Turning

I lay in bed last night and listened to the wind howling through the trees and around the chimney pots, the hail spattering against the window panes and the distant rhythm of surf pounding on the shore.
Bleak midwinter indeed.
But, safe in my warm nest I didn't feel bleak. This is a time of year when there is something vibrant pulsing at the core, and when night enfolds you it is like black velvet wrapped around a bright kernel, so in the heart of the darkness, the wildness outside lulled me to sleep very quickly.
It is a time of year when the night is often better than the day. This morning was possibly the most horrible day ever spawned. Rain, rain and more rain, borne on winds gusting to 105km/hr.

A couple of weeks ago, someone told me we were going to have blizzards, and snow lasting into mid-January. To my mind, an infinitely preferable alternative.

But heigh-ho. It's only weather, after all, and I have spent the day in my kitchen, all the animals curled up in their various beds, snoozing the hours away. I've been decorating my Christmas tree, wrapping a few presents, and writing last minute Christmas cards.

My Christmas tree

My friend Mairead posted a lovely piece on her blog recently called In Praise of Christmas Cards which was very apposite and beautifully written. She mourns the slow decline of Christmas Cards, she feels they are an important part of our tradition and - perhaps more to the point - our personal history. She is, of course, quite right. How can an email possibly compare? However warm the wishes, it doesn't sit on your mantelpiece looking pretty and seasonal, or last. And as for texts - well, there is nothing to be said.

She and my mother are as one in this, although even Mairead probably doesn't expend as much zeal in the matter as my Mama. In truth, I have never known anyone who takes Christmas cards more seriously - she does a proper job, with news and personal letters enclosed - she probably thinks a 'round robin' is that plumptious little creature on her bird table. And she has them mailed in good time, not like my last minute scrabble to catch the final posting day.

It was today, the final posting day for Christmas. No surprise that I was writing cards, then.
I looked out of the window regularly, waiting for a momentary pause in the rain so I could scoot down to the post box, but the passing hours only brought more rain, blowing ever more sideways. Being washed down to the post office did not seem an appealing prospect , but then suddenly an angel appeared. It is traditional of course, at Christmas. This angel took the form of my friend the Talentui Goddess. I didn't see her wings at first, only when she announced that she was on her way into town did I spot the soft feathers fluttering behind her chic hat.
'You're not going to the post office?' I asked, hardly daring to hope for such a reprieve.
'No,' she said. 'But I can. I'm going past it.'
What a honey.


If pushed, I'd have to admit that it's not cards, but Christmas carols that are the essential part of the season for me. I don't mean bashing out O Come All Ye Faithful with some person coughing on your left side and someone else blowing their nose to your right, but rather the lucid perfection of King's College choristers singing John Rutter or The Coventry Carol or something angelic along those lines. It's not possible for me to make mince pies, or write cards, or decorate trees without those clear voices in the background. 

Essential Christmas

But I do love Christmas cards.
I don't send many these days - postage being so exorbitant - but I am very choosy about what I buy. They have to pass some indefinable yardstick. They have to really appeal to me, even if they are not conventionally beautiful. And - pleased as I am to receive any cards at all these days, I have a definite marking system for the ones I do get. Every year I keep one or two that I specially like, which are hung vertically on ribbons, and each Christmas all the 'specials' from previous years come out of their box and decorate the walls all over again.

One of my 'specials'

Perhaps loving Christmas cards is also about anticipation. To me, this last week or so before Christmas is almost the best bit of all.

I love midwinter, the days getting shorter and shorter, the trees bare against the darkening sky, the stars fierce and brilliant, houses filled with light and, despite the horrors of the world, everyone looking forward to something, whatever that may be.

Here we are, in the deepest dark of the year, the long, cold reaches of winter still to come, the slow return of the light tantalisingly ahead as the earth pauses - pivoting, slowly turning towards her next brave horizon; yet hidden within the folds of her dark skirts is Christmas, like a warm heart glowing in the depths of the night, a bright kernel shrouded in velvet.

