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I’m not
sure what I’m going to write about each month, probably random topics as I
think of them, and which I hope you will find interesting, even slightly
amusing. My aim is to produce a simple ‘essay’ type post, something like
Alistair Cooke’s Letter From America which ran on BBC Radio from 1946 to
2004, making it the longest running speech radio programme hosted by one
individual. The present day Radio 4’s A Point Of View is similar, but
hosted by different writers each week.
For those
who don’t know, or don’t remember, Alistair Cooke was a much loved British journalist
who presented his broadcast in the style of a letter, using a diversity of
interesting topics which often rambled off sideways into something completely
different but always ended up at the original topic again. The American comedian,
David Sedaris has a similar format, although his essays are usually humorous.
His subjects might not appeal to all tastes but I find him hilarious. Who would
have thought that the topic of the male version of the ‘She Wee’ could be so
funny? Try this excerpt of him reading aloud (links will take you to You Tube or Wikipedia.)
So, here
is my attempt at something resembling the interesting essay:
LOOK THROUGH ANY WINDOW
Have you
ever really stopped to look through, out of, into, any window? Your own
house windows? A car, train, bus, aeroplane window? A big window, little
window. Square window, round window?
Who
remembers the classic UK children’s BBC TV show Play School where the
young viewer was asked, “What window
shall we go through today?” This was my first realisation that windows came in
all shapes and sizes, and through them, all sorts of things could
be discovered. I must have been about four.
We take
windows for granted. In the past, windows were mere slits or crude holes in a
wall, covered by an animal skin or by sheets of oiled parchment. Neither did
much to keep out the cold or let light in. The Tudors had those diamond-paned
windows, pretty but also chilly. By Dickens’ time there was the ‘bubble-glass’
as in the windows of the Old Curiosity Shop. I admit I have not read the
book, I find Dickens a tad laborious. Someone on the radio (I forget who) recently
mentioned A Tale Of Two Cities: “Great opening, super ending but skip the bit in
the middle.” (Not exactly a quote, but you get the gist.)
During
King William III’s reign in 1696, the Window Tax was introduced into England
and Wales, and into Scotland in 1748. It wasn’t repealed until 1851. From 1798
until 1926 the same tax was brought into France, a fact I didn’t know until
researching for this post. The tax was one of those silly ideas that
politicians occasionally dream up, the aim being to target the rich, but of course it hit the poor hard. The wealthy merely bricked a few windows up and came to no
great harm. The poor suffered from health issues due to lack of light and fresh
air.
 |
Portland Street, Southampton, UK
(Wikipedia, public domain) |
Eyes are
said to be the Windows to the Soul. With my impaired sight, caused by Glaucoma,
my vision is permanently wonky and misted as if a fog is masking the view. At
least I do have sight, and one ‘window’, although off-kilter, is not entirely
bricked up.
I’ve
given up trying to keep the windows of my old farmhouse clean, they are
somewhat rain-spattered. The front kitchen window is mud streaked. Mab, my
black-and-white cat lives upstairs and will only come into the house via the
always open bathroom window, accessed via the roof of the porch. She uses the
adjacent kitchen window as a springboard.
Even in Walthamstow, where we used to live, Mab preferred to use a window. She would appear at my study window and meow, knowing I’d give way and let her in. Why do we pander to cats, I wonder?
 |
Mab
at my study window back in Walthamstow |
Sybil, the white-and-black cat lives downstairs.
They hate each other. Fortunately, because of their living arrangements, they
rarely meet so we don’t have fisticuffs (pawsicuffs? Clawsicuffs?) The two cats
remind me of the old ladies in Cider With Rosie. Granny Upstairs and
Granny Downstairs - and never the twain shall meet.
 |
Sybil
The porch roof in the background with the bathroom window to the left |
There was
no problem with the two cats before we moved here in January 2013. Both lived
together quite amicably in Walthamstow, London, but the impasse occurred
after Sybil went missing for several months. We searched for her, then reluctantly
had to accept that perhaps she had met with some fatal outcome. Turned out that
she’d decided to live with some
neighbours. Changing her mind when they moved away, she came home. Hence the squabbling.
I’ve no idea how they came to the agreement of Upstairs/Downstairs. Perhaps the
dogs mediated?
I heard
recently of a college study into cat behaviour. (One of those studies that
makes you think, ‘Have they not got anything better to research?’) The
conclusion of the study was that cats enjoy retrieving things as much as dogs
do. The difference between cats and dogs? Dogs must be trained, cats do it
themselves. IF they want to.
