The Little Green House. Magpie#52

         The little green house had always been there for as long as Laura remembered. It was her second home and Mrs Cole was the grand mother she had never had. Laura visited her every day when she was growing up and now as she was away in University she visited each weekend she came home. But things had changed with Mrs Cole and now that Laura only saw her every other weekend, she noticed the differences more. Her mum had said Mrs Cole had what the old folk called, the Memory Stealer illness. And she certainly did look at Laura with different. eyes. Some times she called her Mary who had been her sister and who had died several years previously. Sometimes she thought she was Stella her daughter, who had left the little town when she married and rarely returned. 

        That last weekend Laura sat with Mrs Cole and looked at her hands, restless in her lap, but no longer busy cleaning or baking.. Her far away eyes said it all, she was in her own world.

‘What was she thinking?’ thought Laura. ‘Was she seeing the children playing outside, rolling out pastry or mixing one of those delicious cakes she had made through the years?’

 Mrs Cole smiled, not at anything but to herself. Long past memories only known to her.

‘Would you like me to make you a cup of tea’?  Laura asked.

‘I ‘m fine,’ answered Mrs Cole, ‘Your Aunty Mary will be here soon. Do you have to go back to your children, Stella?’ She said.

‘No I am here for you ’ Laura said, but Laura was just a little upset that after all this time Mrs Cole didn’t know who she was. But, as her Mum had said Mrs Cole wasn’t like her old self.

       That weekend was the last time Laura saw Mrs Cole in her green house. The next time she was home there were new people in it. But Laura wasn’t sad. There were children running around in the back garden laughing and playing, Mrs Cole would have loved that. 

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The Brick Pathway Magpie Tales#51

She tugged her scarf tightly round her face against the icy wind.

‘Not far now ,’she thought as she turned into the narrow passageway. She looked down at the worn bricks and wondered about all the other hundreds of feet that had trudged this way through London. Perhaps some of Dickens characters had stepped this way in his stories; Scrooge or Bob Catchit or even the Artful Dodger.

‘Such silly thoughts,’ she thought. Hearing footsteps behind her made her stop and listen and shivers went up her spine. Was someone following her? She wished she hadn’t let her mind wander to Dickens stories as the ghost of times past seemed now to be in every dark corner. She glanced behind her. It was quiet, the sound of footsteps had stopped. She started to run and her scarf flew off behind her.

‘Hey,’ some one shouted.

But she didn’t stop as she raced toward the lamp shining at the end of the brick path. She quickly joined a group of people all jostling along the main pavements and walked at their pace, hoping she had left whoever it was behind her.

The stranger looked down at the scarf he held, that the young woman had dropped. It was rather nice and would suit his Mum nicely. He wouldn’t tell her where he had picked it up. She would be quite cross if he told her he had taken the short cut, the brick path passageway. According to his Mum wicked women hung around there waiting for a young chap just like himself. That woman who ran off in front of him, who dropped the scarf was probably looking for someone just like himself. It had been a scary time when she had looked behind her but he had ducked into the shadows out of sight.

‘ Yes....... Mum will like this scarf,’ he thought.
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Magpie Tales#45

I ‘d love to be able to tell of wonderful Christmases when I was little but my memories of them isn’t all love and joy. Except for one.....I was brought up in a home that had very little money and so Christmas wasn’t like it is for some children today. But I had one aunt (my late mother’s eldest sister ) who was determined that I would not lose out. One year she bought me a dolls pram. I can see it now, red with a hood. My other aunt had made a pillow and covers for it and it became my best present I had ever been given. We walked into the one street town after Christmas day, me pushing my red pram with my best doll sitting up in it. I think I was four or five years old. We met my aunt’s friend Jenny, who worked for the local Dr and she had a present for me, she quickly put it under the cover in my dolls pram, with the words, ‘ssshhh don’t show anyone look at it when you get home.’


It was something I had never seen before, and it tasted of sunshine and it was so sweet. It was a large orange and part of the first to arrive in Britain after the Second World War. How strange that this is the best memory I have of Christmas of when I was a child. How different it is for today’s child, what would they say if someone had given them a gift considered precious and it turned out to be an orange? Somehow, I don’t think they would have been as delighted as I was that day and when I think back I can almost smell that orange.

But isn’t that the same as Christmas is today, a simple story of a simple birth but so precious but that is overlooked in the mad scramble for card giving, presents that cost much too much and children who want everything and more. Too much rushing around, too much food and too much fuss and we forget what it is all about.

Perhaps my lowly Christmas’s  all those years ago were the best.

Snow. Magpie Tales#43

What does snow mean to you?

To me, it is a cosy time inside.

Porridge for breakfast,

And toasted tea bun mid-afternoon.

Warm gloves and long stripy socks.

Hats and big coats.

Watching the snow flakes,

Feeding the birds.

Walks in the meadow with the dog,

Fun in the drifts against the hedge.

Laughing at snow balls thrown.

Home again to homemade soup.

Being retired has so many wonderful days!

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We are snowed in at my house in Essex so this is very real to us!

Magpie Tales#42 The Cup

She knew it was a mistake as soon as Veronica opened the door, but being the soft hearted person she was, she entered and hugged the tall woman.
‘I have the kettle on, would you like a biscuit or are you still trying to lose weight. I can’t see that you have lost any.’ she said.
‘A biscuit would be nice, thank you, I rushed out of the house as soon as I got your phone call. What is it, is there some thing wrong? asked Hannah.
‘No nothing wrong I just wanted to show you my latest cup. I was presented with it at the tennis club on Friday for being the best player of the year. Veronica smirked as she spoke and looked proudly at the new cup with its ribbons tied to the handles.

