St Catherine's Day

Finally, it's all over,  news reports can go back to the grim stories from what seems to be a large part of continental Africa, both Arab and black. For more than a week  every news bulletin has been fanning the flames of wedding frenzy. The same tired old experts have been trotted out, we have had tradition, pomp and circumstance, pageantry and Royalty  rammed down our throats relentlessly, but everything comes to its end. The frenzy is over, the deed has been done, to the delight and dismay, in equal measure, of the population of the UK. An additional instalment has been added to the soap opera that is the House of Windsor. We have seen the dress, the kiss(es), the other dresses and hats, the coaches, the splendid uniforms and the even more splendid vestments of the clergy. We have reminded ourselves of the ancient couple at the helm of the whole edifice.

Fevered excitement and annoyed lack of interest were the order of the day. Nobody managed to remain indifferent. Beloved and I sat glued to the TV screen for the whole of the wedding service, I couldn't have switched off for the life of me; these things become compulsive viewing. I adored the interviews with people at street parties in towns and villages and members of the throng lining the streets of London itself;  it was as if the camera crews had combed the crowds for the ugliest people, in the most ridiculous outfits, who promptly repaid selection by spouting enthusiastic tripe. I love finding a reason to feel superior, don't you?

St Catherine of Sienna
fresco by Andrea Vanni, ca, 14th century

The Queen created a trio of new titles for Prince William, and Catherine is now the Duchess of Cambridge. 

I am not a Royalist but I have to admit that she looked very fetching, as did her sister and brother. A handsome family, the Middletons. A few chiselled cheekbones and clearly defined chins should work wonders for the pudding faced Windsors.

I don't suppose the fact that the 29th April is also the feast day of Catherine of Sienna had any bearing on the choice of day.

Nor this bit of advice for the 29th April which I found in The Anatomy of Abuses 1586, which those of an irreverent disposition might find amusing:

Put Taurean bulls to cows now for early calves next year. The bulls must not feed with cows for two months before their leaping time and then let them come together without restraint.  They are a great while in copulation, and some have guessed by certain signs, whether the calf will prove male or female. If the bull leaps down on the right side of the cow, it will be a male, if on the left, a female. If a man then desires a male calf, let him tie up the right stone of the bull at the time of copulation, and for a female, bind up the left.

Royal Wedding, July 29th, 1981

Thirty years ago the world was watching the fairy tale wedding of Prince Charles and the Lady Diana Spencer. 600.000 people filled the streets of London to get a glimpse of the happy couple and all the pomp and circumstance surrounding their big day,


The couple were married at St Paul's Cathedral before an invited congregation of 3,500 and an estimated global TV audience of 750 million - making it the most popular programme ever broadcast at the time.

A send-off into a fairy tale life to end all fairy tales, the watchers thought. Nobody foresaw the storm clouds gathering quite so quickly or the catastrophic shipwreck ahead.

Britons enjoyed a national holiday to mark the occasion, that is, most Britons did, but there were many people working on the day to keep essential services going. Then there were those whose services were only of importance to the organisers of the wedding itself, an army of helpers, official and unofficial, among them the musicians. Court jesters have come and gone, there are no jugglers, tumblers, players any longer, but there must be musicians.


Prince Charles was Patron of the Orchestra of The Royal Opera House. Beloved had played for him and the Royal Family many times before then, so playing at St. Paul's Cathedral was no big deal, even though this was a proper State occasion.  For a seasoned professional any gig is just that, a gig.  Or so they would like to make you believe.



The musicians entered the Cathedral by the tradesmen's entrance, in this case by the North Crypt doors and had to be at their station in a side chapel before the proceedings began.

They were playing a full programme of music long before the ceremony started at 11 o'clock, throughout the many processions, from the Ecclesiastical Procession, via the Procession of Foreign Crowned Heads, The Queen's Procession,
The Procession of the Bridegroom,  and the Procession of the Bride.

