Is there any more tea in that pot?

I have moved to a new blog title.

2011-06-05T08:54:00.003+01:00

Hi folks!

I have moved to a new title, as we have changed e-mail addresses.

Here it is....................

http://isthereanymoreteainthatpot.blogspot.com/2011/05/childhood-games-we-used-to-play-in-50s.html

Hope those of you who have actually read this blog will maybe drop by!

See you around!

St George's Day 23rd April 2011

2011-04-24T14:20:00.020+01:00

This unusual cloud formation was captured on 22nd April as the sun began to set, on the eve of St George's Day, Shakespeare's birthday and what would have been Matt's 35th.

The evenings lately have been an absolute

delight.

We have been experiencing some beautiful weather, and already it has been written that this will have been the hottest Easter for 100 years.

And how everyone has so revelled in it!

The smell of barbecues wafting on the air from neighbouring gardens or picnic spots....

The songs of the birds dawn to dusk, and what songs! The gardens are awash with apple and lilac blossom, rowan trees in white, and the next door neighbour's bright yellow laburnum catkins a cheerful sight. Bluebells are now carpeting woods, and have been earlier than last year. Everyone a bit more relaxed, the long, hard, frozen dark winter a distant memory........................whilst the weather holds!!

I am having to water the garden. I got up early and took the second photo from our back upstairs window around 6.45am on the 23rd. Already the promise of a fantastic day's weather to come. Early mist and heavy scents of early summer.

We set off for Stratford upon Avon, the birthplace of the Bard himself, and arrived mid morning. The sun was so warm that we both decamped to buy ourselves a sunhat each! I, having left mine at home, and he having been banned from wearing the battered cricket white hat he bought in Brisbane in 2004, when we were visiting our younger son, who was out there for 10 months. It is his pride and joy but has definately seen better days!!

So after a successful purchase, a more sartorially equipped Timelord looking quite dapper, stepped out once again into the rising heat!

We just enjoyed the sights and sounds of people messing about on the river in boats.Rowing boats, canoes, motor boats, and at one point, a lovely cabin cruiser arrived. I was intrigued

and went to ask the owners, who were fixing it to a mooring, if they could get any further down the river.

They had come from Tewkesbury, setting off the previous day, and mooring overnight along the way.No, they said,

you can't go any further down river at Stratford, and they

would be making a return journey by the same route, eventually reaching the River Severn and going on to Bristol. But as they said, everyone should visit Stratford at some point, and this for them was that time.

All along the river banks people were just sitting enjoying the novelty of a Bank holiday weekend that was living up to expectation of a glorious burst of summer. Ice creams being consumed by the dozens, soft drinks, ice cold beers, cafés and bars looking more like their continental neighbours. It felt very much like being in France to me yesterday. Sitting in a riverside pub garden I could almost imagine myself in the warmth of Provence in late spring. Only instead of lavender fields there are carpets of bluebells. So we lazed away the hours until we made our way home. And it was definately a day that Freelance Nerd would've loved.

April 2011. The time of the cherry blossom, once more

2011-04-15T13:16:00.036+01:00

This year the cherry trees are in bloom earlier than usual, and are looking absolutely stunning. The blossom has not been

subjected to torrential rain nor strong winds.

March was so dry that as I was driving along the road to Lichfield this morning to collect our moggy, Tiger, from "Posh Paws" cattery, the van in front sent the dust at the side of the road swirling in a cloud.

I have had to water the garden since I returned home from a couple of days in Lancashire.

Other trees in bloom have looked stunning, particularly the magnolias.

I always look for signs of spring after the winter, and watch the horse

chestnut buds swell and grow fat and sticky, the bulbs beginning to peep out from the earth. The birds will begin to sing, even when the early spring days are cold, wet and sometimes blanketed in snow.

We have had some lovely days recently, warm sunshine, blue skies and longer hours of daylight. The robin and blackbird are in full throttle, and I have heard the chiffchaff, who has returned to our shores from his winter sojourn.

Bluebells are now carpeting the verges and so we step into the new season which has arrived, as it always does, almost by stealth!

Easter is very late this year.

Easter Saturday coinciding with St George's Day, and Matt's birthday. He would have been 35 this month.

So, at the top of this piece, is a photo of his favourite cherry tree, across the road from the house, and another one has also appeared. It is a white flowering variety.This one was planted in the school grounds in his memory, and we look out at them both this year, looking particularly

beautiful.

And all is now well in moggy world! He has been exploring all his territory this morning and now retired for a sleep!

Bit like his owner feels!

Alastair Campbell, Matthew and the signed Burnley FC shirt.

2011-03-29T19:36:00.034+01:00

This child sized Burnley football club shirt of our Matt's has recently come back into our possession.

It has a very interesting history.

But it needs some background information to explain the significance.

Long ago when I was young, my dad, myself and eventually my mum, were avid supporters of Burnley FC when I lived in Lancashire.

Every home game would see us atop a double decker bus making the journey "over t'moor", (as folk would say), from Rossendale, to drop down the other side into Burnley itself.

Then we joined the hoards of others all walking towards Turf Moor ground. Come rain, hail, sleet or shine. Snow was more difficult!! In harsh winters the road over the top down

into the town could be closed.

Burnley were in the First Division and a really great side. It is the one and only time I ever attempted to knit anything, and painstakingly did knit one, purl one, in the two colours of Claret and Blue, until I had a scarf long enough.

This I festooned with badges of the Burnley players. I also had a football rattle. I'll bet Health and Safety would ban them now!

In the season of 1961/62, Burnley progressed through some thrilling FA Cup Final matches to reach the hallowed turf of Wembley itself.

There was a ticket lottery, using numbers in the programmes and my dad got a ticket allocated and I didn't. There were two other lads we knew who also got tickets.

So, he decided to take us all to Wembley on one of the overnight coaches provided by the club. Then accompany us all the way to the ground, leaving me with his own ticket, and go back to watch the game on TV at his cousin's, who lived a stone's throw from the station at Wembley itself.

I was 14 years old and had never been to London in my life before.

So it was a great adventure.

We arrived very early in the morning, and after some breakfast in a cafe, dad took us to see the sights, knowing London like the back of his hand.

I was so disappointed with Buckingham Palace, pronouncing it to look like a biscuit factory! maybe I expected the grandeur of Windsor Castle!

Eventually we got to dad's cousin's and had some lunch.

And with mounting excitement we walked up Wembley Way with the chants of the supporters, and the colourful sea of team scarves and flags, not to mention the rattles!!

All along the route were ticket touts, and we also had to keep our pockets secure.

I will never know to this day how dad felt as he left us at our entrance.

I only know it was a sacrifice for him,made voluntarily.

Unfortunately we lost 3-1 to Spurs! But it was still an experience to have been there.

So, on to the rest of the story.

Moving quickly forward, when our Matt was born and still a youngster, we lived in Cowplain Hampshire, and dad got him a Burnley bobble hat, in the hope that eventually his grandson would show an interest in football. Obviously those who knew him would see his love of the game, and also that of cricket.

So to continue again.......

We moved up to Birmingham and the nearest football team had to be Aston Villa as they also play in Claret and Blue. Matt was 7 when he went to his first match at Villa Park. He became an avid supporter, and also fulfilled an ambition when he played on the hallowed turf with a team from work. We were all there cheering him on! They lost, but to him it didn't matter!! he was cock-a-hoop!

Meantime becoming political animal, (and how!) he discovered that Alastair Campbell was going to be in Birmingham at the ICC, giving a kind of lecture and question and answer session.

He got a ticket like a shot!

