Drama

I was very happy to read that black (or probably any colour) whippets go grey on their faces very early, often as young as under two. Hugo is quite light around his whiskers, and has a few white hairs through his coat, but it's not as a result of living with me apparently. Phew. We both could have gone completely white with shock this morning, though, as I was preparing to drop him off at Penny and Roger's before going to work. For some reason I forgot that the boot lid was open as I drove off. Hugo had been lying in there in his basket, but he leapt up and jumped out as I started to reverse. I heard the commotion and jammed on the brakes, and there he was, shocked and confused, cowering by the hedge and looking back at me in fear. I went to him at once and hugged him to me, stroking him and speaking calmly, and he was fine again. He didn't hesitate to jump back into the boot again. I know, it doesn't bear thinking about.

Sarah wasn't so lucky yesterday. One of the four cats she inherited from Hector, a little grey girl called Rooney, was hit by a car outside my house. I knew nothing about it until another Sarah, she who rides along the lane every day, rang me to ask if I owned a grey cat. She told me she had seen Rooney on my grass verge, dragging her hind legs as she tried to walk, but only registered that something was wrong when she got home. Sarah took the poor little creature to the vet at once, but she was paralysed from the waist down and was put to sleep. Sarah was beside herself with grief. Of all the cats, Rooney and old Neville are her favourites. When she took them on Rooney was very underweight and anxious, and she fed her up and gave her a lot of attention, and brought her back to full health. At 15 she was enjoying life as she probably hadn't for some time before. It's such a shame.

I'm still feeling euphoric about my stay of execution re. bed bugs. The disruption they would have caused made me feel so anxious I hardly knew how I'd ever manage to eradicate them. Hearing the reality has put a real spring in my step, and I also have a spotless bedroom to boot. With a succession of summer visitors booked in the house will remain in this state for some time to come, but the challenge will be to keep it like that when I'm on my own. I thought of trying to find a cleaner, but of the ten or so I've had during my adult life not one has pleased me. I could advertise for someone with OCD - mild, severe, I don't mind - but it may be a bit non-PC to do that. If only I had a touch of OCD myself, but any high standards I do have are expressed only in the garden.

Libera Me

Today might be the best day I've had for a long time.I'm feeling utterly jubilant! After my horrible experience of being bitten half to death the night before last, I finally googled to see what kind of brute could have feasted so luxuriously on my flesh. Bed bugs. That's what came up as the definitive solution, and immediately shattered my world. Or in the words of the journalistic headline we always longed to use: Shock!  Horror! Crisis! And so followed a day of frenzied activity when I hauled my mattress into the garden, threw my duvet and pillows into the car to take to the dry cleaners, and proceeded to wash all of my bed linen, plus pyjamas. I spring cleaned the bedroom, emptied the two boxes under the bed where I store clothes and spare bedding, and pondered the terrible efforts I'd have to go to in addition to these to eradicate the beasts.

Last night, still feeling sick, I moved into another room where a howling wind and loose slate forced me to put in ear plugs. So I was deeply asleep when the same itchiness recurring in the same place on my legs jolted me awake, and a quick inspection showed the horrible weals and blisters again. What fresh hell was this? Knowing they would probably be gone by morning, I photographed them. Over breakfast, eaten like the condemned man choking on his lobster thermidor, I remembered the tick I found on my foot just over a month ago, and so I looked up the symptoms of Lyme Disease again and couldn't rule it out. Only one thing for it, a visit to the doctors. I took my camera and showed him the ghastly welts and waited for his sentence: death, or extreme house cleaning. It was neither. I have urtocaria, better known as hives. Hives! I have hives! I don't have to sterilise my house, or dispose of all my belongings. The carpet can stay. The mattress can come back upstairs. I can return to my cosy bedroom. It's caused by the heat, or maybe an allergic reaction to something in the garden. Who knows? Who cares? Not me. I'm re-born, a new woman.

This miracle wasn't the only one this morning. I had run out of coffee capsules for my Nespresso machine, and had delayed reordering. They'll arrive today, but too late for my daily fix. I double checked in the cupboard, and found a Ristretto capsule, one of the extra strong ones my sister brings for her own use when she stays. I got my coffee, and celebrated with two ginger and chocolate biscuits. It really doesn't get much better than this. As I always say, my needs are modest.