Beloved saw little of the processions and nothing of the actual marriage service. All he has are the

official programmes, the Order of Service for the Ceremony itself, and the Ceremonial from the moment the Street Liners were in place (these are officials, NOT the populace), and the carriages began to leave  Buckingham Palace, to the moment the carriages returned. The Ceremonial runs to 32 pages and ends with the Bride and Bridegroom leaving the Grand Entrance in a semi-State Landau, accompanied by a Travelling Escort of the Household Cavalry, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew Parker Bowles,  ( we all know what happened to him), Blues and Royals. at 4.00 p.m. (here the programme allows itself the first sign of a slip) "approximately".

What he did see was Kiri Te Kanawa (now 'Dame') in 'that' outfit, singing "Let The Bright Seraphim" from Haendel's "Samson". The Band thought she did well but also generally accepted that she could have chosen a less unfortunate outfit.

Just in case anyone thinks this must have been a profitable gig for the musicians, they are wrong. Prince Charles decided that all future royalties on the music, every penny coming from film, TV, CDs, and all other Rights worldwide, in perpetuity,  should go to a Charity of his choosing.

He didn't even ask them.

We met him (and Diana) at a Royal Garden Party years later, neither Beloved nor I remembered to complain.

The Kaleidoscope

WILLOW's MAGPIE No. 63

Kaleidoscope: A toy consisting of a tube containing small,  brightly coloured fragments of glass etc. and mirrors which reflect these to form changing geometric patterns;

From the Greek: kalos = beautiful, eidos = image, skopein = to view


Eva's favourite Uncle Peter had finally arrived for his annual Easter visit. She'd been on the look-out for him for hours; impatiently she waited for him to finish greeting the assembled adults, who were his brothers and sisters, Eva's mother among them. She tugged at his hand; why was it that adults needed to have brothers and sisters when she herself didn't have any and still managed perfectly well?

Uncle Peter had brought a bag of chocolate eggs to distribute among his many nephews and nieces, who had all come to Eva's parents' house for the day. The children had spent the morning hunting for eggs in the garden, which the Osterhase was supposed to have hidden in bushes and shrubs and behind stones before the crack of dawn. There was even a basket of coloured eggs in the hen house. Except for the two youngest, Hansi and Trudi,  they were old enough to know that the grown-ups had been out to hide the eggs; no bunny would be able to carry a basket with that many eggs on his back, they told each other.They'd be eating hard-boiled eggs for supper for several days, that was clear to all, to their collective disgust. Hunting for eggs was fun but eating them less so.

Uncle Peter's eggs were special. He said he got them from the Chocolate Easter Egg wholesalers in Bunnyland and because he bought so many at a time, he had them at a discount. Each egg was wrapped in multicoloured foil, shimmering and shiny and crisp to the touch. Some had patterns on them, some had pretty pictures of rabbits, ribbons and pretty flowers, like daisies and daffodils; when he tipped them into the large basket, lined with moss, provided for the purpose by Eva's mum, they looked like somebody had caught a rainbow, bundled up all the colours, and shone a great yellow sun on them. The children squealed happily.

Each egg had a tiny label hidden somewhere in the foil; Uncle Peter, who knew his greedy nephews and nieces well, had gone to the trouble of putting each child's nickname on a label, and, for the poor child without a nickname, he simply invented one; after some wrangling, shoving and hand slapping amongst themselves, each child had its own allocation of eggs and most started to eat one there and then.

Except Eva, she wasn't allowed chocolate because the milk in it made her ill. She was used to it, it didn't bother her very much when the others sank their teeth into the chocolate and chewed and licked their fingers; Uncle Peter was bound to have a gift for her too. He always had. In the past he'd given her what he called a Russian egg, which turned out to be four eggs all hidden in one large one, each smaller than the one before; once he'd brought her a beautifully painted, perfectly spherical stone; he'd given her a delicate china egg which opened into two halves, hollow inside, for keeping tiny treasures. Then there had been the glass egg, which had flowers suspended inside it. Eva loved her Uncle Peter very much, he told wonderful stories and brought her very special gifts.

Expectantly, she looked at him. What would he have for her this time?

