It ain't over until the fat lady sings!

This blog is far from over, and yet I am still getting to grips with being back to my humble, ever so humble origins, here on Blogger.

She's off again, I hear you say!

Someone stole my bloglet.

They did!   I was sent information to re-new my blog domain.   Blog?   I didn't even have my own lap-top.   You probably noticed.    That was in the whole 'soaking a lap-top in gin can never be a good thing', Christmas spectastacle.   Truly.   I could not afford to renew my licence, but I had no idea what was to happen.next...

And, do you know, my beloved meaningful blogname was sold to a mad flibbertigibbet.   What do you mean, you never noticed?!   She is a bism.   Of the first degree.   I tell yer.

Abandon her in droves but lover, come back to me?

Anyhoo, what have I been up to, you ask?

Nay.   More to the point, what have you been up to, mes bloggy chums?

I have missed your damp noses and warm whiskers.   There, I'm chuckling you behind the ears, in that soft-warm spot you have there.   There, there...

I have a special chuckle under the chin for the dahlink, darling John - Scriptor Senex, for it is he, who has restored me to some semblance of normality.   Scriptor, whose bold advice brought me back the techie bits of the blog I feared I had lost.   And I am sorely grateful to his magnificence, I really am.  

Merci mille, mon ami - And for those of you who don't know John, here he is with his very own barrel of laughs!

Lots of my memories are here, you see.   Strings of silken threads bound up with boiled eggs, toast, love, tea, whiskers and honey.   A smidgen of the scent of the love I have for my son, Grizz, who's now 21 and taller than a bean-stalk, but beautiful and half-wild is writ here.

En effet, I have more heart and memories locked in this bunch of feral words written across the years than I've ever committed anywhere.  Perhaps I will be committed.   I thought I might be when I lost my blog into the sparky ether.

Meanwhile, I've been ueber-busy with my psychotherapy course.   Much work is now in hand to 'graduate' this summer - I may even post a picture, if I pass...   Eek!   If they've got a graduation gown that fits my ampule form, that is!

I've been busy with the new job(s).   I have 3.   Do you think that's enough?   I think so.   It's been doing me heid in, I swear...   I think I need to ditch one.   I am Arthur Mullarding on that just now.

And, honestly, I've been busy with life which, on occasions, has threatened to strangle all life out of me.   Aren't we all, I hear you whisper...

And we all are.

Take time out to smell the coffee, the flowers, the fine feathers on a bird's under-wing.

Take time out for you.   Je vous embrasse.   Don't be shy!

Tell me your news.   I've missed you so much.    Mwah!

The Versatile Blogger Award...

My dear bloggy friend, Scriptor Senex, was very kind enough to offer me his Versatile Blogger Award - Blushing, moi?!

It came on a day when I was feeling a little whimpery, thinking I was a boring old sod, so it meant a lot to me - it did!   Thank you, Sir!

As a sideline, I have to gift you the following - Seven Factlets About Moi...


1.   I hate housework, so I do very little of it - Can you see my shameful face, children...?

2.   I have had only one therapy session in which I haven't cried since I was referred to a personal therapist last year!   Why?!   I'm one of those people, yes those, who wanted to be a therapist to support others, but didn't for the life of me imagine that I needed therapy - Go figure!

3.   I think everyone in the world would benefit from some therapy in their life - Hell, if I didn't think I needed it, and I'm seeing the benefits, who knows what it could do for you?!   My business card is in the post - I'm very reasonable!

4.   In spite of my hunger for culture and the arts, I love nothing more than lying in in bed of an occasional weekday morning, watching The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes on TV, or Judge Judy, or even little bits of The Real Housewives of Name Your State.   I am THAT shameful!

5.   For two years, like the delightfully versatile Scriptor Senex, I've been studying my Family Tree, from time to time - I've discovered a long-distant grandfather who was buried on Holy Island in the 1700's, after serving the island for many years, when he fled from Scotland and having all his furniture burnt in front of the Manse, for saying he wouldn't pray for William and Mary - I long to see his will which is in Durham's archives...

In addition, I found a distant-distant aunt who was a maid to a well-known Justice of the Peace - they both lived in Wordsworth's birthplace in Cockermouth - I am astounded!   I can't find records of her marriage or death, so the trail went cold, sadly, but still fascinating...

