Springtime resolutions

Now is the time when the soot black twigs of London

and the polished brown ones of the country,

burst out, page-like, into rows of neat green buttons,

which later on become little plumes

or tufts of crinkled leaves;...

Now in fact, is the real New Year,

when all good resolutions ought to be made...

now,when the blood is rising like sap;

when irrational joy, the only safe kind,

threatens to burst your respectable waistcoat buttons;

when your feet, however prosaic your boots may look to others,

are wing-shod and scarcely touch the pavement...

The resolutions which you make in this mood are certain to be good ones,

and stand a very good chance of remaining unbroken.

They will be bold and strong, positive and constructive and adventurous.

From now on, you say, I am going to be as brave as a lion,

as firm as a rock, as kind as a dove, as active as an ant, as truthful as glass;

I will write a poem, paint a picture, compose a symphony, found a business, 

plant a tree, build a summerhouse, and repaper the dining room...

(These springtime resolutions) will provide some sort of answer

to the eternal question:

"What can one do about the spring?"

For something must be done, and soon,

or one will undoubtedly burst.*

See also here for Alicia's take on spring fever.

*Try Anything Twice - Jan Struther

Weeding

 I grasped a small three-pronged toasting fork

(for I have as yet no batterie de jardin)

planted one foot firmly on the lawn

and another gingerly in the middle of the bed,

bent down, and began to weed.

Four hours later I stopped, not from choice

but because Mrs Shoesmith wanted the toasting fork for luncheon.

As in many other affairs,

it is all a question of attitude.

I had not been weeding for five minutes, 

bent double like a pair of compasses with my head a foot from the ground,

before I became aware that my whole outlook on life was changing.

The mental and spiritual accidie which had been enveloping me

for nearly a year dropped off me like a cloak.

Problems which had seemed insoluble

laid their solutions ready-made at my feet with a neat flourish.

Situations which had seemed as unmanageable as rogue mules

crept up on their bellies and fawned.

Short stories whose characters had turned to wood,

essays which had refused to come to a point,

poems in which laboured craftsmanship had numbed and weakened

the original impact of beauty -

all these presented themselves to my inverted brain

in their finished form, masterly, unsmutched and point-device.

So uprooting grass and groundsel on my way,

I moved happily though inelegantly along;

and at every step the advantages of gardening 

became more and more clear to me.*

* Upside Down Reflections from a book of essays Try Anything Twice

Jan Struther, author of Mrs Miniver

Emergency Minivering

But this time, at any rate, she was safe.

There was the house,

as neat and friendly as ever,

facing her as she turned the corner of the square. . .

Except that the house has had at least one window

missing for every day of the last week.

And inside is far from neat and friendly,

because more than a century's worth

of grime, soot and brick dust

has been released into the house,

and deposited on every naked surface, 

meaning that,

'the feel of door handles and light-switches,

the shape and texture of the bannister-rail under one's palm;

minute tactile intimacies,

has mainly consisted of grit.

The key does not turn sweetly in the lock

because builders do not believe in closing doors

and prefer an unimpeded passage through the building site

which is what your home has become.

All the furniture is shifted from room to room as they progress

and I cannot at present access

my writing-table with the letters that have come for me this morning

or the

three new library books lying virginally on the fender stool

their bright paper wrappers unsullied by subscriber's hand.

So I did the only thing possible to mitigate this discomfort,

which I know to be only temporary

and ultimately a Good Thing

because we will have a warmer winter as a result of this work,

I bought three

chrysanthemums of the 

big mop-headed kind,

burgundy-coloured, (not quite)

with curled petals. . .

and if I can clear a path through the debris

I might even make myself a Miniver tea:

honey sandwiches, brandy snaps,

and small ratafia biscuits;

and there would, she knew, be crumpets.

 but if not I can at least listen to this,
the missing piece from Mrs Minver's jig-saw puzzle,

the familiar sound of the Wednesday barrel-organ,
playing with a hundred apocryphal trills and arpeggios,
the Blue Danube waltz.

There is no clock 
on the mantlepiece to chime

very softly and precisely, five times

but there is certainly

a sudden breeze bringing the sharp tang
of  a bonfire in at the (gaping) window

because my neighbour has purloined the old windows
to burn in his stove.

The joy of old age*

While Kondo-ing I found one of those little books,
so easy to give and briefly, quite amusing to receive at Christmas
but otherwise destined to languish in the loo or guest room.

It was a compilation of quotes under the title
Old is the New Young.

Some of them raised a wry smile
but not enough of a spark of joy to merit keeping.
Do any of these resonate?

Inside every older person is a younger person

wondering what the hell happened.

Cora Harvey Armstrong

(I certainly wonder what the hell 
happened between 50 and 60.)

You can't turn back the clock

but you can wind it up again.

Bonnie Prudden
I looked her up. She was a force to be reckoned with.
Use it or lose it is what I suppose she is saying.
Well I'm aching from today's Pilates class.

When they tell me I'm too old to do something,

I attempt it immediately.

Pablo Picasso

The key to successful ageing is

to pay as little attention to it as possible.

Judith Regan

alternatively

I don't plan to grow old gracefully. 
I plan to have facelifts until my ears meet.

Rita Rudner

The older I get, the older old is.

Tom Baker

To me, old age is always 15 years

older than I am.

Bernard Baruch

Forty is the old age of youth;

fifty the youth of old age.

Victor Hugo.

I do wish I could tell you my age but

it's impossible.

It keeps changing all the time.

Greer Garson

I refuse to admit that I am more than 52,

even if that makes my children illegitimate.

Nancy Astor

Eventually you will reach a point

when you stop lying about your age

and start bragging about it.

