I don't know if susurrus (pronounced sus-yoo-rus) is a made-up word but according to the playwright, David Leddy it means,'the wind rustling in the trees.' It is also the title of his latest production to be premiered at Margam Country Park from the 25th June to the 3rd of July.
He is our invited guest at Script cafe in Pontardawe Arts centre tomorrow, so I was keen to attend a preview yesterday in the Park. According to the information given out,
'It is part radio play, part recital, part lesson in bird dissection and part stroll in the park. . . the different elements creating a perfect melding of location and text to create a theatre experience in which there are no actors and only one member in the audience:you'
We were given headphones, a MP3 player and a map each, and set loose to follow the trail while listening to the 'play'. Margam Country Park was once a twelfth century Cistercian Abbey, the wealthiest and largest in Wales. It has been extended and added to and has the longest Orangery in Britain. It was a brilliantly sunny day, families were strolling around the lake and playing frisbee on the grass. A large party of Asian families were having a barbecue on one of the smaller open spaces, children swinging and climbing over ancient yew trees, and a couple of butch-looking women with huge lenses swung around their necks were taking photos of the ducks and close-ups of foliage patterns. A perfect back drop for a play about 'love and loss. . . a sensual interpretation of a Midsummer Night's Dream with a contemporary edge.'
I should have known when we were told by the guide that it had adult content that it wasn't going to be what I thought it might be. I wandered around the park imbibing the perfume and colour of the roses, pastoral scenes spread out in front of me like a delicious picnic, the steel works of Port Talbot in the far distance, and the sea sparkling on the horizon. I was enjoying the wonderful music and operatic recital pieces that accompanied me from bench to bench, when I suddenly realised that 'love and loss' in the audio drama included sexual abuse, a bereaved daughter, a suicidal father, a homosexual lover, and a post mortem on a dead sparrow. Not the love and loss I was expecting, but a very moving and sad story juxtaposed against a sunny Sunday afternoon.
I would certainly recommend the audio drama- it is a new intimate experience in theatre going, cleverly interweaving four viewpoints, layered with meaning. But if you can't stomach the story, you could just listen to the momentous musical bits in between the action as you stroll around the magical Margam Country Park.
Monday, 20 June 2011
Sunday, 12 June 2011
LET ENVIRONMENTAL CONSTELLATIONS CHANGE YOUR WORLD
Earlier this month I attended another workshop at Llwynbwch, entitled,'Environmental Constellations' run by Zita Cox. It is an idea based on the work of Bert Hellinger.
'We are all interconnected parts of family, organisation, community and eco-system. The difficulties we struggle with are often best resolved when we work systemically.They allow us to observe our place in nature and our systemic relationship to other living beings. They assist us with new ways of thinking and finding resolutions to the problems we have created, such as climate change, pollution, alienation and accelerating species extinction etc; They can be an aid to empathy and shared understanding in all situations. A constellation draws on emotional intelligence and intuition as well as logical thought. It can provide a way of seeing below the surface to understand what the real issues are and what can be done to improve things.'*
This workshop was aimed at therapists who want to find a different way to explore some of the issues raised in their work with clients and to develop their own self awareness. We were asked to identify a deeply felt, ‘burning’ issue.
In my case, I decided to constellate my next life step. Zita asked me to invite people from the group to stand in a special configuration – called a constellation. This provides a ‘living map’ of the issues you are dealing with. With guidance from Zita, the representatives in my constellation were asked to feed back their experience – focusing on their physical and emotional responses. Zita tested possibilities by inviting representatives to move positions and make simple statements. Pathways to action were revealed and explored. When an optimum configuration was arrived at, I was invited to step back into the constellation to experience the resolution.
The experience was very interesting. As only one person knew me I think it would have been difficult for all representatives to have been in collusion with one another projecting their ideas of me onto the constellation. However, I can see that a cynic could think this. What seemed to come out of this exercise for me was a shift in what could be my next life step. Whatever it is, it seems it should involve crossing water and preferably the sea. The last time I had really itchy feet was around seven years ago. I ended up living and working in the Shetland isles for a year and wrote a book, 'Soothmoother's Saga,' about the experience. Where and what it might be this time has yet to be revealed to me, but you'll be one of the first to know when it is.
