Evita, or not Evita - that is the question!

Anybody could see that the understudy was making a right hash of the role of Evita, her requirement to learn and practice the words to the main role as well as her own clearly having been bypassed.

‘What is that strange song you keep singing?’ the director bellowed in the interval. ‘It’s not at all what you’re supposed to sing!’

‘It’s from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,’ the girl replied, blushing. ‘I thought if I sang it to the Evita tune, no-one would notice the difference.’

 

Alison Mott, 4^th Jan 2024

Evita, staged at Curve, Leicester in January 2024 (where in fact an understudy drove 150 miles on the last weekend to cover the role and gave a fantastic performance!). Photo: A Mott

See an article about the real understudy saving the day here.

To be, or not to be, a Viking …

I had a go with an app, yesterday, which shows what you would’ve looked like as a Viking. I uploaded a photo to it, taken in the park last September, and within minutes it had popped up an image of me with long thick plaits and deep brown un-spectacled eyes, but otherwise (in my opinion) looking much as I once did back in my twenties.

Looking at it, I guess that ‘Viking Me’ would be in her twenties, too - the prime of her life. Google tells me that 35% of women in Viking England didn't survive beyond thirty years of age, with thirty-one to forty-year-olds considered middle-aged and anyone over fifty classed as old. At my age – sixty - I would probably have been dead.

Quite interesting, when you consider the British government now expect me to work until I'm sixty-seven!

I ran out of blood pressure tablets on New Year's Eve, so discombobulated by Christmas and trying to remember which day each day of the in-between week actually was that the fact I was on the last packet escaped my notice. So I ordered a new prescription online, and popped in to the chemist yesterday and again today to see whether, against the odds, it had been actioned.

It was, ‘Nothing's come through, yet,’ yesterday, but, thankfully, a ‘Yes’ today. I've never worried about not taking them on the odd day here and there before but hadn't felt a hundred percent on my walk into town earlier, and after my elder brother’s heart attack a few weeks ago, have begun to worry the medication’s more vital to keeping me alive than I'd previously assumed. Indeed, it could well be the reason I've even made it to the age of sixty, when my Viking ancestor-esses generally didn't.

So I was grateful when the assistant said, ‘yes, they’re here!’, adding, ‘do you pay for your prescriptions?’
‘No,’ I beamed, ‘I'm sixty!’, the fact that I get them for free a relatively new and pleasant experience, and still something of a surprise, given my retirement age having been extended.
 
‘My apologies,’ she said, and ‘no problem,’ I replied cheerfully, and I left the shop with a big smile on my face. Because while I may not look like a twenty-year-old Viking warrioress, it's good to know I don't look like a twenty-first century old crone, yet, either!

Alison Mott

Image created by app on gagdonkey.net

'To hear the angels sing'

In the annual pre-Christmas meeting in heaven God sat at the head of the table, with the angels gathered round. It was, as you might expect, quite a big table.

‘There’s only one item on the agenda today,’ said Gabriel, Chief Angel and secretary to the meeting, ‘and that’s what is happening to Christmas on earth these days.’

‘Well,’ God remarked after a moment’s reflection, ‘we have to agree it has changed somewhat since the events in Bethlehem all those years ago. Then it was Mary, Joseph, and the lad himself, some shepherds - representing the poor and outcasts of the world, three wise men – showing we don’t mind the wealthy being involved, as long as they are generous, and several animals – to show the whole created world matters. What was happening was a quiet celebration of a birthday.’

One of the angels raised a hand. ‘Excuse me God, but isn’t that birthday what we see being celebrated in churches at this time of year?’

‘It is, and I have to say it is a very pleasant surprise to see them still, some two thousand years since the first. But they are now very much a minority.’

‘What do the majority do then?’ It should be said she was a very new angel and this would be only her second Christmas.

‘Some, on the days before, celebrate with pub lunches with people from work, others, on the night before Christmas have rather a lot to drink, and many wake up on the day after Boxing Day unable to remember much about the previous two or three days. Oh, and many folk, of course, don’t celebrate Christmas at all as it is not part of their religion.’

‘Is there anything we could do to change things?’

