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be the food of love….

We had alot of music in the house this weekend, due to concerts and, well, maybe the sun, maybe Tilly’s death. Anyway, M on the violin, learning fourth finger position (don’t ask me, but it’s difficult) with impeccable (examiner’s word) tuning, and E returning to Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude, which he played in last autumn’s Kent Piano Festival. He’s brushing this piece up for a winner’s concert on 8 June at 3 pm, in St Peter’s Church in Canterbury, if anybody’s interested.

I simply love hearing my children play music. It has the same effect on me as reading poetry. More than that (of what I don’t know, but more of it) indeed. How often have I just stopped outside the closed sitting room doors, just to listen…

Here’s the Raindrop Prelude, played by someone else, but at a similar speed to E. I find it hugely powerful, always have.

The story of the fox cub is important in all this.

Last Friday, the day we took Tilly to hospital, the vet phoned through with blood results: dangerously anaemic, jaundiced. It could be, we decided, that her brother Schubert could save her life with a transfusion. R came home to help, and we made the decision, loaded S into the car. The car pulled away, and hidden underneath it was a tiny fox cub. No obvious sign of injury, eyes wide open, but unmoving. 

We wrapped it in a towel and took it in the car with us. So there we were: a critically ill kitten, another on the way to give blood, and a little fox cub wrapped up in a maroon towel on my lap. It dozed off. The sun was shining. 

At the vet’s, we left Schubert to be cross-matched. The fox was examined. Suffering from shock, no injury. About three weeks old. Advised to try, try to link it up with its mother. Just two nights before we’d seen them — mother and two babies, playing in the back garden by the stream.

We went back home with the fox, and laid him gently by the shed. 

Another phone call: Schubert is not a match. Tilly must try on her own, with oxyglobin to help ferry the oxygen around her system.

Eventually Schubert returns and E and M arrive home from school. Everyone is shaken. The baby fox is still in the back garden, has hardly moved. We decide he needs to go back to the vet’s to be re-homed. M and R carefully gather him up. This time he rides on M’s lap all the way; by the time he arrives his name is Robert.

E and I stay at home, playing cards and talking.

Later, R reports back: when I handed the fox over, I said we’ve got a very sick kitten here. So any good news you could tell us about Robert would be wonderful. Any good news.

Two hours later, the vet phones. The fox has died. Upon closer examination, they found an enlarged liver. Probably born with the condition that would kill him. The children seem to absorb this fairly matter-of-factly, although when she first hears, M covers her face with the sofa cushion.

By contrast, the fox dying simply does R and I in. In a world where little ones are dying, why can’t we save them?

***

We just can’t. Yesterday afternoon we had to put Tilly to sleep. She had taken another downturn, and for the first time seemed unhappy. She was slipping and struggling. Just could not round the corner.

We did what we could, but not too much. The right decision doesn’t mean it isn’t desperately sad. 

So. She was not a strong kitty, perhaps not even from birth. But she was petite, soft-natured, and very very beautiful. Liked to be treated with extreme gentleness. Would have been one year old tomorrow. We are missing her. Last night of all nights her brother wandered the house, yowling and scratching at doors. And first thing this morning, he didn’t want to go out.

The sun shines and shines. I wait for the intrigue of butterflies and warm spots to draw him out, and now, at 11 am, they do. A part of us stops, and a part of us continues.

I’d say the last few days have been difficult at best. Our tiny female kitten Tilly (here) was taken critically ill at the end of last week. She crashed on Saturday morning, spotted by an alert nurse. Two vets revived her.

Her body is destroying her own red blood cells. We don’t know why yet, and can’t find out until she is stronger. It’s either long-term curable — or not. She’s on IV steroids, antibiotics, and fluids. She was sitting up and eating yesterday, though the vets have decided not to take bloods and risk the stress crashing her again. 

So we wait. Today we will bring her prawns.

Her brother wanders around looking confused, crying for attention. He licks us when we stroke him. 

