Small Pleasures in Old Age

 

 

Peanut butter sandwiches

 

Dear Reader,

Since I have gone rather deaf I haven't been listening to the radio very much lately.  If I haven't listened to the start of the programme I can't seem to understand what is being talked about, I can't hear the words well enough.   But all this changed this week.  I was ironing and decided to give it another try.  It was just as good as it always has been, Radio 4, an excellent outpouring of so many disparate subjects from Woman's Hour, to the hourly up date on the news, to music and much more. This time I was lucky enough to catch Sir Keith Starmer talking about his own life, and very interesting it was too.  What an excellent man he seems to be and I will seriously think of giving him my vote next time round. It is such a relief to know that if I tune in at a given time I will, once again, be able to enjoy the marvelous Radio 4.

                                                                                   *

From Francis Kilvert's Wiltshire Diary,  24th November, 1872

'My mother writes from Monnington that William had just been at a clerical meeting at Mr. Phillott's, the Rector of Stanton-on-wye, and came back not very deeply impressed by the brilliancy of some of the Herefordshire Clergy.

She mentions too a story which seems almost incredible but which she states is well known to be true. Mr. Ormerod, the Rector of Presteign, who has a living of £1,000 a year who is nevertheless always over head and ears in debt, has every Sunday two Celebrations of Holy Communion at which he always puts upon the plate his pocket knife by way of alms, saying that he has no change.  After service he returns the knife to his pocket, but (it is stated) invariably forgets to redeem it.'

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Small Pleasures in Old Age

Listening to Mozart's Andante
in front of a log fire

hearing the robin's call
in early spring
spotting the first violets, first primroses

walking in the woods
sitting under the trees
whilst the bagpipes utter

their unique spiritual sounds
watching the deer hurrying
through the undergrowth

following the antics
of the Archer family
eating peanut butter sandwiches

watching the goldfinch spitting
out seeds, and laughing
at the absurdity of life itself

exchanging family news
proudly loving the grandchildren
and their stories

small away holidays
with Francis, by the sea
in Dorset

And, perhaps best of all, having the courage
to not say yes to things
when I mean no

                                                                              *

With very best wishes, Patricia

 

The Shed

 Dear Reader,

There used to be an old shed in the garden of Grace Cottage where I lived for fifteen years.  Somebody who knew the garden as a farmyard years ago told me that pigs used to live in it.  When I had it, it was full of wonderful old tools, bits of rope and pieces of machinery. Several mice made their home in it and there were spiders everywhere. It smelt of lavender and tar.

But when I sold the house the shed was sold too and new owners moved in.  They were young and modern and wanted the shed as an office.  So the builders moved in and cleared all the accumulated things, put in a new door and painted the interior white. The shed was now an office with all its magic gone, nothing to see that it had been once a lovely old fashioned shed, with its own history.

                                                                                 *

From Dorothy Wordsworth, November 24th, 1801 in Westmorland

'I read a little of Chaucer, prepared the goose for dinner, and then we all walked out.  I was obliged to return for my fur tippet and spencer, it was so cold.....It was very windy, and we heard the wind everywhere about us as we went along the land, but the wall sheltered us.....' .

From Gilbert White, November 25th, 1781 in Hampshire

'Fog, with frost.  As the fog cleared away, the warm sun occasioned a prodigious reek, or steam to arise from the thatched roofs.'

                                                                                *

The Shed

The spider let himself down
from a crack in the grimy rafters.
Time to spin another web,
catch flies, feed his children.
This old shed he loved
had housed his ancestors,
its essence was in his blood.
He knew well the aged wooden bench
laden with hand-worn tools,
the bee's hum and buzz.
He knew of the warmth from the earth floor,
from the hurricane lamp, lit on dark evenings,
of the dusty windows facing north,
and he knew he could swing on the ash spokes
sliced to the wheel hung on the hook.
He knew too that the moonlight
cast shadows on the pile of logs,
home to small scuttling creatures.
He knew that nearby in a bed of shavings,
an old dog slept.
This restful shed scented with lavender and tar,
was a timeless place.

Clearing, cleaning, scraping, peeling,
the old shed becomes new.
Much buzzing and humming
as computers move in, reference books,
filing cabinets, printers, blaring telephones,
glaring lights, and stress.

No quiet shadows now
in the bright new shed,
no cracks, no silence, and the spider......dead.

