Niagara Girl.

St Antonin Noble Val/Oct 2020

I was sitting in the BitsnBobs’ office , just the other day, when the door-bell rang.

This was strange.

Firstly, there isn’t a Bitsnbobs’ office, rather a Hollywood film ‘my uncle’s got a barn, we could do the show there’ thing.

And secondly there isn’t a door bell.

Not like that anyway.

There IS a bell, a sort-of cow bell which you can ring by shaking a piece of string tied to an old piece of coral.

And the chances of me hearing that depend partly on the wind direction and partly on the cats.

If the cats think it is near to feeding time then all I can hear are them.

And they think it Is feeding time somewhere between the morning feed and the evening feed.

Anyway…. I heard the doorbell and jumped up, threw open the door and there on the doorstep was Niagara Girl!

This also was strange.

Firstly because there is NO doorstep.

Secondly because the last time I saw Niagara Girl she was dancing in a nineteen fifties Technicolor  MGM musical.

She looked great then, but I can testify that she looks exceptional now.

She was wearing heels, blue jeans and the colours of autumn, her eyes sparkled with the excited rush of the first full rivers of autumn, and her hair shone like a thousand chestnuts.

Can chestnuts shine?

I think so!

Anyway…

She looked small, smaller than I remember from the film, but in no way insignificant.

‘I haven’t seen you in ages’, I said.

‘I often come by’, she smiled, ‘the last time was in August.’

‘August!’, I was astonished. ‘You call that often?’

It wasn’t really a question, so she didn’t answer.

Instead she said, ‘I’m off to the Ocean, wanna come?’

I said, ‘what about the virus?’

She said,’from a distance our little green and blue planet must seem beautiful and young as it always was’. 

She told me to look at the stars and the moon.

I did.

The moon was almost full.

I looked back at her, but she was gone, leaving me only the stars.

There is a tide, in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads on to fortune…….

Witches, black and white.

Home/Oct 2020

 It’s raining.

I can hear the thud of the drenching as it lands on the roof.

The cat appears like a dripping sponge on the bed.

I imagine getting up, going for a towel to dry him and then filling the kettle in the kitchen for tea.

Instead I bury myself deeper into the covers, hiding my head and searching for the dreams I had left behind.

They are still there so I settle into them forgetting the pools and swamps forming outside.

She is still there, waiting.

‘What did your mother tell you when you were a child I ask?’

She thought for a little while before answering; she was old enough, wise enough now to know that what she said now would travel with me through time.

‘It’s impossible to please everyone… » she began.

« ….so make sure you please yourself », I finished. I had heard this before many times.

At the foot of her arm chair in front of the parlour fire, under the apple tree in her garden and in the front room next to the piano which no one ever played.

She smiled, she knew that she had the power to affect the future even though she would never see it.

This was her power.

No one needed to call her a witch but she was as strong as any; white or black.

Borders and Brackets.

Montricoux/Oct 2020 (look at that sky!)

Did you know that ever since Jan 1^st2020 this blog has had a dark blue border around each of the posts?

Probably not – because NOBODY reads this blog.

(thankfully)

The last person who did read this blog gave up and went off to study the beauty of the autumn colours in the trees around Niagara Falls.

(can’t blame them)

(I would blame them if they decided to go over those Falls in a barrel).

What’s more….

(there is always more)

(of everything)

Did you know that in the previous years this blog has had orange, yellow, black, green, light blue and no borders?

(you have to go back to 2014 to have no-border borders)

(wouldn’t it be great if there were no borders?)

(actually – some people like borders I’ve been told)

So --- you probably haven’t realised (until now) that this blog has a rainbow of borders among its pages.

Lucky therefore that I am here to tell you!!

What else do you need to know…. Well….. The Blog (capitals) has an archive; a head archivist who was lost , presumed dead, but is in fact alive and living underground; an underpaid unpaid employee called Bob who looks after the boxes of archives in a disused railway station in the Scottish countryside and does the work of the aforementioned head archivist (presumed to be alive); three cats (one of which is Russian); someone (him) who pops in from one year to another to ask and answer pertinent questions; no readers; me (sometimes known as the editor); a woman of eastern origin who rides a bicycle and does something that for the moment escapes me ( I’m not sure where she is either); a secret headquarters that is a figment of the imagination and an out-of-date guide to everything that you don’t really need to know.

But.

It doesn’t have a flag.

(N)or an anthem.

It does however, have poems.

(and lots of brackets).

There’s probably loads of other stuff that I should tell you, but, you know what?

You can read it!

(if you like)

(thank you)

(if you do).

PARTY!!!!

here /oct 2020

 I’ve just checked in my spam folder on my e-mail account, I’ve heard that one should.

Just in case.

The first two create an interesting pairing; Teeth Repair, Fungus Destroyer.

Can’t have one without the other.

Then; Pest Control.

There seems to be a pattern here, but then…..

Sams Club.

No apostrophe.

The other day, on a long walk through the forest (very far from Sam’s Club), i chanced upon some giant filed mushrooms.

I gathered the totality.

I’ve made mushroom omelette, mushroom soup (three varieties) and mushroom sauce for pasta.

I haven’t eaten anything except mushrooms for three days.

Everyone else in the house refuses to have anything to do with them; ‘they have red spots’, no they don’t, ‘they might be poisonous’, they aren’t, ‘they stink’, they smell like mushrooms.

So i won’t get off this diet for a least a month.

My stomach rumbles in the middle of the night and wakes everyone.

I have become the Fungus Destroyer –my version - or The Pest Control - the family’s version.

Which brings me to the last e-mail in the spam folder.

Right to Fight.

Appropriate!

Be a Fungi! (fun guy)

Fight!

For your Right!

To……..

The Earth's Song.

No far away/0ct 2020

So he started walking.

Through the fields and the forests, along the lanes, over stile and stream, through valley and over ridge. 

He gathered strawberries as he passed, and plums and blackberry. Tasted sloes and juniper, gathered grapes and mushrooms, walnuts and apple. 

He passed from spring to autumn and kept walking. 

He climbed hills and crossed dales and finally came to the ocean. 

He breathed it in and it filled him with a reservoir of hope. 

He was no longer thirsty, no longer hungry; he drank and ate nothing. 

Satisfied, he followed the shore line and entered the pines. 

The silence fell around him in yellows and reds and his feet made no sound. He grew taller taking the forest in, becoming the forest until he touched sky and earth. 

He dropped roots, grew wings and soared. 

 

The night came and then the moon; it was full. The silver light burst inside him like a flare and stars burst painlessly from his eyes. 

And from his heart a song blossomed until all the world could hear it. 

If they listened.