Lightly Done

New Year Resolutions

2012-01-17T09:16:00.000-08:00

New Year resolutions are easy to make but keeping to them is another thing altogether. So far I am doing alright though getting up in the dark leaving a warm bed and sleeping husband takes a lot of will power. I have gone back to one of the two novels I was writing in 2006 and edited all twelve chapters in pencil. Now I have to transfer all this to my computer and then, in theory I should be able to go back to the world I was creating. I shall have to relearn the art of persuading my friends that although I am at home, I am actually working and gossiping over coffee is not on the agenda until the day's word count is complete!

Past and Future

2012-01-04T07:50:00.000-08:00

2011 - a year stuffed full of events and surprises as a slice of Christmas pudding filled with fruit and treasurers, still topped with the flickering flames of brandy as it arrived on my plate. Among the raisins and cherries was the glint of a wedding ring, a silver ship, a car, a greyhound and a treasure I had always dreamed of but never expected to find, and tiny silver book. Five treasures in one year, such riches all handed to me on a plate.

The greyhound? I have heard it said that in a life time of living with dogs one will be more special than the rest and Muffin has found the key to my heart, he has been my constant companion through some very difficult years. I have never spent so much time in a car, computers and mobile phones are great aids to courting but the time comes when you want to meet face to face and courting over two hundred and seventy miles would be difficult without a car. The ship took us to far away places as we took time out to get to know each other. The wedding ring became mine in October and the book? My first novel, Phoenix House, was published in July. It is for sale on Amazon as well as in some of the shops in Dorset.
Being a new comer to all this I have a lot to learn about advertising and PR. I had read that I should have a presence on Youtube but had no idea how to go about it and spent much of the night before a pre-Christmas Book Signing in Weymouth lying awake and worrying. It was a vile day, bitterly cold with sheeting rain so few people had ventured out. Only half a dozen people came to the event but among them was a knight in shining amour. At least that is the way I saw his rain soaked coat for instead of a sword he was carrying a video camera. You can see the video on Youtube if you go to www.youtube.co/Zzippster and look for Carenza Hayhoe.
The story of Phoenix House begins for my heroine Ginny on the day of her grandmother's funeral. After a year filled with adventures she discovers that her grandmother isn't so very far away after all and that she has inherited her talent for writing. Now I have the problem of making sure I make time every day so that I can fulfill all Ginny's ambitions!

To find out more about Portland and Phoenix House go to www.carenza.net

The return of hope

2011-12-27T03:29:00.000-08:00

The turn of the year, traditionally a time for review and resolve, so much has changed since I wrote The Fledgling. I didn’t know then it would be the last thing I would write for nearly three years for I would have neither the time nor the energy. All I could do was put one foot in front of the other and pray that I would be able to keep going as I experienced the depths of sorrow, grief and loneliness. I lived with the hope that the old saying ‘the darkest hour of the night is just before the dawn’ would prove to be true, but as days became months and months turned into years the darkness became darker and I came close to despair.
During the past year I have discovered you are never too old to laugh, love and start all over again. Creative energy has been regained and with it has come the restoration of the belief that there is nothing so bad that it cannot be turned over for good.

The Fledgling

2008-08-11T12:43:00.000-07:00

(when I wrote this gulls were nesting on the roof opposite the kitchen window, the youngest was ready to fly)

They told me that I have to live
Before I come to die
They told me that I have to fall
Before I learn to fly.

They told me that the path is long
And we must learn the way
To live and love and sing life’s song
Before the end of day.

Magellan’s Straits and Hudson’s Bay
I’ve sailed and see them all
I’ve plumbed the depths and scaled the heights
I’ve heard the bell bird’s call.

I’ve sung my way around the world
And laughed to hide my tears
As one by one those that I’ve loved
Are overcome by years.

I’ve lived and loved and run the course
The end is now in sight
I’ve fallen but I’m fully fledged
And ready to take flight.

The Frog Prince

2008-08-10T09:41:00.000-07:00

I had been in the garden with the dogs before locking up the house for the night. We were all glad to be going indoors for the rain had been falling steadily for hours and the garden was a sea of puddles. The light was on in the sitting room dimly lighting the conservatory and as I opened the door I thought a leaf blew in ahead of us. The younger dog ran ahead, sniffed the dark shape and backed off and I realised he was looking a very smallfrog. Pushing both dogs ahead of me I fetched a soft duster from under the stairs, dropped it over the frog and bent to pick it up. Too late, before I could hold it firmly it had slipped through my fingers and hopped through the door into the sitting room where it sheltered under my desk.
No good leaving it there, I thought, goodness knows where it would be by the morning. I would lose it and it might be months before I would find its small dried-out form behind a book case or some other piece of furniture too heavy to move in the general course of housework.
I waited quietly and eventually the dark stranger hopped out from under the desk making for the hall. It sat and gazed up at me, its dark eyes shining in the lamp light. I dropped the duster again and this time moved fast enough to grab its small form. As I carried it towards the garden door I felt its tiny cold body move in my cupped hand and I murmured ‘Don’t worry little one, I’m not going to kiss you and force you to turn into a human prince.’ Gently I released him into plants that grow around the pond and listened to the leaves rustling as he leaped away.
Will a handsome stranger knock on the door before I lock up tonight, I wondered. Of such things are fairy tales made!

Of Concertinas and Seagulls

2008-07-20T00:28:00.000-07:00

I've just about got things sorted since getting back from Iceland although there are still lists of things I've got to get done like getting CRB checked, essential if I want to tell stories to children in libraries even though I will never be alone with them. Apparently I shall also need to get myself public liability insurance and though storytelling must be a low risk occupation premiums are very high and so far I've not found a specialist broker. The hunt continues. However all is not doom and gloom and the age of miracles, trust and generosity is far from over.
Two days ago I emailed a friend saying that as a storyteller I would love to have a small instrument to sing to and, as my ukalele is now only good for a wall decoration since it hit the cabin floor in a force nine gale (and that's another story) perhaps a concertina would be a good idea? Then I added 'am I quite mad?'
Yesterday morning the reply came back, 'No, not mad,' with a contact number. I rang the number and an encouraging voice gave me another number, a young mum called Carole. Half an hour later Carole, who I had never met before, was on my doorstep with a concertina for me to borrow 'for as long as you like!' I phoned a concertina specialist somewhere in the north of England for advice and told him, 'Oh,' he said, ' Concertina people are like that!
After such trust and kindness I've got to settle down and learn how to play it so, having trawled the net I'm printing off a free instruction manual. Fortunately I have a small room at the top of the house where I can practice in private and when I can escape for a few hours I shall be able to take it down to my Writing Hut where only the seagulls will be able to hear.
From the kitchen window I've been watching a pair of gulls raising three youngsters. They are very caring parents and got frantically worried when one chick fell from their nest on a chimney pot and slid down the roof into a gutter . They fed it, cajoled it and finally taught it to fly while still caring for the two remaining in the nest. Now the hen bird is enjoying a well earned rest sitting on the empty nest and gossiping with her friends sitting on the neighbouring chimney pots. Soon she will go too, but she and her life long partner will be back next year.

