Psychotherapy

 Hundon has a village shop selling basic essentials, and a pub that's open four-and-a-half days a week, but all other amenities are a drive to Clare, Haverehill, Bury or Sudbury. Kelly, our hairdresser, works in Clare and Ann has relied on her for many years. There are several hair stylists in Clare, and Kelly had worked in one of the bigger salons before setting up on her own. She has an air of calming reassurance that makes the visit a pleasure as well as a necessity, and I now always try to go to her too, having abandoned my regular cutter in her old salon. I have started a portrait of Kelly hovering over Ann's scalp, but it doesn't seem to come right; I made the figures too small and they seem buried in the dull background wall, but I also took inspiration from Kelly for my new poem, Psychotherapy.  

Psychotherapy

The dark grey chair hears her troubles:

Lost dreams, threads of fraying hope, thin wishes,

Voiced despair, absorbed like fallen hair 

hitting the ground unheard; 

swept away to indifferent oblivion.

On the wall a giant clock, 

black against the white cell wall, 

sweeps away each second, 

timing the closed session to its allotted ending.

Her hands, professional, calm, relaxed, reassuring, 

massage as the hair is washed, worked, cut, curled, set and sprayed,

Absorbing sound like a velvet curtain while problems slide past.

John H

Yesterday I was able to cut the grass, which had grown hugely with all the recent rain but finally the sun has returned. Too long for the mower, I could strim it down to a manageable level. The battery-powered strimmer gives me a hint of old rural life, when most of Hundon laboured on the surrounding farms, scything the crop. It is a satisfying motion that induces relaxation and contentment like a physical psychotherapy, and I only needed to sit once for the whole lawn, unlike when I mow it and need to sit several times with a drink of Crabbies to revive me. 

Near the pond, a frog jumped out before my approach but hopped away to scramble on the patio, risking the sun before my blade. He won't be able to hide in the grass now but will shelter under one of the rocks skirting the pond's brim. I love frogs, their lythe shape, their amphibious lifestyle, and their wonderfully exposed lives: from bursting out as a clump of swelling spawn, to displaying openly their quiet development of head and wriggling tail, and the sudden growth of legs and loss of tail and gills as they continue to evolve, unlike the hidden changes of mammals. The tadpoles do not fare well in our pond, for the fish see them as fresh ready meals and few survive. We stocked the pond many years ago when I first dug it with a pair of goldfish brought proudly home in plastic bags from the fair at Long Melford, supplemented with a few others from the garden centre. Two or three have grown large, and there seem to be new fry every spring, somehow keeping the numbers steady.

The lone frog reminds me of the cruelty of some boys who boasted of 'blowing' frogs. This led to an edict from the headmaster that any boy caught doing this would be caned, but I always wonder if such behaviour is a pre-requisite for men who go on in other regimes to become torturers or vicious jailers or perform other acts of cruelty, now relieving their inner torment by destroying trees or shooting wildlife, or persecuting weaker people.

Alba Donati's New Book

The boys are off to Brazil for three weeks soon, so invited us round for a farewell meal. Andre prepared a Nut Roast Wellington in a perfect puff-pastry envelope even decorated with pastry flowers, all worthy of a top prize. We didn't get back till midnight. Ann continues to have debilitating bouts of tachycardia but insists on continuing her housework between sessions of lying down. Hopefully the repeat cardioversion booked for next week will be successful.

I've just finished Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop by Alba Donati. This too, like all books that grip the imagination, is psychotherapy. The beautiful descriptions of landscape, events and people carry me to those mountainous regions of Italy and illuminate them and the characters as though I am among them. Donati, too, shares her love of books and scatters recomendations like dandilion seeds, feeding new ideas for reading. If I were younger, I would have gone on a pilgrimage to Donati's little village in the hills just to sit among her books and draw in the air. But when I was younger, I was materialistic, full of other ambitions and pilgrimages, so it is only now in the serenity of years that I can discover the calm of words beyond medical notes and scientific texts. Such is the way of our unbalanced lives.

Andre becomes eligible to be a Brit

The weather continues its atrocious way through August as it began in July, with the wind switching from the N.W. to the N.E., bringing heavy rain lashing my windows at the back instead of those at the front. It is cold and miserable, and I must seize any brief moment I can grab to walk the dogs. The pigeons sit huddled on the roof tops looking miserable, yet in the distant sky a lone swallow swirls about, no doubt trying to dodge the rain as he hunts for his feed.

