i guess i must have been the first bloke to get into her knickers. i'd be shocked if i was told different. i mean she was only ten at the time after all.
until last month in the supermarket i'd mostly forgotten about her. then, while gazing at the seventy five different toothpaste products competing for my economic vote, her face resurfaced in the pool of my consciousness.
she completely blanked me of course. but gut feeling never doubted that it was her. the round jaw line, the slightly surprised expression couldn't have been anyone else.
what to do?
let it go. we'd hardly known each other really, even back then and i certainly hadn't laid eyes on her since. 'she's doing the weekend shopping,' i thought. 'back to hubby and the 2.4 shortly. and thats exactly as it should be. leave the past behind.'
but i couldn't. the adventure still burnt painfully bright in my memory. i had to speak to her. as she strode briskly past the pittas and the cakes and biscuits i began to follow.
'oh my god,' i thought. 'what am i doing? they might be tracking me on the cctv. if i'm wrong i'll never explain myself. they'll have me down for a stalker at best and if i have to go into the details ... oh dear.'
no matter how i wrestled with myself i couldn't stop. perhaps i was a pervert after all. maybe i was losing it. maybe i'd never seen her before and my inner demon was egging me on to commit a heinous assault deep among the croissants. i'd just have to plead diminished responsibility and hope to get off with a short stretch in a comfy nick where the cons were just the copeable side of too friendly.
i kept right on. trying to check her face without being checked back. it wasn't easy but eventually as she hove to to alongside the thirty nine types of toilet paper the decision reached itself. 'excuse me,' i said, 'are you caroline thomas?'
she went quite still. 'no,' she said.
'oh god,' i thought to myself. the shiny tiles parted as the sub-supermarket abyss threatened to engulf me, 'you plonker.'
'no that isn''t my name,' she said again as i lamely explained who i was. 'but it used to be.'
as the tiles slid back together i realised i had to move fast. the next phase was going to be a lot trickier than merely asking someone their name. i opened my mouth. 'do you remember...... ?' i said.
she held up her hand. 'i know what you're going to say,' she said. 'just don't.'
CONTINUED BELOW
Saturday, November 24, 2007
first base no2
i reckon that sometimes dreams come completely formed. you know like with a past already built in so the struggling with the gunman or combing the lady's hair scene already holds its own backstory. if this is true then, in the same way that the depths and distance of the brecon beacons can be delivered in the single flat plane of a photograph, you can get quite a lot of eternity into no time at all.
i won't say that this is what happened when caroline raised her hand to shush me but as she did so the teetering embarrassment of the moment seemed to isolate us from the other shoppers in the store. back we both went almost half a hundred years. back to a lukewarm afternoon where the river tawe seeps out of the flanks of waun leucu, fan hir and cefn cul. back to a popular picnic spot for families recovering, then as now, from the workaday week.
caroline was my best mate stuart's dad's girlfriend's daughter. the occasion was reciprocation day. stuart would occasionally sleep over at my house. his father was repaying the debt to my parents by taking me along on a day out.
we'd piled up stream-side and mobhanded with the picnic staples, orange juice and tea in a thermos. the car rug had been pulled out of the boot, spread across the reedy grass and weighted down with packages of bread and butter, boiled eggs, tomatoes, plates, cheese, cutlery and cups.
jam was in short supply tho this was as much due to its stickiness quotient as to any post war scarcity. luckily there was neither wind nor wasps.
after eating the convention was that us kids ran around till exhausted then sat silently in the car while stuart's dad slept. can you imagine stroppy contemporary ten year olds swallowing that guff? it was a long, long time ago.
i knew stuart well. he was my best mate after all. but i didn't know caroline. she was a girl and both us boys were a bit wary. so we ignored her. we didn't really understand about girls then. or at least i didn't. i just knew they were different, and as they seemed to think they were different too, i guessed i was probably right.
we played in the uneasy afternoon. we ran, we threw stones into the mountain water and spotted monsters. eventually we got bored. which is probably when i decided to cross the stream. whether i had been encouraged to do this or it was my own idea i can't remember. but it became my plan.
i've been up there many times since. its a great start for a walk to llyn y fan fawr or over to its smaller sister lake llyn y fan fach. in later years it was the kind of place to take a girlfriend. but although it should have been easy, perched as it is in the magic summer of boyhood, i've never again found the site of that first adventure.
