Spare room lodger

 I was short of cash. I was really struggling to pay my bills. Every month it was a headache. I had given up my car which saved a lot and with a free bus pass travel was no problem. I had studied my options. What to pay, electric, phone, TV, council tax? They were all on standing order so no choice there. What was left then was food. Well that is not a choice is it?  I considered going to a food bank. I knew that they had multiplied recently. In fact there was one within walking distance from my house. I had seen people queuing outside.

Then I saw an advert in the newsagents window. Bedsit urgently required for professional woman, non smoker. 

Worth a try I thought. I wonder how much I should charge. So I looked at the other ads to ascertain the going rate for a bedsit.

I rang the professional woman but she was already accommodated.

I decided to write my own advert. That way if I received multiple applicants I would be able to vet people and I would be in charge.

So I did and that is how Fiona moved into my spare room. I agreed that her cat called Jade would be welcome too. I did insist that she would pay for the installation of a cat flap. As the room she was renting was on the ground floor and also had a door into the garden the cat could come and go as he liked, as could Fiona. 

I chose Fiona from a multiple of applicants because she was mature, appeared intelligent,(I thought that we could have interesting chats) and was dressed immaculately.  How much can you tell from an interview. Very little I found out. I had stipulated in my advert that only women should apply. She was a woman of that I was sure. Although apparently one can't always tell these days.

I saw very little of her. She had requested the use of the kitchen and said that she would like to cook her own meals and eat them in her room. She emphasised that she would always leave the kitchen clean. She did. My kitchen had never been so clean. I was tempted to ask her to clean the rest of the house but resisted. I forgot to mention that her room had been built onto the house as a downstairs en suite bedroom so there was no need for her to use my upstairs bathroom. 

The first thing that puzzled me was that I couldn't work out what she was eating. I know she was using the kitchen but as she never left any dishes, she seemed to wash as she cooked. There was never any tantalising smells. I often cooked curry and rice. I asked her frequently if should like to share a meal with me.

 "There is plenty,"I would say." 

"No thank you," was always the reply.

The second thing that made me uneasy was that as she had the door into the garden I never knew whether she was in or out. I didn't want to know where she was going it was none of my business but I thought I had a right to know whether she was in the house or not. 

Gradually I noticed unsettling behaviour. Firstly I had knocked on her door a couple of times in the evening to ask her if she needed anything as I was ordering my groceries on line but she wasn't in. 

I did try to chat with Fiona. I would open with,"I hope that you are settling in OK. or Let me know if there is anything you need.  or How do you think your cat is coping with his new home?" 

I only ever go one word responses plus a "thank you very much."

I couldn't leave it alone so one morning in the kitchen, I said, "Did you go somewhere exciting last evening. I noticed that you were not in til very late." She stared at very hard and didn't speak for what seemed like an age, then said,"I am afraid that I am not at liberty to tell you. Please do not ask me again."

I just couldn't leave it at that could I? I mean it was my house and I know her rent is always paid on time, still it would be nice to have some sort of relationship and what the bloody hell does she do and where does she go?

I have never been one to ignore things. It was so unsettling never knowing whether she was in or out and when out where.

Bits and Pieces 2 and 3

 We followed a woman wearing very tight jeans and six inch high stiletto heels which wear obviously excruciatingly painful. They repeatedly stuck in the cracks and she slid about on the curved cobbles. 

"Why does she do it to herself?"  asked my bulimic friend.

I wondered,"Will she ever learn to fly in stilettos."

Listening to the radio.

I reach down through the slimy, greasy water to remove the sick making remnants of the last meal - a piece of egg, lettuce and tomato.

George Martin 0n the radio says, "I composed this to describe middle America and was fortunate enough to have John Williams-----"

The contents of the plug hole feel like the innards of a toad. I drop them in the bin and wonder, how long is it since George Martin or John williams did this if ever.

Bits and Pieces

 Alfresco

The sun is hot, very hot. We all wear hats. The wine flows. The conversation meanders. Voices are soft and lazy. Everything is an effort. It's 85 degrees in the shade. I move away from the table and walk around the garden snapping flowers with my camera. I view Beth's paintings which she has hung in the trees.

