What an Idiot

I’m so so so stupid!

Having cut Hammy free from the soft bedding once (see previous post: Cutting the Rope) and reading widely on the net about the dangers of such bedding why oh why did I continue to use it?

Well I did.

What an idiot!

I had loads of the stuff still to use up I suppose that was why I was still using it. Then I wanted to create a nice soft bed for my old, tired hamster to lie upon. I guess that was why I was still using it.

Fool! Fool!

Hammy by frantic scrabbling alerted me to his new plight. This time both legs were entangled and held together by the down.

Only by very careful clipping and cutting did I free him.

I then bathed him very gingerly as he’s no longer able to clean himself.

He’s not drinking so I’m coating his seed stick that now lies horizontally at the base of the cage with natural yoghurt. Even better I also place a ‘table’ of cucumber next to his nose which is topped by yoghurt too.

When I bathe his eyes with cotton buds he sucks on the wet cotton bud too.

But I’m so cross with myself for foolishly continuing to use the soft down.

I’m now using torn up kitchen towels.

And Hammy looks snug.

Very snug.

As I eat his chocolate covered raisins.

A Mouthful of Chocolate!

It was the second time that I’d been there in a week.

I handed over the card and the same chap went off to see if he could find the parcel.

There was no queue this time.

The last time I was here there were nearly forty people in a serpentine queue that snaked back on itself.

It had moved pitifully slowly.

There was a sausage dog that was looking around warily at the feet and bodies in the crowd: but especially the feet. I too was afraid that it would be stepped on as its owner leaned over the counter and signed something.

In front of me people were waiting by the counters and wonderfully shaped parcels of all sizes were being passed to them.

Eventually, it was my turn. I handed over the card and showed my passport photo that looked nothing like me and the chap went off to look.

Others around me were getting their parcels with no trouble at all. I had time to study the cold warehouse. Eventually my chap returned to say that my parcel wasn’t on the shelves and to call in again on Christmas Eve.

Today there was no queue.

The same chap took my card and went off with the same optimism that he’d had the last time. There was a phone ringing incessantly and there was the same chill air. Someone had painted pictures in this warehouse where parcels wait to be collected. These pictures are somewhat dubious and far from cheerful. There is a silhouette of a long skirted woman who seems to be about to stab the man next to her with scissors. There is a coin that has been painted upside down, a treasonable offence no doubt. I think it might be illegal to stick a stamp on a letter upside down: something to do with the queen not being happy if her head is upside down, perhaps she feels the same about upside down coins.

I began to fret.

I caught glimpses of my chap walking backwards and forwards. He was avoiding my eyes. He was scurrying between shelves and ducking out of view.

Eventually, he moved my way and I steeled myself for disappointment once more.

‘Here you are,’ he said.

He passed a small package over that had been hidden in his hands.

‘That was problem you see.’

He pointed out the name that had been written on the side of the package by whoever had tried to deliver it. All the vowels in my surname had been replaced by a different vowel. My new surname looked Russian or something from an Eastern block country. Just a few more consonants and it would have said Rudolph.

I read my new surname aloud and laughed.

Then the chap said something that made me really admire him.

‘I saw that parcel the last time you came,’ he said. ‘It was on the shelf when you last came in.’

‘The queue was out of the door wasn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘You had a long wait,’ he said.

I nodded, admiring his honesty.

Behind him the silhouette of the woman was stabbing him with scissors.

As I left I looked again at the new name someone had given me. Then I checked the package.

It was my friend’s handwriting that had caused the problem. Her ‘e’s were just like ‘o’s.

Or more likely perhaps when she first asked me my surname I probably had a mouthful of chocolate.

Just an Inkling

Not being quite with it (the usual state of affairs) I found myself in another very odd situation recently.

When my friend was leaving work I called in on my local florist to buy her some flowers.

I was croaking with laryngitis when I chose the flowers.
The florist seemed more flustered than usual. It turned out that her helper had let her down, so she was unable to deliver her Christmas orders.
Despite not being able to speak properly, I heard my own creaky voice, quite disconnected from my brain, saying that if she wanted help then I would be happy to help her with her deliveries.

So on the Friday before Christmas I was driving around the town. My car with its back seats down was filled with Christmas flowers and I was inhaling their lovely scented aroma.

I had been told that on no account was I to bring any of the various bouquets back. I had to find people in, or porches, or neighbours that would take the flowers in. Anything!

I planned a route and with my street guide open next to me on the passenger seat (because I couldn’t work out how to close it again) I set off.

I was relieved when my first customer was in.
The name on the card was Auntie Bet and as I stood on this dear old lady’s doorstep and asked if she was ‘Auntie Bet’ I realised that she was scrutinising my features as if I was some long lost relative that she was desperately trying to place and remember.
I was relieved when she finally took the flowers into her arms, but alarmed when she turned from the door and left it wide open behind her. All her precious heat was escaping into the cold air.

Five minutes later, w hen I set off to find the next person on the list I drove past Auntie Bet’s house, and was worried to see that the door was still not closed.

However, my concerns about Auntie Bet disappeared when I tried to negotiate a very busy roundabout. I had been told that the next address was particularly tricky to find. I was unable to remember anything more about the complicated directions I’d been given other than the first part of it, ‘turn left at the busy roundabout.’

I turned left and found a safe place to park near a park anxious to avoid the likes of Clamper Man (see previous post).

I studied the map for a while but could not find the street I was looking for. I decided to walk instead and ask.

I picked up the bouquet and set off. Ten steps away from the car I began to worry that something was wrong.
I looked back at the car. Perhaps I hadn’t locked it properly. I didn’t want to have to go back to the florist and say all her bouquets had been stolen so I went back and checked it.

It was locked.

I set off again.

I met a wonderful lady who was on her bicycle. She knew exactly where I was going and even better said she’d walk with me there.

Apparently I was going to an old people’s home. Her own grandmothers had died in the same home on different Christmas Day’s, the cyclist told me. (I made a mental note that if ever I ended up there that I should skip the Christmas dinner.) I chatted about my own grandmothers. I was very close to one of my grandmothers, a spiritualist, and I was thinking about her when I got the message.
‘The card’s gone.’
It was a clear thought expressed without words.
‘Oh,‘ I said to my new cyclist friend. ‘I’ve just had a message, ‘The card’s gone.’
I set the basket flower arrangement down and we both checked the foliage. The card with the name of who was to receive the flowers with a message inside was indeed missing. The green plastic card holder was still there but empty.
We looked about us. There was no sign of it.
My new cyclist friend very kindly cycled back up the hill retracing our steps in search of it.
She did not find it.
I thanked her and decided to go all the way back to the car. ‘I’d have to go back to the florist and get a replacement card.’ I thought as I walked the long way back, though I was thinking more about the sudden flash of intuition that had told me that the card was missing in the first place. Where had that come from? That sudden inkling that something was not right?

When I was almost all the way back to where I started, I found the card.

It on the ground ten steps from the car!

A Tale to Tell

I experienced a form of legalised mugging a few

weeks ago just before Christmas.

I was off work with laryngitis and had to give a leaving present that I’d bought on behalf of all the staff to a work colleague so that she could take it into work.

I sometimes get a warning twinge of intuition that I have learnt over the years to listen to. On this occasion as I tried to talk on the phone with my raspy voice I asked my colleague about parking. She lives in the centre of town and I was worried about finding a place where I could park easily.

‘No worries,’ the work colleague said on the phone. ‘After six it’s free.’

So I waited for the magical witching hour of six o’clock and drove into one of the empty bays outside her flat. There were many empty parking spaces and I was surprised but gave it little thought.

