The lavender bag

 Annemarie's story

The Lavender Bag

 Since she was 10 years old Sidonie and Gravender had carried out their early summer ritual. (Mrs Greeves did not like her childish name, ‘granny lavender’ so Sidonie had abridged it to the more dignified name ‘Gravender’). All those years ago she had come to the village with her parents and had been drawn to the old lady’s garden by the insistent sound of bees buzzing in lavender bushes which paraded their scent and colour near  the road. Fascinated she had stopped to watch as big black bees with deep blue iridescent wings flitted from flower to flower and smaller, more numerous golden and black bees darted to and fro , saffron globs of pollen weighing down their spindly legs.

Sidonie became a regular visitor over the years but she particularly enjoyed ‘learning lavender’ as she described it to her mother. Sometimes Mrs Greeves’ two granddaughters, Bella and Maria, would be there and the three children made lavender biscuits, greedily devouring them afterwards.     

  As the children grew older Bella and Maria were less interested in visiting their grandmother and would rather play on their mobile phones, muttering to each other how boring it was to have to come. Sidonie on the other hand, loved visiting  Gravender, who taught her to weave the lavender stems within  silk ribbon encasing the flower heads, forming fragrant  lavender wands to tuck among the pillowcases and sheets. They made scratchy, invigorating body scrubs and relaxing eye pillows in pretty fabrics. The lavender bags, made from antique lace, were tied with fine silk ribbon, always in tones only of purple, lilac and lavender.

  Each year at the village fête  Gravender and Sidonie sat side by side behind their stall, one - young, slender, lanky limbed and serious looking with dark almond eyes, the other - short, with a slightly wrinkled face and pewter grey hair. Large glass bowls were filled with pearly white, mauve , purple and lavender fizz bombs; soaps were tied with twists of lavender and silk thread; baskets lavender of eye pillows; a collection of bric-à-brac plates towered with lavender biscuits and along the top of the stall, prettier and more perfumed than bunting were the antique lace lavender bags, jostling each other like dancers in a crowded ballroom and the fragrant scent permeating the air.

Sidonie explained that all the profits went to a charity for children with brittle bones, while Mrs Greeves extolled the virtues of lavender.

« I don’t know why they don’t keep the money themselves, » Bella murmured to her sister as they passed by their grandmother’s stall.« After all, they do all the work. What a waste of time! »

They sauntered past the stalls hoping to catch the eyes of any local talent. Over the years their grandmother was disappointed, well very sad to be honest, that she rarely saw them or her son and his wife, despite living in the neighbouring village. At least Sidonie often popped in for a  chat and she always helped with the lavender.

As usual Sidonie had arrived early. Warm, dry and the sky an azure blue, they sat on the oak bench waiting for the dew, which  sparkled like diamonds on the spiderwebs, to evaporate but not so long that the sun drew out the perfume from the flowers. 

  Gravender, now dependent on her cane hobbled along carrying the basket while Sidonie bent over the bushes carefully cutting the lavender stems.

This was probably the last time they would harvest their lavender as her son and daughter-in-law were ‘advising’ her to sell her home and move to a retirement apartment - one they had found some many miles away. Little did they know she only had a few months to live and those she intended to spend in her own cosy home and garden.

After a desultory lunch under the chestnut tree Sidonie left and Graverton set to work to make the most beautiful lavender bags she had ever made. She cut out shell and rose shapes from the lace, backed them with muslin and having sewn the somewhat larger than usual bags together filled them, this time more firmly than usual. She crocheted little decorations to dangle off the sides and finished them with fine, thin spaghettis of silken ribbon.

Three months later.  Out of the blue Bella called Sidonie to say that her grandmother had left her a small box of ‘ things’. No, she didn’t know what it was and frankly the family didn’t understand why.

Now Sidonie sat in her own garden, the wooden box enveloped in purple ribbon and dried lavender,  ready on the table to reveal its contents. Still grieving for the old woman but remembering their many convivial times together she untied the ribbons and lifted the lid. Nestling like swaddled babies in a bed were t’en exquisite antique lace  lavender bags in a tangle of silken ribbons. But what surprised her was that the ribbons were in shades of green- they had never used any other colours than the lavender, purple range.. She picked it up the flattest one and felt a crackling.. She carefully pulled the end of the emerald ribbon and inside the bag hidden in the lavender was a piece of stiff paper.

« For the girl who was like a granddaughter to me » written in Gravender’s sloping penmanship. She picked up the next green ribboned bag, stuffed very full,  and again she opened it and tipped the contents onto the table. A diamond ring, an emerald ring and pearl earrings fell out. Each green encircled  bag was emptied and the table became  covered  with Mrs Greeves’  treasured jewellery glittering  and gleaming in the cushions of dried lavender.

  Bella and Maria searched every inch of their grandmother’s home before it was sold but they never did discover what she had done with her jewellery. ‘Probably sold it and gave the money to the brittle bone thing,’ sulked  Bellla.

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Geraldine's story 

A BAG OF LAVENDER

 

It had been weeks since Charlie and Margareth hadn’t stopped anywhere with their sailing boat.

They had left from the Isle of Wight after having supplied with food, drink and fuel.  Their decision had been to sail as much as possible under mainsail, gennaker, and in very strong winds under the heavy weather sails such as the storm sail.

Where were they going to ?  They hadn’t really decided !  Actually, they had layed out a big bet with their friends that they  would try to sail as long as possible without stepping on land.  But their intention wasn’t sailing accross oceans.  They would stop in sheltered anchorages all along the Northern and Southern coasts and see how long they could  suffer a lot of trials and tribulations before berthing.

