Shopping with Mother

Sometimes when I think about shopping with my mother

 it is as if I am cast back a hundred years.

We traipsed from shop to shop:

 chemist, butcher, greengrocer, 

baker, fishmonger, newsagent, grocer

with arms lengthening by the yard.

The chemist was exactly as Martin Armstrong describes

in his poem Miss Thompson Goes Shopping,for it had, 
'The tall, big bellied bottles three -

red, blue, and emerald, richly bright

Each with its burning core of light.'

high in the window.

And when you opened the door you were assailed

by 'the old strange fragrance...

A fragrance like the garden pink,

But tinged with vague medicinal stink

Of camphor, soap, new sponges, blent

With chloroform and violet scent.'

The butcher was a protracted visit involving two queues, 

one to wait for the meat to be hacked

 with a cleaver from the carcass,

the other to pay the woman at the barred cash desk.
You could entertain yourself with a little sawdust shuffling.

The greengrocer, more outdoors than in,

was chilly and boring,
who cared about carrots?

The baker offered an occasional chance to choose 
an anaemic white bun with a slick of white or pink icing.

The fondant peeled off like a tongue 
and it was tempting to eat it all in one go, 
but the rest of the bun was as dry as blotting paper without it.

If the greengrocer was cold then the fishmonger was glacial.

I hoped it wasn't to be kippers.

The newsagent was also the tobacconist and confectioners'.

One of my earliest errands was to fetch Red Rizla papers

for my father's roll ups. 

Goodness that man could smoke.

Pipes, chiefly, but the Rizla machine

was never far from his side.

If he ran out he would grudgingly accept 

one of my mother's cigarettes.

They didn't illustrate that in Shopping With Mother.

Sweets were bought on Sundays after church.

6d worth of pineapple chunks, flying saucers,

Fruit Gums, Fruit Pastilles, chocolate eclairs,

Spangles, Tiffin bars, Turkish Delight.

The grocer was sometimes O'Brien's down the road,

(although he would send the Monday telephoned order up

 with a boy called Michael on his bike) but usually 

it was Sainsbury's up the road in its original incarnation -

chin height marble counters and repeated queues

as you worked your way slowly round the mosaic tiled floor for

a slab of Cheddar, a box of Weetabix,

sliced ham, jam, washing powder.

We had no car to collapse into,
but a long wait for the trolley bus 

which did not drop us anywhere near our house.

I marvel at 'mother's' smiling face and sprightly step.

Her tiny basket must weigh a ton by now.

Shopping with Mother by M.E. Gagg
illustrated by J.H.Wingfield
for Ladybird Books 1958.

Extra

February 29

Odd, waif-like Day, the changeling of

Man's 'time' unreckoned in his years;

The moon already shows above

Thy fickle sleet - now tears!

As brief thy stay has been as though

Next Spring might seal our tryst again.

Alas, fall must four winters' snow

Ere you come back. And then?

I love thy timid aconite,

Crocus, and scilla's deep- sea blue;

Hark, too, that rainbird, out of sight,

Mocking the woodland through!

But see, it's evening in the west:

Tranquil, withdrawn, aloof, devout.

Soon will the darkness drape your breast,

And midnight shut you out!...

Sweet February Twenty Nine!-

This is our grace-year, as I live!

Quick now! this foolish heart of mine:

Seize thy prerogative!

Evening in the west has passed

And darkness wrapped me round

I didn't seize the day alas,

For to the house was bound.

I waited in from Two 'til Nine!-

At John Lewis' bidding,

There was an ancient wash machine

I needed to be ridding.

But stay! Twas not all squander'd though,

I planted up my seed trays,

With myriad herbs and flowers to grow

In coming grace-filled spring days!

With apologies to Walter de la Mare.

Another tree ring

Happy Birthday 

from one old fossil

to another.

May these few pictures be a happy reminder

of another day we've shared,

stepping from rock to rock,

walking on smooth sand,

and occasionally getting our feet wet.

Sugaring time

At about this time of year

I am seized with an acute but futile longing

to start sugarin'.

See here and here.

I have known exactly what to do

since 1966 when I first read Pa's instructions

in Little House in the Big Woods.*

You need wooden buckets and little troughs
 made from cedar and white ash

'for those woods won't give a bad taste to the maple syrup.'

To make the troughs, split out little sticks as long as your hand

 and as big as your two fingers.

