Illuminated Boats

‘Go home,’ she said covering her mouth with her hand. ‘I don’t want to spend my day looking at that face!’

The two women edged away from me as if I had bubonic plague and leprosy combined.
‘Go home,’ she said.

I left.

They were right about the face and sending me back home. I had the flu and shouldn’t have been any where near the place. The ‘face’ when I looked at it could have been mistaken for one of the witches’ faces from that notorious Scottish play. I looked grey and there were bags under my watering eyes.

I had started to feel unwell a few days earlier at the Illuminated Boat and Carol Concert. Nothing can quite beat singing carols in the cold rain while standing on wet grass next to the cold brown hungry waters of a canal.

The small village community bravely stood their ground and sang out while the band seated comfortably on a moored boat played the carols at a break neck speed finishing each line of each carol before the children had had time to draw breath.
At the end everyone dispersed and I was left alone standing in a puddle. I walked by the canal for a moment hoping to see and enjoy the illuminated boats but as I approached each one the lights went out.

I was shivering with cold as I gave up turned and went home.

The Real Builders of the Pyramids

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The ancient Egyptians used to put the innards of pharaohs into canopic jars and then place them deep in tombs, laying them reverently next to the pharaoh’s mummified body. This is what books and the internet will tell you. However, this is a lie known only to the overseer of the canopic jar factory.

Books and the web claim that pharaohs were wrapped up in bandages and deposited under tons of stone with these four little jars by their side to help them to achieve the afterlife. This is another lie, again known only to the overseer of the canopic jar factory. The fact is these jars that held the separated vital organs from the body, sealed tight under magical lids, were intended to ensure that that person never ever walked the earth, or experienced any afterlife ever again.

In fact it was actually the overseer of the canopic jar factory who personally trussed up certain individuals and stuffed them into pyramids. It’s true.

The doomed soon to be mummified individuals had no doubt driven the canopic pot factory overseer into the realms of utter madness by their acts of witless stupidity.

Imagine the scene: little pots beautifully designed and painted. These jars had been skilfully fashioned from fine clay that had been carefully washed and sieved from the banks of the Nile. Their creation was the result of a long intricate process, a time consuming process, but above all an absolute labour of love.

Perhaps these twinkling jars were first intended to hold delicious spices, or perhaps even glistening gems. Imagine them displayed on a market stall under the subtle Egyptian lighting of a hot setting sun. They would have looked magnificent until the canopic jar maker’s apprentice bumped into the shelving and sent them all crashing to the floor.

When these precious pots were destroyed, in this land of camels, breaking backs and limited straw, the canopic jar overseer finally lost it. He could not have borne their destruction. This was the moment when he turned upon his apprentice.

(Now this next paragraph is not for the squeamish…so do skip ahead…)

He would have ripped out the fool’s innards, stuffed them into the last four unbroken pots and then wrapped the rest of the body in bandages to cover up his ghastly deed.

Howling with rage as he realised he’d just condemned his own soul to the darkest realms of the cosmos by this foul deed, he then began to drag the mummified body out towards the city precincts. His cries must have rent the air. Fellow traders would have closed their shutters out of fear. Children woken from innocent sleep would have cried for their own mummies on hearing the wailing sound of the demented canopic jar overseer dragging the corpse towards the unhallowed ground of the dead beyond the city limits.

It would have been the wonder of the world when the canopic jar overseer, with supercharged demonic strength borne from his despair, was then able to lift slabs of stone weighing tons and hurl them into place over the body. One stone would not have been enough. He needed more to pin down forever the spirit of this clumsy idiot.

So it was that he buried the body unaided under thousands of tons of rocks. There were no slaves building the pyramids. No skilled workers toiling up ramps with blocks and ropes. No, there was just the mad canopic jar factory overseer whose eye for detail and his need to ensure that the person he’d buried would never ever walk again who'd created with his artistry the first pyramid all in one night.

Nonsense, you think?

Really?

Well, it’s not and I’ve got proof!

Let’s start with the clay.

It should have been the ideal teaching situation, most of the children had gone on a trip and there were only six children left. The clay was untouched and glistening fresh from the packet. Music was playing quietly in the background. The sun was shining. All was well with the world.

I demonstrated to my apprentice potters how to form the base of the pot and stressed how it had to be kept loose on the board. I helped ‘The Girl’ first; she is shown again and again how to shape her clay. Finally, she is helped to make a decent base which doesn’t stick to the board, and then I move on.

By the time I get back to her, her pot base is stuck firmly to the board and no longer looks anything like the base I left her with. I sigh inwardly and we begin again.

She has now to roll out sausages for her coiled pot. I hastily reshape her base, show her how to use the slip, help her with the first few coils, and then I move on. It’s going to be a beautiful pot.

On my return she has succeeded in rolling sausages which are in the shape of a miniature python in the process of digesting a double humped camel. Similar coils of bulimic fatness and anorexic thinness have already been ‘added’ to the pot. The light shines through its chinky cracks and glints like Egyptian eyes.

I sigh quietly, demonstrate the rolling of clay sausages again, and move on.

On my return 'The Girl's' pot resembles a drunken wobbly rollercoaster.

‘Don’t worry,’ I say as I take in a deep breath and count slowly to five. ‘We won’t make it any higher. You just need to smooth out the holes gently like this.

I demonstrate. I watch her a moment, she’s doing it perfectly, and then I move on.

When I return she has thinned the pot in places to the wafer thinness of papyrus. Its sides lurch like a drunken Egyptian’s blubbery lips.

‘What happened?’ I exclaim in horror.

The other potters look up with mild interest from their own sturdy chunky pots as ‘The Girl’s’ pot pirouettes around its base with flapping clay skirts.

‘Dunno,’ The girl say. ‘It just went like that.’

I fold, crease, meld and blend the pot back to its intended strong beauty.

‘Now just gently smooth the lip of the pot,’ I say before I move on.

‘Time’s up.’ I announce a few minutes later; and I explain that they are to place their pots on the window sill.

Pots are gently eased from the boards, and I place each one in turn carefully on the window sill.

‘Mine is stuck to the board, ‘The Girl’ moans.

I look.

There is a deformed lifeless thing on her board.

A collapsed heap of grey clay that bears no resemblance to anything.

The clay is firmly stuck to the board.

‘It’s stuck to the board,’ ‘The Girl’ wails.

I am astonished and can barely speak.

’Scrape it off and put it back in the tub,’ I say coldly looking at the clock and realising that there is no time left to help again.

‘I can’t.’ The girl moans. ‘It’s stuck.’

It’s left to me to scrape the clay off the board for her. She skips away and goes for her dinner, while my nails become ingrained with clay.

The following day I give her another chance to make a pot under even closer supervision.

Towards the end of the lesson her pot is looking almost perfect.

I’m keeping a very close eye on her. I have to leave her for a few moments to help somebody on a computer, and of course by the time I return the pot is ruined.

‘What happened?’ I bellow, as all patience is swiftly sapped out of me. ‘What have you done?’

The pot, a gargoylic caricature of itself is thin and floppy again. It also seems to be suddenly super glued to the board.

‘Go and wash you hands now,’ I hiss as I attempt to save it.

By the time ‘The Girl’ returns, it looks like a pot again. She’s pleased and happy as I put it to dry on the safest part of the window ledge. Well out of her reach.

The caretaker at the end of the day is closing the blinds and I lunge to save ‘The Girl’s’ pot from certain destruction. The falling blind would have crushed it, luckily it survived.

The next day we are to make the lids of the jars.

I barely leave the side of ‘The Girl’.

I rescue the lid from sticking to the board. I help her to shape the head and to use the slip to attach the ears. The lid is looking good. I leave her for five seconds and the face has collapsed. ‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘It looks great,’ I lie, as I gently carry the lid away from her and place it to dry.

The following day I mix up some special paints for the group. Another group has joined us and I’m busy helping the younger ones. All ‘The Girl’ has to do is to paint her pot and lid. I’ve ensured that all the paint she is likely to need is close to her, together with paint brushes. All she has to do is paint.

The music is playing softly in the background. There is sunshine. Everyone is happy. I am the happiest canopic jar overseer in the world.

‘My pot’s broken,’ I hear the ‘The Girl’ exclaim suddenly.

I look up in dismay, as she shows me the three pieces of pot she’s holding in her hand.

‘Don’t worry,’ I say quietly. ‘It can be glued back together. Just paint the rest of the pot and I’ll glue it at the end for you.’

When I return the pot is painted in hideous colours. Black is running onto yellow and yellow into black.

‘I’ve finished,’ The Girl declares.

