#One Week - Autumn '13 - Champagne

A walk over the ploughed flats of Norfolk. Brown and grey. 

Cracked clods of earth underfoot, thick and heavy from harvest. 

The dog bounds off the leash, after sticks, after birds.

And here we all are, to bid farewell.

A goodbye in the wind.

Granny says, 'she said the air was like champagne up here.'

I adore that description. Champagne.

Bubbles through the yellow leaves. Fizz through the sloes.

And onwards, a thoughtful walk, on dirt track, 

under canopied boughs, and mossy floor.

Here we are, journeys end, her resting place. Only us.

A pond at low ebb, ferns and reeds bent over.

One bench.

She loved to walk her dogs here. In the champagne.

I liked her. A lot.

Straight and sturdy (if you discount the broken hip).

Honest to the bone.

A fierce wit.

Out comes the jar and spoon. Sacred dust.

Like course granules. Chalk white.

Powder in the grass. Particles of a life well lived.

Ashes and atoms.

In the air.

Away and beyond.

Little A says, 'Bye bye Great Granny.'

Little A says, 'Great Granny has turned into a star.'

Life and death in one burst.

Flesh and bone between her fingers.

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A foot note: This was Little A's Great Granny on Younger Dad's side of the family. She passed away over a year ago, her ashes scattered this September.

This is the first day of the seasonal linky One Week. Over the next three days (Monday till Wednesday) I'll be posting a photograph(s) and a few words that diarises and distills my experience of autumn '13. Take a peep at the details here. You can join in for one, two ... or the full three days. And don't forget to add #oneweek on Twitter, and comment on each others posts...

Badge Code ...

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#One Week - Winter '13 - Departure

Winter.... I'm not so sure.

The dark. The cold. The emptiness.

No bird song.

Just silence.

But then...

The outlines. The silhouettes. The mystery.

The honesty. The reassurance. The solidity.

Raw, frozen earth.

Stripped away. Bare.

A love letter to the underworld.

A hug with death.

Little A asks, "what does passed away mean?"

A neighbour has just informed us about the departure of the old boy two doors down. 

He was 92. Taken by hypothermia. 

Known to all on our street. Full of stories and history. 

Independent until the winter claimed him.

"It means he's stopped working. There's another word for it - to die...

 when we get very, very old, we die, we stop working."

"Will you stop working?"

"One day when I'm very old." 

"Will I stop working?"

"One day when you are very, very, very old."

"I don't want to stop working mummy." 

"I know darling, I know."  

This was not a conversation I wanted to have on the way to nursery. 

I wasn't ready.

But Little A was. She accepted it, as children do. 

Winter forces the truth.

We cannot deny it. 

This is the second day of the seasonal linky One Week. Over the next few days (until Friday) I'll be posting a photograph(s) and a few words that diarises and distills my experience of winter '13. Take a peep at the details here. You can join in for one, two ... or the full five days. And don't forget to add #oneweek on Twitter, and comment on each others posts...

Badge Code ...

<a href="http://older-mum.blogspot.co.uk/p/one-week.html" title="One Week"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8436/7807711152_5f912c7903_m.jpg" width="225" height="169" alt="one week" /></a>