Poetry exercise

  On a National Creative forum run by the Open University, the tutor running the forum asked us to write a poem based on this picture. Below is my attempt.

Alone she stares, silent in reverie
The sky as clear as she aspires to be.
So still, afraid to break the spell
And take the road she knows will lead to hell.
She stares, remembering times now flown
Success the goal that left her all alone.
So still, so scared of this reality
Alone she sits in silent reverie.

The Little Hedgehog.

The Little Hedgehog.

 
It was the end of Summer. The nights were getting colder and longer. The trees were stretching their branches and shaking off their leaves as a snake rids itself of it's old, dried skin ready for the new one to emerge. Safe in the knowledge that, after the long sleep of winter there would be new life to look forward too. The ground was blanketed with the reddish, yellowish, brownish carpet of leaves that rustled and crunched under the feet of the children as they gathered up sticks and fallen branches for the bonfire. They laughed and sang, excited at the prospect of the glowing fire and their mouths watered in anticipation of the marshmallows that they would be toasting in its heat.

Deep in the wood, resting under the hollowed out root of an old oak tree, was a little hedgehog. He wasn't afraid. After all, the noise sounded happy and not at all frightening. No, he was just confused. Everything was changing so quickly and he didn't understand why. He didn't understand why he felt so cold at night or why the ground felt so hard when he tried to forage for his supper. Even more strangely, all his friends seemed to have disappeared! For weeks beforehand he kept hearing this strange word 'hibernate' being mentioned. Somehow he sensed that he should instinctively know what it meant. But so far the meaning had eluded him.

Gradually the darkness fell. All the children had gone home and a sense of stillness and quietness had descended on the wood. The little hedgehog slowly uncurled himself from the ball of sleep that he had fallen into. He pushed his paws forward and like a cat stretched out his tiny limbs. Maybe if he investigated what it was that the children had been doing, he might find the answer to why everything was changing. It took some time because it was a long way to the edge of the woods and he had such little legs. Finally he reached the edge of the wood.

He was always very wary about venturing outside the safety of the wood. Especially after the incident with this enormous, hairy animal with four legs and an extremely wiggly thing at the back, which swooshed rapidly from side to side. If he hadn't instinctively rolled up into a ball when this monster had approached him at speed and sniffed him so hard, he was afraid that he would have been inhaled into the depths of the monster! He shuddered at the memory but glancing around he could see that the coast was clear.

Carefully, continuously glancing around him, the little hedgehog approached a mountain of wood made out of the sticks and branches gathered earlier by the children. It rose majesticallyup  to the sky, how it didn't fall down was a mystery to the little hedgehog. Very gingerly he edged his way around .

About halfway he spotted a large gap in the pile. Tentatively he poked his head in. The gap seemed to be bigger on the inside. Feeling a rush of courage he proceeded to enter and found himself in a cosy little nook in this mountain of wood. Something about the intimacy and warmth of this cosy space made him think about the word 'hibernate.' He suddenly felt very sleepy and thought that he would curl up and have a little nap. After all there was no way that the big hairy monster would be able to get to him here, surrounded as he was by all this wood! Little did he realise it, but he had by instinct settled down to await the coming of Spring by hibernating as generations of hedgehogs had done before him.

The following evening was the 5th of November, Bonfire night. All the children from the day before were returning with their parents. Still excited and drooling at the thought of the marshmallows! Soon the fire would be lit and the sky would be alive with the explosions of the fireworks carefully guarded by the dads. The air was tense with excitement, yet the little hedgehog slept on.

Bounding across the opening towards the bonfire leapt the big hairy monster of the little hedgehog's nightmare.It was an old English Sheep dog. Racing around the bonfire he suddenly stopped by the gap where the little hedgehog had entered. He lifted his head and started barking excitedly, swooshing his tail and running up to his master and back again to the hole. "What is it boy? What's got you so worked up?" "Come here boy." But the dog continued to bark and push at the bonfire with his nose. Eventually just as the the fire was about to be lit, the dog's master reached his gloved hand into the gap and astonished, pulled out the little hedgehog.Still the little hedgehog slept on. Very gently the master wrapped him up in his scarf and placed him safely in a box of straw in his garage, to sleep out the long winter. The big, hairy monster was given the most enormous bone as a reward

The Fluffy Dandelion

The Fluffy Dandelion.

This week the lovely Lisa has challenged us to write something about a 'fluffy dandelion'. This is my attempt.

The Fluffy Dandelion.

