Dandelions

I go outside to mow the grass. It's an easier task now that the dog is no-longer around using the garden as an open-sewer. Not that I minded particularly, it goes with the territory, you have a dog - you have to clear up its mess. And then they die and you're surprised by the odd perk that is thrown up.  I've no-one to share this little gem with as I was the only one that ever cleaned it up anyway but I can't help but feel a few small throbs of pleasure at this sudden 'petit cadeau' of serendipity.

I carry the mower out from the garage and lug it up to the grassy area. The grass maybe clear of dog shit but its been replaced by a scattered and disorderly congregation of dandelions.  Affrays of dandelions who lurch, drunken and provocative, across the grass in careless clusters like stumbling C-list WAGS on a Saturday night out. I plan to annihilate them with the Flymo. Who likes dandelions?

Well actually the old man next door used to.

My elderly Norwegian neighbour Frankel, who died a few months ago, used to plead with me, with a pressing delicacy, to leave the dandelions alone, as he could never understand what they had done to deserve such brutish and unified hatred.

'But they're weeds Frankel and if you don't get rid of them they'll just take over!'

'Well, would that be so bad? they are such harmless and happy little things!'

'But they're weeds!'

'But they are beautiful!'

Frankel, with his long straggly white beard, who spoke softly through his Norwegian accent, ate a clove of fresh garlic every morning and daily performed a series of unique and somewhat haphazard 'stick' exercises. The 'stick' exercises were devised to keep himself supple when younger and he continued them until well into his 80's.

These mainly consisted of him twirling and weaving any available stick or large leafless branch in and out of his legs and arms in ever-increasingly dangerous and wildly enthusiastic circles. Sometimes he would suddenly start stick hurling and whirling in the middle of a conversation, his lithe elderly body bobbing and dipping with ease. The stick would swoop within an inch of your nose so you always had to be ready to jerk your head back with speed to avoid a good-natured collision. He always smiled when performing the exercise and he always made me smile too. And if a stick didn't get you in the face then you could be more or less knocked sideways by the air-vaporising pungency of his powerful Allium-infused breath.

Frankel was a Quaker, a gentle man and very sweet. He always spoke up for the misunderstood, the voiceless under-dog. Even the dandelions. His accent caused him at times to be unwittingly amusing as well.

I once spent a very puzzled few minutes, suppressing nervous laughter, and pondering on what on earth he was talking about when he sprang out of his back door with exuberance, a few years ago, to cheerfully greet me one early April morning.

'Oh at last Spring is here and I shall get new frocks!'

'What?'

'Frocks! Soon I shall have lots of new frocks!!' 

'Erm...what?'

He looked at me with the patient tolerance of one who was explaining a simple fact to a simple-ton.

'First comes the frock-spawn...and then come the frocks!'

I plug the mower into the extension cable and then feed it back along the garden to the sun-room and into a socket. As I walk back I become aware of voices and people moving around next door, I can just catch glimpses through the apple blossom but I don't recognise any of them. The gardens are close together and I never feel polite mowing if someone else is sitting outside.

Soon though, my naturally questing characteristics take over and I'm straining to catch any snippets of conversation which might float over the fence while trying to look interested in the mower. Maybe the house has been sold by Frankel's children and I wonder if these are my new neighbours?

I begin to mow, annihilating plenty of dandelions and the springy bright flower heads spew up into the air in a satisfyingly shredded and destructive manner.  I start to move the trampoline which is a cumbersome dead weight to haul but I have a well-developed manoeuvre for that and in a few short twists, drags and tugs it is repositioned into one of its two spaces so that I can now mow the upper part of the garden. Then I see a man looking at me. I give him a friendly neighbourly smile.

'I won't be long! I'm just giving it a quick trim and then I'll leave you in peace!'

It's a youngish man with a flat empty smirk. Humour is written all over his face but I don't find him funny. I heave the trampoline the last few inches into the deeply embedded grooves on the ground.

'You're strong'

'Yes. I am'

'You must be stronger than you look'

'Oh yes. I'm much stronger than I look'

And you, my friend, look like an oaf.

I mentally swallow back my sullen disappointment and try not to make any sweeping assumptions.

I look down at the remaining dandelions and remember Frankel's raw garlicky breath and 'stick' exercises. I decide to leave a few clumps of them where they are around the edges. They stand out in bunched gatherings like gossipy girls in cheap loud dresses. They stretch out their long necks, eager to be noticed. I'm trying to see the beauty in them. Like Frankel would have.

Grub

My brother Jeremy phones me.

