AMBITION

For want of anything more aspirational I shall make it my ambition to live to the ripe old age of eighty.

When I was very young, forty was an immense age, an age reserved for people without imagination, for people who lacked the moral courage to terminate their  by then useless lives, to do the  decent thing and make room for  dynamic younger generations. When people proudly mentioned their great age, I’d think : “yea, right, whatever, and bully for you.  It’s not as if you had to do anything towards getting old. You just got.”

Callow youth was ever thus.

Now that forty is but a distant memory, eighty and the years leading up to eighty look quite different. Inviting, in fact. I am filled to the brim with good, common sense, experience and wisdom; I am even willing and unselfish enough to let the younger generation benefit, I am ready to pass on this wisdom to any and all. In fact, I often do. Silly squirts, don’t seem to want to know.

It is unlikely, but just possible, that I shall have to undergo a few physical changes before I get to eighty. If you ask me how I am, I shall tell you, in detail; I shall tell you about my ailments, explaining at length about minor and major operations, as well as not forgetting to fill you in on the surgical procedures of friends.

In the meantime I have decided to adopt a few pleasant customs for the years ahead.

The colour green suits me, so I shall try to own at least one green outfit to wear as often as possible. A red wig to go with it, should my hair go grey and wispy. I promise not to click or suck my teeth while chewing my favourite toffees, but to keep them firmly glued in at all times.

Driving will become a doddle. Here at Valley’s End, the oldies drive how they like and park where they like. And if I have to go further afield, I shall keep to a steady 40 mph, wherever I happen to be. It is so reassuring and a great boon for other motorists to know they can rely on me. I can tell they like it by the long queues that form behind cars driven by older drivers. Nice and safe.

There are lots of things that will please me. Walking sticks and accidentally slipping them in front of an impatient person trying to get past me, is one. Or standing in the checkout queue at the supermarket and suddenly remembering that I have to pay for my groceries. My wallet holding credit cards is so hard to find in my capacious bag; I find that the cashiers are usually very patient and don’t mind explaining to me that I must press the green button first, or maybe last, I forget which. They’re also quite willing to wait until I’ve found the bit of paper with my pin number. Silly me, I do forget. And if I should forget an item, somebody will run off and fetch it for me.

There will be plenty of time for being in the company of friends and
acquaintances. Maybe even family. I will try to remember my hearing aid, but if I forget, people are quite happy to shout, in public places, like restaurants. At home, I won’t need it, after all, I can always turn up the sound on the TV. There’s only me to consider; I’ll probably find that I can’t usually hear the neighbours thumping on the wall.

And best of all, I could rave and rant and shout and complain about everything, from politicians to social services, immigrants and feckless layabouts on social security, young girls having babies to get a council flat, the rubbish in the streets, declining public standards, and the general disregard the young have for the old.

I could work myself into a right old lather.

On second thoughts, that would mean becoming a completely different person so maybe I’ll give that kind of raving and ranting a miss.

A Poem for Deborah

My blogging buddy, Deborah, wrote a moving and thought provoking post about the unexplained withdrawal and loss of a friend and the questions and heart searchings this throws up. I came across this poem yesterday and I thought it might be relevant;  even if it doesn't give an explanation if might lessen the pain.

Sometimes it happens

And sometimes it happens that you are friends and then

You are not friends,

And friendship has passed.

And whole days are lost and among them

A fountain empties itself.

And sometimes it happens that you are loved and then

You are not loved,

And love is past.

And whole days are lost and among them

A fountain empties itself into the grass.

And sometimes you want to speak to her and then

You do not want to speak,

Then the opportunity has passed.

Your dreams flare up, they suddenly vanish.

And also it happens that there is nowhere to go and then

There is somewhere to go,

Then you have bypassed.

And the years flare up and are gone,

Quicker than a minute.

So you have nothing.

You wonder if these things matter and then

As soon as you begin to wonder if these things matter

They cease to matter,

And caring is past.

