Battening down the hatches

House behind the trees on Ojai Road

"The severity of the climate [...] compelled them to batten down and caulk their abiding place." (John Badcock, Domestic Amusements, 1823)

Who is this John Badcock, and was he related to the fellow who wrote this rather good (undated) provocative essay about liberty and loyalty, maybe a century later, which I have just discovered on the Internet?

Anyhow, mustn't digress. 7 cm snow fell Saturday night while we were being treated to a Persian meal in (on?) the Silk Road, invited there unexpectedly by Nicola and Maha. It was scrumptious: spiced soup and meats (qormas, kabobs) served with Afghan naan bread, Iranian ice cream with pistachios for dessert and to end the meal I drank a glass of green tea flavoured with cardamom. I've been brewing pots of this at home since, good for me, I'm sure. Afterwards, over a nightcap at our house, we discovered that Nicola, in a former existence at the Universidad de León in Spain, had published papers about the 4000 year old Gilgamesh epic in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies.  I am reading one of these papers now.

Chris and Laurie defeated by the Prius wheelnuts

We had flown some circuits in the rain that turned to sleet before it snowed, making sure during the tie-down that PTN's new engine cover fits snugly, and perhaps we should have put her new wing covers on as well. She'll need her winterizer fitted next. Fitting winter tyres ("tires") on the car was a problem as we didn't have the correct wheel nuts to hand, but on Sunday Chris helped Laurie change the wheels successfully on three of the other cars parked at the end of Ojai Road.

Four "Roofmasters" start to work on our roof

Yesterday we had new shingles, ice shields, flashing and a vent installed on our roof in the hope that this will prevent the usual leaks under the ice dams that have caused trouble in previous winters. Five men from Roofmaster worked on this renovation and a very good job they made of it, too. They had to scrape the snow off the old roof, first.

The product of an unfortunate habit

Nicola Vulpe considers poetry and fiction unfortunate habits ...

says the blurb on the back of his book

... which he has supported by working as a computer programmer, technical writer, senior manager in high-tech and university professor.

Chris now works on the same premises of this man in his guise as technical writer and he bought his novella out of curiosity. When I it arrived at our house I read it in one go, enthralled by it. The novella is called The Extraordinary Event of Pia H., the narrative having the logic and repetitive quality of dream sequences that progress from one event to another, from one place to another (actually several places: parts of Spain, France, Italy, Slovenia, Canada and 200 fathoms deep in the Pacific Ocean) without actually getting anywhere much. At the end of the book the narrator, or perhaps one of the narrators (you can't be sure) is still moving forward (or is it backward?) searching for the wife who vanished into thin air on page 1 after turning to admire a chicken in the Plaza Mayor of León. Great fun to read, with an underlying atmosphere of sadness.

It reminded me of Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman.