HIRAETH

In the Welsh language, the word hiraeth, is, he thought, most beautifully defined as longing. His whole family - at least those whom he knew or who wanted to know him - were from Wales, scattered from Kidwelly, to Neath, Cardiff and thereabouts, Aberdare, Newport and, beyond the Lanskaer line to the little England beyond Wales - which is what you say to annoy a Pembrokeshire native.

And it was longing. When you were there and most of all, when you were not. John had been brought up in Somerset, a little lonely, really - something missing; part of the puzzle. An introverted young man, he was thought a bit prudish by his contemporaries at teacher training college, but, in a a moment of uncharacteristic, boldness, he had proposed to the first woman he fell in love with. She, he thought, was the most beautiful girl he had ever clapped eyes on. They married just after leaving college, to the disgust of his family. Too hasty; she was pregnant, too. "If you want your furniture", said his mother, better come and get it sharpish because your father's having a clear out."

John didn't criticise. He did, however, feel a shift. That longing thing again. Time to go.

So, with Mary, his new wife, they shifted across the river Severn. John found a job in mid Wales and, eventually, in Pembrokeshire. Mary, in the bosom of her large and shambling family, had her baby and was able, with their help, to take her first teaching post at Wiston, in Pembrokeshire, when there was still a school there. It wasn't a complicated life, but he could see the Prescelli hills beyond the school, watch the mist come down all of a sudden and walk out to St David's Head and be alone and still.

                                               ***********************************
So, today, it is a very short story, because I am off to Wales today. To Cardiff, Penarth, Merthyr (I'm not just speaking of what is pretty, but also of what is there and of what is), then on to the Brecon Beacons, Ceredigion and into Pembrokeshire. In a church at Walton West, above Broad Haven and gazing out at the sea, are buried two uncles, a cousin, my grandmother, my great grandmother and various other more distant relatives - all Becketts and, allowing for variant spellings, LLewelyns. And I feel it -that sense of longing - too. I was not, unlike, my family, born to it. But there is something about Wales. It is brooding, mysterious and, somehow, it feels ancient in a way that England, to me, does not. It is affecting in a haunting and entirely visceral way. That, I think, is hiraeth for me. I may not have been born in it but I am and have always been, of it.


Reader: we have to have a pause in our stories here because I am without internet connection for a few days. Perhaps you were under the impression that the whole of the U.K. had broadband connection or WiFi? Not in one little corner of our family! When I can, a batch of children's stories for you -- featuring Bethany Bluebottle -- plus some vampire stuff for 16 plus!!!

Observations upon one's grandparents. For Kate

Flora's paternal grandmother lived in a wonderful late Georgian house on the edge of the Mendips. She was Elizabeth, a proud and private lady, who kept chickens and made copious preserves and pickles and Flora remembered the dark larder in which the eggs glowed in the malt vinegar in Grandma's huge preserving jars. There were jams and pickled red cabbage and the damsons and plums from the old trees around the house.

It was thought that Elizabeth didn't particularly care for folks outside the family; there was respect, then, though  perhaps not liking between Flora's mother and grandma. Conversation was always confined to cooking and cottage garden plants and then silence. Flora had no memory of her mother ever visiting grandma beyond her early childhood. And certainly no memory of Grandma ever visiting Flora in her own house. This made her sad. A sort of lingering, quiet sadness which there was no point at all in sharing. It was just the way things were.

Flora's grandfather, Reg, was a tall, handsome man. Big working hands, broad shoulders like Flora's father. A man, again, of few words, but with lots of jobs for  Flora. Pick the fruit, some dahlias - in his garden, all the plants stood to attention when he walked among them - check the chickens, go into the huge walled vegetable garden and pick peas and broad beans, climb the tree and get some prize plums. Don't want to waste them. 50p pressed into your hand wordlessly as you got into the car to go home.

She loved to visit this part of her family but, as an introspective child, knew there was little to say and that they liked to see her, but would never, ever dandle her on their knee. Just the way things were. There was silence around what Flora knew to be sad things in the family: of death and separation and cancer and blindness and things involving tempers and people not being able to get out of bed. This unsettled Flora as a child and teenager, but as an adult she respected its dignity. When, over an eight year period of losing both grandparents, her father, her godmothers (one, her father's beloved and gregarious sister - the unusual girl in the family) and her mother, her remaining aunts and uncles (there were six in all) gently told her that they would most likely not see her again, it didn't come as a shock. Just sad. Sad. She never saw any of them again.