My work colleague treated me to a cup of tea and said how much she liked the gift. Speaking was really hard for me so as my voice faded away into various whispery squeaky sharps flats, it was time for me to fade away too. I’d only been there for half an hour but outside my car had already been clamped.
When all I wanted was to return to my bed with a hot water bottle I was now instead without credit or debit card or mobile phone shivering outside in the car park under a black sky.
My work colleague apologetically explained that she had meant that the parking was free in a different bay. She rang the number and tried to reason with the clamper man. He arrived and sat in his unmarked white van chewing gum as I approached. You could see immediately that his was a face that had been called all the names under the sun and that every wounding word had slid off his features without causing so much as a scratch. Equally I could see that no amount of reasoning, pleading, or explaining would touch him either. Any appeals about it being Christmas would also cut no ice. His face was blank, expressionless, implacable. He’d heard it all before. He wasn’t interested. He didn’t care. It was his job.
I didn’t bother to insult or plead.
I just wanted to get back home.
Clamper Man had to drive me back to my house so that I could pick up my debit card. Then he drove me on to Morrisons so I could withdraw the eighty pound release fee. He then drove me back to the empty car park, and once the money was in his hands he easily turned the key in the clamp’s locks and within seconds my car was my own again.

All in all, it was not a pleasant experience being driven to a cash point by a total stranger. I was chilled and shivering when I finally got into my car. The Clamper Man had driven all the way to the cash point and back with his window open.
My only consolation was that while he was busy driving me around the town he was not able to clamp others.

The money I paid him was going to be used in part for a Christmas tree, so also on the bright side at least I won’t have any pine needles to sweep up.

And even better my friend who was leaving work received her gift and was delighted by it.

And I at least had a tale to tell.

Hamster update

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His face has the look of a tired old lion, but his eyes look a lot brighter. He’s not drinking any water so I’m giving him treats such as red grapes and cucumber. I’m even treating him to Morrison’s own fruit nuts and seed mix. Trouble is I tend to nibble them too!

To my horror I’ve just noticed that his back leg the one that became entangled in the down bedding is still red and swollen. Worse he is now dragging the leg. I’ve just let him have a ‘run’ around on the kitchen floor which has cold tiles in the hope that it will reduce some of the swelling. I’m going to have to keep an eye on it.

On the Internet I’ve just discovered that this sort of bedding is notorious for causing injury such as loss of limbs and even death to hamsters. Apparently, I should have stuck to sawdust and torn up toilet rolls and not spoilt him with ‘Nestledown’ which purports to be, ‘a cosy and safe bedding for your pet.’

Hammy’s snuggled back in his cage now after feasting on chocolate covered raisins which he prefers to lettuce. There is a strong scent of cucumber in the living room from the delectable salad that lies untouched within his cage but all the chocolate raisins are gone: and Hammy isn't entirely to blame!

Wharf Rat

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I am solar powered.

When the sun shines I’m happy and full of energy. I am bright with ideas; but the reverse happens when there are overcast skies and early nightfall. At such times my hibernation gene is activated, and under the duvet I go. Yesterday was such a day here in deepest darkest England. The skies were dull; and heavy rain fell for most of the day. The light was squeezed from the sky and I was switched off.

Only music can reach through at such times.

My internet radio station: Pandora has moved onto playing the Grateful Dead’s music.

I hear ‘Wharf Rat’ for the first time and it’s perfect with the rain falling outside. At the end of the song, as the sounds from the instruments come to a ragged end, people applaud; and I so wish I had been there just once amongst the crowd.


http://youtube.com/watch?v=iXSueu_O79E&feature=related

http://arts.ucsc.edu/GDEAD/AGDL/wrat.html

A word on “The Poem on the Stone of Loughcrew.”

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I just want to explain the very unusual post that lies below this post. I make no claims to be a poet. I just believe that before pictograms became simplified into letters that they were once simple to read and indeed had a universal language that anyone could understand. I woke up this morning convinced that there was a poem written on this stone that is featured below and that it can be easily read. (There are better photographs with the pictograms outlined in white chalk on the web which are far superior to the photo I took.)

Loughcrew is a passage tomb in County Meath, Ireland.

I took the photograph of this stone that lies inside the cairn about two years ago. Loughcrew is about 5000 years old.

I have been immersed in Celtic tales for many years. Last night I came upon a drawing of this stone and went to sleep thinking of the images and what they might mean.

This morning I awoke with the thought that there was a poem on the stone that could be read in any language.

I wasn’t sure whether to start reading the poem from left to right or vice-versa. I stumbled upon the term ‘boustrophedon’ this morning whereby writing/ideas can be read in different directions rather like the idea of an ox turning the plough. As Celtic art features intricate designs I was drawn to that idea.

First I began looking at the water image at the top and then moved left to the sun image.




.............................
.................This is the stone that I think has a poem (or two) written on it.


Next, I turned underneath the sun image and moved from left to right. I imagined the small dots to be food on plates, the cruciform shape to be the tomb itself; the sun with one of its rays broken to be the spirit of the dead king and the large image on the right to be a book of his deeds: a record of his life.

......................................
Dropping below the book and now moving onto the large sun image I took this to be the king himself. I was interested in the eight spokes in this image; thenI stumbled upon the Buddhist ideas of the Noble Eightfold Path which is:

Wisdom (Prajñā · Paññā)
Right view
Right intention


Ethical conduct (Śīla · Sīla)
Right speech
Right action
Right livelihood


Mental discipline (Samādhi)
Right effort

..............................................................This is the entrance to the tomb.

Right mindfulness
Right concentration



I thought then of having a poem within a poem. An inner poem that would be prompted by the eight rays in this image, exploring how Buddhist principles could have worked in Celtic times. (I’m imagining that these principles to have pre-dated Buddhism. )


Then I was looking at the images on this line. There seemed to be two graves one large and the other smaller. There was also an animated figure at the far left hand side. There also seem to be representations of a star, the moon and the sun, which are in alignment.



The previous night I had read how Emer had asked to be entombed with the fallen hero Cúchulainn when he was buried. So with this ancient precedent in mind, I imagined the animated figure on the left to be the wife of the king who willingly joined him in his tomb.
At the bottom of the stone I thought there were boats so I incorporated that thought into the poem too.


Then I wanted a name for my dead king. I settled on Eochaidh Ollamh Fodhla; before I discovered that this tomb and this stone are indeed thought to be attributed to him!

Eochaidh Ollamh Fodhla I discovered after I’d already written about him was responsible for keeping records and updating genealogies at Tara. He also convened a parliament. So the pictograph that I took to be a book which recounted his deeds seems indeed to be very apt as is perhaps the inner poem describing his abilities.


Eochaidh Ollamh Fodhla was also a poet. Poetry was highly revered in Celtic times. So the idea that there was a poem on the stone seemed to have more credence.

This is the stone chair, the hag's chair, that grants your wishes just outside the tomb.

I was unable to find mention of his wife. However, the Goddess Bhéara (Bera) is associated with the area: a hag like creature of great age.

..................................................................................... ....

Later, I discovered the stone I was interested in is the equinox stone in the Loughcrew complex: and that the sunlight shines on the stone twice a year.

So there you have it an explanation of the thinking behind: "The Poem on the Stone at Loughcrew" that is in the post below…

Perhaps tonight I will dream of chocolate!

The Poem on the Stone of Loughcrew.

,

There is no beauty in the crashing waves,
Now your sun has sunk below the dark horizon.
Your spirit walks palely beside us.
Your food lies cold on untouched plates.
As we build your tomb.

All your deeds lie open for those with eyes to see,
The book of records.
Your spirit stands amongst us.
You were the greatest and noblest of kings
With eightfold wisdom:

1.
You saw things as they truly are:
The beginning and the end of the path.
The transient and the invisible
And brought peace to the land.

2.
You acted without greed:
Treating all with compassion
Goodwill and consideration
And brought peace to the land.

3.
You spoke truthful words
Gloved in warmth and kindness.
You knew the value of silence and of harmony
And brought peace to the land.

4.
Your halls were open to all
Your knife lay forgotten in its sheaf
You took only what was given
And brought peace to the land.


5.
You harmed none by the way you lived
Sun and rain
Gave you riches alone
And brought peace to the land.

6.
You righted the wrongs of the past
With unhurried time as your friend
Shielding your pastures
And brought peace to the land.

7.
You stood in the turning centre of the moment
Humbly guiding the plough of past and future
Towards the right.
And brought peace to the land.

8.
You saw beyond the veils
Like a mountain rising above the clouds
Blessed by starlight
And brought peace to the land.


Under the rule of star, moon and sun
We place your grave
As your spirit decreed
Close to the grave of your queen
Who loved you enough to enter her tomb alive.

As we sing of you in this place
May our voices carry you
As your spirit heeds
To the other shore
Of fearlessness and immortality.

May the year’s twice shining light
When day and night are equal
Free your spirit,
Eochaidh Ollamh Fodhla
Creator of the Feis Teamhrach,
maker of laws,
reformer and reviser of antiquities,

Keeper of genealogies, and chronicles,
purger of corrupted records and falsehoods,
To walk amongst us once more
And bring peace to the land.
Until then dear poet
Sleep in the wizened white wintry arms
of the Goddess Bhéara.

Naming the Bear

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.
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‘My bear is called “Anger”.’ the manic sales assistant stated flatly in the teddy bear shop.

We eyed her warily, and gingerly edged past her to the teddy bear section. We were buying a teddy bear for my cousin’s new baby that was expected sometime in the New Year. The teddy bear shop allows you to make and name your own bear.


The teenager set to work choosing the teddy and then getting it stuffed at the nearby machine. He even sat on the computer and filled in its ‘birth certificate’.

‘What have you called it?’ The scary shop assistant asked breathing down our necks. ‘Cuddles!’ she sneered in disgust. ‘Well that’s original.’

We hurriedly left carrying the teddy bear in a box.

At home the teenager eased Cuddles out of the box and cuddled him. ‘He’s so sweet.’ the teenager said. ‘Can I keep him?’ He was looking at me with irresistible big puppy dog eyes.

I had to agree.

The bear ousted other creatures that had once been close to his heart: a stuffed Nessi, an elongated Border collie dog draft excluder, and a kettle.

As a youngun the teenager had preferred to share his bed with electrical appliances rather than teddy bears.

There was one memorable night when a friend had babysat for me.

‘Oh he’s fine. He’s fast asleep.’ she’d said on my return.

I went upstairs to check on him.

He was indeed fast asleep, though his bed looked like a scrap heap.

First, I had to fold away the umbrella that hid him completely. Then I had to begin extracting a variety of plugs, leads and kettles that he was entwined around. Finally, I had to ease his arms away from the vacuum cleaner that he was lovingly hugging.

So I was pleased that the teenager was finally going through the teddy bear stage.

‘Cuddles’ is a great name for a bear.

So seeing Sudanese men baying for blood and demanding that a woman be killed for allowing the children in her class to call a teddy bear ‘Mohammed’ is something I find sickening and disturbing.


A bear is a thing of comfort and something to cling to in the darkest hours; rather like religious beliefs. The children chose the name that they liked the best. The name that was special to them and that signified something safe to them. No doubt if they had all made their own individual teddy bears in the teddy bear shop most of them would have left clutching a teddy bear called Mohammed.


It makes me wonder what these edgy protestors in the Sudanese streets waving their knives in the air call their teddy bears when they climb into their beds at night after saying their prayers.

Perhaps ‘Anger’ is top of their list of names too.

Reckoning without the Rain

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It’s been a bad year for frogs.
They did spawn in the pond as they’ve done for years; but this year there were no tadpoles. Perhaps one of the late frosts was to blame.
This year the fish spawned instead.
Over the summer there were hundreds of tiny goldfish hiding amongst the overgrown oxygenating plants.



I wanted them all to live: but there was no way a hundred little fish would be able to survive in my pocket handkerchief pond.

They had to be re-homed.

Luckily a friend who is a gardener had recently built a series of ponds, for his employer, and he needed goldfish.

It sounded idyllic: deep ponds, lots of food, flowing water and best of all no other fish. So I drained my pond bucket by slow bucketfuls, scooping out the tiny goldfish until all that was left was stinking, black, jellied mud. This black sticky mud stained all it touched leaving me with snaky black tattoos down my arms. I scraped it all of it out, diluting it like a homeopath until I was sure there were no tiny goldfish left.

It took days.

Still I’m sure the rich man would have done the same for me.

The last four tiny goldfish that I found I kept in a square glass vase in the kitchen, while their siblings travelled off to their new utopian life.

My pond was decimated.
Not only had I removed the fish but also all the tiny microscopic life that had been thriving there.
I was a murderer.

The pond consists of two deep parts and there is an underwater ridge that separates the two sections. The large fish had been kept in one section while I’d drained the other.

My four tiny captive goldfish looked miserable too. They watched me as I chopped orange carrots with undisguised fright, yearning for eyelids.

They fled, when I sang and danced on the cold kitchen tiles, yearning for fins that could plug their ears.

Worse they hated it when they swirled in the mixing bowl while I washed the green curtains of algae from their windows.

I had to put them back.

I figured I could put the larger goldfish in the deeper part of the pond. Then I could lower the water level so that the ridge would isolate the shallower section from the other; then I could replant some of the pondweed and set my four captives free in the sanctuary of the shallow part of the pond. I’d left the mud in this part of the pond in the hope that its microscopic life would be able to cling on and repopulate the whole pond one day.
Gently I released the four younguns into their new home.
I saw them briefly swimming merrily together doing a full circuit.
A few days later I saw the bubbles.
Not methane, but the belches of a tench, which was languishing in predatorial style in its mud bath emporium, and burping with satisfaction.
My heart sank.
A few days later a huge heron landed in the garden and gazed at the pond before taking flight.
I sighed again.
Then it rained and I couldn’t go out to see if there were any traces of the tiny goldfish.
Then it rained some more.
Of course I’d forgotten to take rain into account. The water level of the pond has of course risen up and the larger goldfish can once more swim freely over the ridge.

And they’ve done so.

Latest News: To date there has been no sign of the tiny fish.

Cutting the Rope

Hammy used to get out at night.

He used to be able to climb up to a gap in the ceiling of his cage. It was amazing to see. He would, in a Joe Simpson mountaineering style, place his right paws on the craggy edges of his wheel and his left against the slippy ice-like smoothness of the tube that led to his attic bedroom. Then without ropes he would lever himself gracefully up to the summit. Once out he would then roam the pinnacles of books and magazines before scrambling down to the lower valleys of the downstairs rooms.

After exploring this dark world, he would then return to the soft down of his bed. First climbing up a plastic tube to regain his cage, and then by scrambling up another tube to reach his attic bedroom.

The kitchen was his favourite place. He would always explore it in a clockwise direction; and I would occasionally leave little piles of food in corners to make his explorations worthwhile. He was our own personal midnight Dyson.

Over time he stopped getting out at night.

A few weeks ago he seemed unable to reach his attic bedroom so I made him a warm soft down bed at the bottom of his cage.

Two mornings ago I was alarmed to find him dragging one of his legs. He had somehow got the down twisted like a rope around his left hind leg. I cut him free it; then I had to cut away a bracelet of down that was still tightly wrapped around his leg like a tourniquet.

That evening I checked him out. His foot was swollen but looked as if it would be all right. I placed him in the kitchen so he could enjoy a wander hoping also that the cool kitchen tiles would help his swollen foot.

To my alarm Hammy began to walk in circles like a clockwork mouse.

I fear that our Hammy might be getting close to touching the void.

Yellow

I emerged. There was crack in the cocoon and I was breaking free and stretching my wings.


I was looking outwards through the train window. In the distance a squirrel tiptoed hurriedly across an icy wall. The train eased slowly away from the station. Long thin November shadows cast by the morning sun over the frosty fields were wonderful to see. There was space in the carriage to stretch and breathe. No one knew anyone else and we sat in an equality of silence: blobs of potential colour.

Then the train stopped and more people got on.


Broken tangled fragments of conversation like strands of coloured yarns bound friends together repelling strangers to the darker regions of their own thoughts.

The elegant people opposite me, the one young, the other old, were dressed in rich tones of subtle complementing colours: neatly cut. They spoke with an assurance of smiles. I caught phrases, an odd word here and there. They were going to the city perhaps to launch a new fragrance upon the world; or maybe to reveal a new line of fashion, bright with colours. They spoke of wood, not of oak veneer, but real of real solid oak, which would look nice in the cloakroom.

Opposite them I greyed and looked inwards unpicking the stitches of my life.
When the train slipped into the station, I stepped once more into the colouring book world of bright sunlight.


Which way to go?


