Veiled with Ghosts

It is my favourite time of year. Fleeting, but so beautiful.
The woods are filling up with drifts of bluebells again, but they are full of ghosts too, each morning as I walk through them in wind, or rain or dappled sunlight.
People and dogs and places that I can no longer reach out and touch.
The gradual veiling of our lives that happens, I suppose, to all of us.
I wrote this piece some years ago, but it has come into my mind often recently, so I am posting it again.



 

When I was very young, my grandfather took me on an outing.
It is one of the prized memories of my childhood.
I didn't see a great deal of my grandfather, because he lived in England and we lived in a variety of other places - all far away - but on this particular occasion we were in Cornwall, which was not his home, but was where his wife, my grandmother had been born and brought up. I suppose we were there visiting relatives when my 'outing' took place.

Together we walked up through the small, typically Cornish village to the railway station, and took the train over the viaduct. Then we walked down through the woods on the far side of the valley and someone rowed us back across the river in their boat. At least, that's what I recall.

I suppose every part of the trip was intrinsically memorable, because there weren't trains, or viaducts or rowing boats in my other life, and I was a very impressionable child. But those aren't the bits I remember.
It was the woods that transformed that outing into something so magical, they still call me back today.

We didn't have woods where I lived either, we had tropical rain forests.
We certainly didn't have bluebells.
And I'm sure that while the whole trip was beyond exciting, it was for the bluebells my grandfather took me there, and to see his own personal ghosts .

To a small child, a sea of bluebells is a life-changing experience. They are astonishing, and other-worldly, and intoxicating. It's not just the intensity of colour, or the waist-deep sea that immerses you as surely as water closing over your head, it's also the scent.

An English bluebell

You can tell an English bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) quite easily from the Spanish variety which is, apparently taking over in some areas of Britain and Ireland. Apart from the occasional white one, they are always blue, they have slender stems that arch, creamy-white stamens and they are scented. The Spanish ones are blue or pink or white, are sturdier, with thicker stems that don't arch; they don't have white stamens and they don't smell.

There is nothing to compare with the scent of bluebells. It is a delicate perfume that is never overpowering, as the delightful but much stronger lily-of-the-valley can be. It teases rather than flaunts itself, and it is very hard to emulate. The only bluebell soap I have ever had that actually smelt of bluebells was a box my mother once gave me, which came from Harrods. I don't know if they still make it, but it would be worth being on their mailing list if they do, as I can think of no nicer present. I put the three, heart-shaped bars in my linen cupboard to scent my pillowcases, and rationed them so they would last as long as possible. Fortunately the In-Charge didn't mind using the Imperial Leather instead.

They say it is smell that lodges so deeply in the memory that you can never prise it out.
I believe them.
One whiff of bluebells and I am a child again, waist high in magic, my soul back on the potter's wheel being shaped - again - around that day so long ago.
But colour does funny things to me as well. My mother used to quote a line about the colour of bluebells -  '...no man has ever named it yet, that shade half blue, half violet...'
It is probably my favourite colour, and everything about it is encapsulated in another line I once read: 'blue that is a lovely hurting in the eyes'.

Yesterday, on a sudden impulse, I dropped everything I was supposed to be doing, threw the divine duo into the back of the faithful little green car (the silver beast being still an in-patient) and drove to a bluebell wood that I have known of for years, but never visited. It's a long way away, and after ten minutes or so there was muttering on the back seat.
'We usually walk to the woods,' Under Dog said.
'Don't worry,' Top Dog soothed. 'This is the way to our favourite beach.'
Fifteen minutes later, it started again.
'She's missed the turn off. She's lost,' Under Dog said miserably.
'They're always getting lost. Look at the Master - he doesn't find his way home 'til supper time most days. At least we're here to find the way back.' Top Dog reassured him.

