Ladies who Lunch.

Like so many other things in life, this caught me unawares.
An enjoyable lunch with an interesting group metamorphosed in my mind into something else. A category: Ladies who Lunch, the implications being firstly Ladies and then Lunch.

Lady-like behaviour was an important factor in my childhood. Politeness, good table manners, social skills, knowing one's place. The opposite was 'common', which could involve shouting, pushing, wearing the sort of clothes that allowed flashing of the knickers, showing off, making onself conspicuous. Common always had charms.

A little later, incipient ladies were more specifically trained: doing the flowers, laying the table, using the correct form of address for a bishop. Ladies-in-training were made to walk around with books on their heads and were given badges as rewards for good deportment. Would anyone dare to treat any eighteen year old like that today? What was wrong with us I wonder now? Why was there not some sort of rebellion?
There wasn't.
We went overnight from being school-girls to being middle-aged ladies, wearing hats and gloves and rubberised roll-on corsets and suspenders and stockings (not, you will clearly understand, from even the remotest thought of kinkiness, but because tights were yet to be invented. Kinkiness had been invented, but was never spoken of. Teenagers had not been invented, either).
Common, meanwhile, was wearing bras with the cups stitched into rigid projectile cones and was smoking and gasping in the back row of the cinema. Common was likely to become pregnant any day or night, but Ladies did not fully understand about such things,and certainly would not dream of gasping at the Hunt Ball.
Common continued to exercise its furtive charms.

Lunch - proper lunch, something you sit down to eat off a plate, not something eaten on the hoof or at a desk from a paper bag - luncheon implies 'not working'.
Luncheon needs at least a double set of cutlery and matching plates and proper, starched damask napkins.
After-luncheon coffee requires matching cups and saucers, not chipped 'humorous' mugs with pictures of sheep and pigs. It will need a polished silver dish for the chocolate mints. Oh, heavens!
Ladies who lunch are at leisure in the middle of the day. They are free to enjoy like-minded company, an attractive starter, a light but beautifully presented main course with a chilled glass (or two) of Chablis, and an amusingly delicious pudding.

Ladies who Lunch are coming to my place at the weekend.
Too late in the day I realise I'm not a lady and I don't usually lunch.

The garden is out of control in the heat, and I am nearly defeated by it, but they will want to see it - and peversely, I will want to show it off. So (despite my promises to my sons) I have already clambered on the shed roofs to prune the vine, taken a machete to the bank at the bottom, and done my back in getting ground elder out of the rock garden with a crow bar. (Is there a manufacturer who makes lady-sized machetes, crow-bars and chain-saws?)

The Ladies will probably want to use the loo, which means I ought to scour the house from top to bottom. Really I should have redecorated and recarpetted.
I must find a cure for the dog's flatulence, (she's such a friendly old thing and loves company) and fill the house with flowers and scented oils in case I can't.

All I have to do then is cook a totally delicious meal that no one else has thought of, being at the same time sure that it will not cause allergic reactions or weight increase.
Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

Write Every Day

Here's a response to 'PohanginaPete',whose wonderfully diverse photographic blog appears almost daily. I'm proud of the fact that he's my nephew, and that we share a sort of addiction to writing. It is an addiction, in my case. Throughout most of my life I have kept journals and diaries, and their purpose has been to clarify my thoughts. I have never intended them to be read by anyone else, and, for that reason, many have been consigned to the bonfire. Seeing one's thoughts go up in flames has been a truly cathartic experience. After the traumatic year of my husband's death I wrote pages of grief, anger, misery and self-indulgence. There is no longer a place for those feelings in my life, although there was a burning need to express them at the time. Burning was the right word, and the right end for them. The pages above are from one of my journals of 1968, when I was working in Saudi Arabia. They have been lost in the depths of the attic for forty years, and when they emerged during a down-sizing clear-out I was amazed. Did I really go there, do that, think that? I must have been a more adventurous and interesting person than I could ever acknowledge. I liked myself better, because of these faded pages. Throughout the first years of their infancy I kept daily diaries for my sons, trying to record not so much of my own feelings (which were totally overwhelming at times) but their own developing skills and actions. If blogging was possible then I would have used it for them. The nearest thing I've seen to it is the record being built here, 'Bud of a Bud' which will give a little girl the loving details of her first years. Many years on and some of my writing comes back again in unexpected ways. The rediscovery of ancient journals has lead to the rediscovery of ancient friendships, and their development into new joys. It is possible, with some very slightly judicious editing, to give back to my sons an interpretation of the day-to-day living of their first few years; at times hilarious, at times very touching, at times demanding and exhausting, but feeling real and as honest as I could be. The words go from the brain, into the hand, through the pen, on to the paper. When I pick up the pen I seldom have a clear knowledge of what it will produce. Sometimes the words stay there, in the Moleskine notebook, in the smaller notebook in the kitchen, the smaller-still one in the handbag. Many of them go deeper and wider and end up in different form. The journals of '68/'69 became published work which led to a second career in writing, but I actually had my first writing published when I was six years old. Truly addictive. As essential as breathing.

Community Spirit.

Isn't it great to DO things with friends?

Instead of the usual fighting over discarded food, stalking and molesting each other, and picking on the weak and maimed, these pigeons were enjoying a spa experience in the city-centre, riverside fountains this morning.
In warm sunshine.
Bathing their contaminated little feet, enjoying the cool spray on their manky old feathers.
Looking better, feeling better.

A sense of calm purpose enveloped them.
Later in the day they won't be able to get near the fountains. The toddlers will be there (also bathing their little feet, but we'll pass over that thought). But in the early morning sun the place was theirs, and they had come together in a crowd, aware of each other, offering protection in numbers, but each enjoying their own experience.