During the evening Alastair said he had a signed Burnley FC shirt to give to the person who asked him the best question.

So Matt managed to have the mike and proceeded to tell the story of his Grandad Smith and his mum, Vivien, and the trip to Wembley. Then he asked Alastair if he would've given up his ticket to go to Wembley.

Alastair said that was a very hard question to answer, being a rabid Burnley supporter himself, and didn't think he could've done it!!

So he gave Matt the Burnley shirt having signed it.

And what a happy bunny he was!!

He told his grandad all about it and it passed into the Smith archive of stories!

The stuff of legend!

Miss you dad, one year on yesterday.

Oh what a night! An Ashes win. Sydney, Australia, 7th January 2010

2011-01-07T08:34:00.012Z

Nation’s army

of nightwatchmen and

women thrill to an epic

drama

And what have we all been doing the past few weeks? Gone nocturnal! For me it was great to have something to keep me occupied in the wee, small hours, with my digital radio ear pieces continually plugged in!

At times it was hard not to stay up all night as the excitement grew. I would find myself having dozed off to waken again to some fresh revelation, a new wicket taken or lost, and sometimes confess to going to the bathroom with the small portable radio still plugged into my ears, hardly daring to miss any moment. Sky Player meant we could watch in bed, tucked up warm against the snow and arctic temperatures outside, making fighting off another virus bearable.

But what shall I do now, when there is no more cricket in the night watches. The nation went bananas.

Tweets were coming in to the Test Match Special all through the long hours. And e-mails, comments, texts, ............it was like belonging to a national nocturnal club, as people from all corners of the country were gripped in a frenzy of expectation.

And now the celebrations begin.

And how we have enjoyed it all. The highs and the lows, the Barmy Army, the Sprinkler dance, Swann's hilarious video diary posts, it kept the winter at bay.

And this morning, as I write, it is snowing outside.

But there is a warm glow for England cricket fans everywhere!!

Quotes from the Times today

"Today is a day to celebrate. No, not the result in Sydney, which is of course a splendid thing, but the bonds which unite a nation: a nation which has spent much of the past few weeks trying desperately to stay awake as the late-night broadcasters spun out their epic tale of cricketing drama.

The radio by the bedside, the TV, the blogs and the tweets and the ball-by-ball commentaries: these are where we have gathered in the small hours for England’s famous victory, dedicated cricket fans and newcomers to the game alike."

"one Twitter poster put it more succinctly: “I hate cricket, but its [sic] a good day to be an Englishman.”"

It is also a good day to be an Englishwoman. Among those hardcore fans who have spent the Test series listening to the radio late into the night has been the cookery writer Clarissa Dickson Wright, who made her name as one half of the TV show Two Fat Ladies.

“Terribly exciting it’s been,” she said. “You stay up half the night, then you wake up in the early hours and go to the loo and turn it on and you don’t go back to sleep immediately. It has been amazing. My mother was Australian, so I have the alternative that if things are going

badly I can suddenly decide that I’m going to be Australian. But this year I haven’t had to do it at all.”

Listening to the match was one thing, but sharing the experience was another, especially in the Scottish town of Musselburgh where Dickson Wright lives. “I have lots of friends on the other end of the telephone to whom I can say: Gosh, were you awake for that bit?”

Perhaps one day an economist will tell us how much productivity has been lost during the Test series as people have sat dead-eyed and listless at their desks, doing nothing much more than remember the last Cook century. Until then all we have is these confessions.

Alex Rees, 31, who runs a carpet business in West Sussex, said he has turned his whole day upside down to watch every ball.

“I’ve basically gone nocturnal,” he said. “I’ve been coming home from work, going straight to bed at 6pm, and then setting the alarm for midnight and watching it through until the morning before going to work. I’ve even been eating lunch when they have lunch, and tea when they have tea.

“For the first Test I wore my cricket whites and put the pads on when England were batting in the first innings.”

Mr Rees admits that he has fallen asleep at his desk a few times, but is in no doubt that it has all been worth it.

“My brother, who’s a teacher, has been doing the same hours and we’re both saying we can’t wait to get back to normality. We’re feeling a bit sluggish now,” he said.Others have come up with novel ways to share the load and ensure that they are up to date with the latest score. David Long, 39, a surveyor,said: “There have been a couple of mornings where we needed early wickets, so I said OK I’ll see if we get a breakthrough and then the wickets kept tumbling and it’s two in the morning.”

His eldest son, who is 9, is also “cricket mad” so despite the late nights he has been unable to avoid lots of early mornings."

And to end this post I leave you with a photo of Matt in 2004, in cricket whites. he fancied himself as a budding batsman! I've lost count of how many times we've both said, Timelord and myself, " Matt would have absolutely loved this! "

And how he would have celebrated!!!

October musings. 26th October 2010

2010-10-04T19:29:00.009+01:00

What is it I like about being outside.

I think ever since I was a child, I always loved to feel free, and that freedom was in fields, and streams, hillsides and trees.

Playing outside made time stand still, until the spell was broken by being called home for meals.

I like the smell of damp stone walls, and the grittiness of a country lane, the sound of wind sighing through trees.

Childhood felt like forever.

Being introduced to the Lake District was a veritable feast! Here were greater hills, and fells and colours coming and going with the weather.

Raging torrents, quiet becks, light on water, a sense of absolute timelessness.

I have loved to be on top of a hill, or fell, as it reduces other things to a correct perspective. Time to just glory in the view laid out far below. It still is the same today, when I can finally struggle to the summit of wherever we choose to go. Thinking time. Special time. And this autumn, I have had the sense of loss more keenly, of those hills and fields of my childhood, as my dad is now no longer there, buried alongside my mum, and surrounded by the view he loved. Last year, I did not have the time to appreciate the changing colours of the leaves, and the feeling of the year winding down. I was sorting out the sale of dad's home.

So, I have relished spending time in the garden. Grubbing about in the soil, and watching the maple by the summerhouse gradually turning into a deep deep glowing red. Still a work in progress!

Yesterday was a glorious day. Crystal clear blue sky, and sharp light. leaves backlit in the late afternoon, with the sun lower on the horizon.

Damp earth, clearing fleshy nasturtiums, bitten by frost. A first pruning of the roses.

Robin singing, goldfinches twittering, and sparrows squabbling on the bird feeders! A noisy, sociable family.

And today, with its leaden sky, and rain, I can still go in my mind's eye to the glory of yesterday remembered.

October is a last burst of summer before the garden is put to bed.

A treasured find.

2010-09-05T09:35:00.005+01:00

Last year, in the process of sorting out dad's paper's and house, (he had asked me to put things in order), I found a diary tucked away in the very back of a drawer in an upstairs wardrobe.

It said,

"1940 War Diary", and as I began to read it, I was transported back to the days when my dad was a young man of 20 years old, stationed in London during the Blitz.

I put it down and the next morning I told dad I had found it, and did he want it destroyed? (as he would never talk about the War, except to relate an odd funny story or two).

I also said to him that it had moved me deeply and it was really important to the family that it was preserved and read as a lasting testimony and record of that time.

He asked me not to read to him, but said I could do with it as I wished.

So only after the subsequent events of him moving into the Residential Home last April, 2009, and then the sale of his house, followed by his death in in March this year, have I been able to work at scanning in each page and editing them.

Since then I have had it typed, as the whole diary was handwritten, all 187 pages, in a small note book.

It documents the times of all the air raids, and the sense of gritty determination of folk to carry on as normally as they could and keep a sense of humour.

A young man revealed through his writings, one of 20, having his own thoughts, feelings and sometimes writing in the current slang of the time.

