Like A Pig in Clover

Do you remember? Can you recall all those trips to ballet classes, violin lessons, tap dancing and  aerobics for kids? "Just try it, darling and see how you like it". We watched, waited, transported and paid the bill as they tried it out. Eventually all the experiments ceased in favour of the remaining few hobbies that had really passed the test and subsequently became a part of their ongoing lives. As a child I craved ballet lessons. I still don't know where the craving came from but it was there. Maybe I wanted to twirl and pirouette; maybe I just wanted a pair of pink ballet shoes, a frothy net tutu and a fluffy bolero. I don't know. I nagged, pestered, cajoled and persuaded until my mother gave in. Thereafter the craving grew, rather than diminished, until the weekly ballet lesson turned into ballet twice a week, stage dancing once, tap dance another day and finally, 'advanced ballet' too. Our trips (on the bus) to North Chingford where I attended Eileen Langman's School of Dancing became a regular part of the after-school routine. My mother sat with the other mothers in the draughty entrance hall of the big house where we practised, night after night, knitting endless jumpers and fluffy pink boleros. Her long-suffering deserved recognition with a medal or probably a knighthood.

My daughter dutifully tried it out too, just to humour her mother ("Just try it, darling.."). The experiment was an unmitigated disaster. She was not a natural dancer. To give her her due, she stuck it out for a while, whilst her proud mother tried to relive her own childhood pleasures. She even participated in the annual dance show - with her very own white, fluffy tutu, pink tights and pink ballet shoes - and went stiffly through the routine - practised to perfection - to please her mother and satisfy her own high standards. But to no avail. The magic just did not work for her like it had for her mother.

No, riding was the thing. Riding was the dream, the aspiration and the goal. So, regretfully, I adjusted my own dreams, checked them out against reality and signed her up for a course of riding lessons at the local, messy, smelly stables. For what seemed like years we dutifully staggered out of bed early on Saturday mornings to clean the ice from the car windscreen and take her to the icy stables for her longed for day of mucking out, grooming, feeding and watering, attacking the ever-growing muck-heap in the yard with great enthusiasm, and the reward - a free riding lesson! We bundled her up in mountains of jumpers, gloves and a black riding hat and watched proudly whilst she walked, trotted and cantered (eventually) round the huge barn and balanced precariously on the top of enormous, bad-tempered nags whilst they leapt - at the very last minute, it seemed - over bars that seemed to have been raised to ridiculous heights. Oh for a pair of pink ballet shoes and a few harmless pirouettes! But our daughters have ideas of their own.

However, the years have passed and my turn has come round again, it seems! Our daughter is grown up and about to sample the delights of taking her own son to football practice on cold winter's days in a few short years. We ourselves have finished the endless journeys to such a variety of activities and settled down to retirement. Ah, retirement! Time again to sample the delights of the world of hobbies. Recently moved to a new location and at the same time released from the obligations and deadlines of the working life, we are ourselves ready for a bit of experimentation. So it's happening all over again - the experiments, the dabbling in this and that, the trying out new things that we never dreamed of doing. He can dabble in oils and gouache to his heart's content. I can join writing groups, write blogs and experiment with new genres. We can stumble down muddy footpaths with rucksacks and picnic lunches. I can join choirs and warble happily with my reedy voice and poor sight-reading and no-one minds. We can sample amateur dramatics and audition for our local Christmas pantomime or daub paint on stage scenery, sell raffle tickets or greet the audience at the theatre door. We can even sign up for a course to learn to be volunteer train drivers at our local steam railway station if the fancy takes us.

 

The world is our oyster! We are like pigs in clover! We can even indulge ourselves in hours of internet research concerning the fascinating origins of such colourful expressions - oyster? clover? But a pink tutu? Maybe not. Perhaps those days are over.

 

My Mountain

We're newcomers in our village here in Wales but it's surprising how soon one takes ownership of a new location. After only a few months I'm beginning to feel at home and to be proud of this tiny community, its glorious scenery, welcoming heart and sturdy, cheerful resilience in the face of adverse weather and economic conditions. The village has quickly become 'my village' and the mountain outside my back window 'my mountain'. It also reminds me of another small 'mountain' which formed an important part of my childhood holidays in Somerset. Apologies to the many longstanding residents who have far greater ownership rights - my presumption is merely a sign of my growing affection for this corner of the British Isles.

