Poem about Childhood

I love this poem because it exactly describes my childhood. What a wonderful time it was. No responsibilities or worries. Life was one long playtime until we started school. Then there was no TV or telephone  and we didn't have a car.

Play Time in an English Meadow

 

Girl and boy
Gathering buttercups
Running hither and thither
‘Look, look at these
Stop, standstill.’
Boy holds large buttercup under girl’s chin
Catches shimmering sunlight in iridescent cup
It reflects on her throat,
‘Yes, yes you like butter.
‘Let’s find a four-leafed clover’.
Running, bending, plucking,
‘I’ve found one. I’ve found one.’

                          ‘Oh no. Oh no.’
                            Over and over.

‘One o’clock, two o’clock.’
Scattering seeds float up, up and away.
‘Three o’clock, four o’clock’.
They drift high into the sky
‘Five o’clock, six o’clock’.
‘Look, oh look at mine’.
‘Over there, white clovers.
You can get milk from white clovers’.
They place them gingerly in their mouths
Then wrinkle freckled noses
‘Ugh, ugh’.
They fall rolling in the grass
Laughing with utter delight.

They lie listening
Melodious, meadow music surrounds them
Unseen insects sing soprano
Contralto and alto from birds and small mammals
Bees provide the drone
Basso profundo from the big beast beyond the hawthorn
Moo-oo-oo- Moo-oo-oo

 

 

 An unwanted voice interrupts
‘It’s bedtime’.
They didn’t want bedtime
They had found eternity.

Story ONE Who Needs a Prince?

Hilary dropped the shopping on the kitchen table with a thud. Stooping to unbuckle Ben from his pushchair she noticed a pile of washing on the floor that she had meant to put into the machine. She called to Jeremy her four year old, who was running into the lounge ‘Be careful or you’ll trip over the …’
‘Aaahh, wah,’ cried Jeremy.
‘Oh fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.’’
‘Quack, quack,’ said Ben who thought she’d said duck because he was still wearing his balaclava.
‘Hello, hello, hello. What’s going on here then?’ said Gwen, entering via the back door and heaving her sixteen stones onto a kitchen stool. ‘Sounds like some magical chant to me. I would be careful if I were you those things can get you into trouble.’
Hilary laughed, ‘The bad fairy must have been at my christening and cast a magic spell. My life is crap.’
Gwen picked up Jeremy who was still whining. She kissed, cuddled and made cooing sounds in his ear. He continued to cry. She slid him a chocolate biscuit.
Bending down to feed the washer Hilary thought that everything in her life, even inanimate objects, required her to satisfy their hunger.
‘So where is my handsome prince? He’s leaving his entrance a bit late.
Do I have to do something to break the spell, like perform a daring task?’
Gwen slide her sixteen stones off the stool and carried it across to put the kettle on. She lived next door and often came to help Hilary.
‘Daring task? Wasn’t getting pregnant and giving birth enough?
‘Very funny. Like, oh I don’t know. Like they did in fables of yore.’
Who Needs a Prince?
‘No you’ve got that wrong. The heroes went on missions. The heroines were more sort of done to,’ She mounted the stool again.
‘Well don’t I have to kiss or rub something?’
‘I’ve kissed and rubbed ‘til I had chapped lips and an aching wrist but it’s done nothing for me. I’m still sleeping with a frog.. He used to call me his little princess would you believe?’
The following silence was broken by the whistling kettle and the children asking for drinks.
Hilary made the boys warm blackcurrant juice while Gwen dismounted and made coffee.
‘Looks like we both need a bit of magic. I need to lose some weight and you want a partner.’
‘If we hang around waiting to be done to, I don’t see how we can achieve anything.’
‘I’m all for changing the rules. What do you say to making up our own ?’
‘Like what?’
‘We’ll go on a quest. What we need first is an old woman collecting firewood. She’ll give us our first leg up so to speak.’
‘You’ve been reading too much Terry Pratchet. OK what have we got to lose.’
Gwen couldn’t think where they would find such a person being ten miles from a park of significant size never mind a wood.’
‘I know it sounds silly,’ said Hilary, ‘but what if we hang around a hard ware shop; they sell bundles of sticks. We could wait until an old lady comes along to buy some then offer to help her.’ ‘Sounds crazy to me but I’m game. No time like the present and if it doesn’t work Who Needs a Prince?
I’ll treat us all to lunch in Cheapway’s.
They parked the car then walked up and down in front of the hardware shop keeping an eye open for any female who looked over fifty.
‘It’s a good job it’s not a jewellers or they would think that we were casing the joint,’ said Hilary.
‘That might be a better idea, the jewellers I mean. We could go in and ask to see a tray of rings.’
‘What then?
‘Rub them of course.’
‘Look! There she is, the one with the purple rinse.’
‘I thought she was supposed to wear a shawl. I’d wear anything to cover hair that colour.’
‘She’ll do for me. Excuse me. Those sticks look heavy. Would you like me to carry them for you?’ ‘How kind. What a change to be offered help instead of almost being knocked over by thoughtless teenagers. There are more in the shop that I’ve paid for if you wouldn’t mind. My car’s just here.’
Gwen reeled backwards when she saw the amount of sticks that she had offered to carry. ‘Oh well in for a penny in for a hundredweight.’
Hilary was too occupied to help as she was trying to reign in the boys who wanted to join in the stick moving.
‘Careful, you’ll get splinters,’ she said but thought what a mad idea it had been to go on a mission.
‘Now then, one good turn deserves another,’ said the old woman when all the sticks Who Needs A Prince?
were safely stowed in the back of her estate car. ‘What do you say to a spot of lunch on me?’
Jeremy and Ben who had been quiet until now started whining. Jeremy was hungry and Ben wanted a pee.
‘How kind of you to offer,’ said Hilary let’s get into Safeway’s before these two drive me potty.’
When they’d all been to the toilet and were comfortably settled at a table with their lunches Gwen said, ‘Leave that seat for the ------. Where’d she go.?
‘That’s her going through the exit doors,’ said Hilary. ‘She left this poster. Shall I run after her?’
‘What’s this,’ said Gwen taking it from Hilary. ‘What does it say?’
She read aloud,

