annanotbob's Diaryland Diary
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I love my dog as much as I love you
Bob is still enjoying our visitors:
Today Marion:
and I went to Charleston:
the Sussex home of the Bloomsbury group - Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Virginia Woolf, blah blah. If you live in this part of Sussex and ... I dunno, you read The Guardian and watch indie films, the assumption is that you know about the Bloomsbury set, but I didn't really and nor did Marion. We've both read a bit of Woolf (A Room of Her Own) but neither of us can really be doing with any of her fiction. I appreciate what she was trying to do with the form of the novel, but we both find it unreadable. When I told people we were going there for the first time, the response was 'You've never been to Charleston? Really?' as if we were a pair of slackers or something.
It wasn't at all what I'd expected. They wouldn't let us take pictures inside the house, or touch anything at all - they're very precious about it, but I found a few online:
It's about decoration - they were all artists of one kind or another and they fled down from London to Charleston and painted everything in sight, including each other, repeatedly. They first started renting the place in 1915 (I think) and stayed there till the 60s or 70s (sorry, I kept drifting off), painting pictures, windows, fireplaces, shelves, everything. What surprised me most about it, considering how famous it is, is how amateurish so much of the work seemed, in the light of what we are used to today. It wasn't about perfection, it was about making things a bit snazzy - made me want to have a go here. I think I'll start on the bookcases - they're all mine. Watch this space.
We had a lovely day - neither of us really listened to the guide, we just wafted around, looking at pretty stuff, forgetting about everything else.
This evening I got stoned on the sofa watching Big Brother and tried to take a picture of me and Bob, snuggled up, but it's not as easy as you'd think, especially when the cat tries to catch the camera:
So I gave up and took pictures of myself instead:
which are a bit alarming and not improved by letting my hair down and having another spliff:
or changing location:
In the end Bob wanted to join in, so I let her, as that had been the point of it:
11:29 p.m. - 05/07/2008
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