Friday 6th April

Up quite early (as usual) and down to Folkestone with my friend Julia, and the car loaded with dogs and enough luggage to keep us going for two months, and enough gadgets and little essentials to cover any and every possible contingency.  I do realise that they do actually have supermarche en France, and from my experience much better ones too, but as Julia explained – it is Easter, and France is a catholic country and everything closes on a Sunday, so don’t expect any shops or restaurants to be open on Goof Friday or Easter Monday.  We went by the shuttle, and I must say it felt quite strange, driving on to and through a train in your car.  We switched off the engine and relaxed and waited, and then the strangest sensation as you could feel a slight motion but the car was obviously stationary, only the slowly moving scenery gave away the fact that we were on our way.  In no time at all we were en-France, and driving down very fast very clean auto-routes, with lots of Aires on the way; sometimes these are full-blown motorway services, but more often than not just a very clean toilet and few picnic tables, a great convenience on a long trip, and one wonders why the idea hasn’t caught on back home. Money obviously, someone would have to pay for it.   Our first night is in the cathedral city of Chartres, we have just unpacked a few things in our hotel, and I am snatching a few minutes to write to you before we explore our temporary new home.

Thursday 5th April

I am heading off today for the Dordogne, and although I am taking my laptop with me I am not certain of internet access, so you may not be receiving blogs with the same regularity as you have come to expect for a few days.  Relief, relief, do I hear you shout?  And why not?  I have struggled dear reader to keep this blog going for about nine months, through good weather and bad, through colds and depression, through hectic busy days and bouts of lethargy too.  Many was the time I really had nothing to say, to you or to anyone, but a sense of duty, some vestige of the Victorian work ethic instilled in me all those years ago by Grandma forced me, even at eleven at night when my bed was crying out to me, to write you a few lines.  I will take my laptop with me, and will attempt to write something every day.  So bear with me, and though there may be some slight interruption, internet permitting you will get your daily dose of pessimism, sarcasm and prejudice, interspersed with a modicum of good sense, and maybe a hint of humour.

I am actually really looking forward to the holiday, I have felt so tired lately.  And this is a part of France I am quite unfamiliar with, with its’ Bastide towns and ancient history and the links with English kings in medieval times it should be quite interesting.  My first real holiday for about nine months too, so I think I deserve it.

Wednesday 4th April

One of the groups which Adrian used to play, seemingly ad-infinitum, was the Bonzo-Dog-Doo-Dah-Band, or Bonzo’s for short.  They attempted to inject humour into pop music, with scant success I might add, but Adrian thought they were really funny, so what do I know.  Anyway, digression again – there was one song which sticks in my mind because the refrain was that it didn’t matter who you voted for the Government always got in.  Slightly amusing I accept, but it masked a few serious points; that all political parties were much the same; that once elected no matter how they ridiculed the silly hats and wigs of the ruling elite as soon as they won power they couldn’t wait to try them on (witness the Lib-Dems who were going to be so different, but have ended up just the same); and most important that the establishment eats people and parties whole.  It has the marvelous ability to swallow up and ingest and accommodate the strangest of ideas and turn them into a rounded consensus.  And it isn’t just the civil service, but the whole panoply of advisors, lobby groups and business consultants and party officials and most important of all it would seem, the PR team who manage to massage the original message, the carrot that was dangled, the promises, the aspirations, the pledges even, into some sort of programme for government.  And here in Britain it is managed pretty seamlessly too.  Even the mighty Anthony Wedgwood Benn once succumbed to the charms of Whitehall and while in Government at least toned down his rhetoric to acceptable levels.  And right now we have a Government that bears little resemblance to the one that stood for election only a couple of years (but it seems like an age) ago.  Already they are almost unrecognizable not only from their aspirant selves but from Messrs Blair and Brown and Major who went before them.  So, you see, it is true – no matter who you vote for the Government always gets in.

