Something borrowed - Five Senses Friday

With StAnza now already something of a distant memory (to relive – please see last post...) I fancied something completely different. I've been reading some blogs for what seems like ages now (and some of you people really do feel like old friends in a way) but it's good to keep things changing all the time though too so (when time allows) I do still look out for interesting new blogs with different angles and attitudes and stuff to say. In the past couple of months I've found myself wandering to Philippa's blog at Green Ink now and then, for example. I don't know much about Philippa...I think she's an Australian living in London (is that right?) and I think I came to her via One Night Stanzas or something but I know that I go back because I like her take on blogging and writing – she just seems to be working away...on her own path...going her own way...my kind of human. She seems to be one of those people with a practically-bursting-out-of-her love for life too and...well...that's nearly always appealing, isn't it? At least from a distance...

Anyway a couple of Fridays ago Philippa did this little writing task called Five Senses Friday (just as it sounds...go through the senses one by one and come up with some things you have noticed/experienced in the past week or so). Even with the hanging-on cold (and therefore fairly weakened senses all round) I thought I'd have try at it this week. So I'll blow my nose and clear my throat and then here goes...


Sight

Jamie Bell's face in 'Billy Elliot'

We watched this film earlier on in the week (I wanted Small Girl to see it...and had forgotten there were quite so many fucking swear words in it though...whoops...and see look...it's catching...). Anyway, there are many reasons that 'BI' was such a success (great music, great dancing, Julie Walters...)
but Jamie Bell's beautiful open face was one of its many fine features. And those eyes! Whoever found that boy when they were casting the film did a stellar job because couldn't you just look at his face all day? I know it would be a bit weird...but you could, couldn't you? Here he is:




(As if by contrast) James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano

I have mentioned previously that Mark and I are watching the Sopranos TV series on DVD just now (about ten years later than everyone else). We're up to series 3 currently and my goodness it's brilliant...but my goodness...at the same time... looking at the Tony Soprano character regularly is just so strange...he's so revolting! The sex in vests, the belly, the constant eating of sausage meat, the nastiest selection of shirts and (even worse) casual jerseywear ever seen on the small screen! I watch him... and watch him and am constantly appalled (and yet also fascinated). What outfit will they find for him next? What horrible testicle scratching, toilet shot will we see next? And yet it is possibly the best TV series I have ever seen. A really quite bemusing feast for the senses, this show...(music is excellent too of course). Here's a little Tony:





Heron

Out dogwalking the other day my friend and I saw a majestic grey heron, just standing quietly by a small pond. It looked so smart and collected – it made me feel very scruffy and messy in comparison.

Paint charts

I always find them quite baffling...there are so many colours and yet...often...at the same time...not the one you know you are looking for. Does it drive artists mad trying to find new colours? I think it would me.


Smell

Ecoballs

This is a bit of a housewife moment but what can I tell you...me and Carmela Soprano...we have so much in common. Anyway, I got some of these 'they last 1000 washes/they're kinder to the environment' ecoball things for doing the laundry and they do work...pretty well. The weird thing is that the laundry doesn't have any of those fake-nature smells you get from washing powder any more. I open the airing cupboard ('cos we're fancy these days and have one) and I smell...what is it exactly? A little bit school chemistry set, a bit serious, a bit Soviet lifestyle...it's certainly not summer flowers or pine fresh or anything you might call fragrant that's for sure. It's odd. And I'm not used to it yet.

Ironing

More housewifery. Doing the ironing when I was younger was one of the first jobs I remember doing and feeling really grown-up whilst doing it so the smell of ironing is a happy memory smell for me (warm, clean, comforting, in control). When I was about 10 I used to iron my older brother's shirts (and he was very fussy) and by all accounts I did it well so it made me feel clever and capable (and who doesn't like that feeling)? After that I didn't iron for years (really...years!) but I do it again now...every couple of weeks I suppose (nothing too mental). As some of you will know I really only do ironing as an excuse to listen to music but I still like the smell. Plus it looks like I'm doing something not just sitting around listening to music...

