They come over here, take our nuts .....

 

Grey squirrel in Abbey Gardens

I suddenly noticed several months ago that the squirrels in the Abbey Gardens had almost disappeared. Before, the sight of numbers of them, scampering across the grass, hurtling themselves through throngs of pecking pigeons, or dashing up trees, among branches and down again with dizzying speed, was commonplace. And much enjoyed by most passers-by. And then came rather a squirrel desert in the Gardens.

I stopped to pass the time of day with a dog walker the other day; her dog was barking furiously, straining at the lead while looking up towards a mature tree. “He knows there’s a family of five squirrels up there” she explained, “ and he wants to get at them!” I confided my bewilderment at the sudden lack of squirrels around generally and she told me that she was pretty sure that the gardeners would have poisoned them. I was horrified! Only then did I learn that a year or two earlier, during a single night, the 280 expensive, special bulbs [“Bought from Holland”, she explained helpfully, to account for their assumed high value!] planted in the Abbey Garden flower beds, had been eaten by the squirrels. “The gardeners hate them,” she added. “They are vermin you know. My husband calls them tree rats.”

Since then, I have become a squirrel supporter, in sympathy with their plight, and regret at the aesthetic loss to the Abbey Garden-scape. In August's Literary Review I so appreciated a review of Peter Coates’ Squirrel Nation: Reds, Greys and The Meaning of Home.” It recounts the struggle between red and grey squirrels in Britain over a century and a half. I loved the title of the essay, “They come over here, take our nuts ….” an obvious echo of the popular chant during WW2 about American soldiers. “Over-paid, over-sexed, over here.”

A rather curved photo showing
a 1955 poster offering booty of
One shilling per tail.

Prof. Peter Coates

The grey squirrel was introduced here from America in 1876 and in the one hundred and fifty years’ overlap of the two colours in British residence, can be seen the outright public and official hostility to the newcomers which ebbed and flowed for about a century. Very, very gradually it has reduced and almost, but not quite, tapered off to today’s general public view of squirrels normally being grey, though there are still strong hostile pockets of grey-resistance. The superior abilities of the grey squirrel, perceived as the foreign invader, have, in that period, enabled it to flourish hugely, while the number of ‘our’ native red has declined greatly as they have retreated defensively to the Lake District and parts of Scotland leaving the rest of the country to the greys. Coates describes in incredible detail the colonisation of Britain by the greys despite hostility from the general public and Parliament which included repeated accusations of red murder by the greys, plus official campaigns for what can only be described as, “Death to the greys” with One Shilling rewards for grey squirrel tails. The book explores in impressive detail, how the struggle between native Reds and American Greys, relates to such contemporary human issues as belonging, nationalism, citizenship and the defence of borders.

Avi Steinberg

Avi Steinberg writes [April 14, 2016], of what he labels “the Squirrel Problem”; he avers that underlying any discussion of Reds v Greys, lies the tacit assumption of the proximity between human and squirrel and further, that this close relationship means something. This ‘something’ is, the fact [often ignored], that we are party to a social contract with the squirrel. Unlike rabbits, rats, mice, deer, squirrels live on our level, in the open as if by right, and share many human traits. They save and plan ahead, obsessively; they make deposits and debits [mostly of nuts and seeds]; they establish highways and routes [always returning to familiar paths among and around trees]; they are attached for often long periods to their homes, [they can inhabit the same nest, re-furbished from time to time, for many years]; refrigerate staple foods like pine cones; dry delicacies like mushrooms. They work the day shift and sleep at night. And, Steinberg claims, they gamble in the market place. Most animals breed as food becomes available but squirrels have developed the ability to predict a future seed glut and reproduce accordingly. This is behaviour similar to that of the bullish investor!! David La Spina writes in the New York Times, “They are like us and right there with us , our honored frenemies.”