The land of ice and fire

2008-07-11T12:17:00.000-07:00

I have longed to see the home of the Icelandic sagas since I was seven and still have the book that fired my imagination. Faced with fire in the landscape it is easy to understand how, when the first Vikings landed in 950AD they were convinced that the god Thor was in control, bashing out their fate on his anvil close beneath them. Trolls, now petrified in lava weathered by wind and time still inhabit the landscape, their dwellings are there for all to see. For a story teller this was a thrilling adventure.

The Icelandic people care for their fragile environment and waste nothing. Clouds of steam billow gently from cracks in the ground like trails of smoke left by the passing trains of my childhood. Modern technology has enabled them to harness the power underground where water is held at temperatures exceeding 300°C. Standing beside the steam emerging from the power station outside Reykjavik the ground vibrated with the energy of a primeval giant. It seemed as though nothing could prevent this monster from eventually breaking free.

Children don’t begin schooling until they are six and are not hemmed in by warnings of danger, real or imagined. As teenagers they are expected to do paid work for the community during their summer break and can be found cleaning the streets, working in municipal gardens or for older members of the community or, for those suitably gifted, working in museums demonstrating old skills, dancing, reading from the sagas or writing and putting on plays for younger children. I met some students in the museum in Akureyri, their English was excellent and spoke they with pride of their community and culture.

We had an RSPB party on board so bird watching was part of our itinerary. Among the fulmars swirling around our stern I saw a gannet drop out of the sky. Some days we were followed by clouds of artic terns; skuas were among the many birds I had never seen before and when we got to Haemaey puffins crowded the cliffs.

I have to confess that I have always found tour buses rather claustrophobic so I took advantage of an offer of a drive from Reykjavik to Thorsmork in a 4x4. Only seven of us volunteered as the majority didn’t fancy nine hours over rough ground. The truck turned out to be well padded and robustly sprung, very necessary as part of the way was over an ancient glacial moraine with descents into a river where we had to go down stream for fifty yards or so before scrambling up the other bank.

Like all holidays the end came far too quickly. I can’t speak highly enough of the care the crew of Spirit of Adventure took to ensure that every passenger enjoyed the cruise, from the Captain to the youngest steward fresh from the Philippines. Some of my travelling companions were very frail but no one was allowed to feel too old to take part in what ever appealed to them. We set off from Portsmouth into the teeth of storm force winds coming up the channel and met steep Atlantic rollers as we came down the west coast of Ireland. I was able to enjoy the gale, but did find the Atlantic swell a little uncomfortable. However I managed to sit down to every meal and enjoy the wonderful food which tasted even better because I hadn’t had to cook it. The Spirit of Adventure only carries 350 passengers and life on board is far more informal than in her bigger sisters Saga Rose and Saga Ruby. Her small size allows her to call into ports that couldn’t take larger ships, going into Haemaey would have been impossible fohad she been any bigger.

On the way to Iceland we visited Dublin and Tobermory, on the way home we stopped in Cork and Falmouth but to tell you about all of that would make this story far too long.

One thought remains to puzzle me. How did the Vikings manage to carry their sturdy little horses across stormy seas in open boats. Today the breed is still pure, they have never been crossed with any other breed and if one should leave Iceland for competition or sale it is not allowed to return.

2008-07-09T12:22:00.000-07:00

I came home from a holiday all ready and raring to go only to be faced with an overflowing in tray, a thousand emails, a pile of bills and we will draw a veil over the jobs waiting to be done on the domestic front. One thing I have achieved in the past week, I have launched my new web site http://www.carenza.net/. When I closed Wellbeloved Gallery two years ago I have to confess I was well past the accepted sell by date but was far from ready to retire. The only answer was to create a new career. So far it is proving to be stimulating and fun, I certainly haven't time to be old yet! The only problem in my life at the moment is Muffin, the year old whippet. He seems to have intellectual ambitions. So far, apart from stealing a new pair of varifocal spectacles which will never be the same again, he has tried to turn on the television operatingn the remote control with his teeth (very expensive). He also likes to get to the newspaper first leaving it rather difficult for those who come after to read. Throw into the mix the fact that Sky, the lurcher bitch, has an obsessive interest in pens and biros and you can see that life has its problems.

2008-07-08T12:48:00.000-07:00

I came home from Iceland last week, full of excitement, overflowing with ideas that I wanted to commit to paper before they were lost in the business of daily routine. Then came the news that Bill is dead. We had known each other since childhood, a dear man who with his wife had done so much for so many, giving hospitality and kindliness to all who came within their orbit and suddenly she is a widow. As I sat at my desk feeling the bleakness of her loneliness I picked up the new anthology from Bloodaxe ‘In Person – 30 Poets’ and found myself looking at words by Jackie Kay -

‘And what I didn’t know or couldn’t say then
Was that she hadn’t really gone.
The dead don’t go till you do, loved ones.
The dead are still here holding our hands.’

Everything else must wait for another day.