                                                                              *

With best wishes, Patricia

The House

 

                                                                                       Rockingham Pottery Plates

 

Dear Reader,

The poem I wrote this week is about a house I was invited to by a neighbour who I didn't know at all well.  As soon as I stepped through the door I knew it was somewhere very special.  A proper home.  As you will see in the poem, everything to make a house seem loved, comfortable, and I would venture too, beautiful.  

When I see pictures of some modern houses with glass everywhere, grey walls and black furniture I wonder how anyone could live in them and be happy.  They look so grim and gloomy and on, say, a cold November afternoon I think I would take to my bed and stay there. 

The house we live in now is modern but I make it as cosy as possible and I have grown to love it.  I never thought I would when I left a pretty 17th century cottage to move here.  But the practicalities of living in a modern house outweigh the delights of the cottage, especially now I am old. Essentially it is always warm which for me is a wonderful bonus.  In Grace Cottage whatever we put the thermostat to the wind blew through the thin window panes and the house was always cold.  And there are no mice here, but they thrived in the cottage.  I can't cope with mice, and traps and mouse droppings in the vegetable rack.

                                                                                      *

From George Sturt, 1890, November 21st, in Surrey

'I noticed in the poplar above me two sorts of sound; the leaves pattering and rustling against one another, each with its separate chatter; and then as accompaniment and continuous ground-tone, the wind itself breathing audibly and caressingly between leave and round twigs and limbs.'

                                                                                       *

The House

Was it the sound of Chopin
filling the street air,
escaping from a large keyhole
in the weathered front door,
or the first glimpse of pale
stone flooring and a rocking horse
in the hall corner, or was it the
Easter lilies rising tall out of
white enamel jugs and books
everywhere, everywhere?

Was it the ancient dog
in front of a small log fire
protected by a staunch Victorian fireguard,
or the scrubbed table and gentian-blue
hyacinths peeking out of a copper bowl,
Rockingham pottery plates
each one different,
or the sculpture of an  unknown
woman young, rounded smooth,
placed lovingly on a window shelf
catching a flicker of the January sun?

Or was it the smell of the beef stew,
a nursery smell dredged from childhood,
or the sight of home-grown pears
floating in sugared juice?
Or was it the feeling of safety,
warmth and love
everywhere, everywhere
that overwhelmed me?

                                                                                    *

With very best wishes, Patricia

PS   I think Google has changed the format for this blog. It seems, friends tell me, that isn't possible to get the blog like they used to..  If you got notice of it every Sunday, for instance, I don't think you will be able to now.  I am not sure why they have done this and find it impossible to ask them.  If you know anything about this change could you please let me know.

In This Salford Street

 Dear Reader,

                                                                                           Salford

                                                                                 A Witch Bottle

Dear Reader,

Healers in 17th century England used witch bottles as anti-witchcraft devices when someone was cursed as bewitchment. They would be filled with ingredients such as the victim's hair and urine, along with "protective" pins, nails or thorns.  Sealed within vessels, they would be placed around the hearth or buried under the floorboards.

A stoneware bottle stored for years in the cellar of a school in Rochester, Kent has been identified as a significant 17th century "witch bottle" containing a cure against witchcraft.  The bottle has lain under Rochester Independent College for more than 300 years.  Its importance went unnoticed when it was unearthed in 2004.

When I lived in a 17th century cottage in this town, where I now live elsewhere, there was a damp and dark cellar down from the ground floor.  When workmen came to clear it out and decorate it they found an old bottle full of strange things.   Perhaps it was a witch bottle, who knows?

                                                                         *

From Jane Austen, 1798, November 17th, in Hampshire

'What fine weather this is!  Not very becoming perhaps early in the morning, but very pleasant out of doors at noon, and very wholesome - at least everybody fancies, so, and imagination is everything.'

From John Everett Millais, 1851, November 19th, in Surrey

'Fearfully cold.  Landscape trees upon my window-panes.   After breakfast chopped wood, and after that painted ivy.....See symptoms of a speedy finish to my background. After lunch pelted down some remaining apples in the orchard.  Read Tennyson and Thirty-Nine Articles.'

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In This Salford Street

the houses have no eyes,
windows and doors, boarded up.
These houses were home
to someone,
people grew up here,
played life's games,
made love, made babies,
made friendships last to the end.

They are all demolished now,
other people saw to that,
damp bricks and mortar,
which had served their time,
dispensable.

Nothing is left.
No shops, no pubs, no parks,
no prettiness,
nothing but rubble, dust, sadness
everywhere,
and a river running with tears.

                                                                    *

With best wishes, Patricia