That dead hand, clasped in her father’s hand under the concrete roof.
That tiny baby’s hand, bandaged in the incubator, the umbilical scar where she was cut from her crushed mother : still fresh .
Such random horror that stops everything, questions everything and leaves eyes staring wide open in the dark .
Watching my neighbour clean his windows is a note worthy event. The wind rattling the shutters is remarkable. The cat woke up in a bad mood and won’t be stroked because there is snow static in the air. I think a hen harrier flew by, but it might just be a seagull disoriented by being so very far from the sea. The news is always bad, or maybe it’s just funny like the electric spark from the end of the cat’s nose or the last leaf whirled skittishly from the bare tree or just January, just January leaving.
It used to be that sex was the thing no one talked about and now not talking about it is considered weird, but still no one wants to talk about death. My theory is that somehow we consider that just by thinking or talking about it, this will make it more likely to happen. Well, just like taxes it is the only inevitable thing in life and I do think about the practicalities of it occasionally.
I don’t want my last action to be pollution of the earth, or sky so I am delighted to find out about Dutch mushroom coffins that turn your body into compost swiftly and with style!
I also love that the company calls purchasers of their idea ” future trees”.
The future really can be green!
Here is an article to
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/17/europe/loop-mycelium-mushroom-coffin-eco-funeral-spc-intl/
Today the sun shone and I went exploring. The cherry trees that waited until the snow had gone, were in full flower and the apples trees that had slept the frost away were just unwrapping their pinkest, white petals.
In a local village I stopped to look again at the history of the Jewish community that once lived here. They are gone now. Their names are on the war memorials, but nothing else remains.
The community thrived for a long time, built schools and synagogues until in the 19th century, locals ripped the roofs from their homes and destroyed their houses.
Some stayed: their lives were intertwined with France until the very last families, old and young were deported by the Nazis and died in concentration camps.
Their story has not been forgotten in Durmenach and the village commemorates them, but the people are gone and their memory is just glimpsed in the photos and in the spring sunlight.
Before spring covers the world with growth and exuberant life, I am strangely aware of the the aged and decaying world beneath.
There are so many old buildings falling beautifully apart around me in the villages and I am irresistibly drawn to the roofs steep and sliding down to the earth.
Roof joists look like the ribs of animal carcasses picked bare by the winter crows and kites.
The roof of this barn came down in the last storm and the wind pulled it apart from the eye of sky that you can see in middle of the shot.
There has been little human to distract the eye during these covid times. Faces are not faces covered by mask (though I wholeheartedly endorse the wearing of masks to keep us all safe!) , but when faces and expressions are shuttered, I look more closely at the buildings and try to read them instead.
It is the older buildings, those with history and character who attract me and the beauty of their ageing, is both poignant and absorbing.
February can seem a low point for life. The signs of early spring are cribbed with fears of snow and frost to come, so the sun on our back seems fearfully precipitous.
Luckily, other things are not so fearful and flourish in the most unlikely places.
The photo was taken of recent wire fence, ugly in its utility, fencing in a slab of shorn and tidied land. However the lichen and the moss were not disdainful of the plastic coated wire . They sensed opportunity, a habitat in which to grow and each intersection was frilled with light green life, finding a safe and unlikely foothold.
February is full of modest, opportunistic life!
I love the shape of winter trees.
Now the tattered remnants of autumn have blown away, the filigree beauty of the trees is revealed shining in a steady cool rain.
In summer all is the soft fur of green leaves, snuggling promiscuously over one another, almost indistinguishable in the pulse of sap and growth.
In Autumn there is some individuality of colour; the different varieties of vines on the hill side are briefly visible as each line of leaves turns a different shade of red in its own time before falling to the ground. Beech and hornbeam flare orange in the woods, before scattering each dry, curled leaf into the wind like sparks from a wildfire.
But in winter, there is no summer hiding, no autumnal showmanship: this is the real shape of the tree. Each limb is smooth, or broken, pruned or leaning slowly out into the sunlight. Each silhouette tells a tale of genes and weather and often the hand of man.
Winter trees are honest, bare and very, very lovely.
In the forest yesterday we were so close to a deer that I could see the thick, soft fur of her ears; the dark, black iris of her eye and the wet, delicate saucer of her nose, upturned to smell us, to register us and to walk delicately away, unconcerned into the yellowing brush.
A friend sent me a photo of a kingfisher, jewel bright and improbable from the bottom of her garden and suddenly everything is possible, the good and the bad at the same instant, all is lovely and innocent and there is always hope.
This caught my eye.
What do you see?
Put your ideas in the reply box for fun.
I have half an hour before the chicken needs carving, in which to contemplate time.
I understand that there is clock time and internal time. The clocks stuck on church towers and round our wrists were made imperative by the invention of trains and the necessity of time being the same everywhere and tracks being cleared and so we slice up our life into internationally recognisable fragments, so that now the planes can fly and the computers can whir. The time in our heads works on a more complex level, where the present is composed of memory and potential future and moves to the rhythm of the thinker.
