January Weather

 Dear reader,

There are many stories about thrushes including the Hermit Thrush, the Song Thrush and the role of thrushes in The Lord of the Rings.

In the Oneida Indian Nation's story of the Hermit thrush the Good Spirit gave the birds the ability to sing after noticing that the birds were listening to the beautiful songs of man.  However, one thrush felt shame after cheating and hid in a tree where he remains to this day.Sometimes he can't resist singing and when he does the other birds fall silent in awe. 

The Song Thrush's scientific name, Turdus Philomelos, comes from the Greek character Philomela, who was turned into a singing bird after having her tongue cut out. The song thrush has also been featured in several cultural works including a poem by Robert Browning and another by Thomas Hardy.

The thrush is a symbol of hope.  The song thrush brings the message of survival and our basic needs in life, a home, family and people around us that care. 

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From Dorothy Wordsworth   1802  December 30th in Cumberland 

'We ate some potted beef on horseback and sweet cake. We stopped our horse close to the hedge, opposite a tuft of primroses, three flowers in full blossom and a bud. They reared themselves up among the green moss. We debated long whether we should pluck them and at last left them to live out their day, which I was right glad of at my return the Sunday following, for there they remained uninjured either by cold or wet.'

From Francis Kilvert   1871 December 31st in Wiltshire

'At five minutes to midnight the bells of Chippenham church pealed out loud and clear in the frosty air.  We opened a shutter and stood around listening. It was a glorious moonlit night.'

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January Weather

 

 

 

We know from recorded history,

that in St. Merryn

a hundred years ago,

there blew great winds

and the sea was smoking white.

 

We know it was warm in Kent,

where the thrushes thought spring

had come, and piped away.

And primroses were a yellow carpet

in North Norfolk,

or so the parson wrote.

 

We know of cutting winds in Hampshire,

of icicles and frost, and

in Skiddaw on a mild day,

a brown spotted butterfly was seen.

We know that hungry church

mice ate bible markers, 

hungry people died of cold.

 

And we know that this dark winter month

had days of snow, that wild clouds

gathered in the sky unleashing icy rain,

churning up the plough.

 

And yet, again, we also know

the sun shone in that distant year,

it was warm enough to push through

early snowdrops, and Holy Thorn.

Light was glimpsed, here and there,

all life struggled for its moments.

 

                                                                       *

A Happy New Year to you all,  Patricia

 

 

The Oxon Thomas Hardy

 Dear Reader,

Isn't it astonishing how quickly the year goes by?  So it is Christmas time again and I thought I would put one of my favourite poems of Thomas Hardy up on the blog this week. I hope you like it.

I am really feeling much better now except for a hacking cough which apparently won't be gone until the spring reaches us again.  There are so many horrible things going about it seems including filling the hospitals with flu victims. I dress each morning with the weather in mind because it can be hot one day and cold the next.

The poetry muse left me when I was ill, my mind a blank.  But, with luck, after the New Year I shall start again with some new material.   I hope I will be able to do this because it is not easy to produce good poetry or indeed any poetry!

I am still bemused by the people who read this blog.  In eight years I have never worked out who it is and why they read it.  For instance in the last two weeks I have had over 300 readers from Singapore.  Why would people in Singapore want to read it?  And also several from Hong Kong.   Well it is lovely that you do whoever you are and thank you for your support.

Have a very Happy Christmas and may 2025 bring you all the joy and happiness you could wish for.

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From Dorothy Wordsworth  1802 December 25th in Westmorland

'It is today Christmas Day, Saturday 25th December 1802.   I am thirty-one years of age.   It is a dull, frosty day.'

 

From Francis  Kilvert  1870 December 25th in Radnorshire

 '.......intense frost.   I sat down in my bath upon a sheet of thick ice which broke in the middle into large pieces whilst sharp points and jagged edges stuck all round the sides of the tub like chevaux de frise, not particularly comforting to the naked thighs....  The morning was most brilliant.....the road sparkled with millions of rainbows, the seven colours gleaming in every glittering point of hoar frost.'

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The Oxen

by Thomas Hardy

 

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
   ‘Now they are all on their knees,’
An elder said as we sat in a flock
   By the embers in hearthside ease.

 

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
   They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
   To doubt they were kneeling then.

 

So fair a fancy few would weave
   In these years!  Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
   ‘Come; see the oxen kneel

 

‘In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
   Our childhood used to know,’
I should go with him in the gloom,
   Hoping it might be so.