'Sitting alone in a sea of green that is the lawn, a single dandelion is busy preparing for the next stage of its life. Faded is the vivid yellow of its youth. That vibrant sunshiny colour that was the bane of the gardener, who toiled in vain to rid his pride and joy, the lawn, of this plant he considered a weed. All of the other dandelions had succumbed to the treatments and had wilted away, this one alone had survived. It was now down to this solitary dandelion to carry on the fight for survival of its species.

One by one, the fluffy little tendrils that would carry the seeds emerged from their resting place and reached up to the light. All that was needed now was a puff of wind to carry them off on their journey, to start again the miracle of life that all living things have in common. The air on this particular day was very still, but patiently they waited knowing that it was only a matter of time. Suddenly there was the sound of footsteps and the shrill laughter of a child. On seeing the dandelion the child bent down, picked it up and taking an enormously large breath for a little one, blew the dandelion with all her might. One o'clock, puff, two o'clock, another puff, three o'clock and in three childish breaths the dandelion seeds were sent hurtling through the air.

The root of the parent dandelion sighed in satisfaction and settled down to rest until it was time once again to emerge and join the fight to survive the gardener’s best efforts. As for the fluffy dandelions! Some fell on other lawns and were destined to carry on the fight for survival. Others landed in meadows where all things wild were nurtured and encouraged to bloom. Many found themselves in shady corners hidden away from the prying eyes of men, destined to live out their existence unobserved and free to quietly carry on perpetuating the dandelion species. They might not be noticed but in the future their seeds would, like them be carried off on the wind and land on a lawn; perhaps even returning to the original home of the solitary dandelion.’

 

For all living things life is a journey and a constant fight for survival. Each of us is placed in different circumstances and left to make the best of them. Some of us will be lucky enough to land in a nurturing environment, but for others life might not be so easy. It might sometimes feel as if you are passing through this life un-noticed, in the shade! But each of us makes a difference in our own way. Every time we reach out to others around us we leave our mark. Like it our not we do need each other. Even the gardener's constant attempts to get rid of the dandelion only made it stronger!


Update! This short story is included as an appendix in Brightness of Stars, by Lisa Cherry, (available on Amazon). A book about adult's experiences of being in care as a child. Lisa wanted to 'share lost and unheard voices.' In the book she writes; 'I felt there was a connection between the process the dandelion goes through and something I could recognise in myself and in others in healing and recovery.' I think that anyone who's been on a journey might relate to it in some way. I think that's why I was able to write it.

 

Time=Friend or foe?

What is time? We measure it in days, hours weeks, years........ But have you noticed that 5 minutes one day can seem like 5 hours the next day and vice versa. When you're looking forward to something the time seems to drag and you think that it'll never arrive. Yet, doesn't that dental appointment or exam come round all too quickly! It never ceases to amaze me how half an hour in the dentists chair seems never ending. yet half an hour on the phone to a friend flies by!

 Round about the time of the due date of our first grandchild we were waiting. Every time the phone rang our hearts skipped a beat as we wondered-is this it? The past few days had been interminable yet we might have to wait for another 9 days for the call that will make us both ecstatic and relieved. If I'm feeling like this, how much worse it must be for my daughter-in-law who I knew was totally fed up and just wanted the pregnancy to be over. Time for her lay heavy on her hands. I'm sure that there's many women who'll identify with that feeling. I tried to take my mind off it by thinking of some of the attributes of time.

Time a Friend.

We have this image of a kindly Father Time. When you're a child every day seems to last for ever, but in a good way. A year seems like an eternity and you think that you have all the time in the world. Time is a friend. Yes, it may seem to drag a bit when you're waiting for a special event, like your birthday or Christmas-how long was the run up to Christmas! But it's usually an exciting wait and adds to the wonder of the occasion. Adults can also experience the excitement of the run up to a special event but as you get older this can be tempered by anxiety and the stress of organising the events. Christmas and weddings being among them.  Time can seem to be going slowly as you look forward to the event, yet at the same time, too fast when there seems so much still to do and so little time left to do it in!

 

Time an Opportunity.

 As young people we see time as an opportunity to get out there and start to live our lives the way we want too and not the way we're told too! Teenagers and students live their lives almost in another time dimension, sleeping late in the day and staying up to the 'wee small hours', 'burning the candle at both ends'. Perhaps in their youthful arrogance they're trying to show time who's boss. With an abundance of energy they seem to fit more into 24 hours than the rest of us. To some of them 30 is really old and they live life as if they need to cram all their living into those 30 years.

