Harriet Devine's Blog

Garden Meme

I spotted this fill-the-blanks meme first on The Captive Reader though Claire had got it from Cornflower Books where it appears in celebration of the Chelsea Flower Show which has been on in London this week.. Thanks to both of them -- it was fun to do!

Early this morning as I was Untying the Knot, I stepped out of  The Locked Room into the garden and bent down to touch A Wreath of Roses.

    As dawn broke and I took in my surroundings I noticed several things: Sunflower was struggling due to Damage, The Dud Avocado had been dug up beside The Sugar House with A View of the Harbour, but with help from The Laughing Policeman and knowledge gleaned from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, I was able to bury it with The Necessary Aptitude.

    Later, Roseanna popped in to take a cutting or two; We Have Always Lived in the Castle, she told me, but she pointed out that we were A Far Cry from Kensington.

    Taking a well-earned rest from the weeding and chatting over the wall with The Children Who Lived in a Barn from next door, I mentioned A Stranger in the Family and remarked that he was Kind of Cruel, but then, Careless in Red, we said Farewell Night, Welcome Day, and I went back to do a little light pruning.

    My garden was once The Plains of Cement, but tending it is a joy and a Magnificent Obsession.

Not my garden, sadly, but the Parc Floral de Haute Bretagne, where I went for a picnic yesterday.

Perhaps you might want to do one of these yourself -- you can tweak the text a bit to fit, and, though it's supposed to be books you have read 'this year', I've taken that to mean 'within the last year', which gave me a bit of leeway.

Atalanta at the Ashmolean

How well do you know your Greek mythology? If you do, you might perhaps remember the story of Atalanta. She was the daughter of a king who, disappointed in not having a son,  left her on a hillside to die. But she was suckled by a she-bear before being found and raised by some hunters. From these beginnings she became fierce and fearless. When she was reunited with her father he urged her to take a husband, but she refused, saying she would only marry a man if he could outrun her. No chance! Many young men died trying, but finally she was defeated when one of them obtained three golden apples from Aphrodite and threw them in Atalanta's path to slow her down. 

From this story, the Seven Sisters contemporary dance and performance group have created a highly original and entrancing performance at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. I saw it yesterday. As you go into the museum, you are provided with an ipod touch and instructed how to use it. Then, with your earphones plugged in, you set off on a trail around the museum, guided by the film on the ipod. Voices in your ears give you snippets of Atalanta's story, as you are guided to statues, paintings and other artefacts which illustrate the story in some way. And now and again, both on the film and in the flesh, Atalanta herself appears, racing past you and disappearing round a corner as fast as the wind. Amazing and almost dreamlike experience!

The live dancers were only there at the weekend, but the ipods will be there for some time, so if you are in or around Oxford and fancy a really unusual and wonderfully enjoyable fifteen minutes, give it a go!