Flowers - Bloomin' Lovely

The garden is looking sorry for itself. Chopped down for winter, the three intertwined buddleia are naked sticks protruding from the soil, shorter than the fence. They look dead, but I’m sure I haven’t killed them. I can’t say the same for the annoying bindweed that was wrapped tightly around more branches than I realised. It has disappeared for now. Springtime will see it re-emerge, ready to attack, and once again I’ll be fighting the losing battle of trying to keep it away. I’m considering training it on to some trellis somewhere at the side. It is an attractive plant, just damages other things. We’ll see. The buddleia didn’t flower very well and I didn’t see a single butterfly, though I was away for most of the summer.

I'm not a good gardener, home or away, but I make an effort and do my best. Bulbs are planted for spring. I look forward to daffodils, tulips, irises, grape hyacinths and something I’ve never heard of that looked very pretty on the box. I do this every autumn, full of enthusiasm, expecting to grow the best spring garden ever and the wonderful flowers will compensate for every ache and pain. Something is always lacking – green fingers – so, in all seasons I try to plant things that will flower nicely and look after themselves. A favourite is the Totally Tangerine geum. They come back stronger each year. There are two, in different flower beds. In bloom, one is more stunning than the other. The slightly weaker one was bought when I was feeling cross about someone connected to football and I think it shows, but it doesn’t matter now.

I love to have flowers in the house. Last week I was overwhelmed and delighted to be given beautiful roses including yellow ones for friendship from a lovely friend of many years. She didn’t know this, but things have been tough for me lately. The flowers, with their special significance, really helped to cheer me up.

I always have daffodils in remembrance of my father. When he passed away, his garden path was lines with an abundance of shades of yellow, cream and orange created by an amazing display of various daffodils. It’s nice to see them appear in my garden.

I hope I have success with poppies next year. They always look lovely, but can be so delicate that they don’t last very long.

I’ve chosen two poems,

Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth 1770-1850

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae 1872-1918

Thanks for reading, Pam x

Read More

A Brief Encounter with Sadie Trotter

Whenever I hear the words, ‘Brief Encounter,’ my mind leaps (like many others’ I’m sure) to the film of the same name.  A railway station cafe, a meeting of soulmates, the impossibility of a relationship, the parting of ways.  A bittersweet and poignant tale.  

My own brief encounters have been nowhere near as romantic or tear jerking as the original.  However, there have been several of these encounters over the years, some more newsworthy than others. 

Three or four years ago I was about to cross the prom near my house when I noticed an elderly lady, standing on the edge of the kerb, her head turning rapidly back and forth as she waited for a gap in the traffic. I approached her and asked if she’d like help crossing the road. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, ‘but I’ll help you.’  I laughed and we linked arms and crossed the road. For an old lady she was pretty nippy, and we only slowed down when we reached my house.  ‘This is me,’ I said, turning to go. However, I hadn’t reckoned on this lady’s ability to chat. I don’t think I’d ever met anybody who could match me.  

I’m ‘Sadie,’ she said, then, like 007, added, ‘Sadie Trotter.’ 

‘Jill,’ I replied. 

She started to tell me how she’d lived in the house next door when she’d first moved to Blackpool with her husband and children.  After a few months, her husband had died of a brain tumour and she’d been forced to move back in with her mother.  It seemed to me that this lady was suffering from some form of dementia as she talked very lucidly about the past, but struggled to remember where she lived now.  I listened for a while longer, the whole time time watching her with my photographer’s eye. I’d been out taking pictures of the sea, and my camera was slung round my neck. I could feel my fingers twitching to press the shutter and capture Sadie’s animated face. She was talking so quickly now, that her false teeth kept dropping down from her upper gums. Periodically she sucked the teeth back up, and hardly pausing for breath, would continue with her memories.  Her son had also died, many years later, another brain tumour.  She had looked after her mother when she became senile, whilst holding down a job at a local bank.  She was eighty nine and all she had left now was a daughter, who lived in Manchester and rarely visited.  This was one sad tale but Sadie didn’t tell it that way.  Looking back seemed to make her happy.

She laughed when I asked if I could take her picture.  ‘You don’t want a picture of me,’ she said, looking coy, and I could see a glimpse of her younger self.  She adjusted her hat and her teeth and gave me a smile.  I took a few quick shots, and told her I’d print one out and post it through her letterbox - once we’d established where she lived.  She seemed to know which direction to take so I offered to walk her home, we linked arms again and she set off at a brisk pace.

