Booking Through Thursday: Manual Labour Redux

Following up last week’s question about reading writing/grammar guides, this week, we’re expanding the question….
Scenario: You’ve just bought some complicated gadget home . . . do you read the accompanying documentation? Or not?
Do you ever read manuals?
How-to books?
Self-help guides?
Anything at all?

There are three adults in our household, and three completely different, and largely incompatible, approaches to a new piece of "kit". My husband settles down with the manual before he unpacks anything else, reads it in depth and, if necessary, identifies every component part of the purchase, counting screws and checking boxes. I will have a cursory glance at the manual and then embark on setup, following the instructions reasonably closely and despairing almost immediately because it won't work. Younger son leaves the manual in the box. If you gave us the same object simultaneously and told us to get it working, he'd probably win hands down.

How-to guides? Well, if you count cookery books, then we all read – and use - them. I like gardening books, too, and wouldn't contemplate pruning a fruit tree without reading up\ on it first. When I was growing up my parents had a wonderful book, passed round as a great treasure, which was a compilation of handicraft leaflets published by Dryad Handicrafts (an interesting offshoot of the Arts and Crafts Movement, see here for information). We learnt to make all sorts of things from these: lino cuts (potato cuts for the children), raffia mats, stencilling, french knitting – there was even a leaflet on bookbinding, and one Christmas my stepmother made me an elegantly bound marble-covered notebook, possibly the beginning of my stationery addiction. I often borrow how-to books from the library, particularly books on petit-point and lace knitting. And there's the Access manual, of course. I've spent hours with that. Aargh!

Lastly, self-help guides. These don't loom large on my horizon. I'll borrow them from the library to find out how to deal with something specific – migraine, for instance, and browse them, making the odd note of anything that might prove useful. Really, I use them in the way I use all reference books, to find the solution to a specific problem. I know some people find them irresistible, but I lack the staying power for self-improvement.

Pass the dictionary, please

I missed this week's Booking Through Thursday but since it seemed made for me, I decided to post on it anyway. The question was:

Writing guides, grammar books, punctuation how-tos . . . do you read them? Not read them? How many writing books, grammar books, dictionaries–if any–do you have in your library?

I think I've only got one "writing book" on my shelves, Philosophical Writing: An Introduction, which was a set book for my Master's course. I don't think I would have bought it otherwise, but I did read it, and you never know, it may come in handy one day, if only for swatting wasps.

As for the others, there are too many to list, but my copy of The Chicago Manual of Style is my treasure. I can't tell you how often that gets taken down. It's regarded the The Book in this household, and when I gave a copy to my elder son last Christmas he was delighted. It sits beside Fowler's Modern Usage, Roget's Thesaurus (a fourteenth birthday present from my parents - we're a funny family, I suppose) and a line of dictionaries: for work there are the Oxford English and Harrap's New English/French, for fun there are various dictionaries of slang, quotations and symbolism, pocket Italian and Latin dictionaries, books on grammar . . . I use online versions too, with a subscription to Merriam-Webster, and shortcuts to Chambers and several others. And they are only the tip of the iceberg of the books I regard as essential aids to writing, the stack of encyclopaedias and other reference books I couldn't live without - on science, mythology, heraldry, history. If I could only rescue one from a fire it would be Chicago, which is daft, because it's online now, but I know the layout and can find what I want in it, and anyway, it's there, just where I need it.

When I was first married and we were poor and had to make our own entertainment, we used to play games with the dictionary - usually just "I'll pick a word and you guess what it means" but occasionally a version of Call My Bluff, where you actually invent definitions - very good for the vocabulary, and great for playing with children, too.

Back again

Well, the conference happened, the potatoes got planted, and I plunged into weeks of typesetting and grant applications, from which I'm only gradually re-emerging. I spent one of my regular weekends in Devon, where there was both joy and sadness in the garden: some lovely flowers and much glorious greenery to enjoy, while sympathising over the azaleas and camellias which had come out only to be blasted by frost. I took my mother to the garden centre and bought her two orchids on special offer to cheer her up - the wonders of micro-propagation! My retiring President sent me one, too, pictured above and still being enjoyed, though I have no confidence that I will ever manage to make it flower again.

The high point of the weekend past was moving the bird feeder. For over a year it has been in the same place in view of the sitting-room window, attracting a flock of "regulars" while affording them good protection from cats, kestrels and sparrowhawks. My resident flock of sparrows appreciate the hawthorn hedge just behind the pole, to perch in while they wait impatiently for food to arrive, to scold me from while I fill feeders, and to flee into if a sudden threat interrupts their feeding. The woodpeckers like the corkscrew willow near the pole, varying their diet with insects while they await their turn at the peanuts. The collared doves, woodpigeons and blackbirds all feed on the gravel underneath, amply supplied with seed by the sparrows who fling most of it out while searching for particular delicacies. The robins help with the filling of the feeders, perching in the garden bench until I put a tiny handful of seed on the seat for them. Happily, the feeding station could be moved to a similar position near another willow, and the residents have adjusted without difficulty.

At this time of year the day-long clamour of birds just living their small lives is staggeringly loud. Recently a small flock suddenly swooped into a tree next to me, all following two sparrows who were oblivious to everything but their conflict over, I imagine, some especially lovely lady. The noise was tremendous – I am sure that the followers were all shrieking "Fight! Fight!" like the "big boys" who used to scare me in the school playground. At night I have been surprised by the noise made by lapwings, nesting for the first time just over the garden fence – they swoop and squeal until well after dusk. As soon as they stop the owls take over, and sleep is punctuated by screeches. Elder son, enjoying a brief respite from the honking taxis and pubs of Edinburgh, commented that it was pleasant to enjoy the comparative quiet of the country, but those sparrows did make quite a racket!

