Harriot Beecher Stowe

 Harriot Beecher Stowe 

Who to choose or should that be whom to choose?

Sometimes in meetings or dinner parties or staff rooms when the conversation revolved around new curtains or fitted carpets or even someone's new car I, in my pomposity would try to introduce as I thought more interesting topics. One was ,"How many coutries are there in Africa?" Few people knew. Most guesses were way off the mark. I also  asked who wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin"?  The answer I frequently got was Mark Twain. As I am sure that in this room you all know that it was Harriet Beecher Stowe.

This leads me to my first mini biography. 

I went to an all girls’ Grammar school and have often wondered throughout my reading life why many of the interesting world changing women never featured in my education. ‘They’ say that we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before. I never knew and still don’t who ‘they’ are but here is one woman writer and  activist on whose shoulders we are standing.

She was a woman of tremendous insight, wisdom and compassion. She had six children, ran a large household, campaigned tirelessly against slavery and after her husband’s death supported the household financially by her writing.

In 1850 an act was passed which mandated that the slaves who escaped to freedom in the North be returned to their masters. Stowe was outraged and she was moved to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin or Life Among the Lowly. It was first published as a serial in an abolitionist newspaper, the National Era. Her aim she said was to hold up in the most lifelike and graphic manner possible, slavery in all its reverses and changes.

Unlike the modest reception anticipated by Stowe the book was a publishing phenomenon. In 1852 the year of publication 5,000 copies sold in two days and 20,000 copies were sold in less than three weeks. Estimates say that three million copies were sold in the United States and it was translated into many languages. When ‘Uncle Tom’s cabin’ was first published it sold more quickly than any book ever printed except the bible. 

She was recognised at the time. Longfellow wrote, ‘How she is shaking the world with Uncle Tom’s Cabin…..Never was there such a literary coup-de-main as this.’ The English historian Thomas Macaulay called it,  ‘the most valuable addition  America has ever made to English literature.’ Tolstoy considered it the highest achievement of moral art and put it on the same level as  Les Miserable and  A Tale of Two Cities. Theatre stages were flooded with dramatisations and continued to be performed until 1930. It was the first American best seller. Puritan prejudice which considered fiction as worthless entertainment was changed. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was used to convince the legislators of the evils of slavery. Abraham Lincoln referred to her as, ‘The little lady who had made this big war.’  

So what changed? The book moved millions but it seems that the overt appeals to emotion and it’s political message caused it to be labelled propaganda and was therefore considered of little merit. I have also heard the arguments that it is now considered racist because of the stereotyping. But her aim was to open peoples eyes to the evils of slavery and this she achieved in a forceful way.

Jane Tompkins in the Heath Anthology of American Literature calls it ‘the most powerful book written by an American’. So, why has it not come down to us as an American literary classic? Could it possibly be that it is because she was a woman? What a pity, no what a tragedy, that it has been excluded from classical literature.

Harriet was more than the woman who wrote ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’. 

‘The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe’  was written in her life time at her request by her son Charles. He was able to use her letters and journals so she considered it to be autobiographical. In it we learn of the active life she lead, of the campaigns she fought and the interesting people of her time with whom she corresponded, George Elliot for example.  

Quotes

If women want any rights they had better take them, and say nothing about it 

Women are the real architects of society.

 "Common sense is seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be."

"Most mothers are instinctive philosophers."

Introverts and Extroverts

 Introverts and Extroverts

 Introverts are often better observers of other people than extraverts, even though extraverts rely on their relationships with others in order to feel that they exist. 

I have owned this book for many years, but it was a while before I really grasped the many useful messages it contains. If you get nothing else from this book other than an understanding that introverts can be sociable and extraverts can be shy, you are likely to find yourself with a vastly increased sense of what makes different people 'tick' - yourself included - and why one man's emotional meat is another man's emotional poison. This can be particularly helpful in a world busy focusing on extravert preferences - open-plan living and working spaces, constant action, suspense, thrills and horror in popular entertainment etc., etc.. Our brains are wired up differently from each other, and it is helpful to recognize that the external stimulation which enables extraverts to thrive can easily challenge and overwhelm the senses of the introvert - however well-balanced s/he is. The converse is also true - if you want to stress an extravert, keep him/her out of social contact, and away from busy activities, lots of sensory stimulation and new environments.

