I loved the silhouette the frame-work of the door made against the bright sunshine outside. I can’t imagine how many man hours it took to carve the frame and then also to carve the door. Did they carve the door first, or the door frame? I’ll never know unless I can step back in time to Leeds Castle.
Ted likes it when big things happen, like finding a new tennis ball to steal! He manages to snag one each time we walk pass the tennis courts. I never see him do it, but judging from the shouts, your dog has my ball! It must be the case. I have about ten or so rolling about the house and garden. I’ve never purchased one for Ted. I never know where I will find the slime covered green tennis balls hidden next, or how to apologise to their owners in a creative way. Ted doesn’t care as long as he can toss the ball for me to fetch, never giving a thought that he can outrun those angry tennis players faster than I can!
Ted always wants to go wherever I go and well…let’s say…we do walk to Starbucks just a wee bit. Enough for Teddy to make Customer of the Week, and of course, we had to share the little chalkboard display announcing to all that he was indeed the customer of the week. His favourite coffee? Anything with loads of foam, or better still, fresh whipped crème! Ted on a diet? Never, life’s too short for that nonsense! Tennis anyone? I have tennis balls for all…ahem….
Here’s a guest door that I played around with. A door in Istanbul Turkey, taken by my cousin on her recents travels, when she thought of me and my doors! I love the cool marble that sets off the warmth of the door.
I really couldn’t believe what I was reading. The current affordable housing shortage is caused by silly women leaving their husbands? I read the article twice. Three times. Each time the same incredulous stupidity was screaming in that statement. Penelope Keith of To the Manor Born fame is quoted as saying, ” If only we could educate people to go on living together for longer. It’s all these single dwellings, all these women in their fifties and sixties who suddenly want their own space, to be their own people. To do what?”
Do we really want women and men to stay married in misery for ever to save the housing shortage? Thank God, women now have the freedom to live where and how they choose. We don’t need to go back as far as even the 1950’s when a divorced woman was considered spoiled goods. No one ever scorned the man, it was always…he must have had an awful wife.
If men didn’t leave their wives for younger women, then men wouldn’t need new houses, nor would the older women, if you want to go along with her logic. To blame women for this problem is beyond any sort of logical thinking. What’s needed is the building of affordable housing for all age groups and not the mentality of, well you got married, so stick it out, no matter how miserable everyone is. We can’t have you clogging up the housing chain. It just astounds me that after all the years of media, education, that this sort of thought process even exists. Truly everyone is entitled to their own opinion and if you put it out there in the public, then be prepared for the comments.
I thought that this nonsense was bad enough from this side of the pond, but then an American Writer wrote the same sort of nonsense. Women are creative without children or the most with only one child. This harkens back to thinking of another century when women were slaves to their bodies, without the vote, without rights, and without choice. Whether or not one does something with creativity is another story, and how a person uses their creativity is another matter. But I have to point out the countless women novelists who write with children and do a cracking good job of it, just think of the outpouring of Maya Angelou. I can’t imagine JK Rowling writing her fabulous books without her child in mind. Her child indeed was one of the main driving forces to get published.
Children stimulate our minds, they challenge our precepts, they challenge our bodies, and they change our lives forever, and as for marriage, if your happy, great, if not, move on, stimulate the economy with the purchase of a new home.
“A writer like me must have utter confidence, an utter faith in his star”
F. Scott. Fitzgerald.
English: Black-and-white photographic portrait of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald and wife Zelda at Dellwood, one month before daughter Scottie’s birth. Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Signature of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
There was a lot about this door that I fell in love with, the ornate columns flanking the door on both sides, the aged mellow oak, the scroll work of the brass window grills, and that it was a door to a charity just topped the cake. A little door in Paris, in the old Jewish quarters of Le Maris.
When I first decided to be a writer, I was in another world. I thought whatever you typed was… well, words set in gold and probably sent directly from heaven. I don’t know why I thought writing would be any different from any other form of art. I am not sure if it was the films or the romance of writing that created this cloud of illusion for me. After all, I knew about the practice of an art, and writing is no different. It is an art and with any art there has to be practice.
For a writer, a novelist, there can be no less than a million words typed and retyped, read and tossed about, before the practice can become the art. Some say ten thousand hours is the magic number. I don’t know why I thought writing didn’t need practice, after all, I was used to practice. It was not uncommon during my conservatory years to put in four hours a day on the piano. I did the scales up and down, backwards and to front, endless finger exercises, and then when it came to learning music, each phrase at a time, until the entire piece was learnt. At the end, the last piece I was studying was a concerto for only the left hand. I never just bashed it out. Such is the dedication of practice, and with writing, it just has to be accepted, is no different from learning a new language.
I clearly remember learning all the tenses of verbs in French and not understanding, or frankly caring why I was being subjected to such torture. Now as an adult, I wished I had paid more attention to my French lessons that bored me to death, as those tenses would have been set in my brain, just like the notes of music had been imprinted on my memory, so too it is with the choice of words and the creation of new worlds. It is a sublime form of communication and learning a language is what we writers do when we practice and face rejection. Be it music, or a foreign tongue, we are learning to think in a new way, and that new way must be communicated to the audience, our readers.
So often you hear of writers with manuscripts sitting in the bottom drawer never to see the light of day. Why not do something with them is often the query. However, even if they never see publication, they have served a massive purpose. Every novelist needs to practice and these unpublished novels are just that–the work needed so that writing becomes an art. So the next time a rejection comes flying in the door, it’s only a reminder that all art takes dedication and time, and it’s now time to roll up the shirt sleeves and keep at it.
