The Eye of the Beholder

Some things just look right. The formulae for perfection can be explained by mathematical geniuses like Fibonacci and DaVinci but that doesn't quite explain why the eye finds one arrangement more pleasing than another. Familiarity and culture play their part but is it the chicken or the egg? William Morris's willow bough pattern is one of the most popular designs of the 20th century but when I lie under a great crack willow watching the pattern of leaf against sky is it my knowledge of the print that makes it so especially perfect or vice versa? Held in a  pocket of my mind is that other accumulated knowledge, of the ancient medicine, and that perfect sound of wood on willow. On my friend's table: a Spanish plate, seven green pears, William Morris's willow bough print: perfect.

Danced last night to big band sounds under the spetacular roof of Chatham dockyard's number 3 slip. One of Britain’s architectural gems, when built in 1838 this immense covered slip was Europe’s largest wide span timber structure. Reminiscent of an Escher or Leonardo drawing, distressed over a century of labour, as awe inspiring as any cathedral nave it puts Kings Cross in the shade. Visit this summer to see the newly restored Shipbuilding on the Clyde series of paintings by Stanley Spencer. Too big for regular display at the Imperial War Museum this will be a rare outing and an incomparable setting. Chatham Dockyard is an industrial monument on a huge scale not to be missed and this exhibition will be the icing on the cake! 

Golden Bells

Long, long ago when I was optimistic and full of love I lounged on a battered old sofa with my feet in the lap of the man I loved. In the evenings while children slept, we turned up the fire and read poetry to one another and dreamed of long lives entwined and shores we would walk together. One peaceful night in my daughter's first year I found this poem and reading it to my fifty year old love, welled up. The following year he was gone. Years had passed when walking by the Thames a pot of these beautiful little daffodils caught my eye - Narcissus Golden Bells - and I remembered the poem. Now they flower in early May in an old salt glaze pot by my gate.

Golden Bells

When I was almost forty

I had a daughter whose name was Golden Bells.

Now it is just a year since she was born;

She is learning to sit and cannot yet talk.

Ashamed—to find that I have not a sage’s heart:

I cannot resist vulgar thoughts and feelings.

Henceforward I am tied to things outside myself:

My only reward—the pleasure I am getting now.

If I am spared the grief of her dying young,
Then I shall have the trouble of getting her married.
My plan for retiring and going back to the hills

Must now be postponed for fifteen years!



The poem is as moving twelve hundred years after it was written. A few weeks later I found a second poem and the tears streamed down my face.

Remembering Golden Bells


Ruined and ill—a man of two score;

Pretty and guileless—a girl of three.

Not a boy—but still better than nothing:

To soothe one’s feeling—from time to time a kiss!

There came a day—they suddenly took her from me;

Her soul’s shadow wandered I know not where.

And when I remember how just at the time she died

She lisped strange sounds, beginning to learn to talk,

Then I know that the ties of flesh and blood

Only bind us to a load of grief and sorrow.
 At last, by thinking of the time before she was born,

By thought and reason I drove the pain away.

Since my heart forgot her, many days have passed

And three times winter has changed to spring.

This morning, for a little, the old grief came back,
Because, in the road, I met her foster-nurse.

 Po Chu i,  translated by Arthur Waley

Little foxes

Lots of foxy activity these light summer evenings. Walking through the particularly beautiful valley below Clipperdown and Duncombe terrace last week a dapper young dog fox unconcernedly crossed our path and proceeded down to drink at the cattle trough in our full view but rather too distant for a good photo. A little further on a couple of horses were kicking off in the meadow and lo and behold it was another fox that had spooked them. A few summers past I watched the rendezvous of a menage a trois reynards over the field for several weeks before the vixen retired, reappearing several weeks later with three small cubs. This morning they were back in the same spot, though possibly not the same foxes. I have had the great pleasure of watching one laid back vixen sitting in the bracken watching her cubs play in the afternoon sunshine and, late one night, of stopping the car as three cubs rolled off the verge into the lane where they continued to play in the full glare of the headlights until their mother sharply called them home. In my garden are buried both a fox and a badger cub, I was too tender hearted to leave them dead on the roadside: how anyone can kill these beautiful creatures is beyond me.

