Follow this link to the Elizabeth-Ann charity and follow the one below to my food blog!

http://www.thee-acharity.org.uk/

http:www.calcuttascarlet.blogspot.com/ My Mother's Kitchen, my Father's Garden is the name of the blog (and, in two volumes, my books). At this blog you may also see a small selection of my freelance journalism work.

Friday 13 August 2010

Would that it were so


"It is more remarkable for the quality of its doubt than of its faith" (T.S. Eliot, The Sacred Wood, writing on Tennyson's poem 'In Memoriam')


Oh dear, oh dear. This was not going to be an easy road.Maybe it just wasn't for some. 

Mother was an atheist, father was an ardent member of the Church of England with designs, in retirement, of being a non stipendiary minister. An interesting dichotomy at home, then.

"Because your mother is a good person, she will surely go to Heaven", he said to the concerned young teenager, his daughter. She, however, couldn't find any scriptural authority for this one, although she did think that she might have got it wrong somehow. Typical.

When daddy was dying, he took communion at home; her mother encouraged it, but could not bear to be in the room. Instead, she sat in the sun room sipping a sherry. Rose couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry, so just sat still and mute.

There were memories of a darkened church at Christmas; thoughts of something moving that was good and Holy and which loved her and wanted her for its own. But the feeling faded as the lights went on. Later, experiments with a Fellowship group so that, as a young teenager, she was encouraged to stand alone and be baptised. Consternation again, though. It seemed that everyone in the cavernous room had the gifts of prophecy or of tongues. Occasionally, one would fall on the floor in rapture. Here we go again, was her only thought - although that was not what she said out loud. Desperate to feel what they felt, she let the pastor take her head in his hands. 

"The Holy Spirit is with you. Can you feel it?"

"Yes" she said, almost convinced by the fervent believer, but afterwards realising that it was a relief to leave. Again, not something to be said aloud.

Ah but back to the organised church some time later. All went well for a while. Baptisms of the babies, good wishes - but no. After a while, doubt prevailed. This time, though, it seemed to be more those around her who did not, in some ways, approve of Rose; what seemed to be a move in the right direction -of acceptance and being held within the body of a church-- began to fail. So sad. Was she too radical? Did she appear too full of nervous energy? Someone wanting to make changes and my goodness the children did not always know to be silent during communion? No harm meant, only concern for the future of the single church. The net effect, as before: no spiritual home other than a poetry book. 

And that is where we leave Rose. Hand off the plough; hoping, in her childish way, for an epiphany. And in this, I know she is not alone.

Thursday 12 August 2010

At the Shalimar Gardens

At the Shalimar gardens, the sun blazed down and her parents glowered at each other. She was familiar with these unkind silences; above all, her mother's eyes looking with resentment at her father. A look that says that "Though I am here, in this fine garden of cool white marble and lush vegetation, my adventure is tarnished because I chose you". 

Maya wondered, yet again, why her mother could not appreciate the man: hard working, diligent and loving. As a teenager, she could surely sense that her mother was altogether sharper than her father.In many ways, he could not keep up his wife's drive and intelligence. What could Maya do but observe and try and provide some solace for him as he laboured away.

This time, though, she saw her father's gaze drift. She followed it and it took her to a willowy lady, in a simple blue sari, who seemed to be charged with some repairs to the red and green floral designs on some of the little doorways on the garden's periphery. Maya felt, with a peculiar shiver, that the lady was truly lovely. That there was something lithe and at ease in the body and in the limpid dark eyes that turned to meet hers with a smile. May could not help but make the comparison with the stiffness of her mother - so beautiful, herself, but so affected by minor slights and what she saw as the disappointments of life.

There was joy in the brushstroke and in the movement of wrist and hand; in the way that the girl was absorbed in the task - and in the way she adjusted her sari to allow better movement when she needed to reach up. Maya knew that her father saw all this, too.

Well, her father was a man of principle. With reponsibilities and family, he would not leave for a girl with kind eyes who thought him charming. Instead, he might be ground down a little further by the woman he married and so, just now,  Maya was glad that her father's mind could drift, while he watched a girl with coltish limbs and deft fingers and as he saw her disappear behind the fretwork at the Shalimar gardens as she made her way home.

The Shalimar Gardens are in Lahore, Pakistan. They are ornate formal gardens, built by Jehangir, Mughal successor to Shah Jehan, who built the Taj Mahal.

Sunday 8 August 2010

Walton West

Back from a trip. Hiatus in stories. Here you are.  Just something simple and personal.


Walton West church is hidden away down a tiny lane on the Pembrokeshire coast; one field across is its churchyard, a broad sweep of sea beyond it and gnarled crab apples trees shaped by the sea wind. 

Here: Laura Margaret Llewellyn- my great grandmother- and her daughter, Florence Beckett, my grandmother. She was born in a house just by the beach you see here. But beyond in the churchyard, my best beloved John Llewellin Beckett, uncle, adopter of his own middle name (I don't know if his mother ever gave him one), but with the spelling he preferred. There are Llewellyns thick and fast in this place. And if you come here with the indomitable auntie Betty, she can take you round to graves old and new -- even explain the use of an epitaph or tell you a potted life story. That's if she has time. She does not care, she will say, to be morbid.

Roland Beckett, my grandfather and Florence, my grandmother, gave life to twelve children in all, with ten surviving childhood. With them all, the tough, kind figure that was Nanny, great grandmother. Always she lived with them. And I grew up with a vague idea that grandmother and grandfather had a bit of a difficult relationship now and then. I know that, when all the children were grown and most had left home, Roland and Florence divorced. Let's hope he found happiness in some other arms: a woman in Tenby about whom I know nothing.  But she was subsequent, don't you know.

In farms from the Swansea valley (for my mother was really a Valley girl by birth, you might say), to Kidwelly and dotted about Pembrokeshire; from Wiston to Creswell Key - my grandmother's last house before she came to live with her large brood - my mother and her brothers and sisters lived a demanding but loving life. I long to hear the stories of all this; I grew up always wanting ten children, after all. 

Last night, I heard about how they swam and splashed in a bathing pool in fields in Wiston; how my uncle John could not buy an engagement ring for my auntie Betty because, as he told her, he had bought a cow instead; how my great grandmother was so ravshing that she stopped traffic in Tenby main street and how --  well, you don't need to know all this. It's just that when you come from a big family, stories come thick and fast and I am grateful for their telling. And yet, much as I love this church on this peaceful little lane, I'd like them all back -- all those grandparents and cousins and uncles and aunts and great uncles - in one place, again - if I could. And just once - in case they all argued.

Friday 30 July 2010

On finding true love

For Katherine Thomas.

Walter looked a little like a duck. His nose was beaky, he had an unattractive gait which was, you've guessed it, more of a waddle really. For a man, he was short, but compensated for it with good cheer.

In Walter, there was not a whiff of arrogance or the slight bitterness one sometimes sees in those who have a chip on their shoulder due to perceived misfortune. And there was one more thing: Walter was very, very funny. He had the sort of timing which would cause his friends - and he had many- to double up; to have painful sides. He was also articulate, without being showy. Walter loved words. Felt them in in his mouth like something smooth and minty (a humbug) or rough and to be handled carefully (managed carefully with your tongue).

