The E.L.F. Book

     NOD  by Walter de la Mare

  Softly along the road of evening,
    In a twilight dim with rose,
  Wrinkled with age, and drenched with dew
    Old Nod, the shepherd, goes.

  His drowsy flock streams on before him,
    Their fleeces charged with gold,
  To where the sun's last beam leans low
    On Nod the shepherd's fold.

  The hedge is quick and green with briar,
    From their sand the conies creep;
  And all the birds that fly in heaven
    Flock singing home to sleep.

  His lambs outnumber a noon's roses,
    Yet, when night's shadows fall,
  His blind old sheep-dog, Slumber-soon,
    Misses not one of all.

  His are the quiet steeps of dreamland,
    The waters of no-more-pain,
  His ram's bell rings 'neath an arch of stars,
    "Rest, rest, and rest again."

https://allpoetry.com/poem/8494539-Nod-by-Walter-de-la-Mare

I loved this as a child.  And now of course I know about the aches and pains of old age.  And the poet himself rests in the dreamless sleep of death - hopefully with a wonderful awakening ahead of him.

This week the congregations worldwide started our new Bible study in the midweek meeting using the ENJOY LIFE FOREVER!  book -  E.L.F.  The perfect antidote to gloomy thoughts of how much longer I have got as things are now.  And perhaps what inspired me to begin with a de la Mare poem, as he is an elfin sort of poet.

This link will take you there, with all the very short videos included:

https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1102021201.

It begins this way:

"Nearly all of us have questions about life, suffering, death, and the future. We are also concerned about day-to-day matters, such as making a living or having a happy family. Many people find that the Bible not only helps them answer life’s big questions but also gives them practical advice for daily living. Do you think that the Bible can help anyone you know?"

Col's alarm clock went off at 4.30 on Thursday morning - so it was quite a long day.  I had a couple of telephone conversations with Pat, a friend from the Flower Estate and have posted her some of Col's postcards, and I have also sent another letter to a friend in hospital.

And I keep in touch with Jacks and Jean.  But we are all still isolating, apart from medical necessities.    And I am hoping for a quiet weekend.

The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower

We - the siblings and myself - had our usual Zoom session on Monday morning. The Captain Zooms with his siblings on Monday evenings.  As we both have a sibling who lives abroad, I hope this will continue even when (if?) Covid-wise things go back to normal.  As we chatted, we heard the work commence on the new roof Nute is having at the bungalow. Its going to be a stressful business, but is much needed.

As the lovely month of May rushes towards us, here is a Spring Haiku by the master of Haiku Matsuo Basho:

“Thanks for all”

Expressing my gratitude to blossoms

At the parting.

Apparently if blossom is not specified in a Haiku, it is always cherry blossom.   And yes, how beautiful the blossom is, and how quickly it goes.  And the pictures at the head of this blog are of some rather unusual blossom from the Foxglove tree.  The photos are the Captain's of course. There is a foxglove tree in the grounds of Arundel Castle (a place very well worth a visit).

And every flower is a miracle.  The poet, Dylan Thomas, spoke of "the force that through the green fuse drives the flower".   And that force is the spirit of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah, the Creator of this intricate and awe-inspiring universe, and this lovely planet Earth.

May and September are my two favourite months - and when I come to think about it, and as I may have mentioned in my blog before, it was in those two months that the beauty of the earthly creation spoke to me.  

It took me nearly 35 years though to follow up on the first intimation I had at the age of 5 when I sat in a smoke blackened paved and walled Sheffield garden in May, playing shop with a little friend, with the May blossom blooming and falling all around us. It shone on the black stone, and I suddenly felt full of happiness and wonder.

And then many years from my 5 year old self, when I was thinking and wondering about everything, the calm beauty of a September sky in Sheffield got through to me and told me, as clearly as if it had spoken, that there is a Creator. And that he made this so lovely, just for us. I have certainly spoken of that moment in my blog before.

https://www.masterpiece-of-japanese-culture.com/literatures-and-poems/haiku-poems-spring-examples-matsuo-basho

Painkiller Knights (Flare ups)

Do you see what I did there?  In my blog title?    Both us Knights were up in the early hours of Friday night taking painkillers. But I did not know we were both in trouble until Col's alarm clock went off - 4:a.m. by the way - and he asked me in a grim sort of voice where my extra strong painkillers were.

