Things that go bump in the night

One of the drawbacks of walking a long distance path is it's a new hotel each night. 

You don't get to know the place before you move on again. In particular, you don't get a feel for where the little glass shelf in the en suite is.

So when at 4am I went to the bathroom for some water and thought I was putting my glass down safely, I wasn't.  It crashed to the tiles. 

'Crap.'

I began the painstaking process of picking up fragments. Awake now, Nigel decided to join in the fun and when we had collected all visible shards, he used the bathmat to wipe the area.

Since there were then tiny crumbs of glass in the mat, he opened the window and shook it. A gust took it. 

He dressed to go downstairs and pick the mat off the pavement. But when he got there, no mat. He looked up to see it draped inelegantly over one corner of the hotel's imposing portico, out of reach. 

Yet another corner of Britain where we have left our mark.

Pembrokeshire Coast Path with knees!

In 2022 we walked Hadrian's Wall. Beforehand I was apprehensive - my various arthritic joints wouldn't hold up. But despite ominous twinges, they did. Same story with the South Downs Way last year. 

So when Nigel planned a large section of the North Pembrokeshire coast path, I grumbled again - the Cassandra of the achey knees.

However, he'd soon booked it, all planned in meticulous detail. We were going, and my knees were coming with us. 

Unfortunately, the first day was going to be the hardest with what the guidebook said would be 14 miles of distance, but turned out more like 16. And moreover was 1240 metres of ascent, and then the same of descent - almost as much as Ben Nevis. 

It was the descent which really did it, and despite knee straps and walking poles and Nigel carrying the day sack, I was limping badly for the last four miles. 

However, once I recover, I'll try again!

Oh dear, we shall just have to be tourists for a couple of days. In scenic Pembrokeshire. What a burden.

When a hobby comes to find you

 

I’ve always had plenty of greenery in my house, but I would never have called pot plants a hobby.  They are just part of the household, and we get along fine together.  A bit like Nigel.

However, recently Perran left to live in Brussels.  Pot plants very much had been his hobby, but rules forbade the import of his green friends to Belgium. I volunteered to caretake some of his large collection until the day he returns.

His plants are different to mine.  I am ignorant of the names of most of mine as they are propagated from bits friends gave me, or kind donations from the odd stately-home conservatory (‘I tell you, that bit was just lying on the floor!’).

Perran’s darlings however have Latin names and very specific care regimes on their pots.  Also, because he had been preparing to move abroad, they had been somewhat neglected and appeared lacklustre and gloomy.

I took home ten of the fading beauties, and have been repotting and repositioning ever since.  How can a plant demand both bright light, but also not want it ‘direct’?  One plant loves nothing more than wet roots, while another should be kept Sahara-dry.

Generously, Perran has said he does not mind if not all his plants make it.  The only one he really cares about is a crassula (jade plant) which I gave him as a tiny sprout when he first left to live in London.  Through several moves and changes of job, he has nurtured this companion, and like his life, it has grown big and strong.  This is the one he most hopes will be there to greet him when he returns.   I’ll do my best.

Well, I can’t write any more now – I need to get back to my new hobby.

In training to be a spectator

Carenza was preparing for the Hackney Half Marathon.

She was hoping to beat her previous best by a whole seven minutes – a bet with a friend was at stake.

‘I’m quite proud of myself – I’ve done a reasonable amount of training.’

Pascoe and I were to spectate, joined by Dan. I had not watched Carenza race since she was at school.  I had neither trained nor prepared for my role as spectator.  How naive I was!

Carefully, Pascoe and I traced the route map and found a midpoint from where we could also cut across to the finish line. But how would we know when to expect Carenza?

‘You can just download the Hackney Half App and track me on that.’

Carenza went off to the start and we found our spot and waited.  The app said she was coming, coming, coming.  She appeared to be lagging her target time. Oh dear.  Then suddenly she was past us, but Pascoe, Dan and I hadn’t spotted her.

We trudged off towards the start/finish line and stood there.  The app said she was stationary at a rehydration station.  But she WhatsApped us ‘Yay.  Beat my personal best by ELEVEN minutes.’ We’d missed seeing her again, but she was somewhere very nearby.

