​My mind is like a chest of drawers
With every drawer agape,
And all the contents cascade forth,
A muddled, messy fate.

There are single socks and T-shirt tops
And pretty lacy things,
And trinkets lost amidst the crap
Of cabbages and kings.

And all hangs out in my mad mind
In a mammoth jumble sale,
Perhaps a bargain I shall find,
Perhaps a holy grail.

But my mayhem mind keeps me awake,
And though I close the door
It yells at me right through the night,
And through each day, what’s more!

And when I really need a thing
Can I find it? No!
It’s somewhere there in hide and seek,
I’m gaoled and can’t pass go.

Oh for a mind where every drawer
Can freely, gently close,
It’s contents ordered, neatly stored
And stacked in piles and rows.

And angels wouldn’t fear to tread,
And I’d find all I need,
Without the fuss and stress and mess,
My life would then proceed.

​KS - April 2003

Good morning my lovely FB friends!
“To feel that you can or might be something is often the first step to becoming it.” Nikki Gemmell

So……if you open your mouth and sing, you ARE a singer!
Write a word or two, you ARE a writer!
Tell a story, you ARE an actor!
Skip a step or two, you ARE a dancer!
Draw a stick figure, you ARE an artist!

​Of course, it takes dedication and practice to excel, but the basic premise is true.

This is not true of doctors, plumbers, lawyers & sparkies all of whom have to study and gets bits of paper to prove the point.
So do what you want to be, and do it lots and there you are!
Love to all and have a wonderful week.
Kxx

It’s Mother’s Day today here in the antipodes, although back in the UK it falls sometime in the Spring, linked to the ever-movable feast of Easter.
Try remembering the UK Mother’s Day in the days of snail-mail!
Did my best and I hope my mum always knew that I loved her from across the globe.
My songbird mummy!
I’ve been thinking today of my earliest years in that tiny little cottage nestled under the hill, just over the way from Glastonbury Tor.
It was tough for my mum out there in the sticks with three little kids in a dilapidated cottage where, when it rained, the water came in through the back door, flowed across the flagstone floor and then out the front door!
How she and my dad toiled to make the place habitable for us!

I remember her telling me that at one point she was so unhappy that she grabbed her bike and rode up the hill and across to friends who lived five miles away, hoping for a little tea and sympathy. But she received neither, for they were out.
No phone you see.
No car either.
It would be a few years before my little old lovelies would have either of those!
So, she rode home again, crying all the way.

We kiddies knew none of this as she knitted us jumpers, quilted us coverlets, darned our socks, flitting about doing whatever needed to be done, with a little song never far from her lips.
And we were out to play in our wellies, climbing trees, rough and tumble, collecting windfalls, kick-tin, cops and robbers and all the games children played in innocence and laughter.
And at day’s end with grubby knees and happy hearts, it was Listen With Mother while eating bread and jam washed down with a nice cup of tea.

Spot my much loved dolly Sophie, who cried “Mumma” when she was tipped, forward and back; forward and back.
A present hidden behind my dad’s back as he leaned in to kiss me for my birthday and Sophie first made herself known to me from inside her prettily wrapped box.

Lucky little kids we were to have lived in such times of peace and simple delights.
My chosen music is Love Unspoken, Love Unbroken from The Merry Widow. (For it is so…….)
Couldn’t find Schwartzkopf, I’m sorry, but I do remember watching this as a Christmas Special in 1968, a decade after the little memories shared here.​
youtu.be/wO0Up7SIxJ8

Who gets it?
Thought we needed a bit of a laugh, plunged into The Bleak Mid Winter as we have been!

Maybe there is a god after all and he/she appears to be holding this spinning orb together!
Or maybe they’re busting to get out?
Chipping away, an inverse sculpture!

That would explain all the floods and pestilence, fire and brimstone of late!
How’s that for a conspiracy to help you crack on along the fault line of life?
Stay warm everyone and have a wonderful week.
Kxx

I am always challenged to remember lyrics! I always found it difficult even with my younger brain. When my performing life was in full flight, I always had a bunch of cue cards in my pocket which I whipped out at every opportunity.
So perhaps as we pootle and tootle about in the song of our lives, remembering the lyrics of love is key to the joy of it, to the habit of it and to the sharing of it.
Maybe we need cue cards?
I suppose my little list of ten reminders which I recite as a meditation might just be my cue cards, do you think?

Bit by bit they each have turned up here when I choose to share one with you.

The love lyrics of today’s song might be, “despite everything, you can and you will start something sensational today. If you believe in something you will obtain it. Start the journey and take it one step at a time.” Jessica Adams.

