Rib-cages Virus

 Dear Reader,

 

It has occurred to me in the last few months that my blog is not only dull, but boring too.  And this was verified by a close friend this week.  So I can't understand why so many people read it, especially in  far away places where English is not even spoken.   Or perhaps they don't, in fact read it, and have simply got used to ticking the like button every Sunday, as a habit perhaps.  Anyway what should I do about the question of how dull it is?  I haven't found a solution to the that question yet but probably will have in the near future.

About the poem this week.  My daughter Tiffany has got a bad dose of bronchitis and coughs and coughs. I told her of a poem I had written when I had the same problem and sent her a copy.  She thought it was 'brilliant" but I have been  reluctant to publish it because it is so gloomy (and dull!!) although it is exactly how I felt when coughing myself and staying up all night because lying flat is out of the question. Thomas Hardy has written a poem about being ill called 'A Wasted Illness' which is worth looking up if you are interested in this subject.

 

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From Dorothy Wordsworth  September 14th 1800 in Westmorland

'A lovely day.  Read Boswell in the house in the morning, and after dinner under the bright yellow leaves of the orchard.  The pear trees a bright yellow.  The apple trees still green.  A sweet lovely afternoon. '

 

From Francis Kilvert   September 14th 1873 in North Devon

'I got up at 6 o'clock as the sun was rising behind the Tors at Lynton.  The house was silent and no one seemed to be about.  I unlocked the door and let myself out into the garden.  It was one of the loveliest mornings that ever dawned upon this world.  A heavy dew had fallen in the night and as I wandered down the beautiful winding terraced walks every touch sent a shower from the great blue globes of the hydrangeas, and on every crimson fuchsia pendant flashed a diamond dew drop.  The clear pure crisp air of the early morning blew fresh and exhilarating as the breeze came sweet from the sea. 

 

                                                                                     *

The Rib-Caged Virus

The obscene creature
crouches in its corner.
All at once it leaps
striking out
hurling itself against the rib-boned cage.
Spitting venom-virus
it grasps the throat
twisting, punching, pulling
with fierce, unrelenting strength.
Its slate-black tentacles encircle
its victim's airways,
and squeeze their breath,
as it rattles the bones.
It attacks, attacks again, then
all at once it stills,

slouches, crouches, grins and waits,
tongue lolling.

The woman gasps
at the onslaught,

coughs, croup's, sweats, retches,
spits the debris,
feels faint-weary
sleep deprived, dirty
exhausted, fearful.

The clock ticks.
The woman waits.

                                                                        * 

 

 

The Mind Cupboard

 

 

 My mind cupboard overflows

with unwanted debris.

It needs a spring clean.

 

I will brush away the cobwebs

of cheerless thoughts.

Scrub out the stains of childhood.

 

I will replace the brass hooks

corroded with salt tears,

empty all the screams

hoarded through the years.

 

I will replace the accumulated ashes

from the worn shelf-paper,

with virgin tissue.

 

I will chase and catch the wasps,

relieve them of their stings.

I will refill this cupboard

with love, and learnt, brighter things.

 

 

 

                                                                      *

Dear Reader,

 

I am sorry this all seems so gloomy and dull?  But you can't please everyone all the time, as they say. And 'The Mind Cupboard' is your favourite poem of mine.

 

With very best wishes,

Patricia 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Small moments of warmth

Dear Reader, 

 

William Macdonald founded Macdonald Biscuits in Glasgow in 1828.  After seeing some biscuits from Antwerp, Belgium, he was inspired to create a chocolate covered biscuit with a chocolate cream sandwich in the centre.

They were first produced in 1932 and became a McVities product a few years after Macdonald was taken over by United biscuits in 1965.   Each wrapper has a joke or 'funny fact' printed on it and imaginative, often humorous designs featuring penguins that often pastiche famous works of art.

                                                                                  * 

I think the biscuits are delicious and perfect on a picnic. 

 

                                                                                   *

From Francis Kilvert   September 6th   1875 in Wiltshire

'The morning suddenly became glorious and we saw what had happened in the night. All night long millions of samarium spiders had been spinning and the whole country was covered .....The gossamer webs gleamed and twinkled into crimson and gold and green, like the most exquisite shot-silk dress in the finest texture of gauzy silver wire. I never saw anything like it or anything so exquisite as 'the Virgin's webs' glowed with changing opal lights and glanced with all the colours of the rainbow.  At 4 o'clock Miss Meredith Brown and her beautiful sister Etty came over to afternoon tea with us and a game of croquet. 