I ask her to use more of the black to paint over the mistakes. I make the mistake of picking up the lid of her pot and find my hands are now bright red…she’s painted the underneath of the lid and not bothered to warn me. I help her with the black paint. Then I realise she’d got paint on the edge of the table. My new trousers are now covered in bright red paint. I go into a side room to quickly wipe it off before it sets and return to discover that ‘The Girl’ has already used the glue and fixed the broken pieces into place on her pot. They are not in the right places, and look more like ill fitting jigsaws. I search for the missing piece. There is no sign of it. I rescue her hideous pot and put it to dry once more and send her out to join the others on the playground for her own safety.

Above me Egyptian gods are sighing. I look at the chaos on the table where ‘The Girl’ had been sitting. There is clay marking the carpet around where she’d been sat. I’m going to have to scrub it before the cleaner sees it, and goes wild.

It’s then that I hear the ancient whisperings from the canopic jar makers of old…ancient voices of the true builders of the pyramids…they are calling to me from across time… mummify her…mummify her…mummify her...

And oh…it’s so tempting

But luckily for ‘The Girl’ there were no bandages to hand…this time.

...

The Wild Book

We did it. We ‘released’ the wild book!

We found the book in Salcey Forest it was a Famous Five Book ‘released’ by a wonderful philanthropic person who lives some where in Oxfordshire.

When we found it, it was wrapped in a plastic bag and resting on a post. We spent an enjoyable afternoon sitting next to a deep bleak pond reading the first chapter.
What a wonderful idea though to read books and then to set them free somewhere for others to read. This is all being done by people at bookcrossing.com. I’d never read Enid Blyton before and I must admit to enjoying the book’s quirkiness.

Today it was our turn to ‘release’ the book. We chose Bucknell Wood which is close to Silverstone. It was our second visit to the wood and we did not have a map. There is a maze of bewildering pathways that you can take. At one point as we decided which of the five possible tracks we should take a fox stood in the distance and watched us. After setting the book down, we then got well and truly lost in the wood.



The paths were muddy and bewildering. It was such a relief to find the main trail again but even then we didn’t know if we were walking in the right direction. It was a relief to find the gate again and our car.

I’m hoping that a good soul walking his or her dogs will find the book and help it on its journey across the world.

..

On the trail of the Tudors.

We have visited some wonderful places in our search for Tudor history:

All have delighted us in some way. They are ranked in my order of preference below:

Wonderful warm Hever Castle, with the hidden minstrel playing in the gallery, and the magnificent courtyard where it is possible to look from the same window that Anne Boleyn might once looked through and seen Henry VIII arriving on his horse and being greeted by her father in the courtyard below.

Hampton Court with the actors who took the parts of the Seymours and Katherine Parr and enacted a clever play as they led us through some of the rooms; or where a guide called Grant touched our shoulders and told us of the tapestries before our eyes as the stained glass windows revived their colours with rich blues and purples.

Hatfield House where a guide patiently explained perhaps for the umpteen time the symbolism in the painting of Elizabeth I and where the light was exquisite in room full of armour and paintings of prime ministers.

Grimscote Castle where there were thrones and a room where Margaret Thatcher had once dined; but best of all tame deer and a wonderful woman who could call them to her and who enjoyed telling us about them.

Burghley House where the water features outside were more fun than the rooms depicting Heaven and Hell.

The Tower of London, a nightmare of crowds, where we accidentally stopped to eat sandwiches yards from where the block was once sited for the beheading of queens.

And finally Sudeley Castle which perhaps because it was so cold was the most disappointing of all with so few rooms open and an ‘exhibition’ in the few rooms that were that even tried to simulate a desert! Though even here we found Katherine Parr’s grave to photograph despite the distraction of very, very, very, ugly modern art in the grounds surrounding the chapel in which she is buried.

A big thank you to all the guides we met this year at these venues who made our visit so welcoming and memorable.

The Grim Reaper

I pulled into Morrison’s petrol station.

It had been mysteriously closed for a few days just after the petrol prices had dropped a little; I was pleased to see it re-opened with such a long journey up north ahead of us.

There were long queues at all the pumps.

I pulled into one line and waited.

Eventually, one of the cars moved on, and I pulled into the vacant position.
They had changed the pumps and the payment method. Shivering, I tried to make sense of the new procedure and realised that I was about to pick up the diesel pump instead of the unleaded pump. I put it back quickly, then I realised that the unleaded pump that I needed was chained up and out of action.

Miserably, I returned to the car and pulled up a little to be behind the car in front where an equally befuddled lady was struggling to fill her car with fuel.
I noticed The MAN in the rear view mirror. He was in a steel white car and gesticulating wildly. He had a long suffering wife sitting next to him.

I knew his impatience was aimed at me.

I was not surprised when a few moments later this same MAN suddenly looms at my side and starts tapping on my car window.

I wound my window down.

‘Are you going to leave or just stay sitting there?’ he demanded angrily.
Under a normal sky I would have felt cowed by this attack and would have apologised for taking up valuable space on the planet, when there were clearly more worthy mortals such the MAN that needed more room. But I was not under a normal sky. I was a hideous mean gargoyle-like creature under the incandescent white-iron heated sky of shirt rage (see blog below). I saw the MAN visibly wilt as I turned my iron cold eyes hard upon him.

I spoke slowly but it was hard to disguise the volcanic fury that was lying like burning plutonic rock in my throat.

‘I came here to get petrol,’ I said coldly. ‘The unleaded petrol pump is not working.’ I added simply, trying hard not to add a sulphurous hiss. ‘I am waiting for the lady in front of me to finish putting petrol into her car. When she has finished then I will move my car into that space.’

I indicated the woman who in front of me who seemed to be even more befuddled than ever.

The MAN though would not have it.

‘Can’t you pull forward?’ he demanded.

I wondered what spatial dimensions the MAN could see that were invisible to me. There was no space for me to pull forwards into and even had I been able to so then he still would not have been able to reach the diesel pump.

‘When the lady in front of me leaves, then I will be able to pull forward.’ I said biting hard on the metallic nails I wanted to spit.

It was at that point that he looked into the car. The shirt hanging up above the back seat had hidden The Teenager. The MAN saw The Teenager for the first time. I think the MAN had thought that he was dealing with just a lone woman and this had given him his false courage.

I saw him take a step back on realising that there was a Teenager in the car; and then another step as he glanced at the back seat.

He left without another word and half a minute later I was able to pull forward into the vacant space once the woman ahead of me left; and he was able to reach the pump too.

The instructions were incomprehensible and the screen didn’t change. There were supposed to be buttons to press, but I hadn’t a clue as to where there were. I puzzled over it fuming. Eventually, I was able to get petrol to work and went inside the kiosk to pay.

‘I couldn’t get it to work properly,’ I said.

‘There was a fault here,’ they explained cheerily. ‘It will work next time you use it.’ A pretty girl with a Morrison’s sash explained. She looked like a beauty queen and smiled warmly at me.

‘And why is the hose still so short? It barely reaches the petrol tank,’ I complained. ‘It seems ridiculous that the pumps have been redesigned and the hose is still so short.’

Normally, I wouldn’t complain and just accept design flaws such as the ridiculously short hoses on petrol pumps as an example of endearing British quirkiness, but fired up with Shirt Rage and now anger at the Man’s recent impatience I’d moved into a whole new realm of intolerance myself.

The beauty queen, no doubt employed by Morrison’s to help with customer relations and to keep fraught tempers calm as frustrated customers struggled in their attempt to understand the new system, smiled warmly at me again.

I felt my gargoylian features set into harder uglier lines as I returned heavily back to the car.

The Man had gone. I guessed he’d been too impatient to work out how to use the new pumps. Or perhaps it had been fear.

I looked on the back seat and saw what had caused him to take his last final step away from my car.

Looking realistic in the garish light of the petrol station was a scythe.

Its blade looked keen and mean.

It was part of a Halloween costume.

The teenager was going to dress up as the Grim Reaper and we were going to show the costume to his grandparents.

I realised now why The Man had backed away. Who would dare risk arguing further with a gargoylic woman, with a teenager sitting by her side, and scythe ready and waiting on the back seat?

Smiling and empowered, I swung the car onto the dark road for the long journey north.

Shirt Rage

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It is a truth universally acknowledged that a shirt freshly ironed and gently hung on a hanger will be scrounged up into a crumpled ball and left on the settee in less than an hour.

‘Teenager!’ I yelled up the stairs with blood curdling near hysterical tones on finding the ruined shirt.

He beams at me from the safety of the landing as I demand an explanation.

‘Oh, don’t worry about that.’ he says cheerily. ‘Nobody will notice the creases once I’m wearing a jumper over it.’

His logic is faultless and infuriating.

I inwardly burn like white-hot metal.

