Tag: Our Mutual Friend

Completing West Bed Planting

On a very dull, overcast, afternoon we shopped at Otter Nurseries for tree bark with which to mulch Jackie’s further planting in the recently opened up West Bed, then continued for a brief drive into the forest where we found nothing to photograph in such poor light.

While Jackie completed the dressing of the soil,

I posted https://derrickjknight.com/2021/08/30/a-knights-tale-24-enter-gwen-to-the-rescue/

Later, I scanned the next six of Charles Keeping’s illustrations to Charles Dickens’s ‘Our Mutual Friend’.

‘Tradesmen’s books hunger, and tradesmen’s mouths water’

‘There was a deadly kind of repose on the place’

‘ ‘Oh-h-h!’ cried the person of the house’

The artist has used a double page spread to show ‘Boots and Brewer bolting off in cabs’ in opposite directions.

‘At times Mrs Lammle would lean forward to address Mr Lammle’ demonstrates Keeping’s mastery of expression.

‘An old Jewish man in an ancient coat’

This evening we dined on perfectly roasted pork with crisp crackling; boiled new potatoes; crunchy carrots and cauliflower; tender runner beans, and tasty gravy, in the non-availabilty of pork stock cubes, made by adding those of chicken and ham to the juices from the meat. Neither of us imbibed..

On The Approach To September

After lunch on a warmly sun-kissed day I poked my camera out of the upstairs windows to introduce it to

the garden views on the approach to September.

I then read more of Charles Dickens’s ‘Our Mutual Friend’, and scanned the next four of Charles Keeping’s memorable illustrations.

‘She sat on the ground, with her face leaning on her hand’

‘The bird of prey lay stretched upon the shore’

‘A gloomy house the Bower’

‘Hooked on the board by the armpits was a young gentleman of tender years’

Early this evening I posted https://derrickjknight.com/2021/08/25/a-knights-tale-21-the-summer-of-1947/

Later, we dined on Red Chilli excellent takeaway fare. We ordered enough for two days, consisting of Saag Chicken, Saag and Onion Bhajis, Tandoori King Prawn Naga, Paneer Tikka, Egg Fried Rice, and a plain Naan. Jackie drank more of the Greco di Tufo and I drank more of the Dao.

Turning The Decking

We received our mail-ordered present for Matthew’s birthday during the December lockdown and consequently were unable to give it to him until this morning. It was a professional electric drill kit.

While waiting for the equipment to charge up, our son sat on the decking working on a puzzle book.

He decided to try out the drill on the decking boards. He tells us that most people who fit this facility assume that the ridged sides should be uppermost because they think that the crevices are to provide a grip, when in fact they become slippery.

When the power was operative he set about lifting a section of the existing boards

and turning them over.

Here is the completed job. Note that the step has received the treatment.

Jackie in the meantime, having completed her work on the West Bed clearance,

carried on pruning beneath the Cryptomeria and elsewhere. I transferred some clippings to the compost bins.

After recording others’ work in progress, I scanned the next five of Charles Keeping’s faithfully detailed illustrations to ‘Our Mutual Friend’.

‘Mr Boffin closely tracked and observed by a man of genteel appearance’ gives the artist the opportunity to pack a street scene with detailed perspective.

A double page spread offers adequate room for ‘Mrs Boffin’s equipage’

‘Mr and Mrs Lammle walked in a moody humour’ uses the wind to indicate the cooling of their ardour.

‘ ‘Alfred, my love, here is my friend Georgiana’ ‘, displays Charles Keeping’s mastery of expression.

‘An ill-looking visitor with a squinting leer’

This afternoon Becky and Ian joined us. We enjoyed more delayed birthday present giving and all dined this evening at Lal Quilla. My main meal choice was a hot, sweet, and sour Chicken Jaljala which was excellent; poppadoms, nans, onion bhajis, and rices were shared; Kingfisher, white wine, fizzy water, and Diet Coke were quaffed. Service, as always, was friendly and efficient.

The West Fence Trellis

Jackie spent most of a day that was dull, warm, humid, and oppressed by a burnished gunmetal canopy overhead,

occupied opening up the trellis at the back of the West fence to the nevertheless absent sunlight. At intervals I removed several trugloads of clippings and weeds to the

compost bins and the ever-increasing

piles destined for the dump.

