A Northumbrian Anthem

The organ piece I completed yesterday (23 August) was written to very precise specifications by the commissioner. In the event it proved a more than suitable vehicle for the feelings outlined in the final paragraph of the last entry, below. It is an anthem of love, gratitude, faith and hope. 

As special thanks for their interest and for a limited period, readers of this Northumbrian Diary can have a sneak preview of the computer simulation here. 

Paradise Lost

Living in rural Northumberland is a conversation with the place. Its landscape, with its mesmeric soundtrack, engages you inescapably. It claims your attention, it speaks with a voice you cannot ignore, it acts on you and it intervenes in your life. It takes over.

In one of my earliest incursions into this magic domain, back in the summer of 2005, I remember a late-night drive up the A1 and then west, past Rothbury. The moonlight was flooding every visible object, moving or inanimate, and it was saturating the air with such intensity that it seemed to make a sound. Wherever you looked there was life, throbbing life. The landscape on both sides of the road was a riot of activity. There were the creatures you knew, some of which you could actually see - rabbits, lambs - but you could also sense other forms of life you did not know, could not see and could not put a name to. They were plural, diverse, and collective. Elves? Giants? Spirits? Tutelary deities? I didn’t know, but they spoke to me. It was not an aural hallucination I was having, but it seemed so clear that I was in no doubt as to what I was hearing.

‘Beware’, they said to me. ‘You enter this kingdom on sufferance. You may be wheedling your way in by means we had not foreseen, but this is not your territory. You watch your step, because we will be watching you.’ I noted the warning, and I drove on, on towards the magic. I entered this fantastical land with full awareness of my alienness and of the conditional nature of my presence here.

And yet, at every step from then on I felt drawn in. This realm of haunted hills, giants and fairies beguiled me. If they were not so imposing and otherworldly, I might say that they were playing with me. In spite of the forbidding tone of their warnings, they also called out for me. I could hear their intoxicating chorus among the trees, behind the hay bales or by the river, on sunny days, on balmy evenings, on moonlit nights or in the rage of storms.

Did I watch my step, as commanded? I did, I am fairly sure on that. I gazed on the landscape with awe and affection, I loved my loved ones to extremes of devotion, I respected their elders, dead and alive, and I cared for the young. I even worked to promote the music of this land, in ways I am touched to see still echoing. I remained alert to the voices of the land, even though soon louder ones inside the house would drown them out for much of the time. One soloist bird, whose name I never had the chance to find out, sang every May and June a playfully melancholy solo with variations, at dawn and at dusk. Five lovable cats called, wailed and growled with an expressivity better than any human’s. A dog sneezed with pleasure. The Northumbrian pipes resounded with a depth that awakened every giant, saint and tree that ever stood on this land. How I loved all this.

One reverse of fortune was the hill. An already narrow passage separating the hill from the back of the house began to get narrower. This seemed to be the result of rainfall and erosion. Rocks and mud would build up on the ground, requiring work with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. I did this a number of times, but before long the rocks and mud would be there again, in ever larger quantities. This became a battle between a man and a hill, and the hill was winning. Eventually the passage disappeared under a heavy mass of rocky soil which was pressing right against the house. I lost peace of mind and many nights’ sleep about this. K was always calmer about things of this kind. Eventually inspiration struck and a strategy was devised, involving diggers shovelling dirt and rocks up from the top of the hill. This made it possible to remove the accumulated matter and to correct the angle of the slope to prevent further erosion. We planted various plants and trees to give the hill cohesion and we built reinforcements at the bottom, at a generous distance from the house. The expense was high, but the problem was solved, and the battle won.

Life went on, happier than before. Kids grew, dog sneezed, cats were born, pipes resounded, music was composed.

The floods of the winter 2015-16 were the second reverse of fortune. We got off lightly considering what was happening elsewhere in the area, but the situation was worrying nonetheless. My error was to think I could fight back again. A battle between a man and a river? It seems comical now. I followed the runoff routes, I studied the river’s behaviour, I called in experts for advice. We implemented as much of the advice as seemed practicable to make the house safer. The fact was, it was a freak year and nothing remotely like that ever happened again, and, judging by statistics, it seems safe to say it won’t. But the unequal fight shook the roots I had been putting down in the place. It took us a couple of years, this place and me, to resume a normal dialogue. Come the summer of 2018 the relationship had been fully restored. The season started blissfully. Day after day in May and June, the word ‘paradise’ was hard to avoid when describing the warmth, the brightness, the beauty of the place.

Then came the third reverse of fortune. It was much more catastrophic than the first two, and this time I made the opposite choice: I did not fight back. I took what came with a resigned fatalism. Was that another error, a graver one which may have cost me everything? Did I have a choice? I am trying to figure that out. Nothing more can be said here. Only that the warnings heard thirteen years back seem to have been fulfilled, and that this time I seem to have lost my place in paradise. I can imagine the wise old men, the giants and the elves shaking their heads. “I always knew it”, they will be saying. “Once an alien, always and alien”. But I knew otherwise, and I still do. I am the only one who knows, and my lips are sealed.


Voices, deities, creatures, spirits: you know I have revered you. With all the respect due to you, I do not accept your verdict. Your paradise is my territory. Its soil is sprinkled with my sweat and my tears. I put all my energies into loving its occupants and caring for them, stealing also some time to sing your praises with new music. I lived and worked in this paradise with intensity of commitment. I came into it motivated by love, and I was true to it. Even where I failed I was doing my best to contain worse damage. I do belong in this paradise. It does belong in me. It will never leave me, and in my heart I will never leave it.

I thank this blessed land for the beauty showed, the inspiration given and the lessons taught. I thank The Farmer for his friendship. I thank the other local figures who helped with some practicalities and who enlivened things with their character. I thank those wonderful cats and dog that enriched life with their playfulness and their readiness to receive and give love.