Time the Thief.

As you grow older, time seems to shorten and becomes like a thief, stealing the hopes and ambitions that you didn't get around to fulfilling. There never seems to be enough hours in the day! Yet, each birthday adds another year on to your tally, a sign that you haven't got as much time left to do the things you'd planned! What a cheery picture I'm painting! But that's when the passing of Time can act as a wake up call, when we can take stock and decide on our priorities and if it's within our power, make any changes necessary to claim back areas of our lives that have been stolen by the lack of time.



Time is Precious

I think it's fair to say that most of us waste at least some of our time and there are as many ways to do that as there are hours in the day, so I won't go into that, except to say that for me Facebook is one of them! But there are times when you want to make the most of each moment. When you fall in love for example, you want to spend as much time as possible with the object of your affections and time drags when you're apart. Unfortunately for some there are also times when we face losing someone we love and each hour, minute even, is a bittersweet eon of time. At times like this Time can seem like the enemy which we try in vain to fight; to hold back time; yet knowing it's a fight we can't win.

Time is Now

It's one of life's irony's that as we grow older, so time seems to move faster. You read so many stories and see so many dramas and films of  people who get to a certain age and look back at their lives and wish they'd done things differently. But regrets are just another waste of time! When you come to this realisation, if at all, then instead of wasting yet more time why not start to make some changes. We all have to face the Grim Reaper at some point, that's one of life's few certainties. In terms of time we only have this day, this moment and it is said that 'time waits for no-one'. So why am I sitting here writing about time? Well for one thing I enjoy writing and if you're enjoying something, how can that be a waste? I now have less time to wait for the phone to ring! If there is a lesson to be learnt, it is that time is precious and not to be wasted. So why not go for it, do that thing that you've been thinking about for months or even years. The only time that is wasted is time spent wondering what if, instead of doing what is! ©

Butterfly alphabet.

One of the advantages of growing older is that you start to care less about what other people think of you. At least that's certainly been true for me. As a girl and for quite a lot of my adulthood, I tried to be as perfect as I could be, no wonder I ended up depressed! I tried to keep my house spotless and cook lovely meals and at the time I thought that it was because I enjoyed it. In actual fact I would be so stressed out by the cooking that I couldn't eat the food when it was ready. If someone did something in a different way to me, I would change the way I did it! I would accept other people doing things that I'd give myself a hard time about if I did them. If someone complimented me, well I couldn't accept it and would think that they were just 'being nice'. Thinking about it now it seems really stupid and even insulting to the people who did me the honour of paying me the compliment.


This picture really struck a chord with me. Perhaps when other people were saying complimentary things, they were seeing my wings! I know that I could certainly see the wings of others and often couldn't understand why they couldn't see what I was seeing, perhaps this explains why.

One of the most releasing experiences for me has been allowing myself to make mistakes and not worry myself sick about what others  think of me because of them. One of the up sides of this is that I've become a happier person because of it. When you take away the fear of making a fool of yourself or getting it wrong you open yourself up to trying new things and that can be an amazing experience. It certainly makes life a lot more interesting. If it goes wrong; it goes wrong! If you don't like it; don't do it again! This of course is assuming that you don't want to do something harmful or illegal.

  

Talking of butterflies, I came across this picture of a Butterfly Alphabet. This was produced by Kjell Sandven, a lecturer at the Smithsonian. The story goes that when searching through an attic one day he came upon a box. Opening the box, there was a silvery letter "F" woven into the golden wing of a Lepidoptera, Butterfly to you and me!     

"I looked at the design under the microscope and marvelled at its beauty; it was a perfect letter „F.‟ Not even a calligrapher could have improved on its delicacy."

This inspired him and he set off on a worldwide quest to see if he could find and photograph any other butterflies with letters on their wings. Incredibly, one day when travelling near a place called Manaus in the Amazon, he came across a farm where some seepage of pig manure and urine had attracted hundreds of Lepidoptera. He lay down on the ground and clicked away with his camera. This gave him hundreds of letters, numbers, signs, and symbols from the wings of butterflies; a scene he never repeated but has always remembered. I find this an incredible story! I also think that there's a lesson to be learned here. Not only did he find what he was looking for, but he found it among the stench and filth of a farmyard!

This may seem like a digression, but the point I'm trying to make is that, if you look you may find something beautiful and surprising, not only in yourself but also in others. If Kjell hadn't gone to the Amazon, he might not have been able to make this wonderful alphabet. Next time I'm feeling negative about myself or apprehensive about doing something new, I'm going to think about this alphabet and remind myself of the possibilities that trying new things might bring and that other people might be seeing my 'wings' and if they are liking what they see, then who am I to argue!



