Thoughts and What Have Yous

Still reading old diaries off and on; more off than on now because my trials and tribulations of long ago follow me into unquiet dreams as well as causing me embarrassment at reminding myself what an unhappy idiot I was, endlessly regurgitating, in great detail, all the reasons why I should have brought that period in my life to an end but never quite having the courage to do so. There were times, there still are, when concentrating very hard I can find myself not altogether unintelligent. Maybe I just wasn't concentrating hard enough.

However, it was all a long time ago. The entry which made me exclaim that nothing ever changes is from the days between Christmas and New Year 1980/81 and runs as follows:

"I'm reading JB Priestley's 'Festival at Farbridge' and some of Louisa Casey's (a character in the novel) reading of the state of people's minds really resonates with me. She says "what's wrong... is just that we don't feel enough. There isn't enough richness and joy and glory in our lives. We're all living this flat sort of existence... if you were glad, you'd light up. Hardly anybody does. How much gladness is there about? Life ought to be wonderful...  instead mountains of misery ... Even all their betting and boozing and sex are dreary, just another kind of routine."

Well, it resonated with me then and it resonates with me now. Priestley's character speaks about the 1950s. Has much changed? I don't think so. Sure, we can blame a lot on the pandemic, even so, it's been a long time since I saw anybody light up. Me included. Is it age which turns the world grey?  What causes us to light up? Falling in love? Winning the lottery? How do we get 'enough richness and joy and glory' into our lives? How do we enjoy ourselves during a period of mingled unhappiness, anxiety and boredom?

I seem to have devoted much of my life to wishful thinking. It was Ellery Queen of all people (yes, yes, I know it's not a real name) who said "No-one outside the realm of fairy tales ever scaled a mountain by standing at its foot and wishing himself over its crest. This is a hard world, and in it achievement requires effort."

Not bad for a whodunnit and how true - wish I could get that bit into my head and live up to it.

This post incorporates a question I have asked in some form or other many times before; I suppose I have reached the age when one doesn’t realise how often one says the same thing and doesn’t really care. One of the many compensations of growing older.

So, anyone, how do we get the joy back into our lives? What works for you?

Appreciating blogging.

 How sweet you are, how darling. Thank you for kind words; it is true, much of the pleasure of blogging comes from the feeling of community. 

When a blogging friend of mine, urspo at sporeflections, recently said that he had been blogging for 15 years, I decided to check on my own length of service. Last November I had done12 years. Heavens, you get less for murder, as my dil is wont to say. Mind you, she applies it to marriage rather than blogging.

When I started I was green and young at heart; if I was not, after all, going to become one of the great writers of the age I might as well try the very lowest form of writing, a positive waste of time, as my then writing teacher said. Much better to slog at something serious, she suggested. But she did agree that I had found ‘my voice’, loud and clear. Only much later did I learn what that means.

In spite of feeling shy and very tentative I soon enough mastered the blog format, true,  not gathering any followers, but discovering that writing down my thoughts, however hesitantly, brought a kind of pride. So I carried on, ever more relaxed and confident. I also discovered the joy of photography.

I’ve always had a horror of being deemed mediocre, something to do with kindnesses my parents felt obliged to send my way. “Is there nothing you can do properly?” was one of their favourite expressions. Heigh Ho, it’s a long time ago, yet it still rankles.

Inspiration came easily, Beloved and I had decades of bouncing ideas off each other, stimulation came in the form of plays, concerts, meetings with friends and the heated debates we shared, gardening, walks in the Shropshire countryside, giving a home to dogs. I also delved into my past, my life in a newly liberated Germany, history, bits of geography. Then there were the memes, the communal writing to a subject, often funny. By now I had amassed a respectable number of followers, sadly, Google took several dozen away from me because the bloggers didn’t have a Google account. However, I persevered.

Then Beloved died. It was hard to carry on, nothing made sense, much was pointless. For the last three years there have been huge gaps, my heart just wasn’t in it anymore. Covid made it worse, suddenly there was nothing to say, unless I went back to the writing I had done during the early to middle years, i.e., leave the daily boring grind behind. Skim the surface of life at present and find what gets caught in the sieve. I want to concentrate on being truthful rather than bang on about facts. After all, both in my country of residence and, say, the US, we have recently learnt that facts are easily bent out of shape, invented, and twisted to make ‘alternative facts’, which are fervently believed by millions of people. So, let it be truth, maybe a personal truth rather than a universal one.

I really hope my blog will change a little, set off in a different direction, maybe use some poetry again.

I blame reading poetry in bed for the very late hour, it is now 5.16 in the morning, time to go to bed.

