Lucy Ann White

Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

2012-01-29T22:36:00.003Z

As an English classic, the story of Tess of the d'Urbervilles is well known. It is, I acknowledge, not one of my favourite Hardy novels (not that you would guess from the well thumbed copy you see below!) There is an over-riding sense of doom right from the start, and it makes me uneasy. However, that was not what made its original audience uncomfortable. The story draws attention to the hypocrisy of Victorian times and the behaviour of the heroine made it a very controversial story.

To sum the novel up in a few words, Tess of the d'Urbervilles is a romantic tragedy. The central character is shaped by her landscape: her moods and her pleasures are rooted in the countryside and the landscape plays a large part in what befalls her. There is passion and there is pain in Tess' story but - as in most of Hardy's novels – there always seems to be more of the latter.

Tess is the original tragic heroine but a very complex one: simple yet knowing; unspoiled but eventually quite spoiled; sometimes victim sometimes not; innocent yet sensual. What happened to Tess, Hardy shows us, was due to her naivety and looks: a beautiful but good natured, simple woman was at the mercy of those men who had no morals and no forgiveness. This was asking a lot of his readers and not surprisingly the novel was not an instant success.

But it is, for me, in the descriptions of the landscape and of the vanishing rural life that Hardy excels. He was a poet, and his descriptions throughout the novel are testament to this. Those relating to landscape – the countryside of Dorset he loved – are particularly moving and evoke a sense of beauty but also a real understanding of not only the minutiae of nature – the grasses and insects – but also the larger aspect of woods, forests, vales, moors and skies that give the reader of Tess such a true sense of place.

Many find Hardy a bit heavy – I will admit his descriptions are rather long-winded – but I love his work for not only the poetry of his descriptions but also for the realism of his settings: life was hard for the working country man and nature had an over-powering influence.

Walking with Freddie today in the rain, mud underfoot, wind through the trees, I could just imagine what it must have been like to have to battle with such elements everyday. Reading Tess one is aware of the physical discomforts of country folk then and fully appreciative of the mundane things we take for granted such as waterproofs and wellies and the luxury of being able to sit in the warm and read a well written book.

Italian Shoes by Henning Mankell

2011-12-20T23:52:00.005Z

This is surely the time to read Mankell's 26th novel, Italian Shoes. Firstly, because the book is shortly to be made into a film starring Judi Dench and, possibly, Anthony Hopkins. (There, you have the main characters of Harriet and Welin drawn for you.) And, secondly, like his Kurt Wallander series, Mankell's story is set in the Swedish archipelago and the wintry sense of place is spot on: the reader can positively see and feel the snow laden countryside and the people that are moulded by this harsh environment.

The central character, Fredrik Welin, is a retired surgeon fleeing from a particularly harrowing professional error. Indeed, abandonment is the central theme of the novel. Welin is also fleeing from his personal life – what there was of it – and from himself. He had already abandoned his mother, his former lover, Harriet, and will come to abandon even his closest relation.

Welin is an outsider, an unsympathetic character with no empathy. He cannot tell the truth but admits to himself that he is a shit whilst he continues to be one: snooping, abandoning, lying. This is the psychological insight that Mankell has come to be known for in his Wallander books. Welin is so estranged from society and so isolated on his island that he has to cut a hole in the ice every day and swim in the frozen water to prove to himself that he is still alive.

When, twelve years on, the dying Harriet arrives looking for him to fulfil a promise, Welin reluctantly has to face his former life with all its painful reminders and start to interact with others. Physical contact is difficult for him. When he finally has close family contact he still makes the sort of wrong decision that has characterized his life to date.

Almost too late, when he is ill, Welin comes to realise that he has wasted his time cutting himself off from society, that he has lost the chance of precious relationships. The secondary characters in the book are all as odd as Welin but while Mankell makes him a fully formed character, they somehow remain marginal. And as it unfolds the story to some extent loses its credibility: belief is stretched too far.

The central character comes into contact with the political beliefs and hobby-horses of the author: the break-down of Swedish society; refuges and asylum seekers; foster families and suicides; the parlous state of the ecology; how pollution is affecting cave paintings in France; the sad fact that no-one treasures the artisan (those hand-made Italian shoes) any longer.

Similarly, the work of the violent and talented artist, Caravaggio, is a theme - the dark and light of his paintings an analogy for those of his character. Unfortunately these factors are too obviously something that the author wants to make a point of and sit uncomfortably with the narrative.

Yet this light book, this occasionally unsatisfactory story, is so well-written (and it is very well translated) that it is a pleasure to read. The descriptions are wonderful, the prose spare, the structure good. Suspense is built up although usually to no end. The possibility of redemption is there, but in true Mankell style there is no reassuring happy ending. This is a book for real Mankell fans but not, I think, one that will automatically convince the uninitiated.

Lucy

Brazzaville Beach by William Boyd

2011-11-27T20:10:00.005Z

I did not realise that Brazzaville Beach was a real place in the Congo until I heard it mentioned on the radio the other day. So much for my geographical knowledge. However, it is a slightly confusing title because the story is really set in Angola.

Few who have read Golding's other novels would fail to agree that he is a good writer. Indeed, Brazzaviile Beach, written in 1995, was nominated at the time for the James Tait prize. I can see why he is popular: his books are easy to read and appeal to both sexes. I too liked the book. Mostly. Although, sometimes it jarred, occasionally it disappointed.

The main character, Hope, leaves her floundering maths whiz husband and goes off to study chimpanzees in Angola. Soon, Hope discovers that the group of chimps she is studying show aggression. Her boss, Eugene, refuses to believe her theories or findings: funding for further research is dependent upon the publication of his book about the passive chimps.

The denouement of the novel comes when there is a murderous fight between the two chimpanzee groups in the study. This part of the story is most certainly based upon the findings of Jane Goodall, whose famous and expert research in Tanzania (circa 1965) showed that chimpanzees could be very aggressive, killing other chimpanzees if necessary to maintain their social group. And, generally, the theme of the novel is the parallel between how the chimpanzees and the researchers behave.

Allegory is played upon: apart from the fighting chimpanzees being an allegory for the war torn setting of Angola, so it is that Eugene's behaviour towards Hope is as unpleasant as that between the groups of chimps. Then there is the break up of Hope's marriage as an allegory for the crumbling politics of the region.

Obsession is another theme that runs through the novel: Hope is obsessed with her research, to such an extent that she leaves her husband for months to pursue it. Her husband is so obsessed with his mathematical theories that he goes crazy; her boss so obsessed with his theories that it leads to violence and his assistant is obsessed with him to such an extent that she abets his attempts to doctor research.

This is all very well, and the chapters about the chimpanzees (surprisingly for a person like myself not naturally drawn to chimpanzees) was interesting and very readable, but there were some annoying facets to the book. Some of our groupies did not like the way the book jumped between fist person and third person, which was used to differentiate the past and present. Nor did they enjoy the time-switch itself, back and forth between former married life with nutty professor husband in England and current chimp research.

This did not worry me in particular but I did agree that Hope's husband was a conceptual character and agreed that we could have done without the married bit altogether: it added nothing and did not hang together. We would all have preferred hubby's (nonetheless interesting) maths theories as a separate novel altogether.

However, we were all in complete agreement that the most unconvincing part of an otherwise entertaining read was the characterization of the heroine, Hope. Why on earth did Golding have to make the main character a woman? She was not only unbelievable as one (too masculine and unemotional) but difficult to like. Her love for her husband and her lover did not ring true and her self-sufficiency and obsessions took a very male form.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed Brazzaville Beach more than I expected and will read one of his novels again, whenever I happen across one.

Lucy

The Turner Contemporary, Margate, Kent

2011-10-18T13:09:00.006Z

The idea of a new modern art gallery in an east coast less-than-fashionable British seaside town was viewed with caution, disbelief, suspicion, if not considered by many as a downright waste of time. Would anyone go there? Could it bring people into the town in the winter season? Would it be appreciated by those who live out in the sticks?

Well, one hopes that these doubts have been dispelled: the building and facilities have been completed in the best possible taste. I like the clean lines of the structure and the mass of it is in scale with its surroundings. The inspiration, it seems to me, was to be that of the bulk of an ocean liner and it certainly sits comfortably in its landscape: the outline is simple and pleasing and does not jar with either the Georgian buildings on the esplanade nor the coastline.

The expectations of those who had the vision have surely been vindicated. Residents should have pride in a forward looking and classy development and well as having a cultural icon at its centre.

I admit that I went to see the building: it was the structure and its setting that drew me to visit. I also admit that I did not expect much of the exhibition, Nothing in the World But Youth. But I did the exhibition and youth in general a disservice. I was reminded of the creativity of those teenage years: we so often see the ability to take risks and the need for experimentation as negative aspects of youth. They can sometimes be but they were, and are, more often the years that shape tastes in fashion and music and teach the value of friendship or spirituality.

As ever, some youths are rebellious whilst others are saddled with responsibilities in advance of their years. Many are overcome by fears others by fantasy; some agonize over their bodies and sex, others celebrate it. Whilst some youths are bent on destruction others are idealistic and embrace our ecology, feeling passionate about sustainability.

All of these aspects of youth were demonstrated in the exhibition and what struck me most is that none of this is new. Photographs of gangs of street youths in the 1950's looked surprisingly familiar; similarly, sadly, girls gave birth to illegitimate babies. Conformity in the uniform of the gang or the need to be different and make a statement were no different than they were when adolescents were first called teenagers in the 1940's. In between the works of young people were dotted paintings and drawings by such well-known artists as Peter Blake, Daivd Hockney, Andy Warhol and even Turner himself: nothing could illustrate the point better.

Some visitors found several of the images disturbing but I prefer to think of them as challenging. What is the point of an exhibition that is merely window dressing; we all love to see something pretty, to appreciate a beautiful image or a sublime sculpture. But surely we need to question, just as we did as teenagers, and seeing the world through the eyes of a youth can remind us all that we too were once both fearful and brave, experimental and yet desperate to be one of the gang. And in showing the complexities and contradictions of youth I think the exhibition, Nothing in the World but Youth, succeeds.

Lucy

PS The café is excellent – better than those in most London Art galleries – so treat yourself to brunch or a delicious Catalan fish soup for lunch. If the soul is a little less than uplifted I often find good food helps!

Testament of Friendship by Vera Brittain

2011-09-21T18:44:00.004Z

Winifred Holtby was not a well-known figure until a couple of years ago when her novel, South Riding, was televised. This catapulted her into the Austen/Bronte romantic novel stratosphere although of course she was a very different figure writing at a very different time.

I first came across Holtby when reading Vera Brittain's autobiography, Testament of Youth. This book covered the heartrending period of the First World War and highlighted the appalling loss of life. Most particularly it chronicled the loss that Brittain personally suffered – her brother, fiancé and their close friends – and gave a very personal account of the contribution made by women during the war.

This was the war that was to lead eventually to the emancipation of women, not only by their gaining enfranchisement but also respect for the role they played and could play outside the home. Brittain and Holtby met at Oxford just after the war: both extraordinarily bright young women who had a mutual interest and ambition to write.

Testament of Friendship is Brittain's homage to Holtby, who tragically died of Bright's Disease at the age of 34. Both women had a strong ethos of public service, a desire to further women's equality and to work towards peace. Both not only dedicated their lives to writing about the peace movement but also their time to supporting and furthering its causes.

The book tells us as much about Brittain, the author, as it does about Holtby, the subject. Both women were committed, industrious and passionate but where Brittain comes across as intense and serious, Holtby appears inspired and larger than life.

Young Holtby is portrayed very much as the Principal Boy of pantomime. Brittain was devastated by the death of her brother, Edward, her closest and almost only childhood companion. She was desperate for someone to admire and to take his place and Holtby seems to have willingly stepped into this role.

It is as an Adonis that Winifred Holtby is portrayed in Testament of Friendship. She is tall, attractive, confident, kind and clever and - if we are to believe Brittain - there is nothing she cannot do. Nothing except get the man she loves to propose to her. Brittain's style is probably too florid for our taste today, and one wonders if her superlatives regarding Holtby are an attempt to assuage any guilt she may have felt because she often ignored the seriousness of Holtby's illness.

There is no doubt that Holtby packed a lifetime of achievements into a very short span of years and it is fascinating to read of the famous historical figures she met and the places she visited. There is one major flaw to this book, however, and that is its length. Too long by half, it can bore and bog the reader down. This is a shame because there are few books that give us such a picture of life at that time.

Nevertheless, I think the book worth reading (for the second time as I first read it about 15 years ago) if for nothing else but as a sequel to the women's movement: a snapshot of life for the educated middle class woman of the 1920's and 1930's. These inter-war years - after WW1 and before the role of women would change yet again with the advent of WW2 - deserve a closer look and Testament of Friendship goes some way to plug this gap.

Lucy

Rudyard Kipling 1865 – 1936

2011-08-23T21:56:00.006Z

Who hasn't read Rudyard Kipling? Many of us did as a child, some as an adult, but even those who have never read Kipling will probably have heard of him and his stories. The few who have not may be unaware that some phrases used by us all are actually those coined by Kipling ("You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din").

Visiting Bateman's last week-end - Kipling's house in Sussex now owned by the National Trust – we were delighted to be treated to a lecture of his life and work given by one of his knowledgeable fans. Even knowing a fair bit about the life of an author – or any historical figure – it always delights me to learn little known facts only the expert has wind of.

Knowing the desolate childhood Kipling had I am still surprised that he appears to have grown into a fairly balanced adult: the fact that he was also a spectacularly successful author and self-made man by the age of 25 is positively amazing. Read his short stories, his histories and poetry and marvel at the breadth of this man's ability and talent.

So much a part of popular culture was Kipling's work that even today bits keep cropping up all over the place. Take the story, .007, for instance. Can some expert tell me, is this where Fleming picked James Bond's code name from? And perhaps, could it be, this little tale written in 1908 was the inspiration for the Thomas the Tank Engine stories too?

When researching my novel, A Little Blue Jacket, set in South Africa, I inevitably came across Kipling as he was a great supporter of the Boer War, a friend of Cecil Rhodes and champion of Jamieson, Rhodes' nemesis. Many years previously I had been given Kipling's Barrack Room Ballads (thought it odd at the time but weird how things come to pass), mainly dramatic monologues written in the London vernacular, the third series of which dealt with the Boer War.

It is the verses of these series that many remember and repeat with affection (If, A Father's Advice to his Son or Mandalay perhaps) and it is the simplicity and general appeal of them that has to some extent caused many to view Kipling's work as 'popular' dum-de-dum poetry. But, in other poetry of his one cannot help but admire the more sophisticated and understated touches not obvious in the ballads.

I think his poem My Boy Jack illustrates just how he can get an emotion over without sentimentality or heavy handedness. Kipling's son, John, was killed in the First World War (even the rich and famous have tragedy in their lives: his beloved daughter – for whom he wrote The Jungle Book - also died prematurely aged six) and this poem is about his loss. Search it out and I defy you – knowing the facts – not to be moved to tears.

Whether interested in the exotic setting of India, the fate of the simple soldier or life of the jungle, there is a Kipling story out there for you. Search it out, read it and understand why so many of the best English authors – including Americans - think Rudyard Kipling was the greatest storyteller of all time.

Lucy

The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunnant

2011-07-28T18:42:00.000Z

A mysterious and arresting start, an historical and action packed narrative and an enjoyable read. There we are. That's it in a nutshell. A novel dripping with historical details with a bit of sex thrown in. But the sign of an ex-thriller writer is there right from the start.

Preparing the corpse of an elderly nun for burial, two sisters find she has not only a stinking mass of rotting intestines strapped to her and not the tumor they supposed, but also an erotic snake tattoo around her torso!

As it is almost impossible to guess how this could possibly come about the reader simply has to read on. Transported to Florence in 1492, we meet the fourteen year old heroine, Allessandra. Dunant has done her research and describes the setting in the most colourful way. We see the beauty of Florence, we smell it, touch it, sense it and eventually are shocked by the historical turn of events.

The narrative is in the first person so it is through Allessandra's eyes that we understand the restrictions – not allowed to leave her house un-chaperoned, to be alone with a man, to be employed in anything other than household skills – that were current in the merchant and upper classes at the time and that she felt so keenly. Her passion was to paint and that was definitely not a suitable occupation for a girl.

Historical knowledge of the banking dynasty of the Medici family is well known. We are aware of the beautiful architectural structures they built, the wonderful paintings and art they commissioned and we are aware in a cardboard, factual way of the political machinations of the time. But what Dunant does is to bring it and the other Florence alive too, the one that is peopled by the lower echelons, one in which by the side of beauty and knowledge is pestilence and the fear of persecution. Where rabbles jostle to hear the mad monk, Savonarolla, preach Christian restraint and similarly jostle to witness torture and death and the original bonfire of the vanities.

This novel has been published for some years now and many readers will have read it or read the reviews so I won't repeat the plot. Because, for me, it is the sense of place that Dunant conjures up that is the most impressive feature of the novel. Read it if you intend to travel to Florence and, when you stand in front of a piece of stunning architecture or a beautiful painting, conjure up Dunant's description of the city at that time and be even more amazed.

I mention the mystery in the opening scene and Dunant continues to feed us clues throughout the story: "He will give you the freedom you desire"; "For Tomaso a silver belt rather handsome I thought". But, eventually, it is as if the author having thought of a great opening chapter, and having taken us back to the start of it all, cannot then quite complete the circle convincingly: the dead nun cannot be elderly, the tattoo has no authenticity, the method of faking the disease is improbable, her female life companion could not possibly have travelled to find those she sought.

Those are my only criticisms, and it sounds churlish to mention them when there is so much that is excellent about this novel. Dunant has very successfully changed her genre to historical novelist – she writes well, fluidly and colourfully – so the quality of the ending of The Birth of Venus is a mystery.

Lucy

Birds of a Feather

2011-06-29T23:02:00.007Z

It is always a lovely surprise to look out of the window, often soon after dawn, and see some unusual visitor on the bird table. Greenfinches are one of them, as are the other finches: chaffinches and goldfinch. Their beaks are a little too wide for the wire on the nutfeeder but once they have cracked it (terrible pun) they make short work of the contents.

Our regulars, however, as if aware of the competition, have managed to come up with a pleasant new angle: their chicks. Obviously to date we have only watched the parent birds having a feeding frenzy in order to satisfy their hungry brood. But now the chicks are nearly reared they accompany their parents to learn table etiquette. Basically this is: give way to anyone bigger and more threatening than yourself. As one of our largest visitors - with a very big beak to make the point - is the woodpecker. When the chick first appeared I could not believe it was one. Nearly as big as its parent, only the fluffly feathers gave it away.

At first it hung on the nutfeeder with mum or dad by its side: a bit for me a bit for you. But by day two the exhausted parent absented itself and Woody soon managed to feed himself. Not as nervous as his parent - he still has to learn to be wary - he
managed to cling on and finish off most of the feeder.

Our second best nut eater is probably the nuthatch owing to its long narrow very effective beak. And today, with a thrill, I noticed that it was a nuthatch chick that was feeding. Again, only the last few remaining fluffy baby feathers give it away and, again, it was not nearly as nervous as its parents would be as it allowed me to creep right up to the window before it flew away.

But perhaps the most exciting birds to visit the table again have been a pair of long tailed tits. I have yet to see their offspring, but to know that they have survived the winter is a very cheering and wonderful sight. Their bodies are so very small that one wonders just how they did manage to stay warm thrugh our below freezing temperatures this year.

Lucy

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

2011-05-31T22:54:00.003Z

"I really love Ishiguro's books", several of the groupies opined when Never Let Me Go was chosen as out book group novel. I had only tried to read one of his before - not successfully – I had obviously not tried hard enough.

So it was with a positive and determined attitude that I tackled it. He's a good writer. No doubt about it. The novel is set in the closed world of a school, one in which little of the outside world ever impinges. It is the story of three childhood friends (Kathy, Ruth and Tommy) who have a destiny – slowly this unfolds – that they will have no choice but fulfil.

In a nutshell there is a sinister aspect and definite exploitation in this story. It raises ethical questions about medical science – trying not to give the story away here - and how far a society will go in order to benefit from it.

Ishiguro always writes in the first person and so the reader does not get much description. There is – he planned it this way – no colour and no sense of the outside world in the story. The setting feels like the 1950's – right from the start it felt like I was reading the Midwich Cuckoos for the first time. Used as we readers are to appreciating rounded description the lack of it lends a very sci-fi clarity – some may say bleakness – to it.

It is all about the here and now of experience, about emotion and about people and the setting is filtered out. Ishiguro would argue that by filtering out the setting he is allowing his readers to get to know the characters. However, the only character any of us felt any empathy for was Tommy. Possibly because he was not like an automaton – he did have feelings.

The characters often fail to act and Ishiguro uses pathos to good effect. His structure and slow revelation is masterful and his craftsmanship – that almost sounds like a criticism but far from it – to slowly let the reader in on the sinister secret is impressive.

All of us appreciated that it was well written – clever in fact - but many of us found much of it repetitive and the detail mundane. In a nutshell, we liked the way Ishiguro writes but did not necessarily like the story.

For my part I would not have chosen the book if it had not been a book group choice and I would never have read it all if we had not been going to discuss it (it did, however, give rise to much interesting and informative discussion). I appreciated the author's undoubted talent – to a great extent it is always a pleasure to read a well written novel – but I guess it is just not my sort of book!

Lucy

Dreamy Garden Borders in April

2011-04-22T08:26:00.008Z

When March turns to April I know the time has come when I can procrastinate no longer: my herbaceous borders need me. The seed heads and sheltering dead foliage have done their bit for the wildlife over winter.

Now is the time to get out there, chop it all down, dig out the odd weed and mulch like crazy. Leave it another week or two and the weeds will have taken hold and the plants grown too large for much to get in there.

But as I clip and snip, gather and discard the border looks more bare with every action. Where are all those perennial goodies? Have they died? Been eaten? There is still the odd clipped evergreen certainly, the occasional rose bush. And the lime trees to pleach on the nearby path.

These thoughts fester as the clearing goes on and the mulching with compost is done bit by bit. But by the time I'm finished the odd inch of rain and even odder days of sunshine have worked their magic. Suddenly the phlox and tradescantia, the aqualegia and bistort have burgeoned.

Geranium phaem and Bleeding heart is flowering prettily; Heuchera and Alchemilla mollis seem to have doubled in size overnight. What was I worried about. I had forgotten that every year – cradling some purchase bought in a weak willed moment at a plant stall – I walk around the garden searching for a spot in which to squeeze it in.

By now the purple beech tree has been through its wondrous leaf opening cabaret. First small leaf buds tentatively open, salmon pink, soft and ethereal. After a day or so of sun they stretch out their leaves and with more confidence start to turn that glorious shade of copper. Another few days of good weather and, overnight, every branch is covered in the richest of copper leaves.

In fact a few days of absolutely glorious weather has fast forwarded spring to such an extent that plants and flowers normally performing in May are out now. And blossom that usually lasts a week or two is over in a couple of days. The lilac is in flower but the blossom of the weeping pear has already faded.

If I work like crazy from now until June getting all the worst weeds out, then it should set me up for the summer. In the wall border the plants grow until they are cheek by jowl. The idea is that they will choke out the weeds and I won't have to do anything for the rest of the summer. But that remains a theory for now.

There is one border so overgrown with ground elder that we have had to take all the soil out, burn it, and start again. Cow parsley self seeded to such an extent under the beech and Judas tree last year that its going to take days to dig it out. And the nettles! How come they have colonized every corner? Another digging job, I'm afraid.

I am happy for pockets of nettles – similarly buttercups – to grow in the wild garden, I'm trying to do my bit for conservation by encouraging habitats. Why else was I down on my hands and knees trying to balance rotting logs into a tidy pile like nature never intended? But nettles, buttercups and dandelions in my herbaceous borders are a step too far.

So I better keep at it. There's a long way to go. But it's hot. Too hot to garden. I better sit down – it's tiring this gardening – have a rest in the dappled shade of the beech tree and dream of manicured lawns, meticulous flower beds and..........

Wanting by Richard Flanagan

2011-03-29T23:10:00.003Z

Was this going to be another one of those books about the aboriginies of Tasmania? We've read Secret River and The English Passenger and didn't need more of the same. Wanting was promoted as something quite different: a novel to "show how the colonized and the home territories are inextricably linked."

The two strands run side by side in the novel. Mathina, a young orphaned aboriginal girl, is adopted by Lady Jane Franklin who seeks to experiment with civilizing the natives. She never gets close to the child but appears to be achieving her aim of civilising – but not educating – her when unexpectedly the child's natural desires break out. Unfortunately so do those of her husband, Sir John Franklin.

Sir John had been the governor of Tasmania, still living on his reputation as an arctic explorer. Finally expelled from his post he journeyed once more into the arctic where he disappeared. Back in England Lady Jane tries her best to rescue his reputation – and her own – by exonerating him from the slur of cannibalism. And to do this she employs the help of Charles Dickens.

Mathina was cast out before the Franklins left Tasmania and let us just say that her life thereafter was all downhill. Her story mirrors the plight of the natives and the dramatic irony of the tale – and the true story - was that the savages were more humane and civilized that the Westerners that chose to subjugate and civilize them.

This aspect is personified in the character of Dickens far away in civilized England. He champions family life in his books and in his outward persona but is not happy with his lot. He has fame, he has family. The first he relishes, the second he finds disappointing and eventually betrays.

