beer, cathederals,prams and redundancy scare

THE FOLLOWING ENTRY SHOULD HAVE BEEN MADE TO MY WETHERBY ADVENTURES BLOG BUT ENDED UP HERE THRU PLAIN SILLINESS.  So here it stays as i don't know how to move it.

June was the month to remember.  And I'll start this blog of with some words rather than the usual photo.
Sure, summer has arrived and is pleasant partly because of the beer festivals that continue to amuse us and the many community days that happen. 
I try to ensure these pages concentrate on the good times we have from Wetherby and I hope you read them as such but life is life and things do crop up that are less than pleasant, I just choose not to capture them on these pages for perpetuity.
The most rememberable thing of June however was that Gail's employer announced  REDUNDANCIES for their mobile radiographers (Gail) would be rolled out over two weeks.  There will now be half the mobile vans and the mobile staff will number 47, down from 150.  The stress we lived with for those days was intense and the relief most exquisite when Gail was told that because she could lead days on DEXA vans she was spared from the cut this time. 
We so need her employment as without it we have no work visa and must leave the UK.  From reviewing these pages you could guess WE DON'T WANT TO GOOOOO! 
Just the thought of leaving Wetherby is enough to make us cry right now, we have made many good friends and our life is quite quite pleasant.  So the good news is that we stay, for now.  In February we apply to Her Majesty for our permanent residency (we have studied, sat for and passed the living in the UK test necessary to be able to apply for the permanent leave to remain here) and hopefully our fortunes will become more secure. 
But that is quite enough of the dire side of life.
Let's talk beer festivals.
We have been to three, Boston Spa, Wetherby and Clifford. Photos follow of Wetherby's and Clifford's as I didn't take the camera to Boston Spa.   All were great days, different but similar enough to equally classify as great days. Boston Spa and Clifford finished with a Thai restaurant meal for many and the Wetherby one Gail and I ended up walking back from Rob and Angela's house very early the next morning.
The shots here are of the Wetherby Beer Festival.



 There was a band of kids from the local school doing up to the minute gunge rock and pop covers who were only bearable because of their enthusiasm.  No the blokes below were not them ,  These were a loose gathering of  ex-hippies who all happened to all know some of the same tunes from the 60's and 70's.  They were great in fact and by far more suited to the casual sampling of 30 odd local brewed ales.

 You can see the back of Gail's head here, we met up with Kim Danby (Gail's colleague) and her sister Tessa, also back of head shot, and opposite Gail is Rob Guest and Angela's back of head.  We were quite lucky to secure a table just out of the screaming cry of the grunge boys and while I acknowledge the photo does not capture the mood or the faces, we did enjoy the spot and the day.

 The Wetherby Beer festival is advertised as being family friendly and the bouncy castles etc prove it.

Clifford Beer Festival fell on a near 30 degree heat wave day so the community hall was full to overflowing in the great weather and hundreds of folk turned up for a great bit of sampling and endless talk as well as a bit of music.

 I think this is the best shot I have taken of the ales being pulled , there are usually about 30 local brewed ales a few ciders, a perry or two and some rather scrappy wines.  A pint costs 2 pound 40p a half pint half that. All beer festivals are run to earn funds for local causes so you feel like you are doing good as you progress to feeling gooder and gooder.

 Inside the hall with the beer and the band all got a bit close and crowded,

 So we commandeered the gazebo while a few hundred others sought the shade of trees or lounged on the lawn.  I this shot are my legs, tom the dog, Rob, James Emma, eddie the dog and Angela's knees.

The shot below has nothing to do with festivals but is our local pub, The Muse. It's a short walk from home, has nice clientele, good food and a fine selection of locally brewed ales. 

 But..... Just so you don't think all we do is drink ale, we also go to cultural things and stuff.  This was a fine art auction which we didn't buy anything from but there were Dali's, Picasso's, Ruben's and other cleffa painters and drawers.

 This one below was purported to be an Andy Warhol, but we didn't like it either.  By and large the works did not sell well with many passed in and some selling for little money.  You really have to know what you are buying with this stuff so we didn't.

We also went to a Leeds open art event where young artists get to show their gear and seek reactions from the public.  Here I am taking to Rob in front of his works, he uses veneers and slivers of film to create shapes.  We are going to take delivery of the dog in the bottom left of frame. 

 Of course we live on the Wharfe river, or the River Wharfe to be correct about it.  This time of year the water gets a lot of use, there is the annual raft race where sometimes the teams finish the course.

 There is the annual Pram race in support of the care flight helicopter service which rescues accident victims and received no government funding so we try to help them out in Wetherby.

 There is usually a rock band playing out of the back of a soft sided semi-trailer

 And the River is always spectacular, see the heron in this shot?

 Not in anyway to seek forgiveness we went to Beverly Minster, about an hour or so south of Wetherby.  A Minster is a teaching church and Beverly was quite the destination for pilgrims a few hundred years ago. http://beverleyminster.org.uk/ will tell you all you want to know about it's Gothic and pre Gothic history.

