Sculpture of Lovers in Elm Wood

In about 1982 three elm trees died in my Cambridgeshire garden. I marked pieces for sculpture before the dead trees were felled.

One large bole was turned into two clasping lovers.

A friend saw them and asked if he might see the "action" parts, which I had omitted to carve, but then did (and added a little colour for the fun of it).

The next time he came around I said that it would now cost him a pint of beer to have a look. "Good God," he said when he looked at it. "That's worth a bottle of whisky".

The piece was always housed in the open, mainly because of its size.

It came to my London garden in 1992, where it deteriorated to become the home of mice, insects and internal wet rot.

I was all for letting it return to nature as dust, but Margreet wanted me to restore it, which was just possible using thick dowel rods, waterproof glue, wood preservative, gauze, plaster, and black roofing solution. The "action" part of the sculpture had rotted away well before this restoration work.

In 2021, after heaven knows how much restoring work, it started to subside, sinking slowly toward the ground. The lovers' lives had sadly come to their irreparable end. 

What was left had to go.

Although enormous, but fairly hollow, I managed to hammer and pull it apart, enough to dispose of it.  

I contacted the Council, who asked for a photograph of the pieces. This we sent, with next to them a 96-year-old with hammer in hand. They enjoyed the depiction of my efforts and, for a small sum, took the pieces to toss them into the rear of a rubbish vehicle - which made a good crunching noise as it consumed the wood.

So the sculpture would, in the end, have finished up as dust. 

After giving much pleasure during its lifetime, it returned to nature. 

Cruelty and the enjoyment of Beef

 We were celebrating Margreet's birthday in one of our favourite restaurants where we usually start with 3 oysters each and then share a rib of beef.

After a perusal of the menu, when we enjoy a leisurely glas of the house white wine, we decided this time to have the chef's gravadlax as our first course. And excellent it was.

Ribera del Duero red wine at this restaurant is our choice, but as they were out of it when we last ate there we settled for their Cote du Rhone, which we liked so much that we ordered it again to go with our meat. We then happened to talk about beef and its smell.

It was when I did the grand tour shortly after the war in an old Ford 9 flat-backed van that, with some imagination, I converted into mobile living quarters.

I was in Spain, in this instance, at a bullfight, sitting in the sunny side of the bullring, and in great heat.

It was not the spear-piercing of the bull's body by a Spaniard on a horse, or even the barbed wands that were later jabbed into the bull's shoulders by a more elaborately dressed Spaniard that I recall so well. But it certainly was the densely perfumed air of the heavy scent worn by my male neighbours that, mixed with the smell of the bull's blood, made me feel a bit queasy. 

So when our rib of beef appeared, I forgot the smell that once went with beef in Spain and tucked in with plenty of the splendid horseradish sauce that was served with it.

We were unable to eat all the meat on the dish, so I asked the French waitress if we might take what was left home with us in a doggy bag, mentioning that our dogs would be absolutely delighted with it.

When she returned with the wrapped-up meat, she enquired about the names of our dogs. "Jim and Margreet", say I. "And what breed of dogs are they?" she asked. "Human," I replied.

The answer seemed to take her by surprise as she retreated in fits of laughter.