Month: January 2024

The Fellowship Of The Ring

I introduce today’s post with a couple of questions.

Why would I feature a book I am never likely to read?

Which European Monarch signed abdication papers today?

Well, not before I bought this Folio Society edition in 1977, I read J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” which bored me so much that I regretted purchase of the Ring three volume set. Except for the illustrations, the story of which is featured in

two pages from the Folio Society Magazine of Spring 1978. You may need to enlarge these images to realise that today’s abdicating monarch is the artist who provided the original works redrawn by Eric Fraser to fit the format of the books. Having become Queen Margaretha, Ingahild Grathmer had no available time to carry out the task, but approved of Fraser’s efforts.

Here are the illustrations to this first book in the trilogy; those for the next two volumes will follow in due course.

As Crown Princess, Margaretha of Denmark is celebrated in our rose garden by this eponymous prolific sweet scented climber.

This evening we all dined on Red Chilli takeaway’s excellent fare. My choice was Bengal Chilli Chicken and special fried rice.

Old-World Landowners & Viy

On another cold, drab, day I stayed inside and read some more.

Here we have the fifth and sixth stories in The Folio Society’s Gogol collection.

“Old-World Landowners” demonstrates how an apparently insignificant event, coupled with ancient beliefs, can destroy a lifetime’s idyllic existence.

The writer treats us to lovely bucolic descriptions of the life of an elderly devoted couple, dedicated to a traditional existence typical of their class, their generosity, and their lack of real involvement in the upkeep of their estate, delegated to their untrustworthy serfs more interesting in gaining as much for themselves as for their masters.

Quite suddenly this all changes in an instance. Nothing can be taken for granted as permanent.

The writer also explores how grief turning to melancholy can bring about a further unhappy demise.

There is no illustration by Peter Sturt to this story written in Gogol’s delightfully fluid prose. I have therefore paired it with “Viy” which, according to translator Constance Garnett is based on an age-old peasant belief of colossal imagination.

Again, it is the skilled description of place and persons which holds our attention as we learn the outcome of a student philosopher’s battle with a devilish gnome and his witchy daughter.

The student takes up the challenge of the father, setting his wits and determination, prayers and exorcisms against paralysing mystic powers evoked by the daughter capable of raising from death.

Conflict between students of various levels spills over into the streets of the town where they are subject to the temptation of female purveyors of cakes and goodies.

Later temptations of the more carnal kind overcome our philosopher, when his weakening contains more erotic images and he is carried off, to continue fleeing further nights, each more testing that the last.

The metaphor I choose to quote from this episode is “He crawled through the prickly bushes, paying a toll of rags from his coat on every thorn”. This story also uses sound, such as that of a creaking gate, distant howling of wolves and barking of dogs, wild shrieks, a whirlwind, and even silence between companions, to build the atmosphere towards the tumultuous denouement.

PS. Please note Dolly’s important information and film trailer in koolkosherkitchen comments below

This evening we all dined on Jackie’s chicken and vegetable stewp and fresh crusty bread, with which she drank more of her Spanish rosado and I finished the shiraz

A Tale Of Two Houses

This morning’s chiropractic session with Eloise was pleasurably smooth, my next session again being in five day’s time.

We celebrated by lunching at Otter Nurseries https://www.ottergardencentres.com/our-centres/lymington/

This is a very popular local outlet and source of perfect plants and a good variety of gifts.

For lunch I enjoyed a steak and ale pie meal, while

Jackie was very pleased with her macaroni cheese.

The jug of thick meaty gravy glimpsed at the back of the first pie picture provided a welcome sauce, as this excellent quality meal, new to their menu, suffered somewhat from having been cooked earlier and rather dried when reheated. The chips, however, were perfectly fresh, and this might be considered a quibbling complaint in the circumstances, especially at a total cost for the two meals of £24.90.

There were no complaints from Jackie about her tasty macaroni cheese with garlic bread, fresh coleslaw and plentiful salad.

The service is well organised, friendly and efficient, with a long queue of customers enabled to wait at their chosen tables where they are brought their meals as soon as they are ready.

We would certainly visit again and perhaps select our courses with a mind to my points made above.

Afterwards, on this dry, overcast, and consequently rather warmer, day, we took a short forest drive, during which I focussed on two buildings in Pilley.

The first was the former village shop and post house which has been refurbished as a rather good looking dwelling house, appreciated by the pigeon on the roof.

The next is the apparently derelict relic which seems somehow holding itself up in order for an elderly gentleman to sell eggs from the plastic chair peeping round the corner. Could he be resident, we always wonder?

Afterwards I dozed through Lucy Worsley’s Romanov series, waking up to the Revolution.

Later, we all dined on Becky’s tuna pasta (the others) or sardines pickled in chilli (me) with plentiful fresh salad and a few prawns from yesterday. I drank more of the Shiraz and Jackie drank more of the Spanish rosado.

Investigation By Spiders

After lunch, tempted into the garden by the sunshine, still keeping ice

in containers like this pot saucer, fingers tingling, I took a brief walk around with my camera.

Many of the camellias were either in bloom or bud,

while the Japanese anemones bore seed pods apparently investigated by spiders.

Backlit cordyline Australis bore drips of precipitation.

The Gazebo bore the clematis Cirrhosa “Freckles”.

