Some Haikus.

Cows chewing grass
Shaded beneath apple tree.
Crumble and cream, yum.


Reflective, hard watch.
Dismissing time with cold hands.
Patience; waiting; done.


Small, hard, black flies
Whizzing, buzzing round my head.
Wish you were all dead.


Two Haikus on spider's webs.

Spider's webs, inside dust
Accumulates. Slatternly.
Hoover all up quick!

Outside, jewels, diamonds
Glistening on morning webs.
Nature's perfect dew.

Cycles

Today my daughter learnt to ride her bike without stabilisers. She is enormously proud of her achievement and has spent much of the afternoon calling her grandparents to tell them about it. I have only vague memories of the day I learnt to ride a bike. I do remember that it was red and new – not my brother's hand-me-down. I think I was pedalling down the lane outside our house and my Dad was holding on to the back. Then all of a sudden he wasn't holding on and I was doing it myself. My daughter's memories are unlikely to be so vague. I had my camera at the ready and shot several short videos of her wobbling towards me. What she might not remember is the ride along the road by the river, where she fell into the hedge a couple of times – with the scratches to prove it. But – and this I am most proud of – each time she fell, she got up, got back on and had another go. I could hear her next to me, muttering under her breath, 'I can do it, I will do it...' I'm sure this part of her memory will fade as the scratches on her arm heal. But I won't ever forget that.

A215 is underway!

Activity 1.1!

(response to a piece by Raymond Carver about real life getting in the way of writing and priorities)

Like Carver, I can blame domestic chores for getting in the way of just getting on with it. I also allow myself to think that it matters whether or not I have the right pens, pencils, notebooks or even computer screen in front of me. In the past I have spent pointless time and money on those things rather than just grabbing the nearest piece of paper and whatever writing implement is closest to hand. My latest (and grandest) fantasy is to build a beautiful, glass-walled pavilion in the garden, where I will sit, in splendid isolation, writing my Pride and Prejudice for the 21^st century. Happily, I read this extract from Carver's 'Fires' before the foundations had been dug!

On neither youth nor middle age.

In the hinterland between youth and middle age,

Spreading, greying, neither spread or greyed,

Some idealistic saplings still growing

Reality not yet cut through the thicket.

Gazing down at the generation coming,

To them impossibly old, impossibly powerful

Yet so weak in the face of life’s disasters.

The solution, maybe to plant the same ideals?

And on much the same theme...

Late afternoon in Epping Forest


A log, solid and ancient lies still in the wood,
My memories of love lay in a drawer, undisturbed.
Was it love? Turning again to this spot in time
Dark hair, dark eyes in the gathering dusk.


We sat on the log, not touching, speaking,
The words between us floating in the air,
Our breath mingling, evaporating and waiting,
Words never spoken, out of reach, like leaves.


My mind's eye wanders now and again
To the wood. Courage failed us both, not
Wanting truly to know. An accidental kiss
Then going home, separately, each to our others.

Epping Forest

We parked the car among the dribble of others going for a walk on a damp January afternoon. The city hum continued in the background as we made our way, like pilgrims, into the wood. Really it was a left over scrap of ancient forest; the suburbs have encroached so far now that little remains. We were there out of some misplaced romantic notion that a walk in the countryside was a good idea. It was so barely countryside as to be laughable. The M25 continued its murmuring in the distance.

We were both younger then. He was dark and to my eyes, certainly handsome. I was, well, young enough to still consider myself young, but only just. And I was married; to someone else. We had known each other for years and there had always been a something between us. A slight spark. My heart always did something funny when I saw him. His kiss on my cheek at meeting always seemed to linger. Anyway, having not seen each other for a few years, about six months earlier, out of the blue, we had started to exchange brief, infrequent emails. The internet and email were still new then. Before meeting up with old flames through friends reunited had become a cliché. You could say we were early adopters – cliché-wise. And we weren't old flames either. We had never got beyond the sparks from the tinder box. Maybe that was why neither of us seemed able to let the other go. I can't remember now who sought out whom – but whether him or me – we must have made ourselves pretty easy to find.

We walked side by side down into the woods. Great, ancient beech trees lined the paths and last autumn's leaves were soggy under foot. I don't remember what we talked about, only that there was this atmosphere between us. An elephant in the woods – the size of one of the beech trees surrounding us. Neither of us was brave enough to make the first move. To find out whether the other was thinking or feeling the same thing. At one point he asked about my marriage and how it had come about. But we shirred off down another path before we got onto difficult terrain. Eventually we sat down on a log at the top of the hill. We could see the tall buildings of the city in the distance and the sun starting to go down behind them. He told me he had only ever been in love once in his life. I lacked the courage to ask when, or with whom. He must have wanted me to, surely?

We sat on a damp, cold log. Our hands so close together I could feel the warmth from him. It would have taken only the slightest movement to have brought about a great change in our relationship to each other. I have no doubt now, looking back, that we were both thinking the same thing. That slight movement would have lead on to many more. That we wanted to find out what it was between us that we had always sensed. What was it that made us hang back? For his part I can only guess. Maybe the one time he had been in love had ended so painfully that he didn't want to take that walk again? Maybe he just wasn't sure enough of me. For my own part, I guess, deep down I really did know that I loved my husband and that for me that this was some kind of romantic adventure. An attempt to sure up my ego perhaps, or maybe just to add some excitement to my life. Eventually we got up and walked back to the car. The good bye hug was slightly prolonged but went no further than being a good bye.

First steps

These are my first attempts at creative writing in preparation for the Open University course A215 that I'm starting soon. Please leave comments but be forgiving.