I don't know when the Captain got up to take his anti-imflammatory, but I was up at about 1.00 in the morning taking my own meds.  Just the usual.   I reserve my strong ones for the serious flare-up emergency - this was painful enough to wake me - right ankle and left arm (red, blistered and swollen) - but not enough to warrant a dose of the Fearsome One.  Col didn't take one in the end, but he took them with him just in case and he hobbled off quite cheerfully and very early to journey far into the lost kingdom of Hampshire - there (hopefully) to find treasure.  He was picking up Jim en route, so I have put an order in for more eggs  - which Jim grows.

And he got eggs - but no treasure.

In between Col waking me for painkillers and his leaving I managed to get back to sleep and treat myself to an anxiety dream. I was at a Zoom meeting and i had a part in the school. I spoke up, then stopped realising the elder in charge hadn't called on me yet. feeling embarrassed that I had spoken before I should have.  Then, when he did call on me, I realised that not only had I lost my script but I could not even remember the first thing about it, nor who my householder was. I was leafing frantically through the leaves of a glossy magazine, which seemed to be about interior design, and which, apparently, would also contain my script.  I couldn't find any such thing - not surprising really, and I became conscious that there would be a terrible silence as everyone waited for me to speak. I had to apologise and ask if the next part could go ahead while I found my script. And then I woke up as Col came in to say he was leaving for the Badlands of Hampshire, and realised there was no script to find.   Which was such a relief.

I started the day exhausted though, worn to a frazzle.  We both slept better last night - the pain woke me a couple of times, but I could always get back to sleep.

Col is not metal detecting this Sunday.  HE IS NOT METAL DETECTING THIS SUNDAY!   But he does have two rugby matches to watch this afternoon, so that is a consolation.

I have the Zoom meeting - public talk and study Watchtower. And I am hoping for some comforting teaching, as the pain is wearing me down.  The Biblical warning that, at the moment, "death rules as king over us", is looming rather large. So I need to remember that soon this imperfection and death will be no more.

Here is the promise, at Revelation 21:3,4:

• "With that I heard a loud voice from the throne say: “Look! The tent of God is with mankind, and he will reside with them, and they will be his people. And God himself will be with them. And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore.+ The former things have passed away.” 

Doesn't that promise encapsulate everything we could want, and everything that a loving Creator would want for us?

A Brimstone Visitor

One of my favourite balcony visitors, the Brimstone Moth, returned last night. Exquisite!  A perfection of delicacy and design.  Jehovah is the Grand Creator indeed.

Poor Captain B had a dental appointment on Tuesday. And my next bout of dental torture should start in May.   I have added a badly broken tooth to my worries, and will have to own up about it at the next visit.  

And this skin problem, caused by arthritis? the medicines I am having to take? something else altogether? (as Dermatology can't yet tell me) is bad at the moment. My arm is red and swollen and blistered.

Most of Tuesday, apart from my time at the morning field service meeting, was spent with various medical appointments.  It was half an hour plus on the phone to the doctors surgery to make an appointment for my blood test, and then I could not make it at the local surgery but at the next one along.

RERUN HYDRO MADLY MOIST were the Quordle answers on Tuesday - Col beat me, but we both got it.  

We - the Captain and myself - watched a great video presentation last night, about Evolution/Creation.  The website is:

https://wondersofcreationtours.com/

And I highly recommend its presentations.  After all, it is no small matter.  If the Bible account of our origins is true, then there is more happiness ahead for us, right here on the earth, than we can now imagine. So it is vital that we pay attention.

The presentation we saw really drew attention to the fact that the fossil record supports the Genesis account.  Which took me back many years to when I was conducting a Bible study with a young Chinese lady, a geologist.  She was brought up in Communist China, but the family had moved to Canada.  

So of course I asked her how and why she came to know there was a Creator, and he said, matter of factly: "It was when we studied the fossil record. Then I knew."

So the creation itself spoke to her, in a scientific context that she was confident about.  For me, it was the beauty of an Autumn afternoon sky in my Northern hometown that told me that there is a Creator and that he made this all so lovely, just for us. 

https://wondersofcreationtours.com/

Hand Luggage

I have been re-reading Hand Luggage - a quirky interesting anthology by John Bayley.  And I thought I would put a couple of the poems he has included in this blog.  The first sad and serious, the second clever and funny.

The first is A War by Randall Jarrell.  Its context is World War 2, and it is tragically topical.  The way he inverts the expression: "You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs" gives the familiar saying startling effect.  As John Bayley points out in his introduction to the poem, it is a brief glimpse of what aircrews went through in WW2.  The poet knew only too well what he was talking about as he was in the US Airforce at the time.

A WAR

by Randall Jarrell

There set out slowly, for a Different World.

