Penelope Porch is something of an oil painting!
Penny entered the world almost seven weeks too early but, just over a year later, you wouldn’t know it. She’s an avid reader, pianist, swimmer, ballerina, DJ, pop star, animal-lover and animal and fruit impersonator. However, my favourite painting of the year just happens to be a portrait of my darling granddaughter as herself!
Earlier today Chris and I were leaning over the balustrade on our terrace to admire the work we did in the bottom garden on the sea side of our house yesterday. We had laboured hard with pruning, strimming, clearing and removing weeds and soil from the steps going down the steep slope (forty-five degrees) so we were feeling pleased with ourselves.
“From here it looks like a grave,” Chris said as he pointed out the loose soil on the brick steps edging the lawn.
“I don’t think so,” I disagreed.
All the same, I turned on the hose and held it over the balustrade letting the water cascade like heavy rain onto the brickwork beneath. Water collected in brown puddles over the brick steps and, Chris, thinking he might do better than me, took over. He didn’t.
Convinced that it was simply a matter of perseverance and quantity of water, I commandeered the hose and stood for quite a time leaning over the balustrade. Every now and then I made a comment to Chris about the slowness of the task and how much water it was taking. He didn’t say much – I thought him either bored or deaf (he is a tad deaf) – but I enjoyed his company nevertheless. I like us doing chores together.
After ten minutes or so I was getting a bit fed up with just standing there holding the hose and continually watching the water plop onto the soily wet steps. I seemed to remember Chris saying earlier that it might rain today, which, if so, would obviate the requirement for me to hose the steps to stop them looking like a grave.
“Did you say that it’s going to rain later today darling?” I asked.
No answer.
“Is rain forecast this afternoon Darling?” I ask a little louder this time.
Nothing.
So for the first time since I’d begun hosing I looked up from my lowered gaze upon the garden.Turning to the right to where I had sensed Chris’s head to be I was greatly surprised to find that it wasn’t his head at all but the stone ornamental flowerpot in the middle of the balustrade! Should’ve gone to Specsavers!
I laughed to myself. My ornamental (if not monumental) husband was inside, engrossed with his tax forms on the table – not such an empty vessel after all.
Is it going to rain later today Darling?
Firstly, I must say that I really like babies and children in general. I love their innocence and the candid way they look at you, and suss you out, before they react. What joy when they like you and how disappointing when they don’t (and you mustn’t expect or press too hard for a good response). But however much I may love babies I certainly can’t stick their screaming in supermarkets – the shrill notes go right through me – and not just me and other shoppers; they must be the bane of many a shop-assistant’s life.
Recently I read on Facebook of a grandmother’s experience when her grandchild played up at the checkout while she, herself, was dealing with the cashier. Evidently, the guardian granny was extremely angry when the lady behind her tried to cajole the child and she even swore at the woman for touching the tot. Well, reading this I wondered what I would have done had I been in the same position as the lady behind the screaming baby. It’s quite likely that I, too, would have beseeched the screamer to stop. I might even have squeezed a toe to distract the child from her antics… or perhaps not, I can’t be sure but I could imagine doing so. I have definitely touched the arm or hand of a charming unknown child before now.
Last Saturday, whilst shopping at Trago Mills (one of my favourites stores) I found myself in a not dissimilar situation. One moment I was happily, and peacefully, looking at head-bands for baby girls… and then… suddenly, my ears were assailed by a terrible high-pitched screaming. With a finger in each ear I looked down into a pram at the young perpetrator – he was a blond, curly haired little angel with pink cheeks and red lips. I was about to complain about the terrible noise when the pretty mother got in first…
“Sorry about Phillip, he’s normally a good boy,” she said holding her own ears.
Phillip continued to scream.
“Calm down now and stop screaming,” she said firmly.
He howled.
“Oh what a gorgeous boy you are!” I said, turning from the mother to the vexed baby.
Young Phillip stopped screaming immediately and looked at me transfixed.
“He likes you!” she enthused.
“And what beautiful hair you have! Like an angel!” I continued with the compliments because he was really was that beautiful and also because he seemed to love them so much. It was calming.
“He had open-heart surgery not long ago and he’s still getting over it,” added his mum.
I was so glad that I’d taken the soft approach on this occasion.
There was another occasion a few years ago when I was in Tesco’s… I heard him long before I saw him. He was a dark-haired “Dennis the Menace” aged about three or four, too big for the trolley seat and therefore stood in the back of the shopping trolley, screaming his head off. Indeed, so awful and embarrassing was he that his mother or father had disowned him and gone off to shop in some other aisle (or store perhaps).
“Good,” I thought as I rounded the corner and saw Dennis alone, screaming at the top of his voice. I walked up to him calmly, bent my head close to his ear and gave him my best theatrical whisper:
“Shut up!”
