Snub or Snob?

Recently, I was at a friend’s house when another old friend, David*, arrived with his partner Margaret.* I had already met David a couple of times, but I wasn’t acquainted with his lady. The four of us  enjoyed an animated conversation over dinner, ranging over a number of different topics. Alone with Margaret – who I knew had taught at a university and therefore had publications to her name – I innocently inquired what her field was, and what her speciality. She informed me very briefly, then continued telling me about her grandchild and the time they had just spent together.

A little later, however, David turned to our hostess and asked in a most accusatory tone, “How come you didn’t tell Cat about Margaret?” Nonplussed, my friend said that she had told me about her. “No, you didn’t,” he replied, ”she didn’t know that Margaret is a highly distinguished scholar and a world authority on her speciality.” 

Margaret nodded “Yes,” she said sourly, “I wonder what exactly you did tell her about me, since you didn’t mention the most important thing!”

My friend explained that as I didn’t yet know Margaret she had simply told me that she was David’s partner, and a university professor. She may indeed have mentioned Margaret’s field of study but I hadn’t registered that fact. This explanation only added fuel to the fire: Margaret felt that her status had been greatly reduced, if all I had been told about her was that she was an appendage to David. Alas, she most definitely felt snubbed. Feathers were very ruffled. I also tried to defuse the atmosphere by saying that in my opinion, what matters is not so much what a person does but rather who the person is. In addition, we are all well past retiring age so you can’t really assume that we are all still working– although  as it turned out, we are.

No, no, no! David and Margaret were both very adamant that what you do professionally defines who you are: your achievements and social standing are primordial, your identity is shaped by your work. There was no budging them on that, and Margaret’s wounded pride may sadly mark the end of a very long friendship between my friend and David, although I fervently hope not

However, the question raised has occupied my thoughts since this event. 

I agree that we probably choose our career path as a function of our tastes and talents as well as whatever opportunities come our way. Personally, I could never have had a career in medicine or engineering, for instance. But over the years, I’ve filled a multitude of roles both personally and professionally, and not all in the same field, interacting with people at many different levels of the social and academic scale, and making friends with people from all walks of life. It seems snobbish to me to put a higher value on a person because he or she has a title – be it academic or noble – than one who is equally faithful, fun and sincere but at the bottom of the class system. Prince or pauper, for me it’s character that counts. 

I put this same question to my readers, and would really be very interested to know where you stand on this issue.

Are our accomplishments more important than our character? 

Am I the person I am because of my professional success or failure? 

And does that set the criteria for my personal worth?

Do you value yourself for what you do or for what you are? 

And do you value your friends for what they do or for what they are? 

*Names changed to protect the innocent!

My YouTube Debut

Back in April, I took part in a virtual conference and wrote about it here. This made an interesting change to my normal routine, and I have been looking forward to sharing the video of the presentation / interview with all of you. Now at last Montgomery College, who hosted the Confluence Translation Conference in Maryland, have uploaded all the video-recordings from the conference onto their website at https://www.montgomerycollege.edu/events/confluence/past-conferences.html.

If this also piques your interest, and you want to see me discussing my translations of Nelly Sachs’ poems, scroll down to Videos and click on Session 1 (where you can see an image of my Nelly Sachs blog). It’s quite a long session, so feel free to fast forward if you find it boring. Anyway, I just thought that after reading my waffling here in print and seeing my uploaded photos, it might make a change to actually see and hear me “live” too. You might also find some fascinating insights and information in the other videos.

My thanks are due to my interviewer, dear Elly Sullivan, and Montgomery College Confluence organisers – or should I spell that organizers – for this opportunity to share with a lot more people than I would otherwise have reached. This seems to be bearing fruit: since the conference, my site has received over 3,000 hits so somebody must have been motivated! I’d love to know who – not a single one of those visitors has left a comment. I really do appreciate feedback and can take constructive criticism (I ignore any other kind).

So follow the link above, and let me know what you think – at least I might get some comments on this site!

Going down!

Thanks to my readers for their comments to my post about losing weight (I won’t say “slimming”, that’s too ambitious!). In response, I should point out that I am my own worst enemy owing to my double deadly sins of greed and sloth (laziness). All I really need is self-discipline and a kick in the butt. Hopefully, Noom will provide the latter. Yes, I know that what I lose in pounds I will inevitably gain in wrinkles, but I’m putting health before beauty. Here’s my starting point (I have shrunk in height by 3 cm since I was 40)

Here I am at eighty,
Shorter, but no less weighty
When my horizontal matches my vertical
Soon I shall be spherical.

