Room with a view

Mirinda had Book Group today. They were reading poems rather than a novel so she read them in the morning, before she left.

Like me, she doesn’t really get poetry. She said that at the talk, all sorts of things came out of them that she hadn’t seen.

Personally, I think poetry is quite easy. For instance, if I was to compose a poem that described our walk in the park today, I’d write:

Blue skies but chill winds make the day uncertain
With clouds scudding and crows complaining;
Dog walkers and their charges frightening Day-z.
A pleasant chat with a stone mason,
Talk of sheep and goats and curtain walls.
The Park is always cathartic, a pleasant daily interlude.

But I much prefer prose and feel certain that my reader does as well.

So. While Mirinda went off to Chawton, Day-z and I headed up to the park. The morning had been blue and warm but clouds had started to appear, almost threatening, blown in by chilly, not quite Spring, winds. Still, it was lovely. The Park is always lovely, regardless of the conditions.

Actually, ‘lovely’ is probably not the best word when the Avenue of Trees has turned into a river of mud and the streams are raging through the Queen’s Bottom. It always has a beauty, of course, but sometimes that beauty is best viewed from a distance.

Speaking of views…200 years ago, a chap planted two cyprus trees in order to hide his house from the Park. His house was across the road from the Castle, peeking out from beyond the wall. Clearly, this chap was thinking of future generations because I doubt he would have garnered much satisfaction from the idea.

The house is now owned by an architect and it appears that he isn’t best pleased by the removal of the two trees (along with the rest of the flora in the Castle ditch) because you can now see the top floor of his house when you stand looking at the Castle. According to the stone mason, the architect was in Australia when the trees came down so it was a bit of a surprise for him.

While talking to the stone mason (it was he who fixed the wall) I told him how wonderful the Castle now looked, particularly from the path into town. He was very pleased, saying it had been him pestering his boss to get it done. Now he wants to start on the next section of the wall which the tree roots have gradually displaced.

He said the view could be improved further if the grass was helped along with a bit of grazing. I was thinking cows but he mentioned a flock of sheep. His preference would be goats but, apparently, you can’t tether them any more, which is what they would have done in the Middle Ages. There’s also the problem of dogs worrying the goats. So this isn’t going to happen.

He also asked me where Carmen was, which I thought was very nice of him. I do see him a lot so you’d expect him to notice but not everyone mentions things like that. He was upset when I told him. He’s a lovely chap.

So. A lovely walk in the park and a lot of packing things away in advance of the builders and their big sledge hammers. Though, they didn’t turn up again today…