So, beginning of April, just a few days after spring equinox, they hoisted the mainsail and headed towards the West, along the Southern Coast. It was still quite chilly in the mornings and evenings, but in the middle of the day, they were lucky with great sunny spells.  Charlie had heated water for the morning coffee and prepared two slices of brown bread each, with jam and honey.  They needed  these energetic foods to get going.  Of course, they never moored for lunch as their aim was to get as far as possible.  So Margareth would let Charlie manoeuvre “The Blue Eye” and get the fishing rods and lines out.  When the speed wasn’t too high, she would easily catch 5 or 6 mackrells or herrings for lunch or dinner.

Their first anchorage was nearby Torquay and they enjoyed Margareth’s “home made” mackrell rillettes with potatoes and fresh tomatoe salad. What bliss!  They would remember this meal as time went by and food became scarcer and  uninteresting…

Three days later, they sheltered in Penzance, overnight and decided to sail through the Irish Sea up to the Isle of Man rather than sailing up the Western Coast of Ireland, which would certainly be rougher.

And so, they began a routine : every morning up early, the best possible breakfast in order to avoid sea sickness by rough seas, as much fishing as possible, but they weren’t always lucky.  They would take turns at the helm and above all, they would keep an eye on the food supplies making sure they were using them as sparingly as possible.

Around an hour before dark, they would read their sea charts to try and spot the best place for their  overnight anchorage : the main criteria would be safety, of course, which meant making sure they would get protection from the main winds.  Then, approaching the place, they would look at the most beautiful scenery worth seeing and wait for the sunset while relaxing their aching bodies.  Sometimes, just rain or clouds….

The cruise went on softly up the Scottish Coast, the days were longer and so was the sailing.  Then, they reached the Shetland Islands : by this time, the nights became very short and the climate got much warmer.  They had been through some very windy days with rough seas, high waves, and found a little Bay where they stopped for 2 days before crossing over to the Norwegian Coast on the other side.  The food reserves were lowering and not very  interesting : a lot of canned stuff, rice, home-made bread (they still had flour), dessicated veggies and dried fruit.  But their spirits were still high. They started sailing downwards and following the Danish, German, Dutch, Belgian and finally French coasts.

One day, when they were off the British coast between France and England, Charlie asked Margareth

“What about going home now?  Where do our stocks stand?  “

“Well, said Margareth, we did make a bet and we still have some food on board!”  Are you tired of the experience?

“Of course not, I was just wondering….  Let’s continue then.

Summer was there, the routine was beginning to exert an influence on the two sailors.  Without wanting to give up, they both were dying for a nice copious meal and they started dreaming of huge steaks with spuds and greenbeans and banana-splits topped with chocolate and fresh cream for deserts.

In the middle of the “Golfe de Gascogne”, they hit a tremendous storm!  It was so strong they both had to manoeuvre the boat, under the storm jib, facing the waves in order not to be ejected from the boat and sinking…  They fought for 2 whole days and nights and when the wind finally dropped and the waves calmed down, they were just wrecked and incapable of moving for a few hours.

Then, cautiously, they started looking inside the boat to see if any damage had been made. Everything was soaking in seawater, the jars and bags with the sugar and flour had opened and spelt all over.  They had put the rice in a fabric cloth to gain space and it had burst and there was rice in every corner of the “Blue Eye”.  A disaster.

They started pumping the water from the bilge and found a small leak in the bow section.  That meant they would have to stop for repairs on the hull, which also meant they had reached the farthest place without berthing. A quick look at the charts indicated that the nearest place for these indispensable repairs was La Corugna in Spain, on the lowest part of the Golfe de Gascogne.  It meant, probably another 8 hours of navigation.  Charlie and Margareth took turns for the final approach to an inland shelter and when La Corugna Port was within sight they started laughing, and laughing, and laughing at the idea they were going to step out of “Blue Eye”, try and find their balance after those 3 months at sea and, at last, find a restaurant where they would be able to order the most memorable meal ever.

As they finished docking on the pontoon, they decided to start with a shower in the harbour facilities and staggered along the lane as if completely drunk - which they were not, of course- and everything swaying around them.  They immediately spotted a shop and bought a couple of bermudas and T-shirts in order to dress in something dry.  On the way out of the shop, they saw a little “bag of lavender” with a fragrant smell.  They immediately turned back to the shop and bought it.  This would most certainly help getting rid of the nasty odors that they would have to face during the cleansing, the repairs and the trip back home which they would undertake as soon as “Blue Eye” would be ready to sail again!

 

Sarah's story

 

A bag of lavender 4:  (Mick)

(15.07.2021, rev 03.09.2021)

NB: be sure to read Mick’s dialogues with an Australian accent!

 

Mick was despondent.  Four days since he’d arrived from Down Under and he hadn’t had a bit of fun.  The friends he had expected to meet weren’t there, where the hell were they?  And he hadn’t met another soul.  Not anyone worth meeting, that is.  He moped along the street, loath to go back to his hotel once again.  The pubs in this town were a disaster, nothing but up-tight bank clerks in this godforsaken place.

A couple of women passed him, going in the opposite direction, and the wind brought back a snatch of conversation.  He pricked up his ears.  Hadn’t he heard “the end of a party”?  A something or other party.  It had sounded like a “hope party” but that was impossible, right?  He must have heard wrong: a coke party, of course!  Cocaine—if he needed something right now, that was it.  He turned to look after them.  No spring chickens, all right, but not too bad.  He set off after them. 

It took some going, because they were walking rather quickly.  Of course.  Didn’t want to miss the end of the party.  Nor did he!  He hastened his step, in fact he scampered after them.  When he had got more or less up to their level he coughed.