 We were taken up into the rafters to see how it was built.  The man powered walking wheel crane is the only operating medieval one in the world or western Europe or England I didn't pay attention.  Today it is used not to lift stones and roofing timbers but the boss above the organ so tourists like us can look and see down .   It is a fantastic and rare experience for which we are really grateful the church man took the time and enthusiasm to explain to us.

 This is the gilded boss the wheel lifted up, it's about two meters across.

 And this is the view down through the hole it opens looking down 80 foot or so to the top of the huge church organ and prayer space.

 While walking trough the roof space you get to look out through the huge sectioned windows at the top of the spires. This one looks over the old first and second world war air fields and into many of the slivers of ancient glass, people have etched their names and drawn images of air planes of the ages.  From bi-planes to the shuttle with early jets and recent fighters all featuring.  Most interesting.

 This is a rose from our bush in the back garden.  I only include it because the picture turned out so good.

 Also in our back yard.

 And a great shot Gail took of a couple of young blokes angling in the Wharfe just below the bridge into town.

 And because I have to Gail says here is the furry animal shot for June. (it and the Clifford beer festival actually were in early July but who cares really.)

It's just cosmetic really

Task set for June 29 2011 was to use Random or Chaos in a piece. I chose to use the phrase random acts of chaos just because I thought it might be fun. The story that came up was nothing like I expected.
It’s just cosmetic

Wrinkle treatment.

Disaster happens often in our lives.

I like the use of the word disaster because disaster is such a widely abused term. Also it mostly overstates any event it is used to describe. In fact a disaster is coined for anything from leaving your keys at the pub, to a population destroying tsunami.
Such a flexible word.
Disaster.
It's on a personal scale the real sense of the word can be felt. A disaster, can be a death, or an accident or a health catastrophe. In these shaky times it may be a financial disaster played out in a microcosm of the world’s present fiscal calamity.
When disaster does happen, the person usually experiences a series of emotions. Initially denial, then anger, negotiation, sadness and finally, acceptance. (REF: Kübler-Ross Curve theorem of human reaction to grief)
I see large and some personal disasters played out on the screen of my wide HD and it never ceases to amaze me how concise these reactions are when displayed upon the faces of the ones experiencing the disaster.
The reactions seem not to be of any differing nature regardless if it is a person or a group.  As the story is progressed through persistent journalism I commonly see creased looks of shocked disbelief flash across the screen as their reality dawns. Next we witness contorted grimaces of refusal or resistance, shown from a distance usually, with the mouths blurred, to prevent offending the lip readers in the audience.
It is then frequently the case that I notice an individual or group who, finally having realised they hold the lesser force, take their taught-faced countenances into discussion either directly or via an intermediary journalist.
Some time later we are shown either a forced smile of concession stretched over a loser's expression or, if the cameraman was lucky, a quick close-up of a tear rolling down a cheek from the eye.

I regard these emotional facial portraits as a predictable progression but I also note that the process leaves a trail of worn lines on the countenances digitized on my screen. I call them facial creasing, you may refer to them as age, worry lines or wrinkles, depending on your sensitivity.
Face creasing not only happens to the people on my TV but can be seen on everyone.
I became interested in this facial record of responses to life and I see the people I know, even myself, performing true to this 5 point emotive script in any occurrence of what each of us calls our disaster.
We all wear the lines from random acts of chaos on our faces in lines and overworked skin and I think they simply record the usual wear and tear from life.

It is good therefore my HD provides, handily, a wonderful variety of topical rectifications to cover these time worn histories, or which promise to de-etch the record of the past from our external facial covering.
I note there are creams, and scrubs and oils and cleansers and covers and fillers and un-blockers and dissolvers and highlighters and glosses and attachments and procedures and exercises and sounds and lights and pluckers and vibrators and removers and … well, an endless assortment of facial record alterers.

Mainly, I have to say, these are targeted at the female disaster facial record, a susceptible audience it seems as study shows females have been rubbing and peeling and smearing and dabbing and soaking and filling and covering for as long as history can track such things. Males on the other hand mostly wash their countenances and lament the passing of their looks and abilities. Although recently my HD is telling me now men really should be doing the same sort of countenance rectifications that their female counterparts have been doing for centuries. Why? I do wonder at the necessity for this as, by and large, males have not been doing much of it in the past and I am thinking the people I know of a certain age, regardless of gender, all appear to be,,, about that certain age.

It has been difficult I will admit, but I have separated myself from the HD on some occasions to visit with people I know and to witness some don’t know in order to substantiate my theory.
I have been scientific about this.
I have sought input from males and females whom I have not told of the purpose my observational exercise.
It has been with no small satisfaction that my research has revealed that when asked to estimate the approximate age of groups of people, all of a similar known age, both genders make a guess at the ages to within 5 years of the actual age of the group or person targeted.
I have set up meetings of old school friends, all of the same age and asked passers-by to guess the ages of the females and of the males. The same applies, reliably 4-5 years within the age for both genders. So the rubbing and creaming and cleansing and, and,… that the females dedicate so much time and resources to has no effect what-so-ever.

Well that is my conclusion.

