I Survive January

TS Eliot's The Wasteland opens with the words, "April is the cruelest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / Memory and desire, stirring / Dull roots with spring rain."   

Not for me, Tom. I am not the cynic who doesn't want to be reminded, who doesn't want to endure April's signs of spring life because they rouse uncomfortable feelings about missed opportunities or failed love.  I long for April.  March.  May.  All those months.  For me, January, with its loss of light, its hangover from December's excesses, its sniffles, its pale faces, its quantities of marking, its catching up from December: for me January is the cruelest month, the one with least light, the one through which I seem to carry a special type of weariness. 

But this year, it's also been the month of laying low, reading.  Of walking in the rain-soaked countryside, and through the city streets, wind and rain-soaked.  Of talking to dear, kind, wise, generous friends, the ones who are seeing me through.  And just this weekend, of celebrating of my eldest son's birthday.  

As for my son, he tells me he loves this, his birth-month - sees it as a gift of an opportunity for wearing more clothes, for marveling at winter skies on the way to and from school, for not having to do much except pull on a coat and carry on, watching as the sun sets a little later, a little more kindly each day. 

I Recollect A Room

As I listened to Bach's Double Violin Concerto this afternoon, I was transported back to the drawing room in Christ Church Vicarage, Highbury.  I'm not sure if it was because the soloists were David Oistrakh and Yehudi Menuhin - the champion violinists of my childhood - or because I am preoccupied with the business of leaving another home at the moment, but I felt myself almost physically present on the green sofa, left-hand end.

Behind me is the second of three record players my parents owned over the period of 25 years spent in this house.  Its 70s style has come back into its own now, as have the boxes of vinyl LPs.  There is the grand piano, draped for its own protection in a Dutch-style thick blue cloth.  Underneath, on top of, and around the piano are other musical instruments - my mother's violin and viola;  my brothers' violin, cello and oboe; my flute.  And there's another piano - an upright on which my uncle used to play when he and Mum performed duets.

Further round the room is a large sideboard on which are black and white family photographs.  In the corner is a bracket clock, ticking slowly at the moment, but sometimes stopped for years in-between repairs.  In front of these are an armchair in which I think Mum is sitting, because J. may have left home by now.  She is sipping a post-lunch coffee (white no sugar).  She has her hair down after washing it, and has pinned a towel round her shoulders, My father might be in his upright armchair, reading out clues to The Times crossword, "4 down - Make an effort with an exclamation at the end in musical form.  8 letters - blank, o, blank, c, blank, blank, t, blank".  (I just made that up). If we've recently had guests, and it's Lent, Dad will have taken a chocolate as the box was passed round.  He will place the chocolate in a queue, saving it for Sunday.

The mantelpiece comes next, supporting all sorts, including a silver box of our infant teeth, and some wire and papier mache dinsosaurs made by Joan, a parishioner.  We'll give the silver box to Vera when Mum dies, without the teeth though.  Beyond this, on the right of the fireplace is a cabinet containing more stuff - china figures, plates, a Victorian baby's rattle - the random treasures of a few generations.

The chair that sits in front of this is occupied by my grandmother when she is visiting.  If she's not, it's D's chair.  If she is, and it's before the smoking ban, she'll be noting down the crossword information on her cigarette packet in blue biro: _ o _ c  _ _ t _  Beside her is the occasional table on which sit its lamp and elephant tooth, and beyond, the large bay window.  If we are in the amaryllis phase, there will be an amaryllis or two in red or pink flower, and maybe some African violets, on the table in front of the window.  If one of the amaryllis flowers is broken off, it's me that caused upset by knocking a music stand onto it.

Back on the sofa, the right-hand end belongs to M., the middle to Mum.  Sometimes, I used to lie my head in her lap so she would play with my hair.  But that was a very long time ago.

The carpet is a rectangle of green.  At the edges are dark brown stained floorboards from which I'll continue to pick up splinters until I learn to keep my shoes on.  The curtains are pink damask, framing the garden, the plane trees in Highbury Fields, and, in just a little while, the setting sun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJh6i-t_I1Q

I Blend Some Soup

Risotto may be my most frequently cooked supper, but it doesn't always make sense of the random contents of my fridge  I was surveying its near-empty shelves this evening in my post-work hunger, and the only possible conclusion (apart from shopping) was soup.

This particular soup started when Lucy left me with some broccoli on her way up to Inverness.  She didn't want it to go to waste and she didn't want to take it on the train as her case was full.  When I discovered onions, a potato, some Parmesan cheese and milk in the fridge, it felt as if this soup was intended.

My auntie Sue was famous for including anything in soup, especially her Sunday evening, post-roast-lunch soup.  Left over everything went into it, including once (we teased her for evermore about this) apple crumble and custard. Schooled on wartime rationing and then a widow's pension, it was, for her, a matter of economy, resourcefulness and pride.  By some sort of magic (a slug of sherry, perhaps?) everything she blended tasted good, served as it was from cream-coloured bowls at her round table under the pink-tinged light of a shell lampshade. 

I ate my soup alone this evening from a blue bowl at my own round table.  It was surprisingly good - Parmesan proving itself to be a particularly good cheese for adding some much-needed depth of flavour, given the absence of sherry and crumble. 

I Write A Present

Travel Advice

For Anna Dreda to celebrate her birthday, 

and wth thanks for her many kindnesses

The decision about whether or not to set off

in the first place, whether to sit it out, to wait

for better weather seems ludicrous

in retrospect. 

