Yorkshire Writers' Lunch

So it’s done. All over. All those weeks of shopping and planning, of fruitcake-sousing, of mincemeat mixing. Of house-decorating and relatives-appeasing. The pantos. The carolling. The ‘what-on-earth-am-I-going-to-give-Great-Aunt-Jean’-ing? Then the day itself when we gorged ourselves. On food, on drink, on presents, on tinsel. We surrounded ourselves with the ones we love and filled our eyes, our ears and our belly with treats. And then 24 hours later, it was over. Well not quite, of course. There are still a load of leftovers to finish (turkey curry, anyone?). There are still a couple of needles yet to fall off the tree. And the batteries in the new lightsabres are just about clinging on in there.  But it’s done. What now? Now.  This time in-between. This brief moment when the world seems to pause on its axis, just for a blink and you’ll miss it instant. A time of quiet, of stillness, when the old year is done and the new one hasn’t yet begun.  ...

It’s coming up to Christmas, a drama whose cast and location has changed completely, several times, in my life. When you form an important relationship or get married, or have children, or lose a loved one, the form which Christmas will take can be a source of inner and outer conflict, a feeling that what is proposed is somehow not quite as Christmas should be. Our idea of what Christmas should be is formed when we are very young, created from those first remembered gatherings of our own peculiar tribe, when food was unusually varied and plentiful, when bedtimes were not enforced, when games were played, when brightly coloured pop was drunk, and when the grown-ups were a lot less serious than usual. This is me aged three and a half, on the first Christmas Day I can recall. I am in the back yard of my grandparents’ house in Mitcham, proudly showing my presents to the Brownie camera - a tricycle and a bus conductor’s outfit. My parents had lived with my grandparents when they were...

To make the perfect Christmas Start September! Be prepared! Write a list, or two, or three, Hang tasteful baubles on your tasteful tree. Start September! Be prepared! Check out this years’ must have gifts Hang tasteful baubles on your tasteful tree Stuff home-made stuffing in your giant turkey. Can’t afford those must have gifts? Will your loved ones know you care? Drag slimy giblets from your grotesque turkey Dread the rowdy family festive feast. Give time to loved ones, show you care, And stuff the list or two or three Relish the rowdy family festive feast To make the perfect Christmas.

  It’s the run up to Christmas and the shops are filled again with an abundance of chocolate, biscuits, cakes and booze, and I wonder whether this year I will fill my shopping trolley in quite the same way.    Like many other people, and as had been my ritual for years before, I over indulged last Christmas.  I drank more alcohol than usual and ate a lot of chocolate.  I couldn’t leave the large tin of Roses and Quality Street or the cakes or prettily boxed biscuits to waste, could I?  The more chocolate, cakes and biscuits I ate, the more I wanted to eat. I knew it was bad for me, but I craved it and enjoyed it.   I cannot only blame the Christmas period either.  Since giving birth, I had swapped the odd glass of wine after a stressful day at work for a new vice.  Chocolate, biscuits or cake would be my quick fix when I felt tired - hot chocolates with marshmallows and whipped cream too.  What better way to give yourself a...

Bend for the mixing bowl patterned like our mothers’. Fetch the wooden spoon darkened by a thousand dhals. Slide bees-work into water, add yeast and watch a muddy puddle spring to life. Keep warm. Wait. Wash hands, splash face, brush teeth. Add fragrant flour gifted by the summer sun and salt from the earth and sea. Beat, beat, beat the batter Til your arm says ‘no more’. First rising. Slow movement, stretch, balance. Add more flour for a sticky, glutinous gloop. Push, fold, push, fold. until the dough submits. Place a damp towel on its swelling crown. Second rising. Up the hill through autumn leaves and mist. Oil tins, light oven form a trinity of loaves smooth, round and sensuous ready for the fire. Third rising. Let thoughts arise. Put the pieces in the kiln. Set the timer, let the fire do its work. Meditate, dog curled tired at your feet. When the loaves sound like drums, and smell of heaven, turn out ...

November Rain Umbrella, closed, in hand, I stood in the therapy of November rain, It pierced my repentant skin with devil's nails, And rinsed the lines from my crumpled heart. The circles of solitude spun in deep puddles, Each drop suspended, untimely, before the fall, It ran rings of memory around my past, And quenched the thirst of my present anguish. I felt alone on that spot, Looked up at the black star filled sky, Into the shower of darting lights, Cascades closed the doors of my eyes. When the emptiness was all washed out, I shook the tears from my dripping hair, And, smiling, with umbrella up, Turned my back, forever, on that spot .... and walked home. by Annabel Howarth

the     needles             click,                  the                      ball                         jumps,                          the thread slips                            through my fingers.                           stitch after stitch, loop joining loop,                            entwining to form rows, those rows                           lining up, taking shape, becoming material.          ...

