My Shaving Razor's Cold And It Stings

[liadnan]

Actually, it's my legs that sting. My face is fine.

When I say sting, what I actually mean is "I can barely walk." No, I'm not exaggerating. I just struggled across the room to turn off the television after Today at Wimbledon and the real reason I sat down by the computer was that I couldn't face going anywhere else just yet.

All this the result of a weekend spent with my mother. Very pleasant, but she's obviously feeling the lack of someone to whom she can natter, sad in itself, and also making weekends spent with her slightly more of an effort than I should feel them to be.

Anyway, I spent much of the weekend sitting on the terrace by the pond reading. (This week's trawl through the attics for something old to read brought up a crop of Mary Stewarts, which were rather better than I remembered: I knew the Merlin trilogy was exceptional but I'd forgotten the other things.)

That, however, brought its own problems. What whim of fate was it that I was born with (a) very sensitive skin; (b) a love of lying in the sun; (c) a bone-idleness that extends to not bothering to put any suncream on? I've known people -well, two people- who are notable for on occasion having used olive oil where ordinary mortals would use sunscreen. Hah. Ah well, if I live through the next day or so that should be the worst of it for the whole summer, on past experience. And yes, I know, skin cancer.

Incidentally, if the weather next weekend in Somerset isn't at least almost as good as this weekend in Hampshire, I shall be very cross. Please take note.

Apropos of which, last Thursday evening I received an email from Wayahead, telling me they had that day despatched my ticket. Which I find fascinating, because it actually arrived two weeks before that. Evidently someone's been buggering about with temporal continuity again.

Comments

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

it actually arrived two weeks before that

Yeah, I was puzzled by that.

[rparvaaz.livejournal.com]

Lying in the sun is one thing that doesn't go with Indian summers. But the skin stings even if one is stting indoors...

[etherealfionna.livejournal.com]

(a) very sensitive skin; (b) a love of lying in the sun; (c) a bone-idleness that extends to not bothering to put any suncream on?

If your skin was really sensitive, you wouldn't have b or c. So that's the explanation - you're just whinging.

[liadnan]

Back. Just because we're not all vampires.

[brelson.livejournal.com]

Once, when on holiday in Antigua, I spent several hours rowing around in the sea and had such badly sunburnt legs I couldn't walk for two days and was drinking approximately three pints of water an hour - up until then I hadn't realised sunburn had the capacity to incapacitate to that extent, but now I'm warier.

Not much though. This weekend I spent some time sitting on the roof terrace reading, and - idiotically - not wearing a t-shirt. Felt fine on Sunday afternoon but by the evening I had realised the error of my ways. My chest and stomach are now bright red and the thought of anything touching them makes me weep; I'm leaning forward at an odd angle to stop my t-shirt brushing my torso, which hadn't seen sunshine for at least three years. When will I ever learn!

[(Anonymous)]

I thought that you had decided to shave your legs until I read further. Being a person known to use baby oil before baking in the sun for hours, I have little sympathy to offer.

-Bunty

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

yeah I thought you had fallen for Heidi Klum's sermonizing and had attacked yourself with an Epi-Lator-Pain-Machine.

Had totally forgotten about Mary Stewart until you mentioned her. I used to love those books, in particular a v good one about a British woman in the South of France in the 1960s I think. At least, it belonged in the early Jilly Cooper era when the hero and heroine would share three bottles of white burgundy and a large brandy over lunch and then he would drive them both home to bed.

[liadnan]

She's a nanny to the young count and falls in love with his Byronic uncle, who may or may not be in on the plot to kill said young count? One of the ones I read this weekend, but I can't remember the title. My favourite is The Gabriel Hounds, about a mad old woman living a Hester Stanhope style life in the Lebanon. And one I remember set in Greece where they find the statue of the god the Delphi Charioteer was um, charioterring, But I couldn;t find that one.

Oh, and This Rough Magic is good too.

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

I think you are thinking about Nine Coaches Waiting? That's an excellent one, very Gothic.... I just looked up her bibliography. The French one I was talking about was Madam Will You Talk? which was apparently her very first effort, written in 1955. Then I've read the Ivy Tree (sort of a female Brat Farrar), Touch Not The Cat (not keen); The Gabriel Hounds (I liked the Lady Hester stuff too), Airs Above Ground(something to do with Lippizaner Horses), and Rose Cottage (her last one, written in 1997: not nearly as good as the early ones).

But what about this one: isn't this an absolutely terrific blurb? It's for her book My Brother Michael (1959)...

"Nothing ever happened to Camilla Haven -- until a stranger approached her in a crowded Athens café, handed her the keys to a black car parked by the curb,and whispered, "A matter of life and death."

The ride was Camilla's first mistake..."