I also discovered that lots and lots of my relatives lived within five miles of where I've come to be living now - I pass some of the farms on which they worked every day, and one of the water-driven woollen mills that they worked in during the mid-1800's is now a holiday complex - HERE - Bizarre, hein...

6.   Haven't I told you everything already?!   Sixth factlet...   I think I'm running out!   I gave up chocolate in January - For six months.   The story that I'm managing this addiction well is nothing to do with the fact that I've substituted cake in its place...   Can you see how red Fhina's cheeks are, children?   No?!   Then, you're obviously not looking close enough, lol!

Seriously, I don't know how I'm going to manage Easter without a chocolate egg!

7.    Oh no, not more...   I really struggle with people who are control freaks in their lives - I can feel the blood boiling under my skin when, for example, someone wants to micro-manage me to within an inch of my life.   I am a grown-up, people, I don't need hand-rearing!

There you have it.

I think I have to pick 7 bloggers to carry the baton, so here goes - Remember, you don't have to if you don't want to... :

1.   Sara @ Fab, feisty and fifty - My best bloggy amie - She's terrific!   Her newest baby is HERE - She's a Bag Diva Extraordinaire!

2.   SueAnn, @ SueAnn's Journey - who's a fabulously versatile artist and blogger - Her art is immense!

3.   Desiree, the glamourously splendiferous model, who blogs at Pull Your Socks Up.   Elle est incroyable!

4.   The lovely Elisabeth @ Sixth In Line who writes like she was born to it, and never ceases to amaze... 

5.   Bad Penny @ The Hen House who's incredibly versatile and wonderful - She has such a full and fabulous life, I get quite dizzy when I read her blog!

6.   A new reader, follower and writer Love and Enterprise - Sharing some of the things that make us human - Thank you!   I don't know where some of my followers have gone to these days - You win some, you lose some - All are welcome here!

7.   And finally, last but never least:   Mrs Jones Home Thoughts from Home - Between knitting, crochet, gardening, art, making jewellery and playing the saxophone in a super band, Mrs Jones continues to make me open my eyes wide with glee!

So, there you have it - Have fun, bon courage, mes bloggy chums!

Mwah!

New light through old windows...

I recall recently bemoaning the fact that I felt as if I didn't have enough fun.

I've mourned for my Free Child, the child within me as adult, whom I believe - I know - I over-feed to keep happy.

My Free Child likes to go to concerts, theatre and the cinema. She likes to stay up late, watching old movies or stuff on TV that only she likes, while her other, older half lies snoring in bed... She likes to sleep in late till Midday, being softly awoken with orange juice, toast and a boiled egg, or preferably two.

Last weekend, for our intensive training course, we were asked to bring in photos of ourselves from when we were younger... As I type this, I'm still not sure what this exercise will evoke.

As I searched, photo after photo of me and my life to date came out from under the bed.

Pre-Grizz, post-Grizz, weddings, birthdays, holidays...

In the oldest photo I can find amid my stash, at seventeen, I stand happy, reaching down to the family dog in my parent's back garden.

The sun is out, the dog, a scruffy Yorkshire Terrier, Shandy, is as sweet and loveable as he ever was, and I'm in a blindingly white cheesecloth hippy tunic, wearing a long cotton cross-over Indian Paisley print skirt in china blue and white.

I can still sense the softness of that cotton on my skin now. I know on my feet that I'm wearing flat, white toe-post sandals with gold script, that I lived in during my teen years...

When I wasn't going barefoot!

The thing is, in all of the pictures I have chosen, from seventeen on, I am happy enough. ...The smile is real, shows all my teeth, and crinkles show at the corners of my eyes.

There's me at Henley with Sarah in our early twenties after Uni, both with wide-brimmed hats, very Eighties', holding on for fear of losing them to the wind, while whishing past the sculls, seated with her father on his referee's boat; There's me clutching Grizz in a sailor suit on my knee at home in my late twenties, just after his Church christening; I still have that suit.

There we are, Grizz and I, perched by the harbour upon a metal bollard just after going to see the vast boats; I'm seated rather precariously, holding on to him because he wants to run away from me, full of excitement and boundless energy - He was so full of beans when he was little, I could hardly keep up with him most of the time...

Shortly after that photo was taken, I lost my mother.

I still don't really know where she went, but bits of her live on in me.

