Every picture tells a story

The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that I recently changed the look of my blog. Some of you may even have spotted that I've put a new picture at the top. I'd like to think that one or two of you might even have paused to wonder what the picture was, or where and when it was taken.

Well, hey I can answer all of those questions.

It was taken at precisely 9.55 am on 29th August this year. I know that because I took it, and for those of you who haven't already worked it out, it's a picture of the front room in our house in Shoreham. I took it on the day we decided to move the furniture around and swap our dining room for our living room. I wanted a reminder of how the room had looked before we changed it.

I liked how it looked - a bit old-fashioned, a bit friendly and a bit sunny and bright, so I added it to the blog.  Then I took another, closer, look and I realised why it was so right to have this as my blog picture. There are one or two things pictured here that might seem a little bit familiar, and so with your kind indulgence, I'd like to take you on a walk around our front room.

The table is where we do all our writing. It's where Philip and I sit, laptop to laptop when we're blogging and tweeting and reading and commenting. If you look closely, you'll see a shiny bulldog clip - I manage to leave one lying around every time I work from home. It drives Philip mad. For once we've tidied away the laptops, but the piled up notebooks are a clue to what goes on and the scattered place-mats are my indispensable writing aids - there's very little I can do without regular cups of tea. I have absolutely no idea why there is a wooden clothes peg on the table.

The chairs don't match. We don't have any that do, just a penchant for collecting odd bentwood chairs from other people's houses. Philip's rucksack sits on the nearest one. It's been on a few journeys with us, most recently to Paris. Behind the other chair you can see a grey lever-arched file, stuffed full of papers. That's my mum's letters - I've mentioned them here before.

Just above the file of letters, there's a hook on the wall. It's supposed to hold tie-backs for the curtains. What it's actually holding is a string of red onions from our allotment. It's not easy, in a very small house, to find places to hang your onions...
If you could see out of the window, there's a beautiful white weather-boarded house just across the road, and behind that are the allotments, just a stone's throw away, close enough to nip home and collect a couple of mugs of tea to take back, reward for a hard hour's digging and weeding.

In the corner of the room is a white cupboard. It's where the electricity meter and the fuse box live, the place we go to, groping through the dark, when a light bulb blows and trips the safety switch. It's the 'safe place' where we pile up all our important papers, and it doubles up as the games cupboard - where the scrabble set is piled up with the old jigsaws and my dad's electronic chess game.

There are a number of pictures on top of the cupboard - one of me and Philip sitting on a bench on our wedding day, another of me with my daughters. Hanging on the wall above is a picture of a washing line. It's a photo Philip took in the garden of our last house - It was a strange place to live, an old gatekeepers lodge, which was awkwardly shaped and always freezing cold, but it was the house where Philip and I first lived together, so this photo is a fondly kept reminder. In the corner of the cupboard on the right-hand side is a small picture, taken over 20 years ago when Megan was a baby. It's too small for anyone to make anything out in it - but that's ok - I know how  adorable Megan was and how very long my hair was then...

If you squint a bit you might be able to make out a shiny silver cup - that's the trophy we won last year from the Shoreham Allotments Association for 'most improved plot'. It's the only time in my life that my name has been engraved on a trophy. Behind that there's a small kettle. You might well ask why there's a kettle sitting among the wedding photo's and next to the allotment trophy. Well it's almost a trophy too. We found it while walking through the woods up on the hill. It was more than a bit black and dirty then, but we brought it home like treasure trove and it cleaned up a treat.

To the left of the white cupboard is the fireplace. On top of it you might just be able to make out some small white stones. Whenever we go to a beach I like to bring back a pebble or two - these were from our trip to Cyprus last year.  I love that we can have real fires. The central heating is great when you get up for work in the morning, but the red glowing warmth, and the crackle and hiss of a log fire take some beating. Philip prides himself on the quality of his fire-making, a skill he learned from his Grandda, and I've been grateful for that skill many times.

There's probably not much else to tell you about the picture. We didn't choose the curtains, or the mirror above the fire - they came with the house, which we rent, but they are also very much part of the room and the house that we've grown to love.  And of course, at the top of my blog you can only see half of the room.  Until we swapped the rooms around, the opposite wall was the place for Philip's record cupboard - but that's another story all of its own.

Growing my hair

Some people have a thing about their weight - it's never right and they spend half their lives dieting then giving up. I'm far too undisciplined and self-indulgent to diet. For me, the thing I always want to get right, but never quite manage is my hair.

Of course, I blame my mother.

When I was at primary school, I had long dark brown hair. Mum liked to 'experiment' with it. One day I'd go to school with Heidi plaits across the top of my head. The next day it would be Princess Leia loops around my ears (and this was in the days long before Princess Leia was a twinkle in George Lucas' eye, so I couldn't even pretend it was an intentional choice on my part).