Desert Island Women

Today is International Women's Day.
There are so many 'days' that you could make following them the sole focus of your life.
We have - apparently - just had 'National Cereal Day' and I even heard something about Pyjamas.
Don't even ask - I am as mystified as you are.
But International (maybe the Inter national is a clue here) Women's Day is something else.

Last year my CyberFriend, Isobel, marked the day on her blog, by paying tribute to some of the women who had influenced her life, and I have often thought of it since.
This year I would like to do the same.

Truthfully, I think they are too numerous to mention, but you have to start somewhere, and it is not far-fetched to say that these women's hands have helped shape the helix of my DNA. For that, I would like to thank them.

Rumer Godden with one of her beloved Pekingese

Perhaps I would have been a writer, no matter what. But it was being immersed in the magicical world of books when I was young that made me want to perpetually recreate that magic, and amongst others Elizabeth Goudge, Rumer Godden, Louisa May Alcott, Kathleen Wendy Peyton, Edith Nesbit, Rosemary Sutcliffe, Mary Noel Streatfeild, Frances Hodgson Burnett, the Bronte sisters, Georgette Heyer, Daphne du Maurier, Monica Dickens and Barbara Timewell were amongst my formative fairy godmothers. Later the influences ballooned and it would be hard to isolate a few names (though I'm sure I will do so, after this has been posted).

When you are a child, pictures can lead you into another world as surely as words, though they are not always necessary if your imagination is constantly straining at the bit. But, like most people, I have loved some books purely for their illustrations and discovered others through my son's eyes; and the images they have created in my head will be there forever. Janet and Anne Grahame Johnstone, Shirley Hughes, Jane Ray, Nicola Bayley, Cicely Mary Barker, Sheila Moxley and Margaret Tarrant are just some of the illustrators who have hugely enriched my life.

The Young King by Anne Grahame Johnstone - 'borrowed' from My Christmas Book of Stories & Carols pub by Award

And then of course, there is the poetry. Where to begin with poetry? Well why not with Carol Ann Duffy or Elizabeth Jennings, with Mary Oliver or Dorothy Parker, Carole Satyamurti, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, HD, Kathleen Coates, Jenny Joseph, Edna St Vincent Millay, Christina Rossetti - Ruth Fainlight, Diane Wakoski, Maura Dooley, I could go on and on...

Next it would have to be images. I couldn't exist without beautiful images. But if I was lost with the poet-list, I'm really sunk now, there are just too many, so perhaps I should keep this even more personal. Some of the images that make my life special every day have been created by Annabel Langrish, Hilda van Stockum, Heidi Wickham, Sarah Brecht and Sylvia Ripon. 

My treasured portrait of Top Dog by Sarah Brecht

And so far I haven't even included the women who make me laugh, like Sue Perkins, Jo Brand and Victoria Wood; the ones whose gardens have inspired me - Beth Chatto, Vita Sackville West and the Empress Josephine who bred so many roses; the ones who have filled life with small inspirations, like Francine Lawrence and Susy Smith - both editors of Country Living Magazine; the Hildegardes, Dame Julians and (again) Elizabeth Goudges who open up avenues into inspirations of other kinds; the Sandi Toksvigs, WTFs and Kirsty Warks for their ascerbic commentaries; the Audrey Hepburns, Yasmin le Bons and Sandra Bullocks of this world who are just hopelessly beautiful; the Candace Bahouths, Laura Ashleys and Tricia Guilds for exploding me into colour and pattern way back when; the Ella Fitzgeralds, Lesley Garrets and Rebecca Fergusons who make me wish I could sing; or the Svetlana Beriosovas, Marie Ramberts and Darcy Bussells who make me wish I could dance.

And then, of course, there is my mother, who taught me the joy of the little things in life.

My mother - from whom I also learned to love animals

I don't think Kirsty Young would let me take this amazing crowd to my desert island, but - in a way - I'd be taking them all anyway.
Thank you, wonderful women.

Mellow But Too Fruitful

Isn't is rather wonderful that most things mellow with age.
Even our irascible selves.
Even a vase of flowers.

It looks even prettier at the end of it's life than it did at the beginning.

The only thing that doesn't seem to mellow is my garden.

