Wednesday, 12 December 2007
Thursday, 29 November 2007
Bag Lady
It’s getting towards that time of year when my head feel like it will explode from all the detail contained within it. It does seem to be the lot of a mother that along with childbirth and breastfeeding, remembering every single detail of your children’s young lives will fall to you and you alone. I have become the repository of the communal family memory. I need to remember presents for class teachers, costume requirements for school plays, evenings when I need to book a babysitter, days when K has to be in school all day, days when she comes home at 12.00, days when J has after-school activities, days when he doesn’t but does need to bring his PE kit home. I need to remember what they wrote on their letters to Father Christmas but have changed their minds about; things I need for packed lunches but I haven’t got in the house, what homework needs to be done and where the library books are and and and …you get the picture. All run-of-the-mill stuff that goes with the territory of having children, and probably sounds positively lightweight to those with more than two, but which at certain times of the year threatens to overload the system in anticipation of an almighty crash.
I was vaguely wondering what it would feel like when I didn’t have to be a walking memory-deposit for other people’s lives, when I glanced in my bag. And was jolted back a few years, to when going out of the house was a military manoeuvre. Time was when my bag had money and make-up. No mobile phone, back then, but usually a card from a mini-cab company, a pen for scribbling down numbers, maybe a couple of Nurofen. Then, instead of things that only I might need, my bag was invaded – and, indeed, had to be upgraded. Bottles. Breast pads. Wipes. Tissues. Nappies. Then it changed again. After a couple of years, I could ditch the huge unwieldy rucksack. But I still had to find room for snacks, for juice cartons, for plasters, for sting relief, for wipes, for tissues, for sachets of Calpol. For hair ties and glittery pencils (her) and mini Thunderbirds figures and light sabres from cereal packets (him). For crayons and drawing pads, if the journey was long. Apples and packets of raisins featured strongly.
My bag is shrinking again now. Apart from a few things that are still essential, I am reclaiming it. There is space around my wallet now, and my keys rattle. It doesn’t feel quite right. For a bag like this was once the preserve of a party girl with no dependants, and she’s long gone now. By the same token, I know my mind will never be entirely free of the minutiae of other people, never left clean and fresh and able to focus only on its own needs and interests again. And I think I quite like it this way. And after all, there will come a day when I will probably cart around a carpet bag worthy of Mary Poppins, from which I will pull boiled sweets and knitting needles and photos, and my mind will be allowed to roam and my stories will ramble and my memories will be like jewels brought out to sparkle in the light.
I was vaguely wondering what it would feel like when I didn’t have to be a walking memory-deposit for other people’s lives, when I glanced in my bag. And was jolted back a few years, to when going out of the house was a military manoeuvre. Time was when my bag had money and make-up. No mobile phone, back then, but usually a card from a mini-cab company, a pen for scribbling down numbers, maybe a couple of Nurofen. Then, instead of things that only I might need, my bag was invaded – and, indeed, had to be upgraded. Bottles. Breast pads. Wipes. Tissues. Nappies. Then it changed again. After a couple of years, I could ditch the huge unwieldy rucksack. But I still had to find room for snacks, for juice cartons, for plasters, for sting relief, for wipes, for tissues, for sachets of Calpol. For hair ties and glittery pencils (her) and mini Thunderbirds figures and light sabres from cereal packets (him). For crayons and drawing pads, if the journey was long. Apples and packets of raisins featured strongly.
My bag is shrinking again now. Apart from a few things that are still essential, I am reclaiming it. There is space around my wallet now, and my keys rattle. It doesn’t feel quite right. For a bag like this was once the preserve of a party girl with no dependants, and she’s long gone now. By the same token, I know my mind will never be entirely free of the minutiae of other people, never left clean and fresh and able to focus only on its own needs and interests again. And I think I quite like it this way. And after all, there will come a day when I will probably cart around a carpet bag worthy of Mary Poppins, from which I will pull boiled sweets and knitting needles and photos, and my mind will be allowed to roam and my stories will ramble and my memories will be like jewels brought out to sparkle in the light.
Monday, 12 November 2007
Remembering
11 November
95 years ago today, a baby girl was born in Newcastle. The eldest of eleven children, only four of whom were to survive past infancy, she was born into what we might casually call slum housing today, although the term would have appalled her parents. Her father was always in work at the shipyards (vanished now), and he and her mother considered themselves to be respectable working class. There was a long tradition of working at the shipyards for the men in her family; further back they had been fisherman on the Northumbrian coast, and one of her maternal grandfathers had been a ferryman on the Tyne. There were some hard years ahead for the family, although they didn’t know it in 1912. The little girl celebrated the armistice of 1918, on her sixth birthday, and as a young woman witnessed the Jarrow Marchers, which included one of her uncles by marriage. Her parents believed in education, and she was a clever girl, but she couldn’t stay in school long, with so many other little ones at home to take care of, and less and less money coming in as the 20’s went on. She worked hard, with the spirit and enterprise and determination that she became well known for. She worked at home, of course, looking after infant siblings, so many of whom they had to bury, with few funds available for funerals. She also worked in a milliners and a dressmakers, and learnt good skills; she was a striking figure, apparently, in her neighbourhood, with her long back hair and piecing blue eyes, and a penchant for wearing red. Music was her passion, she had a lovely voice and could play anything by ear. Musical evenings were the norm in her family and she grew up knowing, and singing, all the old border laments. She married a man twenty years older than her, who also worked at the shipyards, a man born in the late Victorian age, who could remember the old Queen dying, and who had fought in the First World War. She had twins, a boy and a girl, followed by two more sons, and carried on working. Mostly domestic work, of course, and hard work it must have been too, with twins, little money and few appliances that we consider essential today. She would never have left her children all day, except occasionally with a neighbour or family member, but needed to ensure that more money came in, so she cleaned pubs in the evening, and began to sing in them too. She and her brother were well known for their voices and apparently the pubs would be packed when they sang.