Peace and Quiet

I know this may offend and you can call me crass. We live under the flight path for Luton airport but that has never bothered me, by the time they pass over us the planes are usually high enough to ignore. I like watching them trek across the summer blue sky leaving chalky vapour trails or seeing headlights piercing thunder dark clouds on a rainy night. Occasionally one will drown out the radio in the garden or the tv as it lulls me to sleep and sometimes early on summer evenings when they stack up to land at Heathrow or pile out of Luton at five minute intervals I am mildly irritated, but just as often I am mesmerised by the steady stream of lights rising from the horizon and many is the time I have calmed a fractious grandson watching them from the gate. So it has been quite a surprise to find that without them our small world is a much more peaceful place. Almost eerily quiet without the background noise it now feels as if we really live in the country. There is less of the associated road traffic too and we began to ponder on if this went on long enough would it change people's attitudes to easy air travel?Then I found this neat graphic from the Information is Beautiful website and it's pretty powerful. I really am sorry if you are stuck somewhere instead of at a funeral or in surgery but otherwise sit back, chill out and listen to the quiet. Shhhh...

Castles in the Air

Great weather, especially for Wales. Too often we see castle views through light drizzle with the wind whipping at our hair but the past few days have been idyllic. Up on the Welsh Marches again it is easy to imagine the battles and skirmishes that took place here. First to Croft Castle, now just a Gothic manor house though the Crofts owned the original medieval castle near this site and fought at nearby Wigmore during the War of the Roses and in the English Civil War at Mortimer's Cross. All was peaceful in the walled garden as the first swallows swooped into the old barns and house martins clung to the stones of the main house sunbathing beneath their mud nests. I have not seen them yet at home but here the first lone swallow arrived in March.

On to Clun and my favourite little castle set on a bend of the river overlooking tranquil water meadows. Unfortunately the scaffolding has been up for well over a year now but still a perfect picnic spot. Locals told us that otters have become regular night time visitors so must go next after dark!

Lastly we visited Montgomery Castle which for thirty years I have managed to miss, but what a treat! I have used it for my header. Built into the rock high above the pretty little market town, it was an impregnable fortress occupied by Celts, Romans and Normans and finally demolished by Parliamentarians during the Civil War. The impressive ruin offers dramatic panoramic views and still awesome remains. Below the small town with its town hall, hardware store, little museum and teashops is quietly purposeful and not dissimilar to the high streets of neighbouring Presteigne or Bishops Castle. Saturday afternoon in Mid Wales is so.... comfortingly familiar. I can't wait to return.

Easter treats

Just back from a few days on the south coast near Lymington. Exhausted ourselves on the first day riding from New Milton through Keyhaven to Lymington on a fabulous cycle path across the marshes.

(Should have worn the minx-girl padded knickers - yes, I'm afraid they really are called that!) Anyway, apart from the bumps it is a terrific ride with the Solent glittering under a wide sky on one side and the salt marsh all sparse grass and peaty pools on the other.

 I failed to capture on camera the red brown water reflecting the cobalt sky or the exotic Little Egret (now breeding happily in these parts despite the cold winter) but can still smell the first gorse flowers of the year mingled with the salt sea air. Sadly the header was my best pic but also spotted Redshank and curlew and the first sprouts of samphire piercing the saltwater ponds once used in salt production hereabouts. Back home today I used the really helpful RSPB bird identifier to check out those waders, then spotted my first Peacock butterfly of the year in the garden. Hope it doesn't get eaten!

Die happy

Easter Sunday. Sang in church and shared peace with friends and neighbours. Walked and talked and ate and drank with dear old friends and got tipsy in the afternoon on gin and painkillers and reminisced and got teary and hugged and laughed out loud and walked and walked. Light evenings: thankyou thankyou God. And sold some stuff I am too fat for on ebay and bought a raised garden bed online and will now dream of beetroot and chard and however will I keep the chickens off it? And listened to my gorgeous grandson's fiveyear old voice describing a bike ride along the seafront and if I die tonight I will be very happy and I haven't said that for a long, long time.......

Only in America?

