tears dry on their own

There is a massive scar on my knee.  Three neat golden lines above my kneecap; stripes standing out against my brown skin backdrop.

As all scars do, mine have their own story. A tale that transports me back to my London childhood on a sunny day in a West London school playground.

There I was. Two neat Afro plaits on my seven year old head. A 1970s sun smiling on primary kids running through lunch-break, as primary kids are wont to do.

My endless running was momentarily paused to discuss a game of run-outs. Could lunch-time get any better? Only if the teacher let me ring the massive school bell in about half an hour, but until then no, run-outs meant playtime perfection.  

A decision to take a short-cut round the back of the rose bushes in front of our classrooms, a push from behind and there I am - rose thorn in my leg. Clamped tight like wall anchor screws. Nothing but nothing was gonna get these thorns out.

Turn away if you're squeamish. I saw flesh. I bled profusely. I was mesmerized, until the pain kicked in and the tears began. Friends scurried to find dinner-lady help whilst another wrapped her arms around me in best-friend protection mode.

"Well" the dinner lady said as her shadow loomed across me; a cloud in my understanding of humanity "You shouldn't have been running around by the rose bushes should you, you silly girl?"

I limped to medical room by myself. 

My golden scars; testament to a little girl who learned to read faces and moods and attitudes and think 'Oh right, that's who you are is it?'

This post was inspired by The Photographer's Gallery: familyphotographynow.net:Childhood Tears

daddy lessons

There's no hiding away from this. My Dad was a strict dad.

A 'you better get your tail back home on time' kinda Dad.

A sit down and listen to me lecture if you know what's good for you type of Dad.

A jokes that will make you groan Dad.

A never got my mates names right Dad.

There was the time he took to riding his motorbike during my athletic training runs because he couldn't keep up.

There were the times he told me to take down my Adam Ant / Madness / Duran Duran posters so often that when I left home, I blue-tacked wall-to-wall posters that it seemed I had a heaven of popstars watching over me like Greek Gods - Britpop style.

There were the Christmas Eves where he baked bread loaves in the shape of plaits and bread buns with our initials on, then left the kitchen looking like a flour hurricane had swept through. His work was done.

There were the nights I would sit on the stairs listening to him talk with his custom officer colleagues on their way to / back from a drug raid. For those tiny moments I was an extra on Juliet Bravo.

There was the year he turned 40 and I was the cassette DJ forced to play The Clash's 'I fought the Law' over and over again.

He was the Dad my mates' mums (and my PE teacher) fancied.

He was the Dad who tried so very hard to instill a sense of my ancestry in me.

He was the Dad who drove us the length and breadth of Britain so we would know our home country.

He was the Dad who  caught me reading my football magazine instead of revising for my Biology GCSE.

He was the Dad who bought me baby dummies for my 30th birthday as a gentle reminder of what he was waiting for.

He's the Dad who would make me tea and toast and sit for hours watching box sets of 24 when I was on my first maternity leave.

He's the Dad that will discuss politics, race, racism, parenting, aging, football and Doctor Who in just one phone call.

He's the Dad who climbs mountains, swims in oceans and still insists on jumping over walls even though he's passed the Beatles age-related hit song.

He's the Dad who is greeted by his grand-daughters, like Norm from Cheers, with a 'Grandpa!'

He's the Dad who isn't strict anymore.

He's the Dad who became the Grandpa who still tells jokes that make you groan.

This post was inspired by The Photographer's Gallery: familyphotographynow.net:My Dad

miss you like crazy

grinding cocoa before shaking the pineapple tree

We were never one of those families who had grandparents and aunties and uncles regularly popping by. In my infant days I spent time with my Grenada grandparents, who were in London when I was born but I was too young for these memories to remain. Into my toddler years I certainly remember hazy, lazy days with a wonderful great-aunt who's daughters became my surrogate sisters; but that too came to an abrupt end.

We became a nucleus. A fortress of four that occasionally journeyed from suburbia into the city walls of London to visit our Caribbean extended families; as the years passed, the gaps between visits grew wider.

The GeordieLad's experience is not the same. He comes from a family that were used to each other's living rooms, Sunday dinners and Christmases. The love, laughs, support and birthday money that he had taken for granted was extended to me well before our wedding bells; his family circle widened to include me from day one. So when we became parents I planned to ensure that our girls saw all extensions of our family more often than at the obligatory weddings, christenings and funerals. And they do. We all do the best we can.

However, my Grenada grandparents cannot be part of this, returning back to their homeland in the 70s we exist in each other's lives through faded photos and fortunately, the rare visit. Now great-grandparents, we took the opportunity to take our babies during my maternity leaves but they were so very young that it was unlikely they would remember them at all.

So last year's summer holiday at my Dad's Grenada home was invaluable. They were now of an age where they could interact with their Great-Grandparents - it was an opportunity we could not afford to waste. Despite my Grandfather being invalid and quite poorly, the girls were respectful of his unpredictable behaviour and made sure they chatted to him about their adventures, even though he would often not respond. They knew he was listening and the morning we spent manoeuvring him down to the beach will be a lasting moment for us all. 

And as for my Grandma. Well, depending on which branch you sit on the family tree denotes the relationship you have with her. I do pretty well, thanks very much. The girls, do even better.  We'll not mention how my Dad gets on. She might have talked in riddles and roundabouts that made them look to me for interpretations (which I  would respond to with a 'yes Grandma' until they got the idea) but she taught them how to roll grind cocoa and churn ice-cream on her birthday. She showed them how anything can be stored in a freezer and took them on a photographic journey of her life in 1960s London. She also made them laugh with her sayings and gave them nicknames that would have prompted tears had I thought of them.

Saying goodbye to my Grenada grandparents was one of the hardest things my girls have ever seen me do. They don't like to see me cry. It's unlikely we'll be back there anytime soon. Yet I'm certain the girls understood that just because you don't see someone everyday or even every year, it doesn't make your love for them any less. 

This post was inspired by The Photographer's Gallery: familyphotographynow.net: familylivingfaraway

if i had a photograph of you

Do you have a plethora of family photos scattered all over your house?

Or are you one of those organised people who manages to get all your loved ones in one place to pose for a professional shoot?

Are you happy with the obligatory school uniform grimace or have you forgotten what colour your living room is because of all the holiday snaps adorning your walls. 

Or maybe you don't have any; for one reason or another.

I love a good photo. Now this sentence will have my Father chomping at the bit as I spent the greater part of my teens turning the other cheek before the shutter clicked.  I hated my photo being taken.  Still do.

But I do love to see family photos on my walls; meticulously levelled up the staircase, lovingly angled on every spare windowsill, protruding from holiday sand-filled bottles on shelves, perched on any unused flat surface I can find. And I love going into other people's houses and looking at all their family photos too. A physiognomy ancestry before my very eyes.

My goodness, she's the spit of your sister. 

Yes, she has your eyes doesn't she?

Which side of the family is he from?

Is that your childhood house?

And then there's my fridge. Magnets are demoted in favour of old passport photos and random images from disposable cameras that were fortunate enough to be in focus.  

The photos in our home tell of school, yes, and holidays, yes and of course weddings. But they also tell of that day when she wouldn't listen and the day I was glad I carried a change of clothes in the boot of the car and the day when we knew it was serious and the day our lives changed forever. These photos will tell stories when we forget the minutiae of the moments.

If truth be told, in this digital age of disappearing images, I harbour a secret desire to fill one entire wall in a collage of us. But something tells me that it wouldn't just stop there.  

This post was inspired by The Photographer's Gallery: familyphotographynow.net:FamilyCollages