Digger’s Blog

Today is the first of June, there are now 31 days until I begin my new job in London; 31 days until I meet new colleagues and hopefully new friends; 31 days for excitement (and nerves) to mount; 31 days to say farewell or au revoir to colleagues here. 31 days is a long time. 31 days is a short time. 31 days will fly by.

So I’ve been woefully bad recently at keeping up this blogging lark. Ah well, a busy life away from my computer is best methinks.

This week will be more busy than most. This week is the five day run up to my sister’s wedding on Saturday. We are all very excited, very very excited!

down the garden path

Originally uploaded by JodyDigger.

Verdant and close, the garden glows with new growth in warm sunshine, trapped between Victorian terraces soaked in by and radiating off brick walls. It may not be filled with the most exotic plants, it may be rough and unfinished around the edges, it may be only just emerging from the clutches of ivy and Russian Vine but it is beautiful in its own way. There is a sunny corner in which to sit and listen to the sounds that drift over walls from back-to-back gardens the length of our street. There are flowers adding rainbow hues to the green backdrop. There are bees and blackbirds and sparrows that add their tune to next door’s children playing. And it is a space for me to feel that I have perhaps had some small part to play in creating a small place of peaceul beauty.

I laughed today over that fact that, imperial vs. metric argument aside, the English seem quite happy to accept ‘Albert Halls’ as a valid scale of measurement.

The only slight downer to this amusing fact is that the current usage of this unit is in relation to the total volume of nuclear waste awaiting disposal in the UK today - sigh.

The air was lifted and heightened with the scent of rain on the streets. New spring buds were fresh green against rain-streaked grey buildings. The air was all of a sudden cooler, clearer, easier in the lungs and on the skin. So soft this spring shower, so barely there it was a pleasure to feel it spatter on my cheeks.
As other people hurried by, lifting umbrellas and bowing heads into collars, scowling at the change in the weather, I lifted my face into the rain and breathed in the perfume of my city being washed in spring rain.

Tom Philips, born 1937, is possibly best known for A Humument, a ‘treated’ version of a Victorian novel ‘A Human Document’. He is currently Oxford University’s Slade professor of Fine Art. This week sees the end of a small exhibition of his work at the Asmolean.

I have one of the (four I think) editions of A Humument, which I dip into periodically to absorb the detail of it.

Three pages from A Humument.
Each page is a mystery, a tiny world in itself, a fascinating thing to study, I have not read it cover to cover to follow the central character’s story, Toge, only appearing on pages where ‘together’ or ‘altogether’ or two words that allowed the letters ‘to’ and ‘ge’ to appear adjacently, I have never really felt the need, prefering instead to glimpse his life on the random pages I look at.

Apart from the continuing story of A Humument, Philips is prolific, writing, composing, painting, drawing designing. His work has a strong element of design - he clearly has a love of type and lettering which appear frequently, imacculately executed.

I particularly liked a shelf of made books, I do not know if they had contents, entitled ‘The Library at Elsinore’. Each spine bore a title that was a phrase or line from Hamlet. Curiously they read like a selection of genre novels… ‘To be or not to be’; ‘Flesh is Heir’; ‘Something after Death’; ‘Outrageous Fortune’.

Another favourite was an entire wall given over to a collection of letters and meeting minutes beautifully doodled - landscapes, figures, geometry, abstracts, linear borders, faces and flags made artwork of these papers that otherwise would sit forgotten on some desk or in some filing cabinet. Lovely.

My advice, go find a copy of the Humument, it’s wonderful.

Happy Easter everyone.

Here is a list of things that were done, leaving a general satisfied warm and fuzzy feeling all over…

Along with Dad and Dave, built up a dry-stone wall, hands on, dusty, satisfying work.

With Dave, rebuilt/laid a path with limestone slabs, to make walking to the greenhouse easier!

Ate a ginormous roast beef dinner - my mum makes the best Sunday roasts and the best crumble ever, drool drool just thinking about it.

Planted out many many baby foxglove plants to put them in the greenhouse and try and coax them into flower in time  to provide their tall purple stems for Tessa’s big day.

Ran around the garden at top speed just for fun.

Enjoyed waking up with the sun and the dawn chorus of birdsong that is so many times louder at my folk’s than anywhere else I’ve been.
Went to a garden centre with dad, along with the rest of humanity, and bought earthy growing things like compost and seeds, fingered new leaves and, with Dave, was scathing about the tacky garden ornaments.

With Dave and Mum, climbed our village Church tower for the first time in my life and looked over my village, the place that is undeniably home in my heart. I have lived in many places, but home will always be there, it makes me happy just to think of it I wish you could all come and visit.

Small garden wonder 2

Originally uploaded by JodyDigger.

Today saw the first lawn mowing of the year. It’s a small pleasure, a little task that shows that things are growing again, that spring is here (albeit somewhat late) and that summer is not far away.

My little push mower was squeeky with winter rust on the blades and the ground was soft and damp. Leaves got raked and bagged from under bushes, the first weeds got pulled up, the earth was turned bringing worms to the surface and with them the robin hopping behind me head to one side, snaffling up the treasure I unearthed.

The garden was full of small wonders, a reddish brown snail with a perfect white spiral

globed bluebells clustered tightly; anemones like golden stars and a perfect green shield bug, armoured against other buggy attackers.

In celebration of bank holidays Shamus and I went on an adventure to London, to meet up with Shamus’s friends K and J and N.

We found a pub, on a boat and a bus that took us round and round and round, never out of site of the London eye. And then another pub and then a bit more bus complete with camp commentator who amused us with small facts while the wind pulled and played with our hair. And then we found another pub for lunch of sandwiches and chips and then, still guided by the London eye, we found our way back to the original pub on the boat where we met up with still more friends - old friends of Shamus and new ones for me.

The sun set over the Thames and cast the huge arched shadow of the eye onto the buildings behind, glowing golden in the April light, made more spectacular by the glow we each carried from the quantities of beer consumed through the day. All in all, a lovely way to spend bank holiday Friday.

In response to both Kumquat and Chillicheese…

What was I doing 10 years ago, April 1996… I was finishing my gap year in the States, studying and getting to know my family, hating the humidity of the east coast, missing the sound of English blackbirds and English long evenings and having my heart broken - he’s still a friend now and I’m so glad I didn’t end up with him hard though it was at the time, he was a cad extraordinaire back then!

What was I doing 5 years ago, April 2001… I was living in London working for the Museum of London Arcaeological Services, digging right in the heart of the city and loving every minute of it. Would take Sundays to walk through the near deserted city centre and along the south bank. I made some very good friends there and found many excellent and cheap places to get a drink on an archaeologist’s wages. Having thought I would hate the big city, I grew to love it immensely.

What was I doing 1 year ago, April 2005… Hmm this week last year was busy - although not the bank holiday… work was busy, The Oxford Literary Festival was on and I went to see Philip Pullman speek among many others. I renewed my passport. I went to see excellent Manchester band I am Kloot at the Zodiac in Cowley and had a great night out. I was still with M. I joined the QI club after being lured by copious free samples of good vodka. I had been a Palimpsester for just over 6 months.
Five bad habits of mine… I am bossy and pernickety wanting things done just so. I have a hopeless inability to spend money responsibly. I like to be the centre of attention. I skive too much at work. I do not call my distant friends enough and miss them accordingly.

Five people I’d like to do this - if anyone reads this who hasn’t already done it, well them!