Forty minutes into the journey, they curled up on the back seat in silence, which was quite a statement, as they usually like to drive. At least, Top Dog drives, head thrust forward, gimlet-eyed, his attention only wavering if we pass another dog.
Under Dog, it has to be confessed, drives by looking out of the back window to check where we've been.

How we miss the Divine Duo

They cheered up when we arrived.
It had been a long drive, but we all thought it was worth it. The flowers weren't fully out, but it didn't matter.
They raced off between the trees and I raced back in time on a helter-skelter rollercoaster through all the bluebell woods that are part of who I am.

I was a small child in Cornwall again; an adolescent in the beech woods near our eventual English home; a lover with her swain; a young mother taking her small son to be bewitched. It is always the same.That blue against the acid green of young leaves and I can scarcely breathe. When something pierces you through and through, you always catch your breath - our deepest memories, I've heard, are held in our breath.

My son, aged 2, encountering bewitchment

As we meandered along the paths through the wood, I thought again of my grandfather, and the gift he had given me. A gift from his own experience, a gift he would have received again in the giving.

Now I realize what a two-edged sword it must have been, because now I understand the perpetual cycle of memory. That happiness and grief are inseparable.
I can only imagine what was in my grandfather's heart the day he took me on that outing. He must have been looking back, just as I was doing now, at the endlessly turning circle that somehow weaves an individual picture for each of us. He had walked those woods with his lover, with the wife she came to be, and then with his small twin daughters, long before he bequeathed bluebells to me.

I suppose he felt happiness for my joy and grief for his own sorrow.
Because the love of his life, the woman who had first taken him to those woods, died when my mother was only twelve.

My grandparents, young and happy

There are no better words than those of Kahlil Gibran: 'When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. And when you are sorrowful, look again in  your heart, and  you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.'

If a bluebell wood can make you smile and make you cry, then truly it is the sum of all things.

 

Tango-ing to Messina

Italy 4


We drove the length of the Calabrian coast after leaving the glorious cliff-top towns, hairpin bends and incredible views of Amalfi.
It was a lovely journey.
I'd looked for a place to stay half way to the toe of Italy, and came up with Maratea, a tiny seaside town that the Romans have taken to, apparently, as a weekend retreat.
I'm not surprised. It was just what we were looking for.

The harbour at Maratea

An iconic hill-top town, a winding, 5km road down to sea level and the tiny, original harbour, with a newer marina a short distance along the coast. We stopped for a drink in the old harbour. It was a sweltering afternoon - in the high 30s again. The harbour reminded us a little of places that we have loved elsewhere. We would probably have been happy to stay there, but the tiny town was deserted, half the world was still having a siesta, and we couldn't see a hotel or B&B that was open.

The old harbour at Maratea

Instead we drove round the corner and found Fiumicello, with it's little bay, village spread down the hillside, and a hotel on the beach.
Heaven.

Settebello, the hotel on the beach. The Redentore on top of the mountain is huge

We went for a swim, sat and watched the sun set over the sea from our balcony, and later drove up the mountain to eat in the hill-top town. From the streets of the town we could see up to the floodlit Redentore high, high above us. It is a massive statue of Christ on the actual peak of the mountain. Apparently it is second in size only to the one in Rio de Janeiro.

The beach in front of the hotel

We watched the sun go down sitting on our balcony

I think we'd have happily stayed at Settebello for the rest of the week, but Sicily was calling, so the next day we headed for the Calabrian coast - mile after mile beside a cobalt and turquoise sea, with an unbroken beach that stretched to infinity. For once we didn't mind Angelica's choice of route.
We stopped in a little town called Diamante - well, you'd have to, wouldn't you! - and, feeling distinctly less than glamorous, I went in search of a hairdresser.
I found an empty salon (as worrying as an empty restaurant!) but an elderly chap appeared from nowhere before I could back out onto the street, and - assuring me that of course he catered for ladies, ushered me to a basin. I left him to it and emerged half an hour later, if not with quite my usual hairstyle, at least with shining, coiffed locks.

