I might or might not start another poetry series. I'm thinking about the name.

"This is what I can't tell you"

"This is what I remember"

"One evening this happened"

"I don't want to write this, but"

"Silence"

"This is why I didn't come to London for that family party"

"What the (different) hell?!"

"What fresh hell is this?!"

"When I said I was fine, what I could have said was.."

"If you'd listened and waited, then listened some more, I might, just might have told you that.."

"Even now I don't want to look back and write about this"

"I worry I might forget what happened, even though I have spent 5 years not talking about it to anyone, apart from short glimpses, more to silence and stun the other person, shut them up"

"When I have talked about this to professionals in the past the other person would give me 'the look', the one that says 'I am out of my depth. I am scared. I can't hear what this mother is starting to tell me.'"

A different set of Umm Kulthum songs, more delicate, more beautiful. The first set are no longer available on YouTube. http://umkolthoum.blogspot.co.uk/

Previous churches I have been part of, post has turned into a trip down memory lane, long

The Oratory in Knightsbridge, London, when I was small, around 1969-71. Apparently my mother was christened there, but I could never quite believe this.

Holy Trinity Brompton, Knightsbridge, London, same, plus I got married there, 1988, they had great Sunday breakfasts when I was about 6, we could play behind the curtains on their stage.

Holy Apostles Church, Pimlico, 1970's I remember a molar of mine being loose during one service...and I asked my mother about Joseph's virginity in another....

Cavendish School, Camden, London, 1970's, no photo of the chapel upstairs, maybe it has changed. There were 2 nuns there in my time, the Head and another one. I did my First Confession there in a lacy dress. Odd really when I think about it. I remember challenging an important concept there, probably virgin birth/conception, or rather just saying that it wasn't true to a child next to me.

I loved washing out the art brushes and trays. The top class teacher was wonderful and kind. I hope she is still alive and thriving somewhere. She sat on the bench at playtime and we all sat and stood around her.

Westminster Cathedral, Victoria, London We used to have McDonalds after the Sat pm service, then my mother would sing in the street as we walked home. It was only half decorated, just dark Byzantine brick arches and high curved roofs.

St Paul's Girls' School, Hammersmith, London 1970's No chapel, but an amazing organ and main hall. The chaplain, Adam Ford, told us about his daughter 'I'm free' and about the stars in the wider universe at assemblies. Just facts. I hope he is happy somewhere too. So I used to tell T about the stars, planets and space at bedtimes, partly because of him and partly because T likes this topic.

Seeing the 2 videos is weird, it all seems so busy, teachers talking and talking while the people are trying to think and write, I always hated that. All those people squashed into the 6th form common room, I avoided that like the plague too. The video wisely misses out lunches and those locker rooms. I loved the main library though, blessed peace and quiet.

Trevelyan College, Durham 1980's Right at the end of the video there is a glimpse of the series of huge oil paintings in the dining room. I could have eaten them, the sun shone on them and they glowed in the huge modern space.

There was a little chapel, but it was cold and seemed unused, with a great big tree next to it. I could have lived in there happily, but it wasn't an option.


Durham Cathedral A big part of being at Durham, I never paid to visit because I lived there!

St Michael's, Embassy Church, Paris, so welcoming back in 1985, Sunday lunches every week.


St Mary's Cathedral, Glasgow, what a wonderful choir, all those mags and nuncs, around 1987.

St John of Jerusalem in Hackney, London around 1993, when the Bishopsgate Bombing happened.

All Souls, Langham Place, London, 1994 I didn't go there but my fellowship group was part of it.

St Laurence Church, Warborough, 1995 I remember a little icy hand round my waist as I sat there breatfeeding during the winter, the books don't mention these details.

St Birinus Church, Dorchester, 1995 Well, I tried to take a small baby to church, that didn't really work, but a dad grabbed me to come and meet his wife who also had a new baby back at home. We knew each other for some years and she inspired me to breastfeed more openly/lushly/fully.

Friends' Meeting House, Wallingford 1994 onwards This is my current true home, silence then lots of talk and a library and shared lunches.

St Andrew's, East Hagbourne, 1998 onwards This is my local, I sit there and enjoy the hymns, disagree with the words, but love being there and enjoy the Friday Prayer Meetings and many events in the year. I have a key to the church, so it is effectively my private chapel, how privileged is that? There is a blog too which I contribute to sometimes.

St Mary's Bourne Street, London 2000's We used to go along to help my Grandfather walk there, stand up and sit down. Their ex-vicar and his wife were one of the first home educating families I got to know in real life. I needed that. Hi Lil!!

Westminster Quaker Meeting, St Martin's Lane, London, 2010 onwards This is my home from home in London.

Go to the Gallery link on each of these to get a full picture!!

Poetry and traumatic times

After that amazing question was asked and answered, 'What do you do with your rage?', I realized I could write poetry to process mine too. This was during the question and answer session after the poetry reading at the Migrants' Resource Centre in London last week.

I won't only be looking back at rage, but at many traumatic moments in the run up to and after starting home educating.  Gradually the many situations I have experienced or witnessed are coming back to my mind. I am letting myself just say one word to myself, like gravel or door, as a reminder of each incident. These memories are purely visual or emotional.

Often when I wrote my diary at that time I found I could not list the events in order, I would write something like, I'm not sure when this bit happened (during the evening). So even the sequence of events was shocked out of my mind.

Other events would succeed each other, but I would not know how one section joined to the next because a linking bit of time would not be in my memory, it would have been blanked out, even though it was only a few hours earlier. I knew it was missing because the memories would move from one location in the house to another with nothing covering how we got there. I didn't know how much time was missing.

They were like snapshots actually, like the time I was in a car crash and all I could remember were a sequence of separate moments, as if I had opened my eyes several times to see different instants, but had my eyes shut in between each one.

I had thought I would need to find another counsellor, but now I sense that I could work by myself on this.

I think it would be best to create some sort of ritual to surround the calling to mind and choosing of words for this remembering. I would like to know that I won't ask myself to think about these things out of the blue so a lead up walk to a special place might help me keep this all sectioned off safely. I wonder where I might like to try this out.

I have a chair my grandfather used and there are various places in the garden. The village has benches going right out into the countryside. There are cafes in Didcot. There is a whole stone church in my street to which I have a key.

Since thinking about this idea I have left it alone. Doing a post here is quite enough for now.