Doing Well

Sitting in the comfortable chair in my study, feet up on the footstool, book open on my lap. I am calm and quiet, reflecting on life as is and life as was. With the single exception of missing Beloved, then as now, I am content. There is no help for it, as Carson McCullers put it so movingly:

“the way I need you is a loneliness I can’t bear and there is nobody who can fill that loneliness except for the one who is no longer here”,

but bear it I must. Being alive brings the obligation to embrace unpleasant things as well as the pleasant ones. Even the most determined 'look on the bright side’, and all the insistence on 'positive thinking’ doesn't provide us with a constant diet of flowers, sunsets and cute kittens. Accepting that ‘life is hard and then you die’ is a clarion call to living life, warts and all.

So, I am content. The patter of soft rain on the window tells me that doing outdoor work is not advisable for now, whereas a spot of meditation is. Yesterday, I spent many hours outside gardening, doing hard and dirty work, like mulching, potting up, cutting ivy, carrying heavy loads until I could barely drag myself to the bench in my ‘woodland garden’ (a small patch of beeches and hollies and yews. I sat there, not moving, doing nothing much at all except taking in the sounds of nature, birdsong, the murmur of unseen small creatures, the soft rustling of beech leaves in the gentle breeze.

Autumn cyclamen are appearing in all parts of the garden, a welcome sight particularly in areas which are otherwise just green, like the view from the compost heap towards the leaf mould enclosure. Everybody who comes to help in the garden admires my compost. “Did you make this all yourself ?” , asked WW (Wiry and Willing - who is fast becoming a worthy successor to "Old Gardener”);  he sunk his hands deep into the heap, rubbed the compost between them and smelled it. “It doesn’t stink at all”, he said. “Lovely”. If I am remembered for nothing else but my compost when my end comes I am satisfied. Others leave great deeds behind, works of art, pearls of wisdom, empires and the destruction of empires. Leaf mould and compost are like me: practical and useful and given to long periods of rest and just being.

For me gardening is therapy, it fulfils my need for outdoor creativity, the result is pleasant to the eye and beneficial for health and wellbeing. I am currently reading a book by Sue Stuart-Smith “The Well Gardened Mind” sub-titled 'Rediscovering Nature in the Modern World’;  she says:

“Like a suspension in time, the protected space of a garden allows our inner world and the outer world to co exist free from the pressures of everyday life........
there can be no garden without a gardener. a garden is always the expression of someone’s mind and the outcome of someone’s care.”

For now the world within my hedges and walls is my castaway haven and this morning, looking out of the kitchen window while putting on the kettle for my morning brew I saw movement round the foot of the bird table. My blackbird fledglings are back, dad had brought two of them and they were all three picking busily at the ground. I call them ‘my’ fledglings although they may be another family entirely, but it feels good to believe that I have done my modest little best to help them survive during their most vulnerable time. I sincerely hope mum and dad call an end to breeding now, this must have been their second clutch for this year’s summer; in a good long summer garden birds with a ready supply of food and clement weather can have three sets of young.

The rain has stopped, should I cook my dinner or go outside ? Yesterday evening I was so tired I couldn’t bear the thought of cooking,  so all I had was a bowl of rice crispies. Perhaps I had better prepare a meal before I go out.

Afternoon all,

how are you doing? Getting a bit fed up? A bit bored with your own company? I am. Not madly depressed or sad, just a bit bored. Mind you, would I be any better off if I had a family now, maybe a few brothers and sisters, an aunt or uncle tucked away somewhere? Kids closer by, kids that actually liked me enough to want to live close by? Who knows. But then I was the one who moved far away from everybody.

A time like this concentrates the mind, come the rainy day and there’s not much else but dandelions around - it’s dandelion time in the garden and the hedgerows and verges - and all the family you’ve ever had is either dead or they’ve forgotten about you and live a life that's neither more nor less happy and contented than the life you yourself live. Once I had a lovely aunt, she’s the one I remember with affection; she was poor, with a husband who cut hair for a living in a tiny rural hamlet. Not much money to be made there. Auntie loved life, laughed a lot, celebrated every birthday, every occasion that lent itself to celebration and some that didn’t, and always had a plate of Dutch cheese open sandwiches ready to share. Auntie is long gone, I wonder what she would have made of it all now? Laughed, raised her shoulders 'what do I know’, and said, "it is what it is”. I know what Mum’s sister, my other auntie, would have done. She was the one much given to bursting into tears at the least opportunity, everything that ever happened was chosen by ill fate and aimed directly at her. Both of them are dead now but I know which one I’d rather sit with round the kitchen table.

They are all gone now, Mum and Dad, the aunties and uncles, even some of the cousins, not that I ever had many. Two kids max. per household was the going rate in the family, at least the side of the family I knew. And some only had the one, like my Mum and Dad. All of that generation had a hard time of it, two world wars, hungry childhoods and not much prosperity until much later when things generally got better. But they never experienced a pandemic, Spanish flu, avian, swine, HIV/aids, sars, mers, all scourges of the last 100 years, passed them by. Would they have borne them as stoically as they lived through their own times?

