tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25083797159166384082024-03-13T11:48:24.012-07:00Postcard Pam Goes Large!Perplexed stumblings through fiction and the every day. pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.comBlogger99125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-56212378161891425282018-06-28T15:59:00.000-07:002018-06-28T15:59:31.435-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Weeping</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Weep the weepings of a mother bereaved. Beat your chest in your semi-detached cemetery and roar with the injustice. I have lost my child. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Not so very long ago he left my belly and I discovered myself tethered to him in a bond of unbreakable, unshakeable, unsinkable devotion. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">RRROOOOOAAAARRRR! And again RRROOOAAARRR . </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">How dare the universe wrench me from him so unwillingly. I would rather lose my eyes than my boy. My boy. My boy. Hear my pain! It is monstrous.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> I pull my hair from my head: it will not bring him back but it needs to be done. This chasm will never heal over, never be crossed. This torture wants to vomit from my lips , pour from my ears; belly and womb all spewing forth my rage at this terrible tearing asunder of mother and child. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">I cannot be consoled, I do not wish to be consoled. How many boulders of destruction can my blazing fists hurtle into the world? I wish a plague on all your sons, your daughters. I wish them to wear black and drown in the devastation that consumes me. There is no light, there are no smiles, there is only a ragged, putrid seeping edge where my son has been torn from me. All else is screaming night. I want you to shrivel at the feet of my loss for this is a pain than needs company. This is a torment that would outdo Hell. I will ride the back of the memory of my son and it will claw and buck but I will not let him go. I will not have that nothingness!</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> I will attach myself like a koala to the bark of the eucalyptus tree, shrieking with defiance and fury until the very ground quakes and dams divide and clouds ignite and God cracks his whip and still I will cling to my disappearing boy. He will not go without me, I will not let him leave me behind. He will not leave…me. He will not leave me. He will …not leave.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Ask me for nothing, I don’t have it to give. Tell me nothing, there is nothing but him. Offer me nothing or offer me him. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">No?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Then you are worth less than nothing to me. Not even that.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Lesley Gibson</span></div>
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pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-71227628048962481372015-05-03T01:21:00.001-07:002017-02-20T13:02:11.460-08:00Sniff My Shreddies!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PKWBhqFxITs/VUXS37040-I/AAAAAAAABAM/7DWYBzi6ois/s1600/flatulence%2Bpants.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PKWBhqFxITs/VUXS37040-I/AAAAAAAABAM/7DWYBzi6ois/s1600/flatulence%2Bpants.jpg" height="179" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
I managed to download this and then had to have a lie down for a couple of days. I'm........................................................... well it's just.......... ........... ..................................<br />
?<br />
<br />
<br />
Anyhoo, it's a fabulous idea for my new caption competition.<br />
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There is an actual prize to mark my return to bloggerhood. </div>
pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-68141652976648591272015-04-27T12:58:00.001-07:002017-02-20T13:02:11.455-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I am feeling a little overwhelmed and am trying to write it out. I am currently sitting at the outer edges of a jungle which is in turn, on the outer edges of Rutland. <img alt="imgres.jpg" src="webkit-fake-url://B113C1D6-895B-4B59-A205-E229D3DFCF40/imgres.jpg" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /> fierce down by 'ere and<br />
I am scared to enter this jungle because of what I might find in it. ...namely the lawnmower.<br />
I have already located and isolated a trowel, but this was relatively easy due to its proximity to the house. It had been camouflaged by a particularly nasty patch of .......I can't remember the name. I knew it last year and every previous year but then again I have spent 2 days...in this my 50th year...thinking of the name for that dark brown stuff you put on lettuce..it's on my shopping list as 'salad vinegar' which I find somewhat distressing. Anyway, I hate these plants but they cover up my drain rather nicely which is why the trowel is there - duh! The prongs of the trowel are great for removing the grate bit of the drain in order to unblock it when all the bits of ......green stuff... have clogged it up, allowing soapy water to flow out and under the rotting doors of the garage. This happens because we need have need of a, but have no, drainage trench at the bottom of the sloping drive. The garage becomes the trench and everything in it becomes damp and rusty then perishes. However, this is definitely not the car, because someone put an ill advised vestibule on the side of the house and now the drive narrows just at the entrance to the garage rendering it superfluous to requirements unless you are parking<br />
a) a sled<br />
b) a bike<br />
c)a scooter<br />
d)a mobility scooter<br />
e) a lawnmower (usually)<br />
There are in fact several bikes and a scooter in there, all rusty, but we can't make use of them because the last time we went in mice (we hope) had eaten the handlebars of the scooter and no one is brave enough to go back in. We'll have to rig up some sort of a gazebo to protect the lawnmower now, if I ever get the grass cut. It's a chicken/egg situation. It's up to my knees now, the grass. Maybe Aidan Turner can come and scythe it for me.<img alt="imgres.jpg" height="106" src="webkit-fake-url://1E498898-68A0-4654-A28A-30AE60EF40D6/imgres.jpg" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" width="320" /><br />
I absolutely cannot face the strimmer. It is soul destroying switching the power off every two minutes to readjust orange wire that snaps or breaks free every 30 seconds, slices through your leg hair and slippers but cannot cope with the jungle. I really need a petrol blade but I can't afford it.<br />
<br />
I AM HAPPY TO BE BRIBED WITH PRODUCT PLACEMENT! I WILL EVEN TAKE PHOTOS.<br />
In fact, I have an idea....<br />
<br />
I have ventured down the garden and given myself a right fright. I have taken pics of everything...and cried a bit! I intend to try and blog you the resulting improvements.<br />
<br />
Best make a start...<br />
<br />
Seed catalogue and power tool distributors or Aidan Turner, can contact me by leaving a comment below.</div>
pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-10510050625800131022015-04-26T03:15:00.001-07:002017-02-20T13:02:11.383-08:00'Be Reclusive Not Rejected' ....Discuss<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Weird dreams I have been having of late ---weird! Are they telling me something?<br />
Followers of psychotherapy believe that everything within a dream represents an aspect of the sleeper and my dreams have been about coupling.<br />
The world of love a bit of a mystery to me. I crave it yet I run from it. Mine is a world of goodbyes. I feel like an actor who says that despite his success, he is waiting to be discovered a fraud. I simply cut out the success bit and assume the fraudulent position straight off the bat.<br />
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I do this in a number of ways. The first is by focussing (a la Jerry Seinfeld) on a trivial thing that becomes insurmountable in my mind; an over long eyebrow; laces that do not match the shoe; a curl that curls the wrong way or an overloud gulp. I make it very known that it's very irritating.The second wave - if those defences fail - is to take any attempt to give me a compliment as a sign that my date is desperate or deranged. <br />
