A writing table

“This….” he says, stabbing the smooth oak surface with a firm forefinger, “…is a writing table.”

I shift a little uncomfortably on my rickety wooden chair, the chair that didn't come with the table but was moved here from the kitchen a few days ago, to sit alongside our newest piece of furniture.

Then I look down at the table top. Already it’s cluttered with the sort of things that conspire to fill any empty surface in our house. To my right, there’s a spiral bound notepad, the page half-covered with barely-legible writing. In the middle of it a wine stain forms a small but perfect ring of red fading to brown, the imprint of one of the tiny wineglasses that Philip loves so much. Beside that there’s another brown ring, this one made of Murano glass; bought years ago in Venice, worn to work today, but discarded now for irritating me as it tapped against the table.

Further back, half hidden by a plastic folder of papers from work, there’s a blue drinks coaster, the bright yellow sunflowers on its surface shine out at me, unblemished by red wine, usurped by a notepad, unused.

To my left there’s another open notebook, the pen lying on top of it is cracked and broken, placed there this morning after I’d trodden on it in the half-dark. Behind it there’s a pile of unread books, a DVD I haven’t yet watched, a CD of fairy tales that came free with the weekend papers. On top of all those, a pink satin make-up bag, whose zip won’t quite close, another pen (not broken), and my car keys.

The centre of the table is just big enough for my laptop, the laptop I should be using, on my new writing table, to write.

Instead, for the last hour or so, I've been browsing through Facebook,  laughing at twitter, basking in the warmth of some very kind blog comments and worst of all, playing game after game of solitaire.

It’s dark outside and when I look up at the window, I see my reflection glaring back. I've always wanted a writing table, not the dining table with a different hat on, but a proper place to write; somewhere to sit and capture the thoughts and words that pile up throughout the day. 

As I stare at my reflection, I can almost see it mouthing Philip’s words…

“This…. Is A Writing Table.”

So I nod back at it, sit a little straighter in my chair and begin to type.

Time

About a month ago the clock on our sideboard stopped. It's the old-fashioned kind, that needs winding once a week; we bought it in an antique shop in Otford, long before we came to live in the village. It felt like bringing it home when we finally moved here.

Every Sunday evening before going to bed, one of us would take off the round brass cover at the back and turn the key carefully, winding it just enough but not too tight; ensuring that the gentle ticking sound was there to see us through the week ahead. Somewhere along the way though, our routines changed, the regular winding became more sporadic, it turned from a soothing ritual to something of a chore.

It had stopped at 11.25, that much was easy to see, though I couldn't say how long it was before either of us noticed. I don't know if the quietly reassuring tick had stuttered and stilled while we slept upstairs, or while we sat watching other clocks in our different offices, hours away from home and each other.

We quickly became accustomed to the shiny brass hands holding their position at not quite the top and not quite the bottom of the round clock-face. After a while we even started making jokes about it. I quite liked that I could turn to Philip, knowing it was really too early to suggest going to bed, and say proudly "but I stayed awake until 11.25" He in turn would say at the end of a long and lazy Sunday "it's been such a great day, and it's still only 11.25"

The clock had stopped, but time kept running on. March came and went, bringing with it reminders of all the events and celebrations that mark our lives. Mothers' Day, quickly followed by the birth of Penny-Rose my beautiful new granddaughter, then my own birthday, and at the end of the month a wedding. As the days passed, the sideboard filled with cards - congratulations and thank-you notes, photographs and invitations. Before long we couldn't see the clock at all.

Two days ago, preparing for the arrival of friends, I decided to clear the cards. Behind them stood the clock, silently reminding me of our neglect. The smooth old wooden case felt good as I picked it up and prised off the round brass cover at the back. I turned the key carefully, winding it just enough but not too tight, and the gentle rhythmic ticking began again, making it feel like home.

Two days ago, Kelly and Nathan arrived, bringing with them the laughter and chatter that always accompanies our time together. We've talked and talked, as we always do, about life and families, about work and food, about reading. About writing.

Yesterday evening, I sat for a while, watching Nathan's fingers dart quickly over the keyboard of my laptop as he wrote another of the pieces that keep us returning again and again to his blog. I sat for a while playing scrabble with Kelly, watching her cleverly crafting interlocking words from the most basic of letters. And as I did, I thought of another ritual that had once felt so comforting then somehow turned into a chore.

