Craft Works

Craft Works ©

By Michael Casey

Well the school year is almost over, so the school reports have arrived, the girls’ school posts them out, so there is no fear of them being “lost” not that the girls would need to lose them. As its also end of school year any craft objects come home to decorate our house.

My small daughter has produced a wind chime so I have to find a place to hang it, as it’s quite heavy it cannot be attached to the light pull in my room or in the bathroom. So it’s relegated to the metal post that holds up one end of our washing line. The pigeons will be the art and craft critics, awarding one, two or several white marks to the device. Though the local cats might attack the pigeons first, before any artistic grading or scoring can be given.

They use laser guided design tools or some such thing at school. When I was at school 40 years ago we had a ruler and a pencil, and maybe a fretsaw. So what the girls use is very high tech. One of my brothers was a bit of a carpenter at school, perhaps he should have been christened Joseph.

As for me I was total rubbish. You make a 12 inch pencil case in 1^st year, they call it Year 7 now, just to confuse parents like me. My pencil case ended up as an 8 inch one, why? Because I got the ½ joints wrong and had to trim my wood, twice in fact. So my pencil case shrunk. Mr Ely was both the woodwork teacher and PE teacher, he was very tall. I remember that fact for once on the rugby field I was able to throw him out my way, I was as strong as a man when I was 12.

My woodwork skills were just rubbish, but I tried my best, and made a football rattle out of wood. It’s upstairs in the rubbish room underneath all the junk. Nowadays it would be classed as an offensive weapon and the Police would never allow it into a football stadium.

We also did metalwork at school, and having a Blacksmith father did not help, I was rubbish at that too. We made ornaments of plastic with 3 pieces of twisted metal planted inside like trees. Only mine got warped and arthritic, I was not proud of my efforts at craft. I remember I took it home and installed it on top of the air raid shelter, it stayed there until it rusted, then we just binned it.

So the final craft subject was Art, I think the teacher was called Mr Boulton, same name as the kid in front of me in class. No we didn’t tease him about being the son of the Art teacher. And yes I cannot draw or paint or anything. We were going to carve a piece from chalk, so I drew an outline of Coffee our dog on a square of chalk we had created from powder and the we were supposed to carve it. Needless to say, if I was making instant coffee I would have had more success and at least I’d enjoy the drink.

All I can remember is taking a lump of chalk home, which we gave to my  little sister to draw with on our back yard. Mr Boulton also had a few mens magazines for the A level students to look at, we stumbled over them and were told to leave them alone, despite this I never wanted to do A level Art. I did one year and that was it.

So with this lack of ability what of the next generation? Both my daughters are great artists, drawing like professionals. My brother could draw too, he used to do cartoons by drawing on the edges of books, so you flick the book and the cartoons come to life. My wife can do calligraphy, in Chinese characters, so the Shanghai side has saved them. That and the fact that we were strict parents, no video games nor such toys when they were small, all we gave them was crayons, hundreds and hundreds of crayons and pencils. Ten years of that makes for good draughtsmanship.

So now I have to shave and so forth, SSS as it’s called if you can work out that crossword clue. Then I’m off to Aldi for my daily shop and my daily walk, if my priest is right I’m now halfway through my recovery period, post quadruple bypass, it was supposed to be a triple but six months later I discovered I had four grafts. Ah well, at least I’m still here amusing you all, and that I suppose is my only craft, I am a writer, I cannot do anything else, though I hope I’m a good dad.

As I look out my window

As I look out my window ©

By Michael Casey

As I look out my window I try and decide what to write about today, I can write about what I’ve seen on the news, or what I see out the window, or just from the window in my mind. I may write parody, like I did the past 2 days, or I may write from life, from our Shanghai/ Birmingham family, not forgetting Totoro our cat. I don’t know what I’ll write each day, it may be minutes or even moments before I know what I’ll put on the page. I just hope it’s interesting and amuses. I have been writing a long time now so I hope the quality stays high.

