Old Ladies

Just now I finished a phone call with a very old lady friend. Old in years, not so much old in friend years. One of these sweet old dears who rarely, if ever, have a bad word to say about anyone, gentle and mild, a white halo for hair, small in size, frail and delicate. Articulate, educated, well-mannered, a lady. Sometimes I have wished that she might drop the sweetness, even if just by accident and join the rough, crude, occasionally cross and sweary world I inhabit.

We got talking about Putin and the invasion of Ukraine. Is there anyone cognisant who doesn't? I said I want him dead, shot, eliminated.

"Shot?", she said. "Shooting is too good for him, I want him hung, drawn and quartered", she thundered, "I want him torn limb from limb". To my great delight the old lady was spitting nails. Obviously, I agree with her and told her so and it gives me hope that old does not automatically have to equate to lacking spirit.

Life is slowly, in minute increments, resuming pace. A well attended garden club meets monthly again in a village hall a twenty minute drive away. When I heard that two ladies (yes, oldish) from my neck of the woods were on the committee and would therefore go I asked for a lift. The driver very kindly agreed. These meetings take the form of a paid speaker giving an illustrated talk on their subject of choice with open questions at the end. I have in the past attended many such meetings elsewhere and enjoyed them and sometimes I didn't.

What is wrong with non-professional speakers? You'd think that, as they get paid, they'd get the basics right. The speaker that evening started by getting her microphone upside down, she then sat with her back to the audience staring down at her laptop, and mumbled her way through a very uninspiring talk with few and mainly boring photographs presented on the screen. How many beds of snowdrops can you take, how many pictures of men at work and heaps of earth waiting to be turned into flower beds? And finishing off with a picture of more old ladies crowding the cake counter in the cafeteria of the garden she was supposed to delight us with simply made me even more cross. All this and when you go to the rather famous garden's website you get some beautiful vistas.

As I had been given a lift by two friends active in the club I thought I'd better not say anything on the way home. Imagine how pleased I was when one of them said that the evening had been a waste of time, the speaker quite poor and not to be invited again. One of them asked the other if they should not point out to potential speakers that they should face the audience and speak clearly. "Not really," the other one said, "they might be offended". Such very good old lady manners, spend a boring evening rather than give offence.

The entire audience consisted of nice old ladies with just a sprinkling of old gentlemen. I didn't see anyone above middle height, under 65, and with any colour hair other than grey. I have a friend who says I am incredibly negative; she's right, of course. I must learn to stop being so judgemental and keep shtum, unless I find genuine cause for praise. I have my doubts, however, that I will succeed.

I have mentioned the German Conversation group before, well, we have commenced face-to-face meetings again; we are slowly working our way through "Die Deutsche Seele" (the German Soul) a many-paged book with essays on such German terms as Fussball, German Angst, Bauhaus, Wanderlust, all the way from A through to Z. Alternatively, we watch DVDs on German history, starting with the 9th Century and ending with the Weimar Republic, a thousand years later. That should keep us old ladies busy for some time to come.

All in all, life is picking up. 

Of Matters Temporal and Temporary

It looks like I am not going to take sensible advice anytime soon.

“I think this could be a lot of work to keep it all going. Are you sure you want to carry on? Do you think you can?”

I had my son and his wife for a visit and a lovely time of almost endless talking it was. My voice was quite hoarse when they left. However, to qualify, we chatted for hours, with the exception of the time they spent clearing up more of those heaps of prunings, choppings down, clearings out and repair man’s leavings that I seem to collect nowadays. Only about six weeks after the previous five trips to the dump another three followed this time.

My daughter-in-law admired what she saw but there was a definite look of concern on her face. She hadn’t been to visit for a year at least and, not only did I become older by a year, but my house and garden haven’t shrunk in that time. Even worse, my gardening obsession has returned and, my knees having become stiffer, my energy levels lessened and my old codgerdom having increased, she had every right to express doubt in my general ability to continue my slightly head-in-the-sand attitude. For the knees I have bought a kneeler: it is not too difficult for me to get down on my knees, it’s the getting up again that’s the problem. The kneeler has two upright handles which allow me to heave myself up quite easily. I combat the energy loss by working for short, hour-long, bursts and taking a rest in between. As for the old codgerdom I try to make a virtue out of it; I quite enjoy looking helpless and asking all those nice men who come to do jobs, and even neighbours, for assistance.

I believe that my d-i-l’s concern is genuine, not the ”let’s-put-mum-out-of-her-misery-and-put-her-in-a-nice-home-for-the-elderly" syndrome. Not at all. She did, however, while we were sitting idly not watching a TV show neither of us was interested in, look around and remark on the ’stuff’ I have. The full book shelves, china and glass cupboards, pictures, rugs, ornaments, CDs, vinyl, DVDs, etc; all the stuff one has around and hardly uses. And that was just one room. I could see she was really bothered, which in itself was unusual for me; nobody has been concerned for me in any way for years, maybe even decades. My own son has only recently started to ask “Are you alright, Mum?"

“What do you want done with it all?” she asked.
I was puzzled. “Done with it?”

“Yes, all this stuff that you value and enjoy and then somebody comes and takes it away, and your whole life just disappears."

I think she was thinking of so-called house-clearers who bring a van, tell you they’ll take it all away if you just pay them a few hundred pounds and skedaddle.

It appears she was worried about the two of them, after my demise (which she hoped wasn’t for a long long time yet), having to descend instantly, sort out and dispose of, and vacate the house almost the day after the funeral. Come to think of it, the funeral too was a problem, had I made any arrangements?

Poor d-i-l, she was thinking of her own parents after their death, when she and her sisters laughed and cried and reminisced while clearing out the former home. There are three of them to support each other. I think she was comparing their situation with mine, as she imagines it, solitary, unregarded and neglected and unloved by the very few family left. She only relaxed when I told her about the facts and procedures of probate (which I also hope won’t be necessary for a long, long time yet) and that there will be no need to vacate the house until after that complicated process has been finalised.

Her visit has made me think. She is quite right, I must go back over arrangements made years ago; I have actually been meaning to make changes to my will for some time now. Then there are unofficial bequests of bits of furniture, jewellery, books, etc. Charitable donations need decisions. And maybe I should appoint a second executor, the one named now is getting a bit old himself. And as I am going to live for a long long time yet, he might be senile by the time I pop my clogs.

However, regarding what started this all off, my daughter-in-law’s musings about house and garden and all things temporal and temporary, I say this: good advice is always welcome, but what you do with it is up to you. You only ever ask for advice when you already know the answer, having already made up your own mind anyway and all you are really asking the other person is to confirm your own decisions.

Having ordered a load of large plants like two Italian cypresses, a couple of bamboos, a mahonia, and a hydrangea, from a wholesale supplier on the internet, would confirm my decision: I am not giving up gardening and garden designing anytime soon.

Happiness Factor? It’s a joke, right?

