there and back again

Suffolk is simple. There is land and there is sky. Sometimes there are trees to ruffle the middle. Usually, though, trees and sky.

To a simple soul this is reassuring. Since leaving Suffolk in 89, the places I’ve lived have all had disconcerting humpy bits hooching up chunks of sky. The sun takes longer to rise not just because I’m now on the West side of the island. Dawn is not just tardy; when she finally arrives there’s some hulking great chunk of land blocking her out, leaving her nothing more than a polite herhumm behind the Pennines.

Whenever I go back to Suffolk I exhale. Land. Sky. Thank you.

Thing is, there is so much land and so much sky, where do you take a picture? What the ratio of solid stuff to airy stuff? At the bottom of mum’s garden it worked out 50/50:



[editor's note: really, that's more 40/60, innit. short photographers, tsk.]

I can understand how some find this land / sky thing unsettling. Some - gasp - even a tad dull. Me? It’s the third bowl of porridge. I come over all Akenfield.

With a scarcity of streetlights, when that blue stuff darkens, every of the many stars pointillist prick out their old stories. You can arc-sweep your eyes and read them in. This is when the sky rises.

A December day gives pale light history. A ploughed field all’s well. And let’s not ignore the delight of jumping up and down, yelling SOD SOD SOD SOD SOD SOD SOD.



Just me then?



Sheer plod makes plough down sillion
Shine

Years and years and some more years ago, sixth form Eng Lit, we ‘did’ Hopkins. Hopkins was done. Slippery sod himself, his paper was my lowest mark. We were taught all the techno terms for the way he flilliped around an image, intricate origami creatures to transport his soul’s delight. I just didn’t learn them.

I could read his lines, grumble with the rest about having to read the tangles of some Jesuit priest, but secretly know his heart and give a double thumbs up. This I could do. I could not, would not stake them out with literary terms. (A hint even then that praps English teacher wasn’t a perfect fit for me future? Just cos being, I feel, a perfectly valid answer to many English exam questions. Fortunately I learnt to fill the gaps with over-evident waffle, but waffle is all it ever was and will be.

Just cos.)

The weekend also had croup for Zig, who is home with me in the loose cough and loadsa bogies stage; the finding, repotting and decorating of a tiny Christmas tree into a fabulous and accomplishedIthankyou bird-feeding tree for Nanna and Grandad’s grave; and people, some of whom walked past a copse I once peed in and stung my bum.

See how the trees lean.



I have a mum who sticks her arms in the air. Just cos.
A biggest sis who points back at me. Just cos.
A middle sis who stares. Just cos.
A husband who will never quite be Jean Reno. Sigh. Just cos.
And a daughter who hides in the ditch with her Unky Monkey. Just cos.


And a house full of washing that needs carrying and lifting and folding and drying and washing and putting away as is and ever will be world without end.

Just cos.