A thing of beauty, n’est ce pas?

Well, here it is … all seven feet of it.

I apologize for the quality of the photo, but I had to get it silhouetted against the sky, otherwise you couldn’t have seen it … If any of the local deliverymen had come along at the critical moment, my reputation (what little remains of it that is) would have been in tatters.  Me, flat on my stomach on the driveway, clutching my trusty digital camera and wondering if I’d ever get back on my feet again without the aid of a block and tackle.  (I’m neither as young nor as svelte as I used to be, you know …).

Actually – looking at that photo, it’s a bit like one of those tricksy let-us-tie-your-eyes-in-knots pictures, isn’t it? The kind Max Escher used to produce.  You can’t quite make out which is back and which is front.  Sorry.  You’ll just have to trust me on this.  It’s … magnificent.

Triumphal arch …

We are expecting delivery today of our new garden archway – a splendid wrought-iron job to replace the old knocked-it-together-ourselves-from-two-tree-trunks-and-a-stick hop-covered job we had before.

It’s been made by the Shepley Engineers apprentices and we gather it’s BIG.  I mean big as in:

“If you manage to grow hops over THIS one, you can open a brewery …”

Unquote.

Photos to follow …

A learning experience

Bar’s funeral was a slightly surreal affair.  We got there an hour early  and the lovely, tiny church was already full.

We had to park in a field up on the main road, about a mile from the church, where there was a fleet of minibuses waiting to ferry us down to the banks of Ravenglass Estuary.  They had to organize it rather like the D-Day Landings – with people either end of the single-track road with walkie-talkies to (try to) ensure they didn’t meet themselves coming back.  (Didn’t always work – but the theory was good …).

There were about 350-400 people at the funeral, and only a tiny percentage of them were inside.  Fortunately, it was an absolutely glorious summer’s day and we got there early enough to nab seats under the trees.  The service was relayed outside and I wish I’d had the nerve to take my camera, because the sight of mourners sitting around un-self-consciously on box tombs and deck chairs they’d brought themselves (they brought the deck chairs – not the box tombs – just in case you were wondering) was just wonderfully bohemian.

The learning experience comes from the fact that we’re expecting almost the same number of people to turn up to our birthday party …

So THAT’S what 400 people looks like …

Ave atque vale …

Bar Woodall
1930 – 2009

It’s a truly beautiful Lakeland day here in West Cumbria and very shortly we’re off to a funeral – that of Richard Barnes Woodall – known to many people  simply as ‘Bar’.

He was a gentle, courteous, quietly spoken man with a pawky sense of humour and a mind like a steel trap who ran one of the most successful businesses in the North of England.

He was a Trustee of the Centre right from the very beginning when it wasn’t a remotely fashionable or even sensible thing to be and until very recently he was still taking an active part in the Centre’s Committee Meetings.

I never met anyone who didn’t like him and respect him and today the world is a slightly poorer place for his passing.

Hail and farewell, Bar …

The Three Mayors

Hot diggety.  We’re going to have three mayors at our Birthday Party – the Mayors of Copeland, Allerdale and Millom have all said they’d be delighted to attend.

Preparations continue at breakneck speed.  The Police have been informed and are trundling along with POLICE SLOW signs for the road between the Centre and Muncaster Car Park.  We’ve hired two cars and drivers for the day from a local taxi firm to run the ‘Park and Ride’ service to and fro;  the birthday cake’s been arranged (courtesy of one of our volunteers who’s a dab hand at freehand cake decoration); we’ve put in our dibs for the live music;  Bishop George Hacker, retired Bishop of Penrith, is working on the service;  we’ve got all our regular cake-bakers revved up and ready to go – all we need now is some half-way decent weather.

As if.

Once bitten.