We bought a map (trusting Angelica was going to take time), had a drink overlooking the sea and headed off again for Reggio Calabria and the Messina ferry.
On the way, the traffic got less and less, the road got better and better and we saw beautiful landscapes, forest fires, yet another traffic accident (we saw six in our meagre 11 days) and miles and miles of ocean. Also lots of mile-high grass of some sort - possibly the Japanese Knotweed of Italy. It is everywhere.

Grass taking over Italy

The ferry from Villa San Giovanni to Messina leaves every half hour, so we drove straight onto one.
The In-Charge was particularly interested in the Straits, as he had sailed through them with #1 Son only a few weeks before, when they'd been packed with swordfish-fishing boats performing some unfathomable ritual.
We saw no other boats at all that afternoon, so made our way to the forward deck instead, to watch Messina drawing closer.
I'm glad we did. There was a group of musicians sitting to one side playing various instruments, and suddenly a whole lot of people got up and started to dance.
We stood - along with half the ship's passengers - and gawped as, brow to cheekbone, they tango'd all over the deck. I'm not a 'Strictly' fan, but I could have watch these people all night. They were graceful, beautiful and danced as if it came naturally.

'Well, you don't get that on the Dover to Calais,' the In-Charge said as we headed back to the car deck.
You certainly don't.
I think it was truly one of the best moments of our whole trip.

Tango-ing to Messina

Wonderfully, the AirBnB we had booked at random for that night turned out to be in yet another hilltop town in the mountains behind Messina.
To be honest, I was wishing it anywhere else as Angelica forced us up narrower and narrower, steeper and steeper streets. I had reason to be worried. She had taken us down streets in Sorrento that were so narrow we had - literally - had to stop and pull the wing mirrors in on both sides in order to fit through, and even then it was touch and go.
She's probably one of those women who think they're much thinner than they really are - isn't that what they say about the women/cars/space conundrum?
Anyway - Montforte San Giorgio was proving to be even more hair-raising than Sorrento's alleyways.
At one point we had to stop on practically vertical, slickly-shiny cobbles at a red traffic light - because the gateway into the town's tiny 'main square' was so narrow that only a donkey cart could comfortably pass through, so it was definitely One Way. When we got into the square, there was a wedding in full swing in the church and the place was jam packed with cars, old men sitting around, and small children racing about.

The main square in Montforte San Giorgio later that evening. The wedding had moved on by then

We did eventually find our B&B - no thanks to Angelica, who gave up at the Church. It turned out to be an entire town house on three levels with a stable/storeroom on the ground floor and a roof terrace above - all for us. There was no one living there.
Before he left, we asked our host to recommend somewhere to eat, and the somewhat surprising answer was 'Fort Apache'. Sicily aka the Wild West.
We wandered back into town, but actually finding Fort Apache proved slightly more difficult.
We did find a couple of vehicles that I'd gladly have packed into my luggage, though.

Another vehicle I'd like to have brought home

And this one as well

Eventually, we stopped at the old mens' bar back in the square to ask where Fort Apache was, and spotted a priest chatting inside. He was that beautiful, bluish-black of many African people, and not only spoke French but offered to take us to the restaurant in his car. He wasn't, he told us, the local priest as we had assumed. He had been adopted as a child by a family in the town and was on a visit home. He was delightful.
So was Fort Apache, which was a little way out of the town.
The place was full to bursting, the food was delicious, and the olives were the best we'd had anywhere.
We sat out under their vine-covered terrace, drinking and feasting and loving every moment.
It had been a very good day.
(Alas, we didn't find out until later that the mossies were also feasting. On rare Northern meat. Us.)

A war memorial in Montforte San Giorgio

A view from the town

This is the 4th part of our trip to Italy.
You can read the first part here: See Naples and Die
Part 2: Sipping Limoncello in Sorrento
Part 3: Amalfi: The Road More Travelled
The last part: Sicily: Hot on the Heels of Montalbano

Amalfi: The Road More Travelled

Italy 3


It was stunning, the Amalfi Coast.
It seems that everyone thinks it's stunning, so all in all I'm glad we weren't there in July.
It's probably like the M25. Or the Ring of Kerry on super-steroids.

