I’m not sure there is any reason, exactly, but really …
(I was going to take advantage of an empty house to write a long blog post this afternoon, but it was sunny, so I went for a walk and came across this friendly horse along the Brampton Valley Way. People were queuing up to take his picture, so he may find himself going viral anytime soon …)
November’s poem is brought to you by R.S. Thomas, the austere Welsh priest.
A Day in Autumn
It will not always be like this,
The air windless, a few last
Leaves adding their decoration
To the trees’ shoulders, braiding the cuffs
Of the boughs with gold; a bird preening
In the lawn’s mirror. Having looked up
From the day’s chores, pause a minute.
Let the mind take its photograph
Of the bright scene, something to wear
Against the heart in the long cold.
In case your mind has failed to take its photograph of the bright scene, here are a few I took last Sunday along the Brampton Valley Way. Looks a little like a catalogue for the William Morris Wallpaper Company.
Still no sign of a permanent replacement for Helen Hunt Jackson, but, to welcome the new month, here is some prose from a poet. This is from an essay ‘August’, by Edward Thomas. It was originally published in the volume ‘The Heart of England’ in 1906.
“I have found only two satisfying places in the world in August – the Bodleian Library and a little reedy, willowy pond, where you may enjoy the month perfectly, sitting and being friendly with moorhen and kingfisher and snake, except in the slowly recurring intervals where you catch a tench and cast only mildly envious eyes upon its cool, olive sides. Through the willows I see the hot air quiver in crystal ripples like the points of swords, and sometimes I see a crimson cyclist on a gate. Thus is “fantastic summer’s heat” divine. For in August it is right to be cool, and at the same time to enjoy the sight and perfume of heat out of doors. In June and July the frosts and east winds of May are so near in memory that they give a satisfaction to the sensation of heat. In September frosts and east winds return. August, in short, is the month of Nature’s perfect poise, and I should like to see it represented in painting by a Junonian woman, immobile, passionless, and happy in a cool-leaved wood, and looking neither forward not backward, but within.
… here, more than anywhere else, the things that are seen are the least important. For they are but the fragments of the things that are embroidered on the hem of a great garment, which gathers the clouds and mountains in its folds; and in the hair of the wearer hang the stars, braided and whorled in patterns too intricate for our eyes. The Junonian woman is a little ivory image of the figure which I think of my the pool. She is older than the pool and the craggy oak at its edge, as old as the stars. But to-day she has taken upon herself the likeness of one who is a girl for lightness and joy, a woman for wisdom, a goddess for calm. Last month she seemed to laugh and dance. Next month she will seem to have grey in her hair. To-day she is perfect.”
Until recently, if I’d fancied sitting by a little reedy, willowy pool I could have made my way down to this one, off the Brampton Valley Way –
Now it’s been fenced off and turned into a private fishing pond. A little further down, the entrance to a pleasant semi-circular walk alongside the brook (that has featured on this blog before) has been closed off with razor wire.
A pity.
A desperately lazy weekend, I’m afraid, or rather, as it isn’t really the weekend’s fault, but mine, a desperately lazy blogger.
But still, to prevent this becoming the first weekend when I’ve failed to post anything at all, here is a snap of the Brampton Valley Way in mid-July. The wild roses have all but gone, the sloes and berries are still in their infancy, but these flowers (and I wish I knew what they were called) are in full bloom. If you look very closely you may be able to see bees and butterflies and (just out of view) some of the squadron of swifts that were putting on an astonishing display of aerobatics overhead.
And for anyone who happens to be listening in overseas and would like to be reminded of how an English Summer’s day feels, may I recommend the following selection from the LP From Gardens Where We Feel Secure, by Miss Virginia Astley, from 1983. This album sometimes feels like it’s barely music at all, more a simulation of what it would be like to lie in bed through the progress of a Summer’s day with younger sisters practising the piano (and oboe) in the room below.
This track – the album follows the progress of the day from waking to sleeping – is the first, and is entitled With My Eyes Wide Open I’m Dreaming:
A small private lake a short walk from the Brampton Valley Way. As the evening sky lowers, a tattered flag of St. George (as supplied by the Sun newspaper) struggles to disentangle itself from a tree. Nearby, the burnt-out remains of a campfire (actually a disposable barbecue set from Sainsbury’s) has scorched the earth.
