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.

                                        ΞX1 ΞX1 ΞX1 ΞX1 ΞX1 ΞX1 ΞX1 ΞX1

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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The Chicken Magpie Tales#39

I used to love to hear the stories my grandmother told when I was young. At one time, she and my grandfather and their five girls lived in a house that once was a pub called the Lamb and Flag. It was on the side of the mountain road that led to the village called Llangynwyd, which is just two miles from Maesteg, South Wales. One of the stories she told me was about a chicken they had which limped and walked very slowly, so was easy prey when the other chickens decided to attack and peck her, which evidently is what chickens do to weaker chickens. But, as she was a good layer my grandmother said she used to catch her and pen her for her own safety. Then she stopped laying so was killed for the pot. When my grandmother was cleaning out her innards there in her stomach was an open safety pin which obviously was pricking her as she walked and hence her slow stagger. Poor chicken must have pecked it up in her greedy way and then suffered all the rest of her life.
I loved that tale and must have heard it a hundred times over
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Grave Headstone. Magpie Tales# 38

In the days when girls were still little girls when they were 16 or more, a school friend and I used to visit local cemeteries and collect the verses written on gravestones. We set of mid Saturday morning with a paper bag each containing our picnics. Mine was always the same, a strawberry jam sandwich, a Wagon Wheel biscuit and a small bottle into which my gran had decanted some pop.
The one cemetery was right outside the town where we lived and we cycled side by side to it, along shady leafy lanes chatting  as we rode. We loved the big head stones and the ones with angel statues; the graves of babies who hardly lived before they were placed in their stone cold cots of earth. But one grave I wouldn’t go to see, although my friend used to have a quick look. It was almost that if I didn’t look at it, it wasn’t true and it hadn’t happened. Still they were happy days and I loved the friendship and the bike ride.

I go to the same cemetery now each year and leave flowers on that grave, the one I wouldn’t look at when I was young. The grave of the mother I never knew. She died when I was two, and I cry. Here I am a grown woman and I weep arranging flowers lovingly in the pot that bears her name;

Eunice Harris.

1916-1945

Wife of James

Mother of Christine.

That’s all it says...

The Mirror Magpie Tales# 37

The mirror had always been on the hall wall.


It was there so she could glance at herself.

A quick look before she answered the door.

Then one day it showed too much,

Too much, not how she thought she looked

But deep laughter lines, the turkey neck, rheumy eyes.

So she took it down, shoved it behind a book case

Immediately she was back to her youth

Firm neck, bright eyes and smooth cheeks.

Who needs the truth she thought,

As she hobbled to open the door.

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The Door Magpie Tales#36

‘Don’t you shout at me!’
‘Why not, you’re shouting at me?’
‘I want this room cleared up before tea time, do you hear me?
‘It doesn’t need it, I like it like this.’
‘How can your grandmother stay in all this mess?’
‘It not a mess, it’s how I want it and I didn’t ask Grandma to come, why does she have to anyway, she has her own place and likes it there.’ I could hear the frustration in my sister’s voice.
‘By tea time!’ I heard my mother say as she rattled down our stairs.

I looked at her red angry face and tried hard to remember how it was, how it used to be before Dad had been killed. Our lives had turned upside down that day and since then Mum wasn’t the same. She and my sister had these shouting matches and I just kept quiet and out of the way. Next week was Christmas day and once again we were having Gran to stay. I loved her and if I wasn’t in that tiny little box room she could have had my bed with all my love, but that room was so small even I had to duck under the sloping ceiling of the dorma roof and I was only nine. After the accident we had moved to this much smaller house, it was all we could afford and Mum had changed. Her way of smiling changed and the rows with my sister just got worse and worse.

‘I ‘m off out Mum,’ I called as I slipped out through the back doorway.
‘Where are you off to?’ she asked, ’Don’t forget I am doing a double shift and I want you back here by seven before I go.’
‘Just out’ I shouted as the door slammed behind me.
I tried not to look back at the sad door, paint cracked and worn, not how Dad would have had it, but he wasn’t here now and it was all Mum could do to feed us and pay the mortgage, whatever that was. She used to hunch her back over what she called her account book several evenings a week, trying to find the odd pound or two to make ends meet, as she said. I thought again about the job I had been promised, it would give us loads of money.

I had first met Stevie over the ’Banks.’ The ‘Banks’ was what the locals called the fields that ran alongside the old disused railways. Brambles and scrubby bushes filled it now and the very place us boys made our ‘dens.’ Stevie was older than the usual crowd that met up there and he used to pass around stub ends of fags. I never tried one, I knew if caught my Mum would kill me, so I always made an excuse that I had asthma and got out of it that way. Stevie made me feel grown up the way he talked about knowing people who could get you jobs that paid hundreds of pounds. Today he was going to give me all the ‘gen’ and he promised that I would be able to give my family the best Christmas ever with the money it would earn me.

We sat in a dip in the hillside shadowed now in the late afternoon. ‘It’s like this Morgan,’ he puffed, his cigarette hanging from his lip, ‘ I give you this parcel and you gotta take it to a house, and then I give you the money next time I see you’
‘Is that all?’ I asked, ‘there’s a catch somewhere isn’t there, I ‘ve got to get it to the other side of the city or even another town?.’
‘Nup, just a few streets away.’ he answered, ‘Nelson street.’
‘That’s near to where my Gran lives, I exclaimed, thinking when the job was done I could pop in and see her. ‘Right give me the parcel and I’ll be off.’
‘Oi, hang on a tick, you need to make sure it is well inside your pocket, you lose that and that’s the last job I get you mate.’ he smiled and the ash from his cigarette dropped onto his top. I hated the smell and hoped it would be gone off me before I got to Gran’s

The shadows had lengthened and I pulled up my hoody around my face to keep off the bitter wind. Gran lived in the close just off Nelson Street and this parcel had to go to 34 quite a way passed the turning into the close. I couldn’t wait to pop in to see her and get a hot drink.
I got to the turning in the road and suddenly heard someone.
‘Hey is that young Morgan?’ a voice called and I looked up at the beaming face of Greg He had been my Dad’s friend and at one time used to call round to see Mum but then suddenly he had stopped. I missed him, he was the link with my past before the accident and happier times.
‘Where are you off to in such a hurry?’ he asked.
Suddenly I knew I shouldn’t mention the parcel or where I was going.
‘Just to see Gran’ I lied.
‘I am going that way myself so come on, too cold to hang around.’ he said.
We stopped outside Gran’s and I stood by the gate and then dodged back into the front garden and watched as he walked off down the street. I waited till he had gone, feeling relieved that he had, but I felt as though I had betrayed my Dad lying to Greg,
I turned and was just about to rush off when my Gran’s door opened and she called out to me, ‘Come on in, I thought it was you, although with that hood pulled up, you could have been one of those horrors that live down Nelson Street. I am still cleaning the eggs off my top windows after the little buggars threw them at Halloween.’

