Tag Archives: her

Life is Magic

Posted on by under 2022, April 2022 - Magic

The house was like nothing she’d seen before. It smelled of biscuits and old tea; and looked like a half-buried cottage with just the top floor sticking out. This, it turned out, was an accurate description.

She’d been dropped at the end of the lane by a taciturn bus driver, who simply nodded at the lane when she asked for directions.

After walking for a mile, the lane ended, and the bramble shrouded garden began. At first her aunt’s cottage wasn’t visible, just a curl of wood-smoke from a chimney poking above the treetops. She headed towards it and arrived at the two up, three down-down-down to find her aunt leaning out of a window, shaking a large quilt covered in esoteric patterns.

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The One Time We Weren’t Wrong

Posted on by under 2022, March 2022 - Things aren't what they seem

It was really great to meet up again and surprising the way we fell into the old patterns of benign teasing. There was the indulgence of reminiscence and a lot of catching up on the water under the bridge. In some cases that seemed to be quite a deluge. Having said that, we were more or less up to date on relationships – break ups and reassemblies.

Four of us, who now sat in a city park, had been especially close and still shared an odd sense of humour. I have to admit some of our conversations tended to straddle the boundary of acceptability, but it was all part of the delight of storytelling about passers-by who were unaware of their part in our dramas.

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Oh Dear

Posted on by under March 2022 - Things aren't what they seem
Gossiping women

Pushing through the door laden down with her weekly shop, Mavis waddled across to the nearest alcove. Time for a cuppa and teacake. The waitress looked across smiling, ”Your usual Mavis,” then nodded as she settled into the corner.

With her tea and teacake, she listened to the chatter from the other alcoves. Over the years she had heard so much local gossip which she shared with her close friends. Today would change everything.

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What Counts as Wealth? 

Posted on by under 2022, February 2022 - Wealth

…”The health of our nation is dependent on the wealth of our nation.  The poorest of our society has had to endure great hardships …”

Kathleen gives the remote control button a vicious prod.

“Oi, I was watching that!”

She turns and gives her husband a look of disbelief.

“The last thing we need right now is some stuck up government speaker telling us what we can’t afford, I already know that.”

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Coming of Age

Posted on by under 2022, February 2022 - Wealth

1985

Gran and I fly together after dark. Our sparkling wings streak through the skies like shooting stars, lighting up the night.

‘Girls have secret powers,’ Gran says with that twinkle in her eye. It makes my heart flutter and the magic flow through my veins so fast I tingle all over.

First, we fly to the grave of Gran’s Gran. It’s overgrown and we pluck daisies that have sprung from the earth.

‘This one’s wisdom.’ She drops a daisy into the open bag beside the grave. ‘And this, hope. Then we have love, happiness, bravery and ambition.’

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Caring

Posted on by under 2022, January 2022 - The Promise

A bell rang.   

‘It’s Linda, Mum,’ her son said. ‘With her husband, Jeff. They’re driving you to your brother’s.’

‘Linda?’

‘Hello, Aunt Violet.’ A woman at the door was kissing her.

‘She’s not been there in decades,’ her son said. ‘Good of Ronnie to deign to see her again, isn’t it?’

He was chuckling but the woman kept a straight face.

In the car the woman said, ‘It’s Uncle Ronnie’s sixtieth wedding anniversary.’

‘Anniversary? Is he married?’

‘To Betty. Remember Betty?’

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Distraction, Promise, and Genius

Posted on by under 2022, January 2022 - The Promise

“In my life,” Becca said to the class, concluding her written homework, “I have worn the masks of a wife, a poet, a teacher and a lover, but none of these can disguise, the empty space inside, where once lived a mother.”

The class was silent until the new boy, Bill Transom, flicked a piece of spittle-soaked paper at Rebecca. “Well, that was shit.”

Laughter erupted, and Becca flushed. She turned to Miss Jackson, who stood with her back to the class, studying a jogger crossing the boundary between the school playing fields and the village green. She turned to face Becca.

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On Christmas Eve

Posted on by under 2021, December 2021 - Christmas
Woman on bench with dog and a ghostly man

Mitzi nudged Helen’s leg, breaking her out of her reverie. Sighing, Helen collected the lead, her coat and the little booties they had bought the previous year to protect her little paws in the icy weather.

The front door opening, a shiver ran down her back as the cold wind hit her. As Helen looked down, Mitzi pulled her out of the door. Everything sparkled, little diamonds shone on trees and hedgerows, houses were all lit up. There were Christmas trees in windows, and families gathered together playing games, and laughing together.

Helen took their usual walk through the village, stopping to sit a moment on their usual bench. The pond glistened and ducks, all warm in their nest, murmured to each other. Mitzi started pulling, jumping excitedly, looking across Hubert who was sat there.

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Hopeless

Posted on by under 2021, November 2021 - Never give up hope

“I’m not giving up Hope!” Liz screamed into the phone at her ex-husband, before slamming it down.

Floods of tears drenched her face.  She slowly lifted herself up off the floor, his words ringing in her ears. “Unfit mother, child neglect, no prospects.”  How could he have said those things?  He hadn’t had been that interested in Hope when he lived with them, why would he suddenly want custody?

