Just Visiting

Outside it is cold with a bitter wind and the rain is pattering against the windows. Time to snuggle into a deep comfortable chair by the fire and go on a literary visit.  Who shall I call on tonight?  Ah yes, the Dashwoods.  I haven’t been to see them for quite a while.  I’ll just take a seat in the sitting room of their little cottage and listen to Mrs. Dashwood and Elinor chatting about a likely visit from Edward.  Marianne is playing the piano softly in the background and no doubt dreaming of that dastardly Willoughby.  I expect Sir John and Mrs. Jennings, his garrulous mother-in-law, will call.  Sir John with his naïve kindness has won my heart and unlike Marianne I don’t mind what she called his lack of culture and polished manners. I like Mrs. Jennings, even if she and Sir John can be annoying with their silly banter about beaux.  When Marianne was so ill, she really came up trumps and almost supplied the place of a mother.  I’d like to see Colonel Brandon pop in too, although all his attention will be on Marianne.  His conversation is always interesting.  I’ll sneak away before he tells Elinor his sad history.

Where shall I go next?  Emma Woodhouse is always welcoming and Knightley is as entertaining as Colonel Brandon.  I’ll have to resist taking a basin of that “thin but not too thin” gruel with Mr. Woodhouse while I’m listening to the preparations for the ball at The Crown.  I hope to meet Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill and I mustn’t miss that happy couple, Mr. and Mrs. Weston.  It will be a fun evening and not even the presence of the vicar, Mr. Elton and his pushy wife can spoil it. I’ll just smile politely when Mrs. Elton goes on about her sister’s prospective visit in the barouche-landau.

When I’ve left Highbury and the oh-so-happy Miss Bates, I’ll pop in to see Elizabeth Bennett and her family.  Her father will be in the library and will no doubt have some droll remark to make.  He is one of my all time favourites! I’ll be at Rosings to hear Darcy’s proposal to Elizabeth and her spirited refusal and then smile over her embarrassment at meeting him again unexpectedly at Pemberley.  And I mustn’t miss the scene with Mr. Bennett when Elizabeth tells him she wishes to accept Darcy.  I’ll stay in the library long enough to listen in to Elizabeth defending him against her father’s disapproval before sneaking upstairs to partake of her mother’s raptures at having a daughter well married.  Maybe I’ll look in on Jane and Bingley but I doubt I’ll visit the Wickhams. 

On another night, I’ll slip across the Atlantic and take a peek at Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy round their worktable and hope that Laurie Lawrence will drop by.  I might even go with Meg to the ball where she is so admired but so unhappy, or perhaps I’ll attend Jo when she goes to have her beautiful hair cut.  I’ll cry over all their trials and little heartaches until their father comes home from the war and then I can bid them a fond farewell as they sit round the fire, united in tenderness.

While I am on this side of the Atlantic I’ll take a trip out West and drop in on the Denmeades.  The last part of the journey there has to be taken on horseback. I can almost taste the scent of pine and wild sumach as we ride through those deep woods.  There will be a warm welcome at the homestead even if those hounds start barking.  If all the family is at home it will be pretty crowded round the table for supper. Mrs. Denmeade and Ally will fix something wholesome for us all to eat and we might get some of Ed’s wild bee honey. I’d like to be able to stay in that tent the Denmeade boys fixed up for Lucy and her sister.  It’s so cosy there in winter with the wood burning stove.  Before we retire for the night I’ll stand beside Lucy at the cabin door as she pays her respects to the towering red Rimrock and the stars glistening in the frosty sky above it. 

On very cold nights I’ll follow Mole, when bored with his sleepy companion, he heads off to the forbidden Wild Wood.  I’ll keep a respectful distance as he gets deeper and deeper into danger.   I can hear the scuttling of other frightened animals and then the Terror of the Wild Wood, the dreaded pattering and whistling.  I’ll drop down beside Mole in the hollow of that old beech tree and hope they, whoever they are, do not find us. What a relief when Rat comes to the rescue and we discover the door to Badger’s dwelling.  I’m a child again as I revel in the feeling of comfort and security in Badger’s underground home.  I love those down-at-heel slippers of his and his cosy living room and the little hedgehogs having breakfast in the morning.

Yes, I’ve read these stories over and over again.  Old books are like old friends, friends with whom you can slip off your shoes and stretch out by the fire.  Friends who know you through and through and still like you!  Friends to whom you’ve told your stories time and again but who still listen patiently.  Friends who have told their stories to you over and over again.  That is the lure of the literary journey, a journey to be taken at any time, but especially on cold nights in the winter when it brings back that feeling of warm security of childhood.

In order of appearance: 

Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Pride and Prejudice, all by Jane Austen,  

Little Women by Lousia May Alcott,

Under the Tonto Rim by Zane Grey and

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham

Country Life

I'm house- and dog-sitting this week in the heart of the country.  I can't quite get a quote from Sydney Smith out of my head:  I look upon it (the country) as a healthy grave.  Smith was an Anglican cleric, a writer and philosopher, so perhaps his words should have some weight with us town-dwellers.  I might not go to the extremes of calling my current abode a healthy grave but I come close to it at times.

