A Miscellany of Housekeeping

Just when I feel I have rediscovered my blogging mojo my internet connection gets dodgy. Three times in the last week my connection failed and I have spent many hours waiting for my IP to respond to phone calls; if I have to listen once more to the tinkling muzak while they keep me on hold, constantly reminding me that it would be so much easier if I just went online to FAQ, I shall do them an injury. I must make sure that I get a post out before the connection fails again.

There is a development in the dispute with the neighbour; after much to-ing and fro-ing, and at great cost, we have reached an agreement. I am giving permission for the barn to be repaired and for three months they can erect scaffolding on my land, provided they arrange for the scaffolding to leave me full access to  the passage between the front and back of my house, they replace any plants they damage to a comparable standard, make good any disturbance on my land, and they do not extend the time limit;  furthermore, my permission is valid only for the barn's back wall acc. to the "meaning of the act" (legalese); I am not obliged to grant permission for rebuilding any other side or the interior. Some success, I suppose. 

Blogging mojo is not the only mojo I have rediscovered, after several years of the garden receding into the background of my life I am feeling the urge to get back out and create a place of peace, beauty and solace, culminating in opening again in the summer when the village gardens display their charms to visitors, once covid restrictions are over. We'll see. It's easy to plan an active gardening life from the comfort of my cosy study, but it might not feel quite so urgent when the work outside starts. In the cold of early spring at that. However, gardening is good for body, soul and spirit.

Opening the garden might have a further benefit: mild revenge on my neighbours; if that strip of land cannot be cultivated for months it will show and I'd know whom to blame, publicly. Yes, I know I am acting quite childishly. 

A friend lent me her copy of Colm Toibin's "The Magician"; a fictionalised biography of the German writer and Nobel Prize Winner Thomas Mann; she said she wanted to have my opinion on it. Although Toibin is a greatly admired author I have not previously read any of his work. I am ashamed to admit that I had a prejudice against (Northern) Ireland. For years, before the Peace Process, the news was always bad, I hated the endless murders and maiming, the fighting, the violence, the religious bigotry; I lost count of the number of times I had to leave the underground on my way to and from work, how terrified we passengers were if we saw an unattended bag anywhere in the carriage or how we suspiciously watched each other, looking for signs of terrorism. The relief was great in 1998 when the Troubles finally ended although Brexit is having an alarming effect on the Peace Process.

None of that is anything to do with Toibin, he is Dublin Irish, and a marvellous writer. After nearly two years of choosing lightweight reading material, lots of it, some of it boring and toe-curlingly badly written, I was a bit worried about having to read a book of literary merit and give an opinion. I needn't have worried. Toibin's style is fluent, limpid, even simple. He is totally accessible. The Magician is first and foremost a portrait of the artist as a family man with  Germany's decline and fall always in the background. I can honestly say that I loved the book and will now most certainly delve further into Colm Toibin's work.