Tags
blogging, Dorothy L Sayers, drafting, Fortunes of Whitby, kippers, Oscar Wilde, strawberry jam, strawberry sponge cake, Taylor and Colledge, Tesco, William Blake
Thinking Aloud and Chewing Things Over
I have a great fancy for kippers. PC Eagles and Sergeant Lumley* are tucking into them while pursuing their quarry across London. I like books with food in them and Dorothy L Sayers can put on a decent spread when she puts her mind to it. I’m incredibly auto suggestive. Once I’ve got the idea of kippers in my mind, it sticks. There is only one way out of dilemma number one of the weekend.
There is a problem though. A good kipper is one of the finest eating experiences that it is possible to have. Good kippers are hard to come by and anything that isn’t a good kipper tends to fall a long way short of the ideal. In my experience the place to go is Fortunes in Whitby. I can almost guarantee that even a dedicated hater of kippers would like these. They are cured in the most traditional of ways and are superb.
If I want kippers this weekend, I have to make do with the local Tesco, and that is a thing I am loathe to do. But the craving is strong. She looks across from her important conversation with the women behind the delicatessen. “Do ye want serving?”
“Can I have a couple of kippers please?”
“Whole ones?”
“Yes please.”
There are kippers laid out on the display. They look fine. She goes to her fridge and seems to be shielding her selection with her back. When I get them home they are very much the kippers you wouldn’t put on display. Is there anything pleasant about that shop? I should have insisted on the ones I wanted, but to do so would have been to have pointed out her shortcomings as a purveyor of food. I suppose that is what I am doing here.
I grill them and serve them with brown bread and butter. They are alright. I hadn’t had a weeklong craving that was really looking for an “alright” experience. Note to self. Use Tesco if you have to. But, only if you really have to. The difference between what I got and what I would have got if I’d driven through the night to Whitby would have been worth the drive. And I’ve never been scowled at by the staff at Fortunes.
My week has been a funny one. Reading, writing, feeding (obviously) and long, long walks with Jolly as I try to come to grips with something that has grown from a quandary to a dilemma in the space of a few days. The declared aim of the blog is to produce a post every day for a year. The purpose of this is to demonstrate (to myself) the discipline to tie myself to the desk and work, and (hopefully) to improve as a writer by the simple process of practice. It would be both vainglorious and inaccurate (two things I would like to think I am largely without) to say that I have achieved my aims. I haven’t. If the target is 365 posts and I’ve only done 250 then, clearly, I have fallen some way short. I’d like to think I have improved but am still so far from where I’d like to be that this ambition can also be marked unfulfilled.
Here-in lies the rub. I may or may not be improving but I am certainly becoming more aware of where I need to improve. I need to draft. My journey around Scotland, Ireland and Wales is just beginning the process of redrafting (and very little of the original has survived from the first few chapters). The blog is very much what can be churned out in the couple of hours of each day that I have dedicated to it. My dilemma is whether or not I am still happy to have un-drafted work published. I know that fellow bloggers are aware that most of what we post is not polished to the nth degree and the feed back I have had has been very supportive.
I’ve seriously considered moving on to producing a single, polished piece each week. There are plusses and minuses. Doing the blog the way I am doing it has given me a complete commentary of a bicycle journey I made a couple of years ago and the start of an account of one I made nearly thirty years ago. Without doing it this way, the chances are high, that I would never have written these. I want (and those close to me want as well) for me to finish my 1987 tour diary. I’ve sub-titled this piece thinking aloud, but in reality most of the thinking has been done on dog walks taken either as a two or a three. I’ve concluded that I do need to move my writing into the back shed and withdraw from blogging for a while to allow me to draft, re-draft and better draft. (The word ‘quite’ is a painful one to bear). But first I’m going to complete the task I began. I’m going to return to Scotland tomorrow and if I finish that before the end of August then I’ve been researching the history and urban geography of 26 towns in the East Midlands to be my Alphabet of towns that sometimes get over-looked. The ‘last post’ will sound on August 31st. (Forgive the indulgence of blogging about a blog. The dilemma has weighed heavy on me for a number of days now.)
