A VIEW OF THE TREES

The family is summoned by the Consultant dealing with my hospitalised mother. So we make our way across Devon and into the City for a mid-day meeting, armed with many pound coins for the extortionately priced car park and more concerned about finding a parking space than the meeting itself. We know what the meeting is about, you see. A ‘CT Scan’ has been the subject of some scrutiny amongst the medical professionals, and it’s time to decide how to move forward.

How exactly do you break bad news to an eighty-six year old person? In the case of my father, who was seventy two and suffering from extensive invasion of his body by this hideous disease cancer, we all failed miserably. This was more than 30 years ago, and things were different then, although no less clinical. No-one communicated what was going on. At one point my quiet, slightly vague darling father confided to me that he had been told that a ‘growth’ had been found, but that ‘they’ did not know whether it was ‘cancerous’. He then observed: “I think it is.” How could they possibly not have known? He died a short time later, riddled with tumours. But mine was the only conversation we held about it, despite visits to hospital, home and hospice from his brothers and friends, none of whom managed to broach the subject with him. I am convinced that he was well aware of what was happening, but couldn’t face it.

This terrible experience clouds the minds of my brother and me as we sit and wait for the Consultant to arrive. We are squeezed around my mother’s bed in a ward populated by elderly women, some of whom sleep as though dead, others rattling whatever they can find to try and get the attention of the woefully small number of staff. My husband sits further away, hating the place, thinking of his own mother who died in her early fifties of lung cancer.

My mother is desperate to go home. She keeps telling everyone that she wants to see ‘her trees’ – which is explained every time by my brother as: ‘she has a wonderful view through her window’. The Consultant is so late that someone appears with a tray of lunch. There is no space for anyone to help my mother, as she sits at a table far too high for her and attempts to enjoy a meal squeezed on to a tray. I try to make some room on the table, and notice that her left hand is completely purple from a botched attempt at obtaining a blood sample by an overworked, overtired nurse.

Eventually, into this madness, a young man appears. He is an assistant Registrar, not the Consultant. Curtains are pulled around us, but anyone who is slightly alert could so easily overhear us, particularly as communications are made more difficult by my mother’s inability to hear what anyone is saying. In a nutshell we are confronted with many and various problems, which include heart complications and – most sinister of all – a shadow on the lung, which is growing…

Perhaps we are not a conventional family, but the decision is, for all of us, influenced by our experience – not just of my father – but of so many loved family and friends who have died of this disease. She wants to ignore it, and above all she is desperate to go home. And that is what we decide: to do nothing, and to let her go back to her room at home, where through the window she will be able to see the trees…

THE HEIDELBERG GLASS

Just outside Morlaix in Brittany, if you take the road towards the coast, you might catch sight of a rather unkempt-looking building standing just off the side of the road. If you drive too fast you’ll miss it. There is a bare, scrubby area for parking and if you are lucky it will be open for business. The building is an old portacabin, and in the forecourt a wooden shack fronts a number of trestle tables all covered in old china and glass – no matter what the weather. 

This is ‘Emmaus’. I do not refer to the Biblical story, featured in old paintings as ‘Road to Emmaus’ or ‘Supper at Emmaus’. The name is doubtless drawn from this. Emmaus is a charity founded in France 66 years ago and which today has branches all over the world. Basically it identifies and helps people in extreme poverty, homeless and without work.  To quote from their own website: ‘…the Emmaus Movement promotes an alternative model where work is not a bondage, but rather an opportunity to access the freedom to be oneself in helping others. And this solidarity is organized at all levels: locally, nationally, and internationally!’

We first discovered Emmaus by accident a couple of years ago. Since then we have made a point of finding out when it is open and visiting whenever we are in France. We go partly because of M’s addiction to bric-a-brac, but Emmaus is not any old ‘charity shop’ outfit, it’s a unique experience. We never fail to enjoy our visits – and to come home with some bargains. This time was no different.

The ‘trainees’ at the Morlaix set-up are mostly young Africans. Some of them speak English, but they are nervous of us because we aren’t locals. I speak fairly fluent French, and we usually find that big smiles and shaking of hands help enormously. They are, of course, overseen by some sharp-eyed and experienced French organisers who seldom interfere. Then we begin our search. Outside there are piles and piles of old crockery, glasses, pots and pans. Some are full to the brim with recent rain, while others look tacky and undesirable. In the shack are boxes and shelves laden with ‘stuff’ presumably sheltering from the effects of the weather. They aren’t much better. You have to have a keen eye in these matters. 