And yes, above all, I thank that very small nucleus of the main protagonists in this story, the ones who were and are my world. Strange to be addressing you in this way. You mean everything to me. Your safety and your happiness are what I most want in life, and I will not stop working for them. The last word in this epic has not been written. I have faith. Paradise lost can be regained, and for me, ultimately, paradise is wherever you are. Meanwhile, my love and my loyalty are with you, always.

Tiger

Strange time for a cat to go. The news came on 23 December in the form of a phone call from The Farmer. The information had to be embargoed so as not to darken the festivities.

Eleven years ago, Tiger was located online in a search for a Bengal kitten. She was a half-Bengal; our contact with her seller was early enough for the new-born kitten to be named Tiger, our name of choice, from day one. When she was ready, we drove down to Lincolnshire to collect her. At her birthplace, the children of the house seemed sad to part from her; the children’s mother had seemed caring throughout the preliminary contact. “She is a cat that doesn’t purr” she warned us as we left her house. In the car, during the long drive back, we cuddled the kitten, stroked her and talked to her soothingly. Tiger purred.

Back in Northumberland – we lived in the Coquet valley at the time – Tiger’s arrival caused a commotion. Douglas, the slightly older black kitten, was delighted to see us after what had been our longest absence from him – about twelve hours. Douglas ran from K to me and back to K, as if to make sure we were really there. At a suitable time we introduced him to the newcomer. The look on Douglas’s face was something to remember. Thunderstruck first, then incredulous, then hypnotically entranced. His first attempted action was, of course, to come up to her, but his advance was not welcome: Tiger hissed and recoiled. This was the beginning of a difficult acquaintance. Things had not been going badly for Tiger on her journey north; she might have enjoyed her new house by the Coquet, but a needy black cat was more than she was ready for.

For her first night we put Tiger in the kitchen, the warmest room in the house. The following morning she was nowhere to be seen. It took a long search by two people to locate her: she was crouching in the narrow space under the cooker. She had to be forcibly pulled out. As days went by, she showed herself to be a needy cat, quite affectionate if on the demanding side. She did not have the best digestive system. And she remained wary of Douglas.

She grew up to be a lovely cat, with attractive tabby shades and a most elegant white glove on one of her front paws. She seemed inordinately proud of this, judging by her habit of stretching the gloved paw in front of her. She liked to be the centre of attention, and she often demanded this with an imperious miaow that was almost a scream. This was immortalised in a tune K titled after her, Tiger’s First Bird.

Tiger had an unfailing attention-seeker’s instinct, always present when there were visitors, often assuming what she uncannily knew to be her most fetching poses, such as the one with the outstretched white paw. She also ensured she never missed a photo opportunity. I had a goodly collection of images from this time, but it was lost when, ironically, Tiger herself pulled my Powerbook’s cable when the computer was charging, sending it crashing down on the stone floor. This was before the days cloud-based storage became widespread; the loss of this and many other valuable documents marked a turning point in my storage habits.

When, in her second year, we moved to Redesdale, Tiger found herself surrounded by vast fields in which to explore, play and hunt, and more prey than she could catch.  She slowly came to an entente cordiale with Douglas and with Fluffy the dog, and her digestive problems seemed to vanish. Tiger thrived in her new environment.

She particularly enjoyed walking the dog, almost invariably joining in when I or K took Fluffy across the fields or along the river. If the excursion had not started with her, she would demand to join in halfway, announcing herself from a distance with her unmistakable call. Although normal to us, this often caused the hilarity of visitors and passers-by. 

Little by little, though, we became aware of a change: Tiger did not always come home. She disappeared for days, then for weeks, and then for months. More than once we gave her up for lost, but every time she would return. Sometimes she would answer my call around the neighbouring fields; other times she would come back of her own accord. Each time we noticed that her features had become rougher, her voice had grown gruffer and her frame more sinewy. She was no longer a pretty princess: she had become a feral cat.

It would be only too easy to blame the arrival of a younger contingent - Rumble and then Rumble’s kittens - for this change in Tiger’s behaviour. But the fact is that her wandering habit began earlier than that, not dictated by any external circumstances we could see. What kind of inner dictate guided her actions is anybody's guess. 

She certainly was far from welcoming to Rumble when he turned up, hissing at him viciously. Unluckily for her, Rumble grew up to be a plucky fighter, and soon it was Tiger who was in retreat. Rumble acquired a vicious streak of his own, attacking Tiger in and out of the house, sometimes cornering her in such a way that Tiger would start wailing in an uncharacteristically defenceless tone. We found that heart-breaking, and punished Rumble with exclusion whenever we witnessed that behaviour. The tide turned further against Tiger when Rumble had kittens and they grew up, the hostility becoming tribal, and entrenched. Tiger was now a pariah.

We got used to Tiger’s long absences. There were enough cats in the house to look after – four without Tiger, and this only after three of Rumble’s kittens had found new homes. Every now and then, at irregular intervals, when out in the fields, I would hear that imperious call demanding my attention from afar. It was an unexpected joy when that happened, even though the call was getting hoarser every time, and could by now be described as the growl of a wild animal. Sometimes I would pick her up, all wet and sinewy, and would carry her back to the house to ensure she had a good meal and some warmth before resuming her wanderings.

This December, Tiger’s visits became more frequent. She was not an inch friendlier towards the other cats, but she avoided confrontation, and she did not disdain opportunities for human affection or even a nap in a warm place. In the couple of weeks before Christmas, K reported that Tiger had come home almost every day. Was she again a regular member of the family? That would have been a pleasing thought.

On 23 December in the evening, The Farmer phoned to say that he had seen Tiger lying dead on the side of the road. He thought that a speeding car must have run her over. He offered to send a farm hand the following day to give her decent burial. He was insistent that I should not tell K until after Christmas, but K had been in front of me throughout that call and it would have been futile to deny that something was amiss.

