Here Comes the Weekend

 As a child I remember looking forwards to the weekends, but thinking back now, they weren’t the best times. Age eleven, I was miserable in my secondary school and Friday teatimes were wonderful. No school for two whole days. Saturday morning and I would will my parents to forget about my piano lesson. If it wasn’t mentioned, it didn’t exist. It didn’t work. The fated hour would be nearly upon me and I would be transported by my dad’s car to the home of the horrible man, subject of nightmares. I would sit rigid and hit the keys hard in a display of my anger. I hated every moment and each week I promised myself I would speak out and it would be my last. I never did. Sundays were bath, hair wash, Sunday School then the rest of the day would be family time. We would either be visiting or having visitors. It was always good and remained so until after tea. That was when the worry started. The sinking feeling of dreading school tomorrow, remembering the piece of unfinished homework, the maths I hadn't understood, the poem I forgot to learn by heart, the items for cookery I didn't ask for. I don't know why I looked forward to weekends at all.

In adult life, weekends offered a mix of welcome rest time after a hard week at work and being out and about socialising. A day out or sometimes a whole weekend away would be a good way to relax and enjoy something or somewhere different.

Becoming parents changed the way we planned weekends. Activities for the children were a priority even if it was just a play on the park and an ice cream. Junior football became my pet hate. I love the game, I always have, but some awful parents I encountered made my blood boil. It would upset me to witness five and six year old little lads having fun running with the ball, being seriously shouted at because they haven’t yet developed the skills some parents expected them to be born with. I would dread the times I had to take our little lad on my own. I would stand watching, keeping to myself.

Since retirement, the days are much the same and weekends disappear almost completely. We know it is Saturday when there’s a home match on and we’re in our places at Bloomfield Road. My husband is once again on the touchline at grassroots level, taking our football playing middle grandson to his matches. We’re starting to plan a few short breaks away with our caravan, but we tend to go midweek when places are quieter, so I suppose that becomes a kind of ‘weekend’ for us.

I remember Mackintosh’s Weekend, a boxed collection of mixed chocolates and posh sweets. They would be my mum’s and rarely shared. It’s the first thing I thought of when I saw the theme for this blog, so I had to mention it.

No poem today. Instead I share an excerpt of lyrics from ‘Here Comes the Weekend’, a Moody Blues song written by John Lodge,

Somewhere in the night
There’s a heart that beats so fast
I can feel the heat
Of the fire in your eyes,
Burning like a naked flame,
Waiting for the ice to break,
Counting down the days,
Waiting for the weekend.
Lonely is the night.
Silence is a friend to walk with,
With no one else to talk to.
Somewhere in the heat
There’s a heart that beats so fast
I can hear your voice,
Talk to me tonight.

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Simple Pleasures

How nice it is to please myself what I do and when I do it. Retirement is wonderful, apart from the lack of freedom we’ve had due to Covid restrictions. To be fair, I don’t feel like I’ve missed out on much. I’m not one for much socialising, but when someone says I can’t, suddenly it’s the very thing I want to do. Revelations about social occasions the government got up to against their own rules make my blood boil. There’s enough being documented without me moaning. Give enough rope, etc. I’ll wait.

My family has been my ‘bubble’ since the end of the first lockdown relaxed movement enough for us to be together.  Sundays used to be family day. We would have all four grandchildren for lunch and tea, fun and games, cousins together, usually with one or more of their parents. Sometimes we need the help and we’d always end up shattered, even if we’d been doing quiet stuff like colouring or Play-Doh. Nowadays, with two of them being at school and two at nursery, we’ve changed to Mondays to make it a bit easier on ourselves – us getting older. We have two after school and enjoy their company for a while before the younger ones arrive a little later after nursery. It’s the lovely, simple pleasures that family time brings that gives me so much joy, even when there are tantrums and moody moments. My treasures, each one.

 When we were allowed, my husband and I travelled to Scotland on a couple of socially distanced breaks. We stay in a self-catering lodge and observe whatever restrictions are in place when we are out and about. Things are constantly changing but what we noticed each visit was that rules were strictly adhered to. We felt safe and looked after. Again, it’s the simple pleasures that matter for us; watching red kites, or the birds outside the lodge that I fill the feeders for twice a day, relaxing with a book, doing a bit of knitting or pottering about outside. It was great to be back after so long.