I miss them and, most of all, I miss Beloved. Not that I would want him as he was at the end, but the way he was when we sat opposite each other in the kitchen, when one of us would ask a question and so a conversation would start about a wide range of subjects, subjects which would need exploring in detail, whether we knew the answer or not.

I miss the old people and I miss Beloved. Often now my thoughts turn to the past and I want to ask what they think about this and that, do they have any advice to give or do they know as little as I do. The latter probably, but it would be good to find out.

I’m puzzled,

what is it

   with environmentalists who make a huge thing out of plastic bags (yes, agreed, nasty things, as are plastic straws, both totally unnecessary) but fly many times each year for pleasure, on short haul  trips lasting no more than a long weekend and long haul trips to far flung places for a ten day holiday?

  with feminists who shout down anyone else who dares to open their mouth (who may not even have such a very different opinion from theirs) as loudly and insistently as any self important male?

  with busybodies who, no sooner having taken up residence in a place, try to mould it to their idea of a village, setting the tone, and running it vociferously and self righteously, although the village has been doing perfectly fine for decades without their input?

  with people who pillorize you for having groceries delivered or not eating exclusively home grown or organic when they themselves chuck a lot of their organically grown produce away because it rots before they can get round to eating it or it just isn’t up to accepted norms?

  with all those women who jumped on the MeToo etc. bandwagon (yes, yes I know, I too have been very uncomfortable about male intrusion into my personal space, have been propositioned and inappropriately touched) and then appear barely dressed, boobs falling out of their tops and skirts slit to the hips. If that’s not selling sex what is? There was this picture advertising a new film, I think, showing a line up of three men and one woman; the men dressed warmly for winter on a very cold and grey day and the woman in an evening gown slit from hip to toe with her bare leg aggressively thrust forward.

What’s an angry girl to do? Bite her lip to keep the peace? Or let rip?

Lost In Space

Have you ever felt that you’ve lost your way, that life isn’t what it was, that you’d dearly like to become positive, active and energetic? That you’ve lost that magical special power, drive and energy which allows you to become effective and successful in your daily life, perhaps only in a modest way, but detectable, all the same. In other words, life is flat and purposeless. You’ve lost your mojo.

In other words, depression sets in.

Dear friends of mine invited me to share Sunday lunch. While tucking into a 'roast and three' I realised that I hadn’t had that for weeks, not just the pleasant food and drink, but more importantly, an easy, animated, flowing, intelligent conversation. Words came easily, I could hardly drag myself away and probably outstayed a normal lunch invitation. I came home alive and happy to be so.

And then the darkness descended. I came home to an empty house (Millie came with me), to silence. That in itself was fine, I had had my fill of interaction for the day, possibly for several days. I know that quite often interaction with other, less interesting people, leaves me bored, impatient, and that I often prefer my own company to company for the sake of it. Occasionally, I seek the company of people whose conversation is homespun, gossipy, unchallenging. It may be comforting at the time, not a bad thing. Like those ladies’ luncheons I mentioned recently. They get me out of the house, we commiserate with each other all being newly single and we share a giggle and relate tales of solitary adventures. Two of the ladies are relentlessly positive, admirably active and keen to hold forth. Not me, but who am I to mind. I should try and follow their example.

My problem is that I literally have no purpose. No engrossing hobbies other than the solitary one of reading. No involvement in charitable organisations, no interest in sport other than the gym, which is another solitary activity. I am not artistic, I don’t do crafty things, I like writing but have more or less given up on that sine Beloved died. Lectures happen far away, and the local talks take place mainly during cold and wet winter nights. I find it really hard to motivate myself to get off my behind and leave my warm and comfortable nest to shiver in a village hall, no matter how interesting the talk.

I am not about to fling myself into Scientology or any other religious sect, won’t be taking up the Kaballah, do flower arranging, write bad poetry, see myself as a benefactress, take up long distance running, discover the only true health giving diet. None of the above and a whole host of other obsessions. But surely I ought to do something?  Learn another language? Properly learn to take pictures? Travel is not possible while Millie is alive, although that appears an attractive thought now. I expect I won’t be able to drag myself away come the opportunity.

That’s me all over, negative, always finding reasons for NOT doing something. True, I’ve done things to the house, soon the garden will need attention, I’ve taken up the gym again, reluctantly and much against my inclination and I’ve booked a ticket to go on a coach trip to Malvern to see a play, which only mildly interests me. And I’ve come back to blogging. It’s been a pleasure to see your comments and I am trying my damnedest to stick with it. Thank you for your patience.

