08/1/21

Barista Baboons

I was bursting for a cup of coffee this morning. No filters, though – despite the huge range of coffee on the supermarket shelves, they never seem to sell the filters. No problem, thinks I. I’ll strain it through a plastic sieve and the job’s a good’un. Pleased with my ingenuity, I tried to stuff the sieve inside the coffee dripper. It bounced out again. And again. And again.

Baboons playing the piano post coffee shop fight
photo by Gerhard G from Pixabay

Okay, let’s try a piece of tissue. The tissue took about 10 minutes to let as many drips through.

A paper mask! That’ll do the job! (Got bloody loads of those.) I artfully arranged it over the top of the dripper, spooned the coffee in, carefully poured the water over it and stood back, holding my breath. Coffee, oh coffee, be mine! With one disdainful upward thrust, the mask disgorged its contents in an ungainly, sloppy, speckled brown mess.

By now, the work surface looked as though a troope of enthusiastic baboons had set out to open a coffee shop but had a massive fight instead then fled the scene in a dozen different directions.

I looked in despair at my cup of lukewarm coffee. All 10 drips of it. That’s when I remembered there was a cafetiere in the cupboard.

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07/20/21

Writing Exercise: Music and Character

Think of a song or piece of music you absolutely detest so much it makes you clamp your hands over your ears. Could be a Christmas song, a hymn, a nursery ditty, or a classical piece. Maybe it’s a chart-topper by some formulaic, squeaky clean, put-together boy band.

Write a paragraph or two about this song. What do you dislike about it? Is it a repetitive dirge? Does the beat feels out of sync with the words? Is it so loud it makes your ears bleed? Write freely and really dig down deep inside yourself to get to the heart of what you dislike.

Next, think of your favourite song or piece of music – something that really speaks to you. What would you choose if you could only take one song to a desert island? Same again – write freely and get to the heart of what you love about this music. Which chords does it strike within you?

Continue reading →
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07/9/21

The Best Souvenir

Sometimes I snap up a travel souvenir that makes me go, ‘Aaah… s’lovely, that.  It’ll look ace on my mantlepiece/bedside table/dangling from the ceiling.’  But I long ago gave up buying objets de crap just for the sake of bringing something home. It’s obvious when you think about it. You’re in a tourist spot and you’re looking for something gorgeous. It’s not going to end well.

I recall hopping from shop to shop in the pouring rain in Taormina in Sicily looking for presents.  Unable to afford or carry any of the colourful swirly ceramics crowding the shop windows, I was looking for something delectable and bijoux. Richly coloured eggs made of marbly onyx type stuff were pleasingly smooth to the touch but what’s the point of an egg that you’d break your teeth on?

Many of the souvenirs in Taormino were made out of bits of volcano. Sicily isn’t short of volcanic stone, it positively

Egyptian glass, women's travel blog

Glass bauble from the Khan el-Khalili Market in Cairo

explodes with it, in fact, so it’s forgivable that somebody probably picked up a fistful of the black, prickly lumps one morning, examined them closely with a furrowed brow and gave an excited yell of, ‘Eh, Elizabetta! Bring that box of googly eyes!  These’ll make great ladybirds!’

Over the years, I’ve amassed Egyptian glassware, a Turkish rug, an Ampleman tee-shirt from Berlin, a carved fruit bowl from Poland, batique clothing from Australia, a fancy metal-worked camel incense holder from Jordan, and a malachite bracelet from Tanzania which disappeared 30 years ago and resurfaced last week in a carrier bag of Lego.

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02/28/18

Using Memories and Senses to Evoke Atmosphere in Creative Writing

The Beast from the East has barged into East Lancashire and it’s bloody freezing. I’m really glad I don’t live in one of those countries where the only water is in icicle form, your feet freeze to the pavement and you have to go outside and chop up sticks to feed the fire that keeps you just the right side of death.

This morning, a woman walked past my house pulling a small child on a sledge. The sledge was the traditional kind, wooden slatted top with curved metal runners, same as the one I got for Christmas as a six year old. Mine had blue painted runners and a rope for steering. That was the idea anyway, more often than not I’d end up in the bushes or wrapped round some other kid on a sledge.

This kid knows what she’s doing. Photo credit: Pezibear/Pixaby

Watching the kid being pulled along earlier, didn’t just evoke visual memories. The feelings came back. That sudden sense of weightlessness, of sliding away downhill and the unforgiving bumps to the bones under the buttocks, shooting up the back, jarring it, dodgem style. It’s an unlikely combination – the smooth sliding and unpredictable bumping.