Every hairpin bend brings another wonderful view. Buildings perched on sheer mountain sides, rocky peaks towering above, boats strewn haphazardly on a jewel coloured sea far below.
It's enough to cause a traffic jam - everyone stopping to take photos.
You can't blame them. We did the same. It's a place where you can capture Italy (the south, anyway) in a single shot.

Southern Italy in a single shot

We didn't stop in Positano. I'd love to have pottered around the town, but it was too full of visitors for comfort.
We stopped further down the coast instead, at a tiny inlet the In-Charge spotted from our lofty height on the road. We wound our way down and happily paid the extortionate parking fee so that we could sit under an umbrella in the blazing midday sun drinking Prosecco. And watch some lads loading crates of beer onto a boat to deliver to a bar a few inlets along. Apparently, the only other way for them to get their beer is to tote it down a thousand or so steps.
There'd be none left by the time they got to the bottom.

We did stop in Amalfi. It was €5 an hour to park, which was even more expensive than the little inlet, but we found a vacant slot right on the front, so we did a lightning tour of the town.
It was beautiful, but to be honest, an hour was enough.
The place was packed and the locals in the shops and bars had obvious tourist-fatigue. Hardly surprising.

Amalfi

The town was packed

Everyone photographing everyone photographing everyone

I had the most expensive ice cream in the world, and then we sat looking over the sea and yacht-gazing while we had a drink before heading along the coast to Ravello.

We sat under the iconic umbrella pines overlooking the sea

A spot of yacht-watching is always fun. It reminds us of #1 Son

It was, thankfully, a good bit calmer in Ravello, despite the town's illustrious catalogue of earlier visitors.
The list of people who have visited the place, or written famous books or operas there, or just stayed with other famous people is endless.
In a more romantic era these included Ruskin, Grieg, most of the Bloomsbury Set including Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey and Bertrand Russell, Vita Sackville-West, DH Lawrence and TS Elliot. Wagner wrote Parsifal in Ravello, André Gide wrote L'Immortaliste, Churchill painted and Escher drew.
And in more recent times the tiny town has been host to Paul Newman, Rod Stewart, Harrison Ford, Roger Moore, Nicholas Cage, Mel Gibson, John Malkovich and Pierce Brosnan - amongst others. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie shot parts of Mr and Mrs Smith in the town, Gary Lineker got married there and Woody Harrelson's daughter was born there, so he named her Ravello.

The view down from the old town

Inside one of the hotels. Who knows which celebrities might have been lurking within?

None of those people were in the streets on the day we visited. In fact, we didn't spot any celebrities - though to be honest, I wasn't really looking.
I got waylaid by several shops selling pottery and the maiolica typical of the area.
I loved the spotty-ware, and some of the maiolica pieces were stunning. I was very taken by an interesting platter fixed to the wall, but in the end I settled for a much simpler (and smaller) memento. A Christmas tree decoration with a bird on it.

Lovely spotty pottery

An interesting platter stuck to the wall

I bought a little Christmas tree decoration. I like birds

We decided to drive back cross-country, through the mountains, and reluctantly roused Angelica. She'd had a day off.
It was a good decision. Angelica rose to the challenge and we hardly met anyone, beyond a flock of goats, the goatherd and his dogs.
We'd loved the stunning views, the towns clinging to the mountain-sides, the yachts and the jewel coloured sea - everything.
But we were ready to head further south to quieter places.

On duty

This is part 3 of our travels in Italy
You might also like Part 1: See Naples and Die
Part 2: Sipping Limoncello in Sorrento
Part 4: Tango-ing to Messina
And the last part: Sicily: Hot on the Heels of Montalbano

A Gold Medal at Bloom for WB Yeats

BLOOM - The Final!


