Fetch Me

                                                                                Catkins
 

 

Dear Reader,

It is time to see the catkins out this month.  We may not think of trees as having flowers, but nearly all of them do.  Every catkin on a hazel tree is a cluster of flowers, each hanging from a silver-grey branch.   The Celts thought that the hazel catkin tree was magical, the source of wisdom and inspiration.

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In the 17th century coffee appeared for the first time in Europe outside the Ottoman Empire and coffeehouses were established and became very popular.   The first coffeehouses are said to have appeared in 1632 in Livorno by a Jewish merchant, or in Venice in 1640.  

The first coffeehouse in England was set up in Oxford in 1650/51.  Coffeehouses were used by scholars who retired there to hear the news, and exchange ideas.  English coffeehouses in the 17th and l8th centuries were significant meeting places, particularly in London. The rich intellectual atmosphere of early London coffeehouses were available to anyone who could pay the sometimes one penny entry fee, giving them the name of 'Penny Universities'.

In Victorian England the Temperance set up coffeehouses (also known as coffee taverns) for the working classes, as a place of relaxation free of alcohol, an alternative to the pub.

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The poem this week is, I am afraid, rather sad.  My sister has just been placed in a care home after having had a horrible fall leaving her with a leg injury and a head injury.  I talked to her the next day on the telephone and she was grief stricken as was I.  

     

 

 

Fetch Me

 

She had a fall
a really bad fall,
concussed herself
and got delirium
ended up in hospital,

she couldn't walk
her pelvis broken
could hardly move
couldn't stay at home,

she needed two nurses
three times a day,
there were none available
a care home was the
only answer

but she couldn't bear it
all her magic and romance
squeezed out of her,
in the ordinary if not bland
and boring room

 I telephoned.

The tears flooded
the worst week in my life
she said

Fetch me, fetch me, Trish,
she said,
I am dying here,
                       

and I wept.

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With very best wishes, Patricia

 

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Viking Footsteps

 Dear Reader,

Four snowdrops came out in the garden this week but nevertheless the garden is looking a bit dreary and sad. I wish I knew more about gardens.  As I understand it, lots of people get enormous pleasure from tending their plots and seem to think about them almost as children who need feeding, caring and love. I tried last year to make a place on a small piece of lawn for wild flowers so that bees and butterflies would be pleased but unfortunately  having thrown a quantity of seeds on the grass nothing whatsoever grew there, so I feel that I haven't got green fingers.  My two daughters, Tiffany and Jessica, are very able in the garden and flowers and plants seem to do their bidding. 

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I was asked this week to read out some of my poems at a June Festival in Charlbury, which is where I live.  I do feel very nervous about this and haven't yet decided to perform.  In the two years since I stood on a stage I have become very reclusive and the thought of an audience terrifies me.  Francis and I go out very little, just to the Co-op down the street, or occasionally venture out to Witney, seven miles away.  And that's it. Coronavirus has certainly changed my habits, but I am not sure whether it is for the good or the bad. Time will tell I suppose.

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From Jane Austen, January 25th 1801 in Hampshire

'How do you like this cold weather?   I hope you have all been earnestly praying for it as a salutary relief from the dreadfully mild and unhealthy season preceding it, fancying yourself half putrefied from the want of it, and that you will now draw into the fire, complain that you never felt such bitterness of cold before, that you are half starved, quite frozen, and wish the mild weather back again with all your hearts.'

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Viking Footsteps

There it is: a windswept empty beach,
great fields of white sand dressed
in drift wood, seaweed, plastic bottles,
flotsam, pebbles, shells, stones, and kelp skeins.
It stretches away to the horizon.

Seagulls, gannets, terns, twist and fly
make their repetitive cries, peck in the ground.
Small pools of seawater form
as the tide goes out, sea creatures swimming there.

But is that a long boat, red sails fluttering, I see?
And are those uncovered Viking footsteps in the sand?
And do I smell spitted meat, mead and honey
drifting past me on the salt-scented air?

The sand dunes hug their secrets silently,
letting the quiet southerly wind
rustle through the marram grasses.
I ask them, do Viking voices, whisper on the wind,
sometimes, on an icy night under a starlit sky?

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Very best wishes, Patricia

Blue Gingham Dress

 

Dear Reader,

Perhaps it was a strange choice to put on 'Blue Gingham Dress' obviously a summer poem, but I thought after the somewhat gloomy January we could cheer up thinking of our first exciting kiss in the sunshine of July, or wherever else it took place.  I have to own that I have never forgotten that evening.

Another book that I had given to me at Christmas this year was called 'English Pastoral' by James Rebanks, he who wrote "A Shepherds Life' with such acclaim last year.  Well I couldn't put it down.  I was not someone who was brought up on a farm but we did have a cottage in Norfolk where my sister and I kept ponies. This book is about farming and how it has changed, NOT for the better in the last few years.  Every page brings a revelation.  I mean when did you last see a pig in a field, or for that matter, a cow? You may not have seen these animals because they are being kept in barns all the year round.  If they are let out they make too much mess.  They are cows for goodness sake.  And then all the small fields which were once surrounded by hedges for small birds to nest in have been made enormous with vast tractors to plough with, and the hedges have been torn down. No seagulls fly after these tractors because there are no worms in the soil anymore, because of the chemicals sown to get rid of troublesome weeds, weeds that insects need to feed on.