At four, on winter mornings, different legs...

You can't break eggs without making an omelette

 - That's what they tell the eggs.

The "different legs" suggests to me how many young men were sacrificed to the gods of war - relays of them.  As they are being sacrificed to this day, and will be I guess until God's Kingdom is ruling over the earth.

The other poem I wanted to share is a gentle parody of Thomas Hardy (whose poems I love): 

A Luncheon (Thomas Hardy entertains the Prince of Wales)

by Max Beerbohm

Lift latch, step in, be welcome, Sir,
Albeit to see you I'm unglad
And your face is fraught with a deathly shyness
Bleaching what pink it may have had,
Come in, come in, Your Royal Highness.

Beautiful weather? — Sir, that's true,
Though the farmers are casting rueful looks
At tilth's and pasture's dearth of spryness. —
Yes, Sir, I've written several books. —
A little more chicken, Your Royal Highness?

Lift latch, step out, your car is there,
To bear you hence from this antient vale.
We are both of us aged by our strange brief nighness,
But each of us lives to tell the tale.
Farewell, farewell, Your Royal Highness.

https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/luncheon

As John Bayley says in his intro to the poem, Hardy would probably have appreciated it too.

Will I be able to meet and get to know the poets during the Thousand Years?  I hope so.  I know, from his poems, how much Hardy loved the beauty of the creation.  But from the same poems, I know he could never reconcile that beauty with all the cruelty and injustice.

He will have so much to learn when he wakes from his dreamless sleep - all of it wonderful.  We will all have wonderful things to learn then, if we are there.

It was a quiet weekend after the excitement of the C.O.Visit, the Memorial, and the sudden collapse of a friend.   Col metal detected - and has a couple of nice finds which will appear on his blog.  I attended both the Zoom meetings, and got some new territory. But I didn't do much at all in the way of witnessing, and hope to pick up speed again today.  I feel very very tired and am having quite a lot of lowish level arthritis pain.

The Memorial

I made the bread for the Memorial first thing, and it does look rather good, though I say it myself. If my Smartphone wasn't completely baffling me, there would be a picture of it heading this blog.

What also baffles me is what the News is calling Partygate. With all there is to be upset about in the world, whether or not some of our rulers went to a party during the Covid lockdown is not making it on to my list of Things To Be Upset About.  Though I realise that according to the Media it is supposed to.  What baffles me about it is why anyone would want to go to a party ever, let alone when they have Lockdown as the perfect excuse not to go.

We had an Early Grey Moth in the trap/hotel on Thursday morning.  I would quite like to find an Earl Grey Tea Moth staying overnight, if there is such a thing. However, I would not want a Fifty Shades of Grey Moth turning up.  We run a respectable hotel!

A very dramatic day yesterday due to an old friend suddenly becoming very ill indeed. But hopefully all is now sorted and she is safe in hospital.  I could do nothing but take her phone calls and let her talk. But the elders rallied round.

As we are now, in our damaged and dying condition, old age is a terrible thing.  Our lives are so short.  It is on us before we know it. My friend, in her nineties, has been saying recently how much she wants to stay around and see what happens next.  And I was really interested to read this in Poem for the Day, One, about Walter de la Mare.  He is a poet I have always loved. 

Under his poem Good-bye, this commentary appears:

"De la Mare approached death with great serenity. "My days are getting shorter," he told Joyce Grenfell. "But there is more and more magic. More than in all poetry. Everything is increasingly wonderful and beautiful.""

Yes.  That is true.  Everything, the whole creation, is so lovely and it seems to get more wonderful and precious the longer we live in it.

And it is because of the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, that millions of us will be memorialising this evening,  that one day, during the Thousand Years, Walter de la Mare will be awoken from the dreamless sleep of death, to see this lovely earth again.  

MY BIG ADVENTURE

This is the Captain and me at our wedding in 1973.  So we are coming up to our Fiftieth next year, if we make it.  We are wondering what to do about it... maybe, if I am equal to it, we could get together with the family in the North - if they are all equal to it.  Oh dear.  We never make a big thing of our anniversary usually, but somehow, a fiftieth, we probably ought.

Anyway we have a lovely evening ahead of us, at the Memorial on this Friday.  Hopefully we will survive till then - though, in the current system of things there are no guarantees.  We plan to join the Congregation in cyberspace, and will have the emblems, the bread and the wine beside us.  We will remember the sacrificial death that made a hope of living forever on this splendid planet possible. 