The psychologist Dorothy Rowe saw introverts and extroverts  as two different ways the human mind protects itself and stays alive psychologically. Her core belief:

“Every human being has one primary fear: the fear of annihilation, of ceasing to exist as a person. We all build a structure of meaning to keep that terror at bay. Extroverts and introverts simply build that structure in opposite directions.”The extrovert’s terror is silence and emptiness. The introvert’s terror is noise and intrusion.”

An extrovert feels real when others are responding. An introvert feels real when no one is demanding a response.” Neither is better. Both are attempts to solve the same problem: how to go on existing when everything inside us knows we will one day die. She repeatedly stressed:

Trying to force yourself to live the opposite way is one of the fastest routes to depression.

The work is not to become more extroverted or more introverted; the work is to stop being frightened of what you actually are.  I have found that introverts always know what is the most important to them but many extraverts do not, usually because they find it difficult to distinguish what they do from why they do it.…

She’s clear that: ‘Either we are “people persons’, who judge ourselves in terms of how others respond to us, or we are ‘what have I achieved today?’ people.”We all know (regardless of personality) about the value of thought leadership. The blogs and articles most of us share are those that speak with authority and expertise.

They’re the ones that really add value (another overused phrase, but again, for a reason). Self-promotional fluff, written in a hurry, simply isn’t heard above the online noise.

That’s not to say that extroverts only write self-promotional fluff. Of course, there are many outstanding, valuable articles written by extroverts.

It’s simply that an introvert is less likely to get caught up in self-promotion and more likely to take the time to think ‘what use is this to my audience? What value will they gain from it?’. That builds real, deep trust that is hard to shatter.

Remembering to forget you.

  Remembering to forget you.

I wrote this to enable me to get over a very long term relationship. He was a professional violinist.

Dec.12^th 2000

Today I began writing this account of all the times I am reminded of our shared history and the depth of understanding we had of each other. Ten days ago I went to see the film 'Billy Elliot', memories of the miners' strike, your own ballet lessons and our mutual understanding of how the human spirit can be crushed.

Today I listened to the history of the 'Hot club of Paris' on the radio. This week it was Django, next week Stephan. No need to say more. You would have understood that it was special. Last week on Dec 1^st I saw a late offer in the Travel Agents. 'Seven nights, ½ board in the Algarve for £169. I almost bought a ticket and sent it to you. You always said that you wanted to go to Portugal in the winter but we never did.

Last week I met Eric through 'People to People'. Nice man but I think he lied about his age. Well educated, but probably a Tory. Well travelled, no spark, not like you and I on our first date at the concert in Leek.

Dec 13^th. Met Melanie in Tesco. Her new neighbours came in, Terry and Linda. You would have liked to talk to them. Terry is a fiddle player, he used to play in Haymaker.

Dec 14^th I went to buy a piano. I needed a musician to help me. It would have been really helpful if you had been there. In the evening It was the Xmas concert in Union St Chapel, Crewe's West End Band. I kept thinking about last year's Xmas party and wondered if you said anything to the man who put his hand and my shoulder. You were angry.

Dec15 I am reading 'All about love ' by Bell Hooks. Considered sending you a copy.

I am wondering what you will do this Xmas. Spend it with your sisters Hilary and Marion I expect unless you have met someone else.

March 26^th Haven't written since before Xmas because I was too busy. Not because there weren't many times a day when I wanted to share what I was doing with you. After the Jacques Lousier concert we got back together briefly. It was a mistake. I was beginning to get over you. Do I just need someone, anyone. No, not anyone but ? Who knows? I give up trying to work it out.

2003 I moved to France. Firstly you visited then you rented a house in a village you came to hate. Then you moved to my village, still renting. Firstly you shared my van then you bought a car. You came to my house everyday. You ate with me nearly every day. Always at my house You were reluctant to even buy me a coffee when we were out.

Once you invited me to your place for a meal. You dropped the main course on the floor. It was in a Pyrex dish so it smashed. You opened a tin of tuna and put the tin on the table and told me to serve myself from the tin. I laughed. Why did I laugh? It wasn't funny. It was insulting. I felt insulted.

I wrote you a note. We seem to have moved in different directions away from each other. I think we should call it a day. Your reaction was immediate. I believe to this day that it was what you wanted but were afraid to admit it. You returned my key at full speed and asked for your key by note, which I returned via your boite de lettre.

I saw you twice after that both times in the cyber commune. Once I asked you if you had packed because I had heard that your were returning to the UK. You indicated that you had problems and turned away. You didn't want to tell me and I didn't want to know. There was a frisson still. The second time was in the library in Broons. You said, 'Hello' in reply to my 'Hello'. Neither of us asked how the other was. There was still a fission.

