soup

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Island Blog – The Truth of It

We don’t tell the truth. No, we don’t. We decide on a persona as we get out of bed. We do this because, well, in my case certainly, there is an abundance of moaners wherever we/I go and we/I don’t align with moaning. However, this makes it tricky for truth telling. I know this, have known this for decades. It’s as if the one we once were, the upbeat, smiler, joker, uplifter is somehow fixed, like a creature in a snow globe or a face in an old photo, the one who never changes. But we all do.

This storm frightens me. The gusts up here on the island are loud and fiery, up to 80mph. I know, I do know, that my gone man knew exactly what he was buying. He knew the gales, the wind shifts, the structure of home, the waiting for challenge that it faced, whilst catching the sun and backed by a woodland of 180 year old pines, not one of which would ever fall on the house because the prevailing wind would always push them backwards and even as I sit here listening to the huge punches of storm, I know that they won’t fall on me. Still the noise is still scary. It’s as if all the worst devils, or the most fiery dragons are initiating a full frontal attack on my home, and not just mine. However, it was my big frickin window and I met it, wondering, in the dark of the onslaught, the sudden rush of colding down my stairway. I danced up, I did, and heard the sound of anguish, the pull and push, heard the defeat, saw the big window fighting against it’s fines, confines, the plastic and glue and whatever which holds this big-ass glass in situ. This wind was winning. Gusts of up to 85mph and just me. For now. And there’s a thing. I rose, I did, I know this fear, I have been against this power before. I remember.

The roar was deafening. Everything falling off everything else. Darkness outside, no-one there. Power out. The wind gusts terrifying. It’s dark now, scary. So, here am I, window was tight shut, and not open, at all, but even in that not open thing, a hinge broke. Split, freaked the whole frame out which, in my opinion was never an intelligent build. And then she bucked and pushed against gusts up to almost 90mph. I could do nothing, my strength a nothing. The window is big and heavy. In the dark and the slam of rain and wind, I ran to my neighbour who was alone with her kids. He’s at the pub, she said. I’ll drive down and get help. Men came but even they struggled with the power of the wind, managing, eventually, to drag in huge posts to wedge the window almost shut, the props against my bed, already drenched, then wedging my bed against the back wall. Mud and leaves and rain everywhere, but the window was re-instated at last and I am so very thankful to them. I slept in another room, well, sort of slept as the massive power circled my house, keening like a banshee, slamming huge unearthly fists against the face of my old stone home.

I heard no sounds beyond that during the night. Heard nothing of the devastation behind me, in the ancient pine woods. 20 massive old friends uprooted and lying on their backs, one of which flattened the Honey Shed whilst another fell right through the power line, leaving dangling wires. It took four days for any clearing, for the power to come back on, after everyone else got their light back the day before. And now, a hot shower after all those hours of cold and I’m okay and all the visits from neighbours, the delivery of soups and power chargers, all those hours of I’m okay when I wasn’t at all. I was scared, alone, small and without appetite. I was fearful that now I am responsible for the remaining pines in the woods, the ones which never bothered to grow a good spread of roots because the big guy in the face of all this wild shit is protecting the rest of us, or so they believed. These pines are now seriously wobbly because these huge gales will keep coming and they are not prepared for the onslaught.

It thinked me. Am I? All I have learned from himself must be in there somewhere, in my head, in my knowing. There is a huge amount over which I have no control, but there will be something, some things, over which I do. For now, however, I am thankful, yes, and completely wrung out. And my damage was nothing much in comparison to others.

I know that truth, but my truth is also the truth.

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Island Blog – A Fetouche

I’m watching the tide, Springs now, so big high, big low. Kind of reminds me of me. The tide, at this flood time, brings in the salmon and sea trout which (I’d rather write whom) just want a reasonably safe passage up to the fresh water that they seek for spawning. Interruptus lies in wait with lures and nets to catch them t’wirly. You might have to look that one up. Nonetheless, it intrigues me. The full moon, the swell and suck of it, of her, for surely, with her tempestuous nature, the sea is female? I cannot believe I wrote that, so ridonculous it reads in our, thankfully new, appreciation of how wrong we have been for a verrrrrrry long time. Eish.

