Hellgoddess, Hellhounds and Sacred Plastic Ritual Implement, ll
Hellgoddess, Hellhounds and Sacred Plastic Ritual Implement
Darkness
Chaos
Final Guest Blog
Hello friends and fans of Robin–Cormac here. I’m not much of a blogger, but since the only fact that I believe you know about me is that I’m the idiot who put petrol into a diesel engine, I thought I’d better write a bit in an attempt to clear my good name*.
We’ve had a glorious time visiting here in Hampshire. Robin and Peter have been meticulous hosts; both in their graciousness in letting us use Third House as our home away from home–and in their endless supplying us of good British food and drink.** I’m quite a fan of good British sausages, which are just not as savory or delicate in the States as they are over here. Peter prepared us a simple dinner of sausages with potatoes and green beans upon our return from London last evening, and they had a subtlety and complexity of flavour that is just unknown in the States.*** U.S. sausages are blunt and coarse (not unlike our President!). †
I’ve been to London several times, but never to this part of the UK before,†† and I’m totally smitten with it.††† I loved our trip to the New Forest, particularly the town of Beaulieu, where there were wild ponies and cows wandering around the streets and sidewalks of the town. All of us, and Ruby in particular, were charmed by the animals in our midst, which is not in any way part of our normal lives in New York City. Aside from our dog Sadie (who is a terrier mix of unknowable heritage) we don’t have animals in our lives in a daily way. That was lovely.
I was also amazed at the antiquity of so much of the town of Bath–not only the Roman ruins, but so many of the buildings in use in town. It is a lovely city, reminiscent to me more of Italy than of England.
We had a terrific time in London, and saw many of the tourist sites which I know the girls already wrote about. We also saw a terrific production of The Importance of Being Earnest, which was a perfect British experience for all of us. The actors were wonderful; the play of course was perfectly silly, and the production gloriously lavish. Not surprisingly, Hannah and I were taken by the wonderful British actress playing Lady Bracknell; and the girls were awed by the young hunky actor playing Algernon.
We very much look forward to coming back; and we’ll try to check in with the blog from home. Cheers!
Hello People,
I’m very pleased to say that Ruby seems almost back to normal after her run in with the bad-tempered pony during what was supposed to be yesterday’s lovely Lambs and Bluebells walk. She will certainly have a very ugly horseshoe-shaped bruise on her leg but she’s walking around just fine‡ and even plans on going along for today’s Short Lambs and Bluebells Walk.‡‡ (Robin and I already went for a Long Walk that included bluebells but they were kind of accidental and there were no lambs, at least not up-close and personal ones.)‡‡‡
I’m very sorry to be leaving here. Not only has it been lovely to see so much of Robin, but showing the girls England has been wonderful for me.§ And Cormac and I realized that while both of us have been here many times, we have never been here together.
