DVT DAY 62

I woke up this morning feeling very iris and grandfather, which will become clearer later in the blog. Some days I just get the sense of something brewing, often it’s a poem other times its something else. But first things first there is the delight of a bacon sandwich to look forward to. My plan for the day is to reclaim the world, or more specifically to make the world come to me. If I cannot go out to walk for an hour then the walk comes to me and I use what I’ve got, to wit, a front and a back garden and a side way between them. So I have a circuit and the decision to take back my walking hour in the world. And to do that I need feet that can walk, all this shielding in slippers has seen toe nails grow beyond the comfortable length for walking in trainers. So first order of the day, after bacon sandwich, is to sort my toe nails. Your be relieved to know there is no gory video or pictures, so I move onto the walk. I don gym clothes, clip on my i-player, ramp up Rammstein and slap on the sun hat with visor. I am ready to walk. Walk I do for 1 hour and 7 minutes around my home route. All went well and I end up sitting happily on the garden swing seat happy with myself.

Lunch comes around, sandwich and apple and time to do the crosswords. I put my fleece into wash and get my camera to take photos of the pond, but I find that because the pond is netted the camera will not focus on my frog friend who is sitting in the middle of the pond. Sometimes things are just not meant to be. I decide its time to re-pot the four big tomato plants that have outgrown their pots. Always an enjoyable task to provide a small plant with the growing room to blossom into a full-grown specimen. It’s even more rewarding when the plants were looking droopy and lacking vigour who then perk up no end in their new pot with plenty of water retaining compost. These four plants responded splendidly and have settled down nicely.

I retreat to the shed to read and take my notebook with me intending to start the blog before tea time. What actually happens is I write a “poem” about irises and my grandfather.

I wake up all irises and grandfather.

Suddenly that blacksmith turned gardener

Is alive and well in my garden.

An army man, a mule man,

Returned from Empire

To find nothing to do

Only to remember.

His arms and chest ablaze,

Tattoos of a young soldier,

Bright, brazen, patriotic and oriental,

Artwork that cost him his bed

As his wife withdrew in shock

Only to forgive two weeks later.

Eight years of India and a sock full of rupees

That bought no work or bread.

Warrior no more it is the streets,

To search for work amongst

So many returning heroes disposed of.

Wandering and meandering along the river

From Chiswick to Kew Fred walked

To find an old veterans scheme.

For sixpence a day he could dig

And later plant and tend.

Kew Gardens was his work,

For life he would be natures manicurist

Whilst at home gas light turned electric,

Range became gas oven,

And the radio played music

While he still played dominoes.

One job lives on.

As great houses closed the garden collected

That which was rare or prized.

That day it was Irises, purple and sky blue

With scent sweet and strong.

My mother said he asked,

But a man who traded booze at the Khyber Pass

Under the cover of dark with locals

And then fought them in the light

Was not a man to ask,

I think he rescued them.

He brought those rare rhizomes home

To flower in his tiny garden.

When another war was waging

His daughter, with one of her own

Tucked under her arm found a flat

To which she clung for her returning man.

In that flat she raised the Irises of home

And to this day they bloom there.

Some good years, some bad

But they persist.

In my turn I set up home

And in turn my mother brings the irises.

In my turn I have lean years,

Sometimes years of abundance.

Recently the iris years have been poor

Despite my and Brian’s efforts.

Then this year in which I shield

From a world of threat

The irises set forth a profusion of flower stems.

Both beds are spiking skyward as never before.

I know not why but it is their time.

This summer I will smell again

Those childhood scents,

My own early family perfumes

And know patience and persistent care

Brings forth the beauty hidden there.

My world is, today,

All irises and grandfather,

Whose watch chain I still wear

As he did playing dominoes,

Smoking his pipe and answering

To the name of Snowy.                     

There you go, I just never know when they are going to make themselves manifest, usually they just remain as senses or feelings.

By the time I am finished its time to dash around getting the washing in as its started to rain. Panic over, washing in, its time to get indoors and get ready for tea and the rest of the evening. So chicken and desert later I settle down in front of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and write todays blog.