A treasure to find.

I am in the process now, of having it published.

But several weeks ago, The Times newspaper was asking for reader's stories about the Blitz, for a feature on the 70th Anniversary , which began on 7th September 1940.

I sent in an extract from dad's diary, but did not hear anything afterwards, until yesterday, as I opened the paper, there was the extract in print!

It will be dad's legacy to us as a family.

So in the month that holds what would've been his 92nd birthday on the 17th, I was pleased to see it there.

(Click on the extract to see the larger version. )

A taste of early summer..............

2010-05-21T07:35:00.007+01:00

I woke very early this morning to the sound of the dawn chorus just gradually coming to a crescendo.......blackbirds, robins, a thrush, chaffinches, being the predominant singers. I lay in bed and listened, and the memory of last winter disappeared in a mist....

A delicious feeling.

Going outside in the garden last evening the scent of the blossoms hung on the air, apple, and rowan, laburnum and lilac. I really feel like Browning, when he wrote his letter from abroad, which I have included at the end of this piece.

Yesterday, Timelord and I went for a walk.It was a circular route of about 5 miles starting and ending in Alcester. It was a near perfect late spring day.

Part of the walk took in the Heart of England Way.

We set off after, (for me at least!) the obligatory cup of tea in a little café.

Walking over the bridge, I stopped to look at the two rivers which merged under its arches.......and saw the unmistakeable iridescent blue flash of a kingfisher as it flew to one of the banks. The stones on the parapet were warm to the touch!

The walk continued climbing up a hill and passed a folly called Oversley Castle, built in the 19th century. We hardly met a soul, and wandered on along field paths and lanes, edged in tall white cow parsley, and wild buttercups and mayflowers. The sun warm on our faces. Such glorious peace.

The trees all fresh green, and now and again, a splash of yellow in the distance of a field of rape.

England does spring so well, that when we feel that it will never arrive, suddenly we are gifted with all this beauty to drink. A feast to the eyes and senses. A skylark singing, two buzzards suddenly dropping out of the sky to the ground.........a green woodpecker disturbed and calling as he flew over head.....

What a delicious day.

We eventually stopped to have a lemonade in a small village called Wixford, and sat in the pub garden which ran down to a quiet river, by another old bridge. I took off my shoes and socks and liked the feeling of the cool fresh-mown grass underfoot. We ate our sandwiches and fruit and wandered on..........

Arriving back at the bridge where we began, there was a heron standing in the river, fishing. Once he realised I was about to take his photo, he flew off. But it made a perfect end to the afternoon.

Let's enjoy this brief spell of early summer while it lasts...................

"OH, to be in England now that April ’s there
And whoever wakes in England sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough	5
In England—now!

II And after April, when May follows
And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossom’d pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray’s edge—
That ’s the wise thrush: he sings each song twice over
Lest you should think he never could re-capture
The first fine careless rapture!
And, though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children’s dower,
Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!"

The story of the Tippler toilet and the clouds of ash!

2010-04-20T14:21:00.005+01:00

The street in the photo is the one where I was born. East Street, Rawtenstall

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=53.715872,-2.291036&z=18&t=h&hl=en-GB

You can see it on Google Maps.

The last house on the right with an outhouse attached, is number 12, where I spent my early years until I was 13 years old. The outhouse contained the toilet and next to it, the dustbin shed. There used to be a small wooden door in the outer wall of this shed, for the dustbin men, or the "ash chaps" as they were then known, to be able to open and collect the bin, and take it to the cart at the bottom of the street.

This was no mean feat, given the gradient!

I cannot recall what on earth happened in the wintertime, when the cobbles were frozen solid or there was snow covering the ground!

We had coal fires then, and each morning when my dad got up early, before he went to work, he would clear out the remains of the ashes from the previous evening and take them out to the yard to deposit in the dustbin.

The story goes, ( and the continuing saga of the volcanic ash has prompted me to write about it) that one morning after a night of little sleep, due to one of his young daughter's keeping him awake, he went off down the yard in a stupor, and duly deposited all the ashes in what he thought was their usual place!

He found himself completely enveloped in hissing steam and with misted up glasses!

By this time he had fully woken up, and realised what he had done.

He had thrown the whole of the still extremely warm ashes down the tippler toilet..........!!

I have added a link about tippler toilets which explains how they were made and how they functioned.

It used to frighten me when I was small as it was such a long drop down from the seat. I am not surprised then that children sometimes fell in! It was like some deep dark mysterious well. And when the pan at the bottom tipped the contents into the drain it made a noise that scared me stiff if I happened to be sitting on the seat at the time!

How we take all our mod cons for granted now!

http://www.archive.org/details/TheLongDropToilet

Saying goodbye. April 8th 2010

2010-04-09T07:51:00.004+01:00

I wish you could have seen the church yesterday, dad. When we walked in behind your casket which was covered with beautiful red roses, for Lancashire, bright gerberas, and spring flowers, it was moving to see so many people.

Not bad for someone who was 91!

And we had your favourite psalm, 121, "I will lift up my eyes to the hills".

The hymns you wanted were all there.

And as I stood and sang, I thought,

"What a privilege to have had you for my dad"

I was speaking to someone last night on the telephone, when we had arrived home. The daughter of my mum and dad's closest friends.

She said, "I have been to a few funerals lately that have been very depressing, but this made us smile, laugh, and remember him as he was. It was such a lovely tribute to your dad. He was so well thought of by so many people."

It was indeed a celebration of a life well lived.

And when we went to lay you in the ground alongside my mother, looking out down the valley, and surrounded by the hills, we were all very touched when 5 of your carers from the Residential Home, and the two managers, came along, in amongst the family and friends who gathered for the committal . They all loved you, and enjoyed your stories and said you were a wonderful man. It was the carers' day off, and they made a special journey for you.

They brought a teddy bear and a Burnley scarf, which we placed alongside you in the earth.

Having dropped in a red rose, it was time to leave you there. That earthly part of you.

You had no fear of death, knowing it would be a fulfilment of your faith in the power of the Resurrection.

And I quote from the Message version of the Bible which puts this very succinctly and bluntly!

"And face it-if there's no resurrection for Christ, everything we told you about is smoke and mirrors, and everything you've staked your life on is smoke and mirrors.

Not only that but we would be guilty of telling you a string of barefaced lies about God, all these affidavits we passed on to you verifying that God raised Christ up- sheer fabrications if there is no resurrection.........

...........But the truth is Christ has been raised up............

Death swallowed up by triumphant life!!"

I will miss you dad terribly, but you are home now, all struggles over.

Love you.xx

Thanks For the Memories, dad.

2010-04-05T06:46:00.012+01:00

Well, dad, I never thought that you would leave us all before you were 100 years old.

As I spoke to our oldest member at our church here yesterday morning, to tell him you would not make it after all, he had tears in his eyes.

I know that you and he had decided that you would celebrate being 100 one way or another. Various hilarious suggestions having been made!

He is now 96. And you would have reached 92 later this year.

You always made him laugh, and he and his wife always asked about you.

That seems to be a recurring theme. These are some of the things I have received in the last few days:

"Always interested in people........great raconteur.......always cheerful, and always

had a story to tell.........had my mum and dad in stitches, and I can still visualise them all laughing now, never a dull moment................... lucky to have had a such a lovely caring and funny uncle, the best, and a privilege............

Your dad had a full life, was greatly entertaining, and enjoyed company, will be greatly missed."

We miss him, warts and all. Another silence, where there was his voice at the end of the telephone, answering "Mr Smith" Another empty place.......