Walter's mother loved him dearly; to his father, he had always been a bit of disappointment, though dad tried not to show it. Walter was clumsy and, in those who did not know him, he might cause giggling or the foolish scorn of those who really should know better but don't. Walter, also, had never had a girlfriend - but he lived in hope. Waddling on through and making people laugh.

That day, on his way to work -Walter restored fine musical instruments - he had an odd sensation that today was different; an inchoate feeling - not of dread, but of a sort of warmth spreading up through him. One might say a new kind of happiness. There was a woman waiting for him at the shop; she had a cello and was -did you see this coming?- tall and willowy. She had the gentle flush of the English rose and strawberry blonde hair; she wore a white coat. Almost, he dared say, a little like a swan. Walter didn't mean to look a little too intently, but then she was, to his eyes, heart-meltingly lovely.

Yes, I can restore your cello to health. It will take this long; these are the procedures I am likely to follow and yes - it is a truly fine instrument which you're so right to treat with reverence and want to bring back to its former glory. He was avoiding her eyes for fear of blushing, but, when he looked up, she was staring intently at him. There was an awkward silence. Now or never. He wouldn't die if she laughed in his face.

"I have a break at about 11. I wonder if you would like to come and have coffee with me. At the new shop over the road?"

Well now. They were both blushing. Later they drank their coffee and talked and talked and the next day, too. Like him, she loved to play with words; to handle them and feel their heft. And Walter worked on the cello until he had brought it back to clear, resonant notes and a burnished beauty. She struck some notes right there in the shop and he almost cried. But she stopped him, right there, with a kiss and the world around went silent.

Yes, they do make a funny-looking couple, the swan and the duck. But they laugh constantly and make the kind of music that reverberates long. With them, you hear -no feel- the grace notes: those notes between notes which you take in on a visceral level. There are three little ducks or swans. They have their mother's grace and their father's waddle - a curious combination, but a good one.

So, ladies, if he looks like a duck, but he makes you double up laughing. If he can nurse something tired and jaded back to life. If he talks and his words do not enervate but buoy you up. If he smiles at everyone and there is no tiring bitterness about the man, then kiss him and be transported. You know I'm right.

Tuesday 27 July 2010

Berenson looked back

DEAR READER: I MUST WARN YOU. A CREEPY LITTLE TALE. YOU MUST DECIDE FOR YOURSELF EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS IN THIS STORY - AND WHO IS WHO (OR WHAT). DO NOT READ BEFORE BEDTIME.



A light drizzle settled in and, as Berenson walked home from an unremarkable job in the city, the darkness began to fall over London in November. 

From office to tube and from tube to the beginning of his walk home, he was content enough. Even with the grey evening, the drizzle was refreshing on the skin after a day in the office. He observed familiar faces on his way, nods of acknowledgement and, to a certain extent, he fancied, of understanding. The day had gone tolerably well.

Walking up the final small spiral staircase from the tube station, though, Berenson was struck with an odd feeling: of the familiar being just a little off beam. He couldn't put a finger on it, but it made him shudder. Thinking carefully, the white tiles looked perhaps a little yellowing; the steps altogether dustier. Now and then, he felt someone brush against his shoulder, but yet he had no sense of someone quite so close to him as he made the final ascent to the street. Again, he shuddered.

Walking in the direction of home, he stepped first into the everyday sight of a London street, with its selection of shops. He bought an evening newspaper, rolled it up and put it under his arm. Again, the shops looked a little different. There was an unseemly and garish quality to the lighting and the bright displays of goods, even in the small newsagents where he stopped every evening. He had never noticed that before, always enjoying the convivial warmth of the shops and shopkeepers as he walked home.

He reached the end of the road, where shops began to give way to the residential streets. Berenson had an odd feeling - almost like the warmth of someone's breath on his back. He shook it off. "Maybe" he thought "I have one of my heads coming on. I've been working pretty hard " But the feeling did not abate: it grew stronger and more disconcerting.

Rounding the corner into his own street, it occurred to Berenson that he had yet to turn round. To have done so would have been to give credence to what he thought a foolish sensation. So he walked on. But, as he did so, he was conscious of the increasing closeness of another individual and, also, of footsteps behind him. Yet, when he stopped, so did the sensation and the hoof taps. It was true: they did sound very like a shod horse striking a road. Moving on again, walking more quickly, the steps and the individual kept pace with him. Looking around, he had the bizarre sensation that he was seeing everything as it always was - but through a glass darkly. 

Walk on, walk on. Did he hear a laugh behind him? Was the breathing full and throaty? And did the man behind him identify himself as Berenson when, unable to bear it any more, Berenson looked back? 

Daylight saw Berenson travelling, as usual, down a pleasant city street and past shops doing brisk trade and on the London underground. All was well. But tonight a story would appear in his newspaper about the diligent, well respected man, found cold and dead in his street last night. And the man who cut him down would, while there was time, sit in Berenson's favourite chair and tweak at what we know of our everyday familiar world. He would shuffle off his steel-tapped shoes, brush a little lint from his fine dark suit. And he would laugh.

Sunday 25 July 2010

On Chesil Beach

 The beach recedes five metres over a century; it's diminishing slowly, slowly under your feet.

There are people about on this summer's day, but you are all alone, sun on your back, sharp sea smell and digging your feet into the shingle: aligning your body once your feet are dug in right. You notice immediately the stiffness in the lower spine; a bit of a twist there. You must correct it -easily and satisfyingly done with the help of the smooth warm stones. This is the kind of thing you forget to do in quotidian existence.

Walking is hard-going along the beach, but it pays off with the tingle of calf muscles. Although you didn't feel much breeze, you see that you hair is all tangled as you get back to the car some time later. Salt on the lips.

There must be lots of people here on holiday but, on the routes you take, you seem to meet no-one. Climb up to the Hardy point. No one else. Much later, travelling nearer to home, not a soul is there at East Coker to follow the trail T.S Eliot left for us in 'The Four Quartets'. It seems right to visit his grave. There are some white roses laid on it. Would that there were lilac, too.

Take your time and travel slowly. You have been in knots and unravelling. This has happened before.  

Pause.

 Chesil Beach recedes five metres in a century. It is best that you move forward.


Thank you to Alexbrn and Marilyn at Flickr for the shots. x

Wednesday 21 July 2010

Double rainbow over Bengal


Apu loved to see the rainbow come; he would always try to find its end, wondering if he would see the patch of grass where its shards of colour first shot up into the sky. He would run, but the rainbow would always fade before he finished this task. This he took in good spirit, promising to run faster next time; to observe more closely where the colours began.

One day, he saw the most special of rainbows - the double. So lovely, arched over the steaming fields in the monsoon months. "I wonder if...." Apu began to run. He ran and ran and, this time, the colour seemed to hover for longer. In some way, it carried him onwards. He ran into landscapes he had not entered before, but he was not afraid. Eventually, realising he was lost, he sat and looked about. Recovering his breath, he found that still the colour stayed, compelling him to travel on until at last he saw what he often wondered about: the root of the rainbow in the long wet grass.

