JOY PARADE No.47
Half-a-Full-Business-Day Hummus! Flower Crowns for Swimming! WHAM meets Angela Lansbury!
Pssst! If you are reading this via an email, the JOY PARADE might be a smidge too long for you to see all of it. If so, just click the title and it’ll take you to where you can read the whole thing with your eyeballs online!
OH HELLO!
And welcome back to summer!
As I write this the sky is blue and cloudless, the sun is shining and the hens are wandering around the garden with knotted handkerchiefs on their heads.
How has your week been? Mine’s been AN EXPERIENCE. A smidge of a stressful day on Thursday and also the fizzy, frantic tinkering and fine tuning of my book which has now GONE TO PRINT! It’s looking pretty terrif. thanks to the hard work of the team I work with at my publisher, Hachette, and I can’t wait for you to see it. More soon…
What else have I done this week? Well, a good session of deadheading most mornings as I do my gentle, investigative promenade around the plant pots. Everything is looking so enormous and lush and wonderful. I’m thrilled every time my eyeballs slide towards the windows.
I also made roasted red pepper hummus this week. Due to unexpected work calls the entire process took THREE AND A HALF HOURS.
The energy in my kitchen by the end of it was very THIS:
However, the results were excellent and I’ve had to put a post-it note on the fridge door saying “BACK OFF, AL!” to stop me eating the entire tub of it in one go like it’s a yoghurt.
And that’s been my week - a book off the desk, garden titivating and some Half A Full Business Day Hummus.
But what ELSE has been going on?
Well, let’s get the most important thing out of the way first. I was in the car the other day when in front of me was this:
A YORKSHIRE TERRIER!
RIDING!
ON!
THE!
BACK!
OF A!
MOTORCYCLE!
And so casual about it! Just letting the breeze blow through her ears and blinking, slowly and disinterestedly, like Zsa Zsa Gabor perusing the display cases in Tiffany’s.
I’d had a howler of a day and I can’t begin to tell you how cheering this was. I was incredibly tempted to follow this diva to see where she and her chauffeur were going. There was an aura of James Bond about it all, so I expect she was off to MI6.
I had absolutely no idea at all that there was a World Cup this year until about five seconds ago so the wall-to-wall coverage we are having is a bewildering surprise to me and only me.
I was having dinner with a friend one evening a little while back, but on my way to the restaurant I found myself caught adrift in a undulating tide of football supporters either going to or leaving a football match (no idea).
This got my pal and I talking about how funny it is to us to see adults wearing their football kits out and about. I know it’s a sign of allegiance to their team and a symbol of togetherness, but there’s also something oddly sweet about seeing a middle aged adult cosplaying as their heroes. It doesn’t happen with anything other than sport. You don’t, for example, see someone who’s had a great meal in a restaurant spending the next few weeks dressed as the chef who cooked it, or another person going around the supermarket dolled up as the surgeon who successfully operated on their hernia.
On the train home from dinner, it got me wondering about what I would be dressed as if the ‘cosplay as your hero’ rule applied outside of just sports kits. The only thing I could think of is that you would find me running errands dressed as Debo, the late Duchess of Devonshire…
I was on school run duty the other evening with Little Nephew (11). He’s always fun to hang out with as he is someone with Thoughts and also Opinions and I’m never 100% sure where his mind will take us…
This week:
Scene: My car.
Me: Hey! How was school?
LN: Oh fine. There was garlic bread at lunchtime…
[He settles himself in and puts on his seatbelt.]
LN: I’d like to get a hamster. I’m not sure how much I really like them but they’d be interesting to investigate… But I can’t have one - not with Miguel (his cat) for reasons I DON’T need to explain… [pointed look]
[He then picked my sunglasses up from the dashboard and put them on, cocked an arm out of the open car window and looked into the middle distance]
LN: It’s my birthday in August and I think there’s going to be some big changes around here…
Me: Oh yeah?