Tuesday 3rd April

I was travelling back from Wales catching the 5.20 from Bridgend.  Don’t ask me what I was doing in Wales, too long  a story to retell here, suffice it to say that in the early evening I was on a train heading due East.  Contrary to my normal behaviour I hadn’t reserved a seat, and was slightly worried that I might have to stand.  A three hour train journey was daunting enough without having a guarantee of a seat.  Luckily I found one amongst the almost entirely reserved section, but it was facing the rear which I hate.  I do love to see where I am going; I also feel slightly travel sick travelling backwards, but a seat is a seat I reasoned and took it rather than scouring the whole train for a better one.  I had a music magazine and my trusty kindle, but neither really appealed to me.  I read for a while but was quite bored, besides the young man who took the seat next to me (I was fortunately by the window) had plugged in a laptop and was watching a BBC thriller on i-player ‘Inside Men’, which I had caught a bit of a few weeks ago.  He did have earphones so I wasn’t too distracted, but actually just seeing the flickering images without the sound was more annoying than if I could hear the words; how the deaf must be frustrated by trying to watch just moving pictures.  I was forced to half turn and stare out of the window and thank goodness I did.  The sun was hanging low in the sky, and just preparing to set. And facing West as the train hurtled East I was in the perfect position to watch as it made landfall and seemed to get larger and larger and a beautiful bright orange.  It started to dip below the tree-line, and then I had this wonderful optical illusion.  The sun being so far away stayed in exactly the same place, the furthest and now almost silhouetted trees, houses and occasional church steeple, slowly moved across its’ face, while in the middle distance trees and houses moved quite quickly and the bushes and small trees next to the train sped past in a blur.  So, all at once I was seeing four different images, the blur of foliage, the fast moving of middle distance, the slow stately sweep of the horizon, and fixed yet slowly sinking my old friend the sun.  I watched for a full hour until the sun had completely gone and the last vestiges of pink had faded to indigo too, and the night came on black and cold.  The best bit was when there was only a faint haze of pinky-orange in the sky and everything was in silhouette, with the orange globes of street lights skittering past.  Quite spectacular.

Monday 2nd April

And now for a fabulous three weeks, but three weeks only folks, we have the blooming of the blooming marvelous magnolia.  This quiet boring little tree that inhabits many a suburban garden quietly minding its own business for forty-nine weeks a year, growing slowly and steadily, but honestly – not that much to look at – suddenly about now, bursts into bloom.  And it always takes me by surprise and absolutely takes my breath away.  Because actually you aren’t looking for it, the tree is no innocuous that you forget about its’ once a year spectacular display.  Too busy admiring all the ground level plants, the crocuses and daffodils, the hyacinths and early primroses.  Then suddenly it is the turn of the trees, the apple and the cherry, in all shades of pink and white tiny flowers that seem to light up the neighbourhood.  But they are all put to shame by the magnificent magnolia.  And the flowers are huge, and on every branch and all pointing upwards to the sky, the buds burst open all on the same day to reveal large spikes of creamy white and pink and dainty yellow, then they swell out from the base, and all at once the petals open to exclaim hallelujah to the very heavens.  The tree is suddenly a riot of colour and each flower a perfect copy of its neighbour.  The symmetry is gorgeous; the whole tree is balanced like a great big birthday cake aflame with hundreds of candles.  It makes you stop and wonder at the perfection of nature.  The petals shine for a few days then they open up wider and wider until they droop under their own weight and in a day or two they are gone, momentarily carpeting the lawn with a blanket of pink and white and palest yellow.  Then it is over for another year; one of natures’ finest displays and the humble magnolia settles down for another year of obscurity, just another boring tree.   The colours are always startling, often the deepest of rose pink at the base and a clear white at the tips or an even gentle pink or warm yellowy white.  Which makes it such a surprise when you open a tin of magnolia paint to find the dullest of colours, a completely nondescript nothing of a colour, almost an apology for or an absence of any real colour.  Magnolia paint must be the most badly named paint in the world.

Sunday 1st April

Am I tempting fate with that statement, I hope not.  But if this is the last ever post on this web-site you will know it was a foolish statement to make.  But compared to everyone else I am actually never ill.  I worked for about fifteen years before Edward insisted I stop, and then I did charity work for many years after that.  In all that time I never had a single day off sick.  At school I always won the book-token prize for attendance, though this was probably down to Grandma and her “Now come on girl, buck yourself up.  Staying at home won’t make you better, let’s be having you.  Come on, you’ll be late for school if you don’t hurry up.”