My first cherries, nearly half a pound

Hugo hauled all these covers and cushions into place for his added comfort

Hives on my leg

More hives! Hah!

Struggles

I woke up in the very early hours with an intense itching on the outer rim of one ear, and realised I'd been bitten. Determined it wasn't going to happen again, I leapt out of bed, put the light on and proceeded to search the room for the culprit but could find nothing. By the time I'd settled myself back in bed I'd discovered that my ear wasn't the only affected area. Two huge patches above my knees and on either side were covered in raised welts and blisters, and one buttock was the same. An eyebrow had been attacked too, and so had the other ear. And there was a lump on my cheek. The itching which erupted so suddenly was unbearable. But what could have made these marks? It wasn't a mosquito, but more like I'd had bunches of stinging nettles rubbed across my skin. The blisters looked as if they had been tracked by something crawling randomly all over me. Horrible, it was, and so itchy I couldn't sleep. I went downstairs to make a cup of hot chocolate, and returned to my book for half an hour to try to distract myself from scratching before sleep overtook me again. The blisters were still there in the morning, but now there is barely a trace. A mystery.

I finally made it into Woodbridge for some essential but postponed shopping, and while I was there I collected several flowerpots from where they were stacked beside my friend's boat. She only wanted to keep one, and I agreed to take the others away. First I had to empty out the soil, and then carry them to the boot. But the car was parked several yards away, and a barrier prevented me bringing it closer. The men in the cafe didn't have a key, and so I slogged backwards and forwards half a dozen times labouring under the weight. I could scarcely believe it when, just before I left, I looked at the barrier and it wasn't locked at all, but came up in my hands. Next time rule out all possibilities before you act, my girl! I came home and immediately fell asleep on the sofa with Hugo curled around me. Knackered, I was, plum tuckered out. All I have to do now is get them out of the car.

In the Air

The Aldeburgh Festival comes to an end tonight for another year, and what a splendid fortnight it has been. I've sat through several concerts, both as an usher and a punter, and have to confess to my own amazement that the highlight has been the two Britten operas, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Billy Budd. They say some music is an acquired taste, but I've never given these works a chance before. Billy's aria, "Look! Through the port comes the moonshine astray" is so beautiful I almost weep to think of how I might have missed it, only attending the opera because I heard this piece earlier in the year and couldn't believe it was Britten. Well, I've found him now and I'm ready to explore with a newly-opened mind, catch up on lost time.

I see that it's been 10 days since I last blogged. That must have been around the time that my best friend announced that she'll be going to live with her daughter in Exeter. I think I saw this coming when Chloe first said she would be relocating there from London, but I put it out of my mind as you do with horrible things you don't want to face. The news last week knocked me for six, and will probably knock me for six times six when it becomes reality. I'm back on terra firma emotionally now, and will remain there for as long as I can. A therapist I knew used to talk about AFGO - another fucking growth opportunity, but as you get older you don't need shocks and traumas, only certainty and constancy. At least I do. But being shaken out of your comfort zone is probably not the worst thing that can happen to you.

And so there's been a bitter-sweet quality to the things we've done recently: a trip to Aldeburgh in the gloaming for a Midsummer's Day concert on the beach as night fell and the sea and the sky merged into an opaque stretch of inky grey; a trip on the hottest day to Woodbridge to visit the open gardens after a picnic lunch; accepting an invitation to a local gallery, the Print Room, for their first concert in their new Music Room in a 16th century barn; to Aldeburgh again, the cinema this time, for a showing of My Cousin Rachel. That evening was memorable for the fish and chips we ate on the beach, and the seagull that swooped over my shoulder and pinched my whole piece of haddock out of my hand. Everything we do together is punctuated by much laughter, irreverant giggles and fits of hysteria that will not be quelled until one of us walks away. And now one of us will.

I spent today on a friend's houseboat moored at Woodbridge Marina, watching as the neap tide swept in and made access to the gangway impassable except with an icy wade. There's something both exciting and soothing about being on water, feeling the gentle sway and watching the river come alive with small boats, and then hearing the errie cries of the the evening wading birds. As I left to come home I passed a boatyard with several small sailing boats for sale, and for two pins I'd have bought one and introduced Hugo to the joys of Swallows and Amazons. Luckily it was closed and I departed before I got too carried away.

