Wet

Plot 14 on the Victoria Jubilee Allotments

I'm making a more robust surround for the beehive on the allotment, before Jill finds a new swarm to replace the hive lost in the wet; four 75mm x 75mm steel stake holders sledge hammered in a rectangle and four seven foot lengths of tantalised deal.  I'll add cross pieces for strength, a gate and staple on netting. At the same time I'm planting more potatoes, both for the crop and for improving the soil. It is time for spring cleaning...

Spring by Abel Grimmer 1607 - a picture from Antwerp drawn to my attention my Maria Strani-Potts

...but how the wind blows cold from the the east, often from the north east, with rain.

Wet cold weather in Birmingham

We're working through a list of errands. It seems that what we've doing every day for weeks. Vague things go wrong and have to be diagnosed, tools assembled for repair by us, or someone employed. Yesterday Alan came to install a replacement door in LIn's flat on the Hamstead Road...

...and as he worked Winnie and I emptied rubbish that had accumulated in the basement for a donation to Handsworth Helping Hands...

The previous tenant had for some reason removed the kitchen sink u-bend.

"Why?" asks Lin "Why would someone do that?"
They'd also managed to remove one and displace another aluminium edging strip, and somehow separated the same sink from its counter in a complicated way that cracked the formica. With a metal strap and a new leg to support the arrangement the worktop is useable again.

As we attend to these jobs and more, we've also been taking rubbish to Holford Drive scavenging rubbish from a front gardens at the request of the householder...

Handsworth Helping Hands

...taking scrap metal to a recycling company instead of leaving it for the profit of the local scrap collectors...

Tariq Ali at One Stop Recycling weighs our scrap metal delivery

*** ***
Jim Potts recommended a book which has just arrived

Greece and Britain since 1945, second edition, editor: David Wills

25η Μαρτίου... (from the Ano Korakiana website)

Παρά τις προβλέψεις και τη χθεσινο-βραδινή βροχή, το πρωϊνό της 25ης Μαρτίου ήταν γενικά ηλιόλουστο,γεγονός που επέτρεψε την πραγματοποίησης της μικρής παρέλασης που πραγματοποιείται τα τελευταία χρόνια στο χωριό. Μετά τη Δοξολογία στον Άη-Γιώργη και τον συναισθηματικά φορτισμένο επετειακό λόγο του Διευθυντή του Ειδικού Γυμνασίου Κέρκυρας, η τελετή συνεχίστηκε στην πλατεία του χωριού. Εκεί, υπό τους ήχους της Μπάντας, οι εκπρόσωποι των τοπικών αρχών και φορέων κατέθεσαν δάφνινα σταφάνια στο Μνημείο του Άγνωστου Στρατιώτη. Η κατάθεση στεφάνου από τους μικρούς μαθητές του Νηπιαγωγείου ξεχώρισε… Ακολούθως η μικρή πομπή βάδισε τον κεντρικό δρόμο του χωριού, με τη Φιλαρμονική να συνεχίζει για την Κάτω Κορακιάνα και αργότερα για την πόλη και τους υπόλοιπους να κάνουν στάση στο Κοινοτικό Κατάστημα για ένα κέρασμα. Εκεί, ο ιερέας(παπα-Κώστας), η Πρόεδρος της Φιλαρμονικής Δώρα Μεταλληνού, ο Πρόεδρος του Τοπικού Συμβουλίου Φωκίων Μάνδυλας, ο Πρόεδρος του Συλλόγου Ανω-Κορακιανιτών Αθηνών Σπύρος Κένταρχος και η τελετάρχης και μέλος του Τοπικού Συμβουλίου Ειρήνη Βιτουλαδίτη, είχαν την ευκαιρία για μία γενικού περιεχομένου, συζήτηση… Υ.Γ.1.Η δυτική πλευρά από τα κελιά του Άη-Γιώργη χρήζει όπως φαίνεται, άμεσης επισκευής, όπως παρατήρησαν διερχόμενοι κάτοικοι, που παρακολούθησαν τη σημερινή παρέλαση. **** **** This is one of the best briefings on the Greek War of Independence that I have come across, recognising the myths and respecting them but also showing the role of chance and the machinations of the great European and Ottoman powers, ones in which the wondrous land is embroiled to this day... A comment in Facebook during a discussion of Greek Independence Day on 25th March 2014: Corfu was never but for a matter of weeks occupied by the Ottomans...as a British citizen I have been brought up knowing 'we' have not been occupied by an invader since 1066; that we have been a haven for so many who have lost their country. England, Britain, has been threatened with invasion but we have never had to fight off a foreign yoke in our midst - one that in the case of Greece has dominated us for centuries, taken away our capital city, one which the rest of the world rightly calls Istanbul but which Greeks still call Κωνσταντινούπολις. The passion, glory, violence and cruelty of the Greek War of Independence are difficult for 'us' to understand. Even as I perpetuate my own, it can be difficult for me to see myths regarded as more important than history. It was only after I had learned a little more about the events of those decades at the start of the 19th century that I appreciated the words of Solomos' National Anthem "I recognise you by the fearsome sharpness, of your sword"; that I understood why Greeks are more protective of and sensitive about the honour of their flag, which signifies in its blue and white stripes, the colour of the Greek sky, nine syllables of the phrase 'Freedom or Death' Ελευθερία ή Θάνατος. When I hear the Greek National Anthem - Ὕμνος εἰς τὴν Ἐλευθερίαν - I get a lump in my throat; my eyes burn with tears, recalling that when Britain stood alone shortly before I was born, Greece of all the Balkan nations stood against the invader winning, before she was overwhelmed by the might of Hitler's arms, one of the first victories for the Allies. I detest flag-waving nationalism but I have to admit that other than my own I know no flag other than the blue and white - Γαλανόλευκη - that fills me with greater love and respect for another country.

