For all the Frazelled Mothers

Contemplating marriage and bring up children after being told I was just full of frills on my puffed up fairy life and that I had no understanding of reality (I took this as a compliment I have to say) I watched the Richard Dimbleby Lectures given by Michael Morpugo (my hero of gentle thought) and was inspired. His ‘The Butterfly Lion’ gave me faith in how I look at things and as soon as I can I’m going to buy ‘The Kites are Flying’ that he based his lecture around. His books are written for children but defiantly have adults in mind.

            Well I woke up grumpy one morning this week and by hook or by crook I want to stay grumpy. I deserved at least that, don’t I? I have a right to be how I feel, don’t I?? I feel surly and cantankerous, wizened and old and life-just don’t ever play fair!! My children said this is because I’m not getting what I want! ‘You receive as a parent’ I told them in that surly tone I have when frazzled, ‘that what you gave as a child!!!! So be careful’ I warned them. With a backward glance one of them in a quiet voice and under their breath replied ‘well you should know’ Anyhow it’s not as though I’m asking for the impossible, or am I? All I want is five minutes peace. But there again it is the summer holidays when mothers turn into entertainers extraordinaire, adding to their many talents.

            But my fairy just won’t let me be, she fly’s around my thoughts and always lands at some point as a smile upon my face. You might say this is a good thing, that being grumpy is a bad thing to be but sometimes you need to vent and people definitely need to know you also have limits but The Fairy just don’t see it that way. My fairy is a beautiful flight of fancy with frills with a puffed up attitude to life, you just have to read some of my poems and stories to see that. She sees life in such a fanciful way with no basis in reality or that’s what I was told the other day. Is this true? If you read carefuly there is a large dose of reality in her fluff and frills? Those trappings only make the bitter pill of life a little easier to swallow.

            So what was making me grumpy and why on earth did I want to stay in that state? Do you know, I can’t remember, so lost was I in another flight of fancy of Michael Morpurgo words. A man who has seen at first hand the devastation humans can do to one another and yet humanity still survives and love carries on. If he can see the beauty that can be had, surely I can!

            There are people right now starving, hiding from danger watching as others suffer so the rich can thrive. There will be many; who will be given bad news about a disease which will not be cured. Some will be harmed through another’s hand. All these things have touched me, indirectly or directly.

            For all of you out there that face these issues I pay homage to your tenacity to smile and your ability to hope. This is why my fairy wears her frills and fluffed up undergarments so she can fly through your thoughts and land on your face as a smile x

 I have no right to be grumpy, do I?

May she fly around your thoughts and land as a smile

 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00fgfl8
Have put this link in but unsure if it will work as I have never done this before. Also added it as a link, hoping one or the other will work :-) It is well worth a look x

Now off to read the Butterfly Lion to Angus

Thurning Feast is A pagan feast to be proud of

Who in their wisdom ruffled the fairies frilly undergarments?

Who in their right mind dared to clip her wings and rain on her parade?

Who would want to be so cruel? Who would not want to let the beauty that is held within out to let it shine for the entire world to see?

Life that’s who!!!!

Don’t you just love life??

Her frilly undergarments were ruffled by the constant change of family life. Of arrangements never adhered to and others needs put before the fairies. Well it’s her own fault as she is a very good facilitator. I fear the crumpled up silk may never recover to its former glory the lace has no chance.  

Her wings were clipped by the radiator bottle springing a leak that turned into a waterfall with no movement allowed at all!!! So no Thurning Feast for this little fairy.

She will just have to stay at home and dream of Pimm’s, paella and friends

Last Year I stood up and Did a little Tilly Moment and Here it is in Part

Now that I live in Suffolk, I have to cross the fens to get here and as I bypass through Cambridge I take a beep breathe of the rich peat earth which fills my senses and awakens the excitement of my youth. Last year Thurning feast fell on the first weekend of the school holiday, so I was in a relaxed and open to the holiday spirit. The excitement of youth and the holiday spirit can be a lethal combination.

When I got here, I came through the front of the village hall entrance and as I passed from bear hug to bear hug with kisses of greeting a strewn in my wake. My eyes feasted on the sights and the sounds of my childhood. The aromas of the home grown and cooked food took me back to its pagan feast roots. The old fashioned cake stall with a rustic twist, beckoned me to stay for a while. With carpet and welsh dressers to make you feel as if you have just popped into visit friends for a chat. But meeting and greeting didn’t allow me time to linger and as I finally came up to the line of twenty different barrels of brewed hops their inviting perfumes danced tantalising around me; akin to a snake out of a charmer’s basket I was determined to partake in the sweet nectar. I breathed deeply in so the hypnotic essence of honey, wheat and elder flower took over my senses and left me dishevelled with choice.  Before I could make my decision I met my Uncle Derek’s eyes and I knew that the evening was going to take a Thurning twist.

