nature

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Island Blog 32 – Circles of the mind

The Island

This morning is a cracker.  I know it before I open the curtains, for I can hear no rain, no wind, but only the sound of happy birds calling for breakfast.

I sit here and think about this blog, about my writing, my need to write.  Looking at something, a view, a morning, an encounter, is not enough for me, because I can hear the voice in everything, one that asks to be remembered.  It’s not enough to say ‘it’s a beautiful morning.’  There has to be more than that.  Is it a warm one, a Saturday, my child’s first birthday?  Is it busy or quiet?  Do I have something to come that excites and delights me, or am I just a morning person?

All these and more affect how I look upon what I see.  And the person next to me, next to me in the same moment of morning, might say it’s about as beautiful as cold rice pudding, for we all look out from our own perspective, our own context in the life we live.

Some folk look for flaws,  some folk look for beauty.  I just look.

Start a blog, Lisa said, as if it was a really simple thing, the simplest. Lisa is my publisher at Two Roads/Hodder.  She also said I should upgrade my mobile from one purchased at a street market in Africa 3 years ago, with just a few knobs and an On/Off switch, to one fashioned in the 30th century with a thousand applications, including Tetris (whatever that is) and a camera with screen rotation which I can’t turn off.  I have taken many pictures already of things and people tumbling like beach balls, including some mint wrappers inside my jacket pocket, a shot that looked quite artsy once I stopped rotating and my eyeballs settled down.

I used to re-charge my old mobile once a week.  Now it’s a daily thing, and not just for the mobile. If I am not actually writing my blog, importing (!!!???) photos, once they have stilled, from my mobile, I am sifting through my thoughts on life, love and what’s for supper.  Preparing my mind;  pulling at the sinews of it, encouraging blood flow, breathing in the morning.

Initially I resisted, squeaked and screamed and whined and moaned.

I can’t do this! I wailed.  I am a techno-phobe, an island girl, no roundabouts, no traffic lights, remember??

That was one of my voices.

The rest all yelled ‘Shut up, make coffee and get over yourself!

In the face of such encouragement, I had to listen.

Now it comes, more or less, naturally, and what I have learned, in this new process, is that I can change, even though I struggle with it as much as anyone else does at first.

It’s the thought of it that scunners us.  There is comfort and predictability in staying the same.  We think we still move forward, but we don’t. We circle.

The benefits of personal stretching far outweigh the disadvantages.  In fact, I am not sure there are any disadvantages, for, in the light of this new view, it’s not only my mornings that are different, nor, indeed my afternoons or evenings.  I find I think in a different way.  I am more able to face whatever comes next, because I have already done it, and can do it again.  The unknown is no longer frightening, not because it won’t be at some point – I am sure it will – but because I have proved to myself that my mind is not stuck, that my old way of doing things is not all I am capable of, and there is a new beauty in that.

My advice – recognise your circle and step out of it.  Oh, and please remind me of these wise words when I need to hear them again.

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Island Blog 21 – To Travel Hopefully

Island Blog 21

As the outside shoots past my grubby window, I take in my fellow travellers.  I know where I’m going, of course, and they are going somewhere too, somewhere that requires them to pack a sandwich and a bottle of mineral water, pick up their book or kindle, their music machine and their mobile phone, just as I did first thing this morning.

I unpack my picnic and sigh quietly (I am in the quiet coach) at the squash of bread and lettuce and crumbly cheese, all gloopy now with the mayonnaise smearing up the window of my cleverly designed sandwich bag with a seal-again top, which I can never seal again, by the way.  You have to match the tram lines or it just won’t seal and it always ‘just won’t seal’ under my fingers.  I could put my specs on, but decide, instead, as I am too hungry, that I won’t bother.  I’ll just post it into my mouth in fingerfuls and chew it…..quietly.

The woman across the way from me is texting.  She has been texting for 40 minutes now and her buttons must be quite worn out.  Her keypad pings with each letter and she obviously can’t spell because, every so often, I hear her puffs of exasperation escape into the warm air of Coach B.  The man behind me has a dry cough, and I feel the punch of each one hit my shoulder as if he is firing peppercorns between the seats.  I shift a little, although I don’t want him to think me rude.

And then there are the whispering people, who hardly move for fear of breaking the rule of silence.