In due course her daughter passed her 11 plus and she was allowed to go to the grammar school. Permission was tacitly needed; her daughter remembers the stares and comments and – sometimes - jeers she got from many in the community, for she was ‘set apart’ by that; her twin brother, who’d also passed, refused point blank to go back after the first week and went, with all the neighbourhood boys, to the secondary modern. Her daughter remembers with gratitude her mother’s energy and determination, and the way that she would shine in any social situation, however uncomfortable she felt. The headmaster, no doubt appreciating the shining black hair and the inevitable red dress, would always talk to her mother for the longest time. Her husband died early, and she remarried twice, but both subsequent husbands died young as well. Life never got her down, though; she continued to work, and even in her sixties she embraced new opportunities. She learnt to drive at 60; travelled to Australia for the first time at 64, and learnt to swim, in the warm Australian ocean, at 66. At 95 she still reads a couple of newspapers each day and completes the crosswords. She’ll discuss anything, from books to current affairs to Coronation Street, and has amazing recall. She is one of the brightest people I have ever met, with a restless, striving energy which I, too dreamy by far, didn’t inherit, although I see it strongly in my daughter, her namesake. She owns her own little bungalow, bought in her seventies, and is fiercely proud of her acquisition and her independence. Owning her own property was an impossible dream when she was young, and she said she was talking in her head to her parents and dead siblings non-stop on the day she moved in. She felt their astonishment too, she says.
But she is increasingly frail, and often lonely, and reliant on help from carers. Her siblings and eldest son are dead. Her surviving sons live in Australia. Her daughter lives 300 miles away and is in her seventies, with poor health. She has grandchildren scattered across the north east and abroad, but none are in much of a position to offer her a home, although the more local ones do their bit, helping with shopping and cooking and visiting often. She could, conceivably, move in with me, another of her grandchildren. It would be hard on us all, but we could do it, and have offered, but she can’t bear the idea of leaving the area where she has lived all her life. But here’s the rub. If she moves into a home, or sheltered housing, the bungalow will have to go, to pay for her care. And the thought of this tears her apart. To be able to leave something, anything, to her grandchildren is her greatest desire. To be able to leave a house – “look, see what I was able to buy, look what I worked so hard for” – is a given for many people, but has never lost the sheen of a miracle for her. She still can’t believe, sometimes, that she owns it. And we want her to keep it too, if possible. Not because we’re mercenary – even if we were, there are twelve of us grandchildren, a score of great-grandchildren, and the house wouldn’t raise six figures – but because it means so much to her. She remembers her own parents dying, and the indignity of having to borrow money for the funerals. There were few possessions worth keeping, and even those that were kept for sentimental reasons haven’t lasted. That horror has never left her. It doesn’t matter to us – our memories of her are burnt into our DNA – but it matters to her, to leave evidence of a long and hard-working life. Her oldest friend married a man from just across the border, and they went to live in Scotland. Her friend is widowed and also 95, but nursing care is freely available to her, and she doesn’t have to sell her house. Not many miles away, my grandmother sits and worries. An accident of birth and geography ensured she had a tough life, with few opportunities to pursue her talents. It seems that an accident of birth and geography is ensuring she has some tough decisions to make at the end of her life, too. Happy birthday anyway, Grandma. We love you.
95 years ago today, a baby girl was born in Newcastle. The eldest of eleven children, only four of whom were to survive past infancy, she was born into what we might casually call slum housing today, although the term would have appalled her parents. Her father was always in work at the shipyards (vanished now), and he and her mother considered themselves to be respectable working class. There was a long tradition of working at the shipyards for the men in her family; further back they had been fisherman on the Northumbrian coast, and one of her maternal grandfathers had been a ferryman on the Tyne. There were some hard years ahead for the family, although they didn’t know it in 1912. The little girl celebrated the armistice of 1918, on her sixth birthday, and as a young woman witnessed the Jarrow Marchers, which included one of her uncles by marriage. Her parents believed in education, and she was a clever girl, but she couldn’t stay in school long, with so many other little ones at home to take care of, and less and less money coming in as the 20’s went on. She worked hard, with the spirit and enterprise and determination that she became well known for. She worked at home, of course, looking after infant siblings, so many of whom they had to bury, with few funds available for funerals. She also worked in a milliners and a dressmakers, and learnt good skills; she was a striking figure, apparently, in her neighbourhood, with her long back hair and piecing blue eyes, and a penchant for wearing red. Music was her passion, she had a lovely voice and could play anything by ear. Musical evenings were the norm in her family and she grew up knowing, and singing, all the old border laments. She married a man twenty years older than her, who also worked at the shipyards, a man born in the late Victorian age, who could remember the old Queen dying, and who had fought in the First World War. She had twins, a boy and a girl, followed by two more sons, and carried on working. Mostly domestic work, of course, and hard work it must have been too, with twins, little money and few appliances that we consider essential today. She would never have left her children all day, except occasionally with a neighbour or family member, but needed to ensure that more money came in, so she cleaned pubs in the evening, and began to sing in them too. She and her brother were well known for their voices and apparently the pubs would be packed when they sang.
In due course her daughter passed her 11 plus and she was allowed to go to the grammar school. Permission was tacitly needed; her daughter remembers the stares and comments and – sometimes - jeers she got from many in the community, for she was ‘set apart’ by that; her twin brother, who’d also passed, refused point blank to go back after the first week and went, with all the neighbourhood boys, to the secondary modern. Her daughter remembers with gratitude her mother’s energy and determination, and the way that she would shine in any social situation, however uncomfortable she felt. The headmaster, no doubt appreciating the shining black hair and the inevitable red dress, would always talk to her mother for the longest time. Her husband died early, and she remarried twice, but both subsequent husbands died young as well. Life never got her down, though; she continued to work, and even in her sixties she embraced new opportunities. She learnt to drive at 60; travelled to Australia for the first time at 64, and learnt to swim, in the warm Australian ocean, at 66. At 95 she still reads a couple of newspapers each day and completes the crosswords. She’ll discuss anything, from books to current affairs to Coronation Street, and has amazing recall. She is one of the brightest people I have ever met, with a restless, striving energy which I, too dreamy by far, didn’t inherit, although I see it strongly in my daughter, her namesake. She owns her own little bungalow, bought in her seventies, and is fiercely proud of her acquisition and her independence. Owning her own property was an impossible dream when she was young, and she said she was talking in her head to her parents and dead siblings non-stop on the day she moved in. She felt their astonishment too, she says.