‘Hi Gran,’ I called from the gate way, ‘ I ‘ve just got to see someone and then I ‘ll be there, have you got enough milk for hot chocolate, I am freezing.’
‘Don’t be too long, its dark and too many odd people around these days.’ she said.
I started to run, worried now by the threat of who knows, the weird and odd people that Gran was always talking about and I was cold.
Number 34 was dark, unlike the other houses that had Christmas lights or decorated trees in their windows and I hesitated at the end of the path and looked across at the corner shop, its lit windows radiating onto the pavement. It was then I saw Greg standing watching across the street, ‘Oh no,’ I thought.
He had his partner with him, a young WPC and they looked serious as they shuffled their feet trying to keep warm, but always keeping their eyes looking around.

I don’t know how I knew but I did, the parcel delivery was some sort of illegal thing, I was going to be caught passing drugs or something. I ducked into the shadows of the hedging that surrounded number 36 and looked back at 34. I was near to tears and I fingered the packet in my pocket. It would have been so easy to just sneak through the hedging to the house and not be seen by Greg. I knelt down and the rotten smell from under the hedge hit my nostrils, like a thousand cats had peed there and I wanted to pee as well now. I felt the tears start to roll and my knee snagged down on the soft earth. It was cold and I thought of my Dad lying in cold earth, shot by some lousy thief that night. My brave, happy Dad, downed by one bullet that day and I gulped as the tears flowed.
Suddenly Christmas lights from 36 lit up the garden and Greg was standing there in front of me, I collapsed down onto the sodden earth and all I wanted was to die like my Dad. I had let him down.

Later as I drank hot chocolate in my Gran’s front room bathed and wrapped in her old dressing gown, Greg explained that they were on the beat just doing their job. He had taken the packet from me and it wasn’t drugs but a love note from Stevie with a ring for Tracy. It seemed her Dad didn’t like Stevie but Stevie wouldn’t be deterred, he loved Tracy and so that’s why he had hatched up this plot. My payment would have been a couple of pounds, as Stevie didn’t have the hundreds of pounds he had promised me. Stevie had told all when Greg had texted him on my phone to say I had been taken ill, not that I had been delayed because I had peed my pants!
‘I want to give the ring to Tracy’, I said,’ I don’t want any money from Stevie, ‘I just want to do it.’ and I struggled into some old jeans left at Gran’s for emergencies and this was just that.
Greg watched me as I ran down Nelson Street at top speed and delivered the parcel. Tracy opened it right away and her face lit up brighter than any Christmas lights I had seen that night, ‘Dad, Dad’ she shouted excitedly … ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’
Gran and I pulled our crackers as Mum sat down, her face smiling and the roast chicken steaming in the middle of the table waiting for my sister to carve. At 17 she felt it was time Mum gave her more responsibility and carving the chicken was her first grown up job, Mum had said, and we all laughed and I laughed the loudest. My sister had her room tidy ready for Gran and we were happy.

Tracy had persuaded her Dad that Stevie was ok, and he was over the moon, so much so that Stevie had called round to see me a couple of days before Christmas and wanted to do something to pay me, but I said no. My Dad would have been proud of me, the way I had approached Greg that night and confessed to being a drug runner, well I thought I was! But Stevie did come up trumps as he worked for a builder and the next day he and a mate had called round with scrapers and paint and Mum had the shiniest yellow front door in our street. The best Christmas present I could have had she had told him, after the scent and soap I had given her, and the hair do my sister had paid for and of course tidying her room really tidy for Gran!

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Autumn Magpie Tales#35

She looked down at her wrinkled hands, the autumn years of her life had truly come. ‘So this is it,’ she thought, ‘I might as well give in and be my age.’ She put on her glasses, a real necessity these days. There were things to do and her household goods to pack up. The residential apartment she was moving to was on the ground floor, so she would still have garden to look out at and she had been assured that she could have some pots of plants just outside her door. It was with a heavy heart that she started sorting her nik-knacks, all collected over the years. Photographs of herself and her beloved Will went into the box labelled ‘To take’ and books and lots of other bits into the boxes labelled ‘Charity shop.’ It was hard to make the decisions of what to take, she knew there wasn’t a lot of room in the little apartment. ‘They’re only things,’ she kept telling herself, but they held so many happy memories. She was stirred from her thoughts by the shrill tone of her phone.

The voice at the other end filled her heart, so there was no room for those memorable items she thought she would miss.
‘Hello grandma, Mummy asks are you packed yet? I can’t wait till you are living just round the corner from us, can I really have tea with you some days after school?’
‘Yes love, I am nearly ready, tell Mummy that the van is here to pack the furniture that’s left for me to take to my new home. I am looking forward to having you near too, I won’t have to worry about driving on that motor way I can just walk a short way, meet you from school and have a lovely time with you.
I can teach you to knit and crochet and sew, just like I taught your Mum, these old hands can still do that. It is going to be just wonderful.'

The Oil Lamp. Magpie Tales #34

The bus seemed to take longer than usual and it was cold too. I kept thinking of Aunty’s casseroles and how she always made one for my first night there. She was such a dear and I loved going to her for some of my weekends from Uni, she made a fuss of me and since Mum and Dad had split up, I needed a fuss of me rather than listen to Mum moan about Dad and then when I was with Dad, he moan about her.

'Wouldn’t be long now, 'I thought. I had my overnight bag ready to hop off the bus, which stopped at the end of Aunty’s road. As you walked into Aunty’s road, which was a cul-de-sac, her house faced you and you could see her old oil lamp shining in the upstairs landing window. Tonight I suddenly realised it wasn’t there, I wondered what had happened to it. That had been there for as long as I could remember, and when I was little I remembered watching her clean and polish it till the brass shone so you could see your face in it. Then she would trim the wick and fill it with spirit. On winter nights there it was like a lighthouse beaming out to welcome Uncle home from work. Of course he had died years ago but she still put it in the window.

Before I could even ring the bell, the door opened.

‘Come in come in out of the cold, you look perished,’ she said

I could smell something delicious and my empty tum rumbled.
‘Hello Aunty, you look well, have you been away somewhere to catch the sun?’

‘No I haven’t,’ she said quite firmly. ‘I ‘ll make you a cuppa and tell you what happened.’

‘I’ll just pop to the bathroom first Aunty, I won’t be long.’

At the top of the stairs, I looked at old pine chest in front of the landing window covered with a large tablecloth, which I had never seen before. Aunty had always polished the top of that chest and the smell of the polish was all part of the memories of when I had visited through the years. And no lamp, ‘perhaps it was broken,’ I thought.

The cups and saucers were all laid out on the kitchen table. In the brighter light of the kitchen Aunty’s face looked as though she had been out in a very hot sun.

‘Your hair looks nice, have you had it cut Aunty?’

‘No I haven’t nor have I been out in the sun, I had a bit of an accident,’ and with that she started to chuckle. ‘I shouldn’t laugh it could have been really serious,’ she added. ‘I wanted to see that new man down the road, he moved in a couple of weeks ago so when I saw him going out when evening, as I was putting out my milk bottles, I went up stairs to have a peep at him out of the landing window. I was leaning into the window and my hand caught the lamp and it tipped over, and the spilt spirit flared up and singed my eye brows, burnt the front of my hair and this is what it did to my face. Then even worse the wooden chest with all that polish on it caught fire too and I started screaming.’

‘Oh no Aunty what happened then?’ Have you seen a Dr what about creams for your poor face.’ I said.