Later that night, I decided that Tiger’s funeral should not be The Farmer’s responsibility. When the time came for Fluffy’s night walk, although it was raining I took a shovel with me. I walked in the rain to the spot described by The Farmer, but found no dead body. I walked a long stretch of the road in both directions, but there was no sign of Tiger. The following morning I drove up and down, still to no avail. In the evening, The Farmer dropped by for a Christmas Eve chat. As he was leaving I asked him to clarify where the spot was, but he was evasive; he said he had dealt with it.

So Tiger, the coquettish kitten princess who became a wild animal of the forest, braving foxes, badgers, hostile cats and countless winter nights in the woods – Tiger ended her life not succumbing to any of those extreme dangers, but a victim of a more mundane threat: the stupidity of a human driving too fast.

It is a tribute to this unusual, courageous cat that what overcame her in the end was not any of the dangers she had chosen to face, but the fiercer power of human destructiveness. In the contest between a cat and the forces of nature, Tiger won.

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Bellingham Show 2014

Show day last Saturday, and it was the best I can recall. The elements ignored the baleful forecast, allowing perfectly tolerable weather, and the public turned up in force. There was the usual array of displays, amusements and entertainment. To get the only negatives out of the way first, I starved for lack of any gluten-free sustenance. And the music in the main bar was of a kind calculated to keep the likes of me well out of an exclusion radius of no less than thirty metres. Apart from that, all went endearingly well.

My daughters bumped into most of the people they know. The races were entertaining. The right people won the music competitions, including the endlessly talented Ian Stephenson, who is now devoting a fraction of his time to the Northumbrian pipes. The Farmer went under-recognised with a third prize for the rather handsome hound he entered, but fortunately a tup of his had won first prize earlier in the day, so he was safe to approach by the time I saw him. 

A favourite of the day was the Cumberland wrestling. Very interesting to see the parameters applied at different age and weight levels, the good humour, the mutual protectiveness between the competitors. Not for the first time, Jason Davidson came off unbeaten in his own category and in the all-weights. 

Sheep

Yes, sheep!

But we haven’t turned into amateur farmers. The sheep belong to a neighbour - let’s call him G - who is not a farmer either, but a man of many parts. One item in his variegated portfolio of business, activities and animals, is that he keeps a goodly number of sheep. The professional farmers in the area may think G owns only a handful, but for us the number of his sheep is enough to populate our field with a pastoral presence and, more practically, to keep the vegetation down.   

Easter was, of course, a lively time. G showed much devotion tending to the pregnant mothers and, when they came, the new arrivals. Within days, the soundscape became dominated by a chorus of lambs. It would start very early in the morning and die out with daylight. We soon learned to distinguish between a routine vocal expression, a more urgent, presumably hungry cry, and, the one that required action, the cry of a lamb in distress. This was usually due to a little one getting its head caught in the fence. 

The first such incident caused me much alarm and, when my attempts to extricate the head from the fence proved fruitless, I had to run back to the house to call K who, coming from good farmer stock, knew better than I what to do. After that, I was able to cope alone, and a good thing that was, since there followed many instances of young creatures needing to be rescued from garrotting themselves. 

Even when not in distress, our new residents were the subject of much talk and interaction. The children, needless to say, were in a state of constant thrill at the course the events had taken in our field. They were good watchpersons ready to raise the alarm when a lamb was in trouble. And they were always game for a spot of conversation in or around the field with whoever, human or ovine, might respond to their tireless sociability. I suspect G's patience may have been tested to the limit by these overtures. 

Sun

For much of the last year or so, Northumberland has looked like the land the gods wanted to destroy: ceaseless rain, thunder, floods, landslides, unseasonal cold and lashing winds; a varied arsenal of destructive forces was mercilessly discharged on us.

But not today. On this day the gods are looking down on us with gracious smiles, telling us that we are their children and this is the promised land. The sun shines bright and the birds sing hymns of praise. The colours are intense and the breeze gentle. The sheep hardly move for fear of disturbing the warmth. The lambs, usually quite loquacious, are mute now; what’s more, instead of their habitual frisking around they lie on their side, giving the scene an unnatural stillness. There is disbelief in the air; no-one dares do anything that might stir away the state of grace. 

Full moon in Northumberland

Moon of Northumberland. If more people could see what I see, there would be even less sanity in the world. It can turn the most reasonable person into a berserker. 

It was a large, round moon hanging alone in the southwest quadrant of the sky’s vault at 1840. When a thin cloud slid across it, knifing it in two halves, the memory of Wozzek was unavoidable. The cloud gone, the moon shone in its primeval wholeness and it was again a casta diva, perfect circle, full of grace - the object of worship in Norma or Turandot. A virginal she - la luna - on the Mediterranean, a sinister he - der Mond - in Austro-Germany, the moon is a neutral, remorseless, glacial androgyne in these parts. A cold fire. A burning ice. Wholly genderless, but charged with sex, madness and unbounded strength. It is a fierce, wild force that’s flooding the field with silver flames out there. 

Oh, and on this clear night I could see the tree the moon must have been hiding behind last night. A thick monster of a tree, getting too tall and too heavy for its own good - an unpoetic reminder of how much there is to do around here. 

A different night

Does Google’s Current Moon Phase gadget take account of your location? You would expect it to, since it knows who you are, and where you are. And yet, at this time in this place I should be seeing a Waxing Gibbous 95 percent of full, whereas in reality the dog and I, on our nightly outing, were only able to observe a hidden glow, with no discernible moon as such behind the clouds. 

The clouds themselves were a thin yellowish layer, far lighter than the thick walling that separated us from the sky for most of the last three weeks. A mist, one could say. Thin enough to let the glow shine through, as if the moon were a presence concealed behind a tree, or a shed, or a hill. But I looked around and there was none of the aura that would betray a hidden moon. 

Last night was different. It was a Northumbrian incandescence like the fiercest unleashings of lunar ferocity ever seen on these valleys. What a world of difference from one night to the next. Like being on another planet.

Adder

One spring morning the girls, who had been playing outside, rushed into the house in some agitation to announce the presence of an unusual visitor on our drive: a snake. I went to check their claim, and found it to be true. 

