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.

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.

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.


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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.

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!

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.

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

Elegy in a Country Churchyard in the 21st century (fragments)

Out walking one mid-summer day, Flora took the path through a churchyard she had never explored before. Nobody else about, roses spilling over the walls and the stones warm in the sun. She had always visited churchyards, a habit inherited from her parents, she thought. But,  quite suddenly, it seemed that the place spoke. Not with fresh revelation, because it wasn't as if, through experience and knowledge, she had failed to feel loss or a sense of the brevity of life. That it could ebb and flow, but leave brutally; confoundingly. The message was of a sadness beyond words and yet, when it spoke, it was both sharp reminder and reassuring call, despite the shock of the detail it contained and the sharp address to those who needed to be reminded.

On a grave of 1812, a passer by was addressed directly, thus.

Sacred to the memory of Margaretta Sally Shute who, with her daughters, Mary Susanna and ------, was unfortunately drowned at Chepstow on the evening of Sunday September the 20th, 1812, after hearing a sermon from Philippians, 1st chapter, 21st verse.

Sacred to the memory of Richard Chute Esq., Sydenham Kent, who died at that place the 17th of April, 1819.

Part of the text read

Farewell ye broken pillars of my Fate,

My life's companion and two first born:

Yet while this silent stone I consecrate

To conjugal paternal love forlorn,

Oh, may each passer by the lesson learn

Which can alone the bleeding heart sustain:

When friendship weeps at virtue's funeral urn:

That to the pure in heart to die is gain.

At home, Flora checked the Biblical text, rather as instructed to, she thought: "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."

Whether you believe this or not, she thought, Mr Shute had done two things. Perhaps, it was just a verse and description made by a sculptor who did not know the family, but it did not feel that way. It felt like a privileged intimacy: read the text and will yourself yourself to feel and see and believe what I am willing myself to feel and see and believe, it said. But it was also a reminder, a sort of call to action and Flora, often stymied by petty squabble and worry was brought up short. Bind those you love to you with hoops of steel, he might have said. You: passer by. And make me feel I am not alone.

Flora sat for a while. Found herself  reflecting on a line from Philip Larkin's 'An Arundel Tomb', where the poet gently chides those who come to "look, not read." And she found she had missed another part of the text: Richard's Shute description of his children's mother (she) "who gave them life and taught them worth." Now that really is something to be proud of.

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The grave in question is real and in the churchyard of a village in Somerset. The response to it is shown in a truncated form in this story.

Father's Day yesterday

Flora was all sour grapes. Father's Day. Well that sucked. It did every year. Mother's Day is even worse with its more entrenched traditions. It does help that now she was celebrating a husband on father's day, of course. Oh hell, I'll abandon the moniker and state my case here and say that I miss my dad and have done ever since the day I  took a call by the river Cam, aged 19. So I thought, I'll let him give you a story tonight or on this lovely summer afternoon. Just this once. I'm cheating, so don't sponsor me, just read it. I've taken it from his notebooks. If you've loved and lost, too, I hope it helps.He was writing about the landmarks of a year - those he remembered growing up on the Mendips. He is 'John' and 'Miss Constance' a hugely influential primary teacher - it was she who set him down the road to primary school teaching.

There were landmarks all through the year. In January, the families had a late night and all the chauffeurs had a busy time, because Miss Constance arranged for staff families to be taken to pantomimes at the Prince's Theatre in Bristol. It was a great occasion; always looked forward to and always enjoyed. John remembered the year of Aladdin particularly. Bold and striking stage settings; magnificent costumes; story lines and comic digressions which were easy to follow. And the principal boy - later to become a famous film actress - was very glamorous indeed. Window Twankey was uproarious with her washing scenes and saucy asides, and the wicked villain forgot about the magic lamp long enough to lead the audience in a good rousing song. His baritone soared out across the packed auditorium - "Many hearts have been broken ...... just because a word was spoken..." sang the villain. Then, gathering in the audience, "So be sure it is true when you say I love you..." they warbled happily: "It's a sin to tell a lie."

John, sunk in the red plush seat, was dazzled by the stunning shifts of light, colour and sound. All too soon it was over and they were motoring home through the starlight. Wrapped in the honeyed warmth of the car they drifted in and out of sleep as they went.

Every Good Friday Miss Constance sent each child an Easter egg. Much bigger than those in Harry's shop, or at the post office stores, they were in presentation boxes and wrapped in foil of bright, metallic colours. Excitedly, the children opened up the two halves to get at the sweets and chocolates that always filled the hollow eggs. These eggs usually lasted the whole of Easter week. Easter meant planting potatoes, and the baker delivering the Hot Cross Buns. It meant going to church a lot; but also time for Miss Constance's Easter eggs.

