A Strange Cloud, and farewell to The Harvester

We were just driving off to Rustington about 10 on Thursday morning (to do our fruit and veg shop) when I happened to look back. "That's a strange looking cloud", I said to Col, who at the time wasn't interested. I never connected it with the two emergency vehicles I had heard screaming along earlier. But on the way back we saw a great plume of smoke rising up alarmingly close to home.  I had seen the first plume like an odd grey storm cloud in an otherwise clear sky, then driving back we saw what it was! Something was on fire - something big.

For a moment  (spoiler alert) I felt a bit like the nameless wife in Rebecca, during the early morning drive back to Manderley that ends the book - the one where they see the red glow on the horizon, although it is not quite time for sunrise.

That is one of the great fiction moments.

It was not our flats.  The massive Harvester pub was on fire - ablaze in fact.  Nobody, thank God, was hurt.  We were told to keep our windows shut, but the smoke was not blowing our way, so I was able to sit out on the balcony with my studying.

The Maui wildfires in Hawaii were raging at the same time - devastating the city and killing at least 67, but that total will almost certainly rise.  How do you deal with fire on that scale?  We - the damaged children of disobedient Adam - are living in such a tragedy.  We need the King, the ruler, who can control the natural elements, who can prevent all these tragedies.  We need him urgently. Which is why we pray for God's Kingdom to come and for God's will to be done here on the earth. 

The photo is of an appropriately fiery sunrise.

I have been talking to Linda, via email, and she says she may be able to pop over and see us when she has a day off. It would be great to catch up. We go back a long way and have not seen each other for ages.  We were together on Planet Expat many years ago.

Lifeguards

We chose another of Col's beach shots for our August calendar - see above.  Our beach is probably as safe as a beach can be, being so shallow. If you want to swim when the tide is out you pretty much have to wade halfway to France.

And there is another difference between childhood and second childhood. No more swimming or paddling in the sea, alas.  As I have Knew Knees, I cannot get myself up if I fall and therefore I could drown in just a few inches of water.

Nevertheless, the sea is always dangerous even for the young and fit, and we do have the river mouth, with fearsome currents as the tides come and go.  I love to watch it from the little pier.  And so we need, and have, lifeguards.  Surely a truly worthwhile job - for the young.

Monday was sunny, Tuesday was grey and overcast. They say that the big heat is coming back, which I know is what most people would want, so I am trying not to selfishly wish it away. On Tuesday I made a rhubarb crumble.  I turned out well - though I only risked a spoonful (diabetes).  It is nearly on the same level as The Fat Cat crumble, which is my standard of crumble greatness, being even better than my mother's.

And now, on Wednesday, my Zoom session day, it is starting out sunny. Col is on the balcony - on a stepladder (at his age!) - photographing the moths on the wall.  We have had a couple of new moths recently - well, new to our balcony, that is.  And we have a lovely Brimstone today.

The one new to science has not turned up yet, for us to name it - so the "Singing Susan" (just to pluck a name out of the air) - remains undiscovered.  It will of course, be a stunningly beautiful moth.  Though actually they all are, all exquisitely made, all exquisitely designed by Jehovah, the Grand Creator. 

The world sadly is determined we should neither praise nor thank Him for it, and it is promoting the theory of Evolution as hard as it can. Yet the truth of Genesis will remain, when all theories are long gone. 

 Listen! Someone is saying: “Call out!”

Another asks: “What should I call out?”

“All flesh is green grass.

All their loyal love is like the blossom of the field.

       The green grass dries up,

The blossom withers,

Because the breath of Jehovah blows upon it.

Surely the people are but green grass.

The green grass dries up,

The blossom withers,

But the word of our God endures forever.”

-

- Isaiah 40:6-8

 The word of our God endures forever.

The Singing Sands

I finished Josephine Tey's The Singing Sands yesterday. So above is a picture of our own sands, which don't sing. and I guess if they did they would be drowned out by "the grating roar" (to quote Matthew Arnold) of the sea at high tide.