The creature had a v-shaped marking on its head and an elegant diamond pattern down its back. It lay so still you might think it was dead, but the occasional slow stir indicated otherwise. 

Back in Bolivia, that kind of patterning and colour would indicate that the snake was venomous. I did not think such a thing was possible in Britain, but K confirmed that it was, and that it was called an adder. I knew, in theory, what an adder was, but had not expected to meet one at close range, let alone right outside my house.

As no doubt every reader of this blog knows - even though I didn’t - adders are common on this island. They come out of hibernation in early spring, which is when most sightings are reported. Our adder visited on 19 April, which counts as early spring if one remembers that the previous winter had been one of the harshest in memory.  The Forestry Commission tells us that adders are common in “rough, open countryside” and are to be found in “woodland edge habitats”, which is, I suppose, a valid description of where I live. 

If there is a snake you are reliably informed is poisonous in the vicinity of where your children are playing, what would you do? Had I been better informed, I may meekly have brought the girls indoors, hoping that this meeting was a one-off. But I was not better informed, and it was a glorious spring morning, and the girls had been having a good time outside until the adder arrived. I had not read the Forestry Commission’s clear description of adders, which mentions in passing that they are a protected species. I did what I thought I had to do. I did it with regret, and have since had much occasion to feel guilty about it.  

Drought, rain, colours, smell

There has been the longest spell without rain I can remember. Last week, for the first time the canine walks ended with the dog's paws and my wellies as dry as they had been at the start. Dry! Having trodden on grassy soil! Inconceivable, but true.

The last three days saw the end of the good weather. This would normally bring a blanket of gloom over the landscape and over many people's mood, including mine, but this time the fields and the eyes seemed to welcome a bit of rain. There even was that smell, which doesn't grace British nostrils very often, of thirsty soil getting wet at last. I don't remember experiencing this away from Bolivia.

Early in the morning today, the sun was out in force again, and the colours had an unusual intensity. Bright, clean green on the trees and fields, glassy transparency on the river. And that smell again. They, too, reminded me of youthful days in the thin air of the Andes. I had to stand outside, experiencing the weather as an artistic happening.

Less kind readers may say that my middle-aged senses are tricking me with mirages of childhood. I contend that the weather is changing so much that some phenomena that used to occur only in southern latitudes are now taking place right here. And, alas, not in Bolivia anymore.

Take, for example, the adder.

Fuel

Today Northumberland basks in the unwonted luxury of a two-digit temperature: ten, to be exact. The thaw was slow but in the last week or so it was hastened by a another type of precipitation: rain. Wet in the morning, wet in the afternoon, wet through the night. Oh and windy too. Right now I look out of the window and it is lashing down, the trees swinging like upside-down pendulums. One wonders if this land is meant for human habitation. 

At least we now have central heating. When we placed the order for oil, in the early part of December, we were warned that the freeze and the snow would delay delivery. What the warning failed to spell out is that the delay would be over a month long. We began to stint ourselves before New Year. In January our reserves hit rock bottom, forcing us to rely on labour-intensive wood, expensive coal and extortionate electricity. The size of the next electricity bill is something best not thought about. 

It is, of course, purely coincidental that the time announced for resumption of oil deliveries  was just a little later than an expected hike in fuel prices. Back in Bolivia, people would be out on the streets over this. In urbane Britain, activism is confined to conversational demonstration and the writings of George Monbiot. It would be tempting to start a civil rights movement from this rural backwater, if I didn’t have the near-certainty that it would be a one-man battle.

Snow

Yes, as everybody knows, we are snowed in in Northumberland. It happened last winter, and at the time the local council explained away its not coping, assuring us that next time they would be better prepared for extreme weather. Well, this winter came early and is much worse than the last, but relief is less in evidence. 

The road to Bellingham has been treacherous - I skidded off it last week, and didn’t stop until a hawthorn stopped my descent, leaving my car badly scratched. It took two kindly locals to pull me out, one with with her four-by-four and the other barking out instructions with mildly suppressed impatience at my poor understanding of the  emergency motoring lexicon. That was last week.  For the last three days this road has remained innocent of grit or snowplough, leaving its users to our own devices. My own device has been to leave the scratched vehicle parked past the bridge to avoid last year’s doomed struggles on the battlefield of my drive and the communal private road. From this vantage point I was able to dig it out for a slog to Bellingham to get supplies - such as they were - three days ago. Since then my raked vehicle has stood at the bridge gathering snow, resembling more and more an overiced birthday cake. Fresh attempts to break a path out for it have been greeted with the mockery of Nature, who would proceed to cover the grooves of my shovel with plentiful new waves of snow, even as I shovelled. 

Which is why last night, when I followed the Bouvier on his final outing, I was struck by an eerie stillness where all commotion had ceased. The snow had settled, the wind had stopped, the air had a cruel clarity to it, and the sky was the starriest I remember. Each star was making a textbook display of itself, lacking only the name tags for the astral ignoramuses like me. The constellations outlined themselves with such incandescence that you could read in them any form, not just the requisite Orion with his belt, but the features of your own imagining, your own unbridled dream. You had to admit that Nature knew how to inspire as much as how to punish. At least when it chose to. And, for a moment, you had to forget all the harm, all the hassle, and be thankful for the beauty. 

Rain

In an unwelcome contrast to sunny Cochabamba, the Northumbrian heavens have been open almost all the time since my return, and without a moment’s pause in the last four days. 

The unsightly stables on the side of the house have now been dismantled, allowing an unobstructed view of the river. This in most circumstances would be a highly aesthetic experience, but in the present weather conditions it is a stark reminder of nature’s ferocity. Over twice its usual height and width, the river flows with vertiginous speed towards its confluence only a few hundred yards away. Its usual murmur is a prominent part of our quotidian soundscape, but what we now hear is something different: a roar of intimidating fierceness.   

