And kiss the flowers that bend

[ashlyme]

 

Saturday we went to visit Nick Drake's grave at Tanworth-in-Arden. I've meant to go for years. His childhood and final years were spent here, not so far from where I grew up. The parish church is St. Mary Magdalene, 1300s: grey stone with a golden weathercock. B (who drove us, and is more of an expert on ecclesiastical buildings than me) pointed out the somewhat wonky chancel. It was a dove-coloured morning, a drift of fine rain coming through the trees - Drake weather. 

 

Quite a few of the gravestones are early Victorian or earlier, their words lost to weather and lichen, or ivy-shawled. Nick's resting place wasn't hard to find: nestled under an oak tree. He has a simple rounded stone, inscribed with his name and those of his parents'; the lyric NOW WE RISE AND WE ARE EVERYWHERE on the back. Fans have left flowers, shells, scraps of tannin-brown paper with lyrics on. A sprig of cuckoo-pint berries; and, rather oddly, a German business card. I wanted to bring something to in tribute - in the end, I laid five leaves on the earth. It seemed right.

 

A pot of tea at the Bell pub afterwards (it was still raining). It looks across a plectrum-shaped village green to a sweet chestnut tree and an old red phone box. I noticed the latter was in use as a free book exchange, so I left B to pore over a guide to Warwickshire churches. It's been a very long time since I've been inside one of those phone boxes; the door closed behind me and I let out a nostalgic sigh. Not much to be picked up, though: mostly self-help books and romance novels. I hesitated over a rather battered copy of A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW; in the end brought back a book on whisky for B.

 

Lunch in Hockley Heath, which doesn't have much to recommend it except a canalside pub and a war monument with three sundials (the inscription read THE DAYS SHORT, THEIR WORK GREAT, THEIR DAYS PASS LIKE A SHADOW. I've not encountered many sundials but their mottoes are rarely cheerful. I've got a little book on that subject). The sun came out; we walked along the towpath for a few minutes and came home. Brighter later, indeed.

 

Comments

[sovay]

It was a dove-coloured morning, a drift of fine rain coming through the trees - Drake weather.

I love the way you write your days, but I am even happier to hear about such a nice one. (I am predisposed to imagine that A Gentleman in Moscow is about Bulgakov's Woland.)

[ashlyme]

Thank you! I'd like to read that Bulgakov too.