PSST........ Wanna Join The Miscellany Club?

....one careful lady owner, rust-free, guaranteed to bring you hundreds of enthusiastic readers. (Okay, maybe a handful, but I had to get your attention, didn't I)

For those posts too good to, ahem, flush down the pan, but not quite sufficiently meaty to make a satisfying meal on their own, why not collect them and concoct a tasty olla podrida.

Perhaps a charivari would not be quite the thing, we want them to be melodious, fragrant affairs, nothing to frighten the horses. 

We are always being told that waste is bad, and I totally agree; let's create posts which are entirely made up from left-overs, unconsidered trifles, juicy snippets, witty/moving/interesting/made-up/found/ bits and pieces, poetry or prose, a kind of fridge soup for blogland.

I see these posts appearing on our own blogs, perhaps once a month, with or without pictures. Anything you fancy, in fact. There'll be a list of members somewhere and we'll all go and take a spoonful of each other's concoctions,  fulsome appreciation obligatory.

When I posted a taster of Fridge Soup before, many of you seemed to like the idea. Do you still?

Who's in?

Regrets

I wish I hadn’t wasted quite so much of my life.

If that sounds like a self-indulgent, self-pitying, angry moan to you, you may be right.

Dissatisfaction as deep as that is a most corrosive attitude to have, I don’t recommend that anyone else adopt it. It kills spontaneity, the ability to enjoy what you have, it is a paralyzing, depressing, suffocating  blanket, very hard to shake off.

webweavers free clipart

I’ll tell you why I’ve admitted to the feeling expressed in the first sentence.

Every so often I read a book, or watch a TV programme on the wonders of this world. I am allowed to look into ancient civilizations, historical events, the wonders of natural history, the miracles mankind has wrought in the course of its existence. Sometimes, at parties, I meet a truly interesting and knowledgeable person, somebody who knows his/her subject, who is well-travelled, who speaks well.

Of course, too many of these TV programme are shallow, more a vehicle for a breathless presenter, who is shown endlessly rushing from one object to the other, in all corners of the world. We see the presenter rather than the subject. Or the book is boring, too full of dry facts, statistics. The clever, learned man may be the sort who monopolizes the dinner table conversation until I want to scream at him to shut up.

Still, the book, the programme, the conversation remind me of everything I have missed, the subjects I could have studied, the worlds I could have explored. Sometimes, I am totally captivated; I am a child again, looking at a Christmas tree for the first time or marveling over some miracle of nature, eyes wide, mouth (almost) open. If only I could be part of this world of knowledge, if only I could be  living in the rarefied air of pure academia, breathing in its dust. 


Instead there's the real, humdrum, boring me. Don't get me wrong. I can't, and never could,
become a brain surgeon, or win the Nobel prize for physics. I am not about to get on a camel and discover forgotten desert kingdoms, nor will I write the great 21st century novel, not to mention painting another Sistine Chapel.


But I could have done more than I have.


Long periods of my life were a struggle, at times a struggle to survive.


My education was, at best, patchy. Apparently full of promise, I disappointed my parents to the extent that they stopped their support overnight, and I was left with no choice but to interrupt my studies and earn my living. There's nothing wrong with that, you may say, that's life.


Unfortunately, being rather pig-headed, I got myself into some dodgy situations, the 'I'll Show You' attitude. By the time I had extricated myself, years later, getting back to full time education was out of the question; I had children, a household to run and a living to earn single-handedly. Again, so many of us had to, nothing unusual in that. I did manage to catch up on my education somewhat; I was good at my job and somehow the kids survived too.


But all the time, during the difficult years, the dog-tired years, at times even 'back-to-the-wall' years, there was this hunger for knowledge, the longing to experience the colourful, exciting world of learning, learning for its own sake.


Now that life is calm and really rather pleasant, the regrets are less powerful, but they are still there, sometimes.


Do I start now? 


Or, could I perhaps ask for another life, to do better than the first time round?

Art for Art Sake

The Pavement Artist

The true artist will let his wife starve,

his children go barefoot,

his mother drudge for his living at seventy,

sooner than work at anything but his art.

