Wendy Cope

I went into Waterstone's at lunch today. Readers of my blog, be not alarmed. I did not break resolution one, I promise. Instead, I spent a few minutes dreaming away in the travel guidebook section, before heading over to poetry. There, I chanced upon a book of poems by Wendy Cope. And was soon chuckling away to myself. Now I know where to go for a lunch-break pick-me-up.

Here are two pithy poems by Cope that got my attention in the shop:

Loss

The day he moved out was terrible – 

That evening she went through hell.

His absence wasn’t a problem

But the corkscrew had gone as well.

Haiku

A perfect white wine


is sharp, sweet and cold as this:


birdsong in winter.

And another couple I found later, digging around on the internet. The simplicity of the analogy in 'Bloody Men' gives it its power, while the simple pleasure described in 'The Orange' made me smile in agreement, its final line an everyday thanksgiving: I love you. I'm glad I exist.

Bloody Men

Bloody men are like bloody buses —

You wait for about a year

And as soon as one approaches your stop

Two or three others appear.

You look at them flashing their indicators,

Offering you a ride.

You’re trying to read the destinations,

You haven’t much time to decide.

If you make a mistake, there is no turning back.

Jump off, and you’ll stand there and gaze

While the cars and the taxis and lorries go by

And the minutes, the hours, the days.

The Orange

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—


The size of it made us all laugh.


I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—


They got quarters and I got a half.



And that orange, it made me so happy,

As ordinary things often do


Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.


This is peace and contentment. It's new.



The rest of the day was quite easy.


I did all the jobs on my list


And enjoyed them and had some time over.


I love you. I'm glad I exist.

Paddington Station

There’s a certain slant to the light in Paddington Station. As the sun comes through the glass* roof, between the arches, it softly diffuses. It creates a haziness, a sense of mystery that seems in tune with the excitement of travel, of the anticipation of a journey. It’s my favourite of London’s stations. Growing up in West London, arriving at this station signaled home. Now, as I live in Bristol, it’s the capital city’s front door. 

There's one feature of this cathedral-like Victorian station, in particular, that I love. The delicate ironwork tracery over the end window. Look up – you can’t miss it. I’ve always wondered if the ambitious and visionary engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel was himself responsible for it – he was, after all, creating a ‘Station after my own fancy’. Based on the Crystal Palace of the Great Exhibition of 1851, his iron and glass construction was both the largest station of its era and part of a grander plan. Brunel envisaged it as the starting point of a seamless journey ending in New York: London, Neyland (South Wales), New York. Means of travel: train and Brunel’s boat, the Great Western.

But, as I discovered thanks to Professor Google**, apparently decorative design was where Brunel’s expertise and imagination ran out: ‘for detail of ornamentation I neither have time nor knowledge.’ So the engineer enlisted the services of Matthew Digby Wyatt, a British art historian and architect, who later became surveyor of the East India company and the first Slade professor of art at Cambridge University. His legacy includes the India Room at the Foreign and Commenwealth Office and parts of Temple Meads station. Wyatt’s striking Paddington design has gently curling fleur-de-lys-like scrolls  and interlacing arches, perhaps echoing the Moorish influences he used elsewhere in the station. Made of metal, it looks strong, part of the railway and modernity; on the other hand there's a softness and movement in the curves. That's what just my layman's eye has observed, anyhow. If anyone with more expertise has any observations to make about why this is so striking, I'd love to hear them.

*It’s actually now, so the web tells me, polycarbonate glazing. Accurate but not exactly evocative.

**Some kind of official Network Rail report I stumbled across also rather poetically described the darker platforms at Paddington as having ‘the essence of Birmingham New Street’.

Air and water

Here's a snap taken on New Year’s Day: blue sky, a little white. It makes me think of clarity, serenity and freedom.

It is also, suggested a friend, like the tiles at the Clifton Lido, a restored Victorian outdoor swimming pool in Bristol, tucked away from the hubbub of main-road traffic on a cobbled street. I’ll be writing more about this special place in another post. 

At the time, I wasn't entirely sure I agreed about the tiles, until I bought a pair of goggles last week. Now – call me fanciful – every time I swim I see sky below me: it's a darker, richer colour than the New Year's blue of the photo, mottled with grey, but similarly uplifting.

Living Italian

A photographic clue to what I might be doing in the month of May...