Quote

Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.

~ Sir Winston Churchill

Fond memories

I was just browsing Amazon and came across 'Dear Zoo' for sale! I feel a bit stupid considering buying it without giving it to a child but it was one of my favourite books when I was little, and is only a bit older than me - it's celebrating it's 25th anniversary this year. Maybe I will buy it anyway and keep it in a cupboard for a future Blahlette...

I haven't forgotten I've promised posts on last weekend's cooking adventures and our exciting excursion but I'm feeling a bit under the weather, and judging by work people's Facebook statuses I'm not the only one. Cosy childhood memories and hot drinks are where it's at this evening!

Grin!

New bike! All it needs is a basket. We cycled somewhere REALLY exciting during this hot and sunny afternoon but depending on what happens on Tuesday I'll blog more. Don't want to get our hopes up...

The beat goes on

I have some cooking to blog on but while I find my USB cable here's a song suitable for hot hazy lazy days :)

Oh, and jazz reminds me - if you're not watching the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency on BBC at the moment you should be, it's great!

Lazy weekend activites

Lack of spare cash and inspiration have stopped me putting our wedding album together for a shocking year and a half now. But I was inspired when I spied a couple flicking through a photograph book on an old episode of Relocation Relocation last week. They look really good so I've been using Bob Books this afternoon to create my own. Let's hope it turns out well...

The other thing I wanted to mention was The Narnia Code, a programme on BBC iplayer about the book Planet Narnia. The author, Dr Michael Ward, suggests that there is a hidden code behind the Narnia books, that CS Lewis intended for each one to be based on the seven planets from the ancient understanding of the universe. It was only a little bit hyped up when it said this discovery could completely change the way we understand Lewis' view of the world, but interesting nevertheless.

The Painted Veil

Next on my reading list is The Painted Veil. Having watched the film a few days ago I highly recommend it. Full of good acting (Ed Norton and Naomi Watts), haunting music (Satie's Gnossienne No. 1 is the theme) and a brilliant plot.

The film is based on the novel by W Somerset Maugham - a story made into a film three times since its publication in 1925. It was inspired by a tale in Dante's Divine Comedy which tells of a man who suspected his wife of having an affir. As punishment he took her to a place where she was likely to catch a deadly illness. She didn't die soon enough for his liking so he pushed her out of a window. The film doesn't follow its inspiration exactly, rather it portrays a rather surprising and smoulding love story.

Mother Superior played by Diana Rigg, had a few lines that have stayed with me over the weekend:

I fell in love when I was 17... with God. A foolish girl with romantic notions about the life of a religious, but my love was passionate. Over the years my feelings have changed. He's disappointed me. Ignored me. We've settled into a life of peaceful indifference. The old husband and wife who sit side by side on the sofa, but rarely speak. He knows I'll never leave Him. This is my duty. But when love and duty are one, then grace is within you.

The title The Painted Veil is taken from a poem by Shelley:


‘Lift not the painted veil which those who live
Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,
And it but mimic all we would believe
With colours idly spread,--behind, lurk Fear
And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave
Their shadows, o'er the chasm, sightless and drear.
I knew one who had lifted it--he sought,
For his lost heart was tender, things to love,
But found them not, alas! nor was there aught
The world contains, the which he could approve.
Through the unheeding many he did move,
A splendour among shadows, a bright blot
Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove
For truth, and like the Preacher found it not.’

(My crude interpretation - Walter Fane, a man who lifted the veil, was looking for things to love and thought he'd found this in Kitty, but sadly there was nothing in her of which he could approve after she was unfaithful. The painted veil hid their loveless marriage from the outside world and tricked everyone into believing that they were in love, that Kitty followed Walter into a cholera-infested land out of devotion, when in fact Walter, like the Preacher in Ecclesiastes, found that he was searching for a love that didn't exist).

Incidently, Shelley's biography is quite interesting. He abandoned his pregnant wife and child for Mary Godwin (later Shelley, authoress of Frankenstein), who he married after his first wife drowned herself in the Serpentine in Hyde Park. He died at just 29 years old yet has become one of the great English poets, influencing the likes of Tennyson, Byron and Keats.

Brief Encounter and the chick flicks it's inspired...

Ben gave me Brief Encounter for Christmas (was intended for my birthday last year but it was hidden so well that it got lost for a while!)

It's one of my favourite films and has beautiful music, notably Rachmaninov's Piano Concert No. 2 which sounded strangely familiar...



Recognise it? It took me a few minutes to place the song inspired by it - a song that has become synonymous with chick flicks in the shape of Bridget Jones.

End of Lent

For the sake of accountability at work our Lent fasts ended yesterday. About four of us (out of maybe 15) stuck it out right to the end. The other three gave up fast food, chocolate and crisps and their indulgences yesterday seem to match my experience. I didn't find much pleasure in going shopping again, I spent ages deliberating over possible purchases, annoying myself with my indecisiveness. I bought a few items and ended up taking most of them back today. It was a little depressing but I feel surprisingly free, not feeling as much compulsion to buy things. Maybe my fast has taught me more than I thought it would.