The Watcher

“Oh shut up Mum” she says and shuts the door on me.
It’s her first time festival camping and I confess to feeling not a little anxious.
Maybe I overdid it a bit with the helpful suggestions.
Later in Ventnor, I wonder how many spotted the grey car trundling up hill and down dale… until, at last, it was left to rest up in the town where the hills weren’t quite so demanding.
I’m turning into an old woman.
We moon-gaze – it’s supposed to be a ‘Honey Moon’ tonight; the clouds obscure but still the watcher sees on this Friday…the 13th

The etiquettes of dating.

14.12.13

I meet the new boyfriend. Only he’s not apparently. Her boyfriend that is. They are ‘seeing’ each other but not ‘going out’ (yes , I know…) she is waiting for him to ask her out. Her friend asked him if he was going to and he said he was. She said she would if he did.

Honestly it’s like a soap opera in our house.

Welsh Dragons and Spaghetti Flings

My Mum is a gentle soul, not too quick to judge – instead stands quietly by and watches. Talented in lots of ways, her singing self has performed on stage and radio and TV and also in the kitchen on the hallway…and the bathroom (my Dad has been known to sing a duet. Not so pleasant!). Her poetry has been published in various books and greetings cards but she is not one to look for praise or glory she just gets on and does what she enjoys. Latterly she has taken to doing crosswords – you only need put the paper down for a minute and she has nabbed it for her own and it’s not long before she ropes everyone else in to provide the answers – generous to a fault she likes to make everyone share the credit for finishing it. A joint effort you see.
My Mum’s emblem is the Welsh Dragon and just occasionally you see a fiery side – this has surfaced once or twice in her poetry and most memorably of all in the spaghetti fling (a Welsh version of the Highland one I suppose). Me and my brother appreciated the artwork on the flock wallpaper but I’m not sure that my father did as it was his head it narrowly missed. It must have worked, this venting of steam, as they celebrated their Golden Wedding a couple of years ago.
Happy Birthday to my wonderful Mum – the most selfless and patient person I know.

Writing practise

Chloe sits next to me while I am sorting out the resources and we have an end of term chat about friendships. She starts to talk about the boys in the class and she reels off a list of them who have written her love letters. There seem to be an awful lot for an eight year old. I ask if Davey is still her boyfriend*. She says no but smiles as she speaks. She admits that Davey likes her and that Brad likes Daisy and Gemma and she thinks that Brad likes her too – he is one of the ardent letter writers. I overhear Bradley commenting to Poppy that he has noticed that she is a brilliant glue-sticker-inner and I sense another interest forming.
I shake my head at this complicated state of affairs, but am actually quite heartened that, in these days of technology, there is still a little romance left in the world – even if it is all downhill from the age of nine!

*See: https://musingsfromarandommind.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/lessons-in-love/

A Waste of Words

#14
February 2013
Romantic gestures…I got called to an upstairs window to look down on his freshly cut lawn. “I LOVE YOU” it said. The sentiment lasted until he had finished cutting the lawn then it went into the green sack with the rest of the garden waste.