Tula Tula

 A new normal has begun me thinks. 

Travel chaos seems to springing up in hotspots. 

Covid has reached another hidden peak 

And The Archers have finally returned to their Friday night, 7 pm slot.

I listened to The Archers with interest last night ( For those that perhaps don’t know , The Archers is a radio 4;soap opera which has been running nightly ( except Saturdays) since 1951. It airs for under fifteen minutes a night and centres upon the farming community of Ambridge located in the Midlands) 

During the programme, the only Welsh character Natasha ( Mali Harries) has brought her newly born twins home with clueless husband Tom. Whilst the usual banal banter continued ,Natasha and her mother sang a lullaby ( Suo Gân)to the twins in Welsh, the two woman harmonising quite beautifully.

It proved to be a rather sweet moment of gentle drama and pathos in a soap, not always known for its subtly and it’s nostalgia and sense of place can be described well by the welsh word Hiraith

Recently one of our more serious and devout nurses left the hospice and I remember her gently singing the Welsh Hymm Dros Gymru’n Gwlad alongside a patient who was approaching end of life. The music to the hymn is well known to me as we sing a version of it it choir. Sibelius’ Finlandia, but there is something magic and somewhat humbling when you hear someone else sing it out, without embarrassment of self doubt.

Years ago, and I mean perhaps, twenty five years I remember watching one of the African nurses singing a lullaby to a young male patient who couldn’t sleep. The boy was paralysed from the chest down, and was on strict bed rest so she almost knelt at the side of his bed and held his hand, which she  placed it under her chin so he could feel the song as well as hear it.

The lullaby was called  Tula Tula and I remember to this day how the busy  ward slowly quietened to silence as everyone, patients and staff, all stopped to listen

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Table

Well I didn't achieve much yesterday. It was a grey and lazy kind of day with drizzle filtering down from the heavens above.

In the afternoon, I decided to have a go at the occasional brass-topped table that I rescued from my brother's cottage. I should have taken some "before" pictures but all I have to show you is two "after" images.

I spent an hour and a half working on the table - washing it, polishing it, buffing it and I even rinsed it in the light rain falling outside. I am pretty pleased with the end result and hope that my son Ian and his girlfriend Sarah will want it in their new home. I won't be forcing them.

The intricate brass top of the table came from Old Delhi in India and it must have been made some time in 1945 as the curtain was coming down on World War II.

My parents were married on December 8th in the Anglican church in New Delhi and they would start their voyage home at the end of that month. I imagine them seeking out souvenirs that they could bring home.

Down some dark alleyway in Old Delhi they would have bartered for the best price  as brass-workers skilfully tapped away at their designs with little hammers. Mum was twenty four and Dad was thirty one. Their married life and Peace in Europe lay ahead of them. Their war in India had been a generally wonderful, happy experience but it was time to go home. Back to reality.

I guess that my step-grandfather Jock Morris made the wooden base. He was good with wood and at solving practical conundrums. Mum and Dad brought a second brass tabletop home which was already in our house and which I blogged about here.

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Sunshine

 Grateful 

For the view

Out my window 

The breath I take 

Memories 

To be made

Today 

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Conwy Estuary from Deganwy

It’s not many people that have a full scale medieval castle which dominates an estuary as a view on the way home from work.

I stopped this morning to look at the view.

And felt grateful

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Detritus

Detritus is what remains. In terms of a human life, it is the debris left behind.

Yesterday, Shirley and I were back at Simon's cottage, trying to clear up the detritus. Sorting through it, saving and dismissing his stuff like beachcombers.

As Simon lived with our mother for the last years of her active life, there was also some of her detritus to make decisions upon. Bits of evidence of  our family life in the village. Four sons, a mother and a father - none of us thinking of death - just getting on with living. But mostly it was Simon's stuff.

Old school reports. Exam certificates. Postcards from afar. Letters that did not get thrown away. Birthday cards. Books and maps. A tin of dome-headed drawing pins. A poem. Leather belts. Fading photographs. A school badge. School ties. My father's green cricket cap from Malton Grammar School circa 1933. A pre-war theatre programme in which Mum was credited. Pressed flowers turned to dust. A cassette tape. Diaries listing the voyages that Simon made when he worked aboard small coasters that carried goods to and fro across The North Sea. Three brand new kettles. Jackets and work boots. His curriculum vitae. A purple "Gonk". Many tools old and new. Badges. A dead butterfly - a painted lady. Etcetera.

Some of the stuff will end up at the Household Recycling Centre in Hornsea. Some will be donated to charity shops in Sheffield. Some went into the waste bins outside the cottages and a few items we will keep including a brass-topped occasional table from India. Our parents brought it back to England after World War II. I am hoping that Ian and Sarah might like it.

Simon's six year old Mercedes van is still parked outside the cottages. I have no authority to drive it and we have found no paperwork connected with his ownership, insurance and maintenance of that van. It will be a good long while before we are in a position to sell it.

That's how it is. That's where we are at. Dealing with the detritus. And we will be back on Monday afternoon after my appointment to register his death in the city of Hull and to collect some death certificates which to my disgust cost £11 each.

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