Apero time
As I sit languidly on the patio waiting for the chef to bring an aperitif and the footman to deal with the parasol - currently drooping over the table like a dead pterodactyl - I observe a life and death drama by the pool. The cat in the photo has just despatched one of the swifts which dart over the pool - heaven knows how he caught it - but is now sulking because a second cat has now snatched the bird and run off. I shall dwell on death no longer. Paddock calls..
Sun gear
This blogette/bloguette/whatever is really for Mrs Tosh, who provided the excellent anti-sunburn garment worn by Catriona in the photo. It's a while since I had a summer holiday here: the sun is truly fierce. There is the problem of persuading Catriona that it's ok to get it wet, but it's reassuring none the less. (Is that one word? Phone spell-check likes it not. And while being pedantic: the title of the last post was an echo of Wind in the Willows rather than anything more erudite. It's hard to be accurate in tanto discrimine rerum.
Dulce domum
This is the back of our house, with a few of the 15 resident cats in attendance. After a post prandial walk through Colle di Val d'Elsa I've realised how different the Italian experience is with a very small, attractive and sociable toddler holding your hand. And I have to report that Catriona did a great job testing the acoustics of the mercifully empty cathedral. And I'm not cooking tonight. Bliss.
Summer's lease
I'll not be blethering much over the next week or so - off to Tuscany with Mr B, as well as the
Edublogger family. It's been so hot here this week that I'm looking forward to having an air-conditioned villa and the pool at the foot of the garden, The Blethers possessing neither of these amenities. I'm also looking forward to revisiting the area where we had our last foreign holiday en famille, before our weans turned into families themselves, if you get me; we stayed in this part of Tuscany during a World Cup in which Italy did rather well, and ended up in a neighbouring apartment whose inhabitants had rented a telly specially. This, you will understand, was not my choice, but was done in the spirit of bonding.
Anyway, it's arrivederci from me for now, though you might catch a blogette from my phone if there's a signal (I'm not holding my breath; it's very rural) Should I be taking "Summer's Lease" for holiday reading? Probably not. I seem to remember it cast doubts on the stability of the water supply to a holiday villa, and might induce gloom and despondency.
And that would never do. Ciao!
Labels: holidays, Italy, Tuscany
Wallowing in nostalgia
I had a lovely wallow in nostalgia today, courtesy of Bill, who sent me
this link to a film of the last day of the Glasgow trams. This was in the early 1960s, but my memories of trams are set in the 50s, when I caught the Number 10 (blue) tram from the terminus at Hyndland Road, along Great Western Road to Hillhead Primary School. I had occasion sometimes to travel on the No. 5 (pictured) though I have a feeling it was less convenient - did it come from Byres Road?
I've been looking at some of the other films flagged up on that site, and was amazed to see how fast some of these old trams were - they fairly rattled along Great Western Road west of Anniesland Cross, where they had the central reservation all to themselves with the lines running in the middle of the grassy area. I can't for the life of me recall how people boarded them there - were the stops in the middle of the road too?
And how quaintly narrow they were - especially the older ones like the one pictured. The seats were so narrow that two adults must have been very squashed; as a skinny child I was always pushed into a corner by anyone sitting on the outside seat. The best place to be, however, was upstairs at the front, where you could shut the door on the small compartment there and - as I did when small - stand at the front window looking out and down at the street, the view completely free of obstruction, and pretend to be driving the tram. The real driver was immediately below you in this position, and could be seen if you peered down the spiral metal staircase which came up into the compartment next to the double, side-facing seat. The rest of the seating was a continuous bench round the curved front of the tram, but if I sat there I would tend to feel sick as the view was intermittent and the angle odd.
And now Edinburgh is grinding to a halt in the effort to reintroduce trams. If I live long enough (that is, I hope, sarcastic) I shall have to ride one, though I doubt if they will be quite as excitingly bereft of any health-and-safety features. I doubt if the fare will be a pink ticket for tuppence, and the Edinburgh clippies probably never said "Come oan, get aff."
And I'd better not try to stand at the front and pretend to drive it. Sadly, I think I'm a bit old.
Labels: Glasgow, memories, trams
Gone is that music...
How strange to realise that in the past couple of hours I've heard more Michael Jackson songs than at any other time in my life. I recognise the strange figure of the recent court case against him, and the cheerful child with the prodigious talent and the absurd costumes - so where did the other appearances go? And now, of course, I realise that the cheerfulness on stage was the product of a deprived childhood - deprived of childhood itself.
And in between? All the other stuff that filled my life, I suppose - other music, performing, bringing up a family, teaching, demonstrating, public speaking - and very little room for anything that wasn't my kind of music. But I can remember the effect the star had on the kids I taught - and their amusement at my not knowing why anyone would wear only one glove.
And I suppose what I think of is Elvis, whom I loved from the first movie I was allowed to go to on my own, with friends, without an adult. The movie was King Creole, and I was eleven. I moved on when Elvis changed into the fat freak of the rhinestone suits, but when he died, also too early, I remembered the young singer in denims who first showed my generation what sexy meant. I can still sing all the words of some Elvis numbers, but tonight I realised I couldn't have identified a single song of Michael Jackson's.
Interesting.
Labels: Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, music, singers
Blast from the past
This has to be a record for me - I put this photo on flickr this morning and already it's had 93 hits: a tribute to the power of tagging?* It's a bit extraordinary how time passes; this feels like a foray into another era on the one hand, aided by the terrible quality of photo reproduction in the local paper at the time ( I'm happy to say this is hugely improved), while on the other I can recall it so well that it could have been only last year.
Life is, in fact, incredibly short - a brief candle indeed.
Note: The band members look incredibly well-dressed; they were in fact more uniform-conscious than many of their contemporaries outwith the band.
*No. It's the power of Twitter, actually.
Labels: 1989, bands, Dunoon Grammar School, Ewan McIntosh
