Stations

                                                     Old St.Lazare Station, Paris
 

 

Dear Reader,

As someone who hates travelling anywhere, on or in anything, strangely I love stations.  Stations to me spell romance.  The most loved film : "Brief Encounter" has had literally millions of people enjoying it over the years, since it was filmed in 1945 with Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard. Stations are so alive, so bustling and exciting.  So many different things are happening amidst the trains arriving and leaving. I have watched many films, especially films of either wars, where a handsome soldier holds hands and possibly kisses the girl he is going to leave behind.  Tears spring to the eyes imagining the sad hearts and distress caused by the leaving train.   

And then of course there are wonderful joyful reunions.  Someone who has come back from somewhere sees you and runs into your arms.  How lovely is that. Tears spring to the eyes but for a different reason, happiness.   And there are station smells which are unlike anywhere else except perhaps at a fair ground.  I think they come from mainly onion and bacon sandwiches or sausages in bread rolls.  And the smell of smoke.  Perhaps there isn't any smoke these days but there certainly was years ago.  And finally the mass of people all pursuing their own lives, running for the train or simply sitting waiting or watching the pigeons.

                                                                 *

                                            If a man does not keep pace
                                                    with his companions
                                            perhaps it is because he hears
                                                     a different drummer.
                                             Let him step to the music
                                                           he hears,
                                             however measured or far away.

                                                                        Thoreau

                                                                   *

 

 

From Gilbert White, 1793, May 28th, in Hampshire

'My weeding-woman swept up on the grass-plot a bushel basked of blossoms from the white apple-tree; and yet that tree seems still covered with bloom.'

                                                                   *

Stations

 are full of people,

people angry, people joyful

people sad, people anxious,

people disappointed,

people running,

people excited,

old people,

young people,

middle aged people

the odd dog

 

Stations are full

of smoke

the smell of frying onions

gauloise cigarettes

pigeons

lost luggage

people hurrying to and fro

the crashing of doors

noise and emotion

 

Stations

are the beginning

or the end

 

the alpha

the omega

 

                                                  *

 

 

My novel : Victoria Scott's Dilemma is available here. It is rather a charming romantic tale with lots of laughter.  Look on Amazon under books: Patricia Huth Victoria and it will come up.

 

 

                                                    VICTORIA  SCOTT'S  DILEMMA

 

                                                                 *

With very best wishes and a lovely summer to you all.

Patricia

Footsteps

 Dear Reader,

 

In my teens we lived in a very haunted cottage by the river Mure.  It had no electricity and the water tank had to be filled by hand pumping.  My father gave my sister and I sixpence for every hundred pumps we did.   As it grew dusk my mother would light the Tilly lamps and the small log fire to keep us warm. I remember climbing the creaky old stairs to our bedroom, my heart thumping, knowing we would hear the footsteps on the path outside the front door. The cottage was at the end of a long lonely drive and there was silence in the lane once we were in bed.  But about midnight every night my sister and I heard slow footsteps right under the bedroom window.  Then they stopped and started again the next night. The cottage apparently had been inhabited by a groom, there since Charles II had stayed in the manor house, when the man had had a fight and been killed by a gypsy living in a camp nearby. The gypsy was hung but they say he put a curse on the cottage but I don't know what it was, I just do know that my sister and I heard these slow heavy footsteps in the night, and they terrified us.

                                                                                         *

At last we have seen and felt a little sunshine.  Wasn't it lovely?  I had almost forgotten how pleasing it is to feel warm on going outside.  The blackbird outside my window is especially pleased and sings all day long.  I have watched him collecting things to make his nest and he seems to be very busy with this. In fact all the small birds have been busy with their nesting arrangements, the blue tits are never still. Perhaps with a little luck we will be able to sit in the garden in the coming months but I don't bank on it. 

                                                                                         *

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

'A fine mild rain.  After breakfast the sky cleared and before the clouds passed from the hills I went to Ambleside.  It was a sweet morning.  Everything green and overflowing with life, and the steams making a perpetual song, with the thrushes and all little birds, not forgetting the stone-chats.'

From DH Lawrence, 1916, May 24th in Cornwall

'The country is simply wonderful, blue, graceful little companies of bluebells everywhere on the moors, the gorse in flame, and on the cliffs and by the sea, a host of primroses, like settling butterflies, and seapinks like a hover of pink bees, near the water.  there is a Spanish ship run on the rocks just below - great excitement everywhere.'

                                                                                     *

Footsteps

In a cottage built for a trusty groom
in the Merry Monarch's reign,
lying in a wooded valley
where the river Mure runs its course,
a woman climbs the twisting stairs,
a Tilly lamp in hand
to light her dark ascent,
the flame flickering in the glass.

In the attic bedroom
she opens the small window,
sees the ghostly watermill
in the winter moonlight,
hears the spectral cry of an owl.

She lies on her bed,
pulls up the patchwork quilt,
breathes deeply, hoping for sleep,
but, on the gravel path outside
she hers the tread of footsteps.

                                                                                     *

My novel : Victoria Scott's Dilemma is available here. It is rather a charming romantic tale with lots of laughter.  Look on Amazon under books: Patricia Huth Victoria and it will come up.