Uncle Peter beckoned her away from the chocolate eating frenzy and pulled a small tube out of his pocket. She examined it. It felt like cardboard and although it had stars painted on the outside, it didn't look like much; if this was for keeping things in, she much preferred her china egg. "Put this end to your eye", he said, "just look".  She looked.

What seemed like a million colours and shapes and patterns exploded in her eye. Eva gasped in wonder.

"Turn it a little", Uncle Peter advised. More shapes in different colour variations formed instantly. Each time she turned it, the patterns changed, over and over again, a glinting, mesmerising, flickering display. Better than all the chocolate eggs in a green moss basket in the world.

"I'm sorry I couldn't find you anything egg-shaped this time", Uncle Peter said.

Eva grinned. "That's ok, I forgive you," she said.

APRIL MISCELLANY

Happy Easter !

Since the time of the ancient Teutonic world the egg has been regarded as a bringer of luck and symbol of fertility, a joyful gift to celebrate the return of spring.

Although egg painting was known in pre-Christian Greece the custom did not reach Northern Europe until the 17th Century when the Turks conquered Byzantium, causing many of the inhabitants to flee northwards, taking their traditions with them, including the custom of painting eggs.

Written records show that the Easter Bunny as egg bringer first appeared on German soil in 1682, in the company of cockerels, foxes and donkeys, who were all deemed "responsible" for the delivery of eggs. It seems most likely that the rabbit won against the competition because of its high symbolism. Like the egg, the ancient Greeks, Romans and Teutons also revered the rabbit as a symbol of fertility.

o-o-o-o-o

The Sun Enters the House of Taurus

He that is born under Taurus shall be strong, hardy, and full of strife. In his youth he will despise every person and be ireful; he shall go on pilgrimage and live among strangers. He shall be rich by women and yet shall experience many pains by women. he shall be grieved by sickness and venom at twenty-three, and in peril of water at thirty-three, and shall live eighty-five years and three months.

The woman shall be effectual, labouring and a great liar. she shall have many husbands and many children. She shall be at her best estate at sixteen years but then sickly, and if she escape, shall live seventy-five years. She ought to bear rings and precious stones about her.

As well man as woman shall be likened to the bull that laboureth the land, but when the seed is sown, he hath but the straw to his part. They shall keep well their own and be reputed unkind.

From The Kalendar of Shepheardes 1604

o-o-o-o-o

And finally, a bit of advice from a recent guest at a meal for six at my table:

"If you are planning a dinner party which you foresee as being "sticky", start off with messy shellfish. It's bound to lighten the atmosphere and get the guests talking to each other."

He gave me this advice because I had cooked chicken breasts, stuffed with blue cheese and olive paste and wrapped in Parma ham, the whole thing tied with butchers' string.

I served them in a dish of sauce, decorated with herbs, all of it cooked there and then, while the guests were waiting; a great success and very tasty;  if only I had remembered to snip and remove the string before serving.

I can confirm that rushing back to the kitchen for several pairs of scissors, which are then handed round the table,  will break any lingering ice as easily as the largest platter of shellfish you care to serve.

Memory

The Persistence of Memory - Salvador Dali

After lunch today we waved goodbye to the third of the annual pre-Easter family visiting groups. I have mentioned before that we have a large family between us, three pairs of own, adopted and step children, two of whom now have families of their own. We don't meet any of them very often, having removed ourselves from easy access; so visits are more prolonged and therefore  more intensive than they would be if we could just meet up for the day now and then.

All went well; two-night-stays are long enough to catch up on all the news and short enough to avoid those small, pointed, exchanges, which could turn into instant flare-ups, given a drink too many, a child misbehaving,  pmt or hot flushes, sailing too close to the wind on aunt Mary's legacy to one and not another or just being cooped up together 24/7. The sun shone, tempers remained amicable and we all had  a happy time exchanging "do-you-remember"s.

Except that I noticed this time particularly, how much remembrances of past incidents and situations vary among the people present then and now. Why is it that we all remember the past differently? Or not at all? Occasions which were of huge importance at the time had either been forgotten, or the participants all saw them differently.

