What Really Scares Me...

...is the realisation that I've now written over 200 Saturday Blogs! Man, that's four years hard labour at the blogface with a fortnight off each summer for Greek delights. Where has the time gone?

A somewhat facetious opening, I know, but it's milestones like that which make you reflect on what you've been doing with your precious hours (Saturdays, weeks, months...) Naturally I've enjoyed writing all those blogs and poems (some better than others, admittedly) or I wouldn't have done it for so long (and four years is quite a long time). I was meant to be writing a novel, but the Oystons' cynical custodianship of Blackpool FC led to me putting much of my time and energy into Blackpool Supporters' Trust and the blog was easier to fit alongside that quite consuming activity than trying to progress a book. Blogging is a good discipline and still a stimulating challenge, so I'll keep it going for another year and then have a re-think.

As to  what really scares me  on a personal level (if scare is the right word and accepting that the fear doesn't have to be particularly rational/realistic) - that would have to be the prospect of exposure to prolonged cold, especially when combined with wet in the form of ice and snow. I've never been attracted to ski-ing or winter holidays.

Of course snow is pretty to look at as it falls, fun to play around in for a while - but on an industrial (or should that be a meteorological) scale? No thanks. Preserve us from the freezing crystalline killer. The prospect of global warming concerns me slightly, but the thought of suffering the ravages of a prolonged cold climate worries me more. I'd hate, for instance, to be plunged into the constant frozen gloom of a mini ice-age. I bought a copy of Anna Kavan's dystopian classic Ice a few months ago ("no sun, no shadows, no life, a dead cold") but I haven't plucked up the courage to read it yet.

Think of the devastation caused when cold and wet conspire for any duration - it decimates wildlife, it's a danger to the young, infirm and very old (I'm not there yet); it completely disrupts the progress of the everyday. Think of the vast natural reserves consumed in keeping warm in such an environment. Think of the mental health issues (of which SAD is the tip of the proverbial iceberg).

No, give me a temperate climate, thank you. I'm so pleased to be living in the jewel of the north, situated on the Fylde coast, a place that doesn't freeze up for months on end; and I cross my fingers that we're not in for a vicious winter, given that the swing of the seasons becomes more exaggerated.

Which thought leads on to things that scare me on a societal level - and right up there is the insidious resurgence of right-wing institutions of which Donald Trump's elevation to the White House is a truly frightening portent. Not only has he reneged on America's commitment to tempering the man-made causes of global warming, he's also backed out of treaties on nuclear arms limitation and is trying to tear up his people's rights to health care and civil liberties. A racist and a misogynist, he is allowing extremes of prejudice to appear acceptable in pursuit of the invigorated American nationalism that right-wing commercial and financial institutions have as their abiding agenda and that 'ordinary white folks' appear to be sucked into supporting. This is divisive politics at its most ruthless. If you haven't read It Can't Happen Here (the novel by Sinclair Lewis), put it on your Christmas present list. Donald Trump is the dangerous figurehead of a new cold war movement...

Frosted Trumpkin

Closer to home, what scares me more than America under the Trumpkin is the unholy alliance of clever cynics and unreasonable fools in my own country and the thought of where their populist flood-tide might carry us before it drains away, leaving a pile of wreckage that will take years to recover from.

Cue a poetic swipe at that fulminating misler, Boris Johnson. This is something I wrote a few weeks ago for National Poetry Day after seeing newsreel of BoJo whipping up a storm at the Tory Party conference. I hope its sentiment is clear - a poem not really about coffee...

Borista!
I asked for a double-espresso,
complex, dark, spicy, vital,
cultured, stylish and urbane;
(think Athens, Milan, Paris, Rome).

He served up some hideous latte,
a full-fat, frothing aberration,
boorish, bigoted and bland;
(Scunthorpe, Witney, Dover, Frome).

Not what I ordered.
Can't get the staff!


