Transforming ‘Guantanamo’: From Dog Run to Log Haven
Hi there,
‘I’m physically exhausted. I worked hard all day yesterday,’ I journaled this day last week, Friday, 24 November. ‘Ruth worked with me in the morning, erecting the extension to the roof of Guantanamo.’
We nicknamed our dog run ‘Guantanamo’. Now, we have transformed it to store our logs. Originally, a canvas roof covered half of it but, having felled five ash trees due to ash dieback, we invested in an extension to the roof so that all logs would have some protection from the rain.
‘The woodpile on the lawn hardly seems like a dent has been put in it!’ I journaled. ‘But, log by log, we’re moving it. It was good to work with Ruth yesterday. Two heads are better than one.’
Woodworking Adventures and Garden Tales
Last Wednesday 22 November, a great guy cut back our massive curved Portuguese laurel hedge. We planted it 20 years ago, when each plant was only a foot long. He also cut into manageable sizes several of the enormous ash tree rings which were too heavy to lift up to a wood splitter. We have re-hired ‘The Beast’—a brilliant 20-ton wood splitter—for this weekend, when I hope to split the remaining wood rings.
A Mother's Centenary: A Son’s Reflection
Last Monday, 27 November, was the centenary of my mother’s birth. I journaled: ‘Today was my mother’s birthday. She died in 2015—eight years ago. She was 92. It’s 100 years since her birth.
‘Regardless of the fact that she was a difficult person and that she did ill to her family, she gave birth to me.
‘I have often regretted that she had been my mother. I’d often wished for a different mother, a saner, kinder, more self-aware, wiser, humbler mother; one who wasn’t unthinkingly religious. One who hadn’t miswired my brain with her prejudices and fears, her folly and rage.’
Complex Relationship and Personal Impact
‘But she was my mother—I was conceived by her egg and my father’s sperm. I spent the first nine months of my life in her womb.
‘I was born into her family—a boy. Though, in her incredible naivety, it never occurred to her that she might give birth to a boy! She assumed I was going to be a girl.
‘She filled me with such notions about myself. She mollycoddled me. She taught me to trust nobody but her—what ghastly parenting.
‘She didn’t know how to think for herself and she taught me not to either. Rather, mindlessly to submit my thoughts, feelings and will to the authority of the Church.
‘She wasn’t alone in that: many of her generation and society were similar. But she was an extreme example of it and I suffered emotionally, intellectually, personally, as a result.
‘But I, too, am far from perfect. All children, I suspect, have scars due to the failures of their parents; as do my children due to my limitations, biases, prejudices and inadequacies.
‘My mother had a facility with words. Perhaps that’s where I got my real vocation.’
Memoirs: Request for Feedback
‘I’d lovely feedback from Dave (a friend) yesterday on my second memoir. Maybe this explains my reticence to promote my book: I feel the need for personal feedback first from people who know me and who have maybe read both memoirs.’
If you have read either or both of my memoirs, please feel free to contact me and share your feedback. I would welcome it. And please also review them on Amazon and goodreads.com.
Thank you. Happy days,
Joe