Reading it has given me a strange feeling. I am sure I read it when I was young, in my teens, but remember nothing about it beyond the little rhyme that sets the mystery:

The beasts that talk
The streams that stand
The stones that walk
The singing sand...

There are two missing lines, and the poem ends That guard the way to Paradise.

So once again I see a lament for the Garden of Eden.  But I think it gave me a strange feeling as reading it was like being transported back to my youth. It is so much of its time.  

Anyway, I want to quote from the book, as it is this mysterious poem about the way to paradise, found scribbled on a newspaper by a man who - apparently - has died in an accident, that sets our sleuth on the trail, which takes him to Scotland, with its mythical paradise Tir nan Og. And the author, who was Scottish, has this to say about the paradise of the Gaels:

Looking out for Tir nan Og. Which as Mr. Grant might know, was the Gaelic heaven.  The land of the eternally young. It was interesting, wasn't it how each people evolved their own idea of Heaven?  One as a feast of lovely women, one of forgetfulness, one as continuous music and no work, one a good hunting grounds. The Gaels, Mr. Tallisker thought had the loveliest idea. The land of youth.

Two things strike me there.  Firstly that people confuse heaven and paradise, which it is important to know are, according to the Bible, two different places.  Our first parents lived in paradise, in the Garden of Eden, and the wonderful prospect put before them was turning the whole earth into a paradise and living forever upon it.

Heaven is where God and the angels are, and of course, those who are the saints - the holy ones. The hope for most of us is to live forever in paradise, right here on the earth.

But I love the idea of "the land of youth".  Yes, that  would be paradise, as we were never meant to get sick and wither away and die, as we do now.

That would have meant nothing to me the first time I read it - not only was I very young, but I had no idea about where or what paradise was back then.  So that was a whole new aspect of it.

And also I saw a very different way it could have ended.  So could I work that ending into a book of my own?  

My energy has gone out like the tide, only with no prospect of its coming back in this side of Armageddon.  And whether I will be there the other side remains to be seen.  As Jesus himself said:  But the one who has endured to the end will be saved.

And after Armageddon, in the paradise earth, if we do write fiction, we will have new stories, ones we cannot even imagine now.  At the moment it seems our only plot is the one we are living in: Things have gone wrong, they need to be put right.

IF I do manage to write it, I wonder if  I could call it The Singing Susan? If I did though, the Captain would probably point out that the Singing would have to be in inverted commas.

Mine is the kind of singing best drowned out by a loud and pebbly tide. 

Childhood and Second Childhood

Having spent a week with the little girls, it got me thinking about my own childhood - from the vantage point of my second childhood. Here we are in our serried convent school ranks. I am at the end of the middle row, left side. Of the two little girls next to me, one grew up to be stunningly, model-style, beautiful, but is, alas, like so many of my contemporaries, no longer here. The other is now a grandma and a New Zealander.

It is a vanished world.  But how quickly our lives go by. What was it Thomas Hardy wrote:  A dolt is he who memorises, lessons that leave no time for prizes.

And yes, it took me nearly forty before I began to understand why we are here and what is happening, and I am still learning.  So just as I began to know what I want to be when I grow up (the question "grown ups" always asked) I found I was drawing my old age pension and no longer even able to hop on a bus. Or to hop, full stop.

But now I hope to go on learning forever. learning Jehovah's way of course, which is a pleasure. And always something to be looked forward to.  I add that because surely I cannot be the only person who spent a fair amount of their childhood in dread of school?

This second childhood is weird. But then was it ever meant to happen to us this way, with this painful, bewildering decline?  The first chapters of Genesis tells us that we were originally made to last forever, not just for the few decades we do now.

August has got off to a rainy and stormy start.  Wednesday was, as ever, my Zoom day - one friend in the morning, one in the afternoon - 2 zoom sessions each time.  And poor Col had a dental check up, then shopped afterwards.  He came back with cooking apples, which means he would like a crumble.