Another end of an era. A passing of a different age.........

A multitude of impressions in my mind.................the clash of wills between us........his stubborn black and white views at times, his pigheadedness!! Yes, but he was loyal to a fault, determined and courageous in his last couple of years, as his health and age took their toll.

I was there, in his beloved Valley, in my mind, the other evening, smelling the damp of the old stone walls on the hillsides, hearing the wind, looking at the lights twinkling down in the town, and along the roads which snake their way through until they reach the outskirts, where they climb up and then disappear out of sight eventually dropping down to the other side of the boundaries.

One into Yorkshire, one into Burnley, and one meandering along the Valley floor towards Manchester, the other into Accrington.

He never wanted to leave Rossendale, and his beloved hills. He and mum chose their place in the local cemetary and it comforted him to know he would be buried there.

My mother is already there, since 1990.

So, dad, we are going to say our very final goodbyes on Thursday this week, April 8th. and you will have your wish to have the service at St Mary's Church.

I must digress here and tell a very well-known story amongst the family which sums up how dad could be at times. He had been in his life time, an active member of three different churches, (not all at the same time! ) spending some years at the local Baptist church after the death of my mother. When his sister died, he decided to go back to his roots, where his family had worshipped, been christened, married and died. His sister, (my aunt) and her family being regular attenders at St Mary's Church. And we ourselves were members there and married there before we moved South.

Some time after his sister's funeral service, dad went to see the vicar at that time and said he had decided to "Come back to St Mary's, and did the vicar mind? and "Oh, by the way was it alright for him to have his own funeral service there?"

The vicar, David Parkin, who already knew dad, said "Certainly Mr Smith, " and then got out a small notebook and asked him "When would you like it?"

Dad, of course had been outwitted, but told the story with great relish, laughing at the telling!!

And I dreamt about dad last week, in the midst of all the multitude of things which had to be done, as I stayed with my cousins.

I dreamt that I was with dad once again, walking along the track to the local farm, and for some obscure reason I noticed he had cut himself when shaving!

It was a beautiful day, and the wind was stirring the leaves in the trees, in the warmth of the sun.

I asked him "What are you doing here?"

"I've been doing all this organising for you to have your funeral. What shall I do now?"

" Don't cancel it" said dad, " You all go ahead and enjoy it! The doctor says my heart is fine" !!!

Well, dad, to me that just about sums up how you were........and on Thursday, we will go ahead, as you wished when you first asked David some years ago.

Dad's Obituary in the Rossendale Free Press

2010-04-04T17:42:00.008+01:00

Leslie Smith

APRIL 01, 2010

A LOCAL government worker and Free Press contributor, Mr Leslie Smith, latterly of Haslingden Hall Residential Home, died on Sunday March 28 after a short illness aged 91.

Born in Rawtenstall, he worked for many years in local government, serving in senior positions in the rates offices in both Bury and then Manchester up to his retirement.

He served in the Royal Army Pay Corps in London during the Blitz, before joining the Signals Regiment and landing in Normandy on D-Day.

Married to Ethel in 1942, he was a widower for the last 20 years of his life.

He loved to write and was a regular contributor to the Rossendale Free Press under the pseudonym of Owd Nick. A series of his short stories was read on Radio Blackburn and he had a contribution published in The Bedside Guardian.

He had a lifelong interest in Lancashire dialect and was an active member of the Edwin Waugh Society and the Lancashire Authors Association, writing many short stories himself and becoming a speaker at various societies in Rossendale.

He served as church warden at St Paul’s Constable Lee for many years, then was a regular attender at Kay Street Baptist Church and latterly at St Mary’s Church, Rawtenstall.

He leaves daughters Vivien and Shirley, sons-in-law Stephen and Neil, grandsons James, Jonathan and Alan and their partners, nieces and nephew and many good friends.

His funeral will be at St Mary’s Church, Rawtenstall on Thursday April 8 at 1pm, followed by interment at Rawtenstall Cemetery.

Family flowers only. Donations welcome for the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and the Stroke Association, via the funeral director Dawn Johnson for Fred Hamer Funeral Services, Rawtenstall.

To sleep.......perchance to dream....

2010-03-02T09:03:00.009Z

What is it about not being able to sleep?

When my routine, such as it is! is disturbed, or I come back again from up North where I have spent 3 nights in another place, I find it hard to settle down.......

Trying to get to sleep is an art in itself........so many thoughts whirl round my head...........in random succession......

I have always been a light sleeper and have resorted in the past to putting the bedside clock in a drawer....sometimes wrapped in tights!

It's a bit like the Princess and The Pea but with a different slant!

I am not like my cat who can sleep anywhere...........and cats even have a poem written about it!

Cats sleep anywhere

Any table, any chair

Top of piano, window ledge

In the middle, on the edge

Open drawer, empty shoe

Anybody’s lap will do

Fitted in a cardboard box

In a cupboard with your frocks

Anywhere, they don’t care

Cats sleep anywhere

Then my dear Timelord husband can sleep at the drop of a hat.........oh that I could!

When I was small, I did not sleep then either, keeping my parents awake, or waking them very early!! When apparently my dad asked the doctor about it, he told him I had "too much nervous energy".

I woke my parents one morning about 6.00am or so, to ask them what a brontosaurus was! I had a full set of Arthur Mee's encyclopaedias, and I loved the pictures and stories.I got the answer I was expecting!!

I read at an early age, and I had the joy of teaching Matt to read before he went to school at 5 years old.

Schools in the area then, near Portsmouth, had 3 intakes a year, so he went just after his 5th birthday in April.

Not all children are ready to read at the same rates.

But I digress.......

Sleep.......according to Shakespeare........"knits up the ravelled sleeve of care" quote from Macbeth.

"Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care,

The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast"

I love the thought of sleep being the balm of hurt minds........ nothing better than a refreshing night's sleep, a natural sleep, which comes creeping in like a wave and closes over our heads.

I wish....................!

I had to take sleeping tablets for a short time around Christmas, as the doctor felt I wouldn't cope well without them after a very stressful few months.

I would take one, only to wake 4 hours later in the small hours, back to where I began!

It's interesting to decide what to listen too in the wee small hours........

I have a digital radio walkman, so I don't disturb my slumbering hubby.

Radio 2 is too stimulating,

Radio 3 too full on, as I get involved in the music and then am wide awake!

Radio 4 .........no

Radio 7.........well the jury's out on this one, as it serves it's purpose if I really cannot sleep and there is a story, or classic serial.........trouble is then, when I get to 6.00am I am too tired to think about another day!

Jazz FM same as Radio 2!!

So, here I am, sun pouring in on a beautiful day, after a night of sleeping and waking.........

Here I go..............................and the first thoughts I always have are always the same.........that will never change.

Love you Matt. It's one of " Your" days. Glorious sunshine, and blue skies, birds singing, and maybe, just maybe a promise of spring?

New beginnings.

2010-02-16T08:49:00.014Z

Last July we had a visitor from Down Under. Brisbane, to be precise, and it just so happened that at the time it was like summer!

Tim, pictured here with Stephen, had come for an interview in Birmingham for a job with Scripture Union. http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/YouthEncounter/41589.id

It is as though a wheel had come full circle as Alan, our younger son, went to work with SU in Queensland in 2003 for just under a year. He stayed with Tim, who was SE Queensland co-ordinator. Tim along with his wife and 2 and a half year old daughter, arrived yesterday in London.

They drive to Brum today. Pancake Day.

Pancake Day was the day we arrived in Australia in 2004 to stay with Tim and see Alan, for a few weeks. Alan made us pancakes that evening!! I have photos of him tossing them in the air! A family tradition here, and also nationwide.

