things with meaning

I come from folk who save things. This could be called hoarding, but perhaps, for us, it is more about keeping connections alive. My grandmother, mother and I all experienced sudden loss of a parent/husband, coupled with the loss of our home environment in which that loved person once existed.

In Ganna's case, she and her two sisters lost their father when they were teenagers. In my case I was seven. Our respective mothers then had to reconstitute their lives without their husbands and with dependent young people. In Ganna's case, she and her sisters came from Ireland to St Leonards on Sea, leaving their old lives behind ands starting again. In my case, Mum and I had to up sticks and move to Hastings from our happy life in Petersfield. She went back to full time work and life went on, because that was what one did in the sixties, no grief counselling or even a sense that it was needed. I cannot imagine how hard that was for her. As life has continued, even those two loved women have become lost to me.

I wonder whether these losses have meant that remnants of that old life take on an almost talismanic power; keepers of the past. As long as these curtains, our dining table, that chair are here, then the past, which includes that lost loved one, isn't entirely gone. The article has known their touch.

There is a laundry basket: wicker, worn, much used. It may well be 90 years old, bought when Ganna was first married in the 1920s. In recent years the wicker ties holding the lid on have  creaked a greeting to me each time I pop another piece of laundry in. I have known it for most of my life. Recently, the final tie holding lid and basket together died. The lid became a separate entity.

I sensibly, if a little wistfully, ordered a replacement. The replacement arrived, but the old basket remained in the way, for weeks. I couldn't face ditching it! Then a thought occurred. I store upright things in my craft room, cardboard rolls, baking parchment, rolls of needlepoint canvas and the like. The basket is the perfect height to hold them.

So now a muddled corner has more clarity, the bigger muddle surrounding it has been rationalised. But most importantly, I sill have that battered, venerable old basket, which existed in different bedrooms through loss and moves, still with the touch of Ganna's and Mum's hands captured in its weave.

I expect I should have just broken it up and burned it, or taken it to the tip.

I'm glad I didn't ...

 

Things - keeping and relinquishing

Over on Kindred of the Quiet Way Pen is spending this year reducing the number of things in her home. She has done this before, and is deeply committed to the idea of walking lightly on the earth and leaving as little behind as she can when she leaves it. She is a person who lives her beliefs and her faith with deep sincerity. I have known her since I was a teenager; she is a dear soul and I respect her ideas, finding them both thought provoking and sometime quite challenging. The theme of minimalism is one she has returned to again and again; it is something that allows her to lead a frugal life and be at peace with herself. Many years ago she recommended a book called Nothing Left Over by Toinette Lippe, which I have read, and will re read as it contains much wisdom. There is a huge appeal in reducing ones things to the bare minimum, and I have considered it often. However, this is not quite how my life has evolved. 

My great grandmother Nanya had three girls but I am the last person (not counting beloved daughter) in that line of our family. As such, my domestic space contains the distillation of multiple homes refined by multiple house moves. As I walk through the rooms my glance falls on all sorts of things which speak to me and to each other. 

Little treasures from Mum's childhood, kept so carefully by her.

This quizzical cow with his broken ear, guarded by a rather fine dachshund, which came from Cecil; dachshunds were her speciality, though hers were always long haired.

A glass bowl, given to Cecil on her retirement by her National Trust employers. It has an image of both the house she lived in when she worked for them at Grey's Court and, on the far side, Felix Lodge, her home until I had to move her to be in care near me. I stayed in both places often, and remember the kitchen in that octagonal tower and the delicious cakes she baked in the range for the tearooms there.

There are these two lovely bits of pottery; the bowl made by my mother's Californian cousin Ellen, descendent of Nanya's brother; the little mug made by Ellen's dear friend Inez. They sit on Ganna's desk recalling two holidays taken there when I was a teenager.

This delightful image which, I believe, was painted by Howard. A moment's canine mayhem triggered by a frisky cat. 

And books, books, books. What would one expect from someone who worked in the library for forty years, and whose family wrote and treasured books above many other things. Some here are mentioned by Mum in her diaries - it feels rather special to read of her being given them, and then find them still on my shelves. 

I could show you more, but this post might never end. All these things live in my study - there are other rooms (she said darkly)!

So, what of minimalism?

