Yorkshire Writers' Lunch

We love the idea that we choose the way we live our lives. But did we choose the country we were born in? The family we joined? The time and technology, the fashions of clothing and cooking? This is the time for maxing out on the illusion of choice, through the custom of New Year’s Resolutions. This is where we imagine ourselves, not as a completely different being, but as a person more or less like we are now but with some different habits. For resolutions to change ourselves are usually about habits, not about one-off events. We know we are not really changed by one trip to Japan, but we may be changed by the daily practice of Zen meditation. Ah, but it is so difficult to change ourselves! We live the way we live now because of a dollop of necessities (people who need caring for, money that has to be earned) married to the customs of the social groups we inhabit. Just knowing that something would be good for us is not enough to make it happen. We have to get the mind on our s...

Imagine this: a haze of red, blue and green fairy lights blurred by the rising steam from spicy, heady gluhwein.  The muted sound of a tasteful Christmas carol, sung in its native German.  Woollen clad shoppers huddled together like penguins.  The warm, sweet smell of hot doughnuts beckoning passers by, calling us over to sample them. Imagine these things.  And yes, I was trying to imagine them as I sat in the back of a stationery taxicab, en route from Hamburg Airport to Lubeck.  The mist I saw was not that arising from gluhwein but that of the cars windows steaming up as the snowstorm began.  The lights were not fairy-like at all.  They were the tail lights of other cars, winking at me through the falling snow flakes of a surprise blizzard.  Not quite what I had envisioned. The Lubeck of my imagination was a far cry from the reality of this white-hot traffic jam.  I was trapped on sheet ice, watching the silent dance of lorries jack-k...

My 3 year old son loves stories.  I don’t just mean the weekly library trip and bedtime storybooks - he has a real love of spoken stories.  He asks me or my husband to tell them several times a day, often the same ones repeated.  It’s also a measure of closeness.  You know you’re in his most trusted circle when he asks you to tell him a story (Nan and Auntie Ria have recently been invited to join these inner echelons).  When I start to think about the stories themselves, I realise they aren’t just something enjoyable and entertaining.  He really needs these stories.  One of his favourites at the moment goes something like this: “Mum, you know that story about when Nan was a little girl and she was on her red bike and then she fell off and got an ouch on her knee and then her mummy put some cream on her knee and gave her a plaster?  Can you do that story please?” He usually asks for it immediately after he’s hurt himself.  It functions ...

(See July 21 st for Ork Part 1, and 8 th September for Part 2.) The horses slip and slide down the wet hillside towards Ork’s house. The two men dismount unhurriedly. Ork watches them carefully, uncertain of what he can do to save himself if they have harmful intent. They keep their distance and the taller man speaks in a strange accent which Ork fails to recognise. He has to ask the man to repeat his question.   “I am Ork. I am the printer.” He sees no point in denying it. “How do you want me to help you?” He addresses the taller man, but it is the short squat man who answers.  “You misunderstand. It is we who can help you.” His face twitches as he hears a shout from the shed and Ork quickly explains about the sins of his former apprentice. “Perhaps it would be better if your sinner doesn’t overhear our conversation. We shall leave now.” + + + Riding two on a horse is never satisfactory – for men or horse. Digger runs between the two mounts, confused by V...

Newspaper plops through locked front door With news of great distress across the world. No bark greets the intrusion of war and disaster. First World problems rear their pretty heads; Come here, go there, buy this, buy that, consume and sue. Have something for nothing, it’s your due. But here, right here, the world is colder by degrees. No global heat in Grimescar Valley; the people stay indoors, Their blood unwarmed by walking marathons. Food once gusto gobbled, rots, bagged and binned. Black cat emboldened sits composed in a bed Of hardy perennials, studying the bird table. Rats encroach. Mud dries hard on boots, the body stiffens. The museum house lies cold, quiet and clean The roaring turbo vacuum stowed silent in the dark. It was my companion who made the introductions To the horses, the magpies, the jays, the acorns, Our daily forensic examination of Blake’s Promised Land. But now no ear is cocked to listen to my poem, No dark brown ...