Loft and Basement

You are looking down from the mezzanine.

The top half of our house, known as The Loft, started out as an architect's studio, white and bare.

We are proud to have renovated and divided it up into rooms using ecological methods and materials, to have furnished it with things found in bins and brocantes, and with the the cheapest and most ecological that IKEA can provide, and to have decorated with ecological paints.

I'm very pleased with this little number, made from two IKEA ladder shelves, and some untreated wood box files stained in sun colours.

The large yellow wardrobe we hauled on our backs from where it had been abandoned by the previous owner in the basement, we re-constructed it, cut it to fit and painted it. It houses our computer among other things.

Every last little corner was organised, beautified,



...the tasteless curtains were made from a 1970s tent liner, abandoned in a scout hut, the cupboard cost 3 Euros in a brocante.

The Loft was transformed into a veritable Temple to the Sun God...

...and just as I arranged the last art and craft tool in the last jar and wedged the cupboard door shut, feeling like Lucy the Prehistoric Woman, my back bent double and my knuckles brushing the floor, it was obvious there would be no more box lifting for me for a while, yes, just as I found myself late for the cooking dinner and getting children to bed shift, bereft of a single shred of strength, my husband J-C said to me...

'Tomorrow the people are coming to tile the basement floor'.

Lightening flashed, horror film chords struck,

'AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH'

whimpered Lucy the Perhistoric Woman.

'THIS IS SIMPLY NOT POSSIBLE...you are maaad, maaad maaad...' (collapses on floor face contorted in a gruesome mask of pain).

What is the problem, I hear you ask. This is the problem, yes, here it is, exposed. You are going down into the basement...

SHOCK

HORROR

PROBE

Yes, while I was waxing lyrical about beautiful boudoirs and palaces to the Sun God, the horrible truth was lurking below. Shock, horror probe! Yes the sordid truth is, that while we were gagging with horror and snorting with superiority over How Clean is Your House, secretly, our Hell Hole Basement could have qualified for an entertaining episode.

How did it come to this, the interviewers would ask, as Aggie ran her pastic gloved finger over the cement dust?

This lot was dumped in the basement two years ago, when we moved in, and while we converted half of our house from an empty office into a house.

It was like this: on the day we moved house, I said to the removal men said I ' Put all boxes on these tables, not more than 2 boxes high as we will have to store them here for some time, while we renovate The Loft, and I want to be able to access my things.

'Yes madam' they said, as they rushed by heaving and dumping...my boxes, 16 boxes high, anywhere they fancied.

Then we found out the concrete floor had never set properly while the foundations were layed, and was effectively, 5 centimetres of carenogenic lung-caking cement dust.

Life happened, we rummaged, we added to it, mixed it up, kneaded it, turned it over, rummaged in it again - until it was done. As you can see.


This was the beginning of the end, the day we began the basement.

And the basic fact is, since then, we have been sorting out the basement...

We are still doing it. One day, our whole house will be organised. I hope this has karmic significance. If not, I may ask the question; what happened to our life?

Jenny wrote

Jenny wrote: just wondering what happened to the blog ... I went to read it today (the last few weeks have been very busy with STUFF) and there didn't seem to be anything new. Life catches up with a blogger?



I replied: yes

Glasses

I've finally succombed and taken up the prescription for glasses. It's an age forty five thing. I've been in denial for some time for the following reasons:

• Fear that wearing glasses will make my eyes lazy& I will become dependant
• Conviction that I can see perfectly well
• Glasses cost a ****** fortune
• Yet another opportunity to lose, misplace or break something
• Anyway, glasses won't help me see in the dark

All of the above reasons are of course good ones.
At the optician's, not a single style suited me, and not a single price.
J-C came into the bedroom as I was reading in bed, wearing them for the first time. He did a visible double take.
'It is like having a different women' he said. At this I frowned over my glasses in a corrective manner.
'If you go and see the childrens' teachers wearing those, you certainly will be taken for a serious woman' he said. In France, being considered 'serious' is the highest compliment. In England, it is taken as a sign that something is wrong.
The next day B saw me wearing them. 'I like your glasses Mummy' he said, 'You look like a Grandma'.
R has not noticed them at all. Could this be because he himself needs glasses?

Almond Tree

I love our almond tree, every time I come into contact with it I am filled with an upsurge of lovely tree-ness. Here it is, in its hour of glory. It took some days for the intense but slight almond-honey scent to develop.

It had been planning to flower some time ago, but kept its buds closed tight against a barrage of hoar frosts, gales and lashing rain.

Then it was really ready to open, it was bursting, it was holding on...I fretted about my beloved almond tree, would it choose the right moment? The weather cleared. Still the tree did not flower, it was waiting, it knew better than me when would be the moment.

I dipped into my biodynamic calender, the next 'flower' day was over a week away. It seemed to me impossible that the tree could avoid bursting forth for another week away. Last year it flowered in mid February, it was already the well into March, and the buds were straining at the leash.

