Time to Wear Gloves

Time to Wear Gloves           28 November 2012

 

Out we stagger to battle the wind and the rain bundled up in our raincoats and scarves, boots for wading through standing water or slip-sliding in the mud and mouldering leaves. The weather forecast confirms it – high winds and heavy rain, floods in many areas. Willow wears a warm fleecy coat and is the only enthusiast for these outings.

 

But in the formal gardens of one of the city’s parks – flagstone and brick paths between the geometric design of clipped yew hedges – there are winter delights. Suddenly and briefly, the skies have cleared. There’s a fragrance in the air from a long-established small tree, a variety named after the famous Bodnant gardens in North Wales, Viburnum Bodnantense ‘Dawn’ now in full flower, tiny pale pink clusters framed against a brilliant blue sky, colours so intense it seems like cherry blossom in Springtime. There’s something enchanting about shrubs that flower in winter; it’s somehow counter-intuitive; against all the odds.

Protected by a wall, a cascade of pale yellow stars of Winter Jasmine, and sprays of Cotoneaster berries like little red buttons. This autumn there’s been an abundance of berries usually warning of a hard winter to come. In a shaded corner are bushes of the tolerant ‘I will grow anywhere’ Snowberry, white puff balls on slender arching branches; in a sunny spot, dramatic bright red stems of Cornus. There’s so much to see. Under a silver birch tree, there are tiny pink cyclamen between heart-shaped leaves, beautifully marbled with silver.

Great clumps of bedraggled ornamental grasses are motionless, too drenched to move in the strong wind blowing off the sea. It’s a damp penetrating chill and my hands have got cold from clasping the dog’s lead. ‘Dogs Must Be Kept On A Lead’.

 

I’ll remember my gloves next time.

Bronze

Bronze            18 November 2012

 

Willow and I set off early for a slow damp walk round the Park this morning before I catch the train to London to visit an exhibition at the RA. Five thousand years of creative activity in bronze pieces from around the world.

 

Bronze is basically an alloy of copper and tin but when other metals are added – lead or zinc or phosphorus or when an acid is applied to the surface or weathering takes place – the surface colour and texture change. In its molten state it flows easily which is why it is such a suitable medium for sculpture. In one of the galleries, a video explains the ‘Lost Wax’ method of casting in bronze. Today the exhibition is not too busy so it’s possible to get close to the sculptures.

 

The most dramatic piece is displayed in lowered light, alone in the centre of the first gallery. You can walk all round it; view it from all sides; engage with it.  A Greek statue from the 4^th.century BCE, discovered in 1998 when the left leg was caught in the fishing nets of a trawler. A year later the fishermen returned to the area with a group of archaeologists who recovered the head and the torso of the damaged sculpture.

 

It is ‘Dancing Satyr’ and shows a great wildness in its implied movement, the arched body, head tilted back, hair flowing. We know it is a Satyr – ‘an intoxicated male companion of the god Pan’ – because it has pointed ears and a small hole in the lower back where its horse’s tail would have been. An incredibly vibrant work. If its arms still exist somewhere under the sea, they will surely be wide open to embrace Life.

 

The exhibition is full of treasures; from ancient Greece and Rome; from Egypt and West Africa; from Cambodia, India and Nepal; China and Japan. There are monumental public statues to celebrate State triumphs and pieces for private pleasure and decoration. Religious art, of course: Christian and Buddhist; a Hindu ‘Shiva, Lord of the Dance’ stamping on a devil.

 

Pared-down minimalist work: Brancusi, Hepworth and Epstein. There are animals – horses and savage lions; spotted twin leopards from Africa, somehow very modern; an endearing elephant like a child’s felt toy. A squat Chinese urn, ancient grey green, sits on its three stubby legs. A statue by Giacometti closely echoes an Etruscan exhibit of a tall votive figure –‘Evening Shadow’; 2nd. century BCE.

 

A long time ago – a very long time ago – I had a tiny bronze Etruscan statue of a horse. It stood on a piece of driftwood on our mantelpiece but sadly it ‘disappeared’. I miss it still; its angular simplicity; its determined stance, legs slightly splayed. I was a poor custodian; someone else loved it too much and spirited it away. I am in a reflective mood when I come out of the gallery into Piccadilly and take a bus to Oxford Circus but there isn’t time for introspection. On this short journey, I listen to a story of love and courage; the traffic moves slowly; the storyteller speaks rapidly – in a few moments I know almost everything.

 

The small elderly lady who sits down next to me immediately tells me she’s just been to a wonderful exhibition – Bronze. I murmur something and am about to elaborate but there’s no time. She loved the leopards. Was there a postcard of them? Swiftly she goes on to say how much she’s going to miss London after living here for 35 years – ‘ I’m from South Africa originally’ – with all the amazing things to see and do. She’s packing up her nice flat in Covent Garden and going to live in Cumbria. She’s following her heart – ‘at my age’ – 74 – ‘who would’ve thought it?  We get on so well. I ‘ve never laughed so much’.