The end of September. My birthday in a week. The sun’s shining through the window. It’s Saturday morning and no school. I dress quickly. My vest, shirt and jumper are all still slotted inside each other from last night, so it makes things even quicker. A brief stop in the bathroom and down for breakfast. Mum and Dad are already in the kitchen and there are fry-ups on the go. As usual my brother’s nowhere to be seen. Two eggs, two rashers, sausage and beans followed by tea and toast. Dad’s on the phone to the chimney sweep, fixing for him to come next week. The sweep’s a small man with a big moustache and a bald head, although he wears a cap nearly all the time. He must wash but maybe it’s difficult for him to get the soot out of his skin. He works slowly. He told me last year he likes to do everything by the book. I don’t suppose I’ll see him this year. No school holidays next week. As I clear the table, I hear this strange noise coming from the chimney, a bit like a ch...

I have always wanted to be a time traveller.    To fly backwards across the centuries and peep into the lives of ordinary and extraordinary people.    To eavesdrop on their conversations, to touch their clothes, their lives.    To see through their eyes. I would first go for afternoon tea with Charles II.    I know that afternoon tea hadn’t been invented then, but hey, I’m making the rules in this journey of journeys.    I want to see for myself if he’s as charming, suave, intelligent and witty as history reports. I would peer into The Tower, where the princes are sleeping and wait to see who comes to take their lives, asking at whose bidding they come.    Time travellers cannot change the past, much as I would want to save those little boys. I would gaze into the fire with stone age men and women, so I could return to my junior school and bring history projects to life with sights, sounds, smells and fir...

I attend a creative writing class in Leeds and am writing a novel. It is based on the life of a family who have a child with profound and multiple learning difficulties. Much of the content will be humorous, the following not so much so. It may or may not form part of the book...      I’d noticed her in Home Bargains a few minutes earlier. She had that tough look about her  - a great big tattoo across her neck. She reminded me of the girl with the dragon tattoo but without the good looks. I can’t begin to tell you how many piercings she had in unsuitable locations. She had a surly ‘don’t you cross me’ air surrounding her. All the shoppers were giving her a wide berth. I wouldn’t swear to it in court but I’m pretty sure I saw her putting an extra large bag of Haribos inside her coat.      Avoiding the Sky man, the Help for Heroes collecting tin and averting my eyes from the strange phenomenon of ‘threading’, I pushed Ruby down to the cheap booksho...

I pass them daily, two old maids in a field named Magic and Paris. Can it be my moods and their bearing are synchronised with each season? Summer, contented, they swish tails on close cropped grass, disdainful of dogs, tolerant of puppies. In autumn, the mournful season, they loom vastly from the fog like lorries on the M62. Huddled in winter, the beasts of the field close ranks, rugged-up, muttering and stamping. But in spring, bright spring, reminded of girlish madness, they burst wildly through hawthorn hedges.

  St Dynwen's Church, LLanddwyn Island, Anglesey, Wales.                     Ruined buildings excite me. I can feel the presence of those who have gone before. I touch the stone and I feel an energy that logic alone couldn't begin to explain. I peer through a narrow arched window and wonder who else has seen that view. I climb crumbling stairs that lead to nowhere, adding my footsteps to the thousands of others who have worn smooth hollows into the stone. I touch a pillar and feel like my hand is reaching down through the centuries, connecting with those who were once here. I talk to them, like a madwoman, saying 'I know you're there' and I believe they can hear me. It's time to go. I have to tear myself away. I feel that if I could stay a little longer, they would talk to me and tell me all their secrets. I'm stirred up for days afterwards, like I've been a vessel thr...

It’s October already, and we are well into the new school term. At just nine and seven, the boys are already bringing home their fair share of homework, and like all children, there is always something they would rather be doing. It’s my job, then, to inspire them to do it. Not an easy task. This week, William brought home a poem with some questions to complete. The poem was a good one, (“Old Flyer” by Nick Toczek– look it up), but William was not enthused. Something about the arrangement of the words on the page, the stanzas, the rhyming, seemed to intimidate him, which manifested itself in sullen uncooperativeness and mutterings about it being a “stupid poem”.  To coax him along I suggested he look at one of the easier questions, about identifying similes.  This prompted an argument about whether a simile can include “than,” as well as “like” and “as”. Here, my English Literature Masters Degree cut no ice with William, and he was only persuaded when we c...