There it was, but it was the root of each of the rainbows of the double, beautifully and lovingly entwined. When he touched them, he found that the roots were soft, like the downy space between the ears of the family's buffalo. And then, without warning, they became arms and lifted him up, high over the plains of Bengal. He saw sights familiar and unfamiliar. Villages and ponds and ditches and emerald green and a train snaking through with a cluster of children running alongside. He began to recognise places closer to home: a roadside shrine, the river, silver and swollen. And still he was not afraid.

Finally, the rainbows set him down, not so far from home, by a Peepul tree he knew and in whose trunk he had carved his name. Apu walked on, into his village, not sure if he dreamed his journey. Whether he had or not, he was, from that moment, a little less sure of where the tangible world ended and where the intangible magic began.

Monday 19 July 2010

Papu, the boy who wanted to chase tigers

For Sol. Here is an intriguing little story for you.

Papu had always craved adventure; even as a child, fantasies and fantastic journeys came thick and fast in his head. His imaginary friend was a singer in a rock band with crazy tattoos, crazy hair and a wild look in his eye. He was also a world traveller and a man of no fear. An explorer.Papu wanted to be like him.

In his dreams, Papu chartered planes and followed stories of interesting people. On a whim, he might have heard a story of a boy, living in a remote Bengali village, who had befriended a tiger in the jungle, lived in the most hidden, most curious part of the delta and kept a boat for escape. And he was off, to follow the boy and write his story.

As he slept, Papu heard a story about a lady with twelve children and green eyes who could heal; a shallow pond that never dried even in the hottest part of the year; a magician who lived in a box in Kolkata. In his dreams, he followed these people, met them and became their friends and they introduced him to a world beyond his ken. Of a djinn, a fairy, of magic in the water and healing in a tree. Of things you could see at the corner of your eye at dusk and of a world of adventure, mystery and strangeness.

And thus was his world, thinking, thinking - when he was playing cricket in the street with the boys from the neighbourhood or when his mother made his favourite foods. 

When Papu was grown, he became more sensible. He became accustomed to responsibility, as it is right to be. But at night, when Papu slept, the dreams came. There was a man with a great moustache throwing balls of fire, a beautiful lady with long hair singing songs full of sadness and places nearby that you could not see other than through her eyes. When Papu woke, he found that his face was wet with tears. This went on, until Papu couldn't bear it any more.

Ignoring the requests of his parents, who told him that he had to work hard and find himself a wife soon enough, Papu went wandering. He went in no particular direction, through the village and the temple. Through the fields and by Mother Ganges. He stayed with kind people who took him in when he explained that he was on a journey and that he was lonely and unhappy and was looking fore something. Perhaps they thought he was a mad man; perhaps some thought he was a holy fool yet to articulate his cause, but they cared for him. And then, one day, Papu was in the Sundurbans, that wide, low watery expanse on the edge of the Bay of Bengal. Here, there are endless streams, waterside settlements claimed and released by the mud at monsoon time, dark forests and creatures. He found an empty hut and sat down. He chewed on some betel leaf he had with him; a gift from the Panchyiat at the last village he had visited. He thought. Eventually, an old man came in and sat down, smiling at Papu, but saying nothing, They shared a little betel. A storm came up. It came stronger and stronger and soon, Papu realised that the hut was in harm's way: that the water was whipping up around it. 

The old man left the hut. Papu did not know what to do other than follow him. The wind and rain were dreadful. He would not have been able to hear his own voice or the voice of the old man had they ever tried to speak to one another. The old man climbed a tree as the water lashed at the ground, with increasing viciousness, below him. He beckoned Papu to follow. And there they stayed, lashed tightly to the tree, until the wind died down. The old man was limber; he was also calm. Papu, however, was terrified and struggling to hold on.

Morning saw an exhausted but alive Papu climb down from the tree. The old man helped him. The mud was thick and he followed the man through the forest to a clearing where he saw a small settlement. Invited into a small dwelling, Papu sat and stared. A tiger was there, asleep on the floor, a lady with long hair resting on him. In the corner, there were large smouldering coals; three of them and Papu was pierced through by his memory of the man who juggled fire. As he looked from the very corner of his eyes in the dusty light of the dwelling, he wondered if he could see more people or creatures - but of this he was not sure. And then, he slept, lulled by the pressure of the old man rubbing his feet with mustard oil to soothe the pain from gripping the trunk of the tree through the night.

When Papu woke up, he found himself alone on the warm soil of a forest clearing. There was nothing he could say, nothing he could do other than move on. Move on home, certainly to a world of responsibility, but Papu would bear this lightly - even gratefully, if he could. He thought that he must have dreamed it all but he saw the blisters on his feet and he could smell the warm scent of the mustard oil. Even today, the rest is a mystery and you, dear reader, must make of it what you will. Papu, though, - today a family man with a decent kind of job - always remembers, once in a while, to look out from the corner of his eye, to meet a glance from someone and to let in happily and gracefully what dreams may come. 
 Photographs 2003 from Jessika Fortin at www.flickr.com These are of the Sundurbans in Bangladesh.

Sunday 18 July 2010

Crummy mummy disappoints her children

Parents' evenings. One attended, initially, on the wrong day by mistake. But all seems well and it's great that there has been an end to dry retching on the way to school. Crummy mummy feels a little gasp of relief come suddenly. We appear to be going in the right direction. We are going UP sub levels! Hoorah! But today, crummy mummy is in trouble with the kids. So, periodically:

"You gave us the wrong sandwiches again. You know I hate cheese and pickle."
"Why did you give me chocolate spread? And there were vegetables in my packed lunch and you know I hate vegetables."
"You didn't sign the form for the road safety man and so he wouldn't give me a certificate even though I crossed the road and didn't get run down."
"I looked  in my P.E. kit and you put the wrong trainers in there and I had to wear them and I fell over."
It is a litany of small errors.
"P's mum lets him walk to school on his own."
"S's mum lets him stay up until 8.30 on a weeknight AND he's got a telly in his room."
"N's mum gives her £1 pocket money a week."
 "K's mum gives him loads of pocket money. But he has to earn it. He almost has enough for a house."
 "Why do we have to get chickens when Toby says we can have his guinea pigs?"
"Why can't I watch a 12? F. watches 18s and he's not even 8 yet!"

Oh lordy. Crummy mummy hits upon a brilliant scheme. She lifts the strands of hair from in front of her ears, applies earplugs and settles the hair down again. They need not know. Now she can smile beatifically because she can't hear them complain. If it's an emergency, they will pull on her arm. Crummy mummy only pretends to be patient with children, you know.

Friday 16 July 2010

A slow walk through a sad rain


HHe walked on, the sleet and rain falling into his soul. She had gone. Beautiful, kind, clever - everything that might have held him utterly. When he told her, she cried silently and his heart broke.  So he walked. Wished he loved her. But he just didn't.


