Beatles songs have been on my radar this week with Ron Howard’s documentary of the Touring Years shown on Friday reminding me of the brilliance of their work, as if to confirm what moved Bruno Tonioli to tears on Desert Island Discs over “There are Places I Remember”.

The lyrics came to mind for me when I was refurbishing one of my mobile phones for The Old Man and I was diverted by the photos on the memory card. They dated from 2011 through to 2013.  Times when Fudgey dog had a black muzzle, VB was celebrating her 16th and a herd of heifers destroyed the Old Man’s Brussels.

It was in 2012 that we started to take on the Old Man’s garden.  But it is not pics of the lavender that we planted that evoke the strong memories: it is the pictures of VB on sports day and JB Jr being dropped off at Liverpool uni for his first year.  And most significantly the photos of Mrs B in chemotherapy, being treated for nutropenia, and undergoing autologous stem cell transplant: these are the images that drag up the strongest feelings.  But in between the bad times there was the hope that 2012 engendered when we welcomed the world to London for the olympics and Barack Obama was president of the USA.  There was a sense that the world could become a better place.

Upheavals in the past year for me could have challenged any lingering positivity, with changes of jobs, moving house and ailing parents, not to mention the idiocy of our political systems and world leaders.  But strangely the memories from 2012 of spending our silver wedding anniversary in an isolation ward in Musgrove Park, as Mrs B’s stem cells worked to re-colonise her system, remind me (if I need it) that I am a lucky man.  We have our health, and we have happiness in our new home while our two little ‘uns start out on professional careers as teacher and (in a few months’ time) doctor.

2018 promises more challenges, but we will take them in our stride, Mrs B and I, and we know there will be plenty of good times and laughs.  It will all be OK.

“And I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I’ll often stop and think about themIn my life I loved you more”

Autumn 2017 has seen a significant shift in the direction of our lives and of this blog too.  Despite The Old Man’s typically downbeat assessment of his health last year that he would not be around to celebrate Christmas 2017, he is steadfastly remaining alive and coughing, with the support of his oxygen machines and some visiting care workers.

But the imminence of his demise is still something that remains on everyone’s radar, as even the slightest infection sends his system into a tailspin which is only relieved by the rapid deployment of antibiotics.  So we have always known that we would need to get our own place at some point, and we actually managed to do that this summer, finally moving in October.

With change very much in the air, a week before the big move I left my job at the school that had once educated my mother and took up a position at my old school instead: from mother’s sch00l to “Alma Mater”.  The change was a leap (or perhaps a push) in the dark, but less travelling and a shorter working day will mean more time at home and especially in the garden which holds great promise.

What the future holds is not entirely certain, but planning and planting new beds abd veg will be a fresh opportunity for me.  So it will no longer be a matter of “Taking on the Old Man’s Garden” but taking on my own midlife gardening project.

As I plan the new patch, I will gradually put the Old Man’s Garden to bed for the last time.  I have cleared the greenhouses and have turned a large number of chillis into a red hot jam.  And we will continue to harvest the winter veg, as long as older  siblings do not help themselves to too many.

TOM has new tenants in our old place and seems happy with the income to pay for more care visits.  And we are happy to be property owners for the first time in ages.  The change of residence and occupation has given us the chance to clear a lot of rubbish out of our lives – much of it Australian in origin, although one item still cropped up the other Saturday, but I don’t expect to see that again with any luck.

But we will try not dwell on the past but must take care of the present while looking to the future with friends and family gearing up for a great Christmas.

I noticed in the Conservative Party Manifesto that they are offering  a free vote on reinstating Fox Hunting if the nation decides to re-elect President May.  Around these parts the hunt still meets – but currently just ride to with the hounds or canter with canines or something.  The traditional Boxing Day Hunt Meet is always a well attended annual event outside the George in Cary, drawing bloated Christmas crowds to share in a mulled wine before the men in hunting pinks take the hounds to seek and destroy the vulpine vermin (by accident of course).

We tottered into Canaryville this year feeling content after a good festive feast the day before, but the feelings of comfort and positivity started to dissipate as we arrived at the Market House.  I have mixed feelings about the hunt and I am not entirely sure what to make of a gathering of people on horses sipping mulled wine, surrounded by others who have little or no attachment to the countryside other than the fact that they own large parts of it to enable them to graze their ponies for their offspring to ride.  So much green tweed, Hunter wellies and dogs smoozing in the thin December sunshine, ra-ra-ing at the strident political statements from the master of the hunt, as he stands up in his stirrups and lets forth at the usual subjects.

There are no longer any hunt sabs who some decades ago (prior to the ban) had the nerve to stand outside the George to protest.  They looked sad and a little forlorn surrounded by the congregation of slightly tipsy twits with terriers who were fencing them in.  But the Master these days has his unopposed moment in the sun to make his case and he took it with his whip hand in December.

