Bold Street Writers...Prompt..." If you were in the government for one day what rule would you change?"

 Alice sat on the speaker's chair...and glared at the assembled members of parliament. On the wing of the chair beside her perched the Cheshire cat who grinned as he faded and grinned again as he returned. Alice glared as only Alice could glare, and twiddled noisily with a little glass bottle on the stand in front of her. "Poison"..it said... no!..... it said "Drink me". The faces of the assembled on the ruling side of the room were white with worry. What were her thoughts? How could they avoid her sharp tongue? They whispered to one another behind shaking hands. We should never have given the red queen permission to raise an army. Maybe we should have insisted that tea parties were held at least once a year in every town, village and street. A law could have been passed banning cruelty to dormice. The Cheshire cat heard the whisper and his smile widened even as he disappeared once again, leaving a grin.

"Silence", thundered Alice, and she thumped her fist on the table. The ruling party quaked and sealed their lips. Even the opposition sat demurely quiet on the benches. Noone dared to give an "ear! ear!" while Alice occupied the speaker's chair, nor did anyone even feel brave enough to shout "Madame Speaker",  or stand to gain attention.

A white rabbit hopped about around the feet of the parliamentarians looking for carrots and a top hat was thrown high in the air for a moment by a hare who had taken a seat at the back of the opposition benches disagreeing with everyone and everything said. Alice looked at him kindly and pointing in his direction requested that he sit down. Which a hatter who is mad always finds very difficult.

This eased some of the tension in the room and many of the members sank back into the benches with a deep sigh of relief that drifted up into the painted ceiling. 

And there the Cheshire cat's smile reigned supreme... albeit without his furry body.

Alice took another glance around the gathered assembly noting everything and everyone and remembering their speeches given over the previous ten years. Mulling over the promises made and  promises broken, and thinking of all the media reportage watched, she thought of the factories abandoned, the businesses folded, the schools closed and the railways discontinued...and oh, oh so much, much more. 

So when Alice slapped her hand once again on the table and raised her voice to reach the very back of the room, and when all the people were looking to her... waiting for her wisdom....

She said with all the ferocity she could muster....fiercely, "I BAN all silly smiles from politicians making their ludicrous pompous statements of lies and more lies, cloaking them all the time with their shining toothsome wet mouths!"

The assembled parties gasped with unbelief..and the noise reached into every corner of the land. 

While the Cheshire cat wrapped itself around her on the speaker's chair...and grinned.

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We live in the town where Lewis Carroll was born...well Daresbury which is a parish thereof.

The potter once worked for a company making the ceramic Alice in the pic above...but more than that I love surrealism..and nothing apart from Gulliver maybe....gets any closer to the surreal than Alice and her escapades.

We once held a Wonderland Tea Party here in the hidden garden at The Potters House Penketh.

Yes...even The Mad Hatter! And dormouse in the teapot.

...... grandgirls all grown up now.

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Early Days...The Potters House Penketh

 Sometimes I start looking through my photo files for something ...

..and then have to stop at an image I'd completely forgotten about...

...such are these early pics from the beginnings of the business we now call 

The Potters House Penketh.

This is a pic of the very first sales day at St Joseph's Summer Fair on Meeting Lane in Penketh...late 70s.

Well the clothes say it all......!

..and hiding behind me advising on prices and top saleswoman...is my lovely late mum over from the troubles in Belfast for a week of peace.

You can see that it wasn't all Alan's ceramics then he was still teaching... 

...as head of art at Penketh High School.

We backed quite a few of the Traidcraft organisations.

And I also did a bit of dealing in vintage and collectables..anything to get the business going.

Every Tuesday I hired "The Institute" on the main Warrington Road.

This is a pic of sisters who came with their mum and shared the building..it was a place of fun and friendship.

Later it became a coffee house for the local church..St. Paul's Penketh and was renamed "The Manna House" ..and when sold on to a young local entrepreneur...Andrew Mulholland...it kept it's name and is used for grand parties and celebrations.

It meant a lot of packing and unpacking and lugging heavy boxes of ceramics and craft goods.

...and our old car at that time often needed a push to get the engine going!

There were many lovely people who became involved by baking and making for stalls.

So much laughter and naughty innocence...it was great to remember it all as I looked through the file of pics.