APRIL FOOL

COVER BLOWN

SEIZE THE MOMENT

I trust in cradling clouds of cicely

Its silken spilling, mirroring the stars,

I trust the hawthorn creaming into frothy

Along the margin of the sacred wood

I rest in hush, heady with damp silence,

In caverns where the cliff is mossed with life,

I rest in light where sky is stained with rainbow,

I trust, I rest in joy.

MY DAD: BORN THIS DAY 1924

Today would have been my dad's 93rd birthday.

He isn't here to celebrate it with us, but we remember him with love through the years.

Dad died at 65, 20 years after suffering a series of massive strokes at 45 (or as the doctor airily insisted to my mum, who knew only too well what had happened, "It's just a touch of bad bronchitis, Mrs Barrass!"). The doctor walked out of my parents' bedroom that day, leaving my mum bereft and alone with the obvious lie that my dad had merely a bit of a chest infection, even though his speech was slurred and he was weakly doing the opposite of every action, pushing away when he should be pulling towards, spilling when he should be holding steady.

Only a second opinion brought diagnosis, but soon the ambulances were on strike and he was forgotten for much of the time he should have been fetched to physiotherapy. Such were the times at the dawn of the 1970s. The strokes left him permanently disabled and unable to do anything without support. For many things he most loved, that meant not enjoying them at all, ever again.

At 8, I saw the happy, strong, capable, funny dad who used to stand on his head to make me laugh and gave me fireman's lifts till I was hysterical with giggles, turn overnight into a stranger who struggled to make himself understood by slowly spelling out words on my old toy chalkboard with magnetic letters, choked at almost every meal and lived in a huge hospital-issue iron bed in our tiny front room with calipers, pulleys, feeding cups, commodes, canes and humiliating helplessness.

No more running down the path, past the freight weighing shed, across the yard, along the platform to meet him at the little station at the bottom of our garden where he worked as head porter and shunter. No more that thrill of hearing the purring crescendo of the engine of his motorbike as he arrived at the school gates to whisk me off home or on some impromptu adventure in the Yorkshire countryside.

Dad overseeing my first steps on the lawn

But that happy, strong, capable, funny dad was still inside that often child-like, stubborn stranger as I learned to understand, growing up in the shadow of his loss of freedom and dignity. So many things remind me of him with thankfulness: maps, bikes, unplanned picnics, cherry genoa cake, corned beef sandwiches with brown sauce, trifle, playing patience, silly black-and-white movies, radio comedy, pit ponies, mystery outings in the motorbike-and-sidecar, steam trains, railways, picking the second favourite in horse races on TV, the spiral staircase up Hooton Pagnell church tower, watching the wrestling and scrambling and snooker, tinkering with things, laughter with crinkled-up eyes.

Me & Dad near Filey, c1965

My next book, Cloudhover Solstice, is dedicated to him, set in the places on the beautiful Yorkshire Coast my dad loved and which, without him, I might never have discovered or laid down such treasured memories that keep him alive in my heart. I could go on, but I'll just say:

"Happy Birthday, Dad! We love you and we'll never forget!"

Dad & his only child - yours truly, 1961

My dad, porter at Bolton-on-Dearne railway station in the last days of steam.
Quintessential Yorkshireman and a decent, lovely lad.

ATTIC

When I was little, I dreamed of writing in a magical attic.

I dreamed of just having an attic!

Back then, in Railway Cottages, painted Railway Green with Railway-regulation paint, we didn't have one. No attic to go writing and dreaming in. Only a dusty cockloft where my dad would store those once-a-year, just-in-case household items, reachable only by adults, only by ladder. Only an outside loo and a coal-shed of similar compact dimensions in our little yard, where the zinc bath hung from the brickwork, the bath we filled with kettle-and-panfuls of boiling water the night before school.

But I wrote all the time. On the dining table. On the three-legged tipsy stool my granddad made. On the dressing table surrounded by scary mirrors that made you look every which way into the shadows in the corners in the fading lemon light. On my lap. On the couch in the front room with the big light on before tea. In my bedroom. In the garden, where steam trains whooshed by and sometimes sizzled to a stop at our branch line station, spiriting my imagination away to wondrous unknown horizons beyond our valley.

I was writing my world a word at a time but still I would dream of my writing attic. Was it out there, lonely, waiting for me?

I dreamed the Moon would peep in through the little window set into the roof, peeking encouragingly at my scribblings. The sparrows would twitter in their cosy nests under the eaves, urging me on to tell them stories.