It seems to me that Flanagan said to himself: I can't write yet another one of those books about the aboriginies of Tasmania. What can I do to give it a new twist? I know, think of a well known character and link them in some way. And up he came with Dickens and desire. But the result feels contrived. The two stories do not sit comfortably together; although the form is cleverly constructed it is a clumsy concept.

Flanagan is quite obviously a good writer and it is an easy book to read because it is deceptively well written. Like the curate's egg, it is good in parts. When Mathina's desire finally gets the better of her and she dances as she feels, the writing is as passionate as the act. The same could be said of the desire that Dickens finally succumbs to. In fact the groupies found the part about Dickens so interesting they thought it deserved to be enlarged as a stand-alone book.

Those who had read Flanagan's other books and loved them were perhaps disappointed and this coloured their criticism. But none of us enjoyed the novel for various reasons. No-one was drawn to any of the characters in the book. None would recommend it. And yes, the part concerning Mathina was yet another one of those books about the aboriginies of Tasmania. And a pretty depressing one at that.

The Garden in Spring

2011-03-12T23:10:00.005Z

The snowdrops have faded and the daffodils about to burst. Both of them late this year owing to the snow. And in between times aconites, hellebores in all their glory, iris and crocus have flowered. Violets and pulmonaria have sneaked in between them and now the tiniest little blue gentian has flowered in the gravel drive under the oak tree. A glorious abundance of colour.

The shrubs have not been quite so quick off the mark: walking up on the wooded hills at Emmetts, the National Trust garden in Kent, rhododendron and azaleas are in wonderful colour and I can only imagine in such gardens at Exbury in Hampshire, or Stourhead in Wiltshire, the display of these dramatic shrubs must be coming into their peak.

In my garden, less acidic, the wonderfully scented pink flowered viburnum bodnantense and the winter honeysuckle, Lonicera fragrantissima, are in bloom. The first flowers on the bare wood and, although leaf is a wonderful clothier, one can really appreciate the flowers when they are not disguised with green. The honeysuckle is actually an evergreen – but it is such a straggling, poorly leafed bush in the winter that you could be forgiven for thinking it deciduous. But the scent! And both are hardy – they have to be in my frost pocket.

This is the time of year that I look at my borders and think they are empty. Some sign of life is there: the odd shoot, the occasional leaf, the first inkling of a mound of something. I must mulch and quick. Keep down the weeds now and warm up the soil with a blanket of compost and, you never know, the plants might be the victors. Leave it another few weeks and I'll have a fight on my hands; the weeds will win.

Lately, on a freezing day, I spent a happy couple of hours online planning my vegetables. What a list I've ordered! I can see them now all growing in glorious technicolour, looking like all those beautiful potagers we see in magazines. Oh yes, I'm good at the planning. Great at imagining. It’s the growing and the looking after I'm not so hot on.

So it's only the foolproof I grow – the ones that don't take too much TLC. Nothing too precious. Courgettes of course. Perpetual spinach with the addition of ruby chard this year - I fancy a bit of colour; cut and come again lettuce; beans; tomatoes - preferably the bush variety that needs no care and attention - herbs; pumpkin and squash. Best Beloved has cracked leeks, so they are on the list. And I have heard the golden beetroot is delicious so I'm having a go at that.

And, yes, I am still struggling on with my asparagus bed. Every year it is threatened with annihilation but every year it gets a reprieve. How come everyone else has asparagus coming out of their ears and I am still only producing enough for a monk on a diet? Mind you, Freddie was caught in the act - eating the spears just as they surfaced. Thought he had found the perfect grass (for medical purposes of course) for a quick nibble. Chicken wire over the top should put paid to that little trick. Any tips (excuse the pun) gratefully received.

Now I only have to make sure that I plant them in time, rotate as I should, remember to water and hope the summer brings forth fruit or, in this case, veg. Vegetable gardening for me really is a case of hope over experience.

Lucy

Writing is Daft

2011-02-23T17:17:00.003Z

Well, the time has come. The MS is complete enough. Chapters chosen. Agents researched, letter drafted. It just needs that one last little thing: confidence. Because once the first rejection comes back it's the start of the chipping away. At expectation.

Here you are, an aspiring writer, tapping away morning, noon and night. Or maybe just grabbing the minutes where you can. There is no pay, no kudos, no reward. The result could be a self-obsessive outpouring or a modest novella. Whatever it is it is a little piece of yourself. Served up raw. Ready for dissection. Or ready to be spat out.

If you write something with a 'story', you want to be read. I keep that picture of A Little Blue Jacket for sale on the shelves of the WHSmiths and try to imagine this one. If it's not to be read then what is it for - therapy? Fair enough. Brilliant therapy, writing. But that sort of writing is about getting experiences or emotions down on paper. Out of ones head and into the light of day. Released. We most of us have done it at some time.

The sort of writing many of us do needs a lot of planning. First the genre. Then the idea. But how to make the embryo develop? Deciding how to narrate it is far from an easy decision - what tense, who will tell? And the viewpoint – a choice must be made before a word is written.

An idea, a plot, a story - call it what you will, but whatever you call it there is one fact – it needs to begin and has to end. Deciding just where these two points will be is not as obvious as it may seem. And between these two, what will the shape be. The structure.

Nobody is going buy a boring book, let alone publish it. It will have to be different, in content or style. No mean feat. Then the tone should reflect the character or the subject, period or genre. Easier said than done. Added to which there are additional factors - pace, texture, devices, humour – we don't want the reader to be bored.

And characters? Characterization? A subject far too difficult and diverse for any but an expert. You've either got it or you haven't. Not that most things can't be improved on. Dickens had it in spades. But then so did Jane Austen and the two could not be more different.

Decisions, decisions. And once made they are not so easy to change. So it takes an enormous amount of confidence to send your opus out with so many factors to be taken into account; so many decisions that may not have been the right ones. To be judged and found wanting is not a pleasurable experience.

I think it best (for me anyway) to think of rejection as a necessary fact. It will happen. If a tiny word of encouragement can be gleaned from it then that is a kindly sop to injured pride. If constructive criticism comes that is a real bonus. It might mean that the next recipient of my work is better pleased.

This all makes me sound very balanced and realistic. But the truth of the matter is, in spite of my reasoning, I shall be disappointed when I see that self-addressed envelope come through my door. A little down for the day, a little less chipper. But after a while I will gird my loins and send another letter, another few sample chapters out. I am a determined optimist. One has to be to do anything as daft as write.

Lucy

Alan Bennett, Talking Heads

2011-01-27T21:10:00.007Z

Alan Bennett's monologues Talking Heads are surely classics now, the first of which are as funny today as they were when written and recorded for television in 1987.

But what is quite different now – at least in the western world – is the role of women. Those in most of Bennett's work are the age of his mother and, until the 1960's, many such married women were restricted, sometimes repressed, often frustrated. Trapped. Some knew themselves to be more able than their husbands, capable of much more than they were permitted to do.

Pre-war, wives were judged on the cleanliness of their homes, mothers on that of their children, and so many put their vigour – and sometimes their vitriol – into it with a vengeance. All this comes across in Bennett's monologues - fortunately with the most wonderful humour.

Eavesdrop at a bus stop today, a works canteen or social club, and you might still overhear much the same sort of conversations as Bennett relays. But the directness and deadpan delivery of northern humour is not universal. And it needs someone with an 'ear' for such things as innuendo and a masterful ability to form it into something that an audience wants to hear. Not as easy as it may seem.

Although in the majority of the monologues we associate with the views of an elderly mother or grandmother, in some - Bed Among Lentils and Her Big Chance for instance - we can recognize characteristics or emotions that could apply to those of any generation. We all know a character like Lesley in Her Big Chance who tries to convince everyone of her worth – a woman who thinks her talent is greater than it is and whose morals are unimpeachable – but who is quite unaware that she is fooling no-one.

Most of Bennett's characters do not 'see' themselves at all, and he cleverly lets the character reveal this bit by bit as the monologue progresses. Muriel, in Soldering On, really knows that her husband is reprehensibly responsible for his daughter's 'problems', and that their son is a conniving cheat, but she still keeps up appearances and maintains a stiff upper lip – in denial right to the end.

His characters are often disappointed or disempowered in some way. I guess this is simply because happy, jolly characters would not make for such interesting stories. The bitterness of the narrator of A Lady of Letters, and the extent of her meddling, slowly unfolds. In Bed Among the Lentils, the dissatisfaction of the vicar's wife in drives her to drink, but the joy of an illicit affair gives her the strength to carry on.

A Chip in the Sugar, written in Alan Bennett's 'voice' – and indeed recorded by him – is one of the best. This one is not a monologue and the straight talking characters are sometimes cruel but their love for each other is not only a taken, it is spoken. This mother and son are - to the onlooker at least - 'married'. They are as close to bickering husband and wife – with their point scoring and their pretence at independence – as any real married couple might be. Their inter-dependence is clear, humour their saving grace.

Bennett picks up on social taboos and bigotry and shows us how easily these infiltrate and affect ordinary peoples' lives. The stories are sometimes poignant, occasionally sad, but the way that Bennett manages to convey this with humour is nothing short of masterful. Dig out a copy, read and enjoy.

Lucy

Planning on Gardening

2011-01-12T19:34:00.003Z

The ground is soggy after the snow and nothing looks appealing in the garden. Surely no-one enjoys gardening in the cold, wet, winter weather anyway. I know I don't. Fair weather gardener, me. But it is the perfect time for planning. For looking at your plot and seeing the bare bones. Because the structure is obvious now, not overshadowed or softened by billowing plants.

The structure in many an urban garden may be the hedges, fences and walls, the paths and pond. But in my country garden it is trees and evergreen shrubs that constitute most of the structure. Sure, there is a wall, and a stone and gravel terrace, but the clipped box and yew are just as important.

Here hedges mark the boundary, trees give the sense of enclosure. But lest I mislead, darker forces are at work threatening this idyll of nature controlled. It is now, in the depths of winter, that all the evils – in summer covered by leaf and deciduous shrubs – are apparent. The bank of brambles that has got out of hand, self-sown saplings grown into trees, hedges too large, shrubs too leggy.

So, waterproof, thorn-proof gear donned, we go as if into outer space, pruning saws drawn, secateurs pocketed, to battle with the triffids and enormous green monsters. Slashing and burning, hacking and chopping we grapple with the overgrown shrubbery and the vicious brambles. My romantic little border of ferns and lily of the valley has been ravaged by ground elder. Sneaking in undercover in some alien pot plant.

Rubus cockburnianus, which looks so wonderful with its frost blue white stems, has taken cruel advantage and gone where not intended. Sambucus, common elder to most of us, has multiplied and magnified to terrifying proportions whilst Clematis montana, which flowered so prettily and pofusely for so long, is now a mass of twiggy stems. All my fault for not pruning hard enough.

And that under appreciated evergreen, Eleagnus ebbengei, has somehow grown to take up three times its allotted space, completely smothering some shy little shrubs close by. I love its glossy silver green leaves, and the perfume from its retiring flowers, but it's time it was cut down to size. Slash and burn. Hack and chop.

And whose bright idea was it to plant Euphorbia characias, in the Pet Cemetry. Meant to be a quiet corner – only white and pastel pink flowers allowed – where beloved dead pets could be assured they'd not be dug up. Get this, plants chosen: the tiny white rose 'Little White Pet', a pink and a white bleeding heart; the above mentioned ghostly rubus; snowdrops; geranium; lilies; heavenly scented philadelphus and lilac and a Kiftsgate rose climbing over the pear tree.

Should be the sweetest place. Pretty, perfumed and subdued. Instead it has become a battle ground with the euphorbia and Geranium sanguinem fighting for supremecy. The euphorbia is not only the wrong colour (though I love the acidic green), it is a positive thug that looks like overpowering everything in sight. And the Kiftsgate rose – a wonder for two weeks in June – has decided to wage war and send out its vicious thorny shoots over everything including the fence, the wall, the lilac and the veg patch, quietly minding its own business on the other side of the hedge.

It is a relief to get inside to the gardening books and warm fire. To plan and dream that my jungle will look like the beautiful photographs of tranquil gardens where shrubs are pruned to perfection, lawns roll smoothly out into the distance and borders display the most wondrous, tastefully chosen flowering plants. Fat chance.

Lucy

Snow is for the Birds

2010-12-24T00:46:00.007Z

The first unexpected snowfall in November was magical. A white fluffy blanket covered the landscape, trees were dusted with icing sugar and everything was beautiful. Pure and unsullied. A still and serene scene. Progress of the odd car was muffled, the sky was on mute and only the very occasional murmur of a snowplough or tractor was heard. Bliss. For a while.

To start with I couldn't get out. What to do about it? Nothing. Make the most of it. I loved the peace and quiet. I was even glad of the chance to catch up on all those things I should have done long ago but had not because I was too busy rushing about. I wrote, I filed, I sorted. My telephone and internet access meant I was able to contact whomever I chose. Realising that I may not get out in time to buy presents I ordered them on the internet and managed to write all my Christmas cards. Wrapping up warm I could still walk Freddie.

Nevertheless, I managed to waste the precious time available to put my house in order. And I lay the blame fairly and squarely on the birds. Right outside my kitchen (where I sit up close to my beloved aged AGA) I have set up the bird feeders so that from any window I can watch them. The lesser spotted woodpeckers came regularly and, although they can polish off a whole bag of nuts in a day, they are still a welcome visitor.

At one time there were two on separate feeders and a green woodpecker (who usually is usually seen eating beetles and worms from the lawn) creeping up the nearby oak tree. More insects populate an oak than any other tree and in this weather they are a rich source of food. The blackbirds polished off all the pyracantha berries and the Tits pecked the mahonia flowers to shreds.

On the feeders there are mostly Great Tits, Robins and a whole busy little band of Blue Tits. Dunnocks - also known as Tree Sparrows - are also regulars, picking up whatever falls fro the feeders. But only one Sparrow to date. And where is the Nuthatch? The snow finally forced more than the usual visitors to take advantage of what was on offer: thrushes, jays, collared doves. But the undoubted star was a Coal Tit. At first I was not sure. But soon I was able to distinguish it quite quickly by its distinctive white Mohican haircut.

This tiny bird with his highwayman's mask is as nervous as the woodpecker. I was so excited. Pathetic, but it’s the simplest things. I wasted hours, like a groupie at the stage door, waiting to catch a glimpse of it. Set up my camera and hovered. I can only take photos through the glass and cannot work out the setting to use. It's not a professional camera but still, I manage to get some surprising shots.

Then, one day at dusk (is that a non-sequitur?) I noticed an odd shaped thing on the feeder. Peering out into the gloom I saw it was a mouse, big ears listening, small feet gripping, munching greedily. He had found a ready supply of rich fatty nuts to boost his diet. The camera was there, waiting on its tripod, and I took a shot or two. They are not very good but a record nevertheless. What terrific entertainment these visitors have been, the highlight of a snow bound week.

But of course this whole 'stay indoors warm and safe – don't go out unless strictly necessary, why put yourself and others at risk', sort of thing palled. We had finally eaten all those tins dated 1999 from the back of the cupboard, and the boxes of home-made mystery main courses from the freezer. I couldn't get to an appointment in London, failed to make a party in our market town and missed my Pilates classes. Driving was hazardous.

Finally, our rural roads became more manageable. At last, 'Life' would be back to normal. A trip to the supermarket was an event – sad, I know – and we even managed to get to a department store to buy a present or two. Then, on the way home, it started to snow. Again. Snow on snow. At this rate neither the Prodigal nor the Princess will be able to get to us, we won't be able to get to them, and Christmas will be just Best Beloved, me and Freddie. And the birds of course!

Lucy

The Glasgow Boys & Treasures From Budapest

2010-12-08T19:27:00.005Z

The Royal Academy have had some good shows: Treasures from Budapest was a stunning exhibition, big, bold, far-reaching, impressive but I enjoyed the current smaller exhibition, The Glasgow Boys, more.

The Glasgow Boys – a loose group of talented young painters in the late 1800's not all of whom were Scottish - wanted to change the usual sombre style prevalent of the time in Scottish painting. The sort that was either heroic or sublime. They chose more realistic subject matter such as farm workers or animals.

Their style was not the highly finished and honed painting. It was more impressionistic and they copied Whistler's style (one of their heroes). The paintings showed the subject in-focus whilst allowing the distance to be out of focus. They did not necessarily paint au plein aire as the Impressionists did but they did sketch outdoors and the feel of the finished paintings is very naturalistic and not at all laboured.

I love their work, it's as simple as that. It is so accessible and easy on the eye. In fact there were times I must have looked a love-struck idiot, so bowled over was I by some of the paintings. The light in the paintings is appealing without the viewer realising. And these artists were so accomplished that no matter how impressionistic the subjects are, yet, with only the merest (it seemed) of detail a whole look or personality can come through.

George Henry's work is particularly appealing as is Lavery's, The Tennis Party (very Manet), and Guthries's goose girl in Pastures New, a painting that manages to give a sense of movement with the trick of severing the leading goose. Not something traditionalists would ever have done. And in some paintings the subject nearly fills the frame which was not a traditional way of painting a subject either.

The group's early paintings are of rural landscapes and those that people them. Fields and farm animals had not been the stuff of popular paintings. But, as the artists progressed, their subject matter changed and they moved into suburbian landscapes and eventually many settled on portraits. Even artists must live and the middle classes wanted paintings they could identify with and admire.

Those artists that travelled to Japan embraced that culture although not the stark and spare style of Japanese painting. Some became more flamboyant and took to rich colours such as can be seen in Henry's painting of cattle, A Galloway Landscape, and the one he did with Hornel called The Druids – Bringing in the Mistletoe (on the poster for the show). You could be forgiven for thinking it was North American.

However, on the whole, animals remained a popular subject with them. The Burrell in Glasgow is a great gallery and that is where I first saw Crawhall's work. I was taken with it then, and this exhibition has reminded me what a good artist he was. He was one of the early 'Glasgow Boys', and painted marvellous water birds and working animals. These are fully worked up paintings but, like many brilliant cartoonists, he can also embody a whole subject in a quick sketch of a line or two. What a talented lot they were.

Lucy

Dyslexia – go to it Gove – get 'em reading.

2010-11-27T13:54:00.008Z

Reading should not only inform, it should be a pleasure. Can you imagine what it must be like as a young child to know that everybody else has cracked this thing called Reading and you just can't get it?

Can you imagine what it would be like as an adult not to read a novel for pleasure, a document for information, a safety notice? Not to get a job? Ask anyone who is severely dyslexic and they will most probably not tell you. Imagine why. Throughout their school life they will have been labelled lazy, stupid or simply slow.

If an obviously inquisitive, intelligent child who has been having regular lessons cannot read up to the level of his 'reading age' by the time he is seven years old then there is a reason. He is inquisitive and intelligent – he should have a reading age two years above his chronological age (weird way to assess these things, I know, but who are we?)

Talking this week about those children who are well behind in their reading, Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, is quite right when he says "more of the same type of teaching will not be of use to them". For a dyslexic child in particular, a remedial teacher is not suitable – these kids are bright and their specific word blindness needs a specialist teacher.

They (and all those having problems) need to be assessed by a specialist. Teachers are not trained to do so. A dyslexic child (or adult) needs a reading and writing programme especially designed for them. The extra lessons they need are usually carried out in small groups lasting about 45 minutes. Depending on the severity of their dyslexia they may need one or two lessons a week, for a couple of years.

After this, most of these children should be well above their reading age in a couple of years. Once they are reading fluently every subject is available to them. Given this sort of help from an early age, these children should go on to be above average performers reaching university standard.

Many will choose sciences or engineering (which involve less prose!) and their different way of interpreting information can result in particularly creative academics. Think of those who were labelled dumb – the mathematical genius and physicist, Albert Einstein; the electrical scientist, Thomas Edison, who was terrible at maths; Paul McCready, the aeronautical engineer: just the sort technical talent that this country is crying out for!

But given no help, most will be frustrated, many will become withdrawn or resigned, some disruptive and a few will, without qualifications, use their wits to nefarious ends.

And those who do not shine at something to get them through – perhaps mathematics or sports – will probably suffer from low-self esteem. Not to identify those who need help to learn to read, is not only a waste of intelligence and a loss to our talent pool, but a shame on our school system. So, Go to it Gove!

Lucy

Pumpkin Soup

2010-11-12T17:28:00.007Z

When the North Wind Doth Blow, that is just the time for hot warming soup. Only last week I was drooling over some Apple Cake on Carla's website and it has occurred to me that I could share some of my grandmother's recipes on mine. Being South African, pumpkin featured in her cooking quite regularly.

Last week-end, after the bonfire and fireworks, family and a couple of friends came back to enjoy a kitchen supper of pumpkin soup, cheese and lovely granary bread. The great thing about this soup is that it can be made in advance, and even frozen.

Now I must explain something about my cooking: I love food but I don't love spending hours making it. So I plan in advance how to make it the easiest, quickest way possible: that means I cheat and take short cuts. But only if I can get the desired effect.

Pumpkin soup is easy but it is also time consuming. And peeling a pumpkin is a pain. Most recipes suggest boiling it but baking gives a much richer flavour and is easier. Firstly, you don't have to peel it (yet) and, secondly, you don't have to hover over the stove.

Pumpkins come in all shapes and sizes and you can equally use butternut squash or any orange fleshed variety. The recipe can also be adapted for other starchy root veg such as carrots, parsnips or swede.

Ingredients: 2kg pumpkin; 2 large onions; 2 good quality chicken or vegetable stock cubes. 2 x 284mil/10floz cream or milk. Halve this amount if you only want to make enough for 4 or 6 people.

A. Chop a large pumpkin (about 2 kg) into sections, and again into smaller, even sized wedges, each side about four inches (10 cm x 10cm).

Rub a non-stick roasting pan with olive oil, and rub the cut sides of the pumpkin pieces too. Then lay them in the pan and drizzle another little bit of oil over them. Bake for about an hour at 180 degrees. Turn them once half way through if you can be bothered. Now stick your feet up and read for half-an-hour.

B. Peel and chop 2 large onions finely and put in a lidded container with a big blob of salted butter and microwave for 5 minutes at 600 watts. It's a great method because you don't have any onion smell to speak of! Check it, and cook another few minutes if necessary. They should be soft and translucent.

Take out the pumpkin and cool slightly - the flesh should be soft but not squishy. Meanwhile, boil the kettle and make 750-800 ml chicken or vegetable stock using a good tasty variety of cubes, like Knorr, according to the instructions. Now you should be able to cut the peel off the cool pumpkin very easily.

C.In the blender put a couple of pieces pumpkin, a large scoop of onions and a splosh of stock and liquidize. Empty into a large saucepan and repeat. Add lots of grated pepper (but no salt as the stock cube and butter will have enough) and some freshly grated nutmeg.

If there are less than eight of you, divide the mixture in two and box one for the freezer. Result: one ready cooked meal for the next time you are in a hurry but want to impress with a lovingly made home-made soup!

Your soup is actually cooked when you think about it, but warm it through and the flavours will blend. Before serving (or after defrosting) add 284ml/10 fluid ounces double cream. If you are cooking the whole amount then you can also add 284ml/10 fluid ounces single cream. Yes, I know, but.....I never said it was low fat! If fat is a complete no-no use more stock instead of cream, or use semi-skimmed milk, but it won't have that unctuous, rich creaminess (nor the calories of course!). Serve with croutons and garnish with coriander leaves, parsley or green pumpkin seeds.

So there you are: as easy as ABC. This is the basic recipe but there are variations: 2-4 tablespoons of sherry added at the last minute should keep the boozy cooks happy. Those who love spices can rub the pumpkin pieces with ground cumin and coriander before baking or add cinnamon and nutmeg to the onion before liquidizing. Enjoy!

Lucy

PS for gardeners: when you take out the pumpkin seeds, pull off the flesh, dry and keep the seeds to plant next year!

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

2010-10-28T11:38:00.004Z

Boring, beautiful, pretentious, profound – all adjectives our groupies used to describe this bestselling novel, The Elegance of the Hedgehog. The author, Muriel Barbery, is French which explains quite a bit about this book.

Philosophy for a start. All French schoolchildren study philosophy, it seems, so they would all be au fait with the concepts running through the book and abstract thought. In addition, the author took a degree in philosophy – so obviously a favourite subject of hers. Therefore, when certain philosophical themes and ideas appear in the book French readers will immediately understand the gist of what Ms Barbery – or rather her middle aged protagonist, Renee - is trying to say. British readers may, instead, decide that the novel is pretentious, absurdist or surreal.

'Absurdity’ – which the young protagonist, Paloma, mentions - is the idea of putting things together that don’t make sense. But not that many British novel readers have read Satre or many of the French philosophists. And it is totally understandable if we do not grasp the philosophical appreciation of ‘beauty’ - the life saving importance of seeing a camellia flower on a bed of moss for instance – that is a central theme to the book.

The cruellest criticism made was that the philosophical rantings of Renee were that they were not simply pretentious, but ‘padding’ and boring. For the first half of the book, anyway. Another was that the story came over as spasmodic and episodic and that the author – as Renee – was intrusive. So far, not so good.

However, the language, the words, and the stylish use of them in this book is absolutely wonderful. I gloried in reading good English (fortunately it has been very well translated). One of Paloma’s profound thoughts (she has quite a few) is that “when you are applying the rules of grammar skilfully, you ascend to another level of the beauty of language”. Indeed, she finishes by saying "pity the poor in spirit who know neither the enchantment not the beauty of language.” Now, you can see how the pretentious tag came to be coined, but it did make for beautiful writing and reading.