‘That’s wonderful,’ said Hannah quietly, thinking how slim Veronica looked.
There’s to be a dinner in my honour next week, would you like to be my guest, you are my best friend after all.’
‘I’ll check with Jim but I think that will be all right.’

Hannah nibbled at the rich shortcake biscuit, thinking that of course Veronica didn’t need to buy the dry tasteless ones she did. All that sport over the years had kept her slim and trim, while, she was still carrying her baby weight after Sam, who was now a year old.

The latest cup had been given pride of place on the mantle shelf, which was bowed with the weight of all ten cups that Veronica had won over the years.
‘Do you think you will ever rejoin the tennis club?’ asked Veronica standing in front of Hannah and looking down at her friend nervously nibbling the biscuit. Hannah looked uncomfortable and thought how the other members of the tennis club would look at her fat figure with distain.

It had never been Hannah’s idea to join the club and she didn’t enjoy the fierce competition nor the out of the fashion books looks, that the other women had. Veronica loved the whole atmosphere and played hard and to win as all her cups showed.

‘So you think you’ll be ok for Friday?’

‘I don’t see why not, but wouldn’t you like one of the single men at the club to be your partner?’

‘Not likely, too chav for me, didn’t you see that Dave in that track suit the other day, it must have been last years M&S style.’ Veronica chortled as she spoke and her narrow face soured as she just thought of Dave.
‘I’ll see you Friday at 6:30 sharp,’ said Veronica as she waved Hannah off.

Hannah let herself in her own house. ‘Hello my love, and how was the sporty Veronica, what was the emergency?’ Jim smiled as he hugged Hannah and took her coat.

‘She wanted to show off her latest trophy, a huge cup with handles and streaming with ribbons. I felt my usual dumpy self next to her. Honestly I think she does it deliberately just to make me feel small and fat.’ Tears rolled down Hannah’s face as she spoke. 'And I am sure she has only asked me to go so people will look at her and pity me.’ And she sobbed even more.

‘That’s it then I won’t have you upset any more by that so called friend Veronica, I ‘ll phone and say Friday is not convenient.’

‘No please don’t, she’ll be telling everyone that you decide what I can or not do, if I don’t go I ‘ll tell her myself. Replied Hannah and changing the subject she said, ‘How ‘s Sam did he go off to sleep all right?’

‘Sleeping like a baby,’ laughed Jim ‘Come lets go and look at our little boy, he’s our trophy and much better than any old cup!’

Magpie #41

‘Only eleven more,’ she said.

‘You could do that in two months, Clara said.

‘I know I could, if I tried really, really hard,’ Said Laura.

Thoughts rushed through her mind. Once she reached that target weight all her troubles would be like sand in the wind. She’d be beautiful, people would look at her differently. No longer a blob stuffed into clothes much too small, no more trying to get her battle ship of a body into those magic knicks. She would find the man of her dreams too. Just eleven pounds that’s all.

She looked down at the small plate with the cream cake and the large late´ coffee. ‘I ‘ll start after this cake,’ she said. ‘Or I could chuck the cake and start now.’ It was so hard, so hard to give up the foods she liked. Already one hundred and two pounds lighter and the clothes she wore now, were more fashionable but she needed those eleven pounds more, to be really slim. She absent mindedly bit into the soft squelchy bun, cream oozed out of the side and the sweet icing stuck to her top lip. ‘If only I could lose those eleven pounds.’ she said and she swallowed the soft sticky sweet bun, ‘only eleven.’

Would you like another bun?’ asked Clara,’ they’re priced three for two.’

‘Oh alright then, pity to miss a bargain.’ Said Laura.

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The necklace. Magpie Tales#40

‘Hi Mum, have you seen what Aunt Elsie has given me? She said she bought it in India when she was there thirty years ago, do you think it might be valuable? Louise smiled as she unwrapped the necklace from the yellowing tissue. ‘I always liked it and at last she has said I could have it, when I asked before, she said no, she said it is hundreds of years old ’


‘Let me see, Oh it’s horrid, is it one of those Indian Gods? The pearls look almost purple and that square pendant looks as though it might be gold. Quite unusual but I think really ugly,’ said Louise’s Mum.’ It’s not like my sister Elsie to give something of value away, I should imagine it’s just some gold coloured metal.

‘Well I love it,’ said Louise. ‘I am going to my room to try it on with some tops to see which ones suit it.’ In her room Louise paraded in front of the mirror admiring the necklace around her neck.

At her own home Elsie thought about her niece, such a pain that girl always asking for things, she nagged and nagged for that necklace, hope she likes it. It will teach my prissy sister and her precious daughter a lesson. Why couldn’t I have had a child, I would have loved her or him but I guess it wasn’t to be, and instead I have travelled all over the world collecting all manner of peculiar things, that necklace was supposed to be cursed.

Louise’s Mum busy in the kitchen with the radio on full blast, didn’t hear the weak banging coming from Louise’s bedroom. Louise lay on the floor, the pearls tight round her neck and the monkey god on the pendant swished its monkey tail. As Louise struggled for her last breath, the pearls changed colour and the monkey with his rat face smiling turned his face again to the east and to the rising sun. He would live again for another hundred years.

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