Procrastination

 

“Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”

A statement attributed to Benjamin Franklin, and one of my dad’s favourite sayings. I’m not sure if he lived by it, but he was a busy man for most of his life and was always doing something. He made lists, meticulously handwritten on plain paper folded into three. He never used lined paper and it was always folded that way. Items were crossed off with one neat line upon completion. Unfinished tasks would be carried on to the list for the next day. This was likely to be, ‘Write to Alan’. I don’t think the delay was procrastination as much as it was waiting for the right moment. Alan was his brother and at this time would be living in Virginia, USA. The letter, when it happened, took time and lots of thought until it was perfectly paragraphed on to a couple of sheets of thin, pale blue, airmail stationery. These days, they would be emailing across the Atlantic, but my dad missed out on such communication. Anyway, letter written and crossed off. I don’t remember him ever losing his list. No, of course he wouldn’t. Not pedantic, but certainly a perfectionist.

Maybe I should take after him more and keep a list. I’d be less likely to put things off until I genuinely forget. Like the room upstairs, the attic and the shed. Oh, I think I’ve just listed everything. Thank goodness it’s not written down.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned our damp-proofing before. It happened in the summer and lots of things got packed up and stored upstairs. Those things were added to when more remedial work was needed. The original plan to paint walls and put the house on the market was and still is delayed. We can’t possibly need everything. I haven’t taken one thing out of a box since they were put away in June. Downstairs is quite spartan – I put a few books back on shelves, a priority – but we are preparing to move. I decided to sort the boxes out before Christmas and make the spare room look less like hoarding.

A much better idea was to shut the door on everything, go and spend some quality time in Dumfries & Galloway and enjoy a pre-Christmas break. That’s exactly what we did.

We came back in December, in time to put the Christmas tree up and a few festive bits in the front room. From the loft I called down to my husband, who was on the landing, that I would get round to sorting the ‘jumble sale’ out in the New Year and that it’s ridiculous, as is the spare room and the shed. I’m married to a wise man who wouldn’t see the need to remind me of how many times I’ve previously mentioned it.

Procrastination. That must be me. We’re in the New Year now, so I’ll see how I get on.

My Haiku,

I’m making a list
And it’s quickly grown too long.
My ‘need to do’ jobs.

More space is needed,
I must sort out the loft room.
I’ll do it next week.

And empty the shed
Of the accumulated
Packaging mountain.

PMW 2026

Happy New Year to all. Thanks for reading, Pam x

Read More

Tapestry - Heavenly Stitches

 

‘Just another stitch in life’s rich tapestry’

I don’t know where the original quote came from but I used to say it a lot. I’ve heard variations of it on television programmes and read it in books but where it started eludes me. My dad heard me say it and loved it so much that he made it his own and drove me mad with it at least once a day. That was long ago. I used to say it at work back in those old days, 1970s, so I probably picked it up from a colleague. More recently I’ve heard ‘a dropped stitch in life’s tapestry’ when something has gone pear-shaped or not according to plan. I might try it out. There’s usually plenty of scope.

Somewhere in the attic, probably buried beneath other unfinished projects and my children’s  old school books, is my three-quarters completed tapestry of The Last Supper. No small starter kit for me. It was straight in for the epic masterpiece. The intention was to gift the finished work to the church I belonged to at the time, Raikes Parade Methodist. The church closed in 2003 and I think I’d already ‘rested’ the tapestry in favour of having a go at cross-stitch.  I’ve had one on the go for years. Not in the attic, well, not yet, anyway. It’s in the foot-stool where I keep needlework projects. Untouched for a while but not given up on. I struggle to see what I’m doing but I was given special magnifiers for Christmas which I hope will solve the problem. It might give me the incentive to dig out The Last Supper which was becoming quite a work of art.

A better work of art was my sister’s tiger, a large, beautiful tapestry that took her hours to do. I remember helping with the intricate embroidery details on the eyes. It’s so long ago that I could still see what I was doing. The finished tapestry was on the landing wall at the top of her stairs and looked stunning. I’ll have to ask her about it.

My young, impressionable music head was – and still is – dominated by The Moody Blues, but there was always a little space for other things. My fondness for female singers has always been limited to my daughter and not many others. One of the ‘not many’ is Carole King and her album which I love as much now as I did in the early ‘70s, Tapestry. I was spellbound by her soulful, almost mournful voice, and captured by her way with words. ‘You’ve Got A Friend’ spoke to me when I was down and troubled, nearly most of the time in those days.

