Journal Entries
MVP's NaJoPoMo 30th
Posted Nov 30, 2014
So we've come to the 30th and the end, which for me means D for the Dieppe- Newhaven ferry.
On our trips to France, we often come back through Dieppe and catch the ferry to Newhaven. We usually have time to spare as we approach Dieppe, so we stop at one of a number of places. There is Longueville-sur-Scie, where there is a ruined castle, dating back to William the Conqueror's time.Sometimes we stop in Braquemont, just to the east of Dieppe and walk along a path on the cliffs, and other times, we go to Varangeville, where we can walk along the beach, looking in rock pools. The cliffs here are mainly chalk, as on the other side of the Channel, though they are stained here and there with brown, which may be sandstone.
The Dieppe-Newhaven ferry is a bright yellow ship with black lettering, sitting in Dieppe harbour. It struggles to make money, because it's in competition with the Tunnel, and the ferries through Calais and Portsmouth. Maybe because of this, it looks suspiciously rusty in places. They load it with big lorries, caravans and campervans and ordinary cars.
We stand on the deck and watch as the harbour workers cast off and the ship moves out to sea. We can see the Dieppe seafront, with a pleasant beach and green lawns and we get a good view of the cliffs, stretching in both directions. We look out for gannets flying past, with their heavy bills and black tipped wings. Sometimes we see them dive, arrow-like into the water. There have been times when the sea has been so calm the ship leaves a wake that looks like lace on blue-grey silk. There have been other times when the wind has been so strong that, if we venture out on deck, we can hardly stand up, and the Captain decides that the passengers should stay indoors.
The ferry has a cafetiera and we usually wander along, once the ship is under way. We don't eat meat,so we regard the pans of congealing sausages with distate, and buy fish and chips. It tends to be greasy but fish and chips on the Dieppe-Newhaven ferry has become one of our traditions.
It's usually dark when we reach Newhaven, but we still venture out on deck, to make out the long, grey shape of the Severn Sisters. As the ship docks in Newhaven harbout, we pass a huge pile of rusty scrap metal on the quay, with a couple of cranes moving grabfuls around. It's hardly an advertisement for beautiful Sussex but we know, once we leave the ship we're nearly home.
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Latest reply: Nov 30, 2014
MVP's NaJoPoMo 29th
Posted Nov 29, 2014
My mother was born and brought up in Coventry and, at the outbreak of the Second World War, she was teaching in the city. She was involved in helping the evacuation of the city's children to the countryside but most of them had returned by the time the bombing started.
My father was an electrical engineer, working as an inspector in an armaments factory in the city. Both of them were in the city on the night of 14th November 1940. They never told me what it was like to be there, but wave after wave of German bombers flew over, dropping both high explosive bombs and incendiary bombs. At the end of that night the city centre had been destroyed. My parents married in December, although they had difficulty finding a church with a roof on.
When I grew up, Coventry was still being rebuilt. My mother said that I was afraid of cranes and, one day when she had arranged to meet my father, it was difficult to get me to walk across the city, because there were so many cranes. I have a memory of visiting the new cathedral soon after it had been finished. I had an impression of an aisle flanked with crown of thorn motifs, stained glass windows set in angles along the walls and a great tapestry of Christ above the altar. Maybe the ruins of the old cathedral are more moving, as they have been left as a symbol of the sorrow of war and the potential of reconciliation.
Until the war, the symbol of Coventry was an elephant and castle but it was replaced by the phoenix.
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Latest reply: Nov 29, 2014
MVP's NaJoPoMo 28th
Posted Nov 28, 2014
Today is B for bicycles.
I've been cycling ever since I was about 10. I remember going for a cycle ride in the countryside near Rugby, where I lived and crossing a flyover over the M1. It think it was the first stretch they built.
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Latest reply: Nov 28, 2014
MVP's NaJoPoMo 27th
Posted Nov 27, 2014
Having reached the end of the alphabet, I'm starting again from the beginning. So today is A for astronomy.
One of the things my husband wanted to do in his retirement was to take up amateur astronomy. He'd studied the subject as part of a physics degree, and he wanted his own telescope. Having bought a decent size Newtonian telescope, he tried it out in our garden and on the Downs. I was impressed when I looked at Saturn for the first time through the telescope, and saw it change from a blob into a planet with rings. But even on the Downs, the sky turned orange over Brighton, making deep sky astronomy impracticable.
So the telescope went to France in a box in the back of a van. The customs were suspicious of our rented white van and I was worried that they might want us to take the telescope out of its box, because it could easily be damaged. Fortunately, they didn't.
My husband put the telescope up in the garden of our house in France, where the sky is darker. I found it atmospheric, standing in that neglected garden as the sun went down and the stars came
out. Sometimes an owl floated past, or a bat flew overhead, and I could hear frogs croaking. As the sky darkened, I could see the Milky Way and make out the constellations. I already knew the Plough, Orion and Cassopeia, but I learned that Sagittarius looks like a teapot, and Leo like a backward question mark.
My husband attached a camera, specially adapted to make best use of the light, to his telescope and took pictures of clusters and . I used to go to bed after a while. That's the problem with astronomy: it involves staying up much of the night in the cold. I never quite put my head round the technology involved in taking these pictures and processing them with software packages to enhance the images.
After a while, the village installed better street lights and floodlights to give a good view of the church. These threatened to destroy the chance of astronomy. We wrote to the Mayor, begging for a chance to switch off the floodlights on a good star-watching night. We were glad when he agreed. But in the end, the villagers discovered the flood lights were expensive, and stopped turning them on!
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Latest reply: Nov 27, 2014
MVP's NaJoPoMo 26th
Posted Nov 26, 2014
So I've got to Z for zest for life.
Chidren and young people should have a zest for life. I remember being asked by the English teacher to produce a piece about 'things you love' and coming up with a long poem listing books, various foods, autumn leaves and frosty mornings. I don't think I could do it now.
It's partly that you become jaded. When you've see golden autumn leaves or red sunsets every year for sixty-odd years, it ceases to be special. But your mental landscape tends to get darker anyway - perhaps because the brain produces less serotonin, but also because most of us have lost people we cared for.
If I'm honest, I would admit to having struggled with depression a few times in my life, particularly after my mother died and I was looking after my son, who was a terrible two. So, is there anything you can do to emerge from low periods and regain that zest?
Evidence has shown that exercise in a green space is good - whether it's going for a walk in a local beauty spot or keeping an allotment. I've tried mindfulness meditation, which was good at the time, but I think you need to do it every day to make a difference. Being with people should help, although taking those first steps into a room full of strangers is daunting. I suppose taking up a new interest should be helpful too: enrolling for a course, or travelling somewhere you haven't visited before. Certainly the University of the Third Age in our area offers a range of activities from art to yoga.
But I wanted to argue with the tutor of a yoga course I went on, who read from something called 'Green Sprituality' which said that one should always think positive. Positive thinking is fine if you are embarking on a course, or applying for a job, but it doesn't make sense to turn it into a philosophy of life, because it denies the reality of human suffering. If someone you care for has died, you need to grieve and, if you are given a diagnosis of some life- limiting illness, you will probably want to cry. So maybe as we get older, one thing we can offer is a sense of perspective, and the message that there will be times when it's all right to be sad.
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Latest reply: Nov 26, 2014
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