G.B. Shaw

Miscellany

Sometimes, during the week, there's something which catches my eye, perhaps a single picture, or a quirky view, a funny poem, anything at all really, which tickles my fancy but is not necessarily meaty enough to make a satisfying post.

So, methinks, what's wrong with bunging several things into the same post and calling it 'Miscellany'?

Early on, after the snow had gone, I found that the snowdrops, which had been

hiding since Christmas, had freed themselves from the icy constraints.

There are now three clumps proudly displaying their

pretty bells, the first harbingers of Spring.

Running my bath this morning,

I found that a spider had crawled up the drainpipe

during the night, only to find itself trapped in the bath.

Poor thing.

All that effort deserved better than just being flushed back

down again; So I took some toilet paper, slipped it under

the spider, which instantly clung to it, spun a few

silken strands and thanked me prettily, before

I opened the window and gently set it

on to the windowsill, there

to take its chance.

Dog Walkers' Convention.

Does anybody realize how hard it is to get six dogs to stand

still long enough to have their picture taken?

The one with the nose under the tail of the one in front is

actually a girl; there's no morals anywhere nowadays.

Even the girls are at it.

We had a sunny day this week,

ending in a pretty, particoloured, cotton wool sky.

The days are getting longer,

at a quarter to five today,

dusk was only an idea,

half-formed.

And to end today's medley,
I shall share with you what Beloved said,
when he came into my study and found me at my blog.

"awaiting the sensation of a short sharp shock,
from a cheap and chippy chopper,
on a big black blo(ck)g"

When I stopped laughing, he explained

that this is a line in

Gilbert and Sullivan's

comic opera

'The Mikado'

describing the victim's state of mind seconds before the chopper chops.

P.S. 

What has caught your eye, what has tickled your fancy ? Do tell.


P.P.S. (added after reading the first three comments)


I would be happy for you to use the idea on your own blogs. I also meant to ask what has caught your eye in YOUR week.

Books

My good friend and blogging buddy Pondside  recently asked, apropos my post ‘Bored’….  if we had access to any good libraries here at Valley’s End, what with us being snow- and flood-bound far from civilisation and me being reduced to watching and writing about garden birds, for heaven’s sake. Pondside meant well and I am not in the least offended, my dear! Not only did she offer to send the Canadian Navy to dig us out of our icy misery but, I am sure, she would have charged them with delivering a large book bag, had there been any need.

Well, I have to admit that there are, in my study, at any time, about thirty unread books lying around, gathering dust. That’s not counting Beloved’s separate pile elsewhere in the house.

Most of these books are second-hand and come from various charitable book sales, absolute treasure chambers for rummaging and browsing. My current pile includes fiction and non-fiction, history, novels current and long out of print, thrillers ditto, biographies and poetry. There’s even some chick-lit – or maybe mid-life lit, hidden out of sight.

I’ve just finished reading a collection of H.E. Bates’ short stories, long out of date, which I found very enjoyable and nicely soporific late at night. Less soporific, bitingly funny, stylish and wise, is the book I am reading at the moment, Joyce Carol Oates  ‘Middle Age’ about an affluent community in present-day America.

Both books came second-hand and therefore neither is in pristine condition nor ranks among the current crop of three-for-two blockbusters on the bookshelves of the large stores. No matter.

As I usually have about three books on the go at any time  - not all of them are read right through  - buying books at a fraction of their original cost is a good idea. You can always return them to the charity shops or charitable bookstalls for others to discover. All you have lost is a bit of your reading time, and a few pounds; on the plus side, you have helped a charitable organization to stay afloat for a little while longer. 

The Scraper's Diary, Tuesday 1st April, 1947

chapter 21

Münsterlager, Tuesday morning,

We got back to Münsterlager at 1.15 am. It was a most successful outing, I am writing this with a stylo pen I bought, among other things.

Two rather amusing incidents occurred, in one shop I advanced to the counter and was greeted with  "Good Afternoon, sir",  in faultless Oxford English. There was no time to think of a new gambit, so I enquired  "Do you speak English? I wonder if you have any opals?......"

