Pentimento.

If asked: Should he have the opportunity
to live his life over again,
what would he paint over,
what would he change?

He'd say: Nothing.
Despite the pain, the hardship, the mistakes.
Nothing,
that life brought me here
to what and where I am now.

Grateful for the memories
content and at peace with my demons.

The ripening of the pods.

It was a glorious day, one redolent of impossible childhood memories. I took the old dog for a mutually laboured stroll on the heath, each of us wheezing, lungs rattling, ebb tide on shingle.

We stopped to rest on a well remembered bench, not one of the popular seats on the hill frequented by  crowds but a shaded seat on the path to Ken wood beside a strand of enormous beeches with their elephant skin bark, pock marked with the initials of generations of lovers, the ground felted with a thick layer of beech-mast. A majestic stand of trees, one of nature's cathedrals.

As the old dog panted in the shade of the bench a man a little older than myself approached and seated himself. We traded good-days. He placed a blue and white canvas bag at his feet then opened it, removed a Tupperware box.

Opening the box he proffered it  and said: 'Have a broad bean'.

The beans were peeled and coated in mint sauce. I told him thank you, took one and added: 'I can only eat them peeled'.

'Me also'. He said with a sigh. I sensed that there was more he wished to tell me so I presented the opportunity by saying: 'Go on'.

He looked at me, smiled then started his tale:

'In my youth my parents and I lived on a farm in Kent, an idyllic place, surrounded by oast-houses strawberry fields, cherry orchards and hop gardens. In a cottage beside the un-metalled lane to the village lived the farm manager, his wife and their daughter Tilly. Tilly was tall, as tall as I and had a jumble of perpetually errant golden hair. We became good friends, we went to the little primary school in the village and walked there together daily. We explored the surrounding countryside, sometimes walking miles, chattering away. I spent a good deal of time at her home, in the kitchen with Tilly and her parents or in the vegetable garden.

One summer, quite early in our friendship, she offered me some broad beans, the first of the season. She was sitting, podding them at the kitchen table. I told her, rather precociously, trying too hard to impress, that I could only eat broad beans that had been peeled by a virgin princess.  She laughed, her parents eyebrows raised, then soon handed me a small bowl of peeled broad beans. She added a dollop of mint sauce.

This became something of a ritual each summer upon the ripening of the pods. My virginal peeler of beans. My accomplice in dreams.

Years passed, we moved on to different secondary schools but remained close friends. Met daily.

Just before my fifteenth birth day tragedy struck.

Tilly's mother was diagnosed with a tumour. It was savage, voracious and quick. She died three months later and everything changed.

Tilly's father became withdrawn and unwelcoming, his clothes dirty, he smelled of whisky and tobacco. He didn't actually chase me away but Tilly and I chose to meet elsewhere. In the barn when it rained; the beech hanger behind my house or her garden in good weather where she would innocently, knowingly, peel me broad beans. She changed too, less talkative, less unbridled. Sadness crept in.

The following summer we sat in the garden podding broad beans. She said my name, I looked up, she told me in a foreign voice and with full eyes  that she could no longer peel my broad beans. She ran then, ran into the house and I walked the quarter mile home. Telling myself I was confused but I was not confused, just sad, angry and disappointed. I did not see Tilly again.

A few days later a rumour spread through the village quicker than the tumour that took Tilly's mother. Tilly and her father had done a moonlight flit. I went to the cottage, it was empty. The owner of the farm called in at our house to ask if we had seen them. Apparently they had left one night, left most of their belongings. Had vanished. No forwarding address. Someone from social services visited to ask if we knew where they had gone.

Since then I have had to live with my guilt. I knew what was going on but said nothing, did nothing. I was afraid of the grown up enormity of it all. I should have told someone, anyone, or confronted him, done something.

I have trawled telephone directories ever since.

All I have of her are memories of broad beans'. He pointed at the beeches. 'They remind me of those days'.


He proffered the Tupperware box again, I took one, then he closed it, placed it back in his bag, stood up, doffed his hat. We said goodbyes.

After a few steps he turned, stood for a moment as if deep in thought, then said:

'I should have killed him you know'.

Turned and walked away..

Coronavirus nonsense for children of all ages.

Ware Container

Ice cream for breakfast

porridge for luncheon

elevenses in the afternoon

all day sprinkles to munch on.

Fruit soup for dinner

more ice cream for supper

sherbet for a late night snack

I keep it in a tupper

ware container.

Garden lament.

.

The bugs have eaten the cherries
the birds have eaten the bugs
the cats have eaten the birds
but nothing is eating the slugs
damn things
nothing is eating the slugs.

Gonna catch them at midnight
catch them in a beer filled trench
gonna force them into empty snail shells
and sell them on to the French
damn things
I'll sell them on to the French.

They will cook them with garlic and parsley
add some dry breadcrumbs for a crunch
for a tasty Parisienne hors d'oeuvres
or a chic low calorie lunch
damn things
a chic low calorie lunch.

