Dashboard

 

It is many years since I crashed my four or five year old face into the shiny dashboard of my father’s Jaguar Mk 2, I think it was. Cars, particularly Jaguars were Dad’s passion at that time and I was still in my ‘Go faster, Daddy!’ phase. No speed limit, no seat belts, and no fear, until he had to slam the brakes on that day. A bumped head, with a growing lump, loud crying from me and worries about ‘What will Mummy say?’ from him as he consoled me. He wasn’t driving fast at that moment. Something happened and he had to brake. It was before I started wearing glasses, luckily. We lived in Lancaster at the time and Sunday afternoons when our pubs closed between 2pm and 7pm, were family gathering times. Our family of licensees across Lancaster and Morecambe, regularly went out for a countryside picnic in a convoy to Crook O’ Lune, Caton or Hornby. Someone’s car would break down on the way home and all the men would be under the bonnet with calls of ‘Try it now!’ and ‘What’s on the dash?’

I took no notice of the dials and switches on the dashboard. All I knew was that some lit up and others didn’t, and there was a button to press to start the engine. It didn’t always work. Sometimes it made a slow, groaning sound and nothing happened until Dad, with much muttering, fixed it.

The dashboard started to make sense when I began driving and learnt basic car care from my dad. My first car was my beloved Austin A40. It was a gift from my dad and after the initial disappointment, which I kept to myself, I loved it to bits. I’d hoped for something more appealing, like a Mini, or a bright green Ford Capri. An Austin A40 didn’t offer much wow factor to a trendy seventeen year old. It was clean and tidy, had low mileage and was very reliable. The plastic dashboard had minimal things on it, very basic, but it had everything I needed.

Dad liked to tinker about with his cars. He wouldn’t get much joy these days with sealed units and computerised dashboards. Our car has all manner of things monitored. It tells us if a tyre has incorrect pressure. Dad would have relied on his eyes and checked them every week with the oil and water.

Dashboards have their place on everything, not just motor vehicles. Computers, mobile phones and household appliances. We had the misfortune to have two items reach the end of their useful lives within a week or two, and around Christmas when they are most needed. Our tumble dryer, after serving us well every winter for twenty-eight years, squeaked for the last time, then the twenty year old dishwasher released a puff of electrical smoke. Both have been replaced recently but what a search to find something suitable. I don’t want anything complicated, just something to do the job, and I don’t need anything connected to a phone app, though the new dryer has that facility, should I change my mind. Both appliances, nice and efficient, I must say, require ‘programming’ to turn them on, by going through the dashboard and clicking this and that. I’m used to simple things that turn on and off. I could choose how many minutes I wanted my old dryer to tumble. Now I have to program the new one, depending on fabric care and hope for the best. 

My Haiku,

The makers include
Instructions and warning lights
On everything now.

So complicated
With far too many features.
I prefer simple.

I don’t need an app,
Just ‘off and on, stop and go’
Suits me perfectly.

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Optical

I was on my way to the newsagent the other day and suddenly realised everywhere was a bit discombobulated. I’d put on my reading glasses by mistake. A handy reminder for how people coped before glasses were invented.

The understanding of how early humans addressed vision problems is limited. However, archaeological evidence suggests a reliance on strong eyesight for survival. Activities like hunting, gathering, and crafting required good visual acuity. People with limited vision likely played different roles within their communities, focusing on tasks that didn't demand sharp vision. They relied heavily on their other senses, particularly touch, hearing, and smell, to compensate for blurry sight.

Girl wearing glasses

Oral traditions played a vital role in these communities, with knowledge, history, and stories being passed down through generations by word of mouth. This reliance on auditory learning and memory skills allowed those with poor vision to contribute significantly to their communities and preserve their cultures.

The earliest recorded attempts to improve vision date back to ancient civilizations. From Egypt to China, our ancestors embarked on quests to overcome the challenges of impaired sight. Here's a glimpse into the earliest recorded attempts to improve vision:

Egyptians: The Egyptians used simple magnification techniques. They filled vessels with water to magnify small text or objects, taking advantage of the water's refractive properties.

Water as a magnifier

Romans and Greeks: The Romans and Greeks experimented with polished gemstones or beryl, using them as magnifying glasses to read texts and inspect objects more closely.

Indians: In India, texts from the 5th century BCE discuss the use of crystal lenses to magnify small objects, indicating an early understanding of the principles behind magnification. However, these were not corrective lenses for vision impairments but rather tools for detailed work or study.

Chinese: The early Chinese invention of eyeglasses, crafted with frames made from horn or tortoiseshell, represents another significant milestone in the history of vision aids. These early eyeglasses, appeared several centuries before their adoption in Europe.

All of the above deserve an article on their own and the information was from Urban Optiks.

A Reading Stone

The Middle Ages in Europe marked a period of significant experimentation and discovery in the realm of vision correction. Monks, who spent hours transcribing texts, were among the first to use primitive reading stones—a type of magnifying glass made from a transparent sphere. These stones, placed directly on the reading material, allowed for enlargement of letters.

It is generally accepted that the invention of glasses, understood as the first pair of corrective spectacles was created in Italy sometime between 1268 and 1300, but the exact date is disputed. These were essentially two magnifying glasses (reading stones) joined by a hinge that rested on the bridge of the nose.

But soon spectacle-making guilds in the 13th century in cities like Venice, were instrumental in refining the designs and production techniques of eyeglasses. Their efforts led to improvements in the quality and durability of glasses, making them more practical and accessible. The guilds also played a role in standardizing the production of lenses and frames, contributing to the spread of eyeglasses across Europe.