Another 50 word story.

The title comes from a line in Johnny Cash's 'Drive On'
The story is based on something that once happened to me, elided with someone else's experience. I won't say whether I walked.

Wednesday 14 July 2010

50 words for yesterday and 50 words for today!

Oh dear oh dear: been a bit poorly. This is to make up for the dearth of story yesterday.I bring you 100 words!


The thread that ran through a life


"That's Joe Biles: a good one. Fast. I'll have to remember that one. Watched the team first in 1950, down the front of the ground. Got there early with my dad. Oh Harry Cairns: he was good, too, but he was lazy."

Fine memories were triggered by those grainy images and, just for a while, the remarkable power of memory made John hold his head up and his daughter smile with relief. John leafed through the album and was back when the faces were young, enjoying a joke with the man on tickets and sitting on his old man's shoulder.

This story was occasioned by an article I read in The Guardian back in June. Its title was The Memorable Game and its subtitle Football can stimulate the recollections of some people who have dementia, a project has found. I found the article thought provoking, affecting and encouraging. Yes, there's a glum beyond words (I'm quoting W.H. Auden here), but if you look at http://www.alzscot.org/ and read through the tartan army sections you'll see what this charity is doing and how it's using football and years of being a fan to do it. I thought it was just brilliant. There is some hope that this project will be unrolled further.I hope that Bath City F.C. will get involved! (Note to husband.)

Monday 12 July 2010

The waiting room (another 50 word story)



Osteoporosis; type II diabetes; malaria; melanoma; under 24 chlamydia test. One might be relevant. Catalogue on orthopaedic aids. So much to look forward to, but today I cannot even manage a fully perforated eardrum. Glancing again at the posters, I go home with nothing to show for my moderate pain.



Occasioned by a visit to the triage nurse today. The images are by 'Centralasian' at www.flickr.com  THANK YOU! They are part of a catalogue of his images of original 1940s American health posters. These posters are on display as part of a retrospective at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington D.C.

Sunday 11 July 2010

The rock she dreamed of

Another 50 word story for you, as promised.

It was a ruby, looking like her; it would always be glamorous; a contrast against alabaster skin. 
"Marry me", he said, proffering a sumptuous velvet box. 
"You know what it is. It looks like you." 
Inside was a rock: opal on old gold.Oh dear. He had to go.

Saturday 10 July 2010

The tale of H., unlucky in love, who found solace by the Avon

Now, I notice that our town festival is running a competition. You have to write a story of 50 words and it must be in some way connected with the River Avon, which flows through this town. I thought I'd write a series of 50 word stories for you - the first of which is about the Avon. I wrote this in bed last night and timed myself. With revisions, it took me 12 minutes.


"Take me down by the river?", she'd suggested.
"Not on our first date!"
Never good with women, a social misfit who couldn't resist inappropriate double entendre, our hero gave up courtship, went fishing, saw kingfishers; a fine swan's nest. Thought for a while.
"This'll do instead" he said, half smiling.


The idea for the first bit comes from something I was thinking about myself the other day: when nervous or slightly ill at ease in company, I slip into banter - some of which may drift towards double entendre. I don't know why I do this! Deep abiding insecurity, maybe. And could it be also just a little impulse to be a tiny bit subversive? Other details: you can indeed see kingfishers on the river even near the centre of town and I'd seen that swans were nesting near the town bridge. Fishing is, I think, meditative. Those thoughts were all in the 12 minutes, by the way.

Friday 9 July 2010

Help from an unlikely source



Self help books Yeuch. Never gone a bundle on them. Always thought they were a bit new agey. (Now, when I say new age, I don't mean the proper cognitive behavioural therapy-based practical stuff; I don't refer to the NHS-advocated mood gym programme. No, I mean the airy fairy love yourself, meet your personal angel and channel your energies thing. Yep, it's prejudice, I suppose. Like nails down a blackboard.) I've noticed, also, that a number of the global proponents have preternaturally white teeth, too. In a mahogany tan. It's superficial and I'm not proud of it, but this also bothers me. Back to the books.

Here's the thing.   I picked up a little book. I was reading all about today being good enough and burning the scented candles and wearing the best lingerie and not saving things for a day which might never come because tomorrow you may be struck down by a number 9 bus (it didn't actually say that; I'm embroidering) and thinking that this whole thing was sappy,  but it was sort of growing on me. Giving me pause. The book in question suggested making a list of 20 times when you felt really happy and then 20 things you would like to do. Not, it counselled you, a list of things you thought you ought to put down (like your wedding day, say), but times you simply loved and would write down now as if no-one were looking or judging. So I had a go. It wasn't the list I thought it would be, quite. And it wasn't in order. At first that made me feel guilty but I went with the flow. Ha! Were my chakras open? See how bigoted I am!

1. Warm rock pools on Pembrokeshire beaches
2. Hens 
3. Cats
4. At night, alone, in hospital the night my youngest son was born
5. Other son as a baby lying on my lap and doing huge grins at me
6.Having a bead and craft box (not an armoire - like Martha Stewart advocates: see it's all coming out now...) and choosing beads to go in my haul
7. Husband rocking me in hammock on roof just after we first met
8. Collecting bilberries on heathland
9. Walking on coast paths
10. Collecting shells and finding treasures
11. Painting in oils and acrylics
12. Travels with husband
13.My auntie Betty stroking my hair
14. Riding a horse
15. The intimacy of a good friendship
16. Christmas: but not 1988, 1989, 1990-1998 and not 2008 (don't laugh: I had to think about this one). I'll also say the season of Advent and a darkened church here
17. Our boys saying and doing funny things
18. Walks in the rain: British and tropical
19. British country churchyards
20. Cooking - but at leisure, not necessarily the shape of everyday things

These were the first twenty things that came to mind. I realise, looking at it, that there are some seminal people and places which SHOULD be on there, but aren't. Where is the Taj Mahal at dawn? Where is an azure sea round a remote tropical island? There are obvious more glaring omissions, you might say. I'll leave that for you to attempt some pyschoanalysis on, maybe. I noticed that the hammock rocking thing was there, but not the wedding day. Hmmmm.
Then I did the next bit. 20 things I would like to do.

1. Have another baby. I admit to it. Preferably a big fat chubba wubba.
2. Get some chickens
3. Go for more long walks
4. Paint more
5. Watch films in bed
6. Spend more time with my wider family
7,. Do yoga and pilates regularly
8. Get more and better sleep
9. Maybe have a small rose tattooed on my ankle
10. Own a camper van
11. Stop worrying so much
12. Go out more with husband.
13 Learn to make clothes
14. Learn to make soap (well, I'm thinking presents and I LOVE making presents)
15. Have massages
16. Go to the sea more
17. Take a sabbatical with my family
18. Fix all the problems for my friends and everyone else
19. Leave the past where it is: in another country
20. Read more

Now, reader: I am ashamed. I scoffed at all this stuff, but damn me, it works. It made me feel good just writing it all down and, also, forced me to notice that many of the things, in both lists, that is, were to be found under my nose and not in a corner of the globe miles away or to be achieved with all my usual heart searching and hand wringing and exponential levels of frankly unnecessary effort. Clever book. Silly me.

