The Passing of Time

 

The tyranny of the immediate academic requirement means I rarely read anything unconnected with boats. But every now and again I do, and two friends have supplied a couple of books I would definitely recommend.  They are very different, but both have hit the big time in the bookshops. The first came from Peter. By Charlie Mackesey, it's whimsical little book that goes into the unlikely encounters of a boy, a mole, a fox and a horse - completely charming. Going through it, first time takes just a few minutes. The second time is more lingering as you read more into it, or as more comes out. Quite a lot about human emotions, hopes and fears. It's amazing how just a few squiggles translates into them. I was entranced by the artistic skill it showed. This screen shot doesn't do it justice.

The second book was at the other end of the scale, but 'my kind of thing.' Or that's what Mhairi thought at any rate - and she was quite right. On the face of it, The Morville House sounds like a prosaic account of how someone with a hankering for history  set about recreating the forgotten garden of an old house in Shropshire, but the book is in fact far from prosaic. The author, Katherine Swift creates - or recreates - the imagined, mystical, near-legendary world of the house and its region in earlier times. Everything she does in the garden commemorates previous occupants so strongly that they almost seem to re-appear as the past merges with the present. A few years ago the ghostly novelist Barbara  had that same gift of making the literally incredible totally believable. Sinister events from the past intrude into a troubled present. A heroine in one of her books looks out of her 20th Century holiday let in East Anglia and through the mist catches a fleeting glimpse of a Viking longship gliding silently up the river. Time out of joint.  Years ago when I was in Moscow in January, staying in one of those dreadful Stalinist wedding cake hotels, the window wide open against the stifling heat of the radiators, I read one of her novels through the night. Even though there was serious business with the Soviet Navy the following day, I just couldn't stop reading and make my return to the grisly reality. In a time of Covid, I suppose there was an element of that here too. It was a retreat into another universe, different but not necessarily comforting. The Morville House was like that too. the whole thing is framed by the use of the medieval Book of the Hours for the passing, continuously changing days and seasons, moving backwards and forwards. As a historian I suppose I am pre-disposed to like something which uncovers the past in the present. Mhairi got it exactly right.

                I said that Katherine Swift was a polymath, as one would expect the rare books librarian at Oxford to be, and I learned a lot about a lot too, and that was a bonus. Unexpected things like being told that boulder clay created by the crushing effect of advancing and retreating glaciers in the Ice Age  is called 'till' !  When I finished the book I was resolved that once I had shaken myself out of the current absorption in 'boats' I would return to the family history with renewed vigour. Not least because Katherine Swift is particularly good on the 14th Century when 'our' records began. A similar time of plague.

                Certainly there's a need for relief when things seem so dismal at the moment, despite the appearance of Boris' 5th Cavalry appearing over the hill in the shape of the vaccine. The weather, the grisly total of a million dead around the world with more, perhaps many more to come and the possible disaster that is Brexit-without-a-deal is depressing enough but for me there is also the three year commemoration of Cherry's death. Peter sent me this clip of an encounter between Archbishop Welby and the Chief Rabbi Mirvis - part of a BBC series on grief. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-55220800

Both of them had lost a child and talked about it. The Archbishop said he was constantly caught by surprise by his thoughts. Yes indeed. As far as I am concerned, the Chief Rabbi captured it exactly. 'No two bereavements are the same. If anybody comes along and says,' I know exactly what you're going through, they don't. Because grief is something personal. When one has suffered deep loss it is with one for the rest of one's life. One thinks of the person every single day and there is sadness.' An American friend in a similar situation to me, though now happily re-married thing, said he thought of his first wife every day, 'but now with equanimity.' I don't think I am quite there yet.  But nor am I sure I want to be.

Otherwise things are ticking over, for me very nicely so far. Most other immediate academic commitments are finished for the time being and so I have been able to get back to the book. Most of the time anyway. Last week there was one crazy day when I had six Zoom sessions starting early in the morning and finishing at 2145. Not wall-to-wall fortunately. On and off. Conferences are like London busses. They either don't appear or they all come at once. I've had some time to potter about the place and to spot how different things look with no leaves on the trees. This view of the house is only visible in Winter, for example. Special to time.

And finally of course, there's the garden. I had at last to admit defeat and order some tomatoes from Sainsbury's having more or less run out, except for a plate of little green ones not doing very much on a plate on the window sill. The carrots came in too, chunky but without a trace of pest attack. Very cheering, and so, for all of us,  despite everything, is the approaching time of some kind of Christmas         

Loggers and the first Christmas Tree

 

'Loggers' - that's an old Wiltshire word for the chalk-clay we get round here. It's presumed to be associated with the logs that were used to tether animals when there wasn't a convenient fence-post to hitch them to. Trying to walk through this stuff,  which is extremely adhesive, means one almost immediately accumulates a thick layer on one's wellies, so one's feet get heavier and heavier. Attempting to scrape it off with a stick from the hedge is pointless; indeed the effort increases the risk of toppling over and making things even worse. I had the opportunity to experience all this in my trudge to the village shop this weekend, through weather that was bleakly dismal, fog and chilly dampness all around. But I had no choice. I had run out of the new Kenco cappucino mix, so what else could I do? As I had expected, though, they didn't have any. Nonetheless I came back with rucksack laden with  other essentials like eggs and ham, all locally produced and environmentally friendly.

Not that I'm entirely dependent on the village shop and Sainsbury's deliveries. The garden is still producing although I think that greenhouse has produced the last punnet of tomatoes now. The white fly are welcome to what's left. No doubt because its been quite mild so far, next year's over-wintering broad beans and onions are already making their quite substantial appearance. being so early, though, they will be clobbered by the snow that some predict for early next year, The reports that I get from Newport suggest it's mild there too at the moment though.

