May is upon us and my thoughts have turned to the summer and what I'll do once the school year has ended and we are free once more.

Usually we summer on the Aegean in Bodrum and each time we return we discover new changes to the place and to the people we know there. Three years ago this garden existed; last year it had been razed to the bare soil and eight apartments (four two storey blocks) been built there. The chickens were still running around, everything else has gone. This year I hope it will have regrown to some extent.

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Here's to poetry and spring and new beginnings.

A poem on the theme of origins, with a twist, of course!

I try to forget now,
how it began:

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That Durham had a huge coal field is probably known to anyone who has studied the social and economic history of Britain at any level. However, the mines are all but finished and what is left us is a legacy which underpins life with a surprising strength and tenacity.

Three stories this month serve as illustration:

The Durham Mining Heritage Centre held a display during January of artefacts from this major industry; appropriately the display was held in one of the other institutions that coal mining spawned hereabouts: The Social Club - this one in Nevilles Cross. There was a display of traditional mat and rug making given by members of the group who have dedicated their time to preserving the mining heritage of the region. Proggie mats were made out of strips of old cloth, prodded into a piece of material as a backing. Those of us old enough can remember them well - everyone had them, it seems.

Pit ponies were also in the news this month with claims and counterclaims appearing about the whereabouts (or whetherabouts) of the last surviving pit pony. It had been thought that Pip, the famous white pit pony at Beamish museum was the last of his kind. There are lovely pictures of this celebrity of the equine world at work in Sacriston Colliery in the early Eighties, pulling coal tubs to the surface on his traditional leather yolk (half a ton a tub, up to three tubs at a time). That he was 35 years old when he died at the museum is well documented, as are the 23 years of relative ease he enjoyed while he was there. He was very popular with all, adults and children alike, who visited him. No sooner had be died however, and an apple tree planted at the museum as a memorial, when another even older pit pony appeared in the mix - retired for over 30 years now, living in a field nearby. My husband tells me that when he was a mining apprentice back in the late 60s he would visit the pit ponies during the bait break (mid shift) and remembers how even tempered they were, living out their lives underground.

The mining heritage stories culminated in a full pull-out supplement covering the centenary of one of the county's worst mining disasters at Stanley. The explosion which took place at West Stanley Colliery on February 16th 1909 at 3.45pm killed 168 men and boys. The council and the churches both held remembrance gatherings. Along with the overriding sense of tragedy because of the lives lost, were remembered great acts of heroism by miners who were rescued and brought to the surface, only to return with the rescue teams to help bring out other miners. Among the heroes of the day was the grandfather of Kevin Keegan, himself a Tyneside legend, and it was heartening to see the turn out of people of all ages to remember those killed and those who were saved. Whilst researching my husband's family we discovered eight of his family who were killed in the pits, over three generations, two of them at Stanley, the others at Dean & Chapter in Ferryhill. We were able to trace information relating to these deaths at The Durham Mining Museum internet site and have also been able to see their names in the Book of Remembrance for Miners in Durham Cathedral. It was remarked by Council leader Councillor Alex Watson that, "The people of Stanley do not want to forget their past. They want to remember it." I am sure that they want the rest of us not to forget either a little bit of what was the true price of coal.

Whether it was because of the long and drawn out and to be honest somewhat boozy nature of the festive season's celebrations in these parts, or whether that was just the effect on our local journalists, news seemed to be non existent in the first week of the year.

In fact, I was beginning to think that the whole idea of logging a year's worth of news titbits from local papers was going to be a non- starter.

Our main local newspaper, The Northern Echo, and its free subsidiaries, report both local, national and international stories and so provide an eclectic mix every day.

I had so wanted to concentrate on purely local stories but on the 9th I was struck by these two stories which appeared on consecutive pages:

"Sheriff locked up in own jail after prisoners underfed" and "Boris stung by his own road toll".

The first story from Alabama was a truly sorry story of how power could corrupt, as it seems that the prisoners in question told of getting 'half an egg, a spoonful of oatmeal and one piece of toast for breakfasts. Lunch was usually a handful of crisps and two sandwiches with barely enough peanut butter to taste'. Meanwhile Sheriff Greg Bartlett from Morgan County Jail was running a very for-profits fancy food shop in the prison which took his personal salary up to 141,000 USD a year because of the money which he had saved on catering for the prisoners and which he was entitled to keep. We should be relieved that this was deemed to be "probably unconstitutional" and he is no doubt hoping that the next prison governor doesn't carry on where he left off.

Whilst we have probably no sympathy for the said Greg Bartlett, there is something touching about London Mayor Boris Johnson's admittance that he had been fined for failing to pay the congestion charges. Describing it as being "done by my own system" he then labelled the system as "wretched" and "crazy" and said that his case only highlighted the need for an "account-based" way of administering the congestion charges, convenient I guess for those who regularly intend to 'forget' to pay in the first place.

So, two stories which brightened up the beginning of the year and I hope a salutory lesson to law makers and upholders along the lines of being careful what you wish for.

Local stories follow.

