Monday 29 August 2011

Blackberry time.

As I was cycling down the lane, I saw someone had put a bucket of windfall apples outside their gate and a notice which said `help yourself` so I did, and then I picked I blackberriess along the hedge when J and I took Robs to football at Saltdean.. So free buses last week and now free food .  I made some crumbles and put them in the freezer for Quaker `bring and shares` and I am enjoying the rest for breakfast.
I am just back from a weekend at Woodbrooke on U.A. Fanthorpe, the Quaker poet who died two years ago. It was such a treat to have a whole weekend listening to and studying her work and also it is an inspiration to do some more writing myself, which I intend to start tomorrow, I am all fired up.
Travelling to Birmingham was an ordeal. I am becoming a Grumpy Old Person on trains. I scowl at very loud mobile users (why not text instead?) I avoid babies, toddlers, and teenagers whose tinny music leaks from their ipods. On the 73 bus from Euston to Victoria which was packed solid, I looked out of the windows at people in Oxford Street frantically shopping at 7pm on a Sunday evening!  They should all be at home joining in with Songs of Praise, or something.

Wednesday 24 August 2011

Ridin on the Buses

My battered rust bucket of a car (bless it) has taken me many miles this August, up and down  motorways,to Stansted to pick up sister J and then to Yorkshire last week to Hebden Bridge.  J had a house swap with her flat in Germany which was a lovely house but the approach to it was up rough steps hewn into rock with nothing to hold on to. It was hazardous for two elderly women with dodgy ankles and knees, but the view at the top was spectacular.
We went to Haworth over the moors as I have long been a devotee of the Brontes .What a disappointment.    It was all gift shops,  huge car park charges and general air of tackiness, We never managed a glimpe of the parsonage or the graveyard as we could not cope with walking on the cobblestones up the steep hill (no doubt we were weakened by our experience of the steps at Hebden Bridge)
Then back to the Island for a tribal gathering for Julia`s birthday at Dimbola at Freshwater Bay. This was the home of the photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron, friend of Tennyson, and now a sort of museum. Robyn Hitchcock put on a concert of his songs and there were pictures by Charlotte Johannes and R read Julia`s poems. I went in the sea twice but had to be rescued ignominously by Bev when I couldn`t find my feet on the stony bottom. and was floundering about, perhaps my sea bathing days are over.
I came home from the Island entirely by bus (except for the ferry) It took hours and hours, all through bungalow land in Southsea, Bognor, Littlehampton and Worthing. But I read my book and did the Guardian crossword and it was entirely FREE with my bus pass!  But |I do not think I will try to do Lands End to John O Groats like that as I beleive someone has done. It was very bumpy.

Friday 12 August 2011

Back from the Island. It was the usual mixture of windy beaches, fishing rods tangled up with bikes by the back door, wet dogs, sand in the bath.  Yarmouth never changes with its lovely sunsets, smell of chips, walks `up the railway line` to Freshwater, and the lovely woods. There were four generations of us in the house, including great grandchild little Arthur.
I am ashamed to say that I never actually plunged into the sea, though I did manage the steep walk down to Compton Bay with its hundred steps and slippery bits.   It seems quiet and tidy here at home, but I am immediately back to watching TV and reading the papers about all the goings on in London and elsewhere.  I know that bit of Tottenham well where all the riots started.  I do not know what to make of it all. I feel so sorry for the people whose houses and shops have been burnt and damaged.
I have just been watching the Proms on television. It was the William Walton film music for Henry V with words spoken by the actor Rory Kinnear, wonderfully done and so moving, but utterly inappropriate to a peace loving Quaker, all that incitement to violence and mayhem.