‘No nothing like that, Cliff, that’s his name, the new man I mean, anyway he heard me screaming and saw the flames in the window and arrived up stairs, as in my nosiness I had left the front door open, He rushed into my bathroom wet a towel and smothered the flames. Too late to save the top of the chest which is very badly burnt and you’ve seen my face and hair. And she started to laugh and so did I, it all seemed so funny.

‘So what about this Cliff, ‘ I asked, is he nice, have you seen him since?’

‘Can’t get rid of him, he’s a real pesk. He is coming round later with my lamp as he insisted taking it to repair it. She said, but she was smiling as she was telling me and I could see she was quite pleased.

With that the door bell rang and I heard a key turn in the lock.
‘Hello, are you there my lovely Jean? Its me---he your brave fire fighter’

‘Stop that silly talk Cliff, my niece Jenny is here, she doesn’t want to hear that sort of silliness.’

I looked at Aunty’s face as she spoke and she looked so happy I wanted to hug her.

‘You can come in the kitchen, its chicken casserole and there’s enough for three, but I don’t want any silly talk in front of Jenny.

She served up three plates full and we all three sat down after Cliff had shaken my hand and winked when Aunty wasn’t looking our way. So the lamp had led my Aunty to happiness after all those years when she had used it to lead people safely home to her . She smiled at Cliff as she passed the full plate to him and her reddened face looked even redder when  she served me and I winked at her.
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Perfume. Magpie Tales#33

‘Come on you,’ shouted Greg to his wife, as he bounded up the steps to the pretty, white painted clapperboard house, ‘you can see the lake from the top step, it’s glorious.’

‘I am nearly nine months pregnant you know, so running up steps to see the view is just about outside my capabilities,’ Clara replied. But she was smiling as she spoke so Mike knew she was happy.

‘It is lovely here,’ she said, ‘perfect for our new home and this little bundle of joy when he or she arrives. I love it already.’

Going into the house, she screamed with delight, ‘Oh look Greg, Aunty has arranged our throw over the settee that was with the rest of our bits and pieces delivered last week, so it looks like home already. I am so happy we decided to take up her offer of staying here.’ She sat down rubbing her extended tum and whispered, ‘We’re here little one, our new home.’

They unpacked the car, Greg now being careful of his very pregnant wife, carried their bags up the three steps and into the one big open plan room.

Later that evening they sat together with scented candles and just the glow of the sunset lighting the room.

Greg left the early next morning for the city, it was only an hour’s drive and before he left, he made sure Clara had her phone charged and there was a signal.
‘I’ll be fine, Aunty is only a short walk up the lane if I need anything. I am so looking forward to sitting outside on the veranda with my knitting and enjoying the view don’t worry about me I’ll see you later this evening.’ Said Clara.

‘Well take care and don’t do anything silly like unpacking the boxes, I ‘ll be back by six to do it all and you can sit and give the orders as to where you want things.’ Greg smiled and he leaned over to kiss his wife.
Clara dozed in the sunshine and feeling overly tired after getting herself a small snack for lunch went into the bedroom to lie down. Strangely the scent of the candles were still in the room and she soon was asleep. The room darkened as clouds scattered across the sky.

She was woken by a sharp pain and caught her breath, ‘it can’t be the baby there’s another three weeks to go,’ she thought. But, as the pains increased she knew she was indeed in labour. ‘Where is Greg?’ she thought, ‘he should here.’ A very sharp pain caused her to cry out and she struggled to get off the bed and find her phone. But another pain worse than before caused her to flop back on the bed. She closed her eyes and tears welled down her face. ‘Where are you Greg’ she cried out loud.
Through her half open eyes she could see that here was someone there beside her, wearing a delicious perfume that made Clara feel extra-ordinarily happy and she knew what ever happened she’d be fine. The quiet lady held her hand and bathed her head as the pains increased. The scent seemed to waft over her and gave her a feeling of complete calm. As the pains got to point where Clara was ready to push the lady murmured encouragement to Clara. ‘Push now Clara, your baby is coming, she wants to be born.’ With one last effort the baby slipped out and Clara now spent, lay back on the pillows.

‘Give her to me,’ she said and the lady carefully placed the baby in Clara’s arms. ‘Is it a girl?’

‘No, not just a girl she is a beautiful girl.’ Was the reply.

Clara closed her eyes, her arm tightly round her little one.

And then there was running footsteps and Greg’s urgent call.

Clara, Clara where are you? Your phone is off are you all right, Aunty has been trying to phone you for hours.’

The bedroom door flung open and there to Greg’s surprise was his wife and a baby.

‘I ‘m fine, someone was here and she helped me, can’t you smell her perfume?’ She was so kind and quiet and she had on this wonderful perfume. Is she there in the living room I want to thank her’

‘There’s no one here, who was she?

‘I don’t know, but she was so graceful and loving and kind and she helped me, look at your new daughter, I‘d like to call her Grace, is that all right?’

‘It’s perfect, you’re perfect, she’s perfect’ Greg almost shouted. There is no one else here now only us, only us and our perfect daughter Grace.’

Time Passing: Magpie#32

The sands of time slip away, I hate to be reminded of the fact that each and every day we get older. I hate that thought.  I look back when I was young and wonder why didn’t I notice that I was slim and pretty. Of course I am still pretty albeit older! Erum??

This picture prompt made me think of time passing, (too quickly these days.)

A very close friend died last February, very suddenly She was a christian, wife, mother, grandmother, friend, stitcher, quilter and crafter.  She was a faithful member of my online Ladies Group, 12Friends, that I run and have done for seven years.  She always mailed into the group at least once a day, sometimes twice or even more.  She was supportive, loving, kind and full of fun and brought a caring nature to the group.
Always there with good advice and prayers for any who needed it.
Her daughters and grand children miss her most dreadfully as we do, we were all still in shock weeks after, it was so sudden..
We miss you Mo and me especially, a good friend. Although I never met her, when someone writes to you every day for five years about their daily happenings, you know them and all their family.
Now, no doubt she is in God's arms and safe, but what a hole in our hearts she has left behind. Such a sad time.
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The apple Magpie Tales#30

The apple lay in the shadowed corner of the room and would have gone unnoticed if DC Allan hadn’t dropped his pen and bent down to pick it up. He called to the DI and he carefully picked it up and placed it into an evidence bag. Turning the apple over in the bag he could see that it had had a bite taken out of it.

‘It might be the murderer’s.’ the DI said and so a useful piece of evidence. The dead girl had been found earlier in the empty house.

Back at the police laboratory, technicians were already making a cast of the teeth marks on the apple. Certain characteristics of the bite marks were giving the technicians significant clues of how the teeth would have looked.

The bite showed that the eyeteeth were prominent and that the bottom left incisor was broken. The teeth belonged to someone with large top incisors and uneven bottom teeth. Over the period of weeks a jaw and full set of front teeth were being built up just from the cast of the bite out of the apple. The size of the jaw gave the investigators an indication of how big the head of the man  was and then how tall he was. Slowly but surely a picture was being put together to identify him. Photos of known criminals were scrutinized by DC Allen and several were picked out as possible murderers. John Oddy was a definite possible and his movements were tagged.

He was apprehended one night on the Thames embankment trying to chat up a girl who was probably listed in his mind as his next victim. Casts taken of his teeth identified him as the person who had left that discarded apple and John Oddy was charged a week later with the murder. It was with great satisfaction that DC Allan saw him found guilty and given a life sentence for the brutal killing of Alice White.

