...... even when we`re feeling gloomy.

This is a sort of follow up to a post by George Garnett some months back about how the small occurances in life can be very precious e.g. a dog over the road wagging its tail at you. That post struck a chord with me and, I`m sure, others here. I`m feeling a tad down in the dumps at present, but yesterday two things made me smile.

An absolutely gin-o-r-m-o-u-s sunflower standing in solitary splendour in a front garden. There were no other plants, just this beauty.

The site of two children leaping up and down in an effort to scrump some blackberries that were hanging down over a high wall.


I have taken to thinking of such things as George Garnett Moments. Hope that`s ok with you, George

So, what`s made you smile recently ..... ?

1. Hearing of MorticiaAA in a good mood makes me smile.

2. Reading the 'off-topic replies' thread makes me smile. Thanks, increpatio! (cue Peer Gynt Suite)

And that's just stimuli on these boards, offa them my infant son ranks highest. He's coming back from Panama today!!

Wow. That's almost all a bit too much to cope with, Mort. I've got a funny lump in my throat just thinking about you suggesting it. If it's all the same to you, I shall insist on thinking of them as Morticia Moments

As it happens I had a Morticia Moment yesterday and, what was even better, it ended up being shared by others. There's an Accordion Man who plays requests for children every Saturday in St Albans Market. An obviously highly musical labrador puppy was being walked past him on a lead and became absolutely transfixed by it. He sat down watching and listening intently, swaying gently and slowly wagging his tail, and absolutely nothing would move him. I stood there watching him with a silly grin on my face and after a while there were about ten of us exchanging grins over this completely entranced dog.

It wasn't much I suppose but that's the idea with Morticia Moments. It made me happy.


Oh, here he is! The St Albans Accordion Man. He's been playing in the Market every Saturday for over thirty years apparently.

   


Not with the transfixed dog, I'm afraid. But that's in the nature of Morticia Moments. They are fleeting and transient and can't be pinned down. You take them as they come and store the memory up to be drawn on later when stocks are low, or share with someone you know would like it.
 

I had a pedestrian but highly Garnicious moment on Thursday.  Taking a tour of the music library at my new school, I heard the head librarian explain the library's hours of operation–8am to 9pm Monday through Thursday, and 8am to "supper time" on Fridays.  I hadn't heard anyone use the term "supper time" in years, and it gave me sort of a warm feeling.

There's a recurring motif in Don DeLillo's novel Cosmopolis in which the protagonist, a young technology magnate, expresses frustration that there aren't newer words for certain things–"phone" is the one that comes immediately to mind.  He's pissed off that there isn't a newer word for "phone."  I am vulnerable to the same fin-du-nouveau-siècle angst, and I guess phrases like "supper time" are kind of a balm for it.

smile-inducing moments chez Torheit include

• any hint at all that the winter has ended once again
• getting an email from my publisher, even if it's only to announce a change of extension-number
• Julia, the double-bassist busker who plays the pedestrian subway near my house - she plays the Bach viola-da-gamba suites at pitch, so it's all in about 32nd position at the top of the finger-board... and all in-tune and musical
• being given leaflets in the street offering "Learn English Quickly" courses
• the appearance of melon-stalls on street corners in Autumn

Birds and animals in general are rather smile-inducing, especially wrens. And babies....

The little multi-coloured violas I've just planted have very sweet perky faces, and so far have cheered me up every time I've looked at them.

I hope you took their bridges down and slackened off their strings before the burial ceremony?

Every time Norman Tebbit appears in the news, I have a GG moment.  It's like welcoming back an old friend.