We are so lucky not to have to go and harvest the rice or bash our clothes on a rock in the river. We get up and plan our day, quietly ignoring the finger-marks that need wiping from the kitchen cupboards, or the dust that should be rearranged in the sitting room. We have choices. We can clean and of course we do, but we can also go out and about. We can walk, we can take an exercise class, we can read and of course some of us can sew. Hours pass, as does time, but there is always something we should have done.

One of my weekly choices is to go to the University on Friday mornings and for two hours I listen to James Ellison talk about literature. He spins meanings and associations and understanding into texts that I had read, but had totally misunderstood. A gentleman beside me (he looks like a retired teacher, but who knows?) comes prepared with pencil marks scribbled by the poems set for the week. There have always been students like that. I have tended to avoid them.

Since yesterday, I have been quite melancholy. For two hours James talked about T S Eliot.

We were focussing on his great masterpiece, Four Quartets, and in particular Burnt Norton, a beautiful house near Chipping Campden.

For two hours my mind did not wander once. Beautiful words with such complex meanings. And at the end I had learnt about Proust, Dante, Buddhism, St John of the Cross, and that the word ‘sense’ in poetry is actually a key philosophical word. We think we only know things through the five senses but in fact there is also a transcendental world.

Down the passage which we did not take

Towards the door we never opened

Into the rose-garden.

I think the poem was all about redemption, like that story we once read called The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

We listened to Burnt Norton on You Tube – Alex Guinness was reading the Four Quartets. Oh my, it was like liquid caramel.

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future,

And time future contained in time past.

Reading these poems from the dizzy heights of the age I am now, and being coached on their hidden meanings, I can bring my life experience to the exercise. James told us how a fellow called Henri Bergson described how we carry our memories with us rather like two film spools linked together, one threading on to the other.

Yet we are constantly changing our perceptions.

How different the words would be to my eighteen-year old self.

On a lighter note, a few weeks ago I was asked to give a talk to the neighbouring village about my quilting journey. I made a great effort and went into Edinburgh specially to buy boots that would accommodate my swollen ankle and ‘go’ with my new jazzy coat.

I thought I’d make a bit of an effort. The evening was great, I felt like one of those gully gully men that entice passengers on ships to buy from their suitcases. I had about fifty quilts and cushions and hangings, and the ladies were quite stalwart and sat through the lot. I even talked about my books and sold a few. Came home as high as a kite and John had to talk me down to reality with a Cherry Brandy.

I have been busy making a quilt for the expected new baby. It is nice and I had better get a move on as time is marching!

Darcey had a good day with us on Wednesday. A walk that would take me about fifteen minutes ended up taking about two hours. We stopped for coffee and cake then meandered through the leaves and up some steps. She really is delightful. ‘Come bird, here is your feather, come and get it.’

And now I have another choice. Should I go out and walk in the sunshine or sit down for a while and read. There is a seal bobbing about in the waves.

I think I shall sit a while and maybe have an epiphany.

Time past and time future

What might have been and what has been

Point to one end, which is always present.

Sounds Buddhist.  A cup of tea I think.