Dry as a bone

Oh dear, it must have been a horrible way to die.

It was just a small, furry rodent, but... well, I think about these things. Finding itself at the bottom of a deep, narrow-necked garden pot and then presumably caught in a downpour, repeated but failed attempts to jump out in its rain-soaked state must have sapped its energy. I found its remains on a dry, sunny day, some time after its demise. It was still in the climbing position, still looking hopeful, even in death; a little bank vole, judging by its size and shape.

A few years ago I did at least manage to save a fellow bank vole from a similar fate. I heard a strange noise coming from an empty watering can and discovered that one had wedged itself up the far end of the spout. I slipped the rose off and waited – but not for long – suddenly, making me jump too, out it popped like a cork from a champagne bottle, and scampered off unharmed. (I always leave the watering can covered now...)

I wish I could have rescued this one too, but now that its fragile body has long dried out and is decomposing naturally and not gruesomely at all (no gooey bits or maggots), I'm just waiting to see its perfect little skeleton*. I'm strangely excited at this prospect and intend to find a way to keep it in order once all the bones are clean. That's not weird, is it? I guess I just wish I'd paid more attention to Biology lessons at school as I can't help being curious about this stuff, only we had to dissect things and work in a lab that smelt funny and it was all a bit too icky for me in my early teens. There are ways you can speed up the process – some involve warm or cold water, some use hydrogen peroxide or other solutions I believe – but as I don't really fancy donning a mad professor outfit and poking a dead creature about in a saucepan in the kitchen, I'll just wait.... All it needs is air.

Not so for the body of a dead cat in one of our local hotels. The cat, and the section of wall behind which it had been incarcerated, is now displayed behind glass in the reception area and it's quite creepy to see its mummified remains with skin intact. Over here, in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, it was a superstitious custom to sometimes bury live cats behind walls to ward off evil spirits, like a kind of lucky charm for the property. (The more animal-friendly version of this was to use shoes). In this part of the country they were often buried whilst the building was under construction to protect from 'witches, warlocks and fire'. When this particularly unfortunate creature was first discovered during renovation work in the 1970s, it was removed... but, soon after, a number of strange and unfortunate events (including a fire) occurred in the vicinity. Curse or coincidence? Who can say? But the subsequent bad luck was enough to ensure its return.

I must remember that when my vole skeleton finally emerges...

* I've talked about bones before here too, if you're interested.

Old age and the war

Carole, my lovely French tutor, expressed her surprise recently at the degree to which Brits still go on about 'the war'. It's just not the same in France apparently, not a subject that takes much precedence. I'm sure there are some theories as to why the French feel that way which I don't feel qualified to discuss, but I don't really get why we still have such a preoccupation with it here.

It's become a source of ridicule in some ways, like when Uncle Albert of Only Fools and Horses was always trotting out his famous line of, “During the wa-ahr...” I never used to think about what people actually must have gone through; I'd switch off, it seemed so long ago and irrelevant, boring even. And I'd wonder why some discussed their wartime experiences with a nostalgic relish, as if they were good times, as if they were times to look back on fondly! But I think I get it more now. Those moments of extreme adversity, endured and survived individually and communally, are a big deal. Most of us ordinary (younger) civilians haven't a clue.

I have to remind myself of that when I'm frustrated by the old dears in the charity shop bumbling around and getting in the way of the box of CDs (or knitting patterns) on the floor, and when I'm stuck behind the elderly chap in the supermarket queue who can't find his reading glasses or the right change. It's so easy to disregard older people for all the obvious reasons, isn't it? Especially the ones who can't help talking shite. We've all been there I'm sure, stuck listening endlessly and patiently to someone who tells you the minutiae of their dull daily routine because they just want someone to chat to, but whose lonely desperation to talk has unfortunately become the very reason why people avoid them, and thus that lonely desperation cycle continues.  I know it could be me one day, struggling to get to grips with my Google Glass and ducking out the way of Amazon drones.  But who knows what they've been through, what they've seen, how they coped? None of it through choice.