This afternoon I published https://derrickjknight.com/2021/08/18/a-knights-tale-18-in-the-bush/

Later, I scanned the next five of Charles Keeping’s inimitable illustrations to Dickens’s ‘Our Mutual Friend’.

‘ ‘Here’s my father’s, sir’ ‘

‘Bella was seated on the rug, a handful of brown curls in her mouth’

In ‘Mr Wegg was an observant person’ the artist uses a double spread to advertise the stall-holder’s services.

‘The bar of the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters’

‘Stumping with fresh vigour, he goes in at the dark greasy entry’

This evening we dined on oven fish and chips, onion rings, and garden peas, with which Jackie drank more of the Sauvignon Blanc and I drank more of the Comté Tolosan Rouge.

About Some Books

I have read thousands of books in my life, and, until yesterday evening there had only been two I have not finished. These were Thomas Malory’s ‘Le Morte d’Arthur’, in which I was bored by lists of names of biblical length; and James Joyce’s ‘Finnegan’s Wake’, which I had seen as a challenge, especially as it had a reputation for multi-lingual puns, yet which I found unintelligible.

It has not been my practice to have more than one book on the go at once, but while working my way through re-reading ‘David Copperfield’ by Charles Dickens I thought I would try an experiment with this and with Harold Brodkey’s ‘Profane Relationship’.

I managed to reach 200 pages before abandoning each of the first-mentioned works. I wasn’t much past that point in Brodkey’s 1994 novel, and more than somewhat inclined to make that the third with which to dispense. In order to ensure that my boredom with it was not influenced by comparison with the Victorian classic, I waded through another thirty-odd pages.

Then I picked up

In ‘David Copperfield’, Dickens tells a story which, complex as it is, hangs together, and, romantic as is the author’s style, engages our interest in his characters. There is, of course, no mention of sex in the writer’s depictions of love. The writing is humorous and descriptive of place, events, and personalities. One-dimensional most of them may be, but we can forgive him that. The narrative wends its way to a credible conclusion for all concerned.

Mr Brodkey’s book also begins with friendship between two children, both boys, and professes to be the story of its development. There any similarities end. Profane as the relationship undoubtedly becomes when, after some years apart the older boy ensnares his not unwilling, yet seemingly heterosexual, friend into graphic activity, I could not become engaged with these characters for whom there are no truly loving relationships – unless, of course, you see love and hate as two sides of the same coin. Dickens wrote in a time when sex could not be mentioned; Brodkey writes as if the physical activity is all there is to love – at least that is how I understand one who so frequently ejaculates streams of logorrhoea throughout his pages. There may be a credible conclusion, but I have no inclination to discover it.

Today I set about scanning the first three of Charles Keeping’s illustrations to ‘Our Mutual Friend’. The frontispiece shown above illustrates ‘He put both his arms round her waist’.

‘A boat of dirty and disreputable appearance, with two figures in it’ displays the artist’s skill with perspective.

‘The Veneering establishment’ depicts Victorian nouveau riche.

For the Head Gardener, tomato blight is one of the most distressing consequence of weeks of warm, wet, windy, weather. She successfully grew several plants from seed, and was looking forward to enjoying the fruits of her endeavour. The condition, like that currently besetting the human population of the planet, is caused by a wind-borne virus.

On either side of lunch we tackled the triffid tentacles of Félicité Perpétue extending across the front drive. It fell to me to bang in a pair of iron poles to carry a crossbar to support the rose, in danger of dragging down the fence.

Jackie, capable of being much more vicious than I, then savaged the stems.

The clippings were chopped and bagged up by Jackie who wishes it known that those trailers across the concrete have been sprayed with a herbicide which will make its way to the roots without damaging anything else.

Early this evening I posted: https://derrickjknight.com/2021/08/13/a-knights-tale-15-from-the-irish-civil-war-to-estonia/

Later, we dined on a Red Chilli takeaway meal. Jackie enjoyed chicken sag, sag bahji, and sag poneer with more of the rosé; my choice was king prawn naga, special fried rice, and plain nan accompanied by the last of the Shiraz.