This morning, I picked up my laptop. The smooth shiny case felt good as I carefully opened the cover and typed in my password. I started carefully, thinking of the words, just enough, not too many. Before long, the gentle rhythmic tapping of fingers on a keyboard began again, making it feel like home.

Casting on

I was sixteen, tall, skinny and awkward; still trying to work out what clothes suited my gangliness, still wanting a style of my own. I wanted originality, but nothing too scary, something that would make people look, but not comment and never laugh; I wanted something more than Topshop but not quite punk.

Of course, I knew how to knit, I’d made squares for charity blankets at school, ungainly mis-shapen objects that really gave new meaning to the idea of casting off. But I’d never attempted something that was actually meant to be worn, not until I saw a pattern for a sloppy joe jumper in a magazine.

So I took the bus to Brixton, to the old Littlewoods store, where I'd seen shelves of wool stacked up high. The pattern told me how many balls I needed, but I hadn't yet learnt about yarn weights, or plys, needle sizes or tensions, so I simply picked the colour I liked best, a soft flecked grey, and some thick metal needles that felt smooth and cool in my hands.

I started knitting as soon as I got home, no messing about with tension squares, I just launched straight in. The two T-shaped pieces of knitting were thrown together with much more enthusiasm than expertise  and, of course, the yarn was too thin for the needles. My joe was very definitely on the sloppy side, but that didn't matter; I’d experienced the irresistible alchemy of taking a long straight piece of yarn and turning into something else. And since then, there’s never been a time when somewhere in the house I haven’t had a bag of wool, a stack of needles, a pile of patterns and a half finished piece of magic. 

I've often wondered what it is about knitting that captured me all those years ago, and has held me ever since. No doubt there's an element of pride in making something myself, a genuine pleasure in taking months to make a gift for someone else.  There's the way the continuous action relaxes and soothes, even the knowledge that I'm continuing a craft that's been around for hundreds of years.

Recently though, I've realised there's something else.  When I knit, I watch something take shape and grow. I have a picture in my mind of how it will turn out, though I'm never quite sure till it's finished. There are a limited number of stitches, but I can use them in a thousand different ways, and it's up to me which ones I choose and how I put them together.   I can work on it a little at a time, make it shorter or longer, bring together different threads, or try a different style. And if I'm not happy with how it's turning out, I can unpick it all and start again.

It's really just like writing a story.

Jejune - a poem

In rising arcs of naïve aspiration,
in glowing pride and unbound admiration,
I saw great depths, a new sophistication,
a worldliness beyond imagination.

I framed a peerless man in my mind’s eye;
I gave you wit, decreed your dullness wry.
I sketched the cynic’s smile you’d never own,
described the haughty brow, you’d never shown.

But then. I came to know a different you,
the hidden artificial, far from true;
the depth of intellect I thought I’d found,
a shallow pool of superficial sound.

Your metaphors came clichéd, too simplistic,
a jaded language so far from realistic;
the symphony, a halting, jarring tune
of disillusion found, too soon. Jejune.

Running out of role models

It was easy when I was young; I didn't need to work out who to be or how to behave, I just had to read a book.

It started with Pippi Longstocking, Astrid Lindgren's fiercely independent nine year old who lived in Villa Villekulla with a horse, a monkey and a suitcase full of gold coins. Who wouldn't want to be the girl with the strength to lift a horse, the imagination and determination to spend her days arranging adventures and telling outrageous stories? Pippi wasn't worried by her long thin legs, she wasn't in the least bothered that her nose was covered in freckles and she was positively proud of her hair in its two tight plaits that stuck straight out; so what could it possibly matter if someone called me skinny dripping, teased me for my freckles, or laughed at the way my carefully braided hair was looped across my head?

In time Pippi was followed by a succession of girls I might have been or could have been; the resourceful and rebellious Arrietty  from The Borrowers, the graceful and talented Posy from Ballet Shoes. As I grew, I found new characters to emulate, I built them into so much more than the typed letters on a page.

And then I found Elizabeth Bennett. My middle name is Elizabeth, I'm a second daughter; that was enough to grab my attention. When I found out she was intelligent, opinionated and favourite of her father's children, that was enough to keep me caught. Through her I defined my role as the sensible one in the family. I recognised my inclination to form an opinion too quickly, saw the implications of a judgement based on first impressions, learned the dangers of pride and prejudice.  I still mostly didn't get it right, but she helped me believe that mistakes could be overcome, that there were always second chances. And that kept me going for a long, long time.

