Sunday, September 02, 2007

Well, it's all over, the revelry and the rows, the longings and the letdowns. I'm not sure if I'm talking about that masquerade of a summer or Big Brother but either way, just Deal With It. (Semantic aside: interesting how BB has changed the meaning of the word ‘Eviction’ to a moment of personal triumph. Chanelle was ‘getting my Eviction after all’ when she left the house in a sexy basque to cheers from the crowd; Ziggy in his mea-culpa moments moaned 'I don't deserve an Eviction'.) It's become difficult to talk about these things - freaky weather that is, not BB gossip - as more horror stories are uncovered in the ashy rubble of burnt-out Greece. I feel hypocritical, knowing I'm one of those who relishes a standard of living that's part of the problem... my car, my journeys to find the sun... but I had an interesting conversation this week with a friend who believes it's too late anyway now to plaster up the damaged planet and our task for the next decades is to accept and adapt. He's visited African communities which are finding pragmatic responses to extreme change - ironically, our concepts of which global cultures dominate and which are 'third world' need to be inverted if any of us are to survive.
In the meantime, as the autumn handover begins at the signal of wayside black-berries, I've been enjoying local things like walking the woods & lanes, garden suppers, and swimming in the river at Warleigh Weir - a wonderful Bank Holiday alternative to sitting squodged among seaside-tripper traffic.

And now I'm off to Shropshire for a week - a chance to reconnect with my own writing at The Hurst, apparently the former home of John Osborne. It's set in 30 acres of woodlands, so I'm hoping for lots of walks as well as dramatic inspiration.

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