Let’s talk about the weather. (If this were a G & S Operetta, a patter song would follow.)
A glance at the forecast in the Herald says it all. Cloud will bubble up… heavy rain will push into the northwest…
…Unsettled tomorrow with cloudy skies and heavy rain to start the day…
The pattern seems to have been prolonged rainy days with moments of brief respite in the evening. It has been dreich, not to say gruamach. Incidentally, an airline pilot who corresponds with the Herald wrote in (he writes a very good letter) to say that on leaving Heathrow en route – “I think” – for Chicago he had remarked to the passengers that the weather in Chicago was “dreich”. He was inundated with enquiries as to what he meant. I was more intrigued by his dubious recollection of the destination. Perhaps he had announced, “Ladies and gentleman welcome to this BA flight to – I think – Chicago.”
To say that we here in Caledonia have had an indifferent summer would be a gross exaggeration. In fact we have elided seamlessly from spring to autumn. There is general consensus in the farming community in which I live that the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness is upon us. We have been complaining about the rain for weeks, but exactly to whom, or about whom, are we complaining? Surely this is one element of general public dissatisfaction that cannot be pinned upon the Scottish National Party. Granted climate change is manmade (though many correspondents to the Herald continue to disagree), but we’re supposed to be warming up. At home, I’ve had the heater on most evenings. Shouldn’t complain. I dare say many people who have had to endure a scorching summer in continental Europe would envy us our climate. And we have not had any startling events of the sort that so tragically sunk a yacht off Sicily within the space of a few moments.
So we have reached the “auld claes an’ purritch” time of year without really having had an interlude of warmth and sunshine. The clothes shops, like Burss on Glasgow’s Dumbarton Road, used to sport new uniforms in the window with the mantra “Back to school” – which as scholars we would read with a sinking of the heart. I have never lost the autumnal “Back to school” mentality. Time to resume all the activities that have been put on hold. Back to the orchestra, back to the German class; time to get serious about the three literary projects that are currently lying fallow – an essay, a memoir, an epistolatory novel, of a sort. Don’t knock it. Routine is very important. A reason for getting up in the morning. I’m sure this was why President Biden was initially so reluctant to pass the torch. It must be the most difficult thing in the world, one moment to be at the centre of things, the next to be faced with the prospect of an eternity watching daytime TV. The Germans, as ever, have an expressive composite word denoting the terror of the aged, experiencing the gradual closing down of opportunities, like the shutting of doors: Türschlosspanik. A centenarian lady on Broadcasting House (BBC Radio 4) on Sunday morning, who happened to be doing a sky-dive for charity, encouraged us all never to give anything up, although she did add a rider… unless you have to. Perhaps equally encouraging advice would be to consider taking up something new.
So I dusted off my viola on Saturday and played with the Antonine Ensemble. We played Mozart, Grieg, Warlock, and Janáček. Janáček’s Idyla was unknown to me, reminiscent of Dvořák, very Czech, and very beautiful, but tricky. And we only have one and a half more rehearsals before we give two performances, one in St Michael’s Linlithgow and one in Dunblane Cathedral. Still, it’s good to resurrect the muscle memory. The previous day I’d enjoyed a beautiful lunch – made entirely, I think, out of home grown products – in West Kilbride, home of the world’s tastiest potato. It was a convocation of musicians. Somebody produced a bundle of photographs of us all from 50 years ago. As John Buchan said in Memory Hold the Door, “I have no new theory of time”, but sometimes I have a feeling that time, the passage of time, is an illusion, and that everything that resides in memory remains forever in the present. But I struggle to express myself. Yet I’m not quite ready to start the Michaelmas Term. I’ve felt the need to create a little “hiatus”, as American students dub the summer break, in order to start the new academic year with something like recharged batteries. So in September I’ve arranged to spend a few days in Kraków, and Berlin. I will come back a new man! Watch this space.
jamescalumcampbell 