Morning Glories……

Morning Glories……             30 June 2011       10pm.

I am awake far too early this morning, at 3.49am.  When ‘Dog’ hears the slightest hint that I might be stirring, she’s bright and breezy and raring to go…..downstairs and breakfast. This sometimes poses a problem because achy joints, stiff from the night, don’t work in a hurry and I go down too slowly for her liking. She rushes ahead and barks to go out into the garden. I must quieten her before she wakes up the neighbourhood so I step outside with her and feel the cool air….delicious.

The sun is not up but the sky is lightening, a pale aquamarine; there are still a few faint stars, fading now.  Against the sky, the trees are silhouetted, leaves and fronds blackly outlined; it is a black and white world. Inula daisies, white foxgloves and tiny lobelia flowers show clearly against the dark bushes. The bats which live in the oak tree are flitting and swooping in circles and loops around the garden. Usually I only see them at dusk. A few birds call loudly to the coming day. I put the kettle on and go out again to look around; to see what’s new.

Today there are five buds on the Morning Glories, which climb the wall by the French windows, just opening for their one day of splendour; I grow them because I am reminded, by a Haiku poem, of the need for patient awareness: (in translation) ‘The Morning Glory has grown over the handle of my pail. I cannot draw water’. This year’s flowers are dark blue with a purple stripe and others, a shade of strawberry mauve pink. The ones I like the best are sky blue – little glimpses of heaven. Some years I count the flowers each day and write them on the calendar, to record their brief beauty. 

The sky is rosy pink now; the pale stars are gone. It’s too early for me; I go back to bed.  

Spiders dancing

Spiders dancing     28 June 2011      9.15pm.

Loud, very loud, claps of thunder almost overhead and bright flashes of lightning. Momentarily quite alarming. I think how apt the phrase is…‘like lightning out of a summer sky’. This came quite suddenly; it has been a beautiful couple of days, hot and sunny; this morning it’s still warm and bright. But ominous grey clouds bank up and thunder rumbles around.

I’m out shopping when the storm comes; the rain is fierce, noisy, vertical.  People laugh as they shelter in doorways and chatter excitedly, shaking droplets from their umbrellas. I look out into the street to see the rain splashing down so hard it jumps up again, and remember my tiny daughter’s poetic words, during a cloudburst, when she was very young. ‘Come and look, Mummy. It’s spiders dancing’. We gazed out of the kitchen window together into the small patio and watched, as indeed the ‘rain spiders’ danced on the paving stones.

This afternoon after the sudden downpour, the sunlight is brilliant, and as I drive past on my way home, the tarmac paths in the Park are glistening black. Steam is rising from them and the grass is unbelievably green. I want to be there.

‘Dog’ welcomes me back; we’ll go for a walk after I’ve put the food shopping away. When I’m ready and she’s got her collar and lead on, the storm returns almost immediately so we have to sit and wait. She looks at me questioningly at a couple of very loud thunderclaps; but I do not react and she settles again.

We go down to the Park in the car in case we have to shelter quickly; lots of boisterous dogs are there, enjoying their freedom in the fresh air; and the owners talk ‘weather talk’ to each other and shake their heads….. ‘what a summer we’re having’.

This evening I pick the last of the redcurrants before the rain spoils them. They are the most beautiful colour.

Four- leafed Clover

Four-leafed Clover               26 June 2011        9.20am.

‘Dog’ rushes, and I stroll into the Park just as a jogger running quite near, is on a collision course with us; luckily ‘Dog’ is delayed sniffing a friend, and I wait to cross the path until the runner has gone by. He gives a pleasant nod of acknowledgement. ‘Dog’ with a commanding bark, lets me know that she wants me to throw the ball – in the last few weeks, she hasn’t been allowed to run, or fetch or catch because of her lameness –  now I send the ball down towards the lime walk and off she goes. Yesterday I took photos there and as I waited for ‘Dog’ under the trees, I looked down vaguely at the grass and was delighted to see a four-leafed clover. Lucky. 

Today, apart from the ball and ‘launcher’, I have only my mobile phone and car keys with me. ‘Dog’ and I have just been to the unveiling of an olive tree as a memorial for a well-liked local man who died recently in sad circumstances; the mayor is present and lots of people pay their respects. Now back in the Park and free to roam, ‘Dog’ socialises with two black and white terriers while their owner and I exchange ‘my mischievous dog’ stories and indulgently watch them roll about and play.