'Erm....I just want to say how sorry I am to hear about Midge'

'Thanks Jeremy'

'...and have you thought about getting another pet?'

'No. Last thing on my mind at the moment'

I'm surprised at how many people have asked me this question. I'm surprised as well at how deeply it shocks me. How can I even think of replacing Midge? Surely it's much too soon? I feel alone and in a thick foggy cloud of mourning, like I am wandering around in heavy 'widow's weeds' but nobody else can see them. Jeremy is particularly insensitive to my feelings.

'Well its just...you know...how about a cat next time round?'

It takes me a couple of seconds to realize that he is trying to fob me off with Grub. Grub is Jeremy's needy little cat, a clingy feline version of an energy-draining friend you can never get rid of. Grub, who abides in a lean-to opposite the front door of Jeremy's cottage and who has been banned from the place because she kept peeing on the bathroom floor.

Jeremy in full salesman swing, continues his pitch before I have a chance to cut in.

'A cat is far easier to have than a dog, they almost look after themselves, in fact you'd hardly know you have one. I could put a cat flap in for you, and she could live mostly in the garage'

Since she acquired the trick of peeing indoors Grub has become the cat that no-one wants. Originally she was my sister's cat who was then passed on to my brother and for years she lived happily within his home, intense and love-demanding but fairly bearable. If you stayed the night, you would sometimes wake up, with a fright, to find her sitting on your chest sphinx-like, purring loudly and staring at you like a deranged ex-girlfriend.

But somewhere along the line she started to follow Jeremy into the bathroom and watched him aiming at the lavatory bowl. She soon became convinced, and then obsessed, that this was the thing to do. Clever cat. But not quite clever enough and even hygiene-relaxed Jeremy soon tired of mopping up the urine splashed floor. Grub was unwilling to give up this trick though and eventually found herself locked out of the cottage.

I find her situation heart-breaking and I make a point of giving her lots of attention whenever I am there.

And now every time I visit Jeremy, Grub will appear from under some sheets of tarpaulin and race towards me like a hungry lover. She thuds into the side of my leg, elongates her frame and leans in as heavily as she can. She is small and desperate. She hero-worships Jeremy but clearly anyone would do, anyone who shows her any tenderness could easily be transferred in her affections. It's unlikely that she will ever stop her internal ablutions though and who would ever take on a cat with those sorts of ingrained habits?

But I have quite strong feelings over pets who aren't wanted, particularly ones that appear to be suffering. I think Jeremy should have her put down and I have told him this many times. I think she is lonely, once an indoor cat and now banished to the outside, she looks miserable and depressed whenever I see her. She hangs around the outside of doors and windows yowling into the night. She is Cathy, wanting to come in and haunt Heathcliff (or Jeremy) with her love.  Jeremy disagrees with me, has always said that animals are not like humans and that she enjoys life well enough and all that matters to her, as a cat, is that she is fed.

I tell Jeremy that I'm not interested in having her but over the next few days I start to think about Grub and how easy it would be to move her into our life. I am in the garage clearing a space for the delivery of some of  my partner's things that are being sent over from America.

Over the next few weeks I will unpack and find space for them inside, re-home suits and jackets and somehow find space in cramped wardrobes, integrate socks and t-shirts and jeans into drawers, move stuff around, probably throw out a great deal to make room.  And where on earth am I going to put my boyfriends guitars? How precious are guitars to guitarists? Do they need to be locked into a cupboard like shotguns, should they stand sentry in the corner of a room or can they be slid, amicably, under a bed?  Suddenly there are so many other things to think about and it's hard enough dovetailing another person into ones life, let alone a deprived, lovelorn and cloakroom-obsessed cat.

But I ponder still over the cat flap and where it could go. I start to imagine a sunny summers day a few months down the line and I'm sitting in the garden chatting with my boyfriend, my son is bouncing happily on his trampoline, Grub is sleepily lounging in the warmth, under the shade of the plum tree.

Or peeing on the bathroom floor. Or inside a guitar under the bed.

Midge

The dog had been putting on weight for about a month and I foolishly imagined, because her appetite was unchanged, that she was fine. But she didn't really look fine, she had developed a strange way of standing with her front legs at an odd angle. Her stomach had begun to bloat and bulge, her chest to swell and her back-bone felt sharp to the touch where before it had been smooth and padded. And, usually an avid outdoor dog, it was actually weeks since she'd wanted to go for a walk.

I even went online and found her symptoms and a common cause of death amongst her breed, but as she still kept looking up at me and wagging her tail with continued vigor I sort of ignored everything else.

