The first sighting of young love, and the moon

After a number of pages extolling the beauty of hawthorns, especially the magnificent pink one that grows in Swann's park, our little hero gets his first sighting of Gilberte, daughter of Swann and Odette. Gilberte is out with Odette and the baron de Charlus, all three of whom feature significantly in future volumes.

But to Gilberte, since the lady in pink has already been mentioned:

And so was wafted to my ears the name of Gilberte, bestowed on me like a talisman which might, perhaps, enable me some day to rediscover her whom its syllables had just endowed with a definite personality, whereas, a moment earlier, she had been only something vaguely seen. So it came to me, uttered across the heads of the stocks and jasmines, pungent and cool as the drops which fell from the green watering-pipe; impregnating and irradiating the zone of pure air through which it had passed, which it set apart and isolated from all other air, with the mystery of the life of her whom its syllables designated to the happy creatures that lived and walked and travelled in her company; unfolding through the arch of the pink hawthorn, which opened at the height of my shoulder, the quintessence of their familiarity—so exquisitely painful to myself—with her, and with all that unknown world of her existence, into which I should never penetrate.

And then, just a few pages later, one of my favourite bits of all - the moon out in the day:

Sometimes in the afternoon sky a white moon would creep up like a little cloud, furtive, without display, suggesting an actress who does not have to ‘come on’ for a while, and so goes ‘in front’ in her ordinary clothes to watch the rest of the company for a moment, but keeps in the background, not wishing to attract attention to herself.

I love to quote that bit, whenever the moon shows itself in the day.

Ah, bliss.

Francoise kills a chicken

But the day on which, while my father took counsel with his family upon our strange meeting with Legrandin, I went down to the kitchen, was one of those days when Giotto’s Charity (the skullery maid), still very weak and ill after her recent confinement, had been unable to rise from her bed; Françoise, being without assistance, had fallen into arrears. When I went in, I saw her in the back-kitchen which opened on to the courtyard, in process of killing a chicken; by its desperate and quite natural resistance, which Françoise, beside herself with rage as she attempted to slit its throat beneath the ear, accompanied with shrill cries of “Filthy creature! Filthy creature!” it made the saintly kindness and unction of our servant rather less prominent than it would do, next day at dinner, when it made its appearance in a skin gold-embroidered like a chasuble, and its precious juice was poured out drop by drop as from a pyx. When it was dead Françoise mopped up its streaming blood, in which, however, she did not let her rancour drown, for she gave vent to another burst of rage, and, gazing down at the carcass of her enemy, uttered a final “Filthy creature!”

A walk after church

I think this is the first bit that has really brought a little moisture to my eye, and again, another first reference to a recurring theme - that of custom and habit. When abroad our narrator finds it difficult to settle and sleep, until 'habit' and familiarity of the new bedroom allow him to relax.

Suddenly my father would bring us to a standstill and ask my mother—“Where are we?” Utterly worn out by the walk but still proud of her husband, she would lovingly confess that she had not the least idea. He would shrug his shoulders and laugh. And then, as though it had slipped, with his latchkey, from his waistcoat pocket, he would point out to us, when it stood before our eyes, the back-gate of our own garden, which had come hand-in-hand with the familiar corner of the Rue du Saint-Esprit, to await us, to greet us at the end of our wanderings over paths unknown. My mother would murmur admiringly “You really are wonderful!” And from that instant I had not to take another step; the ground moved forward under my feet in that garden where, for so long, my actions had ceased to require any control, or even attention, from my will. Custom came to take me in her arms, carried me all the way up to my bed, and laid me down there like a little child.

The hawthorn

Since hawthorns play such a significant part in the childhood development of our narator, finding the first reference is always a joy:

It was in these ‘Month of Mary’ services that I can remember having first fallen in love with hawthorn-blossom. The hawthorn was not merely in the church, for there, holy ground as it was, we had all of us a right of entry; but, arranged upon the altar itself, inseparable from the mysteries in whose celebration it was playing a part, it thrust in among the tapers and the sacred vessels its rows of branches, tied to one another horizontally in a stiff, festal scheme of decoration; and they were made more lovely still by the scalloped outline of the dark leaves, over which were scattered in profusion, as over a bridal train, little clusters of buds of a dazzling whiteness. Though I dared not look at them save through my fingers, I could feel that the formal scheme was composed of living things, and that it was Nature herself who, by trimming the shape of the foliage, and by adding the crowning ornament of those snowy buds, had made the decorations worthy of what was at once a public rejoicing and a solemn mystery. Higher up on the altar, a flower had opened here and there with a careless grace, holding so unconcernedly, like a final, almost vaporous bedizening, its bunch of stamens, slender as gossamer, which clouded the flower itself in a white mist, that in following these with my eyes, in trying to imitate, somewhere inside myself, the action of their blossoming, I imagined it as a swift and thoughtless movement of the head with an enticing glance from her contracted pupils, by a young girl in white, careless and alive.

The Lady in Pink

Our narrator meets the lady in pink at the home of his uncle Adolphe.
I felt somewhat disillusioned, for this young lady was in no way different from other pretty women whom I had seen from time to time at home, especially the daughter of one of our cousins, to whose house I went every New Year’s Day. Only better dressed; otherwise my uncle’s friend had the same quick and kindly glance, the same frank and friendly manner. I could find no trace in her of the theatrical appearance which I admired in photographs of actresses, nothing of the diabolical expression which would have been in keeping with the life she must lead. I had difficulty in believing that this was one of ‘those women,’ and certainly I should never have believed her one of the ‘smart ones’ had I not seen the carriage and pair, the pink dress, the pearly necklace, had I not been aware, too, that my uncle knew only the very best of them. But I asked myself how the millionaire who gave her her carriage and her flat and her jewels could find any pleasure in flinging his money away upon a woman who had so simple and respectable an appearance. And yet, when I thought of what her life must be like, its immorality disturbed me more, perhaps, than if it had stood before me in some concrete and recognisable form, by its secrecy and invisibility, like the plot of a novel, the hidden truth of a scandal which had driven out of the home of her middle-class parents and dedicated to the service of all mankind which had brought to the flowering-point of her beauty, had raised to fame or notoriety this woman, the play of whose features, the intonations of whose voice, like so many others I already knew, made me regard her, in spite of myself, as a young lady of good family, her who was no longer of a family at all.

