Merry - Atishoo - Christmas

I’d much rather publish a photo of a pretty Christmas motif than a picture of a cold virus. But I’d be telling lies. I am not saying that Christmas will be cancelled altogether at our house - still two days to go with a chance of recovery -  but anybody walking past our house might conceivably imagine that we keep seals or sea lions. Or geese. There’s honking, coughing, barking and an awful lot of wheezing going on. We are struggling.

All you lovely blogging people who have sent Christmas greetings, thank you very much. Sorry, but I can’t reciprocate. This is all you get.

A Very Merry Christmas

And Goodwill To All Humankind

Meditations On A Rainy Day III

The difference between these two pictures is 20 hours

and an awful lot of rain.

It’s the same stretch of river and the same willow tree.

For tonight the forecast says dry and very cold.

2014 has been good to me, or perhaps I have been good to myself? They say “Jeder ist seines Glückes Schmied”, or ‘Life is what you make it’. Even the ancient Romans knew that. Appius Claudius Caecus told us that  ‘Every Man is the Architect of his Own Fortune’. I expect everybody has their favourite proverb but do we all follow the sentiment?

Well, I think I’ve cracked it. For the whole of the year I was determined that apart from the odd stumble here and there my path would be smooth, that I would not let indifference, unkindness or bare-faced lying on the part of others, no matter how close the connection, push me into unhappiness or illness. And I’ve done it. Two separate relationships have made me very unhappy in previous years; one is severed completely and the other is cooling. So, that’s that. I am amazed at how easy it was in the end. I feel regret, but accept what is and cannot be changed. Both situations have been fraught with unease and pain in the past, in both cases a catalyst caused me to stop and examine my motives for continuing with them, when there was no profit and all loss. It feels good.

Half the young ladies in London spend their evenings 
making their fathers take them to plays that are not 
fit for elderly people to see.               G.B.Shaw

All the pleasures and happinesses of 2014 have been modest, play-going chief amongst them. Thanks to a good friend we have had many trips to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford; many more are planned for 2015. That wonderful new institution, Live Streaming from the foremost theatres in London, as well as the Royal Opera House, have meant that we hardly had to miss anything we crave. As well as going to poetry meetings in Knighton, over the border in Wales, we have resurrected poetry readings at our house once a month; wine and poetry in a circle of like-minded friends make for wonderful evenings which require little effort but give an inordinate amount of pleasure.

A Book Is Like A Garden Carried In The Pocket.

Chinese Proverb

Aren’t I lucky. I have both. An endless supply of gardens on my shelves and an outdoor garden for work and play. The balance has been shifting, I’ve allowed myself far more reading than gardening time during the year, partly due to the ease with which I can, thanks to a Kindle app, read for hours without stopping. Gardening has been important too but I’ve relaxed my harsh policy of eradicating every weed that dared show its face; or if a plant wants to lean over, muscling in on its neighbours' space, so be it. I will not chastise and imprison it in a rigid corset of stakes. Besides, I’ve dug up and given away many clumps of herbaceous plants this year to replace them with easily cultivated shrubs. But best of all is to be out in the garden in summer, drag a chair into the shade of a tree, fetch a drink and open a new book. Bliss. 

Writing is the only way I have to explain my own life to myself.

Pat Conroy: My Reading Life

To my great surprise, I’ve continued with blogging throughout the year. Had you asked me five years ago I would have said that this is an activity destined to last but a short time. I am posting less, reading fewer blogs, leaving comments only once or twice a week. I have made absolutely no effort to gain new followers and have cut down on the numbers of those I follow. But I am still blogging. It’s my only other addiction apart from a craving for chocolate. Will I give up either next year?

I often think that the night is more alive 

and more richly coloured than the day.

Vincent van Gogh

Leaning out of my window last night, breathing deeply to get rid of stale central heating air in my lungs before bed I looked up into a clear, cold, starry night. The swollen river hummed monotonously, deeply soothing to the spirit. The night was calm and so was I. Counting my blessings is not for me, but appreciating the joys of the simple life is. 

Whatever happens in the new year, I will be kind to myself. 

