Cojones!

OK so no blog for a while..sorry… It has been a combination of having soggy brain and the fact I got wimpy after seeing an interview of Upcoming Handsome Norwegian-English Author in a Sunday paper. In the article the young chap (interesting childhood, overcoming some adversity or other, speaks at least four languages) sat looking moody with the sun streaming through his (slightly receding) golden curls whilst the journalist twittered on about his sexiness, intellect, his ability to articulate humanities something or other. None of this did more then make me hiss with usual defensive silliness, ‘ different if he were a WOman', but then the journo turned to .. his remarkable collection of books..from Homer to Herrmann Hesse, Chaucer to Zola to Lovelock yadda yadda. At that point I looked at my bookshelf, which resembles a shelf in a youth hostel in Prague or the airport shop downstairs in Lusaka airport. Errr...books are expensive and hard to travel with and ..well I am prone to reading fast scary thrillers for a fast scary thrill and the print is larger and. etc and ad infinitum .(you get the point) I felt small and silly. I haven’t even got a decent TinTin collection yet.

All excuses aside I do not read enough. Basically I know diddly squat in this world..and there is a great deal of diddly squat one should know. And to top it off I don’t even speak my own language that well. How can I be so impertinent as to want to write??
Basically my conjones dwindled.

However I have sulked quite enough now and so with apologies for the fact this may happen now and again, here is more of my witless ramblings my darlings!

My Mum’s friend P had her 70th birthday party today. The sun shone through the sleet and the band played and there was wine and food and a wonderful bunch of people from many generations. P herself is the very model of the vogue creed of late that '70 is the new 50'. She is small and blonde and fit and furiously active. My brother picked me up (literally – I was in a bad mood until he force-fed me the new KitKat. Damn that boy is a sweetie!) from Kings cross and we met my sister who I thought was over-vicaring just a little, even given it was Easter. She was not in uniform but both earrings and large pendent were heavy unsubtle crosses.
'Lord!' I said
'Yup!' she said.
Her son, the magnificent K, towered above the crowd. He turned 18 on Friday. (He is going to end up in one of those articles about New Handsome Upcoming Somebodies…I shall still be annoyed) My Mum and J were there too. Mum had bought a photo of her and the birthday girl from back in the mid 60’s. Mum had had to escape South Africa to UK and P had been there, a sanctuary of fire, wit and tough love. They sit in the photo, both with babies on their laps. P's hair is in a ponytail and she wears thick-rimmed glasse. She sits forward almost laughing, almost leaping up. My mum with her hair in a chignon and a Pears Soap baby face is also smiling, easy, relaxed. I have rarely seen her in a photo from those tough times looking so lovely. Thank you P and Happy Birthday!