You know, there is something about walking at 3.30pm on a cold, rainy February day. Oh, something special, something... a feeling, a memory, a Proustian rush, if you like.
I'm walking home from school. When I get in, the cat will be sprawled out on the huge boiler in the kitchen, mum will be there, it will be warm, there will be condensation on the window. The only light in the living room comes from the gas fire with its flashes of blue and pink licking at the grills, and the table lamp in the corner of the typical G-Plan shelving unit - it's ambient, not quite dark outside. I kick off brown shoes and damp white socks, give Cleo a stroke so she lazily licks my face (ooh, such a raspy tongue - like sandpaper!) - then I perch on the yellow stool at the kitchen counter to have a bowl of Weetabix with warm milk. We seem to be incessantly hungry at 12 years old, I already had a gingerbread man from Simmonds on the way home (who can possibly ignore the temptation of sweet baked delights in the window of the best cake shop in town after double Maths and a Geography test?) 'The Changes' will be on telly soon.... chilling but compelling, I'm hooked.
Why am I telling you this? Simply because I was walking at 3.30pm today - a cold, rainy February day - and the words I've just written were floating around in my head. The rain soaks my hair and I don't care, the high collar on the warmest coat that has ever been invented (honestly, it's amazing, like a blanket) is turned up, stroking my cheeks. Thank god no school uniform...no damp socks, or Double Maths, but I still get that feeling. Green doors do it too, you know that really strong shade of mid green; I've no idea why. Anyway I'll write this down when I get in and post it, I thought - not much, I realise, but a way to break the silence at last, if nothing else...!
I appreciate that the comfortable memories of simple things from the past hold their appeal more than ever at the moment, but I've always had that rainy afternoon thing, a place to go to which can't be spoiled, and I like it very much.
Is there anywhere you go?
Listening to music in my parents' living room, headphones clamped to head, plugged into the music centre. Each side of the headphones had its own volume control knob, so they had to be twiddled. And later, playing snooker in the dining room - we had a 6ft table that, by putting a 6'6" piece of chipboard on top became the dining table. So every game (and there were hundreds, perhaps thousands) began with lifting off the massive piece of chipboard (which was painted gloss brown, to look like a real table-top, of course). Then playing snooker for hours, with a limited array of tapes to play on a radio-cassette on the mantelpiece... there was a Beatles compilation I played to death. Happy, carefree times.
ReplyDeleteThat's brilliant - love the thought of your snooker table doubling up as a dining table with the chipboard top, very resourceful! And music does indeed evoke many memories, so many feelings and surroundings...
DeleteJust the rain yesterday, with the cold, the light, the sound of the cars whooshing by, gave me such a vivid flashback that I almost expected to get home to the smell of my mum's cooking.
Great to hear from you, C. Lovely story. One tiny part of it (the damp socks) really hit home.. but maybe more from your mother's perspective. I'm walking every day with my sons in the late afternoon. It's cold, but not the kind of cold where you see your breath. That rarely happens here. It is always raining though. This is going to sound miserable, but the following steps upon our return happen every day nonetheless. Walk in the door, take off our wet coats, gloves, hats, scarves and throw them in a pile. I take them down to the dryer and turn it on. The boys go to their rooms and change their wet socks (and pants if it rained hard enough to splash up and get the shins wet) while I make hot chocolate. Then we have a sit and talk about the homework... who needs help on what, due dates, priorities, etc. It's difficult to explain why I actually kind of like this ritual, but it might be because they are teenagers and I realize we won't have this time together forever. The spell is inevitably broken on laundry day when I find their still wet socks in the basket all balled up or inside out. Nothing worse than sticking your hand in someone's wet sock... even if they are your kids.
ReplyDeleteMartin, I enjoyed your childhood memory too. I recall similar carefree times with the Beatles and games as well.
