Darth Vader meets the Fairies

A busy weekend in my garden, so much more activity than I appreciated because it's going on all the time apparently,  right under my insensitive nose.
A happy, hot family weekend with Granddaughter E who, unbelievably, will be starting school in September, and little brother who equally unbelievably will be one year old at the same time. And their parents. Of course, their parents, looking tanned and happy but a bit jaded, hoping for lots of home-cooking ('Five puddings on Sunday. Only five!') and a bit of a respite.
Where has this year gone?

The garden has been such a success for everyone, especially in the warmth. So much so that the fairies have moved in on a large scale, except that I'm told they have always been here, it's just that I'm not a fairy expert, unlike E. who clearly is.

My sons were not experts in their childhood, either. They noticed lots of things, insects, stones, sticks, mud, stinging nettles, poisonous potentials,  amphibians, but not fairies.  They were never aware a single one, not a gnome, nor a pixie.
I wonder if Grandson will be an expert, and how much his big sister will influence him. At the moment he's concentrating on standing, jigging, crawling, eating and mostly smiling and laughing with the odd burst of singing and chatting (he's in a choir, after all).

Granddaughter knows all about fairies, their haunts and habitats and habits, and they have been fairly demanding this weekend. She has had to keep them supplied with tiny meals of specially dainty and flavoursome items. They like the several special herbs in the garden, notably the fruit-flavoured sages and mints. When they don't have anyone to wait on them they have to go and pick them for themselves, which is why E. explained they were tired and needed a rest from foraging, so Granny could do it for them.
In return they play music at night, and they leave small post-it notes around the place. Sometimes the writing looks like mine, but it's a lot smaller. I have to be careful not to tread on them in the garden. It's perilously easy and sometimes almost tempting to do so, but during the weekdays they have to go to school in the Hedgehog House at the bottom of the garden. (Sadly lacking hedgehogs for years now - but I digress). So we all have to be understanding. They will be working hard in school, and need to be well looked after at weekends.

Oh, what lovely not-so-subtle messages come through. Luckily the fairies will love going to school, they will love their new uniforms, they are going to be with their friends. It's just that they need to make sure that everything is going to be just right at home as well, that the attention and care is unchanged, that everything is safe and happy. That if they need tiny delicate meals someone will provide them as quickly as possible. Or even large meals with extra cheese, come to that.

Darth Vader is another matter. He is likely to be in the lavatory upstairs, which makes it difficult for a rising 5 year old to go up there on her own, especially along the long corridor in this house. A Granny  waiting at the bottom step will do as protection, but it needs that extra adult vigilance. Darth Vader might even have his light-shaver up there. We are all very sure that he wouldn't dare to go into a school though.

How good it is when we can recognise our own Darth Vaders and talk about them and find the right levels of protection and support. We all have them in there somewhere, just as we have good and happy influences flitting around, playing beautiful music that no one else can hear.

Perfect Finger Food.

I've been away for a while, looking at some beautiful gardens and interesting buildings, and then I come home to this.......... the wisteria which now reaches half way around the garden, twining itself on a thick, strong marine rope that elder son fixed for me a couple of years ago.
A couple of years. So much has happened, apart from the wisteria more than doubling in size.


Here is a rare, probably one-off photograph of one such wonderful happening.

Grandson, now just eight months old.
I haven't written letters in this blog to him, as I did to Granddaughter in her babyhood because it seemed better to do something different. I have done many things differently. He's a different little person, clear from the very start. When ever he catches my eye he beams and laughs. I have a feeling that we are sharing some tremendous joke, but I don't know what it is just yet. Sheer joy in life, probably. I'm happy to share, whatever it is.

So here he is, engrossed in an encounter with Evesham asparagus, the ideal finger food for babies who like doing it for themselves, as he does now. Asparagus is great. You can wave it about, and when you've bashed it a bit it even waves back. Then you can eat it. Great stuff!

He can spend an hour, happy in his high chair, sampling a variety of foods, wet and dry, hard and soft, mashing them into the tray, wiping them all over his face and arms, squelching them in his little strong fists.
How deeply satisfying it all must be. How totally enjoyable when you don't have to clean up.
Why was cutlery invented when you can have such rich sensory experiences with simple food?

Watching his level of concentration makes me think of what engrosses me, what makes a mess, gives multi-sensory experiences, can occupy me for an hour at a time without me even realising that time has passed?

