The gender fluid cow

As our isolation and social distancing settles in we are keeping ourselves occupied in a variety of ways. I am taking great delight in returning to my Mum's diaries, transcribing them little by little each day and wishing she could know how much they are contributing to my touch typing skills. As I follow her adventures I occasionally come across mention of letters written to her beloved "Mummy". You can imagine my delight when I investigate one of the many old suitcases that I have kept,

and find each of those letters carefully tucked away. Little did her 14 year old self think that her daughter would be reading them all these years later.

Letter from Sept 1939

So, it is 1940, she is staying with her beloved Aunt Connie and her companion Harry out at Nirvana, by Iden lock during a break from school

Connie and Harry at the gate of Nirvana

Harry and Connie pedalling across the fields

Her life is full of very simple pleasures; taking their dog Benjy for walks, picking bluebells, going to collect the milk from the nearby farm, wrapping 5 dozen eggs in paper to take back to Hastings for storage in "waterglass", and feeding one of the local cows "8 or 9 basins full of lovely grass". Having spent the day doing this, much to the cow's delight, she then goes for an evening walk across the fields. The cow, obviously anticipating more spoiling, comes ambling up for more grass. In her letter home she describes the scene

"… he stalked across about half the field to meet me. I showed him that my hands were empty and she put down her head as tho' to eat grass and butted me (don’t laugh). I was scared stiff and dashed nearly the length of the field back to Nirvana. She followed but saw I was too fast for her. I think it was a dirty trick after my feeding her all day with sweat upon the brow."

You will notice, however, that the "cow" changes sex in the extract, in fact, she changes sex several times during the recounting of the tale. Obviously my grandmother, in a reply that I don't have, commented. In the following letter, a few days later, Mum elaborates, noting that

"The “sack” of the cow was feminine but I think it must have had a bit of bull in it to want to butt me."

Obviously in Mum's world feminine was good, udders were best not mentioned and masculine was likely to misbehave!

Here she is the following year aged 15 in her garden in Cheam, with her much loved cat Patsy - who despite the name was male!!

Missed

It will be ten years this year that she has been gone, though she is in my heart every day. Today would have been her 94th birthday

On the beach with her Mum c. 1927

More happy summer beach days

Aged around 20 - sunshine and shadow

Mum and Dad in their courting days

a very happy grandmother

I am so glad she didn't have to fear this thing. I phoned my aunt this week on her birthday; she and Mum shared the same birth year. I felt her despondency; when life is burdensome enough the isolation and lack of "normal" feels just too much to bear. I hope my call gave her some small pleasure

Garden rescue

Just a little forget-me-not plant, one of many, accidentally dislodged during weeding. Great Great Aunt Harriet in the background, painted by her sister

We have a fierce and chilly wind blowing for a couple of days here, time to retreat indoors methinks

Rainbows

There’s a wonderful notion here in the UK, in response to the epidemic. Folk are creating rainbows and pinning them up in their windows so that passers by can be cheered. I love the thought, but at the moment people are, in theory, not going out except for essentials. So I though I’d share some of the rainbows that I live with.

They can be made by the sun, briefly captured by the wall

Or gently illuminating cloth stitched in India

They can be woven in Peru

They can have little birds flying across them

Or they can be made of cloth or glass and shine in the window by sunlight or lamplight

Because when the clouds are dark, if you can see a rainbow you know the sun is behind you. Sometimes we need rainbows to pull us through.

Strange times

In these curious times there are many things to be thankful for, and perhaps the sense of threat heightens that feeling. We are in the lucky position of having stopped work, so have the freedom to say, lets just stay at home and do "stuff" and just go out when we need some shopping. Admittedly that does mean one of us is in the "at risk" category because of his age, but that's just more good reason to stay at home.

We both take great delight in our garden, which has grown and changed quite significantly since we moved here in 2010. We have dug and planted, and had a number of very splendid folk in to help us with the proper business of landscaping. When we moved here we both felt that we wanted to give the garden time to tell us about itself; to reveal where the sun would lie in summer, to show us where previously planted bulbs are happy to see the light again and, most importantly, what wildlife we might be sharing it with. The consequence has been a slow transformation, one project at a time as strength and finances have allowed. The first priority for me was to transform the horrible shingle desert in front of the house into a garden that passers by could enjoy and which makes me smile every time I walk outside.

The back garden has acquired a productive area with greenhouse and raised beds - the badgers were particularly pleased the first year the Man provided ready to dig carrots!

The upper space has grown a pond, and much better walking areas. Despite being on top of a hill it gets extremely wet in rainy weather, and the water lies. We've had slate walkways carved into the grassy area over the past two years, that on the left the most recently completed.

the pond was added

and the garden has acquired the sense of something you can progress through; walkways lead to steps, or paved areas and flow round the top space in a very satisfactory manner. Most recently the latest stage of our garden transformation was completed.

I ponder and bask in this new seating area, a combination of fresh and reclaimed materials, with the flow and splash of the pond soothing me from across the grass,

As I listen to the birds in the many trees that surround me I feel deeply thankful to have such a treasured refuge in which to wait out this crisis.

What brings you pleasure at this time?

dyeing thread

Is not the same as dyeing fabric as I am discovering. Lovely daughter bought some yarn, bamboo and linen, very cheap, in white, for dying. And so, an experiment.

The first test wraps were bound with elastic bands and included some fine crochet cotton as well. So a small bundle, with all three types of thread, band wrapped, soda soaked, left to dry, dipped in dye and left to dry again

clear white divisions with some shading

After dyeing they were variously woven - this a test for something else, used to demo the dyed thread

And  crocheted to see how the effect translated, bamboo first then linen.

The second batch has yet to dry, bound with strips from plastic bags - unecological raffia. This is how ikat warps are tied prior to dyeing, but obviously with much more skill, planning and understanding than my efforts

They werent as effective at keeping out the dye, but have resulted in some interesting shading and some broader white spaces. The next step might be to re bind leaving some of the white unbound, then add a third colour, blending into some of the blue and petrol green but finding some of the white for the pure tone.

 Now where's that crochet hook?