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Tuesday 29 April 2014

Lustily we sang...

Jerusalem
in the car as we came away.

As we sat in the sparse congregation,
I whispered to Ted
'Give it some wellie!'

We tried; starting off strongly, 
then I'm sorry to say, the tears got in the way.

My lovely neighbour Margaret has died after
a brave battle with cancer.

From where I sit here in my cyber-eyrie, 
looking out, I can see for miles.
This morning its misty: Bedgebury pinetum one way,
the lip of the Weald and Bewl Water the other.

If I stand up and look down I can see Margaret and Ken's
beautiful garden and kitchen window.

light in the window taken in snowy times

The window was the barometer over the years as to how they were.
As a nosy neighbour each morning I would look out to check...
window open... all's good in their world
window closed... I would start to worry.
This lovely Geordie couple were the one's with their warmth
and charm soothed like a dummy this fretful baby.
'Have I done the right thing moving here?'

Over the years I settled, Ted arrived and brightened my life.
We became more than neighbours, part of their extensive family.
I loved them, I really did.
 We were happy paddling our little
canoe against the tide of snobbery.
What did we care!

As Margaret became increasingly frail, I would take Ken
to the hospital for his eye injections.
Our perhaps not very original refrain was, we were
off to Hastings for fish and chips.

I would be my usual irreverent self
making Margaret laugh.
Very often I would walk away and think
'Wish I hadn't said that!'
She would say
'Linda, you're a tonic!'

We talked about dying, perhaps she could talk to
me better than most, because I don't have a problem
with that most taboo of subjects.

'You planning on bucking the trend Margaret?'
Issued out of my rosebud lips.
Subtle... me, never.

She's gone and the world's suddenly
drab as a consequence.

I will not cease from mental fight
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.



Sunday 27 April 2014

Am I too old to...

wear brown
nobody of any age should ever wear brown

grow my hair long
from Technical School onwards I've always wanted
straight hair.  With age it seems my wish is being realised.
Trouble is it has come forty years too late.
I'm growing my hair in order to look like Marge Simpson...
blue rinse here we come




have a Brazilian
hold on...
nature is doing it for me...
bucking the trend and travelling North onto my chin

wear pillar box red lipstick
never have, never will...
reason... too thin lips
only thin thing about me...
apart from my ear canals

totter on 5" heels
with duck-wide feet,
not a good look




break dance
No!  For fear of...
yes, you've guessed it,
breaking something

 worry about being outspoken
Too flaming late

buy just one last tapestry cushion kit
knowing that every stitch will be agony with
my poorly thumb

wear jeans
Not with my size of Ireland derriere

worry about world affairs
too late I already do and always have

care when a friend sent back a customised
jacket I'd made for her with love in every stitch
It's off to a car boot on Bank holiday Monday

own up to slipper-quiet wind
Just have...
so I know the answer to that one




be seduced by Facebook and Twitter
Yes, thankfully!

Write a blog?


Saturday 26 April 2014

Things that SERIOUSLY...

hack me off.

Bear with me...
the list will be long.
It's taken me years to get
this GRUMPY!

Top of the list
has to be politicians.
I really resent now,
not believing a word any of them say.
There are honest ones of that I'm sure.
Trouble is my trust has gone.
I resent that my innocence has been shafted

Is it the prickles that have become ever more
cavalier as they march 
with attitude across my chops?
With every pluck I get seriously plucked oft!

Mount Everest and the twerps
that want to climb it.
There is a brilliant piece by Giles Coren
in today's Times which accurately and so much better
reflects my view.  If only I could write as well.
And he didn't even touch on the rubbish left there
which with every bone, sinew, skin, flab and
very bristly chin... I abhor!

Bloggers that use

...

centre their prose

and generally have scant regard for
grammar and spelling

Oh, and not forgetting using
BOLD and italics

Only having 52 followers

Dodgy folk who comment
with links to their weird blogs
How do you get shot of them?
I've barred anonymous...
What next?
Perhaps it's me?
Do they think she's a daft tart, she won't care?
Well I do care

Being fat and getting fatter

People steaming up behind you
when in a 30 mile per hour zone, you are the one
adhering to the law.  Yes it does seem slow, I'd
be the first to admit it.  However what gets me going
even more, is the evidence of children in their car.
Don't they know that kids can so easily be killed 
at the speeds they want to drive at?
Added to which it is odds on they're
on the flaming phone.

