Oh my word, I have been so busy, and tired, this last week.
Days are getting shorter, but I’ve had to cram lots into them. I’ve got a gardener in to cut back the ivy that was getting up onto my roof. I’ve had treatment on my foot, which has had an infection for several weeks. I’ve had tests on my thyroid and I’m feeling sad because it’s the anniversary of several sad occasions.
Consequently I have spent a lot of time contemplating life and what I can do to improve things. I haven’t made a plan, and I don’t see my life sunsetting, but I have to learn what I can continue to do and what I might have to give up.
This is a submission for a magazine I recently wrote. Don’t know if I’ll get it in. Copyright by me, Christine Mallabnd-Brown.
Cool Autumn
The nights come early now. Sparkling sunsets in blue and gold. The temperature drops, leaves shiver and fall onto the ground, or wait a while and shimmer on baring branches.
Damp ground fills with mycellium. Fungal bodies strike up through wet soil. Each fruiting body a mushroom or toadstool that pixies and fairies could dance on, mocking the real world with their gyrations.
Stink horns and puff balls sprout then burst, sending spores out into the earth to renew and grow for next year. Fairy rings enlarge and changlings replace children, only recognisable because their feet are at first on backwards until magic twists them back to the human position, toes forward.
As the season continues crisp leaves become soggy clumps of leaf litter, hiding autumn crocus in their deep piles of rotting mulch.
Oranges, gold, yellows, reds, browns, greens, purple, all mix and dull, seeping colour into the earth, dust to dust. Bonfires return ashes to the worms below.
Painting the reflected blue sky in puddles, the mists rise and turn to fogs, covering valleys and hiding hedgehogs and frogs below their veiled moisture. Moving into the hibernation season, Squirrels forage for nuts, planting them between flagstones and creating the beginnings of saplings that will erupt in the spring in awkward places.
The blurred vision of cataract eyed old women watch as the colours merge.
They see their childhoods dance through fallen leaves. Kicking them into the air with the abandon of playful energy. They sleep long sleeps, gradually covering themselves in autumnal eiderdowns. Keeping warmth close to their bodies. As the frosts arrive, snuggling slowly into a safe, eternal sleep.
The world beckons but I am not well enough to go out into it. My infected foot continues to be a pain. Literally. I’m finding it harder to walk in the house, let alone outside and I know I’m not doing enough exercise.
I’m on another lot of antibiotics which I hope will be improve things soon. My main problem is SHOES, my toe hurts when I put them on so I’m struggling with an open toed pair of tatty slippers, not really wearable outside the house. Although I had to go to the doctors in them, I was embarrassed to wear them.
So, I’m not feeling my best and I’ve missed coming here the last few days. Finding other things to do because I don’t know what to write about. Moaning about manky toes isn’t the best is it?
Town Hall window with curtains, I loved the silhouette this made, the brightness of the daylight outside emphasised the shape, and the height makes it feel elongated. It’s like a tall house with a pointed roof.
Taken in the ballroom of Fenton town hall, Stoke-on-Trent.
Movement was the prompt and it brought back memories of my childhood. I learnt to draw horses. They are such powerful and beautiful and intelligent creatures. I only occasionally saw them in real life as I lived in a town. But I had the book black beauty, and watched folly foot, a TV series about horses, and was always singing the theme tune to something else “on white horses”, plus champion the Wonder horse and the lone ranger.
It’s no wonder that I loved drawing horses from an early age. When I was a kid at school I used to draw horses over and over again. I even sold some to other kids in my class for sixpence. I loved drawing dappled greys. I was better at it then than now x
Mom was the driver in our family. She drove a Robin reliant 3 wheeler car. Fibre glass body. Me and my sisters would squeeze in it with her and sometimes my gran too. The three wheeler struggled with hills because it only had a very low cc engine. It was hard to drive in snow because the front wheel would have to push it’s way through fresh snow… Eek
One day on a very long steep hill l remember it boiled dry dragging 5 of us and our combined weight upwards. I remember a hot day and wondering how we would get home. Luckily mom found a house and they brought a watering can of water down to refill the radiator.
BTW Robin reliants got the nickname “Plastic pigs”!
I took this photo yesterday looking out of the Fenton Town Hall window. Then I remembered the room used to be a court room, and I had been a witness there in a trial 30 years ago.
I won’t talk about the case, but I can say the person was found guilty.
Other features were holding cells where witnesses were kept until it was time to appear in front of the magistrates. I have to say it was a long and boring wait. I still remember sitting in a green painted room for hours.
Funny how taking a photo of something with no connection with a memory can stir up things from years ago,
Not in a church, but in Fenton Town Hall. In Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire.
History of the hall from Google : Fenton Town Hall is 138 years old. It was built in Albert Square between 1888 and 1889 by local architect Robert Scrivener and financed by pottery magnate William Meath Baker.
I love the fact that municipal buildings can be beautiful and subtle too. Just because they are used for local political work or council business does not mean they have to be brutalist (although more modern buildings can be very ugly). I guess you have to balance cost and utility. But I love beautiful architectural design.