Now a few minutes ago 2 Polish men walked up the road carrying a bed, or the top of the pine bed frame at least. Are they moving house at this time of night? It’s nearly 9pm now. Or is one man giving away the bed to another man? Now because I’ve just seen that I could write 2 pages about beds, there is so much in the soup that I can just about write about anything at the drop of the hat. 

The soup by the way is my life experience, so I just ladle out a story just like a school dinner lady, though obviously I am much more attractive if I were in drag, David Walliams is a dear dear friend. So as I write the story I add the meat and two potatoes, and a dollop of gravy splashing over the plate and onto the tray and even onto your school uniform. I may or may not add pudding, it’s not up to me, it’s up to the story, if the story is very funny it’s because the story is funny, or does that sound too pretentious.

I’m listening to Celine Dion right now as I talk to you, she’s good. But she’s also sad, because the night my mother died her song was on the radio, You Lifted Me Up etc, so that song has a family connection to us, forever. So you can see how words and events have such power, they can control us and we not them. I enjoy not knowing what will happen with my story, will it turn right or left, will it go around in circles. I just hope it’s always interesting.

Now Totoro our cat jumps up the back of my chair, she’s a literary critic, she wants a cuddle before I’m allowed to carry on. The trouble with giving your cat or wife a cuddle is that you forget your place with the story. You can run out of steam in mid-sentence, so you have to end the story abruptly. Having music on can have the same effect, Celine Dion is singing I remember L.A. I haven’t heard it in ages, so I want to stop and listen so the story suffers. However as I’m explaining the mechanics of story writing its ok, now I’m  being nagged to go out to collect a Chinese takeaway, and the kids have come back from choir practice. They are telling me about a cute cat they spotted on their slow Summer evening walk back from choir.

Ok, I’ve just been up the road to New Peking, takeaways haven’t changed to Beijing yet, I’m still the take away fetcher. I get none either, my pigs say it’s for the good of my health, 18 months since my quadruple heart bypass and they’ll use any excuse not to share any nice food with me.

My big daughter is happy tonight, her braces are off after over a year, so now she has a plastic retainer over her now perfect teeth. I told her she looked like a rugby player with a gum shield, or a boxer. So she smiled back at me, and now she can smile. I did tell her we still have 1000s of photos of her with her gap teeth and I’d have posters blown up on the walls on her wedding day. Though some days due to all the pain I get  I wonder will I live that long.

Noises off, Totoro’s two bells ring as she tries to get some noodle left overs, she is of course bilingual, so you cannot fool her. As for me I’m back at the computer trying to explain things to you all. Perhaps I should have called this piece Explaining, that rings a bell and not just Totoro’s bells, is it a Clapton song? And yes I did meet him once but I told you that before.

So on the story goes and it should have a structure, it should not ramble, but so long as the rambling is interesting does it matter? Then the end by tradition does complete the circle. And they all lived happily ever after. In our case, my pigs have finished the noodles and Totoro got to lick the container clean, as for me I got nothing, for the sake of my health.

Now as its nearly 10pm and I may watch the news or we may all watch a film together I have to finish for the night. At this point I read back the story and listen to it in totality for the 1^st time, then I’ll give myself marks out of ten, and sometimes I’m really pleased where the story has led me, I don’t lead the story. On other occasions the meal I’ve prepared is not as tasty for me or for you, I can only use the ingredients in the back of the fridge, in my mind, in my soup. 

But then again there’s always tomorrow.

****** Thank you Mauritius and China for reading my stories, if you are an angel investor in China please email me, or then again you may think I’m a farmer.                              

                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Baubles for Children

_{Baubles for Children ©By Michael Casey}

<sub>Well I’ve really enjoyed watching the Politics here in England, in another life maybe I’d be a Political Journalist, my wife’s uncle was a Political Editor, anyway I’ll not bore you too much with Politics. Though I will say I AM the Birmingham Boris Johnson. The other comparison doing the rounds is where Prince Hal from Henry IV Parts One and Two becomes a true King in Henry V and that’s how Boris will emerge, I hope it’s true as the country needs to show its balls now. If it does work out, it really could be a renaissance for us all. I actually studied Henry IV Part One 40 years ago as part of my English Literature exam.