The building ate me up as I entered its shadows and climbed its teeth of steps. I walked through its cavernous echoing stomach then into its long intestinal corridors. There were moving walkways that I moon-hopped along.


I’d found the venue: the ‘Design and Technology Exhibition ‘in hall ten. We had to queue to register. Already I could feel the pull of the lights within. My name was printed; and once labelled like goods I was allowed inside.


I was drawn to the bright things; the things that glittered and sparkled, tiny lights that shone through diaphanously thin plastics. I flittered on to the gauzy materials and the soft multicoloured woven fabrics. I touched the warmth of felt and the chill of silky fabrics. I watched thin, skeletal leaves being ironed into a fusion of multicoloured glittering strands. They were made into a bowl that when lifted had shimmering edges that floated in the air and caught the breeze.


Someone else was quietly painting a bowl with deft sure strokes of colour. Nearby, great noisy machines repelled me as they screeched and cut metal and wood.

It was a market place: prices were high but ten percent off if you buy now they said.

Some stall holders were friendlier than others. Some with a cursory glance turned their backs on me and continued their corporate chat.

Above some of the stalls was the word ‘PSH’, a word that suggested to me the sound a train makes when closing its doors leaving a station, or a whisper.


It stood for Primary, Secondary and Higher I eventually realised.


I felt the discrimination before I knew the reason why; like a child not knowing why faces are turned from them. I had not noticed the yellow stripe on my name tag that proclaimed that I was from a primary school. It was an unsubtle apartheid.


Yellow: the colour used in our school to denote the bottom group. Yellow: the colour used to make a star that led its wearers to annihilation was here being used here to identify the primary school teachers.


We sat through lectures where we were told of our yellow-bellyed cowardice when teaching D&T.


While we, when we thought of our Cinderella subject, thought about budget constraints “you can have fifteen pounds to spend” (that was once my allowance for a whole year which led inevitably to a lack of resources). Or we thought of the perpetual motion machine of changing schemes of work and policies, “We don’t do bridges anymore!” (Damm! just when we’d become the Isambard Kingdom Brunels of the classroom). We considered the time constraints (a Pandora’s box of issues here, far too painful to open). We thought of thirty children all needing help and support with different aspects of their project at the same time. We thought of children with behavioural issues; children with special needs; children nearly arrived in the classroom from abroad who are told to, “Put the cam on the crankshaft!” We thought of our deaf children who leave the room for special time in their unit and return to find that their classroom world is even more bewildering place on their return.


Then worst of all we thought of our own lack of knowledge.



'Look at this.' He points to a slide of children standing dismally around a table of yellow painted cardboard boxes. 'Terrible, no imagination at all.'



We squirm in our chairs.



'These were lunch boxes. The children could have added decoration and compartments. They could have researched catches; but when I spoke to the teacher she said she'd finished with them.' He sighs.



We sigh too for different reasons. We know the teacher's constraints. We hope she was teasing him.


‘Don’t make the chassis of the car with the cut dowelling and paper corners,’ the expert says ‘it takes too long.’


Now he tells us. We’ve spent hours trying to locate the items in the catalogue and ordering them.


‘Use cardboard, this sort,’ he says waving a piece in the air.


We are hungry for his words, we have been starving in the ghettos and he is offering us salvation.


‘Make your own wheels,’ he says and demonstrates ordinary paper wrapped around a thin piece of dowelling.


‘Put glue into a syringe (without a needle) and then you’ll be able to get glue in just the right place with less mess. And use a paper clip when you need to seal it.’


‘Use straws from Starbucks! They’re bigger, stronger and they’ll fill the dowelling.’ He says. ‘I suppose you’ve already tried fitting dowelling into ordinary straws?’ he asks, noting our world weary nods. ‘It doesn’t work does it!’ he smiles wickedly, while we close our eyes sighing and remembering.


He gives us invaluable tips and advice. ‘Don’t let the children get glue on the foil, when it dries it will be invisible and the electrics won’t work.’


We are entranced by the simplicity of his ideas and the strength of the finished products.
‘Come and see,’ he says and we swarm around the nectar of his ideas. We have been fed crumbs of hope and we might just survive.


I leave yearning for the expensive coloured gossamer threads.



Sadly, I know that instead of their bright colours that my house will become a permanent storage unit for dull brown cardboard with the occasional green Starbucks straw thrown in for good measure.



And in the darkness, as the train’s windows drains any colour from my reflection, and I am reduced to a shadowy being, I realise that I am more moth than butterfly.

How to be the World’s Worse Mum Step 8 The Football

.



I’ve never been any good at sport.

My myopic and astigmatic eyes change the shape of any incoming tennis ball to that of a flying bat that’s been crossed bred with a twelve-armed starfish.

This problem has over time, caused me to sweep a lot of empty air.

At least I’d be able to see a football. Well that was the theory.
Long ago, I'd bought a football and took the teenager, when he was just a toddler (though showing marked teenager tendencies) into the nearest park and we'd attempted to kick the ball around.

The ball I’d bought was apparently made of solid iron covered in plastic. Neither of us could kick the thing without dislocating toes. Despondently, I dumped it in the boot of the car; where it has remained ever since; scoring goals of its own whenever I took a corner too fast, and where it makes strange bouncing sounds if ever I stop too suddenly.

‘No, I haven’t got anybody trapped inside the boot.’ I’d explain to nervous passengers who became wide-eyed and concerned on hearing the strange sounds.

They never believed me.

‘Just here will do fine,’ they’d reply. ‘You can drop me off just here,’ they’d say. ‘No, it doesn’t matter about the torrential rain. Here will be fine,’ they’d insist.

There was one occasion when I also had a Furby in the boot of the car. ‘Oh no,’ the Furby cried as the roving football bounced into it and woke it up. ‘Ohhhhhhh! I’m hungry,’ came the muffled cry.

‘Can you hear that?’ my passenger had asked, who was already holding tightly onto their seat belt due to my white-knuckle ride driving.

‘Oh that’s just Furby,’ I’d replied.

The Furby began to make some gagging noises. ‘Ah, ah, ah,’

‘Here will do fine,’ the passenger had said no doubt convinced that I was some sort of people trafficker and had some poor foreigner called Furby bound and gagged in the boot of the car. ‘You can put me down here.’

The football has recently been discovered by the teenager.

‘Let’s go,’ he says. He gets ready to kick the ball.

I stand in the downpour, a reluctant goalie. The ball curves towards me; it is winged with land mine spikes. I duck. It curls past me and rolls into the nettles.

‘Ah, ah, ah.’ I say as I retrieve it.

The teenager is berating my efforts, ‘This is Wayne Rooney’s football school,’ he says in a Russian accent. He kicks another ball past me. ‘You are useless.’

We are playing football on the old disused railway line. It is getting very dark and we accidentally frighten pheasants in a nearby covert who in a panic flap up over us; their wings making a heavy sound like the helicopters in ‘Apocalypse Now’.

I can’t tell what is ball and what is bird, but I’m trying to save them all.

‘Goal,’ shouts the teenager. ‘Goal.’

‘You can put me down here.’ I finally manage to gasp.

I’m exhausted.

‘I’m hungry,’ says the teenager. ‘Let’s drive home.’

And there are rockets exploding over the town as we drive back.

Walking Shadow

.

The room had the smell of fresh paint.
There was a brightly coloured carpet and rows of empty white-glossed cubicle shelves. Walls had been knocked through to make a more suitable nursery.

Along the corridor was a small room stacked high with all the nursery equipment that had been stored there until the renovations were complete.

‘We have to move all these boxes into the nursery,’ the bright voice of the nursery teacher proclaimed.

‘Okay,’ I said rolling up my sleeves. I liked the sound of ‘we’. It would be fun working together to put the room straight.

I was going to be working in the nursery one morning a week. It was a whole new experience for me. It was the first time I’d ever stepped through the nursery’s doors.

‘So if you could just bring the boxes in and put them in the middle of the room,’ the nursery teacher said, ‘then we can decide where to put things,’ she added indicating her teaching assistant.

‘No problem,’ I said a little diminished.

‘Now I want you to put things just here,’ the nursery teacher said. Indicating the bull’s eye coloured circle on the carpet and walking to indicate the exact spot. She evidently doubted whether I was capable of discerning the centre of a room.

