I Will Rise

Music touches hearts.

Last night Matthew pulled up in front of the Cinema in a lovely posh car (I don't know what type), and into it I hopped. He is always faithful and on time, keeping his part of the bargain so that nothing stands in the way of music touching hearts. It's all part of what makes him Matthew.

The four men inside were heading up the hill to rehearse with the Mousehole Male Voice Choir, and I was privileged to tag along and listen. I listen to the music, of course. But listening to the men along the drive is just as fun. I always learn something.

Last night we learned from John the list of elderly people in his part of Cornwall who had died. I remembered that last year he had also filled us in on passings-away, wakes, and burials. When the man to my right finally said, "Don't you have any good news?" we arrived at the church.

There is always an audience of folk who tiptoe in at 7pm because they love the Choir. The practices are actually a bit like a concert, beginning at the stroke of 7:30 pm and ending bang-on at 9:00. By the end, more than just a few tears have been shed, because Music Touches Hearts.

                            

An unusual audience member tiptoed in at 7 with his Master, just as quiet as you please. We were all shocked at him because he was so surprisingly big. He glanced around at the rest of us, but really only had eyes for his Master.

He never uttered a word or a yip, and never needed to 'go out'. There was something comforting in having him there, not 3 feet away from my feet.

Before I finish these thoughts, dear Readers, the Choir sang a terrific song called, "I Will Rise", which for me brought the house right down. I went home in the glow of it. The three soloists were men I had not known, but they had been faithfully serving in their quiet way, when the director tapped them for this song. It was the sweetest thing. I hope the video works for you, and if it doesn't I shall try and fix it.

See you along the Way!

the SconeLady

St Ives between rains

A Baptist Again in High Church England

  I came to choir practice on Tuesday night, and was astonished at how good this choir really is. The choir master had kindly sent me the music, via email, which gave me a big hint about the level of expertise. 

 Because from an early age I could sing a good four-part harmony (we were Baptists), I felt I should be up for just about anything. I could follow a director and read music, not to mention the fact that I had sung professionally for a couple of decades.

 But - this was TOTALLY DIFFERENT. These songs were beautiful and complicated, and unknown to me. Nothing could be more different to what I experience each Sunday in a worship band/drum/guitar/bass environment. 

The other choir members asked me about my own church choir experiences.

"Does your church sing similar songs to these?"

"Ah...no. We sing songs you might hear on a rock station. They are really pretty good songs, too. But nothing like this."

"What denomination are you?"

"Baptist." They nodded as if this explained a lot.

Even though I was more nervous this time around, I had so much help that nothing terrible had a chance to happen! The ladies surrounding me kept me moving in the right direction, pointed out where we were in a song, and encouraged me in countless ways. 

It reminded me of the years long ago when Laura Jean White used to work endlessly with our youth choir, getting us ready to join the 'big' guys. Talk about learning to read music! She had us so steeped in it that those notes stayed permanently locked into our little brains. And guess what? It's still in there! I can learn to sing Gracious music in a Church of England, and then go home and sing my heart out to the tune of a rock band. 

As I walked down Fore Street after church, I could hear the sound of singing. The Fore Street Methodists were having themselves a hymn-sing, and the doors were wide open. The one I could hear was "What A Friend We Have In Jesus". Now that's a four part harmony I could sing in my sleep, note by note. 

Thank the Lord, and Laura Jean White.

See you along the Way!

the SconeLady

SWAT

 You all know something of the dogs of St Ives. There are lots of them because people love their dogs, and want them to be with them on holiday. They feel almost as though the dog were another child in the family, and they would never consider leaving a child at home while everyone else goes away.  If you look at the holiday cottage websites, there will be something in there about dogs being welcome, or dogs not being welcome. Only they say it very kindly, like, "Regrets, no pets".

 I don't mind the dogs of St Ives because they seem unusually well behaved. The only trouble seems to be if one little dog sees another little dog. Then there is noise. But everyone else in the doggie world of St Ives is smashing. There is something soft about the way they look at you, something obedient. I can't really nail down what I mean, so you'll just have to come down here and see them for yourself.

The Rather Stunning Son, filming a dog of St Ives

The reason I am bringing them up right now is because something unusual, something about a dog, happened today.

There is an especially nice walk, a particularly steep walk that I like to take because walking straight up the Steep will improve your life in lots of ways. You become stronger and breathe easier. So, I headed up toward the highest Parking Lot in town. There are tons of parking lots above the town, very well organized and accessible online so that you can pay for a spot while you are sitting at home with your computer.