Well, gardening, of course.
Here's a bit more of it on the rock garden.........

Perfect finger food for oldies. Even if you have to miss out on the eating bit such activities are still food for the body and the brain..
Perfect for youngsters too, because Granddaughter is meanwhile examining her own patch of garden outside the kitchen window.
"I'm going to have lots of strawberries here. You can share some of them," she says, which is really just as well, as that's my strawberry bed she's got her little strong fists on.
Her little bit of garden started with a old sink in which she planted daffodil bulbs, but it has now expanded into what was my herb patch and strawberry bed. Somewhat more invasive are the fairies who are apparently active in her patch and are threatening a take-over of larger areas. My larger areas no doubt.
Perfect!

Letter to a Granddaughter: How to Get Through Nap-Time Without a Nap.

Dear Not-So-Small Granddaughter,
At nearly two and a half you are at that pivotal point of needing but not wanting a rest after lunch. When you reach my age you will be both wanting and needing the same nap.
So you go into a quiet room for at least some quiet time. When you are in my house you sleep (or not sleep) in your uncle's old bedroom which is a treasure trove of unfamiliar objects as well as your own growing collections. You like to check that he's gone off in an aeroplane before you explore thoroughly, and he usually has so the coast is clear.

Your parents go off up the hills for a walk, and you and I negotiate the ground rules for napping. I tell you that talking is good, singing is good, shouting and yelling are not good. You agree.
"Whistling?" you ask, hopefully. Yes, whistling is very good. Lying in a warm bed and practising whistling might even lull you to sleep.
We go upstairs and select three or four soft toys to have a nap with you. We discuss the toys that are at home and reach an agreement that they are not here and we're not driving sixty miles to get them. We discuss drinks and use of the potty and agree that neither is essential at this moment. I tuck you up and give you a kiss and say "Night night", even though it's not. You smile happily and snuggle under the duvet.
I feel successful as I go downstairs.
Then I plug in the intercom.

There is a lot of background noise. The duvet is churning. "Peter Rabbit, hold Annie hand," you say. (I am Annie, you can't say Granny)."Wee now, on the potty...... Now read a book......... Sing a song........ Sing a Peter Rabbit song....la.la.la. like that.....sing now. Sing in my bed. Sing, sing, sing........... Read a book in my bed........another one........... another one. Now singing......wah, wah wah, singing in my bed....... I'm playing..... No! Sit down now by the table. Yes, round and round the table....... Lie down now. No! Sing Happy Birthday.......... There Rabbit, yes, hopping........ Hop. Hop. Hop!"

Feet patter overhead. It must be the rabbit, hopping.
There is the sound of drawers opening and closing.
"Oh, H's (uncle's) paper......... Oh, H's book..........More book............ More paper........ Oh, look! Look! Boys and girls." You have found some old class photographs in one of the drawers.

The wardrobe door opens.
"Oh, big shoes. Big coat. H's shoes........... Oh, look!"
A contemplative pause.
Should I go up and check?

Then, "In my bed now. Oh, oh, I can't get back over there. Sssshhh........... Back now. Where's my duck? I want my duck....... (singing) Little duck went swimming one day, quack, quack, quack.....little duck came back.......... Ringy roses all fall down..........Annie, ANNIE, pick me up..........Oh.....come back, Daddy, Mummy, Annie.
Hello, me come back in that door..........oh."

Then there is attempted whistling and a lot more singing. The bedside cupboard drawers open and close rhythically. Toys are talked to, told to put their coats on, lie down and have a cuddle, eat the food that is in their mouths....eat it all up.

When I guess the time is right I go upstairs. You are sitting happily surrounded by the finds from the drawers and cupboards. A collection of jigsaws, a book with magnetic pictures I had earmarked for next Christmas, photos of your Daddy and Uncle in their primary school days.
You look rested and refreshed, ready for the next adventure.
"Hello, Annie," you say. "Look at this!"

I'm looking.
And listening.
With love from Granny.

Whiskers on Roses and Raindrops on Kittens......

..............bright copper kettles have recently fallen by the wayside as I've had an experience in the Non-Ferrous Metals Sales business (but that's another story). Warm woollen mittens are good, especially in this weather. But, Sound of Music reference apart, these really are a few of my favourite things.

