Friday 22 November 2013

More 'thin places' - this one because it not holy

Have an urge to see the old city as a whole - Jerusalem as a whole. An impossible thought! Probably only the new Messiah could do that.
But discover a roof top vantage point up some steps. You can see the Mount of Olives and the Temple Mount from here.
It's a place where everything starts to make sense - perhaps because it's open to the sky and the sun is setting. Boys are playing dangerous games, daring each other to walk along walls. A group of teenage girls arrive with mattresses and a picnic, but I do not know where they disappear to. A ginger cat appears. The colour of cats in Jerusalem is ginger. You can see down through the grills into the markets beneath. A different way of seeing.


Reading and watching

  • Foot by Foot to Santiago de Compostela/Judy Foot
  • The Testament of Mary with Fiona Shaw at the Barbican
  • The Testament of Mary/Colm Toibin
  • Schwanengesang/Schubert - Tony Spence
  • Journals/Robert Falcon Scott
  • Fugitive Pieces/Ann Michaels
  • Unless/Carol Shields
  • Faust/Royal Opera House
  • The Art of Travel/Alain de Botton
  • Mad Men Series 6
  • A Week at The Airport/Alain de Botton
  • The Railway Man/Eric Lomax
  • Bright Lights, Big City/Jay McInerney
  • Stones of Venice/John Ruskin
  • The Sea, the Sea/Iris Murdoch
  • Childe Harold/Lord Byron
  • All The Pretty Horses/Cormac McCarthy
  • Extreme Rambling/Mark Thomas
  • Story of my Life/Jay McInerney
  • Venice Observed/Mary McCarthy