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The North Wind Doth Blow

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That nasty old North wind has come back. For over a week I’ve been busy trying to get as much of the outdoors painting done as possible before the predicted change for the worse in the weather today. Our house is like the Forth Bridge, in that when you’ve finished all the maintenance works it’s time to begin again! In spite of the cold wind this morning it was quite warm in the sunshine on the sea-side of our house, where I took the paint and brushes to paint the railings by the back steps (our house is sort of back to front because the back is the architectural front and our main entrance from the roadside is really the back elevation); at the same time Chris was painting our gate on the other side – the cold side – so I had the preferable task.

I’m into philosophy at the moment and enjoy listening on YouTube to lectures on the great thinkers while I paint – of course, that’s usually painting of a different sort but if I can listen while I paint pictures then why not when there are less challenging railings to be painted? So I clicked onto a lecture – “Carl Jung’s “Synchronicity” Explained” – and began painting those seemingly endless railings. Wearing an old demoted sun-top and shorts I was surprisingly warm – even had to nip upstairs and put on sun screen – so long as the sun was out. Two huge grey clouds threatened rain and made me shiver but they they both passed over and shed their loads over the sea.

Soon Chris came down with the phone and I turned off “Synchronicity” (Synchronicity is a concept, first explained by analytical psychologist Carl Jung, which holds that events are “meaningful coincidences” if they occur with no causal relationship yet seem to be meaningfully related.)  It was my friend Rosie inviting my sister Mary and me to meet her tiny new granddaughter Senka; coincidentally, I am soon to become grandmother to a little girl (at present Penelope), and Mary became grandmother to her fifth granddaughter last year.

When our telephone conversation ended I resumed painting without feeling the need to continue listening to the lecture; I was happy just to think about the things Rosie had said to me. I smiled to myself as I considered our conversation. Rosie said I was a “young grandmother” – in attitude, if not years (Mary was thirty-eight when she first became Grandma) – and attributed her notion of youthfulness to my being from the flower power era in the late sixties and early seventies. And the more I thought about it, the more I agreed…

To Mary and I living in Australia at that time “flower power” meant wearing psychedelic flares, apple-seed necklaces and cheese-cloth tops, and we wrote words like, “Make love not war”, without really understanding that we were growing up in an age of greater freedom – because we were part of it, being too young to have actually brought about any changes. We made slave shoes out of raffia, not realising that the symbol of the flowers represented peaceful protest (at least, I didn’t think about that at twelve years old).

By happy coincidence at four o’clock, just when my “Forth Bridge railings” were finished at last, the north wind brought showers of sleet and hail. Tomorrow we’re promised more of the same so I’ll be back painting in my studio with Carl Jung or Jean-Paul Sartre in my ears. It’s so nice to be regarded a young grandmother – more aptly perhaps… a Jung grandmother.

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A Day to Remember

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The year is 2011 and we are at the top of Purling Brook Falls, Springbrook National Park in the Gold Coast hinterland (Queensland). Chris and I are with my big brother Bill, his wife Lita and my nephew William. We are walking single-file on the path leading close to the cliff edge and the falls. We haven’t been here before and it’s terribly exciting, a bit frightening and exceedingly beautiful. It’s around midday and Chris is walking behind me. Suddenly he wraps his hands around my waist and whispers in my ear:

“Darling, I just thought I had better tell you that it’s my birthday today.”

“Oh no,” I said shocked, “why didn’t you tell me?”

“Well, I rather thought you might know,” he began, “considering you’re my wife!”

 

I’ve never lived it down. But it wasn’t such a terrible thing after all because now Chris’s expectations are so low that he is thrilled to receive a “Happy Birthday!” wish at all and is inordinately pleased when I’ve gone to a little trouble to make him a card (even if it is a tad late in the day).

This morning I remembered Chris’s birthday and we went out to lunch with my lovely sister Mary and her husband Geoff. When I recalled the tale of six years ago Mary smiled but was not at all surprised.

“What about Mum and Dad?” she said. “One night when we were kids and Mum and Dad were in bed Mum said, ‘It was my birthday today’, and Dad said, ‘Was it?'”