Of course I get ill, I get a cold every year, but there is a difference between feeling a bit off colour, under the weather, and deciding that you are ill, because it is a decision that you take; to be ill.  At a certain point, either through physical pain or discomfort, or embarrassment, or concern that it may be something worse one decides to be ill, or at least to consult a doctor.  And some people actually love to be ill, they love the cosseting, the sympathy of others, the wallowing in self-pity that ensues from declaring that they are ill.    And why is it such a female trait to love discussing their ailments, in quite revolting detail too I am afraid.  I don’t think that men generally indulge in intimate discussions of the state of their penises as us women seem to love with relation to our genitalia.  I am so fed up of hearing about cystitis and thrush from my girlfriends that I always try to change the subject.  I really do not want to discuss with anyone my own bodily functions, thank you very much.  And maybe it is this natural reserve I have that stops me from deciding that I am ill; maybe it is inherited, my mother though often depressed was never physically ill, and though in her eighties now is still going strong; maybe it is that I walk everywhere, I gave up driving years ago, but maybe it is just luck.  Whatever the cause I simply am never really ill.

Saturday 31st March

It seems that there is a real dissatisfaction with politics at the moment.  People were seduced by the smoothness of Blair, and the reasonableness of Blair-Lite Cameron, and for a moment by the apparent breath of fresh air of Clegg, but like a lot of Chinese take-away food, none of it satisfies somehow.  In fact after you have eaten it, it leaves a cloying and irritating taste in your mouth, because try as you might you cannot get rid of it.  But it is even more than the characters, unsavoury and nondescript as they are, it is the whole political system.  Maybe we just need a politician to hold his or her hand up and say “You know, actually, we can do very little, all I can promise you is that we will try to manage events as best we can, we will not take bribes or try to be influenced too much by big business or the unions, and we will consult you if anything crops up that we haven’t talked about already.  I know that doesn’t sound much like a programme for Government, but honestly that is the best we can offer, anything else would be lies.”   And you know they would be crucified by the press and the commentators if they did.

But in all reality that is about all that under the current system anyone can do.  And even if we had a much better (perfect is too much to hope for) system of responsibility and real consultation and engagement with people the world is so interconnected that there ‘ain’t any real hope of substantial change anyway.  Companies would simple up and move their car production or their Insurance headquarters elsewhere if the public’s views were really acted upon. The reason that there is so much unhappiness with politics is not the lack of honesty, we quite expect our politicians to lie to us, it isn’t the lack of consultation, most people would soon tire of having to express an opinion about education or changes to the NHS; it is the knowledge that unless the whole world changes our politicians are at best simply tinkering around with a broken system.

Friday 30th March

They are at it everywhere you look; in fact you don’t even have to look.  It used to be just that annoying ring whenever you were on a bus or a train, and that irritating reply, “I’m on the bus.” – yes we know that, we can see you, and by the way do you actually realise that you are shouting and making an absolute exhibition of yourself.  Somehow the natural English fear of embarrassment seems to desert people whenever their mobile rings.  Then it was the absurd sight of people with earpieces apparently talking to themselves while on a hands free set.  The fixed stare into the middle distance and the animated face as if they are actually having a conversation with some invisible interlocutor, do they realise just how ridiculous they look, and yet totally oblivious of all around them, they are locked into the conversation of which we can only here one side, (thank goodness).  And then the lunch companions who insist on answering every Pavlovian summons; have they not heard of the silent button, but no, the phone must be obeyed, even mid-sentence, and with barely an apology either.  But now with the advent of all those Apps on these smartphones, which I refuse to be dragged down the conformist road towards, we have the sight of huddled pathetic phone fiddlers, stroking repeatedly the images across their tiny screens, or watching music videos or playing games or answering e-mails or texting or checking the news or the football scores or the traffic jams or the state of the tube or whatever other useless information the Apps industry can try to sell to people.  And they are everywhere, on every tube train, in cafes, when there is a slight lull in the conversation and even walking along the street.  And they are all locked in their own little isolated world, oblivious to any other human being on the planet.  So, wake up people please, and realise that there is a life away from your handsets, and please, please stop playing with your phones.