Thanks, as ever, for reading the blog. Stay thoughtful and keep warm, S ;-)

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Teddies and Other Animals

Mojo mark 1

When I was teaching I bought myself a cheap, soft toy monkey who was destined to be a dunce for the rest of his life.  The six year old children in my class decided he should be called Mojo (to go with the polar bear called Polo who already lived in the corner of the room) and set about trying to teach him the basics.  The idea was that Mojo sat on my lap, looking happy but gormless, whilst I fired a series of questions to the children gathered around me.

“4 add 1?”

“2 add 3?”

“Can you sound out ‘pet’?”

“What does ‘dog’ start with?”

And so on.

Mojo was supposed to try and answer before the children, by whispering in my ear.  Needless to say, the children were desperate to beat Mojo, whose answers were invariably ridiculous.  The result was the children had a lot of fun, learned their sounds, added up their numbers, and Mojo remained oblivious to his own ineptitude, smiling inanely from my lap and receiving a lot of sympathetic comments along the way.  He always held a special place in my heart.

I took early retirement from teaching the same year my grandson was born, and somehow (I wish I could remember how) Mojo became Rio’s favourite soft toy.  Except he wasn’t just a toy, he was much more that that.   He was a supreme comforter and as time went on, became part of the family.  Rio moved around a lot in his first few years, between his mum, his dad and us, his grandparents, and wherever Rio went, Mojo was being dragged along too.  There was no chance of sleep without Mojo for Rio to rest his weary head on.  We all had a lot invested in that monkey.

I can honestly say, one of the worst weekends of my life followed the loss of Mojo one Thursday morning when Rio was seven.  I received a distraught phone call from my daughter.  Rio had been going to his dad’s that night so whilst he was at nursery, Laurey had taken Mojo, in a bag with some clothes, to the house and, finding his dad out, had left the bag in the side entrance.  Somehow, within a few hours, Mojo, the clothes and the bag had disappeared.  If you have never had a child with a comforter – in whatever form - that goes everywhere with that child then you have no idea of the distress caused by the loss of such an item.  Not only was Rio distraught, we all were.  It was like a death, and we reacted accordingly.  The worst part was seeing Rio trying to put on a brave face.  Laurey and I held it all together while we reassured him we were doing everything possible to find Mojo, but when Rio left the room the pair of us dissolved in tears.  When Rio returned he buried his head in his mum’s lap and sobbed.  I genuinely believe he was grief stricken.

I come from a long line of capable women who think that, not only is there a solution to every problem, but that we are the ones who have that solution.  I went into problem solving mode and eventually came up with an answer we hoped would make Rio happy again.  We had researched enough to know that we couldn’t replace Mojo with a newer model.  He had become extinct a few years previously.  I spent a day, searching desperately online for a similar monkey to no avail.  The only answer was to get another monkey and adapt it to look as much like Mojo as possible.  As a competent needlewoman I was confident I could do the job, but as a grandma I knew that Rio would not be fooled.  Only recently he had cried inconsolably and then stood by the washing line as Mojo dripped dry after a much needed wash.  He’d explained that the smell of Mojo was a big part of his appeal and I’d already agreed never to wash him again. 

The original Mojo, on his travels

The new Mojo, pre-op

The new Mojo, post-op

The following day, the new monkey arrived by special delivery and at vast expense.  He had long arms and legs, a bright smile and no ears, whereas Mojo had been short limbed with only the hint of a smile and ears like Dumbo.  I had quite a job on my hands.  What worried me more than the physical transformation of Mojo was the problem of explaining away the newness, the lack of worn fabric on his head and of course, the smell.  I set to work, chopping off limbs, adding ears and altering facial features.  By the time I'd finished Mojo had been reborn.  We were just left with the problem of explaining away the obvious differences.  And this is where Mrs Peacock and the Monkey Orphanage came to the rescue.....

The letter from the Monkey Orphanage

I'm not sure whether Rio, as a bright seven year old, was totally fooled by the orphanage story but Ido remember him telling me, years afterwards, that he'd gone home that day, hidden under his bed with Mojo and cried tears of joy.  As a family we never talk about the loss of Rio's favourite monkey, it was such a traumatic event, but as I look at Mojo now and see how worn he is once again I'm sure Rio would say the 'adoption' has been a great success. 

