"As if by magic, the shopkeeper appeared"

My mum has been invited to an Elizabethan Banquet on Saturday for a friend's 50th. After pondering for a costume, somebody suggested Haslemere Wardrobe, which turned out to be a very proper costume shop, with racks and racks of clothes from medieval to 1980s, and an assortment of hats, badgers and papier mache crocodiles hanging from the ceiling.

When I was little, I used to watch a television programme called Mr Benn. Each episode, the eponymous protagonist would walk along Festive Road to the fancy dress shop. Each episode, with a ding!, the shopkeeper would appear, and suggest a new costume to him. But when Mr Benn had donned the costume and left the changing room, the door would open not on the shop but on the world that went with that day's costume. In the one I remember most clearly, Mr Benn dressed up as a Red Indian. He made smoke signals and saw totem poles, and at one point he was chased by Cowboys. But cunning Mr Benn swam down a river, then walked backwards through the sand to some nearby trees, and climbed up to make his escape. When the Cowboys came along later they saw his footprints and assumed that he had walked from the trees to the river, rather than from the river to the trees.

Clever Mr Benn.

On flying a kite alone

It was lovely and windy yesterday. I hadn't flown my Christmas kite for ages, so, waking up and seeing the trees moving, and without any precipitation, I decided it would be a good day. I wasn't sure how easy it would be to launch it on my own (always previously having had a happy helper to hold it up for me), but the instructions informed me that I could lay the kite on the floor, extend the lines, and gently pull on both of them to coax the kite up into the sky. It's the kind of kite that doesn't have any sticks to stiffen it, but is made up of pockets which fill with air, allowing the kite to fly.

Arriving at the green, I ascertained the wind direction, removed the kite from its handy pouch, and laid it out in order to attach the wires. I had to place my jacket on top of the kite to prevent it from blowing away whilst I unwound the lines to full length. Which left me, a few minutes later, standing at the far side of the field, lines extended and attached to wrist loops - and my fleece on top of the kite, preventing it from taking off. So I ran forwards, keeping my arms as far apart as I could to stop the two lines from tangling. Removed jacket from kite. Ran back to other side of field to extend kite lines again - by which time the wind had caught one side of the kite and blown it over. I tried pulling on the lines, at first gently, and then with a little more vigour. But alas! From this new, upside-down position there was no coaxing the kite into the air. Once again I ran forwards with arms wide apart, righted the kite, and ran back across the field... this time I felt the wind tugging at the kite before I'd even got halfway. And sure enough, by the time I had the lines fully extended, the kite had once again blown upside down, and halfway across the field...

Repeat. Repeat again. And by this time, as you can imagine, I was beginning to feel what might be generously described as mild irritation at the situation. Suffice to say that before too long I was literally jumping up and down in annoyance.

At one point I did manage to bring the kite up into the sky. Whereupon, the wind immediately dropping, the kite did a graceful loop and crashed straight back down to earth.

Splash!

I tried to go for a walk beside the river today. To a certain extent I was successful; I was certainly successful in ascertaining that my new boots are well and truly waterproof. Not that I doubted them, but it's nice to have solid proof in the form of dry socks after a day when at times it wasn't quite clear what was river and what was path.

My journey began with the sight of three picnic benches, paddling gaily in the midst of an impromptu lake into which my chosen path descended. Later in the day I found myself walking along what had once been the grass verge dividing the river from the track beside it. Now submerged, all that was visible were some hardy tufts sticking up above the water level. I was able to balance on the verge most of the way along. The stickiest moment came when even this verge had sunk away, the entire track having become a puddle indistinguishable from the river, deep enough even on the path side for a branch to be floating in it. On the other side of the track was a miniscule line of grass, narrower than my feet, and considerably overhung by somebody's garden hedge. Being too stubborn to turn back (anyway I had come too far... and it would have been miserable to have to go along the A road instead...) I splashed across to the hedge and dug my hands in deep, leaning out backwards over the water. I held tight to the thickest branches I could find and shuffled my way along, hoping intently that whoever lived behind the hedge would not come outside to find me clinging there...

A Winter Book

I finished reading A Winter Book yesterday, and enjoyed it very much. I've never read anything by Tove Jansson before - not even her famous Moomin books, although I think I did see a few Moomin episodes on the television when I was little - but I'll definitely be investigating The Summer Book, which is her previous work for adults.

A Winter Book is a collection of short stories, many of them about the sea, or about living by the sea. The book is in three sections. The first two contain stories written from the point of view of a child, and I loved reading these - the way Jansson interprets the world in them often seems to fit with how I feel. Although each story is a complete piece in itself, the tales of childhood do fit together, each helping to add context for the others, gradually building up a picture of a child's life.

The stories in the third section are about a much later stage in life, and I have to confess that I enjoyed them less. They were still interesting, but I think I found the child's perspective of the world easier to identify with. The book as a whole contains stories of the sea, of small islands, of sailing and rowing boats, and rafts, and icebergs, and art. I'd definitely recommend it.