On Maidens and the Middle Aged Man.

I said in the previous post that I was going to mention a brief thought on the subject of maidens and middle aged men, didn’t I? And I also said it was going to be short. OK then, here it is.

I’ve observed during my longish sojourn in this human body that maidens – by which I mean young women approximately in the 18-23 age group – are quite often romantically attracted to middle aged men in their forties. It happened to me, you know, when I was in my forties. It was a constant source of delight to get so much attention clearly beyond the bounds of mere friendship from young women half my age and even less.

I suppose it’s because men in their forties are, for the most part, still fit, strong, active, and possessed of a healthy libido, but with an overlay of experience not yet evident in callow youth. And they look lived in. Young women of that age are probably the most open and searching of the various age/gender demographics, and so the added benefit of experience matters I suppose.

How pleased I am – or at least should be – that I am now genuinely old and therefore none of the above. Maidens, however delightful, can be a mightily mixed blessing, you see. They still smile at me, but it’s a very different smile than the one they used to bestow.

On a Dangerous Road.

I was on edge all day yesterday because of things I read in the news. Today has been the same for the same reason, so here are a few pointers:

Both the US and UK seem to be quietly abandoning democracy in favour of a move towards more autocratic control which might well grow naturally into fascism. Trump seems to think that the US military is his personal box of toy soldiers, there to keep him amused while he’s feeling tired between tantrums.

Over on this side of the pond, Starmer and the media are jumping about like a box of firecrackers over the fact that two Jewish men were attacked in London recently. Starmer’s response is to threaten the banning of protests against hard line Israeli brutality. He seems to be ignorant of the fact that the horse is supposed to be in front of the cart, not behind it.

Britain's Chief Rabbi is complaining that ‘anti-Semitism is growing and becoming normalised.’ Well, of course it is. It was obvious that such would happen when the carnage in Gaza began to unfold. But let’s not forget that there are two forms of anti-Semitism. The first is the bigoted kind and is simply a form of racism. Few people in the modern world fall into that category. The second arises from an instinctive sense of outrage when decent people read of IDF soldiers killing the innocent just because they can. (Or perhaps it’s all justified by that convenient American phrase, ‘collateral damage.’ Students of European history might consider what happened to the Cathars during the Albigensian Crusade, and consider why it happened, and see that there is a striking parallel at work.) In any event, maybe the Chief Rabbi has difficulty with the operation of cause and effect, and I still maintain that most of what is deemed ‘anti-Semitism’ is, in fact, anti-Zionism. I can explain the difference if you like, but should I need to?

(And yes, I do realise that there are good people in Israel. If only they could remove the brutes running their country, the rest of the world could know it too, and Israel could cast off the shadow of being probably the world’s foremost pariah state.)

I think we’re at a crossroads again and still haven’t learned the lessons of history. It seems to me that the time is right for the military and the populace to come together and say ‘Oh no you don’t,’ but it’s unlikely to happen because a system created and run by powerful interests is very good at keeping somnambulists asleep.

*  *  *

Meanwhile, back at the Shire, the May blossom is now coming on strong but the weather is set to turn colder. Shame. And today is the 20^th anniversary of my moving to this house. My, how times have changed. And that reminds me of the post I have running through my head about Maidens and Middle Aged Men. I might even write it one day if my old man’s mind can settle sufficiently. It will be quite short.

Being Nobody.

I’ve just come in from having my Beltane Eve fire. It was a good one this year, fanned by a gentle wind and still smouldering as I write. I thought that maybe I should grace the old blog with one more post before spring bows out in a little over two hours time (according to my Celtic ancestors on my dad’s side, that is.)

So…

I was walking up The Hollow at lunchtime today, mesmerised almost by the vast swathes of wild white garlic flowers, when I was taken in hand by a strong fit of nostalgia for my teenage years. I remembered the fishing trips, and the rugby games, and the girlfriends, and the not-too-wild parties, and the building of a bonfire on Berry Hill on which to roast potatoes and discuss those matters which preoccupy the teenage mind. I remembered the school field study trip to Swaledale in Yorkshire, and the playing of the trombone (at which I excelled of course…) in the school orchestra on speech nights and Christmas carol concerts. And plenty more as well.