If I hadn’t come to trust the wisdom of the ancient builders of Northumberland, and if this trust were not often reinforced by the savvy locals - “they knew how to build houses then, and where” - I would be living in fear of being swept away in my sleep, family and dog and cats included. But I have come to trust this place. The weather has changed around here thousands of times before, whipping this land without mercy, but the house has stood its ground. 

I live within yards of a river, surrounded by tall trees, flanked by a hill at touching distance, and with no neighbours to shield me from the forces of heaven. When nature chooses to unleash its power, these are its tools to wield it. They are the executors of its might. Sometimes their actions make me feel nature’s destructive breath on my face, and hear the swoosh of its claws just missing my head. But history suggests that I, my family and our surroundings will survive this test too.

Maverick alone

Bob Johnson, Delilah and Miranda before the last-named was left on her own

Miranda’s life in our midst had a difficult start. She was mistrustful of people, to the point that she would baulk at approaching humans even at feeding time. You had to drop the grain on the ground hoping that the other hens would have their fill before the last morsel had gone. Moreover, she was the victim of bullying among her three peers. María’s days were over when Miranda arrived, but the remaining two - Bob Johnson and Delilah - showed Miranda no kindness at the onset. Pecking was merciless, particularly when the unfortunate newcomer ventured near the feeder. We were worried about her prospects of survival. 

What an irony, therefore, that Miranda should now be our only surviving hen. I cannot remember the exact circumstances of the last two birds’ demise, except for the lack of evidence that the fox had played any part in it. I can vouch for the peaceful death of Bob Johnson and María since I personally gave them humane burial in our north field. More recently, Delilah was seen puffed up and not herself for weeks before her eventual disappearance. Had the fox been involved we would most likely have found a trail of feathers in the place of Delilah’s apprehension, but no feathers were seen. Only the surprising fact that, before our eyes, the hen community had been reduced to the lone presence of Miranda. 

She cuts a dignified figure going about her daily business of scraping for food around the hen court. She doesn’t venture into the fields anymore, as she once did as part of a trio. She doesn’t trespass into our garden either. But conversely she is more confident with humans now, and she doesn’t hesitate to run towards one of us when food is being proffered. And, of course, she stubbornly adheres to her unhenly habit of sleeping in her nest, rather than on the perch, a most annoying practice she introduced when she joined the group. Every night when I shut the henhouse the ritual must include opening the back door and ordering Miranda on the perch and, if she doesn’t obey, which is most times, nudging her in the right direction. 

Does she feel any sense of bereavement? Is loneliness an issue for a hen? I haven’t read enough to know if her species counts among the social animals who need companionship in order to survive. But this one is certainly surviving and, if it’s not too cruel towards the deceased to say so, she is thriving. 

Bales of hay

Bales of hay, not on my field. Below, right, The Farmer taking them away.

The inclement weather forced The Farmer to return a second time to turn the grass he had previously cut and turned once. I did not observe the work, but the result struck me as artistic. The grass, quite dry by now, lay in a dishevelled rumple and you could almost see its joy for all the air that was now able to go through it. The field was a blow-dried landscape of lovingly tousled cuttings; to stride on it was to experience a tufted softness that even Fluffy seemed aware of, as the caution of his first steps showed.

Only two days later the baler came around. Childcare duties prevented me from leaving the house to watch the process. But when I came out that night the field was transformed. Underfoot was the hard ground again, something not experienced for many months, and, at irregular intervals, there stood these monuments of compressed grass. They have the shape of squat cylinders, more or less as wide as they are high, so it is debatable whether it is right to say that they are standing when part of their curvature – rather than one of their flat ends – is touching the ground. Or should one say that they are lying on their side? Whatever the correct terminology, the hay bales were imposing. They only came to the height of my chest, but, as you knew if you tried to push one to roll it over, they were very heavy. None yielded an inch to my push.

The night was dark and, ever fond of natural light, I was not switching the torch on unless it was necessary. You could feel that you were about to hit a bale from an intensification of the darkness at a couple of feet’s distance. It may possibly have been an aural phenomenon too, the sound of your steps reflecting…no, the bales’ surface was much too rough for sound reflection. Sound absorption was more likely; a deadening of the sound of your steps forewarning you of impending contact with a bale of hay.

The following nights were not quite so dark, and you could make out the bales’ silhouettes against the background of the cloudy sky. Their random placement around the field seemed less random each night, till their positions became fixed in the mind as a purposeful configuration. Without a doubt they had presence. They looked innocent enough in daytime, but in the dark their latent power unfurled. They were the sentinels of the night.

It was sad when, a few days later, The Farmer came to take them away. It had been during their sojourn on my field that a photo camera had seemed a pressing need, but by the time I did something about it the bales were gone.

Falstone Show

Following his fall from grace at last year’s show – when I had to fumble frantically for the poo bag in front of the dog judges and circled by a mortifyingly sympathetic audience – Fluffy was not allowed back to Falstone Show this time.

Instead I took the family. There was no shortage of things for the children to eat (sausage sandwiches from Dunterley Farm), to watch (dogs, sheep, tractors, people) and to play on (bouncy castle!). And they even happened on youngsters they knew from their infuriatingly extensive social circle. The bar was not unduly undersupplied either, and it was my pleasure to see W there chatting to old farmer friends, and I hope a wordless wave from a distance was enough to signal this approval. The day did not smile on W for much longer, but that is not for me to expand on; suffice it to say his plight broke my heart.

Once more I delighted in the seriousness with which the participants take their dogs – a relatively easy thing to do now that I did not have my Bouvier nemesis with me – and the splendid coiffure displayed by the sheep, betraying long nights spent by their owners washing, combing and possibly, dare I say it, dyeing.

A surprising number of acquaintances turned out to take their photography seriously. AB, for example, had bought an impressive-looking Canon SLR which she was taking on its first outing. Some others I vaguely recognised were also sporting equipment of sufficiently professional aspect to make me envious. But I must not underestimate the humble compact Samsung I have just acquired. The dramatic beauty of where I live and the momentousness of my children’s lives at this time made me think enough is enough: to borrow a camera at every portrayable opportunity hampers spontaneity; I must have a camera again. And who knows, even this Northumbrian Diary might benefit from a little more graphic content.