So there I was, aiming for human interaction resulting in happiness, or at least a semblance of contentment.

Fat chance.

Not that it was all bad. A friend and I went off to see a modern re-imagining of John Gay’s 1728 work "The Beggar's Opera" by Mid Wales Opera Company, a production for small spaces and therefore very intimate. Renamed “Mrs. Peachum’s Guide to Love And Marriage” it is a splendidly bawdy, ballsy take on relationships and the relative virtues of virginity. We enjoyed it and, what’s more, my friend and I didn’t fall out in spite of getting into politics.

Another event was a Spanish Evening set up by a local group. There was tapas, Spanish wine, some haphazard music and three short, separate, talks about the painter Joaquin Sorolla, Spanish food and how the speaker liked to cook it and wine talk. The wine talk was the only professional talk, which means that the whole hall could hear that speaker. The other two never remembered to speak into the microphone, in spite of an audience member begging them to do so. What made it worse for me was that I had chosen to sit at a table towards the back of the hall (ready to scarper?) just in front of the wine table where the volunteer wine server chose to use the time of the talks to rearrange his crates of bottles, picking up each bottle, checking it for dregs and plonking it back into its hole in the crate. He took absolutely no notice of my anguished looks in his direction and clinked on busily. Not the most enjoyable evening all told.

You can simply not rely on people to do as they say. I took a very wheezy chest to my doctor; yes, he examined me, asked a few questions and came up with the idea that my childhood asthma might have returned. And yes, he was going to investigate and consult another doctor. "So, should I make another appointment,” I asked. “O no, I’ll ring you later this afternoon.” That was two weeks ago. Not a peep out of the surgery since then.

Gadgets aren’t a whole lot more reliable, either. The whole area had a power cut. When the power came back on after several hours I mentally congratulated the electricity firm and settled down for a cosy evening. By and by the room cooled down, quite considerably by the time I bestirred myself to check on the boiler. One very dead boiler. This was Friday evening of the coldest weekend this year with frost and freezing fog forecast. I fiddled around and tried to relight it but it just grumbled and coughed at me. I spent some time online trying to find the nearest engineer but gave up and rang the manufacturer's company itself - Worcester-Bosch - who are many miles away but have always seen me right in the past. Many miles away also means an expensive call-out, of course. “Yes, we’ll come, On Monday.” Between Friday evening and Monday morning I wore thermal layers, several pairs of thick socks, my pyjamas under trousers and jumpers - who is going to undress completely in a freezing cold bathroom? - , carried around two small fires, and forgot about personal cleanliness entirely. What on Earth do people do who do not have immediate access to the wherewithal necessary to pay for an emergency like this? I had ice flowers on the windows, for heaven’s sake. The female engineer discovered that the power cut had blown the circuit board. She replaced it, serviced the boiler and made sure that all was back in order before she left.

Next stop a major building job. I had my windows on the South side of the house replaced, all eight of them. I was pleasantly surprised by the result. Beloved would have been livid, several years before we debated if we should swap wooden windows for plastic. “Absolutely not,” was his conclusion. "Wooden widows are so much more attractive.” No they’re not, says I. They require constant repainting, repairing and splicing, none of it cheap. So now I have perfectly fitting, draught excluding, plastic windows on the weather side. I was also pleasantly surprised by the workmen doing the job. They were relatively quiet, cleaned up after themselves and caused minor disruption, allowing me to escape to a different room with each window. Even so, there was a moment when the boss man and I almost fell out. Over Brexit, what else. He was a fervent Leaver who trotted out all the long-discredited lies we were told three years ago. There is no getting through to some. I wished him Good Luck and left the room quickly.  I had learned my lesson from a previous experience, much more painful and embarrassing, which I’ll come to next.

You see, there was this dinner party at a very good friend’s house, the guests being a couple from London, a couple from Valley’s End and me. We have met at this house in previous years, always get on well and usually have a splendid evening, with lots of wine, food, good conversation and a general feeling of goodwill to all assembled. Except this time I related my experiences and feelings about the need to apply for Settled Status after 50 years of living the UK, once Brexit has become reality. O dear. It appeared that the couple from London and the host, with whom they were staying for the weekend, had already had a falling-out the previous evening. So my remark simply stirred the flames all over again. It was most unpleasant for a while, a lot of wine had been consumed and tempers flared, in a quietly genteel way, neither bad language nor insults were employed, but tempers flared. I know that families have fallen out, co-workers have fallen out, friends have fallen out over this wretched business but I never imagined that a genial host and his guests would suddenly, in the middle of a most enjoyable dinner party, stage a mini-war. At the moment the UK is not a friendly place.

So, human interaction is all very well, but it does not necessarily lead to happiness.

Keep Breathing

on this grey and dismal day. That’s about all we can do.

“Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'

I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. *

We had Brexit not so long ago, Although, in the scheme of things, Brexit isn’t on a par with what happened yesterday, the immediate impact on this side of the Atlantic was tremendous. Even for the winners. Impossible things seem to happen more and more and leave more and more people shell-shocked.

‘What I tell you three times is true.’ **

The morons are on the march everywhere.

Which reminds me of a story my foot health practitioner told me. She also works as a telephone operator for the WM Police - privatised, of course - and takes calls from sometimes desperate, sometimes urgent but mostly daft callers; some get passed on, for others there’s advice, yet others make no sense and are beyond help. This story is actually quite sad, as well as hard to believe, but true.

“Hallo, my car seems to have disappeared from where I left it.”
“Oh dear, I am sorry, may I take some particulars?”

Particulars, like name, address, car registration etc, duly taken, the operator continues.

“You are certain the car was parked in front of your house?” The caller is a lady in her 80s, the assumption that she might have been mistaken is not completely unlikely.

“Yes, I always leave it there. I had come in from shopping. A friend called and we chatted and when she left I saw the car was gone.” It was in the evening - grocery  shops are open late in the UK.

The operator remains calm and friendly. “I take it you heard nothing. Presumably the car was locked? The thief had to break in?”

“Oh no,” the old lady said, “I always leave it open. That’s what I do. It sits just in front of my house, you see.”

“Ah, you might have a problem with your Insurance then. Where was the key, did you take it in?”

“Oh no, I always leave it in the ignition, that’s what I do, you see.”

There is no way the operator could say 'you silly old bat’; she has to remain calm and concerned and keep breathing. And probing.

“What else was in the car, anything else that could identify it as your property? I will be putting a general call out right away and the more details we have the better.”

“Well, there was my shopping, I hadn’t had a chance to bring it in. And, of course, my handbag, on the seat in front. Where I left it when I came into the house with my friend. I’ve done that before and nothing happened."

The operator remained totally professional. “And what was in the handbag, your purse maybe . . . . “

“Oh yes, my purse with some cash, my cards and bits and pieces like that.” The old lady paused and repeated what she had said several times before. “It’s what I do, you see. It’s what I do.”