When facing a dilemma I find it a very good idea to eat cake. There are good strawberries to be had at the moment and on Sunday night we decide that making a sponge cake to go with them is too easy a task not to do. It’s an exercise in speed so the sponge is made using the all in one method. 6oz self raising flour, 6 oz caster sugar, 6 oz soft margarine and 3 eggs are beaten together with a generous dribble of Taylor and Colledge organic vanilla bean paste. (Who says we don’t do product placement?) Sometimes it needs a drop of milk to take it to the consistency that feels right (experience is the best judge of this) and sometimes it doesn’t. Into two greased and lined sandwich tins and into the oven at 160c for twenty minutes (until the sponge bounces back to a gentle prod).
Once it has cooled it gets almost half a jar of homemade strawberry jam and a generous layer of whipped cream and some quartered strawberries. More cream on the top and some of the better looking fruit (is there an ugly strawberry?) and tea is served. I have two slices and sneak a third at bedtime.
The cream came in very useful in knocking some peppers, chilli, onion, cherry tomatoes, garlic and the last of the smoked salmon into a spaghetti dish to rank with the best. There is a lot of thick cream in this sauce and it tasted wonderful.
.
Pasta always has the advantage of an easy to re-heat lunch for the following day. I come from a big family. I always make too much. You never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough. I think William Blake said that. Nothing succeeds like Excess. Oscar Wilde said that!
I’m supposed to be doing “No Meat in May”. I’ve been very good on resolutions recently. But, I’ve been in a funny mood all week. The sort of mood that would make a drinker seek out a cold one or a glass of red. I don’t have that option. At times like this I have ‘buffer zone’ foods. Things I don’t always allow myself but which can feel like a great big treat when I’m a bit down. I’m in Buxton for the May Day Fair on bank holiday Monday. It’s a chance to see my long lost cousin for the second time in a month (the second time in a lifetime as well. I didn’t know I had this cousin until this year and I’m delighted to have found such a nice cousin). She is busy on her WI stall for much of the day so I get myself a rather good breakfast from a local café.
On Wednesday I realise that the breakfast wasn’t a lapse but a falling off the horse. I make myself a steak sandwich and thoroughly enjoy it. I add mustard and nothing else to what you see above.
And when Charlie comes round for tea on Thursday we have a yearning for slices of cold ham. (By we I mean Charlie and I. T has kept to the No Meat in May diet).
The highpoint of the week is seeing good rhubarb in Aldi for very little money and making a rhubarb crumble for the three of us. There is an important question as to which is the best crumble. Apple, gooseberry, rhubarb, lots of others. The answer is simple. It is which ever one you are eating at the time. The crumble is one of the things that makes certain that even difficult weeks are enjoyable.
*Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L Sayers
Being a vegetarian when you like cooking and enjoy good food is like playing listening to radio one when you love music. Everything in moderation with extra veg if you want to stay healthy.
Keep writing the blog. I want to know what happens next. Please (smiley face)
I should be able to keep it going as far as Thurso. At that point I may need a little help from your memory.
Reblogged this on An Ashbourne Voice and commented:
This is blogging at its best. Thank you Simon. I love the story telling, the streams of consciousness and the honesty
Thank you so much. That is appreciated so much. (I’ve made one trip to Ashbourne and enjoyed it so much I’m thinking of making a second. It’s quite a town.)
I have just made 2 rhubarb crumbles from fruit from the garden, and if I had not, I would have gone out and picked some after reading about yours. I put chopped crystallised ginger and sultanas in mine, and sometimes apple.
I can understand your dilemma. You set yourself high targets to reach (and do so!) and, though I would miss your daily blog (it is the first thing I look for in the morning when I switch my phone on) I can see your argument with regard to better drafting. I see nothing wrong with what you do now however. I am interested in your East Midland town choices. Do villages count? A place called Ruddington near here has an interesting history about textiles – frame knitting – and a very good museum. You would enjoy it even if you did not write about it.
And also – that cake was amazing! Xx
You’ve known me long enough to know I have good weeks and bad weeks. I appreciate your support and will now make another crumble with crystallised ginger (I’d never get away with it if Charlie was here but I’m cooking for two these days.)
