Dream No.27 Serpent Coat

 

I was putting away a small sports clothes wash

Having taken them out of the dryer

These are my most used, most useful

Light weight sports coats

One is bright blue

The other though pretty similar

Is luminous visi-pink

The both have hoods

I am smoothing them

Ready to fold them in three in the usual way

To them put them away in the cupboard to stay

With other sports kit ready for the next wearing

As I smooth it in my hand toward to hood

It changes as is lies in my hands

And becomes a snake

A very large snake

This is not good

The two colours have blended now

Day glo pink down the centre of its back

And bright blue all along the sides

It grows exponentially as I hold it

Although I am an old lady

I have no fear that it will attack

I still manage to hold this enormous creature

Though it looks like something

That David Attenborough would show

As needing ten strong men to hold

I realise that this is impossible

And that it must be a dream

Not just from the obvious weight

But because I am not in the least phased by it

Holding the writhing monster I feel quite bold

And actually find the texture of it pleasant.

I look around wondering where to put it down

And find, just by my side

A crystal stopper the size of a chair

As broad, as wide

As I pull out the stopper

I know that this also would in reality

Be far too heavy for me to hold

Still I lay the stopper to one side

Still holding the head end of the serpent

Firmly and comfortably under my free arm

The opening leads into a fantastic crystal compartment

And I lead the snakes head into this space

And it goes in willingly

As is slithers and slides into this place

I see just how enormous the creature now is

Since the crystal container is the size of a large room

And is oval shaped

About ten metres long and five metres wide,

But only just high enough for the snake

This brightly coloured behemoth

Seems perfectly happy moving slowly around

Passing and re-passing

Its own great length and girth,

Over and over again

I replace the stopper and go downstairs

Though previously there were no stairs

They are but newly found

Now as I enter the room

I see that the crystal container is the ceiling now

And the serpent gazes benignly down at me

Through the glass don’t ask me how.

I wonder how it can be content

Contained as it is

Even in beautiful crystal surroundings,

I tear my fascinated gaze away

From the writhing effect on the ceiling sent

And see that I am in a beautifully furnished

Spacious thickly carpeted oval room

An oval office;

The Oval Office!

I recognise it from TV

The huge carved desk

The bronze statue of a cowboy on a bucking horse

The portrait of George Washington on the wall I see

The two sumptuous settees’ facing each other

The flags at the bay windows behind the desk

And other fine antiques of course

The POTUS is not present

Nobody is there but me.

I walk around the desk

Trailing my hand over the surface

I feel some of the fine carving

That was hand chiselled

By a craftsman on the cupboard doors of the desk

I am absolutely certain

That it is the Oval Office

But then,

I see my very own

Marble Art Deco clock!

It is standing on a sideboard

My examination has quickly shown this

I am totally certain that it is

MY clock.

My brow furrows trying to work out

Why my heavy marble clock

Is on the sideboard

In the office of the President of the United States.

Why I am in the office of Barack Obama

And not arrested!

Alarms ring!

My husband puts his hand gently on my shoulder and say’s

“Time to get up darling”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Temporary Measures

This was at the Chichester Festival Theatre in 2019. We like to catch several productions each year and missed these outing in 2020. This is just to show my hair in better cared for days. A noble effort though for Steve to be brave enough to cut my hair this week after a long care lapse during lockdown.

Just as a temporary measure I needed to take a desperate change in my grooming habit. It has now been over ten months since I last had a visit from my hairdresser, who in fact is my friend and neighbour who lives immediately opposite our home. February 28^th 2020 to be precise, just before we went into lockdown for the first time. In the ten months my hair colour had grown out about five inches and my curly hair that has never liked being any longer than that start before it start to be first fizzy and then very dry at the ends.  Still there was nothing to do about that but do nothing. The last time I spoke to my hairdresser friend over the road I had talked hair with her, and mentioned how dry my ends were. She said “Can’t you get Steve to cut it for you”, I had laughed at the time thinking that my husband cutting my hair would be an unimaginable horror. Another month later; I after I had taken a bath and washed my hair, yesterday in fact, I mentioned to Steve that I was going to try to cut my dry ends off myself since I looked as though I had connected my fingers to the electricity. It was totally unmanageable and the only way was to tie it back in scrunchies.

Here at a pre-show dinner with our dear friend Anthony Towers who often joins us on theatre visits.

 

To my surprise Stephen immediately said, “I can cut it for you that would be much easier”, and he went on to say that I could tell him what to do and how hard could it be anyway? He promptly went an took a chair into the kitchen where there was the best light at that time. I fetched the scissors, a comb and some clips to separate my hair bit by bit. Full of confidence he set off with me sitting in the victim/director’s chair. I told him only to cut one centimetre at a time of each small strand but if it was still looking dry to take off a teeny-weeny bit more. I made no further comment at all even though as I suspected there was about 2-3 centimetres coming off and landing on the tidy pile that he was building. It seemed to me that he could not do that much harm, except to any semblance of style that was left after such a long interval. As mentioned earlier here my hair had grown roughly 5 inches in the absence of a star hairdresser like my friend, and after all my hair grows like grass and always has, so no matter what it looked like after ‘Sweeny Todd the Demon Barber’, had attacked my precious 'Barnet', it would not be a total disaster because it would grow again at the same rate of knots.