There was the story about Granny sitting in her favourite chair in the corner of the kitchen,  bossing everybody around and making sure that her son, in her eyes the head of the family, had a meal waiting on the table when he came home. Except that the son knew that he had never come home for this particular meal because of his very irregular time table. Long after Granny's death, family folklore held firm that Granny's bossiness had made life hell for her daughter-in-law. How can it be that two halves of a family see the past so differently?

Another story concerned the ex-girlfriend of another son who had invited  him to her parents' house for Christmas dinner;  the parents then promptly asked him to pay for his share of the meal, to his utter amazement. This solecism became a major talking point at the time in his own family, even the girl-friend was mortified and joined in the ridicule of her parents, yet years later, the son now happily married to another woman, had completely forgotten the incident, whereas others in the family remembered it well.

Regretting the fact that a young student had recently dropped out of college, for no particular reason, except that he had got bored, another member of the family tactlessly reminded everybody that the boy's dad had done similarly during his own student years, making the unfortunate remark that, "it obviously runs in the family".  Nobody else remembered it like she did and quickly corrected her, saying that the boy's father had simply dropped a subject, not dropped out altogether. Still, she was sure she had got it right.

Journeys down memory lane can be full of potholes tripping up the unwary traveller. There were many such potholes, I landed in one or two myself. And I had been so certain of my facts, fondly held on to for years and years. I'm still not altogether sure that my memories aren't the only true ones.

Hardest to bear are the hurts which arise out of misunderstandings which have never been cleared up and which get aired, in a moment of horribly destructive, so-called 'truth-telling'; these can rip the pleasantest family gatherings to shreds. We know that our memory can play tricks on us, there are too many family histories which are fiercely disputed by the various members and rifts might never be healed.

Perhaps we shouldn't be too certain that our own version of the past is the only valid one and simply accept that any situation is subject to a variety of interpretations. After all, somebody very wise said "it's all a matter of perception".

What, No Beans?

WILLOW'S MAGPIE No. 62

and where's the bacon?

Call this breakfast?

Thank You

Yesterday

there was sadness and tears.

Today,

thanks to the kind words of my friends,

the sparkle is back.

If we could banish dark thoughts,

and always stay on the sunny side of life,

we'd all be as carefree as the humble dandelion.

Not Good Enough

Poster Campaign for Domestic Abuse Awareness- Scotland

Last night I didn't sleep. I have no explanation why I didn't; at three am I took two sleeping pills, at four am I got up for the third time and fetched a large glass of sherry and a packet of sickly sweet hazelnut cream biscuits upstairs, then sat on the edge of my bed and alternately took a drink of sherry, ate a biscuit, took another drink, and another biscuit, and on and on,  until the drink was finished and the packet of biscuits half empty and I felt sick and sickened at the same time. I had already read a soporific self-help text, checked my emails - at three in the morning, for heaven's sake - and scratched the itchy insect bites on my legs. Nothing helped.

I've had a very good week, loaded up on sunshine, saw lots of friendly faces and nourished my soul. I had also had some fantastic comments on several recent posts which did my delicate and slightly bruised ego a lot of good, convincing me that I should continue blogging. I even had emails from people I didn't  know existed, who neither follow nor comment, but still felt called upon to tell me how much they enjoyed reading my blog.

Yesterday afternoon, walking past her house with Benno,  I met a neighbour  pruning some dead growth in her front garden. She and her husband read blogs all the time as part of their professional duties, I think. The couple read my blog and have always been very complimentary about it; I can trust them not to gossip about it in Valley's End, and I don't feel obliged to change my veiled comments on village life for their sake.

I stopped to chat, and Sally once again praised my blog, she smiled sweetly and sincerely and mentioned several entries and what she thought of them. You'd think I would be pleased.  Unfortunately, I feel inclined to trust her judgment and that is where the problem comes in.

You see, she couldn't be right, and neither could the other people who have said that they enjoy my blog; in fact, nobody who has a good word to say about anything I do can possibly be right. They simply don't know what they are talking about.