You are all invited to join us:  https://www.jw.org/en/  

And afterwards I plan to join himself in a glass of wine - my first this year - on the balcony if the weather is good.

The Big Adventure?  Well, hold on to your hats, fasten your seatbelts and have a Therapist on standby just in case. We had to drive to Bognor Regis Monday morning so I could have my next Covid booster.  It's a trek of 30 minutes through fields and suburban streets lined with blossom.  And how lovely early Spring is.  Anyway the intention was to drop me off at the Pharmacy, Col to go off and find somewhere to park, and then me to ring him on my Smartphone (my StillMuchSmarterThanMe phone) to come and pick me up when it was finished.

But neither the Satnav nor us could cope with the maze of one way streets and pedestrian-only roads that lay between us and our Pharmacy,  So we had to find a carpark and then hurtle along (puff, pant).  It was touch and go,  but thanks to some brilliant navigation by Himself I made it with a minute to spare.  So I was straight in and it was very quick. I was just drawing in breath to start wittering about how I hoped it was OK to have the jab as I had my fearsome injection only just yester... when, stab, I was vaxxed.

And of course marriage is a big adventure, never to be embarked on lightly.

The News from the Ukraine gets worse and worse and worse.  We woke up this morning to the headline that Russia unleashes chemical weapons on Mariupol.  It was a tabloid headline, so I don't know if he has or not.  But if so, then just how far is President Putin prepared to go?  What might he unleash next?  I hope that all my brothers and sisters there, and in Russia, will be able to celebrate the Memorial on Friday and take strength from the hope it gives us - the hope of the loving, perfect government, and the paradise earth that is so close now.  

On a minor note, I read somewhere on the internet that Will Smith - the actor who slapped the other actor at the Oscars - has been banned from attending an Oscar Ceremony for 10 years.  If true, isn't that rewarding bad behaviour?

The Flight of the Sparrow

This is a picture of my parents' wedding - which took place just after World War 2.  As you see, two of my uncles are still in their uniforms.  Its amazing they survived it.  One uncle fought Rommel in the desert, the other was with the Russian convoys, in great danger from submarine attack.  My granny is there.  And this is taken outside the back garden door of Nabbs Cottage. It had three doors: a front door into a tiled hall with big staircase - a door that nobody ever used (we used back doors in the North in those days) - the back door (never locked back then) - and the door into the garden which led onto the top lawn. That is where this photo was taken.

My father has only one person there - our Uncle Merry (Marion).  The remnants of his family and friends were cut off behind the Iron Curtain, and would remain so.  

I guess this photograph is of a world as ancient to the young of today as my great grandparents Victorian childhood was to me.  But it also tells me that the past is not as faraway as we think. It is just that our lives are so short now - just the flight of the sparrow.

But we were made to live forever on this beautiful planet.  And our Creator, Jehovah, is offering every one of us the opportunity to do so, through the ransom sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which will be memorialised next Friday after sunset.  You are so welcome to join us,  Details of how to do so,  to join us in cyberspace, from your own computer, are on the website JW.org.

And I hope so much that because of that sacrifice, those in this photograph have a wonderful awakening ahead of them, when the whole earth is at peace under the loving rule of God's Kingdom.  There will be no more need for military uniforms then - no more war!

It would be so lovely to see them again - if I am there.  They have been a long time gone.

This is also of course another opportunity to mention my book "Disraeli Hall" inspired by both the houses of my childhood:  Nabbs Cottage, and the house I call 5 Disraeli Crescent in the book.  Its a thriller, I hope - both frightening and funny (I also hope).

It is the Circuit Overseer's visit this week, and I plan to put a few points from his talks into my next blog.  I am feeling very tired and down, and I wasted one day of it by managing to lose one of my hearing aids - the one that I really need (my other ear is not very effective with or without its Aid).  I looked everywhere, including in all the washing that came out of the machine, for most of the day. 

 "Don't panic", said Captain B, from his field. "I will find it when I get home."

And he did. About 3 minutes after he arrived.  I must also add that I asked Jehovah to find it for me. And so he did.  What a precious gift from God a good husband is.

An Imperial Fish

This Imperial Angelfish is Col's calendar shot for April, taking us back to our expat years and our trips to the Maldives, with the Aramco Shoal.  Which is always a good excuse for me to mention my book "Waiting for Gordo", a lot of which I wrote under the shade of a palm tree, looking out over the Indian Ocean being inspired by the beauty around me.  And of course I was also inspired by that feeling of paradise lost, of "the original serpent " still being in the garden.