Meditations On A Rainy Day - II

. . . . . . . . . . but more along the lines of ‘All Passion Spent’;

Men grow too old to woo, my love,

Men grow too old to wed;

physical companionship, friendship and mutual goodwill between two people is a wonderful thing in itself; we leave the highs and lows of unbridled passion to those who have the energy. Peaceful co-existence may not be to everyone’s liking, but having experienced the opposite, this harmonious way of life is the one for me.

But there is something else we are no longer passionate about, something probably far more controversial,

Men grow too old for love, my love,
Men grow too old for lies;

and that is physical protest of any kind. Fighting the same old battles, over and over, to protect the environment, save the planet, take away from the rich and distribute to the poor, stop wars, stop hunger.

Fat chance.

Perhaps this is the unpleasant cynicism of age but, apart from making contributions in monetary terms, joining online pressure groups, and keeping our own footprint as light as possible, we now do nothing. When I watch those with two homes, a flat in the city and a house in the country, families with more cars than necessary, tourists flying to all corners of the world on short breaks and a couple of holidays a year, wailing over that poor polar bear stuck on his melting ice floe, I need to turn my back and bite my tongue. While we want to eat cheap and plentiful beef, the rain forests will continue to be destroyed. While we want to wear cheap t shirts, more and more people will have to work for hunger wages. While we want to own ever more gadgets, natural resources will have to be exploited until none are left. Someone, something, somewhere, always has to pay.

I don’t say that we, Beloved and I, have become indifferent, by no means, but we can do very little beyond what we do and for the sake of our own peace of mind we now leave protesting to the ones who will need this planet long after we have left it.

We accept our limitations.

Food,

Yes, food,

Just any old kind of food.

Pheasant is pleasant, of course,

And terrapin, too, is tasty,

Lobster I freely endorse,

In pate or patty or pasty.

2014 has seen the number of private social events shrinking too. And we don’t mind at all. Large parties are usually pretty boring, with all that standing around and shouting at each other;  small gatherings are less so, but only if the assembled company is easy to get on with. I used to do my utmost to ‘sparkle’, now I can barely muster a dull glimmer. The selfish gene has kicked in and I want return value for my effort. We still enjoy small lunch and supper parties for no more than six, both giving and receiving them. Even so, when we are the hosts the concentrated hard work before and afterwards requires at least half a day to recover.

Health problems come in to it, of course. If your heart is liable to set itself off in violent protest at having to cope with excitement you soon learn to keep yourself subdued. It’s been a good year though, I’ve managed half a dozen  episodes of AFib without having to be admitted to hospital.

Having to remain calm in the face of extreme provocation, i.e. “L’enfer, c’est les autres'', is something I have come to accept.

A thrill of thunder in my hair,
Though blackening clouds be plain,
Still I am stung and startled
By the first drop of the rain:
Romance and pride and passion pass
And these are what remain.

But the year has also been extraordinarily good to me . . . . . . . . . .


continued

Meditations On A Rainy Day - I

Twenty minutes to five and quite dark outside. It is a filthy afternoon of biting winds forcing thin draughts of cold air through tiny cracks in the frames of well insulated doors and windows. All the same, the house is warm and cosy and the wind-flung rain spattering the window glass makes me glad I am indoors and there is no need to leave the house this evening. Millie must take her chances and use the garden tonight. I will neither take her nor chase her out in this weather.

No season to hedge

Get beetle and wedge

Cleave logs now all

For kitchen and hall.

It’s perfect musing weather. With the year drawing towards its end I have been doing a lot of this lately,  a habit I indulge in at the close of most years. But this year something is different: I feel at peace with myself. No self-recriminations, no desperate desire to improve myself, my attitudes, no futile promises to do better, do more, get organised. No, I see no need for major change. Hubris, do you think? Coming before a fall? Yes, possibly.

It’s also possible that this is something to do with age. The period between the childishness of youth - with some people it can reach well into their late thirties - and the onset of second childhood

When all my days are ending
And I have no song to sing,
I think that I shall not be too old
To stare at everything;

and the foolishness of old age can be a wonderful time. One feels adult, not driven by the opinions of others. On Helen’s couch this morning, waiting for her to start ministrations on my face, we got to talking about how good it feels to turn ones back on hurts and offensive remarks. “You know when someone says something or does something and you say to yourself ‘Right, I don’t want this to upset me, don’t want to let it get to me, just let it go, but you know full well that it will anyway, if not now then later?” she asked. “So when the time comes and you really don’t care, when you know that some people cannot help themselves but behave unpleasantly and for years you have been trying to ignore them and their barbs and criticisms, and then suddenly you do ignore them and shrug your shoulders?”