1915

 

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With very best wishes to you, Patricia

Presents

 Dear reader,

My parents didn't really "do'" Christmas.   They went to stay with friends and at thirteen years old I copied them.  I went to stay with my school friend Karen who lived in Derbyshire.  She lived in a beautiful house with a lake in the grounds, where in fact I caught my first fish, a small trout. Her parents were extremely kind to me and treated me as one of their own.  Her mother did a stocking for me and I was given lots of presents.  

But I have always had a problem with presents.  My mother didn't ever give me a wrapped present and my father certainly did no such thing.  But they weren't the presents I wanted as you will see if you read the poem.  Being loved and cared for by someone kind and generous are life's presents, they need no wrapping paper.  Better perhaps with simple brown paper and plain ribbon. Love is the best present you can give anyone, simply that.

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From Gerard Manley Hopkins  December 9th 1868 in Surrey

'Honeysuckle out and catkins hanging in the thickets.'

From Nathaniel Hawthorne  December 11th 1855 in Lancashire

'This has been a foggy morning and forenoon, snowing a little now and then, and disagreeably cold....At about twelve there is a faint glow of sunlight, like the gleaming reflection from a not highly polished copper kettle.'

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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. 

 

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Perhaps it is a bit too early to wish you all a very happy Christmas.  But I do.  And I hope lots of love is spread thickly in your direction on Christmas Day and that you have a lovely time.

 

 

 

With very best wishes, Patricia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

Leaving

 Dear Reader,

I feel much better today with the cough nearly gone. Although I have had cancer twice and other operations I didn't realize just how horrid it was feeling ill, unable to think or sleep or breathe.

Enough said.  Thank you all for your good wishes.

                                                                           *

A short piece of news today which I thought worth recording.  

 

A female king penguin in Britain's only breeding colony for the species is actually a male.  Keepers discovered this rather vital piece of information after EIGHT years.  

The true sex of Maggie, now renamed Magnus, was uncovered after staff at Birdland Park saw the bird attempt to mate with a male penguin.  Keepers sent one of the penguin's feathers for DNA testing and the results revealed that Maggie was in fact a male.

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From Nathaniel Hawthorne   December 11th  1855 in Lancashire

'This had been a foggy morning and forenoon, snowing a little now and then, and disagreeably cold....At about twelve there is a faint glow of sunlight, like the gleaming reflection from a not highly polished copper kettle.'

 

From Gilbert White   December 13th  1774 in Hampshire

'Ice bears: boys slide.'

    

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Leaving

 

The day she left

her heart hammered

tears streamed down her cheeks

 

the rain beat against the car windows

an east wind blew

the road was black ribbons.

 

She took a small suitcase.

It held a red skirt, two shirts, underclothes,

two cardigans,  a duffle coat

and three favourite books.

 

After twenty years of marriage

that was her spoils.

 

Oh, and the kettle.

 

                                                                      *

With very best wishes, Patricia

 

 

 

 

                                                                           *

When my dad came home

 Dear Reader,

I have had a chest infection, antibiotics which I very badly reacted to and a feeling of burning in my hands.  All very unpleasant.  I saw that Queen Camilla had had a chest infection and that she thought it was not easy to get rid of.  No it certainly isn't.  My cough lingers on and as soon as I think it has gone it comes back.  

I have been very interested in the Assisted Dying Bill.  I will not be having a good death at all.  One quarter of my lung has gone with lung cancer operation, and this does not spell well for breathing or anything else.  So I was thrilled that perhaps we will get the go ahead for choice in how we die.  Surely that is the right thing to do, give us the choice.

I am sorry that this has been such a dreary post, I will make amends next week I hope.

 

 

 

 

So just the poem this week:                                                                              *

 

When my dad came home

 he nodded off

in the old armchair,

any time,

forgot everything,

could name no names.

 

Tobacco smoke from woodbines

filled the house,

he drank malt whisky,

came home unsteadily from the pub.

 

He talked of cricket, he whistled

and hummed old country and western songs,

rocked in the rocking chair

and potted up red geraniums.

 

He ate junket and white fish

had headaches,

and he wept sometimes.

 

But we were good friends, my dad and I,

night times he told me stories,

and tucked me into bed.

I never asked him about the war,

and he never said.

 

                                                                                  *

 

With very best wishes, Patricia