I’m trying to get things ready for the wedding but I feel as though I’m climbing a slippery ice mountain and getting less than nowhere with the preparations.

The brand new clothes bought only a week before which I requested The Teenager not to wear and to keep pristine for the wedding have all been worn. The new shirts are now residing in the fusty warmth of the clothes basket together with the neat new trousers, and worst of all the brand new jumper has been worn and lost.

The blue shirt I’d just ironed was his old school one I’d only just ironed for him.

I iron out the creases again, and then lament having to iron his old school trousers that will just have to do.

There are other smart clean jumpers but he won’t wear them. I’m forced to rescue his favourite old black jumper from the very bottom of the wash basket. It is damp with a sickly sweet smell, and I notice at the hem at the back that a new hole has laddered.

I sew yet another repair with incandescent fingers before I iron it.

The Teenager won’t take a tie. He refuses to wear one.

I could argue but it would not be in the interests of World peace.

Gently, I fold and pack the chosen ruined ironed clothes neatly in a bag.

I hang the shirt up at the back of the car on its hanger.

We are later setting off than I’d planned, and we pull away from the house, having checked to make sure the door is really locked a thousand times, with me barely able to speak.

On the back seat The Teenager's ragamuffin wedding clothes gently perfume the car with their ‘sweet’ aroma. The Teenager blithely watches the world slip past his window unaware that a freshly forged grim metallic gargoyle-like creature is now hunched over the steering wheel and squatting at his side.

Shame on you Rotherham

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I don’t often return home to Rotherham and I rarely go into the heart of the town, so I was looking forward to seeing Bailey House where the registry office wedding of my cousin was to take place.

Some madness must have befuddled the thinking of the Rotherham town planners. They must have thought that people would love to marry in a building that lies in the middle of a dual carriage way, with cars and filthy lorries racing by.

They no doubt realised that guests, often strangers to the town, would be thrilled by the challenge of attempting to reach this building. And so to make the journey even more exciting these planners added one way systems, fly-overs, a bus station and roundabouts.

They realised that guests in their flimsy wedding apparel and newly bought heeled shoes would like nothing better than to park in the nearby multi-story car-park and then face a long walk to the building.

What joy these new visitors to the town would experience, they thought, as they negotiated the pedestrian exit of the car-park, the dingy steps, the walk of death past the bus station, the bridge over the filthy River Don, and the underpass below the dual carriageway, which acts as a wind tunnel, in order to reach Bailey House.

Then why not, they thought, why not close and lock the main doors to the building so that visitors don’t get a grand and comfortable entrance but instead have to go around to a side entrance where in a dismal corner the previous bride and groom are battling with the wind and rain to have their photos taken. And why not have the guests for the next wedding squeeze through these shivering guests, they thought.

Worse than all of this though was the actual room set aside for the wedding service.

Some bright spark in Rotherham Planning must have thought that a room devoid of windows and natural light is ideal for a wedding. A room devoid of any decorative features would have a certain je ne sais quoi they must have mused. A room as bland and as functional as a cardboard box they thought would serve the citizens of Rotherham well. Let’s light it with artificial lights that will light the bride with ugly yellow hues and make the guests look purple and garish they must have thought, for that is what happened.

And why not design the room so that the poor bride can only have two bars of her entrance music played before she is facing the registrar, after taking only five steps into the room.

And why not add extra pressure… the service has to be short because of the next couple’s imminent arrival…conveyer belt weddings!

Outside with the sound of racing traffic the photographer takes his pictures as the wind blows dust into the bride’s hair. The next bride struggles to push through the watching guests and everyone shivers.

Is it too much to ask for a beautiful carefully thought out purpose built place to be built and designed for the good people of Rotherham to be married in; something wonderful with delicate glass windows, subtle lighting and furnishings to awe and delight the eye? A building that could anticipate England’s intemperate climate and offer shelter should the wind decide to howl and the rain decide to pour when it is time for photographs to be taken? A place where the bride and groom can step into a rose garden instead of a road?

Shame on you Rotherham!

What chance have newly married couples got in Rotherham when their start in married live is so shabby and grubby? Don’t they deserve just one day when they can forget Rotherham’s bleakness and drabness? Just one day when they step into something special and magical?

And as for these insane planners, where do they marry? I bet not one of them ever chooses Bailey House!


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Ballooning Buttucks

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My Great Auntie Phoebe was great in every sense of the word. As a former cook to a Great House she specialised in recipes demanding dollops of lard, butter and dripping. She presided over steaming cauldrons of glutinous soups and great steaming thick crusty tarts that were skilfully lifted from great black ovens.

The members of this once Great House are all now of course deceased; no doubt their deaths were due to high levels of cholesterol, furred up coronary arteries and bilious attacks; and the Great House is reduced to a shadow of its former glory as a venue to be hired for corporate events.

As a child Auntie Phoebe’s biscuit tin was a delight. It was full to the brink of delicious mouth watering biscuits. She gloried in the extra wide cups she presented us with, in which an ocean of tea could be poured. Dunked biscuits that fell to pieces would be lost for days in these swamps of tea, surfacing like weird fascinating crocodiles with strangely rigged soggy backs. Auntie Phoebe discovered our weakness for Kit Kits and her walk-in larder was never ever short of them.

Auntie Phoebe long ago joined fellow smokers puffing away outside Heaven’s Gate. Her white curly hair is no doubt still stained yellow at the front from her smoking habit and her fingers will still have their yellowy-brown nicotine stain. I hope that the cloud she is standing on has been reinforced to cope with her ethereal mass as she makes new clouds.

I took warning from Great Auntie Phoebe I don’t use lard or dripping when I cook. As a vegetarian it’s olive oil that I use. I’ve munched this year on nasturtiums and home ground lettuce leaves and cress. I’ve swum, done yoga, cycled for miles, walked for miles, gardened, walked to train stations, and rarely touched a Kit Kat or a biscuit.

And yet despite all this, I am ballooning! Trousers bought only two weeks ago do not fit. I am reduced to just one pair. I fear that dear Great Auntie Phoebe has passed onto me the inheritance treasured by all the Great Cooks who once worked in the Great Houses of England. A gift that was a mark of their skill and prowess…

…the gift of ballooning buttocks!

The Urge to Stomp

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I don’t do well with glasses!

There’s been a complaint.

Apparently a GIRL in my class asked if she could wear her glasses, and I apparently said, ‘No.’

As you do!

(sigh)

I had absolutely no recollection of her ever asking me such a question; and I began a mental recall of the previous day and the myriad of questions and conversations that occur naturally within a primary classroom. Had I misheard her? Had she really asked? Had she asked while I was busy replying to someone else’s question?

It’s a dreadful worry to discover that after just a few days there is already a parent baying for blood.

I’m told not to worry. Someone ‘consoles’ me with the comment that the same parent reported a teacher to the educational authorities for mis-conduct for not allowing her child to do PE wearing earrings!

Suitably ‘cheered’ I continued with that day’s lessons.

The GIRL siddles up to me in the afternoon, there is a mischievous calculating look on her face.

‘Can I get my glasses?’ she asks.

‘Sure,’ I reply.

I’m aware of the tension in this loaded question. I can sense the history behind it, but I act as if I know nothing about any complaint.

The GIRL glutinously flops away disappointed at my complete lack of interest, she was obviously armed for a show down.

The GIRL gets her glasses, puts them on her desk, and continues ‘to work’ without bothering to put them on.

I wonder about her.

I have an unfortunate history with glasses.

A large clumsy CHILD’s father once complained at my last school that his daughter’s glasses had been deliberately stomped on during the swimming lesson.

‘But nobody would do that.’ I explained. ‘The changing rooms open onto the side of the pool and the children sit on the side when they come out waiting for their lesson to being. Nobody would be able to do that. They would be seen.’

The father was not at all appeased. The CHILD had already got an accused in mind: a thin weedy looking boy that the girl despised. He was the culprit they’d already decided, despite there being no witnesses, and a complete lack of evidence.

‘Perhaps the glasses fell to the floor and were accidentally stepped upon by her changing room partner.’ I’d suggested, thinking of the elephantine girl that squeezed into the small cubicle with her.

The father wouldn’t hear of it. I could see he now had the beginning of a suspicion that perhaps I had stomped on his precious CHILD’s glasses too.

He complained to the Head teacher.

It was agreed that the CHILD would leave her glasses with me instead.

The next swimming lesson I was already teaching the top group when the CHILD remembered her glasses and brought them to me. I was unable to leave my swimmers, who were in the middle of the deep end and was thus unable to place them in the small office at the other end of the pool, so instead I slipped them into my pocket.