The trials and tribulations of travelling to a tutorial!

Well, it's official, the festivities are well and truly over. The decorations are down, all the chocolates and cakes dispersed to the 'bird table' at hubby's work and time to resume normal life, whatever that is! After a week of trying to get back into studying, I was due to attend a tutorial in Reading where I was assured that we would be discussing dialects, accents and register. Phew, what a relief! I'd seen on facebook that another tutor group had spent the time discussing the recent wiki;- something I was looking forward to putting behind me as anyone who read my previous blog, 'There's no 'I' in team is there!, will understand.

Having already attended one tutorial, I was reasonably confident of how to get to Reading College where this one was to take place. The first time, I'd taken a train from Oxford to Reading and armed with the very simple looking directions from the ou website, I set out on the 15 minute walk to the college. Well, having exited the station I was faced with 2 possible directions to set off on. Unfortunately, neither street seemed to be sign posted. 'That's ok' I thought to myself, 'I'll ask someone'. the first person I asked spoke no English and the second was a visitor who didn't know the names of the streets. She did however know that John Lewis, one of the land marks that the instructions told me to look out for, was straight ahead. Turning left at this land mark, I set off on my 15 minute walk. 20 minutes later I asked the first of several people if I was still going in the right direction. The first person said yes it was 5 minutes away, 10-ish minutes later the next person also said yes but that it was another 15 minutes at least. The next person I stopped to ask, again spoke very little English and didn't seem to know anyway. Finally, with about a minute to spare, I arrived at my destination.

Having learnt my lesson from the last time, I decided to take the bus from the station to the college for my second tutorial. According to the ou website I should be able to exit the station and choose either a no. 13, 14 or 17 bus. to be on the safe side I decided to ask at the station information desk. 'A no. 20 or 21' I was informed! Thoroughly confused I left the station and saw a no. 21 waiting at the bus stop. Resolving to ask the driver, I approached the bus but as I did so the doors opened and the driver stepped down from the bus and proceeded to enter the station. By now it had started snowing and feeling completely fed up I hailed the first taxi I saw and instructed him to take me to the college. I once flew by myself to Los Angeles via San Francisco and found it easier than this!

 Feeling completely flustered I sat down ready for a tutorial on dialect, accent and register. The tutor greeted us all and then uttered the last words I wanted to hear; 'any questions about the wiki?' All I can say is thank goodness for most students' natural reticence to speak up in tutorials! The topic of my nightmares was swiftly dispatched and on we pressed to the delights of how language is constructed and used.

The rest of the tutorial passed quite pleasantly. We looked at Edward Lear's The Quangle Wangle's Hat, a very entertaining nonsensical poem,  Poverty, poverty knock, a folk song and also read an extract from Hard Times by Charles Dickens. Finally, after discussing  different registers, it was time to go home. Fortunately one of my fellow students took pity on me, as indeed she had after the first tutorial and gave me a lift to the station.

In March I have my third and final tutorial of this module. I have to say that if it wasn't for the fact that the tutor has promised to be talking about the exam, my first one in a very long time, I'd be seriously tempted not bother. Well, lets look on the bright side, it could be like Goldilocks and the Three Bears and it'll be a case of third time lucky! Surely after all the hassle of the wiki and my stressful attempts to get to the first 2 tutorials, I'm due a break. PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!  

Spreading your wings.

One of the wonders of the Internet is the way in which you can find out things from the comfort of your own home. you can sit comfortably in your favourite chair and, if the cat will let you, have your laptop on your knees while browsing the world wide web or even doing your shopping. But be careful, the combination of the last point I mentioned plus a credit card can be lethal! Another advantage is being able to communicate and share with people all over the world, by writing a blog for instance. I can see that my blogs have been viewed as far afield as America and Australia with a fluttering in Russia! It's incredible to think that within minutes of my publishing a blog, someone in another country, that would take me hours to fly to, can be reading something that I've written. Of course the younger generation who've grown up with this phenomenon, probably don't even give it a thought!

Talking of flying, (see what I did there), this picture was shared on Facebook by on of my lupie friends. As is my wont, this got me thinking! The Irish boy band, Westlife released a single 'Flying Without Wings'. This sounds great but is actually completely impossible for us as human beings, or for birds too, come to think of it! Even our feathered friends have to spread their wings, to fly! But I digress.