E asks questions, and we answer them. He’s sad at night. M’s eyes fill with tears, and roll down her face, dripping onto her book — which she is never without at the moment. 

We moved through the weekend as a unit, doing almost everything together, not even wanting to be in separate rooms. When we visited Tilly though, it was clear she is getting the very best care possible: swaddled in a blanket, with a little teddy tucked up next to her. The whiteboard there reads: Tilly, anaemic ++++, jaundiced. Very nice cat. And on the notes, at the end of Saturday, written by one of the nurses: love her.

Sounds New week is underway — and what a week! Contemporary music from dawn til dusk. With some of the best, the VERY best players of contemporary music in the country. Right here in (River City) Canterbury. It really, really is such a top-drawer week. Check it out.

No, it doesn’t all sound like someone moving furniture around, as my mother used to say. Much of it is very, very beautiful. And intriguing. And makes you think. And moves you (not the furniture).

So check it out.

(nb: the Sounds New website is under construction, so doesn’t seem to have delineated pages I can point you to for info and programming — BUT if you go to the site, it’s all there nevertheless. Poke around.)

What this means for us is: R and E out every night (sniff!); M babysat three nights (lighter purse, gulp); me out for those three nights — tonight to Gulbenkian to hear LOTS of cellos and a piece by R, tomorrow night to Ensemble Intercontemporain (fabulous!) at the Cathedral, and Friday night…one of the best string quartets in the country. So there.

All a bit hectic.

More to the point, I have to go all shaggy-haired tonight, then show up tomorrow night with probably the very same people in attendance freshly shorn…gawd. That’s what I get for not thinking very far ahead. What do you wear to distract people from your hair? And don’t say a BAG.

Even more to the point — none of R’s cooking! Bereft already! And the bright kitchen so newly in. I could weep. Forced to snack on Toblerone.

Despite freezing temperatures and occasional impressive hail storms, the sun shone. And shone. We walked. And walked. And cycled. And pedalled. And played Monopoly. And Scrabble. For hours.

Pedometer: over 10,000 steps per day, even when cycling! (Tells you something about the number of hills I had to walk up rather than ride, but never mind…)

We got the Saturday Guardian and The Observer. Dig it. We read them. Mostly. E read them. Mostly. M did the activity page. Mostly.

*

Some eye candy. I wish I could do justice to the place. But I always have to try, try to capture some element of something.

The ‘Purple Walk’ above Coniston Water. The wood about which I wrote the poem ‘Bluebell Wood’ in How to Be a Dragonfly. Only it’s not quite bluebell time. Obviously.

Taken by E along the flat walk from Skelwith Bridge to Elterwater.

Another taken by E: R and M on the way back to Skelwith Bridge in sudden snow.

From the top of Silver How, near Grasmere. After a rather winding, windy and steep way up, met with fast travelling clouds and a 360 view.

The staggeringly beautiful Buttermere, revisited after several years. A long, sunny relaxed walk around with lots of stone skipping and the odd nap.

Nearing the end of the day on Buttermere. The children scratched their names on stones and propped them against tree trunks. We longed for cans of warm gin & tonic!

1) The weather today! Startling blue sky.

2) M’s health. After a surprise ‘hurl’ as she calls it (bleh) this morning, nothing. We figure odd anxiety: protective of cats, she had worked herself into a froth about them going outside. We all need a break.

3) Step count: 3,000 and I’ve got six hours to go. Slowly but surely.

4) Sight in a swimsuit tried on today.

5) The forecast for The Lakes, where we head tomorrow. GONE FOR A WEEK! Yay. And only mixed rain/sun on those nice charts. May strike lucky and get lots of walks in (obssessive, moi?).

6) The picture and article in the Gazette about Word on the Street, which did appear today. Again, rather jolly. Unfortunately not online that I can find, so you’ll just have to take my word (on the street) for it.

7) Mindset before a journey. I’m usually imagining all sorts of things that might go wrong by this stage, and/or desperate to clean the house top to bottom. Neither of those things are occupying much head space at the moment thank goodness.

