I ❤️ You

I feel this week's blog concerning love should be about the attachments that enrich life and give it meaning, so let me start off with a portmanteau quote: 

"There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved. To love is nothing. To be loved is something. But to love and be loved is the greatest joy of all."

Discuss (as it would then say, if it were an exam question), though there are not necessarily any right or wrong answers, and nobody would ever get 100%.

So who (or what) do you love? We can treat this like a brain-storming session, if you'd prefer. Don't be shy. Here's a sort of alphabetical trawl...

Family. Yes, that's a good enough place to start. Parents, siblings and children are definitely on my list. My parents are no longer of this world. I was going to add 'sadly', but they'd both be well over 100 years old now, so probably wouldn't want to be around anymore. But I loved them while they were here and I miss them. I love my brothers, though they live in disparate parts of the country and we don't see each other as often as I'd like. And I love my daughters, definitely part of the greatest joy of all. In fact I'm visiting them and a grandchild down in London this week-end.

Inamorato/a. I use the old Latin term for a romantic pairing. Be that boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife (maybe they should be in the 'family' grouping), partner, master or mistress, these loves are probably the most exhilarating, intense and often unsettling attachments we make.

Pets. Yes, why not? I have loved cats and I'm sure been loved back. For some people its dogs or horses, ferrets, monkeys or mongooses, birds, fish, snakes. I think the love has to be individual for animals though, not a generic warm glow for a species.

Places: Some of us imprint on a specific location that we think of as our 'happy place', perhaps somewhere associated with joyous memories from an original visit and somewhere we love going back to time and again.. The merchandisers have caught on to this emotion with their "I ❤ [insert location here]" T-shirts, fridge magnets and other paraphernalia. 

Religious: I suppose love of a God (or Goddess) is a valid affection. My own parents effectively dedicated their lives to a religious cause, and many priests, priestesses, monks and nuns and deeply religious individuals down the ages have made that affiliation a cornerstone of their lives.

Teams: This may be closely linked to places, in that sports teams tend to be location specific, and maybe it's a deep-seated, almost tribal need that many of us feel to belong to some sporting enterprise like a football club, to share in moments of communal passion, both delight and despair, as the fortunes of a team fluctuate. Indeed, some of us give of our time freely for the cause.  

Things: I think we're getting into dubious territory now. Clearly, many people derive great pleasure from material objects, collections of objects (vintage cars, stamps, shoes, works of art) but I'm uncertain to what extent such attachments can be described as love. Does it debase the concept to talk about loving one's possessions, loving one's food, loving one's bed, one's car. one's job? I'd be interested in your thoughts about this.

Universal: To quote Bob Dylan: "Love is all there is, it makes the world go round." It sounds simplistic but maybe it's the most profound lyric he ever wrote. We've come full circle and I refer you back to the quote with which I started this piece. 

Here's a new poem (subject to the usual qualifications about it being a work-in-progress):

Nothing Says I Love You Like...

that time when you said you felt numb,

worthless, couldn't see any point to life,

that no one would miss you if you were

gone...

so I cradled you all night, talked to you

till you fell asleep, by starlight watched

you frail but beautiful, the ache become

mine...

and only moved as sunrise flamed your

room, your hair. With care I placed you

in the discovery position, saw your eyes

open...

and we smiled without a need for words. 

As a musical bonus, the Blue Aeroplanes suggest there are actually 25 Kinds Of Love - and fittingly this performance was recorded on Valentine's Day in 2010. Enjoy.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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Missing: Pets Lost And Found

Much loved pets go missing every day. Some are lost forever, whilst others are incredibly found days, weeks, months or even years later. Here is a mixed bag of stories.

Lost and Found © 2023 KEW (Image credit: Kate Eggleston-Wirtz)

The Hamster
One summer, our neighbours were going on vacation and I was asked to look after their two pets, a hamster and a cat. I was young and keen to take on the responsibility. This did not go well. On one of these caregiving mornings I was greeted with an empty hamster cage, door wide open. The hamster was never found.