Dennis stopped and looked nonplussed. Obviously no-one had ever told him to shut up until then. And while his mouth was still open with surprise a little old lady came zooming up the aisle from the opposite end and bent her head close to his other ear:
“Yeah, shut up!”
A double whammy. We ladies did a “thumbs up” and continued our shopping in peace.
I must be maturing because I’m not quite so scared of funerals as I used to be (apart from my own, which I trust will be a long way off considering my mum is still going strong, and is normal, at ninety-five). Until fairly recently I couldn’t concentrate on a church funeral service owing to my vivid imaginings of the poor dead body inside the coffin, and crematoriums (or is that crematoria?) were even worse… Those nasty curtains… the final curtain. Did you know that the machine for burning is called a crematory? (Not to be confused with a crème de la crème Tory like our Prime Minister Theresa May!)
Anyway, by now I’ve attended enough funerals to be discriminating about them. My favourite was the Humanist funeral for my old boyfriend Chris who died too young from drink. He used to say that he had hundreds of friends down the pub yet only three of them, one of whom was the landlord, turned up to say good-bye. My old boyfriend had never married but, being a handsome man, he had had many girlfriends – thank goodness – and his funeral was well attended with ex-girlfriends and their husbands or partners. The Humanist funeral celebrant spoke plainly and sincerely about Chris’s life; and after the service we ex-girlfriends all greeted one another with open arms and compared stories.
“I remember seeing your photo,” said one attractive lady to me.
“I always worried about what happened to my photos,” said another.
And we all laughed and thought how pleased old Chris would have been if he were in Heaven looking down on his old girlfriends regaling each other with funny stories and happy memories of being with Chris. But, of course, he couldn’t have been looking down on us because it was a Humanist funeral and he was in a woven palm frond coffin.
That was the best funeral. It helps if you’re not, or perhaps I should say no longer (in this case), too close to the deceased.
My dad’s funeral was the worst – we loved him so much.
My dear friend Amr’s funeral was the next worst. He was buried on my birthday, an extremely cold eleventh of November that year. Friends and family gathered around the graveside, our heels sinking into the mud, and only two people – my husband Chris and Amr’s daughter Laila – could manage to sing the words to Rod Stewart’s song “Sailing”; the rest of us were crying (although my proclivity to laugh when I shouldn’t nearly got the better of me when Laila began harmonising with Chris).
My cousin Christine spoke so beautifully of her mother as we stood at Aunty Eve’s grave. My aunt lived in Somerset so I didn’t know her particularly well, all the same, enough to cry for the loss of her in our family’s lives and especially for my cousins’ loss.
If you’re wondering why I’m contemplating on funerals today, well, it’s not really so strange because my husband Chris (new Chris, although he was older than old Chris who died) and I went to a funeral recently. Actually it was this morning but I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings so I won’t say whose funeral it was. Suffice it to say, the deceased was exceedingly old and more of an acquaintance than a friend.
I suppose that when you’re a nonagenarian you’ve outlived most of your contemporaries, and you probably don’t go out as much as you did so you don’t have many new acquaintances and friends – or any. Hence, the church seemed rather big and the mourners rather scanty. We and a friend of ours sat on the opposite side of the central aisle to the few others who had gathered to show their respect.
The organ came to life to the tune of Amazing Grace and the vicar lead the cortege; we turned to see that immediately behind him was a severe-looking woman dressed in black, wearing a top hat like an old-fashioned riding hat; then the coffin carried by six burly men (to lift about nine stones I reckon), and then the family who occupied the first two lines of pews on our side of the church.
The vicar, who was himself old, read out a few lines written by each of the two grandchildren and then a young man with a sheet of paper read out his thoughts about his great-grandmother – unfortunately, he spoke too quickly and his mouth was too far from the microphone for anyone beyond the front pew to hear. The vicar congratulated the young man and we had the first hymn. After a somewhat long introduction one or two of the congregation sang, “The Lord’s our shepherd…” On verse three all was not as expected for the vicar began singing verse four… I sang a bit louder to let him know his mistake but he carried on undaunted and by the last two lines we three singers were in unison. The organist must have been in on it – he stopped with the vicar’s lead (it must be a well-known trick to save time!). Two short readings from the bible and we were into our next hymn, “All Creatures Great and Small”, and three verses in – would you believe it? – the vicar began singing verse four. This time we two singers took our cue and accompanied the vicar to the end. A prayer or two followed and the organ started up again – Amazing Grace – and the dominatrix with the riding hat and stick led the cortege back down the aisle. It was over.
When my time comes, which I hope will be a long way off, I don’t want a vicar who doesn’t know me conducting a service for twenty-two people, some of whom barely knew me. No pomp either please. No lady with a funny hat and solemn expression. Give me a gathering of those who loved me, sending me off with a prayer and thoughts of any good I might have done in my life. Tears, yes – why not? That would be my idea of a funeral to die for.
Oh no, James Bond is dead!