Ὕμνος εἰς τὴν Ἐλευθερίαν

Greece one morning long ago

**** ****
On Monday morning an email from Christina in the Highlands; Christina who with her husband James so kindly took on the care of mum's terriers, Lulu and Bibi:

Lulu runs with Oscar, Malo and Cookie on the shore at Fort George, Moray Firth

Dear Bay Simon and Sharon. I am heartbroken to tell you the saddest news about Lulu and I am so sorry. Darling girl managed to get under the gate in the field at the end of a long walk with James on Friday afternoon and was run over on the road by a van. We rushed her to the vet but she died in the car on the way.
 We are so desolate as we had got to love Lulu so much and she had become a wonderful part of our family including the grandchildren's who adored her.   James and I have been in tears most of the time since  - singing hymns in church yesterday was not good!  
Anyway James dug a grave for her in our now rather large doggy cemetery in the lovely bit in our garden - so she is there with our little Bumble and all the dogs we have loved so much since James' grandparents time.
We have such lovely memories of Lulu including her running along with those ridiculously big sticks about 10 times her size! - James says she was such a fun little dog.   Mattie is rather lost too at the moment because they played together in the garden most of the day but darling Bibi just skips around as usual - thinking about food, whether it be her own or the llamas!
I am so sorry to make your Monday morning a rather sad one but we thought we should tell you asap however difficult.
We do hope all's well with you all.  We haven't met the new people in Brin Croft yet but see their motor home from the road as we pass. You may well be back in NYC Bay by now and you Simon in Corfu - must say the morning here could be in Corfu if it wasn't for the frost - the bluest of skies and the birds are singing madly! Sharon do hope I have your right email - I emailed at the end of last year and so hope it caught up with you - I think you may be having big worries with your parents.   Would you be able to check the email address I have used Bay and forward this to Sharon if needs be.
Anyway this brings our love - keep safe. Christina xx

Oscar and Lulu in the meadow below Brin Croft

Dear dear Christina. Thanks so much for taking the trouble to write to us. Writing must have been difficult and it's miserable for you. That’s what Mondays are for! I bind up little Lulu with missing mum and tho’ I’m sad such a lively little dog is no longer here I’m not not feeling as directly sad as you must be, or as devastated as we would be if our Oscar died. All of us know you and James did the best you possibly could for Lulu and more. It was such a consolation that you and James, even before mum left us, had assured us mum’s terriers would become yours, and they have and did - in the same country under the same sky. Lulu had, as you say, a streak of crazy mischief which would have had her leap into the Farnack in spate to capture a passing balk of timber ten times her size - the kind of unthinking pluck that wins medals. I shall think of the small spot in your lovely garden, under snow and frost and in the lovely Highland summer with the sound of the birds. I will tell Amy and Richard and Liz and Lin who also knew Lulu. We will all, especially Sharon, miss the biscuit coloured dynamo. Lulu had a good life. Let her run with mum. Dear old Bibi later. Lots of love to you and James and the family. We are all well. Amy expecting a daughter in July. X Simon

