Dreich weather and a sonnet: Argyll Weather

I haven't written a sonnet for 37 years. At that time, I thought I might be halfway through my allotted life span and wrote my first attempt at a sonnet about being at "life's watershed". You can hear the iambic feet, can't you? This afternoon, it being utterly miserable outside, and dark by 3.30pm, I thought I'd make my Christmas puddings and then - maybe - write some cards. Then I got a message from a good friend that he'd been shown a poem of mine on a window of St Andrew's bus station. In St Andrews. There was a photo - it's there, right enough, in black letters on the glass. Extraordinary.

In the comment thread that followed, others joined in. One of them threw down a challenge. "Write a sonnet about Argyll weather. Walking in the rain". This wasn't an entirely random challenge - I'd pointed out that I didn't participate as much as I might in the poetry scene because I was always walking about in the rain in Argyll.

Reader, I tried. Once the puddings were burbling and the (extensive) washing up done, I sat down with my preferred poetry-writing tools (the back of an envelope and a biro) and a copy of Edwin Morgan's Glasgow Sonnets for inspiration.

This is the result. I've dedicated it to my friend Jim Gordon, whose fault it was.

Argyll Weather

A Sonnet for Jim

The rain drifts in grey curtains from the hills
and turns the loch’s black surface into lace
before a random wind takes up the chase
that now obliterates the day it kills.
The burn beside me gurgles as it fills
and overflows. There’s water on my face,
the path I followed gone without a trace,
enthusiasm drowned in sudden chills.

But as I turn to make my sodden way
to shelter, warmth …dry feet … a sudden gleam
appears. It’s like another day.
The wet rock all around me starts to steam
and birdsong cuts the air as if to say
This is Argyll. Things are not what they seem.

C.M.M. 12/17

Pervixi ... in memoriam ABF

ABF and Mr B, 2012

I don't know what prompted me to take the above photo, but today I'm glad that I halted, called to the others to stop and smile in Great Western Road on a suddenly chilly Corpus Christi evening last year. It was my last but one meeting with one of my oldest friends. Alastair Fulton - forever ABF in my memory - died last week, and as I shall miss his funeral, in St Mary's Cathedral which we had just left when that photo was taken, this is my memory.


ABF was one of the first people I met outwith the 60-strong contingent of undergraduates from my old school when I went to Glasgow University as a fresher. He was a leading light in the Cecilian Society, and it was there that I realised what a wonderful comic actor he was - to say nothing of the wonderful tenor singing voice that years later joined the New Consort of Voices and brought him, memorably, to the Cathedral of The Isles on Cumbrae. On that occasion, he appeared at breakfast in the North College wearing yellow ochre pyjamas decorously covered by his borrowed surplice, having forgotten a dressing gown. Strangely, another ineradicable memory involves Alastair singing The Judge's Song from Trial by Jury wearing a white cardigan on his head: the Cecilian concert party used to perform for such oddly-named organisations as The Scottish Girls' Friendly Society (can this be real?) and in this particular concert performance ABF obviously felt the lack of costume and seized the cardi from one of the sopranos.

One year I invited him as my partner to the QM Ball; he was a splendid dancer and I've never been so entertained by any dance partner since (sorry, Mr B!).

The evening fled past on a wave of hilarity. Decades later, ABF loved to recount the memory of my father, appearing in his dressing gown at 3am to see his eldest daughter safely into the house and to engage this amusing young man in the kind of conversation he too loved. As ABF prepared to leave, my father told him that he would find "the usual offices", should he care to avail himself, on the landing.

Later, when I had left university and was a student at Jordanhill College, my school placement for teaching practice in Latin took me to Jordanhill College School, where ABF was now on the staff of the Classics department - a strange sense of continuity, of nothing really changing - and, five years further on, we found ourselves both on the staff of Hillhead High School, a happy coincidence that had Alastair turning up outside our marital home every morning to give me a lift to work and found us practising Byrd in a corner of the music department.

Over the years, the contact remained, intermittent but easy. ABF regarded Dunoon as dangerously rural; on one visit he became agitated as we walked along the (pavementless) coastal road at Toward. "There's someone coming," he hissed. There was indeed a distant figure, on the other side of the road, heading our way. "Do you know this person? Should we greet him?" More recently, sitting in the sun in our garden, it was he who realised that there was a thrush nesting in one of our shrubs, and carefully assisted me to retrieve the laundry from the line to avoid disturbing it. And constantly, over the years since I retired from teaching and took up blogging, he has been an assiduous and hilarious poster of comments - erudite, irascible, argumentative, hilarious. As he shared my tendency to midnight computing, I would often laugh myself into a state that rendered sleep impossible.

