sandie zand

I don’t like alarm clocks. Waking to manic beeping or ringing is, apropos our primitive selves, surely a sign we are waking to Trouble? Even the name – alarm – is wrong, wrong, wrong…

And so mine is set to radio. Formerly, this was R4 until I realised James Naughtie arguing with politicians (or, if I overslept, the platitudes of Thought for the Day) creeping into my dreams was no better a start than beep, beep, beeeeeeeep. It made me argumentative.

Now I wake to R3 but it’s hit and miss. My preference is for piano, with my least favourite the noisy brass band hammering out a rabble-rousing number.

This morning it was Elgar’s Salut d’amour which has surpassed all wake-up numbers to date – luring me from sleep kindly, willingly and with a smile.

In fact, I’d happily tolerate waking to this beautiful piece every day… make it so, schedulers, make it so!

Inanimate things, that is – and in no particular order.  

Mugs – I made these when I was a one-woman studio. Each was a reject, flawed in some way, hence they were never sold. The one in the middle is strictly mine – it’s my favourite and a one-off. A deliberately simple, rough and rustic pattern, and I love it. It’s heavy, substantial… comforting… coffee just tastes better from this mug.

Ancient Bears – the one on the right is over 100 years old. He was my grandmother’s when she was a child but has been mine for some years now. The monkey on the left is of an equal age and also belonged to her, I think. The bear in the middle belongs to Jess and is shortly to go off on an exciting overnight school trip. He’s just called “Bear”. I tell her he talks to me when nobody else is around and gives me good ideas for stories (this really annoys her… but I can’t give up the pretence).

Bottles – the one on the right was part of my Christmas present from my mum. It’s old and apparently has a twin in a museum somewhere. She says it’s for perfume but I prefer the notion that it’s meant to contain a dose of Opium for those creative blank moments. The one on the left is a Kosta Boda bottle and was a lucky find in an antique shop I used to frequent some years ago. The dealer was a drunk. Late afternoon was the best time to secure a bargain as he’d be quite pissed by then and open to silly offers. I picked this up for just a few pounds… I don’t think he had any idea what it was, or what it was worth, as his starting price was about a tenth of its value… and I couldn’t resist driving him down even further. Crazy man, great shop.  

Box of Memories – ah, what can I say? A box of old photos, love letters and diaries. I don’t look at these often but they provide the Finest of Fluffings as and when the need strikes.

Compass – this was given to me by a friend sometime in the 90s just before she went to live in Hong Kong for a few years. She said I’d always know where, directionally, she was… which I thought a lovely sentiment.

Kangaroo – my great-uncle made this and I used to play with it as a kid when we visited. It hops down sloping surfaces and, unlike any toys owned by my own children at a similar age, the kangaroo still works – and will continue working, probably forever! My great-uncle is long dead but my great-aunt Ellen, my grandma’s older sister, will be 101 this spring.  

Daughter’s Kindle – we got her this for Christmas and I’ve been coveting it ever since. In fact I’ve downloaded two Authonomites’ books onto it recently and am sneakily reading them when Sam’s asleep.

Old Photo – this goes hand in hand with the box of letters really. I’m eighteen and very much in love and I can’t help but smile whenever I see this picture. It was taken by a mutual friend before he drove us to the station so we could ‘run away’ for a few days… Blackpool rather than Paris, but I can testify a walk along its beach late at night is as romantic as anywhere in the world when you’re the only two people who exist.

Old Books – I have quite a few… this picture shows a set of Shakespeare’s works in their own little bookcase. The two tiny books on top are gorgeous – Thoughts from Ruskin and Essays of Elia. I was given many old books when I was a child by a lady called Miss Lucy Alston. She lived nearby and we shared the same birthday, which was her excuse for giving me books. In truth she was just pleased to see a child who loved books as much as she did. She was a retired school teacher – of the ilk no longer seen – her house an absolute museum piece with masses of antique books, furniture and musical instruments. In later years she’d go on world cruises, alone, and bring me back exciting things – often little vintage treasures, such as a 1920s silver lipstick holder (containing its original red, waxy lipstick which I wantonly used up in my teens without any regard for its age or museum value!). She was a fascinating, generous woman and I wish she were still alive as I’d appreciate her – and her stories – so much more now.