Falstone Show’s Committee has a new chairman. Although the old one in his time did a splendid job too, I have to salute the impeccable choreography last Saturday. Friendly, well-trained stewards guided you with a strong hand to your parking space, even telling you what motoring manoeuvres to perform to get into it. The food and the drink stayed plentiful all the time, and the whole configuration worked like a well-oiled machine. Well done N.

Bellingham, watch yourself this Saturday.

More on the cascade of lights

Thanks to Bella for the suggestion that the cascade of lights may have been a meteor shower. She rightly points out that there has been activity around this time and, sure enough, even a superficial search reveals that around 12 August was the expected peak time for Perseids.

What I saw on 10 August was rather less dramatic, gentler and more sparse than any of the spectacular pictures to be seen, for example, on Google Images under either Perseids of Meteor Shower. On the other hand, none of those images shows the tunnel shape and the relative stillness I found so intriguing on the Northumbrian sky. But these are probably minor divergences compared with the very satisfying fact that a plausible explanation has been found.

Horse or pony

The new resident across the road displays all the characteristics of a horse, including the size, but I am told he is a pony. Somebody will have to explain to me the finer points of equine differentiation; for the time being I call him indistinctly horse or pony when I greet him.

Unlike the long-standing local dwellers of his species, he keeps his own counsel, avoiding contact with man or dog when we pass by and staying so still in his hut that you have to look carefully to believe he has not been taken away. We haven’t yet brought him one of our apples, but his behaviour to date is such that I am not sure he will trust us enough to accept it.

For a horse, or pony, he also boasts an uncommonly varied wardrobe. The mesh mask he wears most days would look sinister on him if he were not such a reclusive character. I take it to be a protection against biting insects. In this fluctuating weather, he reacts swiftly to temperature changes and on wetter days more often than not he is seen with a coat on first thing in the morning. His handlers must be early risers and quiet workers.

No answers

No answers means either nobody reads this blog or nobody knows about the cascade of lights. I would believe that I imagined it if K had not seen it too. Never mind.

The Farmer came around a few days ago, knight in shining tractor, to perform the annual shearing of our field. I meant to be courteous when I shut the gates after him, forgetting that he always returns a day or two later to turn the grass. He did that too, but last night the rain started again, putting an unwelcome spanner in the works of hay-making.

Fluffy and the girls have enjoyed being able to circle the field again, as we had been prevented from doing by uncontrolled growth.

A cascade of lights

Last night I reported on the impossibility of feeling fear before the beauty of the Northumbrian night. Well, tonight I did experience something akin to fear, albeit mixed with fascination.

The glow was brighter than last night, casting a supernatural heat over everything. The new pony across the road, a misanthrope during the day, was out in the quiet night, munching grass. Fluffy and I walked up the hill, and on the way back something caught my attention on the left, from what I take to be a northwesterly direction. At first sight it looked like a tunnel made up of lights in the sky, very much like stars but a little brighter and redder, moving diagonally down and left towards the horizon. Immediately the trees obscured my vision on that side and I felt impelled to walk faster past the trees so I could make sure I had really seen what I thought I had seen.

Past the trees, the tunnel had dispersed into a line, a casually curving procession of stars still progressing down in the same general direction. By the time I reached home most of the component lights had gone, presumably behind the horizon; there were only a few visible, perhaps ten of them, but enough for K to come out and see them and to agree that it was a most extraordinary phenomenon. A few minutes later all the lights had gone, leaving only the usual stars in their places, only a lot more visible in what is perhaps the most luminous night sky I have ever seen.

Does anybody know what those lights were?

That moon again

Tonight the moon is so bright that you can feel your pupils contracting when you look at it. Its reflection on the field magnifies the glow, making you almost screw your face at the brightness. If you stand with your back to it, you can see your shadow cutting a distinct contour on the silver-coated grass. You could read in this light, if the type were large enough.

The Farmer's dogs are barking with unease and midnight is not far off. Perfect setting to conjure up the stories of werewolves used to scare the children into staying still in bed when I was small back in Montero. Except that this is the North Tyne, and Fluffy is sauntering ahead of me, stopping to sniff into every molehill and pouncing heroically on the source of every ruffle in the grass, real or imaginary.

And the house, at other times a forbidding shadow, tonight stands ignited with the glow of this impossibly fiery moon, like cosmic water sent to bathe the two youngsters sleeping inside.

To feel scared would demand more imagination than I can muster right now.

Douglas in the rain

I came back in the evening after a day spent at the office, dealing with the frustrations of a computer malfunction rather than productive work.

Fluffy leapt out the moment he was allowed, darting off in pursuit of something unseen. I then took him up the road, avoiding the field which is now impassable. The day's copious rain had left a heavy pall hanging over the evening, and a coating of little sad diamonds on the leaves. The slightest shake would cause a little replica of the earlier downpours.

On the way back down the road a dark marauder intercepted me, staring with his ominous green eyes. It was Douglas the cat, wanting nothing more than a friendly stroke to mark this chance encounter. After two or three such expressions of friendship, he went on his way to meet the night's adventures. I came home.

Cleg

W was here today. As an erstwhile forester and farmer around these parts, when asked he knew exactly the identity of the bloodthirsty assassin that had marred my grass cutting yesterday: horsefly, known around here as cleg.

Field traffic

Contrary to the forecasts, today was sunny and sultry, easily the warmest day I remember in these parts. Even the rooms downstairs welcomed you in short sleeves, which, believe me, for a Bolivian in Northumberland is a novel experience. But not right now any longer, for as midnight approaches I have had to switch back to reality and the central heating.

One conspicuous absence today was the cuckoo, so audible on previous days with its unbelievably perfect-pitched ostinato. His performances had marked our summer evenings with the most poetic punctuality. I never caught sight of him, but he sounded as if he was always perched on the same tree by the river. But not today. Too hot for him, presumably?