Nicholas Lezard

In this week’s New Statesman, [August 23^rd] ‘ Nicholas Lezard’s column is entitled, “A furry burglar leaves me cheeseless and reeling”. He adds, pained, ‘The squirrel needn’t have stolen my last bit of Camembert. It had only to ask’. Lezard lives in some poverty-stricken disarray and he describes in heart-broken terms, stumbling into his kitchen to find the treat he had carefully saved, a quarter wheel of Camembert, wrapped and in its box, left on the windowsill near a barely open window, had gone. Only the crumpled waxed paper and shreds of box remained. Having interrupted the squirrel twice before, rummaging among the detritus on his kitchen counter, in a flat two flights up, Lezard easily identified the culprit and rants about the injustice of his loss, claiming to be an animal lover now experiencing feelings of violation. His lease forbids pets and he had been fantasising that a friendly visiting squirrel could have been acceptable. But he muses sadly on the stolen Camembert: “not the cheap stuff but Isigny-Ste-Mere sold at Waitrose for £4.90. A squirrel would have to work long and hard to afford to buy a cheese like that with its own money.” As ever, Lezard nails the heart of the situation; squirrels are almost human.

Going Nuts is the title of this rare photo
of a battle between red and grey.

Illustration by R.J. Lloyd for
Ted Hughes' broadside poem,
Squirrel. 1986

White

 

One of the handsome Prezzo windows in
the lower part of Abbeygate.

Approaching one end of the six-sided
18th century West
Front house. Built into, and out of,
the ancient Abbey ruins.

Before I start to think “White”, here are several images of Windows in Bury which I didn’t feel were Quite Right for last week’s encomium on Windows in Art. I started to notice some delightful examples of windows here, around me, and began to take photos until I felt the beginnings of an obsession taking root. I do have to watch my obsessive tendencies and curb them accordingly, in the interests of sanity. So here are just a few of a pictorial post script!

Ancient ruins with door and window

arches in the Abbey Gardens

And so to White which is, frankly, also a post script to last week’s blog on Windows. [See pictures by Hammershoi.] I was sensitised to this subject by Hammershoi initially and the idea for White was further prompted because I watched the last, justly celebrated, interview given by Dennis Potter [to Melvyn Bragg 1994]. It is a lovely encounter during which Potter tries to explain the sharp and

Dennis Potter

vivid images he sees around him as he knows he is dying. He accepts that these are among the last viewing opportunities for him, but he rhapsodises on how the world and the passing of time become unbearably beautiful. He speaks of how the imminence of death gives his experience of the living world a heightened intensity. Although Potter writes fulsomely of white blossom, he is actually rhapsodising about savouring the here and now. Carpe diem.

"At this season, the blossom is out in full now … and instead of saying 'Oh that's nice blossom' … last week looking at it through the window when I'm writing, I see it is the whitest, frothiest, blossomest blossom that there ever could be, and I can see it. The now-ness of everything is absolutely wondrous, and if people could see that, you know. There's no way of telling you; you have to experience it, but the glory of it, if you like, the comfort of it, the reassurance. Not that I'm interested in reassuring people – bugger that. The fact is, if you see the present tense, boy do you see it! And boy can you celebrate it." The interview was subsequently entitled, Seeing The Blossom.

Carolina Bells

The subject of White was further strengthened when I came across the following passage in Immortal Thoughts: Late Style in a Time of Plague, an enchanting book by Christopher Neve in which he writes about great artists nearing the end of their lives and suggests ways in which their late works have something remarkable in common. Christopher Neve is a painter who sees with a painter’s eye but writes with a rare beauty and grace as a poet.

“After this came a celebration of white. May trees, and the double may, flowered in great profusion, lit by bright sunlight. Chestnut trees carried ever broader towers of white bloom. The white of chequer trees began. Cow parsley, Queen Anne’s lace, grew tall and flowered white with great exuberance in fields and ditches. And, above white plants, the gigantic rounded heads and full sails of sun-bright cumulus swelled up as white as laundry.”

