Sunday's Short Story

...another from two hours of Thursday mornings at the Writers Workshop...

" An ado about nothing"

(Thanks to W. Shakespeare)

What a fuss, I thought, pursing my lips and frowning. Honestly, don't people have more important things to think about than to start complaining over such a trivial occurance?

 I may have believed that painting the house pink was a good idea. I had done it in a spur of the moment decision. The paint at B&Qs was reduced. The store was closing down and although most of the goods on the shelves were to be carted off up the road to the hyperstore on the outskirts of town, the tins of pink paint were reduced to 50p a tin.

How could I resist such a bargain? Always known as a cherry picker in the local charity shops and jumble sales, this offer was too good to walk away from.

So I didn't!

Ian helped me to prepare the walls by sanding down the brickwork with an electric drill attachment. A good lad, he's always ready to help, if not exactly the brightest star in the bunch. But he is kindly. And as I get older, it's kindness that becomes more and more important to me. 

It only took us two days to finish the job. And very good it looked, if I say so myself. 

Yes, yes,  we missed the mark a few times and Ian painted over the keyhole in the front door. Oh yes and I'll have to take a sharp blade and try to remove the rim of paint on the glass windows. Yes, yes, some things like that. But when I stand on the other side of the street and look across at what we've done I'm jolly pleased.

So, what on earth is all this fuss about? It's not as if this is the grandest of streets. Not the "right" side of town. And most of the other houses are boring. Yes that's right, boring! Nothing adventurous in any of them. 

Nothing to catch the eye, or make me smile as I walk home in an evening from the local Tesco, my shopping bags full of the day's bargains. You have to time that exactly. Too early...nothing. Too late...the dregs! I'm a cherry picker there as well. It makes for exciting meals as I never know what has been reduced 'til I get there.

Anyway, look out, here they come.  Those neighbours, with their lace curtains, acceptably painted front doors and pots of boring plants placed neatly in front. Here they come knocking on my pink  door. Bright pink I mean .

" Well", I ask, " what do you want?"..... as I smile at them and think...

What an ado about nothing!

Irrelevancies

I saw this quote from the Times at the weekend.  Tutor to Paloma Faith [singer], " The medium in which you express yourself is irrelevant. What is important is what you are trying to say." 

When I was at college working towards my B.A. in Fine Art, my struggle was to narrow down the ideas coming from my butterfly mind.
Whether to paint or collage, to use ceramics, installation art or performance.

Then as now the theme running through it all was, the human race on the edge. A place that I knew so well growing up, edge where sea meets land. A very edgy place yet also comforting in the eternal movement of time and tide. I have always been a gatherer of stuff thrown up by the waves. These are often bits thrown overboard, abandoned then changed by the water and salt and continual movement of wind and weather.

These pieces of work are the result of my years of looking and making. they are often a statement of relationships and family trauma and joy.                                                                  

                                 

              

       Sometimes they are just themselves!  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Together they make a statement about life and family and all those ordinary things that are really 

extra-ordinary!