When mid-summer came they looked forward to the trip to Bristol in the warm, sweet-smelling late evening, to see the illuminations. From Bedminster Down they had the first, full view of Brunel's great Suspension bridge. It was floating in the air in the darkness, its every line clearly pointed up by hundreds of winking lights. Fifteen minutes later they were crossing and re-crossing the bridge, craning necks and peering up at the great chains - chains like no others they had ever seen, that held the great structure half way to Heaven.

There continues a detailed description of seeing the illuminations of Bristol, an intimate portrait of a rural family on a summer outing - just to look at the city with the lights on. Best not to lose that sense of wonder.

And for me?

Christmas: Advent is magical, the buses are Christmas buses as the interiors glow in the winter darkness; open fires and waiting; waiting. And Epiphany? January. Sliding into February. We are still watching and waiting. Since childhood, this is, though, the most melancholy part of the year for me. So I am in hope of snow and that air you can taste and feel revived by.

Spring and Easter: primroses and watching the lambs being born. Wales. Barefoot at home, outside, apart from when it's raining. Eating under the trees and Palm crosses Lilac and cowslips. Heading Stateside.

Summer: feet in a stream, peonies, swallows, swifts and house martins. And, as in the Louis MacNeice poems. 'Thalassa', "Round the corner, always, the sea."

Autumn. Warm wind; cool nights, arranging wood, the thankfulness that I never have to go to school again, toes up and pumpkin carve. Candles. All greeted thankfully.

Now, I don't know that this - in some fundamental ways - is so very different from the childhood of my father in the 1930s and 1940s.

How about your landmarks?

Unrelated incidents

Ah,  texts. If you looked at a  string of them, in an inbox, it is possible that the individual messages could cohere into a story. Or, at least. an interesting sketch of a life.

Take yesterday: what would you make of this selection? Lola's list of messages, I'll call them.

1. All stickiness off Cath Kidston now!
2. I am sorry. I am so stupid. Please forgive my stupidity. It is all my own: please forgive me. xxx
3. Hello:do you remember me?
4. Gothic paper was ***** Nd to tlk 2 U!!!!
5. Thanx for all yur help. U R gold.

What conclusions would you draw? If a reader looking at Lola's inbox wanted to make up something, starting from that first text there, he or she could say that..

Cath Kidston had been visiting the local store. Just to swoop down and check, sweetly, on progress, The shop was full of oilcloth, melamine beakers, a few choice floaty dresses, picnic hampers and thermos flasks with the ubiquitous chintzy print on them. Lovely, but, as Lola liked to say, just a shade away from old people's homes, the smell of talcum powder and of crumbs down, depressingly down, between floorboards and the grooves in your kitchen table. You suspect, as you contemplate your array of Cath Kidston and watch Countdown, that this is a kind of existential terror: that you are on your way out.

Now, if you took exception to all this, you might have kidnapped the designer and rolled her in pastel pink and white marshmallows, served from a 50s revival picnic tray. Later, feeling guilty because she was clearly such a nice woman, you hosed her down, prised the last of them off and then took her out for tea, pausing only to buy a few yards of 'boat' fabric and a tablecloth in the iconic 'spot' print. And to text your co-criminals who had fled from the scene: "All stickiness off Cath Kidston now!" And boy, did you feel bad.

As for the others, I will leave you, reader, to make up your own story, if you so choose.

"Stupid" A lover? A clash between souls? Did someone forget something vital and are they really sorry OR -I too am sorry if I cause dissent here- doing what one's husband sometimes does and admits to doing: saying sorry vociferously in order to close the subject.
"Hello?" A long lost friend; a remembered assignation in the back of a mini when you were 16? (It happens and the mini was black with boy racer stripes.) Actually, it might be your mother, berating you for insufficient contact, but doing it with sardonic humour and then saying it was just light hearted tomfoolery afterwards.
"Gothic paper"? Might it be a design for stationery. commissioned by the deepest, darkest corners of the Marilyn Manson fan base? Damn! That stationery order had gone wrong and you'd need to start all over again. Alternatively, it might be a student of the genre.Ooops: that's what it was! Note the confident use of textease, which should enable you to guess at the provenance of the text.
"Thanx". Hmmm. Where could that one take you? Well, now. My friend Sophie and I spent a merry ten minutes looking at some items on eBay that were so hideous, they were fabulous. Top of the list: a set of gift mugs to give as a set or, perhaps, parcel out to your best buddies. With shots of sunsets and forest at sunlight and the inscriptions: faith, hope, inspiration and tolerence (sic: I actually preferred it with the spelling mistake, somehow - but then I am a crashing snob sometimes). How would it be if you took this concept and made each mug in a metal - thus someone, say,  gets gold for their charity as a friend. Which then begs the question: would the girlfriend who, say, got silver or, God forbid, tin, know what to say? You take it from there.

Now let's see what is in in today's haul of texts in Lola's inbox.


Thank you to Batgirlbob at www.flickr.com for the image

Elijah; Isaac.

  
Inspired by T.S. Eliot's 'Marina' and Shakespeare's Pericles.

