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.

Treading Water

It has felt like treading water for several weeks now, and yet a great deal has been happening.
For one of the very few times in my life I have found myself unable to communicate; not unwilling, but unable, because some experiences go so deep that they slip through the mesh of conventional speech and writing. They swim silently, like the little fish in this, the Waterlily House at Kew Gardens. They circle, and occasionally break the surface tension, and then they slip down again, into the dark water.

I have been touched to receive some kind comments on my blog, hoping I'm still around. Then, today, I was helped by fellow blogger 'Zhoen' , who is hoping to start a new project.
I have started something new, too. My own new work is within the 'Hospice Movement.'

Zhoen has had similar experience within her own career, and writes of Hospice work, '....experience beyond words to capture. Too profound to pin to a board. The kind of humour that just doesn't translate to anyone who hasn't been there.....'

Exactly, Zhoen, and thank you.


The giant waterlily is significant, too.
As a child I was captivated by a photograph of a little girl, sitting in the middle of a leaf of the giant Amazonian waterlily, being upheld by the leaf structure over deep water.
My parents took me to Kew Gardens to see the real thing, where, to my extreme disappointment, I was not allowed to sit on a leaf.
Yesterday I went to see it again. It's a bit smaller, as this is Victoria Cruziana, and I am considerably larger. There is no longer the faintest hope of sitting on a leaf.

So I watch the little fish, circling happily in the dark water, and wait for the words to return, for great experiences to be assimilated.
I wait, with a huge sense of gratitude for the ever growing awareness of the richness of life and death.

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

Every Plant has its Time.

The time for this plant is now.
It is Christmas Box, or Winter Box (Sarcocca humilis), and it grows in a quiet, sheltered corner of the garden where I generally forget all about it.
Then, one morning, this morning, I go out into tepid sunshine and the air is filled with a wonderfully spicy fragrance.

It doesn't look much, and its flowers are tiny and not very decorative, but its power is awesome.
Two small sprigs of it sit in the winter indoor jungle that is my kitchen table, and the house is filled with fragrance.
How can such insignificant flowers emit such strength?

In the depths of the winter garden it is possible to overlook the signs of hope and of new life. It is the slight warmth of the sun that triggers the scent, and I am reminded again of the miraculous adaptations in a small garden.
One corner catches the sun and holds the warmth. A few inches away, and the temperature falls and the wind blows across.
Even the smallest garden holds a myriad micro-climates, enabling plants to live at their own pace and to benefit from the good times.

Similarly, in the depths of a life it is possible, sometimes easy, to overlook the good things, the important things which have to power to enrich my days.

A little while ago (not so long before my 70th birthday) I acknowledged the fact that some doors were closing for me. I no longer think that I might be a ballerina or a concert pianist, but I still feel full of possibilities. I still think of some other people as being 'grown-up', whereas I might not be. Not yet.

So the good things, the sheltered corners, the rich soil of my life are my family, my home, my friends.
They are the morning sun in the garden, and a fat thrush eating sultanas on the bird table.
They are a good book and a wood fire, a happy telephone call and a hand reaching out to say 'hello'.
They are rooms full of scent from a drab little plant that I forget about until it comes back to life and brings me with it.

Replenishment.

Look at this!
How I wish I could convey the smell, the rich, deep aroma of freshly cut wood.

I've written about my meaningful relationship with my woodburning stove previously. I can only say that this winter the relationship has grown deeper and more profound.

There is something wonderfully basic about having a store of fuel. Not just having it, but making it, handling it, stacking it, fitting it into the space, then shutting the door, keeping it dry, knowing it's there.
Last year I emptied the woodstore.

Last year, the last days of the year when the mercury fell so far in the tube I thought it had vanished.
The last days when nine small roach got trapped in the ice of the garden pond and died there. If they'd had the sense to stay at the bottom of the pond they would have been safe. But they didn't.
The heron, being fed on tinned sardines, rammed his beak into the ice again and again to get the untinned fish, but couldn't reach them. He sat, hunched just outside the window, too dispirited to fly away.




The last days when my sons finally arrived safely for Christmas and managed to break two toboggans (but luckily no bones) on the dramatically beautiful slopes of the hills.
The days when my guests wrapped themselves in duvets inside the house during the day-time, and when we all sat as close as possible to the wonderful little Danish stove.

It felt like all the magic of winter story-land, Snow Queens and Ice Maidens, and only a real, living, flickering fire could quell the cold and darkness of December nights.
By the end of the year the woodstore was empty, and I even bought some of those orange nets of logs from the filling station to keep the home fire burning.
So at the turn of the year the first task was of replenishment.

There was a window of opportunity, a couple of days of dry air and weak sunshine, and I sat in the woodstore, building my mosaic against the months of cold and darkness still to come.
A protection as old as time.
An achievement so basic it stirs the blood, and appeals to all the senses.
Keeping the darkness at bay.