The field, luxuriant with vegetation, has been pretty to look at, but impassable for all but the most committed, namely Fluffy and I. I had been wanting to cut a path around the field for months, but other priorities had always prevailed, until recently the grass became so long that no walking child could join me and The Fluff. The unwonted weather made me think I could venture out with the strimmer and the kids, so the older one could see me toiling to restore her transit for daily walks. Toil I certainly did, and was almost eaten alive by the flying hordes of whatever it is that eats humans this time of the year - it looked too large and it hurt too much to be midges. But I had underestimated the overgrowth; my efforts over several hours made little more than a dent, not even opening a path as far as the river. My older offspring will have to wait. It will take not hours, but days to make the field accessible again. And perhaps not my strimmer, but The Farmer’s tractor.

First of the summer

Today has been a miracle of a day. The sun shone with a brightness that defied belief; indeed, it still does at half past seven in the evening. After a family lunch at Wark's Battlesteads Hotel - a very well cooked carvery - we came home and sat by the river. When it was time to feed the baby, I left the rest of the family on its riverside idyl and came to the house. The impulse seized me to hear my own music, something I very rarely do. I found the recording of shapeshift from Mystical Dances and subjected the poor infant to it twice over its dinner. Whatever the baby thought, I was surprised at the effect it caused on me. It was invigorating.

I badly need this piece performed more widely. I also need to realise more projects. Family is all very well, university is all very well, but I need to compose and to hear my music performed to feel alive. This has always been the absolute priority, and yet somehow it is proving elusive.

Mourning

It has been windy and wet for days. The air had been heavy with the departure of a dear friend, spouse, parent and sibling. But it lifted today for the farewell. Bellingham mourned together and quietly. 

Belated sun

Long time no write. It appears that some of the stories I have been telling have caused one or two of their protagonists  a degree of bother. My use of first initials was intended to protect their identities, but in England's most thinly populated county there are not many of us and recognition is easy. Sorry! I never meant to compromise anybody. I will try to be more discreet, either by using better disguises or, in the last resort, by telling fewer stories involving people; this, I have to say, would be a pity.  

Today's sunny morning is a balm for the eye, but it is hard to accept it with unmixed gratitude. Where was the sun in the summer, when we could have done so much with it? All summer K's barbecue languished in a shed unlit, and the lunches cooked on a fire by the river remained a fading memory of the past. 

Moreover, while I was away in Bolivia this part of Northumberland experienced its worst rain for over 60 years. The river grew to unimagined proportions, flooding the field almost to its middle. K worried that Fluffy might run down his usual route and find himself carried off by the powerful current. She took a couple of pictures to show me. It looks threatening, but even at three times its normal level the river came nowhere near the house. We are safe! The proximity of the river had been a major worry when we were considering this house, but at the time we consulted every local we knew, and their answers were unequivocal: people knew how to build a house in those days, and where. That house has not flooded in living memory, and it is not going to flood now. The worst rainfall in 60 years has proved them right.  

Bovine visits

As I write the view from my window is of cows and calves grazing outside. We have no cattle, but one day The Farmer announced that, if he opened a gap in his fencing and reinforced ours, his cattle could have access to our field. He did all the work with invisible efficiency. All we knew was that one day there were cows in our field. We saluted their formidable presence; large, serene faces ruminating with slow persistence, looking at us with a quiet confidence that belied their condition as newcomers in our land.

But we were delighted. K loved the calves, their grace and their agility. I celebrated the fancy that the place looked like a working field. Besides, although we prize the solitude of where we live, the proximity of these large beauties felt exactly right, as if in some way the family had grown. The first night the cows spent near us there was a different feel to the place, one of solid confraternity among creatures. It was with disappointment that we saw them disappear.

We never quite understood what made the cows – or their Farmer – decide when to come across to our field and when to leave. The fact is that their visits proved as erratic as they were welcome. Sometimes days would elapse, perhaps a whole week, without any cattle being seen. And then one day K would phone me at work to tell me that the cows have arrived; she likes to call them coos, with a warm intonation in her voice. I would then look forward to coming home and driving past them down the drive. K was less pleased when occasionally a cow would lean across the fence to eat the holly tree or even the much lower-lying daffodils, but these were forgivable offences. Things changed somewhat when, at the corner where the eaten holly and daffodils, the fence gave in.

Since the beginning of the bovine visits K had expressed the hope that they would be restricted to cows and calves; bulls, she thought, were intimidating and could be aggressive. Fate dictated that on this particular day, the first time cattle spilled onto the drive and the garden, a large bull was among them. I was working in Newcastle; K was alone. She phoned The Farmer for help, but he was out, so she left a message. Then, realising that there was nothing to stop the cattle venturing out on the road, the bridge and the outside world, K walked among the cows, past the large bull, up the drive, and she closed the gate; then she walked back among the cattle. Apart from that, all she could do was wait to see what happened. The next development was that H, one of The Farmer’s helpers, knocked on the door and apologised for the inconvenience. By this time the cattle had been herded back to their farm.

That evening The Farmer dropped in, as is his habit when you have left him a phone message. He explained that there had been a breach in the fence which had now been repaired. In any case, he added, lambing was due to start soon and he did not think allowing the cattle out of their field would be a good idea. I didn’t understand the connection but who am I to question The Farmer’s wisdom?

This morning the cattle came out through the same gap again. Being at home, I did as K had done before me: phoned The Farmer and closed the gate at the top of the drive. The bull’s countenance was such that it made me take a deep breath when walking past him towards the gate and back. And I knew I was not going to try to herd him anywhere. The Farmer was not long to come. He adroitly coaxed and menaced the animals back into the field, except for one black cow who somehow ignored all entreaties and stubbornly failed to join the herd. Thus she attracted her owner’s personal attention. It was a joy to behold The Farmer mounted on his quad, border collie next to him, giving chase to the black cow as it cantered up the hill towards the farm.

