Yesterday [by pogo]

Yesterday...
All my troubles seemed so far away...
Now it looks as if they're
Here to stay...

Just over three weeks ago I caught myself singing along to this. Which was surprising, considering I've never had a copy of it on tape, CD, LP, EP, single, or MP3 (did I miss any other formats?).

A few days later my boss told me he had skin cancer. The jury was still out (it still is, come to think of it) on whether or not it was malignant. He wasn't worried - outwardly. I don't know him anything like well enough to be able to tell whether or not he's quietly fretting away to himself.

Sure as shit, if it were me, I'd be bricking it.

But it isn't. All I have to worry about is a slightly snotty nose today. Nothing else merits the label "worry" - well, let's face it, a snotty nose isn't something to worry about either, is it?

These are the moments to cherish.

You never know if today is going to be tomorrow's "yesterday"...


Pogo is continually told to shut up by his long-suffering mates down the pub. Always opinionated yet rarely correct, he can't help sticking his oar in no matter what the subject. He has even been known to offer up opinions on Time, about which he is supremely unqualified to speak.

Echoes [by Laura]

One late night - or early morning, before sunrise - I lay awake in bed in the summer house and listened. It was silent both inside and outside the house, except for the scraping inside the wall which must have been a mouse. Outside, only the trees were rustling a little in the wind, and water was dripping from the drainpipe. It was probably just sleep creeping up on me, but I felt a strange sense of peace descend.

As I woke up with the birds again at sunrise - which happens at around four in the morning – burying my head under a pillow to block out the persistent bird-song, I was reminded of one Christmas holiday at the summer house. In winter-time, there are barely any sounds, except that which you bring with you. The creaking of the snow under your foot. Swish and rustle of your winter-wear. Sound of your breath and the inevitable sniffing of runny nose. Nature is asleep, except for the ice, which cracks and creaks as it expands in the cold.

(My sister’s husband, a Londoner, used to be scared of the absence of sound in the depths of the Finnish winter. Even in the quiet parts of London, there’s always a hum of traffic in the background.)

When I came back to the city after my couple of weeks at the summer house, I missed the silence dearly. In the quietude of nature, other sounds become pronounced, and they leave a long-lasting imprint into your mind.

Swan-calls echoing around the lake, giant wings beating the water and air to get airborne;

Fire crackling in the fire-pit, a hiss as the charred wood-pile collapses into glowing embers; grill-sausage sizzling on the metal grate; the eeeeeeeeeeeee of the mosquito which bypasses brain entirely and goes directly to the primal instincts and promotes terror;

Water lapping against the pier; pen whispering against the paper; shrill whistle of sparrows hunting insects; indistinct sound of my mother talking on top of the hill;

Trees rustling in the wind; sound of wood-chopping from across the lake; cows mooing on a distant farm in the evening; dog barking; Formula-1 sound of a beetle flying past your ear;

Startled birds escaping the vegetable patch in the pre-dawn glow, protesting loudly at the early outhouse-seeker; father coughing in his sleep inside the house; flies buzzing at the compost heap;

Creak of the rocking chair (significantly louder since the grandchildren broke one of the legs); rain drumming the roof; clatter of dishes; melancholy Finnish tango on the radio.

Sigh.

As I'm writing this in the office, I can see the forest outside, but I can't hear it. There are machines and trucks outside making a lot of noise. Somewhere, a plane is taking off. In the background, people are talking. The sound of typing is prominent in the small room. I turn the radio on louder, kick off my sandals, lean back and dig my toes into the carpet, imagining a field of grass. Inevitably, the taste of past holidays lose potency like the four-leaf clover I saved between the pages of a thick book. But, for the moment, it lingers.



Although otherwise common as muck, Laura claims the title of the Queen of Procrastination. She's also an expatriate Finn who spends most of the time inside her own head - out of which the words overflow on their own accord. Any resemblance to coherence is therefore purely coincidental.

Home [by Ian]

My home town is growing at an alarming rate.

This place was once a peaceful village; a mile and a quarter from Stonehenge, and just at the eastern end of the Woodford valley.

As children, we would disappear into the fields for hours, exploring old buildings,especially the closed railway station, and sit at the end of Boscombe Down airforce runway, shrieking as giant transporter planes roared a hundred feet overhead. I remember spending hours watching Vulcan bombers fill the sky with noise and their giant foreboding shape. The walk home across the fields was beautiful at sunset; owls swooping silent and low over the corn, and deer dashing off as we rounded the edge of the field and made our way through the coppice on the brow of the hill.

The village would erupt into colour each spring; the woods and riverside absolutely teeming with wildlife. We would spend hours down there, hunting for crayfish and seeing who could spot the big Pike lurking under the bridge at Ham Hatches. It was said that a boy was once pulled under by this fearsome fish; which was "at least a hundred years old".

My grandfather, bless him, was in his 70's and still cycling around the village, tending gardens and stopping off at The Greyhound for his pint of ale on his way home. He'd meet his friends on Sunday mornings,and sit watching the world go by on the solitary bench by the post office. They'd swap stories; some true, some like the story of a certain large fish.

I remember when the new 'A' road was carved through here. To me at nine years of age, the hulking Caterpillar diggers and loaders were awesome: bright yellow monsters hauling tons of Wiltshire chalk and clay out of the ground, and grumbling along the tracks with their massive wheels. One rainy afternoon,I had to be pulled from deep mud on the site, having tempted my friend J there to see the behemothic engines.

One of my favourite views in the world is the sight from the top of the Beacon Hill, as I look down and see the village surrounded by green fields and ancient woodland, burial mounds, and trackways used for thousands of years.

Now villagers, conservationists and heritage types are battling it out over the merits of routeing this road through a tunnel to protect the five thousand year old monument.Huge retail and trade parks are springing up and scarring the landscape. The village is now a bustling town; populated by forces families, business park workers and a small number of people who still work on the land and surrounding country estates.

The flea-pit has gone. Grandpa's bench is no longer.

"Progress", they say.

As for the Pike, he still lives on; being at least one hundred and thirty years of age by now. I still pass by the bridge; and peer down amongst the reeds, hoping to catch a glimpse as he lurks there.

***

Ian is of a certain age when dealing with ear-hair can seem too much of a priority. He would secretly like to wear a cardigan and slippers. He thinks writing is the new black.