And then, there was the other side of the family. The lively, bright clan from South Wales. As a child, Flora was never quite sure how many of them there were, but thought that her mother had more or less ten or eleven siblings, with some attrition and a grandmother's tale of a baby dying at the breast - the story of which always made Flora cry. Flora's grandmother was theatrical, really rather a good self-taught pianist, would have been at home in the music hall where - and she liked to remind her little granddaughter of this - she would have drawn crowds. Instead, she managed the tribe of children as they shifted through various farms across South Wales and into Pembrokeshire as tenant farmers and grandfather -whom Flora never met- came along, too. At least, that was the impression Flora had growing up. That grandfather was there, along with grandma and her mother, Nanny - who died in her own bed accompanied by a vision of the virgin Mary in the corner of the room.

Flora keeps even now a picture of  her maternal grandfather on a dresser. He -Roland - looks like a movie star and has an intense and steady gaze.She always wishes she had met him; Flora's father once told her that grandpa was an intensely clever man, a fine mathemetician. She knew from her aunts that there had been flashes of dangerous temper - but never at the children. She wanted so much to understand and know more. When the last child grew up, grandfather left and went to live alone in Tenby, Pembrokeshire. If he found someone to love, we'll never know.

So, what have we left? Flora had thought it odd, when she married into a family from Georgia, in the Southern United States, that such interest was taken in family history, in genealogy and who was kin to whom. But of course, it makes sense. Kin is what you are. Not the whole of what you are, though. Experience, bitter and otherwise, teaches us that blood is not always thicker than water; that family is, frankly, a flexible construct. But, as Flora raises her own children, meets and is partially assimilated into other families -which is how it should be, she might say- she does think back two generations and has come to the conclusion that brooding of this nature is born of someone thrust into adulthood early by loss.

The painting is 'Grandmother's cheese dish'. 2010 in oils by Anna Vaught.

Down by the old Fogle house (Georgia....)

In a small town in Georgia, the Spanish moss cascades from the live oaks, the red earth is soft and warm and the benches are white. At this time of year, though, the grass had begun to parch and, by midday, the frames of the branches were hot to the touch. So it was good to be in the park with your Kool-Aid, sheltering in what less scorching enclaves you could find and catching the occasional spray from the fountain when a breeze came in your direction. And you want to be there rather than at the strip, with its hot tarmac and its huge Piggly-Wiggly and CVS stores; but even more, you would maybe not want to be on the other side of the town, away from the pretty centre, where green gave way to swamp and the fetid smell caught your nostrils in the summer. At least that's what the ladies who lived on the best street said.

Down by the swamp lived old John Fogle; he had, children said, the gift of second sight and, along with his cold, hostile wife and his unfriendly brood of  female offspring, did not like people to stray their way. The children were at school but chose to play together, shunning the company or Missy or Mary Lee or Claudia. Did well in school, though. Top of the class. Certainly, the other girls in the class tried hard to be friendly -- the ones, that is, whose mothers had not warned them away from the Fogle girls. The ones with the kinder, more broad minded mothers or those who wanted to rebel aganist their mothers -- for this was also a town in which mean mindedness and snobbishness tended to run rife.

Today, one young girl was determined. Betty was kind, but also intent on one day getting down to the house and looking more closely at the swamp. And she persisted.

"Can't I come home and play with y'all? Ma says it's o.k."

"No. Pa wouldn't allow it."

"Why not? I'd be real good."

"Don't matter."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. Sump'n. Nothing. Can't tell."

This enigmatic last answer was all she needed. So she told her mother that she has been invited home -and her mother allowed her because she, too, was kind and kind of curious to know about this family and, essentially, believed that they would treat right if treated right. So Betty followed.

"Go away. Pa don't like it.!

"Oh go on. You yella?"

"No. Well, if you'll go away after."

To the girls' surprise, John Fogle, who had stood up in what felt like a menacing way (Betty shuddered and regretted coming along), said that it would o.k. as long as she did not stay long. And in went Betty.

Sure, the area around the house was close to the swamp; you could smell the heavy air. But, it was also somehow exotic and beautiful and a breath of fresh air after the tight little corner of town where Betty lived. And the house was tatty, but oddly welcoming and, well, fun. Yes, fun. Like anything could happen. And Betty liked it. Gradually, the girls began to play with Betty, too. Chase and hide and go seek and, well, anything that took their fancy. And Betty met their mother who, in a startling and untidy way, was also unexpectedly beautiful.

She stayed for the evening meal, too. Basic and old fashioned, but substantial, too. And, while no-one said much, Betty realised that she had been accepted. Maybe she would be able to go back.