*For further info see: www.environmentalcontellations.com
Monday, 23 May 2011
THE FERRET WHO CAN'T SWIM
I've just got back from a week's holiday with my daughter staying in a very nice hotel near the seaside resort of Kalkan in Southern Turkey. I was last in Turkey twenty-one years ago when our daughter was nine and our son, five. Then, it was our son who got all the attention. The Turkish men made a great fuss of him and he lapped it up like a Cheshire cat. Our daughter had felt quite left out. This time it was her turn for attention but it was mainly unwanted and at times persistent and sleazy.
One of her 'suitors' was the pool supervisor, whose Turkish name sounded like Ferret and that's what he asked us to call him. He was friendly with both of us, but when she was resistent to his charms, he became hurt, angry and sulked.
Ferret is from eastern Turkey near the Syrian border. There was no work in his village and so this was his eighth summer working for the hotel doing the same job. Despite his job title he can't swim and hates the sea. When we asked him what would happen if someone got into trouble in the pool, he said he'd call the captain of the little water taxi that takes folk around the bay. And if he was out at sea? Nothing had ever happened and he didn't think it ever would.
It didn't matter where ever we might be: sitting by the grand or round salt water pools, sunbathing down on one of the bouganvillea-covered terraces, swimming in crystal waters, or at the precise moment when one of us was trying to unobtrusively extricate ourselves from a wet costume, he would pop up like a meerkat, comparing the market for holiday insurance.
Most of his days are spent practising proverbs with British holiday-makers, avoiding animals he may be allergic to, or snoozing in the wooden box that stores orange beach towels, dreaming of Welsh girls he would like to go out with. Where there's a will, there's not always a way.
One of her 'suitors' was the pool supervisor, whose Turkish name sounded like Ferret and that's what he asked us to call him. He was friendly with both of us, but when she was resistent to his charms, he became hurt, angry and sulked.
Ferret is from eastern Turkey near the Syrian border. There was no work in his village and so this was his eighth summer working for the hotel doing the same job. Despite his job title he can't swim and hates the sea. When we asked him what would happen if someone got into trouble in the pool, he said he'd call the captain of the little water taxi that takes folk around the bay. And if he was out at sea? Nothing had ever happened and he didn't think it ever would.
It didn't matter where ever we might be: sitting by the grand or round salt water pools, sunbathing down on one of the bouganvillea-covered terraces, swimming in crystal waters, or at the precise moment when one of us was trying to unobtrusively extricate ourselves from a wet costume, he would pop up like a meerkat, comparing the market for holiday insurance.
Most of his days are spent practising proverbs with British holiday-makers, avoiding animals he may be allergic to, or snoozing in the wooden box that stores orange beach towels, dreaming of Welsh girls he would like to go out with. Where there's a will, there's not always a way.
Monday, 9 May 2011
'THINK LIKE A MOUNTAIN'
This weekend we celebrated the festival of Beltane, the time of the year when the sap of the Earth is rising, bursting with fertility, the Moon is waxing and growth and expansion are in the air. We celebrated at 'Llwynbwch,' in a two day workshop facilitated by Sue Weaver, Rosemary Bell and Alan Bellamy.
This was the last in a series of workshops that I have been attending over the past few years, held at key times in the Celtic calendar, including the equinox, solsitices, Imbolc and now Beltane. The workshops are 'work that reconnects' and are in the Deep Ecology tradition of Joanna Macy.
This weekend the blurb stated,
"We will draw on the energies of this time: of Fire and Earth, of the interweaving of masculine and feminine within and between us, of the natural growth of tree, flowers and grasses, the singing of birds and insects in celebration here on the land at Llwynbwch, asking how to manifest our own dreams and visions within our lives and communities, seeking to empower ourselves for fruitful."