On the eve of the flower day the little buds unleashed the first few flowers, and on the flower day itself, the first glorious sunny day for what seems like months, the tree bloomed. And ever since, it has been blue skies and warm sun. What a wise old tree.

Once upon a time in the 1960s a research chemist called Marcel Vogel was visited by a young woman who claimed an affinity with plants. He invited her to take part in an experiment. He wired up the plants to something similar to a lie detector and she went into a sort of meditative state, here is how she describes her experience:

First I wondered how I would get inside the plant, I made a con scious decision to let my imagination take over and found myself entering the main stem through a doorway in its base...there were no mental pictures, rather a feeling that I was becoming part of, and filling out, a broad expansive surface...there was no sense of time, just a feeling of unity in existence and space. I smiled spontaneously and let myself be one with the plant'.

The lie detector went zany when she 'went in' and died down when she 'came out'. The name of this young woman, I did not make this up, was Debbie Sapp ...

This story comes from a book published by Penguin called 'The Secret Life of Plants' by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird. It's an extraordinary read. It was published some time ago and it doesn't seem to have been discredited (although some sceptics disagree with it and claim to have discounted it). I'm still trying to get to the root of it...

Tricks and Jokes

R&B earned some pocket money in England by painting grandmas shed. R went straightway to the toy shop, tricks and jokes rack. I tried to interest him in some very convincing plastic cats droppings, arguing that with so many cats in our area it would be an easy trick. When the man behind the counter heard me saying this, he became very excited and reached under the counter for what he assured me was the very best false turd ever. It was of such glistening animal realism that I took an involuntary step back. I assured R that he would get me every time with that one. R was unmoved. He trawled the display rack silently. B tried to persuade him to buy the itching powder, the false blood, the ink which stains your friends' treasured possessions and then disappears 10 minutes later, the soap which turns black and the pretend glow tipped cigarrettes. R was unmoved. Finally he found the one thing he wanted and paid £1.25 for a plastic calculator which sprays water in your eye when you press a button.

When we got home to France they decided they had to try it out at school, for not only are French people unaccustomed to tricks and jokes, but calculators are Banned with a capital B. Fun assured.

B took the morning shift. He got everyone in his class and also 4 teachers. The music teacher liked it so much he tried it out on two others. Then B passed it to R through a hole in the Fence. After R had organised the self-spraying of every child in the playground, he and his friend E hatched a cunning plot. E went and told on R that he had a calculator - disgruntled chalkie comes over on a mission to relieve R of banned object, 'But it is not real, press the button and see' says R, whereby chalkie gets it in the eye and all roll about laughing.

I wondered if I would be able to show my face again, but to the credit of all concerned, nobody took it badly, and if I want to open a tricks and jokes shop my future is assured, according to R&B's friends.

Appeal for Intellectual Compassion

Mark Booth describes what befell Orpheus after his return from the Underworld, how the 'charm of his music' did not stop 'a band of maenads...throwing themselves upon him and tearing him limb from bloody limb'.

This reminds me of the fate of his book 'The Secret History of the World', at the hands of the book reviewers and critics, The Telegraph and The Guardian included.

Damian Thompson of the Telegraph introduces his ' review of a piece of trash called The Secret History of the World by Jonathan Black' (aka Mark Booth). He continues, 'The Secret History of the World is, by a comfortable margin, the worst book I have ever reviewed. It's not just badly written, sloppily edited and full of egregious errors of fact, though it is all of these. The book is morally deplorable. '

As far as I can work out, Damian finds morally deplorable the casting of a slur on figures such as Pope John-Paul 2 without evidence, and the presenting of the book as 'history' when it is not.

Damian goes on: 'The Secret History of the World does leave the reader feeling trapped in the corner of a room by a nutter, so perhaps "Jonathan Black" believes his own bullshit.' (Not that Damian is one for casting slurs). Damian is beside himself when he tries to interpret the involvement of 'Anthony Cheetham, the Eton- and Balliol-educated former CEO of Orion Books...a proper historian in his own right.. and the founder of Quercus...' (the publisher of the book).

There follows a long list of derisive comments from Damian's fans, for example,

'He (Mark) invites comments, so I've asked the obvious: "Do you believe all the shit you write and commission?"

or

'Damian, how did you manage to get such an austere publication as the Church Times so rabid as to describe you as a 'blood-crazed ferret'? Quite an achievement to add to the list of accomplishments on your C.V.!'