To this end I was all ready to be starting a national awareness campaign that a few thousand years of rubbing, cleansing, spreading, scraping, etc…. has done nothing to make females look any younger than they are.
But then I thought if I took the international cosmetic economy apart before we sorted out Greece, Spain, Ireland and Portugal, and recovered from tsunami, nuclear contamination, crop failure, climate change, Afghanistan, the Arab spring and middle-east disasters,,,, my timing might be considered irresponsible.

I initially reasoned it was not that important. denial, But it did make me cross that so much money and time is wasted for no effect anger,. I tried to talk to Unilever about it negotiation, but got rather sad sadness as they ignored my calls and emails, so I guess I’ll just watch some more TV. and finally acceptance.

REF: Kübler-Ross Curve theorem of human reaction to grief :

Guess the emotion

Task for the June 15 meet was to write a piece that others had to guess the emotion of.
I chose to set a scene and write two different emotive responses to the scene.

Grarwk.
I spat out a mouth full of gritty pap and drew in a desperate breath. A stabbing pain stopped it at a gasp.
There is a bloody and shattered hand right in front of my eye, I can’t look away. The flesh is ripped from its stark white bone and the pulsing blood is forming a pool in the dirt. Searing pains arc my back and I feel like I'm twisting out of shape. I can’t seem to move but there are now other things I’m aware of, the hand is hurting.
Its my hand.
I can’t move it. I can’t stop looking at it, I can’t blink, my eye hurts to move and now everything is blurring with a red haze.
I move my head and an agony stabs white hot tendrils through my face. My other hand comes and smears dirt and blood across my skin. The flesh on my face is shredded, my left eyelid doesn’t close and my eye is stinging madly and now goes dark.. Something soft but incredibly heavy is pinning my legs together and I want to roll away from the torture. Muscles spasm and I am in a world of woe and trouble.
A thicker blanket of agony descends as my life fills with a sound of tearing metal and a huge mass slides upwards and away. My body is lifted momentarily then flopped agonizingly supine and I can now see from my other eye. A flaccid human form hangs grotesquely suspended from a torn metal opening above me. I make a guess it was that softened lump of flesh which had cusioned me from the crushing mass. The twisted heap creaks again and settles with a shudder from it's graunching slide. The hanging body sways, ruptures, slumps momentarily then drops down towards me. I try urgently to escape but a wall of pain blanks me into unconsciousness.  (so that's the scene, not the emotion)
(First Emotion , using that scene)

I am snapped back into my hellhole of agony. I am screaming and swearing . My body is getting tortuously moved. In a flash I am cognisant. I am freezing and wet but I recognise the strobe flashing of emergency lights. The air is rank with the smell of burning , I gag on the reek of charred flesh, flaming oil and smoldering plastic.
Now I am yelling again with the pain of being pulled at roughly and I cough up a putrid paste of bile and blood. I try to raise my hand but it's trapped and the effort drives a wave of indescribable agony forcing another inhuman scream from me..
An hoarse voice from somewhere near yells, “ Hold it! ... Morphine!, Vent kit!, Over Here!” and then closer and less urgent, another voice, firm, female ,
“Hi there, we need you to keep very still. You are badly hurt. We are giving you something for the pain. Please don’t try and move. Do you understand?” I can’t reply but I try to nod my head. It is trapped in a cage and I panic for a moment or two, then a sickly wave of euphoria sweeps over me. I give up all attempts to move, my body fails me and I lie, still, calmer.
Kind faces wearing hard hats are looking at me. A hand places something on my blank left eye and then other things are put on my face. The heads in hats move around as the scene moves and a voice says,
“Close your eye we are going to cover your face while we move you to safety”.
I am on a plank and I am floated to a brighter place which is quiet and smells clean.
A new voice keeps asking me to squeeze my hand if I can do things and it talks calmly to me and says many things. My plank jostles beneath me and I hear a muffled siren.

I am told it has been four weeks since the accident but my reflection in this mirror is still horrific to me. There is a slight familiarity as the swelling is going down but I still can’t recognise myself. Perhaps when the stitches come out and all the tubes are removed…..
I have had visits from the police, family, some mates have come. They all ask questions I can’t answer. Slowly, gradually, small fact at a time, I have been informed about that Friday night. I honestly still have no recollection of anything around it. I find the events as they are drip fed to me all but impossible to believe. As I look at the torn face in the mirror and I think of who he is, I can’t believe I am responsible. I wonder if there has been some mistake in the evidence, if a witness has got it wrong, if the blood tests got mixed in the lab. If half of it is true then the loss of a hand and an eye goes no way towards a just penalty for the devastation and destruction I caused to their families. 
(regret)

