When the weather's this good, I'd like to go over the hills and far away (especially when M's in one of her tantrums). Sadly, it isn't possible, but the view from the top floor of the house is some compensation. There is a world out there even if one can't be in it - I especially love the blue horizons. I was reminded today of A E Houseman's 'blue remembered hills' :
Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills
What spires, what farms are those?
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
We can't quite see his Shropshire hills from here, they're over the next ridge to the North, but the sentiment is with us constantly at the moment, as M is going through another 'Why did I come here' phase.
On a brighter note, the chestnut tree next door, which looked sick fit to die last year, has made a great recovery, and is covered in blossom. If they had cut it down our view would be even more spectacular, but I'm glad it's lived to see another spring nonetheless - don't feel so charitable towards their blessed trees that take the light from the kitchen and bathroom or the laurel hedge to the side that's demolished the fence!
The Olympic torch goes past the end of the road on Friday morning - we should be able to see it from our kitchen window. They've been sprucing up the rough patch of grass at the top of our cul-de-sac and I can now see that it has a huge patch of peonies that were hidden before - lovely deep red ones. A bench has arrived from somewhere to make it all look a bit more useable as it's normally just rough grass and overgrown shrubs - one of those patches where no-one seems to claim ownership but it looks now as if it's the council's job to sort it out. At the point formed by our lane and the main road and another lane running at right angles is the fountain (page takes a little while to load) constructed for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887 - you can just about get it to give you Malvern spring water if it's in a good mood but the standpipe further up into the hills is much nicer and the water is freezing cold and tastes blissfully of nothing. Better than paying for it by the bottle!
It is a delight to live in this funny, quirky place with its gas lamps and wells and springs - and of course its views and hills. It's easy to get fed-up with being stuck here all the time, but it could be so much worse - we could be stuck in W***** where M was living (and is, of course, the most wonderful place on earth being a rather uninspiring Surrey commuter town with shops full of cross, rude shop assistants, houses that cost the earth, and generally an inflated sense of its own importance. (Apologies if you live there and love it, but I've never met anyone except M who does - people usually say they live there as it's got such a good train service to other places!).
Well, that's me in counting my blessings mode - well someone around here has to..... Oh, I nearly forgot, I did get to the quilt show. Photography was nigh on impossible but I did manage to get the head of this lovely dragon. Apologies to the maker as I couldn't get near the label for a large crowd of Welsh ladies, but I loved the quilt, whoever you are.
3 comments:
Perhaps M would like a big quilted banner about the Land of Lost Content, even if it's not quite what Houseman had in mind!
Hope you enjoy seeing the torch, Sue - it's a lovely evening for it. Malvern's all decked out in red white and blue for the Jubilee and I think a lot of people will turn out here tomorrow when the torch goes through.
A great friend who is a Shropshire Lass introduced me to Houseman when I was at college in Birmingham - and took me over to Shropshire to see Houseman's grave in St Lawrence's church in Ludlow - never imagined then that we'd be living in the area all these years later and back in touch on a regular basis with my Shropshire friend. I think 'Loveliest of Trees, the cherry now..' is probably my favourite but as we look out to Bredon Hill I often get lines from that in my head.
I always feel so sad that you have to cope with M all the time when you live in such a beautiful place and can't get out into it when you would like.
Thank you for the pictures and the poetry.
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