HEATHER’S TREE

I had breakfast with Paul today. We took a mile long walk around Goring and Streatley and then ended up in Pierreponts cafe.

Just as we wandered from politics to cars to guitar practice, and my mind was about to non sequitur  into the last British hangman also being called Pierrepont and how odd a name for a cafe that is, Paul suddenly said,

“Do you want to see Heather’s tree?”

After the funeral, Paul and his brothers had phoned the Environment Agency and asked whether they could plant a tree by the river, in her memory. And so they had.

We paid up, then walked on, past George Michael’s old house, the mill, and on under the wooden bridge. And there, off to one side, was a tall spindly sapling - a crab apple tree, still supported by a pole and plastic ties.

It was beautifully young and fresh. I’d say about my height, but slender, like a pencil. Tiny apples hung from its wiry branches, delicate like buds, but unmistakeably still apples. Fresh green leaves sprouted happily, and it swayed gently in the sunshine.

My eyes twitched, and I blinked away the tears. What a lovely thing - a beautiful new life shooting from the memory of one that had ended. I looked at Heather’s tree and I somehow saw Heather: young, full of life and hope, and faith, smiling like she did when we first met her that summer in Northern Ireland. She should be here, still, on the bank of the Thames, with us.

“I understand I think,” said Paul, “Why people visit graves and need to talk. It actually does you good, somehow.”

I get that a little bit, but not to the extent he meant it. There’s a depth to his understanding of grief that I just won’t be able to compute. And that’s okay; I get that. But I did want to talk to Heather, and this little tree in Goring seemed like a connection point. I hadn’t realised how much I miss my friend.

RESURGAM

We said goodbye to Henry yesterday. At the crematorium, Megan came and stood by me and we both tearfully remarked that we'd been there too many times.

The same domed chapel, the same portico, the same suits and ties and faces, all reuniting between the flowers and grass and the yew trees. The chatter died down as the shiny black hearse drew up and sombre men carried Henry in upon their shoulders.

Every time I go back there, the grief of the last time returns. The blue hymn books, the cold fan, the carved wood, the letters RESVRGAM engraved above the coffin, the rich blue curtains... memories sweep in like the tide, and I understand for a moment just what, and who I'm missing.

Henry was a champion. In the most beautiful, understated way, he carried truth and life with him wherever he went. Bolder than a lion, kinder than anyone knew, gentle but firm, and, unassailably joyful. The world is different because Henry prayed, and now, the world will be different again without him.

"It sounds like a daft thing to say," I whispered to Karen. "But it just feels like he ought to be here." She nodded, knowing what I meant. Henry just belongs to us, and the gathering of people outside the chapel, seemed somehow incomplete without him there.

I hope I don't find myself at that place again any time soon. If grief really is like the sea, rushing in in relentless tides, then I'd like to see it roll out to the horizon for a good long while, instead of coursing in again before its time.

But the ocean is not the only relentless thing in this story. As Aslan puts it in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, there's much deeper magic at work. And somehow, beyond the dark stained wood of that sad place, far from the suits and faces and the weariness of the world, a soul set foot on a golden floor to rapturous applause. Resurgam. I shall rise.

If I close my eyes I can see him smiling there, lit like the first leaves of Spring that catch the sun: whole, new, complete, and ready to cheer us on, as ever he did. Thank you, Henry.

LATE SUMMER

I’m back at The Water Tower again this morning. Today the sky is a sort of late-summer colour: a faded blue like an old shirt or a sunkissed watercolour. Altocumulus too, hangs like a carpet of cotton wool. It reminds me of arriving in Sorrento on a quiet September afternoon and realising that the Italian summer was coming to an end, just as my holiday was starting.

It’s an odd feeling isn’t it, coming in at the end of something momentous. It’s like arriving at the embers of a party - everyone’s bonded, everyone’s had the best time, everyone’s in love with everyone else, and all you can see is a mess at the end of someone else’s good time.

Wait. Why am I talking about that? This isn’t Italy, and I’m on my way to work!

Well, sort of - today I’m working from home; or more accurately, working from somebody else’s home. It was convenient to be at the Intrepids’ today, and so that’s where I’m headed. I’m late though.

And summer is too. You can tell from the angles of the shadows, from the way the sun catches the leaves, and from the humid air. There’s a golden paintbrush about at this time of year.

Anyway. Here comes the bus. At least I don’t have to actually arrive late at the actual office I suppose. It’s one thing being late to a party, but it’s quite another to saunter into the world of work when everyone else has already been there an hour.

NOT NOT-SPARTACUS

I did something rare today in my work culture. I apologised for a thing.

Oh it isn’t rare for me; I apologise for things all the time, even some things which just couldn’t have ever been my fault! If anything I’ve actually undermined the power of apology by using it too much. Sorry about that, everyone.

