It has been a busy week in the Holme Valley.
The weather has at least turned quiet, although we’ve had a succession of grim,
grey days when it’s been like living inside a Tupperware box. Although the temperature stubbornly refuses
to climb, and the daffodils are still only in bud, we have at last opened the
cat flap up again, so Matilda can come and go as she pleases – all winter,
we’ve been letting her in and out of the conservatory door - even though doing so causes an evil draught
to whistle around the wheels of my wheelchair.
Matilda has been greatly appreciative of this development
and I suppose it proves, apart from anything else, that cats must possess some
sort of ability to remember things, as she clearly knew what it was and what to
do with it, from the first day it was re-opened. Now all we need is some warmth
and some sunshine. At least it saves me having to trundle to the conservatory
door seventeen times a day to let her in/out, or sit waiting impatiently while
she dithers on the doorstep.
The birds and squirrels have also been busy, helping
themselves to the seed and bread I put out, and gathering nesting material.
There is just the faintest green tinge, a green haze, almost not there, in
amongst the trees as we look out across the valley, which tells me that we must
be about to enter that time described in the Harley Lyric Alysoun as “Betwene Mersh and Averil, whan spray beginneth to
springe”.
Misty has had an eventful week, shepherding and rounding up
not only Matilda (who ignores it and saunters past under Misty’s nose with her
tail in the air) but also Zak and Ellie,
who are still staying with us. For poor little Ellie, this has come as a bit of
a shock to the system, as, with the regular mealtimes and the 13-mile route
marches, coupled with the early starts on Debbie’s teaching days, she must feel
as if she has joined the army or something. The other night, Misty was curled
up on the mat in front of the stove and Ellie joined her, with her head resting
on Misty’s rear haunch, where she promptly fell fast asleep.
The week has been dominated, of course, by the preparations
for Mike’s funeral, and by the event itself. By prior arrangement, I didn’t
actually go up to the crematorium, but stayed here, instead, minding the dogs.
I had discussed it with Debbie and various family members, and it was as much a
case of practicalities as much as anything else. If I go anywhere at all, these
days, it has to be planned like a military operation, and I would have had to
be stuck in the aisle or at the back or something, and to be honest, I felt that
Debbie and her family probably had enough to concern them on the day without
having to remember to parcel me up and transport me hither and yon. Plus, my
presence would have limited their choice of where to go afterwards, and I
thought it was important that Deb had a chance to be with her family.
I am not a great fan of funerals anyway (who is?) so I
wasn’t upset by this arrangement, as long as the family didn’t think I was
being disrespectful. My last memories of
both my mother and my father were of seeing them in their coffins on the day of
their respective cremations, and it took me a long time to banish those sad
images from my mind’s eye and replace them with happier ones, although I did
eventually manage to do so, and I suppose whilever I didn’t actually
participate in the event, I can imagine that one day we’ll hear a car door slam
in the drive, Zak’s ears will prick up, and we will hear Mike’s voice round the
door saying “Come on, Zak, it’s time for training!” .
There was a very good turnout from the Holmfirth Harriers
and Longwood Harriers, which no doubt
would have chuffed him no end, and apparently the service went well, with no
hitches. We had our own little service
here: I lit some incense, and played The
Joy of Living, Sound The Trumpets, and The
Song of The Ungirt Runners, and I broke out the dog treats
and the doggies had some each. Our own service, however, was interrupted twice,
once by an idiot at the door trying to sell me cavity wall insulation, and once
by the district nurse who had come to stick a needle in my arm as it was 12
weeks since my last iron injection, apparently. Who knew? Apart from her, of
course.
Anyway, that was Mike’s sendoff, and it was probably one
he’d have appreciated. I would like to bet even now he’s arguing with God and
annoying the angels by asking for his meals at odd times of the day and night.
In between running through the Elysian Fields with Lucy, Freddie and Tiggy in
tow.
