The Holly and the Ivy

Crime is hereditary, you know. It propagates itself down through the generations and, before you know it, you're tangled in its creeping tendrils up to your ears. So, look before you leap and beware what you start. Spare a thought for your descendants when you stray from the straight and narrow. 'Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive' my mother used to say. How right she was!

She was a country girl, my mum: born and bred in a Somerset village and daughter of the village grocer. I have photos of her as a young girl, on horseback, riding jauntily through the heather with her sisters, high up in the Quantock Hills. It was a far cry from the London suburbs where my sister and I spent our childhood days. We were city dwellers and we never saw the country girl hidden deep in her heart until much later. In our teenage years we moved, with our parents, to a nicer part of London, close to the edge of the urban sprawl. We would make forays into the countryside at weekends and, there in the Kent countryside, it seemed, a part of Mum's old self was reborn. They would stop the car in a quaint Kentish village, full of tile-hung cottages and gardens full of old-fashioned flowers, and Mum would be off, strolling nonchalantly down muddy footpaths, bag in hand and a pair of secateurs hidden in her pocket, happy as a sandboy.

Secateurs? You should have seen her at Christmas! Dressed in 'slacks' and a moth-eaten old sheepskin jacket, with a headscarf knotted under her chin, she would drag our reluctant father down country lanes, armed with a walking stick and a pair of secateurs. Dad would be cajoled into doing battle with prickly holly bushes, yanking down tough branches with the walking stick whilst she snipped them off for her flower arrangements. No Christmas was complete in our house without jugs full of greenery and, behind the pictures, a sprinkling of holly and ivy that gradually shed leaves and berries all through the holiday. Country habits die hard.

Moving back to the country myself, after many years in the city, I am aware that aspects of my past are coming back to haunt me. Having spent summer and autumn days exploring river banks and country lanes in my new rural home, admiring the countless varieties of wild flowers in the hedgerows (and not picking them!) and helping myself to nature's handouts in the form of sweet, juicy blackberries and windfallen apples to fill the freezer, I am ready to enjoy nature's bounty at Christmastime too. All of a sudden, I am finding myself whistling merrily '..the holly and the ivy, when they are both full grown, of all the trees that are in the wood, the holly bears the crown...' and a little urge comes upon me to supplement tree and tinsel, angels and baubles, with a little rustic charm of a traditional nature. Out come the secateurs, the bag, the jacket - no, not the headscarf! - and I am off down the country lanes to seek out Christmas past and follow in my family's footsteps.

It is a different kind of Christmas, rooted in the soil, in the country traditions, in folk carols and wassailing, figgy pudding and mulled mead and I am loving it! A Merry Christmas one and all!

Flat Spin?

 

My mind is in a state of confusion, it seems. I am imagining, in my mind's eye, a little Mexican in a sombrero, spinning like a top, round and round, almost hidden from view by his enormous hat and gradually disappearing further and further into the ground, soon to be flattened completely beneath his oversized headgear. Once, whilst we lived in the Netherlands, we went to see a wonderful concert by an international youth orchestra in a concert hall in Rotterdam. This must be what I am thinking of. Their party piece, performed with every ounce of their skill and application to the task, was a marvellous rendering of one of my favourite pieces of music: Bolero. Accompanied by a dervish gentleman dressed in a multi-coloured poncho, who twisted and twirled in time to the music until we expected to see him fall, dizzy and exhausted, to the ground, the music was intoxicating. We listened and watched, spellbound, as he whirled on and on, apparently caught up in the music, like we were, and totally oblivious of his audience.

 

Caught up in a frenzy of speculation, my mind moves on to an altogether different image: some kind of revolving apartment, maybe on London's Post Office Tower? Living in London as a child, I remember the excitement when the Post Office Tower Restaurant was first opened and one could spend an enchanting evening up there, revolving slowly over dinner and seeing the lights of London laid out below. Is it this I should be thinking of?