I've lived in many houses, many manses, flats, digs and dives since those dreams first melted into maybe.

Then one day, illness sneaked up, smacked my hands off the wheel of working, dismantled my strength, drained my batteries, clogged my muscles and bones with rubbery uneven pain, fogged my clarity, burgled me of my old whirlwind of energy, pickled my possibilities.

I moved here, forcibly retired with half my life still not written.

A little rented house in a village where woods, streams, fields and wandery ways have crept close enough for me to visit them on my better days. A garden full of flowers that imagine themselves into colourful calendars of the passing seasons. Eaves laden with sparrows and a clear southern view to track the Moon sashaying her catwalk arc towards the west.

And guess what else was waiting here for me?

My attic.

My writing space. My rooftop chamber of dreams.

I feel so blessed. I feel its joy, its sigh of relief surrounding me as I write.

I hope I was as worth its wait!

2017 - COMING READY OR NOT!

Sunset, South Yorkshire (all words and images author's own)

We don't have to search very hard for reminders of why 2016 has more than its fair share of reasons to be lamented loudly and then forgotten. Nightmare politics and propaganda, media meltdowns, financial uncertainty, deaths of a golden host of celebrity friends we thought we knew like family, unfathomable tragedies, war and hatred we children of the sixties once dreamed the world would be too wise and too compassionate for by now.

Sometimes just checking in on social media, letting our eyes scan a newspaper or fix on current affairs on the screen, can trigger a tailspin into hopelessness, cynicism, bitterness, shrugged shoulders, hardened hearts.

Coral and apricot skies

Today I decided. Time to focus on things I might have missed if I hadn't lived through this rollercoaster year. Time to allow myself to be thankful. Thankfulness washes world-weary shredded nerves like a gentle spa of healing for the heart.

Thankfulness doesn't mean you're suddenly Pollyanna. Gratitude doesn't cocoon you from empathy with those suffering or excuse you from giving a damn. But it can help you find your footing on the slimiest slope. It can remind you of the motive that coaxes you to get up for another day.

Spot the pigeon

Here are my treasures gleaned and gathered from 2016:

-taking the plunge of going gluten-free, dairy-free, nightshade-free to try and give my body with its tortured neuroimmune system a chance to heal itself. Gradually glimpsing a life beyond the constant fog of exhaustion, pain and sickness. Doesn't mean I'm miraculously cured of a lifelong knot of autoimmune illnesses, but it seems to have allowed me the blessing, at long last, of better days. I've even had to reduce my blood pressure pills down to the very minimum and my insulin cartridge lasts me a week! A couple of dried dates can bring me back from a low blood sugars now instead of 30 years of severe hypos rescued by jelly babies and lucozade! Result!

-discovering water Kefir grains, brewing homemade probiotic ginger beer and soda and enjoying what a positive effect it seems to have on my digestion. Plus I'm so attached I think of my little jellified chums as pets now, giving back so much more than they get from a shot of sugar and mineral water! Still going strong after six months, they're currently having a little rest and recuperation in my fridge over the holidays! They so deserve it! 

Water kefir in spring water

-being well enough for my first longed-for holiday, five days in June in fabulous Flamborough to restore my soul and get inspired for my novel which is set along that stunning coast. 

North Landing, Flamborough, East Yorkshire 

-reconnecting with my bestie from schooldays after she resettled in the UK after decades living abroad. Our weekly Skype adventures, texting, laughter and far-ranging heart-to-hearts till the early hours are a joy to my spirit. The years fall away and we're in our teens again, but even closer with the richer perspective of the years apart.

My bestie and I conquering the Skype gremlins 

-teaching myself how to bake the most moist, rich, delicious chocolate cake I've ever tasted, using coconut oil, almond flour and ingredients that no longer make my blood sugars spike, with the joy of never needing to deprive myself of my ultimate salted caramel treat! That is, if I've ever got any left after sharing it with eager friends and family!

Gluten-free salted caramel chocolate cake

-dog-sitting a variety of furry friends of friends who fill up, temporarily, that dog-shaped hole in my heart since my own lad passed away.

Cocker Spaniel sisters discovering treat puzzle ball

-inching towards the publication of my second novel, “Cloudhover Solstice” with all the attendant pleasures of plotting, researching, dreaming, writing and editing, plus the privilege of knowing how much my characters have found their fond place in the imaginations of my readers. So thankful to the kind few who support me by leaving a review, sharing posts, tweets and spreading the word. You are worth more than gold to me, even if I never earn a penny from my passion!

Work-in-progress novel. Not the *actual* cover!