where it is still clear is in my mind.
a substantial slab of stone ran directly across the flow forming the lower boundary of a deep pool. its up-stream face was sheer while the lower flank ran away in a shallow fall. the reduced summer water level allowed the rock's spine to stay just proud of the water. this left it more or less dry and just about wide enough for a pair of ten-year-old's daps to make headway.
from the security of the bank it was pretty obvious that anyone walking to the end of this pathway would only have a piffling jump step to reach the other side. so off i scrambled.
momentum keeping me vertical, i soon reached the rock's end. however once there i learned an early lesson in perception. my destination unaccountably seemed to have shifted and i saw now that no matter how vigorously i jumped there was nearly no chance of my reaching the other side. a new reality dawned. i couldn't go on.
then things got worse. although my route had allowed an adequate access it simply wasn't quite wide enough to stand still on. my feet, now stationary and side by side, seemed to be competing with each other for purchase. with my poise seriously in jeopardy i had to retreat.
if the ridge was too narrow to stand on, it was even less use when it came to turning round. but turn round i had to or face watery ignominy. i may not have known much about girls then but i did know that you never allowed yourself to look foolish in front of them. this just could not be allowed to happen. i screwed my courage up tight and started to slowly shuffle to face the home bank.
awkward in a space too tight for a mallard let alone for a ten year old boy, i quickly found myself standing on my own shoe laces. then on my own feet. then, with the inevitability of childhood, i began to lose my balance. i wavered. i tottered. and eventually felt myself beginning to tumble. in desperation i flung myself downstream away from the leering pool.
in the time it takes a trout to leap i found myself sitting in two inches of water on the gentle slope. sure, i was wet but i wasn't submerged or being swallowed by gremlins in the freezing brook. and some degree of honour had been preserved.
relief was short lived. yes i had avoided the deeps, but i was still moving. gentle it may have been but my slope scored pretty high on the slipperiness scale.
as i slid i realised that, like all good things, my sliding wasn't going to last forever. in fact the slope was just about to terminate in a water fall. which itself plunged a good six feet into a second chilly pool, possibly even deeper and more eerie than the one upstream.
by the grace of some benevolent water sprite, just as i go to the lip i stopped. i sat mortified and too scared to move.
then things got worse. the grown-ups noticed. i was scolded. and brusquely ordered to get myself out of that silly mess. then, when i got to the bank, i had to take my clothes off.
it seems reasonable now, what adult would happily sit a wet child in soaking clothes in their car when there was the option of wrapping the thing up and consigning its soggy togs to the boot. at the time i was outraged. this wasn't my family. and i didn't have any dry clothes. what was to become of me?
caroline's mother magicked a towel from somewhere. at least i could cover my embarrassment and dry myself. ok so far.
then things got worse. reaching into her bag once more she pulled out a spare pair of caroline's knickers. i felt a shiver as i looked at them. they were pink.
i was a boy. i looked at them again. they were still pink. and with the towel they were all i had to wear.
the rest of our afternoon was spent sitting in the back of the car, firstly while stuart's dad gave every impression of having an afternoon nap and subsequently, while everyone else chatted, as we drove home. luckily it was summer so it wasn't cold. although it wouldn't have made any difference to me. the hot flush of my embarrassment would have kept me warm even in the depths of winter.
eventually we got back to our cul de sac. i scanned the gardens for any of the other kids in our loose gang. relief, there were none. with caroline's knickers still on and my towel firmly tucked into itself, sarong style, around my waist i gingerly picked my way across the warm tarmac to our house.
and then it got worse. i reached the front gate ok and hurried down the garden path to the house. only to find that everyone was out. i would have to climb in through the kitchen window.
i felt the towel loosen as i hoiked myself up onto the sill but by this stage all i could do was place my trust in friction and the will of a beneficent god. with elbows as tight to my sides as i could manage i jiggled the hopper and reached in to grasp the main catch. using both hands i prised the window open and swung it wide enough for a boy to squeeze through. two more wriggles and i would be in.
the towel fell away completely. what an incentive. the clear image of my pink knickered backside on display to the whole road gave me wings. i shot through that window and into the dark dignity of the kitchen.
