I've run out of gas and need to get some more. I thought I'd take the Astra out for a run, but it won't start and I'm not sure why. Might be battery or electrics - engine turns over but it doesn't sound very keen - or perhaps something more fundamental like the injectors. Shouldn't be, since the garage in Fram supposedly gave it a good check over, but it's never sounded completely happy when starting it up. See if Nick has some jump leads. Might be tricky connecting them given how the Astra's stuck in the shed.
I think I'll upload all my reptile ruminations to my blog, including last night's further thoughts. If Laurence or Andrew really are reptiles I might be in trouble, but on the whole I'm happy with where I went with it, and I think there really could be a novel in there - a sort of counter to all the silly rapture and armageddon crap that the Christian fundamentalists in the States seem to lap up and love - might even be able to con them into reading it and have a best seller on my hands. Or maybe it will give Stuart some ideas for the Second Coming - not completely sure he has actually worked out how it's going to end.
I did have a rather spooky feeling when the recorder suddenly stopped recording for no apparent reason while I was talking about Laurence and the WCCM being a reptilian conspiracy - as in, are the reptiles listening in and was that the equivalent of the click on the telephone line of the phone tappers. I'll be wearing a tin foil hat next. Hattrick ears / eyes will no doubt prick up at this point - paranoid psychosis here he comes. It was late, and I was very tired, and shocking myself with my general transgressiveness.
What's nice about recording my thoughts, as opposed to writing this, is it really is stream of consciousness, the keys and keyboard are not a barrier or impediment to thought - I'm not any more organised, possibly less so, but it does seem to end up going somewhere, and people (well Stuart and Susanne) seem to like the sound of my voice and are happy to listen to my burblings. (Alarm's just gone off) - it's 7:55 and I need to go down for morning confab with Jean-Christophe - I've asked Kathy to sit in to help us interpret his mutterings. Nothing on the agenda I think - he's still got loads of mowing to do. Why does he have to mow every bit of grass? It's not as if we're offering photo opps to wedding parties like the Sergerons used to, and anyway, what's wrong with mown paths through the lovely organic wildflowers?
The other thing about talking to myself at the end of the day, is as I said last night, it really is a kind of offloading, and therapeutic and relaxing. As Stuart noticed, I'm much less hyper. Arguably if I do more of this, I might actually stop talking so much to everyone else, which I suspect we all find a bit tiring, even if I do crack an occasionally quite good joke. Andrew the Reptile has definitely had enough of them, as they're mostly at his expense.
I keep reading in the Rule how idle gossip and chatter and cruel laughter is a terrible sin and should not be allowed, that I ought to be excommunicated - that might almost be a relief, to have to eat and meditate on my own until I had made suitably humble prostrations. Anyway I keep thinking I'll give up talking or take a vow of seilnecs for a month, but that lasts about 6 microseconds. Benedict was talking yesterday (Rule 49 - lent in the monastery) about what one could give up - foods or more prayer or less sleep, and I wondered if I could be absolutely silent for 40 days. Would I allow myself to talk to my computer? I think I would.
They all laughed when I told them at this morning's meeting (Thomas translated with Jean-Christophe which was much more efficient). Anyway I raised the subject of not mowing so extensively - J-C said Marie Dominque thought long grass was untidy, and anyway he'd started now so he'd have to carry on for this year, and if we left the grass grow any longer than it is now he'd need a barrel mower (Nick's word - I would have said conventional scissor type mower would do it, J-C is using a slasher at the moment) and a baler, or we get the volunteers to rake and stook by hand, also new car parking / turning circles are needed for e.g. the wood chip deliveries for the chaufferie, which weirdly will be up by his sheds, miles from the Abbey proper, so everything's on hold but it's definitely something for next year whatever Marie Dominique's obsession with 'tidiness' - has she not heard of wild flower meadows?