When I read about it, as I say, it has a huge appeal. It carries with it connotations of liberation, non consumerism, lightness of being. And yes, I think all those things are possible, even likely when you relinquish things. But then I think about the conversations my family things have with each other. Those two pieces of pottery, still happily together, though the folk who made them have gone. The little gathering of Mum's treasures which enchanted me in my childhood. I think of the way that, in nature, when things accumulate, there is always growth of some sort, even if that growth is simply the rotting down of waste (in the compost heap for example) to provide food for something else. I see in the garden how, if I don't clear the leaves and dust, the weeds spring up with delight, or the way emerald moss cushions the cracks in the pavement. I notice how the leaves gather at the foot of the trees, feeding them and the forest creatures as they blend back into the soil. I watch the blanket weed in the pond and know that its growth is absorbing nitrates that would otherwise create an imbalance; the pebbles on the beach which allow sea kale and mallow to colonise. There is a richness and potential in abundance, a raft of possibilities and opportunities.

So, perhaps for me, the way of minimalism, while appealing, is not one I will take. I recognise that, for some folk, the act of relinquishing is a path to clarity and peace. But I enjoy the memories that all these objects bring me; the way they enrich my life. I know that those loved folk are always here in my heart, but specific thoughts are triggered by each object, rather than a general sense of what was past. And, on a more philosophical note, I wonder if the eight year old little girl who lost her Daddy, her home and the whole context of her life, is not still nestled in my soul somewhere, reassured by the knowledge that at least not everything is gone.

My "Water Music"

I was reminded of this today, because I have been playing the piano just a little bit recently, revisiting a simple Bach prelude which remains in my fingers. 

This piece is not Bach, but Chopin, Nocturne in E Minor, and has never been in my fingers. It is something my beloved Mum used to play, when I was a small child and we had moved "back" to Ganna's house in Hastings, after Dad died. I called it "Water Music" because of that wonderful flowing rippling line in the left hand.

So imagine, if you will, this little girl, twirling and swirling, arms outflung, toes pointing, using all her best ballet steps, round and round on the carpet in the drawing room, with its centre medallion,  knowing the music so well that her final dying swan was always at the heart of the motif. 

The pianist here plays it just as Mum used to - with my eyes closed, I could feel myself there.

Mended

These gloves! Mum made them for me I would guess around 45 years ago, both greys from other projects, the fingers and cuff from a ripped down school cardigan. You can see from the way they have moulded to my finger shapes that they have has a lot of use.

This week I noticed a hole as I pulled them on; the first in all these years. That grey wool now long gone, I repaired it with red thread, a symbol of my enduring love for her, though she’s been gone more than ten years now. And a symbol of her love for me, given so freely, keeping my hands warm all this time.

Ten years

Ten years ago today my dear little Mum left this earth. This morning Jen and I sat together in my garden and raised a cup of tea in her memory. We both feel grateful to have had her in our lives. She was a wonderful Mum, though not always an easy person, and was a delightful Gran to Jen, known always as Granny Rose, because her name was Rosemary. I printed out a couple of extracts from her diaries for Jen, just to bring her close again and we sat crocheting and knitting and drinking tea, exactly the sort of thing Mum would have shared with us had she been here.

Mum with her Mum, my Ganna

Mum and Dad in their courting days

Mum and Jen in 2003

So, a little bit of that extract which is so exactly Mum, with her ability to recall conversations in detail and her tendency to not "suffer fools gladly" - she could be a harsh judge of folk at times, yet unshakably kind and generous with most. She was 16 when she wrote this in 1942

"To change from the sublime to the ridiculous Mrs Lambert was talking to Mummy over the fence the other day and she has for some time wanted to find out if Mummy has registered to find out her age. She is in collusion with Mrs Harpur. Mrs L says that she has registered which is a lie because for one thing she is no more 42 than I am, for another she told Daddy the day after that she hadn’t registered because it was so full and would she be out to jail and then about 3 weeks after told Mummy that she had gone in there and told the woman that she wouldn’t wait, and of course the woman obeyed her. There’s swank for you! Anyway I am leaving my story. She suddenly said to Mummy “My dear I have my calling up papers, have you yours?”. Whereupon Mummy said “No”. Actually she hasn’t got to register until next month but she wasn’t going to give anything away to Ruby to Mrs Harpur to Cheam. Then the fair lady said “Ah I know why you haven’t got them, because you haven’t registered – have you registered?” This was all done in a high pitched excited voice and is very rude because it is the equivalent of asking a person their age which isn’t usually supposed to be in the best of taste. So truth telling Mummy said “No” and quickly added “not for firewatching” Mrs L “But my dear I don’t mean firewatching I mean the ordinary registration” so Mum said “Oh yes Mrs Lambert” whereupon a steady gaze ensued. Where Mrs L goes wrong is that she makes such silly mistakes like saying that she had all her calling up papers when she couldn’t have even registered for firewatching as it hasn’t come in. Some women are silly."