Well now. At the end of August three chickens are coming to live with us. Notice that hens feature as number two on both lists. I have always loved them and they are associated with happy childhood stuff. They are ex battery hens who will need careful nurturing. I am making an ark and a run for them and I think they will be called Claudia (mother in law), Monica (mother) and Patricia (aunt) although, if their characters remind us of anyone, their names are subject to change.My youngest son favours Stacey, for some reason. The idea of a hen called Stacey is really rather good. The rest of the list, well I'm working on that. Some of the things will conflict; the odd one is not happening. Probably. I may want to change some of the items on the lists.  I do, however, stand corrected.


N.B. when you read these stories, do bear in mind that they are not necessarily about me - although a good number of them will be within my sphere of experience!

Photo by Casey Serin and Wrestlingentropy at www.flickr.com Thank you.And to Teena and Louise and a heap of good sense. Thank you thank you.xxxx

Thursday 8 July 2010

The provenance of the dove

Out in the fields, the sweetcorn was growing tall. Now, you could run through tunnels and, even as an adult, be hidden from view if you wanted to be. It felt magical. On this particular day, Laura was alone, but still she ran sometimes. The sky was almost violent in its blue, a shock against the  bright green of the stems and growing leaves around the miniature husks. But it was not the blue that Laura was looking at; it was the dark ploughed soil. Because, when the farmers had turned over the soil, there was always treasure to be found.

Laura had always liked to collect the old clay pipe stems that you find in pretty much every field in Britain, if you care to look. From centuries of people working the land, stopping for a smoke or skilfully keeping the pipe in the mouth as they worked. So, today, a haul of old pipe stems of various lengths and thickness and a lovely pipe bowl with a scalloped design around it. She would give all these to her boys. But, eyes down, she found what she thought was a strange-shaped piece of bone. Wiping off the dirt, it revealed itself as a dove, with one wing broken but otherwise perfect and raising up its one remaining wing as if about to fly. The bird's head was raised and its wingtip was sharp. It was carved quite intricately, too and might have been made of bone or ivory - or just pottery with the patina of age.

Now how, do you suppose, it came to be there? What could have been its provenance? It didn't seem like something a child would have lost, carelessly, in the field. Laura constructed a scenario. Was it something a man working in the field had given to his sweetie? Had she received it but later dropped it? Or had she rejected him and the dove been lost - worse, thrown into the field, either by him or by her? Maybe, prosaically, it just been what to someone else, some years ago, had been worthless rubbish, put in a fire at the edge of the furrows and eventually integrated into the soil of the field through repeated ploughing and sowing. Laura decided that she liked this story best: that a man who loved a woman gave her a present: a perfect little white dove, with two outstretched wings. By accident she dropped it and could not find it. She never told him but he loved her anyway and always. Eventually, the little dove got buried. But one day, many years later, someone else found it, thought it lovely and carried it home where it was enjoyed and wondered at by a family and anyone else who cared to look.

And that, thought Laura, was a much better story. She walked on through the tunnels of sweetcorn, but still keeping her eyes down just in case.

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The dove I describe is, indeed, something I found yesterday while out in the sweetcorn field.
"That's wonderful" said Susie
"A little bird" said Polly (6)
"It is a dove" said Ethan (8) "and its wing is broken."
"What a funny little thing" said Isaac (6).
"Put it on the window sill where everyone can see it" said Elijah (8).

Tuesday 6 July 2010

So Blinkie don't surf?



Now, you remember the curious tale of Blinkie the rabbit a little while back? Her owner, Rosie, has requested that Blinkie go on another adventure so....


Having had the boost in confidence that, for a rabbit, is engendered by stealing a car, doing your own shopping for green vegetables and, frankly, having grown men in a public house find you attractive, Blinkie was hungry for another bite of freedom.

Night fell. She had stealthily put together all her kit over the previous few days.

1. Shades. Check. (Aviators. Very on trend, she had seen in Squeak magazine. Angora Hilton wore them.)
2. Miniature wetsuit. (Don't ask.)
3. A log. Tied to a string.
4. The car. Again.
5. A cool friend -or rather,  Stinkie, the white boy rabbit from up the road. It was platonic, because, frankly, Stinkie was a bit square and was no stranger to the carrot trolley. He had, though, consented to go on this adventure.

This time, they took a different car. The family saloon. Blinkie was ready to slip the booster seats in place and had already stolen the spare keys. They were off and headed for the coast. Dorset. It was dusk and Blinkie hoped that, in the smudgy light, she and Stinkie would not be seen and arrested. Having said that, would you believe you had seen a rabbit in charge of a car?

The conversation was a little stilted on the journey. Yeuchhh. Stinkie was dull.

Carrots. Blah blah blah. My nice new run. Blah blah blah. The time I got the bronze in the county pet show. Blah blah blah. Music. Something cool and surfy to get Blinkie in the mood. Accelerate a little. As the light dropped, they were there and Blinkie, dragging her log on a rope, wearing her little suit, was free.

(That's Stinkie above, by the way; he is a little rotund, you must admit.)

Stinkie loped behind her, splashing in the water while Blinkie dragged her log out, caught the wave and WHOAH! Don't ever say that Blinkie don't surf. Blinkie was a goddess. Neptune would gladly have taken her as a wife. Fine, black and sleek she was, with her long ears trailing in the wind behind her and her nimble paws gripping the surf board log. Maybe at first the surf dudes on the beach might have laughed. She was, after all,  a small black rabbit on a log. Within the hour, they were putty in her hands. They smoothed her sleek coat, admired her unusual board with which, she told them, she could also shoot rapids (this was a bit of a fib, but Blinkie had plans). Stinkie sat on the beach and glowered. The gooseberry again. Slow coach. Always chortled at by the lady rabbits, a bit clumsy and, yet, so very very in love with Blinkie and unable to tell her. At that moment, though, he even thought he hated her; thought that, if her family ever babysat him when his own were away, that he might go and piddle in her eglu, pull the rose off the roof of her run or spit in her straw. Yes -- he was ashamed of these feelings.

And so it went, as the darkness came. He could see the silhouette of Blinkie riding the waves, the spray around her catching the rays of moonlight. And suddenly it happened. Where was Blinkie? The beach had begun to empty, but where was she? Had she gone off with these handsome, silly men and boys? Then he heard her: "Stinkie! Stinkie! Help me!" He ran like the clappers and dived into the sea, following her frightened and yet gorgeously rabbitty tones. She was underneath the log, below a wave with her paws caught on the rope. In a second he had saved her, swum with her -really quite athletically- back to shore and laid her on the sand.

"Oh Stinkie! You saved me!"

Now, call our girl fickle, but in that second, Stinkie was transformed into a rabbit Adonis. She saw him in a new light. He might dawdle and loaf around; he might not be socially articulate, but he had saved her life and showed some serious, sinewy athleticism into the bargain. They rubbed noses.