The Snake
When I was growing up my brother John kept a menagerie of animals down in the basement. The mini zoo included several different types of snakes (thankfully none poisonous), a tokay gecko, a tarantula and loads of mice that were raised to feed the snakes. The basement was expansive and centre stage stood a monstrous octopus-like furnace entombed within walls of stone and cement. Vivariums lined the wall on one side. There was also an open entrance to a massive crawl space with a dirt floor that I never had the courage to enter, too many places for creepy-crawlies to hide.

I was about eight years old when one day John pulled me aside and let me in on a little secret, the boa constrictor had gone missing! He only shared this privileged information with me. This was in the middle of the summer when our family was just about to go on vacation for three weeks to visit relatives. On this occasion, my sister Becky was on her university break and working at a local department store. This meant she was going to be home alone with an unbeknownst to her, slithering escapee.

Now perhaps it was not the best idea to keep this information to ourselves, then again maybe it was. I wish I had an exciting tale to tell such as how my sister stumbled upon the snake in the kitchen, was terrified, threw open the back door that was violently ripped off its hinges, then frantically waved her hand in the air and ran away screaming. Now there’s a picture and that would have made for a really good story, however this is not the case. Seemingly her home alone experience unfolded quite uneventfully. Becky went to work and enjoyed her solitude. We came home and shortly thereafter she traipsed back to university none the wiser. About three months later John called me to come down into the bowels of the house. “Look at this,” he exclaimed. And there peacefully curled up around a big iron kettle on top of one of the mouse cages was the boa constrictor alive and well.

On a side note, recently I was talking about this particular incident to my friend Ruth Honey (appearing in the Elsa story below). She raised an excellent question, who fed the animals when John was away. John would have been the logical one to ask but sadly he is no longer with us, so I turned to my sister who said,

This is how I remember it but pretty sure I did not go into the basement to feed anyone…[The basement] was not inviting, which is why I wouldn’t be feeding the mice!

The Cats
Admiral Pet Insurance research showed that in August 2023 over a quarter of a million cats were listed as missing. The survey data disclosed there were particular circumstances that caused cats to suddenly disappear including: owners moving house, owners going on holiday, builders renovating the home or acquiring another pet.

However some good news came out of the API report 41 percent of these missing animals returned on their own volition, 18 percent were found by their owners, 16 percent had been found in outbuildings, 13 percent were found at their own home and the final 16 percent were found by someone local.

Jaffa

I remember a number of years ago glass artist Colette Halstead posting for several weeks on Facebook that she was desperately searching for her ginger cat Jaffa. The torment of the situation has stuck with me. When considering this article I contacted her to find out more. She has kindly given her permission to share the story.

Collette had recently moved to the country when Jaffa became her companion. He stood by her, soothed her soul, supported her as she started her glass making business out in the Lancashire countryside. They were inseparable for six years until one Friday evening Jaffa vanished. By Saturday morning she knew something was wrong.

When it happened I had an overwhelming sense that he was gone, but this didn’t stop me turning my immediate neighbourhood upside down to find him. I printed off a five-mile radius of Google earth screenshots, taped them together and used them as my map, I left no stone unturned to find him in case he was locked in anywhere. I systematically searched the area. Friends came with dogs to search the fields, friends came and helped me flyer everywhere, friends came and comforted me.

The first three weeks were the worst, I knew that by slim chance if he’d been trapped that he would not survive beyond that time frame, I really struggled emotionally here. I stopped looking and wandering through fields after about four weeks. I still miss Jaffa terribly…The worst feeling in the world is having no closure…

Elsa
Every so often in the news there are extraordinary stories about missing pets that miraculously reappear. One such story appeared on the BBC Midlands website about Elsa, a cat who went missing in 2007 and was joyfully reunited with her animal loving owner and original carer Ruth years later. In 2021 Ruth received an unbelievable phone call. Elsa had been found half a mile away from her home in Leicestershire. Apparently workers at the Nutts Lane industrial estate had been feeding her for over a decade until someone noticed a lump above one eye and out of great concern took her to a local vet. It was through the microchip database that Ruth was traced.

