Tuesday 24 November 2009

Manual Patience

Today was great: after doing some work this morning I went out on an errand which brought me back through our little town in the late afternoon. I purposefully took the route which took me over the stone bridge, past the mock Tudor new builds and then the assortment of real Tudor buildings and the tall Gothic Victorian terrace. Past the parish church which has stood for 150 years amidst its gravestones that are kept well. The houses and church give way to shops and there is a magical assortment of unusual and independent shops in Victorian and Georgian buildings with small windows that one could imagine laden with frost and snow at Christmas time in years gone by with children pressing their noses to cold glass to see the wares on offer. Within a few shops the road turns to cobbles and past the beautiful cobbled town square with pubs all round. The Christmas lights have been strung up in anticipation of the grand switch-on this weekend once the tree has been installed. Carols round the tree seem a little pre-emptive in November but I'm looking forward to it. Wrapped up in scarf and gloves stood in the chill and sharing the celebration. The excited child in me is emerging.

Talking of children, son told us this evening that he has been given a sixth form place in his excellent school for next September. Only subject to a good next report!

Windows computers has a game called Solitaire which in the past I have disabled because it is rather addictive. Just lately, as a break from other things, I have taken to playing Solitaire, or Patience, with a real set of cards. It is the oddest thing to lay down the cards and not have sound effects or, when you win, for the cards to not cascade down and, for the score to not show up. As for using ones arms and hands to manually lay the cards down, it is such a novel idea. Addendum: Below is a cartoon that the lovely Anji found and mentioned in her comment - I love it!

5 comments:

Anji said...

Your town does sound lovely. It reminds me of the market town where I lived, only we were more Georgian, which in fact were Tudor building that had 'new' fronts. The Georgians were very fashion conscious and also pulled down quite a few Norman churches because they weren't 'quite right'.

I love spider solitaire, I play it while the computer is 'warming up' (that's my excuse). I came across this the other day which made me laugh!

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bie07Nad5XI/SwV3-iIp6aI/AAAAAAAAFgk/DvoAe8XGMAM/s1600/untitled11.bmp

Doris said...

First off Anji I loved the cartoon so much I have nicked it and put it in the post to share! Thank you. And whilst still on Solitaire I don't think I have really tried the spider version.

As for the architecture it is a fascinating subject. It is easy in retrospective to consider the vandalism of times gone by but I wonder if there is a parallel with some of our 1950s to modern day works that get pulled down. Maybe Tudor and Norman was seen in the same light.... but I don't really see how as they were much older even then and they just are beautiful. As one long as one doesn't mind tiny ceilings and bowed walls and wonky floors and ..... ;-)

Anji said...

Gosh that was quick! I can't remember which blog I saw it on, so I hope you don't get any angry visitors.

Don't forget that the Georgians saw themselves as 'modern'. I suppose there must have been the equivalent of today’s protesters lying down in front of the men with the hammers to stop them from working.

When I was very small we livid in an old house (built in 1629), my mum says it was awful, draughty, leaky and very dusty. She was constantly dragging me out of the outside loo which I had a fascination for (I was only two). It was later sold on and done up. Not the same living experience at all. My mum didn’t have a problem with the doorways and low ceilings because she’s only 5’2”.

Jo said...

That's a very funny cartoon!! :-)

rashbre said...

I see they are advertising proper board games for this Christmas too. Monopoly and Cluedo adverts. Is there a renaissance of analog?