The North Wind

 

The North Wind

The North Wind doth blow
And we shall have snow,
And what will poor robin do then, poor thing?
He’ll sit in the barn
To keep himself warm
And hide his head under his wing, poor thing!

This little rhyme originated in 16^th century Britain and was first published two centuries later in collections of nursery rhymes. It has three additional verses, not regularly taught, which build on feelings of sympathy and compassion for those less fortunate.

The second verse is about the swallow.

The North Wind doth blow
And we shall have snow,
And what will the swallow do then, poor thing?
Oh, do you not know
That he’s off long ago
To a country where he will find spring, poor thing?

Swallows migrate to warmer countries for the winter. Any that attempt to remain usually do not survive. This is made clear in Oscar Wilde’s heartbreaking tale of the Happy Prince, a story I can never read aloud to children.

In the third verse, the children learn about the tiny dormouse.

The North Wind doth blow
And we shall have snow,
And what will the dormouse to then, poor thing?
Rolled up like a ball
In his nest snug and small,
He'll sleep till warm weather comes in, poor thing!

Verse four tells of the honey bee.

The North Wind doth blow
And we shall have snow,
And what will the honey bee do then, poor thing?
In his hive he will stay
Till the cold is away
And then he’ll come out in the spring, poor thing!

Referred to as ‘he’ in the rhyme, it is only the females, who are the Queen and the worker bees, who survive the winter. The workers cluster round the Queen to keep her warm and alive. The drones are only of use for mating and as there is no mating in the cold months they are pushed out of the hive and either starve or freeze to death.

A fifth verse was added later.

The North Wind doth blow
And we shall have snow,
And what will the children do then, poor things?
When lessons are done
They’ll jump, skip, and run,
And that’s how they’ll keep themselves warm, poor things.

We woke up to snow this morning, which settled briefly on the roofs and trees. At present, we have a north wind blowing. The forecast tonight is -3˚Celsius (26.6˚ Fahrenheit)

More books!

I love books of all sorts. I like the smell and the texture, the look of the print on the page, the quirky chapter headings or numbers in some of them. I like the footnotes, the references, the suggestions for further reading. Some authors have web pages and they are always interesting to visit. 


I enjoy buying books, particularly those intended for my grandchildren. I like reading children's books, too, and one of the things I most enjoyed about teaching was reading aloud stories to my class. I can't say whether they appreciated it - I think some did and I hope it may have encouraged them to lose themselves in books as I have always done.  I can't resist 'special offers' on novels so my pile of books to be read is ever-growing. This may be halted, temporarily at least, because Barry recently bought me a Kindle. 

It sits on one of our book shelves, resplendent in its bright pink 'Built' case, full of free downloads and one book about Dewey, the library cat, that I bought and have yet to read. At present I'm reading Rudyard Kipling's 'Puck of Pook's Hill.'


However splendid a Kindle may be - and it has a lot to recommend it - the technology is not yet advanced enough to render colour, or maybe it is but is not commercially viable at present. Thus, reference books are still a requisite. I look up lots of things on a daily basis. The internet is invaluable but nothing quite measures up to the pleasure of leafing through a book, cross-referencing and discovering fascinating information about this endlessly absorbing planet and its inhabitants. 


We have many reference books on a wide range of subjects and some of them are forty years old. Books inherited from my parents are often older, approaching one hundred years. Books become like old friends to be cherished and treasured but, just like older people, occasionally the information is a little outdated. Gardeners will recognise this fact as names are changed to reflect new discoveries. Historians, too, sometimes find that the 'facts' have been adjusted when new information has come to light. There is no area of life in which things remain immutable. 


This has been demonstrated to me recently when I have been trying to identify wild mushrooms. Some of the names have changed, perhaps more than once or twice, in the forty-three years since one of my favourite books was published.

This book has glorious illustrations by Beatrix Potter.

This is the Frontispiece, showing Amanita muscaria, Fly Agaric.

Seeking in vain to identify a fungus we saw on Sunday and drawing a blank everywhere I yesterday ordered from Amazon a comprehensive guide. It arrived today.

'Mushrooms' by Roger Phillips has over 1,250 colour photographs, showing fungi from every conceivable angle and I was quickly able to find what I was looking for.

This is The Miller (Clitopilus prunulus)

It is common, good to eat and found from summer to late autumn in grass in open woodland.The gills start white and turn pink. It has a strong mealy taste.

Although I have had this book only a matter of hours, it is already one that I know I will return to again and again. The illustrations are superb and the information first-class.

I bought another reference book, too, but have barely looked at it other than to ascertain that it too will surely become another well-used tome. More of that later!

Hair Affairs #2 and other ramblings

Chris from 'Life on the hill' told me how her twin brother cut off one of her plaits – just one! How cruel! Did he cut off the first and immediately regret it? Did he think the reprimands would be only half as severe if he left one plait in place? Perhaps Chris ran away. You will have to ask her! It woke distant memories of which only one is really related to hair.