                                            "I am wild in my beholding."

Pericles, Prince of Tyre, scene 22 line 208. (The text is reconstructed and is unique in Shakespeare's plays in being laid out only in scenes not in acts and scenes.)

What lost worlds, what grey days, what sea water lapping at my toes, wishing to be warm? What calling - through what I do not know, cannot see, will never see and will always ache to know? The call of my child: urgent, hungry and entirely self centred, though learning to look outward.

What voice I thought I always knew, what granite words to say you would not come. But here you are. Calling to me, insistent and growing.

My sons.

Oh yes: I write in very different styles. If you want to see the stimulation for this little piece, just google T.S. Eliot now and find 'Marina.' She is the daughter of Pericles .Eliot's poem is set at the point, near the end of the play for Shakespeare, where Pericles is reconciled to his child, thought lost. At sea. See the significance of the name?

Crummy Mummy OR diary extract of a very bad girl

On the shelf in the boys' school, there was a book of this title. On the cover, there was a mortified-looking boy and a mother with rather large hair and wearing bright colours. "Oh - that'll be me, then."

Crummy mummy tried to be on top of things. This week she had helped with the collection of items for a Japanese garden and put together an outfit for her 6 year old's 'French' parade and song ( having daubed "Je suis un rock star" on the back of it, she recanted and made a more sober version, having surmised that one of her son's teachers might not approve). Then she had gone through the younger child's road safety  booklet after the visit from the man with the amusing name (it wasn't quite Dr Goodhead -as in the Bond film- but it was close enough to make her snigger). Junior told her there were just a couple of things he didn't understand.

"What are those, darling?"

"The things about crossing the road."

Great. Between them, crummy mummy and Dr Goodhead had some work to do.

The children had a fist fight before leaving the house.

"I hate you!"

"You smell! and the cats like me more than you! I wish you was never my brother EVER and I saw you NAKED!"

"Raaaaaaaa!"

Lunge. Hair pull. "HE STARTED IT AND HE STEALED MY MATCH ATTAX FOR HIS OWN!"

The Japanese garden again. Crummy mummy hurriedly shoved her bamboo sprig in someone's green bin on the school run when she saw other children's magnificent glossy foliage.

Spellings. "I'm on it, miss!"

Japanese technological products in the home homework. Check. A moment of misunderstanding, though, had seen the inclusion of a book of Haiku on the list.

Pillowcases for 6 year old for an as yet unidentified future task. Check - including one of the two for another crummy mummy who did not keep surplus white pillowcases. "Whoa!" said crummy mummy: "I am getting ahead, here." But that was before she discovered that she had been supposed to provide a Japanese costume for the next day.

Another homework just discovered: back to the road safety booklet and the work of Dr Goodhead. This was an altogether weightier tome to be studied by older child. Plus, if he successfully completed the next week's road safety outing, he got a certificate. Crummy Mummy noted that she might not have worded it quite like that. Then, her eye fell upon a grammar error and two spelling mistakes on some correspondence and she felt the red pen urge, then was ashamed because she had nothing to be on a high horse about. Especially, as one of her friends pointed out, she had accidentally worn a cleavage-exposing dress the previous week and made a twit of herself. Accidentally, that is, because crummy mummy - unlike the sleeker yummier mummies in the playground - had not noticed the popping off of two buttons and subsequent, slightly slapstick exposure of breasts in the key stage one area.

Crummy mummy shuffled off home, to practise (note to educational establishment: practice with a c is a noun; with an s it is a verb) mummy skills with the help of a book . On the doorstep there was a dead frog; it was next to a spider crab shell. The shell had been intended for the Japanese garden material; the dead frog was unrelated but a present from the cat. Inside the house, she found a letter that she had meant to read the previous night: it said that school dinner money was in arrears and the now unable to feed your child bit was underlined twice in red biro. But it was a fine sunny day and crummy mummy heard a toddler wailing and a blustering mother trying and failing to keep her cool somewhere beyond the back of the house. She felt a bit better - even got to thinking that, if she did manage to tuck her dress into her knickers on school run today, it was hardly the end of the world. And they were very nice knickers, purchased recently when some well- meaning friends told her that her lingerie was threadbare. See, crummy mummies are crummy in other areas, too.

The bookshelf

The online photo archive, Flickr, is awash with people who colour code their books. They had, she noted, given them cheerful, jubilant  titles such as 'cornucopia of books' or 'rainbow books.' In a way, it appealed, so she had a go at doing the same. Thus orange began making towers of Penguin texts. And then - serendipitous!- she saw that the Wisden Cricketers' Almanacks were already done. With a frisson of excitement, she turned to other colours.  Hmmm: a subtle change: how might one grade and sequence pink and purple books? Let's have a look. So, we ended up with William Faulkner next to a googly-eyed children's book on strange birds (actually: now I look at this shelf in the picture - I am charmed by the diversity of the stuff in our house - author) and texts by Sylvia Plath and William Empson. She felt niggled, though. The shelves and their arrangement did not have the neat appeal of the rainbow books on the Flickr gallery. But plough on.