But, with a little imagination, you could half have the sense of the aftermath of some disastrous medieval battle here.
Blogging-time limited this weekend, I’m afraid. Amongst other things I’m off to see my first 20/20 match this afternoon. Will I have some Damascene moment at Grace Road? Will the scales fall from my eyes? We shall see. Perhaps I shall see.
That being so, I shall have to summon the aid of one of my familiars – John Clare. Perhaps this is only in my imagination, but we do seem to have a wonderful crop of wild flowers this year, particularly dog-roses. I walked down the Brampton Valley Way last Sunday and snapped a few, like so – (white in honour of Yorkshire, our opponents this afternoon, though their white rose is, I think, a cultivated one)
Northamptonshire Dog-Roses
The dog-rose makes many appearances in the poetry of Clare, but here I’ve opted for a selection from The Village Minstrel. Clare dreaded the arrival of the railway in Northamptonshire ; I mourn its passing. He might have been pleased to see the old railway track turned into a footpath, with some opportunities for the solitudes he sought, though I think he would have been less pleased if he had seen what had superseded the railway. Perhaps one day the A14 (or whatever it’s called) will have returned to nature too, and our descendents will stroll along it of a Sunday afternoon, admiring the dog roses.
XX. NATURE.
This was to be have been the weekend when I made my sloe gin in time for Christmas, but, due to not entirely unseen circumstances, I’m afraid this will have to be postponed until next weekend.
(For anyone interested in some tips for making Sloe Gin, I point you in the direction of that Interesting and Instructive Blog – The Wartime Housewife).
Nonetheless, I have managed to assemble the two essential ingredients – sloes and gin. The sloes I gathered from the Brampton Valley Way, so if you happen to notice the almost complete absence of sloes along that walkway it isn’t due to climate change or some sort of blight – it’s my fault.
The gin, on the other hand, I bought at Aldi. I intend to discuss the arguments against and in favour of Aldi and Lidl on another occasion, but suffice it to say at the moment that for sloe gin you have to be looking for cheap gin, and – if it’s cheap you’re after – Aldi’s yer man.
Aldi’s own brand gin goes under the name of Oliver Cromwell Dry London Gin. At first sight, this appears to be an incongruous endorsement. Can we imagine Cromwell entering Harborough after the Battle of Naseby, flopping down on a barstool (in, I think, The King’s Head) and saying – “A g and t, barman, and make it a large one- I’ve had a helluva day!” ? I think not.
On the other hand, someone who thought that – even if he didn’t have much of a taste for the stuff himself – he might have kept a bottle in the house for the use of visitors was the Georgian poet and playwright John Drinkwater. His play – Oliver Cromwell – which doesn’t seem to have been revived much recently, but was a great hit in its day, contains the following exchange (Hampden and Ireton have dropped in chez Cromwell to discuss the Ship Tax, the poetry of Herrick and suchlike) –
_Ireton:_
I don’t know how things are going. But I feel that great events are
making and that you and Mr. Hampden here may have power to use men. If
it should be so, I would be used. That is all.
_Cromwell:_
John’s the man. I’m likely enough to stay the rest of my days in Ely.
_Ireton:_
I don’t think so, sir.
_Cromwell:_
No? Well. A glass of sherry, John–or gin?
_Hampden:_
Sherry, Oliver.
(CROMWELL pours out the sherry.)
So there we have it. Perhaps – once they’re aware of this – we can look forward to Lidl developing a range of John Hampden sherry. I, for one, would buy it.
(I can’t find any confirmation of this, incidentally, but I’m fairly sure that Drinkwater was the original model for the character of Ratty in The Wind in the Willows. There is, I’d like to point out, no resemblance whatsoever between Ratty – one of the most attractive characters in all literature – and David Cameron, in spite of what Ian Jack seemed to be suggesting in yesterday’s Guardian – Rat/Cameron.)
The Crimson Rambler 