If I still can't shake them off, then in order to bring the situation to a swift resolution, I indulge in poor behaviour brought on by confusion and self doubt. This, I am ashamed to say, often involves flirting wildly with others or blowing hot then cold then desperate, which is not unlike being in Newcastle on a bank holiday. <br />
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I have avoided this behaviour successfully for years by making no attempt to find a partner. There was one marvellous week in Brighton a while ago where I had my cogs oiled by a young buckaroo but really, that was very much the exception rather than the rule. It precipitated a period of sexting which we entered into with gusto for a while, but which ultimately left us dead inside. He mentioned it first and I was grateful to him: the young are so much better with their emotions. So we apologised to each other in a very British way and thankfully we have never waivered simultaneously. We may have started unconventionally, but we provide solid, good old-fashioned and polite penpal services now...you'd never have known...unless one of us is drunk on Sauvignon Blanc or stoned on something smokeable.<br />
So these dreams: As ever my weight was bothering me and so in the first, I seemed to be represented by a chubby friend of mine who is in a long-term relationship. Whilst I slept, she was out and about chatting up all sorts and making overnight dates. When I took her to task, she said that she would never tell her partner because she loved him and would never leave him. But, she said, she needed more than he could give her.<br />
Is that me; wanting to stay true to myself but needing more? Her approach would certainly be a change from my current mantra -' <b>Be Reclusive not Rejected</b>' Yes...If I spread the net wide...a few fish might swim in by mistake.<br />
The second was about an old beau who had turned out to be a charlatan. In the dream, he had left me a note which I was rereading for the first time in years. It contained a flight number and a note encouraging me not to lose faith in him, he just couldn't stay whilst he felt like a fraud. Hmm...this psychotherapy shit might have something. </div>
pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-29762747788889387702014-02-08T00:43:00.001-08:002017-02-20T13:02:11.416-08:00Name My Album...no really!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Hello again Pam Pickers!<br />
<br />
Righty-ho. I got fed up myself with the pop star on the bus story a few weeks back so I will summarise and move on. I will call his band Hellish Twelve and the song, Sensation, just for the purposes of the story.<br />
<br />
<i>Him: What are we doing on this bus?</i><br />
Me: You were here first, you tell me<br />
<i>Him: Haha!Honestly...never known anything like this. Why are we on this bus?I'm not used to stuff like this.</i><br />
Me: (silence....I had been travelling for hours)<br />
<i>Him: I'm not used to stuff like this. I'm in a band.I thought for once, I'd take some time and travel by train and here I am on a bus. Where am I going?</i><br />
Me: Don't you know?<br />
<i>Him: I'm on a bus. I'm just not used to things like this.I'm in a band -you'd know it.</i><br />
Me: (More silence and leaning further toward the aisle)<br />
<i>Him: I was on a train. It was supposed to be a 4 hour journey, then they chuck me off and now I am on a bus. I'm a musician, I am not used to this</i><br />
Me: (The fog is starting to clear) Are you by any chance heading for Birmingham?<br />
<i>Him: Well, Stoke on Trent but you have to change at Birmingham</i><br />
Me: Right, well you are on the replacement bus service between Peterborough and my town. You can pick the train up again from there. They are updating the line.<br />
<i>Him: Oh. I really didn't know why I was on a bus</i><br />
Me: No<br />
<i>Him: I was just on this train and then.</i>.<br />
Me: Yes, you said.<br />
<i>Him: Travelled the world I have, several times.</i><br />
Me: I can imagine. And yet... Stoke?<br />
<i>Him: One of my houses is there. I am in this band</i>..<br />
Me: Oh Go on then...tell me<br />
<i>Him: It's Hellish Twelve</i><br />
Me :Oh hahahaha!. I have your album at home<br />
<i>Him: Sensation has made us millionaires. I own an island in Norway.</i><br />
Me :Yes, it's a classic! But I wouldn't want to live in Norway. Too dark<br />
<i>Him : Oh :(</i><br />
Me: Well, I hope the rest of your journey goes smoothly<br />
<i>Him: You haven't asked for my autograph (mimes signing)</i><br />
Me: No. Not really an autograph hunter<br />
<i>Him: :( </i><br />
Him: I don't like to brag about these things, I like to travel incognito.<br />
Me: Apart from with me<br />
<i>Him: What?</i><br />
Me: You've told me who you are<br />
<i>Him: I wish I hadn't started this.</i><br />
<br />
<br />
Once I got home, I did a bit of Googling in case he was feeding me a line, but no...actually very influential in his field, pictures of him in the actual group that he said he was in and more impressively, before that, he had started one of my favourite bands and inspired a whole musical movement.<br />
Maybe I've missed a trick...maybe he wouldn't be such a knob if sober. I could have got used to Norway, surely? He is still a very handsome man, in a dishevelled and slightly pissed sort of a way.<br />
As an aside, I was at a pub a fortnight ago that had a huge screen with 80's music blaring out of it and I was telling this anecdote to a friend just as Prince finished strutting his stuff. "Oh", I said, "I was chatted up by this bloke from Hellish Twelve..on the bus, Googled him and everything. He said that Sensation made him a millionaire."<br />
I do not lie when I say that at that moment that very song by that very band appeared on the screen and in our ears. Seamlessly, without missing a beat, my mate went<br />
" Oh really, which one?"<br />
"The one on the left"<br />
"Brilliant song. Did you know he started <i>Monkey Leagues</i>?<br />
"Yep (sigh) I could get used to Norway, right? There are sunbeds?"<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-64950808491417341522014-01-05T16:12:00.003-08:002017-02-20T13:02:11.452-08:00Tie a Yellow Ribbon..<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I am waiting for my kids to come home. Not imminently for I
am currently in the pub drinking. Not alcohol you understand, but a pot of tea.
Not the coffee house tea; not the tea that comes in a pot that you can squirrel
away in a mitten if push came to shove, but a great big, heat-preserving pot of
tea that pours enough for four cups through a spout that doesn’t piddle it down
the outside of the cup or even up your arm in the gravity-defying manner that
only tiny chrome teapots can. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I have had 2 croissants to buffet myself against the storm
of offspring to come. They came on separate plates (the croissants, not the
offspring though I am sure that Royal babies are delivered thus and on a Duchy
Original napkin) with separate jam and butter portions and a knife each. They
thought I was ordering for two. Does anyone
ever satisfy a meal-sized hunger with one croissant I wonder? Are those the
ones that can get their jeans on? Clarity is emerging through a fog of
chocolate and pastry now that I am no longer famished by the 14 minute walk
into town. Though, playing devil’s advocate, a croissant fills you up as air would
if it was dusted with icing sugar. Is that what a croissant is,prawn-shaped sticky
air that someone’s thrown wafer thin pastry flakes at…and most of them have
fallen off?<o:p></o:p></div>
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I deserved two…I have trauma coming. I need the sugar. They are returning from 4 days at Dad's!<o:p></o:p></div>
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Approximately 350 days of the year, I bring up three
children by myself…without a break… without let up…without whisky or
anaesthetic. They in turn, never get a break from me and my highly strung panics,
leading to a month or so of box sets. They constantly have to eat food with
absolutely no taste or thought put into it, and minimal preparation though despite
this, it’s generally overcooked. The only thing I will say for myself is that
they constantly complain about the amount of veg they are asked to eat in
comparison to their friends. Tick. Good mother. They are getting at least 4 of
their 5 a day in one sitting though that makes mealtimes less about togetherness, and more a collection of huffs, but I am secure in my good motheryness so that’s fine.