I realise I've only given a snapshot of a life here - the bits I saw and enjoyed. I know Alastair had his difficult times, and I know my mother used to enjoy meeting him in the cafés around Byres Road. I appreciated hugely his presence at her funeral, as I enjoyed sharing him with my family and friends at our Ruby Wedding party. I saw him twice last year - at the afore-mentioned occasion in St Mary's, and at the funeral of a friend's mother. He phoned me in Holy Week, amazingly upbeat and as amusing as ever despite the illness I'd only just heard about. His death came as a horrible surprise.

It's hard to write this in the knowledge that one of my favourite readers will not be commenting on it this evening; it's hard to think I have lost yet another person who would always have the answer to the difficult - or merely crazy - linguistic query. The heavenly choir may even now be rejoicing in the song of a new tenor - but down here the gap is immense.

Make sure they get the Latin right, Alastair ...

Pervixi; neque enim fortuna malignior unquam
Eripiet nobis quod prior hora dedit.

Petronius Arbiter

The silver linings

Though today I'm feeling rather less sunny than I have the past two days, I need to record that a couple of silver linings exist in the cancellation of our holiday. The first became evident on Sunday afternoon, when Holy Trinity was filled with regulars and visitors from all over the place - including Hungary - for a marriage blessing and a baptism. After a dreadful accident at work, the effects of which are still very obvious after four months, Csaba thrilled us all by reading Psalm 139  in an electrifying manner, and was able to stand alongside Melinda as their marriage was blessed. It was joyous and moving, and the music for the occasion - Hungarian and Scottish -  could be live rather than on the iPod because I hadn't hauled the organist off to Sicily. As for the Hungarian dancing at the bunfight afterwards - there will be photos, and a wee movie, once I finish retrieving the important things on my convalescent computer - it was as unexpected as it was wonderful.

The second plus for me was being able to attend the funeral of Kenneth Elliot. One of the discoveries of my time at university was the pleasure to be found in singing the music of 16th and 17th century Scotland, a tiny portion of which I had studied for my Higher Music. At that time, Mr B and I were founder members of a vocal ensemble - The New Consort of Voices - and a fond memory is of an evening when the eight of us were invited to Kenneth's house to drink wine, eat olives and sing the music he had been working on. Later in his life, he too looked back to that particular bunch of students - because we were enthusiastic, young, sang without wobbles and sang his stuff the way he wanted it. At least, we did before the wine had flowed too freely ...

Yesterday, five of that Consort were at the funeral in St Mary's Cathedral in Great Western Road, Glasgow. Yes, there were other people too, but we were remembering a particular era, a time of discovery and handwritten manuscripts, of late nights and laughter, of traumas involving delicate harpsichords and wayward visiting counter-tenors. We marvelled at how old we were becoming, and how some people looked just like their fathers (these tended to be people we hadn't seen since uni). The funeral service was beautifully put together; a scratch choir under Alan Tavener sang just as they should have, and George McPhee was the perfect organist.  I was particularly struck by Kelvin Holdsworth's words - as he told us, he had only met Kenneth at the very end of his life, but he struck exactly the right note in a manner we all appreciated. (And no, there was no pun intended - I never think of good puns when I need them). Kenneth would have approved of the whole thing.

Today I'm paying for the fact that I couldn't spend ten minutes in every hour lying on my face in the last two days - but to compensate I realise even more forcibly that I couldn't have survived a walking holiday such as we had planned. We shall go another time - but these silver linings were one-off affairs. Etna can wait.

I hope ...

Later: I was waiting to retrieve a photo for this post, and somehow it's arrived here after midnight. I've not gone crazy - just think Tuesday rather than Wednesday for the posting date!

Cracking Ne'erday

Loch Eck, approaching Bernice
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

I've cracked it. After a lifetime of end-of-year blues, I think I've achieved the painless transition to 2009. I think the beastly combination of nostalgia and regret at the passing of Christmas first hit me when I began to keep a diary - there's nothing like writing the final entry to remind you that that's another year gone - at the age of ten. In my day I have attempted to kid myself that I could be jolly on Hogmanay, but in my Glasgow youth this involved bleak expeditions to find friends who lived elsewhere in the city, or, later, the teetering walk home from some party over frosty streets with the horrid knowledge that one was beginning to feel really bad.

The young baby years were no better, as they tended to involve merely "seeing the year in" over the increasingly dire telly and heading bedwards immediately afterwards. Then, and in the years to follow, there was the relentless approach of the school term, which sometimes began as early as January 3rd, depending on which day of the week Ne'erday fell. Whatever I was doing - wife of a teacher, mother of pupils, a teacher myself - this was the worst and darkest time, when the early-morning struggle to rise in the chilly dark seemed more of a nightmare than ever.