The format of the work is based on a spiral. It started with a ritual cleansing with sage, giving gratitude for all the wonders of the natural world. We drew on magical moments from our childhood and life that had inspired and empowered us. In a truth mandela, we honoured the pain, sadness, anger, grief and emptiness we felt at the human destruction of Gaia- Mother Earth. We went out onto the land trying to see the world with new eyes and asking ourselves the questions,'What am I longing for?' 'What am I capable of?'
After a celebratory meal we gathered around a fire talking about our hopes and aspirations. At the end of the night we jumped the Beltane fire. Well, those of us who weren't wimps and could jump did. I opened my legs and skirted round it with legs like a cowboy who'd been on his horse too long.
The next morning we discussed our dreams from the night before. These workshops often produce rich material that relates to our journeys in re-connecting with the natural world. We identified our strengths and qualities, and the weapons of the Shambala Warriors of compassion and insight which would help us make the next step. Again, out onto the land on an adventure quest facing our demons that could stop us having a life sustaining future.
The weekend was powerful and intense. These workshops have helped me look at the world in a different way, taking a more expansive view of the inter-connectness of all sentient beings and our relationship to all parts of our universe. I am sad they've come to an end. I wish Sue and Alan all the very best in their next step moving to the Isle of Arran. I shall miss them, Llwynbwch and their work, but everything has a time and there is a time for everything. I don't know what my next step will be yet, but here is a Haiku I wrote in response to the weekend:
Her scorched hand screams
Gaia holds on like cling film
Wade in her waters
This was the last in a series of workshops that I have been attending over the past few years, held at key times in the Celtic calendar, including the equinox, solsitices, Imbolc and now Beltane. The workshops are 'work that reconnects' and are in the Deep Ecology tradition of Joanna Macy.
This weekend the blurb stated,
"We will draw on the energies of this time: of Fire and Earth, of the interweaving of masculine and feminine within and between us, of the natural growth of tree, flowers and grasses, the singing of birds and insects in celebration here on the land at Llwynbwch, asking how to manifest our own dreams and visions within our lives and communities, seeking to empower ourselves for fruitful."
The format of the work is based on a spiral. It started with a ritual cleansing with sage, giving gratitude for all the wonders of the natural world. We drew on magical moments from our childhood and life that had inspired and empowered us. In a truth mandela, we honoured the pain, sadness, anger, grief and emptiness we felt at the human destruction of Gaia- Mother Earth. We went out onto the land trying to see the world with new eyes and asking ourselves the questions,'What am I longing for?' 'What am I capable of?'
After a celebratory meal we gathered around a fire talking about our hopes and aspirations. At the end of the night we jumped the Beltane fire. Well, those of us who weren't wimps and could jump did. I opened my legs and skirted round it with legs like a cowboy who'd been on his horse too long.
The next morning we discussed our dreams from the night before. These workshops often produce rich material that relates to our journeys in re-connecting with the natural world. We identified our strengths and qualities, and the weapons of the Shambala Warriors of compassion and insight which would help us make the next step. Again, out onto the land on an adventure quest facing our demons that could stop us having a life sustaining future.
The weekend was powerful and intense. These workshops have helped me look at the world in a different way, taking a more expansive view of the inter-connectness of all sentient beings and our relationship to all parts of our universe. I am sad they've come to an end. I wish Sue and Alan all the very best in their next step moving to the Isle of Arran. I shall miss them, Llwynbwch and their work, but everything has a time and there is a time for everything. I don't know what my next step will be yet, but here is a Haiku I wrote in response to the weekend:
Her scorched hand screams
Gaia holds on like cling film
Wade in her waters
Friday, 22 April 2011
'I'M NOT REALLY YOUR DAD'
Our guest speaker this month at Pontardawe Script Cafe was Louise Osborn, writer and director of stage, TV and film drama. In work-shopping Rose Wattley's play,'Identity', she focused on how to use emotion dramatically without falling into melodrama. Rose's play is autobiographical, and focuses on the moment when at the age of 13 she is told by the man she has always regarded as her father, that she is adopted.
