Never too late

It’s never too late to be what you might have been
The heading above is attributed to that pioneering and most humane of writers, George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans by birth) who wrote the marvellous Middlemarch (mentioned in Small Acts of Kindness.) I identify with the quotation in my retirement since my life as a teacher seems to be decades ago, now that I spend a good deal of my time writing about another planet in a fictional future. Even if I’m never published, the craft of writing is an energising activity and fills my imagination with adventures and wonder. In July it was Emily’s birthday. My eldest daughter has recently taken a bold step to change her life and retrain to work as a nurse in the NHS. The year has been filled with surprises. Politically, public discourse may feel toxic, but personally life is sweet. Long may sweet continue. Never too late.

A surprise or two in 2019....

Rhubarb and Robins

Bettys Cookery School, welcome tables at daughter's houses, and who doesn't love rhubarb?

True friendship
Back in April 2019, Sally and Maggie, braved the rigours (and joys) of Bettys famous Cookery School (yes, there is no apostrophe) to produce a meal for members of their combined families (including lucky old me). On that balmy Spring evening I sat down to locally sourced ingredients:

• Spiced mackerel
• Beef in red wine sauce and carrot purée with Yorkshire mash
• Ginger panna cotta with stewed rhubarb

Sitting down to a meal (or sharing a drink) with loved ones is a global human impulse: all ages, types, nations, ethnicities and religions share company, count blessings, celebrate occasions, forge relationships, court lovers, toast memories, provoke laughter, make peace and bury hurts with food and/or drink.

The Strid at Bolton Abbey, local walks, ponds and washing at daughters' houses

Tear and Share
Children across the world revel in party sweets, jelly and ice cream. Everyone has beloved food from formative years (for me, I’ll always feel nostalgic about corned beef hash, scuffles, ginger beer, parkin, sponge pudding and custard and pie&peas on Bonfire Night.) Shakespeare gives us hundreds of references to food, drink and feasting; some plays contain extraordinary dinner table dramas (Timon of Athens and Titus Andronicus immediately come to mind.) Scripture gives us “breaking bread together” and in the charred remains following the cataclysmic eruptions of Vesuvius what is more moving than the charred remains of a loaf of bread, scored for tearing and sharing?

Northcliffe meadow, Dove Cottage in Shibden near Halifax, and who doesn't love a robin?

Sprouts and Trust
I made a friend at university who is a lifetime touchstone for one of my core philosophies: sprouts and trust….! One evening we sobered up enough to realise we had been chatting shit for a couple of hours about castles, the countryside, sprouts, our families, time travel, music, and back again to sprouts…. And my diary entry of that day is titled “Sprouts and Trust,” an oddbeat combination that summed up my friend and appealed to me. Alongside food, drink and good companionship, I believe Nature is The Great Binder, the powerful force to which you can submit for healing and calm: the sea, the meadows, the forests, the fields, the dry stone walls of Yorkshire. Who needs pomp and ceremony? True friendship needs no ceremony. Talk sprouts, feel trust. Strange and diverse combinations are the stuff of life. Once again, who needs pomp and ceremony? Rhubarb and Robins will suffice. Simple fruit, steadfast creature.
Ceremony was but devised at first
To set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes….
Where there is true friendship, there needs none

True friendship, Bolton Abbey, Dove Cottage, welcome table, sprouts and trust, rhubarb and robins....