When I decided I'd had enough, Mum took me to the hairdressers, where between them they came up with the idea of a 'pixie cut' - yes, that's right, my own mother agreed with the hairdresser that I should look like a pixie. A pixie!

That left me entering my teenage years with no credibility and a longing to grow my hair. And it's been pretty much the same ever since.

I managed it for a while, when the kids were growing up - it was easy to find an excuse for avoiding the scissors - no money, no time, no self-image.

But once I'd gone back to work, I fell for the notion that I should attempt to look stylish / smart / sexy /sleek;  and so off I went for a cut. As soon as the tresses hit the floor I regretted it, and ever since I've been telling everyone that I'm going to grow it out.

This has largely been just an idle threat - I've been far too scared of my hairdresser to risk offending him by suggesting that a) I could decide how I wanted my hair to look or b) it really didn't need cutting quite so often. But things finally came to a head (sorry - unforgivable pun) last year, when I was asked to play a man in our village production of Much Ado About Nothing. In my imagination I was the beautiful Beatrice; in the eyes of the village I was the evil bastard Don John.

And so, the last great hair-growing adventure began.

I think, perhaps, hair doesn't grow quite as quickly as you get older. It seemed to take forever to grow down past my ears. Many times I tried to scrape a few stray strands into an elastic band, only to be ridiculed by those I thought I loved.

But I've stuck with it. It's gradually crept longer and longer. I can make a little pony tail of it now. I can even sweep it up in a faux-elegant clip.

And I'm generally quite pleased. Except....

When is that you become 'too old' for long hair? Have I already reached and gone past it without realising? Will my final ignominy be when I'm cast as the mad old witch in the next village panto?

Almost a poet...

Ok. I know it's not the Forward Poetry Prize and I know there is absolutely no excuse for blowing my own trumpet, but...

A few weeks ago, for the first time ever, I submitted something to a poetry competition - the inaugural Royal Berkshire Poetry competition, supported by Beat Magazine The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Library Services, and the Firestation Centre for Arts & Culture. 

I couldn't get to the awards event last night, which was a real shame, and I didn't win first prize, but I'm as pleased as punch that my poem was awarded second place.

For those of you on Facebook who would like to read the winning, third placed and commended entries - there is a page dedicated to the competition here - http://www.facebook.com/TheRoyalBerkshirePoetryCompetition

For any of you who want to read my entry (I know I've shared it with some of you already) here it is -

These Boots Are Made For Walking

You force yourself inside me

dead weight upon my sole.

Leather stretched by bones and flesh,

sharp nails against my toes.

Your fingers grasp my laces,

tie them, tight, across my tongue.

Double bows to hold me in,

trapped, yet soon undone.

My skin is cracked, unpolished,

worn out by rain and sleet,

broken down by years, and miles,

of service at your feet.

But as we move together

with your light-stepped rhythmic pace

I feel your warmth spread through me

I am moulded by your grace.

Five days in Paris

What is there to say of Paris that hasn't already been written, painted or sung?

If I were a musician I'd recreate the sounds - of the traffic rushing through the Grands Boulevards; the horns blaring as a delivery van blocks a tight corner; the pigeons softly whistling from a zinc-roofed  attic high above the street; the drunken shout at three in the morning; or the joyous mix of saxophone and double-bass that lifts the hearts and heads of the rain-soaked tourists winding their way past the artists' studios of Montmartre.

Were I an artist, I'd sketch the skeletal trees clinging on to their last golden leaves against a blue November sky. With a palette of silver and grey, I'd paint the city skyline seen from the top of the Pompidou Centre, with glistening drops of rain falling all around. I'd draw the lined but knowing eyes of the maitre d' who's seen it all and said so little.

With the skill of a poet, I might scribe a sonnet to the chic and beautiful, or perhaps the dirty and shoeless. I'd type a page on the old red typewriter at Shakespeare and Co., to add to the words upon words that line its walls. I'd find the lines to question why churches that should inspire love and hope are built so fearsome, dark and brooding.

But for five days in Paris we weren't painters, singers or writers. Instead, we walked. We walked and walked. We strolled and marched, rushed and dallied, paused and paced; through the streets, beside the Seine, around the gardens. As we walked and talked, we breathed and sensed the city, and somehow felt we came to know it just a little bit more.

A short story - any old iron

Harry scuffed along the street. He knew he had no business messing about; he should get there as fast as he could. But with shoulders slouched and hands in pockets, he still kicked at imaginary stones as he headed towards his childhood playground.

Coming closer, he lifted his eyes to see the well-known, well-worn, gates to the scrapyard. The once royal blue paint was peeling off in places. The wood was cracked and damaged where wind, rain and the occasional kick or knock had taken their toll. The huge hinges were rusting and one side of the gate was out of kilter, hanging down and leaning on the other. At one time there’d been lettering across the tops of the gates; black, outlined in gold. Not much left of that now. Even the  ‘For Sale or Lease’ sign was starting to fade.

