SONGBIRD/BIRDSONG

Firstly, I need to commend the Sands Garage in Brampton.  They never invent work which is needed to your car which isn't, they know what they're talking about - and they frequently charge less than they could.  We have become loyal customers and are going to recommend them to everyone else and also give them a christmas present.  They're the sort of local business one should support: how they keep going goodness only knows, but I hope they do.

On a completely different note, I recently finished re-reading Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong.  I had more-or-less completely forgotten what the book was about and it was with great pleasure that I reread it.  It was as powerful as I remember it being the first time round - perhaps even more so - and somehow the balance of 'now' and 'then' really works.  I think because 'now' is light relief compared to the 'then' of the trenches and the underground tunnels: you get to the stage where you almost don't want to read any more about the horror which is the frontline.

I think a few things stand out in my mind.  The first is the beautiful way the first time that Stephen and Isabelle make love is described: the strength of their emotions comes across and there is nothing sordid about it, despite the fact that it is an illicit liaison.  Then the scenes in the trenches and the underground tunnels in general: Faulks writes in such a way that you could almost think he had been there himself.  And then towards the end there is a single, short, paragraph which, now I have borne three children, I noted: it is so true:

"She was preoccupied by an intense curiosity about her child.  While she felt protective and maternal towards it, she also felt a respect that sometimes bordered on awe.  It was a separate being with its own character and its own destiny; it had chosen to lodge and be born in her, but it was hard not to feel that it had in some sense pre-existed her.  She could not quite believe that she and Robert had created an autonomous human life from nothing."

Not only did the description of that sense of awe whilst pregnant ring true, but I find that the sense grows stronger as the children get older and become more and more individual and independant.  I think the timing was particularly appropriate as it is something which especially seems so pertinent to Edward at the moment: he is no longer 'just' a baby who doesn't do very much: he is more and more showing preferences and character.  I think I'm also more and more aware of my own character and my own destiny as well: the longer I don't work for other people the more I become aware of myself.

Tomorrow I'm singing some solos at a fund-raising event at the Dacre Hall, and meeting Edward's Godmother in the morning (with Edward of course: I'm sure she's keener to see him than to see me!).  The build-up to christmas has already begun: we put the tree up yesterday.  What a fab. time of year!