‘Okay.’ I said nodding. ‘I’ll do that. It’s a good idea. After all I don’t know where things go. I’ll start getting the boxes.’

I wished I hadn’t worn my best new clothes when I saw what I’d been asked to move. The storage room had been piled up to shoulder height with boxes.
I was dwarfed.

There were also some awkwardly shaped items that had been placed perilously on top of it all: grubby play mats and dirty plastic toys. The sight could have won a prize at Tate Modern!

It would have to be dismantled with care if I wanted to survive and not have ‘She was crushed by Sticklebricks’ written on my tombstone.’

I sighed and picked up the first of many boxes. They varied in weight. Some were deceptively light filled with the ethereal faery effects of nursery education: glitter, sequins and sparking shimmering stuff. Others were heavy with the earthy weight of nursery stories, fables and tales.

I carried them along the corridor, inwardly grieving as I heard the bubble of noise from the children in the reception class and heard the teacher’s voice as he directed the lesson. I was no more than a passing shadow.


The pair in the nursery were debating where to put a teddy bear. Finally, it found its home on a shelf as I lowered another heavy box of books to the floor.

Over time boxes were beginning to spread out from the bull’s eye of the carpet.

‘Where are my teabags?’ the nursery teacher suddenly asked in a strident voice the next time I re-entered the classroom.

‘I don’t know.’ I said. There was no reply.

I lowered the heavy box of wooden building bricks to the carpet.

‘I wonder where my teabags are.’ she said again in a flustered manner as on my next visit I lowered the box holding the heavy wooden pieces of the train track to the ground.

‘I haven’t seen them,’ I replied brightly.

Again, I was ignored.

The classroom assistant was valiantly attempting to keep up with the job of decanting the boxes I was bringing in.

The nursery teacher on my return had found her tea bags and now held a hot steaming cup of tea in her hands as I staggered in with the toy garages. She stood and watched thoughtfully sipping her tea.

The next box was lighter full of dressing up clothes.

‘Ooh,’ said the nursery teacher. She took a small scarf from the box and held it up; then she left the nursery with it, went down the corridor, past the room which I was steadily dis-embowelling and began chatting in the office. Half an hour later she returned, passing the storage room once again still carrying the scarf, and walking past me without a word as I staggered out backwards from the room with the next heavy box.

On my return trip to the nursery I could sense resentment as I lowered the box to the floor.

Each box I brought in with its grubby innards was spoiling the pristine look of the freshly painted nursery. My Tate Modern sculpture of piled high boxes were evidently not at all to their liking in its new arrangement.

As I struggled down the corridor with yet another box, the Headteacher walked past me without a glance or a word, and I realised I had slipped into invisibility.

The Head was standing chatting amicably with the others as I staggered in.

I was aware of them attempting to focus on me as something just on the peripheral edge of their vision: something barely discernable, as I eased the heavy box full of paint materials to the ground,

‘Paints go over there,’ the nursery teacher said sharply pointing to the far side of the nursery. ‘Put the paints on that shelf?’ she added addressing me like a servant.

With a servant’s reticence I complied as they stood and watched.

The three of them were continuing their conversation about the colours of fabrics when I next returned and attempted to ease a small cupboard to the floor.

‘Now that goes in the home corner,’ the nursery teacher said in a sharp tone breaking off her conversation with the Head. ‘Can’t you put things where you can see they need to go?’ the nursery teacher added tetchily.

The Head teacher was eyeing me critically.

Back aching, clothes despoiled, hair pulled from its grips I staggered across the room with the item to where I imagined the home corner to be.

‘No, that’s not the home corner,’ the nursery teacher said with exasperation. ‘It’s over there.’ If she had had a whip in her hand it would have cracked on my back.

All three watched with narrowed eyes as I manoeuvred the item to the correct position. I wiped the sweat from my eyes when it was successfully positioned and smiled at them, but they had turned from me and had resumed their discussion of fabric colours; the nursery teacher idly twirling the soft red scarf around her delicate hand. ‘I want bright primary colours,’ the Head was saying.

Exhausted, I brought my last box into the room. I was no longer able to stand straight.

‘I have to go now,’ I called.

The classroom assistant smiled. Thankfully she could still see me.

‘I’ll see you next week,’ I called brightly.

‘Bye,’ I called. And left in the silence that surrounds the invisible.

How to be the World's Worse Mum. Step 6: The Telephone.

.

The phone is ringing. I’m counting.

Three rings.

I’ve prised myself away from the computer: bones are creaking.

Six rings.

I’ve got part way across the kitchen: heart racing.

Seven rings.

I’ve opened the living room door: muscles twanging.

The noise is louder now and insistent.
A friend is calling, and I want to get to the phone before the sound dies away. I rush across the room to reach it: tendons snapping.

Nine rings.

The teenager is sitting on the settee seemingly oblivious to the phone that’s ringing within easy reach of his arm. I could ask him to pick it up, but I lost that battle long ago. I say nothing and dive for it: instant hernia.

The teenager watches me with lazy interest as my hand touches the handset.

Ten rings. Then it stops.

I wanted to rail at him. ‘Why didn’t you pick it up?’ There was a time when he loved picking up the phone and chatting.

An old friend happily recounts the time once when he rang her up in the middle of the night and invited her around for a chat.

‘Where’s your mum?’ my friend had asked.

‘Oh, she’s asleep. She’s exhausted, so you can come around now if you like,’ he’d offered with seductive charm.

She’d resisted, but he’d chatted to my friend on the phone for ages before he’d finally decided to go back to bed himself.

He was about three years old at the time.

Nowadays, I’m the one who always has to pick up the phone. Usually when it rings I’m in one of the distant corners of the house.
I sigh, and glance at the teenager who is grinning at me.
He’s holding up his mobile phone. My phone suddenly rings again and then stops abruptly.
‘It was you!’ I say, aghast.
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Let’s go. I’ve been waiting for ages.’
‘You rang my phone with that!’
‘Yup. Let’s go. It was the quickest way to get your attention. Worked didn’t it. Come on let’s go.’

Sighing, and cursing telephones, I followed the teenager out of the house ...trailing guts!

How to be the World's Worse Mum. Step 5: the Jumper

‘You’ll need a jumper,’ I call.
There had been crystals of ice on the grass this morning. I had run my hand down a single spike of grass and the ice crystals had lumped together in my hand.
‘It’s cold out,’ I yell from somewhere upstairs. ‘You’ll need a jumper.’
I bounce down the stairs, ‘You’ll need a jump…’
‘Da Dah!’ the teenager steps forward. He is wearing a jumper.
For a moment I’m relieved and pleased.
‘Oh brilliant,’ I say
Then I realise.
‘Have you taken the one from the drying rack in the kitchen?’ I ask appalled.

I know that it had not had time to dry as I’d only recently taken it from the washing machine.
It was the jumper that the pigeons had pooed on in Venice. The one that yesterday I’d carefully washed. Turning it inside out as the label demanded and laying it flat to dry.

‘You can’t wear that one.’ I say shocked. ‘It’s still wet.’
I reach out and can touch the dampness with my finger tips.
The teenager shrinks away from my hands, ‘No it’s not.’ he proclaims.
‘Yes,’ it is. You can’t wear that. Take it off.’
‘It’s fine.’ he declares.
‘No, it isn’t. It’s still wet! Take it off. You can’t wear that one.’
The teenager makes no move. His arms are folded. He is looking stubborn and sullen. His eyes despise me. He’s not speaking now.
‘Look we can’t go for a walk with you wearing that…’ I begin exasperated. ‘It’s cold outside…’
I’m wearily trying to explain the sense and logic of my thinking. ‘You have other jumpers upstairs that you can wear. That one is wet.
The teenager looks at me with contempt. The damp un-ironed jumper is clinging to his body. I fret at the thought of the wet jumper making his T shirt wet and damp too.
‘We’re not going if you don’t change your jumper.’ I say. The teenager stands almost tearfully in the hallway. He looks at me with angry, accusing hurt eyes. I close the door to shut out the scene for a moment, and then think better of it and re-open the door.
He is standing there like an appalled ghost his arms wrapped around his jumper drawing it closer to his body as if his very soul has been mortally wounded.
I go into the kitchen make a cup of tea and sit down with my suduko puzzle. I have no more to say on the matter. I am past arguing.
I wait and say nothing more.
He does finally change his jumper.
We do finally set off.
‘Why didn’t you just ask me?’ The teenager demands in the car. ‘Why did you have to shout?’
‘I wasn’t aware that I was shouting.’ I reply, knowing truly that only my tone of voice had changed during the stand-off, and that I hadn’t shouted at all.
‘All you had to do was ask me and I would have done it. All you had to do was explain to me and I would have done it. You didn’t have to shout.’ He replies like a seasoned negotiator.
‘You think I was shouting, but I only changed the tone of my voice,’ I say, wanting to close the matter. I’m an even more seasoned negotiator.
‘You were shouting,’ the teenager says. ‘All you had to do was ask nicely. Why didn’t you say, “Please”?’
‘You’re right.’ I reply.
The teenager is still aggrieved.
‘I’m sorry.’ I say finally.
And only when the blame is resting fully on my shoulders is the subject dropped …

….temporarily.

