Wednesday, and it's Chirbury and Marton YFC's presentation of 'Never mind the Bullcocks' in Marton Village Hall. Below we have, in rehearsal, Harry as Mrs Isabel End and Christopher as sleazeball quiz show host Mr Hugh Jazz. Make sure you let those names roll off your tongues for full YFC comedic impact. How we laughed.
By some miracle after all comes good. The cast and back stage crew were brilliant and got a fantastic reception on home ground. In the entertainment competition at Whitchurch they were up against some pretty stiff opposition and failed to catch the adjudicators' eyes. They are quite a small club and if they want to enter the competition it usually means everybody must have a role in the production - whereas in a larger club it's possible to hold auditions and also to put on some big impressive set pieces with singers and dancers. Scale isn't an issue with C and M though - they get up there and give it their best. I admire them tremendously and am proud of each and every one of them. Producer Maureen and I may be tearing our hair out as The Big Day approaches but we are doing it with pride.
Thursday
Heather brings us lambs. They are so tiny I think we might need a magnifying glass to spot them in our field. They come to us numbered to match their mothers. The numbering, usually sequential, is a little curious this year. One lamb and its mother each have a * sprayed on their sides. A ewe and twins are 00 and the other little 'family' have 2s. Where are ewe and lambs No. 1? I contemplate this and wonder if in fact the numbering system has this year been started using minus figures - I know there have been lambs at Fir House now for about a fortnight - and they have only just reached the pluses. I am considering the finer philosophical points of accounting for something that's very obviously there with the concept of something which isn't when it starts to rain so I go in for a cup of tea instead. The following day one of the No 2 lambs is not thriving and is taken back to the farm for a bit of tlc so we are one lamb down - that's the sort of 'minus' I can understand.
It is so good to have them again - and good too to see buds swelling on trees and shrubs. The hedge opposite the school in Leighton, an early variety of Hawthorn, was actually showing small green leaves.
Friday
A morning spent in the archives, nose down in a document of 1774 (about which more at another time). D and I emerge later to find - rather like latter day Rip Van Winkles - that the world has moved on without us. On entering the building we left behind a grey dull day, spent the next few hours immersed in 18th century Shropshire and on coming out blink in the sunshine of a 21st century spring afternoon. It's fantastic. Then a ride home over the Long Mountain. We do not meet a car for 8 miles. That's pretty good too.
...there has been a party too, food drink and celebration. Time to garden, get into the greenhouse and chivy seeds into sprouting and encourage seedlings to grow.
All stuff of no consequence really - just the reassuring daily round - a few delights, the certainty of spring following winter, clear skies and a waxing moon. A house on a hill, buds, bird song, friends and family.
I have been watching footage of the Japanese tsunami - in disbelief and with a lump in my throat. It is the stuff of nightmare - a terrifying force taking all in its path. Ships are on land, cars at sea, houses up-rooted, all a filthy swirling maelstrom of bobbing flotsam and jetsam. There is no where to run to. This is not the way things should be.
So today, a calm sunny Monday on the top of a low mountain, I am just counting my blessings. My life may be dreary and mundane but
11 comments:
There certainly isn't. Even if it really was dreary, which it doesn't seem to be!
Here we have no lambs (well, we wouldn't have, would we!), but hawthorn leaves are showing, and today is too hot for a jacket as we walk through the park. Hopeful.
Let's hope that Japanese resilience and patience sees them through this appalling and catastrophic event.
Mountaineer, I don't quite understand that lamb numbering, either. Maybe additional research will provide an answer!
Your description of the coming spring has taken me far away from my city. I love the idea of an eight mile drive without other vehicles.
I share your thoughts about the devastation continuing to affect Japan. It is one thing to be shocked by seeing the aftermath of the quake and flooding, but even worse to contemplate the for now invisible effects from possible damage to the nuclear plants.
I offer prayers for all affected, and am thankful for my currently rather ordinary life.
Doesn't sound dreary to me. It sounds calm and intersting and pleasant - absolutely nothing wrong with that
Shropshire 1774 sounds interesting - do tell. Bet no-one was guessing there would be American and French Revolutions shortly and that the King would go mad. Re the Japanese tsunami I am wondering why everything looks the same once its been mauled by a tsunami. I wonder the same thing after hoovering and ask why is all dust grey? And why does it all look so homogeneous? Unimaginably awful.
A proper way to welcome t eh coming spring with the lambs despite the odd numbering and wonderful to hear about the YFC comp - I used to love it every year whe we did ours! Counting blessings here....
Well all that sounds anything but dull and dreary to me, give me dreary any day.
The tsunami is just awful, but the Japanese people show such calm resilience.
Lambs are in the fields here too, but I worry about them in the driving rain and miserable cold.
Life is good when one is warm, dry fed and amused. When I think of Japan, it just doesn't get much better than that, for me.
I am often amazed by reading comments from around the world (northern hemishpere), how similar our seasons can be. We too have lambs, leaves on the quince, birds busily nesting etc. We even had our first 2011 rhubarb last night.
However, I shan't begin seed-sowing until late next month.
I have been thinking about Japan too. We are very fortunate. How wonderful to be able to take our life for granted.
I think the unfolding of Japan in a kind of slow motion (beautifully described by you) is what lends it an extra chill.
Had never given a thought to the numbering of lambs, which seems deeply arbitrary over here. I suspect gin and laffs are involved but I'm probably being foolish. Spring is, finally, at least, getting here. Those poor souls in Japan have snow to add to their woes. Sometimes it's all too much to contemplate.
It all sounds perfect !
We treasure the mundane , in part , because we know , really , just how fleeting it all is .
I hope basic supplies of food and medicines arrive quickly in the worst affected areas .
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