I printed out the picture, put it in a frame and called round a few days later.  With hindsight, I suppose Sadie was pretty trusting to let me into her home just like that.  She made me weak tea, produced a plate with neat slices of Battenberg, and continued to tell me her life story.  Her husband had been a vicar, and Sadie was obviously still very religious.  As I got up to go, she grabbed my hands, motioned for me to sit down again, closed her eyes and began to pray.  To an atheist this was a somewhat surreal experience.  

I called every few weeks after that.  Each time would follow a similar pattern:  Sadie would answer the door, comment on my purple hair, make me tea, offer me cake, and continue (or recap) on her life story.  Sadie sat before me, frail and weak, toothless and almost hairless.  The teeth apparently only appeared on special occasions, and although she enjoyed my visits, these obviously didn’t quite cut it.  The photographs on every shelf and filling every bit of wall space told their own story:  A plump, coiffed Sadie hanging onto her very own vicar’s arm and smiling shyly at their wedding nearly seventy years before; a motherly Sadie with two young children on the beach;  Grandma Sadie standing proudly next to a grandson in cap and gown.  And of course, a tiny, smiling Sadie, hanging onto her hat and her teeth in the wind outside my house.  Over the next eighteen months I continued to visit, sometimes taking the grandchildren, who had to be bribed with the promise of chocolate biscuits and very strong cordial.  Sadie loved to see the children and always went out of her way to play with them, but as time went by I realised her health was failing, both physically and mentally.  The children became harder to persuade to come with me, so I went back to visiting alone.

One day there was no answer when I rang the bell.  The neighbour informed me that Sadie was in hospital, and promised to phone me when she was home.  Or if she didn’t return…..  

I felt incredibly sad.  I never saw Sadie Trotter again, despite calling several times, and I never heard from the neighbours.  A couple of months ago I spotted a ‘For Sale’ sign in Sadie’s front garden. 

Our ‘brief encounter’ hadn’t had a lot of romance but it did end up a bit of a tear jerker.  

RIP Sadie Trotter, you were a lovely friend for a short time.

A Life by Jill Reidy

Cluttered room, a tray of tea

Cake arranged in tiny squares

Heating and hopes high

A lifetime on walls and shelves

Births, marriages and deaths 

And everything in between

Sadie talks

I sip weak tea, take a bite of cake and listen

It's a long tale

Ninety years of ups and downs

Joy and sadness

Disappointment and despair

Rheumy eyes plead with me to stay

A visitor 

A listener

A friend

Sadie suddenly looks solemn

Takes my hands, lowers eyelids

Says a prayer

I focus on her wedding ring

And ponder the unfairness of life

Thanks for reading…….. Jill 

Read More

Preserving Memories

Floating

I imagine you sitting on a pool of mercury

Like Styrofoam on water

You do not sink

The faces of your family and friends

Dark shadows cast on the light

That now holds you

Somewhere beneath the surface

Memories are suspended

in glass storage jars

Like catching smoke

I struggle to remember the details

Blurred with time

Until one rises from the haze

Sharp and clear

Perfectly preserved

Like an ammonite in sedimentary rock

It places you in this world

Still here.

(In memory of Laila Antoun)

Read More

Boxing Day Laziness

Christmas wouldn't be the same without a new poem from our poet laureate. This year saw Carol Ann Duffy write Bethlehem; a beautiful little book published by Picador, illustrated by Alice Stevenson and tucked beneath my tree until I carefully unwrapped it yesterday. This prompted me to remember another Carol Ann poem that I read a couple of years ago on The Guardian's website, and which I thought I'd share with you all today.

THE CHRISTMAS TRUCE

Christmas Eve in the trenches of France,
the guns were quiet.
The dead lay still in No Man's Land –
Freddie, Franz, Friedrich, Frank . . .
The moon, like a medal, hung in the clear, cold sky.

Silver frost on barbed wire, strange tinsel,
sparkled and winked.
A boy from Stroud stared at a star
to meet his mother's eyesight there.
An owl swooped on a rat on the glove of a corpse.

In a copse of trees behind the lines,
a lone bird sang.
A soldier-poet noted it down – a robin
holding his winter ground –
then silence spread and touched each man like a hand.

Somebody kissed the gold of his ring;
a few lit pipes;
most, in their greatcoats, huddled,
waiting for sleep.
The liquid mud had hardened at last in the freeze.

But it was Christmas Eve; believe; belief
thrilled the night air,
where glittering rime on unburied sons
treasured their stiff hair.
The sharp, clean, midwinter smell held memory.