The clever forensic work of the hard working behind the scenes police making the cast of the apple, were the vital clues and evidence in bringing him to justice.

The House. Magpie Tales#29

When she first saw the house her heart sank, it looked so small and the old-fashioned front door with its dark cracked paint made it look worse.

The Estate agent opened the door and she went in and was pleasantly surprised as the hall was a nice size. But then the smell of the dog pee stained carpet reached her nostrils. ‘It was awful the whole house, no this small house was awful.’ She thought, 'how could she make this her home?'

There were three doors leading off the hall and she pushed open the first. The door had been made to look like a  mock oak door with a iron ring as its handle, she supposed to make it look olde-worlde and then her intake of breath could be heard by the agent as she stepped into it. ‘The room was a shock,’ he said, ‘to most prospective buyers,’ as it had been decorated to look like the inside of cottage, with mock oak beams. Now there were cobwebs hung like curtains from them. The whole effect was that of a dusty smelly room and the others were no better. The kitchen was small dingy galley shaped one, and the cupboards, that had been painted grey didn’t enhance it. The old cooker dripped black grease and she gasped at the sight of it.
This was what she could afford, the divorce had been acrimonious, and the outcome was that she was the one that came out of it the poorer.

She pushed aside the torn grey net curtain on window set in the kitchen door, and looked out at the garden. The rain was heavy adding to her mood of despair, but the garden was huge. The Agent turned the key in the lock and they both stepped out onto the narrow patio. The neglected garden had grass that was as ‘high as an elephants eye’ and she smiled as the words came into her mind... yes spring could bust out in this she thought. Three old and dead apple trees, a shed and a concrete garage meet her gaze. Beyond the back fence, there were fields and trees, giving the appearance of the house being set in the country although it was only a mile from the town centre. This would do, she could make this garden into the cottage garden she had always wanted. With the new trees, a new shed, the old garage pulled down it would be an even bigger garden and being south west facing it would be perfect.

She turned to the estate agent, whose face was serious, she was the umpteenth person to look round this house and he was used to the negative comments. Of all the houses on their books to sell, it was probably the worse and the hardest to sell.
‘I’ll take it,’ she said smiling and turned back to look again through her own imagination at a garden full of flowers, bees buzzing and a shed painted pale blue in the shape of a beach hut, oh yes this would do very nicely, very nicely indeed.

PS. This has an element of truth in it. It wasn’t the first house I bought after my divorce but the second one that I bought 17 years after it, when I decided to take early retirement. The garden took me only six months to get into shape with the help of friends. The house took four years and for two, I lived in rooms with bare plastered walls and broken marley tiled floors. But as I had had a new heating system put in straight away, at least I was warm and my friends flocked to see me and life was very good.
Now it is a beautiful modern house with the huge new built country kitchen I had always wanted and a new brick garage at the side of the house. I had the garage built well so that if I wanted it could be turned into a craft room and now moving back to that house after renting it out for four years, that is my intention, my own craft room!

Bath Time Magpie Tales#28

Bath time when I was little was a zinc bath tub in front of the coal fire in our living room, on a Saturday night. My grandmother’s old house didn’t have central heating so the upstairs bathroom was ice cold. My cousin the same age as myself lived with us, till she and her parents could afford their own house. We were bathed together.

There was a strict order of events. First we had to use the outside lav. I always left the door open, there were too many spiders lurking in the corners to shut it. I sat there swinging my legs and looked out at the stars and backs of the houses across the back lane. I sang the whole time and called out to my grandmother at intervals in case there was a bogie man hiding in the yard.

Then we were undressed together, her mother and my grand mother  helped us into the water. You had to be careful, as the side of the bath nearest the fire got extremely hot to touch and we wriggled around each other not to be the one to be that side. First we had our hair washed and rinsed and then we were scrubbed from head to toe with quite a hard brush. We were lfted out into warm towels and left to sit on the settee together while my gran and aunty carried the bath outside to empty it. When they had gone out of the living room my cousin and I always jumped down and in our birthday suits played ‘Hands knees and bumps a daisy.’

Screaming in fun when we bumped our bums. Once our hair had been dried and plaited so that it would have a bit of a kink in it for Sunday chapel, we had a spoonful of Syrup of Figs, which I hated, before we were tucked up in a bed warmed by hot water bottles.

Yes, we were only bathed once a week! Unlike today, when we all shower every morning and on the hottest of days more than once a day to cool down. A different generation, although it seems to me not that many years ago.

Old Pipe Magpie# 27

The view was breath taking and everything in her stopped to take it in. The last few weeks had drained her deep down to her very soul and now with the beauty of the Italian lake in front of her, she knew she had been right to come here, to heal her mind. She took a look around the room, it was perfect and the pastel shades that made up the furnishings were soothing too. She opened the old oak wardrobe and started to hang up her clothes, too big now after all the weight she had lost, but in her hurried escape from London there was no time for shopping and as she thought, 'Italy was the country of haut couture, there was bound to be a small fashionable boutique in the local town. Money was no longer a problem what was the point of saving it?'

The small garden around the cottage had a table and chairs set out on a raised paved area overlooking the lake. Sitting there with the scent of the garden and the lake shimmering in the sunlight all her worries and cares seemed to be far away. 'Breathe in that air,' she thought, 'it could heal it was so clear and pure.'

The cottage was an old boathouse and part of a larger estate, perhaps there was a boat she could use, although would she be strong enough to row? she wondered.

She could see the steps down to the landing stage that protruded under the boathouse and making her way down them under the boathouse, she saw the cobwebs of years draped like curtains from  white beams, washed by the water of the lake. And there in the corner an old corroded water pipe, dirty and rusty. It was disgusting in contrast and spoiling the beautiful surrounds, just like the growth inside her; spoiling her, repulsive and old. She shivered and tears trickled down her face.

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The watering can.Magpietales #26

My grandfather had a galvanised watering can at his allotments; somewhere he took me through the long summer holidays. He wheeled me there in his wheelbarrow down the main road and then down a grass filled lane. It was a big five barred gate into the allotment and you could see his shed with number 27 painted on it in green paint from the gate. As soon as we got there he took off my clean dress and put a hessian sack on me instead, my dress was hung up inside the shed on a nail.
The days there were long and sunny and I played by the water butt. I was too small to lean over it and fill his watering can so he did that for me and then I walked slowly between the rows of vegetables and soft fruit trees, dragging the heavy can and spilling out the water as I went.

‘Thats right Cariad,’ he used to say. When it was midday we ate a jam sandwiches and drank the cold sweet tea from his little can. I think it was the one he had when he was down the mines. They were such happy days and we arrived home in time for our evening meal, laden with veg and black currants. My dress was inspected by my grand mother, and Granddad and I were relieved that it passed the clean test, except my knicks were filthy where I used to sit in the dirt to play. My days at my granddad's allotment stopped when I was eight when he died. How I was to know then that they would stay in my memory forever and ever, as being some of the happiest days in my life.