It is hard to imagine the extent of the shock and confusion that Rose felt that day in the allotment. It was March 1945 and the war was coming to an end. She was told that the person she had thought of as an aunt throughout her childhood was in fact her mother. It was never spoken about again but her relationship with her adoptive mother deteriorated. At the age of 16 she went to live with her birth mother but it didn't work out.
There is a current ITV series, 'Long Lost Families', introduced by Davina MacCall, that explores the experience and helps bring together families split by adoption. Last night the programme explored the story of twins, who were born out of wedlock and adopted separately as babies. One found out through the taunts of a childhood friend that her parents weren't her birth parents. Her aunt who lived a few doors down would bring her knitting each evening and watch TV with her and 'parents'. It turned out that the aunt was her mother and her parents were in fact her grandparents. She was told that she had a sister and in her sixties she tried to trace her. The other twin had no idea that she had a sister, let alone a twin, until she was approached by the researchers on the programme. They had been living for over half a century within three miles of each other.
In my work as a counsellor I have heard many moving stories about people's experience of adoption. One client was sent away to a convent in Ireland to have her baby and had to give up a son to a Catholic priest who arranged the adoption. She went on to get married and had two daughters, but she always hoped that one day she would be reunited with her son. When her daughters were in their twenties she set about looking for him. Since having a child himself he had also been searching for his mother. There was a gradual process of communication through the Catholic Adoption Society; letters, emails, telephone calls and at last after what seemed eternity, the first meeting. She described it like 'falling in love'. They couldn't wait to see each other again but the rest of the family weren't so ecstatic. The joy of their reunion was overshadowed by sadness and disappointment. The daughters were jealous of their half brother and refused to get involved. My client had a vivid tattoo painted on her back of castles and dragons that metaphorically charted her journey to find her son. At each session she would throw off her shirt and show me the new developments.
One of my clients was adopted and then at the age of twenty had a child herself that she had to give up for adoption. She was able to send her a birthday card and Christmas card every year but not see her until she was 16. That meeting was momentous for my client. But afterwards her child wasn't interested in pursuing a relationship with her. My client was left bereft.
It is always risky to put your play up for scrutiny at Script Cafe. Even more so when it's also your own real life story. Louise Osborn dealt with the issues in Rose's play with great sensitivity and at the same time gave us all plenty of guidance in how to use emotion authentically and dramatically in writing for the theatre.
It is hard to imagine the extent of the shock and confusion that Rose felt that day in the allotment. It was March 1945 and the war was coming to an end. She was told that the person she had thought of as an aunt throughout her childhood was in fact her mother. It was never spoken about again but her relationship with her adoptive mother deteriorated. At the age of 16 she went to live with her birth mother but it didn't work out.
There is a current ITV series, 'Long Lost Families', introduced by Davina MacCall, that explores the experience and helps bring together families split by adoption. Last night the programme explored the story of twins, who were born out of wedlock and adopted separately as babies. One found out through the taunts of a childhood friend that her parents weren't her birth parents. Her aunt who lived a few doors down would bring her knitting each evening and watch TV with her and 'parents'. It turned out that the aunt was her mother and her parents were in fact her grandparents. She was told that she had a sister and in her sixties she tried to trace her. The other twin had no idea that she had a sister, let alone a twin, until she was approached by the researchers on the programme. They had been living for over half a century within three miles of each other.
In my work as a counsellor I have heard many moving stories about people's experience of adoption. One client was sent away to a convent in Ireland to have her baby and had to give up a son to a Catholic priest who arranged the adoption. She went on to get married and had two daughters, but she always hoped that one day she would be reunited with her son. When her daughters were in their twenties she set about looking for him. Since having a child himself he had also been searching for his mother. There was a gradual process of communication through the Catholic Adoption Society; letters, emails, telephone calls and at last after what seemed eternity, the first meeting. She described it like 'falling in love'. They couldn't wait to see each other again but the rest of the family weren't so ecstatic. The joy of their reunion was overshadowed by sadness and disappointment. The daughters were jealous of their half brother and refused to get involved. My client had a vivid tattoo painted on her back of castles and dragons that metaphorically charted her journey to find her son. At each session she would throw off her shirt and show me the new developments.
