(no subject)
Garrgh!
My glasses vanished ten days ago. Somewhere between reading at the library and arriving home from the library on the bike, they disappeared into the 11th dimension. Since then I've been going ok. I can still read. The prescription lenses that correct my myopia, my astigmatism, and my weird-thing-I-have-that-means-when-I-hold-my-finger-in-front-of-my-face-and-alternately-close-one-eye-and-keep-the-other-open-COMMA-not-only-does-my-finger-move-from-side-to-side-it-also-moves-up-and-down, are being remade. But just tonight I began to feel a tensing at the back of my skull, and a fatigue in the muscles around my eyes that is my body saying: "IF YOU USE A COMPUTER, READ BOOK OR WATCH TELEVISION FOR MUCH LONGER I WILL GIVE YOU A HEADACHE".
Humph.
So I'm just writing this before a late night walk, and then bed.
I saw a Mini Minor the other day that had the number plate "BIGGISH". Somebody else in the world with my sense of irony.
Here is the meme that is going round: MEME.
Yesterday my grandfather's place was sold at auction. In many ways I have more affection for my grandparents old house than my own.
It’s in Canterbury, and was built in 1915. Really it’s nothing grand, and was never meant to be. It’s odd that for the first half of it’s life it was considered modest and ordinary. Now, it’s thought to be old-fashioned and charming. The facade is heritage listed.
But I can never separate the house from childhood memories: all of them good childhood memories. Like Nana striking the gong that called the family to meals, or playing with an ancient iron train set that was kept there. Or eating christmas dinner in the sitting room on our knees because there wasn’t enough room at the tables for Nana & Grandpa’s 6 children, 6 children in law, and 16 grandchildren.
When I was about 10, I often used to stay over on Saturday nights in my father’s old bedroom (where the Tintin books lived). While going to sleep, I’d listen to the ticking of the grandfather clock echoing down the uncarpeted hallway, and I’d snuggle under the blankets because the house was so draughty. Then in the morning, Nana would prepare a three course breakfast (grapefruit, cerial, toast). And the we would wait for my parents to pick us up to take us to Mass on the front verandah. Grandpa would smoke his pipe, and try to teach the 10-year-old me the basics of philosophy.
I’ll miss the house, and my grandparents who are both dead now. But the memories stay.
My glasses vanished ten days ago. Somewhere between reading at the library and arriving home from the library on the bike, they disappeared into the 11th dimension. Since then I've been going ok. I can still read. The prescription lenses that correct my myopia, my astigmatism, and my weird-thing-I-have-that-means-when-I-hold-my-finger-in-front-of-my-face-and-alternately-close-one-eye-and-keep-the-other-open-COMMA-not-only-does-my-finger-move-from-side-to-side-it-also-moves-up-and-down, are being remade. But just tonight I began to feel a tensing at the back of my skull, and a fatigue in the muscles around my eyes that is my body saying: "IF YOU USE A COMPUTER, READ BOOK OR WATCH TELEVISION FOR MUCH LONGER I WILL GIVE YOU A HEADACHE".
Humph.
So I'm just writing this before a late night walk, and then bed.
I saw a Mini Minor the other day that had the number plate "BIGGISH". Somebody else in the world with my sense of irony.
Here is the meme that is going round: MEME.
Yesterday my grandfather's place was sold at auction. In many ways I have more affection for my grandparents old house than my own.
It’s in Canterbury, and was built in 1915. Really it’s nothing grand, and was never meant to be. It’s odd that for the first half of it’s life it was considered modest and ordinary. Now, it’s thought to be old-fashioned and charming. The facade is heritage listed.
But I can never separate the house from childhood memories: all of them good childhood memories. Like Nana striking the gong that called the family to meals, or playing with an ancient iron train set that was kept there. Or eating christmas dinner in the sitting room on our knees because there wasn’t enough room at the tables for Nana & Grandpa’s 6 children, 6 children in law, and 16 grandchildren.
When I was about 10, I often used to stay over on Saturday nights in my father’s old bedroom (where the Tintin books lived). While going to sleep, I’d listen to the ticking of the grandfather clock echoing down the uncarpeted hallway, and I’d snuggle under the blankets because the house was so draughty. Then in the morning, Nana would prepare a three course breakfast (grapefruit, cerial, toast). And the we would wait for my parents to pick us up to take us to Mass on the front verandah. Grandpa would smoke his pipe, and try to teach the 10-year-old me the basics of philosophy.
I’ll miss the house, and my grandparents who are both dead now. But the memories stay.