At home I like to keep in contact with my friends. One, like me, has kept very much to her immediate family throughout Covid, but we chat regularly on the phone or text each other, often after a Blackpool F.C. match. I’ve probably been at the ground, she’s been watching or listening at home. That’s another of my simple pleasures, going to the match, face mask on, being part of it regardless of the outcome and hopefully, walking home singing.

Music, as mentioned in my last blog is a necessary part of my day, lots of radio, but I’ve just taken delivery of John Lodge’s new album on CD and I’m happily giving it a hammering. I sometimes do the Sudoku in the paper, alternating between that and the word-wheel that drives me crazy. I’m mad, sad, simple or crazy, and I don’t care. I’m glad to be retired and pleasing myself.

My poem,

A welcome mug of Nescafe Gold Blend,

Enjoying a phone chat with a close friend.

“How’s it going? Are you coping okay?

I managed to get out for lunch today.

Doing the driving to help the guys plans,

A treat of salad and steak in St Anne’s.

Face mask and hand gel, all safety measures

Necessary for such simple pleasures.

Sunday was quiet, we just played Scrabble.

Monday was hectic with all our rabble.

At last, M’s wobbly tooth has come out,

The litt’luns were squabbling and falling out,

Just usual stuff, you know what they’re like,

They both want the pedal car, not the bike.

L loves to read, my darling treasure."

Fam’ly Mondays make a simple pleasure.

 

PMW 2022

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Out To Grass

I flick through the retirement home pages: Twilight House, Sunset Days, Dunhopin’, Road’s End, Rest Easy, Nearly Home. It’s hard to choose. There are none I feel drawn to.

I know I’m lucky to be able to choose. What did our forebears have, the rude forefathers of the hamlet, who had to work until they died? Staying alive in old age wasn’t so easy for them. If lucky they could perhaps rely on a son, or daughter, supporting them providing a home and food. But could they ever retire? Almshouse much better than workhouse but less available and often means tested by occupation, character, gender.

My great grandfather George was a drummer in the British Army, which would probably mean he’d be unvalued now. He marched and drummed his way round many a foreign campaign. It was how he earned his bread. He was a professional in the Army but when your marching days around inhospitable foreign climes are over there isn’t, or wasn’t, a lot of call for drummers back home in England.

Upon leaving the army after twenty years, in 1879, on the grounds of poor health, a kindly army doctor did him a good turn. He described him as a ‘broken-down old soldier,’ although he was only thirty-eight. It got George an army pension. He returned to civilian life and in his forties married and fathered six daughters. Not quite so broken down as the army thought. His wife kept house, raised the children and ran a terrace shop. Smart George. She was over twenty years younger and died three years before him. Poor Alice.

On January 1st 1909 people of seventy or over were paid an old age pension by the Government as long as they were of good character. A song from that time expresses one man’s thanks to the man responsible. I don't know who sang it but it was possibly written by F W Mormon...

David Lloyd George

What Lloyd George Gives Me
Well I’d walk from here to Skipton
Ten miles of lonely lane
If I could see him face to face
And thank him for his pain

‘Cause he took me out of Work-house
And he gave me a life that’s free
Five shillings a week for cheating death
Is what Lloyd George gives me

Well he gives me light and firing
And flour to bake my bread
And tea to mash with every meal
And sup until I’m dead

And I’ve nowt to do but thank him
And make a cross with pen
Five shillings a week for nowt but that
Why he’s the best of men...

There are another nine verses which he really shouldn’t have bothered writing but now he is out of the Work-house with time on his hands he felt he might as well.

An old soldier, who had charged at Balaclava with the Light Brigade, was Trooper Job Allwood, a Leamington lad. He had enrolled in Birmingham in 1853 with the 13th Light Dragoons (later the 13th Hussars). Despite having two horses shot from under him at Balaclava he was one of the few who survived and went on to serve in the India Mutiny. Although regarded by his fellow men as a hero then, his name would no doubt now be being erased from the war memorial. Upon leaving the army his only reward was a small allowance from the Balaclava Fund which was funded by public subscription. He died in 1903, aged 68, too early to have received a pension from the state. Would he have appreciated his funeral with full military honours, the expensive bouquets?

Nearly forty years after Tennyson’s poem immortalising the bravery, following suicidal orders of the cavalry at Balaclava, Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem titled, 'The Last Of the Light Brigade'.

