Pond therapy

I'm sure I've posted about this before, but, it could be a thing, I'm sure - pond therapy. Harmless, cheap, meditative, nature-encouraging . . .

I put our first pond in a couple of years ago on a dismal February day - or rather the person with a mini digger who was there doing our reed bed system put it in. It being a large plastic cattle feeding basin donated by our lovely organic veg growing friend up the road. The first year wasn't bad but this year it's really become its own tiny universe with little help from us - just a bit of water butt topping up from time to time, and purchasing of a 'mother' water lettuce which has spread into a citadelle of smaller plants. The lily pads have spread and the frog population has increased dramatically, their voices chorusing through many a warm night. There's no filtration system but the plants seem to be providing enough oxygen and the earlier algae appears to have cleared.

This year's pond - an old enamel bath - was installed by our lovely Workaway, Christopher on an equally cold and drear February day. It sat for a few months gradually filling with rainwater and later, mosquito larvae . . . the purchase of a few baby goldfish sorted that and after the one outlay of some new water plants the pond has sorted itself into a lovely, tranquil little place with birds and insects coming to drink. I've planted up the surrounding rubbly earth with stuff from the rest of the garden and a discarded corner of our land has now become a place I enjoy - feeding the fish, watching dragon flies and marvelling generally at what happens when you provide a few raw materials and then leave mostly alone.

The smallest garden or terrace has space for a pond, even a washing up bowl pond. There's just something about creating a tiny aquatic world and watching what arrives and the plants that develop. I'm hoping for newts next...

NOZ

A new friend of mine - we had recently moved to the Loire area - said one Tuesday morning, hey do you fancy an orgasmic ten minutes. I think I said something like, okay, as long as it's not dangerous or doesn't cost too much. We'd driven to Saumur - the local big town where said friend had to visit a cash and carry, the mysterious ten minute thing to be undertaken first. She parked and pointed to a blue and white fronted building embellished with the word (?) NOZ. Come on you'll love it! It's total chaos.

Our local NOZ which is nicely run down and very chaotic inside - I suspect other NOZ emporiums are less so

I'm not sure if I'd term the experience exactly orgasmic, more mind-bogglingly weird and certainly satisfying to those who love finding a bargain. NOZ, or at least our local one, is a random, ramshackle shop full of stuff that is dangerously near, or just over sell buy dates; stuff that never should have made it beyond the fevered imagination of a marketing bod, and over-surplus goods in general. As appose to places like 'everything's a pound' shops or Action - a more organised and rather clinical version of NOZ - the joy is in the chaos. Failed packets of terrible desserts jostle next to bottles of tomato juice, shampoo, job lots of too-spicy-for-the French-market chili paste, wine, out of season Christmas biscuits, towels, dog snacks, vegan products that never should have pushed in this meat-hefty country; toys, bizarre Spanish cakes, giant plastic tubs of mayonnaise . . . and so on and so on.

You never know what will be in there. Sometimes we have found amazingly useful things like excellent quality tinned tomatoes, darjeeling loose tea, watercolour sketch books, and once, a very nice white wine which retailed at about ten times the NOZ price when checked online, and with a greyhound on the label -what more could we wish for!

And what about the name? Or more to the point, the bizarre emblem of a man either screaming or laughing hysterically which looks like it was most certainly a drunken lunch napkin drawing. I love it. 

- Alors, que-ce que on va faire - so, what we gonna do about this image, eh? 

 . . . What about this? 

Uh? an electrocuted posh bastard? Or is it a terrified hedgehog - with a bow tie?

Oh, I don't know but this biro's run out and the meeting's in seven minutes, s'fine . . . Waiter - two cognacs and the bill.

Two more pen and ink glimpses into 2073

 Lady Thames, and Hoxton riding into Hackrovia on Kafka. Londonia, 2073.

Following on from last post of total incredulity re the state of our world

Come   on. Really? 

                                                    

Who on earth thought these loo paper names up? . . . I sat in many tedious and surreal advertising/marketing meetings in my youth when I was a London stylist (cabbie/finder of ludicrous stuff at ultra short notice) but I don't think anyone would ever really of thought suggesting that 'Instant Zen' would be a great name for something to wipe your backside on.