I come from a long line of hardworking peasants, domestics, labourers and miners whose bodies learnt to make good use of every calorie they could get, so my inherited metabolism tends to be slow. Moreover, I also have an under-active thyroid which probably also affects my tendency to hold onto fat. Excuses, excuses! 

I’m combining Noom with intermittent fasting, that is, I’m only eating between the hours of 10 am and 6 pm, with nothing but water in the “fasting” hours. My guru Andrew Huberman has a good podcast explanation of the value of this at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tRohh0gErM, in case you need evidence. 

I am also really grateful to Aunty Uta, who posted a delightful YouTube video of Les Plus Belles Chansons Françaises at https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/7160824/posts/4138891250   This transported me back to a happy-go-lucky time of my youth, so I hopped, wiggled and danced around to these nostalgic melodies for a good half hour, and as I collapsed at the end I discovered I had completed over one thousand steps already and it was only half-past nine! No need to drag myself out for a trot around the block in the blazing heat: this is a much more pleasurable way of getting my steps in! In the privacy of my own home, nobody is going to grin at my clumsy attempts to repeat the moves I used to perform so gracefully!

One of my difficulties with this American program was gauging food quantities in terms of cups rather than grams and litres. Happily, I have found a set of US measuring cups and spoons lurking at the back of my saucepan drawer, brought back goodness knows when, never used but now coming in useful. I’m pleasantly surprised to find that a cup is actually quite a lot more than I thought, so my portions can be a bit larger. I was also delighted to find that, as individuals can add food items and there are obviously other Swiss people following this program, some of our brands and typical foodstuffs are already in the food list. 

And if you are waiting for a progress report, I’m happy to say that in the past week I have lost just over a kilo. Not much, but better than nothing, and motivating. Why couldn’t I do it by myself, you ask? I can only say that Noom provides me with 3 incentives I didn’t have before, in spite of my best friend’s encouragement: constant nagging, food and step tracking, and calorie control. I think twice before I reach for the cheese – yes, it’s allowed, but only a quarter of what I was permitting myself up to now: and how much more I appreciate that creamy, stinky, mature Epoisses when it’s rationed!

(And by the way, my fingernails are looking decent again – no coloured polish this time! – and I’m going to tackle my feet today. )

I need a manicure …

As I was eating my breakfast, I noticed that my nailpolish was chipped so I decided that I’d remove it immediately after I’d washed up the dishes. My manicure stuff is in my bathroom cabinet but I can’t enter the bathroom without my bladder clamouring for attention. Sitting on the loo, I noticed that my bathroom floor wasn’t as clean as it should be, so I got out my Swiffer mop and other relevant cleaning materials  and gave the bathroom a thorough clean. 

Mop in hand, I moved to the only other room with a tiled floor, the kitchen, and there also left every surface sparkling – at least, as far as I could reach up on the cabinet doors. Tall people might notice a tide mark at the 6 ft level. Cleaning the kitchen, I noticed that behind the door there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in Horatio’s philosophy – but Horatio was a man, so he wouldn’t have needed to dream of ironing boards, aprons and recycling. There was also a fair amount of sorting out needed among my cleaning products and utensils, but now that job is done too.

As I bent down, the waist button popped off my shorts (yes, this is a sweaty job, shorts and a suntop are my indoors Mrs Mop gear) and without it, the zip kept coming undone so that button had to be sewn back on and my sewing things reorganised. 

With bathroom and kitchen gleaming, the carpet in the other rooms looked in need of attention so out came the vacuum cleaner. I love my vacuum cleaner. It’s small and easy to use and takes up very little room, unlike those I have had before with long hoses that refuse to wrap into a neat little parcel and hide behind doors or curtains (my apartment is small and short on storage). I had covered about two square metres when the battery died. 

Oh well, it’s actually recommended that you should dust before you hoover, so while the battery on my vacuum cleaner was recharging I dusted all the surfaces in my living room, including all the picture frames and little knick-knacks (yes, I did pick each item up and dusted under it, unlike the last cleaning lady I had, even though she was Swiss!), polished the mirrors (I have several, not because I like looking at myself but to reflect the light and make the room look bigger) and other glass surfaces – but resisted the windows this time.