Kipling was ashamed of the way the old (retired) soldiers were treated, The poem speaks of the harsh condition they endured once their service days were over: famine, lack of shelter, unemployment, disability, painful and lonely deaths. Job was lucky; Leamington didn’t treat him too unkindly. He had a very small house, made a living, had a wife but it was nothing compared to the gratitude they showed him in death.

Old Mares
If I was a horse they’d put me down, shoot me.
Have fun being photographed with my carcass.
No chance for me of being used for breeding.
An old mare is useless for reproduction.
My only worth to be pulped for pet food.
Not being a horse the possibilities are endless.
I can run for US President. Take up Tai Kwondo.
Learn Japanese. Gain a degree in upholstery.
Long distance, cross country running. Marathons.
Whittling, whiskey mixing, ballroom dancing in wellies
Write poetry. Go on televised quiz shows.
Give my occupation when asked, as retirement.
‘And how do you fill your time?’
‘Never been busier,’ I proudly reply. Listing my
attainments. ‘I don’t know what I did before.’
That earns me a pat on the back, unprompted applause.

Thanks for reading, Jeanie B.

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Retirement - Just Go With The Flow

Retirement.  That’s the time to wind down, take up a stress free hobby, go for gentle walks, watch daytime TV and meet friends for long lunches, right? Wrong. Certainly in my case.  

I’ve always been busy.  Babysitting came first.  In the sixties, parents, unbelievably, trusted an unknown 12 year old to look after their offspring.  I had three families on the go, one of them with four very lively children, all of whom drove me to distraction.  Once they were finally in bed I used to eat my way through the cupboards and spend hours on the phone to my best friend who was babysitting just across the road.  

At 13 I got my first ‘proper’ job, working in a mini market on a Saturday morning (10/- for four hours - that’s 12.5p per hour in today’s money) and then, in addition, at 15 I took on working in a dentists on a Sunday (I can’t remember the pay now, but I know I hated the whole thing).  One of the fathers from the babysitting job was a dentist. He was Jewish, hence the Sunday opening.  His practice was in Stamford Hill which was a fair way from where I lived in Southgate, and meant that I had to travel with him in his car.  I was a very shy teen and he was a grumpy, monosyllabic, old (to me) man, who probably had no more desire to take me with him than I had to be there, squashed up against him in his noisy Fiat 500.  Thankfully, that job came to an abrupt end when I persuaded my dad to phone Mr Cardash and tell him I was so busy revising for my GCEs that I wouldn’t be able to work for him any more.  In fact, most Sundays, I was lying in bed till lunchtime then spending about two hours on clothes, hair and make up, and meeting my best friend to talk about boys.

At about the same time I answered an advert in a shop window for somebody to look after a little boy and do some light cleaning.  I was hopeless at cleaning but I loved children, and the lady who took me on seemed pretty desperate so the job was mine.  It turned out that Myra Schneider was a writer and spent most of the time in her study whilst I looked after Benji and half heartedly wiped a cloth around the house.  Interestingly, I’m still in touch with Myra*, who is now in her 80s and continues to write, having had several books of poetry published over the past 50 years.  I’d like to think I played a small part in her success.  

To prevent this turning into a four page blog post (and, after all, it’s supposed to be about retirement - we’ll never get there) suffice to say my CV is long. In addition to the above, in no particular order: barmaid, shop worker, novelty cake maker, graphic designer, typographer, market stall holder, craft teacher, cafe worker, caterer, school dinner lady, deli assistant, factory worker (shoes; catalogues), teacher and GP admin assistant. 

And then came retirement. With hindsight, I was lucky that a new Head came to the school that I’d happily worked in for 15 years.  Without her appointment, the subsequent two year dispute and the final decent payout I would never have taken early retirement.  As it was, it coincided with the birth of my first grandchild, and the need for a childminder several days a week.  The decision was made, and at 55, I gave up half my teachers’ pension to relax and enjoy life.  Oh and look after a lively baby.  That’s one thing I’ve never regretted.  Fifteen years later, the relationship with my first grandchild is testament to the time we spent together.

Once my childminding duties had been cut down to just a few days a week (with three more grandchildren added to the mix) I felt the need to get busy again, and secured a part time job at a GP surgery.  I was taken on to cover for three months for someone who was off sick.  Six years later, I reluctantly gave in my notice, as my interest in photography became more intense.  

