Rocking Chair

Call me a softy if you like, ‘The Woman in Black’ is the scariest film I’ve ever tried to watch. I’ve had a few attempts. One was at the cinema with my daughter. I think she begged me to take her, only to discover how fearful it is.

 “Tell me when it’s gone,” she whispered.

“I can’t, I’m not looking.” I had no idea what ‘it’ was.

There’s a particularly creepy scene concerning a room full of clockwork monkeys playing musical instruments and an empty rocking chair, rocking. Too spooky and reminds me of something chilling my son said when he was little.

I have my grandfather’s rocking chair, I’ve probably mentioned it before because it is special item and means a lot to me. I remember him with fondness, gently rocking as he read the paper or his book, often sharing an orange with me when I was a child. After he died, the chair was untouched in the house he’d shared with my aunt since he was widowed. My sister had children before me and I think our aunt gave her the rocking chair to nurse her first baby. When I bought my house, the chair came to me and for a while, it was the only furniture I had to sit on. It moved with me when I got married and had a special place in the back room. I don’t know if our son, a young child at the time, was teasing when he told me that he’d seen the rocking chair rocking on its own. The thought of it gave me shivers. I felt sure I would be aware if there was anything odd. Over the years, the chair began to look tatty. Covering it with a throw and a cushion wasn’t enough. I had it repaired and recovered, and moved it into my bedroom.

As for ‘The Woman in Black’, I’m told by a friend that the stage play is more scary than the film. I can’t imagine that, but I’ll accept the opinion without the need to see for myself.

Robert Service had the right idea,

My Rocking-chair

When I am old and worse for wear
I want to buy a rocking-chair,
And set it on a porch where shine
The stars of morning-glory vine;
With just beyond, a gleam of grass,
A shady street where people pass;
And some who come with time to spare,
To yarn beside my rocking-chair.
Then I will light my corn-cob pipe
And dose and dream and rarely gripe.
My morning paper on my knee
I won't allow to worry me.
For if I know the latest news
Is bad,-to read it I'll refuse,
Since I have always tried to see
The side of life that clicks with glee.

And looking back with days nigh done,
I feel I've had a heap of fun.
Of course I guess that more or less
It's you yourself make happiness
And if your needs are small and few,
Like me you may be happy too:
And end up with a hope, a prayer,
A chuckle in a rocking-chair.

Robert Service

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Love Among The Scatter Cushions

When I first set eyes on this week's allotted theme, my spirits flagged.  Cushion!  It put me in mind of that popular radio panel game where contestants have to try and talk for Just A Minute without deviation, hesitation or repetition about some unseen and completely random topic. At least I hope I'm not operating under quite such stringent constraints here. Cushion, though..! Cue a string of appropriate three-letter acronyms: omg, wtf, yak, etc - that last one is not an acronym, btw.

Ok, metaphorical fingers on metaphysical buzzers, gentle readers. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin (to steal the opening line from the kids' story time programme Listen With Mother)...

Apart from the fact that  I need to buy some cushions for my new couch and chairs, I honestly cannot think of anything else of interest to say about the cushion (buzz - no, I'm allowed to repeat the subject word), so I'm heading 'off-sofa' - so to speak (buzz, buzz) - and into the realms of poetry (buzz, buzz, buzz) with this preamble:

A number of distinguished works from various areas of the arts have named themselves Love Among The ___ down the years. As far as I'm aware, Robert Browning started the tradition in 1855 with his poem Love Among The Ruins. P.G. Wodehouse followed on with a comic novel, Love Among The Chickens, in 1906 and then D.H. Lawrence wrote a stirring short story entitled Love Among The Haystacks in 1912. Film director Frank Tuttle shot the comedy classic Love Among The Millionaires in 1930 but thereafter came a bit of a hiatus (it appears) until US rock band Starship recorded an LP, Love Among The Cannibals, in 1989 and Jean Ferris penned her satirical novel-for-teenagers Love Among The Walnuts a decade after that. National treasure Alan Bennett almost gave us Love Among The Lentils in his Talking Heads monologue series but opted for Bed Among The Lentils instead, possibly recognising and avoiding a plagiarism too far.