 

 

                                                   VICTORIA  SCOTT'S  DILEMMA

 

                                                                       PATRICIA HUTH

                                                                                      *

 

With very best wishes, Patricia

Recipe for Blue

                                                                       New glasses or old

 

Dear Reader,

 I have been having trouble wearing my glasses, they are making marks on my face over the nose bit.  Apparently they are worn out.   I have had them for twenty years and they can't be mended now.  So sadly I set out to buy a new pair. But I couldn't find a pair that I liked. In my draw on the dressing table I found this pair, about fifteen years old, which I like so am going to wear them regardless of their age.  They sort of remind me of John Lennon and the Beatles and what more could one want from a pair of old glasses?

                                                                                *

The Egyptians began importing lapis lazuli from Afghanistan around 6000 years ago, but it was in the early 5th century that blue became associated with the Virgin Mary.   Marian blue, as the name became known, became the Madonna's official colour with the rise of Mariology and the cult of the Virgin. 

Deeply rooted in Catholic Symbolism, the blue of her cloak has been interpreted to represent the Virgin's purity, symbolize the skies and label her an empress, blue was associated with Byzantine royalty.

                                                                                 *

From D.H. Lawrence, May 14th, 1915 in Sussex

'I find the country very beautiful.  The apple trees are leaning forwards, all white with blossom, towards the green grass.  I watch, in the morning when I wake up, a thrush on the wall outside the window - not a thrush, a blackbird - and he sings, opening his beak.   It is a strange thing to watch his singing, opening his beak and giving out his calls and warblings, then remaining silent. He looks so remote, so buried in primeval silence, standing there on the wall, and bethinking himself, then opening his beak to make the strange, strong sound.  He seems as if his singing were a sort of talking to himself, or of thinking aloud his strongest thoughts.  I wish I was a blackbird, like him. I hate men.'

                                                                                     *

Recipe for Blue

 

Take blue from the mountains

and dye my bones,

crush lapis lazuli,

mix it in my hair.

Plunge my heart in forget-me-nots,

soak my maidenhead in blueberry juice,

add a pinch of larkspur.

Wrap me in the Blessed Virgin's dress,

shake over star sapphires,

fold in the clouds,

and bake slow.

                                                                         *

My novel : Victoria Scott's Dilemma is available here. It is rather a charming romantic tale with lots of laughter.  Look on Amazon under books: Patricia Huth Victoria and it will come up.

 

                                                   VICTORIA  SCOTT'S  DILEMMA

 

                                                                                 PATRICIA HUTH

                                                                                     *

With very best wishes, Patricia

Churchyard

 Dear Reader,

                                                                      Norman Churches

I spent most of yesterday watching the Coronation ceremonies and, in particular, our King being crowned.  It was all magnificent and I felt quite tearful watching the parade of marching soldiers.  Weren't they stunning? Never put a foot wrong as far as I could see. But seeing into the inside of the Abbey was very interesting for just this reason. Or one of the reasons. How on earth did builders build those large and intricate arches?  I mean this was thousands of years ago with no modern technology to help them.  I read a book years ago, called "The Spire" by William Golding, about the building of a church tower and as far as I can remember everything had to be carried up to the spire by men climbing ladders with buckets full of mud and whatever else was needed. Perhaps it was something like that used for the Abbey. Anyway I thought Westminster Abbey was awe inspiring and plan to visit it when I go to London.

                                                                                 *

I wrote today's poem after a visit to a small Norman Church tucked away in the Cotswold countryside.  The weather up to that date had been very grim, cold, wet and miserable but somehow on this particular day a weak sun shone, in the icy cold.  The small Norman church lies in a small hamlet surrounded by hills and sheep.  And silence everywhere, not a sound to be heard. The churchyard looked very beautiful and I felt enormous spirituality and peace there.  I felt angels guarded this very special place and were there with me.

                                                                                 *

From William Cobbett, May 7th, 1823 in Surrey

'The bloom of the fruit trees is the finest I ever saw in England.  The pear-bloom is, at a distance, like that of the Guelder Rose; so large and bold are the bunches. The plum is equally fine;and even the blackthorn (which is the hedge-plum) has a bloom finer than I ever saw it have before'.

From Nathaniel Hawthorne, May 10th, 1857 in Lancashire

'Nothing but cold east winds, accompanied with sunshine......At the beginning of this month I saw fruit trees in blossom, stretched out flat against stone wall, reminding me a a dead bird nailed against the side of the barn.....The east wind feels ever rawer here than in the city (Liverpool).'

                                                                                      * 

Churchyard

 

The day was ice cold,
frost sparkled on hedges and trees.
Grass glittered in
the graveyard of the old
Norman church,
still standing firm and solid.

A ghostly haze hung over the|
headstones, banks and banks
of snowdrops sheltered under
trees in great clumps,
a few early daffodils peeped out'

There was silence everywhere.

Far away hills and fields
filled my vision and
spirituality filled the air.
Angels flew around me,
shared their
paradise of quiet perfection
and love.

                                                                          *

My novel : Victoria Scott's Dilemma is available here. It is rather a charming romantic tale with lots of laughter.  Look on Amazon under books: Patricia Huth Victoria and it will come up.

 

                                                   VICTORIA  SCOTT'S  DILEMMA

 

                                                                PATRICIA HUTH

 

Hello America, I love you.  I had over 1,000 hits on my blog last week, mostly I think from California. I can't work out what it is about my small, fairly insignificant writings that you like. Would any of you think of writing to tell me: patricia.huthellis@googlemail.com  my email address, and I will be most grateful. And do buy my book.  I think you would enjoy it as you enjoy my blog.

With very best wishes, Patricia