An old friend

 Dear Reader,

In Queen Victoria's reign the manor houses shed their fortifications to embrace new domesticity and aristocrats decorated their homes to make them warm and inviting.  The great hall, dating back to the middle ages was used to receive guests and tenants and continued to be used, as such, by the 19th century lords to throw balls and celebrate special occasions.  The site of hospitality later became the more informal living room, furnished with sofas and billiard tables.

Outside of the house gentlemen entertained guests with sport such as croquet and shooting.  While the great hall became more intimate, the drawing room became more formal with the institution of two social functions: morning calls and afternoon tea.  Some of the protocols associated with morning calls had been established during the Regency Era and reinforced by the Victorians with a strict set of rules.  Calling cards, or visiting cards, containing a person's name and title were as essential part of this social ritual.  The habit of having "afternoon tea" became a quintessential English tradition that survives to this day.

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From William Cobbett, 1823, September 1st, in Kent

'From Tenterden I set off at five o'clock, and got to Appledore after a most delightful ride, the high land upon my right, and low land upon my left.  The fog was so thick and white along some of the low land, that I should have taken it for water, if little hills and trees had not risen up through it here and there.'

 

From Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1853, September 1st, in Cheshire

'The chill, rainy English twilight brooding over the lawn.'

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An old friend

dies and all the memories
come flooding back,
the dances we went to,
the picnics we enjoyed,
the boys we talked about
the boys we met and dated.

The marriage and children,
being God parents to each
others brood,
the setbacks, the good times
and the not so good,
getting older, lines and wrinkles
appearing, middle age upon us,
children grown up,
leaving home, us bereft,
comforting each other.

Old now,
sorting out the world's problems,
discussing the books we read,
when suddenly Covid arrives.
She catches it, fought it, and died.

My grief and the emptiness
are constant,
strike me at all times, day or night.
I miss you, my dearest friend, I miss you
more than words can say.

                                                                                       *

With very best wishes, Patricia

Sideburns

 

 

 

 

 

 Dear Reader,

 

 

The garden is looking very drab this week as if all life has left it.  But I did have just one rose left and here it is, and it smells gorgeous.  I think August is the  month I like least in the year as it is, of course, the end of something.  In May there is great excitement when the sky becomes blue and the sun shines for us after a dull and sometimes dreary spring.  And then the flowers begin to flourish with all their exotic colours and shapes to entrance us and make us happy and glad in the summer warmth. But August with its humidity and many sunless days reminds us of the coming of autumn while the flower beds disintegrate before our eyes.  In fact, I am very fond of the autumn, the beautiful colours of the trees and hedgerows all to enjoy, are a new beginning, a different time.  A time to re-think our lives and what we intend to do with them.

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From Gilbert White, 1787, August 26th, in Wiltshire

'Timothy, the tortoise, who has spent the lat two months amidst the umbrageous forests of the asparagus-beds, begins now to be sensible of the chilly autumnal mornings; and therefore suns himself under the laurel-hedge, into which he retires at night.  He is become sluggish, and does not seem to take any food.'

From Dorothy Wordsworth, 1800, August 31st, 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 mellowness of colouring, which seems to impact 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 garden.  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.'

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Sideburns

Astonished, I see the sideburns
the slicked up hair
the ill-fitting suit,
large red hands
jolting it back on the shoulders
with awkward gesture,
at a young man's funeral
in the village church.
White lilies fill the air
with their sweet scent,
while solft music plays.
I see tears on every cheek,
sad young women, and men too -
there to seek some comfort
from the vicar's words.

I blink and thought
I saw Thomas Hardy standing
in a nearby pew,
back in time from his day.
The ancient poet seemed to be
embodied in the blood and lives
of this congregation,
among whom nothing has changed
over the years,
not the people, nor the service,
and death is still great sorrow.

But there is tea and beer
a the Bull Inn,
gossip and laughter
tears and memories, as
life's cycle keeps turning,
our beginnings and our endings
the only certainties.