The other incident occurred in a scent shop. The proprietor proffered three bottles invitingly and said  "parfum, ver' nice, good smell?"

"Yes", I said, "It stinks".

He nodded and, I'm sure, added a new word to his salesman's vocabulary.

String orchestra will play at 12.30. Our first job since Sunday week last. Have polished all buttons, and blancoed all webbing equipment. Moreover, I have shaved. Moreover, I have pressed both service dress and battle dress. I'm becoming almost like a poor imitation of a soldier.

Morning was nothing brilliant, but it was dry and warm, and passing lorries left us marooned in a cloud of dust, and the sky was too clear. I didn't notice how still it was until a gentle breeze decided to announce itself.

The breeze liked the place and brought some of his friends, the clouds, along, and then, for half an hour, the sun was obscured and a thorough shower of rain baptized the camp.

I left the block at half past three, to have my first bath since we reached Germany, and my heart and mind were cleansed by the new innocence of everything;  where every birch twig swelled into a bud, a pearl lay silently. The roads were fresh and lorries left no dust to dim the fretted filigree of the trees' tracery against the gently moving fronds of cloud, and my heart sang of Spring and love, and laughed at its own ingenuousness.

For no reason, save that the thought came to me unheralded, I wish to protest against the application of the word 'wholesome' to a person. It merely means 'unresponsive, unemotional and undersexed. I'd sooner be unwholesome than so negative.

o-o-o-o-o-o

Münsterlager, Thursday, April 3rd

Today, our last here, has been marked by a rash of rumours.

First, the report went round that we were to parade at ten for the purpose of changing our battle dresses before the time when we have to pay for all replacements. We were also to take our service dress so that the tailor could press it. We were also to receive our free issue of cigarettes. As it grew nearer the time the reports grew faster and more erratically.

Eventually, we received an order! We were to take our service dress to be pressed. Soon after we came back from the tailor, we were served with our NAAFI ration (forty cigarettes, the sergeants got eighty). As to free issue of kit change, we are still uninformed, but there is a new rumour, that we are not sailing until the fourteenth.

Roll on, bloody roll on.

Bored, Bored, Bored, or Napoleon's Downfall

I’ve been so bored.

Thank Goodness, we are freed from the icy embrace. Now come the floods, the slush, the mud, the endless rain and wind.

Okay, enough with the moaning about the weather already, anybody would think I was born to it, I’m that good at it.

 On the whole, I’m quite a busy type, finding lots to do, indoors as well as outdoors; I’m boringly practical and sensible, boring and unexciting qualities which keep me well balanced and nicely occupied in my advancing years. (I promise this was the last ‘Boring’ in this post and no jokes about senility, if you please, if I forget.)

It’s winter, the world turned a beautiful shade of white and virginal and became as inaccessible as a properly determined virgin. Shrubs and small trees, paths and hedgerows, lanes and fields, all formed a gently undulating landscape with no end and no beginning. A panorama for stroking, with sinuous flanks and secretive hollows, not to be despoiled. (hey, I’m still with the virginal, what fun! – The things one can get away with in a blog!)

So Benno and I found ourselves for long periods of time with noses pressed against the glass, staring at nature’s bounty.  And birds. Garden birds. Benno got bored after a while and went to sleep; dreaming of all the rabbits he’s chased in his lifetime and discussing the ones that got away (all the live ones, labrador retrievers are fast, but not that fast), twitching and shaking and snuffling and barking under his breath, a sort of strangulated bark. If you have a dog you know what I mean.

I digress, back to the birds, most garden birds in general and blackbirds in particular. Especially one very belligerent adult male who declared the feeding territory to be entirely under his jurisdiction and therefore declared war on all other aspirants, including a dozen or so other blackbirds, many of them his own family. I’ve known politicians, world leaders, behave less arrogantly!

