A Hundon Summer

Fledgling

It was a week for nature study. At the weekend, a fledgling Blackbird left its nest in the tree behind us, and flew into the patio window. It was so small and light and uncertain in its flight that it struck without much force (unlike the unfortunate Woodpecker of an earlier blog), and landed on its feet where it was hopping about, clearly wondering what it was supposed to do next. The mother flew down and chivied it into the bushes, and was seen over the next few days continuing to fly behind the bushes with a variety of food in its bill. Finally, we were rewarded by seeing the new fledgling take to the air; a short flight onto the gate and the table outside our window, a victory for maternal strength and patience. Though still without its tail feathers, it is now mobile enough to fend for itself, and hopefully evade the many vicious cats that lie in wait for these beautiful creatures.

Here in Hundon we have a surfeit of wildlife, with hares in the field, swallows darting above, and then at dusk a colony of bats swooping low for their insect feast over the gardens front and back. I look across the fields, laid out with ripening corn, and imagine how they have not changed much in a hundred years. In 1919, they would have had steam-powered threshers and harvest power, and perhaps Suffolk Punches to pull the ploughs; and a hundred years before that, in 1819, still the same fields and hedgerows, but harvested by hand by huge gangs of men who lived in the tithed cottages now developed for wealthy London commuters.  Yet despite all this wealth of nature, I feel that it is slowly being depleted. It is just an impression that there are fewer insects now spattering the windscreen of the car; fewer swallows and bats; hedgehogs are scarcer, and the bird song more muted, apart from the populous pigeons that fill every tree and mess every surface. But we all remember more favourable older times, when the world was less populous, and nature more abundant. It is felt by every age, and its sadness and sense of loss grows more intense each year.

On Sunday, we were invited to Rae and Malcolm's for a take-away Chinese. They live an an idyllic bungalow off the High Street of Haverhill, and just a short walk to all the fascilities of that town. Despite the convenience of their location, the house is silent, and sitting in the large conservatory in the warm evening, with its open door, we were in a secluded walled garden, once part of the estate of Anne of Cleves house,  which was built for her in 1540 by Henry the VIII, but is now the town's only remaining ancient building after the great fire of Haverhill in the 17th Century. They often see an urban fox slinking along the wall in the twilight, but tonight we looked in vain.

Buried thoughts

Buried thoughts

It’s a memory best forgotten

It is dead and buried deep,

It’s the dream that's lost on waking,

By a girl who cannot weep.

It’s a sound that calls to silence,

It’s the beauty fading fast,

It’s the hope that now lies broken

Through a time that cannot last.

It’s the moon through clouds of shadow,

It’s the raindrop in the sea,

It’s a cause of wars and battles

Lost to myth and history.

It’s the poem never spoken,

It’s the story never told.

In the darkness, in the twilight,

It’s the rope you cannot hold.

JHM 7 July 2019

Pragmatism is the one true faith

Lying on my chair for three days in a nest of cushions, hobbling about with a stick, and dosing myself up with various pain-killers, reminds me of how vulnerable we are even to relatively minor ailments. A pulled back is nothing on the scheme of ill-health, but is sufficient to immobilise and cripple. So too is society vulnerable to small shocks. The frenzy of the social media, the intolerance of varied opinions, the prejudice against those who dare to be different, brings home just how rapidly civilisation can collapse if we do not constantly work to maintain its good health.

Recent politics presents a reversion to simian behaviour - screaming and throwing sticks, or in this case an equivalent nearest object, milkshakes. Intolerance of others is endemic in the system and the beliefs of modern politics as much as it is in so much of religion. Trump represents support for Israel. Corbyn's secret agenda to not prosecute anti-Semitic behaviour courts the Muslim vote, which is much stronger than the Jewish vote. Hence Khan's response to Trump, and the strong anti-Trump campaign in the Labour movement, and Corbyn's refusal to attend a state banquet in the presence of Trump. He can afford to lose the votes of the Jewish community, and fend off the critisism of the Chief Rabbi: it gains him a huge undercurrent of unvoiced support, enough even to overcome the strong Brexit support in Peterborough.

No one person can always be right; no single belief system is infallible; no one political system has the sole answer to all the world's woes. So must we be vigilant to oppose strident -isms that always insist they alone are right. If we are to adopt any -ism, let it be pragmatism, and try to pick the best from each person's ideas, for we each have something to contribute, if only a tiny part of the whole.

Nostalgia and gulls

Watching "Yesterday", the new film reflecting the life of the Beatles, it seemed a nostalgic view of the Fab Four seen from a distance, but without any of the original music or film tracks; just a single singer who beat out the songs as though recalling the moments in a world that has forgotten them. It was a nostalgic trip, without grit or unexpected twists, lacking the violent death or even the inspirational Ono of the originals. It seemed somehow to be a cheap, cut down version of the past, as though made to attract the fans without the meat of reality. It was, however, good to recollect how much brilliant and original music they gave us, and reflect on how much loss there must be in our own world from genius that never flowered, like the sound of a single hand clapping, or the death of an unripe flower through lack of water. Also, much was filmed in Suffolk, so it's always good to see the county and coastline represented.

