Reading Josephine Tey,

It has been a long time since I read the Daughters of Time. Josephine Tey first came into my life when I was in my twenties, and she, alas, was nearing the end of her life.

Elizabeth Mackintosh, who wrote under the pseudonyms of Josephine Tey and Gordon Deviot, died when she was only fifty-six. As I look back I think - one is so much in their prime at fifty-six. Well, looking back (despondently) even seventy seems young (sigh)

I am enjoying re-reading her mystery novels, and find the hero of these stories, Inspector Alan Grant, so charming he would steal as many literary hearts as Inspector Morse has wooed with his television series. I confess to not having read any of the Deviot plays, not being particularly drawn to this genre because of my love for descriptive writing.

The Tey novels are a wonderful mixture of mystery, characterization and beautiful literary pictures of the English and Scottish countrysides.

A sentence from The Singing Sands, wherein Inspector Grant has met up with Wee Archie, a pseudo revolutionist in sagging kilt and derelict bonnet, possessor of a thin and reedy voice, - as Archie departs from this chance meeting.

"And the dragonfly creature with its mosquito voice went away in the brown distance."

And here, from The Man in the Queue...

"A light rain fell across the window-pane with stealthy fingers. The end of the good weather, thought Grant. A silence followed, dark and absolute. It was as if an advance guard, a scout, had spied out the land and gone away to report. There was the long, far-away sigh of the wind that had been asleep for days. Then the first blast of the fighting battalions of the rain struck the window in a wild rattle. The wind tore and raved behind them, hounding them to suicidal deeds of valour. And presently the drip, drip from the roof began a constant gentle monotone beneath the wild symphony, intimate and soothing as the tick of a clock. Grant's eyes closed to it, and before the squall had retreated, muttering in the distance, he was asleep."

The far-away sigh of the wind, the muttering in retreat, and in between the wildness of the storm. Beautifully expressed.... A wonderful little paragraph that paints a picture, tells a story and provides background music all at the same time through the creative use of words. A plus to the endearing qualities of the stories she tells. Tey's work is scattered throughout with such delightful phrases, sentences and paragraphs. What a shame that we lost her so early.

I pass these books on to Husband, to share the pleasure.

Hot weather and the garden is spreading out in all directions, with total abandon.

The roses have finished their first flush and the delphiniums appear a little shabby, but the lilies are coming into their own, along with great swathes of shasta daisies.....

I spent an hour making lavender bottles today, - felt quite frivolous after all the toing and frowing of the go-fering job. Big Smiles.....inside and out.

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS - REALLY, REALLY. ARE YOU SURE?

When we first began to hear about the one hundred and fiftieth birthday celebration of the Province of British Columbia Husband and I looked at each other in disbelief.....

Can this really be?

It seems like only a decade or so ago that we attended the Centennial Ball in Victoria, - surely fifty years can not have passed while our eyes twinkled and our feet danced and our children grew up and life went on.

Is it because we are no longer young that this celebration doesn't seem to have the spontaneity and excitement of the 1958 Centennial? Or is it a more sophisticated age and community is no longer of great importance?

This was a time Before Television, - whose advent (and our pernicious use of the media) is, in my opinion, responsible for a lack of interaction between people, a loss of neighbourhood and the push that started us on the slippery slope in the proverbial handcart.

It was the golden years of the Fifties when kids still played outside, creatively, dinner at night was a family affair, - just before we slid into the Sixties and the world turned sideways, at least.

It was a time when people didn't stay home to watch the Simpson's or the Sopranos but instead plunged into the Real Life where Real People were doing things.

All over the Province there were Centennial Committees with marvelous ideas that drew people together. Plans were made, projects were started, books were written and a exciting and celebratory time was had by all.

On June 26th, 1958, in the little village of Cawston where we farmed (five miles down the valley from where I now sit) there was a splendid summer day set aside to honour the pioneers of the District with a special luncheon. There was dancing, and music, a gymkhana and much merry making.

Alas, when in my mind's eye I picture the members of that Committee it comes to me with sadness and nostalgia that Husband is the only one left . He was probably the youngest, and the Chairman.

For which he got a nice award of merit

.

And we got t0 dress up and go to a Centennial Ball in Victoria.

Lovely memories....

While out gathering a posy or two to bring some elegance to the bathroom...Husband in charge of snapping these pictures of 'a wild woman in her wild, wild garden' - and I quote.

Saturday night and we are at the end of a week in which I advanced my career as go-fer/swamper/shoveler and an oft bewildered passer of tools as I try to divine what Husband is mouthing at me from the Boss's seat on the Tractor.

