Transforming dreams into reality takes time and energy, hence yet another protracted blog absence. My apologies - as always - but I'm now several steps nearer to bringing various strands of my writing and mentoring life together, working with groups and individual students. Not quite there yet but the goal is in sight. A pilot scheme is under way, the website is now in the hands of a trusted friend and brilliant designer, a venue for another element of the work identified.
And it is, at last, spring, after a long, wet, grey, miserable winter that seems to have gone on for ever. The dogs - my own and the guest canines - rush around madly, leaping in and out of the river. The grass has had its first cut of the year and there are buds on the magnolia, hawthorn and camellia bushes. This is why I love spring; it is so full of possibilities. Creativity is at its height.
But the long winter has not been wasted; it has been given over to thinking, planning and a good deal of dreaming - because one is never too old to dream, to imagine the possibilities that spring and summer might bring to fruition.
I'm sure that many of you - especially readers in the USA - will immediately recognise the source of the title of this blog. And it was one of my students (a great lover of baseball films), to whom I was outlining my ideas, at an embryonic stage, who reminded me of the quote. Here's James Earl Jones affirming for Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams - and for me - the importance of holding fast to one's dream, even in financially straitened times, and seeing it through to reality.
I'm not quite sure how or why I lost the blogging habit. Perhaps the clue lies in the word 'habit'; five and and a half years into blogging and I had become too used to the sound of my own words. It did not explain, however, the fact that I seemed to have lost track of other people's blogs, blogs that I enjoyed, blogs that opened windows onto different lives, different worlds, blogs that connected like-minded people across time and space.
Perhaps, to paraphrase Salieri, there have just been too many words (except that it wasn't Salieri, was it? My niggling inner editor reminds me that it was Emperor 'too many notes' Joseph II.) For those of us in the UK, there has been a plethora of words in the past couple of months. We have been almost smothered by layer upon layer of news coverage, scaremongering features and opinion columns as the country has been engulfed by first one scandal, then another, until - inevitably, perhaps - the lid blew off the whole thing and urban pockets of the country erupted. We had still not recovered from the actions of profligate and greedy bankers, nor from the shock that many of our democratically-elected politicians had been lining their pockets with expenses fiddled from the public purse, before we were confronted by the grisly spectacle of phone-hacking journalists and all-powerful editors so devoid of sensitivity and decency that they were prepared to sanction anything that might boost circulation figures.
And then the rioting and the looting.
From the wealthiest and most influential to those who barely clung to the margins, there were individuals and groups who seemed to have slipped through or cast off the net of what we like to believe are our shared morality and values. The threads that held us together seemed to be unravelling.
In my head, Yeats's words on things falling apart and the centre not holding were surfacing yet again, as they tend to in times of strife and uncertainty. Except that they weren't falling apart and compassionate people made good things happen; as George Malone said in the final episode of Boys from the Blackstuff - in the wake of all the conspicuous consumption triggered by the greedy 'there is no such thing as society' 1980s: 'I can't believe that there's no hope.' George was speaking specifically of his own class, the urban working class, but his words (or, more correctly, writer Alan Bleasdale's words) have a resonance that now crosses class and social boundaries. There is hope and it could be seen on the streets of our cities after the looting.
Against this backdrop, it seemed almost futile to be writing about small, everyday things, although it is the small, everyday things that root us, that keep us sane. My canine-care life continued, with four-legged guests coming and going. Loved ones, family and friends came to stay, places were explored, books read, music and films enjoyed. My professional writing and editing life continued; it was the more personal, reflective writing that languished.
Reflecting, however, is precisely what I was doing. It is exactly a year since I was diagnosed with breast cancer and just under a year since the Massive Inconvenience was vanquished. Only a small scar remains and that is fading. To be truthful, I don't think about it too often. The Massive Inconvenience has become, like the past, another country. I have, however, learned more than I could have imagined possible and one of my more surprising discoveries is that I am - or at least, I have become - a far more positive person than I realised I was or could be. I say surprising as I had more than a few dark nights of the soul when I was a young woman and not just dark nights but dark days too, days that could spill into weeks and months. And sometimes did.