Snobbery in all its forms...
Looking in folks supermarket trolleys
and instantly categorising them
Looking at the books people read...
ditto
'Guilty as charged me lord!'

People that say 
'Pardon!'
when you say you are becoming
increasingly deaf

Fracking...
now they're not content with
drilling down they now want to drill
horizontally.
I really, really want to drill...
upwards...
right up their *****

Not remembering when or not, to use the apostrophe.
Surely there must be a saying I can learn?

Trying to comment on a blog
and google asking you to provide
your mobile number...
'On your bike google!'
don't you know enough about us already?

The government trying to flog off all our details
health records, tax returns driving details...
is nothing sacred?

I've only gone and got my knickers in such
a twist I'm not even sure I'm going to
post this...

Oh go on then, you've persuaded me...




Addendum...

Those that fire of a blog without checking their spelling and punctuation...
no names, no pack drill!





  





Friday 25 April 2014

In her mink...

she cut a swathe.
People fell at her feet...
gasping in wonderment.


Lady Docker in her finest

Hold tight...
They were gasping alright, 
not from wonderment,
nor yet horror, but
from the tightness in their chest
as they breathed in the killer cocktail
of Chanel No 5, overlaid with mothballs.

This is a tale of the 
Killing Fields of Kent.

The enemy...
moths and slugs.

Can anyone tell me what slugs
bring to the party of life?
On the pavement proudly sat a pile of poo
beautifully framed by a lacework pattern of
slug/snail trails.
They obviously love the stuff.
So why the heck don't they just content 
themselves with getting high on crap, 
instead of my pansies?

Moths (only the clothes eating ones)
Why?
How do all the squillons of others 
manage to survive without
savaging my 'Sahara'?

With gimlet eye I carefully open the cupboards.
Cedar discs, sticky traps and organicals hang like
baubles on a Christmas tree.

So far so good: my zero-tolerance policing 
seems to be working.

That is until a few small moths started appearing
on the stairs.

Dead and dying dressing gowns are promptly
given a much needed freshener, hot wash, high spin.
Hanging on the door unworn and unloved, have
the moths taken up residence I idly wonder?

I'm getting worried...
is the slutty housewife going all
clean and fragrant?

Still they come...
next the airing cupboard gets a
sort-out.
 I am getting seriously worried...
heaven-forbid that I
might start to enjoy this cleaning lark?

Late one night as I troll up the
rickety stairs to bed...
there's one...
two...
three.
I stop, turn 90 degrees, having a epiphany
moment as I do.
It's a blooming wonder I didn't fall
tripperty-trot down the steep, steep stairs.

There...




I spy the offending item...
my Highland hand spun, natural dyed scarf
made for my lovely dad over 30 years ago.
His name was also Ted.

Carefully I lift the scarf and...
what'd you know out falls a dozen or so
small moths.





Evidence of their dastardly deeds

Killing all I can see, I smartly march the scarf out
into the garden for fumigation to commence 
on the morrow.
Hanging it over a garden chair, I think Ted won't see it
on his trip in from a little light slug-squashing.

Happy I retire to bed...
Sorted... the job's a good'un!

In the morning I find he's
only gone and brought the blooming scarf back in again.
This is Ted we're talking about...
man who notices nothing, new dress, rearranged furniture,
me with a plant pot on my head...
you get my drift?

Clutching my chest I fall back in a dead faint

'What did you bring that in for?'

'I saw it out there and thought you'd forgotten it!'

This is the scarf I'd carefully chosen to hide on the back of a chair,
 in front of a huge box ball that never in a million years on a dark night
anyone would have seen.

'Oh gawd, how many of them did I miss last night
and are now back in residence?'

Ted by this time thinks, she has finally flipped
what is she on about?

Naturally moths weren't high on the agenda of our
late night's billing and cooing. 

