I am grateful to Judy Dykstra-Brown for her comments on the following two posts which I realised needed my attention – to convert them from Classic to Block edits, which I carried out this morning:
After lunch I read more of Honoré de Balzac’s Droll Tales, and published https://derrickjknight.com/2023/04/16/droll-tales-23/
Then I watched the Women’s Six Nations rugby match between Scotland and France.
We all later dined on Jackie’s wholesome chicken and vegetable stewp with fresh bread and a small deep pan double pepperoni pizza, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank Collin-Bourisset Fleurie 2021.
This third story of the second Decade of Balzac’s tales, entitled by the publishers of the only illustrated version I have “About The Monk Amador, Who Was A Glorious Abbot Of Turpenay”.
We are told of conflicts between church and state arising from that between two rival popes. This was manifested by hatred of the “rough” Lord of Candé for local monasteries. He therefore tormented any priests who encroached upon his land.
Amador, “a pilfered, a loiterer, and a bad soldier of the ecclesiastical militia”, was the only monk who dared to cross his lands. We learn of the strength and trickery with which he outwitted the temporal lord, and saved his Abbey.
The Folio Society edition bears no drawing by Mervyn Peake, and I do not have the third Decade illustrated by Jean de Bosschère.
Gustave Doré more than compensates for this lack in The Bibliophilist Society’s publication, dated 1874, just 37 years after first publication by Gosselin of Paris, and the first in English. At some point the volume has been skilfully rebound, but the pages are clear and undamaged.
Jackie has persisted in trying to burn our soggy garden refuse. I had had enough yesterday, so apart from a desultory poke and stir, I converted the following posts:
Apart from “I Found The Lady” these largely deal with our first months of tackling our garden here. The other records one of my regular trips to our late friend Norman for lunch.
These efforts are producing welcome opportunities for reminiscing.
This afternoon I watched the Women’s Six Nations rugby matches between Wales and England, and between Italy and Ireland.
We all dined this evening on Red Chilli’s excellent takeaway fare with which I finished the Coonawarra red wine, while no-one else imbibed.
Today the elements combined to dampen my burning desire for combustion of the now thoroughly drenched garden refuse.
I completed my submission of the logo for an adoption book festival and e-mailed it to the organiser. Because my hand is no longer steady enough for the fine lines required for this work, Flo polished up my effort. I will wait until our production has been considered before revealing it.
Late in the morning Jackie and I set off for a shop at Tesco, for a wet forest drive, and for a café lunch. Just a few metres from our house the Modus shuddered to a halt.
“We’re not going anywhere” announced my Chauffeuse as she slipped two wheels onto the pavement and announced that the clutch pedal was on the floor of her seat. This, readers will remember, had been fixed by an RAC man on 10th September last year.
We walked along to Downton Service Station, whose mechanic drove the car to their garage, undertaking to repair the problem as soon as possible, probably not before tomorrow.
Before a normal lunch at home I converted the following post from Classic to Block Edit:
Later, I published https://derrickjknight.com/2023/04/14/droll-tales-22/
This evening we all dined on Jackie’s wholesome chicken and veg stewp and fresh bread with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Coonawarra red wine.
Demonstrating that The Folio Society have fully understood the wordplay romp that is the story they have entitled “Of a Justiciary who did not Recall Certain Parts”, they differ from, “Concerning A Provost Who Did Not Recognise Things”, the version of The Bibliophilist Society.
This tale of trickery perpetrated on the victim of cuckoldry is packed with Balzac’s double entendres, puns and other wordplay. The translator has retained “la voir” and “l’avoir” (to see her and to have her) in the original French.
Here is Mervyn Peake’s Folio Society drawing;
and here those of Gustave Doré for the Bibliophilist Society.
Further details of the publications are given in https://derrickjknight.com/2023/01/06/droll-tales-1/except that there are no pictures here by Jean de Bosschère as I do not have any of the third Decade by him.
Early this morning I optimistically joined Martin in the garden where he enjoyed rather more success than I did.
Despite Jackie’s popping out to replenish my diminishing supplies of firelighters I was unable to breathe life into the damp garden refuse which could not recover from several days of soaking.