I don’t usually stay in the huff for longer than 20 minutes in any case.</div>
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My
children, have been, by and large…if not self-cleaning –then at least low
maintenance. I’ve never had to use the guarantee. There was a broken wrist at
one point but it really wasn’t a punishable offence so it’s unfair that they
still blame me. I am forever being told
how lucky I am, how I don’t know I am born, how spoiled I am that they are the
way they are, and it’s not only the kids themselves that tell me so. For my part, I suspect
that in order for them to have turned out this way, it took a certain amount of <i>tantrumming</i>, rule setting and expectation from me. (Should newly invented adjectives embrace a double ‘M’? It reminds me of this
year’s Christmas concert where the chap behind me repeatedly sung ‘<b><i>Seven Swims
a-Swanning,</i></b>’ against his will and became quite panicky and upset before finally
saying <i>‘Aw fuck it!</i>’ and embracing the new lyrics) It hasn’t
been easy, being an Earth Mother. It’s a thankless job when no-one is telling them not to speak to
their mother like that, or backing you up in any way butI have been, by and large, quite certain of my path. It’s the one thing that seems to come quite naturally
to me, that I am confident in…boundaries. I have rarely doubted myself. But
now, I seem to have hit a brick wall and it is scary.</div>
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I thought it would be all
downhill from here…feet on the handlebars…feeling groovy. We were through
unscathed. In the next 20 months, one then another will have left for Uni. I
have got them through it. I am almost out of the thicket. True, the nipper has
always been more of a handful and though the 15 momth gap between the elder two
worked well, the 4 year gap between the younger two (in a Venn diagram my son
would be in the overlap) was fabulous but only up to a point. That point is
now. It’s nearly just me and her. Me and her…I know who’ll be in charge and for
the first time in my parenting career, I suspect it won’t be me.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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At my New Year's party this year, one blameless parent (let's call her Pam) saw her golden
boy carried home unconscious due to an overlap in a Venn diagram being filled to the brim with undiluted whisky when he had promised only to paddle in a shallow end of shandy.Shall
I tell you that as he eventually snored his way peacefully through the night watched over by shifts of folk who were supposed to be enjoying
themselves, that <strike>I</strike> Pam had an overwhelming urge to kick the shit out of him? Nah!
It’d make <strike>me </strike>her look bad.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Happy New Year!</div>
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pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-34760745974906465912013-11-13T12:34:00.004-08:002017-02-20T13:02:11.420-08:00Looking for the Obvious<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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My friend is writing this in the third person because my
friend does not want to cry in public and she is sitting in a woodland cafe.. Though, you’d think she’d be used to it by now. Tears are
always burrowing up and under and out before making their way down her face at
a march, at a plod, at a sprint. Some cross the finish-line in ones or twos
whilst others get caught up in a bottleneck then are all spewed out together. Sometimes
she shakes at their escape, sometimes she wants to vomit with the strength of them
but often she doesn’t even notice them until she licks one off her lips. She
doesn’t mind the crying per se. It usually heralds a revelation, some greater
understanding of herself, a hitting of the nail on the head; an end to pain. It dissolves the dull, aching of her head which has obscured
work and thought and sleep.It allows the solution to flow through the bars of the keep and
make its way out of nose, eyes and ears, leaving nothing behind but blessed emptiness, exhaustion,and hunger.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There is a key to the headaches, to the inability to
motivate herself, to this unending cycle of weeping and pain, release and
fatigue, but she can never remember where she put it. The motto on its fob says “If it’s nothing else, then it must be the obvious’, With a small
adaptation, this also works for things you’ve lost <br />
“If it’s nowhere else, it must be in the obvious place’, never fails.
It allows you to return to where you know the item should be several times before
discovering it was there all along. Let me demonstrate: If you have lost your
favourite mug and it isn’t beside your bed where you drank your last fennel tea
of the day, and it isn’t in the bathroom, where you put it down to brush your
teeth, and it isn’t in the dishwasher, then it’s in the mug
cupboard without a shadow of a doubt.. No matter that you’ve looked in there six
times before, no matter that you only just had it in your hand. Move something
aside, squint from a new angle to the dark bit in the corner –the mug’ll be there…I guarantee it.Or rather,my friend will guarantee it. It’s the same with her headaches. The remedy for the headaches is
not a migraine tablet, nor a hot water bottle, not even (as her osteopath had assured
her) Cold! Cold! Hot! - a cold flannel on the forehead, a
cold flannel on the neck and a hot water bottle on the tummy, all directing
blood flow away from the head. It wasn’t avoiding chocolate, embracing a hot
bath or indulging in meditation. No, it was hitting the nail on the head and
having a bloody good cry.<br />
<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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So, she searched her head while The Obvious played a game of
Hide-and-Seek.. It obscured itself behind petty squabbles, faint niggles and Big
Questions She examined the events of the past few days and weeks, which put her poor, aching head under more strain. Sometimes, she thought she was
getting warmer, when in fact she was very cold indeed. The absence of tears was telling her she'd been looking in the wrong place.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Let’s go back a few days to when my friend stood in a perishing
autumn field, watching her son play football for the first time in 2 years. Why
she doesn’t do that more often is for another day. Now, it is enough to know that on Sunday, she was a football Mom. She was cold,
but she was proud. She watched his long legs looking goose-bumped and wiry and
noticed that the new boots he’d bought with the £40 she’d given him were
exactly the same £20 boots that he said he wouldn’t be seen dead in when she’d
described them over the phone from TK Maxx. Her boy; her lovely, handsome,
blond, clever, mother-loving, grumpy, slightly whiffy in a (nearly) 17 year-old
sort of a way, son. !7! Sheesh! <br />
She
realised that she very rarely got to participate in his life and the things
that meant something to him. She was having a rare and privileged glimpse into his
world and she realised as she clapped gloved hands together on that patch of
green, that once another two years had passed, she’d have lost him to
university. Everything would be irrevocably changed. She shed a tear. No
mystery there. A mother grieving for a son not yet lost. She had already grieved the loss of her first born baby; a daughter who had turned 18 a few months
beforehand.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the Monday after the Sunday, my friend fulfilled her role as a child.