Ruth went on to crowd fund and raise over £2,000 for operations to remove Elsa’s multiple tumours. Elsa recovered brilliantly. Ruth said that at first, Elsa was very standoffish, but settled and became the most cuddly and loving cat.

Elsa and Ruth (Image credit: Ruth Honey)

Before I take leave, here are a couple of poems inspired by my brother’s escaped snake.

My Snake Marigold

She slithered out of her stronghold,
was lost for months my Marigold,
then found wrapped ‘round a kettle cold.
I brought her back into the fold.
And there she stayed, but not for long.
The great escape and she’s still gone.

Marigold’s Great Escape

I’m not hissss ssssnake, I never wassss.
I left him just becausssse, becausssse
I had to sssscare all that wasssss
out there! Beware! My tongue! My jawssss!
I’m ssstaying here in grassss and weedsssss
to sssslither doing sssscary deedsssssssss.

Thank you for reading, Kate J

Sources
BBC East Midlands, 10 December 2021. Owner’s cat found at nearby Hinkley factory after 14 years. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-59594010 Accessed 24 January 2024.
Halstead, C. 2024. Email correspondence to Kate Eggleston-Wirtz 22 January.
Honey, R, 2024. Video call with Kate Eggleston-Wirtz 23 January.
Improve Veterinary Practice, 2022. New research and tracking experiment reveals extent of missing cat epidemic and behaviour of cats outside the house.
https://www.veterinary-practice.com/2022/cat-research-reveals-behaviour-and-missing-cats%20accessed%2021%20January%202024 Accessed 28 January 2024

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Goldie - and Other Fish

 I’ll be honest with you; I’ve never had much interest in fish.  

Let me rephrase that (with apologies to pescatarians):  if the fish is before me on a plate with a crispy skin, a scattering of salt, a quarter of lemon and the promise of soft, fragrant flesh beneath the surface, then I’ll admit to feeling a frisson of excitement.  Other than that, fish, in my world, are neither here nor there.  Don’t get me wrong, if I actually think about fish I’m happy that they exist, and would never advocate cruelty to one, which, despite what the seasoned fisherman might say, includes catching one on the end of a hook.  I suppose there’s quite an element of hypocrisy there, and I know I would be shot down in flames by vegetarians, but in the interest of honesty, it has to be said: I find fish pretty boring.  

I’ve sat in waiting rooms with huge aquariums, and between bouts of anxiety about the appointment/interview ahead, I must admit I’ve admired the beauty and grace of some of the specimens. However, my over riding feeling is sorrow that these creatures are confined to a water filled glass box, however spacious it might be, and however well stocked with weeds and ornaments.  There are only so many circuits you can do and only so many dinky little bridges you can swim through before you want to get out, wrap yourself in a towel and get yourself a brew from the coffee machine.  Well, not quite, but you get the idea.

It was a different story with my first goldfish, whose name has sadly been confined to the depths of my diminishing sixty odd year old memory.  I loved that goldfish.  If I remember rightly, there were three, one each for my brothers and me.  I’m not sure we could tell which was which but that was no deterrent to our belief that we were the luckiest kids on earth.  Pets, apart from very small ones such as mice, fish or hamsters, or very slow ones such as tortoises, didn’t feature in our childhood.  My mum and dad had both had dogs as children but there were always tragic tales, and I don’t think either of them was prepared to go through years of  fights and loss, and the inevitable stress and sadness.  In these days of ipads and x-boxes and Macbooks and smartphones, it is probably incomprehensible to today’s youth that three tiny orange fish swimming round a glass bowl could hold such interest to 1950s children.  Granted, it was 1960 before we got a TV.

Everything changed when we went to stay with our cousins at the seaside.  We didn’t realise when we returned that it wasn’t Goldie who was happily swimming that tiny circuit in the bowl, occasionally bobbing to the surface for food, but a substitute, bought after a frantic dash round local pet shops by my dad who had been left behind to work, and was in charge of said pets.

