Thursday, July 14, 2011

Old Man's Snoring

Did I say ‘the perfect summer’s day’ in my last blog? How wrong can you be – now look at it! Today the weather is getting its own back for my foolish mistake. It’s pouring! ‘It’s raining, it’s pouring, The old man’s snoring!’ floats into my mind – an old nursery rhyme from my childhood which is linked inseparably for me now with this kind of wet, windy weather. Well, the sunshine was nice while it lasted.

'He bumped his head and went to bed, And couldn't get up in the morning.' We used to sing it in the school playground while playing skipping games. It’s time for the summer holidays. The children have broken up from school. We’re tired and we need a rest. Nowadays we’re all short of sleep and having trouble getting up in the morning! Working hours for most people seem longer than ever and the weather here has been sticky and humid lately, making us sleep restlessly. A friend from Turkey writes that it is too hot there and she misses the Dutch rain! Not me! A gentle shower is one thing and the gardens love it, but today there’s a real gale blowing and the rain is coming down in torrents. But maybe it will clear the air and bring us some relief from the stickiness.

‘Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day.’ Another rhyme from my childhood, proving that the rumour that the English are obsessed about the weather is probably correct. Then there’s poor old Doctor Foster who ‘went to Gloucester (pronounced Gloster) in a shower of rain’. The rain evidently got worse because the rhyme informs us ‘He stepped in a puddle right up to his middle, And never went there again!’ What rubbish we are told when we are little and so gullible!

Let’s finish then with a word or two from e.e. cummings whose world is ‘mud-luscious’ and ‘puddle-wonderful’*! His wonder at the natural world is infectious, even though his use of language is sometimes confusing:

'i thank You God for most this amazingday: for the leaping greenly spirits of treesand a blue true dream of sky; and for everythingwhich is natural which is infinite which is yes'**

which, I guess, has to include the rain too!


* e.e. cummings ‘in Just-’
** e.e. cummings ‘i thank you God for most this amazing’

Thursday, July 7, 2011

You don't know what you've got till it's gone

It’s a long time since Joni Mitchell immortalised those words – and that concept – forever with her hit song ‘Big Yellow Taxi’. ‘They took all the trees, put ‘em in a tree museum and they charged the people a dollar and a half just to see ‘em... Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone? They paved paradise and put up a parking lot!’ This was her outcry at the steady onward march of the city planners, filling the green spaces with concrete and the fresh air with exhaust fumes.

As a city dweller I often long for the day when (at least in my imagination) I shall retire to a country cottage with honeysuckle and roses around the porch and, with a bit of luck, the sound of the sea breaking on the shore not too far away. But sitting here, taking a pause from shopping in the pretty city where I live, I reflect for a minute on today’s checklist of pros and cons and do a reality check. This is Holland – the land of windmills and clogs! But even here in the busy city it’s market day and the bells from the church tower ring out reassuringly over the modern day shoppers intent on getting this week’s fruit and veg at the best price and filling their bicycle panniers with giant cauliflowers, ‘garden beans’ (broad beans in England) and fresh strawberries. The flower stalls are ablaze with colour and I speak severely to myself to avoid bringing home more lupins, roses, campanulas and exotic tropical flowers than one small patio can possibly take. I feast my eyes and turn away. Our garden is full already!

The cafés are full of retired couples, holidaymakers and solitary housewives, rewarding themselves for their labours with good Dutch coffee and apple cake. There’s a festive mood in the air. ‘You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey…’ chime the bells. But today the skies are blue, with fluffy white clouds and a stiff breeze tempering the heat of the sun. A perfect summer’s day! It’s not always like this here, of course. But it stops me in my tracks and makes me think: ‘You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone!’ Time at least to enjoy the present day ‘plus points’ before moving on to my country idyll. Living for the moment is a hard discipline, but it may have advantages.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Clean Slate!

A brand new exercise book! All those fresh, clean, crisp, white pages just waiting to be filled: with new possibilities. At school one of the delights of the new term was the handing out of new books. Full of excitement, I would resolve all over again to fill the pages with neat, beautifully formed letters – my very best handwriting. Unlike my previous book, the covers would stay pristine, the inside full of neat, cleverly written stories, pages of sums (all correct) and lots of red ticks. Halfway down the first page the dream would come apart with my first spelling mistake and crossing out. Never mind, today I’m starting a new one again, so there’s still hope!

A clean slate! Harking back to those days when children sat on stools at high wooden desks, literally writing with sticks of chalk on pieces of grey slate, this phrase is multi-layered, firing our imagination with its multiple meanings and connotations. Visions of Victorian schoolrooms dissolve, giving way to ideas of debts paid, sins forgiven and fresh new starts. “Shall I put it on the slate for you, sir?” probably dates back to a time when shopping credit and the daily pint at my ‘local’ were also recorded on a slate behind the bar or the grocery counter.

For me, my favourite kind of clean slate is a house move! At one and the same time, it gives me the chance to sort through the accumulation of ‘things’, to discard what I no longer want, to pack up my treasures and move on, to clean in all the corners and to start again! I can rearrange the furniture, change the colour schemes, buy new things and do it all differently. It’s a new beginning and a glorious new opportunity. A Dutch friend asked me “in England do you like to do special cleaning in the new year?” ‘Spring cleaning’ she meant. ‘Me – like cleaning?’ I thought. “No” I said, to her amazement. “I like to move house!”

But a new home is also a new phase of life. I can reassess my lifestyle too. I can try new things, meet new people, develop new routines, abandon old ones. We all need a new slate sometimes. I’ve had a lot – I can no longer remember how many houses I have lived in. I love the sense of familiarity that comes with time, but I still get a buzz from that sense of newness and opportunity that beckons to me from the future when it’s time to move on.