Combray

My next favourite quote, from 'Combray', the second chapter of Swann's Way, concerns advice from M. Legrandin, and life in the country as opposed to the city:

“Oh, I admit,” he went on, with his own peculiar smile, gently ironical, disillusioned and vague, “I have every useless thing in the world in my house there. The only thing wanting is the necessary thing, a great patch of open sky like this. Always try to keep a patch of sky above your life, little boy,” he added, turning to me. “You have a soul in you of rare quality, an artist’s nature; never let it starve for lack of what it needs.”

Swan's Way

I have started again, my third time of reading this my favourite book. I have also decided to try to record my favourite quotes.
This is the first, of Grandma, who has bought for our narator four volumes of Georges Sand for his birthday, and Mamma is going to read one of them to the young M.

The truth was that she could never make up her mind to purchase anything from which no intellectual profit was to be derived, and, above all, that profit which good things bestowed on us by teaching us to seek our pleasures elsewhere than in the barren satisfaction of worldly wealth.

I finally get to leave St Pancras by the front door.

Today I went to town, and last weekend too.

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Kettering to Bewdley - assorted stations on the way.

Sunday 2nd September, 2007. Coming home from Corby to Bewdley, and it takes seven different stations. But all good fun.

Lulu on a roll.

Lulu on the Downs

Sam and Colin on the canal from Stourport to Wolverley

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A Road Movie

Karen and I came back to Bewdley from Corby. The weather in Corby was attrocious - thunderstorms all day. But as we came west, there was the most beautiful sunset.

Lulu has a birthday party - part three - YMCA

The last part of the birthday bash.

Lulu has a birthday party - part two

Come on over to my place, with Lulu and all.

Lulu has a birthday party - part one

I love to find the old movies of the times gone bye - this is Lulu's eighteenth birtday, part one.

Ducks

Releasing ducks into the wild.

What are you having for dinner - Day Four

Rocco comes to dinner, and has eaten the first course before I get started.

What are you having for dinner? Day three - part two.

Karen and Colin enjoy a bit of ice cream.

What are you having for dinner? Day three - part one.

Sarah is very quiet, but very rude.

What are you having for supper - Day Two

Colin makes cheesy beans toastie, and shares a candlelit supper with Sarah.

karen snorts coke and sam eats bulls bollocks

What are you having for dinner, day one.

River Severn Rising

Colin, Karen and Sam, the intrepid weather reporters of Bewdely, bring you up-to-date film of the magnificent river Severn as is rises to burst. The men are there in there high-viz jackets erecting the defences to save Bewdley from flooding. Hooray for the men and the defences!

Nothing on the horizon, just green.

I've been out on a lovely Sunday evening, and the world was full of colour - mostly rich, verdant green. The river was brown and muddy, and the sky was a bit grey, but nothing like the storms predicted. The best picture was some litte ponies - very young, and they ran off as soon as I opened my camera case. Maybe another day.
Pip pip.

Friday night promenade

The baby and I had a nice walk along the river, and back through the town. Sally had a half pint of Guiness, but I didn't feel like any beer tonight. The river was lovely, and a nice mist after the rain.








Then on the way home along the High Street we did a very funny thing. As we passed three naughty boys we could smell they were smoking some herbs that one isn't supposed to smoke in the street. So I said, as we passed, should we tell the police that naughty boys are smoking illegal substances in our street. Well, one boy got quite upity, and said his mum knew about it. I pacified them, explaining it was all in a jocular moment, and that we wouldn't tell mr Bobby man. Then we walked on, and Sally said I had not to go back, but the one boy who looked like a coward really was, and at school he used to be horrid to her, and pretend it wasn't him. But before we finished that conversation a police car came towards us, and Sally flagged it down! So I had to explain that 'those boys over there' are smoking dope, right on our pavement. So the bobby boy said thank you very much, and drove off to sus them. Poor Sally is worried that they might come and get her - but don't worry folks, I always have the camera ready in case of a bit of fun!
Pip Pip

Flooding in the street

It started with the usual big puddle at the bottom of the High Street, which then disappeared. But about 10.30 pm an underground stream overflowed into the street, and the whole thing turned into a river.

Bank Holiday Monday in Bewdley

Spring Bank Holiday, and it feels a bit like winter, but the French arived and brought a touch of the Riviera to the banks of the Severn.

Sarah is celebrating the nineteenth anniversary of her birth, so after breakfast in the Riverside Cafe she and Kate Moss washed it all down with a couple of beers in the Mug House.

The boyfriend came too, and he was very brave in his tee-shirt.

But then KM joined them for another photo opportunity, and then someone took one of me too.

Karen was there too. She was well wrapped up, which is quite sensible, but then gave her coat to Sam, who looks a bit warmer now.

And of course Hannah - hi Hannah.

Sam did manage to be naughty, just the once, and then on the way home we had to put Dan in the stocks, just to cool him down. He did get a bit upset after buying a bag of nuts for £9.80.

The gals came home first, and the silly things didn't have a key, so they had to sit on the step and wait for mummy and daddy.

Hope it turns out warmer tomorrow. And I hope I can get the pics in the right order next time.
Pip pip
Col