But she is increasingly frail, and often lonely, and reliant on help from carers. Her siblings and eldest son are dead. Her surviving sons live in Australia. Her daughter lives 300 miles away and is in her seventies, with poor health. She has grandchildren scattered across the north east and abroad, but none are in much of a position to offer her a home, although the more local ones do their bit, helping with shopping and cooking and visiting often. She could, conceivably, move in with me, another of her grandchildren. It would be hard on us all, but we could do it, and have offered, but she can’t bear the idea of leaving the area where she has lived all her life. But here’s the rub. If she moves into a home, or sheltered housing, the bungalow will have to go, to pay for her care. And the thought of this tears her apart. To be able to leave something, anything, to her grandchildren is her greatest desire. To be able to leave a house – “look, see what I was able to buy, look what I worked so hard for” – is a given for many people, but has never lost the sheen of a miracle for her. She still can’t believe, sometimes, that she owns it. And we want her to keep it too, if possible. Not because we’re mercenary – even if we were, there are twelve of us grandchildren, a score of great-grandchildren, and the house wouldn’t raise six figures – but because it means so much to her. She remembers her own parents dying, and the indignity of having to borrow money for the funerals. There were few possessions worth keeping, and even those that were kept for sentimental reasons haven’t lasted. That horror has never left her. It doesn’t matter to us – our memories of her are burnt into our DNA – but it matters to her, to leave evidence of a long and hard-working life. Her oldest friend married a man from just across the border, and they went to live in Scotland. Her friend is widowed and also 95, but nursing care is freely available to her, and she doesn’t have to sell her house. Not many miles away, my grandmother sits and worries. An accident of birth and geography ensured she had a tough life, with few opportunities to pursue her talents. It seems that an accident of birth and geography is ensuring she has some tough decisions to make at the end of her life, too. Happy birthday anyway, Grandma. We love you.
Wednesday, 31 October 2007
Spirits and Places
I’ve been suffering lately from blogstipation. Not too dramatic an illness, and one that can be explained away by general ‘busyness’. Yet despite really having been busy, I’ve had a general sense of being sort of, well, stalled in some sense. Maybe it’s a seasonal thing, but despite trying to move things up a gear in all aspects of my life, I feel like I’ve been treading water instead.
Anyway, since it’s Hallowe'en, and to stop myself thinking about the dozen or so small children who are going to descend on me at 4.00 pm for ‘fun’ (I’m horribly unprepared, and will no doubt adopt my bad witch persona), I’ve been thinking about hauntings. Not ghosties and ghoulies, but hauntings of place, the sense of presiding spirits or genius loci all around us. I’m reading Sea Room by Adam Nicolson, (I know a blogging friend of mine is reading it too – I’m on the last chapter Mags!) and am captivated by his evocation of a place (the Shiants in the Western Isles) which, to us now, are on the limits of our world, geographically and politically. Of course remoteness is all relative, and for many people these rocks in a turbulent sea have been the centre of the universe. It’s a beautiful and imaginative and passionate book, and as I near the end I’m struck by how strongly the inherent spirit of these particular islands comes through the pages. Nicolson describes it as a tutelary, sometimes frightening, spirit in a place of inherent sanctity. I think we all have an innate sense of the spirit of a place, urban or wild, whether or not we think there is something external and unseen among us, or if we put it down to a sense of history, or a psychological reaction to landscape brought about by our own unconscious memories and feelings.
I remember being very aware of the link between landscape and feelings at an early age. We moved around a lot when I was little, and ending up, for a brief while, in Buckinghamshire, after the north east, I can still vividly remember the greenness and softness. I used to dream of a ‘greeny-white lady’, drifting through fields, something damp and wistful about her. No doubt I’d heard a ghost story which had stuck in my head. Moving on to London, as we did shortly afterwards, was less strange, in a way, as I’d already lived in a city and immediately recognised the pulsing energy, like constantly having a half-tuned radio on in the background. Suffolk is different again; I often think of a ‘Green Man’ here, something half-wild and shy living in the hedgerows, something ancient and fertile and linked to agriculture. On this beautiful green, gold and russet morning, late in the year, I’d love to know what others think, and if they think that a sense of place, a sense of presiding spirit, is important to them, on this day of hauntings. Happy Halloween.
Anyway, since it’s Hallowe'en, and to stop myself thinking about the dozen or so small children who are going to descend on me at 4.00 pm for ‘fun’ (I’m horribly unprepared, and will no doubt adopt my bad witch persona), I’ve been thinking about hauntings. Not ghosties and ghoulies, but hauntings of place, the sense of presiding spirits or genius loci all around us. I’m reading Sea Room by Adam Nicolson, (I know a blogging friend of mine is reading it too – I’m on the last chapter Mags!) and am captivated by his evocation of a place (the Shiants in the Western Isles) which, to us now, are on the limits of our world, geographically and politically. Of course remoteness is all relative, and for many people these rocks in a turbulent sea have been the centre of the universe. It’s a beautiful and imaginative and passionate book, and as I near the end I’m struck by how strongly the inherent spirit of these particular islands comes through the pages. Nicolson describes it as a tutelary, sometimes frightening, spirit in a place of inherent sanctity. I think we all have an innate sense of the spirit of a place, urban or wild, whether or not we think there is something external and unseen among us, or if we put it down to a sense of history, or a psychological reaction to landscape brought about by our own unconscious memories and feelings.
