Like many readers, I feel sure, I was immensely moved by Sarah (James)'s poem which related to post natal depression. The imagery taken from fairy tales was so appropriate for what can be far from the fairy tale ending to nine months of eager anticipation.

My daughter and many of her friends also suffered from this affliction and the following poem was written, and posted on the Arena, some year or so ago. I had largely forgotten about it and it was Sarah's poem which made me go back and look again.

I am glad to say that the woman concerned, my daughter's friend, is now fine. She's back cooking in the restaurant, her family thrives and all seems well.

However, when her husband suggests having another child, she's not so keen. I wonder why?

Enough preamble; here's the poem -

FOR WENDY

(For Wendy, who is suffering what motherhood sometimes unexpectedly brings

My baby lies in the cradle, pink and bubbling white.
Her bootees raised in milky exploration,
on such a peaceful night.
Her sister loves her; her father loves her;
And then there is me.

It used to be such a simple word – me.
I knew who I was, I was young, slim, pretty;
I cooked great meals in restaurant kitchens -
and raised my mother’s children as my own.
My brothers loved me; my father loved me;
And then there was me

My mother loved me too, of course, but left.
My father, he remained , three brothers too,
Four tall, snivelling, footee-mad oafs, and me.
Who knew that birthing pains remain? Did she who
bore me know what I now know? That they can never be erased
but needs must be escaped.

Because … who will wrap the blanket round my shoulders, and
let me cry or feed me comfort soft?
Who will soothe this drip-nosed, teary mother tonight?
My mother loved me long ago, and left,
as I love them – perhaps I too must go.

Am I made from a more solid mould,
more iron fibre clad and so less weak?
Milly waves one cot-bound hand in answer.
She waves to me.
She loves me, Mally loves me, Milly loves me, my man loves me
and now I know that I must love myself.

A couple of days ago I felt inspired to sit down and write. I wrote two very intricate paragraphs describing the salt flats on the Essex coast, their appearance, atmosphere, history etc.

Strange isn't it?

I can hear you asking why.

Well, it is strange because I have never been to Essex in my life, or this type of coastline and have never to my knowledge ever heard anything about the salt industry of the area - in fact when I sat down to write it I had intended to write an entry for the resources under the section of 'Snow', but instead this came out.

Well the whole thing was very spooky, and I must confess to feeling a bit rattled.

Most puzzling events in my life are approached by Googling as a first resort. So I Googled - in webpages and images - and then things were most definitely spooky because everything I had written was true and accurate, plants I had mentioned, wildlife, and landscape, even the peculiar spoon shaped bay which I had described and the disused salt workings there.

I'm going to keep on writing this work because I want to see what happens. I don't know if it's a novel, novelette, or just a short story, or a piece of writing about the sale industry - I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

It occurred to me today watching the coverage of the Remembrance Day ceremony at the Cenotaph, that recently I have met a lot more people who are personally affected by the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, either through the participation of friends or family members. Particularly I have been struck by the effect that this has on some of the children I was teaching earlier in the year.

For a lot of our Year 8 children (aged 12-13)this is the school year when War Poetry is studied - mostly of the First World War, but also touching on poetry in more recent conflicts - and through it they are taught about the horrors of war, and the pity of it, and of the immence incompetence and seemingly amoral heartlessness of those generals such as Haig who lead our conscripted army into battle. The overwhelming tenor of these studies is about the stupidity of warfare and the undeniably painful consequences for all concerned.

I found that many youngsters, particularly boys, at an age when they are struggling into the adult world find this line very hard to square with the idea that it is a good thing to sign up to serve your country. Many have brothers and sisters and cousins newly serving in various branches of the forces all over the world. Some are servicemen's children and others intending to serve themselves, in the relatively near future.

As a forces child myself, born after the end of the Second World War, I experienced a wall of silence about what had happened. Maybe, understandably after such a long conflict, people wanted to move on with life, to rebuild and to forget the horror. A whole new world seems to have rapidly emerged over the next twenty years so that much of life as it was pre-1939 is unrecognisable to us now.

It is just a very personal view that much of today's rampant materialism and neo-hedonism stems directly from the fact that we were not told about the huge sacrifice of nearly two million dead and many, many more injured which had just happened.

What we tell children and young people is of profound importance. They listen to what we say and are waiting for us to tell them truths about the world they live in. I believe that they only switch off when they find that no-one is talking to them. It isn't surely the responsibility only of our schools to talk about important issues; children deserve to have their questions answered by all of us adults who care about them.

I am sure that many of you who have children or grandchildren in the 12-13 age group, will know that the first task set in the study of War Poety is to go home and find out from the family whatever they can about the 2nd World War. I know that this task is becoming more and more fruitless, a combination of the wall of silence and the passage of time, but children are returning to the classroom with knowledge gleaned from television about the realities of War and they are struggling to make sense of it all.

They echo Owen's sentiment in questioning whether it is sweet and right to die for one's country, whilst those of us who teach poetry wonder how to answer the question.

Hey folks, ever had trouble with mice?

Don't they just drive you mad, scurrying all over the page and not entering the screen when you expect them to - a total rejection of appearing in the expected place, and then of all things jumping out onto the very place where you had least expected to see them. Just jumping up and down and up and down, quivering and then disappearing altogether.

