My Memoir Written last year. HALF A PAIR OF PEOPLE

                                                                                 

Dear Reader,

 

It seems to me that you like my Instagram sketches, thank you so much.

 

Last year I brought out a book of my life up to the time that I lived in Oxford in 1980.  Lots of stories of my varied life which you seem to enjoy. So Friends here is an idea.

 

Why not buy one?

All you have to do is go on line to AMAZON.

Go to the books section and write PATRICIA HUTH and it will come up and you can order the book wherever you live.

Everyone who has read it has enjoyed it very much and I think you will too.  It is funny.

 

Thank you for all your wonderful support over the years, eleven years now since I started my blog.  And it has been fun, I have only missed five Sundays in all that time.

 

Very best wishes, Patricia 

 

 

  

Misconception

 

 

 Dear reader,

After I got divorced I went to live in Oxford and tried to find a job.  My secretarial skills were minimal. I could just manage 120 words of shorthand and my typing was abysmal. So I enrolled at the College of Further Education and for several months I tried to improve.  In fact my shorthand was very poor  and needed prompt attention.  It never got any better.

Anyway, I finally applied for a job in an Oxford College as a secretary.  I sort of imagined that working in an Oxford College would be just the ticket, with wonderful interesting academics and lovely buildings to admire.  As so often with imaginations of this nature it was not the case.   

I managed to get a job as the Fellows' secretary in a well known college.  The job was in a cupboard with hardly room to stand up in and the typewriter had seen better days.  The dons themselves were a weird bunch, some very nice and some not so. There was a Greek who always wanted to be first in the queue for his correspondence to be typed, I was not in a position to argue so he always was first.

 It was an enormous relief when I left after a year and probably the dons were relieved too.   I wasn't cut out to be a secretary, I would rather wash up in a hotel, which I also did.  Ah well...

                                                                                 *

 

 

From Francis Kilvert   May 18th  1874 in Wiltshire

'Went with Dora at 3 o'clock to a picnic in the Marsh....... we played hide-and-seek in the wood and danced Sir Roger de Coverley under the oaks in the green glade near the keeper's lodge.  Agnes and Edith made a pretty picture once for a moment as they stood together on the mound at the foot of one of the  oaks, dressed alike sisterly in bright magenta skirts.

The sheets of bluebells were still in all their splendour and the pink rhododendrons were just beginning to show their blossoms. 

 

                                                                                    * 

 

 

 

 

Misconception

 

The woman thought when she left

the office building would explode,

blood from her willing heart

would drip from the ceiling,

pieces of her goodwill,

her ready smile,

possibly her arms and legs,

would drop into waste bins,

flow out of filing cabinets,

strew the carpet with bits of herself.

The atmosphere would be dank

with tears for the loss of her.

She knew her worth.

 

In the spring, Sandra met her.

Karen, from Accounts,

now has her job, she said.

She is brilliant, everyone loves her.

 

The woman walked away,

mantled in her goodness,

surprised at what poor judgements

people make.

 

                                                                                           *

 

With very best wishes, Patricia 

Sometimes

Dear Reader,

 

A little while ago I contracted a particularly nasty disease called UTI, standing for Urine Tract Infection.  As a result I felt unwell for much of the time.  I was telling this sad story to my daughter Jessica who said I need something to cheer me up.  And we thought of the fun that could be had on Instagram if I could think of anything interesting to say.

 

So this is what we did.  And if you are interested go to Instagram, hit on Patricia Huth Ellis and you will get to see all my little sketches.  They seem to be very popular and I am not quite sure why.  I do say that I am a poet, and 86 years old but that doesn't seem to put people off. Ah well it is great fun and at last I am feeling much better and enjoying its success.

 

Many thanks to all of you who have written, obviously I can't write individually but I am very appreciative nevertheless. 

*

 

 

 

 

From D.H. Lawrence   May 24th  1916 in Cornwall

 

 The country is simply wonderful, blue, graceful little companies of bluebells everywhere on the moors, the gorse in flame, and on the cliffs and by the sea, a host of primroses, like settling butterflies, and seapinks like a hover of pink bees, near the water.  There is a Spanish ship run on the rocks just below - great excitement everywhere.'

From Francis Kilvert  May 27th  1875 in Wiltshire

'My bedroom is illuminated all day with a beautiful rosy light from the glorious blossom of the pink may on the lawn.'

From Gilbert White   May 28th  1793 in Hampshire

'My weeding-woman swept up on the grass-plot a bushel basket of blossoms from the white apple-tree; and yet that tree still covered the bloom.' 

                                                                                         *

 

Sometimes

 

I feel overwhelmed by

a spirit of joyfulness,

a desire to jump, to dance,

to laugh, to see the world

in a bright light,

 

sometimes I am optimistic,

enjoy the warmth of the sun,

soft patter of rain on my face,

the wonders of this world.

 

Sometimes I believe

people are kind and good

are innocent of evil

deserve praise and

I honour them

 

and sometimes I don’t.

 

                                                                       ^*

 

^{With very best wishes, Patricia} 

 

 

 

 

           

                                                                              *

 

Journeys

                                                                     Kilimanjaro
 

 

Dear Reader,

 I put this poem on the blog this week to remind me of the many journeys I have taken in my long life and now, sadly, can no longer enjoy except from the sitting room sofa.  My most favourite travel experience was going to Marrakesh in the 1970's.  It was just so different from anywhere I had ever been.  I went to school in Paris as a teenager and stayed in Gibraltar with an aunt and uncle in the 1950s but had never seen anything like the colour and wonder of Marrakesh.  I went with my first husband who was very handsome, blond blue eyed and tall.  And he was followed everywhere with promises of exotic times with the young boy's mother, sister, aunt,  themselves.  I didn't count at all.  I loved the golds, yellows and all the rich colours in the Sioux, and seeing camels trotting down the streets was so exciting to me. I think of that holiday with lovely memories, it was so different from Europe.

 

       

                                                                                 *

Francis has been in hospital this week again with the dreaded UTI  (Urine Tract Infection).  It is a beastly disease and apparently very difficult to get rid of and he has been very unwell.  I had it too and am not sure it has entirely gone even with the help of anti-bio tics.  I hate pills and frequently think they do more harm than good with the side effects.

                                                                                   *

from Gerard Manley Hopkins    May 3rd  1866 in Oxford

Cold.   Morning raw and wet, afternoon fine......Cowslips capriciously colouring meadows in creamy drifts.  Bluebells, purple orchids.   Over the green water of the river passing the slums of the town and under the bridges swallows shooting, blue and purple above and shewing their amber-tinged breasts reflected int the water. 

                                                                               *

Journeys

 

Young,
we fly to distant places,
walk the Silk Road,
swim in the Nile,
climb Kilimanjaro,
sail the great seas,
picnic in the desert
under the stars.

 

Middle aged, with children,
we travel to Europe,
walk in the hills,
ski, surf board, visit museums,
exclaim at the Eiffel Tower,
swim in rivers,
raid the High Streets.

Grandparents, and old now,

we travel all over the world,
enjoy lions in Africa,
natives dancing in Bali,
big white whales in vast oceans,
and explore National Parks

while drinking cups of tea,
preparing for the unknown

and longest journey.

 

                                                                                                 *

With very best wishes, Patricia 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                     *