Svengali

 

I bought the single ticket months ago, and it had been propped up on the kitchen window sill behind the orchid.

And yesterday was the big day.

I’m not at all used to going out in the evening and it’s years since I’ve been to the theatre. Usually, if ever I’m going into town at night it’s as ‘Mum’s Taxi’.

First, I couldn’t find the entrance to the theatre. It used to be opposite the museum, but the old entrance had disappeared. When did that happen?

Eventually, I followed some people through the door into the other theatre, and a woman who was even carrying her bicycle inside. Is there now a bicycle rack for theatre goers somewhere inside? She had disappeared before I’d negotiated a few swing doors so I never found out. Was that the first illusion?

With these confusions over, I was amazed to discover how many people were already in the bright theatre foyer.

There was a long queue for the bar which I joined. I bought a hot chocolate . £2 I was told.

‘That’s expensive,’ I commented.

‘Yeah, but it’s really nice,’ the smiling girl replied.

I doubted that. It was in a white plastic cup only three-quarters full and looked industrial.

All the seats in the foyer and bar area had already been taken and so I looked for a place to comfortably stand and passed a table with programmes for the event. But I thought £8 was far too expensive. Perhaps I’m just out of touch with today’s theatre prices. Then I thought it would be nice just to sit down in the auditorium, but the auditorium was not yet open and so I was left wondering what slick effects were still being put onto the stage.

A young usher then joined another nearby.

‘Don’t I know you?’ the younger woman asked.

It seems that she did.

So we chatted for a while and then the other usher told me about her grandchildren and suddenly I was once again caught up in the warp and weft of life and despite my dark clothes I was once again one of its colours.

Then doors were unlocked.

I had a wonderful seat just five rows back from the stage, right in the middle of the stalls, and a perfect view of the stage. I was surprised that the curtain was open so that we could already see the set and drifts of ‘haze’.

As people were finding their seats, paper and pencils were being handed out. Somehow I was missed, much to my relief. However, later in the show those of my ilk must have felt similar anxiety when there were further chances to be randomly chosen. No one was safe.

This was the first Derren Brown show I’d even been to and I was so impressed by his warm stage presence and his incredible skill at involving the audience, even those way up in the gods. He should be in the Olympics for his Frisbee throwing skills alone.

I was also amazed by the confidence shown by those who were selected to go on stage, who all played their parts really well.

Though there was one man who bounded down from the upper reaches of the theatre having just caught a Frisbee who then took a very unorthodox route onto the stage. He jumped up onto it at the corner  instead of using the steps. This man, whoever he was, was obviously an extravert, but whether he was an actor or a clown we were never to find out as Derren politely asked him to leave the stage, citing  his dramatic entrance as being partly the reason why he wouldn’t be able to ‘read’ more of this man’s character.

There was a lot of audience participation. It was amusing to watch the people in the circle with such good humour throwing their balled papers into the basket that Derren held. There was so much laughter it was almost like a children’s party.

On two occasions I found myself standing with everyone one else, and towards the end of the show I almost caught a balloon, but then just as it descended toward my lap the man next to me reached over and whacked it away.

At the end of the show there was a standing ovation and Derren Brown looked delighted with his well deserved applause.

All in all it was brilliant entertainment.

And I would love to say more, and perhaps even qualify the above statement a little, but to do so might give away the plot. I do hope I’ve not given nothing away here as I do wish to respect Derren Brown’s request that no spoilers should be revealed.

This request seems to be well observed on the internet, for I searched to see if a possible ‘glitch’ had previously happened in any previous shows, or if it was all just part of the act, but I couldn’t find any reference to that particular detail at all. So I’m looking forward to seeing the show again if it is televised to enjoy it all again and to clarify that one thing..

Thank you so much Derren Brown for a wonderful evening.

The Gong Bath

 

The last session of the day was a ‘Gong Bath’.

A ‘Gong Bath’!

In a room full of other gong bath neophytes, I lay down upon a black blanket that the kindly gong master had provided

Then this grey-haired man began.

The sound was unearthly.

It suggested the heavy progression of doomed planets turning upon their axes and drifting slowly through space.

It was a dangerous unnatural sound: one that perhaps should only be found at the banished outer edges of the universe even though its presence there would have been in defiance of physics. It was a sound alien to human ears, with sounds within sounds in wave after wave.

Initially, it was fine but then these rolling, vibrating sounds, became too loud and too monotonous to long endure.

Lying on my soft black blanket of velveteen with closed eyes these sounds created great rolling clouds above me; crashing sulphurous cumulous clouds that were edged with dark yellows and grim browns. I looked for breaks amongst them but the wave after wave of sound was relentless and even more oppressive. It is as if it would be understood by whales and I feared their distress upon hearing it, and the deviation from their ocean paths it might cause them for this sound did not seem bound by the confines of the room and appeared to carry persistence, confusion and the ugliness of metals freed from their bound state into the greater beyond.

I yearned for lighter tones. I yearned for more variation. I yearned for softness and the cirrus clouds of finer vibrations. But the gong master fills his gong bath only with the deepest, loudest sounds. These were the striding manly sounds that go on and on like the rolling cries of successive wars victims being flung against the blackest rocks.

Then this dreadful sound (‘dreadful’ here with the old meaning of awe and fear) was broken unexpected by something that sounded like the trill of a bird but again it this was too loud and also far to artificial to have any relevance.

The dark clouds above my head had by now became heavier and even more oppressive. Also, a chill was creeping up from the floor below and into my spine. Feeling by now very uncomfortable I sat up and opened my eyes. I discovered that a friend nearby had also sat up.

“When will it end?” she whispered, as if drowning.

We both wanted to get out of this bath.

I watched the gong master at work. The gongs were decorated with symbols. He used different mallets softened with felted heads to caress and tap them to create his sounds. I wondered if there were ritualistic ways of sounding these gongs, and if each different method released different patterns of vibrations, but watching very closely I could detect very little in the way of artistry in his movements, and the sound remained heavy and oppressive no matter which stroke he used.

He then picked up another instrument rather like a flute and blew a few breathy notes. These notes were not quite right, and I could not help but be amused by these high pitched squeaky sounds which had so little affinity with bird song, which I guess he’d hoped to emulate, and which also failed to blend with the sonorous gongs. My friend by now was stifling giggles. These giggles were mounting, being fed by a boy who was sitting on the back row with his mother, for he was doubled up with mirth at the ineptitude of the gong master, and every time he caught my friend’s eye the two giggled even more.