I remember being very aware of the link between landscape and feelings at an early age. We moved around a lot when I was little, and ending up, for a brief while, in Buckinghamshire, after the north east, I can still vividly remember the greenness and softness. I used to dream of a ‘greeny-white lady’, drifting through fields, something damp and wistful about her. No doubt I’d heard a ghost story which had stuck in my head. Moving on to London, as we did shortly afterwards, was less strange, in a way, as I’d already lived in a city and immediately recognised the pulsing energy, like constantly having a half-tuned radio on in the background. Suffolk is different again; I often think of a ‘Green Man’ here, something half-wild and shy living in the hedgerows, something ancient and fertile and linked to agriculture. On this beautiful green, gold and russet morning, late in the year, I’d love to know what others think, and if they think that a sense of place, a sense of presiding spirit, is important to them, on this day of hauntings. Happy Halloween.
Thursday, 4 October 2007
Pets, Partings and Petulance
It’s been a week of small losses. The sort of week where you hold your breath, cross your fingers, and trust that the planets will re-align themselves, or the wind will change, or that your wicked alter ego, the one that slams doors and swears a lot and has a nice line in acerbic put -downs, will disappear. It started with a death, of a fat and contented and really quite fetching hamster (and I say this as one who hitherto hated all rodents). I guess it’s the lot of hamsters, to spend a really quite short amount of time crazily spinning on their wheels, then to shuffle off this mortal coil and so help our children to come to terms, in a not too horrifying way, with mortality. Well that was our general idea, anyway. We didn’t think he’d inveigle his way into our family, with his pink eyes and plump albino body. (My son chose him. He wouldn’t have won any beauty contests). And as is the way of things, the long expected event was more sad than we’d anticipated. My boy had been telling a friend, with great excitement, about his very own pet, and went to get him from his cage. It’s always a shock to find a little body stiff and cold, and the timing was bad – bravery needed in front of said friend. We gave him a good send-off though – a coffin lined with cotton wool and bedecked with flowers, a cross with dates engraved by my son, a garden candle lit by the grave. I do realise how cosseted my children are, in global terms. How fortunate they are to have only faced the death-of-old-age of family pets, how lucky to be able to give vent to their feelings and come to some sort of an understanding of death (or dull acceptance, which is all any of us really do, I guess), without their parents falling apart too, without the horror of human death leaving indelible marks of grief of their childhoods. Yet of course, as their mother, I wish they didn’t have to face it at all. I know I can’t wrap them in cotton wool, I know I shouldn’t want to, but sometimes I do. And sometimes, when my patience is at a low ebb, I want to stop answering their innocent questions, all too well aware that there will be future occasions when I’ll have to answer them whilst poleaxed with grief myself. My daughter, never one to be fobbed off, was instantly suspicious of my explanations, despite my reading and re-reading of the wonderful story ‘Goodbye Mog’ by Judith Kerr, which helped my son so much when we lost a cat. She wanted to go straight out the next morning and dig up the hamster, to see what had happened to him in the night. I told her that eventually bodies become grass and flowers, whilst the spirits fly off to heaven. She thinks that heaven sounds rubbish, and that the hamster must be bored and cross because he can’t be with her. Oh for the egocentricity of youth. My son just misses a little creature that shared our house for a couple of years. But he’ll probably get another one. And so it goes on. ….
We also lost a car last week, thanks to my husband wrapping it round a tree, and thankfully and miraculously, emerging unscathed. My daughter wanted another funeral for the car. But she didn’t get one. What else was lost? Well, my temper, I’m ashamed to say, on a couple of occasions, and my general joie de vivre, due to a whole host of small and irritating problems raising their annoying little heads. The wind will change though, and the planets will right themselves, and we will all be bouncy and Tigger-ish again. In the meantime, I will cheer myself up by writing down a list of my favourite novels, given that I was tagged by Jan, and haven’t yet responded. For those readers from Purplecoo, it will be very familiar, since we’ve been posting about our top books already, so do look away now, but since I am an inveterate list maker, here is my choice:
1.So many childhood favourites, from Little Grey Rabbit to Enid Blyton to Noel Streatfield and all those school and/or horsey authors. And Lucy M Boston … I’m cheating, I know, and if I have to pick one, I think it will be Teddy Robinson by Joan G Robinson. I still remember the magic of my mother reading me the adventures of this growly, funny, all too human bear, and the gorgeously cosy yet magical world inhabited by him and Deborah. A must for all little girls of about six, I would think, and there’s some really clever writing that made me alert, I think, to a nice turn of phrase.
2.The Owl Service by Alan Garner. I read it as a teenager, and was bewitched by the haunting atmosphere and ghosts of celtic mythology. A great writer.
3.The Catcher in the Rye. Probably my all time favourite. Just love it.
4.To Kill a Mockingbird. Loved the film too. A heartbreaking and heartwarming book, and Scout reminds me increasingly of my own hot tempered girl.
5.Emma. I came relatively late to Jane Austen, thinking it was all a bit mannered and precious for me. How wrong I was – I love the subtlety and humour. There’s something about Emma that gets me every time; so much that isn’t said but that we work out for ourselves.
6.The Code of the Woosters, PG Wodehouse. My Dad first got me into PG Wodehouse – again, I’d thought it was just farce. Well, it is farce, but genius farce. The above book never fails to delight me.
7.The Edible Woman, Margaret Atwood. I love anything and everything that she writes, but this was the first one I read, and it’s one I go back to time and again. She has herself described it as an immature work, and it’s true that some of her later novels have more depth, but it’s so fresh, so funny, and so modern, despite the fact that it was written before I was born.
8. The Great Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald. Sublime writing.
9.Wuthering Heights. Ditto. I love Jane Eyre too, but in the great debate, I’d choose Wuthering Heights. It’s got it all – the passion, the wildness, the grotesqueness, sometimes, of the characters contrasted with the lyrical and poetic writing – beautiful.