                                                                                 *

With very best wishes, Patricia

 

Guardian Angel

 

                                                                                   The Guardian Angel

 

Dear Reader

There seems to be some dispute about whether Voltaire actually said: ' I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it'.  Salman Rushdie, the author, was stabbed not fatally but pretty horrifically, two days ago in New York.  The man who attacked him did so, apparently, because he was insulted by something he had read or heard about in one of Salman's books.  The insult was to the Prophet Mohammad.  

For myself anything said about Jesus Christ that is blasphemous upsets me.  I remember watching the film "The Life of Brian" and crying because I thought it was so awful to mock Jesus.  I still feel like that.  But the argument today is about whether or not you can, in a democracy, write whatever you like and that it is perfectly legitimate.

 I think writers should be allowed to write whatever they think and feel but do so with sensitivity to others and their beliefs. 

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From John Ruskin, 1879, August 16th, in Lancashire

'Looking over my kitchen garden.....I found it one miserable mass of weeds gone to seed; the roses in the higher garden putrefied into brown sponges, feeling like dead snails; and half-ripe strawberries all rotten at the stalks.'

From Dorothy Wordsworth, 1800, August 20th, in Westmorland

'Walked with John round the two lakes (Grasmere and Rydal Water) gathered white foxglove seeds'.

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Guardian Angel   (Sheffield, 1950)

The small ragged children
stood at the open front door
rubbing their eyes, crying,
they were hungry,
they were tired.

The woman, wearing a red shawl,
silver slippers and silver earrings,
embraced them,
hastened into the house,
stayed for days, and
the children loved her.

She didn't ask for money,
they didn't know her name,
but when their mother came
home from hospital,
she simply disappeared,
vanished into the night.

And nobody saw her go.

                                                                                    *

 With very best wishes, Patricia

Only Cotton

                                                                                     Children picking cotton

Dear reader, 

I see that we have another very hot week coming up.  Global warming is upon us, we can't just watch the news of floods, fire and heat waves, somewhere else, they have come here too. And of course we now have a drought. For my own part I wasn't constructed to face the heat so it is another week indoors with the curtains drawn all day, and lots of watching wild places and wild animals from BBC iplayer. I have discovered that the animal kingdom's life styles, which I didn't know before,  is so like us human beings..  They squabble amongst themselves, have a romantic mating rituals, fight over food, look after each other especially mothers and young, and mourn their dead in some species, in particular in elephants.   

                                                                                     *

Sea gulls have been annoying people again and, indeed, attacked a woman from behind and drew blood from her head when she was walking about minding her own business.  The gulls are getting more aggressive and I think something ought to be done about their numbers.  When I was in Lyme Regis last year there seemed to be so many of them.  In fact notices were up asking the public not to feed them, but how successful this was I don't know.  I forgive them because I love their cry.

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From Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1877, August 8th in Devon

'Pretty farmyard - thatch casting sharp shadow on white-wash in the sun, and a village rising beyond, all in a comb; sharp shadows, bright clouds; sea striped with purple,'

From John Ruskin, 1872, August 13th, 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.'

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Only Cotton

In the Southern Punjab
the sun scorches, the insects hum,
small pieces of cotton
fill the air,
whirl, suffocate, poison.
Aruni and Paloma, ten and twelve,
bend and pick, bend and pick,
hour after hour.
Scratches on their arms
scab and bleed,
their heads ache,
their vision blurs,
their drinking water bottles
contaminated with lethal spray.
At dusk they crawl home.
At dawn they start another day.

                      *
Mrs. Anne Hudson-Berry
selects a cool cotton dress,
adorns herself,
hails a taxi,
has lunch at the Ritz.

                                                                         *

Very best wishes, Patricia

My memoir: 'Half a Pair of People' is available now on Amazon.  Put in Patrica Huth and you will see the front cover of the book and the reviews.