Wednesday night was his Detectorist Meeting. The FLO was there - Finds Liaison Officer to us civilians.  I usually get to see her once or twice a year when she comes to the local museum and I am deputised to take the club finds up to her - the ones that are reportable.

It is a regulated process, with finds being logged, and so a picture of history is continually being built up.

Today I have a couple of cooking jobs on hand - making a carrot cake and an apple crumble.  Plus finishing my studying for the meeting tonight. And such is my feeble state that will completely wipe me out I fear.

A big difference of course between first and second childhood is that in the first you are bursting with energy, and the adults around you tend to wish you had rather less. Then, when you grow up and really need that energy, where is it?  Gone, gone with the wind... oh and talking of digestive matters... but, no, I won't.

That surely comes under the heading: Too much information.

Rescuing Bruce

I watched a bit of The Secret Life of the Zoo on Sunday afternoon, and was very impressed by the way the keeper rescued Bruce the Praying Mantis from his dangerous lady with a pair of tweezers. They had been - well - courting for about 24 hours non-stop, and now that it was over he was perched on her back, about to try to make his risky exit. That is when she would usually turn around and eat him.

As they said, he had given his all.  I'll say he had!  And the "all" would have included his life if it had not been for those tweezers.

The photo is of an Australian Mantis on Col's thumb. It must be a lad I think, as it is small - and Col remains uneaten.

My short story about a trip on a canal boat is sort of finished and sort of not. Its structure is all there, as is its beginning and its ending, but it still needs quite a bit of writing.  It is the sort of story where nothing happens, so I have to make nothing something. If you see what I mean.

I had been thinking of attempting something scary on the lines of Elizabeth Jane Howard's masterly Three Miles Up.  But Bea said she would like something more light-hearted.

So there was my challenge.

The Captain and I had a walk on Friday afternoon - to the Doctor's, to deliver my BP results, and buy some paracetamol - a kind of classic Walk for the Elderly I guess.  And we walked back through Lobbs Wood. Don't let me stray off the path!" I said, clinging to Col's arm as we walked the 10 paces to the next pavement.  I think I may have watched too many of those videos about disappearances in National Parks in America - I know what happens if you stray off the track. 

Saturday was sunny - and the Captain came home bearing treasure.  A gold ring - not especially old, but definitely gold - hallmarked. 

The month of August is racing towards us at the speed of light, and soon I will be able to feel Autumn (my favourite season) in the air.  It must have been the wettest July on record here, but given the horror of the fires in Southern Europe, I am not complaining.  

And we woke up this morning to wind and rain and waves on the Channel. It is wonderfully stormy. The valiant dogwalkers are out on the Green, as I type.

An Art-Deco Propelling Pencil

On Monday morning this amazing fellow, or indeed lady - or I must hastily add, of whatever pronoun it currently prefers - was in the funnel of the moth hotel.  I couldn't see any details, but through Col's camera  I saw the exquisite detail - the artistry. He/she/it/they reminded me of one of those art-deco propelling pencils that usually sell well on Bargain Hunt.  Its actually called a Yarrow Conch, and it is so tiny.

Which does go to show that, as Solomon said, there is, truly, "nothing new under the sun".    Our inspirations our inventions come from and are inspired by the creation around us.  And it seems endlessly inspiring. I know that after more than seventy years here, I do not want to leave this lovely planet.

And there will be new things right here on the earth... things we cannot yet even dream of I guess. And how will they inspire us?

I hope we will all be there, in the restored earthly paradise to find out.   I know I do keep talking about this, but what is more important?  And I am very conscious that my time to tell people about it personally is running out.  There can only be a few grains left in the hourglass now.