Next day in school, the Fogle girls continued to play together only, but they looked sideways at her even with a hint of a smile. She felt happy. It was, in its way, all rather mysterious. She wondered, too, why John Fogle looked so old: more like a grandfather or even a great grandfather than a father.

I expect you, reader, would like to know a few answers, wouldn't you? Well, the writer Carson McCullers, who came from Columbus, Georgia, wrote that she needed to return to the South from time to time to renew her sense of horror. It's not that I generalise here, you know, but do you think she had a point? Because John Fogle was not the girls' father and he did have the gift of second sight. He was the girls' great grandfather and he had, for reasons and by folks we cannot name, been preserved for his gifts. Father and grandfather? Gone. To the swamp one day. John Fogle saw what they would become. Told you that old brackish water was fetid. Not just that: it lived and breathed and did what it would do. And John Fogle was its custodian, being no murdering sort himself, exactly. Betty would be just fine because, as I told you, she was kind and looked without arrogance - only with spirit, love and curiosity at the world, in the way child and adult should. And those hoity toity mothers who lived on the best street on the other side of the park? Well, better not go the Fogle way. Swamp gonna get you.

NOTES: thanks to Ned Vaught (from Georgia and on my mind -sorry). 
Piggly Wiggly is the name of a Southern chain of supermarkets.
cdsessum has piblished a number of portraits of the South at www.flickr.com Thank you to him for his generosity in making them available under creative commons at www.flickr.com

Feasting and fasting at the Great House

Another creepy story -- as I've been teaching Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber, Gothic novels and re-reading The Turn of the Screw and The Castle of Otranto (the latter of which didn't really bear re-reading, but that's another matter). Let us begin.

The old house, in the sleepy French village, is tall and dusty looking. Once, it must have been vibrant, but now, bindweed curls around it and ivy reclaims the windows and the stone of the house. It must be hard for the quiet inhabitants to see out.

Sometimes, there is post for the house and the postboy makes a swift passage towards the door because the house alarms him. There is a housekeeper, an old crone who will not give you the time of day and, curiously, a gardener - though he never tends to the front gardens, so fallen into disrepair they must be. The villagers wonder whether there are beautiful and well tended gardens to the rear of the house.

It is said that a lady lives at the house, some say two sisters, and that they never need company. But that this is a house of shadowy presences; a place where melancholy hangs thick in the air. And at night, sometimes -in summer when the top windows of the house are opened - one hears music, from a curious assortment of instruments: flute, cello, but also mandolin and dulcimer. And an inhabitantof the village making his way home could be stopped in his tracks because the music is so extraordinarily beautiful. And even so it sends a shiver up the spine which is not so pleasant.

But today is different. People do not come and go readily in this village, but a new person has come, from the city, and he wants to enquire about the tall, great house. He thinks he might like to buy it: a retreat. It has great potential and he knows excellent architects and designers in Paris, where he lives now. He is bold, so he knocks at the door and it is answered. The rumour held true. Two women come to the door, so similar facially it is immediately clear that they are sisters. They are not beautiful, but they are arresting: striking and sensual women, with poise and grace and exquisite manners. They seem pleased to see him and -he is surprised to entertain this peculiar thought for a moment- as if they knew he were coming.

Over tea and dainty little cakes, he explains to them what it is he is looking for. They are clearly amused by something but do not elaborate. And to his delight, they indicate quite clearly that, indeed, they were thinking of it, of perhaps finding somewhere smaller because the great house is too much to manage and they realise parts of it are in a poor state of repair. They tell him that they will be in touch, that they have a solicitor in Paris who attends to matters of estate and finance for them - and so the visitor takes his leave.

So he waits and, sure enough, within weeks he hears from them again. A sum is agreed and the solicitors are instructed. Within two months, he is in the house, removing dust and grime and revealing the lovely house under the crumbling plaster and neglect. He has a lady in Paris and she becomes his wife. So taken with the house is he that he decides to move from Paris; it is a fair trip but he thinks he can make the journey once or twice a week to conduct his business. And during these times, his new wife is left lonely at home. The dream becomes more to his liking than to hers and, eventually, resentment begins to settle in the house.

And so they come to her. The two sisters who are still there for, of course, they did not move out - just retreated into the deeper recesses of darkness until they saw a purpose. The housekeeper and gardener are there, too. They will never leave because the house is alive: it is a living breathing organism and they, hungry for blood and for dim, mysterious life, are part of its darkness. The house may be trimmed and tidied and made pretty but, underneath, it will not change. And so the young wife is taken to be with them. And when her husband, upstart from Paris, comes back, he will not find her. Eventually the house and its inhabitants will claim him too. Except that his will not be a quiet taking - for the sin of presuming to buy what belonged for ever to somebody else. Something that was never for sale. And all those who live in the wings of the house and in the fine rear garden will play their music, jangle the gold of our upstart, do what cruel things they must to survive and laugh. You could hear them if you went to this village on a summer night when the music is played. But keep your pride in check.