It was like they had rumbled the king with no clothes.

The gong master, who hopefully remained oblivious of all this, returned to his solemn gongs, unleashing even more poisonous clouds of sulphurous sound, and we at the back worked even harder to stifle our giggles. Then as he walked around the room playing different instruments he set off our giggles anew as soon as his back was turned.

The gong bath would have been wonderful if an eruption of laughter had been allowed to weave its magic into the gonging as part of the sound. Or if at the start of the session we had been told feel free to add any sounds of your own, instead of his expectation that there would be passive participation and respectful silence.

Laugh if you want to, sing if you want to, be yourself! What a treat that would have been. Instead we were left buttoned up with inhibitions and frustrations.

Instead of the gongs bathing us with mystery, we were instead bathed in muddy waters of sound which left us feeling dirtied and choked up.

I wanted to grasp the mallets from his hands and create a more ethereal sound, one that spoke of blue skies and the sweeping flight of birds. I wanted someone else to play the flute. Someone who would find  pure invisible notes to harmonise and add colour to his heavy monotonous brown wash. I wanted him to have taken more time over the initial meditation, when he asked us to imagine holding a ball of energy, and that energy seeping up first one arm and then down the other, and then down the right leg. It was all far too hurried. And he had also forgot the left leg. Why did he forget the left leg?

“If you want to tell me of any of your experiences I will be happy to speak to you,” he says quietly right at the end.

He is hesitant, self-effacing, a quiet gentle man who is under the delusion that his gong bath was magnificent and that he has given us a wondrous gift. That we attained astral heights. That we felt our bodies levitated and our chakras cleansed. That we were healed of aches and pains. That our souls were strengthened and rejuvenated; and that we were realigned to our true appointed destinies. That we touched the meniscus of enlightenment and managed to pierce its skin. He does not know that some of us were slipping off the slopes that could have taken us to such hopeful peaks, or that some fell into dark valleys through his lack of skill and empathy, and that many simply wanted the oppressive sound to stop.

And I feel sorry for him, because he truly believes in all this, and he’s such a nice man.

So once our gong bath plug is pulled, we rush away, releasing gurgles of laughter.

But sadly we are not energised, we are exhausted.

And I am only too eager to treasure the simple non-silence of stillness, and the beauty of true music held in the chirping of birds.

Yet Another ~Enemy

 

It seems that something happens to me as soon as I step out of the door.

It’s as if the universe is waiting, watching, ready to pounce. It’s a worry!

I have a letter I need to post. It will take me five minutes to walk up the road and five minutes back. Ten minutes in all.

What could possibly happen in ten minutes?

I will even do it in less time as I need to rush to catch the five-thirty collection.

So what could the universe possibly throw at me in less than ten minutes?

I dash out.

I cross the road, and then turn left onto a road named after a poet.

I’m hurrying.

“S’cuse me.”

The voice is faint. Did I really hear that?

I glance around not expecting to see anyone, doubting that anyone was really calling to me.

There is a thin young wisp of a woman standing on the opposite corner next to the corner shop. I stop. I’m imagining that she is hoping I can give her directions; perhaps tell her how to get from A to B. I’m all set to help, but it will have to be quick as I’m in a hurry.

“Can you go into the shop and get me some fags?” she asks.

I’m astonished. Disappointed.

“No,” I say. “They’re not good for you.”

I can’t see her face. I’m not wearing my glasses. I can’t see her reaction as I turn and continue on my way.

But Thin Young Wisp of a Woman instantly becomes a parrot. She is now talking to someone else, and then echoes my words, “They’re not good for you.”

I don’t turn to look. I’m annoyed at myself. Why on earth couldn’t I just say no and leave it at that?

I continue up the road. I post my letter and turn around to go back the way I’ve just come.

As I reach the middle of the road I realise that Thin Young Wisp of a Woman is walking towards me with another teenage girl.

She is whispering about me to her friend. As I approach nearer they are both giggling and staring at me.

I stare back.

“I got my fags,” she laughs triumphantly. She waves the packet.

“More fool you,” I reply.

I then wonder who she got to go into the shop for her. I wonder who was beguiled by her wispy blonde hair and her slight frame. I wonder who thought they were doing her a favour, and who it was that got a smug thrill of satisfaction from their deluded act of kindness.

And I wonder how in less than ten minutes I could have  made yet another enemy!

 

.

A Great Big Bouncing Dog

 

I was walking back home across the meadows by the river.

These meadows border the railway lines and there are houses which back on to them. It’s a place of bruised beauty. A sullied abused place.

I am accompanied partway by a companion who is walking her two dogs. One is a border collie, which runs freely; whilst the other is held firmly on the lead. This is a recued dog, which is usually muzzled on this walk as it had a tendency for aggression. Though through my friend’s great care it is now beginning to mellow. It’s a dog with a slight frame and fine bones. A sensitive creature that is learning to forget the mistreatment it suffered as a puppy.

However, it’s also a dog that’s gained a reputation for threatening other people and their dogs, and the man who walks towards us with his great big bounding dog eyes it warily.

“Is that the rescued dog?” he asks, whilst his dog begins to flirt with the circling border collie.

My friend laughs.

“This dog is known by many names.”

She lists a few. They are mostly two-parters, and mostly feature the word ‘Devil’.

Calmly the slight dog stands back as if these names belong to some other creature. It is well groomed and its short hair is  glossy black. It behaves perfectly.

Meanwhile, the love tryst between the border collie and the great big bounding dog is culminating with some more amorous attentions.

The man drags his dog off the collie, and then they continue on their way.

We walk in the opposite direction towards the town.

We have gone quite a distance when there is a sudden rush of darkness. It is the great big bounding dog. The collie is delighted and prances happily, and the two continue their romance.

My friend and I look back for its owner but there is no sign of him.

The great big bounding dog is now taking his love affair a step further, and the collie is quite happily accepting these amorous attentions.

But I know that the collie is getting on in years, and that my friend does not want her to have puppies. But my friend cannot intervene as she is holding the lead of the rescued dog, so I step forward.