I know I'm stupid but not that stupid!




Monday 21 April 2014

If you were a...

frog...
which would you choose?



Del boy Peckham 

or


The Garden of England's
answer to
Eaton Square?

I think you know exactly
what I'm going to say...

Part of my early morning routine is to
'mighty-nightie' clad wander up to the new pond
and take tea with the frogs.
Er... there is one small problem...

I can creep, I can commando-like slither 
belly through the grass, but
I can never spot them.

This morning no different...
passing the galvanised feed trough
a hugh plop is heard...

'Well, slapper my thigh!
They're only back in the gloom!'

Miffed, I walk away passing the 
clear, clear fragrant water of the new pond, 
the sun positively making it sparkle.

I feel a blog coming on...
I'll limbo-dance back and catch
the culprit sitting smugly awaiting his publicity shots
 for his starring role on the blog.

Camera in hand I make my way back only to find...


a smallish hedgehog sat right in 
the middle of the lawn.

All suddenly brightens in Lin's little corner of England.

'Ted!'

my dulcet tones reverberate around the Weald.

Carefully he picks it up and places it just by the new stumpery.

Frogs forgotten I stand and wait.
A few minutes later it uncurls itself and smartly walks
behind the biggest stump.

Since Lettice died I've needed something to love:
I've had an animal-shaped hole in my heart.

Could this little scrap, heal the prickles of
my hurting heart?



Sunday 20 April 2014

I want to sing, I want to...

dance...
a flavour of my Easter Day
in mizzly Kent.

Picture the scene...
They sit at the breakfast table...
peering into each other's eyes...
across the no mans' land marked by the 
many and various pots of jam, honey, marmalade,
Peanut butter, Marmite and Bovril.
(It must be the weekend, because four pieces 
of toast sit in the rack and there is butter)

Butter?

Weekdays for him its one slice of
dry toast with Marmite.

Weekdays for 'butterball me' its
one slice of toast, butter obviously,
half spread with Bovril, half with honey.

This is no ordinary Sunday...
this is Easter Day,
and as Simon would say 
'Today we celebrate!'

***

Ted set off to the tipper wagon parked
in our local village car park
(twice a month it calls).

Brown bin filled with clods of clay
resembling 
the Stone of Scone.
Our address isn't Clayhill for nothing, you know!
Artfully topped off by a white sink and
many and various gourds, squash and
oddly shaped members of the 
Cucurbitaceae family.

Think tunnelling/Colditz, then you get the general idea.
Soil, my man informs me is definitely verboten in
the world of landfill.  Hence the subterfuge.  

Returning home victorious,
coffee laced with brandy is served.
The man suggests a little bare-footed Tai Chi warm-up on the parquet?
Falling onto the dfs sofa
an idle glance at the Sunday paper 
before luncheon.
The rain by now looks set in for the day.

'I know!  Let's light the fire in the winter room 
and over a bottle of bubbles we could play 
Mexican Train!'

And there you have it...
our Easter Sunday, amid
rehearsals for
our first encounter of the
thespian kind.











Friday 18 April 2014

The story so far...

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum
pitch up at their local Am Drams.

'It will be a good way to get to know folk!'
Dum says to Dee,
she conveniently forgets they've lived in the village
for 11 years!

She has aspirations of a theatrical kind,
he just wants a quiet life.

They sidle in...
her looking like a galleon in full sail,
him towed along like a pesky life-boat in her wake.

Dum... think Peggy Mount/Hattie
with a sprinkle of Margaret Rutherford.




Dee... think Johhny Depp
shorter, without hair
a girl can dream!




So far, so good, well that is...
until Dee gets all the good parts.

Dum deserves an oscar for her performance
as they drive away.

'Well, you are so much more talented than me!'
magnanimously she cried.

Alright, I admit it was grudgingly said.

Dee gets a raft of parts...
A drunk Russian, a French Cavalry man, a Belgium General,
A Germany soldier, a British Tommie to name but a few.
Oh... also he has to sing Silent Night in German.

You, I am sure, get my drift?

