I can stand a little rain

Here comes the sun....

It was a warm and very dry spring here in Norfolk. According to the Met Office, it has been the sunniest spring since records began. There were no shoures soote in Aprill to perce the droghte of March ... to the roote, nor to bathe every veyne in switch licour/Of which vertu engendred is the flour [Pace Geoffrey Chaucer - Ed.]

My garden, my allotment, the fields, the woods - all dry and dusty for weeks on end.

Then, finally, the cool winds blew in some water, soaking slowly through the membrane under my shingle,

Typically this coincided with the day I had to take my car for its MOT,

 

Leaving it in the puddles, to walk home....

Like Joe Cocker, I can stand a little rain, though it may have its downsides:

Like the touch of rain she was

On a man's flesh and hair and eyes

When the joy of walking thus

Has taken him by surprise:

With the love of the storm he burns,

He sings, he laughs, well I know how,

But forgets when he returns

As I shall not forget her 'Go now'.

Edward Thomas

At the end of Common Road, for no particular reason, I am reminded of Geoffrey Willans's Nigel Molesworth, the goriller of 3b and curse of St. Custard's, and his rendition of Tennyson's The Brook, the only one piece of peotry in the English language:

i come from haunts of coot and Hern

i make a sudden sally

and-er-her-er-hem-the fern

to bicker down a valley.

 As Nigel says, when having to attempt the girly activity of reciting, quite frankly I COULDN'T CARE LESS.  What use will that be to me in the new atomic age?

Well, as an ex english master myself, I would chide Molesworth for this point of view, and say you must learn the value of spiritual things....

Though I cannot help but notice that even the fairies have firmly shut their door and windows.....

Ah well, the rain eases off, though it has stripped leaves from the trees and strewn them carelessly about and coursed down the path like the tears of a mighty god:

It has also streamed down the trees in what is known as stemflow, where precipitation funnels down from the canopy through the deep ridges of the tree bark, collecting an assortment of particulates, plant chemicals and air pollutants that have accumulated over the long dry period.

The result is a form of bubbling soap which foams as it is concentrated at the base of the trunk.

So there's magic in the woods, and not just in the splash of colour that denotes the presence of digitalis, noted for its effect on the heart:

There is a magic in the cool silence, where it is almost possible to hear the plants sigh in gratitude for the life-giving water that has fallen from the sky. I can almost hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore.  I shall have some peace..... [Thank you William Butler - Ed.]

Oak leaves are refreshed:

In time of silver rain

The earth puts forth new life again,

Green grasses grow

And flowers lift their heads,

And over all the plain

The wonder spreads

Of Life,

Of Life,

Of life!

Langston Hughes

 

As are the sweet chestnuts:

And I can almost taste the freshness of beech leaves against the light:

While the aroma of bracken and damp leaf mould rises from the ground to wrap me in a natural shawl: 

I look out across the fields towards the clouds, louring over the Wash, dreaming lightly of possible futures:

I walk the beautiful beech avenue where once Amanda walked with me:

I pause by the seat - too wet to sit - where she liked to rest on a Sunday morning:

I pass by the roofless ruin where someone once lived, and maybe died:

I hear leaves drinking rain; 

I hear rich leaves on top 

Giving the poor beneath 

Drop after drop; 

'Tis a sweet noise to hear 

These green leaves drinking near.

And when the Sun comes out, 

After this Rain shall stop, 

A wondrous Light will fill 

Each dark, round drop; 

I hope the Sun shines bright; 

'Twill be a lovely sight.

W H Davies

And then the sun surfaces through the clouds and scatters diamonds of light across my path, cheering my way forward, towards a refreshed life, perhaps.....  A lovely sight indeed.....

Here comes the sun

And I say, It's all right.....

George Harrison

Dance on, buttercup jackdaws

For Hannah May Blacknell Gibbs 

35 today

xx

North by North-East

Over the Hills

Bolton Castle 
where Mary, Queen of Scots, was held prisoner in 1568

Ambrose Bierce, in his Devil's Dictionary, defines Belladonna (n) thus: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English, a deadly poison.  A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.....

