Winter . . . and Rupert Brooke

As I drove home from town this afternoon, along our narrow, winding familiar lane, I saw the countryside that town-dwellers might call "dull" or "sombre" or just plain boring. I know, from riding and walking the lanes of winter many a time, that the countryside is never that. I remarked a few weeks ago that the countryside had taken on a tweedy colouring - sparrow browns and greys and beiges, but this palette of winter hues has amongst it the citrus of the dieing ivy and hazel leaves, the deep maroon of the alder catkins, already dancing on the winter twigs, the ginger of the beech leaves spreading in layers across the field margins and hedgerows and leaning across the lilac-grey of the river. The shawls of moss on the tree trunks are dull and sodden with the constant rain, but then there is the flash of the shining holly, its deeply bottle-green leaves reflecting what little light there is as the day fades and the rain passes like smoke from a bonfire between you and the valley slopes. Looking closely, you will see the venerable lichens brightening the boughs with rosettes of eau-de-nil, and forming speckled grey colonies against the rain-sweapt stones of walls and fallen cottages. Add a Bullfinch or two and they appear in startling technicolour, with the Fuschia-coloured breasts and white rumps.

Last night, when I had laid down my x-stitch, I read some more of Rupert Brooke's poems from the little 25 pence book from the car boot sale. Like Dylan Thomas he seems to have been seduced by and drawn to the notion of death. I am reading and re-reading his poetry, and now trying to get a critique of some poems especially, in the hope of actually understanding them, and through that, understanding the man. His intellectual capacity makes mine look pitiful, but I hope I can get my head around some of his mindsets, his aesthetic understanding of the world and how he appeared in the eyes of his contemporaries, for he was another of the Georgian poets.

Seaside

Swiftly out from the friendly lilt of the band,
The crowd's good laughter, the loved eyes of men,
I am drawn nightward; I must turn again
Where, down beyond the low untrodden strand,
There curves and glimmers outward to the unknown
The old unquiet ocean. All the shade
Is rife with magic and movement. I stray alone
Here on the edge of silence, half afraid,

Waiting a sign. In the deep heart of me
The sullen waters swell towards the moon,
And all my tides set seaward.
From inland
Leaps a gay fragment of some mocking tune,
That tinkles and laughs and fades along the sand,
And dies between the seawall and the sea.

Rupert Brooke

C Henry Warren at Christmas

Amongst the many delights to be sampled in "A Cotswold Christmas" compiled by John Hudson, is this extract from C Henry Warren's book "A Cotswold Year". He moved to the Cotswolds in 1932, following a career in the army and then teaching. I shall divide this extract into two parts, the first of which deals with a Christmas bus journey:

December 23: A 'bus ride in a remote country district is always an adventure, but never quite so much an adventure as just before Christmas. I was out in the heart of the Cotswolds and wanted to get to Cirencester, a journey impossible by train and only possible by 'bus if I could make two awkward connections fit in. All told it was under fifteen miles, but I shouldn't have bumped into such a variety of people in ten times that distance on a train. At all times rural 'buses are rare provokers of good fellowship: no matter how disgruntled the passengers may when they get in, before they have gone far they have all been shaken up into such a mood of friendliness and good humour that they seem prepared to tell their neighbours almost anything about their most private lives. But on a day like this, when Christmas is in the air, good fellowship is even more than usually rampant. The first 'bus I got into had been decorated behind the driver's seat with a couple of mistletoe sprays lavish with berries. I suspected the young conductor, for no doubt he was a wit. At one stopping-place in a village a young lady got in, smart in a townish sort of way that somehow didn't fit the scene. The buzz of conversation immediately stopped, and everybody stared at her whilst she made her way to the only empty seat in the 'bus: it was just behind the driver and under the mistletoe. There was a suppressed giggle or two, and then the young conductor started whistling If You Were The Only Girl In the World, and winked knowingly at the rest of us. Everything was a joke to him. Even when one of his name-boards fell off the rack (where he had placed it none too securely) on to a passenger's head, he simply laughed and said: 'I'll let you off with a warning this time!'

The second bus was no less festive, though I missed the mistletoe and the gay young conductor. Near me at one time sat a friendly old man who was the very image of (the Prime Minister) Mr Baldwin. A woman got in, whom he knew. She had on her head what appeared to be a clergyman's flap hat. My neighbour greeted her loudly and cheerily with: 'Good morning! How's the arm?' She paused on her way to her seat, clutched at the nearest support and glared at him. 'It was the foot!' she said indignantly. And when she was seated she launched on a tale of broken bones and accidents and funny feelings and sal volatile that lasted until she got out at her destination. Two boys were having a fine time with a large electric bicycle lamp which they had just bought. It was so large and splendid that they simply couldn't resist flashing it on; so they shone it into one another's mouths to see how far down their throats they could see. Then there was a pale and serious clergyman who was being taken into the town by his wife to do some shopping. He was one of the shyest men I have ever seen, and obviously embarrassed to find himself jostled about with such a loud lot of people; but his wife was quite oblivious of them. She was very much concerned as to what money she ought to spend on almanacks and suchlike little gifts for the parishioners. Her husband tried to dismiss the matter as quite unimportant; he didn't like talking about such things in front of other people. I could see from his wife's insistent preoccupation, however, that a few pence more or less mattered a great deal. Theirs was the genteel poverty of those who have a reputation to keep up, and nothing to keep it up on. 'You haven't thrown away the tickets, have you?' she asked him presently, careful of everything by sheer force of habit. 'No, here they are, dear', he answered meekly, pulling them out of the palm of his dingy suede gloves. And for the remainder of the journey they were silent, unable to bridge the barrier between themselves and their fellow-passengers, the only silent people in the 'bus.


