Tempus Fugit

Autumn is here

Yesterday morning I leapt out of bed before six, threw on black jeans and jacket, stuffed everything else into my suitcase and hastened to the airport. Later I realised I should have rethought the black, but when planes or trains beckon, you don't generally stop to think, because lurking in the back of your mind is the bald fact that neither will wait for you, no matter what.

I say 'hastened' because, in view of the above 'bald fact', it seems an appropriate word, but actually very little hastening happens once you've left the house. The taxi maintained a decorous pace, I had to kick my heels for half an hour at the bus station, and when the bus did finally get underway, I immediately fell asleep.

There's nothing quick about airports either. You're either hanging around staring blankly at vast overhead screens or being herded through cattle-crushes like troublesome bullocks, crushes moreover, that are designed to make you snake around every inch of the floor. Not surprisingly, as soon as the plane took off I fell asleep again - this time with sunshine streaming through my porthole window.

I've been in Suffolk for a couple of weeks, where my father has been rather unwell and my mother rather tired, and although I felt bad about leaving them with Dad's illness as yet unresolved, the In-Charge's college routine is not indefinitely flexible and for now, it was time to go home.I was looking forward to seeing everyone, especially my Model Dog. And the TeenQueen, not to mention the cats and my new girls.

TeenQueen and Model Dog

But as I said, I should have rethought the black.
There is nothing like a dog's welcome. It is rapturous, all-embracing and covers every available surface.Two minutes after arriving I was smothered in fawn and blonde fur, all of it held firmly in place by copious quantities of lick.
It's so nice to feel loved.

Maybe it's just cupboard love

Unlike dogs, who wear their hearts pasted onto their foreheads, cats are not so easily won.
They're far more likely to say things like: 'What sort of time do you call this?' and 'Decided to come home, have we? Well make yourself useful and get me some supper!'
Eventually they do come round, but only after they've made their point, so it was some time before I felt a soft, sinuous winding around my ankles.

'You won't recognise the hens,' the In-Charge said and for a moment I wondered what terrible fate had befallen them. But when I went out into their paddock I saw what he meant. Amongst the little flock that rushed to see what was on offer (I'm under no illusions here), were 5 neat brown chickens 
It took me a long time to work out who was who, and although she is bigger than the rest, it wasn't until I spotted her unlady-like spurs that I could be sure which one was Mrs Scissorhands.
My new girls are totally transformed.
Sleek, svelte, barely a feather out of place. It's hard to believe they are the same creatures.

Wilhelmina and Constance two weeks ago

Wilhelmina and Florence today

Yah Bird two weeks ago

Yah Bird today

Time is a strange thing isn't it?
An inexorable force, and supposedly the same for everyone, yet so unpredictable in its effect.
For some the days fly, for others they go on leaden feet.
Two weeks have turned my bare, bedraggled escapees into little brown hens.
Yet when I went into the flower garden, nothing had changed. Late delphiniums, Peruvian lilies, yellow roses, pale lemon and pink achillea - all still in flower just as they were when I left. It felt like I'd been in there yesterday.

Graham Thomas, a beautiful, deeply scented yellow rose.

A Candle for St Jude

It is the most beautiful day.
The sun is shining, the sky is blue and although much may be wrong with the world, all is well for a moment or two. It is the sort of morning when you can't help walking around singing.
(The dogs are used to my voice raised in song, and are happily tone deaf.)
We set out for our early constitutional with a light heart.

The first outing of the day involves Top Dog and Under Dog pottering round checking that everything is as they left it last night.
For Model Dog, it is quite a different matter.
To start with, shaking with excitement and the pent-up springs of the night, she does a kind of vertical take-off that never ceases to make me laugh.When we reach the bank beside the orchard, she levitates, tucks her hind quarters in and then, while in mid-air, achieves a kind of turbo-charge which propels her up the short flight of steps without touching any of them. From this vantage point she starts her Isle of Man practice run.