Later, as we are making our way back to the cars, the runner now completing another circuit, thuds along and calls out ‘Has anyone lost their car keys?’ Confident, I put my hand into my pocket, my now empty pocket……the keys are mine!  I am most grateful. In the vast Park, with all that grass, he has found my keys even before I knew they were lost. How wonderful is that? Lucky.

Unter den Linden

Unter den Linden         23 June 2011       10.15pm.

This morning ‘Dog’ and I go to the Park between the showers; it’s quiet and damp again. The lime trees in the avenue are now in full flower; you can smell them and you can hear them, bees and bumblebees busy in the blossoms. The tiny flowers are pale creamy white, fringed, in little groups of twos and threes making a cluster, hanging down under the leaves. Before they open they are like tight little balls. In many parts of Europe, an infusion is made from them, known for its relaxing and calming effects; the French call it ‘tilleul’ and the Germans, ‘Lindenblutentee’.

For beekeepers, a lime tree nearby is a boon because the flowers are highly scented and rich in nectar. In recent years, many bee colonies have suffered catastrophic collapse; in some part due to Varroa mites and to the excessive use of nicotine-based pest controls. Bees can fly up to 55,000 miles in their short lives; but they travel only around 3 miles from their own hive; so it is no wonder we refer to them as ‘busy’. We all know that bees pollinate flowers – a process which is essential for food production; Einstein asserted that if ‘bees disappeared from the surface of the earth, mankind would have no more than four years to live. No more bees, no more pollination…’ Serious.

My father kept bees for many years; country wisdom has it that ‘Bees only stay for a good man’ as they are sensitive to vibrations and atmosphere!  When I was a child, I liked to see him don his white bee-keeping clothes and mysterious protective head gear when he made his inspections; he would put corrugated paper into the ‘bee smoker’ and light it so that it smoldered, puffing out smoke to calm the bees before he opened the hives. After my father retired, my elder son used to help him with moving the hives and in the autumn they would remove the gathered honey, spinning it out of the wax from rectangular frames placed fan-like in a cylindrical drum.  A proportion of the honey harvest is left to sustain the bees through the winter. Much as I love honey, I still regret the plunder.

This afternoon I walk with ‘Dog’ near our house and become aware of a light fragrance in the air. Honeysuckle? No. I look up; we are walking under lime trees that I haven’t noticed before.

Up on the Hills

Up on the Hills   22 June 2011          10am.

A little after eight o’clock, on mid-summer evening we walk on the hills; the sun is shining through a haze, the light is extraordinarily beautiful; the great headlands barely visible; the noisy wind swishes through the bleached seed heads of the grasses, moving them like long hair on an animal. The wind whips my hair too, across my face and into my eyes. It is cool, almost bracing. A few walkers wander nearby but it is not the weather for strolling, and impossible to talk. It is not a balmy mid-summer night, it is not Shakespeare and Puck making magic with a fairy queen; it is Stonehenge and wild incantations up here on the hills. Sheep graze steadily on, unconcerned, but  ‘Dog’ is excitable and skittish; maybe she senses powerful spells in the air.

Mid-Summer’s Day

Mid-Summer’s Day

My younger son and his partner are down for the weekend, and on both days in ‘sunny intervals’ – a phrase cherished by weather forecasters – we try to have lunch in the garden, dodging the raindrops and battling the wind; we wear warm jackets and laugh as we race back indoors when the rain comes, with trays and cushions, salads and drinks to resume the feast in more comfortable surroundings. On the second day we finally manage a game of croquet on the lawn and pick a few raspberries. ‘Dog’ has some brief walks but we don’t stay out for long; each time we look outside it seems to be raining. Inclement weather!

On Monday the Vet checks ‘Dog’ and decides she can resume normal walks so before going home we trot round the Park to celebrate and meet a few dog friends; after fifteen minutes it starts raining and we have to hurry back to the car. This has been a curious summer so far; harsh hostile winds and cold downpours in the South but drought warnings for farmers in the East. The hot days in April, a brilliant late Spring, are almost forgotten.

Today is the longest day of the year – Mid-Summer – the great summer solstice – the Pagan festival of Litha, a time of strong magic.  I am awake very early. A pearl grey dawn, birds singing loudly, throaty liquid music, little lyrical sopranos; I open my windows to be able to hear them more clearly. It is 4.15am. and fully light. ‘Dog’ visits the garden quickly and comes back inside, dew damp.

