Autumn Equinox and time for celebrating natures last dramatic colour show and anticipating domestic warmth. The sweet peas brought by a friend do look, as she said, a bit 'fin de siecle' but the smell is wonderful and I'm determined to grow some myself next year. I have plenty of fencing. Beside them sit two of my harvest from the new apple tree, not bad for a beginner, (the other four went into a spiced apple cake).

Orchids can look more plastic than plastic but this is a pretty one, and then, for the inner person - mostly Sandy - I have to recognise the influence of Aussie culinary skill on my household. Do you recognise it Gillian?  I've only tried about a third of the extraordinary muffin and scone recipes but there is one particular savoury three cheese muffin that deserves an award.

Shop life

I haven't taken any photos of the shop since it opened. Today I thought how nice it is looking (all my daughter's work, not mine) so fished the camera out from the crumbs at the bottom of my bag. The space isn't any bigger - damn these stone walls, they just don't grow - but we've got more into it and boast a small cool cabinet to house flavoured tofus, no-cheese cheese, sensitive probiotics, cool drinks and concentrated cherry juice for arthritics and gout sufferers (and people like me who just enjoy it on yoghourt.)

The flow of customers continues to be a daily source of information and amusement. Fortunately I don't have to do the hard work of ordering, restocking, book-keeping; I sit comfortably doing my crossword puzzles and catching up on the mayhem in the world. Sometimes I wish I had more free time but on the whole I think it's good for me because I would probably hide away at home and never see anyone. Today I learned, not from the newspaper, that there is a plague of bedbugs sweeping the USA, biting people in even the most costly hotels, the tasteless cads, (hope you've avoided them Glen!) A customer about to travel Stateside came in for clove oil which she has been assured they hate. I wished her a bite-free visit.

A pretty Japanese woman  (they all look so ridiculously small and young but she has a 12 year old daughter and is a qualified vet) told me that vets in Japan use homeopathy and flower essences to treat their patients. She is here on a sort of working holiday so had just spent a week on a pig farm in England (what fun!) where she had been unable to convince the farmers to try alternative remedies on their porkers. I assured her she would have no better success in this part of the world but she's about to do a FF Experience Week so doesn't have to face that particular challenge.

Then the bandy-legged satyr with no front teeth came in for his Horny Goats Weed. I haven't dared ask him yet if it's working - he would probably tell me.

It's an odd moment to have caught the sisters but I'm not good at timing, or photography really. We were determined Sophie should get some of the best of the north to take back with her and the weather obliged with a break in the cloud.

Hidden Agenda

I’m not a lover of books or films that arise out of war. Mostly I feel that once a war is over it’s best to get on with life and forget something that is fundamentally shameful and reveals the deep flaws in human nature. Certainly I dislike dramas made out of the carnage for entertainment. Even if they claim to be showing the ‘true horror’ they are still capitalising on terror, pain, loss, and injustices.  

So would never have bought it but borrowed it out of curiosity: “Hidden Agenda’ by Martin Allen. Subtitled ‘ How the Duke of Windsor Betrayed the Allies’ the book emerged from  the author’s research into the life and times of Charles Eugene Bedaux, a Frenchman  suspected of spying for the Germans in WW1 who went on to become very rich in the USA, earning the reputation as a philanthropist whilst continuing to have pro-German leanings developing, during the 30’s into Fascist ideals, and active support for Hitler. 

 As Martin Allen looked through the papers owned by his historian father, he found more and more references to ex-king Edward and an increasing body of proof that the  pro-German, pro-Fascist monarch helped Hitler at every opportunity. His sympathies were already so plain even before his coronation that when the opportunity arose over the king’s wish to marry the twice divorced Mrs. Simpson, Prime Minister Baldwin forced Edward into a corner to ensure that he had no option but abdicate. 

When war broke out Edward, now living in France as the Duke of Windsor (on a handsome stipend from the English coffers) had himself made a British major so he could inspect Allied installations and posts  and be in a position to influence the process of the war so radically that he virtually gave the Ardennes and France to the Germans. His information caused Hitler to change plans and Panzer divisions surrounded the Allies creating a situation so disastrous that the war in the West would have been over. That it was not, that there was time to put into effect the contingency plans already made back in England for evacuation, has never been fully explained. Just as the the Panzers were in position for the final assault Hitler, to the bafflement and frustration of his generals, halted them, giving them no reason for the order. In retrospect it seems likely he expected the English, confronted with the imminent loss of almost all their forces, to negotiate a ‘peace’  rather than see them decimated. The Fuhrer, it was reported was enraged when, instead of the words of surrender he was expecting, he heard Churchill’s famous speech declaring his intention to fight every step of the way. 

I’ve heard recordings of that speech so often over my lifetime, either whole or in part, often mimicked in jest, the heavy, measured cigar-slurred tones of the man whose sheer force of will drove the British forward from that moment of virtual annihilation to victory. When I read it in the context of what had gone before I wept.

Those were different times, the monarchy not as toothless and still revered by the majority of the population, even so the efforts made during and after the war to cover the ex-king’s betrayal were extraordinary. According to Allen the destruction of all files, recorded messages, transcripts, computers, etc., at Bletchley Park  ordered by Churchill after the war happened with this end in view, that the people of Britain should never know how close they had come to being sold out to Nazi Germany by one of their royal family. 