 

This male, let’s call him Napoleon, hardly had time to feed he was so busy head-swivelling,  repelling all  comers, large and small,  chattering loudly and rushing them, wing and tail feathers flapping like coat tails, half-flying at them. One magical thrush was determined not to give in, she retreated, came back from another direction, retreated again, perched in the lowest branch of the shrub, hopped down, hopped up, etc. You get the picture. Napoleon wore himself out. I swear I saw him stuffing three berries into his beak at the same time, that’s how pressed he was for time.

(Notice how I’ve made the bully male and the wily bird female?)

Anyway, how many hours can one person watch birds scrabbling over bird food?

Without interfering?

After two days of this I decided to do something about Napoleon; true, the other birds always got a chance to feed in the end, he backed off eventually, but I wanted to see what would happen if the feeding territory was enlarged.

I put out three additional, large, plastic plant pot saucers, filling them with berries, oats, nuts and seeds, apples and kitchen scraps, drenching the whole mess in cooking oil.

Next morning Napoleon came back to the original area, all fluffed up against the cold, ready to strut his stuff. He was soon joined by the usual throng and the dance of claim and counter claim began. It was the little birds which first noticed the new food filled saucers; a busy scrum developed around them.

When Napoleon realized that he was no longer ruling over the entire kingdom something very funny happened. The saucers sat about a meter and half apart, all lined up in a row on the edge of the terrace. Napoleon literally ran from one saucer to the next along the row, including the original feeding place, and back again. Over and over, wings akimbo, head down, working himself into a frenzy but to very little avail. As soon as his back was turned, the other birds, who had briefly fluttered up, landed again, instantly pecking away.

In the end I felt quite sorry for Napoleon  -  well, a bit anyway  -  He’ll be in bird therapy for the rest of his life.

And the moral of the tale? 

Boredom is much underrated,

or,

don't enlarge your territory unless you have the might to defend it,

or,

don't bite off more than you can chew,

or,

 keep all your eggs in one basket if your fledglings come home to roost.

Boom or Bust

To diet or not to diet, that is the question.

A new year, a new set of resolutions.

Every January, regular as clockwork, new diet plans sprout in magazine and newspaper articles; failsafe, they scream at us, weight loss guaranteed. Buy the book, follow the xyz diet and the new, slim-line, attractive you will emerge from the flabby, overweight blob you are now like the actress slipping out of her fat suit.

If only it were that easy. There’s the little matter of left over Christmas chocolates, there’s the inclement weather which is so much more pleasant to look out on while sitting in a cosy fireside chair than actually being out in exercising the dog or shovelling snow and there is also the lack of  moral fibre and self-control,  both for me  always so much more pronounced during the chilly season.

Does it really matter ?

Of course, obesity is a real problem

Mail online says

Obesity rates in Britain are soaring with nearly a quarter of adults now classed as clinically obese.

Despite Government warnings that we are turning into a nation of couch potatoes and risking obesity-related illnesses such as heart disease and cancer, our waistlines keep growing.

 

While the Telegraph online tells us

Greed, rather than laziness, is the major cause of the obesity epidemic across the developed world, research has shown.

Both statements are probably true, we should not laugh off obesity. Being seriously overweight is not only detrimental to health, it also restricts movement, forces us into elasticated waistbands and makes us objects of ridicule or pity.

But what about the opposite?  What about Anorexia?

Anorexia is equally, if not more, deadly. For those of us, particularly the young and vulnerable, who take the vociferous diet gurus and arbiters of style to be apostles of truth the danger of self-harm is great.

Famous people who have died from Eating Disorders include Karen Carpenter, the musician, who died, aged 32, weighing 80 lbs. Several models have made the ED headlines, among them Ana Carolina Reston and Terri Schiavo. Dancers and a gymnast have starved themselves to death, as did Leila Pahlavi, the youngest daughter of the Shah of Persia. The American poet, Anne Sexton, who killed herself at age 46, suffered from anorexia and depression.

The list of unknown young girls and not so young girls – and nowadays boys, I have read – suffering from Eating Disorders is an ever growing one. You don’t have to be famous to be on it. 