My life has never had a grand plan.  Things have happened to me by chance, and I’ve always been happy to go with the flow.  Retirement has been no different.  Fate brought me into contact with Claire Walmsley Griffiths and the original altBlackpool online magazine, where I could make use of two of my favourite activities: writing and photography.  I met more local creatives and seemed to be accepted into their midst, despite being at least twenty years older than most of them.  My photography took off and went from strength to strength. I began to feel that my life had gone full circle, from Art College in the early ‘70s to the Blackpool art scene 50 years later.  

Oh, and I wrote a book

Finally, in retirement, I found my ideal job. 

This week’s poem is not one of my own, but one I’ve loved for a very long time.  I think it was written for me….

Warning by Jenny Joseph

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple

With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired

And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

And run my stick along the public railings

And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

And pick flowers in other people’s gardens

And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

And eat three pounds of sausages at a go

Or only bread and pickle for a week

And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

And pay our rent and not swear in the street

And set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practise a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Thanks for reading……..Jill

And thanks to everybody who has snapped me taking photos.

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Retirement - Bring It On!

I looked forward to retiring at sixty, as many of us did, and then, a bolt from the blue took away plans and wishes and sat firmly on our state pension for another six years. I’m there now and I still haven’t received the explanatory letter ‘sent to everyone’ when the changes were made. WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality) campaigns and protests seem to have been sympathetically listened to in some quarters – Jeremy Corbyn, when Labour leader, said that women were “misled”, the situation “needed to be put right” and “We owe a moral debt to these women.” It was included in the Labour party manifesto. Even if nothing changed, it was going to be looked into. The flicker of hope died with the election result.

Anyway, politics aside, my time has come and I’m trying to decide exactly when to hand in my keys and cross myself off any rotas. I’ve spent lots of time at home during the pandemic, shielding at the beginning, then having to isolate a couple of times when I eventually returned to work.  I like being at home. It’s been good getting a feel for life in retirement and spending more time with my husband who retired early a few years ago.  In normal circumstances we would enjoy the freedom of having lunch out, seeing friends and spending more time with family. These things will come back to us, hopefully before too long. I reduced my hours at work so I’m actually at home more than I’m there, yet I still can’t wait to leave.

I yearn for the freedom to just go where I want, when I want without having to plan in advance and ask permission. Deciding one day that we’re off to Scotland, or anywhere the next day, is the life for me. Spending summer afternoons reading in the garden was bliss last year and I look forward to doing it again. I knit and crochet a lot and love making baby clothes so with a current baby boom going on amongst colleagues at the moment I’ve been  a one woman cottage industry.  My writing has been on a back burner for too long. I was trying to use shielding and isolating time to write a best-selling novel or a brilliant TV series, but they’ve both been done, not by me, by the way, and I’ve been struggling to concentrate lately.  There are lots of things on my retirement list and I certainly won’t get bored. I might get fat(ter) on home-made baking, but never bored. I’ll enjoy finding out who I am, so let’s bring it on.

My poem,

When I can please myself on what I want to do each day
Without the stress and strain of doing my job in the way,
I will take time to rest, to think and to learn who I am,
Apart from a wife, a mother and a nanna called Pam.

My wardrobe’s full of Marks and Spencers matching navy blues,
Formal skirts and cardies and some uniform slim-line trews.
Tunic length NHS blouses, navy with polka dots,
Pockets stuffed with tissues and hair-ties, a tangle of knots.

Let’s get rid of such strict clothing and find a nice, new style,
Dresses, ear-rings, beads and things I haven’t worn in a while.
Skinny jeans, knee-high boots and a home-made Aran sweater,
My family and freedom will soon make me feel better.

I’ll wear long, floaty skirts and lipstick, and I’ll paint my nails,
I’ll join in with other WASPI girls on some campaign trails
And hope some good may come of it, though it’s too late for me
So many ‘50s women need to set their pensions free.

PMW 2021

Thanks for reading, stay safe, Pam x

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Windmills - Rhyming in my Mind

I was washing glasses in our pub, hidden away in the ‘still room’ on my regular Friday night and Saturday night stint during the busy Illuminations, singing along to the music that drifted in.

There was a song on the jukebox in the front bar, a haunting melody that forced me to listen and beautiful, poetic lyrics that reached out to me. Any meaning in those words was lost on me, but being an impressionable hippy-ish rock-chick in my mid-teens, I’m proud to say that I learnt it off by heart. It is still up there with my favourites, sung by Noel Harrison.