The convergence of the twain (except we are in Bengal not mid Atlantic - as in the poem)

Funny how things can happen. It's just a street and this street is full of activity and colour and frying smells and the splashes of water from the pumps and the hiss of milk from the tea stall. And there is a snack seller who sets up at dawn: there will be samose for breakfast. Today he has made gol guppas -  little round wafers which he puffs up in hot oil and then fills with a mixture of potato or chick pea curry and a tart tamarind water. She cannot stop at one: the sourness, spice and salt being so at home in the searing heat.

An unfamiliar happiness while she does things such as this; holding the babies, being integrated into the life of the street. Not at home, but, for the first time in ages, feeling quite at home.

On one such day, while she dashes out to work, trying to make the metro to Chandni Chowk, she sees a man. Looks very fresh-faced; he is clocked. Surely she has seen him somewhere before? Today they are on different sides of the street, but he smiles. The next day, he asks for directions -- though she is never the right person to ask for this. They talk, walk, splash when the monsoon starts. He is supposed to be moving on; been an itinerant for ten years now, just come in from Bangladesh and from Meghalaya and Assam. But, as I said, funny things can happen.

Well reader, I promise, hand on heart, never to write with such sentimentality again, but our two restless souls were married within ten months. She has been foul to him today and that's why she wrote this story.

Subhodev: thank you for the old Calcutta photo.
www.flickr.com

Felix Cattus Brattus Culpa

You remember Daisy and Max from a few stories back? Here is the I.D. picture again, should you, unfortunate, encounter them doing damage. Or should I say that this is the picture of the real culprit, the other being an unwitting and unfortunate accomplice.

Note the strange half a moustache; we are told it's more a Stalin than a Hitler and may be part of the reason for misbehaviour: this cat has a grudge born of not particularly conventional looks.

The children and some of the neighbouring children had, that day, gathered tadpoles in jam jars and they were released into the garden's newly created ponds. Most of the tadpoles lasted just long enough to grow the beginnings of legs before Daisy ate them, carefully prodding them to one side and slurping them up. Those that remained were clearly the most gifted, knowing to burrow in the mud to evade their captor. Then she started on the frogs: there were frogs behind the sofa, a frog in the shower and a partially hoovered-up frog. They were, as the more phlegmatic of the children put it, "killed frogs." And then the worms. Live earthworms, this time. Brought in by the mouthful -- a sort of moveable Salvador Dali  moustache to go with the Stalin-- and shaken onto the carpets and rugs. "Presents. Don't be cross!" said the child.

At mealtimes, Daisy assumed her place on the chair, sitting up straight, like a well brought up child, yet refusing to move when a human came to its rightful place. When forced to get down, she would sulk and nip on the ankles. She swung from the tree as if it were monkey bars, stalked pigeons, peed in the bath (over the plughole, at least) and refused to capitulate in general -- even when next door instituted double thick mulch, a water pistol and an electronic cat deterrent to stop her digging.

This, then was a sort of slightly malevolent super cat. She was Asbo cat. Notice had been served and she stuck up a V for victory right back at them. Asbo cat learned to open the fridge, get into other people's wardrobes and go to sleep there and beg prettily and in a slightly pleading way which human folk like. It worked.Asbo intellectual cat, then. She was training them.

And Max: stool pigeon. Always caught on worktop and windowsill, while she sat sweetly below. Eating what he should not while she sat a few paces away as he got admonished. A bit like Lennie before George euthanised him.

The cat has a sort of style, but she is marked for trouble and she couldn't give a fig because Max (known domestically by the children as El Thicko, The Thickster or Captain Chubby) can be readily framed. So watch out. Felix Cattus Brattus Culpa is about.

The lady, the hallway and the stars

With apologies to the late Angela Carter and The Bloody Chamber


Dedicated to this summer's A2 AQA Gothic option students!

It is a strange place; a cold street, in which the temperature seems to drop as you round the corner. You feel the breeze cut into you; sometimes you think you must have imagined it, but no: there it is again. A street that looks the same as the last but inescapably, dangerously and, unfortunately, irresistibly different.