Near the end cut the stick half through, 

and split one half off.

Then you'll have a flat stick, with a square piece at one end. 

Drill a hole with a bit lengthwise through the square part, 

then whittle the wood until it is only a thin shell round the hole.

Hollow out the flat part until it is a little trough.

You make dozens of these, and ten new buckets,

then you'll have them all ready 

for when the first warm weather comes 

and the sap begins to move in the trees.

Go into the maple woods and bore a hole in each tree,

hammer the the round end of the little trough into the hole,

and set a cedar bucket on the ground under the flat end.

Every day you empty the sap from the buckets into the barrel.

Empty the sap into the iron kettle.

Light a big bonfire underneath it and boil the sap.

Skim the sap with a big long-handled wooden ladle

made of basswood. 

Lift and cool the sap in the ladle if it gets too hot.

The instant the sap is graining, rake the fire 

out from beneath the kettle

and as fast as you can ladle the thick syrup

into the milk pans where it will turn to cakes

of hard brown maple sugar.

The best bit comes in the next chapter, 

when you go to the dance at Grandpa's and you 

pour hot syrup onto plates of snow and eat it

as it cools into soft candy.

'They could eat all they wanted,

for maple sugar never hurt anybody.'

* by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Pep talk

If you have been waking at 4.30 am

and as a result are feeling rather zonked,

may I recommend the following tonic:

Dry roast a teaspoon of coriander seeds

with a teaspoon of cumin seeds

in a small metal pan.

Grind in a pestle and mortar

and inhale.

(No, not like snuff.)

So that it doesn't go to waste, add it to some pumpkin soup

which will be a necessary restorative later in the day

when you have no energy left for cooking.

Additionally you might plonk a vase of daffodils

in a sunny patch on the hall floor,

and take a photo of it

to admire when the sun has disappeared

and with it the remainder of your life force.

As a final fillip, order a packet of wildflower mix from
Sarah Raven and then when you waken at 4.30 the next day
imagine being lulled back to sleep
by the sound of humming insects and buzzing bees
in your two metre square meadow.

See also this interesting article suggested by Arthur Ransome.

Farewell

faithful steed.

After seventeen years

and the equivalent of three trips 

round the Earth's circumference,

it was time to let him go.

Not to the knacker's yard though.

He has gone to a rather unusual garage,

(which appropriately enough used to be a stable)

to be lent to visiting missionaries from 
Darjeeling, Papua New Guinea, Siberia, 
Zambia or Antarctica.

Prepare to repel boarders

I'm growing weary of the default setting:

think the worst, it will probably happen,

defend yourself against it at all times.

The burglar permanently stationed near my door,

waiting for the day when I do not 

set the alarm and double lock the door.

(Your insurance will be invalidated.)

The identity thief, keen to sift through my recycling bin

for the one document that may have included 

a vital piece of personal data,

not shredded.

(Your bank account will be emptied.)

The parking attendant gleefully pouncing on my car 

with a ticket for a one minute overstay in a free parking slot.

(Rush back or that will be £60 please.)

Yesterday my mind went blank 

when asked to present my pin number at the checkout.

(Three wrong attempts and your card will be cancelled.)

And now, the hideous hoops that bloggers must jump through

in order to leave a benign comment.

I didn't switch to the new Blogger interface,

so perhaps you are not faced with an illegible string

of skew whiff reversed out letters.

Word verification used to be quite fun,

but not anymore.

Apparently the robots have learnt to read,

and so humans must play catch up.

Well I am throwing caution to the winds.

I'm taking word verification off,

and I'll moderate the little monsters myself.

Matt Daily Telegraph 27/7/2011

Short shelf life

I hope I sold a few of these today.

I've just had to buy a new washing machine.

Running

Went to the park for a run
for the first time after a long break,

channelling my inner Ueli Steck.

Gleanings

I was so pleased to see a pair of these

busy in our garden.

Too busy for me to catch on camera,

so this image is from the RSPB website.

A first sighting for me, they look like a patchwork bird.

As I tried to identify them, flitting at some distance,

in and out of view,

 I thought Thrush?

Huge sparrow? Redwing? Cuckoo?

But they are Fieldfares and apparently they visit town gardens

during a severe winter when the countryside is under snow.

They were feeding on our pyracantha berries.

