Bluemoon stroll with Paul E-Book

Ursula Hess

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Seitenzahl: 102

Beschreibung

Everything might have turned out quite differently, had the red mug stood there in the end. But it was the blue one, and therefore the life of Alice took its course. Her encounters with sunglasses, watering cans and hilarious garden gnomes accompany her on a path which changes direction every other moment, draws loops or makes U-turns. If the journey encounters a fork in the way, certainly Paul the plastic pig is there on the spot, to issue it’s bizarre advice. If there is a puzzle to solve or if she lacked clarity, Alice promptly gets expert advice from little Mathilda. A book with a collection of ten stories from Alice’s Universe.

Leseprobe

Dedicated to my Mother

Index

Blue

Orange

Red

Green

Brown

Yellow

Purple

Pink

Black

White

Blue

Blue is my favourite colour. Not that I chose it myself; no, that’s not how it happened. It came about almost by accident, one evening during one of our regular showdowns in the bathroom. As usual, we were arguing about which toothbrush belonged to whom and I was getting on everyone’s nerves whining about wanting my flannel. It was by no means clear which one was mine and that led to yet more noisy arguments. The whole situation seemed impossibly tricky to us, but on that fateful evening our mother decided to intervene and sort the matter out once and for all. She entered the foaming scene with an air of determination and placed three cups on the shelf by the washbasin – one red, one green and one blue.

«One each», was her only comment.

Puzzled, we first looked at her and then at each other. My brother was first to react. He quickly chose the green cup with an air of self-confidence and beamed like a victorious king. My sister then grabbed the red one, which meant it was my turn to beam with joy, since it was the cornflower blue one that I’d liked best from the start. Our new system worked beautifully. From now on I was the one with the blue toothbrush, blue flannel, blue pencil case or the blue bike. From that evening onwards the colour blue had become, as I pointed out at every opportunity, an intrinsic part of me. I even wrote it in all the friendship books. Back then we called them poetry albums and filled them with supposedly the most important bits of information about ourselves and our favourite things and pastimes. The first question that came after name, nickname and date of birth was about one’s favourite music. My answer tended to be either «The Beatles» or «Stevie Wonder», but more often than not Stevie Wonder won that spot. When it came to my favourite book, I cheated because «The Red Silk Scarf» didn’t quite fit into my blue world. I therefore put one of De Cesco’s other works, «The Turquois Bird» instead, and that fitted beautifully. Because of this book I was also certain that I would one day marry an Indian, just like it happened in «The Turquois Bird». Well, that part of my life turned out quite differently, but that’s another story. The list of favourites continued and after the book came the favourite flower, which in my case was the delphinium. And then there was the favourite hobby, of course. I was always tempted to put «dreaming» but since my sister insisted that it was more like my permanent state rather than just a hobby, I usually settled for «reading». The last part was supposed to contain a few meaningful words which were to provide a lasting memory of me - or of whoever wrote an entry into the book. Here you found all kinds of rhymes and verses like «Talk is silver, silence is golden» or «Roses are red, violets are blue, I have a friend and that friend is you» and so on. And somewhere among all this there was of course the question about your favourite colour. Blue. Blue was my thing.

I even devoted years of my life to collecting blue words. I could easily have put that down as my hobby. Bluebell, blueprint, blueblood, I couldn’t get enough of these words. I used them all the time, even if they didn’t make any sense in the context. Often I had no idea what they actually meant, like «blue moon stroll» for example. That sounded strange and mysterious and I imagined that it was something reserved for just a select few and of course I counted myself in that number. Whenever I was cross with my siblings or fed up with annoying homework, I went off on a blue moon stroll. My place of refuge was our attic where I had used a dark blue woollen blanket to build a secret nest for myself. There I could snuggle up and imagine that I was on a blue moon stroll, even if it was just to avoid having to do the washing up. My blue moon stroll, a term which has stuck with me until today, meant that I wasn’t available for anyone or anything. «Alice is on her blue moon stroll», everyone would say, and I was off the hook. Back then I consistently used blue ink, cheered for whichever sports team was wearing blue kit and even my craftwork always featured various shades of blue. I also thought that the phrase «feeling blue» had been coined just for me, particularly when history of art appeared on my timetable. Back then I often felt the temptation to abuse the phrase as an excuse to doze off during lessons, simply because I found the topics taught in the subject boring and monotonous. I can’t be sure whether that was down to the particular teacher or my lifestyle at the time, but it happened on a regular basis. My interest in the subject was only aroused when we started learning about Picasso and his blue period. He had devoted four whole years to my blue! I was ecstatic, felt deeply honoured and my issues with feeling blue and dozing off came to an abrupt end.