First painting showing glasses, by Tomaso da Modena

As for this week’s poem I had immediately thought of the lines below when I saw the topic. But I had thought that they were part of a longer one but it is in fact just this. But it is DP. And it’s completely untrue:

Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses.

Dorothy Parker, Not So Deep as a Well (1937), "News Item"

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Canals Of Mars

Faced with  a familiar problem, having written both blogs and poems about  canals  before, I figured my only recourse this week was to seek inspiration from the red planet.

Of course everybody nowadays, even flat-earthers, knows that there aren't canals on Mars. However, back in the nineteenth century, before the advent of photography, astronomers peering through their telescopes at Mars thought they identified what appeared to be a pattern of large linear features on the surface. Angelo Secchi, an Italian priest and amateur astronomer, was the first to apply the term 'canali ' (channels or gullies) in 1858. 

Some twenty years later in 1877 Giovanni Shiaparelli, another Italian but an astronomer by calling, produced the first map of what he perceived these 'canali ' to be. Of course the English-speaking world decided (mistakenly) to interpret the word as canal and it became a popular misconception that there was water on Mars. In 1894 the American astronomer Percival Lowell proposed the theory that this water came from seasonal melting of the planet's polar ice-caps and that it flowed through an elaborate system of irrigation waterways that could only be the construct of some advanced civilisation. He even created a super-real image of the canals of Mars (see below) which was widely published in newspapers and periodicals and the idea of intelligent, engineering Martians captured the public's imagination.

Mars as "imagined" by Percival Lowell

Following his initial pronouncement, Lowell wrote a series of books: 'Mars ' (1895), 'Mars And Its Canals ' (1905) and 'Mars As The Abode Of Life ' (1908). Schiaparelli for his part thought that Lowell's depiction of the 'canali ' of Mars was over-elaborated compared to his own original observation and charts (see below). He was also sceptical of the American's deductions and contended that the leap from what appeared to be a few channels or gullies to a full-blown hypothesis that they were man-made and carried water was just too fanciful. Good for Schiaparelli.

Mars as originally "mapped" by Schiaparelli

He was soon to be proved correct, when in 1909 more powerful telescopes were brought into play which not only saw no canals on Mars but were also able to photograph what they observed, so that the facts of the matter no longer relied upon eyewitness testimony. And by the time of WWI huge advances had been made in the science of spectroscopy which seemed to prove beyond doubt that there was no water vapour present in the atmosphere of the red planet. Canal theory debunked and case closed, you might have thought. 

Yes and no, for although most astronomers and scientists soon accepted that photographic evidence and spectroscopic analysis indicated neither water nor canals on Mars (Lowell and a few conspiracy theorists begged to differ), the popular imagination had been so fired up that novelists were reluctant to let such an intriguing idea go. Edgar Rice Burroughs (of 'Tarzan ' fame) led the way, featuring Martian irrigation waterways in his 1912 fiction 'A Princess Of Mars ' and its sequels. John Wyndham gave credence to those canals in 'Planet Plane ' in 1936  as did C.S. Lewis in his 1938 novel 'Out Of The Silent Planet ', and a host of less literary pulp sci-fi did the same. In fact fascination continued after WWII when Robert Heinlein's 'Red Planet ' of 1949 featured skating on frozen canals, and free-flowing canals were part of the landscape of Ray Bradbury's 'Martian Chronicles ' the following year.

Mars as photographed by NASA

It was only when the first space probes flew to Mars and sent back images and data that the concept of some sort of channels began to gain credence again in the scientific world but these were small formations, suggestive of dried up rivers (above) that had not been visible except from up close. So now the theory is that there may have been free flowing water on Mars at one time (or some other liquid element) but it has all evaporated aeons ago.

The conclusion has to be that our nearest planetary neighbour is probably as dead as it is red.... unless of course everyone is living deep underground in some fantastic hermetically sealed and self-sustaining paradise. 😉 

Given the events of the last seven days in the Middle East, excuse this latest poem for not being on theme. Its title fittingly quotes from John Milton's dramatic poem 'Samson Agonistes ' and it was prompted by one of many harrowing news reports filtering out of the beleaguered Palestinian city, this about the plight of blind children.

Eyeless In Gaza

I beseech the sky for peace please.

Even the squalid and fragile quiet

 

that has become this shadow life 

since terror last visited and white

 

phosphorus burned out my sight.

As death rains down again on the

wretched  enclave we call  home I

tremble once more, surrounded on

all sides by sounds of fear, of pain 

and  destruction, the tortured cries 

of agony and anger. We are helpless 

innocents in all this warring madness,

deprived of land, liberty, opportunity

while our oppressors enjoy milk and

 

honey. So many in our overcrowded

hell hole are just damaged children

and we suffer, the little children, how

we suffer...

Thanks for reading,  S ;-)

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Insomnia - Goodnight

According to my husband who is the only person to know this, I am fast asleep as soon as I’ve wished him goodnight. If only I could stay that way until morning. About an hour later, I’m awake, needing the bathroom and this is the pattern through the night, every night. Most times I’m immediately off to sleep again, sometimes not. The nights of waiting for everyone to be home before I can settle properly are long gone, thank goodness.

It doesn’t take much to spook me. Our neighbourhood is quiet, so the slightest sound outside puts me on full alert and I lie still, listening, worrying about someone on the prowl, tampering with doors and cars. I dare to peep but I can’t focus straight away and I’m scared of being noticed, if there is anyone. I’m on another visit to the bathroom.

