Travel - I'm Not Backpacking

When I was young, going on travels and planning adventures was the most exciting thing. I bought a new, top-of-the-range, holdall style bag for a trip to Europe. It was expensive, but it was within the specifications for airline hand luggage and was perfect for my needs. I was travelling light for an expected stay of a couple of weeks. Returning home, after my visit which was mainly sight-seeing but I did some shopping here and there, I surprised myself with how much stuff I could squeeze in, including 500g of knitting yarn – irresistible – from a local market somewhere in rural Switzerland.  It is forty-odd years ago and that well-travelled, well-used bag still looks like new and is taken with us on nearly every holiday.

On a warm, clear evening in North West Scotland, we sat outside our cottage watching the summer sunset and looking over The Minch beyond the coast of Skye to the Isle of Lewis, visible on the horizon. A future trip would have to be the Outer Hebrides and eventually, it was.

With a car suitable for the journey and the amount of travelling we expected to do, we packed it with everything we thought we’d need and more. We had enough supplies of tinned food and drinking water to last a couple of days if it should be needed. We always support local economy wherever we go, so main groceries would be bought on the islands, but we needed to be prepared for any ferry delays and shops closed on Sundays. Home for the first week was a renovated crofter’s cottage on South Uist. Our second week was a chalet on the Isle of Harris. I can’t tell you how amazing it was. I urge you to go and see, feel and breathe it all. Every turned corner introduced another breath-taking view of a different world. The following year we returned, this time to the Isle of Barra at the southern end of the archipelago.  

I like to be coastal, ideally within sight and sound of the sea. There’s something soothing about the gentle rhythm of an incoming tide, or hearing waves crashing on rocks. We’ve sat near Corbiere Lighthouse on Jersey watching how fast the sea covers the causeway and clears it again just as quickly. Another trip is planned for next year.

Meanwhile, we’ll go wherever the fancy takes us either in our caravan to pastures new, or to stay at a fabulous place we found in Shropshire, or the lodges we love in Dumfries and Galloway. We will travel while we can.

My Haiku,

My trusty holdall
With passport in my pocket,
On an adventure.

Corbiere Lighthouse
Majestically rising
Above ragged rocks.

Pack things in the car
For any situation.
Don’t forget the dog.

Swoon at the beauty
Of the natural landscape,
Outer Hebrides.

PMW 2024

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Double Dactyl - Higgledy Piggledy Acceptability

Double Dactyl poetry. I hope whoever dreamt this discipline up had lots of fun. According to Wikipedia, the inventors were Anthony Hecht and Paul Pascal in 1951. I’ve written lots of poems in various forms and in freestyle, but never encountered Double Dactyl until now. I’ve made an effort and enjoyed playing with words, as I always do. I haven’t completely adhered to the strict rules, but some rules lend themselves to be broken. After some non-starters and others not for sharing, I give you my best three.

Floppetty moppetty
Boris de Vaudeville
Thought he could win
With his clown grin

Scary, like The Joker
Hedonistically
Singing and dancing
Off with his head. Next!

Make of this what you will. If you know me, you’ll understand. I don’t intend to offend, by the way.


Dibdabdoo scribbdabdoo
Emily Bronte
When did you get him,
That special one?

Perhaps your brother’s traits
Identifiable
I gave him my heart
Many years ago.

Of course it’s about Heathcliff. My first introduction was the black and white ‘Wuthering Heights’ film with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon when I was eleven, or twelve and long before I read the book. Future English Literature classes took me into studying the book, which is a firm favourite of mine and goes way beyond the end of that 1939 film.

Pippitty flippitty
James Callaghan
Thought it was funny
Not easy to count

In pounds, shillings and pence
Decimalisation,
That was the answer,
Totting up money.