JofIndia posted this picture 

taken in the Wayanad hills, Kerala.

I used to make, and sometimes sell,

pictures using layers of tissue paper,

a technique called marouflage,

although I think that originally referred to canvas stuck to walls.

This picture made me want to pick it up again.

And finally this:

'The grand essentials of happiness are 

something to do

something to love

and something to hope for.'

Left by Belinda here, and a reminder of this song,

which my boys learnt at school.

Bringing the spring indoors

In war-time more than any other time we need

the brightness of flowers around us,

especially spring flowers with their promise of

new hope and new life.

No doubt you are not content to buy an odd bunch of flowers 

and stick them haphazardly around the room.

(Perish the thought!)

What an opportunity spring flowers give us

of finding new arrangements that enchant the eye 

and cheer the spirit.

Get four or five common brown oven-ware dishes,

(Bother - I only have the superior sort)

fill them with stones and completely

cover them with freshly picked moss.

These make the foundations which you can use

time after time.

(This is fortunate as our lawn is entirely moss now.)

Each is like a round green cushion which

you can embroider with different colour flowers

like some beautiful piece of stitchery.

one can be patterned with purple and yellow crocus,

another with scillas or chionodoxa,

another with primroses and violets.

Over the top of some of your cushions

gently arch a spray of catkins.

A narrow drift of spring flowers

along the top of a sideboard or bookcase

is another novelty.

Begin with a fairly large open vase

holding branches of blackthorn, catkins

and sturdy outdoor daffodils.

Graduate this to four of five shallow dishes

containing shorter stemmed flowers like

hyacinths, or pheasant eye narcissus;

thence to polyanthus and other small blooms.

( I would like to use the word thence more often.)

A basket of flowers for the dinner or

luncheon table is a refreshing idea.

Stack a plain wicker basket with mimosa, anemones,

a bit of early lilac and a few short headed tulips.

Never be afraid to try out different flowers and shrubs together.
It's fashionable to mix them.

Tulips and flowering-currant are lovely together

in a plain pottery jar;

pink prunus with palm in a ginger-jar.

A round bowl is lovely massed with lilies of the valley

or white violets with a posy of purple violets in the centre.

Grape hyacinths are beautifully set off by a surround

of cabbage leaves. Yes - cabbage leaves!

Their blue green is perfect with the flowers.

Daffodils and their foliage look superb

in a copper urn with the spout facing the wall.

Pewter and zinc are just right for the dancing daffodils too.

That Victorian silver cake basket your mother gave you -

(an oversight on my mother's part I'm sure)

it makes a lovely centre-piece for the dining room table

crammed with tiny spring flowers, edged,

if you wish, with a prim lace d'oyley!

There is more, but I think this is plenty to be going on with.

The full article may be found in the April 1940 issue of

Available at all good stationers.
Get thee thence.

The Dig

The site.

The (very hardy) archaeologists.

 The plans.

The hole.

The medieval town wall?

Let's hope not,

because if it is,

we won't be getting our extension.

On the other hand,

we might get to be on this programme.

Snow country

Curlews.

 Buried wall.

Such stark beautiful scenery.
Like a Breugel painting.

We had to dig our car out this morning

but by the time we got back to the city

the snow was just dirty kerbside smudges.

The rainbows are back

Listening to this in the early early morning.

The past is a foreign country

I have started going through some of my papers.

Today, I burnt all my senior school reports.

I kept the junior school reports,

because things had been going swimmingly 

up until the transfer from a tiny Preparatory school with 60 pupils

to a grammar school with 600.

I sank without trace.

Being stared at by sheep

I am reminded of a childish diversion,

(from the days when there were only two television channels)

called 'Staring Out'.

It was quite simple.

You would simply assert,

whenever there was a slack moment,

'I bet I can stare you out.'

It worked best if you happened to be sitting opposite each other,

perhaps at the dinner table,

or on a train journey.

You then widened your eyes,

lowered your head

and stared.

If they blinked,

you shouted,'You blinked, you blinked.'

They would then hotly deny that they had

and the game would end with mutterings.

Holding your eyelids open was cheating.

In the above impromptu contest,

both sheep won.

Clippetty clop

The percussion of distant hooves on firm sand -

exactly like clapped coconut shells.

There's a young woman who knows a thing or two about horses
here.
You might want to go and wish her a happy birthday.