*Alice in Wonderland
** The Hunting of the Snark

by Lewis Carroll

Conversation

Tea break and Paul, Beloved and I are sitting in the conservatory over a cuppa. It’s eleven a.m. We’ve been depressing ourselves thoroughly, talking about politics and the mess current and future politicians are creating. We’ve roamed from national crises to the apparent willingness of a particular prospective politician to drop nuclear bombs as a means of emphasising a point.

Paul laughs, “this is depressing, have we had enough?”

I have been meaning to talk to him about a particular matter, which you already know but he doesn’t.

“I want to change the subject” I say, " it’s confession time”.
Paul sits up. “Oh dear?"

“Yes, my confession time.
You must have seen that various jobs have been done in the garden, but not by you?”

“Yes, I have,” Paul is all ear and I can tell he is getting nervous.

It comes out in a bit of a rush. “I have been very unhappy with the state of the garden for some time, as you know. It looks like we’re never going to get on top of it. I can’t do as much as I once did and your three or four hours a week, with interruptions because of weather, illness, other obligations, don’t cover the work there is.”

I carry on talking, noticing a bit of a pink glow on Paul’s face. But I need to say it all, I can’t allow misunderstandings.

“So what I did was ring Austin, my previous gardener and ask him for help. I asked him to chip in with two or three sessions a month, mornings only and he agreed to come. Do you mind awfully?

Paul swallows hard, I think he thought I was going to dismiss him.

“Not at all,” he said quickly. “Not a bit. I do as much as I can but I never thought I could do the garden all by myself during the hours I have available and I can’t give you more time.” He repeated himself. “I do as much as I can but I always said that if you need someone else that’s alright with me.” I’m not sure that he said that about someone else in so many words before, but I’ll take it as fact.

We’re both relieved. Wisely, Beloved has kept out of it. Paul does his whole speech again,  and I redo mine about being unable to do as much as I’d like to do, about being sad and having lost interest because of the uphill struggle, about even Paul's and Austin's combined mornings not covering as much ground as a fit and healthy Austin and me used to cover over a monthly average.

We’ve finished our tea, Paul and I get up and say “Best crack on.” We drop the subject and instead talk about the newly pruned hedges. The hedge cutters came yesterday and there’s a bit of their mess left behind, although they cleaned up after themselves as well as they could.

Paul’s going home time is one p.m. He collects his bags and I stand at the backdoor with his pay and some magazines I keep for him during the week. As he turns to go he says  “Thank you for being open with me, I noticed that you had had work done but I thought you weren’t going to mention it.” He gets a bit pink again and I go a bit mushy myself.

“Of course I needed to tell you”, I say. We’re both a bit touched at how well we understand each other. “See you next week,” we call out in parting.

After Paul has left I tell Beloved about his comment. “Well, you did that rather nicely,” he says. “You spared Paul’s feelings and still got what you wanted.”

What is WRONG with these people!

Receptionist: Hello, good morning, may I confirm a few details first?
Me: Certainly.
Receptionist: Name? Could you spell that?
Me: Certainly. (I spell my name.) 
Receptionist: That’s brilliant, thank you.
(Brilliant? It’s brilliant that I know how to spell my name?)
Receptionist: Address? Post Code?
(Again I comply, singing out address and Post Code.)
Receptionist: Excellent, that’s great, thank you.
(It’s excellent that I know my address? What kind of moron do you normally deal with?)  

Replies to her question as to who my doctor is and which surgery I use meet with unqualified rapture on her part. She is beside herself in praise of my intellectual acumen.

Finally, she hands me a form and invites me to sit and wait.

I say 'thank you', as good manners require.

Receptionist: NO PROBLEM.
(What? Who said anything about ‘problem’. Of course, there’s no problem. Wouldn’t ‘You’re welcome’ have been more appropriate?

I’m next for the scan; a young man calls out my name; first name only, pronouncing my surname is beyond his capabilities. I walk into the room where the huge scanner lives.

MRI technician: you can put your bag over there, pointing to the floor next to a table with a small machine on it. I comply and look a question at him about where best to put my coat. He points to the same general area. There is no chair in the room.

Me: okay if I put my coat over the machine?
MRI technician: GO FOR IT.

Go for it? GO FOR IT? I am raving. Speechlessly raving.

A Week’s Worth of Positive Thought

birch in November

maybe.

Try as I might I can’t find anything good about November, except that it’s nearly over and hasn’t been too onerous a month this year. In fact, it’s been flying by; what happened to it, where did it go? There’s been barely enough time to indulge in proper misery and the trough of despond and I hardly touched sides, although I tried my best. (Any more cliché-d phrases and I shall make myself sick).

Misery and I are good friends, and sometimes I positively relish her. Still, I’m going to try and give her up, at least for a week. The fault for this decision lies with a friend I met in the village yesterday. We were standing in the middle of the roadway - we do that here in Valley’s End, cars frequently have to make their way around gossiping villagers - catching up. It was dark and dank and dismal and I was hoping she would join me in a moan and a whinge about  . . . .  well, anything really. I’m not fussed. But no, she said she had decided to find something to be pleased about in every day, little, unimportant things maybe, but something to cheer herself up. I had always thought of her as made of sterner stuff, stiff-upper-lip stuff, after all, she is a scientist, but there you are, this mania for ‘positive thinking’ can hit anyone at any time.

Alison was particularly chuffed yesterday because she had been making mayonnaise; the mayonnaise had promptly curdled and she was about to throw it out when she pulled herself up, addressed herself in a firm voice and set about uncurdling it. She succeeded and she has a jar of decent mayonnaise to show for it.

So, just to see what it feels like, I too am going to try to find a small pleasure in every day for one week. And shall report on success or failure here.

I do so hope I won’t regret this. 

A Do-Gooding Liberal Goes To The Pub.

The first thing I heard was a woman’s loud voice: “ Oh, he’s gorgeous. What a lovely boy.” She went on and on in the same vein. “What a darling. Look at his beautiful eyes. Just look at them. Oh, you darling, you are a beauty, Here, let me cuddle you.” And more. “You are a sweetie, and so good. Isn’t he well-behaved”.

I was sitting, on my own, at a corner table in the Church Inn in Ludlow, right hand stabbing at scampi, chips and salad, left hand holding my iPhone book.  I couldn’t see who this miracle creature was, but obviously the cutest thing on two legs. Two legs? Surely not, nobody makes as much fuss of a child. Besides, there’s always a ‘coo-chi-coo in it when there’s a baby involved. This creature was not being patronised, this creature was admired as a paragon and petted.

Ah, petted. It had to be an animal, most probably a dog. The Church Inn allows dogs to come in. Children are allowed in too but  not quite as welcome. Finally, the woman stopped shouting and a couple came past my table, making for the exit. They had a large, rather stout and very hairy dog in tow.  He was indeed well-behaved and docile, his lead hanging fairly loose and all three of them relaxed. The waitress, for such she was, followed them for a few steps, stopping at a table opposite me. “He’s lovely,” she sighed and “isn’t he a big boy.”

