A FEW PEBBLES

1

This Lilly is a long-boned woman with legs like skewers and empty breasts lying on the furrows of ribs. Her smile comes from an old heart, strong beyond reason. She smiles at laughing visitors who kiss, kiss, kiss, planting babies in her lap and presents on the bed. She tells them that she’s had lunch, but the menu escapes her; food appears like magic - chicken is fish, porridge is soup and everything is beautiful.

2

Accents arch and murmur through the carriage.

Hills, studded with pylons clamber

over us and craggy Huddersfield snuggles

into this lost Thursday. Manchester recalls

dead people from my past and the child

conceived there on a living room carpet.

3

In Madrid, I stood

Alive, before Guernika

A LITTLE CULTURE ON THE WEEKEND

Isn't it wonderful that you can just whip out your phone and snap away when the whim takes you? Sylvia and I wandered around The Art Galleries at Kelvinhall on Monday but this is all that impressed me to photograph. These are our feet in an installation.


She is just beautiful and in the perfect setting. And the ship is actually silver but I love the gold sheen here.


The masks are too scary for Sylvia but I love them.

WEEKENDING

Ooooh, it’s great to get back to normal; I’ve had visitors for the weekend so that means no TV and not much of the horizontal on my sofa – quite the opposite in fact. There were FOUR days of walking, tramping around and now I’m knackered. How lovely is today? Today has been all horizontal in front of the goggle-box; it was raining all morning anyway so not the kind of day to stretch legs or anything physical.

Visitors also meant preparation; I didn’t go at it with the same vitality as most people – I only did what was absolutely necessary. I purposely didn’t dust the top of the cabinet in the living room and have photographic evidence – there are still no carpets down so it is dusty here…well that’s my excuse:

I had a brilliant time and we laughed till we were sick! All those stories from schooldays and childhood; ex-husbands and lovers; drunken sprees, events and traumas; we didn’t need entertainment; there was no background music, no movies, no comedy except what burst from our mouths. Isn’t life grand?

But it’s so great to be alone again, back in hermit mode though I have made myself a few promises to leave the flat sometimes and walk a little, but I needed today to rest.