And all the old traditions of farmers, like allowing fields to rest sometimes to regrow nutritiously, the soil to refresh, with the pace of everything changed to 'as quick as possible' there is certainly 'no time to stand and stare.'  The farmers years ago knew each other and met socially in the pub or in their homes.  Now there isn't time for this important part of a farmers life.  

Well I won't go on, if you seem interested why not buy the book yourself. Finishing it I was very moved and upset by it.  But I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

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From Gilbert White, 1776, in Hampshire, January 14th

'Rugged, Siberian weather.  The narrow lanes are full of snow in places....The road-waggons are obliged to stop, and the stage-coaches are much embarassed.  I was obliged to be much abroad on this day, and scarce ever saw it fellow.'

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Blue Gingham Dress

She was wearing
a blue gingham dress
long sleeved, with lace collar,
one summer evening in July.

A sweet smell of lilies
lavender bushes
roses and orange blossom
drifted on the air,

the sea sapphire
played its own repetitive tune
soft and enticing,
and a southerly wind blew.

Suddenly he took her hand
drew her near
kissed her urgently,
then came the call,

they separated
ran back to the house
her heart racing
knees weak, on fire.

The gingham dress
worn and faded now,
hangs at the back of the cupboard,
but the kiss is still as fresh
as it was on that one
summer evening in July.

                                                                                 *

With very best wishes, Patricia

 

January Weather

                                                                                          Church Mice

 

Dear Reader,

For Christmas I was given by my daughter Jessica the most wonderful book.  It is called 'Where Poppies Blow" by John Lewis-Stempel, and it is a story of the first WW, telling of the love for the horses, donkeys and mules that was felt by the soldiers who cared for them, and for the many birds they watched and listened to.  And how much pleasure this gave to the stressed and frightened men living in such terrible circumstances.  It also describes the ghastly large rats that were everywhere eating anything they could find including dead animals and men.

But mainly it is stories of men loving their horses and if their beloved mount was shot and fell how they would stay with it, stroking it and talking gently to it as it died. An Italian artist, Fortunino Matania was commissioned to paint a mortally wounded horse and the painting,  'Goodbye, Old Man'  became one of the enduring images of the Great War.

 

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From Major-General Jack Seely, Canadian Cavalry Brigade

'But one of the finest things about the English soldier of the front line was his invariable kindness and, indeed, his gentleness at all times to the horses.   I hardly ever saw a man strike a horse in anger during all the four years of war and again and again I have see a man risk his life, and indeed, lose it, for the sake of this horse.'

 

 A poem written by William Parr, Canadian Field Artillery

And when the grand, great, final roll call comes,
To be the first upon parade we'll try,
Oh Lord of All please grant my only prayer,
To take my horses with me when I die.

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January Weather

We know from recorded history,
that in St.Merryn
a hundred years ago,
there blew great winds
and the sea was smoking white.

We know it was warm in Kent,
where the thrushes thought spring
had come, and piped away.
The primroses were a yellow carpet
in North Norfolk,
or so the parson wrote.

We know of cutting winds in Hampshire,
of icicles and frost, and
in Skiddaw on a mild day,
a brown spotted butterfly was seen.
We know that hungry church
mice ate bible markers,
hungry people died of cold.

And we know that this dark winter month
had days of snow, that wild clouds
gathered in the sky unleashing icy rain,
churning up the plough.

And yet again, we also know
the sun shone in that distant year,
it was warm enough to push through
early snowdrops, the Holy Thorn.
Light was glimpsed, here and there,
all life struggled for its moments.

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With very best wishes, Patricia

Recipe for Blue

Dear Reader,

Have you read this week about Edward V, who was thought to have been  murdered by his uncle, Richard III, may not have been after all?   Coldridge, a small Devon village, has just been revealed to be the site of a historical mystery to rival the sort found in a Dan Brown novel, and could see this small Devon enclave become a hotspot for history buffs.  Five centuries ago two young princes were murdered by someone, thought to be Richard III.   He declared them illegitimate and took the throne himself.  

Now it seems he may have been innocent.  Researchers claim to have uncovered evidence that one of the boys (Edward, the elder) may not have been killed.  Rather he may have been allowed to live under an alias on land owned by his half-brother in a remote part of Devon as part of a deal struck between his mother and the King, later, with Henry Tudor. 

I think that we will never know for sure the truth of it, it is mystery I feel we will never solve.

                                                                                  

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From Francis Kilvert's Wiltshire Diary, 15th January, 1875

 

'Speaking to the children at the school about the Collect for the 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany and God's peace I asked them what beautiful image and picture pf peace we have in the xxxxiii Psalm.  "The Good Shepherd,' said I "leading His sheep to...?  "To the slaughter', said Fredercik Herriman promptly.   One day I asked the children to what animal our Saviour is compared in the Bible. Frank Matthews confidently held out his hand.  "To an ass', he said. '

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Recipe for Blue

 

Take the blue from the mountains

and dye my bones,

crush lapis lazuli,

mix it in my hair.

Plunge my heart in forget-me-nots,

soak my maidenhead in blueberry juice,

add a pinch of larkspur.

Wrap me in the Blessed Virgin's dress,

shake over star sapphires,

fold in the clouds,

and bake slow.

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With very best wishes, Patricia