Having tackled an English summer head-on last year (and lost – comprehensively) we’re not taking any chances this time.  We cancelled our ‘Music for a Summer’s Evening’ because of a weather forecast promising rain of biblical proportions but THIS time we simply CAN’T cancel (quite apart from anything else, we have at least TWO Mayors turning up, not to mention people coming from all over the country).  So – we have to presume it’s going to chuck it down, and prepare ourselves accordingly.  This means that we’re scouring the county for gazebos, on account of it costing an arm and a flaming leg to hire a marquee – and we already look like being out of pocket.

Muncaster Castle is lending us about a dozen, the local builder has two and we think we may be able to lay hands on a couple more.  Muncaster’s can be zipped together to make a reasonably large covered area, in which we intend to hold the Thanksgiving Service and the cake-cutting ceremony.  We also plan to put most of our goods for sale out there, along with the strawberries and champagne fizzy plonk.

All we need now is a forecast for gale force winds.

I’m keeping an overnight bag packed and ready in my car, just in case I feel the overwhelming urge to emigrate … on August 21st or thereabouts.

Any resemblance to anyone living or dead …

I have a terrible time proving who I am, you know.  Whenever some organization or other needs me to prove that I am who I say I am, I generally fail dismally.  This is partially because most of the household bills are not in my name.  It’s also partially because my passport expired years ago.

So, in the end, I decided that the time had come to renew my passport.

In theory, this is simple.  As someone who already holds a passport all I need to do is complete a simple form and send my old passport off to Newport with a cheque for £72 and they’ll send me a brand new passport.

The only fly in the ointment (apart from the £72) is a small paragraph which says that if your appearance has changed so much since the photo in your old passport was taken that it no longer bears any resemblance to you, you need to submit a new photograph.  B*gger.

Have you read the requirements for passport-compliant photos these days?  By the time you’ve flattened yourself against the pale grey wall (to avoid shadows), removed your glasses (so as to reveal your eyes clearly) and assumed a ‘neutral’ expression  while staring straight at the camera, you look like a  myopic, brain-damaged Eccles cake.

No good deed …

I feed the birds.

I spend a fortune feeding the birds.

You could, in fact, feed a small third world nation for less than I spend on bird food.

Recently, I thought it would be fun to buy one of those little transparent  feeders you stick on the window, so that you can watch the pretty little blue tits and gold finches and siskins pecking away at the seed at close quarters.

I bought it, went to great lengths to attach it securely to the window at the bottom of the stairs, filled it with seed and suet pellets … and sure enough, within a few hours, the first feathered friend had found it.

A great spotted woodpecker.

Really.  Not a cute little finch or even a little brown job, but a s*dding great woodpecker.

In these light summer mornings, you can lie in bed at 3.30am and listen to it as it attacks the fat balls.  It sounds as if it’s trying to demolish the entire house.

Preparation … preparation … preparation …

We’re working on the theory, Gretchen and I, that as far as the 20/10 Birthday Party is concerned, the more we get sorted now, the less we’re going to be tearing around like headless chickens in July and August.

It won’t work, of course, and Headless Chicken Mode will kick in sometime in the middle of August anyway … but hey! – it gives us an illusion of control.

Anyway … in furtherance of our aims, I drafted the Press Release yesterday – and even though I say so myself, it’s a small masterpiece … poignant, ballsy and “Let’s hear it for the gallant little ladies”.  (The fact that we’re actually blood-curdlingly tenacious harpies with no absolutely no grasp of the concept of  ‘punching above your weight’ is entirely academic of course.)

Anyway … here it is, in its full glory …

o=o==o==o==o==o==o==o==o==o==o==o==o==o

Press Release

The Great 20 & 10 Birthday Party

Saturday, August 22^nd

Against all odds …

It will be 20 years this autumn since Gretchen Stevens first opened the revolutionary  Centre for Complementary Care  in a converted barn a little way up the valley from its present home at Muncaster Chase.  By one of those coincidences which seem to feature so prominently in the Centre’s life, we discovered that one of our most regular and dependable supporters – The Cumbria Community Foundation – is also celebrating a landmark birthday this year – its 10^th .  So, we decided to throw a joint Birthday Party in honour of the occasion.