2008-05-28T07:33:00.000-07:00

We need all the help we can get to save what remains of Portland's heritage for future generations. To learn more go to http://www.saveportlandcoastalstrip.org.uk/. You will also find an ecellent video made by Stuart Morris, the island's historian on YouTube under 'Threat to Portland's Historic Landscape, World Heritage Site"'. Somehow we must stop the steam roller of commercial greed before it is too late. It may take a miracle but for those who care enough miracles can happen. Last week I wrote a letter to our local paper:-

Councillor Denton White is to be congratulated on his letter ‘We need an Action Plan on Quarrying’ Echo Tuesday 20 May. The fact that mistakes have been made in the past is no reason why we should not try and put them right today before irreparable damage is done. If we fail to act now future generations will be right to regard us as having let them down and allowed their inheritance to be destroyed.
Following the Local Government Act of 1974 unemployment on the Island became a very real problem. By 1978 it was 15%, far higher than on the main land, but our population was considered too small for anyone in authority to be interested. A small body of local people believed that something could and should be done. We raised enough money to buy old Saint Georges School and established a Man Power Services training scheme employing two hundred young people over two years, 80% of whom went on to get permanent employment. We established a Heritage and Community Centre which is still running successfully. We proved that Portland people could improve life on the Island when no one from away was prepared to do anything for us.
I hope that others of vision and determination will rise to Councillor Denton White’s challenge before it is too late.

An Island in Danger

2008-05-28T01:44:00.000-07:00

As I get older I fight a losing battle with cynicism – it seems that the views of local people count for very little, that too many politicians, be they MPs, County Councillors even down to Town and Parish level, are only interested in guarding their own interests and lining their own pockets. I am writing this in the hope that some who have visited Portland may read this and wake up to the threat to the coastal strip that runs down to Portland Lighthouse.
Back in 1950 when our nation needed stone the Government over ruled the wishes of the local authority and now, as a result this precious strip of land is under threat of quarrying. Portland has been raped; there is no other word for it. To some it is infinitely precious, a place of outstanding natural beauty, a part of the Jurassic Coast, to others it has become a place to exploit and destroy. This is a wake up call, a hope that somehow the planned destruction can be halted. As soon as I have anything to report, news of action or other sites you can visit to find out more I will post it here.

Fish Surfers

2008-03-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

This should really come before the last entry - a quick report on the developments in the last three months. The oral history project is going well if rather slowly, I really need a fourteen day week if I am to fit in everything I want to do. My first subject was an amazing man called George who, at ninety nine, still plays bowls twice a week and has more marbles than I shall ever have. When I called he had everything planned, stories, poems and even songs. I spent two evening with him and have been invited back for a third. Stones Speak, a monthly gathering to celebrate the spoken word is up and running, at our last session there were eighty nine years between the oldest and youngest readers and both read their own poems.
Sometimes I feel like one of the 'Fish Surfers' by David Brookes. Life is great so long as you never let go. Being a full time carer can be both lonely and frustrating. I was amazed to find that there are forty two thousand of us in Dorset alone, so goodness knows how many there are in the country. The majority are elderly, some are young parents with disabled children and some are children looking after disabled parents. Since Christmas we have launched a local carers support group which meets for a couple of hours once a month. Although the reason for getting together is serious and useful information is exchanged, there is a lot of laughter too and I go home feeling lighter and better able to cope with what ever life is going to throw at me next.

The Child Within

2008-03-29T05:26:00.000-07:00

And still the rain pores down and the wind howls – yes really howls around the chimney pots. At last I have tidied the garage and the last of the boxes left from moving house two years ago are unpacked and I have repaired the damage done to a half built dolls’ house, a little one which will be an art gallery.
At the end of the war my grandmother’s dolls’ house came out of store and I was allowed to unpack and reassemble it. As a war time child I had been starved of toys but it didn’t matter because if you have never had toys you don’t miss them, we made our own. I had a hobby horse made from a stuffed sock on a bamboo stick, it had a bright yellow mane and angry red eyes – to me it was a magnificent charger which could get me out of any trouble, rearing on its hind legs before galloping through magical forests and over mountains to a palace full of delights where tables were loaded with jellies and cream cakes and clothes were always new and pretty and never hand-me-downs.
The dolls’ house was another sort of magic altogether. It didn’t call for the same kind of imagination because so much of it was real. I carefully unpacked everything a cook would need to be happy in a Victorian kitchen, pots and pans, a dresser and scrubbed wooden table, and plates of delicious food. Even the cook was there, a plump happy person ready to send up dinner to the family in the dining room above. A whole family lived in the house, father in a dark suit, mother in her crinoline, children including a baby in a pram with big wheels, as well as a butler, housemaid and footman. The greatest joy of all was a piano which, if you pressed the tiny keys and listened carefully answered in a tinny voice. After my mother died the dolls’house disappeared. Eventually I discovered some one had burnt it ‘because it had wood worm in the back.’ The shutters came down on my childhood.
Four years ago I had an unexpected wind fall, not a very large one, but enough to build a dolls’ house, not just for a child but for the child in me, to share with my seven year old grand daughter. At first we thought that there would be no people in it, we would inhabit it ourselves but, being rational individuals, we knew we would have to find a way of shrinking to one twelfth of our every day size. We discovered that if you look through the wrong end of binoculars everything appears much smaller, and if you look at yourself in a mirror you can make yourself look much smaller too. Some one whispered in my head the word ‘spyglass’ so I put that into Google and immediately there was my spyglass on eBay; brass, sleeved in mahogany and only eight inches long. A neighbouring teenager advised us and within a week we had the magic instrument we needed and we were able to enter another world where amazing things happened. In the basement of our house is a door which opens onto an ever changing view. Sometimes it is snow covered mountains, sometimes a wild desert, one day it will be a harbour side with a sailing ship about to caste off or it may be the drawer bridge to a fairy tale castle. I have never been able to find a piano that plays but there is a sewing machine with a needle that goes up and down when you turn the handle, a coffee grinder that makes a very convincing grinding noise, an easel and painters palette (Kezia loves painting) and a potters wheel for me and a lap top so I can go there and write about all our adventures.
Gradually other people have joined us in our magic world, the most important is Granny Oldham who sits at her spinning wheel and spins stories. She can see further through a brick wall than most for she has a crystal ball. At Christmas time she has been know to come to the front door to welcome passers by into her home.

