Betwixt Lakeland & Edinburgh
What of vast realities do I see,
gazing on lake and fell and drystone wall?
What do I hear here, deep in my soul in
this present, and my soul’s memory hall?What calms and settles my undue haste and
whence the touch, smell and taste on the breeze?
What in wide and expansive openness
places me thankfully, deeply at ease?What about this being here restores me
to an ancient and forgotten knowing?
Here in high magnificence I now breathe
life deep and am both come and going.SRM
The steep climb from Martindale up the side of Hallin Fell has me huffing and puffing like a badly maintained traction engine in need of oil and a bit of engineering t.l.c. Uphill physical exertion (with ne’er a coffee-shop in sight) has never quite been something that’s come naturally to me! But I joined my fell-walking wife for the aforesaid ascent this afternoon – and the cry of a lone hunting bird and the otherwise deep, deep silence as we gazed over the deep, deep Ullswater below us told me clear that I ought to shift myself up these tracks at least a little more often. And there was coffee and chocolate cake when we came down from the heights.
Let it not be said that “there’s never anything on the telly”. We’ve been awestruck with ITV’s Victoria and wishing every episode were longer. And though we didn’t know of the existence of The Great British Bake Off until the beginning of the sixth series (!) we absolutely know of it now. Oh, and then we saw Bridget Jones’ Baby this week! Square eyes (and other horror stories) set aside for a moment, the impression left with me by these works of art is that this world is home to some truly feeling, fragile, funny, gorgeous, kind, sensitive, thinking and altogether wonderful human persons.
I loved the story-time circle in primary school 50+ years ago more than anything else there I recall. The spoken telling of stories that mattered and made sense to me was better than anything else at all. I imagined (and have since delighted in) reading stories to my children and grandchildren. I’ve especially enjoyed stories in the company of a hushed little group, and sometimes a larger crowd. So today was one of the month’s special days – meeting with friends in a writing group, dreaming and writing up stories, and sharing them aloud.
My sister came for lunch today – back in the UK for a few weeks from her lakeside home in Canada. She and we like garden wildlife – collared doves, goldfinches, sparrows and red squirrels – and we talked of our hopes to establish a winter hibernation home for hedgehogs. And then we browsed through some of her iPhone photos and I remembered that grizzly bears are among the regular visitors to Sarah’s garden. Ahem. It doesn’t really matter what you’re talking about, everything’s on such a different scale in Canada!
Deep blue sky and the many heavily laden Vergers de Bretagne come readily enough to mind throughout the year. But last year we set about planting a little orchard of our own – a mini verger! And today our two little apple trees are (relatively) heavy-laden too. Enough, anyway, to have revelled just now in the most delicious baked apple and custard – with a little stock of apples for our store. Baked apples and gorgeous evening-blue sky – chez nous.
‘I think there are some tiny flecks floating around in your left eye’, the optometrist told me quietly and apparently unworried today, ‘but they’ve probably been there since you were in the womb so you may hardly, if ever, have consciously noticed them.’ And I’ve wondered since how much in my life remains veiled by long familiarity. Yet further invitation to contemplation – and perhaps the attentiveness of some poetry.
Here is warm and
familiar in
the nostrils too
where loved scent of
outdoors is year
round sweet peat smoke –
something quite odd
in a lakeland
village that burns
wood and oil and
coal except it’s
perceived perhaps
less by nose than
by soul?SRM
I’ve many times thought I’d fancy a bit of ‘beam me up Scottie’ and a being able to flit effortlessly hither and thither – maybe even be in several places, enjoying an array of happy experiences simultaneously. But, though forgetful, I know exactly who I’m kidding too – well versed in the truth that my deepest contentment lies not in flitting, but in abiding awhile; not in experiencing many things at once, but revelling in this moment, now. Not there, but here, in and on my deep-down riverbank.
Tonight we’ll cross the Channel, setting foot in the UK bright and early Saturday morning. The rituals of the ferry are ranked high in my list of life’s joys – the quayside queue, the oft-imagined supper, the little cabin, and the ‘sailing the seven seas’ (!) imagination of my busy-port watching boyhood. Oh, but the leaving! Leaving the places we love is always so sad. My olfactory memory-mapping goes into overdrive.
Tomorrow, closing my eyes, I will know again in my nostrils this local salted butter, and the slight mustiness of the basement, and apple juice, and oaks and pines, and the planked floor of this bright bedroom, and the bubbling mud of the riverbed, and the warm breakfast baguette, with melon and strawberries and honey and strong coffee, and the armoire. I’ll tell myself convincingly ‘no leavings, no arrivals.’ And ache a bit.
Often the tranquil beauty of this
riverbank house comes upon one
with abrupt sharp blast of shock –
and never more than time’s chimed
close for us to departTurquoise green in late afternoon
the river has turned and hosts
myriad sunlit comets and stars –
accentuation, punctuation within
memoirs of the heartOctober with four pairs of French
windows and the house door open
wide to supper preparation and
reading in the slight breeze upon
which pine needles dartA small passing watercraft leaves
familiar lapping sounds in its wake
holding one’s attention light but
keen much as one might felicitate
upon unsurpassed fine artSRM
.
Le cimetière de bâteaux du Bono
For years we’ve
come remembering
your voyaging here
long before us and
we hear the gulls
laughing and admire
the industry of
oystercatchers and
the youth of shiny
new acorns as we
note that the comings
and goings of the
tides across your
venerable oak boughs
are quietly returning
you to the ground of
your origins just as
year by year they are
returning us too and
the serenity here
though poignant
holds us in peace
Another perfect day’s cycle tour today, in the commune of Sarzeau, near the coast of the Atlantic ocean, including a visit to the striking Château de Suscinio, a moated French castle, built in the late Middle Ages, as home to the Dukes of Brittany. It’s still gloriously warm here and hues of golds and reds are enhanced and illuminated by sky as blue as one might expect to find in the height of summer.
Pain au chocolat consumed at a well-placed picnic table, on a village green overlooking the Atlantic, was like something out of a ‘let’s live the good life’ dream. And the effect was doubled when we spotted a beautifully built boite à livres – a little lending library set on posts at the corner of the green – so that one could cheerfully have chosen to stay there for hours, reading and daydreaming in the sunshine.
It’s as well we didn’t get too distracted by the books (an all too frequent pitfall for both of us generally), for in pedalling onwards we accidentally came upon a little creperie where galette au jambon et compotée de tomates was reckoned the discovery of the day.
We’re just back from an annual visit to an old and dear Breton friend. Each and every such occasion is pure celebration of life. Léonie speaks not a word of English, her first language is Breton, French her second, and cheerfully willing as we are, notre français est très limité.
Still, though, a joyful friendship has been maintained for years. By way of Léonie’s patient ear, and our willingness to leap in and have a go, together with shared delight in Brittany, hugs and smiles, laughter and tears, good food and coffee at table – we’re ever reminded that relationships are not made by words only.
Burnished gold dawned through
morning mist as soft still curtain
of deep sleep opened to hopes
for Sunday –spectacularly spun cobwebs
and autumnal dew in intimate
relationship within and without
the riverthe sea a rolling green-blue
with wide yellow stretch of
clean sand hosting hundreds of
oyster shellsand us too replete with simple
picnic lunch and the stretched
delight of cyclists set out to
breathe deepand contemplate the hours
slow before evening celebration
avec bombarde et orgue
thankfullySRM