Back to the tide. And to the weather, which, or is it whom, has confounded us this year, as it did last year, only in a kindlier way. I have frickin massive sunflowers, green for about 5 feet, blocking my view of any tidal flow, and yet producing no buds at all, till now, tiny nubs, and yellow as butter and I am so pleased I didn’t wheech the stalks out a while ago. There is always hope and that’s how I live and so, perhaps this seasona interrupta is teaching me, and you, how to listen and learn. I have blue things growing, pink ones too, stocky and holding to the earth, hesitational. I get that. And it wonders me.

I worked at Lunch Club today, just as a volunteer. In the village hall we lay out a welcome table, flower festive, for anyone who comes. One did. Then two, and then, as we in the kitchen decided it was a quiet day, up to 17 arrived, all smiles and ready for soup, sharing and laughter, and pudding, of course. I leaned against a kitchen unit, as my friends accommodated the rise of human tide. It told me that, even if each singular life appeared all green and no flowers, even if the tidal rise and fall of this year, this season, never lifted their spirits, that we could conjoin here, in this kitchen, we could make a stepping stone for each other into the next day. I am no fool. I know that most folk ‘pretend’ that everything is ok, that they are ‘fine’ and that they are not afraid, scared, cold, lonely.

We know the moon rise and fall here. We see it loud, every time. We are so close, we could touch it. We can walk out into the blast of Spring tides. Sometimes, I wonder how you who live in cities and out there beyond the connection we have, manage emotional flow. It is hard enough to understand out here. A fetouche, for sure.

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Island Blog – Turn a Feather

People are living. The lucky ones. Watching from the ridge, balancing afoot the cat sharp rocks, teetering, our heads in the sky, bodies somewhere in between, and, in our breath, a question. Will I, will we come out of this alive or not?

We are one, now, we people of the world. We have un-countried ourselves as we face down a terrifyingly powerful enemy. And the heroes keep rising like the sea-eagle I just watched playing with gravity as it slid through the wide blue sky, master of it. We are showing out true colours and making rainbows for each other. It is good.

When the day avoids me I remind myself of this. However isolation goes for those of us isolated, there are people who find that fear defines them. Otherwise strong and confident, this invisible monster lurking in every action, every move, confounds them. It is not good, but it is understandable. It is one thing to face down a big swashbuckling opponent who stands square and loud and inches away, and quite another to face down a ghost. Much is at stake and most of the much is me. And you.

We cannot enjoy a commensal meal, perhaps for months and certainly not on Mother’s Day, not if the mother in question is a bit past her sell by date. We older mums must stay doggo, take up our handiwork and make gallons of nourishing soup for the freezer, in preparation for whatever is to come. Our mums and grannies did it for years during the wars, but they didn’t have to isolate and this is the hard part.

So we must look up and out. We must listen to the sounds of Spring wherever and whenever we can. We can write letters, send emails, make calls to bring cheer to someone else. There may be a hole in the universe right now, a big black one into which many of us are falling and will fall yet, but above us is a huge sky full of weather and birds, painted with daylight and the soft black velvet of night. Those of us who can muster belief must spread that belief to those who are cast adrift from the joy of Life. We must scatter laughter like wildflower seeds, seeds that will sprout under the warming sun, no matter what comes.

This morning a sparrow hawk took one of my visiting doves. I didn’t see it but I saw the resulting scatteration of feathers around the bird table or caught in the branches of a potentilla hedge. It looked awful and I was so sad. I watched the other dove wander endlessly around the garden in search of its mate and felt even sadder. Destruction standing alone, I thought, freezing the moment, and my heart. However, as I watched, a sparrow fluttered down to grab a feather, soft as down. Other small birds followed suit until nothing was left. They had taken the destruction and turned it into hope, a soft lining for a nestful of new life.