The young man, lean and callow, has been called upon to work for the shadowy residents of this street. There, every day, post is delivered, collected from doormats, papers from drives and houses and gardens maintained in apparently prisitine condition. And yet, we see no one, telling ourselves only that the street's inhabitants must keep shifts or, more exotically, rather bohemian hours.

So, the young man is called to the fifth house on the street, a tall house, as all the others, with imposing gables and a tall, tall chimney stack. He rings the bell and a lady answers, ivory and willowy, with intense blue eyes. She sees him start just a little, as one does when confronted by such intense beauty. "Won't you come in? So much to do."

Inside, it is a world away from the modern suburban street, all billowing drapes, vast cabinets of dainty phials and bottles, Venetian mirrors and candelabra. And little cups; so many little cups on narrow shelves. With fluted saucers, Japanese and Chinese designs, lacquerwork. His eye is drawn everywhere all at once and she senses this.

"Yes: I am quite a collector, as you see."

"Well, I'm wondering, Miss -is it Miss? (it is) - which jobs you need doing."

"Ah, yes, But first, won't you have some tea? Come through."

The kitchen is through the long narrow hallway with its unusual intricate pattern of hexagonal tiles. The room has a surprisingly vast azure ceiling, upon which are painted many tiny gold stars. He would have thought it exquisite, had it not already begun to make him dizzy just looking at it for a short while.

She boils water in an old fashoined urn (strange, he thought: why no kettle?); rather too much for tea for two. She makes tea in a lovely, highly polished silver tea pot -again it seems disproportionately large of scale.

"I need more shelves, Long thin shelves for my display. I am such a magpie, as you saw. And shallow cabinets for the walls. Like you could see in an old fashioned apothecary. But not so deep and, you know, with drawers. Can you picture what I mean?"

Yes, for the first. That shouldn't be hard but her second request  would be more difficult. But, as he drinks his tea, he feels he wants to please her, so he agrees to start the job the next day. Although really, his other commitments tell him he should wait. It is something about this lady - and she amuses him too, he thinks as he drinks the tea from more of her little cups.

Next day, he begins and, in a day, the narrow shelves are cut and fitted for the rather bare little ante room off the kitchen. "This will be my dining room",. she says, "You are decorating it for me."

He drinks more of her tea, even eats some dainty little sandwiches she makes him, and begins work on the cabinets. The work seems to flow from him; oddly, some of his best work to date. Invisible joints and beautifully conceived design. He has surprised himself. But then, standing back from the room, as it begins to come to life with its first fittings, he feels suddenly tired and this she sees.

"Come and sit down. In the kitchen."

"She looks more beautiful than ever today", he thinks."Yes, I had better."

He sits, closes his eyes for a moment to rest. He feels worse. Looking up at the ceiling - at the fine golden stars - he becomes dizzier and dizzier.  And then he sees and remembers no more.

The shadowy inhabitants of the rest of the houses in the street come through interconnecting doors -they are corporeal, after all-  and they feast and they drink him dry from the little fluted cups as they sit under the stars. And what they cannot digest, they grind for their medicines and make up and potions and this they place in the shallow apothecaries' drawers. And thus they retreat to their own homes and the lady with the lovely blue eyes is alone. Until, that is, she crosses her hall to the next visitor, floating across the fine encaustic tiles, which show not hexagons, but pentagons - no pentangles- and say, in the Latin inscription which our carpenter did not know how to read, "Caveat venus et stella." And if you, too, cannot read this, then you must find out -just in case.

cats again

UPDATE: £100 RAISED AND WE ARE ONLY A WEEK IN! THANK YOU!

Although it is not my favourite story so far, the cats' tale, 'Cat Mischief', seems to have produced the happiest response. Other comments have been that readers wish the stories were longer and that we could revisit some of the characters to see what happens next. If there is something you would like a story about, why not challenge me or leave a request?. Leave a comment in the box below the blog post.

Well, we will return to the cats and to Flora, as she, essentially, is me, which you will have guessed if you know me other than in passing (Anna: "Here is my heart; I am wearing it on my sleeve"). Other folk who have been introduced, maybe, maybe not. As for longer stories, the answer is that I will write more where I can, but I need to set myself a limit of something I can do every day. And these stories are fresh each day; I have not planned them out in advance - so I need to write something manageable. And a short story is, well, a short story, not a chapter.....read on and bear with me!

Below is a picture by Subhodev at ww.flickr.com; part of his Old Calcutta series. It's the Maidan -- which means an open grassy area-- in Calcutta at sunset. Sundown here, too. New story tomorrow. x

Sakhina. A true story.

