Safe Harbour

Harbour

Dear Reader,

I did write this last week but in case you have forgotten the pictures here of harbours are to do with the poem at the bottom of the page.

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Last week my very dearest and oldest friend died and, because of Covid, there was a Memorial celebration for her on Zoom.  I barely knew what Zoom meant and was very sceptical about how it would be.  But, my friends, it was wonderful.  

Mark, her son, and Lulu her daughter had written to as many of her friends they knew of, and to members of the family to assemble on Saturday at 1 o'clock on Zoom.  To do this they sent us a way of connecting with Zoom just by pressing a button.  For oldies this was perfect.  And, hey presto, there I could see all the old friends that I knew and lots of family members.  Mark said a few timely words about his Mum and showed us lots of photographs of Jessica from early childhood right up to today.  She was always a beautiful woman, and looked marvellous in all the photographs.

Her brother read that moving piece from 1 Corinthians, verse 13 that defines love from the Bible, and a couple of her favourite songs were played whilst Lulu read one of her favourite poems.  Then it was the turn of any friend who might liked to have shared a memory for us all to enjoy.  

I thought an interesting memory I had to share was when I lived with Jessica in 1959.  She was at that time working for MI5 spying on the Russians in London.  I didn't really know what she did since she wasn't allowed to divulge her job in any way, but I did know that she had to seem invisible .  She bought an indiscriminate beige mac, sensible shoes and brown stockings, wore no makeup and sometimes a bobble hat. I hardly knew her.  She came and went at all hours, and many years alter she told me that she had had to sit watching the Russian Embassy from a hotel room opposite, all night.

I think some modern technology is amazing, I am so so glad I was able to be there, to say goodbye is such a wonderful way, to such a wonderful friend.

                                                                                       *

 

 

Safe Harbour

Old love settles for a quiet harbour,
a place of quiet embracing
rocked in a gentle sea.

Young love is daring, dangerous,
rich in its fullness,
sticky in substance, ripe with seed.

Old love has a slower pace,
enriched with years of touch.
No need to preen and strut the hour.

The rib cage joins,
the bone becomes one bone,
the breath one breath.
Calms waters still seduce.

                                                                                    *

With very best wishes, Patricia

Top photograph taken by Kaye Leggett.

Throwing Away

 Dear Reader,

From now on every Sunday when I write this blog I will put a photograph or two at the top of the page,and it will partner the poem at the bottom in case you were wondering what the photographs  were all about. 

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A very old friend, Catherine Addison, has just written her memoirs so that her family will know about her life and her life's work, with stories of all the relatives they share.  It is an amazing book, full of interest and would be interesting to the public I am sure, should they have the opportunity to read it. I must say I couldn't put it down and last night I dreamt of the small village in Scotland she wrote about where she and her husband went to fish every year .  

But Catherine and I had a few blank years when we didn't see each other and I knew next to nothing about her or her life.  And having read the book I am so sad that this was the case.  She worked for the British Travel Association  in London where her role was to work with, and through, the overseas media at the start of a huge growth in overseas visitor numbers. In 1998 she was awarded the MBE for services to tourism.

The point of this story about someone you don't know is that my thought run like this:  we know very little about each other, either old friends or new ones.  People simply are not interested in other people's lives, unless perhaps it is a new romance, and then only in a cursory way.  I have lived here in this Cotswold small town for twenty years and could count on my left hand how many questions I have ever been asked about my life, either in Oxford or elsewhere. 

I must be guilty of this lapse myself, this lack of curiosity for the people I have met, but I do try to ask questions and find most people love to tell me about themselves.  Perhaps more people should write of their life's adventures to share with friends who would be entertained by them, maybe show a part of themselves until then unknown.

                                                                                *

From Jane Austen, 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 purified from the want of it, and that you now all 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'.

                                                                               *

Throwing Away

the letters,
those billets doux,
the photographs,
the dance programmes,
the theatre tickets,
the postcards,
is a formidable task,
and weeping is not forbidden.

Before discarding
these once precious things,
the proof of special moments
lived in earlier times,
memorize them all with care.
And afterwards, relive
this solitary, remembered road,
and weeping is not forbidden.

                                                                               *

With very best wishes, Patricia

 

                                                                              

Small Moments of Warmth

                                                                                      Pony and trap

 

Dear Reader,

The pony and trap photographs are to do with the poem below.