I had the feeling throughout the book that if only I were better read, and very clever as well, I might understand the philosophy more. Some philosophical posers (as: when is a table not a table but just an idea) were way above my head. But I thoroughly enjoyed being forced to think. I do like a book that is not just handed to me on a plate – or should it be, on a page!

Some of the characters were unbelievable, but others were so well drawn that they were recognisable types. That we should not judge people by their appearance or their occupation, is an idea that constantly needs reinforcing, for it is a trap that we all fall into too easily. And the idea of lonely people finding kindred spirits is very touching.

Was the novel a book group success? Fifty/fifty. Those that were reading it for the first time thoroughly enjoyed it, barring a few provisos. Those that were reading it for a second time were disappointed, finding it clichéd and too ‘clever’ by half. So buy The Elegance of the Hedgehog, read it, enjoy it and then give it away to someone who can enjoy it afresh.

Lucy

Writing Research - starting and stopping

2010-10-17T17:10:00.003Z

Writing a book takes time. Writing a blog takes time. Writing a blog does not take a fraction of the time it takes to write a book. Nevertheless, it takes time. And every minute I can spare I need to concentrate on my manuscript. So even an hour spent writing a blog is an hour not spent 'writing'.

So I hope this explains why I haven’t written a blog for nearly three weeks now. But I have decided that if I am going to write a blog I should do it regularly or not at all. So here I am. And this blog is in the form of a reminder to myself.

I have to watch myself with my writing: my trouble has been getting sidelined – not only by blogs – by research. Writing my book might go like this:
1. Research
2. Synopsis
3. Draft
4. Another draft
5. Which brings up the need for more research
4. Another draft
6. Which touches on things not researched. More research
7. Rejigging draft
8 Complete reorganization of chapters
9 Which brings up the need to bridge and things not researched. More research

And when the research is fascinating, illuminating or even bizarre it is such fun that far too much time is spent on it instead of writing. I have now had to make rules for myself. Here is the latest: finish writing the last five chapters that are only sketched. Then one more complete read through what I’ve done - making corrections and refining as I go. And only then will I check any more facts which may bring up the need for a little more research.

I have set myself a time limit to finish whatever. This is really necessary because getting the ms ready to send out takes quite a lot of time and waiting for it to come back takes even longer. The final draft needs to be printed without any mistakes, it must look the biz, and as at the moment I am between agents (in other words I don’t have one to ‘sell it’ for me) it needs a good letter with it.

But time spent researching is not my only problem. My little study is now so packed with books, drafts, print outs, photographs, pens, paper, filing, files, piles, piles of piles that I have to ease myself in between it all to sit at my computer. I know I should tidy up, but tidying up takes time, and it’s time I begrudge spending when I could be writing.

And then there are those other things that keep getting in the way. Work and jobs. Earning a crust and making the bread: other responsibilities. It must be absolute luxury and a joy to be able to work nine to five writing. No distractions, no demands, just tap, tap, tap until it’s done. But to do that one needs a good advance. And that is not going to happen this time round so I better just get stuck in and stop researching.

Lucy

PS I have often been told by aspiring novelists that they have trouble ‘starting’. But I think there is a simple remedy to this. Just do it. Write down any old thing. Content is immaterial at this point. After you’ve written a few pages you’ve started. Simples! What is more difficult is knowing when to stop!

Hidcote and Gardens

2010-09-20T22:17:00.007Z

I haven’t been to Hidcote – the garden created by Lawrence Johnstone in the 1920’s – for years. But up in the Cotswolds for the week-end, and staying close by, I thought seeing it again too good an opportunity to miss.

I dragged Best Beloved along (Do I know Hidcote? Lots of clipped greens, you love it!) and talked some reluctant relatives into visiting it too (What’s so special about Hidcote? It’s one of the most important 20th century English gardens!). And of course they all thought it was wonderful.

I’m a little out of practice, garden visiting. Time – or rather lack of it – is the reason I give but in fact there’s something else. Ennui. I’m bored with too many gardens that are simply, well, boringly nice. I have lost the expectation and excitement of discovery. Beautifully planted or wonderfully maintained, over designed or sparsely planted - it’s all garden rooms and colour themed beds. Everyone is expert enough but not necessarily creative in the process.

When asked by some clients what great thing I think they should do with their garden I have even found myself saying, on more than one occasion, “Well, I rather like it how it is! It’s a real garden”. An informal mix of trees and grass, perennials and shrubs. Talking myself out of a job – am I mad? Possibly, but the fact is I think needed to experience a stimulating garden again that works.

Fortunately, visiting Hidcote once more has re-kindled some of my former enthusiasm. This is a grand garden without being Grand. Here the walls are living hedges and not balustraded walls. Hedged enclosures are planted to give shelter not simply as fashion. Pathways are often grass, evergreens are there to give structure. The borders are richly planted – the red borders particulary stunning at the moment – and tall leggy plants imaginatively under-planted.

There are long vistas leading to impressive views or structures, and there is formality, but these formal features are tempered with Johnstone’s creative choice of planting. Hedges are clipped but not always in yew or box; often they are hornbeam or holly, lime or copper beech, sometimes a combination which gives a more informal tapestry effect.

And quite often openings in them are extremely narrow, surprising the visitor leaving a wide axis and finding himself in a modest and intimate enclosure. Detours favour orchards or small shady woodland ways. And always it is the natural landscape that informs his design. That third essential garden ingredient (after grass and trees), water, is slotted effortlessly into the landscape.

Where the ground is flat, formality (with a small ‘f’) and geometry reigns with straight lines or a perfectly circular pond. Where land falls away there are natural flowing lines with informal planting alongside naturalistic streams and winding woodland paths. And as these lead onto the wider landscape a feeling of unity is achieved, essential in a country garden. It is a joy.

After Hidcote, the garden at Chastleton House was a complete change. The house is a treasure – more of that another time – and the garden is simple. Refreshingly, it has not been fashioned into a recreation of a Tudor or later one, but left at it was when the property was acquired by the National Trust.

As such, it definitely falls into my “I rather like it the way it is” bracket. Enough of the bones are there to see where it began, but it has settled gracefully into its setting. One can imagine an English family in the 18th century using this country garden in much the same way a family of today would do.

And perhaps that is the nub of it - gardens like Hidcote are for looking at and gardens like Chastleton are for using. In our own gardens - if not done well - the first can be stilted but the second can be too scruffy for some. A great deal of creativity is needed to combine the two. And I’m glad to say that these garden visits have enthused me enough to get out in my own, dig out my wellies and practice a little of what I preach.

Lucy

Somerset Maugham in Short

2010-09-02T22:14:00.006Z

Somerset Maugham’s short stories were chosen as summer reading for our Book Group. Now, I previously have read all these, but so many years ago that it was good to be reminded to read them again. How glad I was to still find a Penguin paperback copy of the Collected Short Stores, Volume I, on my bookshelves. But Oh! the print size of these old Penguins! Tiny. And I mean eye squintingly miniscule.

I could have read it in hardback but these are just as difficult to cope with because you can’t tuck a hardback book into your handbag. Never mind, I soldiered on, taking it on the plane when I went on holiday. And short stories are perfect for travel, when time available is often in short chunks. And they are equally good for bedtime reading – just long enough to be interesting, just short enough to finish before the eyelids droop.

But, along with most of the groupies, I don’t think that Maugham’s short stories are best appreciated when read in one go. They are just too dense, too meaty. And maybe too samey at one sitting. But extremely good they are, no doubt at all.

We were all agreed that his plain style, good dialogue and use of the vernacular, wonderfully succinct descriptions and humour all combined to produce superb writing. And his skilled timing – especially the twists at the climax of each tale – is nothing short of brilliant. We found some of the writing dated, and his use of words sometimes unusual, but none of it detracted from the quality of the work.

Maugham’s output was nothing short of exhausting. Churning them out at an amazing rate he still managed to maintain the quality. Travelling widely across the globe stimulated him and provided ideas for stories. Many of those set in exotic places are colourful but I particularly like a less exotic short one set in England - The Luncheon - possibly because I know a few people like the lady in it! The tale is an excellent example of his ability to capture people and their idiosyncratic behaviour and the clever way he manages to make such a story amusing.

Our host was reading the biography of William Somerset Maugham by Selina Hastings and quoted passages to us. She thought it extremely good and it certainly informed her presentation. But I suspect one would have to like the writer as a man a great deal to read and enjoy such a tome. And most of us did not.

Knowing about Maugham’s miserable childhood explains a lot about him, but it does not explain his snobbishness and intolerance, even racism. Perhaps he was just a man of his time; these attitudes are often apparent – in writers like Evelyn Waugh for example - in class attitudes of the time. Very thankfully, such attitudes are seldom found in writers today but, sadly, there are few authors today that can hold a candle to the writings of Somerset Maugham.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

John Singer Sargent Exhibition

2010-08-14T14:30:00.005Z

John Singer Sargent has long been one of my favourite artists, and paintings of the beach and sea one of my favourite topics. Probably because I was brought up near the seaside. Memories of sandy sandwiches and sunny beach scenes are fond ones. Maybe not the sand in the sandwiches but the idea that you just ate them straight from the tupperware box, beaker of tooth-rot orange squash in the other hand, looking out at the vast panorama of sand and sea.

The exhibition, Sargent and the Sea is on at the Royal Academy in London at the moment. I know him best for his portraits, especially those gloriously romantic, period pieces of ladies in long frocks. But these are marine paintings. He was a marine painter in his early years and his family had at one time been ship owners in Massachusetts.

Sargent’s painting, On the Sands, reminds me of one of Vanessa Bell's paintings. It’s the light and black detail that really stands out, although it must be said that it is so much more delicate than Bell’s. More Monet like. The seated figure, the distant bathing huts, the whole scene so white it’s blue. Just marvellous.

And most people will know the centre piece of this show, his famous painting, En Route pour la peche, 1878, the painting of the French women setting out to fish. Apart from being beautifully painted it’s the light and the atmosphere that he manages to imbue the scene with that is so moving. These women are dawdling, chatting to the children as they saunter through the wet sand, baskets for collecting the oysters tucked under their arms. Very natural looking, to us, but probably totally unnatural!

For example, in the exhibition there is what may have been a first go at painting fisherwomen, Fisherwomen Returning, 1877. This time dark figures, black sky, back view, trudging through the water, weighed down with their baskets full of oysters. What a different take on the occupation. This painting brings home just how cold and hard this work must have been: nothing romantic or light in it.

Sargent’s close friend was Monet, and you can see the influence of French Impressionism in all his work. Although he started his artistic career in France it was in England and America that Sargent was to become most famous. And of course it was his portraits of the rich and famous that made his name and kept him in comfort.

Unfortunately, his scenes of the sea, Atlantic Storm and Atlantic Sunset, don’t inspire me. Nor do his watercolours of canals or boats. For me, it is his paintings of figures that are so special. He has the tremendous talent to instil feeling, movement and soul into figures. I loved the fisherwomen studies, and the studies of the children that were to be incorporated in his paintings of children on the beaches of Capri. The light in these is marvellous – you can imagine yourself there – and all of them are fresh, natural and warm. I would prefer an exhibition: Sargent and the Beach.

Lucy

Seamus Heaney Simplified.

2010-08-07T21:19:00.002Z

Here I am in the middle of the night – well, not the middle of the night actually, in the early morning – up out of bed, my computer switched on, making a cup of tea by the light of the open fridge door. Not wanting to miss the moment, fracture the natural light and blast the ideas flying around in my head with harsh electric light.

And why? Because I have just heard The Interviewwith the prize-winning Irish poet, Seamus Heaney, on the BBC World Service. This is one of the greatest radio services in the world for insomniacs. It sends my Best Beloved to sleep. Music wakes him up. However, for me, it is the opposite. Instead of helping to send me to sleep the World Service has such interesting programmes that it stimulates thought and keeps me awake with this the result!

Heaney was talking so evocatively of memory - remembering what one has forgotten ones knows: of the wonder of childhood surroundings and how flashes of those memories can connect with later flashes of experience. And about surprise – how a poem can come on him when least expected or how an exexperience can surprise him. An experience such as Wordsworth had coming from the lush green landscape of the Lake District that he loved, to the city of London, and his being surprised by the beauty of it on Westminster Bridge.

Upon Westminster Bridge

EARTH has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

William Wordsworth

Heaney’s use of language, never stilted or pretentious, moves me, creatively speaking. He uses words in such a natural way, changing them almost organically, like words a child might make up. It struck me anew how difficult it is to write simply. Poets are, on the whole, deep thinkers. And I like that. I like being encouraged to examine a thought, a concept, call it what you will: to tease it out and fathom its meaning. Try and make sense of it.

But poets are also (among many things) masters at simplification; shortening, condensing. Often taking the convoluted and making it simple and direct. Heaney's words made me realise that I must proof read my manuscript once more. That again - before I go any further, do any more research, write another single word - I must critically but constructively review my text. And - so easy to say, so difficult to do - simplify.

Lucy

Surprising Wild Flowers

2010-07-18T23:08:00.008Z

Under my kitchen window is a swathe of glorious poppies, Papaver somnifera. Yes, a relative of that one, the opium poppy. So very imposing with their tall stately form and elegant silver grey leaves, nothing prepares you for the stunning flamboyance of their flowers. Unlike the oriental poppy - Papaver orientale - the better known ferny leafed perennial species, these are annuals and just like the field poppy of the battlefields of Flanders they only come-up in disturbed ground.

For years my garden was full of them then suddenly they stopped appearing. But I have recently had to dig a trench in the front garden to lay a new drain and, lo and behold, six months later all those old seeds have come to the surface and produced the most amazingly colourful display of blooms.

Some are similar to the frilly double peony bloom, others like the simple arctic poppy, a few a mixture of the two. The colours are equally varied, from bright scarlet to softest mauve, with a cross between these producing a soft French rose. Now they are dropping and I am having trouble remembering which were my favourites so I can save the heads for seed. As usual I meant to tie a coloured thread around the ones I wanted and, as usual, I never had time and now the chance is lost. So I will probably scatter them all and, if they deign to grow next year, try and remember to do it then.

I tend to let self-seeders alone in my garden. Aquilegas – Granny’s Bonnet to some – come up all over the place and they are so light and pretty they never intrude on any plantings. Michaelmas daisies, feverfew, violas, hostas, evening primroses – all are allowed to remain where they don’t look too out of place. Which is just about anywhere really!

And it is on my walks with Freddie through the local country lanes and woodlands that I am most often surprised. Because I have planned and planted nothing here and what I see is often very subtle, a tiny violet, a clump of primroses. Yesterday I noticed the honeysuckle in flower, weaving its way through the native hedgerow like thread in a tapestry.

But a couple of weeks ago I had to yank Freddie to stop because I spotted something quite outstanding in the verge. I was thrilled to see it was an orchid, pink and elegant, an exotic thing of beauty in amongst the simple grasses and annuals of the verge. Thankfully, when the verge was cut the longer grasses under the hedgerow were left and this native orchid survived.

Having not seen one in flower there for at least five years I am hoping that this one sets seed. Only last week it was still there, nearly two foot (60 centimetres) tall but beginning to fade. I hoped it didn't attract unwanted attention. Inspecting it closely, the flower spike was made up of hundreds of little umbels, palest pink spotted with vermilion. Absolutely exquisite. Amazing how such little things, such unexpected acts of nature, can give so much pleasure.

Lucy

Nesting garden birds and a heron

2010-07-04T16:53:00.005Z

The pretty, pert little wren is one of my favourite garden birds. It normally nests close to the ground, being a ground feeder, and is very shy. As soon as you spot it, it is off. Never still enough to study, never slow enough to photograph. Perhaps that is part of its appeal. It is fleeting. Flitting. Imagine my surprise when I find one nesting under the old hay shelter.

Flung over a little used wooden ladder, a tatty nylon tarpaulin, no longer any use to cover bales of hay or the ancient mower, had been left crumpled and discarded. And, amazingly, the wren thought that its folds were the perfect place to build its nest.

This mossy little home of the Wren was only just visible and having seen her disappear in and out of it over a period of time, I can only hope that she managed to rear her brood. Thank goodness that everyone was warned or anyone of us could have, in a frenzy of tidiness, have yanked the tarpaulin down and thrown both it and its precious cargo in the bin or on the bonfire. Very fortunately we are prone to very few frenzied attacks of tidiness.

Last week I found a new born chick, featherless, eyes like giant goggles, lying dead on a garden step. How it got there so far from any nesting place I don’t know. A cuckoo chick would just have nudged it forcibly over the side of the nest. So perhaps the culprit was a predatory bird. A cat would have eaten it, tiny snack that it was. Anyway, it was a reminder that life is precious, often as cruel as it is beautiful.

But Friday, chopping down an overgrown laurel bush, we suddenly had to stop. There was a bird’s nest full of chicks! Yup, mirror images of one dead-on-the-step chick. So the laurel bush will have to stay looking rather mangled and lop-sided for the next month or so. And a blackbird was seen going to the bush later, so we hope that was Mom.

However, it’s not just in the countryside that unexpected birdlife (or death) appears. On a recent trip to the National Archives at Kew (marvellous place) I was on my way to the car park when I was stopped in my tracks. There, on the edge of the lake, in the urban environment of London, was a heron. I was delighted and whipped out my camera fully expecting it to take fright and wing it.

But no, unfazed by this crazy woman pointing her camera at him through the railings he stood his ground. She stood over him, she peered through the rails, she kneeled on the ground to take yet another photograph. Yet, he remained calm and composed, unmoving, as he watched the antics and camera posturing of a rural human female going through her recording ritual. Very excitable these country types.

Finally, the woman’s research companion (Best Beloved, who has never forgiven the heron’s brother for pinching his carp) said, COME ON! She had no alternative but to scurry off to catch her transport home to the counties. And the heron, sanguine, resigned, remained unmoving and unmoved. An elegant, not always loved, urbane member of the species known as large water birds. I was nearly as excited about seeing the heron as I was about what I unearthed at the archives for my book research!

Lucy

Ladybird Books and the Observer’s Series – old and reliable friends.

2010-06-19T22:43:00.004Z

Who hasn’t got a Ladybird book somewhere, hidden away in the children’s old books, up in the attic, at the back of the book shelves. If you have now is the time to look it out, dust it off and see how much it is worth. The humble Ladybird book has joined the rank of ‘collectible’.

I have quite a few, none of them worth anything because they are all so well thumbed. Ladybird Books and their history was the subject of one of our book group meetings lately. Our host is related to the man who was the brainchild behind them. At first he not only wrote them but designed, promoted and printed them. He wanted the best artwork available and used the finest illustrators.

Many children learnt to read with the help of the Ladybird Series Reading Scheme (remember Peter & Jane?), others enjoyed them for their clear and concise instructions of how to make things or the reliable information they gave on a wide range of subjects. Clear pictures and print, colourful illustrations, their easy to handle size and affordability were all part of the appeal.

We are now so used to children’s books in all shapes and sizes, with plenty of colour and illustrations that it’s easy to forget how different the Ladybird series was. Until they were available few publishers thought about these things. The Christmas or birthday gift of a book was often an Annual – large and difficult to handle – but suddenly there was a book that could fit into a pocket.

A favourite of the Prodigal’s - and one I still use regularly even if the spine is broken and the pages ragged – was the Ladybird Book of Garden Birds. I keep it in the kitchen with a couple of other more detailed bird books, but it is usually the one I reach for first when I’m trying to identify a visitor to the bird table. It is restricted in its scope and there’s a lot to be said for brevity when the visitor is flighty.

And I still use some of the Observer’s Books for identifying wildlife. These handy little pocket books were first published in 1937, pre-dating the Ladybird books by a decade, but were aimed at the adult market. Birds, Wild Flowers, Butterflies, Trees and Wild Animals were the first in the series and, when the natural world had been thoroughly covered, sports and collecting, historical subjects and hobbies were introduced.

I think there were over seventy of these little books in all. Like the Ladybird series, many of them – except the most rare or those with pristine dust covers - can be found tucked away in second-hand shops or buried in boxes at fetes and boot fairs and bought for very little.

One thing that these two series had in common was the attention to detail and a rigorous approach to proof reading. Misinformation and mistakes were completely unacceptable. Many of the facts in these books will never alter – an oak tree is still an oak tree after all – and so there is no reason that they should not still be considered as handy and reliable reference guides for many years to come. I shall certainly continue to think of them as old and reliable friends.

Lucy

Chelsea Flower Show 2010

2010-06-02T18:18:00.004Z

Yes, it’s all over for another year: the expectation, then the event, the prizes and the plants. I shall check that I didn’t say this last year but it was truly so much better this year. Oh, come on, I hear you mumble, that’s what everyone always says. But it was better this year for one very good reason (and not just that more gardens were on show).

On the whole, the emphasis in the show gardens was away from hard surfaces. The gardens were actually living, growing spaces! No more yards of paving and decking. Instead the displays were what gardens should be about: plants. Other aspects quite obviously have to be considered and incorporated - layout, form, colour, texture etc – but this year it was the planting that sang out.

And I can’t help thinking that this mirrors our collective mood at the moment. (Get ready for the psychology) We have had a period of austerity – and are earmarked for more – and a little soft romanticism and escapism is a welcome relief. The public certainly thought so because they voted Roger Platt’s cottage garden their favourite. And plants are so much cheaper than hard landscaping.

Not only that, but we are all more ecologically aware. Driveways and gardens covered in impermeable hard materials contribute enormously to the risk of flooding. Not to mention the fact that plants are good for the environment, not only the air quality but for encouraging birds, bugs and bees.

There were some exceptions to this: the Australian garden had plenty of hard surfaces but it was fun and functional. And the Tourism Malaysia Garden offset the cool paving with plenty of water and abundant green planting, rich in contrasting shapes and textures.

Colours were muted this year. Pastels with the odd zing. In fact so muted were they that those who love riotous colour were forced to rely on the marquee for colour: they were bowled over by the vegetables displays (lots of orange and red) and the exotic, vibrant coloured floral elephants (plus purple, yellow and turquoise).

And the small gardens at the show, both urban and rural, seem to have grown up. No longer are they a pastiche of the large gardens, nor are they trying too hard to be shocking. Instead they are either sophisticated, manage to get a particular message across or incorporate a welcome sense of humour. Yorkshire’s Rhubarb Crumble & Custard Garden was the most popular among the public: it was not only witty but had quality in design and materials.

I had a great day – all the better for getting there before the crowds – and came back to see what I could do with my own back yard. Tidy it for a start, would be a good idea, opined Best Beloved. . Nothing out of place in a show garden. And weed it for sure. No nasties in show gardens. But then again, it is a real garden. Green and growing.

Real gardens should be like real homes, comfortable and welcoming. Somewhere you can relax and have fun. That’s my excuse anyway. So I just kicked off my shoes, poured myself a Pimms, and checked the garden chairs still worked. What a lovely end to a great day

May and the garden is full of birds, bees and blossom

2010-05-21T14:38:00.006Z

Blossom on all fruit trees is transient – one very vigorous wind and it blows away on the breeze. And the colour of it is ephemeral too. Especially apple blossom, palest pink in bud it quickly opens to pastel confetti, sprinkling the lawn.

The pear blossom has been and gone – almost - but the quince tree blossom is in its prime with large open pink flowers. The largest crab-apple in my garden – planted before my time, its name unknown – is very tall and growing with a list. Like this its branches sweep to the ground and these are just one mass of blossom.

At the moment it is a buzzing mass. Best Beloved's bees think they have won the lottery. They cover it but when I try to take a photo of them I have to give up. They alight for a second, take a sip and on to the next one. Snacking. Unlike a bumble bee that will take its time over its sugary meal.

So I do hope that we will get honey this year. We had a very wet spring last year and at the end of the summer there was only enough honey left for the bees winter supply. This year, in spite of our freezing winter, the hive is thriving again. So, fingers crossed, they will keep up production.

They have plenty in the garden to feed on. The lilacs, with their pyramids of mauve and white flowers, waft their heady perfume on the air and there are even early roses in bloom. And many trees apart from the fruit trees are in flower. The most striking are the horse chestnuts – their panicles of flowers, either red or white, like candles on a Christmas tree.

This really is the most glorious time of year. Everything is burgeoning. The purple beech leaves are glossy and rich, the new lime leaves brightest green. The box hedging – waiting till Derby Day for their first haircut – are covered with soft growth. The leaves bright. On a day like today, when the sun is shining, there is not a lovelier place in the world to be.

Walking in the woods yesterday the cuckoo was in full song. Insistent. In time I’m expecting to find a few ejected chicks from cuckoos in the garden: nature in all its gritty realism. The garden birds have already produced their fist chicks.

I noticed a brown, baby bird - fluffy crown and open beak - on the table outside my kitchen window. No tail. A wren chick. Far too large. Then a robin flew up and fed it and that settled it. I thought. But it was so large - was it a cuckoo chick I wondered. Off it flew to the nearby hedge. Hours were wasted waiting for it to re-appear.

And the woodpecker has been a constant visitor. Woodpecker chicks are a hungry lot. You can hear them calling out from their tree. So the adults spend the entire day finding food and the nut feeder makes an easy and convenient store. Both parents rear the chicks – more often only one – modern parenthood.

