The artistic life

envelope

Typhoid
cholera
TB
stalked the Victorian house
they did not imprison
but took their chances
hoping and praying
for divine intervention
Darwin's fittest survival
not cowered in solitary confinement
where loved ones die alone
no cuddles,
no sweet caress
just a letter of gratitude
from kith or kin
read by a gentle nurse
with tears in weary eyes
frightened it will be their turn next
to pass the envelope

Annie Elliott

Ann writes much that is raw emotion, but direct, as she rails against confinement and petty hypocrisy. She also thinks deeply and produces work that is intense and moving, as in her new poem, envelope. We are all too aware of death stalking the country, looking for a way into our lives to cripple and destroy all it can. Relationships, trust, livelihoods, whole careers and hopes, are being taken. Even the young, immune we hope from the virus, will be affected by loss of education or close elderly relatives, and by rising unemployment, incipient inflation, and a reduction in available finance and support for university or work.

Many young couples in their twenties will have been devastated by the wrecking of their marriage plans, unable to arrange their future lives together or gather their clans to celebrate a birth or mourn a death. Edwin's partner, Andre, was due to fly home this summer for his sister's wedding but this too is cancelled and he does not know when he may see his family again.

My own efforts at poetry are more mundane than Ann's, and alas my artistic efforts are no better than the poetry. The art equipment arrived yesterday (see Doing time), though this sounds grander than the actuality, i.e. a pad of paper, a packet of brushes (made in China!) and a set of paints. I decided to do a portrait of Edwin as a young boy, and have learnt now why artists are considered so radical, with the world set against them. Though copied from an old photo, it looks like a parody of a young man. Edwin says it looks like Lucy, and Ann says I must have been thinking of her subconsciously. No I wasn't! Please accept, it was not meant to be insulting or an unconscious Freudian representation; I am just a poor artist.

Portrait of Edwin as a young man

A Scientific Epitaph

My life is run,
My journey done.
My telomeres drop one by one,
Till one more gasp
And John is gone.

Doing time

Sacrifice

sacrificing the old for the young
is now the mantra of democracy
who cares if corona's shadows
stalk the roof of wrinkled tiles
time to bring out your dead
paint the crumbling caravan
set the ancient wood afire
for the old have had their time

New Hell
If I am jailed much longer
I shall lose my fragile mind,
I would rather face my chances
with COVID's cruel caress
than live in a prison cell
with chains and slavery's manacles
within this lock down hell.

Tomorrow
tomorrow
will be a better day
God willing
I will put away my hating hat
find my compassionate beret
put it in cheeky fashion askew
on my very bemused head
and stop wishing myself ,
and everyone else,
would drop down dead

Annie Elliott

The powers that be now say we can go for a short drive to take a long walk. For me, even a short walk counts as long, and a short drive is anywhere out of Hundon, so after yesterday's rain when we could go nowhere, I drove out of the village to  walk along the reservoir approach road. This is concreted and less muddy than the fields, and the dogs enjoyed getting back in the car after all these weeks.

Ann does not come and has been prolifically producing poetry. Much of it is the inner scream against confinement; Ann more than most could not bear to be locked in, restricted, imprisoned. Even after her Caesarean section she was up in a day, and home two days later, only agreeing to be wheel-chaired to the car because it was a condition of her discharge.

Now we see no one, go nowhere, not even a simple drive, and the pain is growing intense, though eased occasionally with a better day, as in Tomorrow.  It is raining again, so no more work in the garden or more country walks. Just four walls, and moving from room to room to vary the scene. We even have a television in the bedroom so we can sometimes sit up there to watch it as a change from down stairs all day.

We do a lot more reading, and the crosswords. Ann has also sent for some paints and paper, so inspired by Grayson Perry's Art Club, we will try our hand at some art. The results will certainly be amusing, and it will pass an hour or two. Who knows, if the pictures are vaguely recognisable, I might even publish one or two in this blog!

Vitamin D and Covid-19

There has been much in the news recently about using Vitamin D to build up resistance against Covid-19. I am a great believer in this, and both Ann and I take a tablet daily, supplemented by vitamen C which keeps tissues in good repair.