All would have been well had I not been crouching down and explaining some complicated aspect of the crawl to my group, with flailing arms.

The glasses case went flying out of my pocket as I stood up; the case opened on its first bounce on the floor sending the glasses flying through the air, together with their tiny cloth. The glasses smashed onto the hard tiled floor and the cloth landed in a puddle of chlorinated-urinated water that had just been splashed up onto the side.

I scooped them up; thankful that they weren’t broken, and replaced them back in the case. The wipe was wet, but I’d have a chance to explain later, or so I thought.

There was not an opportunity to do so. There was a mix-up with jumpers, a shoe to find, a costume to reunite with its owner, and a pair of ghastly undies that no one would admit to having worn down to the pool. I forgot all about the wet cloth in the glasses case. The CHILD took the case from my hand as I fumbled with a knot that needed to be untied on somebody else’s swim bag.

The next day a furious parent had once again been in to see the Head teacher. I was informed that the glasses now had to be left with the Head and not taken down to the pool at all.

I imagine that her father must have thought that I’d deliberately thrown the CHILD’s specs to the floor, stomped on them, and wet the cloth on purpose; and no doubt the Head had shared this opinion for I was never asked for my version of events. The Head’s cold looks said it all when we next walked down to the swimming pool and the glasses’ case was ceremoniously handed over with the CHILD giving both me and the weedy boy venomous looks.

I wondered if the GIRL in this new school was some distant relative of the CHILD.

Perhaps not, as GIRL smiled at me a few days later and presented me with a skilfully made paper card during a recent wet lunch break.

A peace offering?

Perhaps.

Though … will it work?

I must admit… the urge to stomp on glasses is now very strong!

Fallen Leaves

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There was soft warm-scented air as we across walked the grounds of Hever Castle.

The place is a delight.

There were no guides to harry you through the rooms and you could walk and stand and stare at whatever caught your eye until you had seen it for what it was.

A musician played a variety of ancient songs on a lute guitar, his notes falling down into the Great Hall, and later as we reached the upper rooms his melodies chased down long corridors where children once ran.

He played, ‘She Moves through the Fair,’ and it seemed all the more poignant in such a place.

We were lucky. The weather was warm and mild, and the day was sunny.

Outside, there were ducks and fish to feed, mazes to explore, and finally we took the last boat out onto the boating lake.

A grebe vanished into the depths of the waters, and a heron stretched its neck in the reeds. The setting sun was dazzling and a fat white moon rose above the autumnal trees like a child’s grotesque paper lantern.

We were the last boat on the stillness of the lake, as the shadows fell upon the pavilion, circling and circling a fallen leaf floating on the water.



The Leaf

An oak leaf cast down from the lofty king of trees,
Discarded,
Stained,
Red in colour from its beheading;
Floats.
Momentarily caught on the meniscus.

Just a leaf floating,
Like Anne Bullen’s memory;
Held by faint report,
Of slander and flattery
By the water's bond.

Sailing above
The drowning depths,
Of mud and oblivion.
Under rising mists,
A pocked-white-faced paper moon,
And a setting sun.

.

Skeletal Leaves and Fat Caterpillars

.
.

The veg plot has been a disaster.


There’s no veg to eat!

First the tiny rows of plants struggled towards the light and the slugs and snails from next door crept over the low wall at night and ate them up.

The lettuce went first, then the peas. The carrots were carefully weeded and then disappeared. The spring onions I had such high hopes for grew beautifully then vanished. The marigolds never managed more than a few leaves before they too disappeared. I was hopeful for the cabbage and the sprouts, but then the caterpillars came, destroyed the cabbage and munched through the sprouts’ leaves. I hadn’t the heart to harm the caterpillars, as butterfly numbers are in decline, and hoped that once they earned their wings the plants would recover. The sprout plants did, but their sprout offerings grown in the armpits of their leaves are either tiny or blown.

Still I had high hopes for blackberries from the wild savage briars next door, that I am continually hacking back. Then the bindweed came and suffocated the blackberry leaves. Any fruit left then went musty in the rain.

The only ‘success’ were the nasturtiums. I thought on finding only twelve seeds in the packet that I was being diddled. I did not realise that really twelve seeds was an act of kindness. Only five grew…thank goodness the others didn’t.

These nasturtiums are rampant! I obviously bought the wrong kind. They are spreading beasts. They have set off on a campaign of world domination, clambering over even next door’s bind weed. The tiny brick path into the heart of the veg patch is now inaccessible. Monet apparently grew this plant and also allowed it to trail down paths so he could paint the trailing flowers. I just have the leaves down my path the flowers have gone next door!

Still, I have ‘feasted’ upon the leaves and flowers. I now have orange nasturtiums in every vase inside the house. They are sunny and cheering.



But even more cheering is what’s lurking in my cupboard ready for next year’s attempt at a veg patch, my secret weapon: organic slug pellets!

A Right Bore!

.
.

In the grand tradition of, ‘Things to Do Before you Die’ we boldly set off last night.

We travelled first over the lumpy bumpy Cotswolds, whose true beauties are secreted away down tiny lanes well away from the rapacious eyes of the likes of us urban rapscallions.

At Newnham we found a car park and sat on a bench in the chill evening air as the light faded over the River Severn.

I’d wanted to see the Severn Bore.

The timetables promised a good sized one so we sat under the cathedral of the night sky aware of the hush of other isolated pockets of Bore watchers.

We heard it before we saw it.

But it was a low disappointing wave that rolled steadily by.

‘Well that was a bore!’ proclaimed The Teenager with typical understatement.

‘Perhaps it will be higher further up the river,’ I suggest. ‘Look it’s changed the direction of the river; the river is now flowing the wrong way. It’s raised the water level higher over those sand banks. Look,’ I say.

I’m trying to find something that will impress. I turn to science. ‘It’s a rare phenomenon,’ I gabble trying to find something, anything that will excuse this long expensive journey across country to see this singular unremarkable wave. ‘It’s the Atlantic Ocean!’ I pronounce as if this alone should be enough to induce adulation and ‘Ahhhhs!’

We drive higher up the road. At the Severn Bore Inn we have a chance to witness it all again.

‘Perhaps it will be higher here?’ I gush. 'The river's narrower.'

There are more people here, the atmosphere is one of playful anticipation. Everyone is watching the distant bank for the first signs of the breaking wave.

It comes low around the corner, late.

Someone is shining a strong beam from a torch. The beam is a meter behind the main wave that is hardly breaking at all. The water surges past. There is a boom as it hits something underneath the merry drinkers who are standing on a wooden platform.

‘Can I have the car keys?’ The Teenager asks flatly.

‘There are people in the water,’ I say tempting him to stay longer, trying to find something of interest.

They are surfers who have tried to ride the wave but who have found it was far too low for them too. They are flapping like performing seals and floundering.

‘Er, the keys?’ demands The Teenager.

‘Look, how they're being swept away. Look how strong the current is.’

The teenager is holding out his hand, ‘I’ll wait for you in the car,’ he says.

It’s a long journey home.

We get back home at about one in the morning.

I’m treated to every possible bore joke.

I'm made to promise that I won't drag him to see any more natural phenomena.

But for me some Celtic part of my soul felt that surge of water; and an ancestral primal sense of awe was awakened: as if mysteries were revealed and the gods walked close.

The power of it.

The wonder!

Ahhhhhh!

.

Mice

I seem to get everything wrong.

We have mice again!

I guess the carpets which are made up of 100% chocolate, despite being swept by a Dyson every day, were just too tempting for them.

Then there’s been the wet August weather enough to make any rodent seek warmth and shelter. I’ve read that they can squeeze through tiny gaps in order to get into a house. Probably in our case they just walked in through the open back door!

My old humane mouse trap had become even more humane. It refused to close even gently on any tiny visitor, so I had to buy a new one.

The pet shop owner told me that people usually came to him to buy poison for their mice infestations. I was horrified.

My new trap has caught three mice.

The last was a very young mouse. I drove it to the fields where I’ve released others over the years. I’ve read on the Internet apocryphal tales of released mice finding their way back home again and I hoped that mine would not.

In the far distance there was a hawk hovering over a grassy mound. I hoped my previous releasees had become skilled at hiding from it.

For the hawk to be there at all the mouse population must be doing quite well, I reasoned.

I released the young mouse and immediately felt so sorry for it. It was confused to find itself running along a path and not alongside the familiar skirting board that it knew so well. I knew its chances of survival were not good, but at least it did have a chance. Eventually, it bounded into the long grass and out of sight; and I went home to wash, dry and reset the trap.

Last night a beautiful mouse was caught. This one stole my heart. It was so tiny. It rested its paws on the plastic bar inside the trap in a most appealing way. I wondered about keeping it. We still have two empty hamster cages. It would have made an adorable pet.