How does that relate to you and me? Well to begin with, we don't have wings: fact! We don't start off as eggs to be hatched and then be fed worms by our exhausted avian parents: fact. We do however, come to the point where we have to 'fly the nest' or even just 'spread our wings' and make our own way in life. By my reckoning, there are at least 2 occasions in our lives when we have to do that!

Leaving home for the first time is one of them. There can be many reasons for this, going to college or university, moving away for a new job, getting married or more commonly these days, moving in together! The reasons are endless, but for whatever reason, it happens to us all at some point. It can be a frightening, exhilarating and daunting experience. When you're young you think that the world is your oyster and even staying in grotty student digs is considered fun! But hopefully it is a time of excitement too as it gives you the opportunity to follow your dreams.

Another time we may fly the nest doesn't necessarily require a physical leaving of a place. I've found that now my sons have left home I'm having the opportunity to spread my wings. This didn't happen at once. Like a lot of mums I went through the empty nest syndrome, where I felt bereft and at a loss as to what to do with myself. But now I'm discovering the joys of being able to do what I want, when I want! I got married at the tender age of 22 and had never even been on a pub crawl. I think that I'm probably too old for that now, but I'm having fun trying new experiences and rediscovering hobbies and activities I enjoyed pre-children. Who would have thought that at my age I'd take up Zumba and Street Dance and started writing a blog........


Starting this blog was definitely a case of me taking a leap of a cliff and hoping I would fly, so to speak. I could have taken up knitting again, but where's the fun in that! Mind you my first grandchild has arrived, so maybe I should be knitting! The trouble is I don't have time to knit. I find it quite funny that I'm getting my freedom back just as my son is about to lose his! I'm the same age as my gran was when I was born and to me she always an old lady, with her snowy white hair and wrinkles. Thanks to the miracle of modern beauty products, I'm holding back time a bit. I want my grandchildren to remember me as fun and as long as my health holds out, willing to try new things and have adventures with them.

Perhaps I'll be able to help them learn how to spread their wings.

Growing older doesn't mean that life is over! We are blessed to be living at a time when anything is possible, (within reason). A woman in her 90's did a tandem sky dive a while back! If like me you're in your prime but aren't living your life to the full why not give it a go? What have you got to lose?

Think back to when you were young. What were your dreams and ambitions? Why not take steps to fulfil even just one of them. You're not dead yet!

Life can be an adventure but not if you don't get out there and join in. I did and I'm having fun!

As good as it gets.

I decided a long time ago not to make any New Year resolutions apart from the one not to make any. After all, that's the only one I've ever managed to keep. This was mainly because for a long time I dreaded New Year as, for along time, it seemed that each year only brought more heartache and tragedy. Then when things improved on that I front and I had every reason to be happy at last, I found myself so far at the bottom of the pit of depression that, the prospect of ever escaping from it seemed impossible. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you are extremely lucky and I hope you never do.

During this period when the 'black dog' was  upon me as Winston Churchill used to say, the film 'As Good As It Gets' staring Jack Nicholson was released. I loved this film; I didn't have the same problems as the character in the film, but I completely identified with the sentiment. When I heard him say in the Psychiatrist's office, "what if this is as good as it gets", I thought 'at last someone who understands how I'm feeling'!



I'm so grateful that these days are behind me, at least at this time, after all nothing is ever definite in this life. But I still find that New Year can be a difficult time, especially when I do silly things like watch East Enders where there's always some drama going on at this time of the year. Mind you, Downton Abbey and Wild at Heart weren't exactly a barrel of laughs this year! I'd missed the publicity about Dan Stevens leaving Downton and was totally unprepared for the untimely demise of his character at the end of the Christmas special. Kleenex tissues made a fortune out of me that night!

But this is a new year and writing a blog titled 'New Beginnings' helps me to remember that I am endeavouring to live a positive life and instead of dwelling on the past, I should be concentrating on the future. 2012 was such an amazing year for me, as I've said before who would have imagined that at my age I would be performing at festivals, appearing on tv, taking part in a flashmob and seeing a poem published in the local newspaper! The old me would have been thinking that nothing could top that. Perhaps next year won't be so exciting but the secret to life is taking the rough with the smooth and finding peace and contentment in the small things as well as the big. I'm also very fortunate as my daughter-in-law is due to have our first grandchild at the end of January and what could be more exciting than that! I still think that 'As Good As It Gets' is a brilliant film, but I'm finding that it can be 'A Wonderful Life' too.