The Sainsbury's delivery man has just arrived, bringing the first batch of drinks for our Heave Awa' celebration. He is wet and cold, but says it's not too bad when he dries out in his van between deliveries; the worse time is when he gets totally drenched and doesn't dry out all day. The celebration is only six weeks away, but Ann is reluctant to order too many drinks yet in case either of us is ill or doesn't make it. We take a break for toast and tea, now the bread has arrived.

 Andre has been in the UK long enough to qualify for citizenship, and this week took his "Life in Britain" test in London to complete the process. Sample questions were: Which two houses fought in the Wars of the Roses? Who was given the title of Lord Protector? What king was defeated by Oliver Cromwell during the Civil War and hid in an oak tree before escaping to Europe? We all tried the practice tests, and while Ann and Edwin passed, I confess I failed. I also failed my mock driving theory test when Andre was practicing for that, but I suppose I could swat up a bit if I really had to take it again. Thankfully we don't yet have to retake the driving test every couple of years; we really need our cars, living here in the sticks with no shops and not even a bus for transport. I suppose we'd have to rely even more heavily on Amazon orders  and take a taxi for vital appointments.

Lucy said Andre needn't have taken the test to become a British Citizen, as she would marry him. She would then be called Lucy Suzzy, which amused us all, but made me think of an alternative twist: gay man comes out of the closet and confesses to being secretly hetro, leaves his partner, and runs off to marry partner's sister. It would certainly be unusual. Edwin may be able to quote such a story already being extant, otherwise I offer it to any budding authors.

I had an online meeting yesterday with someone in Indiana who'd read one of my papers and wanted to talk about its relevance to his own work. Chris is a young man with wild hair and a straggly beard, fresh from his PhD so he knows much more physics than I do and is far more up to date, leaving me reluctant to return his call, but he was easy going and the chat was general. He's left academia to work for a start-up of his friend's father; it's one of those enterprises that will either crash and burn rapidly or else go on to make the founders rich, but he finds it too demanding and time-consuming so is already looking for another job. I wished him well and hope he keeps in touch about his future paper. 

Heave Awa' Celebration

Barbie Ann with Pink Flamingo

Having seen Oppenheimer, this week was the turn for Barbie, with Edwin's insistence. He treated us to the tickets then led us in, to a sea of women in pink with fancy cowboy hats. It was surprisingly good, and certainly thought-provoking. I can well see why it gets so many rave reviews. It remains an interesting conjecture, why they are so often bracketed and seen together as BarbyHeim. One is so thought-triggering as we recall mayhem unleased, the other a light, frivolous bit of nonsense; but Barbie too contains some surprising depth, with a serious approach to women's lack of full equality in the US, and a nod towards death and imperminance. 

The accepted wisdom states that "There is nothing so certain as death and taxes." But last week, we received a miracle: a hefty tax rebate! Such things never happen to us, and it was totally unexpected, but it brought into focus the corollary that perhaps I will get an extension before my death sentence. It will be recalled that, on 16th of September of last year, the oncologists told me the cancer had spread widely, and they could do nothing further for me. Consequently, they didn't want to see me again and signed me off their books, with the cheerful parting aside, "you only have twelve months." It is not yet twelve months, but we hope to celebrate the occasion with a "Heave Awa' Party", to which all are invited. This is named after the occasion when an ancient tenement building collapsed in 1856, killing 35 people. As workmen were clearing the rubble, a voice called out to them, "Heave awa' lads, I'm no deid yet!" and they successfully pulled a young lad clear, the only survivor. We hope we are not tempting fate or retribution too much by planning this celebration too soon, but I've told Ann that if either of us don't make it, the survivor should turn it into a wake, as everyone will already have made preparations to come.

I have managed to cook another dish. This time, I prepared a tomato and cheese bake with fusilli pasta, and it wasn't bad. I had originally planned it for Ann's birthday six weeks ago, but on the day she said she'd rather go out so we ended up at the Swan as usual. I still had the ingredients though, so didn't have to buy anything new. The mozzarella cheese was well past its sell-by date but still looked pure white and didn't smell bad, so we risked it with no obvious ill-effect.

You are still here...

Just for a moment
you are still here.
Maybe next month
maybe next year
we will mourn
a salt-flavoured tear
for one who gave more
than most people dare.

