New Hope

 
After a mild period where lots of brave little souls have pushed their first cautious heralds above ground we have now been promised another cold spell with night frosts. Ah well, we may all be looking forward to Spring here in the northern hemisphere but February and March are often the coldest months of the year around here. Still, aren't they pretty, my aconites and snowdrops?

The pure gold of aconites

Snowdrops to gladden the heart

I saw the GP about my night terrors. There is nothing much she can do, there are no easy medications which would see them off.  The subconscious will throw up all sorts of detritus from a long life which has most certainly had its shadows and dark sides, and still has. What she suggested I do is to see a counsellor if the terrors don't end. In the meantime, I am to calm my mind as much as possible before bed and try to discard anything, people, activities, thoughts, that endanger my equilibrium. 

She is quite right, of course, now, at the end of my years, I really do not need to accommodate the toxicity of unwanted intrusion by whatever, whomever, whenever. That includes people like Freda. I slowly came to understand over the last few weeks that people like Freda are bad for me and that I am under no obligation to put up with them.

I went to a very interesting lecture and slide show on compost the other night. Yes, you read that right, a lecture on compost! Those who have read my burblings for some years may remember that I love compost and am quite a whizz at producing quantities of the stuff which then, with the help of the handsome hulk, get spread inches deep on my flower beds, there to await worms and other crawlies to pull the brown and crumbly treasure into the soil beneath. 

However, this is not really what I wanted to say. The lecturer was a German who had been a physician in civilian life (pre garden lecturing) and owns an ancient farmhouse with land attached to it, which he has turned, over 35 years, into a splendid show garden and woodland. During a break I asked what he thought of the UK, the dreaded Brexit and the political turmoil of the last few years and was he ever tempted to return to Germany. He smiled very nicely and calmly explained that he lives on his land, tends his garden, enjoys his labours and pays little attention to the machinations of the great and not-so-good. He said : "I have my settled status, I have my garden, my hobbies and some good friends". 

In other words, he lives in a comfortable bubble and cares little for the ills the great and not-so-good visit upon us. I too have my settled status (it means we can stay in the UK after Brexit), my garden, my books, a few good friends, what more is there?  

And yet, I find it hard to turn my back on the world and ignore the state of it. Perhaps I must turn my attention more often back to my great love, poetry. Poetry to soothe the troubled spirit and calm the unhappy mind.

This short poem by the Welsh poet Edward Thomas conveys a message of optimism about the approach of Spring:

Over the land freckled with snow half-thawed

The speculating rooks at their nests cawed

And saw from elm-tops, delicate as flower of grass,

What we below could not see, Winter pass.