I hope my dad's tapestry continues in Heaven, as I try not to drop too many stitches.

Carole King’s lyrics, poetry to me,

Tapestry

My life has been a tapestry
Of rich and royal hue
An everlasting vision
Of the ever-changing view
A wond'rous woven magic
In bits of blue and gold
A tapestry to feel and see
Impossible to hold

Once amid the soft silver
Sadness in the sky
There came a man of fortune
A drifter passing by
He wore a torn and tattered cloth
Around his leathered hide
And a coat of many colors
Yellow, green, on either side

He moved with some uncertainty
As if he didn't know
Just what he was there for
Or where he ought to go
Once he reached for something
Golden hanging from a tree
And his hand came down empty

Soon within my tapestry
Along the rutted road
He sat down on a river rock
And turned into a toad
It seemed that he had fallen
Into someone's wicked spell
And I wept to see him suffer
Though I didn't know him well

As I watched in sorrow
There suddenly appeared
A figure gray and ghostly
Beneath a flowing beard
In times of deepest darkness
I've seen him dressed in black
Now my tapestry's unraveling
He's come to take me back
He's come to take me back

by Carole King

Thanks for reading, Pam x

Read More

The Matrix - Blackhouses Village

‘Matrix – the cultural, social or political environment in which something develops.’

My first glimpse of Gearrannan Blackhouse Village on the Isle of Lewis was breathtaking, almost tearful. We were up a slight hill by the coast looking down on the cluster of thatched, shallow built stone cottages and a lane weaving through to the shore. It was idyllic. I imagined being settled there with all my family, away from the stresses and strains and everything I would like to escape from in the real world. Through my rose-tinted glasses we would have an endless supply of provisions and enough skills between us to look after each other. How cosy and warm it would be, by the fire, inside a cottage with its 3ft wide walls.  I wondered what the attraction was to the original settlers. It’s windy on the Atlantic coast. Surrounding hills offered some, but not much shelter. As I remember, the last inhabitants were re-housed as recently as the early 1970s. The cottages are renovated and well maintained. One is now a café and gift shop, two or three are museums showing visitors like us how people lived. More like how they survived. The other cottages are holiday accommodation. The revenue helps with the up-keep and nothing has been spoiled. There is running water and electricity. The village is perfectly saved for the likes of us to have a tangible insight into life through the ages, and on-going with the successful holiday lets. From an early settlement it has developed into the modern world and continues to be a conservation area. Perhaps I’ll have an opportunity to stay there and live my dream for a moment.

Matrix – ‘Something, such as a situation or a set of conditions, in which something else develops or forms the complex social matrix in which people live their lives.’

I found this, by Amy Lowell:

The Matrix

Goaded and harassed in the factory
That tears our life up into bits of days
Ticked off upon a clock which never stays,
Shredding our portion of Eternity,
We break away at last, and steal the key
Which hides a world empty of hours; ways
Of space unroll, and Heaven overlays
The leafy, sun-lit earth of Fantasy.
Beyond the ilex shadow glares the sun,
Scorching against the blue flame of the sky.
Brown lily-pads lie heavy and supine
Within a granite basin, under one
The bronze-gold glimmer of a carp; and I
Reach out my hand and pluck a nectarine.

                                      Amy Lowell 1874 – 1925

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

Read More

Crackle - Snap, Crackle and Pop

Harbour cottage, Isle of Barra

On our second trip to the Outer Hebrides, we stayed in a fabulous cottage on the Isle of Barra.  It was a restored and extended Crofter’s cottage with many original features including an open fireplace in the ground floor living area. The time of year was May, late spring, early summer and the Hebrides, though breezy, was warmer than expected. Too warm for a log fire but I could imagine the ultimate in cosy.  I read the guest book entries of some amazing winter breaks describing the sound of the crackle and spit of a newly laid log fire. I could picture myself curled up on the sofa with a book or letting my mind wander as I watched darting flames begin to devour the logs. The cottage received regular visitors and it was interesting to read how they liked to spend their time. Hikers, hill climbers, sailors, water sports or observers like me, all had their story to tell.  Someone had been snowed in, but couldn’t have got off the island because of the weather, so had to stay longer. Someone else couldn’t leave the cottage for days due to the danger of gale force winds. Nothing like that happened to us. It didn’t even rain during our stay. The Glasgow to Barra aircraft stayed on schedule, so did the ferries, which was our means of transport.  Everyone who had stayed when it felt chilly had remarked on the brilliant log or coal fire.  I wish I’d set it up just to see it, and hear it snap, crackle and pop.