Sleigh Bells and Sprouts.

The stockings are ready - not just ready but hand-quilted, and I sit here, knowing that Heathrow is closed for incoming flights, and very far-flung family and friends are possibly in departure-lounges half a world away. Those in the same country are snow-bound, ice-bound on dangerous road surfaces, so here I sit.
There's not a lot more I can do.
The one positive thought is that if no one else arrives I will not starve for a couple of years. I might weary of turkey and mince-pies, but I will not starve, except for the company of those keenly awaited.

It gives me more time to think about explaining a very traditional English Christmas to two guests from far away, one of whom doesn't speak English.

Stockings? Well, they are essential. You hang them up beside the fireplace, and during the night some portly old gentleman manages to squeeze himself down the chimney, out through the door of the wood-burning stove - yes, it is lit - and then he puts presents in your stocking.
The stove is hot, burning-hot because of the yule log, which is actually a great iron-hard hunk of the old gatepost and it will smoulder for days. The yule log must burn until Christmas morning, so he has to get past it with a load of liqueur chocolate. Tricky.
And by the way, he travels through the air, on a sleigh, with bells. With reindeer.
No one ever sees him, except in department stores and garden centres from late October onwards.

We have this vast turkey. No one is really all that keen on turkey, especially the red meat, but we have it, golden and glazed and stuffed with nuts and herbs and sausagemeat and apricots. The guest from far away who spent last Christmas with us was so enchanted by the stuffings that she ate them for breakfast, so this year there are even more exotic stuffings. Perhaps I should have replaced the turkey with roast beef or salmon, but now it's crouching there in the freezer. Biding its time. Like me.

What everyone seems to prefer is 'pigs-in-blankets'. We all like them, but we only have them at Christmas.

No one (but me) likes sprouts. We have sprouts, lots of them, and I'm not following the adventurous recipes for alternative cooking. Boiled sprouts and the attendant aroma is deeply traditional. So deeply that the smell lingers for days, despite the yule logs and the cinnamon candles.

One of us likes Christmas pudding, so we have a great big one and he can have it cold for breakfast on Boxing Day. We all have to have a bit though, with brandy butter (yuk!) and if all is going well I manage to set fire to it before serving. Sometimes it is possible to choke or break a tooth on the coins hidden inside. Flaming Christmas pud!

We have crackers and will explain the jokes to our guests, which may not be easy, cross-culturally and bilingually. It is also fairly obligatory to wear the flimsy paper hat and appreciate the plastic toy.

Mince-pies are as essential as tinsel and fairy lights, even though no mince is involved, and no fairies either, as far as I know.
The Christmas tree holds memories old and newer - glass ornaments several generations old, and cardboard angels made at Playgroup. We mustn't be without it, nor without the dangerous scramble in the depths of the attic to find the treasured ornaments in their unmarked, unidentifiable boxes.

And so we wait, the turkey and I, in our own private Advent.

Happy Christmas, everyone, and may all your journeys be possible.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Earth stands hard as iron, water like a stone, and the solitary heron steps its cautious path across the deep-frozen lawn.
Always solitary, always cautious, creeping like a badly-furled umbrella away from the pond, knowing it to be yet another fruitless journey, yet another waste of precious energy.
On the far side of the lawn it heaves itself into the grey air, a metallic flopping bird against a cruelly metallic sky.

I have pangs of conscience.
We created a wildlife garden, deliberately attracting creatures to come and live near us. We created cosy little habitats, log piles for the wood lice, small woven roosts for the wrens, a pond for countless insects as well as fish and frogs. There are little houses for hedgehogs, nettles for butterflies, thick hedges for bird shelters, ivy on the walls, roses round the door.

I put out food, all the time, seeds and nuts and chunks of fat.
The heron came regularly to the pond to pick out a rudd or two. Stocking the pond with self-renewing native fish is the equivalent of putting other food on the bird-table.
Attracting birds to the bird-table creates the equivalent supply for buzzards and sparrow hawks.
You can't really pick and choose the visitors to a wild-life garden.
You supply bounty, free for all.

The garden becomes over-populated as a result.
Perhaps those who should have gone somewhere warmer have stayed around, seduced by the ready supply of food?
Perhaps too many have bred, reproduced themselves over-enthusiastically and unrealistically?
Do creatures become over-dependent on my generosity, and it is really generous or a form of self-indulgence?

Robins look good on Christmas cards, but are unpleasantly determined creatures in real life. If food runs short they will fight to the death for it.
The blue tits and great tits are still coming to the bird-table and the food holders, but I haven't seen a wren for days now, nor the long-tailed tits who daily came in a chattering, dipping family flock.

Have I created a false haven and lured them to a death of cold and starvation?

I pick up the ski poles and venture out to the shops.
I am going to buy sardines for the heron.

Right or wrong?