Postcard - No 11

A snippet of summer, otherwise rain…

Il a plu comme une vache qui pisse! (FR) - It’s rained like a pissing cow

Hello to you all, my dear and much appreciated readers. I hope your week has begun with an easy Monday?

Before I write a quick update from this truly too grim month of June, I would like to send out heartfelt thanks to another flurry of new subscribers and special Tilieul Lime scented, lovingly wrapped packages of immense gratitude to those of you who upgraded to paid - I feel honoured, humbled and very encouraged - My most sincere thanks to each of you for your kindness.

Onwards with a smile, albeit a rather damp one…

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Mostly random…

European Election results are broadcast to me through the rattling of a loose piece of plastic I fail to locate and radio static in my ancient car. It doesn’t matter that I don’t hear the broadcast, I know already the catastrophe that awaits - I dream I am wild, like a hare. I wish for that exquisite freedom they have to bound to safety when they feel danger approaching - my colleagues sombre moods confirm what I missed.

I receive a beautiful gift - thank you darling Ju - for my birthday; Olivia Laings recent The Garden Against Time is essentially a memoir, brimful of heady descriptions of a fragrant travail of the heart restoring a long dreamed of garden. It is delicious in every sense. The phrase In search of a common Paradise, is written beneath the title on the front cover. ‘Are we?’ I consider this as I gaze over my own wilderness of a garden, the golden barley adorning my hill, the gentle breathing, almost purr, of Sassy sleeping in a few rare moments of warmth from June sun. I conclude that whilst my glowing hill breathes calm into my own chaotic life, would undoubtedly be a balm to many other kindred souls also, to others it may be - though I cannot imagine this - a little slice of living, breathing, buzzing hell. I decide, in finding insufficient positive evidence, the question is better left unasked. The answer would disappoint too deeply. Remember, I whisper into the breeze swishing barley beards, this place called Le Paradis, is not everyone’s dream, it cannot possibly be. Which, in the end, is more than acceptable, we are all inherently different.

My garden is a greener than ever before this day jungle of rioting weeds. My peonies droop with the weight of disappointed effort, my roses have the appearance of teenage girls returning from a rave, crookedly staggering, often falling completely, still frilly, still pretty but exhausted from trying to stay perfectly beautiful. All, shiver and quiver in herbaceous horror through this inclement June. And, though I have tried not to, I droop with them as I tackle day four of a particularly debilitating feverish virus trailing a lethargy that refuses to let go.

My kindred sister

Gabrielle Harris

and I write Haiku in the meadow on my birthday; a need to purify the scene of January’s bloody battle, prerequisite before returning gentle sheep to welcoming land. A cathartic and, I can now confirm, successful exercise as I survey four content sheep nibbling low leaves of prunus and fresh grass blissfully oblivious of anything at all prior to the moment they are standing in. The words we wrote, not surprisingly, were similar;

In sweet scented green//a fecund floral bleating//bloodied wool passes (SM)

Humps clearing a meadow//of sheep shadows underfoot//their very own Somme (GH)

Limpid heat returns, the sky temporarily cerulean, a few minutes of summer tempting me to believe… but it is nothing more than trickery.

I am woken every morning now not by dawn light but by a chorus of birdsong. A nightingale is nesting in the lowest branches of an old elder entwined with briars somewhere in the thickets outside my window. I know this will be short lived, she will rear her tiny clutch of five khaki colored eggs and leave once again. Sing my sweet voiced friends… I feel the privilege of knowing you are close.

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Just before I go’…

If I had to choose a favourite birthday gift it would have to be this, a short video sent by the beautiful kind sweet brilliantly multi-talented and hugely creative,

Emily Charlotte Powell

. I have never met Emily face to face which highlights only further to me the warmth and generosity of this community. Emily writes While I was Drawing, a letter encouraging creativity in every form. This is what she sent… I am not ashamed to admit, I cried, a lot!

(If you didn’t read my birthday letter it’s here, you will understand why.)

Emily, thank you again, so much - I love this… as would my parents have done too.

Yours with love always

Special ‘Sixtieth Year’ Offer - Reminder. I have set payed subscriptions to the lowest possible rate allowed by Substack if you subscribe or upgrade to a paid subscription during my sixtieth year this rate will remain set for as long as you wish to continue to pay. Whether you decide to pay or not - Thank you so much for being here.