Maybe it's because, although I cannot afford to retire, I now earn my living doing two things I love: caring for animals and writing. Or maybe it's an age thing. In today's Observer Magazine, Miranda Sawyer, 45, discusses her own experience of, and thoughts on, the mid-life crisis and reaches an encouraging conclusion (of which, more later). She mentions her friend Sam, 'who is in his early 60s, and . . . is happier now than he has ever been, but that people who don't know him think he can't be, and treat him accordingly.' When it comes to the 60-something happiness factor, I'm with Sam. It is hard to imagine, when one is in one's 20s, 30s or 40s and, especially for me, the tedious 50s, which I experienced as a strange, no-woman's limbo between the end of being young and the beginning of being old (I think it's called menopause . . . ) that the 60s can bring such joy and delight and that one can actually wake up happy, for whole days at a stretch. There are, inevitably, the flatter, greyer days (which I attribute in part to the English weather) and the occasional down day but these are, thankfully, the exception.
So, emerging out of what I will probably come to see as my Quiet Period, I have resurrected everything I had planned to do last autumn, before the Massive Inconvenience got in the way.
After seven years of being a member of a writing group, I realised that it was time for a change, and I now work individually with my writing mentor, Briony Goffin. We get together for a couple of sessions each term and It has proved to be exactly the right decision, at the right time, and I am enjoying every minute of it. (Thank you, Briony.)
In September, I am starting a photography course, something I have wanted to do for years, learning about what goes on inside a camera because I love photography with a passion and I know that it is about so much more than looking through a viewfinder or looking at an LCD screen and framing a passable shot.
In September, and because I love music with an equal passion, I am starting piano lessons, hoping that the musical gene that runs through the family (professional pianist grandfather, piano-playing and singing mother, piano and violin-playing brother) has not passed me by completely. I can still read music and just about pick out a basic tune on the beautiful Victorian piano I was given last year but I know that I learn best when I'm studying with an inspirational teacher. (And I think I've found one.)
Then, last week, I took out, dusted down and oiled my late grandma's 100-year-old 27K Singer sewing machine for the first time in 35 years. It worked perfectly and has already been put to work - with plenty more to come.
This is just for starters.
As Miranda Sawyer says: 'Midlife or not, in the end, or in the middle, these are the days of my life. These are the days of your life. And the thing to do is live them.'
Which all chimed in, rather, with a song I heard on the car radio as I drove home from a great morning, spent with my Salad Days Friend, at a vintage textile fair in Honiton. There is a high point en route, on the A373 between Honiton and Cullompton, at which all Devon is spread out before you, its hills, its rolling fields, hedgerows, trees and meadows and I had just reached that point when the song started playing. Written by the Bee Gees, sung by Esther and Abi Ofarim (in 1967, for goodness sake). It still makes me moist-eyed but in a good way.
The last time I wrote a post, I fully intended to write several more in quick succession; I was off for a brief break in the Chilterns and London; I was enjoying myself; I saw some wonderful exhibitions- and then . . .
And then I got shingles and a frozen shoulder (adhesive capsulitis, to give it its proper name).The combination is a common complication, said my GP, after breast cancer surgery. However, the shoulder is not, as it turns out, frozen. My wise and highly experienced chiropractor who, in a previous career, worked in an oncology unit and at a breast care centre, explained that my shoulder joint had dropped and rolled forward. After breast cancer surgery, we tend to sleep on the opposite side from the site of surgery (assuming that we've had unilateral surgery) and continue to do so as long as we experence any discomfort, however slight or spasmodic. (And then, I suppose, it becomes a habit.)
So there we are: post-Massive Inconvenience shoulder compensation. The chiropractor held up a mirror so that I could see the difference between my two shoulders. I could. Still, a minor setback; the shingles are now gradually disappearing and I have (more) exercises to do and more manipulation to come next week.
Right, having got that out of the way, I can now get back to the 'what I did on my holidays' post.
* * * * *
So, I went up to London, didn't see The Queen, but did see this inspirational bronze sculpture:
Union (horse with two discs), by the prodigiously talented, Christopher Le Brun. Read more about sculpture and sculptor here. It stands at the entrance to the Museum of London, which I was visiting to see one of its current exhibitions, London Street Photography, of which more in another post.
Even though I studied art history (and English literature), these days I feel less inclined to spend time intellectualising exactly what it is that appeals to me about one particular work or another. One can be too cerebral about these things sometimes; now, I just want to be in the moment, experiencing my response, rather than analysing it.
But back to Union. I found it quite mesmerising and, as sculpture can so often be, profoundly moving. If you have the opportunity to visit the Museum of London - a wonder in itself - do not miss the horse.