Anyway, the little girls had a fun day on Tuesday - the sea in the morning, the funfair in the afternoon, and a stop off with their great aunt and uncle, during which we played a couple of rounds of consequences.  Wednesday was sunny and they had a morning of Clock Golf on the sea front, with their valiant granny and great-uncle joining them. I am pacing myself as my left foot and ankle are still very swollen and I do not want to push myself into a severe flare-up.  But we, Col, Nute and me did go to beautiful Highdown Gardens in the afternoon and had a short walk. There were butterflies galore and Col got a photo of a Hummingbird Hawkmoth. The flowers were wonderful and the air was full of scent. 

And they treated us to an evening meal at the Arun View on Wednesday night - a rare treat for us. I had forgotten how glamorous the evening staff are there - and so patient and friendly with the children (and with those of us going through our second childhood).

It rainstormed through evening and night and was still stormy on Thursday morning - which did not stop Captain B from leaving at the crack of dawn with a metal detector at every corner.  We played a lot of games of consequences with the girls, and we had lunch together, and later a fish and chip supper with Captain B joining us.

I think the little ones have had a great week - that was the aim of the exercise.   

The Door in the Wall

The above moth is a Brown Tail, which seems an odd choice of name, given it has a wonderful white fur ruff, rather than a brown tail.  We have had quite a few of them on the balcony so far.

The little girls (plus parents) arrived on Saturday afternoon, an afternoon of wind and rain and a storm on the Channel. They were so disappointed and stood at our window looking longingly at the beach.

The littlest one quickly recovered and colonised Captain Butterfly for an hour or so of computer games while we chatted over tea and cakes.

We woke up Sunday to more rain - and more news of people in such trouble on Rhodes, fleeing from wildfires in scorching heat.  We do need a government that can even this out - not too much rain, just enough; not too much heat, just enough. So that government can only be the heavenly one, the Kingdom of God.

I am re-reading H.G.Well's short stories, and had forgotten about The Door in the Wall.  Only surely that expresses a longing for our lost paradise, Eden? And yet H.G.Wells was not a believer at all.  I think it would be fair to say that he was basically atheistic.

But he did come to realise how short our lives are, and to lament it.  I have published this quote in my blog before, but it seems well worth repeating:

When he (Wells) was seventy years old, Literary London gathered together to celebrate, and he made a speech in which after thanking everyone for coming, he said:  "Yet all the time I will confess that the mellow brightness of this occasion is not without a shadow. I hate being seventy.... Tonight I am very much in the position of a little boy at a lovely party, who has been given quite a lot of jolly toys and who has spread his play about the floor.  Then comes his nurse, "Now Master Bertie," she says, "it's getting late. Time you began to put away your toys."  I don't in the least want to put away my toys..."

From Michael Coren's biography of H.G.Wells: "The Invisible Man  The Life and Liberties of H.G.Wells". 

I am - well - over seventy - well over seventy in fact, and find life more and more interesting every day that passes, as Wells clearly did. Isn't that just what we would and should be feeling if, as Genesis tells us, we were originally made to live forever on this wonderful planet?

My foot is still painful - whinge whinge - and I don't feel right. But how right can we expect to feel in our late seventies, damaged children of Adam that we are?  I don't know, as I have never been here before. 

Anyway, my heart sank to find Sunday morning grey and rainy too. Not on my behalf, as its the sort of weather I love - I can safely admit this here as my blog has a very small readership.  I realise that most people want sunshine all day and every day.

But it was very much not the sort of weather the girls and their parents wanted on their sea-side holiday. However - by breakfast time it was sunny and much calmer and remained so. What a relief.  As I am writing this blog, early on Monday morning, I am looking out on a cloudy sky. But the sea is still, and it  could well clear up and turn into a sunny seaside day.

Nute arrived Monday afternoon and we had a fish and chip supper together - little girls included.  Plus a fresh fruit salad and ice-cream. It is the first time we have entertained since lockdown I think, at least on that scale.

And I have my dining table back!  Col cleared it and polished it, which was a good thing as there were seven of us.