Almond blossom

I notice that I wrote a May 2023 blog on Cow Parsley Rampant in testimony to the almost endless white effervescent parsley heads smothering the ancient gravestones in the Great Churchyard here. It was the untrammeled beauty of the expanse of white blooms which moved me as I walked past each day. I was also touched by the fresh, energetic growth of the thrusting young blossoms looping round and over the old stones in a natural display which suggested the real connection of youth with death, in spite of the long, long lives we may lead between the two stages. So, in one way, white can remind of ageing and death while, at the same time, creating an aesthetically pleasing display. I am repeating here the haiku [5;7;5 syllables in lines 1;2;3.] I wrote it in May when I first saw the white cow parsley spreading like a beautiful gossamer curtain. over the gravestones.

Cow blossom dances;

Ancient graves recall echoes

Of faded voices.

Field of cow parsley blossom

Cow parsley delicately embellishing gravestones in May.

The Artistic Window

 

The Play School Windows

I saw a passing reference to Play School recently and immediately remembered my own offspring when young. Play School, together with Listen With Mother, were 15 minute TV programmes for the very young child. My three loved it and at the appropriate hour, I would switch on the set, Shandy, the Golden Labrador would take the hint and lie down in front of the TV and the three children would all sit on her to watch. I was always impressed with the opening of the programme; there would be a picture of three windows and the presenter would ask, “Which window shall we look through today? The arched, the square, or the round?” My three would decide and shout the chosen one and real delight would ensue if they had guessed correctly. If incorrect, no matter, because the camera slowly zoomed up to The Chosen One and ‘melted’ through the window for the audience to witness delights beyond, as a magical story unfolded                                                                                                                    

In my own apartment, the small kitchen has one bifold wall of glass, really, an extended window on to a tiny terrace which serves to illuminate the inner room while simultaneously disclosing the terrace beyond and notionally extending the dimension of the kitchen. It is a notable feature in a relatively ordinary living space and gives me pleasure every single day, regardless of the weather outside.

This fascination with windows is universal; we instinctively look to a window when we enter a room for the first time as we look through to discover what lies beyond. They allow us to engage visually with the world from the comfort of our homes while protecting us from the elements. Windows are not mere architectural decoration, they influence the amount, and the passage, of light into a room, significantly determining the atmosphere of a room. And windows themselves, are not mere frames for glass, they possess an intrinsic beauty and variety in form, as well as illuminating beauty. The interiors of our homes have provided inspiration for many artists and windows have functioned as a focal point, often the focal point, on many occasions.

Pieter de Hooch
Card Players in a Sunlit Room
1658

Artists use windows as framing devices to direct our gaze to a particular scene or subject, showing us the meaning of a scene or lighting up a particular view in a specific way. The open window in a painting can serve as the background, or the focus, and often can serve as a metaphor for hope or change or loneliness or a step in the dark. Laura Cumming in her Thunderclap, writing of Pieter De Hooch, asserts:

“To walk through the streets of Delft is to feel this pleasure redoubled; here is the world, and then smaller views of it, framed as you look through arches into inner courtyards, through doorways into cobbled passageways, into the windows of houses. All of De Hooch’s art turns upon the human urge to look through apertures into the world beyond.”p174.

The Danish Symbolist, Vilhelm Hammershoi, used windows to great effect. His 1900 painting, Dust Motes Dancing in the Sunbeams is an evocative example.

Dust Motes Dancing in the Sunbeams 
Vilhelm Hammershoi. 1900

                                                                                                                              

Our attention focuses on the window, the only source of light in a mysteriously empty room. Little can be seen outside; inside there are panelled doors but centre stage are the slanting rays of sunlight which flood through the uncurtained window, catching the gaze of the observer and taking his eye diagonally to the silhouette of the window frame on the floor. The sunbeams show us the dust motes, dancing. The atmosphere is one of muted but tranquil beauty.

Another Hammershoi interior of 1901, less mysterious though presenting a scene of equal tranquility, shows us two windows with a woman half kneeling on a chair at one window, perhaps calling to someone below. There is an open harpsichord with sheet music ready and a table covered with a white cloth. The walls are all white. The windows have floor length filmy white curtains with a small table between containing a bulbous vase. Beyond the windows are buildings across a narrow street, with several other similar windows in view. This painting could be entitled Windows in a White Room!