Displacement activity

Photo: Rob Waterhouse

Two minutes free before lunch to air my frustration at not being out in the garden! It's a beautiful day and if it weren't for the now-looming conference I would take an hour off to go and plant the potatoes. As it is I may have to send a son to plant them, as my weekends for the whole of April are all taken up: conference this weekend, then as soon as I get back I've got a book to typeset – 13 days for 16 chapters, and the punctuation has to be anglicised too. Then a Devon visit, and that's April over. No time to garden, and very little time to tend my blogs, or to read other people's. Please forgive me, all you lovely people who comment here, if I am neglecting you, I promise to catch up with all your news whenever I can.

This morning, sitting at my desk in the window and looking out at a bright – and untidy – garden, while I'm supposed to be creating hyperlinks in a book to be viewed online, I admired two goldfinches in the ash tree, and tried to avoid a pair of collared doves which were full of the joys of spring. They look so prim in their Quaker plumage, too.

Ah well, back to the grindstone – last year's AGM minutes to be done for next week (heaven only knows where my notes are...)

Colours

My new colour scheme reminds me of these lovely hellebores seen recently at the Oxford Botanic Gardens – that slightly washed out red is so subtle and alluring. It's perhaps not so readily associated with spring, but for me is as characteristic of this time of year as the deep yellows of daffodils.

A quick trip to check out potential conference venues had offered enough time between visits for a leisurely, if chilly, walk in the gardens and glasshouses, recalling a visit many years ago when my infant son decided that the water hyacinth was insufficiently labelled, the sign being beside the barrel within which the plant dangled its roots into rather deep water. We removed him before the gardeners realised that the label was now at the foot of the barrel. We must also have seen these lovely mulberries – black and white – but on this occasion early spring showed them in all their sculptured glory. I also had time for a quick coffee with Simon from Stuck In A Book, which was delightful.

At home there are leaves appearing on the trees (apart from the old ashes which dominate our garden). There are delicate buds on the amelanchier, indicating that it will soon disappear under a flock of happy blackbirds, who strip them off with great glee. Later in the year they repeat the process with anything that escaped their springtime attentions – last summer was the first time I had ever found a ripe berry on the poor thing. No Saskatoon berry pie in this house!

Yesterday, to celebrate my son's birthday, I sowed tomatoes, aubergines, peppers and courgettes. Three varieties of potato are chitted and ready to plant, though goodness knows when I'll get it done. I hate to go away at this time of year – by the time I'm free of work demands everything has already run riot and I spend the entire summer trying to catch up.

Easter eggs

Today's "new look" post is specially dedicated to Nan, of the wonderful Letters from a Hill Farm which I always read with pleasure.

I think I have mentioned before that one of the Bluebells approaches egg-laying with a good deal of enthusiasm. This was her Easter offering: you can see beside it a normal egg, which weighs 68 grams. The big egg weighs 102g and has a shell which looks as though it might suitably house a baby ostrich. Recalling Walter Wangerin Jr's Book of the Dun Cow I wouldn't be surprised if it would hatch a basilisk – be prepared to read in the newspapers that Northumberland has been laid waste!

Faced with such largesse I have been baking. I had been planning to whisk up a few peanut butter cookies, as recently made by Cornflower, but my son – briefly home for Easter - mentioned peanut butter brownies so, between cleaning windows, watering houseplants and generally trying to prepare for a frantic week, I went for speed, and measure-not-weigh.

Being so proud of the Bluebells' achievements, I had to photograph the eggs as I added them:

Turning the mix into the tin I got carried away: the chocolate sprinkles happened to be in the cupboard, although I can't imagine why!

The end result was greeted with approval, and I still had time to do some serious work. I'll try the cookies next time.

An Eeyore moment

He often thought what a good thing it would be if the wearing of masks or animal's heads could become customary for persons over a certain age. How restful social intercourse would be if the face did not have to assume any expressions – the strained look of interest, the simulated delight or surprise, the anxious concern one didn't really feel.

This excerpt from Barbara Pym's Less Than Angels struck a chord, as her lines so often do for me. This is a book full of sly digs at the foibles of academics and, since I am preparing to run a 3-day conference in April, I find it easy to identify her types among my delegates. It's a small conference – under 100 people – and so relatively easy, but it's three days of being at the beck and call of people who find their bedroom too close to the lift or to the place where staff gather to smoke, or who wrote their PowerPoint presentation on a Mac and find that the college's PC won't read it, or need to print their paper 10 minutes before their presentation is due. Relatives are taken ill, luggage only turns up on the last day; I hope it's not tempting Providence to mention it, but I've never had the ultimate horror of a death during the event, although it's happened to a colleague.

The current preoccupation is simpler. Apart from being ready – programmes and abstracts printed, badges bought and prepared, menus decided, rooming lists compiled, wine ordered (of vital importance!)- and checking the box of things every organiser should have - scissors, white tack, pay-as-you-go mobile (surprisingly useful), spare USB stick, marker pens etc - I am trying to prepare myself, practising the expression of open friendliness and interest, the warm and welcoming voice, the alert listening face I glue on at the conference dinner when I am so exhausted all I want to do is crawl into bed with a glass of whisky. And I'm hampered: my natural expression is just a touch on the gloomy side, I'm told, even when I am at my most tranquil, while my thinking expression tends to be a slight frown. Conscious of this, by the end of a conference I feel as if I've been grinning manically for days.

My inclination, like that of Pym's Alaric Lydgate, would be to retreat behind a mask. However, I shall try to channel the 3am frets into consideration of what I am to wear to alleviate the Eeyore tendencies; I remember arriving at one conference venue, hanging my clothes for the event in the wardrobe and thinking, "Goodness, it's a positive symphony of black!" Perhaps I'd better just pop out to M&S next week.