Five funerals and a baptism

During the last six weeks I have attended three funerals and am now waiting for details of the funerals of two more friends. When I came to live here, 22 years ago, our little church on the hill was the centre of a small but thriving community. The church holds about 70 people and we had two services on Sundays in order to accommodate everyone. In the holiday season, the extra visitors would stand outside, crowding the area around the well.

Life has changed a lot in just a few years with fewer young people attending church or supporting village events.  Just ten years ago, I had between 20 and 30 children in my group and now not a single child comes to church. 


Our ageing population is dwindling. These latest deaths bring our regular congregation down to forty. The little parish is no longer viable and we have had to join with a larger one in a nearby town, with our beautiful little chapel being used only for weddings and funerals. I don't know if this is typical of village churches everywhere.


On a happier note, we were in Oxfordshire last weekend for our grandson's baptism. Benjamin was too big to wear the family christening gown, last worn by Millie but here he is looking very smart in his blue velvet suit:

And here he is with proud parents, godmothers and Fr Jamie in their bigger and, hopefully, more thriving parish church.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Alexander Pope

Nightmare characters

I have heard all kinds of justifications for terrifying young children with fairy and folk tales. The popular notion when I was studying child psychology in the 1960s was that it exposed children to fear within a safe environment (i.e. the bedroom with the reassuring presence of a parent) so that they would be less fearful in the outside world. I thought  it was poppycock then and I still think so. There are "experts" now telling us not to read sanitised versions of fairy tales to our children and grandchildren but to give them the full Brothers Grimm version with all the gruesome details.

Except on the warmest nights, I go to sleep with my head under the covers, a habit that started when I was very small because of the strange lullaby about a Grey Man that my mother used to sing. I can't remember all of the words but these still haunt me: Hush, there's a Grey Man coming up the stairs. Hush lest the Grey Man catch you unawares. For he's crawling and he's creeping, and his bogey eyes are peeping, just to see if everybody's fast asleep.
Hush, little one, don't let him catch you. Hush little one, don't let him see. Hide head beneath the clothes, count ten upon your toes. For where the Grey Man goes, it's black as night."   I suppose she needed a little help in getting four children to settle down at night, especially when my father was working late!


The Grey Man was my nightmare character, the next generation suffered the terrors of Mr Noseybonk, a character in a children's tv programme called Jigsaw.

I have read that it was not the intention of the creator of the  character to inspire terror in a whole generation of children but many 30-somethings have lingering nightmares of the man with the white face and long nose.


Nowadays, Noseybonk writes features for The Dabbler. In fact he has just written a handbook for bloggers, Blogmanship: How To Win Arguments On The Internet Without Really Knowing what You Are Talking About It is available as an eBook from Amazon or you can do what I have just done and get a copy as a PDF file for a mere 2GBP.  

Despite his literary talents, Noseybonk is not a nice character, I think of him as the opposite of the Fiddler on the Roof. According to Wikipedia the Fiddler is a metaphor for survival, through tradition and joyfulness, in a life of uncertainty and imbalance whereas the equally ubiquitous Noseybonk represents  the dark side of life, his long nose sniffs out our secrets and weaknesses and exposes them through sarcasm, parody and cruel humour.  His handbook will probably amuse you and will certainly equip you to win arguments on the internet or in real life if you enjoy arguing. Noseybook tells us that arguing for arguing's sake on the internet is a male-dominated activity but he devotes a whole appendix to the 'ploys' of ladyblogmanship. I won't breach his copyright by quoting them here but I will be having a serious word or two with my son* at the weekend!
*as editor of The Dabbler, he should take responsibility for what he publishes!


While writing about the Grey Man, I remembered that I had mentioned him in a previous post and searched it out. It was really interesting to read that post and the 58 comments that followed. I can see many examples of the techniques described in Noseybonk's handbook. If only I'd had a copy back then, I might  have held my own a bit better.

What's on my needles

In response to Cathy's question over at Still Waters, here is my current knitting project:

It has the fanciest rib that I've ever attempted

It has a picot edging that is pretty but very time consuming.....

... and has introduced me to knitting with a circular needle

 I am using a 4ply cotton yarn in pale green and hoping that it will end up looking something like this:

A gift for my daughter, who last had a homemade sweater when she about 12 years old!

I only took up my knitting needles again three years ago, when grandchildren started to appear. Little clothes are really satisfying to make because you get such quick results. This adult-sized cardigan has been quite challenging for me but I hope it will be ready to take up to my daughter next week. If it is a disaster I will unpick it and all three grandchildren will be wearing pale green this summer!

 *****************

Post-script This post disappeared for a while during Blogger's technical problems. While the main body has been restored the comments have been lost. Fortunately, I still have been able to copy this comment and its marvellous link from my email account. Thank you, D, I have already spent too much time looking at  those 19th century books!

60 going on 16 has left a new comment on your post "What's on my needles":

I'm sure it will be perfect and much loved, M.

In the meantime, you (and all those other knitters out there) might be interested in these wonderful 19th century knitting books and patterns, available to download free of charge from Southampton University's website. They form part of the Richard Rutt Collection at Winchester School of Art Library. A little gem of a discovery, courtesy of Twitter!

A whistle-stop tour of German history

A few weeks ago, I signed up to The Dabbler Book Club and received a copy of Germania by Simon Winder.

Simon Winder works in publishing and has spent many years editing history books. His vast knowledge of European history is apparent in this lively and witty romp through centuries of battles, alliances, betrayals, marriages and treaties. If, however, you are hoping for a better understanding of  The Holy Roman Empire, the Prince Electors and Dukes, the Thirty Years War, the Congress of Vienna and various Diets that peppered your history lessons, you will be disappointed. Germania is Simon Winder's Personal History of Germans Ancient and Modern, it will keep you entertained but leave you as confused as ever. 

In 441 pages (about 90 too many for comfort), we are taken to most of the former states, dukedoms and principalities of pre-unified Germany to see ugly statues and dull museum pieces, mementos of long forgotten battles, heroes and villains. They are described with great enthusiasm and irreverent humour but there are rather too many museums, schlosser and memorials for even this lover of absurdities.

How I wish, though, that this book had been around when I had to write an essay on Catherine the Great, if only my history teacher had possessed a sense of humour!

In a sort of asteroid belt of low-grade German princesses and narrow, petty, moustachioed princes there was enough room for something really surprising to happen. Most absolutely alarming in this respect was pretty little Sophie Augusta Frederica of the laughable territory of Anhalt-Zerbst, a place so small it  could hardly breathe. Her father was a Prussian field marshal and as a helpless pawn in plans to boost Prussian-Russian relations in the 1740s Sophie was shunted off to Russia where, after several ups and downs, she married the Grand Duke Peter, learned Russian, became Russian Orthodox, had Peter killed and wound up as Catherine the Great, devastating the Ottomans, the Swedes and the Poles and carving out immense new territories from Latvia to the Crimea. Indeed, a case could be made for her being the single most successful German ruler of all time, albeit not one ruling Germany.

There are many such amusing cameos to lighten what might otherwise be a depressing catalogue of wars and cruelties of various kinds. There is an extensive bibliography should you wish to take a more serious look at German history but this book is an idiosyncratic, high-speed tour around Germany, pausing to look at oddities that perhaps give some insight into the nature of the German people. An interesting and entertaining read.

For reviews of Germania by Simon Winder go to The Dabbler. And why not join the book club?