Good Intentions for 2008

2008-01-03T14:02:00.000-08:00

Resolutions seem to fail almost as soon as they are made so instead I call them my New Year Good Intentions and, to black mail myself into keeping them, I will record them here. They all revolve around writing (what else!)
The first is to clear the work surfaces in my room and I have promised myself to do that tomorrow morning.
The second is to get up an hour earlier every day. 'Earlier tha what?' I hear you say so I will rephrase that and say I will set my alarm for six and write before breakfast. (Having made it a blog entry I shall have to stick with that, won’t I!)
The third is exciting and well under way. I am now committed to recording the folk lore and legends of Portland. Having talked to a number of old friends and got their agreement to being interviewed I telephoned the County Conservationist this morning. I have been invited to meet her and the Archivist next week. I am to be given all the support I could possibly ask for including the loan of equipment and instruction on how to use it. I explained that I have a digital recorder but it seems that there is still some uncertainty about the durability of digital recording and if tapes are properly stored under the right conditions they are still considered preferable. This means I will be able to take a belt and braces approach and use both sets of equipment. I did confess that I had a hidden agenda, that I like to think of myself as a writer and storyteller, and got even more encouragement - all very heart warming and exciting.
Another plan is almost complete. Having taken part in the Speak Easy Club in Wimborne where people who enjoy the spoke word gather once a month to read aloud, either from favourite authors or their own work, I began to dream of something similar on Portland. Stones Speak is to take place in Whitestones Café – Gallery in Easton from 7pm on the first Tuesday of every month. Creative Dorset is sponsoring the first evening and if anyone who reads this is passing they will be made very welcome, whether they want to read or just listen in a café atmosphere where the wine and coffee are equally good.
The Open University has promised a third level creative writing course scheduled to start in September. Finances permitting I am planning to make time for that too. 2008 is going to be a full and exciting year.
There will be no danger of taking life too seriously as my new companion, being a collie cross, is highly intelligent and constantly thinking of new things she wants to investigate. When she stands on her back legs she can reach almost as high as I can so nothing is safe. If she finds a ball of wool (and she has managed to find several) she forgets she was born a dog and thinks she is a kitten - it can take hours to unravel her knitting and restore it to a knot free ball.

Roar Award

2007-12-19T08:03:00.000-08:00

Today I found Grumbooks, a really useful site, well worth a regular visit and worthy of the Roar Award

A New Member of the Family

2007-12-16T08:53:00.000-08:00

Life with an old dog is, on the whole, quiet and orderly. Losing an old dog is losing an old friend, the grieving process is painful. China and I had shared so many events,some happy, some very difficult. Last winter George became very ill and departed for the County Hospital in an ambulance six days after we moved house. For six weeks China and I lived on a building site, travelled daily to the hospital twelve miles away and lived on a diet of take away food. She was there for me come rain, come shine, always loving, never complaining. I shared all my secret thoughts with her knowing that nothing I said would shock, nothing would be repeated. I knew that she could never be replaced but equally I recognised that for me a canine companion is essential and I promised myself that when the day came I would find another companion as quickly as possible.

It only took two weeks to find Sky. I trawled the internet and found a photograph of a deerhound, greyhound, collie cross bitch, dark brindle and only two years old. No longer is our household quiet and orderly. This is a dog who requires toys; toys to toss and catch, toys to chew and toys to share in a tug of war. She provides endess amusement for George and plenty of exercise for me. Already she has become my constant shadow and has made herself completely at home.

Time for awards

2007-12-11T13:54:00.000-08:00

Having not added to my blog for nearly a month I was very surprised and grateful to find that I have been nominated for a Roar Award. Although I have done little writing since losing China I have done a lot of reading and looking at other people's blogs and would like to nominate the following five blogs for their inspirational content:
cwnotebook
pernickety hat
caroleb
pushingpencil.
education-at-home.

My resolution for tomorrow is to introduce you to Sky who has become my new companion and shadow

The house is very quiet

2007-11-16T03:39:00.000-08:00

Sad news, the house is very quiet. China, a retired racing greyhound, friend and companion of the last five years, had been losing condition since June but continued to enjoy life to the full till Monday evening. By eleven o'clock on Tuesday morning she was very weak and had lost all interest in life. The vet came and while I held her he gave her a lethal injection. We could not prove it without a post mortem but everything pointed to a tumour in the upper gut.
China was our third greyhound, Freya was our first -

Epitaph for Freya - 1988

Shall I forget –
Forget your silhouette
In the broken shade beneath the towering beech?
Shall I forget your cold wet nose
Your trusting gaze depending on mankind
To set you free
I know not where.

I loved you and I laid you down
Curling you nose to tail the way you used to lie,
Your joyful speed now a cold stillness
Under two spits of earth.
I must pick up my burdens and walk on
But, maybe as the evening shadows lengthen I shall see
Beside my own upon the wayside grass
Another shadow thin and elegant
No longer old and weary
Following me home.

The House is very Quiet
13 November 20007

Where has love gone
Now she that I loved is dead?
I heard a voice reply
'Love does not die,
When all the tears are shed
Love will be found
Among the living
Not the dead.

We are already looking for another long dog, probably not a pure bred greyhound this time, but a lurcher; not a replacement but a new friend.

Hang on to your dreams.

2007-11-08T08:56:00.000-08:00

It has been a busy month but today I had to admit I had done all I could to 'Phoenix House', put it, comb bound, in a padded envelope and posted it off to seek its fortune. It seems a good moment to tell you why 'Hang on to your dreams' has been so important to me - at times it is all that has kept me going.

It was a cold grey November evening almost forty years ago. A strong wind was blowing across Kensington Gardens, dusk was falling and banks of clouds had built up over Bayswater Road. It was definitely time to go home to tea and crumpets. A tall elderly man was pushing a wheel chair across the grass, the young passenger was getting a rough ride.
‘D’you really want to fly it now? Can’t it wait for another day?’
The youth shook his head vigorously. ‘There may not be another day like this,’ he replied and held up the kite. ‘The wind has to be just right.’
His face was very pale, the skin stretched tightly across his cheek bones. The rug across his knees did nothing to hide his skeletal form.
‘Toss it for me Dad, I’m not much good at throwing these days.’
His father took the kite, swung his arm back and threw it upwards. The wind caught it and immediately it began to climb. The lad clutched the string and paid it out hand over hand as the kite, swinging and pulling, soared high above the heads of families heading for home. The wind was gaining strength; the kite was tugging to get free.
‘Let me help – you’re likely to lose it.’
‘No – it’s mine – I’ve always wanted to fly. This is the nearest I’ll get to it.’
I watched the young face, in imagination so clearly with the kite in its tethered freedom, a freedom he would never know in this life.
The kite, now above the Bayswater Road, gave one last tug and the string broke. Earth-bound the young owner watched the kite soaring higher and higher into the clouds until it disappeared. He looked up at his father and smiled.
‘Sometimes you have to let go to hang on to your dreams.’