After this some  pictures were hanging crooked, so I tried to straighten them but the nails holding two of them fell out; my walls are concrete, and it’s a devil of a job to get a nail to hold without drilling but if the picture isn’t heavy and nobody breathes within a metre of it, the nail will usually hold. When the nail falls out, though, it tends to leave quite a large hole. Out came the mastic and as I was smoothing it into the holes with my finger, I noticed that my nail polish looked really bad …

Well, the vacuum cleaner battery is fully charged now, so I’ll just finish off the living room and start on the bedroom before I do my nails, otherwise the polish will get chipped again before it’s dry … And anyway, it’s almost lunchtime, so I’ll just remove the polish and come back to the rest later … I think …

Thirty grams down, 15 kg to go …

On taking stock of what two years of Covid restrictions have done in my life, I conclude that I’m one of the lucky ones. Firstly, I haven’t yet had Covid-19 (though I shouldn’t say that too loudly, I don’t want to tempt fate) and secondly I didn’t have to miss going out to work as I’m retired and what work I do, I do from home anyway. On the other hand, there are two consequences that I’m not so happy about: the first is that I’ve become a social recluse, almost a hermit, and the second that I have gained at least 10 kilos. 

I’ve been muttering about my weight for a while, but my attempts to lose any were pretty half-hearted and my addiction to cheese triumphed over my willpower. A week or so ago, I responded to an ad that popped up on Facebook for Noom. Have any of you tried this? 

They have some pretty aggressive marketing which I tried to ignore, but finally I gave in when they offered me six months free on an annual subscription that – they say – can be cancelled any time. Immediately I was inundated with encouraging messages and e-mails, and an app that allows me to log almost every minute of my day one way or another. If Big Brother is interested in my antics, he will have no trouble whatsoever in tracking me down.

I haven’t actually learned anything I didn’t already know about nutrition and exercise, but I must say there’s no lack of positive feedback and encouragement from the second I wake up until the moment I tap “Finish the day”. And some tempting recipes – even though, as they are American, I’m not always sure what this or that ingredient is or how many grams of a certain item make up a cup. For instance, how many cups are two sticks of celery or five leaves of an iceberg lettuce? How heavy is an American slice of bacon? (Ours is cut very thin, 8 slices weigh 100g)

One of the things I signed up for was a “customized workout program” downloaded onto my computer. When I saw the photos, I laughed out loud. I can do all these things in my head, and certainly was physically capable of them 30 or 40 years ago, but can I do a plank, crunch or push-ups now? No way! I can’t jump or jog, let alone do power-walking or running, and as for some of the bending and stretching – let’s just say, my elastic has perished! No use saying “Just try, it will come with practice” – it won’t. If I sit or lie down on the floor, it’s a cardio session just getting up again. I can walk at a leisurely pace and I can swim, and that’s about it. 

However, what did impress me was that as soon as I informed Noom of my incapacity – I am, after all, now 81 years old and pretty well spherical – they instantly refunded the cost of that workout sheet. Somewhere on the Internet I saw some exercises you can do on or with a chair so maybe I’ll give those a try. 

“Stand on one leg while you’re cleaning your teeth,” I’ve been told. 

OK, as long as I can hold onto the washbasin with the other hand, but I’m wobbly even then. 

“Walk up and down stairs without using the handrail,” is another one that isn’t as easy as it sounds. I’ve tripped UP the stairs in my house a couple of times, and am not eager to fall DOWN them, seeing as they are stone.

Well, I can still do most of my housework unaided, including cleaning the windows, emptying the dishwasher and hanging up my washing, so I reckon that will have to count as a workout for me. And walking to the shops with my little trolley gives me a couple of thousand steps, as does going to my local park to watch the squirrels and ducks. I just need to get over that Covid-induced reluctance to step over the threshold into public space … 

Perennial Problem

Temperatures are now between 25 and 30°C, so high time to re-arrange my daily wear, putting winter clothes in the basement and summer clothes in my day-to-day wardrobe. The road to hell is paved with garments – especially trousers – that left in the dark have shrunk several sizes since last summer or the summer before last.