In assembling them I am impressed by two aspects of the small collection, first that there are several very sharp things, and secondly that my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother would have no difficulty at all in identifying and using all but one of them.

The bread-board is something of real significance. Its carved motto of Give us This Day our Daily Bread has been cut and scrubbed into almost invisibility by countless hands, yet still does its simple task beautifully. I use it several times a day, and never fail to think of all those, known and unknown, who have also used it. I can still see it sitting in the kitchen of my grandmother's house, and on the marble slab of the pantry in my childhood home. In both places it was associated with a large and dangerous bread saw, which I was absolutely not allowed to touch. So I did, of course, on many furtive occasions, once testing the serrated blade against the rim of the bread board. The mark I made is still there, and still provides a frisson of guilt. I was not caught doing it, but I remember it almost daily.

There's so much to be said for plain wood in a kitchen and in a garden. The citrus squeezer does a perfect job and even sorts out the pips. The small wooden spoon is exactly right for my hand, also for balancing in a saucepan or on the edge of a bowl without falling into or out of it. The wooden handled knife, with sharp point and serrated edge actually lives in my gardening tool store and is a brilliant weapon against dandelion roots, and for all those invasive little plants that creep between the paving stones. Old cutlery often makes perfect gardening tools.

There's a wooden handled bradawl there, which I couldn't manage without. It bodges neat holes for all sorts of purposes, some of which may be the wrong purposes but, well, it works for me. Then there are the really sharp blades, the new secateurs and the razor-like sewing scissors, items of great satisfaction. There are few things better than a simple implement that does exactly what it is meant to do, especially when it does not use any sort of fossil fuel.
The metal tools are very satisfying, too. I really enjoy that little grater intended for parmesan cheese, and the small whisk gets the lumps out of any sauce you can think of. Very simple, but they both work as they should and take up no storage space at all.

The blue plastic tool is something else I couldn't manage without. My mother, grandmother and great- grandmother would not have wanted it anyway because they had no need to release a metal lid with a vacuum seal on a glass jar. Well, perhaps my mother may have done, but she had my father around. The blue plastic vacuum release thingy is probably a bit of a weak-wristed widow speciality. The alternative technique of opening a tightly sealed jar can involve trapping it between a door and its frame, and I have evidence of that malpractice, too.
However, if you need one, or a brush for cleaning button mushrooms, or anything else of that ilk, try here.

Letter to a Grand-Daughter now she is One (and a bit)

Dear Small Grand-daughter,

There is no need for you to know about the disconcerting things that have happened to you recently. You can relax, safe in the knowledge that you have been protected and loved and cared for with immense skill.
(But I, your very concerned Grand-mother, have been unable to write this blog, nor write anything else, nor concentrate very well on anything else for the past weeks.)
And you, oblivious, have carried us all along with your cheerfulness, your joy in life, your enthusiasm for fun and your increasing ability to create it, your enjoyment of music and soft toys and whacking things with a mallet, and your interest in other people.

You are such great company these days, finding everything fascinating, needing to comment on everything you see and do.Your favourite word is 'Daddy', and every sight of  him is something wonderful. How clever your mother is, to ensure that it's Daddy who is shouted for in the night (and how clever of your Daddy to not always wake up, no matter how loud the shout).

It's been a tough time for the many people who know you and love you, but hopefully we can all move on and look forward to your first fully-aware Christmas. I know you were here last year, but you were a little bundle with a big voice, needing mainly your mother who was meeting almost all your needs, leaving the rest of us as admiring and devoted spectators.
This year you will know the lights and the colours and the smells and tastes. You will know the thrill of tearing off wrapping paper and finding treasure inside, of glittering decorations and flickering candles. We will be infected by your joy, seeing things afresh through your eyes, for you bring new life and hope to us all.

Happy, happy Christmas, Little One,
and profound and grateful thanks to the skilled people here.
With love from Grandma.

Relief is a One Way Ticket.

Yesterday my son landed at Heathrow on a one-way ticket.
For the past six years he has been working in ex-Soviet countries, first Russia, and more recently Kazakhstan, but now he is back in England, in the sunshine, jogging in Hyde Park, and even having a bit of a lie-down on the fresh spring grass.
Apparently.
I haven't actually seen him.