There again, I seem to see, this time from the distant recesses of my childhood memory, a game of cat and mouse, a cat and mouse chase, and a giant hammer wielded by the desperate little mouse, swinging round and round above his head and finally making contact with an annoying and troublesome pussy cat, knocking him clean off his paws, high up into the sky, round and round, spinning down and down until he hits the deck, in an elongated, flattened pussy cat shape on the floor - again. Poor old Tom cat!

It's Christmas! Most of us are rushed off our feet. This probably explains my unstable, confused mental state and the hallucinations which crowd into my overburdened consciousness. Presents to buy, menus to plan, visits to make to meet up with long lost relatives and a Christmas tree to decorate! Each of those fascinating activities we have grown to love since our move here: the art clubs, writers groups, choir, theatre group, ladies groups - the list is growing all the time - each of them has its own festivities for the season and its own pressures. Caught up in a whirl of last minute choir practices, performances in the local churches and nursing homes, buffet lunches where we all 'bring and share', writers groups where we bring not only our scribblings but an offering of food and wine, Christmas dinners, Secret Santa pressies to buy, we scuttle from one to the other in ever-decreasing circles - in a flat spin, in fact! I revel in it all but, as usual, there is too much of it. Flat spin - what on earth does that mean? I paused to wonder the other day and that set off a whole lot of thinking. These phrases do that to me - I just can't help wondering where they originate. Why do we talk of being in a flat spin?

Does anyone want to know? Well, here it is anyway! My faithful copy of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable reliably informs me that a flat spin is 'when the longitudinal axis of an aircraft inclines downwards at an angle of less than 45 degrees. In the early days this inevitably involved loss of control.' Nowadays, apparently, it is used in air combat as an evasive action. There, mystery solved and a clue to a possible means of escape from all this Christmas razzmatazz, should this be required!

 

Early one Winter's Morning

Not so early, really; it's getting on for 10 o'clock in fact, but there's a cold, fresh, silvery light in the sky, a mistiness over the hills and a fresh layer of white on the top. Maybe not snow this time, just a dousing of big white hailstones, but an indicator that winter is coming. No-one much about yet, adding to the feeling I have that I got up early. It's a beautiful day.

A woman wanders nonchalantly along the bay, smiling at no-one in particular, the jauntiness of her step bearing witness to her love of the outdoors and her obvious enjoyment of this pretty, silvery morning. She disappears into the distance, gaily swinging her arms, as the hailstones return and soak her brightly coloured coat and cosy ankle boots. We're used to weather here. No use trying to avoid it. Winter is coming and there will be rain, there will be gales and, especially on the hills, there will be thick, white snow.

So, get ready for it! Order in the groceries from Asda, with gratitude for the brave efforts of their delivery men, fill the freezer, turn up the heating if you dare. Batten down the hatches. It's time to do what we came for - time to write, time to paint, time to fill the house with the tantalising aroma of freshly baked bread and to relax by the fire with the latest knitting project. Knitting is 'in' this year; more and more young people are taking it up and experimenting with all the new designer yarns now on offer. That's good - I'd be doing it anyway, but it's a bonus to be in fashion.

Winter in Wales; a new experience for me: one step at a time, exploring this new season. Fifty-nine winters already under my belt, but never before in Wales. People make their own entertainment here. It's like living in a former era, when families and friends got together to make music, to eat and drink together on winter nights and to enjoy each other's company. Before the days of TV and computer technology, when families would gather round the glowing embers of the fire, with books, with sewing, around the piano, or with clarinet, flute or recorder, amusing themselves and each other till nightfall. There's a sense of creativity in the air here that seems to encourage such behaviour, that makes us sit contentedly with a favourite book, forgetting to turn on the telly. Everyone seems to have a hobby; arts and crafts of all kinds thrive in these tiny Welsh villages; choirs and amateur theatre groups abound; the art of making merry still lives on in the time-honoured fashion.

Is this a rose-tinted view? Is the reality a good deal harsher than this? Am I simply romanticising? Well, time will tell. There are two sides to every coin and I have yet to discover the flip side. No doubt the Asda delivery man will have tales to tell as he brings my groceries over the mountains through sleet and snow. For the moment, though, I will focus on the positive. It's the best way and I'm still in love with this newly discovered way of life, even though winter is on its way.