Morning. Sunshine. Still haven't cleaned the windows. Yesterday's rain was furtive: hang out the laundry in bright sunshine, go inside, come out again and there'd be bright sunshine and wet laundry. [Good to see you, boy, and I hope you hung all that wet stuff on the rack I gave you.] But it was enjoyable, around lunchtime, cooking soup from the available vegetables (this year it's mainly runner beans and courgettes/marrows) plus a courgette/cheese baked thing actually to eat. Adapted from Delia, whose book contains a section on How To Boil An Egg but not on How To Make Soup. Now, soup and remains of thing in fridge; with everybody back from Scotland, let's see how long they take to go.
Nature, nurture, surroundings. What is the English word for feng shui? Notable, how the atmosphere lightens as the room, the house clears; also notable how some pieces of furniture, et cetera, are in the right place, but others just seem to nag slightly. Not nag so much that it's really a conscious thing - it's easy not to notice - but they're where they should be but still not right. 'Should' never works, and I supppose the feng shui skill is having the clarity to see what is and could be, as distinct from what was on the plan. I wonder how much architecture exists because it looks good on the plan and/or in the architect's drawings. Not just modern: the huddle of chairs and screens around the fires in country houses, the high-ceilinged rooms, the long corridors. Cold rectories.
This paragraph return is long overdue. Bought a Kindle the other day. Interesting device. Everything I load onto it is duplicated in my account record on Amazon; if I lose it or drop it in the bath, I can reinstate everything on a new Kindle. George Orwell had Big Brother watching (what was his name?) Winston Smith in a negative way; I have Jeff Bezos and his people watching over me with the positive intent of making sure I keep what's mine even in the event of bathwater. That kind of oversight, for better or worse, seems to be a distinctive modern experience: the world around us is becoming a day-care centre.
Nature, nurture, surroundings. What is the English word for feng shui? Notable, how the atmosphere lightens as the room, the house clears; also notable how some pieces of furniture, et cetera, are in the right place, but others just seem to nag slightly. Not nag so much that it's really a conscious thing - it's easy not to notice - but they're where they should be but still not right. 'Should' never works, and I supppose the feng shui skill is having the clarity to see what is and could be, as distinct from what was on the plan. I wonder how much architecture exists because it looks good on the plan and/or in the architect's drawings. Not just modern: the huddle of chairs and screens around the fires in country houses, the high-ceilinged rooms, the long corridors. Cold rectories.
This paragraph return is long overdue. Bought a Kindle the other day. Interesting device. Everything I load onto it is duplicated in my account record on Amazon; if I lose it or drop it in the bath, I can reinstate everything on a new Kindle. George Orwell had Big Brother watching (what was his name?) Winston Smith in a negative way; I have Jeff Bezos and his people watching over me with the positive intent of making sure I keep what's mine even in the event of bathwater. That kind of oversight, for better or worse, seems to be a distinctive modern experience: the world around us is becoming a day-care centre.