I have just been on a mercy mission. A marauding woodpecker has chopped through the wooden roof of a bird box again – probably after the eggs. I noticed a blue tit still popping in and out of the box – strangely through the front hole although the box is now open to the skies. So when it was out I peeked in and there were dark little chicks, golden beaks open wide.

On the tit’s next foray I speedily covered the box with a square of plastic held on with a strap of lead. A bit of a mess but I had to be quick – no time for careful carpentry. Anything to save the chicks from certain harm. And I watched until the tit returned – paused for a while then went it. Hopefully they will fledge.

Earlier today there was a pheasant’s egg sitting in the middle of the gravel path. Such a lovely khaki colour, small and smooth. Where it came from I don’t know but there are bushes alongside the path so perhaps a pheasant hen had laid it there. Another one of those mysteries. But I've brought it in - rather than encourage egg stealers - and it now sits on my desk. A reminder of new life.

Lucy

Global Warming & Packaging - first tackle what goes on in your own back yard.

2010-05-04T10:21:00.003Z

The poorest peoples of the world can still teach us a thing or two. They have not got a lot of anything but make as much as they can of the little they have. We, on the other hand, have stuff coming out of our ears. Packets of it. Bags of it. Sackfuls of packaging.

Packaging was minimal up until about the 1980’s. Sweets (a treat) had been sold loose and put in a paper bag, as were vegetables and bread. Paper bags could be put on the fire or left to bio-degrade. Milk was sold in reusable bottles and butter in greaseproof. Old butter papers were kept to be used to grease cake tins of cover the joint as it roasted. Re-cycling was a natural thing.

If you saw the excellent television programme on Andy Warhol’s art the other night you would have been reminded quite graphically of when packaging became a …well, an art. Boxes of brillo, packets of crackers, tins of soup. And he made his point by reproducing the images over and over again. A whole wall of tins of soup. Like a whole shelf full in the supermarket. The trouble is, there’s even more of it now in our consumer society.

Borough Councils are finally trying to save money and reduce landfill by collecting less waste. Quite right, but if people didn’t consume we wouldn’t have an economy. So, come on government, stop putting all the blame on the consumer – it is time the producers paid up or put paid to unnecessary packaging. This is the stuff that takes enormous amounts of energy to produce and then more to dispose of. Crazy.

Every household item we buy seems to be covered in acres of plastic and mountains of polystyrene. And everything is chucked in the bin. Bring back cardboard and straw, that’s my Green answer. Or don’t throw anything away – aha – you’ve found me out: I’m a hoarder. And, hoarder that I am, child-of-the-war-generation hater of waste that I am, I wonder at how much we squander not only of our resources but our creative powers too (note: keeping to the arty theme with the photos – sorry, images).

Those of us who had parents born before the Second World War were brought up not to chuck stuff away. There wasn’t so much to chuck for a start. But also, the privations of war made our parents only too well aware of finite resources, lack of products, the need to protect and preserve what they had. ‘It is wasteful’, was a common phrase. Make Do And Mend.

Just after the war – when timber was at a premium if available at all - my father built chicken houses from scrap. Every piece was measured out to the last half inch, all of it saved from tips or begged and borrowed. Similarly, when I see those shanty towns made out of old corrugated iron sheets and bits of wood - in Africa or India or in the furthest, poorest corners of the world - I think of the ingenuity of those forced to use them.

To see a little boy with his home made car made out of old bits of metal - something made out of nothing – is to marvel at his creativity. This is recycling at it most basic. And these are not the people responsible for waste or global warming. It’s us, with our smart homes and supermarket trolleys, that should be putting our creative powers to much better use. Saving resources and recycling begins at home.

Lucy

Van Gogh & his letters

2010-04-21T09:13:00.006Z

Where are all the sunflowers? Van Gogh, sunflowers. Sunflowers, Van Gogh. Oh, and chairs and beds. Van Gogh, sunflowers, chairs and beds. Colour too. Wonderful, vibrant colour is what we associate with Van Gogh. Although sunflowers are pretty thin on the ground in this exhibition, shape and form, texture and light are there displayed in glorious technicolour. And letters.

The exhibition explained with his drawings and sketches his interest in various forms and ideas. We could how see the different styles took hold and developed into the paintings we know and love. He was primarily enthused and inspired by Japanese prints and from this grew his interest in painting.

Like many artists his changes in technique were influenced by the artists and movements of the time but Van Gogh largely worked out how to achieve the effects for himself. And worked by himself. His continuing interest in different genres led him to become a painter of portraits, still life and landscape and he mastered them all.

But the exhibition that has been on at the Royal Academy in London also showed something quite different. It showed that Van Gogh was just as prolific with his pen. Black and white. Paper and pen. What is so very interesting about Van Gogh’s work is that for every painting of his there is a letter to accompany it. He painted – often a painting a day – and wrote to his brother daily. His letters explain – often with sketches - what he is trying to achieve and how he is doing it.

We therefore do not have to rely on the ‘art experts’ opinion. Now, I have nothing against experts. I admire them, I envy them, indeed I love to hear them explain an art work. But this is from the horse’s mouth. The artist himself. We don’t have somebody else’s interpretation. Somebody else’s view of what the artist was trying to achieve. It is fascinating.

The other thing that struck me about this exhibition - or perhaps I should say that struck me when I learned more about Van Gogh, the man – is that he was a highly intelligent, thoughtful man who could have succeeded in so many other areas, particularly writing. He suffered from manic depression – now referred to as bi-polar disorder – the crippling suicidal lows of the disorder often accompanied by highly charged, exuberant and creative highs. Highs in which genius can shine through.

Art – and frenzied painting – must have given vent to the need to be ‘doing’ and creating in a much more tangible way than something less physical, like writing, would have. And it filled his lonely hours, because his illness affected his ability to make and keep relationships.

As children all we knew about Van Gogh was that he was that mad drunken Dutchman, who chopped off his ear and painted sunflowers in the South of France. That he was an intensely religious man, who wrote well and taught himself to be a great painter, was totally off our radar.

We take as read that Van Gogh had an innate talent for painting. But, without the highs of his disorder and the obsessions (those sunflowers!), would he have had the mental drive, physical energy and inspired vision to develop his style and medium as often as he did in such a short period of time. I doubt it.

With correctly balanced modern drugs, Van Gogh would probably have avoided his terrible bouts of depression and had a normal social life. But would we ever have seen such an amazing collection of works. The number of them, and the quality of them, is more than many wonderful artists achieve in a lifetime. And Van Gogh was only 34 years old when he shot himself. See this exhibition if it emerges elsewhere, and wonder at the man.

Lucy

Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane

2010-04-06T10:03:00.003Z

Fifty fifty: that was how it panned out. Half of us liked the novel, Effi Brest, the other half was rather disappointed.

I like a reflective novel. I enjoy being left with something to think about, something to ponder. To have the text throw up questions and for myself, the reader, to find my own answers. And I have no objection at all to lack of events. Not for me searing, screaming action every step of the way. Fontane pares then pares again. But there comes a time when Less is More become Less is Less: I do want emotion. And perhaps in Effi Briest some of those events left to the reader’s imagination (sometimes later clarified) are perhaps a little too obscure, too coy, even so bland as to escape the reader's notice until the end of the book!

Effi, the heroine, is a charming, impetuous, beautiful young woman. Married too young, to a man too mature. The only thing she and her husband have in common is ambition: both for their own versions of status and power. They have a child: Effi is left alone much of the time and too much is expected of her. Her husband is kind but not demonstrative. Her loneliness leads her into the arms of a passionate man, and, eventually, this and the demands of Society results in a cruel fate.

Some of us felt that Effi was little more than a cipher. That none of the characters developed. I’m not sure I agree. In tune with some others, I think Effi is a character that grows on the reader. As the novel progresses we get to know her better and as the other characters develop we also come to feel sympathy for her. We also appreciate her husband for his good points, in spite of his controlling character. Ultimately, perhaps, we have a real sympathy for him.

Symbolism is strong in this work, we are told, but for the modern readers much of it is lost. Just as the uneducated visitor would miss the classic symbolism and allegorical associations of the 18th century landscape garden, such as that at Stowe, so too does the modern reader miss the Victorian symbolism so prevalent in this most classic of novels. The symbolism of flowers, colours, myths and monsters is not what it was.

And then this is a highly Victorian moral tale: infidelity can lead to the break-up of families, to heartbreak and decline. Ambition and the pursuit of position above all else can be an empty cup. Insistence on honour and status is meaningless compared to forgiveness and the closeness of family. Women, married too young, have not yet had time to develop their character. And women – certainly at the time this novel was written – were at the mercy physically, mentally, and economically, of their men.

Even the characters are imbued with this morality: the old, the disfigured, the poor and unattractive – these are the characters in the book that are the most worthy. Gieshubler, the chemist, Roswitha the servant, the old doctor, Rummschuttel, all display the sort of discretion and kindness that is to be expected of the fortunate. In contrast, those in positions of superiority are not magnanimous but sometimes vindictive and cold.

The novel reminded me here and there of Anna Karenina. But Anna Karenina has dramatic scenes, passion, heart. Whereas at pivotal points in Effi’s life, Fontane gives us barely a hint of emotion: her marriage, the birth of her child, a lover, a death, a separation. I found the lack of that emotion described at such passionate moments, odd.

Nevertheless I did enjoy the novel. There is much to absorb and some very fine writing. But don’t expect action and don’t wait for emotion. Take it on holiday and read it when you have relaxed enough to have readjusted to a slower pace.

Lucy

Buckingham Palace Garden

2010-03-28T17:51:00.003Z

Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?
I’ve been to London to visit the Queen.
Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you there?
I walked round the garden and breathed the fresh air.

Why are things seldom as one expects them? I have seen the gardens at Buckingham Palace before. But only the very public view of it, from below the garden front. That is the lawn where the famous Garden Parties are held: where honoured ladies in hats, gents suited and booted, hover in expectation for a chat and a cuppa with her madje.

But I have recently been for a private view of the gardens. Well, as private as is possible with twenty three other people present. And I had imagined that somewhere – born of long remembered tales of Lewis Carroll, C.S.Lewis or Frances Hodgson Burnett no doubt - that tucked away somewhere there was a hidden and private garden.

Well, I was wrong. There is no secret garden. Just some handsome trees, lots of stunning shrubs, waves of brilliant daffodils and waterside plantings. None of the Royals don their wellies and gardening gloves at Buck House. It was in the Gardens at Mey that the Queen Mother pruned her roses and at Highgrove that Charles hones his design skills and tries out his green ideas. And one gets the impression that Her Majesty the Queen and Princess Anne are more au fait with the muck than the magic.

Henry VIII first had his eye on this landscape back in the 1500’s. James I planted mulberry trees (the wrong sort for the silk production he envisaged) and successive monarchs dabbled with formality. But in 1760 the garden was professionally designed by the famous Lancelot Brown who swept away anything that even hinted at formality.

For him it was all serpentine paths, turf, trees and still water. Not a straight line in sight. Fortunately there was no-one in residence who was very interested in the garden (William IV chose to live at Clarence House instead) or willing to spend money on its upkeep after that. Queen Victoria is supposed to have said that only the dog enjoyed the garden!

I say, ‘fortunately’, because too much cash and too much insistence on the fashionable, is responsible for the ruination of many a garden. Later, John Nash had a go at dredging the lake, but left the informal layout well alone. The choice of planting and the lake encouraged wild-life and when finally Victoria’s beloved Albert took an interest in the garden it was fortunate too that he valued it. By enhancing its structures and planting more trees.

Only one long border has been added since Brown’s original design, bowing to the late Victorian and Edwardian craze for herbaceous planting. It was designed to stun the garden party visitors with a riot of colour in June. And then a traditional rose garden – now pruned to perfection – was planted, sitting slightly uncomfortably in its setting. These, then, were the only formal Reptonian touches. Two modest deviations from the simplicity of the English Landscape style.

It is so rare to see such an unspoilt informal garden on such a formal site. Banish all ideas of Versailles, perish the thought of Villa d’Este, forget parterres and topiary. Here the garden of Buckinham Palace is a natural green and pleasant place in the midst of hustle and bustle and buildings. Rus in urbe. A peaceful, private parkland in the heart of London. And I quite understand why the Royal family might like to keep it that way.

Lucy

South African Writers – Coetzee, Brink, Gordimer, Paton et al.

2010-03-09T12:10:00.006Z

Off to beautiful Cape Town for a holiday and a bit of research I packed my novels: one of the best bits of the holiday – wall to wall reading. A last minute panic that these might run out, I looked on my bookshelves for unread paperbacks. Coetzee. Perfect. A South African author. Immerse myself in the culture sort of thing.

Now I have read a few books by Coetzee. Brilliant writer if not a bundle of laughs. Disgrace was a novel that certainly gets to the heart of South African life and the violence that wrecks lives. But what did I pick up? Slow Man. I should have checked first.

I am going to South Africa. I want to read a South African writer writing about South Africa. What do I do, I pick up a novel by Coetzee (A SA writer alright) but find the novel is set in Australia. That’s where he lives now. Australia.

It’s good, no doubt about it. Slow novel about Slow Man. Very readable, touches of humour and perception. But as Slow Man never leaves his flat he could be living anywhere. I suppose he could even have been living in a suburb of Durban, Port Elizabeth or Cape Town.

Of course, I could have chosen to read some of the other great names of SA literature. One of the most well known books must be that of Olive Shriener – The Story of An African Farm – made famously into a film. Although it describes a fate that has befallen women throughout the centuries, her character makes a choice that we do not often read about. However, the life she describes hardly exists anymore in the Cape.

Ask any Capetonian whom one should read when visiting the Cape and those of a certain age will suggest a favourite of theirs, Laurence Green. His easy style travelogues are a pleasant read but leisurely travel, drawn out three course lunches and descriptions of picturesque spots are largely a thing of the past for South Africans. Set from the nineteen twenties on his stories are now period pieces.

Of course, there are later famous novelists. Nadine Gordimer, for one, an exceptional writer, so perceptive, but she gets down to some pretty gritty realism in her work. A bit dated now, in some ways, but sadly totally up to date in her descriptions of shanty towns and life for the average unemployed South African.

Andre Brink, another big name, can also be a bit of - well, how can I put it – a depressing read. The Other Half of Silence is pretty brutal and his others are also fairly heavy work in my opinion. In an attempt to be more upbeat I could perhaps suggest some younger or more recent South African writers.

There is Barbara Trapido’s book, Frankie & Stankie, detailing what life was like in the Cape in the fifties. She doesn’t do the ‘great work of literature’ bit but what a good story teller she is. This novel is a much lighter read than the others I mention and one (at last) with laugh aloud humour. And Mark Behr; his first novel The Smell of Apples is very good. Definitely an insight into modern African life in the Cape – but an unsettling one for several reasons.

But to choose just one, after all these, I would still plump for Alan Paton’s classic, Cry, The Beloved Country. In my opinion it still deserves the prize for epitomizing life in South Africa. A more simple, moving and sad story would be hard to find. Although, as in Gordimer’s short stories, it is heartbreaking to notice the lack of change for the better in such an absolutely blessed and beautiful country.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

PS If you can suggest other authors you think give a good picture of the Cape please comment but if you prefer to make a private point you can always email me at LucyAnnWhite@googlemail.com

Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel

2010-02-18T16:37:00.004Z

Well before Hilary Mantel won the Booker with her epic Wolf Hall, our Book Group had chosen to do her novel, Beyond Black, about ghosts and ghouls. Well, fiends actually.

Mantel has the most amazing imagination and a wonderful way with words. Her main character, Alison, is an overweight, nervous but successful and gifted physic. She cannot remember what she did as a child, nor can she forget that it must have been something terrible. As a result Alison lives in a constant state of Purgatory.

Alison’s admits that her life as a child was disturbing. The illegitimate and unwanted child of a bitter and drug crazed prostitute, her family life was dysfunctional to say the least - she was maltreated and ignored in turn. And her surroundings were just as awful – she lived in a slum with no vestige of comfort, surrounded by the bleakest landscape, peopled by abusers, users and misfits.

Then as an adult she is constantly visited by ghosts. This is because, Mantel leads us to believe, when people are no longer earthside (alive) they don’t just go to Heaven or Hell. They hang about as spirits – like the fiends - for a long time in a state of neither here or there. In other words in Purgatory. The ghosts – fiends – that haunt Alison (and many of her fellow physics) are very real and thoroughly destructive. She hates them but is scared of upsetting them.

The horrors of her childhood slowly emerge as Colette, her PA, records her memories for a book. Alison has repressed these – not surprising when you find out what they are – and as a result is constantly goaded by the ghosts of her mother’s (and therefore her) former associates.

Mantel’s use of dialect and speech is particularly good – the sort of speech you might hear rogues use at a dodgy fair – the seediness palpable. But I did wonder if the non-Brits in our group might find it difficult to imagine the characters or appreciate the colloquialisms and turns of phrase. When our hostess read out sections the scales fell from their eyes. That makes it all sound so much better than it did in my head, they said. But too late, they had not gotten a feel for the book. So it did turn out to be a cultural thing.

Most of us enjoyed the book. The majority also thought it a bit too long. It was generally felt that a chunk out the middle – or more exactly two thirds of the way through – would have done the story no harm and the readers some good. But others enjoyed it less. They found some of the descriptions (mostly of the fiends’ behaviour) a bit too graphic and gross.

What I found most interesting was reading an interview and a review of Mantel’s autobiographical book, Giving up Ghosts. The parallels between the main character, Alison Hart, and Mantel’s own life were clear. Beyond Black is a very clever, amazingly imagined and well written novel. No doubt. But, for some in the book group, it was just too much of a good (or rather too much of a bad) thing.

Lucy
lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

J.B.Priestly, Harold Brighouse and Terence Frisby – Three Of A Kind.

2010-02-07T20:32:00.005Z

In our local churches, halls, barns and pubs we enjoy all sorts of cultural musical performances, from large choral works, to soloists, violin recitals and, just lately, actors performing excerpts from various works. This latest took the form of a revue with Prunella Scales and Timothy West (keen to raise money for the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury) performing ‘Battle of the Sexes’.

The programme consisted of over a dozen excerpts from various plays, essays and letters. All were chosen to fit the theme but some were more entertaining than others. I shall mention the funniest as we need something to laugh about on cold winter days: days when the news seems only to consist of dreary events and terrible disasters.

The piece I found particularly funny – along with the rest of the audience I might add - was from It’s All Right If I Do It by Terence Frisby. Frisby is a novelist and playwright: his long running comedy There’s A Girl in my Soup is well known but his novels not so much so.

The latest, Kisses on a Postcard, is apparently a funny and touching account of his experiences as a young WWII evacuee. West and Scales have now made me acquainted with him and having laughed out loud at the performance I am looking forward to reading his memoir.

Then a piece from Hobson’s Choice was moving and amusing. And the humour not dated at all. Prunella Scales had played the part of Maggie Hobson on the stage as a young actress and in this excerpt her husband, Timothy West, was very well cast for her partner, Will Mossop. As usual, it highlighted my ignorance of some writers. Hobson’s Choice is a play by Harold Brighouse first performed in 1916.

Maggie’s father is a dictatorial drunkard cobbler who refuses to help his daughters marry. Maggie proposes to Will, Hobson’s young and talented bootmaker, he accepts grudgingly, they marry, create a successful business and help Maggie’s sisters to marry.

The third I liked was from When We are Married, by J.B.Priestley. Priestly, born in 1894, became a well-known humourous writer and critic. The Good Companions, 1929, his first novel and his best known play, An Inspector Calls, 1936, must both be classed as classics now. When We Are Married is about three couples about to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary when they find an administrative slip means they have not been married at all.

We are given a glimpse of one couple’s reaction to the news. Timothy West plays Councillor Albert Parker (as he did in a 1987 production), a bombastic, sanctimonious, self-satisfied character with Prunella Scales playing his bored and brassed off wife, Annie. Albert says he will do his duty and marry Annie again – Annie says, no thank you, she’s had enough.

The audience recognises these well-observed characters that are as real to us today as they were when Priestley wrote it in 1938. Again, the humour is timeless and the acting by West and Scales excellent.

It’s not often you spend a couple of hours in church on a Sunday afternoon and come out laughing your socks off – hats off to the vicar for allowing it. And now it’s off to the bookshelves (or the bookshop) for me to find what I have got written by this lot, and several hours of very happy reading in the dull winter weeks ahead.

Lucy
lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Rabbie Burns Night

2010-01-25T23:52:00.005Z

What is it about the English that when they have even an ounce of Scottish blood they like to boast about it. And, of course, it gives them an excuse to take part in any Robert Burns' evening going. I can’t talk, I’m as guilty as the next ‘One Quarter Scottish’ Angle. Perhaps it’s just that we like any excuse for a party. And, let’s face it, the Scots know how to enjoy a dram or two.

But to hear a true blue Scot read out ‘wee sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie’, in that wonderful pure lilting brogue is so romantic and evocative of a period now gone. It’s like the first time you hear Shakespeare acted and spoken properly. Suddenly everything makes sense. Years of studying the bard at school can often put a person off for life.

Shakespeare is so wooden, it’s so meaningless, you often hear school children say. But take them to a first class performance of a Shakespeare play and you will hear the laugh out loud, watching it all with rapt attentive faces as they have never done in class. It’s the nuances, the breaths taken in the correct places and the humour that the actors manage to imbue it with.

Watch amateurs enact Shakespeare, then watch a professional troupe - it is often as different as chalk from cheese. The first – no matter how polished - can be stilted, the second lively and funny, bawdy and deep. I personally don’t like Shakespeare on television or the radio – I think his plays are made for the live stage. Only there do you get that wonderful feeling of being part of it, which is how the plays were intended.

Listening to the poems of Robert Burns can be much the same: unintelligible to the English ear. In To A Mouse Burns is assuring the terrified little field mouse that he means him no harm, and goes on to apologise to the mouse for all the harm man does and the sad state of his own life.
Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,
O, what panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee,
Wi’ murd’ring pattie!

But translate it and it loses it’s charm completely. Difficult to follow or not, just one phrase from this sad and moving verse, has been quoted by many of us at some stage, without us even knowing it came from this poem.
But Mousie, thou are no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men,
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

Another equally well known poem of Burns, Address to A Haggis, loses all when Anglicised. The Haggis, to Burns, was a symbolic part of Scottish culture. A student of politics or history can enlarge on all the reasons why this was so important to Burns – and all Scots – at the time. But for the rest of us we simply enjoy the dialect, vivid language and humour of the poem.
Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftan o’ the pudding-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o’ a grace
As lang’s my arm. ‘

So here’s to Robert Burns on his special night and all of you too, Slanj; Lang may yer lum reek!

Lucy

I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith

2010-01-12T23:35:00.004Z

Come Christmas time, when the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even, what I wanted was something to read that was easy on the senses. The ground was covered with a blanket of snow. I fancied cuddling up under my own little eider and snuggling down with a gentle read.

Last year there was a list of the country’s favourite books published in the newspaper. The great and the good listed theirs. It’s always satisfying to have your own taste reinforced and quite forgivable to feel just an eensy bit smug that you have read many of the classics chosen. But it’s also thoroughly shocking to find that there are just as many gaping holes in your reading.

Now I’m not about to confess to all those titles I did not recognize, had not read or have not been able to conquer. It is a list that could be embarrassing. But I will admit to feeling a bit stupid that I had not read a novel so many cited as their favourite. How come I never read I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith? It was one of the books that all age groups enthused about as their absolutely favourite read.

The books we’ve read lately in the Book Group have featured a little heavily on death and destruction. Either that or Islamic angst. We’re all feeling a bit war weary and have decided we should choose a few titles that are a little lighter, a bit more uplifting. So I suggested to a few groupies at our Christmas bash that perhaps I would do I Capture the Castle.

One thought it a great idea (she hasn’t read it either - I felt better - she’s a brain) another dismissed it as a children’s book. A third was lukewarm and wondered if there would be enough to discuss. Perhaps my idea was a non-starter, I’d choose a classic instead. As usual.

Then came the snow. I trawled through my bookshelves and there was a copy - pristine, unopened, brand new – of Dodie Smith’s classic. That’s what the list called it, a modern classic. Somebody (it must have been last Christmas) had obviously thought I should like it. It might not be Book Group material but only a few pages read on the hoof convinced me that it was just what I needed to go to bed with (so undemanding, a book).

I won’t bother to give you the story. There must be hundreds of reviews of it or possibly you have all read it (all except me!). It is an impossible and implausible story anyway. But so what. I don’t think Dodie expected her readers to believe it. The protagonist, Cassandra, is so charming she is a pleasure to get to know as she gets to know herself. And mature: seventeen going on thirty-seven.

Most of the other characters are less believable. Some totally unbelievable. But I can see why optimistic young (and not so young) girls like it – everything about it is so sweetly romantic from the unrequited love to the Bohemian family who live in the sublime ruined castle.

And it is a very easy read. Now, this is not a criticism. Quite the contrary. It is very difficult to tell a tale simply but well. The prose is good – written in 1948, says it all – and without great dramatic effects the reader still wants to carry on reading. Now that is a skill. Finally, there is humour, just a little pathos and the ending is not as corny as one expects.

In short, I enjoyed it. It was like having a soothing massage. Pleasing, light and totally undemanding. Well enough written not to injure the senses of the literary snob, but not so soppy as to make any but the most cynical groan. I couldn’t begin to call it my favourite novel – I like a little more depth and challenge and preferably a bit of drama in my choice of reading material.