If only I could stop being a contrary, dissatisfied crosspatch. Any advice ?

Mood Swings

From hopeful to hopeless, from dark to light, from cheerful to miserable. Sometimes all of these emotions overcome me in one day. Whatever is the matter with me!

The first few days of solitude, when the last of the carers said “Well, I suppose I’m redundant now” because I had had the temerity to take a shower without supervision, and she left, possibly in a huff because I had made a decision for myself, I felt free. And hopeful. I was still very slow - as I am now to a lesser extent - but I knew that, with care, things would improve from that day onwards, and the time would come when I could return all aids and equipment. So it was, two walkers, one crutch and one commode were duly collected last week; I have kept hold of a set of crutches which I have had for years, ever since I broke a leg a long time ago. I am still using at least one crutch for rough patches outside and when I am in a hurry to get somewhere inside the house. I have gradually added a detour here and there to lengthen my walkabouts. I may soon be able to get to the village shop, although walking with an aid, having a dog pull on a lead and carrying a shopping bag doesn't seem a sensible way of perambulating. We’ll see.

So, really, I should be happy, shouldn’t I. I can feed myself and Millie again, do small jobs around the house; with the help of a driver friend I've been to have my hair cut, taken Millie to the vet, seen the podiatrist for a treatment, and yesterday this friend took me to a supermarket  to buy some early Christmas treats. German specialities disappear quickly from the shelves although the feeble pound makes them very expensive for the average shopper. I’ve been to a couple of concerts and a live streaming of a National Theatre play, again with the help of friends. I am making progress, albeit my walk resembles that of a penguin.

Is it that the dark days of winter are with us? Is it that I am beginning to think of the holidays on my own? Who knows? I was out in the field with Millie just now for a final walk before the light goes and I was thinking how nice it will be to get back inside, lock all the doors, turn on the lamps, pour a glass of wine and get comfortable. What’s not to like?

In 1634 Henry Peacham wrote in 'The Compleat Gentleman': “Keep up your spirits with healthy exercise. Leaping being an exercise very commendable and healthful to the body, especially if you use it in the morning. But upon a full stomach and bedward it is very dangerous, and in no wise to be used”. Best not start leaping then.

Instead of an Excuse

So many posts unposted, so many blogs unread, so many comments ignored or not left, so many emails not replied to, so much writing left unwritten.

I don’t really know what happened, why I have barely glanced at my computer for the past two plus weeks (really? yes,  I just counted 17 days). I have been feeling rather tired, am I simply under the weather? A bit depressed?

There have been days full of sunshine,

gloomy, foggy days,

working days,

snapping sparrows bathing in the dog bowl

during idly looking out of the window days,

and days full of magnificent autumn colour.

In other words, nothing out of the ordinary. Now that it’s November, most of the leaves have gone and the nights have turned mildly frosty. There’s a bitter North-Easterly blowing and Millie’s walks are ever shrinking in length. She’s not too unhappy about it, she has started to limp after strenuous exercise; I am not going to ask more of her than she can do.

The sad thing is, I miss writing, blogging and visiting blog friends. I feel guilty for not replying to emails, which is a bit silly. I throw half an eye at the blank, dark computer screen, sigh, then sit down with a trashy thriller for an hour.

My attention to detail appears to have gone into hiding too. I ordered a new printer+ on the internet and when the thing turned up it was massive, far bigger than the space allocated for it. It was an office printer, wide format, with  facility for legal papers, large and small sizes, envelopes etc., as well as a fax machine. I have no fax number and no need of a fax. When ordering I forgot to look at the specifications and, most importantly, the size of the gadget. Printers have gone down in price since I bought the previous one and as I couldn’t be bothered to pack the thing up again and return it, it now sits in a different room, staring at me, balefully, every time I pass it, accusing me of sloppiness.

Sleep is hit and miss too. No wonder I am often tired. I love to go to bed late, get a book ready, wriggle into a cosy position, and feel grateful for having a warm, peaceful and comfortable space to put my head at the end of the day. Sometimes, just when I am at my most snuggled in, my mind suddenly insists that sleep is a waste of time, and how I could much better spend my time thinking, dreaming, reading, going over the past day and organising the next one. Fatal! I might have allocated anything from five minutes to an hour for this state of being between waking and sleeping but, once I am embarked on this route, sleep flees. Two, three, four times I rise again, for a drink of water, a visit to the loo, a sleeping pill, another sleeping pill. I do eventually fall asleep to wake to another complicated day and, given half a chance, I grab a nap after lunch. But then again, I could be reading instead of napping?

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

Beechnuts

That crackle and crunch underfoot is beech mast.
The big beech is aiming missiles at me from a great height,
and when her aim is true, I feel it.
Ouch!

