Abandoned Child (by sarah)

Monday loomed large at me and it was Jean's first fall day at school trial.

So I packed her lunch and dressed her and off she went with Daddy to school.

And then I got absorbed with tidying the house and writing and even a bit of gardening and drawing and then at about 2:30 when I was thinking about sorting out pick up Barbara's gardener Inga started asking me questions and then Mary Barbara's cleaner turned up to return some plants and things and started talking to me too.

And I forgot about school pick up - in my mind Jean was safe in school and it was a whole day just like pre-school and nursery except - we used to leave at 5 to pick Jean up from them.

I needed to be back at the school at 3 pm not 5 pm. At 3:15 I wonder upstairs to talk to Alaric and discover that no one has gone to get Jean - so I shout at Al and tell him to phone the school and grab dad and we drive up there.

Jean was sitting in with the teacher drawing and chatting away and I got told off - and then when I tried to explain that Barbara wasn't here and her cleaner and gardener wanted to talk to me it sounded so pathetic and some how stuck up.

They said that normally reception children would have cried and Jean didn't she was perfectly happy - they did point out this was a good thing as it ment that she's adjusted well and as it was the end of a full day as well it shows she's definatly ready.

Jean was very happy all the way home pretending to be a ghost and telling me about her day.

But then we got home and she got her lunch box out - 'Mummy you made me wait the longest and I didn't have a spoon for my yogurt' at which point I burst into tears.

I felt I'd really really let her down, I've been making her yogurt for school as she's been staying for lunches this last week but I keep forgetting the spoon or her drink or her sandwitches or to put something in the sandwitch and even the entire lunch. 🙁

I am finding remembering everything hard at the moment 🙁 She hugged me lots and then told me she had drunk the yogurt so it was ok - and then I cried more becuase I was failing and crying in front of her and then Al appeared and hugged us both.

I then spent the afternoon snuggled with Jean on the setee watching Mysterious Cities of Gold and eating popcorn - Jean was incredulous that the popcorn came out of bag and I didn't put the popping machine on :/ but she eat it anyway.

A Picture of Words (by sarah)

I have put the poem A Picture of Words on Turquoise Monster - the poem is about the structure of language and is a play on 'A picture paints a thousand words' I thought well what would a picture made of language - made of words actually look like?

I would love feed back on it 🙂

Thanks

Sarah

Chaos, Pandamonium and all the other trappins of the Snell-Pym Household (by sarah)

I awake and lo!

A cat was not turfed and instead of mewing to be let out had erm... gone in the corner of the KITCHEN!

So I turfted the Ginger One who shall remain nameless and in disgrace and cleaned it up using up the last of the disinfected in the kitchen.

This took up a big chunk of the getting Jean ready for school time and then I remember - eek she's supposed to have lunch and I start making it whilst Dad panics about her being late.

We get to the school fine and she goes in - then somehow a certain Ginger Rogue has got back into the house and relieved himself again in a HUGE sandy coloured puddle this time in front of the Fridge.

Somehow dad misses this blot on the landscape of my kitchen and walks to the fridge for milk and back to the kettle makes his coffee and walks into the living room and sits down on the setee.

I walk into the kitchen looking for the laundary basket to get the washing in and have... well kittens!

So after having to make a trip upstairs for more disinfectant I clean it all up - putting the tea towel that was too near in the washing machine for a boil wash - I shout at dad and this disrupts a certain Black Cat who jumps onto the coffee table and there by knocks my lunch plate down breaking it in half.

I am just a bit cheesed off shall we say :/

Poetry Cafe 2 (by sarah)

During the Literature Festival there was a fringe event called Poetry Cafe held at the Museum and Art Gallery in Cheltenham and I was reading!

Due to competition from other events it wasn't as well tended as the first one in September but I ended up going back up to read twice! That is two more times after my initial reading 🙂

I also bumped into someone I hadn't seen for a while who was very excited as he has 'always loved my work' 🙂 and got even more excited when I pointed out I now had a poetry blog.

I read:

The Markov Chains of Literature

A Little Chaos

The Break-Up

I Want

The Baby-Wocky

Ladybirds (by alaric)

Sitting at my desk working, I found a spider in my hair. So I went and opened the window to put it out.

This is, the big office window's not been opened for a while. As I opened it, lots of stuff rained down on me. And when I looked I realised I was covered in ladybirds.

Seems they're attempting to hibernate in the gap between the window and the frame - except now they're all disturbed. So I shook them off of me, and left them to collect together so I can decide what to do with them.

I took some pictures as they started forming good clusters:

But there's plenty more than that still making their way into the clusters... and I opened the other side of the window as they were crawling into the gap from the inside (and I don't want them inside), which caused a whole load more to shower down.

Wish me luck.