White Ice

The snow froze everything into one large, white block...

it was not powdered, nor soft, it was solid.

There it was, no-one could remove it... nor smooth it.

The block prevented everything from continuum. No traffic could move, no shopping could be done, and so went the hours... drip by drip.

Until eventually, the white block began to melt.

and transform.

The melting process was lethal to all.

it was slippery, like feet on sheets of wet glass.

The world was a massive ice-rink where no-one came prepared with the right foot gear.

We skated, here and there, from that side to the far side.

Skidding, sliding, falling, colliding, breaking and making...

it to the end of the road.

The snow, the white block, turned to ice... mushy and nice.

It rained and it rained, on the melting ice

which caused drivers to think at least twice.

Christmas and ice.

They go together, yes, very nice.

Season Four

And so went the seasons - Season One, followed by season two and three, resulting in the entrance of season four.

Ava crawled, walked, read, jumped, stopped, ran, kept silent and then emerged.

Ava settled, for years, trained, for some years, worked and travelled alongside all of it.

She climbed a good hill, flew a little, crashed, produced some things, educated herself, refused to listen at times and then, erased.

Everything that was, or is, or had been, that she was.

Extra-reverse gear became ultra-first as she stepped into a new Range Rover after a common Christmas and uneventful year end.

Perhaps even less than that.

A black and red Christmas melted and returned as a New Year...

Before & After

Roscow wasn't the end. No, in fact, it didn't really ever begin there nor end there.

Who was Roscow anyway?

Can anyone remember.

Characters, in crowds, like floating shells in the sea. They are cut differently out of the master's plaster-paris mould, and they float amidst a morass of seaweed.

The currents bring them in and then another strong current draws them out - further and further than the current before.

The sea is messy, the sea is perilous, the sea can take life and it does. It crashes, it washes, it stings, it moves you.

And so, all the shells come from the sea and it was there, to the seas, that they returned.

They had lurched forth - vomited out from the sea, onto the shore and in the next current the waters covered them and dragged them back into the deep waters to drown.

They lie on the floor of the seabed - out of sight, out of reach and not yours or mine.

Shells of the sea.

It is there, that they must be.

For it is not yet, you see.

That shells belong, to you or me.

The sea is Jealous,

especially of Shells.

Imagination and memory

Her imagination and memory began to rise and shape into Roscow. The familiar figure walked before her, larger feet crunching steadily on the grass whilst clicking his knuckles in his right hand. Roscow was smiling too.

In fact, everything about him was smiling. His shoes smiled and the creases in his khaki pants smiled aggressively. His eyes were alive and his voice on a higher note of pleasure. Roscow was different and even today Roscow Ryley was a different man. He looked decided and like an experienced man of another age. The rhythm of his mood echoed in the ecstatic flapping of the winged birds rising to settle in the tree-tops for the latter part of the morning.

He removed his glasses with thick, black rimmed frames and ran his browning fingers through his hair. Logan came into view, in his mind - she was there. Smiling too, even her two small white legs were smiling. Logan's voice was on the breeze that touched him gently and swept around his ears. An angelic voice softly speaking in almost silent tones. Rock 'n roll Ryley and lovable Logan (Ava), danced on the glistening sand in the pale moonlight of each other's minds. There was no thin, pale and waxy hands in sight. Nothing to detest or detract from the fragrance of a beautiful, deep red rose all fragrant with a new dew. Slowly, they danced. Apart, then together.

And apart.

Ava Logan...

Roscow Ryley put his hunting gun away and drank another bottle of water without pausing. The midnight skies blossomed with new shades of evening colours in all strengths of deep blue and black. Starry foundations crossed the path of the moon shining on the porch. Roscow stood and pretended not to notice the silver cat wrapping herself around his bare ankle. She knew, as he did, that the presence of a day out hunting lingered.

An antique rocking chair, previously belonging to his grandmother, creaked in the gentle breeze and the silver cat left Roscow's ankle to investigate. Roscow turned and decided to deposit his weary body on his old favourite chair whilst gazing at the skies. His telescope remained in the attic. The one encased in fine, brown leather. The skies held a majestic beauty, secret and silence beyond the intricacies of fine art. Each star had a name. Roscow was full of names - Bucko, Starfish, Cowboy, Soldier, Rhino and Semolina. The sleepy starry sequence above and beyond created a trance-like haze shadowing the lime-green house safely existing under the blanket of sky.