God smiled rather sadly. ‘There is one thing I wondered about, given how awful things are in parts of the world at the moment. There is a hymn written almost two hundred years ago by a chap called E. H. Sears, an American Unitarian parish minister, and known as, “It came upon the midnight clear.” There are two lines from the third verse I’d like to write across earth’s sky, near to where the star shone all those years ago;

          O hush the noise, you men of strife,
          To hear the angels sing.”

'These seem to me to be words the world needs to hear.’

The meeting ended and the angels quietly went to rehearse their singing.

David Parkin

Image by Liz Waddell, artist

You can see more of her artwork at www.lizwaddell.com

In a Damp December (in the style of Christina Rossetti)

In a damp December
we had had some snow,
I was going for a walk
but my friend’s dog wouldn’t go.

The skies were grey and murky,
the snow began to slush.
I went into town instead
to beat the Christmas rush.

Went into a café,
windows full of steam.
Had a nice hot chocolate
with marshmallows and cream.

I walked under Christmas lights,
not the trees I’d planned,
but it was still a social time
and I heard our town’s brass band.

In a damp December,
though we had some snow,
I wrapped myself up for a walk
and I’m glad I chose to go!

Alison Mott, Dec 2023

*In the style of Christina Rossetti's 'In the Bleak Midwinter', published in January 1872

Are you going to Loughborough Fair?

Are you going to Loughborough Fair?
Hot dogs, brandy snaps, candy floss
Remember me to mates you see there
Carousels, waltzers spinning across.

Make sure you put on a waterproof coat
Hot dogs, brandy snaps, candy floss
A pair of gloves, a scarf round your throat
Carousels, waltzers spinning across.

Forget an umbrella, however it rains
Hot dogs, brandy snaps, candy floss
You’ll poke someone’s eye out, they’re sure to complain
Carousels, waltzers spinning across.

Go on a Wednesday when not many there
Hot dogs, brandy snaps, candy floss
To avoid the crowds, that crush out the air
Carousels, waltzers spinning across.

Make sure you take a pocket of change
Hot dogs, brandy snaps, candy floss
No high value notes that they won’t exchange
Carousels, waltzers spinning across.

Are you going to Loughborough Fair?
Hot dogs, brandy snaps, candy floss
I think I'll stay here, at home in my chair!
Carousels, waltzers spinning across.

Alison Mott, 2nd November 2023

Photo: A Mott (2021)

The Vikings come to Nottingham

Washed by the waters of the River Trent, the deck of the longboat was wetter than it had been anywhere previously on this journey, not from the foam-capped waves that had barraged them in the North Sea or the heavy cold rain that had drenched them as they'd crossed the wide fjords of home. It seemed more than a little incongruous to be bested by a muddy-brown tidal river in this new land which, so far, wasn’t looking particularly promising.

‘Are you sure coming here was such a good idea?’ asked Olaf, frowning at the thistle-riddled meadows stretched out on either side of them.
‘Not sure, no,’ said Erik, grimacing in reply. ‘But if we don't like it, we won't stay long.’

Alison Mott

The River Trent at Barrow, Sept 2023. Photo: A Mott

I should quit - or should I?

 I should quit.

It’s going nowhere.

It’s a useless activity.

These were my thoughts after I joined the church mice writing group. 

Or should I say that I was actually quite ambivalent about it, my husband was the dissenter. We both continued taking part, however, meeting in our church at first, then at our house, until Covid drove us to the Zoom Room where we remain in touch. 

We are a group of five. Over a period of 2 years we have gained 3 members, lost 2 and kept one, and we all enjoy writing, listening to each other’s scribblings and the companionship that goes with this activity.

From reluctance, my husband progressed to be an aspiring writer, enthusiastically outpouring and submitting virtually everything he writes to our leader, all the while improving and extending his repertoire.

It is worth mentioning that our five members have 5 different styles and some of us have discovered skills that we were previously unaware of. Listening to each other is entertainment par excellence, much better than TV shows where the current trend seems to be to cram half a dozen ‘celebrities’ onto a couple of settees, where they have to out-shout, outwit, out-laugh and show off to each other until I cannot bear the racket and switch channels or switch off the telly. 

No, our writing group is not 'going nowhere'. I have written a book! One of our group members has also written an excellent book, and I would be very pleased with myself if I could persuade my husband to follow suit.

Far from being a useless activity, writing has allowed me to examine, process and deal with aspects of my life that needed closure.

So no, I am not going to quit!

Jean Taylor

Photo by Alison Mott