How to be the World's worse Mum Step 4 The Interrogation.

‘So how was the trip?’
‘Fine,’ the teenager replies. He’s hunting for chocolate in the kitchen drawers.
‘So what happened?’
‘Nothing much,’ the teenager answers. He’s found the gingerbread men and he’s decapitated one with the skill of an executioner.
There’s a silence.
‘We saw some paintings,’ he volunteers his voice muffled with gingerbread. ‘In Florence.’
‘Who by?’ I ask. ‘Dunno,’ says the teenager. ‘Leonardo, I think. Botticelli maybe, and Michael Angelo.’
‘Did you like them?
‘Er… yeah,’ he replies flatly. Then he becomes more animated. ‘There was so much graffiti,’ he says his eyes sparkling. ‘Everywhere. Even half way up the sides of buildings. I wondered how they did it all!’
I have dreamt of going to Florence. I’ve imagined it a city built with white clean marble with filigrees of carvings holding up the sky, and so many works of art to appreciate. I never imagined graffiti.
‘It was so dirty there. Italians don’t know what they have. They drop litter everywhere.’
‘Did you have enough money?’ I asked.
‘I ran out on Saturday.’ the teenager replies.
For a moment I am tranquil, relieved. Then I realise, ’But that was the first day!’
‘Yeah,’ the teenager answers.
‘But you had fifty pounds! Seventy Euros. How did you spend it all on one day? What did you spend it on?’
‘Dunno. I didn’t get you a present. I didn’t have any money.’ says the teenager with knife-sharp words.
‘Oh, that doesn’t matter,’ I lie, wounded. (Even a postcard would have given me much joy.)
‘Italy is just so expensive,’ the teenager explains.
So how did you manage for food?’ I ask horrified.
‘I just drank water,’ he answers. ‘When we went to Bologna, I walked around the city while the others went to MacDonalds. Three people had their mobile phones stolen in MacDonalds in Bologna. Someone had put their phone down and a tramp covered it with a newspaper. Then it was gone.’
‘Three phones were stolen?’ I asked shocked.
‘Then we went to Murphys the Irish pub.’
‘The teachers took you into an Irish pub?’ I am wide-eyed. It’s hardly the Italian experience I was hoping he’d get.
‘Yeah, and they drank from a huge boot filled with lager.’
‘What did you drink?’ I asked.
‘Just water. I hadn’t any money. Then I had to help John get back to the room without the teachers seeing him because he was drunk. And some of the group had to be taken to hospital because they’d passed out.’
‘Hospital?’ My voice is high and shocked.
‘Yeah. And someone was crying in Venice because her shoe fell into the Grand Canal and it floated away and a gondolier had to rescue it with a pole.’
‘What a shame. What was her name?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Did you eat pizzas?’
‘Oh, I got money from Neil after he threw my hair brush across the room at Ashley and it broke. They were having an argument.’ He pauses as I examine the ruined hair brush. ‘
The pizzas in Italy are terrible. Have you got a pizza?’
I put one into the oven for him, and wait for the rest of the story.
‘Padova’s a dump,’ the teenager says. ‘And we were stuck on the coach for hours so that by the time we reached Padua it was time to turn back. We didn’t see anything.’
‘What about Venice?’ I ask.
‘Oh, it rained in Venice and the streets don’t go anywhere and the pigeons pooed on my jumper.’
‘I’ve got pictures.’ He loads them onto the computer.
‘That’s a beautiful building did you go inside?’ I ask.
‘No.’ the teenager replies flatly.
‘Where’s that?’ I ask.
‘Dunno,’ says the teenager.
‘Didn’t the group have a guide?’ I ask.
‘No,’ replies the teenager.
‘Where were the teachers?’
‘We were told just to go around by ourselves,’ the teenager replies. ‘And I got my shoes wet when a wave caught me as I stood by the Adriatic Sea this morning. I had wet feet all the way back home.’ the teenager says mournfully. ‘And in the plane on the way back Neil fell asleep on my shoulder and was dribbling on my neck!’
‘So did you enjoy the trip to Italy,’ I ask.
‘It was great.’ the teenager replies tucking into his pizza.

Just One Ticket (Part Two)

‘Just one ticket is it?’ the lady at the booking office asks.
‘Yes, just one ticket,’ I reply. I can’t find anyone to go with me.’
‘I’ll give you a nice seat then,’ the kindly woman replied.
And she did.
I arrived, on the night of the concert, alone and early.
There was time for a pre-concert drink and a chance for a relaxed sit down in which to shed the tension of the motorway journey.
I could observe the others that shared a love for Irish Celtic music that was sung in Gaelic.
‘Is this seat taken?’ somebody asked.
‘No,’ I replied brightly.
He sat down and immediately turned his back to me, as did his wife when she arrived later with drinks in hand.
I wondered if the table had been set out in a hot steaming desert with nothing visible for miles if I would have been treated the same.
I felt the loneliness of the alone.
When the auditorium doors opened I experienced the novelty of being the first to find my seat. I wondered who would sit beside me as the audience drifted in. A couple joined me on my right hand side laden with coats and bags. The woman’s coat, awkward to fold, was rammed against my knee for the entire performance.
There was one seat empty next to me on my left hand side, and I wondered if the kindly lady in the box office was attempting some social engineering of her own: some benign matchmaking.
He was tall and bald but he gave me a weak friendly smile before he averted his eyes and sat down.
I glanced at his hands, short and stubby, and I wondered what work they did. The lights went down and the music started.
‘We hope to have you all dancing at the end,’ the lead singer explained in her soft Donegal accent.
‘I wondered if the short stubby hands next to me would grasp mine and spin me in a reel.
The band beat out fiery jigs that my new companion applauded enthusiastically. I remained still. It was the lyrical songs that I applauded: the songs from yesteryears that told of unknown lives.
Perhaps he would turn me in the interval and say, ‘So you like the ballads best?’ And we would fall into an easy conversation.
‘And you are like me you don’t like wearing glasses until the lights go down?’ I'd say and we would both would laugh. And he’d say, ‘Let me buy you a drink.’
I yearned for the interval. Who was he? A gardener? A reporter? Perhaps he worked for the university? I imagined his house was it large surrounded by green fields? Did he brew coffee just for its aroma in the kitchen. Did he live in a cramped flat with a cat named Biggles?
The music faded into the distance. Another set of jigs had been played and people were applauding wildly. Whoever was behind me was now catching my hair with each clap of his hand. Perhaps he was reprimanding my stillness.
I checked my watch as the music started again. Just a few more moments and I would be able to really meet the person by my side. Who was he? Why was he here alone? I’d glanced at his profile trying to read his character. He seemed nice but perhaps axe murderers also seem nice at first. At this moment the soft lilting voice of the beautiful singer announced an interval and the house lights turn up.
I sat waiting.
Was he an axe murderer?
Those around us sat still too.
We were trapped.
I waited for him to speak.
It would have been easy for me to speak, but this time I wanted someone else to take the lead, someone else to take that first brave step.
He didn’t.
There was a terrible sense of tension.
Eventually, the row on my right hand side filed out.
I stood up, a little too quickly, released like a coiled spring.
My chair sharing the same tension bounced back to its upright position with an alarming noise, as I skittered away crablike along the aisle of seats. On the steps, frightened that he was watching my every move, I wobbled like a drunk. Embarrassed, I dove between people seeking oblivion.
‘Perhaps he will seek me out as I buy a hot chocolate and I can then demonstrate that I am not a drunk’ I thought at the kiosk. Perhaps as I wander around the CDs on sale he will seek me out and say, ‘So you like the ballads best?’
I am trembling with the thoughts of this anticipated meeting. I am nervously eating a Kit Kat and there is melted chocolate around my mouth. People are giving me a wide berth and their backs are turned against me like those of conspirators’.
I find my way back and he is sitting waiting, and as I sit down again he again smiles weakly at me. And I smile back weakly too.
The lights go down and the music begins again. The beautiful singer’s daughter is dancing around the chairs. Her mother is trying hard not to be distracted by her but the audience is pointing out the young girl and is delighted by her dancing and antics.
I wonder if the man next to me likes children.
The couples in front of me are laying their heads on each other’s shoulders. There are rosy colours lighting the stage. There are melodies encircling us. I wonder if he was married before.
I am back-filling his life.
Perhaps his wife died and his friends urged him to go out again, and this was the first time ever that he’d dared to step into a place without her.
He laughs softly at some of the jokes that the band make.
He has a sense of humour. Perhaps at the end he will speak this time. He will turn to me and say, ‘Did you enjoy the concert?’ We will speak to others about how we met. ‘It was at a concert.’ We’d say and laugh. 'Irish music and there was a little girl who danced and then crawled onto the stage.'
I am front-filling his life.
It would happen in films.
The music finally ends. The house lights go on. The rows of seats empty more rapidly this time. We are left an island in the centre of the theatre. A couple for just an infinitesimal moment. This time we will speak. I will speak.
He suddenly stands and follows his line out without even a backward glance in my direction.
Slowly, I stand, turn and follow the other line out.
Even the lady in the booking office averts her eyes as I pass by.
I toy with possibilities. ‘Could I leave a message for the person who was seating in seat CE10 at the Altan concert?’They will have his name and his telephone number.
The thought vaporises. I do nothing.
I return to my car and turn on the hard rock music.