A new day set over the lake and the house. The water stirred and the colourful little birds chattered amongst themselves as they danced delightedly across the ripples of water. She watched from the bank and slid herself down delicately alongside the trunk of her regular tree. Ava Logan hugged her knees, covered by a soft, white summer dress and glanced once more at the lake-side house behind her. A smile stretched across her small set face and resembled her mother's mouth. She waited peacefully.

Those waves...

They ended on golden beaches with brilliant sunshine and never-ending terrains of majestic beauty. The turmoils of life, the school of rock, the heavens of God - these are the places we know and the places we have frequented. These are the places of abode and those that trained our hands for what we now know.

Character, heart, aura, depth.

Stalwarts. Slumdogs from Africa to England and beyond.

'Are you laughing at me; I don't want to talk about it; is that right; don't lie to me,' he always remarked with hilarity.

'Sometimes you've just go to get out of the boat. Sometimes you've just got to walk on the water,' she said in her attempt at another accent.

'Depends if the boat has heating,' he comments on the phone.

'Mmm,' she thought. Her response a day before had been 'but I like the boat!'

Roscow shrugged repetitively in his own rugged manner. His black and white striped duvet lay on the floor where the irridescent sun shone onto the tiles.

NOW IN AMERICA...

'Goodmorning South America,' he grunted with deep satisfaction.

The ripples of water awaited his hands at the nearby Fisherman's River which lay around the corner from the beamed house. Roscow fervently cleaned his fishing rods the night before. He had always loved the water since his youth when he was taught more than to fish - to cock a weapon and to hunt. Like his father.

Roscow

Then there was David (RJ). Roscow and Ryley. And many other titles.

Young, intelligent and mature with a dose of Solomonic wisdom at his disposal. He seemed calm and reverent. A short crop of brown hair hung from his head. Hair which was once longer and much, much longer. Six foot he stood confidently above and looked neither like an Austalian nor an Englishman.

And yet he was both.

'How do you pronounce obloquy', he said whilst reading advanced material from a small book. After internet research, we knew.

'Aggressive language,' I told him.

'That's what it is,' I concluded.

'Do you know who Jay-zee is?' he enquired.

'No,' was the answer.

'A musical artist, a rapper actually,' he confirmed.

'My favourite,' he would say for instance.

'Toast, yeah, I feel like toast for supper and then I'll have a nap before superbowl is on tonight,' he informed.

He ate and slept alot, even at that age. He dressed without style at times and stood without poise.

He remembered Africa.

He spoke of God. He loved English. And yet, contained an enigmatic element just like her.

They shared in loss - lives lost within the African existence of childhood.

As he moved continents at a young age, she was pursued - young, a very young long-haired girl with tekkies and bows. The magic carpet ride of life dunked the children of Africa into sometimes never-ending waves that could only end.

Bazil

Bazil, the English Jew, esteemed himself highly as a male model look-alike with his spiky jet black hair, white razor sharp teeth in immaculate form and shapely-pointed nose. Each feature symmetrically aligned and definite cheek-bones gracefully protruding. He turned heads, attracted unsolicited attention and drank it all in aggressively. A techonology profession offered him the sleeek lifestyle he lived and drove in latest, black BMW style. He started on the money ladder quite young and his business father set him in the right direction by means of a good example. The golden star of David dangled around his neck and at times he chose to eat bacon amongst other things. The rules were there to suit him and however he chose to bend and manipulate them.

Bazil visited us on the farm, talked to another blonde acquaintance of mine all night at my 21st and gave me a silver bangle. He drove down from London on week-ends in his parent's Rover. And I attended the liberal event of his youngest sister's coming of age. His Hollywood-babe mother hated the thought of a non-Jewish girl. I wondered what it would be like if she were to be eliminated from the equation. Then she suddenly died of cancer. A quarrelsome wife and mother, they said. I chose to close the door and take my bow after attending the enclosure of the Bat Chayil.

Skinny Lawyer

Romano, skinny lawyer, walked like a man on two stilts with long, skinny legs that balanced a tall body. A typically English golfer, son of property like his father and following suit in law. Everything 'acceptable in society' was jotted down in his life notebook, except he never kept notebooks nor wrote a solitary word of art. He worked, played golf, changed the sex of his cat if he wished - with a name like 'Babe' for an ancient male cat that drooled over guests. A small, unattractive grey cat far too affectionate to unwilling bystanders. Ballet performances graced the wall by the stairs of an immaculate 2-bed house outside of which a perfect silver BMW eased itself into a parking space for one in front of the small latch-gate. Quite perfect and very grown up. A home for perfection. Certainly not fun, artistic or for children.

