While preparing for yesterday’s play performance it occurred to me that an
important distinction between Shakespeare and myself is that he didn’t spend
time before a performance hoovering for the benefit of those allergic to cats.
(We had a glass of sparkler here after the show). I’m guessing Andrew Lloyd
Weber hires the task out, but maybe he doesn’t bother; his guests probably all
love cats.
I’m happy to report the play went well: good acting and directing, fine
audience, laughs in all the right places. No doubt offers for the movie rights
will come tumbling in.
This morning the sun came out, which was a nice change. I went to attack the
wisteria—which refuses to flower and so now gets the chop—and to begin tidying
yet more detritus from storms. The chickens viewed me from afar, muttering.
Eventually they came up.
“Told you so,” said Mimo.
“Told me what?”
“We offered our services,” Pecorino affirmed.
“In what capacity?”
Appenzeller, “In an acting capacity.”
“You did?”
Cheddar, “It was implied. The offer was on the table.”
“Which table?” I was beginning to huff and puff. Detritus can take a bit of
shifting. “Would you like to help me clear up?”
Mimo, “What is clearing up?”
“Well you rake like this and then gather all the stuff and lift it into the
bin. You could manage the scraping and shifting piece.”
They ran up and down, clearly happy.
Appenzeller, “What a relief!”
Mimo, “We thought the play had gone wrong."
Pecorino, “We thought you were looking for food.”
Appenzeller, “We didn’t relish the competition.”
Cheddar, echoed, “The competition.”
“No, no,” I said, “The play went very well. Excellent turnout. I’m sorry you
couldn’t make it.”
Pecorino, “Were we invited?”
“Actually…no. But would you like to help me clean up?”
Mimo turned her back, “Actually, no.”
I finished up and later went to check on them. They were discussing the
weather. “Not so bad, this, “ said Pecorino, nodding skyward.
Cheddar agreed, “Definitely not awful.”
“Better than a tree full of witches’ knickers,” I said, shoehorning my new
knowledge into the conversation.
“Whaaaaaaat?”
“Wiiiiiiiiiiiiitches?”
“Knickers?”
I calmed them, “It’s Irish slang for plastic bags caught in a tree. I read it
in a BBC piece about colorful language.”
Cheddar said that all language is colorful. I conceded the point. She asked
for an example.
“Watergaw,” I offered. “It’s Scots for a rainbow.”
Appenzeller was sceptical, “Says who?”
“Dr. Robert Macfarlane, a Cambridge academic. He’s curated an exhibit at
Cockermouth.”
“Where Wordsworth came from?” Cheddar sounded excited.
I’m less astonished than I was by the breadth of her knowledge but even so.
“You know something about Wordsworth?”
Cheddar stretched her neck to full height, took a deep breath, waited a beat
and then declaimed:
Behold the parent hen amid her brood,
Though fledged and feathered, and well pleased to part
And straggle from her presence, still a brood,
And she herself from the maternal bond
Still undischarged; yet doth she little more
Than move with them in tenderness and love,
A centre to the circle which they make;
And now and then, alike from need of theirs
And call of her own natural appetites,
She scratches, ransacks up the earth for food,
Which they partake at pleasure.
An awed silence followed. Nothing more to say. Eventually I tried, “I’ve
found a smeuse.”
“Let us partake at pleasure,” said Cheddar. And they all moved away from me.
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/wordsworth-house-and-garden/features/wild-words-at-wordsworth-house
<https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/wordsworth-house-and-garden/features/wild-words-at-wordsworth-house>
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
