"I keep lists. Some copied into notebooks in neat italic script in blue-black ink, others scribbled almost illegibly in soft pencil on the back of an envelope. Most remain in my head. " Nigel Slater
An empty week looms in front of me. A completely blank diary page, although I have now written in my Italian lesson on Thursday, just so I can tell myself that something is happening this week.
I also have an empty mind as far as the blog goes, so I reached for Nigel Slater's Tender volume 1, which has little yellow postits sticking out of the book as signposts. Some of the stickers just denote a recipe I might try soon, some are words about a potential blog topic, some are just words that struck me at the time. They are there for when I have run out of ideas.
So I reached for the first one - the opening words of his introduction - up there at the top of the page, and the photograph is of Nigel, from A Cook's Book at his desk. 'Neat italic script'? It's certainly very fancy writing - a little bit precious? But pretty illegible too. It reminds me of David's handwriting which is similarly very pleasing to the eye but very, very difficult to read.
Anyway I was thinking about doing something on lists when up popped my Italian word of the day - 'la lista' - the list. Now what a coincidence is that! So lists it had to be - with a bit about coincidence and maybe connections too because I had also read this quote in a book I have just finished - The Wild Silence by Raynor Winn.
"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe." John Muir
Although I might leave that for another day. So much to be said about that, and today is moving towards its end, so this is likely to be a short post.
Back to lists. Are there people who don't write lists? And anyway what kind of lists do we keep? Nigel goes on to list some (pun not intended):
"There is the usual inventory of things I need to do, of course, but also less urgent lists, those of books to read or read again, music to find, plants to secure for the garden, and letters to be written (few of which will ever see the light of day). One list that has remained in my head is that of favourite scents, the catalogue of smells I find particularly evocative or uplifting. Snow (yes I believe it has a smell), dim sum, old books, cardamom, beeswax, moss, warm flapjacks, a freshly snapped runner bean, a roasting chicken, a fleeting whiff of white narcissi on a freezing winter's day."
Which is a very eclectic and personal list of lists. And it reminds me of the about to be married bride in our lounge-room - for the wedding was in our garden - saying that she was a person who made lists of lists. She had organised the whole thing, being a very efficient young woman and we were endeavouring to keep her out of the eyes of her soon to be husband - the son of close friends and a kind of pseudo cousin to our sons.
Also kind of coincidentally as I stared at my blank diary page I decided not to write my usual brief list of things I would cook at least once each week - something new or from a guru, fish, legumes, vegetarian and something from the freezer. I have been failing to achieve many of those aims of late, which meant no ticks as each week passed, leading to mild doom and gloom. So I'm taking a week off. And I won't be doing the three ingredient thing this week either because I have too many leftovers which will just need reheating, and which have more than three ingredients in them.
I'm not sure that I have ever been a great keeper of lists - other than vague ones in my head. When we were holidaying in Europe with several groups of friends and in several different places I kept a folder, which I guess was a kind of list - dates, addresses, names, telephone numbers - it went on and on - hence the folder. But little in my life is as complicated I think. Today I make the occasional shopping list, which often gets left at home, or partially ignored when I am actually shopping. And of course, impulse buys always get added to the shop - not the list.
I also have my blog ideas book which has a few different lists - oddments, ideas, websites, quotes ... And this is indeed something that I need because ideas pop into one's head and then disappear unless noted down somewhere. I think many writers also have notebooks like this in which they write things down that might be the germ of an idea for a book. There are just too many and they are just too fleeting to be able to be stored in one's head - an increasingly unreliable store of information.
But here I will detour to my 'My kitchen bit by bit' project, and my small blackboard in the kitchen on which I keep a reminder list of things that have run out of and which need to be replaced. It was actually a rather brilliant afterthought although I say it myself. The post on which it is placed holds up the roof and so could not be removed. And behind the blackboard ran the electricity to a light switch on the other side. It was also the perfect place for a plug for the kitchen, although it has actually become the charging station for our phones and other appliances.
The electric wires for the plug and for the lights at the top of the post just ran down the post, which would obviously have been an eyesore, so I suddenly thought that we could cover it with a blackboard on which to write reminders. I had seen a blackboard in another kitchen somewhere, and thought it a good idea. I mean it's all very well writing a shopping list when you go shopping, but if you are like me with a fading memory you might not remember what to put on the list. So this is excellent. The grandchildren loved writing and drawing on it when they were younger as well. It's not very large, but quite sufficient.
Bucket lists and To Do lists are not really my thing however. To Do lists are too likely to remind you of your failures. Bucket lists have to coincide with one's partner's bucket list realistically, if they are ever to be achieved. And besides I don't really have anything that I still would like to do or see. "We like lists because we don't want to die" said Umberto Eco which is a rather gloomy thought. And sad - as he died in 2016. It's one of those enigmatic and grand sounding quotes, which, when thought about, doesn't really make sense. Well this one doesn't to me. How does a list stop you dying? Maybe having a bucket list holds out the possibility of ticking the things off the list or even adding things to it?
Is a list hopeful?
Apologies - obviously not inspired today.
POSTSCRIPT
A list of the things I wrote about in years gone by on September 2. I wonder if there will be any coincidences in it.
2021 - COVID lockdown version two
2020 - Pears and passionfruit - a list - a coincidence! How weird is that.
2018 - Nothing
2017 - Bubbles
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