Sunday 30 August 2015

Not One of Us

Dear Reader,

I went to several boarding schools from the age of eight and never felt happy in any of them although I think some people really enjoyed their boarding schools.  The type of person who was confident and good at sport, came from a secure home and loving parents did seem to settle well and liked being there.
I was not one such person.  Hopeless at sport and rather shy, bespectacled and plump I found each term terrifying and simply to be endured.  One of these schools I was sent to was a convent in Paris which made Dothboys Hall seem quite civilized, french only spoken and I didn't speak french.  And nuns are not quite what they seem.

Not One of Us

Asmall figure at school in
a hot, strange land.  The
children left her alone,
she didn't speak their language
or know their games or rules.
She was not one of them.

Winter now and an English
boarding school, where the rules
were known, but not to her.
She was clumsy, wore spectacles,
couldn't tie her tie, dropped the netball.
couldn't master dance steps gracefully
to the music of "Greensleeves",
was not an asset, wouldn't do.
She was not one of them.

She simply asked,
why do the safely-grounded
hear the beat of a terrified heart
and seek to silence it? Is the beat
too loud, something not understood,
something to frighten?
Are things better when the group
destroys the alien in its midst?

She never knew,
she was not one of them.

            *
A short musing this week...

I had my grand daughter to stay this week.  She is fifteen years old.  A very pretty and sophisticated young girl and strangely wise and completely delightful.  So I was thinking, whilst washing up the dishes last night, how very very different girls are today from sixty years ago when I was fifteen.. In those days I devoured books of a romantic nature and really believed and dreamed that one day a prince, such as Cinderella found, would whisk me away to love and marriage and happiness ever after.   That was my age of innocence but when does the age of innocence leave us today?  Rather, I think, sooner than it used to.

Best wishes, Patricia

Sunday 23 August 2015

Miracle


Dear Reader,

I remember being astonished when I heard of the amazing journey the swallow took when it left us in September, to literally fly round the world and home again.  This small bird is only the size of your hand but, enormously bravely, I think, sets off to fly thousands of miles around the Cape of Africa, over the Pyrenees and the Sahara Desert and returns here to England, and its original nest, in the spring.

Miracle

Rich in England's spring,
cowparsley entrancing
in dog-rosed hedge,
the fecund earth lush green,
a baby swallow
hatches in a Suffolk barn,
to the cries of gulls
flying over mudflats,
over sea-lavender.

This small bird grows
embracing our summer warmth,
swooping on insects caught
above rolling grasslands.
It dips and tumbles gracefully,
trouble-free.

But what instinct tells of winter's cold?
This bird, hand sized, will
fly over icy Pyrenees,
thirst through the parched Sahara,
soar and glide on trade winds,
south to The Cape of Africa
drawn, inexplicably, to the heat
of the southern sun.

In early spring does
this swallow's courageous heart
grow restless, homesick for
a Suffolk barn?
Is it a miracle that some force
of nature returns this minute bird
to its birth-nest by the English sea?
Who knows, but it seems so to me.

                      *

Musing for this week.....

This week there is another story of a bird, although why I keep paying attention to stories about birds is a bit of a mystery to me.  So this bird is called Chris and he is a cuckoo.  He was tagged and tracked so that the British Trust for Ornithology could see where he went on his 10,000 mile journey, before he returned here in the summer.  But he has gone missing, has disappeard altogether.  No one has seen him since August 8th, and everyone is very concerned.  For myself I expect he was fed up with being tagged, got loose and flew away to freedom.

 Best wishes, Patricia




Sunday 16 August 2015

Silent, Their Men Stand By


Dear Reader,




My husband, Geoffrey, and I were staying in Marrakech, Morocco, on holiday a few summers ago.  We had a bedroom and bathroom in a small house in the hotel grounds which was cleaned by two women from the district.  They spoke absolutely no english and I speak absolutely no moroccan
but we made ourselves understood with laughter and signs and, as we left, a hug or two.  On return to England I wrote the following poem.




Silent, Their Men Stand 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.

                         *

A musing this week.