Dum gets the part of a heckler in the 
Emmeline Pankhurst scene.
And not forgetting leading out the British
contingent as Ireland...
so far so good
except he, she, it, okay, I own up... its me,
 has to wear over my pierrot outfit,
a green wraparound skirt and
to add insult to injury, do a jig!




This is me who skulks around mainly in black
to cover the curves...
Now, not only head to toe in white,
but with the added bulk of a once round the gasworks
green frigging skirt.

I can see it all...
my bosoms will have a field day
as they move independently of each other,
vying for attention over and above the
Emerald green tent.
'BeJeezus!'

Some might say, serve her right,
time she was taken down a peg or two.
And you know something, I'm inclined to agree,
not that I'd ever admit it, mind!







Tuesday 15 April 2014

I'm in a bit of...

a tizz!
Will the role I covet be mine tonight?

In my mind's eye I see it all...
heavily corsetted, knickers in a twist
 I stand on a soap-box
and rail at the world
(bit like what I do on my blog, what!) 

Alright I know Emmeline Pankhurst does 
have lots of lines to say
and my memory isn't what it was,
however I can improvise.
I'm not known as 
'StropsRUs'
for nawt you know!






Friday 11 April 2014

Picture the scene...

In us new strolling players strolled.

Ted looking for all the world
normal and natural.
Me at first glance and with a following
wind could, just could, 
only just, mind, be taken
for a geography teacher.
You know the one...
hairy legs,
dirndl skirt
prickly chin
stout legs in sensible shoes.
On opening my mouth that illusion
is quickly scotched.
Then with all their senses aquiver
they try, oh how hard they try to
ram this very round peg into a square hole:
after 30 seconds tops, they then give up
and from then on blank me.

Never short of confidence, I fend off their
disapproving looks with the ability
of a very efficient heat shield.
I've hammed it up all my life...
no reason to stop now, when I'm only a 
whisker away from getting my equity card.



No parts allocated yet...
Will mine be Lady Myvanwy or
Bet leaning her bosoms on the fence
chatting as she
pegs out her drawers?



Tuesday 8 April 2014

Serious rehearsals tonight...

will I have the courage to
stand up and decline a part?
Or... will the old Leo in me be brave
enough to come clean about
my many and various shortcomings?

Watch this space




Monday 7 April 2014

His thesp eyes lazily...

travelled over my stout bod
as if he wondered whether this starlet
is worth bedding in order to
give her one...
a part in his next production...
 that is.

'The walk is over four miles!'
he said pointedly looking in my direction.

I pulled myself up to my full height of
5' 4" and huffily replied in my
best Lady Bracknell tones
'Well, only a couple of weeks ago we did
over 10 miles!'

We set off, me with I'll show him, strop in every step.
The runner bean and I set the pace...

Up the hill we went...
think Sutton Bank in Yorkshire...
a long slow hill that looks a breeze.
It wasn't long before I had to say
'I'll have to take a breather!'
Damn, DAMN, damn!
He didn't need to say a thing.

At the top, my composure returned, my cheeks
returned to normal, my heart settled.
Lindy Lou was back to her strong sturdy self.

This Strolling Players walk was our first
outing with the local Am Drams group.
In the pub we bonded with our fellow
thesps.  Alcohol always irons out differences
in class, intelligence and social skills,
I find... don't you?

We have been to two play readings
and were dropped right in it.
Plaintively I cried
'I only want to be a backroom boy!'
I know my limitations.
Ted who can sing, has a raft of accents
in his quiver, was a natural.
Me... well...
I don't do any accent other than Estuary English,
I don't speak any languages apart from English...
and that not very well.
What I lack in skills I more than make up for in
 confidence.
Over the years I have given literally
hundreds of talks;
the only trouble is they are all about me
and my life.  In a nutshell I can't ACT, or
put another way, I could oh so easily
corner the market in battle-axes.

Our summer production is
'Oh What a Lovely War'
So you can see I'm stuffed on so many fronts.
But wait, there is one role I covert, which I read on
Tuesday night.

Emmeline Pankhurst on a soap box...
I can see it all now.......


me outside the Chilcott enquiry