‘Assertiveness Training for Women Only,
Tuesday 17th May at 3.00pm
in
The Village Hall
Crèche Available
Come along and find out what you really want.
Learn how to ask for it.
Find out how to be independent and
feel comfortable in your own body
in a safe and supportive atmosphere.’

‘Could be better than a Charming Prince. What d’you say? Shall we give it a go?’

Writing or not?

 



A garden view to brighten up this blog

As it's late September and Winter looms I decided to get back some balance between gardening and writing and activities elsewhere e.g. dancing so here I am getting back into this writing blog.
A couple of years ago I read that short stories that had been on the internet in whatever form e.g. blogs were not eligible for competition entries. I then deleted all my short stories from this blog.
Now I do not enter competitions I shall up load all my short stories to this blog. I may then at some future date self publish a book of short stories.

Two More Women on Whose Shoulders We Stand

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia

               

 

 

Sarah Moore Grimké (1792–1873) and Angelina Emily Grimké (1805–1879), known as the Grimké sisters, were 19th-century Southern American Quakers, educators and writers who were early advocates of abolitionism and women's rights.
They were born in Charleston, South Carolina, USA. Sarah Moore Grimke was born on November 26, 1792 and Angelina Emily Grimke was born on February 20, 1805. Throughout their lives, they travelled throughout the North, lecturing about their first hand experiences with slavery on their family's plantation. Among the American first women to act publicly in social reform movements, they received abuse and ridicule for their abolitionist activity. They both realized that women would have to create a safe space in the public arena to be effective reformers. They became early activists in the women's rights movement

We must appreciate these women who laid the early foundations for the lives we live now. Remember they lived over TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO. It has been and still is a long hard battle.