This kind gentleman at Divernet gave me a lovely review:

https://divernet.com/scuba-diving/waiting-for-gordo-by-sue-knight/

Captain B took me out for a drive on Tuesday.  We had planned to get some Nemesia for our balcony. It thrives there and fills the whole balcony with its vanilla scent.  But we found that our favourite garden centre is closed till mid April.  It wasn't a wasted half hour though as I got to see loads of Spring blossom, and the roundabouts full of daffodils and tulips - each flower a miracle.

April has started out very cold - and just at the time everybody's heating bills are rising dramatically.  I think the hot water bottle will be making a big comeback.  Assuming that is you can afford to heat up the water.

The first meeting back at the Kingdom Hall with the brothers juggling cameras and Zoom (about a third of us are still Zooming) went well, no glitches. And even the tiny brothers and sisters, born during the pandemic, and whose first unvirtual meeting it was, were as good as gold.

We had our Special Talk - WHERE CAN YOU FIND REAL HOPE? - in which the Speaker posed these three questions:

1. Why is there so much suffering?  (A question I always asked myself.)

2. What hope does the Bible give?

3. Why can we trust what the Bible says?

And he gave us the Biblical answers to all those questions - wonderful answers too.  You can find information about how to join a video presentation of this talk on our website:

https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/memorial/

It is our Circuit Overseer visit this week, so we will be getting a lot of extra support, in the spiritual sense.

And how much we need it, in the face of the horrendous news coming out of the Ukraine.  But the Memorial will remind us of the rescue that is so close now.  And, when the earth is being restored to the paradise of peace it was always meant to be, the dead will not be forgotten.  Those who died in circumstances of such horror have such a joyful awakening ahead of them.

Jehovah will not awake them from the dreamless sleep of death until the whole earth is at peace under the loving rule of the Kingdom of God.

The Return of the Moth Season

The Moths are returning to our balcony and to the Moth Trap hotel. The bedding (egg boxes) is freshly made up, and breakfast would be served if they would only let me know what they would like - full English? Fruit and yogurt?  The above photo is of a Clouded Drab, one of our guests on Tuesday night.

Clouded Drab seems an uninspiring name for such an exquisite and subtle creation.  I am trying to think of a better, more appropriate one - maybe it could be called the "Misty Morning Moth"?  Or should it have "Lace" somewhere in its name? 

There was snow in the North on the last day of March. As the old rhyme says: "The March wind doth blow, and we shall have snow, and what will poor Robin do then, poor thing."  So I hope all the birds sensed the coming cold and held back a bit courtship-wise.  The animal creation, so innocent in this disaster that has befallen us, the children of Adam, suffer so much from it, and cope so valiantly.

We, Jehovah's Witnesses, return to our meetings at the Kingdom Halls today. I don't think that I will be going until after my next vax though.  It seems that getting Covid is a bit like getting flu now. But, as the veteran of at least one pulmonary embolism, I am not keen on getting flu either.  We can still attend in Zoom.  And we will not yet be resuming the door to door preaching work. But we are all doing what we can to spread the good news of the Kingdom of God in other ways.  It is so urgent.  

Can you imagine how Noah and his family warned and warned and warned?  Even though, in the end, nobody listened seriously enough to actually get on the Ark.

Genesis speaks of the moment when the door to the Ark closed.  Genesis 7:16 says that after Noah, his family and all the animals entered the Ark, "Jehovah shut the door behind them".

I had a strange dream on Friday night. I was back at Dhahran airport  the old one, not the smart new one. I was flying back to the UK. And I found myself alone at the airport with no passport, no exit visa, no airline ticket and no mobile phone.  What could I do?  I found a Brit lady working there who said she would help, but as we wandered round the airport together, she didn't. I kept trying to think of ways I could get back to Col in our expat town, with no money for a taxi. And no phone to call him with.  Then the oddness of it all began to get through to me. After all it is many many years since I was at Dhahran old airport...

And suddenly I asked myself "Could I be dreaming?"  I looked round, everything seemed solid and it made sense (it didn't of course but it seemed to).  So I asked the lady who said she would help but wasn't helping: "Are you just a dream?"  Of course not she said and clasped my hand.  It felt warm and solid. Then I had a brainwave. And I looked right into her face. It was a rag doll's face, with plain black buttons for eyes. So I knew I was dreaming after all - and I woke up on the instant with a wonderful sense of relief to find myself safe at home in my own bed, not stranded in some airport, miles from home.

It has made me think of the relief of finding ourselves in the Paradise earth, after the nightmare of this current system of things has gone for good.  I hope we will all be there.