It's never simple for us old codgers if we start having affairs with younger people, is it. Go on, admit it! It's not something either Lois or I have done, needless to say! [You do surprise me! - Ed]
However we're doing the next best thing [??? - Ed] by reading about it all this week in the Danish novel we've selected for the local U3A Intermediate Danish group that we lead. And it's all a bit of an eye-opener for us, to put it mildly. My goodness yes!!!
But let's face it - lots of famous older women have "hooked up" with younger men. Unfortunately, mostly Lois and I have no clue any more who most celebrities are, these days, but here are some couples where we vaguely know who the woman is - oh dear!
[That's enough older women! - Ed]
This book that our Danish group is reading is all about Ursula, the 53-year-old college art teacher who's sleeping with thrusting young 29-year-old Jakob, a local man who's started to supply her with non-toxic paints. It was love at first sight, and the two were "at it" in her flat in the college, only about 30 minutes after they had first met, after she'd agreed to have his non-toxic paint on a long-term basis.
Unfortunately, however, the couple's sudden passionate affair is already beginning to take its toll on her.
Ursula relies on her menopausal hot flushes to keep her warm when Jakob rolls over and takes the duvet with him, which is nice, but their hectic nights soon begin to give her backache. And she's got old codger's long-sight too, so that Jakob's face is all blurry when she looks at him in their smallish (4ft wide) double bed, because she doesn't like to wear her reading glasses when he's in the bed with her.
And today we read that Ursula and Jakob are going for a romantic stroll on the cliffs overlooking the Kattegat. Do you ever confuse your Skegerrak with your Kattegat? I know Lois and I often do! Well, here's a helpful map - the Kattegat is the channel between Denmark and Sweden, isn't it. Remember?
Well, anyway, all goes well on the walk, until Ursula bends down to pick a pretty flower, and Jakob has to give her a helping hand to get her to her feet again.
Poor Ursula !!!!!
Lois and I know how she feels when she's trying to get up off the ground - we ourselves always work out a strategy for getting back onto our feet again before we go down in the first place - that's always our plan, and it seems to work most of the time - try it yourself!
Still, Jakob doesn't seem to mind helping Ursula up, though, so fair enough.
The book's author, Anna Grue, is 66 herself now, so she'll be getting to know all about these old codger struggles, although she was "only" about 50-ish when she was writing this particular novel - "Judaskysset" (The Judas Kiss).
Poor Anna !!!!!
11:00 Have you ever dreamed about going on a residential creative writing course?
Well, my younger sister Jill is "living that dream" this week in Shropshire. And then, when it's over, she's going to take the train down to see us here in Malvern and spend a couple of nights in our new-build home.
They say that everybody's got at least one novel in them, as was recently proved by a lady of leisure on ALadyofLeisurecom, who took the selfsame course that Jill is taking.
It'll be great to see Jill again, and to hear about her week. And it's going to be an unusually sociable weekend for Lois and me, because we will also be hosting our daughter Sarah, with her 10-year-old twins Lily and Jessica on the Friday night. The meal situation will be a bit complicated, so this morning Lois and I put in an online order with Morrisons Supermarket for delivery on Thursday.
The hectic socially active weekend for Lois and me comes on top of a typically punishing "working week", needless to say.
Busy busy busy!
It's a powerful magnet, isn't it: the dream of being a writer. I've felt it myself at times. And I always think of that guy Chuck Burgess, who stole the world's headlines back in 2011 with his frank admission of the pleasures that writing was giving him, a story first broken on the influential Onion News.
I guess you could say I have always had a love affair with the
written word. The simple, solitary act of contemplating the white expanse of
the blank page, and then putting pen to paper and seeing where the words take
me, is my one constant solace in an otherwise turbulent world. Yes, I must
admit it: I am only truly happy when I'm writing.
Or if I'm having dinner with family and friends, or a new and interesting acquaintance I happened to meet that week and hit it off with. I'm pretty happy then, too.
But for me, it always comes back to the writing: the discipline, the stamina required, the unrelenting determination to give voice to my innermost thoughts, thoughts that illuminate the cracks and crevices of the human condition. That is my only satisfaction. That and watching a really good movie on late-night TV, like Suddenly, Last Summer. That's a great feeling, especially when you haven't seen the film in some years, and you discover anew just what it was that you loved about it in the first place. I also enjoy canoeing and windsurfing when I get a free weekend down at the beach.
And Frisbee. I love Frisbee.
Yet writing, that noblest of tasks, painful and frustrating at times, easy-flowing at others, a never-ending quest for the soul of wit and honesty, wherein one aspires only to say what it is one has to say, and to get it right—that is my true joy, and the only act which gives me any sense of peace in this bumpy journey we call existence.
Unless I'm on one of my day trips up to Bear Mountain with Geoff and Barry and the rest of the gang. God, we have a blast, the eight of us up in that rickety old cabin. It's a great place to hang out and clear my head so I can come home and get down to work on some real solid writing—if I'm not too tired from all the laughing, that is!
What a guy, that Chuck Burgess!
Absolutely riveting stuff, though, wasn't it!
21:00 We go to bed on an old episode of the 1980's political sitcom "Yes, Minister".
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