Woken by yelling cats – two to be let outside, one wanting breakfast – from very strange dream, A and I raiding offices of history magazine to get back some vital bit of evidence that would, erm, enable me to finish a short article on the reception of the Elder Pliny in 18th-Century Somerset. I have no idea what this was about, but my unconscious had a very detailed idea of the different texts involved and the key lines of analysis (unfortunately this all faded away as I emerged slowly from sleep, so this piece won’t be appearing any time soon), which made for an odd juxtaposition with the real feeling of suspense and anxiety as to whether we could disable the burglar alarm or whether A printing off a copy of the evidence was making too much noise.
Fatigue that’s been afflicting me for a week or more – probably hayfever-related – hasn’t improved much, so it takes a while to wake up properly. Buddy has made his way onto the bed for a cuddle; he is slowly building up confidence and feeling at home, even if he is not yet reconciled to the presence of other cats, and when he gets pushed under my legs when Hector comes in and also wants fuss, he accepts this with barely a grumble (he is the most grumbling cat we’ve ever had) and goes to sleep while Hector snuggles up against me on top of the duvet.
A. is in full-action mode, as old school friend plus husband are visiting for the Glastonbury Festival, so everything needs to be spotless. I get up earlier than feels entirely desirable so I can have a shower before getting on with deep clean of bathroom (kitchen and dining room were yesterday), with brief pause to check greenhouse (a bit of watering, plus shaking the flowers on the chilli plants to get them to set fruit). Down into town to buy assorted provisions and get money out, plus post a letter – as a thank-you to colleague in Czechia for his hospitality at a conference, I got him a copy of a book I’d been telling him about as THE key to understanding English attitudes to the past: 1066 And All That. Having skimmed through it, imagining what a Czech might make of it, I’m now less sure that this was a good idea, but perhaps if he approaches it as a surrealist classic…
Back home to send yet more messages to the neighbour who has agreed to let our friends park in her drive for the weekend, to check this is still okay – I am given this task on the basis, A. says, that said neighbour thinks I am wonderful, and I can also subtly remind her that I cooked her Sunday dinner (as we do most weeks). Contact is eventually made and everything is sorted out – it’s all a little complicated as there’s a funeral at the Methodist chapel down the road this afternoon, and our neighbour’s resolve never to let the woman who drove into her gates last month to park there again for church events has clearly not lasted.
Our friends arrive on time despite Glastonbury traffic, and the rest of the day is spent entertaining them and getting them settled into rented cottage; showing off our garden, introducing the cats, making hummus and preparing salads for lunch, and taking a tour around town before returning to tea. Town shows clear signs of it being festival season – lots of well-heeled thirty-somethings in cargo shorts and summery dresses but no children, older scruffy ex-hippy types (well, more than normal) and the occasional crusty, as well as the Coop staff getting to dress up and the hardware store doing special offers on wellies (not such good business this year…) – so a couple of rather vocal middle-aged Welsh people in holiday get-up don’t raise an eyebrow.
Conversation, both now and when we go out for drinks at the wine shop/bar and pizza from the Thursday evening mobile pizza oven in the evening, could be seen as rather exclusive if you weren’t born and raised in Llanelli (i.e. me), but it is anthropologicalky fascinating, a snapshot of what one would call Gemeinschaft in contrast to the alienated, fragmented Gesellschaft in which I grew up. Half an hour is spent working out which of many Pughs were the actual Pugh Brothers – partly based on different status markers (“No, he was the one who went to the boys’ gramm, not the one with the Mercedes”), but mostly drawn from in-depth genealogical research, identifying the position of each within complex intertwined networks of kinship, friendship and sociability. They know exactly what information will be needed to locate, say, son’s new girlfriend within the system. Rather than Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, Three Degrees of Scott Qunnell’s grandmother. And each discussion spirals fractally off into new lines of enquiry.
Thinking professionally, it’s an insight into the detailed workings of polis society or Roman political elite. You know that Marcus Appius, not the one whose ancestor built the road but the cadet branch over on the Caelian, mother came from Tusculum, linked to the Claudii until that incident happened? You know, hung around with the younger Gracchus for a bit, not the one who had a thing for one of the Julii girls who then married your cousin Sextus but his brother? Well, his great-uncle on his mother’s side…
This does make for a very entertaining evening. We return to find that Hector is extremely cross about not having been allowed out while we were off gallivanting, and then very narked that we want to go straight to bed. We try to drop off to the sound of him taking his rubber ball to top of stairs and dropping it down, for what feels like several hours.
However did your cat learn the rubber ball and stairs trick?
He is quite a clever boy.