Being Me

I'm writing a short story called 'Heat'. I haven't finished it yet because I can't decide how it ends but it's about a couple in conflict and begins, 'They say domestic wrangles are usually about sex or money but whoever they are has overlooked thermostats.'  The story features two people who marry and move in with each other, never having shared a house with a partner before. They are about to find out that there are 'three of them in this marriage': the woman, the man, and a little white dial fixed to the kitchen wall. It's categorically   not based on personal experience  the story of my whole life.  It's summer now, though, which is a welcome break from the thermostat friction between me and my spouse. Instead, we replace it with light-hearted talk   bitter confrontations about whether drawing all the curtains in the house, locking every window tight and sitting as silent and still as death in the eerie darkness really does keep you ...

When the grandchildren came round last week, we made Welsh cakes.  Two years ago, we made them on holiday in Wales and they were so delicious that the children requested this repeat performance.  Unfortunately, the aspect of the performance that did not get repeated was that, in Wales, I didn't transform the cakes into slabs of inedible charcoal by frying them in a cheap, thin-bottomed pan.  Nevertheless, the children tried to be optimistic as, one by one, I lifted the burnt cakes from the pan with a fish slice and layered them like pieces of soot-black roof tiles on a blue flowered plate. The plate looked highly offended, being more designed for delicate cup cakes than a pile of incinerated carbohydrate.  When the Welsh cakes had cooled (and hardened even more) we tried them. 'They're nice, Grandma,' the children said, biting into them gallantly but with true alarm in their wide eyes like those facing a zombie invasion or firing squad.   The only consolati...

It's Saturday evening as I write. This time last week my body still comprised one-fifth woman and four-fifths pudding. I was so stiff with starch that I couldn't bend at the waist to take off my socks at bedtime. I felt as though all my internal organs had been re-upholstered.   Despite all this, non, je ne regrette rien.  I had gone with two friends to The Pudding Club. It was their 60th birthday treat to me and - well - what an experience!  I'm aiming to go again on my 70th, 80th, 90th and 100th or should I ever tire of life as it could do what Dignitas does but with added custard.    Have you heard of the Pudding Club? It was started by people who felt that the traditional British pudding should be saved from extinction and celebrated. Because of this, the evening is full of ceremony and ritual as guests make their way through seven puddings, all paraded in regally, applauded and cheered.  Seven puddings? Yes, you heard correctly.  Puddings are...

I am forty fifty  oh-all-right-then sixty today.  'You're entering your seventh decade,' my (younger) sister wrote in my card, because that's what sisters are for: to cheer and encourage you.  Some things belie your age, though, don't they, however hard you cling to your youth? The down-turn of the mouth; the crows-size-11-feet around the eyes; the appearance of elasticated trousers in the wardrobe due to the baffling disappearance of what used to be your waist but now appears to be spare cookie dough.  Where do waists go? Are they with all the lost socks? I found something else which illustrated the passing of time recently. Our holiday list.  I was packing for a mini-break with a friend: the first time I've been away for aeons.  'Where's the holiday list?' I asked my husband.  'What's a holiday?' he said, glumly. (Imagine Eeyore just after he's stubbed his toe.) Over the last 40 years, we've compiled a list so that our family di...

Here's a poem about nature that I wrote this morning although my observations were made from the warmth and safety of the indoors as regular followers will not be surprised to hear.  A morning in March   The neighbour has frisbeed stale slices of bread across his scraggy lawn beneath the apple tree, its branches winter-bare save forgotten Christmas lights. But the birds can take incongruity with more grace than I do.   First come the pigeons, plunging in like gossips to a whispered conversation. One triumphs away a whole slice which hangs uncertain from its beak, wondering if it will survive the journey.   The sparrows arrive next, flitting up down up down as though on the end of a conductor’s baton. They peck-kiss at the slices, checking left and right for rivals, then dart upwards as though caught thieving.   Last, a robin, a lone actor. It observes from a branch until the sparrows have flecked away, then hops to...