I grab the chain around the neck of the great big bounding dog and drag him off. The collie yelps. I am now holding the big dog by his chained collar; my friend suggests that I should slip on the spare lead.

I do so.

There is still no sign of its owner; so I say I will walk this dog back in the direction that the man took.

Confidently I set off  back along the track: just this dog and I.

I look down at the dog and find it is staring up at me. It has great big brown eyes. I quickly look away. To be the top dog in this situation I know better than to enter a staring contest.

A little further along I spot the dog’s owner. He is a slight man dressed a little shabbily. I think there may have been silver earrings in his left ear and perhaps tattoos on his arms, but this is all conjectured now with the benefit of hindsight, for things suddenly started to move fast.

The dog pulls on the lead back in the direction of the collie, and I am dragged almost off my feet. I can’t hold this dog. I had no idea it had such strength and power. The man rushes forward. He releases the lead and the dog bounds off. I am bewildered as I realise that the man is actually intent on walking in the same direction as we were. He is obviously heading back home.

“What kind of dog is he?” I ask.

“A Rottweiler.”

I look at him in horror. The man seeing my expression then adds lazily, “They are not bad dogs. There are only bad owners.”

His dog is out of sight.

I’m speechless.

I walk back towards my friend who is still holding the lead of the rescued dog. The rescued dog is sitting patiently on the path waiting. The great big Rottweiler is again finding ways of entertaining the collie.

Eventually, the man takes his dog off her and walks away.

I am left in shock.

“I didn’t realise that was a Rottweiler,” I say.

“Didn’t you?” my friend replies. “I saw him looking at you as you walked him back. He was obviously trying to work you out. He must have decided you were all right.”

I feel so foolish for my D-  dog recognition skills.

Then I go over what I’ve just done:

I’d just dragged a copulating Rottweiler off his love interest… which must have annoyed him a little.

I’d then held this great big Rottweiler by his chained collar…which must have made him furious.

I’d then clipped a lead this great big Rottweiler and made him walk back along the track in the opposite direction to his home…which must have been so puzzling for him. No wonder he’d just stared at me.

I’d then just been dragged by a great big Rottweiler that had demonstrated that it had twice my strength and stamina… and I had for the first time experienced the power and packed energy of this creature.

So I’d been taking a strange dog for a walk…a great, big, strange Rottweiler for a walk.

 

That night I couldn’t sleep.

I kept replaying those rapid scenes and my over quick reactions.

I could still feel the animal’s strength, and I frightened myself as I imagined how this Rottweiler could have reacted differently at each and every stage.

I imagined its jaws and teeth.

And I felt ever so very grateful that after this encounter it was only my specs that were bent slightly out of shape.

I’d taken a great big strange Rottweiler for a walk…oh joy!

 

.

Inspirational

 

I have joined a walking group and walk out with them every third Sunday in the month. The walk yesterday was very dramatic as one poor chap collapsed as we walked by the River.

We were miles from anywhere. A gate was locked and prevented an ambulance from negotiating a long farm track down to the lock on the river.

So the fire brigade were then called and then the air ambulance.

And much to my amusement, despite all this, the plucky chap refused it all and walked to the ambulance.

Inspirational!

Xenomancy

 

I was in a rather large village with a friend yesterday and we went to one of the pubs there. There we met Geoff. Geoff had established a writers' group in a long narrow back room.

It turned out to be more of a drop in session rather than a workshop or a critique group. A place where writers simply met and chatted, or so it seemed. Geoff (I didn't catch his last name) seemed to be simply a facilitator and the meeting he presided over had no rules.

After the previous day’s experience at the swimming pool the thought of ‘no rules’ cheered me up immensely.

It was a very odd affair.

My friend and I were the first to arrive.

My friend gave her name and shook his hand.

Then he turned to me and I gave him my name and shook his hand.

“And you are?” Geoff asked leaning towards me.

I was flummoxed. I did not know what else to say. what more I could add. I’d already told him my name and felt awkward about saying it twice.

I had the sensation I was in a damp, dark cave and up against the wall.

“Er… I’m just me.” I said, Hoping that I’d given the right answer.

My friend, long practiced in the art of explaining herself to the hard of hearing took, control of the situation and gave my name; while was still mediating  that the syllables of my name must sound like, “Pleased to meet you,” to the deaf.

After that initial embarrassment, Geoff then talked to us very enthusiastically about an agreement he had obtained with Orchard Press to publish books from the group. He talked very enthusiastically to us about this project and we were so very impressed until…

…unhappily for Geoff, a group of people then arrived. They were in despair. They wanted to know when they were going to see their finished books. It seemed the publisher was dragging his feet and that nothing was actually happening after over a year of waiting.

When we asked one of these complainants about her book she retorted that she had actually set them seven!

She then showed us a magazine article featuring her books and pictures of the already prepared hard covers. They were children’s books, illustrated by another person in the group. The meeting then threatened to turn quite nasty with vociferous protests from all involved.

However, Geoff remained unruffled by all this.

He is an elderly man, who simply flipped away their protests by talking about his grandson or by flirting with the children’s story writer once her husband had left the room to buy drinks.

Whilst all the bitter arguments were going on, the woman next to me  handed out fliers for her upcoming book reading. She was an author who had not gone down Geoff’s ‘publishing’ route, but had instead simply sent out extracts of her manuscript to twenty publishers. She hadn’t written short stories first. She hadn’t written for magazines. She hadn’t got an agent. She had simply sent her work out to seven publishers at a time choosing the ones she thought would be most interested in her work.

She told me that she didn’t actually have any ambition to be a writer. She had simply had an idea, had written her book and had then sent it off …and then she had got it published! On the twentieth attempt!

What joy!

I later learn of xenomancy: divination using strangers. So I resolved to learn from the unflappable, calm and unruffled Geoff , man who faced down a storm of protest and remained untroubled; and the author who took a different route, but persevered and got there in the end without using the word ‘rejection’ in her conversation once.

.

Divination

 

In the past, the diviners  looked for signs and portents in the bones cast upon the floor. And those that were wise enough would then advise as to whether an enterprise should be undertaken, and whether there would be a favourable or unfavourable outcome.

So anyway, I opened the door and discovered a bone lying beneath my doorstep.

It is a leg bone from some poor unfortunate animal that once grazed a field. It has been gnawed and chewed.