At any rate, here I am, miles from anywhere.  I should of course be drinking in the pure mountain air, revelling in the quietness, glorifying in the early morning birdsong.  The reality is that I feel a bit like Robinson Crusoe.  A sighting of the postman nearly makes my day.  Going shopping for bread and milk in the nearest village has a heady feel to it. And when an attentive neighbour drops by to check that all is well, I feel as if I've been invited to a party. 

On the plus side, I go walking with the dog every day.  He and I know every sheep, every cow and every mucky puddle within a three-mile radius.  I am getting fit and healthy and eat like a horse.

The dog is great company, he watches my every move and barks at the slightest noise which sets my nerves screaming in fright in case he's spotted an intruder.  And another thing.  When night falls in the country, it does so with a thump.  In other words, outside the windows it is pitch-black, the only other glimmer of light being from the houses far away across the lonely valley.

I should admit here that I was born in the country but I've lived in cities and towns for all of my adult life and am almost ashamed to admit that I need houses around me, the glow of street lighting and the noise of people and traffic, at least during the day.  Maybe I'll miss the peace and quiet next week when I return home but I don't really think so.

Made for Walking

I love reading those little paragraphs in the glossy Sunday magazines which give you a few lines on all sorts of things you wouldn't otherwise get to see.

I came across one which said that to boost creativity you should go for a walk but without your mobile.  Apparently this advice comes from David Strayer, professor of psychology at the University of Utah.

We often say "I can't get my head round it" when we're trying to explain that some situation has us stymied.  "I need a bit of peace and quiet" we moan when all around us people are losing their heads.  So it's not a new thought.  In Professor Strayer's research he found that people who went into the wilderness without a mobile phone or other high tech device increased their problem-solving skills by 50%.  My question is:  did we need a survey to tell us that?  When we're wrestling with that report which has to be finished by Friday don't we try and scrunch ourselves away in some corner, head down, and try to be invisible from the common demands of our colleagues? 

Another article I read said that physical exercise or doing yoga in your lunch hour improved your physical and mental health.  This bears out what Prof. Strayer says.  Moving your body, stretching your muscles, walking of any kind is great to iron out those wrinkles in your brain.

The interesting thing about these bits of wisdom is that they tell us something we know already and I can just see working mothers throwing up their hands and demanding to know where they can get the time. Any mother of small children, whether she is a working mum or not, gets more than enough exercise - lifting toddlers and shopping, doing the ironing, dashing to kindergarten.  So who needs yoga when you can get all that stretching at home?   Usually, though, her head will be full of planning what she has to do next and after a day of toddler tantrums, her mental health might be on the brink of collapsing.  The only time she can clear her thoughts is when the little ones are asleep and by then, if she is anything like I was when my kids were young, she won't feel up to anything more strenuous than a quick look at Strictly Come Dancing before she hits the sack.  Maybe toddlers are just as good for your general health as all that exercise and yoga.  It's a thought.

Follow that Dream

Apparently most people don't follow their dream according to some survey or other.  Which got me thinking about dreams and surveys.

What kind of dream should we follow?  The teenage dream of being asked out by that gorgeous fellow in school?   So he asks you out - so maybe he's the world's greatest pain and all he has to recommend him is that lean athletic body and those sparkling white teeth when he smiles. End of dream (although if you're anything like me as a teenager, you probably won't notice that he's boring for some time).

What about a grown-up dream : I'd- love-to-be-a-doctor-kind-of-dream?  That is more likely to come through and I think that anyone who has a definite idea of what they want to be, career-wise, is very likely to follow that dream.  It requires hard work, patience and perseverance in most cases but it's worth it if you love what you work at.  It's a bit of a bind if you find it isn't what you thought but nowadays you can have a stab at different careers and next time maybe you'll know what you want.

And then we have the grown up version of the Dream Man, the knight in shining armour on a white horse, well in a white Porsche maybe, with the scent of danger and Armani cologne about him, the man who is going to whisk us off our feet.  Very unlikely we're going to meet him, isn't it?  Not even two TV shows using all Gok's skill would make it more probable, I reckon.  This is not necessarily a bad thing.  There's so much competition for handsome eligible single guys it's kind of like jostling for the best bargain in the winter sales.  Much better to accept something a little shop-worn and casual and family friendly with which you can be you and don't have the perpetual struggle of keeping his attention and fighting off the predators.

I'd like to know how they go about those surveys.  Sometimes they tell you it was a "representative survey of 2000 people."  But what is meant by representative?  And what do they mean by "dream"?  Do they mean our wildest dream such as living on a deserted island, preferably with our favourite film star - that'd be George Clooney for me although I'm not sure I'd enjoy seeing him every single minute of the day, in which case a DVD player would be preferable.
We know that we are not going to follow our wildest dream, we are not going to climb Mount Everest or win the New York marathon or be picked to star in the next Oscar-worthy movie.  We could make these dreams come true if we really wanted to and some people do.  But deep down inside we're quite content getting the 08.10 train every morning and that comfortable salary payment into our bank accounts.  A whiff of adventure?  Well, let's get out the holiday brochures.