Teenage Poems – do I really like these? No. They’re all awful, but I’m glad I’ve kept them. I don’t know why… it’d be wonderful to have a really fantastic collection of poetry that I wanted to share, instead of this terrible hidden stash, but even still… there’s just something about looking over one’s own scribble, the gushing emotion, the dreadful rhyming couplets… I’ll never show them to anyone and think I’ll ask for them to be burned along with me when I die – not for sentimental reasons… just to get rid of the damn things. But still… it’s funny to read them and comforting to know I once bothered enough to write them.

School Reports – my primary school reports glow! Praise at secondary school level fluctuates somewhat. Primary school: “Sandie reads with intelligence” and “Sandie writes with great imagination and expresses herself well” – hurrah! – tempered with “at times tends to be a chatterbox” and “must try to concentrate all the time”… yes… right… and the cruellest blow:“can be silly if allowed and easily distracted from her work”. 

Not much changed there then. 

Wesco Bin – even sadder but I adore my Wesco bin. I think were I to develop paraphilia, this would be the object of my lurve. It’s not the phallic shape so much as the whole contour, so gloriously rounded, and it’s solid, robust – the lid is vicious actually – and such a beautiful Cornish ice-cream colour… I know, I know, I probably need help for this fixation with my bin. It’s called Blodwyn. 

… nature hath framed strange fellows in her time.

Hurrah… it’s almost my favourite time of year!

The Romans moved the start of the new year to January in 153BC – a month named after Janus, the god of gates, doorways, beginnings, endings and time, who is generally depicted with two heads: one to look back on the past, the other forward into the future.

They believed Janus would, at midnight on 31st December, simultaneously look at both the old and the new years. It became customary to exchange good luck offerings at this time and in an early example of how quickly commercialism evolves around human habit, simple offerings of branches from sacred trees progressed into gifts of coins bearing Janus’s two heads, presumably in the hope of evoking prosperity for the coming year.

This practice of looking back, like Janus, on what’s gone – learning from it and moving forward with enthusiasm – is a human endeavour I’ve always found very cathartic. Essential, for me, in fact. But this year I’m deviating from it. I’ve spent the whole of 2010 in backward glance, gaining me nothing and costing me plenty, and so I shall forego the annual melancholy twixt-Christmas-and-New-Year navel gaze and skip straight into the optimism of another new beginning… a fresh start… a blank and promising page.

I wish a Happy, Prosperous, Optimistic and Productive New Year – when it comes – for you all!

Oh, and here, have an olive branch…

xxx

Okay, the title is misleading – and merely to test the poetry knowledge of anyone reading this post. The subject isn’t my old lover’s ghost, but more a general observation that Shrewsbury seems to be a seriously haunted town.

I’d noticed a while back how my ordinarily efficient smart phone played up in certain shops and areas of the town. On one occasion it went completely barmy, flashing on and off and refusing to respond to any button pressing. A few minutes later, when trying to pay for some items, the shop till also went odd and wouldn’t work. The sales assistant apologised and I made some jokey comment about my phone being of a similar mind and perhaps the shop was haunted.

At this point he leaned forward and told me, in conspiratorial tone – presumably not wanting to get in trouble for potentially scaring off clients – that the place was, indeed, haunted. He recounted several strange recurring incidents – malfunctioning equipment, lights, and changing room doors which lock themselves after hours – and said staff were convinced the shop was riddled with ghosts.

It, along with many other shops, is built on the site of the old castle walls and I’ve since noticed that all along that stretch my phone is knocked out of working order every time I go into a building.

I’m sure some dry, sensible geologist type, or architect, or whatever, will be able to explain rationally why certain areas of Shrewsbury interfere with mobile phones, despite the rest of the town offering glorious network coverage (the likes of which I was denied during six years of rural living, hence the gushing). But I don’t want to hear those rational explanations. I like the thought that this beautiful old medieval town is rampant with mischievous ghosts.

The sales assistant in the haunted shop said he’d been on the Guided Haunted Walk and how fantastic this tour is. I’ve yet to do it myself, but am looking forward to it. Shrewsbury at night is even more gorgeous than in the daytime and, with or without ghosts, many of the tiny cobbled alleyways are so evocative of their past, it’s like stepping back in time just to walk down them and imagine what life (and death) they’ve seen over the centuries.

The poem, incidentally, is beautiful and called Love’s Deity, by John Donne. Today just before I got into the hairdresser’s, a rather unkind email arrived on my phone. The hairdresser’s is built upon the old castle walls and one of those mischievous ghosts decided – wisely, I thought, on reflection – to erase that email from my phone. So, I dedicate the poem to that thoughtful spirit and thank him/her for not interfering with the scissors during my haircut.