The highest parking lot is nice because just beyond it there are horses which I feel a kinship with. Whenever I approach, they walk up to me. Isn't that nice? Only I always forget to bring along a carrot or sugar cube, so they end up walking away again.

This morning I noticed a car blocking the path, with its trunk open. As I walked, suddenly a fierce growl came from the vicinity of the trunk. A man, dressed in the garb of a SWAT team, saw me, and said very deliberately, "You'll want to be moving away from here now, Madam." 

He was holding onto the thick collar of an enormous German Shepherd, whose growl was becoming scary now. It was looking at me. 

Have you ever been looked at by a fierce German Shepherd? There was purpose in that look. Like perhaps it wanted to eat me.

"Where were you hoping to go?" asked the man.

"Just - up. But I think I'll go back down now."

"I would, if I were you. But don't run."

"Oh. yes sir," I said, wanting very much to run. It took considerable self control not to, what with all that growling and barking. I was thinking what it would feel like if it got me from behind. It wasn't pretty.

See you along the way!

the SconeLady

Moving in the Right Direction

 Jean and Audrey have been working on a new puzzle (Jean likes puzzles), so when I got there I jumped right in. My own mother had loved working on puzzles, until they became too intricately challenging. Then she enjoyed watching us doing them.

Jean and Audrey had already separated the pieces into bowls. This was easy because, on the backs of the pieces were the letters a,b,c,d,e and so on, according to the location in the picture. Brilliant! That way we worked on only one area at a time, thus making progress. I liked this.

"Jean, did you do the separating of the puzzles pieces?" I asked her.

"Some," she said.

I was impressed. Audrey said, "Mum still knows all the alphabet and numbers. And she reads novels."

Impressed again.

"The series she is reading now is the Adams Family saga by Mary-Jane Staples. There are 29 of them!" Audrey handed me the book. I began reading it, and forgot the puzzle for a while. "It's good for mum to do puzzles and things, because it keeps her brain cells moving in the right direction." I saw the wisdom of this, and thought perhaps I might go and find myself a puzzle, to help keep my brain cells moving that way.

Then Audrey pulled out a DVD of a violinist called Andre Rieu who presents classical concerts worldwide, where massive crowds come to watch. More than just thousands, too. I was at a very different sort of concert in LA recently where 18,000 people packed themselves in. Andre's concert was at LEAST twice as big as that LA concert. I don't know where his concert was being held (possibly somewhere in Holland), but that crowd resembled the children of Israel listening raptly to Moses.

I was mesmerized. Jean kept working away at her puzzle but once in a while she glanced at the screen and told me what Andre was saying. This was significant because he was speaking Dutch, with English subtitles flashing on the screen. The subtitles were moving pretty fast, but Jean read them to me and laughed when he told a joke.

IMPRESSED AGAIN!!!

Ask me if I could read those lickety-split subtitles! I will give you no answer.

Everything, from the welcome I received, to the cup of tea I was given, to the puzzle we worked on together, to the novel Jean is reading, to the King of the Waltz Andre Rieu speaking in Dutch to a 93 year old woman still in her own home, with two daughters attending her daily - all of this is happening in a bungalow in Cornwall, day after day. It isn't always easy, but they do it. I call it Love.

Are you impressed?

See you along the way!

the SconeLady 

England Has Weather

The sun came out for a minute yesterday

Then...

You should just hear the rain outside my door. What a commotion! (I think it might become a storm). If I were to take off my walking shoes and tip them over, water would come shooting out.

I could become discouraged by all this wetness except that we learned long ago that England has weather. C.S. Lewis said in 'That Hideous Strength' that you cannot let your plans be dictated by the weather. Furthermore, you ought really to like weather. Sidle up to it, and make friends. Well... he didn't say that last thing, exactly, but you get the gist.

I know first hand that the Brits are very good at this because the streets of St Ives were crammed full of people today. In spite of the weather, they crept slowly along Fore Street eating ice creams and looking for the illusive perfect something in a shop. The crowds were bundled up as if it was winter in Norway. But the strangest thing was the shops themselves. It was cold, rainy, and windy, yet the store windows displayed sundresses, flip flops, and shorts, fit for summer. There wasn't a single thing any of us could use. 

Thinking back to 'That Hideous Strength', I will always remember what Jane Studdock and her two companions said on their day of rain. 

***

"Don't you like a rather foggy day in a wood in autumn?" remarked Camilla. "You'll find we shall be perfectly warm sitting in the car."

Jane said she'd never heard of anyone liking fogs before but she didn't mind trying. All three got in.

"That's why Camilla and I got married," said Denniston, as they drove off. "We both like Weather. Not this or that kind of Weather, but just Weather. It's a useful taste if one lives in England."

