"A Long-Expected Party" (VII)

By waiting patiently for the 22nd, I can really feel the expectation that the hobbits were experiencing. Today, new changes have taken place. In fact, this morning, hobbits have woken "to find the large field, south of Bilbo’s front door, covered with ropes and poles for tents and pavilions. A special entrance was cut into the bank leading to the road, and wide steps and a large white gate were built there. The three hobbit-families of Bagshot Row, adjoining the field, were intensely interested and generally envied. Old Gaffer Gamgee stopped even pretending to work in his garden".

And this is all the excitement that hobbits - and myself - are going to get for today. Tomorrow I'll read and write about the next paragraph and in two days time it will be Wednesday, the eve of the Party, with barely a line to comment on - concerning,  ahem, the weather. But then Thursday, the Big Day will finally arrive, we'll have a great party and will then compress 17 years in one reading.

As for my own life while re-reading The Lord of the Rings, I am writing this from my hotel room in Alicante, thankful for the technology that allows me to carry a digital copy of the book in my computer. Tomorrow, at home, I will go back to my paper copy but I was already carrying my computer and a thick PhD dissertation; adding extra weight was not an option I wanted to consider. By the way, I can now formally congratulate Dr. Lorraine Kerslake for an excellent dissertation on Ted Hughes's children's literature analysed from an ecocritical perspective. It was great to meet one of her supervisors - Silvia Caporale Bizzini - and to see again the other supervisor, Terry Gifford, and his wonderful wife, Jill, as well as sharing the board with José Antonio Álvarez Amorós and my dear Antonio Ballesteros González. I am tired, but moments like these, with people like them are some of the privileges of this job.

"A Long-Expected Party" (VI)

It's Sunday today.  I am travelling to Alicante, where I will be a member of the examination board of an excellent Ph.D. thesis on Ted Hughes's children's literature. Things are still hectic in Hobbiton and I don't think Bilbo will have much time to relax the Sunday before his 111 birthday, so I'll leave him writing invitations, preparing gifts and just getting excited - and a bit annoyed at some of his fellow hobbits - while undoubtedly finding the time to smoke a pipe with Gandalf.

Later, much later. In Alicante.
I was already in bed but I've just got up to write this. I need it. I've phoned Matthias when back in the hotel after dinner. When we're not spending the night together, I always ask for every single member of our furry family. Michi, he tells me, is crazy, playing with a ball he thought was lost. "¿Portos y Mani", I ask. "Están fuera". And then, a pang: "Oooh, ¿y mi Pinche?" "Princesse está dentro". She was spoilt and, being an old lady, we allowed her to spend most of the nights inside, particularly in winter. This is going to be the first winter without her company in the sofa. I was thinking a couple of days ago about the next season of The Walking Dead and, bang! Another punch in the stomach thinking that she won't be there, watching it with us.
The pain has caught me again, and I've cried. I've spoken to her, telling her how much I miss her, what I would give to feel her body, her big body, sleeping next to mine, with her sometimes taking most of my side of the bed. I was happy then. And then, I've started remembering, and the memories bring me comfort, although one of them was of the last time she hurt herself trying to jump into bed. I remember being asleep and listening her step going up the stairs (sometimes she would stop if Michi was in the vicinity, but at night he was locked in his room), coming to our bedroom, open the dor (yes! she opened doors!), come in, tip, tip, tip, tip, and jump into bed. Turn, turn, turn, found her place and, sleep time, very often with a sight.
And then, just in a flash, came her face in the morning, when Matthias got up and, if I was still in bed, she would remain there, but looking attentively at Matthias (wow, I see her profile so clearly). Matthias would tell her to stay put until it was time to go for a walk, but the moment he started going down the stairs, she left the bed and followed him. Her happy tail, leaving the bedroom, going down the stairs. God, I miss you, Princesse!