We enjoyed that

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

Treasure for the New Year

Happy New Year to you dear readers, I hope your Christmases were good and that your year has started with all hope and happy expectation. Mine, of course, has started with the recognition that this will be my first full year of retirement and that I'd better get busy with all those projects I mentioned!

So, what is this New Year treasure? It is my Mum's diaries kept, with a few breaks (or perhaps lost volumes), from the age of 11 (1937) all the way through to when she was 80 and had the fall that was to mark her long slow decline towards the end of her life.

They truly are treasure, in large part because they are hers and connect me to her and to our family in such an intimate way. She grew up in middle class suburban Cheam, until they moved back to Hastings when she was 21. I know so many of the names and places that she describes from her own stories of childhood; I can hear her voice filling in additional details and feel her personality in what she relates here.

The first part of the collection is a lovely set of Lilley and Skinners (The Fashion Shoe Shop, 356-360 Oxford Street London) school-girl's diaries (and one schoolboy's). There are 6 of them, starting in 1937, so cover the period when war starts, through to 1942. My grandfather worked as a bookkeeper at L&S, travelling up to London and back by train every day, and working in a dingy basement. I wonder if he ever ventured down to the "buried street" mentioned here and here. 

Each diary has a set of pages at the beginning with "much useful information and many tables helpful for her work and play" including the Rugby Football results for the national teams, books to read, foreign phrases in common use and mensuration formulae, which I have to confess I briefly misread in the index, until I realised the unlikelihood of my misreading! 

I was pleased to note in suggested careers for women that, as well as teaching, nursing and domestic science, we could also embark on industrial welfare (if trained and competent), become pharmaceutical chemists, barristers or solicitors and even apply to the Institute of Civil Engineers, although a note here warns that "practical work is a real difficulty" and "women find posts more easily on the secretarial and commercial sides"

They all have a map of the British Empire at the back (of course)

And each week has a little illustration at bottom right, along with a small paragraph explaining the image. 1938's theme obviously relates to the British constitution so for the last week of November we have The Lobby of the House of Commons and explanation of the cry "who goes home?"

I have, as you can see, started at the beginning, the image above being from November 1938, where you can see her interest in school seemed to be restricted to music (she later went on to study at the Royal Academy of Music), dancing and, above all else, food - and this is before the war and rationing. I remember her stories of "starving" during the war and how cross she was that her father wouldn't sacrifice his precious delphiniums to grow vegetables to feed them. She has just started at a new school in September of this year, so perhaps the food was so much better than in her previous school that it merited detailed reporting.

In 1941 however, she also begins "My Journal" as series of notebooks that run from June 1941 to July 1953. These are, as their title suggest, more of a journal and contain all sorts of interesting detail of the life of a young woman growing through her teenage years into her mid twenties. They end on a very poignant note when her beloved dog Randy died. There follows a gap of four years then they resume, but once again in the more restricted form of week to a spread diaries and pocket diaries, and continue right through to 2006, a span of 69 years.

This is the project that I have been waiting to do for as long as I have known that I have this wonderful collection, which is quite a long time. I am nearing the end of 1938, the only mention of the impending war so far is that she was fitted for a gas mask in late September, but no comment as to why. I shall be transcribing for some while I rather think, and treasuring every moment of time spent with her.

updated yarn

A yarn can be something that you knit or weave or even stitch with, or it can be a tangled tale with twists and turns and little diversions along the way.

The first meaning is obviously what the image below is all about. Yes, a little while ago I treated myself to some lovely Noro yarn, on sale in a very fine wool shop near where I live, which was closing down. Both my loss and my gain. Then a couple of weeks ago I went out with beloved daughter to buy a dress for her for our wedding, and was lured into buying yet more yarn, as one is from time to time. 

I felt it only right that the less recent purchase should be knitted up first, so here is the knitting in progress, along with the pattern.

I have to say, I don't think I'll look anything like as fey and girlish in my version, but (and this is very important to me) the cardigan will be symmetrical across the front, not all skew whiff like the illustration in their pattern book. I have puzzled over this for some time; why oh why are all Noro patterns knitted up all any old how in relation to the (absolutely beautiful) colour changes in the yarns? A brief bit of research online found me this little gem of a phrase from the "blurb" on their website.

