Wail

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I hear rumours that half the county is on anti-depressants. My sister is convinced that we may all have quite serious vitamin D deficiency. The mud and the murk and the flat brown skies and the chill persist, day after day.

I know it’s only weather. It could be hailstones and hurricanes. The garden seems to quite like it, although the astrantia and nepeta are far too tall this year, I think because they are reaching and reaching for the sun, in abject desperation. The foxgloves certainly adore it, I never saw such a bumper crop. The Pigeon and the pony seem to take it in their strides, although the duchessy Red can find the whole thing quite grumpy-making.

It’s just, oh, oh, oh, how I long for the sight of the sun. It doesn’t have to blast down day after day; just a little moment in the evening; just a glimpse of blue sky; just the gentle feeling of warmth on the skin instead of the cross hunch against the gloomy ten degrees.

The wailing thing is interesting. Generally, I like to be cheerful for you. if you have had a shitty day, the last thing you want is some Minnie Moaner. On the other hand, in the spirit of empathy and we are all in it together, I think a bit of a wail can be an act of communion. On yet another hand, it can be self-indulgent and deathly dull. I never want to present my life as shiny and impervious, in an awful magazine spread way, but I do feel a bit second-rate when I give in to pathetic first world complaints.

For instance, I am really, really sad that my local arts festival did not ask me to do the writing workshop this year. In my mind, it had become tradition. I adored doing it, even though it exhausted me. It was hard work and rather magical, as I watched uncertain students grow in confidence over the week until they gleamed with brilliance by the end. ‘I’m working on my abandonment issues,’ I told The Older Brother, when he rang.

I am fretting about the book. I am not sleeping that well and having annoying dreams.

But these are such tiny wails, really. It’s just a bit of weather and a bit of life.

I must come back to my own dictum, which is that every day cannot be Doris Day. But would one glimmer of sunshine be too much to ask?

The wail lingers, even as I attempt to write the final sentence. That’s a fine blog you’ve given them, it says, turning in on itself. That’s a pretty mediocre use of prose. Don’t you know you are messing with the language of Shakespeare and Milton? Could you not have made a little joke at least, to cheer everyone up?

NO, says my bad weather voice, which is so grumpy it wants to punch everyone in the nose. I bloody well could not.

Luckily, I also have a sensible great-aunt voice. It says: take some iron tonic, make some nice green soup for supper, go and see your dear mare, rub the soft stomach of The Pigeon, count your blessings, and stop being quite so silly. Everything will be better in the morning.

I quite like that great-aunt. I have no idea where she comes from. My actual great-aunts were frankly nuts. However she came to be in my rather crowded head, I do hope she is right.

 

Pictures:

Even the magnificence of Red’s view seems defeated by the weather:

Although she herself still glows and gleams with beauty:

Somebody is doing her Grace Kelly impersonation again:

THIS IS WHERE THE HILL SHOULD BE:

If that bloody jet stream does not shift soon, I may not be responsible for my actions.

I suppose one must look for the silver lining though. At least I seem to have written an entire post which does not mention horses.