In Person
Saturday, April 26, 2003
I am back from a week of visiting! I spent days in Brighton with my lovely sister and partner and her three children, seeing my mum too, and Kathy (who asked to be mentioned by name!) lying about eating fairy cakes in Queen's Park, hanging out in wierdy but nice teashops..particular favourite CONBERTS 16 Sydney Street where you could have sandwiches with the crusts cut off and tea served in proper china cups with all the silver accessories, strainers and so on. I had my eyebrows waxed, which has made me look surprised. According to my mum, if you want to say something difficult to someone, you should raise your eyebrows at them, and they won't mind. Mine are now constantly raised so I can say what I like!
After Brighton I went to London and my duaghter and I went to the Saatchi exhibition. One of the exhibits made me feel like throwing up...it was the cow's head and the flies. I also used my new eyebrows to complain about the cloakroom facilities which were your usual British messed up affair with a girl who looked about fifteen laboriously sticking labels onto bags with selotape, while a long, long queue silently fumed! The exhibition was such a mix of things. I was really fascinated by the sculpture Dead Dad, and kept returning to it. I liked the photographic images of Henry Vlll's wives. But some of the stuff looked downright MOULDY I thought, particularly all the pickled animals.
We went to the Tate Modern too where two cans of juice, and a couple of flapjacks cost £6.30 !! I loved the exploding shed, and enjoyed looking at old favourites like Matisse and Miro. After that I spent the rest of the time on my friend's sofa. I only like visiting people who I know well enough to lie on their sofas! I like London, but I tend to get lost and to walk in circles. I managed to leave my fat red mother's purse in the back of a mini cab, but the driver returned it the following day. What honesty!
It's nice to be home again. The rats have not returned.Posted by julia @ 07:07 PM GMT
Monday, April 14, 2003
It hasn't rained for months! All my sunflower seedlings are drying up. Is this global warming or what?
I had a brilliant week away. I have realised that it doesn't matter how much time I have, I only write for roughly four hours a day, but what does make the difference is not having anything else to do in between. I really enjoyed lying about in pools of sunlight thinking about my characters. Or not even thinking about the book, just being vague and dreamy. I did loads, and feel really connected with the new book now.Today it was the academic's writing group. We've been meeting for a long time now, and I look forward to the sessions which are every lunchtime once a fortnight. The group attracts all the nicest people from all over the university(!)...landscape gardeners, geographers,adminstrators, scientists, child psychologists. We meet up and write for half and hour, then read it out. Today we wrote about things that were found at the bottom of a lake. This was because Leazes Park Pond has just been dredged and there is a fascinating pile of muddy things in glass cases at the Museum of Antiquities. In the group we made up things, and one person wrote 'six ornamental gnomes' and nearly everyone wrote about these gnomes. Somebody said 'Well, if you'd told me I would spend my lunch hour writing about gnomes I wouldn't have come, but now I am so glad I did!"
It's all quiet again now the students have drained away. Easter always takes me by surprise. I have the proof of Taxi Driver's Daughter to read. It's wierd now it's a book, not a pile of paper. Books are such beautiful things.
Posted by julia @ 07:01 PM GMT
Monday, April 7, 2003
I just went for a hospital appointment with Doctor Verril. This was to get the results of my scan. I wasn't looking forward to it, as in my experience results are usually bad. Also there's no point getting worked up, because the results might not be there, so I am very good at entering a dreamlike state when I go into the RVI. I read an article about Monica Lewinksky. The waiting room was eerily empty and the nurses were twittering and giggling in the corridor. The atmosphere was like a girls boarding school at half term. However Doctor Verril was there and we got called in quite swiftly. He read out the results which showed no sign of any mestatises (probably spelt wrong) at all. It's as if the cancer has dried up. There is a bit of fluid in my pleural cavities, but not enough to worry about. I asked him why and he said it could be anything. Still, good news. It means that I don't have to have any more treatment for a while. I believe that this remission is due to the combination of acupuncture, Doris the healer, and Doctor Verril, and me. Together I think we are a formidable team.
I am going off on another retreat this week to work on the new book. It's forming in my head all the time. I can't stop thinking about it. I keep turning over ideas about Northern Magic Realism too. Last night I went to listen to David Almond read at The Blue Room...his work inhabits a childlike world where the imagination interweaves with reality. I'm interested in that place, where truth and lies mix up together. I love his work. I just read (thanks Joanne) A True Story Based On Lies, a short Mexican novel by an author whose name I've temporarily forgotten. Her work inhabits the same territory.
I think this new novel will take me to South America!Posted by julia @ 10:05 AM GMT
Thursday, April 3, 2003
I'm back from Manchester where we were recording the five women's hour plays. It all went really smoothly, with actors who seemed capable of using their voices to create the most subtle nuances in the text. I sat in the studio next to the producer, Sue Roberts. I love this producer. She has such a clear ear for things and everyone around her feels relaxed. Other people are sitting doing timings and tapping away at computers. It's all very efficient. Every so often Sue says something like, what do you think about changing this AND to BUT? The main thing is getting the plays the right length, and the other thing I needed to do was cut bits when they were too long, which nearly all of them were. Some of the plays are adapted from THE LAST POST which was a stage play I wrote last year. The actors who were in the stage version and the radio version had to stop acting so much. Radio is so intimate. You hardly need to put any expression into a voice to show anger,desire or whatever. Two of the plays were completely new, and I was most anxious about them as I hadn't heard them being read. Thank god they seemed to work ok though. The plays are broadcast everyday from 19th May.
You'll be glad to know the rat has gone. Everything is back to normal, if it ever is really normal. The rat's corpse is in a shoe box in the front garden, as I want to show the rat catcher that we've caught it. It turned up dead, you'll be glad to hear. Our cat dragged it about pretending that it had killed it, but actually it was the poison. But what a drama that was!I went to see the film Frida last week. I enjoyed it alot. The clothes are beautiful, and I liked the way the film looked at her life and illness. Actually I found it quite
inspiring. It made me feel like being adventurous !I am about to get really immersed in the new book. I have a story now, but the characters are still a bit misty and vague, like people I don't really know yet.
Posted by julia @ 11:27 AM GMT
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