I am not skilled in reading bones. Had I been able understand its import then I would not have bothered going swimming, instead I would have immediately turned around and gone  to watch the antics of the tadpoles instead.

However, sadly, ossomancy lessons did not form  part of the curriculum in my Yorkshire primary school, even though my teachers were relics from the dark ages, so I failed to take heed of this well placed warning sign and stepped over it.

There were other messages too that I fail to read…

 

The sky is the underside of a blue bowl pressing over me as I cross an expanse of grass. There are clouds as if the gods themselves are trying their best to warn me to turn right around and go back. But like all gods their spelling is lousy and they tend to blot the blue pages of their copy books with fat white blobs with fractal swirling edges.

You’d think by now that the gods would be able to write a clear message in the sky.

“Don’t go swimming!”

How hard is that?

A couple of cumulus clouds here and a few wisps of cirrus clouds there and… da da! The message could be received and understood.

I think we have  thick, slovenly gods.

Though I’m sure they were writing to warn me, but as I can’t read god blobs and blotches their scrawl was meaningless.

I discovered long after the event that in Leviticus 19-26 there is in fact a warning not to observe clouds. Leviticus needn’t have worried, for my aeromancy skills were zilch and hence I continued on my way.

Then I am there.

I am in the over-fifties swim.

The lanes have been sectioned off into three sections: slow, medium and fast. Signs indicate the direction we have to take. These signs also warns us against congregating at the ends; and that there is a space in the middle for those that wish to overtake slower swimmers.

A regular group of people go.

I have only been a few times, and not at all this last month. I have yet to make any friends there. They are an insular lot. There is a woman who looks like an ex-headmistress who has given me a ‘hello’ and a ‘goodbye’. A woman from whose serious demeanour I’d already previously determined I would try to avid getting the wrong side of. This woman is there when I arrive and she’s already going up and down the slow lane with her shark like motion.

I go into the slow lane.

The water is cold, and it is a shock.

I begin.

Cold Ex-Headmistress gives me a perfunctory ‘Hello’ as she swims by, and I laugh and tell her how out of practice I am, but there is no warmth in her response.

She is a faster swimmer than I, and will overtake me soon.

I have completed four lengths, when a friend of mine unexpectedly arrives. I am delighted to see her. My friend is registered blind and yet she is gamely carrying on and not letting this affect her at all. I call to her and she too gets into the slow lane. It is great to see her and we begin to swim up and down the pool side by side. Her daughter has just come back from a round the world trip and she is eager to share her news.

It is lovely to be swimming side by side and chatting about New Zealand, Australia and Thailand and we are laughing and I am thoroughly enjoying her companionship.

But there is  a rattle of old bones and a gathering of clouds.

There are chuntered comments here and there, something about lanes and overtaking.

I am sensitive to the needs of the faster swimmers to overtake and so I’m doing an odd doggy paddle, cum crawl, cum breast stroke so that I’m as close to the edge as possible and my friend is also close to the edge so that there is ample room for such sharks to glide by.

But something is building up. I catch an occasional comment from another swimmer, a woman with a cherry aspect.

This woman when I first saw her, on another occasion, had commented to Cold Ex-Headmistress about how quiet it was in the Friday swimming session, and had sung a little.

I’d quite liked that. I thought she might be someone to break us out of our ‘One Flew Out of the Cuckoo’s Nest’ silence. I thought she might be a bit of a rebel. Someone who would liven things up. It seems I was both wrong and right.

The slow lane isn’t at all busy. There are perhaps less than ten of us are there. As they complete their twenty lengths many soon leave and there’s even more space.

However, Cheery Aspect though is not the anarchist I’d hoped she was going to be. This time she is not singing but complaining. She finally complains sharply that me and my friend should not be swimming side by side as we are blocking the over-taking lane.

I am shocked. I have seen her on other occasions swimming parallel to her friends and chatting as she did so. I am astonished by this intolerance and saddened by her being such a stickler for the rules.

She has enlisted the support of Cold Ex-Headmistress with whom she has an formed an alliance. And just for good measure an elderly gentleman with pale white skin and flabby flesh that seems to be already falling away from his bones kicks me hard on my thigh to show his support.

Luckily,my friend is made of stern stuff and laughs at all this, but I’m upset.

I know the rules as well as them, but I also know that I would never have complained should ever they were swim side by side with one of their friends. I would instead have been pleased to see such companionship and to have heard their merry chatter.

I also know that if ever I found my way similarly blocked that I would have simply cut across to the other side and found open water and simply gone back the way I’d come.

However, the slow lane is now dominated by these two: Cold Ex-Headmistress and Cheery Aspect. It seems they have appointed themselves the prefects of the slow lane.  I don’t want to give in to their bullying and so my friend and I continue side by side a little longer.

Then I catch up with Cheery Aspect and explain that my friend is blind.

“I wouldn’t have complained if I’d known,” Cheery Aspect says.

I hope that she will now think about what it is like to be blind and cut off from the world, and what pleasure my friend was hopefully gleaning from our conversation.

I then wait for Cold Ex-Headmistress and give her the same information. “Oh, I know she is,” she says. “But this lane is for people swimming in single file and you shouldn’t be in the overtaking lane.”

I know she’s right about the rules, but I tell her that I would never have complained about her.

I then wonder about such rules and why some people like to hit others over their heads with them.

I wonder why they can’t find other creative ways of solving such problems which doesn’t involve curtailing the happiness of others. Or why they don’t stop to think instead, ‘Way ahead blocked, I’m obviously much faster than these slow coaches perhaps I’m in the wrong lane. Or way ahead blocked, I’ll just tread water for a while because those two people look as though they are happy and enjoying each other’s company and I wouldn’t want to spoil it in any way.

The next thing I notice is  Cold Ex-Headmistress and Cheery Aspect are now complaining to the lifeguard about us.

I’m now swimming behind my friend and trying to catch up with her and I tell her what I’ve seen.

My friend laughs.

The lifeguard has called his boss.

I now feel frightened and upset. Any minute now I expect to be hooked out of the water and thrown out of the swimming pool.

The lifeguard and the boss talk awhile longer.

Then Cheery Aspect and Cold Ex-Headmistress tell us that because my friend is blind she should have a lane all to herself.

I am sickened by this.