His thin, long bony fingers were crooked and in his entirety he summoned an eerie aura. He was one of those who had pursed lips most of the time when either quiet, thinking, watching television or amused. There was one particular seat in his small lounge in which he formed a curved slouch. He was not that attractive. The Englishness, in this case, repulsed my native instinct.

The slow speed of his driving. The taste of Classical music and ballet. That cat, those legs, the skin, the thinness, his character absent, a high-class facade and expected package - all determed the lack of x-factor. Of course an all-important, and absent higher belief eroded further. Skinny lawyer, so fine and yet not fine at all. A personally tailored jacket, tweed of course, simply too much.

The German

Bailey, the German in Africa, allowed his mother to frolic in the shallow shores on the Kenyan coastline as he drew large amounts of water with each stroke of strength. Deeper into the sparkling sea he swam violently, away from the shore and his mother. Out of view of the numbers on the shore and closer to the tranquil of the deep. The water glistened and transparency mirrored his German face.

Eyes like his mother with a misty-blue look about them, squared chin, a young beard and thin lips which smiled permanently. Thick-set legs with feet encased in trainers constantly. Broad-shouldered and spiky hair. The Germanic skin seemed whiter than usual.

'Would you like to go for a walk later?' he enquired boldly in the hotel dining-area after briefly meeting in the sea. Walking, talking, swimming, sunning, meeting his mother, touring the hotels, meeting by day and by night. At 24. He seemed light and funny. And he believed, like me.

He was there.

His mail became too long and tedious. His trainers irritating on the eye. Availability, simplicity and that old 'seemingly light' became too light. Not enough of the deep.

More on the Cyclist...

The cyclists bunched tightly together around the bend and Marcus hunched his shoulders low as he attempted to get into the groove of slipstreaming with the rest. The slight wind whipped around their ears and carried the whirring of the tyre tubes with it. The browing trees flashed by in the twinkling of the corner of the eye. Monotony was the acceptable factor in this game, as the racers strived to keep in time and in tune with the pace of every other rider in the pack. Like birds flying in formation, their windbreakers rustled in harmony alongside one another. Each cyclist making such slight adjustments in response to riders around them. The fluidity of the pack drove by the powerful force of the centre as well as the higher load of the lead at the front.

A well oiled machine moved swiftly down the road, up the hill, round the bend and via the highways. It sang in tune with the wind which blew side-on and created an echelon in the direction of the blow.

He looked permanently sun-kissed, with freckles and shabby hair. An appearance alsmost generally unkempt and an apartment that remained filthy for most of the year. He was neither here nor there and unrooted which eventually drew him off to the shores of Bali where he escaped the confinements of the office and the constraints of bankruptcy. To cope, he had drawn from the neck of the bottle many times to the point of no return. He was simply inept.

The others

Surfer Calvin wore bedraggled curls and lived in family rented quarters in a suburb of London. He smiled, generally, at all and sundry almost aimlessly with an air of casualty about him. Calvin embarked on distant travel adventures with an easy-going nature in his late twenties. The wind blew him over from here to there and there to here like a twig unattached.

Marcus, the alcoholic cyclist, joined the peloton of cyclists most week-ends for extensive rides. His mind was pure brilliance and placed him in the ilk of the elite. His heart, however, was out of synch. He hated the confinements of working in law, strapped to his chair and placed behind a mahogany desk. The long, tanned limbs urged him to stretch and to stretch beyond the office. His behaviour was tri-athletic and obsessive, his bills unpaid and mounting in surplus yellow files in a heap in the corner of his airy apartment. The large windows overlooking the Surrey City, opened to release cigarette smoke. Marcus encapsulated irony. Marcus showed the brilliance of a Master of the Mind and the inability of an infant within the realm of practicalities of life. His cycyling habits proved fitness whereas before and after his smoke inhalation worked antagonistically towards health destruction. His exceptional career niche was opposed by bankruptcy.

Them...

Arthur was incessantly dull. Simon scratched his eyebrow over the right eye every time he became thoughtful which was rather often. Staring blankly in front of him with unnerving mid-green eyes they settled on the nearest victim and looked into places they should not. His salient features governed an eerie character. He was a good Scientist.
Sinatra, the Oxford Graduate. The corduroy fabric draped a young physique housed in matching jacket and trousers befitting for an old man. His warm heart intermingled with a complex mind which expressed itself through character traits like mood swings and revenge. His short stature carried weight like a small whale.
Liam, was the Cambridge Scholar and academic enemy. Liam and Sinatra were like North and South as opposing characters on the Thames Boat Race wherein Oxford gained victory after victory over a jealous sibling named Cambridge, or 'Liam.' Long-legged, Liam strode about through the village with elegance and arrogance all at the same time. Gingered-brown hair thatched the top of his crown and exposed a puffy-cheeked and pale complexion.
And there were others...