The previous weekend when Team Powell came to share in the commemoration of Cherry's passing, was very different. She was a great one for family  fireworks so that was the main event. Aware of governmental strictures, we were all warily careful of contagion. They stayed in the Annex and all meetings were outside, the weather being reasonably cooperative. A great firebasket thing which Chiff brought with them, consumed some of my wood-burner logs and kept us all warm. Pleasantly idle chit-chat, some hugely enjoyed fish-and-chips and then the fireworks. Like so much else,  I had abjured all responsibility for getting these. Chiff found the normal ones in short supply so came with a load of fireworks that went off in sequences, like an artillery barrage. They were indeed dramatic. And loud. Our cleaning lady reported  on Tuesday that her dog hid at the noise. 'A nervous dog' she said. Maybe, but the real point was that they live the other side of All Cannings, three miles away. Whoops ! - as Chiff said. No-one complained. At least not to me - but perhaps no-one quite knew who to complain to, not being able to believe that the old chap in the cottage on the corner was actually re-staging the battle of Stalingrad in his back-garden.

The following day, more innocent pastimes. The sun gleamed so we went (in two cars naturally) to Avebury. We walked past the beech tree with all the talismanic ribbons on it and up the long track to the photogenic sarsen stones on Overton down. Left here by the retreat of the ice age many thousands of years ago most of these stones have been used for ancient monuments and more modern building purposes so there are not many places where they are still in their original position, but this one of them. I find them fascinating . We came here three years ago, but this time, the hills were alive with the sight of walkers all escaping the confines of Covid. But it was nice though, especially with some fleeting sunshine.

            Team Powell left soon after and I had a particularly busy week zooming to Singapore on Monday, Santiago Chile on Tuesday and Brussels  for the last three days, occasionally popping in to Newport Rhode Island  en passant.Oh, and I forgot I attended something in Stuttgart too.  I certainly couldn't have done that by air and this way was a lot better for the planet. Business like this is a great and very welcome distraction of course, but all the same it was a sensitive week.

            We had the custom of setting up the first small and originally more elegant Christmas tree in the Dining Room to celebrate Cherry's birthday and so of course I did that. After some musings I decided to dig up the one from the  garden that's already done sterling service now for three or four years. Sadly it got very neglected while I was away in Newport earlier this year, and is, shall we say, less than perfect. But covered with tinsel it doesn't look too bad, from a distance at any rate and gets the festive season off to an early start. Though what Christmas will be like this year is anybody's guess. Different, I'm assuming, but we'll see.  

  

Light at the End of the Tunnel ?

 

We're now well into our second lock-down and like many other people apparently I made the most of my last relatively unfettered day - with an early morning run to Devizes. Unfortunately the market operates on Thursdays - the day the lockdown started - so I couldn't stock up with essentials like anchovy stuffed olives, but even so came back laden with Wiltshire pasties and other things of that sort. At 0900, I discovered Devizes was like a ghost town  with hardly anyone, anywhere.

Since then like everyone else who can, though I guess more than most, I have hunkered down these last two weeks and have only ventured out once to squelch across the canal and the fields for an emergency run to the village shop, this time for washing liquid. Surprisingly I met three people I know, and a couple I didn't so it was all very chatty if at a respectful distance. It was a miserable drizzly day, bleak and slippery. The little winterbourne that winds through and mysteriously under the village, the so-called Gog, was full, running fast and crystal clear, clattering over miniature waterfalls. Low clouds wreathed the hills. Geese honked on the pond through skeins of mist.

Set off by beginning to sort out my tax affairs for last year, I've worked it out and I think this is the longest near continuous time I have lived at home, with just a short 3 night break up in Yorkshire with Christopher and Beth, and other summer days in Clovelly with Team Powell for a decade or more. It's certainly the first Autumn I've seen out as that was the time we usually went to Singapore. And it's been fantastic. The colours of the trees have been extraordinary. The Acer tree in the front is scarlet, brighter than flame. Everyone keeps saying how an awakened appreciation of Nature, with capital N, has been an unanticipated consequence of the pandemic. Some truth in that I think.

I'm lucky in that I can access it simply by looking out of the window or stepping outside, and that limits the sense of isolation and entrapment. There's a real prospect of Nature making its mark on me more physically.  Apples the size of Tudor cannonballs are still dropping from the cooking apple tree that I walk under every morning. They've missed me so far but I see that the tree still has some reserve ammunition up there. I've been peeling and stewing apples on an industrial scale and all three freezers and freezer compartments are stuffed with the consequences. This despite the fact that everything less than cannonball size is tossed into the hedge for the wildlife. Some of the projectiles are simply enormous and could do serious damage if they connected. 

Being busy, and more importantly being able to be busy, really helps of course. What with keeping up with everything the garden can throw at me, doing some hedging work, stocking up with wood for next year (I like it properly seasoned) and the general exigencies of living there hardly seem enough hours in the day.  Despite my Luddite tendencies, technology helps as well of course. Academic work these days involves a lot of it. One day last week I had commitments that involved me in four different time zones around the world. At the end of it I had difficulty remembering who I was, let alone where I was and what I was supposed to be doing.

So far then, my tunnel hasn't been particularly dark. Certainly in comparison with many other people and the prospect of a vaccine and of the promise of seeing the family properly again helps a lot of course. All the same the approach of the third anniversary of Cherry's death reminds me that there's not much light at the end of that particular and much more permanent and frankly darker tunnel. One adapts but one doesn't forget.      

Two triumphs, a touch of sadness and some pots

 

After the disasters recorded last time, I was really pleased to enjoy two domestic triumphs. The baked on apple spill-over on the hob had proved totally resistant to quite firm scraping and, frankly, hammering with a flat wooden spatula. At a loss, and it was time for bed anyway, I thought simply to pour some oven cleaner I had come across on to it and to leave it overnight. The following morning I found it had worked. Not completely, but it was certainly a whole lot better than it had been. Shortly afterwards I found I had done apparently irreparable damage to the top of an early 19th Century music stand that we had bought back in Meopham. In my continuing bid to live in gilded splendour I have adopted Cherry's liking for bringing flowers and the like into the house and had put an earthenware vase on top of it. Although there was no sign of any leakage, I found a big perfect white circle right in the middle of the marquetry  top. Dismayed I thought to try the same thing with it and sprayed on a thick layer of Pledge. Sure enough after a few hours that worked too, and the white circle completely disappeared ! Perhaps I should abandon 'boats' (as Philippa likes to call the subject of my academic endeavours) and write a book on household tips instead !  

