A SMALL THREAD OF MEMORY

A SMALL THREAD OF MEMORY

 I often think about you although the thread of memory is so very thin, the clear memory so small.When the grey skies come along and they do even when I’m surrounded with love and the bright colours I work and live with. I still play those wonderful moments on slow play hearing all the words we said to each other again, seeing your smile, hearing your voice with its hint of Irish brogh. Snippets of a time long, so long ago. I have often thought that it was a great sorrow that I was so very young when we meet. You were dark with such laughing eyes and always the perfect gentlemen So full of mystery and so very worldly wise. And how I loved to hear your stories about the places you had seen. I’ve always thought that I must have been far too young to know about loving someone. Now being so much older it should allow us to look back and see what that love was all about. Run a fine tooth comb through the love and loves of our life. The dark and wondrous Knight in the shining armour who still comes to the rescue when the cold wind of worry hints at blowing me away. Or the dark corners of my mind run wild with far too many thoughts left over from the world long gone.

THE WONDER OF THE COLOUR BLUE

THE WONDER OF THE COLOUR BLUE

“Thank goodness it’s Friday”. Is something I never think of at all now that I have retired and work from home. I no longer think what can I pack into the weekend so I’ll have a head start for the working week. Or working at being busy doing things that did not get done in the working week just gone. Do we ever stop? Off, course we don’t. We are well versed in how to do what is expected of us. We saw how our parents did it, and our friends behave in the same way mostly. It just goes on and on. But not for me anymore. Life is slower, better paced, so many more gentle moments. The colour for has to BLUE

Royal Blue, yes I, am wiser, and really enjoying my new life. Sky Blue is the universal healer It helps us remain calm and lets us overcome obstacles in a better way. Pale Blue helps us let go of the past, being free of the clutter of the mind, helping to become more at peace and filtering out negative energies. Pale Blue also gives great encouragement to break loose from one’s chains. Blue is the spirit of truth and has the healing power of the voice. It the ability to keeps us cool. I find a great deal of my life and my days now flow along with the accepting, honest and loyal colour blue.

THE HOUSE WITH THE SECRET GARDEN

And yes the Winter did come with its grey skies, rain, wind, and snow. Life seemed to go on day after day and to me, my father grew older and frailer by the day. He spent a great deal of his day in bed sleeping. I think at some stage I must have been kept away from school to help around the house. The flat we lived in was warm and cosy and I think the three of us managed quite well. I was often sent next door to the Hayden’s to play. There was a flight of stairs at the far end of the garage that led to a long room with folding windows all along one side which looked out onto the secret garden. The brick walls were painted white and the rough wooden floor was just bare. There was a narrow bed, a table and two huge arm chairs with a faded flower pattern on them. In its day, this room would have been the chauffeur’s quarters. Mr Hayden brought a couple of wooden chairs up so that I could sit and draw a picture or do colouring in, plus a couple of large rugs and a few old pieces of china so I could make cups of tea for imaginary friends and for my dollies. One day when I arrived they had put a small easel and blackboard and a box of chalks out for me to use. How I loved this quiet place. I can remember sweeping and dusting and sitting in one of the large very comfortable chairs with a dark grey blanket wrapped around me. When it was dry I was still able to be in the garden and would help to put washing out and sometimes sweep the steps and pathway. When it was bitterly cold, and however well I wrapped up it was far too cold to play upstairs, I would sometimes help Mrs Hayden get the lunch ready for her husband who came home every day at just five minutes past twelve. I loved to make the custard for the desert. The very best treat of all was when I would go next door after lunch. Mrs Hayden would take me into the lovely warm front room and play the piano for me. What magic it was to sit and watch her play. Sometimes I would know a little of the pieces she was playing. I so enjoyed watching her hands move along the black and white keys. She loved Chopin and Mozart. By the time the winter was ending I knew some of the pieces very well indeed. She also played the Viola. And it was like being in heaven when she played. I loved to hear the stories of her younger days playing in the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. The weather changed and spring arrived. I would sometimes take just a few snowdrops or the purple crocus home for my dear father, who by now had changed so much but his eye would light up as I would tell him about my adventure at the house with the secret garden. It was in the early June that he left us to rest with the angels. It was a Friday and I was sent to the Haydens to be out of the way really. Dear Mr Hayden didn’t go back to work after lunch that day. The three of us headed for the front room. He played the piano while Mrs Hayden played the sweet sounding viola. There were many different pieces of music this time from the classics to some jazz. I have these lovely memories very close to my heart and always think of the secret garden with such joy and love.