 

He got through the process pretty speedily and I did not complain that, yes, he had taken off a bit more than instructed; indeed there blonde off-cuts, enough to generously line a Crow’s nest.  I thanked him for volunteering for such a dangerous task and he said, “I don’t know who was the bravest actually, you for trusting me to do it, or me for risking death if I did it really badly”.

 

I went up to the bathroom with the comb and scissors in my hands to take a look at the damage. I was quite relieved to see that it was not too bad at all. I spotted a couple of places where there was still a longer strand or two here and there and snipped those off myself, at the same length Stephen had opted for.  It wasn’t a bad job and of course it didn’t matter at all if it was not perfect, because my hair does grow very quickly.  Actually, it feels fine, much softer than it was with the horrid dried ends on. There is still about five of six inches of the blondish colour left and I plan to let it grow out entirely and let the grey have its way, until it turns entirely white. I am long past being concerned about beauty and must make sure that I am satisfied with the beauty that comes from within.  

This is me making up to John Keats sitting invitingly in the centre of Chichester early last year.
 

 

Best foot forward 2021

 New Years Day Turbo session tradition

 

It has been a tradition for Stephen and I over the last thirty years or more to start each year well. Since we caught the triathlon bug, our method of celebration has been to set ourselves a sporty task. In the early days we would put together a home stitched Olympic distance triathlon to celebrate birthdays and special occasions of all kinds. Then we started to test our metal further as we got sucked into longer events, quite quickly leading to Ironman events. Then the usual thing for a way to mark a special occasion would be a birthday ride or if it worked at the time a long swim or run.

 

Over time and with the growth of triathlon clubs in our area, we found other friends who were daft enough to join us on these torture sessions, that worked to remind us all that we would at sometime during the next year be on the start line for a major event that, although the elite athletes would complete the swim, bike and run in something close to eight hours that it would take longer as you moved up the age groups. Stephen has completed well over thirty Ironman or Iron distance races in our many years chasing finish lines. My own score is of these astonishing races around the world is about half of Steve’s at around eighteen monumental events.

 For a good number of years, we gathered a number of other friends who shared our love of long distance events and for a while we had to move the New Years Day long turbo training event to larger premises. Quite a lot of times we did that with ours friends in our business warehouse, a couple of times it took place in a local school hall and later we met for the 6 hours test in the Fire Station in Arundel, somewhere with a large screen TV for required. And a tea and coffee station to make sure that we all had a few comforts to help us get through the ride.

 

Of course, this year was a bit different and we have been out of touch with many of our old training friends, many of whom have worked our other ways to celebrate that did not involve pushing yourselves to uncomfortable limits, though some still did do something still as testing.

 

 And so it came to pass, that Steve and I found ourselves with our own company this year since we are in one of the UK’s Tier 4 areas of lockdown. Not to be crushed at the thought of not being able to get together with any of our friends, we took a slightly softer option. This morning Steve has moved all the furniture downstairs, so that we would not be restricted to the small TV upstairs in our little box room which at this time of year is also something of an ice well since it has no form of heating at all. He has busied himself dismantling our turbo bikes and bringing them all downstairs bit by bit. Then putting down floor coverings, before reassembling our turbo bikes in front of the bigger TV.  Since 2020 was such a misery of a year for all we also thought it would ne a pleasant change for two oldish triathletes like us with me at 81 and my once toy boy husband now at 70, to forgo the six-hour training video and allow themselves something marvellous to watch, that would still take us through a fair amount of effort.  Because one of things that brings smile and tears to both of our faces is a really good musical classic, we didn’t have any arguments in selecting the 25^th Anniversary production of Phantom of the Opera, recorded at the Royal Albert Hall. This amazing production had the absolute dream cast, of Ramin Karimloo, Sierra Boggess and Hadley Fraser. It was a good three hours long including all the speeches, credits and introductions at the end from Andrew Lloyd Webber, and encores sung with four well known ‘Phantoms’ from various productions worldwide, and of course the original Christine Daaé, Sarah Brightman. 

 

 No matter how many times we have watched this legendary show we have always end up in tears, yes both of us. The first time we were in stunned shock.

So having peddled our was through full show itself and all of the over the top show biz stuff afterwards we needed something lighter to finish off our new years toil with and Steve turned to a couple of episodes of Norsemen to give us a good laugh to conclude the morning toil. Job done. Onwards and upwards hopefully for everybody. 

 

Happy New Year to all our friends and family.