At the car park in Haverhill, a solitary gull was feasting on discarded chips. It flapped past silently without its usual raucous call. Gulls are my favourite bird, for their versatility and power of survival. They are the most human of all animals, for they hunt fresh fish, or scavenge dead ones; they survive off flesh or bread; they can walk, swim, dive, fly or glide; they can nest on wild cliffs or roof tops, and live in great colonies or in solitary isolation, and their communication is a great squawking. I miss the call of the gulls and the sound of the sea.

Last night, Edwin returned to us from the monastery in Kathmandu. He was unusually quiet after his enforced silence and abstinences, but the lateness of the plane and the hour meant it was already past 2a.m. on his clock, before we picked him up. We will perhaps hear more of his journeys when he awakens, probably late, today.

Ladders hats and benches

We narrowly escape crashing into the Moon

Our grandson Luke came to stay for a few days, and following a longstanding promise, we took him to a new escape room in Haverhill. This involved solving many logical puzzles to restart the systems of a rocket about to crash-land on the Moon..We survived this ordeal with a little help from the mission controllers, and managed to escape for a group picture.

Up the ladder in my new hat

Following the announcement about my lost hat, Lucy generously sent a new soft floppy hat, ideal for working in the few hot summer days England enjoys. I seized the opportunity to do some gardening and basic repairs, including repainting the Dragoon Saloon, now converted to an office for Edwin.

The hat protects my scalp well enough, but leaves the brain inside to stew in its own devices, and as absent minded as ever. After walking the dogs in the park at Clare, I returned home to  find my glasses missing. They had been on my nose when I left, so I worked backwards to conclude they had been left on the bench I'd sat on. This bench is dedicated to  Harriet Loram who died two years ago. I knew her well as a fellow dog walker of a greedy Labrador called Victor, after Hugo. She was a history scholar who helped set up reading groups in the library, and in 2015 helped organise the 800th-year commemorations for Clare's role in signing Magna Carta in 1215. She died alone and was undiscovered for several days. Her dog was then highly disturbed and would settle with no one else, and had to be put down. Returning to Clare as soon as possible, I retraced my steps to the bench. Someone had picked up the glasses and perched them on the side arm of the bench, which seemed to be wearing them so they were staring emptily to the blue sky, like a miniature Easter Island effigy.

Harriet Loram memorial bench in Clare

On my wrist that evening was a tiny black spot - could it be some minute insect or parasite? From experience of living in unsavoury places, I have a high respect for the malevolent benefits of small insects, and try to avoid intimate contact. It seemed to move as I watched, but it was probably the movement of my own uncertain arm that gave it the semblance of a jerking life form. Once recently, I discovered such a visitor while sitting on the toilet, and – panicking that it was the harbinger of an infestation of lice – I collected it in a small jar and took it to my local doctor for analysis. Though he confessed he had never been faced with this type of request, he duly looked up what form he needed and sent it off. A few days later the report came back that it was a harmless garden insect. This time, after watching for a while, I finally flicked it off, and any potential life was extinguished.

On retreat

Edwin has retreated to Kathmandu to a Buddhist monastery, for ten days of contemplative silence. We also contemplate ten days of silence, but in the peace of our own home in Suffolk. The water supply in Kathmandu is reputed to be lacking any official certificate of  hygiene, and Ann cautioned him to be careful where he eats and drinks. Ann was telling MA about this general lack of hygiene in the East over lunch in Bury, when a blackbird walked in through the open door and hopped down the steps to peck a few crumbs from the floor beneath their feet. It then pooed on the floor, hopped back up and walked back into the street. "You were talking about the general lack of hygiene in the East?" asked MA. No one else in the cafe seemed to have noticed the bird, and Edwin said it was his spiritual self come to visit them.

I used to have a lovely soft Australian hat, but I have a poor habit of leaving things in restaurants, and I lost it some time ago. At the hospital today for my three monthly check up for myeloma, the dermatologist asked how long I'd had the other mark on my ear. He diagnosed actinic keratosis, a pre-cancerous skin condition also caused by too much sun. He prescribed a powerful anti-cancer cream which should reduce it; if not, they might be slicing off the top of my ear to match the bottom slice, leaving just a strange little flap in the middle.  I really must get a new large brimmed floppy hat to keep the sun off.

Father's Day

Double Rainbow over Bury

With Edwin away for the night, it has been a peaceful Father's Day. So yesterday Ann arranged a meal in Bury St Edmunds, and a film, "Sometimes Always Never", a poignant film about an older man (Bill Nighy, though really a "younger" man as he's only in his 60's) whose wife has died, following which one of his sons runs away, and for whom he spends the rest of his life searching, to the neglect of the remaining son. There is an element of The Prodigal Son here, but it certainly drives home the deep sense of loss of a child and how it affects everyone else.

On the way home was a wonderful double rainbow, which Ann insisted on chasing and photographing. I must admit the picture turned out quite good though. It put me in mind of the film we had seen, where the missing son was portrayed as a pale reflection of the strong father, now fading now strengthening, but always in the far distance no matter how hard one ran to catch it.

Today, Ann and I went to the Globe in Clare, one of my favourite watering holes. They generally have a group playing on Sunday afternoon, and today was heavy metal/rock with a lively beat from a good singer. A perfect Father's Day present.

Sunday afternoon in The Globe