On watch, a rifleman scoured the terrain –
no sign of life,
no shadows, shots from snipers,
nowt to note or report.
The frozen, foreign fields were acres of pain.

Then flickering flames from the other side
danced in his eyes,
as Christmas Trees in their dozens shone,
candlelit on the parapets,
and they started to sing, all down the German lines.

Men who would drown in mud, be gassed, or shot,
or vaporised
by falling shells, or live to tell,
heard for the first time then –
Stille Nacht. Heilige Nacht. Alles schläft, einsam wacht …

Cariad, the song was a sudden bridge
from man to man;
a gift to the heart from home,
or childhood, some place shared …
When it was done, the British soldiers cheered.

A Scotsman started to bawl The First Noel
and all joined in,
till the Germans stood, seeing
across the divide,
the sprawled, mute shapes of those who had died.

All night, along the Western Front, they sang,
the enemies –
carols, hymns, folk songs, anthems,
in German, English, French;
each battalion choired in its grim trench.

So Christmas dawned, wrapped in mist,
to open itself
and offer the day like a gift
for Harry, Hugo, Hermann, Henry, Heinz …
with whistles, waves, cheers, shouts, laughs.

Frohe Weinachten, Tommy! Merry Christmas, Fritz!
A young Berliner,
brandishing schnapps,
was the first from his ditch to climb.
A Shropshire lad ran at him like a rhyme.

Then it was up and over, every man,
to shake the hand
of a foe as a friend,
or slap his back like a brother would;
exchanging gifts of biscuits, tea, Maconochie's stew,

Tickler's jam … for cognac, sausages, cigars,
beer, sauerkraut;
or chase six hares, who jumped
from a cabbage-patch, or find a ball
and make of a battleground a football pitch.

I showed him a picture of my wife.
Ich zeigte ihm
ein Foto meiner Frau.
Sie sei schön, sagte er.
He thought her beautiful, he said.

They buried the dead then, hacked spades
into hard earth
again and again, till a score of men
were at rest, identified, blessed.
Der Herr ist mein Hirt … my shepherd, I shall not want.

And all that marvellous, festive day and night,
they came and went,
the officers, the rank and file,
their fallen comrades side by side
beneath the makeshift crosses of midwinter graves …

… beneath the shivering, shy stars
and the pinned moon
and the yawn of History;
the high, bright bullets
which each man later only aimed at the sky.

(from http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/nov/11/christmas-truce-poem-carol-ann-duffy)

Hoping you all had a wonderful Christmas,

Lara

Read More

On Friendship

by Jo Bell

Reader, I have a fondness for fondness. So when Word Soup’s lovely organiser Jane Brunning asked me to choose a theme for the January event I chose friendship. In the dark winter days, I thought, we should revel in the slow-burning, deeply warming relationships that furnish our lives. Not the sexual ones that provide the fireworks; not the family ties that come with their own incendiary baggage; but the friends who share nights at the local, food around your table, those who make the bright moments especially bright and the really crap moments slightly better.

I was delighted to hear the Dead Good Poets wrangling with the theme in their own readings on the night, and to share the mic with friends like Sarah-Clare Conlon, Fat Roland, Kim Moore and Martin Malone. My poems – like English Walkers or Break in and Leave Me Flowers – often start from small gestures that make me particularly glad of my mates. I read both of these at Word Soup, but I didn’t squeeze in the poem below, written after a delicious, easy late night/ early morning in Warwickshire some years ago.

The space we share with friends becomes invisible

Was that the time we visited Seville?

The night we all lay stoned in dunes at Druridge Bay,

me swearing I could see the Northern Lights?

Or were we on the boat, each bumping round to find a bunk,

excited by the smell of salt?

Perhaps we walked the fields behind my house

to see the hilltop obelisk at dawn,

and soaked our ankles with the dew.

We did that, once.

I cannot say. For every night we’ve spent

is present now in every night we spend.

As like as not, we drank too much.

At any rate, we talked and laughed and spent the time

like hoarded coins: amazed, as usual,

to find each piece increase in value

simply by the keeping.

Nights like Word Soup are the life-blood of the spoken word scene, and it was brilliant to see the DGPs tackling the whole event with such professionalism and energy. I arrived horribly late thanks to a disastrous traffic jam on the M60. So I missed one or two of the Dead Good Poets whose own friendly, chatterbox blog I had been following in recent days. But the welcome was warm, the feedback extremely generous and it was a real pleasure to join you all on stage at the New Continental. There was a real feeling of companionship. Thanks to all of you and I’ll be back as soon as I can!

Read More