I confess, I have mixed feelings about her circuit training - rather, I imagine, as TT spectators do. I love watching her motorbike-madness, and her sheer, joyful exuberance; but being a lurcher, she runs so fast that all I can think of are the endless obstacles in her path. Trees mainly - and fences. Benches and suchlike. Cats and hens, and the senior dogs who are past the age of youthful folly and don't appreciate being bowled over.
Not to mention me!
She is a fan of the close-shave.

Model Dog is just a blur

This morning, when she eventually reached 100mph, Top Dog and I took refuge behind the young horse chestnut tree.
Through its bare branches I watched her lapping herself, until I started noticing the branches themselves.
They cast a shadow over my pearlescent morning, because the young horse chestnut isn't just bare, it is dead.
I'm used to them looking dead.Horse chestnuts get quite a hard time of it here on the west coast. They insist on coming into leaf way before the other trees, and in consequence get hammered by the harsh north winds that blow - without fail - at some point in early May. I wish they would adjust their timetable, but perhaps that will take a hundred years or two.

The trouble is, they might not have a hundred years or two to play with.
I don't know very much about tree diseases, but there seem to be a lot of them about.
My poor old elm trees finally succumbed last year - just when I thought it had miraculously escaped Dutch Elm Disease - and we cut it down last winter. It seems very hard that we now have to face losing another species.
I don't know if my horse chestnut has died of the leaf-mining moth or bleeding canker, but probably the latter. There are nasty, dark rivulets down the bark that look like the trails of bitter tears.
It is a sorry sight.


In London there are many, many horse chestnut trees.
In the park where I used to walk with my small son and our dogs, they abounded and in spring looked like overdone Victorian Christmas trees with their wonderful profusion of candles. In autumn our walks became slower and slower as my bewitched eighteen-month old gathered as many gleaming, auburn 'carcons' as our communal pockets would hold.
He was fascinated by the smooth, perfect, polished roundness, even though he couldn't pronounce their name. Who could blame him. I was fascinated myself. Conkers are to have and to hold, and each new find, plucked from the leaves or its spiky nest, promises to be the one, the very one, that will never lose its new-minted gleam, its plump fullness.

Life was a walk in the park

It's hard to imagine autumn without an annual conker bonanza. They have have been part of my life ever since I moved to the Northern Hemisphere. The road we lived in was lined with statuesque trees and my mother - daft, dear woman that she is - used to post boxes of conkers to my young nephews in Scotland. We did try to convince her that horse chestnuts probably grow in Edinburgh just as successfully as in the south of England, but later, when my own son was smitten with conker-fever, I understood the need to share that particular bewitchment with small grandsons who were far away, and without a chestnut tree of their own. I remember stopping to admire a small, hidden chateau in the middle of nowhere in France. While we stood looking down the avenue from the gates, we lost track of our small heir for a few minutes, but he wasn't far away, and wasn't missing us at all. He looked like a miniature version of Father Christmas's sack - bulging all over, utterly content, picking up every conker he could find and stuffing them, squirrel-like into the pockets and pouches of his clothes.

What will small boys do without conkers?
Forget small boys. What will I do without conkers.

Smitten

Someone told me a year or two ago that conkers exude something repellent to spiders, and if you want to keep the eight-legged invaders at bay, distribute conkers liberally around your house.
I gleefully brought in every one I could find and deposited them in clusters here and there. I even posted a few under my bed in the sure and certain knowledge that spiders would never more darken the inner sanctum of my personal space.
Oh joy.
But a few weeks later I woke up in the middle of the night. That sudden jerk into wakefulness that leaves you wondering warily what roused you.

It only took me a second to realise exactly what it was. A mouse was feasting on the banquet I had so thoughtfully provided just a foot or so beneath where I lay.

When I woke the In Charge to inform him, he was at his most withering.
'What did you expect?' he said, looking at me as if I was slightly simple.
After much internal debate, I removed the conkers - what was left of them - from under the bed.
I put them on the window sills.
Unfortunately, the mice were not so easily disposed of.