I just didn't want to see the truth. In the end my son kept badgering me to take her to the vet.

'There is something seriously wrong with her Mum. You've got to take her to the vet. Look at her stomach, its hanging down all puffy and spongy!'

Midge has been by my sons side for more than three-quarters of his life. He has raced through fields, played endless games and either accidentally or deliberately spilled countless plates of food near her which she has always gratefully hoovered up. And while I take the cowards route and keep finding other things that are more pressing to deal with he comes straight out and forces me to take control.

'SHERIDAN!' he snaps.

When my son feels I am not giving him my full attention he will use my first name to startling effect. I feel the gravity in his voice immediately. I stop what I am doing and go and carefully rub the dogs tummy again. It's still that strange bloated heaviness. But she doesn't appear to be in any pain, just grateful, like dogs are, for the attention.

I take Midge to the vet the next morning, just after my son leaves for a 10 day trip to Spain with his school. As we sit in the surgery and wait our turn I think about his last words.

'Don't worry Mum. She'll probably be fine. When I get back we'll all go for a walk, like we used to, up to the common at Nymphsfield. She'll love that, racing around with lots of sniffing and meeting other dogs. Just think of all those walks we've got to look forward to now that Spring is here'

I perch without pleasure on a seat in the reception area. Its still early and it looks like we are the only customers. Midge stands alone, her body swollen dramatically, her legs all spindly under the weight. She looks bleakly around her waiting for the next installment. And then she turns and looks up at me. I wonder how I'm going to tell my son. She starts to wag her tail. I hope she can't read my mind.

An elderly man has appeared and starts to make his way across the room. He moves slowly with a large old Labrador on a lead. It's a black Lab, speckled with grey, and like its owner it is focusing single-mindedly on getting one foot, or paw, in front of the other. Midge suddenly perks up, hurriedly throws me a reassuring glance and totters into the dogs pathway where she starts to wag her tail and bat her beautiful eyes. The dog stops to acknowledge her and for a moment they sniff around with tender care, she small and fidgety, he steady and serious. Then the vet calls us in.

And I plead with time to stretch the short stroll to the consulting room into the longest walk on earth.

Within five minutes of the door shutting behind us the diagnosis is made. She has severe congestive heart disease. It has gained a speedy foot-hold and is in the final stages. I am told that it would be kinder to end it now while her tail is still wagging and she is still able to enjoy her food. I know that already. She looks up at me adoringly and in an effort to remain unemotional I bite my inner cheek until it throbs.

While the vet prepares the lethal dose I feed her dog treats from a large glass jar. They are far too big, more suitable for an Alsatian than a King Charles but she gamely attacks them with what few teeth she has left. It has now become like an animal version of an episode from 'Casualty' and I feel myself caught up in a storyline that I already know the ending of and which I can't escape from.

A veterinary nurse has joined us and we three stand around the table, each in our allotted position, the seconds ticking by unchallenged as a dreadful scene is played out. The vet says Midge may struggle but that it will be over quickly. I feel guilty and hollow.

The vet quietly and calmly talks through the procedure . I cup Midge's dear little face in my hands and begin to stroke her brow with one of my thumbs. She allows her head to drop back into my palm, always so trusting, her gaze focuses on mine and I manage to tell her what a wonderful dog she has been and how very much we have loved her. My mind spins back to when she won 2 rosettes at our local dog show.

She was judged as having 'the most beautiful eyes' and the 'waggiest tail'. She looks deeply into mine and lifts her tail up and then down, just once. It is quick but she doesn't struggle.

The most beautiful eyes and the waggiest tail.

And then she is gone.

My Little Sister

The phone rings.

'HELLO DARLING!'

It's my little sister. She is talking very loudly. She does this when she is feeling confident.

'Hi', I say, 'where are you?'

'I'M IN A CAR WITH FRANK! WE'RE GOING TO HIS CARAVAN! HE'S MY NEW BOYFRIEND, HE LOVES ME AND WE'RE GETTING MARRIED! ISN'T IT MARVELLOUS?'

I'm used to such calls from my sister. She is in her late 40's, extremely fragile emotionally and has a personality disorder. She has lived, for the last 20 or so years, on the fringes of society, in and out of psychiatric wards and through many frightening psychotic episodes. She has lost all of her friends, most of her family, her looks, her potential, her sense of belonging in this world and her sanity. She is mad. She is the woman who you avoid when you see her raving to herself and walking towards you in the street.

She can be funny, somehow reaching inside and harnessing her deep dark intelligence while recalling amusing anecdotes but mostly she is sad or vicious, irritating or down right rude. She hallucinates, has fairly infrequent washing habits and often sees dead members of our family. Her mind is so addled and ravaged from years of prescribed and recreational drug-use that there will now never be any hope of redeeming fully what was once lost.

The council has just re-housed her after a long stretch in hospital. But she is lonely.

'FRANK'S AN ANTIQUE DEALER! I'M GOING TO HELP HIM WITH HIS BUSINESS. HE'S VERY ROMANTIC, WE MAY RUN OFF INTO THE NIGHT AND LIVE LIKE GYPSIES!'

I am immediately suspicious of 'Frank'. My sister is vulnerable and prey to any undesirable with dishonest intentions. Who could possibly want to marry this confused woman with rotten teeth, dirty hair, whose body will sometimes shake violently with the powerful side-effects of her anti-psychotics and who constantly talks of seeing the dead?

But that doesn't stop her yearning for love. And who am I to question the requirements of a partner? Maybe Frank will be the one to give my sister the love that she desperately needs.

A few days later and she calls again.

She is subdued. I ask her about Frank.

'Oh Frank, he dumped me, said I was a head-case, too much to handle. We're still going to be friends though'

I'm not surprised. What ever his motives were, perhaps in the end, like the rest of us, he just couldn't cope with her full-time.

She tells me that she is waiting for her case-worker to visit. She's going to try to do some washing. Or make a sandwich for lunch. I doubt she will do either though. Some days she has so little energy, so little to look forward to, that all she can do is rock from side to side while staring into space.

A few days later and she tells me that Frank has been over with her to her lock-up. This is a small garage where she stores all of her belongings. A damp sofa, bags of smelly clothes, books and childhood trinkets, photos and letters from the past. Reminders that she once had a life.

She also has a small fridge and a TV, a microwave and a few other electrical goods. I ask her what they were doing.

'FRANK'S BEEN SO KIND AND HE'S TAKEN EVERYTHING OFF MY HANDS!'

He gave her £40 for the lot.

Stripy T-shirts

The day we went to London was also the day we met up with some cousins who had flown over from America. I hadn't seen them in years and I wanted to make a good impression.

The couple have two boys who are 10 and 12 years old. They didn't accompany them on this trip so I hand over a couple of small gifts for the parents to take back for them.

I had read somewhere that one of England's favorite children's writers isn't promoted in America as she is thought to be too subversive. I decide that I'll get my son to root through his box of old CDs and find the one with her stories. The boys will love them. I'll also pick up a couple of new books to go with them.

When my son gets home from school I ask him about the CD.

'You never bought me CDs Mum. It was always cassette tapes from the bargain section'

I vaguely remember this and I doubt if the boys will even have a cassette player.

I go online and find the CD, the price is good but the 1st class postage needed to guarantee delivery is a whopping £8. It seems a bit much when I could drive 5 miles and pick it up from a local bookstore.

It is the next day and I am in the store and have found the CD but am now wondering if the age range is a bit low. It states that it is suitable for children down to the age of 3. I'm quite certain that my own son was still listening to it when he was the same age as the younger one but I think I'll be pushing my luck with the 12 year old. And I'm now not that sure about what sort of books to buy them. I'll have to think of something else.

I decide to go into the shop next door and look at T-shirts.

Upstairs I start sorting through the sale rail. There are lots to fit the younger one. But nothing for his brother. Then I start to worry. I have no idea of what they might like. I still have items tucked into drawers that distant relatives kindly bought for my own son over the years. They either didn't fit or were hideously out of step with their choice.

And then I see a row of stripy T-shirts.

I love this look. Particularly on children. I find two of the same design but in the correct sizes, one blue and one green. I'm happy and relieved.

Later that night I show them to my son.

'But I thought you were buying them books and a CD?'

'Well...I thought maybe the CD was a little young for them and I don't really know their taste with books. It seemed like the best option'

'So you buy them stripy T-shirts instead? That's so boring. And you're inflicting your own weird sense of taste on other peoples children. You're sick'

I'm used to my sons scathing breakdown of any personality traits or defects he feels I may have.

'Well, I think they'll look lovely'

'Mum, not only have you got them your own twisted version of what you imagine boys would want to wear but you've also got them exactly the same. They'll hate you'

'They aren't exactly the same, I chose different colours'

'They'll always hate you'

A week or so after our lunch my cousin sends me an email thanking me for the T-shirts - the boys love them, she writes, they've worn them all week!

I'm thrilled and show my son.

'It's all lies Mum. She has to write that'

He looks at me pityingly.

'You've got to stop being so gullible. Even with family'

Museum

During the half-term break I take my son up to London for the day. A museum in the morning and then his choice in the afternoon. He has always loved history but his favorite is a trip to the Tate Modern art gallery, mainly to see the latest installation in the Turbine hall. He seems to get real inspiration from them. It's a familiar routine, but he is getting older now and is less willing to fall in with my suggestions.

We start off at the British Museum.

'Oh God!!' he says 'not that again!'

He has a point. We always start off at the British Museum. In fact we never seem to get any further than the marble statues on the ground floor. Or the Egyptians next door.

We push through the heavy double doors and into the vast atrium. It is filled with people all scurrying with purpose in and out of the different rooms. My sons face is cemented within an expression of thunderous gloom. I try to match it with one of perky and uplifting insight.

'Well, we're here now so we'll just have a quick look at the sarcophagi and some of the statuary. You'll probably enjoy it once we're in there '

I look at him warily. He gives me a death stare.

I feel as if we are entering the Dark Ages. After years of him fitting in amenably with any of my plans all of a sudden we are constantly at battle. And yet I know its normal. That knowledge doesn't seem to make it any easier though.

I decide that the best thing to do is to ignore him. I plough on with deep parental disregard for his misery and march ahead with an energetic flounce. I glance behind to see him following, twisted torment written upon his face, nausea and revulsion playing across his pursed lips.

We start to elbow our way into the Egyptian rooms and through the milling masses all circling around the sarcophagi. It's too warm and too crowded and it gradually begins to dawn on me that it's actually a rather unpleasant experience. I remember my own childhood visits to museums with my father.

My father was always an avid museum goer. He loved anything ancient, dusty and trapped behind glass. Add a couple of wretchedly bored children and a queue to get in and he'd have had a highly enjoyable afternoon.

He didn't ever listen to us when we moaned, sulked or even cried our way behind him on endless stifling excursions. The only highlight was the gift shop at the end and the feverish purchasing of postcards featuring exhibits we had studiously avoided for the previous 3 hours.

I treasured those postcards. They were kept for decades. I still have some from a visit to the Tower of London with pictures of the Crown Jewels, the corners now well-thumbed and as soft as rabbit ears.

But it put me off museums for years.

I tell my son that he has twenty minutes to do what he wants while I go and look at the Parthenon Friezes. A look of utter relief floods into his face.

I walk through into the hall next door and stand and gaze in blissful peace and at the overwhelmingly beautiful Roman statue of Aphrodite bathing. I marvel at the exquisiteness of the artistry which has created her smooth voluptuous beauty. I go on inside and view the Sirens, their damp dresses clinging to their thighs, chiseled painstakingly and miraculously out of massive slabs of cold marble. I am enthralled by the centaurs on the Greek friezes, they rear up lustful and vicious, fighting warriors and galloping off with their maidens. I look at each piece, drinking in the tiny details, each breathtakingly crafted feature, each furrowed brow and taut polished muscle. They are magnificent.

My mobile rings. It is my son.

'Hi Mum'

'Where are you?'

'In the gift shop'

I go and find him. He is standing in the queue for the till. He looks happy. He is clutching a set of postcards.

Mistletoe

It's been a very blustery day and I'm standing by the car in Tesco's parking-lot, holding my hat against my head and staring high up into the sky at a huge tree that skyscrapers above me. It is stripped bare of leaves and being bent treacherously by the powerful gales that are still blasting through the area.

Highlighted against the great pale empty sky is a big birds nest perched right in between the very top branches. The branches are being battered and bruised and beaten by the wind but they still manage to hold on, not to tear or break. I stand open-mouthed, transfixed and marvelling at the sight and at how the nest manages to survive this cruel maelstrom of natural violence.

I think of the occupants quivering in fear of sudden eviction, I picture birds with spindly legs and little hooked claws clinging frantically to the nest and trying to keep it intact, feathery bottoms dug in hard against the tiny twigs and dead foliage that they call home.

My son ambles past slumped against an empty trolley he is wheeling back to its station.

'Look!' I say 'Just look at that birds nest, isn't it incredible the way its surviving in all that wind?'

He looks up at the tree and then back at me. He continues wheeling and slumping.

I think about birds and their mothers and harsh environments.

On his way back my son comes and stands next to me. 'It isn't a birds nest', he says, 'it's a clump of Mistletoe'.

'Oh. Yes'.

We share a smile and get back into the car.