Cold Christ Child

 Dear Reader,

The tulip was in fact originally a wild flower growing in Central Asia.   It was first cultivated by the Turks as in 10000AD.   Mania in Turkey struck in the 16th century at the time of the Ottoman Empire, when the Sultan demanded cultivation of particular blooms for his pleasure.

The Dutch were not the first to go crazy over the tulip.  The bulb enchanted the Persians in the 10th century and was the symbol of abundance and indulgence.  But tulips found their most fertile ground in Holland, first blooming there in the late 1500s when they were imported from Turkey.

Tulips have held profound symbolic meaning for centuries in cultures across the globe, embodying themes of love, rebirth, and prosperity.   Their vibrant colours and delicate form have made them a powerful emblem in art, literature and traditions, conveying messages that resonate beyond their physical beauty.

In the language of flowers, every flower has a meaning.  Red tulips symbolize perfect love, yellow tulips symbolize cheerful thoughts.   White tulips represent forgiveness, while purple tulips symbolize royalty.

                                                             

                                                                                *

From Richard Hayes   March 9th   1766 in Kent

'Very pleasant sunny warm day.  My rooks for the week past have been very busy a building.  And the butterflies have turned out.  Crocuses and spring flowers appear.  I now look upon this to be the pleasantest time of the year.'

From D.H. Lawrence    March 9th    1916   in Cornwall

This morning, the world was white with snow.  This evening the sunset is yellow, the birds are whistling, the gorse bushes are bristling with little winged suns....The new incoming days seems most wonderful, uncreated. '

                                                                               *

Cold Christ Child

 

Why did Murillo, Fra Filippo Lippi,

Leonardo da Vinci paint

the Christ Child nude?

Did they not know of night-time cold?

 

Was the hot Levantine wind

blowing in the midday sun,

enough to stay the chill of evening

and warm this precious child?

 

They painted the Madonna in a dress,

the soldiers fully clad

in jerkins, armour, helmets,

the angels in sumptuous robes,

but the Christ Child is left on marble floors,

or dandled in laps,

with nothing to swaddle and secure him.

 

Could it be that this cold start

was not enough 

to set alight the love

needed to save us all?

 

                                                                              *

With very best wishes, Patricia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cold Christ child

                                                                          Leonardo da Vinci

 Dear Reader,

 

Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor and architect.

Although he was known for his dramatic and expressive art work, Leonardo also conducted dozens of carefully thought out experiments and created futuristic inventions that were groundbreaking for the time.  His keen eye and quick mind led him to make important scientific discoveries, yet he never published his ideas.

He never married, and it cannot be stated with certainty that he had a sexually intimate relationship with any person, male or female, nonetheless art historian Raymond Stites suggested that Leonardo was romantically involved with Cecilia Gallerani who was the subject of his painting Lady with an Ermine.

He was most likely to have been a vegetarian and historians have claimed that minestrone was his favourite dish.

The Last Supper is one of the most famous paintings in the world.  It represents the last 'dinner' between Jesus and his disciples.

 

                                                                       *

I have always wondered why The Christ Child was painted with no clothes on. Very strange when you consider how cold it must have been at night.

                                                                        *

From Dorothy Wordsworth   February 21st  1802 in Cumberland

'A very wet morning....Snowdrops quite out, but cold and winterly; yet, for all this, a thrush that lives in our orchard has shouted and sung its merriest all day long.

 From Richard Hayes  February 22nd 1773 in Kent

'I observe now Spring begins by my Crocusses and Crown Pearls under hall window, with yellow rose budding for leaf.

                                                                     *

 

 

Cold Christ Child

 

Why did Murillo, Fra Filippo Lippi,

Leonardo da Vinci paint

the Christ Child nude?

Did they not know of night-time cold?

 

Was the hot Levantine wind

blowing in the midday sun,

enough to stay the chill of evening

and warm this precious child?

 

They painted the Madonna in a dress,

the soldiers fully clad

in jerkins, armour, helmets,

the angels in sumptuous robes,

but the Christ Child is left on marble floors,

or dandled in laps,

with nothing to swaddle and secure him.

 

Could it be that this cold start

was not enough 

to set alight the love

needed to save us all?

