Something new from something old

One of my favourite pastimes is what I call ‘customising clothes’. This involves making my clothes fit better, or altering their style, or dyeing them, or all of those.

I find this much more satisfying than making new clothes from bought patterns because it’s more creative and means that I have what feel like new clothes, but are also familiar comfortable ones perfectly adjusted for me.

Here are some recent projects.

These orange trousers had become flimsy with washing and no longer worked as straights. I turned them into flares with some stiff pale-blue denim, and now I love them even more than before. They suit my flamboyant streak and I know Frog would love them too because they hark back to the hippie era of our teens.

I gave this t-shirt to Frog for Christmas but he only managed to wear it once. I’ve taken it in at the top and the sleeves, and now I wear it all the time. It assuages my grief.

I bought these two pairs of trousers shortly after Frog died, when browsing the internet for clothes was a way of staving off panic. One was in shades of pale blue and one was white and cream, none of the colours practical for dog-walking through mud. I therefore dyed the pale-blue pair ‘denim blue’ and the other bright pink. Subsequently I lost lots of weight and they hung off me. I took the waistbands off, made darts in the top and attached a new waistband.

Note the bi-colour waistband here, which is partly a homage to the trousers’ original design and partly because I couldn’t decide between stretchy and non-stretchy denim so used a bit of both.

The (wonky) darts in the back

The bi-colour theme is still visible after dyeing, especially in the blue pair

They both still hang off me but at least they stay up, and the wide waistbands come all the way up to my waist unlike the old ones which cut me off mid-stomach. I find that much more comfortable and do that to most of my trousers (including the orange ones above, as you might have noticed).

I’m now wondering what to tinker with next, and also how to conclude this post. Perhaps there’s a metaphysical connection. Perhaps I’m making something new from the old life Frog and I had together. (And that's as far as I can go for the moment.)

Happy days

Two evenings ago, the night before the full moon, I suddenly noticed my wild cherry tree. It was in full bloom and the scent of the flowers was filling the garden.

My wild cherry tree

The nearly full moon, half an hour or so later

I have this theory that every flower has its momentary peak and, if you’re lucky enough to catch it at that peak, the experience is extraordinary. This was one of those moments.
 
But where were the bees? Surely bees need to catch flowers at their peak as this, I presume, is the flowers’ most fertile time. Or, to put it another way, the flowers are doing their utmost to attract the bees when they need them. Perhaps the tree is pollinated by night-flying moths. Who knows?
 
The more I look into nature, the more questions I have, and the more I realise that we don’t know everything about how the natural world works. In fact, we hardly know anything. How exciting that is!
 

I’ve been visiting my secret wood nearly every day, so as to catch the bluebells at their peak, if I can, if I’m lucky enough, if God wills it. You can’t grasp at nature. You have to let it come to you.

My secret wood, in a valley created by two small streams, untouched because too steep to cultivate

The wood's first bluebells in a patch of sunshine

En route I’ve seen many other wildflowers bursting into bloom.

Garlic Mustard, aka Jack-by-the-Hedge,
a favourite food of the caterpillars of the Orange-tip butterfly 

Crosswort, so called because the leaves and the petals come in fours arranged in a cross.
It's related to what most people call Sticky Weed and what we as children called Goosegrass.
(Sorry for the blurred photo. I was in a lane and car came past and I had to grab Ellie.)

Cowslips, which shouldn't grow round here because they like chalky (not sandy) soil. This is a solitary patch which comes up every year and I'm always so pleased to see it.

I’ve noticed fungi as well, another of nature’s mysteries.

White tree fungus, like a clump of foam

Black tree fungus, like lumps of coal

The remains of a puffball, on the ground

Happy days. In nature, I feel closest to Frog. I know now that he’s still around me all the time and that he's guiding me. He told me so on one of my walks.

Thirteen weeks and two days

It’s now thirteen weeks and two days since Frog died. If anything, I feel worse than I did three months ago. I’m worn down by sleepless nights and my rapidly falling weight. I can’t believe that my body keeps going.

I try to hold on to my beliefs. I do my breathing exercises and make positive affirmations. I pray and go for long walks and sit in my secret wood with Ellie for hours, bathed in the healing power of nature. Neighbours, friends and family rally round. But the grief doesn’t go away. It frightens me.

Meanwhile, spring advances in fits and starts.

Ellie keeping me company in my secret wood. The carpet of bluebell leaves hints at the glory to come

Greater Stitchwort masses along the footpath

Pussy Willow is bursting into bloom. Already the flowers smell unbelievably sweet and soon the tree will be buzzing with bees.

Golden Saxifrage clusters on the banks of streams

The first Cuckoo Flower (Lady’s Smock) yesterday in the damp meadow behind the house. An insect has found it too.

