Expectation - Uncertain Times

 

It is not quite Epiphany but the Christmas tree, cards and all the trimmings have been taken down and packed away. There was an element of sadness. I didn’t feel ready to remove everything. I was being practical and fitting in other plans. Also, I was missing my little helpers who had made the task a joyful one last year and the year before. Just the other day my eldest grandson asked if he could help to put the tree away. I told him he could if he was here when the time came, but he was at school yesterday when I was unwinding the strings of beads, trying to prevent them getting tangled. I felt a bit guilty. I’d given him the expectation of being involved. Now, if the subject arises, I’ll be using ‘lockdown’ as an excuse. He’ll already be gutted at his beloved school taken from him again.

I began last year, 2020, with lots of expectations and, same as everyone, not a clue of what was coming to take it all away from me. There would be our regular visits to Dumfries and Galloway with trips to family in Troon. We looked forward to going to the Channel Islands for our 30^th wedding anniversary. I was retiring from work. There would be more travelling and lots of time to spend with our four grandchildren. Covid 19 changed all our lives and continues to do so.

I feel safe at home and it’s where I like to be. One thing I enjoy is watching all Blackpool F.C. matches on the big TV on the back room wall, from the comfort of the squashy sofa. It’s great to settle down with a hot coffee and the anticipation and expectation of a thrilling match ending in a great result. When that happens I hope our neighbours don’t mind the cheering and applause. I miss the atmosphere of the football ground, I miss the company of the fans who sit around us, the chats and catch-ups. They will be like us, watching from home. And, sitting in comfort in the warmth, I wonder how on earth I’d cope in the stadium on a freezing match day. I’ve gone soft. I have no expectation of getting back into the ground this season, but if we can, I’ll be there.

This year I have no New Year resolutions, except to write more of my own poetry but I haven't set off on that yet. Expectation is to receive the Covid vaccine when my turn comes up and retire from work at some point. If I keep my expectations realistic, there will be less disappointment.

Here's a Thomas Hardy poem,

Expectation and Experience

“I had a holiday once,” said the woman –
Her name I did not know –
“And I thought that where I’d like to go,
Of all the places for being jolly,
And getting rid of melancholy,
Would be a good, big fair:
And I went. And it rained in torrents, drenching
Every horse, and sheep, and yeoman,
And my shoulders, face and hair;
And I found that I was the single woman
In the field – and looked quite odd there!
Everything was spirit-quenching:
I crept and stood in the lew of a wall
To think, and could not tell at all
What on earth made me plod there!”

Thomas Hardy  (1840 – 1928)

 Pam

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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

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Coal - Fossil Fuel

     There is something soothing about a coal fire.  It isn’t just the warmth, it’s the welcoming glow
     and the hypnotising darting flames.

I remember a few of us going to a friend’s house after youth club. It was an icy night and we were all very happy to be having a supper of tea and toast with her family in their warm, cosy living room. I was almost falling asleep watching the fire from my slouched position on the sofa. It was only the jovial atmosphere keeping me awake and I might have stayed, as I sometimes did at weekends, but this was a school night and soon I would be back out in the cold, heading home with the others.  It’s funny how things stick in your mind.
 

My grandfather once scared me when he was lighting the fire. I think he’s the one who showed me how to make firelighters out of newspaper. It’s a skill I still have, but no call for it. He was trying to get the fire going and nothing was happening, so he held a sheet of newspaper across the fireplace.  There was a tremendous roar that frightened me and the newspaper was sucked into the hearth which had become a furnace. I wasn’t very old, certainly pre-school age. I ran away in tears looking for my mum or my nanna. That same grandfather, who loved me to bits and I adored him, had a network of blue-grey lines on the backs of his hands, like a road map. He told me it was a result of his short time as a coal miner when he was young, before joining the army for WW1. He never returned to the pit. He went into the licenced trade, starting a family tradition.

 I was watching a neighbour’s coal delivery the other day, fascinated to see that nothing had changed. The wagon had stopped across our driveway, which made me look, and it could have been nineteen-fifty-odd again. The coalman’s jacket and the way he heaved the full sack on his back to carry it, was exactly the same as when had coal delivered to the pubs, before central heating took over.

Welcoming in the New Year always involved a lump of coal, a crust of bread and a shilling or a penny – whatever my father had in his pocket. He would go out of the back door and come in the front, with the said items to ensure heat, food and wealth for the year.

Coal mining accidents and disasters have happened world-wide. I remember Aberfan in 1966 and being horrified at the pictures in the paper. A coal tip created by a nearby colliery slid down a hill on to a junior school, demolishing some of it. Many lives were lost, mostly children. The Minnie Pit Disaster in Staffordshire happened in January, 1918. Over a hundred men and boys lost their lives, forty of the pit lads were under sixteen. It inspired Wilfred Owen to write this poem,

 

Miners

 There was a whispering in my hearth,
    A sigh of the coal,
Grown wistful of a former earth
    It might recall.

I listened for a tale of leaves
    And smothered ferns,
Frond-forests, and the low sly lives
    Before the fauns.

My fire might show steam-phantoms simmer
    From Time's old cauldron,
Before the birds made nests in summer,
    Or men had children.

But the coals were murmuring of their mine,
    And moans down there
Of boys that slept wry sleep, and men
    Writhing for air.

And I saw white bones in the cinder-shard,
    Bones without number.
Many the muscled bodies charred,
    And few remember.

I thought of all that worked dark pits
    Of war, and died
Digging the rock where Death reputes
    Peace lies indeed.

Comforted years will sit soft-chaired,
    In rooms of amber;
The years will stretch their hands, well-cheered
    By our life's ember;

The centuries will burn rich loads
    With which we groaned,
Whose warmth shall lull their dreaming lids,
    While songs are crooned;
But they will not dream of us poor lads,
    Left in the ground.

 

Wilfred Owen (18/3/1893 – 4/11/1918)

 

Thanks for reading. Keep safe and well. Pam x 

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