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From 1655 a pint of rum was the usual ration handed to each sailor in the Royal Navy.  It was served every day, half at 12 noon and the second half at about 5 or 6 pm, (though the amount decreased in following years). The rum ration was known as 'Pusser's Rum' the name being a corruption of Purser, the person who issued the rum each day.

Legend has it that Pusser's Rum is sometimes referred to as 'Nelson's Blood', because after the great Admiral Nelson's death at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, his body was preserved in a cask of spirits on its way home. But sailors are said to have drilled holes into the sides of the cask letting the liquid drain away. The sailors essentially drank his blood during the long journey.

 

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 From Gilbert White, 1791, in Hampshire 

"Rugged, Siberian weather.  The narrow lanes are full of snow in some 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 its fellow.'

From James Woodforde, 1790, in Norfolk

'The season so remarkably mild and warm that my brother gathered this morning in my garden some full blown primroses.'

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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 moment 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

 

 

The Mind Cupboard

                                                                                         Song thrush
 Dear Reader,

Reading Richard Hayes's piece from his diary written in 1765 about the song thrush which 'pipes away as though an April morn' I felt sad.  When I lived in Oxford I had a small garden in which two beautiful song thrushes came to live.  With great pleasure over the years I watched them grow and produce little ones, then just before I left that house they disappeared.  And I haven't seen a thrush ever since.  What happened to them, I wonder, if anyone knows could they tell me please.

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I was called to the Health Centre last week to have the Covid.19 vaccination.  I hadn't been at all keen on having it but was persuaded to change my mind. In fear and trepidation I asked Francis to take me to the centre and although I had to queue for ages, it all went very smoothly.  There are various mild side effects that you could get after having it but I have had none.  So to anyone who is wondering whether to have it or not I would say go for it, it is the obvious thing to do now to rid us of this beastly pandemic.  And it is safe.

                                                                                    *

From Richard Hayes's diary, 1765, in Kent

'Brisk wind, but quite warm.  Song thrush pipes away as though an April morn.'

From Francis Kilvert, 1872 in Wiltshire

'The air early this morning was as warm as the air of a hot-house and the thrushes singing like mad thinking that spring had come. '

                                                                                   *

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.

                                                                                   *

With very best wishes, Patricia

 

Plumage

                                                                                             Birds of Paradise

 

 

 Dear Reader,

'White soup' was an essential ingredient for a party in the 18th century.  White soup started out as a seventeenth-century French dish called 'Potage a la Reine' which contained almonds boiled in bouillon.  It eventually made its way into English cookery, appearing in William Verral's cookbook of 1759, under the name of 'Queen's Soup'.  By the end of the century, it still contained the almonds and the stock but also, perhaps, cream, egg yolk, white bread and anchovies.

I really enjoy reading about what people ate in other times.  What is so astonishing is how much they ate. Queen Victoria apparently had no difficulty in downing about eighteen courses for dinner, having eaten a substantial lunch the same day.  And Henry VIII thought nothing of eating a whole chicken plus a few meats for his breakfast, all washed down with ale.  Mind you this was after he had been early morning hunting so no doubt he was hungry. And what they ate is interesting too.  Roman soldiers were apparently fond of eating dormice.  The dormice were a larger variety than we get here in the UK.

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From Samuel Pepys, 1667, in London

'Lay long, a bitter, cold, frosty day, the frost being now grown old, and the Thames covered in ice'.

 

From Francis Kilvert, 1875, in Wiltshire

'The country was wrapped in one vast winding sheet of snow, the roads were dumb....no sound but the swift sharp rustle of the driving snow in the hedges and hollies.'

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Plumage

Deep in the humid forest
scenting strongly of rich earth,
the Bird of Paradise trips
backwards and forwards on a tree branch,
utters loud cries, jumps small jumps,
dances the pas de deux,
fans out his tail feathers
pink, aquamarine, blue and red
yellow and green,
to entice female birds
to fall in love with him.

And sometimes they do.

The human male
getting ready for a date
might slick back his hair,
smile at himself in the mirror,
put on a bright coloured shirt
red silk tie, and yellow waistcoat,
pat on scented after-shave,
hum a tune, dance a step or two,
and sally forth,
hoping some female will
fall in love with him.

And sometimes they do.

                                                                                 *

With very best wishes, Patricia