I am sickened that between them they have dreamt up such a solution. I am sickened to discover that they have discussed this with the lifeguards. I am sickened that they are now telling us what they have been discussing. I am sickened that they are reminding my friend about her disability when she came here to get away from all that.

I am swimming now behind my friend in the ordained single file, but I have fallen back as I tiring and feeling so upset.

Cold Ex-Headmistress then comes across yet again to tell us that my friend should have a lane all to herself and how that was how it was done once.

My friend laughs.

I try to imagine the other  poor blind person who once found themselves banished to their own lane. I’m astonished that this segregation was ever deemed necessary. I tell Cold Ex-Headmistress that this is an appalling idea and that it has upset me so much I don’t ever want to talk to her.

Soon there is hardly anyone left in our lane. It’s nearly the end of the session. My friend and I stop to chat at the side of the pool. I apologise to my friend for not being able to handle it and for not being able to think of the right thing to say.

Then the lifeguard comes along. He is kind and sympathetic. He tells us that the ‘rules’ are not ‘rules’ but guidelines. He tells us that we were not doing anything wrong. He tells us that there was plenty of space for the others to overtake when we were swimming side by side, and that some people are like that and not to let them worry us.

My friend then suggests to him that perhaps the faster swimmers were in the wrong lane and should have been in one of the other lanes.

He thinks about this for a while. The idea hadn’t occurred to him.

So we leave and shower. I see my friend across the road and then I walk home.

I think about how some people use rules as iron rods to beat the heads of others.

There is a heavy thick cloud across the sky as if a god in a, ‘I did try to warn you!’ flounce has just spilt white ink all across the sky.

I wonder if the bone will still be waiting outside my door, or if a hungry dog would have found it, or maybe even a passing T. Rex.

I discover the bone is still there.

A warning perhaps of what I will find inside.

I open the door….

and find…

bills!

 

.

Burnishing the armour of their “Yes”

 

I need a quiet day and a very rare thing: equanimity, if ever I’m going to paint.

I also need a lovely, bright sunny day, and the light just right.

A day like today.

My intention was to finish my painting. My painting is a watercolour painting of grass with bluebells.

I’ve been painting it for about fifteen years. Each centimetre has taken about an hour to achieve.

The two small plates I used as palettes have been covered in paint that has been wet and dried for well over a decade. They are things of beauty in their own right with all their various shades of greens and browns and blacks.

Since everything was absolutely perfect I decided that I was going to finish the painting today.

I’d prepared everything the night before.

This morning I worked out a timetable: fifteen minutes painting followed by fifteen minute breaks to give my eyes a rest.

And so I began, feeling optimistic and utterly content.

All was going perfectly, until there was a rattle of the letter box.

Reluctantly, I put the paint brush down.

When I opened the door there were two women standing there. They had an air of unease; and I sensed instantly that they were long used to confrontation whenever people opened their doors to them.

“Do you believe in creation or evolution?” the woman nearest asks.

In her cleanliness and the neatness of her clothes there is a softness and warmth about her. She is dressed in her Sunday best as if for church, wearing light coloured fabrics which proclaim propriety, dignity and righteousness. She is a wholesome person. The sort of woman you’d expect to find by the Aga cooking birthday cakes and ministering words of wisdom to a crowd of eager children with upturned faces. A Disney woman on whom the sun would always shine and one for whom everything would always work out right for in the end. She smiles like a mother patiently waiting for an answer from a particularly difficult child.

I am dressed in black. And I’m now frowning. I am darkness personified. I am the devil incarnate made so simply by her presence on my doorstep.

I can feel annoyance rising, so I get my words in quick trying to be as polite as I can.

“Evolution is right. I don’t believe in god. And I think you are wrong to be going around knocking on doors and disturbing everyone.”

“Can I give you this?”

She proffers one of her magazines.

“No, thanks.”

She remains unruffled and smiles robotically; as does the chocolate coloured elderly lady behind her. I observe that they are no longer showing any signs of unease. They have found familiar ground. They are used to hearing the word “No.” It conveys upon them sainthood. For their prosthelytizing has achieved a “No” that has burnished the armour of their “Yes”.

As I close the door I see that they have peace and equanimity.

My peace and equanimity!

I return into the room and find that I’m now carrying unease, the unease I saw in them when I first opened the door; an unease which is now fermenting inside me into a seething annoyance.

They have shattered my peace.

I pick up the paintbrush…

….

… and then I put it down.

 

.

A Pencil Sketch

 

Poor old Jane Austen was accused of never including details of momentous events in her writing: of leaving out any references to wars and turmoil that formed the distant backdrop to her world as she sat scribbling at her desk.

She should have done, it was argued, by my lecturer. And gullible and naïve, I thought so too. “Yes, she should have said something,” I believed back then, “just to set the scene. She should have thrown in a reference to Napoleon perhaps here and there. It would have firmed up the context.”

Now I realise that if she had have done then something else would perhaps have been lost. Some little detail. A pencil sketch of everyday life that would have been lost forever had she too listened to the voices of such critics.

Those that wrote of Napoleon’s campaigns were never accused of not giving any attention to the minutia of everyday life of those he warred against, not realising how much they lost by not doing so. For they lost the details of foreground: the details of the lives of those who made the buttons for such shiny battle coats.

Jane Austen realised this no doubt, that others would write well of wars and battles, and that it was far better if someone did in fact write about the minutiae of life instead: the little things. The little things that add up like pennies to form the banks upon which we found our existence… like for example a local election.

Jane Austen, of course, would have not been allowed to vote had there been such election in her time. Writing this fills me with such sadness and pain. For perhaps history could have been transformed for the better if women had always held that right.

I have always voted.

I vote because it is my way of saying thank you to those that fought so hard for my vote.

I never miss a chance to vote.

Interestingly, in all these years of my voting not one person I have ever voted for has ever been victorious in any election.

My cast vote, my X against a name, means that so-and-so will have absolutely no chance of winning.

I have changed my voting colours I have voted over the years for yellows, reds and greens (though never the blues) and not once has anybody I’ve ever voted for been elected.

I live, I am reliably told, in an indicator town. A place that unfailingly always returns the winning political party every year to Westminster. When our town votes are counted that is it. The election is effectively over and the government a foregone conclusion.