When I was a child, the only breakfast cereal in our house was cornflakes. At my Nanna’s it was cornflakes or All Bran. Once, I asked for All Bran. It was horrid, but I ate it because I’d asked for it, and that is what happened in those days. If my grandchildren choose something then don’t like it, I’ll find them something else – I’m a softy. At some point, Kellogg’s Rice Krispies made it to our kitchen and true to the advert on TV, as soon as the milk was added ‘Snap, Crackle and Pop’ happened. It’s funny when you’re only eight and still makes me smile.

My first introduction to John Cooper Clarke was listening to his album, ‘Snap, Crackle and Bop’. It wasn’t the music, it was the words, the clever imagery of Beasley Street and Evidently Chickentown made me laugh. His appearance fascinated me then, about 1980, and unchanged, it still does. I’m reading ‘I Wanna Be Yours’ and trying to make it last because I’ll miss it when it ends.

Here is my poem for JCC,

Terza Rima for John Cooper Clarke, when Manchester became Madchester,

Those of the time embraced every word,
Listening in wonder to John Cooper Clarke,
The Bard of Salford who had to be heard.

Rapid from the mouth and skinny and dark.
‘Evidently Chickentown’, effing good,
He’s magic with words, bright as any spark.

His wholesome description meant that we could
Smell the inhabitants of ‘Beasley Street’;
Rich mixture of urban decay and blood.

Life, humour and truth, a picture complete
And painted with colourful language that
Reaches all listeners not just the elite.

So thanks, JCC, I know where I’m at
Laughing out loud at the poem called ‘Twat’.

Pamela Winning 2012

Thanks for reading. Stay safe and have the best Christmas you can. Pam x

Read More

Deja Vu - Old School

We watched the film, ‘To Sir, With Love’ the other night. I recorded it from one of the classic movie channels a few weeks ago. I’d seen it a long time ago and couldn’t remember it properly, but snippets kept coming back to me.

“Do you know what,” I said to my husband who happily goes along with my indulgence in old films – or he suffers in silence – “this is like a modern version of ‘Spare the Rod’. Do you remember?”

I think there was a nod of agreement, but I stayed focussed on Sidney Poitier as his character, teacher Mark Thackeray displayed a smouldering, deep in thought expression. In a role reversal from his part some years earlier in The Blackboard Jungle, he was finding a way to ‘get through’ to his class. Déjà vu Max Bygraves in ‘Spare the Rod’.

Both films are set in London’s East End, depicting deprived areas with hard to reach, hard to teach adolescents. Their teachers are naïve young men, aiming to change the world, and change their careers using teaching as a stepping stone. No spoiler alerts here, I promise. ‘Spare the Rod’ is real and gritty compared to the more light-hearted ‘To Sir, With Love’. Roll out ‘Please, Sir!’ as the same mix successfully became a comedy.

 

  

There was nothing funny about having to visit high school when summoned by a teacher needing a chat about one of our teenagers. Sadly, this was a regular occurrence and I felt more dread than déjà vu. I was certain that I would die of embarrassment. I worked in a primary school at the time and I loved it, but felt like I was losing control of my own children. I’m happy to say that both are now lovely, well-behaved, responsible adults with children of their own and I am as proud of them as it’s possible to be. I hope I’m here with words of wisdom for them when my grandchildren reach their teens.

When I started high school at Palatine Secondary School, it was at what became known as ‘the old building’ on Bennett Avenue. A new school was being built on St Anne’s Road which eventually we would move to. I wasn’t happy, I was very miffed, if that’s a real word. I was clever, yet I’d failed my 11+ and couldn’t go to Collegiate Girls’ Grammar. I’m still ashamed. I grew to love Palatine and always felt more at home in the original school rather than the new one. The old school is now part of the Blackpool & Fylde College University Campus. It was certainly déjà vu to return fifty years after becoming a first former. I enrolled in an evening class. I was in one of my classrooms. Very little had changed, it might be the same sash window, the same brass-knobbed door and half-tiled wall, but tables replaced desks, blackboard had gone and the wood flooring, if it was still there, was hidden beneath carpet tiles. The long corridor on the ground floor was now divided by safety glass fire doors, and I couldn’t see through them from one end to the other but I did wander around on my break looking for the familiar. I could almost hear ‘Dear Lord and Father of Mankind’ coming from where the main hall used to be. I sensed a feeling of belonging.

     I borrowed this poem,

 

Thanks for reading. Stay safe and take care in these worrying times. Pam x

Read More