Loud!

Just One Ticket (Part One)

‘Just one ticket is it?’ the lady at the booking office asks.
‘Yes, just one ticket,’ I reply. I can’t find anyone to go with me.’
I think back to previous events here. I once bought tickets for four of us; who were all keen and eager to go. Then over time one by one they had dropped out; and then even their replacements had dropped out. Until all that was left were two of us waiting for a third. She did not turn up or even call to explain why not. We had ended up taking the school caretaker and her husband who we saw locking up the school gates. They came with us in their working clothes, hungry, and without a chance to eat an evening meal: two lovely people.
There had been the time when I had driven around streets trying to locate someone who did not have a car. ‘We’ll meet you there,’ I’d suggested to the organiser. ‘No, it’s better that you pick her up and drive back here and then we can all go together in my car,’ she had said firmly.
I had whirled around impossible suburban cul-de sacs in the strange town until finally I found the right place. I’d driven frantically back to my town and striven to drive across the breadth of it, to meet the other.
There was an impossibility of traffic lights, all set at red, to negotiate.
When we finally met the organiser she was impatiently fuming by the side of her car.
We arrived at the theatre late, after getting lost in a maze of roundabouts in the third town. The performance had already started and we were not allowed in for half an hour.
It left an atmosphere between us. We stood like thistles during the interval, in spiky silence.
Then there was another occasion when I had bought tickets for just two of us.
‘Sorry, I can’t go.’ the other had said late in the day of the event. I’d rung another friend.
‘We have to set off at seven to get there,’ I’d explained on the phone. Then I had waited in her hallway as she changed from this outfit to that and the minute hand swept the face of the clock.
Not knowing the quickest way from her house to the motorway I had taken an age to escape from the town. ‘You should have gone that way,’ my companion had said as I’d missed a turning. She’d glanced at me with a superior pitying look. And I’d felt like a fool. And despite tearing down the motorway at speeds unknown to man, we were late and had again to wait yet again to be admitted.
‘Yes, just one ticket,’ I reply. I can’t find anyone to go with me.’
‘I’ll give you a nice seat then,’ the kindly woman replied.
And she did.

Green Tomato Chutney

Green tomato chutney cannot be found!
I was in the third supermarket, Waitrose, and even they did not stock the stuff.
‘Would red tomato chutney spiked with chillies do instead?’ the assistant asked waving a short squat jar in the air.
‘I’d bought one of those yesterday,’ I replied. ‘I just wanted to see if I could find the exact ingredients for the recipe I’m using.’
‘Ah,’ said the assistant who was smiling as he walked away, bemused that anyone should want to serve their guests such an oddity as green tomato chutney.
If he knew it was to go inside a bread roll that was then to be stuffed with a round goat’s cheese then perhaps he would have run away.
I’d had to queue for ages to acquire the four goats’ cheeses. That was after waiting for the man to unload the bread rolls and a few moments after recovering from being rammed into by another shopper. She had gouged a chunk out of my heel with her trolley and had then scuttled away with an airy ‘Sorry!’ as I limped behind the potato display to attend to the wound.
Battle worn and weary I scuttled back home. There was so much to do: there was the ironing, the bathroom to clean, the delights of cleaning the bathroom sink and the loo. Not to mention sweeping the entire house, dusting every surface downstairs and tidying some rather untidy rooms and clearing papers away. There were windows to clean and everything to polish. There were birthday cards to take down (the guests had forgotten my recent birthday and I didn’t want to draw attention to it and cause any embarrassment). I wrote an earnest ‘to do’ list and set to.
By the afternoon, with the house sparkling, I started on the cooking. It took an age to tease the fresh thyme from its woody sprigs. I cried as I cut up the 1lb of onions. I diced the garlic into infinitesimal pieces and delicious cooking smells started to come from the pot.
Religiously I followed the recipes: tomatoes were skinned and then deseeded, a lemon was stripped from its zest and squeezed. Pots bubbled and steamed. The white wine, that another kind assistant in Morrisons had scoured the shelves for, had been poured into the pan and was being reduced to delicious vapours. As it bubbled away I was happily inhaling the moist kitchen air. The celery had been cut on the diagonal. Fresh rosemary was brought in from the garden and I cut it into tiny pieces to add to the bubbling vegetarian concoction.
I ironed the place mats and set them on the table. I positioned the chairs and placed empty wine glasses next to each place setting.
There was not long to go. I left a book, ‘How to Fossilise your Hamster’ on top of the hamster cage in the hope that it would cause amusement and help to break the ice and get the conversation going.
With only moments to go, it was almost time to tackle the chutney and goats’ cheese recipe. I was filling the pepper pot with bouncing pepper balls when the phone rang.

They weren’t coming!

Oh well... now where's that hamster!

Lost Villages

There were villages once stretching out into the North Sea where the waves now rumble and roll. They had wonderful names such as Auburn: Hartburn, Northorpe, Monkswell, Monkwike, Waxholme, Dimlington, Turmarr, Orwithfleete, Tharlesthorpe, Owthorne, Hoton, Sunthorpe, old Kilnsea, Ravenser and Ravenser Odd.

All are now gone; destroyed by the sea.

The retreating cliff edge slumps down onto the beach like a tired old man, for that is what it is, a two million year old relic that is now too feeble to stand. Its clays and buttery soils were once laid down by mighty glaciers, now they offer no obstacle to the high tides that can beat them down.

We travelled down a road that suddenly ended abruptly and had red signs to warn of danger. Once this road had taken carts on to the next village and the fields beyond. Now the new end of the road was cracked, broken and in disarray slumping down to the hungry beach below. The houses that flanked the road had a dilapidated look standing silently on death row awaiting their time of execution.

There are tales of the lost villages; of bones being washed from the old graveyards, and of towns, once haunted by pirates, being swept away by the sea.

It was a strangely disturbing place and it was hard not to resist the instinct to flee.