Hi Brian, I can understand why you like your daily ritual with your sons (minus the damp socks - aargh, they're awful, arent' they?! ) This will no doubt stay lodged in your mind long into the future too, whenever you're drinking hot chocolate after rainy day walks - or when you realise you forgot to put your own discarded socks in the laundry...
DeleteSimple, precious moments.
When I was 12, in 1973, I remember making the leap from reading the Hardy Boys to Agatha Christie; and that was a big deal - going from teen and pre-teen fiction to adult novels. It felt like I'd entered a private world, a world where real grown up things were happening (it was Agatha Christie for god's sake - people were being murdered left right and centre). It made me feel a bit giddy.
ReplyDeleteIt's nearly 40 years later and I still get the same feeling when I start a new book.
Oh god yes, I'd forgotten that - the moment you slip into the adult world of books, and it being a very special feeling, thanks for reminding me. One of the first adult books I read was 'A Bouquet Of Barbed Wire' which was being re-promoted after the popularity of the controversial TV series. I hadn't seen that, but the book was extremely salacious for my 13-year old mind and that feeling you describe of entering a private world where grown-up things were happening is spot on.
DeletePlus there is nothing quite like the feel and smell of a lovely new paperback with its pristine spine!
Great to have you back and what a lovely piece of writing. You describe the scene so well and yes, the Proustian rush really is a thing.
ReplyDeleteWhen we look back at those days we always seem to remember school summer holidays as being filled with sunshine, and term-time as always being rainy, but of course in reality there must have been a mix of both.
Those were a magical few hours weren't they, the ones after school but before meal-time. Something to eat (lots actually as we were always so hungry) and then curl up in front of the telly to watch the latest offering from Anna Home on the BBC. I don't remember Changes which is weird as it should be perfect for my demographic. I didn't get home until around 4.30pm however as I was a train ride away from school. I do remember my spot of choice was the brown moquette armchair next to telly which (it being the '70s) faced the other way towards the fireplace. We still weren't quite comfortable with making the focus of the room the telly and it sat in the corner almost as an afterthought. No problem for my young and bendy limbs though - You just twisted yourself round to face the other way, and eat a whole packet of chocolate chips cookies in the course of the next half-hour! They were a new kind of biscuit that had recently come out and I loved them (so much more exciting than boring old digestives or rich tea) - Luckily for me, none of their sugary goodness ended up on my hips which I find remarkable. We just burned though the calories in those days.
Anyway, lovely to read this - We were looking at pieces of writing that describe "Location" last week on my course and this is an excellent example.
Thanks Alyson - not expecting to be prolific here for
Deletea while but the thoughts were so vivid in my mind as I walked I just wanted to get them down before I lost them (or the mood) - and hoping it would help to break the spell somehow too. Already I feel a little more, erm, 'unblocked', so we'll see.
Your lovely memories of that magical interlude between school and mealtime are so evocative and really resonate. Anna Home! Oh there's the name - yes she produced 'The Changes' and really it was pretty radical and dark, and all the better for it. Don't know how it would look now - maybe a little creaky to our more sophisticated eyes? I'm not sure - but the fact that it has stuck in my mind for 45 years (aarghhh....) is to its credit.
Indeed I remember the days of having young, bendy limbs and being able to eat all that sugary food without putting on an ounce - mind you, as you say, we just burned up the calories (what with all that French Skipping and Hula Hooping! Maybe it's time for a return to such pastimes...)
Thanks so much for your kind encouraging words too.
The Changes is one of those series I bought a DVD player to play UK discs for! Okay, the Peter Green documentary most of all, but I really think the '70s was a golden afternoon for fantasy television.
ReplyDeleteHi Rebecca, thanks for dropping by -that's brilliant and I didn't appreciate that anyone outside the UK would even be aware of this series. The Peter Green documentary was aired again recently over here as a tribute after his death and I thoroughly enjoyed that too. I agree about '70s fantasy TV for children - also a fan of the fantastic and stylish surrealism of mid-late '60s TV such as The Prisoner and The Avengers. Would love to see more of that approach employed now.
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