Epiblog for the Feast of St Margaret of Antioch

It has been a busy week in the Holme Valley. I must admit, when I sat here last week typing the Epiblog, I had not expected it to have been a busy week in the Holme Valley. I had expected it to have been a busy week on Walney Island, Dumfries and Galloway, or the Isle of Arran, or all three, but no, we’re still here. A combination of unexpected last minute hitches, things going wrong and needing fixing, the usual preparation that always takes far longer than we think, and general lethargy and exhaustion.

So, here we are. Matilda is enjoying her unexpected reprieve from the regime of only being visited and fed twice a day by Katie the doggy nanny, and Misty, well, Misty’s life is pretty much the same wherever she is, sleeping, dog treats, walkies, dog treats, sleeping... Matilda did – rather strangely – have a full scale cat wash,  including all the bits behind the ears and sitting with one leg straight up in the air, in the rain, on the decking, As one of my friends said, she’s just invented the shower.

The preparations are also slow because I keep falling asleep, from cause or causes unknown, but those iron tablets don’t seem to be working, and Deb has painful tendonitis in her right foot, so she has been trying not to aggravate it by doing anything too sturm und drang, as, when we are on holiday, she wants to be able to climb mountains.

The week also included St Swithun’s Day, which, like Kim Kardashian, was hot and dull. St Swithun’s has acquired a great significance for me, not so much for the weather-predicting aspects, but for the fact that four years ago on that very day, I did my “mercy dash” in an ambulance through the streets of Huddersfield, leaving Debbie, Tig and Kitty bewildered at home and me at the gates of death with a perforated bowel.  Although I saw Deb nearly every day through the long, slow six months of recovery that was to follow, I only saw Tig once, and Kitty not at all, and I missed them both terribly. The reason my recovery turned out to be so long and slow, as it happened, was because the mobility problems that had plagued me for years before my gut went “ping” turned out to be facioscapularhumeral muscular dystrophy. Which is how I ended up trundling round in this mobile birdcage, waiting to cop it.  As a memorial of the day my life fell apart, then, St Swithun’s day, 15^th July, was both sobering, and tinged with black edges, for me.

The end of the week was also, sadly, tinged with a bit of mortality. Debbie had to attend a funeral on Thursday afternoon, and Friday would have been the 86^th birthday of my mother, had she lived. Strangely, as well as remembering Mum, I also found myself missing Kitty and Freddie and all the other four-leggeds who have gone ahead into the great beyond, and wondering once more if heaven allows animals, and whether any of our deceased cats would have been adopted by my mum.  Either way, it was a reminder that life is lent, not given, and you never know the minute or the hour, a lesson reinforced by the events in Gaza and the deaths of those poor people on the Malaysian Airlines plane.

Other than that, Friday was enlivened only by a plague of bizarre and annoying technical issues: specifically, that we wanted to burn some CDs of (mainly classical) music to take with us and we had one laptop that for some reason couldn’t or wouldn’t create an MP3 file, but which could burn CDs, and one which could easily create an MP3, yet couldn’t burn CDs. We ended up getting around it by transferring the MP3 files via a detachable hard drive. A bit of a “don’t build a bridge, drain the river” solution, but it worked.

Saturday was the gloomiest day of all. After struggling the day before over burning music onto CDs for the trip, possibly the most trivial cause for marital discord ever, neither of us was in the mood to compromise or offer mutual help on Saturday, so we each struggled on alone, getting done what had to be done. The weather was lousy, dull, dark, raining, depressing. About 4pm there seemed to be a bit of a break in the clouds, so Debbie announced her intention of meeting up with Granny, who was also dog-walking, on the cricket-field at Armitage Bridge.  Ten minutes after she had gone, a massive clap of thunder rent the air, followed by a downpour of Biblical proportions. Uh-oh, that’s torn it, I thought to myself, and started to look out for Misty’s face at the back door, figuring that she would almost certainly have run off on hearing the bang.  I was right about this – she had – but fortunately, Granny had the presence of mind, and the reactions, still, at an advanced age, to reach down and grab Misty’s collar as she streaked past. They all came back in Granny’s car, wet through, with Misty hiding under the seat. They had lost the yellow, vulcanised rubber ball that Deb usually chucks for Misty to fetch – it’s still somewhere on the cricket-field, but as I said, better to have lost the ball and brought the dog home, rather than vice-versa.