Lovely writing…Hope you can check out my own post on Sherlock Holmes and Kippers:
http://wp.me/p4coOx-4H
Cheers, Annabelle
Welcome to a small but rather lovely bunch of readers who pop in and out of this blog. Are you a fan of all classic English detective fiction or is it just Sherlock Holmes? I will look further into your blog soon. I’m tempted to read anyone who likes Charlotte Brontë. (I’m also kinda interested in beekeeping though have never done anything about following the interest up). (Apart from occasionally getting stung!)
Hi Simon–I wrote a novel on kindle called Jane Eyre Gets Real where literary characters including Jane and Sherlock find themselves on a reality TV show set in contemporary NYC. So the blog is dedicated to all the characters in my book, having them in turn encounter some contemporary situation each week. (I would be too squeamish of bees to keep them myself, ha ha, and am not as huge a detective follower as most Americans!) But I do love Charlotte Bronte–Anne and Emily too, and Branwell, for that matter!!! Re your blog: have so enjoyed the posts I have read of yours so far; will defintely read more of them this week.
I’ve enjoyed all the posts I’ve read on this blog. Only one of them I thought could do with a bit of editing (and the title of this one could do with a spellcheck 😉 ). My worry would be that you edit the soul out of your writing. I’d be more than happy to read a whole book of your blog-standard writing. (Paying for it would be another matter but that’s related to my income not to the quality of your writing. And no, I’m not fishing for a freebie. 🙂 ) I guess the proof of the pudding is in the eating: I shall just have to wait to see your polished work. If it truly is better than your blog posts then it will be worth waiting for. Good luck. 😀
That is so very kind of you. I immediately want to ask which post needs editing but as I think they all need a bit of a going over… enough said. It is probably a little crisis in confidence. I have ups and downs and these tend to determine how well I think of my own work. It’s not a matter of publishing and selling. I’m not at all sure I even want to do that. I want to improve all aspects of my writing and drafting is one aspect I want to be able to devote time to. Your kind words and support are appreciated. (I would like to add a little of the beautifully constructed precision your art work has to the going off at tangents nature of my own posts).
I would have told you which post it was but I couldn’t find it again, sorry. You haven’t deleted any, have you?
Is “going off at tangents” such a bad thing? 🙂
I don’t think I’ve deleted any. I may have changed a few. If I read old ones I see mistakes and things I don’t like quite so much and sometimes make changes. I like tangents. I love comics (Like Billy Connolly at his best) who constantly go off at tangents in what looks like a cascade of spontaneity. There is always a tremendous amount of control behind that spontaneity. That is what I’m after; though like Connolly I’m after keeping this control hidden. I am very aware of the danger of losing what makes it good. Roy Orbison used to say that if he hadn’t finished a song in ten minutes it probably wasn’t going to be a very good song. I agree but there was an awful lot of work put into a Roy Orbison song between him writing it and us hearing it.
Your comments always make me feel more confident. You’ve once again given me a timely boost.
Just as I get to the end Cathay make me turn my phone off for take-off. I hope you are still here when I get back. Apple and blackberry is the best crumble and Dorothy L is a brilliant writer. Do you like Ngaio Marsh?
Apple and blackberry is a good shout. I’m currently making another rhubarb one with orange in the rhubarb and ginger in the crumble. Yes I loved the only Ngaio Marsh book I’ve read so far (A Man Lay Dead) and have others on standby. Just finished Sayers Murder Must Advertise and starting Gaudy Night tonight. Also very fond of Josephine Tey. (You get good food in Tey and I like novels with good food in them.) Enjoy your trip.
Gaudy Night is excellent. It introduces Harriet Vane I believe. I will investigate Josephine Tey. Have you read Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Superb writer.
I’ve already met Harriet. She is the main suspect in Strong Poison and she finds a body on the rocks and then does a sleuthing double act with Lord peter in another book. I’ve grown to like her but perhaps not quite as much as I like Miss Climpson. I have read The Shadow of the Wind but can’t remember too much about it though I did enjoy it. Did you have a ggod flight?
