Adjusting to summer

The absolute blowsy nonsense of peonies. 

Rewatching a favourite film in the oldest cinema in the UK. 

What happens when no mow may gets out of hand (the camera is 2 feet off the ground)

First strawberry joy.

Tiny wee Mabel seeking cool spots. 

Trying to overcome my distaste for summer (so sweaty, so much flesh on display, enforced outdoor activities) and recover some time for blogging. 

I hope you're all well. Does this year feel like a mad rush for you too? So many of us feeling like Alice's White Rabbit. 

But there are peonies and peas growing sturdily and long evenings with wine and birthdays coming up. 

 

All Aboard

I had to be in the lovely little town of Ledbury this morning for a work thing. As I'm trying to keep our car use minimal, I set out via train, which is no hardship. Sit back in the warm, no worrying about turns, road works or mad other drivers, just let someone else trundle you through the countryside. 

And what a countryside it is. That stretch along the rugged spine of the Malverns all the way to Ledbury never fails to please. It is a quietly dramatic journey, as the hills rise up beside the tracks, looking dark and inhospitable, with abandoned quarries, dark woods, hill forts and tree-less top. At the same time, you can see into the back gardens of houses nearby, catching the briefest glimpse of someone hanging washing out with more hope than expectation, or a person spooning breakfast into their mechanically working mouth, sleep still hanging over them like a fog. 

Is there anything more guaranteed to raise a smile and feeling of contentment than the side of a tree-lined stream, meandering through a meadow, completely undisturbed by housing or roads? No. And you can only see them from the train. It's like being let into a big lovely secret. 

There is also that exciting moment when the train whooshes under the hills and into a long tunnel. I never fail to be awed by the feat of engineering that this kind of endeavour is. It's not merely a case of blasting through the hill: the resulting space has to be chiselled smooth, propped up, tracks laid, the safety of the whole darned thing has to be guaranteed every single day. 

But I am going to stop there because I am not, and never will be, an engineering nerd. Nor do I collect train numbers. I am content to remain impressed as I whizz along. I do not need to know the minutiae of how it was achieved. 

Even on a dark gloomy day, like today, train journeys are incredibly soothing. I'd got coffee, crochet and a book to occupy me, but mostly I stared out of the window and let my thoughts drift by with the view. I should do this every week. 

Ledbury itself is as picturesque as it ever was. I used to come here a lot in a former life (and a former marriage) as we had friends living here. There are some cracking shops selling things that are placed Just So, where I walked carefully, holding my breath so I didn't know anything over, or pollute it with my me-ness. The restaurant where I first ate a crab linguine (unfortunately the same night I developed tonsillitis and was seriously ill the next day), is still there, as is the wonderful Maps and Books shop. Fewer maps than there used to be, but still a great book selection. That place has been there so long, it's practically an institution. 

There are some seriously quaint buildings too, all along the Homend (the main street) and into the winding, cobbled Church Street, including the place I was going to visit. Crooked frames, sloping roofs, big timbers and low wooden doorways you have to duck to get through. If someone was going to design a model village, this would be the kind of place they imagined. 

I absolutely and completely want to live in this house, behind the big trees. 

I shall creep out o' night my dearies, and scare pub stragglers by cackling 

from behind the wall. Hey, we all need a retirement plan. 

That said, it must be deathly dull here for teenagers. No amount of poetry festival (Elizabeth Barratt Browning lived nearby with her weird father) or fictional links (John Masefield likewise, although without the father issue) or tasteful deli is going to make up for the fact there is, as is often the problem with small towns, Nothing To Do. 

A fact borne in on me when I saw a pop up sign for an holistic spa where the picture of a smiling, relaxed, utterly middle-class person had had a speech bubble added by marker pen and the words "What A Dump" drawn on. 

Which made me laugh. I remember all too well that weighty, bone-deep boredom of being 15 in a place where there was nothing to do and you were welcome nowhere. I almost wanted to add "don't worry, you'll be out of here soon". 

But I didn't because I'd already graffitied a copy of the Metro on the train (see below). Instead, I broke my No-Shopping-January by venturing into a couple of charity shops and coming out again with 2 books and 3 tops. Charity shop shopping doesn't really count as shopping, does it? It's really more of a donation. My good deed for the day. 

Later today, I shall be going to look at ART at the evening preview of a new exhibition at the local art gallery. Yes, I am going to be that kind of fancy. I asked the friend I'm meeting how long we'd be there and was informed that it would be for "as long as you want to consume free wine for." As I'm in No-Booze-January, I fully expect to be back home after 5 minutes. 

Have a super weekend, whatever it finds you doing. I'm planning to write, visit friends for a scrabble night, allotment and eat delicious things what are good for me. With the occasional thing that is not because, you know, life. 

"Stay tuned for our article next week on how young mothers are 

irresponsible, morally suspect and only in it for a council house!"

I'm eye rolling so hard, I may have dislocated a retina. 