Sakhina lived on the street in Chandni Chowk, Kolkata. She was tiny, with deep brown skin and huge eyes, ringed with kajal. She did not know how old she was, but my guess was six or seven. Her dress was all in one piece, but filthy - and her hair was matted. She scratched her skin and hair a lot because of the nits on her head. She said that they ran down her back. When I held her, they jumped on to me. And it was hard not to be close to her because she ran at me, a hard little torpedo of a child and I would pick her up and swing her in my arms. And when we slept on the floor of the school after the midday meal, she would shift sideways into my armpit, not so sweetly pinching any other child who tried to get near me.

Sakhina's home was at the edge of the pavement not far from a school, just the size of a crawl space and made of flat pieces of plastic, tin, cardboard and tarpaulin. They had a cooking stove and bedsheets of some sort, a few utensils and maybe a few extra pieces of clothing, but that was it.

Sakhina played in the street, with sticks and stones, throwing them at the stray 'pi' dogs, making cheeky faces or even obscene gestures at passers by until this elicited a resounding slap from her mother. Mother had a grin from ear to ear, but a steely glare reserved for her child - or possibly children, as I never discovered who else was in the family - and on the two occasions when I saw her father, he was blind drunk.

Sakhina told me her mother sold things and worked hard and that her father slept a lot. The child had managed to learn quite a lot of English in the little school and, probably, through her own fierce intelligence and the skilful acquisitiveness of someone whose daily goal is to survive. Sometimes, I saw her howling and crying, but these occasions were few and far between. She was beautiful and I have never forgotten her.

On not being lonely

"Living alone and loneliness are not synonymous" (from The Department and Work and Pensions at Directgov)


Flora was a funny kind of kid; struggled with friendships in school, not the sort to be able to stand up and receive a prize for anything but, you know, pretty bright - just not the sort, as she was once told, to set the world on fire. Hmm. She struggled with that one because, of course, like more than would care to admit it, she wanted to set the world on fire; to be conspicuously brilliant, (modest, though) known to be kind, intuitive, creative. Well, and pretty, too. Shy throughout, she would smile at other people -older people- but it never really occurred to her that she might engage them in conversation.

Flora, I suppose, was damned by faint praise.

"All that matters is that you try hard."

"I know you're not really determined, but we're still proud of you."

Lovely, but somehow missing the spot, she felt.

Rhoda lived down the row. She was about eighty, with a soft, kind face but, Flora sensed, girders of steel. Rhoda had had a tough life, widowed two years ago and had lost a child in adulthood, too. There was something resilent about her; joyful, even. One day she asked Flora in. The girl had always smiled at her, but never chatted. That shyness thing again. One day, though, she was just kicking about in the garden, disconsolate, after a bad week at school which nothing seemed to cure, when Rhoda asked her to come and help. Flowers needed moving but Rhoda had stiffened up.

Flora felt that she wouldn't know what to say to Rhoda, but also understood that she must lend a hand. So flowers were moved to a better spot; clumps of irises and opium poppies were divided: Flora discovered that she knew a bit about this from having watched her father at work. Not instruction; just osmosis. The next week, clematis and honeysuckle cut back, under Rhoda's watchful eye. Flora saw to her own delight, though,  that she knew about finding a strong shoot and where to cut. Getting ready for Spring.

Flora found that she relaxed and began to chat. Squabbles with her more articulate, popular, profoundly cooler schoolmates began to recede with snipping, tidying, mud and the abundant cakes and cups of tea that Rhoda produced. The girl began to chat to Rhoda - about her parents, school, not being particularly good at anything. Rhoda listened; gave her the occasional pat on the arm and said simply: "You will find your voice and, you know, when you get to my age, you'll see that none of the things you worried about ever came to much."

Flora is older now, more sure of herself; Rhoda is a little unsteady on her feet. But the visits are kept up and assuaging the loneliness cuts both ways. Sometimes the least likely person might be a peculiar girl's best friend - when it matters most.

Evelyn: this is for you.
Pictures by Katherine Thomas (year 11) and Anna Vaught.

A fund raising update

YAY! One week in and we've raised £90!

Thank you xx

A scene you might recognise, people of BOA and its environs. Thank you to John Picken at www.flickr.com

Cat mischief

Max, a peaceable and slightly overweight tabby of two years and Daisy, conniving kitten of six and a half months. This their photoshot, kept for reference in case identification were needed by people in the community.

Just like all the cats at the house -and there had been a parade of them over the years- the animals were rescue creatures and came with a back story. In Max's case, he was just glad to be at home and recline; in the case of Daisy, prospects seemed mixed. She was bent on merry making and mischief and the slow-witted Max was to be her accomplice. She was what a vet had referred to as "a naughty tortie".