On the way home, Stinkie drove and Blinkie fell asleep on the passenger seat, exhausted by her ordeal. It was going to be lurrrrrrrrrvvvvvve. And  in the morning, he placed some clover tenderly on her straw pillow. The next adventure they must have together. Never again, would she go for pretty boys, but for a slightly overweight herbivore who was a surprisingly good swimmer.

There's a lesson in there for you all, ladies.

Monday 5 July 2010

Bethany Bluebottle starts young

For Mrs S and in memory of my dad, an eminently sensible man and teacher -- and to all people in charge of children who see the funny side!


"You will start piano lessons this month."
"Later this year, you will be going to ballet."
"Next month you will start Brownies."

Oh dear, the ever hopeful mother.

The piano lessons started amidst much howling. Mrs Bluebottle was determined that Bethany should go, however. The piano teacher, it turned out, did not appear particularly to like children. Plus, she had a large wart to one side of her chin with a big hair sticking out of it. On the worst days, when she thought Miss Hamm, the piano teacher, would shut her fingers in the piano lid, she fantasised about pulling that hair out. Snap! Yank! It's gone with only one deft movement! And Mrs Hamm had very big teeth. There was nothing to be done about that, though.

Bethany had no patience with the piano; it just wouldn't seem to accommodate her. After months of poor reports and an embarrassing turn in a little concert in Mrs Hamm's house, her mother recapitulated and told her she could stop. Oh, the relief. Bethany kept quiet, though, about the fact that, when she closed her eyes at night, great patterns of notes would swarm and swoon behind her eyelids and, gradually, compose themselves into melodies. "Hmmm", thought Bethany.

Ballet. In the village hall. There were lots of sweet little girls in their pink ballet pumps and angora ballet wraps. Bethany tried to walk in gracefully. There was a witchy woman called Miss Close in charge of the class. It appeared to Bethany that this lady also did not particularly care for children, regarding them as objects to be trained and formed and improved upon. Alice could do every little move expected; Emma could bend her leg up behind her back while smiling and keeping excellent poise. Oh. Miss Close was smiling. Perhaps, then, she didn't particularly like Bethany. But the Bluebottle gave her all, as she thundered around the hall in vain mockery of the movements the girls had been asked to perform. She was aware of the shame settling upon the room when she, elephant that she was,danced past the old room heater with its big wire guard. She could hear it rattle as she passed. This time, Mrs Bluebottle removed her from the class after only a brief conversation with Miss Close. "Great. Now I can get back to climbing trees and building dens", thought Bethany.

Brownies. Really, it was an accident just waiting to happen. Bethany felt the urge to rebel on the swearing in day. She chanted the Brownie Guide pledge, stepping from one chair -for Brown Owl had put two chairs back to back: little girls stepped over the apex from one chair to the other and thus entered a new realm. But Brown Owl did not seem to be smiling very much. Could it be that she, too, did not particularly like children? Red rag to a bull. Certainly, over the coming weeks Bethany hoovered up snippets of conversation: "I do have a full time job, you know." "I am doing this as a volunteer, you know." And she realised that Brown Owl had cast herself in the role of community martyr. Bethany was always eavesdropping on adult conversations.

Well now. Bethany liked the walks they went on, but disliked everything else. And then she did her first badge with Brown Owl and another ill humoured person. After this, it was suggested that the Bluebottle was not perhaps suited to structured and responsible work of this kind. There had been matches. A roll of kitchen paper. The mixing up of food and non food substances and, worst of all, the inappropriate use of water in a tiled area. Mrs Bluebottle paled. And yet, in the car on the way home, Bethany could have sworn her mother was trying not to giggle. At home, Bethany continued with making up her spy codes. She was sitting high up in her rickety tree house in the damson tree as she did this. "Alright there, old son?" asked her father.

After these three episodes, it was decided that Bethany Bluebottle was perhaps better with spontaneous activity. The funny thing was, though, that given a few years she went on to sing and play various instruments, scruffy little thing that she was. And the musical notes continued to swarm and cohere behind her eyes at night. They were joined, increasingly, by words. All in good time, she thought. And that, dear reader, is one reason why she observes a stern policy of benign neglect -- offering and responding to be sure-- with her own children now she is all grown up. And, do you know, she still sometimes has the urge to be very, very naughty....

Sunday 4 July 2010

The red dress


In Jean Rhys's The Wide Sargasso Sea, Antoinette is recast as Bertha by Mr Rochester. It is a name with which he feels more comfortable. From a tic in her sleep, all shifts and Bertha, with her name -a name which is not her colour and is, most likely, an insult to her pride - shifts to a private world where  shapes are lurid and vivid and where she has no sense of being loved. Instead, she is sold like a chattel, exchanged as currency for land. Maybe, like a piece of cargo, she goes on her journey to the attic in the old great house where she is, to generations of school students, the prime example of the mad woman in the attic. Mr Rochester's first wife.

But sometimes at night, Antoinette -for that, of course, is who she really is - runs through the corridors of the great house. Sometimes, Jane Eyre hears her. But no-one visits Antoinette. She is insane, lost to that private world in which nothing makes sense. One day, she takes a candle and she runs. There is fire, maybe by intent, maybe through her own special brand of lunacy. If you've read Jane Eyre, this part of the story is known to you. But if you've read the former (and I should say second, though first in narrative) book, then the mad woman in the attic is something else to you. She is a woman treated cruelly; beautiful, turned savage and formed in the heat beyond the wide Sargasso sea. But, for the last few moments, she is free and I imagine that she stands, face to the cool, foreign English air, high up on the walls somewhere. Round and about - there in the countryside or beyond in the towns -- there might be English ladies, in subdued colours of slate grey and cream or charcoal, with maybe an ornament of pearl or a pretty cameo. But high up in the house, Antoinette stands, in her long red dress - the dress which she had hauled from the Caribbean, all secretly smouldering  in its trunk. And she is aflame. And she is beautiful.

Thursday 1 July 2010

World on my back


So, I take the well travelled bag. It's a green rucksack; lots of secret pockets, not too big because to travel light is liberating, as you may know. Yes - it could go on as hand luggage; travelling in South Asia in the late summer I won't need more. 

Clothes: wear; wash; dry in a heartbeat. Sari, salwar kameez, something sort of half way to stop me looking like I'm trying and failing to be assimilated. Take off engagement ring and put it somewhere safe. The diamond and the aquamarine don't need to explore the reaches of Andhra Pradesh. The wedding ring has to stay. Mend the little cross around my neck that goes everywhere and put it on, but I do think twice about it. I've had good and bad conversations about that necklace - but it's who I am and subtle enough for me to leave. I think. The Balinese sarong that's circled the world comes, as it always does. Sheet, towel, comforter. I hope it will last forever. Shawls for discretion and warmth. Socks, but only because of the mosquitoes.