So on mid-summer’s morning I read in bed, a book which is a recent gift from a dear friend; ‘The Summer Book’ by Tove Jansson – Philip Pullman describes it as ‘a beautiful, wise novel and very funny’; it is.

On a remote island in the Gulf of Finland, over a period of many summers, an elderly grandmother has the company of her angry troubled little granddaughter whose mother has died. Together and alone, they wander the island, observing its most minute details and changes. On Mid-summer’s Eve they follow the mid-summer customs; the house is decorated with white flowers and green birch boughs; lamps are not used within the house on this day, but in the evening, huge bonfires are lit on islands in the archipelago, to signify the driving away of evil.

It is almost time for me to get up; I don’t want to waste a minute of this long day. Please may the clouds roll away and the sun shine warmly.

The Poppy Field

The Poppy Field   15 June 2011       9.15pm

Today I have bags of garden rubbish to take to the recycling centre, having cut down the dead lilac tree yesterday and cleared up the branches. It is a warm sunny afternoon so afterwards I sit in the garden drying my hair while I read a book. I recall the poetry of Kahlil Gibran: ‘Do not forget that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair’  in ‘The Prophet’. Whenever I can, I like to dry my hair outside; and reading in the sun feels like a holiday; restful after the morning’s exertions.

After the recycling, ‘Dog’ wanders in the Park. She’s still kept on the lead for her walks, protesting a bit; I had to carry her again on Monday coming back from an excursion round the neighbourhood. She seemed pathetically grateful when I bent to pick her up and I lurched home, tottering along with her; she was heavy.

Today I go out to lunch with an elderly lady to a restaurant where she has been previously; the staff are helpful and delightful with her. We both order a dish she has eaten there before; it’s a good decision; for dessert, she has ‘Posh Toffee’ icecream and laughs at her choice; I have fresh fruit salad with mangoes and strawberries. The restaurant is in an ancient manor house; there’s a wide stone archway at the entrance, logs for winter fires stacked against the wall; some of the old floors are uneven and there’s fine paneling in the dining room. The tiny stone and flint church by the village green dates back one thousand years. Rural history, then personal history.

She reminisces about a seaside town near here that she used to visit for holidays when her husband was alive, ‘My legs weren’t so troublesome then, dear’; her words drift away and she’s strolling along the promenade, watching the seagulls and sitting down with him waiting for the Band to start playing at three o‘clock; ‘We went there every afternoon, dear. Three o’clock. They played so well.’ She isn’t looking at the dining room or the other people; her pale eyes are gazing at the past; she’s far away. I wait, wondering what she can see. But soon she’s tucking into her lunch again.

On the way home we pass a field of poppies. It’s an amazing sight; swathes of red flowers far into the distance. In a nearby field there’s a flock of sheep and lambs grazing; they must have been shorn recently – not very well shorn and by someone in a great hurry; they look ragged and skinny; the lambs are nearly as big as their mothers.

Along the roadside are wild flowers; red campion and white campion; purple knapweed – like a thistle without the prickles; buttercups and wild mignonette; summer flowers. The hill road winds and dips, climbs and dips, and climbs again and suddenly…. here’s the sea.

But the weather isn’t settled and the morning sun gives way to drizzle and swirling drifts of rain. Bother. More damp walks with ‘Dog’.

Rough Ol’ Weather

Rough Ol’ Weather        12 June 2011            9.15pm

Mid June and it could be mid winter. It’s cold again, with beating rain and gusty squalls (up to force 7). When ‘Dog’ and I go out today, I wear tights, a woolen skirt, a jumper and a fleece with the hood up, like a delinquent, and hurry along with my head down, grumbling. ‘Dog’ seems pleased to go for a walk but is even more delighted to be back at home, being toweled dry and given a ‘Reward’ biscuit. Today we only venture out twice because the rain hasn’t stopped and it’s hard unfriendly rain. It’s the time of year now for the ‘Red Hat’ to be worn as the grasses are all spiky with seeds which get into the ears of Cocker Spaniels, causing pain and trouble; with the hat on, her head is the only part of her that isn’t soaking wet!