*

Two bits of unadulterated good news:

1) Saw Helena’s new baby today — stunning. At three weeks the size M was when she was born: 10lb 4oz. The familiar bleating like a lamb, feed me.

2) M got a Distinction on her violin exam. Hurray, M!

*

See you in a week. Have a good one.

Oh my goodness. What a week! Rarely so fried… You know how I like lists…. So I’ll do one and try not to use ellipses to the point of ridiculous…. (sorry).

1) Monday: M’s first solo violin concert. Plus three other group pieces. Did beautifully, despite meltdown over the previous weekend. Too much! Was supposed to do a maths challenge and a cross country run the same day. Hmm. We pulled her out of the run. Her violin teacher fetched and carried: playing the instrument, playing with dogs, a snack. That evening, she soared.

Oh, and we forgot E was off to London, to the Barbican to hear a concert. Oops. Got text: am on the bus to London. Have no money or lunch. Double oops. He begged, borrowed and stole. Apparently.

Beautiful food.

2) Tuesday: can’t remember a thing about it. Teaching.

3) Wednesday: M picked up by gorgeous Nancy, who took her for a picnic and brought her to Dance Warehouse, where I met them for an open lesson. E with me, and we both pas de basque-ed at some point…heavens knows when or how. Sandwiches in the car. E whisked into his concert — in two choirs — R showed up 10 mins beforehand from meeting. I went to Sainsbury’s to get something to take to writing group (hello Andrew, Nancy, Craig, Jeremy and Mark!). Ran into M’s drama teacher, who enthused about her and informed me that M had (once again) come home with Distinctions for top effort points in her form. Heavens! Forevermore. Lights under barrels and all that.

Writing group — a new combination — fantastic.

4) Thursday: admin, both kids home. Facing the chronic disaster of the house. Ikea building.

5) Friday: another concert, E on piano this time. Tear-bringing good. Again. Debussy and jazz. Not at the same time. A buzzy couple of hours, particularly seeing so many teenage boys in their element, being respectful, enjoying the music. Hurray Sam Bailey!

Ikea building.

Beautiful food.

6) Saturday: MY BIRTHDAY! Chocolate cake made by all, tulips for present still blooming. And beautiful food.

Laundry and Ikea building.

7) Sunday: Chocolate. Lamb, flagelet beans, mashed carrot & swede, potatoes dauphinoise, roasted parsnips.

Lordy. More laundry and vague Ikea building.

8) Today: end of laundry and end of Ikea building. Unpacking into it all! Trip to dump and a silly play a the swimming pool. Absolutely glorious chicken risotto.

25,000 words reading for next week. Hello students, hello world.

*

Don’t really want to do that again. Hoping to stop by here in two days rather than seven…! Thanks for listening.

p.s. if you come back later, you may find some rightful links added…I…just…can’t…do…them…now…

1) Been thinking about twins. Somehow, and for no clear reason. Except that weeks ago I saw what appeared to be twins (women) both running (separately, one behind the other) for a train in Charing Cross Station. And that day before yesterday I thought I walked past two shopping twins (women again), one with a young child, looking at face creams. And today I maybe saw the same two maybe women twins on Canterbury High Street, walking briskly. Maybe not. You’d think I’d know for sure. But I don’t. I’m wondering if it’s not unusual for me to be in an almost constant state of double take.

2) The number of people working on the house today all at once: 6

3) The number of posé turns I did across the floor in ballet: at least 50. No wonder I’m seeing twins.

4) Hauled a chest of drawers up three steps on my own. Last time I did something like that was 15 years ago, when I carried a different set up an entire flight single-handedly. Nevertheless, proud of myself. Even if R, E, and M might not like it in the sitting room.