He could see the gates were locked, the great black padlock still firmly in place, but set within one of them was a smaller, man-sized door. ‘The punters’ entrance’ his dad had always called it. Harry swallowed hard, then tried the old iron door handle. It felt smooth but strong in his grasp. Turning it, he pushed at the door with his shoulder. The wood had swollen, but it gave way easily enough. He ducked his head, lifted his foot over the bottom panel and stepped inside.

The battered gates might suggest something different, but this was no scrap heap. Though his dad hadn’t worked for over a year, this was still a well-ordered scrap merchant’s yard. Each pile sorted and stacked professionally. He could almost hear his dad’s proud declaration, ‘there’s no bugger gonna lose a leg to a loose Fiat door – not while I’ve got something to do with it’.

Ahead of him were the car stacks. Whole cars, squashed cars, doors, wings, bonnets and bumpers. To the right of those, the old household goods; washing machines, vacuums, tumble driers. Still and silent now, but created from parts that had once rotated and whirred, throbbed and hummed.

A less orderly pile to his left held all the ‘bits’. A nest of pipes, connectors, belts and wires, snaking in and out of each other. The screws, bolts and nails were held separately; his first after-school job at the yard had been to carefully sort, grade and store them in a multi-drawered cabinet.

Harry stood, rooted to the spot. He breathed in the smell and taste of the yard, felt it seeping into his hair and skin. Dust, rust, oil and rubber; the combination once so familiar but now almost forgotten. Washed away by his teenage years.

He’d loved that smell once. It was his dad and adventure rolled into one. And as he stood there, he could almost hear his father singing the song he’d claimed as his own anthem.

‘Any old iron, any old iron, any, any, any old iron.

You look sweet, talk abaht a treat.

You look dapper from yer napper to yer feet.

Dressed in style, brand new tile and your father’s old green tie on.

But I wouldn’t give you tuppence for yer old watch chain - old iron, old iron.’

He’d never really known what a napper or a tile were, but he’d loved singing the song to his friends. And he’d loved bringing them back to the adventure playground of the yard, where a pile of wooden pallets could be turned into a lion’s cage, and an old tin bath could become a pirate’s ship, setting out on the trail of Spanish gold.

Harry shook himself from his reverie. No point remembering what had been. It was the here and now that mattered and had to be dealt with; the reason he was here at the yard today.

He looked across to the old stables, one-time home for the succession of carthorses who’d pulled and dragged the scrap-cart when his dad first set up the business. The horses had long since been replaced by a flat-bed truck, but the stables remained. Harry approached them; half knowing, half dreading to know what they now held.

There in the deep gloom he could make out a shrunken and crumpled figure, like a puppet whose strings have been cut. His father looked up from his task of repeatedly buckling and un-buckling an old girdle. A worried, confused look crossed his face and halted his tuneless humming.

Harry stepped forward. Cupping his hand gently round his father’s elbow, he helped him to his feet.

‘Come on dad, time to come home.’

Six Word Saturday

I should be doing other things, cleaning the house, weeding the allotment, but instead I've been blog-browsing.
I stumbled across Show My Face's Six Word Saturday page, so these are my six words, which just about sum it up.

Reading, dreaming, imagining. Trying to write.

Working from home - how do I love thee? Let me count the ways

Whenever possible, I work from home on a Friday.
In every way a working-from-home day is better than a working-in-the-office day.
Let me count the ways
(with thanks to the very fine Bag Lady for suggesting a 10 things post)
1) I can get dressed in the daylight. This might not seem like a big deal, but some of you who perhaps are increasing in years, might recognise and understand my growing inability to differentiate between purple and brown clothes. This has led me to turning up at work in some interesting colour combinations recently.
2)I do not have to go anywhere near the M25 or the Dartford tunnel. I like to think that me not being there will make someone else's journey just a little bit better.
3) Martin the cat has some interesting contributions to make to my otherwise solitary working-from-home meetings.
4) I get to spend the morning with my grumpy student daughter until she recovers from her hangover.
5) My work mobile has no network coverage where I live, but my personal mobile works just fine.
6) I can work, tweet, read blogs, work, tweet, read blogs, work, tweet, read blogs and still get more done than I do in 9 hours in the office.
7) I get to eat a Pot Noodle for lunch without anyone knowing about it... except all of you now.
8) I can have a bath in the middle of the afternoon.
9)I can respond to e-mails and watch Midsomer Murders at the same time.
10) I get to be at home before Philip, which doesn't ever happen on days I'm in the office. I get to be here, when he comes in all smiley from his regular Friday quick beer after work, and then we get to start the weekend.
Properly. Together.