But it’s the perfect holiday paperback or thing to read after one has been ill. So when the snow outside demands you stay inside, tuck up warm and chill out with a cocoa, then throw into the mix a copy of I Capture the Castle. You may not be excited, but you won't be sorry.

Lucy
Lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

PS Finishing this I googled I Capture the Castle and yes, there are hundreds of reviews. So I was the only person never to have read it!! If you want to find out about the plot just read them.

Switch OFF for a Happy New Year!

2009-12-28T01:22:00.004Z

Another Christmas, another year over: I just cannot believe 2009 has been spent. The sages among us say that it goes faster as every year goes by. But even the next generation – in my case the prodigal and the princess – say the same thing. So it’s not just that. It’s all to do with pace - the pace of our lives to be specific - that’s what I think.

And that pace is getting faster every year. Although out in the sticks here (where telephonic reception is pants) we are now on broadband and able to join the internet highway. Even if we can’t break the speed limit. If there is no reception for even ten minutes I get tetchy and panic. How will I be able to send photographs, transfer any copy, advise contacts of events, check my accounts, order my mother’s shopping and.....publish my blog!

‘Doing research’,well, with the internet it’s taken on a whole new meaning: plodding off to the library, rooting out museums, dredging up texts from all sorts of strange places? Dead. I used to argue that when digging about in books and journals, indexes and archives I would often come across stuff I would never have thought of looking for. The old argument that perhaps one doesn’t always know what one is looking for.

Forget it. Go onto the World Wide Web and you’ll get information up to your ears. Search engines will magic some web page or other and that will lead you onto something else. Although what is still needed is that gut instinct, inspiration and application. It remains basic detective work. But there’s no footwork, no travel costs, no having to fit your research into open days or opening hours: it can be done at 2am. Tonight, any night, every night if you want.

And as for snail mail: dead as a squashed gastropod. Gone are the days when ‘It’s in the post’ gave us a little time to get the task done. Here is rural Kent we were snowed in just before Christmas but was that an excuse to get out of the saddle - no way. Sorry, no post. 'Just email it,’ is the riposte.

If you’re sent an email this morning the least that person expects is a reply this afternoon. And worse. If it arrives in your inbox during the evening or over the week-end you can forget any lame excuse about out-of-work-hours. That’s a phrase as old hat as top hat. You better reply asap or you’ll get another one.

And it doesn’t stop there. It follows us about. My laptop is portable (well, it is if you call lugging the equivalent of a big bag or two of potatoes around with you) taken on every trip away from the home hub. And if there’s no wireless connection when I’m on the hoof, oh horror, what will I do. How will I cope without electronic communication. (Amazing how I survived before The Net concurrently holding down two jobs, bringing up a family and keeping house.)

Now my biceps have been given respite. I have a new phone – well mini computer really – that I had to work very hard convincing Best Beloved was absolutely essential to maintaining my lifestyle. Obviously I have to be able to telephone mates at all times and I have to be able to track down BB when he goes walkabout (which he does whenever we’re meant to be shopping or sightseeing). But I also need to make bookings, search the web, advise when a meeting is running late, pick up business emails, text the kids, etc etc etc.

Yet I’ve chosen these deliverers of the digital age: those gainfully employed expect them. Not only do they expect the latest gismos but their employers expect them to be plugged in to the things twenty four seven. (It may be that this turns out in time to be a poisoned chalice - I reckon it’s not long before employees start to sue employers for overloading their personal wiring)

What it means is that - for all of us - the passage of time has become something that can be manipulated but not slowed. And what this boils down to is that the pace of life is pacier yet: not allowed to do nothing, no time for vacuous thoughts or voluminous ideas. No time to stand and stare. For a happy new year perhaps we should simply SWITCH OFF.

Lucy
lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Shameful Sculptor Eric Gill

2009-12-19T01:31:00.006Z

If you walked around the recent sculpture exhibition at the Royal Academy whom might you think was a sinister sculptor? Knowing no facts on the matter, you could be forgiven for thinking it Jacob Epstein, whose menacing iron sculpture Rock Drill, has been recreated. This piece, unbelievably constructed 1913-1915, is a prelude to every robot that we have seen in movies over 50 years later.

The work of Eric Gill (1882-1940), on the other hand, is beautiful in its simplicity. His works demonstrate the affinity between art and architecture perfectly. We know his pieces without ever knowing they are ‘pieces’, so well do they meld with the building.

The Art Deco façade of the BBC (Broadcasting House) incorporates Gill’s sculpture of Ariel & Prospero. This is a perfect example of how his artistic work integrates with the building: we perceive it as a whole, a part, of the architecture.

There was a talk at the RA entitled Saint or Sinner? Re-assessing Eric Gill. Now, I haven’t heard the talk nor have I read Fiona McCarthy’s biography of him. All I know is that Gill is guilty of some very unsavoury practices that have ruined his reputation as a godly man and an artist.

Gill’s behaviour was thoroughly reprehensible but he was also a genuinely talented artist and craftsman. He did some marvellous illustrations that remind me of Aubrey Beardsley and some of the artists who were doing lino cuts in the first quarter of the last century. An excellent letterer (he designed the typeface Gill Sans) he also carved the letters and designs on war memorials, gravestones and in churches.

I first became aware of him when I saw his linear two-dimensional sculptured panels not unlike the ancient friezes that decorated the buildings of Rome and Athens. Gill’s figures and animals, however, are simple, naïve and primal. And all the more striking because of this.

But when I visited this exhibition – which was excellent – I felt very uncomfortable. I like his work. I think he was a designer and sculptor of great talent. But I couldn’t help thinking about the dark side of him and this cast a shadow over enjoyment of his pieces.

I tried to tell myself that I must disassociate the artist’s predilections from his work. I must not let it cause a barrier between me and the pieces. I tried not to let my dark thoughts affect my enjoyment of his work. Unfortunately, they did. His talent is now tainted for me.

If only those of us who feel we have little natural talent could have one small piece of the gift that these artists display. We wouldn’t squander it, would we. We would revel in our gift, embrace our talent, nurture it and let it flourish. And it would be something pure, would it not. Or would it.

Could it be that the great creative force and superb style that a few artists have are only kindled by dark, sinister and wicked acts. Are these deeds and the shame of them, the price they (and sadly others) pay for the beauty of their art. I don’t know if it is a truth or a convenient excuse but I think, given the choice, I might just settle for mediocrity.

Lucy

Colourful Anish Kapoor

2009-11-29T23:13:00.005Z

I’ve visited the Anish Kapoor's exhibition at the Royal Academy. I’ve seen the TV programme showing how the work was produced. Photographs of the pieces are in countless publications and the Turner prize winning artist has been given the whole floor of the RA in which to display it. Of course, anyone interested in art feels they should be there or be square. Hmmmm….....

Well, I’ve been there, so I guess I’m not square but I’m not quite sure how I do shape up. Did I like it, did I think it was brilliant: was it too avant-guarde for me to understand? Is it a bit of fun, something to challenge my conceptions about what art should be or is it in fact all a bit of a con?

Well, I think I now know where I am on Anish Kapoor. Yes, the exhibition is a piece of fun – well several pieces of fun actually – very colourful and kooky. The installations – because that’s what they are, produced to Kapoor’s design by a team of artistic craftsmen – are beautifully made and superbly finished. The ideas are great, the finished products skillful but…....

I liked his reflective shaped pieces - sorry, mirror-polished stainless-steel sculptures. The large rectangular concave/convex one is a great – so simple in form, so beautiful in finish. Set in a landscape (as it was shown on the TV) it mirrors the sky and the scenery in such a way that everything is better, bigger. It focuses ones mind on the movement of the clouds across the surface in a way that no-one would ever appreciate looking at the sky. Not without getting a terrible crick in the neck anyway.

Although…. I couldn’t but help think of the distorting mirrors in old-fashioned circuses and fun fairs. The ones where everyone stands there and says, Ooooh, Look at you all long and thin; Aaaah, Look at me as wide as a bus. Well these are a bit the same but different because these are ‘art’ of course. These are ‘stretching reality’. Those at the fun fair are just making you look very odd.

But a big wax loaf of bread squeezing through an arch (Svayambh) – a bit shaved off every time it traverses it – and the cannon (Shooting into the Corner) splatting out a lump of dribbly wax every half an hour is all a bit playschool playdough. I think we got a handle on what that stuff’s all about by the time we were five.

Then there are the worm casts. Again, little people will have no trouble with this one. They can be found down on their level on the wide expanses of wet sand at the seaside. The thought of a whole room of larger than life size ones would thrill them. They know all about wormy shapes and wiggly coils and building stuff from sand that sometimes collapses before it’s finished.

But I guess I can see how he’s getting us to embrace colour: all enveloping colour. Colour that is powerful and pure, invigorating and intoxicating (his words). There’s lots of clear red and bright yellow. Primary stimulation as every baby of 5 months knows. We do seem to be afraid of colour these days, in our tastefully bland beige homes and all white gardens,wearing our toning grey grunge.

And I can just about swallow how he’s trying to get the visitor to think about space – that physical space that exists between the viewer and the thing that he’s viewing – how you’re not quite sure when you are here and when you have entered there.

I know I stood in front of his big yellow piece (creatively called, Yellow) and thought Wow, this is fabulous. It seems to go into (onto?) infinity: where did it end? one can stare at it, get lost in it – meditation nirvana. But that was about it.

Well, I thought, that was a not inexpensive visit to see an inspiring big yellow basin on its side and a lot of congealed red wax everywhere. Fortunately, I felt I had got my money's worth after all when I went upstairs to sexy sculptor Eric Gill.

Lucy
Lucyannwrtites.blogspot.com

T.E. Lawrence (1888-1935) - a man to remember

2009-11-16T19:25:00.004Z

With Remembrance Week just behind us my mind dwells on our soldiers and the great sacrifice they have made for our country. I’ve blogged about Europe and First World War soldier poets before but now I’m thinking of the Middle East and that reminds me of someone in particular.

Soldiers come in all shapes and sizes but one of the larger than life figures of the First World War in the Middle East must be that of TE Lawrence, more often than not referred to as 'Lawrence of Arabia'.

My grandfather’s favourite book was The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, the book Lawrence wrote about his war experiences, and by co-incidence my Best Beloved also rates it as one of his favourites. The scope of it is vast – I must admit I’ve never got very far with it – but it is the man himself who fascinates me.

I won’t go into his army career – it is so well documented – but I must say his contradictory character is unusual. From the film Lawrence of Arabia one thinks of him as a tall man – Peter O’Toole played him so convincingly – but he was in fact only five foot five inches tall. But, even knowing this, he is still perceived as being a ‘big’ character.

Of course his intellect was large. He graduated from Oxford with First Class Honours: his thesis was entitled The influence of the Crusades on European Military Architecture. He was interested in the Crusader castles of France and the archaeology of the Middle East.

Not only that but he spoke several languages: in addition to European and Classical tongues he also spoke Arabic. He knew the Middle East well from his research work. When he volunteered for the army in 1914 it was no wonder that he was recruited to serve with the Arab Bureau of the Foreign Office.

When we think of Lawrence we see him as a dashingly romantic figure wearing Arab robes and riding a camel. Because he adopted many Arab customs and traditions whilst in the Middle East it’s easy to forget that he was in fact a very English academic.

One of Lawrence’s favourite books was Morte D’Arthur and one can see how this story and his fascination with Crusader escapades may have fuelled his love of military glory, adventure and idealism. It was as if this capable, courageous and academic man was still a boy at heart. And a country boy at that.

When he joined the RAF after the war - fed up with his notoriety and under a pseudonym to protect his privacy – he landed up in Dorset. He had spent some happy years as a child in the nearby New Forest where his love for the simple outdoor country life was nurtured.

Lawrence bought a tiny, basic cottage, Clouds Hill, in the woods near Wareham. He preferred to live there than in more luxurious surroundings. Cramped and Spartan, it gives the impression of a weekend retreat for a boy scout.

His love of fast Brough motorcycles meant that he could get around the countryside and the speed of the machine probably fulfilled his need for an adrenalin rush. It was one rush too many when he crashed and died of his injuries aged 46. Lawrence left the cottage (and one of his bikes) to the National Trust. He was buried nearby in Moreton churchyard and dignitaries such as Winston Churchill attended his funeral.

If Lawrence was alive today he would probably agree with the saying that celebrity is not all it’s cracked up to be. Much has been written about his character flaws and even more about his possible sexuality. But, nevertheless, he was a dedicated soldier, an excellent writer and a remarkable man whose memory is still alive and well.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

PS Visiting the cottage of Clouds Hill reminded me of another famous character who ended his days in a small cottage, quite at odds with his position or aura. Cecil Rhodes preferred to live (and die) in a modest cottage in St James, near Cape Town, than in the large mansion he had built.

Neither Rhodes not Lawrence started life with a silver spoon in their mouths, both suffered ill health as children which had a lasting effect and neither married. But both were adventurous and became influential. However, when their fame had waned they both seemed more comfortable returning to the simple lifestyle. Their names are still writ large, nevertheless.

John Betjemen (1906-1984)

2009-10-29T23:49:00.002Z

October 6th was National Poetry Day: newspapers published the list of the nation’s favourites, amongst which was John Betjemen. Betjemen counts as a national treasure. I think this is due to his combined love for the country and countryside and the fact that his poems rhyme…or perhaps it might, more correctly, be his use of rhythm.

But of course he didn’t love everything about England (his dislike of creeping suburbanisation and the urbanization of the countryside is made famous in his poem, Slough). And not all of his poems rhymed. Plus, he wrote many other things besides. However, he was passionate about so much – the countryside, architecture, women! – and these come through in his poems. As does his humour.

Betjemen’s poetry is, in short, accessible. Perhaps it is not so much humourous, as light: sometimes satirical, other times sentimental, his work is never stuffy, oblique or elevated. Anyone can read it without needing to be a literature student – a very important feature - and understand it. There is something so honest and simple in the emotions embodied in his poems that it appeals to all those who love similar things.

Trebetherick by John Betjeman

We used to picnic where the thrift
Grew deep and tufted to the edge;
We saw the yellow foam flakes drift
In trembling sponges on the ledge
Below us, till the wind would lift
Them up the cliff and o’er the hedge.
Sand in the sandwiches, wasps in the tea,
Sun on our bathing dresses heavy with the wet,
Squelch of the bladder-wrack waiting for the sea,
Fleas around the tamarisk, an early cigarette.

From where the coastguard houses stood
One used to see below the hill,
The lichened branches of a wood
In summer silver cool and still;
And there the Shade of Evil could
Stretch out at us from Shilla Mill.
Thick with sloe and blackberry, uneven in the light,
Lonely round the hedge, the heavy meadow was remote,
The oldest part of Cornwall was the wood as black as night,
And the pheasant and the rabbit lay torn open at the throat.

But when a storm was at its height,
And feathery slate was black in rain,
And tamarisks were hung with light
And golden sand was brown again,
Spring tide and blizzard would unite
And sea come flooding up the lane.
Waves full of treasure then were roaring up the beach,
Ropes round our mackintoshes, waders warm and dry,
We waited for the wreckage to come swirling into reach,
Ralph, Vasey, Alistair, Biddy, John and I.

Then roller into roller curled
And thundered down the rocky bay,
And we were in a water world
Of rain and blizzard, sea and spray,
And one against the other hurled
We struggled round to Greenaway.
Blessйd be St Enodoc, blessйd be the wave,
Blessйd be the springy turf, we pray, pray to thee,
Ask for our children all happy days you gave
To Ralph, Vasey, Alistair, Biddy, John and me.

When he was up at Oxford as a young man Betjemen was already writing poetry. His interest in architecture was strong, and churches and their bells were a particular passion even then. Over a third of his poems are about churches, not to mention prose pieces such as Blisland (yes, it’s a real place name) and St Endellion.

And these prose pieces – essays I suppose – are some of my favourite Betjemen work. He gives us such an appreciation – his of course but things that touch all those who know the place – of the landscapes. In Bournemouth and An Approach to Oxford for example anyone knowing the town and city immediately recognizes what is special about the place.

His fond portrayal of a visit to Kelmscott, the house built by William Morris, gives the reader a true insight into Betjemen’s appreciation and love of art and architecture. Betjemen was also a great conservationist. Along with a love of architecture was a fondness of railways.

His knowledge of, and admiration for, St Pancras, one of London’s great Victorian Gothic train stations, and for it’s architect, was well known. In the 1960’s it was his impassioned pleas and championing of the buildings of St Pancras railway station that finally led to the station being refurbished and not razed to the ground.

A larger than life statue of Betjemen staring up into the great glass roof stands in the station in honour of his efforts. A lasting monument to a poet who put his money where his mouth was.

Lucy
Lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Sissinghurst in Autumn

2009-10-15T18:17:00.005Z

There is only one thing worse than going on holiday and running out of books to read: visiting a scene of beauty, in an out of the way place, and finding your camera has run out of battery.

On Tuesday I visited Sissinghurst, the famous garden created by Vita Sackville-West. It was a glorious day, the sun shone, there was no wind, not a cloud to mar the cerulean sky. Amazingly there were lots of perennials in bloom – delicate Japanese anemones, asters, jolly orange and pink coneflowers - and so many grasses and leaves in rich autumn hues that it was as colourful as a summer bed.

I photographed what strikes the visitor first: the architecture. What an entrance! A wide arched opening between twin gabled buildings, all mellow rusty brick and buttery stone. From it stretched a vista through a tall, stately and impressive gate tower. Between the two a walled courtyard, green turf, clipped yew and, along the walls, stone sinks set on brick pillars under leaded light windows. Absolutely gorgeous

I was in my element: this was going to be a lovely visit. I would have such fun and afterwards thrill (bore) everyone with my photos of the plantings. I composed the perfect picture of the colourful border. I tried it from all the angles and when I had it just right I took a snap. Nothing happened. Was it turned off? No. Was it in the wrong mode? No. The b***** thing had run out of battery.

How could I have been so stupid not to have brought the spare battery. Why had I taken the old camera I keep in the car for emergencies out of the glove compartment. What an idiot. What a wasted opportunity. It was going to spoil the whole trip. And then in the middle of beating myself up about it, I took a deep breath. Hold it, hold it, I told myself. It’s not as if this is my one and only trip to Timbuktu. Get a grip, girl. Enjoy.

And that’s just what I did. I sauntered, I gazed, loitered and lingered. Unhampered by composing shots I actually savoured each garden room, absorbed the atmosphere and admired the plantings. As so many of the beds in the individual garden rooms are contained by low clipped box hedges it still looked surprisingly tidy.

Garden maintenance was underway. The tall yew hedges were being clipped and that in itself was interesting to watch. At the same time they are scarifying the grass and broadcasting grass seed in an attempt to fill in the worn patches before the weather gets too cold. A little reminder that every season has its task. And beautiful gardens don't just happen.

I wandered into the library – a lovely long room with deep, rich, old oak furnishings. But such a musty smell that it can’t be used much. Then I climbed up into the tower in search of Vita’s writing room. Half way up, there was the room, the walls lined with books and paintings, the surfaces covered in colourful glass and favourite objects.

The desk was large but the fireplace was small. No matter how romantic the setting, endurance and fortitude would have been required (and lots of winter woollies). It must have been absolutely freezing to sit and write there. But then that generation hadn’t been mollycoddled and gardeners are, on the whole, a hardy bunch. True ones don’t get upset by little things like camera’s not working.

Lucy
lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Andrew Motion, poetry, harvest festival and pastoral heaven

2009-09-28T19:07:00.003Z

I’m in a very bucolic frame of mind. Yesterday was so beautiful weather wise that it was a joy to be in the great outdoors.

This northern part of Kent is known as The Garden of England and for a very good reason. The land doesn’t lend itself to large fields of cereals and nor does the soil. But it is suited to orchards and nut plats.

The nuts have all been harvested – those that escaped the wily squirrels – but the branches of the apple trees hang heavy with red rosy fruit. These orchards are tucked away amongst rolling hills, small fields and narrow lanes, bordered by native hedgerows. Trees frame every view.

The colours of these are beginning to turn, from darkest green to soft butter yellow, ruby red, lime green. From a distance the landscape looks as if it’s still the ancient forest that existed when the Jutes invaded – long before the Romans – obscuring small hamlets and cottages.

Lunching with friends in their garden yesterday the scene was about as perfect as it can get. We walked up through their fields, between the trees, through the gate and there spread before us was an incomparable view.

Ah me! Why do I moan about British weather; what a traitor I am to rush off to sunnier climes and foreign lands when we have such temperate weather and gorgeous countryside.

The sun has lost its stridency and yesterday it bathed the landscape in such a soft golden light that it seemed to glow. Across the valley was a scene from a picture book: roads and towns were obscured, traffic was absent and all around us was such a bounty of produce that it felt like a paradise.

I think Friday night put me in the right frame of mind to really appreciate the simple things of life. Firstly, I went to a poetry reading my Andrew Motion – the ex-poet laureate. The tone was right: his poetry is not in your face, he’s a man who reads softly and speaks hesitantly.

A poem about his mother’s horse being shod during his childhood conjured up memories of my own. His description of the place, the dog, the blacksmith and lane were evocative. I was back in Hardy country - in Mayor of Casterbridge mode - unspoilt rural England.

Afterwards I had to collect Best Beloved from the harvest festival. And this event always fills me with pleasure: if a large group of unrelated folk can meet in an old agricultural barn, sit on spiky bales of straw, eat the simplest of home made fare off bare trestle tables and have a great time then there can’t be much wrong with village life.

Tomorrow it may be raining and I shall be as grumpy as usual about our weather but for now I’m not complaining about the summer being over. Instead I’m looking forward to harvesting fat leathery pumpkins from the veg patch and collecting apples to crush into the freshest juice.

I’ll collect shiny mahogany conkers for the little boys up the road and have promised a friend our golden quince and mushy medlars for her conserves so I shan’t be consumed by guilt for leaving them to waste. Come on, roll on Autumn, I’m ready.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

The Real Thing - Dream on

2009-09-20T18:28:00.006Z

In the UK we’re spoiled for good home design: from top notch designers in chic city centres to humble high street stores, there’s something for everyone at every price. Years ago good design was only for the rich (we Brits had had a bit of a go at good design in the fifties but had priced it out of most peoples grasp) then along came Habitat. Terence Conran’s shop transformed the homewares design scene.

We went from drab or gaudy, gross or dreary stuff to simple, toning, well-balanced and stylish. Suddenly sofa’s were boxy, tables were cubed, kitchen utensils were coloured and fabrics were crisp. No more curlicues, no more reeded coffee table legs or velvet pouffes. Other shops followed. We were suddenly into ‘good’ affordable design.

But Habitat stuff was not cheap. Much of it came from Europe where design had been an important element in furnishings: in Germany throughout the 1920’s and thirties, along with cool Scandinavian stuff and glitzy Italian gear. British stuff lagged behind.

But after a decade or two of Habitat stagnation set in. The good stuff on offer was expensive, the cheap stuff rubbish. Until Ikea. Be as rude as you like about it – some things are tat but the majority is perfectly fine and excellent value - but Ikea offers decent ‘design’ to the masses.

Some of it is so cheap – who wants it to last – that anyone can afford it. Every student digs and Buy-to-Let flat is furnished from Ikea. There are copycat retailers and superstores now and even the big department stores offer economy ranges to try and tempt the closet Ikea shopper.

But still some are sniffy: the design snobs. I’ve just been reading a piece in The Times by Stephen Bayley decrying Homebase for copying a design classic: the Barcelona chair by Mies van der Rohe. Of course it’s not as good as the original, of course it doesn’t have the same panache.

The materials are inferior, the lines less fine, the proportions not as pleasing. Boy, would I love an original. But then an original Barcelona chair would knock me back £4,350: the Homebase one three hundred quid. And I’ve always drooled over an original Corbusier lounger, but I’ll never have the spare cash to buy one.

At the Museum of Modern Art in New York they had a great display of chairs when I went. The great names of Avante Garde and Modernist chair design - Corbusier, Breuer, Dieckmann, Thomas, Aalto – are in museums all over the world. But in New York there was the Butterfly chair. Years ago I bought one.

Yes, it was a copy of the original design. It was great fun. Everyone who came to our house wondered how to sit in it. No-one wanted to get out of it when they did. No-one could get out of it as it happens. Because I owned it I got to experience what the design was all about. Original Butterfly chairs are worth a lot of money now but they were too expensive for me even then.

But when I saw it lined up there at the MOMA alongside the classics I had a little smug grin. I had recognized a classic. I had bought into good design. Admittedly a rather lowly one compared to the Mies van der Rohe’s chair but nevertheless a classic in its own way. Now Starkey would deny me that.

I think it’s great to experience the real thing (admittedly even better to own one) to appreciate what good design is all about - back to those materials, lines and proportions – but if aspiration is all most of us can afford it’s really quite nice to go home, sit in one’s own humble copy, forget the design snobs and dream.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Laurence Whistler and etched glass

2009-08-31T10:01:00.006Z

Funny how one thing leads to another. Some time ago I visited the lovely little church of Saint Nicholas at Moreton in Dorset. I’d gone in particular to see the etched glass windows by Laurence Whistler.

They are quite distinctive, being clear glass with the delicate etching standing out like white tracery. So when I came across another, miles away, I at once recognised the style and felt quite the historian.

