A new era.

Thoughts on the reading of the introduction to Arthur Millar's play...All my Sons...
A family at war...deception...love but love that is prepared to act unethically to get what it feels is its due rights ....in particular...financial and respect.
The Stay people who are now accused of being sour and bitter...by the Brexit people...are fighting a losing battle. They are accused of being intellectuals, academics, arrogant exclusivists who have no idea how the rest of the country live and feel. But this scenario, this present story, this situation has all gone on many times before....so it has been written by Chaucer, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, Hemingway, Harvey Lee, Steinbeck and Millar...to mention only a few. Yes these might be all put in a bag as "intellectual clap trap", if we so wish. I will go back further and cite the Old Testament and betrayal, and of course the New Testament and the great betrayal that happened within seven days in the life of Jesus. All written literature...wherever you might be coming from and either accepting it as truth or fiction...nevertheless there it is. And of course we can look back to a lot less years and the 20s and 30s and a people in need of leadership ready to accept the apparently strong leadership offered but taking on however reluctantly the package that went with it.
So in All my Sons by Arthur Millar....Joe Keller says..." you can't live without denial, the truth and mankind are cousins, not brothers and sisters, .....you have to deny something in order to survive. I think they are all denying something". Millar said in summing up..."he is the broken promise of the past".... referring to Joe's neighbour George.
Christopher Bigsby in this introduction to Millar's play writes..."... It is not breaches of the law...but the removal of the buoys which mark a safe passage through ocean waters. Remove such buoys, literal and symbolic, and there is no longer a common world from which we may derive either personal identity or social meaning".
I fear that this is the world we now enter...without signposts to guide or tender- heartened to console.
My love to all.....Gx

Sunday's Short Story

...another from two hours of Thursday mornings at the Writers Workshop...

" An ado about nothing"

(Thanks to W. Shakespeare)

What a fuss, I thought, pursing my lips and frowning. Honestly, don't people have more important things to think about than to start complaining over such a trivial occurance?

 I may have believed that painting the house pink was a good idea. I had done it in a spur of the moment decision. The paint at B&Qs was reduced. The store was closing down and although most of the goods on the shelves were to be carted off up the road to the hyperstore on the outskirts of town, the tins of pink paint were reduced to 50p a tin.

How could I resist such a bargain? Always known as a cherry picker in the local charity shops and jumble sales, this offer was too good to walk away from.

So I didn't!

Ian helped me to prepare the walls by sanding down the brickwork with an electric drill attachment. A good lad, he's always ready to help, if not exactly the brightest star in the bunch. But he is kindly. And as I get older, it's kindness that becomes more and more important to me. 

It only took us two days to finish the job. And very good it looked, if I say so myself. 

Yes, yes,  we missed the mark a few times and Ian painted over the keyhole in the front door. Oh yes and I'll have to take a sharp blade and try to remove the rim of paint on the glass windows. Yes, yes, some things like that. But when I stand on the other side of the street and look across at what we've done I'm jolly pleased.

So, what on earth is all this fuss about? It's not as if this is the grandest of streets. Not the "right" side of town. And most of the other houses are boring. Yes that's right, boring! Nothing adventurous in any of them. 

Nothing to catch the eye, or make me smile as I walk home in an evening from the local Tesco, my shopping bags full of the day's bargains. You have to time that exactly. Too early...nothing. Too late...the dregs! I'm a cherry picker there as well. It makes for exciting meals as I never know what has been reduced 'til I get there.

Anyway, look out, here they come.  Those neighbours, with their lace curtains, acceptably painted front doors and pots of boring plants placed neatly in front. Here they come knocking on my pink  door. Bright pink I mean .

" Well", I ask, " what do you want?"..... as I smile at them and think...

What an ado about nothing!

Much Ado at Minack!

I had such a great birthday in Cornwall this year...
...a new camera from the potter....
....a tripod and some filters for the new camera  from the family of Amelies House...
...a painting from Confusionosity of Life granddaughter...
...smellies and chocs and beads and all sorts of goodies from the other four gorgeous gussies called granddaughters!
...and two tickets to go to Minack Theatre near Lands End to see Much Ado About Nothing
from the Spice Works son and family!

Magic!

The scene was set in the 2nd world war...so the watch were dad's army, Beatrice and others were land girls, and the princes followers were Polish airmen.


Apart from the play, what a view out over the Atlantic. I almost felt that I could "Yoohoo" over the water to any lovely blogpals out there across the pond on the east coast"!

I couldn't believe that anyone would rather read a book than either see the play or view the sea....
...but hey whatever makes for a good day!

Benedict hides in the Punch and Judy tent and hears what he wants to hear about Beatrice!
Don Pedro, Claudio and Leonato.

All rounded up with a Cornish clotted cream tea with scones and strawberry jam...what could be better!