This sounds like an echo of a post from about a year ago: no progress made, I’m afraid. It’s easy to blame Covid for my extra kilos, gained while sitting around on the sofa, but if I’m honest I know it’s all my own fault. Too many carbs, too few steps.

This begs the question of what to do with things that looked OK on me 3 or 4 years ago but are too truthful for my present much rounder shape. Last year and the year before, they were carefully put away in the hope that miraculously some of this too, too solid flesh would melt. It hasn’t. In fact it’s even more solid. Consolidated, I might say. At least 10 kilos extra. And the mirror tells me that trousers, whether long, short or mid-calf, are definitely OUT. As is anything fitted. Bell tents are IN. Alack and alas! Shoes still fit, thank goodness – but can I walk in them? Goodbye heels!

Most things in my wardrobe are still wearable, not noticeably dated and of decent quality. I’m sure someone the right size would be glad of them but charity shops are very fussy nowadays. I think I’m going to shove everything into a big suitcase and drop it off at the refugee centre. 

And make myself a toga.

Family heirloom: Alvis hare

When I pop my clogs, my daughter and granddaughters will inherit a few things that they may not be terribly enthusiastic about – but woe betide them if they dump them, because then I shall surely come back to haunt them! Be warned, my sweet Swiss Rose, and your equally sweet rosebuds!

Alvis hare radiator mascot

Here is one of them: one of my earliest playthings, this brass hare served as a doorstop in my parents’ house for as long as I can remember – how they acquired it, I have no idea. My father had a habit of picking things up “that might come in useful” or that took his fancy, so he could have found it anywhere. It originally came from an Alvis car, made in Coventry, England, around a hundred years ago.

I discovered that there had been at least four different versions of the hare mascot and they are still being manufactured today by the Louis Lejeune mascot company. I can vouch for the fact that mine is even older than me, and indeed it’s one of the earliest, known as the “big paws” model. From 1928 onwards they were chrome-plated and carried the signature of their maker AEL (for AE Lejeune). Mine, however, is brass, has never been chromed, and has no signature, making it pre-1928. Its age was verified by Mr Dave Rees of Red Triangle Customer Service who told me:

There were many different versions of Hares used to embellish the radiator caps of various Alvis cars, the one depicted in your photo I have seen on a 10/30 from 1922. There are only 2 10/30 cars known to exist still, one of which is in restored condition and the other has not been restored and I couldn’t tell you the condition of that one.

Whilst your hare may not have originally come from a 10/30, it most certainly would have been from a very early Alvis car made in all likelihood before 1923.

The mascot that was similar to yours that I have seen in use was not chromed and the owner is very thorough about his restorations, so I believe that having it the finish yours is in would be correct.

The 10/30 was a beautiful car so I ordered a print of a coloured drawing showing a 1921 10/30 Alvis with my hare sitting proudly atop the radiator. That’s probably the nearest I’ll ever come to reuniting him with his original vehicle. 

If you want to know more about Alvis cars, follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/embed/ieqGgY349RI?list=PL9YdRRejyRzn72ydzc1ZsqUxx6RlkaCix

Bad Ragaz to Frauenfeld via Wil – A Glimpse of Eastern Switzerland

A number of people have asked me where I live in Switzerland, but are often none the wiser when I tell them. And yet my village has been world-famous for its high-class spa since the belle époque, when it welcomed many of the crowned heads of Europe and whoever was among the great and glorious of their time.  It’s also part of the location of the children’s story of Heidi, as this is where her friend Klara was staying in the grand hotel. 

Bad Ragaz sits on the bank of the river Rhine; not far from the border with Austria, just south of the Principality of Liechtenstein, and at the entrance to the canton of the Grey League (Graubünden / Grisons / Grischuna / Grigione in the national languages of Switzerland). In addition to its natural hot springs, it’s also a winter ski resort and a very pleasant place to spend a hiking holiday the rest of the year. 

Bridge over our other river, the Tamina

At the moment, spring is bursting out all over and the short walk from my home to the station on Wednesday took me an extra five minutes as I stopped to admire and photograph some of the beauty en route. 

The way to the railway station, Bad Ragaz

For passers-by to enjoy

A cherry tree with both pink and white blossoms

A former hotel now home to several businesses and a restaurant

Bad Ragaz railway station

I was on my way to visit my daughter and son-in-law who live two hours away in the picturesque little town of Frauenfeld, capital city of the canton of Thurgau. I took the train that runs alongside the Rhine and then veers off westwards to St Gallen, and disembarked in another small town that few foreigners have heard, of called Wil, where I was met by my daughter and my five-year-old great-granddaughter. 