Now, it looks as if I will no longer have the mouse v. spider dilemma.
It looks as though I will no longer have the conkers. Or the beautiful candles in spring.
Back in London, all those years ago, as autumn drew to a close, my small son succinctly summed things up in terms he understood. His father - like many fathers - was a weekend treat. The rest of the time, the In Charge went off to work before his day began and returned after his bedtime.
On the sad day when no amount of sifting through the crisp, brown leaves revealed another conker, he straightened up, his little face a picture of resignation.
'Carcons gone work,' he said.

I wish I thought my horse chestnut would be back at the end of the day.
Sadly, blue skies and singing notwithstanding, I am not optimistic.
Another case for St Jude I guess. I understand he's the patron saint of lost causes.
If he's got time. I imagine he's rather busy these days.
 

Supper

The last two summers have been so inclement that, by comparison with yesteryear, we have had almost no vegetables.
There was a time when anyone coming to the door in September would have had a bag of runner beans stuffed into their arms, whether they wanted them or not.
I don't know about you, but the idea of a polytunnel just doesn't float my boat.
I know they are wonderful, I know you can grow orchids in them, I know everybody has one.
But I just can't see myself thinking: 'I can't wait to get out into the tunnel!'
However - who knows? A few years ago I'd never have thought I'd don specs in order to focus on the end of my nose.
Needs must when the devil drives.

And if things continue the way they are going, it may be my only hope of surfeiting on runner beans again, because sadly, runner beans - my favourite vegetable - are a bit of a rarity in our house these days.

How nice then, going out to forage in the garden on a damp, chill evening, to come back with this little haul for supper.

I cooked the beans and made a salad with the rest.

Yum yum.
Thank you, garden.

We'll hold on a bit longer before we succumb to tunnelopia.

Les Français sont complètement fous!

I have just been down to the sea with the dogs.
It's a beautiful September morning of cloudless skies and surfer-seas.
Even the tearing gale has abated, and for another day at least, the house still nestles under an ever-reddening blanket. Another gale and the leaves will disappear.
The coast road and verge were littered with surfboards and people pulling wetsuits on or off. As I came round one corner, there was even a bare bum mooning at me as someone struggled to pull his feet free.
Madmen.

But it's so cold it feels like December. The dogs even declined a dip at the headland, but then they hadn't brought their wetsuits. Instead they played in the rough grass while I watched the crisp sets of breakers streaming in, and the breeze ruffling out of the North threatened to slice us into very small dice.
What is going on?

Last night I picked some beans for supper.
I had a jacket on and the hood firmly pulled up. The dogs stood waiting by the gate with their backs to me, letting it be known that coming outside had not been their idea in the first place.
I felt sorry for the bean plants as we hurried back to the warm kitchen, and don't hold out much hope for the flowers and baby beans still trying to grow.
I hold out even less hope for the third brood of swallows eagerly trying their wings in the turf shed. Any day now, the skies will be empty, the roof ridges silent of their hauntingly lilting song and - like last year - we'll be left with straggling youngsters who aren't quite sure what happens next.
The In-Charge says they catch up, that by the time they reach the south coast the adults will be there, waiting.
The triumph of hope over reality, possibly, but let's go with it.

As I headed homewards this morning, I passed a friend walking her dog Maximus. She said her husband had gone in amidst the surfers for a swim.
'He doesn't even wear a wetsuit,' she said, her expression conveying the craziness of surfers in general and swimmers in particular.
I've heard of mad dogs and Englishmen, but he is French and surely ought to know better!
Lunatique.
  

Inspirational 2!

Napoleon, summoning the night

It’s been a cold, wet, wild, windy, weatherbeaten week here on the edge of the world. The kind of week when a little bit of inspiration goes a long way. So I thought I'd share a few things with you all - even though some of you are away in far off places enjoying yourselves - like - New York, and - well, yes, Lisbon!

For those of you stuck at home like me, take a minute to break free of toil and care and let your mind float away...