10.Le Grand Meaulnes, Alain Fournier. I did read it once in French, (I’m bragging now) but lately I’m only up to reading it in translation. A haunting tale of youth and dreams and loss.
So many more. I'm bound to think of another five that I should have included the minute I post this. But I'd better stop there.
We also lost a car last week, thanks to my husband wrapping it round a tree, and thankfully and miraculously, emerging unscathed. My daughter wanted another funeral for the car. But she didn’t get one. What else was lost? Well, my temper, I’m ashamed to say, on a couple of occasions, and my general joie de vivre, due to a whole host of small and irritating problems raising their annoying little heads. The wind will change though, and the planets will right themselves, and we will all be bouncy and Tigger-ish again. In the meantime, I will cheer myself up by writing down a list of my favourite novels, given that I was tagged by Jan, and haven’t yet responded. For those readers from Purplecoo, it will be very familiar, since we’ve been posting about our top books already, so do look away now, but since I am an inveterate list maker, here is my choice:
1.So many childhood favourites, from Little Grey Rabbit to Enid Blyton to Noel Streatfield and all those school and/or horsey authors. And Lucy M Boston … I’m cheating, I know, and if I have to pick one, I think it will be Teddy Robinson by Joan G Robinson. I still remember the magic of my mother reading me the adventures of this growly, funny, all too human bear, and the gorgeously cosy yet magical world inhabited by him and Deborah. A must for all little girls of about six, I would think, and there’s some really clever writing that made me alert, I think, to a nice turn of phrase.
2.The Owl Service by Alan Garner. I read it as a teenager, and was bewitched by the haunting atmosphere and ghosts of celtic mythology. A great writer.
3.The Catcher in the Rye. Probably my all time favourite. Just love it.
4.To Kill a Mockingbird. Loved the film too. A heartbreaking and heartwarming book, and Scout reminds me increasingly of my own hot tempered girl.
5.Emma. I came relatively late to Jane Austen, thinking it was all a bit mannered and precious for me. How wrong I was – I love the subtlety and humour. There’s something about Emma that gets me every time; so much that isn’t said but that we work out for ourselves.
6.The Code of the Woosters, PG Wodehouse. My Dad first got me into PG Wodehouse – again, I’d thought it was just farce. Well, it is farce, but genius farce. The above book never fails to delight me.
7.The Edible Woman, Margaret Atwood. I love anything and everything that she writes, but this was the first one I read, and it’s one I go back to time and again. She has herself described it as an immature work, and it’s true that some of her later novels have more depth, but it’s so fresh, so funny, and so modern, despite the fact that it was written before I was born.
8. The Great Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald. Sublime writing.
9.Wuthering Heights. Ditto. I love Jane Eyre too, but in the great debate, I’d choose Wuthering Heights. It’s got it all – the passion, the wildness, the grotesqueness, sometimes, of the characters contrasted with the lyrical and poetic writing – beautiful.
10.Le Grand Meaulnes, Alain Fournier. I did read it once in French, (I’m bragging now) but lately I’m only up to reading it in translation. A haunting tale of youth and dreams and loss.
So many more. I'm bound to think of another five that I should have included the minute I post this. But I'd better stop there.
Monday, 24 September 2007
MeMeMe!
I have been ‘MeMed’ by the lovely Crystal Jigsaw, and, having been completely floored at first, (never the quickest to catch on), but having eventually worked it out, I think, here is my attempt – and the lesson learnt is, don’t give yourself a long cyber name.
S is for Suffolk, of course. As I’ve probably written before, my love for this unassuming yet beautiful part of the word happened late in my life. I had no connection with East Anglia, or so I thought, and barely knew it before moving here seven years ago. At first I missed London and thought the countryside unexciting and too demure for my tastes, the pace of life too quiet and slow. But then I learnt to slow down, and I looked around me properly. Beyond the vast swathes of corn lay low gentle hills, remnants of ancient forests, and some of the most beautiful medieval towns and churches in the country. Looming out of seas of grain, the vernacular really takes your breath away. I am spoiled now and used to half-timbered, colour-washed houses, empty countryside and villages that time forgot. I love watching my children growing up here and enjoying a rural childhood that seems to be disappearing across swathes of this country. I loved discovering that my great great granddad was born close to where I now live, unbeknown to our family, who’d never known where he’d come from. I love putting down roots.
U is for uplands. At the risk of seeming a little contrary, given what I’ve written above, I still admit that my heart lies with mountains. I can live – and happily, too – in the lowlands, but give me a taste of northern moors and hills and I’m refreshed again. Apart from Northumberland, I love the Lakes, the Scottish highlands, Dartmoor and Ireland. I’m sure I’d love Wales too, if I ever get there. “Up the airy mountain, down the rushy glen” – that’s me on my perfect holiday.
F is for food. I used to be secretly proud of my inability to cook, or to care much about food at all, given that I thought I was a terribly important career girl who existed on diet coke, red wine and restaurant meals. Me and the kitchen eyed each other with suspicion. Then I had children, and realised I wanted to nurture them. What they – and we – put into our bodies suddenly gained the importance it should have had long ago. I can’t say I pureed organic food exclusively, or that I am even now a slave to the Aga. But I try, and I enjoy it, and food has become central to the rituals that we as a family love. The kitchen table is used for chatting, for homework, for drawing, and for arguing, as well as for eating. Please don’t get me wrong – we’re not the Waltons (though I always quite fancied that house). We’re far more like the Simpsons (especially when it comes to Doughnuts). But, just to jump on a passing bandwagon, we do grow a lot of our own food, and we all have a go at cooking it, and plan our meals for big occasions with huge relish. I hope it makes my children healthier then me. And just as greedy.