It seems the voters in my town, with the notable exception of me, are in tune with the political mood of the country and all, with the exception of me, are psychically aware of what the future holds.

When you think about it, the country could save itself an awful lot of money by just allowing this one town to vote. 

And then also any individual candidates on this voting list could save themselves hours of wasted time, effort and expense by simply knocking on my door and asking me which way I intended to vote.

Imagine the relieved smiles of candidates leaving my threshold after being told I was not voting for them.

And the happy smile of the one assured of my vote who would then be able to call a quick halt to the expensive leafleteers and pop off for a holiday in the sun instead of pointlessly trudging the streets.

It could save an awful lot of time.

The rooms where I vote are at the back of the Methodist church. They seem to become sepia as soon as I enter. It’s a dusty place. An empty crowded place. It’s full of ghosts. There are soldiers and curled-haired women in tight skirts dancing to music that only they can hear. There is a warm hush in this place. The people behind the desk are delighted to see at last a voter, someone with whom they can interact  and prepare papers for.

They’d changed the layout a little. I walk into the open booths set further back, dodging the ethereal dancers whose thoughts are on the war, and then I look down at the names on the voting list with sadness knowing that my cross will mean that some poor unfortunate’s hopes will be instantly dashed.

I hesitate, and then make the two quick slashed lines. It is as if I’ve wielded a sword and not a stubby thick pencil tied to a string.

 

.

The 8th of May

 

My garden looks prettiest in the first few weeks of May. The snow-in- summer (Cerastium tomentosum) opens its star shaped flowers above short silvery leaves. The geraniums unfurl baby blue petals. My aquilegia trumpets soft pinks, creamy whites and many skirted deep blues. And the climbing rose’s cerise coloured flowers set against the dark wood of the contorted willow tree are a heartbeat of wonder.

No one has ever seen this, except for me.

This is the time when someone should call, but no one ever does.

So this time, very early in the year, I sent out an invitation.

“The weekend of the 8^th of May…  please come and stay.”

Many weeks later, my friend writes back, , and tells me that she will be decorating that weekend.

I am saddened to come second to pots of paint.

 

Another friend then tells me that in early May she will be running in a charity event just up the road from me.

Cheered I ask,“Which weekend?”

“The weekend of the 7^th May,” she writes.

“Come and stay,” I say.

“Okay, that will be great,” she replies.

 

Months later, when we chance to chat, I tell her how much I’m looking forward to her visit.

“Oh, I’m going to stay with XXX instead,” she says, in a throw away comment, that I only just manage to catch.

Then I realise that if I had not mentioned it, it was unlikely that she would have told me about her change of plans at all.

XXX lives two miles away from the event; it’s only a two minutes walk to the event from here.

Long ago XXX had an affair with my friend’s ex-husband, before he was her ex-husband. My friend knows this. 

It seems  this time I’ve come second to spots of taint.

 

Yesterday, my friend travelled all the way from the north of England to an event, just a hop, and a skip, and a jump away from my house, but she did not call in.

Though I did have a phone call.

“I am ringing you to tell you that your computer has a virus.”

It is the sing-songy Jasmine Flowered Indian Lady trying her phishing scam once again.

I don’t argue with her. I gently put the phone  down on the carpet, and then replace it in the cradle. Later, I wish that I had invited Jasmine Flowered Indian Lady to visit my garden on the 8th of May.

 

It rained all last night.

 

And I discovered that the guttering which had been fixed, but  had not yet been put to the test, is still not working properly.  Water  streamed down the brickwork, only more so.

And then this morning, when I look out at the garden, a smaller visitor, a cat, is to be seen raking  the grass after having just left something steaming behind.

And then when I step out into the garden, I discover the newly opened delicately petalled roses have all been bruised and battered by a heart attack of rain; that the trumpeting aquilegia are now all downturned and muted, that the geraniums  have become grim geriatrics barely able to raise their heads from their beds.  And worse still, that overnight dandelions have sprung up like pirates, tall and proud, to claim domination of this green ocean with their serrated cutlass blades.

And then, as if nothing could be any worse, there is the yapping sound from a small, white dog.

Pudsey, it seems, has been found.

They  have him on a long lead.

 

And it’s just as well, as my clouds darken.

Small Dog

 

I admit I have plotted against the dog next door. It is a small, wiry, yapping thing.

I hate it.

The nextdoor’s back door opens at about seven-thirty every morning and this grubby white beast bounds down a narrow well worn path it has etched into the lawn and then jumps the low wall into my garden. It lands in my vegetable patch. It then poos where I had hopes of growing peas and carrots, and then it wees against my leeks.

Later, flies rise from these heaps and buzz. Even worse are awful moments when I’m gardening and I have failed to notice a recent deposit.

The people next door must realise exactly what their dog is doing when they open the door at seven-thirty in the morning. They haven’t opened the door for their dog simply to take the air, they have opened the door for a purpose. They can see exactly what direction their dog takes every day. Indeed they must have taken some pride in the fact that their dog never left any mess in their own garden.

What a thoughtful dog!

And they must have caught the occasional glimpse of me scooping up its droppings and then throwing them onto the ashy fire heap with less than delight. So I guess they must have realised that I’m not exactly Pudsey’s number one fan.

My neighbour looked into my pond a few days ago. She was with a friend. They looked into the clear waters for some time and I realise now what they were really looking for.

The pond is doing really well. The tadpoles are voracious eaters. They have gobbled up all the blanket weed, and now go frantic if any fish food floats over their heads. I seem to have got the piranhas of the tadpole world  in my pond. They are fat beasts with long sinewy tails that they wave in the water like small pendants. They are 90% gummy gums that occasionally bask upon their backs opening and closing their mouths as if hoping for a heaven sent feast.

The other day, I had been absentmindedly watching them when my neighbour said,

“You’ve got a lot of tadpoles.”

She startled me, I hadn’t heard her approach.

“Yes,” I said, as I scrambled from a kneeling position to my feet.

“Have you seen, Pudsey?”

I look at her blankly.

“My white dog. My little dog,” she raises her voice like you do whenever speaking with the enfeebled. “My little white dog.”

“No,” I answer, “Is he missing?”

I am innocent of any crime, but instantly I realise that I’m already their prime suspect, and suddenly I feel very guilty indeed.