More sledgy feelings: watering eyes, fingers and toes numb yet smarting; the tops of your ears stinging as though they’ve been sliced off. A bitter assault on the nose as the cruel wind causes the hairs in your nasal passages to crackle like splinters of ice. Creeping wetness from snow which has sneaked inside the folds of your scarf, down the tops of your boots and into your gloves. Continue reading →

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11/14/16

Supermoon in East Lancashire

No Supermoon here in East Lancashire last night. Too much rain and cloud, even when I checked at 6 am today.

There was, however, a man, unseen but clearly audible, shouting in the street: ‘Fuck …. you! … Fuck. You. … Fuck you!‘

Perhaps he was also disappointed at the non-Supermoon and was cursing the clouds.

I went back to bed anyway.

Tonight’s another night.

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08/17/16

Gussets and Me. Tights Stall Saturday Job.

Larry was a lavishly coiffured, shiny-suited chap who sold tights and stockings in our local market hall. He paid partly in cash, partly in boxes of chocolates. Nice chap but misguided enough to give me a Saturday job. hosiery, tights stall, market, disastrous job

He also employed Dora and Elsie, two older ladies who, despite their slavish devotion to the application of makeup, had never quite mastered the art although they were rather more successful in their attempts to emulate Larry’s extravagant perms.

My experience of tights -or pantyhouse as our American cousins call them – was limited. As with many dalliances that seem like a good idea at the time, but end in disaster, I had approached them with gusto and discarded them just as quickly.

You pulled a tiny, scratchy scrap of something brown, black or grey out of a packet, stuck a wiggling hand down one of the legs (the only entertaining part of the process) then you sat on the bed and stuck your legs in the legs. So to speak.

This seemingly simple act presented a myriad of possible outcomes, all of them uncomfortable. Continue reading →

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08/15/16

Performing at the Ilkley Fringe Festival

I’m delighted, delighted, chuffed to announce that I will be reading my short story from the Leeds Trinity University Creative Writing Anthology at the Ilkley Fringe Festival on 4th October.Leeds Trinity University Anthology

This is the anthology I co-edited with the wonderfully creative and super-organised Lucy Brighton, under the supervision of Prof. Hardwick.

I’ve organised for a small group of contributors to read our work at the Festival, giving priority to emerging writers. For most of us, this is our first published piece of work. Yay!

It’ll be my first performance. I am rigid with fear and bubbling with enthusiasm in equal measure. How is that even possible? And how will such a mismatched duality manifest itself on the night? Continue reading →

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05/8/16

Letter to the Man in the Audi

Dear Man in Audi,

The one who overtook me on a blind bend today, nearly causing a head-on collision. The one I hooted and flashed my lights at.

Yes, you.

You seemed a bit confused; shooting past me then slowing down to 20mph.

You were yelling at me via your mirror.  I can’t lip read, though. Sorry about that.

But the cartoon-like effect of your swivelling head, wobbling mouth and eye balls rotating in opposite directions did make me grin.

And that’s quite a skill you’ve got there, operating the steering wheel by telekinesis, leaving both arms free to flap around in the manner of one with a wasps’ nest in each armpit.

Then there was the way you were frantically bouncing around in your seat, as if you’d just realised your bottom was involuntarily hosting a recently-ignited firework.

Continue reading →

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05/4/16

Things to do – Whitby, Staithes & Robin Hood’s Bay, North Yorkshire.

Clean beaches awash with seaweed and driftwood, fat seagulls yawking overhead, a giant whalebone arch,  terracotta rooftops and a sea that never seems to rest. Whitby, Staithes and Robin’s Hood Bay can feel like stepping into the pages of a child’s story book.

By contrast there’s a ruined abbey, a Goth festival and Whitby’s association with Dracula. This cluster of towns on the coast of North Yorkshire is one of my favourite places in the UK.

Take a stroll round the harbour.

Whitby fishing boats

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04/23/15

Mackerel and its Part in my Downfall: Part 2.

After the fishing trip in Tenby, mackerel played no part in my life until many years later when a boyfriend –let’s call him Tarquin – took me to meet his mother.

Tarquin was a lumbering, rugby playing chap who clowned around a lot.  He had a clutch of posh, amiable siblings, with names like Montgomery, Araminta and Rupert, unfortunately absent on the day of our visit.  I believe there was a step father too but he too was nowhere to be seen when we visited. Probably cowering under a bed somewhere, sucking his thumb.

Because Mrs Tarquin was terrifying. Continue reading →

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