To my joy I find a little glass (full of rainwater) crammed in amongst a sea of crockery on the trestle tables and mercifully unbroken. That’s the strange thing about these items: very few are chipped and almost none are broken. The French must look after their things better than I do! This glass has a picture of a barrel and the words ‘Weinstube Schloss Heidelberg’ printed upon it. A moment of nostalgia follows… Heidelberg is where my old Uncle spent a year of his life in 1932 at the University. I have a project on the go, posting a number of his photos and items of interest to a Collection on Google+. I must have this glass!

Eventually we have between us collected seven items which we present to the African at the desk. M loves this moment, because he knows that he will get a good deal. What this means is that I will have to act as interpreter. Which I do, but in this case it’s not necessary because a bit of sign language arrives at a price of six euros. A ticket is filled in, which we take to a separate cash desk. The African has carefully written €5 on the ticket! M is delighted.

M decides to move inside the portacabin where they house the furniture, the better quality bric-a-brac, some white goods, clothes and furnishings, and just about anything which might sell. French people poke and prod around at these items, muttering to themselves and each other, determined to find a bargain. A woman picks up a huge pottery dish which might have graced a 1960s dinner table, full of steaming vegetables or salad leaves. She frowns at it, notices me watching and puts it back. We exchange a smile. The atmosphere is quiet and relaxed; concentrated. On a previous occasion I found a piece of red velvet material which I purchased for less than a euro and will use to line a box. This time, though, nothing appeals. M meanwhile has spotted a long mirror on a stand, and then we find another. This is closely followed by some more glassware – this time a set of small wineglasses and some gorgeous dessert bowls.

Another African man wraps each item of glass in newspaper and boxes them up for us, so well packed that they survive the journey back across the sea to England. Mercifully the mirrors are not too big and just fit into our car. We decide to call a halt, having spent a total of 47 euros (about £33) on our treasures.

At home it takes some time to wash, clean and scrub up these things. We are even more thrilled with some of the items. The mirrors and a couple more pieces of bric-a-brac will be sold on, whilst other items go straight into use. The little glass sparkles on the kitchen windowsill, joined by a tumbler which bizarrely portrays the French version of ‘The Waterworks’ from the board game Monopoly.

It is uplifting to visit a place like Emmaus. Rather different from our ‘charity shops,’ the atmosphere is one of peaceful positivity and hope. These young Africans are far from home, but in amongst the fragments and cast-offs of French people’s lives they are being helped to make something of themselves, as well as giving all of us the opportunity to revive some little treasures. Everyone wins!

THE ALPINE HUT

For no reason at all I was rifling through some old photographs when I came upon this black and white postcard from my grandfather. Unfortunately someone has torn off the stamps which might have given a clue as to the date, stuck the card into an album, and torn it out again. ‘Vandal!’ remarked my husband as I sat hoping that it had not been my younger self who was the culprit. However, various clues have established a rough date of 1958 as a reasonable estimate.

The little alpine hut was Turtmann-Hutte, located deep in the Swiss Alps , in a remote corner of the Turtmann valley. If, like me, you are still none the wiser, here is a link to the Wikipedia information: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtmann.

But it’s not the location about which I write. Rather, it is the message on the card, written diagonally in his beautiful handwriting, which comes from the heart:

I have had the occasion to go into the Alps probably for the last time, the climbing was a bit too much, but I managed it!! I spent the night in this Alpine Hut. Love to you all, Grand’pa

Scrawled on the top edge, upside down, is the signature of his younger brother Oncle Georges who accompanied him on the trip.
My grandfather was French Swiss, a clever man whose job brought him to London in the early part of the twentieth century, where he married an Englishwoman and made his home. He seldom went back to the place of his birth in the Jura Mountains, declaring that it had changed too much. Perhaps this trip felt like a final journey? Certainly the words recognise his own limitations. He had a bad heart which eventually failed him ten years later.

He was not a man to dwell on achievements, but his pleasure in having succeeded in his climb to the Alpine Hut is clearly revealed by those two exclamation marks.
Climbing mountains has been a metaphor for surmounting life’s difficulties since the beginning of time. To me, the message on this card reinforces my own philosophy of ‘expect the unexpected’ by rephrasing it as: ‘take an unexpected opportunity and your struggle may reward you with an achievement’. Or so I hope! The challenge is both physical and mental. In battling the growing limitations on the ageing human body, we continue to tease it with the occasional push, whilst being rewarded with the aches and pains of disgruntled muscles for whom such exercise was becoming a memory. 

The Alpine Hut has completely changed now, of course, as the present owners’ website shows: http://www.turtmannhuette.ch/. It hasn't gone, but has been considerably expanded, accommodating many more people than at the time my grandfather and his brother stayed there.

The mountains, though, are eternal...

 

ALL CHANGE... AS YOU WERE!