There is a scientific basis behind the efficacy of vitamin D. One company for which I do consultancy manufacture and sell a high-dose version of vitamin D for elderly people in care homes, for patients with clinical D-deficiency, and as a nutritional supplement for people in winter when they don't get much exposure to sunlight. With an eye to a marketing opportunity, the company asked me to research evidence for vitamin-D in association with conditions such as respiratory infections and viral diseases. I found a number of papers that support this link, and though "prevention of Covid-19" cannot be added to the licence for the drug, I was able to make a persuasive general case for taking it as a food supplement to help build up resistance to infection. Interestingly, one pharma company in Spain are running a clinical trial to assess the benefits of the vitamin in CV-19, so they too are taking the connection seriously. It will certainly do no harm to take vitamin-D as a supplement, and I for one shall continue to do so.

President Trump has been giving medical advice again, now suggesting ingesting bleach to fight CV. I have only one word to add: whatever the Trump suggests, don't! If you always do the opposite of his advice, you will not go too far wrong.

Last night we had a Houseparty quiz night. This is an amazing ap: eight groups were on video call simultaneously. Edwin and Andre called in from Cambridge, Ben, Kaz and Luke from Telford, Lucy and Andy and the grandchildren from Hartlepool (even baby Theo made an appearance); and Mike from Thornaby, who was question-master for the evening. Rosie and Matthew joined from King's Lynn, plus one. We congratulated them and admired the recent ultrasound scan picture. It is great to be reminded that life will go on anew once this wretched time has past. Matthew always had the nickname Snibs, and they are already refering to baby as Baby Snibs or Baby Snibling! We look forward to welcoming him (or her?) amongst us.

One question in sport involved a women's football final, which Ben derided as not a sport, forgetting perhaps that Ann used to play for the Aston Villa Ladies team. Also, they are they only English side to do really well at international level, with the best chance of winning a cup so he ought to start backing them, at least until such time as Middlesbrough can leave the bottom of the leagues.

Yesterday we rearranged the furniture in what is now the dining-cum sitting room. Today Ann was still not happy and wanted to juggle it again, so I took the dogs for another long walk and left her to it. When I came back, she said, "The things are everywhere. It's still not right. We're going to have to move it all back into the other room!"

Her voice was so despondent and her face so miserable, I hid my own feelings about it, thinking I'd better offer some support. "All right," I sighed, "we'll just have to do it. But let's have a drink first."

She led me into the room to sit down, and everything was neat and perfect. "I was only teasing you!" she laughed. The women in her family are all terrible teases. I should have known after all these years, but she gets me every time.

A long walk home

Wild lilac

Because of the lockdown we always shut the dogs away when Mary-Ann brings shopping round, but walking with the dogs, I came out of the playing fields to see M-A and Sam with their two dogs walking along opposite. Bronte loves M-A and cries with delight when ever she sees her, and I had to restrain her on the lead as she started crying and whimpering, and trying to pull me to her. I held the dogs back as M-A went through the church yard and turned up the field behind. When I finally entered the field, M-A and Sam were already well up it and turning a corner, for they are fast walkers. Thinking it safe, I released the dogs, but Bronte caught the scent of her and raced across the field until she too disappeared in the distance while Byron stayed by my side. Eventually, whistling and calling, Bronte raced back, but I knew if I set off in that direction she'd race off again. I therefore walked a different and long way home.

The hidden phone mast 

The early blossom and spring flowers are fading now, but others are coming in profusion in the hedgerows, such as the magnificent bushes of wild lilac pushing valiantly through the briars. Suffolk has long, gentle, rolling hills, so different from Norfolk and the Cambridge fens. I seemed to walk miles and ended up seeing hills and farms that were all new to me. Finally I came out to a landmark I recognised: the telephone mast disguised as a dead tree. It is hidden in a corner field, and had to be built this way to overcome objections from the locals. Many of the trees in the hedges are equally dead, blighted perhaps by some fungus, leaving just brambles and thorn trees.