My brother is six years older than me and occasionally he would be obliged to suffer my company; at such times our views on life showed marked differences. If we played cricket in our long narrow garden I was always the batsman so that he could practise his bowling. Pleased to have his attention I stood for what seemed like hours trying to hit the ball and generally missing.

I enjoyed writing and boasted one day that I could write about any subject – oh, the conceit of youth! Brian then said, 'Write about nothing' and I was completely stumped. What should an eight-year-old know about such a concept? It was an effective way to shut me up for I was a chatty child while he, from a young age, was introspective.

Sometimes Brian would be forced to entertain me at weekends to give my parents some time to themselves. 'Let's imagine' was my favourite pastime and I would appoint rôles – 'You be the King and I'll be the Princess.' Some days we were what we then called 'Red Indians'. (Years later my brother worked with the Tsilhquot'in people by which time we had all learned not to insult them so.) He must have been thoroughly disenchanted by the heady imaginings of a romantically-inclined sibling. One day 'Let's imagine I've been captured and tied up in a tower and you've got to come and rescue me' (shades of Rapunzel, I think) must have irritated him inordinately because he tied me to a drainpipe by my plaits and wandered off to follow more interesting pursuits. Caught up in the game I waited patiently for his return but it was my sister, fifteen years my senior, who rescued me.

While my brother quite understandably seemed to resent spending time with me, my sister loved to take me out. We would go shopping on a Saturday morning, spending much time in W.H. Smith where I would select a book and read as much as I could before we had to move on. Before we returned home on the bus we usually went to 'Lyon's Corner House' for refreshments, another little treat I really appreciated. I'm sure those trips were the basis for my life-long fascination with stationery. I find it difficult to resist the lure of little notebooks with pristine pages and neatly packaged pencils and pens. Envelopes, files, folders and note paper always draw my eye. Coloured paper clips, especially the ones in the form of miniature clothes pegs, and drawing pins in their neat little transparent boxes are irresistible and I can even rhapsodise (almost) over packets of elastic bands and the variety of staplers and drawing pins. A new book of plain pages is to be savoured before being despoiled. The first mark is carefully made but I'm no calligrapher and my scrawl soon turns the special into the commonplace. I love the smell of ink even though my 'writer's bump' seemed to be almost permanently stained when I was at school.

However, for much of the time I amused myself. I loved reading aloud, often to myself or to whoever would listen and would regularly call into various shops on my way home from primary school to read to owners who were friends of my parents. I read voraciously, losing myself in classics like 'Black Beauty' or 'Heidi' or 'Anne of Green Gables'. I would emerge hours later, sometimes in tears, and immediately turn to the beginning again. My mother understood for she had a similar relationship with books. Words have a profound effect when used to draw in the reader. To this day I cannot read aloud Oscar Wilde's 'The Happy Prince' without tears springing to my eyes. Michael Morpurgo's 'The Butterfly Lion' has a similar effect on me. I always enjoyed reading to the classes I taught – indeed I considered it essential – but frequently I had to stop and explain to the children that I was overcome and sometimes suggest that they should continue to read on their own if they wished so to do. At other times I was overcome with mirth and could not continue.

Almost as much as reading I enjoyed playing the piano – or perhaps that should be playing at the piano. My father was a very good pianist and encouraged me in my endeavours. I could never get to grips with tonic sol-fa so was never able to vamp like he could or change key and carry on. My eyes were – and still are – firmly fixed on the black marks on the manuscript. I had lessons for about a year and then my teacher had a baby and that was the end of my formal training. Nevertheless I continued to 'play' the piano, my fervid imagination conjuring up an appreciative audience for my outstanding performances. I can still play – badly - 'Für Elise' without music and part of 'Moonlight Sonata' (I was keen on Beethoven!) The only other piece I can play without reference to the printed note is the Battle Hymn of the Republic ('Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord' or 'John Brown's Body') The problem with my piano-playing was that I liked to practise in the evenings, quite late, and my parents finally became rather weary of me hammering out Chopin's Funeral March or Rachmaninov's Prelude in C# minor at 11:00 pm. They didn't say anything as far as I can recall but one day I came home to find that my father had chopped up the piano! I don't remember being upset and I'm quite sure they were relieved and looking forward to peaceful early nights in bed.

I also thought I had a dramatic flair and would perform on top of the coal bunker, which became a spotlit stage in my mind. Despite never having had dancing lessons I attempted to tap and twirl as I sang. We didn't have many neighbours which was probably fortunate. We did have a garden wall, however, which became my trusty steed. I desperately wanted to learn to ride – I did eventually, when my own children were little and learning too. Thank goodness my parents didn't have a video camera or its early ancestor. By the time they had a ciné-camera I was older and had grown far too self-conscious to do more than grin, chimp-like, in the general direction of the device.

So, although I spent a good deal of time on my own I was never lonely and rarely bored. I am grateful to my parents for actively encouraging me – and my siblings – to find pleasure and solace in books and in so doing to develop a life-long passion and desire for the printed word.