31st March 2011

PQRS.

Town traffic.

St. David’s Day, with the college cars voicing the vibrant noises of the vernal stew. The weather is warm and the early shadows fall long. The hesitant sun coming up behind me, ever so gentle over the old hospital chapel.

It feels good to stand at the gate again. Grand even. I do my best work there, I know that to be my truth…. The talk is of 12c by the afternoon…. I raise a hand occasionally and acknowledge a beep or more usually, shout back a stifled greeting into the passing air. 

The pair of wood-pigeons, who have seemingly forever wintered in the Beech tree in the car park, have started to stretch out a little. One or other of them has never ventured too far in recent weeks, as they have fed and watered and nurtured and roosted, back and to across the frosty mornings, back to the December snows, way, way back…. before then and back again even. 

I have lived with them these past few months, from the eyrie-like ledge of my adjacent first floor office. Barely 20 feet away. They look straight at me occasionally…. I am sure they do…. admiring the pair of computer monitors that squat on the wooden desk behind my out-turned face…. huddled together, mirror-like, beyond and through the glass in the reflection from the sash windows.  

Martin has joined me again just lately, alternating his phased return with annual leave; slowly recovering from his sciatica. The pain always just there still…. The two of us, have spent months in purgatorious tandem, one way or another. Ever so gradually finding our footing again. Missing the difference between us.

Hey Nonny.

As for the regulars, one or two of the usual suspects are yet to be seen. I hope they have made it through the colder quiet days. 

I drift into reverie…. ‘ Was King David the same…. he of David and Goliath ? Did you know a rock caught him right between the eyes…. Slung…. Bang…. down on the floor…. I am sure that St. David was…. Dewi Sant…. ‘

WAG WAR.

The Welsh Assembly Government – Welsh Assembly Referendum, barely kindled the local press, never mind setting the National Office ablaze. By the time I chivvied myself out to vote, the clear skies had chipped in with a late frost, turning the darkness misty.

Vote Life. Registration. Vote Taxes. Remonstration. Just Vote.

I asked around for the results here and there the following morning. Nothing. I found one indignant soul, who had attended the commemorative march for the Patron Saint the previous weekend. He had objected to inappropriate comments from his English housemates, but had deemed it unnecessary to cast his promise…. to secure his pledge.

” …. I don’t mind a bit of banter usually…. but….  when someone insults my country…. well…. Vote…. No…. I…. well, I couldn’t be bothered really…. ”

Not for the likes of us is it boy ?

Rolling News –  Political Considerations

Cards and presents found their way to me. Texts and e-mails leaving me feeling content. A nice feeling for a birthday in March. Any day in March.

The news of the Japanese earthquake greeted us at Manchester Airport – spitting the live, heavily re-edited white noise into our faces, from the dozens of TV screens, watching us walk cautiously through the perfumed aisles and duty free malls. It made for an uneasy  breakfast. I settled for a Guinness.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom. The light was good and I didn’t need to trouble my eyes with my reading glasses all week. Between a book here and a swim there…. I do like the Canary Islands. Forever friendly. Ideal for honeymoons….

We shared out a 6 bed apartment between 6 good friends. All family. All seasoned parents, children, workers, carers…. loved ones, laughed with, sometimes leaving or left behind…. for better or worse…. together in our madness. We met with fellow travellers who shaped us as an Octet, playing a similar air and hoping for similar fayre. Always happy to oblige.

St. Patrick’s Day, fell slap in the middle of Cheltenham. Himself, a 5th Century missionary kidnapped from Briton, enslaved and eventually held hostage, in the wake of the ever so threatening coil of asps and snakes. Sounds a little like my own recent form over the sticks.

Janet took the honours, followed closely by Audrey. Two women who know an evens favourite at 50 paces but rarely, although sometimes, will bet to win.

Enda and Eamon got themselves mixed up in the closing SP for the week. It seemed an ironic timing and spoilt my bacon and cabbage I have to say. Lazy reportage. As the St Patrick’s delegation led a charge to Washington, Hillary pecked, like Bill wished she would have done, all those cluckold, cuckold years ago.