Perhaps my memory is playing tricks on the sequencing of the DLS books but they are all good. The flight was delayed but I slept most of it. Very tired now – 3am HK time but working still in the office in London!
“When facing a dilemma I find it a very good idea to eat cake.” You lucky thing! I agree with what Sarah above says: about being careful not to edit out the sparkle. My blog tomorrow – called “I have a cat” – (I’m not trying to get people to read it via your blog) deals, I think, with a similar dilemma. In my opinion, the achieving of 365 is not as important as “taking the dog for a walk” and allowing creativity to stew on the way. Achieving “delight” is better than a “neurotic desire” to achieve a number. My year of writing finishes on June 30th. Having said all this, KEEP PEDALLING!
I want to finish this trip around Scotland. Writing it is almost as much fun as riding it with less aching muscles. This thinking aloud is, at least partly, me psyching myself up as well as a process of rationalising. I’m keen to get on to the next stage but I haven’t finished this one yet and I don’t like leaving a job unfinished. I really appreciate your support…and I appreciate the dog walks and the cake.
(Andrew, I’ve just bought the entire series on audiobook ! It’ll arrive soon, so I must finish listening to my Miss Fisher, first … Don’t want the DS because they’re read by Ian Carmichael, and I was never a fan.)
Simon. Oh, Simon … you do make a rod for your own back, don’t you …? If the true purpose of your blog is to improve your writing, then you must do whatever that calls for. However, the devil lies not in the detail, but in your own definition of when your writing reaches the ‘fully improved’ stage. How are you going to get there ? Who’s to say when you’ve reached it ?
If your blog were simply to produce material that people enjoy and like to comment on when they’ve finished reading it, then, mate, YOU’RE THERE ALREADY.
Why fer crissake can’t you continue with your blog whenever you feel like it and do something else in search of great writing ? This drafting endlessly lurk is fraught with danger, you know – very few really good writers work that way. It removes all spontaneity, for starters. But you might be hoping to become literary rather than simply delightful, eh ?
Sighh … Whatever. First and foremost, forget all rubbish about what you said you’d do at the outset – who bloody cares ? Just blog when you genuinely want to. For the rest, it’s up to you.
I quite like Ian Carmichael but haven’t listened to him read the Wimsey books. Should I give Miss Fisher a go?
I’m struggling this week. Let me vent my frustration with a loud groan. Of course I make a rod for my back. I’ve done fairly well in things I’ve tried more through hard work than through genius. I’ve waited a long long time to give writing a serious go and I’m only in the early stages. I’m going to see out the year if I can because I like to finish things I start and self-imposed targets are as important to me as any others. But I bet an English pound or two that I’ll need another big moan at myself between now and August. It’s partly the way that I am.
Kerry Greenwood’s Miss Fisher is not really something I’d recommend: I’m reading them because I watched a couple of series our ABC made of them (because Kerry does sell well to Aussies, being one) and wondered what the originals were like. There are so many more crime novel characters better written, to be honest: do you know aught of “Charles Todd” and ‘his’ books featuring Inspector Ian Rutledge ? Very much worth a burl, I promise; and they’re written by an AMERICAN mother and son combo !!!! 🙂
OK: if your own goals carry such weight, anyone’s input will be totally superfluous. 🙂 Happily for you, August is only a matter of 3 months away, eh ? – and shit, by that time I shall have turned 71. Give me strength …
Great post! I love Dorothy L Sayers but the points you make about decisions is something I too am thinking over. Mine is to paint more or to keep my goal of a post daily on painting. I’ll look forward to reading how you work this out. I am hoping for a clue to my own dilemma! Also, that strawberry thing looks yummy! 🙂
I’m going to initially work it by continuing but your comment suggests you can see my problem from the inside. I suppose part of it is just not having enough hours in each day and I think that is probably a good thing. The cake was really nice and I mean really nice!
Simon, I do enjoy your writing. I have found blogging soaks up a lot of time, looking at others, rather than the doing! It is a difficult one, as I often think after I rush something off, if I’d had a second look, it would be different. Tricky to find the time to just write… Your kippers reminded me of my Dad having mutton birds!