Ava remembered

She remembered now, the hardest thing he had ever done in his life.
The girl who met the boy - who was also a man.
He was always a man.
And if the woman, who was once a girl, who promised she'd never fall in love with another did keep the promise - it wouldn't be because she was stupid or even a martyr.
It would be because she couldn't or it just didn't...

'Ava' her mother called as she walked in the door of the house.
'I must go,' Mat spoke out.

What Ava says next...

'Glad to hear it,' Mat almost reprimanded.
'Not that you read it Mat!' she threw back.
'Well, archery comes first you know and creationism takes up alot of my time,' he smirked knowingly.
'Yeah and I love hearing about your odd obsessions with that obscure topic,' she said with sarcasm.
'Dinosaurs, I'll have you know, have lived on the earth from 230 million to 65 million years ago,' he said smarting.
'Mat, we all believe that God created the animals and isn't that sufficient? We don't need to dig any deeper on that one - no-one's disputing it,' she told him.
'Okay, so, topic change for now,' he paused.
That makes a change, she thought. He was inclined to going on like a train smash, on and on, without a breath and whilst the listener blanked out from verbal overdose and irrelevancy.
'What's the fuel like these days?', he asked.
'What are you talking about - petrol or diesel. I hear it's all fine thanks, apart from the rise in price,' she said.
'No, what's fuelling your story?' he asked directly now.
She looked down at the floor.
He asked a third time.
She shook her head.
'I can't tell of craft secrets,' was her pithy remark.

Continuation of Ava

Of course it was also for them and others.
'I am writing Mat,' she insisted.
She was confident and in a way didn't seem to care anymore, in a healthy and strong way. At 29, she was who she is, and that was, completely put... enough.
She didn't care anymore of what anyone thought, who wasn't beside her and how the summation of others resulted.
She had her own beauty.
She held her own talent.
And forever she would keep going on the treadmill of 'the craft' which she executed with measured alacrity and endurance.
Mother and Father never knew how it would go, when they had her.
Even now, they had her, and still did not know how it would go.
They would look at the photograph of the girl who would grow up to look like her, who, although they didn't know it then, would grow up.
Yes, to grow up.
And more than that, would grow up to be a woman, who would become studious, fall in love, fall out of love, become a writer and travel far.
She was Ava.

Introducing Ava

The eyes - that's how we know.
And that's when I saw him. When I told him things he would laugh and tell of how he loved my imagination - 'an acute art of clarity and dignity,' he would say grinning.
For him I changed pebbles into seashells, words into love, banners to honour, the moon to become the sun until I gave him wings.
I look at the page, the paper is smooth as well as creased.
3 years is not like 60 years.
For some, it has been so. Like the character in one of my favourtie books - the one I randomly picked up at tesco - on Love.

Once upon a time, the girl who liked the boy, who was now a woman, travelled by boat from an island to the English Country. Home.
Now that time had passed by, she stood in the living room. For years Ava had become invisible and here she was at 29. She had changed so much that part of her wanted to laugh hard.
She wore a navy-blue and green striped scarf over her coat - Jack Will's style and true of Surrey outer-wear. Her long fingers were strong from the piano and cased themselves as she unpacked a notebook.
Her close friend remarked, 'Why did you stop?'
'Why did I stop what Mat?' she looked honestly unaware.
'Did you stop writing Ava?' he asked.
Stopped writing - what a remark, she thought. Ava wrote alright, she wrote songs, poetry, fiction, dreamt of characters, wrote in one of eight notebooks and each with their own calling. She wrote articles, printed books - she did it - what she told him she would do years before. In fact Ava read about writing and studied it.
When she was away, she wrote.
When she was here, she wrote.
When she travelled, she wrote.
In the morning and the evening, she wrote. Not 'murder she wrote,' but 'for Love, she wrote.'
For the Love of the Man Upstairs, at first, and then for the Love of him.

Voices Through The Ages

I have a Voice.
I have a Voice - My Very Own Voice.
I have a unique Voice.
I have a Voice of style.
I have a Voice in the wind.
I have a Voice under the pillow.
I have a shouting Voice.
I have a whispering Voice.
I have a Voice that can be heard.
I have a recognisable Voice.
I have a Voice with tone.
I have a Voice of clarity.
I have a poetic Voice.
I have a Voice of Prose.
I have my very own Voice.
Only I can have this Voice.