And a fountain empties itself into the grass.

Brian Patten

  

Books and Me

Here I am, once again, sitting at the dreaded keyboard, staring at words appearing on a screen.  From my head, to my fingers, to the screen. my own words appear in black on white; words and sentences I already know before they appear.

Where is the  excitement in that?

Now books are a whole other kettle of fish. Unless I’ve sneaked a look at the last page, I have no idea how the characters develop, what hoops the author makes them jump through and how the tale ends, whether happily or, as they deserve, miserably and in tatters. (Oh, I love a good comeuppance, don’t you?)

Books, I’ve loved them all my life.

When I was a skinny beanpole of  eight or nine, who, acc. to my aunt, could have done with some serious feeding up, I once pestered my mum so persistently to buy me a couple of books from a second hand stall, that she actually softened and spent that day’s dinner money on them. We were very poor then. “Your Dad will kill me”, she said several times on the way home. In the end she didn’t tell him and dinner that day plumbed new depths of inventiveness.

From when I was about ten, twelve years old, books were all I ever asked for. When asked , “and what present did you have for your birthday, Christmas, whenever?”, the answer was a jubilant “books”, or a sad and dejected “clothes”. One Christmas I remember, to my shame, going so far as to recite the titles of all the books I’d asked for and been given and then telling people the cost. “Books for one hundred marks”,  a lot of money then.

The aunts were disgusted. “Send her out to play; no wonder she’s as pale as cheese, crouching over her books all the time.  It’s unnatural!”

Books were my world. I read not only children’s stories but anything I could get my hands on. I lived the adventures, travelled to distant places, learned about geography and history, read stories about strange cultures, read children’s classics and the greatest rubbish printed. I swallowed it all.

Books have always been a treat; frequently indulged in when there was  time and sneaked in guiltily when there wasn’t. For years I had a book in the desk at my office, open; if anyone came in, I unhurriedly shut the drawer, smiling innocently at my visitor.  I preferred long journeys to work on the Underground, particularly, if I had been fortunate to grab a seat. There was a lot less free reading time at work or at home.

During some rather dark years reading was my only solace. The children were very good, they were allowed to stay up in the evening until it was their  generously extended bedtime,  if they promised to spend the time quietly in their rooms, with their own books and music, while I lay, face down, on the sitting room carpet, reading. I must have read every thriller published in the English language in those years, too tired to read anything more demanding.

Now that I have all the reading time I want, I write and blog, inventing stories nobody will ever read about characters nobody could ever be interested in. As for blogging? Is there a greater waste of reading time? (Oops, I wonder if anybody has got as far as this?)

In winter, when snow and ice keep us indoors, what could be cosier than sitting reading, curled up on the sofa? In summer, is there anything more soothing than lying on a chair in the garden, sipping a lemonade and slowly turning the pages of your chosen book, while bees and insects busy themselves around you.

I am writing this in my favourite room in the house, my study, two walls of which consist entirely of bookshelves filled with my own books; Beloved’s shelves are elsewhere. My study smells of books, the dry, dusty, slightly mouldy and mildewy smell of a lot of books together, mixed with a little leftover incense. Spring is around the corner and I shall soon have to appear, blinking, into the sunlight, much like my aunt recommended all those years ago.


Where’s that garden chair?

EVA'S TALE

Eva Goes On Holiday  # 6



Miss Manfred and The Lady who sits with us in the dining room and when we play games indoors said that it’s my birthday today.

How was I supposed to know, nobody told me.

It was an ordinary day; we played on the beach in the morning, then we had to go to the nurse and she did what she calls an examination and I had to take my vest off again; I have to do this all the time here, at least maybe three or four times already, or maybe six. The nurse says that the sea air has done me good and that my chest is much clearer and that I’ll be a new girl when I go home.  That’s so silly, I don’t think that I can be new, how can I be new when I’m already a big girl.