Finally it dawned – with huge numbers of runners and supporters, all on their phones, there was a big lag on the App.

When we caught up, Carenza was delighted with her time but the start had been dodgy.  It had been so cold she left it until the last minute to check her coat into baggage, thereby missing the warm up and being allocated to a starting pen for much slower runners.  In the pen, amongst the runners, appeared an elderly homeless man who took a shine to her.

‘They say there are twenty-five thousand runners here today.  Make it twenty-five thousand and one, baby – I’m coming with you!’

He did indeed start the race, carrier bag in hand, but luckily she soon outran him.

It was clear that Pascoe and I had been rubbish spectators – instead of failing to catch Carenza at the middle and end, we should have been at the start to see her off safely.

Our spectator training is complete - we’ll know for next time.

Nigel Gummidge

 As pets we keep no dogs nor cats, but free-flying white doves who come to be fed.

On the end of our house is a white dovecote which has proved less popular as a roosting and nesting site than the space beneath the solar panels on my friend Claire’s roof.

One of the reasons is that the dovecote, with it’s pretty arched openings, is vulnerable to crows and magpies.  This spring, two pairs of doves were nesting, and then suddenly they weren’t - the nests were abandoned, the eggs and chicks vanished, and on the ground a tell-tale broken egg.  There had been a crow raid. 

We were chatting with some of the teenagers at church and confided we were worried that when the doves nested again, the crows would attack once more.  Yet we could think of no device which would keep the crows out, which would not also deter the doves.

‘You want a scarecrow,’ announced one of the boys. 

We laughed, but on consideration, he was quite right.

The doves have no fear of Nigel – it is mostly he who feeds them. So I made a model Nigel, using his old clothes and even printing out a photo of his face for it.

Nigel then sat his doppelganger on top of the garage.

It is a measure of the politeness of our lovely neighbours that they waited nearly a week before gently enquiring why we had put a lifesize model of Nigel on the roof.

So far, the crows appear not to have returned, and there has been an unexpected side effect.  We put the figure up there to scare the crows.  We did not anticipate it would also have a positive influence on the doves. 

Such is their affection for Nigel that we now have more birds than ever roosting and nesting in our little dovecote.

A family pilgrimage

Before ever my mother became ill and died, we had booked a holiday cottage close to my parents for a week at Easter, intending to get the whole family together.  It now offered a very different opportunity - perhaps we could scatter Mum’s ashes all together.  However, Dad was not ready.  Given the great time pressures on Pascoe, Perran and Carenza this year, it seemed unlikely we would be able to assemble everybody again to do this.  Even as it was, Perran and Carenza were working from the holiday cottage, with only one day of leave left to give us.

Meanwhile, my friend Fiona had told me of a one-day pilgrimage along St Michael's Way, walking from Lelant on the north coast of Cornwall down to Marazion on the south coast, then across a tidal causeway to St Michael’s Mount. It was the old route which British pilgrims had taken as they set off to embark for the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. By coincidence, Carenza had also just given me Wayfarer by Phoebe Smith describing this very path.

Mum had loved Lelant, the village where the trail started. As I sorted her belongings, I found a couple of drawings she had made of Lelant. That clinched it.

 On our one day together as a family, we would make this pilgrimage in memory of Mum.

 From Mum’s desk, we picked up the pebbles she had once brought in her pocket from the beach and put them in our own pockets. We took the little water bottle from her painting kit and set off.

When we found a spring on the cliff at Carbis Bay, Nigel scrambled down and collected some water in the little bottle. 

There was a small pool in the Neolithic fortifications at the top of Trencrom Hill and we added more water there.

 The peninsula is not very wide at that point, but the pilgrimage sent us on a circuitous route, up hill and down dale, encountering prehistoric standing stones and medieval churches, like the one at Ludgvan with a carving of a pilgrim above its door. It amounted to a walk of thirteen miles.

Mum loved birds, and along the way, we were accompanied by larks overhead, and from the hedgerow, a chorus of finches, wrens and robins. We saluted five ravens on Trencrom Hill and in Marazion Marshes, there were egrets and even a Cetti's warbler.