Black books. Penguin Classics, naturally.A few others would fit in here. Malory's Morte D'Arthur next to the late Benazir Bhutto's first autobiography, Daughter of the East. But she was running out of time and put the rest off until tomorrow. Twenty shelves were done. Productive work.

Later that day, Susie happened to come into the study.

"That thing with the books. We'll have to get you out of that", she said. Not, then, "What lovely colours!" Susie sniggered quietly and left the room.

But our book shuffler felt on top of things; controlled; co-ordinated - despite nothing being quite as neat as the blueprints offered by the internet rainbow artists.

Her husband came home; he looked but said nothing. He looked again. And said nothing very loudly.

And the following day, there it was. A dark purple book in the midst of a sort of sea colour melange (because, as she went on, the urge to think in areas of the colour spectrum rather than pure tones became more compelling). She had not put it there, a book by the Southern author Robert Penn Warren, against a diary and a book on Methodism; cocking a snook, she thought, at the green of Lord of the Rings. It went on.

He said "I cannot ******* find anything."

She stood back. It was true. And a lesson was learned. If you have a lot of books, adopting this approach is not befitting. It's also not, as a general rule, clever, funny or remotely sexy. With apologies to the keepers of the rainbow books, it is not for her - however much she might like it to be so.

On happiness (subtitled The Ball Jar)

Flora was a melancholy soul, always keeping busy to avoid feeling sad and thinking that, if she sat still, trouble would somehow come. This was a habit so ingrained it was difficult to shift now. But of course, it is a mistake and made many times. But, maybe, this way madness lies, so let her reflect on her summer garden and, most of all, upon one still life that seemed to have arranged itself in one corner of the kitchen: summer flowers, her grandmother's jug and the Ball preserving jars that refracted sea light across the cool white kitchen. And for that quiet moment, happiness came - stealing upwards from the toes and taking its course.

There is no more to say, but I am sure you will know what she means.

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(And a note - yes I was thinking of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, in the title of today's story.The pictures are all mine and taken yesterday in my kitchen and front garden.)

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Dear readers: we are having a few techie problems with both layout and feeds to Facebook and twitter. Hopefully soon to be resolved!

And the funds have gone up further!

Right, just done some sums and, with the writeathon, Saturday's little Indian tea party fund raiser and donations within the last hour, we have now raised £446. So, with gift aid, that's hitting the £500 mark. Just shows what we can do with three weeks' work if we put our minds to it!

And only another 80 stories to go. Keep reading as and when you can.

THANK YOU.

The image above was taken in Calcutta (oops Kolkata) by Subhodev (check out his work at www.flickr.com). It's just a work bench or table and stools; a little observation. And I like it.

Atmospheric disturbance in a vacuum

This is for Fabian, who suggested the title for a story in a spirit of devilment, I think. Ha! He thinks he has me beaten! O.k. I confess that I am going for an offbeat approach here and that  Fabian may consider this cheating. So, if he would like, I will write more on a later date on vacuums proper as one studies them in Physics.

But for now....

Henry had put in many valuable years of service and had, on occasion, felt himself treated rather roughly. I say, "himself" because it is hard to refer to something with a face as "it", which is, of course, what the manufacturers had been aiming at. That the anthropomorphism would take place and Henry, with his rounded sides, squat body and cheerful grin, would become part of the family.

Henry could tolerate carpets and, occasionally, stone dust. One one occasion, he had had to suffer a stiff and very dead frog, whose legs protruded menacingly from the end of his hose. "Look! Henry ate a killed frog!" said one of the young children. The shame. It was, though, his owner's attempt to emulate the chimney sweep and do a little light removal of chimney debris that probably did for him. He had suffered disturbance in the makings of his vacuum mechanisms before, but this caused a cough. Three days later, further disturbance. One rug too many and -Bang! Henry was no more. Unfixable. His engine removed, his hose and all its accoutrements given to people who liked spare parts and who wanted to recondition their own Henrys. He just sat there, de-boned, stripped and disembowelled. It was tragic.

A new Henry came: lighter, sleeker, altogether more dashing. "I hate him"  thought he.

Worse, the children were happy. "Another Henry, but don't throw the old one out!" But what point in existence was there?

What could he do, though? His finely calibrated inner atmosphere thrown and his workings given to the dogs. But then the children asked: "Henry is sad. Can we keep him? You can't take him to the tip - he's got  a face!" and a thought occurred.

Henry has had a second incarnation, Fabian. You can see him, above. He has been stuffed (so no longer empty and thus not a vacuum -- ha ha), patched up with gaffer tape and is now a kind of wheelie toy for two young boys, who scoot downhill on him at speed. So, you see, he's happy. And if there is a moral to this tale, it is two fold.1: that one can rise, phoenix-like, from trauma, atmospheric disturbance or, actually, explosion and, 2: that you always get a second chance.One just has to be imaginative sometimes and think laterally. For you? No problems. And thus ends the tale of Henry and the atmospheric disturbance in a vacuum.
x

Erratum. Squid.