                         Three inches of snow either

disappears into grey by lunchtime, or expands

to make things impassable.   A tree might stand,

or fall, laden, across the tracks.

                                                          

So, I’m sitting here remembering, by turns,

the sorrows of the ones who told me so,

as they waited to drag me out of the ditch

before I’d even set off,  

                                          and the kindness

of the ones who say, "Snow falls, and it melts,

and in any case, a tree can become logs,

a landslide can be shovelled away." 

With love from Liz xx

I Prepare For Christmas

Last week, rather than going late night Christmas shopping, I went to watch my son play hockey.  He has played ever since he was allowed to give up rugby, but before Tuesday last, I'd not made it to a game.  

To reach the pitch at Lilleshall National Sports Centre I had to walk along a dimly-lit path.  It was the irregular, precise percussion of ball on hockey stick, rather than a guiding light, which told me I was heading in the right direction.  This sound is slightly higher, tenser, more intact somehow, than the sound of croquet ball on mallet, or cricket ball on bat. 

When I joined the other three spectators on the sidelines, I was amazed. Under the brightness of the floodlights, 22 young men zipped around a perfect emerald surface, aiming passes which arrived at their intended destination.  The speed the ball traveled was unbelievable, and occasionally painful.  They took injuries in the stomach, on the back, all with little complaint.

These days, hockey pitches are made from synthetic turf.  The one at Lilleshall, as you'd expect, is of international standard.  It looks immaculate - level, smooth, flawless.  Nothing like the pitches I learnt on when I attended South Hampstead High School in north London.  This was a land-locked school with very little outside space: we managed one-and-a-half netball courts, but for hockey were transported in a navy blue minibus to Regent's Park.

The best thing about the hockey pitches at Regent's Park was the view of the mountain goats who'd occasionally appear on rocky outcrops visible above London Zoo's fencing.  I think we sometimes saw camels too, but I might be making this up.  In all the years I traveled to those leaden, lumpy pitches, I didn't play a single full game of hockey.  We'd be sent to run up and down, round and round; we'd practise passing - balls flying off at angles; we'd bully off, dribble around obstacles; we'd play multiple games, in parallel, across the width of the pitch.  I never got the hang of the rules, and now the rules have changed.  There is no bullying off.  Corners aren't corners, nor are they taken from the corners.  The fiberglass sticks can be raised above waist-height, as long as this is done safely.

Watching my son bathed in light, strong, confident, shouting encouragement to his team from full back, I felt all a mother could hope to feel about her son.  There he was, in the full flow of his gifts: youth, strength, vitality - masterful, and loved beyond measure.  

I Embrace A Plank

Meet Plankie.  This is  a head and shoulders shot, but he extends down quite a long way.  Plankie was my son J's childhood creation and friend and we came across him again this afternoon when his big brother, G, needed something longer than a ruler.  I gave him a long overdue hug.

Seeing Plankie again made me come over all warm.  Warmth was a feeling I also experienced at The Land Of Lost Content in Craven Arms last Saturday.  This museum is dedicated - unashamedly, extravagantly and recklessly - to nostalgia, much of it tat but none of it worthless.  I recommend that if you visit you go, as I did, with a close friend of similar age with whom you feel able to utter, without embarrassment, over and over again, "Oh, I remember this / that / those!" whether you're referring to stuffed budgies in cages, electric typewriters, Donny Osmond mannequins or Zoom lollies.

J's determination to love Plankie against the odds for all these years moves me.  Back when Plankie was new, he made a rigid bedfellow and a reluctant traveller.  Planks, even ones with faces, don't easily sit upright in cars.  Much of the content in the LOLC is also rigid, yellow and slightly off-centre, but my companion and I were determined to embrace the unlikely experience of it all, and if you get the chance, you must go (though it's closed in December and January).

Although older and a good deal taller than Plankie now, J's affection for him is still clear.  I like this loyalty to the absurd, to fun, to the apparently worthless.  I will always relish ability of those who can find joy in anything - who can draw a lopsided smile onto any day of the week.

http://www.lolc.org.uk/

I Keep The Score

No one was more surprised than me when I won 4-1 at badminton today.  Admittedly, for three of the games, J only used backhand shots.  This was because Malcolm from the Tuesday club set this for him as homework.  This Malcolm-imposed limitation gave me a considerable advantage, one I exploited by placing shots to J's forehand.  Long-gone are the days when I held back from using the full panoply of tactics learned over 40 years at the net.  At 6'3", J doesn't need any favours from me.

Usually our scores creep up fairly evenly.  1-0, 2-0, 2-1, 2-2, 2-3, etc.  When we get into the higher numbers, I add an extra challenge to our game by turning some of our scores into dates.  18-15, for example, is the date of the Battle of Waterloo.  Or, as I've recently discovered, the date of publication of the first geological map. 12-15, Magna Carta, is topical in this its 800th anniversary year, as is 14-15, Agincourt.  18-12 is our favourite score: "Overture," we chorus whenever it occurs.  "Battle of Borodino," I sometimes add.  We are too evenly matched to have scored the Battle of Trafalgar (18-05), but today, thanks to Malcolm, we hit a new range of dates in addition to old favourites.  Here are some of them:

10-16 - King Cnut begins his reign
12-04 - Capture of Constantinople by the 4th Crusaders
13-07 - Wm Tell supposedly shoots the apple off his son's head  (another chance to shout, "Overture!")
16-19 - First Thanksgiving, Virginia
19-15 - Sinking of the Lusitania
20-12 - 'lympics