When finally we approached St Michael's Mount, we had timed it for low tide, to allow us to traverse the paved causeway.  Once on the island, we climbed the cobbles to the giant's well, where Jack the Giant Killer once slew Giant Cormoran , and into the well, we poured our water. 

On the steep path up, we found ‘Giant Cormoran’s Heart’ – a heart-shaped cobble. 

At the summit near the ancient Benedictine chapel, we found a niche in the rock with a magnificent house leek growing just below. There we set the pebbles to rest.

 
These stones had been part of Mum’s surroundings at her calligrapher’s desk each day.  Relinquishing them brought it home to me at last that she was gone. It was odd to leave them behind, out in the open under the sky.  The only comfort was that they could be in no place more beautiful or holy.

 
And the day held one last small blessing.  Back in Marazion, waiting for a taxi to take us back to our car in Lelant, we saw the best bird of all – a single white dove came and perched on the wall above and waited with us.

Thanks to Pascoe for several of these photos

An Oasis inTime

 

My mother’s cremation was at Penmount Crematorium near Truro on Friday 4^th April. 

Beforehand all five of us shared breakfast in the sunny dining room of the hotel where we had stayed the night.

Perran’s plans to move to Brussels had finally crystallised and he would return to London that same night on the sleeper train in order to pursue arrangements. Carenza announced she would move in with Sandy when Perran left, another milestone.  She had to return on the sleeper too – a friend’s hen party the next day.

So Mum’s death was not the only big change taking place, and everybody had suffered the drag of time pressure as they made the long trip to Cornwall for the funeral.

Despite the sunshine and the abundant spring blooms in the hotel garden, we were self-absorbed, hoping we were suitably dressed, running over readings and eulogies.

The funeral went smoothly, orchestrated admirably by Revd. Di Willoughby.  The lunch afterwards was held in the barn at Trelissick, an NT property which Mum had loved. It was good to catch up with friends, relatives and carers, and to remember Mum.

After a couple of hours, guests were leaving, but bizarrely, after all the fuss and flurry, it was now hours until the sleeper train, and we had nothing further scheduled.  Dad didn’t want our company as he needed to rest.  And it was the most beautiful bright spring day. 

The five of us walked on into the fabulous gardens of Trelissick, which were at their peak, with blossoming magnolias, azaleas and camelias.  Incongruous in our smart black gear, we strolled along the paths we had walked so often with Mum, and recalled how her circuit had reduced in circumference as the years progressed.  We talked desultorily of this and that, and there was no rush or urgency.  Perran and Pascoe climbed the tree they had first tackled as infants.  All of us perched in the wooden hut where, when the children were babies, I had once sat to breast-feed them. Blue sky, green grass, bright flowers.

If there is such a thing as an oasis in time, then this was it. 

I know that sometimes I shall feel sad in the months ahead, and I am writing this for my future self, so I can recall once more an unlooked-for perfect afternoon with my husband and children.

A long-awaited funeral

It's my Mother's funeral tomorrow. 

I stepped out of a delightful school trip with my Latin pupils and into the car to travel down with Nigel and Pascoe. The twins will join us there.

For administrative reasons, there's been a long interval between Mum's death and her funeral. 'That must be difficult,' people say. 

 But now as we drive down, the sun is lighting up the white blackthorn blossom all the way along the hedges. Primroses and celandines glimmer on the verge.

The delay has allowed new growth to take place. In our pond appear newts and frogspawn, in our hedge, the birds are in full chorus. 

And in our memories, superceding her last period in hospital and the sadness of Alzheimers and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, the Mum of old has had time to return, lively, humorous and full of creative ideas.

The urge to go home

 

Two weeks ago, Mum died, aged ninety. She had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.  I was with her every day in hospital for the last sixteen days of her life. One of the few things Mum could remember was her address, and no wonder, for she had lived there nearly sixty-three years.

In the last couple of years, she had twice had respite periods in a care, and throughout those stays, her litany had been consistent:

‘Where am I? What do I do now? How do I get home? When can I go home?’

