Flowers - Bloomin' Lovely

The garden is looking sorry for itself. Chopped down for winter, the three intertwined buddleia are naked sticks protruding from the soil, shorter than the fence. They look dead, but I’m sure I haven’t killed them. I can’t say the same for the annoying bindweed that was wrapped tightly around more branches than I realised. It has disappeared for now. Springtime will see it re-emerge, ready to attack, and once again I’ll be fighting the losing battle of trying to keep it away. I’m considering training it on to some trellis somewhere at the side. It is an attractive plant, just damages other things. We’ll see. The buddleia didn’t flower very well and I didn’t see a single butterfly, though I was away for most of the summer.

I'm not a good gardener, home or away, but I make an effort and do my best. Bulbs are planted for spring. I look forward to daffodils, tulips, irises, grape hyacinths and something I’ve never heard of that looked very pretty on the box. I do this every autumn, full of enthusiasm, expecting to grow the best spring garden ever and the wonderful flowers will compensate for every ache and pain. Something is always lacking – green fingers – so, in all seasons I try to plant things that will flower nicely and look after themselves. A favourite is the Totally Tangerine geum. They come back stronger each year. There are two, in different flower beds. In bloom, one is more stunning than the other. The slightly weaker one was bought when I was feeling cross about someone connected to football and I think it shows, but it doesn’t matter now.

I love to have flowers in the house. Last week I was overwhelmed and delighted to be given beautiful roses including yellow ones for friendship from a lovely friend of many years. She didn’t know this, but things have been tough for me lately. The flowers, with their special significance, really helped to cheer me up.

I always have daffodils in remembrance of my father. When he passed away, his garden path was lines with an abundance of shades of yellow, cream and orange created by an amazing display of various daffodils. It’s nice to see them appear in my garden.

I hope I have success with poppies next year. They always look lovely, but can be so delicate that they don’t last very long.

I’ve chosen two poems,

Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth 1770-1850

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae 1872-1918

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Quartet - The Brontes

The story of Jane Eyre was my first introduction to the Bronte family.  Charlotte’s famous novel has been serialised on television many times, and I think this would be the 1963 adaptation starring Richard Leech and Ann Bell, shown on Sunday afternoons, as that fits in with my life and being age eight or nine at the time. I was spellbound. I cried when Jane’s school friend, Helen died. I was scared by Bertha, Mr Rochester’s wife and the house fire. My mother bought me the book and encouraged my interest in the Brontes. An interest which remains. I love my visits to Haworth Parsonage.

It isn’t only the novels and poetry that mean so much to me. I’m fascinated by the family and the tragedies they endured. The author Lynne Reid Banks tells their story very well in her books, ‘Dark Quartet’ and ‘Path to the Silent Country’. Writer Sally Wainwright’s drama, ‘To Walk Invisible’ is a written work of art and I believe is as close to the truth as it is possible to be. Branwell’s downfall, Emily’s impatience with him, Charlotte’s forthright dynamics in pushing for publication for all of them and Anne, gentle mannered and sweet natured; all of them incredibly talented in their pursuits.  It is so sad that they had such short lives and they have no descendants, unless it should come to pass that Branwell actually did father a child in Kendal c.1840. It might be a rumour based on his boasting and we may never know.

Poor Branwell, a troubled soul, poet and artist. His poems are melancholic and he painted himself out of the famous painting he did of himself with his sisters.  I don’t think he felt like he was living in the shadow of his sisters, as it has been suggested.  He was equally talented, but enjoyed being ‘a lad’ a lazy one, and pushing boundaries too far. It seems he was his own worst enemy in allowing distractions to prevent him from reaching his potential success.

This quartet was once a group of six siblings. Two elder sisters, Maria and Elizabeth died aged eleven and ten, around the same time as each other, of consumption, when Charlotte was nine. Imagine, had they lived, what they might have written.

Patrick Branwell Bronte

Poet and artist, your fallen talents go to waste
And are trapped within the torment of your mind.
Forbidden love, so heavenly to taste
Now haunts and disturbs; no beauty left to find.
The call of temptation and no wish to be chaste,
But to be drunk on the perfume of bodies entwined.
Oh Branwell! Your vision clouded by opium and gin
And the burdening weight of adulterous sin…

Pamela Winning 2010

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Finding Ambition

At some point during 1996, I saw a news article about the Newbury bypass protests: pictures of houses built in the trees, home-made tents on the ground and banners asking for protection rather than the destruction of more than 10,000 mature trees. I told my parents that this is what I wanted to do when I was older...

I never managed to make the ambition of my twelve-year-old self a reality. By the time I got older, the certainty and confidence of youth had been washed away and I found myself within a place of no ambition...

But things change, people grow, and ambition is certainly not singular.

Over the last few years, I have reconnected with my ambition, compiling a mental list of things I’d like to eventually do: learn Latin, take a photography course, travel, own a small vegan coffee shop selling delicious vegan treats, write great poetry. They are things that will never bring a great deal of wealth, but is not my ambition to be wealthy. Yes, it would be nice to be comfortable, but if I were driven by money then I probably wouldn't have ever wanted to be a poet...

As Robert Graves once said: There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money, either.

Perhaps some are surprised that (in terms of poetry) my ambition is to write great poems rather than achieve publication. But in a world of internet, ebooks and social network sites publication isn’t an affirmation of quality or greatness... Yes, to have a pamphlet / collection of my poetry published would be wonderful, but to be able to write great poetry would – in my eyes, at least – be a far greater achievement...

Maybe it is an unachievable ambition – but it is one I’ll follow, despite its lack of guarantees. 

Thank you for reading,

Lara

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