 

The Windmills of Your Mind

 

Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain, or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.

 

Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own
Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving in a half forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.

 

Keys that jingle in your pocket, words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly, was it something that you said?
Lovers walking along a shore and leave their footprints in the sand
Is the sound of distant drumming just the fingers of your hand?
Pictures hanging in a hallway and the fragment of a song
Half remembered names and faces, but to whom do they belong?
When you knew that it was over you were suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning to the color of her hair!

Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
As the images unwind, like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind.

 

Songwriters: Marilyn Bergman / Michel Legrand / Alan Bergman

 

It was the theme song to The Thomas Crown Affair, a major film at that time, and I wonder if the lyrics might make more sense to me if I actually saw the film, or the more recent remake? It will be something else to do in my retirement.

There’s always fun to be found in doing new things. I’ve lived in Blackpool since 1965, a long time in South Shore, but never travelled on a train from Blackpool South until this year. That rail adventure with my friend took us to Lytham for lunch and a pleasant stroll along the front to the fabulous, white windmill which holds centre stage on the green. Another first. The closest I’d previously been to Lytham Windmill was the main road.

I found this poem,

 

The Windmill

 

 

Behold! a giant am I!
Aloft here in my tower,
With my granite jaws I devour
The maize, and the wheat, and the rye,
And grind them into flour.

I look down over the farms;
In the fields of grain I see
The harvest that is to be,
And I fling to the air my arms,
For I know it is all for me.

I hear the sound of flails
Far off, from the threshing-floors
In barns, with their open doors,
And the wind, the wind in my sails,
Louder and louder roars.

I stand here in my place,
With my foot on the rock below,
And whichever way it may blow,
I meet it face to face,
As a brave man meets his foe.

And while we wrestle and strive,
My master, the miller, stands
And feeds me with his hands;
For he knows who makes him thrive,
Who makes him lord of lands.

On Sundays I take my rest;
Church-going bells begin
Their low, melodious din;
I cross my arms on my breast,
And all is peace within. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882)

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Spring - Hello Sunshine

At last, the long awaited hint of spring sunshine is here. I don’t care that it shows up how much my windows need cleaning or draws attention to dusty surfaces, I’m happy to have daylight into the early evening and I don’t mind the sacrifice of an hour’s sleep to get it. Spring. I can wake up, renewed as I begin to feel some energy.

 A few years ago, I recognised that I develop some symptoms of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) from November to March / April. It varies in severity, but nothing unmanageable, so far. Usually it is just the desire to hibernate brought about by fatigue and generally feeling a bit fed up. The change of scenery offered by a couple of breaks in Dumfries & Galloway works wonders and on this occasion, took my mind off other health issues that are being investigated. The SAD is lifting now.

There is cheerful new growth in the garden as plants come back to life. Spring flowers have been bursting through the borders and filling my patio pots with bright colours. I’m particularly proud of a tub of orangey tulips. It all gives a feeling of well-being after months of darkness.

Spring cleaning and sorting out is on the agenda. I’m aiming for retirement and I want to organise belongings in preparation for a possible future move. It will be a slow, meticulous process because I’m easily distracted and have to look at everything. I spent ages this afternoon going through personal memorabilia and deciding what to keep. It was good, singing along to Jack Savoretti and reading old newspaper cuttings, but it didn’t really make much of an impression on the task. There’s no rush, luckily. Tomorrow, if I feel like it, I might attempt to clean some windows and dust round. Oh and there’s a couple of cobwebs that must have been manufactured during last night and need sweeping away before one grandson in particular goes on a spider hunt.

The poem I’ve chosen is Home Thoughts from Abroad by Robert Browning. It is one of my favourites and I’ve probably featured it before but it’s worth another airing. I’m so fortunate that my secondary education included poetry and learning whole poems off by heart, this is one such poem. It's a discipline that seems to be missing now. I had wonderful, enthusiastic English teachers that introduced a world of poetry and literature of which I’m still firmly placed in.

 

Home Thoughts From Abroad

 

Oh, to be in England

Now that April's there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

In England—now!

 

And after April, when May follows,

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!

Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge

Leans to the field and scatters on the clover

Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge—

That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,

Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew

The buttercups, the little children's dower

—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

 

Robert Browning  1812 - 1889

 

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

 

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