 

My mountain is round and green.

The sunlight hovers over it,

Trimming the edges with yellow,

Casting shadows on the green hollows

Where bushes huddle together

And the sheep take shelter.

 

My mountain is hummocky,

Uneven, ridged and knobbly.

I am learning every twist and turn

Of its comforting presence:

Irregular fields at its base,

Enclosed by low green hedges,

And the craggy outline

Of its upper reaches.

 

Once I knew another mountain,

In my childhood long ago,

Rolling down its grassy slopes,

My father looking on, watchful,

Of my progress downwards,

Another comforting presence.

 

“Tomorrow we will climb the Mount” –

A treat for childish holidays –

“Explore its hawthorn bushes,

Berries, wild flowers and secret pathways”.

I stumble falteringly to the top

To tumble down again, laughing,

Never knowing how the memories

Would last us down the years.

 

My mountain is round and green.

It is ever changing as I sit at my window,

Watching for spring to turn to summer,

The autumn colours to tinge the leaves,

The snow to gather along the hedgerows

And the new lambs to be re-born.

 

My mountain is watching over me,

Offers grazing for the livestock,

Shelter from the fierce winds

That howl around our village,

Its yellow gorse brings brightness

On cold, clear days in spring.

My mountain is mine forever,

Living out my time beneath its gaze.

 

 

 

Under the Sun

Is there nothing new? We have existed, one way or another, on this planet, for centuries, for millennia, for countless ages. We have plumbed the depths of our creativity over and over again, it seems. We have drunk the well of our God-given communal heritage dry and, more recently, drained the dregs of our proud, individualistic creative talents. Is there nothing new under the sun?

 

Here we sit, in our shady nook, with a pint of Snowdonia’s best local brew and a half of London Pride. We gaze contentedly at the estuary and its muddy sand flats. Each to his own. We are no longer limited to the restricted menu of a solely local choice. The world is our oyster. A small flotilla of ducks drifts lazily by. The steep sides of the estuary are thickly covered with dark green mixed woodland, traditional oaks that have supported a prosperous ship-building industry in times past and a spread of tall, dark conifers. It is somehow reminiscent of a Canadian lake scene, the high peaks towering above us and the shore lined with trees. All that is lacking is a grizzly bear, teaching its young to go fishing for breakfast. Everywhere reminds us of somewhere else. Everywhere is a little like this, a little like that, a little like ... so many other places I have been, scenes I remember, locations I have cherished and stored away in my memory for posterity.

 

We were discussing copyright the other day. What makes something copyright? Is it just an original idea? Is it a new technical specification? Is it a chunk of written material, crafted yesterday – or so many years ago – and now appearing in some word-hungry student’s course work, plagiarised word for word with total disregard for the author’s moral right? What if I take a chunk of this and add it to a chunk of that, then add a twist, a turn of my own? Is that plagiarism or is it a fresh new piece of original thought – ‘all my own work’? What percentage must be new? Can I take 50%, 70%, 95% of the old, provided I can just find a missing ingredient to transform it? Is this what newness consists of nowadays? Have all the old original thoughts been taken?

If I take the broken fragments of a thousand original utterances and place them together as a freshly crafted mosaic is this newness of thought? Is this a new creation – a mini ‘big bang’ produced with the aid of the ‘god particle’? A favourite quotation of mine seems to cover the case: twentieth century novelist, Virginia Woolf, wrote that: “truth is only to be had by laying together many varieties of error”*. ‘The truth’ – that surely would be a novel discovery! After all our searchings, all our posturing, all our pride and prejudice, if one were to discover the truth in a mosaic of broken fragments of error, how original would that be? No case for plagiarism here. The whole truth has escaped us all thus far and would be singled out by its total originality.

 

In the meantime, in the absence of such an awesome discovery, I will enjoy the last sips of my London Pride and continue to savour this glorious look-alike scene before me. Who cares if it is totally original? Actually, I would love to see a grizzly... Maybe life can be viewed as a kind of collage these days, a fresh compilation of numerous assorted pieces, collated in a variety of new and original ways? After all, my blog, in its turn, is informed by selected fragments of an inaccurately remembered and casually reported radio chat show the other morning, plus a few 'original' thoughts of my own! Nothing new there, except my own thoughts on the subject. Or is there?

 

*Virginal Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, pub. 1929