when i write

When I write I connect to the stars,

To the universe that no-one else can see.

To the dreams and the darkness

That appear in my head from nowhere.

Maybe I write people.

Maybe I write feelings.

Maybe I write primroses and hazel catkins.

And spring sunshine to the smell of oranges.

Maybe I write funny.

Maybe I write the celebration of men and women.
Or women and men.

I write my style.

I write my voice.

I write my take.

I write my rhythm.

Big Magic.

Move hearts. Speak love

Speak love. Connect joy.

Big magic.

I write my joining.
I write my enemies to oblivion.

Slipping loosely into oily dark sea.

Words ivory gleaming afloat in sound

Pure intention.
Invincible.

© Patrick Ellis

Where Am I Coming From?

Its the energy of the words really. The current that fires them into light like individual bulbs in an illuminated sign spelling out something bigger.

Its the rhythm of the words really. Its the pulse that makes the meaning dance, that lights up the romance, that gets things done.

Stressed and unstressed syllables - positive and negative poles charging language with electricity in the way that the stars charge the night with mystery.

Words that release the heart, the mind, bring sight to the blind, forging the connections from the way back, through the way deep into ways yet to be.


© Patrick Ellis

a better ibiza october 2011

Like paella needs rice, a musician needs an audience. Sunshine is good too. No surprise then when, with the prospect of British autumn already glowering below the horizon, I accepted a last minute invitation to explore the gig potential of Pleasure Island.

Within a week the librarian was releasing my print job. Showing her the boarding passes I explained my plan. Her eyes lit up. ‘I’m sure you’ll have fun,’ she said.

Things had moved so fast that it wasn't till I was actually airborne that I managed to hit the background reading. Ibiza has big history - it said. It has been won and lost, rich and poor and, like much of the Mediterranean, both Christian and Muslim. It has worshipped earlier deities besides. Bes god of dance and the goddess Tanit feature strongly in the story of the island’s party habit.

Call me crazy if you will but I’m not sure I didn’t meet Bes myself one evening. In a huge improvement on my first October night on the island when polite young Brits had tried to hook hostess and I into grimly vacant bars, we ate at San Antonio’s Contra Vent restaurant. After dinner Pedro el Chacho’s burnished flamenco got me off my seat and onto my feet where I aped the local dancers’ gypsy moves. Embarrassment was minimised when, after presumably sharing a chuckle at this turista’s skill-free pirouetting, the spirit of dance used his magic patterns to guide me back to my chair.

The dining was generally excellent. We ate in Ibiza town next day. Here the enthusiastic presence of a middle-aged, middle-class French couple told me more about the food in the ‘for the locals’ Bon Profit restaurant than any Michelin star. After lunch as we moved on though it seemed that consumerism of all kinds was well entrenched here. In contrast to the the open hearted pulse of the previous night, in daylight a myriad glittering shops and restaurants hustled for our money. I’m not sure I didn’t catch the occasional ugly drug deal going down.

Is anything though ever what it seems? As we relaxed over our café con leche the island’s history began to muscle out the facade of glitzy dross like sun through a morning mist. Once it had caught my eye Dalt Villa, the fortress heart of the town revealed an older dignity beneath the cynical tourist machine.

I was getting a sense of place. It was engaging. Although no bookings had been offered the public’s response to my casual tango harmonica flurries had been warm enough to consider a return visit early next season. My feeling was growing that Bes and I had connected. I felt sure he wouldn’t turn me away.

Tanit was a different matter. As we drove round the island, through delicate pine woods and unaccountably emotive farmscapes to restaurants by sparkling coves, she kept her distance. Even as the sun plunging between Ibiza and mainland Spain created my final night’s light show she kept to the shadows. ‘Gods?’ I thought, pulling myself back into the material world on the flight home. ‘Goddesses? I must be mad’.

‘How did it go?’ said the librarian a few days later.

‘Pretty good,’ I said. We were getting used to each other by now so I told her a little about my adventure. Then I realised I didn't really know who she was. ‘By the way,' I asked, 'what’s your name?’

I know this is daft but I’m sure I felt a jolt as her eyes shone again,

‘Tanith,’ she answered brightly.

© Patrick Ellis

so dragons you would fight?

It was cool resting against the rock. A good vantage point from which to oversee the unsurfaced road along which trouble was bound to come.

            Snarkleibe turned to Friedlebrund, “So forty years old they are and dragons they want to fight. Why they are not content with their sciatica, their rheumatism, but dragons, dragons, they must have dragons.”

            “Oy, oy,” hissed his companion, “heroes they would be. It is their way.”