After our lunch we had to lie down again for a rest and then we went to tea and to play games indoors in the big dining room. All the other children from the  big house were there too and when I tried to go to the table for the children from the isolation ward, where we always sit, The Lady called me back and said to come to the front next to her table where she and Miss Manfred and some of the other grown-ups sit to have their meals and watch us play.

Nobody else had ever had to do this before and I was really frightened. I knew I hadn’t done anything bad, I don’t think Miss Manfred had seen us when Susie and I went and hid in the dunes and pretended to be lost, because we went back before she noticed that we had run away.

I went to The Lady and I saw that she was smiling, so she couldn’t be cross with me. When grown-ups tell me off they never smile, they look serious and angry and upset. Then they tell me that they are very upset and they don’t think that I might be upset because they are cross with me.

The Lady and Miss Manfred were standing by a little table between the big tables for the grown-ups and I saw that they had a cake on it; the cake looked very nice and I thought how lucky they were to have it.

The Lady made me stand by the little table, right in front of all the children and the grown-ups and she said that it was a very special day for me because it was my birthday and then she said that I could choose any song and that all the children would sing it for me because it was my birthday and did I know which song I wanted them to sing for me. And that I could also choose a game to play afterwards and that the cake was for my table and for the other girls from the isolation ward and that everybody would have a piece of cake to eat and that there was enough cake for everybody.

I have never had a cake because of me before and I didn’t know any songs for everybody to sing and I didn’t want to choose a game either. Nobody told me that it was my birthday and I didn’t like to stand there and everybody staring at me. I could tell that The Lady was looking at Miss Manfred and that Miss Manfred was looking back at the Lady and they were making private grown-up faces at each other, with smiles and shruggy shoulders. I know grown-ups when they think you can’t see them because they are taller than you and secretly they are saying that they think you are stupid and they make poor child faces, when really they have no idea that they are being creepy with their songs and their games.

In the end The Lady said that everybody should sing the song about the Jolly Rambler and would I like that. Well of course I know that song, we sing it all the time and it is nothing special and I could have told her that too and she also said we could play a game of Black Peter afterwards, if I liked.

So she made me stand there and everybody sang about the Jolly Rambler and I had to pretend to be glad because it was specially for me, but it was really creepy and I could see that I hadn’t cleaned my shoes after we had been to the beach and there was a lot of sand in the cracks. I am glad I was dribbling sand all over their clean floor.

After everybody had shouted happy birthday Eva, The Lady let me go back to my table.

The cake was lovely and I ate a very big piece all by myself. When I go home again I must ask Mum if I can have a cake for my next birthday. At least, I won’t have to  have a song sung for me.

Miscellany for March 22nd.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

German court official,

theatre director, novelist, scientist, 

poet and dramatist,

died 22nd March 1832.

Lookout's Song

Born with the power to watch and to see,

At home in my tower, this world pleases me.

I perceive things afar and I view what is near,

The moon and each star, the woods and the deer.

What I find in all these is a beauty innate;

Where everything pleases, I'm pleased with my fate.

These eyes have been lucky in all they have seen,

Whatever the ending, how grand it has been!

o-o-o-o

Spring Equinox in Colstey Woods.

 by the pond

the lower path

o-o-o-o

Francis William Bourdillon

born 22nd March, 1852

The night has a thousand eyes, 

And the day but one;

yet the light of the bright world dies

with the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,

And the heart but one;

Yet the light of a whole world dies,

When love is done.

A Change of Scenery

After the previous post a change of mood from Friko's woe to Friko's weal, and a pleasant day out in pretty Ludlow; our little town is such a gem, sitting in the glorious landscape of the hills surrounding it, presided over by the big old church and the even older and even bigger, and very famous castle. Even on a grey day the town will raise your spirits.