Having suddenly realised that our rental lodgings was out of loo paper I had to scoot to the nearest shop to grab a packet. I hunted for something made of recycled paper, preferably encased in other recycled paper rather than plastic but there was nothing in the whole aisle (longer than an average truck) that was actually made of real, recycled paper - a nod to a small percentage; a packet claiming that its wrapping was made (mostly) of recycled plastic but nothing about the actual paper itself - lilac/mint/aqua/rose coloured; quilted, kitten-soft (ugh) better than porcupine-soft, I suppose, and scented . . . like these two varieties pictured here. What does Instant Zen smell like? Better than Delayed Zen? I've never actually thought what Zen would smell like. Sort of pale, scentless, calm, a few leaves gathered from the garden might be more appropriate.

Perfume of summer sun. Traffic jams, overflowing bins, wasps, sweat, withered flowers trying to cope with the heat . . . Spring might have been a better choice.

I will make sure I get to the organic shop next time where you can buy fair priced, loose, off-white loo rolls with no packaging - and no quilting, kittens, designs, colours or smells.

Just in case I was in any doubt of the seriously stupid direction our civilisation is headed in...

I utterly found confirmation of it while visiting our local supermarket this morning.

Positioned within the aisle, or rather, entire island given over to Coke and all its associated fizzing death beverages, there was this. A sort of DJ booth without music at which, apparently, you could have your own personalised plastic Coke cup made while you waited - and, of course, having spent the required amount on aforementioned drink.

It was only 9:00 am and as the plastic cup craftsperson was absent until 10:00 I couldn't hang around to see the action - I had a dog to walk. Rather a shame as I was curious to see if the marketing outfit had seriously researched their demographic for this particular hanger of nightmarish goods of which probably 85% are completely unneeded. Most of the clientele appeared to be over fifty, wheeling trolleys about and gently moaning about the fact that certain types of cheese were missing. It seemed unlikely they would queuing up at 10 o'clock for their red plastic cup to pack in their rucksack for the next music festival. 

What was I doing in there? you may ask being so obviously suspicious of all grande surface. Well, I do like the 'anti gaspi (no waste) section - stuff going out of date, unsold as its a bit weird etc; and there are a few luxuries to be bought from time to time - a certain type of square fat cakes that our growing colony of blue tits adore, a bar of soap for B and B guests, root ginger, etc . . .

I did feel an urge to glue myself to the plastic and cardboard Coke construction, or perhaps attack it with a rather aggressive spade I'd noticed in the garden section called a 'root slayer' but then the dog would be stuck in the car and the B and B room wouldn't get prepared and Mark needed the car. Maybe I'll go back another day. It'll be interesting to see how long the thing stays there before being replaced with Christmas crap or whatever the next consumerist money trap device that one of our planet's mega-corps have thought up.

Londonia revisited - in 2073

Having managed to grab a few days away from the routine at home - rampaging garden, B and B etc, I finally got down to doing some of my own work. Writing has been scarce recently but my objective was to start a series of pen and ink artworks to use for the Londonia crowd funding project.

Inspired by rivers, old boathouses, the sea and my quiet lodgings at a delightful 50s house in Quimper I faced the blank page, defeated the urge to watch re-runs of Masterchef and came up with several sketches to start off the series. 

Two sketches by Jarvis (a main character in the book and recorder of Londonia 2073 life via pen and paper - no cameras, iPhones, etc...)

my temporary art studio

Going forward with back catalogue

Or, slightly forwards and a bit sideways.

Being someone who doesn't overly trust this whole internet business, I decided a few days ago to self-publish my finished books, not to attempt to sell them online - I'm still naively confident that they will all at some point grace the shelves of lovely independent bookshops - but just to have words on paper between covers.

I haven't used Lulu publishing for a long time as Londonia was taken on and published in the traditional way. The site has changed dramatically! What used to take hours is now highly simplified and efficient, even for madame Luddite. I loaded up the last edited version of Smithi and a new copy of The 158th Book pressed, ok, do it, and forgot about the order until this morning when UPS delivered it.

Although the size of the book was not at all what I had anticipated, and I'd forgotten to put my name on the cover and spine - duh! the result was rather lovely. After flipping through it, I've realised that this was a very late edit and I should have printed the one before as a chunk had been taken out on the agent's suggestion - which I didn't overly agree with. So, I'll do it again, or maybe I'll just add a few loose pages with the suggestion that the reader can choose which version they prefer. And I'll add my name on the cover, maybe even make a hardcover which I did for early versions of Londonia - buying a suitable sized old hardback book and making a mashup of the two books . . . I'll post the result.

Next up, Lulu copy of The Panto Horse End, and The Couch.