Sandra, Anthony, Simon and Lulu, Barbara, Bay, Raef, Susie at Coignafearn (photo: Dave Roskelly) 

With Lulu in Glen Orrin

Πλήρης ημερών

Darling Mum, Grandma, and Great Grandma. All our love always...

Letter to my son-in-law:

Dear Guy
Amy asked me to send you a picture of the flowers for Barbara yesterday - the ones we're throwing into the rivers she loved. Also the music* we chose and my words in the small chapel at Inverness Crematorium where I was with Bay, Amy, Richard, Sharon and Elizabeth, while Lin stayed at Brin to take care of Oliver.

Our mother left us with extremely imprecise – actually no instructions.
We’re making this up as we go along and I want to thank the staff here and William Fraser and his family for the craft and professionalism they’ve contributed to this quick farewell.
This is not mum, or grandma
These small fragile remains on which we repose our care – and grief – are neither mum nor grandma
She’s already left us – and is becoming part of everything
We here need her remains for a little while, but she is not her remains, any more than she is her possessions – treasure them though we may; a talisman here, a memorial there.
Even mum – for all the precious care and love bestowed on her in these last months – had little time for what lies here.
Don’t remember this as mum, or grandma or Poppet or Theodora or Baba.

Progeny: a picnics by Dell Loch in 1987

What we now say farewell to is a symbol, a means – time-worn, traditional, valued - for lament, for grief and tears – all things that in time should not be any great part (for all our present feelings) of the vast treasure chest of memories we carry with us – some in our DNA – for the rest of our lives
Let’s say goodbye to her now; and be as brave as her; as brave as you know she'd insist we be. It’s not her death that matters in the end.It’s her life that we’ll take away from here.

Love
Simon

*Ω! γλυκύ μου έαρ, γλυκλύτατον μου Τέκνον, πού έδυ σου το κάλλος;
"Oh! my sweet Spring, My sweetest child, where has your beauty set?" - and deep thanks to Chris Holmes and Aleko Damaskinos in beloved Kerkyra for refining the translation and pointing me to where I could buy the music we wanted and to our tutor Nikos Mytikiotis in Birmingham for first pointing me to 'Ω γλυκύ μου έαρ'

Richard and I walked by the Nairn today

My mum was born 11 February 1917 in Hereford Square in Kensington. North of the Ancre the British took about 600 yards of enemy trenches near the Beaucourt-Puisieux road.

1918: Great grandma Jackson, my mum - Theodora Barbara - and her mother Bar Maine

Mum - Poppet - with Motley at Mill End in 1931

Barbara at Mains of Faillie in 2005

Now we're at Brin Croft - Lin, who drove up to the Highlands with me on Thursday night, Richard who flew up on Thursday evening, Amy who flew up with Oliver on Monday, and our dear friend Liz who's been here four months. Bay's flown back to New York to be with her husband after five weeks at Brin Croft helping care for mum. Sharon, her carer for five years, has driven south to be with her son in Nottingham and to rest.

Supper at Brin Croft this Saturday evening

**** ****

From: Andrew Coulson
Sent: 31 October 2012
To: Deepa Patel
Cc: Simon Baddeley; John Cade; Sue Platt
Subject:: Request for Quotation: Coaching Support for Scrutiny Chairs in Hounslow

Dear Deepa. Here is our proposal for delivery of your coaching sessions for scrutiny chairs. We have done our best to make clear how we would deliver what you need.  We appreciate that you will do your best to assist us to carry out the sessions with a reasonable number of visits, and are more than happy to clarify anything in the bid if that will assist.
Best regards. Andrew Coulson. Scrutiny Lead, Institute of Local Government Studies

One to One Coaching for Scrutiny Chairs - Hounslow LB
Proposal from the Institute of Local Government Studies

We have unique experience of scrutiny training – having been involved since 2000 when the legislation first made it mandatory. This training will be delivered by the following team:

Dr Andrew Coulson - former councillor, cabinet member and scrutiny committee member in Birmingham, has been a staff member of the Institute since 1984, written extensively on scrutiny and its position in local government, and been instrumental in creating the first assessed training course on scrutiny.

