good people

When I moved down to "The Potteries" from Yorkshire it was:

• To leave behind a situation I could no longer "feed" or change for the better.
• To make a space for a very important relationship to develop (this ultimately became another mission impossible but it was worth the attempt)
• To ground myself among the people here who are famous for their good heart, even though one is a foreigner here forever, unless you have a doomsday document to prove you are one of them.

The history of this area is amazing. From rural delight in The Doomsday Book to the "hell hole" of the industrial revolution that it became, the people here have seen it all. There was a time when it was common for 20 people of all ages to share one room. Lavatories were something like one to every 30 dwellings, located outside and doorless by and large (needed as firewood, coffins, tables) Stench, smog, disease and the regular flood of decomposing body parts from over-crowded cemeteries sludging through workers' houses when heavy rain fell did nothing to dampen the spirit of these people. Indeed, many were resistant to change in the early 1900's when local and national government realized they really ought to *do something* about it all. Even the Head Honcho Duke who owned much of the better land around here had sold up and left, due to the filth and pollution that rendered his estate uninhabitable for much of the year. For a hundred years or so the snow fell yellow in these parts.

Today things are "much better" but the poverty, depression and unemployment in this area are still formidable compared to the rest of the country, despite being sprawled out through some of the most gorgeous landscape (now that it can be seen through cleaner air) I love it here, even though its lay-out makes absolutely no sense to me. But maybe that is because I am, and always will be, a "foreigner". I love it because of the people.

On one occasion, still very new here, I had to go to the mail depot to collect something. Eventually I found the building. I say found. What I mean is I could see it. Roads here have a crazy non-methodology about them. Could I actually reach the depot? Not a chance. After my third or fourth circuit of the area I pulled into the only refuge I had been able to find, a lay-by. I was getting to know the lay-by quite well and it gave me breathing space to wonder if I could leave the car there, climb the barriers and the banking, cross the waste ground and take the depot by surprise on foot. I hadn't really noticed the enormous bus also inhabiting the lay-by on each of my visits. On what turned out to be my last breather, a man disembarked the bus and approached me. Assuming I must be in trouble (it's usually a safe bet with me) I wound down the window in trepidation. "You lost, duck?" he asked.

Everyone, male or female, is a "duck" in The Potteries.

I nodded forlornly and pointed at the elusive depot, squeaky frustration having all but robbed me of words. "Ahhh, tha'll niver find that if you're not in the know. Follow me," he said, sparkling with brusque energy. So he heaved his enormous bus into gear and manoevred its immensity around a rabbit warren of tiny streets I also had not seen on my journey and took me there. How cool was that?

I know that there are kind and wonderful people everywhere but in truth I have never met people so willing to go so out of their way to actively help as down here in The Potteries. This kind of thing happened many times, people at least centuries old virtually taking my hand and walking me to the place I had failed to find. Their kindness gave me the confidence to start asking for help, something I am infamously bad at. How many people actually interrupt their working day to notice that someone is lost and then offer to help without even being asked?

balance

The good news is that my dunny-brush-earth-mother squirrel friend has returned! Yayyyy! I was overjoyed. I knew her from her split left ear and the tiny white marks at the base of her ears. And because she made me climb on the bunny hutch to hand her a monkey nut which she took with familiar grace and ease. I could have fainted with joy. I thought she might have been caught by a fox (there is one who roams the moon nights here) or had to leave to give her space to new season youngsters. But I am happy. She is alive and safe and she remembers me. Talk about immense honour from small beings. I swear she has a huge soul. And a massive place in my heart.

The other news is about the clever-dumb balance. I love that ad for a certain credit card. Clever how they do that too, eh? Make with the universal laws and try to lure you further into hell? Anyway, in my efforts to light the charcoal driven BBQ I must have decided that I could all but walk on coals. A stray, somehow deported to the outer reaches of the tiny pit, was languishing alone. “I’ll just move that,” I thought, “re-unite it with its brethren” ... so I did … a week later I am still sporting a VERY sore burn on my thumb that is SURE to restore the clever-dumb balance on the planet.

here ...

friend

Pentacular has referred to my delightful friend above as a "dunny brush with attitude" ... I adore her, especially when she holds my hand. I would like to think she is fond of me but I guess she just knows I am likely to drop the nuts if she doesn't take control *grin. The yard is pretty crunchy at the moment, along with the kitchen. Not to mention the birdseed in my hair. I haven't seen her in awhile and am getting worried about her, though her this-season son, Sparky, visits often. He likes to up-end himself in the nut-box ...

perhaps ...

“Perhaps,” you said, “You live too much
inside your dreams,”
I felt you flinch and fade for my dreams
were not of you …

“Perhaps,” I said, “You cannot live at all
in me, for my oceans can do nothing to
prevent your pious drowning since you are
attached to shoreline bleak with safety,
tied to precision, not the spirit of wild
tide, willing only that your sand survives
the wave intact, unchanged and blind with
stillness. No. You cannot live at all.”

The rain, it came from nowhere as you left,
your sand retreating fast from ocean only
to be soaked in sky you loathed and feared
as much, for you would rather burn or turn
to stone than face the flow and flood of me.

I thought of you today, rain teasing me
with liquid kiss on skin,
“Perhaps,” I thought, “you will find a way
to stay dreamless …”



*image: lee bogle

dream to washer

I had a weird dream about finances (mine are always on the edge of disaster) and the last image I had from it was an invoice in my hands and me shouting, "you want me to pay WHAT??" ... well, I was out of bed in a dizzy flash checking the prices on the net for replacing the latest part of my washer to fall off. When I discovered that it was not an expensive part I fumed because the quote I was given said the thingy was VERY expensive. So, I rang the unfortunate soul who has been dragged into my latest drama with electrical necessities.

In a VERY huffy voice I said:
"It's about the price I have been quoted for this part, I'm not happy about it, you said 84 pounds ..."
"I said 84?"
"Yes"
"Er ... actually, I said 34 ..."

Wind can fall out of sails so fast can't it? At least 84 m.p.h. I would say on this occasion. So I have to wonder who IS the telepathic one? The latest price was much more in line with what I had found on the net. It seems to me that I heard right with the original quote and that he KNEW I had caught him out and now wanted to make out like it was my mis-hearing. Well, ok, let it be so then.

When he arrived to do the job, the air was unusually electric (I will in time explain more about me + electrics) He said he had brought my old thingy back for me to check because it seemed I felt he was trying to rip me off ... and of course what could I do but blush with guilt ... and assume he has bugged my dreams??

Humble pie is great stuff, eh? He was quite a cute guy too and I guess I was half hoping that something might "happen" but after that ... would you ask a madwoman (who thinks you betrayed her because she saw an overpriced invoice in a dream) for a date??

oh ...

Darn it, England is out of the World Cup. Don't misunderstand me. I don't care about football at all. What I care about is the mad media hype and the fact that in the distance, up on the main road, I already hear the sirens. What I care about is that later I may be calling the police myself because, yet again, men and women have had too much to drink at the pub a few doors up from me and spilled their brew out onto the street; men fighting men, their women stepping in ... and then it turns into a more-than-double whammy.

Some tyres have already squealed past my house and I wonder how long it will be 'til fist and bone start to bleed?

Last night, a couple was kind of circling each other round my house and the block. It was well after 3 a.m. and just starting to get light. She didn’t start screaming at him ‘til about the third circuit. I couldn't tell what she was yelling and he did not reply, just kept moving. There were no blows exchanged so I did not call the police, but I wanted them to stop ... and breathe ... maybe she did, though god knows where he was by this time ... because at my last curtain twitch she was standing, alone, in the lightening street. Silent.