My friend Marianne suffered from anorexia, long before we knew that that was its name. We were a group of four teenaged school friends; we met in each others houses after school listening to pop music, talking about boys, trying on somebody’s new trousers or top, experimented with make-up, tried smoking cigarettes and felt grown-up doing it; all of it very tame. This was in the days before drugs and binge drinking and sex at thirteen.

The three of us noticed that Nanni seemed to become really obsessed with what she called physical fitness, she would practice a new gymnastics exercise relentlessly, until she had mastered it. She did the splits and threw her legs up into the air at a time when we’d only seen dancers and gymnasts do it on TV.

She also seemed to eat less than the three of us, often going without meals, insisting that this was all part of a healthy regime and she would soon outrun and outperform the rest of us. We weren’t aware of having entered into a competition with her but we humoured her. Nanni was just being very silly.

Weeks later we became worried about her, talking about her behind her back, trying to get her to share special treats with us and saying we were getting bored with the physical exercise routines. We knew she’d stopped having periods; she was looking haggard and very thin under her baggy clothes. We became frightened, at a loss to understand what was happening to her; we withdrew from our friend.

In due course Nanni stopped coming to school.  We heard she had fallen ill. We tried to visit her at home, her parents  didn’t let us in; they said she wasn’t well enough for visitors, giving no explanation as to her illness, in spite of our questions. I remember that they appeared grave but also uneasy; they reassured us that Nanni would soon be well again but that we should stay away in the meantime.

All sorts of rumours went round the school about her condition but the word anorexia was never mentioned; we wouldn’t have understood its meaning if it had. Finally, we heard that she had been admitted to a mental institution.

We never saw Nanni again; her parents moved house. I still have no idea what happened to her.


I think I'll try and eat sensibly again, now that Christmas is over. What about you?

EVA's TALE

The story so far: Eva is little girl living in post-war Germany. Because she might be in danger of contracting TBC she is sent to a children's home, which is also used as a sanatorium, on the island of Norderney in the North Sea.  She is away from home, on her own,  for the first time in her life. 

Eva Goes on Holiday #  4

When I left home it was summer, I am sure it is summer here too; Miss Manfred says there is a cold wind coming off the North Sea, so we can’t go to see the sea, because the weather is bad for us. Then why did Mum send me here I’d like to know; I can be indoors at home where I have my books and my doll. We have weather at home too and sometimes the wind blows ever so fierce and makes my skirt blow up into my face but I am still allowed out. The other girls in the ward aren’t allowed to go to the sea either, we must all stay here in the sanatorium. There is a sandpit in the courtyard, Miss Manfred says there’s real sand in it, from the beach, and before lunch we can go out and we can build sandcastles there. There is supposed to be a shelter which stops the wind from blowing but I don’t know what that means because the sandpit is outdoors and it has no roof over it. We asked if we could have a bucket of water but that is supposed to be bad for us too. But then they make us have a bath and that’s full of water.

Playing in the sandpit is boring but I suppose it is better than nothing.

All the other children in the home have been to the sea lots of times; when they’ve been they show off about it and get all excited and they tell us how they had their shoes and socks off and  ran in the sea and splashed each other.

o-o-o-o-o-o

Today we went to the swimming baths. Miss Manfred promised us that we would get proper waves and that we could put our swimming costumes on and play in the water and that the water would be made of seawater. But the water was really in a big house which smelled funny, like nasty medicine in a hospital, and it was flat, with stones around the edge, not sand.

The man in the white trousers asked us if we could swim. I don’t really know what swimming is so I said nothing, in case I got it wrong and he’d tell me off for fibbing. I looked at the other children in the pool but I couldn’t tell if they were swimming or jumping up and down. They were making a lot of noise and I was hoping they’d let me have a go too.

The man put a rubber ring round my tummy, and took me to the stairs at one end of the water. He let me go down the stairs by myself. The water was a bit cold but I went in anyway.  He was still watching me but he nodded so it was all right and I could stay and play with the other girls from the isolation ward.