During her final stay in hospital, it remained much the same.

 

For me, as I faced her demise, I allowed home to change its meaning.

In Mum’s earlier absences from home, the thing she was missing was clearly being in her marital home with her husband. "Where's Martin?" was very much part of her round of questions.

 

However, this time it was different and she hardly mentioned Dad, but firmly still wished to go home.  Dad said she had recently been talking much more of her childhood in Wolverhampton. her family had left there for Cornwall when her parents divorced.

"I believe," he said, "That now, when she talks of home, she is talking of her childhood home

in the Midlands. She wants to go back there."

 

Myself, once it was clear that Mum was dying, I assigned home a third meaning. It is Heaven. 

 

There was some evidence that Mum was preparing to move on.

Several times, she asked, ‘Can I just go in peace?’

She asked me a couple of times as I sat at her bedside when I was ‘going back to Heaven?’

When my father and brother and I were all there round her bed, she counted us twice and each time included a couple of extra people who we couldn't see.

Above all, taking home as Heaven allowed me to answer her repeated question both comfortingly and honestly,

‘When can I go home?’

‘Soon.’

Potatoes of hope

Right now, we have both friends and family members in hospital. It takes a lot to cheer me up. But my school friend Jennie managed it. With potatoes.  

Jennie had come by a sack of very large potatoes (a long and elaborate tale in itself).

Having finally gained the potatoes, she felt their dimensions recommended them for a more interesting destiny than the pot. She would play a prank on her elderly friend Viv. 

She took her mother and Viv out to lunch. Then during the meal, slipped away back to Viv's house. 

Jennie went round the back to the conservatory and from her capacious handbag took several of the massive potatoes. But they were now transformed. Using a kids' craft kit, Jennie had given them little faces and arms. 

She ranged them on the ledge around the outside of Viv's conservatory, as if peering in the window. 

However, it was a blustery day and they blew right over.

She rearranged them. They blew over again. 

Finally she had all the potato people in place. 

She stepped back to admire her handiwork. 

 And fell five feet off Viv's patio. The drop was long enough for her to imagine dying. 

However, her guardian angel was on the alert that day and she fell neatly into the arms of a garden recliner chair.  Bruises there were aplenty, but breakages none.

At this point many would have given up, but Jen limped back up the steps to the house. The potatoes had fallen over again. 

Instead, Jennie placed them looking in through Viv's porch window. 

I would love to say that hilarity ensued. But in fact Viv failed to notice the potatoes looking in at her.

The following day, Jennie had to ring up and drop increasingly unsubtle hints to get Viv to spot her veggie-visitors. 

Finally, Viv saw them: 'Ha, ha, ha, ha!'

And for Jennie, that was enough. 

Mission accomplished. 

The self-describing toilet

I've been spending time at the hospital with my Mum.  As I arrive each morning I stop at the public toilets on the way in.
Today, a cleaner said,
'I'm afraid you can't come in here, but you can use the disabled one, opposite.'

In I went and shut the door.

Behind me a voice said, 'Welcome.'

I jumped.

'If you are blind or partially sighted and would like an audio description of this toilet, just wave your hand in front of this sensor.'

I didn't need such a description and frankly was doubtful that prose could do the toilet justice, so did not wave.

However, in spare moments, I found myself wondering whether the description would include the confetti of shreds of toilet paper on the floor, the trim of ancient grime along edges and corners.

The next day I returned surreptitiously and waved my hand.
The description was functional - toilet in righthand corner, sanitary bin to its left, emergency cord behind it.

I was dissatisfied with the description on two counts.

Firstly, it omitted some information that would have been very useful:
'Watch out! The person before you left the seat up. And try to avoid treading in the shallow pool of suspicious-looking fluid just in front of the loo.'

Secondly, it lacked ambition. If unable to see one's surrounds, one might wish to believe that they were beautiful and luxurious.
'The walls are frescoed in the Italian manner, surmount by a rococo  cornice of white stucco, with a scallop shell motif picked out in gold leaf.'

Now that's the toilet I'd want to visualise.