The weather remains thoroughly and dispiritingly wintry - for winter in these maritime parts is just like this: raw winds, smirring rain with the odd downpour, grey skies, temperatures stubbornly below 10ºC (didn't get above 7º yesterday). The good weather came before the trees or the psychology were ready for it, and hasn't returned - so none of the joyous sense of life renewed has come to cheer as yet. And it's past mid-May. I think of all the songs, madrigals, rejoicing in this month - Now is the month of Maying, O lusty May - and have a wry smile.
And today we're celebrating a 60th birthday in what I think of as the younger end of my generation. At least two friends have just passed this landmark, one I look back at from what was supposed to be the sunlit uplands of retirement (never mind). Others are on the point of celebrating the Ruby wedding that we passed two years ago. And some are ill unto death. Life is very short, and I want the sun to shine.
I hope there will be champagne. That's all.
I loved your clips, Christine, but agree that the weather is dismal and so cold here in Wales too. Our big ash trees are showing no sign of coming into leaf yet and we still have primroses in full flower as June approaches. The world upsidedown....
ReplyDeleteSome of our trees that have come into leaf are amazingly yellow - wondering if this could be an effect of the storm last May that denuded them of their new leaves... But on a more cheerful note: there was champagne today!
DeleteOh Christine, it's a very Scottish post. Scotland, I'm told, is beautiful (I've only been there twice) but depressing for its inhabitants.
DeleteSo are you still working , or is retirement not really sunlit uplands?
No, I've been retired for almost 6 years now, though I have done some work for the past 3 years. Actually, it's very busy being retired - at least, it is if you're involved in the church in an underpopulated diocese and if you sing (both apply!) - but I was really just being glum about the lack of sunshine in western Scotland in the past couple of years.
DeleteIn some respects, however, I was thinking of the image of 'extinction's alp' in Larkin's poem 'The Old Fools' - he so dreaded the old age that he himself never lived to attain.
Hope you enjoyed the brilliant sunshine today Chris - more to come they say!
ReplyDeleteOh, I did! Glorious sun, peewits, swifts, oystercatchers - a great walk by the sea this afternoon. I must moan online more often! ;-)
DeleteA hall, a hall, give room! And foot it, girls!
ReplyDeleteMore light, you knaves, and turn the tables up;
And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.
Ah, sirrah, this unlook'd-for sport comes well.
Nay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin Capulet,
For you and I are past our dancing days.
How long is't now since last yourself and I
Were in a mask?
Well said, sirrah! 'Tis but two days since ....
Delete:-)