I don't know about you, but I'm not keen on unnaturally-coloured food. My gardener husband is always experimenting with new varieties such as purple carrots or white strawberries and I make a big fuss. I want my carrots orange and my strawberries red or not at all, thanks.  Likewise, if he puts beetroot into a dish and it dyes everything crimson or bleeds onto the plate, I lose my appetite, having anticipated dinner, not a Tarantino production. For me, beetroot has to be kept in a dish of its own at a safe two metre distance and wearing full PPE. I could only eat this while wearing a blindfold   'I've cooked you some tuna with mash and veg,' my husband said earlier this evening when I emerged from the front room having tutored three students in a row. I was ready for dinner.  I went into the kitchen.  'Where is it?' I said. 'On the plate,' he said. 'Where you're looking.' All I could see was a flat slab of what looked the colour of putty....

I met someone new at church the other day. 'Tell me your name,' she said, 'although I'm bound to forget it by next week.'  'Tell me yours,' I said, 'but, ditto.'  We exchanged names in the same way people exchange business cards, knowing that their loss is inevitable and that they will be found, years later, down the gap between the sofa cushions or in the pocket of a jacket that needs dry cleaning.  'There are people who've been coming here for years,' my new friend said, 'and I forgot their name early on. Now it's too embarrassing to ask.' 'Or to check whether they are a Nick or a Mick, or a Jean or a Joan.' 'If I even got that far,' she said.  'We should have a Church Amnesty Day for forgotten names,' I said, 'as they do with weapons or stolen goods or those library books you've had since 1974.' We agreed that this was a good idea. On Namenesty Day, it would be perfectly okay to admit, ...

My week in photographs. Enjoy!  1. This is the view from my bedroom window. Our house overlooks a Victorian graveyard (or 'gravy yard' as my granddaughter dubbed it and as we now call it). How about this for illustrating the difference between evergreen and deciduous? I can't help thinking that the bright orange one looks smug and flaunty as though it knows it's more interesting than its green neighbour. All we need, though, is a windy day, and the smugness will be wiped from its face as it shivers, embarrassed by its nakedness, while the green tree revels in its warm coat.  2. This is Guys Cliffe House, an ancient ruin which I pass on my daily walk. 'Hello, ancient ruin!' I call to it and back comes the echo 'Hello, ancient ruin!' Rude! Thirteen years ago, when we were exploring the Warwick area with a view to moving here and renting a house, I took a similar picture and sent it to all my friends, saying something like, 'It might need an update but ...

1. Your earworm is the tune from the Hovis advert. 2. When you yawn, the skin on your face takes an hour to regroup.  3. You know how to write a letter.  4. When you bend to tie a shoelace, you clean a skirting board while you're there. 5. You'd be upset if a Christmas hamper didn't contain tinned ham and brandy snaps.  6. Your diary is made from paper.  7. You take someone under 30 with you to buy a mobile phone.  8. You have curry powder on your nose after reading its ingredients. 9. Your pyjama bottoms are not shorts. 10. Telephones in your dreams have dials.  11. You have fourteen spectacles cases in the house. 12. When you spot yourself in a shop window, you think you're being followed. 13. You still think shit is a swearword.  14. You remember curries with sultanas in them.  15. You pile things on the bottom stair 'ready to go up' because you're not.  16. You still call it 'the world wide web'.  17. Your definition of high heels ...

I wrote this poem, which was published in MsLexia magazine, after seeing a news clip about an 88 year old lady. She had recently learned to read and had therefore discovered a whole new world of stories. You can see the news report by clicking on the link under the poem.  Once upon a time Once upon a time, all she could do was drift her hands along each silent spine or turn hieroglyph pages like a visitor lost in the streets of a foreign land, her forehead a frown of lines – a message of bewilderment she hoped others could not read.   Then, like whispers, or baby footsteps, or leaves dropping like scraps of tissue kissed by an infinitesimal breeze, shapes on pages birthed sounds on her lips - each day a new one, a tiny gift – and in her mind, dragons, heroines, castles, pirates, the sighs of reunited lovers.  Watch the news clip - have a tissue handy

They say that opposites attract and, after 39 years of marriage, I'd suggest this theory is best tested by going to a supermarket together with a long list.  It could even substitute for marriage preparation classes. It would teach a young couple so much more about their different approaches to life than mere theories ... Our conversations go something like this when we're in Tesco:  Him: We need to buy teabags.  Me: Okay, let's get these. I'll put them in the trolley. Done.  Him: Hang on. Me: What? Him: How many teabags in that pack?  Me: 240. Can we go now?  Him: For how much?  Me: How would I know? Let's just buy them. It's what we need. Him: You look at the price tab, here. It says £3.49. That's steep.  Me: Is it? Him: These ones here are only £2.99. Me: But we don't usually buy that make. I'm bored now. Can we move on to crisps?  Him: I swear that tea's gone up. Me: Ah well. We're not exactly destitute. It's a few pence.  Him: It al...