CONTINUED BELOW
i won't say that this is what happened when caroline raised her hand to shush me but as she did so the teetering embarrassment of the moment seemed to isolate us from the other shoppers in the store. back we both went almost half a hundred years. back to a lukewarm afternoon where the river tawe seeps out of the flanks of waun leucu, fan hir and cefn cul. back to a popular picnic spot for families recovering, then as now, from the workaday week.
caroline was my best mate stuart's dad's girlfriend's daughter. the occasion was reciprocation day. stuart would occasionally sleep over at my house. his father was repaying the debt to my parents by taking me along on a day out.
we'd piled up stream-side and mobhanded with the picnic staples, orange juice and tea in a thermos. the car rug had been pulled out of the boot, spread across the reedy grass and weighted down with packages of bread and butter, boiled eggs, tomatoes, plates, cheese, cutlery and cups.
jam was in short supply tho this was as much due to its stickiness quotient as to any post war scarcity. luckily there was neither wind nor wasps.
after eating the convention was that us kids ran around till exhausted then sat silently in the car while stuart's dad slept. can you imagine stroppy contemporary ten year olds swallowing that guff? it was a long, long time ago.
i knew stuart well. he was my best mate after all. but i didn't know caroline. she was a girl and both us boys were a bit wary. so we ignored her. we didn't really understand about girls then. or at least i didn't. i just knew they were different, and as they seemed to think they were different too, i guessed i was probably right.
we played in the uneasy afternoon. we ran, we threw stones into the mountain water and spotted monsters. eventually we got bored. which is probably when i decided to cross the stream. whether i had been encouraged to do this or it was my own idea i can't remember. but it became my plan.
i've been up there many times since. its a great start for a walk to llyn y fan fawr or over to its smaller sister lake llyn y fan fach. in later years it was the kind of place to take a girlfriend. but although it should have been easy, perched as it is in the magic summer of boyhood, i've never again found the site of that first adventure.
where it is still clear is in my mind.
a substantial slab of stone ran directly across the flow forming the lower boundary of a deep pool. its up-stream face was sheer while the lower flank ran away in a shallow fall. the reduced summer water level allowed the rock's spine to stay just proud of the water. this left it more or less dry and just about wide enough for a pair of ten-year-old's daps to make headway.
from the security of the bank it was pretty obvious that anyone walking to the end of this pathway would only have a piffling jump step to reach the other side. so off i scrambled.
momentum keeping me vertical, i soon reached the rock's end. however once there i learned an early lesson in perception. my destination unaccountably seemed to have shifted and i saw now that no matter how vigorously i jumped there was nearly no chance of my reaching the other side. a new reality dawned. i couldn't go on.
then things got worse. although my route had allowed an adequate access it simply wasn't quite wide enough to stand still on. my feet, now stationary and side by side, seemed to be competing with each other for purchase. with my poise seriously in jeopardy i had to retreat.
if the ridge was too narrow to stand on, it was even less use when it came to turning round. but turn round i had to or face watery ignominy. i may not have known much about girls then but i did know that you never allowed yourself to look foolish in front of them. this just could not be allowed to happen. i screwed my courage up tight and started to slowly shuffle to face the home bank.
awkward in a space too tight for a mallard let alone for a ten year old boy, i quickly found myself standing on my own shoe laces. then on my own feet. then, with the inevitability of childhood, i began to lose my balance. i wavered. i tottered. and eventually felt myself beginning to tumble. in desperation i flung myself downstream away from the leering pool.
in the time it takes a trout to leap i found myself sitting in two inches of water on the gentle slope. sure, i was wet but i wasn't submerged or being swallowed by gremlins in the freezing brook. and some degree of honour had been preserved.
relief was short lived. yes i had avoided the deeps, but i was still moving. gentle it may have been but my slope scored pretty high on the slipperiness scale.
as i slid i realised that, like all good things, my sliding wasn't going to last forever. in fact the slope was just about to terminate in a water fall. which itself plunged a good six feet into a second chilly pool, possibly even deeper and more eerie than the one upstream.
by the grace of some benevolent water sprite, just as i go to the lip i stopped. i sat mortified and too scared to move.
then things got worse. the grown-ups noticed. i was scolded. and brusquely ordered to get myself out of that silly mess. then, when i got to the bank, i had to take my clothes off.