My true love is eating the cherries
As we indulge in Parisienne honeymoon hugs
She's just ordered a plate of escargot
but I know the fuckers are slugs
damn things
I know the fuckers are slugs..

All the ships that pass have black sails..

Isolated in exile I am my own Napoleon
but longing for no Josephine
and confusing my Arras with my Elba as
waiting and watching The Empire Strikes Back ad nauseam
talking loudly to myself, reducing this island's population of donkeys
to sad creatures dragging themselves along
by their front legs.

All the ships that pass have black sails.

I turn my eyes inward
scan that horizon
whilst indulging in fantastic orgies with hope, faith and patience.

London nature note

Dawn. Pigeons are everywhere, no longer fed by tourists in Trafalgar square and elsewhere and, no longer able to find the detritus of streetfood, they are having to revert to medieval practices; they have eaten the unripe cherries and figs, they congregate like extras in a Hitchcock film waiting for Tippi Hedren to pass by. Blue tits visit the bird feeder I have put in an olive tree outside on the street, unthinkable 3 months ago. The parakeets no longer fly en mass overhead at dawn and dusk, again no tourists to feed them in parks and squares.Morning coffee outside is serenaded by birdsong. No traffic noises, no planes, and then churchbells taking my mind back to Rupert Brooke and Grantchester and his sentimental cynicism.. Eerie if I did not know why.Foxes are around as ever, having to work harder for food. I leave them scraps at night which are always gone in the morning. I hear their barking often. There are reports though of cubs dying due to lack of food.Magpies are taking advantage of the crisis. They stalk the mews here for pigeon eggs and chicks, the pigeons are nesting in places that they would not dream of in normal times and being less cautious.

We have a proper dawn chorus reminiscent of my childhood. It wakens in me the idea of thinking of my mother in long past gardens where the sun always shone, no-one had coronavirus and there was always honey for tea.

Heaven in a handcart. Thinking of Thomas Hardy and an as yet unmet travelling companion. work in progress.

I'm going to heaven in a handcart
I'm taking a piglet in a poke
gonna trade it with the mayor of Casterbridge
for his wife and a lime green mini-moke.

I'm going to heaven in a handcart
leaving worldly hell well in my wake
gonna sell my mini moke to the angels above
any blessing that they offer I will take

I'm going to heaven in a handcart
I'm waving to Lilith...... Lil  goodbye
gonna wrap my new companion in a handkerchief of love and
tell her when and try to explain why...

We are going to heaven in a handcart
the mayors discarded wife and me
both of us were victims in our own ways
both of us victors now we are free

both of us were victims in our own ways
both of us were victims that is sure
she was bullied by the mayor of Casterbridge
I was bullied by myself    but no more

We are going to heaven in a handcart
the road is long and goes on for evermore
because heaven is surely in our journey to come
and the handcart just a handy metaphor.

Sad bloke in the kitchen.No 5. Goldbait

                                       

















Donald Trump.


Get drunk.

Scoop goldfish from bowl

Dredge in flour. This can be messy, they kick.

deep fry.

Eat.

Sit back and plan the lies for the kids in the morning.

NB. Probably best to starve the fuckers for a day or two before you try this, less likely to be full of shit.

Sad bloke in the kitchen No: 4. Memories of scampi provencal.

When I was in my teens we would go often, as a family, to La Cantina di Capri; a restaurant in Oxford. Three memories of those visits remain: The wonderful Maitre D,  Campari & soda and Scampi Provencal. This is my lockdown take on the latter.



 Peel and dice finely one small onion. Chuck it in a shallow pan with some olive oil. Let it sweat at a low heat until softened and translucent, add a clove of garlic (bashed with a rock and finely chopped, garlic presses are a nightmare and take longer to clean than this takes to make) sweat it until you get an admission of guilt.

Open a bottle of white wine, no need to be up yourself: Wine, white, that'll do. Decide how much you want to drink then add the remaining half a glass to the pan. Crank up the heat and boil off the alcohol. (Top tip: put your face over the pan while doing this and you get a hit of evaporating 100% proof).

Turn heat down.

Peel a couple of ripe tomatoes. Easy to peel, just nick the skins with a sharp knife then drop into a bowl of boiling hot water for a minute. Remove from the water and they peel like a redhead's back in August. Remove the seeds and hard white bit in the middle and chop up. Add to pan. you might want a bit of sugar... Suit yourself.

Simmer for a moment, I like the freshness of almost uncooked tomatoes.

Season with salt and white pepper.

Add whatever seafood you have. Scampi is perfect, uncooked prawns are good, Lobster to die for and failing all of those Monkfish tail diced works brilliantly. Works with cod and sticklebacks too. All I could get hold of today was big prawns.

Cook until the fish is cooked, no longer, seriously, overcooking ruins it.