If Nature can turn things around so beautifully, then so can we.

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Island Blog 151 Winter and Spring

2014-01-27 14.08.00

“Winter is not a season, it’s an occupation.”   Sinclair Lewis

Now, as the cold sets in and the winds bite, we can turn towards home.  The lack of strong daylight draws us to the soft lighting, the fire glow, candles and a good torch for the Last Dog Walk at bedtime.  I find I read even more, if that is, indeed, possible.  My tastebuds changed their tune and thick soup replaces a rocket salad.  I remember Elisabeth Luard, the famous cookery writer saying to me, once, that she loved the winter.  All those bonkers unmatching hats and gloves, the fat woolly jumpers, thick socks, big boots and nobody watching her waistline, least of all, her. It was almost with a sigh she welcomed Spring, knowing full well that those pretty frocks might well resist joining at the zip.

Gone are those foraging walks, the fresh tang of autumn with skies full of redwings and the leaves turning into gold and red to finally fall to the ground, a crunchy carpet at first, then a soggy mulch beneath our boots.  Mud gathers below the verges, frost splits the tarmac and the potholes re-appear with a vengeance.  But, walking into winter can hold its own delights, after all, who doesn’t like jumping in puddles?  If you have gone beyond puddle jumping there is something wrong with you because it may be the best form of excercise you can take and there is never any harm in re-visiting the inner child.  So many of us lose our sense of play and it is a Zeus of a mistake. The finest people I know still play childish pranks at 80 with twinkly winkly eyes and a dare in them for you to even think of disapproving.

In Sweden, so I am told by my viking daughter-in-law, there is no rain/sleet or slush.  There is only snow.  Kissing the ground at first, this white out can grow to terrifying depths, disappearing whole houses overnight.  If it ever happens here, there is considerable panic as if we are all about to turn into snowmen.  Trains stop, buses stop, and nobody can get to work.  Well, I struggle to find the bad in that, unless, of course, you are an emergency service.  In Sweden this is all carefully thought through and those who need to get about grow wings. Although I don’t want to say this, I do wonder at the flapdoodle this country gets into about seasonal changes, and I do shake my head.  At Tapselteerie, if the track was impassable, we just didn’t pass it.  Sudden holidays, lack of food, the power off, no phone, all meant fun.  As long as the stock were fed, milked and checked, we were all quite happy to play.  I remember once being at the hairdresser in town and the local police (pronounced poh-liss) popping his head round the door of each shop to recommend that those of us who lived ‘over by’ meaning anywhere but the town, should head home as the hill road was fast being wiped out.  Being wiped out is exactly what happens.  The terrain is just one hilly blanket and there is no way to tell where the road lies within it.  I said to the poh-liss that I wisnae going hame with one side cropped and the other trailing over my right ear, and, by the time I did head overby, someone had already found the road and marked it out which was very thoughtful even if it did take two attempts to top the highest hilly bend with a neat short back and sides.

It seems to me that fear is the killer here.  What on earth is there to be afraid of?  It’s only snow and puddles after all, although not both together.  Ice is a bit different though with its chameleon ability to become the road.  When someone ahead of me scooted neatly off the single track road in the un-gritted glen, landing just under the nose of a startled horse munching hay, all of us stopped to help.  We hefted and bumped and, on finding all that hefting and bumping quite pointless, popped the inhabitants into our own cars and trundled them home, waving to the horse as we drew away.

And, of course, there is always the promise of Spring.  Crocuses are coming, snowdrops pushing into the cold light, birds looking for nest sites.  But we should honour winter.  There is a beauty in it, a bare stark beauty that should not be missed, like building snowmen, puddle jumping, making soup, wearing bonkers and unmatching hats and gloves.  Longing for something to end just lengthens it I find.  Our winters are unpredictable, unlike Sweden.

How versatile are you?  I personally want to be able to bounce like Tigger (or move like Jagger) whatever comes my way, even if it does require forward planning and something to hold on to. And, there is always a temporarily unbouncing somebody who needs my help.