it seems reasonable now, what adult would happily sit a wet child in soaking clothes in their car when there was the option of wrapping the thing up and consigning its soggy togs to the boot. at the time i was outraged. this wasn't my family. and i didn't have any dry clothes. what was to become of me?
caroline's mother magicked a towel from somewhere. at least i could cover my embarrassment and dry myself. ok so far.
then things got worse. reaching into her bag once more she pulled out a spare pair of caroline's knickers. i felt a shiver as i looked at them. they were pink.
i was a boy. i looked at them again. they were still pink. and with the towel they were all i had to wear.
the rest of our afternoon was spent sitting in the back of the car, firstly while stuart's dad gave every impression of having an afternoon nap and subsequently, while everyone else chatted, as we drove home. luckily it was summer so it wasn't cold. although it wouldn't have made any difference to me. the hot flush of my embarrassment would have kept me warm even in the depths of winter.
eventually we got back to our cul de sac. i scanned the gardens for any of the other kids in our loose gang. relief, there were none. with caroline's knickers still on and my towel firmly tucked into itself, sarong style, around my waist i gingerly picked my way across the warm tarmac to our house.
and then it got worse. i reached the front gate ok and hurried down the garden path to the house. only to find that everyone was out. i would have to climb in through the kitchen window.
i felt the towel loosen as i hoiked myself up onto the sill but by this stage all i could do was place my trust in friction and the will of a beneficent god. with elbows as tight to my sides as i could manage i jiggled the hopper and reached in to grasp the main catch. using both hands i prised the window open and swung it wide enough for a boy to squeeze through. two more wriggles and i would be in.
the towel fell away completely. what an incentive. the clear image of my pink knickered backside on display to the whole road gave me wings. i shot through that window and into the dark dignity of the kitchen.
CONTINUED BELOW
first base no3
as she lowered her hand caroline's shoulders began to shake with laughter. 'of course i remember,' she said.
as i tried to decide whether i was relieved that i hadn't made a complete prat of myself or affronted that she considered my distress all those years ago so amusing, she carried on. she explained how her mother's relationship with stuart's dad had cooled but that she had eventually married another and settled in a prosperous part of town.
'mum died a few years ago,' she told me, 'she was wonderful. but now you mention it there was one piece of advice she stressed over and over.'
'oh yes,' i said, 'what was that then?'
'well,' she said as she stifled yet more smirks,'she always told me that i was never to go out without a spare pair of knickers.'
insulated from fellow shoppers by our shared memory our sides shook some more.
then off she went, heading for the tinned tomatoes before vanishing beyond the sherry. i doubt if our paths will cross again. i reckon twice in one lifetime will be enough for both of us.
as to whether i had been the first, i never found out. gallantry stayed my tongue. we'd been through plenty that afternoon as it was.
but if neither of us had forgotten by then i don't think we ever will.
peace and love in my black boxers
as i tried to decide whether i was relieved that i hadn't made a complete prat of myself or affronted that she considered my distress all those years ago so amusing, she carried on. she explained how her mother's relationship with stuart's dad had cooled but that she had eventually married another and settled in a prosperous part of town.
'mum died a few years ago,' she told me, 'she was wonderful. but now you mention it there was one piece of advice she stressed over and over.'
'oh yes,' i said, 'what was that then?'
'well,' she said as she stifled yet more smirks,'she always told me that i was never to go out without a spare pair of knickers.'
insulated from fellow shoppers by our shared memory our sides shook some more.
then off she went, heading for the tinned tomatoes before vanishing beyond the sherry. i doubt if our paths will cross again. i reckon twice in one lifetime will be enough for both of us.
as to whether i had been the first, i never found out. gallantry stayed my tongue. we'd been through plenty that afternoon as it was.
but if neither of us had forgotten by then i don't think we ever will.
peace and love in my black boxers
Friday, November 16, 2007
blogger hazards no 1 ... careful with that compassion, eugene. or ... do fat girls cry heavier tears?
i suppose the first question is what exactly you mean by fat. dumpiness, being often in the inner eye of the beholder, is notoriously difficult to define. it may, in fact, ultimately be a function of one's attitude to oneself. ie am i a dollop? am i grosser than i want to be? and, crucially do i, or any body else, actually give a damn?