In a rollicking review of the ills that beset the countryside he started with a popular subject, harking back to the days of Tony Blair “and his cronies” deciding to ban hunting with dogs – to general murmurs of support.  Except at this point – miraculously – a voice was heard saying “good job too” to some startled mutterings.  While someone was despatched to find the key for the lock-up on Bailey Hill into which to throw the woolly-headed liberal dissenter, the Master continued unabashed.  He berated such organisations as the RSPCA, National Trust and RSPB for having lost touch with the countryside.   This cheered the assembled throng who were further enlivened as the Master reviewed the three major events of 2016:  Leicester City winning the league (loud cheers); Brexit (even louder cheers); and Donald Trump becoming the Leader of the Free World (the audience were a bit confused with that – were they meant to cheer or not?).

Brexit is an interesting one.  Why did it elicit such a cheer, when, as I understand it, the farming community – with which the Hunt is supposedly intrinsically linked – has for years survived on the subsidies provided by the Common Agricultural Policy developed in Brussels.  Country folk for Brexit sounds like turkeys and Christmas.  Perhaps I have missed something and Brexiteers have discovered another £350m a week which can support agriculture as well as the NHS.

It’s part of the jingoistic nationalist tendencies that have left us as blinkered as the winner of the 3.10 at Kempton.  The Master said that all we want is to be left alone to hunt to our hearts content (and kill things) and thanked the farming community for looking after the country and making it a good place to hunt and shoot (and kill things).  These are the same farmers who have ripped out hedges and helped decimate numbers of hedgerow nesting birds, while we are left to dodge swarms of brainless partridge and pheasant chicks as they run around the lanes trying to end it all before the shooters get them in the autumn.

I wouldn’t say that it was a long address, but one portly gentleman in the saddle who had started a cigarette shortly before the start was forced to rummage around in his hacking jacket (pardon the pun) to light up another mid-way through in order to help him concentrate.

The Master’s final jingoistic message was to Buy British – buy local – which is a sure-fire winner, although the chances of Britain being able to feed itself in the near future are remote.  On the other hand the assembled throng could do worse than come into El Castillo di Cary to exercise their democratic right to vote, then take some time to support their local businesses – and nowhere better than their local  independent bookshop.  They might find something educational and informative to read rather than listening to the loud-sounding nothings that have populated the airwaves for the past months.

There is a storm blowing outside: the manifestation of the metaphorical turmoil that is in the air around us at the moment.  It is a time to hold our loved ones close – if not literally then at least in our hearts and minds. And to remind ourselves of our own values which do not require violence, puerile tweets or egotistical rants to back them up.

So this post is for my daughter who is working her socks off for her 4th year medical exams and for my son who has just got his first teaching job, in a proper (multi-denominational) school which will treat him like an adult and support him in every professional way as he starts his teaching career.

So I could talk about the walk the other day with the dogs through the damp grass which was bent like a Hokusai wave, on which the Labrador managed to despatch two rabbits; or I could tell you about the shrew that I spotted scuttling into the Old Man’s kitchen as I sat talking to him in the living room, and which proceeded to do a full tour of the house – via French windows, underneath the TV and then through to the breakfast room (all without TOM managing to see it) while I made vain efforts to humanely catch and release it whence it came.

But no more jokes about illegal immigrants this week.

Instead I will just show pictures of the straight lines and pleasing colours and blooms in the garden.  Just before the wind and rain battered it to destruction…

Mangetout for the many

April and early May was so dry, and yet it was not warm.  Without temperatures getting particularly high (we rarely had the opportunity  to be able to sun ourselves amongst the mole hills) the ground had dried and cracked.  At school, one of my colleagues was even proposing getting a hose pipe out on the playing field to water the bare turf in goal mouths that had been re-seeded.

I suggested we leave ground work to the groundsman who is, after all, the expert.  But I do not have that luxury in the garden. I am the expert in the field leading the campaign, so it was with some relief that the past week has seen some solid rainfall. It has meant some potentially dispiriting lessons at school, but the garden plants look refreshed and revived on it. I told the Old Man about how it all immediately looked so green and healthy and he drily opined that it is the water on the leaves that magnifies and enhances the colours. It seemed a fair hypothesis and reminded me that even though largely house-bound, the OM retains the title of overall expert around here.

I might not have him literally looking over my shoulder, but he retains some theoretical oversight and to that end I remembered to net the red currants and black currants, after last year’s crop went exclusively to the greedy birds who feasted on them.  My brothers come down at regular intervals to cook for him at weekends and find the constant stream of instructions shouted from the living room to the kitchen rather taxing.  I have a little breathing space in the garden – perhaps that is why I find it so rewarding – but in the veg patch I am doing what I imagine my parents might have been doing in their hey day:  planting out  peas, mangetout and Cavolo Nero while the potatoes are sprouting healthily.  I’ve also planted beans, although I know the paternal voice in my head tells me it is too early for runners.

Such advice is about as welcome as a Johnsonian justification of alcohol consumption in a tee-total temple, so I am sticking to my campaign promises because the future of the garden is in my hands, I am planting not for the few, but for the many, and I expect all those plants to be strong and stable…

Cavolo Nero

Potatoes

Runner Beans (too early, I expect)

Cavolo, Salad, Onions, Foxgloves and Garlic