But the trouble with Elizabeth Bennett is that she ceased growing up nearly two hundred years ago. She never got to be middle-aged; she didn't have to worry about what to do with greying hair and increasing girth. She married into a stately home, so what would she know about paying a mortgage into pension age, she never became a working mother or grandmother. I can't turn to her for advice on how to handle a re-structure at work; she can't tell me how to muddle through a long day in the office and still be half-awake and slightly interesting when I get home.

So I need a new role model; someone for this century and today's world; I just don't know where to find her. And for the first time in my life, books have let me down. I don't see any authors creating a positive pitch for the past-her-prime lady. I can't find the novel where it all turns out well for the woman who ought to know better by now; I've yet to read the story of the almost-invisible someone starting their second half-hundred; or the fable of the grown-up girl who is still trying to find out what to think and how to be.

I hope she's out there somewhere. Maybe she's just starting to come together, letter by letter, page by page. I'd love to think that one day I'll pop into a bookshop, pick up something that catches my eye, turn to the first page, and suddenly learn that there's another truth that's universally acknowledged.

The Pygmy Giant

I'm thrilled to bits that The Pygmy Giant has published one of my stories today.

The Pygmy Giant is an on-line home for a great range of British writing and I feel very proud to be included.  It would be rather lovely if you go there and read my story and maybe even leave a comment, but while you're there, I'd really recommend you to read some of the other great pieces too.

Having words

She hated it when they shouted at each other. Cruel sharp words, arrows dripping in saliva and bile. How could they even look at each other the next day. How could either of them accept the other's 'I didn't mean it'.

In her head she joined in the screaming, silently begging them 'Don't say it. Please don't say it. You can't say something like that and not mean it' Once those words were out, they were out - there in the air between them. No matter how hard they'd tried to pretend it didn't matter, it did. She couldn't see how they could act as though things hadn't been said.

She'd dreaded the times at school when the teacher walked around the class as they wrote. Automatically her arm would go up around her work, shielding it from the teacher's eyes. Pencil in one hand, eraser in the other, she'd write and rub out, again and again. The paper turned thin and grey, but she didn't want anyone to read it until she was sure of every word.

At work she agonised in meetings. Confident of her point, but never quite sure when to make it, she dreaded the moment when they'd all turn to look; a raised eyebrow, a barely concealed smirk; her confidence sent plummeting. She lingered over e-mails, knowing how they could be misinterpreted, how jovial could be read as flippant, succinct as terse. On the way home in the car, she'd replay the day's conversations in her head; the things she could have phrased differently, the times she should have kept mum.

At home in the evenings, in front of the laptop, she tapped the keys, watching the thin black lines appear on the screen. Just lines and shapes, meaning so little, revealing too much, concealing more. Type and delete, type and delete. Again and again.

She hit the 'publish' button, sensed the black lines peeling away from her, lifting up from the screen and flying away. She didn't know where they'd land, if they'd be greeted with a friendly welcome or a forbidding stare. Once they were out, they were out. She couldn't pretend they hadn't been said.

A way with words

I tried to make a path from stones and pebbles,

collected from the beach and carried home.

I chose them one by one from park and garden,

brushed off the soil, then placed them in a row

I piled them up, one rock upon another,

stood back and contemplated the effect;

the look and feel, the shifting shingle grouping,

a sometimes jagged sharpness that it left.

At first I hadn’t known they’d need containing;

their shapes and textures pleasing, smooth and round,

but then I sensed them knock against each other,

collide in changing contexts, shifting ground.

I saw them, trodden down and disappearing,

sink back into the earth from which they’d come.

I’d thought them mine; the world sought to reclaim them;

chiselling new meaning from the stone.

I tried again, I laid a holding membrane,

visited new sites, collected more.

Reordered, piled, and polished from my journey,

the treasures from each trip enriched my store

Until at last I’d made myself a pathway.

The pebbles came together underfoot.

Tho’ every now and then it shifted slightly

I’d found a road through words towards a truth.

Gut Girls - show week

Like the witches in Macbeth, the legs of a tripod, the sides of a triangle, or even just luck, things often arrive in threes. The fortuitous convergence of three events this week has given me an excuse to try something a little different on my blog for the next seven days.