Long live teddies and other animals, but please keep your eye on them at all times.

The day the monkey disappeared by Jill Reidy

I like to think

The day that Mojo disappeared

He’d decided he was big enough

And clever enough

To set off on his own

That he didn’t need his daddy any more

(For that’s how Rio saw himself)

And he was going on one of life’s big adventures

He took the bag

Peered around the bin

And when the coast was clear

He made a dash

Nimbly climbing the nearest lamp post

And hanging there till the bin men had finished emptying bins

The shoppers had finished shopping 

And the children had gone in for their tea

Then, swiftly, he swung from post to post

Along streets where the dark seeped in

Until he reached some open spaces

Not quite the jungle

But maybe a local park

Where he met up with the other missing toys

Who had fled their owners

For a life of freedom

That’s what I like to think

Thanks for reading     Jill

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Golestan

Words seemed keen to demostrate their mood-altering prowess to me yesterday.  While waiting to brew up in the staff room, I asked a colleague the ubiquitous "Y'allreet?"  This is usally greeted with the traditional, "Yeah, y'reet?" Instead, she pestered a bloated teabag around a bulbous mug which was wistfully painted with pink flowers and grey curls.  Leaning on the worktop, she didn't answer but let out a long sigh.  I think I saw her soul fall out of her mouth and into the tea but that might have been steam.  This is what Winter does.

My workmate told me that she was fed up with feeling cold and holidays seemed a very long way off.  I could relate.  A client had phoned the department only minutes earlier to book an appointment, pointing out that he couldn't make the end of February as he would be in Mexico on his jollies.  I wished him a marvellous time.  Well, someone ought to be cheerful. 

Back in the staffroom, I decided not to tell my colleague about Mexico.  Instead I told her about the hyacinths I'd bought for my mother at the weekend.  I told her how the smell had hit me when I'd walked into the garden centre.  How it drenched the air with the sense of Spring.  I described the snow drops I'd seen flowering in a neighbour's garden.  This was enough.  A smile was wrought from the promise of blooms to come.  Anticipation replaced fatigue.  Imagined scent seemed to replace the breath she had expelled.

With this in mind, please enjoy these lines by Saadi, the 13th Century Persian poet best known for his works Golestan (The Garden) and Bostan (The Orchard):

If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,
And from thy slender store two loaves alone to thee are left,
Sell one, and with the dole
Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.

And breathe...

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I wish I was a squirrel...

.. or a hedgehog because I’d like to be allowed to hibernate until the spring arrives.

*   *   *

I’m not very fond of winter; the decreased light causes me to transcend into an almost permanent state of melancholy – sinking within a grey that is as gloomy as a December sky.

*   *   *

Poetry always seems more difficult during these bitter months, more elusive, and so I tend to read more than I write. There is something comforting, idyllic, romantic even, about reading during the winter: curled up next to a radiator, losing oneself in pages, as the wind growls at the window.

*   *   *

After moving from Coventry aged nine, I spent the rest of my childhood growing up in a Bedfordshire village on the outskirts of Leighton Buzzard. Winter in this village and around the surrounding area was beautiful. The nearby country park was a mix of coniferous and deciduous trees; firs that would be peaked with white after a flurry and nude oaks painted in morning frosts. There was a lake, which – if the temperature was cold enough – would freeze solid and we’d skim stones across its hardened surface. Each bounce creating a delightful chirp that would send out a chorus of echoes into the browning bracken. And it is that sound, the sound of stone on ice that makes me more forgiving and tolerant of the winter months.

*   *   *

In a playground we’d puff out our breaths, pretending we were grown-up as we waved around invisible cigarettes above our heads.

*   *   *

As the snow turns sludgy, the last-made snowman is grubby white, imprinted with twigs, grass and mud. But you’re still proud of it.

*   *   *

E . A . R . M . U . F . F . S.

*   *   *

[Probably the most fragmented blog post I've ever written]

Thank you for reading,

Lara

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