Long Ago and Far Away.

A strangely flat world where the horizon fills only a quarter of the train window. Wind turbines, their thin grey arms slowly slicing the air, and the flat grey estuary merges into a flat grey sky.

Low tide in the Humber estuary and pale ochre sand shows through white water. The elegant bridge arches gently over the huge estuary, supported by cobweb thin threads. A small blue boat forges steadily over the broad expanse of reflective water.

The sun comes out just after Goole. (I have wanted to use that sentence for some time). There is sudden vivid illumination of  vast distances of corduroy fields, fresh acid green growth on dark brown earth.

Vastness, when I am used to hills and valleys and trees and steep twisting roads.

This is my first venture away from home in eight months, and it feels as strange and remote as if I'm crossing the Central Asian Plain. I  think I am reconciled to my inability to travel abroad, and this tentative venture into time away from home proves it to some degree. The British Isles are full of enjoyable, weird, beautiful things, even in pouring rain, and I am determined to make the most of what I can experience, rather than hanker for what I can't.

The Humber Estuary may not be everyone's vision of delight, but it is mine.

Everyone else in the train seems to be playing with their phone or asleep, while I revel in light and distance and differentness.

I love train travel. I especially enjoy going through the outskirts of towns where you can look down into gardens and even into bedroom windows. Then I remember that I live in such a situation myself and make a mental resolve to close the blinds when I turn on the lights. But the glimpses you gain are fleeting and often tantalising - unless the signals are on red, in which case it is probably better to close the blinds.

I am travelling north into this different landscape to visit old friends. Very old friends. We met as teenagers and are now Senior Citizens with bus passes and free television licences (I can't wait! Only about a month to go for me). We pick up conversations where we left off many years ago. Sometimes we get confused and slightly argumentative over who said what in 1959, but so often the same idiosyncrasies emerge, and I see clearly the people I knew nearly fifty years ago. The gesture of a hand, the tone of a voice seem absolutely unchanged.

Are we really fixed as people in our late teens?

Life and experience have added layers, but it is fascinating how often it seems that the teenager, even the child, still lurks just below the surface. 

Only just below, sometimes.

It's hugely reassuring.

Distance.

Yesterday, a happy telephone conversation with an old friend.
We knew one another over forty years ago, when we were Bright Young Things in an exotic situation.
Many years later a number of serendipitous events led to our meeting again, and now we write (on good paper, with proper pens) and send one another books and other things of mutual interest, and we compete by telephone.

We compete over who can walk upstairs without hauling themselves on the banister rail, who can rise swiftly from a chair without using the chair arms, who can read without spectacles and over other such accomplishments which become increasingly significant when one is over seventy.

It is very good to be able to ask someone of the same age if it's normal to feel tired at the end of the day, if it's acceptable to feel timorous about motorway driving, if it's usual to be reluctant to leave one's comfort zone.
When you're this sort of age there seem no clear guide lines on what is all right and what might be the beginning of a decline, mental and/or physical.. There is so much promotion of youthfulness in mind and body, so much emphasis on activity and so few people who are prepared to be really honest about their fears and failings.

I look back over the distant views of my life and marvel at my physical energy and creative strength.
I'm so grateful that I was once, long ago, a Bright Young Thing, skimming around with two simultaneous jobs and doing up houses in my spare time. What spare time?

What spare time do we have now, my old friend and I?
Now there is nothing to spare and everything to value; the warmth of the sun through a window, the pleasing patterns of pens and papers on a desk, the smell of wood in the log pile, the morning walk along basically the same route which looks completely different every day.

We live quite a distance apart but our lives are so similar, our huge appreciations of minutae, our love of our respective homes, our respect for the young and our complete lack of envy for those who have it all to come.

I ask him, "Is it all right to feel exhausted by nine o' clock at night?"  He says," Of course it is. What on earth can happen after nine o' clock to make it worth staying up?"
We might both have answered very differently a few decades ago, but now if I want to know what's happening I go to bed with Radio 4..
"Is it all right to feel timorous about motorway driving?" I ask, and he says, "I'm never going to drive on a motorway again."
My life is not quite as simple, but I feel that it's all right to express reluctance, although I buy a SatNav and do it. But the feeling that I'm not alone in being suitably reluctant is a good one.
"What about leaving the comfort zone?" I ask. "Why do it?" he says, which is a good point. Of course I will do it, but I make sure I know why I'm doing it.