The job Tim will be involved in is one which Matt would have loved. It is promoting better relationships between Muslims and Christian youth.

he would've been so excited about this project!

So for us there is a sense of delicious continuity here.

A kind of what goes round, comes round!

But Tim and family have left beautiful sunny blue-skied warm Brisbane for the biting cold of this English winter, which has seemed to last and last this year.

A lot to get used to.

A life lived outdoors for a life of warmer clothing and central heating, and lets face it, in Tim's own words yesterday

" London is so cold and grey and gloomy today - a long way from the blue, bright heat of Brisbane. Glad to be here and gearing up for drive to Birmingham tomorrow."

And this morning, it was lighter earlier, and I watched as the sun began to creep over the horizon through the trees. Eventually pouring in through the bedroom window.

Blue sky day for Tim.

I heard a blackbird sing................and I thought, well he thinks spring is around the corner, even though we cannot see much evidence of it yet.

It was encouraging on a day when I'm streaming with the cold virus kindly given to me by my Timelord husband!

Stops me feeling too sorry for myself.

And hopefully I will be able to make myself pancakes at teatime!

Timelord is not a fan!!

Looking back, looking forward........ Birthdays February 2010

2010-02-10T11:00:00.028Z

The beginning of February for us is one of a flurry of
birthdays.
Friends and family. Six in all from the 4th to the 18th.
What to buy? What to send?
This resulted in us going to the Touchwood Centre in Solihull, early in the month, for a "once in a blue moon" shop!
We are not shoppers, preferring other pastimes.
Timelord calls the place Torchwood, I wonder why?! He really thought it was so named! Must run in his Timelord veins.
It was an absolutely gloriously sunny afternoon, but also extremely cold.
The sunset afterwards in the cold blue sky, just beginning to have a sprinkling of stars, was amazing.
It's hard to believe that this was our 4th year of birthdays without Matt.
The first of those February's was spent in stressful anticipation of the trial at Stafford Crown Court of the lorry driver who was instrumental in the deaths of Matt and Chris. Later in the month we scattered Matt's ashes at the Lizard.
It also snowed very hard then too.
Seemed to match all our moods.
But this year we actually enjoyed ourselves and laughed a lot and had a lot of fun. It was the first time in 4 years where there was a sense of life returning. It was the same at Christmas and New Year. A new sensation. A sense of, and I almost daren't say it, anticipation of what the year can bring, instead of another year knowing we had to somehow go from January to December, and then heave a sigh of relief........

We seem to have been in a land like Narnia, where it was "always winter and never Christmas".
Well, I think I can sense a thaw.............
This new sensation brings it own peculiar thoughts.
As Matt is frozen in time, and we move forwards, and our lives pick up a new rhythm, is it as though we forget?
No, and he would have been pleased that we enjoyed our birthdays.
I have discovered that writing about him, talking about him, looking at his photo, and listening to him talk on the videos we have of him, we take him with us.
I know I felt at first that in time he would somehow fade, and I would have to work hard to cling on to him.
But I can see him as large as life, laughing, smiling, pensive, and I carry him in my heart.
Yes, I missed him phoning me on my birthday and saying "Happy Birthday mum" and going out together as a complete family for a meal. I will always, always miss him. That pain is forever.
And as Matt once wrote on a postcard he sent to us, we will see him again, in time.

End of an Era December 2nd 2009

2009-12-03T10:32:00.010Z

End of an era.

None of us were to know that last Christmas would be my dad’s final Christmas in his old home, before he moved into residential care in April this year.
I was staying with him for a week before he came to us eventually on December 21st
But he had flu and did not really remember much about Christmas after that at all.
I had taken a small artificial Christmas tree, and lights, up there with me to have some sense of festive cheer, and hung his cards on the wall. My mum loved Christmas and she would shop for weeks, squirreling things away, saying it would “come in handy” or stockpiling nuts, dates and fruit! boxes of biscuits and other treats.
Each time she went down to the small town she would climb back up the hill again with loaded bags of assorted sizes, unless she came up on the bus, which just stopped a short distance from the door. It was a single decker serving the three estates, which are situated on three sides of the valley. A circular route.
So, we could time our visit to my aunt’s by catching the bus as it was on its way to the next estate. It would meander its way down to the centre of town and then stop to disgorge the passengers, whilst those of us staying on, paid again for the next stage.

And now, I drive those routes myself. I never thought when I was younger that I would live in the Midlands let alone drive a car. Why is it that when we are older, life seemed less complicated then? It wasn’t of course. To the young, who have the wonderful security of two loving parents, and a welcoming home, as we did, some of the struggles which went on in people’s lives would pass unnoticed, until we became of an age to understand it more fully.

Life in its rawness had not touched us then, that was to happen later.

But, to go back to the beginning, which is about dad’s old home.

Yesterday, 2nd December, it was handed over to its next occupants, who happen to live in the same road and have bought it for their daughter. We like that sense of continuity. Dad knows the family.
That indeed is the end of an era, but I began to think back through the years we all lived there, having moved from a small terraced house further up the valley. I was 13 and my sister 8 years old.
It felt so light and spacious and we had a garden. I loved the garden, and it was a positive suntrap at the back in the summer, on days when the sun shone!
Dad began to grow his roses, which he nurtured and tended. They rewarded him with glorious blooms. Mum liked bedding plants and we would have antirrhinums, petunias, begonias and tubs of splashing colour.
After my mum died in August 1990, when the roses were as beautiful as I’ve ever known them, dad still kept up with his gardening, when he could, and also with help from others. He had two hanging baskets at the front door each summer and tubs of bedding plants.
As he became unable to manage it was hard to watch the roses suffer.

So, a new address for him, and one where he feels “at home” and cared for so well.

But my memories are there in each room. Even the sound the various doors made. The glass vestibule door into the kitchen, the front door when it finally shut, which rattled the letterbox, and the garden gate, closing with the familiar metallic click.
If walls could speak, what conversations and dramas they would unfold!!
My old room on the front looked up the valley to the north. I could see the lights on the hillsides twinkling at night. On wet days often the hills would be shrouded in mist.
It is strange what springs to mind.
Snatches of moments in time,…………
I can see our kitchen on a Sunday morning as we came back from church, (further up the valley at that time) having walked either across the fields opposite or along the main road and up the hill.
My mum always had so many pans on the go at once, boiling cabbage, carrots, potatoes, (before roasting them,) and sometimes cauliflower, which I could take or leave(!) that the window would be open and if it was a nice day, the back door.
The smells of Sunday roast wafting outside.
We would always sit down together on a Sunday for roast dinner. And I still do not know anyone yet, who can make gravy quite like my mum’s! She made it using a Tupperware plastic beaker with a lid, to mix it first, a bit like she was shaking a cocktail!! Using the meat juices and flour.
After a lovely dinner there was always pudding. Sponge pudding or steamed pudding, apple pie, or a stomach filler of an apple suet steamed pudding!!

These steamed ones used to make the kitchen walls run with condensation! They were done in a steamer pan with a lid, sitting on top of a pan with boiling water on the go. It took for ever. But the end result was extremely satisfying.

My sister was good at cooking, and also at organisation. She went on to do an Hotel and Catering Course at College of FE. So, as you can imagine, two women in a kitchen is bad enough, three is a definite no go! And anyway, I freely admit it all mystified me. I liked being outside, or doing something else. I was often told I used to play the piano after Sunday lunch to avoid the washing up! I leave you to judge for yourselves.
Dad would ask me to play a tune, so I obliged!
It was a house where people popped in and were given a cup of tea. Or they would stop at the gate and chat, if either mum or dad was outside. Then they would be asked “Would you like a cup of tea?”
Friends came to visit. Relatives came to visit. Our friends came and were always given a real welcome and usually a massive tea!

