Toadflax and Black Medick: Beyond the call of duty

Toadflax and Black Medick: Beyond the call of duty: I had left home at two in the morning, groped my way across the desolate plain between Soissons and Noyan in freezing fog and nearly ended...

Beyond the call of duty

I had left home at two in the morning, groped my way across the desolate plain between Soissons and Noyon in freezing fog and nearly ended my journey in a sugar beet patch.  The tiny country road had no markings and it was only the skidding of the tyres in the black mud that told me I had left the tarmac.

 I was heading for the A1 motorway near Amiens and then on to Calais.  The A3 was still being built and the tunnel seemed a far off dream.  Private enterprise was the buzz word in those days of miners’ strikes, dockers strikes and every other strike that anyone could think up.  My frequent trips to the UK were unpredictable.  I knew when I started out but never when I would arrive at my destination.

The familiar stench of rotten eggs greeted me as I drove past the chemical factory which belched out its foul fumes polluting the salt marshes. I was waved on by a bored customs official and parked in the small queue in the deserted port. Desperate for a sleep, I huddled up in my old fur coat and switched off. I dozed to the familiar squawks of seagulls, vigilant sentinels circling above as violent blasts knocked them off their lamp posts and tossed them to the sky.  

Cocks crowing to the dawn dragged me back to consciousness but confused, I could not work out where I was.

I sat up and was confronted by the spectacle of white roosters angrily vying for supremacy over the gulls who were having none of it on their own patch.  A lorry load of the dam things had drawn up next to me and was parked right up to my car. Furious, brave cocks, their combs red and swollen with rage, gave vent to their frustration in the cold morning light.  

The stench of that overcrowded lorry took me back to the time I had visited a factory farm and that was something I never wanted to smell again. I could not imagine how long they had already been in that lorry and how much more suffering they would have to endure until they were given the chop.   

The wind had freshened while I slept and the weather was closing in on us.  Low black clouds scudded across the sky as the gale struck. After a sleepless night, it was just what I needed on an empty stomach.  A few waiting cars were ushered on board and I quickly found a quiet spot in the bar at the front of the ship hoping to have another nap. 

Rain lashed the windows as the ferry got going and as we left the shelter of the breakwater, great seas caught us out and she leaned ominously to the east. The Captain barked orders and men hurried to batten down the exits. That made me somewhat nervous.  There was no way out.

The bar was deserted.  The lorry drivers had gone to their own lounge and the handful of passengers were scattered around the empty saloons. Then two ladies staggered in and made their way to the bar. They were obviously British, as no French woman of their age would have worn those trouser suits let alone sported purple grey hair cast in concrete curls.   They hugged the brass hand rail for dear life even as their legs flew out from underneath them.  In a fit of helpless giggles, they hung there like school girls at play making no attempt to stand up.   The gallant French steward with a Marseille accent, offered his assistance and straightened them up. 

‘Thank you, thank you,’ one effused flinging her arm around his neck and taking advantage of his proximity, kissed him on the cheek, ‘we’ll have two double gin and tonics, me lovely and if you want to throw yourself into the bargain we won’t say no either!’  I wondered how much of that the young man had understood though I did see a ghost of a smile cross his face.   ‘You look after us and we’ll look after you, that’s the way it is, isn’t it Ellie?’ The Ellie in question leered and grinned.

‘Well, I wouldn’t say no to a handsome young man either,’ and she staggered into his arms as another huge wave hit the ship. In spite of his best efforts to keep them all upright, they ended up in an undignified tangle on the floor.  With a lot of pushing and pulling, the steward sat them down in the safety of a large sofa.  Our eyes met briefly as he straightened his tie and smoothed his trousers trying to recover some dignity.

‘Mesdames, Mesdames,’ he scolded officiously in his best English, ‘please, you must stay there now. You must not walk around, you might get hurt. Please stay there and I’ll bring you your drinks.’ The ladies cheered approvingly. As he slipped behind the bar he caught my eye again and shrugged, shaking his head, making me a witness to the bad behaviour of the British. He must have thought I was French. Holding on to the heaving bar, he prepared their order and balancing a tray aloft, he danced a tango across the moving deck. It was quite a performance.

His customers applauded with great enthusiasm, dispatched their drinks in one go and ordered another round. A wave of nausea engulfed me and I quickly shut my eyes trying to breathe in as the ship went up and out as it went down.  Every time she plunged into a trough the propeller rose above the waves and changed tune, spinning in thin air, then crashed down with a shuddering jolt before resuming its normal rhythm. I did not like it at all. My fellow passengers kept calling for refills and got more and more raucous as the minutes dragged by. I dozed uneasily.

An almighty crash bought me out of my doze and I jumped up expecting sea water to engulf me in an icy wave.  The contents of the shelves above the bar had been thrown across the deck. Cans of beer rolled down between the tables and chairs and the fumes of strong alcohol, a cocktail of whisky, rum and Pastis 51 added to my intense discomfort.  I grabbed one of the paper bags that had been left for that purpose on the table.  This was not the Channel I knew and loved.  I had lived by it, swum in it and played on its shores but never had I been on it when it misbehaved. 

Finding it all hysterically funny, my two fellow passengers were enjoying every minute of the ride, much as they would a spin on the big dipper in Blackpool until that is, the inevitable happened. Being of a certain age, no longer lambs or even mutton dressed up as lamb, they could hold on no longer.  

