Two more babies

 

Birds of Paradise plants are seriously amazing. After last year's major effort when five splendid bird-like flower heads appeared for the first time ever, I was prepared for not much this year. Especially since for a variety of reasons the plant has been subject to what can only be described as serial abuse and neglect. Somehow in dealing with major projects in the garden, watering things inside the house gets forgotten. Even tomato plants on window sills have been known to give up and die. Consequently I wasn't surprised when only one bird-head seemed to appear this year.

                But while having a cup of coffee, one morning I suddenly spotted two of the plants curled up  leaves were fatter than the others. Closer examination suggested they might be pregnant with possibilities. This was perhaps two weeks after the appearance of the first one. Slowly each of them developed a little sharp point and then within a couple of hours a couple of bright orange then purple crests beaks appeared. At first I thought that perhaps these were going to be weak little birds but by the following day two more orange crests had appeared and the first and then the second birds were practically the same size as the first. What really amazed  me was the speed of the transition when it happened. One moment there was nothing there, the next a full head of crests. They really are astonishing things that deserve more solicitous care !

                Other than that it's been a pretty quiet time, even with easing of lockdown. I'm getting a lot more company than I did. My cleaning lady is now back clearing the Augean stables of the last few months - although she's much too polite to say so. My gardener comes once a fortnight and now I have a husband and wife team painting my conservatory - or would be if the weather permitted it. I've had some adventures in Devizes too, and delight above delight actually went inside Caffee Nero for my cappuccino and croissant once I had finished with the market.

                I also have plenty of Zoom contact too of course, in fact too much sometimes. This is a problem aggravated by my curious reluctance to say no to things. One morning I was 'in' a NATO air base in the Azores talking about the state of affairs in the Gulf of Guinea to about 30 officers of local navies, and then after a 10 minute transition in the National Defence University in Stockholm talking about maritime strategy  to a dozen rather serious Swedish naval officers - and later that day off to Newport.  Zoom creates its own tyranny.      

                NInetheless, unlike several friends and relatives I'm afraid,  I have so been luckily unscathed, by the pandemic so far- touch wood and cross fingers - but trying to keep things that way is still making planning  extremely difficult.  Not least for Newport. I need to get back there for a bit before the end of June as my lease expires then. I'm told that Rhode Island is now mask-less and that health entry requirements for the US differs from state to state and that often there are non at all. What Massachusetts where Boston airport is doing has to be discovered. But what worries me more is getting back and the prospect of those long dangerous queues to get one's documents validated by Border Force at Heathrow. That I definitely don't fancy. In a couple of weeks or so the academic pressures should really lighten up as I will have finished my teaching at Newport and Singapore, and hopefully the first draft of the mega-book. With so much more spare time on my hands I should be able to start serious investigation into all of this. But we will see.  

                And wouldn't it be nice to have some sun.... and the opportunity actually to enjoy what is actually happening nonetheless in the garden, like the head-high cow parsley that's appeared from nowhere in the wood and the cowslips pushing out from their string-bound reservation in the grass by the little pond. It's all quite hopeful actually.

Selling Up !

 

Actually no, not me. I got a note to say that Ocean View was now on the market and a friend sent me the particulars, which don't even mention my little 4 bedroom, three bathroom, double garage  carriage house pad in the grounds. It's going for 18.75 million dollars over twice as much as I had expected, perhaps a response to the fact that it's really a seller's market in the US at the moment now that the pandemic is at last receding for a bit.  A new colleague at the Center (yes, that's how they spell it) is trying to move here from Alabama and having a hell of a time. He says first that the prices are sky high and secondly, that even if you are here rather than trying to do it remotely, you practically have to hand over a cheque there and then, otherwise someone will outbid you. It's almost like that in Alabama. When they put their house on the market, they had 12 visits in the first two days and 7 of them offered more than the asking price. They couldn't take any of them as they don't want to move until July at the very earliest. Rather them than me, I must say. But of course it may apply to Ocean View too, so if someone has a spare $20 million hanging around it might go quickly.

                But not of course before the end of my lease, which completes in late June. So that is the kind of date for me to plan for. I am working out how to get back for a little while, to sort out my stuff and office and do something - and I really don't know what - with my car and all the stuff that has been festering in it for nearly a year now. Sadly my Chilean colleague is going back to Santiago in early July, although he says there are very few flights at the moment as Chile which has done very well with the vaccines has closed its borders, trying to protect itself from the Brazilian variant. Bottom line - in this situation planning is difficult for everyone - not just me.