Now to today’s theme, baubles for children, teachers are really wicked when it comes to children. Yes this is such an important job, I want you to collect up all the pencils and put them in the pencil box, it’s such an important job, and don’t forget to put the lid on or the pencils will try to escape. Oh Cameron, you are such a clever little boy, one day you’ll be Prime Minister, you dad Tarquin would be so proud of you. And how is his new milk round going, he has a new float and its even faster than the old one, and now he sells potatoes and bread too, not just milk. Cameron you know you are my favourite, but don’t tell the rest of the class.</sub>

_{George, George can you stop shaking the moneybox, we are saving that money to send to poor people, I know you were only trying to guess how much money there was by the sound.  What, you want to be a drummer when you grow up, and you could use the money box as a groovy sound thing. You are such a clever boy George, I should introduce you to my cousin Ringo, he’s in a band called Worms, or some other insect. He can give you advice on how to make lots of noise. Yes you could fill the dustbin full of coca cola bottles and then roll it around the playground.  And you’d charge the rest of the school a penny a go, or they could pay in sweets. George you are such a clever boy, one day you’ll be a payday loan person, or a bailiff if you drank all your milk and ate your free school dinners. Look how big Clegg is now, I know he steals the slops and drinks all the dregs of milk. But he says it’s a liberal thing to do, and he is saving the environment, though it does make him fart fire. One day Cleg will be a central heating engineer, he told me so, it’s nice to have an ambition.}

<sub>Now Theresa can you collect up all the needles and pins and the safety scissors, you are such a clever girl, always praying. Can you stop gluing sequins to your shoes, I don’t think it’s fashionable at all. And what did you do to the toy leopard, you glued him to your wellies. Theresa you are such a naughty girl, but I do like your inventiveness, you can make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. What? One day you’ll be Prime Minister, and you’ll need to make silk purses from sows’ ears.

Where did all these flowers come from? What for me, you are all such kind children, I don’t deserve you. I think of you as my own children, I never married you know, I did have offers, plenty, w</sub>ell two, but it was just a flash in the pan. These flowers are just so lovely, where did they come from? You stole them from the cemetery behind the school playing field. You didn’t get them from the cemetery, where did you get them from Michael Casey, your aunty broke up from her boyfriend, and he sent loads of flowers to say sorry, but your aunty said you could have them. Because she has another bloke now, a big Polish lad from the chip shop.

I suppose I may as well keep all these flowers.









                                                                                                                                    

 

Moving Out Day 13th July 2016

Moving Out Day 13^th July 2016 ©

By Michael Casey

Where’s my socks? 2nd drawer down on the left, in my dressing room. Thanks, and where are my shoes? My shoe will be up your arse if you don’t calm down.

Sorry Babes, it’s just that with will we or won’t we and then finally it does happen, it’s all so sudden, I’m confused, I cannot think straight. You are definitely straight that’s why we have 5 children, you were the only straight man at Uni, that’s why I had to grab you fast.

You took my flower in the stationary cupboard if memory serves, I gave you my flower too. We all thought you were a sl-, if you finish that sentence I’ll give you a slap. But it was for the best, how many beds have we broken with our passion? Seven, the magnificent seven. It must me love, or lust. In future we must buy a bed from Ikea, or use reinforced concrete.

Where’s my collection of rubbers? I put them in an old shoebox marked RUBBERS in felt tip on the outside. I’ve worked in so many departments I just got into the habit of collecting rubbers. Isn’t that an American word for for Erasers, or is it the other way around? Tim, just put your pants on we only have a few hours before the new owner moves in. Couldn’t we just have one last parting shot? Where? Well they haven’t lifted the shag pile rug in your study.

So Tim and Louise had a parting shot on the floor, but what they’d forgot was that the movers had moved the curtains and blinds, so their performance was in full view of the movers and everybody else walking past.