I am advised by one S Langley and second eldest son that squid actually have three hearts and not two (see 'One beak and two hearts'). Also, that your average punter may not know that the mouth area of a squid is called a beak. x

The jar

For Claudia - my mother in law. From Bristol, Virginia to Florence, South Carolina, to Atlanta, Georgia and full circle to Lexington and Virginia again - just like she wanted. Love you (but won't be actually saying that out loud because, well, I'm British and funny like that). xxx

A Ball preserving jar, in its original lucent aquamarine beauty, lay in a flea market in Virginia. It was tucked into a somewhat scruffy area of kitchenalia and vintage aprons, but it was pale beauty and the colour of the best sea glass and Flora wanted it at once. After that, she bought them everywhere she could in the South and took them home, where the sea light from them reflected a subtle light on the stone around her kitchen windows. Or she gave them to friends, who filled them with glass marbles and treasures - always remembering to set them in the light, she said, because of the watery sea colour and the delicacy of the embossed script: Ball. Perfect Mason, they said.

The jars she had bought, stallholders told her, were mostly 1950s and bought from house and farm clearances over the South. What might a Virginian farmer's wife of that time have thought of Flora's collecting these jars, supposed to be tough and practical and used for preserving? Exactly what her own mother would have thought, Flora decided: that if something is lovely and practical, it does not stop one from noticing its beauty. Her own grandmother used to pause before she shut the door of her huge Somerset larder just so that she could admire the big jars of pickled eggs and onions and cabbage and the preserved damsons, apples and plums from the trees in their garden. The satisfaction of good housekeeping. And what if the jars themselves were glowing, too?

To see the jars in a Wiltshire or a Welsh kitchen made her husband happy. Because they were the jars of his childhood, in which grandmothers in South Carolina would preserve their vegetables. Flora longed to see a Southern pantry of these jars, all filled up with, maybe, bread and butter pickles. But she wondered if they showed their fine colour, all used as their makers intended, but housed in a cool and shadowy room. So she compromised. Today, half the jars are in the kitchen window, with the shafts of light cutting through them; the others house pickles. Watermelon this time of year, in honour of the place that made them.

Ball still makes the jars. These days they are clear and a little more square and a little less sensuous and you can buy them for a few dollars in Walmart. Flora won't be buying any of those.

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Note from author: yes, I do collect these jars, as I do kitchen items and aprons from the Southern United States.

Ker ching! Look what we done

Today's little 'Indian tea party' event raised £246.40, which, with the funds already raised by this writing project - plus gift aid reclaimed will make over £400. I am aiming for £500 by the end of August as a minimum. Do you think we'll get there?


THANK YOU!

One beak and two hearts.

Now, this is a curious title but it arose from a conversation earlier.About squid. I agreed to write a story with the title above because, I am told - I have yet to verify this - that squid have two hearts (interesting) and because the sentence had caught my attention.But squid are thought to be clever creatures, especially the giant sort, so here we go.

To Claire, then. And to all overlooked cephalopods. Now,  I may be having a funny turn here, but I thought I would knock out a sad little tale that verges, linguistically, on Mills and Boon (which obviously doesn't have squid in it). xxx

 ONE BEAK AND TWO HEARTS

I am a gentle sort of  fellow. But when aroused to great passion, I fell. And I fell hard. She took my beak tenderly in hers and caressed it, told me that I was hers, that she could not tell where I ended and she began. Afterwards, we lay entwined in each others' arms amongst the beds of kelp and I could not believe it was true.

But oh: cruel cruel. In time, she seemed distracted, avoided my eye, would not hold the tentacle I offered up to her, telling her that I would understand - that even if she loved me less than before, my love for her would go on. That I could even tolerate having her love me less than I loved her. I shamed myself at her beautiful, sucky feet.

There was someone else, of course. Her head was turned. The things she had said? Just bubbles in the deep, but still I could not help but love her. And she? She had only ever given me back a single heart for my double and would forget me all too soon.

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(I've tinkered slightly with a quotation from Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing, here: it is when Beatrice refers to lending Benedick her heart for a while and receiving back only a single for the double she had given him...And I cannot believe I have tears in my eyes while reading this. About squid.)

A little more specific information

If you have donated to my writing project or would like to, I'm just sending this to you now. The place where I am going in the autumn - and for which I will take funds - is a school. Take a look at these brief notes to see what a donation might buy.

http://www.thee-acharity.org.uk/EA_Project_4.htm

This was the fourth project in a line set up by the Elizabeth-Ann Charity. Note figures! You can also follow the full range of projects through the link from the top of the page.

Thank you all,

Anna xx

On being a teacher

For Katie. Because I think you care a great deal about what you do.