She is a Youth Advocate. She harnesses the wishes and feelings of children and
then attends meetings that last all day with the child’s family. She stands in
for the child, ensuring always that its voice is heard.
Usually that family is at war. It’s a fraught job and an emotive one but
ultimately satisfying. Often, she notices a headache on the day she is to
attend a meeting, or the day afterwards. She knows she gets over involved; over
identifies. Sometimes, such as this time, it leads her to be thoughtless towards
adults, so anxious is she to make them hear the child for the first time. She
knows that’s the child in her, asking to be recognised. Afterwards, she feels
the need to be punished for insulting her elders. She calls herself stupid. She
feels the familiar sway of vertigo; an ungrounding, an anxiety…an obscuring of
her vision in the middle of her right eye; a misshapen fly in the ointment.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Luckily, a GCSE presentation that same evening, kept
her occupied. Afterwards, she thought about the family-at war and the children
with the long eye-lashes and the wicked stepmother. She didn’t want to see them
in her sleep and so stayed up too late watching TV. No surprise then, that the
migraine was between stations when she woke up. Regardless, she managed to
speak to several children in crisis and tried to look after herself. She bought
herself a pure new wool-and-cashmere coat in a second-hand shop between visits.
She ate Paracetamol and Ibuprofen as though they were Smarties. She drank coffee because it was worth a try.<br />
That
evening, she tried to explain the headache into dissolution by chatting to a
friend. This almost always works –giving the headache a voice of its own. But
still, the pain lingered as they chatted on about work, damp proof paint, gigs
and football matches. By this morning things were much worse because they were
stuck. Sinuses were blocked, her head was filled with barbed cotton wool and
she was dragging her body around the house as though every limb were filled
with coal. Her bones ached. She reluctantly cancelled work for the day to give
herself time to sift through the obvious places of her mind. She was in crisis.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The woods have always been like a warm bath to my friend.
They release her mental blocks she tells me, and provide her with clean air and
support. Once, she said, she held onto a leaf that sprung from a hazel, as though she were a
child holding its mother’s hand, and cried until there was nothing left for pain
to stuff itself with. Today, she was relieved to be among her woody friends. She
walked in silence and breathed deeply… still nothing; not guilt, not the
anxious children of her working day. She wondered if she could afford to give
up this type of work. She couldn’t go on with migraines, no-one would expect it
of her. As it was,my friend wondered how she was going to pay the bills when
her maintenance dropped and tax credits halved? Would her three babies have
their childhood home to come home to? Her
nose tingled and she felt the wax melt in her ears. The sinuses gave up their
grip on her breath and now she knew she’d been looking in the wrong place. She
thought of her son leaving home and the tears tunnelled furiously upwards
through blocked canals. She thought of losing the home her children grew up in and
the tears exploded like a geyser; cheeks and gloves covered in snot and despair. She thought of how
change had come for her children and their mother. She waded through mud,
sobbing. She clung to her life yet grieved for its loss. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
She hadn’t let
herself notice that the first year without her daughter would be the last year
with her son. A journey filled with loss was about to begin and she didn't want to go.
She knew not how to save her house which was fed on alimony. She didn’t think she
could earn enough. To lose her home and her children would be unbearable. She couldn't navigate this new world all by herself. She had been looking in the wrong place.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-83285619021301697152013-11-07T14:38:00.001-08:002017-02-20T13:02:11.470-08:00..Lead us not into... (part 1)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
I recently travelled from here to there on a bus, two trains
and a tube. The last leg was a replacement coach service. There weren’t many
seats available - a single here and a single there perhaps. As I boarded, a man
signalled to me before pointing eagerly to the chair next to him. ‘Sit here,
sit here’ he said as though we were old friends on a magical mystery tour. I
imagined jam sandwiches in tin foil squashed into a doughy mess in his pocket.
He looked a little older than me but not unattractive. A tad scruffy
perhaps…fingerless gloves always have a touch of the Steptoe about them I think.
He was wiry and bearded, and wearing a beanie. It’s my opinion that if a hat of any description is worn by a man when
it isn’t absolutely necessary (…on a bus for example) it’s probably hiding a
degree of baldness. Well, that’s what I imagine anyway. If only they knew they were worrying about nothing.
If only they knew that we women don’t care. We don’t give a freaking or
proverbial monkey’s about hair once we are past a certain age, because we are
too busy worrying about whether the sexy bald guy has noticed the size of our
arse. Men who actually suit hats, are
young enough to have a full head of hair and are wearing the hat to celebrate.
Tufts of it are usually escaping coquettishly here or there. By the bye, if it’s
actually snowing, feel free to wear the hat. It makes sense. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anyway, my newest companion was wearing fingerless gloves
and a beanie on the bus. He smelt vaguely of several days’ travel without a
flannel and I have watched enough detective dramas to clock a 3 day-old 5 o’clock
shadow. There was something about the droop of his eyelids and childlike
excitement at a Sunday night coach trip, that led me to believe he was pissed. I channelled my inner Benedict
Cumberbatch (always an entertaining night) and deduced that the man-child had,
in all likelihood, been keeping himself topped up without over-spilling, for
the duration of his journey. He was incredibly annoying but quite famous in quite
an impressive yet terribly naff sort of a way.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ll tell you more tomorrow…or the next day…maybe.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-68470103735831762882013-11-06T14:49:00.002-08:002017-02-20T13:02:11.458-08:00The Man on The Bus Part 1<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
I recently travelled from here to there on a bus, two trains and a tube. The last leg of the journey involved a replacement coach service. By the time that I There weren’t many
seats a single here and there. As I boarded, a man signalled to me
before pointing eagerly to the chair next to him. ‘Sit here, sit here’ he said
as though we were old friends on a magical mystery tour. I imagined jam
sandwiches in tin foil heating through in his pocket. He looked a little older
than me but not unattractive. A tad scruffy perhaps…fingerless gloves always
have a touch of the Steptoe about them I think. He was wiry and bearded, with a
beanie hat. If a hat of any description is worn by a man when it isn’t
absolutely necessary (on a bus for example) it’s probably hiding baldness to a
greater or lesser extent. Let me just tell you now gents, that you are worrying
about nothing because we don’t really care. We don’t give a freaking or
proverbial monkey’s about hair once we are past a certain age, because we are
too busy worrying about whether the sexy bald guy has noticed the size of our
arse. Give yourself and everyone else a break. The only chaps I know who
actually suit hats, are young enough to have a full head of hair and only wear
the hat to draw attention to it.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-27186573328728416172013-11-03T08:05:00.001-08:002017-02-20T13:02:11.412-08:00Back for Good (ness Knows How long)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well Pamsters<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have missed you. I
have had writers block for some time now, and I think it’s because I have been
denying myself the indulgence of my blog. I may not be back for good, but I am back for now.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s been a while. What have I been doing? Well, I can tell
you what I absolutely haven’t been doing and that is writing a book.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve
thought about it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve known I can do it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have the bones of it, but then I’ve
had them for a year. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now I’ve taken to singing ‘Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem Dry Bones! whilst playing the spoons and eating industrial quantities of chocolate because
as I’ve said, what I absolutely haven’t been doing with Dem Dry Bones is....</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
writing De Damn Book.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But, on the positive
side, I have been learning an awful lot about myself and working out what else
I want from life. Life is coming into focus which makes me feel that at 48, l
am finally ready to have one. Hurrah for me. ..cream teas and scones all round.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Men have been a recurring theme this summer and I won’t bore
you with the details, but mostly I have been absolutely clear about what I don’t
want, what I refuse to put up with and what I do need from a relationship...progress
indeed. This of course means that meaningless sex is mostly off the agenda but
absolutely award-winning when conditions are favourable. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So this summer, I have found myself saying things like</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I
don’t think you can give me what I need in a relationship, but for now, this is
what I want from you…Can you comply?” and, </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Before I agree to that, I need a guarantee of this” and </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I think that you are trying to make this
problem of yours, into a problem of mine; whereas I am very clear that you have
created said problem and have to live with the consequences. Please do not call
again until you have sorted yourself out” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
and occasionally, I say this “ “, because I cannot
relieve the knots that people tie themselves into nor do I need to.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All of
these things happened with people who wanted to ‘tell me how they felt about me’.