Oh dear, it sounds rather familiar…

The Worker’s Reward

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One might believe that the completion of an arduous task, which badly needs doing, would be reward enough in itself – especially when it comes to housework – and I would agree. Certainly the large fireplaces in our lounge room and dining room were both in desperate need. I couldn’t go out as I was still recovering from my bad cold so, feeling a lot better, I decided to tackle the jobs I’d been trying to ignore for some months (or perhaps years, to be honest). For a long time I had been turning a blind eye to the grate in the dining room, and I lived in hope that Chris would notice and do the honourable thing. Not that we have any wood or coal fires burning these days, but it’s the old mortar from the chimney that falls down little by little and accumulates behind the fire-back, and some of it falls down into the grate; if you touch the fire-back by accident (perish the thought) a load of nasty red dust flies down so I tend to “back off” in the normal run.

Chris hadn’t noticed the red dust mound under the grate (so he says), neither was he aware of the white dust of ages that had formed a thick layer over all the ornaments, candles, photo frames and small glass bowls filled either with potpourri, screws, safety-pins, nails, coins and empty cigarette lighters (for the candles).

Boosted by the sight of the lounge-room fireplace all sparkly and shiny clean after my labours, I set to work on the one I had been dreading in the adjoining room. Indeed, the fire-back had to be dislodged very gingerly at first but, eventually, every bit of powdery loose red mortar was collected and the grate cleaned to a gleam. I left the mantelpiece to last because I had mistakenly thought it was the easier job. The second ornamental bowl I picked up looks like an up-ended kerchief in black with white polka-dots; well, I know it sounds awful but the piece is really quite attractive (and good for gathering dust). Anyway, I was peering inside the pot when I noticed something golden shining through the shroud of dust… I began to get excited. What could it be?

The gold necklace and pendant in the shape of Australia with opals had been missing for years. I thought I had lost it and, every so often, I have felt tearful at the loss because the necklace was a present from late father. Delighted with the find, I finished the clean-up operation as if on air. The rest of the dark corners of our house now has no bounds to me – my fear of the unknown has turned into an anticipation of more “Eureka!” moments. Also in the black and white pot was another little relic that made me smile – as you will see it’s a long screw with a message adhered to it:

“THIS IS A DECORATIVE ITEM AND NOT A TOY”

One would never have guessed!

Found

And now it’s back around my neck.

Really

No doubt beautiful in the eyes of its creator!

 

A Sunny Winter’s Day in Dawlish

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Sometimes, in the bleakness of winter it’s easy to forget that winter ends, especially when you’ve not long come back from Australia in summer. For nearly the whole of February I had felt disgruntled at having to dwell in such a cold, dark and wet part of the world as Dawlish. Less than a week ago I had thought to myself that the town looked tired and shop facades needed a lick of paint but now something was different.

I’d heard some bad news about one of the ladies at pharmacy where I pick up my prescriptions – not that I really knew her – all the same, I had begun my walk down into the town with a heavy heart. Then the sun came out and Dawlish went from grey to colour – it was like “The Wizard of Oz”. The air was crisp, not wet and cold, and signs of spring had burst into life all over the place; there were primulas growing in flower boxes over the rails of the wrought iron footbridge and daffodils in the grass under the bare trees. Swans preened and cavorted in the brook and plump pigeons posed for photographs.

I had a spring in my step as I wandered along the side of the brook. I was bending down under the bough of a tree to take a photo when I noticed a familiar figure pushing a wheelchair coming towards me.

“Are you still working at the butcher’s?” I asked.

“No Sally,” he grinned, “I’ve been retired for twenty years!”

“Can it really be that long? Anyway, you’re not old enough to have been retired for twenty years,” I said.

“I had to retire early to look after my wife. Jill has had Multiple Sclerosis for thirty-nine years,” he explained.

He went on to tell me that she lived in a nursing home now for she requires two carers around the clock (her organs are failed or failing) and, because the sun had come out, he was taking her for a walk by the brook. Jill can’t walk at all, nor can she write – her hands shake too much – but she chatted and laughed, and enjoyed the fresh air and the feeling of spring.

I had a few tears as I skipped off (still springing with spring) on my way home and I felt so grateful to be me on the fine day.

The Real Marigold Hotel?

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“Sally! I knew it was you. How are you?” asks my old patron and friend Margaret.

We are at Barton Surgery and I’m waiting patiently to see the duty doctor. Margaret has just come along with a mature gentleman she introduces as Rob (so I’ve no cause to disbelieve her). They are on their way out (not “the way out”, hopefully, considering we are all at the doctors’) and they stop to chat.

“Well,” I pause and conjecture before deciding to tell them the truth, “actually I hardly slept last night because I have a painful bladder infection.”