I hope I have always supported my sons in their careers and life-styles, and been proud of their adventurous spirits, but until today I did not fully appreciate the cost of having off-spring quite so far out of reach.
I realised the effect of this because I went to the dentist this morning and very nearly fell asleep in the chair. Even while I was being de-plaqued and polished, I nearly nodded off.
Then I came home and fell asleep in the sunshine in the garden. Now I am awake and a sort of dull mahogany colour with sparkling teeth, which is really quite unnerving.

I never do these things; dozing off during the day, but I suddenly realise - the relief is immense. Vast. As vast as the distance between here and Central Asia.
And now I can barely put one foot in front of the other, so I sit stretched out, like the Pasque flowers on my rock garden.

I hope I never let it be known, this low-level anxiety. The one thing I have always believed in is giving my children freedom, but this in itself can create in them a feeling that I may not care enough. Such a tightrope, such a delicate balance. As a parent you can but do your very best and hope it is enough, hope you are giving the right messages.

Yesterday, when my son telephoned with news of his arrival on English soil, I said something of how relieved I was, something of the anxiety, which was always made so much more complex by the need to have visas.
'I was always concerned,' I said, 'That you might suddenly need me and I wouldn't be able to come straight away.'
'Yes, Mum,' he said. 'I might have needed emergency trouser repairs.'

Which puts it all into the right perspective, somehow!

Now and Then

It must have been about twenty years ago that I was given this mug. Best Mum in the World it says around the rim. It's chipped now, but still sits beside my desk, holding a selection of working tools. A precious relic, even if my sons, then aged about ten and thirteen, slightly marred things by telling me it was from the dogs.
There are other valued relics in a drawer, cards probably made under a certain duress at playgroup and primary school, later cards with entertaining poems and messages:
We promise we will not fight all day
'day' deleted, 'this morning' inserted.
'promise' deleted and 'try not to' inserted.
Flowers hastily felt-tipped over the deletions.
They were wise even in those early years, not making promises that were well-nigh impossible to keep.

In my own childhood Mothering Sunday started off with a damp fistful of celandines artfully arranged in an eggcup, placed on a breakfast tray with lukewarm tea and burned toast, carried gingerly into my parents' bedroom where my mother waited in trepidation for the whole lot to slide into her lap.

These are the things that I remember most vividly; the hand-made things that take effort and time and thought. These things are so compatible with the early traditions, domestic servants being given a bit of a break in the middle of Lent, the opportunity to go home for a quick visit, taking a few flowers along the way.

Later for me came some beautiful bouquets, thoughtfully, expensively sent - and my subsequent protests against commercialisation of a basically lovely old tradition. (But thank you all the same, my sons.)
Later, for my mother too, came more expensive gifts, meals out and other appreciations of her mothering, but after her death I found a ribbon-tied packet of hand-made cards from me, including a graphic depiction of the Titanic:
'Happy Mother's Day Mummy, and I hope you like this boat'.
She obviously did.

So, Happy Mothers' Day to all mothers and mothers-to-be who have yet to appreciate the joys of the hand-made card, the hand-picked flowers and the soggy breakfast tray.
These are the treasures that will out-live the commercialisation.

Letter to a Dead Husband.

I thought of you as I photographed this, and I said to our elder son, 'Dad would have loved this'. He said, 'Yes, he'd probably have fallen out of the cable-car trying to see it better'.

It's the beginning of a new shed, half way up a mountainside in Kazakhstan.
You never went there. You never knew that your son lives there now, although you visited him in Moscow where you were entranced by the drainpipes, great gleaming drainpipes that disgorge snow and slush over the pavements.
You liked drainpipes and sheds and the practicalities of building useful structures.
Especially sheds.
You would have really enjoyed this one. You'd have been determined to get up the ski-slopes for a proper look, and you would have have wanted to join anyone who was building it, to see how they make the logs interlock securely.
These things mattered to you.

I think you knew that our younger son would become more like you, become something of a Shed Man, an enthusiast of alternative energy sources. We had to dissuade you from attempting to colonise the nearby railway embankment with wind turbines based on old bicycle wheels.
You never knew that this son is married, has been for over a year, and that you have a beautiful daughter-in-law.