Terrible

As Yeats said, "All changed, changed utterly". One minute I was writing my blog, waxing lyrical about the Aldeburgh Festival and its unique atmosphere, not just a rival for Glyndebourne and the many other country house music festivals that strut their stuff all summer but an outright winner thanks to its incredible location and unpretentious air. I was preparing to take Hugo out for a walk, happy that his leg had nearly healed and he'd be able to run free in the open spaces again. His dew pad protectors have arrived and I think they will work. But I hesitated to put them on until the last scab had dropped off, fearful that any friction would prematurely dislodge it and work it into a sore again. I took him out in the fields on his lead, and the pair of us sauntered through sun-baked barley, the scent of newly-mown hay from the edges filling our nostrils. I'm no Yeats, that's the best I can do. Suddenly the lead was jerked out of my hand and Hugo was off after a hare, leaving me with a painful abrasion. It happened so quickly I had no chance to react. Off he zoomed, straight down the track, and then he'd turned right and was racing up the other edge of the field. And then I lost sight of him. Feeling sick, thinking of all the terrible things that could happen to him with that trailing lead, in addition to the normal dangers, I went home to get the car. Same old same old, up and down the lanes, scanning the fields with my binoculars, desperate for a sighting of a little black chap, dreading the sound of screeching brakes. I came home, I went out again, I looked up and down, I went upstairs for a better look. And there was a car travelling down the hill at normal speed and then slowing, crawling along, creeping forwards. It didn't stop but I decided to investigate. And there at the bottom of the hill, dragging himself and his trailing lead upwards was Hugo. No sign of the car. They'd just left him there. Oh well. At least they didn't run him over.

I'd like to say no harm done, but of course there was. The vulnerable dew pad, the one on the right, was lacerated again. And there were cuts to his two hind legs. We got so close to this never happening again, but not quite close enough. So it's back to square one, dressings, Elizabethan collar, walks on a short lead, no running. It's enough to make you weep.

So back to the festival. It was my first chance to be a punter this year, and I sat on the terrace with my glass of chilled white wine while people spread themselves out all around me. Against the backdrop of the the reeds in the wetlands and a clear blue sky on this lovely evening, the summer crowd milled about, taking the boardwalk path with its names of sponsors carved into each plank, crowding around the Hepworth sculptor, all jolly and laughing and chatty. It's such a special place, and never so much as during June when this annual event takes place. It feels so extraordinary to not only live a few miles away but to be a part of the operation.

Yeats' poem was about a terrible episode in Ireland's history, but it lead eventually to a good thing. And so will Hugo's misfortune today. I trust.

Dreamy

I turned down the chance to watch the final dress rehearsal of Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream because I was due to see it anyway and didn't think I could stand it twice. About seven years ago, maybe eight, we walked out of a different production at Snape after the first act because we thought it was so awful. The relief, to leave and not return! But this version is so original, and visually compelling as well as, obviously, vocally and musically of the highest quality, that I was converted, with the zeal of the convert. What rotten luck then that a sick punter left halfway through the last act and I had to follow him and miss the rest. But it's OK. I'm being found a seat in a packed house on Wednesday night and get the chance to watch it all again. I'm quite excited because now I know I'm going to see something that I will enjoy, so there's no sense of dread, no "How the hell am I going to endure three hours of this?". Everything was brilliant: the costumes, the sets including video projections onto a large screen, the amazing acrobatics of Oberon's sprite Puck, the cathedral choristers in short grey trousers and jackets, blond wigs, sunglasses and top hats playing the fairies and, admit it, the music.

The window cleaner came today to do the insides and outsides, and when he'd finished and I was paying him he leaned on his ladder, gazed across the garden and said, "You've performed a miracle here. It's absolutely lovely." I didn't demur, say something like "Well, I'm getting there. Another few years and ...". Instead I thanked him and agreed that it is an achievement and I'm very happy with it. Because I am. And here's why.

