I listen to the sound of the sea in the high and windy trees, my soul stretched up like a kite on a string where the buzzard mews . The  trees sough, leaves transmit and in my mind’s eye I see waves breaking on the beach. I am wrapped in sea memories, rocked by sea breezes, cold, damp, salt-sticky skin and tangled hair: always me, always the sea calling irresistibly.

It is a short drive to the beach at Tide Mills and I make it in about half an hour.There is barely anyone here and the waves are thrumming. The spray is whacking over the harbour wall in gusts but here on the beach it is more measured. There’s a rhythm to the sound of the pebbles lifted and pulled by the waters suck and drag. Froth, white like wedding icing wraps round my ankles. It is actually almost warm. I am the power today. There is only me, shin-deep in the courting waves, only me and my wild human heart.

Then I see it, a single opaque glass teardrop among the pebbles: a gift for me from the sea.

Notes:
I lost my wedding ring on a beach in Crete. My hands got so cold the sea slipped my ring off my finger and took it away. It was a wide band of rose gold and belonged to Eva, my paternal grandmother before me. Sometimes I wonder if anyone ever found it, but I will never know.

Once upon the sale of the business premises, I acquired a large and rather grandiose carved cupboard with four bevelled glass doors. It stands around 6ft 7” high by 7ft 3”. I call it “the Nautical Bookcase” as the carving shows a central galleon in full sail which sits atop a patch of stylized waves. Either side of the boat is a winged caduceus, depicted horizontally. On the right a seated figure watches the boat leave surrounded by packing cases and points to a document he is holding, while on the other side of the boat, a man kneels next to an anchor, flanked by sacks and baskets of produce watching the arrival of the ship through a telescope. A few curly plant shapes finish the design which sits within a low triangle pediment. The doors and surrounds are veneered and set off top and sides by a frame-like moulding and the whole thing sits on a heavy shaped base.

The shelves within are all adjustable, so it is very practical, if heavy. It is a shop fitting, part of a modular system and probably dates from the 1920 to 1930s. We think it is German as the dark wood carving and style of the sculpted relief is similar to other German pieces of furniture. But so far, I have been unable to find out what the carvings allude to, what would have been displayed in the cupboard and where?

The cupboard sat gathering dust on the mezze floor of the warehouse for years, but when everything went to auction, I kept it back. Initially when people asked what I was going to do with such a large piece of furniture I replied:” I am going to live inside it.” I wasn’t entirely joking. As a child I devoured books, re-reading my favourites and being completely immersed in other worlds of imagination. Then, in my twenties and thirties my books were all stored in boxes while I moved again and again. I used to design travelling bookshelves in my head. I suppose a bookshelf became a sort of symbol of a settled life. When I told people I was going to move into the bookcase, I really meant that I want to rediscover that safe and exciting world I used to inhabit as a child, reading in a quiet room. Just as the wardrobe in C.S. Lewis’s books acts as a portal between the present and the magical world of Narnia, I imagine my bookcase with its mysterious carvings transporting me to another world entirely.

The End

It turns out there was just one pigeon’s egg and it has hatched. I have seen Etheldreda feeding a scrawny, downy squab; the tiny bird stretched up a long neck and food was passed beak to beak. Once fed, the squab was tucked up out of sight again.

Now I can worry about the little bird: will it be alright in its shoddy nest, perched precariously over a precipice drop? Should I try and put something in place beneath the nest just to give the bird a chance if it falls? At the very least the BBQ will have to move; we can’t have smoked pigeon.

We decide to call the squab just Ethel, like the rose. By naming it, we mark it out as individual, invest some care and interest in it being there. Though really it is still just a wild pigeon. I find a square of moulded plastic with holes and we hook it to the pergola, beneath the nest. This could be just enough to prevent a little bird falling to its death and ensure that, when the time is right, they can fly off safely.

Notes:

it turns out i was mistaken and two eggs hatched. i can watch the little Ethels quite clearly from my hammock; they are sweetly ugly.

Spread across the village green is the remains of a fearsome picnic: pigeon feathers. It was probably a fox. My thoughts fly to Etheldreda and her partner Ethelred. Whose feathers lie ravaged on the grass? Are the eggs safe in my garden under their canopy of spent roses?