And then there is seasonal time: never the same, always the same, always the future.
The year progresses at its own pace, different in each village, different in each shadow that cools the flower or delays the germinating seed. You need to know a place well to compare the seasons. This year the celandines were late, but the ravens bred early. This year swifts were late, but the cuckoos(who had been absent for two years ) returned and called over and over from the hedgerow.
This morning we watched the young ravens,already fledged and learning to fly, tumbling over the cool, tall pilling clouds. White throats are singing their territories, storks are walking on improbably long legs through the buttercups, spearing slugs to feed their nestlings. The house martins have just arrived.
Ahh ! I can smell that the chicken is cooked!
After continuous winter rain, when all seems flattened and sodden, lichen glows almost unearthly in the gloom.
Lichen is an extraordinary composite creature made up of an algae or Cyanobacteria and a fungi living together in harmony. The algae can photosynthesis and make carbohydrates from the weakest sun and these feed the fungi, which in turn provides a protective home for the algae and a way to trap the water which they both need.
Lichen can grow on bare rock, on tree trunks on twigs and statues, it can grow in ancient forests and gravelly deserts and has even been taken into space and back with no ill effects.
There are 20,000 known species of this communal creature, that does no harm at all to the medium on which it grows. It is not a plant and some growths of lichen maybe the oldest living things on the planet.
After rain, the protective cortex becomes transparent and we can see the variously coloured algae layer underneath . This lichen was growing on the red twigs of dog wood blown down by the storm. On such dark winter days the lichen is positively luminescent and shades of tantalising green and orange flare out to remind us that the natural word is always still alive and is still all around us!
The year is turning and the shadows creep up the wall.
These saplings pattern a chapel in the forest nearby. This chapel is all that remains of a village that was never rebuilt after plague and invasion wiped out the inhabitants. A local history buff has carved its named on a picnic bench, where hikers might pause for a moment to wonder who lived here as they chomp down their energy bars amongst the quiet of the trees.
Only the name and shadows remain.
From time to time, I have written about iconic and pioneering women in relative recent history, well recent by British standards 🙂 I also sometimes write about the Middle-East which is actually the one area of life that I can actually claim to have some academic expertise. So I have finally taken the opportunity to […]
via Gertrude Bell – The Ketrun – Desert Queen — Stephen Liddell
Today the wind was cold and wild and the blossom flew in a spray of pink and white through the branches. The last of the cherry blossom hurled into the air in a snow globe whirl of white. The apple blossom, more tenacious and solid is still open for the bees.
Today is my anniversary of starting this blog. Last spring was cold and wet and I started writing because I was so frustrated to not be in my garden and writing about it was the next best thing.
I have enjoyed making these posts and making contact with such an extraordinarily diverse range if people across the world. Checking in and seeing the orange dot next to the bell is still a real thrill and I love reading comments from my friends even more.
So to my followers : a heart felt thank you for your interest and patience with my wonderful typos!!
I thought maybe I would stop on my anniversary, but as I am still enjoying myself I think I’ll carry on and enjoy your company and the pleasure of writing about
the wonderful, healing, natural world a little longer 😁😁🌸🌳🍀🌸🌳🍀🐝🌸
Cutting the grass is a waste of time, but much more importantly it is destroying a food source for bees and butterflies. In the spring time, if you can resist tidying up the lawn and letting the dandelions flower you will be providing one of the richest food sources for honey bees at this time of year. Bees need all the help that they can get. Populations have crashed in Europe in recent years which have led to record low harvests of honey . We need all types of bees to pollinate food crops and wild flowers and to make us smile, so resist that urge to turn your lawn into green carpet and let the dandelions flower. If you are really brave and can withstand the tuts of tidy minded, ecologically ignorant neighbours, you can even let the dandelions seed and watch clown-faced gold finches feast on the seeds.
Why buy expensive imported “wild flower” seed mixes when all have to do is sit back and watch the grass grow for a few weeks and do more good completely for free?
Now that’s what I call real gardening!!I
T.S Elloit said April was the cruelest month, but for me it is the kindest, greenest, lushest and most beautiful of all the months in my garden.
It is raining, soft, soaking raining and as I watch the cherry blossoms on my neighbour’s tree are opening and the silver birch leaves are unfurling, turning the indistinct haze of buds into tiny sharp new leaves.
On my kitchen counter the green bean seeds are waiting for a lull in the downpour to be planted and my cat is miowing with indignation because she wants to go out but won’t tolerate her own muddy paws.
If it wasn’t raining I would be out in the vegetable garden, as muddy as the cat; but as I am sheltering in the kitchen I thought I would share how beautiful the garden is with you. April really is the start of the gardening year proper, so it seems a good time to start this blog and share my passion . Not every one would like this garden, it isn’t tidy, it isn’t themed, it isn’t colour coordinated, but it is full of life (even if the cats some times eat some of it!), and it is fascinating, so when I can, I will tell you about it.
Cathy's real country garden 
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