Wet stuff

Today we experienced a weird phenomenon: atmospheric moisture! Atmospheric moisture. Atmospheric moisture. *is bewildered*

In the true Californian spirit of running-a-tumble-dryer-despite-baking-sunshine, I have none the less turned the hose on to give the garden a thorough soak this evening. Tragically, it was only after I'd done so that I remembered I had meant to harvest the fava beans and repeat my bean-with-a-pea-dressing salad for the yogi tonight, alongside the chicken-and-white-bean stew and the mashed spuds.

I suppose I could harvest wet favas, but my feet would get all icky. Maybe I'll just steam the broccolini and the sugar snap peas instead, toss a little butter over 'em, and save the favas for m'lovely wife in days to come. Besides, there isn't any bacon to enliven the putative salad; we finished the last batch over the weekend, and the next lot is drying in the meat-fridge in anticipation of a smoke tomorrow.

In other dampish news, I seem to have washed everything today, except the cats. Which reminds me: the news you really want is this, that our little furry convalescent ate all his own (wet) breakfast and as much as he could snatch of Barry's, played loudly with his mousie and complained even louder that I wouldn't let him out to enrich his diet with a bit of wetwork, a birdie or two. I think he's fine.

Side by Side by Wallowing in it

Two thirds of my life ago - very possibly to the month - I first visited the house that changed my life, where I met Jay and Philippa and Phil and Dean. Jay died last year, and that's a thing; Philippa is now married to Mike, who was staying here last week, and that's a different thing. Phil I haven't heard from for too long, which is another thing; and Dean I haven't heard from for significantly longer, and that's another kind of thing, but it was because of Dean that I moved to Newcastle thirty-two years ago, with all that that implies. Which is all my life since then, basically, that implication...

Anyway: I was eighteen and they weren't, and they introduced me to many things that an eighteen-year-old ought to meet in the company of people older and smarter than himself; they taught me to drink, and to smoke, and and and. They lent me books, and played me music. And in between the Edith Piaf and the George Crumb, they not so much exposed as revealed me to Stephen Sondheim. Since when he has been one of my criteria, and I love all his works almost without reservation - but Side by Side by Sondheim is what I heard first, and what I loved first, and you know all about first loves.

So here I am thirty-six years later on the other side of the world, and I just dug out my copy of Side by Side...; and while I cook and drink and wait for the yogis, I am playing it loudly and singing along. And yes, I still remember every word; and yes, it still does the thing that it always did. Two pianos, three voices, one overarching wit. It's extraordinary, and extraordinarily effective. And sunk like a harpoon in my soul, seemingly. 'Scuse me, I need to get back...