I have strep throat, I’m sweating like a steeple-runner and feel as though I’ve been kicked in the kidneys. I haven’t had a cold or the flu in the longest time but have succumbed in the past few days to something that has knocked me flat. So I’m having a day in bed to try and get over it faster. Need sleep!
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I love our blue bedroom high up in Ty Isaf. Outside the trees are restless in the wind that cools my skin through the raised sash, and the shadows of swallows whiz across the floor and walls as the birds feed their young in the nests under the eaves just above the windows. Jack is with me, curled on the bed-throw. Not for the first time in our lives together he is out of sorts at the same time as I am, though the reason for his being poorly is because he wrenched a claw to the point where it’s facing the wrong way round and will probably have to drop off before the injury can heal properly. He’s done this before in the helter-skelter of vigorous play, and it will sort itself out in time. But for the moment he’s sleeps a lot, rouses himself to look at me woefully and then sleeps more. He only wanted a plate of yoghurt for breakfast, which is his usual way of telling me that he’s feeling delicate.
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I don’t often take to my bed when unwell, but when I do I like to fall back on familiar and well-loved reading. Nothing too challenging. Today I have the supernatural tales of Robert Aickman to hand, and a couple of long-cherished and dog-eared Sebastien Japrisot paperbacks, The Lady in a Car with Glasses and a Gun and Trap for Cinderella. Comfort reading! Outside all is quiet. Our neighbour Tom cut his fields last week, and so there are no tractors to disturb the peace. Time to snooze.
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Oh, BC, I hope you’re better by time you read this! xoxox
I hope you feel better soon Clive (and I hope Jack does too!)
(I shall keep the hare for you when he is finished
)
Thank you Chloe. (Little chance of Peter getting wind of this plan, as he rarely reads the comments at the Artlog.)
Oops! I didn’t think >.<
And here I was gloating over our secret pictures! I am sorry you and Jack are woeful, but a good dose of intense blue will set you right, I’m sure.
Today I am going to the village of Medusa–at first to meet three (snaky-locked) people, which seemed ominous. But now it’s up to five, and that seems safer somehow! All writers. I’ll send you a get well note about how it went when I get back. I need to go get ready now. Supposedly it’s 90 minutes off on twisty (snaky!) roads.
How did a village come to be named Medusa? My brain is racing over what may have happened there. But yes, a strange notion indeed that you were to meet with three inhabitants, gorgons traditionally coming in sibling sets of three. Five sounds more like a welcoming committee. (Let’s hope!)
You’ll recall that Medusa came to a sticky end way-back-when. As she was the only mortal of the three you may well get to meet Stheno and Euryale. Remember to keep your eyes down at all times. I doubt those girls have much changed their ways over the years.
Travel safely along the snaky roads.
Just RELAX, Clive and enjoy the peace!
Will do. Thanks, Julia.
Clive, I came across the website of a great puppet maker the other day and vowed to pass it on in my next comment. Typically, I just forgot to do so but on your sick bed, when not reading, do visit the dotcom website of Erik Santo and see what you think. Me? I’m off to read out about Sebastien Japrisot.
Hello Lesley. I’m sure the puppeteer and puppet-maker you’re thinking of is Erik Sanko. He’s a genius. Well spotted!
Sebastien Japrisot has a way of writing that hits the spot for me. I love the two books mentioned above. They capture a tone of the times they were written in, and have the capacity to tip me into them. He’s better known now for his novel A Very Long Engagement, which was adapted and made into a film in 2004, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and starring Audrey Tatou. But it’s the small handful of sparely written and darkly atmospheric thrillers I love, and that I return to when the mood moves me.
The 10:30 from Marseille (The Sleeping-Car Murders) (1964)
Trap for Cinderella (1965)
Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun (1968)
One Deadly Summer (1980)
Yes, you’re right Clive it is Erik Sanko. Sometimes the memory fails me when I need lt most. A visit to my local library this afternoon established that somewhere in Pembrokeshire the system has some Japrisot novels, the majority of them in their original language but a couple exist in translation… or they would if they could find them. They seem to lost in a black hole somewhere but they have promised to try and procure one for me. So, perhaps I shall get to see what I’ve been missing. Here’s hoping.
There are some very cheap translated editions of the novels on AbeBooks:
Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun is available HERE at 1. 36 plus p+p
Trap for Cinderella is available HERE for £1.65 plus p+p
The 10.30 from Marseille is available HERE for 64p plus p+p
One Deadly Summer is available HERE for 64p
Clive, in that fabulous garden of yours I bet you grow sage. A tad too late now maybe but a few sage leaves steeped in hot water and then drank or gargled is the perfect way to stave off a sore throat if caught at the onset. It works every time and keeps colds at bay. Sage is also for longevity so give it a go! Like you I rarely get colds or anything but the body is obviously telling the mind that it needs a break. Go well and feel better soon.
