Memories are made of this ... how a tree was a wonderful illustration of times in my life. Now, a new home will bring fresh adventures
IT is only as I lock the door and lay a hand on the painted wood one last time that I’m hit with a sudden jolt of emotion. Seven years of memories washing over me all at once.
In the hours previously, we have been feverishly cleaning. Wiping down skirting boards, brushing forgotten crumbs from the back of cupboards, vacuuming carpets and mopping floors, rounding up the dregs of belongings scattered throughout the rooms.
A few weeks from now this will be someone else’s place. But for now, it is still our name on the lease, even though all our belongings are miles away in our already much-loved home. An odd limbo, straddling old and new. When I arrived here seven years ago my father had not long passed away. The nerve endings of grief were still raw and jangling like exposed wires.
Our previous flat was being put up for sale by the owners and we needed to find somewhere to live quickly. My husband and I moved across the city from west to east. It felt as if we had traversed a continent.
Yet, weeks turned into months turned into years. Life happened. Laughter, tears, successes, failures, illness, silly arguments, joy and hope: these walls have borne witness to it all. You tell yourself it is just bricks and mortar yet, somehow, it is more.
The big tree in the garden opposite has shed its leaves and been reborn again seven times over. Often, when the concrete oppression of the city became too much, I would sit at the window and gaze out at its thick, gnarled trunk and impressive crown of green foliage.
At other times of the year, the branches would be stark and bare, save for the occasional dusting of frost and snow, sometimes a clutch of birds huddled together for warmth.
The thick cloak of grief slowly became less heavy. There were milestones passed and ambitions realised. Even the skyline changed when two high rises were demolished.
As the close door bangs shut in my wake, I take a final look up at the darkened windows. The sandstone tenement building has stood for more than a century, our time here a mere blink of the eye. Life goes on. New adventures await.
Bird-brained musings
IN other news, I have gained two hobbies: feeding the birds in our back garden and quoting lines from the documentary Bros: After The Screaming Stops.
The first is an undertaking of epic proportions. When we first moved to the
‘burbs, I envisaged being dazzled by a daily display of avianthemed brilliance. There was nothing. Not even a passing seagull.
So, we’ve gone to town with the birdfeeding accoutrements. There are suetfilled coconut halves, fat balls and hanging feeders filled with peanuts, seeds and grains. It is essentially an upmarket all-you-can-eat buffet.
Once the bird baths, nesting boxes and lofty penthouse-style platforms are installed it will be akin to a five-star resort for winged and feathered creatures. With me as a Basil Fawltymeets- Gladys Pugh from Hi-de-Hi! figurehead at the helm. Already, the punters are flocking in: a robin, blue tits, starlings, sparrows, blackbirds, crows, magpies, jackdaws and a rather rotund wood pigeon that swaggers around like Tony Soprano. Who knows? I may soon branch out into toad abodes and hedgehog hotels.
Oh brother!
WHEN not obsessing over bird-related matters I can be found watching Bros: After The Screaming Stops. Or as it should be titled: Bros: When The Screaming Starts, given that you will simultaneously experience delight and terror and something bordering on an out-of-body experience.
The fly-on-the-wall film follows
twin brothers Matt and Luke Goss – who were fleetingly part of the biggest boy band in Britain with eight UK top 10 singles between 1987 and 1989 – as they prepare for an ill-fated reunion tour two years ago.
It has been a fortnight since the documentary first aired on BBC Four. Similar to a fine wine, it gets better with age. Or as Matt/Luke Goss might say: it doesn’t age – it only gets older.
If you haven’t seen it yet, then this may read as gobbledygook. The abridged version: sibling pop stars muddle metaphors like a DJ spinning plates inside a washing machine.
Gems include Matt Goss musing: “I was a rectangle and he was a rectangle and we made a square that became a fortress”, and “If there was ever 15 one-way streets and one solitary two-way street where me and my brother got to meet in the middle – you helped find that one street”.
Or Luke Goss: “Rome wasn’t built in a day. But we don’t have the time that Rome had.”
It is a right old hoot. Like tumbling down the rabbit hole in Alice In Wonderland and waking up naked save for a poncho on Button Moon. And as the credits start to roll? A butterfly flaps its wings and halfway across the world, the fat lady sings, knowing it is checkmate.
Tip of the fatberg
MY other fascination: fatbergs.
Or as I prefer to think of them: misunderstood time capsules. Last week a “monster” fatberg measuring 70 yards – longer than six doubledecker buses – was discovered beneath the Devon seaside town of Sidmouth.
These congealed masses of grease and discarded, non-biodegradable items have become the scourge of our sewers. In September, Scottish Water put St Andrews “on a diet” in its fight against drain blockages that cost £6.5million a year to clear.
On the face of it, fatbergs resemble a pasty Jabba The Hutt from
Star Wars and emit a rancid stench – unsurprising given they are essentially a gloopy jumble of wet wipes, sanitary products, hair, food waste, condoms and cotton buds that have been doused in chip fat.
Yet, these underground titans are strangely mesmerising. And what better leveller for fellow man and womankind? Here is the sum of our daily existence bound together regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic status or class.
The fact no-one has yet won a Turner Prize for a fatberg is beyond me.