Was this in 2009?

2011 August You birthday was on the 14^th and I barely remembered it. Of course it was during the local jazz festival. I usually remember you then but this year I didn't. However there was a folk band at the local chapel at Routtier, the Church fitters. A wow of a concert The audience loved it. The fiddler was not as good as you and I missed you so much it hurt. But, not the now you. It was the old you I missed.

That is mostly when I miss the old you, at concerts like the one the Orchestre de Bretange played in the theatre de Verdure. The conductor stole the show because he was so balletic. You would have been reminded,  I suppose of Paul Morris your old boss and what you called his cockroach dance when conducting. Firstly you would have said that he was great, brilliant, entertaining and then your jealousy would have crept in and you would have found more and more ways to criticise him.

I suppose that is one of the reasons I stopped loving you, that and the fact that you stopped making an effort where I was concerned. I miss you in bed sometimes. Not all the time and not for sex but it would be nice sometimes to feel your arms around me. But in the end we didn't even sleep in the same bed. You said that my coughing kept you awake.

I have grown more and more into gardening. You would hate that. Instead of enjoying my garden which by the way is beautiful and quite amazing, you would be jealous of the time I spend in the garden and away from you.

Earlier this year my family came to celebrate C's 50^th birthday. The weather was perfect and for me it was a really special time. You would have ruined it. You would have been jealous. You would have resented the fact that you were not the centre of attention and I would have been on pins in case anyone said the wrong thing to you or you felt neglected. Then you would have walked out without saying a word like you did so many times in the past. I don't think you even understood it yourself but you couldn't bear not being centre stage. Like a child without love who becomes destructive.

You need adoration and attention like food. But you also need food and lots of it too. And it had to be served to you and presented as though you were a guest in an expensive restaurant. You couldn't just muck-in. You couldn't just help. If you did help you had to be treated like a guest chef and praised ad infinitum.

People say to me ,'After 29 years, why on earth did you split up/ You should be together'. I answer,' After 29 years yes I should have left before.' Why prolong a declining relation ship. Yes after 29 years, 29 years was long enough in fact, too long.

When I think of you and feel the loss of you, I remember all the times we split and got back together because I couldn't bear to be without you. I know now why. I don't want the now you . I want the old you. It is the old you that I miss and he will never return,

It is said that arguments between couples are always about money even if superficially they are about something else but I believe that they are really about sex.

The truth is that most of the time I prefer being on my own. I am and always was independent. I never liked being considered as part (and a lesser part at that) of a couple. I always resented it when out alone people would always asked about you. It was as though I didn't exist alone. Now I know that if I am invited anywhere they are inviting me, not you and a side kick. If I go out it is me and people either speak to me or not as me not part of a couple known as Phil and Fleure. I have even heard you say on the phone , 'It's Phil, Phil and Fleure, as though we couldn't be separated. I hated that. I never signed, Xmas or Birthday cards Fleur and Phil. Always just Fleure. If you wanted to send cards why couldn't you just sign them Phil.

So I am enjoying my memories of you. The good ones of course and the bad ones too because they are the ones that remind me that, that is why we are no longer together.

2013 March

So it must be 4 years since we split. Was it November 2008 or later. You always remembered dates gone by very accurately. I didn't miss you at first in fact 2 or 3 years . Now I do miss you when it comes to music. Last night there was a programme about Rostropovich. You would have enjoyed it and talked about Britten and Shostakovich too. It reminded me of the Britten opera we saw at the Royal Opera House in London.

Last Sunday there was an enormous choir performing in Ereac church. You would have had lot to say about that.

I met a couple called Karin and Colin at the cinema and Karin said that she had played the violin. I realised that they know me and that most people I have met know me. If you were still here it would be you that they know. They would barely acknowledge me.

Post Script

Reading all this in 2025 I realise that it is 13 years since the last entry. So it really is -

THE END

Brazil Arrival

 We arrived at J's eldest son's house and were warmly welcomed. I was shown to a bedroom and I think J' had a bedroom too. The two sons were probably bunked up together.

What I remember mostly about all the family visits was the abundance of photos, not only on display but album and videos. In fact  o matter what we were doing  J's son would leap up,grab his camera and start videoing.  

Florence Nightingale

 

Florence Nightingale

She and her sister studied history, mathematics, Italian, classical literature, and philosophy, and from an early age she, who was the more academic of the two girls, displayed an extraordinary ability for collecting and analysing data which she would use to great effect in later life."

