Best laid plans

Or how I lost the plot

So i’ve been sat in a caravan in Devon for the last few days with a cold and a sore throat for company. The weather has been appalling and it struck me this would be the perfect opportunity to get ahead on these newsletters. I had a little book where I jotted down ideas and I had 6 months worth of ideas in it. Being the organised little monkey I am I managed to leave it at home, so plans mice, men etc.

Fortunately it’s the end of the month and time for 10 things

I love bookshops and one of my great joys is finding a good, independent bookshop. Liznojan in Tiverton is not just a good independent bookshop, it’s a great one and serves quality coffee and cake. The mother and daughter who own the shop, presumably with their small staff, appear to carefully curate the books they hold in stock. So much so that every shelf and display cries out with quality. You may not find the specific book you went in for but you will certainly come out with a book that you wanted all your life, you just didn’t know it until you entered Liznojan. And the cake and the coffee are top notch too.

Bill Nighy as Charles Paris is an absolute treasure. Nighy is probably the living embodiment of the word louche and these stories on Radio 4 are wonderful. Nighy plays Paris, a bit part actor with an oversized belief in his own talents, a charm that is undeniable and a habit of stumbling into murder scenes. If you can cope with the idea of radio plays these are well worth a listen on BBC Sounds.

I realised recently sonething about the way I deal with stress. Some people stress eat, some drink, some become withdrawn. I stress shop. More specifically I stress shop for books. Don’t tell my wife but over the last six weeks i’ve bought in the region of 40 books from charity shops. I have acquired some real corkers too for a great price.

I’m particularly pleased withe the treasury of British Folklore. I’ve nearly bought it new three times so coming across it second hand and in beautiful condition, happy days.

---

One of the best things about being in a caravan in Devon is the relative lack of light pollution. This has meant, on cloud free nights, that I could look up into the deep blue of the night sky and not only see celestial bodies but, withe the help of an app called Startracker i’ve been able to identify what’s visible and what’s going on. A great app.

I’m currently trying to teach myself the basics of embroidery. I was going to try crochet but my essential tremor was making that really.hatd. there’s a thing I came across called stitch doodling where you doodle or draw on material and then embroider over the drawing. I think it’s meant to look quirky but i’ll let you know when I finally try it out properly. At the moment i’m working on this little embroidery kit…

from Tesco that was less than a fiver.

Another app i’ve been enjoying is the language learning app Duolingo. I’ve managed 80 days straight learning French and now can handle the language like a native. (A four year old native who’s a slow learner, but still)…

Packing my wardrobe to move I realised that, apart from socks and pants, I haven’t bought a clothing item new more than 3 times in the last five years. I’ve bought some great clothes that people have given to charity. Clothes that would have ended up in landfills or some such otherwise. It does make me laugh, now that shopping second hand is a “thing” that people are calling it “preloved”. Sounds so silly.

Postcards of The British Empire is a book collection of postcards promoting the far-flung reaches of the Empire as was. They all come from the 1920s abd are done in the style of those railway travel posters that are so popular.

Lionel Feininger is my new artist obsession. He moved from being a major cartoonist of the early 1900s to being a major player in the German Expressionism movement as well as being an incredible photographer and composer.

Pieces like this one where he is moving away from straight pictorial representation towards a more abstract interpretation. Fascinate me. You can see more of his work Here and if you want to see his cartooning you can see it Here courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art.

The major thing, this month thus week, is that our house purchase has gone through and we will be moving to Devon finally. This is massive for me as in 58 years i’ve never lived more than 3 miles from where I was born. I am currently trying not to freak out.

Hopefully things will calm down a little soon and i’ll have a better chance of keeping to schedule.

Have a great week

Pete