My youth seems long, long distant, and I can (mostly) appreciate the gentleness of ageing. As the looks go, so does the eyesight. As the strength declines so does the urge to use it. The more one slows down the more there is to appreciate in the finer details. As one faces the sadness and losses that death brings, so much more does one value the remaining friendships.

Promises, promises.....

Once upon a time, sixty years ago to be precise, I was asked what I would like if I passed the Eleven-Plus Exam, this being the test that sorted out the Grammar School entrants from the Secondary Modern, the potential learners of Latin from those doing Domestic Science.
Savage, life-changing stuff.
Archaic stuff that formed one's destiny at eleven years of age.
One's parents were naturally anxious and prepared to bribe.

I said I wanted a Scottie dog.
For years I had wanted a Scottie dog.
I had a stuffed toy one that I used to haul out for walks on a real lead and who was distinctly the worse for wear as a result.
Of course I wanted a Scottie dog.

This was not what I was supposed to say, and it was suggested that I would like a new bike, or even more ballet lessons, or a toy theatre with real curtains and lots of glove puppets.
Tempting, but no.
Only a Scottie would do. He would be a boy called Mac, and he would have a red collar and lead.

So it was (reluctantly) agreed.
I would practise the intelligence tests, be sensible about vocabulary (sharp is to knife as sour is to honey/lemon/bread 'Yes, I know you can say lemon is sharp, but stop trying to be smart!'), learn, really learn all the tables including the nine and the seven, brush up on long-division of furlongs, write proper essays about A Day in the Life of a Sixpence, pass the Eleven Plus.....and have a Scottie! Oh, yes, and go to the Grammar School.

I passed, but I did not have a Scottie. My parents put up a raft of excuses about incovenience and not being able to find the right dog, and the upshot was that I ranted about their failure to keep a promise, and thoughout the next sixty years I have obviously told and retold this tale of cruel injustice, childhood disillusionment and parental infidelity.

I must have told it more often than I realised, because this morning a Scottie arrived, and you can see him above, clearly on guard in his red collar.
He is beautifully made, in classic Scottie pose, by Jane whose wonderfully crafty and artistic blog is here: 'Jeeandme'

And just to drive home how often I have told this tale, here below is another Scottie, minutely cross-stitched into a tiny cushion in my dolls' house (which is another story to be told).

So thank you so much, Jane and Beth, for using your skills and humour to make a sixty year old promise come true!

A Magic Box

I had Russian guests at Christmas, and was given this beautiful box. It is made of Malachite, from the Ural Mountains.
A special stone, a special place. There is no doubt at all that this box has wonderful properties.
I show it off to all my visitors, and the box has proven its powers already.

Visitor 1 was here a couple of weeks ago, much preoccupied by dental problems - couldn't pronounce 'S', couldn't bite into an apple, had to chew biscuits on the side. Visitor 1 is rather small, and we're talking missing front milk-teeth here.
"I wish," said Visitor 1, wearily. "I wish and wish my new teeth would grow."

I introduced the magic box.
"Hold it carefully," I said. "Close your eyes and make your wish."

A week later Visitor 1 rang up to tell me it had worked! The new teeth were emerging. They had frilly edges and were very, very sharp.
"That's a really magic box!" said Visitor 1. "Can I use it again?"

So there must follow some careful discussion about the nature of wishing, and possibly even the realisation that the magic always has to come from within yourself. What the box can do is clear your mind so that you can see your wishes, and it may even give you the power to do something about them.
This may be a little too hard for a six year old.
Or, then again, it may not.
Many six year olds are more clear sighted than worldly, experienced, over-qualified, pressured adults.

Visitor 2 may fall into the latter category and called in for a cuppa, over-worked, a bit sad, anxious, tired.
I introduced the magic box and took rather a long time making the coffee.
Visitor 2 sat by the fire, stroking the box and saying, "Isn't it amazing? It's like looking into a rock pool".
Then a few minutes later, "It's like looking into ferns in a forest as well."
I could hear the blood-pressure falling, and really did not want to produce coffee.

Visitor 2 was parted from the box with a certain amount of reluctance.
"Where did you say it came from?"
"The Urals, in Russia."
"Oh. Not local then?"
"No, absolutely not local."
"It's so beautiful.....and it has such a calming effect....."
"Yes, I know." (And it stays right here on this shelf.)




Большое спасибо, Ирина