The church at Moreton was originally built about 1400. Like most old buildings it has changed over the centuries being rebuilt more than once, the last time in 1776. The colourful stained glass windows were destroyed in 1940 when a bomb fell in the churchyard. In 1950 Laurence Whistler (1912-2000) was invited to submit designs to replace them.

Originally five were installed but as time went by funds were found or donated to add more. Now all twelve windows have been designed and installed and quite a stunning effect they create. Of course engraved glass was an old, traditional craft, but Whistler's revival of the art form is quite magnificent in its scope.

His style reminds me a bit of John Piper’s spidery sketchy lines. He was after all a contemporary of his. The theme of the windows design is Light – physical and spiritual – such as candlelight, starlight or sunlight. Even lightening is included! The designs include metaphor and emblems of either seasons, festivals or bible stories.

Others commemorate someone’s life (the church is close to an old wartime air base) or a happier event. Some are landscapes, a few mystical scenes, but all are beautifully and originally worked. Unfortunately, I can't track down my photos of the windows so please do look them up on the web.

We are so used to seeing the bright jewel colours of stained glass in windows that it is quite a surprise to enter a church where the glass is clear. The result is an interior flooded with light and a feeling of openness and modernity. Quite refreshing.

Whistler was a writer and poet as well as an artist and it seems to me that he combined both the poetic and the artistic in his window designs. The sensitivity of the designs suits the subjects so well.

Anyway, when visiting Stowe in Buckinghamshire, we crept into the small (rather spoiled architecturally) church in the gardens. Although it has been messed about with there are still some very interesting effigies and fascinating memorials there. Investigating every crook and cranny I was very excited when I noticed a tiny pane of glass with some etching on.

The style looked familiar and finding a bit written about it I was thrilled that my hunch was right: it was by Laurence Whistler! He had been to school at Stowe. Just goes to show, one thing can lead to another.

Lucy

PS There is also a Whistler engraved window in Salisbury Cathedral: I don’t know if there are any more.

Butterflies Flutterby

2009-08-17T23:22:00.006Z

There is something very cheering about a butterfly fluttering past me in the garden. It’s such a simple thing - such a transitory thing – yet I instantly feel better. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that they arrive with the sunshine.

They are not about too early in the day, nor too late in the afternoon. Like dragonflies, they need the warmth of the sun before they become active. Sheltered spaces are what they like best and they’re particularly attracted to some garden plants. Buddleias are not known as ”the butterfly bush” for nothing, whilst herbs such as marjoram and lots of perennials such as Sedum spectabile can attract every butterfly in the place.

Today, turning around after hanging up a bed sheet on the washing line I was amazed to see a large black butterfly had settled on it. I was surprised, firstly because I would have thought it would have chosen a background to match its colour and, secondly, because it opened its wings to reveal that it was in fact a beautifully coloured Peacock.

Butterflies have all round vision and yet I could stand quite close to this one and it didn’t move. It also very obligingly stayed put for long enough for me to get my camera. The beautifully crimped edges of its wings could be really appreciated when they were folded because they stood out against the white of the sheet like the profiled silhouette of a cameo.

Oddly enough, we’re warned that as many species of butterfly are at risk as ever, and yet there seems to be more butterflies in the garden this year. I suspect that it has something to do with the profusion of blossom that I’ve already written about.

In April there were lots of Orange-tips in those areas of the garden with meadow grass, especially around the pond. But they were not about long. Apparently they only have one generation because once their meadow flower food source no longer blooms their pantry is bare.

At the time the butter yellow Brimstone kept it company. Although they do have a second generation which hatches in July and August so they are still about now. Following them were a mass of Browns. I should like to think that some of them were rare Heath fritillaries but I find it almost impossible to identify the profusion of little Browns, they're so quick to make off.

I’m OK at telling the difference between the showier garden species – the Red Admiral, Tortoiseshell, Comma and Peacock - but many others are a mystery to me. The Whites are similarly confusing, with the exception perhaps of the Cabbage white because we have so many of those. And I have exactly the same trouble with the Blues.

Was that a Common blue or a Holly blue? A Short-tailed or a Long-tailed blue? The trick is obviously to know all about their habitat but that needs quite a bit of study. Many blues do like a chalky habitat and as my garden is on clay I tend to have more browns.

The only brown butterflies I have time to identify are those poor insects that die in my conservatory. The floor is littered with their corpses. I only hope I’ve left enough weeds and wildflowers out there for them to lay their eggs on. That may salve my conscious. And I shall make sure I leave their caterpillars a larder for next year. I really look forward to butterflies fluttering by.

Barabbas by Par Lagerkvist

2009-07-28T23:07:00.004Z

This is a very slim volume. And the subject not exactly inspiring. I mean, who wants to read about the murderer who was pardoned in order that Jesus of Nazareth got to die in his place? We all know the story surely. After all, there’s not much to say about the robber and murderer, Barabbas.

However, Par Largerkvist manages to retell the tale in the simplest terms, with his fictional take on the fate of Barabbas written in such a way that one could believe it is all a true story. The novel is a spare tale, pared down to great effect.

Originally published in Sweden in 1950, it was published in the USA, by Random House Inc in 1951. Reprinted by Vintage Books in 1989, this book has become a classic. It’s been on the reading list of many an American university student since then, our book group host among them.

Lagerkvist was a poet and thinker, playwright and writer. Barabbas is a tale of morality. A parable. The characters show spiritual torment, questions about Man and his destiny are posed, and overall we are asked to ponder the meaning of this great drama.

The crisis of faith is the big question in this novel. There is faith (in this case a belief in God) and its opposite, doubt. Without faith in God (something to give our life meaning and direction) it can be difficult to know the difference between Right and Wrong. But a belief in God is difficult to prove.

Barabbas, on his way to be crucified, is aquitted: he is thereby condemned to godlessness. He then has a relationship with a poor disabled outcast. He shows signs of love and care – in spite of himself – when he buries her. But Barabbas soon resorts to his former life of murder and pillage.

Because of this he is caught; chained to another slave in a mine he learns that the name carved on his companion’s slave disc - Christos Iesus - is that of the man’s true master, his Saviour. Barabbas realises that this Saviour is the man who died in his place. He asks the slave to carve it on his disc. He says he wants to believe.

The slave is rescued by a sympathetic Roman and in turn saves Barabbas by insisting that his companion must accompany him. But, later, when this slave is asked (on pain of death) to denounce Jesus he refuses. But Barabbas does not support him: he denounces faith in Jesus. The slave is hanged. Because he does not support the slave, Barabbas is not condemned to die: he is saved again.

The character Barabbas never undergoes an illuminating conversion. The fact that he is a murderer - and the portrayal of him so believable - such a thing would not actually ring true. But Lagerkvist does have us thinking that Barabbas wanted to believe.

Barabbas does not believe, but neither does he disbelieve. Barabbas, in his own warped and misguided way, finishes up by doing all he can to help the Saviour when he rises again. Or does he just get the wrong end of the stick? You will have to decide for yourself: the book is a poser, the ending enigmatic.

So pack this book in your hand luggage: its a perfect size and length for holiday travel. It will add a little gravitas if you only have Aga Sagas or Chick Lit packed but if you're weighed down with fat biographies it may even seem like light relief!

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Stowe - a wonderful landscape still

2009-07-15T22:24:00.005Z

Once upon a time.....Stowe was the greatest English landscape garden: the incomparable Georgian forerunner of the English landscape style. A classical naturalistic landscape copied throughout Europe, inspiration for centuries to come.

Since the garden was begun in the 1680’s, the greatest designers of the Georgian age had their hand in the design: Charles Bridgeman (the ha ha), William Kent (serpentine streams) and Capability Brown (naturalistic vistas) made their mark. Architecturally, equally renowned men designed their ornamental buildings: among them Robert Adam, James Gibbs and John Vanbrugh.

Plonk yourself down in an English village circa 1700 - what would you have seen. Depending in which part of the country you lived, you would notice small rural buildings (roofs thatched or covered in slate or clay tiles), hedged or walled fields, the occasional field tree, perhaps coppices, forests or moors.

The small rural village consisted of mismatched vernacular buildings; scattered tenant farms dotted the scene. The local big house may have had a deer park, or straight paths and formal beds. The river would have supported a mill, bridges were practical, gates stockproof.

Roads at that time were unmade and impassable in very bad weather, farmyards mired in muck, houses lacked sanitation. Mess and mud were part of life. Everything was utilitarian. Life was hard.

For those lucky few - men of wealth and leisure - travel to Europe was de rigeur. On their return they were able to indulge their fancy and show off their education and wealth. They strove to impress society with their knowledge of the classics and superior taste. What better and more conspicuous a way than to improve their estate. And the owners of Stowe were no exception: they conceived the greatest idealised classical landscape of the time.

In the 1700’s the visitor to Stowe - unused to the wonders of world-wide travel - would have been enchanted to see a rolling landscape, a rural idyll, planted with trees on hill tops and a clear meandering river in contrast to their plainer, less ordered rural environment.

At each turn, they would be transported by a framed view of a beautiful classical building with - what a joy - yet another and another from every angle. It was a scene they could believe existed in Greece or Italy. Of course, most would never have seen anything like it except in the paintings of Claude or Poussin.

Today, one would imagine that the world-weary sophisticate would find this all very ordinary. But not at all. Strangely, in spite of the run-down complexion of the whole at Stowe (structures in various state of repair, lacking the statuary and embellishments that they used to boast) the casual visitor experiences much the same sense of surprise and wonderment that his 18th century forebear would have experienced, although for different reasons.

Sated with televised visions of beautiful landscapes, wonderful buildings, incomparable views, it's refreshing to find that we can still be impressed with the less than perfect, here and now. Stowe offers the visitor something we have all become rather unused to: a landscape that's not manicured. Buildings that are not finished to pristine Disney standards.

And so natural and realistic does this sort of manmade landscape look to us now that we're as surprised to find Grecian stone structures hidden around every corner as the original visitor most probably was over three hundred years ago. Stowe is a wonderful landscape still: those of us without a classical education may miss the all but most obvious allusions but it is still a delight, a pleasure to visit.

Lucy
lucyannwrites@blogspot.com

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

2009-06-30T18:12:00.002Z

The Reluctant Fundamentalist, by Mohsin Hamid, is not – as one is likely to assume from the title – another novel about terrorists or religious fanaticism. It is the monologue of a young man’s infatuation with America, his successful career there, unsuccessful love affair and eventual disenchantment with it all.

Over a meal in Lahore, Changez, the protagonist, explains to an American stranger at this table how he won a scholarship to Princeton and secured a top job in New York. He had felt a bit of an outsider until he moved to New York in 2001, where he loved his new office job and the buzz and cosmopolitan mix of the city. Until he heard about the 9/11 attacks.

When he heard about the attack he smiled. This surprised him. He began to question his view of America. And he began to question the ethos of his employers business - one in which he had to ‘focus on the fundamentals’ – the bottom line (the irony of the title?). This led him to question how he could live in luxury in the USA whilst his fellow countrymen were living on the breadline with American soldiers in their midst.

Working on the valuation of a company, the owner likens him to a janissary. Already a little disenchanted with his role, the discrimination he encounters and the ignorance about world affairs, Changez finds himself in a quandary: is he too working against the interests of his own Pakistan community and culture.

He explains to the American how he gave up his job in America and now works for the university in Lahore organizing anti- American protests. We, the readers, feel at every point that the American is about to hear about the reluctant radicalization of Changez. In turn, Changez asks us to consider whether every Muslim who criticizes America is a fundamentalist.

Alongside the indoctrination of Changez into the corporate world is interwoven his love for Erica, a friend from Princeton. She is as obsessed with her past - the sweetheart who died young - as Changez is with her and his work. The novel would have worked just as well without this love angle: the character of Erica lends nothing to it, and is not quite believable.

Changez, the narrator, notes that the American is on a “mission”, is constantly on his mobile phone, has a holster-like bulge in his jacket and is uneasy with the waiters hanging around. I would be a spoil sport to explain what happens at the end of the book: will it end in the demise of Changez or the American? Hamid keeps the reader guessing.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist is very well written as is to be expected from anything shortlisted for the 2007 Man Booker Prize. Our groupie host gave us a very full background to the novel, the slightly clunky allegorical references (America/Erica both look to the past, Changez/changes etc) and the author’s other rather obvious devices.

We all agreed that the theme was both moral and political. A few thought of it as a love story, most as a thriller. But two of the group found it trite, and one took exception to one message in the book that 9/11 brought home to America what the rest of the world had suffered so long.

When I noted that dates in the story did not quite add up – Changez’ time in the USA, the date of the World Trade Centre attack etc – it was interesting to learn that Hamid had started the book before the attacks and only incorporated the event later. It won’t be the last book to use 9/11 as a disaster to pin stories on, nor the last to examine East/West conflicts. But The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a thought provoking novel, and an enjoyable and easy one to read at that.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Nature or nurture in the garden

2009-06-25T06:22:00.008Z

So, if according to the press there are fewer butterflies, bees and garden birds than ever, how come my little slice of green heaven is bursting with them? The former may be due to the profusion of blossom I identified last blog, and the birds may be that I have finally managed to refill the feeders with peanuts on a regular basis. But, even so, how come? Is it natural or have I encouraged them?

I managed – in spite of being up to my ears in projects – to waste hours last week glued to the kitchen window watching my bird table. On a roll, I also spent my entire ‘coffee break’ chasing butterflies and ages (when I should have been filing) taking photos of bees.

My recent bird watching obsession is because there are woodpeckers in the garden. The Greater Spotted Woodpecker could be heard tapping away from January: sending morse signals out for a mate. Now they’ve reared their young. And pretty hungry and demanding young they are too.

Because of this the female woodpecker had been hogging all the nuts for some time. Then last week there she was, pecking away, and next to her on the leg of the bird table was her young: a fully fledged, fluffed up, beautiful young woodpecker. She pecked at the nuts then hopped to the fledgling and fed it!

I was mesmerised. I set up the camera and tripod by the window and spent the rest of the morning hiding behind the curtains, taking snaps whenever I happened to spot her. Woodpeckers are very nervous and easily scared off. This is my excuse for having so very few decent photos in spite of wasting so very many hours. Of course the infant woodpecker did not come back for an encore.

Not only did I get mum and dad woodpecker – each on a separate feeder – but I got nuthatches in pairs. These birds are the most elegantly attired. As tree creepers they feed upside down, usually searching out grubs in tree bark. It makes a fun show to watch on the feeder.

When the woodpecker family visited the weather was perfect – not too hot, not too cold. Neither windy or wet. So in between photo shoots I took a turn around the homestead. The garden looked great in the sunshine (the trick is to let your eye skim over the weeds in a grand sweep), positively glowing. There is blossom everywhere: trees are laden with it, and perennials and wild flowers are in every bed and border, each corner and crevice.

On the flowers in the herb garden – sounds very grand, is in fact very basic – there were dozens of bees. Pairs again! The great clumps of comfrey are a favourite, the chive pompoms a hit and the few rosemary flowers left still popular.

Most were bumble bees, but here and there Best Beloved’s honey bees were massed on a plant. They will travel up to three miles for their pollen but I think his find most of their goodies within the garden. If they are not on garden flowers, they are gathering pollen from trees or wild flowers in the grass.

And in those wilder bits of the garden butterflies were everywhere: little brown frittillaries fluttering around each other in a courtly dance, others settling on knautia, nettles or clover. Small blues and larger browns and middling oranges were flitting around the meadow grass.

But also nature at its most gross. Big fat caterpillars destroying verbascum at the rate of knots. What will they turn into: vampire butterflies? Some confused butterflies were caught in the conservatory – trying to get out through the glass. They will die if they don't get out. There went another half an hour trying to guide them out of windows and through doorways only to have their siblings take their place. Frustrated, I had to stop.

So I’ve come to the conclusion that the high incidence of all this wildlife in the garden is a combination of nature and nurture. The stuff I’ve planted – and the weeds I let stay - encourages wild life into the garden. Then nature does the rest.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Glorious June

2009-06-11T11:42:00.004Z

Well, not quite yet. We’ve had some lovely days, some very hot ones and some very cold ones. And, only a couple of nights ago, a torrential downpour, thunder and lightning. But, generally, ever optimistic, we expect a glorious June.

It’s not just weather that encourages us to think it’s going to be glorious: it’s the flowers. So far, this year, there seem to be the best bloom in years. The roses have never been more prolific and beautiful. Climbers that usually seem as if they had the Snow Queen treatment have produced beautiful and multiple flowers.

Shrub roses that are usually cursed with scabby, cankerous disease appear to be in the peak of fitness. Weedy, pathetic little rose bushes that knew they were for the chop have rallied and burgeoned thus winning themselves a reprieve for another year. Ramblers have more flowers on them than they usually produce in decades.

And it’s not just the roses. My cornus tree – Cornus kousa Chinensis – is a mass of dramatic creamy white waxy bracts. It’s a dream to behold. The wedding cake shrub – Viburnum tomentosum ‘Mariesii’ - has also been spectacular with its elegant tiers of white heads. In fact, all the viburnums have equally been at their peak. The garden smells like a veritable perfume factory.

And prennials look like they will be strong competition. The dark deep purple salvia, lime fresh alchemilla and striking foxgloves are as beautiful as any on the stands at Chelsea. And the colours! My first Day Lily has opened as rich as orange marmalade; the mauve of the geranium is as vibrant a violet as any painter could conjure up. Whilst purple heuchera is as plush as velvet, its flowers as delicate as lace.

So what’s it all about, this blooming bounty. I guess it could be that we had a very cold winter: killed off all the bugs. Or perhaps it was due to the infestations of ladybirds that we had in every window reveal of the house: when they hatched they had a ready prepared meal of greenfly and blackfly to feast on. Then again, we had a very wet and late spring: gave them all a good start and protection from frost.

Or, could it be that – although I was not aware of any sudden new ability - I am in fact now a gardener of exceptional talent blessed with the Midas touch. No? Oh. So it’s down to just luck, then. Well, what do I care. I shall just bask in the glory of the garden and graciously accept any compliments that come my way. Long live a glorious June.

Lucy

Barack Obama, Dreams From My Father

2009-06-01T23:21:00.005Z

Obama is the son of a white American mother, a black Kenyan father. He comes from two different worlds and feels comfortable in neither. With his mother and her parents (white folks) he is accepted and accepting but when he first goes to school in Hawaii he feels out of place. In Origins, the first part of Barack Obama, Dreams From My Father, he describes his early life.

Obama makes a point of aligning himself with the black population, the brotherhood, the dispossessed and disenchanted. He describes many white people as having a life “bought off the rack or found in a magazine”. Throughout the book he is trying to come to terms with being a Black American.

In the second part – after he has gained his degree at university – he goes to Chicago. He works as an organizer helping communities help themselves. He learns that to get people organized he has to plug into their self-interest. For example, a woman’s worries about her son’s safety might be the impetus needed to get her involved in a programme to make the community safer.

It is the beginning of his political career. He learns how to get people motivated, and about “individual advancement and collective decline”. As a student his friend told him “It’s not about you, it’s about people who need your help” and he learns the truth of this in Chicago. He finally relaxes into his skin and finds the people around him accept him for himself: not for whom he thinks he should be.

Finally, Obama comes to realise that he does not have to be part of the brotherhood, at the same level as everyone else in his sphere. He can further his studies and offer more to communities by doing so. The reader gets a glimpse of where Obama’s presidential speeches were nurtured, where such phrases as “the audacity of hope” were hatched.

He applies for Harvard and in the meantime visits Kenya and his father’s family there. In this third part of the book, Kenya, he is trying to find his roots. By trying to understand his dead father, and attempting to uncover his father’s motives and aspirations, he hopes to understand himself.

The life and family he experiences in Kenya opens his eyes to the fact that Africa is not his spiritual home. He is black, yes, but he is American. His sister, Auma, is a soul-mate, but some of his wider Kenyan family are as grasping as others are generous. They too are human. But his family and their life in Kenya does make him more committed to black empowerment.

Whilst in Kenya, to help find his true self, he searches for those things that had inspired his father: the dreams from his father. But he discovers that his father was not the paragon he thought. And by the end of his holiday in Kenya Obama is no longer in thrall to the romance of Africa, nor in the shadow of his father but accepting of himself and his American inheritance. He returns to law school, becomes the first black President of Harvard in 1995, and the rest is history.

This is a fictionalized autobiography – some of us liked the style, others would have preferred a factual account. But I can quite understand why he made it more chatty. To make the book more accessible, more alive, less the heavy hand of facts and incidents.

This version of his autobiography was first published 2004. At 442 pages the book is way too long. The first part, Origins, is fine. The middle section, Chicago, is three times as long as it needs. Much is repetitive - apart from sister Auma’s visit - and a lot of it boringly so. The section, Keyna, is twice as long as it should be. It’s a good book but, cut in length, it would be so much better.

But it is fascinating to see the seeds of Obama’s political awareness. Throughout the book – as throughout his life it seems - he asks philosophical questions and looks for practical answers. He has lofty principles and great aspirations. He talks about big issues: Community, Freedom, Hope. He has faith is in “participatory democracy” and he has “faith in other people”. If just some small part of these concepts and aspirations come to pass, we shall all be glad of his dreams.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

The Chelsea Flower Show 2009

2009-05-19T22:42:00.004Z

The Flower Show at Chelsea heralds the start of the social year for the glitterati. For the rest of us lesser mortals it reminds us that we better hurry up and get those plants in, and weeds out, if we are to have any planting even vaguely resembling a decent border.

Of course no gardener in their right mind thinks that the show gardens could be reproduced in their own modest plot. These are set pieces. Brought on, held back, hot-housed, frozen. Everything blooming in unison. Hedges and shrubs cut and clipped. Water without algae, plants without pests.

And the plants that the growers are showing – no doubt about it – are the epitome of perfection and beauty. Not one dead bloom, not one fading flower, not a scabby, scraggy leaf in sight. The best plantsmen in the country are showing at Chelsea.

One purpose of Chelsea in years gone by - when those living in their London properties visited the show to choose the plants for their country house - has long become a thing of the past. Chelsea is now for the gardening masses. And, yes, there are lots of us. All chasing our dreams.

But, nevertheless, for garden junkies like me it is an exciting and intriguing show piece. These are garden to imagine; there are wonderful new combinations to consider. They are, in short, inspirational. Occasionally amusing. Sometimes shocking. And so it was yesterday.

My favourite show garden was the Champagne Laurent-Perrier Garden. I liked the firm structure and clean lines, the architectural form of clipped hedges and the straight allee, the planting repetition, restricted colour palette, clean lines and water feature. And today I hear it did get Gold so my Landscape Architect antennae are still keen.

But the Daily Telegraph Garden also got Gold and Best in Show. I liked it, it just didn’t excite me. But then I like what the designer usually does with his plantings. Prairie plantings of grasses and daisy like perennials that associate well with them.

The third garden I liked was the Cancer Research Garden. It was a very striking, sculptural garden. All curving lines and geometric shapes, cool whites, black water, and lush green planting. It won Silver-Gilt. It dared to be different and I think it deserved a Gold.

The one that was truly different was the garden made of plastic plants. It was a joke. It should have stayed a joke and not been awarded any prize. This is a flower show, for goodness sake.

One of the most popular features of this years Chelsea was the pleached hornbeam hedge. Such an accommodatiing species, the hornbeam. And so versatile. It featured in all three gardens I mention. For flower colour, purple and claret were popular: in the Laurent-Perrier garden these were provided by a magnificent Paeonie ‘Buckeye Belle’, a glowing deep raspberry, and a darkest purple Iris ‘Superstition'. Fabulous.

And the plant of the moment that featured in so many of the show gardens? Well, there were plenty of 'living' walls but the real star was The Vegetable. There were rows of salad vegs, beds of brassica’s, canes of peas and beans. No poncy potagers, just sensible raised beds filled with beautiful, colourful, gorgeous crops. If only my vegetable patch could look so divine!

This year’s Chelsea Flower Show has given me ample room for thought: I shall spend the week-end pottering in the garden. Putting in the pots I haven’t planted yet, pulling out weeds and murdering pests. But in my mind I shall dreaming of Chelsea perfection.

Lucy

Calender Girls and Critics

2009-05-12T16:06:00.003Z

Don’t believe everything your read - critics don’t always get it right. The reviews for the play, Calendar Girls, were not enthusiastic. I suspect that some of the time critics – whether food, theatre or book critics – write negative reviews because they feel they have to justify themselves. I guess it can become tedious: watching yet another play, reading ones twenty-fourth book this month, eating out…again.

Perhaps they figure that there are only so many superlatives and so much praise that any reader wants to hear. They feel the need to be edgy, perhaps contentious. The press do love to shock, to stir things up. To get a reaction.

Of course I like to read reviews before I see an exhibition, go to a show or visit a restaurant. And they are often illuminating. But, as long as they are not thoroughly damning, I take them with a pinch of salt. I have learnt that critics don’t always get it right. And this goes for the reviews I read about the Calendar Girls, newly opened in the West End.

The reviews were either condescending or dismissive. We already had the tickets. Lynda Bellingham, Sian Phillips and Patricia Hodge were the lead roles. A first rate cast. Surely they would not want to in something second rate. We were going, it would be an outing, it would be alright on the night.

And guess what? It was. In fact it was good and it was funny, well scripted and well acted. So how come the reviews were less than complimentary. Well, I think it has something to do with sex. This was a play about women, with a (nearly) all female cast, and jokes that appeal to women. And women of a certain age at that.