Another F – this time for family. Not just my husband and children, but the wider lot – and particularly those no longer with us. I’m lucky in that I have always loved the company of my parents and sister and cousins etc. But like most people, and as is entirely natural, I was quite happy to form my own ‘new’ family from friends in my teens and twenties. My closest friends are still hugely important to me. But as I’ve got older, I’ve found that you really can’t escape your family. They turn up in your children, in the expressions that come out of my mouth, and probably the expressions on my face. They’re always there, in the background, the ones in the sepia photographs, and the ones still at the other end of a phone. After all, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them.
O is for Oak. It’s hard to choose my favourite tree – I love so many, and for so many different reasons. Beeches and willows and rowans and birches and maples leap into my mind, and there is the most beautiful ash tree that I can see swaying in the wind as I write. But I’ll settle for oaks – I am English, after all – on the basis that I live in a timber framed house, made mostly of oak. So I feel extra protected by this most protective and paternal of trees, and marvel daily at the huge thick timbers all around me that creak and shift in a high wind.
L is for Lad’s Love, the old name for the herb Southernwood. My fingers were hesitating over the keyboard, not sure whether this was a bit heavy, a bit maudlin, for a blog post, but I can see its feathery leaves from where I’m sitting, and it won’t leave my mind. For there was someone once who meant the world to me, and who died when he was little more than a lad, and although as far as I can recall he couldn’t tell a herb from a lettuce leaf, I think of him when I see this tall, gentle, beautiful plant, and remember its old name.
K – A hard one this. Kite, kettle, kitten? My daughter, whose name begins with a K? But if I choose her, then what about my boy, who’s initial isn’t in my cybername? Anyway, I’m sure I’ll get them in somewhere. So having talked about old loves, I’ll move onto current loves, and K is for Kent, where my husband comes from. The word brings to mind the North Downs, and apple orchards, and weatherboarded houses, and market gardens and blossom. And of course my husband, who is apparently a Man of Kent, rather than a Kentish man. It matters. It also stands for Kelpie, the old name for a water sprite, because our cottage is bounded by a stream, and even this little, insignificant stretch of water weaves its very own magic.
M is for motherhood (I told you I’d get the children in somewhere). It still amazes me that my identity as a mother, which is so vital, now, to my sense of self, is still so recent. Nine years ago I had no clue, and although I’d always wanted to be a mother, ‘some day’, I didn’t really know why. I just thought I’d have a go, a bit like taking up a new sport. The laugh was on me, of course. In many ways, I am still astonished, when I stop to think about it, that I am somehow old enough to have responsibility for these vibrant things that I helped to create. I mean, of course I know I’m plenty old enough – I was no spring chicken when I had my first. But like most of us, I muddle along, crossing my fingers that I’m doing OK, still feeling about twelve, and constantly bowled over by these beings who I’ve known for such a short time, and who now dominate my life.
Another U – I’m running out of inspiration, but think I’ll plump for Umbria. I’m not sure that I can pinpoint an exact time when my love affair with Italy started, but certainly studying for a few months at the vast university in Perugia didn’t get in the way. Softer and greener than Tuscany, perhaps a bit less endowed with architectural wonders but no less lacking in natural beauty, Umbria doesn’t need me to sell it. But what stays in my mind most of all isn’t the baked earth or the hilltop towns or the sun, or even the food, but the cold winter nights in the town, the smell of roasting chestnuts, wandering through medieval arcades, pressing my face against the most fantastic chocolate shops, Italians muffled elegantly against the cold, steaming cappuccinos in tiny, noisy cafes.
And last, another M – this time for the moon, and mystery, and magic – all the things, along with love, that make my heart beast faster.
Hell, that was hard work. I guess I’m supposed to pass the baton on to some others now, but I’m never sure who’s already done it, or who wants to, so I’ll leave it at this – if you’re reading this, and haven’t yet had a go, be my guest!
S is for Suffolk, of course. As I’ve probably written before, my love for this unassuming yet beautiful part of the word happened late in my life. I had no connection with East Anglia, or so I thought, and barely knew it before moving here seven years ago. At first I missed London and thought the countryside unexciting and too demure for my tastes, the pace of life too quiet and slow. But then I learnt to slow down, and I looked around me properly. Beyond the vast swathes of corn lay low gentle hills, remnants of ancient forests, and some of the most beautiful medieval towns and churches in the country. Looming out of seas of grain, the vernacular really takes your breath away. I am spoiled now and used to half-timbered, colour-washed houses, empty countryside and villages that time forgot. I love watching my children growing up here and enjoying a rural childhood that seems to be disappearing across swathes of this country. I loved discovering that my great great granddad was born close to where I now live, unbeknown to our family, who’d never known where he’d come from. I love putting down roots.
U is for uplands. At the risk of seeming a little contrary, given what I’ve written above, I still admit that my heart lies with mountains. I can live – and happily, too – in the lowlands, but give me a taste of northern moors and hills and I’m refreshed again. Apart from Northumberland, I love the Lakes, the Scottish highlands, Dartmoor and Ireland. I’m sure I’d love Wales too, if I ever get there. “Up the airy mountain, down the rushy glen” – that’s me on my perfect holiday.
F is for food. I used to be secretly proud of my inability to cook, or to care much about food at all, given that I thought I was a terribly important career girl who existed on diet coke, red wine and restaurant meals. Me and the kitchen eyed each other with suspicion. Then I had children, and realised I wanted to nurture them. What they – and we – put into our bodies suddenly gained the importance it should have had long ago. I can’t say I pureed organic food exclusively, or that I am even now a slave to the Aga. But I try, and I enjoy it, and food has become central to the rituals that we as a family love. The kitchen table is used for chatting, for homework, for drawing, and for arguing, as well as for eating. Please don’t get me wrong – we’re not the Waltons (though I always quite fancied that house). We’re far more like the Simpsons (especially when it comes to Doughnuts). But, just to jump on a passing bandwagon, we do grow a lot of our own food, and we all have a go at cooking it, and plan our meals for big occasions with huge relish. I hope it makes my children healthier then me. And just as greedy.