I almost run through the house and into the back garden and search with my eyes for the sitting bird. And there she or he is, silent, immutable, regarding me with a bright eye. I am so relieved. The pigeons are still there and the egg is still safe, warm under feathered body.

Notes:

My pergola rose has a nursery name of “Ethel”, consequently we named our visiting pigeons who nest there Etheldreda and Ethelred.

Sitting writing in my hammock I look up to see a pigeon watching me from among the roses on the pergola. It would be a safe place to nest as the thorny sprays keep the cats away, if only the daft bird could build a decent nest. Unfortunately for some years the nest was so flimsy that the eggs and squabs simply fell through it onto the bricks below, which was distressing. This year, however there looks to be enough rose debris to keep the whole thing together. So, I nod at the pigeon and cross my fingers.

I planted this rose “Ethel”, in 2005 which makes it a bit over twenty years old. It is a fragrant rambler and clearly likes the garden as it has grown to an impressive 20 foot and flowers prolifically every year. Unlike other roses which are bred to flower repeatedly within one season, rambling roses have one show of blooms. For a few weeks during June and July, the wooden pergola frame is laden with a mass of pink clusters. The double blooms start off almost white, then a whole array of pink hues begins to develop, delicate like apple blossom, strengthening to a strong, almost virulent pink, which fades over time to a lilac.

Sometimes I make up bunches of roses to give to friends, or I sell them for charity. This year, however, I put them out on the pavement with a sign saying “Free” and just gave them away. I don’t feel they belong to me really: I just look after them.

When I left on holiday my rose was at its best with sprays of tight, pale and pink- tinged buds and some open blooms; but when I came back from Turkey a week later, the rose was already blown and drifts of pale petals litter the over-long grass.

One minute I was standing on a hot hillside among the dry creeping, scrubby plants, listening to the chorus of the cicadas and admiring the tall, airy pine trees against a blue, blue sky: then I am home again, sweeping up rose petals and talking to the pigeon. What next, I wonder?

Notes:

A “squab” is a baby pigeon.

“Ethel” comes from an old English name, Etheldreda which harks back to an old Saxon name: Aethelthryth meaning noble and strength.

Our good friend Colin was a true eccentric, a collector of all sorts of things, predominantly tools and an incorrigible hoarder. He could be frustrating but also very kind; he was both highly intelligent and sometimes totally without common sense! For instance, he once wrote to a well-known department store to complain about the quality of their bed sheets which had torn when he had gone to bed in his boots!

Colin had the most beautiful handwriting and he liked to label his finds with brown luggage labels upon which he would describe where he got the item, who sold it to him, a description of its purpose, a comment as to its suitability for this purpose and any other details. Colin’s knowledge was wide-ranging and detailed; it was gleaned from books, articles and from years of conversations with interesting people across all walks of life. He liked to talk and it could be difficult to get a word in edgeways.

His background was in commercial printing, illustration and graphic design. Colin was appreciative of what he saw as “good design” and fiercely dismissive of things which didn’t meet his exacting standards. Colin helped my husband to collect some equipment from a school, among which was a discarded wooden box which he labelled: “typical of the poor standard of work being produced in college nowadays!” He was however, also very concerned with the wellbeing of those he taught and he kept up with a number of his former students.

Since his death, Colin’s wide-ranging collections are being dispersed and people all over England and beyond have come to recognise and appreciate his beautiful quirky labels.

Notes:

Colin Maughan 1938 – 2019

There is a faint rattle as something moves inside the little wooden apple if you shake it. It is scarcely taller than an inch, shiny red with a yellow patch and a tiny wooden stalk that is pressed into a hole on the indented top. I really can remember my sense of surprise when I was shown how to open up the apple by twisting the top and bottom sections. Inside is a tiny wooden coffee set. There are two cups and two saucers as well as a coffee pot which even has a minute lid; each piece is decorated with a simple brushstroke design of a red flower with a leaf on either side.

For a while I tried keeping the apple in the doll’s house but somehow, I couldn’t find a narrative that worked: why would the little dolls have a coffee set in a giant wooden apple? It just didn’t make sense. Eventually I moved my little felt mouse family into the doll’s house. Like Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca, the little mice seemed quite at home in the doll’s house and were perfectly suited to keeping a coffee set inside an apple.

Notes:

The Tale of Two Bad Mice by Beatrix Potter describes the antics of two little mice, Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca, in a doll’s house.