And who is this little person, singing his heart out

Stymied

It's been a frustrating week. Hugo hurt his dew pads, one of them very badly, in a mad dash after a hare last Sunday. Usually these things heal quite quickly, but not this time. Again and again I've thought they were nicely scabbed over, but the mischievous little devil has managed to get his tongue on the worst one a few times and undone all the good. He's had the collar on pretty solidly for several days now, and when I got back from Snape at lunchtime I felt so sorry for him that I decided to let him run free in the garden. First I strapped up both legs with thick soft padding after checking the state of them, and then I let him go. He went crazy, all that energy pent up after a week of walking sedately on the lead. Round and round he charged, twisting and turning at top speed, flinging himself all over the place and always ending up at my side. I swear he was grinning with delight; I know that I was. Then, horrors, I saw a big dark red stain spreading across the dressing on the worst leg. I took the cover off carefully, and then gambled that if I left it open to sun and the air it would heal quicker. And so it has. But the future is looking grim. I think that leg in particular will always be vulnerable now. I've ordered a pair of protectors for his skinny legs, but I fear that even with these on the friction could cause the skin to break again. He's sick of the Elizabethan collar, and so am I. But we have to be patient, and hopefully we'll get there. Letting him off the lead at the Woodland Trust feels like a distant dream.

It's funny how the wind drops in the evening. Nothing is moving out there now, and it's still and quiet indoors too, no radio or television to distract. I gazed out over the barley field beyond the garden and realised that in just a week it has gone from green to gold. I dread the moment when the combines come and lay it all to waste again. I'm also feeling slightly sick. Yesterday, in a really unaccustomed craving for chocolate, I went into Fram and bought two different ice creams and a chocolate cake. I'm not sure why I needed to sample all three this afternoon, but all I can say is that it was worth it at the time. I've also made some elderflower cordial, and we all know how sweet that is. Sometimes I can't get enough sugar, and then thankfully the urge passes again for a long time. But it's on me at the moment, and despite my queasiness I'm wondering if some chocolate cake would help.

The Kindness of Others

The swifts arrived today, and did a whirlwind inspection of my property to see where they could make their homes. They mustn't have found anywhere because they sped off as quickly as they came. I do love them, but their non-stop motion makes me feel edgy, jittery. If they would just land for a moment, take a breath, chill. I've been pretty speedy myself today, finishing off the job of cutting back the hedge along the drive, but unlike the swifts I do make sure to take lots of rests. As usual I forgot to take the 'before' picture so the 'after' is a bit irrelevant. Suffice it to say that there was an awful lot of greenery and now there's a heck of a lot more drive. I've deposited most of the cuttings in the field, a handy receptacle. I can only reach up the hedge so far, so the top won't get done until the farmer comes along in the autumn. But, as a Suffolk friend used to say, this isn't Surrey.

Smart hedge and garage

An awful lot of rubbish in the field

As I sliced my electric hedge-cutter up and down I twice inhaled an insect, first into my windpipe and then later into my esophagus. Both times I thought I was going to die as I couldn't breathe. I've shaken so much pollen off the hedge that I've sneezed more in two days than I have in my whole life. If that's what hay fever is like, you have my sympathy.

Handyman Joe has finished my garage now and gone on his way. I've no doubt he'll be back to do the soffits one of these days, but they can wait. The garage took a long time because the wrong paint was used last time, an acrylic thing that left a shiny coating rather than soaking into the wood. I can't think why I bought it, and it all had to be sanded off. What a waste of time and money. It's looking good again now, and I'll top it up myself when it fades. As I said goodbye to him Hugo and I went off to vote. We stopped to chat to three lots of villagers on the way there and back, and that's what I like about rural living: you're not on top of each other but you're there. David is having his hip replaced next week, and since he lives alone I've offered to do any chores he needs, like shopping. He looked a bit reluctant, so I told him I'd expect no less from him when it's my turn, and he beamed at me. We had another encounter too, and that was with the horrendous smell from the chicken factory that is worse than I've ever experienced it. Thank heavens it doesn't come anywhere near me or I'd have to move. It's reminded me that I've heard nothing about the operators' plan to replace the sheds with housing, so I'll have to chase that. As I've said before, the factory has to go. Bring it on!