She was a pioneer in statistics; she represented her analysis in graphical forms to ease drawing conclusions and actionables from data. She is famous for usage of the polar area diagram, also called the rose diagram, equivalent to a modern circular histogram. This diagram is still regularly used in data

visualisation.

She was a prodigious and versatile writer. In her lifetime, much of her published work was concerned with spreading medical knowledge. Some of her tracts were written in simple English so that they could easily be understood by those with poor literary skills. She was also a pioneer in data visualisation with the use of infographics, using graphical presentations of statistical data in an effective way. Much of her writing, including her extensive work on religion and mysticism, has only been published posthumously.

In 1838, her father took the family on a tour in Europe where she was introduced to the English-born Parisian hostess Mary Clarke, with whom she bonded. She recorded that "Clarkey" was a stimulating hostess who did not care for her appearance, and while her ideas did not always agree with those of her guests, "she was incapable of boring anyone." Her behaviour was said to be exasperating and eccentric and she had little respect for upper-class British women, whom she regarded generally as inconsequential. She said that if given the choice between being a woman or a galley slave, then she would choose the freedom of the galleys. She generally rejected female company and spent her time with male intellectuals. Clarke made an exception, however, in the case of this family and X in particular. The two were to remain close friends for 40 years despite their 27-year age difference. Clarke demonstrated that women could be equal to men, an idea that she had not learnt from her mother.

Her most persistent suitor was the politician and poet Richard Monckton Milnes, but after a nine-year courtship, she rejected him, convinced that marriage would interfere with her ability to follow her need to work.

In Rome in 1847, she met Sidney Herbert, a politician who had been Secretary at War (1845–1846) who was on his honeymoon. He and X became life long close friends.

She also much later had strong relations with academic Benjamin Jowett, who may have wanted to marry her.[16]

She continued her travels with Charles and Selina Bracebridge as far as Greece and Egypt.

Her writings on Egypt, in particular, are testimony to her learning, literary skill, and philosophy of life. Sailing up the Nile as far as Abu Simbel in January 1850, she wrote of the Abu Simbel temples, "Sublime in the highest style of intellectual beauty, intellect without effort, without suffering ... not a feature is correct — but the whole effect is more expressive of spiritual grandeur than anything I could have imagined. It makes the impression upon one that thousands of voices do, uniting in one unanimous simultaneous feeling of enthusiasm or emotion, which is said to overcome the strongest man."

From 1857 onwards, she was intermittently bedridden and suffered from depression. A recent biography cites brucellosis and associated spondylitis as the cause. Most authorities today accept that she suffered from a particularly extreme form of brucellosis, the effects of which only began to lift in the early 1880s. Despite her symptoms, she remained phenomenally productive in social reform. During her bedridden years, she also did pioneering work in the field of planning, and her work propagated quickly across Britain and the world. Her output slowed down considerably in her last decade. She wrote very little during that period due to blindness and declining mental abilities, though she still retained an interest in current affairs.

The Royal Sanitary Commission of 1868–1869 presented her with an opportunity to press for compulsory sanitation in private houses. She lobbied the minister responsible, James Stansfeld, to strengthen the proposed Public Health Bill to require owners of existing properties to pay for connection to mains drainage. The strengthened legislation was enacted in the Public Health Acts of 1874 and 1875. At the same time, she combined with the retired sanitary reformer to persuade Stansfeld to devolve powers to enforce the law to Local Authorities, eliminating central control by medical technocrats. Historians now believe that both drainage and devolved enforcement played a crucial role in increasing average national life expectancy by 20 years between 1871 and the mid-1930s during which time medical science made no impact on the most fatal epidemic diseases.

This woman's achievements are all the more impressive when they are considered against the background of social restraints on women in Victorian England. Her father, was an extremely wealthy landowner, and the family moved in the highest circles of English society. In those days, women of her class did not attend universities and did not pursue professional careers; their purpose in life was to marry and bear children. She was fortunate. Her father believed women should be educated, and he personally taught her Italian, Latin, Greek, philosophy, history, and – most unusual of all for women of the time – writing and mathematics.

While better known for her contributions in the scientific and mathematical fields, she is also an important link in the study of English feminism.