                Cherry would have been somewhat startled at the whole idea, domestic expertise never having been my strong point. I find myself thinking of her even more as the three year anniversary approaches and there was a bit of extra sadness when I heard from friends in Singapore that our great friend Sam Bateman had suddenly died. A retired Commodore in the Australian navy, he became arguably the leading figure on maritime security in the Asia-Pacific. He 'went native'  after leaving the Navy, espousing liberal interpretations and causes (on things like the South China Sea dispute) that went against official opinion. The Americans in particular liked him as a person but were uncomfortable with his views. He was extraordinarily popular and prolific around the region. He never entirely shook off the habits of naval command though. I remember once we were being taken out to an island off Taiwan by the Taiwanese navy in a patrol boat bucketing over the waves, when he was enraged at the fact that all the young sailors were staring at the screens of their displays and no-one was looking out of the window. He certainly give them the benefit of his views. Hardly anyone looked at the screens on the way back. He could be formidable on the very rare occasions when a taxi driver tried to 'take us for a ride' as well.

                But this was atypical for he was a truly genial and friendly soul. He took a shine to Cherry and I when we first went out to Singapore as green Westerners and really introduced us to an entirely different way of life out there, far removed from the usual touristy sort of things(which of course we also did but off our own bat). He took us to all sorts of places in Singapore to sample the 'real thing' (with only one adverse gastronomic consequence, which he had more than us, curiously) both there and in countless conference venues around the region. After I had written to her, his daughter answered that he was always saying how much he had enjoyed our company. We certainly enjoyed his; Cherry was very fond of him and would have been much upset at the news. In a way losing him has reinforced my sense of having lost her. There's another link gone.    

                But others survive. I hosted a meeting of the old University group, Tony, Maya, John and Melanie at the Peppermill in Devizes, taking advantage of the fact that the Southwest was then in the lowest category of anti-Covid regulation, with Wiltshire having figures in the middle of the local range. Generally but not always we dine and wine 'chez host' but I really didn't think I could offer fish-finger butties or  baked potato with cheddar and baked beans - which is pretty much the height of my culinary accomplishment, that is when the seas are fair and the wind is following. But we did repair to the cottage for tea and the woodburner. The trouble was that no-one really wanted the goodies I had brought in, so I will just have to wolf down the cake and biscuits myself.

                At least this will set me up against the lockdown. The garden is still producing as we head into November. More tomatoes than I can cope with and still more apples !  Also, to help, I took a walk to the village shop to stock up on some essential supplies. I found that I was down to my last half-a-dozen Yorkshire tea bags !  Disaster. It was after a morning of heavy rain, so in my wellies I squelched across to the canal via the swing-bridge and through a sodden field of cut-down corn-on-the-cob, ankle deep in water in places. It was Halloween and some of the village kids and parents were out on a daylight pumpkin trail, rather than trick-or-treating in these hazardous times. I came back, laden rucksack on my back,  the long  way via the main bridge and by the time I reached home, another 8000 or so steps on the clock, I really needed one of those tea bags.

                On the way of course I had passed the field where Deb and I picked up all those pottery bits over a year ago. Last week I had managed to get the read-out of what the more interesting bits were. It was a curious but nice experience, booking into the Museum in Devizes and being conducted to a little backroom, where two young enthusiasts were operating with their laptops carefully isolating. They are both part-timers now. Despite that, it was all amazingly efficient. Now all the bits are recorded digitally, complete with long descriptions of each piece by a specialist in Oxford. They printed off the reports for me.  Fascinating - most of it was Roman, including one small piece of Samian made in France from 2-4th Century AD (on the left below). With a darker red top surface. Another piece (on the right) was a little later, made near Oxford and designed to look like Samian ware, which was quite high-class apparently.  There were also medieval pieces including some made in the north of the New Forest. I found all this hugely interesting. There must have been some quite substantial settlement nearby in Iron Age/Roman times. Deb, who is on the point of moving to Portsmouth unfortunately, came over to unload a last box of his local history stuff on me and to get the read-out. I also showed her a squashed brass button I had found on the little lane that goes through the village. In the middle of the road, bare of earth just lying there. We pored over it with a magnifying glass noting the GR initials with a crown above, and managed to decipher the manufacturer on the back. Then five minutes on the internet - to find out that it probably fell off a postman's uniform almost certainly just before the First World War. But what it was doing in the middle of the road beats me !

So all in all a busy, sociable time, but it doesn't look likely to continue over the next few weeks I fear. So, everyone, hunker down again and keep safe......

 

 

Getting away from it all is hard

It was a grey and murky Sunday, as expected. But the evening before I had resolved to get away from it all by going on the walk behind the house. At the very least I would earn myself another 8000 steps and so be up-lifted by a warming sense of virtue. So off I set, squirming first through my hidden exit from the back of the paddock into the field behind. Ever since someone stole an old plastic water-tank I'd kept back there to help water some tree saplings, I have been paranoid about thieves swarming through my defences. So the hidden exit/entrance is camouflaged with devilish ingenuity which makes it a bit hard to get out of. 

     Along the field margin to All Cannings Cross, peering at the ground as I went. The soil had been harrowed the day before, all dark and friable, freshly turned over. But not a Roman sword or Saxon coin to be seen. Some lumps of chalkstone, a few scraps of plastic, a coke tin or two - and two crisply fresh, folded £10 notes. In the grass by the side of the field. It's faintly possible I had dropped them on the previous visit - I've certainly never seen anyone else ever walking where I go. People usually walk along the road, but you can't spot for Roman swords or Saxon coins from there. 