Which has nowt to do with owt, for the moment, but I may return to this later.....

Let me track back a bit.  We were recently having a good time in Swaledale:

A goat - [No idea why, Ed.]

And in Swaledale I wondered lovely as a clown [Stoppit, Ed.], quoting Robert Frost to no-one:

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

Mending Wall

(I'll come back to this) and I passed by the hamlet (I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw. Hamlet, II.ii.312–13)  [Get on with it!  Ed.] of Muker.....  

'Nuff said.

So I retraced some steps and revisited Wensleydale.....Gromit, that's it! Cheese! We'll go somewhere where there's cheese! [Gromit is confused; looks at "Cheese Holidays" magazine] Now, where were we? Places you find cheese. Lancashire, Cheddar, Wensleydale, Philadelphia, Tesco's...

Yes, but it isn't only cheese!

Wood anemones and Common Dog Violets

I pause at Aysgarth.  Another time I was here in the rain, and, apart from my (late) friend Lindsay, there was no one else, just rushing brown waters.  Today the sun shines, there is less water, but there is space.  I relish the sound of water falling, the Ure driving down 30 metres in a kilometre, step by step, upper, middle and lower falls giving easy pleasure to visitors who, like me, have a little time and no reason to be elsewhere.....

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

Leisure

William Henry Davies

Now you may find this a leap too far, but Jimi Hendrix comes to my mind.  

Waterfall

Nothing can harm me at all

My worries seem so very small

With my waterfall

I can see

My rainbow calling me

Through the misty breeze

Of my waterfall

Some people say

Daydreaming's for all the

Lazy minded fools

With nothin' else to do

So let them laugh, laugh at me

So just as long as I have you

To see me through

I've got nothing to lose

Long as I have you

Waterfall

Don't ever change your ways

Fall with me for a million days

Oh, my waterfall

May This Be Love

Jimi Hendrix

1967

[Not necessarily Nobel winning poetry but when coloured by the Experience it becomes beautifully fluid:  https://youtu.be/T4MBwvZWOQE]

Onward.....

Whoops!  

Anyway.  One has to keep on keeping on....  So I walk amongst the fields and barns of upper Wensleydale from Askrigg (whose white towered church, dedicated to St Oswald, has stood there since 1180), and my thoughts are transfigured by the upland air, the folding shoulders of the hills and the confused pleasure of being alone in the world.

Then to Hardraw, to check in again with JMW Turner and review the highest single drop waterfall in England, though a little rain would add some force.... 

Then, heading north, but barely a crow's tone from where Amanda and I lived under Ingleborough way back when, up the Mallerstang Valley (England's last wilderness - David Bellamy) following the River Eden, where freight trains hark back to times of industrial power:

And Red Scar and Mallerstang Edge rise to the East, bare and craggy, like the lives of farmers (and their sheep) hereabouts:

Then, it's over the hills again. Through Teesdale, then up, skirting Warcop Fell training ground, where I am reminded, by the red flag, of the 1966 World Cup and the excitement of Geoff Hurst and extra time (watched by 32.3 million people) in the Warcop Camp NAAFI (not all in the NAAFI) before we were driven in a three-tonner (rehearsing Hymns Ancient and Modern - amongst other songs) up onto the high moors to bivvy amongst the coughing cattle.  

Like Roman soldiers....

But I find comfort in Stanhope, with kind friends David and Sarah, whose hospitality smoothes away the emptiness of the stony hills.  We walk by the Wear and watch a pair of Dippers bobbing and splashing and frolicking in mutual affection:

And then, high across the Derwent, low across the Tyne and here is Chesters, a cavalry fort known then as Cilurnum, dating from around 124 AD, home, at that time, to around 500 men and horses.  Details from then on are unclear, though we know that the 2nd Asturians occupied (and rebuilt) the barracks around 180 AD.

{It may be of interest at this point that Ambrose Bierce defined a Barrack (n) as: A house in which soldiers enjoy a portion of that of which it is their business to deprive others.}

Anyway, onwards and upwards, over another hill, and here we are above Housesteads Roman Fort, walking the wall that Emperor Hadrian designed (AD 122: 60 miles long, four metres high, garrisoned by some 10,000 soldiers) to stop Mexicans [Some mistake? Ed.] and fentanyl [Surely you mean Woad? Ed.] from being drug into the Empire by wayward Scots and others......