She wrote some 200 books, pamphlets and articles throughout her life. During 1850 and 1852, she was struggling with her self-definition and the expectations of an upper-class marriage from her family. As she sorted out her thoughts, she wrote Suggestions for Thought to Searchers after Religious Truth. This was an 829-page, three-volume work, which Nightingale had printed privately in 1860, but which until recently was never published in its entirety. An effort to correct this was made with a 2008 publication by Wilfrid Laurier University, as volume of a 16 volume project, the Collected Works of this woman. The best known of these essays, called "Cassandra", was previously published by in 1928. Strachey included it inThe Cause, a history of the women's movement. Apparently, the writing served its original purpose of sorting out thoughts; Nightingale left soon after writing this to train at the Institute for deaconesses at Kaiserswerth.

She died aged 90 in 1910.

Brazil for Group

 

As I walk past an Italian Supermarket I wonder where I am. Yesterday in Carrefour I heard Robbie Williams singing angels. At the moment I can hear "New York City".

I spent the morning in an internet cafe. Surrounded by skyscraper flats and hotels it could be anywhere in the world. The noise of the traffic is deafening and fatiguing. A barefooted youth passes me carrying a surf board. I follow him. Is he going to the beach? No he's not so I change direction hoping to reach the beach and a more peaceful space. I glimpse the sea and quicken my steps. I wait 5 mins to cross the road. When I reach the beach the noise of the traffic beats the sound of the crashing waves. I wish I was a surfer at least I could escape the thundering traffic.

Despite not being able to speak the language except for the compulsory hello, please, thank you and how much (very important) I manage to order chicken and chips. It took half an hour to cook but it was delicious. I normally try to eat vegetarian but being worn out from the incessant noise I fancied comfort food. Also this country does not understand vegetarianism and prides itself in having restaurants which serve practically only meat.

Whilst eating my meal I watch a barefooted old man pass amidst the heavy traffic. He is pushing a handcart laden with rubbish. In the opposite direction a horse and cart driven by two young men whom I suspect would be in school in many other parts of the world pass by. The cart is also full of rubbish. A third man stands by my table and looks at me with pleading eyes. He leans forward with open palms requesting food off my plate.

Later I succeed in buying an international telephone card from a lottery kiosk. It took some time but with the aid of two or three assistants who were desperate to help me I succeded and I paid knowing that it probably wouldn't work. It didn't. A young man had pointed to a phone which I tried but after several attempts I gave up.

I am now sitting in a supermarket drinking hot Amarillo, delicious. I look outside. It is raining again. It has rained for two weeks-since I arrived. I was told to bring warm weather clothes, beach clothes. I have spent one afternoon on the beach. The waves are too big to risk swimming and the under current grazes and bruises ones body as it is draged over the coarse sand.

I have bought lots of traditional rubbish but never expected that I would have to buy an umbrella.

When I return to the apartment we will watch the daily diet of soaps on TV interspersed with adverts which are given more time than the actual programmes.

Yesterday when I was looking at underwear and nighties a young man asked if he could help me. He spoke English but I really didn't want a young man helping me to choose knickers.

The women here are beautiful and obviously frequent the many beauty salons which are as prolific as pubs in England. I noticed the fashions subtly accommodate the women's stomachs. There doesn't seem to be the same desire to look like a stick insect that I have noticed in other countries. The young men spend their days and evenings either in the sea surfing or on the beach playing football no matter what the weather. Oh and the footballers are mostly barefooted.

Last Saturday I went to a wedding. It was the wedding of a couple who had been living together and had a child. So there was a wedding reception and a fourth birthday party for the daughter. It was held on the terrace bar of a football club. By hanging over the balcony I could see two local teams training - all bare-footed. I think I could see one pair of boots.

There was the biggest display of balloons I have ever seen and sweets. Smarties, marshmallows, chocolate ladybirds and wrapped toffees heaped and piled in patterns. There were heaps of BBQ-ed meat too with a serve yourself salad table and a metre square cake.

The young people set up a sound system - I say sound system because what I heard barely resembled music, not music as I know it. The sound became louder and louder.

A smartly dressed but stern looking woman was placed opposite me because she spoke English. She said, "How are you?" then turned to my friend and rattled away in their own language.

Jocara said, "Why don't you talk now that you have someone who speaks English?"

I thought why doesn't she speak to me. Eventually she looked down her nose at me and said, "What would you like to say?" So I politely asked her where she had learned English and had she been to England. She said that she had travelled all over Europe, her father had worked for the German government. She spent 3 months every year there. I asked her again how she had learned English.

She replied," It is very easy for me to learn. I read newspapers and children's comics, it is very easy for me."

