Saturday 25 August 2007

domestic notes

There is a very interesting review, in the current LRB, of a new book about Virginia Woolf's difficult relations with servants most particularly with Nellie Boxall who cooked for the Woolfs for eighteen years.

In other developments, a couple of weeks ago in our life drawing class I did a drawing I liked and thought could perhaps be worked on further. As Henry Moore was once kind enough to explain, everyone flukes upon a good drawing occasionally. But when I brought it home I left it on the floor, and a cat rolled on it during the night and smudged all the charcoal.

There was a shouting match two doors down last night. The police came. In the daylight the house looked the same as usual. I had breakfast sitting on the patio this morning and watched the woman across the street apparently trying to break in through her own living room window. At first I thought she was washing the glass, since that's usually what she's doing. The house on the corner has a spotlit statue of the Virgin Mary holding Jesus placed in its front window, and the car parked in the drive has a bumper sticker which reads "Protecting unborn babies." We will have a new neighbour shortly as the horrible little flat behind our house has been sold after being empty for six months. I hope the new occupant likes cats and also chooks, since Dorian's building a chookhouse a few metres from her bedroom window. Too bad if she doesn't. She's 22, according to the previous owners, so I don't expect her to put up an awful lot of resistance.

Our other neighbours are called John and Peter (right, rear), Annika (right, front), and Donger (left). Donger is a plumber. We met formally one evening when the electricity was off in the street everywhere except my house and I was standing in my driveway looking for Baz. I saw Mr D. in his front yard and asked if he'd like an extension cord, which he amicably refused. He then asked me if I needed any help, and I said no thanks, I'm just looking for my cat. He then said "Have you looked under the wheels of my car?" - and then he laughed - and then he realised that this probably wasn't the right occasion for producing that particular joke he'd been wanting to tell for ages. I haven't seen him since but I have heard him playing Hot August Night and Living In The 70s on the weekends, so he's still in there.








9 comments:

Ampersand Duck said...

Bad Donger. Naughty Donger.

Good luck with the new neighbour! How interesting -- obviously bought by the parents to store said 22-yo?

Drewzel said...

Donger sounds like a gem! He loves cats really, just doesn't like missing an opportunity for a crap joke. My suburb is truly Donger-ville.

PS. Consider yourself tagged by the way.

Drewzel said...

Oh, I also mean to say- CHOOKS! YAY!!!!!

Mindy said...

Are you going to name them? Madge and Beryl are our chooks.

Anonymous said...

I once had a bantam hen named after me 'because it was very clever for a chook'.

peacay said...

"Protecting unborn babies." with carbon monoxide, it would seem.

Meredith Jones said...

I think Donger is my boyfriend from year 8.

lucy tartan said...

The chooks will be Dorian's & it's his privilege to name them, so I'm sure they'll get excellent names.

Thanks for the tag Drewzel. I'll get onto it soon.

lucy tartan said...

And I hope Donger likes cats really, because they all go under his house to empty their bowels.