“When you’re in control and not always looking over your shoulder to see how what you do or say goes down with someone else?”

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.

We were agreed that the journey to self-confidence has many obstacles.  Helen is a good 25 years younger than me, if she has already reached the blissful state of indifference in the face of baleful mischief-making, she has done well. It took me many more years.

All things considered, 2014 hasn’t been altogether fruitless. Beloved and I were having a conversation along similar lines last night; it’s seasonal, it seems. The word ‘passion’ was mentioned . . . . . . .

continued

What, December Already ?

Advent again? Really?

I swear they disappear one week in every four for us oldies. Perhaps they think we’re slow and couldn’t keep up if they made us do a full month. No matter how hard I look I cannot see into what black hole of forgetfulness the last twelve months fell. It’s discrimination. I never signed up for being short-changed. I want my money back!

It’s the season of dismal grey clouds again, with only the occasional - probably accidental - chink of sunlight raking the tops of the hills with thin fingers of light. So I’m back in my winter fleece with upturned collar, the dog lead necklace being a permanent accessory.

O Dirty December
Yet Christmas Remember.

This month keep they body and head from cold. Let thy Kitchen be thy Apothecary, warm clothing thy Nurse, merry company thy Keepers, and good hospitality thine Exercise.

so says

Neve’s Almanac of 1633

and so say I.

Advent Diary, day 24 - Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht

Christmas

I had almost forgotten the singing in the streets,
Snow piled up by the houses, drifting
Underneath the door into the warm room,
Firelight, lamplight, the little lame cat
Dreaming in soft sleep on the hearth, mother dozing,
Waiting for Christmas to come, the boys and me
Trudging over blanket fields waving lanterns to the sky,.
I had almost forgotten the smell of it all,
The coming back home, with girls laughing like stars,
Their cheeks, holly berries, me kissing one
Silent-tongued, soberly, by the long church wall;
Then back to the kitchen table, supper on the white cloth,
Cheese, bread, the home-made wine;
Symbols of the night’s joy, a holy feast,.
And I wonder now, years gone, mother gone,
The boys and girls scattered, drifted away with the snowflakes,
Lamplight done, firelight over,
If the sounds of our singing in the streets are still there,
Those old tunes, still praising;
And now, a life-time of Decembers away from it all,
A branch of remembering holly spears my cheeks,
And I think it may be so;
Yes, I believe it may be so.

Leonard Clark
1905-1981

On this most solemnly festive night in the German calendar may I wish all my readers and friends in this, our virtual world, 

A Very Merry Christmas

Advent Diary, day 20 - Gardener’s Christmas Tales (1st of 3)

A scene from “A Christmas Carol”  filmed in Shrewsbury.

This is Fish Street, with the Bear Steps just off to the left.

So, in December the garden is mainly found in a great number of garden catalogues. The gardener herself hibernates under glass in a heated room, buried up to the neck, 

not in compost, but in garden catalogues and books.

Gardener turned up not so much for work as to bring annual Christmas greetings, coming into the kitchen with clean boots, well-scraped on the mat, and ready for a cup of tea, a piece of cake and a long leisurely ramble over the past.

One of gardener’s pet grumbles is the ingratitude shown by kids. He had been telling us his favourite Halloween story, about how he’d given a ‘whole ruck of them’ sweets and bags of crisps, and how the ungrateful little blighters had opened the bags on their way to the garden gate and tipped them all out on the path. “They never got nothing from me any other year!” Gardener snorted in disgust.

“Christmas is just the same”, he continued."Who believes in Christmas today;  people under forty. they don’t even bother to go to Church, do they.”  (Gardener is not in the least religious)

“We were lucky if we got a present, a horange and a napple is what we got. The kids today’d chuck it back at you. Apple and orange is good for you, they tell you years ago. Fruits is good for you. Now kids don’t wanna eat it. If you had a banana they took the skin off you. I reckon if we all went to Church the world would be a lot better place. if everybody made a heffort to go to Church on a Sunday, dress up and go to Church, get to know all your locals and that, it would be a better place, like it did years ago. Like in Wales, see, they had Chapels, they used to dress up, all in their nines, go to chapel and they talk then, they’d get to talking, and they knew everybody in the village, all the scandal like."