Even with all of the fraught preparations, setbacks and delays preoccupying me most of the week, it’s been impossible to ignore the outside world, especially the desperately sad situation in Gaza.  I have been troubled by this problem for years. As an Englishman, my sympathies are with the underdog, of course. But – unlike many left-wing commentators – I don’t think the underdog in this question is merely “The Palestinians”.  The Palestinian leadership is, in its own way, just as nasty and cynical as the Zionist reactionaries who seem to have a grip on the Israeli cabinet. The “underdog”, as I see it, is the mass of ordinary people on both sides of the conflict, Israelis and Palestinians, who find themselves in the fallout area of a war zone while various lunatic fringes fight it out over their heads.

On the one hand you have an Israeli authority intent on taking over ever more Palestinian land with illegal settlements, and stifling any attempt at Palestinian movement, commerce and trade. On the other hand you have the leadership of Hamas, who seem to think that the answer to this is to fire crappy old rustbucket rockets into Israel and hope for the best.  Actually, the cynic in me says that perhaps they hope for the worst. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if someone in the Hamas leadership hadn’t come to the appalling conclusion that, given that Israel can be relied on to kill Palestinian children as a part of its inevitable random and massively disproportionate response, a few hundred dead Palestinian children are worth it to Hamas, to incite the passions and sympathy of the liberal West.

Neither Hamas nor the Israeli government seems capable of recognising that two wrongs don’t make a right. Thus you get a cycle of vendetta, revenge, and “whataboutery”, spiralling ever backwards into the past.  Hamas – as I said last week -  cynically site their rockets where they know that a huge and disproportionate Israeli response will cause the maximum harm and damage to their own people, and Israel never fails to oblige by providing the said huge and disproportionate response, because that’s what they do.  Collective punishment, random air strikes, shelling kids playing on the beach, is all grist to the mill to the lunatic fringe on the Israeli side. Never apologise, never explain, just send Mark Regev out to deny anything happened, or, failing that, to promise an enquiry that never materialises.

Something radical and different needs to happen, to break the cycle of violence.  Either Israel or Hamas has to deliberately not retaliate, to break the cycle, Hamas has to stop firing rockets and Israel has to call a halt to bulldozing people’s houses and building illegal settlements and relax the trade and movement restrictions, which is all about as likely as John Prescott at a Chumbawamba concert, or an outside power – effectively the US, since no one else has the wherewithal to do it – has to step in and impose such a solution, militarily if necessary. 

And that’s not going to happen either, any time soon at any rate.  Hamas will never win a military conflict against Israel, so the only other possible solution I can see is that Israel is eventually allowed, by virtue of the US and the UN turning a blind eye, to wipe Palestine off the map completely, which would, in effect, create a whole displaced nation of people with a burning hatred of the west, ripe for radicalisation and swelling the ranks of ISIS. Not a prospect we should relish.

Otherwise, Hamas will carry on firing rockets made from barbecues and dustbins, many of which drop short and land in their own territory* anyway, and Israel’s government will carry on taking 500 Palestinian lives for every 5 Israelis killed, and by their careless and rather random approach to the rules of engagement, coupled with Hamas hiding rocket sites in civilian areas, create tragedies and the deaths of innocent children, that will continue to fuel Palestinian revenge vendettas for years, generations, to come. 

[*I suspect this is the origin of the map showing the plots of Hamas rocket strikes within Palestine which was produced by the Israeli Defence Force. Not so much strikes on their own people, as the IDF claimed in their caption, but failures of equipment and/or possibly interceptions by Israel’s “Iron Dome”.]

Still, it may all be rendered completely irrelevant by the outbreak of a world war in the Ukraine, so perhaps we shouldn’t worry too much.  President Putin (not gay) was busily trying to backtrack this week and spread the blame for the destruction of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 as widely as possible. It would never have happened if there had not been a war zone in the area. Very true, in general terms, I agree. Specifically, though, Vladimir me old chum, it would never have happened if you hadn’t given a BUK ground-to-air missile system to a group of Yahoo rabble rebels who were so pissed out of their heads on vodka that they couldn’t tell an airliner from a military transport.  Therefore seek not to send for whom the bell tolls, Putin, it tolls for thee.  

