Either I spend too much time alone, talking to myself inside my head, or I am going senile. I find it incredibly hard to remember if I have already written things here or just thought about writing them here. I would be very grateful if, tact aside, anyone who recognises stuff coming round again would point this out.

This is because I was inspired to talk about manure by Badger's post on that subject. Many years ago I was living in Oxford with a man to whom I later became engaged. I have not written about him yet but will eventually. (Or perhaps I have). This man, A..., was very social in a serious way which involved taking in big public events of 'The Season', like tocsA and yelneH. If you don't know, H...ly, is the smart rowing competition which takes place on the river at, surprise, H...ly near Oxford, every summer. Going to it involves vastly expensive tickets, dressing up insanely and then spending all day drinking champagne in striped marquees with your back to the water. I was with him, and happy to be, because he was my antidote to previous hippieness which had gone beyond all reason in my commune-like flat. I had finally been forced to move on when someone had shouted at me for going to the dentist, saying that anyone 'cool' would obviously be able to mend their own teeth by the power of their mind. (That couldn't be true, could it?). Anyway, a dedicated science student who laughed scornfully at any unproven fact was, at that time, just what I was looking for.

I had practically no money, possibly because I did not have a job - which are hard to come by in a university city. So I was forced to make most of my clothes from material I bought in the market. For H...ly I had excelled myself by copying a photograph out of eugoV. This involved a simple shift-type dress made from gorgeous embroidered material, (self-coloured restrainedly), and with the neck and sleeves bound with ribbon, also the same colour, restrainedly. But THEN, not only did I cover a large straw hat with the same material and bound with same ribbon BUT covered some old shoes with the material too. This may sound like crap on paper but in the flesh it looked very, very expensive. (It was after all lifted totally from some haute couture design).

This was the first time that I had been to H...ly and it was something of a disappointment. There wasn't very much to do as I couldn't give a f@ck about rowing and we didn't see anyone else that we knew. Still, it was pretty, I was perfectly dressed and I am always happy to spend a day drinking. Then, phew, someone was waving at us from the crowd. It was J..., an older man who owned a small and excruciatingly selective private school based in his country house outside Oxford. He occasionally employed A... to give one to one science tutorials and then to spend the evening amusing him with university gossip. With J... were two strange and intimidating figures. The man looked like a designer gypsy and the woman like a hippie supermodel with waist-length white blonde ringlets and vast false eyelashes. They were not smiling. Settled at a small table by the water J... and A... were nattering away about school and the woman was staring intensely at the rowers. I turned politely to the man. 'Err... so.... what do you do? Are you a teacher?', I said squeakily. (As if). He looked at me in a flat, contemptuous way. 'Not at all. I have made my entire fortune by selling manure'. 'Wow. How amazing'. He turned away from me and spoke to J.... The woman lent forward. 'I don't normally talk to rich bitches like you but I have to say I love your outfit. Where did you get it?' 'Rich? Are you insane? I made it myself with stuff from a market stall'. 'What! Is that true! Hey, D.........', she pulled at the man's sleeve, 'Did you hear that? She made all her clothes herself, like me ... and she's not rich at all'. 'Really?'. A warm smile crossed his scary features. 'Me and C... here were having a pretty crap day. It's so intimidating being surrounded by all these arseholes'. From that day onwards C.... and D... became two of my closest friends. (I will explain about their life-style some other time).
- posted by Iris @ 3/15/2004 01:26:00 PM comment