Barbie combing

Great day' s work today. Making strides with the second draft of Skelton.

In the afternoon off to the gym, which is like some kind of Victorian public school. The pool is still as cold as the English Channel and the showers freezing. I am going to get some money back.

Spoke to Anton, fresh from a challenging walking adventure in darkest Scotland and popped up the road to babysit Klaudia for twenty minutes. She started school yesterday, and is remarkably chilled about it and said her teacher was "beautiful".

Klaudia busy with her dolls, and as Anton left he told her that I wanted to play Barbies with her. I was not alone. The kittens Lenin and Pinkie Barbie Ariel found themselves repeatedly being dumped in the doll's bed, and lifted about the place, which they endure with complete resignation. I was told to comb a Barbie's hair with a brush. They do get in a tangle those Barbies. Klaudia showed me Ariel, who is a mermaid doll. I needed to know as I was fairly confident her kitten wasn't named after the character in The Tempest.

Anton back with Oskar, and it was quite a scene with the kids strewing toys about, (or in Klaudia's case carefully putting all the barbies and Ariel to bed) and the kittens hareing about after a fly with Anton attempting to tell me about the walk.

At bath time I made my excuses and resumed writing, after an omlette and salad, pausing to speak to Lorraine, and break off to watch Chelsea win a football match.

Read Gray's elegy in bed night, which I'd not looked at for ages. Some very nice bits in it. Especially the first few lines. And technically, I love the way he modulates the vowel sounds. Definitely a poem to be spoken aloud like a melancholy spell.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;
Save from yonder ivy-mantled tower,
The mopeing owl does to the moon complain...

Comments

Kate said…
The Mook is also currently a big fan of Ariel... must be a zeitgeist thing.