I thought about creating a rodent prison until all its siblings were also captives. I then imagined releasing them all at the same time. A spectacle of bounding skipping bodies scurrying off in all directions; but then I remembered what the pet shop man had said about wild mice carrying diseases, and I changed my mind.

It was too late to take the mouse to the fields, so instead I soaked a Chocolatey Square in water and popped it into the trap; so at least it had food, water and shelter for the night; and I went to bed.

In the morning under a lowering cloudy sky I took this tiny baby mouse to the fields. I looked for the hawk but it was not in sight. A group of about four teenage girls on their way to school were dawdling along the path. I waited for them to pass me by before I released the tiny mouse.

It didn’t want to leave the trap despite the flap being left wide open. I gently tapped on the plastic closest to it with my car keys and gingerly it began to step out into its new world.

Once free it began to run, but instead of running into the long grass it ran straight ahead along the path, delighting me with its delicate skips and bounds.

It had gone no more than two yards ahead of me when the hawk swooped.

The hawk grabbed the tiny mouse in its claws, flapped its wings briefly and then arched away high into the air.

I could see the mouse dangling pathetically from its claws against the white sky in a dreadful death silhouette. It had no chance.

I realised that the hawk had probably been watching me from the top of some tall trees behind me. It later perched there, right at the top, and I could not watch.

I was amazed that it had not been deterred by the schoolgirls further along the path or by me standing there.

The thought of it watching my every move, its fatal surveillance of my naivety, my humane stupidity; with its cold calculating flight hardwired to catch and kill; was chillingly disturbing. I felt complicit in a murder.

Worse, I admired the bird for its calculating skill and finely executed manoeuvre.

I read on the Internet how releasing a mouse into an unfamiliar field without the support system of a nest, mobile phone and family is unkind and unethical; and how a mouse will be finished off very quickly. They were right but I hadn’t expected the mouse to only have less than ten seconds of survival time.

In dismay I studied the Internet for alternative solutions to my mouse problem. There is poison which offers a gut wrenching painful death; sticky pads where the mouse become stuck and might sadly gnaw its own legs off in its desperation to get away; then there’s a mouse trap hailed by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) as being the most humane treatment around. This lauded ‘final solution’ of a trap releases carbon dioxide from a tiny gas canister and kills a mouse in 60 seconds. Apparently this trap was given an award for innovation!

I don’t like the sound of any of the alternatives on offer. Tonight I’ll set my humane trap once more, and when it catches the next mouse I shall once again take it to the fields. I’ll avoid the path and release the mouse directly into the long grass. For me this is the most ethical solution at least I’m giving them a chance to live however slim.

And my last mouse… at least it managed a few skips and jumps, before it flew!

Delicious Chocolate Fudge Cake

.
I wondered about baking them a cake as a ‘welcome to the neighbourhood’ gesture. I’d seen the removal van pull up and had heard the sounds of it being decanted into the empty house next door.

This house had been empty for a while. The curtains were down and the floorboards were naked. Workmen had carried out a few basic repairs, and then it had been left empty for months. A few of its windows had been left wide open by the decorator perhaps to air the rooms.

The neighbourhood cats truly appreciated this kindness. Cats, never ones to miss an opportunity, had this wet summer made it their own bijou residence. They’d climb up onto one of the low roofs and then surreptitiously sneak in through the open bathroom window. Once inside no doubt they perfumed the house with a certain Tom Cat’s ‘je ne sais quoi.’

I don’t know how to make cakes, but I wondered about finding a chocolate cake recipe on the internet and then baking one for my new neighbours as a welcome gift.

I imagined baking a delicious chocolate fudge cake; one that would be carefully iced and which would be meltingly soft in the mouth.
However, I knew that any cake that I made would inevitably be flat, burnt around the edges, poisoned with the rust of the tin, have a texture and taste of galvanised rubber and would when bitten into break teeth and send fillings flying.

So I did not bake a cake for my new neighbours.

A few days later I heard the unmistakable sounds of a house warming party being organised in the cats’ former chateau.

Around twelve I went to bed leaving The Teenager downstairs on the computer.

At three I was woken up. There were loud banging sounds and screams. I knew instantly that someone had broken into the house and was downstairs at that very moment murdering The Teenager.

Without hesitation and with my heart pounding, I tumbled out of bed and half fell downstairs to do battle with the intruders.

The downstairs rooms were in blackness. In terror I switched on the bright overhead light.

There was no one there. Everything was still.

The Teenager had obviously long ago gone to bed. From next door I could heard the revellers. The music was blaring. Doors were being banged loudly and it sounded as if an army was doing the conga. I could hear the sounds of people stamping loudly on the bare wooden floorboards.

I met The Teenager on the stairs. He too was bleary-eyed.

Downstairs we held a crisis meeting as the ‘music’ knifed through the bricks and mortar and cut deep into my psyche. There were more loud bangs. It sounded as if our new neighbours were now throwing their all their furniture down the stairs.

I realised to my horror that my car was parked directed outside their front door. I had visions of the drunken revellers smashing chair legs against it; or worse, of the conga line of revellers spilling out onto the street, and its leader stamping over the bonnet of my car before the hob-nailed-booted dancers in tow merrily followed suit.

I decided to move my car out of harm’s way.

It was three-thirty when I dressed, stepped into the black night and moved the car down the road. As I walked back up the street in the dark I realised that my legs were still shaking from the fright that I’d experienced earlier.

Something then clicked as I walked back up the hill in the chill darkness.

I suddenly felt angry. The red haze had descended

Next thing, I’m banging on their window.

It takes an age for someone to come to the door and to successfully unlock it.

She doesn’t speak English very well. She is slight in build and dark-haired. She instantly guesses, from the fury I’m unable to disguise, why I’m standing on her doorstep.

I use wild gestures to make myself understood. I am shaking with fear and anger, I’m expecting to be knifed at the very least. I try to speak calmly and explain the problem. I do not raise my voice and I do not swear.

She apologises, the music is eventually turned off by a belligerent looking man who appeared in the hallway behind her, and the massacre of furniture stops. I shake her hand introduce myself and leave.

They’re from Poland.

Some politician’s sweep of the pen has allowed them into the country and wrecked my night’s sleep.

Back in my small terraced house it is now impossible to sleep. The early morning programmes for under-five year old insomniacs are on the television. Their presenters’ bright garish costumes, brittle voices and artificial sets are sickeningly ugly and bring me no peace.

My day lies in tatters around me. I am muttering darkly. The Teenager is now calling me a racist and he’s probably right.

I’m steaming with anger and wondering what to do next.

Genocide perhaps?

No, I wouldn’t stoop so low.

I might instead… after all ...and much careful thought…bake them one of my cakes instead!
,
.

The Curse of African Man

.
‘Are they usually so quiet,’ I ask after depositing yet another silent teenager on the kerbside and driving away.

‘They usually talk all the time, I don’t understand,’ the Teenager exclaims. ‘It’s when they sit in the car with you…’ his voice trails away but I know the accusing eyes will be lingering.
.
I wonder what it is about me that freezes these friends of his, that I’ve never met before, into silent frozen zombie-like beings as soon as they sit in my car. I gamely attempt to chat with them but it seems they can barely be asked to respond to any attempt at conversation.

I am cautious with one of them I’m aware that he writes a blog, and sure enough after our brief encounter he’s written about my attempt to chat.

I had driven the pair to their destination, unloaded their bikes, and then driven back to pick them up at the end of their cycle jaunt on one of the drier days of the summer.

‘I can’t believe she said, “Epic fail”’ he writes.

I don’t know whether to be pleased that at least the taxi driver was at least noticed;or embarrassed that I’d used two words that resulted in such an outcry.

Indeed, we did have a true “epic fail” with another friend of The Teenager. It was another bike ride that needed teenagers and bikes to be ferried to the start point.

There was one slight problem: this friend couldn’t ride.

J sat mutely in the car, his only contribution to the ambiance of sound was when he sneezed so loudly I was nearly propelled out of the window.

Naively I assumed that after just five minutes of our encouragement and expert tuition anybody could ride a bike. It was not the case. J just could not get his balance, he leaned over heavily as we took it in turns to run by his side holding the bike vertical.

It was exhausting. I’d no idea how heavy a seventeen year old boy could be. J’s weight was astonishing as he leaned onto us.

Still we persevered and after about an hour he was beginning to make some progress on the smooth tarmac of the car park.

African Man had watched us.

‘Hey come here, let me show you how it’s done.’ this stranger said striding over to us with a manly swagger. ‘I’ll show you how we teach kids to ride a bike in Africa.’