Writing is a multi-faceted business, and it is one with a seam and a theme to it. At times, we hope, it will be diamond-cut prose. It is multi-faceted because we are so many things, we are poets, diarists, journalistic, travel writers or write whilst we travel, notebookers, bloggists, article writers, short story writers, novel writers and then comes fiction. Something is trying to create itself and so, soon, tomorrow in fact, it will begin...

Everything in Motion

Everything is constantly transforming, metamorphosising, altering, realigning and, most importantly, evolving.

Granny, adopted into our family, calls me on the telephone today to tell me about the 'changes' that occur in her everyday life... 'they fixed the wires in the house for me the other day, and then they were right, and now they are all wrong.' 'You see, nothing ever stays the same,' she says.

She loves living, even at 98.

There are incredible and remarkable living heroines who constantly portray elements of something like 'the art of living.' A once Wimbledon Champion, now residing in her Wonersh home in Surrey, she breathes on. A remarkable woman of determined sorts coupled with a feisty nature too - perhaps.

Everything changes.

Everyone changes.

Some go from masculine, hot-to-trot young bucks into a morass of who knows what.

Others evolve from unknown, backrow, bystander or sitter, as it may be, to the epitome of class. Simply stated, 'a cut above the rest.' And so we live and learn and alter our ways, even at the fresh age of 98.

Bottom Drawer

Guildford high street was teeming over the week-end with every kind of Surrey resident and soon-to-be Christmas shopper. Molton Brown, River Island, Whistles of London, Jack Wills, Laura Ashley, Crew Clothing and Jaeger line the bustiling, cobbled street spilling over with both quiet and clip-clopping feet.
I can recognise a Boden outfit from a mile off and pick up the scent of Chanel Coco Mademoiselle - my absolute favourite - from any passer-by and at the speed of lightening.
This is life in Surrey, you see, don't you see?
The elevated high street lends itself to the most panoramic and picturesque views which are best seen from the top point of the high street and looking in reverse.

Beyond the High Street, what do you keep in your bottom drawer?
I used to keep a so called 'marriage chest' which I eventually emptied out and then I kept a deep drawer full of old manuscripts which I also threw out. I have read of authors who keep a secret manuscript in safe bottom-drawer storage which is too scandalous to let out. Today, I keep nothing in a bottom drawer, apart from sacred old sentimental items, in a trunk, from childhood and other. In a different kind of bottom drawer, kind of like a bottom-drawer-thought, I have some things... like re-invention for 2010. Not Bridget Jones style, oh no, this is more like sophistication, domestication, genuine writer and musician. It's all about becoming that thing and becoming the Dream. Instead of dreaming, you see, it's actually living it.
As in one of the books I really enjoyed, Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, after a long, arduous journey he does reach his goal and fulfil his desire, in the end. And so it must be for all of us.

Women Writers Through The Lens

Surrey life did you say?

It's only 4.30pm and the sky outside is a petrified black colour, raindrops dance across the windowpanes and already the curtains need to be drawn otherwise it's like sitting in a fish bowl with the lights on and everyone can see exactly who is home and how they are at home.

An article titled 'Women writers through the lens', refers to Ruby Ayres who admitted to a newspaper in 1955 that she wrote an average of 20,000 words a day. Enid Blyton could produce a children's book in five days. This is sufficient to put us 'writing gals' to shame alright. It took alot of effort and work to research and write a 2,000 word article for a cyprus magazine - for a certain destination in which I was not living and not all that au fait.

And yet, what is it exactly that is so terribly and wonderfully, all at the same time, enticing about spilling words across a page and inventing characters in some time-gone-by period which we were never a part of, not once, or ever. I'm currently working on a historical fiction novel that perhaps may warrant this sentence.

Surrey, of course, is the perfect place for such writerly habits - what with the weather and the people - there is plently of space, time and opportunity for such antics. Saturday, today, has rained and been pretty bleak, if we were to talk about the weather, which of course we never do. The gardening man has been out there, in that weather, with his usual green raincoat on whilst he works and then left early. He enjoys a hot 'mug' of tea when he works on the week-ends and I don't blame him. Children In Need has been on and it always amazes me how charitable everyone actually is and how much money England manages to raise and for such justifiable and philanthropic causes. We really are able to make a difference when we get together. I was wondering, as I attempt to do this myself, has anyone actually read 'Catch-22 by Joseph Heller', or does everyone in Surrey simply keep it lining the bookshelf. Sometimes rhetoric is a very good thing.