Kathleen Jones's Blog, page 47

Wanted - Pied Piper with CRB Certificate (oh and an electrician......)

I returned to the Mill late on Tuesday night to find that over the Christmas period it had turned into Hamelin!  The river has been constantly high for weeks and the rats outside in the river bank and the garden have been driven indoors.  They had climbed up from the mill race and chewed their way through a wall (and the electricity cable) to gain access to more comfortable winter quarters.

My first instincts (after thinking 'I bet this doesn't happen to Joanna Trollope') were to scream and flee the premises never to return - but I settled for a good cry.  I'm a farmer's daughter - farm rats were a part of our lives throughout my childhood.  And anyway, I'm a WRITER dammit!!

When you think of the internal demons of our darkest imagination which, as writers, we confront daily, what is a paltry rat by comparison?

The following day I headed for town and returned armed with 3 different kinds of poison and several sonic repellants are arriving by post, so hopefully Mr and Mrs R. are either turning up their toes or moving house (please!) at this very moment.

Could definitely do with a piper though - pied or otherwise, though I think, given his record with children, he'd better come properly vetted with the appropriate certificate from the Criminal Records Bureau - if writers have to have to them, pied pipers most definitely should!

Happy Birthday, Norman Nicholson! 100 years old today.

Norman Nicholson would have been one hundred years old today.  Born in Millom, Cumbria on the 8th January 1914, at No 14 St. George's Terrace he lived in the same house for the whole of his life, writing some of his most beautiful poetry in the attic room he used as his bedroom.

Walking along the old sea wall at Hodbarrow, Millom, looking at the scarred landscape where the iron ore mines and the iron works used to be,  I wrote this poem for Norman, who also used to walk this way.  He wrote a poem about the Bee Orchid that grows here, as well as other wild life and the estuary view also features in many of his most famous poems.  Happy Birthday Norman!

Revisiting the Bee Orchid(for Norman Nicholson)

The marram grass seethes along the dunes
and the bee orchid (intent on repro-
duction) does not remember the poet.
It is rooted in silica, slag, iron,
particles of radioactive dust
(deeper and more of it than he knew)
drifting in against a spine of ore,
a fractured red, pointing the seam,
out to sea.
The poisoned sand*
looks clean, rinsed by the long, Atlantic
tides.  My feet are electrified
in the shallows and small phosphorescent
crabs glow in the shadow of the rock that
Norman based his life on, rooted in the cracks.

The magnetic ore swings in my pocket
like a pendulum and estuary sand
makes a desert of the sea’s horizon.
Land and water, water and land repeat
where past and future meet at a margin
neither human nor divine.  His whole belief
was in the cycles of creation, and an order -
not a random universe where evolution’s
joker calls the tricks
and every species
has to thrive and breed, except himself.
Observer; lacking healthy lungs to breathe the salt
air, stranger to passion, isolated in his attic room,
the window framing glimpses of the universe
it closed out, the unclimbable bulk of Black Combe.

© Kathleen Jones

* This coast was the scene of one of the world's biggest nuclear accidents in 1957 when the Windscale reactor caught fire. Norman wrote a poem to mark the event. 
Norman Nicholson:  The Whispering Poet is on offer at Amazon for the week of the poet's birthday.  £1.99 Kindle edition, £8.50 paper edition. 

La Befana - the Italian Witch of Epiphany

On the Twelfth day of Christmas.....  came the Witch!It's Epiphany today - the 12th night of Christmas.  In Italy on Epifania, it's the night the witch flies. She's called La Befana and she brings sweets to good children and leaves charcoal for the naughty ones!  In most of the villages they still have a Befana ceremony, a small party for the children, and they sing the Befana song, which has a haunting, eastern european sound to it.  Much of it has to be pagan in origin, perhaps Baba Yaga fused with the three kings who came on the 6th of Jan bearing gifts.



Today, in Pieve, the little village below us, the Befana came with two of her friends and two ponies loaded with gifts in wicker panniers.  The three witches danced and handed out biscuits, oranges and sweets to the children.

The Befana choir and musiciansThe village choir and church musicians played the Befana tune on the steps of the church.

It was all great fun, but marks the end of Christmas.  They've had a competition in town to see who could decorate the best tree with rubbish.  The winner was beautifully hung with bells and streamers made from blue and white plastic bottles, all painted intricately in blue, white and silver.  Very pretty, and a good idea for next year!





Tonight at 3am this particular witch is on a Ryanair flight to London, then on about 5 trains to the north of England, for Norman Nicholson's 100th birthday party in Carlisle Library.  The weather forecast is terrible over there - hope I make it in time!