I’ve been largely ignoring the outside world this week,
deliberately, inasmuch as it is possible to do so. Some things, however, are
impossible to tune out. Jeremy Clarkson has been suspended, which cheered me up
somewhat, until I realised it was only on paper and didn’t actually involve a
length of rope with a knot in it. The
depressing thing is that more people have signed the petition for him to be
reinstated after allegedly lamping a BBC producer than have signed many of the
more worthy petitions on the go at the moment, including the one urging the
continued funding of cancer drugs.
It just goes to show where, as a nation, our priorities now
lie, especially as the Prime Minister apparently also spoke up in Clarkson’s defence.
I am not entirely sure that Clarkson is actually the boorish, laddish buffoon
he appears to be: it’s a carefully-crafted persona intended to press the
buttons of the compassionally-challenged viewers of Top Gear, something he does supremely well. Whether he actually
believes that public sector workers should be shot, or that reciting “eeny
meeny miny mo” on air is acceptable, or that Gordon Brown is a “one-eyed Scottish
idiot”, he knows that his viewers do, and he panders to their idea of what he is.
Anyway, it’s all a storm in a teacup (or possibly a wine-glass, if reports are
to be believed) because even if the BBC do let him go, he’ll just pop up on Sky
TV or Channel 4, peddling the usual dismal crap.
Someone else who has been busy peddling dismal crap is Nigel
Farage, who floated, in a recording of a forthcoming documentary for Chanel 4,
that UKIP, if it ever got to power, would scrap much of the framework of race
relations and racial discrimination legislation in Britain.. Although he was
quick to row back from the specifics of this when quizzed by subsequent
reporters, it was actually a very clever piece of kite-flying. If it’s not too
mixed a metaphor, he has managed to blow the dog whistle and gain the attention
of the many ill-informed bigots who think that there’s too many of ‘em over
here taking our jobs and putting pressure on our resources, and all they have to
do is rock up at Dover docks to be handed a set of car keys, a council house
and a widescreen TV. All of which is complete bollocks of course, but Farage, like Clarkson, is a wolf in boor’s
clothing, and he knows his audience – probably better than they do, since
voting for a party who have no policies and can’t actually deliver on their
main raison d’etre, isn’t exactly
indicative of self-knowledge or self-awareness.
Labour, of course, are still failing to make a dent in even
the Tories, let alone UKIP. William Morris outlined his vision for a socialist
future in News From Nowhere. With Ed
Miliband doing his best to impersonate Gussie Fink-Nottle, it seems that the
best we can expect from Labour is newts
from nowhere.
Meanwhile, in my home town, hard on the heels of the
disgraceful “Beggars Can Be Choosers” posters, comes the news that Hull City
Council's environmental health officials have contacted Hull Homeless Outreach
to say they are breaching food hygiene regulations by serving the food at St
Mary's Church in Lowgate.
Sarah Hemingway, of the charity, told the Hull Daily Mail:
"Environmental
health called us out of the blue to tell us we couldn't serve hot food anymore
because we don't meet the criteria. They told us they would prosecute if we
carried on. We have been providing curries and sausage casseroles, which are
cooked by our volunteers at home. Now we are not even allowed to provide
sandwiches made by volunteers. This has left us deeply frustrated, as about 50
people come to our soup kitchen on each of the two nights we are here. For
some, this is the only chance of a hot meal they get each week. How can us
serving this food be any worse than them having to rummage around bins for
something to eat?”
Because the charity doesn’t actually own a kitchen, the
environmental health officers think there are concerns over the potential for
food poisoning. This now leaves the charity in the position of only being able
to serve tea, coffee, and tinned soup to its customers. This is the mealy-mouthed jobsworth official
prodnose “explanation” provided by the apologies for humanity who are determined
to implement this stupidity against all reason and common sense:
"Following a
complaint from a member of the public, advice was provided to the Hull Homeless Outreach
team and any issues were cleared up at a meeting yesterday. The company has not
registered the business, there were no catering facilities at the church and
there was cooking of food in a number of home environments that were similarly
not registered and that are likely to be inadequate. It has been agreed that
hot beverages, tinned soup heated up at the church in a soup kettle, bread and
pack-ups of wrapped, shelf stable short-life products can be provided until
suitable fixed premises or a mobile catering unit is provided."
