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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Dens - Sanctuary

My eldest grandson liked to enclose himself in the book corner. He discovered that by opening a door to the toy cupboard and a door on the fitted unit, he could comfortably place himself behind them, almost hidden and with plenty of room to look at books or build Duplo. He liked his own space even before a brother and sister came along to disturb his peace. It wasn’t long before he worked out how easily all the cushions came off the sofa and what a good idea it was to sit there and fashion himself a den by using the large ones to make sides and a smaller one for the top, or a roof. Sometimes a blanket was brought from upstairs and draped over the entire construction and he would be in there with a book or watch TV through a gap. A good den is great comfort.

1967. For the first time in my life, we were living in a house instead of a pub. It felt weird, so quiet, no juke-box filtering through the building, no babble of a thousand indecipherable conversations.  The house itself was very nice, a three bedroomed detached with a garage in what estate agents would describe as a ‘sought after’ area in South Shore. We weren’t there for very long, the way things turned out, and I have some happy memories, in spite of it being a miserable time in my life. My mother was seriously ill, having surgeries and treatments and it was better for her to have the privacy the pub didn’t have, which is why my parents bought the house. I started senior school, a school I didn’t want to go to but had to because I’d failed my eleven-plus. My friends passed and went to the school I longed to be at, but it wasn’t to be. Failed! I’ve been trying to make up for it ever since. On the bus I was regularly picked on by pupils from another school. I had to take two buses and often chose to walk the longest part of my journey rather than be at the mercy of the bullies.  The house became home with us in it and our cosy furniture. We had gardens, front and back. Dad got a swing for me and my sister and the wooden shed at the end of the back garden became a den. A deck chair, a cushion from the house, a drink of orange and whatever book I was up to in Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers series was all I needed. The shed housed the new gardening tools propped up in a corner. Gardening became my father’s weekend chore. As the air chilled and the daylight lessened, I moved to an indoor den. My sister’s room, which must have been massive when I think what was in there and all the space to play, had her single bed and also bunk beds where I slept when our grandparents stayed over and had my room. The bottom bunk made a great den by using the tartan blanket on the top bunk as a curtain for the length and borrowing a big towel from the airing cupboard to hang over the end. The fun was short-lived. I wasn’t supposed to ‘mess’ in my sister’s room, even if she, aged about 4, didn’t seem to mind. It sticks in my mind how cold that winter, 1967/68 was. No central heating, but the house was cosy with a coal fire in the back living room and hot water bottles in bed. To add to my misery, I developed chilblains on my feet and a seemingly ever-lasting verruca. 1968 brought joy and normality. My mother had made a good recovery and we were moving back to the pub. School remained a nightmare until 4^th year but everything else was good.

My grandchildren can make a mess, make a noise and make dens to their hearts content. They can also tidy up afterwards.

My poem,

“I’m in my den!”
The voice, muffled
By the cushions
Forming a cube,
Of a fashion,
In the place where
There’s a sofa,
Now and again.
And giggling
While I pretend
I cannot find
Him, in the blocks
Of patterned green,
And I’m blind
To the red socks
And toes wiggling. 

PMW 2022

 Thanks for reading, Pam x

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