pumpkinstrokemarrow

Of a sort anyway. Just finished the second reading of 'Denier du Reve' by Marguerite Yourcenor, an author whom I only know through charity shops. The first of hers which I read was an impressive autobiography of Hadrian - impressive at the time that it. Took another peek more recently and was not so sure. This was the second, in French this time, and for a Belgian I found her vocabulary quite hard. Much recourse to the dictionary. Took me a long time for example, to puzzle out the word luciole, a collective noun for fire flies (feminine) and glow worms (masculine). Odd, because their words for both, shining flies and shining worms, are more or less the same as ours. But it took ages to twig. I wonder if the flies and worms are related, perhaps by the latter being the larvae of the former? I have the idea that the worms dangle off twigs by a thread like that of spiders, thus occupying much the same space as the flies flying among the twigs. But this is, maybe, little more than guessing.

An oddly compelling book, with some striking images. So, for example: "Le peu d'argent que Paolo Farina donnait a Lina chaque semaine lui servait a payer une illusion volontaire, c'est-a-dire, peut etre, la seule chose au monde qui ne trompe pas." Page 20 in the Gallimard edition. Must learn how to do accents; the French looking very deficient without them. It is certainly possible as accented letters pop up by mistake sometimes, when one hits the wrong keys. But how does one find out how to do it? And then, towards the end of the book, the dying painter, Clement Roux, is maundering among his memories, maundering on the sic transiting of his gloria mundi. And then: "Au fond, je n'ai pas beaucoup vecu. C'est astreignant, la peinture. Se lever de bonne heure... Se coucher tot... J'ai pas de souvenirs." Not the same take as Simenon, another Belgian as it happens, in his memoires. He got up at the crack of dawn every day when he was 'en roman' to crack out his 5,000 words, and then had the rest of the day free to amuse himself. He did not seem unhappy about the arrangement.

I now learn that my sense of the English astringent was not quite right. The aura of the word was about right, so the translation worked, albeit slightly wrongly, as I had the core meaning of drying, rather than binding. The OED entry more or less allows drying by extension, but binding is core.

After all this brain strain, I find that the supply of red lentils is rather low and decide to pay a New Year's Eve visit to Mr S on the way back from Cheam. It took a while to warm up on the way out, fingers very cold. Despite the fact that quite a lot of passers by seemed to be managing without gloves at all. And that the lady in the baker assured me that my money was warm if my fingers were not. (On the other hand, the day previous, the crown of leaves of my principal cyclamen corm, my pride and joy, looked very sad first thing. It clearly did not like the frost, although I dare say that it recovers. Must check). But warmed up by the time I got back to the turning to Mr S, nearly back to Epsom. Entered the warm red glow of the giant store full of beans; the warm red glow being a product of a cluttered and crowded store, the bright red uniform jerseys (or maybe fleeces) worn by a lot of the staff and, perhaps, a touch of red in the decor. Set out in search of dried vegetables. Get up to aisle 40 or so and find myself among the toothpaste. None of the above aisle signs having mentioned dried vegetables. Ask youth with clip board. He ponders then suggests that I try aisle 1. I suspect that this is just a wheeze to get me as far away from him as possible, but I go along. Trundle back down to the other end of the store where I find that aisle 1 is fish. Nothing to do with dried vegetables. Ask a young lady in blue. We agree that maybe dried vegetables live in the same part of the world as rice, and she takes me to the rice aisle, passing a well known, nectar loving denizen of TB, recently employed by Mr S, on the way. How long will he last? Still no dried vegetables. Ask a slightly older lady in red. A shelf stacker who seems quite happy to be relieved of stacking duties for a few minutes. She ponders, seemingly uncertain, and then leads me off. A few aisles to the south of the rice we find the rather small section of dried vegetables and the pleasant lady in red wanders off, continuing away from the shelf that she had been stacking. Perhaps she got back to it eventually. Red lentils all present and correct on this occasion, £1.38 for a kilo of the things. But I wonder for how much longer. The dried vegetables rated about 2 feet of aisle. Hugely less space than was devoted to either rice or pasta, let alone that devoted to various sorts of potato crisps. Not a very popular line. Somewhat chastened, march off to the self service checkout. Manage it first time without needing any assistance and recover bicycle. And so ended another successful visit to Mr S. Time, 13 minutes and 37 seconds.