Have You Had Yours?

           I’m getting tired of listening to other peoples’ detailed accounts of their vaccination experience: the ins and outs of a person’s jab sustain neither conversation nor entertainment – unless, of course, something out-of-the-ordinary happened, like the needle broke off or the nurse told ribald jokes to enliven the proceedings. But then, in this lockdown eternity, people will talk about it, since not much is happening and, I suppose, it makes a change from commenting on the weather. But then there will be the booster shots.

          There are events of note: I took delivery yesterday of 20 litres of Slack Ma Girdle – dry, still Devon cider. The question of where to stash it elicited fond memories of those home-bars that were fashionable in the corners of mid-century lounges, mini versions of Manhattan cocktail bars, all glass, veneers and fluorescent lights, designed to accommodate the trend for home entertaining among the aspiring middle classes. If I could get my hands on one, it would have to be in the shape of a ship’s prow, given the view from our window. But that’s a fantasy, dependent on being allowed to drink in company and, in the interest of one’s sanity, it’s best to keep mind and body occupied productively. So, I put up some shelving in a cupboard instead.

          As to stimulating the mind, one of the best methods is travelling but, with wings temporarily clipped, this has to be a vicarious experience. For example, I am reading David Gange’s The Frayed Atlantic Edge, an erudite account of his solo kayaking voyage around the Atlantic coast of Britain and Ireland. The book has two elements of particular interest for me: the coast, most of which I have visited, albeit on foot: and the kayak, a vessel of which I have no experience but do intend to try. Yet, reading his account, my having ‘been’ to places such as Shetland and Orkney merely emphasises his point: that their deep history and culture is best understood from that “frayed Atlantic edge”, where traces of the Danes, Norsemen, Vikings and the Gaelic-speaking peoples who travelled the region are embedded in the landscapes, archaeology, traditions, myths and language. All you have to do is be observant and join the dots. Oh, and be a fearless and expert kayaker. Pinning down historical facts is tricky when there is no written record, yet the archaeological clues are supplemented by the work of indigenous poets who kept their peoples’ history and mythology alive and, in so doing, elevated the relevance of poetry within the culture. And it has been said that “A grain of poetry suffices to season a century” *.

          Poetry can elicit powerful images, but it doesn’t have to be conscious or deliberately professional. Sometimes it just turns up in vernacular speech, as I noticed the other day. I was picking up some litter in the park, watched approvingly by a couple so old that they were surely the first people to get vaccinated. They spoke to me as I passed, thanking me, then imploring me to keep an eye on the contractors who mow the grass later in the year. The woman said, “I had to stop them last August, as they were about to cut all the Autumn Lady’s Tresses.” After a while, I learned that the poetically described tresses are the common name for a rare orchid and that my new-found acquaintances were amateur botanists who had successfully lobbied the Council to designate this stretch of park as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. They are currently lobbying the Council to let the mowing contractor know about it.

          So, I now have something to look forward to – the appearance in August of a bank of Spiranthes Spiralis (which don’t look at all like tresses) – and a possible confrontation with a bloke with a mower, for whom, I hope, vaccination will by then be a long-forgotten event.

* José Martí, poet, journalist, and freedom fighter (1853-1895)