She had my full attention now that I could see her. Fortyish, a bit buxom, like all the best barmaids, dressed in tight-fitting black clothes, black boots, with dark abundant hair pinned back with combs. A real pub landlady.

The table opposite me was occupied by a middle aged couple, having a sandwich lunch. They were clearly regulars, because the waitress appeared to know them.

“I prefer them to children”, she offered. “You wouldn’t believe the kids that come in here sometimes. Chucking food around, crying and shouting, running between the tables and having big enough tantrums to frighten the customers away. The other day there was a kid who scribbled all over the table with his crayons. Would you believe it?”

“I wouldn’t mind so much if they were regulars. No, they come in once and think they own the place. Think their kids can get away with murder. Tourists are the worst.” November is not tourist season, there was no danger that one of that particular breed of customer was within earshot. Ludlow depends very much on the tourist trade and it would never do to insult a tourist to his face.

“Give me dogs any day". She stopped for a minute to make sure she wasn’t offending the couple at the table. “Do you have children?” The couple shook their heads. “Right, you’re like me. I don’t have kids either, never wanted any. Dogs are less hassle any day.”

“Actually,” she continued, in full flow once again, “I blame the parents. Do they stop the little darlings from creating havoc? Do they, heck. Not likely. It’s all - here her voice attempted a posh accent - 'do stop it, darling; don’t do that'. But they don’t really stop them. Bloody liberal do-gooders. "

Eh? I must have missed something. Where and when did liberal do-gooders come into the picture?

“Bloody liberal do-gooders, that’s who I blame,” she continued. When I was naughty as a kid, I got a clip round the earhole and a smart smack on the back of my legs. Didn’t do me any harm. Nowadays, you’re not allowed to touch them.” The couple agreed with her and all three snorted in disgust.” No, give me dogs any day. No trouble, dogs.”

All this time I kept my head well down and my eyes fixed to the screen of my phone but certainly no longer reading. Would the waitress recognise me for who I am when she saw me? A bloody do-gooding liberal? Finally, she turned away from the table opposite, came over to me and reached for my now empty plate.

“Alright?” she asked in a mellow voice, and much reduced volume. “Everything alright Darling?” Weakly I nodded. “Yes thanks, lovely.”

Resourcefulness, Frogs and Rumour Mills

Guiseppe Arcimboldo  -  Autumn  -  1573

Post Autumn Equinox, and the nights are drawing in. Beloved and I have had no enjoyment of summer at all; a whole barrowload of problems has seen to that. And when his problems lessened came the tailend: first I fell over, then I came down with a sudden cough and bronchitis which are lingering. Cough medicine on an empty stomach made me feel nauseous. Resourceful as I am, I thought to make myself sick with a finger down my throat. The resultant dry heaving was not only extremely painful, it also set off a bout of AFib. Once again, resourcefulness was called upon: I took a double dose of my beta blockers, paracetamol and a tranquilliser (Oxford spelling - I just looked it up!) right away, and the ordinary dose at the regular time. Whenever I tell a doctor they present a short intake of breath, and mumble: “some cocktail”. Anyway, it worked.

I have written about nothing but doctors and ailments and our general physical decrepitude for weeks. And even that only very intermittently. No wonder followers are leaving in droves. (I can’t be bothered to find out who you are - so no repercussions.) Thank you to all who have stayed with me, sent good wishes and wrote lovely comments. It feels good to know that one is not alone when the going gets tough and that others too have experience of sad times.

I am trying to make gardening easier. Removing clumps of herbaceous perennials I often come across co-residents, as this frog. He hopped away from me when my fork came a bit too close for his liking but he jumped no more than a couple of feet, there staying stock-still and posing for my camera. I encourage these fellows, in their capacity of slug police they cannot be faulted.

For several months a rumour has haunted Valley’s End that our favourite doctor, the one who saved our lives during the recent calamity, is about to retire. One chap had him taking up a job delivering BMWs, somebody else said there was general short-livedness in the doctors’ family and he was going to retire to enjoy whatever time he had left; yet another person had it for definite that the doctor’s wife had killed herself and he just couldn’t get over it. And more, each reason more outlandish and far fetched.

I can’t be doing with rumours, I need facts. At the end of the last consultation with him, we had the following conversation:

Me : “What on earth are we going to do without you?
Doc., laughing: “Nobody is indispensable”.

Me: “O yes, you are. You are too valuable for us to lose you. You are the only one who takes the time to explain things. Besides, you aren’t old enough to leave.”

Doc., laughing again : “well, I will be 60 at my next birthday. But leave? Not as far as I know. Who says?”

Me :”There’s a strong rumour doing the rounds that you are about to leave, even worse, that you are leaving before the end of the year.”

Doc. “Leave? I’ve already booked a holiday for the rest of this year and put in a holiday request for next year. So it might seem that I’m keen on holidays but I’m not retiring just yet.”

Beloved, heaving a great sigh of relief,: “Right, so I can be sick for a bit longer.”

Laughter all round.

Who comes up with such drivel? How does the rumour mill function? Who sets it off? Many patients have been going from person to person, doing the ‘between you, me and the bedpost’ dance, upsetting many others. As soon as I am told anything ‘in the strictest confidence’ I know I am being but a cog in the rumour machine, expected to spread the word.

Well, no. Find another muggins.

A Man's A Man For A' That

taken from the bailey looking up the valley

K. has been a neighbour for several years. We meet walking our dogs, K. has a lovely collie called Sam; Millie can take or leave Sam, but she adores K. She and I were halfway up the hill when she spotted K. below us in the meadow by the river and down she raced to make a fuss of him and have him make a fuss of her.

K. is a strange chap, lives on his own, is extremely hard up and spends most of his time - up to 8 hours a day - making wood carvings with a religious theme. He is self taught and tells me he has never sold a piece. Beloved and I knew that he suffers from depression, we have had long talks with him (I have given him wood for his fire from the garden and once or twice I’ve paid him to look after Millie; he terminated the arrangement, not me. I’d have been happy to employ him as an occasional dog sitter), these talks have been on the doorstep, his or ours, and in the field, never in the house before.

When he saw me on the hillside he climbed up, Sam and Millie following.

After a desultory exchange about the weather and “haven't seen you around for a while and how are you?” K. laughed his strangely strangled laugh and said he would love to find himself a partner. “Oh yes?”, I said. “Yes, but all the single women in Valley’s End are lesbians; “. He continued, "I was thinking what a nice woman J. is but then Hen told me that J. is a lesbian. Hen is a lesbian, Trish is a lesbian, Jane is a lesbian . . . . ."

