The big but little day

Here’s our solstice breakfast – photographed as near to 10.00am as I could – I was starving hungry! The gloop in the bowls is a a kind of muesli – I prefer to think of it as a cold porridge made with rolled oats, oatmeal, nuts, seeds including milled flax seed and grated apple. We have it almost every day because it tastes lovely and will last us until supper if we’re busy. The loaf is a freshly baked 100% wholemeal sourdough loaf, our ‘everyday bread’. The solstice treat is home made marmalade and damson jam, and the liturgy was the lighting of the candle. Simple but lovely.

Later our son drove down from the Midlands to exchange Christmas presents which are now quarantined in the boot of our car – a strange meeting with face masks and social distancing plus a bit extra for luck. There were no hugs and absolutely no kisses and we conspired silently not to breach the line between what was being felt and what was being said, but it was a bit of a charade really and no-one was fooled, I think.

Madame has taken to watching the French news channel broadcasting in English. It’s so much better at telling it straight than the BBC. For months now the most reliable newspaper sources of English news have been the Scottish ones. The English press is so partisan it’s barely worth reading unless you want a laugh; and even the Guardian’s liberal pose is constantly undermined by its visceral fear and hatred of any kind of politics that might change things for the better.

We spent the afternoon preparing a celebration supper and watching a documentary about Polyface Farm which I’ve been reading and writing about over the past couple of days. But I’ve forsworn any campaigning today. Up at the allotment digging a parsnip (they’re big) – paralysed as we have been by the weather – I suddenly thought we might span three of the raised beds with a polytunnel to extend our growing season at both ends. In the spring our tiny greenhouse is always full of germinating seeds and because it’s so small it heats up to eye watering temperatures very quickly so we’ve found that tomatoes get very stressed in there. Only the hottest chillies seem to like it. I’ve always resisted the thought because of the increased demand for hand watering but now the thought has lodged in my mind I’m wondering if I could design a means of storing the water and redirecting it on to the beds with soaker hose. It’s tricky because a 17′ by 10′ tunnel would collect an awful lot of rain in a storm – but the hardest problems are always the most fun.

Outside it was dark by 4.00pm and there was continuous drizzle under a leaden sky almost all day. This is all very hard emotional work!

Author: Dave Pole

I've spent my life doing a lot of things, all of them interesting and many of them great fun. When most people see my CV they probably think I'm making things up because it includes being a rather bad welder and engineering dogsbody, a potter, a groundsman and bus driver. I taught in a prison and in one of those ghastly old mental institutions as an art therapist and I spent ten years as a community artist. I was one of the founding members of Spike Island, which began life as Artspace Bristol. ! wrote a column for Bristol Evening Post (I got sacked three times, in which I take some pride) and I worked in local and network radio and then finally became an Anglican parish priest for 25 years, retiring at 68 when I realised that the institutional church and me were on different paths. What interests me? It would be easier to list what doesn't, but I love cooking and baking with our home grown ingredients. I'm fascinated by botany and wildlife in general, and botanical illustration. We have a camper van that takes us to the wild places, we love walking, especially in the hills, and we take too many photographs. But what really animates me is the question "what does it mean to be human?". I've spent my life exploring it in every possible way and the answer is ..... well, today it's sitting in the van in the rain and looking across Ramsey Sound towards Ramsey Island. But it might as easily be digging potatoes or making pickle, singing or finding an orchid or just sitting. But it sure as hell doesn't mean getting a promotion, beasting your co-workers or being obsequious to power, which ensured that my rise to greatness in the Church of England flatlined 30 years ago after about 2 days. But I'm still here and still searching for that elusive sweet spot, and I don't have to please anyone any more. Over the last 50 or so years we've had a succession of gardens, some more like wildernesses when we were both working full-time, but now we're back in the game with our two allotments in Bath. View all posts by Dave Pole