It is like a perpetually unruly toddler, filled with boundless energy and only waiting for my back to be turned to do exactly what it likes.

I am exhausted by my garden.

I love it, as presumably one loves one's toddler - however naughty. But it wipes me out.

After a month of ceaseless work, one tiny patch feels vaguely tamed - although once the rain returns even that will soon prove to have been an illusion.

Having - by some thoughtless oversight on the part of my parents - only one pair of hands, the other 95% of the garden is, so far, untouched. But even now it is summoning up all its newly awakened zest for life, and is gathering strength to burst forth with whatever it feels like growing.

I wonder what it will produce as 'This Year's Weed - DaDah!'

Not verbena bonariensis or papaver orientalis, I don't suppose, and needless to say, yet again, I will not be consulted in any of its decisions.

It is at times like these that one needs comfort.

Like many people, I keep a pile of books beside my bed.
It tends to grow rather than diminish, as I am very bad at moving on the ones I have read - there is always some quote I'm intending to copu out, or else I simply forget to put them back on the shelf.
The In-Charge once asked, very politely (all things considered), if I could deal with the pile, as he hadn't been able to hoover on my side of the bed. As I redistributed them, I counted.
73 books. I was shocked, but also pleasantly surprised to know that 73 books could be accommodated in such a relatively small space.
It gave me hope for when we come to 'downsize'.

The pile of books is a great comfort.
There is always some treasure to soothe my troubled mind or drown my woes in balm.
And of course, I never put all the books back on the shelf. One or two have to stay within handy reach, and this is the one I am reaching for now.

As you can see, it is well-thumbed

It never fails to lift my spirits when the garden reminds me who's boss, or gets uppity.
Which is surprising really, as it is full of magnificent pictures of magnificent gardens where not a weed dare show its face.

Come here to me, as they say in Ireland, and I'll give you a few tasters - several from France and one from America:

Words (for once) fail me

I gave up longing for this when I learned how many hours of sunshine a day irises need to thrive

I want this house just as much as I'd like the garden, so let me know when you're moving out Michel

Perfection. And if anyone has an urn like this that they don't want anymore, please get in touch.

But it doesn't really matter that these gardens are perfect in every detail.
That they each have - no doubt - teams of devoted tenders who pick up every stray leaf and tenderly clip the box hedges before breakfast, lift the tulips after elevenses and sow more peas in the afternoon. That because there are no weeds, it only takes a stroll around at dusk, glass in hand, to check for unwelcome arrivals in any of the flowerbeds.

I suppose it is more about aspiration and inspiration.
About the triumph of imagination over reality.
It is about rekindling the essence of your passion.
And I guess it's cheaper to drown your woes in balm than in champagne.

So if there are any garden-lovers out there, hie thee hence to your local bookshop and order a copy.
Give yourself a well-earned break.

Fashion Designers' Gardens

by Francis Dorleans, photographs by Claire de Virieu
ISBN: 9 780304 354375
My copy published by Cassell & Co

Picture it in your Own Words - Illuminations

I am a long-lapsed contributor to The Weekly Photo Challenge, but this week's subject has brought me back into the fold.

It is Illuminations


I took this picture at Christmas in a little gem of a church in Suffolk on the eastern side of England. It is part of a stained glass window depicting elements of the coat of arms of the family on whose estate the church was built.

This photo was the result of an experiment when I was taking a photo of the rising moon next to a streetlight.

And lastly, this is a photo I took of candles I lit for the Winter Solstice in memory of my sweet boys.

You can see other Illumination pictures here.

Picture it in Your Own Words - Two Subjects

Will it never end?
I have pulled a muscle in my arm.
I am reduced to typing with one finger.
And lying awake in pain!
I can't cope!

Thank you for all your suggestions for the golden princess.
Watch this space for news of the naming ceremony.

In the meantime, here is my entry for the Weekly Photo Challenge - Two Subjects.

The cruise ship and the railway station. Not often seen together! This was taken in Cobh Harbour in Cork. The ship makes everything else look like toy town!

Here's my second entry.
Together, but not together.