Where are they going? I begin to wonder.  Are they going to or from?  Is one of them running away, or running towards something or someone, and is there hope in their hearts or the foetid drudge puddle of exhausted defeat?

Do they love and are they loved?  Do they sing or write or make the best parsnip soup in the village?  Do they have regrets?

I like to answer some of my questions myself, for I could never speak them out into the polite air of the quiet coach.  I pretend the man with the cough has finally walked out on his over-bearing wife, having told her the thing or two he’s been wanting to tell her for years.  That’s why he has a cough now.  His vocal chords are astonished.

I continue this reverie, developing it to such a degree of joy and happiness on his behalf, that it’s all I can do not to swing round and congratulate him.  Instead, when its my turn to leave, I flash him my widest smile and alight, minding the gap.

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Island Blog 17 – Moon Talk

What I like to do around this time is step outside with a glass of red wine; any time of the year, makes no odds to me, for what I am wanting to  join in with is the evolving of day into night, when bustling daylight gives way to the gloaming (Scottish word) and everything around me begins to settle.  The only bird not already in bed is the blackbird, and sometimes, a late robin.  Even if I can’t see them I know their song, and their song changes at dusk (explanation of Scottish word).

Actually, their song changes at other times, like in early Spring when they are rivaling for a mate.  But that’s another blog, another time.

If it is raining hard, I may only manage stepping into the garage, with its open maw, but, in the main, I can stand for a little, watch the sky and let myself both absorb, and be absorbed, by the coming night.  Tonight the moon is wonky, not that she feels in the least wonky, but she looks that way to me, for her fullness is coming, but not just yet, making her an oval in the black heavens.  Full moons mean something when you live by the sea, and I don’t mean beside it, but ‘by’ it.  When your next move must shift to accommodate the powerful pull of the moon and she, the moon, is always guaranteed to make a big statement.  The tides are very high and very low at ebb and flood, and if you work with a boat, you have to know this, or you land in trouble.  Big winds, grumpy weather leading to grumpy seas, high winds and sudden squalls all work together at full moon, to unsettle mankind and remind him he is not in control at all, however much he may think he is.  And women change at full moon.  Have you ever worked that out?  I know that, when I did, it made me laugh and that knowledge settled inside me like a loving hug (for me) and a warning to my man.  Now he knows, and so do I.  I am a creature of the moon mother and now that we accept this inevitability, we can both be sensible, most of the time. In real life, that is, the life where we accept, even if we don’t understand, the balance between our physical and metaphysical selves, we can move easily within that life, without trying to fix or alter it, but, instead, to love it and claim our part in it, for it is wonderful indeed and, by the way, our only chance to shine like the moon in someone’s sky.

 

One man and his dog

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Island Blog 15 – Red Wax, White Water

Last night, during dinner, I kicked over a long-stemmed candle holder sitting on the floor.  It was, agreed, a daft place to leave it, down there on the ground, but the red candle sent pretty colours onto the white wall and, besides, nobody was expecting an idiot to walk into it.  I must have been in purposeful forward motion, for the whole thing flew into the air and slammed against the wall.

White wall, red candle, you can imagine the mess.

Apart from feeling awful at the breakage of the glass holder (one of a set of 3), I was horrified at the red dots that seemed to cover most of the room.  Perhaps I should take up football.

This morning I set too with a plastic spatula on my hands and knees, lifting each dot, some the size of a fifty pence, some pinheads and they were not just on the floor.  The wall, the music speaker, the wooden chest; nothing escaped my powerful right kick. Now all is as it was, amazingly, apart from the speaker which, hopefully, doesn’t affect its performance…..and me.  I still feel awful about it.

Why is that?  You may ask.

I think it’s that I don’t like to make such mistakes, to break or damage someone else’s something-or-other.  I think I should have learned by now to move slowly, be careful, THINK before I act or speak.  Rooted deep in childhood are our responses to life as an adult.  I know this, because I know this.  The process of self-forgiveness, at any level, is one big task, at least, it is for me.

So I want to be what……perfect?  As if all those years behind me make a solid and permanent change?

It’s not possible. But what is possible, is my response to making mistakes, and that, my friends, is one of my biggest challenges. Knowing that theory is one thing.  Living it out, quite another.

