Dear Readers, today I was out for a walk to the Farmers’ Market, and to the accompanying Craft Exhibition – I found someone who might be able to re-upholster our armchair (one arm was shredded by my late cat Willow, bless her) and there were lots of lovely stalls. I always feel bad at these events, though – I don’t really need any more ceramics/painted tiles/cushions and my ears aren’t pierced (or to be exact they have been pierced at least three times, but the holes always close up) so the lovely earrings on sale are surplus to requirements. I feel for all the craftspeople looking so hopeful as I drift past, admiring their work but knowing that I’m not going to buy any of it. I do hope that they all find enough customers to make their time and effort worthwhile – as someone who makes things herself, I know the amount of hard work that goes into creating beautiful things.
Anyhow, after marching up Summerlee Avenue on the way home, I was stopped in my tracks by the garden in the photo above. It’s on Fortis Green, a very busy road with a very narrow pavement, so I usually don’t linger. But just look at this display of Japanese Anemones! This is a plant that although supposedly good for ‘woodland gardens’ and also described as ‘a bit of a thug’ has never actually taken to my plot – maybe it’s a bit too dry? But look at it here.
Front gardens are difficult to manage on this road – sometimes these big houses are divided into flats, and are sometimes the flats are rented, so there isn’t the incentive to make a garden (though some people still do). Nonetheless, in spite of the stony soil, and the fact that there’s nowhere to put the wheelie bins except bang slap in the middle of the garden, someone has created some beauty here, and the bees were buzzing around in gratitude.
Along the path there are some more Japanese Anemones, and some asters/Michaelmas daisies, also a favourite with bees at this time of year. I’m not sure if the planting is down to the current residents or if the garden has just been inherited, but I hope it cheers the people who live here up as much as it lifted my spirits. It’s usually at this point that my leg really starts to ache, but I left with a most unexpected spring in my step.
And then I spotted this. The bollard on the corner of Lincoln Road, previously so impressively upright, is at a 45 degree angle yet again. I’d love to know what happens – is it large vehicles backing up? It can be difficult to pull out of these roads into Durham Road (which runs along the bottom of the County Roads). What is the bollard meant to do, I wonder? It clearly isn’t able to look after itself.
Below, you can see the Lincoln Road bollard in happier days (November 2022).
Still, it’s been a great weekend, with two expeditions and a real sense of the change of the seasons. Progress is not a steady curve, but the overall arc is definitely towards greater mobility. And I am really enjoying my first Open University course module – it’s on speciation, so I expect there will be a few thoughts on things scientific later in the week. In the meantime, here’s a poem by Clive James, written five years before his death in 2019. There is something very wise about it, and peaceful. See what you think.
Sentenced to Life (Clive James, 2014)
Sentenced to life, I sleep face-up as though
Ice-bound, lest I should cough the night away,
And when I walk the mile to town, I show
The right technique for wading through deep clay.
A sad man, sorrier than he can say.
But surely not so guilty he should die
Each day from knowing that his race is run:
My sin was to be faithless. I would lie
As if I could be true to everyone
At once, and all the damage that was done
Was in the name of love, or so I thought.
I might have met my death believing this,
But no, there was a lesson to be taught.
Now, not just old, but ill, with much amiss,
I see things with a whole new emphasis.
My daughter’s garden has a goldfish pool
With six fish, each a little finger long.
I stand and watch them following their rule
Of never touching, never going wrong:
Trajectories as perfect as plain song.
Once, I would not have noticed; nor have known
The name for Japanese anemones,
So pale, so frail. But now I catch the tone
Of leaves. No birds can touch down in the trees
Without my seeing them. I count the bees.
Even my memories are clearly seen:
Whence comes the answer if I’m told I must
Be aching for my homeland. Had I been
Dulled in the brain to match my lungs of dust
There’d be no recollection I could trust.
Yet I, despite my guilt, despite my grief,
Watch the Pacific sunset, heaven sent,
In glowing colours and in sharp relief,
Painting the white clouds when the day is spent,
As if it were my will and testament –
As if my first impressions were my last,
And time had only made them more defined,
Now I am weak. The sky is overcast
Here in the English autumn, but my mind
Basks in the light I never left behind.