The book I read, was about the Isle of Dominica in the Caribbean and was called ‘ Home Again ‘. Its subtitle could well have read – ‘ No Blacks, No Irish, No Children, No Dogs – as I had discovered those very words between its pages.

The Diaspora. I am still at a loss to fully understand this….. There was a sign not too long ago, that I saw with my own eyes, warning off Travellers from the local pub.

Between the laughs and conversations, snoring and sleeping, I managed to find an hour or two to play through ‘The Nightfly’. Twice. It never ceases to fill me with anything less than joy.

The posturing continued, in concurrent flashbacks, as the World pared its fingernails…. until suddenly…. a back-handed gesture…. Gaddaffi has proclaimed a Ceasefire…. raising a smile amongst us as we waited for our taxi to the airport.

Expectant. A little tired. Nearly home again.

It was an 8 hour journey, door to door, from the Santa Barbara Golf and Ocean Club to my Welsh kitchen. From Tenerife, hugging the south-west corners of Europe….  on across and over Eire and falling slowly on to Manchester…. My glass of French wine tasting all the better for being ordered from Reina Sofia airport, by text to George, as the boarding notices flashed, urging us to choke down a Salami salad sandwich, washed soft with a last glass of Spanish beer. Ever onwards to Gate 13.

The new time frames –  Tenerife to Manchester in 1911 ?

I was wired as I always am after a flight. The final leg, a car journey to get us across the border, cranked it up a little bit more.

The bed felt amazing when I finally got to it at about 3am. I dreamt of the dead, waste deep in still waters or waist deep in the desert sands.

I slept and overheard talk of Mixi – of how internet traffic had highlighted the acute needs of local people – and of how with targetted web traffic, they had brought help and relief to the suffering and mayhem – pacifying the godless, plaintive cries of the dying. The tailored attention to detail and the wealth of statistical evidence, led me to slip through the portals of studded memory….

It even brings news of a survivor…. after 8 days…. Who by Christ ? 

See for yourself.

bbc.co.uk/click

The weekend disappears in an avalanche of washing and unpacking, chasing the heels of Saturday and Sunday into the Spring.

– Equinox and Equilux –

PQR Snez gets word to us. Chloe danced out and took her first medal. Little darlin’.

Libya dominates the background news…. Rebel forces have gained ground on…. Yvonne Fletcher…. Absolving guilty ghosts…. Lockerbie…. Rebel forces have suffered losses…. A call to arms…. A call for help…. A call for change…. Obama plays ‘Call of Duty’.

I hear of a statue in Fulham that is being erected to MJ. I remembered a plaque too, to Baroness Chalker, long gone Minister for Overseas Development, in the town of Rouseau, just down from the Garraway Hotel. Miriam had served us cold drinks there and made us welcome in the searing afternoon heat, while I browsed the book I bought for my father.

Home Again. Almost.

SPQR – The Senate and the People of Rome

Senatus Populus Que Romanus

Gareth had survived The Inquisition, following his recent dalliances with equality and diversity. He still awaits a final Epistle. We sat and smoked, drinking tea and red wine respectively, turning it all over for a few hours.

We both remembered Sister Vianney and how we had met her that once, at ‘The Peace and Justice Centre’ in Wrexham, at the time of the New Millenium. We shared a past in respect of the old Convent in Chester. We bought some books – ‘ Training for Transformation ‘ – Volumes I – IV – while she showed us through the immaculate rooms  highlighted by walls filled with decorous Crucifixes and paintings, some of them completed by one of the Sisters.

Nourishment

Br Kerrigan, the head of my Alma Mater, wove strangely into view from a distant past. Before he was apparently killed in Sierra Leone, he had delivered my final school leaving report. Ambushed…. Shot…. in 1995. The news reached me by coincidence. A chance internet meeting, where I found some more missives from the lovely Lynda. Head Girl.