Our neighbour returned later to repair the fence again. When he finished the job he apologised.

Far from me to cast aspersions on my neighbour’s fence-fixing, but the evidence of my senses was that in the evening there was a fresh cattle invasion. In what was now a familiar routine, I rang The Farmer and shut the gate. Once again he turned up without delay, but there was pleading in his voice when he asked “Shall I let the cattle spend the night here? Tomorrow there’s a lad coming to fix all the fences up the hill”. I knew my good friend had planned an evening out in town, and time was short. Of course I didn’t mind. So I am sitting in the study, recurrently looking out of the window as a small army of cows and calves under the large bull’s command tread on our admittedly long-neglected garden, patio and drive and help themselves to as much greenery as they can find. Some of them come within touching distance, and although I like the brutes I am glad there is a window pane between us. One needs some privacy to work.

A night at the Riverdale

Bellingham’s Riverdale Hall Hotel is a survivor of a bygone era. Not because it is in any way dilapidated; on the contrary, the building, dating back to the mid-nineteenth century, and its appurtenances, of a distinctly pre-World War Two character, are rather well kept. It’s the concept. The owner, John Cocker, oversees everything with a personal eye that gives the place the stamp of his warm, slightly bohemian persona. In spite of the constant flow of guests, betokened by the quantity of vehicles usually sitting in the car park, John seems to know every customer by name, both the locals and the visitors. The place must, indeed, be of considerable attraction to the latter, magnificently perched on the north bank of the North Tyne, with the promise of abundant fishing and an excellent restaurant. But it is not the fishing or the restaurant I mean to write of; it’s the bar.

A small space with a red floral carpet and floral curtains, the bar has no more than five or six tables, but most of the action takes place around the bar itself and in the clearing at the centre, which is warmed by a log fire of incendiary strength.

On this particular occasion K and I went to the Riverdale at the suggestion of The Farmer. It was a Friday night and, as is often the case on Friday nights, there was musical entertainment, in this case provided by the singer Leevi, whom I knew in her incarnation as a music student at Newcastle University.

We arrived around ten and there was already plenty of what can be called an atmosphere: animated conversations in tones that had lost their reserve. The Farmer knew everybody and at once disappeared among his acquaintances. K and I stood by the fire. Soon a local singer, KD, from Falstone, came to say hello. Some other people recognised K and greeted her in passing. From his stool beside the bar, The Farmer glanced over every now and then. After a prudential time, he came over to our spot by the fire and introduced us to his friend B, who was to be the discovery of the night. Tall, brimming over with vitality, a tanned face betraying outdoor work, eyes sparkling with mischief, B engaged K in a whirl of talk, banter and drink. His twitchy body language made it clear he would have liked to dance too, but he confided that his health prevented him for the moment – a reminder that, despite many signs to the contrary, he was in his sixties.

Leevi began her show. She sang pop classics to the accompaniment of pre-programmed backing tracks and of her own guitar. She surprised me with her confidence in front of her audience, and the ease with which she charmed them into listening and participating. She may be learning at university under her student guise, but as Leevi running her own show she certainly knows what she is doing. The songs, varying in pace and character, were unknown to me but not to the audience, who sang along to many of them. There was also dancing at times, of the sedate kind you would expect to see in a cross-generational crowd such as this. Except that at one point out of nowhere came The Farmer with a young blonde grabbed by both hands. Usually measured in action and speech, he was now as if possessed by a demon. He twirled the girl at high speeds, he pulled her towards him and pushed her away without letting go of her hands, he lunged forward making her arch backwards and stepped back to allow her to stand vertical again, and he performed many other moves, too fast for me to register. Our good Farmer had turned into a berserker, and the blonde looked too surprised to resist. When the song came to an end The Farmer gently led his abductee back to her table in a corner of the room, where her male companion waited with a bemused face. Then The Farmer went back to his drinking as if nothing had happened, never looking again in the direction of the blonde who, it seemed to me, had become rather intrigued by the thunderbolt that had hit her. Puzzlingly, several times since that evening I have heard The Farmer tell exactly this story but attributing the actions to his friend B. This must be The Farmer’s personal brand of bashfulness.

All this time glasses of wine – white for K, red for me – had been coming our way from various quarters and I don’t think we had the opportunity to buy more than one in the whole night.

I lost K for some considerable time, so I went to investigate in the direction in which I had seen her go. I found her in an adjacent room, still part of the bar, talking animatedly to a woman I had not met before and, apparently, neither had K. She appeared to be the companion of J, a tree expert who had just devised for us a strategy to deal with the trees around our house. K wanted me to hear it from J, but, once introduced, J was only interested in talking to me about music. He was evidently proud of the presence of several musicians in his family. Pressed by K, he summed up the tree strategy thus: ask R for the smaller tree jobs, but for the bigger ones get somebody with the right insurance. This advice was to capture K’s imagination, making trees one of her principal enthusiasms for some time to come. R, it was clear, was not present at this time; he was to take a while to materialise, but I will expand on him some other time.

Among the younger contingent, in the same group as KD the singer, was Young R, who had served us at the now-extinct Oscar’s and at the till in the local Co-Op. She could not be much more than school age, but clearly she was working hard. In conversation I found out that Young R was studying for her A-levels, one of them in music, and she now had a new job, at the restaurant in a nearby town.

And of course I talked to Leevi, in a more relaxed fashion than it was possible to do at university, and she was introduced to the Farmer, who did not fail to exercise his charm on her. Meanwhile KD had bought K one more glass of wine, which was more than K could drink, so I offered it to Leevi, no thanks, driving, and to Young R, no thanks, underage. K and I together made a brave final effort as we got ready to go home. By this time a new group of drinkers were asking me where I was from, and at this billionth repetition of the same question I said I was from Albania, but this was received so earnestly that I didn’t have the heart to keep it up. I said where I was from on the way out, prompting some to try out a few Spanish words, along the lines of adiós or hasta la vista.

We left with the conviction that the Riverdale would play a part in our lives.