Once in every five to ten years, they say, can we expect such bounty.
Last year was a good one too, so either they are wrong,
or nature is changing her rhythm.
A hot, dry summer helps.

I have need of a pig.
Could you lend me a pig?
Free of charge to both of us?
I have no acorns but plenty of beechnuts.
But do remember to ring the pig’s nose, I don’t want it rooting up my garden.

There was a time, a long-ago time,
when they gave you a voucher for a litre of oil,
in exchange for six kilos of beechnuts.

Diligence can do it,
they said.
All it takes is three days of back breaking work in the forest.
If you have little ones,
and maybe sing a happy song,
collecting six kilos of beechnuts
is child’s play.

Collect more and keep them to enhance your diet.
You want bread?
Cracked and ground into flour,
beechnuts are very tasty, make excellent bread.
But remember,
oxalic acid is harmful,
so roast these pretty little delicacies first
to avoid bad pain in the gut.
And warn the little ones.

A pig, on the other hand,
enjoys a forest meal, no ill-effects at all.
No need for roasting.
Yet.

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.

Permutations

“Do you mind being old? Having lived your life?” We’ve just finished watching ‘The Bridge’, one of these gloomy Scandinavian thrillers. It’s half past eleven at night.

"What do you mean? Your question makes no sense. I am not old, I am me. Whatever age that happens to be at any given time”. Beloved has taken Millie out for a last pee and isn’t really attuned to my Weltschmerz.”

"Yes, sure, but knowing that there is a lot less left than you’ve already had. Have you no regrets?”

"Oh, plenty of regrets. But they’re the past. This is now".

"Sometimes I feel that I haven’t had any life at all and that’s it too late to have one; that it’s over already."

"Poor thing, maybe you haven’t. But you have now. You have NOW. Not yesterday, not tomorrow. That’s the way I look at it."

Earlier today I said that I am probably never going to get off this island now. There are many reasons, excuses mainly. If I really wanted to, I could.  But it would be difficult. There’s Beloved’s unwillingness to shift himself, there’s my fear that the excitement of getting organised would kill me, there’s the knowledge that there’s nobody waiting for me across the channel.

On the other hand, staying here, without the relief of spending time in Europe or anywhere else for a time, is a pretty miserable outlook. The island mentality of the Brits is getting me down, their endless bickering about anything ‘bloody foreign’, their need to be in competition with other nations and whistling in the wind of their imagined, natural, inborn superiority. You should see their surprise when you tell them that exactly that attitude applies to all nationalities.

It feels like it’s been raining for weeks. I need to blame somebody.



There’s more
Comments are off until I’ve got to the end of this.

Brain Compost

You know those ideas and thoughts you have which disappear into the great void of forgetfulness?

Not the ones which happen to get lost on the way up the stairs or from one room into another;  the ones when you meant to fetch something, do something, and by the time you got wherever it is you wanted to fetch it from or do it, the whole thing has vanished, and you have to start all over again.

Nor the names of books, films and plays you are just about to throw nonchalantly into the conversation when you find your mind a sudden blank and your face red with embarrassment.

Nor the appointments you miss because you forgot to transfer dates from one diary into another.

Nor when you find you have forgotten the name of the person coming towards you with outstretched hands, beaming with pleasure and loudly greeting you by name.

Nor when you forget the names of people in your own family and you recite them all, male and female interchangeable, all the way through, until the final name you utter is the one of the child/aunt/uncle/other grinning delightedly at your discomfort. My dad was particularly good at that; we used to let him work through the list and congratulate him when he finally matched name to person.

No, none of the above.

I am talking about the really good ideas, the clever ones, the insightful, creative ones. Like when you have a brilliant idea for a blog post. Or, if you are of a slightly higher order on the literary scale, an idea for a short story, say. Or at work, a problem which has irritated or confused you for many months, and suddenly, you have that light bulb moment, and there’s the solution, as plain as the nose on your face.  Or maybe you have a really insightful thought, one of those that should be anthologised, an aphorism destined to be forever repeated by bloggers given to filling their posts with quotations.

I am sure you know the sort of thing I mean.

If you do, and are the person who experiences a flash of brilliance, I advise you to write it down there and then. Somebody, something will interrupt your train of thought and the solution to all the evils of the world will have disappeared for ever. Einstein/Shakespeare/Beethoven never allowed a mere mortal  to disturb the creative muse, that’s for sure.

But now I finally come to the point of this post (the idea for which I’ve nicked from PerlNumquist at his blog Mental Floss) : what happens to that collection of bright thoughts which appear like shooting stars across the night sky, only to disappear as quickly? Where do they go?

Everything on our planet is recycled.

Is there a bottomless pit in the brain where they collect, become a kind of primordial compost heap of thoughts which rots down over the years, only to be recycled as manure for new growth?