I delve into the first aid kit material. Not much I need, but I collect, with the pleasure it always gives me, the little syringes in their packets with the nurse's note to say they are for emergency use, I scoop up my mosquito repellent, antiseptic, my malarials, paracetamol, iodine, re hydration mixture - all the usuals. I feel light as all these things go into the little red nylon first aid bag: between us, that bag has been to 85 countries, so I have a peculiar feeling about it: like it carries with it  a barely perceptible tinge of all those countries, somehow. It's at this point that the room takes on just the tiniest supernatural edge. That comes with leave taking and arrivals if you travel a long way; for a moment, you are not quite yourself.

There's the photocopied pages of passport, the bits of my bag and my clothes in which I hide cash and I.D. I go through a routine. Still the bag is only half full. The money belt: the card, the stamped passport, a few rupees, phone, a little cash, a card and to be sure, a brief note from the G.P. saying I don't have swine flu. I know they are scanning travellers at arrival point still; this may expedite things for me; it may not. 

Elsewhere in the bag: some things I love. Solar charger, plug, the Swiss army knife, a little comb, a miniature mirror. With it, just a stick of kajal. I'll look like me, but different, different. And then I luxuriate in my choice of pens and pencils for the journey. And which notebook? Some paperbacks. Hindi and Telegu vocabulary. Still I am not up to speed, but I am a quick learner and I talk, talk, talk. When in motion, I don't fret. I am more confident; liberated. 

On the floor of the room, there is one green bag, easily carried on my back. Sure, the paperbacks will go in out, in out for a few days yet. Always, I struggle to decide. But I reflect that before I was someone's wife, someone's mother, someone's teacher or employee or had a house full of stuff, I was just me. I don't want to go back; don't want things to change. But I have hands for things beyond this home and today, I am not ashamed to admit, either, that it's just me and a bag too light to be waited for at the carousel. And I'm off.

Wednesday 30 June 2010

AN UPDATE

 Painting in oils. To cheer you because it's so very jolly: Mother and child ladybird, by Isaac Vaught, aged 6.


AND AN UPDATE

With the blog and my Indian tea party fund raiser, we've raised over £500. I am aiming for £1,000 - and remember that I will be selling an edited version of the short stories on the blog as a paperback from November. It would help me if you could tell anyone you know (who might vaguely be interested) about this blog. If you would like to sponsor this project, start at £1! I do appreciate it. I have not to date had any support or interest from local press despite the fact that it is a BOA charity (apart from the town's venerable magazine: thank you Jackie) so word of mouth or a link would be cracking!

AND DON'T FORGET THE NEXT EVENT: A PAY WHAT YOU WILL YARD SALE
MY PLACE
8TH JULY
FROM 7.30

Anna. x

Johnny Cash, in a lift, in Dallas, Texas




For Paul.

"I was told that when Bob Dylan met John -- I think it was at the Newport Folk Festival-- he circled John, bent slightly forward and smiling up at him with pure admiration."1

When he was ten, my husband happened to be in an elevator in a hotel in Dallas, Texas. In walked a tall man; the boy looked at the man's shoes. From there, it was a long way up, but look he did. The boy saw that it was Johnny Cash. No, he must be wrong. But hang on, Johnny Cash must have had to ride in an elevator sometime, so he looked again. He nudged his little brother: "Curtis, I think it's Johnny Cash." Maybe the man heard him; maybe not, but he smiled and grinned a broad grin and nodded: "Hellllllllo boys." A low, slow, warm voice.

The youth was starstruck and cannot remember if he said hello back; little brother was possibly unmoved, being too young to understand that, maybe, Johnny Cash was not to be seen riding in an elevator with you any day of the week. Upstairs, or maybe it was on another occasion, he learned that his mother had gone into labour with him (in Georgia) while watching Johnny Cash on a t.v. show. Now, these little links; they kind of went in deep. Plus Cash was, like him, a Southern man.

As an adult, he would listen and feel at home.Cash was flawed, both powerful and weak. He had struggled with addiction and insecurity, gone on a journey from the cotton fields of Arkansas to, well, a meeting with a luminary or, say, The President. He had Faith that was both angry and beautiful and music that haunted. So why not share? Well, that's what our grown up boy from the elevator in Dallas did. Best of all, he shared  American Recordings, which was played again and again in the house and, for a quiet moment when no-one knew what to do -he suspected that Johnny Cash would have shrugged off the fact of their doing this- 'Down there by the train.' Now, there was a song that could still a room or a nervy individual with its invocation to meet him if you had "taken the low road"; if you had "done the same." "There's a place I know", sang Cash - a place where he saw "Judas Iscariot carrying John Wilkes Booth." So, if you dear reader, especially you dear British reader, have not taken a look or a listen, may I suggest you go back and listen again and get to know him a bit. Not that I'm putting him on a pedestal, or nuthin.'

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Notes: American Recordings. Easy to download - you might try MP3 Panda. So cheap you wonder if it's legal (it is).


1. The Man Called Cash by Steve Turner (London, Bloomsbury, 2006). This was the first authorised biography. Quotation from the foreword by Kris Kristofferson, p. ix.


And, if you're unsure, Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus for pieces of silver; John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln.

The photo is by Mollipop at www.flickr.com. I LOVE it. She has written underneath "Cash. Still there." Absolutely. And thank you.
This is a true story. Elevator, labour and all.

Tuesday 29 June 2010

The cucumber sandwich

Cucumber sandwiches. High tea somewhere in the past, which is another country. Cucumber  sandwiches are those that you neglect to prepare. Predictable. Maybe so predictable that you forgot all about them and how extravagantly delicious they were.

But on this particular afternoon, the sandwiches had not been forgotten. A screened porch in Virginia and an English-style tea today. Hot tea, iced tea, the cucumber sandwiches -with no crusts, to be sure- ham sandwiches, strawberry shortcake and an English fruit cake. In Britain, those same sandwiches, but also ham, scones with some home made jam, the absence of iced tea and rock cakes made by a child in the family.

In Virginia, it was stiflingly hot and the guests came, grateful for the swooping fans and the tea and the cool of those lovely cucumber sandwiches. It all looked lovely. But the hostess was simmering, although nothing was said. There was a sighing just about audible, but no-one said anything or asked what was the matter. Someone might have wondered whether a fainting couch was around, for this was suffering pure and simple: I invited you but I do not particularly want you in my house. I wish I had never thought of it.

Back in Britain, the gloves were off. It didn't take long for a comment to be made. Did you not like the scones? You clearly didn't want to come, did you? Why does no-one else make an effort? It's always me. At least it was quiet, there in the Blue Ridge - but the atmosphere would do well to be cut with a knife. As an experiment. In Britain the knives had been slammed down on the worktop, a visual index of how little she was appreciated. No more cutting today, then.

Outside, summer blazed on. Inside, we resorted to near fisticuffs or a glint of resentment in a smiling face. Depending on where we took our tea that day

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Disclaimer: this is NOT about anyone I know. It may, however, make some suggestion about how women are martyred in the Southern United States and in, well, Wales.

Monday 28 June 2010

Amtrak with Ned

Washington. Baby in arms. The Capitol, Smithsonian; half smoke hot dogs in the park. We caught the New Orleans train and I remember the baby, lying on his back with his arms held up high, as the view liner train went through the night and on into Virgina. I woke early and saw that we were in Georgia and that the earth, just by the track, was red. The baby was still asleep, the train rocking him; my husband beginning to stir on the bunk above mine. He raised his head: "We in Georgia yet?"