I am very green at this job. How does one know that when one reaches the 'ancient' years there will be this totally splendid dependence on one another - this marvelous togetherness that at once brings Contentment and Frustration.

I have one more week at this apprenticeship and then I do declare a Holiday.

The lazy, hazy days of summer will soon be upon us, - days to relax and read and sip cold drinks in the coolness of the porch.

The time to rise early to tend to the flowers and linger leisurely in the shade of the evening.

And all this spring enthusiasm that has stirred Husband and his Tractor (and his apprentice) will shower blessings upon us and keep us content through the long hot lazy summer when nothing of any consequence should be initiated after 10:00 a.m.

Sweet dreams (sigh)

Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability. ~Sam Keen

It is June, 1995, and Husband and I are on a poignant journey from a gravesite in France to a gravesite in Holland.

We have just spent a few days around Brettville sur Laiz where Tom is buried, and now we are driving up the coast of France to Njimagen, to visit the military cemetery where Gordon lies.

As we drive through Picardy Husband and I sing softly, the refrain to 'Roses of Picardy' and think of my father, another soldier from the First World War. We don't remember the verse, but we are old enough that the refrain is familiar to us.

Roses are shining in Picardy
In the hush of the silver dew
Roses are flowering in Picardy
But there's never a rose like you
And the roses will die with the summer time
And our roads may be far apart
But there's one rose that dies not in Picardy
'Tis the rose that I keep in my heart

I think nostalgically of that day as I deadhead the roses in the garden. This cool spring has been so kind to them, and they have flourished beyond belief.

This evening the sky gently reflects the colours of the garden, and it is all tenderness and contentment.




Slowly it fades, - the flowers shine dimly in the dusk and I go into the house to collect the little dog for his evening walk and wait for the full moon to rise. A few days ago it was pale and porcelain in the fading light. Tonight it will be dark when it rises and it will flood the valley like a splendid lantern.

Ever grateful to be surrounded with such loveliness.....

The garden in June is a lovely mix of Monet colours. Early in the spring yellow and gold seems to predominate. In July and August the colours are more flamboyant while Autumn mixes its subtle earthy colours with the flaming scarlets of the maple and the sumac.

This little garden of ours is not big enough for all my wishes. It is now in its third year, and is bursting with vitality, - the green force pushes the plants to their most gorgeous limits. I walk down the pathway that divides the two beds, and find that my version of an English Garden is turning into a small jungle. Even though I have banished the sunflowers to the outer edges where they grow surreptitiously under the delphinium and the curly willow.

But at every step I find a treasure, - a rose, just opening; the blue flax reflecting the sky in the early morning; the lavender that wafts a sweet perfume as I brush by; the poppies, beautiful and blowsy, and almost transparent in the morning sun.

I try to capture each precious fragment of beauty, - when the petals fall they find a resting place in a big basket of potpourri. The camera is my friend and companion on our early morning visits when the sweet light prevails.

Vista has not been kind or cooperative, but here is a small video of the garden in June. If there are duplicate pictures you will know they have been added by the little green men who have invaded the PC......although I can't honestly hold them responsible for the snow on the mountains we wakened to a few days ago. Is this chilly June what they mean by climate warming????

Music by Gottschalk - Printemps d'amour. Cut off a little before it should have been by the little green men, - who else?

Will Durant

His words......

"It is a mistake to think that the past is dead. Nothing that has ever happened is quite without influence at this moment. The present is merely the past rolled up and concentrated in this second of time. You, too, are your past; often your face is your autobiography; you are what you are because of what you have been; because of your heredity stretching back into forgotten generations; because of every element of environment that has affected you, every man or woman that has met you, every book that you have read, every experience that you have had; all these are accumulated in your memory, your body, your character, your soul. So with a city, a country, and a race; it is its past, and cannot be understood without it.

Perhaps the cause of our contemporary pessimism is our tendency to view history as a turbulent stream of conflicts - between individuals in economic life, between groups in politics, between creeds in religion, between states in war. This is the more dramatic side of history; it captures the eye of the historian and the interest of the reader. But if we turn from that Mississippi of strife, hot with hate and dark with blood, to look upon the banks of the stream, we find quieter but more inspiring scenes: women rearing children, men building homes, peasants drawing food from the soil, artisans making the conveniences of life, statesmen sometimes organizing peace instead of war, teachers forming savages into citizens, musicians taming our hearts with harmony and rhythm, scientists patiently accumulating knowledge, philosophers groping for truth, saints suggesting the wisdom of love. History has been too often a picture of the bloody stream. The history of civilization is a record of what happened on the banks".