The Lock Magpie Tales#25

She walked back along the pavement to see him again, there he sat with his head down… ‘Come on,’ she thought, ‘lift up so I can see that strong chiselled chin!’ But he was writing away and obviously engrossed in whatever he was doing.
She noticed him the first time she had past the Estates Agents office window weeks ago, when she had seen her own reflection and admired slim self.
It had been hard to lose that extra weight but it was worth it, she must remind Jeannie not to cook that stodgy food again, she thought.

The young Estate Agent’s table was side wards on to the window so she could see him sitting there, straight backed and rather nice looking and tanned she noted. He had noticed her too, the girl with the shiny hair that bounced as she walked and who looked rather prissy.
The rain had started and she walked quickly to her car wondering how she could get to meet him… ‘Hang on,’ she thought as she drove off from the car park, ‘he’s an Estate Agent I could go in and pretend I am looking for a house.’

When she arrived back at the flat, Jeannie was already getting their evening meal and looking up at Patsy, she asked..’ Well did you see him again?’
‘I know what to do,’ she blurted out excitedly, ‘ We are going in to say we want a new house!’
‘Hang on there Patsy, what do you mean we?’
‘Well you want to help me, don’t you?’ she pouted.
‘Come and eat and we’ll talk about it,’ Jeannie replied. They talked as they ate and Jeannie agreed this time and once only that she’d go with Patsy.
‘So its all sorted for Saturday then?’ Patsy asked.
‘I’ll only come this once, ‘ Jeannie answered. ‘ And I mean that!’

Patsy smiled to herself, ‘good ‘ol Jeannie,’ she thought. She and Jeannie had been friends for several years.They had first met in college and were drawn to each other immediately. Jeannie wasn’t a pretty girl but her beautiful blue eyes made up for that. She had always been motherly towards Patsy and Patsy used to laugh at Jeannie’s need to please people.

Patsy was arrogant enough to think that she would bowl over Mr Estate Agent right away and the deceit of saying they wanted a new house would be forgotten. She drifted off to sleep thinking about him and woke the next day, Saturday full of expectation. She took a lot of care with her makeup brushed her hair till it shone and she looked at herself admiringly in the full length mirror, ‘Yes. she thought, ‘since she had insisted that Jeannie did some healthier meals she looked a lot better.‘ She dismissed the thought that she sometimes got herself a Big Mac in her lunch hours, how could lunches make you fat, every one knew it was the food you ate in an evening that was the cause of weight gain. Jeannie looked quite nice too and Patsy noticed she was wearing her better pair of jeans, the ones that made her big hips look quite slim.

‘Right ladies what can I do for you?’ he asked, as they ventured in through the Agents door.
‘We want a new flat, well actually it could be a new house.’ said Patsy, ’What  have you got to offer?’ Patsy noticed his name badge… Vince, …… um….she thought nice name!

‘Have you thought about price?’ he asked and his smile lit up his eyes.

Jeannie gave an upper limit and Patsy watched as he squatted down to get out some files from the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. What a tight little bum he had, she thought and blushed just thinking about it!
He stood up with a handful of leaflets and indicated for them to sit down.  They both sat on the edge of the chairs, Jeannie leaning over the desk to look at the house photos he had spread on the desk in front of them.

Patsy just looked at him and was a bit disappointed to see a thin balding patch on the crown of his head as he too leaned over. Never mind she thought the rest of him is gorgeous, right down to his feet. ‘He is so handsome and the man of her dreams’ …. She thought.

‘Would you like your daughter to see the ones with good sized second bedrooms Miss Frost?’ he asked and Patsy realised that he was talking to Jeannie and that he thought she was Jeannie’s daughter!
‘ I am not her daughter, ‘ she said quickly and rather sharply. ’We are just friends.’
‘Aaaa-ha I see,’ said Vince.
‘No you don’t at all, we are simply friends.’ and Patsy coloured as she reiterated the statement.
‘That’s fine, we get simple friends in here all the time.’ he laughed.
‘No you don’t see, we are friends that just happen to share a flat for financial reasons.’ Patsy almost yelled, her face now coloured red in anger.

This was not going at all as she had imagined and she wanted to leave but Jeannie was looking at one house he had shown her, with more earnest than Patsy thought necessary. Jeannie turned to Patsy. ‘What do you think of this one,’ she asked. And Patsy could have sworn that Jeannie winked at Vince!

‘Hang on Jeannie, have you forgotten why we came in here?’ she screamed and held back a few tears… what was wrong with Jeannie she thought, why was she being so serious about buying a house, they had come in so that she, Patsy could get to know Mr Estate Agent, Vince. He had been in her dreams for weeks now and she loved him!
She noticed how he was looking at Jeannie, the bitch, she was flirting with him, how dare she, Vince was hers, he was in her stars!  Then she saw his hand close over Jeannie’s and she nearly choked with rage. It was she who he should be taking notice of, it was she, who was the gregarious, sensitive and witty one, not Jeannie!
How could Jeannie do that to her?
Then she heard him say, ‘It would be perfect for a family, it’s a beautiful house, I am so glad you like my choice for you.’
Patsy saw Jeannie smile shyly with those bloody blue eyes,‘ I want lots of children, this house would be, as you said, perfect for a family.’ she simpered and Vince smiled back.
So ’What now Miss Frost, or can I call you Jeannie?’ he said ‘As he offered her the key to the house in the brochure. And Jeannie smiled her motherly smile back as she sighed with contentment.

How was Patsy to know that Jeannie and Vince had met weeks ago and this meeting today was pay back day for Jeannie. All those years that Patsy had taken her for granted and sponged on her were over, Vince and Jeannie were buying that house together, to set up home together, they were to be married she told Patsy.

And with that Patsy left the office, screaming how Jeannie had stolen her man, ‘Horrible people, horrible, horrible,’ she screamed inside her head ….. She stumbled across the road fuming and so mad thinking they could be right that moment putting the key into the lock of that house, poor me she thought, it should be me not Jeannie!

The Bed........ Magpie Tales#24

She lay on the bed and watched Steve walk from the shower room, the water droplets still on his thighs. He had told her last evening and now it didn’t seem real. How could it be that he was going? She thought back to the previous month when all was well and they had lain in that same bed together, their life raft he had called it, planning the week ahead. Their two children had been conceived in that bed, she had loved, laughed and cried with him in the same bed and now, he said he was going.

She knew when it had happened, she had watched him and their new neighbour’s daughter, when Elise had walked in that evening, Steve had stopped talking to their friends and looked at her, it was like electric. Claire had seen her too and watched Steve who stood as though he was in trance. His eyes followed Elise and she knew that he was watching. She flicked her hair off her face and tucked it behind her ears, it was the most graceful movement Steve thought that he had ever seen and he went towards her. From across the room Claire watched as her husband fell slowly in love with another woman and there was nothing she could do.

She turned on her side and watched as he struggled into his jeans his legs still damp.

‘Will we see you at the weekends, the boys will miss you?’

He turned and faced her, his face still the same face, but now to her a stranger.

‘Of course,’ he relied, ‘I ‘ll want to see them I will miss them too.’

It was on her tongue to say, ‘ So don’t go.’ But she didn’t, his heart was no longer hers and she didn’t want him without it.

From the bed she heard the front door close and with its closing, her life had closed too.

‘Perhaps I’ll get myself a new bed, this has too many memories,’ she thought.