And, sadly, it tolls for all those caught up in conflicts, directly or indirectly, human and animal, and it asks of use once again the endless question of why suffering is allowed in the world? The most positive thing we can ever say is that there is a reason, but it’s not apparent to us. As the song says, what can you do when God acts like a punk/except comfort each other, go home and get drunk.

As a sidebar, I do wonder what Malaysian Airways was doing flying over a war zone anyway, though I gather they aren’t alone in doing so. It is all tending to reinforce a rather unfortunate impression of a now-you-see-them, now-you-don’t airline. To lose one airliner is a misfortune; to lose two, looks like carelessness.

So, it’s been a grim old week in the world at large, leavened only by the demotion of Michael Gove, who then managed to lock himself in a toilet.  He was there from Monday to Saturday, everyone knew he was there, as one wit quipped on Facebook. This latest shuffling of the deckchairs on the Titanic has seen Nick Clegg give perhaps his most unconvincing performance to date, that of a man who shakes his head, rubs his eyes, and says “I don’t know what came over me”. Here’s a clue – look up the word “gimp” in the dictionary, and ask those Eton boys you’ve been fagging for since 2010 about “The Biscuit Game”. Then you’ll know exactly what came over you.

Another dark day this week was marked by the passing of the Data Retention Investigatory Powers (DRIP) legislation. Drip is a very appropriate acronym both for Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg, who failed to raise any concerns about this gross abuse of civil liberties and the cynical disregard for due parliamentary procedure. The day after was marked by the arrest of about 600 suspected paedophiles in one of the biggest ever police swoops of this kind in the UK. On the news, the wave of paedophile arrests is now being subtly linked to, and advanced as a further justification for, the DRIP Act.

I have no sympathy whatsoever for people who abuse children, but I would be interested to see how many of this unprecedented wave of 600 arrests actually lead to convictions. I  suspect that what the Junta is doing is what they used to do whenever there was a need to create a panic about Islamic terrorism - round up the usual suspects, stick a couple of armoured cars on the lawn at Heathrow, claim that society has been vaguely saved in some unspecified way from some unspecified threat which is never vouchsafed to us... and then quietly let them all go without being charged some weeks later.

Speaking of the arrests, Justice Secretary Chris Grayling, said: "Somebody who starts looking at pictures on the internet may go on to do something much worse, so this is the kind of operation that is absolutely vital for our society."

They may indeed go on to do something much worse - such as chucking away a dossier that proved that the rich and influential were not only molesting kids themselves, but shielding others in power who were doing the same. But not to worry, that particular festering sore at the heart of the establishment has been booted down the news agenda by this new furore and hoohah. Anyone who doubts my assessment of it should pause to consider that some of the people arrested were on the sex offenders’ register anyway, and therefore, being known to the police, could presumably have been picked up at any time.  But they weren’t.

And so we came to Sunday, the Feast of St Margaret of Antioch in Pisidia. Or possibly Antioch in Syria, even that much is disputed. As I wasn’t expecting to be here at all this week, and, wherever I was, wasn’t going to be sure of internet access, I have done very little research on this week’s saint.  In fact, I could probably just have made it all up, because her historical existence has been questioned anyway. She was declared apocryphal by Pope Gelasius in 494AD, which is a bit of a cheek considering he had by far the sillier name.  In the way that saints do, she is reputed to have offered powerful indulgences to those who wrote about her or who read her life, or even invoked her intercession, so I wait with bated breath.  She is also one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, and apparently was one of the saints who spoke to Joan of Arc, which of course went very well.  In the Greek Orthodox Church, she is known as St Marina and her feast day is 17^th July, but then as I have said before, there is nothing “Orthodox” that I can see about a group of people with beards like ZZ Top wearing jiffy bags on their heads.

Anyway, according to legend, Margaret of Antioch was the daughter of a pagan priest called Aedesius, and, after the death of her mother, was nursed by a pious woman “five or six leagues” from Antioch.  Her father reacted badly to the news of her conversion to Christianity and the dedication of her virginity to God, and turned her out of doors. Fortunately, she was adopted by her erstwhile nurse, and set to work as a shepherdess. She was painted as a shepherdess, complete with dragon (an unlikely combination, but read on) by Zurburan, one of my favourite painters, in 1631.