“Hi, girls!  Going to a party?”

When they turned round, his blood congealed somewhat.  From behind they hadn’t looked too bad, but up front their faces showed them to be sixty at least.  None of his friends were over 40.

“Going to see Pattie?” said the taller woman, with a slightly disapproving look.  These young people, she was thinking, with their passion for nicknames, very cheeky of them.  “Yes, we are going to see Patricia.  You are, er … a nephew?”

“A friend.”  He flashed a broad smile.  Surely the others would be younger and sexier.

“There’s gonna be a lot of coke?” he asked hopefully.  He caught a wiff of something that reminded him, not unpleasantly, of his grandmother.

“’No coke,” said the shorter one primly.  “We’re going to take tea”

“Ha ha!”  Must be an in-joke, he thought.  These old birds were really hip.*  By then they had reached a house and rung the bell.

When the door opened, the shock was almost too much for him.  If these chicks were 60, their friend must be eighty at least.

“Happy birthday!” they cried.

“Thank you and welcome!  You’ve brought a bag of lavender, I hope, Hattie?”

“That’s just what I asked her,” said the short woman.  “And she has!”

“But who was your friend?” the old lady asked, looking over their heads.  They turned to see Mick slinking down the path to the road.

“No idea,” they said.

But Mick didn’t hear them.  He had plummeted to the depths of despair.  Must’ve misunderstood something, he thought, as he headed back to another dull night in his room.

 

*In Australian hip slang, “coke” is cocaine and “tea” is marijuana.

NB: the joke depends on pronouncing “party” “pa-a-ty”, in the Australian way.

+ 485 wds

            

Using the following words to write a story : BLACK -SERENDIPITY -SAPLING -TOOTHACHE- MORON

Geraldine story:

A bit challenging to try and get all these words together in a narrative that should make sense, but I’ll try, by relating the visit I made last week to Pinault’s Collection in the « Bourse de Commerce » in Paris.

With my Afro-American friend, Kathleen, who had a pass which helped us avoiding quite a long queue, we decided to just get a first random glance,  as we had been told that there is a lot to be seen.

As you enter this round building that was, at a time,  a granary  -La Halle aux grains- your eyes are immediately cought by the height and the light of the glass and iron dome and then, as they look down, they encounter a whole statuary, with this huge replica of « L’enlèvement des Sabines »  by Giambologna sculpted in the 1580’s. Around this central piece,  delimitated by a concrete wall, a number of items are displayed, such as a couple of African chairs, a plastic chair etc. When you are wandering around these objects, some of them ,have very small flames to them and then, you understand that the sculptures are in wax and then you find out that they are made to last the duration of the exhibition ! It took Kathleen and I a while to discover this, morons we were !

On the outside of the concrete cylinder stands a circular corridor with 24 showcases that had been erected in the Bourse de Commerce since 1889.  Various objects are displayed in each one, which are a pure « sign » with a symbolic value : there’s a suspended damaged moped or a Walt Disney Production sign, or a Picasso blue period sculpture, etc…

And from there, you step into different galeries with various artists.  We immediately stepped into  Gallery nr.2,  dedicated to David Hammons, an Afro-American artist,  reporting his  Black ethnic origin.  The artist gathers all types of rough materials in the street and by their assemblage, makes these final objects : for example, there is a baskett-ball hoop made of cristal, lamps, metal hardware, sandpaper etc …  When you discover that the artist was born and brought up in Harlem, this « fantastic »  and very  kitsch object   becomes fully  significant.  Another very relevant piece of his art is this 2 headed african statue, made of pieces of wood, nails, cardboard, a small mirror in the stomach, painted in orange, symbol of incarceration in the US : we were told that this is the colour of the women’s uniforms when in jail.

Another interesting piece of art is made of very thin branches, probably from some kind of sapling that are assembled to make 5 musical lines on which little chips of broken discs are attached, representing the notes  and make a musical line probably dedicated to jazz, here again one of the artists favourite subjects.

 

We then went down to level -2 to the Auditorium where we were introduced to Tarek Atoui’s electroacoustic composition « The Ground » : if you sit in the Auditorium you hear modern electronic effects from sounds of mineral or vegetal objects very poetically intertwined.  After just sitting there in the darkened auditorium for a while, you can see in the next room the objects that make the music and the way they are assembled.  Amazing !  It certainly looked like one of those serendipity effects in  sound research.

 

Then, we wondered around the top lanes of the rotonde looking at the ceiling painted with ports from different parts of the world from which, apparently, the grain or goods were shipped in the  eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  Some you could recognize : Canada, Russia, France, Caraïbs… others you could more or less imagine where they were from.  The glass dome provided the light, and you could see the candles burning in the top of the « Enlèvement des Sabines », which you couldn’t guess from the ground level.  I stood for quite a while at different spots looking up and down, dreaming, going back to the old times, being pulled into modernity at the same time and that feeling was just  tremendously fullfilling.

Then Kathleen, who is a very pragmatic person, living in Paris and always looking for new places to invite her friends, took us up to the top floor to discover the restaurant – tea-room and find out about menus and prices.  She likes sweet taste, like most vegetarians and all these cakes and deserts made me think I would probably catch a toothache if I absorbed too many.  Nevertheless, because of Covid, in order to keep distances, you had to reserve your table !  End of story !

And I must admit I wasn’t that interested, but the view over Paris is just wonderful, with St Eustache church right near, Beaubourg in the distance and between these two edifices, the Tour St Jacques, the Hôtel de Ville, the just recently reopened « Samaritaine » and in the far, the Eiffel Tower.

All I know, is that I shall certainly go back to this place where there is so much to discover and, at the same time, so many different concepts organized in the one same place.