Br Coffey had been Head before him. I remember the graffiti on the gym wall, in large letters…. ‘The Gaffer is Arse’ – It was visible for days despite the efforts of the caretakers.

Br Ennis had been his right hand man. He clubbed me once or twice in front of the class. I took my own tax, while his back was turned answering the office door, silently pocketing the coins from the collection plate.

Ursuline Sister….Christian Brother

Gentle Evisceration…. The only surprise is that you find it surprising…. This emasculation of the self.

I had been proffered the chance to join Alan for the ride down South. There were two tickets for the march in London on Saturday, but it was too soon after the holiday. I would try and get there again, in early April perhaps, up here in Wrexham to show some solidarity.

There was talk of thunderflashes outside Fortnum and Masons where there was an obstructive sit in. Trafalgar Sq made most of the breaking news. A few hundred at most, coralled again, inevitably boiling over, allowing the minority to fuel their anger….

Kettling

…. Eventually moving on to Charing Cross…. there was said to be street fires in The Strand.

Varying reports put the numbers somewhere between 250 – 500,000. Predominantly peaceful. The largest gathering since the Anti-War demonstrations against the beginning of the conflict in Iraq in 2003. 

Stephen Nolan bringing snatches of a telephone conversation …. through the feedback…. brought by mobile…. live through the airwaves….

‘…. Move back or I will have to hurt you….’

BST

The Census was finally here. This is my sixth. Caesar Augustus himself only oversaw three I believe. My first I spent in Ellesmere Port with my parents. I was only 1 year old. My brother joined us for our next and the third found me with a child of my own. My next with a wife and 4 more children and the 5th in Llay, with no status. I was renting and more worried about the Council Tax bailiffs’ arriving. 

It was extraordinary to read the possible implications for non-participation. Fines, loss of benefits, wages taxed…. Gaol ?

I have great pleasure in announcing the following for this Inventory –

There were 4 of us tonight. Safe and warm and well fed. With nothing in the great scheme of things to really fucking moan about !!!!

King David…. Mary…. Joseph…. Roman Census…. No room at the Inn…. King Herod…. Bethlehem…. Nazareth…. Tom the Jamaican boy…. like in the Christmas play that year. Do you remember Mum ?

It is muddled with memory and mis-information. What else is there. Surely if all that had really happened in the one night, it must have been ever so busy…. 

I can picture them all the same though, rushing to town as I head back past the blacksmiths, clutching a goatskin flask of the house red that I had managed to get on my tab at the local outlet of  ‘Turning the Water into Wine’. They have some really good late deals. They spotted me, shouting over  ‘…. Are you coming to town Steve…. ? …. No, I’m off to do my census…. Feck off…. We are going up to Mt Sinai…. there is a WAG do going off up there somewhere…. the Centurions are all at the away match in Constantinople.’

Another time maybe.

Anniversaries. Must telephone home. Don’t forget to mention Elizabeth Taylor. What was that film…. Yes…. Edward Albee…. – Whatever Happened to Virginia Wolf –

I can only think of Richard Burton and his readings of the poems of Dylan Thomas, whenever mention is made of Liz. I am told she took his last letter to her grave, embracing his final last hope of returning home.

Last night a little rain and in the morning a blustery, Winnie the Pooh sort of day. I sit on my bed and drink coffee, watching the small birds disappear into the warm nests, within the walls and masonry of the gable ends that fill my view.

I leave the safety of the gate. The wind is strong now, making a good fist of cleaning the clinging, dead beech leaves, in readiness for the new.

Driving through the afternoon trees, with their green furze thickening like a rash over the latent limbs. The daffodils almost prostrate, as the invisible weightlessness of the wind makes them dance and then again to stand, bolt upright. 

The extra hour of daylight peeks out warily, guilding the early evening with a surity of promise for all that is still to come.

A suggestion of radiation settling. A hint of Diplomatic immunity. Gone with the Wind.

SOS