I was panting with exhaustion at that point so was hopeful that this strong looking man could help. He seemed confident that he could. Perhaps there was a new technique that I could learn.

He took hold of the handlebars and manoeuvred the bike away from the smooth tarmac and onto the gritty short incline of the overspill car park.

J’s eyes were wide with fear.

‘You’re not going to let go of him are you?’ I asked nervously.

‘No,’ African Man said sonorously.

J took that moment to lean heavily onto this stranger who gasped under the sudden weight. African Man looked up at me in surprise and with sudden comprehension as to how hard it had been for me to support J in his cycling attempts. African Man was visibly sagging too.

‘This is how we teach children how to ride in Africa,’ African Man declared.

I had visions of neophyte cyclists under a hot African sun being taken to the nearest hill and then being launched down rough sandy tracks; and how they would triumphantly ride on towards a glowing horizon to the sounds of whoops and cheers of their barefoot running companions.

I was hopeful.

It didn’t go well. African Man stumbled under J’s weight as J instantly leaned perilously over once more.

‘That’s how we do it,’ African Man declared backing away from his failure to keep J upright for more than a second.

African Man scurried away defeated.

When African Man had left we tried it again from a lower part of the rise.

J managed a short distance unsupported and we cheered.

We returned to the same place and set J up once again.

For four seconds all was well, then J swerved. The front wheel twisted, the bike buckled and he fell heavily under it onto the rough gravel sending up an orange cloud of dust from the ground.

J looked at me accusingly as I helped him to his feet.

‘You were doing it, ‘You were doing it,’ I said, but all words of encouragement were lost on him.
His jeans were ripped and torn, his arms peppered with blood and gravel and his hands were dirtied and ripped by the sharp stones. J’s bleeding wounds had dirt deeply embedded in the cuts.

We cleaned him up as best as we could.

I had to leave them at that point for a meeting, and I hoped that with me gone that they’d try again.

J looked at me as if it was all my fault and I was now running away from them too.

‘I’ll see you at the crossroads then,’ I cheerfully said as I drove away. J looked at me darkly.

Later that afternoon at the meeting point three miles away, I picked them up. I’d hoped to see the two of them riding their bikes triumphantly.

When I first saw them in the distance it didn’t look good. They were both pushing their bikes.
I discovered that they had walked all the way pushing their bikes. J had not got back on after his fall.

J said not a word as I drove him back to his home.

Why did you let African Man get involved?’ The Teenager asked with annoyance once his bloodied friend had been left on the kerbside outside his home. ‘We were doing all right up to then.’

I too regretted the involvement of African Man.

‘Epic Fail?’ I asked as I felt the painful aching of muscles in my arms and legs from supporting J’s weight.

‘Epic Fail,’ The Teenager concurred.

We drove home in silence.
.

How to be the World’s Worst Mum Step Ten: The VCR.

.

Teenagers, born in the nineties, are a superior evolved species. A dramatic genetic mutation occurred somewhere amongst their tightly sprung DNA and resulted in the creation of this superior being.

This change meant as soon as they could move and flex their fingers around a remote control they were already able to switch on any machine, set complex timers and get probes to land with pin-point accuracy on Mars.

It has been embarrassing to ask little ones barely out of nappies to record television programmes, to set alarm clocks, and to connect us to the Internet, but as we’ve never had the faintest idea how any of this works it’s been the only way. Luckily, our shameful ignorance was only evident behind closed doors, and as our infants had yet to learn how to talk we got away with it.

Later, we were able to breathe a deep sense of relief when The Teenager sorted out the deeper meaning of life by unravelling the complexities of wireless networks, or by setting the timer on the cooker or by getting the DVD machine to work. We adults were able to sit back and watch with pride and awe as our youngsters’ busy fingers got to work and brought us the meaning of life in the form of Wikipedia.

All we had to do was to sit and watch like fat contented Buddhas.

Weaning is a dreadful process that we all have to go through eventually. The Teenager had decided that it was time to wean me. He was obviously concerned that it was now time for me to try my own wings.

It was my own fault, I’d caught him at a bad time. He wanted a programme recorded and he wanted me to do it unsupervised.

‘I can’t do it,’ I wailed.

The Teenager gritted his teeth, ‘Yes you can,’ he declared. ‘It’s easy.’

‘No, you do it. I might get it wrong,’ I argued.

The Teenager didn’t flinch. ‘This is what you do. Just five easy steps…’

He listed them.

I listened.

‘Come with me.’ I begged.

‘No,’ he said flatly, as if he’d just read the manual on tough love.

His face was set.

I went into the next room alone aware that I was about to try my wings for the first time and hopefully fly.

I followed the steps one by one as far as step 2.

Step 1 change the channel to number 8. I did so.

Step 2 change the VCR number to 4

Nothing happened, so I had to abandon Steps 3-5.

In dismay I returned to face The Teenager. ‘It didn’t work,’ I moaned.

‘What did you do?’ he asked coldly.

I went through the list while he listened.

‘It didn’t work.' I repeated.

The Teenager’s eyes narrowed. Laser light seemed to be zapping me from them as he asked imperiously, ‘And did you switch the VCR on?’

‘That wasn’t one of the instructions,’ I protested lamely.

‘That should have been obvious,’ the exalted one proclaimed.

I tiptoed away tripping over my unfurled wings.

Alone, I switched the machine on, followed the instructions and found I could fly!

.

.

The Culpepper Ghost?

.
I was sat on an old wooden seat carved from the trunk of a tree and looking across a lake towards Grimsthorpe Castle that we had just visited. It was a beautiful scene and yet I sense a feeling of disconnection from it. I felt I did not belong there at that time and that the place would be happier seeing the back of me.

We had nearly not got in at all. As we travelled up the long drive, after travelling nearly fifty miles, the teenager asked me if I had any money. This was the first time he’d ever asked this question. To my horror I realised that I had forgotten to bring any!

The ticket office was already before me and a following car prevented any escape. We were allowed to park out of the way while we search the car for elusive coins. We had to find £18 to admit the two of us to the house and grounds. Luckily, that was the exact amount we managed to find. We were in, but perhaps left with a sense of disquiet and unease that remained with us. I have never forgotten to bring money before on a day trip.

The teenager had gone to ‘stretch his legs’ while I looked towards the house. There were short nettles on the patch of ground in front of the seat that prevented me from walking down to the lake. There was no chance of feeding the ducks the few remnants of crusts that we had left over from our picnic. The ducks had the chilled aloofness of wildness I guessed they had been rather fed.

There was a sound behind me. I kept still. I could hear someone stealthily creeping up behind me as if to spring a surprise. I guessed it was the teenager who was about to put his hands over me eyes. The rustling became louder, ‘I can hear you’ I said out loud and I laughed and turned around.

To my dismay there was nobody there.

There was also no place for anyone to hide. There was an open field behind me. I was so convinced that it was The Teenager playing a joke that I checked every corner of the seat expecting him to spring up at me.

He wasn’t there.

Unsettled I sat back again to wait for his return but this time I was keenly alert to every sound. The breeze would occasionally brush nettles against the back of the seat but that hadn’t been the sound I’d heard.

I had heard the sound of someone approaching.

The Teenager appeared eventually and we continued with our walk around the lake.

What was it I heard?

Was it the sound of Catherine Howard sneaking up on Thomas Culpepper. Had they found a chance to find a few elicit moments away from the watchful eyes of the Henry VIII’s court on the journey up to York? Had she once crept up on him in such a way and covered his eyes with her hands, or had he once crept up on her? Had this particular ancient tree trunk from which the seat was carved held a memory of sound in its heartwood?

Was it the sound of ghostly rustling silks and taffeta that I heard or just the sound of nettles scratching disinterestedly on the back of the tree trunk seat?

The Teenager wasn’t impressed, ‘Come on let’s go,’ he said.

I had the sense of being out of time, and felt uncomfortable and dissociated from the landscape until we passed by the arches of an ancient broken bridge.

Ghost perhaps?

.

The Sound of Trickling Water

.

There was a trickling sound coming from behind the dashboard of my car. I was instantly alarmed. I peered under the bonnet but could see nothing amiss, and there were no puddles pooling underneath the engine. I tried a few engine starts and heard the sound again, something like water trickling against cool rocks.

The Internet also offered calming suggestions giving me links to peaceful Japanese gardens and inner peace despite typing in the word Peugeot.

I felt like a hypochondriac fearing to take the car on any further journeys after all it was only a little sound. I wondered if water had somehow got lodged behind the dashboard and was trying to find a way down towards the ground, but was instead like water trapped in a bottle sloshing from side to side. More Internet research and I knew what the problem was namely the head gasket.