I will always be thankful for decimalisation. In 1963, I cried my eyes out while a horrid teacher yelled at me for getting all my ‘money sums’ wrong. Shillings and pence, pounds, shillings and pence, was just a mass of confusion to my seven and a half year old brain. Someone raging at me wasn’t going to magically make me get my sums right. Family friends came to visit one weekend, probably to see the new baby, my sister. Their daughter was a little older than me and we went off to play. I asked her if she could do money sums and felt delighted when she happily showed me. She taught me very well. Everything clicked into place. I was grateful to her and didn’t fear my teacher anymore. I volunteer in the same school. I often go into the very classroom where I spent miserable times. I’m glad things are different for today’s children. All the teachers are lovely, none of them are scary. Perhaps I should ask the children about that. In later years, I worked in an office where everything revolved around money and payments, including wages. By now we were using ‘new money’, decimalisation had taken place a couple of years earlier in 1971. Thank goodness. I couldn’t have done that job in £sd.

Have fun writing Double Dactyls.

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Poetry Readings - A Night at the Brewery Arts Centre

 

The first time I stood at the microphone to share my own poem I was scared to death. At my request I was given an early slot before nerves might get the better of me. I’d spent a couple of days worrying, wishing I hadn’t committed myself, but there I was, in a café full of proper poets with a proper message and a witty way with words. I was the imposter with a few rhymes, persuaded into the spotlight despite my ‘better on page than on stage’ plea. At the time, my comfort zone was ‘Going on a Bear Hunt’ with twenty-five or thereabouts Year 1 infants, all of us doing the actions and having fun. Now I had adults looking at me with anticipation of how I might entertain them. I was amongst friends yet it felt like my appearance was being scrutinised before any words came out. I know I was blushing and my voice, when I found it, lacked my classroom authority.  I heard giggles in the right places, which was comforting, and applause at the end. My ‘daft rhyme’ was well received and I was happy to sit down, switch to ‘relax’ and enjoy the rest of the evening. I’ve done it lots of times since and I’m always nervous. As much as I love performance poets I don’t want to be one.

I was so excited to see John Cooper Clarke at the Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal. We had a pizza first in one of the restaurants there before taking our front seats in the theatre.  Yep, front seats and John Cooper Clarke, what a night!

It was an even more incredible night than I imagined because supporting JCC was a poet I’d never heard of (shame on me) who absolutely blew me away and I’ve followed his work ever since. Mike Garry, check him out, comes from the same place in Manchester as my family. His poetry illustrates places I know, people I’ve heard of and the way they relate to each other. His grandad had a pub on Fairfield Street when my dad had The Star and Garter. Our families might have known each other. Mike’s poetry is very different to JCC’s but they complement each other so well. I don’t know if it’s the Manchester / Salford thing or just Northern but as well as being excellent stand-alone poets, they certainly gel on the same bill. It was great to chat with him at the interval and buy a signed copy of ‘God Is A Manc’. There’s stuff in there that made me cry and still touches me.

John Cooper Clarke, still recovering from pneumonia at the time, kept going and going beyond his finishing time, turning pages of hand-written poetry and delivering words in his trademark pistol-shot speed. Poems I’d known for years came to life with the poet’s own voice, and he was right in front of me.

Here is the first poem of mine I dared to share,

There’s really nothing wrong with you…

 

 The dentist thinks you’re going mental,

Your funny taste is nothing dental

But you can’t convince the GP’s nurse

That all your ailments are getting worse.

She says your temperature’s fine at 37,

Twelve stone is good for 5’11”.

You should be glad that you’re so fit

You horrible, hypochondriac twit.

You don’t need extra Vitamin C

For occasional twinges in your knee

And stop that over-acted limp

You whinging, wailing, wussy wimp.

Bin the smelly cream for sweaty toes,

And menthol spray for your bunged-up nose,

The pots of Vick for respiratory congestion

And the Milk of Magnesia to ease your digestion.

Whizz that strong inhaler for chesty wheeze

And the K Y Jelly for personal ease.

Peculiar feelings in your tum

Means another camera up your bum,

But there’s never anything to find,

It’s not up there, it’s in your mind.

Oh take your special magic pill,

The one that stops you feeling ill.

It’s just a placebo, so let’s pretend

You’re feeling better and on the mend.

Now then, by your own admission

That phantom cancer is in remission

It’s just a headache, not a tumour.

Time you found a sense of humour

And stopped bringing your worries and distress

To the attention of the NHS.

PMW

Thanks for reading, stay safe and keep well. Pam x

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