murky waters indeed, but nonetheless deep. and dangerously unpredictable as the definition itself becomes a movable feast. starting a few ounces over emaciated it can run, not to say wobble, all the way up to obesity and beyond.
whatever it means the word 'fat' punches well above its own weight. it should be used with caution. finding its way into the wrong ear at the wrong moment the new 'f' word can elicit a bolt of electric venom fierce enough to skin a rhino. trust me. i've been there.
on the other, pudgy, hand of course it can be a great bonding tool. for example to convince your chosen that she is the only one for you, you can use it to describe her enemies. 'yes beloved,' you might say, ' ariadne can be so selfish. could it be because she runs ever so slightly to fat.'
the point being of course not that ariadne is a bit on the hefty side, who cares anyway, but that the apple of your eye demonstrably is not. otherwise how could you have been so reckless as to raise the issue in her company in the first place. no, obviously your remark means that your own true love is the ultimate slender goddess incarnate. while ariadne, poor thing, is heading to frumpdom in a handcart. or two.
once your troth has been plighted the concept may still come in handy. if only by implication. caught admiring another lady's physique in the spouse's company, the first scowl to crackle across the ether can sometimes be earthed with an adroit 'i'm not sure denim looks good that stretched, dear.' your meaning will be clear enough. below the ritual reprimand don't be surprised when your elbow receives an affectionate squeeze as the sun shines through once more.
personally i like ladies with presence. to me they look like, well, ladies actually. and it ain't just visual. no, you roll on with the subcutaneous insulation girls. voluptuous and substantial are big, and i mean big, positives as far as i am concerned.
women themselves, it seems, cannot be so forgiving. especially when its their own tummies in question. martyrs to the fascism of physicality it can be quite upsetting to see how much not fitting into some arbitrary body shape can hurt. so upsetting in fact that, in true bleeding heart style, i take their pain upon myself.
well, that is, i used to. recent events have caused me to reconsider.
you see i'm a sucker for a sad tale. recently while trawling the blogosphere i bumped into a maiden all forlorn. on the face of it her grievance focused around her coiffure but i soon sniffed out the true seat of her melancholy. 'help me, help me, help me,' wailed the sub-text. 'I'M FAT.'
instantly my chivalrous side thrust its way to the fore. gallantly, i thought, i set about to slay the dragon of self loathing that so grievously imprisoned her. 'no you're not,' i commented, referring to the photos on her blog. 'you're just you and altho not a skinny scarecrow, you look fine to me.'
in fact i may have used the term 'gorgeous.' by now i was on a roll and there was no holding back.'i've been around for a bit, doll,' i said, 'and you look great. anyway just think of skin as an erogenous zone. do that and it stands to reason that the more you got the more fun you gonna have.'
'there we are,' i thought once i'd finished. 'that should bring a smile to those full lips.'
huh, did it fairy cakes?
the next thing i knew i was on the receiving end of a sound telling off from her husband. who let me know in no uncertain terms that he wasn't happy with me referring to his wife in this way. further, my reference to her erogenous zones had so enraged him that he was considering crossing at least one continent and ocean so he could catch up with me and 'kick my ass.'
as i don't own a donkey i couldn't imagine what he meant but with my screen shuddering to the stamping of rampant testosterone and snorts of angry breath as they thundered through his text it was clear that he didn't have my best interests at heart. i instantly grovelled in apology.
on thinking about it tho i realised that i hadn't been talking about specifics, just made a general point about skin and its functions. i'd done my best to cheer his beloved up and in doing so had been sorely misunderstood.
hey nonny no, such is the cyber vagabond's misfortune. onwards and upwards ..... but tarry a while, before leaving this tale behind altogether i feel there are valuable lessons to be learned. for all of us.
firstly for her: don't bleat to the universe that things ain't right and then go running to hubby when the universe comes riding to the rescue.
secondly for him: rather than waste all that energy in testosterone posturing at what was scarcely even a virtual violation of his marital condition, perhaps he could spend some time checking out why his beloved needs to reach out to the stars for reassurance and comfort in the first place.
thirdly for me: as far as i'm concerned fat girls can get on with being fat and unhappy. who am i to intervene after all? whether they cry heavier tears or not is no longer of any interest to me whatsoever. anyway its all subjective. isn't it?
peace and love and movin' on.