The old woman sat on the train, dozing in the warmth of the day as they travelled through the Cambridgeshire countryside. Her book was at her side, for she was never without a book. Generally, she had three books open by the bed  because it was so hard to decide to follow one; downstairs, it was the same story. By her side on the train a book she hadn't looked at for a while but felt compelled to bring with her today: The Collected Poems of Louis MacNeice. MacNeice had been a favourite of hers at university but, much to her dismay, was scoffed at by some of dons who considered him a lightweight - poor cousin to Auden. Shoddy classicist! Kind of Anglo-Irish literature pretender! But that didn't matter now. She dozed and let the ruminating thought settle.

A younger man was walking in her direction down the train; he must have been in his sixties to her eighties. She happened to open her eyes and wondered where she had seen him before; she could see that her recognised her immediately. Then,

"Miss Williams? Is that you? Hello. Do you remember me?"

This made her start. She hadn't been Miss Williams for a long time now. A memory formed. The man was once a boy - a boy from one of her classes. She couldn't quite remember his name amongst all the thousands of students she had taught and dragged through literature and grammar and parts of speech and all those seemingly unfashionable things that people don't bother with these days. The semi colon! The subordinate clause! Ha!

"It's John, Miss. I was the annoying one in year 11. You know: the one who always drew rude cartoons of you - always having to see the Head? "

Memory formed and reformed and she had placed him: "Of course. And it's Anna. Not Miss. How nice to see you."

They didn't speak for long as the train was about to halt and John explained he would have to get off at the next stop, but he told her some things. That he still doodled -"Good for my arthritis these days!", was still a rebel of sorts and that, above all, he read. Everything he could get his hands on - but most of all, poetry. It was hunkered down in there so deeply now, he could recite reams at will.

"Never knew I had it in me, Miss - um, Anna."

He would turn to it when sad, when celebrating, looking for an answer or just at odds with the world.

"This is my stop: it was really good to see you again. And, well, thank you. Thank you."

She sat and pondered on this. It had felt so often with syllabus and curriculum and telling off and - the word she detested - relevance - that this was a strange old world to be in. What good could you do? On the train she had an answer, of course: the good of what she might have done was not quantifiable immediately; might not show up until years later but, with patience and care, you just had to trust that it would.

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A note from me: I worry that this story sounds trite. But it is pretty much how I feel about teaching English - especially literature. That our response to poetry, in particular, may be both visceral and intellectual. If what we read is any good, of course. And one other point: the story is true. It happened to me and to a teacher older than me. In the former case, in meeting a student; in the latter, when the teacher whose work I have admired enormously met his former teacher (one was 60, the other in his mid 80s) and told him that he read, he remembered and he was grateful. Uh oh: down come the tears in quite a deluge. I will sign off.

The photo was taken in the library of St John's Colleg, Cambridge by Ben Gallagher (www.flickr.com). Thank you to him and thank you Alma mater.

Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal was built, as you may know, as an extravagant mausoleum for and monument to Mumtaz, beloved wife of Shah- Jahan, Mughal Emperor of India. Mumtaz died with their birth of their fourteenth child and Shah Jahan began his building a year after  her death.

See it at dawn as it rises from mist and dust and gradually comes into sharp relief beside the sluggish Yamuna river over there to its side. See this place later in the day as the crowds amass, cluttering the symmetry of the pools and paths as you approach. It glows, but go closer and look also at the detail inlaid, at the flowers made from semi precious stones pressed in to the white marble by the twenty thousand workers who took twenty two years to build it. And the most pressing thing about it might not be its numinous beauty, but the reason why it was built. The tombs lie side by side inside the centre, in an area plain by contrast in keeping with belief  - because this is what is appropriate in the heart of the mausoleum, however extraordinary the outside. An here, where the tombs lie, is the heart of it all, shadowy and cool and reverent.

If you cannot yourself, ask someone to read for you the inscriptions from the Qur'an that are inscribed throughout the complex. On the Great Gate it says

"Oh Soul, thou art at rest.
Return to the Lord at peace with Him and He at peace with you."

Think on. The Emperor himself wrote that

"Should guilty seek asylum here
Like one pardoned
He becomes free from sin."

He conceived it as a resting place, a place of cleansing and also, you might say, as a testament to a belief that what will survive of us is love. That he could, as the poet Rabindranath Tagore has it, "conquer time's heart/Through beauty."

