Glue

I hardly ever use glue so, on first hearing of it, the discovery of a glue well on Walkley Green did not inspire or excite me.  In fact, when do I use glue?  What do I have in the house?  I have a Pritt stick in my box of bits.  My box of bits goes to training events with me.  It contains pens, marker pens (chisel tipped), Sellotape (some glue involved there), Blu-tac (hmmm, is that a glue substance?), drawing pins, scissors and Post-it notes (more glue).  Funny how many items in my box of bits go by a brand name.  Sellotape is sticky tape. Blue Peter taught me that.  I haven't watched Blue Peter for years.  Blu-tac is adhesive putty.  Carmel taught me that so yes, it is a glue.  How do they refer to Post-it notes and Pritt stick? 

Back to the glue in my house.  We have Superglue, another brand name, and I have no idea whether we have actual Superglue or another type of super fast drying adhesive. It gets used infrequently to repair broken items around the house.  I prefer to throw away broken things and replace them if needed.  Broken items, glued back together, never quite look the same and they have a weakness from which they will never recover.  So, if I had my way, we wouldn't have Superglue in our house.  My husband likes flaws.  He finds them of great interest and he doesn't like to throw things away.  So, my Pritt stick and his Superglue, Blu-tac and Sellotape are the only types of glue in the the house in their functional glue form.  Clearly, glue resides in our home in manifest ways: Wood glue to hold furniture together, gum on envelopes and on the back of the stamps in my purse. Oh yes, and his artist's fixative.  Maybe we have more glue than I first thought. 

Nevertheless, I would put a lid on that glue well and hide it away.  We have a beautful green in Walkley; a place to stop and reflect; a place which lifts our thoughts and with them our feelings.  This place causes us to stop for a moment, even a fraction of a moment, to see the world in a different way.  I do not welcome these glue speculators, tramping over our lovely, lttle green. Slopping glue from their buckets onto the delicate blooms that flower around this modest rural space.  Besides, we have noticed a significant increase in the number of undesirables hanging around the area.  Glue sniffers.

Helen West

Dancers

The dancer at the shore
Rolling in foam, footprints in the sand, blending into the cliff face.

The dancer in the studio
The barre, mirrors, piano, pianist, blisters.

The dancer on stage
Audience anticipation.

The dancer in the landscape
Trees, nature, autumn leaves, birdsong, passersby.

The dancer in the castle grounds
Sunshine, tourists, applause.

The dancer at home
Music, fun, lovers twirl around the kitchen.

The dancer through the child's eyes 
That's my mummy on stage.


Helen West