The dead stumps along the Back Drive and sculpture Florence were picked up in sidelight.

Later, I dozed through the first two episodes of Lucy Worsley’s Russian Romanovs.

This evening we all dined on tempura, and hot and spicy, prawns; tempura vegetables and spring rolls on Jackie’s colourful vegetable rice, with which I drank more of the shiraz and the Culinary Queen drank Mezquiriz Rosado 2023

Ivan Fyodorovitch Shponka And His Aunt

Feeling somewhat better today, I still couldn’t face venturing out in this much colder yet sunny weather, but I was able to concentrate on reading another story.

There is more of Gogol’s dry wit in this fourth tale in the Folio Society’s collection than in the earlier ones. As usual his fluid descriptive post is most engaging, especially when describing a woman as “a coffee pot in a cap”, or his image of an embarrassed young man who “sat on his chair as though on thorns, blushed and cast down his eyes” when expected to engage in conversation with the young woman marked out for him by his formidable aunt and her fellow matchmaker, the “coffee pot” mentioned above.

Ivan had joined the army when much younger and this aunt had cared for his inheritance until he returned home. Aunt Vassilissa did her best to carry out her task to the end, including thwarting an attempt to cheat him out of a large portion of it.

This story is more amusing then the first three, although it does feature a dream many would see as a nightmare which has been so

accurately depicted by Peter Sturt.

This evening we dined on roast gammon; Mac and cheese; red cabbage; orange carrots; and green broccoli stems – all of which were perfectly cooked. I drank Mighty Murray shiraz.

Neck Easier; Cold Heavy

The title is a health progress report.

I dozed much of the day. Perhaps I have taken in enough of the Lucy Worsley TV series on England’s first two Georgian Kings.

I didn’t join the others in their pizza dinner but did enjoy the last glass of the Cabernet Sauvignon.

Getting Better

Now I have a cold. Which is better than it seems, because I think it has explained my neck pain relapse.

After another reasonable night’s sleep this morning I rang BritChiro to cancel my appointment with Eloise because I did not want to infect her. I was told I could still attend the clinic provided I wore a mask, a supply of which they had available.

Unaware that a virus was headed in my direction, three days ago, my constant pain became agonising. After two consecutive days treatments from my chiropractor I was definitely improving. Yesterday I remembered that some time last year I had experienced a sudden increase of acute pain in my knee joints, which lessened when followed on my heels by a virus of some sort. Becky, Flo, and Jackie all related similar symptoms. That seemed a satisfactory answer, especially as this morning’s chiropractic session was smooth, with less pain, and effective, so it was the virus that kept me in a stupor thereafter today.

I don’t need three treatments this week because there is such improvement that we can dispense with the Wednesday one.

We all continued to reminisce during the times I was awake.

This evening we all dined on tasty Tesco toad in the hole supplemented by Ferndene Farm Shop Sausages; red cabbage cooked in onions and Bramley apples; creamy mashed potatoes; carrots, Brussels sprouts and broccoli, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Côtes du Rhône.

A Magnet

I benefited from a good night’s sleep with much more tolerable neck pain enabling me to concentrate more on all around me, yet not to go out and enjoy the current, albeit cold, sunny weather.

Instead, I focussed on Ellie, engrossed in her favourite pastime of inspecting, and dancing to, the music emanating from anyone’s laptop p.c. It is a magnet drawing her from anywhere else in the room, whatever she may have been doing at the time.

A real favourite is the Clog Dance culled from a post by Boromax, which, by request, has made its way from my device to those of Jackie and Becky, and is often played on demand.

Later, I finished reading the third story in my Gogol collection and posted

A Terrible Revenge

This evening we all dined on succulent roast lamb; crispy Yorkshire pudding and roast potatoes, including sweet ones; Brussels sprouts, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, and spinach, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden; Ian, Peroni; and I, Calvet Prestige Côtes du Rhône Villages 2022. An interesting conversation about favourite and least favourite meats, fruit, and vegetables ensued.

A Terrible Revenge

The immense ribbon of the mighty Dneiper set against the backdrop of the distant Carpathian Mountains laces the fabric of this, the third Tale in the Folio Society’s collection of Nikolai Gogol’s work.. The awesome beauty, yet destructive power of this major waterway is perhaps a metaphor for the Russian folk belief in the mystical nightmares of witches and wizardry responsible for this story.

The significance of Peter Sturt’s illustration in my edition depicting “A cross on one of the graves tottered and a withered corpse rose up. out of earth” becomes clear at the climax of the never-ending story, featuring the Antichrist as the enemy of the father of a beautiful woman; a duel of honour; a battle between Cossacks and Poles; capture and release of the evil devil; and a hectic chase across the skies leading to the denouement which will extend for all eternity.

Wiped Out

After a second agonisingly painful night with my neck I endured an additional arduous, firmly yet tenderly applied, chiropractic session with Eloise this morning.

This pretty well wiped me out for the day spent alternately dozing and reminiscing with Becky and Jackie until late in the afternoon when I began to resurface before Ian returned from Southbourne and joined us for dinner, which consisted of The Culinary Queen’s penne Bolognese and mange touts. I turned mine into pasta arrabbiata with a plentiful dash of Scotch Bonnet Sauce. Jackie and Ian drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Cabernet Sauvignon.