© Patrick Ellis
murky waters indeed, but nonetheless deep. and dangerously unpredictable as the definition itself becomes a movable feast. starting a few ounces over emaciated it can run, not to say wobble, all the way up to obesity and beyond.
whatever it means the word 'fat' punches well above its own weight. it should be used with caution. finding its way into the wrong ear at the wrong moment the new 'f' word can elicit a bolt of electric venom fierce enough to skin a rhino. trust me. i've been there.
on the other, pudgy, hand of course it can be a great bonding tool. for example to convince your chosen that she is the only one for you, you can use it to describe her enemies. 'yes beloved,' you might say, ' ariadne can be so selfish. could it be because she runs ever so slightly to fat.'
the point being of course not that ariadne is a bit on the hefty side, who cares anyway, but that the apple of your eye demonstrably is not. otherwise how could you have been so reckless as to raise the issue in her company in the first place. no, obviously your remark means that your own true love is the ultimate slender goddess incarnate. while ariadne, poor thing, is heading to frumpdom in a handcart. or two.
once your troth has been plighted the concept may still come in handy. if only by implication. caught admiring another lady's physique in the spouse's company, the first scowl to crackle across the ether can sometimes be earthed with an adroit 'i'm not sure denim looks good that stretched, dear.' your meaning will be clear enough. below the ritual reprimand don't be surprised when your elbow receives an affectionate squeeze as the sun shines through once more.
personally i like ladies with presence. to me they look like, well, ladies actually. and it ain't just visual. no, you roll on with the subcutaneous insulation girls. voluptuous and substantial are big, and i mean big, positives as far as i am concerned.
women themselves, it seems, cannot be so forgiving. especially when its their own tummies in question. martyrs to the fascism of physicality it can be quite upsetting to see how much not fitting into some arbitrary body shape can hurt. so upsetting in fact that, in true bleeding heart style, i take their pain upon myself.
well, that is, i used to. recent events have caused me to reconsider.
you see i'm a sucker for a sad tale. recently while trawling the blogosphere i bumped into a maiden all forlorn. on the face of it her grievance focused around her coiffure but i soon sniffed out the true seat of her melancholy. 'help me, help me, help me,' wailed the sub-text. 'I'M FAT.'
instantly my chivalrous side thrust its way to the fore. gallantly, i thought, i set about to slay the dragon of self loathing that so grievously imprisoned her. 'no you're not,' i commented, referring to the photos on her blog. 'you're just you and altho not a skinny scarecrow, you look fine to me.'
in fact i may have used the term 'gorgeous.' by now i was on a roll and there was no holding back.'i've been around for a bit, doll,' i said, 'and you look great. anyway just think of skin as an erogenous zone. do that and it stands to reason that the more you got the more fun you gonna have.'
'there we are,' i thought once i'd finished. 'that should bring a smile to those full lips.'
huh, did it fairy cakes?
the next thing i knew i was on the receiving end of a sound telling off from her husband. who let me know in no uncertain terms that he wasn't happy with me referring to his wife in this way. further, my reference to her erogenous zones had so enraged him that he was considering crossing at least one continent and ocean so he could catch up with me and 'kick my ass.'
as i don't own a donkey i couldn't imagine what he meant but with my screen shuddering to the stamping of rampant testosterone and snorts of angry breath as they thundered through his text it was clear that he didn't have my best interests at heart. i instantly grovelled in apology.
on thinking about it tho i realised that i hadn't been talking about specifics, just made a general point about skin and its functions. i'd done my best to cheer his beloved up and in doing so had been sorely misunderstood.
hey nonny no, such is the cyber vagabond's misfortune. onwards and upwards ..... but tarry a while, before leaving this tale behind altogether i feel there are valuable lessons to be learned. for all of us.
firstly for her: don't bleat to the universe that things ain't right and then go running to hubby when the universe comes riding to the rescue.
secondly for him: rather than waste all that energy in testosterone posturing at what was scarcely even a virtual violation of his marital condition, perhaps he could spend some time checking out why his beloved needs to reach out to the stars for reassurance and comfort in the first place.
thirdly for me: as far as i'm concerned fat girls can get on with being fat and unhappy. who am i to intervene after all? whether they cry heavier tears or not is no longer of any interest to me whatsoever. anyway its all subjective. isn't it?
peace and love and movin' on.
© Patrick Ellis
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