Will Rogers

All would live long,

but none would be old.

Benjamin Franklin

Old age aint no place for sissies.

Bette Davis

Interviewer:

To what do you attribute your advanced age?

Sir Malcolm Sargent:

Well, I suppose I must attribute it 

to the fact that I have not died.

Exercise daily. Eat wisely.

Die Anyway.

Anonymous

Seize the moment.

Remember all those women on the Titanic who

waved off the dessert cart.

Erma Bombeck

My only regret in life is

that I didn't drink more champagne.

John Maynard Keynes

* See also Oliver Sacks here

Through leaves 2

This autumn may not have boasted
the finest display of flaming colours
in this neck of the woods,

but there's never been a better year

for soft shoe shuffling through leaves.

Shop later

Every year the same thing happened.

At the beginning of November she made up her mind that this time,

for once, she would get her Christmas shopping done early.

She went as far as writing a list - and there,

for several weeks, the matter rested.

At intervals she tried to pretend that

Christmas Day fell on the 5th of December,

or, alternatively, that all her friends lived in South Africa

and that she had to catch an early mail;

but it was no use.

The feeling of temporal urgency cannot be artificially produced,

any more than the feeling of financial distress.

And Mrs Miniver might well have added,

that while the sun shone warmly and chrysanthemums 

and geraniums still bloomed,

it was impossible to feel in the least bit Christmassy.

Conditioned as we are to expect sparkly chilled air

and a real possibility of snow,

feelings of meteorological appropriateness to the season

are vital for the accomplishment of early Christmas shopping.

A lucky find

I can never find the big mop-headed burgundy-coloured 

with curled petals chrysanthemums that

 Mrs Miniver brings home so triumphantly,

so when I saw these lovely physalis

crushed against some park railings,

I knew what I had to do.

It was only a matter of minutes,

and I had a cornucopia of my own.

So lucky that the florist had a lovely spray for £1.50.

On the river

It had been a lovely afternoon, thought Mrs Miniver

as they moved smoothly downstream between the low green banks.

In most parts of England this was the season of the year

that she liked least - this ripe, sultry time

when the trees were no longer jade but malachite,

and the hedges looked almost black against the parched fields...

Summer was bathos, dégringolade:

one waited longingly for autumn,

which would bring back colour and magic.

But in this sort of landscape,

high summer was the perfect time.

Here, the grass of the water meadows was fresh, cool, and green;

the steady onward sweep of the river,

the quivering reflections in its depths

and the play of light on it surface,

gave movement and variety ...

Even the rank and ramping vegetation of summer

(such a come-down, in most places,

after the delicate miraculous experiments of spring)

seemed here to be superbly appropriate,

like large jewellery on a fine, bold, handsome woman.

Down by the water's edge there were coarse clumps

of comfrey and fig-wort,

hemp agrimony and giant dock;
on the banks, a tangle of vetch and convolvulous,

moon daisies, yarrow, and bedstraw;

while from higher up still came 

the heavy, heady sweetness of elder flowers.

Comfrey from Flowers of Marsh & Stream
King Penguin by Iolo A. Williams

Moon daisies in my British Wildflower picture card collection 

with its illustrations by C.F Tunnicliffe R.A  issued in 1964 and

'offered in the interests of education and wildlife conservation'

by Brooke Bond Tea.

Delving into a packet of fragrant loose leaf tea for the newest card

is a delight lost to present day children.

I had thirty-four of the fifty cards needed to complete the album.

Convolvulous from
Flower Fairies of the Wayside by Cicely Mary Barker


Extract from Mrs Miniver by Jan Struther.

So now it's June

Keep up!


It'll be Mrs Miniver and her bunch of chrysanthemums
before we know it.

Walking on

'Sentries and cardboard shields: parallel gestures,

it seemed, in a world of bombing planes and motor traffic.

But perhaps the making of the gesture was what mattered.

She pulled herself together and walked on.'

From The First Day of Spring by Jan Struther.

On being able to accept that 

you are unable to right all the world's ills

but that you must do what you feel you can

and then walk on.

Another stray coin

The best of England, thought Mrs Miniver,

as opposed to countries with reasonable climates,

is that it is not only once a year that you can say,

"This is the first day of spring."

Today was one of those days

when the sun shone a little more warmly,

the birds sang a little more sweetly

and even the garden of doom 

had snowdrops and crocuses

to show off.

While it lasted that day had been part of 

the authentic currency of spring -

a stray coin tossed down carelessly on account.

The List

Every year the same thing happened.

At the beginning of November she made up her mind that this time,

for once, she would get her Christmas shopping done early.

She went as far as writing out a list - and there,

for several weeks, the matter rested.

At intervals she tried to pretend that Christmas Day 
fell on the 5th of December,

or, alternatively, that all her friends

and relations lived in South Africa

and that she had to catch an early mail;

but it was no use.

The feeling of temporal urgency cannot be artificially  reproduced,

any more than the feeling of financial distress...

Mrs Miniver knew perfectly well that Christmas 
was not until the 25th December,

and that all the people on her list lived in England.

From Mrs Miniver by Jan Struther

I remember when a Christmas list looked like this:

 bath salts

 handkerchiefs

pipe cleaners

 Black Magic chocolates

Princess Annual

notelets

rubber

*felt comb case*

*knit scarf*

 talcum powder

Everything could be bought on one exciting 

 dark, wet, shopping expedition

to Boots, W.H. Smith and Woolworth's 

and nothing had to be posted anywhere,

it just had to be well hidden in your bedroom,

(moved and hidden again,)

ready for wrapping on Christmas Eve.

How late do you leave it?