 

 

Story contribution by Annemarie

serendipity, moron, toothache, black, sapling

It was over 30°c when they arrived at the tiny house and it was indeed a tiny house hidden down a path of mature silver birches reaching far up Into the skies, the wind soughing through the leaves. Pushing aside elderflower blossom and spotted laurel a black door appeared, nestled in the greenery. Inside there were two tiny bunk beds, a small table and chairs and a fridge with 2 bottles of wine and 8 tins of beer and two small appetising cakes. The only  way they could sleep in those beds was to bend their bodies in half!

“We'll work something out,” said the man. '”After all it's probably too hot to sleep in tiny beds in a tiny  cabin with tiny windows. We could always sleep under the stars. But first of all I’ll need some painkillers; my tooth has been agony all the way from France. I think I'll wash them down with a beer. You want some wine? Red or white? Very generous with the drinks, aren't they?” he said to his wife.

They sat down on two deckchairs beside a small  patch of rhubarb,  and drank in the warm sun and the now warm beer and wine; then they ate the cakes.

“I can’t  quite decide the flavour of these cakes. In fact I haven't tasted anything quite like it before,” munched the wife.

Tired after the 8 hour journey eyelids began to flutter, two heads slumped sideways and very soon the couple were fast asleep, one of them gently snoring. After a while the woman suddenly awoke with a start,  feeling great blobs of rain bombarding her. She shook her husband awake.

“Quickly, wake up it's raining; we need to shelter.”

They struggled from the deckchairs,  ran and stood under some enormous leaves, the raining pattering and splattering above . When they looked up the sun was still shining and the leaves were a luminous lime green roof hovering over them and beyond they glimpsed a brightly coloured rainbow.

“That must be some kind of Alice in Wonderland drink we've had . We've completely shrunk; these spiky stems  reach way above our heads and the leaves must be at least a metre across,” said the man. “Look there's the owner of the place and he's coming this way.”

Henk, the Dutch owner, hastened along the path, his feet slapping and splashing in the puddles and he joined the couple under the enormous leaves.

 “Gosh, he's shrunk as well!” whispered the wife to her husband.

“How are you doing? I saw you hiding from the rain, do you need any help” he asked in perfect but charmingly accented English. He turned to the husband under the giant parasol  of leaves where now only odd drops of rain plopped onto them and they could see the shadow of the splashes through the almost transparent emerald leaves. “You look very uncomfortable - is something wrong?”

“Well, now you ask, I would like to find a dentist; I have the most terrible toothache.”

‘Serendipity!” exclaimed Henk “ that's my profession! Yes I’m a dentist “ ( His English really was excellent!)

“ Let's see what I can do”. And hurried back to his house and returned with a piece of strong, thin cord. He tied one end around the man's tooth and then he bent a small sapling before tying the other end to the little tree. “1,2,3..” and without warning he let go of the sapling, which sprang back whisking the man's tooth on the end of the cord, drops of blood spitting against the verdant leaves.

“Now go inside my house and rinse your mouth and I will pack it out with something.”

“Can I just ask you one thing - why are we so small suddenly,“ the husband burbled through his bleeding mouth.

 “We must be morons! “ laughed the wife,  “We are in Holland.  It was the cakes; they were cannabis cakes; we've been hallucinating!”

The trio stepped out from beneath the rhubarb patch but on looking back it was no hallucination. They really were giant rhubarb leaves.

“No, no” said Henk “those are my gunnera plants and if you had gone a little further in you would have stepped into a shallow pond. Thirty two years I have been growing the plants, now as high and wide as a room!”

“And the cakes?” asked the wife .

 “Yes, they are cannabis cakes. This is Holland and I have many guests who return for the cakes and I thought your name was familiar when you booked so I prepared some for you,” replied Henk.”I did not know that Williams was such a common name and that this was your first visit here.”

 

 

Sarah's story

Colour

 

Dippy was very absorbed, colouring with painstaking effort the pictures in her book.  She chose with care from the 24 colours in the pack of markers her mama had just bought her.  Her friend Cilia, who was a year older and already in school, had told her that school was mostly about colouring.  She would like that.  Only Cilia had said they didn’t have markers, only crayons.  Dippy didn’t know about crayons because her mama had always bought her markers.  So she asked what they were, and why.  Cilia had stolen one from school, it was red, and she started to draw on Dippy’s shorts, which were yellow. 

“Stop that!” she said.  Her mama was very definite about not getting marks on her clothes.  But Cilia only laughed and said it didn’t show, see? and that that was why they used them at school.  Then she had tried the crayon on one of the flowers in the book, and it came out not bright at all.  That had rather dampened Dippy’s enthusiasm about school.

She heard the grownups talking about colour.  There were some men there she didn’t know, and they seemed very upset about something.  One of the women was very excited too.  She had a voice that screeched like a toothache.  But oh, yes, Dippy knew about colour.  She knew that colour was important!   Birds of green and yellow and blue.  Flowers of red and pink and orange.

With only half of her mind listening to the grown-ups, she heard one of them say something about “black men” and white men”.  Did such things exist?  She thought about what white men could look like and remembered a book she had about a snowman.  They must be like that.  Fat, very fat, with black eyes and orange noses and colourless skin.  They wouldn’t be much fun to colour, almost nothing to do.  That’s why there was no white marker.  Then she wondered about black men and decided to draw one.  She had only birds and flowers in her colouring book, because that was what she liked best.  But there was a blank page at the end of the book, so she chose the black marker and began.

