Thursday, November 23, 2017

Sights Part 1

What is the greatest sight you have ever seen? It's a somewhat strange question and if, like me, you hate those questions that require making comparisons between qualitatively different things then you are allowed to make a list in no particular order.

As a very wordy person it is good for me, from time to time, to meditate on sights. What comes to mind? Replaced into roughly chronological order it is these images:

My family went to the seaside on holiday. So I managed not to experience the English Lake District until a youth group holiday in 1977. It was a hot summer and we lodged in a cabin on the edge of Derwentwater. It is hard to imagine the shimmering perfection of green right down to the water's edge and then overhanging, enclosing a perfect lake, small enough to look lovely and to see it all, large enough to be impressive and have islands. If I ever visit the area and don't get to experience looking along the lake from the shore, Cat Bells to the right, I feel cheated. You can walk to this viewpoint from the centre of Keswick in ten minutes. If you see me do not disturb.

It is still 1977. Although time and vocation have played a few tricks since, I was able to take out a mortgage on a property aged 21. Shortly after moving in, and surrounded by furnishings and decor that had yet to do justice to my taste and represented only my available cash, I sat in an old armchair and looked up at the ceiling. I was overwhelmed briefly by a sense of gratitude that it was now my ceiling. This feeling recurred some years later when, after eight years of living in clergy property, we found ourselves in our own house once more. The shower had a leak. I enjoyed, briefly, the feeling of not having to phone a diocesan property department to ask if it could be fixed. It may have been a leak, but it was my leak. With that I think I have strayed from visual memory to emotional so I must claw my way back.

1978, and in our early days of marriage we had an unreliable, but delightful, green 850cc Mini. We part-exchanged it for a new VW Polo (red). UOF 247S, I clearly recall. It was our first new car and the most, apart from the mortgage, we had ever spent on anything. I can see it sitting on the drive now.

In the demarcation exercise of setting up a home and family I have rarely been in charge of the gardening. Some of the heavy lifting has been delegated to me but otherwise my work has been indoors. However whilst at college, between 1981 and 1984, I was given charge of one small bed to grow alpines, which I love. Over the three years I tended that bed like a favourite child. As the plants grew to maturity and all merged into each other, we moved out. I can still remember it with fondness though.

Alex the black labrador, is asleep by an open fire. I have never seen a more beautiful creature. Alex was raised in kennels as a show dog and then fell at the last (wonky tooth). He was trained to go to sleep at 8.30 p.m. Crazy for many other reasons he would be exploring the house and joining in (usually by sitting and looking hungry) family activities. At 8.30 p.m., often it seemed whilst in mid air, he would collapse in a heap by the warmest thing he could find. It was adorable. Occasionally two boys and a dog would be lying in a row, apparently all watching TV. This would be about 1986.

In passing 1990/91 I notice the interior of St Mary and St Cuthbert, Chester-le-Street. It is Christmas morning and packed. There is a sense of awe and fun. The children are allowed to sit on the Lumley Warriors around the outside of the nave when it is full. Alan the verger is spilling an over-full cup of wine. Being on a spot where Christians had worshipped since 883CE on this of all days. Great sight.

I find myself on the towpath of the Shropshire Union Canal in the mid 1990s. Looking along the bargeless grey-green water I see a flash of blue. I trace it coming towards me and, pivoting, follow it into the distance. It is kind enough to fly over the nearby bridge rather than under the tunnel and, against the brick background, I am able to confirm I have seen my first kingfisher.

Transported to 2009 I am in Japan and sitting looking at a caramel coloured wall in a perfect Zen garden. There are thin streaks, like contours, of black running through the mix. My guide explains that the builders would pour oil into the middle of the wall as they built it so that, over the next two hundred years or so, it would leach out and stain the outer surface.

Say it slowly. Two. Hundred. Years. The trouble with the planters of oak woodland around Fountains Abbey or Rievaulx, leaving surprise views to appear as the trees matured? Their vision, achieved within a generation, was too short-term, I now know.

Obviously, if you live with the one you love, it is likely that there is something visually attractive about the holder of that office. Might I suggest that this be a test question (not to be answered aloud) for those taking stock of a partnership. The one I live with? I like looking at her. Always have. There are some days when I actually just watch and prefer it to touching. Do you mind if we don't cuddle and I stand back to get a better view? Why? Because I can. The promise of the curves? Mixing matrimony and Eucharist I am able to say 'This is my body.' All my favourite pictures of her are in my head and can be accessed at any time.

Finally it is time for my holidays. Since 2000 we have been regular visitors to Gozo, the smaller island next to Malta. It has become a special place although it is not packed with special sights or sites. When I find myself needing a time out I take myself there mentally and have a coffee and a sparkling water in a little cafe. It is hot, dusty, smells a bit and we get it. The island, not the coffee.

I expect when I re-read this in a few months time I will need to do another list. Thus the title.






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