We should crawl under the bracken
Feb. 18th, 2021 03:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ashlymeLockdown birthday (a week ago today) was odd, not quite as horrible as I thought. I didn't see anyone on the actual day. I walked with a friend at the weekend; she gave me home-made sloe gin (gathered in the lanes around here; I dubbed it "Ravenshaw Ruby"), chocolate tiffin (still not finished), and Susanna Clarke's Piranesi. We walked about fifteen miles, ate cake sitting on swings, talked a good deal of nonsense (Are their enemies the Vanilla Donkeys? probably wouldn't have much context for anyone even if they'd been with us). John H. sent me two complete sets of the picture cards Brooke Bond used to give away with boxes of teabags (Famous Britons and The Race Into Space). Best of all, my beloved cybermule sent a parcel with various goodies in. I own a toy theatre!!! but have to do some book-Tetris to set it up. And sort out some mental bandwidth so I can focus enough to read. More and more I feel like buffering. A run of nights where I can't sleep till four or five am isn't helping,
I want to find a story for an anthology of ghost stories based around follies and grottoes, so I'm trying to imagine what kind of structure might work with (and maybe against) the local landscape. There were three manor houses/halls round here at one time. Only one still stands and it's set behind huge gates and a long drive so you can see nothing of the house, only hear the peacocks crying in the grounds. There's the remains of a walled orchard at another site - there are old apple trees still dropping their fruit into the mud, branches wearing moss like evening gloves. None of the three suggest grandiose 1700s follies. I think I'm looking at something low-key and Victorian here. Not sure what shades it will wear yet.
It's been warm enough this week to keep my window open during the daytime. Magpies are gathering material for nests. In the afternoon the house throws its shadow across the field. It looks like a piece from a huge boardgame.
cybermule sent a parcel with various goodies in. I own a toy theatre!!! but have to do some book-Tetris to set it up. And sort out some mental bandwidth so I can focus enough to read. More and more I feel like buffering. A run of nights where I can't sleep till four or five am isn't helping,I want to find a story for an anthology of ghost stories based around follies and grottoes, so I'm trying to imagine what kind of structure might work with (and maybe against) the local landscape. There were three manor houses/halls round here at one time. Only one still stands and it's set behind huge gates and a long drive so you can see nothing of the house, only hear the peacocks crying in the grounds. There's the remains of a walled orchard at another site - there are old apple trees still dropping their fruit into the mud, branches wearing moss like evening gloves. None of the three suggest grandiose 1700s follies. I think I'm looking at something low-key and Victorian here. Not sure what shades it will wear yet.
It's been warm enough this week to keep my window open during the daytime. Magpies are gathering material for nests. In the afternoon the house throws its shadow across the field. It looks like a piece from a huge boardgame.