One of my clients was adopted and then at the age of twenty had a child herself that she had to give up for adoption. She was able to send her a birthday card and Christmas card every year but not see her until she was 16. That meeting was momentous for my client. But afterwards her child wasn't interested in pursuing a relationship with her. My client was left bereft.
It is always risky to put your play up for scrutiny at Script Cafe. Even more so when it's also your own real life story. Louise Osborn dealt with the issues in Rose's play with great sensitivity and at the same time gave us all plenty of guidance in how to use emotion authentically and dramatically in writing for the theatre.
Monday, 18 April 2011
KNOT OF THE HEART
On Saturday afternoon a group of writers from the Arvon course I attended last November gathered in the foyer of the Almeida Theatre to see David Eldridge's play, 'Knot of the Heart.' David was our tutor. His play examines relationships within a dysfunctional middle class family-a family of addicts. The main character, Lucy, loses her job in the media for being caught taking drugs. Her life sinks as she becomes addicted to heroin. Her mother is an alcoholic. Her sister cuts herself. The play explores the co-dependent relationship between Lucy and her mother, who in her efforts to look after Lucy becomes her pimp. By the end of the play, Lucy's been off heroin for a year and managed to move far away from her mother to South Africa.
Interesting subject material and well written dialogue. Overall, our group gave the play the thumbs up and felt the trip to London was well worth it. However, I'm not sure if it was the acting or the direction, but there was little build up of tension, most of the action was played at the top of the anguish range, and Lucy's character lacked empathy so I found it quite hard to really stay engaged with her. At times the behaviour of the mother's character was not always convincing, but she was challenging and has stayed with me. She did also make me wonder if in the efforts to look after my children, the way I sometimes behave may be meeting my own needs and not always be in their long term good.
David has another new play, 'Stock Da'Wa', directed by Kathy Burke, on at the Hampstead Theatre until mid May.
Interesting subject material and well written dialogue. Overall, our group gave the play the thumbs up and felt the trip to London was well worth it. However, I'm not sure if it was the acting or the direction, but there was little build up of tension, most of the action was played at the top of the anguish range, and Lucy's character lacked empathy so I found it quite hard to really stay engaged with her. At times the behaviour of the mother's character was not always convincing, but she was challenging and has stayed with me. She did also make me wonder if in the efforts to look after my children, the way I sometimes behave may be meeting my own needs and not always be in their long term good.
David has another new play, 'Stock Da'Wa', directed by Kathy Burke, on at the Hampstead Theatre until mid May.
Friday, 15 April 2011
CIRCLE DANCING ON GRAVESTONES
I wasn't expecting to be dancing on the gravestone of the High Sheriff of Brecon(1774) and his Clerk when I signed up for Circle Dancing at Brecon Cathedral this week.
I'm a regular circle dancer at a local village hall in Cardiff. We are a group of mainly older women who are retired or semi-retired. Our members come from all walks of life. They include an ex surgeon, social worker, midwife, drama adviser, lab technician, administrator, and a Russian academic who was also an accomplished musician specialising in medieval music. Sadly, she got dementia and following the dances became increasingly difficult for her. Despite encouragement from the group she felt embarressed and anxious and finally left. Our oldest member was 89 this week and we celebrated with home baked muffins. Phyllis had been a P.E. teacher and until recently took a Keep Fit class for the over 50s. She may be deaf and aching with arthritis but she glides around our circle with the grace of a young woman.
We dance to folk music from Israel, Romania, Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Ukraine. Our teacher has had a series of problems with her health. She often forgets the steps herself so is very forgiving when we do too. She calls it 'variations on a dance from another village'. Last week, during a rowdy Greek song with scarves she stamped hard on her own foot. We fell about laughing. Poor teacher! We waltz, skip, jump, limp, yelp, whoop, and clap ourselves. It's the one time in the week when you are guaranteed a good laugh.