‘I need the loo,’ Ellie screeched and beckoned imperiously to the steward who was sweeping up the mess as best as he could.  He pretended not to hear.   ‘I need the loo, the ladies, the WC, the toilet’ she yelled louder, ‘take me to the loo or else I’m going to wet my pants.’ The steward looked in my direction.  I made as if to be sick in my paper bag.

‘Take us to the ladies, for God’s sake man, or you’ll have to clean up something worse than whisky!’ He understood her perfectly.  Stoically he heaved the pair up and holding their waists, swayed precariously as they clung to his neck.

‘En avant, mes belles,’ he ordered  and propelled them forcefully up the aisle.  Two paces forward, stagger, three steps back, recover, hiccups and screams, slide to the left, more screams, fall over an arm chair, screams and laughter, recover, one foot forward,  slide to the right, one down, pull her up and recover.  At last they disappeared in the ladies.

I waited for what seemed a very long time. After a while a tune popped up in my head ‘Oh dear what can the matter be? Two old ladies and a steward locked in the lavatory...

When at last they reappeared, the steward, grey around the gills and as haggard as a castaway, looked as if he had been keel hauled.  His charges were as subdued as naughty girls who had just been spanked. A smear of red lipstick maculated the front of his white shirt. He repeated his acrobatic performance in silence and guided his now docile charges back to their sofa and disappeared behind the bar.

Not a sound was heard from Ellie and her friend for the rest of the trip. They slept the sleep of the vanquished.  

Toadflax and Black Medick: FIve a day and no where to play

Toadflax and Black Medick: FIve a day and no where to play: I had been to my allotment and had a boot stuffed with veg and fruit. As I was unloading, a curious little urchin, having nothing better to...

FIve a day and no where to play

I had been to my allotment and had a boot stuffed with veg and fruit.  As I was unloading, a curious little urchin, having nothing better to do on a Sunday morning than kick a ball in the street, strolled over to the car just as I pulled out a basket of raspberries.

'What's tha?' he asked curiously.   I grabbed a handful and shoved them in my mouth making appreciative noises thinking I could get him to taste a new food.

'Ummmm, they're raspberries, have some,  they're really nice.' He looked very doubtful so I gave him one and with some encouragement  he bravely put it in his mouth. A smile lit up his little face.

'Do you like them?'
'Yeh, they're nice.'
'Well have some more then' and I filled his outstretched hands before he ran off to tell his umpteen brothers and sisters who all wanted some too.

After that he and I became firm friends and he would hang around whenever  I was working in the front garden.  Curious as a magpie, he wanted to know the whys and wherefores of everything and kept up a running commentary of fascinating insights into his tumultuous family life. Nine children in a three bedroom house could hardly have been a bed of roses.

One Sunday morning while I was at my allotment, my sister came over with her dogs and left them in the garden while she went in for a cup of tea. When I drew up outside, my little friend  was  hanging over the gate engrossed in something that was going on behind the privet hedge.   Just then my sister appeared with a bowl of water.

'Hey, Miss,' he cried, 'what are them dog's doing?'  The dog breeder rose to the occasion and gave him a very matter of fact explanation in an accent that would not have been out of place at Crufts.

'Well, this one's Molly and she's a bitch and she's on heat which means she wants to make babies. This one,' she pointed to the humping  offender, 'is Danny and he's trying to make babies with her but he can't, thank God.'  The lad's brow puckered as he grappled with this overload of information. 

'So' he reasoned , 'if she's a bitch,' he pointed at Molly 'does that make him a fucking bastard?'

Toadflax and Black Medick: Privet hedges are like Marmite

Toadflax and Black Medick: Privet hedges are like Marmite: Privet hedges are like Marmite, you either like them or hate them. For me they have always held a certain fascination. On the darkest o...

Toadflax and Black Medick: Privet hedges are like Marmite

Toadflax and Black Medick: Privet hedges are like Marmite: Privet hedges are like Marmite, you either like them or hate them. For me they have always held a certain fascination. On the darkest o...

Privet hedges are like Marmite

Privet hedges are like Marmite, you either like them or hate them.  For me they have always held a certain fascination.   On the darkest of winter nights when ferocious winds plucked up the salty spume and chucked it  at my bedroom window, I would listen to the tumult safe in the knowledge that the sea could not climb the cliff.  Those privet hedges withstood the onslaught and somehow managed to survive.  One long blackened specimen leant away from the sea, fleeing the briny winds, pointing south in a desperate attempt to stay alive. 

It was on the south side where we would play, sheltered from the icy blast that bore down on us straight from the North Pole.  In the relative shelter of the privet hedge we would play on the lawn and make daisy chains.  Well to be truthful we did sometimes make daisy chains but more often than not, when left to our own devices,  we preferred to torment living creatures and our unlovely acts of cruelty had no limits. Young as we were, we seemed to have an inexhaustible desire to harm.  No one taught us how to be kind to living creatures. I don't think anyone ever knew what we got up to.    Go out and play was the order. And play we did.  

Obviously we preferred our victims alive. With avid delight we jumped on a big fat juicy earthworm, stranded far from its hole in the grass and beat it methodically. Our little twigs, like flails, rose and fell  rhythmically  while the worm writhed  in a serpentine  rolling agony.  Beaten to a brown pulp, it moved no more and we lost interest.  

In summer, yellow and black spotted caterpillars took up residence in the privet hedge and were an easy target once we knew where to look.  It did not take us long to find out they were a bright green inside.   Rows of green blobs on the paving stones were the silent evidence of our carnage. 

As for snails, we had to find out what they looked like without their shells.  They frothed and bubbled like fresh snot.   What are little girls made of?  Sugar and spice and all things nice, I think not.