When you get behind with something, it becomes ever harder to spur yourself into catching up.
I seem to be suffering quite badly this year with un-catch-up-ability.
My garden has gone to rack and ruin, my house looks like Miss Haversham's, and my blog feels largely abandoned.

But recently I had an email from Bloom, asking if I'd like to submit a design for next year's Show. All this year's designers will have received one. I don't think I would, but it made me realise I've never even got as far as posting that my garden won a Gold Medal at this year's Show.
I was thrilled. Stunned, but thrilled.
And to think I nearly wasn't present for the awards!
It was only because Niall, whose garden bordered mine, said, as we downed tools on the last day: 'So - that's it then! See you at 8am on Wednesday!'
In my naievity, I'd been thinking: 'At last, the garden's finished! A lie-in before Press Day arrives!'
Hah!
But thanks to Niall, I was on parade bright and early, and present to receive my award.

My Gold Medal, still sitting on the dresser amidst the dusty china

And I even made it onto the national news, and TV, and radio, and newspapers, and magazines...

A few of the newspaper and magazine cuttings, inc Sligo Now, The Irish Independent, The Irish Times and The Weekender

It was a lovely few days, the Show itself.
Not least because my brother, the Mad Cyclist from Edinburgh, and my sister from Suffolk came over to see it for themselves, which involved both of them getting on planes - and planes, as we all know, mean hassle and expense. (Wonder Brother was, alas, in Portugal - thoughtless boy!)
The In-Charge and Surfer Son came too. It didn't involve a plane ride, but proved far more problematic than either of my siblings' journeys. The treacherous Silver Beast decided that not enough attention was being paid to her, plus she had not been invited to accompany me to Dublin, so she trashed her alternator and broke down before they reached the county border. The poor menfolk had to re-group, borrow a car from dear DodoWoman and start their journey all over again.
Not amusing.
But it was lovely to see them all, and they all loved the garden.

The Irish President and Sabina, his wife, visited on Opening Day, and I presented them with a WB Yeats rose. Mrs Higgins told me how delighted they were with it, she said Michael D has planted a rose garden and this will be its centre-piece. As he is a Yeats scholar, I can believe that it will be.

The Irish President, Michael D, and Sabina visit my garden. In his speech to open Bloom 2015 (of which he is Patron), the President said that my garden had inspired him the most. Praise indeed!

Various other dignitaries came to visit - including the British Ambassador to Ireland and his wife who turned out to be old friends from London from another lifetime. Goodness, what a bubble I live in these days! I had no idea they were living in Dublin, and are so important!
Maud Gonne and WB Yeats himself were fleetingly spotted in the garden at one point, and over the days of the Show, other people came and sang, or recited poetry, and it was all very beatifully done.

Maud Gonne and Yeats. Poor Yeats, the most casual observer could have told him that his suit was in vain

The Orpheus Choir sang for us - their recital included The Lake Isle of Innisfree

More singers in the garden

Famous Irish poet Pat Boran recites The Lake Isle of Innisfree to the President and Mrs Higgins. Michael D could easily have recited it to us, no one would know Yeats better.

 

Gary Graham brings Leo Varadkar, Irish Minister for Health, to visit my garden

 
I remembered to ask the President to sign my garden visitor's book, but I totally forgot to ask Jane and Dominic, the British Ambassador, or Leo Varadkar, the Irish Minister for Health, or anyone of the others.
Ah well...

Happy memories.
Looking back, I think I was so engrossed in building the garden, I hadn't taken the actual Show end of things on board really. And truth to tell, I was pretty tired by the time it opened.

Too busy building the garden to think about the Show. Seamus was mad enough to let me loose on the digger...