Circle Dancing in Brecon Cathedral was a very different experience. I went with a friend I'd first met in Indonesia, forty three years ago. She suffers from a nasty chronic cough and was anxious that she wouldn't be able to dance for very long without it getting the better of her. We were there celebrating the end of winter and the joy of this glorious spring and early summer. The leader was a green goddess dressed in shades of jade chiffon and sparkly black shoes. In front of the altar our large circle of women and men gathered to dance to the music of Kopanitsa, a two person band, playing guitar, clarinet and accordion. In the middle of our circle was a church candle swathed in an embroidered cloth. People were invited to place items of personal importance on the cloth. I spied a teddy bear, some crystals, a drawing of Swirling Derbishers, a sprig of ivy and a decorated jar of something that looked like blackcurrant jam.
At the start the Dean read out some biblical references to the joy of the dance and the evening began. I was standing next to the Dean, a tall willowy man. He squeezed my hand while we listened to instructions from the green goddess. I didn't like it. I mean I'm married. Couldn't he see my ring? In the interval my friend who'd been holding his other hand asked me if I'd noticed the Dean's nervous finger spasms.
We danced slowly and reverently over the tombstones of local heroes with names like Lancelot and Prydderch. When a dance came to the end we stood very still, holding on to each other's sweating spasming hands, and following the clarinet's last notes circling high up into the rafts of the Cathedral. The saints in the stained glass windows smiled angelically down on us. There was no laughing, whooping or yelping. Even my friend's cough had been silenced. This was a sacred experience - a pagan celebration in the house of Christ at Easter time. Two hundred years ago you'd probably have been hung by the High Sheriff for taking part in such a blasphemy. I smiled to my pagan self and returned the Dean's squeeze.
I'm a regular circle dancer at a local village hall in Cardiff. We are a group of mainly older women who are retired or semi-retired. Our members come from all walks of life. They include an ex surgeon, social worker, midwife, drama adviser, lab technician, administrator, and a Russian academic who was also an accomplished musician specialising in medieval music. Sadly, she got dementia and following the dances became increasingly difficult for her. Despite encouragement from the group she felt embarressed and anxious and finally left. Our oldest member was 89 this week and we celebrated with home baked muffins. Phyllis had been a P.E. teacher and until recently took a Keep Fit class for the over 50s. She may be deaf and aching with arthritis but she glides around our circle with the grace of a young woman.
We dance to folk music from Israel, Romania, Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Ukraine. Our teacher has had a series of problems with her health. She often forgets the steps herself so is very forgiving when we do too. She calls it 'variations on a dance from another village'. Last week, during a rowdy Greek song with scarves she stamped hard on her own foot. We fell about laughing. Poor teacher! We waltz, skip, jump, limp, yelp, whoop, and clap ourselves. It's the one time in the week when you are guaranteed a good laugh.
Circle Dancing in Brecon Cathedral was a very different experience. I went with a friend I'd first met in Indonesia, forty three years ago. She suffers from a nasty chronic cough and was anxious that she wouldn't be able to dance for very long without it getting the better of her. We were there celebrating the end of winter and the joy of this glorious spring and early summer. The leader was a green goddess dressed in shades of jade chiffon and sparkly black shoes. In front of the altar our large circle of women and men gathered to dance to the music of Kopanitsa, a two person band, playing guitar, clarinet and accordion. In the middle of our circle was a church candle swathed in an embroidered cloth. People were invited to place items of personal importance on the cloth. I spied a teddy bear, some crystals, a drawing of Swirling Derbishers, a sprig of ivy and a decorated jar of something that looked like blackcurrant jam.
At the start the Dean read out some biblical references to the joy of the dance and the evening began. I was standing next to the Dean, a tall willowy man. He squeezed my hand while we listened to instructions from the green goddess. I didn't like it. I mean I'm married. Couldn't he see my ring? In the interval my friend who'd been holding his other hand asked me if I'd noticed the Dean's nervous finger spasms.
We danced slowly and reverently over the tombstones of local heroes with names like Lancelot and Prydderch. When a dance came to the end we stood very still, holding on to each other's sweating spasming hands, and following the clarinet's last notes circling high up into the rafts of the Cathedral. The saints in the stained glass windows smiled angelically down on us. There was no laughing, whooping or yelping. Even my friend's cough had been silenced. This was a sacred experience - a pagan celebration in the house of Christ at Easter time. Two hundred years ago you'd probably have been hung by the High Sheriff for taking part in such a blasphemy. I smiled to my pagan self and returned the Dean's squeeze.
