Early clear-up

The first two hours solid gardening of the year, on a dry and slightly less cold day than we've had up to now. Austin, the gardener, and I cut back most of the roses, a job which should have been done long ago. we also started on cutting down last year's perennials, which really don't look very good anymore. The birds have had the seed by now and the partly dry and partly slimy old growth is pretty unsightly now. Some of the huge growths of clematis have been thinned out, particularly the ones which have been smothering the house at the back. we found five old birds nests in one climber.

My eternal war against my arch-enemy, the evil lesser celandine, has resumed. Such a sweet little flower, and such a pest at the same time. I swear somebody comes at dead of night and digs in thousands of little bulbils as soon as I have dug them up during the day. They are very pretty in the grounds of the Castle around the garden but I DO NOT want them in the garden.

Clearing the last remains of autumn's leaves off the woodland beds we found the pink pulmonarias in flower and the hellebore flowers are well on their way too. Was it as early as this last year? In spite of a harsher winter than usual the new growth on perennials and budding on shrubs is well under way. even the rhubarb heads are sitting up rosily.

We used to say that gardening here in the Marches started about two weeks later than in the South East, where I gardened 12 years ago. If that is still so than work there must have started in earnest mid January.

January

This is my "back garden"

The view from the upper bailey to the river below.

Benno and I walk here every day and every day the scenery changes.

Ken Clarke and drink

so,  that  vapid, milk-faced,  blank-sheet, clueless bunch of Tory toffs has had to go back to the past and resurrect the old war-horse Ken, a man long past his sell-by date and by now surely pickled and smoked beyond anything palatable. Still, he might manage to infuse the Tories with a bit of oxygenated blood. And give us all a good laugh.

The other matter which tickled me is the perennial obsession with drink, or rather drinking to excess. So, now we have it straight from the horse's mouth,: drinking anything at all below the age of 15 causes brain damage. Aaaaah, my brain hurts.  In common with many children brought up in Europe (that bit cut off by the Channel), from an early age my parents encouraged me to sit at the dinner table at home with them and  accompany them to restaurants and cafes where drink was served with the meal. Occasionally, they would offer me some wine, usually watered down, always in my own glass, or a sip of beer. Beer was not a favourite of mine then, I found it too bitter. Most of the time I preferred to drink juice or water, even in my mid to late teenage years. Alcoholic drink was always available at home, although it played no great role in my parents' life.  

Since then, I have only ever been drunk once; I felt so ill, I have never repeated the offence. 

I brought up my children to feel equally free to taste alcohol or not and they too have never drunk to excess. In fact, one of them now doesn't drink at all.

I am not posting these remarks to prove anything, one example proves nothing. All the same, something needs to be done. workable solutions have to be found. These children littering the streets and bus shelters, waving beer cans around, effing and blinding at passers-by, uncaring of themselves, their future, their environment, are everybody's business and more than a set of guidelines is needed to save them.

Dying with Dignity

The terms " Dying with Dignity", "Assisted Suicide", "Euthanasia" crop up frequently at the moment and have done so for a while. I've even been to a drinks party at the beginning of this year where a discussion on the subject among a group of middle class, middle aged and educated people became quite heated. Both among religious and non-religious people the opinions varied wildly. Surprisingly, the phrase "God given Life" was actually never mentioned, but a number of people expressed the fear that "help with dying" might turn into "encouragement", whatever form that might take.

Last Sunday's excellent BBC programme "A short stay in Switzerland" showed the dramatization of the real life tragedy of the death of Dr. Anne Turner and the way her family and friends coped with her decision to chose the moment of her dying. The play moved me so much it had me in tears at times.

I was reminded of the last few days of my mother's life. The doctors at the hospital in Germany estimated that she would probably live for another 3 weeks, in great discomfort and exhausted with the effort of staying alive. She had almost given up eating and drinking, in spite of being given only the softest and slipperiest of foods. She knew there was no real hope for her; she also knew that these last weeks would be a great struggle although she was not in any great pain.

Medication kept her heart going; we both knew, without it, she would go sooner. The medication made her ill; she felt nauseous constantly.

On the day she decided she'd had enough - she was fully aware -, the nurse came, as usual, and put the cup containing the pills and her water glass within reach of her hand . "Now take your pills, Mrs. S.", she instructed Mama, not unkindly, but very briskly, and left. Mama and I looked at each other. She said: "Take them, take them away with you when you go". I hesitated for only a few seconds, then poured the pills into my hand. Throughout the visit they stayed there. The next day I did the same, I removed the pills the moment the nurse turned her back on us.

On the third day Mama got weaker. I was called to the doctor's office and told that they now thought my mother was sinking faster than they had foreseen, was I sure she was taking her medication? Of course, I was; I was there when it was handed to her. Did they suspect? Even sympathize? Who knows. They warned me to prepare for the worst within days rather than weeks.

And that is what happened. My mother died, very peacefully, in her sleep, four days later. She did not eat again, she took only tiny sips of water, the nausea left her and she seemed to be as comfortable as she could be. She had certainly become calmer, more settled, resigned. On Mama's last day of full consciousness the old lady In the bed next to her had a visitor who brought her tiny new child to see her. Mama watched with a small, crooked, a little strained smile on her lips. "She's got it all before her", she said. It was the last thing she said.

Would we have said to each other what neither of us had been able to say in our lifetimes if she had lived for another three weeks? Probably not. The dying are concerned with themselves, as are the old.