"Harmonize natural unevenness, asymmetric pattern and complex color to portray the beauty of the nature. Taking sufficient time to dye and yarn natural flavors and tenderness of materials to preserve their original characters"

Well - apart from the delighfully idiosyncratic translation from the Japanese, I guess the "asymmetric pattern and complex colour" explains the lack of symmetry. But when did you last see an asymmetric butterfly, or flower, or bird's wing pattern, or tabby cat's stripes? 

Nope, just can't be doing with all of that. My cardigan will have, I hope, perfectly matched colour changes across the front and the sleeves, which will give me great satsifaction. Yes that does require hunting through the remaining balls to find the one which starts as near as possible to the end of the previous one, and cutting out the excess but I can use that up in the collar, so no waste there! And what satisfaction when I finally sew it all together and the colour bands flow across my imperfect body in perfect symmetry!!

So, to my second yarn, the tale of the Damn Bloody Mouse - known as DBM hereafter. Yes, there is a link with the following pictures I promise.

We have two lovely cats, Rum and Raisin, who have shared our lives for the past ten or so years. We love them dearly, and feed them far too many biscuits but they are cats, and they do what cats do; catch things. Rum's catches ususally get crunched up on the lawn, though occasionally they are brought in for consumption overnight, with little bits left by the Man's chair in case he's peckish in the morning. Raisin, however, is a bit more squeamish. Once the excitement of the chase and catch is over, he's not quite sure what he should do with this poor wriggling furry thing. So in he comes clattering through the cat flap, a scurry, a yowl or two, and I rush into the kitchen to find a mouse (DBM) cowering under the dresser (where all good mice should hide) and a grumpy fat cat doing his best to get under the dresser. A cat and mouse impasse. I removed the cat, and found things to block up the ends of the dresser so that DBM couldn't escape. However, DBM had escaped already, to hide beneath the bookshelf in the sitting room. Aha, I thought, I can block up the wavy front esdge of the bookshelf with "more things", heavy enough and malleable enough to fit under the wavy bits and leave one small space for DBM to come out. The one small space was, of course, cleverly adapted with a humane mouse trap, baited with rather nice nuts and chocolate biscuits. No problem I thought.

Two days later, having sat each morning listening to little mouse scrabbles, and thinking, "oh, he'll be out soon, tidily captured in the mouse trap" I came down to find that two of the "things" used to block all exits had been wriggeld through and there was no DBM any more. And, to add insult to injury, DBM had been very grateful for the nice feast I'd supplied him, easily accessed by nibbling through the soft corduroy cover that ennables wheat packs to be heated up in microwaves before being applied to sore necks. Perhaps not my best choice for a mouse barrier!

So what does this have to do with the pictures below?

Well, for the next two nights I was awoken several times by little scrabbles and scuttlings in my bedroom. Ye Gods, I thought, DBM has found it's way upstairs and is negotiating the maze of boxes and whotnot under my bed. This is definitely Not Good. The first task, obviously, was to buy more humane mouse traps; the second to move all the boxes out from under the bed, then crawl about, with no thought of dignity, with torch and long poky thing to find the whereabouts of the DBM.

What did I find? A great deal of dust; a pen I'd lost; a single sock; a bookmark; an empy pack of aspirin. I also reacquainted myself with the precious contents of these many and various boxes: old writing cases belonging to Ganna and Mum, stuffed with letters, diaries, account books and the like; a complete handwritten draft of one of Gannas novels, along with the typewritten version that Mum did for her to send to the publishers; a small suitcase with a set of old reel to reel tapes which I know have all of us (me, Mum, Dad, Ganna and Grandad) talking many many years ago in Petersfield when Dad was still alive and playing with his new Grundig tape recorder. And this very fine collection of rug yarns, complete with the canvas (3' x 6') and a handwritten list of the amounts of every yarn there. 

Some were easy - just count the drums and you know how many pieces you've got, but I had a vision of Mum sitting and patiently counting out 929 pieces of green, 482 pale pink, 33 dark blue, 2 khaki ...... as all those below were just small remainders, carefully packed into plastic bags to keep them safe.

They have sat there I'd guess, for the best part of the last 40 odd years, kept for "one day" when she would have time to make the next rug. One day never came - it often doesn't, so here they still are, awaiting a hand and a design to make the best use of them, along with the list of amounts, and calculations of how many pieces would be needed to fill that canvas.

