So I’m standing at the kitchen sink doing the washing up the other evening, when Mr Litlove looms out of the darkness coming up the garden path. He’s been out with his chums at Shed Club, which, yes, is totally a thing. It usually makes him happy and indeed he is looking very chuffed with himself.
‘Look what I made!’ he’s saying, before he’s even got close enough for me to see him clearly.
He appears to have a great wicker bow sprouting from the back of his head.
‘What is it?’ I ask.
He moves the pole he is carrying off his shoulder and waves it at me. ‘Look! It’s a willow dragon fly. For the garden.’
When he is finally indoors and in the light, we examine the dragon fly. It has a densely woven body and great looping wings and a faintly malevolent air. Mr Litlove is pleased as punch with it.
‘I thought you were wearing it in your hair,’ I confess. But he is not displeased with this idea.
‘It could be a fascinator,’ he says, balancing it above his head. ‘What do you think?’
It is quite fetching, his Hobbity fascinator.
‘And if I’d said, “Darling, will you come with me to macrame class,” would you have done it?’ I ask.
‘Probably not,’ he agrees cheerfully.
Once upon a time, several months ago, Mr Litlove went down to the woods at a nearby National Trust house and joined a green woodworking circle. It was just to have a go, just to see what it was that they did. He made what can only be described as a very Brothers Grimm stool, and was then invited to join a sort of spin-off group to weave the seat out of strips of bark. Then he kept going so he could whittle spoons, and then try making bowls with a pole lathe.
I said: ‘You whittled spoons?’
Only the other weekend, he was in the woods again, stripping the bark off of a tree. I watched him skip down the path to the car with some bafflement. It makes me think of those verbal reasoning questions you’re given in the eleven plus exam.
‘Stripping bark off a tree is to Litlove what…… reading poetry for fun is to Mr Litlove.’
It’s really only a question of taste. I’m just not into rustic, particularly. I’m sure it’s lovely! Really! In the right setting and all that. Or in the wake of Armageddon. I’m sure that, if we survive, I will be completely thrilled that Mr Litlove will be able to whittle us some more spoons and bowls. And weave us some seating.
Isn’t it a funny thing, taste? It’s so random and unaccountable and yet it means the world to us. We were having a different conversation about essentially the same thing last night, when we got talking about what the first records were that we ever bought. I swear hands down that you will not be able to beat Mr Litlove’s first record choices either in terms of eclecticism or unaccountability. You could never guess them in a thousand years. His first records were George Formby, The Smurfs and Jesus Christ Superstar.
Isn’t that joyful?
‘I really want to blog about that,’ I told Mr Litlove.
He shrugged. ‘Oh go ahead. No one will believe you.’
I didn’t buy many records when I was a child because I have a much older brother who was always, always into music, so I just listened to whatever he was playing. For those of you who were children in the 70s and may enjoy the nostalgia, I remember especially: Supertramp, Steely Dan, The Police, Ian Dury and the Blockheads (My given name is Dickie, I come from Billericay, and I’m doing very well…), Judie Tzuke (probably my favorite of the albums my brother played), Gerry Rafferty, Pink Floyd, ‘Afternoon Delight’ by Starland Vocal Band (which I always thought was about a 4th July picnic!) Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell, Simon and Garfunkel, The Eagles, Bruce Springsteen (Baby we were born to run…) and probably my brother’s favourite: E.L.O. I remember also ‘Baby Don’t Fear The Reaper’ by Blue Oyster Cult and the one heavy metal band he liked, Hawkwind. Everyone else thought it was just a racket, which spurred my brother on to play ‘Silver Machine’ as loud as the volume would go.
I do remember buying ‘Take A Chance On Me’ by Abba, because there was no way my brother would be buying that. And I am also pretty sure my first ever record was ‘Forever Autumn’ by Justin Haywood, though I know he had the double album of War of the Worlds. I still have a strong visual memory of the cover art with those menacing stalk-legged tripods. But my great personal obsession when I was a child was with the score of West Side Story. I was given the album for my 8th? 9th? birthday, something like that, and I probably wore it out.
But you just can’t negotiate with what you love. And much as you can get an appreciation of something that doesn’t speak to your heart, it’s difficult to get further. I also thought I’d never heard any of The Smurf’s singles, but when Mr Litlove sang me a few, I did recall them!
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