As might a visit to the butcher's and pie shop, whose wares are truly delectable and delicious, if you are a meat eater, like I am. 

bacon and sausages

pies galore, from pork to steak to chicken

If you are fortunate to have the time and leisure to take your lunch at one of the many good hostelries in Ludlow, you are truly blessed. The Charlton Arms Hotel sits on the edge of the ancient Ludford bridge over the river Teme, with Whitcliff Common next door, should you need to walk off a very substantial lunch. That is the one problem nowadays with most pubs in the UK, they serve such vast portions that even the sight of my plate makes me feel full before I have started and really rather puts me off. A lot of my very generous lunch went to the dog afterwards. Doggy bags are not common in the UK and may not show good manners either,  but I can't help that. There are more and more of us who take uneaten food out to the dogs.

The Charlton Arms Hotel overlooking the River Teme.

a lone cygnet majestically cruising,

he has already learned to hang about by the bridge,

waiting for bread.

Ludlow Castle

above Dinham Bridge

Letter To My Mother

Sisters

Dear Mother

Last Sunday was Mothering Sunday here in the UK. Do you remember how I used to send you a card on the wrong day for a few years, until I finally remembered to mark the relevant page in my diary?

You were not amused.

That is what I remember most about you, you never found me amusing. Being amused by somebody and liking them go together and where liking is missing, amusement has no entry. Perhaps you loved me, it’s what mothers do, after all.

Even when I was an adult, you found me irritating, annoying, willful, disobedient, and most of all, ungrateful. You never missed a chance to recite your litany of all the things you had done for me, had had to give up for me; “and for what”, you asked,  “what do I get in return?”

I don’t know what you expected in return for having me and raising me. Later, when I had children of my own, I asked myself what I wanted from them and I found I had no answer.  Once they had grown up I hoped for an affectionate, adult relationship, on equal terms and free from constraint on both sides.  It didn’t work out quite the way I had hoped, but now I know that I did my best, which is really all we can do.

Which brings me back to you and me. 

You often complained bitterly about ‘having been the workhorse, the unappreciated drudge’ in your father’s house after your mother died. You complained that you were the one to run the household while your brothers and sister were free to pursue their own interests. You complained that your efforts were never valued, your wishes never considered. You felt unloved.

I remember one particular occasion when, on the drive home after a visit to your sister’s house, you burst into hysterical tears, and resentment at your sister’s selfishness poured forth in an unstoppable flow. I remember being terribly embarrassed at what I saw as a lack of restraint. I wish I had understood at the time, felt sympathy rather than distaste.

Is that what happened with me? Did I also take what you gave, showing neither appreciation nor gratitude? Did you raise me, your only surviving child, with the expectation of a return on your investment?  When you said that ‘Annie’, your stillborn child was prettier, sweeter than me, when you said that she would have been grateful while I ‘just took’, were you repaying your own family for the way they hurt you?

It is too late to ask you, you are gone. You would not have spoken anyway, getting close enough to speak of feelings was always to be avoided. When I tried to approach you, you always changed the subject, saying “I don’t know what you want. Things are fine, we get on well, don’t we?” But the day always came when  the dam broke and the torrent of recrimination, accusation and condemnation swept over me and drowned me in a flood of guilt. 

Did I finally do right when you lay dying? 

When the hospital doctors and their medicines kept you alive long after you had had enough, did I do right when you demanded that I took the pills away the moment the nurses turned their back? “Put them in the bin”, you said.  “They’ll see them there”, I said, “I’ll take them out with me”. We did this for a week. You calmed down and grew weaker. The doctors couldn’t understand. I sat with you, all day, every day and late into the night, hoping you would finally speak to me.

On your last day, a little girl came to visit the patient in the other bed in the room. You turned your head away from me and smiled your last smile.

Rhos Fiddle Nature Reserve

After a long and unforgiving winter it is time to get out into the empty wilderness of the Clun Forest Uplands and let the wind blow the cobwebs away. Taking the narrow country lanes up through the farmland we soon reach the forest and the Rhos Fiddle Nature Reserve.