Rather like this:

Photo by Tone Batt

And - while you're in the right frame of mind, read, learn and inwardly digest this excellent advice:

'Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something ...no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.' Christopher Morley

Hear, hear! 

For both these gems I sincerely thank Unbought Delicacies - a lovely blog brought to me by a friend, whom I also thank!

Next up, here is some music.  I don't know if you have been watching BBC's The Choir, but it is truly fantastic! More crying. In fact all Gareth Malone's Choir programmes are guaranteed to make me cry. If you haven't seen The Choir - Military Wives, then try and watch it - just make sure you have a large box of tissues readily to hand, as it rather spoils things to have to go and look for one half-way through. If you can't see the whole programme for whatever reason, here is a wonderful clip of them singing in London - fantastic! Better still if you can see the background to how they got there!


Gareth Malone also did the marvellous programme 'Boys Don't Sing'.


When you have finished drying your eyes, feast them on these amazing ceramics. Being an ignorant hayseed, I didn't know anything about William de Morgan until quite recently. 
Oh boy.
Now I lie in bed wondering how I can break into the V&A, or possibly the Met, or anywhere else really, to steal one of his amazing pieces and keep it under my bed; so that I can surreptitiously pull it out, night and morning, and drool.
On reflection I think it is quite dusty underneath my bed, and there was once a mouse, eating the conkers I had put there to ENSURE that no spider every dared come anywhere NEAR me during the night - so perhaps I won't put it there.
It will just have to go on the dresser in the kitchen, and if anyone says, 'Isn't that the famous William de Morgan piece...?' I'll just reply, in a nonchalant fashion - 'Oh that old thing? No, no, my husband was just playing around in his ceramic class...'


Sadly I couldn't find a picture of my favourite piece, to show you (possibly because it's already under my bed) - but these are still wondrous.


Get ready.

Goodness, how I do love hares!

Zebras are pretty cool too - especially this one, but you don't see so many of them round here.

Quite frankly, I want to eat the glaze on that vase in the middle. It is - words fail me. Edible.

How can this be ceramic?

Aren't they lovely?

You can look at lots of his lovely stuff at William de Morgan's images
(Except the ones I've stolen, of course.)


I wish I could show you the whole of Frozen Planet - the next treat in store. I can't. But if you aren't watching it, or can't watch it, then make a plan - any plan - even indecently illegal plans - and DO watch it. It is quite amazing. The photography is breathtaking (and I mean that quite literally) I also spend at least half the programme with my eyes squinting shut because I can't bear to watch. There are no holds barred here, and it really brings you close up and personal with the unbelievable daily struggle and gamble that is life on this planet.
Life is tough.
If you are an animal it can be really tough.
If you are an animal in the outer reaches of the north or south pole, it is seriously on the edge.

An official taste of Frozen Planet
A not so official taste of Frozen Planet




My next gem is an interesting picture for you to look at: It's edgy. 
Literally. 
I like edgy things. 
They often make you think.

It's one of my husband's pieces. A drypoint print.


Lastly, to celebrate the fact that November, with all it's associated miseries, is nearly over (sorry, anyone who likes November, but it really isn't my favourite month) - here is a poem that I wrote.

November

A bitter wind blows through November trees

across a garden that now grieves for spring, for summer,

the extravagant glory of autumn.  I scoop wet stems and leaves

into a ragged heap, sheaves of a forlorn harvest

destined to rot.  The bile of the year collecting in sallow piles,

these trophies that the weary year forgot.

Pale buds too nondescript to name, one last bright

flame of flower against the earth where nothing new will

this year come to birth.  I wrench out roots, discard dead stalks.

Nothing will come of this.  The shoots that promise life

beyond my reach, distanced by hard-pruned days, each

a life sentence.  Oh, swiftly come

the bright sharp knife of winter to release me from

the tomb of this enfolding death, splinter this stale decaying

of the earth, scythe the drab days, fragment the inert self.