Gammon and Larkin .

 

Larkin , in his poem " An Arundel tomb " makes the point that

" They would not guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
The air would turn to soundless damage ,
How soon succeeding eyes begin
to look not read . "

When the monuments went up ,  the person it commemorates and the person who paid for it were known to the viewer .
Now , we don't read it like that , we concentrate more often on the skill of the maker , the boggling amount of children on the plinth or the beauty of it and what it unexpectedly reveals says Larkin , or something like it .

These lovely things can be a record , a form of respect , vanity , resultant of a promise kept .

A rewriting of the history of a man who was less than he might have been in some areas of his life .

A humorous or political point made and now lost or partially obscure now .

The monument to Sir Anthony Rowley sits in a church I sometimes visit in Suffolk . The poem " a frog he would a wooing go "is about him . 

"A frog he would a wooing go

Hey ho says rowley

Whether his mother would like it or no

With a rowley , powley , gammon and spinach

hey ho says anthony rowley .

There are local families called Rowley , Powley , Gammon and ( unusual ) Spinach .

On Sir Anthony's statue he wears an earring . It is of a frog .

The full significance of the poem and the frog earring are not known .

The Larkin poem is ( of course ) very good  - if you don't know it , have a look .

Serenity .

  

As the light fades the sky is overcast with peach and dark blue clouds . Here and there the sunlight and sky blue of the day show through . On the dull blue water sea gulls sit swaying on the tide . 

When the sunlight breaks through it rests on the white backs of the gulls . It makes them golden and lit up .

In the fading light they look like so many fireflies . 

The way the sun sits .

 

The way the sun sits this evening gilds the birds . There are silver seagulls on the wing . Their gleam will only be extinguished by the night . 

Meanwhile I wait for Friday when , they say , the heat will abate . 

Till then I languish . A melting ice lolly . languorous . lazy . Letting the book on my lap fall shut . 

By the end of the week I should be able to watch the rain wash the dust from the blackberries and elderberries . For now though the preserving pan and my attendant plans can wait . 

There is silence and a slight breeze to keep me occupied .

Swan or shorn ...........

Such is the nature of the fields around the estuary that what , from a distance , looks like a field of sheep is sometimes a large flock of grazing swans . 

I love to look at the white origami of the shapes in the distance and as we draw near take further clues . 

It can be a puzzle ,  like one of those photographs of a familiar object taken from an odd angle .

Which is better to discover sheep or swan ?

Along the way some fields have been cut and the  stubble ploughed in . The soil is a rich brown and could only be improved, you feel , by some custard and double cream .

Before lock down I had my hair cut by a " ladies hairdresser " and not a " good cutter " . A " good cutter"  is more often to be found in the city whilst a " ladies hairdresser"  would only be there for the  Ideal home exhibition .......

So , bad cut , dye growing out, split ends and hair generally indicative of much sea . salt and beach time spent post lock down .

Then , last Saturday ,  on one of those impulses , I dashed through the rain to a " good cutter "  . 

I took a chance never having been there before . 

I mentioned Annie Lennox , he nodded and cut . He cut and razored down the lengths until they were all gone and there was my natural brown hair minus the "stubble " of the split ends , dye etc .

Which is better swan or shorn ?

I smiled into the mirror, paid him a fortune and sashayed out into the rain .

Do I look hot ?

Yes .

Sand .

Little boys run up and down the beach like sand pipers .

The vivid green of the sea holly is that of pea pods .A small dog with a red collar raises his head and sniffs the salt in the air .

I collect a bag of bladderwrack . I love the smell of seaweed as the best of smells . 

I shall hang it by the back door tomorrow . 

It is not , as some would , hung as a weather barometer . for any fool knows that if the seaweed is wet it is raining ! 

No , it hangs there so that when I open the door on a damp morning I smell the shore again and mentally cancel what can wait . 

It is always good to listen to what the waves have to say .

Sometimes a bit of lonely is nice .

As lockdown has eased its been baguettes on the beach . 

( we are in the car or away from it on a wide lonely beach - sometimes a bit of lonely is nice .) 

Sand between my toes and a sunny breeze on my lockdown hair .

We went again on my birthday . Well , there's no gallery or museum so that was what I chose .

  Good choice - it was that soft rainy day and everything was so green and blue in the landscape .

Down the back roads with red legged partridges trying to race the car and hawks riding the soft air currents . Out along the estuary to a philosophical ocean which takes 2020 as par for the course for humans and gets on with slapping the quay .

Today , though , I stayed at home . The saxophonist went to the allotment . Planting in the poly tunnel I interrupted him him asking him to bring back some broad beans .He held me up going on about his erection . 

I know and he insisted on telling me ,  in depth  , about the runner bean frame he was about to erect . 

He isn't normally one for the double entendre  and I have already told him to use the hair clippers he bought to make him attractive again .

 So your guess is as good as mine . At least I'll get some runner beans out of it . They are my favourite - perhaps that was it .

So I got him off the line and got on with my own gardening .I'd bought some unusual poppies from road side stands so they went in the front garden . It's a blaze of cottagy English garden just now .

The back garden is all greens . You go through an old Victorian passage and out among beds of ferns and herbs  . A green jungle .

( The space that isn't beds is carpeted with oyster shells we collected over a winter with strange tides  . They came in  , hundreds and hundreds of them .  I usually collect sea glass but this was a winters project . )

There is a recycled table with a toughened glass top and half a dozen heavy fold up wooden chairs .

There's a bench at the bottom in the shade of an old Victorian wall . 

I've recently acquired a large statue of a naked boy . The statue has carved drape fabric so that his buttocks are on show and his " construction for runner beans " is veiled .

Anyway , then to all the new plants for the back garden and fresh herb seeds in the cold frame .

Round the naked boy I've put nasturtiums and morning glory . In due time he will have some snakes head fritillary as a companion and later he can gaze on jasmine .

So when I had done that lot and watered it all in I made some good coffee .

I sat at the table with the coffee and a cigarette .

 Under a blue , blue sky I and naked boy enjoyed the slight breeze and time to think our own thoughts at leisure . 

I thought how good this feels - the quiet . the coffee , the cigarette and the green , green garden .

I have no idea what naked boy thought . Experience earlier in the day made me incline to the view that it is sometimes better not to know what the male species wants to tell you .

After all I was hot , muddy and tired and not a bit concerned about why naked boy was showing off his arse - lets not forget that sometimes a bit of lonely is nice . 

Bear witness

 

My fellow blogger and friend has put up a post for Thursday 4th of June .

She is on blogger and her blog is called 37 paddington .

I know I have many visitors who prefer not to comment ( and some who do ) .

Can I ask you to go over to the post .

I want people to know what she has written .