Elsewhere in this early morning, the same community spirit was strong. A great many senior citizens, equipped with Cool-Boxes and sun-hats were making their purposeful way over the bridge to the cricket ground. This is Worcester, I'm talking about, and it is clearly a Big Day.
The same sense of calm purpose was there, the same intent to enjoy the shared experience.

It is said that many of us have three types of community; family, work and other.
'Other' is what we chose to join in with, paddling in the fountain, watching cricket, learning French, playing golf, volunteering for a service.
Not all of us are fortunate enough to have these varieties of community, and many of us lose all or parts of them at different times. It happens, for instance, with retirement, bereavement and when the children leave home. Life gets out of balance, communities change and there is a sometimes difficult and painful period of readjustment.

We don't generally choose our work community (unless we own the whole set-up), and we don't choose our extended families. Blessed are they who find deep compatibility and harmony therein. Challenged are the rest of us.
However, we can chose the 'Other'.
It takes energy and discrimination, and, in my case, a fair bit of trial and error.
I'm working on it; the need for shared enjoyment and the appreciation of calm purpose.

This morning I watched the pigeons. Contaminated feet or not, they got it right today.

Accidental Gardening.

There are many uninvited visitors to my garden. Most of them are welcome; only a few are not.
I like to let things happen, to create an environment and stand back and watch.

These primroses crept in quietly last year; just a couple of tentative leaves in a sunny spot at the foot of a bamboo clump. A year later and they have really got their roots down and claimed their territory. By next year I hope their offspring will be settling in.
There are no other primroses anywhere near, so how did they arrive?

The opportunism and tenacity of many plants fills me with admiration. Some travel around the garden, from one side to another, from top to bottom, without any help at all from me. They grow in places that the gardening books tell me are wrong for them - too dry, too wet, wrong soil. No one told the plants, and they don't seem to mind one bit.

This happy combination of violets and cyclamen has tucked itself into the gravel beside the back doorstep. These violets (viola Labradorica) have a reputation for clumping, but have instead arranged themselves into scattered groupings with cyclamen hederifolium, which in turn have travelled around the garden, appearing in all sorts of unexpected places.




I couldn't have done better myself. Indeed, if I had tried to transplant and arrange them they would probably have died on me.

I admire the rampant sexualtity of geraniums (the perennials, not those half-hardy bright red pelargoniums at their best in public parks). They have wonderful mechanisms like medieval sling-shots, which catapult the seeds across the garden, making sure they reproduce themselves a hundred-fold. They are understandable, but I cannot understand how Solomon's Seal (polygonatum multiflorum) travelled from the back garden to the front, and having settled at the front, also moved across the garden from side to side. I'm delighted. I love the plant, but it comes in a big pot from the garden centre. It's a big plant. How does it saunter about like this?

Last year a wild orchid appeared in a patch of decorative grasses. An orchid! I don't know if it has survived the harsh winter, but I'm hoping. I'm hoping there may even be more than one.

We constructed a pond many years ago and watched as within a matter of days there were pond-skaters all over the surface. Within two months there were frogs, damsel flies, dragonflies, and a grass snake, and within three months the heron had found it.

Clever, opportunistic wild creatures as well as plants, watching our activities, biding their time, staking out their claims, and creating the sort of garden I could never make by myself.

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.

Death of a Little Cat

Why do we do this? Why are we motivated to take these little animals into our homes, teaching them how to be clean, letting them learn the warmest places, the most comfortable places, feeding them, entertaining them while they entertain us?

Why do we let them into our hearts?

There is no sense in it, but we do it over and over again.

Each time one of my dogs has died I have said, 'Never again!' and given away the beds and bowls, collars, leads and waterproof coats. And sooner or later (generally later) I have gone out and bought more. A new dog has moved in.
My last two dogs both came to me for an allegedly short time, at the end of their lives, to have a comfortable death. The current one snores loudly in the kitchen as I write this, two and a half years after she came here.

In their childhoods my sons experienced so many pet deaths that my younger son kept a Book of Woe, recording the loss of dogs, gold-fish, rabbits, guinea-pigs and stick insects. Each loss was painful, each as bad as the one before, but I thought I was doing the right thing in letting them have pets at the cost of losing them. I thought it was right for children to experience death, that the death of a pet might somehow make it easier to cope with human deaths, when they arrived, as they surely would.

We did not have cats because of family allergies, and I was aware of feeling relieved. Goldfish generally stay in their tanks (although we did have one who persistently leapt for freedom and subsequently swam backwards after spending some time, unnoticed, on the carpet). Dogs have to be under control. The rabbits and guinea-pigs were in a walled garden and couldn't get out (although predators could get in, sadly and messily). Stick insects stayed put, and it was not always easy to tell if they were dead or not.

Cats are different, independent, free spirits. They bestow their favours upon us when they choose, and withdraw them when they choose. They are fearless, able to squeeze into tight corners, through narrow gaps, climb dangerous ledges, clamber on to slippery roofs. They are terribly vulnerable. The emotional cost of cat ownership is great.

So this is not my cat, but a little cat very like it lived with people I love until a couple of days ago. She brought them so much pleasure for a few short months.
I met her only once, recently. I felt extraordinarily privileged that she bestowed her favours on me, giving me toys to play with, carrying a leaf from the garden all the way upstairs and giving it to me in the bedroom. I thought she liked me, and I was perplexed by how important that thought was to me. She was charming, fearless, entertaining, inquisitive and determined.

A few days later and the little cat is dead, the saddest of accidents, the terrible cost of freedom.
Her life was short, but full of meaning and she will not be forgotten.
But the experience of death does not get easier.

This is for S., E. and K.