You were the ultimate recycler. Your garden structures are still safely here, built of old railway sleepers, recycled carved stone, and a vast range of materials pulled from roadside skips.
Oh, how you embarrassed me with your inability to pass a skip without removing something from it. But your buildings are still here, uniquely so, and, dare I say it, improved by my ministrations? I keep the stained glass windows free of cobwebs, I have stained the insides in subtle National Trust colours, I have put in rattan furniture and cushions and I hold tea- parties in there. You would be rather disapproving I'm afraid. The sheds have lost their masculine edge. Some things have changed because they have to.

Exactly five years ago, almost to the minute as I write this, you died.

It was a morning like this, with hazy sunshine and glorious glowing autumnal colours.
For me I think it felt like the peaceful end of a life richly and unconventionally lived; an appropriate end to a period of confusion and distress. But I am looking back over five years of a different life, and my perspectives have changed. It really may not have felt like that at the time.

For you, as one of the most devout Roman Catholics ever, it was miraculous timing. You would be up there for the greatest annual heavenly celebrations, All Saints on the first of November - the great get-together of those purified and safely arrived.
If, by any chance, you had been delayed there was another celebration on November the second, All Souls, for those on their way, but not yet fully purified.
I have the strongest possible feeling that your time with us would have provided valuable if somewhat unexpected elements of purification. That's what marriage and parenthood do for us all.

As well as our thoughts of you on the mountains, your son and I lit candles for you here:



(Cathedral of the Ascension, Almaty, Kazakhstan)

You would have been totally captivated by this wonderful building. It is made entirely of wood.
You are with us in our thoughts, in places where you have never been as well as in all those you knew and loved so well.

A Weekend In Wales.

Rain, of course.
Fine, drifting, misty rain that obscures the hills and swirls gently down the valleys.
We can't see very far ahead, but there is always a castle to visit. Where ever you are in Wales, there will be a castle towering into the mist, crumbling into the damp grey earth. The past is always right beside you in Wales.
In this particular castle, which happens to be Raglan, my son and daughter-in-law take refuge on the hearth of a massive, dripping kitchen chimney, where they dance about a bit to keep warm. Then we go down into the undercroft, where there is a roof and a bit of dryness.



Later, back at the cottage, the little garden is green and dripping, and then suddenly diamond-spangled as the sun comes out. The only sounds are the irregular thumps of small hard pears, falling from an ancient tree, the croaking of crows, and the mewing buzzards floating high.
A light breeze bowls along the lane, lifting leaves, and a cascade of pears thuds to the ground.
The outdoor tables and chairs are crunchy with thick grey lichen, and a few autumnal wild-flowers, mallow, coltsfoot, cranesbill and herb robert sprawl in the long wet grass. The grey stone walls are mossed with fat green cushions.

A distant engine; a two-tier trailer of sheep arrives and is clankingly opened, metal ramps lowered. The sheep hesitate, poised between freedom and security. Then one steps out, and a clattering flurry pours down into the little muddy lane. Down the valley, over the stream, into the field. The dog circles, eyes fixed on the slow, the wayward, the hesitant.

In the west the heavy grey clouds come to a slow rolling boil again, and the sun shines white through a haze of mist.
The crows fly away to the east, shouting raucously to one another as they go, and in the trees behind me a squirrel natters and shrieks at a threat that only he can see.

Green and grey, damp, dripping and spangled, unpredictable and timelessly lovely. This was a weekend in Wales.

P.S. Nearby is a wonderful craft gallery, selling the work of talented local artists, like 'this one'

Talk Sport!

For the past ten days I have heard a wealth of information about sport, predominantly football. I have heard it in the garden, in the kitchen, in the bathroom. It has enveloped me in waves of enthusiasm, regret, excitement, speculation and sometimes quite raw and painful emotion.
This is because the outside paintwork of the house is being decorated - very carefully and well-decorated by one and sometimes two men.
The radio is plugged in before the paint-brushes are lifted, and because doors and windows are open I can hear too.
So, probably, can some of the neighbours.

Because they are such good workmen I do not complain about the incessant sporting babble, but when they are sitting in the van eating their lunch I switch off the paint-spattered radio. They minute they return it is switched on again.
I walk past on my way down the garden and turn down the volume a few notches. When they descend the ladders the volume is increased again.