This is where it gets hard, very hard indeed, to continue writing this.  I am convinced, and always have been, because I was told by people who knew about these things, that I was Never Good Enough. Nothing I did deserved appreciation and certainly never praise. There was always somebody who would have done so much better than me, who wouldn't have been the same kind of fool, the same imbecile, incompetent, ridiculous child, who was not only a complete idiot but also disobedient, ungrateful and disloyal. That person was my still-born sister, a fantasy being.

So, you see, this is where logic comes into it: if I accept the compliments some people misguidedly insist on paying my efforts, in blogland and elsewhere, if I accept that these compliments are sincere, then it follows that much of what I was told as a child, much of what I have come to believe, my core belief, in other words, is wrong. Lauren (my counsellor) and I go over this ground time and time again. It's a circular argument.

If I am Good Enough, then 'They', whom I owe obedience, gratitude and loyalty, were wrong. I would have to accept that, knowingly or unknowingly, 'They' were acting abusively, that I was psychologically abused. If I were to accept that 'They' got it wrong, it would automatically prove 'Them' right, that I am indeed disobedient, ungrateful and disloyal. Q.E.D.

Which means that I punish myself by sitting on the edge of my bed at four am, eating a packet of biscuits, which is bad for me, and gives me no pleasure at all.

The wheel goes on turning.



P.S.  Don't take too much notice of this, I am sure I shall feel better tomorrow, after a good night's sleep.
      

Some Advice on Sensible Drinking

MAGPIE TALES No. 61

Drink to forget is wrong, the more you drink, the more you will remember.

It's best to drink with meals, before, and after.  Delectable food with wine, each enhance the other.

Drink to remember,  drink at leisure, let your soul float on the wings of wine, and conversation explore the meaning of the universe.

Let there be two of you, drink to each other and let the wine take you to lovers' shore.

I like it best to drink my wine in happy company, when friends meet in convivial mood around a table, where we can sit into the night,  discuss and solve the questions no one else can answer.

But do not  drink alone and do not drink to wash away your sadness;  stop before the swarm of bees in your head drowns out the sound of silence and always put down your glass when you are angry or ashamed.


In Vino Veritas,
that is, to speak truth in these days, one has to be drunk first.

A Picture Book Week in Spring

Do you sometimes have a run of really good days?

As weeks go, I wish last week could last a little longer, or come back for a repeat performance. Lots of inviting sunshine made for a happy disposition and tempted me to spend lots of time walking and gardening; several pleasant social and cultural occasions  added a little spice to my usually quite humdrum existence and blogging became a pleasure again.

It all started with another birthday party, a celebration of 90 years of music and adventure. This is Bert, a bassist and tuba player, who even now, at 90, performs with local amateur groups. Bert's always been a bit of a ladies' man; he still has his groupies who collect him at home, carry his instruments for him and take him to the venue in their cars. Several ladies at the party were having a good-natured discussion about their relative rank in the pecking order of Bert's affections.  If this is what 90 can be like, why would anyone be afraid of getting old?

The subject for last week's poetry group meeting was 'Quodlibet',  i.e. bring your favourite poems. I always find it difficult to choose a favourite anything, be it film, poem, music, etc. I'm one of these unimaginative people who need to be 'told', who need instructions, guide-lines; given free rein, I dither and find it very hard to make up my mind.

On the gloriously sunny morning of the day of the poetry meeting, Benno and I went up into Sowdley Woods, a wild area full of fallen trees, a brook and the small lake it forms at the bottom of the hill, overgrown rhododendron thickets, and an incongruous plantation of giant redwood in the snowdrop wood, which a long dead owner of the small manor house, where John Osborne used to live and which is now owned by the Arvon Foundation, must have thought a suitable addition to an English wood. The manor is used as a writers' retreat and residential  creative writing centre. I'd still not made up my mind  which poems to take in the evening when I found several of the birches in the same plantation above 'The Hurst' (the name of the house) had white sheets of paper attached to them. Surely not warnings that "Trespassers will be prosecuted" ? I thought. Far from it. I had found poems pinned to trees! Answers to my prayers! Could anything have been more serendipitous?