I wonder if I heard a noise downstairs, or if the toilet flush just sounded like it was something. I rush back to the safety of the bedroom before anything looms out of the darkness. Sirens, there’s always bloody sirens, even at silly o’clock. I’d love to know what’s going on, or maybe it is better that I don’t. I’m safe and cosy under the duvet.

I’m falling from a great height. There’s a loud bang before I hit the bottom of wherever I was going to land. I don’t know if it was a real bang or if I was dreaming. I’m awake again, but paralysed, listening to silence. It sounded like a car crash. If I’m meant to know, I’ll find out. Stay still, stay safe. Go back to sleep.

Disturbed again. This time my coughing wakes me up. I’m coughing due to acid reflux. And coughing makes me need the bathroom again. I sip some water and sit up in bed for a few minutes playing Tetris or Block Puzzle on my phone. I can settle again now that the coughing has stopped.

Insomnia, maybe it is, or maybe not. Night after night is like this. I don’t fit into any recognised category except having a sensitive bladder, a result of surgery. I’m not aware of stress or anxiety. When morning comes I’m dead to the world, in a deep sleep which probably started around four a.m.

Here’s Philip Larkin,

How to Sleep

Child in the womb,
Or saint on a tomb –
Which way shall I lie
To fall asleep?
The keen moon stares
From the back of the sky,
The clouds are all home
Like driven sheep.

Bright drops of time,
One and two chime,
I turn and lie straight
With folded hands;
Convent-child, Pope,
They chose this state,
And their minds are wiped calm
As sea-levelled sands.

So my thoughts are:
But sleep stays as far,
Till I crouch on one side
Like a foetus again –
For sleeping, like death,
Must be won without pride,
With a nod from nature,
With a lack of strain,
And a loss of stature.

           Philip Larkin, 1922 - 1985

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Heatwave - Staying Cool!

 

We spend the chilly, dreary, dark days of winter hoping we get a decent summer, and then when it comes it can be too much. Luckily, here in the North West, the temperature touched about 32 degrees centigrade, which I think is slightly more comfortable than the hotter southern areas. Small mercies. Is it safe to say the heatwave has gone yet? I’m fine with the warm 22 degrees today offers, along with a fresh, gentle breeze. I’d had enough of feeling sticky and having streams of perspiration running down my back. Anyone wearing glasses may relate to the annoyance of them sliding down their nose, frames sticking to their cheeks and being a thorough nuisance. I would take mine off except that I can’t see a thing without them.

The garden has had it for this season. Vibrant colour of vital blooms looks parched and neglected for all my efforts of conserving water from the kitchen to use outside. Being away for two separate holidays with only one week at home in between is the cause of ruin. Normally we might expect two days of sunshine to be counter-balanced with three days of constant rain. Not this time, no rain for ages and what came wasn’t enough to stop the damage. Within the next few days I will attempt to tidy out the dead stuff and make an effort for autumn and spring. I can live with whatever happens in my small garden. I feel sad for the farmers who are trying to make a living. Some counties have declared a drought. Not us, though, yet.

I think I was the only person carrying a cardigan into Bloomfield Road football stadium at the last home match. It was an incredibly hot day and I was in shorts, sandals and my team shirt, but we sit in the shady and cool west stand so I anticipated shivering. Shady it was, as always, but cool, certainly not. It was roasting, not a breath of air. Away fans in the sunny rows of the east stand must have been melting.

The heatwave of 1976 was widely mentioned in the media as a comparison. I remember the warm sunshine day after day, seemingly forever and walking up and down Blackpool promenade in platform sandals, flared jeans and cheesecloth shirt knotted at the midriff. Oh I was at the height of fashion in those halcyon times.

With global warming, summer heatwaves are to be expected. It is up to all of us to do what we can to lessen the effect, and to look after ourselves and each other when the temperature rises beyond comfortable.

I found this on PoemHunter.com,

A Wail of the Heat Wave

The usual thing it used to be
Our summers to decry,
Because they were too wet, you see,—
We longed to have them dry.
But now for months, from morn till night,
We've basked in Sol's bright rays ;
Yet few you'll find who show delight,
Or speak in terms of praise
Of these aggravating, irritating,
Half-cremating, wrath-creating,
Mercury-raising, semi-blazing, scorching summer days.

One feels much like a jelly-fish,
Or limpet washed ashore ;
If this is getting what we wish,
We'll crave for it no more.
Each man you meet reviles the heat
In none-too-classic phrase ;
To be polite, one cannot write
Exactly what he says
Of these hot, oppressive, fierce, aggressive,
Sweat-producing, fat-reducing,
Liquid-yearning, throttle-burning, parching summer days.

O, for a trip to either pole,
With Peary, or with Scott!
Where icebergs rear their white forms tall,
And heat waves trouble not.
A month or so 'mid Arctic snow
Our drooping hearts would raise ;
And soften down the angry frown
Which everyone displays
These roasting, boiling, toasting, broiling,
Record-breaking, sweltering, baking,
Ultra-torrid, beastly horrid, melting summer days.

William Baron,   October, 2010

Thanks for reading. Stay cool. Pam,x

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Journey - My Epic Travels

We are all on our journey of life. We may visit many places, some planned, some unexpected, taking the good with the bad because that’s how it has to be. We may stay put, allow our imagination to take us travelling and pretend we can survive at the bottom of the ocean cocooned in a submarine, safe from Covid 19. I’m not sure if that’s a dream or a nightmare.