She drew the man: head, torso, arms, legs, and coloured them all in.  But when she wanted to draw in the features, she couldn’t.  Nothing showed on the black.  She was aghast.  Black people must have no eyes.  Or noses or mouths.  They must be very strange indeed.  Poor black people!

But she was tired of colouring now and wanted to go outside, to skip and run.  She skipped and ran all the way down the road, to a little sapling grove she knew, where it was green and cool inside.  Her special place, far enough from the last houses so she could think it was her own world.

In the grove there were flowers, wild flowers in between the trees.  Every month there were different ones.  It must be God put them there for her.  This time they were blue.  Then she heard a man’s voice behind her.  She turned and he was coming towards her.  He had a strange, different look, and did not look friendly either.  She gathered up her flowers and prepared to run.

“Hey you.  Don’t run away from me.  I just wanna know something.”

So she stopped. “What you wanta know?” she asked.

“You just tell me where the black community live.”

“Black community?”

“Yeah.  Where the black people live.”

“I don’ know!”  She was amazed.  So there were black people around here?  She would ask her mama, and turned as if to go.

But the man lunged towards her, and that gave her wings.  She ran, out onto the road as if the devil were after her.  A car screeched to a halt and she heard an angry shout.  Ah!  It was Bubba, her big brother and he was yelling at her.

“What you doin’ out here on the road?  You spose to be home for lunch.  And prackly gettin’ yo’self killed!”  But he opened the door for her and she climbed in.  She shot a look backward and saw the man retreating back into the woods.

“Hey, Bubba,” she said, “ where de black community live?”

“Where de what?”

“De black people.”

He threw back his head and laughed fit to kill.

“You’s a moron!” he spluttered.  “Dat’s a good one!”  And he went on laughing.  But then he sobered and said, “What wuz you runnin’ from?”

She told him a man was trying to catch her.

“Was he a white man?” he asked.

“Oh, no!” The image of the snow man flashed before her mind’s eye.  “Sorta pinkish.  But his neck was red.”  Her brother looked very put out.

 

At home her mama didn’t scold her for being late.  That was a good thing.  So she thought it was a good time to ask her question.

“Mama, where de black people live?”

Her mama turned and stared, a little laugh at the corners of her mouth.  “’Why dat’s us, din’t you know?”

“Us?  But we not black people, we’s just folks!”

“We’s black folks.”

“No,” she insisted.  That was all wrong.  She looked at her arms.  “I not black.  I’s yellow.  And Bubba, he … coffee-colored.”  She pictured her dad.  “Papa he sorta chocolate-coloured.”

“And me?”

“You, Mama?  You’s a cream colour.  You’s de prettiest mama I know.  And Papa,” she added, to make no favourites, “he de handsomest daddy dey is.”

“Ah, Serendipity,” sighed her mother.  “you got a lot to learn.  If only people could think like you.  But dat ain’t de way de world is made.”

 

 Paula's story

Laura stood on the sidewalk in her bright pink work apron, staring up at the name of her restaurant — HER restaurant — painted in a beautiful script above the doors of the building. She had ordered black paint, but the artisan whom she hired for the job had arrived with navy. And although at the time, she had thought, what a moron, he persuaded her to let him work, and if she didn’t approve of the finished product, he would redo it. She had realized almost immediately that he was right: the blue letters stood out beautifully against the warm, bright gold of the painted brick façade. Quite French Provincial, she thought now. Perfect.

 

After years of trudging from restaurant kitchen to restaurant kitchen across Manhattan, her knives neatly tied up in their cloth sleeves, tucked under her arm, she had finally been able to make her dream come true. Her own restaurant. What amazing luck to find this small building, just a few streets from her apartment, shortly after the death of her beloved uncle left her with an inheritance large enough for a down payment. There was even enough money to furnish the place, in a minimalist fashion, and only 12 tables, but it was a start. Today was the big day: she would open her doors, offering a modest lunch menu. It was October in New York, and the day had dawned perfectly, with an azure sky and temperatures that barely whispered of the winter to come.

 

Meanwhile, a few blocks away, 28-year-old Eliza was ensconced in the reclining chair of her dentist’s office. Seven months after the car accident that shattered her jaw and broke almost all of her teeth, she was being fitted with the dentures that would surely rule her life for the rest of her days. Her dentist was, even now, as he worked, cautioning her that she must eat only soft foods for the next several weeks until her mouth and jaw adjusted to the foreign objects. Her mother had thoughtfully bought her a very expensive blender, which was sitting on the kitchen counter of her apartment, waiting to be put to use. Puréed foods and milkshakes, Eliza thought. That’s my life for a while. “Look on the bright side,” her dentist said. “Never again will you have a toothache!” Great, Eliza thought. Who really wants their dentist to crack jokes at a time like this?

 

When she finally was released, her jaw aching and her back stiff, she realized she was hungry. Hungry for what, exactly, she wondered wryly. It’s not like I have many choices. As she hurried down the sidewalk, she stopped suddenly in front of the former Vietnamese place where she had ordered  so many takeout dinners over the years. It had been transformed, into a sunny yellow building with sparkling new floor-to-ceiling windows, and a row of tiny café tables in front. Small maple saplings

sprouted from dark green wooden planters between the tables. 

 

A woman in a bright pink apron stood in the doorway with a welcoming smile and a stick of chalk in her hand. Then Eliza spied the chalkboard propped against the door advertising today’s lunch special: a trio of soups. What luck, she thought gratefully. She looked up to see the name of the restaurant, painted in a beautiful navy script against a gold background, and she smiled: Serendipity.