The same efforts were made to destroy letters and documents remaining in Germany. Anthony Blunt was sent over to see to this task, thereby adding black humour and an element of despairing naivety to the good intentions. Anthony Blunt turned out to be amongst those spying for the Russians. He had subsequently to be protected by the British government because of what he knew as a result of this special mission!

Afterthought: Today the monarchy is, I imagine, toothless in the face of the Government, but their opinions make waves. Will the Prince who was a devotee of Laurens van der Poste, (godfather to Prince William), the prince who spoke out in favour of Alternative Medicine in a speech to the BMA, who will call an architectural carbuncle a carbuncle, and who, believing like Sir Laurens, in the essential sameness of all religions, declared his intention to be known as ‘Defender of the Faiths,’ ever be allowed to be king?

I have magpie characteristics. The Angel of the North (my title) earring carrier has been filling up for a while and received two new opals today. I suppose after sixteen days of temperature and the last ten or so in solitary confinement with no hope of retail therapy, it wasn't the most sensible thing to go to the Himalayan Crafts Exhibition where I always find trinkets to tempt me. Ganesh the elephant god obviously had to come home with me, I've always felt him to be a jolly fellow and in blancmange pink who could resist! (The dragon and Ganesh need to be seen large to get he full colour blast). Of course I needed the dragon protector for my bedroom door and - well, a slim grey scarf is this season's must-have accessory... and then the opal earrings... my birth stone.... so again a no-brainer...

Oh  damn. There goes the budget. 

There was cookie decorating - an all-the-e-numbers-you-can-eat-in-an-hour bonanza that made this granny feel quite ill but didn't stop the boys longing for the magic cream eggs the magician gave out to his assistants. Fin learned to spin a plate then proved himself a star by sharing the sickly prize with his little brother. The rabbit was wonderful; she picked cards out of a fanned deck and stood for the applause.

Holidays are exhausting.

First there was the run-up to it then there was the event itself, then there was the euphoric exhausted feeling of a job reasonably well done. I’m not talking about the Olympics, I’m talking about my annual ‘holiday’ in Ballater with the Cornish arm of the family. I cook and freeze so I don’t have to cook so much once we are together but somehow for seven people there is always more food needed and expectations are high. With grandfather  present meals are a sit-down affair with proper food, no fish’n chips or take-away pizza or pre-cooked stuff. Not that I would want to do that either, but once in a while it might be good. 

I suppose I like the chance to feed up my son who left home early and does much of the cooking in his own home. I suppose I also like to perform the one thing I’m still fairly good at  to an appreciative audience.

It didn’t give me time for taking scenic outdoor photos and neither did I have the inclination. I’ve seen Ballater so many times before, crossed the switch-back roads over the Lecht; seen the heather and the patchworks of peat cuttings or forestry plantations; seen the blues and grey and purples of the hills... I tend to forget to stop to hear the silence and breath the sharp clean air, which is a shame but I can’t photograph them anyway. All I took photos of were my grandsons which is OK for the family albums but not much fun for others.   

Not so much time to read either. I took ‘The Anatomy of Shadows’  by Andrew Taylor away with me. I think it’s very good, a ghost story set in eighteenth century Cambridge (which is a change. that sort of book is usually set in Oxford.) Sadly I couldn’t settle to it so I’ll start it again another day. I’d looked for something large to take with me  thinking I’d finish the Anatomy and grabbed ‘Game of Thrones’ first volume because I have three friends on contemporary age who are addicted to this series. I started it when I got home and immediately went down with a flu virus so had an excuse to stay in bed. I hated it all the way through for the relentless brutality, cruelty and violence but had to keep reading, even when I really wanted to throw it out the window. George R.R. Martin is, unfortunately, a very good writer and has created something much more balanced  than ‘The Lord of the Rings’ (women have strong roles too and aren’t wifty wafty fairy princesses) but so far it lacks the essential ingredient that might make the violence bearable - clearly drawn up good-bad, Light-Dark lines. I know life isn’t like that but I do like my fantasy to be. The battles in this are about pride, vengeance, and stupidity dressed as heroism. Which now I think about it is exactly like real life.

The same 'flu gave me time to reread 'The Four-Gated City' the last of Doris Lessing's 'Children of Violence' cycle. If I was ever asked which books I would take with me on into a castaway situation the 'C of V'  cycle of five volumes would be the first of my choices (I'm not so interested in the much miss-represented 'Golden Notebook' which I probably came to too late for it to change my life). C of V relates the experiences of young people born into the decades either side of WW2, starting in S.Africa and moving, with Martha Quest, the chief protagonist, to London after the war.  The radical socio-political and philosophical changes that occurred in those time were enormous. Martha painfully absorbs them as she tries to break free from the stifling world she was born into. In an attempt to also set her child free to be who she wants, unconstricted by a mother's expectations, Martha gives away her baby daughter to her ex-husband and his new family. Because I empathised so strongly over Martha's poisonous relationship with her mother I found that very upsetting!

'The Four-Gated City,' a longer novel than the preceding four, follows Martha's flight to post-war Britain where everything is grey and ugly and the people bitter. She is swept up into the era of CND marches and global madness, flower power and the summers of love, through a period of well-organised personal madness alongside Linda. Linda is an interesting character. She has failed to lead a normal life although she has a loving and supportive husband and a small son who wants his mother. She is too sensitive to the waves of humanity in turmoil; she hears voices, eventually learns to separate them and becomes a telepath, an essential part of a dystopian future after the bombs have fallen.