Women We Should Remember

I decided to write about women writers and campaigners on whose shoulders we stand.
The first one  is Olive Schreiner.
Olive Schreiner (24 March 1855 – 11 December 1920) was a South African author, anti-war campaigner and intellectual. She is best remembered today for her ...novel The Story of an African Farm which has been highly acclaimed ever since its first publication in 1883 for the bold manner in which it dealt with some of the burning issues of the day, including agnosticism, existential independence, individualism and the professional aspirations of women; as well as its portrayal of the elemental nature of life on the colonial frontier. In more recent studies she has also been foregrounded as an apologist for those side-lined by the forces of British Imperialism, such as the Afrikaners, and later other South African groups like Blacks, Jews and Indians - to name but a few. Although she showed interest in socialism, pacifism, vegetarianism and feminism amongst other things, her true views escape restrictive categorisations. Her published works and other surviving writings promote implicit values like moderation, friendship and understanding amongst all peoples, avoiding the pitfalls of political radicalism which she consciously eschewed. Although she may be called a lifelong freethinker in terms of her Victorian background - as opposed to mainstream Christianity - she always remained true to the spirit of the Christian Bible and developed a secular version of the worldview of her missionary parents, with mystical elements.

Biography - Books by Olive Schreiner - Books about Olive Schreiner - See also

Olympic story

This story was written by my niece and included some superb photos, but I haven't worked out how to copy them from adobe. Help.

                                                                                  Oh Wow!!!

Before I even start my story, I must give my utmost thanks to Imad for letting me take a couple of

hours holiday, and to Bren for getting the tickets in the first place, and making one of my all time

dreams come true!!!!!

Mmmmmmm……….How to start?

Well, as you may know………………and if you didn’t before, you do now……….. I was born on 29

th February,

Leap Year, and as you are all aware 29th

Feb only occurs once every four years, as does the Olympic

games. Putting this together (I was only quite young at the time) I worked it out that if the Olympic

games were only held every 4 years and that was in MY real birthday year then they must have been

put on just for me. Perfectly logical when you think about it! Anyway, as this year (2012) is both my

real birthday year and the 

Olympic games are also being held; you see I am right!!!!!!!

Thursday morning, I dragged myself out of bed and after showering and dressing drove to work for

yet another long day at the office! Well, it should have been a long day at the office, but after

pleading with the boss I managed to prevail on his good nature and get him to let me take a couple of

hours holiday and so leave early for the day. Didn’t go quite as I’d planned but I did get home earlier

than usual, and after getting ready I drove round to Bren’s house to pick her up, for that evening we

were on our way for the

BIG adventure…………………..we were going to London 2012 to watch the

Olympics!!!!!

Stuffing the car full of pillows rugs and other bits and pieces, we started our drive down to London

to meet with Bren’s nephew to pick the tickets up. We made good time and at obout 9 o’clock arrived

at Notting Hill for our meet. We did have look around whilst waiting for the nephew to arrive but

didn’t meet up with Julia Roberts nor Hugh Grant. We stood outside a church in the dark waiting for

the meet, two shady looking characters we must have looked. “I recognise that walk”, Bren suddenly

piped up…….we walked towards the man walking towards us……………..Nope………..it wasn’t the nephew,

but it was male, so at least she’d got that bit right! A couple of minutes later, out of the dark haze

of the night (poetic license here!) we saw another figure looming out of the smog (OK so it was a

beautiful summers evening, it was in old London town!) Déjà vu……….” I recognise that walk” says a

voice beside me and all of a sudden, this young man with definite shades of the Williams gene walked

into view, an envelope in hand.

Hugs, introductions, more hugs and goodbyes and me, Bren and the tickets were on our way

Ohhhhhh Yes!……….…Tickets!……………

We made our way out of London and on to the M4 where we found the Heston Services. We had a

drink and some supper, whilst having supper, I made the most of the Free Wi-Fi and did a search to

see if we could find any Olympic Park tickets up for grabs. No such luck, but with tickets already

clutched in our grubby little mitts we didn’t really mind too much. By now it was gone midnight and so

with a very early start in the morning, we made our way back to the car to get some sleep. Yes, we

could have stayed at the Travelodge at the service station, yes, we could have stayed at any other

B&B, hotel or anywhere with friends or family……………….but Hey……..where’s the excitement in that,

when the alternative is to stretch out on reclining seats in the comfort of your own car! I always

sleep well in my car………………Hmmmmmpf……..not this time though! My restless legs were practising

for the Olympic high jump or long jump…….in fact, more like the triple jump! But eventually I got

comfortable and just started to doze off when a particularly spectacular ‘jump’ on the part of my left

leg started the car alarm off. Well Damn me…….I honestly never knew I had a car alarm…………..but at

least I know now! After a few minutes fumbling with the car keys, I managed to switch the thing off

and so settled down again for a night's sleep………………I would just like to say, that I know Bren said

she heard the alarm, but believe me, she never even twitched when it went off, same steady snoring

throughout!!!

