The last two weeks have underlined the fact, that no
doubt like many other people, my ‘new normal’ isn’t in fact any kind of normal,
because things happen all the time that make one day or one week quite unlike
anything that happened in recent days or weeks. Not normal at all.
In my case, for example, last week saw the arrival
of The Family (mine, not the mafia) for the normal apple-crushing-and-turning-into-apple-juice weekend.
But it wasn’t normal because the late savage frost in the spring that decimated
the garden meant there weren’t enough apples to warrant getting all the necessary
kit out of the stables. (And no plums either come to that, except rather
strangely, for a good crop of greengages, my favourite). Moreover it was weekend
of constant coming and going, with the senior Powells coming for the Friday
night unloading their spawn (their phrase not mine) and departing the following
morning for a wedding in Surrey, only returning on Sunday morning when, normally
all the work would have been done and cleared away). The Simon/Ruth/Violet
combo arrived as is their wont shortly after dawn – or would have done had a
flashing light on the dashboard of their car suggested (falsely) an imminent
explosion. Christopher and Beth arrived later Saturday morning.
We all set to work, relaxing, the weather being unusually cooperative and allowing lounging around in deck chairs in the garden. Chuntering. A brief excursion around the village to see the cows and along the canal to what is now known as otter bridge, in order to confirm that we wouldn’t see one. The stars of the event though were the two young dogs in the barn conversion where the local farmer’s elder son lives. They growled at us ferociously then rather spoilt the deterrent effect by trying desperately to squeeze through tiny gaps in the gate in order slavishly to lick hands. Christopher in particular was besotted.
After that triumph we found some straw bales on the hill and of course had some harmless fun with them. Later that
evening the customary barbecue. The weather still amazingly cooperative.
Philippa and Chiff returned the following morning, in time for an impromptu birthday party for Christopher.
As I suspected it turned out to be too complicated for us to grace the annual All Cannings garden party with our collective presence, a shame as that is one of the few occasions to link up with the locals. But first things first.
Otherwise,
it’s been a quiet time. The end of the book is in sight, with a deadline of the
end of October. I have reached the stage
where I am heartily sick of the subject and wish I had never started the wretched
thing. Also I have renewed my determination never to write another one. All the
same, I keep discovering new things that just have to go into it, so the
manuscript is getting longer and longer, which means it gets more expensive so
fewer people will read it. It’s just one of the things I cite to counter other
peoples’ admiration for being able to write a book. It’s not an achievement, it’s
a curse. The compulsion is similar to a drug addict’s. But this time, it really
will be the last one. Other academic things intrude too, though further
delaying things. Odd really. ‘No’ is just two letters after all.
One
of these distractions occurred the following Saturday, an engagement in Trieste at an
Italian conference on seapower. It was awful. The chairman of my panel, though
efficient, young and capable seeming, instead of briefly introducing his three
speakers went off on a meandering, waffling, high-sounding but vacuous talk only vaguely
related to the subject under review. The first speaker I thought even worse. His
subject was America and its maritime approach and he chuntered on for over
twice his allotted time. The only thing I remember about it was the great
significance he attached to the fact that General Custer’s parents were German,
though I was far from clear about what that had to do with anything. My young
female interpreter who sounded competent seemed equally bemused, so I don’t
think this was great substance lost in translation. The word anthropological
was used a lot. It was already clear to me that we were going to run seriously
out of time. The second speaker on China wasn’t too bad and didn’t over-run by
as much, but I still had to gabble though my session in 15 minutes and the
session stopped when I did, the chairman apologising to the audience and
admitting blame. No discussion, no question and answer as promised. The one consolation for me was that although,
as is customary, one leaves the video on to show that one is actually there, I
managed covertly to tidy my study and do a lot of e-mails and What’s Apps to fill in the time - a commodity not to be wasted.
It was an anti-climax to what had been a very nice day with the Friends of Wiltshire Churches. This involved a tour of one of our old stamping grounds ‘back in the day’ as the Americans rather charmingly put it, North Dorset. It didn’t start well with my sat-nav taking me to the wrong place via a network of tiny lanes wriggling through beautiful back country. I ended up in a farmyard. ‘Oh no,’ said the farm lady, ‘There’s no Church here.’ It turned out I was somewhere else altogether. Her instructions were admirably clear and I followed them blindly. I spotted a cul de sac lane (more of a track) called Church Row and squeezed up it, abandoning the car at the end rather than parking it, and following a tiny unpromising path found the church in question. Concerned that I hadn’t seen any other cars or people I was relieved to find my party as well, just finishing the tour. They had arrived in a more orthodox manner from the other direction and were parked decorously in and around the church car park. Otherwise everything else worked admirably. The weather was glorious and so were the sights. I was particularly taken by the tiny Church at Winterbourne Tomson (sic - a place not even on my map). Charming, quite unspoiled and in another farmyard. Redundant of course but cared for, thank heaven.
This
was the northern part of Hardy country, so we just had to go to Bere Regis to inspect
the Turbeville window under which the tragic Tess learned all about her family
antecedents. Underneath the window Hardy’s succinct description of the remains of their tomb is exact and most
affecting. I am a great one one for family histories, real or imagined. That scene gets me every time. Hardy was one of the few things that Cherry and I totally disagreed about. She had no patience with his heroines. How could they be so stupid, she would say. Not at all impressed by the inexorable pressures of fate. They should get a grip. Quite right too.
Sadly I had to leave the tour day early in order to get to waste my time in Trieste. I was though flattered to be asked to take over the group as Chairman but of course turned it down on the basis partly that I don’t know anyone and partly because of my expectations of a partial return to Newport (not that the glacial pace of events at the US State Department suggests this will be any time soon) but it was nice to be asked. Maybe I will think about it when the book is done and things do eventually get back to normal.