Most reviews for I Love You Philip Morris were good ones; I thought The Guardian was closest to the mark. PM made me laugh and it was undoubtedly a feelgood movie but it left a bad taste behind and I am sure that it meant to. The story is unbelievable but true. The protagonist Steven Jay Russell is a likeable fantasist  who is now serving 144 yrs for fraud in a Texas jail. Partly because dollars are sacred and then because he egged the faces of judges, financiers and the FBI to name but a few. You have to admire the guy: when you read the story an award would have been more appropriate, but then the yanks really don't share our sense of humour which is why distribution was a problem in the US. Reminded me of the Truman Show, Jim Cary's now next best film!

Seraphine

Film of the week, at least until I go to see I Love You Phillip Morris tomorrow, is Seraphine de Senlis. The beautifully drawn out portrait of the naive artist has won a stack of awards, well deserved.This article in the Guardian draws the obvious modern parallel. I was certain I have seen her work before, but have I? and where? Maybe it just fits with the current retro revival. Anyway I would love a poster! And a funny thing happened. In Michael Morpurgo's book War Horse he describes a pair of Haflingers but I am not sure I have ever seen one. In Seraphine there is a scene with two little horses and I straight away recalled the two little Haflingers in the book as if I had seen them in the flesh.That is what a writer can do. Just finished 'The Girls' by Lori Lansens, recommended. Walked today and celebrated the Spring, determined to soak up every moment.

First butterfly

Spring really sprung last weekend when I saw the first butterflies of the year, Brimstones, on the wing. It is impossible to photograph them in flight, like fluorescent leaves tossed by the breeze. These March butterflies are adults that have overwintered and are now in search of a mate. I wondered that they can find nectar at this time of year but found this picture of one on an early orchid and we have lots of hellebores so maybe that is what attracted them. Later in the week, a warm wind brought rain and spring smells. There are tiny buds on the beech, daffodils in full bloom and tulips just in bud. On Sunday we finally gain that extra hour of daylight: best day of the year!

Spring

Wish I had taken my camera out tonight! A calm, hazily sunlit evening, still light at 6.30 pm. The grass is bleached but in the woods the first bluebell leaves are showing and on the hawthorn a faint green veil is just visible. As dusk fell the slightest rim of crescent moon appeared, laid on her back and smiling. 

The woods were full of birdsong: blue tits, great tits, long tailed tits, woodpeckers, robins. Fat lambs stared from the fields and there was a faint whiff of woodsmoke on the air. It must have been the warmest day of the year so far but as soon as the sun disappeared a pleasant slight chill struck the air. Amazing grace to be in England in springtime; only 10 days until British Summertime and the long, light evenings again.

Chiltern Hills

Great Missenden at the head of the Misbourne valley is an attractive small town, with a long curving High Street of half timbered and Georgian shops, a graciously proportioned Baptist Church and a number of traditional pubs. Within a short stroll of the station is the award winning Roald Dahl museum which was established in 2001 with the aim of setting up a centre to tell Roald Dahl’s life story, to care for his archive and to promote a love of creative writing in everyone.This great little family-friendly museum features two fun and fact-packed biographical galleries, and a fantastic interactive Story Centre. While half of the museum tells the fascinating story of Roald Dahl’s life, the other half focuses on the process of creative writing.Departure station: London Marylebone.

Back blogging and about time too. What to do when the days are grey and every other blog seems more interesting than your own? Well ANGER has finally stirred me. Lord Adonis (you can already tell he is a complete 'banker' with a moniker like that) is promoting a high speed rail link through the heart of the Chiltern Hills. I already know what a rum lot they are in the Department for Transport re my road tax application last year. It took almost 6 months to process, I was threatened with legal action, spent hours online and on the phone and received no apology when they finally conceded that my car tax had been applied for. Letters to the Lord were ignored. I know I went a bit over the top but doesn't bureaucracy drive you crazy?
Anyway, today  he announced that our beautiful Chiltern hills will be trashed for a high speed rail link to Birmingham. Lovely little market towns like Wendover, pretty medieval high streets like Amersham and - oh travesty - the peaceful churchyard resting place of Roald Dahl our best loved storyteller, will be sacrificed for a 45 minute journey to Brum. This is the pretty picture and blurb that British rail uses to promote days out in Great Missenden - guess they just want to cart the people in faster.......will the trains have time to stop?
I have to say I have thought of visiting B once or twice mostly because the city gallery houses a fine collection of Preraphaelites but I always thought better of it and waited for a showing at the Tate or RA. I certainly won't be using the link. There is a perfectly good line that could be improved running through Berkhamsted and MK. And for the first time in my life I won't be voting Labour because they don't give a monkeys about anywhere south of Brum anyway and seem to have a pathological hatred of anything remotely rural. I hear the beautiful house at Chequers is hardly used anymore as Gordon prefers to spend his w/ends further north. Stay there mate!