5) One of the six men in my house today fixed the tumble dryer. He’d been round to fix the oven last year, and the washing machine several years before that. You’d think therefore that we had a relationship of sorts. Well, no. Despite five others being in the house — in the same open space indeed, talking and joking — I couldn’t entice him to a single off the cuff remark. He did inform me though that the thermostat had gone, in his opinion, because the filter was bunged up. He lifted it up to show me: should be able to see through there. Oops. I tried to tell him, my voice no doubt trailing off, that I did sometimes carry it up to the shower…I did, um, try. He remained unmoved.

6) Another of the men in my house today was the template person. Whenever I asked if something were possible, he replied with a resounding yes. I liked that. We should all be so lucky.

Okay, here’s the family take on the whole kaboodle…

1) my mother: Feh!

2) E: “all a bit pointless, isn’t it?”

3) R:

4) M:

5) Me? Too busy taking note of everyone else. Snuck up on the raft of men around the Sainsbury’s card section, who seemed to be rather adrift with good intentions, clutching coloured envelopes. Saw a girl with a huge bouquet stuffed in a plastic bag, about to cross the road. Boy next to her. Was it from him, or someone else?

How about you?

It’s the time of term when things naturally — or rather, normally — start to disintegrate. All of the best laid plans, the thought-through teaching objectives, the pastoral care (you really do care, after all) look distinctly frayed. And not just around the edges. Monday saw me very nearly just put my head down and ask for a nap — in the middle of class. Times like these students really are worth more than I can give them. Forgive me.

However. After a morning in heated discussion over Sharon Olds and Michael Laskey — lots of heat — and an afternoon rather revelling in student accomplishment in the form of MA portfolios, I am exhausted yes, but more than that, somewhat disoriented. I look to small things again to keep me focussed: the fine new threshold that Wonderful Builder put in the outer lobby today, the way that E set to his homework without being reminded, the way that M went for kitchen towel to clean up the milk the cats spilt — without being asked.

And now I remember with unadulterated pleasure the highlight of a short hour’s last minute wander around TK Maxx on Sunday:

Sometimes the shoe fits. Really fits. And so there’s a bit of a toehold.

Here’s the thing. A long discussion with a seven year old about point of view. I mentioned M’s new obsession with Nancy Drew mysteries last week or thereabouts… Now it emerges why she’s so taken with them: she feels she’s trying to solve everything along with Nancy. Ah yes. And how with Harry Potter she felt that she sometimes knew more than Harry did (because there were different scenes) and she was waiting for Harry to catch up…Ah yes again. So at the moment she loves Nancy Drew, because she’s right there with her.

I clearly remember having a similar discussion with E at about the same age, about what we know as narrative tension. This time it was over how the beginning of Brian Jacques’ Redwall didn’t grab him, didn’t make him ask questions like ‘what happens next’, whereas the first Harry Potter does. I remember him getting so excited that he took down both books and read the first paragraphs to me: see, see!

It’s remarkable how early on in their reading lives children — people — become aware of what works, and what doesn’t. For them, anyway. Which brings home with an awful crash how utterly vital it is to feed children the right books, to keep your eyes and ears open for where they are, what they might like, to keep broadening and opening out…And yet of course, my children are priviledged enough to have constant access to books of all sorts. So stupidly many aren’t.

***

Related to this, as part of my Canterbury Laureate brief I’m putting together a shortlist of children’s books — three categories I think, 5-8 years old, 8-12, then Young Adult. About three titles per category, to be used as ‘Summer Reads’ in the last term of 2008, put then to an online vote…Great stuff.

Any contributions or thoughts for unmissable children’s books would be gratefully received! I’ve got some ideas of course, and am spending some delicious time reliving the bookcases of my children…But I’d love to know others’ thoughts. Many thanks!

On the way back from school.

M: I found out I got a Work Star today Mummy that I didn’t even know I had.

Me: Wow, that’s good. In what?

M: History.

Me: For what?

M (obviously waiting for this): Well, you know how Egyptians believed things about going to the Underworld, and how their hearts were weighed on these scales against a feather…and if it was heavier or lighter then they went different places?