At last I could see Hundon, a tiny, quiet village nestling in the hills. It hasn't changed much in its boundaries or population since the Doomsday Book, and lies neglected by the rest of the country. Now there are plans to build housing on the fields above the town, turning it into another soulless commuter town, with too many cars for its tiny roads and the mini-shop manned by volunteers.

Back home, Ann found an old hip flask still filled with whisky from our sailing days. She poured a drop and tried it, saying it was quite good and the only whisky she had liked. Then she poured the rest into a glass, but it came out a thick sludge, solid with black sediment, perhaps from dissolving the steel of the flask and oxygenation from a false seal. Heaven knows what had happened to it, but it had not matured in a good way.

Hundon village across the fields behind a dead tree 

Meeting the neighbours

Whenever we get tired of the rooms and feel we need a change, we rearranged the house. Again. We do this often and yesterday we moved the table from the library to the sitting room, which is the new dining room. Somehow we had got it into the room, but it is a large table, and wouldn't go through the door. We took off the kitchen door to manoeuvre it round the corner and try and bring it through on an angle, but it wedged solidly. Eventually, we had to take the other door off too until finally we managed to get it through the gap.

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We celebrated with a glass of Cherry Brandy. Like the bird-table (see Forward Planning), this came from my parents house when we cleared it after their death. It was a favourite tipple of my dad, and must be at least 30 years old now, but it tasted delicious. I have now bought a new one, and the label has changed so completely I thought I might have bought the wrong brand! Let's hope it tastes as good as its mature forebear.

Our neighbour has cut down a number of trees between the properties, and we are suddenly very exposed. The other day, we were at the patio when his head suddenly appeared disconcertingly over the fence and spoke to me! Suddenly we are not alone, so we are planning how to raise the fencing to screen them off. The fencing is very old, and without the trees' support it has started wobbling even in a light breeze, so may blow down when the next gale comes. It is unclear who has responsibility for it, so Ann pushed a note through their box asking for clarity, and offering to pay all or half if we need to.

I then went to work trimming the hedging where it is growing over the pavements, when the next door neighbour suddenly came round the corner to discuss it. They haven't been there very long, and we'd barely met them before. She said she doesn't like to leave things hanging, but always like to tackle problems head-on, which suits Ann for that is her style too. Then Ann came out to join me, and her husband followed shortly after so we ended up having a big pow-wow on the road, while keeping a legal distance apart. They kindly said they had every intention of replacing the fencing and paying for it, as they are in the process of renovating the whole house and garden which had fallen into disrepair.

She intends to run a nail and beauty parlour, while he has retired from the building trade and wants to open a dog-grooming service, so they intend to build working rooms alongside their house. So now we just need to find a fast growing tree to plant to screen them off a bit.

Forward planning

tomorrow

tomorrow
will be a better day
God willing
I will put away my hating hat
find my compassionate beret
put it in cheeky fashion askew
on my very bemused head
and stop wishing myself ,
and everyone else,
would drop down dead

Annie Elliott

The Professor of Anatomy at my teaching hospital was then the current editor of Gray's Anatomy. I struggled in anatomy, but one of the girls in our anatomy classes was the great-granddaughter of Thomas Pickering-Pick who had been an earlier editor of Gray's Anatomy until 1905. She was brilliant and one of the professor's favourite students. She was also a good sailor, and I once crewed for her when she had to deliver the family boat out of Weymouth along the south coast to their mooring in Christchurch. The boat was one of the "Old Gaffers", and took part in the Old Gaffers regatta each year.

Though still in my scruff sailing gear, I was permitted to take tea with the family, a formal affair overlooking their lawns through the open French windows, when they told me a little of the history of the old place. It used to have some large oak woods attached, where the trees had been planted particularly closely together at the time of the Napoleonic wars, when many of the old oak trees had been felled to build boats for Nelson's navy. By planting them close, the branches of these new trees were forced to curve upwards as they grew, so their timber could be used for the curved frames of the hulls.

The old bird-table

Oak trees take up to 200 years to reach maturity when their wood can be used. To our present-day minds, this is unimaginable forward planning; those forebears clearly believed nothing would change in 200 years, and we would still be building wooden-hulled fighting ships of the line. Now, most of their old woods have been sold off for housing, and those valiant old trees felled.