"I'm sure I hated wet days as a child," said Jane. 

"That's because the grownups kept you in," said Camilla.

***

 

Maybe I am a little more like Jane in my attitude toward Weather. Maybe Camilla's is the better one, and I ought to sidle up to it, and make friends. It's a useful taste if one lives in England.

See you along the way!

the SconeLady

Things to Do In St Ives that Taste Good

St Ives Sea Bream

Every trip to Cornwall should include fresh fish cooked on one's own cottage stove - in butter, salt and pepper (Just think 'Julia Child'!). The other night I cooked Sea Bream (above), and if I'd had any extra goodies like lemon, tartar sauce, or tsatsiki sauce, I would certainly have included them. But I purposely don't have any of those things because if I go around buying things like that, I will only have to carry them with me on Changeover Day, which is very hard on the back. 

Have you ever cooked Sea Bream?  It wasn't as dramatic as killing and boiling a lobster, and it wasn't as delicious as a lobster. But it was oh, so good. When I bought it from our little fish shop by the Wharf, I didn't know it would have so many bones. Believe it or not, there were bones on the inside of the Bream, and bones on the OUTSIDE of it. You may have had fish with outside bones, but I have not. Luckily, I cooked it for just the right amount of time and the right amount of butter, because both the inside and the outside bones FELL STRAIGHT OFF, and I didn't choke.

Speaking of food and fish, I looked for fisherman Stuart again today. Smeaton's Pier is where to find him, so I have walked up and down it every day on the off chance he might be hanging out there. I am not in the habit of walking around looking for other women's husbands, don't get me wrong. But I am interested because wherever Stuart is, a lobster will be in the vicinity. Even though killing and boiling a lobster is a creepy business, its taste is so irresistible that I cannot help wandering around looking for Stuart.

Soon after this, I met my good friend Pennie and her good friend Jayne, to drive out to a sweet little tea/coffee/lunch place called 'Nance'. We were hungry for sweet things, so I ordered a Cream Tea (with the scone warmed, and lashings of jam and clotted cream), and they each ordered carrot cake to eat whilst listening to my woeful tale of flight delays, lost taxi cabs, bag-dragging in the pitch dark late at night, and laying down on cobblestones trying to open a key safe. My friends were properly alarmed, and possibly wondered why I kept laughing instead of crying. It is a bit odd, but once the experience was over and I was safely inside my doll's-house-of-a cottage, the horror ended. Maybe I am still secretly hysterical, and it just keeps popping out at odd moments,

But as any world traveler will tell you, you're going to have highs and lows, goods and bads. It's best if you'll just roll with it. You can't possibly be any worse off than the Boeing astronauts who have been stuck in space for over two months now - and they don't get to go home until next February!

Talk about flight delays.

See you along the way!

the SconeLady

Dive-bombing seagulls

                                                         View from Smeaton's Pier

The SconeLady is not Shy About Twists

Dear Readers! In a flurry of anticipation yesterday, I dashed up to the Norway Store to ask them (without much hope) if maybe, possibly, they MIGHT have brought back the wildly popular Chocolate Twists? Their discontinuation two years ago had been a deep tragedy, and many of us did not like it one little bit.

Well, you won't believe this - they actually did have twists again, only they weren't twisted twists. Does that make sense? They said the ingredients are all exactly the same as ordinary twists except that they are now straight in a sort of 'loaf' configuration.

Of course, I bought one lickety-split, and this is what it looked like in the little boot room at the cottage before I attacked it:

Do you notice its loafy-ness? And it almost looks as if it is bigger and heavier than its former self. 

Then up the hill I walked toward Jean, bearing a goodie bag containing her favorites. Jean is partial to a Pork Pie from the Yellow Canary, and though I have never really cottoned on to the taste myself, if she likes it, well, what is there not to like!? (I always let her have my portion!).

Jean on Saturday

The walk on Sunday began at the Parish Church of St Ia, where they are once again inviting the SconeLady to sing in the choir. Amongst the choir members yesterday lay the honorary member named Tess, the choir doggie who is perfectly well-behaved in all ways.

After church, congregants and choir members gathered around the coffee and tea table, chatting and catching up. I waited to see if anyone spoke to me about our looming American election ("what are the Americans going to do?"). They normally ask, and I am normally in a flutter, waiting for them to ask. But yesterday, the subject was left blessedly unmentioned. 

Dear Readers, there is more to say as I tramped around Cornwall, being rained upon and feeling water inside my shoes, accidentally approaching the links golf course, where pedestrians are discouraged from presenting their heads as TARGETS. Thankfully, this head came through the experience unscathed. 

See you along the way!

the SconeLady