the top of my list. (I.e. light blue rather than dark blue.) It was when trying on those that I discovered I’d gone down another size since November. This in turn led to buying two new tops as well. (Two for the price of 1½ – who buys just one??).
Saturday: By now I had tried on all my spring jackets and discovered that they had grown into Tents. So time to go hunting for a new allround Weatherproof one. (Waterproof and windproof but also breathing – I don’t know how they do it!) I found it, AND yipee, it was on sale for 2/3 of the original price.
Being on the roll, I also went back to the shop where I’d been the day before, and bought two tops on Supersale (15-20% of the original price), an expensive sporty kind of zipper cardigan, and a frock. (I never really seem to have any occasions to wear frocks; but I’ve been watching Trinny & Susanna on TV, and understand it’s a Must if you want to change your style. (Do I want to change my style, or am I happy just to downsize my old style? I’m not really sure!!!)
Sunday: Friday and Saturday afternoons I was able to also spend time just sitting and enjoying almost summer-warm sun on my balcony; which led to the realisation that (of course) I had no capri pants or shorts that fit me any more either. So off to the shops again. One pair of khaki twill jeans, one pair of capris, one pair of navy blue shorts.
Monday: Some light clouds and a bit chillier again. Oops, it seems we have a Situation on the buttoned cardigan front as well! And light summer tops for when the sun comes back… Okay, I know where to go…
PS. The photo below shows where all my discarded clothes go. A new second hand shop just opened only a few blocks from where I live (on my way into town). Every time I buy something new, I also get rid of something old!
Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen (2014)
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Sarah Addison Allen is a New York Times bestselling author who grew up in Asheville, North Carolina. Her novels Garden Spells, The Sugar Queen, The Girl Who Chased the Moon, The Peach Keeper and now Lost Lake all have a touch of the supernatural blended in with otherwise realistic stories.
(The first one I read was The Girl Who Chased the Moon, which I came across quite by chance in the bookshop downtown, and bought without knowing anything about it except what I could read on the cover. I think by now the only one of her books I haven’t read is the first one – I suppose I must rectify that.)
Lost Lake has quite a cast of slightly odd characters (although perhaps not all that much odder than most of us, when we scrape the surface). Kate, a young widow with a little daughter, is still feeling rather numb with grief after losing her husband. To escape her controlling mother-in-law, she decides to take her daughter on a summer trip to visit a place where she herself spent happy summers as a child; a kind of holiday camp resort owned by an old relative, Eby. Eby, also now a widow, is thinking of selling the estate, as she no longer feels able to keep it up on her own (or with just one servant/friend to help), and there aren’t many guests coming to stay any more.
There are still a few who return for their usual summer holiday though; and then there are the people living in the village as well. Among those an old childhood friend of Kate’s whom she hasn’t seen since back then.
In various ways and for various reasons, a number of people (all in some way a little “lost”) are drawn to the Lost Lake this summer – maybe even some who no longer quite belong in the physical world. Sometimes in this novel the line is very thin between physical reality, and a lost one that lingers (perhaps) only in our minds, but still tends to keep us in its grip anyway.
One review of this book that I happened to glance at before reading it, expressed the opinion that the novel could have stood on its own feet without any hints of the supernatural. I’m not so sure. I suppose that might be possible – but then it would have been a different book! As I understand it, the “stretch of reality” in this story serves to underline the theme of loss, and how to deal with it (or learn to live with it).
If you tried to separate the magic from the rest of the story, I fear that you might just find yourself lost!
I took these photos in town today. The colour difference on the top part of the facade is not in the paint but just light vs. shadow. It is not the oldest building in town. But at least no speculation is needed to tell you exactly how old it is!
To the left is an old shop that sells artists’ materials.
To the right of the big gateway is the entrance to a small hostel/hotel.
To see other old buildings all over the world, visit:
Deb at Booking Through Thursday wants to know:
”Why do YOU read fiction?”
The Browning Readers (1900) by Sir William Rothenstein (1872-1945)
Oil on canvas, Bradford Art Galleries and Museums.
(Postcrossing postcard recently received from the US.)
I suppose one answer to why I read fiction would be simply that I always did. It’s been part of my life since the Beginning. Before I could read myself, my mother read to me. There was no television in my first years of life, back in the 1950s. There were books, and there was the radio (two channels), and that was that.
When I learned to read, I continued to read books on my own; and besides school books, it was mostly fiction (mum and I frequently visited the library). I never questioned the “point” of reading fiction. But looking back, I think I’d say that fiction serves a double purpose: You can “escape” from your physical surroundings into a novel, but still keep learning things that apply to real life at the same time.
Today I received this postcard from Russia. The illustration belongs to a Russian folk tale, “Kolobok”. This did not mean anything to me until I looked it up in Wikipedia:
The Kolobok, (traditional Russian and Ukrainian pie/ small bread), suddenly becomes animated and escapes from "babushka" and "dedushka"s (old wife and man) home. The fairy tale's plot describes Kolobok's repetitive meetings with various animals (rabbit, wolf, and bear) who intend to eat it, but Kolobok cunningly escapes. With each animal Kolobok sings a song in which he explains his escape deductively: "I got away from Grandmother, I got away from Grandfather, and I will certainly get away from you". The fox manages to catch and eat Kolobok through distracting him by praising his singing.
This struck me as slightly familiar – and yet not quite… I read on, and realised why. In Scandinavian tradition there is a very similar story about a Pancake – but it’s a pig that finally eats it. And in other European countries there are other varieties still of the same tale.
Fascinating, isn’t it, how folk tales were memorised and kept alive even before they were written down.
Incidentally, from Wikipedia I also learn that nowadays the word kolobok is also used for the yellow smiley emoticons frequently used in internet communication:
