Yorkshire Writers' Lunch

My Mother-in-law has this thing with age numbers, that if you are not happy with the age you are becoming, add the single digits together instead, to return to your younger self. I don’t remember much about being 11 , just that it was quite an odd time. I think I’d just moved to ‘middle’ school as they called it then - the in-between education before high-school at 13. It was the pre-teenage years so before my awful, self-conscious years of spotty skin, but also before I’d developed any kind of style. My hair was mainly in centre-parting plaits, accentuating my wide forehead and earning me the delightful nickname of ‘slap-head’. It regularly enticed my peers to do just that, what fun they had at my expense. This was one of the first stages of trying to become invisible at that time, to avoid the ‘slapping’ attention. Add to that, when I wasn’t in school uniform, I was mainly in jeans with holes at the knees, cheap bobbly jumpers, unbranded trainers, and often a red cap that I...

8.30 on Sunday morning, the house is almost silent; just the odd creak of it settling, getting comfortable in the early morning sunshine. Hubby’s gone for a motorbike ride, grown-up playing out with his childhood friend, and the children aren’t up yet. I’m writing in my front room, the window’s open behind me and the world’s waking up.  There’s birdsong, the voice of a neighbour talking to his wife, a car faintly in the distance. I can still taste the luscious toasted fruit bread I’ve just eaten, and the faint breeze through the window is sending little wafts of my mint tea in my direction. Our cat pops through the window, prowling and purring across the back of the sofa behind my head, her tail tickling my neck.  She slinks around the room, winding her way around chair legs before settling down, Sphinx-like, right in the middle of the room.  Why that particular spot? She often looks up at the ceiling from that viewpoint: is she simply hearing the children stirr...

Hope springs eternal; Proverb Meaning – It is human nature to always find a fresh cause for optimism by Juliet Thomas The burden of the week lay like a boulder on Nicole’s chest as her daughter, infused by days of being stuck inside as the clouds grieved, quickly tugged on her wellies. Her cute dimples sucked in her cheeks and she stomped about grinning widely, asking if she could jump in the muddy puddles. ‘Sure, you can,’ smiled her Mum, a fresh dose of energy spiking her weary limbs as she grabbed her mac and purse. Outside, as Mya slid her clammy hand into hers and continued to bounce along out of step, she filled her lungs with fresh, damp air and tilted her face towards the sun, it felt delicious to be out of the house. The road and pavement they paced along were varnished slick with rain and she noticed families that she hadn’t seen for weeks doing the same, heading towards the park, now a chink of sunlight had come out to play. It was like a cal...

Neil and I stood at the dull green embankment overlooking our freshly-tarmacked school playground. He was on a low sandstone wall and I beside it.             Despite being close friends, conversation didn't come easily between us. Neil was the stoic type with his far-off gaze and intense pout while I was all twitchy and sweaty.             "I have this idea for a video game," I told him one day.             "Like Tekken ?" he asked. We adored Tekken 3 but never really got far with it.             "It's not a beat-em-up," I spoke firmly. "It's a platform adventure game."             "Name?"             "Devil Cop."    ...

Four and a half weeks of no school, four weeks into lockdown, mostly living in scruffs or pyjamas, yet I find myself more content and calmer than I’ve been in such a long time, even when I’m doing the routine stuff like laundry or food shopping.   Queuing to go into the supermarket is mindful in an odd way: those few minutes of slowly walking and then stopping are moments of being aware of the weather around you, sounds of nature, and the quiet voices of fellow shoppers. Combined with fewer people inside the shop, I don’t dread food shopping as I did before. There is more peace in our home with the absence of the stresses of clock-watching, rushing here and there, and doing “stuff”. My children are relaxed, even though Fortnite or Roblox tend to dominate their waking hours! We’re getting to know each other all over again, we’re baking and cooking properly again, and doing more walking. This absence of “stuff” isn’t as distressing as I expected, or maybe I’ve got used ...

To visit Vienna is to taste history.  So let me take you there. Just for a day.  But what a day! We will start by taking breakfast at Schönbrunn Palace, with Empress MariaTheresa, in the 1740’s.  She created much of the palace as it appears today and she bore sixteen children, so we are privileged that such a busy woman has time for breakfast. This spectacular palace’s lavish interior is only matched by its beautiful grounds and it is not surprising that the Hapsburg dynasty enjoyed it as their summer residence for so many years. Gaze out of one of the windows at the back, down through pristine lawns, to the Gloriette, an ornate stone edifice on a small hilltop. It was used as viewing platform by the Hapsburgs but now houses a café. Sorry about that, Your Imperial Majesty. Now we must hop into our horse drawn carriage, our Fiaker, and be whisked along to Café Landtmann, established in 1873. Landtmann’s is the epitome of a Viennese coffee house. Lush, vel...

I like a good brisk walk, especially down by the canal, and nearly every time, I find myself pausing for a few minutes break to perch on the old bench. It's nothing special - just a bench, but it holds a strange attraction to me... Two knobbly, off-white precast concrete supports in the shape of a lowercase 'h', spanned by four rough   weathered grey wooden planks which form the seat itself and the backrest. All fixed together with eight strong, long, round-headed steel bolts. It's been there as long as I can remember, just sitting there, calm and placid throughout the years, squat and sturdy, resisting all that man and nature can throw at it - blistering summers, freezing winters, carved and painted by graffiti artists, and even two arson attempts. Yet still it survives. I'm not the only one who loves it; groups of rambling OAPs seem to prefer the old bench to the newer metal ones further down the uneven, puddle-spattered towpath. Gaily coloured bike-...

The Comfort of Home - Juliet Thomas We are being asked to stay indoors; not to join up to a war-zone front-line, not to live on the streets, not to head off to a refugee camp… just to stay in the comfort of our own home.  What is being asked of us is nothing compared to others in this world and today more than any other, I need to remind myself of this as yesterday, as part of the ‘at risk’ group, I now need to stay at home for 12 weeks. Unfortunately, with the freedom and the luxuries of a Western life, we have become spoilt and take for granted the life we’ve come to know and love. Having been social distancing since November, due to chemo treatment, I know only too well the price disease can have on your freedom, your life. So, retreating to our homes it is, to the sanctuaries we’ve created, to home comfort, whilst the world heals. It’s not so bad really is it? I love my home, its name ‘Mulberry Barn’, conjures up a sketched image you could find ...

I envied her that bedroom with its sugar pink walls, flowery curtains and space.   It had posters, a Dansette record player and places for us to loll as we tried to copy the images of long-lashed, wispy thin, Californian girls with moon pennies in their hair. We burned joss sticks, the grey ash falling silently on to the painted, white floorboards and the dark, earthy, muskiness of patchouli mixing unsuccessfully with the aroma of a nearby Yorkshire coking plant. The sound of Sgt Pepper’s tracks filled the room that summer and we were word perfect, singing every track with scouse, nasal overtones. We played the run out groove at a slower speed to uncover words that were said to be hidden in the last bars. We never found them.  And then, when it got to seven o’clock we would return home, leaving talk of the hidden meanings of the lyrics for another day. My sandal-shod feet tapped down the uncarpeted stairs and outside down the path. I ran along the curve of the privet ...

I am about to tell you a story. It is the kind of story which, if I entered for a competition, I feel that people would think that this would never happen in real life, because it sounds so far-fetched. They would likely feel that this story is too unrealistic. The irony is, that they would be wrong, because every word of this story is true…          It was one of those blisteringly hot, long days of summer. The days that melted tarmac in the road to the consistency of cookie dough. The air was thick with humidity. Humidity, that seeped into your bones and weighed you down. These were the facts of my childhood summers. Hosepipe bans, dried out, scratchy, sickly yellow-coloured grass that looked as if it had never once been lush and green. Clay baked earth that dried rock-hard and became covered in fissures like mini earthquakes. On days like these, there was nothing to be done but to try to cool off, any way you could. No one had air conditioning in their hou...

I have been saying that ‘I don’t do Christmas’ for some time now. I was first inspired by a friend who had me perplexed some 15 years ago, when I was invited to her home for Xmas and she opened Christmas cards and displayed them on her mantlepiece whilst commenting to me that she did not send cards to people. I was baffled, shocked even, I asked how could you not? I was still in that mode of trawling through the address book and sending cards to all and sundry. So of course, I simply could not comprehend her stance on this ritual, that I myself had never questioned, along with buying presents for many, and getting the tree up and decorated and shopping till I dropped.   I recall one year, I had decorated my tree and my sister informed me that trees had Themes. I had been using the same baubles and tinsel each year and added to them if I saw something new that I liked.  I drew the line right there. I was not going to throw out my hoard of Christmas decorations to get i...