(Second emotion, using the first scene again)
Grarwk.
I spat out a mouth full of gritty pap and drew in a desperate breath. A stabbing pain stopped it at a gasp.
There is a bloody and shattered hand right in front of my eye, I can’t look away. The flesh is ripped from its stark white bone and the pulsing blood is forming a pool in the dirt. Searing pains arc my back and I feel like I'm twisting out of shape. I can’t seem to move but there are now other things I’m aware of, the hand is hurting.
Its my hand.
I can’t move it. I can’t stop looking at it, I can’t blink, my eye hurts to move and now everything is blurring with a red haze.
I move my head and an agony stabs white hot tendrils through my face. My other hand comes and smears dirt and blood across my skin. The flesh on my face is shredded, my left eyelid doesn’t close and my eye is stinging madly and now goes dark.. Something soft but incredibly heavy is pinning my legs together and I want to roll away from the torture. Muscles spasm and I am in a world of woe and trouble.
A thicker blanket of agony descends as my life fills with a sound of tearing metal and a huge mass slides upwards and away. My body is lifted momentarily then flopped agonizingly supine and I can now see from my other eye. A flaccid human form hangs grotesquely suspended from a torn metal opening above me. I make a guess it was that softened lump of flesh which had cusioned me from the crushing mass. The twisted heap creaks again and settles with a shudder from it's graunching slide. The hanging body sways, ruptures, slumps momentarily then drops down towards me. I try urgently to escape but a wall of pain blanks me into unconsciousness.
I am brought suddenly back into a world of dust by the call of “MAN DOWN! Man Down!” The call goes back down the line and I try to repeat it. I choke on a lump of phlegm but cough up thick blood. I realise I am the man down.
I look around to see if I am alone.
Grant is lying beside me, at least half of him is.
I hear the sound of small arms fire nearby and wince as Mike dive-slides in beside me.
“Stay still mate” he yells as he drags me clear from what is left of Grant and the APC*.
“The boys are providing cover.  Firing at fuckin' nothing they are.” 
Then, closer he says “You caught an IED** dead centre mate.
We’ll get you clear, no worries, but keep quiet and don’t move”.
I do as he says.
I know he is risking his life but I know I’d do the same.
I also know I never want to have to. 
(gratitude)

* (APC) Armoured Personnel Carrier
** (IED) Improvised Explosive Device 

invisible cracks

June 2, 2011

Enlightenment through consciousness.

(Read this slowly,  thought by thought, it's not too long and benefits from a paused pace and due gravitas, it is after all about the life-journey to enlightenment).

I found myself falling thorough my resolve more and more frequently.  I had become accustomed to operating behind a shield of hardened sensitivity.  Process, progress and self improvement were my key targets. 

I removed myself from entrapment by minimising emotion in all I did.  It was a cleaner process to condense events to their components, to logic, to reason. 

 I gained a comfort from categorising interactions and observing events.  I saw scenery in terms of width and depth of field, its colours and contrasts.   I felt climate graphed to temperature and humidity.  I experienced relationships in measured terms of giving and receiving.

Not always did my categories allow me to pigeon-hole an experience but I tried not to let on to anyone that I didn’t understand how my old dog could always make me kneel down and give him a hug..

As the years went on I became the recipient of the odd random acts of kindness. I was ill-equipped to reciprocate and found that this affected my progress along social and career paths.  I had set some very clear objectives I'd expected to achieve by certain dates.  Quite a few of these had proved elusive. 

I decided that, as in all things, there was probably a need for balance, a ying to a yang.  A positive to a negative.  An acid to a base.  This should provide a more neutral environment in which opportunity may develop.

From this new perspective I see all around me the lack of common understanding, the enormous complexity in the simplest of questions, the tiny interactions that provide tactile reality to the most banal proposition. 

A driver asks direction and I now wonder if the scenic, direct or easiest alternative would be best for that individual and I want to enquire as to the purpose of the journey to provide a more attuned reply. 
A youth asks for advice and I pine for the innocence of the question and long to answer without destroying the joy of discovery. 
A bride requests a favour and I ache over the appropriate intimacy of the response.

I have become a person of consideration. I revel in the joys of life’s minutiae. I amuse myself with the challenge of providing a well designed response that encourages further interaction..

But frequently now, I feel.  I see.  I am involved.  I have no tools for this part of my life, I have repressed them in favour of logical process.  Now the simplicity of a question becomes unendingly complex as I sense the feelings of others.  A response must account for the sensitivity of the recipient.  A reply must provide a solution but also an avenue for the enquirer to escape from should my answer not fit their comprehension.

Solutions become more complex the more simple the questions.  I begin to re-live painful lessons as I deal with mundane challenges. I find answers are now too complex to craft quickly and I find myself becoming the type of over-wordy conversationalist I once despised.
In an effort to be more succinct I become much more emotive.
I often choke over words which contain portent to me but are cushioned by their brevity.

I cannot allow the strength of my understanding to fall upon the unwitting.  They have not had the emotional , the structured, the cruel path of development I have endured.  It is this that makes communication almost impossible. I frequently now listen mute as I fall through invisible cracks in my emotional capacity..

So mostly I stay silent. My understanding is something I am content with, my ability to disclose it is treasured,
and my days are happy enough,
should people wish to enquire.

(This practical example of enlightenment was inspired by Chris’s dark enlightenment story he read at the LeedsSavage meet, 18th May 2011.)

Crabs

(An amalgam of memories and fictions)

“Before and After” task for May 18 LeedsSavages Task.

