Month: January 2024

It’s An Ill Wind…

I have had a bit of a relapse on the chiropractic front. Yesterday and overnight I was in increasing pain which gave me a pretty bad night. This meant that this morning’s session was less enjoyable than usual.

I wasn’t up to doing much today, so, in preparation for a later visit from James Peacock to help with my printer problems, I cleared six months of paperwork from the top of that machine, filed and shredded most of it, and made a few consequent phone calls. After I had finished James called to say that on his way to us his car windscreen had been smashed by a flying stone, so he couldn’t continue. There are of course pools all over the roads with much gravel washed into them.

Ah well, thinking of my paperwork, which wouldn’t otherwise have been tackled, it’s an ill wind………

Later I read most of the next Gogol story, before we all dined exquisitely at the Fleur de Lys.

Am I A Viking?

One of my Christmas presents, given jointly by Dillon, Flo, and Jackie, was an Ancestry DNA testing kit.

Having plucked up courage to register this on line, to follow the instructions to provide material for testing, to seal it up, and to post it, I gave it a go.

First I needed to log onto Ancestry’s web site and directions for reading and entering my own specific code. With much trepidation I managed this.

Then came following the directions for spitting into a tube up to the right level, replacing the supplied funnel from which my saliva slipped down the glass with a cap containing stabilising fluid, tightening the cap to secure the fluid, shake it all about to ensure a good mix, seal it up in the supplied container packet placed in the postage paid box, and hand it to Jackie to post when she went shopping.

If you have managed to follow all this, please be impressed.

Now what would I want with one of these?

Well, ever since I received surgery as detailed in the following post:

Dupuytren’s Contracture

and discovered that this condition is known as the Viking’s disease; having a Yorkshireman as a maternal grandfather and at 6’3″ in my prime having been very tall for one born 7 weeks premature in 1942 and surviving, I have nurtured a fantasy that I may have antecedents, many of whom lie buried in Yorkshire.

Later, I posted

Christmas Eve

This evening we all dined on Jackie’s penne Bolognese with Parmesan cheese to which I added some of my Scotch Bonnet sauce and with which I drank more of the Cabernet Sauvignon.

Christmas Eve

The snow blizzard setting the atmosphere of this story on which a devil snatches the moon owing much more to Ukrainian folklore than to the date of the Christian festival. We have witches as well as devilry, a love sick jealous blacksmith, the seductive self-obsessed village beauty, her possessive parent, gleeful girls and lively lads celebrating the night, and rich elements of traditional farce.

Much of the Western world merges pagan traditions with the modern religious festival. In that sense Gogol’s work is not that unusual, yet he does weave original magic.

The comings and goings of hidden characters, and almost pantomime searching are reminiscent of a Whitehall Farce from Brian Rix – not one of the modern parliamentary kind.

A devil steals the moon, yet the darkness outside looks bright light from inside.

My review of the first story in this collection offers an example of one of Gogol’s many similes. Today I give one of a metaphor – “the blizzard soaped his beard”. We also have details of clothing and practices of the time, for example we learn what young girls wore and that the poorer peasants shaved with a broken piece of scythe blade.

It was only as we neared the denouement that I realised this was set in the time of Catherine the Great and Potemkin.

The frontispiece, already posted as the earlier header, illustrates “The triumph of his art was a picture painted on the church wall in the chapel”

Clearing Up After Storm Gerrit

This morning I enjoyed another eminently endurable chiropractic session with Eloise.

Storm Henk was beginning to calm today. There was less rain and quieter gusts of wind as Martin was able to work throughout.

He sawed up the trunk of the overgrown pittosporum, lopped the branches which he carried to the Back Drive, cut them into pieces with which he filled more of the spent compost bags and carried all to the front end of the garden nearest our parked car, whence we will be able to transport them in several trips to the Efford Recycling Centre. A crushed chair which had borne potted plants joined other scrap metal – also destined for the dump – behind the shed.

We have kept a close eye on the Weeping Birch which remains standing – at least for the time being.

This evening we all dined on Ferndene Farm Shop’s succulent sausages; creamy mashed sweet and white potatoes; crunchy carrots; firm cauliflower, broccoli, and Brussel’s sprouts; and meaty gravy, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Valle Central Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon 2022.