     At the Cross up the left shoulder of Clifford's Hill. A place of memory. The family, Grandma included, came here quite by chance on just one occasion on a trip back in 1980's. At that time life at the RN College Greenwich was pretty depressing with talk of closure and up the top on the edge of Rybury camp, I'd had a quiet think and made some plans for the future. If only I had known then that 30 years later I would be living in a house you can easily see from there ! 

     Anyhow through a little copse spotting en route and photographing a bush with half closed near purple leaves and bunches of sinister-looking black berries. No idea what it is. Then across a great empty field now covered with sprouting corn seeds-the kind you get with corn-on-the-cob. The hills look down and surround the field on nearly three sides. Perhaps for that reason it used to be a feast site, full of roasted animal bones but since thoroughly pored over by university archaeologists. 

    Up the old drover's track which they used to get the sheep up from and down to the Vale. Very Thomas Hardy. It makes one puff too. Really steep hill sides below, ideal you would think for kamikaze sledging in the snow. And still it goes up - to the hill behind Clifford's hill where you take a very necessary breather, look back and take a photo of the neolithic hilltop Rybury camp. 

The old lines show up well, even after 3000 years or so. Clearly it's not a military site, although you might think so given the fact that by the time your attackers had struggled up to you, they'd be fairly wasted. Probably a cattle compound and living accommodation. Behind it the Vale of Pewsey and behind that on the horizon the rising slopes of Salisbury plain. It's a grand sight even on a murky day. 

    No hang gliders about today. But plenty of ?Red Poll cattle (or South Devons ?). Seriously big they stand in your way and peer at you. Calculating, expressionless, well, bovine - and then skip away at the last moment   The hill levels up a bit, as it's near the top. They seem to have removed the trig point that used to be here. Introduced in the early 19th Century to help the military plan for fighting off the French should they get ashore. Nearby similar defences - the base of barrage balloon point. One was flown here to help protect the several airfields down in the Vale from another foreign invader - the German airforce. Scattered around it a group of sarsen boulders which would look very nice in the garden. 

    The Wansdyke appears. A place to stop and have some tea from my little flask. to the left the sheer scale of effort required to dig the great ditch as it goes off east towards Marlborough. Nobody really knows what its for. The name is misleading as while it's probably named after Woden its got nothing to do with the Saxons. Why should so much effort be devoted to a demarcation symbol between tribal areas ? But how could it serve any useful military purpose ? It's all very strange. 

    Not quiet and deserted either,  on this murky midday Sunday. Like Piccadilly circus, heaving with people. Two couples out sedately walking. Half a dozen cyclists, one group hauling their bikes over the gate marking the track up from from Avebury, Silbury Hill and the West Kennet long-barrow. So much for quiet contemplation. 

     Then off westwards along a white chalky track following the Wansdyke until striking the Manor farm tarmacked track going south back to Allington. Leaving the Wansdyke to snake its way to Bath, 25 miles away.

     Down the track that Simon on his bike likes whizzing down. Once going down with a saddlebag of flints for my latest walling project, my bike brakes failed. Terrifying. I only controlled it by deliberately running into the grassy verge. Past the large unsightly chalk pit, looking out over the Vale. One misty night we all came up here in a couple of cars with fireworks to celebrate the New Year and to look down at other gatherings in the far distance. Primeval. The end of time. When our rockets exploded, the bang echoed around the hills in the most satisfactory way.

     Further down, voices off. Over the in the big field to the left, hidden by trees and scrub. By the new barn artfully concealed by the copse where the old lime kiln used to be, two dozen cars neatly parked. The metal detector club from Devizes were having a meet - the rolling field full of people sweeping the freshly harrowed earth looking for those same Roman swords and Saxon crimes. Interesting to watch as they sweep, stop, stoop, dig their trowels in, stand up. Lean the instrument against their leg, pick with one hand at a handful of dirt in the other, flick it away, carry on across the field. All muffled up against the wind. And so back to the field behind the house, squeezing in the through my hidden entrance.

     More tea, then back to the reality it had proved hard to leave. The night before in another fit of virtue I had stewed up some more cooking apples. As is my wont, I then wandered off and forgot about it. Disaster. A spectacular boiling over followed by a some hard baking in and a ruined hob and casserole. An hour or so of scraping and cleaning half-restored both - but only half. Mute witnesses to my incompetence. I needed to get in some apple juice for Peter, arriving the following day. Out to the chest freezer in the garage. But the first uncovered battle seemed sticky, adhering to the bottom of an over-loaded freezer. And the second and the third. With gathering dismay I realised that about a quarter of the 30 odd bottles in there had either split or had their lids forced open. Presumably over-filled. Curiously the resultant gunge hadn't frozen but was like a viscous glue. No choice but to empty the entire thing and clean it out. Tilted right over reaching down with wet J cloths to wipe it all away, batting away the wasps, while one's sausages, bread etc began thawing around one's feet. Finally as the wind had whipped the first batch of leaves into convenient piles, I thought I would gather some in for my 'leaf-mould factory.' A sudden savage pain in my hand, stung by a wasp lurking in the leaves - no doubt peeved at being batted away earlier. At that point I decided to give up getting away from it all and retreated to the safety of my study and computer.

Starting to batten down.....