Many thanks to Bob Jagendorf over on Creative Commons who took this atmospheric photograph of a Cotswold lane.

Still Life of Cat in a pan with Socks . . .

The picture says it all really! Where Honey likes to sleep at night when the pan's still warm from sitting on the stove . . . and yes, that's where we put the smalls to dry . . .

Positively the LAST hat. This one's for a penpal.

Car booty from this morning. It was only £2 as damaged, but someone had loved it well enough to get a tinker to put some tin strapping around it so it could still be used. I'd do the same I think, it's lovely and will soon be hanging on a beam here.

A beautiful quality Ridgeway jug showing Tam-o-Shanter with the Witch grabbing his horse by the tail! HERE'S A LINK to the original poems by Robert Burns. You will all know a line from the poem I am sure: "But pleasures are like poppies spread, you seize the flower, its bloom is shed."


Close up of the Ridgeway stamp on the bottom, and the very precise date of 1st Octber 1835.

Well, I couldn't leave these behind could I? The first 4 I got for £1 - not each, they were just 25p each! and the little leather-covered gilt-edged-paged copy of Coleridge's Christabel and Other Poems was £2 and will be a stocking filler for eldest daughter, along with The Coming of Arthur.

A nod to Christmas

Now Christmas is looming large on the horizon, I thought I would start including little pieces of Christmas memories and lore from several books I have. A Hampshire Christmas compiled by Sara Tiller is on the desk in front of me, so the first extract will come from that . . .

CAROLLING by Norman Goodland

'Carols is funny things! They bain't all to do wi' Christmas! if you don't ring 'em out proper, they might now answer the dor, nor gie thee nar apence!

Foster Father was delivering his annual lecture to the Baughurst bell-ringers, of whom he was Captain. They practised in Foster Mother's scullery, on the handbells.

I remember them - big bewhiskered men, shirt sleeved and leather-belted, standing facing each other in a double row. Flashing up the brass bells. Checking the swing with broad thumb, to make them speak' in their clear, lucid tones. It was all taken very seriously. Standards were high; they had to be, to impress the gentry upon whom they called.

They walked from Baughurst to Wolverton, back through Ramsdell and Pamber End, and home through what was then known as the 'gypsy' village of Tadley, or made their way up to Heath End, aiming for the high spot of the season - Aldermaston Hall.

We had to watch they sarvint galls!' Father once told me. 'They was always up to mischief!

'We was invited up to the hall oncest. We 'ad to go in through the back, an' through the kitchens y'see. An' we left our 'ats in the kitchen along wi they gals.

'We went in and give a tune or two to the Master and the Mistress, and then as was there. They gie us a sovereign! They told us to go back to the kitchen and Cook would gie us a drink.

'So we done that. And when 'twas time to get on, they gals was round the door away from the light. An' they wouldn't gie us our 'ats until we give 'em a Christmas kiss.

'Waal - you never put yer 'at on inside a gentleman's 'ouse, luk. So we put 'em on outside in the dark - so we didn't see what was gwine on.

'Anyways. We went on down to the Hind's Head, t'other end o' the street. We went in, took off our 'ats - an' everybody started to laugh! We didn't know what to make on it! Til we looked at each other - an' we seed we all 'ad white 'air - like a bunch of old men!

' 'Twas they sarvint gals! They'd put flour in our 'ats - whiles we was a-carollin' for the Master!'

Father and his bell-ringers faced some competition from other Christmas and New Year rounders - the village bands of the time - The August Hill Drum and Fife Band. The Temperence Bands; ne from Tadley, one from Baughurst. But it is said at the end of their rounds, the Temperence Bands were not more temperate than Father and his bell-ringers, when they came to clanking up the garden path well after midnight, to collect their bicycles and wobble their ways home!

I have so enjoyed typing that up. As a Hampshire Hog myself, the Hampshire accent still speaks softly in my ears - it was a delight to hear it spoken in Ringwood this summer - and in Norman Goodland's voice. He broadcasted regularly on local radio and wrote several excellent books, made tapes of the same. A good man, sadly no longer with us. "A good old bwouy" indeed . . .

The Chair and other rag-tag bits . . .