Yesterday, our son-in-law Sam erected the old bird-table my father had built for mum. She loved her birds and fed them everyday, threading peanuts on string, or tying bacon rinds to the hooks. Dad too built things to last, and his bird-table is more than 50 years old, and as solid as he first made it. Sam also built the Saloon behind the garden, which is equally solid and built to last. These times of change and uncertainty make us long for some stability and durability in our lives, and such strength and quality are a reminder of the value of good workmanship in continuity.

In this throw-away society, the NHS dispose of everything when it's been used once, whereas they always used to have quality materials, even for the face-masks, which they could sterilise and reuse many times. Now they are running out of disposable essentials. We might not welcome the old recurrent European wars, but we could certainly do with some of their stability and forward planning. It is surely time to return to old-fashioned quality and durability.

St George's Day comes to Hundon

Today is St George's Day. Walking back through the village with the dogs, one solitary flag was raised in honour of our patron saint by David and Pam, opposite our own house. They were a family of four generations in our village; Pam was born in this house, as was her own son, who lived in the village with his own child. We are three generations now in the village; yet still we feel we are newcomers, outsiders to the old generations who were born here. Hundon life, like villages everywhere, is very cliquey, with a small group of people who are "in". We are definitely still "out", but as we don't socialise much, we are happy to stay so. St George may bind the nation, but he could never bind a village together.

Help: the 5G nutters are loose in Hundon

UK Deaths from CV-19 to 20 Apr 2020

Life in Hundon has always been quiet and uneventful; indeed we may have been the oddest people in the village, for once when Edwin was lying in the front garden behind the hedge reading, he heard some passing people comment, "The people who live there are very strange."

In Saltburn, we used to live next door to a refuge for people whose IQ was a little less than average, and who needed sheltered accommodation. They were pleasant, quiet people, whom we would see sometimes walking in small groups with a carer to make sure they didn't wander off or come to harm. The only interaction we had was with one man who used to wait on the doorstep, and greet us with, "Am I alright?". We would invariably answer, "Yes, you're alright!" and this seemed to satisfy him, for after this little reassurance he'd give a delighted grin.

Now we have a new contender for the title of Hundon Oddballs: one of our own local residents. Her Facebook page is filled with links to the 5G telephone conspiracy, which seems to be the current crackers-craze. New Scientist always called this stuff "Fruitloopery", but their taunts were usually against companies selling wonder water or magic pillows, often with the words quantum or resonance in their adverts: such things as "energised oxygen", though usually the only energising thing about them was the price. But as long as they didn't claim to cure cancer or coronavirus, such nonsense was generally harmless except to the credulous pocket.

The stuff the local Hundonite is promulgating is not harmless; it is vicious and dangerous. Besides the usual rubbish trying to correlate CV-19 outbreaks with the location of masts, and inciting everyone to "burn them down", her latest video shows an obviously well-educated, well-spoken woman haranguing two harmless foreign workers in London who were installing a fibre-optic cable. She demanded to know what they were doing, and when they told her she said, "You do know that when you switch that on, everyone will die!" She then asked if they had mothers and children, and told them "Do you really want to kill them? I hope they are paying you enough, because you will kill them!" She then added for good measure, "All those morgues they are building round London now are for all the people you're going to kill." The workers looked bemused as they just tried to do their jobs under this tirade of abuse. I don't know what school the woman went to, but her parents should sue that school for giving her such an appallingly low level of basic education.

This week, the chart of deaths from CV-19 has shown a dramatic drop to less than half its peak, and the total cases are levelling off. I know the government do not wish to trigger a second wave of infection, but at some stage they are going to have to let people return to at least limited normality. Now surely is the time to begin the process, and at least reopen some of the small shops and places where people can work in isolation from each other. I don't know how the nutters will link a fall in CV-19 cases to 5G, but one day it will be gone. Perhaps they'll switch their intolerant nonsense to some other mythical cause: TV waves, or ordinary 4G radiation, or telephone land lines, or alien invaders. Indeed, it could be anything that involves fanciful ideas with no logic or science behind them.