Someone one day is going to have to show me one of these days how with this wrteched new system you put paragraphs in. I have cheated and put xxxwhere they begin. xxxConscious of the fact that, with the revival of Coronavirus fears, I and everyone else will be going in for the long haul, I have instituted a new regime to cope with a programme of 'keep-fit walks' to the village and around the hills behind the house and to try to differentiate between weekends and the other days. Otherwise the passage of time would be un-calibrated and I could well end up not knowing what day it was even more than this happens already. I must admit that the weekend regime is shamefully self-indulgent. Sitting by a woodburner with my laptop or an improving book with Madam Butterfly warbling away in the background takes a lot of beating if you ask me - especially with a Portuguese 'Black Red' to hand. This latter is a new discovery for me, rivalling if not surpassing my preference for Argentine Malbec. xxxIn fact the whole lockdown experience has been a voyage of discovery for me. With the aid of various members of the dynasty I am on a steep learning curve in everything from how to make a beef casserole to being able to arrange how my e-mails come in, individually or in chat strings. And come in they do ! The connectivity of this locked down and physically isolated world strikes me as quite extraordinary. I was invited last week to both Istanbul and Karachi something that's now much easier faster and cheaper than it was (and better for the planet too). The only drawback is that I don't get to sniff around and find out things about my hosts that one can only get in person through chatting with people and being shown around. The Karachi thing is virtual but weirdly the Turks seem to want it to be in-person. They have got to be kidding. xxxI took one of the walks over the hills last weekend, going round by the neolithic camp at Rybury and over to the Wansdyke. From here one can see it snaking its way to Bath. A great ditch with a bank to the south, no-one quite knows what it is. Probably not really a defensive position as such more likely a frontier between the three pre-Roman tribes who lived in this area, the Durotiges where we are, the Atrebates to the East and the Dobunni to the north. Strangely this area has always been a kind of disputed frontier land. In the Civil War, we were in the nomansland between Royalist Devizes and Parliamentarian Marlborough. In the Second World War we were part of the blue-line along the Kennet and Avon canal, skirting the edge of Allington, complete with pill-boxes and dragon's teeth anti-tank barriers, where the Home Guard and what was left of the Army was planning to resist the Germans if ever they had invaded. Even now as far as weather forecasts and television areas are concerned, we're the forward edge of the Southwest. Obviously in Allington it is the custom to hunker down and peer suspiciously at strangers from behind the parapet. xxxBut we do still do feast amongst ourselves every now and then. The old university gang got together in Salisbury last week and had a delightful time swapping anecdotes and slagging off Boris and Donald, to varying degree. There's nothing quite like real human contact rather than the synthetic version on a computer screen. xxxThis weekend though the rain bucketed down and my keep fit walks were just around the garden. Just as in Newport I am beginning to notice things about it I had never seen before. Like a couple of enormous Tulip trees leaves, nearly a foot square, and much bigger than the normal ones. I stood back to look properly but just couldn't see where in the tree they had come from.

Pampus grass 10 feet tall and with gracefully fluffy heads now looking bedraggled, and of course the leaves and straw of harvest time blocking up the road drain and causing a flood for me to deal with. Obviously battening down means starting to get jobs done. I was pleased to do the annual lime-wash of the house, or at least the ground floor and was pleased with the glittering result of about 3 hours work ! And then, unbelievably after the family effort a month or so again, there are still apples coming down that need to be dealt with. Whatever happens this winter I won't be starving.

The Approach of Winter and the Bounty of the Land

They say that in the midst of the pandemic we are all re-discovering - or more remarkably discovering - Nature with a capital N. I think that's true. The slower life-style means many of us can look around more at the things that we've hardly noticed before. It certainly applies to me. Being at home for months on end and with no immediate prospect of that changing I've been busy making up for the neglects of the past decade or so around house and garden. I've profited mightily from a reasonable Summer and an amazing harvest of things, so amazing in fact that it has teetered on the edge of being overwhelming. Some of it can be pressed into immediate and beneficial service. My breakfasts recently, largely culled from the garden and nearby hedgerows, have been astonishingly healthy and so I am infused by a great sense of virtue, alongside tucking away what is genuinely tasty and good for me. Other produce provides more of a challenge because of its sheer volume. <

This certainly applies to apples, greengages and plums. The family rescued me again this year by congregating at the house a couple of days before the 'Rule of Six' ( Has Boris been reading too much Sherlock Holmes in his spare time ?) came into force. We observed the existing rules though maintaining three bubbles, with one of them camped out in the garden, another in the annex and the third in the main house but using a separate bathroom. Fortunately the weather was cooperative - warm and sunny in the last days of what looks like an 'Indian Summer. Otherwise picking the apples and pressing them into the kind of apple jounce that bears no resemblance to the stuff one gets in the shops was a totally industrial enterprise, with people working in shifts and swapping jobs periodically. The result was a record far out stripping previous years 63 litres in 54 bottles and other containers ! We all needed a evening of relaxation under the stars and the tented illuminated gazebo which Team Powell brought with them, warmed by the 'Swedish Torch Log' that Peter kindly gave me a couple of years ago. It was brilliant ! And so was the much needed barbecue....

The following day we all trekked around the hills in the Marlborough Downs just behind us, which again was blessed with ideally cooperative weather. The views were quite spectacular. Back for a pic-nic lunch in the garden and then the inevitable break up and departure, Heaven only knowing when 'we ten shall meet again.'

One very much welcomed distraction in the midst of the folding of tents, stowing of bottles of apple juice and departure preparations was a group of passers-by who called in to say that one of their number had lived in the house long before us. Needless to say, I was out there like a shot since producing a history of the house is one of my many projects. It turned out, that the 'old chap' (even older than me !) had lived here as a farm hand-tractor driver between 1938 and 1945 when the house was in a near derelict state. Normally I would have invited them in to have a look round and cup of tea but the timing was all wrong, but I got their address and have since written eager for more information, and even better, photos !! Now everyone has gone and with prospect of another quite long semi-lockdown I am on my own again. One aspect of this which I still hven't quite got used to, is not having someone immediately to talk to about things that arise. What to make of the semi-tame pigeon that seems to have taken up residence in the garden. It sits on the back of the bench by the pond and eyes me across the table. It's not an exhausted carrier pigeon as far as I can tell. It also likes to sit on top of the greenhouse which I am painting up with preserving paint for the winter.