Paint – like bread?

Mark was painting the sitting room the other day and it smelt just like baking bread. I'm sure it did. Or was it because the paint was a bit bread coloured..? Mystery...

Bins

I'm always amazed how powerful smells can be! A kitchen bin that needs emptying – that can turn a happy home into somewhere altogether different, can't it? Squalor...just waiting to happen...


Taste

Strawberry cream

Like a small child, I really like the strawberry one in a box of Cadbury's Roses. It's just sugar x sugar x sugar - a real short, sharp hit. My drugtaking is not what it was I will admit...but there's still always something available to give a person a lift now and then, when required...

Tears

Oh bloody hell, am I always crying about something or what? Mothering stuff, hormone stuff, disappointment in human beings stuff...very tiresome! But at least after all this fieldwork you'd think I could focus on the true taste of tears. Salt, snot, the taste of your own failure and disappointment...what do tears really taste like? They taste...unwanted.

Potter's catarrh pastilles

The best remedy – harsh and critical and determined and often accompanied by the nagging question 'if I fall asleep with one of these in my mouth, will I choke..?'

Homemade stuffing

Onions, bread and herbs – delicious!


Sound

Small Girl's voice

When she is talking to the Winnie the Pooh characters in a computer game our daughter is completely talking to them (they are in the room...there is no hint of 'just a game'). I love listening to her but I am very aware that she is 9 soon and that things are changing every day in her world. It's necessary but a shame... all the same.

Happy dog

Our dog Zoe (who just turned one this week) makes the most amazing sound when you stroke her a lot (especially if she's been left alone for a while). It's half cat-purring and half person-trying-not-to-laugh-at-a-joke or something. It's like she's saying 'don't stop, don't stop, never stop stroking me!' Really, it is.

Joni Mitchell's voice

Her voice is so unique, isn't it? Sometimes I don't even like it but I listen to it all the same...she's very hard to say no to, I find (in some of the songs anyway). I was listening to the album 'Blue' the other day and Small Girl was quite taken with 'Carey' (she's always liked mermaids) though she did, for the first time ever, say 'this just doesn't make any sense!' I had to stop myself from replying 'since when do you care about sense?' Then also Mike Harding played Mitchell singing 'For Free' on his radio show the other day so it seemed to be Joni week. Watch these and think - does her voice match her face perfectly...or is that just me not making any sense either?

Here's Joni singing 'Carey' at Wembley in 1983:



and just to spoil you here she is singing 'For Free' for the BBC in 1970:



Crows

The crows are very noisy just now. Up near Small Girl's school there are loads of them (at least I think they're crows...they could be rooks I suppose...they're very high up...) and the other day it sounded like they were having a very heated debate ('look at you, on that branch...don't you know nobody sits on branches like that any more', 'what do you know, think you're so clever...' etc. etc.). I like to hear them carry on like that.


Touch

Just sanded

Is there anything like a smooth bit of a wall when it's just been sanded ready to paint? Soft as a baby's sole!

Little laptop keys

Also very soft – I probably touch laptop keys as much as anything these days. Strange that, when you think about it.

Paper money

Quite a distinctive feel, isn't it, the touch of paper money? Thick but thin, soft but tough, taken for granted but still totally essential...go stroke a tenner and see what's got to say for itself, why don't you...

Bedroom carpet

Well, you touch with your toes too, don't you? As there is decorating going on downstairs I've been working upstairs for a while instead so although usually when I'm in our bedroom I'm in bed this week I've been typing, reading, ironing - all upstairs. This means my toes have been saying a much longer hello to our much overlooked, but delighfully soft bedroom carpet this week too. After years in crappy rented places with filthy, bitter and no doubt miserable floorcoverings I do enjoy the feeling of something clean and soft underfoot. It's not to be sneezed at, you know...

And on that note...I'm off to blow my nose again and I'll see you all in a few days time. Make sure you have a good, sensually stimulating weekend now, won't you?
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