‘Great Tina, just the person I wanted to see, the drums in the shed’ his enthusiasm was undeniable. A drum, whoops a daisy I had forgotten to warn my son about the drum. Well to be fair nothing had been definite, no rehearsals organised and no songs mentioned so I thought that the Skiffle Band idea had been put on hold for another year. How’s so ever Axl (my son) does take his music a little too seriously and his initiation onto the ‘Derek way of things was well over due I thought so pushed him forward to partake in the merriment.

We dually went off to the shed to find the one and a half drum sticks and the snare drum that were the only equipment we could salvage. We improvised with a pair of castanets for symbols and a tambourine, not sure what to do with the tambourine but best take it I thought; I had to laugh, as Axl looked at me as though the world had suddenly just gone mad. His eyes finally took shape again during the rehearsal. As they practiced packed into a little shed like sardines in a tin, behind the stage, the band; which consisted of two guitars (one played by Uncle Derek), violin, trumpet, saxophone, drum with castanets and tambourine, and builders base; made up from a tea chest with a beautifully crafted hole that had a gramophone flute to magnify its sound, a plank of wood for the neck holding the guitar strings like a proper base, with a trowel on top expertly played by Jason Capp who is a builder of some repute.

The singer was exceptional, holding them all together well. As they got to know each other and tune their instruments to perfection, I took a cup of beer and I do mean a tea cup, from the barrel that had been laid on for the entertainers. Well I reasoned it’s not easy watching your child go out to perform on stage in-front of a large crowed so I had to steady my nerves.

I had to smile as I sipped and took in the construction of the stage, with a mound of earth to give the stage its desired height, while scaffold poles and planks made the stage itself. Old curtains (which I’m sure had been taken from windows near and far) with odd bits of heavy material, giving a fine and rustic elegance to the back drop. It was then, that I felt my uncle’s strong hand in the middle of my back, propelling me up to the stage. ‘Now Tina, you know the words’ and I knew it didn’t matter if I did or not, I was now the newest recruit in the just formed skiffle band. I didn’t put up a fight; after all I had just put my son forward for the experience telling him to live life to the full and stop taking himself too seriously.

But unfortunately the frustrated singer in me was unleashed; I hasten to add without a mike- (though my daughter recons that I could still be heard and it was embarrassing) and my son and I in public for the first time gave it our all. Each one of us on that stage, enjoying the experience possibly more than the now dancing and raving crowed. We ‘strutted our stuff’ to songs like ‘Great Balls of fire’ and ‘Jail House Rock’. Sadly, and I hope to the crowds disappointment, it all came to an end too soon.

As the saxophonist came off the stage, he uttered ‘Traumatised’ with a grin as wide as Niagara Falls and a spring in his step. We looked at each other, my son and I, we both understood what he meant. We also knew we would all be back to do it again next year, if they would have us, as we had been captured by the Derek spirit and the ‘Thurning Feat Skiffle Band ‘bug.

One moment can change everything

Here are series of short stories about one event. These are dedicated to a very special man, my uncle Pete. He was raucously funny and had the best bear hug imaginable and I miss him still x He once gave me a huge compliment. He told me I never changed, that I always had a smile somewhere inside just waiting to erupt even when I was angry.

I got this idea when my uncle was knocked down and killed. It was an accident and all those concerned couldn’t make sense of it at first. We still can’t. It has affected us most profoundly and always will, with its far reaching tentacles.

            Soon after I began to wonder why we do things, that is to say send our children to school or work hard and never spend time enjoying life. I came up with no real answers just open thoughts really, a see-saw of life’s off beat balance.

            I will post these little stories at the top of the page so if it’s the first time you have read these start at the bottom and work your way back to the top. If you have been to this before welcome back and I hope eventually you will see the smiles.

__________________________________________________________________________________

The Beauty of Her

It was the most beautiful face I have ever seen, not in the glamour model sense of beauty but of the kind that lasts, an inner quality that you would never grow tired of looking at so deep was its richness. Serenity oozed out of those eyes that held my gaze and would not let it go. She always had a smile that you envied, one that enjoyed life’s simple pleasures that most of us never achieve, someone who would take time out of her day to brighten up yours.

Unwittingly she came between my wife and me; she crept through my thoughts as a ghostly wisp, a thread of silk that held a belief in me that my wife could never share. For my wife had gained the material things that we had dreamed about and instead of enjoying the benefits she had relentlessly pursued the next must have dream. She wore me out.