It is impressive. It is imperial.  It is imperative. It is rough. [It is ruined, Ed.]  It is long and cold and windy and very up and down along the Whin Sill (I know: I have walked at least half of it).....

And it is a wonder not only that it exists, but that, in a world without mobile phones, TV, laptops, air fryers and takeaway pizzas anyone survived in these draughty roofless, unplumbed hovels.....

Over the heather the wet wind blows,

I've lice in my tunic and a cold in my nose.

The rain comes pattering out of the sky,

I'm a Wall soldier, I don't know why.

Roman Wall Blues

W H Auden

And so, to flip back to my opening quotation, just think that at least some of these guys would have been wondering why the only Belladonna they could avail themselves of was bitterly poisonous.  They were a very long way from home.....

Still, it does give teachers the excuse to get out of the classroom......

{I know:  I've been there....}

I look up Wall in Bierce's Devil's Dictionary, but the only reference is to Wall Street, n: A symbol of sin for every devil to rebuke.  That Wall Street is a den of thieves is a belief that serves every unsuccessful thief in place of a hope in heaven.....

Well, it's apt I suppose.....  (I wonder whether the yellow infanta has read any of this?)

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall.....

Robert Frost

Mending Wall

Before I turn south I pass another stone building, seemingly part ancient castle, part pill box.  This is Crindledykes Limekiln, one of three hundred in Northumberland that were active in the nineteenth century.  Another reminder of things that are over the hill.....

It's cold and windy up here, and I begin my return to warmer climes, pausing at Corbridge to view yet more Roman remains, then through Slaley Forest, onto Blanchland Moor, idly thinking of Hamlet and Hitchcock, as one does, glad that I am not being chased by a crop duster.  I stop the car at the top of a rocky outcrop.... 

....and find myself leaning down through yellowing grass over the waxy orange cliff of President Trump's forehead, sculpted into the mass of Mount Crushmoor, and I grasp the outstretched hand of Eve Marie Saint, and, then I ......

.... find myself staying  with more old friends, the superb wildlife sculptor Simon Griffiths and Heather and family, in Castleside, County Durham.  How I got there I haven't a clue, nor can I say where Eve went, but that's partly the point of North by Northwest, (Cary Grant didn't know what was going on either, and Hitchcock liked that - and anyway it's my prerogative to make some things up.....)

I am but mad north-north-east....

But the truth is it was great to catch up with friends who put up with me, and to roam over the hills and far away in the north of this land.  

Thank you all.... Keep looking up.....

Simon Griffiths, Wildlife Sculptor

https://www.simongriffithssculpture.co.uk/

And thus, after another convivial overnight, I drive the long way back down into the Mezzogiorno, returning, like a faithful puffin to its burrow, like an Easter bunny scampering to its warren.....

[Just sign off, Ed.]

That high sound in the air

Is nothing but the draught in cold chimneys

Drawing taut the note of longing

As I listen northwards.

Lament

David Craig

 

Shadow Kingdoms

Leisure

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

I suppose I first became a carer when my children were born, though perhaps I always cared, in some ways, and, indeed, professionally.  I suppose I cared for my pupils when cycling up to the Valley of the Kings in 40 degrees with Elena Kimble on my cross bar (because she couldn’t ride a bike....) for example.....

 

So, I cared for my children, as one does, and I cared for my wife (who was caring for our children....) 

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

 

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

Then, everything went a bit quiet, as our children decided they preferred us not to care too much (so long as it wasn’t a financial consideration), until.....  My dad got ill, which, I find it difficult to credit, was some fifteen years ago now.  Being well organised, he showed me his filing cabinet, but said he couldn’t give me a date.... and so it goes.  He became ill, and was in and out of hospital. Being the geographically nearest of three sons it was natural that I would to and fro when I could, and take mum to see dad in hospital, or visit them both, or meet them somewhere if the going was good.  This is what one does.  I have no regrets – indeed, it was what I expected and partly, at least, why I moved and took work nearer to their home.