I really do not like August weather,  this last week has been terrible.  Either I am fetching another cardigan because it has become so cold, or I am taking off the said cardigan and feeling much too hot, and it is all the fault, I think, of the humidity.  Jane Austen said whilst staying in Kent in 1796 : "What dreadful hot weather we have! - It keeps one in a continual state of inelegance".  So I have been in a "state of inelegance" all this last week, don't like it, and much look forward to September.

Best wishes, Patricia

Sunday 9 August 2015

Presents


Dear Reader,

I have always found receiving presents or indeed anything to do with presents very difficult emotionally.  The few presents my parents gave me were material things I did not want, but longed for, instead, less tangible  objects.  You know the sort of thing I mean, dear reader:  love, affection,
attention, laughter, and "approbation" as Jane Austen might say.


Presents

I don't want presents
tied and ribboned.
Encouragement doesn't wrap
well in green tissue,
praise in paisley boxes
or love in thick gold paper.
I don't want guilt
compressed into an envelope
with cheque.

A parcel of thoughtfulness,
a parcel of interest,
a parcel of embracing,
a parcel of safety, were
the presents I hoped for
under the festive tree.
The presents I hoped for
which were not to be.

             *           

Musing this week.....

I heard of a village in southern Italy where none of the people who  lived there had ever been to the sea.  They had decided that before they died they really wanted to see it and would, somehow find the money. It was the women who made this decision, the pensioners, and it was only them, the women who were to go.  A grandson told them to go on line where, it seems, for a good cause, people all over the world will donate money for whatever is wanted.  And they got the money. But the interesting thing about this tale for me was that quite one or two of the ladies, who had never in all their lives, been out of the village didn't want to go.  One of them said she thought the world a dangerous place and she would rather stay put.  This reminded me of Mr. Wodehouse in Jane Austen's "Emma" who, in his turn, liked to stay within a mile or so of his house on account of the dangers abroad.   I  must say I feel much the same as the Italian lady and Mr. Wodehouse.

Best wishes, Patricia

Sunday 2 August 2015

England Dear to Me


Dear Reader,

This poem "England Dear to Me" is very self explanatory.  I think everyone has a favourite place in England that conjures up memories of houses, or holidays, somewhere in the hills perhaps or on a special beach picniking.  For many years I spent holidays in North Norfolk, often in the pouring rain and frequently with rather tired and cross children.   But looking back I think with enormous affection of those long walks to the sandy, empty beaches, carrying umbrellas, baskets and all the necessary equipment for a day's stay at the seaside. I wrote this poem trying to  and think of all the things english that made my spirits rise, and made me  feel proud of my beautiful country.

England Dear to Me

It is the robins, blackbirds, blue tits,
hopping and grubbing in the garden
that lurch my heart
make England dear to me.
It is the velvet of green moss,
oak trees, old with history,
the first cowslips,
hedgerows filled with dog rose, foxgloves
and shy sweetpeas in china bowls.
It is finding tea rooms in small market towns,
enticing with homemade scones and strawberry jam,
or suddenly glimpsing church spires
inching their way to heaven.
It is finding a Norman church,
full with a thousand years of prayer,
and a quiet churchyard mothering its dead.
It is small country lanes, high hedged,
views of mauve hills stretching skywards,
sheep and lambs dotting the green,
and bleached Norfolk beaches,
silence only broken wit a seagull's cry.
It is the people,
their sense of humour,
their way of saying "sorry" when you bump into them,
their fairness, and once or twice a year
their "letting go",
singing "Jerusalem" with tears and passion.

It is these things
that lurch my heart
make England dear to me.


                *

A musing this week,

Lat week I was speculating on the aggression of seagulls; this week I saw a story about a peacock called Percy.   Percy apparently has caused thousands of pounds worth of damage to cars by attacking its own reflection, mistaking it for a rival. So what has happened to our feathered friends, I wonder?
Has the global anger that seems to pervade everything we do, and say, wafted out to the  woods,  tree tops, mountains, lakes, and rivers - and have the birds caught it on the wing and decided to copy us human beings?  Aggressive people, aggressive birds?

Best wishes,
Patricia