Next up!
If you are into cycling, please come back and read the guest post I will be hosting later this week!

Just Like That...

To welcome me home yesterday, Pushkin, aka Senior Cat, took me on an extended tour of the garden.
She's quite an outdoor girl, is Pushy, and if the weather is at all conciliatory, prefers to be out in her domain, so she was the ideal guide.  She is probably the only person who knows it better than I do.

We set out eagerly. I like March. It's a great month. Things are moving and promise lingers in the air like evening sunlight, yet all that burgeoning ebullience is still manageable. March is the last moment when you still feel in control. 

I had quite a shock.

Admittedly, 'There's not a moment to lose' is the order of the day around here, but even so, the garden has pulled a fast one in my absence.

I was expecting to see these pretty things. They politely hold back when all the other daffodils are thrusting themselves forward to be the first and foremost of spring. Come what may, they obey the dictum of their breeding, and flower appropriately:

Daffodils - variety Paddy's Day. Planted for my gorgeous boy who's birthday was last week.

Naturally, I was also expecting to see these, as they are one of the first every year, their pretty heads rising high above their delightfully spotted leaves.

Pulmonaria that I've always known as Mary and Joseph for the pink and blue flowers together. Some are already fading.

 Eagerly I was anticipating these:

Primroses - one of the joys of spring

And there was always a distinct chance that I might find some of these:  

These fancy daffs are some of the last to flower

 not to mention this little beauty:

My gorgeous young prunus Shirotae always flowers in late March. I am still waiting for it to take on the more traditional umbrella shape! Perhaps this year it will start...

But I didn't really expect to see these, which shouldn't be here until next month:

Narcissus Winston Churchill - very heavily scented. They also spread beautifully

 

 

And I distinctly remember a time when these were a feature of May. In fact, I'll be honest - these were May. Like a kind of wallpaper behind everything else.

Wild garlic. You have to learn not to fight it. I'm still learning

 And exactly what is going on here, for heaven's sake?

These tulips aren't just in flower - they have FINISHED flowering!

Pushy, I have to say, although not surprised at such forwardness, was not entirely approving of everything she had to show me, as witnessed by her expression in the vegetable garden.

These are hardly the delicate stems, pink and 'palely loitering' that I would expect in March! As you can see, Pushy entirely agrees with me. She is old enough to remember a time when things did what you expected them to do.

(They are however as delicious as they look. What could be nicer for breakfast than stewed rhubarb and yogurt?)

But her final revelation took the biscuit.
What, may I ask, is this all about?

Bluebells in March?

 

However, I was very happy to find that the sharks lurking in my little pond haven't managed to gobble up all the tadpoles yet. 

Tadpole heaven

Can you see them?

Look closely. There are millions of tadpoles squiggling about in this picture, but the light on the surface of the water makes it hard to pick them out.

Mind you, the sharks are still circling lazily.

And hiding under the kingcups.

The only thing I saw flitting about was this unidentified insect. I didn't actually see Tommy Cooper's ghost drifting over the pond or above the shrubbery, but I had the distinct feeling he had been in the garden while I was away. Do you remember how he used to jig his hands and say 'Just like that...'? I wish he'd come back and do a bit more jigging. Maybe this time he could jig away a few things. Like the weeds. Because they're as ebullient as the flowers. So much for control!

Picture it in Your Own Words - Contrast

This week's photo challenge is Contrast


I am sick. I am feeling very sorry for myself. I have succumbed to husband's flu.
A picture of me this week and last week would be quite a contrast, but none of you deserve to see such an appalling sight.

Instead here are some other images.

Sunset, the tip of Nephin just visible

Magnolia stellata flowers

Sunset - the only time those ugly poles seem eyecatching

Picture it in Your Own Words - Indulge

The Weekly Photo Challenge is Indulge.

I was so late getting round to last week's that this is coming hot on the heels of my recent submission.
Never mind.




Several things come to mind for this photo.


