Branches - My Tree

 

We are like trees, doing our best to stand firm yet entwining our roots with others to make us stronger, though sometimes it can pull us down. We stretch our branches, reaching out, growing a sheltering canopy of leaves to conceal and protect. The sanctuary of a close family.

Searching my family tree became almost a full-time occupation in the early 2000s when I was coping with illness and recovering from surgery. The task kept me busy and distracted me from pending treatments. As I delved into genealogy websites I was able to piece things together and solve the mysteries inherited from my aunt. A large, dog-eared brown envelope was crammed with old paperwork giving me clues and a starting point. It wasn’t easy and not quick. Days became weeks spent on the trail of a particular surname which I didn’t recognise but understood it to be significant because it cropped up a lot in my aunt’s stuff. The penny dropped with a loud clunk when I eventually discovered where it slotted into my family. A ‘eureka’ moment, indeed, and there have been more, along with frustration but lots of fascination. My mission is far from complete. I still explore and try to keep on the track of whatever branches I’m following, though I admit it is easy to become diverted. With the help of someone, not a family member but connected to me by a marriage which took place more than a hundred years ago, I discovered that the groom turned out to be a scoundrel. For weeks I felt guilty by association, even though the person is not of my blood-line and it all happened long before I was born. I would like to visit the war graves of those I have found to be resting in Belgium and France, fallen at the Somme and Passchendaele.

It isn’t all about ancestry. There are plenty of current, live directions to follow. Sometimes, I feel like my closest branches weigh heavy with the burdens of everyday living and I hope for better times ahead for those concerned. The present situations cannot last forever. “This, too, shall pass.” Said a wise person.

I found this poem online at Poem Hunter. It’s by Pia Andersson.

My Tree

My tree will know it all
The tree of my childhood
With the endless branches
And the many whispers.

My tree remembers
The girl with the wind in her hair
The girl with the crazy laughter
The girl with the fear of living
The girl I used to be
Before.

In my tree
I can see the world
But no one can see me.

My tree remembers me
The girl I used to be,
Before.

                       Pia Andersson

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Beetroot

I was born in Blackpool, the youngest by nearly seven years, into a household of three adults and three siblings.  My maternal Grandmother Phyllis, by then in her seventies, was a stabilising influence at home when both my parents worked long, anti-social hours.

By the time I was four they had taken on a large pub in St Helen’s, a heaven-sent move for us children with space for all of us to grow and play, but a massive millstone for my mother, her health failing rapidly after the move. So we relocated again, this time to a newly built pub in Maghull, near the Aintree Racecourse.

My father missed having a garden, making the most of a greenhouse on the flat roof at the back, a few pots and hanging baskets.  I always knew that he wouldn’t settle.  His green fingers craved the earth.  We put down no roots and in 1969 we headed back towards Blackpool, to The Eagle and Child at Weeton: my First Encounter of the Countryside Kind. 

My youngest brother resisted.  He hated being in a village. “Wait until you see the place,” he protested, “blink and you’ll miss it!” I was in heaven. Acres of wild, unkempt gardens, massive trees and a gaggle of geese, nesting among nettles three feet high.  For an imaginative girl, it was Paradise Found with seven weeks of school holidays stretching ahead. 

That summer my father taught me about growing, shaping and loving the land.  He dug me in and grew my roots.  The early unsettled start filled me with wander-lust and I love change and travel, but when I need to be here, in one place, it is the ground that holds me steady.  I love growing things and am blessed with a large garden.  Soon after I moved in, I met a neighbour who helped to fill the void left after Dad died. 

Ian gives me gardening tips. I buy seed that he grows to small plants in his greenhouse and we share them.  “He know his onions”, as they say and over the years I have challenged him with new legumes, butternut squash, pak choi, yellow courgettes.  We have shared successes and failures.  Recently he was very ill and confided that our interest in growing stuff has kept him going. He has helped me stay rooted, even though there have been many times that I wanted to pack up and run away.

 

 

Beetroot

They make pink-speckled, healthy cake

Grated in, replacing refined sugar.

Potent anti-oxidants, eliminate free radicals.

I like them roasted, paired with squash,

Comfort as the days grow shorter.

I haven’t grown them in my own beds,

Ian brings them from his plot.

Digs into frost hardened sod

With his solitary arm,

Spade shaft against his shoulder.

Mulches in the cow muck pellets

And covers over seed. 

Every harvest he appears at my front door,

Face and hands scrubbed pink,

New shirt, hair brushed in place.

