Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Summer Shorts

Summer can be difficult. First of all there is the heat – this year there hasn’t been much, but the few days we had last week threw me into a condition where I thought I was on the brink of Serious Relapse. If the heat goes on then I do tend to adapt after a while, but clear and crisp is what suits me best.

Also difficult is that summer is a time when things happen – good things, like the Edinburgh Festival, and children of Signs doing stuff in the fringe; and hot on the heels of this, the poetry week that I have been coordinating and organising. This year I will not be tutoring - just being there, involved, giving a reading of poems, will be enough.

There is a list of practical things that need to be addressed before the weekend. Son is moving all his stuff to the new Oxford residence for the final year. Someone nearly ninety years old is coming to stay a night. She likes things to be clean and tidy. Perhaps I should put everything, including myself, into a black bin bag.

I am remembering some graffiti I once saw chalked onto the wall of an old, disused hut on some deserted northern beach:

ENTROPY RULES OK

13 comments:

Unknown said...

That last is my motto here - has been for years. My twelve year old
niece (whom I haven't seen for several years) arrives on Friday. I am as excited as she sounds and, for once, among many summer visitors, I shalln't worry about tidiness or cleanliness. We'll walk in the woods, take a boat on the river, swap stories...
Wishing you a happy and fruitful weekend at Emerson - wish I could be there. In the meantime, I am taking time off, reading his 'Nature' side by side with Gillian Clarke's latest - 'At the Source'.
Lovely, after an unplanned hiatus, to be back here.

Reading the Signs said...

Thanks, Nicola - I'm just going to try and go with it all. I hope you enjoy the time with your niece.

north said...

good as ever to read you, dear signs, yep, sometimes a big comfy blackbag would be just the thing - but we need you honey. Looking forward to that poetry thing too x

nmj said...

hey signs, you made me smile, but i forbid you to put yourself in a bin bag!

Reading the Signs said...

Eh, dear Ms North, and I'm looking forward to a few sessions together - putting the words out and stuff.

NMJ, I very nearly did this morning - but just held back because of what you said!

Unknown said...

Busy, busy times, Signs - just remember the balance!
;-)
Enjoy the poetry week and have a fabby time!

Reading the Signs said...

No balance possible, Vanilla - only drugs and caffeine. Small mercies though, eh?

Kahless said...

Do the drugs include nicotine?

I hope you have a fantastic poetry week and have a fabulous time.
xx.

Reading the Signs said...

Thanks Kahless. Cigarettes - I wish! - er, Nicorette chewing gum doesn't really count.

Unknown said...

If she's ninety her eyesight probably isn't that good. Failing that put her in a black bag and pop her in the shed until it's time to go home.

Reading the Signs said...

No such luck Minx, her eyesight is brilliant and she's bright as a button. She's arriving tomorrow, having just spent some extremely active weeks in Russia.

(the word ver is phhoar - somehow this seems auspicious. Anna?)

Anna MR said...

Yes, Signs - "phhoar" is indicative of Very Good Things (think sexy hunks and stuff, okay? With footballers' thighs and poets' eyes, cetra). Mine is rathlg, which is just shite, but that figures, too (in the post above it was ushkul, which was so good I nearly broke my blog silence just to tell you that, and didn't, and now I found you addressing me here directly with a word ver, and broke it anyway. Hello. I hope you are having a totally rooting-tootingly Edinburgh-tastic time of it, dear Signs, and am sorry for having fallen into a hole and going mute. However, I promise most faithfully to be onto an email soon - I seem to have some recollection of your return date, and maybe I can get my keyboard into gear by then. In any case - enjoy, and that's an Order, sees. Mwah!).

x

Reading the Signs said...

Well Gawdon Bennet, Sees, I might almost have supposed that your silence on the subject was indicative of ominously dreadful portents. But now I am reassured and rest in full confidence of footballers' thighs (for poets' eyes I have a-plenty, being in the thick of my poetry week).

I am ashamed to say I did not send a postcard from Edinburgh. But if you have ever been there at festival time you will know why it is almost more than a human being can possibly organise to find a decent card and a stamp and a sodding post box what with the surging crowds the relentless (this year) rain and squall not to mention hordes of culture-guzzling loonies and retro-hippies. So I owe you that and you owe me a salmiakki and that makes us a pleasing even stevens, which must be a relief to you because now you no longer need to feel the burden of guilt that must have been weighing on you. Of course I might decide to send you a card from the edge and this would put you right back into salmiakki deficit, but we'll see. Anyway dear, wkfadnu, gorgeous to see you and please come and shimmer etherically on Friday evening when I will be giving a poetry reading. I will be in the long hut surrounded by apple trees. Have one while you're there.