Like I said,
who thinks up these things?
The only
problem with the muddy pawed kitchen window is when the sun is shining. (Recently,
not that often,) for the glass is intricately patterned with paw prints. You don’t notice them when it’s raining. Sunshine is lovely, but it does rather highlight
dirty windows.
I will
add that the bathroom window isn’t exactly open. It is, but we have a false
window fitted on the inside which has a cat-sized hole at the bottom for Mab to
use. The only difficulty is if I forget to alert a visitor using the bathroom
and a cat suddenly appears from nowhere. Surprised heart attacks have only just
about been avoided.
I’ve
noticed that both cats avoid the geese. I guess they think that Devon has much
bigger birds than the sparrows in a London garden which is the size of a postage stamp.
 |
| The geese |
The
windows of our house, built in 1769, puzzled an architect friend. The lintels
above each window are all different, which is, apparently, unusual. “It’s
almost as if,” he said, “that this was a show house, you know – you can have
this, this, or this style.”
 |
January 2013
not very clear but the downstairs lintels are all different |
Windows
for the PC is an entirely different subject and I’d hazard a guess that none of
us want to go down that route. Why does it always update unannounced and gum everything up
when you’re in the middle of something vitally important? And why, just when
you’ve finally got to grips with Windows x it then changes to Windows x2? At least that irritating Clippy thing eventually vanished, so there's some compensation.
From my
bedroom windows I can look southward and watch the hens scuttling about in the
front garden when they are let out of a morning. They are Pekins, with fluffy
feathers and look all the world like little Victorian ladies wearing feathery
bloomers. When they run they seem to hitch up their bustles and waddle away.
The roosters resemble the way Charlie Chaplin used to walk. All they need is a bowler
hat and a cane to twirl.
 |
| Pekin Ladies |
Through
the other window I look north over ‘my’ part of the Taw Valley, or watch the Tarka
Line train trundle along a huge curve in the track. A pity I can’t quite see
the River Taw – when I can it’s after a lot of rain and the river isn’t where
it is supposed to be. It’s because of this stretch of the river that I called
my self-publish venture Taw River Press.
 |
| Taw Valley View |
With my
wonky sight I can no longer see the stars clearly, but I do enjoy lying in bed
at night and gazing out at Orion bright behind the Field Maple and the Old Oak where the Tawny
Owls roost. The full moon shines in, although there have been some nights when
I’ve woken up and thought an outside light had been left on. I’ll not fall for
it again, sneaking around in the dark in PJs and slippers to investigate is no joke.
Windows
caused much consternation when my mother was alive back in 2008. She was highly
irate; someone had entered her flat without permission and altered her windows.
“I don’t want my windows changed. I want them put back as they were. How dare
someone do this without my permission!”
What on
earth was she talking about?
It turned
out that a curtain hadn’t been pulled back, which gave the appearance of an
altered window, although this was minor compared to the accompanying issue of what turned out to be a UTI (Urinary Tract
Infection) which can affect mental thinking if untreated, similar to dementia
symptoms.
I only
discovered this, though, when watching an episode of Doc Martin on TV, where
the Doc (played by the wonderful Martin Clunes) diagnosed the condition in an
elderly lady. This, combined with the results from the GP, explained
everything. I had the opportunity to thank Mr Clunes for this eye-opening
insight when I bumped into him (literally) at the All England Showjumping
Course, Hickstead one summer. He’s a lovely gentleman. Very tall.
 |
Martin Clunes
'Doc Martin'
(public domain Wikipedia) |
Windows. Perhaps we ought to take a moment occasionally to fully
appreciate them? I have a theory though.
If you
only clean them on the inside, not the outside, you can see out
but others cannot see in.
OK, I
accept that the theory might be flawed...
“I live in
a very small house, but my windows look out onto a very large world.” Confucius
“Despite
having seen a fair amount of the world I still enjoy travelling – I just have
an insatiable curiosity and love looking out of a window.” Michael Palin
“As
authors evolve and try to chase the precedents that have shaped their work, it
sometimes becomes a matter of identifying the shadowy figure in the back row of
the mental photograph, or of grabbing at the tail of a memory that’s slipping
out of the window into thin air.” Virginia Wolff
“The advice I was given was to make sure
to look out of the window occasionally. It’s something no astronaut ever gets
tired of doing.” Helen Sharman
 |
Earthrise
(NASA) |
.jpg)