 

                                                                   *

 

With best wishes, Patricia

 

 

 

 

 

 

Betrayal

 Dear reader,

I think I took off my poem "Betrayal" before time last week, but as so many of you were able to relate to this poem I have decided  to put it up on a week day so anyone who missed it can have have another chance.

 

 

 

Betrayal

 

 

You were always there

for me, as I for you.

You read to me

you laughed with me

you told me stories

of magic and imagination.

 

We travelled north and south

to Scotland and the Western Isles

enjoyed Dorset, Devon, Cornwall.

Went to see the Lakes

peeped into Beatrix Potter’s house

felt cold in Dove Cottage where

you put my hand in your pocket.

 

We were one heart beat.

 

But you have gone.

Now I have to try to live

another life

with you not there,

with someone else perhaps,

someone to fill the empty gap

you left me with.

 

 Please forgive me darling

                                                                                 *

With very best wishes, Patricia

That Was Then

 Dear Reader,

The river Evenlode is a tributary of the Thames in Oxfordshire.  It rises near Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire in the Cotswold Hills and flows south-east to the Thames, its valley providing the route of the southern part of the Cotswold Line.

The river flows for 45 miles from source to the River Thames.   The name Evenlode is modern, until the late 1890s the river was called the River Blade, hence the name Bladen.  The Ordnance Survey of 1884 already uses the name Evenlode.

The river joins the Thames approximately one mile down river from Cassington on the reach above King's Lock, 3 miles north west of Oxford.  The river is privately owned, used for fishing and other leisure activities.  Hilare Belloc commemorated the river in some of his poetry. 

 From D.H. Lawrence   February 15th 1916 in Cornwall

"Here the winds are so black and terrible.  they rush with such force that the house shudders, though the old walls are very solid and thick.   Only occasionally the gulls rise very slowly into the air.  And all the while the wind rushes and thuds and booms,  one forgets the rest of life.  It shuts one in within its massive violent world.   Sometimes a wave bursts with a great explosion against one of the outlying rocks, and there is a tremendous ghost standing high on the sea, a great tall whiteness.'  

 

From James Woodforde  February 18th  1795 in Norfolk

'Very hard frost with strong easterly winds, a black frost......Had a fire again in my bedchamber to-night.' 

 

                                                                                      *

That Was Then

We made our home
where the west wind blew
and the sun shone, sometimes
we walked where people
we met in the street
or in the country lanes
exchanged news,
people well known to us
growing infants to children,
teenagers to married couples.

We walked by the Evenlode river
up into the fields where
butterflies gathered in the clover.
We saw horses grazing,
wheat fields full
of red remembrance poppies,
the first primrose and bluebells
in the spring, foxgloves,
cowparsley dressing the hedgerows,
summer roses,
the first autumn leaves
fluttering to the ground,
and winter snow.

He walked ahead,
I followed.
We held hands, embraced,

but that was then.

                                                                        *

With very best wishes, Patricia

 

                                                                         

Betrayal

Dear Reader,

Cornwall

Cornwall has large reserves of tin which was mixed extensively during the Bronze Age by people associated with the Beaker culture. Tin is necessary to make bronze from copper, and by about 1600 BCE the West Country was experiencing a trade boon by the export of tin across Europe.

An independent British polity was established in Cornwall and was defended against Saxon incursion for many hundreds of years.   Not until 838 were the 'West Britons' finally subdued and for centuries after this Cornwall retained many of the marks of a separate country.

Cornwall, or Kernow as it is known in Cornish, has a unique Celtic heritage and is considered one of the Celtic nations.  The Celtic nations are made up of Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Brittany and Cornwall.

The Cornish Pasty is the undisputed national dish.  Beef, potato, swede, onion, salt and pepper folded in pastry to make a D shape and side crimped.   The original Cornish pasties were eaten in the darkness of Cornwall's coastal mines.