Harmonised

Harmonised

Come and put your hand

In mine,

While more importantly

Speak your inner intelligence

To my ear,

Unlocking deeper realities

May the constellations shine

Those forgotten passages

Which are the footsteps

Of the ghost;

Finding me waiting

A phantom,

Hopeful of harmony

Clive Robbie Grace Copyright ©

SUMMER DAYS IN A SECRET GARDEN

SUMMER DAYS IN A SECRET GARDEN

Through those few summer weeks, It was to become a place to enjoy and love. Each time I was allowed to go next door, I’ am sure my heart was singing. I would feel the weariness disappear for a while, and I felt really at peace and very comfortable. The garden was a real delight. The lawn was a lush bright green with a wide border on three sides absolutely filled with flowers, roses and small shrubs bright blue lupins and tall red hollyhocks and the wonderful favourite white daisies that my mother loved, There were so many flowers I had never seen before. There was a small vegetable garden on the furthest side of my house. The large cherry tree was in one corner at the bottom with lots of it,s branches hanging over the wall into the derelict garden where I lived. It really was the prettiest garden I had ever seen, and even now after so many years, I remember every part of it. I would love to help weed the flower beds, but my favourite job was to pick the flowers for the kitchen table. I could choose any flowers and loved to add a few sprigs of thyme or rosemary or even mint.
But of course, seasons change and it wasn’t long before the weather began to get cooler. And the cherry tree leaves turned rusty red and gold. What a great time Mrs Hayden and we gathered the leaves as they fell, cutting back the perennials and getting everywhere ready for winter. Mr Hayden would burn all the cut off bits from the flowers and shrubs in a large round metal barrel. I did wonder what would happen when the really cold winter weather came? But that is another happy memory story for another blog page.
It was in the early spring the following year and a bitterly cold day when I went to visit number twenty. Mrs Hayden hurried me out to the garden before I had time to take my coat and outside shoes off. She put on her little over shoes. Out we went to the garden, there was still snow everywhere from the last fall a few days before. Mrs Hayden garbed my hand and walked me over to the flower bed in a more sheathed part and pointed to the ground, there they were the very first snowdrops poking up through the snow. After all these years when I think of that moment, my heart is moved and tears prickle my eyes, as they did on that winter’s afternoon.
In the weeks to follow the weather slowly warmed and the yellow and purple crocuses came out, and the tall King Alfred daffodils, and of course my all time favourite the sweet violets. As if by magic the white cherry tree blossom slowly came along, and every day there was more blossom on the tree, It really was a magnificent sight to see and stayed just for what seemed like a  small moment , until the breeze came along and it was soon gone. It was a truly wondrous garden, and when my days seem to have a tint of grey I can be there anytime I like. Always keep special memories, close to your heart for those memories are what make us the people we are.

A CHILDHOOD MEMORY THE SECRET GARDEN AT LANGLEY STREET

A CHILDHOOD MEMORY

THE SECRET GARDEN AT LANGLEY STREET

I must have been not long before my tenth birthday when mum, dad and I moved into the top flat at number eighteen Langley-street, Luton Bedfordshire UK. By this time my father was most unwell. He had been a coal miner, and like so many men who worked down the pits, coal dust had damaged his lungs. Dad’s cough was getting much worsted by now and even the simplest activity made him very breathless. I had to help with so much more. Now doing most of the cleaning and shopping. I did not know that this was to be my father’s last home, so one just got on with what had to be done. But there was a sadness about his person that I felt greatly. My small bedroom was at the back of the flat. I would stand on a chair and look out of the window. When I looked to the left I could see the stables of the old Phoenix Brewery. I could sometimes see the men getting the huge shire horses ready for their work day harnessing them together to pull the heavy carts.

But when I leant over a bit to look towards the right side of the window I could see over the high red brick wall a part of the garden at number twenty Langley street. At this time of the year, the cherry tree was in full leaf, a lovely deep green so I couldn’t see very much apart from a few other biggish shrubs and a patch of lawn. So that was how I first came to think of it as the secret garden.

At number eighteen there was no garden at all, just a path down the middle and several washing lines. To the left, half way down grew a very tall pear tree, the variety of pear was called Red Robin, you could only eat them if they were stewed, very yummy with custard. If I climbed up the pear-tree I could see a little more of the secret garden. I would wonder what it was like. Was it all vegetables, or were there some flowers?

I missed our old garden, where my dear father grew all kind of vegetables, herbs and a few flowers.

I don’t know how it all came about, but our new neighbours Mr and Mrs Hayden must have seen me playing, or going back and fore from school or even shopping. So it was a wonderful surprise to be invited to see the garden behind the brick wall.

Oh, what sheer delight, looking out from their kitchen door. There was the whole garden all at once. The secret garden was beautiful and I loved it.

THE JOY OF WORDS

THE JOY OF WORDS

There was a time when I was in my late teens and had been ill for some time. While I was recovering, Harry would sit by my bedside and read the stories and poetry of the American writer Edgar Allen Poe. As a small child, I can remember my father reading to me, tales of far away places, magical people and great explorers. Even then as a child I loved to be read to. Harry’s choice was very different. Very scary stories about ticking clocks and hearts, ghost stories set in churchyards and dusty crypts, murder mysteries and secret codes and hunting for treasure. I loved the scary stories. But it was the poetry that I fell in love with and that love has stayed with me always. My favourite by far was the Raven with its magical descriptive words in the opening verse; tapping, gently rapping at the chamber door and the thrilling line about the sad silken rustling of each purple curtain in this very long poem. I thought these lines were wonderful and as I got older and slowly started to read, it is the memory of sitting hearing my father reading aloud while I sat on the arm of the comfortable armchair and the moments with Harry and the dark and deep words of Edger Allen Poe that have really stayed with me. I have read that poem many times over the years and still love it dearly.