Such a useful morning and it's only 9:28 - Astra extracted and jumpstarted, (battery fucked), tyre inflated with J-C's compressor, meeting re not mowing lawn, Nick and I shook out chapel carpet, off to town in Astra to get gas, fix offside tyre, get new battery, beer, tobacco, then back to dig lawn, do accounts, update Reptiles, finish Stuart's book, start Metanoia, meditate, eat, sleep eventually . . .
I think I'll upload all my reptile ruminations to my blog, including last night's further thoughts. If Laurence or Andrew really are reptiles I might be in trouble, but on the whole I'm happy with where I went with it, and I think there really could be a novel in there - a sort of counter to all the silly rapture and armageddon crap that the Christian fundamentalists in the States seem to lap up and love - might even be able to con them into reading it and have a best seller on my hands. Or maybe it will give Stuart some ideas for the Second Coming - not completely sure he has actually worked out how it's going to end.
I did have a rather spooky feeling when the recorder suddenly stopped recording for no apparent reason while I was talking about Laurence and the WCCM being a reptilian conspiracy - as in, are the reptiles listening in and was that the equivalent of the click on the telephone line of the phone tappers. I'll be wearing a tin foil hat next. Hattrick ears / eyes will no doubt prick up at this point - paranoid psychosis here he comes. It was late, and I was very tired, and shocking myself with my general transgressiveness.
What's nice about recording my thoughts, as opposed to writing this, is it really is stream of consciousness, the keys and keyboard are not a barrier or impediment to thought - I'm not any more organised, possibly less so, but it does seem to end up going somewhere, and people (well Stuart and Susanne) seem to like the sound of my voice and are happy to listen to my burblings. (Alarm's just gone off) - it's 7:55 and I need to go down for morning confab with Jean-Christophe - I've asked Kathy to sit in to help us interpret his mutterings. Nothing on the agenda I think - he's still got loads of mowing to do. Why does he have to mow every bit of grass? It's not as if we're offering photo opps to wedding parties like the Sergerons used to, and anyway, what's wrong with mown paths through the lovely organic wildflowers?
The other thing about talking to myself at the end of the day, is as I said last night, it really is a kind of offloading, and therapeutic and relaxing. As Stuart noticed, I'm much less hyper. Arguably if I do more of this, I might actually stop talking so much to everyone else, which I suspect we all find a bit tiring, even if I do crack an occasionally quite good joke. Andrew the Reptile has definitely had enough of them, as they're mostly at his expense.
I keep reading in the Rule how idle gossip and chatter and cruel laughter is a terrible sin and should not be allowed, that I ought to be excommunicated - that might almost be a relief, to have to eat and meditate on my own until I had made suitably humble prostrations. Anyway I keep thinking I'll give up talking or take a vow of seilnecs for a month, but that lasts about 6 microseconds. Benedict was talking yesterday (Rule 49 - lent in the monastery) about what one could give up - foods or more prayer or less sleep, and I wondered if I could be absolutely silent for 40 days. Would I allow myself to talk to my computer? I think I would.
They all laughed when I told them at this morning's meeting (Thomas translated with Jean-Christophe which was much more efficient). Anyway I raised the subject of not mowing so extensively - J-C said Marie Dominque thought long grass was untidy, and anyway he'd started now so he'd have to carry on for this year, and if we left the grass grow any longer than it is now he'd need a barrel mower (Nick's word - I would have said conventional scissor type mower would do it, J-C is using a slasher at the moment) and a baler, or we get the volunteers to rake and stook by hand, also new car parking / turning circles are needed for e.g. the wood chip deliveries for the chaufferie, which weirdly will be up by his sheds, miles from the Abbey proper, so everything's on hold but it's definitely something for next year whatever Marie Dominique's obsession with 'tidiness' - has she not heard of wild flower meadows?
Such a useful morning and it's only 9:28 - Astra extracted and jumpstarted, (battery fucked), tyre inflated with J-C's compressor, meeting re not mowing lawn, Nick and I shook out chapel carpet, off to town in Astra to get gas, fix offside tyre, get new battery, beer, tobacco, then back to dig lawn, do accounts, update Reptiles, finish Stuart's book, start Metanoia, meditate, eat, sleep eventually . . .
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