Before~

It takes a hot hour and a half of I-spy, songs and other games led by mum and dad from the front seat but it feels lots quicker than that. Despite repeated orders that we all keep still, I am crawling on the rubber floor mats playing some silly game with my sisters when I feel the car brakes come on and I hear the happy popping noise from the tyres as they push through loose gravel. As quick as I can I push up onto the seat and crank the window down as the car crunches into slow gear and whines and crawls along the sandy track towards the beach.

The morning summer heat is scattered into thousands of bright dashes blinking through the trees as we bounce over the rutted track. “ONE”!, we all cry out as the floor of the car strikes a rock higher than we can clear. It is a silly game, but one we play every time we come. The number of bumps can sometimes tell if anyone else has got to our beach before us today. From the back seat we crane out our window to catch sight of the sea or the beach through breaks in the undergrowth. The smell of the trees mixed with the sea is a dizzy promise for the fun to come. “TWO”!, we now scream as this is the minimum bump count for the times when we have arrived here first. “I hope the soldier crabs are out” gleams Julie, “Will the tide be low? Do we know? Will it?”

The reply from the front is cut short by a long scrape of the underneath and a sideways slide of the car followed by a cheer from us in the back. We are going to be here alone, its almost certain.

Around one more bend in the track we are into the open bit of space where we park up and we can see our campfire stones are all still here. We drive very slowly to our shaded parking spot and are told again and again to stay in the car until it stops. This is the hardest time ‘cos now we can see the water and can’t wait to find out what our beach has given us today. The car draws to a stop painfully slowly and we are teased as it crawls a little bit more and then a bit more until our cries of “Stop the Car!” become too shrill and mum’s instruction is given to let us out.
We throw open the back doors and flee on warm sand giving way under our weight. We dash towards the sea, the small stones and shells causing no problem to our summer-tough feet. “Go slow” yells Julie as Helen and I now race each other over the squeaking sand. We look up to see a shiny moving silver-blue sheet of a million soldier crabs chasing the waves in and out and catching the sea lice they eat. This is a treasure for Julie who loves the out-tide for this once a day show. The crabs are harmless wire legged little things about the size of a marble with tiny nippers they use to catch their food and dig themselves into the sand. The beach at the tide mark is like moon craters with all their holes, and the sand is full of millions of tiny claw marks they’ve made. The three of us sit and watch them for a while, occasionally walking into their midst to see them scatter and burrow frantically. By sitting still we find our selves surrounded by the sparkling little things all busying themselves and taking no notice of us. I soon tire of this and I dash through them into the sea to look for the schools of little fish I know will be just beneath the wavelets about four yards out. I love feeling them brush the water past my legs as they swim backwards and forwards, the salt stings my eyes but I can see them underwater if I hold my breath and stay really still.

I look up and see that Helen has headed off to her pool further down in the long outcrop of rocks. I go back to Julie and ask if she wants to go to the old ship at the other end of our beach. She agrees. Her crabs are mostly finished and have returned to their holes to wait for the next tide.

The ship traps lots of shells and washed up stuff we try to collect. Its far too soon when we hear the car horn for lunch. It blows again more urgently and we head back to sausages sizzling slowly, bread that has been baked in foil next to the fire and there’s a big fruit cake wrapped in greased paper..

After lunch we listen to a story about sailors and islands. Julie and I fall asleep and when we wake up we are covered in the picnic blanket and the fire is out and smoldering under a layer of sand. Going back to the beach we see Helen is back at her rock pool watching from above now as the waves take it back until tomorrow. We know we will all be gathered up soon and there is only a little time left for us to enjoy the surf which is only just now getting big enough to slide into shore on.

After ~

“Yeah, and like it’s not even half a DVD to get there.
I log on in the car and game with someone ‘cos, like even when we get there, it takes like forever to find a spot in the multi-level. And we have to 'stay in the car', driving around in circles looking to park it.
So that we all know where it is.
I don’t know why, like, we’re never allowed to get separated. Today they let me bring my phone though, so like, I’m not that bothered.
Anyway, we only ever go to the Crab cafe for fish and chips.
Sometimes we might go for a swim but there is too much poop in the water today so it’s just going to be lunch, and like probably we’ll be dragged to look at the crap Aquarium with the wrecked boat in it..
These days are like the biggest wank.
We only ever come here because mum was made to when she was a kid.”

Necessary Evil

The task this time was a bit using either, old photos or necessary evil,or both, or neither,

Necessary evil
– for the 4th of May meeting.

I have planned it for over a year now but even as I dropped the first one I could feel the ground shudder a little and from my vantage point above them I could sense the inhabitants startle. This devastation of their community was an unavoidable byproduct of my new resolve to clear the way for better things. Sure, thousands would die and hundreds be made homeless but my will is supreme and my intent now resolute. I had not decreed they establish their lives within my range of endeavour and as I continued to make my marks into the landscape the unease of the ground dwellers became more apparent. I see some of the less brave make good an escape which upsets me a little but I reasoned there had to be some that escape, I could not expect total decimation. With luck they will return overnight as my actions cease and they will be back in residence in time for the annihilation.