Who’d have thought that realising that none of them felt very much about me but obsessed with themselves, could make me feel more attractive rather than
less? Certainly knowing yourself and having confidence is a powerful
aphrodisiac. Now I just have to find someone worthy of me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, what is it that men
saw in me over a summer that they never saw before? A few words came up over
and again, some of them I will keep to myself and savour in the late nights,
but overwhelmingly it was this word ‘RELAXED’ . It is true then. Confidence is the
best makeover you can give yourself. My bum is as big as it has ever been. I
can’t get into last year’s clothes, but I know myself.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have never walked through life hand in hand with another person who has offered me support. I have never been able to offer unconditional love nor to recognise and accept it. I have not known how to love.I have not had that skill. I really hope that will change now .<br />
This entry will disappear tomorrow for it is self indulgent but I needed to write it and send it off for me. Like a letter to Santa.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-39838001883700203822013-09-29T15:33:00.000-07:002017-02-20T13:02:11.441-08:00Come on In, and Close the Door.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Welcome Home.<br />
<br />
I have had a tremendous urge to return home to my blog. Life has been happening to me whilst I have been busy making other plans, but at last it hasn't all gone by unnoticed.I live in the moment much more than I used to. It feels to me as though I've used a riddle on all of those ideas that used to fire out of me like I was vomiting confetti and so I have managed to sift through them.Most of them dropped straight out the bottom and landed on the gravel driveway before being carried off on the bottom of someone's wellies,or borne away by the wind to dissolve in a stream, or were hoovered off the footwell of an Fiat Uno. But a handful of sturdy bits remained clinging to the grid like surface and these are they.<br />
<br />
learning to cook<br />
running/cycling<br />
meditation/buddhism<br />
WRITING<br />
moving house/home<br />
finding a partner/like minded people.</div>
pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-23222672423588036812013-03-18T01:42:00.004-07:002017-02-20T13:02:11.401-08:00The Sadness of Trudy's Dad: Part 4<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Once her husband, who had escaped a hero’s death, died from fury,
Trudy’s grandmother married the quiet widower next door. It seemed to the
neighbours of that close community, that they had crept home from the Register
Office with utilitarian smiles and sprays of heather, only minutes after her
husband clutched his chest with one hand and the table cloth with the other. In
those last minutes, he had been sure it was the only thing standing in the way of his
death, and so he had let it go. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There was speculation of course that the affair was going on
long before the heart attack occurred, even that the bereaved couple had
engineered it somehow, but no-one could prove anything . Though it was equally true
that one or two wondered where she’d have had the opportunity since the brute had
had eyes in the back of his head.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The truth was that as Arthur grieved for his lack of a
wife, he had heard the thumps and the bumps and the sobs refracting through
walls; a shard of violet disappointment piercing the mantle-piece, a shot of yellow iodine streaking across his radio, the red curve of denial filling his living room with blood and overarching hopelessness . How could anyone have something so precious and
treat it so cruelly? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With little else to do except work, he had kept an eye out for
his unfortunate neighbour. He’d watch the sadistic bastard come home from the
pub, fag ash balanced on his lip like a diver lost his nerve. Arthur could hear
the singing turn into the street followed by cursing. He felt the house next door hold its breath. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He and Aggie had lived a childless life. He often found himself shaking off the ridiculous notion that his children had been placed in the wrong house. It was an easy mistake to make - only a digit out.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The first time she noticed him was when she stood in the front
garden with tears and a cloth soaked in antiseptic.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Her husband had passed out face down on the bed, stinking of his own piss and unhappiness, which had
given her time to attend to the desolation of her children. Her sons had
thumped muffled fists into pillows and finally exhausted themselves with the effort
of silencing tears. Later, she would
sleep upright in the chair.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Arthur had appeared in the dark with silent support and tea
laced with rum. Saying, nothing at all, he took the cloth from her hands and
hung it over the fence between them before gently closing her fingers round the
mug. Then he left, leaving his door slightly ajar
to allow a comforting glow in his stead.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-44620223376312395802013-03-16T16:02:00.001-07:002017-02-20T13:02:11.447-08:00The Sadness of Trudy's Dad: Part 4<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Once her husband, who had escaped a hero’s death, died from fury,
Trudy’s grandmother married the quiet widower next door. It seemed to the
neighbours of that close community, that the two of them had crept home from the Register
Office with utilitarian smiles and sprays of heather, only minutes after her
husband clutched his chest with one hand and the table cloth with the other. In those last minutes it was the only thing standing in
the way of his death, and so he let it go. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There was speculation of course that the affair was going on
long before the heart attack occurred, even that they engineered it somehow,
but no-one could prove anything . They wondered where she’d have had the opportunity since the brute had eyes in the
back of his head.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The truth was simple. As Arthur grieved for his
lack of a wife, he had heard the thumps and the bumps and the sobs refracting
through his wall; a shard of violet disappointment, a shot of yellow iodine, the green
curve of denial with a hint of blood and overarching hopelessness. How could anyone have something so precious and
treat it so cruelly? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With little else to do except work, he kept an eye out for
his unfortunate neighbour. He’d watch the bastard come back from the
pub, fag ash balanced on his lip like a diver lost his nerve. Arthur could hear
the singing from the bottom of the street and then the cursing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The first time she noticed him was when she stood in the
front garden with tears and a bruise and a cloth smelling of antiseptic that
she had used to bathe the stinging scars of her son.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-23279218271185124802013-03-07T14:33:00.000-08:002017-02-20T13:02:11.405-08:00The Sadness of Trudy's Dad: Part 3<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<br />
Trudy’s father, like all 7 year olds, saw monsters under the bed. They had stethoscopes and needles and white coats, and masks full of gas that brought never-ending darkness.<br />
<div>
But there were angels too. Their starched aprons were filled with brisk cuddles for a little boy so utterly alone and desperately ill though no-one knew why. In her father’s child-like world, there was only himself and the stuff of nightmares. He spent his young years un-mothered and un-brothered in sterile corridors where pockets of comfort were laced with terror, exhaustion and pain; trapped in a nether world. </div>
<div>
His mother never quite got the hang of him being away but she stopped fretting so much because at least he was being cared for. Instead, she presided over illness and unrelenting viciousness in her own home with soup and cigarettes. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
When Trudy’s father returned home to his wife and children, he often felt overwhelmed with love and luck and determination. But at others he could see only what he could lose in his never-ending fight with death and his anger grew.</div>
