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Reading, writing, general life
Oct. 18th, 2015 02:23 pmGeneral life: This city is changing and modernising, and especially from a health and water supply POV, that's a good thing - new underground drains in places where there used to be some remnant open unlined drains, new gutters and pavings and so on. But now on the trip to the post office, the way along the canal is blocked - in fact the canal itself is mostly covered over, now, and will probably be turning into a road. I can see the reasons for the change, but I miss the quiet and green of the hidden canal path that used to be.
Other changing, in which I'm not seeing the good: there's building - a seven-storey building - going on over the laneway from me, and however amiable the builders (and they are!), I'm very unkeen, because there goes the view from the top-floor terrace, or the openness of that bit of sky - let alone the impact on the lane of twenty-odd new apartments'-worth of extra people in a crowded neighbourhood. Oh, and there's currently a constant sense of fine grit in the air from construction dust. (moanmoanmoan :( )
Reading: Not recommended reading, unless you want to get one dimmish sidelight on the UK Fabian Socialist group in the early twentieth century, is Hubert Bland's tedious, horribly self-satisfied Letters to a Daughter - he reveals himself as repressive and loathsome and to my mind creepily interested in micromanaging his daughter's lovelife, even to the extent of railing against her for mentioning her "favourite actor". (The letters I take to be fictional, but his daughters were real.) E. Nesbit had a lot to put up with.
Coming up, for reading: The Radetzky March - Joseph Roth.
Writing: I'm having to backburner the story I was working on, pending further research. Bother. On the other hand, I spent part of a dullish seminar on Saturday roughing out a different story, so all is not lost.
My NFE story has crawled finally past the hundred-viewings mark! (I had some thoughts of posting here a link to a real-life, this-world illustration of the process outlined in that story, but - oh well - there's all too many of those. )
Gratuitous extra bit: best wishes for wisdom to prevail in the election, Canada!
Other changing, in which I'm not seeing the good: there's building - a seven-storey building - going on over the laneway from me, and however amiable the builders (and they are!), I'm very unkeen, because there goes the view from the top-floor terrace, or the openness of that bit of sky - let alone the impact on the lane of twenty-odd new apartments'-worth of extra people in a crowded neighbourhood. Oh, and there's currently a constant sense of fine grit in the air from construction dust. (moanmoanmoan :( )
Reading: Not recommended reading, unless you want to get one dimmish sidelight on the UK Fabian Socialist group in the early twentieth century, is Hubert Bland's tedious, horribly self-satisfied Letters to a Daughter - he reveals himself as repressive and loathsome and to my mind creepily interested in micromanaging his daughter's lovelife, even to the extent of railing against her for mentioning her "favourite actor". (The letters I take to be fictional, but his daughters were real.) E. Nesbit had a lot to put up with.
Coming up, for reading: The Radetzky March - Joseph Roth.
Writing: I'm having to backburner the story I was working on, pending further research. Bother. On the other hand, I spent part of a dullish seminar on Saturday roughing out a different story, so all is not lost.
My NFE story has crawled finally past the hundred-viewings mark! (I had some thoughts of posting here a link to a real-life, this-world illustration of the process outlined in that story, but - oh well - there's all too many of those. )
Gratuitous extra bit: best wishes for wisdom to prevail in the election, Canada!