Yes it is that cold here in Weardale - weathermen assure us it's because the wind is blowing straight from the Arctic - and why wouldn't we believe them? So here's looking forward to spring:

THE DECEMBER PLANTING

When at last the school break came,
and the weather was unseasonably warm,
I took a bag of half priced bulbs
and planted them.

It was late of course.

I tucked their lime green sproutings
into a bed of softest crumbling soil,
blanketed them with fallen leaves
as deep a chestnut brown as any seen,
and hoped to fate.

This morning I went out to see my sleepy bulbs;
for fear some black withering decay might rob
us of a spring display.

Into the brown black leafy crust I tried to delve
but nothing gave – diamond frost sparkled
against a swirling frozen foam, like a rock salt
mulch. Either a tomb or a protection.

I am praying for a short-lived death,
a good New Year
and an Easter resurrection.

Sujen
January 2009

First of all, my apologies to all readers - I have suffered a virus attack on my PC which has made writing very difficult. This is a particularly annoying virus which has succeeded in turning off my antivirus protection, reset the boot file, played stupid messages to me (including singing stupid messages to me!) and despite a stay in the local computer hospital is still not fixed. Suffice it to say I have not been sending messages to people and the laptop is now being used and I'm having to save everything onto external drive just to be on the safe side. Anyway enough of the moaning - I'm off out to bring in the New Year.

My New Year's project - I am going to chronicle the year 2009 by way of reference to quirky/interesting items in the local regional newspaper - keeping a cross referenced cuttings book and a writing journal. Of course I shall be posting any best bits/poems/musings here as well.

I hope the New Year brings lots of writing success for everyone.

Love from Sujen

A Very Merry Christmas!

A poem for all my friends; my wish for everyone is for them to find peace within their own selves, enough to last 2009 and beyond.

A Christmas poem for you all, with love ...

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So the week was more than usually testing and for a number of utterly unrelated reasons. Exchanging one kind of trauma (family) for another (Ofsted) is par for the course with me and mine, but the comic elements do not usually make themselves so obvious, or so it seems.

This week started with all marking to be completed, all lesson plans completed, (in triplicate) and everything tidy by Wednesday - when you have more than 200 students, this is no mean task. But it was done - within reason and on Wednesday morning I arrived (somewhat bedraggled and very cold) on the dot of 7.45 am wearing a very endearing bucket style hat which had somehow slipped down over my eyes, so that I looked a lot like a flowerpot man, my not too clean waterproof coat, and a bag of marked folders in each hand as well as my bag on my back. Elegant is nowhere near what I was, and of course my arrival coincided perfectly with the arrival of the Ofsted inspector being greeted by our perfectly coiffed and beautiful head teacher and her immaculately suited deputy. There being nowhere to hide, and unable to drag by key fob from the depth of my third bag, I could only wait until the party made their way through the security door with me in their wake. At least, I reasoned, they would never be able to recognise me once I had removed the outer gear.

And that proved to be the case - after four days of marking and preparing and a day of delivering truly outstanding and innovate lessons in which children were unusually engaged and learned a lot - I wasn't observed. Now, if you've been in this situation, you will know the mixture of relief and disappointment I felt; it's only possible to give a shrug and look to the second day of the torture.

Which is when the weather stepped in with a vengeance. Like many parts of our county we were already blanketed with the white stuff which had fallen on Tuesday but Thursday was something different - deep, deep snow lying like icing on the road and relentlessly driving and swirling from the leaden sky. Snowploughs made little impact, we could not drive up the steep bank into the town and geography made it impossible to leave. Imagine a ring mould - the type used for making fancy rice dishes for buffets, or jelly circles for children's parties; now you see the problem - you either live on the top of the circle (great views over Weardale), in the bowl (no phone reception, protection from the weather) or, like us, on one of the sides (in our case facing outwards). Whereever you are there is no avoiding a steep hill either to leave the town or to return. With two rivers wound around the town when snow comes we are trapped.

Eventually a snow day was called - I sat in exhaustion in front of the tele watching all sorts of nonsense - and woke the next day refreshed to find that the inspection team had left and we were deemed satisfactory.

All in all a somewhat sudden end to the drama - just what will next week bring?

Having committed once more to getting some new (and maybe some old) poems posted on the blog, Friday brought some dire news - the Ofsted inspection (which means that now I feel as if I should be committed - but to where?). Consequently, all has been wall to wall with marking, planning and panicking - and therefore no poems, just wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Thanks to all new Facebook friends for visiting here, will be free of the tyranny on Friday and promise will be creative once more.

Love to all, Sujen

I am going to start posting regularly on this blogsite rather than my other blogs for a while; it can all get so confusing and life is complicated enough at the moment.

Remember some time ago, when I wailed, "My life is turning into a soap opera!"? Aah, well remembered reader - it was September 2007. Well here we are some year or so on and believe it or not I am still living in my own version of Cleaner Close. It's been so traumatic and sick and stressful that it may well be another year (or more) before any of the sordid details hit the page.

In the meantime, I'm just trying to get back to some sort of writing normality and will be posting news of my newest ventures on this blog.

For those of you new to visiting my page, I hope you enjoy reading some stuff archived there. Sujen