<div>
It grew and he fed it and he knew what it should look like because he’d seen it in the shine of the buckle and heard it in the screams of his brother. He’d seen it in the chipped cup that held the tea-time whisky and in the cowering of his mother as she tried to squeeze past the dining table unnoticed. He fanned it and he flamed it; but because he felt nothing but gentleness towards his wife (who mothered him at last) and his healthy children, he railed instead at the TV; at politicians; at unfairness and injustice and at his faceless illness. </div>
<div>
But all the while, the clock was ticking and he lived on, forgetting that the life he had was precious and he was missing it by staying alive, and furious. </div>
</div>
pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-39015453899060780832013-03-01T00:31:00.000-08:002017-02-20T13:02:11.436-08:00The Sadness of Trudy's Dad: Part 2<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
She could put on a really good show though, could Trudy's mum. Her handsome, gentle husband would never have approved of such petulance and she couldn't face his disappointment. So, she would let her big, bad wolf out whilst he was at work and stuff it quickly under a cushion the minute that she heard his
key in the lock.<br />
Trudy looked forward to the end of the day because it not only
meant that she could see her dad, but that they’d all start a game of pretend; pretend to be safe. She discovered that she could actually be happy, just by pretending – as long as she never let her guard down.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Before her dad even knew who
he was, he was ill for the very first time though no one knew why - even when the doctors looked and
shook and took his temperature. His mother ignored it at first, thinking that
he was attention in a house that couldn't spare it. Then when he got none and still nothing had changed,
she would stay up all night at
his bedside fretting. She was to become an expert at fretting since his younger
brothers would be ill in a year or two, each with their own illnesses to baffle the doctors with.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Her husband was not much help. He
came back from the war an angry man made
angrier. In those dark days when fathers and husbands were strength without weakness, he buried those terrible foreign memories alongside his cold and harsh
childhood and they festered there unnoticed till they seized a belt by the soft
end and lashed his sons with the buckle for no particular reason.<br />
Trudy’s
father was the second of 4 brothers The
eldest, who was not ill and not always in a hospital bed being poked and
prodded and examined, was lashed enough for both of them. In time, he was
lashed for 4 as spines grew longer and limbs grew twisted and doctors would have seen the welts.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-3827743084453576512013-02-21T13:04:00.000-08:002017-02-20T13:02:11.425-08:00The Sadness of Trudy's Dad - Part 1<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Trudy never knew if her father was coming home. Sometimes he
did and sometimes he didn’t. Sometimes he’d turn up unexpectedly, swaddled in
blankets and wheeled through the squeaky gate into air that was thick with
concern, only for him to disappear again without notice when she was at school.
Sometimes there were months in between, sometimes days and too often, hours.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He’d sometimes cry a lot and look a funny colour. It had
been this way since she was small. Well, not really small. When she was really
small, they were a proper family and very often, happy. She had the photos to prove it. A perfect 25
year old with drainpipe jeans, shoes that were built to pick winkles, a skinny white
T-shirt and a quiff the girls must have gone wild over.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 115%;"> He married at 22 and by 23 he was devoted to
two little girls. One was brand new and squeaky clean with a shock of black
hair, and the other was 22. Her mother
knew she had a rival. That’s why she couldn’t quite love her. Later, she was to
look at the freckle faced 4 year old, bouncing on the sofa in anticipation of
his return from work and she knew. She knew that despite the washing and the
ironing and the having moved so far away from her family; that he would come
home dirty and tired with eyes for someone else and nothing left for her and she
hated both of them for that. </span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When was her life to start?</span></span><br />
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">She had only had him to herself for 18 months. Proud and happy, she left that family where her cold mother had survived the war with the taste for work, leaving her eldest daughter to bring up the rest. Trudy’s mother was a woman whose childhood had barely started. As a result she could still throw a spectacular tantrum. Now that she had some power at last, she would pinch the other kids in the house and did not shy away from giving them a swift and sneaky kick. </span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; line-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Since she had had to share every private moment, even night’s sleep, every ribbon and pair of shoes with 4 siblings, now she refused to share anything at all, not even with her own child. Moreover nothing, <b>nothing </b>was ever her fault. Sometimes, she would lie awake all night, forcing the facts into something that didn’t resemble the truth of the matter; like a magician twisting balloon animals, or making a balloon hat. Trudy’s mother was an expert at making her appalling behaviour into a hat. And even then, the hat wasn’t hers. In this way she remained the heroine of a storybook filled with the inexplicable behaviour of others. In this way, she hid from herself.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-57774986728077752132013-02-20T12:49:00.005-08:002017-02-20T13:02:11.449-08:00The Sadness of Trudy's Dad<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
After a break of a year<br />
I am returning to Blogger with a new project. I am </div>
pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-84409146461952367412012-12-28T02:15:00.001-08:002017-02-20T13:02:11.476-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-1834673979413466812012-11-14T03:28:00.001-08:002017-02-20T13:02:11.397-08:00Hey SK!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
Dear SK<br />
I'm resisting the urge to ask how you again are feeling and to imagine you with all sorts of emotions that you may not have. The experience is yours alone; tell it or not.<br />
<br />
I'm not quite sure how I am going to get this letter to you, nor how you will feel about it when I do. Furthermore my spacebar is only working intermittently so writing it as well as reading it will have its challenges. Oh, and one of my fingers has stopped moving. It's a bit like an engine that won't turn over though it starts eventually and it clicks whenever I use it, which makes me squeamish.<br />
Anyhoo, typing finger, spacebar and nausea aside, I will press on.<br />
<br />
The time is 3.20am and I woke in a cold sweat an hour ago after dreaming of pythons being delivered to a married couple in a lift. Lots of constricted breathing, purple faces and syringes later (in the dream that is), the couple tried to murder each other. The wife got away thinking she’d killed him but the husband had only dashed down the fire escape to have her declared insane. If that's not my marriage in a nutshell, then I don’t know what is.<br />
Anyway, the dream has done me a favour, because upon waking I suddenly realised what I have been wrestling to get a hold of in my brain since we met. Bear with me.....<br />
<br />
I have a commission from the local aspirational magazine to write that piece we discussed about Couchsurfing...700 words. This is significant because I finally decided to give up worrying about getting a job, to have some confidence and to put all my energies into writing. Do or die, now or never. Many people encouraged me to do so and it's a real relief to give in to it, just as you finally made me believe you on another matter entirely. The magazine was the first I approached after my decision and they accepted immediately and so this gives me heart. The Editor is a published author himself and very complimentary of my writing as is an academic I know. I have decided to believe them too.<br />
<br />