Aftermath

Well it’s a few days now since the great fast and I’m back once again to my Shrek like proportions!
I had a wonderful sense of elation after the fast. I followed the suggested recipes carefully and totally unprepared for how delicious everything tasted. It was like tasting different foods for the first time. Fruit such as strawberries and blueberries were particularly yummy.

My undoing came in the form of my dad’s 80th birthday meal: the three course meal followed by the birthday cake!

Watching the trailers for the Shrek film today I realise that all I would have to do is change my colour a little and I’d be the perfect stand in. I even have the teeth!

Years ago one Christmas I was happy singing carols with the family when my myopic grandmother moved in very close until she was just inches from my face. I thought that perhaps with her deafness she just wanted to hear my angelic voice all the more, so I upped my crescendo singing of ding dong merrily on high until I was almost singing in stereo.

At the end of the song I waited for granny’s affirmation.

She stared at me hard, and then she said loudly,

’Are those your own teeth!’

Ten years old and mortified I nodded.

So I guess I am handicapped a little. With teeth on the scale as big as mine ‘a bite to eat’ has a completely different meaning.

And after the great fast I was on a par with Jaws!

Yum!

Days six and seven of the Great Fast

‘Come and sit with,’ me implores the teenager as he tucks into the dinner I’ve just cooked for him. ‘This is yummy,’ he says as he scrapes forkfuls off the plate. ‘Really tasty,’ he says as I follow each fork from plate to mouth like a slavering dog. ‘Delicious!’

I am sooooo hungry! And really, really tired. I’ve been under the duvet much of the day clutching hot water bottles. I’ve not been able to speak properly either. I was unable to say the word ‘availability’ today. I guess my brain cells are starving and require fud!

So I guess tonight the Great Fast must end. I’ve raided the cupboards in search of edibles and have found yoghurt that has to be eaten tonight! That seems a good choice to begin with.

The Great Fast has been a success. I have lost several elephant dress sizes I think. The weighing scales are very unresponsive to the new me. It is used to zooming up to the higher reaches and now seems bewildered that it has to stop at lower digits. It zooms past my present weight and then reluctantly descends to where it thinks I now am.

I’ve lost 9 pounds in seven days.

Yippee!

Day 5 of the Great Fast.

It took us two hours to cycle seven and a half miles around the reservoir today.

This is not good.

The route is described as being relatively flat and suitable for young children. Lots of young children peddled quickly past me and left me in their dust today. At the slightest incline I had to get off the bike and walk. I guess that must be the effect of not eating for five days.

I have not broken the fast, though just after setting off I did accidentally gulped down a few midges when I tried to reply to the teenager who was ahead of me.

After that I was treated to the dust he raised and I masticated every grain just in case there was any nutrition to be had.

All was going well, and then the teenager’s bike broke down. The chain had come out of position and refused to reconnect with the gears. It took us about half an hour to fix it, which allowed the people whom we’d seen right at the start to walk nonchalantly slowly past with their tiny puppy.

They were out of sight before we were ready to ride again. The teenager tore ahead, keen to overtake them, and I was left far behind in his wake. Geese were swimming faster than me.
Still eventually we made it and we even beat the people with the puppy…just!

I treated the teenager to a chocolate ice-cream and drove quickly home so that I would not be tempted to have one too. His description of the taste of it would not have been out of place on a Marks and Spencers’ advert.

He’s found out!

The Great Fast: Day 4

Wow, I’ve been so busy today! I didn’t realise that I’d feel so energetic. It says in the book that you can expect a boost in energy after not eating for a while. I have not touched a morsel for days and expected to be wilting but instead I felt great.

I was even able to cook a dinner for The Teenager. I resisted the urge to lick the spoons, and the temptation to pop a lone escapee pea into my mouth.

I am so surprised that the fast is going so well.

But whatever possessed me to paint three chairs a pale lilac today? I guess that must be a side effect of the fast: all common sense has just disappeared too. The lilac chairs blend in really well with the blue settee, the pink curtains and the green carpet. The teenager observed that the living room looks gay now before he retreated to the sanctuary of his blue room. I must admit the living room does look rather colourful and festive.

I painted the chairs out in the garden. It was fairly sunny when I started, then the most ominous grey clouds built up. Grey clouds had a magical effect on me instead of the steady rate I was going to adopt I swung into fast mode until all three chairs were quickly painted. It was a pleasant time to speedily paint and talk to my Grandmother whose ashes rest in a bronze pot on the patio nearby.

Grandmother’s pot gave me a nasty turn years ago after I’d first gently placed soil and flowers over her ashes and placed her on the patio. It was a desperately sad moment for me. I was alone and totally unaware that I was in for a terrible shock that would leave me trembling for hours afterwards; for when I watered her pot… the patio ran red with blood! A friend witnessed the event on a subsequent occasion and was similarly shocked. We reasoned that it could have been the compost, or maybe the inside of the new pot, or perhaps even more disturbing rust from the nails of her incinerated coffin. I didn’t water her often after that. I'm nervous about planting a new plant in the pot. Luckily, forget me nots have self seeded themselves there.

Being next to Grandma’s pot with the threat of a heavy rain shower was an added inspiration to paint the chairs quickly. I could be heard chanting feverishly,
‘Rain, rain go away.
Come again another day.’

Luckily, the childhood charm worked and the rain clouds passed over. Now the chairs are dry and placed back in the living room.

They are going to take a bit of getting used to but I guess lilac is better than blood red any day!

The Great Fast Day 3

All is going well with the fast.

Though I was woken at 5:30 with a terrible pain. near my heart. Fearing a heart attack I scurried feebly downstairs and found an aspirin to take. Then I trawled through the Internet pages comparing my symptoms with the real thing.

The pain has long since gone, and I’ve put the sudden pain down to the recent stomach bug I’ve just had, and not to anything more serious. I’m determined to go on with the fast. According to one web site I visited a fast is good for heart problems and can help with numerous other ailments too from high blood pressure to psoriasis. I had no idea I was treating myself to a cure all!

In the afternoon, I crawled from under my duvet to do more yoga. This involves very gentle movement with the the highlight being the chance to scare the paint from off the walls with my ‘lion’ impersonation. An expression which could come in handy if ever I'm faced with the real thing.

The teenager oblivious to all of the above secret activity calls for my help to make mouth watering delicious chocolate crunchies. So far I’ve no desire to eat one myself. Though I did have to hide them quickly in the fridge, and shut the kitchen door very quickly. I must admit that I have spent the afternoon breathing in every molecule of chocolate that became airborne under the pretence of deep yoga breathing.

The teenager happily chomps on chocolate crunchies as he treats me to the next instalment of Harry Potter.

As the rain continues to fall outside, we are cocooned in our damp and fusty home, and all is well.

The Fast

The pizza looks like a bejewelled plate with its ruby tomatoes crowning its top as it cooks in the oven. Baked beans are bubbling close by.

The teenager is standing close to me biting the head off a gingerbread man and eating spicy Pringles at the same time.

I am on a fast: a week’s fast.

I’ve had the book on my shelf for years and I’ve never dared to follow its advice before. The fast is to last a week. It says in the book not to tell anyone for fear of getting off putting negative reactions. So I haven’t told a soul. I have started the accompanying yoga exercises too.

The inspiration came after I realised that I looked more like Shrek rather than the exquiste Arthur Rackham image I've always aspired to. A love of carrot cakes has been my downfall.

Day One started really well. By chance I picked up a stomach bug and had to take to my bed. I also had a headache that seemed to like to shift positions. I had such pain from it that I didn’t know what to do with myself. Then came the waves of sickness. Luckily for me the bug seems to have timed its arrival just at the right time. It has completely stolen my appetite.

Day Two has gone well. The bug has continued to lay me low so I’ve slept most of the day. I’ve emerged in pale zombie style only to go shopping for food and to cook for The Teenager, who has no idea as he drops gingerbread crumbs next to me that I am hoping not to eat for a week.

Being poorly has left me feeling rested and more closely connected to the here and now. It’s nice to be just doing the essentials.

There goes the timer! I’ve a pizza to cut up. Its cheese tries to entice me in its stringy nets and there’s more here than one teenager can eat.

I repeat my new mantra, ‘I have no appetite I have no appetite.’

Will I get to Day 7?