The inevitable

Two of the cupcakes I made for this morning's market

Then there's one I can't resist

Flowers

Poppies and lavender in my garden last summer

(Rosa Abraham Darby). My husband speeds up if we happen to drive past a garden centre, so that I can't GET IN THERE!. Flowers are an irresistible indulgence. And the scent of this one, in my garden, is heavenly

But I suppose these two are my real indulgence

Napoleon and his second wife, Marie Louise (very small, but every inch an Empress) I don't remember when she last laid an egg (and neither does she) and they take a bit of looking after, but I love them to bits. They are referred to as 'my babies'.

(Don't forget, fellow challengers, to check you spam bins! Wordpress generally unceremoniously dumps Blogger comments. If you find a comment from me in the bin, and reinstate it, I will be recognised next time I visit you. Yipee!)

Picture it in Your Own Words - Down 2

In case you missed my recent post, joy of joys - my blog problems are resolved.

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________________________________________________________


The prompt for The Weekly Photo Challenge is Down  

First, a DESPERATE note to fellow challengers! I have left - tried to leave - comments on many of your photos! Wordpress doesn't like Blogspot comments and - I think - spams them! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE look in your spam bin and see if there is a comment from Writing from the Edge. If you 'reinstate' it in  your comments, generally that means I will be allowed to comment in future. Yipee! 

(You cannot believe how frustrating this is....)

Now - enough of blog problems. 

Here's what came to mind when I thought of Down

If you have ever held a new chick, you'll know it's just a ball of down on legs. These chicks' mother, Henrietta, has her own ball of down as a hat - we call it her pom-pom

The recent storm brought an old tree down in the woods. It lies like a toppled giant, motionless amidst its own broken ruins

The river flows down to the sea. I think of the river as a fixture, but in fact it is new every day. Yesterday's water is long gone. I'm sure there is something I could learn from that.

This is my second entry, as I posted my husband's photo on my first - see here.
(Probably against all the rules. Sorry)

Picture it in Your Own Words - Down

In case you missed my recent post, joy of joys, my blog problems are resolved.

You can now Subscribe to this blog, should you so desire, and you WILL finally receive email notification of new content.

If you are one of my valued and loyal Followers, please note that you also need to Subscribe in order to receive notifications of new posts.

Just click on Subscribe at the top right hand side of the page and fill in your details.


Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

________________________________________________________


The prompt for The Weekly Photo Challenge is Down  

First, a DESPERATE note to fellow challengers! I have left - tried to leave - comments on many of your photos! Wordpress doesn't like Blogspot comments and - I think - spams them! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE look in your spam bin and see if there is a comment from Writing from the Edge. If you 'reinstate' it in  your comments, generally that means I will be allowed to comment in future. Yipee! 

(You cannot believe how frustrating this is....)

At last - sorry for the delay! - here are the pictures:

White birds fly down onto the water

Held down at the railway station

I am entering both these pictures on my husband's behalf, as I think they are great interpretations of the theme. He took them in Antwerp a couple of days ago.

He took this one too, but not in Antwerp!

Sitting down for a rest and a picnic in the rain

On Reflection...

Hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, they danced

I've been thinking about photographs.
I don't know about you, but I take an awful lot of them.
I think, by and large, everyone does.
Do you remember back in the day when it was an international 'joke' that the Japanese didn't sight-see, they just took photos? Now we all do it.

A few years ago I was honoured to be invited to an event at which the Queen was present, and as she walked past us all, it was like Guy Fawkes - flash, flash, flash, flash, flash. I don't think anyone present actually saw her, they were too busy either looking into a mobile phone or camera lens. And I remember wondering at the time what she was thinking. Everywhere she goes she is confronted, not by people but by a phalanx of flashing gadgets. Machines attached to best-dressed humanoids.


But it's not just the Queen. We photograph everything. Avidly.
Why is that? Just because we can, or because we need to prove to ourselves afterwards that we were there?
It's as if we don't live in the present anymore. We photograph the present, to view at leisure afterwards, when it will have become the past, and already starting to fade into the gentle realm of nostalgia.
How many folders of digital pix have you got lurking on your computer?
I might have to plead the Fifth Amendment on that question, but one glance at my blog will have told you that I'm image-incontinent.
Or image-addicted.