I always tried to cross Rachel’s path in the mornings to get my daily fix of her but that morning I was too late. I tried to bump into her in the car park but she wasn’t parked in her usual spot and time was running out. I had an important meeting to get to and wanted to put together a few last thoughts. I knew they would consolidate all we had to offer our client, making it hard to turn the deal down. As I drove this familiar road I saw a harassed mother with a buggy, a dog on a lead and a little one on a bike. Unsteadily they came around the bend and down the hill. I knew instinctively what was about to happen and swerved just in time as the little one fell at an awkward part of the road, right into my path. Relief shuddered through me as my evasive action saved a young life. I looked in my mirror to see the mother who now was tied up by the dog, the buggy tipping while franticly trying to retrieve the bike and child. When the most horrendous jolt spun my head in time to see the face I loved for so long crumple.

I was out of the car and at her side within seconds. Aware of people around me shouting and swearing one was on her mobile explaining the scene. I held this most precious life as it escaped its bodily cage and drifted around with an atmosphere of calm, as deep inside me, carnage warred. Not taking in what was reality; I looked for any signs of hope and took her hand that held a hair. For some reason that held my attention and its one thing I will keep inside of me.

            For the first and last time I held her close and as her warmth seeped out, a gust of wind blew the hair as though it was her wisp of life. It took off hitting a ray of sunlight swirling on a thermal ever higher, stopping time and when no longer I could see it, reality came crashing down.

            My flash backs are relentless, the image of the child crying looking for its mothers comfort and that singular hair making its assent to the great unknown. To have saved the child I had killed my love.

_________________________________________________________________ 

It was just one hair; she had just ran her fingers through her long glittery soft ringlets and one single hair danced on the breath of the breeze as joyfully as its owner went about her life. Time had not yet matured her out look on it and fun was the only thing time should fulfil, it landed back on the seat it’s donator had departed from as though to take her place. I refrained from lifting it gently up and letting it free to explore the out-side world alone. As I privately shook my head at my own exasperated need to get the day’s timetable done, I took her to school.

She was fine in the playground talking to her group of friends. I passed the precious minutes in friendly chatter as the bell went, she came over to me and a hug pursued that broke my heart as the uncertainty vibrated from her body and through my flesh, I looked into the eyes of youth that asked the question why; for which I had no answer and smiled with all the radiance of motherhood and gently kissed my beautiful butterfly as it took flight upon it’s fragile and oh so gentle wings. These wings would be dented, crushed even before this day was out but I told myself it was for the best. Did I believe this, no, I was not convinced, as my history had none of the battles for knowledge that my ancestors have had, no I had not gone through the humiliation that ignorance of the world around you brings. I forced her grasp to slacken and propelled her towards her day of education. Have I regrets? Yes many.

Should I teach her from home? I could through my own understanding, books and the World Wide Webb. All she needed to know without the statts and tests, the worry of how well she should be doing and how much more I should be teaching. Life would be so laid back and how it is meant to be.

As I pull the car out of its resting place to one of its journeys for the day. First to the part time job, shopping and back home to the house work that always seems to get the better of me, I think to my self could I give up again the freedom of a job and the financial independence, to become a full time companion, teacher and mentor to my child and as her hair was lifted by the air conditioner and landed on my hand, a gentle kiss so much appreciated, so much loved. This simple part of the day made the vivid memory of her group of friends, embrace me and I started to relax understanding it was the best way, the only way open to me.

She needed people to interact with in a fragmented society. Isn’t this what life is all about the ability to communicate your loves, likes, dislikes, concerns, your ideas and opinions and this is what I hoped she would truly be learning.

I breathed in the solitude and with the reassurance that I was truly right to have stayed at home for the first few years at least, even though my career had suffered and people had made me feel a lesser person, I forced a smile on my face and got on with the day. It feels as though I have two full time jobs now to fulfil; that of housekeeper, the supporter of the family unit and a job I took for convenience but would never reach my full potential in. Those first few years had been her foundation on which her life would be built on; this had been a sacrifice worth paying and with a picture of my dreams of the life to come, calmness washed over me.

In the distance of this long and fraught road, full of hidden turns, I saw the cars that had no time for steady drivers and groaned. You meet them all the time they say, what is the point of slow speed limits, it just encourages people to overtake, with disregard to the actual road its self, hidden turns and all; “anyway I’m a good driver I can handle a car.” But in reality the car is not the problem it’s the fact that other people have a right to be on the road and they are not all in cars.

There was nowhere for me to go, to over take on such a road is so irresponsible and as the crush of metal came; as I knew it must, so did the pain. I lifted that single hair to my lips to whisper that last farewell to my precious gift of life and as the crumpled car came to a stop, life was lifted out of me and that single hair and me dance on the breeze a sorrowful ballet entwined together, lifted, then gone though perhaps not forgotten, especially by that one single gentle butterfly.