Gerald Manley Hopkins' 'Inversnaid'. was one of them:

It starts:

This darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock high road roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

suitable for the place and suitable for me.

A last minute concert added to the week's  stand-out nature. Beloved met a friend on his way to fetch the newspaper who asked if we we were going to the concert given by the Mid Wales Chamber Orchestra Soloists in Newtown, over in Wales. We hadn't even heard of it. Tickets were still available, the friend very kindly gave us a lift and we enjoyed a varied and excellently played performance.










All that and a wonderful day's gardening to end the week.  Gardener came yesterday and we dug up, divided and replanted many of the overgrown clumps of herbaceous plants like phlox, campanulas, geraniums and several grasses.

This morning I took my second cup of breakfast tea out into the garden and admired the fruits of yesterday's labour.  These neat, small clumps of plants will soon shoot up and fill the tidy brown earth around them, lean into each other and jostle for space. I can't wait.

"Spring's messenger in every spot

Smiling on all - Forget-me not"

John Clare

These patches of forget-me-nots appear all over the garden at this time of year. Some people barely tolerate them for being self-seeded and slightly vulgar, but I welcome them. They are such friendly and accommodating little plants, their modest pale blue flowers light up dark and bright corners alike and when their day has gone, they give in very graciously and leave without complaint.

I have never understood . . . . .

Scrabbling around in my currently moribund brain for a blogging topic I came across my friend  Tabor's post of today, which loosely refers to Thursday 13, a collection of themed items to fill a blank spot on a blog. I may not make it to the full 13, but there are some questions that have been puzzling me for ever:

I have never understood, why

    the ordinary Tom, Dick and Harriet never connect our need for feverish consumption of goods, our mad   use of oil, gas, food, water, and many other of earth's finite resources, with the destruction of our planet? We complain about fuel prices, we eat imported food, we buy flowers grown on another continent, we travel at the drop of a hat, for leisure, pleasure, business and no particular reason at all,  we live in air-conditioned houses, we use water like it's going out of fashion, we buy, and soon discard, all sorts of consumer goods without a second thought.

Yet we all profess to be seriously concerned about the life expectancy of planet earth and the human race with it.

o-o-o-o

    some people see all the evil in their neighbour's yard but never in their own? What causes these blind spots? Self-righteousness? Why has no one invented spectacles for clear thinking? There'll soon be 3-D TVs, why are there no vision-surround viewfinders for the human conscience?

o-o-o-o

    Benno wags his tail when I go to the bread bin?

o-o-o-o

    the British drink while standing up? It's so much less safe to fall down in a drunken heap from a great height than simply to collapse, head first, into the ashtray on the table.

o-o-o-o

    love and lust disappear after the first three years of togetherness? Love may last, but why does this mad first flush, this glorious, breathless, unsuitably demonstrative state of being, this embarrassing, hand-holding, weak-kneed, (stop it, Friko!) stomach-churning, physical need for the object of one's lust turn into a mild, "ok then", "what, again ?",  "I'd rather have a cup of tea", sort of togetherness?

o-o-o-o

    Americans think that I must know their cousin Elliot in Edinburgh because I live in the UK?

o-o-o-o

    some  religions  consider randomly selected foods to be taboo and inherently sinful, and alcoholic drink to be the devil's brew. Pork, beef, shellfish, game, rabbit and many more are forbidden in at least one religion somewhere in the world. Even coffee and tea and other stimulants do not escape prohibition somewhere. Where's the logic in that?

o-o-o-o

    some people risk their lives and the lives of others in the selfish pursuit of dangerous adventures, like the solo circumnavigation of  the globe in a cockle shell, or climbing hazardous mountains in inclement weather and totally unsuitable clothing. Whoever feels drawn to such heroics should understand that any rescue attempts when things go wrong, as they frequently do, will not be undertaken when others have to risk their life to carry them out. At the very least, the rescued should bear the full costs of the rescue mission which too often depends on voluntary contributions.

o-o-o-o

    so many plants self-seed profusely but never come true from seed. If it grows out of your seed, it looks like you, right? Wrong.

o-o-o-o

    there is at least one colourful sock which sneaks into a white wash and turns everything a lurid orange.