Rob looks at my patron and grins.

“Rob has the same problem,” says Margaret.

After commiserating with one another the conversation turns to my painting, which has been on the wall since the surgery opened twenty-five years ago, and we remember the fun we had at the opening party. The conversation is coming to a natural conclusion and Ron signals his intention to leave by attempting to do up the zip on his coat. He can’t put the zip together because his hand is shaking.

“Sorry,” he looks at Margaret, “my hand is shaking…”

“Because you’re obviously not used to being in the company of such beautiful women,” I laugh.

“Exactly what I was going to say,” he responds.

They depart at the same time that the duty doctor calls for me and in fives minutes flat I am making my way to the pharmacy attached to the surgery. Who do you think is waiting in the pharmacy? You guessed. The pharmacy is quite full and there will be a bit of a wait so we resume our chat.

“Have you been watching ‘The Real Marigold Hotel’? Not the film, but the programme with celebrities who are staying in an hotel in India for real?” I ask Rob.

“No, I haven’t, but I’m aware of it,” he says.

“Well you should watch it and you’ll realise that they are just frail humans with all the problems that we have… and more,” I start. “Take Lionel Blair, for example, you remember Lionel Blair?”

“The dancer,” confirms Margaret.

“Yes – he’s eighty-seven and I always thought he was a bit camp – but he’s married with two children, which surprised me. Well poor Lionel, even my Chris woke up yesterday morning and said, ‘I’m worried about Lionel Blair and his distended stomach”.

“Distended stomach?” Margaret’s eyes widen.

“Yes,” I say, “poor Lionel had prostate cancer and the treatment left him with a distended tummy and flatulence. It was quite distressing to see him saying, ‘I’m so sad about my fat stomach.’ Two men tried to massage the fat away…”

“I didn’t get a fat stomach after my operation,” informs Rob.

Margaret and I agree and tell Rob how lucky and good looking he is.

“Then there’s Bill Oddie,” I say.

“I never liked him,” Rob interrupts.

“He’s got bipolar and he had an unhappy childhood,” defends Margaret.

“And he was funny in ‘The Goodies’. Bill Oddie thinks manic-depression is a better description for the disorder. And he’s admitted to being impotent. I’m sure you’d like him if you saw the programme,” I add.

At this point I realise that the buzz in the pharmacy has stopped and I glance around. All eyes are on our little group. The pharmacist beams at me as if to urge me to carry on speaking and the other customers look expectant (if not pregnant). A tall man wearing a nice grey woollen coat has turned to face our huddle and he gives half a nod.

“Isn’t Miriam Stoppard in this series?” asks Margaret, perhaps unaware that there is a rapt audience behind her.

“Yes, she’s seventy-nine and beautiful. She reckons it’s most important to look good from behind, which she does,” I say.

“My father, who was in the army, always thought it most important to clean one’s shoes,” Margret makes a pertinent point.

“My father was exactly the same,” chimes in the gentleman in the stylish grey coat.

“Paul Nicholas bought eight pairs of underpants,” I announce.

“What was he in?” asks Margaret.

“‘Just Good Friends'”, says the man in the grey coat.

“And still looks handsome at seventy-two… if a bit thin and older-looking. He doesn’t have curls anymore – it’s sort of flat to his head…”

I go on to inform the pharmacy audience that the actress Amanda Barrie cried about being eighty-one (everyone commiserates with barely audible appreciation of how awful it is to get old); also how Sheila Ferguson, from “The Three Degrees” has got over her divorce, looks wonderful for sixty-seven or sixty-nine and has “plenty of money to live anywhere in the world”; Rusty the chef and Dennis Taylor the snooker-player, at sixty-seven, are the babies of the group visiting the real Marigold Hotel but Dennis appears older, even though he must have a young wife for he has children of eleven and nine. At last the head pharmacist brings over the filled prescriptions in two paper bags – the large bag for Rob and a small one for me.

“Nice coat,” I say to the tall chap in grey as I pass by.

“I left my cashmere one at home,” he says dryly.

I think he is alluding to Kashmir, not too far on the map from India (and Cochin, where “The Real Marigold Hotel” is filmed.

In the car park outside Rob, Margaret and I part with hugs and kisses.

“The surgery will never be the same for Rob,” my patron laughs.

“I’m still shaking,” says Rob.

