John Wayne...

Well I guess it had to happen.

A lady ordered a glass from me at the weekend for her brother Peter. Peter's a big fan of John Wayne, it was his birthday last Thursday and she wanted something special for him.

She asked if I could put a cowboy on the glass for her and as usual I asked what interests the person, in this case Peter, had. I usually do this to try to find out how best to personalise the glass and she told me that Peter was in his fifties, Downs syndrome, and he loves cowboy films - particularly John Wayne films.

I offered to put a picture of John Wayne on the glass and agreed that I could have it for her for Monday, today.

She came in at half-past four to collect it but couldn't. I hadn't done it you see, I'd forgotten about it completely despite it being in my order book. She was very good about it but I was mortified. I hate letting people down, I hate not meeting my commitments, I hate breaking my word, and at that moment I hated myself.

Anyway, I apologised and said I'd deliver it to her in the morning and that there would be no charge for the glass or the box I'm going to put it in.

Serves me right. I'm going to get a production diary.

Even the darkest day has golden birds...

I haven’t been to Wales for a while now but it’s still there in my head, the clouds scudding across the hills and mountains, the foam tossed into the air from the sea, the whistle of the wind, and the crack of the branch upon the tree.

Sometimes when I awake to the sameness of another day I wonder what’s it all about, what corner did I turn to get me here, and will I ever find my way again? Then a deep gloom fills me and I wonder if I can go on.

It doesn’t last long. I get up and brush myself down and go upon my way, about my business, putting on the brave face I keep in my back pocket for all the world to see.

Sometimes I think I'm living in a mirror, seeing the world palely from behind the silvered glass.

No, I’ve not been able to get to Wales recently, but I will some day soon, and really I’m there all the time inside my head.

Even the darkest day has golden birds.

Guardian angel...

I'm sure that there are times when we all feel that we have a guardian angel.

I'm equally sure that there are times when we all feel that we don't.

Once when I was a young man living in Birmingham, getting up early after working late, rushing out of the house bleary-eyed after a late night freelancing, running down the gulley, scarf flapping, floundering across the road and onto the busy dual carriageway, my guardian angel appeared.

Of course I never saw him/her. But I felt the rush of wings and the pull of hands as I was lifted bodily from the road and pulled back three feet to avoid the bus that I'd almost blundered into in my haste to reach the bus stop.

It must have been the candlelit carol concert from the night before along the Walsall Road at a church I can't remember the name of, but one moment I was in front of the bus as it bore down on me like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a speeding car, the next I felt the bus pass, the wind of its passing pulling the dog-tooth cap from my head and tumbling it along the gutter.

BLAHHHHHHHHHH. From the bus drivers horn. A scowl on his face as he passed full and not ever intending to stop.

I never bothered to pick up my cap. I just caught the next bus shaking.

The eleventh hour - 11.11.11

We often talk about the eleventh hour. The last possible minute to do something about a situation before it is too late, just before we edge over that waterfall and plunge down, down, down to disaster.

It’s a biblical phrase from the book of Matthew, referring to some workmen being hired very late in the day: “And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle?”

“Dunno mate, dunno.”

Eleven is the atomic number of sodium and in chemistry Group Eleven includes the metals copper, gold and silver - the metal that Judas, the eleventh disciple, supposedly sold Jesus out for.

Eleven is the number of spacetime dimensions in M-theory as Dr. Who (who is currently in his eleventh incarnation) would know, and Apollo Eleven was the first manned spacecraft to land on the moon.

Eleven is the first (I wanted to write fist) number that can’t be counted on eight fingers and two thumbs (so, toe required) and it’s the largest prime number with a single morpheme name (morphemes are what make up words apparently, but they aren’t like syllables which is a shame because I un-der-stand syllables).

It was on the Eleventh day of Christmas that the gift of ‘Eleven pipers piping’ was made, and as those noisy buggers would know the interval of an octave and a fourth is an eleventh.

An eleven-sided polygon is called a hendecagon, eleven is the second unique prime, it goes into ninety-nine exactly nine times and eleven is a Størmer number, a Heegner number, and a Mills prime number.

Football and cricket team have eleven players, and of course as all bingo callers in the land know so well there is always a whistle for ‘Legs Eleven’ – twit-twoo.

So why am I going on so much about eleven?

Well, of course it's on this day that we remember eleven because World War I, the Great War, the war to end all wars, ended with an armistice on November the eleventh, 1918. It went into effect at eleven am - the much spoken about eleventh hour - on the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

Eleven.

Lest we forget.

I’ll be silent now.

November Road…

I’m on the November Road and I don’t know where it’s leading. I trudge along hoping that the sun will break through the clouds at any moment but it doesn’t.

I’m not surprised.

November Road just sucks the journey out of you and leaves you hollow. A hollow man with hollow thoughts trudging along November Road and waiting for the sun to break through.

String and headaches. Foot after foot.

November Road never changes. I know I’m not the only one on this road. But I never seem to meet anybody. Sometimes I think that I can hear them. But it’s probably just the wind.

It’s very windy on November Road.

It howls sometimes.

Up till midnight...

Such a day of clocks and clutter, and hardly knowing where to begin, but looking forward to the end and that peace that must come to us all at the end of the day - even if it is disturbed.

Such a day of freedom and sandwiches.

Starting with the midnight clock, not mine but running out he says tick-tock, tick-tock.

A day of snowmen and angels and maybe elves (or at least something similar) and journeys, not quite wasted but not very successful either. A young man asking for the almost impossible and me (such a fool) agreeing to do it. A mother and daughter looking for the special and me (not a fool at all) helping them to dream it.

A word play, making myself and that other smile, an almost sale, an unhappy customer justified (not mine), and so much to do and so little time.

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

My grandfather's clock stuck at twelve, so forgive this brief post tonight.

And that's alright.

I’ll be up till midnight...

First frost…

When there isn’t much to say, there’s always the weather to fall back on.

Is it a trick or do I seem to remember frosty early Novembers in my youth? I certainly remember walking to school, up North Street, down the High Street, along Southern Road and through the recreation ground, with the fields all frosted white and the hill down to the little bridge over Cuttle Brook a treachery.

With Halloween and Bonfire Night over my thoughts would turn to Christmas, the boyhood excitement beginning to grow despite me being in my very early teens. I’d long given up believing in Father Christmas but that didn’t stop me wondering what he’d bring me. No more socks, I hoped.

Sometimes I’d stop at the gate to the bottom meadow, put down my satchel, and just look out across the field at the frost-whitened grass and think of skating on Dutch canals. Don’t ask me why I thought about that, I couldn’t skate and hadn’t been to Holland at that time, but I did - a racial memory? Or perhaps images stolen from the huge book on Breugel I poured over in the library every lunch time.

I’d look down towards the brook almost hearing the whoosh of skate blades, then, with the whoops of Stephen Castle and Luke Doyle carried by the frozen air from the distance, I’d snatch up my books and scuttle the rest of my way to school. I didn’t want to meet those two, they were at best snide and at worst outright bullies, often pushing and shoving and throwing my scarf into the mud.

I got them back though, oh yes, I got them back – but I’ll save that for another time.

So, first frost this morning. Cars all white windscreens and a chilly nip to the air. The smoky smell of yesterday’s after-bonfire air all cleaned up and replaced by ice sharp freshness.

Winter’s coming.