Why has no one invented a simple tool to detect an alien presence in the laundry basket before the washing machine is loaded.

o-o-o-o

    there are people for whom home is the last place they want to be. I know them, they spend as little time as possible there. Are they afraid they might meet themselves there?

o-o-o-o

    politicians, no matter how idealistic and honest they start out - there are some - succumb to the general malaise of subterfuge, evasion, wishful thinking and ignoring the electorate's wishes the moment they become part of the political machine. Very soon expediency becomes the watchword.

o-o-o-o

and finally,

    there are so many people who simply don't see the beauty of the world surrounding us, the kindness and generosity of the average person, the friendliness of our neighbour, the willingness to help, the smiles and the open arms reaching out to us.  Why gratitude for the small gifts we receive daily is usually so far from our thoughts, why complaints and moans come far more easily than simple thankyous; why we don't realise that the pace of modern life, the frantic pursuit of happiness, by which we too often mean worldly goods,  is not conducive to bringing us peace of mind and appreciation of simple pleasures.

My World - English Weather

the ancient packhorse bridge over the river Clun at Valley's End.

I have decided that I must try not to complain about the English weather so much. True, it was raining today and the skies were of that unfriendly grey which lowers the spirits and gives rise to grumbling, but we have had some wonderful late March and early April sunshine. Besides, mild rain makes my garden grow!

When I saw a recent post at  Ellen's blog  showing pictures of a wisteria already past its prime, roses and a mock orange in full bloom, I felt glad to live in England, where the seasons come in slowly, one after the other, taking their time unfolding, lingering over each new arrival and spreading the glorious riches of nature for all to savour. Each flower has its moment of triumph in the sun, there is room and time to spare; only in high summer do they jostle each other for attention.

Even winter has its upside. The intricate patterns of the bare branches of trees and colourful stems of shrubs dramatise a drab world which for several years lately has turned brilliant, sparkling white and glittering, jewel-like ice for weeks on end.

Let May and June welcome the spectacular hanging chains of wisteria on house fronts, give the mock orange time in June and July to spray its intoxicating perfume and as for roses, well, give the queen of the garden four  or five months to dazzle the senses, all the time from first flowering in early June to October. In a good year I have had the last roses bloom into December. 

At the moment spring flowers are the stars of the show, among others

white anemonies

tiny blue grape hyacinths

and a host of daffodils nodding in the breeze.

Give me my English seasons, weather included. The poet Robert Browning, in his 'Home Thoughts From Abroad', said "O to be in England, now that April's here".  He has a point.

This entry nods a distant 'hello' to the many other entries at My World.

APRIL

   

WILLOW's MAGPIE No. 60

Clouds weep healing tears

Cherry blossom sings of Spring,

Silencing blackbird.

Yellow beak stabbing,

Searching for hidden treasure.

Brown earth of Spring yields.

Life and hope reborn.

Nature's tender offering

April's bounty falls.

© USW

Well, you would say that, wouldn't you,

all of you being bloggers. You and I could hardly say that blogging is a waste of time, could we?

Thank you, everybody, for your generous and intelligent comments to the previous post. I value your opinion;  all of you basically advised me to leave the class, seeing how I felt about it.

So why did I not do that earlier? Teacher several times made fun of me and my need for following the rules of grammar,  for wanting prepositions and tenses used correctly.  Ok, this may be slightly outlandish nowadays, but then 'outlandish' is exactly what I am, having learnt English as a foreign language, by rote and by rule, from an early age onwards.  She even called me a 'professional foreigner' once.