            “Their way? OK, it is their way. But then why does that have to be our way? I have many better things to do than breathe fire over men who should be in their offices. Pushing pens they are good for. With those swords they might hurt somebody. And swords, my life”

            Friedlebrund let a small puff of smoke escape her green reptilian snout. “That is how it is.” she said. “A lizard of your considerable years should know this.”

            “But I do. I know it,” he complained. “That means I should like it? I, Snarkleibe, I am too venerable a dragon to pander to the whim of some retired clerk. He wants a challenge? He should go climb a mountain.”

            “Ach, it was always thus, oh, scaly one.” his friend replied.

            Snarkleibe was silent for a moment and then, from deep within his belly, came a rumble which slowly grew into a deafening roar. “It was always thus, oh scaly one,” he bellowed in mockery. “It was always thus. I, chief dragon, know it was always thus.”

            Smoke began to billow from his nostrils.

dragonfly heart

out in the ether
shimmering, darting
i felt your fragile, dragonfly heart
begin to beat more calmly.

© Patrick Ellis

The Sea Nymph and the Walrus

The walrus opened his eye. She was still there. But now she was lying on him. Actually on him as though he were some sort of rock. God, did she have no respect for such an important character as himself?

Obviously she didn’t. There she lay sunning herself and probably, although the walrus couldn’t turn his head round far enough to tell, smiling.

He had no doubt that it was her. Although he couldn’t see her face he could just about catch a glimpse of her hair. And it was definitely her hair. It was as fine as the finest seaweed and equally naturally undisciplined. Although he could tell that she would brush it and brush it and brush it to make it behave, and sometimes it would let her think she’d won, once she started to relax it would reassert itself. When this happened it would put out feelers in every direction, but mostly forwards, and create the most delicious abandoned tangle he’d ever seen.

Although it wasn’t actually green, well not when he’d met her but you never could tell what colour a lady’s hair was going to be from one day to the next: maybe green, then aquamarine and then as red as a sea anemone, there was something very mysterious about it. Early on he had wondered whether it was trying to tell him something. But he knew that was nuts. Nonetheless he thought he’d pay close attention to her crowning glory. For some reason he was sure that it would be that which would let him know which way the currents were flowing.

there'll be a welcome in the hillside

swansea, neath, port talbot, bridgend, cardiff - were these concentrations of people ever attractive. industrial dormer dumps smeared over the bleak hills of the south wales coastline, the whole abortion leavened by gagging remnants of its ugly industrial past.

especially true of port talbot.

10 minutes out of town by train the harsh spell is broken. morning sun on orange willow shoots. clusters of sheep in quiet fields and an occasional stoic horse in its corrugated shelter briefly lift the spirit before the next dose of derelict dismay that is bridgend.

and then theres the litter.

trouble is this hamstrung economy has bred defeat into its people who, in turn, will inertia to win out over initiative.

smouldering like a tip fire below the grass an inescapable heritage of brutality occasionally erupts in the quietly tense communities. then a mother, two young daughters and grandma are silently bludgeoned to death. wraiths of doubt so haunting the eventual conviction. who needs halloween when you've got south wales.

© Patrick Ellis

My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding

The clothes were definitely the thing in last night's episode. Unhindered by gorgia taste phantasmagorical, ultra wedding dresses with their battery pack powered lights and tremulous artificial butterflies were a complete delight. After all if you are going to get married you might as well make your statement. And those young women defintely did that.

What I found so enjoyable about the whole process was the sheer in-your-face comittment to celebration that the gypsies/romanies/travellers or whatever they prefer to be called displayed. It seemed to me honest and direct and above all passionate. The integrity and intelligence of the tree-surgeon groom being a satisfying rebuttal to the condescention of the snidey and divisive interviewer.

Call me perverse if you will but having photographed more than a few weddings myself I do appreciate the sight of a beautiful woman in a great dress. And as far as the gypsy brides are concerned, for me their frocks really rock. More of the same please.

Lethargy Counselling - An Investment Opportunity

Positive thinking, motivational speaking, goal orientation and general go-getting are finally falling out of favour it seems. And about time too. For far too long wilfully papering over the cracks with rainbow illusions has insulated us from cold reality’s stimulating bite. In the continuing fallout from the sub-prime debacle it has become clear that the world can no longer remain airborne on the back of upbeat forecasts and sound financial hunches. Nope folks, we’ve all, except the bankers that is, just bitten the pavement and come face to granite with the grim realisation that you can’t live on a diet of graphs no matter how steeply they’re rising.