Apparently, poor Goldie had floated to the surface one morning and was still there when my dad got home that evening.  By the time we were told the devastating news, years later, we found it hard to feel much sympathy for a fish, true ownership unknown, that had been unceremoniously dumped down the lav in 1959 and no doubt ended up at the end of the sewer as fish food himself. 

Despite my lack of enthusiasm for fish (apart from a couple of months in 1958 when, mesmerised by their activities, I lavished love and attention on Goldie and his compatriots), I realised something rather odd yesterday, as I reluctantly lay back in the dentist’s chair.  On the wall was a print that I found quite beautiful.  It was a shoal of fish (they looked like goldfish but it was difficult to tell as the whole picture was overlaid with a soothing blue wash, for obvious reasons).  I stared at it as I suffered the horror of the drill, the sprayer and the sucker and two pairs of hands pulling my mouth into hideous shapes, whilst I desperately tried not to swallow or gag.  Strangely, I found the picture quite calming.

When I got home, nursing a sore and sagging mouth, I glanced in the mirror to ascertain the damage, and noticed that I was wearing fish earrings.  Reflected in the mirror was not only my lopsided face, fish dangling from my ears, but the fish wallpaper that I’d chosen a few weeks previously – and regarded with horror by the decorator, who seemed strangely reluctant to paste it to the walls.  In the kitchen was the pack of salmon that the husband had got out for tea….

It was all getting a bit Tales of the Unexpected…..

Goldie, I’m sorry I lost interest in you after a very short period of fascination.  I’m sorry your end was undignified, and that I wasn’t there to comfort you.  And I’m sorry you ended up as fish food.  Now, Goldie, can you please RIP, wherever you are?

 My Life as A Goldfish (as told to Jill Reidy)

Round

And round

And round

And round

And round

Food

Bob up

Back down

Turn around

And round

And round

And round

And round

And round

And round

Thanks for reading, and if you've enjoyed it, please leave me a comment or a like - Jill

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"I tort I taw a puddy tat! ... I did! I did see a puddy tat!!"

Ah Tweety! Poor old Sylvester's nemesis. Then there's Jerry of course. Tormenting Thomas (Tom to me and you), and getting him a whopping with a broom. Tsk tsk, naughty Jerry! Yes I prefer the cat characters to the others. I had a quick look on-line to see how many cats are in cartoons alone and was very surprised.

If I were to have a pet, it would be a cat. I like dogs but I'm afraid that I find them too "labour intensive", whereas cats, well they're much more independent. We've had family pets over the years, including 3 cats (namely Marmalade, Domino and Tigger), and they were my favourites to be fair. Sadly Marmalade (an un-neutered ginger Tom) ran away, Domino (a black and white rescue cat) had been badly treated by her previous owners and then when we took her in, she developed cancer and we had to have her put to sleep poor thing. Tigger (a tortoiseshell) however, stuck around for a good many years. He was a very good cat and would even bring home the occasional "gift" and leave it on the back step, but sadly got knocked down when out one day. He died at the vets. That was the late 90's and we haven't had another cat since.

So although, my track record with cats isn't exactly fantastic, I do love them. I wrote this weeks' poem with Tigger in mind. The picture above bears an uncanny resemblance to him.


Cat:

Lithe feline,
whether leaping or lazing,
stalking or scrapping,
how do you make 
everything seem
so effortless?
With poker faced practise
you look on,
dispassionate,
or occasionally
with contemptible glare,
when the blink
comes slowly.
Resonant purr
vibrates
through my chest cavity,
while your paws
knead
with a peek-a-boo
needle touch.
So independent,
yet needy.
Seeking strokes
or a lap
to curl up on.
The closeness
a comfort
as well as a warm.
While we turn to our beds
at night,
having snoozed the day away
you explore your domain,
marking your boundaries
and perhaps seek some tail? 
But an expression
of affection
lies dead
on my doorstep
in the morning.


Thanks for reading. ;-) x

P.S. Don't forget the Open Mic night tonight! It starts at the slightly earlier time of 17:30 hrs at a new venue for us - Cafe Dolce, Abingdon Street, Blackpool. The theme is Cats, although it's not mandatory, so come along and listen or read. We look forward to seeing you there!!