It’s true, considering the size of Valley’s End, we have perhaps a disproportionately high number  of lesbian and gay neighbours. Safety in numbers? Although that is surely hardly necessary nowadays. Maybe I’m a bit slow on the uptake but I didn’t consider being a lesbian (or gay man, for that matter) any kind of bar to making friends.

“Yes, but I don’t want a friend, I want a partner.” K. continued, “but then I’m probably asking too much anyway.” He began to count off on his fingers the qualities he required in a woman. “She’s got to be a good cook, she’s got to like opera, she needs to be into art, she needs to be able to put up with me. . . . “

“Aha,” I said, not being particularly tactful, “and what can you offer in return?”

K. choked. “Sweet eff. all”, he said. I’m no good at anything, haven’t a penny to my name, and I certainly wouldn’t want to put up with me.”

I suggested he might like to try and make friends first and to that end I invited him to “come on, come with me and have a cup of tea; we’ll wake Beloved from his afternoon nap and chat.” K. was very keen instantly, and I’d had enough of standing on a windy hillside by that time.

Like many lonely and solitary people K. turned out to be a great talker. After he’d admitted that he wished they’d lessen with the years, we dropped the subject of his amorous needs, and he suddenly quoted the beginning of T S Eliot’s Ash Wednesday

Because I do not hope to turn again

Because I do not hope

Because I do not hope to turn

Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope

I no longer strive to strive towards such things

(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)

Why should I mourn

The vanished power of the usual reign?

and from there it was but a short step to a discussion of singing and music, (K. has had training as an opera singer), poetry in general and T S Eliot in particular, drama, the arts, etc.

“There,” I said, “you have a lot to offer, even if you have no money. In a place like Valley’s End you find many people with tastes similar to yours. What about joining a choir, for a start? Or a drama group?” I wasn’t quite ready to invite him to join our poetry group.

“No, I couldn’t”, he said. “I have been told that I have an excellent voice - (true, he is a powerful baritone) - I wouldn’t really fit in with any local choirs or drama groups. Besides, they wouldn’t want me.”

And then the flood gates opened. “I don’t fit in anywhere.” He quoted Philip Larkin’s ’This Be The Verse’ which starts

They fuck you up, your mum and dad. / They may not mean to, but they do. / They fill you with the faults they had / And add some extra, just for you.  

K. is 61 years old and still chewing over the hurts and grievances of childhood and youth, still craving the love he believes he didn’t get as a child.  It is the common story, self-destructive and a barrier to living a full, independent life.

His background is totally uncultured, his parents and siblings are working class people with no pretensions to being anything else, content with their lot. They haven’t read a poem or a book in all their lives. He left as soon as he could for London and education. He did college courses in various subjects, trained as a singer, earning a precarious living in his spare time. “But I couldn’t finish any of the courses,” he said, “ I even did half a Masters in arboriculture. But I ended up in an office, which I hated. I absolutely hated it.” K. began to drink. And carried on drinking for years. He finally hit absolute rock bottom, which is when he ‘was saved’, found religion of a sort and joined AA . He seemed still amazed at what he found there. He said “There were all these people, drunks like me, but they were sober now and jolly, clean and smartly dressed, with jobs and a purpose in life; they didn’t need drink to get them through the day anymore.”

He talked for over an hour, occasionally close to tears. The main impression I had, and still have, is that he needs to find a reason for his years of self destruction and he finds this reason not within himself but in others, his family and circumstances.  In other words, he blames others. He appears to be totally lacking in self confidence at the same time as having unrealistic schemes of making his carvings count for something in the art world by approaching religious bodies, incl. the Vatican.

If only K. could learn the truth of Robert Burns' famous lines which say that wealth, or lack of it, and social class should not be the measure of a man’s true worth.

A Man’s A Man For A’ That

If he gave himself half a chance K. could be that Man.

SHORTS - Gossip

One winds on the distaff what the other spins. (Both spread gossip). 

Pieter Bruegel the Elder - Dutch proverb

Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about

the personal or private affairs of others.

Prudence said we should come and have a coffee. I accepted with alacrity. Sometimes I like to gossip. Problem is, I never know any, so people like Prudence are very useful to me after a long period of abstinence. Before we go, I arrange for a parade of people in my mind’s eye whom I haven’t seen or heard of for a while and with whose current circumstances I need to familiarise myself. Not all the gossip is malicious; Beloved came too and he wouldn’t stand for that, but some bits are just too juicy to keep under wraps. Prudence is an old lady, one of the many in our small village who can be relied on to have her finger on the pulse of public opinion on any delicate matter, like who has offended whom and why, who’s having an affair with whom, whose son is in trouble, etc. On this occasion it was righteous indignation at the shenanigans of an 80+ year old who very recently buried his wife and is already actively on the look-out for her replacement. Well, at 80+ he doesn’t have all that much time left for renewed nuptials; I can quite see the reason for the hurry. All the same, we were united in tutting at such callous bad taste, as well as wondering who could possibly be desperate enough to take him up on the offer.

In a historical thriller I read recently ( one of C.J. Sansom’s Shardlake series - highly recommended if you want something light, fast paced, Tudor, and well researched) the etymology of the word gossip was mentioned. So I looked it up. It comes from Old English gossib, god sibb,  a godparent, close relation, confidant. What an enormous distance for a word to travel,  from something good like a sponsor, a friend and mentor, to an idle tittle-tattler who can cause real grief and unhappiness. 

Beloved must have been quite confused, he left one of his gloves behind, he thought. One glove on its own is an abomination, if you must lose one, make sure you lose both. Having hunted high and low, not finding it, even retracing steps from Prudence’s door to ours next morning, I rang her. Putting the receiver down I heard a voice from the lobby: “It’s alright,” he said, “found it. It was here all the time. Pretending to be a plastic bag.” Do you wonder I need the odd bit of light relief occasionally?

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

Vox Populi

Kelly stopped vacuuming and poked her head through the living room door on her way to doing the stairs.

“So, what about this Ebola then.”

"It’s scary.”

“Yeah, it is. Very. Have you heard? They’re looking for a whole planeload of people. One of them nurses went on a plane to a party, a wedding or something, and she was already sick. Had a fever, which is when you’re most contagious.”

“Really? No I hadn’t heard.”

“They’re saying it was a real cock-up, the hospital not noticing and letting her go when she was already sick. It could be all over the place by now."

“Hm, that sounds extremely careless. And dangerous."

“It’s criminal. I’m going to start stockpiling. I don’t want to get it.”

She laughed, but I could tell she was at least half serious. She patted the wooden cupboard just inside the door with the flat of her hand for luck.

“I don’t want to get it,” still laughing nervously and patting the cupboard again, “not me and my kids anyway. Everyone else will have to look after theirselves. It could be like the pest again. They say it could have been Ebola that time when all them people died of the black pest and that it could spread like that again. It was all over the news.”