Spent much of the day sitting in the sun in unspeakably lovely little gardens, taking photos of dogs and Robins in various combinations and then loading them onto the computer — well, actually Cormac did the photo work. I just stood around and admired them. The one photo that really came out badly was of two snakes (actually I’m told they’re not technically snakes, but the only way to describe them is to say that they look exactly like snakes so why complicate matters) having a romantic tryst (ie, screwing) which is too bad because it was one of the strangest things I’ve ever witnessed. They were attached down towards the tail and when we got too close they wriggled away, the head of one leading with the head of the other dragging behind. I wanted to follow but Rebecca said we should give them privacy. How did I manage to raise someone with so little intellectual curiosity?! §§§
I’m now being dragged away by Ruby who did a lovely drawing of a horse¤ for Robin and is now ready to head back to Third House to get ready for the final walk of this visit. I’m sad!¤¤
Yours very truly,
Hannah
* Cormac has a fine name. He’s driven his camera’s megawhoppingbyte memory card to the verge of a nervous breakdown but he’s done nobly. I now have something like 1,000,000,000 photos of hellhounds and attendant wizened female biped on this computer waiting for me to stop screaming and agree to expose a few to public view. No, no, I promised, I really am going to hang a few here–tune in this time tomorrow–but the shock is a trifle severe. I have spent my entire life avoiding anything to do with the front ends of cameras (except reaching around from behind and putting lens caps on or taking lens caps off) and I’ve literally never had to look at dozens of representations of my face before one right after the next, like having your foot repeatedly stepped on or your face repeatedly slapped. Hey–! you keep wanting to say. Ah, oh, ow, the digital era. Meanwhile–as I do keep saying–I’ve got old. I knew this, of course, but . . . anyway. I was sufficiently rubbed up the wrong way by all these damn photos that when we were on our way out to dinner tonight, and we were all late back from the Lamb and Bluebell walk but I was the only one who had to feed hellhounds as well as get changed, and I didn’t have time for my better judgement to manifest, I pulled out my ancient black denim miniskirt–the one that is so short and tight that I have to yank the hem simultaneously with standing up–and wore it. I’m going to be old a lot longer than I was young (fate permitting) so I might as well say the hell with it. Opaque black tights cover a multitude of defects. And losing my mind also gave me an excellent excuse to wear the amazing two-tone pink smooth-leather-and-suede stacked sandals with the tassels that I bought at one of those designer sales where the only sizes that have anything interesting left in them are .05 and 82. I have size 82 feet so sometimes I can find cool shoes. I can’t walk in them but I am amusing standing perfectly still (holding my breath to help my balance).
The hellhounds, however, are breathtakingly gorgeous, heartmeltingly adorable, comprehensively darling^ etc. They’re the easy part of this photo drill.
^ Biased? Me?
** This is a bit rich coming from someone who keeps hauling us out to dinner and then bribing the waitress to give their side of the table the bill. Not to mention several bottles of champagne and droll tactics like this morning, when I brought Hannah back from our hellhound walk and Cormac met us in the driveway brandishing a spatula saying, I’m just making scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and there was some wonderful bread at the farmers’ market, you are staying for breakfast aren’t you? –I haven’t eaten breakfast in years. It was lovely. I can see why it caught on.
*** We’re all sort of food obsessed, aren’t we? Well, don’t forget Hannah is the one who said, when I was complaining about the amount of time I spend on the blog, WHY DON’T YOU POST MORE RECIPES?
† Fortunately this is not Pollyanna’s blog. Stet.
†† Hey! You were here long enough to . . . uh, have dinner with us . . . two years ago when you were in the UK on business!! Granted there wasn’t a lot of sight seeing involved. Except the inside of a very good restaurant.
††† Yessss! And you’re coming back SOON!
‡ Yaay arnica! It really is the wonder drug. And the mark is a perfect horseshoe shape. It’s sort of great in an awful way.
‡‡ Yes and I misjudged which is why we were all late getting back. The hellhounds and I cover ground and I’m just not used to the speed normal people walk at. I thought I was ALLOWING for the fact that one of us was wearing a horseshoe-shaped bruise and moving a little short on that side.
‡‡‡ This urban fixation on lambs. Please. The hellhounds and I stood in the middle of a field muttering to ourselves while everyone else gambolled with the lambs. Cormac took photos. Of sheep. I said to Hannah, you know, us yokels worry about keeping you smart sophisticated city folk amused when you visit. –We would also have been less late back if there had been less gambolling.
§ Yessssssss!!!!! So you’re coming BACK!
§§ Slowworms. Everybody had a lot of trouble with the concept of a legless lizard. And I say that isn’t a snake because–?
§§§ How did you manage to raise someone with a deep understanding of legless lizard sex?
¤ Which I am also planning to post. But not tonight.
¤¤ Tomorrow morning! They leave tomorrow morning! I will go up to Third House after service ring to say goodbye and then they will leave! Waaaaaaaaah!