I knew who I was then, but I don’t any more because one day, some way beyond the teen years, I heard the hum of mother culture. And so began the first hints of profound musing. Life became more of a struggle when I began seriously to deliberate on, and search for answers to, the meaning of life and the nature of reality. I haven’t found a satisfactory answer to either yet, at least none on which I can definitely rely.

And now I think I’m really nobody at all, and maybe that’s a good thing. The one aspiration left to me is to engage in a long conversation with the Lady B before I die, but it’s not likely to happen because aspirations don’t usually bear fruit for people who are nobody. Do they? Probably not.

The Unsinkable Donald Trump.

It’s interesting to note, isn’t it, that American assassins of old made short work of the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King, while Trump escapes over and over again with nothing more serious than a scratched earlobe (allegedly.) No doubt his supporters are revelling in the certainty that divine intervention is at work. I expect the titular line of Dylan’s With God on Our Side is being played on a constant loop down in the darkness of conservative evangelical rat holes everywhere.

Well, maybe God is on Donald’s side. Or maybe American assassins ain’t what they used to be. Or maybe there’s something a bit rum going on.

I know nothing.

Musicians From Another Planet.

I've asked this question before but I'm going to ask it again: How do pianists play two different - and often disparate - strings of notes at the same time, one with the right hand and the other with the left? I'm led to the serious suspicion that they must have two brains, one for each hand. What other explanation could there be?

And then there's the other question that occurs to me when I hear a piano being played: How do they always contrive to have at least one finger free to play the next note no matter the speed and complexity of the ink blots? That's not as simple as it might sound on the surface, and I suspect there's something of the metaphysical going on.

So are pianists all undercover aliens walking furtively among us? If so, what is their purpose? Are pianists not what they seem (like owls), and what should we do about it?

The Room Behind the Rock Face.

During one of my return trips from Ashbourne in the community transport bus recently, we had an extra passenger – an elderly lady who lived in a village about seven miles from here. We dropped her off first, and the house she lived in was one of a run of stone-built terraces fronting onto the main road. Access to the house, however, was gained by way of a dark, narrow passage at the back, and on the other side of the passage was a rock face which I estimated to be around fifty feet high. Apart from the physical discomfort of feeling hemmed in, the house must have received very little light through the windows at the rear.

But it got better…

The rock face continued beyond the terraced houses to be in full view of the road, and what a forbidding aspect it presented: damp, dark brown sandstone which appeared to have water constantly running down the face from the land above. And then I noticed something extraordinary. It had a door and two windows in it. I wondered whether they might have been some kind of whimsical curio because surely there was nothing behind them, or so I thought.

The following week I asked a different driver whether he was familiar with this oddity. He was, he said, and told me that there is indeed a room behind the door, and that somebody once lived in it.

Lived? Lived how? Did this room have gas or electricity? Did it have running water (apart from what was running down the outside walls)? Did it have a fireplace to provide heat in the winter, and if so, was there a chimney driven up through fifty feet of rock to let the smoke out? He didn’t know, but in all my life I’ve never seen such a ‘dwelling’ and had no idea that such a thing might exist.

But then it’s a well attested fact that during the Middle Ages and a little beyond, there were people living in caves dotted around the various dales in this area. To people such as those, I expect having a room in a rock face complete with a door and two windows would have been quite the height of luxury.

Ups and Downs in England.

This morning I went for my customary Thursday walk which takes me up the tree-lined Hollow en route to the fairy glen above the village. As always at this time of year I was reminded of Robert Browning’s immortal and evocative line:

Oh to be in England now that April’s here.