2007-10-18T07:09:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I find it hard to hang on to my dreams and when I found that the people who had been living in my cottage had trashed it I wondered why I had bothered to make it so special. Portland has always been the home of my heart but for thirteen years we lived in Gosport near Stokes Bay where the land is flat and the sea is usually mud coloured. Eventually my daughter said quietly to her father ‘You know Mother is still homesick?’
Before long we had found a tiny terraced cottage which the family hoped would cure the problem. ‘Granny’s Cottage’ was carved on a slat and mounted beside the front door and once again I had a home on the island. The second weekend we spent there my husband said ‘We might move back completely one day,’ and within the hour I had found the house which was to be our home for the next six years. We put our Gosport house on the market and sold it within forty minutes. We spent the next six months living in the cottage while we restored our new seventeenth century home and created an art gallery and pottery workshop on the ground floor.
Do I believe in ghosts? I’m not sure, but I certainly find some houses have an atmosphere all their own. I once lived in one which I found so oppressive that I began to think I was losing the plot until a very tough teenager said ‘funny place this, I keep thinking I’m going to bump into somebody.’ Granny’s Cottage on the other hand has an atmosphere of peace and calm despite the fact that lorries carrying huge blocks of stone pass by outside. Perhaps it comes from the monks of Wykeham who, over a thousand years ago, lived on the site. I decided to keep it and instead of letting it as a holiday home I wanted it to be a real home. The first tenants loved it and looked after it, so I was quite unprepared for what I found when the last tenants moved out. It took two months to put it to rights and I found myself borrowing rather a lot but the sense of peace has returned both to the cottage and to me. I have a new tenant who is clearly very happy there so my dream has been restored.

2007-09-08T09:33:00.000-07:00

Today's story happened forty two years ago, only the names have been changed the rest is true.

Never Again

‘You know’ said Peter ‘that Kenneth Graham was right when he said that there is nothing - absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.’ He leant comfortably back in the cockpit, a glass of wine in one hand and a chicken leg in the other. ‘The six o’clock forecast was perfect. Four to five from the southwest, we should be having coffee and croissants in Cherbourg tomorrow morning.’
Peter was the skipper, a well seasoned ocean racer with a couple of Fastnet races to his credit so we knew we were in good hands. I had sailed with Peter for years but Jimmy had only started that summer and his girl friend Anne had never sailed before. With a forecast like that we would have nothing to worry about, Peter could have sailed the boat single handed so it was perfect weather for a training cruise.
The boat was the first Peter had owned and the pride of his life. Thirty feet on the water line and built for racing, the conditions below decks were fairly spartan but on a glorious evening like that we weren’t looking for creature comforts. The sun was warm and the waves lapping gently under the bow as we set out for France. Jimmy took Anne’s hand and led her onto the fore deck where they sat talking quietly, arms around each other’s waists. Peter grinned at me.
‘Happy love? It should be an easy run. Jimmy should get an easy run too. I think he’s hoping to propose to Anne before we get back. I thought I’d ask them to take the first watch – nice and romantic don’t you think?’ I knew that Peter wouldn’t really sleep till we got to the other side but at least we would make the gesture of going below and leaving them in charge.
Just then a slightly larger wave caused the boat to pitch and Peter looked at me with surprise. ‘I have a nasty feeling the wind is getting up – the barometer is dropping.’ The sun was disappearing into a bank of cloud that had risen out of the western horizon and there was a sudden chill in the air. ‘Shall I go and get you a sweater?’ Peter disappeared below and came back clutching not only my sweater but foul weather gear for all four of us and a handful of harnesses. ‘I don’t want to be alarmist, but with an inexperienced crew I don’t want to take any risks.’
By this time Jimmy and Anne had returned to the cock pit and Anne was looking distinctly green and frightened. ‘Don’t worry,’ said Peter, ‘Take a couple of these and you’ll soon feel fine’ and he handed a blister pack of Stugeron to Anne. ‘Even the most experienced sailors feel a bit queasy from time to time. Nelson was sick at Spithead!’ Anne didn’t look at all reassured and disappeared below.
The boat gave a sudden heave followed by the sound of something crashing on the cabin deck. Anne reappeared, her hands and arms an alarming red.
‘Dear God – what’s happened?’ said Peter.
‘All the supper things have fallen on the floor and the tomato ketchup has smashed,’ replied Anne, ‘And I’m -’ she scrambled back into the cockpit. Peter grabbed her and lifted her from one side of the boat to the other.
‘Never be sick into the wind,’ he said ‘You’ll only get your own back.’
Wiping her face Anne retreated miserably below again.
‘Damn’ said Jimmy ‘I hope I shall be forgiven.’
‘Worry about that later,’ replied Peter, ‘get that lot on and I’ll show you what we have to do to shorten sail. The storm jib is in the fore end in the bag with the green tag. Bee you’ll have to stay on the tiller.’ The wind was rising and a nasty lop was building up. If Peter wanted the storm jib then he was getting worried. I was glad that I hadn’t been asked to get it, I’m fine on deck in a bumpy sea but going below and I might easily throw up. Although I come from a sailing family and I’m quite competent I really don’t enjoy it. Peter doesn’t know but I only do it to be with him.
By eleven o’clock the clouds were hurrying across the sky, the sea was topped with white caps and the tiller was getting very heavy. It was all I could do to keep the boat on course.
‘It’s no good, I had hoped to keep going and get to Cherbourg before this lot really hit us,’ said our skipper, ‘but we’re going to have to shorten sail.’ At that moment Jimmy leant over the side and gave up his all. Whimpering he climbed into the hatch and disappeared below. ‘Poor wee thing – I don’t think he’ll want to come again. We’ll just have to get on with it Bee. I’ll look after the foredeck if you can keep going on the helm?’ I nodded. ‘Good girl – you’re more of a man than that one down there. Bring her head to wind and I’ll take in two reefs’ and he was gone to fight with the main sail.
The sails rattled and flogged as I brought the boat into the wind. What would I do if Peter slipped and went overboard? I didn’t know enough and I knew I wasn’t strong enough to get him back. He would drown and I would be left to bring the boat back on my own. I swore that if I survived that night I would never sail again without a strong, experienced crew.
As I brought the boat back onto the wind she heeled over and I wedged myself across the cockpit, watching the binnacle light as I struggled to keep her on course.
‘Well done that girl, in a moment you’ll have to do that again while I get the storm jib on. I’ll just go below and get the midnight forecast.’ He disappeared and I heard him turn the radio on.
‘Gale warnings for all sea area.’
‘Bit late to tell us now’ I heard Peter’s cheerful voice reply. His head appeared in the hatch. ‘Better turn round and head home. Jimmy and Anne are flaked out; there really isn’t any point in fighting this one.' We altered course and ran before the wind. ‘Probably only force seven,’ said Peter, but to me it felt far more; it probably was because several boats were lost in the Channel that night.
Sailing into the wind can be a noisy fight with nature; when you turn and run before it the wind is no longer in your face and the water hisses under the bow. That night the sea was lit up with fluorescence hanging from the white tipped waves as we raced northwards back across the Channel.
The wind was directly behind us and at times we almost flew as we caught and held the crest of a wave, the sails goose winged with the storm jib on one side and the rolled down main on the other. My chest was tight with fear that the wind might shift, bringing the main slamming across in a gybe. My head was filled with every story I had ever heard about dismasting. My hands were stiff and cold as I hung on to the tiller.
Quietly Peter got up and clutching the guard rail crawled along the edge of the deck. Reaching into his pocket he took a line and passing it round the guard rail attached it to the boom. Back beside me he said quietly ‘Quit worrying love, we won’t gybe now with a preventer on the boom.’ At last in the distance we could see the gleam of Portland Bill light as it swept across the horizon welcoming us home.
Dawn was breaking and the wind was still gaining in strength as we rounded the wall into Portland harbour and entered sheltered water.
‘Bring her head to wind’ shouted Peter from the bow and dropped the mainsail onto the deck. Suddenly all movement stopped as we ran gently alongside our mooring. Two heads appeared through the hatch.
‘Are we in France now?’ asked Anne. Peter explained that there would be no croissants for breakfast and suggested that we should all try and get a little sleep before doing anything else.
When we woke up the wind was shrieking in the rigging and the tops of the waves were being blown off, clouding the harbour with a light salt mist. It was blowing too hard to lower the dinghy and row ashore so Peter started the engine and we motored round to the shelter of Weymouth Harbour and tied up alongside the quay below the Customs House.
Jimmy and Anne went ashore never to return while we settled down to a day of cleaning and sorting to make Peter’s great love whole and beautiful again, stopping every now and then to share a of bottle of wine with friends who came to commiserate. We were storm bound for three days before the storm blew out and we were able to set off to Cherbourg again, this time with a couple of very experienced friends.
What do you do storm bound in your home port? I can tell you. We ate well, we slept well, we played piquet and talked ourselves into feeling quite heroic. Nine months later I had the perfect excuse for staying ashore. Peter has promised that his next boat will be perfect for family cruising!