Elsewhere Will Durant speaks of his weariness with reading of the destructive side of history, and his determination to present the creative history of the race.

As I gained a little maturity, I eventually purchased all the volumes of the Durant's "Story of Civilization" (his wife, Ariel, co-authored some of the books, starting with the eighth) and their short, concise "Lessons of History".

What a Story it is - presented as a fascinating and gripping history of the glories and failures of the myriad civilizations that have succeeded each other in the last 5,000 years. Such a short little breath in the timelessness of the earth....

He speaks of Religions and Civilizations, and the tensions between them which mark the highest stages of every civilization, and I paraphrase his words.......

Religion offers guidance to bewildered men, and it culminates by establishing a unity of morals and belief which assists in reaching the pinnacle of their relationship. However, as knowledge and technology grow or alter they clash with mythology and theology, and intellectual history takes on the character of a 'conflict between science and religion'.

The relationship ends by fighting suicidally in the lost cause of the past.

When the intellectual classes abandon the ancient theology and the moral code allied with it then conduct, deprived of its religious support, deteriorates into 'epicurean chaos; and life itself, shorn of consoling faith,' becomes burdensome to all.

In the end 'society and its religion tend to fail together, like body and soul, in a harmonious death. Meanwhile, among the oppressed, another myth arises, gives new form to human hope, new courage to human effort, and after centuries of chaos builds another civilization'.

What a mixture of pessimism and optimism - technology and science abound whilst conduct and morality fall into disarray, but there is always the Phoenix which arises in the form of new order and creativity.

I find it hopeful and encouraging to have this perspective of the whole of history, - it gives faint hope to my dismay with the moral code which, on the whole, seems to be making inroads into our society, and I can carry on life on the banks of the stream, - gentle, ordinary, striving and loving.

Ah, I do fall into these philosophical fits now and then, but when I received the Durant Foundation Newsletter today I abandoned my struggle with Vista and took consolation in Will and Ariel Durant's wonderful life together and their combined contribution to knowledge and wisdom....

You won't be sorry if you follow the link and visit the site.

SO, is anybody out there absolutely ecstatic about Vista? Is there anybody out there whose enthusiasm knows no bounds when they are gazing on that magnificent Vista through Windows - if you'll pardon the play on words.

To be more realistic, is there anybody whose Window's Vista does not cause the heaving of great sighs, the holding of heads in hands, in utter despair, - swearing profusely, - either under the breath or in great roars of frustration? Does Window's Vista work for anyone????

I am listening (with great pleasure) to Philip Martins renditions of Gottschalk, awed by the flying fingers and technical dexterity, - as well as the soaring melodies.



I am into my third evening of trying to rip this music into the Windows Media Player Library. The computer tells me it is ripping this music, - - it proclaims to me when each piece has completed ripping, - but it is all talk. All talk.... There is no green indication of any ripping going on at all..... after the ripping is supposedly completed on a track it immediately goes back to declaring 'pending'.

Programs are continually going into non-responsive mode...

I cannot delete anything off the desktop without crashing the computer.

I cannot download RealPlayer, or uninstall the old RealPlayer that no longer works.

If I try to print anything directly from a website it prints in little tiny squares up in the left hand corner of a page, - I have to tranfer anything I want to print to Word before it will print properly.

Oh, I could go on and on, - the frustrations are wicked and leave me in an evil mood. I yearn to go back to XP, even without Windows Movie Maker (which I love).

And I am also finding the music of Gottschalk fascinating and 'totally awesome' . So how come I have come to him so late in life? It is a puzzle. Is it because he doesn't quite live up to Chopin?

Whatever, -I will stop quarreling with Vista and enjoy this wonderful rendition of Gottschalk's spectacular music. All the trills and runs, the arpeggios and the glissandas and at times the most romantic of melodies.

Silent Sunday

The little old dog is lying at my feet, sleeping. It is one of the pleasures of his life as he copes with being both deaf and blind.

Old age is upon him, and he moves more slowly than he did even just a few months ago. Still, occasionally he waves his tail like an eager flag as he proceeds Husband and his cart down the road.

It is difficult for him to locate the direction of a voice, calling to him, and he is startled by sharp sounds and things that go snap in the night. I see the bewilderment in his face. and in the hesitation when he turns the wrong way, - away from familiar paths. He is developing independent ways as he copes with this strange new world of shadows and diminished hearing.

We are careful to be patient and loving.