Why do I have to be so desperately unhappy? Why can’t I simply be grateful for the near half-century that Frog and I spent together? Why can’t I simply remember that time with joy? Why can’t I simply rejoice in my new-found closeness to my brothers and sisters and the kindness that greets me at every turn? Why can’t I hold on to my belief that Frog and I will meet again?

Why does the grief outweigh everything?

PS You can now sign up (again) to receive an email when I publish a new post. See under the picture at the top of the column on the right. Let me know (if you can) if it doesn't work.

Three days in the life

Since Frog died (10 weeks ago) my two sisters and two brothers have been taking it in turn to come and stay, keeping me company and helping with the myriad practical tasks that have now come my way. Each brings their own brand of support. Last week it was the turn of J, who is the admin expert and also, since retired, turning out to be a pretty handy sort of person all round.

On Friday, in driving rain, we filled a skip with all the debris that had been collecting around the back door for decades.

I had no idea what most of it was (other than mysterious electronic boxes, wires, lumps of metal, lumps of plastic) and I had tried to sort it into piles for recycling at the tip but I then decided, bu- - er it (as Frog would say). I have a bad back at the moment, I didn’t have the strength to load and unload the car and anyway I couldn’t work out how to put the car’s back seat down.

It was very satisfying.

We then moved to the carport all the boxes and bags that had been cluttering up the conservatory.

The boxes were the result of a preliminary clearing of Frog’s debris in kitchen and sitting-room, mostly stuff that, again, he hadn’t used for decades (pens, badges, frog ornaments, puppets and, again, numerous unidentifiable wires and connectors).

The bags contained clothes and shoes. At the suggestion of my sister E, I had kept my favourites of both, and Frog’s favourites, and all the clothes that I had made for him. It wasn’t a question of getting rid of everything; it was a question of keeping a selection to remember him by.

Frog was a hoarder and for 44 years I had lived in his shadow, keeping small areas clear for myself and ignoring the rest of the house. Now, in order to move on, I had to make space for myself. It was heart-rending but vital. Frog didn’t need the stuff any more, he’d left it behind, and in order to join him – as, when and wherever ‒ I had to leave it behind as well.

These boxes and bags we covered in a tarpaulin and left for a charity to collect.

The next day, we tackled some of the dreaded admin (transferring savings and investments into my name, informing utility and insurance companies, contacting the Land Registry about ownership of the house etc etc). This again is heart-rending task, not made any easier by the unpleasantness of some of the institutions who seem to go out of their way not to help one, and by the fact that I couldn’t contact anyone by phone because it made cry. J is a godsend.

Then we turned to the Tilley lamp which I’d found in the shed and tried to use during Storm Eunice when I was without power for 8 hours.

We had some experience of Tilley lamps from sailing holidays when we were children and I'd watched a video on YouTube and printed out some instructions. 

However, after – with great difficulty – installing a new ‘mantle’ (a sort of net that soaks up the paraffin and burns), spilling paraffin all over the kitchen, and two abortive attempts to light the darn thing, we decided that the pumping lever (which creates pressure in the paraffin well and sends the paraffin up the tube to the mantle) was caput, and gave up. Watch this space for the next instalment.

The next day, we went to the sea. We left home in wind and rain and arrived on the coast in beautiful sunshine. It was spring at last and wildflowers were starting to burgeon.

The first Alexanders, only found by the sea

The first violets

Ivy berries, one of the few things birds have to eat at this time of year

In spite of the weather, we had the beach almost to ourselves

Ellie has found something interesting under the pebbles.
(I had to alter the picture because the sea was flowing downhill and unfortunately in the process I lost my brother's top half

Celandines, glowing in the sun

That night, perhaps because that part of the coast was somewhere Frog and I had loved visiting together, and perhaps because I knew J was leaving the next day, I had one of my meltdowns.

The counsellor I’m seeing says that they’re a symptom of shock, the result of sudden traumatic loss. They make me feel as if I have nothing inside me but panic and that I’m trapped in a small black box by myself for ever and ever.

I went outside to look at the stars and J stood by.

Frog

Frog died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 69 on 5 January this year. Today would have been his seventieth birthday.

When I first met him 44 years ago I knew that we’d been together in previous lives. All I can hope for now is that we will meet again and be together in a life or lives to come.

We had his cremation last week and Mark Gilborson, the Civil Celebrant, found this poem for me and read it out at the service. It is one of my lifebelts.

 

Death is nothing at all

 
Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we are still.
 
Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you have always used.
Put no difference in your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
 
Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect.
Without a trace of a shadow in it.
 
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was;
There is unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
Because I am out of sight?
 
I am waiting for you, for an interval,
Somewhere very near, just around the corner.
 
All is well.
 
                    Henry Scott-Holland (1847-1918)

Frog at one of his favourites jobs:
clearing the drains in the road below the house so that it didn't flood

Frog in his den (a semi-underground music room)