 

                                                                                    *

Small moments of warmth

 

 

 

 

I remember a little warmth,

Joey trotting the family through Norfolk lanes,

the small yellow trap swaying in the sunshine.

 

I remember picnics on Yarmouth beach

with enough blue sky ‘to make a sailor’s trouser’.

We ate cucumber sandwiches, Penguin biscuits.

 

I remember dark evenings,

the small warm flame from a Tilly lamp

lighting the kitchen, and sometimes for supper

we had chicken, chocolate mousse.

 

I remember a warm holiday in France

squeezed into the back of a car,

singing old thirties love songs.

 

But will these small moments of warmth,

at the end, be enough to heat and split

the heavy stones that circle the human heart,

allow salt tears to trickle through the cracks?

 

 

                                                                *

 

With very best wishes,  Patricia 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Afternoon Tea

 Dear Reader,

 I did say a few months ago that I would not write my blog again .  But friends I was very ill and couldn't quite make the effort to type.  But happily I am now better so will continue as before, but perhaps not every Sunday just when I feel sprightly enough.

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Scones originated in Scotland in the early 16th century as large oat-based griddle cakes.  They are not quite cake, but not a biscuit or pastry either, scones have a unique texture of their own.

They are traditonally made with flour, butter, sugar and milk, but it is the quality of the accompaniments, in particular, cream, that elevates them on afternoon tea menus.

Around 1840, scones became an essential part of the fashionable ritual of afternoon tea in England.  This was popularized by Ann, Duchess of Bedford, who was a close friend of Queen Victoria.  Afternoon Tea is still an English tradition and enjoyed by many who visit hotels or cafes where it can be obtained. Or you can just have it at home! 

 

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 From Francis Kilvert, September 5th 1871 in Radnorshire

'The day was lovely and i went over to Newchurch..... A solitary fern cutter was at work on the Vicar's Hill mowing the fern with a sharp harsh ripping sound.  In the first Newchurch field the turkeys, black and grey and fawn-coloured, were mourning in the stubbles, and a black pony was grazing pensively over the hedge.'

From Gilbert White   September 4th 1774 in Hampshire

'Wood-owls hoot much.' 

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Afternoon Tea

 If the woman had had

choice of mother,

she would have chosen

one who liked afternoon tea,

with scones, strawberry jam,

sweet biscuits, and hot Darjeeling.

 

But the mother of the woman

did not like afternoon tea.

She liked cocktails, excitement,

after dark and its secrets,

stirring things up, mischief,

and life’s excesses.

 

As the woman knew

that choice of  mother

was not negotiable,

she chose her friends

with four o’clock in mind.

 

                                                                           *

With very best wishes,

Patricia 

 

 

autumn leaves

 Dear Reader,

 

I was thinking about autumn coming and this photograph shows off the colours of this season so well.

 

I hope you are all well and having a interesting and successful life.

 

With best wishes, Patricia  

Silent, Their Men walk by

 

Dear Friend,

I know you have read my blogs over the last few months in which I told you I was feeling ill. So today I have decided  to send you a rant I wrote about why this was so.  I am sending it to the OLDIE magazine and hope they might publish it under RANTS.  Its worth a try.

High Blood pressure.

 

I am 86 and was perfectly happy until April this year.   Then it was discovered that I had high blood pressure.  And the fun began. I needed to get a reading of, sometimes, 240/89, down to 130 /75 approximately every day.  If I couldn’t achieve this figure I would probably have a heart attack. So it was medications for me.  All in all over the four months of horror I tried four different pills and had various distressing and depressing results.  These pills made me very ill, and very tired.  

 

Here is a list of the side effects which made my life a misery:

Burning sensation in the hands, palpitations, chronic constipation, disturbing thoughts, tingling everywhere, tiredness, inability to sleep,

swelling of the ankles and legs, hearing ear syndrome, which meant I heard music in my ears all day, headaches and almost anything else you can think of. The absolute worst one was Ramipril.   This one gave me a hacking cough, as well as everything else, especially at night.  With only one and a half lungs in my chest, this was not good. 

 

But the joy was, of course, that in spite of these horrific side effects, taking the pills meant that I might not get  heart attack for years, so the doctor kindly told me.  So here is the dilemma:

 

Either you take the beastly pills and feel languid and lifeless all the time , without let up, but maybe halt the heart attack, or you decide to not take anything, enjoy your last years on earth and wait for your fate with equanimity.  