Now, what young male critic would get that? All the poor reviews I read were written by male critics. And most – like many in the youth obsessed media – were probably only half way to their three score years and ten. Now, how many of them could appreciate a joke about the nitty gritty of women’s lives.

Two of the reviewers wrote that once the actresses had got their kit off there wasn’t much left to the play. For them that was obviously the raison d’etre of the play. That was to miss much that they probably thought derisive.

The play is based on the book. The story – as you probably all know – is about a group of Women’s Institute ladies. The husband of one of them dies of cancer, and they decide to raise funds for research. The calendar, on which they pose tastefully nude, raises a great deal of money and makes them famous.

But the play is as much about morals as anything – nothing to do with nakedness – that success can go to ones head, that jealousy is destructive and fame and fortune don’t equate to happiness. And that appearances are not everything, but life and the support of friends is all. And the message of the play works because it’s not preachy, or glum.

There’s a bit of pathos in the second act, yes, but like the best of messages it all goes down best with a good swig of humour. But obviously not the sort of humour appreciated by a jaded or sophisticated critic. Fortunately there are enough WI members and mature wives out there to appreciate the gentle jokes and connect in some way with the wider message. That alone should make Calendar Girls critic proof.

The Reader, by Bernard Schlink

2009-04-28T17:34:00.002Z

I may be the only person you know who hasn’t seen the film of The Reader yet. The week it was showing locally I was up to my eyes in other boring stuff. Then I heard that we were doing it in our book-group and decided to read the book before seeing the film.

Somehow that works best. Reading a novel you build your own pictures of a character. Very often it’s not down to the descriptions of characters. For me, building a picture of a character is more likely to be based on their behaviour, or a name, perhaps a mannerism.

So we don’t only have a picture in our mind of the character’s appearance but of the way they move, talk, smile. Then out comes the film: if it’s well cast we say, Ah, Just as I imagined them! Or perhaps – rather more often - quite the opposite. If the film is really good, the viewer can live with the difference between the personally imagined and the film-makers vision.

But to see a film then read the book does mean that the imagination does not kick in the same. The picture of the character is already there and it often jars with the description. And one of the things I love about reading is the pictures …and the suspense. See the film first – no suspense. Why bother reading it. The moving images have already been filtered and digested. The plot has been simplified and truncated.

Needless to say, there was so much in the press about the film, The Reader, that although I hadn’t seen the film I had seen clips. I knew that the central character was played by Kate Winslet, so I saw the character Hanna as her. She was well cast, fortunately, but it means I was denied my own image.

Bernard Schlink is quite a writer. The book is easy to read. Deceptively simple. Short chapters, large print, not (for a refreshing change) very long. And it was not, we all agreed in the book group, a holocaust novel. It was a novel about relationships, primarily, and shame.

A young boy, Michael, aged fifteen, is seduced by a mature woman, Hanna. He becomes totally besotted by her. She uses him. He is fixated on her to such an extent that when she has left he is unable to form other lasting bonds. He learns of her shameful past in the Second World War. But it is her other shame – that of being found to be uneducated – that informs her actions. Not the shame that should.

And we, the readers, are expected to believe that Hanna’s fear that her secret will be discovered is the prime reason for her hateful work in the war. Schlink leaves some points such as this unclear, questions not answered, things unresolved. Some found this annoying, others challenging.

But as the we never get under Hanna’s skin, never get to know her true motives, or any bar those rather tenuous ones, the character Hanna gets little sympathy from the reader. Certainly not those in our group. Although, at the end, one or two had begun to pity her.

For my part, I thought that Hanna was portrayed as someone who finally learnt about victims’ reactions to imprisonment, torture and death through their printed stories. Not as someone who instinctively came to realise that what she had done was wrong. She was amoral. If she had known that what she did was wrong then she could have done something about it sooner.

Michael was another of Hanna’s victims. Although not everyone agreed with that view either. Some felt that his actions were just too far fetched. Others that he loved her, simple as that, and continued to do so. Personally I think that’s over simplified. In my mind his personal life had been blighted by his relationship with her. And I did not feel there was any redemption at the end of the novel. The ending was not a surprise.

But, in spite of all this, it was a good read, an interesting story to discuss and it generated much talk about emotions – fear, shame, cruelty, love – and how a people come to terms with the sins of their fathers. Now all I have to do, is watch the film.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Silence is Golden but Time is Short

2009-04-19T18:30:00.004Z

It’s getting harder to find the time to write my blog. I started by writing every week. I decided that I’d do pieces with some meat – similar to the sort of pieces I do for publications – rather than just a paragraph. Now that I’m finding it hard to find the time to do them I wonder if I made the right decision.

Of course I can always change – adapt - which is what I probably will do but strangely enough it’s not the length of the blog that’s the problem. I think I would still have trouble if my blog was just a paragraph or even that stream of consciousness, just an-aside-sort-of-thing like a twitter.

Now there is something I definitely don’t have time for. Mostly because I’m not glued to my mobile phone. I am still trying hard not to rely on my mobile – I continue to do that old fashioned thing of using it just for emergencies, messages, appointments and liaising. I hardly ever use it unless use includes one of these.

This seems to be contrary to every other person under the age of thirty and almost every business body under the age of forty. The mobile phone is always there, in the car, on a quiet country walk, on holiday, at work, on the bus or in the train. We have all been bored and sometimes disbelieving about the “Hello, I’m on the train” conversation but this is now small beer.

One friend who travels regularly to work by train tells me that she is now privy to the lurid details of one of her fellow mobile phone toting passenger’s love life. The girl gets on her phone immediately she’s in the carriage and fills in her friends with all the details of her last passionate encounter. With sort of nitty gritty that would make a Lolita blush.

One would imagine that she would wait until somewhere private before baring all (!) but modesty, privacy and discretion seem to be defunct now we can speak to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Anyway, it seems the mobile phone is an extension of many an arm. It is positively scary that so many hardly seem capable of going anywhere without it. And I don’t want to go down that slippery path. And you know why? Because I love silence.

Silence: what bliss, no noise, a chance to think. I’m sure lots of people love silence but to do anything creative there’s just got to be some peace and quiet. Or, as the prodigal once said aged seven, ‘I need a piece of quiet’. Like many a child’s amusing malapropism it became a family phrase. Used whenever appropriate because, apart from the nostalgic sentimentality of it, it just happens to be right on the button.

I need a piece of quiet to work. There’s got to be room to think. There’s got to be big white spaces for ideas to pop up into. Silence is golden, golden. My ability to come up with fresh and original, deep or insightful ideas is impaired if I’m surrounded by chatter or clatter.

Apart from that commodity which is in such short supply it’s not the amount I aim to write for my blog that’s the stumbling block. It is simply the time to get the backside on the seat, time to get the mind in gear and time spent when I could be writing my book. And there’s the nub, or the rub in the words of the bard. Every minute writing my blog is time I could be writing my book.

When I started the blog I had finished my novel, it was about to be published in paperback, I still had things to do, talks to give, places to go all associated with it. So I thought a blog would be just the thing to keep my writing going. And that’s the trouble. It did, but it also stopped me starting the real thing.

And now I am into the book full swing. I still do design work so only have a limited ‘writing space’. Next time I write my blog I’ll explain how it’s going but at the moment, sorry, I just don’t have the time.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

PS Hope you like the still and silent picture

The violet – a tiny treasure.

2009-04-07T23:33:00.003Z

Spring has so many stunning flowers: bold brassy daffodils and delicate fritillaries, sunny bright aconites and elegant narcissi to name but a few. But it’s often the shy little numbers that lurk in the shadows that tweak at my heart. The violet – Viola odorata - is one of them.

Not for nothing is the phrase for a shy, modest sort, ‘a shrinking violet’. The shrinking violet was the one on the edge of the dance floor, the modest little woman who never pushed herself forward. Pretty, simple, not showy.

And it’s the same in the borders of the garden, under the hedgerows and on the banks by the roadside. Out walking, cast your eye down and at this time of year and you can be surprised by a little group of violets. But not all of them are violet: those in the garden may be deep mauve or pale lilac, or you may even find white ones wild in the verges.

The Victorians were heavily into the symbolism of flowers - white violets were for candour – and the violet is known as a symbol of love. A hundred years ago an admirer might buy his girl a small posy of violets to pin on her lapel.

Grown en masse in Dorset, Devon and Cornwall especially for the market these little corsage produced healthy rural businesses. They were gathered in the morning, tied in bunches, packed in boxes, transported by rail to London for sale that same night.

But many tiny bunches were gathered in the fields and hedgerows that bordered cities too. They were also sold the same day, on street corners and outside theatres. More often than not they were the only livelihood for many a poor soul.

And in the days before refrigeration such a tender little bloom had to be sold immediately, before it drooped and died. The simple small token of love would be unpinned at home and put in a vase to be admired the next day. I remember that my grandmother had a tiny crystal vase especially for putting violets in to keep on her dressing table.

But Violets have hidden depths too: they can be used in all sorts of ways we have lost touch with today. Candied or crystallized – dipped in egg white and coated in sugar – they were used to decorate cakes and make into sweets. The dark green, kidney shaped leaves can be added to salads and the flowers too are edible. As a salad garnish they add colour and interest, and the flowers can be used to make salad dressing.

In the past violets were used extensively in cosmetics and toilet water. The flowers and leaves were steeped in water until they had rendered up their colour and scent. Medicinally they were made into teas or syrups for coughs and colds, and used as ointments and poultices for a variety of ailments.

Because the flower was popular in Victorian times so the name Violet became popular too. But the colour violet was also considered a powerful symbol in Victorian and Edwardian England possibly because of its closeness to purple, the colour that symbolises royalty. The Suffragettes used violet as one of the colours of their flag and it came to stand for the word Vote in their motto, Give Women the Vote.

So, remember that the little shrinking violet is no insignificant flower. Like many a small thing, they can pack a punch. Choose a moist patch in your garden, in dappled shade, and plant yourself a few violets. The sight of these simple little flowers in spring will be something to treasure.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah

2009-03-29T18:54:00.003Z

This is not a book I would have chosen. I mean, who in their right mind would choose to read (which surely one does for pleasure) ‘The True Story of a Child Soldier’? Okay, Okay; sometimes we do want to read a book in order to be more informed about an issue.

Which is the reason our groupie said she chose this book. She said it deals with a subject about which everyone should be more aware. I don’t know about you, but I have a very fervid imagination. I can imagine only too clearly what atrocities there are going on in those African states. I can imagine how killing fellow beings can numb the senses and dehumanize the perpetrator of crimes. I feel incensed by both government and guerrilla fighters’ treatment of children and women. Appalled that the world lets this all continue.

So, what are we members of this book group for? I for one appreciate that it encourages me to read books I would otherwise not consider. I cannot therefore demur. This groupie is a younger member of the group - bright and socially aware. We bow to her awareness. We read the book about a child soldier in Sierra Leone in spite of the less than inviting subject.

I struggle through it. And so it seems did everyone else including our young groupie. The writing is not good. And it is a harrowing subject. We know that the author is young and not educated in prose but.... And does it seem that perhaps someone else had a hand in it? And then there is a lot of walking in this book. He walked, and he walked, and he walked. And he killed. And he was saved.

Ishmael is obviously an intelligent, articulate child who suffered horribly. But he had (has even now as an adult) the ability to survive. Everything in the story is testament to this. He had (has) a great capacity for love. He wants to belong, to be part of a normal environment, to live and grow. That should give hope.

But it was interesting that all of us had the same response to the book. It’s not often that we are in such agreement. We all hated the subject, we were not impressed with the style and we all found it odd in many ways. BUT. But we were glad that we had read it. We learned things. Things that even over-active imaginations don’t supply.

That children were conscripted to fight by the army as well as the guerrillas. Drugs were (are) widely used to numb the children mentally so they can commit the crimes. But also to keep the children awake with their adrenalin pumping so they are in a state of arousal. They need to be in order that they can run at a moment’s notice and kill at command. And, of course, by keeping them addicted the perpetrators keep them dependent.

We know that child soldiers have little choice but to fight. Many have lost their families and their ability to survive. They are used and abused. But from this story we learn that amongst all this horror, there are some caring individuals (and some aid) that makes a real difference to the rehabilitation of a few. More importantly, we learn that it is possible to rehabilitate child soldiers.

We also learn from our groupie that Sierra Leone was where the first slaves were sent to America – because they knew how to plant tobacco. It is the second poorest country in the world. That diamonds are now the main source of wealth and that the corruption surrounding this wealth accounts for much of the fighting. Those powerful foreign governments have contributed to this power struggle.

And we think about the shocking fact that there are over a quarter of a million children fighting in the world. If all these wars were in some major way associated with oil, we in the West would have waged a war by now to overthrow the leaders that carry out these atrocities and the resulting carnage. And the resulting destruction of societies.

Our groupie was right. This story reminds us above all that we in the ‘civilized’ West do not do enough to change these things: that we still have a Long Way to Go.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

ENJOY by Alan Bennett

2009-03-18T18:40:00.005Z

It is always an event seeing a show in the West End. London is a city with such a buzz: it’s cosmopolitan, busy, beautiful (some say ‘like the Curate’s egg’) and varied. I can’t say that theatre land is particularly beautiful but the sheer choice of shows is amazing.

So it was with pleasure (in spite of mixed reviews) that I joined a group of friends to see Alan Bennett’s play, Enjoy. First produced in 1980, the play didn’t do that well, but of course since then Bennett has become a household name, a national treasure.

Set in the 1970’s, the elderly Connie and her husband, Wilf, live in one of the last remaining houses due for demolition in a northern town. Wilf looks forward to the new maisonette they are due to move to, his wife does not. A young woman from the Council arrives to observe them and assess their quality of life. They have an idealised opinion of their daughter (whom hubby idolises) and a son whom Wilf has disowned (but wife adores) and who has not been seen for years.

The play’s first act could be described as ‘gently’ amusing. Pleasant, Bennett quips and northern truisms, but a little lacking in sparkle. Still, the audience had the expectation that this was a play that was going to evolve into something interesting. Then the second act descended into pure farce, the subject matter thoroughly suited to its middle-aged matinee audience. The fact that it was very funny was due to a great extent to the superb acting and relief from the rather flat first act.

Unfortunately, Linda, the daughter, arrives at this stage (no pun intended) – nothing wrong with her acting but it would have been so much better had the character not been seen in the flesh. The audience were quite aware that she was no shorthand typist but a prostitute: the character added nothing to the play, the slapstick/farcical sex scenes were thoroughly embarrassing in their naff-ness, her hint that her father had abused her incongruous and gratuitous. The play would have been improved if she had simply been imagined – and all the more powerful for it.

But Bennett does show what a fantasy life some people live, and to what lengths they will go to fit into their role. Although, as the play neared the end, the tone of the piece became positively morbid. It was as if Bennett couldn’t quite decide what he wanted the play to be. Not the ’stream of consciousness’ monologue of his we have come to love but part monologue(s), part farce, part heavy message. It seems as if he was bent on ticking all the boxes – homosexual son, doting mother, bullying father, abused daughter, hoodwinked aged parents, violent yoof, etc.

What made it, nevertheless, a memorable event was Alison Steadman’s superb acting as Connie. She managed to carry the whole thing. But (to quote a critic)'the poignancy of her character – one of a woman descending into dementia – was camouflaged by poking fun at her affliction'. The grumpy brutal character of Wilf is well acted – but what a part to have to play. The only time the audience have any sympathy for him is when he says how he would have liked to hold his sons hand when he was a boy.

There are twists and turns in the plot – some thoroughly expected, others not – but what started as a kitchen sink drama, progressed to farce and ended up as tragedy – left the audience feeling a bit, well, uncomfortable. And cheated. It was billed as great comedy. We – the audience – were not quite sure what had happened. As the play took a heavy and macabre turn after the farce it left us feeling as if a freight train has just come thundering out of a toytown tunnel.

But, if nothing else, it made me see Bennett, the writer, in a more realistic light. This play was written at the start of his writing career, and to see his later work (such as Talking Heads, The History Boys etc) makes one realise how much some writers can grow and blossom. So I’m taking an optimistic view of the thing – and hope we can all enjoy such improvement.

Make Do And Mend

2009-03-08T14:04:00.005Z

I don’t think that a lot of people – including the government – have quite got the hang of the 3 R’s yet. We have to re-use and reduce our use of products as well as re-cycle. And re-cycling isn’t just about sending our bottles – glass or plastic – to the bottle banks. The downturn in our economy is bringing back that old-fashioned concept – make do and mend.

If your mother or grand-mother was born before 1950 they would have told you a few basic facts. Don’t throw everything away. Re-use things. In those days it was inconceivable that the tin your shortbread came in would have been chucked. No way. It was used for the next twenty years to hold zips and elbow patches for clothing repairs.

Mend clothes? How do you do that? Surely you just chuck it away and buy something new. Nooooo…even if you’re no seamstress you can take it to the dry cleaners who will arrange for a new zip to be fitted. And those old T-shirts make great cleaning rags.

What about that sensibly sized plastic carton with the lid that the ice-cream came in? Mum would use it for the next ten years to freeze left-overs. Yoghurt pots, throw them away? Not on your Nellie. If Dad didn’t use them to plant his seeds the kids would swipe them to make something clever they saw on Blue Peter.

Jam jars. Of course there’s more to them than home-made marmalade. Jam jars are ace. What can be more useful than all those curtain hooks safely stored in a nice clear see through jar: not to mention screws, nails, washers, buttons and that castor that came off the card table. You have not only re-used the jars, you have done away with the need to buy screws every time you do another little DIY job.

My kids used to laugh at me – Mum, stop hoarding useless rubbish, chuck it away! But at last I’m not considered a sad old skin-flint – the R word means that I’m now ecologically aware! It’s pretty obvious that re-using is much greener than re-cycling. No carbon footprint whatsoever.

And why don’t people just stop buying drinking water in plastic bottles each week. What’s wrong with the tap? Filter it if you must, then re-fill that expensive Evian bottle. The woman next to you in the gym - and your intestines - won’t know the difference.

Then there’s the supermarket plastic bag conundrum: it’s true that in Mum’s day she had her basket or a fold-up nylon bag in her handbag and we should too. But Mum had the odd plastic bag too. Just banning these bags means that instead of them being re-used to line the kitchen bin, shoppers are purchasing other plastic products to do the same job! How much energy is that using: it’s crazy.

The government should have long ago insisted that all such bags were biodegradable (not to mention taxing unnecessary packaging). We could then use the bags in our kitchen bins for our wet food waste. And we could all stop putting clean dry rubbish in big plastic sacks: what’s wrong with putting them straight in the dustbin anyway? No big black plastic bag to sit in the landfill for the next 100 years.

I’m warming to my task now – time for my soap box. How do you reduce, re-use and recycle all in one? Compost, that’s how. Reduce the amount of stuff going to the tip in a nasty big truck. Re-use and recycle your green waste – teabags, coffee grounds, veg peelings et al – in a compost heap. If the garden’s not big enough for a heap or two use that old kitchen bin that broke. When it’s all rotted down it will feed your flower border better than anything you’ve used energy and money to buy from the DIY store. There's satisfaction in the 3 R’s and the culture of make do and mend.

Lucy

Slowly Does It in the Spring Garden

2009-02-28T19:14:00.003Z

With the first warm, sunny day of the year the garden comes alive. Under the bare copper beech, crocus flowers open up to such an extent that bumblebees are able to crawl around in them. Dusted liberally with golden pollen, their big, hairy, black and orange bodies are ready to act as natures’ cupids.

Scents of loveliness only insects can detect have reached the beehive. The honey bees come out in force, eager to start collecting for their pantry. They have until September to produce the goods. By then, a double storey dwelling should be able to produce 50 jars of liquid amber, Food of the Gods.

But if we are to have other produce, veg beds need to be turned over and fertilized, greenhouses cleaned, tubers chitted and seedlings started on windowsills. And if the garden is to burgeon and bloom, roses, vines, trees and shrubs must be pruned, climbers tied and perennials cut down.

And this is only a small part of what should be happening in the garden. In many gardens it is underway. In this one, we’re still in planning mode: I’ll throw away all those pots; you must have a bonfire; we should buy our salad seeds before they sell out. This summer we’ll keep the garden tidy: we’ll cut the grass more often, dead-head the roses more frequently. Blast, is it too late to cut down the lavender?

My laissez-faire attitude to putting the garden to bed does mean that the place doesn’t look too tidy at this time of year. I leave all the perennials and seed heads for the birds to feed on in the winter months. I leave shrubs and herbaceous alone to give shelter to small mammals and insects. I even leave windfalls – a very messy habit.

This all in the name of ecological awareness, habitat protection - green-ness. It is an ideology that suits the lazy gardener. We have a symbiotic relationship in winter, my garden and me – I leave it alone, it leaves me alone. Then with the first signs of Spring I start planning what I will do. Planning mind - let’s not run before we can walk – planning, not doing.

And then, I’m a slow starter in Spring. The first sunny day - what can be more pleasant than a leisurely walk around the place to admire the brightness of the aconites and sophisticated simplicity of snowdrops. To seek out shy iris, smile at bright narcissus, smugly congratulate myself on the elegant hellebores. I must linger by the fragrant primrose honeysuckle and blush pink viburnum. I want to find that wonderful scent that reveals itself as modest sarcoccoca.

It’s a time to asses, to imagine, to decide….I shall fill that space with a tall perennial, move this shrub to the other side, cut down that bush and plant some more grasses. And that bench must be scrubbed, the summer house cleared out, a new hinge is needed on the gate. My goodness, look at that ash tree - how did it get there – and how come I never noticed it last year. It has to come out. Right away.

Well, soon anyway. Plenty of time before Spring really begins.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Ghosting - A Double Life by Jenny Erdal

2009-02-24T10:40:00.004Z

Funny business, ghost writing. Okay, there are some people who have a story to tell but can’t put it into reasonable English. A ghost writer does it for them. They either take the credit or come clean and admit that they didn’t actually write it themselves.

But what do you think of a celebrity who has no story to tell but gets someone else to make up a story and write a novel for them? And what do you make of a writer who is employed by the celebrity to write the novel in secret but finally spills the beans?

Read Ghosting by Jenny Erdal and you will find out. Erdal can write, no doubt about it. Her English is good, her style fine, her little bon mots amusing. She explains in graphic detail her relationship with Naim Attallah – whom she calls Tiger to minimize the likelihood of libel I suspect – who was a Quartet Books publisher of enormous celebrity for many years.

The descriptions of him – a larger than life, highly colourful Asian character – have him down to a T. He brooked no disagreement from his staff, surrounded himself with a bevy of beautiful society girls, ate and spoiled himself to excess and was generally a demanding, uneducated but amusing and charismatic chap. Erdal, on the other hand, describes herself as almost the exact opposite.

She was from an emotionally restrained, working class Scottish family. She disliked her parents, her husband left her, she was clever but unable to succeed at what she wanted. She gives the impression that life held little pleasure for her bar her children and working for Tiger. She asked for little and got it.

In fact she was attractive, bright, went to university where she read languages, was married with three beautiful children. This all sounds pretty good. But I suspect it was the working for Tiger that did for her: he was demanding as an employer but it was an interesting job. Then her husband left her. Tiger was supportive. She had to keep working. She was sucked into a seductive world of glamour, excitement, luxury, intrigue and power.

Unfortunately a great deal of the book concentrates either on how clever she is – she peppers her prose with quotations and examples of her learning but I suspect she’s trying to compensate for being a ghost writer – or how mean everyone else is. For example she paints her parents as unkind and narrow minded.

Any writer who wishes can describe their relationship with their parents and show the reader that they were unkind and narrow minded. But what I would hope to be shown is how that experience has moulded the writer. And I should like the writer to show me, the reader, how the parents may have come to be that way. I like some understanding and illumination to shine through. Not to do so makes the writer look as bitter as the parents she despises.

So I guess that is my first beef with the book. My second is that, if she hated writing for Tiger then why did she go on doing it? And why did she volunteer the smut she purports to disdain. By this stage in her life she no longer needed the employment - her children had grown, she had remarried and husband number two wanted her to stop. But still she went on. And then when Tiger finally fell from the heights, when he could no longer pay her, only then did she leave. And write her expose.

Erdal was not manipulated by her employer, Tiger, as she tries to suggest. It seems to me that it was a symbiotic relationship. Each used the other: Tiger got a willing accomplice, someone who could write far better than he could, someone who could be bought; Erdal got paid, annual holidays in the south of France, luxurious hotel rooms and wonderful meals, frisson and power.

Ghosting is a very well written book, one that shows us the seamier side of ghost writing, but it was not, in the end, a very satisfying read for me.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Winter weather

2009-02-10T10:17:00.004Z

Arriving back in the UK from the sunny clime of South Africa it was a surprise – although it is February - to land on snowy tarmac in Surrey. It’s Middlesex actually but art is all. No, really, sorry about the alliteration: naff, I know, but somehow it just slips out. I mean, one mention of the word sun, and the words sand, sea etc just trip off the tongue. This time it was sunny, South and, well there it was, snow, just asking to be part of it.

Well, you may wonder, what was she up to in said sunny clime? It was part research (all will be revealed in time), part R&R. Weather? Well, OK, whilst we’re on the subject…..the Midlands of Kwazulu-Natal were misty and damp. Not quite what I had envisaged. No wonder the Drakenbergs are so green and beautiful.