Is it possible that ‘wisdom comes with age’ is nothing more than absent-mindedness during middle age?

Friko’s Everyday World

Often I find myself in complete agreement with the people whose blogs I read; the reason is probably that I tend to follow bloggers who are broadly the same age, have roughly similar attitudes and background,  even though we find ourselves on opposite sides of the globe. The differences in outlook seem negligible, although our daily routines may vary wildly due to unimportant factors like geography and nationality. Occasionally a blogpost makes me stop and think; one of these was a recent post by Irene who writes the blog The Most Splendid Day, wherein she said :

I find that not one day is like the other and that you can not predict what any day in your life is going to be like, although I used to think until quite recently that I had some control over that. But then I used to think that I had control over all kinds of things, and I have come to find out that this is not true at all.

You can not predict what any day is going to look like, and as much as you would like to plan for it, it really can't be done, because the day unfolds as it will and you have to be flexible enough to accept that and not take it personally.

I thought about it, but I can’t agree. Other commenters did agree.

Either I don’t understand what Irene is saying or I live a different life altogether: my life is totally predictable from one day to the next. Basically, it’s all mapped out, not dull or boring - well, sometimes it is -  but planned, laid down in advance according to necessity, duties and obligations, appointments and dates.

There is a diary with entries for all sorts of things: pleasant outings like theatre trips, meals out with friends or meals in with friends, or just meeting friends; the day gardener or the cleaner is coming; not so pleasant whole day shopping trips on days which are otherwise empty; taking Beloved to hospital and surgery appointments, having dealings with officials, like banks or the tax inspector. Hairdresser, chiropodist, beauty treatments, massages, all booked in advance.Village events are planned months ahead and I usually know which ones I’ll attend.

I even know what individual days are like when ’nothing’s on': I wake up around the same time, have the same breakfast, read the same paper, tidy the same rooms,  walk the dog at the same time; I know which areas of the garden I’m going to work in, they’ll be the bits that need it most. I know which household chores need doing when (but at least I no longer have my mum’s laundry or cleaning day).

It is the most mundane and humdrum existence, with duties and obligations, leisure and entertainment, me-time and time for others, all laid down and planned in advance.  I even know my favourite TV programmes which I’ll either watch or record for another day.

Having read Irene’s post and thought about my own life I realise what a regulated and tramline-tracked routine I live.  We are retired and there is scope for spontaneity; occasionally things just happen  but even that usually depends on the weather;  living deep in the countryside makes every outing into an expedition requiring careful forethought.

What I don't know is whether I'm going to be alive tomorrow.


The only place where I go on flights of fancy is inside my head. Here ideas crowd each other out, philosophies and dreams jostle for space. Here I courageously and curiously follow that rainbow from beginning to end.  Inside my head humdrum doesn’t exist, routine marches to a very different beat. I never know what my head is going to come up with next. Sometimes the noise is deafening and I quickly go and iron some complicated shirts to soften it.

Bored with routine? Me?

On the A49 - Stream of Consciousness

Good.  Not rush hour yet.
Things went rather well today. Home in an hour.
Errands done, shopping done, a full tank; don’t think I’ve forgotten anything.

Millie’s head pops up in the rearview mirror, she settles down again with a sigh.

Not long now sweetheart, dinner’s coming.

Good that they’ve installed traffic lights here, much easier to negotiate now;
massive roundabouts can be a pain.

Damn, it’s starting to drizzle; that’s all I need.
Glad I had the car washed, the windscreen's clear; at least it’s water rather than mud swishing about.
Those car washers, strange lot. East Europeans, I suppose. Romanians? Bulgarians?
Small, swarthy, unintelligible. Girls too. With identical trolleys and equipment.
Do they ever get tempted? Car doors left open? Wallets, handbags forgotten by the driver?
I wonder how they live, who owns their trolleys. Some East European boss man, I suppose.
Perhaps they rent the equipment? Or pay it off in instalments? Poor sods. But handy to have around.

Come on, this is a sixty zone, Get a move on! This is an open road, for crying out loud!
Slow drivers, worse than fast ones. No overtaking here.

That chap outside the walk-in centre, handsome old man. Well set-up, well-dressed too. And well-spoken. First thing I noticed was the toe of his shoe on the newspaper on the ground. Strange thing to do.  A little surprised when I handed him the paper. “Thank you very much,” he said, “ I couldn’t get down there. would have kicked it to the nearest seat and picked it up that way.” He had a nice smile too, not the usual cross old man angry about his infirmity. The indignity of it all, don’t ever want to be like him, perhaps I’ll die before old age cripples me.

Leebotwood. Where do they find these village names? The Pound Inn looks quiet. Too many pubs and restaurants forced to close. Will The Pound last? Hope so, nice place, decent food. Bit far from home but good place to stop on the way to town.