Mama had plenty to criticize in me but I hope she finally approved of me in the end for what I helped her to achieve.

Benno

This is Benno,

whom we rescued from a very sad fate when he was four; he was nine years old at Christmas. He is a lovely dog, well behaved and obedient, lively and very affectionate. He loves going for long walks in the beautiful countryside of the Welsh Marches; we go to places where we meet nobody else,  where it feels like the whole world belongs to us.

Snowdrops

The first patch of snowdrops in the garden was out the last Sunday in Advent, i.e. 21st Dec. and over the past 3 weeks more and more patches have been appearing all over. This morning I went to the compost bins to dispose of a week's newspapers and saw the first aconites showing gold under the big beech. It is too cold to explore in detail but I have seen the hard tips of daffodils above the grass in the wild garden. Come on, Spring!

Human Nature

There is this couple, G and J, living here in our small town, very respectable and steady. He had some bad luck and got fired from his job - he's always been a touch belligerent and abrasive - long before his retirement age and never found work again. His abiding interest in life is art and he's quite a competent artist in a modest way - not that he's actually very modest about his abilities himself. She was a professional, a teacher, for most of her life. They came here when the big city had spewed him out and they created for themselves a reasonably happy and contented existence. (This is the sort of place where oddballs find a niche easily). Because he'd lost his job and she'd retired from full-time work money was tight for a number of years but their needs were modest and they made do. She was one of the first people who took me under her wing when I arrived here.

We walked our dogs together and one of our favourite topics of conversation was religion, the various Christian sects, from established to fundamentalist. We also shared a love of words; it was a great joy to listen to her use of English which was precise and articulate, if a little prissy. 

Soon afterwards G. and J. had a great piece of luck: they inherited a fair bit of money and life should have become a lot easier for them. Most of the money had been left to J., but they were a close couple, G. took over the management of it and immersed himself in all sorts of investments.  It became a hobby. J. grinned and bore it, occasionally bemoaning his unwillingness to spend any of the money. Her wishes were as modest as ever but she felt that a couple of days away, a meal at the pub or a visit to a concert would have made a pleasant change.

And then disaster struck: J. had a few "funny turns", she forgot things and sometimes couldn't remember the simplest words. She was getting old, she said. She told her doctor who sent her to have tests. 

J. was diagnosed as being in the early stages of Alzheimers. At first the changes were slow, gradual, hardly noticeable; her vocabulary wasn't quite as vast as it had been, she forgot dates and appointments unless she had written them down, our conversations became less fluent and effortless.

One of the hardest things to bear was to see her respond to a piece of music,  crying silently, and not quite knowing why, feeling that something was horribly wrong.

Eight years on and J. has disappeared into the void that is Alzheimers; J. is physically just alive but she has reached the stage of complete mental disintegration.

G. has been very good to her, he has been a devoted husband, taking care of her, almost single-handedly, to the best of his abilities.

Until now. 

J.'s condition is now such that she needs professional care, for one thing, she is doubly incontinent. She needs to be kept clean and warm. She needs more than the cheap pies and jam sandwiches G. feeds her on. G. is getting to the end of his capability, he is no longer a young man. G. is desperate to find help but here's the rub: he will not pay for it. He still sits on all of J.'s inheritance, but he will not pay for a carer. The hourly rate for a carer is £12. He refuses absolutely to pay what is for him a very small amount. Instead he begs for help from volunteers, rails at a system which will not take over J.'s care for free and becomes embittered and exhausted in the process. 

Frankly, I don't care that he's killing himself, It's J. and her pitiful state, whose needs are far beyond the help a volunteer, friend or neighbour could give, who breaks my heart.

sorry it took so long

one should never promise to do something if one cannot keep it.

Now that Christmas and the whole frantic season is over I'll have a lot more time to put words on paper; a small place like this has a sudden rush of blood to its collective head at this time of year and everybody wants to entertain. It is mostly pleasant if a little repetitive and, at times, boring. You meet up with the same people at most houses - it's the same group of middle class professionals from "off" who give and attend parties. Neither the peasants nor the upper classes mix as easily. Still, I've caught up with people I haven't seen for a while. On several occasions I met an absolutely fascinating and intriguing man, a man who lives on a different planet from the rest of us.

Christmas dinner was at my house this year. We decided that we could have a fantastic meal for less than half the price of the meal at the Waterdine, where we were charged £75 per head last year. We had smoked salmon and pate de fois gras, followed by the now (again) fashionable bird in a bird in a bird stuffed with forcemeat with all traditional additions, plus a Waitrose panettone Christmas pud (excellent - light and orangey, not nearly as horribly sweet and sticky as the ordinary Christmas pud), apricots in Amaretto from the deli, cheese and coffee. In order of appearance we drank pink Champagne, Burgundy, Sauterne and Port and Liqueurs with the truffles. Our friends arrived at 14.30 hrs, we started eating and drinking at 3pm and we finally put down the coffee cups and liqueur glasses at 20.00 hrs. Nobody was drunk, nobody felt stuffed. That's what I call civilization! Try it some time!

The BBC's nature programme "Swarms" is great. If you've missed it try to catch it some other time. Vast numbers of a single type of creature are both fascinating and frightening. That goes for man as well. Nothing is as single-mindedly destructive as a horde.

Another programme which is being repeated on Chanel 4 is "John Adams", about the American War of Independence. Brilliant. The photography is very special, the interiors might have been painted rather than filmed. First rate acting, too.

But what has Channel 4 done with my beloved "Houewives"? A girl needs her escapism!