Thursday, January 25

 We're waiting patiently for Marilyn's cleaner to arrive.  Normally, she would be here on Friday but, of course, tomorrow is a public holiday and special arrangements have been made.  Because she has a list of people to see, we have no idea when she will darken our doorstep.   With the Friday arrangement, I seldom become involved as I'm usually at my Writing Group  but that hasn't started yet;  I'll just have to keep out of her way.  It would be good if we could go and have a coffee somewhere but Marilyn is obliged to be here.  The Department doesn't want to have to deal with any suggestion of misbehaviour from their employees if they were left in an empty house.

No matter, I'll sit outside with a book or a puzzle and keep out of everyone's hair.  

I'm putting together my list of poems for the first meeting of my poetry book and I'm becoming really interested in Lewis Carroll.  He was one of the first people in the UK to use a camera and he used the daughter of a colleague as a model for some of his photographs.  Her name was Alice and he immortalised her in his book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.  It's a wee bit creepy; she was only 8.  He also wrote a poem called Hiawatha's Photographing, which I'm going to introduce to the group.  The first few lines are:

   

From his shoulder Hiawatha  Took the camera of rosewood,  Made of sliding, folding rosewood;  Neatly put it all together.  In its case it lay compactly,  Folded into nearly nothing;  But he opened out the hinges,  Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges,  Till it looked all squares and oblongs,  Like a complicated figure  In the Second Book of Euclid. ......