"I can see my grandad now, with his trilby hat on and his suit on and his tie and all dressed up to the nines and his wife, granny, her ‘d have her big hat on as well, every Sunday, they’d walk about 2 1/2 miles to the Chapel. That’s the only time her take her pinny off, to go to Church Sunday morning, 11 o’clock like. get back for one o’clock for dinner and that. You’d put your meat in in the morning. and be back for one o’clock."

"The Welsh are more religious than what we are, chapelwise.  I used to go to Sunday school every Sunday from the age of 4 till I was 10 and-a-half. We left then, but up until then, every Sunday morning we was off to chapel, 2 miles away, we’d walk, all of us, we’d do drawing and all sorts, up at Ditton Priors. It’s still there, the little Chapel is.  Then at Christmas, we’d have a big do, in the main big Church, and in the Village Hall, and they used to give us a little present each, more than we had of our parents like.  It was a toy off the big christmas tree and they’d call your name out and you’d have to go to get your little parcel like, up under the tree."

"Mother’d give us a penny and you’d buy a penny stamp see and you’d put it in a book, off a Sunday, then you’d have your penny stamps all in there, I think mother got all the books, well I don’t know who’s got them now, but somebody’s got all the books, because we never cashed them in, so some lucky bugger’s got em or they’ve all been chucked away."

Part 2 to follow tomorrow.

Advent Diary, day 17 - Seasonal Symbols

My crabapple, Red Sentinel,  keeps on giving;

it’s a medium sized deciduous tree with showy pinkish flowers in spring 

and edible fruit in autumn; 

Red Sentinel also has gloriously coloured autumn leaves.

Blackbirds will be glad of the fruits as soon as the weather turns cold

when there’s little else on offer for them.

Mince Pie season officially - traditionally - began yesterday.

Originally rectangular in shape, mince pies were abominated as ‘Popish and superstitious’

by Puritans, and were described thus in 1656:

'Idolatry in Crust! Babylon’s Whore

Defiled with superstition, like the Gentiles

Of Old, that worshipped onions, roots and lentils.'

Later, however, the ‘solid, substantial, Protestant mince pie’

became the champion of the English Christmas against

‘imported foreign kickshaws’.

Ah well, from Evil to Virtue and back was ever just a short distance,

if it suited the prevailing fashion.

Personally, I dislike mince pies; 

they’re too sweet, too sticky, too unimaginative for my palate.

Mistletoe

is sold in outdoor markets everywhere.

Folklore says that it is on no account to be brought indoors until Christmas Eve.

Clearly, nobody told the owners of this barn restaurant.

Most powerful of all against evil is the rare oak-mistletoe, which should be gathered at New Moon without the use of iron, and never allowed to touch the ground; but mistletoe grown on apple trees or the sacred hawthorn is also especially worth having.

Mistletoe is likewise an aphrodisiac and a plant of fertility, hence perhaps the originally Welsh Border custom of kissing beneath mistletoe boughs decked with ribbons, nuts and apples. After each kiss, the lady concerned should pluck a berry and throw it over her left shoulder; and when the berries come to an end, so should the kissing.

There are an awful lot of berries on a bough!

Advent Diary, day 15 - Sailors’ Warning, Christmas Cards and the Dangers of Cats

 I should never watch more than 2 hours of TV at night and I certainly should not then go to bed and read a thriller until 1.30 in the morning; a fail-safe recipe for a disastrous night.  I must have slept in snatches, but I looked at the clock every hour on the hour until 6.30 this morning when I finally had enough and got up.

I dawdled and dithered before drawing the curtains but when I did, this is what I saw. Shakespeare said of such a sky: 

“ Like a red morn that ever yet betokened,

Wreck to the seaman, tempest to the field,

Sorrow to the shepherds, woe unto the birds.

Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.”

Hard to believe that a spectacular morning like this will soon turn into a wet and miserably grey day, even though there are plenty of metereological reasons. A German saying goes: Red dawn fills the well, red dusk will dry it.

