No Grip

Rain, and gouts of snow are falling from the roof,
our feet will not stay beneath us
as we try to get from the car to the hardware shop,
wet ice, no grip, no ground, impossible.

We buy door-knobs, latch sets, hinges, hooks,
all brass, or brass plate,
slither back to the car with them in a big box,
the woman from the shop watching at the door.

Here Comes The Kitchen II

The new boiler is working, and we entered a warm hive of activity today. The joiner busy laying the kitchen floor, and finishing off the cupboards and drawers.

Another lovely man was hard at work in our dust-filled bedroom, noisily sanding the floor.

And at last there is colour on the upstairs walls. Downstairs will follow when the heat has dried out the last of the new plaster... This is my study/ writing room/ private space. Empty rooms are not that easy to photograph - nothing here but the first few boxes we've taken up - but I'm so happy about this colour, which is called Dragonfly!

What I Will Remember

Salty tide marks around the bottoms of my trousers. Melting snow on floors where anyone walks in their outdoor shoes. Shoes in the porch, drying, getting cold... Cars and buses filthy with salt and grit-melted spray. Having to think carefully about a viable route before deciding to go anywhere, by car or on foot. Icicles on cars, hanging from gutters, on the sides of railway cuttings. Taking five minutes to get dressed to go out - coat, scarf, hat, gloves, boots. Wearing four layers of clothing at all times (inside). Checking the weather forecast obsessively. Being 3 feet (the other side of a window) from the blackbird visiting our window-box to eat food put there by L. Seeing our breath in great plumes in the new house. The smell of cardboard boxes. Putting all my poetry books out of reach for a few weeks. Learning that modern electrical standards demand the presence of an earth rod if you have overhead electric cables, and that earth rods have to be sunk a metre deep into the ground... That in -4C birds can't get at worms, graves can't be dug, and yes, earth rods can't be installed...

A Rescue

The sudden loss of control - surrounded by snow and the car no longer moves at my bidding. The wheels spin, the engine revs - smell of hot rubber and hot engine. No-one in sight. Sun sparkles on snow. I edge forward a little, than once again try to reverse out of my predicament, back towards the gritted road I left only a few yards behind. More wheel-spinning, no progress. I turn off the engine and get out. I don't have a shovel. I don't have a bag of salt and grit. I get back in the car, try one more time, before preparing to go in search of help. Then a golden retriever appears, up the path to my right, followed by another. Followed by a man. A man who tries his best to push me out, backwards up the slope to the road. Advises me not to rev the engine, is patient with my lack of experience of being stuck in the snow. Is probably 70, and possibly shouldn't be doing this... Concedes, just as a landrover comes by. He hails the men in the vehicle - tells me they are farmers and will pull me out!! They speak only a few words, the two farmers, but quickly and efficiently, one of them produces a rope, and attaches it to the back of my car. The man with the dogs tells me to put it in neutral, and the landrover slowly moves forward, and with ease, pulls me up to the road. I get out and thank all three of my rescuers, the retrievers barking, gold against white, get back in my car, and drive down the road to park where I should have parked all along...

West Yorkshire Today

A strange day of relentless snow, falling steadily in sometimes large flakes, sometimes small, from before daylight, until well into the afternoon, when it was almost growing dark again. A total of 6 inches accumulated outside our door. Piles of it grew tall on top of posts on the allotments opposite, teetered, and fell. It sat thickly along the telegraph wires that span the road, and the washing lines outside the back door. Sometimes a gust of wind blew clouds of powdery whiteness off the trees, evocative of an avalanche. Clumps fell from the wires and lines. All the schools were closed, and sometimes a wild child sped past the window, running into a massive skid down the hill, or a snowball flew by, followed by a darting group of pink-faced boys, dragging plastic sledges. The blackbird returned again and again to eat the bread and apple and dripping L had put out in the morning, a second lot this afternoon. At one point a magpie saw him off, only to be trumped by a jackdaw. Bold magpie came back, held his ground, continued his meal. When they'd all gone, back came the blackbird and the little blackcap.

Long Goodbye

My house, with the green door frame leading into the kitchen, a step down to blue vinyl flooring. The high shelf of books in the living room, the uncarpeted stairs up from the kitchen, noisy, white-painted. The upper stairs with the dark blue carpet with red and yellow border. All the stripped pine doors, the quirky assortment of old doorknobs, the green and white tiles in the bathroom. The view across the road, up into the trees behind the allotments, shining dark in the rain, branches edged with white in the snow, all the birds that visit the hawthorn just across from the window. The fat blackbird L's been feeding every day with ham fat, and bread crusts, apple, dripping and crumbs! And the newly arrived blackcap who seems to rub along with the backbird, and the jackdaws, occasional visitors who see everyone off... The running milkman we hear every morning, thundering down the alley alongside the house at about 8 o'clock to deliver milk to our back neighbours. Our porch, with the walking boots on the shelf above the door which I can reach and L can't. Our two little rooms under the roof, with the dark beams and the velux windows. The view between salt-glazed chimney pots down into the valley.

Happy New Year

Three years since I started blogging, albeit not at this address.

Hoping this year will be calmer, more creative and spacious than last.

An exraordinarily bright full moon shone from clear frosty skies as we walked back from our new year's celebrations some time after midnight. Almost too bright to look at directly. There was just the most delicate dusting of snow over everything.

2010 seems a strange name for a year - it just doesn't look right somehow.

Up to ears in boxes and lists. In three weeks' time we shall be in the new house!

Happy New Year to you all, and thanks for your loyalty and concern ... and for reading.