Cool characters, art and books, London nights and lights

We had a lovely lunch out with our friends on Sunday, at a French restaurant attached to a pub. We have a lot of poultry at home; for many reasons, it seems better to avoid too much red meat, but at this restaurant, I really enjoy it because of the quality of the meat and the way it’s cooked.

I didn’t do the bookkeeping on Monday. I did do a bit of catching up, generally. Thank goodness for a full day at home. But it’s time for statements (I am the one that checks these accounts and, where appropriate, pays the bills.) Then it was necessary to go to the bank and return Salmon Fishing to the library More importantly, I did finish Thorn in the Flesh, and emailed Anne www.myspace.com/annebrooke with my comments. I found it a book full of suspense and had to concentrate on the job in hand – the occasional need for editing – rather than just following my instinct to read on and find out what was going to happen. Though, of course, Anne is such a good writer that there are very few places that need changing. Just as well I finished, though, as Anne completed Tainted Tree on Monday night too, and I must soon get down to dealing with the editing. Irene’s www.myspace.com/ireneblack comments have also been coming in and it will be very useful to compare the two.

Too much to do to produce anything for Guildford Writers in the evening, but it was a pleasant relaxed occasion with only half a dozen people there. Shortly after starting, an unshaven, filthy man in his thirties, with a beret at a rakish angle, turned up and, eyeing us all commented something like, ‘You’re a funny lot.’ I would guess that it was to pre-empt our saying the same about him. Asked if he was a writer, he replied he wrote poetry, which I thought was a possibility and was quite interested to hear it. He also assured us that what he really liked was fighting, but no-one picked a fight with him, because we’re used to an assortment of people arriving at the group, with the occasional eccentric. After listening to one reading, he got up, said, ‘That was good,’ but he needed to go to the pub. We breathed a sigh of relief, particularly those closest to him, (I wasn’t one of them.) who said he absolutely stank.; they probably hadn’t been able to draw breath for several minutes.

M & I decided that ‘cool’ is definitely the in-word for the young. GD1, coming up for nine, says it a lot. Yesterday morning, M rang a customer where he’d put in a temporary heater; the customer reported it was blowing cold air. M asked him to check out a few things and confirmed he would fix a permanent one in a few days. The young man replied ‘cool’ so often M thought he was still talking about the heater.

I went to London yesterday. First there was the usual coat debate. Is it going to be warm or cold. Will the train be hot and the outside cold? Will the sun go in; will a warm coat be heavy when trooping round an art gallery or similar. Indecisive must be my middle name.

On the train, I started work on a short story; another passenger was studying property law, while the young girl opposite me was knitting. I had a good look at her, for the knitting seemed incongruous; she was wearing trendy silver trainers, a thick knitted scarf and woolly hat, but black nail varnish, and a silver ring in her nose and a dark red bead under her lower lip. (At first I wasn’t quite sure if it was a bad spot, but it was very central.) I decided I might use her in my story. I also decided that knitting must be ‘cool’ now.

Coming in to Waterloo, I heard an announcement, ‘Please leave the station immediately. Follow the directions from station staff’ and something about ‘emergency.’ For a moment I thought, ‘What’s happening?’, but it was immediately followed by, ‘That is the end of the fire alarm.’ A fellow passenger chuckled to his companion, ‘Spreading alarm and despondency.’

My friend had checked up on what was on at the galleries, and my preference was for an exhibition of Millais at Tate Britain, which I thought was marvellous. There were seven rooms of paintings, many of them huge works, and although his style changed a little over the years, his detail of people and clothing was meticulous. Wonderful dresses, where you imagined, if you touched them you would feel the silk or the velvet. Jewels that sparkled, as if he had glued a real one to the canvas. And facial expressions beautifully portraying the emotions of the subjects. I understood that at some time his work had appeared controversial, but it was always aesthetically pleasing. Unlike the controversial art of today. For another £2 we could have seen a retrospective of the Turner prize-winners. After the Lord Mayor’s Show – I don’t think so.

When we emerged, it was getting dark. The London I still love was alive with lights and colour. The magnificent buildings still imposing and impressive. When I lived and worked in London in my twenties, I hardly noticed the darkness of winter. The London nights were exciting. They still are.