Thursday 29th March

What makes something like a stone, a mineral deposit, a rather large natural crystal either worth millions, or a few pounds or worthless?  Nothing; except our accepted ideas of what is beautiful or rare or desirable.  Years ago I read a story by Solzhenitsyn about prisoners being forced to walk about a thousand kilometers through the frozen tundra to one of the outposts of the Gulag.  The thing that struck me most was that the guards traded with the native Siberian peoples, half Eskimo I suppose they would be.  The guards swapped, or traded empty gallon tin cans for furs.  To the Western world empty cans are thrown away, disposable – as of course to these nomadic peoples the excess skins of animals they had captured and killed for food were.  In the West one of the most desirable items being a fur coat; just waste material for these people, and yet a tin can was invaluable for carrying water or other possessions in.  So the value we put on anything is completely arbitrary and not based on any intrinsic value the object may have.  So a lump of coal, unless we want to burn it is pretty useless, yet whole armies are funded by diamonds, as well as being one of the most desirable objects in our society.  But why is that, is it because diamonds are so hard, so indestructible (unless we burn them) or because they are so rare, or because they are beautiful.  They certainly are beautiful, although quite over-rated I think.  Personally I have always preferred those semi-precious stones like Turquoise or Amethyst or Jet or Amber (I know, not a stone at all).  They are usually much larger and less brilliant, but the colours are so lovely and look better against human flesh, which is the real test.  I also have a habit of beach-combing whenever I am near the sea, picking up some unusual but nicely coloured and smoothly ground stone from the beach.  And each one of these common pebbles is really as beautiful as any diamond that was obtained by sweat and toil in some African mine.

Adrian wrote me a poem – you can find it in Catherines Story :

Jet, Your obsidian net, Captured me right from the start.

Jade, Don’t ever fade, Or it would break my heart.

So precious or semi-precious or just a stone from the beach, they are all beautiful and equally valuable.

Wednesday 28th March

Now that the clocks have been forced forward in their relentless search for sunshine and the evenings are lighter earlier, the corollary is that the mornings are darker again.  Suddenly we are slung back into a touch of winter in the shape of darker mornings.  And you have to get up even earlier to really appreciate it.  Instead of my usual six-thirty to seven I have been rising at five forty-five.  This was a conscious decision, not a result of sleeplessness or some temporary insanity I can assure you – I wanted to see the sun rising again.  So I was up at that ungodly hour, which in old money was way before five even, and quickly dressing and foregoing my favourite and first tea of the day I was out of the door.  The temperature was not as cold as I had feared; the skies have been quite clear for days now, not a cloud to hide the blushes of the night, and I had expected it to be really cold, but although chilly it was remarkably mild.  And still – the very air seemed frozen, as if the wind had forgotten its duty to blow.  Hardly anyone was about at all, a couple of taxi’s still trawling the deserted streets and early morning delivery vans but no pedestrians at all.  In a moment I was in the park and here the light was just opening out, the sky a deep indigo brightening gently towards the land.  No birds were singing and no squirrels scampering as if a hush had come upon the land, I walked over to the lake, usually bustling with ducks, moorhen and a solitary swan, but here all was quiet too, the surface of the water an oily greeny-black, lurking and waiting for the sun.  The darkness was lifting quite quickly and soon the sky was a bright blue and the crescent moon just visible but the myriad stars were fast fading in the light of day.  There were too many trees to get a good view of the sun, but the light was perceptibly filling the sky and then there in-between the trees was the sun itself, large and bold and golden flickering through the branches.  Then I started to hear the birds start singing, a couple of dogs barking on their early morning walk, and the incessant hum of traffic resumed its background mumble.  Gone was the beautiful still of the morning; but for a few moments it had been so quiet that one could almost imagine the world itself had paused for a moment in its tracks, just a small hesitant pause, hardly a moment at all, before resuming its eons old journey through the day.