She puts words in my mouth some days. They come out, and I hear her voice, what she would say, the expressions she used, and I remember these are not my words...

And I wonder if it is then, at that time, that my soi-disant Free Child got stuck, then was pushed down still further and forgotten in the torment of watching my dad slowly ebb away, after years of cancer made him thin and brittle-boned...

I'm sorry this hasn't been a very uplifting post.

For me, it's probably been quite revealing though.

Can I invite you to look through your photos, mes bloggy loves, to think things through, and to consider bringing more fun into your lives, if you so desire?

And Paulo Coelho tells me this:

Avoiding problems you need to face is avoiding the life you need to live...

Evitar los problemas que debes enfrentar es evitar la vida que tienes que vivir.

Mwah!

L'avenir...

'The time comes near for me to embrace my fears...

To wander out into the world, shackles loosed'.

You might remember that I have been rattling on, ooh for almost a year now, about the Posh Boys and their plans to do me out of my livelihood by closing the network of national offices that I have served for ten years this year... I am looking back on a career overall that spans twenty-five years this September. My job will end before that milestone, however, in March.

Such thoughts of loss to come, filled my mind initially with real fear. What would become of us? What should I do? Would I lose my home? Who would have me? What should I do?

The months rambled on, as the Government's plans to do us out of our rightful redundancy packages sauntered gaily through Parliament. From one day to the next, we veered from paranoia to elation, gallows' laughter to outrage. We fought, we wept, we wrote letters to Lords and Masters, we tried to continue to give of our best - This was all that we had ever done...

Finally, last week, we were informed of our future and the plans to enable us to flee the nest, now soiled and sullied, fragile and no longer home...

Some of my colleagues have found other jobs in other departments, continuing to make ends meet as it were - Travelling far and wide, they are, but they are also choosing to go on in much the same world as before. For a time, I think, before the axe swings their way again too.

Others have chosen to retire earlier than the alotted age. Electing to take their pensions earlier than they might have done, they are throwing their fates into the winds waiting to see where the fragile bones will fall that foretell of the future. For them, this is time to spend with grand-children, somewhat earlier than expected - Brave hours to devote to themselves and their chosen pastimes - More reading, writing, travel - Even choosing a dog...

Many, like me, are opening other doors, leading perhaps to parallel universes.

We are exploring our dreams - We are the musician, the artist, the maker of cakes; The talented designer, the fitness trainer, the handful of minds with a novel or two wrapt within their mists; The marketing guru, the PR specialist, the consultant on climate change; The painter, the craftswoman, the florist, the new doctor's receptionist... I hope to be the therapist.

We few among many. We are creating our own futures. Or rather trying to.

I think we may be the brave ones. On the other hand, we may not.

Who can say what the future will bring?

Sometimes, all we have is hope.

I hope you have a beautiful day.

What's in your future, mes bloggy soothsayers?

Celtic Wonder...

The Internet is a wonderful place, of reminiscence and shared memories, of laughter and song, love and light, friendship and a warm embrace...

It can be a shelter for solace, a trove of meaningful treasure and a source of glorious wit.

And the other day, unbeknownst, something wonderful crept up on me.

It whispered to my heart.

In the comments section of another writer's blog, on a day when that fair lady had written a poem as blessing to a friend who was mourning the loss of her daughter, the commenter had left this poem by the late poet, priest and philosopher, John O'Donohue.

These are words that spoke directly to my sense of self, and the grief I hold inside of me.

There it is, lying in wait like a seismic fault...

I offer it up to you now, so that we may consider the space inbetween our world and the next, and the power of time and healing...

I hope you don't mind.

TO BLESS THE SPACE BETWEEN US -- John O'Donohue

When you lose someone you love,

Your life becomes strange,

The ground beneath you becomes fragile,

Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;

And some dead echo drags your voice down

Where words have no confidence

Your heart has grown heavy with loss;

And though this loss has wounded others too,

No one knows what has been taken from you

When the silence of absence deepens.

Flickers of guilt kindle regret

For all that was left unsaid or undone.

There are days when you wake up happy;

Again inside the fullness of life,

Until the moment breaks

And you are thrown back

Onto the black tide of loss.

Days when you have your heart back,

You are able to function well

Until in the middle of work or encounter,

Suddenly with no warning,

You are ambushed by grief.

It becomes hard to trust yourself.

All you can depend on now is that

Sorrow will remain faithful to itself.

