studio evening May 26 2020

On the drawing board lie my old books on bird's eggs and my Observer's book on astronomy; I do also have an Observer's book on bird's eggs, but have frustratingly misplaced it. I have made a beginning to the long series of drawings of bird's eggs, by tracing the outlines of some thirty eggs on tissue paper, to be transposed onto the Japanese paper when the paper arrives; I have, with great excitement, ordered a pack of fifty sheets, which I should be able to tear down into four pieces, thereby yielding some two hundred small sheets.

I have also made a return to drawing imaginary configurations of stars on black paper, whilst I am awaiting the arrival of the Japanese papers, although I may work on both series of drawings concurrently. It may be that I make drawings of the named constellations on black paper; I would love to do this , but am uncertain about my capabilities. Even so there is something about the connectedness of stars and eggs which stimulates my mind, and makes me long to depict the named and 'real' as well as the imaginary.

I did make a series of 'looking glass', or painted egg drawings; I have in my possession a glass egg, with a scene of mountains, lakes and little houses painted upon the inside with great delicacy and exquisiteness. I believe it is Japanese. Using it as inspiration, I drew a small series of my own, painted eggs, even depicting the small hole at the base of the egg through which the paintbrush was originally inserted. Where are these drawings? I no longer have them. Periodic departures of self confidence and bouts of despair are a blight upon my practice; I destroyed the drawings, but that does not mean that I may make no more, indeed, I have determined to begin again, this time with, I hope , enhanced skills and clearer vision. Perhaps I may even draw an egg covered with stars, or with a starry sky depicted, as it were, on the inside of the egg.

With the same thrill of excitement with which I ordered the papers, I have also sourced a copy of the Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Guide to bird's eggs, and ordered it; when both arrive, I shall embark upon the long series of bird egg drawings about which I feel so much optimism and anticipatory pleasure. The book will come from a bookshop in Petersfield, Hampshire, which is where one of my sisters lives with her husband, so I feel a sense of connection with my family, and with a little town  I know so well, and for which I have great affection. A link with home.

wind chime

A tangle of painted glass and cotton threads lying on a table at the local car boot sale one bitter morning in early February catches my eye, occasions a start of recognition, for this is something that I have not seen since childhood, when it's replica hung at the window of my parent's kitchen forty or so years ago.

Fearing that the frail object may not be complete, that some of the glass may be broken, I carefully take it up in my hand to examine it more closely. Once suspended from my fingers, the threads realign themselves, and the glass pieces swing freely from them, an evocative, delicate mineral chime sounding on the cold air as they touch against each other.

What chance that I should find undamaged, save for the loss of the bottom most central pendant, such a thing, on such a morning as this, when the wind blows without inhibition from the North, and my joyfully resurging memories are of balmy afternoons in Spring, the kitchen window flung open to admit the scented moving air, my younger self transfixed with pleasure at the complex configuration of pellucid sounds as the fragile chimes strike one another in  response to the tremulous breeze?

new year

Just a few days into January, my mother takes a fall in her home and sustains a complicated fracture of her right shoulder. She is admitted to hospital where it is deemed appropriate to replace the shattered joint with an artificial one fashioned from titanium. The evidence of her increasing frailty is borne heavily upon myself and my two sisters, and we each have serious concerns about the suitability and safety of her beloved house and garden , although she herself is determined to continue living there as long as is possible.

There are no words to describe the measure of alarm and anxiety that I experience on her behalf when I consider the house and garden in the light of her return from hospital. Much needs to be changed to render both safe and comfortable, some of it beyond our scope both financially, and in terms of our collective skills. Not for the first time, albeit not without a jolt of disloyalty and grief, do I wish fervently that she was already installed in a house of more modest size, with garden just enough for her to enjoy her array of ornamental pots and containers, which she has a genius for making beautiful with bright annuals and spring bulbs, in a smaller, less unfriendly town, with amenities to hand, the thriving, busy heart of a welcoming little town within walking distance.

In my mother's garden. snowdrops are beginning to flower in their customary places; discrete gatherings beneath the old privet hedge, sizable colonies in the lawn. Crocus are also showing pale spears above the lean winter grass, and the hellebores are a mass of creamy, roseate blooms. I feel keenly for my mother, who has been so far unable to go out into the garden to see them. Walking in the garden, a heavy frost glittering upon the lawns, lonely without the the company of our two cats, who are now, for safety's sake, removed to Somerset, I am overcome by a storm of conflicting emotions. I am painfully aware, that despite my mother's vigour of mind, and great love, the bequeathed garden is too big for  her to manage on her own, yet my heart quails at the thought of her having to give it up, to tear the roots that bind us all to this place. Reason instructs me that perhaps it is time to allow a younger family to live there and love it as we have done; we have had our day, yet our mother, although she has confided to each of us in turn her own fears concerning her abilities to continue to live there, is most unwilling to relinquish the house and garden, which harbour so many memories. Speaking with my sisters, I find that my youngest sister and I are united in our feelings of heartbreak, although my younger sister , the sister in the middle, has attuned herself to the eventual relinquishment of our family home, and that all three of us share the desire to see our mother settled contentedly in a safer, more suitable environment.

