MUSINGS FROM THE BOWER 7
I was browsing in a hobbies shop recently, and noticed a whole aisle given over to ‘Scrapbooking’. There were masses of accessories, from the books themselves through to decals, buttons, decorative papers and all kinds of miniature stick-on accessories. I could see that the making of scrapbooks was now an in-thing.
During the 1980s/90s when my children were small, we filled scrapbooks too, but unlike today’s arty creations, ours were designed to record our holidays. Sometimes we made additional scrapbooks to fill with memorabilia relating to the places of interest we had visited over the year; zoos, exhibitions, stately homes and other days out. The first scrapbook I made was when we were on holiday in Cornwall. My son was one year old, and I wanted to create a memory as I knew he would never recall this holiday. My son and daughter can’t really remember much about their early holidays, so the scrapbooks have proved fascinating. For the first few years, I wrote the diary while the children contributed their finds to the album. Later, they were old enough to write the words themselves.
We bought a postcard from each of the various places we visited, and kept admission tickets, meal receipts, sugar sachets, car park tickets, paper napkins – even the occasional ice-lolly stick or chocolate wrapper. Yes, I know it’s junk, but it’s also treasure! Free leaflets and fliers were a boon, and feathers, a small piece of seaweed, tiny shells, and some daises or thrift from the cliff all contributed to the scrapbooks. The children were always on the lookout for interesting holiday bits and pieces, and they made holiday drawings too.
By now, you’re probably thinking that it can’t be much of a holiday if you have to work on a scrapbook every day, but in fact the work is minimal. All you need to pop into your luggage is a notebook, a supply of small plastic bags and an old bus timetable or similar book which won’t matter if it becomes soiled. Each evening jot down in your notebook where you went, what you did, and most importantly, the prices you paid for admission, boat trips, bus rides or other things. Then put the day’s treasures into plastic bags together with a slip of paper with the date. Press the seaweed and flowers in the bus-timetable (you were wondering about that, weren't you?). It doesn't take long, honest. When you arrive home, stick your notes and treasures into a scrapbook and label everything up. The children will enjoy helping to create this snippet of social history and it prolongs the fun of the holiday. Older children get fun out of these books too – when I suggested that we needn’t bother any more, now that they were older, my son and daughter greeted the suggestion with shocked protests even though they were well into their teens.
Not only are these holiday scrapbooks wonderful to look back on in years to come, they can resolve arguments (was that mine we visited in Cornwall or Wales, and what was the name of that little tea room in Devon?) Unfortunately, they can also cause great anguish when you notice how admission prices have tripled over the years!
Musings from the Bower
Sue Brewer
The other day someone asked me how I began my writing career. It wasn’t an easy question to answer. The very first thing that I ever had published – and was paid for – was a letter in a magazine entitled Fur and Feather. I was about 13 at the time, and would like to say that this was the kick-start to my career. I would like to say that – but of course, it wasn’t. At 13 I didn’t really know what I wanted to do when I left school. And though I loved writing, thanks to Michael Guinery, an enthusiastic teacher in my primary school in Welwyn Garden City, I didn’t see it as a career. I ended up working in a ‘special’ library (one attached to a research institution) before moving on to a college library.
It was much, much later before the writing really took off. I had become interested in breeding various types of amphibians, and submitted an article to the Aquarist magazine. Soon, I was writing regularly for them on many topics. At the same time, I decided to dabble in the fiction world, never thinking I would get a story published as it is such a cut-throat market. By a fluke, my story was included in a Woman’s Realm supplement – and suddenly, I was writing short stories for them, and other magazines as well. The thing that helped my writing more than any other, was my word processor! At first I had bashed away on an old typewriter, but the processor gave me freedom to correct and to alter my work without having to retype everything each time I made an error.
By the 1990s I also had a weekly column in a local newspaper and was writing features for various collectables, doll and teddy bear magazines, as well as writing stories and also producing ‘blurbs’ for a bookseller. I decided I would like to try my hand at writing something for children and was given the opportunity to produce a short book in verse dealing with phonetics, for a children’s reading scheme. Then my Mother asked for help – she had written an autobiography dealing with her childhood spent in a children’s home, and so we decided to publish it ourselves, knowing the market might be limited. This proved so successful that a few years later, I took the same route with my first doll book. The book was about the famous Tiny Tears doll, but was full of so much detail and general geekiness that I knew no publisher would take it on. I was amazed at how successful the book proved to be, outselling all my expectations.
Then, by a stroke of fortune, I was offered the chance to write books for a publisher on many subjects including dolls, comics, toys, autographs and games. Along the way I’ve edited a few magazines, written for others and published a magazine of my own, Doll Showcase, which has now been running for eight years. Recently, I released a selection of my short stories, first published in Woman's Realm, on Kindle under the title ‘Twisty Ends and Tangly Tales’. I’ve also written a couple of novels which I’m still plucking up courage to send to a publisher. Maybe one day, I will!