You never know who you're going to bump into on the way to pick up the Sunday papers. It was moving day for some of the locals:
Not that anyone minds. This is sheep and cattle country and a round-up enables Mid-Devon's answer to Gil Favor and Rowdy Yates to show off a bit.
Then it was a quick dash to Tiverton Pannier Market for the town's very first Food Festival, organised by market regulars, Deli Shack. The emphasis was on local producers, most of whom came from within a few miles of Tiverton. An honourable exception was made for Taylors, artisan bakers of Bruton, across the border in Somerset.
Who can resist a display like this?
Or this?
Equally irrestible is Vulscombe - one of the finest goat cheeses you could wish to taste and produced not far from here. Post-breast cancer, dairy products are more or less off-menu for me but I do, very occasionally, tuck into some Vulscombe. I cannot recommend this cheese too highly and the good news is that you can order online from Deli Shack and other suppliers, several of whom - like this one - carry the story of how Graham and Jo Townsend, Vulscombe's creators, arrived in Devon almost 30 years ago and set about building their original herd and developing their superb cheeses.
Making cheese of such consistently high quality is, inevitably, hard work, with long hours, seven days a week, and Graham is looking for an apprentice. Believe me, if I were 40 years younger, I'd be off like a shot. Seriously.
A good many friends were at the Food Festival too; so was half of Tiverton by the looks of things and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. We're all hoping that it could become an annual event and Tiverton could certainly do with this sort of boost. Its historic Pannier Market has been in existence for 700 years and we have some of the country's best food producers on the doorstep. A natural alliance, wouldn't you say?
Anyway, a huge thank you to the lovely people at Deli Shack for sponsoring the festival. There's a short video about Tiverton Pannier Market on Deli Shack's home page, which also features the equally delightful Mary from Landrake Farm, purveyor of finest vegetables to 60 going on 16. And we are very fussy about our vegetables . . .
PS Sorry that there are no meat photos but that would be just a step too far for a non-carnivore like me. But my meat-eating chums said that they were very impressed with what was on offer and came home with overflowing baskets.
So, some of the hardest tasks at the start of the journey have been completed. Loved ones have been told; there has been much hugging, virtual and actual; there have been tears, and there have been genuine offers of such extraordinary kindness that I am still reeling from it all rather.
My breast care nurse, Sara, said - when I was given my diagnosis - that everything would seem surreal and she was, is, right. And even though the prognosis is very encouraging, the immediate effect of the news is like experiencing the loss of someone very close. So, just as I go into shock, I am also reeling from the list of Things that Must be Done and from Information Overload.
The Best Son-in-Law in the Whole Wide World, to whom I had spoken on Friday afternoon, broke the news to the Dear Daughter that evening, when they both arrived home from work. And my daughter and I had, as other parents who have gone through this will know, the toughest of conversations, the one where you cry down the phone at each other. And she told me what she planned to do: how she and her husband would be setting off for Devon at the crack of dawn the very next morning; how she would come to stay prior to surgery, chauffeur me to and from the hospital, stay on through to the end of my recovery period, and take over my dog-care commitments pro tem.
"No arguing!"
This would, I knew, mean that she would not be able to go ahead with her academic plans in September, so I told her that I didn't want her to put her life on hold. But she is a determined woman, my daughter, and resistance is invariably futile.
Later that evening, she calls again and says:
"Mum, I just want you to know that this is all a massive inconvenience."
"I know, sweetie," I replied, "I'm so sorry."
And we go into full black humour mode and laugh ourselves silly. Because, at the worst of times in the past, humour - often black - has seen us through.
We managed to have a good weekend and, while there were tears and very tight hugs, especially when we were in the middle of the woods, walking the dogs, there was laughter too. On Saturday night, we tucked into what has now become my summer equivalent of a winter comfort food, Zingy zucchine linguine, which I first came across here on Joanna's newish food blog, An English Kitchen. (I'd run out of linguine, so substituted tagliatelle and it worked well.) Try this recipe and I guarantee you will never, ever, complain again that you have more courgettes than you know what to do with. Joanna is a regular visitor and commenter here at 60 going on 16 and I've long been a follower of her excellent original - and happily continuing - blog, Joanna's Food. So thank you, Joanna, for your part in lifting the family spirits.
The house felt very empty after the grown-up children left on Sunday, so that's when I got writing. It helped, it really did, and I made it to the end of the weekend without falling apart. What's more, I now had a name for the pesky cluster of cells that were doing what they shouldn't somewhere near my rib cage and that had been temporarily named Expletives Deleted.