This raises another topic I would have raised with Cherry. How do get to the top part between the two upper windows ? One option is to take out one slide of glass and get to it from inside the greenhouse but that involves dismantling the rain gutter system and looking at the evident warping of the bars suggests that wouldn't be as easy as it sounds. Another would be to spread boards across the bars so that they could all bear the weight but I didn't fancy that idea at all. I finally concluded I'd leave it for now on the principle that it's normally the bottom of windows that go rather than the top. I discussed all this with myself of course, but it's not the same.

Obviously, I do still talk to Cherry even after nearly three years, not least near her pictures and what Philippa calls her 'shrine' - where the urn is. I don't think its macabre at all. So I was cheered to read of an archaeological discovery in Wiltshire of Bronze Age people preserving and keeping the bones of their ancestors. According to the archaeologist, "It's indicative of a broader mind-set where the line between the living and the dead was more blurred than it is today. There wasn't a mindset that human remains go in the ground and you forget about them. They were always present among the living." Nice to think I have a broader mind-set, (but no surprise of course) even if it is a tad old-fashioned.

Resuming Normal Business ?

After the irritation of discovering - by trial and error that one of the three browsers I was using no longer supports this blog system, which resulted in the last but one very unprofessional transmission, I am now hopefully back on track and so capable of resuming normal business. Whatever 'normal' means these days ! It's become a word that's much bandied about. The latest sign is the return of kids to school this week and the promise of UK universities doing the same quite shortly. The first must be a cause of some concern for despite all care and attention it might very well 'kill a granny' - or in my case grandpa- or in fact quite a few of them, since while kids don't usually significantly suffer from Covid 19 (they do sometimes of course) they can pass it on as well as anyone else. But the argument that they should return to school anyhow is a strong one. But I really don't think that argument applies to the Universities to anything like the same degree, since your average student falls into the category (as in some ways they should !) of being the least likely to obey the mitigation regulations. More importantly, students they come from all over the place and are not geographically restricted in the way that state schools are. Accordingly there's more chance of nat outbreaks rather than more containable local ones. In that respect, public school pupils are the same of course, but obviously it would be ioohibitively difficult to treat schools that have a local pupil cohort differently from those that don't. What really set me wondering about the universities is the contrast between expectations in the UK about this and the service academies in the US, including the Naval War College my own. At the moment, Newport is doing virtually all its business on-line and distantly, and the campus itself is closed for all but 'mission essential' personnel (cleaners, security guards and the like) and we have been told not to expect significant change in this for months. The contrast between this and local schools is stark. So how come institutions focusing on steely-eyed war-fighters are so much more risk averse compared to schools ? It has some my US colleagues wondering I must say. The only reason I can think of is that the US Navy doesn't want to do anything that might compromise its real mission. This isn't educating its people (that's just an enabler); instead it's maintaining the fleet at sea, and there have been several much publicised examples of where the spread of the disease has made that difficult. Because they don't want less-important (or at least less urgent) activities to get in the way, they prefer us to hunker down for a while. Especially as the Chinese Navy seems largely unaffected by Covid-19. Getting back to the point, I don't really understand why UK Universities are taking the risks and why they can't try to do the same as Newport. It would be very nice to shrug all this off and trust the government's recommendations. But since a recent report I have seen puts us at 155th in the league of 179 countries measured against how well they are handling the pandemic, blithe trust isn't that easy. But away from all this gloom and despondency, much of this suits me very well of course and life is good. I can still do what I would have done in Newport perfectly well here in the UK. In fact in some ways I am more productive here than I would be there, since I have all my books and other material more readily available (though there are still instances where the book I want is the other side of the Atlantic - but that is less true now). Also I don't have any wasteful commuting time (though to be fair that that is less much less than an hour a day in Newport). However in Newport I don't have to cut the grass, look after the house etc which I do here !. But all the same on balance I can function perfectly well in this new normal. Aided, of course, by the fact that all my colleagues around the world, are all in the same boat. I'm slowly evolving a new routine flexible enough to cope with the changing circumstances. it starts with an earlyish pre-breakfast perambulate around the estate to make plans and to get the steps up on my pedometer, pick up apples, feed the fish etc. Since I've been back Breakfast has been based on various kinds of fruit from around the garden and is still going strong though the end is in sight I think as the blackberries ripen and the plums fall.

I'm hoping that the big family get together for the apple-pressing weekend will be able to go ahead as usual but suspect it might be the last big gathering for some time. In the meantime I had a late summer visitation from Team Powell which was nice and allowed some returns to favourite places such as the New Forest and Avebury. Sorry it's all come out as one paragraph again, but at least there are photos this time !

A Correction to the last !

I don't understand quite why but in the last blog, everything went to pot. It all came out as one paragraph and none of the pictures appeared, so this is to make up for that.

This phot0 shows there was indeed sufficient scial distancing space at Sandymouth at least when the tide went out

A view of Fountains Abbey

Rock formation on Dartmoor - Bench Tor. There were equally impressive ones in Calderdale.