And from Tagore's 'Shah-Jahan',

"Poet-Emperor,
This is your heart's picture,
Your new Megaduta,
Soaring with the marvellous, unprecedented melody and line
Towards the unseen plane
On which your loverless beloved
And the first glow of sunrise
And the last sigh of sunset
And the disembodied beauty of moonlit cameli-flower
And the gateway on the edge of language
That turns away man's wistful gaze again and again
Are all blended.
This beauty is your messenger:
Skirting time's sentries
To carry the wordless message:
'I have not forgotten you, my love, I have not forgotten you.' "

The flowers at the top and above show details in carving at the Taj Mahal. Both courtesy of Christian Haugen at Flickr under creative commons licence (thank you) and  taken at 7 a.m. Can you detect the pink glow on the stone at this time? That's why you go and visit it day and night - to see how it changes with the light. Thank you Christian for the other picture, giving us an idea - though perhaps we should not idealise who the Emperor was or what he did in his rule - of the scale of his vision and purpose.

Not Waving but Drowning

Here is the text of the Stevie Smith poem of this title. And, below that, your second Stevie Smith-inspired story of the day. It is a little sad, so should I preface it with a thought that we might always ask someone how they are and pause before and after their response? I expect Stevie Smith might tell me I was taking this too seriously.

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning;
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.


Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.


Oh, no, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving, but drowning.

Stephen lived a simple kind of life; pleasant place to live, nice wife - nothing spectacular, but homely and something to be thankful for: both the home and the wife. Went to work, did well: again, nothing spectacular, but reliable. Good old Stephen, they said - and always thanked him heartily at the staff Christmas party. He never quite got promoted, though. Kids came along; usual ups and downs; things went, he thought, tolerably well and he loved his girls, though sometimes he might have wished for boys. Holidays in a nice spot; savings and annuities; mortgage paid up well in advance of retirement because of his diligence.

And all the time, he smiled. At the neighbours; at the tetchy mother in law; waved his daughters off to new homes and college and husbands; he wanted to please and had been brought up so to do. And exhaustively so. But inside? Well, you've guessed, I expect, that there was more to it than this for nobody is so uncomplicated. Every now and then he would have an unsettling feeling; a catching in the throat; sort of strange cascading feeling inside. Then a tightness in the throat. He wanted to call to someone that it was an emergency - but of what kind? No-one was hurt, all was well and, as I said, he was grateful. If he were the man swimming way out at sea, you might look at him from your place on the beach and think he was larking about, waving at you, inviting you to come out, too. The water's lovely. But the truth was, he was drowning. And always had been. And nobody knew it.

Text of poem. Copyright Stevie Smith 1903-1971.

Inspired by Miss Smith. Today two stories fror the price of one.

I take the title and inspiration for this first story from Stevie Smith's poem, 'Croft.' I will not claim it is a work of genius (or is it?) but I expect you might remember it for a while; the second story is inspired by another poem by Smith, 'Not Waving but Drowning.'

Dedicated to some poetic ladies: Sarah, Katie, Kate, Susie, Susan, Vicky, Janet and Izzy the small dog. I'm glad you all came to my poetry classes -- a marathon from November to June. Thank you.

Aloft 

In the loft,

Sits Croft;

He is soft.

Poor old Croft. The fool on the hill - laughed at as a child by the other boys because, not only was he a bit slow at his work but, well, he had two left feet when it came to playing football. Still, though, his mother shed a tear for him and, well, Croft plugged on. This boy was gauche socially, never quite made it with the girls when he was a teenager, but he was brave enough to ask them out anyway. Even if the less sweet ones snickered while he blushed and wished he could run away. And again his mother shed a tear for him; his father, by the way, said nothing and carried on with his woodworking and Croft, all fingers and thumbs, tried to help him. Poor Old Croft. Sometimes he wanted to shed a tear, too. But he just plugged away, getting the measurements wrong and getting in the way. And then, eventually, he was all grown up and sitting up there in the loft of the barn.

Ah, but reader, that's not where it ends. Did you think that he had nothing but lazy feet and a fuzzy head? It's all in the plugging away and the kind tear of a devoted mother. My goodness, how it hurt her to see him fail in the eyes of others. But then, can you picture him sitting up there in the loft? Croft built that barn, you see; got there in the end. And it was beautiful and all the more so for its integral flaws, hard to avoid for soft Croft. And it lasted and lasted. The barn is still there. And Croft isn't really the silly boy-man to be laughed at. Remember that the fool on the hill might be the one who sees the world in its clearest, most luminous state and that, one day, he might get the girl, too. Tenderly, in the soft hay of the loft.

P.S: if you happened to find Stevie Smith's drawing to go with this poem, you'd see she had thought of something else! So, I'll leave that one to you.

poem copyright Stevie Smith: 1903-1971.

Blinkie the wandering rabbit

Yes, I know: yesterday we had a scene of domestic tetchiness; today we have a story about a rabbit with a sweet name. But I did say that, if anyone requested a story on something, I would promise to respond. The rabbit is a real one, belongs to Rosie ( who is a year 10 GCSE student) and she is bigger than one of our cats. (The rabbit and obviously Rosie, too.) Also, I noticed that she has HUGE feet (the rabbit, not Rosie)..so...

The cautionary tale of Blinkie the wandering rabbit.