 

Master-chef Strikes Again

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I was cooking dinner at the time my mum called and spoke to Chris. It wasn’t a dinner I’d planned ahead but I knew there were various left-overs and a lot of vegetables in the fridge so at some point during the day I had a vague notion of making a stir-fry using the chicken from last night, which is what I was doing when the call came.

Unfortunately, the plastic bagful of stir-fry prepared vegetables – the ones that I had earmarked for the task – looked decidedly limp and pink around the edges; for a moment or two I had wondered if Chris would notice… but we’ve been getting on very well recently… so, instead, I tossed the slightly strange smelling veggies into a carrier bag, along with some old cake, stale bread and peelings that I’d put back for Rosie’s goats on the farm (well, they do seem to love me). The chicken was already out on the worktop and the linguine was on the boil – there was no need to change tack because there were all manner of vegetables to throw into a stir-fry. I fried up some mushrooms and half an old onion, and in went some diced sweet pepper, the good bits of an aged broccoli (the rest went in the carrier bag for my beloved goats), two florets of perfectly nice cauliflower and half a carrot chopped finely.

Admittedly, the tangy fricassee remnants from two nights ago were rather soggy; therefore I refrained from adding the watery bits and the tomatoes, and settled for pulling out the best bits of courgette (the rest went into another carrier bag for my hungry friends – by now the original bag was full). The chicken, which was still covered in mushroom sauce, followed the courgettes into the mix and I wondered if I should have washed it first – too late. I was adding half the linguine into the wok when Chris finished his call with Mum.

“What did Mum want Darling?” I asked.

“She’s made some fresh sausage rolls with herbs and onion, and she wanted to know if we would like some,” Chris began, “but I told her you were cooking something gourmet and we did want any.”

“Really?” I asked with interest.

“Why? Would you like me to phone back and accept her offer?” Chris is often rather quick on the uptake and I could see he had an inkling that all was not like Masterchef in the kitchen.

While Chris scooted off  to my mother’s house down the road I had a brainwave – I would quickly boil up some shop bought tortellini and make a mushroom sauce to go over the top. Chris was amazed when he returned a few minutes later and found the new alternative to stir-fry was cooking and waiting for him.

“Ummmm, that smells nice,” he said, sitting down to dinner. “We like these tortellini things – don’t we?”

I took a bite first.

“We must have been very hungry when we enjoyed them last week,” I said, pulling a face.

“Oh no,” Chris trusted that look, “these aren’t the same – these came from Lidl’s and the others came from Sainbury’s.”

I took out another orange carrier bag and scraped my tasteless pasta things into it.

“Rosie’s dogs will love them,” I said.

“That’s good, they can have mine, too,” Chris enthused.

The pallid pieces of pasta, like unwanted aliens resting on the hob, also went into the doggie bag.

“I think I’ll just have one of Mum’s sausage rolls for dinner,” I suggested.

“What an excellent idea,” Chris agreed.

They were delicious. And for dessert we had an ice-cream with chocolate sauce. We do like simple fare in this house. Luckily Rosie has gourmand goats and dogs so we won’t feel guilty about any waste.

 

Rosie, Oh Rosie!

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Rosie, oh Rosie! She’s been through quite a lot during her first eleven months but now she’s home from hospital and the world looks rosy again. Little Rosie was a bit overwhelmed to find aunties, uncles, grandparents, cousins and siblings (nearly all the clan) waiting to welcome her home yesterday afternoon. We had all forgathered at Katie’s house and James set up the Karaoke system for our entertainment; it was rather touching to hear Geoff singing the old Don Partridge song, “Rosie”, to his darling granddaughter. After that James played “Rosanna” and Rosie even managed to smile at her cousin and aunties. Just click on ROSIE HOME below to see the clip on Youtube….

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    Rosie Home

    by Sally Porch
    Little Rosie arrived home from hospital to find nearly all her family awaiting her. Overwhelmed at first, she soon became …
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The Sixties, Seventies and Eighties Music Barbecue

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I was just about to get into the shower when Chris stood in the bathroom doorway and posed for me in a very grudging manner.

“Will this do?” he asked and pulled a miserable face (which made me cross).

“But you look normal,” I said crossly. “Why can’t you go along with it and make the most of it like everyone else?”

With a face like King Kong, Chris skulked off downstairs (probably with a “Bah, humbug” under his breath. A few minutes later, when I had jumped out of the shower and was dripping wet, he appeared again, this time he was wearing cream trousers, a maroon shirt and stripey tie.