More than you, it knows its way

And will find the right time

To pull and pull the rope of grief

Until that coiled hill of tears

Has reduced to its last drop.

Gradually, you will learn acquaintance

With the invisible form of your departed;

And when the work of grief is done,

The wound of loss will heal

And you will have learned

To wean your eyes

From that gap in the air

And be able to enter the hearth

In your soul where your loved one

Has awaited your return

All the time.

Don't give yourself airs, Scarlett!

My husband has just walked through the living room, glanced at me sitting on the sofa and said I looked as if I had spent the night in the hedgerow...

Remind me, was there ever a time when I loved this man??!

Pitmen Painters... (1934 - 1984)

I know you might have heard of the Pitmen Painters.

At least, you might have heard of Lee Hall's play which has won hearts on Tyneside, in London, and soon to be seen on Broadway so I hear...

You might not have had the chance to read William Feaver's book on the men who came from my community, the 'Ashington group' that inspired the play.

Ashington, once claimed as, "the biggest mining village in the world".

The pitmen, weary after hours of back-breaking toil down filthy and often dangerous mines, resorted to pastimes and hobbies, to ease their minds, to save them from going mad... Or turning to drink. (For Ashington was a bit of a temperance town in those days... Nowadays, there are very few public houses (pubs) in Ashington, for reasons of law, the landed gentry (the Duke of Portland) and temperance... What sprang up instead were oodles of Working Men's Clubs. More of that another day, me bloggy birds).

They grew leeks down their allotments (tick for Fhina!), they kept and raced pigeons (no tick. Yet...), they would spin yarns (tick) and some of them turned to art appreciation (tick!).

The Ashington Group (CLICKIE) would meet at first in the local YMCA and later in their own hut, which I used to drive past until it was torn down in the Eighties, and which my grandfather, himself a talented artist, also attended... They would critique one another's and other artists' work (courtesy of books loaned out by the Public Library) under the wing of a lecturer from the local Technical College, where my uncles also studied to better themselves when not down the mine...

Practically self-taught, what developed was a unique and telling record of isolated and singular lives predominantly spent underground. Naive and beautiful images all. Poignant and heart-felt.

Racing wan whippets, growing green and flowering plants in their meagre allocations of garden, grafting hard at the coal-face hewing black gold from the bitter seams, tending to sturdy pit-ponies and ramshackle pigeon crees, strenuously pulling bogies (carts) and chains down the pit.

Oliver Kilbourn became perhaps the most famous artist. Tom McGuiness and George Blessed (uncle of the famous 'act-or', the loud Brian Blessed), George McLean, George and Leslie Brownrigg, Arthur Whinnom and Andrew Rankin, among other men, stand out...

This was a predominantly male-dominated world, patriarchal, hierarchical, but with strong women waiting back at home, tending the fires, making bread and plain drop-scones on the high-maintenance blackened range, washing soot-filthy linens in the poss-tub in the backyard, counting the black pennies out of the wage-packet, filling the tin bath up with 'scadding wattor' before the blazing fire for the men 'comin' hyem', and most important of all, raising the bairns...

A unique period in history, of which I am proud to be a very small part.

God's gonna cut you down...

As well as my music, I wanted to share this with you, that I left as a comment over at Belgian Waffle's recently...

We were asked to bare all about the things that were hacking us off at the moment, so I thought it might give you an insight into some of what is going on in my head.

It's a little more full at the mo'...

1. Worry that, after years of criticizing other people for being control-obsessives, that I Googled it and found I was pretty OCD myself (mainly the obsession part, so not even the pleasant part of 'compulsion' meaning that at least my house would be clean - Glauque doesn't quite describe it!) ('Glauque' is apparently French for sordid!)

2. Worry about my son failing his exams and it's all my, faux middle-class, relaxed parenting, fault.

3. The Posh Boys (commonly known as Cameron and Clegg)

4. That The Posh Boys are about to shut down my office because I'm a 'fat-cat'.

5. Not being a fat-cat.

6. Not having a 'gold-plated' pension.

7. Fear of not getting my due amount of redundancy money if they are intent on getting rid of us, which at least would keep Dr Capybara/the wolf from the door.

8. Not ever being able to afford the £1m that would enable me to buy the farm-house, outbuildings and land of my dreams today to develop a wonderful holiday business.