2007-09-01T15:18:00.000-07:00

The phone rang ‘Your aunt died last night. Can you come?’ I hastily arranged cover for the family and drove the two hundred or so miles to the village that had once been my home.

I had thought my aunt’s life was tragic until the day when I was clearing her cottage out and found a few notes in her desk. She had written ‘I never regarded myself as disabled’ although she had been born with a congenitally dislocated hip which was not identified till she was two and led to twenty seven operations before she was five. In those days parents were not allowed to stay with children in hospital so at times of great pain she was abandoned to the care of strangers. She had been baptised Naomi Avis Primrose and my grandmother insisted that she was called Primrose despite her dark complexion and nearly black hair. Her father had been killed in the first month of World War I and her mother spent much of the remainder of the war in deep depression, quite unable to meet the needs of her little girl.

Primrose turned out to have a beautiful contralto voice and a good mathematical brain but with her limp and dark visage she had not the looks for the stage and in 1920, though she gained a BSc in civil engineering, there were no opportunities for young women. She was presented at court and did a season but most eligible young men were frightened of girls with brains, especially ones who had an aggressive determination to survive. World War II gave her the opportunity she craved and for five years her talents were in demand. Despite being in constant pain and having one leg substantially shorter than the other she clambered over bomb sites and cycled to work through the black out until she was knocked unconscious by a passing car and remained in a coma for five months. After that she became a recluse, living with her cats and seldom talking to anyone except in monosyllables.

The cottage where she died had been given to me by my father as a wedding present and because my husband had a sea going job I had lived there on my own when I was first married and my son had been born there. The cottage was full of happy memories. After a time I was able to travel with my husband so I was overseas when she, having run out of money, finally asked for help so it made sense for her to have it. The post mortem showed she had died of malnutrition and hypothermia. The family would have employed a local contractor who advertised house clearances to sort things out but I stepped in and said I would do it. The RSPCA took the skeletal cats away and I began my self appointed task.

The smell was terrible but by opening the doors back and front the air began to clear. Aunt Prim had stored carefully sorted rubbish in hundredweight paper meal sacks; one filled with dead matches, one with the inner match box, a third with the outer covering. Bright red Bournville chocolate wrappers were packed in one sack, gold wrappings in another. As I heaved the sacks outside the floor began to creak and crack until the boards, soft with wood worm and wet rot, gave way in one corner.

A village worthy came bustling in and began poking in corners. ‘No need for her to be cold’ she said as she lifted the lid of a metal meal bin ‘Look she had fuel for the boiler in here and there’s pies in this box. She didn’t have to go hungry.’

I didn’t point out that she had had a stroke and sat for a week in her own urine before anyone thought she might need help, no one brought her a blanket or a hot drink. She had nothing but her indomitable courage and determination to keep her going, and her books to keep her company.

I worked on through the day putting aside anything of value, her books, a small oil painting, a silver fob watch with raised numbers and no glass made for a blind person and ideal for someone working in the blackout. All the while I could hear rustlings as I disturbed the mice the cats had been too weak to catch.

Tied firmly to the top shelf of the book case was a blue felt parcel. Carefully I cut away the string and sat down for the first time that day to examine this thing that had been so precious that it had to be tied down. Layer after layer came off and I thought of the little girl who would have played pass the parcel long ago. Finally the heart of the treasure was displayed on my lap, a Victorian carriage clock in working order. I have it still.

Outside the sun was setting, the cottage bathed in golden evening light. The small garden that I had tended as a bride was a tangle of briars and brambles but half hidden and unnoticed by the front door I found a perfect white tulip. Next morning I cut it carefully and took it with me to the funeral. There were no flowers on the coffin. After the service the coffin was carried to the grave yard below the church. As the undertakers prepared to lower their burden into the grave I placed the single white flower on it. No, my aunt’s life was not a tragedy for she certainly would not have considered it so, she lived her life heroically and maintained her independence to the end.