A couple of hours later it was time to get up and start the BIG adventure of the day. We nipped

back into the service station and got a quick wash and then, with the excitement building, we drove on

to the start of our Olympic journey, Upton Court Park and Ride!

There were only about 50 cars in front of us so parking up was quite easy, we then got what we

wanted to take with us and made our way to the buses ready to take us to

for the Rowing.

After a short bus ride, one which when looking out of the side windows took us past Windsor Castle,

I did try to photo the castle, but not timing it very well I managed to photo clumps of trees…..well, I

never did claim to be a photographer!.........we arrived at Windsor Racecourse which was to be the

start of our walk to the Olympic grandstands.

The walk from the buses along the racecourse was our longest walk, but it was such a well organised

walk with volunteers cheerily calling good morning and thoroughly enjoying themselves it didn’t feel

long, and in the lovely early morning sun we wandered happily along seeing boats moored on the river,

and other bits and pieces including Wenlock, arguably he worst Olympic mascot ever designed!

Guess which was Wenlock?!?!?!?

We got to the food area about half an hour before the gates to the stands were opened (races

started at 9:30) so joined in with the huge queue and stood in line for breakfast baps.

Feeling much refreshed after our breakfast and with the gates now having opened, we made our way

into the viewing area, a short walk away. Here there were lots to see and do with more food and

drink stands, souvenir stands and other interesting things to look at, buy or do. I also feel it’s worth

a mention of how clean the whole site was/is and more importantly, the unbelievably clean loos. 10 out

of 10 there! Here are a few images of what we could see before we took our seats in the stands

We took our seats in the Grandstand…………………and what seats…………..we were overlooking the finish

line! Better seats just couldn’t have been found.

And then it was the start of the races. First up battling for 31

st 32nd and 33rd place in the single

sculls were Niger, Cameroon and Tunisia. Niger came in last by over a minute and a half, but the

cheers that went up for him you’d think he’d won the gold medal. By the way, the diagonal line

running across the water is the finish line.

The next couple of heats for the single sculling went on, but then a cross wind got up, so they decided

to put a hold on the racing for half an hour, so we thought we’d stretch our legs a bit and go for a

walk along the whole course. Some of the races did take place whilst we were walking but we were

back in our seats for the Team GB Medals.

Our first medal came with a Bronze in the Men's Pairs, our men just being pipped into third place

It was now time for the BIG race of the day……….well, the BIG race of the day for Team GB anyway.

I can honestly say, that after this race, I wasn’t sure whether I’d just lost my voice from the

shouting, or whether I’d gone deaf from the cheering! What cheering there was. It was

amazing, if

You can imagine a 2 kilometres line made up of thousands of people and at the far end is the race

start, as the boats get under way, the cheering starts, it then works its way along the line rather like

a Mexican wave, until all of a sudden, the boats are in sight and are racing hell for leather to the

finish line, the cheering has now reached us, and the crescendo is phenomenal. What an experience,

if cheering and willpower alone were enough, every race would have been a gold medal for Team GB!!!

But for the big race to the victor goes the spoils and these girls deserved every bit of their gold

medals!

And then, the very last race, the last heat of the mens single sculls, Team GB got another Bronze

medal. This time, I’m sure the cheering and shouting carried Alan Campbell over that line into third

place.

What an absolutely fantastic, magnificent……..words totally fail me to describe the experience of the

day. Why, oh why, did I decide when the tickets first came on sale, that they were too expensive

and that I didn’t want to spend that amount of money when I probably wouldn’t see anything anyway.

Who cares, the atmosphere makes up for all of that!!!!!

Just look at the crowds……….and who though patriotism was dead!

A

HUGE thank you to my best mate of the moment

Brenda Williams.