No, I’m talking about work culture, where people see failure as blame, and blame as a sort of hot potato to be thrown to the last man standing. “I’m not Spartacus!” shouts everyone who definitely is called Spartacus. Everybody else keeps quiet.

Well. Today I added a comment to a thread in Slack that was a bit harsh on someone. I knew it, but I was being hotheaded and uncharacteristically vocal in suggesting that they were wrong about a thing. I hammered it out and clicked Send.

Unbearable silence. Tickety tock, no reply, focus on something else, can’t, back to it... still nothing. Nothing nothing nothing. Nobody agreeing with me. Nobody responding. Nobody saying anything. Cold sweat. Conscience starts to burn.

I had to do something. So in the end (it was 34 minutes later) I pushed back my chair, got up and went to his desk.

“Hey,” I said, all friendly, “I just feel I need to apologise for being a bit aggressive on Slack earlier...”

A few people close by started listening in. That made the exchange about a thousand times worse. One person wanted to know what I’d actually said because they couldn’t believe it. Meanwhile, predictably, the person I was apologising to... hadn’t even read it yet.

I went bright red. He went redder. I tried to explain it out but I was already like a beetroot in a court room. You just don’t do this where I work. Most people would have deleted the comment, or simply styled it out. Perhaps some would have pretended that they meant something else, and defended their poor words to the last. But I couldn’t.

I think it was alright in the end. It’s a good lesson for me, not to let the frustration I feel cascade out onto others. And it was that! Earlier, someone had patronised me and told me off for asking a question I thought was very sensible. But (I realised) I’m not responsible for that person; just my response. It’s frightening how easy it is to let selfish responses overspill, uncontrolled and lethal, into the world around.

I don’t know whether I dented the culture. I hope I made at least a little impact. It’s difficult when you’re just one data point. I am probably an anomaly, moved by a sensitive conscience and the inner Voice I love so much, whose Dove I dare not lose. I did the right thing, I’m sure of it. I’m not not-Spartacus.

MY SISTER’S CONFIDENCE

I popped in to see the Intrepids after work. My sister was there being loud and full of life, and all the other things I’m not. Before I knew it, she was proclaiming what happens when she wins the lottery tomorrow and who’s getting what.

In the distraction, my Mum thrust a plate of dinner at me without me being able to protest, and so that was that.

“I’ll pay your mortgage off!” blasted my sister, “And you can scrap that old thing out there...” (she waved her hand in the direction of the drive) “...And you can have any new Ford Focus you want! You just pick the colour!”

I quite liked that she thought I’d still pick a Ford Focus despite my sister offering me a chunk of £143 million. She’s probably right.

Meanwhile my parents would be off on another cruise, my other sister gets a loft conversion, and perhaps I finally get to go to Tahiti.

“I’ve decided that if I say I’m rich, then it has to be,” she declared fearlessly. I greatly admire my sister.

I asked my Dad if he could check with the neighbours about borrowing their towing eye, so I can finally get my car fixed next week. He nodded, knowingly.

If she wins Euromillions tomorrow, you’ll be the first to know.

ONE-DOWNMANSHIP

I’ve been thinking about kindness this week. I asked someone the question about whether they think it’s dying out and they looked at me strangely and walked off.

Here’s what I mean. For some reason, our culture is about one-upmanship these days. On social media, threads and threads of comments are people trying to add to a joke, to be funnier or cleverer or more spiritual than the one above, or even to spin the thought into a new angle that nobody’s thought of. In conversations, people far prefer to be correctors rather than corrected, and lots of us (me included) are forgetting how to be corrected gracefully. It seems that the goal is to be one ahead in every situation.

Astutely, you might have spotted the irony in me pointing this out. I of course, can’t help with that, other than to say that is only context for what I really want to talk about, which is kindness.

I think kindness is one-downmanship. At least, it should be. It should be notching yourself down a peg, falling behind a lap, kneeling, reaching, helping, lending your strength to those who need it. And that’s the reverse direction to what’s fast becoming the norm.

What’s more, one person’s up is another person’s down. If kindness really is one-downmanship then it’s quite easy to see that it could establish a power balance without even trying. “Let me help you with that” is often met with “It’s okay, I can manage.”

No-one really wants to be at the weaker end of the seesaw. Oh it affects me too by the way! I can’t lift my piano by myself, but I very rarely ask for help. Very rarely. And sometimes when people offer, I feel quite proud and wounded. 

That’s why I’ve been wondering whether kindness is tougher than it used to be. It’s made me wonder whether it has to be anonymous to survive. It’s at its best when everybody’s certain that there’s an imbalance between strong and weak. It’s easier to be grateful to a mysterious benefactor than a person you have to awkwardly thank.