If only he were.......!

Mixed reviews, some rather bitchy. Tom Ford directs like a fashion shoot and the result is.......absolutely fabulous! The photography is to die for. Shigeru Umebayashi /  Abel Korzeniowski soundtrack gels perfectly. Colin Firth does restraint to perfection and is an inspired casting. Julieanne is not a favourite of mine but I could not fault her. Isherwood's novel lives on screen, I believe as he intended, as he lived it. Blatant sex scenes have been sacrificed for a wider audience appeal? I don't think so. This is heartwreck exemplified. Why whinge because Ford has come up with an entrancing cinematic debut? Sour grapes I reckon. Don't miss!

Books: Strange but it rings true - The Girl With Glass Feet by Ali Shaw, vivid and poetic.
Incendiary by Chris Cleave - each page had me on the brink of tears but it is unputdownable.
Two books that demonstrate the freshness of a first novel teamed with the competence that makes you hope for even greater things to come.

Swan Lake

A real treat on Tuesday night - Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake is on tour, first stop Milton Keynes. It was enthralling. Often at the theatre I have to satisfy myself with the costumes, the set or even the orchestra but it was the dance that held me rapt for over two hours. The choreography, and it has to be said the costumes, were perfect. A packed audience, mostly of women, aged nine to ninety agreed. If you get the chance it is not to be missed. Click on the title for a brief taste. Or read this in The Guardian.

tangerine trees and marmalade skies

When the weather is gloomy and camp fever is beginning to take hold I turn in desperation to jam making. I had not tried marmalade before but we seem to be eating increasing quantities so with seville oranges glowing on the supermarket shelves I resolved to change all that. And my reward was unexpected...
First I did my research on the net. Well actually first I impulsively bought the oranges and then I looked at them for a week until the quality threatened to deteriorate when I was spurred into action. There are recipes that involve slicing, simmering whole and everything in between. I chose in between and quartered them - a bag of sevilles, a lemon and a lime. I peeled some peel off about half of them and sliced it into ribbonsbecause I wanted it fine and added to a big pan and 2 litres of water. Then I brought it to the boil before gently simmering for about 3 hours with a lid on. After an hour or two the smell was glorious, aromatic and spicy. I turned off the heat and went to bed. The next day I was busy so I just brought it to the boil again and turned it off. By this time the whole house was deeply, gorgeously scented. Maybe it was the following day that I squeezed the juice and flesh out of the fruits in my hand, threw away the rinds and strained through muslin. I retrieved peel and added to the liquid and warmed it up while warming a kilo and a half of sugar in the oven. Stirred it in, brought to the boil for ten minutes and hoopla! marmalade ready to pot. So now I have six jars of marmalade and wonderfully scented cook's memories. Will I enter it in the village show next Saturday?

Lost for Words

Haiti needs help now but will the aid keep flowing long enough to build a new country. Can the press suspend their cynicism and the politicians their battle for votes long enough to sustain the huge effort needed to instate an enhanced working infrastructure. Would the people of the first world nations put third world aid before their own healthcare, education and high living standards? If there is a moment for Obama to show the world that US foreign policy has changed for the 21st century, that moment is now. Supporting Haitians to rebuild their country might be a fine line to tread politically but if anyone can lead from the front he can. Individuals and agencies from across the globe have already demonstrated great bravery and compassion, now their countries' leaders should commit to follow up for the long term. A disaster but an opportunity for change not to be missed.