The first month of the new year passes with much unsettling change and challenge, and in a flurry of  visits to our mother. The days lengthen appreciably, the garden is alternately rimed by frost and scoured by bitter north easterly winds; a couple of times the lawns are dusted by the sparkle of light snowfall. The garden appears at first glance to be steeped in slumber, yet closer insepection reveals the presence of a multitude of elegant, pointed buds on the Ribes, the clusters of fragile, early flowering bulbs, the ruby red tips of the emerging peony buds. Our garden chairs remain almost in the positions they occupied throughout the months of Summer and Autumn, when my mother and I sipped wine in the long light evenings, took tea and coffee during breaks from our labours. I cannot help but wonder whether we shall do so again, and I know that this thought is not far from my mother's own mind. I take a photograph of the chairs, pools of water frozen in each, as a keepsake, my heart full to bursting within me, for at present it is well nigh impossible to believe that we shall be able to resume our former  relationship with the cherished garden.

peonies

My mother's garden is cold and quiet, the lawns pearled with moisture, trees gaunt and naked against a colourless sky. It is the Autumn of the year of my father's death and the opaque air of November clings to my skin like a shroud. A will to dormancy takes hold.

Yet I must prevail against grief and seasonal inertia, for I have a promise to keep, and a task to undertake. My mother is away, and I have vowed that in her absence I will transplant her much loved peonies, from a position that they have occupied for many years, to a different site further along the flowerbed, thus liberating them from the encompassing shade of a vigorous laurel, beneath which they are at present suffering.

I gather tools, and survey the bed. Against the dark, leaf littered earth show clusters of small pink points; the ruby of emerging peony buds, arranged in optimistic groups, signalling the closure of one year, the  opening of the next.

The plants are well established; I remember them from my childhood, recall my amazement each year at the magical unfurling of the tight drumstick bud, and the gradual emergence of the bounteous head of glistening petals; the miracle of life and growth made gloriously manifest.

The black cat, Minos, joins me, pressing against my legs, as I stand uncertain on the path, daunted by the prospect of the endeavour ahead of me, and almost regretting my promise, glad that my mother is not present to witness my nervousness. For peonies are sensitive, resentful of disturbance; I am anxious that the move might kill them. Besides which, I do not know how to move them; I do not know what they are like underground, and, the realisation coming upon me in an uncomfortable wave of self disapprobation, have neglected to research the project.

I bend down to caress the cat, whose jet coat gleams softly in the dullness of the day. When he steps away from me, pacing delicately across the damp earth of the flowerbed, I take the light fork, the one with long, slender tines, and sink it down into the clinging soil, remove it, and sink it again and again, at different points around the first plant. I am thankful that the buds are showing; it gives me an idea of where to dig. I begin levering the fork carefully against what I presume to be the root ball. But peonies do not have a root ball. Their heady glory eventually emerges from discrete brown tubers, deep beneath the surface of the soil. The rending of earth and plant fills my ears, causing me acute distress. I clench my teeth, and insert the fork more deeply, hoping to loosen the soil sufficiently to burrow my hand underneath the plant, and thus free it. The earth is chill and heavy, sticky and unresponsive; I struggle to work my fingers beneath the tubers in order to lift the plant in it's entirety. The peony appears in fragments. I have shorn some of the tubers in two; their ravaged surfaces are the rich yellow of butternut squash. I shed tears, knowing that I must repeat the whole process at least half a dozen times. I am overwhelmed by a sense of inadequacy, and pity for the plant whose quiet incubation I am so ruthlessly disrupting. I set the damaged tubers upon the earth, in the place where they are to be replanted, and begin to excavate the next. I now know how deeply I must engage the fork; understand something of the peony's habit of growth.

Prying the peonies from the ground, deciding on their fresh positions, and replanting them, occupies me for the whole of the day. The cat, as if sensing my discomfiture, remains with me for much of the time, taking advantage of pauses to request attention, slipping away on business of his own when I resume digging, A robin trills bouyantly above my head, from the sequestered haven of the laurel. I take some heart from the presence of both.

