Well, quite.

Postcard 005 - George Eliot

By Sir Frederick Burton [Public domain]

George Eliot, sent to [Lynda]

Smart and determined lady who gave no fucks.  Now who does this remind me of?

I struggled with this one, to be honest.  I have promised myself that I will write these cards in the order in which they appear in the box.  No one jumped out at me, at first, and much of the biographical information that you read on Eliot concentrates on her physical appearance, the unkind things people said.  There is a degree of internalised sexism that stayed my hand a few times before addressing the card; would the recipient think that I was being similarly unkind, in some way?  But George Eliot, she was a lady who gave no fucks.  Whose great love was technically still married - he and his wife weren't able to be divorced as he allowed himself to be named on the birth certificate of her children by another man, thus making him complicit in adultery.  Eliot called him her husband anyway, convention be damned.  And I know a few folk who similarly have no time for rubbish.  Who do not suffer fools.  Who are damn good at what they do.  One woman in particular, in fact, whose determination and dedication to her work, to her life's goals, is steadfast.

Her job is hard.  Emotionally draining, but she does incredible things.  She helps people in the most severe of need, and she is good at it.  May she keep on doing it, because we need more people like her.

I never did read Mill on the Floss, or Middlemarch, or Adam Bede.  That era of literature was one which failed repeatedly to grab my attention, despite being lauded as classics.  I think perhaps that's why I didn't want to read them, I'm not wholly sold on the conventional.

And neither, really, was Eliot.  Perhaps I should re-visit...

Guestcard 002 - Working in Vitré

 

Postcard from Vitré, sent to [Barry].

I normally travel with Barry, my other half and handfasted-partner-in-crime-to-be.  But this being a work trip to a conference, no Barry. Sad times.


I was in Vitré, in northern France.  23C in September, coming from a Glasgow that after a last gasp of sunshine had just started to get the first chill of autumn.  Some summer we had, barely anything at all, but we say that every year and every year we manage to eke out enough rays to make the contrast with the oncoming cold and creeping dark.  I like autumn.


First thing in the morning, drinking hot chocolate from a café on the corner of a junction between the old town and the new.  To my left the old town, all winding streets and medieval architecture; straight out of Fable.  Pointed castle turrets and overhanging houses.  Legacy of textile merchant wealth, made by ships' sails and good marriages.  To my right the train station, half an hour to Rennes and then back the same way to get to Paris.  In front of me a small modern fountain.

Three day trip with two days of conference, mostly held in French.  The immersion's done my vocabulary a world of good, but I felt my lack of practice.

Travelling without him just isn't the same.