It seems an appropriate moment therefore, as membership of private gyms crashes through the floor like a fatty in a portacabin, to launch my new business enterprise. Without further ado may I introduce the revolutionary 21^st century concept of Lethargy Counselling*

tango mango

Dance addict that I am Tango Mango at the Rudolph Steiner School in Dartington sounded just my sort of adventure. There was no way I could get away for the full ten days so I went for the compromise - the five day half Mango. ‘Bring your harmonica,’ the organiser said.

Despite assurances of adequate showers I didn’t tick the boxes for the £5 per night camping or dormitory options. A sticky night’s dancing followed by a sticky night in a sleeping bag didn’t sound like a recipe for either ultimate fragrance or comfort. A roof, a door that closed and a bath seemed more my thing and a little ferreting about on the net got me a good single room deal in Totnes.

The preference at the Devonia was for cash. By contrast cheques were fine with the Mango. £45 bought me five days access to the dance floor at any time between 11:00am and almost midnight. Classes at beginners, improvers, intermediate and advanced levels were available in exchange for pre-paid tickets - £6 for large group lessons, and more for small groups. Private lessons at £30 each could be booked directly with the teachers. The group lesson tickets were refundable. The private bookings weren’t.

not today

alarmingly elegant ms anna-lise,

i'd so like to meet.

i don't mean to tease

but you'll have to forgive

if just now i can't come.

today i'm in hay

and i've taken my mum.


© Patrick Ellis

now you're nearly fifty

‘It’s the age thing,’
You said.

My heart missed a beat
And, in the same breath, went out to you.
Which is quite a feat,
Especially in someone of advancing years.

‘Don’t worry doll,’
I said patting your hand.'
You’re not fifty yet.’

‘Not me,'
You said, easing down the Doobie Brothers’ polished doper spirals.
'You.
I am but a slip of a girl.
I don’t mean to be unkind,’

‘This age stuff is all in the mind,’
I said
‘Come and join me in the 21st century.
We’re almost out of the noughties
You’re almost out of your 40’s
Get your pretty arse with the rhythm.
It’s the only guarantee of immortality.’

How I envied the shagpile as you slowly parachuted off the sofa
Your fall gently arrested
By the warm compression
Of your delectable derriere.

‘Beware,' the houseplants sighed
'She has the soul of a civil servant,’
Adding, as JJ Cale continued his inexorable groove to narcotic oblivion
‘And if you don’t mind us saying
She doesn’t find you very civil at all.’

I kept politely schtum.
My thoughts were on your bum
And all the fun
We could be having
Instead of wrestling with your preconceptions.

‘And another thing,’
You said,
‘I need to get off my chest
Is the size of my breasts.
They’re massive.’

I remained impassive
But glad you’d made mention
Of just the sort of thing
To escape a chap’s attention.
'So for you they’re too big?
For me they’re OK,’
I didn’t say.

My offer to kiss them better
Got no further than the tip of my tongue.
You seemed distraught.

While the cosmos quietly expanded,
The ferns struck an ethereal attitude,
And time lost meaning,
I said nought.

Morning, at least, threatened to arrive prematurely.

In that impregnable silence you said
‘Sorry, mate, you got no chance,
Of finding romance
In my pants.

But will you blank me in the pub?
And,’
In your winsomely womanish way
Slightly missing the point,
‘Still teach me to dance?’

‘Don’t worry doll,’
I said,
Stepping into the aching pink dawn,
‘You’re not fifty.’

‘Yet.’

© Patrick Ellis

drowning in your salty tears

Your tautened teenage tee-shirt told of
Womanhood too big to handle
That cast you free from your sweet childhood
To a new blue desolation.
This quiet love and sad companion
Holds you cold on nights so lonely
Crying to your silent pillow.

Hard to bare the pain of living
In your gently aching body.
Dark and deep that rolling ocean,
Sea where men shipwrecked and flailing
Will your blood to pull them under,
One more time to soft oblivion
Where wet caresses ease their anguish
Drowning in your salty tears.

© Patrick Ellis

the fig tree

the short burst of warmth in late april succeeded in seducing the fruits into life. green swellings fattened as they sucked their life from the parent branches and, as merciless fledglings, elbowed their scrawny siblings to the ground.

this year a crop seemed likely. previous autumns' progeny had clung on, teasing with the promise of bounty to come, only to abort as the year progressed to be replaced by late season offerings which snuck to ripeness as the year's shutters came down.

perhaps their scarcity made them so desirable. they didn't taste particularly good. or bad. or really of anything. their colour and softness testified to their edibility, so they must have been ripe.

it was really more what they stood for. they were the exotic in a cold land. they told a tale of bedouin and pyramids, sand and armies, life and oblivion. they were a direct route to poetry and romance, to the world of solomen ibn daoud and the butterfly that stamped and as such they were priceless.

i miss you?

