things my dad left

A scored ceiling tile that can never be disguised with paint. When I lay in the bath at my mum's house my eyes are always drawn to a particular spot on the ceiling. The tiles show my dad's thinking process and learning as he stuck them to the ceilings curve. The tile by the wall is scored deeply with a knife to bend along the curve, the next one is scored lightly and the next pressed into place with no scoring. The third looks best. If it was me I would have taken off the first two tiles and reapplied them, not my dad, he just kept going. In fact, he didn't keep going and the ceiling remained unfinished years before his death and I completed the job much later. My own learning still shows too as a couple of the tiles are cut too big and bow downwards. On reflection this may have been the only 'project' my dad and I worked on (unknowingly) together, a conversation in polystyrene tiles, he began and I finished.

A pear tree. 

An apple tree, an Epicure - very tasty.

A slab path and patio and brick planters for flowers. 

bt tower

When I moved into my flat I was a delighted to discover that the BT Tower is visible from my bedroom window. It twinkles and winks at me at dusk and I say goodnight to it sometimes. The tower has personal significance as my Uncle Fred lived a stones throw from it and it could be seen, looming large through the kitchen window of my Aunty Lil’s flat in Camden. Whenever I see the London skyline I look for the tower and am reminded of my mothers family.

So, in my way of commemorating and marking things I planned a walk from the tower to my flat! Its 8 miles west from my bedroom window. My sister came with me and after a browse in Oxford Street’s John Lewis we began to walk. What fascinated me was that the route took us through places of family significance: past the hospital I was born in, the registry office where our parents married, me in mum’s belly. Past St Pancras station, my gateway to and from London when I lived in the East Midlands, through Angel, across Kingsland Road, near our Aunty Jessie’s much loved Dalston Market. Then into Hackney where we lived as tiny children, close to where my sister was born in Clapton. Then onwards to my present life and new start in Leytonstone - skirting the fenced off Olympic Park and through Leyton to ‘my’ Leytonstone High Road. 

The last mile or so was boring and coincided with us getting drenched to our underwear! Still, I think this walk will become one I repeat over the years. I am blessed by the good fortune that has led me to a flat with a journey that links the past and the present.

The thing I’ve most wanted for a number of years - to settle and become a London resident has happened. My dream has become real.

As near as I could get

The tower is visible through the dip in the trees in the middle of the photo (you will have to imagine it!)

out breath

I now live in a second floor flat above a busy high road. My vantage point is still a novelty and people catch up eye as they come and go. Some faces have become familiar and it's somehow comforting to see them, I wonder where they are going, what they go home to.

From my kitchen window I watched a woman take a drag of her cigarette, it was a blustery day and the wind whisked her smokey out breath upwards and it vanished. I was amazed at how fast breath leaves the body. The unseen made visible by smoke.

the past in the present

From the age of 4 I was brought up in an estate in Loughton, Essex. It's a green and leafy place built after WWII with solid council houses. My bedroom window framed the edge of Epping Forest, a mostly oak boundary that runs along the end of Pyrles Lane. At night the piercing cries of foxes and hotting of owls can be heard, in daytime cooing wood pigeons and traffic replace the night creatures. I remember looking out of this window during the Great Storm of 1987 and seeing trees bowed and felled by the wind, and to this day remember the trees that are missing from this view.

Yesterday I went out for a walk, tracing most of my old route to primary school, then beyond to Debden Broadway. A series of memories floated into my head as I walked:

Betty and Bill.

Street parties on Cleland Path.

A friends mum who would bite their dog if it bit her.

The same friend singing Police and Thieves and claiming she made it up on the spot, only years later did I discover her lie.

The now demolished wall that we used to balance on outside St Gabriel's Church.

My little sister being hit by a car outside St Gabriel's Church.

The once open land with a marvellous old oak that I loved, still there but behind fences, deadly nightshade grew near it.

My primary school where I was most happy in education, its once huge open field now covered in houses. The bird that flew into our classroom window, sat dazed for a moment and then flew away.

The eccentrically decorated house with a hand painted sign outside declaring, 'Beware of the tadpole'. I liked it but the neighbours weren't so keen.

Angela and Barry who treated me like a daughter and gave me so much during my teenage years (and beyond).

Debden's pie and mash shop, unchanged through the decades.

Where Woolworths used to be.

Sprays the bakers, sold out of my favourite Bath bun.

pins and needles

In January 2013 I extended an invitation on Facebook: the first five people to respond to my post would get a handmade gift at some point during the year. They in turn had to offer this to their own friends and spread the handmade kindness. Two people responded and I knitted a hat for one friend and have just finished these lavender cushions for a family of four. Was pleased to get them created as I kept pushing back making as other commitments took priority. 

It was soothing to spend time in the studio, breathing in the lavender and making on autopilot. While working I used my trusty pin cushion and my thoughts turned to the past and my girl self. There was an open day at the school I was to attend and my mum gave me 10p to spend. This was a special moment as it was my first self defined purchase, the hall was busy with items displayed on tables and I chose a burgundy corduroy pin cushion with pins pushed into it in a neat square. This pin cushion is now almost 40 years old, I've used it throughout my life and studies, it's a little threadbare in the middle, I've re-stuffed it once and it is still going strong...

