In the beginning was my daughter Emma and she came and stayed the night bringing her Mexican husband, Leo, and her two sons Leo and Daniel. And it was good.Consternation! I woke at around two in the morning and remembered Oliver St. John Gogarty. I recalled his importance but the reason eluded me. I could not remember why Gogarty was important. Emma reminded me that it was to do with her great-grandmother, gymshoes and James Joyce and her days at UCD after the great war. Well, we couldn’t work out the exact date which is where Gogarty and the gymshoes came in. Gogarty was a friend of Joyce only he had been at TCD. And Stonyhurst. Gogarty had owned Renvyle now a hotel where Alison and I stayed once. That was in Connemara.
Anyway Emma came with her gang which was nice, It’s been all go here since. Robin Williams killed himself and his wife revealed that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. As a result the Mail wanted a piece from me and I duly obliged. They sent a senior lensman all the way from London and he took pictures inside and out evading the cat poo! He was senior enough to remember Lichfield and the wife was able to tell her story. No seriously, it was a nice day and he made us sit on kitchen chairs, in the garden, hold hands, look into one another’s eyes and the ginger one had defecated at all our feet.
And Robin Williams killed himself and his Parky was the reason for the Mail interest. And Jerry Healey died and Dicky Attenborough . The Mail wanted fifteen hundred words on my condition relating it to the fate of poor Williams. I couldn’t, of course, resist some jokes and my wife had a look and made some corrections but basically it seemed to find favour. Then alas the failure to use the piece and the inevitable soul searching. I make it sound usual and it takes me back. What one has to get used to is that in conventional terms the paper over-commissions and for the ordinary hack there is no shame or dishonor in not being used. At least that’s my reading. Contrast the Leveller, the local free sheet which used my article on local history without question. The local was local, the other was national and therein lies all sorts of difference, the main one apart from actually seeing oneself in print being the payment. There are those who say that something for nothing is not right and they have a point. On the other hand if the people who really can’t pay…oh discuss, discuss.
Well I am getting perilously close to matters I may not write about so I’d better leave it. Suffice it to say that I have finally aborted the non-fiction book and I have had a piece of publicity for my non-fiction accepted. On relevant matters one pays, the other doesn’t. Guess which! Actually my balance of paying things versus the unpaying is a bit out of kilter and needs attention. Children and Christopher should have a natter. They are hereby warned!
Christmas is booked in the parador in Spanish Santiago and we are shortly off to France. Old friends of mine have asked us to their house and Christmas is Christmas. We had been planning a trip to Cuba but Spain will suffice. More than enough. We plan to spend my birthday in Florida but further ahead is God’s idea of a joke and MY God doesn’t have much of a sense of humour. We have both wanted to go to Santiago for a long time and it sounds fantastic. I am in charge of restaurants and meals apart from breakfast which is part of the deal. The favourite local dish seems to be octopus.
That’s good for me and I am currently well into octopus-serving restaurants in the Galician capital. I’ll report back!
Maud is over 51,000 words and I am editing. Is it any good? I honestly do not know and am more interested in whether or not I care. If so, do I care enough? It’s essential. Probably therapeutic so should I care about the end result. I am reminded of Balfour’s epithet about nothing mattering much and I am consoled. Up to a point. I hear the screams of outrage when I tentatively reflect that I might just agree one little teeny bit. And then I remember that there is no room for teeny little bits in life as we know it. It’s all broad brush strokes. I am wondering whether I am a little bit man and whether it has any place in a blog and then I remember that I am supposed to be writing one and suddenly I am not consoled. What, after all, is a blog for? Maud is too short. I know that but she is into cooking and she grows, she grows.
Apart from that life is slipping into a routine – boring to write about and boring to read but never boring to live!