Still, the miserable day had a good outcome, we finished writing our christmas cards. Music, a glass of Gluehwein and some chocolates were all part of the pleasure.

Finally, a bit of advice: Even in cold weather, beware of taking cats to bed for warmth.

‘As this beast has been familiarly nourished of many, so have they paid dear for their love, being requited with the loss of their health and sometimes of their life......for it is most certain that the breath and savour of Cats consume the radical humour and destroy the lungs and therefore they which keep their Cats with them in their beds have the air corrupted, and fall into severe Hekticks and Consumptions.’

Edward Topsell, History of Four-footed Beasts, 1607

You have been warned! Hecticks and Consumptions. Nasty!

Advent Diary, day 13 - Pre-Christmas Rant

There I was, thinking I would manage to post every day during the 24 days of Advent; okay then, I admit defeat. Who was it who said “the best laid plans of mice and men go oft a-gley”, or similar? At least my punishment is not grief and pain, just feeling a bit sheepish. I really admire bloggers who post more or less daily, particularly those who write about more than their daily routines.

We’ve been shopping, ordinary household shopping as well as Christmas shopping. I hate it. I have yet to meet anybody who has a good word to say for the pre-Christmas mania which seems to overcome a goodly portion of the population. For heavens' sakes, people, the shops will only be closed for 2 days max., and how much can you eat at one or two meals anyway? I am getting too old for pushing through crowds or standing in long queues, waiting for my turn at the check-out. Too old, too impatient, too cross, too cranky.

An added irritation is the canned music. Tinny Christmas songs on a loop, over and over. I stood in line, fuming, mouthing “Oh, shut up already” and glowering at people who were singing along. The proverbial old witch killing the Christmas spirit.

The only kind of shopping I can bear at the moment is the posh, expensive kind; small speciality shops where the customer chooses with care and baskets hold just a few items - you couldn’t afford to buy more - patisseries, hand made chocolate shops, smokeries for smoked fish and meat delicacies, a delicatessen, a cheese shop, a wine merchant. I love foodie treats. Ludlow, our local market town, is a foodie Mecca, a genuine slow-food-city, which still offers a choice between mass-produced and artisan-sourced goods.

I seem to remember having posted a similar rant last year, and probably for several years running. What can I do, give up pre-Christmas shopping altogether? I’d have to find something else to complain about.

Advent Diary, day 9 - Herbs and Advent Wreaths

Every year I put candles on a large wooden plate,

and arrange pine cones and small pieces of tree bark, sprayed golden, around them.

The proper thing to do would be to make an advent wreath

and either hang it from the ceiling if it’s very large,

or put it on a table which is not used for anything else.

For me, my plate suffices.

This year I decided to snip up some herbs and add them to the plate. Both bay and rosemary grow in the garden and both have a lovely scent when rubbed between the fingers, or simply placed in a warm environment.


Evergreen rosemary - the rose of the Virgin Mary -  is one of the special plants for Christmas. There is a lovely legend connected with it: it was believed to blossom at  midnight on Christmas Eve, and to have acquired its scent from the garments of the Infant Jesus, which the Virgin hung out to dry on a rosemary bush. Rosemary does indeed flower in winter.

‘Rosemary comforteth the brain, the memory and the inward senses. The distilled water of the flowers, being drunk morning and evening, taketh away the stench of the mouth and breath, and maketh it very sweet’.

Gerard’s Herbal 1636

Also:

Where rosemary grows, the woman rules the House. Anon

2nd Sunday in Advent, day 8 - Schwibbogen

Schwibbogen

Advent Diary, day 7 - Christmas Tub

In summer this large pot holds colourful annuals.

When they’ve finished flowering, they go on the compost heap,

but I leave the spent soil in the pot.

During Advent I stuff it with any colourful evergreens I can find in 

garden or hedgerow. 

Simply snip twigs and branches off shrubs, 

add a few dry flowerheads, 

push them into the soil,

and you have a pretty arrangement for the front of the house.

Free and easy.

Advent Diary, day 6 - The Feast of St Nicholas

Jan Jiri Heinsch

1647-1712

St. Nicholas giving alms to the poor and needy of his diocese.

All good children in mid-European countries had a lovely surprise today: St Nicholas brought them presents. Children who had been well behaved and never told fibs and never irritated grown-ups and were most unchildlike during the previous year were finally rewarded for their creepiness.