Says Andy Beeforth – Director of  the Cumbria Community Foundation – “Little did we know when the Foundation began 10 years ago just how many people and organizations would be helped.  In our first 10 years we’ve made over 4,000 grant awards and given out more than £11.5m.  We couldn’t have done this without the generosity and support of literally thousands of people and organizations.”

Nor could Gretchen have foreseen 20 years ago that in 2009 the Centre would not only still be open but thriving.  No fees are charged.  People are asked to donate what they can afford and are not turned away if they have no money.  Never once – through Foot and Mouth,  the 11^th of September, the subsequent stock market crash, and now the most difficult economic conditions since the Second World War – has the Centre ever wavered from that  original philosophy.   Everyone who comes to us for help receives it.  Those who cannot contribute financially repay in kind by volunteering their help, baking for events, folding newsletters – or in any one of dozens of different ways.

The smart money said it wouldn’t work – but we’re still here.

Against all odds.

–=o=–

Timetable

10.00am: Doors open.

10.30am: The arrival of the Mayor and Mayoress of Copeland.

11.00am: In the garden: Service of Thanksgiving, led by the former Bishop of Penrith , The Rt. Reverend George Hacker.

11.30am: Short speech by The Cumbria Community Foundation, followed by the cutting of the Birthday Cake by the Mayor of Copeland, Councillor Henry Wormstrup and representatives of the Centre and the Cumbria Community Foundation.

Midday & 2.00pm: Guided tours of the Victorian Garden.

3.30pm: 20^th Anniversary Raffle drawn.

4.00pm: Doors close.

—-o—-

LIVE MUSIC throughout the day.

Free sparkling wine and strawberries.

Garden tours/plant sales.

Superb 20^th Anniversary Raffle.

Refreshment/cakes available all day.

Gifts. Cards. Jewellery. Books.

—-o—-

EVERYONE WELCOME!

o=o==o==o==o==o==o==o==o==o==o==o==o==o

Good, eh? 

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Timetable

The arrival of the Mayor and Mayoress of Copeland.

11.00am: In the garden: Service of Thanksgiving, led by the former Bishop of

Penrith , The Rt. Reverend George Hacker.

11.30am: Short speech by The Cumbria Community Foundation, followed

by the cutting of the Birthday Cake by the Mayor of Copeland,

Councillor Henry Wormstrup and representatives of the Centre and the Cumbria Community Foundation.

How/when did this happen?

I can remember a time – not so terribly long ago – when to admit that you associated with us (aka The Weirdos at that healing-centre-place-thingy) was social suicide.  You might just as well have admitted that you juggled babies over firepits.  When asked what I did for a living, I would say “I manage a complementary healthcare centre” and then, inevitably, I would be asked to go into more detail.   The MOMENT I mentioned the word “healing”, people would get fidgety, and start surreptitiously looking around for someone less dangerously unhinged to make small talk  with.

It is, therefore, something of a shock to the system to send out 20 & 10 Birthday Bash  invitations to the Great and the Good and discover that we’ve apparently become the hottest ticket in town.  Everybody who is anybody wants to be seen rubbing shoulders with us.   I mean, heck, the Mayor and Mayoress are turning up.

We were sort of forewarned at the end of last year, of course …at the AGM of the Cumbria Community Foundation … but we’d more or less  convinced ourselves that THAT was just a blip on our otherwise unblemished record of pariah-hood.  Apparently not.

So, realizing that we were going to have to make some sort of effort to look respectable, Gretchen and I rather pathetically attempted a  girly conversation … something we’ve never done before in our 20 year joint history.

G:   What are you going to wear?

M:  I hadn’t given it any thought.  Clothes, I suppose …

Feeble, I know – but Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the longest journey starts with one step, and  great oaks from … oh … provide your own cliché.

Does this mean I have to buy a lipstick?