‘I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.’

(Oberon in Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare)

I’ve been thinking a lot about pain these last few weeks, what with root canals and drilling, and what we do to separate ourselves from the horrid attack on our precious nerves. Apart from Panadol Extra and Ibuprofen, there are lovely things like massage and darkened rooms that help with headaches, and hot water bottles that soothe a sore tum, but lately for me, when I am closing my eyes tight against the high pitched squeal of the drill, I remember the old childbirth exercises, ‘breathe, lift yourself out of your body, travel away,’ and that is what I have been doing. I visualise Bonnie shaking her maracas, I see the colours coming together in a quilt, and I give thanks to the wonders of the brain. As Milton wrote in Paradise Lost, ‘The mind is its own place; it can make a Heaven of Hell and a Hell of Heaven.
Some of us are born with the gift of seeing the glass half full, and some are like poor Eeyore, the funny old donkey in Winnie the Pooh, who lives under a perpetual black cloud of gloom. When we were at school, I remember being frog-marched to church every Sunday, and for the most part we endured and daydreamed and studied the boys from the boarding house who sat across from us. But I do remember one term quite clearly. Each week the minister chose to summarise a chapter of Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. It was all very dramatic and we learnt about Christian and Hopeful making their way through the city of Vanity, and visiting Doubting Castle and meeting with the Giant Despair, and getting stuck in the Slough of Despond.

It was all so graphic, and later we laughed and laughed and teased each other about having the look of having been in the cupboard with the giant all day or whatever. Wonderful words can make sense of blackness, of doubt and hopelessness.
Recently an old friend of mine in Scotland had to have ten toe nails removed, and I cannot imagine how excruciatingly painful that must have been. I remember a similar fate befell Odette Churchill, who worked for the French Resistance during the war. I was absolutely traumatised when I read of her story. And night after night we watch the atrocities around the world.
John and I were reminiscing the other day whilst driving back from the beach. Not of a world that was better, but about TV programmes that depicted a gentler telling of life as we grew up. Dixon of Dock Green, a copper that said ‘Evening All’, and seemed a person that was a true guardian and friend. Nowadays we don’t know if the cops are for or against us. TV shows are terrifying now in that they depict reality.

I loved a post from an old school friend the other day. She was remembering her English lessons, and how the teacher was considerate of her sensibilities: ‘I had to be Edmund in King Lear once and had to say, “God stand up for bastards!”’… Mrs C said, ‘Now Elaine, you can say ‘illegitimate sons,’ if you’d prefer.’ Ha ha ha! Ah yes, those were the days!

Here in Doha it is now a real offence to show one’s shoulders or knees. You may get six months in prison, or a HUGE fine. I think we should all be given an abaya and that would sort everything out. Some of the clothes for sale in the malls are little short of pornography, so obviously the abaya covers the true taste of Qatari women!

It is almost Ramadan again, and then we are really on the count down and our time here will come to an end. John is feeling quite the superstar at the moment, as all the dentists were examining his miraculous surgery and wonderful new implant and bone graft. He said he felt like a celebrity as they were busy photographing his mouth. That and the fact that three men have been employed to replace him in the office have done his ego no end of good! A nice note to end on!


And finally here is the Sunbonnet Sue quilt all pieced together, ready to be quilted and perhaps have another border added. I so loved doing this one.