Besides this was fair warning, I will be pounding the earth with many blows and in many places for quite a while. I need to clearly establish and in fact limit the range of the future destruction. If, despite the relentless pounding I am delivering today, the stubborn residents within these boundaries choose to remain out of bravery, misguided resistance or languor, then I can grant them no mercy. I will not stand to have them resident within my new plan for the area. After all, I am anticipating a carnage, I have assembled my forces, the trades of my destructive vision are scheduled and arriving, and I can almost see the total devastation I have planned to ensure the eradication of these meager occupants. I am the lord of their world and my will shall be done.

I look back now at the results of my efforts and the clearly defined route of demarcation. All the destruction to follow will fall between the markers driven in to the lands. There can be no confusion. The first clouds of the apocalypse shall descend at daybreak, those endeavouring to elude the noxious destruction shall be trapped and slain by my lieutenants of eradication. At noon the second holocaust of needle toothed warriors will be unleashed to devour survivors and the following day the lands will be laid waste by explosion and excavations of the like never before seen in these parts, by close of actions all their dwellings will be demolished and the genocide complete. Guaranteed.

My mission will have commenced. I can’t wait to feel the vibrations as the lands are compressed, the wasted haunts of the slain masses smote level and filled with the detritus of my industry. The vision of flame-hot viscous ooze spreading black over the scene actually excites me and I admit that I am reveling so much in this imagining that a grin has spread across my countenance. The memory of my efforts of past years, slowly traversing these places in howling gales, and my recollections of the annual battle with the occupants of the lands will be sweet memories now that I know I will be free of their endless trials and the frustrations. My previous and ineffective attempts to subdue the insidious occupants are laughable, as if I were negotiating with intelligent beings and finally expecting that by killing the majority the minority would depart. Beyond my understanding the invaders not only remained but grew in number year on year. Their activities have destroyed my lands, corrupted my produce and made negotiating my landscape a daily disenchantment.

As I cast my gaze further I am looking now at the roadway outside the gate to my property, smooth tarmac and smart guttered edge. I am so excited that in just a week, no more, I will have cleared the rabbit plague from the way to my house, filled their burrows and laid that same smooth all weather tarmac surface to my front door. The feeling of triumph and victory over lands and nature goes a long way to dull any feeling of remorse over the slaughter of a local wild lapin population . The decimation is a minor but necessary evil.

Wedding Words

Together



Before Together, there was a world,
wide, large and unknown
demanding your explore, your bravery your touch.

Before Together, your hearts frail, scarred, well guarded,
Still questing discovery, adventure, fresh wounds.

Before Together, your love, vague, simple and slippery,
seeking challenge, defining and form.

Before Together, half Together.
Half Together, alone.
Two alones, two hearts, two worlds, two apart
are now soft memories, cleansed by your Together.

And here we are,
all called to witness,
Together two hearts, two worlds

We smile, we delight
At distance conquered by desire,
At desire conjoined by events and
At events coalesced by affection.

We smile, we reflect
At the meeting, the juncture,
At the union defined.
In a future imagined, a pledge forever.

Together before us.
Together in time.
Love challenging, defining, discovering.
Together embarking on separate paths,

So we gift you strength and delight.
Together in one world,
wide, large and unknown.

Phantom

Create a piece using the word or theme PHANTOM for the April 20th meet.




Carruther’s phantom.

Sally lay on her back, nestled by her mattress as she stared through the semi-darkness to her ceiling. The plaster reliefs formed vague shapes from which she imagined specters or goblins sometimes emerging. She smiled at how some childhood things stay with you. Sleep tonight was proving elusive. The light she had bought from that artisan in Venice hung heavily from its gilt chain reflecting what little light there was off its finely tooled links. Sally could just see the exquisite gold swirls captured forever as the melted glass was blown for her in that crusty old workshop. But no mater the distraction she employed, sleep remained thwarted.
Her bedroom had retained much of the day’s heat and Sally was sweating. That could be the anxiety though. She pulled gently at her silk nightdress to dislodge a minute crease in the small of her back, it was not uncomfortable, merely noticeable. The movement of her arm gave a pleasant sense as it glided over the 1200 percale bed sheet. Not for the first time did she marvel how luxury had come her way. It was not through lack of effort or commitment, but it did in some dark ways have at its source the immoral acts she had initiated, repeated and justified. But that is the way of derivatives trading. How the hell she ever got involved in this murky world of deceit from a passing interest in mathematics defied her logic even now. But without doubt it was why she could lie here in these comforts,, but, still not sleep at night. And now, as if to crown the years of immorality, a phantom had slid into her life.
When she accepted the offer to work at Carruther’s she had done so being well aware of the whispered rumors and stories that there were phantoms lurking in the bowels of the establishment. She had heard at conferences, over drinks around the bar, that senior Carruther’s executives had experiences of them. The phantom story went right back to the years following the crash of the 1920’s after staff had flung themselves down the stairwell to die in mashed despair on the basement floor. Sally never thought she would experience a Carruther phantom, but she had no doubts now. The sweat and anxiety she felt as she lay here was real, a phantom had come home to roost with her. It seemed a bit unfair that the moment she had won the CFO role she had also got a Carruther phantom. It had nothing to do with the skullduggery she had performed to get the job and it wasn’t something she really had ever believed would happen to her but now she couldn’t refute it, the phantom was unquestionably resident in her basement and it was the trepidation , and the anxiety of the inevitable return she would have to make to her basement the next day that was causing the sleeplessness.
Sally was a mature adult, intelligent and not ashamed of the moral choices she had made to gain her position in life. She knew the stench of past deeds hung around her like a fetid carcass but the rewards she sought were astronomical and the rumours of a Carruther phantom had done nothing to discourage her. Now she wasn’t so sure. Now she would have to live with a phantom. She would not be able to hide its presence.