Rhos Fiddle is a Shropshire Wildlife Trust nature reserve, little more than a mile from the Welsh border. The SWT describes it as one of the quietest places in Shropshire; I would go so far as to say that it is one of the quietest places on earth. There are buzzards, snipe and hares, as well as curlews and other birds which have become rare.

In spite of its name, 'Clun Forest' is actually an ancient, unimproved, upland heathland and bog, marshy and reedy, with many species of plantlife which are becoming ever more rare in this industrialized 'agro-business' world we live in. Botanists come to study mosses and grasses; the whole area is a rare surviving fragment of an almost extinct, precious, natural resource.

Yesterday, we had the many acres of windswept heath to ourselves. It is too early in the year for nesting birds. But for the mewling of a pair of buzzards lazily circling, the bleat of a distant lamb and the sound of the wind, the silence up here is absolute.

The only grazing here is by imported, tough highland cattle which do not damage the balance of the natural world,  sheep are allowed in only very rarely and then only on to the outer edges of the land. Trevor Wheeler and his family before him have farmed the land for years; their farm is wholly organic and instead of threatening the environment, Trevor looks after it.

             

Miscellany

Look what I found in the post today: dear Queenmothermamaw
sent me one of her very pretty, handpainted pictures.

A gift all the way from Kentucky to this distant corner of the UK.

Thank you so very much, dear QMM; as there won't be a
Mother's Day card in the post for me, this is a very welcome and beautiful substitute.

Gardener came this morning; we spent the whole day in the garden today, cutting back the dead growth on herbaceous plants, pruning roses, forking over various flower beds, cutting back spiraeas. some buddleias and elders.

We even had our first small bonfire to burn the prunings on the bare earth of a vegetable bed by the fruit cage.

Apart from the snowdrops which are still flowering profusely, there is very little to be seen in the garden. Daffodils are about  three weeks late this year.

All I can show off at the moment are the Aconites and crocuses. 

Even the earliest spring weeds, lesser celandine and purple-blue periwinkle have yet to show their faces.

Mothering Sunday
falls about now when Easter falls in early April.

On Mothering Sunday above all other

Every child should dine with its mother.

It has long been traditional -  as at Worcester in 1644, for ' all children to meet at the head and chief of the family and have a feast'; and for children living away from home to visit their mothers and make them a present of money, a trinket, or some nice eatable'.  Flowers are now the usual Mothering Sunday present, especially violets.

For you, Mum, wherever you may be.

To understand is to forgive.

How Not To Make Friends

Have you ever been dropped by someone because of the newspaper you read?

I have. The newspaper in question was (and is, I still read it for preference) by no means any kind of radical, either ultra left or ultra right wing rag; no, it is a nice, sometimes slightly well-meaning, occasionally off-the-wall, middle-of-the-road broadsheet, which likes its arts, literature and well-written and thoughtful editorials, known affectionately for its dodgy proof-readers.

When we first decided to try country living, we moved to the Home Counties (for my non-UK readers: the counties surrounding London). Any new place is slightly daunting at first, it takes some time to get to know the locals, so I was very glad to come across another dog-walker, who said she’d love to team up for walks in the very pleasant countryside surrounding the village.

things that I know nobody told me - about friendship

Rollin Kocsis

We met three or four times for walks before I asked her to tea; we seemed to have quite a lot in common and never ran out of conversation. I was beginning to congratulate myself on my good fortune.

Then we asked both my new acquaintance and her husband to come for drinks, just the two of them. As you do, we talked about what we all do for a living, etc. He was a builder, with his own company; my involvement in an international trade secretariat with a European office didn’t go down too well, whereas Beloved is, of course, a layabout musician. Or so the husband soon appeared to think. We should have smelled a rat when Beloved explained that musicians have the right to a ten minute break in every three hours worked, both in rehearsals and, where possible, during performances and Husband said that he’d sack any of his workers who demanded a break after three hours’ work.