Sadly for her, she came to the attention of the Governor of the Roman Diocese of the East, Oybrius, who was browsing the sheep one day and noticed her. The deal was that she could marry him if she renounced Christianity, which she refused to do. She was tortured because of this, fairly inevitably, but then various miraculous and disputed events occurred, including her being eaten by Satan in the form of a dragon, from which she escaped alive because the cross she was wearing irritated the dragon’s digestive system.  She was martyred in 304AD.

The Greek Orthodox version, St Marina, doesn’t have this particular legend attached to her, but instead has her beating a demon on the head with a hammer. If she hadn’t come from Antioch, a girl like that could surely only have hailed from Barnsley.  Her cult became very popular in England for some reason, with more than 250 churches dedicated to her. She is considered by some to be the patron saint of pregnancy, not a bad achievement for someone who dedicated her virginity to God, and is often depicted struggling with, or vanquishing, the unfortunate dragon. She is also the patron saint of: childbirth, dying people, kidney disease, peasants, exiles, falsely accused people, Lowestoft, nurses, Queens College Cambridge, and two towns in Malta, Sannat and Bormla. Quite a diverse list. All that’s missing is wheely-bins. Unfortunately for St Margaret, Pope Paul VI took one look at her cultus in 1969, thought “no way”, in Latin, and took her off the syllabus. So, no indulgences for him, then.

I can’t really derive any life-lessons from St Margaret of Antioch, especially only on this brief acquaintance and given that large parts of her life may have been completely imaginary anyway. I briefly considered some long convoluted analogy between her struggle with the dragon/bashing the demon on the head (delete as applicable) and the decision this week of the Synod of the Church of England (finally) to allow for women bishops to be ordained, at last. But maybe that analogy is for others to paint, not me. Time is short, and there is packing to be done. After a few days of inactivity, it looks like the log jam is moving. Katie the doggy nanny is prepped and primed, and tomorrow we may finally be setting off for points north, in the camper van. Half of me feels glad at this, half of me feels sad and trepidacious. I have no idea what the future holds for me, but obviously, given my condition, there will inevitably come a time when I can no longer manage to go on holiday in the camper van, and therefore I should seize every opportunity.  And, the sooner we go, the sooner we’ll be back.

On the other hand, we don’t exactly have a great track record of coming back off holiday to find our remaining pets at home hale, well and hearty, having lost Russell in 2005 and Kitty in 2012 during our absences on Arran. They were, both, admittedly, old and ill before we went away, but the thought of anything happening to Matilda while we were away would be too bitter a blow to bear. Plus, I am sure she actually misses us when we’re away, and I, in turn, do get terribly homesick on holiday, on top of the added stress of wondering whether the dog or Debbie or both will fall off a mountain or go missing in some way.  And there is much, to be honest, that I could, and should, be doing here, especially to the garden, which has been grievously neglected this year.

Provided I can overcome the stress and the homesickness it will inevitably cause, and provided I can avoid falling off my banana board when transferring, I am sure it will be a good experience for me, spiritually, going on holiday. Plus, I am planning on taking some of the work-mountain with me, and it is always easier getting on with it with a beautiful and calming vista of the sea, one thing I miss about living here so far inland.

So, dear reader, at the risk of putting the spec on it by provoking big G to call down yet more thunderbolts on our heads and delay us, this time next week I could be typing this looking out across Brodick Bay towards Goatfell, or at the side of Kilbrannan Sound, or beside the castle at Lochranza, and cursing the lack of an internet connection to enable me to post it.

Life is a pilgrimage, and I’m about to set off on the next stage of it, whatever it holds for us. Baby, baby, it’s a wild world, and we’re heading off for the wilds. By now, you are thinking, for God’s sake, Steve, it’s only a holiday, and you’re supposed to enjoy it. Which is true. But, as good old TSE puts it, and as has been amply demonstrated by the delays of this last sombre week, all too often, between the intention, and the action, falls the shadow. Oh well, better start packing in earnest, I suppose.