 

 

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 Jackie contribution

A serendipitous moment

I was dubious about him from the start.    Leaning into the door like a young SAPLING  sprouting out with spots and boils on his forehead.     I have a terrible TOOTHACHE  he said stumbling into the shop – showing me his BLACK  gums while licking an ice cream and dripping vanilla all over my clean floor I painstakingly wash and disinfect every morning.   I reminded him that the dentist was a few doors down the street.

 He fingered the clothes on the racks and undid the scarves trying them on this way and that – put them round his scrawny neck and screwed them up into a ball.     Flinging them back on the table like a MORON with no manners.    He reeked of cheap perfume that followed behind him like a sick dog with tail between his legs.   His raincoat looked like it had been dragged through a ditch and the shoes if you can call them that – had clearly seen better days.

How much is this? How much is that? Questioning the quality and whereabouts of fabrication.

I reminded him to wear a mask not just over his mouth but cover his nose as well ,  spray his hands with the disinfectant gel … sounding like a mother scolding her three year old.    He didn’t pay attention just continued round the shop and I concluded that he had to be got rid of quickly.  I opened the door stood by it and said clearly that he should have a nice day – trying to usher him out – I’d like to try this he said holding up a man’s shirt – oh dear I dreaded the state of my changing room after he’d been in it.    Now I need something for my girlfriend,  picking up several dresses – blue, green and red,

I began to panic thinking he was going to walk out of the shop with all my stock without paying.    

Well I’ll take all this, he said piling loads of shirts, scarves and dresses onto the counter and  pulling out a Gold Platinum credit card.    The transaction went through  - a truly SERENDIPITIOUS moment – it made my day and even my week !  and taught me a lesson.    Never judge a person on appearances alone.  

 

 

She smashed a glass

Geraldine's story

Sophie was a violonist ever since a little girl.  She loved the melancholic sound of her instrument and when her parents, both pianists, started to show her how to play,  she complied, but kept on about the sound the violin made and how it made her shiver each time she heard one.

-       I love the music you play, but I really would prefer playing the violin : you see, you can hold it like a baby or a doll, or a cat and it feels so much closer to me than our huge piano that I find much more intimidating….

 

So, both her  parents were open to her feelings and wishes and found Joseph, a very good music teacher to start her with the violin.

 

Joseph, a tall fellow with blue eyes and dark hair that he wore down to his shoulders, had a very romantic look :  he would start playing, steady on both his feet, and ten seconds later, the whole body would be swaying, his eyes would close, and he seemed to be in a completely other world where he didn’t belong any more and submerged by the emotion of the music emerging from his bow.

 

Sophie was immediately enthralled by him and his teaching.  On the whole, she wasn’t a very good learner at school for example.  She would easily learn things she found interesting or she thought might be useful for her future, but whatever seemed off-putting didn’t really interest her or get her to make the effort to explore.

 

But, as soon as she started her violin lessons with Joseph, everything became wonderful :  her life changed into a warmer colour, her emotions became so strong, her face would illuminate like a candle or tears would pop up to her eye lashes. She experienced something so new to her and started loving living every day.  She would grab her violin whenever she had a spare moment and get those notes right, the sound clearer and her bow would run on the violin trying to get the purest possible sound.

 

Joseph, now, came twice a week so as to intensify the learning.  By the end of the first year, she was able to perform Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” with vivacity and feeling.  As she was progressing so much, Joseph suggested she joined the very well known Calicot Orchestra in which he was “first violin”.  Sophie was so happy, learning how to adjust her performance with the others, waiting for the conductor to give her the indication when to start, when to play louder, when to make her instrument softer, when to give an attack etc…  This was a whole new experience again for her and she just did and gave her very best at it.

 

But, somehow, although she was doing so well, she had a feeling something started to go wrong!  What could it be? She couldn’t really spot what was going on, but she felt much less secure than when she was just learning with Joseph.  One day, she opened up to him on the subject and he reassured her : “being part of an Orchestra was the finality of music… Playing together, with others.  Maybe that step was a bit big for her to take, but it was where she was going”.

 

Every year, around Christmas or New Year, the Calicot Orchestra would give a live concert in town.  This year, Sophie would be playing for the first time with the Orchestra.  She had practiced, and practiced and practiced Shubert’s Arpeggione sonata.

 

When this special Evening was there at last, all the musicians were dressed in black and white : black dresses for the ladies and black costumes for the men with white shirts and a black bow-tie.  Her auburn hair was casually lifted in a loose “chignon” , her blue eyes underlined with a shade of green make-up and her lips redrawn with some red vivid lipstick.  She looked and felt gorgeous….

Joseph was, of course, the most handsome musician and being 1^st violin, strongly attracted the public’s attention.

 

The concert which took place in the city’s town hall, all decorated with a huge Christmas tree and light garlands, was very good.  All the musicians played with such intensity and the public gave large applauses after each movement.  The cheers were so strong that, at the end, they had to give 3 more pieces in order to satisfy the spectators. Joseph had to come forward and bow for almost 10 minutes and got so many applauses that the people’s hands must have been all red….

 

At the end of year concert,  the routine had always been to offer Champagne to the public, with a little tradition : as in Fellini’s film “E la Nave va”,  the crystal flutes were filled at different levels with the champagne and Joseph, the 1^st violin, played a Christmas Carrol hitting them gently with a small spoon  to get the purest possible sound.  The whole assistance was enthralled and a very beautiful young woman came up to him with a “bouquet”, kissing him on both cheeks. Once more, another thunderous applause for the hero of the evening.

 

What was going on in Sophie’s mind at that moment, nobody could guess, but…. She completely lost control, dashed to the table where the champagne flutes were standing, picked one up, lifted it in front of Joseph and the young women screaming “cheers”, and then   “she smashed the glass”!

