Monday, December 7, 2020

Picnics galore


has been the survival mechanism in this bizarre year. And yesterday was no exception. Some months  after we would normally have abandoned the park benches and grassy slopes for the comfort of a roaring fire in a lovely country pub, we are still gathering in the increasingly fresh air...

                                           

And here we are, having our picnic,  in Chalfont St. Giles where the pub to the left behind us no doubt would have been able to offer us  that roaring fire, but  was not able to let us in of course.  Amersham, the last outpost of the Metropolitan line, was the  beginning of our 9mile (15 k) circular walk, which included visiting (the outside of)  Milton's house where he is said to have finished Paradise Lost.

It was our book club outing. This book club is a very elastic and tenacious affair, able to mould itself around whatever circumstances is thrown at it. For two and a half years we were 'the Dantistas', who nearly managed to get through the Divine Comedy at my flat on Wednesdays, but when only half of Paradiso remained we were stopped in our tracks by this pandemic. Something lighter was needed, and we read Love in the Time of Cholera while our meetings became either ZOOM or mutated into socially distanced picnics in the summer months. 

And then our reading material became even shorter- now we read a short story a week, working through a series of the genre's greats: Flannery O'Connor, Katherine Mansfield, Raymond Carver etc. And sometimes we even read one we have penned ourselves! But, we will return to Dante once day...


 We ran into some very friendly horses, in a muddy field and I reflected how very fat they are in comparison to horses in Mali!

                                                                   

And that brings me back to that dear subject again: I will be leaving for Mali and Djenne at the end of January, inchallah, to see 'my' people in the library in particular. The project is still running and I speak to them every Saturday morning on WhatsApp.  Until then I spend most of my days trying to put the Djenne memoir into shape...on the second draft now. 

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