But she knew she wouldn’t, if all she had, was memories she wasn’t going to give those up as well. She turned her face into the pillow smothering her sobs and wondered how she would face each day without him, perhaps he would remember how it was once, when she was the one that caught his glances, perhaps he’d tire of Elise, and when he did perhaps he’d come back, perhaps.......?

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Fire Extinguisher... Magpie Tales#23

Mary quickly drew back from the window in the Card shop as Doris crossed the road. She had that determined look of someone on a mission. Perhaps it wasn’t the card shop she was aiming for, but no the bell pinged as the door opened.

‘Hello my dear, are you hiding from me?’

‘Not at all,’ said Mary as she came from behind the counter. ‘How are you these days Doris?’

‘Well I mustn’t grumble, aches and pains that come with age, you know. But never mind about me, how is your husband, we haven’t seen him at the Writer’s Group for a few weeks now. Not since Willow used a fire extinguisher as a writing prompt. I found it hard myself to come up with an idea of what to write about, but Ted was always one of the first to imagine the most exciting of stories from the most mundane of things. But what could you say about a fire extingisher? It wasn't like your Ted to skip a story because it was too ordinary, he was a very clever writer, I thought.'she added.

‘I think you must be mistaken Ted has been every week since it first started,’ Mary answered. ‘He was one of the founder members.’ And she remembered exactly how Ted looked when he had left for the Writers Group the previous evening, his step had a spring in it as he walked down the front path, turning to wave good bye to her when he reached the gate. In fact, since he had been attending the group, he had almost seemed younger and a lot more attentive to her.

‘I was only saying to Evelyn that it has been awhile since Ted had been at the group and she agreed.’ insisted Doris. And it was Evelyn who remarked that that nice young Lily who wrote the poetry hadn’t attended for a while too. I expect its just coincedence and Ted's lost interest in our little writer's group'

Mary tried to look unruffled, but Doris’s words had stuck home and she knew that the old gossip had deliberately come to tell her about Ted’s absences at the group.
'Yes I think you're right there and he's been to the pub instead waiting for the right moment to tell me,...  and now you’ll have to excuse me Doris I have this card order to finish before I close the shop this evening,’ she said opening the door for her and turning the sign to ‘Closed.’

‘Good bye my dear,’ said Doris, ‘do tell your lovely hubby I was asking about him.’

‘I will, oh yes I will, I most definitely will’ answered Mary as she closed the door. She went into store room and sat down heavily on the chair shaking with anger. She didn’t know what made her more angry, the discovery that her husband was a no good two timer or the way Doris had looked when she was informing her about his non attendance. No wonder he always looked so happy when he was leaving the house on Tuesday evenings, and what about that weekend away last month when he was supposed to be going to a Mills and Boon Writer's Weekend Workshop?
'Very important,' he had said, 'for good male writers to get the women’s angle in stories and what better way than a workshop on writing Romantic Stories.'

Mary felt sick, I ‘ll give him Romantic Stories, she thought. ‘He’ll wish he had never heard of the Writers Group. I expect they all knew about him and that 'Miss.'Isn’t it true the wife is always the last to know.

Tomatoes Magpie Tales#22

Seductive harlot red colour,

Sensuous, slightly sweet flesh,

Bursting with juicy splendour.

Labelled the devil's fruit,

A sinful indulgence.

Bright ruby red,

With aphrodisiac powers

Scandalous.

The Love Apple.

Tempting,

Adam and Eve.

The forbidden fruit that lost Eden

Firecrackers Magpie Tales #21

The fire crackers going off hid the sound of the gun shot and it wasn’t till the man fell to the ground that anyone knew what had happened.  Suddenly the crowds of people separated as the police cars arrived.
Immediately they started to ask people nearby what they had seen and put up a police tape to cordon off the area. The body had fallen into the long grass along side the pathway and it seemed he was alone as no one was there with him.

Betsy had run as soon as she saw him fall, although she had no idea what had happened. They had gone to the open air Concert together and the firecrackers were part of the final act.

George was only a friend but he was always cagy as to what he did and she thought he was part of some dodgy business. She once had seen his emails when she had called around his flat and he had quickly closed the page, but not before she could see that it was in a foreign, language which she thought was Russian.

He did have a slight accent, but had always said he was from Yugoslavia and she had accepted that. Now she wondered where and what he was from. She, like those around her hadn’t heard anything above the firecrackers but went stone cold when George suddenly dropped down to the ground and before others around her had had a chance to see what had happened, she had quickly knelt and could see in the dim light of dusk that George was very much dead. She didn’t need to be told to leave right away and it was others around her that had phoned for the police.

Back in her own flat she switched on the TV to see if it had already been reported or was there a news flash but the programmes were as advertised and no news reports. She threw her jacket over the back of a chair and poured herself a stiff drink, she was still afraid and felt shivery. The chair was comfortable and with the drink and the stress of the event her eyes closed.

The ringing of her phone brought her out of a deep sleep and snatching it up she said a sleepy ‘Hello’

‘Is that Betsy,’ said the voice, in an accent not unlike George’s.

‘Yes,’ she replied rather hesitantly.

‘We saw you with George, before he was killed, did he give you the computer disc?’

‘What disc?’ she asked quite frightened.

‘Don’t mess me around, we know he passed it to someone and you were the last person with him. We will be calling around to collect it, so don’t try to leave we will find you. We found George and he was dealt with, so be ready’ said the man.

Bestsy dropped the phone and panic set in, she had no idea what this person was talking about. George was just a friend she had met in the coffee bar around the corner from her flat a few months ago, and it was he that suggested they went to the concert. Now she was in fear of her life. She grabbed her jacket and left the flat ready to get to the nearest police station, there were plenty all round London, so not too far to go. Putting her hands in the pockets of her jacket she felt something suspiciously like a computer disc and her heart started to thump. Along the road there was a taxi was just idling as though he had just dropped a fare ‘Betsy peered into the cab and asked, ‘ Are you free please?’

‘Ok hop in lady,’ he said.

‘Thank you, oh thank you, can you please take me to the nearest police station?’ She said as she sat down.

‘Now that might be a problem little Betsy,’ he said.

Betsy froze, she tried the door handle and it was locked, she was inside with the very people she was trying to get away from.

The taxi had stopped down a side road and the driver looked at her in his mirror.. ‘People like you shouldn’t mess with things you don’t know about. ‘ he said.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said.

‘Come, come,’ he answered, ‘Georgio had said he had an accomplice, he didn’t have the disc on him, that’s why he had to be eliminated... now unless you cooperate you will be joining him.’

Betsy started to scream and the driver turned in his seat and hit her across her head, she fell forward on to the floor of the cab hitting her head hard on the door handle.. ‘Silly girl’ he thought ‘Now how am I to explain to the big boss that I am the cause of two bodies and no disc? I just hope the police won’t find out too much about Georgio and it lead back to this girl.’ And he put his cab into gear and drove off towards the river. ‘That river had hidden other mistakes he had made,’ he thought and this one body will be just one more.

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Tooth brush Magpie Tales#20

Lying there heart thumping.

Light blazing in her eyes.

Hands over her,

Needle gleaming.

Pain pain!

Grinding and pulling,

Hands gloved and huge.