 

Silence!  Complete silence followed her gesture.  Then a murmur started in the crowd, while Sophie’s parents ran towards their daughter to take her away.  And she left the first and last concert she ever gave with the Calicot Orchestra between her parents holding her with all their love and wondering what on earth had so deeply upset their child.

 

 

 

 

 Sarah's story

 

And she smashed the glass  2 (Deconfinement Day)
(20.05-08.06.2021)

She didn’t want to go.
“It’ll be bedlam,” she said.  “It won’t be fun at all.”
But he wanted to go, absolutely had to.  “It’s been, what? months, over half a year since we could go out to a café or a restaurant.  I’m not missing this.  If we go early we’ll get a place.”
So they went early.  But then so had everyone else.  It was as if half Paris was there, and the other half still coming.  There was much pushing and shoving, bitter words on the lines of “we were here first!” and “are you mad, it was us!” and so forth, and some punches were exchanged.  But they got a table.  Or rather the corners of half a table, the other couple a bare metre away at the other end of the small rectangle.
Then they had to wait, because of course one had to be served.  There was no getting up and going inside to order for oneself.
“Couldn’t they have got on a few more waiters for the occasion?  They must have known there’d be a turn-out like this.”
“It’s not like there aren’t people out looking for jobs,” agreed the man of the other couple.  Then the two of them got going on the present situation and the obvious solutions, while the two women exchanged helpless looks.  Meanwhile other couples and threesomes and foursomes were jostling at the edges of the terrace.  
“They really ought to have hired somebody else.”
“Ha, looks as if they did.”
Indeed, the boy who finally showed up at their table was clearly a rookie.  He was flustered already.  They might have been his first customers ever.  They placed their orders and, looking quite uncertain, he went off.  The men drummed their fingers on the table and the women tried to relax.  The air rustled with the milling of impatient feet, the murmuring of would-be celebrators waiting for a table of their own.  
Finally the waiter brought two glasses of lager, but he wasn’t sure which couple to give it to.  
“We ordered a lager and a cider,” he said.  “It must be theirs.”
“We ordered a lager and a glass of white,” they said.  The waiter looked distressed.
“Just give us the two beers now and then bring the cider and the wine.”
But the waiter had already made out his bill.  “Who’s to pay then?” he asked.
“I’ll take the other lager,” she said, and he put the order down in front of them.
“So now it’s a cider and a wine?”
“’No, a lager and a wine.”
“Sorry?”  The boy was looking confused, and the people at the edges of the terrace were getting boisterous.  She was originally from the country and had often noted that the Parisians could be pushy, but she had never known them to be so rude as this.  
“A lager and a wine,” one of them called, “and get a move on, there’s a queue here!”
The waiter left and the two of them shrugged, smiled in commiseration at the other couple and clinked their glasses.  She took a sip, and realized that she really didn’t like beer.  “Oh, crumb,” she said.
“Still sulking?” he asked.
“Sulking?  I never sulk.  I just knew it would be like this.”
“Like what?  This is great!”
Then the waiter came back with a cider and a beer.  The woman of the other couple said, “I didn’t order cider!  She did.”
The waiter looked uncertainly at her, and she looked longingly back at the glass of cider.
“Hey!  You’re not thinking of taking the cider too?  You’ve got your lager now.”  He always had been a penny-pincher.
“But I hate beer!”
“Why didn’t you say so before, then?”
“I didn’t order beer.”
Heckling began to come from the crowd at the edge of the terrace.  “Make up your mind, Madame.  There are people waiting!”
And then she smashed the glass.  
The poor waiter got the worst of it, because he had to clean it all up.  There was more bad feeling because of having to pay for the broken glass, and much good-natured jeering from the crowd as they put on their masks and left, after he downed his beer in record time.  Two other couples fought to take their place.
“Well, now, that was a pleasant outing, wasn’t it?” she said sarcastically as they got into their car.  But he had recovered his good humour.  
“I wouldn’t have missed it for anything,” he said.  “Six months without going out for a meal or a drink!  Good times are here again.”
She raised her eyebrows slightly, as she buckled herself into her seat.  There was no point in replying.

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Paula's contribution

 

 

Being on the move again felt so good. Finally, after a year of pandemic-restricted movement — or no movement at all — they were traveling again. And what an ambitious plan it was: a flight from Paris to the States, and then six more flights, five states, 21 days. Those three weeks were chock full of activity: seeing family and friends, breakfast dates, lunch dates, dates for cocktails, dates for dinner … but also long talks, long walks, always on the move. As the days passed in a whirlwind of activity, they became more and more exhausted at the pace. But they were determined to pack as much into those three weeks as possible.

 

The final flight, back to Paris, like the other six flights on the trip, was on time, smooth and uneventful. All their bags spun merrily toward them on the luggage carousel.  There was no line at passport control and customs. Relieved, they made their way to the door of Terminal 2E, looking for the friend who had promised to pick them up and drive them the four hours home to Flavigny.

 

Finally, their luck ran out. She wasn’t there. She had mixed up the dates.

 

She promised to set off immediately for Paris, but the prospect of a four-hour wait after eight hours across the Atlantic, followed by more hours on the road was just too much for the weary travelers. Trains weren’t running, so their best option was to rent a car and set off on the autoroute, fueled by coffee and an intense desire to just get home.

