Autumn Equinox. 22nd September 2009

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"

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...........

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........

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................

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.