wisp o' willo

Porridge and Other Ponderings

2012-01-26T01:13:00.000-08:00

When it comes to porridge, I'm pretty much a purist. I like mine thick and plain and made mostly with water. Jumbo oats are best. And then just a trickle of the golden syrup of my childhood breakfast or a sprinkle of the darkest sugar. Weekend treat might be a topping of walnuts and maple syrup or fresh berries. If only my thoughts about Knitwillo could be as short and sweet. With the help of a very dear and most clever friend, I almost know where Knitwillo is going. I have been working over the Autumn and Winter to develop my space at Clare Antiques and Collectibles and have begun to build a customer base there of bespoke customers who come to me when they need a hat knitted or a jumper repaired. I have joined a wonderful group of talented people, the March Hare Collective who are introducing Bury St Edmunds to the most amazing collection of handmade wares as well as art and antique and vintage collectibles. One of the only rules is that the stall holder must be the person who makes, bakes or restores everything they are selling. And I have been working with Anna at Solva Woollen Mill in Pembrokeshire to show their many visitors, a capsule of all I can do.With this in mind, I have decided to end this blog and start a new one called Knitwillo. If you look at my profile, you will find the new blog together with those related to my life and my writing. I hope you will join me there.Alicia xxx

John Betjeman and Starfish and My Plan for Today

2011-06-10T02:37:00.000-07:00

Trebetherick by John Betjeman

We used to picnic where the thrift
Grew deep and tufted to the edge;
We saw the yellow foam flakes drift
In trembling sponges on the ledge
Below us, till the wind would lift
Them up the cliff and o’er the hedge.
Sand in the sandwiches, wasps in the tea,
Sun on our bathing dresses heavy with the wet,
Squelch of the bladder-wrack waiting for the sea,
Fleas around the tamarisk, an early cigarette.

From where the coastguard houses stood
One used to see below the hill,
The lichened branches of a wood
In summer silver cool and still;
And there the Shade of Evil could
Stretch out at us from Shilla Mill.
Thick with sloe and blackberry, uneven in the light,
Lonely round the hedge, the heavy meadow was remote,
The oldest part of Cornwall was the wood as black as night,
And the pheasant and the rabbit lay torn open at the throat.

But when a storm was at its height,
And feathery slate was black in rain,
And tamarisks were hung with light
And golden sand was brown again,
Spring tide and blizzard would unite
And sea come flooding up the lane.
Waves full of treasure then were roaring up the beach,
Ropes round our mackintoshes, waders warm and dry,
We waited for the wreckage to come swirling into reach,
Ralph, Vasey, Alistair, Biddy, John and I.

Then roller into roller curled
And thundered down the rocky bay,
And we were in a water world
Of rain and blizzard, sea and spray,
And one against the other hurled
We struggled round to Greenaway.
Blessйd be St Enodoc, blessйd be the wave,
Blessйd be the springy turf, we pray, pray to thee,
Ask for our children all happy days you gave
To Ralph, Vasey, Alistair, Biddy, John and me.

Today, I will make starfish. And as I crochet, I will remember my own childhood places in Suffolk and Norfolk; my own special days at the beach. Sandcastles, protected by paper flags with dragons and moats leading down to the sea. Hunting for amber but finding a jellyfish. Listening to shells; the whispers of long-drowned pirates as they share secrets of hidden treasure as waves roll over crackling shelves of shingle underneath. And yes, the sandwiches were really sandy and the bottles of warm, diluted Robinson's Barley Water always left a frog in my throat.

More photos to follow...

2010-05-30T00:00:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy time here at The Willows. As the weather improves, I am drawn outside into the garden where last year's casual planting of cranesbill at the border's edge has resulted in an ethereal haze of heliotrope beyond which the bearded irises and delphiniums begin to rise in blue and gold majestic splendour.

Flowers are champagne for my soul; little wonder that I have been drunk with ideas which I have been knitting up into little shoes using yarn colours such as lavender and damask, oyster, cafe and ivory. None of them are quite ready for a preview. But these little silver grey ones,inspired by the cherry blossom on a stormy day will be available very soon.

This week I'm revisiting an old friend, Beatrice as well as being formally introduced to a new one, King Freddie. But more about the folks here at The Willows very soon.

How do you solve a problem like Phoebe?

2010-04-25T04:06:00.000-07:00

“I’m glad you phoned,” my sister said. “Only I need to have a word with you about Phoebe Frog. If you don’t mind me staying, she’s looking rather more uptown than the rest.”