 

And now, five days later, she still felt like she just couldn’t catch up on her sleep. She had so much still to do: She had already delivered the mule saddle she had brought across the ocean, but she still needed to unpack their clothes and toiletries, sort through all of the American products they had hauled back with them, do laundry, get to the grocery store to restock the frigo, tend to the neglected garden — and on top of all that, there was the appointment at the prefecture in Dijon, two days after arriving home, to renew their French residency permits. It felt like there was no end to the weariness. As she relaxed late one afternoon with a glass of champagne at a neighbor’s house, her friend Sarah reminded her that the writing group was meeting in a few days, and had she written her story? She could feel her eyes glazing over as a wave of fatigue engulfed her. She hadn’t given it a thought; there was no room in her brain for the creative energy necessary to craft a story.  Oh, well, she sighed to herself. They’ll understand.

 

The next afternoon, as she continued to unpack the remaining bags, she longed to lie down for a short nap. The writing group assignment was weighing heavily on her mind. After all, the group had agreed to change their meeting date, just so she could be there after her trip. As she unzipped one stuffed case, a pair of balled-up socks rolled under the daybed in the bedroom. When she bent down to retrieve them, she saw, out of the corner of her eye, a little alcove cut into the stone wall, just above the floorboards. Curious, she thought. That was never there before. She wriggled under the couch to get closer, and saw that the alcove was covered with glass, and there was a tiny hammer affixed to the front of the glass. She peered inside the alcove to see a largish envelope with these words printed on it: IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, ONE STORY FOR YOUR WRITING GROUP.

 

What did she have to lose? She picked up the tiny hammer, and then she smashed the glass.

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 From Jackie

___Monday 9^th   : I sat at my computer on a beautiful June morning with my early morning lemon juice and smoking my first cigarette of the day – .  

As I typed away on my keyboard, the table trembled and the a hefty glass ashtray fell off the desk and onto the floor.  Luckily it didn’t break but I was perturbed as to how this had happened.

My dogs who were asleep in their beds at the time suddenly started to growl and Daisy’s hair stood up on the back of her neck.     I  don’t have a cat – the window was shut,  door locked so there were no drafts and I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out how an ordinary old ashtray could just jump off a table with no warning.    Later that week another extraordinary thing happened. 

I was making dinner, alone in the house and just served myself some white wine in a beautiful cut glass which I had found in a cupboard containing forgotten crystal ornaments when I bought the house.   I  went to answer the phone and came back to find my drink spilled all over the floor and the glass overturned on the table.   This time I felt quite shocked and understandably scared.  The house was in a row attached houses in a quiet London street ;…..

Also my set of keys went lost from the place where they always live.  A few weeks of searching high and low, under tables, in drawers and pockets of coats and upstairs and downstairs;  they were nowhere to be found.  A month went by and suddenly there they were stuffed in the corner of the cupboard where I had found the forgotten objects.

 

I began to think about a ghost or worse still a poltergeist but there was definitely some supernatural activity going on.  So I did some research and it seems that ghosts just appear and don’t do much harm but poltergeists actually are violent and move things and break them.  Who was trying to contact me from the other side of the spirit world?  

As I said before, when I had bought the house there were some precious pieces of glass in a cupboard which naturally I kept and used.  I learnt that many years ago the dried out body of a woman had been found under the stairs in mysterious circumstances with the stem of a brandy glass stuck in her jugular vein.

There is a myth that glass symbolizes the separation between the physical and the spiritual plains –Heaven and Earth — and glass breaking is the spiritual side trying to communicate or get our attention.

 

 The only way to cure the actions of this thing/person/object would be to surprise them at their own game.  Acknowledge their presence.     So one evening as I was watching television –  the curtains in my living room started to move flapping about and even lifting up off the floor.     Again, There was no window or door open and no explanation as to why this was happening.   Again the dogs growled and their hair rose  Both  showing their teeth looking towards the curtains ears back they scampered off to the kitchen. 

   I seized the largest heaviest glass vase ready to hit the thing or something with it – all was quiet again so I didn’t  ….the same thing a few nights later.   This time my coffee table started to tremble and the coffee cups were rattling and shaking … again I grabbed the vase and just when the table started to shake most violently I seized it and smashed the glass onto the table. 

Silence.

Had it worked? Had I killed the thing that was invading my house and life ?  Rendezvous in a few weeks time when I’ll let you know.

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Annemarie's story

The Ballad of Bad-tempered Alice.

 

Alice grew up in  Kew Gardens conservatory;

She hated the plants, she hated the glass...and using the lavatory

...and she smashed the glass.

 

She missed an appointment to have her hair cropped

She looked at her watch and found it had stopped..

...and she smashed it’s glass

 

She went to the beautician, then gazed in the glass -

Her make-overed face looked more like her arse [1] 

...so she smashed the glass.

 

She longed to go sailing so checked the barometer,

The pressure was low and not getting better,

...and she smashed the glass.

 

She worked in a lab with thousands of germs in tiny glass vials

When she suddenly jumped with a painful attack of pitiful piles

...and she smashed the glass.

 

She went to a restaurant for Michelin starred food;

The wine, it was corked and the waiter was rude..

...so she smashed the glass.

 

She was given some perfume in a beautiful bottle

But the odour was awful and smelt of a brothel.

...then she smashed the glass.

 

She worked as a nurse  injecting some testicles

But her vision was blurred due to her spectacles.

...and she smashed the glass.

 

Taking her temperature tucked under her tongue

She choked on some pieces which went down to her lung.

...she’d bitten the glass.

 

She swung from the ceiling on a glass chandelier;

The fixing was feeble, the wire was weak and she fell on her rear.

...she'd shattered the glass.

 

She caught sight of her husband through a bow-fronted window

Having a breath-taking time with old Henry’s widow.

...so she smashed the glass.

 

Then bad-tempered Alice went skating on ice

Which glistened and gleamed like shiny white glass;

It suddenly shattered and swallowed her twice,

Through the deep water, then into the muddy morass.

 

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