I was reminded of this the other day on finding a letter from 30 years ago written by my mum to an ex-teacher from her school who had serendipitously gone into the bookshop where she worked at the time. In it she explained about her first days at secondary school where she started in 1939, amid pupils from several other schools who hadn't been evacuated.

“...It was a trying time as we spent a great part of the day in the sand-bagged cloisters of the school building trying to learn normal lessons with air-raids in progress...

… In 1943 we were still experiencing bombing raids and I have a very strong memory of the day we received news of the death of our classmate, Pauline Egglesfield, who had been suffocated in the ruins of her home in Ilford. I also remember returning home one afternoon and as I neared the long avenue which led to my house I could see a dark plume of smoke. I flew home, that long mile, to discover that incendiaries had destroyed a nearby farm. Ilford received the highest percentage of doodle-bug damage, being at the range where most of the dreaded flying bombs eventually blew up”

Still, it wasn't all about the bombs:

“...Uniforms were available but had to be bought with clothing coupons. I remember going to a very old fashioned drapers store to select the gym tunic. Mother would make the square-necked blouses and summer dresses. But, oh! The terrible little hats. This last creation was jammed down flat on my head nearly over my eyes. Eventually the girls managed to rearrange these little cloth affairs in a more flattering shape – but I almost ran away when I discovered they had to be worn at all times travelling back and forth to school.”

Glad to see my mum had the same thoughts about school uniform as I did.

Radiohead: Bones (not The Bends!)

I'm not usually a big fan of Radiohead, but this.... I think it's stunning.

Dem bones...

The other day I mentioned to someone that, when we were children, my older sister had a pickled bat in her bedroom.  Now I know that sounds totally wacky out of context but, for my teenage sibling who excelled at Biology, the obvious thing to do with a dead (but otherwise perfect) pipistrelle that had been found in the garden was to preserve it in formaldehyde and keep it in a jam-jar in her room.  It then formed part of a display that would have been at home in any scientific laboratory or natural history museum. If my memory serves me well the pickled numbers included a fish eye and a chicken’s foot, which were given space alongside various dried butterflies, a sheep’s skull and a tank full of (thankfully alive) African aquatic toads.  It may sound like something out of the set of a horror B movie or even some strange herbal medicine emporium but as she was my big sis it seemed normal to me, and nurtured a keen early interest in all things natural.

Well, if only I had realised the value of drawing such things from life then rather than just drawing characters from my imagination, I could have sneaked into her room and filled a sketchbook with studies of these fascinating objects too.  But I think perhaps it did spark a rather subtle fascination for bones.  Now, I’ve no desire to see or find any human bones, although I did like looking at the repro human skeleton we had hanging up in the art-room at school, but I do rather like it when I’ve been digging in the garden and come across a tiny bone from a small rodent or perhaps a bird.  They are so fragile and yet so strong, so insubstantial looking and yet so robust.  When you look at a bird’s skull, a casing so fine that it seems more delicate even than eggshell and the connecting bones as thin as a thread of cotton, it is a wonder that the bird itself could ever have been so strong and so unbreakable to get through its life at all. 

It’s with some embarrassment that I recall using bones to make my own jewellery.  It seemed right at the time – listening to music that was part tribal, part goth (Southern Death Cult being favourite) – to accessorise with perhaps strange ancient or ethnic objects, especially anything that could be found for free.  So, my mum boiled up some chicken bones from a roast dinner, and a friend from college brought in some of his dog’s old teeth, and I strung them together with some wooden beads.  This is a drawing I did at the time of the necklace I wore daily (usually teamed up with some earrings I’d made from the smaller bones).

And here are a couple of birds’ skulls that I found in recent years.  Proof that my fascination with natural history has remained is evident in the fact that I felt compelled to keep them (although not in my bedroom).   I think the small one is from a goldfinch and the larger one from a starling.  Whilst I would always prefer to see these wonderful birds alive and well in my garden every day, I sometimes look at these skulls just to remind myself of how amazing these delicate little creatures are underneath their beautiful feathers.  And if I were ever to find a dead bat in the garden, I might just be tempted to pickle it as well.