“I let him out, at seven-thirty this morning, like I always do, and he never came back.”

“I haven’t seen him,” I answer, hoping that she can’t see how much I’m inwardly cheering.

The woman looks beyond me to the other gardens she has allowed her dog to freely trespass.

“He can’t have gone far,” she says. “He can’t have gone further than that fence over there.”

She has obviously decided long ago that particular fence would form the boundary of little smelly Pudsey’s domain; and I feel annoyed that she has not been the slightest bit concerned about the feelings of those affected by  such  little Smelly incursions.

I have never once complained about her dog and what he does in my vegetable patch, but perhaps she can read my thoughts because she suddenly says, “He’s such a little rascal.”

I glance back at my house, the back door is wide open, he have could easily have run inside. He has been inside before. I half expect him to bound out as I look. I must confess that I had earlier thought that the next time he trespassed inside  I would open the front door and let him out that way, to take his chances in the wilder world, in the hope that he would disappear for good, but I had dismissed it as a fanciful idea, and knew that I would never have gone so far no matter how much I disliked their yapping dog. A dog that barked at me whenever I stepped outside to hang up the washing, and which ruined my peace if ever I sat outside to read a book.

“He’s been missing before,” she tells me. “But he’s micro-chipped, so we got him back.”

My heart sinks.

“I’ll keep a look out,” I offer dejectedly.

“Thanks she says.”

And then I’m left alone in the tranquil peace of the garden, guiltily hoping that Pudsey has found a happier home somewhere else, somewhere far away, and that he will never ever return.

It is then I look again at my piranha tadpoles and their opening and closing mouths, and see how their bellies are fat and bloated, as if a small dog has recently chanced to fall amongst their midst.

Hello…Hello

 

I’m shaking.

Trembling.

There was a phone call.

“Hello,” I’d said cheerily.

My friend had said that if she had no work then she might call.

At first there was no reply, but then I heard the hideous tell-tale call centre sound in the back ground.

“Hello,” a female Asian voice says.

“Hello,” I reply.

“Hello,” she says again.

“Hello,” I answer.

We continue the ‘Hello’ game a few times more.

She has my name, she has my phone number and she tells me that there is a problem with my computer.

I don’t listen. I know it’s a scam. I know Microsoft don’t call you up to say this or that is wrong with your computer. I know that I have more than enough virus protection, flaming firewalls and Trojan horse booby traps to keep my computer safe from all determined Greeks and geeks. I know she is lying and is probably in Bradford, Luton or some other such unholy place.

I know it’s nonsense. They’ve called before. A man last time. Worried me. Frightened me. But then I had then gone onto YouTube and found a man who had taped a similar call… and then had teased his caller with pretended gullibility. Thus forewarned I am only angry.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask.

She begins again with her script.

“Why are you lying?” I ask.

She continues calmly never once changing her sing-song voice of jasmine flowers.

My voice is rising; hers is like a still ocean unruffled by the breeze.

I wonder if she too is duped. If the sincerity of her voice is because she truly believes in what she is saying?

I tell her it’s a scam. I tell her I know it’s a scam. I want her to hang up. She doesn’t. She persists with her script. I then I find myself lying also.

I tell her that her phone call is being recorded.

She remains unruffled.

I tell her that the police will soon be knocking on her door.

Her voice is silvery and rounded like the moon.

I tell her that she is lying. I’m trembling. I feel rage and anger building that this woman has disrupted my peace and tranquillity. That she has changed my mood into darkness and the gunge water you find at the bottom of a dishwasher.

I hold the phone away from my ear and pretend that I am speaking to someone else in the room about her bogus call.

She hangs up.

I leave the phone off the hook so that she can’t call anybody else.

After a while it makes an annoying sound. Then I hear an automated operator’s voice. I’m thinking maybe I should dispense with the phone once and for all.

And I am angry with myself that I could not find the right words to crack her lies and that I lied myself.

I am angry that I raised my voice whereas she remained calm and serene.

But above all, I am angry that I am being lied to by a woman.

I search YouTube again and waste minutes listening to similar scams. I hear the same woman’s voice again. She is calm and serene as she realises that the man she had called has rumbled her. He is typing offensive words into a box one letter too many or one letter too short so that her phishing scam will not be activated. He reads out the letters. They spell enough of a rude word to shock. She understands enough to realise he is not going to be fooled. And calmly she ends the call as if it was he and not she who was the time waster.

My phone is still off the hook… looks like my friend will not be able to get through… but at least Indian Jasmine Woman can’t phone anyone else and it’s so peaceful here now that my equanimity is returning bit by bit.

A Quick Fix

 

The dishwasher has not been washing properly for some time. I had cleaned out the filters and had previously found a pool of mucky looking water beneath them which I had emptied bit by bit with a dishcloth.

I’d even walked to my supermarket and had bought the special stuff that came with a warning about being an irritant to the eyes and had followed the instructions to the letter.

Though the next wash seemed better after I’d used the clean your dishwasher stuff, the washed pots still didn’t look right.

So I decided to clean out the filters again, and was shocked to find again more muddy waters that were gritty with food particles and grey particles.

I left the filters soaking in the sink while I went in search of the handbook which had come with the machine seven years ago.

My house is full of such handbooks. Every appliance comes with such a beast. They are fat tomes which say the same thing over and over in every language of the EU. My handbooks could fill a library of shelves. Luckily, this particular handbook was in one of the kitchen cupboards right at the bottom under a pile of other such handbooks and I knew where to find it.

I’d never read it before.

It described how to clean out the filters, which I’d already figured out for myself.

It described how to dismantle the rotating arms, and how to clean out the jet holes.

It was getting exciting.

It described how to unfasten a screw and to clean out the area near the pump. Wow! That sounded like advanced physics, I didn’t really want to go that far.

It said you could put detergent in the machine to wash it out.

Now that I could do.

So I popped detergent into the tablet holder part of the machine and set it on, minus the filters and the lower plate that were still soaking in the sink.

As the machine burbled I then started ironing and at the same time began to cook a frozen portion of soup (see post below).

There is a universal law that states whenever your house is in total disarray the telephone rings.

I switched off the iron, switched off the soup, switched off the radio in the kitchen, switched off the radio in the living room and scampered to reach the phone in time.