© Carenza Hayhoe 2007

2007-08-31T06:40:00.000-07:00

A car is a great convenience and I am very fond of my little silver grey Yaris but I shall always remember the opening lecture at a magistrates' training day when a police officer stood at the lectern as said 'Never forget that when you are at the wheel you are in charge of a lethal weapon.' I was forcibly reminded yet again last week when, on the way to the funeral of a very dear friend in Plymouth, I found myself in a long tail back. Later I discovered that a speeding car travelling east had crossed the central reservation causing a large lorry travelling west to over turn on the carriage way. Fortunately no one was killed.

The victim in my poem was very small and some might think the accident a trivial matter but the sounds of that accident are with me still -

The Lethal Weapon

Rabbit – I didn’t mean to kill you,
You leapt from the hedge across my path
I had no choice,
No time to brake.

Mine the hand of destiny
My car the lethal weapon.
Mine the aching heart
As, framed within the mirror
I had a fleeting vision
Of your small form
Somersaulting,
Twitching,
Still.

2007-08-21T13:24:00.000-07:00

This week I have been challenged to write a poem about drink, but not necessarily alcohol. After a walk and a lot of thought these two poems are my response. Both are accomapnied by a pots from my previous existance. I sometimes wonder where they are today and almost wish that I hadn't sold them. But if I had kept all the pots I made goodness knows where I would put them today. For most of my potting life I would shift up to two tons of clay a year and the majority of the pots weighed between half a pound and four pounds - that's quite a lot of pots.

HALF FULL – HALF EMPTY

The mid-day sun is hot
The beer is cool
The colour of a Dartmoor stream
Splashing, swirling round boulders
Trout lying in the eddies
Waiting for a unsuspecting fly
Foam caught in whirl pools.
Froth upon the well poured pint
Clings to the upper lip
Of a blue eyed youth
White blond, deep tanned
And in his glass half full
Bubbles collapsing slowly unobserved.

‘Another of the same’
The pint pulled by a girl
With bosoms overflowing
An invitation to forbidden fruit
A come and get me smile
Defended by the bastion of the bar
Untouchable.
The drinker heavy jowled
Eyes hungry in a florid face
His gut supported by a belt,
A belch, a hasty swallow
The glass half empty but who cares,
The money’s there, there’s plenty more to come.

‘Thanks mister – mines a pint’
The old man sits
And mumbles by the fire
No question here
Half full, half empty
There is nothing left
No swirling energetic stream
No foam, no froth
No summer light
So while there’s time
Landlord, another round.

2007-08-21T06:20:00.000-07:00

A CUP OF COMFORT
Latin com – with: fortis – strong

Today has been appalling
I haven’t time to cry.
My fella’s on the booze again
And given me this eye.

Today has been appalling
My girl was on the phone
She says she’s in the club again
He’s gone and she’s alone.

Today has been appalling
My boy has broken bail.
Police came banging on the door
They’ve taken him to gaol.

Today has been appalling
The bills are piled high
I’ve stacked the pills beside them
It would be good to die.

But first I’ll put the kettle on
Quite soon it starts to sing
Now with a hot, sweet cup of tea
I’ll cope with anything.

The teapot is decorated using the mochaware technique which took me five years experimenting to master. When I retired last September there was only one other potter in the country able to produce it to a professional standard and yes, I confess I was rather proud of what I had achieved.

2007-08-11T08:20:00.000-07:00

For many Portland is nothing more than a name on the shipping forecast. Some will say ‘Oh Portland Bill, yes we’ve been there and climbed the Lighthouse’ and you will find that is all they have done, they have never walked the cliff paths, explored the quarries, visited St George’s church built by a pupil of Christopher Wren or drunk a pint of real ale in The George, a pub that goes back to the sixteenth century. They certainly won’t have explored the village of Easton and had a cup of coffee in Whitestones Café Gallery.
On Thursday evening I went to Whitestones for the private view of Sea Art, an exhibition of paintings and sculpture by ten West Country artists and was thrilled to discover the work of David Brook whose acrylic paintings I would describe as pure poetry. Two particularly caught my eye, ‘Fish Surfers’ is full of vibrant movement, the three surfers riding the waves with confidence imposed by the painters brush. The image of two walkers caught in a world of their own under an umbrella while the rain curls and crashes on the rest of the world is a sonnet in paint. This is an exhibition to be enjoyed at leisure over a cup of Davd Nicholl’s delicious coffee, the images will remain in the mind long after the visit to Portland is over. http://www.whitestonescafegallery.com/

The Wave

2007-08-04T01:20:00.000-07:00

Last night I couldn't sleep so finally at four o'clock I got up and made a cup of tea and reached for my lap top:-

Bringing kids up in a pub isn’t easy. You’re trying to be a mum and to keep the customers happy at the same time. Of course the kids get a bit neglected, but The Sailors Rest was right on top of the beach so there were compensations, fishing and swimming, that sort of thing. We got used to the gales and were always well prepared with sandbags and shutters before the wind started screeching in the chimneys and the waves began to pound the top of the beach, but the sea will always surprise you.
I had given up trying to get Mike out of bed in the mornings. ‘Teenagers are all like that’ said my mother ‘You were just the same. He’ll grow out of it and then one day you’ll go in and find another head on the pillow beside him and nothing will ever be the same again.’
It was a day none of us will ever forget; a warm sunny April morning, sea flat calm and not a breath of wind. I had opened all the windows to air the bedrooms, even the attic where Mike lay with his eyes screwed tight shut against the light. I was round the back in the kitchen so I didn’t see it coming. Seems there had been a big storm in the Atlantic. Three great rollers came up the channel, absolutely silent, getting higher and higher until they reached our beach when the first reared up, a huge wave so high it over topped the pub and flooded the house through the attic window. I raced upstairs, my feet squelching on every step, slipping and sliding on the seaweed that had come in with the wave, to find our Mike still in bed, just as my mother had said, with another head on the pillow beside him. She never said it would be a fish!
© Carenza Hayhoe August 2007

By the time I'd finished my room was full of sunlight.