This morning, coming in from the showy garden, having put red meat scraps out for the kites, (I missed the photo opportunity again!), I saw the white water stains on the wooden floor boards where I leave my boots. I know it’s me, for nobody else does this food-putting-out thing.  My heart sank and I rushed to Google a cure. Mayonnaise, it seems is the answer. I am on it, or will be after I finish writing this.

Please don’t tell me that everything comes in threes…………

white water - Blog 15

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Island Blog 13 – Secrets

Secrets are funny old things.  We love to have them for ourselves and we can hug them for days, months, even years and, in some cases, forever.  When we know another’s secret, we have to watch ourselves carefully in case it rises in our throats and spills out in a tumble of words.  Sometimes we are more than happy not to know another’s secrets, however desperate they may be to tell us.  They can be a gift, or a liability, a delightful revealing of something we have always wondered about, or a heavy weight we are stuck with, now that we know the hidden truth.

Sometimes, in the early flush of a love affair, we can think we want to know absolutely everything about each other, but I don’t think that’s healthy at all.  Someone once said that once we tell all our secrets, we are left only with their memory.  We can no longer call them our own, nor feel that sense of mystery, like a butterfly in our hearts.  I have many secrets and I am rather fond of them all.  Nobody can tell me they are a lot of cobblers, because nobody knows them.  Have you ever shared a secret and wished you hadn’t?  The response was too casual, or too earnest and you didn’t quite believe your secret was that interesting.  Or you might have been persuaded you were wrong, or not looking at it right and then you felt deflated like an old party balloon.

Keep your secrets, that’s what I say, and keep the mystery, for isn’t that what makes us interesting, intriguing, a someone who might suddenly disappear without stopping to tell you first?  It keeps people on their toes being around someone who doesn’t lay themselves out like a map for all to study.  I like to say I’m going out, without saying where to. It feels wild and exciting, even if it’s just  to buy milk.

You never know where a snowdrop will appear in the wild, because you didn’t plant it.  Nobody planted it.

Now there’s a secret and a half.

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Island Blog 9 – On thinking

As I watch a young couple learn the ropes of parenting, with all the associated doubts and joys, I feel honoured to be invited in, to be a part, a useful part.  So many things change when a baby arrives.  There are tugs on many strings.  They say that children can tear you apart, not that they would ever want to do that, and I can see how, remember how.  When my little ones came along, I turned the full 180 towards them.  Some fathers don’t cope well with that, being relegated to the chorus line, when once they were the star.  We women do our best, but we are not perfect, nor are we superhuman.  We know, in that first flash second of seeing our newborn for the first time, that here is someone we would give our lives for.  We also register, to our, perhaps surprise, that where we once thought we would do the same for our man, we now know we might not – especially if the choice, a Sophie’s sort of choice, was between our child and their father.

It must show, for it causes problems, not that many of us will ever have to make that choice.  It shows itself, this new allegiance in little ways, in where we spend our precious moments, which way we look first, who we listen to when voices rise in competition.

I remember it well.

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Island Blog 8 – Kites over London

I’m watching father and son (now new father himself, as of Boxing Day) take down the outside Christmas lights and bonding whilst 3 red kites soar overhead.  I can hardly believe I am in London beneath such majestic birds.  The neighbours put the remains of their sunday roast on the lawn and wait for the kites to collect.  They don’t land, just swoop and collect. Haven’t seen it for myself, but I hope to this weekend! Must be an incredible sight.

 

Blog article 8 - 'Fathers'

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Island Blog 5

Did I tell you I cook and clean for Old Harry?

Well, I am now, and I do.

The job sort of came to me.  I wasn’t looking for work, but Old Harry has looked after me and my family for over 35 years, doing odd jobs and bringing those little bits and pieces to us when we were without them.  A short length of roofing felt, perhaps, or a special size of bicycle screw, or a bit of wire fencing to block up a hole in the fence.

Well, since his old wife died, he has had to fend for himself in a kitchen he never knew existed.  He did outdoors and she did indoors and that was that for a whole lifetime.  So, Old Harry found someone to cook meals for him, freeze them and deliver once a week.  There was a bit of washing, a bit of cleaning too.  When one cook left him, he came to tell me and I said, quite without thinking, I’ll do it Harry.  For you.

And I do.

