breeds contempt, or if not contempt, which seems far too harsh a sentiment, an awareness of the emotional complexities you bring with you.
Surely ‘they’ will not leave me standing in the street. And, as I say, some miracle might happen. It always has in the past – a musical made of one of my old books, the reissue of a DVD, a film, an archive bought – unexpected money in the bank, debts paid, and everything back to normal. Well, normal as far as that exists today, but at least, like old Barbara fifty years ago, permitted by the State to stay in this house until I die. I’m glad we went to her funeral and I don’t think her soul went into Polly. But perhaps it did. She must have been rather angry the other side of her apparent patience, as she shuffled past our chattering dinner parties on her way to make a piece of cheese on toast, too uninteresting even to be addressed as ‘the sitting tenant’, which I, up to my eyes in mortgage, in effect now am. The biter bit, and serves me right.
Anyway, that is the story of the Crescent until now. I am a little worried about Amos’ assumption that ‘we’ will smuggle my belongings to a place of safety and thus defraud the State. I have lived all my life as a decent citizen, a payer of taxes, a giver to charity – my banker’s order to Oxfam now goes automatically to the CiviKindness people – but I can see perhaps none of that good behaviour has helped me very much in life. I must somehow find my inner bitch.
Breakfast With Amos
But here and now is good. I slept surprisingly well. Amos stayed the night, and in the morning seemed totally normal and offered to bring me breakfast in bed and I accepted with gratitude. I often stay in bed to write until the need for coffee becomes too great to resist – especially when Venetia has slipped me some of the real stuff from the CiviStore. After that my concentration fades and it can be hours before I return to my laptop. But this morning I got a whole lot of writing done, with nice warm toes, before Amos called that breakfast was ready. During which time I was able to fill you in very adequately on recent economic history and the rise and fall of house prices, though I daresay I lost a few readers.
Amos spent a lot of time on his mobile rather than cooking, and then it took him ten minutes to find the dried egg. He seemed to take the difficulty personally, and I wondered if his unknown father had a touch of obsessive-compulsive disorder: my side of the family being too casual and laid-back to have provided the genes which make people panicky if what they are looking for cannot be found at once. I had to get out of bed to help him to find it.
Scrambled egg using dried egg is perfectly palatable, though better if you can get hold of blue-top milk to add to the mix, and not the green-top which is more readily available. In fact I quite likedried-egg scramble, if enough time and trouble is taken squashing out the lumps.
Dried egg is once again imported from the USA: in return for our oats, as a kind of simple barter, while the international money systems wait for what is hopefully referred to as ‘the restoration of financial harmony’. I reckoned this would be a long time coming: natural calamity had piled on quantitative easement to intensify both food and water shortages and continued financial chaos. On the heels of the UG99 ravages, a new strain of resistant fusarium fungus meant cereal harvests failed over the American and Russian continents in 2011–12; but at least both were spared the avian flu, which got China in a big way; a new strain of dengue fever, resistant to antibiotics, swept Africa. Most air travel now is restricted to diplomats and government officials, and everyone who sets foot on foreign soil is well fumigated the instant they arrive. This puts most tourists off: that, and the currency restrictions. Here in the UK it’s £5 for every trip abroad, the same as it was in 1948. Even after the
Surely ‘they’ will not leave me standing in the street. And, as I say, some miracle might happen. It always has in the past – a musical made of one of my old books, the reissue of a DVD, a film, an archive bought – unexpected money in the bank, debts paid, and everything back to normal. Well, normal as far as that exists today, but at least, like old Barbara fifty years ago, permitted by the State to stay in this house until I die. I’m glad we went to her funeral and I don’t think her soul went into Polly. But perhaps it did. She must have been rather angry the other side of her apparent patience, as she shuffled past our chattering dinner parties on her way to make a piece of cheese on toast, too uninteresting even to be addressed as ‘the sitting tenant’, which I, up to my eyes in mortgage, in effect now am. The biter bit, and serves me right.
Anyway, that is the story of the Crescent until now. I am a little worried about Amos’ assumption that ‘we’ will smuggle my belongings to a place of safety and thus defraud the State. I have lived all my life as a decent citizen, a payer of taxes, a giver to charity – my banker’s order to Oxfam now goes automatically to the CiviKindness people – but I can see perhaps none of that good behaviour has helped me very much in life. I must somehow find my inner bitch.
Breakfast With Amos
But here and now is good. I slept surprisingly well. Amos stayed the night, and in the morning seemed totally normal and offered to bring me breakfast in bed and I accepted with gratitude. I often stay in bed to write until the need for coffee becomes too great to resist – especially when Venetia has slipped me some of the real stuff from the CiviStore. After that my concentration fades and it can be hours before I return to my laptop. But this morning I got a whole lot of writing done, with nice warm toes, before Amos called that breakfast was ready. During which time I was able to fill you in very adequately on recent economic history and the rise and fall of house prices, though I daresay I lost a few readers.
Amos spent a lot of time on his mobile rather than cooking, and then it took him ten minutes to find the dried egg. He seemed to take the difficulty personally, and I wondered if his unknown father had a touch of obsessive-compulsive disorder: my side of the family being too casual and laid-back to have provided the genes which make people panicky if what they are looking for cannot be found at once. I had to get out of bed to help him to find it.
Scrambled egg using dried egg is perfectly palatable, though better if you can get hold of blue-top milk to add to the mix, and not the green-top which is more readily available. In fact I quite likedried-egg scramble, if enough time and trouble is taken squashing out the lumps.
Dried egg is once again imported from the USA: in return for our oats, as a kind of simple barter, while the international money systems wait for what is hopefully referred to as ‘the restoration of financial harmony’. I reckoned this would be a long time coming: natural calamity had piled on quantitative easement to intensify both food and water shortages and continued financial chaos. On the heels of the UG99 ravages, a new strain of resistant fusarium fungus meant cereal harvests failed over the American and Russian continents in 2011–12; but at least both were spared the avian flu, which got China in a big way; a new strain of dengue fever, resistant to antibiotics, swept Africa. Most air travel now is restricted to diplomats and government officials, and everyone who sets foot on foreign soil is well fumigated the instant they arrive. This puts most tourists off: that, and the currency restrictions. Here in the UK it’s £5 for every trip abroad, the same as it was in 1948. Even after the
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