2007-07-27T07:35:00.000-07:00

Watching the waves break on the shore can have a mesmeric affect until the mind is open to ideas that come unbidden from an unknown source -

Pebbles on the Shore
July 2007

Alone

no sound but the sucking of the sea
pulling the pebbles on the shore

Solitude

peopled with the presence of the past
no longer tangible yet real today

Invisible

crowding and crying 'come
join us and be one with us'

Tomorrow

must belong to those who follow after
make of it what they will
the sea will still be there
pulling the pebbles on the shore

2007-07-24T07:08:00.000-07:00

Last night West Country News showed a bus load of elderly people whose nursing home was threatened by rising flood water. They were being moved to an unknown destination, while others still living in their own homes nearby could be seen watching from upstairs windows, waiting to be rescued, pale faces staring out on a watery world.

I woke in the night remembering Northcote House where, for a while, I was the lay chaplain. The staff always had so much to do, checking drugs, making beds, washing and dressing the residents and filling in report forms. There seemed to be no allowance in the daily programme for time to treat each individual as a real person, to listen to them, for each had a story to tell. Miss C whose voice still carried the Irish lilt of her childhood and who had spent the war years as a governess in Paris. Sister E a house mother in a Methodist children’s home who was visited regularly by the children she had bought up, all successful in their own right. Mr S. who could not forget the boyhood friends who had been killed beside him on the Normandy beaches and mourned them till he died. Among them was a lady who said to me ‘It takes a lot of courage to be old’ and it does. Each lived with daily pain and needed help with tasks that most of us never think about, many too stiff to pick a fallen object from the floor, too fragile to get to the toilet on their own. All grieving quietly for the homes they had left, the personal treasures and the books they had collected over life time.

My mind moved to memories of my mother-in-law. She cut the apron strings that might have held her sons and set them free, earning the love and admiration of her two daughters-in-law. Never once did either of us hear any criticism of anything we did. She had a subtle way of letting me know if she disapproved of a plan I had in mind but if I persisted she would support me to the hilt. She gave me a silver sixpence, a keepsake from a young man she had watched march bravely off to war with Kitchener’s Army. He never returned.

Alone
I reached out in the darkness
Your presence real to my waking mind
But you were gone.
All that remains is aching emptiness,
But just as wounds are proof of injury
So this deep pain confirms the memories
Renders them precious
And yourself more dear.

2007-07-23T02:46:00.000-07:00

Unseen Reality

What is a ghost?
A thought – a song – a sigh
Upon the wings of time
That echoes down the passages
Where you and I first met
And others who pass by
Will wonder why they pause and smile
Unknowing that the peace they feel
Was born in our content.

I wouldn’t call my self psychic although half a century ago I could be persuaded to read palms and I do own a crystal ball. You can read so much about personality in a palm but I found that casting the future is dangerous, especially when it turns out to be right and I soon gave it up. The problems of today are quite enough.
I inherited the crystal ball from my mother and keep it in a silk drawstring purse beside my desk. It has already featured in a novel I wrote for younger readers which lies unpublished waiting for a final editing. It will appear again in a historical novel which so far exists only in my head.
Psychic or not, I have found that many people claim to sense good or bad atmospheres when they are house hunting although they would deny any ghostly presence as nonsense.

2007-07-22T01:57:00.000-07:00

As the rain falls and flood waters rise across the country I remembered my own experience of flooding in January 1986 as we became refugees when our home was uninhabitable for six weeks while walls and floors slowly dried out.

Armageddon

We have been in this refugee camp for a month now. It is a terrible place, mud ankle deep, full of the sound of crying children, no one has enough to eat and there is only one stand pipe for every hundred families. They have come from all over. Some have primitive tents; some have dug themselves tunnels into the banks around the camp. We’ve tried to dig latrines but many just squat and relieve themselves where they are and the stench is appalling. At least we are alive and we can dream and work for a better future once we have found the others.

It wasn’t always like this. We used to live in a fine city with wide clean streets. It was a well ordered society where each one of us had a purpose, everyone had enough to eat, everyone was employed. Central Control saw to everything and we were happy. Life was good and we were confident that it always would be, until the day of the earthquake. The maternity unit was at the top of the city near the warmth of the sun and felt the first tremor. Suddenly the walls fell in and the floor cracked. Midwives were running everywhere carrying newborns to safety. The top section of our citadel was destroyed but Central Control took charge and we rebuilt deeper into the earth. I and some of my term mates had just been trained to fly so when the order came to scramble a squadron we were detailed off to join the unit. We were above ground when the hot rain came. Steam and scalding water from on high destroyed all we had known. There was a great silence and then we heard a voice like thunder high above us

‘I’ve always hated ants. One more kettle of water should put paid to this lot.’

2007-07-21T13:34:00.000-07:00

A rolling stone gathers no moss? I began my life in central China, I’ve made my home in Australia, New Zealand and Italy as well as in the UK and packed up all my belongings at least twenty nine times but I have still managed to gather plenty of moss. Among my treasures are a sea washed shell from the Gulf of Carpentaria, a paeu shell I found on a beach in New Zealand, a small piece of knotted tree root that rises up like a sea serpant. On my shelves are four generations of children’s books some belonged to my great grandmother, one dated 1829. Over a door into our garden is the head of a green Chinese devil which came back from China with me in 1937, it is his responsibility to prevent any other devil from entering our home. A velvet frog belonging to my father’s childhood sits in a basket on my bedroom floor together with a tiny and almost hairless koala bear, a faded blue rabbit with only one ear, a moth eaten panda and Eyore, all of them companions of my childhood and watching over them all is my great grandmother's rag doll.

Forgotten

Climbing the attic stairs I found a child
Head in hands weeping among the cobwebs.
She had found a long forgotten trunk
Iron bound, its leather rubbed and worn.
Within were dolls no longer loved
For those who loved them are long gone
A teddy bear, a rabbit with one ear
Still waiting to be remembered.

Where are they now
The children who once dreamed of days to come?
Their days are gone
We never knew them and we never will.

2007-07-20T07:34:00.000-07:00

Tribute to a Distilled Spirit

A novel, like an evening with a friend
Accompanied by tankards of good beer
Allows us to develop themes and share
Love, laughter, jealousy or fear
And contemplate a carefully crafted end.

A glass of wine, a connoisseur’s delight
Will be remembered for bouquet and taste
And for the dinner that it graced
Never a drop allowed to go to waste,
A story shorter than a summer’s night.

But for a poem I would choose
A glass of single malt to be my muse