Kelly was by no means finished. Breathlessly, she continued. "It always happens when there’s too many people. Diseases and wars, I mean. And what they’re really worried about is that the virus mutates and becomes airborne. I’m getting prepared, at least with getting a few things in stock. You never know.”

No, you never know.

I don’t know Kelly’s source of information but it must be popular mass media, what else could it be. She withdrew her head and turned her attention back to the vacuum cleaner. Kelly is by no means a callous, uncaring person with an eye to the main chance. She is a professional carer (as well as a cleaner for a few select clients)  and the way she speaks about her charges gives me the impression that she genuinely cares about the aged and frail. There are many around like Kelly in the West, ordinary, decent, hard working people who worry about many things; could this be the beginning of world wide panic? I hope not. I hope that those 'who know', in other words ‘They’, know what they’re doing. Does that sound at all likely to you? After all, had they woken up sooner to the disaster unfolding in West Africa, the outbreak might still have been containable. But that was West Africa, a long way away from our hygienically safe world.

o-o-o

PS:  Her morning’s job done and making ready to leave, Kelly shouted up the stairs: “See you next week. Unless I’ve got Ebola by then. Byyyyeeee!"

What’s HE Doing?

Thanks Hilary

The waiting room in the skin clinic was quiet; people were  reading, staring out of the window, occasionally shuffling their feet and drinking water from plastic cups filled at the water fountain. Although the clinic was busy, there were plenty of empty seats and the atmosphere was peaceful and patient. Everybody was middle-aged and older except for one young mother and her son, a little boy too young to be able to read but old enough to look at pictures and recognise what they depicted.

I had my Ipad to read; there was one empty seat between me and the little boy and his mother. The centre table held a pile of magazines which soon engaged the child’s interest. He fetched one magazine after the other and plonked them on his mum’s lap; once he’d collected the whole pile he asked mum to open them and to look through them page by page. So far so good, he was perfectly quiet and didn’t really disturb anyone else, except those who might have wanted to glance at a magazine themselves.

Now comes the bit I found to be worthy of comment: the magazines had pictures, the usual stuff,  people, cars, houses, etc. The little boy pointed to each picture in turn and said “What’s HE doing”, the emphasis on the ‘HE’ regardless of the subject.  Again, that in itself is no great cause for concern but to me the mother’s reaction to his unchanging question was. Invariably, patiently, kindly, she answered him by telling him that 'the car was shiny, the man smartly dressed, the house big, the lorry articulated', etc. etc. Never once did she do what to me would have been the most natural response, namely to invite the child to explore the picture with her and for the two of them to work out what was happening in it.

After about the 20th ‘What’s HE doing’, I muttered under my breath ‘You tell me, mate’. He heard me and very briefly looked at me, but quickly turned back, continuing as before.

Is learning really just being told what’s in front of you or is a great part of it discovering things for yourself, with the help of someone else naturally, working them out, browsing, getting them wrong sometimes but persevering nevertheless. It’s a long time since I had small children but I can’t remember ever just stuffing them with ready made answers to their questions. Not that they would have appreciated this, they probably complained that I ‘made a fuss’ and 'talked too much’.

There is this lovely story about David Attenborough  -  Godfather of Natural History TV  and one of Britain’s National Treasures  -  as a young boy finding an animal bone in the garden and taking it to his father, a GP, who pretended not to recognise it. Instead, they pored over zoology and anatomy books together. “They shared the excitement of discovery."

If one of the little people in your household shows open curiosity and a wish to explore, indulge them, and gently lead them on the path of discovery. You might even learn something new yourself.

I Want Dogs' Ears, Please

Last weekend we went to a dinner party, that high point of social interaction. Yes, there are still people who invite us; in case you are wondering why, I keep this blog secret. You know my general opinion of parties and social events, but some dinner parties are great. This one was. A group of bright, clever, articulate people assembled round the table in a convivial house, I really don’t know how we got through the IQ security gates; a temporary wand malfunction? There was a real life published literary novelist (not like so many of us blog scribblers calling ourselves writers when all we do is pen blogposts of questionable quality - yes, you in high dudgeon over there, I am including myself). There was a painter, again real life, a journalist and writer of academic books,  and assorted actors - teachers - singers. All very much real life. And, like I said, us.

A dazzling company. No wonder the host forgot about my food allergy and cooked Coronation Chicken with creme fraiche instead of mayonnaise. He gave somebody who can’t eat red onions a side dish containing lots of them and another guest carefully examined the chicken for bits of mango. Mangoes bring on an asthma attack in him. (Notice that I am handing you an idea for an icebreaker if you ever need one at one of your own lavish parties?  Free of charge. Just make the food memorably inedible for a section of the guests and you’re more than halfway to a successful evening. Provide enough quality wine and the guests will be begging you for another chance to be poisoned by you).

But the conversation was great. So was my food in the end. The host magicked me a delicious omelette in the blink of an eye. I was served before the other diners had had access to all the dishes going round.

Getting back to the conversation - the two gentlemen either side of me were extremely adept socially, each spoke to me in turn.  Just as it should be. You turn to your partner on your left and then, at a suitable break in the conversation, or when the next course is served, you dazzle the lady on your right. And so on round the table.

I  hate it when there are several conversations going on at the same time because I always want to listen to the other one. You could just have four people, of course, but then there wouldn’t be enough different viewpoints. And I admit to liking a rowdy table, particularly as the evening progresses. I noticed that the ladies sitting in the middle didn’t bother with dinner party rules: they just spoke across and to right and left as they pleased. This particular host frequently places me at the top end of the table, thereby putting me at a disadvantage, at least until we are all suitably relaxed and I can lean over, usually into the pudding, to catch what is being discussed at the other end.

This is where dogs’ ears come in. Dogs can swivel their ears independently from each other, helping them to identify and capture sounds from different directions, even pick up sound from far away. They can hear things that haven’t even been said yet. As in thunder, for instance. Mille knows about thunder in the next county when I’m still chewing on the first course and she can hear a doggie biscuit tin rattle while she is deep in conversation (i.e. with her nose up another dog’s bottom) in the field by the river.

Hang about though, I’ve just thought of another, more easily achievable way of not missing out at table: dinner parties with a round table. Then we will all be shouting across at each other! No tops or bottoms involved! In or out of the pudding.

Brain Boxes

What comes first: a great intellect or a great memory? Can you have one without the other?

We have just waved goodbye to a couple of visitors, family, who are doing a tour of the UK and came for a flying visit lasting less than 24 hours.  Eve is of ordinary intelligence, artistic, Adam's the brain box.

It’s impossible to have an argument with Adam. He’s read every book on every subject remotely connected with natural sciences, history, the environment, literature, etc. etc. He remembers them all and can quote every argument expounded in them. It’s most tiresome.

Not every book written is worth the pulp it’s made from, whether wood, cloth or grass. New research unearths new facts and findings all the time; some last, others are overthrown.  My mum used to say “paper is a patient medium, you can tell it anything, it never complains”.