I do grow sage, Lesley, but I had forgotten its recommended use for sore throats. Thank you for reminding me. I shall have to brush up on my herbalism!
well get bed rest, perhaps as others have suggested you post just a little less until recovered. Poor pups, at least you have one another to snuggle with (:
I posted a get well “postcard”on my site for you, check when you are on the mend.
LG
What a wonderful treat you left for me at Boondocks Babylon. Thank you Leonard for that. It was lovely to visit Vizcaya from my blue eyrie, and to imagine you exploring its wonders.
As several have mentioned before me, if one must rest and recuperate, you are in just the right place to do so and with trusty little Jack curled up nearby. It is odd how, during the few times when I have been feeling out of sorts, one, or the other, or both of my dogs would seem to be feeling much the same. It must be a form of empathy. Do rest and get well soon, Clive.
Hello Bev. The way some dogs mirror their owners ups and downs is a fascinating phenomenon. Knowing how tied Jack is to every aspect of my life makes me acutely conscious of my responsibilities toward the little chap.
Hope you are feeling better soon. Sleep and plenty of fluids is the key. What a beautiful room!
If I have to be feeling off-colour, then I’m lucky this is the room I’m doing it in. It is beautiful.
Dear Clive. I am a silent but very enthusiastic admirer. Do get better soon. You have been working hard as ever – one’s body has a way of saying when it needs rest. Jack senses your weakness and will be running by your side soon.
Hello silent but enthusiastic John. How kind of you to have broken silence to wish me well. Jack has kept me company all day, and I think we’ll both be ready for a stroll in the garden tomorrow.
Then tomorrow will be a new and exiting day for you both – I sense your positivity. The beautiful garden will give you new strength.
So sorry to hear you’re not well Clive, you sound proper poorly – feel better soon, and Jack. That beautiful room looks like a very good place to rest up for a bit, look after yourselves x
Hi Phil. Lovely to hear from you, and thank you for your good wishes. This afternoon Jack and I both napped while the rain blew softly through the open sash, and I woke to find the window-sill freckled with it. A quiet and restful day. Tomorrow I must get going again.
BTW, that looks like a very lovely and unusual quilt…is there a story?
It’s a Bangladeshi wedding quilt, the gift of our friend William Gibbs. It’s the mantle worn by the Virgin in THIS Annunciation.
Hope you feel better very soon, Clive — and Jack!
Thank you Beth. We’re both getting there.
awww! poor guys!
sleep well, get well
hugs
Thanks, Zoe. Sleep is doing the trick.
i’m sure the blue is helping, as well
Both the colour of the room and hearing from a ‘blue’ friend were just what was needed. (-;
That’s a heck of a blog post for someone too sick to get out of bed! Lovely photos. Hope you and Jack are feeling better soon.
Ha ha! I needed to know whether I look as crap as I feel. (I pretty much do!) The rest was achieved with a laptop.
Ooh poor you and poor jack – hope you are feeling better soon.
Flu I think, and one of those that lays one low for a few days and then packs its bags and leaves. Still feeling a bit rough here, but definitely on the mend. Thanks for the good wishes, Jacqui.
Rest up dear Clive and get well soon. You are such a prolific worker its hard I know to stop sometimes – this is the old mountain gods’ way of letting you off the hook for a bit. Time for gentle thinking, snoozing, cuddles, cloud-gazing and reading salacious fiction.
I think you and I share the same view on what to do when feeling poorly! Salacious fiction- YEAH!
(I love the crime thrillers of Japrisot, but he wrote so few. I read them way back when they were first available in translation, and I’ve been bonded to them ever since. They’re my stuck-in-bed-feeling-unwell books. Quite short too, so not at all challenging. I just wish there were more of them.)
(-;
Thanks Paul. Much appreciated.
I only know ‘a very long engagement’, but enjoyed that a lot. You might like Pierre Magnan’s work if gallic crime is ton sac – the two we’ve read, ‘Death in the Truffle Wood’ and ‘The Messengers of Death’, were great fun and very gripping.
I meant also to say, your blue room looks delightful. It somehow has a scandinavian feel – austure almost, but in no way bleak. Simply simple and unfussy. Good for calming the soul.
I do like French crime fiction, and so thanks, Paul, for those recommendations. I shall go seek.
Did you not see the bedroom when you were here last year? It’s painted in a Farrow & Ball colour called Cook’s Blue. Everyone who saw the room before the furniture went in thought the colour too intense, and everyone who has seen it since, thinks it perfect. On a sunny day when the leaves outside are dancing and the birdsong is all around, it’s nothing less than a tree-house in heaven.
Poor you! Poor Jack! Get well soon, the both of you. N x
Your kind thoughts shall make it so.
C x