He smiles, “’ere y’ar lass”, holding out a plastic bag

Full of dark red, woody, fragrant orbs,

Freshly lifted from the swollen ground.

I take him round my garden,

Show my progress, share tea and chat,

Then I watch him hobble home,

Resigned to disappointment,

To await another harvest

And a consolation slice of beetroot cake. 

Thanks for reading. Adele V Robinson

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Forget silver bells ....

Happy New Year!!! Welcome to 2015 on the Dead Good Blog! I hope you had a wonderful Festive period.

Firstly, I would like to apologise for my absence for the last 2 weeks. I haven't been very well. And over Christmas to boot! How rude! Anyway .... I'M BAAAAAACK!

So, this weeks' topic is roots. As Sheilagh has already covered the vegetation variety, I thought I would take a different tack.

In late November / early December, it was pointed out to me by an unexpected source, that I seriously needed to colour my hair. It was all I could do to not let my jaw hit the floor. I think it probably affected me more because of that unexpected source, namely my Uncle Ian. Don't get me wrong, I knew that I had a few greys and it had crossed my mind, more than once in recent weeks, that I needed to do something about it. But .... come on! Really?! Taking a long hard look in the mirror once I had the first opportunity, I SAW what everyone else could already see. Oh dear. Oh deary, deary me. Humph!

 

Those silver lines ...

Amid lustrous brown locks,

silver strands taunt,

adding years to youth

before their time.

Softly shimmering

beneath natural light,

or glaring boldly

under man-made

incandescence,

they creep,

multiplying stealthily,

unnoticed ....

for a while.

I found my first at 24,

within moments

discovering others.

An unwanted

hereditary "hair"-loom.

So now they stand proud,

streaking brashly

across a fading

dark mop.

My New Years' Resolution

at the age of 39?

To colour my hair,

stay on top of the roots

and cling on to my youth 

as long as I can!

Now what will it be?

PURPLE or RED?

Well, in for a penny ...... !

Thanks for reading. ;-) x

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In a Stew

Winter has long been my favourite season of the year, bringing as it does, ideally, those cold, crisp, sunny days when it is a pleasure to walk in a healthy atmosphere, hot breath colliding with frosty air to form life-confirming puffs of steam. Winter also brings the enchantment of Christmas, cosy nights in, hatches batoned, cocoa, jumpers, scarves and gloves, sherry, port, football (hmm, maybe not this season), hot toddies, furry boot slippers. And root vegetables – lots of them.

Parsnips, carrots, swedes, turnips, Jerusalem artichokes, celeriac, beetroots, ginger, sweet potatoes – these gnarled and unlovely jewels of the earth add depth and nutrition to our winter diet. Parsnip soup, spiced with cumin, coriander, cardamon and ginger; a melting gratin of layered potatoes, onions, garlic and cream; Jerusalem artichokes sliced into a stew to add an interesting smokiness; beetroots roasted with onions, garlic, cinnamon, allspice, olive oil; buttery celeriac mash; carrots and swedes mashed together with butter and parsley; a simple casserole of all of the above, with herbs and vegetable stock, simmered low and long to bring out the sweetness of the roots; a mellow mixture of roughly cubed vegetables roasted slowly in olive oil, basil, oregano.

I’m romanticising, of course, for we can buy sanitised, scrubbed up versions of these vegetables all the year round at the supermarket. But I hark back to my years as an allotmenteer, when the roots grew in profusion ready for harvesting in the winter months. There was something right and proper about hauling them from the ground in the winter months, ugly and filthy with soil (them and me!), to lug them home for a good scrub and transformation into something delicious.

It is New Year’s Eve and a time when we look back reflectively, as well as forward optimistically. I am thinking today with sadness, affection and gratitude, of all the people who have shaped my life and are no longer with us – my roots, in other words. Our roots are what equip us to go forward in life and I will at least start the new year in a hopeful frame of mind. I wish you all a happy, creative, satisfying year ahead.

To end, here is a poem about vegetables that amused me.

There aren’t many words
To rhyme with ‘vegetable’
That aren’t either laughable
or barely acceptable.
But finding those most suitable
Is fast becoming pretty insurmountable
(and, to be honest, a tad cerebral)
A vegetable
Is honest and dependable
Verging on the comfortable
And incontestably respectable.
Presentable in most receptacles
Never indigestible
But with all the potential to be absolutely delectable.
Its a shame there aren’t any words
To rhyme with ‘vegetable’
As this poem could really be incredible!

V. Robinson

Thank you for reading,

Sheilagh

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