But enough of these dark rememberings. This year worked. The secret? Tidy the house after your Christmas visitors, noting as you do so that your house is actually quite a decent size after all. Shop early and casually, knowing that the close friends who are joining you for dinner on Hogmanay are bringing the main course and a Christmas pudding with them. Waste some of the afternoon on the computer, and on reading the book you've been too knackered to read in the past two weeks. Have a lovely relaxed evening with the aforementioned friends, enjoying the fact that the four of you have made a little effort to scrub up a bit. Eat heartily, so that the drink you consume makes you mellow but not drunk. Talk about the things that really interest you all - so that you don't have to witter small talk till the bells. At 11.45pm, put on the telly and wonder why BBC Scotland seem to find it so hard to get any decent singers and why the show has the rather desperate air of an impromptu gathering or a wedding without the bride - and learn that Jackie Bird has had her teeth whitened. (This is hearsay - blame the Best Pal) At midnight, kiss each other heartily, drink champagne and admire the Edinburgh fireworks, before switching to Jools Holland and becoming ever so slightly raucous. When your pals leave before 1am, put out any light that might tempt a first-footer, leave Mr B to do the washing-up, and head for bed with your book.

All this leaves you with a clear head on Ne'erday, able to enjoy the brilliant sunshine of a two-hour walk above Loch Eck - see photo - returning ravenous to eat bread and cheese and get your iMac wired to the BT hub so that you don't have to put up with the erratic wireless connection any more. This involves the return of Rob, who was your guest last night and who spent part of the evening persuading you to let him bring a long ethernet cable he just happened to have lying around, and results in the joyously speedy connection of my dreams.

There. No nostalgia, no maudlin maunderings, no hangover. I've had a good day and later there are two episodes of Eastenders to remind me of how lucky I am. But first I think I might eat again ...

Old-fashioned friendship

More cards today. And of course a mountain of them when we arrived home the other night after our trip south. I find myself as always looking at the handwritten envelopes and recognising the writing - for not many of our friends have done as I have in the past few years and used a database and labels. Some of these friends I haven't seen for at least 35 years, and it amuses me to picture them still writing as they did all those years ago. One in particular sat next to me in several classes at school and I used to despair at the unvarying neatness of her writing under pressure: it is unvarying still. I can't imagine how she looks now; we don't exchange photos and we're not connected online, but this annual renewing of friendship still has the power to please.

I sometimes feel a pang of guilt at the ease of using the printed labels, but reassure myself with the thought that I write the cards and think of the recipient and scribble in a word or two of friend-specific news or comment. It's as if they exist in a different plane from the people I know in this medium, the ones to whom I shall Tweet my seasonal wishes and who make Santa hats for my avatar to wear, the ones whose every move is familiar to me but who only know me as Mrs B.

I shall be posting on love blooms bright again tomorrow; there's some more lovely stuff there to meditate on in a quiet moment.

Three sheets to the wind?

Summer's lease
Originally uploaded by Mac44.

What a joy to have a visit from an old friend! You blether all day, and then you get them to fold your washing (see pic).This particular pal and I go back - aaargh - over 40 years and I never knew he was possessed of such domestic accomplishments.

But what is it about people one has known over so many years? As far as I'm concerned it's to do with ease of communication, with trust, with expectations (or lack of them) and with putting shared concerns into perspective. There's leg-pulling, honesty, and a lack of bullshit. And today I had the added joy of a shared aversion to those who would murder the English language and to over-scrupulous attention to Health and Safety regulations.

And we laughed. And laughed. And we were not three sheets to the wind.

Farewell, Domestic Goddess, farewell 2006

It's dark again. A dark, blowy Hogmanay with further gales forecast. Before I return to the role of Domestic Goddess for one more time - cooking for a meal with a friend - I'll join the hordes who post their look back over 2006. I hate this night of the year - have done ever since I was a child. The days may be imperceptibly lengthening, but the turning year brings with it the reflection that life ain't - let us not think after these ways: so, it will make us mad.

For me, 2006 was a big year - the trip to New Zealand, the death of my friend Edgar, the wedding of Ewan and Morgane, Neil's graduation. But it was also the year in which I made a host of new contacts - some virtual, some becoming three dimensional, like David and Andrew, who no longer needs to stand sideways for me to recognise him. I still enjoy the thrill of making new contacts online - especially if they seem to appreciate what I have to say. And I still find it amusing when people much younger than I say "You have a ... what?" I wonder if there will come a day when writing a blog is as commonplace as keeping a diary - though come to think of it it's not everyone who does that either. (I have kept a diary continuously since 1958 - quite a thought!)

That's enough. I'm off now to do wonderful things with a fillet of venison from Winston Churchill, and then I'll domestic goddess it no further. A Good New Year to you all.

For the sober and literary: there are two Shakespearian references in this post. The usual rules apply.