I miss you

Your twatness

Your wetness

Your fatness

Your firey red haired ness

Your always prepared ness

To take me on in a scrap.

Till you threatened to kill me

To death

With a knife

So no more trouble

No more strife

In fact no more life.

Your tendency to obsession

And mine to depression

Meant I had to dump you

No longer to hump you

Or cuddle you up on a dark cold night.

New Years Day seemed like a good time

To tell you you weren’t mine.

I surfaced to sanity,

You e-mailed tearful pics to me

As we one became two

But was that the end of you?

Oh the sense of relief.

Now we hardly speak

When we meet on the street.

Tho I’m more relaxed

As my joi de vivre

Is seeping back.

Half my thoughts of you are tender

If I selectively remember.

Guess I’ll just have to live without you

That’s all

If I want to live at all.

© Patrick Ellis

my father - william joseph ellis - 2nd may 1918 - 22nd december 2007

Whether he was enjoying my mother’s Sunday lunch, taking the dog for a walk with his stout thumb stick, landing a plump salmon or going for a drink with his friends my father was a man with a serious appetite for life.

Private about his innermost feelings and his early years in Ireland, Dad was passionately committed to the hear and now. Beyond my mother his first love was music and it is my suspicion that it was melody as much as blood that ran in his veins.

I remember his excitement when, by borrowing the Mikado from Swansea’s record library, he first brought Gilbert and Sullivan into the house. Hardly hi-fi on my orange Dansette but Dad loved every scratchy note of it. In fact I’m not sure that somewhere early on he didn’t explain to me that being a musician was the best thing a man could do.

I think deep down that’s what dad was - a very fine musician. Albeit one who never played a note. He had the passion after all, whether it be for classical or opera. He had the intelligence, the dexterity and the sensitivity to have mastered any instrument. I know he had the impulse to play because at the age of 60 for a short time he took piano lessons.

Although Dad was a fisherman his interest in the countryside extended well beyond sport. When the trout wouldn’t take a fly he would while away his riverbank hours identifying the birds into whose domain he had trespassed. As a child on the Brecon Beacons I remember him showing me a curlew chick held in the palm of his hand.

It wasn’t just the bird life that he enjoyed. I think he may have seen god in all of nature. On returning in the early hours one night after fishing he woke me to show me a glow worm he had brought home in a jam jar from some Carmarthenshire hedgerow. I’ll never forget the intensity of the light burning into my sleep sodden eyes. Or the intensity of my father’s enthusiasm as he displayed his find.

He was a gregarious man, loving people and social interaction. In recent days I’ve been stunned by the number of my own contemporaries who’ve told me how much they’d enjoyed his company over the years. He’d come alive in conversation. I remember at my parents’ 50th anniversary party this otherwise staid octogenarian gent skipping around like a robin as he shared a pithy comment with one guest or dropped a bon mot on another.

William Joseph Ellis was very much a self educated man. As I grew to understand him more he regularly impressed me with his knowledge of English Literature. He loved words almost as much as he loved music, savoring the sounds as they left his mouth as another might savor a fine wine. He would often have an appropriate Shakespearean quote ready but was always reticent about it, as if he didn’t want to appear to be flaunting a knowledge to which he was, in some way, not entitled. So I guess he had humility too.

Intellectually astute he avidly followed the cut and thrust of world politics and as a man of the left he avoided dogma and retained a liberal outlook. He focused on the plight of the underdog and supported the political struggle of the ANC and the republican movement in Eire.

Although manifestly non-violent, like so many of his generation he offered his all when he was called to the gun. He had some lucky escapes particularly at the battle of Bir el Gube (pronounced BEER EL GOOBY) but for the most part had what I imagine could be referred to as a good war. Despite admitting that the conflict had left its scars on him he seemed to have enjoyed the comradeship and the travel of his time in the army.

However once he was back on blighty’s rolling shore foreign holidays were completely out of the question. After all once you’ve been shot at and had your tank set on fire in distant lands its only a mug who goes back for more. That would have been my father’s logic.

Latterly his interest turned back to his military experience. He read widely on the various campaigns of the conflict and maintained a cherished bond with his fellow ex-warriors.

My father met his end as a fighter. Against all odds he struggled back from a serious series of medical problems in the autumn and winter of 2005. When it came to his final hour he most definitely did not go gentle. While his body gave up on him his mind and spirit remained strong. He fought with his last ounce of strength and intelligence to stay here with the family he loved.



Blessing for a Journey (Traditional Celtic Blessing)


May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields;
And until we meet again, may
God hold you in the palm of his hand.

Do not go Gentle into that Good Night (Dylan Thomas)


Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

first base no1

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

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

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

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