                The wife of one of my oldest friends in Newport, I've known him for nearly 50 years, is currently 'passing' as they say over there, which is all very, very sad and awful for him although he does have a very supportive and local family. What with that and the sudden and unexpected  death of another long term friend in the UK, it's hard not to  have the occasional thoughts about one's own mortality.  This wasn't helped by coming across a reference to myself  in a Canadian navy document which referred to something that I had just written about HMS Queen Elizabeth  and said I was the 'Elder Statesman of Maritime Strategy.'  I can see the 'Old Man of the Sea ' around the corner soon. It reminds me of a conference cocktail party we were at once in Taipeh. We were half introduced to a pretty little girl who asked who I was; when our host explained, she made a weird gasping noise like 'shaaaahh' and stepped backwards. " I thought you were dead !" she said. And that was perhaps 20 years ago.....

                 Still I keep such melancholy thoughts at bay by being perpetually (over)busy. The academic  treadmill continues and I am at last reaching the end of this phase of my relaxing  ancient wood work on the stairs. I am using up bits and pieces of 16th Century stuff left over from the installation of the linenfold pannelling. I must say I get a real frisson of pleasure just handling and preserving some of it, especially when I come across old carpenter's marks and know that I am the first person to see it and do something with it after he made them 450 years ago.  Much the same feeling came over me when I visited a little Church last weekend on my way to meet Philippa and family in Sussex. I had left early that morning so that I could drop into the tiny little Church at Upmarden in the amazingly remote-seeming extreme West of the county.

It was there that an equally remote but nonetheless pretty direct ancestor, John Tille, was recorded as renting 60 acres of land from the Earl of Arundel in 1376. I hadn't expected to be able to get into the Church when I eventually located it, but did as a lady came and opened it while I was having a sandwich in the utterly peaceful little churchyard. The Church  was small and plain but had an old Saxon tub-font that  John would have no doubt been familiar with, perhaps even baptised in, and a wall painting (of St Christopher ?) that he would have looked at. Wonderful. I loved it for the same reason I suppose as I like messing around with old bits of wood. It's a kind of temporal transference. Mr Wong in Singapore once told me that one of his best and richest Chinese clients basically bought his very expensive Ming plates and dishes, mainly because he liked eating off them. I can absolutely sympathise.

                But of course all that romantic nonsense was quickly knocked out of me when I reached the rendez-vous with team Powell, Kingly Vale - the car park of which was, as I had wondered, absolutely packed with people. So much for a thoughtful re-acquaintance with a what the Americans call a 'storied' element of my past, since the Vale was a kind of remote and magical place we used to visit from Portsmouth millions of years ago !

                I hadn't realised that the Powell-mobile was right behind me, similarly looking for a place to squeeze into, alongside the narrow sunken lane. We managed it and set off for a hike up the Vale. It was far from crowded and we wondered where everyone had got to. The Vale is famous for two things , some spectacular views from the top and a marvellous collection of ancient and bubbled yew trees that look as  though been there for millenia but also seemed straight from the magical but sinister woods in the Lord of the Rings. Great for kids to climb in. At the bottom of the steep slope to the top, there's a dew pond. Toiling up made us puff. Probably good for us.

                We lunched in our cars in the small enclosed car park of the nearby Church of West Dean, quintessentially Till country, since there and later in nearby Singleton is where they ended up from the 16th Century. Upmarden is about four miles away across the hills, though much further by road. We needed to show Martha the 18th Century Martha Till gravestones, mercifully sheltered from the elements, being close by the East end of the Church, and so still decipherable.  Martha wasn't that keen on such creepy associations but of course complied.

                Afterwards we set off for Hayling Island in search of Powell connections since this was where Mike, Chiff's Dad spent some of his holidays, and Chiff had visited in his youth. He recalled that they were noted brick-makers and remembers seeing them lying out in the sun to dry. We located the house next to the sea up the posher north end of the island, and one Powell gravestone ( and a stray rather weird Till one too) at a nearby Church.  Otherwise it was a question of exploration of a place none of us remembered, with some bracing beachwalks and ending up, inevitably, with some very welcome  fish and chips sheltering from a bitter wind under  the woodwork of a beach chine. Barney kept himself warm by assaulting the walls of beach pebbles in impressively Rambo-like style. And that was an agreeable end to a very enjoyable and hectic day.