Row Boats at Wareham

Anne and I sit in the fitful October sun by the side of the river - bright sunlight silvers every ripple - heaped whitish grey clouds pass above us in a pale blue sky - a gang of cheeky ducks are on the prowl for crumbs or portions of chips - we've seen seagulls, like playground bullies, almost wrench chips from children's fingers during the summer - but now, none of them are around -

The row boats have bright hulls, and are chained to small bollards on the riverside - during the summer, they are for hire - robust barelegged girls drag them into the warm river for the visitors - you can  be swept downstream by the tide, below the white town bridge - drifting between the lines of the yachts moored to both sides of the river - from the causeway, you can see the masts of the yachts, like bare trees -

In the summer, boys jump off the bridge, feet first, into the deep pools by the piers - joshing each other as they perch on the the warm stones -

When you row upstream, you must dip the oars carefully into the swirling water - feeling the current against the thin wooden hull of your boat - tall reeds, rustling in the wind, fringe the water meadows - the branches of old oak trees cast shadows on the water - you lose yourself in the moment, in the movement of light upon the river -

Mowing the lawn

Anne suggests that I mow the lawn - the greater part of the lawn, beyond the apple tree, was once the old school playground - it's now turfed over - there was a small garden for the teacher, in front of the school house - this, too, is now turfed over

Our neighbour across the railway, Mr Matcham, says he can remember the village children singing hymns in the playground, whilst the teacher played a harmonium -

Mr Matcham's christian name is Gerald - he has very bright blue eyes - they pierce your heart - he's in his mid eighties - he worked on the railway, he tells us,  for forty year - during the war he shot anything that moved for the butcher in Wareham - every morning he puts out seed for the birds, who swirl around his thick white hair - Anne says he looks like St Francis whilst he's shaking out the box of seed -

The lawn near the house is uneven, with swellings and dips of turf - there are a number of bare patches of earth, where I topped and tailed the molehills - pebbles, and sometimes white shards of china, are thrown out with the dark soil by the silky delvers - there must be a mole city down there under the grass, and around the roots of the apple tree -

Whilst Anne cuts down brambles like a demon, I pour petrol into the fuel tank of the green beast - check its oil - heave the brute around - pull the cord - the beast lunges forward, with plumes of oily smoke and waves of petrol fumes - I cut glorious stripes in the long wet grass

I think - I really enjoy mowing - I get drunk smelling the scent of the cut grass - heaping up the cuttings in a green ziggurat in the compost bin, near the old churchyard - I can see the stripes running parallel to each other -

When I retired - the new headteacher, Debbie, gave me an anthology by Andrew Motion - the anthology was called The Cinder Path - I'd said that I admired his poems - it was really his gentle manner and quiet voice that I'd liked at first, and his biography of Philip Larkin - but there's a poem there, in the anthology, on Pages 57 and 58 - The Mower - that bit about vanishing for good makes my withered heart lurch - I think of my dear dad - but he never, so far as I can tell, liked mowing - or gardening - I just do as I'm told he said -

Wareham Quay at night

Anne rings me up to suggest that we meet in The Granary, a pleasant enough eatery - she's been crunching numbers on her screen all day -

Inside - there are sepia photographs on the wall - country gents from the 1900's holding up pikes they've just fished - quiet dining rooms, lined with books - flagstones underfoot - an upper floor, on a wooden deck, overlooking the river - plain wooden tables - bottles of real ale - complementary copies of The i - it's all refurbished and restored - grain barges once moored here at the quay, sailing back down to Poole Harbour, along the winding channel - young men, born just in time for 1914, stroll in the photographs to innocent regattas - but you can see the sad memorials, in all of the Purbeck churches - the lists of names - all those obscure initials -

Walking to meet Anne, across the dark flagstones of the quay, I can see a white cabin cruiser, moored next to a green bench - the wet flagstones are shining in the light of wrought iron lamps - the river is still and black, the tide at the turn - the bridge crosses over the water into darkness - all is silent - the stars hidden by clouds

I wonder what it would be like to hear voices, from further down the river, flowing through the reeds - I think there must be so many stories marked by those names and initials - I used to dream of crowds of ghosts, rushing through the arched entrance to Waterloo Station, on their way back from France

Swanage seafront in October

The beach is empty - icy waves roll in from Swanage Bay - a hardy gaffer follows his dog by the foreshore - I marvel at his splendid grizzled beard - the sand is strewn with brown rags of seaweed -