At night, she contrived a plan: they would make some subtle adjustments to the house. Max sat and took instructions while Daisy advised on drill bits and the size of rawlplugs needed. The refined old sepia photos on the sitting room wall were replaced by their dining mats, with pictures of fishbones on them. They placed dead mice on the end of the children's beds and a live shrew, bought in so delicately by Daisy, in the airing cupboard. A frog or two: dropped behind the radiator in the children's room. Cat biscuits dropped in the muesli. Some doors were removed from kitchen units and dragged into the garden. push and pull together. In the morning they would be dotted with slugs and woodlice. A lick of poster paint and a stubby children's brush -even so, not easy to manipulate without opposable thumbs: behold a mural for the landing. A kind of abstract painting of fish, with waved brushed in by Max's tail, as Daisy directed him up and down, up and down.

And leave no trace of your part in the crime, so a quick wash and brush up in next door's water butt. After, that is, a raid on the fridge - so easy to flick open with a slim paw if one were to sit on top and aim for the seal around the door edge. Ham; a piece of cheddar; a chew at Sunday's leg of lamb; tip out the milk and lick the floor. Cats cannot open fridges, you know: So, frame the children, surely naughty enough to have a midnight feast. Chuck a few yoghurts around and loosen the lid of the biscuit tin to make it convincing.

Now off to bed; sit prettily and wait for the morning. We have finished being nocturnal and want to rest. "Tomorrow", thought Daisy the conniving kitten, "I will teach Max to be a proper cat burglar."

It's Pentecost, Tom, but not as we know it.

The photo above is by Giles Turnbull. Through the gate of Holy Trinity Church, Bradford on Avon. I particularly like this picture.

The story below is inspired by Thomas Hardy's poem, 'Church Going'. Make of it what you will. Maybe read the poem, too.

Tom sat at the back of the church. It was Pentecost, celebration of the day God sent His Spirit amongst his people. Fire, wind, comfort and inspiration for all time.

"No. I just don't get it", he said silently to himself. And not for the first time, as he sang the hymns, smiled at people about the church and tried, where appropriate, to look solemn and meditative.

"I mean, I keep coming here - I like the building; it's peaceful. But I don't feel what they all seem to feel. What has been revealed to them and why has it never to me? Are they arrogant and pleased with themselves because they are so sure about their faith? I'm not sure I even like that."

Tom found that, despite his best intentions, he was riled. Irritated because no one was helping him. If they were so close to God, why couldn't they sense that he was struggling? His chest felt a bit tight. He was getting the old, frosty demons again. Emma Gifford. How could it have all gone so very wrong and now she was gone, too. And here, in a place which was supposed to help him, he could find neither solace nor guidance.

"Out. I cannot stand it. I cannot do this any more; skulking at the back. I need some air. I don't want to hear all this talk of the Holy Spirit coming among us. What about me? No one or nothing has come to me."

Outside, though, his breathing came deeper and he felt a little better. It was a warm Spring day; May the 23rd.  He could smell the last of the cowslips, a warm honeyed breath. The lily of the valley mingled in their sweet, fresh scent and the earth, he thought, exhaled. The old gardener was at work; not in church, Tom noticed. Keeping the Garden of Remembrance tidy; mowing and clipping. When he saw Tom, he sat down.

"Morning, poet" (as was his wont).

"Well, as you know, I write novels, too", said Tom, unneccessarily.

"Church a bit stuffy for you, was it? Artistic type like you."

And Tom, without having intended to, poured out what he felt about church going. Even said some quite unpleasant things about it. And the old man listened without comment. Finally, Tom stopped, aware that attention was waning and that, perhaps, he was being boorish on this fine Spring morning when folk had gardens to tend and services to worship at.

The old man stood up and turned from him, lifting his spade, fork and trug. Still he said nothing. Tom worried that he had caused offence. Damn it all and damn himself, too. "Low born churl", Emma had once called him. Now he could add "blasphemer", "man with ideas above his station" and "berater of old men going about their peaceful business".

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean for that all to come out. I can see I have caused offence" he called after the man.

"No offence, no. But I must be going about my business."

The gardener walked on and stopped, still without turning around. But if Tom could have seen his face, as we do now, he would have seen a wry smile playing about the corners of the mouth.

"No poet. Never you mind. I always listen. I notice such things. And I'll tell you this. The garden is warm today and do you see the breeze around the flowers? Like a heat haze, isn't it now? This is my church right here. And you might want to take your jacket off and sit for a while. It's the Spirit, you see. Followed you out here. Dooesn't stand for none of your nonsense. Came to you because you couldn't come yourself."