In her mouth

Pulling hard... tooth out.

Rinsing, spitting

Blood, red blood.

The folly of not,

Not using that brush.

The Knife #19 Magpie Tales

Two men have been found guilty of taking part in a random attack on two students, in which one was killed.


Peter Daniels died from a stab wound to the heart, his friend Alec Timms was taken to The Universal Hospital with serious head injuries. Matata Onokah, 19, from Barking and Terry Lowe , 25, from Ilford, were convicted of wounding with intent. The other youth who was 16 at the time of the attack admitted to murder.

Both the victims had been out celebrating Mr Daniel's 20th birthday on 16th January 2010 at Solo’s, a bar in Covent Garden, London. The young men left the bar at 0220 BST to wait to get a lift from Mr Timm's sister, when they were attacked by the three men. Mr Timms, from Chigwell, Essex, was punched in the face and head and was stabbed.

Mr Daniels, from Buckhurst Hill, Essex, had his jaw broken and was stabbed in the heart - he never regained consciousness.

The knife was retrieved at the scene of the crime and was described by the police as a 6 inch knife that was the sort that folded into its wooden handle. It has been traced back to a secondhand dealer with a stall in Brick Lane, who specialised in French items.

Even after a three-week trial, it was not clear why they were attacked, said Det Ch Insp Tony White.

Mr Timms a medical student at Durham University, described the attack as a '70-second frenzy'.

‘At the time of the attack, Pete and I were just standing there, chatting and laughing remembering our holiday and talking about his 20th birthday celebrations,’ he said.

‘We had just enjoyed a night out in Covent Garden with our friends and were waiting for a lift home from my sister when we were attacked. Seconds later Pete was dead. I still can't believe it.’

Lowe and Onokah, both labourers, were cleared of murder, but convicted of wounding with intent and causing grievous bodily harm.

A 17-year-old youth from Stratford, who was 16 at the time of the attack so cannot be named, has already pleaded guilty to murder and grievous bodily harm with intent.

All three are due to be sentenced on 23 June 2010.

The death of Peter Daniels is the 5th knife attack already recorded in 2010 in London.

(Reported by E. Lisse for The Evening Echo)

Magpie Tale#18 A Coronation Mug

It all had to be straight.

The desk, the laptop, paper and the office chair. She straightened the two baskets on the desk, the one basket with new paper and the other one ready for the typed story. She straightened the pot of pencils, in the coronation mug and the memories came flooding back. The mug had come from her Aunt’s china cabinet after she had died. It had stood in that cabinet for as long as she could remember, along with a George V plate, and a George V cup and saucer, the Elizabeth II coronation mug and a mug commemorating Charles and Diana’s wedding. Given the choice of which she had wanted, she had chosen that mug, because it reminded her of Edward VIII. It was her pencil pot and as she looked at it, she smiled. Such a romantic story of love when he gave up the throne for Wallace; she thought it would inspire her to write her romances that were her income. What would he have thought she wondered, if he knew that his short-lived life as King had been reduced to pencils in his commemorative mug? She shrugged and looked again at the blank screen, it was no good, her publisher had phoned and phoned for the next three chapters, and writers block had set in, not one single idea came to her. She moved the mug with the pencils; it wasn’t quite in the right spot. Everything had to be straight otherwise she couldn’t concentrate and the ideas wouldn’t come. She moved the corner of one of the baskets, it had to be straight, she looked at the mug again, and turned it so she could see the crest fully, was it in the right spot? Her fingers hovered over the keys and still her mind was blank. She fidgeted in the chair, was her laptop straight to the edge of the desk surface, perhaps she should sharpen all the pencils again? What was wrong, everything was straight but the ideas just wouldn’t come.

Magpie Tales #17 Stone Face

The stone face screaming stood in there,


Greenery all around.

Tall ferns couldn’t soften the raw look.

Small white flowers at the base smiled, but not she.

Did she die like that?

Is that why she is cast in stone?

Horrible, horrible stare.

A pair of Shoes. Magpie#16

Elise glanced in the charity shop window as she hurried along in the rain. There in the middle of a display of china was a pretty little blue jug, something she had been looking for to join her other blue china on her shelf in her kitchen. It was perfect and only a couple of pounds. She could just about afford that, now that she didn’t have a job money was tight. A bell rang as she pushed the door open and the woman behind the counter looked up from what she was doing and smiled at Elise.’ Can I help you,? She asked.

Elise pointed to the jug, ‘Could I look at the little jug please?’ She asked as she stood her umbrella in a tub near the door. The woman put the jug on the counter so Elise could examine it. The shop had a large box just in front of the counter filled with oddments and Elise had to lean across it to get near to the jug.

‘I am so sorry,’ said the woman, ‘I was just stock taking when you arrived and I moved this box so I could go through its contents, we have such a lot of stuff brought in, some days we just pop into boxes till we have a quiet moment to go through them all.’
Elise glanced down at the box’s contents; on the top tied together with string were a pair of black suede shoes. They looked vaguely familiar and she picked them up and looked at them more closely. Were they, could they be her Mother’s? Her sister had said she had got rid of a lot of stuff after her Mother’s death and Elise hadn’t bothered to ask where or what. The whole thing was too much to take after the funeral. Later she had wished she had taken something for herself..... to have, to hold , something that Mum had really liked, and she had loved those shoes. They were her favourite and she always had said that when she wore them she thought she was like a queen. They made her feel regal.

When Richard had arrived home from work tired and ready to eat, he was pleased that the smell of a casserole greeted his nostrils as he entered their kitchen. ‘Hello Love,’ he said,’ Something smells very nice.’

Elise smiled, ‘I have been slaving away all day cooking just for you.’

Richard smiled back and kissed her, it was their joke that Elise and cooking just didn’t go together, but a casserole was just one of the things she could do and while there was this rainy wintery weather, a casserole was their evening meal every evening. He sat down at the table while Elise brought the casserole to it.
Looking at the shelves behind her he noticed something strange on the shelf. ‘Is that a pair of shoes on the shelf?’ he asked.

Elise, her face lit with smiles, answered, ‘ No its a pretty blue jug, I saw it in a charity shop in the High Street and had to buy it. Its got quite a story , so come on eat up and I ‘ll tell you all about it.’

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Magpie Tales#15

The charm bracelet lay broken beside the pool of blood. ‘Strange the murderer didn’t take it, ‘ said Rizzlo, ‘Looks as though it could be worth a bit.’ He looked down at the face now drained of blood and the open eyes that stared up into the sky. Mitch shivered as she leaned over to look at the bracelet.

‘Another young girl killed before she had lived.’ She thought. The early morning noises from the city street was all around them, but the girl lying in her own blood heard nothing.

‘Get the morgue van here double quick before the heat of sun gets to her, at 30°C she is going to smell.’ He said into his phone and then to Mitch, ‘bag that bracelet so the ME can examine it.’

In the clear bag, Mitch looked at the bracelet, the little silver fishes shone and shaking them they jangled. Was the bracelet a present ? A Twenty First birthday present? A Congrats for passing your Exams? A Driving Test? An Anniversary? What tales could they tell.? And they, with their shiny, beady little eyes..... had they seen the perpetrator, the murderer, would they reveal who had done it?
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The Blue Willow Plate. Magpie Tales#14

The plate had always been on my grand mother’s dresser alongside some pretty flower patterned ones as long as I could remember. As I saved blue coloured china bits I would have loved to have that plate and thought it would look rather nice on the shelf in my room.