I am sitting in the study writing this, looking around at the piles of books and files and wondering about putting some of them back on the bookshelves if I can find space; a small spider is doing a high wire act between my desk and the window sill on an almost horizontal filament. How do they do that? I have been watching its progress across the divide. Housework, what housework? Outside the window, the trees are being beaten by the restless wind and the light is fading; I can hardly believe it’s nearly the longest day of the year. When I was younger we would play tennis in June until late in the evening. Not tonight.

The garden is tatty and battered; I had to bring the seedling trays back into the ‘Conservatory’ as the little winter pansy plants were drowning outside, in so much water, but the lawns that previously were brown and dry have turned green again, which is a bonus. The white flowers of the Philadelphus, the pale lemon Honeysuckle flowers and pink roses on the rose arch were scenting the air a few nights ago but sadly not in this weather.  Return bright sunshine, please. It’s Monday tomorrow and I will have washing to put in the garden.

Evening Journey

Evening Journey         11 June 2011            9.35am.

In the evening yesterday I went to see a friend in another town. Driving through the countryside on an early summer’s evening is a kind of heaven; the roadside verges are full of tall grasses and flowers; poppies, cow parsley, meadow sweet and ox-eye daisies; the hills are green and gold. 

In a field near a farmhouse, a Palomino mare with a beautiful blonde mane and a long blonde tail, is grazing; I feel a sense of identity with it, softly absorbing the evening. A large herd of cattle come down a slope all hurrying in the same direction; perhaps water has been turned on in the troughs, or feed is being brought into the field but with a single purpose they are all moving together; there are young stock – this year’s calves – and adult cows and a white bull with heavy shoulders and a massively impressive neck. In other fields there are rabbits everywhere, like little brown hummocks. I think of ‘Watership Down’ when I see them nibbling on the Downs in the evening, with the low sunlight filtering through the grass, making long shadows. Richard Adams invented the word ‘silflay’ for this feeding time; I like it. The sky is flecked with the wisps of high blown cirrus.

I arrive at the house, sheltered in a hollow with a lovely green park – older children are playing informal cricket; I unload bags of dry kindling for my friends who have an open fireplace, as we used to. When ‘Dog’ and I are out walking I often gather wood; they say old habits die hard and I am a country girl – not born – but bred; now regretfully, I have no need of the wood but I know people who can use it!  There are two new kittens at the house; charming, pretty; an apricot one and a tiger tabby one; they are so small, making delicate moves. ‘Dog’ of course, has not come with me for fear of her bouncing them like Tigger.

The house is calm and lovely, children abed, little animals wandering around; cooking and evening talk and music; friendship. Through the French windows is a courtyard garden with raised beds of herbs and vegetables; tarragon and chives; tomatoes and potatoes; beans and pak choi, beetroot and lettuce. It’s a green, productive space. This is a wonderful way for things to be.

On my way back I look for the herd of cows and the horse, but they have moved on, and anyway it’s getting too dim to see them.  As soon as I reach home ‘Dog’ must have her last outing of the day. It’s quite late as we emerge from the house; there are two foxes waiting for us in the garden tonight. ‘Dog’ barks sharply at them and one fox runs away, but the other – White Tip – plumps down on the lawn, tailed curled round her, and calmly watches as we walk past her down the drive. I wonder if she’ll still be there when we return. She isn’t, and I feel a strange pang of disappointment. 

Bedraggled

Bedraggled            6 June 2011         10.00 am.

Even on short walks, both of ‘Dog’s’ hind legs now seem weak and on two occasions she has just sat down and been unable to continue; I have had to carry her home.  She starts out with such enthusiasm which then peters out. Poor ‘Dog’; I’m quite worried about her.

The forecast promises rain so we set off early, on the first of our short walks around the neighbourhood. Today ‘Dog’ is walking well but we stick to the Vet’s instructions. The rain arrives while we are out, of course, and is surprisingly heavy. In a few minutes, we get quite wet and when we return, both of us are bedraggled; I dry her thoroughly but that ‘wet dog smell’ pervades the kitchen and my hair looks a fright; it’s lucky we didn’t meet anyone.

We need the rain; there hasn’t been any for days and the recent winds have dried the earth even more, it is parched. I can almost hear the garden drinking the rain; there’s a feeling of tension released. Birds are calling in the sweet damp air; the tall foxgloves glow palely against the dark foliage and raindrops lie on the leaves of the Alchemilla Mollis.