Melting moments (AKA Ephemera part 2)

I caught my first whiff of summer this morning. I can't say exactly what it smelled like, only that it was early and just starting to heat up, and the breeze carried past me one brief moment of unutterable fragrance. It faltered a second later, replaced by the old heavy smells coating the air: petrol fumes, sickly-sweet jasmine. Two years ago I had a similar moment – a group of us were in the city, I forget why – we walked and walked and as we came up the hill and over, and saw the harbour glittering below, the salty wind came gusting up to meet us, calling out holidays!

Other small things sighted this morning:
A schoolgirl from one of the stricter private schools, still a week and a half to go of winter term and sweltering in a heavy serge tartan tunic, long sleeves, sensible stockings and a silly hat.
An old man, his arms full of calla lilies, crossing the street to get to his back gate. There were more crisp, curling flowers heaped on the back seat of his car. Wednesday doesn't seem probable for a wedding – a funeral, perhaps?
Our own little peace lilies are still hiding in their furled casings, like miniature green umbrellas.
The alternating rain and sunshine has meant that the ivy being trained onto heart-shaped trellises for my sister's wedding over a year away is finally starting to get thick and glossy.
The tree in front of our house is skeletal still, spindly and bare, the last one on the street to remain so.
Bare feet on the paving stones are only advisable before 11am, and again after 3, unless you like burnt soles.

Constructive Criticism

Huzzah!

I got the marked and annotated version of my thesis back the other day; the two tiny errors that worried the life out of me have been noted, of course, as have rather a lot more that somehow slipped through the Patented Davis Text Sieve. An insignificant typo and a few footnote problems were found, as well as one overwhelming grammatical Issue which not only deserves its own capital letter, but also a parliamentary representative and a postcode - the Vicious and Recurring Split Infinitive.

Would you believe that, having been brought up in a grammatically-minded household, and having spent virtually my whole life in formal education of one sort and another, I still had absolutely no idea what a split infinitive was? Except to know vaguely that they were Bad Things and To Be Avoided At All Cost. Hitherto I had laboured under the delusion that this manifestation of linguistic ineptitude involved some sort of double-bunger verb dislodged by miles and miles of sub-clauses, like you find in German. I didn't know that the infinitive needn't be split by much; a one word gap is quite sufficient. I didn't know that they were so easy to recognise. And I certainly has no idea that I used so many of them. However, 99-odd pages of pencil scrawls tend to illuminate things to even the most stubborn of repeat offenders.

For the other ignorami floating morosely about in the ether, a split infinitive occurs when something disrupts the normal verb form. I don't know if this is the normal practice, but my issue seems to be with adverbs. Example: the verb "to grasp", when applied "fully", must end up "to grasp fully" rather than "to fully grasp." Simple, yes? So simple that I am reminded of the time when I was unable to distinguish between pronouns and Proper Nouns. Although, in my defence, I will add that we were never really taught grammar at school, and that they do both start with "pro".

Aside from this new addition to my constructive arsenal, I hope to soon gain - pardon me - soon to gain an extra benefit from my new-found knowlege. In short,
Do you tend to inadvertently split your infinitives?
will shortly be joining
Are you a complusive proof-reader?
and
More facts than a Cliometrician
as part of the projected advertising campaign for - alas! - the as yet unfounded Sydney Feuilletonists' Society.

Learning Curves really do straighten you out.

Pictured is the saving grace of puntuation - but who can save us from the appalling grammatical monstrosities visited upon us the the form of stupid little phrases like "my bad"?!!! Bad is an adjective, not a noun, people!

Ephemera

Here are three beautiful things that I have experienced recently:

1. Flowers
There are some lovely flowers out at the moment. It is, of course, freesia season, which not only looks and smells simply delicious but also throws me into a perfumed sea of reminiscence. Band champs, for those of you who were there. On my way to and from work I go past the most amazing azalea bush; so full of almost translucent white star-flowers that it looks like snow. And this is along the highway, mind.
But my favourite is a story-book image: at my grandmother's, I used to read a picture book called Snow White and Rose Red, in which SW and RR lived in a little cottage with their impoverished mother, and they had one red and one white rose bush growing over the door. (They later recreated this horticultural feat on a grander scale when SW married the prince and RR the prince's brother and they went to live in a much-turreted icing-sugar palace). There is a block of flats, also situated on my path to Profitable Employment, which replicates this with camellias on either side of its front gate: those fat, white pearly flowers like gardenias, and the deepest, brightest red camellias I have ever seen. Red like rubies, like blood.

2. Squeaky Shoes
I suffer vastly from squeaky shoes; there are few things worse that walking through a silent library with your feet kicking up a rumpus. So needless to say these delightfully noisy specimens of footwear do not belong to me; they have been seen - and heard! - twice on the feet of a very sweet little fifteen-month-old girl who goes perambulating around the local shops with her grandfather. The first time I experienced this marvel, I initially thought (bird-brain that I have become) that there was a nest of squawking baby birdlets clamouring for food. However, the closer I got, the more I found that the sound rather resembled some psychotic rubber squeaky toy. However, it was eventually traced back to the just-a-hair's-breadth-from-tripping trotting of the aforementioned childer. Put this way, it doesn't sound particularly attractive, but mix in her little red coat and innocent joy in her musical feet, and the benevolent smile of her grandfather, and it was a magic moment - happily repeated the next day!

3. Jessy the Cat
Some of you haven't had the pleasure yet - this is Jess, my cat. And while I haven't only been enjoying her company recently, she is nonetheless a Thing Of Beauty and a Joy Forever, always ready for a scratch under the chin and a nice cosy doze on anything soft and fluffy (preferably my dressing gown). Plus she has a wide range of very distinctive noises which make conversation with her remarkably easy. Examples:
"Feed me!"
"Look! A lizard!"
"Chasing a camellia bud is almost as satisfying as biting your fingers."
"Help! Scary birds!"
"Argh! Scary local cat!"
"I spent all night in that laundry and you can't even pick me up and give me a cuddle?!!!"