My heart catches when I see him favouring a cool damp spot in the garden to make a comfortable bed, as so many of our dogs have done before him as they looked for comfy places to nap in their old age.

He has been with us for thirteen years, and we were all more lively when he first came to share our lives and met up with Mr. Jake.




Nevertheless, life is still good, - interesting and challenging.... And Husband and Dog and I all treasure our days together, with Cat around to keep us on our toes...


Patience is our watchword ...........

Monday morning, and the Cawston hills are an indistinct blur through the sheets of rain. Welcome rain, - always, in this semi desert valley that requires spring showers to turn the hills a tender green, if only for a few weeks. The air is at once heavy with moisture, and yet fresh and invigorating when Caspar and I go walking this morning. Me with an umbrella, - he, requiring a good toweling when we come in. I feel the plants in the garden sighing gently as they absorb the welcome moisture.



The spiney dragon's tail that stretches eastward from K Mountain stands out against the grey clouds that occupy the valley.



This was to have been 'planting pots' day. Our Sunday drive after church yesterday included a short visit to the greenhouse. Husband was magnanimous in stopping in front of this most dangerous of all establishments where the wallet is concerned. However, I suspect that he felt his presence waiting in the vehicle out in the parking lot would curtail the expenditures.... he doesn't know what a fast shopper I am. Especially when I have been making lists for the last three weeks.

He will retire to the garage to advance his organization of the accumulated tools and treasures, frustrated in his mowing plans but blessed in this opportunity to create order ........ I will find a spot to pot up the plants that I scooped yesterday.

Monday mornings can be invigorating in the most pleasant ways. The stress of the weekend has dissipated and the days stretch out, filled with empty hours, waiting to be filled and fulfilled.

This past weekend saw the culmination of all the piano practicing I felt was necessary to accompany a bell solo at Music under the K. Music under the K is a wonderful annual event which involves school bands from all over the province, visiting musicians, local talent and a great influx of students and music enthusiasts. A festive air in the village, echoing music from a dozen different venues.

Our Handbell presentation took place in the Church, - noted for its acoustics as well as its holy usage. On Sunday we did a repeat performance, taking part in the morning service of Eucharist.

The Prayers of the People ended with the following words, - a portion of a modern hymn written in 1988 by Shirley Erena Murray, with traditional music by C. Hubert Parry (1897).

'Psalms and symphonies exalt you, drum and trumpet, string and reed,
simple melodies acclaim you, tunes that rise from deepest need.
Hymns of longing and belonging, carols from a cheerful throat,
lilt of lullaby and love song catching heaven in a note.

All the voices of the ages in transcendent chorus meet,
worship lifting up the senses, hands that praise, and dancing feet,
over discord and division music speaks your joy and peace,
harmony of earth and heaven, song of God that cannot cease.'

Most appropriate after a few days of living in a valley from where all sorts and kinds of wonderful music soars skyward.

I am off to pot in the rain...

Trinity Sunday, and in Church this morning the Old Testament Reading was the first chapter of Genesis, - an account of the Six Days of Creation, beautifully read in a way which seduced one's attention and imagination.

At home, over lunch, Husband and I expressed curiosity about the person(s) who wrote the gorgeous lyrical language used in the Bible, (the King Jame's version, that is ) and most especially in the Old Testament.

...and the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

No matter what your belief how can you not be moved by this wonderful expressive story of creation.

...and God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.



Our discussion sent me searching and I found online Two Stories of Creation by Doug Linder.

The first, told about three thousand years ago around the campfires of Jewish desert dwellers in what is probably present day southern Israel, the story of The Creator, forming man and breathing life into him. It is followed by the tragic tale of Eden. The name of the creator god was "Elohim".

The second story, more ancient than the first, used a Judean term, "YHWH" (Jehovah) to describe its deity.

Four or five centuries later, in what is most likely present day Iraq, a remarkable Jewish writer (name unknown) began to write a primary history of his people, hoping that it would help the people endure the many trials they were undergoing.

He wove the two texts together, and the story he wrote is a 'compelling' one. He opened his history with a creation story as found in the first book of Genesis, - the reading which I found so moving this morning. This chapter ends with the creation of mankind - the first man, Adam, and the first woman, Eve.But wait, - this is Eve who was created by the god YHWH from the rib of the first man, Adam.

There is another 'scientific Eve' who has slid into the story, as a result of amazingly advanced research.....

Dr. Lynn Margulis thinks'" humans are, essentially, a colony of closely associated bacteria.'

