Dry stone wall with lichen

News from the Old country today: my mother's best friend in Ireland will be 8o this year! Moira ran a Montessori school in Dublin in the 1960s and 70s, which my I and some of my siblings attended, and at which my mother also taught. It was the best school I ever attended, combining the Montessori principles of free choice, learning through doing, and learning at one's own pace. I'm sure it has influenced my decision to become a playworker.


Anyway, my mother is travelling to Dublin for Moira's 80th, and Moira is living in a flat next door to her second daughter, Esme, who was my best friend in Ireland. We both came from large families, and suffered from not being at the top of the pecking order, and in my case, a soft target for teasing. This made us natural allies, and we enjoyed the same types of games. I can hardly remember any of them apart from the oft-banned doctors and nurses, which we played with members of the opposite sex, and breaking into an empty house called Hermiston. But there were many, and some involved dolls, which I played along with, though I secretly preferred fairy tales and organising weddings and dances for my ( all male) soft toys.

Esme is married with several children, though sadly she was suddenly widowed several years ago, and has had more than her fair share of additional losses. We have not been in touch since 1984, when she was expecting her first child, but I am looking forward to having her address, as I have looked for her on the internet several times over the years. Who knows? I have no children, but have worked with children for many years, so would hope that we still have something in common. I think she also trained as a beauty therapist, and I as an aromatherapist. It was our family's departure from Ireland in 1974 that ended our contact. I hope it can be resumed.

Via Facebook, I heard today of the death of my former headmistress. She also died in Dublin at a rest home for old nuns, near the convent we would have attended, had we stayed in Dublin. Unlike many of my former schoolmates, I can feel no sorrow, for to me she was a dragon in nun's clothing, and I never detected compassion or empathy in her. She was a product of her time and rigid training, and favoured Latin scholars and those who were good at games or who showed a bit of the rebellious streak. My own rebellion came almost too late for her, but I expect she had had enough of two generations of our family by the time my younger sister was finally let go of.

Today is also the birthday of one of my former schoolmates, so I got to thinking a lot about the olden days, and wondering whether I was some kind of freak for not having liked my years at a convent boarding school. I am working at a former convent now, and in many ways the school reminds me of my own one. There is only one nun on the teaching staff, though there are a number of religious displays that do seem to be mainly for display!

With these solemn and gloomy thoughts in mind I suddenly noticed that the evening light was very strong again, so I nipped up to the graveyard intending to take some 'Bramwell Bronte shots' with the dramatic filter on my camera. On the way, I stopped to photograph a dry stone wall of Cotswold stone, complete with lichen. I heard a familiar miaowing, so called for my cat, Bomble, who came and sat on the wall in the liquid light. He was very obliging, but is too black to photograph with any definition. I'll save him for Hallowe'en...

Next up the path was CleanSteve who had come to join me in blipping among the tombstones! Together we surveyed the extensive damage done by a rogue sprayer of weedkiler. Large areas lie now bleached and barren, devoid of green. There is a theory that the spraying is the act of a possibly disturbed person who does not appreciate the council's policy of leaving some parts of the cemetery to grow slightly wild, to preserve wildlife habitats. The cemetery is also a nature reserve. Efforts are going to be made to further explain this policy to the public, in order to stop the vandalism.

I adore the cemetery, and walking there, but tonight the wall won. When in the Cotswolds...

More of the cemetery here