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Lions.

Rarr.

Today is Leo day. The day for all my fellow summer borns to rejoice in having our star sign in power. Or something like that.

I don't believe in star signs really. They probably have more significance than I think. They probably also have more significance than a lot of the religious stuff people live their lives by. I still have to be a little pessimistic though- after all, the last place I want to be is a drunken dial away from a Psychic hotline and major phone bill.

That said, I had to find something to write here for the blog. Something about characters and how star signs could be an interesting way to develop them- for traits and whatnot was the first idea I had. Then the golf started and, in truth, I couldn't be bothered. I barely found time to get to my allotment, despite having a constant reminder of how perfect the conditions were courtesy of BBC's live coverage from down the road. I did start to develop a poem idea though- something along the lines of big game hunting is the thinking so watch this space.

So that is me really. I'm a Leo and, in reading back over those bits at the top, reckon that pretty much sums me up- strong willed but very much an 'I'll do it when I want' kind of person. Well, unless the phone rings tomorrow and something I would actually like to do happens (hint hint ANYONE!).

Whilst researching my meagre blog post, I did find this peach in Take A Break's Fate and Fortune Magazine. You'll be surprised to know it also applies to pets, not just Shauns.

"...born under Leo are masters of all they survey. Proud, loving and loyal, your Leo pet likes to rule the roost, loves being the centre of attention and adores cuddles. They're sunny, cheerful and can seem lazy- but a snoozing Leo pet is a happy one.
DO: Groom them often. They can't get enough of being pampered. If there was a pet spa, they'd be first in the queue.
DON'T: Laugh at your pet if they do something silly. They're very proud."

(taken from: TAB Fate & Fortune, issue August 2012).

Thanks for reading,
S

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The Joy of Pets

Last Sunday I found myself in the peculiar situation of dog sitting. Going about my working day, a little after ten, I heard the scampering of claws on hard floor. I should tell you now; I'm not really a dog person. I have always had cats and rest soundly in the knowledge they rarely attack small children in parks, run off and lose their way back or savage their owners. This Staffy Bitch then, made me weary.

Cut a long story short, it dug up the back garden, went to the pound, returned from the pound, ate a fist full of treats and, over the next three hours, became lovely and obedient- heeling with a mere whistle. I enjoyed the experience and, rather than see it put down, I was right up for keeping it. Alas, the owner turned out to be some prat down the way who didn't so much as thank me for feeding and returning his beloved pregnant pet. I'd forgotten all about it until yesterday, as customer after customer asked if I still had that lovely dog. I've been too busy to even consider it- which probably says a thing or two.

On with the point then, I guess politicians are a bit like pets. We adopt them for a while, pick up after them and, over time, get a little bit sick of paying for the bleeding things and want something new: Gordon Brown for example- the tired old dog, was never really going to hold the adoration of the public with the idealist bouncing puppies Dave and Nick vying for love.

What has this got to do with poetry I hear you cry. Well, in short, I think this anecdote translates nicely into how I tend to write. I love an idea- tame, feed and nurture it, cuddle it, clean up the mess, deliver to my notebook a whole litter of kittens and get so sick of the concept, metaphorically speaking, it winds up in Fleetwood Docks.

With two Blackpool DGPS meets in quick succession (last Friday and a week this Friday (7/10) @ No.5 Cafe, Cedar Square, Blackpool. 6pm+), I think for the next event I'll drag up a sack of drowned kittens and have a jumble. The writing in so many of my notebooks is as much as dead to me in terms of 'I wouldn't use it now' or 'needs improvement' being the first things I'd probably scrawl over them.

The theme for the next event though is Favourite Poems and so, I'm going to have to pick out some old favourites and have a think why I liked them so much (opinions welcome, as always). With a bit of luck, an oxygen starved little beauty will jump out at me. If not, and I doubt it will in honesty, I'll maybe have something from later today. I'm off to this Diversions library thing (the 2pm one) and interested to see just how it is going to work. See, I’ve rambled on this week- no wonder the bloody ideas fizz out for me!

Thanks for reading,
S.

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