They might have saved themselves the trouble, the naughty ones had presents too, of course. They just promised to be good in future.

Jane Collier in her The Art of Ingeniously Tormenting (1753) had a splendid use for real pests:

‘There is no better use of having your children noisy and troublesome, than this of plaguing all your acquaintance. For you may suffer them, when you have visitors, to make such a racket that you cannot hear one another speak. Let them also, with their greasy fingers, soil and besmear your visitors’ clothes; put their fingers and dirty noses into the cream pot, and dribble over the sugar............... in short, be more troublesome and offensive than squirrels, parrots or monkeys.

Fair enough; but wouldn’t it have been easier not to invite visitors in the first place?

Advent Diary, day 5 - I’ve done it,

I’ve joined the ranks of the doddery, confused old ladies.
The ones with capacious bags, shawls and gloves and a head like a sieve.

I went for a hair cut today. It was a bitterly cold day with very strong winds and I shuttled up and down the high street as fast as I could. Perhaps that’s why I couldn’t find the Post Office on the way there. Actually, they’d moved it since the last time I went. Would you believe they’d hidden it in the back of the Boar’s Head ? They’re doing it to confuse old dears like me, I’m sure.

Much worse is what happened after the hair cut:  I left the salon, coat done up to the neck and scarf wound round head and shoulders, spoiling my fresh hairdo instantly. Half way down the high street I thought my face felt funny, something was missing.  I turned round and went back into the salon.
The girls looked up from the heads they were beautifying.

“Did I leave my glasses behind”, I asked, slightly shaky and unsteady from being buffeted by the wind. "I can’t see a lot without them. Or perhaps they’re in my bag?” I upended my large handbag and rummaged around in the contents, now piled on the waiting area sofa.

“Which glasses do you mean,” Justine asked, looking round for them, then looking back at me.

“You’re wearing them.”

Advent Diary, day 4 - Meatballs Seasoned With Tears

Jutta rang last night; her mum, my cousin Helga, had died the previous afternoon. Helga was my last real connection with family in Germany, the last person with whom I could play that wonderful, heartbreaking, haunting, game “Do You Remember?” Although she was ten years older than me, we shared many memories of childhood and the old way of life.  We telephoned each other just two or three times a year; each time the link was re-established effortlessly. We spoke to each other in Low German, laughing, giggling and sighing in unison, and recalling long lost family members. Now she’s gone.

When I’m sad, cooking helps. I enjoy cooking at any time, but in times of crisis I find preparing food to be both soothing and healing, the messier the better. I found all the ingredients in freezer and store cupboard: minced pork, a roll of sausage meat and a slab of stuffing with nuts and cranberries. Add marjoram, thyme and oregano, herby French mustard, salt and pepper and get kneading with your bare hands.

When all the ingredients are well mixed, form the meat dough into balls, again with bare hands, and either fry in a little olive oil or grill.

I fried mine; for one thing, fried food is comforting (I don’t very often indulge) and for another, you get these gorgeous burnt bits, which scrape into a delicious Hunter’s sauce made with wine and slivers of champignons.

We had a portion each for our dinner, toasting my dear old friend Helga and wishing her safe journey into the next world. It’s what we do in my world, food and drink are for the dead as well as the living.

Advent Diary, day 3 - In Ludlow

The plan was to leave home before midmorning, to drop Beloved off in town to do his errands at his own pace and for me to scoot around, rather faster, do some Christmas shopping, pop into Country Clothing for some much needed new trousers and maybe also replace a jumper; then go off to my afternoon meeting with the German Conversation group, which was the main reason for driving into town. I’d pick him up again in the supermarket car park and off we’d go, back home.

“So, what’s the plan then? What exactly is it you want to do in Ludlow”, said he.

“The same as I said last night,  do some shopping and pop along to the meeting”, said I.

“How long will you be?”

“That depends on when we’re leaving. Are you ready?”

“Yes, but seriously, how long will you need in town? I am thinking of the time I have to spend wandering around. And what about the dog?”

“Three hours, no less.”

“That’s rather a long time, isn’t it? And what about lunch?”

