Saturday, April 08, 2006

I like

I like books;
I like 3D objects that have a smell, weight, a taste, a character;
I like texture and colour;
I like boxes and cupboards; and stories about people who live in houses with stairwalls covered in pictures, attics full of family junk, and sheds full of - well - potential!
I like builders' merchants, hardware stores, garden centres and haberdashers, delicatessans, greengrocers, secondhand book shops, junk shops, pet shops, florists, carpet shops.
I like brick and stone and clay and bark and cotton and wool and leather and terracotta and glazed porcelain.
I like the smells of creosote and apples and ink and basil and geraniums and garlic and juniper and wine and bread and soil and eucalyptus and jasmine and roses and chrysanthemums.
I like to walk by the sea;
and rivers, streams and ponds edged with bullrushes, irises and yellow flag lilies;
in woods with leafmould, acorns and beechnuts under foot;
down scruffy paths between lovingly tended allotments planted with fruit bushes, trellises of peas and beans, orderly rows of onions, potatoes and lettuces, and quirky scarecrows improvised from broomhandles, old clothes, car showroom bunting and CDs.
I like to lie in long grass watching beetles beetling and larks rising;
and to sit against a tree trunk and watch the play of light and shadow on the leaves;
or play hide & seek among ferns that curl green overhead.
I like eating blackberries off the bramble and crab apples off the tree.
I like to climb, and just stand, watching and listening to the space of scrubland and moorland as I get my breath back.
I like air that's cool and damp and still, or dry and still, with that silence that a shout or a bleat only amplifies, or cold and crisp, catching your breath in clouds;
and rain that spits, drizzles, spatters, pours, drenches;
and frost on grass stems,
snow on branches,
wind that ruffles and flicks and catches and shoves and tosses and drives and whispers and whimpers and sighs and spooks and roars like a pagan god.

I like haiku, but I'm no good at them.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mamaduck: secondhand book shops

I liked your blog and I went through all of your posts.
I just wanted to ask, are there any secondhand book shops here ?? I haven't found any in the UAE.

Passionate Dilettante said...

Another one who reads whole blogs! Thanks.

House of Prose has a corner unit on the ground floor of Jumeirah Plaza, near the Chinese shop and the Indian restaurant; and an outdoor unit at Ibn Battuta, facing that big building site behind Geant. HoP offer a part refund if you return their books in good condition. There's also a very well-stocked shop across the road from the Plant Souk in Satwa. There's so much downstairs that I've never actually made it upstairs. And they refund your parking dirham! The charity shop in Karama, opposite where Choithram's used to be, also had quite a collection at one time - I haven't been in for ages. I don't know about other parts of town. You can also join Dubai Lending Library in Jumeirah: it's on a residential road between Jumeirah Beach Road and the corniche road, across from Jumeirah Plaza. It's open part-time and the number's in the Connector Green Pages.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for all those places, I have to check them out sometime. The only problem is that i live in Abu Dhabi; however, i do tend to go to dubai a lot and the places you mentioned seem great. Thanks a lot. You're the best mamaduck.

(Another one who reads whole blogs! Thanks.)

Umm.. Actually I'm the same anonymous who's been bugging keefie lately !!