This is a picture of schoolgirls about to begin a race. The event is a school sports day. The year? About 1936. Can you remember what you felt like, as a child, to be in such a line-up? These girls’ faces reflect several different attitudes to the race. Bizarrely each child has a bucket at her feet, for what purpose I have no idea. But two or three are so keen for the race to begin that they stand poised, each with one foot forward, eyes on the starter. One is hesitant, her finger on her lips, whilst another taller girl looks slightly puzzled. There is one child for whom the race is hardly happening at all. More interested in the bucket, number 10 stands with her feet neatly together, apparently unaware that the start is imminent. She is the girl who won the race, and that girl became my mother.

I am always keen to explore the idea that nothing in life ever turns out the way you expect it to. ‘It’s character-forming’, my mother would tell me at the end of a school day when everything had gone wrong. There are those who plan everything, even down to the number of children they will have, and for whom life never appears to be as harsh – until they are dealt a body blow by a whimsy of fate. For others it is enough to muddle along, attempting to ride the storm.

In the latter part of (to me) a rather sad life, my mother has become withdrawn and lives a reclusive life in which she is often angry. She is very crippled and pain plays a huge part in her grumpy attitude. You can see from her whole stance in the photograph that she was never one to be dictated to. Her home and family mean everything to her, and woe betide anyone who suggests anything which might change the status quo.

So a life-threatening bout of a severe flu virus which resulted in her being driven away from her beloved home in an ambulance seemed like the end of her world. And, for those of us close to her, the end of ours too! I count myself fortunate to have known my mother for such a long time, when others lose theirs at a much younger age. Yet however prepared you are for the death of a parent, the reality of it is most certainly one of those body blows from which you do not recover, exactly, but learn to adapt. We were all convinced that her time was up, but we had to consider all options. We held many and various discussions about how things would have to change should she survive, what should and what must happen, and how on earth would we achieve those changes.

She has surprised us yet again. After a roller-coaster ride in the hospital, where the nursing staff all deserve individual medals for putting up with such a difficult patient, she finally stopped fighting them and allowed herself to be – not cured, exactly, but made better. And now, suddenly, she is back at home again, while we are all recovering – totally exhausted from two weeks of long, difficult travelling to visit, to comfort and to reassure her that we would not leave her in hospital or forget her.

And so we gradually return to normal. Or do we? Should we allow things to go back to how they were, or should we try to make those changes of which we spoke in hurried, whispered, worried tones? She has no idea how devastated some of us were, or how difficult our journey through this has been. How can we possibly disturb her frailty at this stage? Of course we can’t. We’ll do it all again, I have no doubt. It is enough that for now she is still here, and we love her!

NO ACCOUNTING FOR TIME

In my other life as an accountant – now receding into the past where I am more than happy to let it remain, I was accountable for my time. In effect, time was what we sold. As each valuable minute ticked by, it had to be recorded; who was the client, what was the work done, etc. I was lucky enough to be accounting in six-minute units – in some cases single minutes were used. So if, after a day of solid grind, you had forgotten to write down exactly what you were doing and for whom, it was a question of thinking back through the hours and occasionally being inventive.

After decades of this practice, my new ‘career’ as a writer is a blissful experience where time becomes a complete irrelevance in the rush to record my ideas. I can write for hours, pausing as the view outside the window grows dark, and only then realising that hours have passed.

But… it’s hard to change the habits of a lifetime.

                “Have you phoned the garage?” my husband will ask innocently after being out for the morning. I experience a kind of panic, realising that I haven’t. 

                “I’ve been doing other things,” I snap back and begin to list them, consulting the clock in an automatic return to ‘time costing’ mode.

Luckily my husband has begun to understand my curious mindset about this, and a simple reassurance that he is not trying to find out what I’ve been doing seems to work, although it’s taken a couple of years to reach this point. I sometimes wonder if I will ever shake the habit.

I often think we are too much taken up with time in modern life. Travel back a few hundred years and people seldom knew exactly what the time was at various points in their day, neither did it concern them unduly. Seasons and weather were probably more important. Now, time ticks mercilessly on – as it always has, but it seems we do not allow ourselves to ignore it.

In contrast, one of the characters in my current work-in-progress has been dragged into a world where, as he tells a visitor, ‘…to answer one of your other questions, I really don’t know how old I am now. I’ve been here for some time, but time is… not the same here as it is where you live. As it is at home.’ This situation, at the opposite side to our daily lives, could be equally stressful. 

I think we need to be more relaxed about time. There are moments of great importance in life, where conversations or events take place which should be treasured, as we will remember them for the rest of our lives. During these we should allow time to slow down, revel in the moment and not allow ourselves to be swept away from them.

Enjoy every single moment of your life, because it only happens once.

As the poet William Henry Davies so aptly stated:

 

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.