The driver, a man in his fifties, was standing outside his bus today, having a sneaky fag in the sunshine before the next trip. I waited to board, slipping on my mask.  'It's a steaming hot day,' he said. 'But I'm not one of those people who moans about the heat.' One of the talking bus drivers, I realised. They don't all want conversation, and neither might this one, after today.  'That's the best way to be,' I said, glad he'd mentioned it first, because I'd been about to moan about the heat. 'I don't moan when it's cold either,' he said.  Ah. Here I could show more empathy. 'Cardigans all the way for me.' 'Can't stand people who moan,' he said. 'If it's hot, they moan. If it's cold, they moan. They're never happy.' He began to mimic someone complaining. 'Ooooh, it's too  hot . Oooh, it's too cold. Moaners, the lot of 'em. ' I shook my head slowly from side to si...

It's Independent Bookshop Week in the UK so I thought I'd post a poem I wrote in celebration of bookshops. It was published in the Bookseller magazine recently.    To bookshops (with apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning)  How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love the jingle-jingle of the bell announcing my arrival with a smile: ‘You’re in a bookshop. All will now be well.’ I love the spines of books upon the shelf that promise romance, laughs and mysteries. I love the smell of paper, print and ink, the rustling of pages in the peace. I love the ‘Recommendeds’ and the ‘New’, the joyous promise of that corner chair that tells me I should choose a book and rest - convinces me that I have time to spare. I love, I love, the beauteous books you sell. (My bank account does not love thee so well.) What do you like best about bookshops? Do you have a favourite one? Tell me why. 

Apologies for a long absence. I suspect this blog post will attract between three and five readers as blogs are like tender plants which, untended, droop and wither. I should know, as I have murdered plenty of plants in my time. I am hoping I haven't similarly asphyxiated my blog.  All Fran did was look at it. If you are here and reading this and are neither droopy nor withered, I thank you, and you are most welcome. Do come again and bring a friend.  Honest, m'lud, I have been slaving over a hot keyboard, writing a novel, and today I wrote the last chapter. I didn't know at the time that it was the last chapter until I looked back on it and realised that the story was finished. Sometimes stories don't ask proper permission; they just do their own thing, like recalcitrant toddlers, wonky shopping trolleys and viruses.  If you write yourself, you'll know that having finished a first draft is just one step on a long journey of edits, rewrites, plunges into pits of des...

An envelope dropped through the letterbox this week.  Here it is. In case you can't see it, the writing says, ' Important Information About Your Conservatory '.  1. We don't have a conservatory. 2. If the advertisers had peeked round the back of the house at our tiny garden, they'd have noticed that, had we added a conservatory, the lawn and the shed would have been inside it.     3. Within the envelope was information about how to maintain the conservatory we don't have. I must say, our conservatory maintenance costs are pretty manageable.  4. Also, there was information about how to buy a conservatory in case we don't have one. So, they lied.  5. There are inappropriate capitals on the message and if they knew anything about me they'd know that this would be enough to stop me buying their conservatories.  6. The writing is squeezed into the right hand corner. Do they think I will re-use this envelope for a handmade card? -  To my darling, s...

Yesterday I visited the dentist.  Let me tell you about some of the communication issues I met. Communication #1. The email from the dentist.  Amongst the other 347 instructions regarding my consultation with the dentist about a broken tooth was this: 'Please do not use our customer toilets while you are here.'  I understand why this has to be so in the current Covid situation. But my bladder is made from cheap market-stall cling film these days, not its previous reinforced rubber. I thought back to Adam and Eve and to God saying, 'Don't eat from one particular tree,' and remembered how things turned out. I knew that as soon as I stepped over the threshold of the dentists' surgery, my bladder would want to do the one thing that was forbidden. My only option was, therefore, to visit the public conveniences in the town square once I climbed off the bus.  Communication #2  The sign in the public conveniences I washed my hands in the public conveniences using the au...