Mini-garden in Wil’s pedestrianised High Street

Like many other obscure small Swiss towns, Wil has a gem of an old town and an attractive pedestrian shopping area leading up to it. This week, the pedestrian-only  high street is showcasing a garden competition – not quite Chelsea Flower Show, but some very pretty exhibits nonetheless that I couldn’t resist recording on my phone. 

Another mini-garden

and another

On the way to the restaurant

Since I arrived at precisely 12 noon, our first thought was to find a place to have lunch and as the sun was shining we decided to go to the Italian restaurant which has a terrace beside the little lake just below what used to be the city wall and is now a tight ring of mediaeval houses perched above a vertiginous bank of gardens. 

Wiler Weiher with mediaeval houses of the old town

Australian black swans – far from home

Our little girl was most appreciative of her pizza with pineapple (half of it went home with her), and eager to explore the surroundings of the lake which is home to many different kinds of water fowl. There is also an impressive fountain in the middle, a small sister to Geneva’s  famous jet d’eau. 

Wil’s “Jet d’eau”

Bridge decorated for Easter

Easter Bunnies on bridge

one girl and her dog …

We stopped briefly for an ice-cream on the way back to the car, and finally took our little one back home. There we received a warm welcome from my eldest granddaughter and her other children, and were fed tea and delicious home baked cake. Consequently, on arrival at my daughter’s home in Frauenfeld, we had to disappoint my son-in-law who was looking forward to eating dinner with us – we just had no room left!  

Home sweet home – the Little Washhouse where my daughter lives

Yesterday morning, my daughter and I took the dog for her usual run in the woodland on the edge of town that’s just down the road from my daughter’s house. This, for my great-grandchildren, is the “enchanted forest”, a wildlife preserve with a small river and canal running through it, where beavers are building dams under the watchful eyes of the herons, ducks and jays, and there is a neat little campfire site with a covered supply of firewood.

Beaver dam

Ready for the next barbecue

A quaint club nearby hut always has some kind of seasonal display outside for the children to admire, and at the moment it has the added attraction that some generous person has slipped a few chocolate Easter eggs into the arrangement. 

Club hut

3D Easter display

Along the canal

The Washhouse and the neighbouring Mill

Home again, and a quick look around the garden where tulips abound as well as other harbingers of spring, and inside the house there is also no lack of greenery – mostly orchids, one of my son-in-law’s passions. $

The bird bath that my grandfather carved used to be in my mother’s garden – now it has a new home here

Bathroom windowsill

Home sweet home!

Orchid bulbs

This reminds me of the Queen of the Night in th The Magic Flute!

Now getting ready for Easter and the arrival of the rest of the family. Oh yes, there’s another lovely gathering of the clan this weekend, and a chance to catch up with all my descendants. Well worth the journey from Bad Ragaz to Frauenfeld. 

More for Ukraine

Like many others, I read the news (because I can’t bear to watch) about the war raging in Ukraine, and feel helpless, powerless. I grew up in the industrial Midlands of England during WW2, and my lullabies were sirens and bombs exploding. But I never experienced the horror of an armed invasion. How long can we sit back and refrain from action?

These are my translations of two more of Nelly Sachs’ poems that are as topical and relevant today as when she wrote them. The poem about the sunflower, in particular, as a symbol of Ukraine, is chilling in this context.

1.

You lookers-on
Who saw murder done before your eyes.
Just as you feel someone looking at you from behind,
so you feel on your back
the gaze of the dead.
How many dying eyes will look at you
when from the hiding places you pluck a violet?
How many hands raised in supplication
in the twisted martyred branches
of the old oak trees?
How much memory grows in the blood
of the evening sun?
Oh the unsung lullabies
in the nocturnes of the turtle dove –
many’s the one might have captured a star.
But now the old well has to do it for him!
You lookers-on
who didn’t raise a hand to kill,
but who did not shake off the dust from your
longing,
who stopped stock still at the point where it turns
to light.

2.