Lockdown again, I’m isolating again and my planned trip to Dumfries & Galloway later this month has been rearranged for springtime. I’ll miss the pre-Christmas break which includes a special dinner in Kirkcudbright for my birthday, and the Christmas gift shopping which I like to do there. Meanwhile, as safe as I can be at home, I’ll look forward to next year, optimistic for better times ahead and maybe make the long journey to Orkney.

When our children were little, we had wonderful family holidays in Pembrokeshire. It took all day to get to our destination and the journey could be made tedious by excited kids driving each other mad.

“Will you tell her? She’s nipping me!”

“Mum, he’s put spit on my leg!”

And much wailing. This would be happening before we left the M55. Threats to return home might shut them up for a while.  We would leave the M6 at North Wales and take the scenic route to our first stop at Bala. There’s a lovely playground where we would have our picnic lunch and the children would have fun playing nicely together. Back on our way and they would hate each other again. Sometimes I would swap with the eldest and put him in the front. The youngest would not be nipping me. The long drive was worth it. We would stay two weeks and a bit more, and enjoy a great time.

Holidays when I was a child, were usually spent staying with seldom seen relatives. My aunt and uncle on my father’s side lived in London and other places in the south of England. The journey to get there would be epic and it was always night time when we arrived. Three things were likely to happen to make us late. Top of the list, somewhere in the midlands I would get travel sick. This definitely, always happened and my seaside bucket would miraculously appear. It didn’t make me feel better, but hopefully, the use of it would protect the leather upholstery of Dad’s Mark 2 Jaguar, or whichever model he had at the time.  We would become lost. These journeys were in the days before the motorways linked up, so we would be south, somewhere, following a map and some instructions of which way to go after we’d run out of M6 or M1. I seem to remember this happening around Banbury. My mother, attempting to keep spirits up and sickness down would have me and my sister singing ‘Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross’ and to look for the statue. I don’t think we ever saw it. Eventually, after my dad had opened the window to ask friendly pedestrians for directions, we would be doing a ‘U’ turn and getting back on our way. Then the car would break down. A cloud of steam would rise from the open bonnet. Dad would roll up his shirt sleeves, wait for the engine to cool – this took time – replenish the water in the radiator and hope it fixed it. He usually knew what to do, but if he was stumped, he would have to find a telephone box to call the AA out. We would arrive at our relatives after dark, hungry, tired and very happy to be made welcome. Happy family times.

Isle of Harris

I wrote this poem after a lengthy journey to the North West Scottish Highlands. The scenery was and is breathtakingly beautiful.

I’ll Take the High Road

Sun-yellow gorse meets a bright blue sky

Where mountains seem low and clouds are high.

Single track, crumbled edge, shared with sheep,

The drop is sharp, the climb is steep

Then dips to touch the shore of the loch

Where gentle waves lick tumbled rock.

Then swift ascent and a chance to pause,

Admire the view and brown-heather’d moors.

Mile after slate-grey mile and some more,

Then, at last, we reach our cottage door.

The road ends where the loch becomes sea,

Dolphins are playing and I feel free.

 

Pamela Winning

May 2014

Thanks for reading. Stay safe, Pam x

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The Scent Of Rain

Petrichor. What kind of word is Petrichor? If you look it up, you find references to the smell of rain, and an explanation of who made up the word, and what its parts mean exactly.

But what kind of word is it? Does it fizzle in your mouth when you say it? Melt on your tongue? Make you smile in the process of moving your face to articulate it? For me, it does none of those things. It seems to shut things down rather than open them up. It is a word followed by an awkward silence. For an English-as-a-second-language person, the next question is: how do I pronounce this correctly? If you are wondering the same thing, English-first-or-whatever number-language person, it seems that this is a question most of the sites in your internet search results want to answer, even if it is not the same answer every time. Without going into too much detail on the phonetics of the word, opinions are divided where to place the emphasis, on the ‘pet’ (first syllable), or the 'i'   (second syllable), and whether to pronounce the ‘i’ like an eye or like the vowel in ‘bit’. Either way, I think it is an awkward word, not many people know what it means, how to pronounce it, or spell it.

Looking at the meaning of the two parts of the word that the scientists who made it up used, ‘petr’ comes from the Greek word petra meaning stone, and ‘ichor’ is the life blood of gods and immortals (i.e. Zeus and the gang). Quite a long way away from scent, and rain, I think.

I was thrilled when I first learned that there was a word for that smell that you get after the rain, especially if it hasn’t rained for a while. The excitement even threatened to spill over when the word appeared on a list of themes for blogs by the Lancashire Dead Good Poets (as Steve R will be able to confirm). However, it was the idea that there is a word for an experience in which I delight, that I thought maybe I was the only person who notices and enjoys in quite an exuberant fashion (I tend to think that I am the only one with many things), perhaps more than the actual word. Hence this rather lengthy piece about why I don’t like the word itself all that much.

The experience it is supposed to describe, however, is quite beautiful. It is a scent that smells green to me, that embraces many things, from the scent of flowers that seem to be shouting ‘Over here!’ to the pollinators after the rain, to the feeling of cool and somehow clean air on my skin, after a long period of heat followed by a refreshing rain that washes away heat, and sweat, and dust. I always thought that the smell came from the volatile oils in plants, like the flowers of roses, or the leaves of evergreen trees and bushes. A simple natural distillation that involves heat and water, a little like the extraction of essential oils for aromatherapy. Not so. There are different chemicals and processes involved, oils that soak into soil during drought periods, plus other chemicals released by certain plants, and bacteria. (If you want to know more, the UK Met Office page on Petrichor is a good, relatively easy to understand starting point!)