Well, a) the “member of the public” who complained should be
ashamed of themselves and I hope they choke on their next meal, and b) since
when has the provision of charity to those less fortunate than ourselves been a
“business” which as to be “registered”. Have these people really nothing better
to do than to prowl the streets like Nazi gauleiters checking to see if
people’s papers are in order?
The charity’s director, James Bowie, summed up their
predicament:
"We are shocked
by this move. We take food hygiene very seriously, particularly as we are
dealing with vulnerable people. When our volunteers cook the food at home it is
brought here and served immediately. We have been doing this for about a year
and we have never had any problems. Also, our service users are used to the
routine and any changes to that can have serious welfare issues. We are considering
a number of options and have looked at buying a cheap catering trailer. St
Mary's is planning to install a kitchen but that is all subject to funding and
some way down the line. Whichever way you look at it, it will cost money and we
aren't a funded organisation. We would appeal to anyone who may have suitable
kitchen premises to let us know."
They have now had to start a fundraising appeal, via
Facebook. So, there you have it. Another boneheaded decision from a local
authority that obviously sees homelessness as something to be managed, swept
under the carpet, pushed away to somewhere else, so it becomes someone else’s
problem. Go, move, shift. Normally I am
a great defender of the public services, but examples like this make me think
maybe Jeremy Clarkson has a point. When I hear someone speaking of “hot
beverages” and “shelf-stable pre-packed products”, then I reach for my
revolver, to paraphrase Herman Goering.
But then, what did I expect, from a country that grows more
bigoted and intolerant every day. Look at the furore over the “Inclusive
Mosque” event at St John’s church, in Waterloo, London,
which is believed to be the first full Islamic prayer service ever held within
the Church of England. Canon Giles Goddard was approached by a Muslim
organisation about holding an event to mark International Women’s Day. He said:
We are offering a
place for people to pray so it made absolutely perfect sense … we should be
offering places to pray, we are the Church of England. They could have gone to
a community centre I suppose, but they loved being in a church, they were just
really pleased and delighted to have the welcome and it was very moving really,
It is the same God, we share a tradition.”
I have often said as much. The world’s religions are like a
group of partially sighted men clustering round an elephant. Each of them is
trying to describe it, interpret it, from their own particular standpoint, but
none of them realises that it is, in fact, al part of the same elephant.
The event began with a traditional Muslim call to prayer but
the main worship was led by a Muslim woman, Dr Amina Wadud. At the end, Canon
Goddard read Psalm 139, telling the congregation:
“This is from the
Hebrew scripture … we all share these great traditions, so let us celebrate our
shared traditions, by giving thanks to the God that we love, Allah.”
For this particular act of outreach, he has been castigated
and told he may have broken canon law. He has also, which will no doubt count
as a black mark against him for all eternity, upset the readers of the Daily
Telegraph. That would be an ecumenical
matter, as Father Dougal would doubtless say, but personally I don’t see why
you can’t wander into any sacred space and say a prayer to your God, whether it
be God, Allah, Jehovah, Shiva, or the Great Sky-Turtle A’tuin (sex unknown).
RIP, Terry Pratchett, by the way.
Anyway, today has brought us to Sunday, which is the fourth
Sunday in Lent, apparently, Year B, according to the Lectionary. I must admit,
I have not been particularly inspired by the choice of Saints’ days available
today, nor indeed by the Bible readings specified in the said Lectionary, most
of which seem to relate to Moses sticking a golden serpent on the end of a
stick and raising it up. I guess you had to be there. I confess, I may be feeling a bit jaded as
far as the afterlife is concerned, in a week which contained not only Mike’s
funeral, but, having been spurred on by that event, me also digging out and
starting to revise my own will and funeral arrangements, to make sure that,
when I go, I don’t leave an absolute bugger’s muddle of spag bol for Debbie to
untangle.