I am sure many people more accomplished than I have asked you this already,( and I don't know if you'd be interested at all so soon after the journey), but when you are ready, how would you feel about telling the story of your walk with a view to getting it published? Not for my local rag (though I will give the link for donations) but as a piece of journalism for a bigger newspaper or magazine or in book form as a record of th journey. I'd have to pitch it but it'd be a learning curve for me. You have such great stories to tell and the walk hit a note with so many people that I am certain there’s an audience for it; (and you may also raise more cash along the way) the river- floating, the busty 60 year olds on their way to serve at a Beerfest, the eccentrics in the country home; the reason you walked out one midsummer morning in the first place. It would serve as a record for you and the family too. It would also be great to chat to some of the people you met and stayed with along the way for their view of being part of such a journey. I really think I'd do it justice. But if I don't then someone should.<br />
<br />
Would you be interested? If nothing else, it might spark a major newspaper to pick up the story ( if they haven't already) and increase awareness, but that may not be something you’d want to happen. Have a think. You may simply want to move on,or wait till time has passed or are resolved to write it yourself or or...<br />
<br />
In the interests of full disclosure, I will reinstate some of my blog posts so that you can see what I can do.<br />
<br />
As for the mechanics of it, I would go at your pace, by your timetable and whatever method you prefer -phone, Skype,email, plain old letters.. whatever.<br />
<br />
As you know, your visit was significant to me and you seem to have that effect on people. Your wall is covered in similar sentiments which is why I know there would be interest. You seem to bring out the poetry in people, all of whom are so eloquent about what you achieved.<br />
<br />
<br />
If I have been cheeky and presumptuous then forgive me and I hope it hasn't ruined a friendship however remote.<br />
I hope you are well and have recovered physically at any rate. If there's any justice, you'll now get a bit squidgy round the edges like the rest of us.<br />
<br />
Eat more biscuits.<br />
<br />
Much Love<br />
L x<br />
<br />
PS. Still working on being Parisienne with a different date looming. I have even bought a hat ! My daughter says I look like a gay man in it, but then I did buy it in Brighton :)<br />
<br />
www.postcardpam.blogspot.co.uk<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-13209600444106040692012-05-25T11:32:00.002-07:002017-02-20T13:02:11.387-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
"What is it that caught your Emotionation in that film?" I misheard but what a fabulous word! It really does capture a feeling, an experience. I have decided to invent it.</div>pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-44474991908860025592012-05-12T14:53:00.001-07:002017-02-20T13:02:11.444-08:00Eating My Egg With a Spoon<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
On Thursday, a woman had an Egg; or the Egg had a woman, the nuances were never clear.<br />
<br />
She never did eat her Egg with a spoon but it was one of those things that was always a possibility, at the back of her mind.<br />
<br />
She was saving it for a treat.<br />
<br />
To the woman, Eggs were comfort food, giving sustenance and support - and they were loyal.<br />
<br />
Even when she boiled them.<br />
<br />
<br />
They really were great like that..Eggs. They noticed her and worked around her silently. They plotted where she was in the kitchen just as she had marked them on her map and then they orbited around each other, mutually appreciative.<br />
<br />
She would sometimes talk to them as you would to plants, telling the creamiest of them that she recognised the special care he gave her and how that made her feel Queen of The Eggs; that because of this, she would be attentive to his shell, not drop him nor separate his yolk from white; that Eggs were as safe with her as she knew she was with them..........<br />
And how gloriously golden their yolks were! How wonderfully smooth to the touch were their shells. They really didn't care that her knees creaked as much as the fridge door or that she was wearing trousers two sizes too big which meant that the crotch was around her knees making cycling proficiency a nightmare. The days when she was as fresh as an Egg herself were drawn far, far into the background of a past hazily sketched. Yet you could read on their settled posture that the Eggs saw nothing of these things. They saw ....her.<br />
<br />
On Friday, something small crawled into her stomach and sat their uneasily, unwanted and unwelcome. It was defiant and vociferous, rendering her unable to sleep. It caused her so much pain that each time it moved -which was frequently for it could not seem to get comfortable - involuntary tears would swim upwards over the ladder of her windpipe, push forwards and tumble out over her grieving eyes to fall into the pools gathering around the rocks of her lips and chin.<br />
<br />
And the fridge was empty.<br />
<br />
Her Eggs had left behind the scent of their regret. Death by Spoon was exquisite but forbidden and so they had left with tiny cracks in their shells.<br />
<br />
It was her legacy.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-38288172179983411722012-05-11T15:32:00.002-07:002017-02-20T13:02:11.429-08:00Egg and Spoon<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-83735475596634555622012-05-11T15:24:00.003-07:002017-02-20T13:02:11.473-08:00Can't take my eyes off you...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<br />
Until it doesn't hurt so much,<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I will let Damien say goodbye for me.</div>pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-39167353537325857152012-04-20T02:24:00.000-07:002017-02-20T13:02:11.439-08:00Postcard Pam's Weird Weekend<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
POSTCARD PAM’S WEIRD WEEKEND<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is weird. I have been looking forward to it for so
long. Sitting on a train with nothing to do but write and paint my nails. Instead
I have anxiety. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The thing is that I had been feeling quite good about myself;
By and large; when all is said and done; relatively speaking.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have lost some of
the weight I gained. I am back into some of the clothes that remind me of who I
am. People are fond of calling me ‘bohemian’. Apparently it suits me. I have
stopped fighting it for I recognise myself.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Several lifetimes ago
when I was in my New Romantic year, I would be stood-standing at a bus stop in
a frilly shirt or be walking through town in knickerbockers when the ‘yoof’ of
my youth would call out ‘Peace man’, giving the standard John Lennon Salute
with two inoffensive fingers.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I didn’t feel
insulted; more baffled, violated even. I’d
been hiding myself so carefully.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe that’s what I have done in the past 24 hours, hidden
myself and it has caused me anxiety and a longing to turn the clock back 14
hours; to be the person that I was then; the one who liked herself, finally.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Instead I am sitting on a train looking as though I’d been
Tangoed. They promised me in the salon
this would not happen. But it has
happened and worse, there are two white panda circles where the crumpled bags
under my eyes are, so it has highlighted those to great effect. The thing is, I
felt good about my ageing face yesterday. Liked it even; appreciated that it
was the face of a nice woman in her 40’s, not an orange woman looking like some
terrible caricature of a lush. It has aged me 10 years.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In this train, I can hear an echo of blended voices demanding to know why, if I am so bloody
perfect, did I have it done at all? Well I’ll tell you. I am not perfect, I am
just accepting. I am learning to be accepting but sometimes I have setbacks,
especially when there’s a £15 offer on and it is something I have never tried
before (suggestions anticipated)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
During a setback, it occurred to me that although my face (and
neck) looked tanned and happy from my
new job as postie - and the lower two
thirds of my arms similarly so - when I
am naked, I look as though I am still wearing a white T-shirt and leggings.