Nature is amazingly clever. It has even given humans the ability to detect the scent of rain in incredibly small concentrations. No doubt very beneficial when our ancestors were roaming the landscape in ancient times, in search of water in order to survive. Water is still a precious commodity, after everything humans have done to the planet’s climate since those days.

So, if you’ve made it this far reading, here is a piece that I wrote about another precious experience with nature that happened recently, during this pandemic. I first wrote about it in a poem, or what I think of as a proper poem. And then I changed my mind, and wrote it like a story, only it’s true and I am in it and it really happened.

Since I have only recently started writing in this format (that I think is creative non-fiction), and want to write more like that, I would be grateful for your thoughts and feedback.

Petrichor

Today, I stepped into the garden, and, ducking under the low-hanging, rain-heavy branches of next door’s willow tree that overhangs our patio, I discovered that on the inside, there is this space, surprisingly big, where even tall me can stand up without hitting my head. It is like the dome of a cathedral, reaching high up towards the light filtered by the verdant green of the willow leaves, a round space, evoking a memory of a white-domed, light-filled cathedral I once visited on a Mediterranean island. The dripping of raindrops is heard rather than felt, and the sound, or rather the far-away-ness of sound in here, makes me feel like I have stepped into a different place altogether. A place that protects and shelters me, and every being within it equally. I hear noises of little birds in the tree and around me, and I suddenly realise that not an arm’s length away, there is a small bird, perhaps a sparrow, sitting on a branch, looking at me. And then I hear a tschilp, and another, coming from high up in the cathedral tree, and that takes me back to what happened yesterday.

 

 

Blazing sun, thumping music from the other neighbours, I stepped outside for some air (!), and out of the corner of my eye spot something in one of the tubs that we collect rainwater in, an old plastic washing up bowl, and I instinctively go to investigate and grab the round wet thing in there and scoop it out of the water in which it was almost completely submerged. While I feared that the bird that it turns out to be was dead, when I whisked it from the water, I feel it moving in my hands, the whole small body being rocked by a heartbeat that feels like it may explode the tiny bird. It must be a young fledgling that has fallen out of the tree whose branches reach to just above the rainwater tubs. I can see the perfectly shaped, elliptical breathing holes at the top of the beak where it merges with the head, just below the eyes which are covered in membranes with a distinctly sickly-looking, blueish tinge, that come up from the lower edge of the eyes. These inner lids are fluttering in the rhythm of the heartbeat, which is quietening ever so slightly, and the shivers in between the beats, and every now and then the membranes withdraw, revealing the eyes briefly, only to quickly cover them up again. The little bird’s feathers are clumped together, exposing pinkish skin on its body around wings and chest. I stand on the patio, holding it in my cupped hands, in the sun, while the bird grips on to my finger, surprisingly tightly, for what feels like a bubble of time that may have been seconds, or minutes, or something much bigger than that. The thumping of the bassline of the awful music from next door is deafening, and yet the bubble that I am in with the bird in my hands leaves even that noise slightly on the outside, while I am willing the sun to dry and warm and calm the little creature that is still shaking and so wet.

 

While I am waiting for the healing power of the sun to work its magic on the little fledgling, I call out to my husband who is working inside, and when he comes to see what is going on, he soon finds a box, and furnishes it with a puppy mat as carpet, and brings a water dish that we use to feed the resident garden hedgehog, and after I deposit the bird in the box, now all zipped up eyes again, I find some dried mealworms that we put out for the birds, to feed chicks in the nest. I knock on the beak, which is, like the eyes, firmly closed, with a mealworm, but no luck, the little bird just stands, wobbles, and shakes, keeping eyes and beak tightly shut. Now indoors, the bird moves on to slowly tip forward, resting its beak on the edge of the water dish, and when I start to panic that it is not getting better, and may never do, I decide to scoop it up once more, in the hope that the contact with my hands, will somehow magically heal the poor traumatised being. Alas! the bird instantly opens both its eyes, and swivels its head from side to side, like a boxer stretching her neck muscles, preparing to continue the fight after taking a punch, and it moves to grip a different finger of my hand.

 

 

And so I carry it back outside, to the tree that it probably fell from, shooing away the dog who desperately wants to sniff it, and the bird swivels to face me, releases its bowels on my hand, flaps its wings and flutters out of my grasp, landing on the ground under the bushes. I hear more than see it, moving further into the green world it came from.

 

This morning, standing in the cathedral dome of the willow tree, I imagine that it is the fledgling tschilping away in the top, while its parent is looking at me to let me know that its little one got home ok.

 

Thank you for reading. Stay safe, and look out for nature.

 

Angela McG

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Don't Mention the C Word...

Water and I have never been the best of friends. 

Don’t get me wrong - I like a nice relaxing bath or a bracing shower, I love a quick swim in the sea to cool down (rarely in the UK) and I have been known to cycle masochistically through relentless rain and thunderstorms without too much complaint, but put me on a boat or a ferry and I’m afraid I become that awful fellow passenger who goes green, groans loudly and races to the toilets to throw up. 

To be fair, I have had some pretty awful experiences which have led me to start hyperventilating and shaking my head vehemently as soon as the word ‘cruise’ is uttered - usually by somebody who has just returned from one - and is anxious to describe every glorious meal (to someone who could probably just about keep down a couple of rich tea biscuits without reaching for a carrier bag). ‘You don’t feel like you’re on a boat,’ they say, before telling me about the time the tables slid across the deck, the swimming pool was like a boiling cauldron and one of the ship’s entertainers skidded on a slopped trifle and spent the rest of the cruise trying to dance on one leg. 