Fair enough, we believe in live and let-live and didn’t take him very seriously. While Wife, Beloved and I drank wine, Husband was very happy with Beloved’s bottle of whisky all to himself. Very happy.

So happy, in fact, that he became quite animated. And then it happened, he took a tour of our 17^th century cottage and saw a pile of newspapers on a side table. “Oh my God, they read the **** fill-in-name-of-paper”, turning to his wife, his face by now bright red. (I am glad to say, he had a heart condition) His wife cringed, “yes, I know”, she said, obviously having seen it on previous visits and not dared to inform him of this heinous offence.

She shushed him and asked him to sit down again, which he did. The funny thing was that in spite of his horror at finding himself in the house of subversives and layabouts,  it didn’t stop him from near enough finishing Beloved’s bottle of single malt before they left.

I rang her several times afterwards to make a date for a walk; she was never free.

Hmmmm

But I don't really mind.
It's too cold for playing out of
doors.

Everybody says how good
this Thriller is and how sad it is
that Stieg Larsson only
lived to write three volumes
in the series.

Mind you, it couldn't have

become famous as the 'Millenium Trilogy' if he'd been able to make it

into a quartet. Or a quintet.

I haven't got a lot to say, really,

I suppose it shows.

Sigh........

The Scraper's Diary, April 6th, 1947

Easter Sunday,  Itzehoe

It has occurred to me that I haven't really described any of the tour, as I set out to do.

This is largely because to a string-player like myself, it is more like an unconducted, paid Cook's Tour than a tour of duty. I have played three times in the last fortnight; once in the O.Rs dining hall at Munsterlager and once in the Sergeant's Mess here, and once unofficially; a few little quartets I had arranged from Orlando Gibbons and Giles Farnaby.

We travel about, but journeys are much the same everywhere. We have our own coach, and I win money at whist every time we travel for more than half an hour.

Having travelled away from the Rhineland, through Brunswick, to Schleswig-Holstein, I still feel that it is the character of the country that is missing, the air has no personality. Further North, the people seem better fed and clothed, more contented, the shops have more in them. Probably they endured no shell fire here.

The soldiers try to make what they can out of the people and the people try, more successfully, to get all they can from us. The only air about is lethargy, dangerous lethargy.

I have become accustomed to bomb damage, a strange tongue, and traffic on the right by now. The only things that still seem strange are the black market and the tarts.

As I found occasion to say this morning, this is indeed a country of 'brothelly' love.

And now it is Easter Sunday morning and the maids have just cleaned the room, Mike is lying on his bed, reading, dictionary at hand, and I am sitting at the table, writing this, thinking nothing in particular and feeling hungry.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Husum, Easter Monday

We arrived here this morning after a four hour journey. The country up here is flat and flooded and most uninspired in the cheerless light of a wet day. The streets are long and quaint and the windmills only add to the Dutch character of the views. The string orchestra has just finished playing in the barracks here, amid ribald remarks from our overworked military and dance-band colleagues.

Two or three days ago, Mike, Len, Derek and myself decided that, if opportunity arose, we would get drunk on spirits before we returned to Larkhill, partly in vague celebration, and largely because spirits are so much cheaper over here. The opportunity arose last night, when, by sundry wangling, we obtained permission from the manager to buy gin, which is normally reserved for sergeants only.

By going to the serving hatch in turns, in order not to arouse the barman's suspicions, we managed to buy and consume six gins, two cakes and two German cocktails (which we decided were constituted of cascura and coughcure) each. One of the cocktails was contributed by a slightly merry B.M., and we were quite merry ourselves by this time. We soon fell to singing and telling stories. Mike bought a round of beer, which I refused to drink and the three of them became rather drunk on the strength of it. Supper came and went and Mike and Derek grew rather uncontrollable. Derek started playing the piano quite indescribably and Mike wandered round telling a revolting story, which took him ten minutes to finish - once.