What I did notice, though, was that one of the hymns
specifically chosen as being appropriate for today was My Song Is Love Unknown, written by Samuel Crossman in 1664 and
these days most often sung to the tune composed by John Ireland (1879-1962) a
fine composer in his own right (he did Amberley
Wildbrooks) and also a student of Charles Villiers Stanford, whose “Mag in
G” has echoed around many an ecclesiastical edifice.
My song is love
unknown
My saviour’s love for
me
Love to the loveless
shown
That they might lovely
be
Oh who am I
That for my sake,
My Lord should take
frail flesh, and die?
“Love unknown” is an interesting phrase in the context,
because for me it encapsulates my own understanding of the nature of divine
love – i.e., it’s a complete mystery to me!
The questioner, who sits so sly, to quote W H Auden, will ask “why does
the God you worship allow suffering and illness, why does he allow people to
kill and torture each other in his name, and why did he have to sacrifice his
only son to redeem the world from sin, when he doesn’t seem to have done a very
good job, does he?” and when I have caught my breath, I can only say a) I don’t
worship him, I respect him at best, and sometimes I am thankful when things
turn out better than I thought, b – love unknown, c) I can only assume they are
punished for it in an alternative universe, but don’t make the mistake of
confusing misguided violent zealotry with religion, and d) – love unknown.
The more perceptive of you, those that are still awake by
this point, will note that I am relying on “love unknown” for the answer to two
of those questions. In other words, I have no idea, other than that for some
reason there seems to be an unfathomable aspect to the relationship between me
and what he Victorians would probably call “My Maker” that I simply cannot work
out. Except to say that it’s probably something to do with a very large elephant,
of which I am only seeing a very small part.
For now, I see through a glass darkly, but then, face to face.
Who, indeed, am I, that Jesus should sacrifice himself in
human guise on my behalf? And how does all that work, anyway? In my darkest
hours, I dismiss it as hogwash, or at best a regurgitation of a number of
widely-prevalent regeneration myths, from Tammuz to Baldur. Then I remember that, since what we think of
as reality is absolutely nothing of the sort, there must be something else,
that underpins everything. I have struck the board, and cried “no more”, like
George Herbert, and then I hear the voice calling “child”. Where I then go off at a tangent is that I can’t
see any way in which it could also encompass morality, especially in a world
where I believe there is no such thing as absolute
morality. Either way, it doesn’t help,
so allow me to declare now, once and for all, that if God does love me, I have
absolutely no bloody idea why, nor do I know why he cares to show it in such
obscure ways, and nor do I expect I will ever find out, this side of the bright
portal of death.
It is also mothering Sunday here in the UK, the day
when, traditionally, indentured female servants were allowed time off to visit
their mothers. I imagine the Tories will probably have something similar in
their manifesto. The day has set me thinking again about my mother, whose
funereal image that I mentioned above has now been replaced by those of happier
times. I wonder how she’s getting on in heaven, and, indeed, if we all
manufacture our own heaven on the hoof, on another plane, in the same way as
physicists tell us we all make up our own reality as we go along in this world,
what her heaven would be like? I hope she’s up there, listening to Jim Reeve
and Slim Whitman, with a pot of tea on the go and Ginger the cat on her knee,
looking forward to a session of bingo, or even a live performance by Morecambe
and Wise, if the dead can “do” live performances in heaven. It’s nice to think that a small part of
heaven looks just like the saloon bar of The
Fox and Coney at South
Cave in the 1950s, with
my mother at the piano playing In The
Mood.
I have to say, also, that if we do all make up our own
reality as we go along, then I really ought to have made up a better one for
myself, next week, with two book launches to organise, two (different) books to
lay out, and a VAT return to complete. It’s going to be a busy week in the Holme Valley.
But then I guess you already knew that.
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