I certainly hadn't thought about the medals, or not until Seamus said something about the judges one day.
I was appalled. How could I have overlooked something as fundamental as judges?  I've been to Chelsea and Bloom often enough...
By the week before the Show, the atmosphere in the show gardens was taughtening every day. Everyone except muggins was focused.
To be fair, I'd been asked to do the garden because of Yeats 2015, I hadn't set out to win a medal. But by the end of May, everyone around me was starting to get a touch of exam-fever, which is very contagious, whether you like it or not.
On the last day of the build, the Bear called me over.
He pointed a finger into my face and I knew he had something serious to say. I felt like a school kid caught on the hop. He didn't beat about the bush.
'Are you happy with your garden?' he asked.
I thought about it for a moment.
'Yes,' I said. It was the truth. The garden was, I suddenly realised, exactly as I'd planned it in my head.
'Then f**k everything else,' he said.
It was the best advice he could have given me. I went back to my B&B, climbed into bed and slept like a baby.

Opening Day started early with a Gold Medal

So winning a Gold Medal was like some huge bonus, and even better was the judges' return visit. Several of them had just flown over from the Chelsea Flower Show in London, which runs the week before Bloom. On their initial visit (when I had two minutes to explain any aspect of my design I wanted to), they told me they'd been asked not to patronise Bloom by marking any differently from how they'd have marked the gardens at Chelsea.
At the time, it made the palms of my hands clammy and my stomach go into spasm. Not having considered the goal posts at all, it didn't really help to have them suddenly illuminated in neon.

When they came back for the follow-up visit after the medals (a less nerve-racking affair), one of them was kind enough to say: 'We haven't really got anything to say to you. Your attention to detail is incredible. You've created a piece of theatre. It's wonderful.'
And, as they were leaving, another one turned back. 'I just wanted you to know,' she said, 'that the judges decision was unanimous.'

To me, their comments were even better than the Gold Medal itself.
And so was the response from the public. My garden had been in the media in the run up to Bloom, and had received lots of good publicity, but I hadn't expected to look out from my 'lair' - the pagoda tent Bloom provides next to your plot - and see crowds standing 5-deep trying to see into the garden, with, every now and again, a friend or acquaintance pushing through to come and say hello.
It was amazing to receive such a warm and wonderful reception.
I think it was the only thing that kept me upright.
I was so tired, I could have crawled into Yeats' little cabin and slept for the entire 5 days.

Yeats' cabin with the Mary Cronin's Cloths of Heaven forming a sun-shield outside the front door, his 9 bean rows and bee hive hidden on the right and his wild 'lawn' and apple tree hidden on the left. My pagoda in the background

An overview of the garden from the front corner

Martha Quinn's fabulous sculpture 'The Waters and the Wild' - forming a 21st century window into Yeats' imagination

Looking towards the little path leading down to the lake. On the table the In-Charge's lovely drawing of Lissadell

The path down to the Lough Gill, Nik Purdey's mural forms the backdrop

Colin Scott's amazing White Birds - ceramic sculptures 'flying' amongst the trees on the lake shore

But by mid-June I was totally exhausted.
The decision was taken, around the time of the Show, to move my Yeats Garden back to Sligo.
It was great to know that, after just 5 days on show, the garden wasn't going to be 'binned', so I was delighted, but it wasn't so brilliant having to start from scratch, re-work the design and build it all over again. It was like having to re-do a maths exam.
But by some miracle we managed it and had it ready for Yeats' 150th birthday, 13 June, when - joy of joys! - Joanna Lumley came to open it.

The garden re-designed for Sligo. It now lives beside the Model Arts Centre on The Mall

Joanna Lumley opening my garden in Sligo. What a star she is!  Pic courtesy of Val Robus

What more can you say about someone who is already adored the world over?
Only one thing springs to mind, really.
She was Absolutely Fabulous.
She loved my garden. And I did remember to ask her to sign my Bloom Visitor's Book!
Of course, I gave her a WB Yeats rose as well.

Joanna's lovely message in the visitor's book, underneath the signature of Yeats' grand daughter.