This morning I was supposed to go over with supplies, clean washing and my rubber gloves for the cleanup which is never much as Old Harry was a Regimental Sergeant Major in the war and still lives that way.  But, it was raining again, cats and dogs so I knew Harry, whose work is all outside, remember, would be stuck at home and not wanting a merry little cleaner like me moving him around whilst I cleaned.  So, I stayed home and cooked extra meals for him instead, which is timely as we are off to see our new grand-daughter in London on Wednesday and I will be away for ten days helping out.  I will still keep up my blog, though, so no worries there.

I’m bushed now, though.  Time for a walk in the Fairy Woods.  I’ll tell you what I find tomorrow.

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Island Blog 4

Yesterday, my husband the old sea dog, turned 70.  Nobody really believes he is THAT old and he certainly doesn’t look it. When we were young, people that old were bordering on fossilisation, but we seem to be ageing differently these days, and keeping ourselves young and fit.

We had a great day, just pottering about and took a lovely walk up into the Fairy Woods with the little dog, managing to lose her during games of hide and seek! The wallow, used by the deer, was more like Lake Titicaca with all the rain we’ve had recently. We lit the fire and played scrabble and laughed a lot over tea and crumpets (or that’s what they called themselves on the packet)

 

Later, we went through to one of our boys, James (the tv star!)and his family, for a fondue and indoor fireworks.  The fondue was delicious and lasted for hours – the best sort of meal.  The Birthday Boy was truly spoiled and celebrated with the generous birthday present of five gold tickets.  I’d never heard of such a thing, but think it quite brilliant.  As the kids are dotted across the world, busy with their own lives and families, their gift to him, a whole day one to one, is a fabulous idea.  When they were little, they were a collective – inevitable when you have five and an extremely demanding work life, and, as they grew, he had to find out anew, who they are, as they did him.  They had to learn a new friendship.

 

We stayed over, and woke to play with the grandchildren on another rainy morning. Then, after a cooked breakfast (as if we needed more food) we went for the wettest walk in years, getting completely soaked, even through big ass waterproofs and we didn’t mind at all.  Once you’re wet, you’re wet!  The massive waterfall was spectacularly swollen with the rains, and the sound of it drowned out all conversation.  We just looked up and marvelled.

 

Back home, we booked our flights to London next week.  Another adventure and this one takes us to meet our littlest grand-daughter, born on Boxing Day.

Can’t wait!

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Island Blog 3

Today is my husbands 70th birthday. Neither he nor I can believe he is that old, and yet looks and behaves like a kid.  Now, is this down to my splendid management I wonder……caring for him these past 40 years…..or should he take the credit himself?

Last night we went out for supper to the local pub – just a spur of the moment decision not in the least influenced by the liver casserole in front of the telly option.  We had a great meal, a bottle of sauncy Rioja and then, at midnight, fried egg sandwiches and a glass of 15 yr old malt whilst Sascha and John Digweed entertained us through the stereo speakers.  Now that’s pretty impressive for a septuagenerian don’t you think?

We talked about this blog over coffee and I have this idea to set myself a challenge for the year.  My book is out in March, I turn 60 in March and it seems like a plan to have a daily challenge that people can get excited about.

‘How is she doing today with whatever-it-is?’

That’s the sort of question I want you to ask yourself so that you just HAVE to check my blog each day.

Should I have a flow of recipes, such as the ones in Island Wife, where I had to think last minute often for hotel guests who were expecting gourmet food every Summer’s evening?  The delivery vans refused to venture up our pot holey two mile track and just dumped (literally) food supplies at the gate.  I never knew if the box of bananas would more resemble a box of brownish brackets ((((  and it kept me enterprising to an extreme degree.

Venison Jumble………that’s elderly tough stag with lots of root vegetables and a bottle of red wine cooked slowly for 2 days, then dropped on the floor, scooped back up again and topped with a savoury crumble.

Yum yum, they said, smacking their lips.

The roof on our ancient bird table took off this morning on the back of a very startled pheasant.  One minute he was enjoying the corn, with most of him squished and just his tail feathers showing, the next (after I appeared) he is flying over the stone wall with a roof on his back.  I retrieved it, minus pheasant, in a ditch.

Roofed Pheasant?

I am certain I could make that one up.

Hmmm…..food for thought.

Sounds like I need pastry and that pheasant.

Any comments?