60 Going On 16

Sing out sisters

A dear friend was here at the weekend, just retired from a stressful career working in mental health services and now, as a recently qualified psychotherapist, about to embark on the next stage of her life. 

Our friendship goes back almost 40 years to when we were in our twenties and when, for various reasons, we and our then young daughters joined forces to share a flat in central London - life or love, or a combination of same, not having quite turned out the way we had anticipated. But, while not wishing to turn this post into a ghastly triumph over tragedy story, we travelled hopefully, learned to make something happy and positive out of our situation, and never looked back. We might not have been a conventional family but we were - and remain - a family, as well as staunch friends. 

The things we loved then, we still love: nature, art, animals, books, dancing, music, and laughter. We still have the tendency to burst into synchronised song at the least opportunity, which some have long found disconcerting and probably embarrassing. We have, however, given up the spontaneous tap dancing displays, although we did, during this visit, indulge in a few reminiscences about ballet classes and the wonderful world of battements tendus, arabesques, pas de chat and all that. The Aga rail is ideal for indulging in a bit of nostalgic barre practice while cooking dinner.

For the past year, my Psychotherapist Friend has been learning to play the piano and is doing rather well, which means that we can now look forward to a proper musical accompaniment to all those songs. She says that she's not quite at the Beethoven sonata stage but give her time; however, she can play a pretty impressive version of Paul McCartney's Blackbird. I say impressive because it means tackling the timing shifts in this Bach-inspired number and I think that's pretty good after a mere year. 

We rather like the idea of pianoforte-accompanied musical duets. "Sort of Hinge and Bracket?" enquired her partner. Maybe not. 

A repertoire that includes Irish ballads and songs would be good. We have a whole rattle bag of these from childhoods spent listening to the likes of Delia Murphy and John McCormack on Housewives' Choice and Forces' Favourites on the BBC's Light Programme: The Spinning Wheel, The Minstrel Boy, She Moved Through the Fair, Raglan Road, Carrickfergus and so on. I happened to be listening to theatre and opera director, Deborah Warner, on R3's Private Passions yesterday and was quietly chuffed when she included Down by the Salley Gardens, sung by Ian Bostridge, as one of her choices. A haunting song (music by Ivor Gurney, words by W B Yeats) and an exquisite rendition, although there's long been a debate as to who can and should or should not sing this song  - yes/no to tenors; yes/no to women . . .

I couldn't find Ian Bostridge's version on YouTube but I did find this: counter-tenor, Andreas Scholl, performing at the Last Night of the Proms and I do love a counter-tenor.

So that's it; that's what we should be having a crack at, although I obviously won't be singing tenor, counter or otherwise. A little bit mezzo, maybe? Who knows, this time next year we could be taking bookings for weddings, dances, parties, bar and bat mitzvahs . . .

Staring at the sun

On Friday there was sunshine (true . . . ), so two friends and I took our dogs up onto Exmoor for their afternoon walk and, just as we got back to our cars, the sun was beginning to set. A pale yellow winter sun but majestic, nevertheless. We watched, silently, as it sank below a thin, mauve-blue line of cloud above Dartmoor to the west.

It doesn't matter, we agreed, how often we watch the sun setting, it is always a special moment as day ends and night begins. As we drove the few miles home, a slender curve of platinum moon was rising in the east.

Needless to say, I had not brought my camera . . . .

However, two weeks earlier I was standing with other friends, just above the shoreline at Applecross, watching the sun dip below the Isle of Skye. On that particular day, my camera had been glued to my hand.

 

What is the colour of the sea, this morning?

Whenever and wherever I travel, I keep a journal: fragments, notes, impressions. It never feels remotely like a chore and has proved invaluable for other writing, not least when I'm attempting to capture the essence of a place once visited. But, sometimes, the senses are almost overwhelmed, there is so much to take in . . .

In Scotland, I seemed to be driving into never-ending rainbows along Loch Lomond, where they dipped and disappeared into the still, deep waters, and at Crianlarich, where rainbow's end was at the edge of Inverardran Forest.

 

It's impossible to travel the length of Scotland without being touched by the past. You cannot experience the sombre, bulking majesty of Glencoe without remembering its terrible history. You can see how and why so many of the MacDonalds who survived the savagery of the 1692 massacre (ordered by England's King Billy) would, ultimately, be beaten by hunger and exposure on the unforgiving terrain.

The further north the Edinburgh Boy and I travelled, the worse the weather, but even the driving rain and the grey bleakness of a November day in the Highlands could not diminish the impact of that first sight of Eilean Donan Castle.

 

We stayed at Cuaig, not much more than a sprinkling of cottages, which looked out from the Applecross Peninsula in Wester Ross across the water to the Isles of Raasay, Rona and Skye. Each morning brought a new and different light and, amazingly, sunshine. And each morning my friend A (that's Mrs Gaucho, about whom I first wrote here) and I would breathe in the colours and textures around us. 

"What is the colour of the sea this morning?" we would ask, thinking out loud.

It is no surprise that this landscape, in its alternating harsh and gentle beauty has inspired any number of craftsmen and craftswomen, the weavers, the stained glass designers . . .  Greys, peaty browns, lovat heather shades and the soft golden light that falls on hillsides in the late afternoon.

 

The sun continued to shine, a gift on the cusp of winter and we could hardly believe that it was warm enough in November to picnic on Coral Beach, accessible only by a 40-minute walk, or by boat.

And we carry away with us the memory of water and rock and a million crushed shells, bleached white by salt and sun.

"I came so far for beauty . . . "

But it was worth every single one of the 670 miles it took to get to Scotland's Applecross Peninsula.

 

No television, no mobile phone, no WiFi. Just landscape that takes the breath away. 

The Edinburgh Boy was in paradise.

 

Now we're heading home. Far too soon . . . 

An empty space at the Ambridge mic

 

Jill and Phil 

I've grown up and grown old listening to the man in the photo above: Norman Painting, who has played Phil Archer since the BBC radio serial, The Archers, began in 1950. To listen to The Archers is like wrapping oneself in a large, warm, comfort blanket.  I was just three in 1950 and now I'm . . . well, you can work it out for yourselves. So, hearing the news just a few minutes ago that Norman has died did give me considerable pause for thought.

Thanks for the memories Mr Painting; like millions of others, I'll miss that reassuring voice. Things will be rather quiet in Ambridge this evening, I imagine. And a glass or two raised in tribute at The Bull.