Turn the heat off and add some chopped fresh oregano. Thyme will do at a pinch if you don't have oregano. Let's not be pedantic' or Pedante as our Italian friends would say.

Serve with plain boiled rice and Zucchini fritti (which is actually a piece of piss to make perfectly if you take your time. I'll write about it another time).

Open another bottle of wine.

Eat and drink.

Feed the Lert.


NB. I do not have time for quantities or temperature or exact times. I rely on the fact that you possess an instinct for what is needed.

Brown rice and Joy. A vegetarian fairy tale.

Brown rice and Joy. A vegetarian fairy tale.

Joy lived with her mum on the edge of the village. Joy was 13 and had a faint memory of a father who disappeared years before leaving her and her mum with a little cottage and a field of pigs.

Joy's mum tried to make a living as a pig farmer but it was difficult, most of the other villagers were vegetarians and didn't like pork and whenever her mum tried growing vegetables in the field the pigs ate them. Times were hard.

One day Joy's mum gave her the last of their money and asked her to go to the market to buy vegetables so that they could invite some neighbours round for supper.

On her way to the market Joy met a man leading a cow. The man with the cow asked her where she was going and when she informed him of her errand he said: 'Look no further young lady, I have just the thing for you.'

Come off it said Joy. If you think I am going to buy a few beans from you you are mistaken! The man with the cow explained that he had just traded his last few magic beans for the cow with a young lad called Jack but that he had the answer to all her problems.

He pulled from a sack a cage, in the cage was a small brown mouse.

I could spend an age describing the haggling that took place but you've heard it all before… Joy walked home with the mouse who she decided to name Regret.

Joy's mum was, of course, mightily pissed off and sent the girl to bed without supper… No hardship to Joy who was fed up with her daily intake of pork products.

The following morning Joy rose early and went down to her chores. she was surprised to find that all the pig scraps lying around the kitchen had been cleared up and that there was a pile of brown rice on the table. She scooped the rice into a bowl before going out to feed the pigs. The mouse slept in his cage in the corner.

When Joys mum arose she showed her the rice and declared that there was enough for a proper banquet for all their vegetarian friends.

The banquet of course was a success, a mound of steaming brown rice infused with herbs from the hedgerows and vegetables borrowed from neighbouring gardens had all of the guests singing its praises. The brown rice had a flavour previously unknown to them. It was magnificent. It was heaven.

By the end of the evening each of the guests has put in an order for brown rice which Joy's mum accepted while secretly wondering where it was going to come from. She need not have worried for the following morning there was a mound of brown rice waiting on the table.

Over the following weeks Joy and her mum discovered that the more pork they left in the kitchen the more brown rice appeared on the table the following day.

They made a lot of money from selling that brown rice to the village vegetarians and lived happily ever after apart from one small glitch when the inspector from the ministry of food tested the rice and declared it 98 percent pork and 2 percent mouse spit but by then it was too late, the village rabbi had already koshered it as fit for vegetarians.

And the mouse… Joy changed it's name from Regret to Regretta who lived long, fondly watching over her burgeoning family shitting on the kitchen table as it grew fat on pork products.

Exile, bananas and crysalides.

I left these bananas on my dining table 9 weeks ago before going into exile. Last night, on paying a hasty visit, I discovered that the bananas had flown leaving the desiccated husks of their crysalides behind.

Coronavirus musing. Intentional infection?

This may sound bizarre but I am absolutely serious. Due to my situation (high risk, shielded, total isolation blah blah) I could, like many others, be forced to self isolate for at least a year.

It occurs to me that it may become an option to intentionally catch the virus during any lull in Hospital occupancy and hope to survive it (40% chance I'm told) and achieve immunity.

Seems rather extreme but at the moment due to the lowered pollution and a rather better lifestyle/diet I'm feeling fitter than I have done for years and I'd rather catch the virus when in this condition than next winter during the flu season.

Just thinking aloud.

Shielded self isolation: A cell on death row.

To use Government speak, The 12 week self isolation period for those of us in the high risk category is quite frankly not fit for purpose.

In three weeks time my 12 weeks isolation ends. What then? Due to the floundering and dithering of the Government during the period of my lockdown nothing will have changed and I suspect that I will be advised  to self isolate for another 12 weeks and again and again ad infinitum. My feeling is that 12 months is a more realistic timescale and even then only a vaccine will make a return to any semblance of normality possible.

As far as I am concerned I can cope with this, at present I am in a friends wonderful house while she is stuck overseas, I can sit on the roof among the plants, I have kind neighbours and friends. When I go back to my own home in June things will be harder but I do have a balcony for getting some outdoors of a kind. More importantly I was an antisocial bugger before this all started and enjoy my own company. I also have sufficient IT to video chat with family and friends around the world.

I feel for those who are older and more unwell than myself or less used to isolation. To them this situation must be starting to feel like a cell on death row. Imagine the horror of contemplating a future that only comprises of isolation followed by death.



This is not acceptable.