Family bubble at Colvelly

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What I did on my Holidays

The first month or so back in the UK was a marvellous opportunity to see rather more of the family for real rather than virtually (and that was also a chance to see what the limitations of the virtual connection actually are - especially in body language and the rapid spontaneity of ordinary speech) and to combine it with a series of mini-holidays accompanied by varying sections of the dynasty. As the Covid restrictions slowly eased, it was of course a strange time here in the UK as elsewhere. There were new customs to discover in cafes and pubs and varying patterns of behaviour of one's fellow citizens to observe. The numbers of people about, enjoying the great outdoors also varied a lot, and often far fewer than the media had led us to expect, even in the Southwest. In the afternoon and evening, Clovelly struck us as almost deserted, except for the locals. Even at the nearby much favoured surfing beach of Sandymouth it was generally easy to get away from people, particularly before a rising tide started to limit the available real estate. Nevertheless, we still spotted the obdurate behaviour of a small minority of people who seem to delight in plonking themselves unnecessarily close to other people. But I expect they always do that. Also where things did sometimes get fraught with too many in one place, such as famously occurred at the Deer Sanctuary in the New Forest, some people just seemed to lose touch with common sense. Getting through a real traffic snarl-up on a tiny forest road with a ditch on one side that was made narrower still by people parking (illegally) on the other side was an opportunity to muse on the nature and extent of peoples' silliness, as I waited for respite from one old motorcyclist who urged me to make way for him by driving into the ditch. Philippa was on hand, anxiously watching my wheels teeter along its edge, while barely restraining herself from some quite unlady-like responses to his suggestions. My No 2 son tells me that my easy assumption that by definition half the population has less than average intelligence is mathematically wrong but here and there some people's behaviour seemed to confirm my misapprehension ! I don't think I was equating silliness with simply not seeing things my way, but, there again, I would think that, wouldn't I ! Anyway, this series of little holidays was an opportunity to do a lot of things I like doing as well as to renew real acquaintance with the family. Pathetically, I find myself needing an excuse to stop bustling around on academic, household or garden tasks - of which there are legion- and enjoying the company the family is ideal for this. I suppose it's the Puritan work ethic which I really find hard to shake off, though I keep trying. Of course, the real problem is that I quite like doing all those 'good works' as well and there are simply not enough hours in the day for them all. Anyhow, doing Castles and getting the most out of my English Heritage membership was one of the real opportunities the mini holidays provided. Because of restricted and timed entries, all of the sites I visited either on my own or with the family, were much less populated than usual. This was actually rather nice, being quiet and facilitating a sense of (temporary) ownership. They were all different. Old Wardour Castle in Wiltshire, knocked about a bit in the Civil War and now an ostentatiously romantic ruin, where they filmed part of 'Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves' (which of course we also had to watch just to check). Bolsover and Conisborough Castles, in Yorkshire, Bolsover simply built to entertain the great and the good and Consisborough, where they filmed ' Ivanhoe,' and now another romantic ruin perched commandingly on a high hill but now hemmed in by rather un-romantic interwar housing estates. But for a photogenic effect rather than for its cinematic importance, Fountains Abbey has to take pride of place though, closely followed by Wardour castle. There were a lot of people at the Abbey ruin, but the sheer size of the place meant there were no problems. Sandymouth provided some enjoyable surfing and a chance for building defences against the advancing sea, as the tide rose. I just managed to scoop up my camera bag, with wallet, phone etc before one particularly venomous wave got it. Visiting, Exmoor, Dartmoor, the New Forest and part of the Yorkshire dales was another great opportunity for appreciating the great outdoors, and for putting the pedometer into action. Magnificent views, clean air and that great sense of virtue through totting up the steps after one has staggered home. (The knee is a lot better I'm glad to say) What more can one ask for ? Mind you, all this healthy activity was definitely needed in order to compensate for all the fish and chips, cream teas, pasties and sandwiches, not to mention the odd libation, that one always seems to get through on such occasions. Because of this, the overall effect of such mini-holidays on physical health might be debateable - but having real human interactions with one's nearest and dearest rather than their two dimensional ZOOM images was the major plus of such gatherings. It fortifies one for the bumpier times that I suspect lie ahead for all of us. Some of the visits were de rigeur, the sort of thing we had to do because we always had and so had accumulated family associations. Top of the list for me is the so-called 'Doone valley' in Exmoor where RD Blackmore set 'Lorna Doone.' I have been going there for decades, and not just because it's a lovely spot. The valley has some of the characteristics of a friend, that one just has to see from time to time. In the novel the hero meets the heroine for the first time on a waterslide between towering cliffs, where he comes a cropper and nearly drowns. I'm convinced I know what inspired Blackmore to conjure up this incident - only the towering cliffs in question are barely eight feet tall and the rushing torrent barely ankle deep (in the Summer at least). For me it's when the countryside is populated with such human associations that it really comes alive, sparking the imagination and one's emotions. Its now also true of Hawker's hut at down the cliffs at Morwenstowe, in Cornwall, which we have been visiting for many years There's a 'secret' cache nearby which records our visits along with those of other people similarly in the know. Sadly some of the records of our earlier ones have gone, including a commemorative one for Cherry. Our wedding anniversary occurred around this time. Astonishing to think it's nearly three years now; the ambushes still occur. Due to my own incompetence in managing food stocks, I had to open a bag of crusty-rolls in what is unkindly called our nuclear war reserve in the freezer, realising, as I did it, that I was literally as well as figuratively untying a knot that Cherry had tied. That gave me pause. The rolls were fine, by the way, so I am not sure what to make of that.

On the Calculation of Risk

Last weekend Team Powell came to stay, just for one night on their way down to Clovelly, the 'almost family holiday home' down on the Cornish/Devon border. A school friend of Cherry actually owns it but various members and combinations of the Till family have stayed there probably more than 20 times over the years. I went there to regroup immediately after Cherry died. The harsh conditions prevailing in the middle of winter after a long period without occupancy certainly gave me other things to think about  ! Anyhow I am mulling over whether to go down and join them for a couple of days. It would be within the current rules but undoubtedly comes with a degree of added and avoidable  risk.

                The experience of their overnight stay was illuminating. We all kept at a distance. That was fairly easy, even when, most inconveniently it drizzled during the barbecue so we had to gather under the overhanging porch of the Granny annex offering advice and encouragement to poor Chiff slaving over the charcoal briquettes under the apple trees. This was instead of our original plan of being spaciously arrayed around the back garden in the evening sunshine at a distance but within  semaphore range. Wondering whether anyone else had touched that particular bit of lettuce - or that tomato sauce bottle  certainly added a frisson to the proceedings. We were all as careful as we could be but the added risk could not be discounted. Probably the experts would say that we were relying too much on the unlikelihood that any of us actually had the bug anyway, since we were all rigorously observing the rules beforehand and were still effectively in lock-down as a near normal state.