Having been lost for words watching the news unfold I finally decided to use the best words and pictures I could find on the web - from The Los Angeles Times. (report) and The Times Online (photographs)

MITCHELL LANDSBERG,PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti

  " The first e-mail went out within hours of the Jan. 12 earthquake, calling together some of Haiti's most prominent architects, engineers and urban planners. The next day, 50 people showed up at a house in the hillside suburb of Petionville and went to work. They have been meeting every day since, gathering around a table in a courtyard under the shade of a spreading almond tree. Their goal is simple. It is also audacious. They want to plan a new Haiti......" read the rest of the story via this link . 

Thunder only happens when it's raining.....

Most days I forget where I started, like tracks in the sand. It only takes a name to catch my attention; sometimes a name won't leave me be - it follows me around from one blog to another until I just have to check it out.
Today I started at What Would Katherine Hepburn Do?  It was the second time I had visited (she has some nice road trip pics up at the mo) and after a short browse I moved on to her recommend That's Not My Age.
If I like the look of a blog I save it to my favourites list for later, which I did because I could feel a journey coming on, but I will go back sometime soon.
 I was straightaway sucked in by her Nat Finkelstein photos and link with heavy references to Velvet Underground. Now I was a big fan when I was fifteen or so but I really didn't know a lot about what I was listening to sat up all night in my friend's brother's bedroom. Now I can check out Wikipedia and allmusic and find out a bit more about who I was listening to. As with the McGarrigles on my previous post I really had no idea how well known these artists are. I honestly thought it was just me and a few friends who listened to this stuff, it was not at all mainstream out west of Watford in the 70s.
For me books, films, music all have a time and a place in my personal history. I don't often revisit. Jack Kerouac belongs to the hitchhiking years of my late teens, Sylvia Plath too painfully close to post natal depression, and Fleetwood Mac to a few crazy years in my mid twenties when I truly loved and lost. So tonight's journey was one of poignant nostalgia and illumination ending in Dreams.....

Stormy Weather

Sometimes sadness brings a fullness to life. An old friend mailed me to say that Kate McGarrigle died recently and to thank me for tickets to a concert the sisters played at more than twenty years ago. I had forgotten......

On the radio today, http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pxvr3/Last_Word_22_01_2010/  her sister, daughter and friends reminisced  and I heard some songs I had not listened to in a long while. There is a lovely recording of her final concert on You tube and many moving obituaries on the web: an overwhelming feeling of a life well lived. My heart went out to her daughter who was separated from Kate over the past months nursing her premature baby in London, http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article6969513.ece .

We have had snow, Spring weather, more snow and more snow since my last post. I couldn't bear to get rid of my winter seaside banner altogether so I edited it in here and have replaced with this beautiful view from my window, the last snow margins defining the field edges. Today the snow is all melted but for the odd, solitary heap and the rain has not stopped.

Latest recommend: Brixton Beach by Roma Tearne. Fatalistic and irridescent.

Small Island

Amazing island home. The snow is still inches thick on the north facing slopes but today I was fed up with it and we drove to the coast at Littlehampton where it was a positively balmy 8c. We are about as far as anywhere from the coast so it took a good couple of hours to do the eighty odd miles but was worth it. Low tide, wide skies, everyone taking the air: kids on Christmas bikes, oldies on scooters and zimmers, skaters, walkers, runners and lots of dogs. Especially retired greyhounds. Ate at the East Beach Cafe which was, deservedly, packed and walked along the beach and around the harbour to Climping.

Swans prettily on the River Arun which runs down from Arundel where we stopped and looked at the castle, now closed for the winter, and the Wetlands Centre. We will go again.

Snow birds

This is the crab apple tree outside my bedroom window. Today, the sixth day of snow, it was covered in birds - except when I tried to photograph them! There was a whole flock of Redwings, blue and coal tits, chaffinches, a robin, a blackbird and a huge pigeon all snacking on the overripe crab apples. Yesterday, in the bitter cold soon after dawn, a little wren picked its way along my kitchen windowsill searching for insects. As the window cracks are usually full of hibernating ladybirds and lacewings I hope it found some breakfast.
Today was grey and foggy, warmer with snow plopping off the trees by late afternoon and this evening the rain blew in with several claps of thunder to finish the job off. I was fed up with it. De-icing the chickens and burning the clutch on icy roads and slushy pavements and not getting to the pool. I am such a wuss!