Eventually, they were persuaded to go to bed. Derek, having been assisted to his room, insisted on going round most rooms, saying good night to people. After two of these trips I locked him in his room.

Mike was a little pugnacious and unsteady, but otherwise normal.

Meanwhile, I was feeling almost sober, but I had a headache, and my eyes refused to focus on anything without a struggle. However, having finally seen Mike, Derek and Len in bed, I retired myself and closed my eyes. Immediately I did that, everything began to move to the left, at first slowly and then accelerando, until I opened my eyes suddenly to stop fainting, and when everything skidded to a halt, it was almost as bad.

Eventually, I got to sleep and slept heavily until seven. When I woke, I felt like an innocent, albeit a bit bruised.

There's been a rumour that we'll reach Larkhill next Sunday night.

Roll on, roll bloody on.

Bloggers Unite!

The Welsh borders appear to be particularly fertile soil for growing the imaginative blogger.  We did however, allow one member from Belgium to join our happy crowd, after we had verified her credentials.

Apart from the one exception from further afield, ten of us living within a radius of about 60 miles, met at a cosy and pleasant pub in a small village for lunch. Although not one of us had met more than one or two of the others before, the only quiet time was when we were all tucking into a plentiful meal. (After all, we all have our priorities right!) The rest of the time the talk around the round table was buzzing, within minutes gales of laughter erupted; we felt we already knew each other intimately. Perhaps we  reveal more about ourselves in our blogs, what kind of person we are, than we plan or is immediately obvious.

After the meal we climbed up into the kingdom of Trelystan where we braved the sunny but very cold day to visit the hidden gem of Trelystan Church in its snowdrop carpeted churchyard, taking innumerable photos of the spectacular views all around.  Inside we found a wonderful stained glass window and, strangely, a barrel organ. Nobody was brave enough to turn the handle with enough determination to elicit a sound.

Every time I am asked to meet other

bloggers I feel slightly uncomfortable about the prospect.

This has been my third such meeting and I have to admit that my apprehension has so far not been justified by the subsequent get-together.

More bloggers meetings? Bring 'em on.

March - The Month of New Life

March -  who remembers now that the Roman God of War, Mars, lent his name to the third month of the Christian calendar.

For us, March is the month of new beginnings, new hope; when daylight finally returns to drive winter darkness out  and the birds sing their first, tentative, songs of love.

The first sound of the thrush in early March awakens the long train of memories, all the way back to childhood, when the mists rose above the land, dewdrops glistened in the gorse bushes by the railway embankment and grass and clods of soil in the fields crunched under your feet after the night's frosts, soon to be dissolved by the rays of the steadily climbing sun. Silver birches shone victorious and larch and spruce painted the Heath in tender green hues. Willows by the brook stretched their long, bare arms into the newly blue sky and shed their gnomish winter image.

Children's Games

by

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

After the long months of winter incarceration, March was the month when we children burst out into the light of backyard and garden, the village street and square; when the paraphernalia of outdoor games made their triumphant re-emergence from dusty corners and deep cupboards.  Many of the over 80 games Bruegel painted in 1560 were still known in the villages of the flat landscapes of Northern Europe in the 40s and 50s of the last century, and I remember playing tag and marbles, hopscotch and skipping, ball games, bowling hoops and whip top. Girls held hands, sang and danced to nursery rhymes and boys climbed trees.

There was little spare cash for buying toys in the early years, later on our parents 'organised' scooters, roller skates and even bicycles for us, many of them cobbled together from spare parts. In those days, necessity was indeed the mother of invention.

Now March is the month when work in the garden starts in earnest, when spring lambs are born and the brown March hares fight in the fields.

Mad March hares -  the most mysterious and

sacred of British animals  -  now 

performing their mating rituals.