But what of the DBM? Not a sign, not the merest twitch of a whisker, nothing. But still, occasionally, I hear a little scratch and scrabble in the middle of the night. Not in my room, no no, in the walls of my room. I assume the wretched creature has found its way in somehow, and is now searching the fabric of the house for more tasty morsels. All we can hope is that a) it doesn't start trying to eat the wires, b) it finds its way outside somehow, without encountering an enthusaustic feline on its journeys and c) it does so very soon, as I'm rather tired of sleeping with one ear cocked just in case it finds its way onto the bed!!

little groups of silent people

Wednesday Feb 6, 1952

This morning our king passed away. When I heard the news I couldn’t believe it, although he had been ill, he was so much better. Also the manner in which I heard it was hardly convincing. One of our workmen put his head through the window [of the office] and said to Mr Eldridge who was with me “the old king’s dead”. He didn’t look put out in the least. Oh how horrible everyone is becoming or is it just provincial? As mummy said, 50 years ago a man in his position would have taken his hat off and said “His Majesty has died”, or words to that effect. Muriel said quite openly that it didn’t affect her personally in the least. Janet and I felt the same, though [deeply saddened], and when I listened over the wireless & heard what was going on in London – little groups of silent people at Buckingham Palace standing outside in the drizzle and shopkeepers taking all coloured things out of the window etc, I knew that we were not in the minority. It has been so sudden and such a shock and there is poor little Princess Elizabeth rushing back from her tour of Australia – only 25 years old – and Queen of England. I suppose she has never had much freedom but she will have precious little left now or for the rest of her life. I think the Royal Family are wonderful - so courageous and brave and always smiling whatever their private feelings. I have only seen the Queen (now queen mother) in the flesh and I thought she was perfectly lovely and such a sweet and serene expression on her face and now poor dear she must go on alone and in the background. What a blessing that Princess Elizabeth had her marriage and found someone so nice and to her liking while her father was alive and could give her away etc, and also that her first baby was a boy and so made the succession to the throne right. When I think she is only my age, even if she has been trained for the job, I think she is  wonderful – so poised and so pretty too. I suppose we shall have all new stamps and money now. She is so small and yet she is now first in the land. I think she will make a lovely Queen even as her father was such a good and kind King. It seems almost unnatural to think that this time yesterday the King was alive and the Princess and the Duke were in Kenya enjoying themselves on their little holiday at the start of their long tour & everyone about their normal business and in 24 hours the princess now Queen is rushing  back to England & the whole country is in mourning.

An extract from Mum's journal. It seemed fitting today, when London, despite the pouring rain, is pouring it's heart out to Queen and occasion. I had hoped that her account of the coronation would be there as well; she saw it on a black and white TV in Battle Memorial Hall and it was the first time she went out properly with my Dad. Sadly. later in 1952 Mum's dearly loved dog Randy died aged only seven. She had longed for a puppy for years, and was given Randy as a birthday gift when she was 18. Here she is walking Randy, five years before the above entry.

Mum and her beloved Randy in the park 1947

There are no further entries after that in her journal

something for Her Majesty

Our regional challenge - note how I just casually drop in the "our", when in reality I'm such a new girl! Anyway, the regional challenge for the local Guild is to produce a piece of wearable art for the Queen's Jubilee. We, that is the members, are creating a series of  sort of "slips"; separate bits of embroidery, on a street party theme, to be carefully stitched to a dress that is being loaned to us for the project. In the past slips were on canvas, usually on a horticultural theme and made to be applied to hangings. We'll display our contribution, along with those of the other groups in the south east, and will be judged on the grand regional jamboree day out.You'll remember last year's was my somewhat whimsical Beezeyeview which does at least mean I've been a member for nearly a year, since that was for last year's challenge. I have been tasked with producing an ice cream dish with three scoops, some wafers and a cherry on top! The design has been provided along with clear instructions on how to proceed.

I've hunted down some fabrics in the right colours, and made a start with the dish. I did a couple of trials on some spare fabric - very useful as they helped me understand how the stitching would react with the fabric and allowed me to adapt the way I was going to work..

Talking of being helped to understand - my advice - please take it - don't include your finger in the piece you're stitching on the sewing machine, it's very unhelpful!