'Let's just say that I know former colleagues of Booth and Cheetham who are dismayed that they could sink so low. '

'just had a look at this nutjob's website. Damian, he says below your comment he wants to meet you for a drink! Be very scared. '

Hilary Mantel from the Guardian, does not agree with Damian that the book is 'ill written', but damns it because of 'phrases of perfect clarity which say nothing very much'. She waxes cynical when she writes, 'The material is delivered with a moral earnestness that makes it harsh to suggest the book is a cynical potboiler. But a sense of déjà vu may sweep over you as you turn pages that feature Atlantis and the Temple of Solomon, Merlin and Leonardo, Mary Magdalene and Isaac Newton, chakras and tulpas, astral bodies and altered states.' What is she 'dismissing' exactly? She ends with the wonderful prhase, given Jonathan's surname: Hilary Mantel's most recent novel is Beyond Black (Harper Perennial).

I am not surprised about all this extreme dismissal, and in some ways it is understandable, as Mark Booth has presented arms as an Oxford academic and respected publisher, and then produced an esoteric book which cannot stand up to the academic joust. He has betrayed his people. They lanced him (and his publisher) through and through. If he had not been one of their people, they would have left him alone on the esoteric bookshelf.

I wish these bright, articulate, clear-thinking and witty critics could approach a new possibility in a state of what Edward de Bono calls 'Po': neither yes nor no. It is not necessary to be, immediately, for or against. It is not necessary to decide 'I believe or I do not', or to see in black or white. Rather, Po gives us a chance to explore, to play, reflect, come back to, continue to wonder about, to test against own experience, to revise, and so on. The great critics make it clear they will not waste time reflecting upon what they know to be rubbish. They must, by nature, make snap decisions. They know the measure of Truth. However, if we look at academics past, we will realise that the traditional popular gangs who were so sure they were right, are now the ones we have a hearty laugh over - how could they have thought the world was flat, we chortle. Tomorrow, who will we laugh at? Do we have to laugh, can we just put it down to progress? Why all the scorn?

I use this book as a map. It is a Brief Secret History, there isn't the space-time to go into details if the ground is to be covered. It is a running history, a story, running through the process, an unravelling and tying up again of all the myths and symbols and works of art that have teased thoughtful humankind over the centuries. It is a mistake to confuse the map with the place. It is a mistake to ditch the map because you can dispute some of the names and directions. Maps can be useful if you want to explore new terrain, even first-attempt maps which need to be modified once the exploration begins. This book is an overview, an orientating reference for those interested in the subject, it is an invitation for further research and reflection, and perhaps, if it strikes us that way, for wonder. Mark Booth does not pretend it is 'true', (or false). All he wants to do is tell the whole story, assemble the lot of it, as it has been told to him and revealed in his readings. I expect many of the things he says in the 406- page volume are open to interpretation, or perhaps wrong. That doesn't matter in the state of Po - although it may be important in the final analysis. Po allows you to check the bathwater for a baby, before you throw it out.

What strikes me is the horrible frenzy of hateful scorn and derision. No-one seems prepared to discuss the subject matter, the pros and cons, it's all Dismissive Con. It's nasty. Is that the only way we can do academia?

And here I heave a heavy sigh, because I know that the way to approach the sacred places is in a state of reverence, and that the holy is revealed when the seeker is in readiness to receive it. As for these literary critics, reverence and readiness have they none. There is a world of difference between joy and bitter laughter...

Cooking Doomed

Before we went away to England I had become utterly bored with my own cooking and had run out of ideas.

Back from England after 10 days off from cooking I was charged up with zeal and new nourishing recipes. I made date and apricot flapjacks with golden maize flour, sesame and powdered almonds, cauliflower and carrot terrine, and pasta with red onions and peas. Only J-C would taste the terrine and No Comment was passed. I burned the pasta by being convinced I had turned off the cooker while I dashed up 2 flights of stairs to begin hanging up Washing Backlog the Sequel. Upon eating the flapjacks, family members responded as follows:

R 'MMMMMM I love them Mummy - but they are a bit filling...'
B 'They are too sweet'
J-C 'Aren't they a bit dry?'

Me: DRY? They are the epitome of succulence!

J-C 'Actually, I don't like flapjacks'

Me: Well how was I supposed to know that? I made them specially. You've always said you liked them!'

J-C 'not really...'

Me: 'By my calculation that means you have been Pretending to Like Flapjacks for 15 years! It doesn't matter what I cook, somebody always doesn't like and mostly everyone doesn't. The only things you like are out of packets. I don't know why I bother!'.

The crisis might have been averted if R, after a series of exaggerated flops and sighs, hadn't asked:

'Do I have to eat these wormy things?' (red onions).

At this point I Resigned from cooking in a Huff.

'Don't worry, I'll cook' said B, bright eyed 'Is there a pizza in the freezer?'

'No. You're doomed to the only meal your father can cook...Potato Omelette' (groans all round, including J-C who is bored with is own omelette, even though he has only cooked it 4 times in 15 years).

'Come to think of it' I added after a short reflection, 'We've also run out of eggs, so you are not doomed to eat potato omelette, you are just DOOMED'.

Exit stage left.