At last I have unearthed each peony, and laid it on the bed where I shall replant it. I reflect bitterly upon my lack of skill, and sensitivity with regard to the plants; to my anguished eyes, the scene before me resembles one of carnage. Numbed with cold, and the dread feeling that I may have ruined the plants beyond recovery, I begin to bury each tuber well underground, leaving the vulnerable bud just above the surface, as I had seen them that morning. I realise that I am mouthing apologies to them as I do so. The day closes upon my labour with grey finality. I collect the tools, clean the earth from the tines of the fork, and replace all in my mother's shed. Later, I sit motionless indoors beside the fire, both cats faithful at my feet, blind to all else but the dancing flames in the grate.

On subsequent visits to my mother I return anxiously to the bed where the peonies have been transplanted, hoping to see movement in the tight red tips of the new season's buds, taking comfort in the still vibrant, vital colour, the absence of decay.

As the season wears on, it becomes evident that the peonies have not only survived, they are flourishing. Over time, the glossy carmine spears miraculously extend, opening into hands of shining leaves. Compact flower buds centre each span. There seem to be many more than I planted; each fragmented plant has spawned another, much as the broom of the sorcerer's appentice multiplied when chopped into pieces. In May, the first glowing, satiny petals open to the sun, and the blooms release the rich, exotic scent so evocative of my youth. As she does each year, my mother cuts several in commemoration of the birth of my sister's eldest son, born at peony time, taking her a luxuriant bouquet from the garden in which my self and sisters played as children, and work as adults; our domestic Eden and safe harbourage, site of childish secrets and adventure. For my mother, it is the only place on earth where she finds a fleeting solace from grief, where entrenched in the perpetual cycle of rebirth and replenishment, she experiences some ease of mind, some relief from the loneliness of life without my father.

paper plane

Above my head, suspended from the bedroom ceiling by a length of black cotton, and a brass headed drawing pin, there swings a polystyrene model aeroplane, much faded by the sun, crafted by my youngest nephew from a kit, when he was a little boy. I am visiting my mother, and have chosen to sleep in the back of the house, in the bedroom once used by one of my sisters, and now designated the room of her son when he comes to stay. I awaken very early, to a pearlescent morning, pale light seeping through the summer curtains, and casting a fragile shadow of the aeroplane on the ceiling, a shadow tracing each delicate manoevre of the plane as it turns slowly in the current of air drifting through the open window. Unable to return to sleep, I lay and watch the subtle pirouetting, captivated, and then moved by a sudden impulse to photograph the eccentric craft and it's attendant shade, although I have at my disposal only a tiny digital camera.

Across the landing, a few steps away, the door remains closed upon the room in which my father slept during the latter years of his life, a room quiet and pleasing of aspect, that, as the eldest daughter of the house, was originally my own, and in which, after I had finally left home, in the tranquility of the back of the house, he found peace and security. The wardrobe still contains my father's clothes, most poignantly his homely, plaid dressing gown, and the tweed jacket he was wearing on admittance to hospital after having suffered the stroke that paralysed the lefthand side of his body.

When I visit my mother, I take pains to open the curtains of this closed room in the morning, perhaps opening the fanlight if the day promises to be warm, drawing the curtains again against the coming of night, and shutting the window. The room is not intended as a shrine; it is simply that my mother cannot bear to remove the possessions that speak so powerfully of my father's presence; his hairbrushes, watch, and spectacles, the  knitted garments contained within the chest of drawers,  his jackets, shirts and overcoats hanging neatly in the wardrobe.

Longing for the sound of his voice, the generous, delighted smile with which he greeted us, the gentle pressure of his hand upon our head or shoulder, as though we his daughters were still tender children, I often pause whilst in the room, to open the wardrobe door, taking care that the sound does not reach my mother, to touch the clothes that he inhabited, lay my cheek against the reminiscent roughness of woollen cloth, draw in the lingering scent of his skin, his hair, until either comforted, or overwhelmed by an unassuagable grief, I close the wardrobe, and steal from the room on tiptoe.

I once asked my father if he could make paper aeroplanes, knowing that, as a child, he had created little models from balsa and thread, which he hung from the ceiling of his bedroom, much as did his grandson generations later. We were travelling together on a train bound for a London terminus at the time of my question, leaving him small scope for demonstrating his skill, and would soon part company, myself to journey onwards to Scotland, and he returning home to Hampshire, but a day or so later, a manilla envelope addressed to me in my father's fine, rhythmic italic, arrived by post, bearing within an elegant aeroplane fashioned from a sheet of manuscript paper. I have it still.