1. Gut Girls, the show we've been rehearsing since November last year is finally coming to the stage of Shoreham Village Hall this week, with performances from Wednesday to Saturday.
2. Because there is no way that I could be on stage every evening and up for work at 6.00am the next day, I have taken the whole week off. This also means I have more time for writing.
3. Next Saturday, 5th March, is not only the final performance of Gut Girls, it is also my very first Bloggiversary; one year to the day since I started this whole blog-writing malarkey.

For these three reasons, and not just because I am a self-obsessed luvvy, I have decided that for the next seven days I will write a blog update every day - focusing on the happenings at the village hall, our final preparations and the performances. 

A daily blog is not something I've attempted before, but I really like the idea of keeping an almost-live record of the week. I know that this is completely self-indulgent, and I've no idea how it will turn out, so I can only beg your forbearance. If the whole idea seems just too hideous, then all I can suggest is that you stay away from the blog for the next week or so, after which normal service will be resumed. 

If, on the other hand, you fancy taking a journey through the stage-fright, the highs and lows, the glamour and greasepaint of a theatrical production in a small village in Kent, then please switch off your mobile phones and take your seats; the curtain is about to rise...

Remembering Miss Wood

My daughter Megan is training to be a teacher. She's recently started her final teaching practice, with a class of five and six-year-olds, and each night she comes home with a story of something that's happened or something the children have said. In just a few days she's gone from 'they're all too little and annoying' to 'I think I'm starting to like them'. I guess they might be starting to like her too.

It's funny how well I can remember my teachers from primary school. My favourite was Mr Griffiths. I know he was my favourite because I can still recall the sinking feeling when I lost my temper and shouted at him. Even then I knew he was disappointed with me. I don't know how it started, I vaguely remember it was something to do with a tennis ball, but I don't really know what turned me from my usual goody-two-shoes to a tempestuous ten-year old in a tantrum.  Though all I hollered was 'It's not flippin' fair', word soon got round that I'd sworn at him. I realise now that I missed the opportunity to exaggerate my waywardness and so gain the credibility of my school friends, but I was too busy hoping to win back his approval. My rebellions have always been somewhat low-key.

Miss Da Gama came to us as a supply teacher, part way through the year. Perhaps that's why she always seemed a little odd. I don't think we were particularly kind or welcoming to her. We'd been taught about the famous Portuguese explorer, Vasco Da Gama, so we teased her about her name and her possible connections, but I don't think we were especially cruel. One day, when we tried to go back to the classroom after lunch we were ushered away downstairs to the hall. Later we found out that she'd had some sort of a break-down, smashing up the classroom and ripping down all the carefully mounted paintings and stories from the classroom walls. We didn't see her again.

After that we got Mr Campbell. Perhaps he'd been told to treat us kindly; perhaps he was just that sort of man, but for a whole year, all we seemed to do was art and drama. I spent hour after hour making 3-D structures out of paper drinking straws - tetrahedrons and dodecahedrons. Hour after hour sitting on cushions on the floor because he'd cut all the legs off the tables.

Of course it all changed when I got to secondary school. I had to smother my irritation with the maths teacher, whose name I refuse to remember, because she insisted on pronouncing mine 'Share-on'. But I loved that we had an art teacher called Miss Brushett and a physics teacher called Miss Newton. It was right that our religious knowledge teacher was called Miss Theophilus, and our skinny nervous history teacher was Miss Lean. Nowadays it's not the bizarre coincidences of their names that I think about, it's realising that I spent so many years being taught by single old women, in an all girls' school - small wonder I married too young.

It was at secondary school that I was taught by Miss Wood. She had short hair, like Ingrid Bergman in Joan of Arc, and she was the first person I'd ever met who wore contact lenses. I think maybe she was a little afraid of losing a lens in class and having to crawl around on the floor to find it, so she was always very careful. When she looked from side to side, she'd turn her whole head rather than just her eyes.

She was my form teacher in class 2D, the year I became a teenager, the first and only time I was voted form captain, but that isn't why I remember her. She taught us English and I began writing my first romantic novel while in her class. She made me read it out to the rest of the girls, chapter by chapter. While they yawned and giggled, and pointed out the glaring inconsistencies in my characters and actions, she sat on the edge of the desk listening and nodding approval. It didn't matter that it I never finished it. She introduced me to the thrill of putting words on a page for others to respond to, even though she was the only one who showed any sign of appreciation. She made me think I could write.