Poor me, non??! Cheques can be made payable to Her Whingeship, c/o The Poorhouse, Pity Street, In Despair, The Doldrums.

Snicker...

Have you seen this?

From a couple of years ago...

The Man In Black, captured in eyes and glances, music and chances, with some of my favourite, famous people...

Whatever you believe, there is always this...

If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

You can run on for a long time, but sooner or later...

Life will bite you in the arse, when you least expect it...

Medication...

The Guardian of Keys - Limited Edition Print by the wonderfully talented Anne-Julie Aubrey.

Within the space of one year and one half, all the paperwork was finally sorted. Put to bed. Or to rest, so to speak...

It had all felt like the Victorian case of Dombey and Son, if you've ever read Dickens... Mired in legalese and legislation, the process of probate can take some time in this country of ours. Even now, in these modern times... And I continued in a fog of half-suppressed grief and a zombie-limbo time, that you just have to go through to understand how it feels... Like being in a half-filled goldfish bowl, looking out and on at the world happening around you.

By this point, even the bastard bank had complied with the writs of my sassy solicitor, (whom, by now, GJ fancied rotten -- He calls her Sharon Stone, as she's called Sharon), and everyone had been paid, and in some cases, paid off...

His partner received a small payment and the right to remain in the home as long as she wished... I asked to come to the house to pick up some things that were mine, that had belonged to my mother, but I was never allowed entry by her to the house. Not without her being there to begin to harass me once more... She pulled up the draw-bridge, excluding me...

An agreement was drawn up by our solicitor for her to remain, provided she didn't sub-let, or take another partner to live in the house, with me footing the tab for repairs and whatever else might be needed...

After all this time, all the water passing under the draw-bridge, and all the bitter-ball calls, our relationship was no longer cordial or easy.

I don't think that, honestly, she'd ever been that easy a woman to deal with. As a mother, as a wife, as a local politician, as a business-woman, she could be a trial... A chore.

Hell, even my terribly quiet dad, while he was still drawing breath, sometimes had to tell her to 'Shush, woman!' just so he could hear himself think or speak above her raving rants...

...And I endured friends and family wondering why and how I could put up with this position that my dad had left me in. And I answered, "Those were his last wishes... What can I do?"

Even my beloved uncle on what was to be his death-bed changed part of his own last will and testament, written for his solicitor in my hand, to accommodate his learned belief '...that blood will out'. He hadn't been very happy about the position I had been left in, and wanted to avoid that for his own son, my beloved Coz.

And on Tuesday, a couple of weeks ago, the call came. "She's kippered it", said GJ to me.

She'd actually passed on in November 2009... Her daughter's flat voice had whispered, 'Sorry, hadn't you been informed? We thought the solicitor would have told you, but he said it was nothing to do with him...'

In fact, we'd only received the news because she'd had the courtesy to look for our number, finding an old telephone charger and plugging in an ancient 'phone of her mother's.

To finally let us know...

And soon I'll be the Guardian of the Keys.

Me Me Me...

ImAgE: The Sirens Song

ArTiST aS beFoRE: copyright TheNebulousKingdom's wonderful mermaid, Anne-Julie Aubry

So the past rose up to meet me and something I've been longing for, and dreading, for a few years now has crept up to engulf the toes that I've been dandling in the babbling and burbling stream of life since my father's death...

After my Mutti died. Almost two years had passed. His work colleagues, friends really, arranged a blind date for him with a lady who ran a private drinking club in his town...

He fell for her. And she him. Well, who wouldn't?

After a time they moved in together. She kept her old flat which had been her mother's. She sold her club, which had been making big losses for a long time. Her adult children, who were older than me, were very funny about things. They've never been MY family... I've never felt like one of them...

They thought he was after her money. My father was a far more wonderful man than that, to stoop so low... In fact I know he was putting his money in to her club. I know that he continued to support her heavily, as any loving partner would...

They took holidays together. She re-modelled the house. He bought her a car. He never took his driver's test, so all his life he had the pleasure of women driving him about! In time the family softened. My friends wondered how I could be so understanding about all of this, after my Mutti's traumatic and early death.

And I chanted my mantra, "This is his life. If he's happy, I'm happy." This concerned his happiness, his sometimes fickle fate. I couldn't be awful to him. I wouldn't...