I always looked at it first when I visited her and sat at the side of the kitchen table so that I could look at it while we drank tea and chatted. She couldn’t remember where she got it from, somebody gave it to me when I was first married she once said. I asked her about the story behind the design and she had laughingly said.. ‘Oh you don’t want to know that, it is too sad and we are having a lovely chat. I want to know all about your new boyfriend. Happy talk not old stories.’
But I wanted to know and so I looked it up the internet at home, I thought it was a lovely story and that the star crossed lovers were forever together now as doves. ‘That’s why,’ I thought 'Cross stitched Wedding Samplers often have doves.'

When I called in to see Gran the following week, the plate was gone, it was no longer on the dresser. My grandmother was busily making the tea and getting out her cake tin. ‘Where’s the plate Gran?’ I asked hesitantly.
‘Oh that old plate I have put it away, I kept thinking about past times and the plate made me feel sad, I can’t be thinking sad things, not when I have my lovely granddaughter here with me to cheer me up.’ And she smiled as she spoke. But behind that smile I could see that Gran was near to tears.
‘I love that plate,’ I said, ‘especially now I know the story of Koong-se and Chang, is that the story that is making you feel sad?’ I asked.
That story is nothing compared to the truth and real life,’ she answered. And by the way she was putting out our cups and saucers and how her face was set in that stubborn way, I knew there was no point in asking anything further about it. Once I was back home I settled down to my college work. But I worried about Gran, she wasn’t herself that afternoon and I had never seen her like that before.
Gran died later that year and it was my mother and I who had to clear her house, as it had to be sold. It seems I was to receive some of the money from the sale. ‘Good old Gran,’ I thought, but really I would rather have had the plate. Mum and I went to Gran’s house a couple of days after the funeral and we started the sad task of sorting through Gran’s things. Everything was very tidy and almost as though she would walk into the kitchen at any moment to offer us tea and cake, in fact there was a fruit cake wrapped in grease proof paper in the tin. And packed ready to go to the Home where Granddad was, were his clean clothes for the following week. He had already been there for two years with Alzheimer's, Gran used to visit him every Sunday but he didn’t know who she was, so he wouldn’t miss her, not like I would.

Mum’s eyes were very wet and I had tears too. ‘Shall we have some tea first?’ said Mum, ‘I brought fresh milk with us.’ We sat at the kitchen table just like I used to with Gran. I looked up at the dresser where the plate used to be, another now in its place.
‘Do you know what happened to her Willow pattern plate Mum? I asked. ‘I would have loved to have had it.’
'I expect it will be around here somewhere,' she answered. We gradually packed up all the small things that Mum thought we’d like and the rest was packed for a charity shop. The furniture was being collected for a Charity that helped people out of work. ‘My dad won’t need any of this’ Mum said. ‘ So it might as well go to where it could be of use.' The plate was nowhere to be found. I found some old cards and letters in a shoe box and Mum said to bring them home so we could look at them.
And we did, there were cards and post cards, letters and news paper cuttings that Gran had saved over the years, for her own reasons no doubt. One was about a soldier killed in the war, he was from our village, 'I expect Gran knew him,’ I said as they would have been about the same age. At the very bottom of the box in a paper envelope was a folded age spotted piece of fabric and as I unfolded it I could see two doves cross stitched in blue thread, under the doves were two names, one was my Gran’s and the other was the name of the soldier in the newspaper cutting. Then I knew why my Gran was sad that day and what the plate meant to her. Real life was just as sad as stories, I thought and like Gran said... sadder. I showed the stitching to Mum and she sighed.’ ‘Do you think he might have been her first love, her childhood sweet heart?’ I asked,
‘Possibly, Mum never spoke a lot about her life when she was young and before she met my father.’ She said.
We both looked at tiny piece of sewing again and our tears fell as we hugged each other. It was much better than the plate, it was stitched by my Gran and it was beautiful.

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The Eye Magpie Tales#13

‘Eyes are the most precious things we have and yet some people don’t think to protect them,’ said the surgeon, as he got ready to demonstrate the technique.
Laura was standing the nearest of the two and the smell of the antiseptic he was using had started to make her feel quite queasy.
‘Pass me the scalpel nurse,’ and he held out his hand to receive the instrument.
She turned away as he made the cut and when she turned back, curiosity getting the better of her, she was surprised to see a watery bloody fluid leaking from where he had inserted the knife.
‘Dish please nurse.’ he said.
‘That’s right,’ he said as she held it out and he put the eye carefully into the sterile water which half covered it.
‘Now let’s see,’ he said as he looked into the opened covered box he had, ‘what would be the best colour match?’
Laura leaned over to see.
‘Yes I think this one,’ he said as he picked up a browny green coloured one, ‘this is perfect, what do you think Nurse?’

She watched fascinated as he carefully pushed the round glass eye into the empty socket, making sure it looked straight and matched the other one. Then closing the eyelid, he took a small strip of tape and placed it on the lid to keep it closed, then cleaned up the cheek with a gauze swab.

‘If only all dead people would donate their eyes, their corneas would give sight to so many people,’ he stated.
They stood back and watched as the mortuary attendant pushed the trolley back into the fridge. Then all three, the Doctor, and nurses left, he carrying the precious eye now covered with a cloth. ‘It will be put in cold storage until that young man with the injured eye is in theatre,’ he explained. Laura walked behind him and still marvelled at the miracle she was about to observe when the cornea was transplanted onto a living eye to give back the sight that had been lost.
‘Yes eyes are most precious,’ she thought, 'but they look horrible when out of the socket!'
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The Paperweight: Magpie Tales#12

The dust motes danced in the sunlight streaming through the window as it reflected off the glass paperweight.

A whole year gone already she thought, time flies. It hadn’t ever occurred to her before, how irrevocable death was, the emptiness was still there, and it went on and on and on.  He had bought her the paperweight on one of their visits around the antique markets, it was so colourful and she had cried in delight when she saw it, and just like a child, she just had to have it.

It was only a week later that her mother’s cousin had flown home to the other side of the world and that’s when their love affair had really started. She watched him as he walked away and she knew she would never see him again. This man who had made her heart flutter and who had said, ’I love you’ in his soft accent which burned into her soul. ‘We will write,’ he said as he went through the barrier into that no man’s land to fly to another world.

And they did for three years, blue paper, white paper, tissue thin, filled with words of love and tenderness. Then they stopped, no letters no messages until that fateful phone call from his sister who had found the letters hidden in a box.

‘Both killed outright,’ she had said, ‘he and his wife. A head on crash, they didn’t have a chance.’

The sun made the bright colours seem as though they were dancing and she touched the paperweight letting her fingers caress the roundness of it.

‘Is that yours Mummy?’ asked Alicia as she watched her mother, stop with the duster still in her hand.

‘Yes, yes, it is and in it holds some happy memories.’ She answered her small daughter.

‘I can only a see a fish, where are the memories Mummy?’

They’re there, you just have to close your eyes, and then you can see them,’ she said, ‘just close your eyes and you’ll see.’

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