Interior Stragegarde
Vilhelm Hammershoi 1901

At the other end of the spectrum, there are Henri Matisse's joyful, vividly coloured interiors, often incorporating windows. Many of these were painted in the beautiful village of Collioure on the Mediterranean coast of southern France where he went to soothe his depressive tendencies. These paintings below seem to reflect the emotional intensity of his response to the landscape before him.

Henri Matisse
Studio in Collioure
1905

Henri Matisse
Open Window in Collioure
1904/5

Gerrit Dou
Old Woman Watering her Flowers
1660/5

Pieter de Hooch
The Courtyard of a House in Delft 1658

Johannes Vermeer
Card Players in a Sunlit Room
1658

Blue Sky Thinking

One end of the ancient West Front, has
its beauty further enhanced

This morning I collected several photographs of shadows and dappled light. It seemed to be everywhere beneath an utterly sapphire blue sky. There was cumulus overhead in an azure heaven contributing to the marvellous interplay of 'brightness and ombre in the Abbey Gardens, themselves already, in any light, a delight! There were few people around and those I met or passed were smiling, quite in tune with the day's perfection and not necessarily noticing the shadow play but instinctively feeling that all was well with the world.  

Cumulus on blue above my terrace today 

The Linnet, reflecting ....

Part of the Great Churchyard being
shaved this morning

Elegant interplay, looking towards
the old ruins

p

Solitary cyclist, pushing his bike beneath
thee trees' canopy

This is hardly a real blog; more a little snapshot of my morning walk on a perfect day. It does also, incidentally, reflect the time and opportunity for a person, an old person with time and inclination to spare, to look around her and ponder and notice. One of the many luxuries of ageing, indeed!  

Kaleidoscope of Childhood Images OR Au Recherche des Temps Perdus!

 Bliss

 I awoke really early this morning feeling a little ‘strange’; that is, unusually lethargic and again unusually, disinclined to leave my bed. I had been in the midst of a dream when I awoke, an interrupted but unknown dream, and I felt reluctant to let it go and begin the day. And I didn’t have to begin the day yet, so I remained in bed and drifted mentally, first to thoughts of the last week then sliding to memories of childhood. This is a common habit of the really old anyway and may have been triggered by my enjoying the recent sight of a toddler being swung by his parents who kissed him each time in rhythm with the beat of the movement. I smiled at this happy little cameo and judged how loved he must instinctively feel and how safe. And thus to les temps perdus.

Dahlias were my mother's passion.
The long back garden overflowed
with them. I loved them too but was
wary of the earwigs who  dwelt there.

Purple Emperor

So, memory one; I am supposed to be picking dahlias from the back garden but I am lying under the purple buddleia tree at the edge of the front lawn; it is a perfect day with my mother happy and busy in the house and father mercifully absent. The sun, through the swaying buddleia leaves, dapples my skin and I feel open, like a flower lifting its head to the warmth. I am there to count butterflies. I have noticed often the cloud of mixed butterflies fluttering, around the buddleia, mainly white with pearlescent wings and fewer Red Admirals and Purple Emperors. There may be more exotic specimens but I only recognise those two. Why do I want to count them? Because a friend has claimed an impossible number in her garden and I am curious. We may have more! There are 27 at that moment; 22 white and five exotic. I gaze up at the lyrically blue sky with its billowing white cumulus shaded in part with pearl grey, and luxuriate, wondering lazily how I can increase the number of butterflies sufficiently without lying?

Buddleia with Red Admiral.