Another F – this time for family. Not just my husband and children, but the wider lot – and particularly those no longer with us. I’m lucky in that I have always loved the company of my parents and sister and cousins etc. But like most people, and as is entirely natural, I was quite happy to form my own ‘new’ family from friends in my teens and twenties. My closest friends are still hugely important to me. But as I’ve got older, I’ve found that you really can’t escape your family. They turn up in your children, in the expressions that come out of my mouth, and probably the expressions on my face. They’re always there, in the background, the ones in the sepia photographs, and the ones still at the other end of a phone. After all, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them.
O is for Oak. It’s hard to choose my favourite tree – I love so many, and for so many different reasons. Beeches and willows and rowans and birches and maples leap into my mind, and there is the most beautiful ash tree that I can see swaying in the wind as I write. But I’ll settle for oaks – I am English, after all – on the basis that I live in a timber framed house, made mostly of oak. So I feel extra protected by this most protective and paternal of trees, and marvel daily at the huge thick timbers all around me that creak and shift in a high wind.
L is for Lad’s Love, the old name for the herb Southernwood. My fingers were hesitating over the keyboard, not sure whether this was a bit heavy, a bit maudlin, for a blog post, but I can see its feathery leaves from where I’m sitting, and it won’t leave my mind. For there was someone once who meant the world to me, and who died when he was little more than a lad, and although as far as I can recall he couldn’t tell a herb from a lettuce leaf, I think of him when I see this tall, gentle, beautiful plant, and remember its old name.
K – A hard one this. Kite, kettle, kitten? My daughter, whose name begins with a K? But if I choose her, then what about my boy, who’s initial isn’t in my cybername? Anyway, I’m sure I’ll get them in somewhere. So having talked about old loves, I’ll move onto current loves, and K is for Kent, where my husband comes from. The word brings to mind the North Downs, and apple orchards, and weatherboarded houses, and market gardens and blossom. And of course my husband, who is apparently a Man of Kent, rather than a Kentish man. It matters. It also stands for Kelpie, the old name for a water sprite, because our cottage is bounded by a stream, and even this little, insignificant stretch of water weaves its very own magic.
M is for motherhood (I told you I’d get the children in somewhere). It still amazes me that my identity as a mother, which is so vital, now, to my sense of self, is still so recent. Nine years ago I had no clue, and although I’d always wanted to be a mother, ‘some day’, I didn’t really know why. I just thought I’d have a go, a bit like taking up a new sport. The laugh was on me, of course. In many ways, I am still astonished, when I stop to think about it, that I am somehow old enough to have responsibility for these vibrant things that I helped to create. I mean, of course I know I’m plenty old enough – I was no spring chicken when I had my first. But like most of us, I muddle along, crossing my fingers that I’m doing OK, still feeling about twelve, and constantly bowled over by these beings who I’ve known for such a short time, and who now dominate my life.
Another U – I’m running out of inspiration, but think I’ll plump for Umbria. I’m not sure that I can pinpoint an exact time when my love affair with Italy started, but certainly studying for a few months at the vast university in Perugia didn’t get in the way. Softer and greener than Tuscany, perhaps a bit less endowed with architectural wonders but no less lacking in natural beauty, Umbria doesn’t need me to sell it. But what stays in my mind most of all isn’t the baked earth or the hilltop towns or the sun, or even the food, but the cold winter nights in the town, the smell of roasting chestnuts, wandering through medieval arcades, pressing my face against the most fantastic chocolate shops, Italians muffled elegantly against the cold, steaming cappuccinos in tiny, noisy cafes.
And last, another M – this time for the moon, and mystery, and magic – all the things, along with love, that make my heart beast faster.
Hell, that was hard work. I guess I’m supposed to pass the baton on to some others now, but I’m never sure who’s already done it, or who wants to, so I’ll leave it at this – if you’re reading this, and haven’t yet had a go, be my guest!
Tuesday, 11 September 2007
We Plough the Fields and Scatter ....
It’s a bit of a cliché, I suppose, to talk about the first whispers in the air of autumn and the effect it has on me, but since it is by far my favourite season, I’m going to mention it anyway. I just love this time of year. The light is softer, kinder, there’s the merest hint of parting and melancholy, and a blue autumn sky is one of my favourite sights. It feels as if there is a new energy taking hold as the year races on and we strive to catch the last of the light, before the long night falls. I always feel as if I’m in a bit of a race against time, that I have to tidy, sort out, put things to bed. I get far more of an urge to clear out now than I do in the spring. The garden, having reverted to wilderness because of the neglect it always suffers in late summer, teases me with delights hidden behind mountainous weeds – late-flowering roses, borage appearing again, dahlias and nasturtiums peeping out from dense foliage. I don’t even want to think about what needs doing to the house, but inside too I have this pressing, insistent need to organise and sort. I think of it as a late flurry of activity before the desire to hibernate takes hold; I could cheerfully sleep in front of a fire all winter, I’m sure I was a dormouse in a previous life.
Yet for the children it’s a time of new beginnings, a new year far more significant than January 1st. I watch them setting off, my son twice the size of my daughter, calm, protective, dependable. A quiet and thoughtful boy, I get flashes of the man he may become, and almost cry. Seeing my daughter trot alongside him, pleased as punch with her new school uniform, reminds me of the lyrics to one of my favourite Bert Jansch songs: “Fresh as a sweet Sunday morning, like a high-stepping pony, trotting and prancing, ah she’s so full of life, sparkling with tiny red roses”. There’s heartbreak at the classroom door, but smiles at playtime as she’s reunited with her brother, and a beaming face greets me at pick-up. Fourteen more years of going to school every morning; an era is over, for her and for me.
Yesterday I was wiped out with a migraine. Not fun. Blind spots in my vision heralding the agony, then jagged bright lines ripping the world apart. The throbbing pain, when it arrives, is as instantly familiar and unwelcome as the contractions of childbirth, and I’m just as powerless to stop it. No gorgeous babe to suckle at the end of it – although today the pain is reduced to a dull thud, and I have the prospect of pain-free sleep tonight – I told you I was a dormouse.