As daylight slowly grew she knew she would have to confront the phantom boldly and move on into her career choice. Sally guessed the Carruther phantom would define her amongst her peers as it had done for others and the essence of it would both identify her and plague her efforts for a private life. The phantom curse had been bourn by every Carruther CFO since the 1920’s and there was no way she was going to be immune. It was in her basement for shit sake. She could hardly believe it. She had seen it there when she had come home last night. Lurking in all its dark grey malevolence, silent and still in the shadowy corner of the basement. Its di-optic eyes glinted menacingly from the gloom and she knew, she just knew, its ethereal spirit was waiting to emerge should she be bold enough to release it. This was not a morning she had been wanting but it was inevitable and she would, she knew, have to meet the phantom and she knew, like all other Carruther’s CFOs, she would be engulfed by its presence, enraptured by its enticements and ultimately corrupted by its opulent demands and expectations.

The morning’s shower and breakfast routines performed, it was almost a surprise as she stood at the mirror putting on her lipstick and adjusting her hair that she did actually look the epitome of a Chief Financial Officer. Funny, she thought, looking at herself, now she knew she could face the phantom, deal with the rumours, attack the deriders and progress to even greater heights.
The phantom had already begun to wreak its way into her psyche.

Confront your fears straight on she thought.
Rather than walking down the stairs as she may usually have done into the dark basement, today she strode purposefully to the large main door; hit the remote and watched the panels open, flooding the basement with daylight.

The Phantom of course did not retreat with this onslaught, she hadn’t expected it to. If anything it confronted her more boldly. Rather than slunk in the rear corner like she remembered from last night it proudly disported itself in the full morning sunshine. Sally boldly approached it as its eyes followed her, reflecting and magnifying her anxiety. The bloody thing knows me she thought. Undeterred she accepted it’s invitation and quickly succumb to it’s opulent entreaty. Despite her conviction that she would not, Sally had been easily captured and captivated by the Caruthers Phantom.

For a moment she enjoyed its form, felt the textures of its temptation. There was an exquisite sense of excess and pretention, with an added promise of ultimate power. From her new perspective Sally cast around and became aware of an almost organic invitation to proceed.

She pressed the start button, the driver’s door sealed closed, and down the front, the Spirit of Ecstasy rose from its chromium den to greet the minions.

Sally drove off to her new job in the city in her new company car, a Rolls Royce Phantom for shit sake!
She could still hardly believe it.

the bloody tyke

Leeds Savage challenge for April 6 2011.

To put Transparent, Bastard and Verisimilitude into a short story.

The bloody tyke.

From where I stood now I could see the yellow flashes explode after each impact as the shells hit. After this latest attack the availability of shells would be less, it was going to take time to recover from the blow we had just been delivered.
I am so pissed off about it I could throttle the bugger again right here and now. The way the smirking bastard is wearing his verisimilitude of innocence sickens me.  A transparent haze of fear and a stench of death had hung over the scene. The prick was gormlessly expecting me to believe he had arrived to find himself in this gore-fest. I mean, he was spattered and smeared with their blood for shit’s sake and he had the raw gall to be looking at me, claiming no involvement.

I am in awe of the stupidity of the dolt I now have in front of me.
If I could know for sure she wouldn’t see from behind the glass I‘d kick his balls in to wipe the daft grin off his face.

It was her bloody fault anyway, I’d told her we’d never be able to trust him from the moment she introduced us. I just knew his type, dealt with them all my life in pubs, in town parks and down city back streets. Bloody Yorkshire bastards, you can’t trust them. I’ve seen them crack a fit of fury for no reason whatsoever.   Given any situation you never know which way they're going to jump. I can’t stand to be near them.. I told her that. And here is the proof. This time it’s a massacre, as I approached the field I'd seen at least four bodies on the ground before I managed to collar the tyke  and drag him protesting away from the scene.  Granted, I had surprised him, but the arsehole had nearly tried to have a go at me. I'd slipped him one to the kidney before he got the chance. Probably uncalled for, but it made me feel good. She never saw that though, so it won’t go on the record.

I have made it my mission to keep track of the bugger's movements ever since he joined us and while I have never been able to pin anything specific on him, a lot more fatalities have been logged since he’s arrived. She kept saying “There’s always been and there will always be unplanned deaths in this sort of work” and sure, she was right. There would always be unintended casualties along with the targeted executions but the death rate had risen sharply since his arrival and I for one had very strong convictions who was responsible.