We were a little older than
this on the red clover day

Now this time, I am younger; too young for Heather, six years younger, to be there. I am perhaps 7 or 8 with Esme two years younger. She and I are walking to school across the fields with a few other children. There was normally a single decker school bus waiting for us at the water tower, but had it not arrived? Or had we chosen to be more adventurous? Though it is highly unlikely that we would not have clambered aboard as usual had it been there. As we walked, we concentrated on our other communal purpose; we were intent on pulling off the heads of pink clover flowers, dotted among the grass everywhere. As we picked, we popped each dusty pink head into our mouths and ate it with relish. It was a treat we thought, new to us, and they did taste delicious! I cannot remember where this knowledge came from but I do recall the intensity of our belief. We were not thinking of time or school as we dawdled, spotted more clover heads to add to the feast, harvested and devoured them, totally immersing ourselves in this special experience. It seemed, in retrospect, one of life’s peak moments, redolent with joy; we were such a happy, purposeful little group. We arrived a little late for school and we must have explained the now unknown reason for our unusual tardiness, but we hugged the feast of pink clover flowers to ourselves; it was our secret, just for us.

Peter Malcolm

And here is a sliver of a very early memory. I am tiny; I walk between my parents, each holding one of my hands. I feel beautiful; identified as special. We are leaving Dolcis, the shoe shop in Mansfield and I am proudly wearing the reddest, patented bar shoes ever invented. They are the most shiny red shoes ever seen and they are mine. I am in Heaven! This may be a tiny memory but it is very strong. It is also very strange as my parents never went out together to shop for any child; my father never walked anywhere in public holding any child’s hand as far as I know and he hated spending any money whatsoever on any child. Yet the memory is of my huge excitement together with my happy smiling parents on my perfect day! This must have been in the small window before Esme was born and after my brother Peter Malcolm had died at 13 months. Thus a Very Small Window Indeed when I was an only child.

A

Probably c 1939/40

nother strong feeling I have is of the divine Miss Miller, my first teacher in the Infants’ School. She was lovely; she had brown wavy hair, a kind, smiling face and a sweet voice. Her classroom was a haven where only good things happened and I adored her to the extent that I had fantasies of both parents disappearing in some fatal but unknown accident and Miss Miller stepping in to insist I go to live with her. A special recall is the moment when I returned to school after several weeks’ absence with measles and wearing spectacles for the first time. I was nervously proud of them but also unsure, still unaware of the ‘Four eyes’ jibe which would be my occasional later fate. Miss Miller immediately said, “ Oh look everyone; Averil is back with us and she is wearing some beautiful new glasses. Aren’t they lovely?” And the class chorused back, “ Yes Miss Miller” And I was in Heaven. I was in the best place in the world.

Another vivid memory is of me as a little girl, standing in the small kitchen in Lindhurst Lane. I am gazing intently at a sunbeam lighting up the beautiful rough-surface jug given to my mother by neighbours. There is a scene on it of large bunches of grapes; a stunning white butterfly with large black circles on its wings and a man drinking greedily from a black bottle. A later, more sophisticated me decided the drinker must be Bacchus and the scene depicted must be harvest. The reverse side of the jug shows more liberal grapes and a large bee with a Cupid sporting

The much-loved Bacchanalian jug

a generous crown of fruit, holding a small barrel and to the left, some hideous creature, a snake I think, with a long tongue darting towards the putto. I rarely used to see the reverse side as the jug was always displayed with the handle to the right. It always stood on a large round pewter tray with a small bite out of the rim. As I gaze in memory just past the kitchen sideboard, the pantry door is open and I see tins of fruit, and of salmon, with empty Kilner jars awaiting the Autumn harvest of my mother’s tomatoes, the blackberries we would gather from the hedgerows, and apples from the big tree in the garden.

The harvest clearly visible
on the reverse of the jug

Larkspur in my living room

Eighty years later I still have both pewter tray minus the little bite out of the rim and the jug. The latter in particular is a most treasured possession and often in use for flowers like the Larkspur I am currently buying from Bury market.

The tray!

June 2017. A later view of 14, Lindhurst Lane
where the childhood memories were rooted.

Number 89.

 

Flowers from the family.
Loved the shades of lilac, pale
pink and mauve.
Mah  Jong book in right foreground!

