Shared memories, special places
A very short (33 word) piece on Personification for the Trifecta Weekend Challenge.
Sledge rattles against the garage shelf. Rising and falling with the wind.Straining to be free.
Snow falls clumpily, urgently, heavily.
Sledge breathes, sighs, waits impatiently for his first outing of the year.
I’ve been losing myself a little in Susannah Conway’s book, This I Know, over the past few days.
And I’m planning to lose myself a little more in Susannah’s Unravelling the Year Ahead ebook.
(Click on the link for your own free downloadable copy).
Before I even begin, I know that I won’t be quite the same when I’m done.
I need colours to do this. I need to draw swirls and lines, and to feel creative and arty even though I can’t really draw.
And the beautiful shiny Berol pens unravel me right back to being a child. I’ve often thought that I lived a brand-free childhood; no designer trainers, no logos on jackets. Standard-issue spectacles and very little that was trendy.
I’ve often thought that I was never much bothered about that stuff.
And then I remembered having Berol pens. Being ever-so-slightly cool.
When other people were fixating on shoes and coats, I was falling in love with stationery.
And that remembering’s without even having tried drawing with them yet.
I tend to have little rushes of both delight and momentary alarm on seeing a bit of my life in a museum. This one was mostly delight.
I found it at the Beamish museum this spring. In the bit of the afternoon where Mike and I had parted for some separate exploring.
And – historians forgive me – whilst a family were chatting to the guide, I leaned over the Do Not Touch rope and held my fingers on the cloth.
This was the tablecloth at my grandparents’ house in Goole. Or one very like it.
We would sit at the table for board games and card games and occasional painting. All of them disrupted by the fact that the cloth was so thick that nothing ever really sat on it neatly; everything sort of hovered.
There was a big window right in front of the table. And on many days a cloud above the window. As my little mind understood it then, a cloud where God was looking down on us. Probably shaking His head at my terrible efforts at painting.
At mealtimes, there was a second cloth – a white cotton one. There was a knack to putting it on so it didn’t drag over this one. But once on, it was the base for some of the best foods ever. Porridge for breakfast, soaked through overnight. Sunday lunches groaning with homegrown vegetables. Teatimes watching Countdown with the toaster on the table. And Boxing Day afternoons with tinned salmon sandwiches and a pork pie the size of my cousin David’s head.
After every meal, crumbs from the white cloth would be shaken across the lawn, and we’d watch in stillness as the birds came to enjoy our leftovers. Literally still, so we didn’t disturb the birds as my Grandad painted them.
At other times, people shared cigarettes, photographs, home perms and the comfort of having a hard chair to rest a dodgy back. And all of that was back with me in just a few seconds of touching.
There was a loo roll, too, in part of a bathroom exhibit. Lots of far less comfy memories from that one!
This year’s had something for just about all of us.
The musicians and the boating people dominated the Jubilee celebrations.
The animal lovers celebrated Pudsey’s win on Britains Got Talent.
Everyone who’d ever been into athletics or had even a glimmer of interest in sports has had a fabulous summer with the Olympics. Actually, most of us who’d never given sport more than a passing glance found ourselves swept up in it all.
And now, at the end of the year, there’s a little glimmer of hope that the geeks might have a win too.
Johnny Ball, the man who made his very best efforts to enthuse us about numbers and dress mathematics up in more jolity than it rightfully deserved, has entered this year’s Strictly Come Dancing.
As soon as he started talking on Saturday, his southern unplaceable accent had me right back at the flickery TV screen of my childhood.
He’s 74. I don’t think he’s ever danced before. I doubt he’ll win on dancefloor prowess.
But it would be great, wouldn’t it, for the mathematicians to have a little bit of mainstream celebration to finish off the year with.
Picture by Ewan McIntosh on Flickr
Oh, and I so wish I’d been the genius who tweeted “Think of a Rhumba” sometime on Saturday evening.
Just about a fortnight ago, I was hopelessly cynical about the Olympics.
There were stories of gloom every morning on the radio; people wanting to curb this and that, spectators being banned from taking all sorts of things into the Olympic Park and an army of people being sent out to patrol the cities of Britain and check whether anyone was misusing the Olympic brand. Or, seemingly more importantly, stepping on the toes of the huge corporations who’d sponsored parts of the games.
All of that changed from the Wednesday before the games began. Mrs Button took the afternoon off to travel down to London with a special ticket for the last rehearsal of the Opening Ceremony. One of those times when knowing someone who knows someone comes in ever so handy.
And she sent me a text, way after bedtime, telling me that it was all so exciting that I’d have been unable to cope with the emotion of being there.
It turned out that she wasn’t the only one. Twitter was going bonkers with Danny Boyle’s #savethesurprise hashtag. I get a lot of my news via Twitter these days, and it astounded me that the people who’d seen the rehearsals all really were saving the surprise.
Two days later, I was awake ’till way after midnight and utterly mesmerised by the whole thing. I’m still a little unsure of how bizarre it might have seemed to the rest of the world, but it was a fabulous celebration of Britishness.
I squealed a little when the Shipping Forecast spluttered across the opening. I didn’t really stop gasping with pride and pleasure until Paul McCartney came on to his own spluttering soundtrack and closed the show.
I’ve never been so excited about anything sporty. And it’s been wonderful to share in the excitement online. I can’t imagine it would have been anything like as great if we’d done it without twitter and facebook. But I’ve been on the edge of my seat at sports I’d never watched before, and I’ve cried along with the stories from the athletes and all of their support teams.
We needed this, I think.
I know all countries have times when things feel pretty grim, but we’d been feeling grimmer than I can remember for a pretty long time.
The momentum that had started with the Jubilee and the first of the torch runs has reached its perfect crescendo.
I’m not sporty. Not at all. I once scored a rounder, and I once managed to turn a single cartwheel. Both of them utter flukes, but both elating enough to help me know what a whisper of victory might feel like.
I know it’s the sport that counts, but it’s been so many other things too. The Royal Mail painting postboxes gold in our gold medalists’ home towns. The police officers striking poses to match winners. Athletes’ wives and partners talking about the sacrifices they’ve made for years for the sake of their loved one having a few moments to shine.
It’s been great because we’ve all been able to get on board with it. Those are the moments that have made the Olympics. And those are the moments that have made us proud to be British.
Photos are Creative Commons licenced and from The Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s flickr stream.
Mama Kat asked us to write about our favourite Olympic Moments this week.
Follow the link to join in with lots more prompts.
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