Blinkie was not like the other rabbits of one's acquaintance. Oh no. SHE was bigger and stronger and rather more cunning, although it took her owner a long while to realise this. Oh yes - and she had strong legs and great big feet. These she would use well in her adventures, along with the fact that she was coal-black and surprisingly stealthy for one so, well, rabbity large.

A day like any other. Blinkie's routine involved a good scratch first thing, a bit of a lollop round her 'eglu'  - for she was a refined sort of rabbit and had a sort of chic lime green run, rather than a home made of wood slats and wire mesh, though she could have done without the chicken association: Blinkie knew all poultry to be stupid. Couldn't they at least make it look more like a rabbit dwelling? Today was going to be different, though. Because, when she was let out of her eglu and into the bright sunlight of the summer garden, she was going to spend some time hatching (chickens: again!) a plan. Today she was hell-bent on some particularly spectacular rebellion.

So, after the greens and the scratch and the morning cuddle with her owner and rub underneath the chin, she sat and thought. Or rather she sat and thought while chewing through the lower levels of the clematis montana and a couple of geranium plants. How could she have an adventure today? She thought all day as she scampered about. Then "That's it!"

Night fell. A visitor came for her owner in a car. Now or never. In a flash, Blinkie was out in the street, nipping under the side gate and in a flash she was in the car of the visitor. How opportune. Even managed to pinch a bit of money from the car's cash box before she settled down to hide in the back seat. Just before she eyeballed the child's booster seat in the front passenger seat of this conveniently compact car, that is. And so, later, when the visitor got back into the vehicle and settled herself down, turning the key in the ignition...Blinkie reared up on her giant feet and did her best the-evil-one-in-Watership-Down-impression. "Raaaaaaaaa!" Never had humankind shifted so quickly, she thought. "What a sight I must have been, hurtling towards her in the driving mirror!"

Of course, the keys were in the ignition, the car was running and it was the work of a moment to shift the child's booster seat to the driver's side. With a stretch of her absurdly long legs, Blinke could just get to the gas. So, without a moment to spare, she was off. While the owner of the car hyperventilated in the street with her back to her

So where first? Spend some cash. Lettuce! To the supermarket (she wasn't daft and knew that the grocer's would be closed.) Now, you would think that they might not take her cash but, dear reader, your food conglomerates will take cash from anyone. So, ignoring the stares and open mouths,  Blinkie sallied forth and  bought her lettuce, pausing also to buy a few more adventurous greens, such as a bit of pak choi. What? Does anyone want to eat the same leaves every day?

Now, for a giggle: "I need some stuff to go in the 'eglu' and some paint." So, some beach balls (Blinkie knew herself to be  dandy with her moves), exterior gloss paint, a boules set (do rabbits not need stimulation?) and, oh, a pint of beer! All were duly purchased, apart from the beer. She did have a conscience of sorts and knew not to drive after having after a drink. So, parking as neatly as a big black rabbit can, she tottered into the local pub and pointed to a local brew. She stretched out on a bar stool. People were staring, of course, but Blinkie could take it. And the funny thing was that she noticed some of the gentlemen in the pub give her sideways and then somewhat lingering looks. For yes: Blinkie --with her debonair stance and her glossy black fur- was a hit with the gents. They moved towards her, tickled her chin and admired her lovely coat, bought her drinks and she listened attentively and sensitively to what they told her. You know: things their wives just didn't understand; how they were bored, under-valued. Without speaking - because everybody knows that rabbits cannot speak human language- she made them feel like gods rather than workaday men..

Time to go.Our Blinkie patted the behinds of the gentlemen, gave them a low wolf whistle and they giggled and told  how they had really enjoyed having someone listen to and appreciate them. You might say she  was stringing them along, but Blinkie had no intention of exchanging phone numbers or anything. After all, it is a commonly known fact that rabbits will listen to human males but fall in love only with boy rabbits. But onwards!

Feeling a little light headed, Blinkie made her way home, remembering to remove the keys from the car and dragging the haul of shopping behind her. Returning home eventually, tired but glorious. Now, the house was in darkness, but Blinkie got to work: lay out the assorted leaves as a culinary hint for her owners (do I want iceberg every day, then? I should cocoa!), put the toys in a prominent position in the run (look! I too need diverse play and entertainment) and, finally, doing a DIY job so that the embarrassing 'eglu' sign (how the rabbits in the neighbourhood laughed at this!) was painted out, to be replaced with 'Blinkie: wererabbit, adventurer and hit with the boyz."

And so to bed, having thoughtfully thrown the keys through the letterbox. Blinkie knew she was a fine wandering rabbit. And what would tomorrow bring? Come to think of it: she could hear a little soft weeping from one of the bedrooms. Was it for her? A presumed missing rabbit. She'd like to be sympathetic, but just maybe she could turn this to her advantage....?

To be continued.

Rosie: I hope you liked this. Written in 20 minutes.

Thanks to Giosa Chivas for 'black rabbit' at www.flickr.com