                                                                               *

From D.H. Lawrence    February 9th   1919 in Derbyshire

'It is marvelous weather - brilliant sunshine on the snow, clear as summer, slightly golden sun, distance lit up.  But it is immensely cold- everything frozen solid- milk, mustard everything.  Yesterday I went out for a real walk-  I had had a cold and been in bed. I climbed with my niece to the bare top of the hills.  Wonderful to see the foot marks on the snow - beautiful ropes of rabbit prints, trailing away over the brows; heavy hare marks; a fox so sharp and dainty, going over the wall:  birds with two feet that hop; very splendid straight advance of a pheasant; wood pigeons that are clumsy and move in flocks, splendid little leaping marks of weasels coming along like a necklace chain of berries, odd little filigree of the field mice; the trail of a mole - it astonishing what a world of wild creatures one feels about one, on the hills in the snow.'

From Thomas Hardy    February 10th 1897 in Dorset

'In spite of myself I cannot help noticing countenances and tempers in objects of scenery, e.g. trees, hills, houses.'

 

                                                                             *

 

Betrayal

 

You were always there
for me, as I for you.
Your read to me
you laughed with me
you told me stories
of magic and imagination.

We travelled north and south
to Scotland and the Western Isles
enjoyed Dorset, Devon, Cornwall.
Went to see the Lakes
peeped into Beatrix Potter's house
felt cold in Dove Cottage where
you put my hand in your pocket.

We were one heartbeat.

But you have gone.
Now I have to try to live
another life
with you not there,
with someone else perhaps,
someone to fill the empty gap
you left me with.

Please forgive me darling.

                                                                         *

With very best wishes, Patricia

                                                                                                             

The Mind Cupboard

The Mind Cupboard

 Dear Reader,

 

I know this poem goes on my blog fairly frequently but since, it seems, that it is your favourite I thought it could have a spring outing.  There is so much written and talked about mental illness today in the papers and on the television that it seems to be a limitless subject. I myself have severe anxiety as you all probably know from my pieces about the chimp. This is the chimp that lives in our heads and is really there to protect us from danger. But some are overactive.  Mine is. He is constantly on the rampage, telling me not to do anything much in case of misfortune.  I have learnt in the last few years not to take much notice of him, but I have pills that help out if needed.

                                                                                *

I have been reading an excellent book this week called "The Summing Up" by W. Somerset Maughan.  In a nutshell it is saying that however much you read from philosophers, writers or academics no one is able to tell you exactly how to live your life.  You simply have to work it out for yourself.  He was brought up by an uncle who was a Christian clergyman but exposed no signs of Christianity in his own life.  Maughan decided that there was no God, unless he was a benign personality, and he saw nothing of that.  

He also said that most men were, on the whole, made of much the same material.  Good and bad, kind and cruel, loud and quiet., and so on. He travelled all over the whole and came to this conclusion.  I agree.  All people are flawed, just in different ways. I myself don't know anyone who is normal and perfect.  I don't suppose there is anybody like that and perhaps they would be insufferably boring.  Even saints must have limitations.

                                                                                       *

From James Woodforde  February 1st  1799 in Norfolk

'Very hard frost with much snow and very rough easterly wind....I don't know that I ever felt a more severe day.  The turnips all froze to blocks, obliged to split then with beetle and wedges, and some difficulty to get them on account of the snow - their tops entirely gone and the lay as apples on the ground.'

From Katherine Mansfield    February 1st  1915 in Buckinghamshire

'There is a glimpse of sun.  The trees look as though they were hanging out to dry.'

                                                                          *

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.

 

                                                                           * 

The Kindle edition of my memoir "Half a Pair of People" is now available on Amazon here.

 

Reviewers have said:   It is a thought provoking and funny book.  Why not give it a try?

Very best wishes 

  

Patricia

 

Goodbye my love

 Dear Reader,

 A friend of mine has asked me to cast an eye on badgers.  So this is what I have found, a quick look.

The earliest traces of badgers in Britain have been dated back to three quarters to half a million years ago.   which means badgers once existed with wolves, brown bears, arctic foxes and wolverines, all of which once roamed in Britain.

Badgers are a wood's ruling clan, often occupying the same set for generations and laying a network of well-trodden paths through the undergrowth.  They are playful, houseproud and expert foragers.

Male and female cubs become sexually mature at around 11/15 months of age and may mate before the end of the first year in areas where food supplies are plentiful.  Badgers can live in the wild for as long as15 years.  However most badgers die young and the average life span is just three years. 

