A Peek at My World.

Since I don’t have anything to rage at, reminisce about, cast aspersions towards, or simper over at the moment, I thought I’d take a few minutes to enumerate the contents of my personal manufactured landscape, aka the room in which I spend most of my time when I’m not asleep in bed (the only other thing I do in bed these days is have breakfast during the warmer months when there’s no prospect of the milk on the cereal freezing) and in which I’m ensconced at this very moment (not that there’s any such thing as a moment, you understand, but you know what I mean.) OK then, here goes:

Lots of books (including six by Shirley Jackson), a box of chocolates (which are rather splendid considering how cheap they were), a postcard of the Buddha known as Amitabha (or Opagme in Tibetan – isn’t this impressive?), hordes of box files, manilla folders, ring binders and document pockets (most of which serve no useful purpose whatsoever but I can’t bring myself to throw them out),a pile of magazines and other publications which have photographs of mine in them, a small pile of DVDs (the rest being in a box somewhere else), eight pictures of various sizes on the walls (many of which show women in various guises including stylistic, romantic and Romantic, although the most prized picture shows some ancestors of mine standing in front of the pub which they kept in the town of my birth), a circular wall clock in a light wood frame, light wood furniture on which is perched my computer equipment, a desk lamp, a temperature and humidity device, a landline phone and an old red mug with pens in it (there’s always an old mug with pens in it, isn’t there?), five house plants including a yucca that’s been cut down to size twice since I’ve lived here, a dangly gong thing which looks vaguely Chinese and which I clang every morning just because I can, three pairs of shoes (two for going out in and one for walking when the exterior landscape isn’t muddy (the wellies which are mostly used at this time of year are relegated to the kitchen along with my gardening boots), an uplighter, two alabaster figurines (one of the laughing monk and one of the three witches to add balance and hedge my bets), a little red vase with some red ting in it, an old audio system dating back to the mid-90s, and my trusty backpack which goes everywhere with me because it’s my only companion, and that’s about it.

It isn’t much, but it’s home. (Actually it isn’t. It’s the place where I take shelter from the rain, but I do like to quote my near-namesake, young Mr Weasley, occasionally – you know, like ‘Who are you and what have you done with Hermione Granger?’ – which, by an odd coincidence, is exactly what I thought when I saw the first picture of Emma Watson appear on a magazine cover after the HP franchise came to an end. I should really have a picture of dear Hermione on my wall – she being my idea of the perfect woman – but I can’t because it would be impossible to divest myself of the constant, irritating knowledge that it’s actually Emma Watson, and I’m most diligent in avoiding the trap of confusing actors with characters. Characters are real, you see; actors aren’t.)