I think I stuck it out because of conditioning in childhood, which this particular teacher managed to tap into. (She also reminded me of my mother) I went to school at a time when children were expected to behave themselves, to respect their elders and betters, before the time when the freedom of individual expression became the magic formula, the great be-all-and-end-all of education. In my day the omniscience of teachers was not questioned, we did, mostly, as we were told. I believe that my discomfort in the creative writing class arose from the gulf between my upbringing and my distrust of the tuition, apart from teacher's inclination to become personal when she found her view challenged.

The days of blind obedience to those in authority are over, I am glad to say, but I still feel that many of us  have  discarded respect for others at the same time. Has the pendulum swung too far? I hear that there are schools where teachers fear children and some parents, where children are not only insolent but physically aggressive.

Are there still professions which demand the same automatic respect they once did? Doctors, the clergy, teachers, bank managers, the legal profession, politicians, for instance, do we still see them as people to look up to? Beloved and I belong to the class of rogues and vagabonds; however, when representatives of the previously mentioned professions sit round my dinner table I find they boil their breakfast egg in the same water and for as long as I do.

Automatic respect for the sake of one's calling, is it a thing of the past?

"Blogging Is Dust"

"it's a waste of time, an exercise in futility, indulged in when the blogger hasn't anything better to do".

Or so my creative writing teacher says. We are not friends.

If anyone could do with this wonderfully stimulating community of friends, she could. Living in 'Long-Suffering-in-the-Mud", a hamlet of a dozen farm cottages and one large farm, with neither pub nor shop,  housebound with three small children, with a neighbour in the immediately attached cottage who makes it her business to measure, to the inch, where cars visiting the teacher's cottage park - on an otherwise completely empty and car-free muddy country lane - you'd think she'd greet the benefits of modern communication with a grateful tear in her eye.

Not so. I made the mistake of telling her that I blog and called the wrath of the scorned woman down upon my innocent head. Teacher sees herself as a bit of a poet. Not just a bit, but a published poet, with no less than three publishing contracts. All I needed to do was to check out Amazon or Virago, she said, and I'd find her. I checked, no teacher. That may be entirely due to my lack of tracking expertise; when I asked for enlightenment in the form of an url, I got no reply.

Teacher has, in the past, had a blog herself. She tried it for a while and found that she did little else but bitch and moan, she said. She found that friends who had blogs used them to fill in the gaps between 'proper' writing jobs. (Personally, I think trying to keep a blog going with interesting posts, is no mean feat. I should know.)  She also found that criticism was unwanted, that blogging is primarily for 'stroking' egos.  I concede, she may have a point there, but nobody forces anyone to pour lavish praise on blogs they don't really value. Actually, that would indeed be a silly waste of time and pretty pointless.

When I tried to defend writing a blog, mentioning some of the interesting people I have 'met' this way, she threw them straight back at me: "what are you doing here then, if you have access to and communicate with people whose writing you value so highly?" she asked, thereby making it personal.

Now I have to tell you, what "Here" in this context means: 'Here' is a kitchen in this small cottage in Long-Suffering-In-The-Mud, a kitchen table big enough for four students - three ladies well into middle-age and an elderly gent, who is also teacher's father - and a cat walking all over the table. This being rural England, you have to have a tea break in the two-hour session; tea breaks and gossip go together, so, taking into consideration a delayed start due to teacher having to finish her make-up, finish kneading bread rolls for dad or finishing off a conversation with a friend, who is not a member of the class, 'Here' means a very unprofessional total of max. one hour twenty minutes concentrated work.

I could forgive all that quite easily, we are in the sticks here with few options open; perhaps she was a professional who has fallen on hard times and is trying to make ends meet.  But this was not the only occasion I felt attacked personally - not my work, me - and I had already begun to feel uncomfortable on previous occasions. She was so vehement about blogging being 'dust' that she managed not only to knock my confidence but also make me question the pleasure I get from blogging.

For the past two weeks I have spent far less time online than I usually do, have not visited as many blogs and posted fewer posts than before. You may not believe this, but Friko's confidence is a very delicate plant, easily damaged and it has taken me some time to prop it up again.

I have decided to keep on blogging for as long as I enjoy it and give up this particular class instead. The Easter holidays are about to start and I shan't go back for the new term.