Monday, 11 April 2011
THE CURLY OAK
Yesterday, we visited Wentwood, a beautiful forest near Usk. It is well used by mountain cyclists, and witches are said to practice there, but we went to see the famous curly oak that sits among larch trees deep in the forest. The curly oak is said to be more than 900 years old. We walked around it, stroking its pelt and crusty skin, poking our noses into its stomach, looking up inside its elongated body at cathedral towers and spires. I wanted to sit down inside on a cushion of grated bark, but I resisted. Instead we tried to imagine what the ancient tree must have seen in centuries of conflict.
This is border territory much fought over through the ages. As we named the wars we could remember between the Welsh and the English, I saw several Welsh bowmen pulling back the strings on their bows with poisoned arrows destined for the armoured English beyond us. I turned and saw Royalists and Cavaliers in pitched metallic battle. Medieval men and women humped and hauled their wares along the track. Everywhere monsters, dragons, elves and devils appeared from stumps of wood left for beetling insects.
This area is till much fought over. Monmouthshire is the only county in Wales not to support the Welsh Assembly having more powers. It will be interesting to see how the county votes in the forthcoming Welsh General Election.
This is border territory much fought over through the ages. As we named the wars we could remember between the Welsh and the English, I saw several Welsh bowmen pulling back the strings on their bows with poisoned arrows destined for the armoured English beyond us. I turned and saw Royalists and Cavaliers in pitched metallic battle. Medieval men and women humped and hauled their wares along the track. Everywhere monsters, dragons, elves and devils appeared from stumps of wood left for beetling insects.
This area is till much fought over. Monmouthshire is the only county in Wales not to support the Welsh Assembly having more powers. It will be interesting to see how the county votes in the forthcoming Welsh General Election.
Friday, 8 April 2011
SUMMER IS SPRINGIN' IN
We've had another sunny week here in South Wales. Wednesday was a blip when heavy rain made it feel like winter had returned. Despite the weather, we try to walk most days. Being outside heightens our senses and makes me thank God and Verdana, my spirit of the universe for their gifts.
The woods are full of succulent wood anemones. There's a whiff of garlic, shiny leaves are almost ready to produce snowy flowers. Along the hedgerows are banks of wild primroses and planted daffodils. On patches of open grass rugs of dandelions sparkle in the sunshine. Blue and great tits, blackbirds, robins and hedge sparrows sing their hearts out and argue over territory. Rooks, who like to be near humans are nesting in tall trees by the highway. Yesterday, in the distance we heard the hammering of a greater-spotted wood pecker. Flashes of unrecognisable brown and tan fly in and out of budding blackthorn bush. Lambs' tails wag enthusiastically beneath their mothers. Everyone you meet on a country walk is friendly. It's a truly wonderful time of year to celebrate life.
Ironically, April for me also represents a time of mourning. Over the past decade three friends and an uncle died during this month. Last week a friend's son, aged 40, died of cancer. Our thoughts are with her in her sorrow.
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
WELSH INDIAN, MASTERCHEF & MASTERMIND
This last week has had some fun times and some sad times.
First the sad. We went to a ceremony at the Crematorium for the final remains, or as the funeral director described it, a final 'slice' of my old friend Nagu Rao, who died last April and whom I wrote about then. Her husband had been waiting for her final remains to be returned from the Coroner before he could perform the necessary Hindu rituals required and make the obligatory journey to India a year after her death. There were four of us attending. The main funeral had been huge, then after the cremation he had divided her ashes. Some he took to South India, where from a small boat with a priest and another in the confluence of two rivers he managed to release those ashes in what seemed like an Indian black comedy variation of 'Three Men in a Boat.' The rest he released into the Taff near Llandaff Cathedral. Nagu saw herself as a Welsh Indian, so this seemed perfectly fitting.