I have no such reservations. I'm shamelessly resolving my blogging conundrum with Love Among The Scatter Cushions, using this painting by Irving Ramsey Wiles as a visual stepping stone to today's newly-written poem.


Love Among The Scatter Cushions
Aftermath, late afternoon shading into insubstantial,
sound-tracked by nothing but the constant drone
of arterial cars rushing to their heartlands
and the leisurely buzzing of incarcerated flies,
a huge quiet after frantic pleasure, almost a peace.

You lie still in tiny death, prostrate, suffused, dishevelled
among the scatter cushions of your chaise
and I wait, now unperturbed, for your Lazarine return.
It wasn't always so. That first time, unforewarned,
induced a panic of concern that I can smile at now.

You said it used to frighten you too. Black hole of ecstasy,
you joked; a strange phrase, but who was I to say,
who'd never experienced the mystery? And here you come,
fading gently back into time, fingers still entwined in mine,
looking like you don't know where you are or where you've been,

a languid mess of hair, disported clothes, bare limbs,
resurfacing to consciousness even as the echoes of our passion
hang like cobwebs in the corners of your living room.
Soon it will  be time to dress, slip back into the flow
or we'll be late for the show, but not yet awhile, not yet...

Finally, because I went to see the wondrous Coral gigging at Blackpool's Winter Gardens Empress Ballroom last week, here's a musical bonus, the closing track from their finest recorded moment. Just click on the hyperlinked title to access it on YouTube: Late Afternoon

As ever, thanks for reading. Have a sunny week, S ;-)

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Cushion - Creature Comforts

My recent travels have included some out of the way places and destinations I may not have the opportunity to revisit. It has been important to me to collect meaningful souvenirs, so as well as buying a touristy tea-towel from the Isle of Barra’s airport on the beach I have some beautiful sea-shells from many Hebridean shores and it was my mission to buy authentic knitting yarn and Harris Tweed cloth at source. I obtained plenty of both and I have enjoyed knitting memory cushion covers from wool that I watched being spun.

Most of my cushions are special. There’s the one making an embroidered statement of ‘Love is all you need…’, a treasured gift from my husband, and a comfy, soft fabric L.S.Lowry print of ‘Going to Work’, a treasured gift from a close friend. When I couldn’t bring myself to discard some old balls of wool from a sweater that my late mother had made, didn’t like and unravelled, I knitted a cushion cover with it. Something of my mum’s recycled into a useful and loved item. She would be proud. I’m in the process of fashioning a cushion cover using a piece of my late aunt’s unfinished knitting combined with my own. It’s working out very well. If you’ve read my previous blogs and I’ve left you thinking that my house is a museum of relics from dear, departed relatives and I can’t be separated, well no, it’s nothing like that, I’m just saving significant memories.

There’s a cushion in a box upstairs waiting to be rehomed. It’s part of a birthday present for my eldest granddaughter and as she adores Minnie Mouse, I know she will love this big cushion of Minnie’s head, made by Disney.

Here’s a new poem from me,

    Red Cushion
    How lovely to see you! What a surprise!
    A flying visit?  That’s just fine, my dear.
    Yes, I’ve really been under the weather,
    But I’m fine and it’s great to have you here.

    It started with leg pain and weariness,
    And my blood count is too low on the scale.
    Just thinking saps all of my energy
    So I remain in repose, ill and pale.
 
    Pass me a cushion, that red one will do,
    Just the knitted one, not the crimson plush,
    And before you go, please close the curtains
    If you don’t mind, unless you need to rush.

   Of course it’s red, what else would you call it?
    An orangey coral? Don’t be so daft!
    It’s a red cushion, if ever there was.
    Made by Mum and me, a joint handicraft.

    Pillar-box or cardinal, let me see.
    Scarlet it isn’t, nor vermillion.
    Nowhere near ruby or blood-red maroon,
    Oh can we just call it the red cushion?

    I’ll draw the curtains if you need to dash.
    Thank you for calling, it’s nice to see you.
    The flowers are lovely, you’ve made me smile,
    I’ll be much better next time you come through.

PMW 2019

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

 

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