The colour fixation of my childhood days stayed with me into adult life. Different colours for appointments, making them immediately clear and well-ordered but admittedly also making them look a bit like something from kindergarten. Red and yellow, purple and green dots spread out over each month, the red dots appearing more often than the others. My favourite, however, are the blue ones. Those are for appointments close to my heart. Today seems to be one of the lucky days, since I’m greeted with a shiny blue dot when I open my diary. «Send off tax return» it says, in bold capital letters. Irritated, I re-read the entry. Why on earth had I marked this entry with my favourite colour? Nothing about the task seems at all pleasurable to me and filling out the necessary forms definitely isn’t one of my favourite pass-times. Still, I’d chosen blue and thus made taxes something personal.

I can’t work up any enthusiasm and really don’t feel like tackling this unpleasant task. In the olden days before iPhones I would have distracted myself from the task in hand by leafing through my tatty old diary, drawing stick-men. Or by trying to decipher words hidden beneath stars and squiggles I’d drawn there sometime in the past. I expect you remember diaries being these little books. Some of them beautifully bound in leather. Others with additional spaces for colourful post-it notes or business cards. Some even have a transparent pocket inside where you can insert a picture of your little darlings, your faithful cat or a beautiful romantic sunset. Or occasionally even just a picture of Brad Pitt. I have always marvelled at who and what I got to see in all these pictures when people opened their diaries at the end of a meeting. The dream car was no exception; many a wife had to make way for that. And all these little books were adorned with squiggles, scribbles and colourful notes, all of them, without fail. I was by no means alone in covering my diary with that sort of artwork. Apart from my random scribbles I was also in the habit of entering my dates and appointments in abbreviations and then I always imagined what would happen if I suddenly disappeared and really cool people had to try and work out what they all meant. A bit like in TV crime dramas where the detectives always manage to decipher even the most confusing entry within an impressively short time. They had my full admiration. I, for my part, was not blessed with such successes, since my own cryptic entries became seemingly nonsensical within a very short time and I found it impossible to make any sense of them at all. I vowed to improve my methods, switched from analogue to digital and started to note down my appointments in unambiguous words. However, my childlike colour schemes remained a permanent feature.

I am still staring at the blue dot which marks the reminder to send in my tax return. Blue, round, personal. That reminds me of a major blunder I committed with regards to blue. Years ago I lived and worked in the historic centre of Zurich. I had a charming apartment there in a period building, with generous rooms and a terrace outside the bathroom. It was beautiful! Since however it has been in a public building and I worked there as a public servant, people didn’t seem to quite understand that I wanted to live a private life in my apartment. Perhaps I should have stuck a blue dot to my apartment door, but unfortunately that hadn’t occurred to me at the time. In any case it was one of my duties to decorate this stately building and the surrounding square with flags on public holidays. Flags of Zurich that is, which are square and separated into triangles by a diagonal running from top left to bottom right. The top triangle is white, the bottom blue. For me, however, it was always clear that blue was the colour of the sky and therefore had to fly on top. Guided by my affection for all things blue I hoisted all the flags around the square upside down, which resulted in much ridicule, a serious crisis among the old residents and a headline in the evening papers.

Blue dot, tax return, I know. I can tell you as many stories as I like, the dot will still be there. My motivation is still limited, very limited indeed. I’d much rather wash the floor, water the plants, have a coffee and read the papers. And go shopping. Even to buy new ink cartridges, and for those I’ll have to walk quite a long way. I get an unpleasant phone-call out of the way, make myself another coffee and sort the washing, even though I know that the laundry room is booked and I won’t be able to actually do my washing. I turn up early to a meeting which against all expectations results in early consensus so that I find myself leaving again after only a short while. On my way home, I don’t meet anyone I could stop for a chat with and now I’m back here, sitting in my now squeaky clean, freshly aired and meticulously tidy apartment. It almost feels a bit uncomfortable.

The dot is still gleaming, unchanged, in a beautiful blue. Why on earth had I awarded my favourite colour to this annoying task? It simply doesn’t fit. Blue makes wishes come true, as I often say, and that you’re blue ribbon. I’ve whispered that in your ear. And we both laughed. Miraculous blue, believe me, you said, blue promises wonders. Secretly, I even consulted a «Book of Answers» on the meaning of the colour blue in my life.

«It’ll bring you luck», the book said.

Fabulous!

But why then... For goodness sake, that’s enough. With a few clicks I change the entry to an everyday black, that’s definitely much more appropriate. I regard my new choice of colour with satisfaction and have to laugh about my foolish behaviour. I sit up straight and put an end to silly procrastination.

Orange