Harry Potter Must Be A Soccer Fan

Check out my poem Electoral Math, South African-Style, published today in the ezine Streetcake.  It’s a magazine for experimental writing.  The poem is called Electoral Math in my SA collection but I added the last bit when I submitted it, to give it context.

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I have my niece and nephew staying for two weeks.  They are adorable children (I have to say that because their parents read this).  Whenever they visit we go for lots of long walks.  They arrived on Saturday and so far we have been to Alexandra Park, Bonar Park and Hollywood Park; coming up are Abney Hall Park, Gorsey Bank Park and Reggie the Roller Skating Dog at Stockport Art Gallery.  The appeal of these Stockport attractions are two-fold: they are free and they tire everyone out, including Toby.

I’m a great believer in exposing children to fresh air.  Even wet air, which is what we had yesterday: constant rain.  It’s nothing new; if we didn’t go out when it rained we’d all be as pale as the aliens in Signs, and just as cranky.  It rains a lot here in Stockport, aka Greater Manchester – hence, Manchester Cotton, for which we are famous, and all because of the rain.  Soft rain, of course, or we’d be famous for Manchester Starched Linen instead.

The problem with taking children out in the rain is not that they dislike it, but that they object to wearing coats.  The rellie kids, being well brought up, didn’t argue; but Spud, being mine, argued and complained the whole way about having to wear a cagoule, pausing only when we collected a spare child from his house (spare child being in possession of a football and Spud ensuring he didn’t leave without it). 

When we hit the park, the first thing Spud spied was a girl he knew, which increased his outrage: ‘See.  This is exactly why I didn’t want to wear one.’  I didn’t say it but it occurred to me that the girl wouldn’t have noticed the cagoule, being too busy being unimpressed with seeing him in the park with his mother and his eight-year old girl cousin.

I trundled around the park with Tobes while the kids played football in their t-shirts.  Can you tell me why I insisted they all wear coats as we walked but allowed them to be coverless as they ran around?  It’s not as if football has rain-repelling magical properties, is it?

After an hour or so, Bobo decided enough was enough.  He parked his soaked and skinny carcass on the ground and refused to sniff another soggy leaf.  He was shivering from the wet & cold and demanded to be picked up and cuddled, making pathetic noises that I interpreted as, ‘I wanna go hoooooome.’  So we did, to hot showers and pyjamas.  No-one was the worse for not wearing a jacket the whole time.

I never took off my coat and guess what?  I have had a sore throat and headache since we got home.  Maybe football is magical, after all.

 

Here Come The Birds

Summertime and the living is easy

The Hub and I went on a mercy mission yesterday.  The poor birds in our local park are starving.  The reservoir still has patches of ice in the corners (how odd that water has corners) and was still almost completely frozen over last week.  We took the dog for his walk there on Tuesday and noticed an old lady feeding the birds.  The geese – about fifty of them – climbed out of the water and surrounded her, then followed her back to her car when she was done; they also scavenged for food on the ground.  I have never seen anything like it.  Geese in our park are usually quite stand-offish.  They consent to be fed upon occasion but they often get bored and leave it to the ducks.  The ducks didn’t get a bite on Tuesday.  

The Hub took one look at the stalking geese and dumped me and the dog to go buy a loaf; and we went back yesterday with more.  It’s not fun to be hungry, I imagine.  I am fortunate enough never to have missed a meal that wasn’t scheduled by a diet.

My diets don’t last long – about mid-morning, usually.  I like food; I really do.   Hot roast dinners with all the trimmings; cheese & onion crisps followed by Maltesers and a mug of Earl Grey; steak, egg & chips; lasagne; hot, buttered toast; cheese & pickle on crackers with a glass of cold milk…that’s today’s menu sorted.

Thinking about food distracts me from today’s problem: paying bills.  I like paying bills because it means I can breathe for another month; but I don’t like going into Stockport to do it.  I have never been a great shopper (except for food shopping: I like food shopping).  I read these surveys about 98% of women spending a third of their lives in Sainsburys and Top Shop and I wonder, who are these people?  If my children are home, my bills paid and my cupboards full, I am happy.  I don’t get the compulsion to spend whole Saturdays in packed precincts, queuing for forty minutes to buy three vests and a sale corset that is two sizes too small and will be worn only once because you nearly choked on the fat that was pushed upwards, giving your neck nowhere to go and the sound of exploding satin left your husband temporarily deaf and he still screams when he passes the lingerie section of Debenhams.

Paying bills isn’t really the problem: that was a distraction from the real issue: public toilets.  I can’t be out for more than an hour in winter without the cold attacking the nether regions (see that clever use of the definite article so you don’t think it’s my nether regions I’m talking about?  I would never discuss such a delicate subject with my public; the children don’t like it).  Actually, it’s not even the public toilets that’s the problem; they are usually cleaned every hour or I report them to the manager if I am not completely satisfied.  It is those horrible, awful, disgusting air dryers.  I hate them, no matter how cool Madonna made them look in Desperately Seeking Susan.  You put wet hands under the dryer and it’s not so bad if it’s automatic but what if it has one of those huge silver buttons to press?  You don’t want to touch that grubby thing with your nice clean hands so you raise an elbow but if you’re short like me it slides off at first contact, throwing you off balance; you find yourself on the filthy floor (it’s been fifty-nine minutes since the last inspection) and you have to start the whole hand washing cycle again. 

If you are lucky enough to have a modern air dryer, the damn thing won’t start no matter how much you shake your hands under it, so you move away and say apologetically to the woman behind you who picked you up off the floor, ‘It’s not working; sorry,’ and she smiles like you’re an idiot because she can’t hear you over the rush of air coming from the dryer.  Defeated, you shuffle wearily out, shaking your hands as you go and looking for all the world like you escaped from a Bob Fosse audition; but it’s cold out there, remember, and you don’t want to put wet hands in your mittens so you wipe them on your trouser leg, by which you mean your bum but you say ‘trouser leg’ because you don’t want anyone to think you uncouth.  And that’s how you’re going to spend this afternoon: walking around Stockport with wet hand prints on your backside, showing the world how couth you really are.