The day matched the sentiment, being mild, calm, and sunny, and the whole Shire being awash with the whites, the yellows, the blues, and the pinks of wild spring flowers and well trained cherry trees in many a cottage garden. And on the way I met a comely young woman and her boisterously friendly young dog, and was the beneficiary of much enthusiastic fussing and evident delight in my company (by the dog, you understand, not the comely young woman. Heaven forbid at my age.)

Life in an English April felt worth having after all.

This afternoon I needed to contact Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to get a simple answer to a simple question. After half an hour of frustration and primal inner screaming I was no nearer to reaching the object of my simple quest. And then the phone signal failed anyway, so I gave up.

And life returned to normal.

A Few Rare Notes.

The Shire is a picture at the moment, especially when the grey clouds move away and the wind stops taking the edge off the temperature. So much of the wild growth is not only precocious, but rampant as well. Such is true of the bluebells – my favourite wild flower – and the wild garlic, both of which are not only prolific but springing up in places where I’ve never seen them before. Most notable of all, though, has been the abundance of blossom on the blackthorn trees and bushes. Thick blocks of white everywhere in hedgerow, field, and at the margins of wood and copse. Hawthorn next, hopefully.

Elsewhere…

I answered a woman’s question recently with disarmingly simple honesty. She called me ‘a beautiful soul.’ Well now, fine opinions are very much a rarity these days so I chose to bask briefly in the light – lime or otherwise – and decline to mention the rust gnawing away at the chassis.

And a man said ‘nice to see you’ today. My immediate response to any man who says ‘nice to see you’ is suspicion, and the same would hold true for many women. There is, however, one woman from whom I would like to hear ‘nice to see you’, but the likelihood is exceedingly remote and so I choose not to dwell on the matter. Oddly enough I saw her today for all of around two seconds. She was driving a passing car, but she evidently didn’t see me. She hardly ever does. Maybe I’ve developed that skill which some spies and secret agents are said to have – the ability to remain invisible in plain sight.

On Sub-Standard Humans and Sudden Epiphanies.

On my way out yesterday I saw my neighbour and mentioned my suspicion that Donald Trump might be genuinely mentally ill. Her reply was unequivocal: ‘Of course he is. He’s got Alzheimers.’ I was in a hurry and therefore unable to ascertain whether she was expressing an opinion or stating a known fact, although all the current talk about the 25^th Amendment makes me wonder.

So should we now feel sorry for poor old Donald because he can’t help being an utter jerk? Well, a lot of his incomprehensible statements and behaviour found their expression in the most extreme egomania and nastiness, and I suspect I’m right in saying that those character traits must have existed long before any possible dementia took hold. Awaiting developments.

And this morning I saw a photograph of Itamar Ben-Gvir celebrating the new capital law relating to Palestinians, while no doubt cheering those Israeli settlers who commit murder the other way round. I wonder whether anybody has ever mentioned karma to him, or reminded him that even his own holy book mentions the whirlwind which awaits those sowing the wind.

*  *  *

Two entirely unrelated notes:

I was standing outside Sainsbury’s yesterday and saw a vision: a young woman in her late teens, around 5ft 8” tall, slim and perfectly formed, sporting long blonde hair, and skimpily dressed. I had an epiphany. I realised that my interest was no longer libidinous but merely aesthetic. It was a proud moment.

I also realised last night that Japanese culture is uncommonly awash with paranormal incidents and awareness, and that led to a theory that the less a culture is dominated by religion, the more attuned it is to spirituality. Am I right? You tell me.

Little and Late.

My little friend, Bear, has left the Shire and gone to live in another town in the Dales. He wrote me a letter in his child's hand to say he'd miss seeing me in the lane. It's a bit sad because I don't like many people, but I liked him. He had character. Tomorrow I'll get him a 'Good Luck' card.

Still awaiting that email which never comes. The years continue to turn.

Currently listening to old Enya tracks. A host of memories stare silently at me from a fading screen.

I haven't jotted a post like this in a long time. Here goes...