But the sunflower
inflaming the walls
raises from the ground
those who speak to the soul
in the dark

Torches lit for another world 
with hair growing beyond death –

And outside the song of finches
and time strolling in glory
vibrant
and the flower growing dear
to the human heart

evil ripens into the winepress
black grapes – of ill repute –
already pressed to wine –

Impostor Syndrome?

I’m no shrinking violet by any means, but nor am I one to blow my own trumpet loudly. I am, before all else, English! From an early age, I was taught not to push myself forward but to “wait to be asked”. So that’s what I do. Sometimes it pays off. A couple of events this last week have served to boost my self-esteem more than usual and I’d like to share these with you while the glow still lasts

As you can see from the headings at the top of this blog, I also run a blog devoted to my English translations of poems by the German Jewish writer Nelly Sachs. My main purpose in posting these is to help make Nelly Sachs’ work known and accessible among English-speaking audiences who would otherwise be unable to appreciate the original German poems. 

Several people have asked permission to use this or that poem for specific events and I’m constantly coming across others on the Internet who have reproduced them without my explicit permission in all kinds of contexts. I see that as positive, because my chief aim in publishing them has always been to make the voice of Nelly Sachs heard among English speakers, so provided I’m given credit, I’m OK with that.  

I was approached a few weeks ago by Elly Sullivan, an American student, who requested permission to read aloud one of my translations at a Holocaust Memorial Event taking place at her college in Maryland, followed by an invitation to participate via Zoom in a virtual conference on literary translation that was being hosted by her college on Saturday, 9 April. This intrigued me, so I accepted.

After the initial contact with Elly, I knew that here was someone sensitive, sensible and reliable that I could trust and work with. We devised a format for the presentation based on an interview with me about these poems, the poet Nelly Sachs and all the whys and wherefores of my labour of love as represented by the blog. Because of the time difference between Maryland and Switzerland, we were allotted a slot in the morning immediately after the introduction to the conference, which was convenient for me as it was 4 pm here, a time when my brain is usually firing on all four cylinders. 

On the Saturday morning a week before the conference Elly and I took our presentation through a trial run with her erudite poetry group who very kindly gave us their feedback. This was encouraging and constructive, enabling us to make some adjustments and decide which poems to include in Elly’s PowerPoint presentation, to be discussed in the interview.  

Then just a few days later I found a request on my Nelly Sachs blog for permission to use my translation  “Chorus of the Consolers” in a talk being given in another conference on the Literature of Trauma at the university of Marburg, Germany – this conference had already started and was being streamed live! They were very relieved to have my consent, as the talk was in English and it had only occurred to them at the last moment that they didn’t have an English version of the poem (a crucial part of the talk), so I was also invited to watch and listen to that informative and interesting speech. 

Thanks are due to Covid for the rise of Zoom in these last two years, which makes connecting with people so much easier. From my couch here in Switzerland I am able to join others all over the world, so simply and comfortably.

To my relief and delight, back in Maryland yesterday the live-streamed Confluence interview / presentation entitled “Antidote and Access:  Literary Translation in the Blogosphere”  went smoothly, and  feedback on the live chat was very encouraging, full of praise, encouragement and superlatives that made my head grow several sizes too big for my bonnet. This interview was also recorded, so will be available at some point on the website of Montgomery College if any of my readers and followers are interested. (I’ll add the link when it’s all set up.) I hope Elly gets the A+ she deserves for all her work.

You may be asking: What’s all that about “Antidote and Access”? For decades before I retired I was earning my bread and butter – and sometimes a good dollop of jam – from technical and commercial translations, so the creative process of translating poetry really was an antidote at that time to the materialistic prose of the business world. And as for access, the Internet and blogosphere has the edge over a printed book by making blog content available and accessible free of charge to anyone capable of googling; my Nelly Sachs blog has received getting on for 121,000 hits – not bad for a poet whom only the elite few have even heard of. There’s also the extra bonus for me, that I can revise my English versions and add to my selection at any time with no difficulty. 

Still, could this lead to publication in book form? That, I must admit, would be gratifying and fun: I started my labour of love almost 30 years ago and though the work has been intermittent with long gaps – sometimes years – between poems, I don’t see an end to it! Nelly Sachs wrote several hundred poems, so there’s a long way to go yet. My currently inflated ego thinks it would be nice to see them in print. Who knows? I must confess to feeling like something of an impostor, and am still waiting to be asked. But – remember Grandma Moses! She was actually even younger than me when she was discovered.