The title is from Psalm 37: ‘The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places’. Joyce Grenfell used it for one part of her autobiography. This is not a nostalgic piece, nor another ‘Down Memory Lane’. They are ‘emotions’. Pleasure, gratitude, not to share by photographs or mulling over. A son was twice in danger, once with family, and it was impossible to get any news. Life goes ‘on hold’, then the all clear, you cry, hug, get on, no repercussions, it just happened. My sister in law was dying of cancer, she was ‘lucky’ in that her remissions allowed her to travel, she asked us to organise holidays in France, she would nap. Super holidays, super weather. The last one we knew she was near the end, two months in fact. We left the guys, and found some steps leading down to a lake, the outlet of an old mill. Sun on the water, green frogs croaking, water lilies, dragon flies. I do not think we said a word, when you have no future you do not go back over memories, just a quiet ‘good-bye’ looking at beauty.

Unexpected sights, in Australia watching kangaroos grazing with cattle a flock of big black cockatoos flew to roost. But as they flew through the setting sun we found they had scarlet stripes on their tails, which glowed like fire. Lying in bed in the middle of Bali, a ring of volcanoes behind us. Hundreds of white egrets came in to feed, workers in their conical hats emerged to work in the rice fields.

Sounds, a blackbird is singing lustily, from the roof in this terrific heat. Driving through silent Brittany, alone. in November sun roof open, Kathleen Ferrier singing ‘Blow the Wind Southerly’. The haunting ‘Remember me’. Watching your child receiving an award, proud parent of course, but a lot of emotion on the way there. If you, or somebody you love has been seriously ill, the relief when they show recognition, joy, interest in their lives, there WILL be a future. Moodscope frowns on politics, but I am writing a book on how different countries are coping with aging populations, one term the ‘Silver Tsunami’. Trying to keep a sense of proportion, and say of the current situation ‘This too shall pass’. 

I wrote this last night, but the heat got me, was not making sense. editing this morning, cooler. I have watered my plants, ten trips. I am preparing for UK, very slowly, firm control of my tendency to panic. I look at the blocks of flats, nowhere to sit outside, and I thought ‘yes, my lines have fallen in pleasant places’, even roses and blackbirds at the moment. Then  I thought back to the unhappy times, grief, drama - one survives, some with scars deeper than others. My mother thought I was ‘hard’ because I did not cry in a crisis. It was her ‘cop out’. As couples, if a crisis arises, does one act/panic, and the other say ‘Don’t fuss?’

The Gardener

A Moodscope member