That, Dear Reader, is not an image to linger in the mind after 3 children and a
lot of cake.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(I’ve just had a cinnamon swirl for elevenses and it’s 8.50am)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anyway, cutting a long story short – strapless frocks and
strappy tops are to be worn this weekend, if not pencil skirts with thigh high
splits and all of the above ending just below the knee. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My mother has a favourite refrain when she talks of my daughter’s
beauty:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Thank goodness she doesn’t have your short tree trunk legs”
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>I try to love her, I
really do</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The aforementioned forest favourites are currently covered
in scrapes, grazes, bruises and cuts. The reasons for this are many and varied
when looked at in detail, but if I paint you a picture with a wallpapering
brush, it quickly reveals work-related incidents. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A fight with a bicycle pedal<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A fight with a bicycle stand<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A slip on wet floor tiles in an Italian restaurant that I
was delivering to (that one really hurt and I didn’t even get a free meal
though I have heard that their chicken dishes are to die for)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A fight with a bicycle and a hedge<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A slip on a wet manhole cover<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A fall down some wet tiled steps on Nutter’s Way! I mean….Why
would you? Floor tiles are for <b>inside</b>,
and even then only if they have some ridges to protect against aquaplaning.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
An incident involving a bicycle chain and a trapped shoelace
(I don’t like to revisit that memory too often. It makes me tired.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The resulting injuries brought me to the conclusion that an
all over tan, would at least make the bruises less obvious. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It has, because people can’t take their eyes off my Jaffa Self.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am planning to stay
in the shower for a very long time when I arrive up North. I may not have time
to speak to my parents before I set off to my party 9 hours later because I
will be scrubbing my face. I may have to wear a backless frock and a balaclava.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think I left it on too long. They advised me over and over
not to panic as the colour deepened as it would all wash off to an all over
glow in the shower and furthermore, they said
it may come off on the bed sheets. I
took this as an instruction to have a night’s sleep. So, I slept in the tan
rather than set my alarm for 2 in the morning when it was due to come off, and
I was up at 5.30 in any case.. To be fair, everywhere else is passable.
Certainly I enjoy a bit of colour (however uneven) on my legs. I have also
woken up with 2 (count ‘em…2!!) cold sores and there’s obviously the gum boil and
chronic infection in my tooth to contend with.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Oh yes! It’ll be a triumphant return home. . I am
such a catch for some lucky, lucky fellow of indeterminate years and hair
possession.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Actually, I generally go for slightly younger men, but this
shade of orange would just tip me right over into the category of stereotypical. Boycie's, 'Marleeeen!' I’d just
need a leopard print wrap dress, matching high heels , hot pink lippy and
earrings as big as budgies.<br />
If I lift up my buttocks (stop retching you
lot in your 20’s, it’ll happen to you too!) there are white lines cupping them
from underneath like hammocks where the tan didn’t reach, and a little 6 inch
line round my waist where I presume the spare tyre folds over. Just on one
side! I wonder if I’ve had a stroke and not noticed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Stay classy San Diego!” <img src="https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTE83qN3ZWmO1zeexpxRlLzEvYxaGn97OmKHaNlP9tNsjAU53rO" /> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508379715916638408.post-23653184003586835922012-04-09T13:26:00.001-07:002017-02-20T13:02:11.408-08:00My Men and Their Music<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Not sure how long I can keep up this postie-ing. I have been too tired to blog. I have missed you all loads and want to tell you all sorts, but if I ain't walking, I'm asleep. It's 8.45 and I have been in bed for half an hour, and this despite having been to work once in the last 5 days. It takes an awful lot of chocolate and sleep to deliver the mail.<br />
Still, good old Kate, over at <a href="http://katetakes5.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/listography-top-5-albums-by-male-solo.html">Kate Takes 5</a>, has The Best 5 albums by male solo artists as her Listography topic today and it means I can indulge without overtaxing myself. And it's one of my favourite subjects...music.<br />
<br />
So, here we go and the undisputed crown goes to:<br />
<br />
1. John Martyn - Solid Air : It's been giving me goosebumps for 30 years. Nuff said.<img height="195" src="https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQxRUndh0fv1uF6HUqFhmikI42k6vZwIXkF79zsb1qnNYyqcm6bDQ" width="200" /><br />
<br />
<br />
Runners up are:<br />
<br />
<img src="https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTp2C00MolZ4Eiq3yubO5XIzwLL7oYyuZbSBB1PXWwHrS6ITqe5" /><br />
<br />
2. Sorry, but it has to be done, I dance to this till I've worn a hole in the carpet, which reminds me.....<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
3. I went to see this next one at the cinema when I was 18 and got so excited that I opened a family sized bag of Revels with too much enthusiasm and showered the two rows in front with chocolate like it was an exploding pinata! To my teenage self, he was a brimful of pulsating sexuality...Grrrr!!<br />
<img height="197" src="http://media.jukebo.com/a444/a57603.jpg" width="200" /> Fanfrikkin'tastic!<br />
<br />
4. <img src="data:image/jpeg;base64,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" /> OMG! Legend! Altogether now<br />
<br />
"<span style="font-size: large;">SWEET CAROLINE.BaM!bAM! bAAA!!!"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<br />
5. <img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/09/Stanleyroad.jpg" /> Gorgeous memories of a stiflingly long hot summer in 1995, pregnant with my first child and eating lots of Orange ice lollies. I still quite liked my ex then and he would drive me round the beautiful Rutland countryside in the early evening so I could catch a bit of breeze and we'd listen to Stanley Road.<br />
Fabulous :)<br />
<br />
I'll enjoy reading yours and thanks to Kate for giving me the most pleasurable hour I've had in a long time :)<br />
<br />
<br /></div>pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219309064660143026noreply@blogger.com9