two, zero, one, two

Yesterday the road block was opened
and the armed police had disappeared,
the heavy security barrier was pushed back
and the canopied space where paratroopers
waited to search vehicles was empty.
Soon all the fences, buildings,speed-bumps
lighting and flagpoles will be dismantled
and the Olympic Village will vanish.
Today, as I arrived at the Department,
a security guard walked in front of me
with four large gold helium balloons
floating above him, backwards and forwards,
the numbers glittering in the bright sunlight.
It was a strange moment that captured
something of our surreal Olympic summer.

Shopping with MissM

MrsM and MissM are shopping
for MissM's new student house.
MrsM has already persuaded MissM
that she needs a turquoise colander
and a Moroccan themed bath mat.
It has been a good evening.

MissM
...and I will need some plates and bowls
MrsM
Right!
Now for the fun bit!
MissM
We must be sensible about this:
they might get broken in a student house
so I am thinking cheap plain white.
MrsM
mmmmm...
MissM
Also, I don't want to get a reputation
as some kind of weird china person.
MrsM
On the other hand...
if you have plain white china
it could mixed up with everyone elses
which would be a shame.
MissM
This is true.
MrsM
And this is a very practical shape
which will be useful for pasta and stirfrys
and is excellent value for money.
MissM
I give in.

images from another world

image : Abigail Alderson

When I first started writing about my work
I was very careful to be anonymous
and not identify place, colleagues or students.
There was a lot of suspicion of blogs
and examples of people losing their jobs.
How times have changed!
Social media are now valued
as ways to promote research
and several of my academic colleagues
have blogs and twitter accounts.

Today I want to share something special:
the blog of a first year undergraduate student

Abigail Alderson

Abi is an example of the opportunities
that are available for enthusiastic students.
She is funded by the Royal Geographical Society
to do field work on an important research project
in areas of rural China unvisited by tourists.
I am sure she would not have dreamed of this
last September when she started her studies.

Student blogs do not get a big audience
because they are not part of a blogging community
but Abi has a natural flair for images
which I know that you will appreciate.
I particularly enjoy her use of Instagram.
Abi is still in China but I asked her
if I could share the link to her blog
and she was happy for me to do so.
Please go and enjoy these glimpses
of a world that few of us will reach.

(if you say hello she will know me as Alice - not MrsM!)

Justin Case

it was shocking to discover that the National Trust lady did not know it was a Wedgwood tea-set; what do they teach them in school these days?

*****

I admire habit very much
and often ponder the responsibility
of condensing domestic life
into such profound sentences.

In the unlikely event
that I am asked to contribute
I have a personal profile
tucked into my back pocket.

*****

MrsM is a dispossessed child of the sea, living inland on a small island off Europe. she is wife to a mobile phone guru and travel insurance consultant and mama to two ex-schooled children who bring her joy and grey hairs in equal measure. MrsM loves peeling potatoes, labelling her spice collection and coordinating her sofa cushions with her Christmas cards. MrsM hates film-sets with anomalous china. MrsM knows that every day brings the opportunity for personal development and achieves this by improving her collection of Benedict Cumberbatch youtube clips.

a little prayer

The Plum
Edouard Manet

Dear Lord,

I know that you are very busy
because you have crowd management
of cherubim and seraphim to attend to,
not to mention important matters such as
drought, pestilence and sundry wickedness,
but if you take short breaks between tasks
and would like something less challenging
to give you a sense of achievement
please could you help me find
that delicious Plum cake recipe
which is somewhere in this house.
I don't mind if you subcontract it out
to Saint Macarius the Younger,
patron saint of pastry chefs,
but I would quite like it this morning.
It's a loaf shape with the plums on top
and crushed sugar for decorations.

Yours,
most respectfully and humbly,

MrsM

"...under the sun..."

Woman at a Window
Duncan Grant

The thing that hath been,
it is that which shall be;
and that which is done
is that which shall be done:
and there is no new thing
under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 1:9
King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)

*****

I stopped writing The Magpie Files in June 2008 because I had said all I wanted to say in that blog. The title had been essential for creating the references for my posts about family-life but my writing had moved on to include a wider range of topics. When I decided to start a new blog I took a little while to give it a title. Many blog names reference the writer but I didn't want that, I wanted the title to be less specific because I was not sure what it would become. In the end I chose "...the sight of morning..." as a gentle play on words because I intended to post regularly at 12:01am so that it would the first thing that people saw in the morning. I chose the ellipsis because I have a weakness for using this punctuation as an indication for 'trailing off into silence' and put one on either side because it looked attractive. So far, so good. After a previous experiment naming a blog I knew that I had to Google the proposed title to make sure that there were no other blogs of the same name. After I was satisfied that it was original and would be easy to find on Google I started writing and for the next three years thought no more of the title that I had created.