O come on, going down to forty really is not on. Ah, his indicator is on, But where the heck is he going? There’s no turning  . . . . . . . Ah, a lay-by, is that what he was looking for? I never pushed him, did I? No, always leave a good gap. Definitely. Thank YOU.  Good, let’s go. Nice straight open stretch to the Strettons. All Stretton, Church Stretton, Little Stretton. "Stretton = ‘On The Street’ - Roman names, obviously."

Caer Caradoc up ahead, his usual brooding self. Why do I call hills ‘he’? Wonder if he looked different in megalithic times when they built the hill fort ? Trees perhaps?  Too many sheep nibbling away for centuries? Must come out for a walk in the Stretton Hills soon. Millie’d love it.



Oops, I seem to have jumped the lights. Can't see  speed cameras around here.  Marshbrook, descriptive name. At least it’s obvious why it’s called Marshbrook. Pretty wet here during the last floods. Affcot, ‘The White House', lovely restaurant. Dark now, no signs at all. Bet it’s been sold as a private dwelling.
Such a pity they left, can’t stand the new place they opened, all plastic tables and catering company food. Won’t see me there, blast them. You find a good place, cosy, good food, friendly service and ambiance, exactly to your liking, not over-priced, and they bugger off. Makes you spit.

Here we are, the Valley Road. Calm down. Home soon. Pouring with rain now. Typical!

Milestone Day

Thanks, Hilary

Even before I was fully awake this morning I found my thoughts wandering in the mists of a time long gone.  Today was one of those significant milestone days for us, the kind which race towards you with the speed of an express train as you get older, and which will, in the end, overtake you. I wanted to hold on to this reverie and  allowed people and situations to rise up, which happened to someone other than the me of today, not the gloomy, fearful me I have been of late. Once upon a time I was convinced of my ability to overcome any obstacle; whatever happened, I'd find a way out; I did not see myself as invincible, but sturdy and strong and as determined to flourish as the hawthorn bush clinging to an inhospitable, stoney bank.

Recently my thoughts have dwelt on the difficulties that lie ahead. It seems that the future is shrouded in a fog of uncertainty; we talk but cannot come to a decision about what to do for the best. Our house is bigger than two people need, and I can manage neither house nor garden without help. Regular, permanent help is both expensive and a nuisance, relying on others has never been easy for either of us. Beloved has had to hand in his driving licence. Although I am glad that he isn't driving, it has come as a shock. We knew that his sight is deteriorating, but now it's official, real.

An estate agent has given us a figure for the house and told us that, due to its location, it is eminently saleable. What she doubted was that we'd find anything comparable in a smaller size and a similar situation. We are quiet and secluded and just five minutes away from the centre of the village. Not to mention the castle in the back garden. (The header picture of this blog shows our house and the window on the far right is my study window, where I am sitting at this moment, typing this post). We only bought this house because of its situation.

There is, of course, a further problem with moving. Divorce, a death in the family and moving house are the three most common contributory factors towards a heart attack. So, round and round we go on the merry-go-round of what to do, what to do.

This morning my reverie brought illumination: we'll do nothing at all for the moment. Every time we look around us, we see how very desirable life here still is and how much we would miss the freedom we have become accustomed to. No noise, no traffic, unlimited access to open spaces, a friendly village and a wonderful landscape to lift the heart. I must learn to accept my limitations  - Beloved already has -, and act accordingly; I must stop fretting; fear of the future won't help, facing up to problems and dealing with them as and when they arise is what the old me would have done, perhaps I can rediscover and reanimate traces of her even now.

There, the gloom is beginning to lift already.

The Thief In The Night, or Life Is Too Short To Sleep Through

It came to me, quite suddenly, last night.
Perhaps I should amend this to: today,
it came to me today.
Bright shining hands informed me without passion,
that yesterday had been and gone,
more than an hour ago.

My pillows plumped, I lay
in the uncertain dark of  summer's night,
a single church bell
measuring segments of deathly silence,
sliced into equal portions,
reminding me that sleep is of the essence.

Tomorrow is another day,
a phrase to browbeat me into submission,
the tyranny of sleep a burden on my thoughts.
Everyone else around me has succumbed
to  dead of night,
trusting, anaesthetised.

The chattering noises of the day are stilled.
Demands on me have ceased.
Now I can breathe, my life my own,
no telephone, no world wide web,
all newscasts hushed,
the music of the night the only sound.

Body and soul at peace, I rest.
And then it came to me:
why must the book be closed,
the lamp extinguished,
the circling thoughts imprisoned and subdued,
the tyranny of sleep obeyed,
obligatory yet elusive.