Clickety-click - it's mine

Years ago I forced myself to go through all our albums and drawers of actual, old-fashioned hard-copy photographs. I picked out the best and ditched everything else. A pretty drastic measure made easier by the time that had elapsed since they'd been taken. The 'winners' of that trial by cold selection now live in half-a-dozen shoeboxes in the spare room.
The awful truth is, I never look at them, but then I never looked at the albums either.

It's probably because there are just too many! Who takes A picture, or even A film (36 pictures) any more? This is the age of splatter-photography: an infinite number of images for any one occasion, multiplied by however many people were there.
It's made me start wondering. At what point do photos showing us smiling, laughing and enjoying ourselves become more important than the actual memories of a special day.? Photos capture certain moments, but do they also, surreptitiously, replace them?
What does recording every moment of our lives say about us?
I pictured-it, therefore I am.

Some of my best memories are the ones that aren't recorded. And some of the best pictures are the one-offs. Like those sepia or black and white portraits of great-grandparents and other relatives. People long gone, and who were not, in the scheme of things, captured and encapsulated very often. They mostly look quite solemn, as befits the Event of having a photograph taken. And they ooze dignity, and presence - they are a fitting memorial. If only a handful of pictures of me were to survive, I'd rather they looked like this than some of the ones I know to be out there!

My grandmother

In my son's pre-digital babyhood, I decided to keep the BEST pictures of him every year (3 or 4 max) and put them in a special album which at some stage I could pass on to whoever became his nearest and dearest in adult life. I look at that album a lot - I suppose because it's the cream of the crop and because it's him.It's a snapshot (ha ha) of his life up to 21.


I'm currently going through the afore-mentioned shoeboxes and - bit by bit - scanning the 'best of the rest'. A laborious job, but well worth it, because now I look at them again. My computer screen-saver randomly selects photos from my growing collection, so when it's been idle for more than a minute or two, a wonderful picture-show begins. Totally distracting, and absolutely wonderful, as I never know what will appear - past or present. Way better than dusty shoeboxes. Life goes round and round.

Perhaps photographs are the ultimate form of recycling?

The whole photography thing fascinates me.
If you look back on the history of art (in very broad terms, this is) - it seems to me that figurative art in its most perfect form died a kind of death when photography began. I suppose because art is always trying to reach beyond mundane expression, and with the advent of photographs the representational figure became increasingly mundane.First there were the Impressionists and then art became more and more abstract.
When photography had supplied all our figurative needs for long enough, it too started to go abstract. One way and another we are now in image-overload, so we have moved on again. It seems that art (please remember the broad terms here), has mutated into the realms of homoeopathy. We have installations or pieces that hint at concepts that might once have been art. All essence but no substance. Metaphysical art.

Mirrors within mirrors

Where will it end?
As we play more and more with the photographic image, will the other end of the art spectrum gently swing back towards desiring representational integrity? Will the concept of figurative painting become intrinsically valuable again?

What we want images to reflect may change with time and fashion, but one thing is certain, our addiction to them isn't going to change.

What do we see?

In some parts of the world there were, and possibly still are, people who believed that having your photo taken was a kind of theft. It literally took from you - perhaps even your soul.

And there are others who believe that 'graven images' and photos of people or animals can oust or replace God in the minds of those who value them too highly; can be 'worshipped' in place of God.
Bearing in mind our universal addiction to images, it's possible to see the reasoning behind this, even if you don't agree with it.

As a species we are very scared of what, in the design business, is called negative space - the void. The blank piece of paper, the gap on the page, the empty slot.
And weirdly, in a room where there are blank walls - no pictures - the walls press in on us. The room seems smaller. Hang a few pictures up and the walls move back, the soul has room to expand.

It's a conundrum, isn't it?

I wonder if it's about validation?
Maybe it's not just the walls that press in on us.
Maybe time presses on us harder than we want. Time and our inevitable end
Pictures prove that we live and are. That we were here. That we created, and procreated. And they live after us.
We need to leave a mark.
Even if it's only a zillion photos of ourselves.

We see what we want to see

__________________________________________________________________________________

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