I finally finished my husband's armchair this week, glueing on the gimp and sewing the last bit of cord in place on an arm. I never realized how good a match the material was for the carpet before . . .


Here's how it looked before I got started. The springs had completely collapsed, and the back dowels had broken, but OH soon fixed that. The springs had to be replaced and took quite a bit of wrestling to tie into position!



As you can see, Snowy wanted to help. Sadly, you can also see the cancer has returned to his ear.

Photo showing the broken back - OH put in long hefty screws to hold the back.


Here's another of the hats - this one for T's boyfriend.


. . . and a few photos which never made it first time round . . .


Flooding down at the Bishop's Pond, Abergwili.

This week's Apple Pie.

Finally, that Walking the Census photograph - the two ruined cottages out of sight in the undergrowth . . .

The longest night . . .

A finger of moonlight shivered across the floor, reflecting the imperfections in the thick window glazing. The fire was reduced to the last amber corner of a log. The Tawneys called to one another in the ash trees along the hedgerow and countless small animals scuttled for cover in the grass tussocks. He shifted in the bed, stretching out his legs and then quickly retracting them as they reached a cool boundary beyond the warm cocoon. He pulled the rough blanket closer to him, but lay, eyes wide open, staring at the moonlight, as the breeze stroked the willow tree close by, tigering the brightness.

He thought of her, laying in her own bed just the other side of the lane. The first silver threads highlighting the lock of hair which always fell across her brow. The warm glow of her cheeks. Her eyes echoing the smile on her lips when she saw him. She must know. She must realize that theirs was more than friendship.

He turned over, pulling the blanket close to his neck. Sleep had forsaken him. He judged the hour to be about 4 a.m. Market Day. He would make sure that they walked in together, offer to put her skeins of netting in the pannier on the donkey. They would have plenty of time for talking as they walked, kicking up dust as they walked towards the town, in the company of many another laden with goods to sell in return for the provisions they couldn't grow or buy.

The lilac tree by the back door began to screech as the breeze grew stronger and frolicked through its branches, pushing it against the house wall and rubbing its crossing branches together. It set his teeth on edge. He decided he would take a saw to it, the dratted thing. Then he remembered how much his wife had loved it, and picked stemfuls of the lilac flowers each May to decorate the room.

Suddenly he could smell onions - a netful which lay in a forgotten corner. A rotting onion was no ones' friend. He thought of the cawl that Mary made, fragrant with leek and with morsels of mutton floating on the surface amongst the sweet carrot and parsnip. His mouth began to water. Annoyed with himself, he flung back the blanket and dressed, forcing warm feet into boots still damp and stiffening from slipping into the stream the previous day. He lit the lamp and pulled out the last corner of bread and cut himself a piece of the sweating cheese under its domed dish. The bread was stale, but no matter, there would be fresh today as Mary had been baking. He found his hand crumbling morsels of it as he stared across the room, where the draught from the door lifted a corner of the Almanack on the dresser, warbling across the edges of the curling pages.

The sky began to lighten to the east as the first tentative trills of birds of the smallest kind began to sound, until a positive choir of birdsong reached a crescendo as the palest of lilac grey streaks heralded the dawn in the East. He pushed back his chair and, reaching for the lamp, limped out to catch the Ned, who watched him with deep suspicion as he approached with the halter, as being caught normally meant being worked in his mind. But he stood his ground and presently was standing in the little lean-to shack that doubled as an overflow wood shed in the winter.

Across the lane, Mary had been listening to the murmurings of the river as it fled past her kitchen. It was a comforting noise. In the summer it was her friend, but with autumn's rains, there began a worrying time as the waters rose and fell. The end of her little plot dipped down and was often flooded, but the cottage - so far - stayed above the flood waters, even though they threatened to join her on occasion. The little roadside window showed her that Will was up and about, as the soft light of his oil lamp lit his own window. She rubbed her hands, and straightened her back, wincing as the rheumatism complained. A good few lengths of netting she had made, and should fetch a good price this Market Day. She hoped to get some material for a summer dress. Her old Best Frock was looking sad now that it had been turned these three times and the print faded whichever side you looked at it. A new dress was a big investment of time for her, taking her away from the netting, but the extra hours of daylight were on her side - she could rise early and retire late. And you never knew when you might need a new Best Frock. No indeed . . .

PhD in Procrastination

This is Gypsy's take on procrastination. I really SHOULD go and look for a mouse . . . perhaps . . .

Yup, that's me. Procrastination with a Capital P. I have actually been better these past couple of weeks and taking myself by the scruff of the neck and MAKING myself do the jobs which need doing. The complete spring-clean-in-December and redecorating is going well. I reached the cleaning-the-windows stage today, and it promptly rained. The front hall got painted yesterday, and the dresser moved, all the china washed and put back, every spiders' web hoovered up and the curtains taken down so I could paint behind. I spent this afternoon writing out Christmas cards but oh dear, I seem to have fallen by the wayside this afternoon as I came up here to write out the abbreviated Christmas Letter! Sigh . . .