Annie Elliott

A rediscovery of driving pleasure

Ann's new car is a dream; it rolls along silently in battery mode, while cutting in seamlessly to recharge as needed. Although no larger than the Polo, it is roomy with plenty of head height, and more features than anyone has a right to. I am wading through the manual, but probably will not fully master it before it finally gets sold on again. I particularly love the regenerative breaking; the realisation that slowing down recharges the battery rather than heating the atmosphere is very satisfying. Also, we are getting nearly 60 m.p.g. even with just local stop-start driving, so we are looking forward to taking it on longer journeys, perhaps north to visit the family once Ann has had her next cardioversion.

For her birthday last month, the boys had given Ann a Lego set to build her own orchid. We are pleased to tell them it has finally been completed, and has a place of honour on the piano.

In the north, news that Rosie was admitted to hospital with acute appendicitis. By the time they took it out, the tip was gangrenous and she was lucky it hadn't ruptured with a full peritonitis. Happily, she is back home and recovering.

Alan, Ann and J in the Swan

Ann's cousin, Alan, came to visit this week on his break from his Portugal house move. He regaled us with tales of the many fraught problems entailed by property law in Portugal. Neither Ann nor I relish interminable legal tangles these days, so we agree that a move abroad is not on the cards, even given the tax advantages and better climate - but even that is debatable with the brutal heat wave inflicting southern Europe this summer. Here in Britain it remains cold and wet, but at least we can simply don an extra jersey, and there is less chance of wild fires spreading across the fields to engulf the house! 

Congratulations to Edwin who continues with his Taekwondo, and got his first belt last night. We remember how good he was at Karati when he was younger, so I'm pleased he has found this sport to excel in. 

Car-hunt capers

 We always called the county, "Bent Kent" because of the many strange, inexplicable happenings we witnessed, such as vans parking on the far edge of Tesco's carpark and a dozen disorientated people emerging, or the vans parked on a layby back to back with their backs open for the transfer of strange objects, or the house opposite ours being raided by the police at 3:00 a.m. on several occasions for drug running, or the helicopter that landed on the lawn of Miriam Margolyes' holiday home after we'd rented it for a week as part of a drug-running scam. On Sunday we motored down for a short break there, and sure enough it lived up to its name. We stayed in the Churchill Hotel on the seafront, with a balcony view across the harbour. Ann sat at the window watching the world go by, and suddenly she was spell-bound by a strange tableau being enacted on the beach. A group of Pakistani or Indian people were gathered behind some rocks, mostly out of sight, but including some women in saris. All carried bags or cases, and they waited there for some while as it grew dark. A car then came crawling along, passed the group, and then reversed to line up with a gap in the wall. One man got out and came back carrying a large box, then went back to the group and took individual flash photographs of them all before they followed him to the car and were driven away. We still wonder what they were doing there.

Morelli's Ice-cream - a sharing dish

Our stay in Kent was enjoyed in some of our favourite spots, including Morelli's Ice-cream parlour in Broadstairs, Margate pier head pub, and Herne Bay front. 

Apart from this diversion, our time was well used as Ann continued her car hunt in Canterbury. We came round to considering the possiblity of a Renault and saw two possible ones. It seems a good car, ticking many of our boxes, so Ann continued the search yesterday when we got back. Today we went to another garage at Sawston and saw the ideal compromise car - a Renault Clio - put down a deposit, and suddenly Ann has a car again! Vindis Motors were very fair, even agreeing to replace a scatched rear windscreen, and the car - a hybrid - drives like an ideal motor. Vindis himself was an interesting Chech guy who came over in the war, flew Spitfires with the RAF at Duxford, and ended up as a flight leutenant before using his discharge money to open his first second hand car dealership. They still have his gold-plated Rolls Royce in the showroom. Definitely worth our trip, and earning a toast to happy motoring at the Globe on our way home.

Ann has a new car!

A week of many incidents

 Ann has a new passport. It didn't expire until January of next year, but we'd heard such dire stories of delays that she sent for it early. Miraculously, it only took five days, and the online application was smooth and easy. The only real difficulty was the photograph - their site allows us to upload a photo and reports its quality as a meter reading. My several attempts kept going into the red scale and failing, but finally we got one that just scraped into the amber as "acceptable" and posted the application. We then got a message to say even this photo was rejected! And advising us to go to a proper photo-booth, or a professional. We therefore went to a photo-booth in the post office, but the result was so lamentable we didn't even try to send it. Finally, we went to a more expensive booth in Tesco which communicated directly with the passport office, so we didn't even need to scan the photo to get it to them and, at last, it was in their green band and the passport came through a couple of days later.