Very flowery climbing rose for the first time

Escholzia and wild poppies

Joe, self-confessed old hippie

Wish I could remember what these will be

Another "best ever" rose

The Natural Order

Today we took the footpath through Joan and John's long garden for the first time in ages. They've moved out now, into separate care homes, and it shows in the garden. I don't know why we've ignored this walk for so long as it leads through a wood out into fields which have the most stunning views. Continue on down the hill and you skirt the land of some questionnable people who allegedly let their vicious dogs roam freely. But that implied threat only adds a frisson to the pleasure of the walk. Back in the garden, the neglect is obvious and depressing. They were serious plantsmen, the two of them, and as well as flowers and shrubs they grew every kind of vegetable and fruit in ordered beds and cages. Hens clucked and scratched in a neat enclosure, but now there are smelly ferrets in small cages with hammocks slung above the ground for their comfort. Nettles cover everything, and the asparagus is taller than me and as thick as a sausage from a farmer'' market. I mooched up and down feeling more and more glum. Decay and dilapidation. It's the natural order of things, isn't it? Nothing lasts forever, and those two had a long and happy life. You could see it in their faces, and their interaction with each other. Whoever takes on this property in the end will almost certainly be a keen gardener, or else they'll turn the whole plot into grass. Either way it will be developed and tamed. And so it goes.

My brain also showed signs of decay yesterday when I tried to fill in the answer to the last crossword clue. "Oil producer - usual type working around Cairo primarily". A simple clue, an anagram of 'usual type' and the letter 'c', and the answer was obviously eucalyptus. I wrote in Yucalyptus, but that wasn't right with two 'y's and no 'e'. For ten minutes I struggled with it, my mind a stubborn blank wall determined to make it fit. Eventually it clicked and I realised my mistake. I think my face must have looked like Munch's The Scream when I finally got it, the shock hitting me like a bunch of frozen carrots. Ye gods! Is this really how it goes?

The wind continues to howl in mad surges of violence, its second day. Yesterday afternoon I lit the woodburner to provide comfort for my Italian group, and when they left I put on a huge log that kept burning gently until I went to bed at 11pm. I always iron in the sitting room, usually in the evening and always watching television. I fear that my white bedding will come off badly if it touches the kitchen floor, the state of which I can't vouch for, and I had accumulated four lots of duvet, sheet and pillowcase sets. By the time I finished the third lot I was dripping from the excess heat, as red as a 1960s schoolboy's knees in winter. I've broken the back of it now, and will finish off tonight. But there'll be no fire. That small room only needs one source of heat at a time.

Musical Magic

Jeffrey Tate has died. He was the most amazing conductor I have ever watched, a man hugely deformed by spina bifida and scoliosis who struggled onto the podium and settled himself with difficulty on a stool. Throughout any performance he continuously rose to his feet like a ballet dancer, sweeping his arms into the air and stretching his misshapen body in the most beautiful, expressive, fluent movement imaginable. To watch him was to be inspired, aweatruck really, and I was. He performed many of the Mozart piano concertos with Mitsuko Uchida in, I think, the Festival Hall in around 1987, and I was present for maybe six of them. I have lots of the recordings as well of the two of them. But his obit today records that he said:  “Music in itself cannot be my whole life. I like to try and be as complete as I can, and music is only one element. If I only had music I think I would become slightly dead.” That threw me a bit, because I often think I could saturate myself in music and never emerge. Maybe I have a death wish. After that period in the 80s he worked abroad and I never saw him again but I never forgot him.

Music has been uppermost in my mind for a while now, more than usual. With my car aerial broken and being too busy to order a new one (!!) I've been playing on a loop the CD I bought of the young folk singer Saskia. It touches me deeply because of its pure beauty, and I'm both uplifted and unbearably saddened by it. Another favourite that I very occasionally indulge in when I need a lift is the YouTube recording of Susan Boyle's audition for Britain's Got Talent. The evident unworldliness of her character coupled with an extraordinary performance of I Have A Dream never fails to move me, often to tears. I want to slap each and every member of the audience who first jeered and sneered and then clapped throughout as if she was a clever performing monkey. Shut the fuck up and listen to her you morons, I seethe. It's only you who didn't expect a fat woman with overgrown eyebrows and poor dress sense to have the voice of an angel.

My last musical anecdote involves, bizzarly, Iestyn Davies in a platinum blonde wig and tight (ouch) grey trousers buying a cup of coffee and a bun a few feet away from myself and my fellow conspirators who were debriefing at Snape Maltings today. He is Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream which they were rehearsing today. There he was standing in the queue at the cafe. And there again, sitting on a bench in the sun with his mates, munching away with his mouth slightly open. Just a bloke in silly clothes, but put him on the stage and let him sing and he's a god, totally transformed. That's what music does, and it's why people like Jeffrey Tate and Saskia and Susan Boyle and Iestyn Davies go straight to our hearts.