Anyway, inspired by the glitzy piece I did for Brodie, I thought a little celebratory sparkle might be in order since this is for a Jubilee celebration, so I've very carefully done a bit of reverse applique. First I got the fabric all pinned down, marked and tacked so I knew where I was going.

Then I stitched round the lines, first with straight stitch to stabilise the fabric, then with zig zag satin stitch to create an edge to cut against. Then I cut away the green fabric from the front, inside the diamond stitching.

Then I needed something to back the organza and bring our its glamour, a bit of a scrap I found while rummaging in Hastings Old Town recently - the best place to rummage I have to say. I stumbled upon a delightful shop, run by a delightful lady, with all sorts of scraps and bits of lovely fabric. She asked me what I was going to do, when I got home, with the little hoard I was clutching to my chest. "Probably take it out and stroke it" was my reply! I'll have to go back and tell her that a little bit became part of a Jubilee embroidery.

Anyway, where was I? Yes, I tacked this to the back of the piece, turned it over and stitched round the diamonds again and voila! A diamond cut green glass sundae dish ..... if you squint carefully!

I think I'll go round the outline with buttonhole stitch - I can almost recall Ganna teaching me how to do it - very useful for cutwork table runners, tray cloths, napkins and "dressing table doilies" ! It will allow me to cut the pieces out, so they can be assembled and fixed in pace with vilene on the back.

I'm also going to add some more embroidery to the stem and base, with perhaps a bit more of that exciting turquoise that reminds me of peacocks feathers.

Then there's the blobs of ice cream to do! Oh, and the wafers, and the cherries which I am going to try and do with free machine embroidery over soluble film to see if I can achieve something like a stitched badge, with perhaps a couple of silver beads of dew on the surface, and scattered across the ice cream. I'll use a scrap of salvaged silk to fill the in betweens. Hope I get it finished in time - it is jolly good fun doing something to a brief.

As I work, I sit at Mum's little kneehole desk, which she bought in her just post war youth. It used to house her typewriter, the source of countless letters to friends and loved ones; letters full of good humour, little rhymes, concern for and interest in all the various people around her. The ratatat tat of her fingers as they flew over the keys were the backdrop to my childhood. She bought it with wages earned shorthand typing in a dingy London Office, all the while longing to study music and play her beloved piano.

Amazing what you can find

when you open a cupboard - I seem to recall having two at one stage, one with wiggly edges that you could create even more bizarre squiggly shapes with! Once carefully preserved in Mum's wardrobe, now tucked away in my study - a "Grandmother's Gift"

thanks Mum x

Maple Fairy Moss

1998 The leaf comes from a tree I was given by Mum around then, it floats on a pond where there were two delightful koi carp who glooped up when you scattered food for them and made the most magnificently lugubrious sucking noises.

I planted the tree in our garden this year, it has been through two moves and lived in a pot most of its life.
Now it lives here ... where I mean to stay

Memories

Mum - 2003

I was thinking of her today. I do every day, but recently I've been weeding photographs and rambling in the past. Mum coped in her life with, what many would have found, unendurable pain; from multiple breaks in childhood, through womanhood motherhood widowhood, returning to more breaks in the long decline that was old age. She was always an inspiration to me, at times she was utterly exasperating, I can't think of anyone who wasn't drawn to her brightness.

Here's something I wrote for her in 2010, after she'd gone.


Sometimes I hurt.
Actually,
most times I hurt.
It makes for a dragging weariness.


Then I remember
her bird boned form,
fragile as eggshell
and those blue, blue eyes.


shining soul

Mindful Ironing

I’m not much of a one for ironing, but I had some sheets that had to be washed – sheets I’d found tucked away in a drawer in Mum’s flat, The were stained, but had evidently been put away after a good laundering, compressed but perfectly ironed, rust marked and rather stuffy. I washed them in a good hot wash, tumble dried them (it’s been raining a LOT) to a perfect dampness, then ironed them mindfully. That is I paid attention to what I was doing, savouring the rising steam, enjoying the feel of hot cotton under my fingers getting smoother and smoother, letting my body get into a gentle rhythm of ironing, rather than dashing at it because “it’s got to be done”. Once you find the swing of a task, you do it quicker and better anyway. While I ironed I remembered.

The last time I ironed sheets was with Mum, in the “up in the eyrie” top floor that was her flat in our building. So I remembered that. I remembered her courage in the face of a body whose bones were crumbling within her, while her bright blue eyes still smile dot light up a room. Remembered the fun we had at times, even though other times were difficult.