Simon Baddeley - a Tavistock Institute trained psychologist and counsellor, with special interest in relationships within organisations. He has conducted many one-to-one or one-to-two interviews with scrutiny chairs and scrutiny officers, and explored the relationships which are needed for scrutiny to succeed.

John Cade - former Head of Scrutiny at Birmingham City Council, with special interests in scrutiny at times of financial pressure and retrenchment, in topic selection, in managing the scrutiny processes, preparing high quality reports, and ensuring that they have maximum constructive impact.

Identification of Needs
If this is to be done effectively, and to deal with some of the sensitive issues which may arise, we do not see any alternative to undertaking it face to face. It would also be worth having a check-list to hand of some possible topics or issues, see below.

Our preference would be for the four sessions to be undertaken on the same day, e.g. a day when three or four of the councillors are present. The 27 November full council day is a possibility for this – and would still allow time for one coaching session for each of the four chairs to be held in December. The discussion of tailored sessions which follows shows that we understand that there is a great range of possible needs and opportunities for developing skills.  The task here will be to make the task manageable.

Delivery of Tailored Sessions
Good scrutiny depends on good chairing, and there are many different facets to this. Thus scrutiny chairing involves providing leadership and direction, ensuring the work is member-led, that other scrutiny members have the necessary skills for questioning, evaluating evidence and understanding the stages of a scrutiny project;  engaging all committee members in the process; ensuring adequate resources are provided or knowing how to work effectively within limited resources; acting as a ‘gatekeeper’; prioritising work, minimising some of the  common pitfalls of scrutiny; co-ordinating work with other scrutiny committees; sharing learning; developing constructive relations with the executive and relevant portfolio holders, with chief officers in the departments the committee scrutinises and with external witnesses.
For those who have doubts about their chairing skills, the best initial approach may be for the trainer to attend a scrutiny panel chaired by that member, and then meet either after the meeting or the next day to discuss conclusions and lessons that can be learnt from what happened, and other relevant issues.
More specifically, the chair will also need to ensure that the committee contributes actively to the scrutiny of the authority's policies, budget, strategies and service delivery, as well as evaluating and monitoring the performance of the authority and other agencies with whom the council works in partnership. It may also entail creative and inventive approaches to one-off investigations that contribute to the work of the council and the needs of the communities it serves.

Thus scrutiny chairs need to be confident, and able to:
·      chair the overview and scrutiny panels (already mentioned)
·      present the findings of the committee to the council, executive, the press and public where appropriate
·      promote the work of scrutiny and organise its work programme
-      work effectively with the officer or officers who serve scrutiny, constructing trust across the council and its departments
-      develop good working relations across parties so as to be able to work outside the party political framework
-      be able to engage with senior officers across the council to strengthen their respect for and involvement in the scrutiny process
-      work well with key figures in outside organisations, e.g. in health, housing, transport, etc etc

The practical one-to-one tutoring would, where possible, entail close observation of actual scrutiny sessions, with pre-meeting briefing and reflection and post-meeting feedback and preparation for the next meeting on the basis of what has been learned via this process of observation, reflection, feedback, and planning. There could also be sessions in which the tutor sat in on working meetings between the scrutiny chair and the relevant scrutiny officer. The feedback and reflection sessions following these observed meetings could involve both member and officer and could be enriched with video demonstrations from Inlogov research on members and officer working together on the scrutiny process. The initial session or sessions for each councillor would be conducted by our experienced counsellor, Simon Baddeley.
If these sessions identify needs for practical discussion, of matters such as selecting topics for investigations, scoping investigations, working with officers to manage the scrutiny process, drafting recommendations, or working with external agencies, then these sessions would be delivered by Andrew Coulson or John Cade.