LN: Yeah… for one thing when I’m LEGALLY twelve I’m going to take up go-karting…
[Harold Pinter Pause]
And I’m SERIOUSLY considering entering into the restaurant business ASAP…”
I overheard a woman in M&S Foodhall tell the cashier that she wasn’t looking forward to the coming heatwave because “in the last one a magpie flew into my kitchen”.
Last Sunday I went to an antiques shop. It’s a big old barn and one of those places where lots of different dealers have their own sections but it’s all managed through one till point.
I liked looking around and picked up an old, carved wooden elephant from India and, from a different vendor’s plot - an album of photographs featuring a family’s day to day life from the late Edwardian period to the 1930s. I was enchanted by the album but it didn’t have a price tag, unlike nearly everything else in the shop.
At the till I asked the barn manager (a woman in her late 60s, steel grey bob, pedal pushers) about it and when she realised it didn’t have a price she was absolutely DEVASTATED. Just deeply and profoundly shaken by the news I’d broken to her. It was like I’d like touched her lightly on the hand and said in the gravest tones that I had just fired her cat out of a cannon.
She raised her eyes to the heavens.
She closed them to regain herself.
She took a deep, shuddering breath then announced, weakly, “SEVEN QUID” - a figure plucked from the sky.
I paid but loitered for a bit looking at things because I was concerned she hadn’t, or rather COULDN’T recover from an unpriced item…
I’ve never seen someone so shaken by anything in my entire life.
I think I’ve got divining powers except instead of being able to find hidden wells and secret ancient sources of water, I am able to find nuns.
Anywhere.
This week I saw two of them loading about fifteen watermelons into the back of a Fiat Punto.
RIGHT! Now we MUST get on! The gigantic Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade balloon I’ve had made of our pigeon logo has been inflated for hours so we MUST get started!
1. As always we’ll begin with our BEHOLDING! and EXCLAIMING!
First up, slap your eyeballs on these beauties!
They are poppies but in a style I’ve never seen before - ruffled and exuberant. I think if I were, for example, a rabbit contemplating a career in cheerleading, these would make excellent pompoms.
And LOOK at these roses!
That pink one in partic! And the smell? Absolutely stunning! It took me back to being nine and spending my playground time at school making rose perfume with my mates on the bottom of a rusty, upturned bin. Estée Lauder was reportedly quaking…
2. This arrived on Wednesday. It’s a little print by artist Pia Bramley of whose work I’m an enormous fan. I’m delighted to have this little gem on my wall.
What do you think she’s thinking about in her bath? I expect she’s wondering what the hell two nuns are going to do with car boot full of watermelons…
More here!
3. I love this folk costume from Northern Ireland.
That wicker/cane horse head is spectacular but what really takes the entire thing to the next level for me is the fur coat. Good for those chilly Irish days when you are pottering around town or filling your car up with petrol whilst dressed as a horse.
You can see more fantastic European folk costumes here.
4. I’m still on a D. Hockers kick. Last week we looked at his beautifully tender portraits of his dogs and marvelled at them.
Today we are going to be THRILLED by his style. Specifically this outfit which I think is pretty fantastic.
A SYMPHONY of colours and patterns and textures! The zingy aqua green hat is WONDERFUL.
5. Talking about DH and on the theme of his pool paintings, isn’t this study of a swimming pool in summer just brilliant?
It’s by Noah Davis. I love the flatness of the chlorinated turquoise against the smudgy and expressive people. You can almost hear the swimmers voices shouting above the lap and slap of the water. SUPER!
6. My feelings towards the World Cup:
Available here.
7. This note/poem by Daragh Fleming is lovely. A nice reminder to find the joy in the little things.
What would yours say?
Today mine would be:
Woke up.
Smelt the sweet peas in the vase on my bedside table.
Screamed when I opened the front door because the postman was unexpectedly standing on the doormat.