The old man raised his fork above his head in goodbye and Tom was alone in the garden.

A bookworm's Pygmalion

Jim, lord of all he possessed, which at the time wasn't all that much, felt disappointed by what he perceived as the slights and slanders of everyday life. So he thought he would withdraw from life and build himself some splendid bookshelves and begin to fill those shelves with beautiful books. He had always liked carpentry and had tended to take refuge in his home and in reading when he felt things were not going well.

The bookshelves provided him with an absorbing project; he was cheered by the making of excellent joints and with the odd flourish of carving at the edges of the shelves - just a subtle scroll; nothing too much. As he worked, he thought about how, when the shelves were done and filled with new books, he would stay in more. After all, in his entanglements with people, he felt susceptible to critical voice. If he retreated a bit more, he would surely be happier.

Eventually, the bookshelves were finished. One for most of the rooms of his house, all with slightly different design and, in some rooms, painted in subtle chalky colours. He gazed at his shelves and his woodworking tools and felt content, but when he looked outside the window, he felt a pang of anxiety. Oh. The outside world. Other people.

Now, he assembled what books he had on the shelves and saw how empty those shelves looked. Right: he would buy his books online, so as not to sully the perfection of what he had done. For what if someone looked askance at him when he was choosing his books? Then, perhaps, his project would feel spoiled. At the moment, his skin was thin and he was tired of the society of others.

Ah - but Jim found he couldn't get everything he wanted and he began to want to handle the books; to look at them as physical objects and admire their aesthetics and have them there to eat up the stories within. Greedily and rapturously. So out he went to add to his collection. He had no Greek Myths on his shelf, for instance: how he had enjoyed listening to his father read from The Golden Porch when he was young. So that was the first thing he looked for. But while in the shop, time stood still and he was reading, reading; lost in pleasure, just as another was, near to him. He looked at her sideways. Hmmmm. Helen?

The next day he went back to buy more books and she was there again. This time she looked sideways at him and caught his look.

Eventually, Jim's bookshelves were full, with texts that told him not only when to be alone, but also how you might live with a full heart. And then he and Helen - the face that launched six bookshelves, as it turned out - threw a book party.


Photo of some of my books -these in one part of the kitchen- by Giles Turnbull, who has never knowingly flown too near the sun.

Eric Newby, Kolkata and the book. A true story.

That year, there was prodigious flooding in Calcutta. People stumbled in gutters, water up to their knees in parts of Chowringee. Boys on tea stalls raised their kit on boxes and hoped for the best. Everone who lived on the street had found enterprising ways to elevate their home, too. Resourcefulness, as ever. Families soaped themselves under the municuipal pumps and the suds floated into the road.

Flora had her dress tied around her knees, so it wouldn't get too wet or torn on potential underwater obstacles.She was on her way to the book shop. Just to look. There was, as usual, a plethora of Indian published Penguin books. But amongst them, she found an immaculate copy of Eric Newby's A Book of Traveller's Tales. Having always been a fan, she bought it and took it back to the hot little attic room with no cooling breeze. Lying on the bed, she found the book was inscribed with the words: To Ted and Vi, in memory of a happy walk on Dorset cliffs, Eric. The text was signed by the author.

In Dorset late that summer, it had been balmy; here, the rains still came and people, as they do during a bad monsoon, began to fall sick with waterborne disease - particularly when the sewers flooded. Flora wondered if Eric Newby was out walking on Beeny Cliff, how the book got to West Bengal --  and felt terribly homesick.



Thank you to Subhodev at www.flickr for this shot. I have enjoyed his picture series entitles 'Old Calcutta' and I like the humour and feeling of this one, in particular.

The first post

A DAILY WRITING PROJECT FOR THE ELIZABETH ANN CHARITY

I saw it from the open door of a train. We were rushing through the last swathes of the countryside before slowing down for the slow approach into Calcutta. I could see pools in villages, women washing, buffaloes at work in the fields, everything deep green, wet and lucent. And above it all, a double rainbow over Bengal. It's just a memory I have of feeling perfectly still and happy. And I wanted to think of it now before I start this project. I hope you enjoy your daily read -- do read every day, if you can-- and now you know why I chose this title. It's also, actually, the title of a book of children's stories I've been working on for, oh, a while now.

But we are heading South, now. Michael's and Julie's projects are in Southern India, a long way down from the flat plains of West Bengal. A place where you might wear frangipani flowers in your hair.

Anna xxx