The conversation floats on the breeze. One woman says that she has been asked to deliver her paper at the European Conference ,I am waiting for an opening at Exeter University says another. The play I am writing at the moment  blah, blah, blah---.

I feel ignorant, stupid, common and coarse. My voice is too loud, my ideas seem silly. My manners non existent.

A home for gentle folk is discussed. There will never be a place for me there. I get in my car and drive home.

And there she sits poking and prodding at her knitting.

Biddulph Grange Video

 https://youtu.be/F8UBVSBS9i8

Albert Camus QUOTE

Intensity 

Live to the point of tears.

Desire for meaning in a meaningless world.

Rebellion - fight injustice.

Hubris - excessive pride or self confidence

 

 

Christopher Hitchens

 Does this have resonance today?

The following is a quote from Christopher Hitchen's autobiography "Hitch 22" which was published in 2010. 

James Fenton was the winner of the Newdigate poetry prize for the sonnet sequence titled, "Our Western Furniture". On the cover of the first published version was a paragraph from Commodore Perry's * report to Congress in1856.

"It seems to me," opined the gallant commander: that the people of America will, in some form or another extend their dominion and their power, until they shall have placed the Saxon race upon the shores of Asia. I think too that Eastward and Southward will her great rival in future aggrandisement (Russia) stretch forth her power to the coast of China and Siam and thus the Saxon and the Cossack will meet .... Will it be in friendship?  I fear not!  will the world look with breathless interest; The antagonistic exponents of freedom and absolutism must thus meet at last and then will be fought the mighty battle on which the world will look with breathless interest; for on its issue the freedom of the world will depend."

* Matthew Calbraith Perry was a commodore of the United States Navy who commanded ships in several wars, including the War of 1812 and the Mexican American War. He played a leading role in the opening of Japan to the West with the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854. Wikipedia

Reawakening Pottery

 Re-awakening 

This was a difficult topic for me. I can remember being told frequently as a child, " You are in for a rude awakening my girl."  Is remembering the same as re-awakening? Returning to Kidsgrove my birth town after living in France I began a new blog which is called Living Life in Reverse because everyday I am reminded of the 60 years I lived here. The houses I lived in are still here. The school I taught in has been demolished and replaced. The Leisure Centre no longer exists.The shopping experience has completely changed. The old railway line has been transformed into a tree lined walkway. Some of this is positive and some negative.  I arrived just before the first lockdown and I was taken to a grand exhibition in Stoke called the British Ceramics Biennial. Then the pandemic arrived and all thoughts of exhibitions, eating out, theatre visits, sporting events and even shopping were put on hold. 

 Last week  however I experienced a true re-awakening  when I visited the Gladstone Pottery Museum. I am a Potteries girl. My sister was a figure paint-tress at Royal Doulton's. My mother and I always turned over the figures in shops to search for my sister's initials. My next door neighbour worked in the clay-end and frequently regaled us with stories from the clay-face. My first job when leaving school was lab assistant at the British Ceramic Research Association. I worked in the plaster lab. We were researching how to make plaster moulds last longer. I had to go to college to two afternoons and three evenings a week to study pottery. 

My main subject at college was pottery. In the college holidays I did a stint at Meakins, scrubbing gold off hollowware. When I was a teacher I went to pottery classes for teachers one evening a week. When I was in France I went to pottery classes. The corny cliché applies to me you can take the girl out of the Potteries but you can't take the Potteries out of the girl.

Oh and of course I have watched every episode of "The Great Pottery Throw Down" twice. Although I didn't cry not even once. 

I have considered pottery classes but--well-- you know the old arthritis in my fingers makes it a no-no.

P.S. The TV programme "What's my line" had a contestant who was a saggar maker and the following week he had a saggar maker's bottom knocker. I watched the programme in our next door neighbour's house. He said " Oh yes that's Jim Jones he knocks bottoms for Jack Hancock."