I ask her if she has been to England.

"No the English are very cold."

Why do people find it so easy to insult me. I am never knowingly been rude to people I meet here.

"Have you been to France? " I asked.

"I would love to go to Paris, it's my dream to go to Paris."

"Why do you want to go to Paris?" I asked.

" The perfume. The perfume", she said

I burst out laughing. (Was that rude?)

"Are you interested in Art?"

"Not at all".

How can I communicate with this woman.

The music gets increasingly louder, the wind blows across the terrace. I have no warm clothes. I am freezing. I try to think of a plausible excuse to leave. Just as I am composing a sentence to speak to Jocara to say I am leaving, they send in the clowns. Really. A young couple, and I mean young. Like policemen are getting younger are clowns too? They appear from the toilets.

Continuation of the wedding reception and birthday party.

The woman begins her patter to gather the children. A game of musical chairs is organised. The usual sequence of event, losers weepers-winners all smiles. The younger children don't understand the concept of elimination and continue to run around. After the children's game the adults are persuaded to play. This I thought was a good strategy because there was little else to do other than eat and drink. I filmed the whole game which I managed to do from a position near the BBQ which was considerably warmer than my draughty corner.

I have eyed the table of sweets frequently since I was hungry on arrival. I noticed that a couple of older women, grannies like me I presumed, are surreptitiously sauntering past the table and taking handfuls of smarties. I decide to do the same. I was amazed from the start that the children hardly looked at them and I didn't see one child take a sweet. It was us grannies ----. Then the organisers started to bag them up. The sweets not the grannies. They took the balloons down too and distributed them amongst the children. The girls danced with the balloons shaped like flowers and the boys fenced and fought with the ones shaped like swords. We could be anywhere in the world. Do you have any ideas?

If on a Winter's Night a Traveller

 

If on a Winter's Night a Traveller 618

I was lying on the couch and feeling down. I was missing my cats. It was the first time for years that I had been catless. I looked at my phone and saw that Marie Pierre had sent me a photo of Patch that morning. I scrolled down and looked at the photos that she had sent in the three years that I had been back in the UK. She was such a beautiful cat and I regretted that because of the pandemic it had not been possible to return to Brittany to bring her here with the other two. Now Bella and Cheeky were not with me anymore but I was pleased that Patch was still in Brittany. La ville Joly was surrounded by fields unlike here with just a handkerchief of a garden and a busy road.

I can't pretend that I don't miss her. I thought I could take the Eurostar to Paris and then and then- just thinking about it makes me tired. Every year, nay every week and every day I feel more and more tired.

Looking at the photos again I felt a bearable lightness of being. I rolled off the couch and stood up. It was midnight. The next thing I was standing in my garden. There are no wild things in this garden but propped up by the door is my old broom stick. Oh my god I thought why have I never thought of it before. In fact I was sure I'd left it in France. My familiar Sooty died years ago. Still flying alone wont be a problem. I 'll just nip into the house and check a few spells on my laptop before leaving.

Making myself invisible at short notice if necessary is easy. Without a cat (Sooty was quite a weight) I can take my tablet which will also be useful to check my route on Google maps. I donned my black trousers , black polo necked jumper and my old burbery rain coat which could fly out like wings. If spotted I would look like a bird.

Here I go. Due south to Birmingham then straight down to Poole where I used to get the ferry. Now cross the Channel to St Malo and on to St Meen Le Grand, follow the 164 then the D6 and finally the D16 to Merillac.

Where shall I land? Extremly loud but incredibly close music emanates from next door. It must be the neighbour's teenagers. If I remember correctly there is a good place by the pond, where Patch and I sat every morning to drink my first cup of tea. Flying over the tree where there was a cuckoo's nest I land neatly and prop my broom stick under the tree. It is a cloudless night and the full moon is reflected in the water.

Wouldn't it be ideal now if Patch came out to -hunt mice --. Shsh. I can hear faint mewing. Pss pss. Here, here. She jumps up and nuzzles me just as though I have never been away. She has dropped a mouse at my feet. I stroke her and hug her.

Marie Pierre opens the door of the house. I see her in a pool of light. She calls Patch, Patch psspss, here, here. Patch jumps down and pads away towards the house. The church bell tolls obviously for me. I comfort my self with the thought that I can return and and----

Stretching out and yawning my fleece falls on the floor. Even if it was a dream it was comforting to spend a few minutes with my beautiful Patch.