He was uncanny at knowing when I was watching him though, and I couldn’t watch him all the time. I can’t recall how many times I’d notice his absence and I’d see him cautiously heading off, looking sly. No sooner would I move to follow him and he’d stop, turn around and either come back as if he’d forgotten something or change direction and head off with an entirely different stride. The shit had been starting to do my head in. But now I had him, evidence was on him everywhere, the scene of the last slaughter was preserved and there was no bloody way in the world she could dispute it. I had him dead to rights. He was out of here this time. No excuses, no favoritism, it was a done deal.

I hammered on the Kitchen widow and she stopped making her egg custard. She looked up with horror at the dripping blood all over Timmy’s face and coat.
I shouted through the double glazing,
“Your fucking dog has killed another four of my chickens! I tell you Sarah this is it .
Its over.
I am going to the pound and I’m taking your bloody Terrier today!

Would it fit

Write a story which includes the phrase  And then she wondered if it would ever fit………


Leeds Savage task for March 23, 2011.

The lounge room was disheveled with a briefcase and handbag discarded oddly in the hallway, their shoes muddled at the end of the sofa, Paul’s shirt and mobile were thrown on the coffee table and Clair’s blouse was half caught up on the magazine rack. The door to the bedroom stood ajar, trousers slung on the handle. The scent of stale booze and sweaty bodies hung comfortably in the air over a quiet conversation.

Paul is laying on his side, one leg still entwined, his head propped on an elbow, hand resting still on her chest.

“So?”

“Oh god, Paul, sorry, yes, of course we can, but then, I don’t know….when? Like this year?

“Well I was sort of thinking, you know, like sometime soon......”

“Its a heck of a …… I suppose, …..I .. um…. Well yes , I guess…., but…..why now?

He looked down and tracing his finger round her breast said simply, “Why not now?”

“Um, I’m thinking.” And she was. Thinking hard. But nothing came. Married?,,,, Shit!

She’d always known that they would probably end up married but she had not given the timing serious thought.

Alright, that’s not true, she had thought about it. But not seriously, not really and not about when. Like now, now? It couldn’t be now. Could it? There had to be too much to talk about, there must be, like….oh, what are all those things to think about? There must be heaps..

Then she saw Paul was looking at her, he was looking worried.

She leaned up, kissed him, smiled and gave him a hug.



The embrace developed, as it does, the play was gentle this time, caring, lingering, exhausting and finally satisfying. They lay quietly, Paul still beside her, just touching. She had started to think again. Her whole time-line and schedule is going to have to be worked out, yes, timing,,, timing was something that really did need to be thought about……

First, her masters, there was really no way she could defer that again, She just knew that she had to be head down bum up to get that done or waste fifteen years of commitment, well a commitment of sorts, but all that work, the bloody tears and frustrations. No, the masters had to get done before marriage. So that’s sorted. Six months. At least, shit. Then she’d need to plan an engagement party, finish decorating the flat, sell the flat, buy a family type home. Have to go to Canada and spend time with Paul’s folks sometime…. Have to allow ages to organise a wedding, AND, what about a honeymoon, would we even have a honeymoon? Then there is all the crap you need to do to move in to the new home, and what about work? Would they consider part time? Maybe she should think about a baby. Oh, baby. A cloying goo flowed into her brain for a second. Yes, perhaps a baby. The sweetness vanished as she had a worry about if she could actually get pregnant, oh for shit sake this isn’t the time to worry about that, there must still be more stuff to think about being married.

And then she wondered if it would ever fit in the time she had actually left herself. She remembered she was 39,,,, and five months, and what, twelve days? How the fuck did she know that? Was she that pre-occupied? She had been noticing she’d get angry really quickly lately, felt paranoid sometimes, and had once or twice thought her hormones might be going weird. That worried her. Kids, shit. Now she lay there worrying like an expert, worrying about if she’d buggered up her eggs with all the shit she’d taken, what if her body wasn’t going to make a kid? If it did how could she change and be a mother? This gender draw is a crock. Old Rod fucking Stewart and Rupert bloody Murdock are squirting progeny into every passing womb without a second’s thought. Fatherhood, no problem anytime, motherhood, a huge fuckin’ use-by date… Crap. And Paul’d be the same, she bet he’d never thought about not being able to be a father either. Bastard.

The gentle mood was gone, forgotten completely as she lay there, worrying, getting sadder, growing angry, then remorseful, helpless. She rolled over, curled her face into her pillow and got washed over by some unwanted sobs.

Paul, moving over, held her “Hey, what’s the matter honey?”

“Oh fuck off, leave me alone, and don’t touch me, you, you,,,,, ahrgh, ” she stuttered, pulled away and fled into the bathroom.

“And get out of my place” she heard herself shriek as she slammed the door. Dissolving into confusion she sat, head in hands.

There were footsteps, Paul tried the handle and then softly knocked on the locked door, “Claire?, What’s the matter honey, what did I do?”

As if he didn’t know.