Me (not sure where this is going): Sort of…

M: And Osiris accompanied them. Pauses. I’m not sure how he was supposed to go with everyone, one by one. Pauses again. Maybe there was a whole army of Osirises…but the story goes there was only one. Hmm…Maaay-bee (warming to it now) everybody waits and then piles into something like the Eurostar, and as they are all getting comfortable, over the loudspeaker comes this voice (she shifts to a game show announcer), ‘And your driver today is…Osiris!’ And of course it’s always Osiris! And it goes on like that, all these dead people waiting at the station….

We guffaw over this image for maybe half a mile.

Me (calmer, finally): Okay, but look, what did you actually get the Work Star for?

M: Oh yeah! I drew such a good picture of the real story, with all these diagrams….I think that must be what I got it for.

***

I don’t think I’ll ever again be able to hear poor Osiris mentioned without thinking of him as a train driver. It’s a shame in a way that her teachers didn’t hear this invention — but I don’t think she would have got a Work Star for it, alas. More’s the pity, I can’t help but think.

I mustn’t worry about how I am a) not writing b) not cooking c) not able to remember where anything is in the chaos…d) not keeping up with paperwork and this e) not in close enough touch with friends. Nor how much I miss doing/knowing all of these things.

Instead I shall rejoice in what I am doing/thinking/knowing. Let me just think about this….okay:

a) thinking. Mainly about writing. Find this rewarding, and I only really do it when teaching. Like to ponder process, the finer workings of rhythm, the creative process itself.

b) dancing. Managing still to do this twice a week, at last too in a ‘real’ class, with proper music, proper combinations. Am learning to acknowledge that grand plies — and any sort of pivot in fondu — are just not on the menu. My knees are thanking me and rewarding me with another class the following week. An added bonus is that when I’m dancing, I’m not thinking about anything else.

c) teaching. Yes, I really do love this. Good to be back. Could do without the admin, without the way time becomes juddery, punctuated by panicky emails or dire jobs — but the actual time in classroom and tutorial: yes.

d) imagining. Life in a new ground floor, one where we can all sit together, cook together, and where the dishwasher and refrigerator are actually in the same room as everything else.

e) ignoring. The floor in the bathroom that didn’t go back down well, the persistant plaster dust, grey hairs, dry knuckles. Etc.

f) noticing. Daffodil and crocus tops coming through the pots, lighter afternoons, striking pink mornings on the way to school.

g) enjoying. E’s obsession with iTunes and gathering music (the urge to collect from his father!); M’s new fascination with Nancy Drew mysteries (more later).

h) lastly, re-discovering. Things we’d thought we’d forgotten or lost while packing up for the plasterer, like a single given to me by a student years ago, which we all used to bop around to (okay, not R). While I’m ambivalent about its musical longevity — it does help me feel better about where this post began. It’s not that I’m not writing, it’s that the rest is still unwritten. Oh yeah, that’s right…

What with Obama and Clinton raging in Iowa and New Hampshire, I’ve found myself longing to be ‘in the fray’. Not that I’ve ever managed — despite best intentions, admittedly — to be in any particular fray…but this one does grab me.

I also feel homesick. The lack of any interesting precipitation (where’s the snow for heaven’s sake?) along with Sarah Salway’s picture of a cardinal — the bright red state bird of Virginia (where I grew up) — over on her blog, together make me want to be there.

It’s abstracted. It’s irrational. But this morning I sang The Star Bangled Banner to M in the car. Yes I did. She listened all the way through before quietly remarking that she didn’t think she’d ever heard it before. Shame on me.

In recompense, please accept this particularly belting version. If you didn’t know it before M, you’ll know it now!

We were talking — idly, as you do, in the car from a to b — about new things, how one of her friends seemed to be put off a particular secondary school because there you had to pay for your own lunch using a card…

And M says, sympathetically: everybody’s frightened of change, of course.

I nod.

Then she says: Me, I don’t know… (her voice shifts to a strong American accent) … I kinda LIKE it.

