Friday 19 June 2015

Continuity

There has been a breach of continuity, nothing too serious. Some posts back I told you that I discovered my weight loss only when I came to do up my trousers without having to yank the edges of the waist band together. In a subsequent post I said that I was still egg-shaped which, to the accuracologist in me didn't accord with the waist band bit, In fact, both are true. It is just that there is a smaller egg.
Before lack of interest causes you to lose the will to live, I thought you may be interested in the subject, anyway. As you can imagine, to someone who bores for England in the dotted 'i' and crossed 't' field, the business of continuity is pretty absorbing. As a young person I was fascinated by the job of the continuity girl on the film's acknowledgement- credits Whatever they are called now, it doesn't seem to be that and, in any case, would need to have a neutral gender reference:continuity person? To this day, fast forward seventy years, I am still fixated by the question. My pleasure in any well-loved series on television is always 'yes-butted' by sloppy continuity. Yellow lines on a 50s road, phrases imported from our American cousins in a Victorian drama, American characters eating with both knife and fork etc., etc. I am inclined to be somewhat obsessive about this, (I do know you have noticed) and find myself wondering why. It seems to be to do with the security of truth. If things are as they purport to be then everything must be alright in the best of all possible worlds.  I know of families where the most profound information is kept secret: siblings with one different parent, for instance. Sometimes the offspring of a different parent from the younger ones do know but are barred from telling the others. Sometimes only the parent in common knows. Many years ago I had the acquaintance of a man who had been born with a still-born twin clinging to his knee. This came to  light only when he sought help to explore the reason for a difficulty to form stable relationships. His whole life and character had been an  obsessive odessy to 'find' his lost brother. One wouldn't find a difficulty to trust surprising in a background of secrets and lies. And, no, I don't think the nature of human beings was predicated by a stolen apple. Bore da

Sunday 7 June 2015

Appearances

A salutary experience:  the other day some people started work painting the outside of my house. Very early - too early for a retired old lady - the door bell rang and I staggered down to answer it. After a few minutes of greeting , explanations and location-guidance, I crept back to my room and prepared myself for the day. About an hour later the bell went again. I opened it to see one of the workmen who asked if he could speak to Mrs. Mountford. There you have it, I looked so entirely different fully dressed and, let's face it, fully made up, that he didn't recognise me. There was a nano second of  one discussion while I wondered whether or not to foster this assumptionm that there were two women paying him to brighten up their exterior or to bow to the inevitable and confess that I was she. I chose the latter on the basis that he and his mates would be seeing me in all manner of stages over the coming weeks and that truth would out one way or the other.

I do confess that it has been quite testing getting used to the physical appearance of ageing, though. Lately, I have lost weight, quite a measure of weight. Thrilled, I tried some clothes I haven't worn since longer than I have courage to tell you. There was scarcely any difference in put-on-ability. You see, the weight had not been lost from the middle where the egg-shape still prevails. If I were a disciplined and dedicated doer of all the 'shoulds' I would undertake some exercises to put this anomaly right. I am not. Life is too short to touch one's toes. (I see that this is, currently, more than a figure of speech. At my age life really is too short to touch my toes). Since you ask, the weight has been lost as an unexpected side bonus of giving up chocolate and sweets. Hand on heart I swear I hadn't seen that coming and was so proud of being on the wagon I noticed nothing else. (I have a faint recollection that I have told you this already. The man in the archive is running after me flapping the relevant post and trying to stop me committing yet another old-lady fault,  repetition). There are also certain clothes embargoed: shorts, short skirts, short sleeves, low necklines, the exotic - unless you are an exotic woman in all other respects, too. I have a very dear friend whose appearance is gloriously exotic and always has been.  She suffers the opposite trial from me, invisible and prone to be bumped in to. She is constantly noticed and, she suspects, given a wide berth. Long hair and dyed hair is another no-no Framing an elderly face it looks desperate, as if denying the march of time and the deterioration of locks. Best of all, though, is the change in facial appearance. Made up or bare the  face has reached an equilibrium that is somehow without age - except for the picture in the attic. Bore da