Badgers carry an illness Bovine TB which can infect and cause illness in cattle, badgers, deer, pigs, goats and other animals.   Although most cattle are infected with Bovine TB by other cattle, badgers are also known to transmit the disease to cattle.

A British badger may consume over 200 worms during a night when feeding conditions are good.

                                                                                   *

From Jane Austen  January 25th 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 putrefied 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.'

From John Clare   January 25th  1825 in Northants

' A fine day.  The bees were busily flying as if seeking flowers, the sky was hung with light flying clouds and the season appeared as if the beginning of April.'

                                                                                        *

I am putting on "Goodbye my love" again to day since some of  you will not have seen it in the week.

Goodbye my love

 

They walked along the beach

holding hands,

talking of their tomorrows,

pictured children, picnics, sandcastles,

love was in the air

in their hearts.

 

She started in the hospital,

he went to war in France,

they wrote whenever they could

how they missed each other,

how they were counting days

until their leave came up.

 

Then the telegram came,

the soldier had been killed

in battle,

but a brave death,

or so they said.

 

Goodbye my love

goodbye, my love

my everything,

the woman wept,

despairing

of mankind's stupidity.

 

                                                                          *

With very best wishes, Patricia

 

 

 

 

Goodbye my love

 Dear Reader,

          This poem came to me in the middle of the night.  I thought you might like to read it today and not wait until Sunday.  

Goodbye my love

 

They walked along the beach

holding hands

talking of their tomorrows,

pictured children, picnics, sandcastles,

love was in the air

in their hearts.

 

She started in the hospital,

he went to war in France,

they wrote whenever they could

how they missed each other

how they were counting days

until their leave came up.

 

Then the telegram came,

the soldier had been killed

in battle,

but a brave death

or so they said.

 

Goodbye my love

goodbye, my love

my everything,

the woman wept,

despairing

of mankind's stupidity.

 

                                                                       *

 

With best wishes, Patricia

 

 

 

Goats

Dear Reader, 

Although estimates vary it is generally held that goats were first domesticated approximately 9, 500 - 9,900 years ago.  This occurred in southeastern Anatolia although separate instances of domestication happened in Iran approximately 6,500 years ago and in eastern Turkey 2,500 years ago.

Goats have played an essential role in human societies for thousands of years, providing milk, meat and wool, they are also used for clearing vegetation as pack animals and even as pets.  They were one of the first animals to be tamed by humans.  They are intelligent and emotional and can identify their friends and their offspring by their voice alone.

Goats don't just bleat when in distress.  They glare.  A new study shows that farm goats gaze at humans when dealing with a difficult problem.  Their behaviour hints at a form of communication seen in other domestic animals, suggesting a common behaviour among tamed beasts. 

Goat are the most beneficial animals in the world providing meat, milk, fiber, and fertilizer.

                                                                         *

I am interested to know that goats have difficult problems.  What could they be?

                                                                          *

From Francis Kilvert   January 21st  1872 in Radnorshire

'Sunday.   A cold raw frost fog, dark and dreary ....the Chapel bell tolled out sharp and sudden through the white mist to give notice of the service a quarter of an hour beforehand.  The hedges were hoary with rime and frost and the trees were hailing large pieces of ice down into the road.

Few people in chapel....  I thought the markers in the Bible and Prayers had suddenly become very short, and after service Wilding the Clerk told me the church mice has eaten then off.'

From Richard Hayes   January 22nd 1778 in Kent

'Brother dined with us.  Neck of pork roasted.   He put the blind down a little while.  Sun began to weaken the fire.'

   

 

Goats

 

The goats pick their way up

the steep mountain path

nibbling and bleating, tails wagging

silver bells chiming as they stop

to graze, skip and jump upwards.

 

White mignonettes, freesias, lavender bushes

grow in abundance along the well-worn track,

and small taranaki flowers nestle

in the undergrowth.

Overhead a black kite cries

circles and swoops

and the pungent smell of goats

fills the warm lavender air.

 

I see the shepherd boy

swarthy, brown and handsome

sitting on a stone, playing a flute.

He watches his precious goats

with a sharp and knowing eye.

 

As I pass him I smile. He waves.

I dance a step to his music

and with light heart follow the goats,

on my own journey upwards.