Quite. Another reason to make it til Spring.

Another crisp frosty start, so rather looking forward to heading into town later to finish the shopping. Staving off panic. All a bit last minute this year. And no cards written yet. Again.

As usual, my lists are exhaustive, obsessive and nearly incomprehensible: E haircut (made), M haircut (make), cats’ claws, cat litter x 2, drycleaning 24 hours? (ask), travel medicine, night time cough medicine, shave, truffle ingredients? (R). Etc. And the list of presents not yet secured: E to M, M to E, E to R, M to R. Etc. And now that the children can read, all in a code only I understand: M C & H, E 2… Sigh. And as if one list isn’t enough, I’ve today started my usual list series, a day by day countdown. I don’t think that a poem out of all of this would be very entertaining to anyone but me. However, in all my spare time I might write it anyway.

As a kind of leavening (wandering lists), check this out. Sent by Deborah via via via via facebook, as ever. Enjoy!

Because we have Wonderful Builder in, earlier this month we broke it to the children that there would be no decorations or tree this year. We would be going away for the holidays, we stressed, to a house where there is always a huge tree, garlanded stairs, etc — bliss — so it’s not like they won’t get their fix. Nods of acquiescence all around.

However. The closer we hove the more pleading the looks, so at the weekend out came the box: M’s idea was to decorate their rooms and only their rooms. A little bit of Christmas.

Well. Almost every single decoration and the tree lights along the hall later, I’ve decided that children are much more sensible than adults. Again.

It looks like Christmas. It feels like Christmas. They took two hours stringing tinsel along their beds and paper chains across their ceilings. Baubles on every knob of their chests of drawers. And two nights ago when the lights first flashed on it was, as they say, magical.

Never mind that last night the lights, um, flashed off. So I’ll be at the hardware store today, trying to find a fuse bulb for a five year old set of lights. And probably end up buying a whole new string. It’ll be worth it…

***

Amongst the decorations come my grandmother’s tatted ones, made many many years ago and carefully preserved year on year in a square, christmas-y box. They are strung with red ribbons, starched stiff. We only have five.

M in particular is affected by the concept of time. Yesterday she put on her tiny silver ring, bought last year in France. One of her most precious things she says, because (this seven year old says) it ‘holds memories’. Her shelves are full of objects gathered at such and such a place at such and such a time: wool caught in the fence of her infant school playground, a stone mouse from Pisa, a tiny china bear from her best friend, a ‘key’ she fashioned out of strong grass, a small enamel painting of St Francis of Assisi she chose at the place itself. Etc.

I feel I have no way to disperse this for her, and perhaps I don’t need to. I too have felt it all my life, and remember crying on my twelfth birthday because I would never be eleven again. Sigh.

I suppose that while she makes and arranges objects to remind her, I most often use words to do the same thing, e.g. the memoir work on this site about my beloved grandparents.

M has formed and reflected her life from things around her ever since she was old enough to grasp and hold. There’s no getting round it, and though I know this attentive, sensitive way of getting through the world isn’t a simple (or lucrative!) path to follow…I don’t think she (or we) has (have) any choice. She’s on it.

Just a little one. Just a little prone to it, me.

It’s a sidebar widget, songs on it. I’ll try to keep updating it with whatever makes my skirt fly up. At that moment. Look left and you’ll find it, close to the bottom of the page. Requests, anyone?

On a completely different musical note (sorry) - went to M’s first proper concert last night. She was the youngest performer, held her violin with considerable panache, her head high too, ponytail perched. Despite a rather quavery quaver section (eighth notes for Americans, I think!), she did herself and us proud as lead desk in a band of five under-9s. Bless.

I’m impressed with myself, I have to say. Two pages (sort of) made. Links and all.

Looking-wise, on the way to school this morning M and I saw tall, magnificent trees still in full leaf, a shade past bright yellow. They were regal, in full finery, stood at the edge of a field as if observing the dancefloor. We had to tip our heads to see the tops of them, nearly crashing the car.