                But one thing that does seem to me to have merged from the current situation is another nail in the coffin of the idea of the expert to whose opinion we should all defer. This whole idea was already under strain because of the extent to which the social media have elevated the status and apparent authority of personal opinion and gut feelings. Following the science is difficult when the scientists seems to disagree, but such disagreements are inevitable as more and more data comes on stream about how the pandemic is developing. In the absence of hard fact at any one time all we can do is go on 'balances of probability.'  We have to think about things properly, treat it all seriously and properly note who s saying what and why  So I conclude that yes there's a risk to going to Clovelly for a few days, but it's probably no higher than the risk of my being in a bad road accident on the way down. Almost everything we do has an element of risk in it. Avoiding it altogether means avoiding life.  Moreover all the evidence currently points to higher levels of risk later on, so its having a change now or not for a possibly long time to come.

                Another thing I have been surprised about is the sudden burst of interest in the UK in countering obesity because of the extra vulnerabilities to the bug that it brings. This seemed like a sudden revelation. Yet back in mid March when the lockdown in Rhode island was just starting, articles in the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal were already loudly pointing to the link between obesity and severe Covid-19 consequences. That was the reason why I started on my  faintly ridiculous keep-fit trails winding mindlessly around the trees of Ocean View in Newport. For the life of me I can't understand why in the UK we've been so slow to connect those two dots publicly.

 

                Of course I thought taking he necessary action would be much easier once back home. A smaller estate to wander around in certainly, as shown by the picture taken from the bedroom window with the new phone that Chiff supplied. But the estate is set in the splendidly open Marlborough Downs offering  nice walking everywhere. What I hadn't factored in was, just before leaving the US, getting a touch of 'housemaid's knee' which made walking uncomfortable. The routine fell off dramatically and is only just, after a month at home getting back to what it was. So far at least the price hasn't been too heavy, but I reckon that clambering up a few Cornish cliffs and doing a bit of surfing will help restore the programme.  So that's another, perhaps pretty feeble, reason to go to Clovelly !

                Naturally being with some of the family again after 5 contactless virtual months, on either side of the Atlantic, is another major reason to take this risk, as it helps to put everything into proper proportion. One other thing we did that brief weekend was to take a walk along the canal and of course, the kids couldn't resist putting the frighteners on their mother by sitting on the bridge over the canal in the way they did. Clearly I am not the only one engaging in a process of semi-calculated risk !

How Time Flies !

Even though the last couple of weeks was spent in quarantine, the time has flown by. Interestingly, no-one checked up on me to make sure that I really was in quarantine so I am far from sure that the hour or so in Boston airport that I spent laboriously filling up that form actually served any useful purpose ! But the days have passed very quickly and fortunately I hadn't picked up anything nasty on the flight. Looking at the way the numbers are going in the US (though not, admittedly, Rhode Island) I think I made my escape in good time.

But time has flown in other ways too, as re-settling in the UK after 5 months away has taken up more of it that I had anticipated, and I haven't yet been able to enjoy that idling time of rest and tranquillity that I thought would be my reward for the slogs of the past. It's my own fault of course. The grass might be racing upwards outside,  but I am still reluctant to give up the academics. So I am still 'teleworking' with colleagues back in Newport  and having to cope with evening Zoom 'meetings' because of the time differential. This always seems to amuse them for some reason ! I've also collected  some zoom sessions here in the UK.

Time had an impact on one of those too. Because Zoom sessions usually only show one's top half,  it's become the fashion to wear formal gear (maybe jacket and tie) on top and, in hot weather shorts below. So the visual side of Zoom is quite easy to handle. The audio side is more difficult. I have a 1930's striking German clock which I like not just because of its sound and appearance, but also because of its associations with my Aunt Ethel in Southsea of whom I was very fond. It sat on the mantlepiece in her sitting room and from my earlier days I remember being charmed by it dignified, loud and sonorous chimes.

Cherry always hated it because for her it summoned up memories of oppressive silences of homework and other such enforcements from her Convent boarding school days. Accordingly, the clock was consigned  to a detached and harmless existence in my study. Well, last week I was in a zoom session on the Russian Navy  with some people from NATO in Brussels, when of course the wretched thing went off and solemnly banged its way through ten chimes while I was on air, and so was heard all over Europe and in the US. The meeting collapsed in laughter. Fortunately it was just a rehearsal. When the organisers had recovered, they politely asked me to make sure I had silenced it for the real session.  So time can fly geographically too, apparently.        

                My 'domestic staff' as I like to think of them in my more 'Downton Abbey moments' have done a great job in looking after the house and garden. Both were great shape - although I could see that there were lots of things I could hardly wait to do. Sadly, though, and mysteriously, I seem to have contracted a mild case of 'Housemaid's knee' which makes walking uncomfortable after a while. This is frustrating and has slowed up progress on making acquaintance with my new mower. The old one died, rusting away, while I was still in the US. But that apart I have been gainfully employed catching up and sorting out and also of course carrying on with the academics.

                I have now seen most of the immediate family, Christopher who takes things seriously picked me up at the airport, sprayed me down in the car park and drove me home.  Team Powell  came for a day soon after I got back, when we engaged at distance very nicely with fish and chips in the garden. Finally S,R &V came last weekend. The weather allowed a  real adventure - a breakfast rendezvous on the downs behind Pewsey  where Simon cooked bacon and egg while red kites wheeled in the bluest of skies, directly above us.

Quite by coincidence we discovered from the survey map that there was one of the Wiltshire 'white horses' carved in the turf behind us, but invisible from the little road. Of course we went to find it, a short way away via a field path. At the site there was a stunning view over the Vale of Pewsey which I knew nothing about and even a bench to rest upon. In the evening a properly socially distanced barbeque followed and on Sunday, the promised pilgrimage to the Eagle Oak in the New Forest. I had told the big oak tree on my keep-fit rounds in the grounds of my Newport mansion all about the Eagle Oak and was able to convey cousinly greetings. A picnic afterwards completed a very successful weekend, and marked the end of my time for re-acquaintance with the UK.