It has been a happy house, even though it has seen some extremely sad times, and difficulties. My dad always said in the years he has lived there latterly, as he had found it harder to cope,
“I always know when I go in through the door and close it behind me, that I am safe. I’m back at home”.

The other week, as I was taking him back to his new home, after lunch out at a nearby pub, he suddenly said to me, when I told him we had reached the end of the road where his care home is situated
“We’re nearly back home then. “

I said I was glad he felt like that.
He said to me
“It’s home to me now, and I feel pampered to death in it” So, although there is sadness, there is a sense of peace for dad who has been able to move on.

I had a dream.............early this morning. 9th November 2009

2009-11-09T19:28:00.015Z

Early this morning I woke after a particularly vivid dream. It was so sharp and clear that I could see the colours and almost sense the atmosphere.

Sometimes our house seems quite empty, with the loss of Matt and then our other son moving away . Family living in different places. There are times when I feel it and the impact is profound.

When I am not well, for whatever reason, I don't cope with it and feel bereft. Not having been 100% for a week is one of these times. And I make no apologies for writing that either.

But this morning I had a dream.....................

I shared it with Timelord and I was in tears, just before he went off to work. It had been a truly remarkable experience, and I can still see it now.

I was moving into a new home. It was welcoming and warm. I went through the rooms enjoying the discovery of each one. Downstairs as I went into the first room, at the front of the house, there was a bright, glowing, real coal fire, crackling in the grate.

"Oh" I thought, " Stephen has taken the trouble to set the fire before going to work." There were comfortable big armchairs and thick patterned curtains. It was a place to relax totally. The flames dancing and flickering. There was another room at the back of the house, running the length of the house, with large multi-paned windows, and a double window leading out to a patio. This time two coal fires!! More squashy armchairs and lovely settees, to bury oneself into and enjoy the cosiness.

"Well," thought I, " He has been busy this morning." I thought I was alone in the house.

I went upstairs and the first room I saw was one which looked as if it had been especially made for me. It was a room with a window at one end and a skylight overhead. Plenty of light. There was an enormous long table stretching down the middle, a craft table! And someone had filled up cupboards and drawers with all kinds of artist's materials, so I could paint!! I loved it!! It was MY room. It had a beautiful wooden floor. I became very excited wondering what I would find next!!

I went along to the next room and there was a view over the garden.........only I became aware of Matt there. He looked a lot younger and was deciding for himself which room he would like, and then he was talking to Alan, (who also looked a lot younger!) about his room. They were really pleased about them. Both rooms were at the back of the house and Alan's had a sloping roof, which suited him, for some reason. I watched them both and felt happy to see them there together.

Then I peeked out of the room which was to be ours, on to the most beautiful garden. It stretched out in a series of terraces, from a stone flagged patio which was laid out in a particular pattern, with various potted plants dotted about. Each terrace was different from the rest, all with lovely colourful plants and roses, until it ended at a hedge which opened out on to fields and a small coppice on the left hand side.

I breathed in the tranquility and peace. And I adored it.

I woke.

And I realised it had been a dream and when I told TL about it I was in tears.

Later in the day I was recounting this to another friend of ours who suddenly said "That wasn't a dream, it is a triumph."

What did he mean? He reminded me of what Jesus said in John's gospel Ch 14

"Don't let this throw you. You trust God don't you? There is plenty of room for you in my Father's house. If that weren't so, would I have told you that I'm on my way to get a room ready for you? And if I'm on my way to get your room ready, I'll come back and get you so you can live where I live. And you already know the road I am taking."

The Message version.

All the hairs of my head tingled at that, and he said I should write it down. After Timelord came home this evening I was telling him all this and he said

"That's exactly what I thought this morning when you related it to me. You should write a blog...."

So, I have. And the dream is still as vivid. God moment or not? I know what I think!

My dad.

2009-10-24T14:32:00.011+01:00

Every four weeks finds me making the now familiar trip up to Rossendale to visit my dad. He is now in his 91st year.

I have already written of his move into the home where he now is a resident. He is well settled and looks so much more like his old self, than in the 18 months before when he was still struggling on in his own house.

This last year has seen major changes once more in his life, and as always he has accepted them with great fortitude and the limitations under which he now finds himself.

He decided a few months ago, that he would sell the place where he had lived for over 40 years. It was not an easy decision for him to take. And quite emotional for us all.

This has meant a change in my routine when I am there, as it is now necessary to sort through the accumulated books, letters, files, furniture, and so on, to make decisions as to their distribution.

I never thought that we would decide to finally bring dad's clock here with us, (as he'd told Stephen it was his if he wanted it! And Stephen wrote a blog about it)http://talesofatimelord.blogspot.com/2009/09/thowd-case-clock.html

One of dad's neighbours, Ian, took good care of it, coming in each week to wind it up. And repairing it when it went wrong. It does have a loud "tick" but I have to say as it is on the wall in our back room, it is a reminder of both dad, and the home in which he lived.

One of the things that has amazed me as I have been looking at dad's books and files, is just how much he has written.

He always wanted to be a journalist when he was younger, but he had to leave the Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School and, as his own dad Fred, put it, "Tha con get thiself a proper job......."

so he ended up in local government, before the WW2 started.

But it didn't stop him from writing..................

He was a compulsive writer.

He wrote stories which were published in "The Bedside Guardian," and had short stories read out on what was then the Home Service. Now Radio 4.

This being after the war, which interrupted his life in a big way, as it did to all other people at the time.

I can remember when I was very young sitting by the radio one evening to listen to one of the stories being read.

It was before I went to the very same grammar school and we moved to the address now for sale.

He wrote letters. When I went to college I received one a week. And these would not be short pithy ones! They were always descriptive and interesting.

It carried on after we got married and moved to Portsmouth, in 1974.( And on to Sutton Coldfield in 1981). One letter a week, unless we were visiting dad and mum, or vice versa. They only stopped around 2003, when he began to have problems with his sight.

He wrote to my sister when she moved to London, then Halesowen and finally Knaresborough, where she lives now.

It didn't matter that we all had telephones, he loved the written word.

We were not the only recipients of his letters.......

He wrote to people in Ireland, South Africa, and Canada, not to mention hundreds of letters to our local, paper, "The Rossendale Free Press"

When his sight eventually made it impossible for him, people would stop him and say they missed his letters in the paper.

He was blind in his left eye, due to glaucoma, before the next major problem reared its head. He began to have Age Related Macular Degeneration, and although he has limited peripheral vision, he is now registered blind and partially sighted. Although to look at him it is not obvious.

And he was also an avid reader, instilling in me a love of Shakespeare, and poetry, to mention but a few........ but he had to forgo his favourite pastime of having a book in his hand.

This he accepted and moved on to talking books and the radio. Having a thirst still for spoken words of literature.

He has not complained about his circumstances, and we have been proud of him, all of us, as a family. (We know he is not a saint! And I don't write this looking through rose tinted lenses!)

He has a determination about him which has kept him going and he deserves to be looked after in the best possible way. All the carers at the home love him to bits, and we tell them we love him too.

So I found myself having a conversation all about Beirut, and Lebanon, at my last visit. He has a huge Dictionary, which also serves as an encyclopaedia, and it is a ton weight to lift!!