“The group will take up 90 minutes minimum. I won’t have time for lunch, I’ll buy a sandwich and eat it before the meeting, probably sitting in the car. And the dog will have to stay in the car too, until I have time to give her a walk.”

“There isn’t really much point in me coming, is there”, said he.

“That depends on what you need to do in town”, said I.

“Well, I have to go to the Bank, but everything else can wait. If you could go to the Bank for me, I could stay here with the dog.”

We had had a very similar conversation the previous evening. Beloved is by no means confused or mentally impaired, he just doesn’t like being left behind and he also doesn’t like spending time in town on his own. I think his secret plan was for a long, leisurely joint lunch, a quick visit to the Bank and for my shopping to find itself done miraculously, perhaps by the efforts of  Heinzelmaennchen,  those mythical fairies who in olden days allowed the good burghers of Cologne a life of indolence.

“Of course I’ll go to the Bank for you. Anything else?”

By now mid-morning had been and gone, Our conversations take a lot less time in the writing than in real time. They are dropped and picked up again in the ordinary course of leaving and entering the room, sorting bags, writing shopping lists, falling over the dog, getting the car out of the garage, putting the phone on charge, checking the temperature prior to choosing a coat and scarf, and making sure that the kitchen sink is safely stowed in the boot of the car.

Finally, I was off. On my own. Exhortations to take care and come home safely following me. I reached Ludlow just after 12 noon. No time to eat, barely time to shop, and as for Country Clothing, some other day perhaps.

Men.

Advent Diary, day 2 - In The Garden

On a cold, dank, misty 2nd December gardening was less a pleasure than it’s ever been. But needs must, there were the final leaves to be swept off the lawn, gutters to be cleared, the most unsightly of the herbaceous clumps to be cut down, previously dug up dahlia tubers to be laid in boxes, stem side up and covered in compost, ready for sprouting next spring. The job which saddens me most of all is the final rose pruning. I leave buds and half-open flowers for as long as possible, well after the first frost; the bushes look totally lopsided and unnatural before I tackle the task. Long stems with a cluster of buds at the end reach into grey skies, wind beaten and defiant,  However, if I want to safeguard the bushes, I must cut all long, sappy growth back, regardless of flowers; strong winds would otherwise rock the plants and damage - or even lift - the roots. So that’s what Paul and I did today; rescuing just a few buds here and there, which will probably not survive for more than a couple of days in the warmth of the house. The last rose of summer - doesn’t that sound sad?

Gardener still doesn’t know that there is a Paul in my life and garden. He was due here last Thursday; there was no call to explain his absence. He rarely comes during December, except to bring a small present and drink tea with us just before Christmas. The last time he came I made him linger over the tea break, asking endless questions about his childhood. He loves talking.

Advent Diary, day 1 - ... All The Lonely People

The first Sunday in Advent today and I received my first enquiry regarding our plans for Christmas.

“What are you doing for Christmas”, is the standard phrase used by everybody. “Have you got family coming?"

Millie and I were out for our usual afternoon walk around the castle. It’s close to the house and she can roam and explore to her heart’s content without having to be on a lead at any time. Mostly, I lose sight of her; at any rate, she knows her way home and I am free to wander and let my thoughts take me where they will.

As I was climbing the bank, Piper, a huge and unruly Gordon setter came bounding up to me, which meant Helen couldn’t be far away. I could hear her shouting: “Gently, Piper, gently.” Piper is friendly but there’s nothing gentle about him. Since he once thumped my knees so hard that he had me reeling, I am careful of him. Millie saw him from afar and came galloping to the rescue, imperilling my foothold even more. Helen soon reached us and grabbed hold of Piper’s collar.

“No family? Aw,” she said and pulled a face, implying that she was sad for me. “What about you, are you having a family Christmas?” I asked in return. Several members of Helen’s family live in Valley’s End. Helen looked away for a moment, then said, that no, she was going to have a quiet Christmas on her own and for once wouldn’t have to cook a turkey. “For the first time in 30 years”, she added. “We will have a family meal a few days before Christmas though.”  Helen was bright and cheerful about it. “I am going to eat cold things from the fridge and sit all day by the fire, doing nothing.” It was my turn to pull a ‘sorry for you” face. “No, no, she said, it’ll be lovely, I don’t often do nothing. It’ll be really good."