She continued to niggle away, particularly at me... She'd been bombed in Plymouth as a child in in war-time. Somehow I was responsible, as I'd studied German (and French, and English Literature for Goddess Wiki's sake!), at University.

She even had the nerve to gift me a postcard of the bombed city. I've seen the same postcards of Dresden. She continued to rant. Our politics were wholly opposed. She'd stood as a councillor for that party. And lost her deposit. She'd been a well-off business-woman and I don't think she ever really recovered from stepping down from that, from losing what she felt she'd once had.

She continued to complain. ...My son (my father's only grand-child...) was 'setting himself above her large clutch of grand-children by having the nerve to call his beloved grand-father the special name, the different name, that he'd always called his grandfathers' from the moment he began to speak...

I continued to endure her god-awful behaviour for seven years. I bit my tongue. I still have those scars... She began to avoid me in time, and I got to spend some quality time with my dad once again. Rarely.

I loved my father until earth's end, as far as the heavens and back.

I tolerated his "wife". More of that laters, mes bloggy amis... Merci for listening to me splurging this out in this safe space. I am in need of this outlet at present. Merci mille.

Meanderings...

I need someplace to rant and just be.

This blog is that place and tranquil space.

Something I have never shared is my dark family secret. I rarely speak about my love for my late parents. I loved them. They loved me, unconditionally. I have a lot of shit still to work through about losing them... I'm an only child, an adult orphan. Maybe losing both our parents gets us like that?

My Mutti died around 13 years ago. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. She wasn't even 60. My dad left this earth 4 years ago, I think. I was a bit of a wreck when he died. I think it was four years ago this month. Four or three. Three, I think. ...It wasn't wholly unexpected. He had a vicious prostate cancer which had moved into his bones. But he was pretty fit and healthy in his early seventies, fitting a new kitchen in his home, until the week before he went into hospital, when he visibly greyed and aged before my eyes.

I was shocked, and then there was a horrific decline and zombie-like limbo time spent visiting the hospital, sitting in its harsh white lights, holding his cold, cold hand, listening to his watery oxygen streaming, and trying to make some sense of his morphine-induced gibberish.

Waiting for those bright, rare, moments of lucidity, when he was my magnificent, all-seeing, all-conquering dad again.

I have still to scatter his ashes where we scattered those of Mutti, whom he called Biddy. Biddy was never her name. She was Joan Crawford. She was as mean, moody and magnificent. Her ceremony took place on the island of Lindisfarne. It still waits for him.

...And this week, while I was feeling ill with a head-cold and allergic rhinitis, probably after doing too much for several weeks, the past reared up to meet me once again. The telephone rang, and the past bit me when I least expected it.

FEATURED ART: The Wishing Tree

ARTIST: Anne-Julie Aubrey

May you find peace, Lee McQueen...

Cate is a weekend treasure!

La Vie En Rose...

Trapped indoors this last week (and more!) with nowhere to go, we fell upon our Sky+ digital recordings of times long past... (Note to self: We are now back chez nous, having spent one night in the Georgian Gulag with nerves straining for fear of pushing over a prayer lily on a white china pedestal in the narrower than narrow china bathroom; We narrowly averted a cream tablecloth/white wine/cream carpet fiasco, as the wonderful Collie Dog, Gable, (my one and only true love!), lashed his Basil Brush tail precariously near my fragile crystal glass of Sancerre while I was over-exciting him by loving him too much!

We slept like logs, however... Logs which swear and scratch at being found in unfamiliar sheets; Logs which faint at the sight of a portapotty, craftily positioned in the fledgeling en-suite... Logs that wrangle squishy sofas, soft eiderdowns, wonderfully thick fluffy towels and dodgily slippy bath-mats, and leave the lovely, lovely house looking as if a mad-crazy tornado has been flung through it...

We are far safer, (and hospitable, rather than hospitalized!), chez nous following a sharpish thaw... So, back to normal enfin (...that's normal for Fhina, mind!).

And we found this treasure of a movie, La Vie En Rose, with the magical Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf, the little sparrow, who was dragged from the filthy gutters of Montmartre, Paris and elevated to Hollywood Heights... (Photograph by Emil Cadoo)


And you've heard me twitter about 'Je ne regrette rien...', but seeing la Belle Dame Sans Merci in all her finery and witnessing all of her tragic, tragic life for the first time for me... and understanding that all that counts is love, and all that hurts is love, and love is all that finally matters...