Cancer - "Be Positive" ?

cancer cell at the moment of division

photo by Dr. Paul Andrews, University of Dundee

This blog is not going to start concentrating on medical matters, although you might be forgiven for thinking so after the last two posts.

Bear with me for just one more entry, although, friends, this time, there will be no jokes and definitely no laughs. If that turns you off, so be it.

My blogging friend Deborah in her last post urged us to go and visit Caroline, who has recently started blogging about her cancer. Caroline's blog is desperately moving, she needs all the positive support the blogging community can give her.

Both Caroline and I have railed against the prevailing wisdom, which exhorts cancer sufferers to "remain positive" at all times and Deborah asked why we didn't buy into this philosophy whole-heartedly.

In an email I explained to Deborah, but I think it might be of general interest, so I will tell you all too.

This is what I wrote:

o-o-o-o

When you are first told you have cancer the world collapses around you. Suddenly you have no future other than a painful and possibly short one.

For everybody to concentrate on you being positive (bp from now on) when you really want to rave and rant and scream the place down and "why me, why me" and howl and weep and despair, bp is bloody hard.

You really want to be left alone to react the way you NEED to there and then.

Then you get used to the diagnosis (or not) and the rollercoaster of treatments begins. You feel bloody awful again and for quite a beastly long time. You have lost all control over your body, doctors and nurses and oncologists and radiotherapists take over. Inside you are probably still screaming; I was. The cancer becomes the centre of your world.

In spite of all that, it is possible to remain passionate about something; for me it was gardening. My oncologist and I used to discuss gardening and crops and hard work at every session, She'd root around inside me, (I had endometrial cancer), and take my mind off things that way. She'd also ask me about the garden and my plans for it, therefore giving me a future. 

. . . . .

I think what many cancer sufferers and survivors, at least those who can think for themselves, object to, is that bp is the be-all and end-all for some. If the treatment doesn't work, bp doesn't work. Cancer is not something you are responsible for and bp isn't going to make you better. Neither is giving in without a fight, of course. Bp helps the whole person to be in a healthier place, better able to withstand the onslaught, and it bloody well is an onslaught.
But fighting  and bp only help so far, you can still die in spite of the most positive attitude in the world.

I remember one day in particular; Waking up in the morning I found I was crying. Not howling, just crying, tears spilling down my face. An hour later, on the hour-long drive to the day's session, I was still crying. While I was waiting, in my scanty gown, to go into the radiotherapy room, the crying went on. Staff looked at me, "there, there, it's not so bad, you'll soon be on your way home again". "B p" Before, during, after treatment, and while getting dressed, I cried. On the way home, Beloved driving, I cried. At home, I cried, All evening, I cried. I went to bed crying. By next  morning I had stopped.

I had been so bloody positive all the time, something in me took over and caused me and my psyche and my body to react the way it needed to react.
I had absolutely no control over those tears.

I felt a lot better afterwards and the bp wasn't nearly as enforced and straitjacketed ever again.
Dear Deb, thank you for asking, I think I needed to tell someone. My friend Jenny, whom I mentioned to Caroline, is only just starting treatment and all she tells me is, "I've got to stay positive", her cancer is inoperable and probably terminal and I can't bring myself to tell her to be kind to herself.

o-o-o-o

I know that there are a few of us who have blogged, and are still blogging, on living with cancer. Once you have/have had cancer (luckily, life expectancy is so much better now than it was), you find lots of others coming out and discussing this intruder, this unwanted, evil enemy that has taken over your body and how to cope with it. 


I did everything I could, I took everything on offer, from every kind of alternative treatment to anything the doctors threw at me. I am a survivor.


If it should be you, now or in the future, or somebody you love, allow yourself/them space to despair, to weep, to rave and rant, to curse fate. 


Although I can only speak for myself, I can say that I felt better for it afterwards, able to pick myself up and  face whatever came next.