I marvel that 5 year old me selected a pin cushion, I'm sure sweeties were for sale! And I marvel that some children do have an inkling about what they want to do before stepping into the education system. Stepping out of the school system was the best thing I ever did, but that is another story. 

baker's arms

In the summer of 2010 I walked the length of Scotland from Jedburgh to John O'Groats. While walking along a quiet roadside one day I fell into pace with a sprightly elderly gentleman. We got chatting and he asked where I was from and it turned out that many years ago he had lived in Leyton and drank in The Baker's Arms Pub. We had a good old blether and I mentioned that the pub had recently become a betting shop. Three years on I thought of our meeting while passing the old pub building on the bus, wondering about the coincidence that me and him should meet that day, walk together for a while and find common ground. I do enjoy these unexpected and random connections between the past and the present, myself and another.

cherry blossom

Had a nice moment with a stranger yesterday, walking towards each other we were both gazing at a row of cherry trees bursting with white blossom. As we passed she said, 'Its beautiful' and we smiled like old friends. 

Today, I went back to photograph the trees and a man waiting at a bus stop began to chat, 'They are cherry trees, they can be pink, white, yellow, all colours'. He was happy too, and we expressed our delight. He told me to enjoy them and we gave each other a thumbs up as we said bye. Joys of spring.

norway

Rain, snow, sun and this song in my head. Here are the incredible blues of a sunny saturday spent in Flekkerøy. Happy 40th Marianne.

House that became a landmark for me

Waymarker in the woods

Clear water

Marianne

jean

Jean has been on my mind. We met on my first visit to the local launderette in late January. Upon opening the door I was greeted by a lady focusing her attention on me and a smiling young man appearing pleased to see me, walking past and out the door. The reason for his speedy departure become clear as Jean approached and requested help with putting her money in the machine to start her wash. I took the measure of her and did not feel threatened, sensing she was someone that would be easy to dismiss and ignore. I had an hour wait while my washing swished about, so we began to talk.

Jean was 74, but will be 75 now her birthday was on the 24th February. We share a birth month and she wished me many happy returns and asked that I wish her the same. Her disabled husband was at home and had been moaning about a lack of clean pants, hence lugging her trolly of washing to the launderette. It turned out we lived on the same road, though Jean is not happy in her ground floor flat, telling me she found it dark and depressing. She is on medication for depression and wants to move into sheltered housing but can't take her much loved dog there, so is in limbo. She was born in Paddington to a scottish mother and a geordie father, and her stepdad had come from Birmingham. I wondered aloud if that was why her accent wasn't very London, she replied, 'I don't have an accent, I'm from London', which is something my mum surprised me with once, her and Jean are of the same era. Jean and I have scottish heritage in common and she had never been to Scotland but would have liked to go. Jean was crestfallen and concerned for me when I mentioned I didn't believe in God, she said a prayer, then asked me to repeat another asking Jesus to forgive me for not believing. She asked me to kiss her cheek and though I would not normally be compliant to such a request, felt in this case that it would bring her joy, and it did. There is a great epidemic of untouched people, and it is troubling.

Jean told me she had a son who would be 60, born on the 20th December 1952, when she was just 15. She told a little of the birth and how it had hurt, that she kept him a week or so but being underage he was taken away. She thinks she saw him at 5 years old, when a little boy came to her door and tears had streamed down her face. A couple of years later she saw a boy in the shop where she worked and recognised him. Jean never saw him again. 'Do you think he remembers me?', I reassured her that he did and must wonder about her. Jean mentioned she sometimes cries at night over her son, 60 years on. Her husband had been understanding of her past when they married.

Towards the end of our conversation she mentioned she had been happiest in her life when living in Cricklewood with her husband, though someone had broken into their home and cut up her clothes. Police said she must have an enemy, though she never found out who.

Jean's parting advice to me was to wear my charm bracelet inherited from my cousin Krysia. It will bring me luck. I hurried home with an aching heart and hung out my washing, I wanted to give Jean something so wrote her a birthday card and rushed back to the launderette, she was still there and I gave her the card and we shook hands and said goodbye. I'll be leaving Dyne Road in a week, so will probably not bump into jean again. She reminded me of the stories strangers hold, how listening and responding to another gives both parties something. I'm glad to have met Jean and wish her well.

three little words (+ A)

Oh yes, shop mentioned three times in the name of a shop. Its a shop. I LOVE THIS. Its inspired a new little game in my head and I'm thinking about how ridiculous words can sound when repeated. While looking for a shoe I'll say to myself, shoe-shoe-a-shoe, or upon seeing mans best friend, I'll say, dog-dog-a-dog... etc etc. My own silly mantra.  

singhsbury's

This got me chuckling the other day, camera-less, I vowed to return and take a picture. Last week I saw another corker of a shop front on Leyton High Road, again without my camera so planning a return trip to record the wonder! Note to self - take camera everywhere...

smoke and mirrors

My little sister reached the big four-oh in early January and we braced ourselves for a chilly trip to the beautiful city of Edinburgh. Staying just off the Leith Road I had Sunshine on Leith running through my head... tis a good song, a located song and I was within its sphere of influence (do you remember that in geography?), so happy to serenade myself.

We walked for miles throughout the city and beyond in what turned out to be unseasonably mild weather. The festive illuminations at night and the new-ish phenomena of using light to alter places was a delight. I loved the trees picked out in specks of white light on the horizon, becoming drawings, negatives of themselves against the winter dark. We visited the Camera Obscura, fascinating and engaging in parts, mostly tired looking. We got our monies worth out if bendy mirrors, body outlines captured by flashes of light that gradually faded, tricks with perspective and a room that appeared to be full of stars reaching into the far distance...

We gazed up at the big wheel during our visit but never had a spin. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SIS!