I could deal with a broken bone.  Hopefully that would get me stretchered off in Madeira, and let me laze about recuperating before being flown home.  No, what I can’t cope with is the nausea that comes over me in a huge wave (which is pretty appropriate really) whenever I even think about being on a boat.  

I’m aware there is a psychological aspect to this, but one which I can no longer control. At present I’m on a train, a mode of transport I find quite enjoyable provided I have a seat, a coffee and a book. However, having started to write this blog post I can feel the familiar sickness creeping down from my head to my stomach and up to my throat again. 

Each year when the kids were little we travelled to France for a camping holiday. And each year I was happy to be crushed in a small hatchback with three hot and irritable children, a cool box in my back, my feet in a washing up bowl, and a husband who hated driving and spent the whole time, head down, hands gripping the wheel, only opening his mouth to receive a bite of a warm tuna sandwich or to shout ‘Stop kicking my seat!’ at whichever child had the misfortune to be behind him.  I could cope with that. What I couldn’t abide was the sickly dread that built up as we approached the ferry terminal.  

Once on the ferry and having extricated the five of us from the stinking car, the children made their way excitedly to the restaurant. As far as I remember we never actually bought any food but we did sit at a table and open the foil wrapped picnic we were supposed to be saving till we were halfway through France.  I can still conjure up the smells of sweaty cheese, hard boiled eggs and the ubiquitous tinned tuna which was enjoying a revival in the Reidy household circa 1987.  That culinary combination would have been bad enough but permeating the whole area was the strong smell of diesel, cigarette smoke (and on one journey a deadly combination of cigar and pipe!) and somebody’s overpowering Estée Lauder that had just been purchased at the duty free. I love perfume but please don’t come within 100 yards of me if you’re wafting your way across the high seas.

Each year I suffered the indignity of the ferry toilets, clinging to the seat, head over the bowl and feet sliding on a stinking floor, while the rest of the family ate their way through the picnic and played on the fruit machines.  They didn’t miss me a bit.  Returning to the car as Calais came into view meant holding my breath as long as possible to avoid inhaling the petrol fumes from hundreds of cars, and trying to tell the children off without opening my mouth.  Only when we were finally away from the terminal with a couple of hours under our belts, tootling through the French countryside could I feel myself beginning to recover enough to argue about the route. These were the days well before SatNav, I would have a huge road map open on my lap, all in French, and a husband who hadn’t got a clue where he was going.  This was still an improvement on my time in the ferry toilets.

One year my mum suggested taking two ‘Sea Legs’  before I set off.  She swore by them and had fed them to us before every car journey when we were younger.  She couldn’t understand that the spoonful of jam they were hidden in was probably what made us feel more sick than the travelling.  I decided I’d nothing to lose.  Little did I know.  As soon as we set off I began to feel drunk, and immediately fell into an uneasy sleep, which didn’t please the driver, whose sense of direction was as bad in England as it was in France.  By the time I lumbered onto the ferry I couldn’t walk in a straight line - and I couldn’t keep my eyes open.  I remember very little of the whole journey except that I still felt sick, but through a drunken, dozy haze.  

These days I thank my lucky stars that we no longer need to catch a ferry but can cross the water by flying several miles above it.  Now all I have to do is avoid anybody who has just been on a cruise and is desperate to convert me. 

Please don’t mention the C word…..

Please don’t mention the C word by Jill Reidy

I know, I know

It was fabulous

The food was delicious

Lobster, special pate with brandy raisins

And that creamy mousse

Oh and octopus, imagine... 

Please…..

Saw some fantastic sights

The pyramids

Amazing

Took the tours

Drove a jeep over bumpy roads

Ooooft!

Laughed at the comedian

He was hilarious

A bit blue… 

Marvelled at the dancing

Even the one who’d slipped on the trifle

When the ship hit a storm

And the table tipped

No, please…ugh!

Made some lovely friends

Frank and Janice 

John and Jane

Oh and even Darren and Gareth

Sat at the Captain’s table

Groaning with food

Noooooo!

Wore that new sequinned top 

You know, from Debenham’s 

Bargain in the sale 

With the classic black trousers

Ruined by the consommé when the ship lurched

Arrrgh!

Hair done by Bernice

It looked gorgeous

For three days 

Without a comb touching it

Every morning

Milky coffee

Yukkk!

Every night

Pina Colada

Strawberry daiquiri

Whatever you wanted

No no no!

And the pool

The day of the hurricane warning

Waves, high as a house

Couldn't stand up

SO funny, water everywhere

Bleurgh bleurgh bleurgh!

Oh you’d love it

I wouldn’t 

You would, honestly,

The food…..

No…!

Pass the sea legs while I lie on the floor 

Close my eyes

And forget what you’ve told me

Please just go on your cruise 

But please, please, please don't mention the C word.

Thanks for reading, Jill  

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Cottage - I Belong in a Crofter's Cottage

 Isle of Barra

There’s something very appealing about escaping to a crofter’s cottage in the north of Scotland.  It is good for me to break away from the rat race and the negative trappings of modern living from time to time.  I would love to spend all winter up there with snow and freezing winds then come indoors to the warming glow of a peat fire and wholesome, home-made food.  Wishful thinking, I know, but I’m fortunate enough to have stayed in some sympathetically renovated ones with electricity and running water and nothing could be more perfect.

Years ago, driving westward along the north coast of Scotland, not too far from John O’Groats, I came to Dunnet Head and what I would call a living museum, Mary-Ann’s Cottage, which is open to the public for guided tours at limited times. The crofter’s cottage is exactly as Mary-Ann left it and is a fascinating insight into her life. If you like social history, I strongly recommend a visit if your travels take you anywhere near.