Susie and Birgie said they could swim and I watched them to see if I could learn too and they waved their arms about in the water and pretended to lie down on the water and took one leg off the floor and sort of kicked and hopped with the other. I tried it and I could do it too after I practiced for a bit. I swallowed a lot of water, which tasted very salty, but then I just kept my head up and tried not to scream so much so the water wouldn’t run into my mouth. It was lots of fun. I really enjoyed swimming.

Then the man in the white trousers blew on a very loud whistle and we all had to come out. There was another man and some of us had to have a really long string tied to our rubber rings, like very long leading straps, and they made us go back into the water while the men held the string. They got long poles, like fishing rods and they dangled us from the rods and pulled us into the middle of the water. I didn’t want to go, because I nearly couldn’t put my foot on the bottom any more and I coughed  because of swallowing lots of water which made even more water come in my mouth but they said, it’s all right, we won’t let go of you and you want to learn to swim, don’t you. Well, I didn’t want to learn to swim on a rod, I was quite happy swimming with one foot on the bottom, so they let us come out again after a bit. They took the string off  again which was good because we knew we didn’t have to have another lesson like being a fish.

Miss Manfred said we could have one more go in the water, a very quick one, but to stay near the edge by the stairs and not to lie on the water but to stand up. When she said that she scrunched up her face and opened her eyes very wide, like gown-ups do when they are trying to trick kids and go all pretend-serious, so we knew something was up and we waited by the edge to see what would happen.

And what happened was that the biggest, fastest, foamiest wave of water of my whole life came rushing through the pool, from one end to the other, and we all screamed and screeched and fell over.

It was brilliant.

I hope we can go again, even if they make me dangle from a pole.

No apologies for more snow pictures!

We see this kind of snow so rarely in the UK that everybody in blogland is feverishly snapping away.  For days now the landscape has been breathtakingly beautiful; no matter that the country's infrastructure is buckling under the weight of snow and ice, that schools are closed, that industry and commerce are losing millions, that traffic on the roads, the railways and in the air has slithered and slid almost to a halt, that some rural shops are running out of provisions,

we are having fun!

9 a.m.

11 a.m.

2 p.m.

3 p.m.

sundown

New Year Snow

For three days we waited,

A bowl of  dull quartz for sky.

at night the valley dreamed of snow,

lost Christmas angels with dark-white wings

flailing the hills. I dreamed a poem, perfect

As the first five-pointed flake

that melted at dawn:

A Janus time

to peer back at guttering dark days,

trajectories of the spent year.

And then snow fell.

Within an hour, a world immaculate

as January's new-hung page.

We breath the radiant air like men new-born. 

The children rush before us.

As in a dream of snow

we track through crystal fields

to the green horizon

and the sun's reflected rose.

Frances Horovitz  1938-83

click on photos to enlarge

An Errand in Winter

So long, Adieu,

Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye

for another year.

The festive Season has been a very long one this year,

but, finally, it's over.

Father Christmas

is going back into the shed.

Yes, there are three of them,

no, you are not seeing triple,

even if you have had a very generous drinks allowance.

Standing under the plum tree

I look over towards the Church and the hills beyond,

nothing moves, neither man nor beast.

Clunton and Clunbury,

Clungunford and Clun,

Are the quietest places under the sun.

Dare I risk going for a walk?

I have an errand at the Surgery,

a prescription needs to be filled.

I'll cross the river by the little footbridge

over the Clun.

It should be passable.

In valleys of springs and rivers,

By Ony and Teme and Clun,

The country for easy livers,

The quietest under the sun.

Better be careful here,

Where there was water there is now ice;

The river meadow is treacherous underfoot.

Into my heart an air that kills

from yon far country blows;

What are those blue remembered hills,

What spires, what farms are those?

There is a lot more snow in those purple clouds,

perhaps I had better stop dawdling and taking pictures;

the Surgery is not far now.

That is the land of lost content,

I see it shining plain,

The happy highways where I went

And cannot come again.

The Surgery !

Will they really make me wait outside?

Perhaps they are trying to discourage patients coming in on a day like today.

poems A.E. Housman - A Shropshire Lad