Missus and I were recently back in England. Linda saw an ad for a trip to visit English gardens, guided by a local garden expert. She is the avid gardener; I dig as directed. It is a savage hobby, uprooting perfectly happy plants that are not satisfactory, and replacing them . Any excuse to revisit GB will suffice for RR; so we went. I'll supply details in future posts; for today, I will concentrate on what for me was an all too brief high point.
When the trip had been booked, I contacted Lorenzo da Ponte, author of the "Tone Deaf" blog, whom we met two years ago on a less hectic tour. E-mail serves and volleys commenced; for various reasons there was one opportunity to get together. Little is always better than none, so had to settle for little time.
We got to see LdaP and signora, got to see Hereford cathedral, and spend some quiet time before we had to bustle back to Cheltenham. Lorenzo and missus were very kind to us. I am a curious person, and enjoyed scoping out a portion of L da P's books, and once again was amazed at Mrs. LdaP's reading quantity. Even saw a title for future reference as we say in the library biz: a bio of Pepys which won the Whitbread Prize when it was called the Whitbread prize. Another instance of inspiration from L da P. I thank him and the missus for their hospitality and patience.
2 comments:
Driving and talking I became aware of a new phenomenon: layered conversation. Utterances which crowded out other utterances, later obscured by the need to listen and respond, causing earlier unspoken ideas to slip down, unarticulated, to the bottom of the pond, forming a possibly nutritious but otherwise unutilised sludge. In thousands of years this stuff, which arrived but did not take wing, will have been turned into geological strata, intermingled with the other stuff which was uttered, the two aspects of communication finally indistinguishable.
I kept on wanting to discuss The German Genius, the desire popping up as I talked then again when you and Mrs RR talked, but ultimately never seeing the light of day. I could see the book's dust jacket - black lettering on a white background - lying on the bottom level of one of my upstairs bookshelves, clearly visible in my mind's eye yet never quite making it to the appropriate conversational springboard. Various entertainers have expressed the principle: Leave them wanting more. I can fairly say the pair of you did.
Thank you for your comments, very kind. Good conversations like that are like spinning plates: so many to attend to, some just remain untouched and spin down. I like your metaphor better, actually.
We will discuss that book on our next visit. We won't have such a rigid schedule and I can re-read it ( I see it is available on Nook) before we talk about it. There are so many plates to spin, LdaP.
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