Outbreaks of this mouse virus have struck this house before. We tried the Dell mouse which came with the system but it quickly succumbed, then the Kensington mouse from my laptop which is fine on the laptop, and finally a truly fancy tiny pink and chrome mouse called Fifi which my son had picked up at an exhibition in Paris last year.

(By the way, did I ever tell you that my oldest son designs and builds enormous exhibition stands - some as much as 15 metres high, some shaped like burgers, or flying saucers, or even cheese - whatever the client wants - and then goes out to different countries as far flung as South Africa, or Argentina, and erects them. Later after the exhibition is over he takes them down again and comes home. Well the pink and chrome mouse, Fifi, was one of many freebees given away at such events, so we tried that one as well).

All mice seem to be infected with St Vitus' Dance. We cannot control them or keep them still on the screen. Has anyone else had such a problem with mice?

Any advice much welcomed.

Comfort Blanket

Soft and fluffy and warm
silver downy billows gently hide
my pillows wet from tears.

Lift me above white clouds to where
shines fiery sun all day, glows placid moon all night,
where crystal rain is not yet made.

Now my ego is eased,
all betrayals blanket-comforted
- warm and fluffy and soft

Sujen
3.10.08

I have not as yet decided on a name for my new soap opera character – at present I favour something on the lines of Pauline Butcher-Dingle - but for the first of my posts about my traumatic month I’m going to tackle the first promised element – Love.

Understanding how love fits into the picture will also give you, dear readers, essential background information to the main action packed elements of the story. (A sort of trailer before the first main episode, in the absence of photo-opportunities or being interviewed on Breakfast television).

And so it begins …

In 1891 in a small town in the North East of England was born a bairn of the female kind. She was tiny in body but strong and fierce in spirit and she was raised in one of the largest houses in the area. Her father was a greengrocer and local lay-preacher and her mother, who she must have taken after, is seen in our photograph as a tiny woman with a sweet heartshaped face, long black clothing and sensible boots, and a look of such determination that it really takes everyone aback. The wee baby girl in question was only one of the eleven children she bore, whilst running a pie shop, doing her share of preaching and acting when required as an extra midwife in the area.

As the bairn grew she was loved and nurtured on good food and the good book, and the family looked out for her interests and her virginity amidst the great incoming of the Irish and their families. They had come to build the great railway viaducts and when they were completed they stayed on to bring labour into the mines of the new coal field. Irish men and women with their laughing eyes, their drinking, singing and carousing ways, and of course their papacy and their irrististable charm.

So they tried to protect Margaret Ellen but they were unable.

The rogue in question was James. Born the third son in a family whose sons had been named Thomas, John and James in that order for as long as anyone could remember, he worked in the pits throughout the week and attended the Catholic church every Sunday with his family and looked out for a wife as soon as the urge took him. Margaret Ellen with her intoxicating mix of dark strength and firm fragility hit the mark and their first born Mary arrived amid a great furore before the marriage vows had been exchanged.

This of course sets the scene for everything which is to follow, and may in some part explain how these two families, joined in so many ways, found it so easy to engage in falling out on a regular basis, and usually over trivial or inexplicable things which could not be easily explained.

For Margaret and James were married in the Catholic church – such is the effect of love on young people that she was prepared to face the wrath of her parents, relatives and friends and pledge herself in this way. No matter what was to happen later, this fact should not be forgotten – it was a love match.

The following is posted as I frantically try to calm down enough to write up all the goings on of the past month! It is the first piece I ever submitted to Writelink.

RHYS

Before the chavvy-lads come, before their horses chew new hay and stamp their welcome to the day, I walk down to the river. On broad branches of old trees, owls - crops stuffed with mice to digest, hootless and sleepless - stand watching me. I am not afraid – we share the view - balsam lined river bends, reeds and marshes, shingly picnic beach, clipped allotment hedges and shining silver birch, detailed against a mile of wind-baffling willows.

July is not like icy January nor cobwebby November. Today already I can feel pale heat, sense the drying dew and hear the daisies opening amongst the close rabbit- cropped grass. Some may like April better - for the daffodils or May - for the hawthorn, but this is my favourite month when all the meadow flowers stand higher than the whitening grass and I imagine maids in cool sculleries wrapping butter in the giant rhubarb leaves on the banks.

Across my view walks Rhys – a man in his culture, just a boy in ours –nodding to me his curt and silent acknowledgement. I listen to his low gruff tender greeting thrown horsewards, hear the rhythmic brushing of its flank and the harness’ soft, dull wind chime jangling accompaniment. I cannot stay. I make the road double time as the snorting trotting mare gains the junction; a tug on the reins and the painted trap turns into line and off they gallop up the hill into town. And I know it’s going to be a beautiful day.

Note:
Ours is a town of many settled and travelling Romani and horses are still a common means of transport for many. Rhys is a boy I was teaching to read and write and who was so knowledgeable about the countryside that he taught me..

The crash of the blogs meshed neatly into the general confusion which has hit my life since the beginning of the month. When I have a moment to turn round I will post all - it includes that ripe mixture we call life - love, illness, hospitals, bereavement, spirituality, madness and the social services. Yes I have exchanged normal life for a part in a soap opera.