Costings...etc

Reply - 8 Nov'12:
Dear Andrew
Many thanks to you and colleagues for taking the time to answer the questions in the quote documentation. I am pleased to say that Councillors have decided they would very much like to accept your quote! In particular they felt your quote showed a very thorough understanding of the wider role of the scrutiny chair both in and outside of meetings.
I need to get a formal letter out to you confirming acceptance of your quote. I shall do this early next week. If you can contact me next week we can start discussing next steps and get some dates fixed in the diary as soon as possible. I really look forward to supporting you with this project. Best wishes and have a good weekend. Deepa 

*** *** ***
As Richard and I strolled at sunset along the river, with the terriers, Mum's Lulu demanded her usual play in the cold clean water taking mum's flowers down to the sea.

Lulu in the Nairn

Γλυκό παιδί μου - once upon a time

*** *** ***

Dear Niko. Thanks you so much for the epitafio lament you showed me when we last met.
We played it at my mother’s funeral on Friday.
Everyone loved the music and the lament. It is of course sung at Easter in Ano Korakiana. Lovely as it is sung by the women’s choir in Ano Korakiana, we did not at first recognise it enhanced by Vangelis and Irene Papas.
Once again you and Greece support me at an important  moment in our lives. I know my mother would have loved this music. I will remember it for ever.
Much love to Christina. We have seen a few photos of your wonderful wedding but we want more…and perhaps to hear more of the music at the church and at the reception.
I am in Scotland now at my mother’s house but Linda and I will return to Birmingham in about a week. Much love and respect. Simon 

Dear Simon, Linda and Family. I was looking to my emails, who actually pointed me to Facebook that I do not follow that closely, and I've learned about your loss. Please accept from me and Christina our Sincere Condolences - Τα Θερμά μας Συλλυπητήρια και τις Προσευχές μας Υπέρ Ανάπαυσης της Εκλειπούσας. We know that her loving memory and personality will live in you and your family. Looking forward meeting you soon to express the above to you in person.
Deeply Saddened. Nikos

Walks

Lulu gazes towards Brin Rock

Victorian aristocracy including Queen Victoria embraced the Scottish landscape. Dr Johnson was more critical. But he and Boswell travelled to the Hebrides before Romanticism trained our eye to delight in highland scenery and railways made them easy to visit from the cities of the south. It was depicted as a wild heather-strewn wilderness. In fact it's an enormous park, stocked with ornamental fauna to shoot, paint or photograph; and now every track that doesn't pass under Forestry Commission plantations can be viewed from the air via Google maps. Does this make me love it less?

I'm not an explorer here, more a traveller, even a life-long tourist, inheriting the safety of the land's long habitation by people who made roads and place markers for centuries before the Victorians, let alone me, coming first to the Highlands in 1949 on the sleeper from King's Cross to spend Easter with my aunt at Fasnakyle, her home beyond Cannich, in Glen Affric, and later to celebrate a magical Christmas (in this photo I found at Am Baile, Bay and I are in the middle row, left and right of the tree - Bay just in front of Father Christmas).

The human past is part of the area's character - kingdoms, invasions, depravity and civilisation, even where the rigour of the landscape suggests wilderness, anyone with a little thought can see there's more wilderness in the blighted estates of our population-diminished cities than in this sublimely landscaped garden for the enjoyment of those with time to spare, good raincoats and midge repellent. It's true that in the depth of raw winter you're sensible, if stuck somewhere on a drifted road, to have a care to stay in your car and phone the rescue services.

I've been walking with the terriers out along the forest paths, up the rutted terrain of cleared plantations, beside the eskers left by the glacier that shaped this lovely valley hardly fourteen thousand years ago, through tunnels of dark sitka, on the green sphagnum shamrock wood bed below ranks of Caledonian pines and beside the summer ripple of the Farnack amid sheep, cattle and the occasional roe deer enjoying the greenery that grows so richly on the alluvial meadows of the strath. Wild flowers abound. Birds, bees, flies and butterflies too. The wind rushes through it shaking the high fallow grown grass, waving the trees to varied tunes and now and then the area's buzzards mew to one another. My knees and thighs ache with the walking and the dogs are tireless.

A tunnel in the woods