Musings From the Bower 5
What a change in the weather – it suddenly turned so hot that it was unbearable to sit in most places in the garden, except in the bower of course. Sensibly furnished with wooden benches and cotton cushions, it’s much more pleasant to relax in than perching on the metal garden chairs which burn your legs when the sun heats them up. The clematis plants are all stunning at moment; huge flowers in shades of purple, maroon, pink and pale lilac.
Recently I returned to searching out my family tree. This has been an ongoing project for at least forty years, and much of my original research was carried out in the hallowed portals of Somerset House, the original home of the public records office. There it was possible – though you needed strong muscles – to lift down the enormous leather-bound volumes containing lists of births, marriages or deaths, while an official kept a beady eye on you to check that you hadn’t consulted more volumes than you were entitled to look at. Later, the records were moved to St Catherine’s House, before ending up at the Family Records Centre in North London.
Nowadays it is far, far easier to trace your family as so many records, especially the various censuses, are on line, although you still need to buy birth, marriage and death certificates because although the indexes are now also on line, you don’t see the details. Incidentally, I was amazed to discover when looking through the online 1891 census recently, that at the time my grandfather and great grandfather were living in Somerset House, as my great grandfather was a cabman and groom in the stables there. I so wish I had thought to ask my granddad about his life, especially about his time in the First World War where he won a Military Medal for bravery. I wish too that I had asked my gran about her time as a ladies’ maid in the early 1900s; apparently she worked in the home of a cousin of the Duke of Argyll, in London, but when you’re young you assume that people will be around for ever. I’ve no idea how to begin searching for a cousin of the Duke of Argyll when I don’t even know his – or her – name. He probably had lots of cousins.
Family history is great fun, though, and immensely interesting. I’ve found a black sheep, a relative accused of stealing a purse and being subsequently transported to Australia. I’ve also discovered that my great x 3 grandfather was drowned in a pond near his farm in the 1800s, but as his purse containing all the takings from a day spent at Ely market had disappeared the death seems suspicious. Yet I can’t find a newspaper report, and the coroner’s record has ‘disappeared’. Hmm…… Sounds like a case for an early Miss Marples!
Musings From the Bower 4
Goodness me, the view from the bower has been hectic these last few days – our (very) tiny garden has been inundated with birds. A family of coal tits fledged, and the proud parents brought the babies to show them where the restaurant was. The blue tits fledged too, and what with the robins, blackbirds, sparrows, starlings, collared doves, wood pigeons, magpies and great tits, sometimes it has been like Piccadilly Circus. I haven’t seen my favourites, the long-tailed tits, lately, but am sure they will pop in soon. It’s odd that we don’t get finches now – we can hear greenfinches and chaffinches in the vicinity but they don’t call in to see us. Maybe they don’t care for the food we supply, though they must be very fussy as we put out many different kinds of seeds, as well as nuts, mealworms, cheese and other delicacies. My daughter did catch a glimpse of a chaffinch in the garden a few weeks ago, but we haven’t seen him since.
Some of the birds are very difficult to photograph, especially the blue tits and coal tits as they flit about so quickly, but the robin doesn’t mind in the least; in fact, he enjoys posing for the camera. The blackbird is usually okay too, though the wood pigeons fly off with a great clatter and whirring of wings if they see the slightest movement. I often wonder why wood pigeons have such noisy wings. It’s as though they have clockwork motors fitted to them. The magpie is shy, too. I think magpies are beautiful, especially when the sun shines onto their glossy feathers – they are not black and white, they are the deepest midnight blue. Stunning.
At last, after around two years or so, the birds have discovered the window feeder – a transparent plastic box fixed to the glass with suckers and a wire. Until recently it was rarely used, but then a male blackbird discovered it, and several of the other birds followed suit. I was worried at first about the blackbird, I thought his weight would bring the whole thing crashing down but it hasn’t, so far, even when he managed to squeeze himself right inside to extract the last of the mealworms. He is very noisy – when he feeds, his long yellow beak clonks against the side of the feeder and reverberates through the window and around the room.
I was reading recently that the dawn chorus was related to the size of birds’ eyes. Apparently the blackbirds, thrushes and robins have large eyes, so they are awake, and start singing, the earliest – their large eyes mean that they can see in the half light and find their food. Birds such as sparrows, wrens, warblers and finches have relatively small eyes, so they can stay in their beds longer and wait till it’s really light before they sing for their breakfast!
MUSINGS FROM THE BOWER
It’s been a bit chilly in the bower lately, so this musing is rather short! I was thinking about my early school days, and, unbidden, a verse popped into my head:
May brings flocks of pretty lambs
Skipping by their fleecy dams.
In 1954, our teacher, Miss Dodgson, at the Cowley Road infants school in Brixton, taught us the twelve two-line verses that make up this poem, getting us to copy them into an exercise book in our best pencilled printing, with an illustration for each month. Much later I found out that Sara Coleridge, daughter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, composed the verses in the nineteenth century.