In the summer, the beach shines bright yellow in the afternoon sun - young mums eat ice creams whilst their toddlers loll in their buggies like indolent rakes - boys josh pert girls - the arcade is thronging with patrons - the claw gropes the air, missing a cute teddy bear - Daily Mails or Suns crackle in the breeze - later, a Punch and Judy booth will be set up, and cones of chips will be devoured - dads will adjust their trousers - grey faces will become brown - postcards of the Jurassic Coast will be spun round in racks outside louche shops, selling fossils and sexy geegaws - but all this is finished now - a drizzly rain falls -

I look at the shut down kiddies' amusement park, overlooking the beach - no longer can you hear excited yelps from the bumper cars - the toddlers' big wheel is locked down for winter - the coloured light bulbs are blown backwards and forwards in the wind - nothing is moving or beeping -

I could weep looking up at The Hungry Shark - that brilliant blue shark, bursting through the facia - what mind conjured up such a beast?

I think of the Japanese expression - mono no aware - the pathos of things -

Lighting the first log fire

The logs have been stacked against the wall of The Old School House all year - becoming the home of spiders - tiny hermits hiding within the crevices between the logs

Leaves from the apple tree are blown over the grass - whirling in the air - they drift against the stack of logs - I hold a leaf in my hand - it's yellowy green and as dry as bone

The logs have been drenched with rain - warmed by the sun - now they have been taken inside, dried out on the dark tiles of the fireplace - laid on top of a layer of glinting coals - kindling beneath - fistfuls of fir cones placed by the sides of the logs

I aim to light the fire with just one match - and whoop with joy when I succeed - looking at the steamy smoke coming off the coals - the kindling crackling and bursting into flames - the logs catching, and becoming bright yellow brands

This marks for me the coming of winter - as does having to wear socks - I swore a great oath that I would never wear socks again - they were a mark of servitude, of a pale apparatchik - but having tried to wear boat shoes without socks in icy rain, I was defeated in my resolve

Now, I look at the fire - I think of all the houses in London lit and warmed by coal fires in the time of steam trains, gas jets and Sherlock Holmes - I also think of the young man in The Monkey's Paw, throwing his whiskey upon the fire, having seen a horrible face inside the embers

East Stoke

I walk down the lane which crosses over the river meadows - down from the manned level crossing - when Big Bob is on duty, you must never show any impatience - it has just rained - the meadows, the bright berries, the delicate lost flowers amongst the long grasses - they are all fresh and still dripping rainwater - the air is warm and soft around me - I tear off my tweed jacket - there is a faint silvery mist over the trees in the distance - the sky is a vague grey wash of colour -

By the River Laboratory, I steal into a dell beside the river - it starts to rain again - I shelter under light green leaves - I can see raindrops marking the surface of the river - it is shallow here, only a foot or so deep, rushing over small yellowish coloured stones - the water, though, is turbid and brown today - flowing past tall nettles and purple flowers - there is a weir a hundred yards downstream, and looping meanders beyond,  with alders clustered on their banks -

At the end of the lane, beyond the crossroads, I look across a field, over a gate between two trees, at a mysterious field in the rain - a calm horse is standing at the far side of the field, looking at me across the drenched grass - I wonder if I can sense shapes moving in the air, like the narrator of  Lost Hearts

Lighting a bonfire

After clearing a narrow gap of garden, between the extension and the railwaymen's hut - full of loops of ivy, tricksy brambles, young buddleia shoots springing from the remnants of a log store, waist high feathery weeds - Anne suggests I light a bonfire

I have always loved making and lighting fires - as a skinny boy I delighted in striking matches, watching yellow flames dance over dry grass - I especially loved lighting bangers, smelling that strange gunpowder smell - so I screw up newpaper pages, inserting the serious commentaries, reviews and letters amongst the lengths of cut brambles, heaped nettle stems, fallen leaves, torn up shrubs, rosemary branches and leyandii branches cut from the hedge by Max the gardener 

Despite the dampness, the leyandii branches with their potent resin act as natural firelighters - the flames flare up - I keep on laying on the leyandii - but I'm fascinated more by the coiling plumes of smoke - bluish white billows - snaking out of the pile of brambles, nettles and other shorn greenery - twisting in the faintest of breezes - lit up, from time to time, as the leyandii branches ignite, by yellow flags of flame - I can hear cracklings, hissing and then faint whistling from inside the bonfire

I lean on my old rake, looking up at the darkening sky - Anne continues trimming the tangled overgrown rosemary bushes by the french windows - I can see the light of the falling sun, shining through the billows of smoke

The next morning, there's a circle of damp ash instead of a bonfire - but  the ashes under the topmost layer are still dry and powdery, even warm