A long time ago as I was asked to write about the sounds and smells that might reach me, were I to be in a coma. I promptly forgot all about it, and am now, as ever, just about the last to complete the task. I fear mine will be repetitive, but just to ease my conscience, and in no particular order, here goes:
1. Birdsong, preferably the evening chorus which always seems to be more contented, more replete. If I were to pick a favourite bird call, it would probably be the lone cry of a curlew, high on the moors, but I’m also partial to the mellow cooing of a wood pigeon on a summer’s day, and the melancholic hoot of the barn owl on a winter’s evening, as he circuits the house.
2.Possibly a bit of a strange one, this, but I’ve already instructed my husband to play me a tape of the football scores, should I ever be in said coma (cheerful thought). Not because I will particularly want to hear how Newcastle did – I’m not that devoted – but because there’s something reassuringly familiar and cosy about the ritual of reading them all out. It reminds me of being a small child and falling asleep on the sofa late on a Saturday afternoon, with my Mum in the kitchen and the men all gathered round the TV, the printer on the television whirring in the background. I’m not Scottish, but for some reason it was the romantic names of the Scottish teams that penetrated my subconscious – Queen of the South, Heart of Midlothian, Motherwell, Hibernian.
3. Of all the flower smells I love, including lilac, sweet peas and freesias, I think I’d plump for Lily of the valley. The scent of the perfume Diorissimo always gets me right in the solar plexus.
4. The Kinks singing Waterloo Sunset. Reminds me of being young, ambitious and in love with life and London.
5. The scent of Christmas trees. Never fails to inspire me with the magic of Christmas
6. The smell of Rosemary, crushed between my fingers. I love all herbs, but Rosemary can transport me in an instant to star-lit Mediterranean nights, and mountains sweeping down to the sea.
7. The sound of crickets, for the same reasons.
8. The sound of water rushing over stones – so fresh and clean sounding, so joyful and impatient.
9. Either of my children calling Mummy – but preferably in their happy, loving, voices, not the imperious yells that sometime penetrate my subconscious at 4.00 am.
10. The smell of clean sheets. I suppose I ought to say fresh and wind-blown from the line, which is lovely, but actually fresh from the dryer will do just as well, and reminds me of the excitement of going to the launderette with my Mum as a tiny child (we didn’t get out much as toddlers in those days!)
Yet for the children it’s a time of new beginnings, a new year far more significant than January 1st. I watch them setting off, my son twice the size of my daughter, calm, protective, dependable. A quiet and thoughtful boy, I get flashes of the man he may become, and almost cry. Seeing my daughter trot alongside him, pleased as punch with her new school uniform, reminds me of the lyrics to one of my favourite Bert Jansch songs: “Fresh as a sweet Sunday morning, like a high-stepping pony, trotting and prancing, ah she’s so full of life, sparkling with tiny red roses”. There’s heartbreak at the classroom door, but smiles at playtime as she’s reunited with her brother, and a beaming face greets me at pick-up. Fourteen more years of going to school every morning; an era is over, for her and for me.
Yesterday I was wiped out with a migraine. Not fun. Blind spots in my vision heralding the agony, then jagged bright lines ripping the world apart. The throbbing pain, when it arrives, is as instantly familiar and unwelcome as the contractions of childbirth, and I’m just as powerless to stop it. No gorgeous babe to suckle at the end of it – although today the pain is reduced to a dull thud, and I have the prospect of pain-free sleep tonight – I told you I was a dormouse.
A long time ago as I was asked to write about the sounds and smells that might reach me, were I to be in a coma. I promptly forgot all about it, and am now, as ever, just about the last to complete the task. I fear mine will be repetitive, but just to ease my conscience, and in no particular order, here goes:
1. Birdsong, preferably the evening chorus which always seems to be more contented, more replete. If I were to pick a favourite bird call, it would probably be the lone cry of a curlew, high on the moors, but I’m also partial to the mellow cooing of a wood pigeon on a summer’s day, and the melancholic hoot of the barn owl on a winter’s evening, as he circuits the house.
2.Possibly a bit of a strange one, this, but I’ve already instructed my husband to play me a tape of the football scores, should I ever be in said coma (cheerful thought). Not because I will particularly want to hear how Newcastle did – I’m not that devoted – but because there’s something reassuringly familiar and cosy about the ritual of reading them all out. It reminds me of being a small child and falling asleep on the sofa late on a Saturday afternoon, with my Mum in the kitchen and the men all gathered round the TV, the printer on the television whirring in the background. I’m not Scottish, but for some reason it was the romantic names of the Scottish teams that penetrated my subconscious – Queen of the South, Heart of Midlothian, Motherwell, Hibernian.
3. Of all the flower smells I love, including lilac, sweet peas and freesias, I think I’d plump for Lily of the valley. The scent of the perfume Diorissimo always gets me right in the solar plexus.
4. The Kinks singing Waterloo Sunset. Reminds me of being young, ambitious and in love with life and London.
5. The scent of Christmas trees. Never fails to inspire me with the magic of Christmas
6. The smell of Rosemary, crushed between my fingers. I love all herbs, but Rosemary can transport me in an instant to star-lit Mediterranean nights, and mountains sweeping down to the sea.
7. The sound of crickets, for the same reasons.
8. The sound of water rushing over stones – so fresh and clean sounding, so joyful and impatient.
9. Either of my children calling Mummy – but preferably in their happy, loving, voices, not the imperious yells that sometime penetrate my subconscious at 4.00 am.
10. The smell of clean sheets. I suppose I ought to say fresh and wind-blown from the line, which is lovely, but actually fresh from the dryer will do just as well, and reminds me of the excitement of going to the launderette with my Mum as a tiny child (we didn’t get out much as toddlers in those days!)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)