New Year Thoughts

I don't do New Year Resolutions, but pinning up a new calendar seems to generate a bit of reflection automatically.  The first few days of the new year always find me doing a bit of summing up - school report time. What were the high points of last year?  What didn’t go so well?  What do I need to do better?

Walking the dog at PeraltaI’ve just had a blissful Christmas and New Year in Italy, in a borrowed house, with two of my daughters, one son-in-law and five grandchildren.  We cooked, talked, had a few (well, maybe more than a few!) glasses of wine, Skyped absent members of the family, took turns to jiggle the baby, watched children’s movies and played lots of classic games like Snakes and Ladders and Cluedo.  The weather outside was either gloriously sunny or raining for Noah. There were days at the beach and days in front of the fire.  I didn’t get any writing done and haven’t spent much time on the internet.  It was a rare and precious family holiday.


Now I’ve got to get back to work.  There’s a book partially loaded onto Create Space that still needs some editing before we press the button, and I need to write a talk for a Library event in England on Wednesday.  Next week is the centenary of the Lakeland poet Norman Nicholson’s birth and there are a number of events to celebrate.  On Sunday, 5th January at 4.30pm, BBC Radio 4 are broadcasting a documentary called ‘Provincial Pleasures’, narrated by Eric Robson (moonlighting from Gardener’s Question Time) and involving Melvyn Bragg, fellow biographer Grevel Lindop and myself.  So I will be logging onto BBC i-player to listen in.  Hopefully a few people will buy my biography of Norman if they enjoy the programme, especially as it’s available at a reduced price for his birthday week. Fingers crossed!!  There’s a lovely review of it on Amazon by Sandra Horn.


Best bits of 2013?  Visiting my daughter in New Zealand in January.


Spending a week at an eco-writers’ retreat in the wilds of Northern Scotland, where I made so many new friends.



The birth of Lydia-Maya in October.



And publishing Norman Nicholson: The Whispering Poet.


Thoughts for 2014?  Write more poetry. Finish the collection of Italian short stories I’m working on. Find the money to go to Canada to finish the research into the islands of the Haida Gwaii. Oh, and eat less chocolate, drink less wine and exercise more. And because I don't do New Year Resolutions, I don't have to feel guilty if I don't manage any of them!

Seasonal wishes to all of you

Whoever you are, where-ever you, whatever you believe, I hope you have a happy, healthy and trouble-free start to 2014.  And ..... psssssst........ remember to read lots of books!!!!

Authors Electric and Awesome Indies both have post Christmas book deals to save you money and give you a great read!

Tuesday Poem: Solstice Sunset

Going Down21st December

The sea is like frost and the sun
already dipping
beneath the line
of the horizon for the last time
before the planet turns
towards summer

Another year going down.
One less of mine.

The land is smoky with wood fires
and drifts of evening fog.
The sky a dome of glass
and one expanding jet-trail
stretches across the blue
like the vertebrae of some
prehistoric bird.

The twilight zone is orange
purple, green, and the dark
spine of Corsica looms
out of the sea fog tipped
by solar light.

The winter solstice
stitches my life back to back,
year to year, around the sun,
while the universe whirls,
tipsy and infinite
over my head.

©  Kathleen Jones


If you would like to read more poetry from the Tuesday Poets Community all over the world please click on this link. 

Indian Summer in Italy

We've been having the most wonderful and unexpected weather here. Mid-day temperatures have been up to about 20 degrees and the days are clear and sunny.  The nights are cold and frosty, but I don't mind that kind of crisp weather.  It can't last, but we're making the most of it.  This was one of my grandchildren in the sea at Pietrasanta earlier today, just as the sun was going down.


Two of my daughters and their children are spending Christmas with us this year - not in the little olive house (big enough for 2 or 3 at a squeeze), but at Peralta, one of my favourite places, up in the hills further down the coast.  Neil and I are care-taking Peralta for Christmas and New Year, including the dogs and cats.  It promises to be lively.  But at the moment it is sunny and peaceful and an absolute gift! I feel very fortunate just now.


Sadly the weather is forecast to break and we're to have rain for Christmas. Think positive -  An excuse for log fires and evenings in!

Santa Lucia in Italy

Yesterday was the feast of Santa Lucia - celebrating the return of the sun's light to the earth as the world begins to spin towards spring. December the 13th is the Winter Solstice in the old Julian Calendar.  It's a very important day in the northern hemisphere, but it loses importance the further south you go.  It's a festival that pre-dates Christianity and certainly has a very pagan feel. This year I was invited to join the fun, decked out with candles and a bed-sheet!


We began singing in the marble studios, then walked up the streets

calling in at hotels and bars

and finally into the piazza, candles almost burnt out!