Last weekend I had to use Google again and I noticed the phrase "...I owe you the sight of morning." When I checked out the link I discovered that the Pulitzer prize winning author W.S. Merwin has written a poem which concludes with this line. The ellipsis in this case indicates that it is a quotation from the original poem "To the Surgeon Kevin Lin". The poem was first published in 2007 before I started writing this blog but I was not aware of it until this weekend. I was also not aware, to my shame, of the Pulitzer prize winning poet W.S. Merwin. It was a strange feeling to discover that my small piece of creative writing might have been original to me but was not unique even though "...I owe you the sight of morning." had not surfaced in Google in August 2009.

Some of you commented that my shopping list project has been done elsewhere. I am not surprised although I had not been aware of the other versions and was delighted to discover that there is even a lady who knits mittens and copies other peoples shopping lists onto them. I am not planning to knit mittens so the artistic integrity of that project is unchallenged. My post was a fun and oblique way to record my children's adult handwriting because they don't write letters to me and this is the only handwriting that I have apart from some book dedications and birthday cards. I am not sure that anyone has used shopping lists to do that but maybe somewhere, someone has.

It is ironic that the phrase that drew my attention is "...I owe you the sight of morning." because my contention is that I do not. I claim that in August 2009 my blog title was my own invention, a combination of words that I created without knowledge of the poem which had been written two years before. However, it is very difficult to prove this. I asked my friend the Professor what I should do and he advised me to write about it. So I have.

Excuses, Excuses

I can't write a post today
because:

1.
I am tired.
It's exhausting being
a prizewinning baker.

2.
I had to go to the pub
because the Masters students
have just finished their course.
And drink.

3.
Then I had to go out
for a Chinese meal
because MasterW is staying.
And eat.

4.
I'm going out tomorrow
for smart tea with @DrHG
and the Young Academics x 2
I will eat and drink.
I must be ready.

5.
I am missing Jenny
who is at the annual
Society of Cartographers conference.

6.
My hands are sore because
I had an unexpected visit from a
Petit Basset Griffon Vendéen puppy.
I got chewed.

7.
My shoulders are sore from
contorting into strange shapes
to disguise the fact
I spilt coffee on my white shirt.

8.
I'm cold.
In August.
What's that all about?

9.
The
ironing
pile
is
spectacular.

10.
I should be watching the
Paralympics Opening Ceremony.
One of my students is dancing.
I need to tell her
I saw her.
Help.

Domestic Trivia

I have List Attention Deficit Disorder
I lose interest as soon as I start.
This is why I am fascinated
by other people's discarded lists
left at the bottom of shopping trolleys.

This is me...
getting distracted after bulgur wheat...
must do better...

This is what I aspire to.
Such order. Such detail.
(Although I don't approve of
cranberry sauce with chicken.)

Another organised shopper
but there is obviously
a severe Salad Cream shortage
which is more critical
than Otto's nappies.

I'm guessing carrot cake...
does 'aftersun' indicate
it will be packed for a picnic?

Note to self:
DON'T FORGET the coffee...
DO NOT FORGET THE COFFEE

Here's a domestic power struggle
over how to spell 'avocado'

which contrasts with
this free-range spelling...

Do we think this indicates
a history of wild cheese extravagance?

So much to love in this one:
mop! toilet roll! system thing!
ice-cream var. cornetto!
(And how ARE proteins transported?)

This is the purest form of list,
a life stripped to the essentials,
a haiku of domestic need.

I believe that a shopping list
is a window onto the soul of the writer;

Here is organised MissM
shopping for her famous brownies.
Please note choice of imperial/metric.

Here is subversive MasterM
writing out his wish list.
Sideways!

Warning:

collecting shopping lists
is very addictive
and may harm your image.

*****

This post is dedicated to my friend,
The List Writer
as she starts a new career
with endless opportunities for lists.

in plain sight

Royal Doulton
Unidentified pattern

MrM
Have we got a new jug in the kitchen?

MrsM
It's not very new.
We've had it for a couple of months.

MrM
Right.

MissM
I can't believe you haven't noticed.
It's really big,
it's bright blue
and it's always in the way.

MrsM
I think that's a bit harsh.
I put it there so we can all enjoy it.
Doesn't it make you feel good
just to look at it?
Well, I suppose not
if you have only just noticed it.

*****

This one's for you, Granny Dot.

At the Village Show

Prize-winning fruit

I met an old lady in the cake tent
and I told her that I had entered a cake.
She said that she had entered bread rolls
"I throw everything in and hope for the best."
We smiled at each other across generations.

Prize-winning herbs

I met an elderly man in the caged bird tent,
I complimented him on his cage displays
and he told me how he had given up everything
to concentrate on breeding rare birds.
"It saved me from a nervous breakdown
after my wife died two years ago."

Prize-winning vegetables

I met a volunteer in the vegetable tent
and asked her what had happened to the man
who displayed his vegetables with such artistry.
She told me that he lived for his allotment
and the pleasure of preparing for competitions
but his wife hated it and had booked a holiday
for the weekend so that he could not enter.

Prize-winning cake
(my cake is front row, far left)

I realised that although it was fun
to win a prize for my Lemon Drizzle cake
I would rather that MissM had won a prize
for her beautiful Victoria Sponge cake.
Next year MissM!

That would be me.

Remembering the lessons I had learned
I spent my prize money on fudge for MrM.
He was happy so I was happy.