So, what’s to be done? Perhaps we ought to recognise who we are, what our weakness are, what we can’t do (it’s 32kg my piano) and what we need the kindness of others for.

Also, we should show kindness regardless of whether it will be accepted, and regardless of what it establishes about the power imbalance between the strong and the weak. I know that’s tough, but a culture of one-downmanship will only prevail if it’s brave in the face of rejection.

Then there’s the secret weapon: being thankful. I reckon that might help restore a little balance itself. I need help. I’ll let you help me. I will be thankful.

And as for one-upmanship? I’m going to try knocking that one on the head and learn from any wisdom I see out there that I haven’t the wit to think of. Especially if it comes from a heart that genuinely wants to help people, and not someone showing off! I think it might be critical to recognise that difference.

A MAN WHO GUIDES HEAVY-GOODS-VEHICLES

“Help us out mate,” he said, gesturing to me from the cab.

I gulped. His lorry was trying to get through a tight gap between two bollards. It would be millimetre-tight.

Don’t you have to be a grown-up to guide an HGV driver through a width restriction? I mean, like a proper adult? Did he really mean me?

But of course. I’m 41 on the outside, even if I actually can’t believe it. I stood in the road and tried to direct him which way to turn the wheel with hand signals. It suddenly occurred to me how similar to conducting it is. Though in the high street, I was making it up, which is the equivalent of just waving your arms about at an orchestra and hoping for the best.

It didn’t take him long to work it out. There was no way through and he needed to reverse. My next job was to walk down the road and inform the drivers backed up behind him. They expressed varying degrees of thanks.

Maybe I’ll get a pipe and a flat cap. That’s the kind of thing required now that I’m a person who guides HGVs into tight spaces, isn’t it? Though of course, I don’t smoke so it would have to be one of those ones that blows bubbles. Oh and also, I didn’t actually pass the test anyway did I? He had to give up on my orchestration and reverse down the road.

I don’t know whether to be pleased about all that... or not.

THE GLEAMING TOWER OF HOPE

I’m waiting for the bus by the Water Tower today. I miscalculated times and then ended up at this strange bus stop because I didn’t want to run.

I had a friend who used to call it the ‘gleaming tower of hope’. Every day on his way home from work along the motorway, he’d see it catch the sun on the horizon and it would remind him that home is ahead and work behind. I don’t think he liked his job too much, based on the speed he used to drive away from it every afternoon.

It was built in 1932 apparently. For those of us who live here, it’s formed part of our skyline forever. There are black and white photos of my Mum in school uniform standing in her garden with the Water Tower looming in the background. When I was a kid, we’d pass it on the way to ‘Savacentre’, and my Grandfather used to comment on how you can see it from almost all roads into the town.

It was there when I did my first driving lesson too, looking exactly the same, gleaming in the afternoon sunshine above the houses, while my instructor was being sarcastic about three point turns.

And this morning. It’s glimmering in the sun. A man cleans the windows of the Water Tower pub next to it, and there’s a late summer breeze in the air while I wait for the Number 15.

It feels a bit like a holiday morning. Just beyond this row of houses, there might be sea, or cliff tops, or rolling hills. All that’s missing is the cry of seagulls. Oh, and the fact that I know that the sea is nowhere near of course. Though today, on my way to work, I kind of wish it were.

My friend was right. It is the gleaming tower of hope. But only really because that’s where home is. And home will always be home.

TAHITI BED & BREAKFAST

I looked up holidays in the South Pacific this week. Tahiti, Papeete, Bora Bora - tropical islands with blinding white sand under rich blue skies; aquamarine seas, smooth and clear, by the fine slopes and the whispering palms - empty, inviting, waiting.

I can't go. I can't afford it for one thing, but that isn't actually the only reason. No, it seems that these places are almost exclusively for honeymooners. And I'm not one of those. It would be weird to turn up in paradise on your own while surrounded by affluent love-islanders.

Even if I had the gumption to do it, to supplant myself in a world of cooing couples, I still don't think I could. To go to a place like that and not be able to reminisce with anyone would be a shame - and I'd probably only ever go once, given the cost. That, I reason, is probably why Richard Branson lives on his own island, why people like me can't go to Tahiti, and why those places are constantly full of only star-crossed lovers in secluded beach huts.

What there ought to be is a sort of Tahiti Bed & Breakfast: an old house on one of those islands that's purely for travellers passing through - you know, like there is in the Lake District, or Eastbourne, or Bognor Regis. You book in for a week, dump your stuff in a sunlit room of mahogany wardrobes and flock wallpaper, then go out and enjoy the endless Pacific... with its burning sand and shady recliners under dappled palm trees. Full English Breakfast at a little round table with orange juice... followed by pina coladas and fresh fish on the edge of the deep green ocean.

"Will you have another cup?" asks Mrs Wilberforce, hovering with the teapot.