 

                                                                                 *

 

With very best wishes, Patricia

 

 

 

                                                                              *

The "Right" People

Cottages

 Dear reader,

In England from about the 18th century onwards the development of industry led to the development of weavers' cottages and miners' cottages.   Fredrich Engels cites ' cottages' as a poor quality dwelling in his 1845 work: The Condition of the Working Class in England.

A cottage, during England's feudal period was the holding by a cottager of a small house with enough garden to feed a family and in return for the cottage, the cottager has to provide some form of service to the manorial lord.  The cottage would have been built cheaply from locally available materials in the local style, thus in wheat growing areas it would be roofed in thatch and in slate-rich locations, such as Cornwall, slates would be used for roofing.  In stone-rich areas, it would be built in rubble stone, and in other areas, such as Devon, was commonly built from cob.

                                                                                      *

The cottage I lived in this market town was built in the 17th century.  Although it was very "quaint" it was something of a nightmare to live in.    It was always very cold because the windows didn't fit and we weren't allowed to change them, (heritage) and the mice loved it.  Now if one thing you may have picked up from reading my blog over the years it is that I can't abide mice.    Also the stairs were a trifle dangerous and as I got older found them difficult too.  Yes it did have roses round the door but where I live now is, in every way, much more pleasurable.

                                                                                    

                                                                                 *

From Francis Kilvert  January 12th 1873 in Wiltshire

'When I came out the night was superb.  The sky was cloudless, the moon rode high and full in the deep blue vault and the evening star blazed in the west.  The air was filled with the tolling and chiming of bells from St. Paul and Chippenham old Church.....I walked up and down the drive several times before I could make up my mind to leave the wonderful beauty of the night and go indoors.'

 From James Woodforde  January 14th 1790 in Norfolk

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

 

                                                                                 *                                    

The ‘Right’ People

 

I nearly didn’t come

to see this house

            on an estate.

 

My cottage in Market Street was old.

Two hundred years old.

It was damp, it was cold

mice pattered about

and the east wind blew

through the small windows.

 

It was dark even in the summer,

but it was smart

in the ‘right’ part of town

and the ‘right ‘ people

asked us for dinner.

 

Now we live in the suburbs

not in the ‘right’ part of town

and not the ‘right’ people

living here.

 

But I found they were my people,

the “right” people for me

everyday people, kind and funny.

 

The house is warm,

no mice patter

no damp creeps up the wall

the car has a place of its own.

 

If I hadn’t come to see it

fearful of an estate

I would have never known

where people like me lived.

 

                                                                              *

With very best wishes, Patricia

 

January Weather

                                                                               Primroses

 

Dear reader,

I am putting up 'January Weather' again this week.  It is one of my favourite poems and I don't think Christmas week was a good place for it.  Everyone was busy and my blog suffered!! Two weeks ago I had 2,000 hits on the blog and last week 3. Only 3.  I can never tell how the blog  is going to work, or whether you readers like the things I write about or not.  Obviously some pieces you like better than others but I have no way of telling which these are going to be.

I was telling my daughter Jessica who has just started to teach dance as a free lance, that constancy is the answer. And she must believe in herself and what she is offering. As many of you know I have been writing this blog now for eight years and I just have to believe in myself and be reliable in putting it out every week.  I left school when I was 15 years old with next to no qualifications.  But over the years I have taught myself, read many books on diverse subjects and happily went to the Open University for four years. 

Try reading 'January Weather' again and I hope you enjoy it, this time, as much as I did writing it.

                                                                         *

From Samuel Pepys   January 16th   1660 in Westminster

'I stayed up till the bell man came by with his bell just under my window as I was writing of this very line, and cried, 'Past one of the clock, and a cold , frosty , windy morning.'

 

From Katherine Mansfield   January 20th   1915 in Buckinghamshire

'A man outside is breaking stones.  The day is utterly quiet. Sometimes a leaf rustles and a strange puff of wind passes the window.   The old man chops, chops, as though it were a heart beating out there.'

 

From Richard Hayes  January 21st   1762 in Kent

'As mild a day as though May. N.B. I saw a spotted butterfly - brown in colour.'

      

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.

 

 

                                                              *

 

 

With very best wishes, Patricia