Category: A River of Stones

January Small Stone# Twelve

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I’ve just been out with the dogs and along the way I noticed an elderly lady in front of me. She made me think about luck, health and loneliness. Her clothes were an outlandish mix of brightly patterned leggings, old lady sandals and astrakan coat. Just as I caught up with he,r she stopped a young woman and asked her if she would pull her shopping trolley up to the traffic lights at the junction. I paused a second and caught her eye, eyes with those drawn on eyebrows and bright red lips, but she ignored me. She probably wasn’t as old as I had thought, but she was razzled and had a cigarette dangling. The young woman talked to her so I carried on, wondering if she got the help she needed.

Around the next corner was my lovely old man, https://lucidgypsy.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/a-contrast-of-elderly-men/ chatting to a van driver. It’s been a couple of weeks since I saw him, so I was relieved and asked how he was. He assured me he was fine and turned to the van driver saying ‘Hers boodiful’, I laughed and tutted at him and carried on. My last encounter was with another really quite old lady, with her dog, who stopped to talk to Daisy and Dido. I’ve seen her before, but only exchanged Good mornings. Today she wanted to chat so we started with the weather. She had a walking stick and told me how she woke on Christmas day, in agony with her knee. She is having knee cap replacement surgery on Tuesday coming and was quite anxious. I tried to reassure her with stories of friends who had similar work done and said I’d see her in a couple of months good as new. Brave lady, I hope she makes a good recovery.

These lovely people make me so aware of how isolated the elderly can be, but I really enjoy talking to them and I know it makes such a huge difference to their lives. They may not have as many opportunities for chatting as I do – or as you do! If you come across people who may be glad of a smile and hello, I hope you will. We will all be old one day, if we’re lucky.

January Small Stones# Ten

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A third of the way through January already, winter is creeping darkly along. There is  a suggestion from the Met Office that we may have some snow and ice on Saturday, which I really don’t want. Today at eight fifteen, it was a morning for headlights. So different from yesterdays blue, I got wet but it wasn’t raining. 100% humidity and all of it settling on me, turning my hard work curls to frizz.

I walked the usual way to work, and along the path beside a row of Victorian terrace houses, and with nothing but fog ahead, I glanced down. Leaves from the sycamores across the road dotted my way, in various states of deterioration. In August they were rich, bright green – summer’s rain had stopped them from frying, and autumn was late. It was late October before they were yellow, then gold, bronze, brown.

Now a few deep bronze ones had found their way to the edge of the walls. Underfoot, some clear shapes in brown remained, many very dark. Some had felt heavier shoes than others, and had jagged edges. An awful lot were totally trampled into black marks on the flagstones, decayed, disappearing, and waiting for a hard frost or more heavy rain to wash them away. I wonder if they will be visible next week. I must remember to notice.

January Small Stone# Seven

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I’ve been preoccupied with writing an assignment for my creative writing course for a while. It’s been a tough one and I have been getting increasingly tense for the last week as the deadline crept closer. When I started this particular story I enjoyed it, it amused me, but as time went on I was drawn deeper into the character, to the point where I was unable to be objective. I’ve been working on it for too long, the season meant that I had extra time and I’ve used it badly. I’ve read lots of short stories – as I’m supposed to, and that’s been great, but the story has been stop-start. As a result, now that I have finally submitted the blinking thing, I am thoroughly bored by it.

Goodbye assignment two. Hello new section and new writing – I welcome you!

January Small Stone# Six

Posted on Posted in A River of Stones, England, January Small Stones, PoetryTagged , , , , , , , 6 Comments

Red vested love bird

 tweets declaring territory

scatters flyers its size twenty times

widgeon’s scarved with orange rise,

 with wings a choir of sopranos

and a solo plover wades haughtily by

January mist over Riversmeet

tide covers a murking of mud

fading web prints rushing away

taken by sizzling foam

twitchers with tripoded lenses

gaggle off to identify geese

arriving as guests of the Clyst.

January Small Stone# Three

Posted on Posted in A River of Stones, England, January Small Stones, WritingTagged , , , , 8 Comments

After work today my friend and I went to Topsham and had a gentle stroll around the empty streets, along to the end of the Goatwalk for a view of the estuary in the dark. Although the sun had set at four-thirty, the lights were shining down river at Exmouth and across the river to the west at Starcross. Occasionally the glow worm lights of a train travelled along the far shore, and a gap in the clouds, where the moon sprang through, created a reflection of the same oval shape in the water.

We were actually being peeping Toms – slowly walking past the windows that had curtains open.   Several homes had lights on, giving us a tiny insight into their world. Fairy lights and a few Christmas trees were still visible and the soft glow from hearths, plump sofas, cosy cushions and curled up pets. At one house where the kitchen was at the front, we could see an elderly couple chatting over a teapot at the table, as they must have for decades. A magical walk. DSC_1012