Have a lovely week my dear friends.
​Love to all. Kxx

The old adage, “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”It’s what my mum and most mums used to say, I guess.
I’m not sure I can adhere to that since there’s a lot of uncomfortable MeToo at this point in my early Australian life.
I think every baby boomer gal has known multiple episodes of poor behaviour, but we were living in unprecedented times when the pill had made it possible for girls to avoid being “up-the-duff” and for boys to be carefree about how they "sowed their wild oats."
Confusing because we’d all been brought up to “save ourselves for our wedding night,” but in reality that quaint notion was an anachronism.
And we were not taught about what goes on before you get to the nitty gritty. How “far did you go” and with whom was a central conversation piece in school cloakrooms of a morning.
Christian or not, in my mid teens there was a fair bit of stuff going on in the backs of cars down dark country lanes, but I didn’t “go all the way.”
My parents were not of Christian persuasion, but “keeping yourself nice” was still a Thing in my upbringing and this was compounded by my prim churchy views.
All very unfortunate and yes confusing too. The delicious feeling of lust, but the enormous guilt of it…..
Oh my!

So as I continue my story, we’re talking about Australia in the 80s here and the backdrop for me was as described, with my young adulthood and “baby marriage” taking place during that “gem for Jesus” phase. So emerging from that marriage, despite the uproar of the torrid affair that heralded its end, I was unschooled about what was expected of a single girl in her mid 20s.

Clearly everything and all sorts, no restraints, no recourse nor redress, no remorse, no apology…..
However, I’m getting ahead of myself really.

So I’m in Australia and first up I was with my beloved Cousin Claire in Yanchep which was populated by expat poms plumping for a carefree life at the beach.
I remained Very Sad after my scalding affair with love, but I was welcomed by some lovely people and indeed loved the beach side life and loved my cousin’s home and her little kids all of whom remain dear to my heart to this day. And that frozen shoulder, warmed by the sunny shores and the gentle movement of swimming in the lagoon, gradually defrosted and I started to feel better, at least physically.

Two uncomfortable stories concerning my first encounters with Australian men (sorry guys) took place in the first couple of months.

Look away now if you’re a sensitive soul.

I have told these to people over the years, but never committed them to words on the page and am I finding it difficult to do so…..
The first took place on Australia Day, so yes only a few weeks into my Aussie sojourn.
The Aussie who had owned that wine bar I sang at back in grim old London came from Perth and he was back there that January of 1983, throwing a party to say hello to his old mates. He kindly invited me, so my cousin loaned me her car and into Perth I went on my lonesome to meet up with him and his gal and have a jolly time, or so I thought.
The party took place in a nightclub and there would have been about 30 revellers in his group of friends. All appeared to be paired up!

Me, I’m single, solo and evidently sort of up for grabs by the guys, married or not.

To be safer I sidled up to the women. Understand that whilst they came in in couples, once there, it was the guys on one side of the central bar being blokey and the gals on the other conversing about the colour of the bathroom tiles or the latest wonder bra. I was shunned by them and in any case was unable to chat about those topics, especially in a noisy night club, so I stood on the outer cringing and feeling so very far from home. (And still lovesick of course)
A man approached me and yelled into my ear, “how’s your mum?”
It was difficult to hear properly of course but I was perplexed by such a question and then I guess I sort of smiled thinking it was perhaps a sweet sort of Aussie pick-up line.
This encouraged him and he yelled “how’s your mum” into my ear again.
“I’m sorry?”
“Well, how is it? - how’s your bum?”
And then proceeded to tell me what he had in my mind for that bit of my person…..(too graphically to share verbatim here)
Needless to say I gave him no further encouragement and he stomped away, only to return several times to tell me how stuck up I was. His parting shot was that I was nothing but a “cardboard cut-out.”

That night Claire gave birth to dear Jamie and I was mortified because I had her car! Her husband
Chris was back from the oil rigs thankfully and one of their many Yanchep friends did the dash to the hospital with others looking after little Luke.

The second happened a few weeks later.
I was up at the Yanchep pub having got a little gig playing and singing there on the weekends.
On this particular weekend there was a Perth to Yanchep boat trip, an annual affair apparently,  and the guys and their gals with their craft safely moored in the marina, were having a fun-time dinner at the pub.
Now, I’d had my hair cut short before leaving the UK for convenience in the summery Aussie sunshine. Tanned little pixie me, playing and singing the old love songs as the yacht-lot jibed and joked as they ate.
I noticed a couple of guys talking and looking, talking and looking. And during my break they came up to me. Smiling, they asked if I could resolve a dispute between them?
Was I into guys or girls asked one of them?
I was so taken aback I choked on my lemon soda!
That seemed to resolve it for them, because evidently I must be into girls to have been so affronted!

Remember I had a one way ticket!

During this period of bewilderment I used to take myself off for beach walks and another tape in my trusty Walkman was Elgar’s Cello Concerto. All the yearning of it accompanied me.
Jaqueline Duprès of course.
https://youtu.be/UUgdbqt2ON0