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From Dorothy Wordsworth   August 31st   1800 in Westmorland

‘A great deal of corn is cut in the vale, and the whole prospect, though not indeed with a general autumnal yellow, yet softened down into a mellowness of colouring, which seems to impart softness to the forms of hills and mountains.  At 11 o’clock Coleridge came, when I was walking in the still clear moonshine in the green.  He came over Helvellyn.  William was gone to bed, and John also, worn out with his ride round Coniston.  We sate and chatted till past three.  Coleridge read us a part  of Christabel.’

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Silent, Their Men Stnd by

as universal woman talks,

with women

who are not friends,

or neighbours,

or women they know or love,

just women.

Their bonding thread

is laughter, touch, glance, cry,

instant understanding.

While silent, mystified, their men stand by.

                                                                          *

With much love from Patricia

Inheritance

 

Dear Friend,

I was/am very upset upon hearing that Jason Arday, the Cambridge Professor, had taken his life. He had been so hounded by the press and social media that he couldn’t stand it, obviously,  any longer.   If you didn’t already know, Jason was black. 

What he had done was to invent qualifications for himself in order to become an academic of the highest order.  He invented himself and probably believed his own inventions.

My point here is :   that don’t we all invent ourselves to an extent?  WE tell stories and add bits here and there to enrich them, we boast of things we haven’t really done, and we know celebities well when we have never met them.  We might feel in ourselves that we are a triffle dull and that exaggerating ourselves makes us more interesting.

In Jason’s case he probably just wanted to be a professor with such intesnsity that the truth of him became a fantasy, he simply invented himself to be the man he so wanted to be.  Was this such a terrible crime that he was made to take his own life?  Surely not or many of us coud be implicated in this way for an understanable crime.  

Cambridge University has many questions to answer.  I hope they are made to.

                                                                                                

                                                                                                *

From Dorothy Wordsworth     August 31st   1800 in Westmorland

‘A great deal of corn is cut in the vale,  and the whole prospect, though not tinged with a general autumnal yellow, yet softened down into a mellowness of colouring, which seems to impart softness to the forms of hills, and mountains.  At 11o’clock Coleridge came, when I was walking in the still clear moonshine in the garden. He came over Helvellyn.   William was gone to bed, and John also, worn out with his ride round Coniston.   We sate and chatted till half past three.  Coleridge read us a part of Christabel.’

                                                                                                  *

 

Inheritance

 

 

 

 

What was it that made me

think of you, who

are bone-dust now,

with no statue or monument

to bear your witness?

Was it the apple-bruised spots

on the Gloucester Old Spot pigs,

their legacy from apple orchards, long ago,

to mark them out?

 

In the afternoon sunlight

as I bent to touch their skin

I saw that my hands, brown-spotted,

were your hands, identical.

Was this your legacy to me,

something to say that you were here?

 

More precious than possessions,

you passed to me our inheritance

from some ancient eastern shore.

Your browness, your hands, brown spotted,

which marked you.

 

 

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With best wishes and love to you all

Patricia

Every so often blog

 Dear Reader,

 

Dear Friend,

I have been asked many times over the years whether I am ‘religious.'  Probably you have been too.  This, for me, is a difficult question to answer. I am not quite sure what being ‘religious” means.  So am I a Christian?  Yes, I believe and love Jesus Christ who I maintain is my friend, but is that being religious?  I don’t think so.

For over thirty years Geoffrey and I went to church every Sunday.  It was, in a way, our tradition. It was what we did.  I enjoyed the services, loved the church sitting right in the middle of Oxford, and some of the old hymns are heart warming. But what of the church’s 

teaching, what of the Bible?  Is it, as John Betjamen asks in his poem, a true story? 

I suppose we all individually have to make up our minds which bits we want to take as our religion, which bits are true for us.  So, having jusr written this piece, I suppose I am religious, on a chosen spiritual path of my own making, and this works very well for me.

                                                                     *

From John Ruskin  August 13th  1872 in Berkshire

‘Entirely calm and clear morning.  The mist from the river at rest among the trees, with rosy light on its folds of blue, and I, for the first time these ten years, happy’.

From Gilbert White   August 15th  1783  in Hampshire

‘The last gathering of wood-strawberries.  Bullfinches and red-breasts eat the berries of the honeysuckles’.

                                                                     *

Chapel

 

Away with the cherubs

the angels, the painted ceilings

the high arches

the high ceilings

nudes male and female

the artifacts

the gold crosses

and ornate statues of the 

Virgin Mary.

 

Give me a chapel with

whitewashed bricks

wooden pews

oak door with studs

daisies on the altar 

in a china jug

a bust of St. Columba

and quiet peace

in God's house.

 

With best wishes to you all

 

Patricia