A family down the hill are blasting a new driveway to make it less steep, no doubt, and so on Saturday I saw a whole lot of working men who stared at me while I was preparing to run. Today was an overcast ominous day, and so I armed myself with my Swiss army-knife before I went running, and carried it the entire way in one hand or another as I had no pockets on the track-pants I was wearing. As one hand grew more and more clammy, it would be transferred to the other. Strange how clumsy it feels in my left hand, how correct in my right. People will think me crazy, but my history shows, I suppose.
I even practiced lunges in my mind, made sure that I knew which blade to open, so that in the event that I would ever have to use it, I would not flourish the little pair of scissors, or the tin-opener by mistake.
I ran 5.02 km at a rate of 7.27 mins per km, not that great, but I always get better with distance, which feels good, means I have developed stamina. The wild fountain grasses are Naples-yellow against the grey sky, quite beautiful. Looking at pictures from the same time last year, it is evident that the leaves disappeared more quickly this year. More wind, drier summer.
Matthew bought an A Flock of Seagulls record at a second-hand shop on Saturday, which has happily re-awakened our old record player, which we discovered for $10 at a yard sale a few years ago. I remember the boys were 13 or 14, and absolutely fascinated by this amazing 'technology'.
This is the generation which was born with a computer mouse in its hand, has grown up with constant access to the internet and the incredibly intricate and rapidly expanding technology of ipods, cellphones which are now mini-computers, text-messaging, video-chat, digital photography.
Yesterday ten-year old Gina stared in amazement as I put on a record, having never seen one before, and tonight Matthew is still fascinated by the fact that a piece of vinyl can store sound-waves which can then be played by a needle which transfers the vibrations caused by the original recording stylus, on to a diaphragm in a speaker which is then amplified so that we can hear it. I find this much easier to understand than how a tiny little flat metal thing can hold a million songs.
Analog sound is beautiful. Apparently analog recording captures the whole sound-wave, whereas digital only record "snapshots" of the soundwave, so it IS better.
So tonight we have been playing all the old records. I brought them all here, wouldn't let go of any of them. Like my books, they mark the journey of my life. There is Paul Gallico's The Snow Goose, and on the other side The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas, with Herbert Marshall and "supporting cast, sound effects and music". Lying on the carpet next to the big wooden "hi-fi" set which housed the radio and the record-player, my brother and I would listen entranced.
And here is the soundtrack of Mary Poppins, the very first record I owned. My friend Trish and I knew the words to every song on that record, and would sing with the same intonation as the original singers, including Glynis Johns' high nasal voice singing "Sister Suffragette".
So I just gave in to nostalgia, remembering students days, then the little girls dancing to records, and how Tim and I would always buy them each a record if we went to a conference or something in another city, or if we went to the big exciting city of Port Elizabeth for the day, they would get to choose their own record, that was their treat. And there are videos of Emma and her friends, Sarah-Jane, Nina, Stephanie, Chanté, all dancing to the record player's music, and Emma's ordered choreography.
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