On Monday, Ann went into Addenbrookes for her cardioversion. Under heavy sedation, she felt no more than dull blows to her chest as they blasted her with 300+ volts of electric shock. As she recovered, she felt her heart still banging away erratically and, looking at the cardiologist, she said, "it didn't work, did it?" He ruefully agreed, before saying he would like to try cardioversion again in six weeks after starting her on a new, stronger medication with numerous potential side-effects. Ann's heart rate has varied betwen a high of 180+b.p.m. and a low of 35 b.p.m. Luckily, she is still allowed an occasional wine - in moderation - which eases the pain of two great, red burn marks on her back and chest. 

Tuesday took us to the vets for Brontë, who has been "leaking" slightly for a little while.  Ann cut off all her bum-hair to stop it being soaked and Edwin found some doggie nappies on-line, which we sent for. They certainly work and she seems to wear them with a certain swank, as though she has something special which Byron doesn't. The vet couldn't find anything specific, but suggested she may be hormone-deficient, so now we have to add HRT to her food each day.

Last week, too, I had my now annual cystoscopy to check for any recurrence of my bladder cancer. The girls doing it commented, "it's a long way up!" which I suppose to be a generous comment, but it reminded me of the nurses at St Thomas' Hospital when I was a student. They kept a notebook in which they recorded penile lengths of anaesthetised patients, to see who would get the week's record. Happily, though, they also declared that there was no sign of a recurrence, and want to see me again in a year. Sometimes, my body feels like a racetrack between two cancers. At the moment, melanoma is definitely winning while bladder seems to have stalled on the starting grid.

Ann is on the lookout for a new car. We went into Suffolk Trade Centre to see what they had in and Ann got a quote for her car. To my surprise, and, I suspect, to Ann's also, she spontaneously accepted their offer before she found a new car, so suddenly we're down to one vehicle. Now, every day is spent looking on-line or visiting showrooms. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of used cars; after twenty years of being our go-to, even Suffolk Trade has an almost deserted forecourt, and is being put up for sale. We continue the search.

Scientific Spirituality

Edwin and Andre entertain Theo

We had a warm fathers' day: warm in the presence of family as well as a meteorological sense. Lucy, Andy and Theo stayed above The Globe in Clare, a remarkable flat built into the roof of the 16th century pub, while Edwin and Andre came to share the day with us. Theo loved the two boys, who enjoyed entertaining him - Edwin by telling stories of ancient Greece, and Andre by making an Origami bird whose wings flapped when the tail was pulled. Little Theo was entranced.

If asked what I believe in, a rare enough question, I would describe it as Scientific Spirituality, a faith more akin to science than religion. It is driven by a spirit of inquiry, not dogma. It is open to individuals to seek, but does not wish to convert or proselytise, though it rejoices when someone genuinely wants to know how something really works at the deeper level. It accepts people for whom they are, not for what they believe. It seeks to encourage not to punish. It has no group organisation nor church, yet is taught in nature's harmony. All the distractions of the world, our concerns with status, fame, the latest laptop or phone, are but empty moments when compared to the experience of inner peace and the calm revealed by the unifying wholeness of understanding and wonder at the miracle of the natural world. 

Scientific Spirituality does not preclude religion, or organised prayer, or group worship. But it does preclude religious exclusivity: the insistence that there is only one way, the intolerance of alternative thoughts or beliefs, the insistence that one book or one person's opinion holds the key to the Universe to the exclusion of all other thought. All religions may lead to Spirituality, but without the virtue of Scientific inquiry, they become rigid and exclusive rather than seeking to be open, expansive, and inclusive.  Girders in the Sand was my attempt to bring the historical development of Scientific Spirituality into context, through centuries of spiritual development paralleling scientific advancement, building toward the frontiers of universal understanding. 

On Sunday, Edwin and Andre were formally welcomed into the Methodist church in Bury St Edmunds, which they have been attending for some time. Ann and I went to witness this, with a lovely lunch of snacks provided by the congregation in the hall afterwards. Between them, they certainly bridge the concept of Scientific Spirituality.

Any death inspires reflective thoughts, even so modest an end as our Guinea pig, Bartok. Following his death, I penned a few thoughts, leading to the poem The Empty Cage.

The Empty Cage

For briefest moment, behind wired bars,

Some creature stirred -

Lent sight and movement, warmly furred,

more than food or drink metabolised: 

Imprisoned here, by whims and chances bound,  

A vast complexity of artful wonder

Given for a moment to our pleasure - 

Then death, its ailing body ripped asunder.

I, too, with complex form appear

To talk and dance awhile in chances’ cage

‘Til age and death soon everything will take;

In these tight bonds I can but hopeless rage.

John H. Marr