I like to be ‘off the beaten track’ and Harbour Cottage on the Isle of Barra (my photo) certainly provided everything I wished for in May this year. A wonderful, stone built cottage with ground floor walls at least three feet thick and a fireplace, not that we needed to make a log fire in the unusually warm climate.  Lovingly renovated and extended to make three first floor bedrooms and a sun lounge, Harbour Cottage was a delightful holiday home. I have the same opinion of the fabulous, tiny crofter’s cottage in Lochboisdale, South Uist last year, (my photo). I would happily return, but there are other places to see first.

 

South Uist

My favourite lodges in Dumfries and Galloway are a home from home and somewhere I go to for a break at least twice a year. This year it will be three visits and would have been four if one of my chosen times hadn’t clashed with work. They are not exactly cottages, but get unpacked and settled, and the feeling is just the same, relaxed, cosy and free.

My poem, written after a stay at a cottage near Gairloch, North West Scotland,

 

I’ll Take the High Road

 

Sun-yellow gorse meets a bright blue sky

Where mountains seem low and clouds are high.

Single track, crumbled edge, shared with sheep,

The drop is sharp, the climb is steep

Then dips to touch the shore of the loch

Where gentle waves lick tumbled rock.

Then swift ascent and a chance to pause,

Admire the view and brown-heather’d moors.

Mile after slate-grey mile and some more,

Then, at last, we reach our cottage door.

The road ends where the loch becomes sea,

Dolphins are playing and I feel free.

 

 

                                                                      Pamela Winning.  May 2014

 

 Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Wallpaper - Let's Keep It Dry

My impaired vision cannot cope with brightly coloured carpets or patterned wallpaper, so our house is very plain in neutral colours. The busy, lived-in look or clutter, if you like, keeps it interesting and homely. A small wall between the kitchen and the back room needed something.

 I’ve avoided putting any pictures on that particular wall since one of my cross-stitch artworks was almost ruined when the bathroom wash basin overflowed directly above. Water streamed down the wall and trickled from the light-fitting. Our daughter was the culprit, a young child at the time. We removed the plugs from every sink and basin and implemented an ‘ask if you need it’ policy which remained in place until the children had grown up. All our replaced sinks have built in plugs now. I will keep a close watch on our grandchildren.

We decided to have wallpaper, just on that small area. I liked the idea of something bright, jazzy and loud, to make a feature of it. My eyes would be fine, after all, it’s only one, very small wall. Huge, red poppies interlaced with pale green leaves on a white background looked stunning and I loved it. All visitors remarked on how nice it was and I felt very house-proud, just for that wall. No one seemed to notice that it wasn’t sticking properly just above the skirting board where I think we had been running out of paste. The enjoyment turned out to be short lived.

At the front of the house, a damp patch seemed to be getting bigger. It was between the stairs and the front door and dried out when the central heating was on but always came back. We had checked for leaks and unblocked the airbrick, but the damp area persisted. We called the guys in. It was bad news. We needed a new damp core all along the outside wall from the front door to the beginning of the kitchen extension, which was unaffected. It had to be done, so it was a sad goodbye to the lovely wallpaper but that was nothing compared to the dismantling of fitted cupboards and the walls taken back to the brickwork. It was easier for our builders to replace the downstairs loo and basin with new ones, rather than trying to salvage anything. Crumbled plaster and smashed tiles. What a mess, but soon sorted.

This is where one job leads to another. The rest of the hall and the stairs and landing had to be prepared for redecorating.  Year in and year out, we had painted the walls over the same wallpaper. It was as thick as cardboard and hard work to get off, even with a couple of steamers, but to see the various pale shades we thought were nice at the time was amusing. I don’t remember ever choosing a wishy-washy pink, but there it was and Regency Cream had quickly turned yellow. The mushroomy off-white was a mistake, magnolia would have been better.   

Eventually, everywhere was painted white on to the newly skimmed plaster and that is how it has stayed.

We papered the feature wall with another large, floral pattern, which isn’t as good as the original, but it would do. Unfortunately, we had another flood in the bathroom, nothing to do with children and nothing that could have been prevented. Once again, the only wallpapered wall is the casualty. I’m glad we have a reliable plumber. It has dried out leaving wrinkles, bubbles and a few streaky marks. For now it can stay like that. I can’t see the damage as well as everyone else can.

 

I found this poem. It reminded me of the memories we shared when we tackled the hall.

 

 

Wallpaper Torn

 

paint revealed by wallpaper torn,
layers of peeling; the
faded adorn—a story of life.

joy, of accomplishment and
new beginnings.
children born, playing,
growing up—growing old.
past scars distant
memories; misplaced, obliterated—
by time reduced to dust.

a home
buried beneath the earth,
its walls no more.
the vessel shattered, decaying
stories lost, forgotten,
the curse of mankind’s
living.

 

Shaun Meehan, Ontario 2015

 

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

 

 

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Box Of Rain

It's approaching mid-December in Blackpool and it's raining. No surprise there, given the time of the season and the arrival of the first serious cold weather of winter  - icy tears from the eye of Storm Caroline.

The theme of water does little to inspire a Saturday blog, but I missed out last week - sustaining a foolish injury that has seen me hobbling painfully and snaffling ibuprofen for a week already, with more discomfort to come until torn muscles mend - so I'm determined to cobble something together on theme today, however brief. It's almost a sacred duty, for we Aquarians (February born in my case), are supposedly water-carriers (Ὑδροχόος or Hydrokhoös) in a grand tradition stretching back to Ganymede, cup-bearer to the Greek gods.