"When she first proposed her theory in The Origins of Eukaryotic Cells in 1970 the idea was so controversial it could not even be discussed at respectable scientific meetings"

Now, however, it has almost universal acceptance, and in turn the discovery of mitrochondrial bacteria has led to the marvels of a DNA which connects all of humanity from the time when the first male and female bacteria energized within a Eukaryotic Cell to eventually recreate.

Because the Mitrochondrial is passed down the centuries only through the mother some years ago researchers used computers to analyze samples of DNA drawn from 135 diverse women from all over the globe, and discovered that the family trees of these women all led back to Africa. In the process they discovered that genetic differences within Africa are twice as great as the differences between all other populations, suggesting that we are all descended from a small band of humans that left Africa perhaps 80,000 years ago. The root of the mitochondrial trees seems to lie in the northwestern Kalahai Desert in southern Africa, - the true home of Mitrochondrial Eve.

Dr. Margulis's discoveries are truly amazing, and I am still in awe of the advances in science that make this possible when I comment that this is the "discovery" of these marvelous primeval mysteries that seem to point to the beginning of life. They are not the "creation" of the bacteria in question, and we are left to wonder if Dr. Margulis is recording a chance event, or if The Origins of the Eukaryotic Cell is a highly intelligent technical journal of the allegorical Six Day Story of Creation as found in Genesis.

I ponder the connection between all these creation stories, and I wonder if the Eukaryotic theory
will ever inspire the music, the sculpture, the paintings and art that the ancient wildly romantic story of creation has given to civilization.

And I study this 1984 mural created by Ruth Dusckworth, showing God in the middle, and the unformed universe developing into images of the heavens, the waters, the mountains, the living creatures, and finally humankind...........


and I know that although my intellect recognizes and accepts the Margulis theory, my heart clings to the beautiful old stories and their primitive interpretation of mankind's imaginative wonderings and the beginning of the journey towards the discovery of Eukaryotic.

The danger, I feel, lies in the inherent arrogance of man in ignoring the wonders of creation while denying the design and the Designer.

Waiting in the wings for the curtain to rise...

Our first real summer Day and the garden is holding its breath

It's all rouged and powdered, the last Pierrette twirled, the Beauty Spots in place.

From the Stars to the Extras, all is in great anticipation, - preparing to burst forth on stage for

The May Extravaganza


A little rain, a warm sun, and the magic begins all over again.

Spring time - a season of new life, new promise, new strengths and new loves.

and Cousins.....


Side by side - sweet innocence embarking on a lifetime of friendship.

snips and snails and puppy dogs tails,

that's what little boys are made of....

A babe in the house is a well-spring of pleasure,

a messenger of peace and love, a resting place for

innocence on earth,

a link between angels and men. ~ Martin Fraquhar Tupper

This sweet May-morning, And the children are culling
On every side, In a thousand valleys far and wide,
Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,
And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm:—

I hear, I hear, with joy I hear! Wordsworth Ode to Immortality

And welcome that darling little Blossom Time Babe


with dearest love to Jess and Derek

sweet innocence, trailing clouds of glory....

A Visit to the Nursery

The plant nursery, that is.

A project fraught with a number of emotions. Delight, anticipation, wild abandon, - which leads in its turn to a little guilt, and then a little resentment. The guilt and resentments are personally inflicted and involve in some strange way the physical inability to recreate the old Lost Garden at this stage in our lives.

However, equilibrium is recovered, and resentment banished, and one gets lost in the joys of the search. Did Anna plant the white nicotiania this year, - the kind that is so fragrant on mid summer evenings and attracts the large hummingbird moths. Or will I have to search for seed and quickly get it in the ground. What about Cleome? Sometimes I find it, - sometimes I don't.

In deference to a lack of space and a dirth of extra energy I do not plan to frequent the little shrub department.....well, - maybe a Bridal Wreath as the Spirea I started off with turned out to be two of the tiny variety, when I envision extravagant masses of white froth.

And if I could find a Korean Viburnum I would not be able to turn away from it's delectable fragrance....

There is also a little stealth involved in this expedition. A lady at the Bargain Centre yesterday told me of a woman who, when she found an article of clothing she couldn't do without, would buy two in different colours. One she brought home and showed her husband, - the other she slipped surreptitiously into her closet, hoping it would be lost to the husbandly view of what hangs in ladies' closets. Is there some way I could apply this subterfuge in my dealings at the plant nursery?

Ah, I fear not, - togetherness is too much with us in these advanced years and there is no opportunity to slip the odd plant or two into the garden without its arrival being heralded by stern looks and the odd finger wagging and shakes of the head. Sigh.....