Upside Down

At the beginning of last summer, we spent a few days on the south coast of England, between Worthing and Brighton, or thereabouts. I really liked Worthing and could be quite at home there. Brighton was pleasant. Being a holiday resort, it was busy, as to be expected. On the front, a quirky upside down house generated interest. I believe it is a tourist attraction. We didn’t visit. At the time, it didn’t occur to me that our own holiday resort, Blackpool, might benefit from the same thing, but sure enough, as I sit typing, an upside down house is under construction somewhere on the sea front at South Shore. While I’m having my daily whinge about the state of roads and pavements in my locality, and wondering why we need special food waste bins when it’s simple enough to bag it separately – oh, yes, someone said rats, ok – I remind myself that Tourism Planning and Town Planning are probably not the same, and don’t share an office, or if they do, it’s all upside down. Was I dreaming about Blackpool being put forward for a future City of Culture status? Let’s wait and see. Mr Bickerstaff had a daft idea about a tower and that worked out just fine.

Upside down, topsy-turvy, inside out. This is still how my house is and has been for nearly a year. I wish the fairies would come during the night and sort it out. Packing up and getting rid of things no longer needed takes forever and I’ve got to be ruthless to downsize. It goes against my nature to part with most things. We’ve spent weeks in our caravan, quite happily with not much more than the basics. Funny, that. We haven’t moved house before. At this rate, it might not happen until Blackpool has City of Culture status.

The family home, children raised here now grandchildren treat it as their own, which is how I like it. This is how sentimental I am. Old photos show the changes through the ages. Furniture, carpets, décor, all a mix of good ideas, or not. We’ve always had painted walls, apart from the lounge. It is painted now, but until recently it was wall-papered. When we did the papering, I did the cutting and pasting, my husband did the hanging, smoothing and finishing trim. Once, we had the entire room papered with the pattern upside down. My fault, of course. Luckily, it was a subtle design, mostly hidden by book shelves and tall furniture. I don’t think anyone noticed.

Imagine the horror of being stuck upside down on a malfunctioning ride in an amusement park. It has happened. A group of people spent thirty minutes suspended upside down 100 feet high for about half an hour when a ride they were on stalled. Everyone was rescued safely and without injury, apart from the discomfort of blood rushing to their heads giving visual problems, dizziness and headache. This occurred in Portland, Oregon, USA in 2024. It might have happened elsewhere, too.

A poem,

Upside Down

It’s funny how beetles
And creatures like that,
Can walk upside down
As well as walk flat.

They crawl on a ceiling
And climb on a wall,
Without any practice
Or trouble at all.

While I have been trying
For a year (may be more)
And I still can’t stand,
With my head on the floor.

    

                                 Aileen Fisher

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Struggle

Epimetheus and Pandora

“The name Epimetheus comes from the Greek god (or titan) Epimetheus (or hindsight) who was the brother of Prometheus (foresight). Together, they represented humanity.”

I read The Iliad and The Odyssey a long time ago but I would struggle to remember much Greek mythology now. Maybe worth a re-read, just to master the challenging names, even though I found lots of it scary.  Stephen Fry’s Mythos is on the shelf, looking more appealing. I’ll see. There is a reason for this.

I’m a reading volunteer at the local primary school. Actually, I’m not doing the reading, I’m listening, encouraging, praising and offering help where needed to Year 4 children, which is the 8 to 9 age group. I’m learning a lot. They don’t mind telling me what they think of reading. It’s a love or hate thing. I do my best to promote a positive love of books, stories developed by imagination and the joy of disappearing into the world created by a good author. It is lovely to meet a child who reads for pleasure. There are some struggles for me to overcome.

“I read in my head, Miss,” says the child with an open book half under the table.

“I’m sure you do, and that’s excellent, but you need to read aloud to me just for a couple of minutes while I check your progress. Pop it up on the table so I can see the words.”

Seeing the words would be good. The better the reader, the smaller the print, it seems. My glasses are the correct prescription but I struggle to see some pages and it’s hard to follow the text with a child who has a tiny voice. Then there was the stumbling over an unfamiliar name.

“Epi, Epi, Epim,” a pleading look for help. We sound it out together.

“Epimetheus. Well done!” I hoped I’d confirmed the correct pronunciation. The story was an age appropriate  Pandora’s Box. Other children also had Greek mythology stories. I’d better brush up before next time. Personally, I prefer the Amelia Fang stories by Laura Ellen Anderson.

One of my favourite poets, although he’s so much more, including writer, broadcaster and until recently, Chancellor of the University of Manchester, is Lemn Sissay, OBE, FRSL. Reading his autobiography was heart-breaking, tears on every page, a childhood full of struggle and adversity with situations which made me furious. I am in awe of him, the life he has made for himself and everything he does for the benefit of others. Out of many, I chose this poem,

 Let There Be Peace

By Lemn Sissay

 

Let there be peace
So frowns fly away like albatross
And skeletons foxtrot from cupboards,
So war correspondants become travel show presenters
And magpies bring back lost property,
Children, engagement rings, broken things.

Let there be peace
So storms can go out to sea to be
Angry and return to me calm,
So the broken can rise up and dance in the hospitals.
Let the aged Ethiopian man in the grey block of flats
Peer through his window and see Addis before him,
So his thrilled outstretched arms become frames
For his dreams.

Let there be peace
Let tears evaporate to form clouds, cleanse themselves
And fall into reservoirs of drinking water.
Let harsh memories burst into fireworks that melt
In the dark pupils of a child’s eyes
And disappear like shoals of silver darting fish,
And let the waves reach the shore with a
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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