 

Then he died.  So, I did my best to sort out the arrangements, the finances, etc, and to look after mum.  Of course, I was not alone in this – don’t get me wrong – but I was there.

 

I visited mum as she coped - so well - with the bereavement; but dementia kicked in, gently, offside perhaps, and she was not able to manage.  So, she moved into care homes....  We sold the house, and, again, because I was there, I dealt with the business and we settled her down....

 

Or so we thought.

 

Nothing is for ever.  She had to change home – four times, I think, as they don’t all do what they say on the tin.  But she remained in our vicinity and I kept up the appearances.

 

Then, eventually, she folded her hand of cards, and was rowed across Lethe.  A serene passing, but not something my wife could understand, as she had already drifted into a form of dementia, the control of language wasting away, like a sandcastle washed by the tides.  As an anecdote, last Christmas, well over a year since we had cremated my mum, Amanda insisted on going to the care home on Christmas Day, only to find, not surprisingly, that we couldn’t get in because of Covid, but also, not surprisingly, because she wasn’t there....

 

And so I sorted out the death certs, and the banks and the probate and so on, and we moved on, finally, sort of, being released from Hertfordshire, and able to move to somewhere with enough space for a care plan for Amanda....

 

And here we are.  Amanda, my wife, not quite the wife I espoused, but then in a mirror world I guess she could question the pretence that I was the one she had selected all those years ago...  

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

 

And here we are.  

 

I care. 

 

And I care because that is what you do.... Till death do us part?  Who now remembers Else (Dandy Nichols)?  Who remembers Al Garnett?  And, inter ales, who might pick out of those memories any real affection or care in the relationship?  Silly old Moo!  

 

I think it was there.  Johnny Speight had a heart.

 

We all care, I hope, in our own ways.  Some have heavier crosses to bear, and some walk on water.

 

At sicksty-seven, Amanda is really quite well.  It’s just that her mind is plated up and the connections aren’t there anymore.  Chewing doesn’t always lead to swallowing.  Needing a wee, doesn’t always mean going to the toilet.  And so I - we - the whole team - are carers.  

 

Financially this is burdensome. We are currently spending around £2.5K a month to have other people attend to Amanda’s needs some 34 hours a week, though this does not quite mean we can abdicate all responsibility during those hours.  And then, there are still 134 hours a week when, while she may well be resting, she cannot be left alone.

 

Don’t get me wrong.  I am not lamenting.  Things could be far worse, and I know only too well that many others have been dealt a worse hand than me.  But, for those yet to experience the trials that may come with ageing and slow deterioration, here’s the picture.

 

You are pretty much on your own.  If you have a heart attack, or break a leg, or perhaps eat yourself into diabetes and kidney failure, the NHS (i.e. the tax payer) will pick up the bill.  For those whose misfortune is to lose their minds (i.e. to suffer from dementia) the responsibility remains with the next of kin, if there are any.

 

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

We have been fortunate.  And we are grateful.  We have received support from Queen Square in London and, since our move to Norfolk, from Chatterton House in King’s Lynn, but their resources are limited and stretched.  I cannot help but feel that behind these good people there is a government department energised in getting their agents to keep me alive to look after my wife, so the state doesn’t have to pick up the tab.

 

And in the meantime?  

 

Life goes on, all around.  We see disasters here and there on the TV.  We hear of Covid striking down able-bodied postman on our doorstep.  We live on.  We do our best to care, whether for our partners or our family, or for our friends who may have different problems....

 

I know this is selfish, and who cares?  But I now realise that my carefree life as a youth was a dream.  I had a full life of fun and extravagance and foolishness – and I enjoyed it.  Then I had children and learned to care.  And so it came about.....

And it hasn’t really changed much.  Dad.  Mum.  Amanda. Then girls still seeking true independence.  That seems to be what life is really all about. 

Care. 

 

Why should I question it?

 

Though....

 

 

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

Leisure

by

William Henry Davies

May you stay Forever Young.....