Fascinator

Fascinator & Cawdor Dress- from letters.

Fascinator. 

Now I am alone in the house, my sister and her husband are off playing their fiddles at a wedding dance and they will probably not be back before 2-3 a.m. Silence reigns except for the grandfather clock that ticks away the time in its quiet deliberate manner.

One amusing name I found interesting was a "fascinator", I stood in a shop and waited with baited breath to see what such a thing would turn out to be, a large woman had just bought some patent leather black high-heeled shoes held this "fascinator" up, it was hidden in a plastic shopping bag and as she was going to a wedding, with the aforesaid article, it was extra exciting; at last she produced it and it turned out to be a tiny feathered affair in bright red with long thin feathers sticking out at the top, fan-wise, this was a kind of headgear, neat atop her ample corpus I suppose, she probably thought that it would detract from her size! "So that is what a fascinator is " I said in surprise and amusement. What some women wear, although perhaps people will sometimes say the same of me !

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Now the grey of an Autumn sky is the winding sheet descending, the drawing to a close of a holiday, a meeting with six months of thought and happy commune across the great dark cold North Sea to the oaks of England - my childhood beginnings, the shouts of English children die down in the grey mists that rise out of the sea of my feelings and dampen their fires, a whole ocean of love becomes a ticking dragon, the sound of my heart heavily beating beneath the bedding of the midnight hour, even the stars are going out, and my eyes fill with moisture, the waters of sadness flow down the hills of my cheeks and I sob - small droplets fall on the downie beneath and soon evaporate into nowhere and that's where I am going. I must go to sleep in the nowhere of pitch dark night and endeavour to think of happier things in the dream-world of blissful oblivion.

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Cawdor Castle near inverness.

 

I got a "crackers" dress from my sister, one that a friend had paid a good sum for and was not prepared to take to OXFAM to be sold for charity, it turned out to be too slim for Jean, so I tried it on and it fitted exactly. 

What was I to do, it is a warm wool and very comfortable to wear, it has almost leg-of-mutton-shoulders...its not my style, not even a dressing up shape that could be amusing, well I decided that as we were going to see Cawdor Castle this red dress would do for "Lady MacBeth" and wore it there. 

Jean and I saw around the lovely little Castle, then went a long walk in its extensive woods, also lovely, in places we were dwarfed by the huge Redwood trees. Then the intimacy of the neatly hedge-filled gardens full of late Autumn flowers made the day memorable. What wonderful trees there were outside in the grounds leading up to the Castle too. One entered through an enormous canopy of them and I saw that those coming in stopped to take it all in, just there, even taking photo's of the ceiling of leaves they found themselves under, the light of the sky cut off, the green glow through the leaves felt like some kind of benediction from nature. 

On appearing from under the canopy of trees their steps fell on the green swards, beautifully kept, and their eyes regarded the warm coloured stone walls of this little neat shaped, turreted embattled house, the draw bride down and the shield over the entrance proudly stating "Be mindful", probably in Latin, but I don't remember. 

I felt properly dressed for the occasion and even toyed with the idea of letting my hair down to fit in. Into what you say, into the atmosphere of intrigue and drama that has been enacted and imagined in this very Castle. ("Out damned spot, out I cry" Shakespeare's Macbeth)