Even the bench on which I rested collapsed beneath me.
Eventually I gave up trying and returned inside to nursing knees repeatedly bent in a lost cause, smelling pointless smoke, and ruing the tiny brown-rimmed hole in my shirt that one of the myriad of otherwise useless flaking sparks had managed to penetrate.
Martin, on the other hand, successfully continued his careful clearance of beds and surrounding paths;
and recycled some of the old patio paving as supplementary stepping stones through the Weeping Birch Bed.
My failure was compounded by being unable to access my site to draft this post until 5.30 p.m.
This evening we all dined on Jackie’s tangy piri-piri lemon chicken and colourful savoury rice with which she drank Hoegarden and I drank more of the Coonawarra red wine.
It has recently been brought to my attention that newer followers may need some clarification about my family tree. I therefore converted to Block Edit and slightly amended the following post:
With howling gales continuing throughout the day I then posted https://derrickjknight.com/2023/04/12/droll-tales-21/
This evening we dined on tempura prawns and Jackie’s colourful savoury rice with which she drank Hoegaarden and I started on another bottle of the Second Fleet Coonawarra 2021.
For the first story in the third Decade of his series of short works, Honoré de Balzac was to return to the theme of sublimation of love into art in the last of the second Decade, but with a different emphasis. “Desperate Love” had been about a young man who poured his desires into his excellent sculpting because he could not manage with a woman; in “Persistent Love” as entitled by the Folio Society, or the Bibliophilist Society’s “Despair in Love”, the goldsmith absorbed himself with world class intricate jewellery giving him no thought for sexual involvement until his own fourth decade.
He fell for a young woman who, as a serf, was owned by the Abbey, as would become any husband she chose. The two lovers remained steadfastly secular, especially as the Abbot tested them to limit, refusing to make any exception to the rules. A promise was made between him and the jeweller.
Did either keep his side of the bargain? As is my wont I won’t give any more details save to say that “great love triumphs over everything”.
Here is Mervyn Peak’s illustration for The Folio Society;
and Gustave Doré’s set for The Bibliophilist Society.
Further details of the publications are given in https://derrickjknight.com/2023/01/06/droll-tales-1/ except that there are no pictures here by Jean de Bosschère as I do not have any of the third Decade by him.
Anticipating that yesterday’s weather pattern would be reversed today, Jackie and I took an early drive to Saltgrass Lane, where visitors were already amassing, some clearly having slept, or still sleeping, in camper vans lining the road.
Silhouetted figures tracked along
gravelled Hurst spit;
eager crabbing was under way from the bridge;
reflecting swans preened in the rippling stream;
speedy swathes of turnstones skittered across the road.
This afternoon, in response to a question from a follower, I found no picture on this post, despite the message Attempt Block Recovery:
Although I am not sure which picture was there originally, I have added one with the text and another as a header.
This evening we dined on perfectly cooked Bangers, mash, cauliflower, carrots, green and red cabbage, and meaty gravy, with which I finished the Coonawarra red wine while no-one else imbibed.
This morning I worked more on the ideas for the logo I am hoping to submit. As I will not be focussing on this work in progress until it is done, I decided to show another logo I produced for Sam’s Ocean Row. The picture is missing from the post on which I originally displayed it. I therefore recovered the pictures for
This was the most difficult yet, because it was of the Attempt Block Recovery type, and the attempt failed until I found the pictures in my iMac Photos and added them all anew. I have had to use the header picture to show the logo. Yes, these problems are becoming infuriating.
were more straightforward options, just needing to be converted to Block edit.
After lunch the morning’s steady rain, although the wind was still blustery, made way for warm sunshine, so, after a Tesco shop, Jackie and I took a late afternoon forest drive.
This is blackthorn time – its white blossom presaging the advent of next month’s may. Most of that lining hedgerows has now been shaved by cutting machines, but some along St Leonard’s Road have escaped the razor’s edge.
The fourteenth century erect ruins of the road’s eponymous grange with its aubretia topped stone wall was now sun-kissed history, a tribute to stonemasons of six hundred years ago.
This evening we all dined on oven fish, chips, onion rings, and garden peas with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Coonawarra red wine.
