Category Archives: My own

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The pleasure of a visitors’ book

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“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment, until it becomes a memory.” Dr Seuss

Visitors’ books – we love the raggedy copies we have. The smallest has travelled from home to home with us, occasionally lost for the length of a new home at the bottom of an unpacked packing box, but then found again in time for the next home. It has served us well, and now it has a new companion to take on the day to day duties.

This newcomer is filling up and growing a wisdom of its own, but it knows, and we know, that it will never be able to replicate the knowledge sheltered by its older companion. By ‘knowledge’ I suppose I mean gossip – a listing of relationships often detailed in little more than the word count of a tweet, but written long before that little blue bird, or its black X of a successor came to be. Some pages just have names and dates, but those alone can bring back a whole shelf of memories, especially if connected to the names and dates surrounding them. It’s even better if the visitors have taken the time to write a little more than just the basics, for then their own immediate impression of their time adds even more to the knowing that they were there.

So, if you’ve never had a visitors’ book, I recommend it. It needn’t be fancy, and it soon becomes a habit and then a treasure, the kind of treasure that will link many more than you will probably ever remember, or know, back to a place and a time.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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The company of a dog

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“Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.” Roger Caras

Today involved the company of dogs. It was sunny and they were happy, spreading the fun of the day in every direction.

That’s how it is with dogs. They do not care about the latest political disappointments, or know anything about international tensions. They have no desire to own the latest in fashion, or to visit the most exotic of destinations, and they have absolutely no interest in debating the pros and cons of artificial intelligence. All they want, or all these dogs wanted, was the company of their humans, and somewhere warm and dry to be, with the promise of food to look forward to at appointed times.

We were able to provide all these, and so they in return took us out for walks and presented us with endless balls to throw. Probably a few more balls than we actually needed to be honest, but the dogs were generous and did insist.

Now the day is ended, we are slumped exhausted in our chairs, and the dogs, at last, have a chance to play with the balls themselves.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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The helpers and the help-myselfers in the shops

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There is such art, and so much skill, in the running of an excellent shop – one that attracts many, and offers cheerful service and affordable, worthwhile products.

Today I wandered down to Covent Garden in London. Covent Garden itself, and the streets around it, were like a flower garden of shops, all bright and beautiful and swarming with public. I joined the swarm for as long as my energy lasted, just looking, and wondering, and occasionally buying.

I was about a third of my way through my wander when I saw a brazen shoplifter in action, so brazen that I convinced myself he was part of the staff. He was well-dressed and middle-aged, and it was only when I saw him walk up the stairs and leave the building with his backpack stuffed with unpaid for goods, that I realised that he did not work there. I could only presume that the theft had been done with the co-operation of the member of staff who was standing as close to him as I was, and under the blind eye of the disinterested security guard on the door.

When I went back to the shop later in the afternoon I saw that the security guard was gone, and I heard that a member of staff was absent from the floor below where the incident had happened. I didn’t want to think about how many runs they’d managed that day.

As I walked away I wondered what kind of rent the excellent shop was having to pay in order to offer its goods to London … and I wondered how London would feel without such excellent shops.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023