I booked an appointment at the garage and duly arrived motoring down there as gently as I could. I parked my car amongst the glamorous looking second hand models that were for sale where it looked sheepish and out of place.

The receptionist listened carefully to my description.

‘So it doesn’t sound like water sloshing against rocks on a seashore?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said ‘more like water just trickling down.’ I was beginning to grasp at false hope: if I wasn’t hearing the sound of the sea crashing against rocks and was instead simply hearing the sounds of a peaceful Japanese garden perhaps my diagnosis was wrong.

I remembered the words ‘head gasket’ from my late teenage years. The words were spoken in awed terror and dread by fellow students as they peered at dirty hot oil-covered Cortina car engines. It is the hushed cancer equivalent phrase that often spelt the death knell of a car.

‘Sounds like the head gasket,’ he said without any reassuring bedside manner. Then he began the numbers game. ‘It will cost…’ he paused. ‘£46 to diagnose, but with that description it can’t be anything else.’

I despaired at his expensive logic.

He’s peering at his computer again. ‘To repair it will cost…’ there is a long pause. I’m counting £50 with each passing second. I’ve reached £2000 before he finally says ‘over £600.’

I am both relieved and shocked.

‘Then of course if there’s been damage we may have to send other parts away to be re-engineered.’

I sign the consent form and wait for my lift home amongst the shiny brand new cars that are prostituting their wares around me with tempting open doors and the alluring perfume of clean plastic.

My car is gone from amongst the gleaming second hand models as I leave.

‘It’s already being stripped down,’ I’m told.

I feel embarrassed and ashamed.

I’m driven back home in a large floozy of a car. It has a control panel as big as the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise.

‘£109 a month,’ the man pimps, ‘that’s all it costs.’

A tuneless song is blaring from the radio.

I long for my dear old car which smells of chocolate, and runs to a different tune.
.

Just Keep Walking!

The ‘No Smoking’ sign has been stolen from my local florist’s shop window.

‘They cost £11,’ she moans.

She points to the adhesive still left on the window, grubby sticky marks on a crystal clean pane of glass.

I hadn’t realised that all businesses had had to display such a sign, even small one room businesses like hers, which consists of just one small room crowded with buckets holding flowers.
Someone has made a killing selling all those signs, and now thieves are busily at work stealing them. Somewhere, in one of the darker corners of England, shady characters are probably hiding their illicit hoard of stolen signs and grubby notes are exchanging hands as they are surreptitiously sold on.

These signs are everywhere; and as a non-smoker I’m grateful for the clean air they allow me to breathe inside buildings. The smoking problem has been moved from the inside of buildings to the streets. No sooner do you step outside a railway station for example then you are forced to walk the gauntlet of smokers who are just starting to light up. It is even worse in capital cities such as Dublin and London. Outside every tourist attraction people are desperately lighting up and puffing away. The Tower of London visit for us was marred by having to walk past so many smokers. Their smoke goes in our lungs, in our hair and weaves around our clothes making us feel grubby. I wish smokers would walk a long way away from others before they light up. In fact I wish they would just keep walking!

Then people like my local florist would not have to fork out another £11 for a sign.

.

Silvery Moon

.


There is a round moon shaped circle in the middle of the carpet.



I discovered the circle when I lifted up the glass bowl: the circle glints like a fallen moon on the carpet, or like a magical silvered fairy ring. It looks like it should have been created by an ethereal creature, but that is not the case, it has been made by…

a slug!

This silvered shrine is from the slime from a slug: an evil creature whose imperilled life I could not take and which found itself flying through the air into the garden of the empty house next door moments later.

Slugs occasionally attach themselves to the bin bags that I have to carry through the house. This one must have fallen off and slithered under the settee. For weeks I’d followed its trail moving furniture away from walls and lifting carpets to peer into crevices all to no avail. How a slug could live without food or water was astonishing, but live it did, leaving its silver trails as an unsettling sickening taunt.


The teenager spotted the slug late one night just after I’d fallen into a blissful sleep. He woke me up to say that he’s spotted, it and demanded that I should go downstairs at once and deal with it.
I was too tired to do so.

‘You do it,’ I said closing my eyes as I tried to drift off again.

The teenager protested loudly for about fifteen minutes.

‘Just get a wine glass and cover it,’ I suggested.

‘No you do it,’ the teenager moaned.

‘Just get a glass I repeated.

Eventually he left, and I was able to drift back into a dreamless sleep.

In the morning, I discovered that instead of a wine glass my large glass mixing bowl had been used to cover the slug; and that the creature had obviously wandered round and round, and also across the central space under its domed prison in an attempt to escape.

I couldn’t kill it, much as I loathe slugs and detest the way that they eat some of my favourite plants leaving me with a garden devoid of sunflowers.

Instead, I released it into the wilderness next door, hoping that it would not return.

It won't come back will it?
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There are no Irish People Living in Dublin.

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The receptionist at the hotel was from Mauritius. The taxi driver from Hell was from Nigeria. The Grafton Street waiter was from the Far East. The people swarming on the open-decked buses were from the far corners of the Earth but of an Irishman or woman there was not the briefest of glimpses.

They are gone like the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Fir Bolg before them. They have likewise become mythical. There has been wave after wave of invasion, and the Irish, who once lured unsuspecting gullible Americans to look at the ‘Fairy Hill’ in Aunt Maisie’s field in return for a few coins; or sold them empty milk bottles featuring the shamrock; or even offered Americans ‘ancient’ Shillelaghs for sale that they’d manufactured the night before, this proud race is gone.

The Irish in Dublin are mythical beings being kept alive in spirit only by the tour guides who point out the doors that once opened for the King of England and which were built for such a purpose by the Irish.

Like the lost Irish crown jewels, the Irish, the real jewels of the land, are likewise lost.

In Kilmainham Jail the legend of the Irish is most fiercely defended. There was a group of them once that their fellow Irish hadn’t much noticed who were shot by firing squad in the jail and who were thought of only after one of their number was tied to a chair to face his executioners.

The monument to those that were involved in the Easter Rising is in the Post Office building on O’Connell Street. Their declaration with its proud words is powerfully moving; as is the statue of the glorious hero Cúchulainn who is betrayed by ravens that are about to peck at his dead body as he hangs from the rock he is tied to.

Nobody stops to look or read the declaration. It is Sunday evening, the night is young and the city is drawing the young towards the sticky web of its centre.

Too traumatised by the fervent description of life in Kilmainham Jail, the many senseless executions that took place there and Cúchulainn’s brave death, I walk back towards my hotel.

At the top of O’Connell Street there is a church. I wonder if this was the church the men of the Easter Rising prayed in. People are going in. I decide to join them. Perhaps here I will meet the Irish.

The church is packed. The two men I’ve just squeezed past look disgruntled. I slide onto a pew. The service is already in progress. A group of men are singing. From time to time a few other late comers arrive. They slip onto their seats and then pray.

I don’t understand the language. With a thrill I wonder if this is Irish Gaelic. This would be a fitting place for the resurgence of the language, right at the top of O’Connell Street. How the men of the Easter Rising would rejoice. I listen more closely to the words hoping to understand a word or two, but they all elude me. I wonder where the priests are: the black gowned priests I learnt about from the Dave Allen sketches. I’m puzzled that I can’t see any.

The speaker calls them to pray and the whole congregation sinks to its knees. I’ve never heard prayers like it. Each individual is praying their own prayer and muttering.

It’s an unholy endless sound.

I look around at the kneeling congregation which is mainly composed of men and imagine brave Irish warriors, an army of men sinking to their knees before a battle. This must have been the sound that men made as they knelt on bog and grass before they went to their deaths the next day.

Somewhere at the back of the hall someone with a more pressing prayer raises his voice in a high falsetto imploring his god for aid. Thus the men of old would have prayed. The next day probably brought no hope but only despair for the men who went into battle, likewise I fear there is no hope for these prayers either.

They chill and unnerve me.

There is a new speaker that follows after a girl has sung a song almost beautifully; and another has read a poem; the latter stretching her hands out as if she is able to summon the dead to rise and follow her.

There is no cameraderie, no warmth, no friendship, no smiles in this church. It is as if each person is sitting in their own invisible stall as they are preached at.

A two handled bag is being passed around for the congregation to drop coins and notes into. It's passed swiftly from person to person as if the handles are too hot to hold for long, or as if no one wants to be seen holding it when the music stops. The men next to me feign dropping their offering into the bag, moving their hands over the mouth of the bag like apprentice magicians.

I'm appalled. Shocked that they did not pass the bag openly if they did not choose to donate that day.

The man at the front of the church is loud. His face is magnified by a camera onto a screen behind him.