For once, let me be free of this constraint,
Let me be wakeful,
the hanging moon my only company
until dawn's tender hand
dissolves the shadows of the night and brings
clamorous day once more to call on me.

Beauty Treatment

Facial Mask  -  Wikipedia






Hello, come in, how are you?

I'll be with you in half a mo. Hop on.

There we are, is this comfortable?

Are you warm enough? We don't really need the towels, do we?

She wipes my eyebrows, then proceeds to pluck them.

That's fine, not a lot today.

She puts on eyebrow tint.

We'll let this sit for a minute.

That's fine, all done.

I'll just lower the couch and switch off the big light.

A narrow towel is wrapped around my hair. I shuffle about a bit on the couch, making myself comfortable. I relax and close my eyes. The process of deep cleansing begins. Cool, small, deft fingers wipe the last vestiges of tension from my eyes.

Ah, avocado and ginseng today, smells good enough to eat.

I'd better pop into the greengrocers on the way home, 
we could do with some fresh veg, some carrots, broccoli and maybe an avocado or two for  salad. 
There's enough time to prepare a salad lunch. 
I don't suppose Beloved has remembered to get bread out of the freezer; 
a French roll shouldn't take too long to defrost.


Flat palms and fingertips smooth and massage a layer of cleansing cream into face and neck.

Has she got my collar tucked in safely? 
Shouldn't have put a clean shirt on before coming here. 
Some of the cream is bound to rub off.  
It's a question of doing just the centre or going in deep and messing up my shirt. 
Too late now to take it off. 
The ironing, oh hell, did I remember to switch the iron off? 
I must have done. 
Will Beloved notice? Probably not. 


Men! 

The massage proper is starting. Fifteen minutes of sheer bliss. I snuggle deeper into the soft couch. Experienced hands perform a dance of repetitive movements across my face, under my chin, around the eye sockets, circling and stroking and patting and drumming.

I drift off.


Ah, lovely, more please, more.

.I wonder if that boy is going to be any good while Gardener is away. 
He looked a bit like he was borderline Down's. 
Funny that he should bring his Mum along. 
Why do they marry their cousins round here? 
Down's is nothing to do with in-breeding, or is it? 
Must get started on the Larsson trilogy soon, 
Damn blogging, I don't read enough since I've started. 
Lots of my favourite bloggers seem to be away at the moment. 
Wonder how Suze is getting on with her sister. 
And Debs, haven't heard from her for ages. 
At least my favourite Edwardians are still around.
Would that Amnesty tea party make a post?
Perhaps a bit too fragmented? 
And personal?
Sally hasn't confirmed Andrew's birthday do yet; 
if she leaves it much longer there'll be something else in the diary. 
Hope she can arrange for a car and driver for all of us; 
a party without drink ? No thanks.
God, I still haven't been to see Audrey, I am such a cow, always promising to visit and never going. 
Poor Audrey, she can't help going ga-ga.  
Everybody is getting so damn old. 
Is it poetry on Thursday? 
I must find a couple of poems on birds. 
The others are bound to bring the Romantics, 
I'll have to look out some new poets, 
shock them out of their cosy complacency. 
God, I am a cow. 
Always stirring things up. 
Why can't I leave people be? 
Why must they be so boring?


No don't stop, Pleeeeaaase.

The massage is finished. Similar movements continue for another two minutes, this time to remove the massage cream, using cleanser and witchhazel.

It's time for the mask: a balancing mask for the 'T' zone, (forehead, nose, chin) containing kaolin and peach kernel. A soothing mask for cheeks and neck, containing aloe vera. This is the part where I usually doze off for 5 minutes. Witchhazel pads on my eyes mean that I couldn't open them even if I wanted. I don't. If I allowed myself to feel embarrassed, now would be the time. I don't.

The beautician tells me what she does with each new process, otherwise there is silence; there is the faintest hint of Classics For The Retarded in the background, played on an instrument which sounds like a harp for a web-fingered dwarf; I have no difficulty shutting the sound out altogether.  Perhaps I'm snoring.

Five minutes later and the idyll is over. The mask comes off, the beautician rubs at my face, hard. No more 'Miss Nice Guy'. A cleansing cream takes the last bits of plaster off, the big light comes back on,  and the pore police appears on the scene. Any remaining criminal blockage is attacked mercilessly by means of a metal squeezing tool, probably invented during the Spanish Inquisition;  the beautician's face is now so close to mine that I feel claustrophobia coming on.

Ouch! That hurt!

She slaps witchhazel all over my face, it feels very cold on my warm skin and I wake up fully. She pads me dry and her fingertips follow with a very thin layer of moisturiser to finish the job. The towel comes off. She hands me a mirror and picks up her diary.

Lovely. All done. Your skin feels gorgeous, so soft.

Three weeks?