Removed a chicken from a pot of nasturtiums.
Ignored the Post-it Note on my fridge and ate two metric tonnes of Half-A-Full-Business-Day Hummus.
Went to bed too late because the book I’m reading is good and I have no self-control.
I wrote this note.
I think I’m doing alright.
8. I love the work of Elizabeth Harbour and her wooden mantle ornaments are tremendously cheering. I’m v. keen on these vases of flowers…
But this little scene is also very endearing…
Available here.
Here’s David Sedaris talking so touchingly about The Archers, his husband (Hugh) and who and what makes a home.
(I am also someone who is happiest decorating a Christmas tree or pottering around the kitchen taking three hours to make dinner.)
10. This puppet, brought to life by Raphaël Gromy, is so lovely and oddly very moving.
The thoughtful little pauses! The specs at the end of the nose!
11.
Beautiful!
12. This was going to be our finale song this week, but actually I wanted us to really get stuck into looking at a few things instead.
THAT GREEN (would match DH’s bobble hat)? With THOSE STRIPES? And the BERET? At THAT ANGLE? EXCUSE ME - PERFECTION!
13. Here’s Tove Jansson living the dream - swimming in the sea surrounding her tiny island home whilst wearing a crown of flowers. Summer itself!
And on the subject of TJ - why not treat yourself and read Moominsummer Madness this week? It’s glorious.
14. I saw this photo and found myself thinking “How would you explain this to Vermeer?” And also “How quickly would he then phone the police?”
15. This is SO stupid but SO good.
FINALLY…
As is tradition we’ll finish with a song and this week it’s… it’s quite something.
Allow me to present to you WHAM’s Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, but in Czech: each second a fresh and astounding surprise.
Come for the lead singer in a keyhole gown and the Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher perm, and stay for the backing singers - of whom the men are dressed for a taekwondo tournament and the woman are ready to show you where the exits are on your Ryanair flight to Skiathos.
Thank you for reading this week’s JOY PARADE.
I hope you have a lovely Sunday. What are you all up to? Like David Sedaris’s Hugh I’ll be in the kitchen making dinner for visiting family probably with The Archers omnibus playing on the wireless. I’ve also got some heavy duty gardening to do as part of the work that’s being done here, but I might sack that off and just read, feet up, in the shade instead.
I’ll be back next Sunday with JOY PARADE No.48. In the meantime, if you’ve enjoyed this JOY PARADE I would simply adore it if you were to prod the heart button ❤️ below and do please follow me on Instagram (I’m mralextsmith over there) and also subscribe to and share this newsletter to all your chums.
Thank you so much!
In Tearing Haste,
HEAD PIGEON.
PS. Keep your peepers on here/your inbox on Thursday because I will be Bringing Great News…
Alex, this is such a joy - THANK YOU.
May I share with you my favourite nun story? When I was 13, we stopped off for a slap-up supper in a restaurant one evening. We were given the last table, sandwiched between a group of nuns, and a table where two very staid, very buttoned-up couples were having an awkward birthday dinner. Proceedings were enlivened considerably when a policewoman arrived and sternly rebuked the birthday boy for a car-related crime. The poor man looked both baffled and as though he might have a heart attack. Gravely, she said she would have to take him to the police station. As the colour drained from his face, she added, 'But first...' and launched into a striptease routine.
Quivering, the oldest nun rose to her feet, hissed at the younger ones to 'avert their eyes'. As one, the nuns picked up their plates and scuttled out of dining room. The buttoned-up couples had that look of 'it was a good idea at the time, but the reality is excruciating'. When the not-a-policewoman had concluded, the horrified silence was broken by only by my dad's helpless laughter, and my little brother: eyes saucer-wide, who piped, "Is she coming to us next?"
There is only one possible explanation for the nun/watermelon conundrum…target practice in a remote forest (it had to be watermelons as the non-alcoholic alternative to beer bottles).