After she had calmed down, she tried to reason it out.  He’d never spent much time with them when he was at home. She doubted if he had even had the slightest idea of when Hope’s birthday was. He’d missed the fact that his daughter was besotted with him.  It just didn’t make any sense.

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Lloyd x 2

Posted on by under 2020, September 2020 - Demons

Driving from Cardiff to Swansea, Lloyd found a passenger in his car.

            ‘Who are you?’ he said, slowing.

            ‘Your inner self,’ came the reply.

            The guy certainly looked like him: older, more haggard, greyer. It could be him.

            ‘You’re on the wrong road, Jim,’ the passenger said, ‘every day commuting a ton of miles to that vehicle licensing hole.’

            ‘It’s a job.’

            ‘So’s being a galley slave. How about jumping ship?’

            Port Talbot steelworks skittered by, its Meccano limbs tangled against the grey sky as if in agony. The other Jim had vanished, gone in a spurt of yellow steelworks gas.

            Work went badly. Workmates faces resembled those of ghouls. The phone calls, a hundred ways of asking the same thing about car tax, lapped in his brain with a disturbing echo. He felt outside everything.

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My Blind Mind

Posted on by under 2020, February 2020 - Desire

“Can you picture her face?” My words tumbled out of my mouth as soon as my sister picked up the phone.

“Huh? Whose face?” Evelyn replied.

“Mum’s,” I said.

At sixty years old, I had just learned that most people possessed a superpower. They could visualise objects, places, events and people in their “mind’s eye”. I could not. Suddenly the darkness of my mind seemed blinding. What’s more, I felt the loss of my mother more acutely than ever.

Our mother had died six months earlier, after a long battle with cancer. Evelyn and I had nursed her until the end. Now there was a gaping hole in my life. It was Larry, my husband, who had suggested giving meditation a go.

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Consequences

Posted on by under 2020, Jan 2020 - New Year Resolutions

Yvonne opened her eyes to a blackness and silence that caused her breath to stop and her heart to stutter. She lifted her hands up to feel her face, OK, I seem to be alive at any rate!

Putting her hands down she felt around, perceiving a slightly scratchy covering, probably a blanket, and a cool stiff fabric, a sheet. I can’t be in that much danger if they’ve put me in a bed!

Yvonne turned and put her feet down until they touched the floor. It was warm and slightly slippery. She stood up and, waving her hands in front of her, tried to find a wall in what she hoped was a bedroom.

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The Letter

Posted on by under 2020, Jan 2020 - New Year Resolutions

Jane almost skipped out of the clinic.  She had been told by her consultant that she was free of cancer.  Striding down the road, she passed the travel agents with its tempting array of holidays.  Telling herself that she could do this on her own, she went into the shop and bought a train ticket to Athens and a ferry ticket to the incredibly small island of Halki.

A month before the all-clear, Jane received a letter from Stella who now lived on Halkii.  Jane had opened the letter with shaking hands and felt slightly sick.  Stella and Jane were the best of friends in the early 80s but in 1987 they had a row to end all rows, on a cliff top of all places!  Jane told Stella she did not want to see her and Stella cut all contact.

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From Resolven I Am

Posted on by under 2020, Jan 2020 - New Year Resolutions

I had to move my bag to make room for him. It wasn’t as if the bus was even full. It being January 5th, I gave him a sardonic, “Happy New Year!”

“You a Swansea boy?”

“Pontypool,” I said.

“The Pontypool Front Row! Remember them?”

“Bobby Windsor, Charlie Faulkner, Graham Price,” I said.

“More of a Neath boy, me. From Resolven I am … you’d think I’d be one for making New Year’s resolutions, wouldn’t you? It’s in the name.”

I let the chug of the bus answer.

“The number of times I have given up fags and booze … Eventually, the penny drops, don’t it. No point making yourself miserable.”

I could smell the alcohol on his breath, just past mid-day.

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A Resolution to be true to yourself

Posted on by under 2020, Jan 2020 - New Year Resolutions

Orlando’s Café was a dreary downmarket affair, hardly Mr Barings’ idea of a meeting spot.

Pimply youths lazed idly behind the counter, a toothless black woman drowned in a million shopping bags and a blonde floozy hunched over her cup of coffee whilst her boy, one irritating snot nosed tyke waddled from aisle to aisle thumping anything with his fists.

Worst, a lovey-dovey couple, shared a Sunday with a single spoon, breaking off from time to time for a quick peck on the lips or an ear splittingly giggle which made Barings long for a shotgun.

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Hard Fact

Posted on by under 2019, November

Her husband was a Strictly Come Dancing addict. You couldn’t get his attention when the programme was on. But when she said, ‘Malcolm, I think I’m pregnant,’ he turned the tv off immediately, and danced her around the room. They’d been trying for ten years and now she’d conceived.
When the first scan revealed a girl, Malcolm began drawing up a list of necessary purchases such as a cot and a baby car-seat. ‘Do we buy pink clothes, or is that sexist stereotyping nowadays?’ he asked solemnly.

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