Even then we have to remember to laugh and carry on,
” All good writing is like swimming underwater and holding your breath.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald.
A study of F. Scott Fitzgerald by Gordon Bryant. Published in Shadowland magazine in 1921. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Travelling is always such great fun and very awkward at times. I just got back from Holland and this trip reminded me again of how easy it is to pack too much clothing, or not have enough shoes. I got caught in a massive down pour in Amsterdam and had to dry out shoes with newspapers! The next day the shoes were still too soggy to walk about! Never mind, it gave me the opportunity to stay indoors and just be.
Holland was so gezellig. I love picking up new expressions! As I walked across the street, a group of schoolchildren passed me, and their teacher called out Lopen…so I did! Apparently in Flanders it means to run, and in the Netherlands, walk.
Sometimes foreign expressions say just the right thing when English can carry on a bit too much. In Holland, Gezellig is one such word, in France there isn’t even a word, but a pffff sounding of the lips that says so much…
Whenever I come back from Holland, I get depressed about the amount of litter we have in our streets. I don’t understand us Britain. Why can’t we put our litter into bins or carry it back home? The Dutch go to McDonalds, drink cola from cans, eat packages of crisps and yet the streets on a whole are spotless. I’ve been told that Germany is the same way. So why are we letting ourselves down so badly?
Mind you, I have to moan about Brussels, what a depressing entry way to a city, the endless graffiti on the trains, the boards, poles, and then there is the very sad sight of those girls in the windows that you can see from the trains. A man stops in front of a window, walks on, then returns to the window again, and then disappears inside the door. Even though it’s a fleeting sight as the train rolls in, it’s a heartbreaking way to see such a fabulous city.
I did have a few close calls in the Netherlands, I had to make sure to look left and right and left again for cars. That was one thing. But then I did step out in front of a few bicycles as they rushed past me. Bells tinkled like mad! So it was crossing the street, checking for cars, and then for bikes, then cars and bikes, before I dared to set off to the other side! But I am glad to say…no one toppled off their bike, or left me sprawled on the ground.
Working bicycle (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I had a marvelous time in Holland and hope to post a few doors I captured there and a few posts about this trip. So for now, Bedankt Holland for making me feel at home for a few weeks! Not to mention a cousin who had to put up with me!
So I am off again, this time to Holland! Once again thanks for all the comments you take the time to post! I’ll read them all when I get back! I’m looking forward to struggling with my Dutch! I do manage to pick up a few words each time I go, last time it was lekker, which means lovely, nice, yummy, and currently sexy…that lad was very lekker… it all depends on how you use it. I think this time I will just say going to Holland is very lekker! See you when I get back! I hope I’ll find some interesting Dutch Doors!
It’s time for the morning moan- an opinion rant session.
It’s scary how fast things change. I was only at the Oxford Market last year and wrote about how wonderful it was. This trip though, I have to say, my heart sank. Some of the lovely shops are still there, the butcher, the organic veg, the saddle shop, the print shop, the local coffee shops, but there was a new face in the market, and one that spells a steep downward trend.
There was a phone shop. Now there is nothing wrong with a phone shop, but who needs this inside a market that is in the heart of Oxford with endless tourists walking about? Who is that desperate for a new phone cover? I know I am being difficult, and I tried to walk past it without tsk tsking, but then I came across another shop that sells Mulberry Bags look alikes. These look alikes are so cheaply made, but not so cheaply priced, that it is a wonder anyone buys them. However the shop is open with its tatty kit. Not the kind of market I would want to promote.
There are some shops that should be encouraged, the bespoke hat maker, the independent bakery, and the independent coffee shop. Surely the Market which is run by the local council, could think to encourage more shops like this? Individual shops of high quality that can’t be found anywhere else? Simple logic would tell you, this would draw in the tourist trade. No one wants to travel to a historic market only to find a copy of the High Street big box shops, or a sad version of a pence to a pound type of shop.
I spoke to some of the merchants, faced with outrageous rent hikes on the High Street, just outside the market entrance, with a 44 percent rent rise in one year. Inside the market, it is worse. How on earth is that even…I can’t even use the word fair. Business is business, but when you have a paying tenant surely shouldn’t some consideration be given? Yes, by all means raise the rent, but at a human price point. No one can sustain that sort of rise. After all, 44 percent is a bit over the top. It would be one thing to raise the rent to attract a better tenant, but, to replace it with shops that sell tat? For the shops that are selling the better fare, how are they supposed to increase trade by 44% sitting next to shops that are selling goods even the outlets have let go? I suppose it all depends on the type of market you desire. There is a place for everything in this world.
Some rents inside the market are going up by 70%. I am dumbfounded by this figure. Speechless.
The little pastry shop was closing this year. The rents have been raised to a point it is now impossible to make a living. So it goes, and I imagine another store selling cheap kit, or phone covers will pop in. They too will struggle to make ends meet, close, and so on, before long the betting shops, and charity shops will line the streets. Years later, the powers that be, will have think tank sessions…why did the Historic markets fail? I will have no answer for them, other than a sad shake of the head.
Is this the image the Oxford Market really wants to portray to the thousands of tourists that tread the pavement? Isn’t there a way to come up with fair rent rises that support both parties? I wonder…
A camera travels 