Am I a wimp?
My mother would not have permitted such intrusion, but, thinking about it, workmen would hardly have had radios in her day.
So - I listen on.
I listen to their (shouted) conversation as well. I can't avoid it. They have to shout because of the volume of the radio. Their talk is not necessarily connected to the topic on the radio, which might be about some other sport, but is exclusively about football.
From early morning to mid afternoon they talk about football; the strategies, the merits of different teams, and what they would do if they were in charge of said teams.They discuss the failings and short-coming of players and managers. They reminisce about games in the past and voice their hopes for games in the future.

I am not unfamiliar with obsessive masculine behaviours. As the mother of sons I often felt excluded from a single-minded world. My sons, when small, worked their way through various obsessive phases - dinosaurs, robots, deep-sea life, Vikings.
I remember speculative discussions such as, 'If Tyrannosaurus Rex was alive today do you think he would be able to drive a digger?' (And if not, why not. Give three clear reasons.)
These obsessions were intense but short-lived, and they never involved sport.
Thank goodness!

Playing sports is an excellent idea for those with the inclination. (However, I spent lacrosse lessons lurking in the shrubbery, hating the competitive element of compulsory school sports.)
But listening to talk about sport, endlessly and repetitively, is becoming very, very wearing, and I cannot imagine that any woman would want, or be able to sustain this level of exclusivity. Some other interest or topic would surely crop up after ten minutes or so?

I'm also running out of tea-bags.

Family Trees and Shrubs

Last weekend my elder son wore The Kilt for the first time as formal dress at a friends' wedding, although it was not the right tartan, and he was disappointed to find that the blade of the sgian dubh had been sealed for Health'n'Safety reasons. He and his brother have well-documented rights to their clan tartan, and their father (even though he was a third-generation New Zealander) was always keen that they should know their family history.

I am quite keen that they should not know their family history from my side, or at least not all of it, not the bits of which I deeply disapprove.

Then I think, who do I think I am? What rights of approval and disapproval do I have over my own family background?
When people agree to appear in the BBC television series, Who Do You Think You Are? there are inevitably some shocks in store (which make for better viewing figures, of course).

I do not want to think that I am dependent on my ancestors for being who and what I am today. Certainly there is genetic inheritance, and there are socio-economic factors which have affected me, but their lives were completely different, even one generation ago.

So I am doing what parents always have done and will do....selecting the good bits and giving credit where it may possibly be due. Such as, 'You are so like your Grandfather, he had a photographic memory', and 'Your Great-Grandmother was talented in art and music'.
I edit out the bad bits, the bits I found out about too late in life to challenge the perpetrators; the double-dealing and low cunning, the shady behaviour in War-Time, the general mess and confusion of family life including episodes of what can now only be called cruelty, but which might then have been interpreted as 'character-forming'. Possibly.
Times change, our knowledge and understanding changes with it.

My late husband believed that he had inherited the ability to whisk egg-whites with his bare hands, his father allegedly being able to do so, and no doubt other members of the clan before him. One entertaining afternoon this genetic skill was proved not to have been inherited, but our sons were told of hardiness, endurance and other traits which were certainly needed in days long past; in Scotland, in the days of the early settlers in New Zealand, and on the long sea-journey between the two.

Family history becomes a sort-of myth, where people are mostly well-intentioned and fairly honourable. There are amusing anecdotes, and entertaining sepia photographs. I hope I am not being unrealistic in wanting to keep it that way.
Parts of it are true.

What on Earth......?

Prompted, as I so often am, by a comment from my writer/photographer/philosopher nephew,'Pohangina Pete' I stretch my mind from thinking about what slugs are for (in my previous post)....to what I am for.
A dangerous business, possibly leading to depression and sleepness nights. Easier to think about slugs.

Once there seemed little doubt about my purpose in life. As a wife and mother, a bread-winner, a dutiful daughter, my purposes were clear and clearly endless. Or so it seemed.
In retirement and widowhood life changes, and needs to change.
What am I for now?

I am a mother, a mother-in-law, a niece, a cousin, an aunt and a great-aunt; no longer central in the scheme of things, but there consistently, marking a space of familiarity and safety.
No longer first with anyone, but reliably someone who knows where the old photographs are kept, where there might be a bike-pump, a favourite scarf, a special book.

I am here for keeping the family home in good shape, the beds made up, the meals ready for visitors. It is no longer the primary home, but it is still the place where memories are stored, along with the piles of stuff in the attic that no one is prepared to take to their own primary home.