A Faux Sunset

With the overnight returned gale force winds and driving rain persisting Jackie and I splashed and sprayed our way to the Salinger’s home at Walkford where we joined Shelly and Ron, Helen and Bill for a lunch date having been several times postponed because of illness of one or other, or two of the sisters. The now familiar pools across the roads had been supplemented by new arrivals.

We enjoyed a relaxed buffet lunch based on Helen’s rather good giant quiche. Various white wines were quaffed. Much catching up was carried out, followed by our feeble attempts at completing John Eales’s Annual quiz, with coffee, mints, and Shelly’s moist Christmas cake.

As we returned home a break in the weather had occurred giving louring indigo clouds colourful pink and golden tinges. This created excitement about a potential sunset down at Milford on Sea so I nipped indoors at home for a loo break and to collect my camera. Within five minutes the rain had returned and the sky once more turned slate grey. Ever the optimists we drove to Milford anyway.

Here is the sunset.

Back at home I published

St John’s Eve

This evening we all dined on pork spare ribs; prawn toasts; and Jackie’s colourful savoury rice. No further wine was imbibed.

St John’s Eve

The train ticket inserted into

suggests that I last finished reading this volume on a train journey from Nottingham to London Kings Cross between 19th June and 18th July 2009. The illustration above is of the title page and frontispiece.

After the preface to Volume I of Evenings on a Farm near Dukonka, yesterday I read ‘St John’s Eve’, the first story in the collection. This dreamlike tale apparently draws on the folk tales of the author’s native Ukraine

Gogol’s beautifully descriptive prose apparently effortlessly deploys luscious language fluently telling of witchery, devilry, practices and customs of days gone by, marriage, clothing, beliefs, and history. Our protagonist struggles with retaining memory of a significant occurrence involving a disappearing and reappearing stranger who no doubt had cast a spell. The writer employs good use of imagery, metaphor, and simile exemplified by “his memory was like an old miser’s pocket out of which you can’t entice a penny”.

Although I have no Russian, Constance Garnett’s translation seems to me to have retained the author’s free fluidity.

Philip Hensher’s introduction is helpful in placing Gogol’s writing in the context of his time and his seemingly horrific childhood.

Peter Suart’s illustrations display the nightmare quality of some of the stories. I will work my way through the book attaching these pictures with each of the tales in turn. The one above shows “He would sit in the middle of the hut … with the bags of gold at his feet”.

When closing the book we can admire the spine and front board designed by the artist.

PS. Please see koolkosherkitchen’s comments below for an important supplement to this review.

Rescued From The Rain

On this dreary but dry morning, developing on our way home into a dreary wet one, Jackie and I combined a successful search for open provision stores with a forest drive.

It was not until we reached South Gorley that a group of soggy ponies presented us with photo opportunities. The last two pictures, in front of the red house, are Jackie’s.

Two friendly equestriennes with an accompanying guide, smiled and passed on.

There wasn’t much more sign of life on this first day of 2024, until the Assistant Photographer spotted a group of deer through hedges in the vicinity of Gorley Common, and produced the first five pictured in this gallery, after which I managed the last three.

Jackie also photographed a lichen laden tree limb.

Ian had returned home to Southbourne shortly before lunch.

This afternoon Jacqueline visited with her son, our nephew James and his daughter, our great niece Illiari. Of all the stories of reminiscence the this visit promoted, the most amazing was told by Becky.

One day of driving rain late in 1997 or early ’98, covered head down as she struggled in a bus queue to gather tiny Flo and manage to enter the public transport vehicle, a young man with a child just a year older than hers left his place and helped her onto the bus. He, too, had his head down, so neither recognised the other. When they straightened up for Becky to thank him, her mouth fell open as she cried “James!”. Her cousin was equally stunned as he recognised his own similar relative. Illiaria was incubating chicken pox at the time. About ten days later Flo came out in spots.

The two young children had not seen each other again until today. The header picture is of James when he was just a little older than was Illiari on the day in question.

This evening we dined on succulent roast chicken thighs; crisp Yorkshire pudding; creamy mashed potato; crunchy carrots; firm cauliflower, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Zinfandel USA 2021.