Weekend

Good evening, for it is quite late now, and the last blackbirds have long piped in the dusk. As the default weekend blogger, I thought I might serve up a slice of vérité this time and give you a report of my actual Saturday as it unfolded, plus occasional asides. Are you OK with that?

It began when I awoke at 8.30, slightly later than usual (but then it is the week-end), out of a strange dream that featured Egyptian dancing girls, the details of which needn't concern us here. It was one of those mornings that I love to wake up to, blue sky and golden sunlight slanting through the bedroom blinds. I leapt up with alacrity, had a quick wash to get the sleep out of my eyes, and dressed for the gym.

Downstairs, I made breakfast: Greek coffee, toasted olive bread and marmite, an orange and one of those little shots of Actimel in the milk-churn shaped tub, a daily boost to the immune system. Regular readers might be surprised that I made coffee, because I do severely limit my intake since becoming prone to occasional arrhythmia, but life is all about balances, isn't it, and once in a while a cup goes down a treat.     

I stuffed this week's dirty laundry into the washing machine and set it going, as it promised to be a balmy day and maybe the first opportunity of the year to dry things out on the line in the garden instead of on the radiators.

  
By 9.15 I was ready to head for the gym. As my musical accompaniment of choice I took the new Jason Isbell solo album Foxes in the Snow, just released yesterday, actually, got it on a visit to Preston.

After forty-five minutes on the treadmill and fifteen doing some weights, I had a shower and headed home at 11.00 where, so inspired by Jason Isbell, his new songs, just him singing to the accompaniment of his finger-picked acoustic Martin guitar (vintage 1940 model, lucky man), I broke out my own Yamaha six-string and tried playing along to a few numbers.

The post landing on the doormat interrupted those pleasant musical meanderings. A fat Joe Brown's Clothes catalogue (I really should unsubscribe) and a letter from the NHS inviting me to join 1,885,350 other good citizens in the country's largest health research programme. Both went into the paper recycling sack in the kitchen, which was when I remembered the washing-machine full of wet clothes waiting to be hung on the line.

I pegged everything out in warm sunshine, listened to a bit of birdsong while doing so (mostly great tits, an invisible wren, and of course seagulls - if you can call that singing), and over the fence congratulated my Liverpool-mad next door neighbour on the Reds' smash and grab victory over Paris Saint-Germain the other evening. I'd known Liverpool must have scored. I expect all the houses roundabout heard his jubilant roar that night

Shortly after midday, I phoned my friend Kate to discuss artwork for the cover of our Blackpool & Fylde Stanza group's upcoming anthology of poems. We've been going for five years now and thought an anthology would be a fitting way to mark that particular milestone. The collection will be out, we hope, some time later in the spring.

Intermission #1. I got the idea for introducing intermissions from watching The Brutalist the other week. The film was so long they built in a break in the middle. I can remember when epic movies used to do that - Doctor Zhivago, The Godfather, Gandhi, Once Upon A Time In America. Anyway, I remembered an article about American museums in the 1960s pioneering 'free Saturdays' so that wives could come into the city with their husbands and have something cultural to do while the men went to the ball game of an afternoon or early evening. They could wine and dine together in the Bronx or Brooklyn or wherever afterwards as part of the weekend and I'm sure that helped a lot of marriages. . 

out and about on a Saturday

As it was the first spring-like day of the year, I thought I'd do a bit of housework, throw the windows open, turn the mattress on my bed, indulge in a spot of light dusting, nothing too committed. After all, I did write a poem which begins: There's a lazy part of me thinks 'let sleeping dust lie'. 

Then from 15.00 onwards my thoughts were all with Blackpool FC, away at Barnsley today. We'd won away there at Oakfield in our last two league encounters but lost at home to them earlier in the season. I didn't go to the game today, electing to use the burst of fine weather to start making inroads on the jungle my back garden has become, but listened to the game instead and wow! a 3-0 away win for the Seasiders.

At full time I brought the washing in, pleased that it had dried in the fresh air, then sat down to work on the poem that appears below. I didn't quite know where it was going or how it was going to turn out, and although I plan to move away from narrative-style poems for a while, this one wanted to be written.

Intermission #2. I couldn't let a blog about the weekend pass without referencing the euphemistic phrase by which barbers in the last century would enquire whether a customer might be interested in buying a packet of condoms, for barbers in those days regularly stocked personal items that gentlemen might require - brylcreem, razor blades, shaving foam, combs, prophylactics. I suppose that as most dating occurred on Friday and Saturday nights, "Would sir like something for the week-end?" was both an explicit enough and yet still discreet way of offering condoms for sale to men who might be embarrassed to walk into a chemist's shop to make such a purchase. How the world has moved on.

"Something for the week-end, sir?"

At 19.00 I gave my 'stepson' a lift down to St Annes for a hot date with his new flame. He was nervous as a kitten, I hope all want well.  Then I drove back to Adele's for spaghetti bolognaise and to provide her with moral support watching Everton in the 20.00 game. Sky would have football on our screens 24x7 if they could. I have to say as a football match is was pretty lame, but the food was good.

And now I'm back home and have just written up my blog, which I hope entertains. This has been my Saturday. To conclude, here's the latest from the imaginarium. It's a wistful piece. Let me know what you think. 

Egypt In The Snow

I'm in cosmopolitan

and a little crazy New York City

on a sweltering Saturday

at the beginning of September.

The twin towers are still standing

but not for long.

Spent the afternoon

sunbathing in Central Park,

indolently reading Monty Christo's

Southbound Train to Saqqara

to a backwash of traffic snarls,

planes, laughter, the piercing calls

of water birds in this Birkenhead

across the pond.

 

Early evening,

I ride the subway from 96th

through East Broadway,

Brooklyn bound. 

It's close in here

and at one point

and I find myself opposite 

a woman with kohl eyes

and long dark hair.

 

She pulls two books 

out of her carpet bag,

Mars Telepathic by Omar Makoub

and Southbound Train to Saqqara,

catches me looking at her.

'I can't decide which one to start'.

I lift up my copy of Southbound Train.

She has a laugh lights up her face, says

'What were the chances of that?'

and places Makoub back in her bag.

We read in the oppressive rush,

or at least pretend to 

through every jolt and sway

and I don't look her way again

until Egypt Station* when she says

'Want to go dancing tonight? 

I know a place'. 

I shake my head. 'I can't'. 

'Dance? Everybody can dance'.

I make no reply, 

my normal reticence, 

so she shrugs, smiles 

and gives a little wave

as she heads for the door.

I'm in cosmopolitan

and a little crazy New York City

on a sweltering Saturday

at the beginning of September.

Working abroad,

weekends are the worst.

I've been out here 

for several at a stretch

and hot, dusty hotels

have the loneliest smell.

Right now 

my wife and daughters

feel longer ago

and further away even than Saqqara

and Egypt in the snow.

*Egypt Station is not a real stop on the New York subway, but an invention of Paul McCartney's which I've borrowed for the occasion.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)