The loud speakers send his voice reverberating around the hall. There is a harsh quality to his words. Every sentence is loud and condemnatory. He goes on and on. I wonder why the congregation don’t walk out on him. I don’t understand a word but whatever he’s saying it’s ugly and tiresome.

I yearn for silence, for the holy peace of carpeted quietness. I decide I will walk out and reclaim my freedom: the birthright of the atheist.

It is a relief to have escaped.

In the vestibule are two ushers.

‘Did you understand any of it?’ one of the men asks.

‘Not one word,’ I reply.

‘Our translator is on holiday,’ he says apologetically.

What's the speaker saying now?’ I ask

Oh, it’s something from the Bible,’ the man says. ‘You know, the Bible.’ He emphasises the last word as if it’s likely I’ve never heard of it, almost spelling it out.

‘And what language is he speaking?’ I ask.

‘Rumanian,’ the man says.

‘Rumanian!’ I say.

No wonder I couldn’t understand a word. The headscarves worn by the girls make more sense now too.

And I walk out lighter than air with laughter! Rumanian!

I am right. There’s not a single Irish man any left anywhere in Dublin.

Dublin has been captured and taken over by Rumania.

Dave Allen must be chuckling in his heaven with his gods.

...
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Enchantment

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I meet an Irishwoman on the train from Crewe to Holyhead she is thin and fearsome.

It’s her son who finds the seats for them. He seems to be the one who is taking care of the family: looking ahead, predicting. It is he who generously and protectively settles his little sister next to the window, an action that leaves him sitting opposite his mum and vulnerable.

The boy is sensitive and aware of people watching; he fears judgement and criticism. He fleetingly casts his eyes at his mum; he is calculating her mood. Inside the bag that rests on the table are cakes but he does not dare to ask for one; instead he waits with the patience of an obedient dog until she tells them to take one each and eat. He does so and helps his sister to hers.

His mother reads a cheap magazine and ignores them.

Their hands are sticky by the time they’ve finished. The boy wipes his hands on his trousers the little girl wipes hers on the fabric of the seats. The girl is beautiful. Her wavy blonde hair has one plait down the back. She’s about three years old and wriggly. She has yet to learn the deference of her brother. She is bold, demanding and pushy, though she too is starting to be watchful. She is braver than her brother; though he mistakes her courage for foolhardiness. When their mother snaps harshly at them she stares back defiantly and there is the twist of a smile on her face as she extends her protest.

The boy clever but cowed is thinking ahead and calculating; working out a plan to protect them both.

‘Let’s sleep he suggests,’ he feigns sleep tucking his head onto a seat rest.

I wonder how many times he’s used this tactic to protect them both.

His sister imitates him trying to rest her head onto the cold glass window that offers no comfort. Their mother ignores them, offers no soft cardigan to help, no advice. It’s the boy who shows his sister how to fold down the arm rest. She does so and then returns it to its place. I’m fearful for her fingers, but her mother shows no interest.

The children safe in this realm of feigned sleep from their mother’s sharp tongue, slip into the safer realm of real sleep; as the train travels through the enchanted land of Wales, past sandy beaches, castles and mountains.


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The Knowledge

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I was awake at four unable to sleep.

I was leaving Dublin. I was going to catch the 8:45 am Irish Ferry. There was nothing else to do except to pack my small back pack.

The early alarm call that I’d booked to make sure that I didn’t oversleep trilled hours later. I laughed with the receptionist who was surprised to find the recipient of his call already wide awake and so chatty.

I even had time to explore the hotel’s labyrinth of downstairs rooms that opened up like secret chambers, one after the other, as I pushed open fire doors.

In one of the distant rooms, I had been told, I’d find the newspapers. I did.

Then there I was, happily reading and eating my early morning breakfast at leisure. Wide awake and chipper.

I was cool and relaxed.

At 7:30 I was outside the hotel waiting for my taxi ride down to the quays: a journey that would only take a few minutes.

At 7:35 I was beginning to feel tense.

At 7:40 I was worried. There was no sign of my taxi.

‘I’ll be there at 7:30 outside your hotel,’ the taxi driver Thomas had promised.

He never turned up.

At 7:45 I decided to walk down to the taxi rank on O'Connell Street to get another one.

At 7:50 I’m in a taxi driven by Samuel, who is from Nigeria.

All goes well at first, although Samuel’s driving is frightening and includes techniques such as not giving way, or giving an inch of space to other road users.

One of my feet is already pressing an imaginary brake hard to the ground.

At 7:55 the calm voice of the SAT NAV relaxes me a little. She seems to have everything under control. Traffic lights hold us up close to the bus station and Samuel drums his fingers impatiently.

They change and we’re off again.

At 8:00 we’re travelling down a very long straight road. Ahead of us I can see a car has stopped and is about to try to reverse into a parking spot. It’s all in full clear view. Samuel drives at speed as if the road is clear, as if there isn’t a small blue car suspended in time awkwardly positioned on the road ahead of us blocking our road. Both my feet are now pressing hard on the imaginary brakes. My fingers are gripping my knees. The blind SAT NAV lady says not a word.

‘I think he’s reversing,’ I suggest.

Samuel speeds up.

I close my eyes ready for the impact.

Somehow, we miss the car.

I am now wide-eyed and silent with fear my hands are clutching my knees.
At the next junction there is a sign for Irish Ferries pointing to the right.
Samuel turns left.

‘I think the ferry is the other way,’ I suggest helpfully.

Samuel is in the outer lane and seems unable to drift across the lanes onto a slip road that could help us to turn around. The thought doesn’t even seem to occur to him. I wonder if he knows of another alternative quicker route known only to taxi drivers.

At 8:05 there is something like a motorway ahead of us. There is a toll booth. Samuel curses under his breath and throws a couple of brassy looking coins into the dish. Nothing happens, the barrier remains down. Grumbling he throws in more. The barrier lifts and we speed along again into a carbon-monoxide underworld tomb of fumes. There are lorry wheels whirring close to me and I can feel the sweat on my palms. The light is yellow and sickly. The road seems to go on for ever.

At 8:10 I’m resigned. I know that there is no way we can make the check in time. I’m fearful for my life. Perhaps Samuel who has only just arrived in Ireland from Nigeria and is actually kidnapping me mistaking me for an albino whose bones he could grind up for ritualistic magic.

At 8:15 ‘Perhaps we should take that exit I suggest.’

He does so, and turns the car around. I expect him to go back through the tunnel but instead he takes a different exit on seeing the toll booths again and we are now in the greyer edges of Dublin travelling with the rush hour Monday morning traffic. Cars are netted like shimmering fish at every set of traffic lights.

Samuel drives fast and stops with such suddenness, I seriously think of opening the door and running.

At 8:20 the Sat Nav lady talks again and calms me down. Samuel calculates her lefts and rights with his fingers.

The lights are red.

I’m holding my breath.

At 8:25 I attempt to explain to Samuel that I will have missed the check-in time, but he has only limited understanding of English and does not understand. We are snarled in traffic next to dingy grey buildings.

At 8:30 we are nearing the ferry terminal again. I point out the sign and we follow the long road again.

The place is quiet, deserted. There is nobody around. It’s as if all living things have been sucked from that place.

It is grey place as were my hopes.

At 8:33 I’m dropped off many yards from the terminal building.

The fare is 36 Euros. I pay him only 10 and walk away on trembling legs into the cool terminal.

It is as I feared, as I enter the silence of the hall, both the check out desks for Irish Ferries are closed, the signs proclaim as much.

There is nobody about.

The place is silent.

I see one man hidden against the wall.

‘You’ve missed the ferry,’ he says.

I nod.

‘What’s the time?’ I ask.

‘8:35,’ he says. ‘You have to check in half an hour earlier to catch the ferry,’ he explains.

I nod. ‘I know,’ I say.

I’m too shaky to argue. I’m resigned for a four hour wait for the next ferry. ‘My taxi driver got lost,’ I explain calmly.’ He took me through a tunnel.’

As if this is some sort of secret password, the man begins to chat on his walkie-talkie. It’s arranged. With a quick look at my ticket, he writes my name on the list, prints a boarding pass and I’m whisked away through ‘Arrivals’ onto a coach, and then onto the ferry.

I am astonished as I find that I have a seat, and I can see Dublin already slipping away. Beneath my feet are chugging vibrations of the boat.

The sun shines and I feel blessed.

I discover later that the taxi drivers on O'Connell Street are famous for getting lost. It seems they most have come recently from abroad and they don’t as yet have ‘The Knowledge’ of Dublin.

Travellers beware!

Irish Ferries, for not being ‘jobsworths’, absolutely brilliant. I sing your praises!

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