"Get the Dictionary out," he will say, and so we do. Then we go off into a journey of history, geography, definitions of words, and back again. I learned a lot about Beirut in a short time!! Timelord being in Lebanon for a few days whilst I was visiting dad.

Sometimes I read to him, from the Lancashire dialect stories he has collected down the years. He used to belong to the Lancashire Authors Association and he wrote short stories for Radio Blackburn, (now Radio Lancashire). I recently found all the scripts! Which I am copying for the family.

A man of letters then, truly.

We hope he makes his 100th birthday and gets his telegram from the Queen!!

What is it about the Lizard that it draws us back?

2009-10-10T16:56:00.029+01:00

I never thought after our first visit to The Lizard in Cornwall that we would be returning year by year until now.

We went for the first time as my dad didn't feel like going on holiday on his own after my mum died in 1990, aged just 70.

When asked where he would like to go he pronounced "Cornwall, to the Lizard." As he and my mum had loved it there.

So began an annual trek, beginning in 1992. At that stage it was just ourselves, Alan and my dad. Matt at that time had gone to "Soul Survivor" at Shepton Mallett, a huge Christian gathering at the Bath and Wells showground.

http://www.soulsurvivor.com/uk/index.html

Each year we have returned, with dad, when it has been posssible for him. He has only missed a couple due to his health until now when he cannot make the journey.

We stayed at Trenance Farm Holiday Cottages

http://www.cornwall-online.co.uk/trenance-farm/

And as the years went by, Matt joined us at times then when Alan began his stint at Shepton Mallett there were 3 of us!

When Matt and Heidi were married they came along two years running, the last being 2004, when we were all there, Alan included. We had two cottages then. It was a lovely summer.

So, what is it about The Lizard and Mullion that draws us back each time?

How to describe it?

My dad describes Mullion Cove as "timeless" and on a wet windy night with the sea bashing over the breakwater, "primeval". His memories of the Lizard are special and vivid.
It is a timeless place.

The other side of the peninsula that is Land's End is much more geared to tourists. St Ives, Penzance, Carbis Bay, and the monstrosity that is the theme park at Land's End itself.

The Lizard is a peninsula which begins at Helston,passes RAF Culdrose, and then unfolds as you drive along its spine. Heathland either side, covered in wild gorse, wild fuchsias and tumbling hedgerows, scrub and stunted trees.

Cadgwith village.

The little villages that sit on its edges in coves and bays are all different. Inland is partly a designated wildlife reserve, with Goonhilly in the centre and St Keverne's church a landmark. Other small hamlets dotted about.

Visitors emptying out of coaches at the Lizard village itself, wander along to The Southernmost point and to The Most Southerly Café. This in itself is not commercialised and although there are the usual gift and craft shops, the whole thing is very low key.

In spring now, the RSPB set a watch there as there are pairs of Cornish choughs breeding. They returned to the area after 50 years absence.

I was so excited when I saw them last May flying out of the cave in the rocks where they were raising their brood. I always have a pair of binoculars handy. There are usually seals in the water at the Lizard Point.

All this still does not describe why it draws us back. It stays in the mind visually, and as impressions, tumbling white surf, serpentine rocks, calling sea birds, the tang of the salt in the air on a windy day. Wide skies, turquoise blue of the water, smooth sand in little coves , the rough feel of the granite as you sit on a slab for awhile. The timelessness and the knowledge that year by year it changes very little.

Narrow coastal paths snaking their way along the edges of sheer cliffs or descending into hidden bays. Always always a delight. The scenery is superb on these coastal fringes.

And we have been there in all weathers and all seasons. Seeing the wildness of winter storms, and the abundance of spring flowers, the lushness of summer, and yes we have had some excellent summers there.

Sky endless blue, sea stretching to the horizon in a sparkling, ever shifting panorama, shimmering until infinity.

The scent of autumn, ploughed fields, brown bracken, a sense of the holiday season coming to a close and a quietness arriving.

Mullion village itself is the largest on the Lizard,and is a bustling community, with several artists in residence, which I enjoy. They actually work on site and it is fascinating to see their craft unfold in front of you. They are friendly and like to discuss techniques, offer suggestions and encouragement.

It is to Mullion we returned again this October after a 4 year absence when we had stayed at Housel Bay Hotel, Near Lizard village. It was like coming home. So many good memories there of family holidays, shared experiences, the voices and laughter echoed in my mind.

So, we are back again next June, and hopefully, for as long as we are able to make the journey.

Matt and my dad, on the walk to Kynance Cove. 2004.

Autumn Equinox. 22nd September 2009

2009-09-24T07:25:00.011+01:00

Sunset 23rd September 2009.
Location: Back garden.

There was the most spectacular sunset last night. I wished I'd had a camera that would have done it justice.
Not only was it a glorious purple, red, pink, orange and blues, but in the east the clouds were reflecting the same colours.
Absolutely fabulous.

Autumn is definately in the air now, and I am always fascinated by the rhythm of the seasons here in our hemisphere.
Ok so the summer was not good, from a blue sky, sunshiny days, point of view. And, yes, the weather men got it spectacularly wrong, telling the nation we would be having a "barbecue summer"
Oh how we all longed for one after the last two years total wash outs!

Our nation collectively looked to the skies in July and August and felt very cheated!! Our national psyche wants warmth and summer holidays on the beaches, and in the hills and lakes!!
We live in a country which, lets face it, has weather, and loads of it!!
So we live in anticiption each spring, that we will be able to cast off the winter clothes and go out and about under blue skies with the sun shining down day after day.........................When it doesn't happen we have to blame someone, and this year it was the weather men!

We think "Should have gone to France, Spain, Europe.........anywhere with SUN!!" But the pound against the euro? Hmmm!
My French friends in Provence, have been complaining about the heat!! It has been TOO hot this summer they say................too hot to go out some days.

And Wednesday was the autumn equinox.
I read an article in the Times and I quote here:

"Today is the autumn equinox, when the Sun rises due east and sets due west, and the world shares roughly equal hours of day and night.
A wonderful phenomenon also appears at night about this time of year.
An hour or so before sunrise, a faint glow shaped like a cone or triangle towers up from the eastern horizon. It is called the zodiacal light and shines in a really dark location well away from any light pollution, but can look so impressive it is easily mistaken for daybreak, and is often called the false dawn. As Rudyard Kipling wrote in his short story False Dawn: “The moon was low down, and there was just the glimmer of the false dawn that comes about an hour before the real one. "

So the evenings are becoming darker sooner, and the mornings are becoming lighter later.
A watershed.
FLN used to bemoan the passing of the summer, complaining that winter was on its way and he loved the sunny days of summer when we had any! Muttering about wet days, lack of warmth and blue sky, and revelling in days which were truly summer.
It's ironic this year that the minute the schools return the weather decides to calm down, and the last three weeks have been a blessing to those of us who hate being cooped up inside!!

I had a 3 hour walk in the park on Sunday and it was beautiful.
The pools were are still as glass and reflected the changing colours of the trees. Squirrels were scuttling about in the undergrowth looking for acorns to bury, or stash away.
The light through the trees filtered through on to the growing carpet of leaves which had already drifted down from the branches above.
I love scrunching through leaves!! That is something very satisfying!

And the last sunflower in our garden has opened at last. Mrs FLN gave me some seeds earlier in the year, and this one stands up very tall.
Another beautiful sunrise today...................cat asleep, the cool fresh air with a nip in it at 6.00am, and condensation on the outside of the windows! Must have been colder last night. Another day dawns. And it was three years ago on 22nd September we said our final goodbye to FLN at his Thanksgiving service. And the next day, for Chris.