We were talking about the theatre. Beloved and I are enjoying a particularly rich period of play-going, mostly Shakespeare. We love it.

“Ah”, says Adam, “ did you know that there are great doubts that Shakespeare wrote the plays?”

Yes, we had heard. Theories as to who wrote ‘Shakespeare’ are as old as the hills.

Most people are content to accept that an Englishman with that name was born in 1564, died in 1616 and wrote plays, sonnets and poems in the interim that changed English literature forever.

Some, however, see things differently. They don't doubt that the man from Stratford-upon-Avon existed, or that the plays attributed to Shakespeare are foundational and sublime. But elements of the Shakespeare canon are incompatible with his known biography, they say. An intimate knowledge of court affairs. Fluency in French. Familiarity with Italy. Shakespeare, they claim, was not written by Shakespeare.

Not only that, but  no hand written manuscripts are in existence and his signature appears only twice, with different spelling.

It seems that a Stanford Physics Professor has developed a scientific way of evaluating Shakespeare.

Adam had obviously either read the new book or detailed reviews of it. We hadn’t and aren’t likely to do so. He had us silenced pretty quickly. I couldn’t even work out if Adam himself believed in the theory he threw at us, or if he was merely playing Devil’s Advocate. Don’t you just hate it when somebody’s superior intellect and phenomenal memory grind you into the dust?

There were other debates and arguments, none of which we won. We are exhausted.

Eve spent a lot of the visit texting and phoning.

Where Are My Socks?

Or Aunt Josephine’s walking stick?

I don’t know about you but my short-term memory seems to have gone on a long holiday, perhaps it’s even moved out entirely.

So when the nurse taking blood to check for some malfunction or other said: “Erm, we are running these memory tests. Nothing too serious, you’ll walk through them. Would you be willing . . . .?”
I thought, why not, perhaps we’ll even find that mislaid memory stick.

Question 1: “a name and address, to be repeated instantly and then recalled at the end of the process.” John Brown, 42 High Street, West Kensington - easy peasy; I’ll never forget the gentleman and his fictitious address now, not ever. But what about the walking stick?

Question 2: “what’s the date today?” It was lucky that I’d checked the date before coming out to the surgery. It doesn’t do to present yourself when you’re not wanted. Normally I don’t even know what day of the week it is, much less the numerical date.

Question 3: “What’s in the news at the moment ?” Ah, that I do know. The horror of it! So I came back with “apart from football? What’s not in the news: Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, people fleeing impossible hardship, war, hunger and disease, Africa, children dying . . . . . .”

She stopped me, “Yes, but what about London, what’s happening there?” Well, as far as I know London is quiet apart from the insane noises politicians are making. So I nearly but not quite scratched my head. “London? Nothing much?”

“Yes, yes,” she said and clicked her tongue, tick-tock-tick-tock, while batting her hand from side to side.

“Oh, London, Wimbledon, the tennis you mean?”

She beamed at me. "Yes, Wimbledon”!

Friko, get your priorities right!

She asked two further questions, which I answered correctly; sadly I have forgotten what they were.

Aunt Josephine’s walking stick and the socks were found, peacefully cohabiting, on the newel post.

Somebody - could it have been me? -  moved the socks from the rail around the AGA, where they were drying after I’d got my feet wet in the tall grass, and had hidden them under Beloved’s cardigan, which had also found a temporary home there.

I thought I remembered that I had slipped the walking stick inside through the open door, while I took my shoes off and promptly forgotten all about it. When I came to look for it next day it was not to be found in any of its usual places: not hanging from a rung of the ladder in the shed, not slipped over the towel rail in the scullery, not in its proper place in the umbrella and stick stand in the lobby. Somebody had moved it. Or had I lost it on the way home yesterday and never brought it in at all?

It’s my favourite stick, fits into my hand and is high and sturdy enough; Aunt Josephine was as tall as me and the stick saw her through many an arduous hike in the mountains. It’s handy for whacking nettles and fighting off axe murderers. I needed to find it and therefore went out and retraced every step of the walk of the previous day. Nothing.

And then I found the socks.

As for John Brown? He’s still at 42, High Street. West Ken. And ever more shall be so.

Weather for Chickens - Permutations 1

I am not a summer person; I also know we haven’t quite got there yet except meteorologically, but yesterday and Thursday we definitely had the kind of day that passes for summer in these islands. I am itching already and the bits of me that have caught the sun are turning spotty. I can’t abide getting sweaty just breathing.

 It has to be said, however, that you get a better class of weeds in summer than at any other time. 

I had an errand at the other end of the village, all of ten minutes walk away if you use the High Street, but I chose the scenic route, which takes another five minutes each way. and to distract myself from the heat of the morning I took pictures, while dodging sunlit open spaces and seeking any kind of shade I could find along the way. Millie came too and she was huffing and puffing, her tongue flopping at the side of her mouth and her pace leisurely. No mad dashing about following smells, more a patient and long-suffering acceptance expressed in every flap of ear and flick of tail. A less superior being would have raised its eyes and sighed deeply at the imposition.

Not exactly a weed, this laburnum tree, but there it was, hanging over the wall by the petrol station. Yes we have one of those; it sells bread and a few other kinds of long-life groceries and you can rent videos too.  Although the pumps are set in concrete, the surrounding yard is tufty grass and there is a flower bed in front of it and round the back and sides you have hedges. And a laburnum tree. Gardener calls it Chains.There is a big shed where you have repairs done and buy 4x4s and trucks, old ones, of course. A small Jack Russell, one of the yapping, bossy kind, guards the forecourt. I am surprised to see he has lasted as long as he has without getting squashed. I don’t like Jack Russells, they attack Millie.

Gardener isn’t very well again. I rang his wife this morning to see if he was coming and she said “oh no, he won’t”. Bang, just like that. She sounded really cross. “Oh?” I said, putting a whole questionnaire into the sound.

“He’s not well, he’s had a turn.”
“What kind of turn?” She really was making me earn every utterance.
“Same as before.” She was unbending just a smidgen. “He hasn’t worked all week.”
“Has he seen a doctor?”
“No”,  a bark; back to basics.
“Can’t you send him?”
“No.”
“Have your tried?”
“No, I’ve given up on him. He’s worked too much, and when he works, he works like a maniac. Just won’t listen. I’ve given up.”

Since the weather has warmed up I’ve noticed Gardener sitting down more. You are my witness, I have said before that he’s not the man he used to be. And I’ve been happy to sit with him. Neither am I the woman I once was.

What with Gardener and Paul’s frequent ’turns’ not much gets done.  It seems to be time that I hired myself a gardener, a fit and able one who will last at least as long as me. Number three. I’ll try not to get confused. Poor Austin, I shall miss him. Dreadfully. I love the contrary old goat. (Did you notice I called him by his name? First time ever)

Anyway I am still on my errand. Right opposite the garage, in  Hospital Lane, on the wall surrounding the Methodist Church, a whole long and wide swathe of campanula has taken up residence without a by-your-leave. Nobody’s planted it, it just arrived years ago and has settled in nicely, thank you. It probably escaped from somebody’s rockery originally and cannot be called a weed either.

