Not one of us

                                                                                        Boarding School

                                                                                    Dancing to Greensleeves

 Dear Reader,

There is an interesting article in the Sunday Telegraph today by Janet Daly, an American journalist who lives in London and has done so for many years.  What is the article about?  Well it is about the weather.  Why, she wonders, do all of us English people, born and bred, complain about it so much?  She was brought up in New York city and said the heat and humidity were unbearable from July to September. She also points to other American cities and counties that are difficult to live in during the summer months and not too good in the winter either.  

Why then do we complain about our gentle climate with all its diversity? We can see the lovely green rolling hills, green because of the rain, not brown and scorched from the sun.  We can watch the sky turn from blue to grey and back again and sit on the beach with a gentle breeze to cool us. Christmas sometimes brings snow and frost and makes being in our houses a cosy alternative to being outside. Or we can take a brisk walk and then warm ourselves with spicy wine once indoors.  What's not to like, as they say.

I love our weather, it suits me well.  But when we had a heat wave two weeks ago I had to stay indoors with the curtains drawn and all the fans on, all day.  I don't think I would survive in an European country with its extreme heat and very much hope there are no more heat waves this year, or any other year, at home.

                                                                               * 

From Gerald Manley Hopkins, August 7th, 1872 in the Isle

'We went mackerel fishing.  Letting down the line baited with a piece of mackerel skin- tin or any glimmering thing will do - we drew up nine.  A few feet down they look like blue silver as they rise.'

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 it folds of blue; and  I, for the first time these ten years, happy.'

                                                                                  *

 Not one of us

A small 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.

                                                                                    *

With very best wishes, Patricia