“Now you look as though you’re going to a wedding,” I exclaimed. (I wanted to burst out laughing but held back to avoid incensing him any more.)

“Well, you tell me what to wear then!” he said, incensed.

“How hard can it be to look like a hippy, or a John Travolta, or a Huggy Bear character?” I as retorted. (Remember Huggy from Starski and Hutch?) “With your hair, surely you could make it a bit “Afro”, even though you’re blond!”

“But I never was a hippy, or a “Saturday Night Fever” man – guess I could try to look like Huggy Bear, if I back-combed my hair, but then I’d have to try to walk like him and talk like him…” Chris tried to be more obliging.

Swinging his shoulders like Huggy Bear, Chris went back downstairs and I joined him in our bedroom a few minutes later. It was easy for me; I put on some aquamarine floaty trousers, a skinny-rib summer top, a lacy top over that, some beads around my ankles, a snake bracelet on an upper arm and a big necklace that could possibly have been a present from Ten Bears – and I was a hippy, well, a makeshift hippy.

“What about a ‘Medallion Man’? I bet you wore a wide belt and medallion in the seventies?” I asked in response to his new “Beach-boy” look (half-mast trousers).

“Never!”

“Didn’t you ever go out?” I was incredulous. “Maybe you should go back that first outfit – the all black look – and you could wear a thick gold chain with it.”

Chris concurred after complaints that he would be hot in long sleeves. Stood there with his shirt open, my thick gold chain around his neck and his blond curly hair back-combed, I thought he looked like his mum – but I didn’t tell him at the time in case he might be put off and would have to start from scratch again.

We arrived at St.Mary’s Hall (the barbecue was a fund-raiser for the church hall) an hour later than stated on the tickets. The barbecue food was nearly all gone and everyone was sat eating at tables in the open air while they listened to the live band (who were quite good). While the nice man on the gate rushed around to find us chairs, we surveyed the gathering… there wasn’t a hippy, John Travolta, Huggy Bear or “Medallion Man” in sight, apart from Chris, who actually looked more like a used car salesman from the eighties (or his mum).

It threatened to rain and the air turned chilly. Chris was rather glad that he had opted for the long sleeves and warm black cords. I froze.

 

For the Love of Animals

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No, I’m not on the farm this week. I’m in my studio, which is my private world for painting and thinking. I’m sad, not least because I received the news yesterday that Bella – my “Beautiful Bella” (of whom I wrote and published a short story of the same name) – passed away. It’s hard not to cry every time I think about the demise of the most intelligent, faithful and lovable dog I have ever met, who, in fact, turned me into a dog-lover.

To cheer myself up I looked at some of the photographs of Rosie’s animals, taken when I was farm-sitting last week. And then I thought of Harry the pig – the smiling pig – who loved nothing better than a nice fresh raw egg on top of his breakfast pellets; and I remembered that the farm didn’t seem quite the same on my last visit, not without poor Harry who met his maker the week before… Oh dear, I feel sad again…

The Stick Incident

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I didn’t like that stick in the first place. It felt splintery and unpleasant to hold in my hand, and I tried to divert Malachi with other, smoother sticks, but she was very much attached to this one. Perhaps it was the right size for her mouth or had the perfect biting consistency, whatever the reason she wouldn’t be fobbed off. In hindsight, I wish I had been firmer and discarded the treasured stick instead of falling in with the game of throw and catch.

Little Sasha and old Jaz were with out with us; we were taking a gentle walk in the sunshine to the fields above the original farmhouse. Jaz rolled in the long grass and buttercups and Sasha, never too far away, came up to her now and then for a reassuring lick and kiss. Malachi, sensing it was the others’ turn to have special attention, gave up the game for a while and sat in the shaded grass by the fence while I petted Jaz and Sasha. It seemed idyllic…

We were about to return to the farm when Malachi produced the nasty stick again and placed it in front of me. I didn’t throw it far. She didn’t even catch it in her mouth. She had to search for the stick in the long grass; when we heard the cry we three went rushing over to her. Malachi gagged four or five times without being stick. She refused water from the llamas’ water reservoir – I proffered it in my cupped hand – and it seemed obvious that she simply wanted to go home and nurse her sore throat.

Every time I turn my head from the computer to look at her, Malachi notices the slight movement and she opens her beautiful brown eyes to look at me. She doesn’t condemn with those eyes but she looks sad and sorry for herself.

Luckily her father is a doctor and he’s coming back home soon with his torch and equipment.