Roar Award

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

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

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

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.

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.’

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.

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!