"Welcome to Rossendale's great hills, we'er natur's music allus charms un niver 'arms yo"

2009-08-24T22:16:00.012+01:00

Looking down the Valley from Haslingden Old Road.

This picture is on the wall in our hall at home. So as I took a photo of it, it may look a little blurred!!
I forgot to take my camera with us when we went for a walk last Friday evening and we were enjoying the self same view.
I was born and brought up in the Rossendale Valley, whose damp climate supported the cotton industry.
I roamed the hills freely and loved the sense of the agelessness they seemed to emanate.
Like the saying " As old as the hills".
So, on a beautiful sunny evening with the light sharp and clear, we found ourselves, Timelord and I, once again savouring the panorama, and remembering our roots. Both Rossendalian, and both loving hill walking.
The damp musty smell of the old stone walls. Spiky reeds, which I used to plait when I was young! The wind rippling field grass, the occasional sheep bleating, and a kestrel hovering overhead. Peaceful interlude in time. Clearing the mind for awhile of care.

The second picture, also on our wall at home, is looking to the north of the Valley, where the road eventually goes over the moor into Burnley.
Around the middle of the picture is a dense small wood on the left. And the streets on the righthand side housed our small community, and the street where I was born.
More hills and fields to explore!!

So for a brief interval we walked and talked about the days we used to live there, and all the memories which it evoked.
Until we turned once more for home
in the Midlands, all too soon.

PS Click on each picture for the larger version.

D-Day 65 years on...........

2009-06-06T14:53:00.010+01:00

My dad and mum in 1941 on their engagement in March

My dad was just 22 when the war began in 1940. A young man.

He landed on Sword Beach in Normandy on 6th June 1944, and was in the battle for Normandy, also being involved at Pegasus Bridge.

He would never talk about his experiences, except they were funny little anecdotes, which we all now know so well.

The hen,Clara, taken from a farm by his army sergeant, and travelling with their unit up through France and on into Germany, laying an egg for him each day!

The description of the Mayor of Colleville- sur- Mer, wearing a big shiny fireman's helmet and running up and down on the beach waving his arms in welcome!

Dad given a jeep to drive, never having driven in his life, but not knowing how to stop it and driving it into a tree in order to do so!!

Here, in his own words of annotated text in the book he gave us to read about his Division, the description of the mayor.

" I finally hitched a lift on a Sherman (with its 105mm) on DDay, and after seeing "fireman sam" on the beach, jumping up and down, I saw an extraordinary sight, a French courting couple strolling along in the fields, oblivious to the shelling and bombing going on: not to mention the hazard of tiptoeing through the minefields!!"

But he has never been able to talk about what he saw............

I remember as if it were yesterday, when I was 16, and I was talking to him about the fact that he survived, and if he hadn't I and my sister would not have been born.

He took hold of my hand and and said he had seen things it was better not to talk about, and he had had to do things which he found so awful, that it made him cry.

He did say that he had helped to bury bodies in a concentration camp, and that memory was seared into his brain. He was 25 years old then.

Afterwards, he cried like a baby, which was quite shocking for me at the time, never having seen him cry, or a grown man cry before.

When I got married, we lived in Portsmouth for awhile and dad traced his old sergeant, who lived in Gosport. He went to see him with my mum.

I took him in the DDay museum there at Southsea, at his request, but 5 minutes inside and he was reduced to tears once again. The memories too painful.

So watching the ceremonies again today, is very moving for me. Matthew and I were planning a trip to the landing beaches for the October of 2006, but sadly we never made it. I will go to pay homage to all those who went and fought and died to stop our country from being invaded, and to help to liberate another, which I have visited many times and where I now have friends.

We should not forget them.

My dad is a veteran, but a silent one.

I finish with his words, written in the flyleaf of the history of his Assault Division

"War is obscene and brutalising, if sometimes unavoidable. The only post-war celebrations should be in the form of Rememberance Services to the many who never came back.

Smith of Rossendale May 1994. 50 years on."

More changes in our lives........

2009-06-05T08:34:00.000+01:00

This is a picture of my dad, which I took recently, after his move to a residential home.

This inevitably is a great change in all our lives in the family, for my sister and family, my cousins, and dad's grandchildren.
At Christmas dad was quite ill and I looked after him for 4 weeks. two weeks at his home and two at ours.
He has always taken his bouts of illness in whatever form straight on the chin, no messing. He would go into hospital like it was a routine event, and then proceed to tell the doctors and nurses he was "fine"!!

I have inevitably, spent a lot of time away since Christmas, as I had to call out the ambulance in March when I was there after he had been ill again, at midnight. I did not like driving after it at 70 mph to the hospital.
I felt very alone.

And all those thoughts of emergency vehicles and ambulances which I push down in my mind when I drive on the M6 came flooding back............
Dad then had to go into repite care, and it is a lovely place, where the staff are very caring. He looks better now than he has for a long time.

Which brings me to the point of writing all this!!!
Having managed to find him this place, with the help of my cousins, and all the whirlwind of activity that went with it, I had been away from home again a total of 7 weeks since January.

I began to feel the weight of grief again...........

I felt a sense of loss as I knew that dad would not go back to the home where he had lived for over 40 years, and where my sister and I lived. I knew that all those memories would be locked away when the house, eventually, (not just yet) is sold. I will not know the familiar click of the garden gate as it shuts, the sound the front door makes as it closes, with the rattle of the brass door knocker.
The rhodhodendrons in full bloom, and dad sitting in his arm chair with the clock on the wall ticking loudly.
I will miss all those things......... well perhaps not the loud tick!

So, dad took the decision to stay at the residential home, and he is settling in and enjoying the care, but it came, to him, at an emotional cost. He has had to accept his circumstances.
I admire him for his courage.
We all do.

For me in the tiredness, my own grief, which is always there, surfaced big time. I have missed Matt so much lately, and Stephen too. When the weather is so good, and the days are long and sunny till late in the evening, I can see him in my mind's eye, walking up the garden path from the back door............in his shorts.......enjoying the beautiful endless blue skies and warmth. One of my closest friends texts me on days like these and says "It's a Matt day today".

It reminds me of the hot summer days we had just before he died. So we go on, and it is an act of will to choose life, after such devastation. I understood, in small way this week, why the couple who jumped off Beachy Head, could not live without their son.

But I know that Matt is safe. And I know I will see him again. That is our sure and certain hope, even in the dark times which ebb and flow around us.
I finish with a picture of Matt and my dad, his grandad, at one of dad's favourite pubs. It was taken in 2002.

Another blog! Fresh start................

2009-04-23T20:04:00.000+01:00

April 23rd 2009 Stratford upon Avon.
We set off this morning to glorious sunshine, blue skies and yellow splashes of fields of rapeseed in flower. A real springlike smell in the air, fresh and sparkling.
Matt's day, yes, and one he would've enjoyed. Also our favourite playwright, William Shakespeare's birthday.
Flowers in bloom, cherry blossom overhanging the edges of the road at times, and the nice sensation of warmth. We could walk around the town without coats.

After a nice lunch in Café Rouge, we went to the Courtyard Theatre and picked up a Sonnet Sleuth scavenger hunt booklet and proceeded to enjoy finding the clues in various historic places around the bard's own town.
Each clue was matched to one of his sonnets, (not ALL the sonnets of course!). It took us awhile but we had a very interesting afternoon as a result and visited many historic sites in the process. The Scavenger hunt was launched today, and we met other people wandering round the same direction each with their booklets. A very relaxing day out and a lovely way to remember Matt, who also liked Shakespeare and especially Henry V !!

So, if ever you are in Stratford try it, it's fun.