The sheets bore labels saying “English Lady” and “Horrockses Linen”, which spoke of days gone by, one declares itself to be Egyptian Cotton. One was laundry marked – “Lomer”. Now they are single sheets, and the name Lomer was my grandmother’s (Ganna ) surname  once she married my grandfather, Gerald Hugh. Here they are on their wedding day in St Leonards on Sea, Sussex.

Gerald Hugh Lomer

Here is Gerald,in his uniform, helping with the gardening in the garden at Arklow, where she grew up. He an English soldier in a Southern Irish town at the time of the troubles, keeping the peace. He met her as the family put on evening entertainment for the soldiers; Dr Rowe’s three daughters with piano, violin and voice. She Ethel, the daughter of the town apothecary – known as Dr Rowe, at a time when armed men could be found skulking through the ground floor rooms, while you stayed upstairs, silent, ‘til they had gone. So I remembered them too.

Alice Constance and Alice Katherine Rowe

Then I recalled how, when first married they had a double bed. This, Auntie Connie, Alice Constance Rowe, and their mother Alice Katherine, declared incondusive to the good health and strength of the newly weds. They strongly advised twin beds for a good night’s sleep. Astonishingly, the newlyweds complied with family wishes and twin beds were bought, hence the single sheets for a newly married couple.

Then I remembered further back, to the time when Alice Katherine, four years widowed, aged came across to St Leonards on Sea, England, with her three unmarried daughters, from Arklow, County Wicklow, on the whim of a pin placed, with eyes closed, onto a map of southern England. Why choose such a curious means of deciding when she had a brother in Liverpool, who had six girls of his own – known collectively as “The Frodshams”. Perhaps because said Gerald Hugh was a son of the south, having been born to a family in Southampton who had been “county solicitors for generations”.

So I ironed, and remembered: remembered talking of all these things with Mum, who had talked of them with Ganna, who came across the Irish Sea. And the remembering was good, the ironing done in fine company. For such is the passage of family myth.

mindful body

One of the things I keep thinking about,and feel I could blog about, is living this life of mine, in which I have to manage constant pain. Because that is simply how my body is. I can't remember having no pain in my body, ever, though I know I must have as a child. 

We have a genetic condition in the family, which we inherit from Howard C Rowe, my great grandfather.

Howard C Rowe

In most of the slim strand of women descended from him, it manifests itself in very brittle bones.

My lovely Mum,

Mum with Dad in their youth

 dear Ganna, my second mother, once Dad was gone

Ethel H Lomer, nee Rowe

Great Aunt Connie, whom I barely remember, but whose strong personality lingers in family tales

A Constance Rowe

all had this life inhibiting fragility. They fell, they broke. Simple as that.

I and my daughter Jen, who is 25 this year, are the lucky ones, we don't break. But we do hurt. If we jarr our bodies, we often injure muscle or tendon and that takes forever to heal. If we leapt slightly awkwardly as children, we tore, or bruised really badly. For years I have been restricted to nothing faster than brisk walking pace, I know a muscle may tear if I move more quickly. But our bones don't break, which is a Good Thing.

And I still have dreams about running!

This does mean, though, that we hurt most of the time. Not screaming agony type hurt - though occasionally it gets a bit exciting, just nagging, every move you make, grinding sort of hurt, day by day, in all the usual suspect places. So we have to manage it. I try, each day, to keep part of my focus on moving in ways that minimize the damage. I try to hold this focus not in a life restricting way, but accepting that there are things I simply should try to avoid doing. I absolutely exclude gardening from this list of things, but I garden very carefully, as I've talked about before!

There are also things that I, that anyone can do, to support this fragility. I took advantage of training offered by the local physio department on using core muscles to support bad backs. I listened and carried the advice away into life, not enough admittedly, but some. I focus on supporting movement with those muscles, as often as I am mindful to. Simple things like getting out of a chair, tying a shoelace, benefit from this sort of focus: from remembering to cradle the back carefully with those muscles, just before you move. Things which we often do mindlessly, I try to be mindful of.

The mindful bit comes from Buddhism, from the writings of various good souls much wiser than me, and is about recognizing the value of being alive, and trying to use the hours, minutes, seconds, that we are truly awake to, in a meaningful, life affirming way. remembering that even though your back is really, really sore, there are still good things to notice about simply being alive!

I could ramble more about this - I'd rather not preach - but I may return to it from time to time.