 

Her new friend – ‘much younger’ – has an aged mother whom she cares for. ‘It could be a difficulty’. Her London friends tell her she is unwise to give up her pleasant life – ‘Cumbria!’ – she laughs at this and asks me what I think but hardly drawing breath she continues that she’s always been impetuous, even reckless. I ask if her birthday is in late March or early April. ‘28th. March and yours?’  ‘The 25^th.’ Now we both laugh as if we share a secret conspiracy; perhaps there are similarities. 

Life is a wild joyous Dance. 

 

 

Candlelit House

Candlelit House       13 November 2012

 

Today we decide to avoid the motorways and drive instead along B roads and through the lanes to visit a historic house that was the childhood home of an 18^th. Century military hero and became in 1917, the first house to be donated to the National Trust. There’s a chill drizzle falling but when we arrive fires are burning in the hearths and candles have been lit in the Drawing room. There are just a couple of other visitors on this damp November day.

 

In a large downstairs room an enthusiast – the word barely does him justice – from a local Battle Re-Enactment Society is togged out in the military uniform of the time, white breeches, a black tricorn hat and a red – a very splendidly red – coat with gold braid. With a naval chart of the St Lawrence River laid out on a long table he explains the minutiae of the Battle! He is knowledgeable and almost unstoppable as he shares his passion with us. He points out that the chart was drawn up and signed by James Cook – the very same Captain James Cook who later mapped the eastern seaboard of Australia and many other previously uncharted parts of the world.

 

There is also a musket with a steel barrel and flintlock and a wooden handle, a bayonet and several small but heavy musket balls, slightly bigger than marbles. In the battle to capture the city of Quebec, General Wolfe was hit by three such bullets and died of severe injuries on the Plains of Abraham. When I lift up the gun from the table, it seems massive and unwieldy. I feel uncomfortable and ill-at-ease handling a weapon and hold it out for someone else to take. 

 

The house has Tudor origins and a Georgian facade; some of the floors are uneven and slope slightly; the wide sturdy staircase is substantial, unadorned. The Drawing room on the first floor has fine wood panelling and polished furniture; porcelain bowls and gilt-framed portraits. It’s a room I could easily live in; quiet, intimate. I especially like the log fire.

Impressions: Personal memorabilia in a cabinet; a snuff box; a china box for pastilles to sweeten the breath; a button from a military uniform. Little domestic pastimes on a table; there’s a sewing kit with rings and crochet thread for making small buttons. On a desk, there are quill pens and ink made to a contemporary formula. I write my name, dipping the pen at almost every letter – writing is a slow laborious task; time-consuming and needing care; even the ink takes a long time to dry.

 

In a bedroom the four-poster bed has three thin mattresses; the first is filled with horsehair; the second with wool and the top one with feathers – rather comfortable when I try it out.

 

By the time we leave, the rain has cleared and there’s sunshine. The countryside is warmed with lovely afternoon light that scatters rays between tree trunks in the autumn woods, brightening leaves and bracken. Beech trees and larches are golden, egg yolk yellow, russet, ginger, auburn-tinted, amber; beautiful.

 

The road home crosses the Ashdown Forest; heather and gorse and groups of dark pines. To the north, the Weald, one of England’s most forested areas, spreads out behind us. There’s a wonderful fiery sunset and as evening approaches a lake of milk-white mist lies over the fields, feathering into the woods.

 

Enjoyable, interesting day.

 

 

 

 

 

November

November      6 November 2012  

 

I have been silent for more than three weeks, not knowing how Willow’s health will be, nor how to cope emotionally with her impending loss without being either mawkish or brusque but from time to time, I find myself wondering ‘How long?’  

 

In many ways over the past two years she has become my ‘little Muse’; she has given me a voice; an incentive to put my reactions and memories into words when we go out walking. Now this diagnosis, this new knowledge is like a preparation for Grief; feelings of sadness and a renewed awareness of my own mortality keep welling up even though I am trying to be optimistic and to enjoy the autumn as I usually do.  

 

On the morning of 5^th.November it is bright and cold; a good day to sweep leaves and to give the lawn its last cut before winter. The drive is littered with twigs after the weekend gales; we fill a bag with garden rubbish. It looks a lot neater now. Small ‘Dog’ rustles in the piles of crisp leaves and lies upside down, rubbing her back in them, grumbling with pleasure and waving her legs in the air like an upturned beetle trying to right itself. It’s warm in the sunshine but very chilly in the shade. 

 

During the evening when I let her out into the garden for a necessary (and supervised) sortie, she is not at all alarmed by the noise and barks defiantly at loud bangs and whistling rockets. The night sky, exquisitely decorated with chemical flowers, is sparklingly clear; a cold perfect night for fireworks. 

 

I’m awake very early the next morning and as I thought, there’s been a frost. The oak trees are holding on to most of their foliage but two gardens away, all leaves are stripped now from the storm beech; the brilliant planet Venus hangs in its branches. Winter is on its way.