Whenever we learnt a new verse we would carefully draw the picture with our coloured pencils on a small piece of ‘sugar paper’, and then give it to our teacher who would take them all home with her to stick in our books. (Maybe they didn’t have the right kind of glue at school! If I remember correctly, the school’s glue came in a jar with a white wax seal. It was called ‘Pollywog’, smelt like marzipan and tasted quite nice……….) One terrible day, she stuck the wrong picture in my book. Sadly, the boy who had drawn it liked my picture best so he said that it was his. I still have the book – and still feel cross when I look at the September page!
It’s odd how facts and rhymes we learn when we are young tend to stick with us throughout our lives, whereas those we try to learn later seem to need ‘topping up’ regularly to ensure we don’t forget them. Maybe it’s just me! I had a book when I was I was three, one of the Little Golden Books series, which contained a poem about a wren. Even now I can say that poem with no hesitation, yet although I check the weather daily I still have to look up it up in Fahrenheit, as I just can’t relate to Celsius. I keep trying to teach myself that 21C is about 70 degrees, and 23C is about 75 degrees, but it won’t stick in my brain.
Talking of temperatures brings me back to the thought of how chilly it is for May. May is my birthday month, it has always been a warm flower-filled time of year – but this year I know that we won’t be partying in the bower. More than likely we’ll be gathered round a fire, drinking hot soup and discussing the weather!
MUSINGS FROM THE BOWER 2
For several months I was unwell, cumulating in pneumonia which entailed a few weeks stay in hospital. Now, back at home and, hopefully, recovered, I am conscious that I am slower than I was previously, both physically and mentally. The medications I was on, as well as the stress of being ill, will take time to disappear from my system, and it doesn’t help that we are experiencing the worst spring for years – cold, windy and rainy. I’m reluctant to go out in these conditions, worried that they might make me ill again. I long for sunshine and warmth as I know that they will instantly make me feel better.
The blossom on the apple tree, the crab apples and the other fruit trees in the garden is beautiful, despite the rain. In fact, the raindrops add a new dimension to the beauty of the flowers, and sunshine on rain-washed blooms not only intensifies their colour, the water droplets create rainbow-filled diamonds on the petals. I was looking at one of our conifer bushes recently and every tiny frond sported a rain pearl, while the grass below bore a misty sheen that sparkled in the sun.
Our garden is tiny, yet there is still so much to see. The other day I looked into our small pond and watched the smooth newts stomping around on the bottom, like tigers stalking their prey. These were male newts, and they were following the plainer females. Soon they will leave the water, and will curl up under stones during the daytime, venturing out in the evenings – when we have to be extremely careful where we tread as they tend to sprawl on the path. There are also toad tadpoles in the pond, so, assuming that they won’t all be eaten by newts, there will no doubt be toadlets on our path, too!
The blue tits are nesting in the bird box, and their young have hatched so the parents are extremely busy, constantly to-ing and fro-ing in their search for food for their babies. Normally, blue tits are quite timid, but at this time of the year they change – they querulously churr at us if we dare go into the garden, and they bravely visit the feeder on the window glass, which they normally shy away from. Unfortunately, a cat and a magpie have both noticed the activity around the box and have heard the cries of the youngsters. The parent birds will need all their skill and a lot of luck to get those babies out when neither predator is around.
Despite the rain and the wind and the cold, life goes on – trees blossom, plants bloom and birds breed. Nature is wonderful.
First things first - so where is this bower? Does it really exist or is it a figment of my imagination? What actually is a bower? When I was small, I had a picture book of Sleeping Beauty, and she was lying amidst a tangled glory of roses, leaves, twisty twigs and convoluted vines. It was beautiful. Even at that tender age I could imagine the scent of the roses, and enjoy the patterns formed by the entwined leaves and branches. But my bower isn’t really like that that, it is much more basic, though still special to me.
My bower is in our (my family’s) tiny garden and made from trellis. The roof is perspex with trellis slats spread over for aesthetic reasons, so it is possible to sit out in the pouring rain and remain quite dry. Under the bower are two benches with comfy cushions, a fold out table, which can be used for meals, and a smaller table which gets used for flower pots and various other sundries. Clematis, passionflower and honeysuckle climb up the trellis around the bower, and at night small fairy lights twinkle from the roof. Hanging baskets are suspended from the sides, while nearby is a birdbath with a fountain and various bird feeders, so there is always plenty to see. Sometimes, if I am lucky, a tiny wood mouse will sneak out from her home under a paving slab to steal some of the fallen bird seed, while - as the bower is open-ended - the sparrows often hop through searching for crumbs.
However, this blog isn’t really about my bower, although I find it’s a lovely place to sit and muse, especially in the spring and summer when the sun is warm, the birds are singing and the bees buzzing. No, this blog is about – things. Anything, the things I think about and the photographs I take as I go about my life. Maybe it will be about the plants, animals and birds that frequent the places that I visit and my environmental concerns. Perhaps it will be about my delvings through the years as I try to rootle out my family history, or it could be about the dolls and collectables I see when I visit various antiques centres (I write books about the past and the various collectable items). Sometimes my blog will feature humorous incidents, odd anecdotes and traditional rhymes – in short, my musings. Maybe I should have named it a mish-mash of musings! A personal kind of blog, but if you feel that you would like to read it and to see the photographs, then you are welcome.
Sue