Therefore, courtesy of the good old Grateful Dead, I bring you a Box Of Rain...

I started thinking about this song after Thursday's Dead Good Poetry open mic night, when amidst the festive jollity (fuelled by mulled wine of prodigious strength), quite a few of the works performed were very eloquent and moving reflections on impermanence and loss.

Then last night Adele's mother fell and broke her femur/hip in three places. She's 97, bless her, and is in an  operating theatre at Blackpool Victoria Hospital as I write, where surgeons will do their best to mend her frail bones. Adele is understandably beside herself with worry. This, then, is for her... and for anyone who is feeling low at the moment.

It is one of my favourite Grateful Dead songs, tune by Phil Lesh and lyrics by Robert Hunter, written circa 1970 for Phil Lesh's father who was dying of cancer at the time. Not many songs aspire to poetry (an old debate we've had on the blog several times) but this lyric, reproduced below in slightly abridged form, has its moments. In particular, I love the imagery of a box of rain. Listen to the band perform it via the YouTube link below for maximum effect...

Box Of Rain
Look out of any window
Any morning, any evening, any day.
Maybe the sun is shining,
Birds are winging or
Rain is falling from a heavy sky.
What do you want me to do,
To do for you to see you through?
For this is all a dream we dreamed
One afternoon long ago.

Walk out of any doorway,
Feel your way, feel your way
Like the day before.
Maybe you'll find direction
Around some corner
Where it's been waiting to meet you.
What do you want me to do,
To watch for you while you're sleeping?
Then please don't be surprised
When you find me dreaming too.

(***)

Walk into splintered sunlight
Inch your way through dead dreams
To another land.
Maybe you're tired and broken
Your tongue is twisted
With words half spoken
And thoughts unclear.
What do you want me to do,
To do for you to see you through?
A box of rain will ease the pain
And love will see you through.

Just a box of rain,
Wind and water,
Believe it if you need it,
If you don't, just pass it on.
Sun and shower,
Wind and rain,
In and out the window
Like a moth before a flame.

And it's just a box of rain
I don't know who put it there,
Believe it if you need it
Or leave it if you dare...
And it's just a box of rain
Or a ribbon for your hair,
Such a long, long time to be gone
And a short time to be there...

                                      The Grateful Dead 

Link to listen to the song here: Box Of Rain


Thanks for reading. Believe it if you need it, Steve ;-)

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Water, water everywhere ...

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is one of my earliest poetic memories. It was probably the first epic poem that I read. I loved the way poetry could be used to tell a story. The poem used vivid imagery to open a reader to an ocean voyage fraught with horror but it was idea of being becalmed at sea without drinking water that stuck in my young mind;

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot – Oh Christ!
That ever this should be.
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs,
Upon the slimy sea. 

Coleridge's poem was written in 1834.  During the 19th century, cholera spread across the world from its original reservoir in the Ganges delta in India. Six subsequent pandemics killed millions of people across all continents. The current (seventh) pandemic started in South Asia in 1961 and reached Africa in 1971 and the Americas in 1991. Cholera is now endemic in many countries. In Yemen - cholera is pandemic. 

The cholera outbreak in Yemen has become the largest and fastest-spreading outbreak of the disease in modern history, with a million cases expected by the end of the year and at least 600,000 children likely to be affected. The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported more than 815,000 suspected cases of the disease in Yemen and 2,156 deaths. About 4,000 suspected cases are being reported daily, more than half of which are among children under 18. Children under five account for a quarter of all cases.

• Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal disease that can kill within hours if left untreated.
• Severe cases need rapid treatment with intravenous fluids and antibiotics.
• Provision of safe water and sanitation is critical to control the transmission of cholera and other waterborne diseases.
• Cholera is an easily treatable disease. The majority of people can be treated successfully through prompt administration of oral rehydration solution (ORS). The WHO/UNICEF ORS standard sachet is dissolved in 1 litre (L) of clean water. Adult patients may require up to 6 L of ORS to treat moderate dehydration on the first day.

The crisis in Yemen is completely man made. More than two years of fighting between the Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels has crippled the country, causing widespread internal displacement, the collapse of the public health system, and leaving millions on the brink of famine. The situation worsened when public health workers, whose salaries had gone unpaid, went on strike. Rubbish, left on the street washed into the water supply.

Over 19 million Yemenis no longer have access to clean water. Without rehydration through salts and clean water, the disease spreads like wildfire. The Yemeni government stopped funding the public health department in 2016: many doctors and hospital staff have not been paid for more than a year. Healthcare has since been provided mainly by international groups. Their progress has been hampered by conflict.

The most of the children of Yemen do not celebrate Christmas. Many of them may not live until the end of the year. Who cares? WHO cares – there is a continual appeal for aid to provide ORS packs and to pipe in clean water supply. When you consider buying that extra gift this year, consider helping Save the Children to provide a ceramic water filter for a family and help stop the spread of this virulent disease. https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/how-you-can-help/emergencies/yemen-crisis

Here in the West, we believe that fresh, clean water is our human right. When our local water supply became infected with cryptosporidium, we were able to buy clean, bottled water. Eventually we were compensated. In Yemen over one million people will be infected by cholera by the end of 2017.  Many will die. Death from cholera is preventable.

Water 

Yemen lies awash
with parasitic conflict:
Open the floodgates.


Thanks for reading. Please pass this on to your friends and family. Adele 

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