-adventuring on a fungus foray by day and a bat walk by night in local woodland and having the quiet thrill of being at one with the wonderful natural world that surrounds us in this lovely corner of Yorkshire.

Orange Birch Bolete on the Fungus Foray in October

-soap! After night after night of sciatic twinges and cramps, googling in sheer desperation for help with agonising, sleep-shrinking restless legs, I came across what sounds like some mad old wives' tale of putting soap in a sock in your bed. I bought a cheap tablet of soap from the Co-op the next day, stuck it in an old knee-high, shoved it sceptically between the sheets. I haven't had full-blown cramp since that first night! No more idea why this works than anybody else – maybe I'm a mad old girl, too, but who's counting? 

Soap in a sock

-acquainting myself with my new all-singing, all-beeping insulin pump, Humph Mk II and his handset, the rather feisty Rita the Second. Yes, I still scream at Rita when I'm hypo and she's nagging me to eat. I still roll my eyes at Humph when he decides he needs new batteries in the middle of something more interesting. But you've got to love technology and ingenuity. They're keeping me alive from one moment to the next. My great gran was dead at 42 for lack of such inventions being widely available in the 1920s.

Me and my portable pancreas

-the birds, the Moon, passing planes, the trees, the flora and fauna, the clouds, the sunsets, the faces, the patterns, the colours that have kept my camera clicking throughout this year and the privilege of reliving eternally these moments frozen in time and sharing them with friends the world over.

Full Grain Moon over the wood

-friends, old and new, online and with flesh on, who remind me how many truly wonderful and special people are on this planet, fighting to ensure that love will always win over prejudice, bigotry and hate.

2017, you're welcome! You might not be gentle. You might not be all we hope for. But I'm coming to make the best of you, ready or not!

ASHEN

ASHEN

Noctilucent crown

Digit dither in bluest breeze

Summer spender

Of unresting still

Nithered in dusk's gown

Holding owl in finger squeeze

Winter welcomer

Quiesce to chill

Your keys hold all pendula

Hushing the clockwork,

Finger on lip of the stream;

Keys fan, fair flutterer,

Ogham misspelling

The drift and the dream

Perigee Moon 19th March 2011

So much has been written about the stunning appearance of the moon on Saturday evening, when it passed especially close to Earth and so looked so much brighter and bigger than a regular full moon.

People stopped in their tracks.

People were mesmerised by its beauty.

People blamed all their ills and worldwide tragedies on its rising.

People shrugged and said "so what?" 

When I first saw it rising, as captured so inadequately in these shots taken on my phone and then by digital camera through my spotting scope, it was a stunning orange colour like a setting sun, only in the east!

As it gradually climbed clear of the tree line above the local woods, the deep salmon shade altered and its breathtaking face became washed by corals, apricots, through salmon and cantaloupe until finally, still huge and brilliant, it took on the silvery white of full moons we often see.

But I'll never forget that moment when I first glimpsed it, shimmering like a sunset, still tangled in the treetops on the horizon.

I must have missed the last moon that was similarly bright at its "perigee" stage, or perhaps eighteen years ago there were clouds over where I was standing? 

Some try to seize power over truth through claiming our heart-stopping neighbouring satellite means this or portends that, marring the moment with arguments that distract or look fruitlessly beyond the moment where God is pouring out all his bounty of created loveliness yesterday, today and forever, as I personally believe.

I look into the sky at sights like these and thank the Lord I personally believe in, with all my heart.

The Bible's inspirational living word expresses humanity's reaction to such encounters with awesome sights:

"I will show wonders in the heavens

and on the Earth,

blood and fire and billows of smoke.

The sun will be turned to darkness

and the moon to blood

before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." (Joel 30-1, New International Version).

 Through all history, we've often turned our eyes to such overwhelming sights of beauty and, in the fullest sense, "awesomeness",  that can turn our minds away from our own pettiness and selfish passing concerns towards whatever we do or don't believe in beyond ourselves.

To those who listen to him, Jesus said:

"Concerning that day and hour nobody knows, neither the angels of the heavens nor the Son, but only the Father." (Matthew 24:36).

So lets not try to control or manipulate each other by pretending we know. Lets just celebrate such signs that the universe is incredibly and intricately made, whether you're convinced it exploded into being for no reason but the confluence of a self-generated soup of elements, or if, like me, your faith convinces you of a loving creator tracing a path of purposes through infinity of space and time, urgently calling you into his heart of cherishing eternity.

Lets just celebrate in peace and joy the amazing times we live in, and sights like this we are spared to see.