Did you pack my collection of old Radio Times magazines? Yes, in boxes 20 to 55, with RT marked on the top. And did you send Tiddles to your sister’s until after the move. No, that was your job. No I remember I told you to do it. Let’s not argue, and while we are about it, can you just put your pants back on, I can’t argue  with that thing in front of me. Am I too sexy for my pants? Just like Right Said Fred? No you just remind me to buy some onions, we’re having stew at the new house.

Why is that box jumping over there, I hope it’s not a rat. You go on and protect me. Stupid, its Tiddles she loves hiding in boxes, the movers must have taped her inside, they are so incredibly fast. Don’t tell the RSPCA or we’ll never hear the end of it.

Where are the kids? They are at the new house already with my sister, setting up the wifi and the tv. Do you think they could live for a second without wifi? No, and I couldn’t live without you. Stop it we’ve done the farewell thing already. Don’t look sad, we can do the Hello to new house thing tonight. Will all the furniture be ready? 

Yes I paid the movers a little extra to do everything for us. Besides I said Boris and Michael my cousins would have words with them if they didn’t pull their fingers out, or they would pull their fingers out. I like Boris and Michael, how is their butchers shop doing now?

Shall we have a final look around before we go? I won’t miss the place, too noisy, all that drumming from the house next door, and all those argument between the neighbours, open the bleeding gate, you could have just left it open for me. That’s the trouble with party entrances and exits, no curtesy between neighbours. Not to mention all those expensive cars parked all over the place, I’m sure they must be car thieves, or something.

Well goodbye no.10 we’ll never see you again, what about those old glittery shoes in the corner. Leave them, perhaps Mrs Nott the new owner might use them in the garden at the back. 

Crying, I'm Crying

Crying, I’m Crying ©

By Michael Casey

Here in England it’s another day of laughter and tears, Theresa May will be our new P.M. or Prime Minister, as some say she has balls which is what we need to get us through this valley of tears which is called Brexit. On paper it could be a self-inflicted disaster, but the country has to make the most of it, no use crying over spilt milk. If you are a news/politics geek as I am then these days are days of infinite joy.

Tears are being shed and hair is being pulled out all as a result of Politics, but what happens when it’s really personal. Think of the tears that are shed when your mum dies, especially when it’s suddenly and unexpectedly. All of us will have to face that day, as you read this you may shed a tear thinking back to when you mum died, to when your brother died in that car crash, why didn’t you take those car keys away from him. We shed bitter tears of regret, why oh why didn’t we do things, then they’d be alive, then we wouldn’t feel all that guilt that turned us into an alcoholic as it was the only way to stop the guilt, through the bottle.

Whoever it was that died, the tears fall, they cannot but fall. But tears relieve us, they purge our soul. We shouldn’t have slept with that boy, that bastard, you were just another forgotten conquest. You should have slept with the geek, at least he would have really loved you, he would have married you if you got pregnant, but now, but now, tears nothing but tears. The geek was the best boy, but you were so pretty why should you give yourself to him, now tears are all you have, tears but no dignity. If you threw your pride away then maybe you still could get the geek to love you.

There are other examples of tears, tears of relief when you finally got that job, tears of joy when your wife said she was pregnant and you both assumed you’d never have a child. Tears when you wake up after your operation and you are still alive. Tears are such a relief, such a thing of joy.

My own mother died suddenly and unexpectedly, she died in the marriage bed next to her husband of 47 years, my brother tried CPR but she was gone. All the family cried, all except me. Mum had said don’t cry when I die, I know where I’m going so don’t cry. I didn’t shed a single tear for mum. Not even when the church was fit to burst, over 300 people and 5 priests on the altar. My mother had total faith, the faith of a child, when she died she had nothing to leave any of us, apart from faith, so that’s what she left me. So why did I need any tears?

So now 20 years later I just think it would have been nice for her to see and spoil her Birmingham/Shanghai granddaughters, but I’m sure from her vantage point she’s pointing at them and telling the Heavens “they are my granddaughters”. So if you have tears to shed then shed them, don’t feel guilty if you have no tears to shed, tears will come when they are ready to be shed.