With local grand-daughter
at lunch.

 It was my birthday last Friday and extraordinarily, I managed to prolong the celebrations over four days; special family lunch at the wondrous La Maison Bleue; another family lunch outing to the Mason’s Arms on Whiting Street; innumerable games of Mah Jong with grandsons and grand-daughter, all claiming to love the game. One grandson arrived on my actual birthday at 7.30 for an hour’s play before ‘working from home’. As home is in London, he meant, on this occasion, locally at his aunt’s, in Bury, and he couldn’t afford to slack as he was only on Day Five of a new job! Another lovely grandson, newly back from exploring Asia with his partner since Christmas, popped up several times to play M.J. and also to offer his arm to accompany me to different locations. I won't bore with all the details but the positive feelings are strongly cherished.

7.30 a.m. grandson
playing Mah Jong.

Caution!

I have already noticed, on a day to day basis, unconnected with birthdays but undoubtedly connected with age, the kindness of strangers as well; this is becoming increasingly true since I have become stooped and sticked. Strangers can’t wait to offer help, say, leaving a cinema seat to descend stairs or opening a heavy door into a shop. I have learned to smile graciously before accepting, remembering not to tell the helpful stranger to F*** off as one is inclined to do. I love the unexpected gesture of help while remaining watchful for any incursion into my independence! In fact, the kindness of strangers is a wondrous thing and is to be treasured as I have come to appreciate. Similarly, the sweetness of my children and grandchildren who seem to assist and love more fiercely as the oldest person in the room continues to fade and fail. It is almost as though there is the unspoken thought of “ what else can we do but love her?” Summer is precious and fleeting and so are the upper slopes of ageing as time together with family shrinks and becomes more limited and more cherished.

In a long weekend of warmth and fun, there is one thing which stands out for me. I saw a wonderful, 

stylish wall clock in the dentist’s waiting room recently. Eventually, I tracked down the practice manager who had sourced the clock and begged her to tell me it hadn’t been hugely expensive. She said, ‘Oh no. It’s a Stick-on Clock and I got it online from Amazon for £12.95 and, as I speak, I can see it is still available but at £14.95.” Unbelievable. I found it, ordered it, and because it was Amazon, it arrived next day, just before my birthday. As my son and two grandsons were arriving the following day, I sent a message to David asking him, without providing details, if he could install the newly-arrived clock, perhaps with the help of the boys. In the event, in the belief that it was just any old clock to fix on the wall, he and his wife popped round for an easy, quick job. They behaved magnificently in the event! The understanding of the instructions; the laying out of the figures on the carpet before business began; the joining together of what looked like foam plastic and plasticised card number shapes; the important placing of the central hub for the clock hands to join; the careful measuring from the hub, once installed, to place the numbers in a clock-like fashion; the sheer size of the operation! All was accomplished and, after perhaps one hour, the splendid clock was in situ on the sloping wall awaiting attention. And one, totally satisfied customer gazed reverently on the result! In fact, I am so delighted with it that I frequently gaze and smile at it fondly!

And then, another lovely afternoon yesterday, my fourth in this birthday run! Eleven of the Mah Jong girls came round for bubbly and M.J.. I had three card tables in situ and had found enough seats using the terrace chairs also, to suffice. One Very Kind Participant brought round some super food like Greek meat balls and filled Spring Rolls to add to lots of nuts and nibbles; bottles of Prosecco were opened and emptied and play began! And so began another perfect interlude!

I write this on Wednesday following the celebrations and am still rather tired and listless. It's the energy, stupid!A small price to pay for a memorable few days! And I have stumbled over a Dr Seuss proverb, utterly prosaic in its language but expressing the essential feeling I now have:

How did it get so late so soon? Its night before its afternoon. December is here before its June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon? 

Dr Seuss did not have the facility of a poetic language; in fact, he was not a poet at a, but he certainly caught the essence of an old person's rueful contemplation. 

A little before my birthday, en fleur,
on Angel Hill..

Needless to label; The Clock Which Delights.