I am here to be a friend, to make people laugh, or at least smile, and I am here for caring about people - lots of people, and actually caring for some of them.

I am here to stay upright, to try not to fall off the ladder while pruning the vine; to stay fit enough to go to 'medical school', and to try not to create problems for others.

I am here for arguing with the County Council about consessionary bus passes, among other things.

I am here, trying to be good at last, an old-fashioned notion involving purity of heart. When horizons are restricted, choose the good bits.
I am here to accept my changed role in life with as much grace and calm acceptance as I can muster. (I loathe than poem about growing old disgracefully.)
Not a very impressive justification for being. Quite slug-like in fact.


The photograph through the cloisters in Worcester cathedral was taken by my niece, Josephine.

A Different Viewpoint.

Warning - not for the squeamish. This blog-posting may contain controversial material.

I have always had something of a yearning for medical school, but in my days of 'O' and 'A' levels the choice between arts and sciences had to be made at a very early age. The old, and in so many ways admirable Grammar School system channelled its pupils into inflexible 'Arts' or 'Sciences'. Once in one of these channnels it was very difficult to change. I ended up as an 'Arts' pupil, with lots of English and Latin and Humanities and only 'General Science'. I should have been doing Biology and Physics, but I didn't and then, for 'A' level, I couldn't.

At several critical points in my life I explored the possibility of attending medical school, but it never quite worked out. There was another career, and marriage and parenthood, and a great many other good and satisfying things. But the leaning towards medicine has never completely left me.

At last, at 71 years of age, I have the opportunity.

My younger son was here a few weeks ago. He checked my application form for me, and countersigned to say I knew what I was doing.
'Go for it, Mum,' he said. 'If it's what you want, you go for it!'

My older son was told during a telephone conversation,
'Are you sure about this?' he said. 'Is this a fully rational decision? Have you thought it through, all the implications?'
I told him I had, that I was being quite grown-up and sensible, and he laughed.
'Good for you, Mum!' he said, just like his brother.

So now my application to attend the medical school of the nearest large teaching hospital is being processed.
I can't start just yet.
I have to wait until I'm dead.
Then, when I'm dead my body will go for anatomical study and dissection by medical students.

Medical schools need bodies. How else can student doctors learn the real and delicate intricacies of the human body? To me it seems the ultimate good sense to make proper use of something that would otherwise be burned or left to decompose in the ground. It seems the last act of generosity, the last thing I can give.

For anyone interested the information about body and organ donation in the UK may be found 'here'.

There are strings attached.
The Human Tissue Authority does not want flabby, saggy, fat-filled old bodies that are difficult to dissect, so I will have to become fitter.
The Authority does not want bodies that have been through a post-mortem examination and had essential bits removed, so I will try to die as neatly and predictably as possible.

I need to be a trim, relatively unscarred cadaver.
A great new ambition at 71!


The picture above is not for the faint-hearted, either. It's from the wonderful Xstrata Treetop Walkway at Kew Gardens. It sways and is see-through.

Ring out, wild bells!

The bells rang loud and clear over the flat expanses of the Severn Estuary last weekend, as we celebrated the marriage of my younger son and his wife.
Splendidly, admirably unconventional they had actually been married some two months earlier, in a totally private ceremony on the Isle of Skye.

Equally unconventially the bells that rang out were those of the fire alarms, triggered by the fountain fireworks on top of the cup-cake tower. (Special thanks to those who dealt with them swiftly and tactfully.)

The celebration was the occasion for friends and families to come together and, in many instances, to meet for the first time.
I am full of admiration for this bride and groom, who had the courage to do what was right for them, rather than be ham-strung by the Big White Dress, the Cars, the Reception, the Flowers, and the countless 'duty' invitations.

People came together in a relaxed way, shared the cooking and washing-up, the eating and drinking, dancing, laughter and talking (and even a few tears).....and then the sweeping up and recycling of the empties the next morning.

It was the most heartfelt and sincere event I have attended, and I don't think I'm biased!

By way of contrast - how about this?



Big wedding - Almaty, Kazakhstan style.
You get the biggest stretch limo you can find, deck it with flowers, fill it with Bride's huge white dress (plus Groom), add a convoy of only slightly smaller cars filled with vodka-fuelled family and friends. Then you drive the whole convoy round the city, blowing hooters and whistles, stopping at major scenic points for group photos.
You and your stretched party will not be the only ones doing this. The city will be brought almost to a stand-still by almost-identical parties most Saturdays.
You will stop off in the park to release a cage of pure white doves.
Up they swirl into the sky, in a symbolic and romantic sort of way.
But these are homing doves, a neat cottage industry, returning home in time to be boxed up for the next wedding party.