Because we'd been away in Mexico at the time, we had not been able to say our goodbyes, so this time Raj got us fully involved. He recited and chanted Hindu hymns, and ragas that Nagu had composed and sung herself, which she recorded on U Tube. As all religion was equal in her eyes and she loved all things spiritual there were also Catholic pieces.We read pieces about her in English and Welsh and sang a Welsh hymn, 'Calon Lan' (Clean Heart). We sprinkled water from the Ganges, meridian, turmeric, Basmati rice and Freesias onto her casket. When the time to place her casket into the oven, Raj lit the candle, and stood alone looking through the spy hole as Nagu's last remains ignited. He told us that it was forbidden to cry as we were supposed to be joyful that she was on her journey. Where she was going only she and God knows, but as we all fought back our tears, I tried to bring my last memory of her to mind; In the Garth woods, wearing a red hat under a mass of black curly hair, a sari, warm cardigan and boots, giggling and enjoying each moment we were together despite the pain she was always in. I will really miss her.
The good news was our trip up to North Yorkshire to see friends I'd first met 41 years ago. Despite parental misgivings on both sides, Richard, a VSO married his sweetheart, Sasti and brought her home from Indonesia to the north of England to live. The beginning was very tough but she adapted amazingly. She won her mother-in-law's respect by being able to prepare game pie, cook pheasant, rabbit and pigeon for dinner, bake wonderful cakes, and produce two beautiful children. Richard is a teacher with a razor sharp intellect, great knowledge and a very generous heart. We nickname them Masterchef and Mastermind.
Old friends are like precious gems. We can lose their sparkle at any time. Pay them attention. The absence of their light makes our life a lot less interesting and far less fun.
First the sad. We went to a ceremony at the Crematorium for the final remains, or as the funeral director described it, a final 'slice' of my old friend Nagu Rao, who died last April and whom I wrote about then. Her husband had been waiting for her final remains to be returned from the Coroner before he could perform the necessary Hindu rituals required and make the obligatory journey to India a year after her death. There were four of us attending. The main funeral had been huge, then after the cremation he had divided her ashes. Some he took to South India, where from a small boat with a priest and another in the confluence of two rivers he managed to release those ashes in what seemed like an Indian black comedy variation of 'Three Men in a Boat.' The rest he released into the Taff near Llandaff Cathedral. Nagu saw herself as a Welsh Indian, so this seemed perfectly fitting.
Because we'd been away in Mexico at the time, we had not been able to say our goodbyes, so this time Raj got us fully involved. He recited and chanted Hindu hymns, and ragas that Nagu had composed and sung herself, which she recorded on U Tube. As all religion was equal in her eyes and she loved all things spiritual there were also Catholic pieces.We read pieces about her in English and Welsh and sang a Welsh hymn, 'Calon Lan' (Clean Heart). We sprinkled water from the Ganges, meridian, turmeric, Basmati rice and Freesias onto her casket. When the time to place her casket into the oven, Raj lit the candle, and stood alone looking through the spy hole as Nagu's last remains ignited. He told us that it was forbidden to cry as we were supposed to be joyful that she was on her journey. Where she was going only she and God knows, but as we all fought back our tears, I tried to bring my last memory of her to mind; In the Garth woods, wearing a red hat under a mass of black curly hair, a sari, warm cardigan and boots, giggling and enjoying each moment we were together despite the pain she was always in. I will really miss her.
The good news was our trip up to North Yorkshire to see friends I'd first met 41 years ago. Despite parental misgivings on both sides, Richard, a VSO married his sweetheart, Sasti and brought her home from Indonesia to the north of England to live. The beginning was very tough but she adapted amazingly. She won her mother-in-law's respect by being able to prepare game pie, cook pheasant, rabbit and pigeon for dinner, bake wonderful cakes, and produce two beautiful children. Richard is a teacher with a razor sharp intellect, great knowledge and a very generous heart. We nickname them Masterchef and Mastermind.
Old friends are like precious gems. We can lose their sparkle at any time. Pay them attention. The absence of their light makes our life a lot less interesting and far less fun.
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