In the dining car a shower of ma'ams and y'alls and a shower of hands for the baby. We had grits and eggs and crisp bacon, with hot sauce. Scalding coffee to further wake us. The creepers and the red earth gave way to the suburbs of Atlanta and we were almost there. I'd always enjoyed the hoardings of the city as we approached it from Hartsfield airport: Free at Last Bail Bonds! Chicken Breast Strips Meal only $2.. Here, just flashes of garden, then creek, refuse by the side of the track, more red earth. Still the kitchen staff dandled the baby while others poured us endless coffee and we were content. I remember that my husband told me to get ready. I hadn't combed my hair but I put on some lipstick because I wanted my mother in law to think well of me when we arrived. Silly, really, what with the baby being the show, not me. I remember that he was dressed in a bright red all in one we called the 'firework suit.' We were there.

Just a memory. Of being in motion and being at ease. Also, a testament to the South and why central government should not have slashed the Amtrak budget, if you're asking.


                         *********************************************************
Photo (I cheated slightly , this train is actually a North bound one coming up from  Florida to Virginia....) courtesy of John H Gray; he has a fine selection of Amtrak photos at www.flickr.com Thank you.

Friday 25 June 2010

City of light, city of joy

Benares, Varanasi, one of the world's oldest inhabited cities. It was not his city, but he felt at home there. He sat by the river at dawn and people were there - countless people- praying and bathing and offering up what they could. The sun hit the water and he watched them, not able to offer a libation - just to watch. Efflorescence on the water. It was strange, then, that this moment was the one on which his life turned. He felt an impetus to move.

At the tiny stall of a man he had come to know, he brought tea. Took it back to the room and set it by her bed. Then, later, mangoes and tomatoes and onions and limes and some olive oil from the Ayurvedic shop to make a sort of dressing. He begged a hillock of salt. He thought she would be proud of what he had done.

On the balcony of the room, the light was dazzling. There, with what kit he had, he assembled breakfast for her, called her out from the room. She had drunk her tea but had drifted back to sleep. Lost. But now, she sat. He smoothed her hair, put on her hat for her and gave her what he had made. They said little as they ate and watched the sun on its ascent. The colour of the Ganges changed from white and yellow to the more familiar muddy brown.

Then he stood up and told her that, now, he would stop running, stop travelling and that, whenever he put one foot in front of the other, he would be with her. She understood and that was that.

In the lanes below, the monkeys chattered. They could scent the food he had prepared and were ready to steal. The heat of the day was becoming pressing already and the yoghurt sellers were doing a good trade from their trestles full of clay cups. Later she and he would pack up and move on, no longer alone.
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If you look at www.flickr.com there is an exquisite series of photos from Ahron de Leeuw, of which this is one. Thank you!

Thursday 24 June 2010

The house in Flatrock

.

The house was really a wooden cottage; in another setting it might have been made out of gingerbread. It had window boxes full of red impatiens, still a thick fall of leaves on the ground from last autumn and the sound of a creek below it. Inside, the finds and hauls of a family over almost thirty years. A family escaping the city or sheltering from the storm with books and jigsaws and a making things drawer and a small radio. That night they drifted off to the sound of a small North Carolina radio station playing Cousin James and they felt proud.

It was early summer and there was a storm. Earlier, he had told her the storms in the South come in with a faint whoosing sound, a whisper at first. A shift in the tenor of the air. She woke to it. And felt its warmth before the explosion of thunder and lightning. They were sleeping in the loft of the house and they felt themselves being shaken by the storm outside and she wondered if one of the tall trees all around would fall. The children crawled into bed with them, shaking and sobbing a little: "I'm frightened."

Morning found the house still, intact and the air clear. The children ran in pyjamas to the creek, burying their toes in the mud and slipping over the wet rocks. A small and sleepy snake reared its head from the shallows, gave a half-hearted hiss, showed its fangs briefly and nestled back into the mud. Strangely no-one said anything.

Inside, coffee was brewing and the radio station was on again. Mom was up and doing, immaculate as always, and making bagels with cream cheese to eat on the screened porch. The children's father was still asleep, a half smile playing at his lips. Their mother would sit on the swing seat to eat breakfast; she would not wake him yet.

Simple really, but there it is.
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Flatrock is a community in the mountains of North Carolina. Photo courtesy of Appalachian Encounters at www.flickr.com Thank you.

Wednesday 23 June 2010

Crummy mummy has a comeback! Bonus story

Thursday! Top day for Crummy Mummy! She was delighted, for a start, by the comment of a friend who had written, online, that really the earlier chapter of Crummy mummy was the story of "Yummy mummy and her magnificent breasts." But, aha! I can shoot that one down, for I am wearing St Tropez tan and have hoicked up the breasts", thought crummy mummy victoriously. This is a curious game that introverted and self conscious women - possibly all women - tend to play. Yes: she knows. It isn't big and it isn't clever, either.

Hmmm: open classroom day in crummy mummy's corner of the world. Senior has made a Japanese garden; Junior is doing France. "What do they do in France, then?" asked crummy mummy, keen to be supportive of the teachers' work. "They have markets with cheese and eggs and they speak France language."

Crummy mummy visits Senior's room: she notices he is wearing his t shirt inside out and has a black pencil-covered nose, like a teddy bear. He shows her a Japanese garden. "That's lovely darling." "It's probably not mine", says he, "because we tried to make a pond with the crab shell you gave me, but the shell leaked and the garden flooded and the cardboard collapsed and then it fell on the floor." There are some exquisite gardens on display, though. Also, Senior looks happy and he gives her the "easy" entry level Sudoku puzzle sheet because he reckons she won't be able to do the hard ones. Crummy mummy does, however, score full marks in the "put the events of the Buddha's life in the right order" task. "It's time for you to go now" says Senior "Or you'll do that thing where you start teaching people."

Senior's class teacher tells her that he's a bit confused by the movements in the Japanese dance which they will perform in front of parents and pupils a little later. In the event it doesn't matter because Senior has placed himself, as in previous years, behind a pillar. Crummy mummy gets her 2010 "shots of the pillar" to show daddy. In the same arena, Junior performs a French song with accompanying hand movements. He performs with gusto, having told her before that the song is called "John Petinkee dancer." "I think it might be called "Jean le petit dance -eu (little French grunt and inflexion), darling." "Don't be silly mummy: his name is John Petinkee." During the performance, crummy mummy notices a preponderance of Boden matelo stripes and attractive red and blue shorts, echoing the French flag. Junior is wearing turquoise beach shorts and a home made effort on top: a white t shirt with a French flag on it displaying the legend "Vive La France."

"Well", said yummy mummy, "we all tried our best." Back home, she awards herself a yellow merit certificate and fills the too small paddling pool so that the kids can have a punch up in it before tea.

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Well, never say I'm not versatile: you got graveside wonderings and comedy crummy mummy back to back today! xxxx