Much as I admire lack of convention I nearly started a tradition at my own wedding.
My husband's Best Man had left his button-hole rose on the kitchen table. I tucked it into my bouquet and passed it to him as I drew level with him at the altar. The congregation apparently saw a rather charming gesture of a bride taking a flower from her bouquet and passing it to the Best Man. Several people told me that they had repeated this gesture at another wedding.
They had not heard what I said to the Best Man.
Of such stuff is tradition made.

Perhaps in future years it will be traditional for the Groom to wear a leopard-skin track-suit for his break-dancing at the reception.
One can but hope so.

(Thanks to Alex Vickers for photographing cup cakes before the alarms went off.)

The Joy of Pets

In a previous post I wrote a lament for Little Cat, so sadly missed after a fatal accident, and for her owners, E. and S.

E. and S., braving the risk of allergic reactions, went to the local Cat Rescue and were introduced to Hercule and Captain Hastings, two feisty bloke cats, allegedly brothers (although two years apart in age), allegedly devoted and inseparable.
I cannot help but feel that the Cat Rescue saw them coming and seized a golden opportunity!

Hercule and Captain Hastings spent their first night in their new home fighting in the kitchen. Hercule is black and white, but can boast a ginger beard and moustache achieved by biting his devoted brother.
They spent their first day spraying around the house, paying special attention to S's wardrobe, which is open-fronted.
They have continued to spray and fight, but the good news is that the vet says their teeth are so bad that they will probably fall out, and the biting will become gumming, just a token gesture of brotherliness.

The even better news is that the thorough distraction of having them around has eased the pain of the loss of Little Cat.
"I think they will both learn to purr soon," S. tells me.
Well, that's something for everyone to look forward to.

Some more encouraging news is that Hercule and Captain Hastings are now sleeping together.
I bought them a nice, comfy, suitably blokeish, suede-type double bed to celebrate.
The nice, comfy etc. bed was in a carrier bag in my kitchen, and my dog managed to be sick all over it the other night.

Why do we do it? I asked in my previous posting. Why are we motivated to take these little animals into our homes?

'Why indeed?' I wondered as I mopped the kitchen floor with disinfectant and washed the new, comfy double bed.
Then I discover why the dog has been sick.
When she found the packet of biscuits in the shopping bag I had so carelessly left at a low level she did not stop to remove all the plastic wrapping.



Bunty regrets......possibly.

Retired

No longer relatively retiring.
I am now retired.
For a couple of years after my husband's death I vacillated around, back to work, sort-of retired, back to work again. Hence the Relatively Retiring blog-name.

When I was at work I thought how wonderful retirement would be; the freedom, the glorious freedom to do this or that or even nothing; to sleep through the yelling of the alarm clock, not to have a weekly dead-line, not to have appointments and meetings at hourly intervals.
When I was juggling family life with one and sometimes two careers simultaneously I yearned for peace and isolation. I wanted to take a long hot bath all by myself without someone pounding on the door, asking for food, a lift to a friend's house, or provoking an argument about the use of a games machine.
I wanted to concentrate in a meeting without having to think about supper, and without continually glancing at my watch to see how long I was overdue at the child minder's.
I wanted uninterrupted time with my family without being called to the phone about one or both jobs.

Now, I have it.
I have the time, the peace, the freedom, the isolation. I don't need to worry about supper, and I can have a long hot bath all alone whenever I wish. The phone may not ring for a couple of days.
In the having of it there is terrible loss.

I miss my former life; all of it. The noise and anxieties, the frustrations and arguments, the constant need to meet the demands of others.
I miss it, and did not realise that when it went a sense of identity would go with it.
Retirement is not easy, and I have found that you have to work just as hard to stay afloat as ever you did in the work-place and in the all-in wrestling match of family life.
Only now it is a lonely battle, which others do not see.

You do not let others see lest you become a drain, a responsibilty.
You wake in the morning and think, 'Why bother?', and then you put your energies into bothering, being positive, thinking of others, staying afloat.

Being retired.