"Oh yes please," you say, folding away your copy of The Times and gazing out to the sand and tiny white waves lapping at the straw huts. "And then I think I'll go for a dip in the lagoon and swim with the dolphins."

I don't need no fancy beach hut, me. I need Mrs Wilberforce's Tahiti B&B.

Anyway...

It's raining today. It's been one of those weeks that's felt like it's had just way too much week in it. I'm super-tired. I wonder whether I need a holiday somewhere where I can just switch off the world and feel the sunshine. It might not end up being the South Pacific, but it could be somewhere. And soon.

COME GENTLE BREEZE

Come gentle breeze
And tender rain
Come sweep across
The barren plain

Come, sunshine, come
And warm this heart
Where sorrow tore
This world apart

Come whisper, love
Come sing to sleep
The terrors of the
Rolling deep

Come softest one
And speak alone
Come gentle breeze,
Come take me home

SLOSHY BUCKET

My head feels like a swirling mess today. I was stressed before I even got to work, worrying about what I might have to face. Then I had to face it - the gnawing, agonising feeling of not being quite good enough, or competent enough, or present-minded enough to do my job properly. It hit me like soggy bricks.

There is hope though; every now and then it feels as though my thoughts hover over something brilliant. I just catch a glimpse of it and then it fades out of focus again. I had one of those moments while walking to the bus this morning - a sort of buzz of clarity about... well, if I could remember I'd tell you... and then it was gone and I was running past the Co-Op with my rucksack bobbing up and down on my back.

I leapt onto the bus. Someone had sent me a contender for the world's longest WhatsApp message and the letters swam confusingly in front of me. If it were up to me I'd suggest that every time you change the subject inside a message, your phone just sends it regardless, and forces you to start a new one. Sure, there'd be some embarrassing unedited paragraphs, followed by red-faced corrections. But there'd be a lot more care taken next time, and within no time at all, we'd all be much clearer.

A lot of you are probably quite thankful that it's not up to me.

Fair enough.

So what to do about having a head that feels like a sloshy bucket. No-one would prescribe the day I've had as a remedy.

Still, the evening is yet young. Perhaps I should soothe it with some of the classics - Beethoven's 9th, Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, Ocean Drive by the Lighthouse Family. Or perhaps I should guzzle a load of water, or make a really good dinner. Perhaps I should convince myself that tomorrow will be better and just go to sleep. But then. It didn't really work last week, that.

SMART WATER?

"Don't say anything, don't say anything, don't say anything..." whispered my brain.

I need to listen better, I reckon. Before long I was quibbling over: whether 'metadata' is one or two words, how best to use hyphens with split compound adjectives, what you call the future perfect tense, and whether or not bullet lists should end with full stops.

Go on, do an eye-roll. I would. The thing is, I think, even I have limits to talking about this stuff. At some point or other, you have to let it go and ask whether or not what you're writing actually makes sense to the person who's going to read it... don't you?

And anyway, language is evolving! It's changing all the time - why, even yesterday, I was out for a walk, wondering why sign writers are currently abandoning grammar...

There's a bus stop near where I live which sports an advert for fancy water. On one side, the giant blue poster at the end of the shelter says:

"sun's out, tops off."

... which I don't understand. On the obverse side, over two more pictures of dripping water bottles, they've printed:

"hydrate. bye thirst."

It's the future obviously. Capital letters are obsolete because no-one's really bothered to hold down a shift key. Or perhaps... perhaps capital letters look a little old-fashioned these days? Also, you're now allowed to use sentences with no verbs...

But I'm digressing a bit. My point is that language is changing, and it's a bit daft to stick so rigidly to arcane rules that might no longer apply, for what, sentimental, or insecurity reasons? Writing well has always been about establishing a good connection with people. Can I get what's in my head or in my heart, into yours?

If an old rule makes a thing grammatically correct but it's going to confuse just about everyone who sees it, it isn't really their fault for not being educated in the 1950s. The burden is on the writer there, isn't it?

That's how I see it. And I'm a person who's nerdily obsessive about this stuff! I believe punctuation and good sentence structure make writing fly, and on that flight you can bring readers with you and make them hear and think and feel!

Or of course, you can leave them scratching their heads at the bus stop.

Maybe just maybe though, there's a whole demographic of people who get what 'Sun's out, tops off' means, and who guzzle down their smart water because a poster told them to hydrate without any capital letters.

It isn't my demographic; I think that's okay. But if the old rules are to disappear in the future, and if the way to establish connection through text is reformed for generation Z, or generation AA, or generation Post-Brexit or whatever they'll eventually be called, then I'll go along with that and keep writing whatever I think will work.

And if you've read this far, I kind of hope that proves my point.

Anyway, my brain was right. I should probably have kept quiet in the meeting.