Lots of fun with Norwegian sculptor Julia Vance .


ps  - we had to sing it in Norwegian! And it's h**** getting the wax out of your hair afterwards.....
If you would like to hear the hymn to Santa Lucia please click here .

Writing from Silence

www.caribousmom.com
'...when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips,
And sound is a diversion and a pastime. 
And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.
For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly
                                                             Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet, On Talking

The phone rings and I jump as the electronic jingle penetrates the silence in the room.  For two weeks and two days I've been on my own in the little house up in the olive groves and living mostly in silence.Sometimes, in England, I've been tempted to put the television on for company, but Italian TV is terrible, so I keep it off.  The nights are cold and dark, so I haven't been going down to the piazza much.  I've been trying to make the most of solitude to work.Living in silence is odd.  You become very conscious of extraneous sound - a builder yelling from scaffolding across the valley, the cat crunching its biscuits outside the door, a siren screaming along the autostrada far below, a leaf clattering down through the chestnut tree.  And in the background there's a strange roar like the hum of a big city, but which I know is the sea, tumbling in and out along the coastline, 10 kilometres away.It struck me that we're so surrounded by sounds that we spend much of our time shutting them out - the blah and blare of activities around us - it was a week before I started really listening.  In the first few days, I talked to myself to fill the gap.  Now I'm quite happy.I haven't even had the CD player on very often.  Some people find it helps them to write, but I can't write with music on, or a lot of background noise - I need to be able to hear the words in my head.Neil is due back sometime tomorrow.  Have I managed to write anything?  Not as much as I should have done - I'm the Queen of Procrastinators, but the silence has been restful.  I don't think you realise just how noisy the world around us is until you can shut it out and listen to its absence. 

A Tale of Travelling Cat-Food

or Will Heathcliff Ever Get His Whiskas? Heathcliff waiting anxiously at the windowTuesday:  I order a shed-load of cat food online from a Famous Supermarket as a Christmas hamper for my cat Heathcliff, who is being looked after by Daughter No 1 who lives in Staffordshire.  I schedule evening delivery and, because I know they're a busy family with lots of after-school activities, I put special instructions to leave it through the side-gate outside the back door if no-one's home.  It's a regular order - it's always worked.

Thursday:  I ring my daughter to check that the Cat Food Has Landed.  No, she says.  Because only C (13) was home they took it away again.  The driver wouldn't leave it by the back door either, but he's left a card, so daughter says she will ring and re-schedule delivery.

Friday:  I email Famous Supermarket.  They say they've refunded my money but will re-charge my card when they re-deliver.  Daughter re-schedules for Sunday.  Everyone happy (except Heathcliff).

Sunday:  Get phone call from neighbour in Cumbria (200 miles further north) who says 'I've just had a load of cat food delivered to my door.  I told the driver it couldn't be for you because you're away, but he said he was late for his delivery slots and hadn't time to check  "This is where I was told to deliver it, so this is where I'm delivering" he said.'  I have never, at any time, given F.S my neighbour's address as a delivery target.
 
           Phone call from daughter in Staffordshire. No cat food.  What do we do?


Monday am:  Neighbour rings F.S. and points out that she has a hall full of cat food she doesn't want.

                    My daughter rings Customer Support who tell her it's my order.  I have to sort it out.

                    I email F.S. and outline the problem.  Cat in Staffordshire. Cat food in Cumbria.

                     Receive email sending me a £10 voucher off my next order.

                      I email F.S (a little more sharply) saying that it doesn't solve my problem - I have just paid for a lot of cat food which is currently at the wrong address (their fault) and as I'm in Italy I've no way of getting it to the cat.

                     Silence.

Monday pm:  Daughter rings F.S. Customer Support for advice - 'Can't she just order some more cat food?'  Daughter asks to speak to the person in charge (she's very good at this!).  Supervisor soothing and helpful.  Daughter - why should my mother have all this hassle?  It's your problem - you sort it.

Tuesday:  Daughter receives delivery of cat food. (Thank you F.S)  Finally Heathcliff gets to eat!
               20 minutes later she gets a telephone call.  'This is F.S. We're just on our way to collect the cat food and wanted to check that you're in.'
               Daughter - 'But it's just been delivered!'
               F.S. Driver - 'It's at the wrong address.'
               Daughter - 'It's at the right address!'  Then, suspiciously, 'Where are you phoning from?'
               F.S. Driver - 'This is F.S. Carlisle, Cumbria.'
               Daughter points out that he's got quite a long drive, then gives him my neighbour's address and tel no in Cumbria, hardly able to speak for laughing.

Tuesday:  Cat food and cat are now reunited and my neighbour can get into her hallway without spraining her ankle on tins of Whiskas.  F.S have sent me a £10 voucher for my next order, but I think it will be a while before any of us have the energy to spend it!