Durban was tropical (humid) and the Zulu battlefield sites were hot in the day, nippy at night. But St Lucia Lake was just right: not too hot and not too cold, neither windy nor wet. Then Cape Town, sunny and bright as is usual at this time of year. All in all, a welcome break from the weather at this time of year at home.

Kent is usually wet and frostily cold in February: the days are short, the evening long. Christmas festivities have faded and Spring seems a long way off. Snowdrops have surfaced and look as pretty as ever, but colourful crocuses and cheery daffodils are only little green shoots. Not even a promise of joys to come.

In fact the only excitement weather wise is the romantic thought that we might have a little snow. You know the sort: sprinklings of it on rooftops, thick white powdery stuff on the grass, butch little snowmen. Snowball fights, sledge rides, hot chocolate and muffins by the fire.

In actual fact, when we have snow its more like: slushy piles on doorsteps, solid frozen stuff on the paths, big butch gritters. Cars are snowed in, buses don’t run and bread sells out in the shops. Hey - we are warned - don’t go out unless you have to. Avoid the roads, take care not to slip, stay warm. But still we think fondly of snow.

Up North, of course, they’re a hardy lot, used to the snow and ice and digging their way out of trouble. Down South we’re wimps: we only have snow that lasts for more than a day or two every decade or two so it’s hardly surprising that we’re not geared up for it. This year there was simply much more of the stuff than usual.

This is an event, an unusual and not very serious one at that. But what do we get: newspaper headlines of blame, panic and sensationalism. Schools are closed! People cannot get to work! Shops lose takings! Councils have run out of salt and grit! Oh, come on, please, the country hardly ground to a halt. Telephones rang, orders were placed, many were able to work at home and kids had the time of their life.

We cannot store huge quantities of salt for an event that only takes place every decade at most. And I’m not sure we want to use salt on every road. On motorways, yes, it’s effective and quick. But the run-off on rural roads causes terrible damage to the ecology. Grit is what’s needed, and that should be used often in winter when ice is a more frequent danger.

The worst of our damp weather is not actually the snow itself: it’s the crazy gang who drive too fast and the kids who have never learnt that ice on ponds is too dangerous to walk on. And the biggest danger of all is the aftermath of snow which, in Britain, is often flooding. Our resources should be spent of measures to alleviate that.

I think that every child should have the memory – the day we couldn’t get to school because of the snow – of chucking snowballs and sledging on tea-trays. Admittedly, once an adult the whole process can be a bit of a pain but many a parent is only too happy to join the kids. So, enjoy what there is to enjoy about snow ....before it all turns to slush.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com
LucyAnnWhite@googlemail.com

The Anglo-Zulu Wars

2009-01-30T21:09:00.006Z

130 years ago last week, over 24,000 Zulu warriors attacked a British Invasion Force as it encamped on the slopes of Isandlwana, Zululand. Both sides fought with amazing bravery, both sides suffered severe loss.

It was a terrible defeat for the British Army. Of the 1300 plus troops only a handful survived but over 3000 Zulus also died. On the same day the British troops at Rorke’s Drift, a few miles away, were also attacked but after many hours of fierce and furious battle the British troops repulsed the Zulu warriors.

Rob Gerrard (the resident historian at the stunning Isandlwana Lodge overlooking the site) guides tourists through every angle and nuance of the battles of Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift. He brings the events to life – so to speak – in the most vivid detail. The experience is guaranteed to move even the most unemotional of men.

What is less than impressive is the arrogance and ineptitude that was shown by commander of the British forces, Major General Lord Chelmsford. Men such as he rose to positions of power, due less to ability and more to connections, and their lack of professionalism had disastrous results. What is even more shocking is that many a similar thing continued to happen, later, in the First World War.

As in any war, it is not just the lives of soldiers that are lost, it is the lives of their families that are blighted. Every man who died on the 22nd January 1879 was a son; many a father, some a brother. Most would have been a breadwinner, others a potential one. British and Zulu families would feel the consequences for generations to come.

If I were to consider the Anglo-Zulu Wars on a totally uninvolved level, I should find the amount of interest that they exert for military historians - amateur and professional alike - surprising. The wars were condensed into a very short period, over a very small area. Could it be the complexity of them, the tactics, the reasons for them or the results of them that are so gripping? Or perhaps it’s the astounding bravery that was displayed: five VC’s were awarded at Rorke’s Drift alone.

But, in actual fact, I’m involved on a very personal level: my great-grandfather died at the Battle of Isandlwana. His name, Charles White, is on the memorial at Isandlwana. Somewhere, under one of the cairns – a pile of white stones – or scattered on the battlefield lie his remains. He left behind a family and dependents in Natal: seven children and a pregnant wife. Mr Kipling was wrong; there is very little glory in war.

Lucy
lucyannwhite@googlemail.com

Mark Rothko

2009-01-17T00:55:00.007Z

Tate Modern is the perfect place for the Mark Rothko exhibition that's on at the moment: it's awesome, large, dark red with strong lines. Just like most of Rothko’s later paintings. For years his murals have hung in the Tate but for the first time his late series of paintings are on show.

In 1958 Rothko was commissioned to paint some murals for the Four Seasons restaurant in Mies van der Rohe’s (of 'less is more' fame) stunning Seagram skyscraper in New York. But the paintings Rothko produced were not the colourful pieces of his previous works: they were dark. Layer upon layer of red, of black and, finally, brown and grey. Nothing is flat, varying tones and intensities give the finished works a luminosity and depth you wouldn’t think possible in such dark canvases.

Rothko never completed the commission. The story is that he felt they were works that should be seen by the ordinary man, not simply rich diners: that the space in the restaurant was too cramped for his vision of their hanging. This may well be true but I think these abstract works also show us a man who was not happy. He killed himself in 1970 as the first of his works arrived at the Tate.

Rothko’s death brought his works back to the attention of the art world: a whole new interest in his latest works grew. Rothko had wanted his works to create a sense of place. And hanging together as they do in the central room of the exhibition they certainly do. They are brooding, magnificent, deep and, well, kind of melancholy.

He had felt that the works should be looked at close up – as close as 18 inches from the surface – and I tried it. I’m sure other visitors – who quite sensibly stood well back as one would expect to be in order to see the whole canvas – thought I was short sighted, mad or both. But it gave me the feeling that I was really entering the painting. Like a dark cave. A doorway. That close you can see the built up layers of colour and feel that there is something more there. Something to ponder.

Rothko’s earlier paintings had used glorious exuberant colour. Specialists have researched the materials he has used for these Seagram murals by putting ultra-violet light behind them. The results show the layering of colours that have made up the finished canvas. The back-lit examples are absolutely stunning in their vibrant colour, wonderful shading and clarity. It’s difficult to believe that these are the basis for the Seagram murals.

I used to see Rothko’s paintings as landscapes (I suppose that’s an occupational hazard). But many of these later works are very similar, the only difference a change in the level of the horizon. And that change in level alters ones perception. Just as the subtle changes in colour do. Now, I think, the paintings are to make the spectator do just that: think.

There’s a great photo of Rothko sitting in his chair just contemplating his canvas. Is he thinking ‘What do I need to do: to add, to detract” or is he just sitting there meditating, monk-like, wondering what is in there. In that deep fathomless, bottomless, colour and shape. I suspect that he is: he’s thinking about life, the world, the universe and everything.

And I guess if his murals make us stop, and think deeply about these imponderables too, then that has to be a good thing in this too-busy-to-stop, no-time-to-do-it, running-late world we all inhabit.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Simone de Beauvoir and Rachida Dati : a co-incidental pair.

2009-01-11T23:08:00.010Z

Co-incidence is a funny old thing: when it happens we think it is magical but I suppose – if you are a mathematician – it is only a matter of odds. For example, here’s my latest little co-incidence. Years after struggling with Simone de Beauvoir’s dense book, The Second Sex, I found a slim volume of hers on my bookshelf that I had never read (put off, no doubt, by the earlier struggle).

Well, I picked up A Very Easy Death – possibly had the subject on my mind as the anniversary of my father’s death is about to be - and a very easy read it turned out to be. Quite unassuming and virtually without incident – if you don’t count the death of her mother– it raised subtle questions about relationships with ones parents that gave me pause for thought.

Then blow me down, only a few pages off finishing it I hear a Radio 4 programme all about Simone de Beauvoir: 2009 is the 60th anniversary of the publication of The Second Sex. The gist of the message enshrined in its pages is that women are not simply adjuncts to men.

Now, this might be assumed as quite obviously the case today, but SdB (somehow it’s inconceivable to call her Simone) was from a bourgeois Catholic background, living in a period – in France – when a woman’s place was definitely in the home and her time fully for the benefit of her husband.

She was against obligatory motherhood, advised women not to live solely as a housewife and, in the book, described women’s sexuality: her views caused, as you might expect, quite a stir. SdB had enrolled herself at the Sorbonne and studied philosophy: here she met Jean-Paul Sartre and their passionate partnership – and intellectual harmony - lasted for decades. SdB, like Sartre, espoused personal freedom and this included their sexual life.

She was at the time - and has been since – labelled a feminist by some, not a true feminist by others. On the one hand she felt strongly that “one is not born a woman, one becomes one” (a winner with the feminist and nurture-not-nature view). On the other, she was a victim of all those emotions (jealousy being one) that women fall prey to whatever their views: she was hurt by Sarte’s sexual affairs. Nevertheless, in spite occasional forays into other men’s beds, she was always ‘his woman’. Not a winner with the full-on feminists.

But SdB’s feminism was always – in its simplest form - towards gender equality. Now, here’s another co-incidence: 60 years on. In the press this week we were treated to the headline news that Rachida Dati, the unmarried French Justice Minister, has returned to work only five days after giving birth to her daughter.

She has since been alternatively praised and pilloried: the feminists argue that she is just acting like any one of her bread-winning, ambitious male colleagues and why not. The opposite camp argue that she has not done any favours for her gender: that her decision is not only an unnatural action but one that puts at risk their hard fought-for maternity leave.

Now, I’ll come clean: from choice I stopped work to have my children and did not consider the role to be second-class. Indeed, I considered myself lucky to be able to make that choice, not least because I had a husband to pay the mortgage. Unlike the unmarried, un-partnered, Ms Dati. Surely, she is just a very modern Simone de Beauvoir: gender equality is her aim and personal freedom her choice.

Lucy
lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

PS Having enjoyed A Very Easy Death I have now dug out (you can see how old the books are by the covers!)the two volumes of Simone de Beauvoir's autobiography. The titles are challenging in themselves.

Jack Frost

2008-12-30T23:58:00.005Z

Only a week ago I was collecting holly to deck my boughs, humming a cheerful carol - “The holly and the ivy, when they are both full grown,” – and thinking how lovely everything looked in the sunshine.

And now I’m freezing! Too smug, we’ve been punished by the spirits with a toe numbing blast of cold weather. Just in time to see the old year out, or the new one in, depending on your perspective. But there is up side to the frost: everything in the garden looks so magical - chillingly beautiful.

I pull the bedroom curtains and there below me is an alien vision – every single element is frosted white: the trees, the shrubs, grass, plants and climbers. The deciduous trees are the most eye catching at first glance, bare branches silhouetted and dramatic.

The garden is – not to sound too corny – a winter wonderland. I can see where those Hollywood visions of winter landscapes come from now. They always look confected to me but now, as I look outside, I can see that they are based on fact. The garden is straight out of a fairytale.

Later, on closer inspection, every element has been transformed. Ivy leaves have silvery glass edging like sugar frosting. Each leaf stands out in relief, no longer one of many but each a tiny work of art. Their veins – hardly noticed when glossy green was the over-riding effect – appear more pronounced, a fine filigree.

And the bright green that was the Arbutus tree of last week now has what appears to be tiny glass bead decoration. The ‘green’ of the garden has been transformed by Jack Frost, the winter painter and decorator.

A corkscrew hazel – always an interesting outline – is even more charming than usual. The leafless branches stand out against the sky and the catkins that hang from them remind me of twinkling Christmas fairy lights.

The old stone ball – long ago toppled from some grand entrance pillar – looks like it’s been given the designer treatment. The moss that grows on the crumbly parts of it is more defined, more textured. It’s taken on the aspect of crusted moonscape and is eerily attractive.

And look, on an old pane of glass (that has no right to be propped up against the garden room wall) has had the Jack Frost treatment. Fern-like outlines and curling, curving shapes make a most beautiful decoration on it – there is little that can improve on nature.

I look, I admire, but then – the veritable wimp – I slink inside for a nice hot cup of tea. Beauty can give a frosty reception and be a cold companion. And so from the comfort of the fireside I appreciate Jack Frost but hope that he’s off to cast his spell elsewhere tomorrow.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Christmas restoration

2008-12-24T00:47:00.007Z

Today it’s Christmas Eve: as usual chaos reigns everywhere. The roads are choked with traffic, airports are frantic, the towns are packed with shoppers and people throughout the land are wondering if they will get everything done in time for Christmas morning. Then, in a flash, it’s all over.

It’s at times like these when a break outside - a breath of fresh air - is a restorative exercise. Go out and look at our beautiful countryside, soak up that superlative view or study a perfect flower: the simplicity of nature does help us get things into perspective. Christmas will be here tomorrow, gone the day after. The landscape is here to stay.

Yes, how I should hate to be without my own garden: my very own green space, even in winter. It is escape. But it needs to be nurtured to provide what I want from it. I like informal planting held in check with a firm structure: there must be plenty of food for wild life, mature trees and scented shrubs. I like the odd sculpture to juxtapose with the living landscape and strong axes.

I don’t need flowers every month of the year but I do like contrasts in foliage, both in colour and form. And I hate a sparse winter garden and bare earth. Evergreens are feature I think it essential to include in the English garden. It would be very bare without. Clipped shrubs are a particular favourite. They give a crisp outline, a foil for lush, overblown perennials. And in winter they really come into their own, strong geometric shapes in the cold winter light. Snow sprinkled sculptures in the bitterest weather.

Berries and winter flowering shrubs can also make a dramatic statement in these cold winter days. The bright yellow and architectural form of the mahonia is one of my favourite winter shrubs: the vivid berries of the pyracantha a cheerful addition. And one of the most attractive at the moment is the strawberry tree – Arbutus unedo – with its pretty little fruits hanging off the branches.

And I’m feeling as pressured as everyone else so I’m off out into the garden to chop down some ivy. Nothing quite like a little controlled destruction. If I can find some ivy with fruiting bodies that will be perfect for my mantelpiece. Long strands will look pretty draped over picture frames and a big bunch looks great just stuffed in an old bucket. And if I’m very lucky I might find some holly with berries that the birds have missed.

Hopefully, when I’ve had time to slow down, when I’ve brought a little green inside, I shall feel better. Not quite at one with nature, not quite divorced from the crazy tasks we set ourselves at times like these, but definitely a little restored. Ready to enjoy a very merry Christmas.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Gweilo, A memoir of a Hong Kong childhood

2008-12-13T18:40:00.003Z

Martin Booth's autobiography, Gweilo, was written at the end of his life and covers three years of his young life in Hong Kong. For research, he relied on memory and a scrap book as well as visits to Hong Kong as an adult.

Not that this is a problem, but the groupie who chose and presented Gweilo probably had a lack of objectivity with regard to this autobiography: as a child she too had travelled on a liner on her way to an exotic new life abroad. She too had been allowed an enormous amount of freedom, of the sort that parents today would shudder at the thought of. So many of the experiences in this autobiography echoed those of her own childhood.

But she chose the book because she felt we would all enjoy it. And we did: it’s an easy and enjoyable enough read. Another of our group has lived in Hong Kong and was delighted with Booth’s descriptions of places. And for those of us who have only visited it is also possible to recognize many of the places that crop up in the book. There is an authenticity to the descriptions of Hong Kong: the places totally believable and colourful.

Many of the stories recounted in the memoir must be apocryphal – they feel it anyway – and quite obviously he could not possibly recall the conversations he writes about. But this brings us to the whole question of ‘what is memoir?’ In his case it is a construct: a reconstruction of a period (1940’s/50’s), its mores, the culture of Hong Kong, its atmosphere and family relationships.

The style of the autobiography is a bit of a hybrid: it veers between travelogue and memoir. He may have chosen style this to beef up the landscape and life in Hong Kong for his readers. I understand that in his other novels he includes facts for the reader so perhaps this is just his way.

I’m aware too, from my father’s descriptions, that Booth’s depiction of the boat journey across the oceans was spot on. And he conveys very well the sense of freedom that all children in the Colonies (and in Britain at that time) enjoyed. His descriptions of places in Hong Kong are colourful and lively, and he manages to get across the magic and excitement of his childhood there.

And Booth captures the moment too: there is a description of his visit to an opium den in the Forbidden City that is an experience that could never happen now. As such it encapsulates a period in the history of Hong Kong that is quite unique. Being British, and in the Services, gave those who were posted there an elevated sense of their own importance and this was true of his father.

His father may well have been pompous and a bully but the one thing in the book that I did not like was his biased portrayal of him. The young Booth was totally in thrall to his mother: she was his hero. His mother was Peter Pan, his father Captain Hook. He admired her - and not without reason - as he portrays her as a woman ahead of her time. But, like many war-time babies, he had spent his early years alone with his mother, his father’s return an unwelcome one.

He shows us a mother who derided her husband, and championed her son. And his character assassination of his father sits uncomfortably on the page. I should have hoped that at stage he wrote the book, and having experienced fatherhood himself, he might have shown us a little more insight into their relationship or at least let the reader make up their own mind about his parents and their relationships.

Gweilo is, after all, as much a book about his parent’s marriage as about his childhood exploits in Hong Kong. As such it captures the time perfectly, as well as the excitement of a childhood spent in an outpost of the British Empire. A good book to buy if you’re planning to visit Hong Kong or want to reminisce about your time spent there.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Byzantium

2008-11-30T18:54:00.003Z

Byzantium, such a lovely word: conjures up pictures of a mystical east. We imagine the riches of Constantinople and a great empire. We’re reminded of the amazing architectural and artistic heritage of the period.

The exhibition at the Royal Academy in London reinforces all this. And, with a plethora of icons and other saintly images (and much gold leaf into the bargain), it’s likely to put you in a very Christmassy mood.

I guess, in the 5th century - aeons before TV and advertising - the gold leaf and images did a very good job. The murals and mosaics told particularly good stories pictorially speaking. And, by all accounts, they convinced worshippers that there were riches awaiting them in heaven.

Icons and illuminated manuscripts had one up on these, in my estimation, because they could be carried around. The former were to worship visually, the second possibly read whilst waiting for the next camel train. Either way, they sure beat a glossy magazine and a grubby paperback. But, of course, you don’t have to be so rich to afford these modern day messages. But then nor do they inspire us to higher things, only more consumerism.

One of the most interesting conclusions that emerge form the exhibition is that there are only so many ways that specific religious events can be portrayed in an icon. It seems that the images of Christ, Mary and the Angel had to adhere to classic poses carried down over the centuries. Whether 5th century or 14th century icons, they had to stick to the story.

It’s an interesting fact that the figures in an icon were not meant to depict real people: they were flat, two dimensional, to be prayed in front of. They were meant to be inspirational. I loved the beauty of the icons but my Best Beloved, who thoroughly enjoyed the historical content of the show, found himself iconed-out by the end.

Although, to be fair, the show is not all icons: there is jewellery too, and household items and relics on display as well. One of them, the Antioch Chalice, was rediscovered 100 years ago. Since then it’s inspired several art forms: books and films based on searches for the Holy Grail. But, contrary to speculation, the chalice couldn’t have been the cup that Jesus drank from at the Last Supper as it actually dates from about 500AD. There you are, that just goes to show what advertising and a bit of hype can do.

It’s also obvious from the exhibits that Constantinople (Istanbul to us) was an amazing city. It was called the second Rome, but one halfway between the eastern and western cultures of the day. Their religion was neither Muslim nor Catholic, whilst the architecture drew on both. Think of vast square spaces, enormous domes and rich decoration.

Overall, you get the impression by the end of your visit that the Byzantines were a cosmopolitan lot. You have until 22 March to be dazzled and see for yourself.

The curse of agricultural sprays

2008-11-23T18:21:00.007Z

It’s all in the news: the ugly face of pesticides and herbicides. At last, farmers are being asked to watch where they spray all that stuff they say they need to make their crops grow. Maybe they do – some of it anyway – but not over all of us, please.

Last week a brave and determined young woman convinced the courts that the excess spray from a neighbouring farm has seriously damaged her health. It should be quite possible before spraying for farmers to give at least 24 (or preferably 48) hours notice that they are about to spray their crops in ones vicinity. At the moment, inconsiderate farmers are spraying next to homes, gardens, schools, playgrounds and parks without any notice.

The droplets are carried in the air and inhaled by all and sundry in the vicinity. Not to mention what it does to our gardens and wild life: it kills stuff off. Fortunately there are farmers who do care about their neighbours and wild life in general. They've reduced intensive farming methods and take care with their spraying whilst those who are organic, only spray with vegetable based products.

And many farmers who wish to increase wildlife on their land (possibly, in part, because they realise the un-sung benefit of it) have re-laid and maintain their mixed hedges. These allow wildlife to move from area to area and forage in safety. Other ‘wild life corridors’ are the uncultivated strips of land alongside field boundaries. Such bio-diverse habitats as these allow insects, birds and small mammals to thrive.

Farmers have been helped to encourage wildlife (whilst reducing food mountains) with ‘set- aside’. This was a EU policy that paid landowners to leave some fields fallow which allowed wild life to flourish on it. Unfortunately, the policy of set-aside has now come to an end and, with it, large areas of wildlife’s little larders and safe accommodation.

So it’s down to us gardeners as never before. Many of us already feed the birds in an effort to keep up their numbers whilst having the pleasure of watching them. And we fill our gardens with plants rich in seeds and berries, nuts and fruit.

But it’s the ‘wild’ side of gardening we need to embrace. Forget neat, embrace natural. Not so easy on a small plot, I grant, but even a tiny corner with a clump of nettles and brambles and the odd rotting log will do wonders for the wild life population. And benefit you too.

Many of our most beautiful butterflies need nettles to breed and ‘weeds’ such as comfrey encourage the bees. Finches will welcome the seeds left on the spent heads of perennials whilst larger birds appreciate fallen nuts and ivy leaves that harbour insects. Small mammals, like dormice, will welcome the blackberries that fruit on wild brambles and hedgehogs will be thankful for a cosy home under a blanket of leaves or a pile of old logs.

And if you want to spray your garden with a good natural feed then those clumps of nettles and leafy comfrey plants will come in handy. The leaves of both are compost activators: add them to your heaps and your compost will rot down much faster. Add the leaves of either to a large water butt and, a few months later, you’ll have the most nutrient rich liquid feed or spray that your plants could ask for. Now that’s what I call a friendly spray.

War Horse, by Michael Morpurgo

2008-11-09T17:20:00.006Z

It’s not often that one goes to the theatre and runs out of superlatives to describe a play. This is what happened to me last week. Our book group went to see War Horse, by Michael Morpurgo, which is on at the National Theatre, and we were blown away by the production.

Michael Morpurgo wrote the book, War Horse, for children and adults. He had wanted to write about the madness and carnage of the First World War (1914-1918) and the part that horses had played in it. And the sad fate that became most of the horses in France and Flanders.

The story is told through the eyes of a horse, Joey, who is reared on a Devon farm by a young farm lad, Albert. His father sells the horse to the army and Joey is shipped out to Belgium. There he plays his part in the war as a British cavalry horse that is captured by the Germans and used to pull guns and ambulances.

Albert joins up to find Joey but it seems that both he and Joey will meet a sticky end. However, in the style of all good fairytales, the baddies get their come uppence and everything comes right in the end. We had a group of eleven year olds in front of us and they were transfixed but the eighteen years old behind us (who fidgeted more!) were just as complimentary in their appreciation of the play.

The acting doesn’t stand out particularly but the adaptation and direction of the piece is excellent and the design of the set is absolutely stunning. The story moves very quickly from one scene to another and the devices used (lighting, videos, revolving stage, rolling or rising constructions) are brilliant. It is a visual treat that will hold the interest of not only children but theatre phobics too.

The horses are life size puppets made of jointed wire and steel made by the Handspring Puppet Company, a South African company of marionette makers. This makes sense to me because wire work animals and models are quite an art in Africa. The large puppets are manipulated internally and externally and the nuances, movements and character that the puppeteers manage to imbue them with during the performance is very clever. Their movements are so lifelike, subtle and moving that it is quite enthralling.

A war artist sketches during some of the scenes and moving images are projected on to the backdrop that are reminiscent us of the work of the First World War artists such as Paul Nash. Poems and songs in the play remind us of the First World War poets too. My blog of 11 November 2007 covered the poetry and prose relating to the war: if you like Vera Brittain, AE Houseman etc then just go to the archive for 2007 on your right to read the blog about them. War Horse was particularly moving for us as it was so close to Remembrance Day.

Morpurgo has written over 100 stories, most of them for children, several of which have been made into films. I haven't read any of them but I shall also now read his novel, A Wide Wide Sea. This book is also aimed at children and adults, the story inspired by the fate of the children shipped out to Australia after the Second World War, and the neglect and abuse some of them suffered. The novel is very well thought of and I shall read it as soon as I have the time. But first I shall read War Horse: the play was a real inspiration. We need to be reminded that war ravages not only countries and cultures but every living thing.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com