It has been a busy week in the Holme Valley, catching up on tasks that had been neglected during the period when nothing mattered if it wasn’t to do with AQA marking, and generally sweeping up the wreckage, physical and emotional, of the ill-advised foray into the realms of GCSE. I finally posted last week’s Epiblog on Thursday, and to be honest I have got so out of kilter with writing them now, that I don’t know whether that one was four days late or eleven days late. Anyway, it’s the Monday after the fourth Sunday, so here I am, writing another one.
Already it’s May, my favourite month of the year, we’ve had May Eve and we all rode a white swan like the people of the Beltane (well, I didn’t, but you get the drift…) and, surprisingly, this weekend, allowing for the fact that it’s a Bank Holiday, which normally automatically brings sheeting rain and forked lightning, it’s actually been quite balmy, mild and sunny. So much so that, yesterday, I got Debbie to heave me out onto the decking like a sack of spuds, and I spent some time pottering, aided and abetted by Kitty, who seemed to appreciate having company as she prowled up and down, sniffing the scents carried on the unaccustomed warm breeze, and sharpening her claws on the fence posts. Pottering is, of course, what you have to do before you can start gardening. It is a necessary precursor. In my case, it involved rescuing a pair of secateurs which had been left outside all winter and therefore had rusted to buggery [and are now dunking in some Double T Penetrating Oil], and replacing the missing screw in the broom handle so that the head was held on by two screws, not one, and no longer rotated at random when you attempted to sweep up with it. What was it Kipling said about stooping to build things up with worn out tools?
Today, however, it’s back to traditional Bank Holiday weather and Kitty is by the stove, curled round in a tight ball with her nose in her tail, Zak is in his armchair in the conservatory, snoozing, dreaming and trembling, and Freddie is sprawled on the rug, front and centre, snoring next to the hearth, while we all listen to the cold greygreen rain on this cold greygreen day, drumming on the conservatory roof. Confined to barracks. Rain stopped play. The wettest drought on record continues, and the chairman of Yorkshire Water is even now adding the bubble-bath to the brimming log-flume jacuzzi in the corner of his office, while Carole King warbles “It might as well rain until September” softly over the company tannoy.
The birds are still busy about their purpose. The robin has been around, hardly surprising given that it’s still winter, there have been several blackbirds, a sparrow or two, and a jay that comes down and makes off with disproportionately large chunks of bread. Then, every so often, they will all look round and vanish at once, skedaddling up and away into the branches of any tree that will provide safe have, as Ronnie the Raven swoops down and starts pacing about, cocking his head from side to side, searching out prey or food, he’s not fussy which, with his black bead of a deadly eye. I fully expect, one day, to see him flapping off into the distance with Freddie firmly grasped in his talons.
The other members of my irregular menagerie come and go. I haven’t seen much of Brenda the Badger, although I have seen evidence of her, in the form of food being eaten, and the dish having been shoved around in an energetic and enthusiastic manner. She never was very good at keeping set hours, and of course now it’s light in the evening until quite late, she doesn’t come at 10pm like she used to. She probably comes at 2AM, when it’s properly dark, and I’m afraid I just don’t have the stamina to sit up and wait. Freda the Fox has been around once or twice, but she was always a fleeting visitor anyway. Don’t expect firm promises from foxy Freda. Now you see her, now she’s gone. I’ve known some women like that, come to think of it, and they were usually foxy, too…
Talking of foxy women, take my wife … please! No, only kidding, she’s improved dramatically since the curse of AQA has been lifted from her life, though she’s still counting down the hours to half-term, when she can go a-kayaking again, weather permitting, of course. In fact, if the rain carries on, she’ll be able to go a-kayaking without leaving the garden. Maybe even without leaving the kitchen.
It would be good to go a-kayaking again. Not that I, myself, ever kayaked, I am the support vehicle. Or at least I used to be, back in the days when we would get up ridiculously early (for us) on a Sunday, make sandwiches and flasks of tea, heave the Necky Manitou up on the hydraglide rack on top of the old Citroen Berlingo, strap it down, and then Tiggy would jump in, up onto the back seat, anxious not to be left behind, as we headed up the M6 to the Lakes. More often than not, we almost packed one or more of the cats by mistake, as well.
I often think of those days, and how to get them back, or if not those days, other days like them. I’ve started making a list – another dog, another car (one that I can drive) and the energy and wherewithal to do it all over again, stooping to build it up with worn-out tools, are all high on the agenda. As is planning a holiday this year, which involves, first of all, a massive calculator-and-spreadsheet exercise to find out if it will be cheaper to buy individual tickets between the islands of the Hebrides, or one all-encompassing Caledonian MacBrayne Island Rover. Then making a huge list of everything we need to take with us, then packing it all into the camper, which is, in its own way, another worn-out tool.
The other thing that needs tools, right now, worn out or not, and building up, is the garden. The poor weather has stopped me getting outside as much as I’d have liked to since Owen built my ramp, but I have got as far as searching for short-handled gardening tools that can be used from a wheelchair, and Ceanothus-puget-blue on various bulb and plant selling sites. I’ve also spent some time Googling for trellis, and alyssum, which makes me an alyssum-seeker, so I expect Theresa May will try and deport me, any day now. [By the way, am I alone in thinking that if ever there was a woman who needed days-of-the-week knickers, it is Theresa May?] I have big plans for the garden, but it remains to be seen if they will come to fruition [did you see what I did there?] as it relies on the sun shining and the black fog dispersing, and also on us having the money to pay someone to come and do the bits of it that I can’t do.
Maybe by doing a combination of all these things, then I can achieve an approximation of where I’d like to be, with a tidier house and garden, and the ability to go off on kayaking/painting/writing expeditions again, with a dog. Sadly, it will have to be a different dog, it will never be Tiggy, but a dog, nevertheless. I am not afraid of hard work, but the prospect of the effort and turmoil which will be necessary even to get to this stage, stretching ahead like a rocky road full of traps and pitfalls, tires me and depresses me. I must remember that you have to eat an elephant one bite at a time, and I must take comfort in the power of gradual change, get rid of the mountains of junk which litter my life at every turn, and then one day I will see Helm Crag again, and Helvellyn, and Derwent Water and Cat Bells, Skiddaw and Blencathra, and the whole of the North-West will be my garden. I can’t do it all at once, I can’t do it on my own, but ultimately, I hope, I can do it. Mountains to climb, before I can even see the mountains. Many rivers to cross. First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.
So, I’m going to make a start, by putting the kettle on and listening to Harry Lauder, a man who knew much more than I ever will about roaming in the gloaming. Watch and learn, laddie, watch and learn.
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