That reminds me, this was to be a post about weeds, among other things. I’ll have to come back to you on that. Tomorrow. I wonder how many posts I can get out of a 30 minutes’ walk.

The Wonders of the WWW

or How to Spend a Profitable Afternoon. (It’s still raining)

What started me off I no longer know.  I remember I was idly looking for poetry by Wilhelm Busch, to enliven a meeting of the German Conversation Group next week.  Heinrich Christian Wilhelm Busch (1832-1908) was a German humorist, poet, illustrator and painter. He published comic illustrated cautionary tales from 1859; the one most people know is the tale of Max Und Moritz, a Rascals’ History in Seven Tricks:

Ah, how oft we read or hear of

boys we almost stand in fear of.

For example, take these stories

of two youths, named Max and Moritz

. . . . . . .

Busch was a wise old bird and I enjoyed my trip down memory lane. How Busch led to Tannhauser I have no idea now, but Tannhauser was the next port of call. I am frequently surprised that the obscure subjects which interest me can be found on the internet at all;  I am duly grateful, nevertheless.

Wagner’s Opera Tannhauser is well-known; I wasn’t after Wagner, I was after the legend on which Wagner based his libretto. Tannhauser was a knight who,  based on his Bußlied, (song of atonement) became the subject of legend. The story makes Tannhäuser a knight and poet who found the Venusberg, the subterranean home of Venus, and spent a year there worshipping the goddess. Not from afar, either. As these things go, he duly became aware of his sinful behaviour, left the Venusberg, asked Pope Urban for forgiveness but was told that forgiveness was as likely as it would be for the papal staff to burst into blossom. Which it promptly did, it’s a legend, after all. But Tannhauser had already gone back to ground with Venus and was never seen again.

Tannhauser wasn’t only a legendary figure, he was an active courtier at the court of Frederic II in the 13th century,as I found when I clicked on a learned text, the Codex Manesse, the single most comprehensive source of Middle High German Minnesang poetry. The manuscript is famous for its colourful full-page miniatures, one each for 137 minnesingers.The Codex was compiled in the first half of the 14th century and lists the names of Minnesingers of the mid 12th to early 14th century, Tannhauser among them. (How he became the stuff of legend is not immediately apparent. I expect somebody somewhere knows but I’d have to go on clicking for a lot longer to find out.) The Codex itself has had a very turbulent destiny, having changed ownership in many wars, disputes, a succession of rulers and even for filthy lucre at times. Now it’s back in its spiritual home of the University Library of Heidelberg.

The www is a wonderful tool, but rather lonely. Beloved and I used to do this sort of journey of exploration via books in the old days; ending up with piles of them, each reference leading to another, until books and time ran out. So, come suppertime, I told him of my researches and we instantly fell into the old habit, minus the pile of books. Wagner’s Tannhauser came first, Beloved being knowledgable about opera, but then we went off at a tangent, confusing Tannhauser with Lohengrin, who is a character in German Arthurian literature. The son of Parzival (Percival), he is a knight of the Holy Grail sent in a boat pulled by swans to rescue a maiden who can never ask his identity. His story, which first appears in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, is a version of the Knight of the Swan legend known from a variety of medieval sources. Wolfram was a German knight and poet, regarded as one of the greatest epic poets of his time. As a Minnesinger, he also wrote lyric poetry. (The miniature is taken from the Codex Manesse, as is the one of Tannhauser above.)

Naturally Elsa, the maiden whom Lohengrin rescued and who became his wife, asked after his origin, which made Lohengrin take up boat and swan and disappear back down the Rhine, never to return.

We hadn’t quite finished with our exploration; having been to Kleve (Cleves) and the Schwanenburg with the tower from which the legendary Elsa espied her knight in shining armour floating down the Rhine to rescue her, we briefly revisited our memories of the trip but soon got back to more ancient times, i.e, Anne of Cleves, the Flanders Mare, who became Henry VIII 4th wife from January to July 1540. They clearly didn’t hit it off and the marriage was speedily annulled. Holbein’s painting of her is said to be more flattering than realistic.

Having arrived at Henry VIII, about whom we know far too much to feel the slightest interest in exploring him further than in theatrical plays on the stage, we finally gave up.

I had a lovely time, we both did. I even enjoyed writing this post.

Do We Want To Draw Our Own Curtains?

”Hello Jackie, lovely to see you."

We met in front of the newsagent’s shop and stopped to chat, exchanging the usual remarks one makes when running into an acquaintance with whom one is on excellent terms but rarely sees. Jackie is a painter, a delightful lady, very pretty, small and slim, invariably beautifully dressed. I envy her. Compared to her I am a clumsy tank.

She beamed at me.”You know, I haven’t seen you for absolute ages. How are you?”

I replied with the usual modified rapture, as most of us do. “Not too bad, mostly ‘-ish’.  And you?”

Jackie’s smile disappeared. “Well, actually, I am not very happy at all. John’s been diagnosed with cancer.”

My face fell too. It turned out that her husband had been having ‘indigestion’, went to the doctor, had tests which proved inconclusive; had more tests, was told it didn’t look like cancer. One final test showed that, yes, it was cancer. Of the liver. Inoperable. With a life expectancy of one month.

“It’s quite unreal,” Jackie said. "After the initial shock we just went back to doing what we always do. It’s as if nothing has changed. John is spending time putting his house in order, dealing with banks, insurances, etc. but otherwise we act normal. we even laugh sometimes. It’s only at night that it hits me. I lie awake, staring into the darkness.”

I hugged her. There’s nothing much you can do.

I’ve always wanted to know the worst. It even said so in my hospital notes: ‘U. needs to be told.’ Every time I’ve been seriously ill, I’ve researched the illness, pressed the doctors for every bit of information, asked about treatments, possible outcomes, secondary effects. The lot, anything a lay person could grasp.

Would my need-to-know extend to foreknowledge of the date of my death, give or take a week? Once death becomes foreseeable, it is probably good to know how much time there is left to tidy up; the sort of jobs John’s taking care of now.  It is universally accepted that nobody wants to know the date of their departure in advance, nobody wants to be ticking off the years, months, weeks, like pouring beans out of a jar. until there are none left.

I’ve been thinking about this question a lot, since I met Jackie. (It’s still raining hard.) Beloved and I have discussed it.

I think I am in favour of being told early enough to clear the decks (golly, all these euphemisms), to make good, to say good bye properly. Or possibly, just to live in peace with myself, maybe a little more aware. Like John and Jackie are doing now.

Getting old and knowing that life is running out is different from actually getting the date in the post. I cannot really imagine what that feels like.