This is the Time

Now I've managed to get that feeling out of my system - and off my Instagram feed - I have been feeling much better (bar the potential case of Covid I've developed...waiting on proper test results for that one, not just the lateral flow versions). I've found it's very easy for me to become overwhelmed recently and things that I could have shrugged off or battled through, I can't. 

More importantly, I don't want to. And I don't see why I should have to. 

Yes! An epiphany regarding my own welfare! At the grand old age of 44 and 11 months and 2 weeks (yes, it's my birthday soon). But still, better a late epiphany rather than none at all. Needless to say, this epiphany has N quaking just a little bit as I fix him with a gimlet eye and say "Up. With. This. I. Will. Not. Put."

To be fair, the "this" usually refers to the empty, used cereal bowl sat on top of the empty, waiting-to-be-used dishwasher rather than some terrible thing he's said or done. 

But I cannot, for the life of me, work out why men and children behave this way. I suspect that's a question for psychologists. As the mother of a son, I've noticed he does the same thing but that's related to the deprived years sans dishwasher that he no doubt regales colleagues with. Truly, first world problems.

We spent last weekend with said son, who I haven't seen since Dad's funeral in March, and it was splendid to see him again. We also caught up with friends that we've been remotely quizzing with for over a year but had yet to meet in person. I managed not to cry. But I do miss my boy.

 The weather turned against us as we hit the M42 and by the time the North-East borders had been crossed, it was settled into persistant mizzle and winds that threatened to lift gazebos from their fastenings. A sea fret had arrived and refused to budge. Still, we managed to see a couple of beaches, pick up some interesting pebbles (apparently the Kid's boyfriend now refuses to walk along beaches with him because he keeps stopping to look at pebbles. I am very proud), eat at a couple of pubs and generally just enjoy ourselves away from the house. 

Chonky Thor (who we're now calling the Great Boo mainly so we can cry "Great Boo's Up!" in homage to Blackadder on a regular basis) and Wee Mabel went into a local cattery. Tucked in by a river, by a medieval bridge, surrounded by trees - it quite made me want to give up everything and open a rural cattery. They forgave us within an hour of getting home. In fact, the owner sent us pics of the Great Boo enjoying being petted. Traitor.

Speaking of giving everything up, I recently had to step back from a work contract. In most part due to the aforementioned epiphany. I hate stepping away from things like that but sometimes you've got to acknowledge when you need to rest. 

And relax. 

I'm not much of a one for poetry (just say what you mean!) but this one, pinned to the wall by my desk, is really calling to me at the moment, especially the first 3 lines. I think I need to take its advice. 

this is the time to be slow

lie low to the wall

until the bitter weather passes .

 

Try, as best you can, not to let

the wire brush of doubt

scrape from your heart

all sense of yourself

and your hesitant light. 

 

If you remain generous,

time will come good;

and you will find your feet

again on fresh pastures of promise,

where the air will be kind

and blushed with beginning.  

 

Radical Manoeuvres in the Dark

Yesterday, I did something radical. 

I was tidying up the big spare room which used to be my son’s room, and is now my office and early morning retreat space. In here, as well as laptop, desk, Edwardian walnut wardrobe and dresser that don't really fit but I can’t seem to get rid of, is a pile of books. 

I’m an early morning reader. My favourite start to the day used to be bringing a cup of tea back to the guest bed and reading for an hour or so before having to start the day proper. Mabel would come and join me, purring and kneading like a wind up toy. All would be cosy and calm. 

The to-be-read pile sat on the bedside table and was never less than 4 deep. On the shelf underneath, there would be another 5 or so. I enjoyed that. I liked knowing there was something to read, the visible sign of my love of books and how much they mattered to me. 

On the dressing table would be the pile of books I’d read that month. 

Yesterday, tidying my way around the house, I stopped in front of these piles. The Read pile has remained static since February, the To-Be-Read since January. And all of a sudden, I felt oppressed by both of them. 

Obligated by what I was supposed to be reading at a time when my concentration doesn’t even extend to Twitter, and mocked by the paucity of what I had managed to read. 

I took the Read pile downstairs and carefully put them on the shelves (alphabetical order, naturally; I haven't completely lost my senses) and sat with the To-Be-Read for a little while longer. Did I really think I was going to make it through a history of Orkney, the saucier side of the Victorians or the autobiography of a woman unfortunate enough to marry Philip Roth? How about that novel about the cafe in Japan, or Hamnet, or the one about Death’s assistant?

No. 

Reader, I put them away. 

They haven’t gone away but they are tidied away, back onto the shelves. There is space on the table that I’ve filled with red anemones from the garden. I breathe more easily, no longer feel defined by the that pile.

Still can’t concentrate on a blasted thing, mind. Maybe I'll try poetry. 

This is the time to be slow, 

Lie low to the wall

Until the bitter weather passes. 

 

Try, as best you can, not to let

The wire brush of doubt

Scrape from your heart

All sense of yourself

And your hesitant light. 

 

If you remain generous, 

Time will come good;

And you will find your feet

Again on fresh pastures of promise, 

Where the air will be kind

And blushed with beginning. 

John O'Donohue