The call is from a call centre, I can hear disembodied voices. I can hear distant chattering with tell tale Indian accents, but no one is attending to my line and answering my plaintive, ‘Hello? Hello?’ It suddenly cuts off.

I go back to my ironing. I switch the radio back on which has now decided to go off the station and has to be retuned. I start the ironing again and then realise that my soup is not defrosting so I lean over the ironing board to switch the cooker on again. The dishwasher is making an odd sound behind me, and I’m beginning to worry that I might have used too much detergent; and did it rally mean washing up liquid or did it mean the usual dishwasher tablet. I’m beginning to worry.

The bedding I’m ironing is not losing its creases and I realise I haven’t switched the iron back on again. I go into the next room and find the radio is off so I miss the next few words of the programme I’m trying to listen to and I switch that radio station back on.

And all this disruption has been caused by a stupid computer randomly dialling up my phone.

I curse all call centres and then take armfuls of ironed bedding upstairs and begin the exciting task of stuffing a duvet back into its cover.

There is a universal law that states whenever your house is in total disarray someone always knocks on your door.

I’m delighted as I’m expecting a parcel. This is why I’m inside doing all these jobs so that I don’t miss this knock. I scramble over the duvet and bound downstairs.

It’s not the parcel. Instead its my friend. I’m delighted to see her.

She comes inside and I rush upstairs to turn off the radio upstairs. As she comes into the front room I switch off the radio in the corner and then I switch off the radio in the kitchen.

I switch off the soup…she’s not tempted (see post below).

And then I finish ironing the St George flag. The one that hung from the upstairs window for the royal wedding and that’s been washed and dried.

My friend knows me well, and isn’t at all surprised to come upon me ironing a flag. It’s the last item. I fold it and put it away, then I tidy away the ironing board and we go outside to sit in the sunshine.

When we have set the world to rights we eventually return inside. Seeping from beneath the dishwasher is a mass of growing bubbles.

I grab a cloth and place it at the bottom of the machine, and we continue our chat in the living room while I have visions of bubbles taking over the whole kitchen.

Once my friend leaves I go back to look imagining the worst.

The dishwasher has finished its cycle. I gingerly open the door. It is full of small bubbles. I grab a handful and then blow them into the garden and they are caught by the wind and spiral away: a thing of beauty and mystery.

I then re-read the dishwasher instruction book and decide to have a go at cleaning the holes on the arms.

I am horrified by the gunge inside the top arm. There are particles of food, black bits, and egg shells. The holes prove trickier to clean out than I imagined, and at each end of the arm tiny particles of egg shells refuse to exit through their respective holes.

I try using an unravelled paper clip, tweezers, a pin and then a needle. I cover the holes in the arm as if it is a flute and play tap water through, it hoping that this will clear the holes.

It doesn’t.

I then take the arm up into the bath room and try the bath tap hoping that this stronger jet of water will do the trick.

It doesn’t

My sleeves are wet, my socks are wet. I change jumpers and socks and try again with the needle and eventually I have cleaned out the holes.

It is now the turn of the lower arm. This one thankfully was easier.

By this time the bubbles have all melted away and to my horror I discover that there is a puddle of disgusting looking dirty water at the bottom of the dishwasher. Horrified to find this again, I study the manual. It described how you can unfasten a screw and reach and then clean out the next section near the pump.

I decide to give it a go.

There is a universal law that states whenever there is a screw to unfasten it is bound to have the wrong kind of head.

From the diagram in the manual it looked liked a Phillips screw, so I got my Phillips screw driver.

It didn’t work.

I tried a smaller screwdriver.

It didn’t work.

I then crawled almost inside the machine so I could peer more closely at the screw head.

It was shaped like a hexagon.

I got out my bits and pieces jar and tipped it out hoping to find an Allen key.

It’s now like an episode from Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The first Allen key is far too big, the second one is too big, and the third… I search through a heap of drawing pins, nails, screws and roll plugs… there isn’t a third!

In the living room I get a chair and reach for a toolkit on the top shelf. Joy of joys when I open it I discover it has three small Allen keys.

It’s again like Goldilocks and the Three Bears... except in my case it’s more like Greyilocks and the Three Bears! The first Allen key is far too big, the second one is too big and the third thankfully is just right.

I twist it and release the screw.

I find more disgusting gunge. I clean it all up. Then I scrape away lime scale deposits, and clean and clean and clean until this section gleams.

It takes an age to refit the plastic part and to get the screw to turn once more.

It takes a further age to refit the lower arm.

It takes forever to refit the filters and to replace the bottom shelf.

But eventually it is complete. I tidy up and switch it on.

It works… the plates are gleaning.

I’ve fixed the dishwasher!

Yeah!

It’s time for soup (see below) which of course by now is long cold.

I’m tempted to celebrate by hanging out the flag once more… but when I look outside it is already dark.

Soup!

 

My old neighbour who moved a long time ago to another part of the town and now has a bungalow also has green fingers. When I visited her not so long back she gave me a herb growing in a pot and told me what it was.

A few days ago I decided I would make carrot and coriander soup from scratch and began.

When it was time to add the coriander I went outside to the patio and there was the pot I’d been given. I wasn’t sure if it was coriander, though I was certain that this is what my old neighbour had called it.

I had a vague sense of unease and feeling that coriander shouldn’t be a small stout looking plant with stumpy leaves. I had thought that coriander was a more delicate plant with slender stems and a sunny hat of swaying green leaves. I had bought a fresh coriander plant from the supermarket before and it had looked nothing like this. I wondered if it was a different form of coriander, perhaps the fore-runner of the more svelte variety found in the supermarket, an older version.

Despite these misgivings I harvested a handful of leaves and cast them into the soup and put it through the whizzer.

The result was a most delicious soup, not quite the taste I’d expected.

A friend called around yesterday and I showed her the pot containing the stumpy herb and asked her if she knew what it was. With barely a glance she said the name, which I instantly knew to be correct and also the name that my neighbour had used.

Oregano!

I’d made carrot and oregano soup and my friend could not be persuaded to try it.

O-ri-gan-o = four syllables.

Co-ri-an-der = four syllables.

Go-ing-craz-y = four syllables

Feel-such-a-fool = four syllables

I guess I now have these two herbs, oregano and coriander, stored on the same mal-functioning brain cell!

Still, carrot and oregano soup… delicious!