Well, it was an education. And seeing the little chanteuse, in her LBD noir serieuse in this original footage - Watch it twice, once for the words, once for her hand movements and the rhythm of the song and the slow dance... La Farandole... Glorious.

Entrancing...

Bright Star - Keats' Letter to Fanny Brawne February 1820

I just discovered - Yeah, I'm something of a Culture Vulture, but occasionally I lag a little behind the times! - that Jane Campion (director of my belovedly cinematographic, The Piano) has set her sights on one of the greatest and most poignant love stories (to my mind) of all time...

That of John Keats and his one-time neighbour, Fanny Brawne. The film is called Bright Star, and I really long to go and see it.



Much has been writ about their love affair. It was controversial, with some of Keats' friends blaming Fanny for the illness (attributed at times to heartache) that carried him off... Fanny's family probably felt that Keats should be in a better financial position to marry their eldest daughter, so he worked feverishly on his writing and poetry, when his growing tuberculosis permitted, to enable himself to become a published (and paid!) author.

Given the social mores of the times, requiring courting couples to require a chaperone, often Keats could only get a glimpse of his love through a window, while she promenaded past the end of his garden of an evening...

His letters to her remain and, of course, his beautiful and revelatory poetry.

This letter offers, I feel, something of a tangible insight into their youthful feelings:

'My dearest Fanny,

I read your note in bed last night, and that might be the reason of my sleeping so much better. I think Mr Brown (Keats' best friend) is right in supposing you may stop too long with me, so very nervous as I am. Send me every evening a written Good night. If you come for a few minutes about six it may be the best time. Should you ever fancy me too low-spirited I must warn you to ascbribe it to the medicine I am at present taking which is of a nerve-shaking nature - I shall impute any depression I may experience to this cause. I have been writing with a vile old pen the whole week, which is excessively ungallant. The fault is in the Quill: I have mended it and still it is very much inclin'd to make blind es. However these last lines are in a much better style of penmanship thof [though] a little disfigured by the smear of black currant jelly; which has made a little mark on one of the Pages of Brown's Ben Jonson, the very best book he has. I have lick'd it but it remains very purplue. I did not know whether to say purple or blue, so in the mixture of the thought wrote purplue which may be an excellent name for a colour made up of those two, and would suit well to start next spring. Be very careful of open doors and windows and going without your duffle grey God bless you Love ! -

J. Keats-

P .S. I am sitting in the back room - Remember me to your Mother -'

P.S. (Fhina-Spoiler) Given their biographies, the film can't have a happy ending!

Rembrandt and Amsterdam...Oh, and Saskia,

A little foray into Dutch art now... In remembrance of my holidays this year...

Source, la Wiki, who else?: "Saskia van Uylenburgh (August 2, 1612 - June 14, 1642) was the daughter of a Frisian mayor and became the wife of the Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn, the son of a well-to-do miller from Leiden. She was his model for some of the great artist's paintings and drawings".

Saskia met Rembrandt by way of her cousin, Hendrick van Uylenburgh, a painter and an art dealer, whose parents had emigrated to Kraków in Poland, but in 1625 Hendrick decided to move to Amsterdam. From 1631 Rembrandt produced paintings for Uylenburg's Amsterdam and Mennonite clients. The couple married on June 22, 1634 in Het Bildt.

From 1635 Rembrandt trained pupils in his Academia. Rembrandt gained financial success through his art, and in 1639 he and Saskia moved to a prominent house in the Jodenbreestraat. This house, next to her cousin's gallery, was located in the Jewish quarter, and is now the Rembrandt House Museum. On July 16 1638 Saskia's Frisian relatives complained that she was spoiling her heritage", spending her inheritance on needful things.



"Three of their children died shortly after birth, but on September 22, 1641 they had Titus baptised, named after his mother's sister Titia (Tietje) van Uylenburgh. Saskia died the following year, it is said from tuberculosis. She was buried in the Oude Kerk".

There is always something solid and dependable about Saskia, in my view. Pretty and plump, beautiful in the way that you'd say a cart-horse was beautiful. Strong and sensual. Plain and no-nonsense. Artfully Friesian. After her death at the age of 30, Rembrandt never remarried. At the same time, it had been a condition of Saskia's will, if he wanted to retain her dosh and Titus.

I'd like to think she's a lot like Fhina.