In my own case my dad nearly died 2 months after mum had died, it’s all in Padre Pio and Me on the internet, then I cried, but he came back from the dead, dad live 5.5 more years. I met my Shanghai wife and we had 2 daughters, our eldest girl was held in my father’s arms, we celebrated his 80^th Birthday, then in the winter he died. Then I cried, I howled in pain, like a puppy dog in a sack being beaten with an iron bar, I howled for 2 hours. The tears came in torrents, the tears flowed, dad was such a strong man, life would have broken most man, but not dad. So the tears flowed like an ocean, but they were not enough, he deserved many many more. So if I were to become as great a man as he then I’d cry once more, tears of homage to his life, he was a gentle gentle harbour amongst many oceans of tears.  

Three Weddings

Three Weddings ©

By Michael Casey

Well I’m waiting for my big daughter to come home from a Wedding in Hereford, her aunty took her there now they are driving home to us in Birmingham. How do I know that? A parrot flew to us with a message, a pigeon post message if you like, ok my daughter just rung us.  But my explanation was more fun don’t you think? Earlier in the afternoon my small daughter was singing at a wedding, her sister didn’t join her as she was in Hereford at the wedding as a guest. It also happens to be my dead parents wedding anniversary. Three Weddings and a Windy Day for the Washing if you like, could be a title for a film with Hugh Grant.

My own wedding was very unique, perhaps even comic. We got a lift to the registrar office from Dr William and Cindy. William had a PhD in Metallurgy and he was delighted to meet my dad a blacksmith. The Registrar was the sister of a guy I worked with at City Hall in the computer room. He had set fire to his toast one morning  which resulted in the entire building being evacuated and the Brigade coming to put the fire out, luckily no damage done. As  for the offending piece of toast, it was framed and kept in a place of honour.

At the wedding my old school friend was there to sign the register, he was called Big D after a brand of peanuts, he was just so small. He was also a PhD, in Biochemistry, he claimed I stopped his heart, just by punching him when we were both 11 at grammar school. After the ceremony we went back to my sister’s house for a small celebration, due to my dad’s state of health we hadn’t bothered with any celebration. He had come back from the dead after his near fatal heart attack, 20 years ago. Then after 3 years of daily visits I final met my Shanghai wife, and the rest is history.

After the celebration we went back to our house, the new Mrs Casey carried me over the threshold, Chinese girls are so strong. Then a few hours later my old school-friend arrived and the three of us went to MacDonalds, the newlyweds and the friend of 30 years. My wife and Big D did chemical equations on napkins, I forget to mention my wife has a chemistry degree from Shanghai. Celebrating our chemical union by doing chemical equations on napkins in MacDonalds.

Your normal average Birmingham England Wedding Celebration, but there’s more. It was also the 25^th reunion of our old Grammar school. Now I’ve revealed too much, but maybe you’ll all rush out and buy my books on Amazon and then I can move house with all the Royalties, though I’d need a lot of books to be bought.

So we went and joined the class reunion in a bar owned by members of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. I bumped into my old Postman, who said I was Shanghaied and so I was with a Shanghai wife, he could not believe I was spending my wedding evening at a school reunion.  What else was I supposed to do, it was much more interesting the way it all turned out, after all I had been vetted by a Chinese ballerina from the Birmingham Royal Ballet before I was allowed to date my Shanghai girl. The vetting had taken place in the Queens Tavern, a straight bar in the Gay Quarter a year previously.

So there you have it my Wedding story, I was going to do a piece about Twitter but as the 3 weddings happened today this is was has turned up from the soup. The soup is my life experience   and like a dinner lady at school I ladle out the words to give you all a new story 2 or 3 times a week, so I’ve reached 760+ now. Twitter is fun, it’s like walking through a bar with drunks heckling each other, though there are some quiet corners of the bar. Then if you are lucky you can meet some great people through Twitter, or on other occasions you just meet me and 3 wedding parties in one day.