I had contacted Sarah (AH-ha Designs) to ask her whether she would mind doing just one more character for me, but I’d always known that we would need to talk about Phoebe again. Phoebe is Princess Diana, Grace Kelly and Amelia Earhart rolled into one. A former model who’s since married into the frog royal family, an institution she’s not one hundred percent in favour of, she intends to modernise HRH Freddit and his family from the inside. However, Phoebe is also an Edwardian frog; as are all the other creatures at The Willows, (except for Bill, who still considers himself very much a Victorian, but we’ll come back to him later on). Phoebe might be a bit of a bohemian; consider herself avant-garde even, but with her short skirt, she was looking distinctly strange amongst the other more genteel folk who live with me at The Willows in Stambourne Green.

Two phone-calls later, we think we’ve solved the Phoebe problem between us. It certainly helps that Sarah knows a great deal about the Edwardian period and could offer me invaluable advice as to how we should dress a beautiful, go-ahead Edwardian frog. However, the resulting Phoebe will be almost as much of a surprise to me as it will to you, dear Reader and I’ll share her with you just as soon as I can. Phoebe will be in charge of all the designs at Knitwillo so any of you buying a pattern from us in the Autumn, will be seeing more of Sarah’s finished design.

So what about Bill? That one last character? Although Sarah knows me well enough to know that there will always be just one more! Well... Bill the Water Vole is in charge of postage and packing here at Knitwillo as well as being in change of the wherry which takes the Willow folk across the stream when they need to go into town. A former wherry skipper, Bill now takes the money from the passengers and keeps the wherrymen in order, ensuring that that the wherry runs on time with Victorian efficiency; just as the rest of us here at Knitwillo like to guarantee that your order will always go out on time. I know he should look rather like a Victorian railway stationmaster but I'm not quite sure whether he should have spectacles and a moustache or what he should be doing with his hands (although I think he should probably be holding his pocket watch) but I’m confident that Sarah will make something magical happen. She always does!

I've based my wherry idea on the traditional trading barges built specifically for the Norfolk Broads; an area I visited frequently during my childhood and for which I still have a great deal of affection. At their peak, there were over three hundred of these craft and in the summer months during the Edwardian era, skippers scrubbed out the holds and took holiday makers for trips to make extra money.

I should point out that my experience of water voles is much more limited than that of mice, rabbits and frogs and that the resulting sketch is even more rough and ready than usual. While there is a history of water voles along my stretch of stream, there are far fewer nowadays which I’m told it has something to do with the increase in the numbers of wild mink.

I’ve have also included some rather rushed photos of the knitted Beatrice although some of you might have seen her before. I apologise for her lack of clothing; she wasn’t happy being shown with nothing on but the clothes are something I’m thinking about and are part of a possible future development in the Knitwillo story and range of clothes.

And that’s it for this week, dear Readers. Apart from mentioning that the first new Knitwillo custom order is ready for posting in the morning and my clients are very happy so far. I’m not going to show you a photo of the finished shoes for now because I think they should remain a secret until after the very special occasion for which they were made.

Wishing you all a wonderful week ahead.

A Whisper from The Willows

2010-04-16T02:03:00.000-07:00

14th April

Dear Reader

Rebecca's been and gone, her visit far too short, but she has agreed to be Willo photographer and I am busy sourcing red yarn for Little Willo model, Mia as I write. I want to produce a KnitWillo pack with a few of Rebecca's wonderful photographs together with some sample squares to send to prospective clients interested in the custom service. I've spent the past couple of weeks working on colour palettes which reflect both my passions and the needs of the client and their parents and and guardians looking for extra-gorgeous wedding and special occasion shoes. I have also been experimenting with a felted option for the Grandpa Slippers which has worked out surprisingly well. I think I'm almost there now and hope to be able to show you some previews of the new KnitWillo collection combining the very best of Willo and Willotoo very, very soon.

The story behind Knitwillo is almost written and is waiting for the illustrations from my sister, Sarah which she is skilfully adapting from the rudimentary sketches I sent her (shown here and scanned direct from my notebook) of King Freddit Frog and his wife, the very beautiful Phoebe (ex-model, now Queen and KnitWillo designer who will also be responsible for the KnitWillo range of knitting patterns) and Beatrice (gardener and Chief Executive of the business) and her brother, Ralph Rabbit (kind-hearted and lovely dreamer and would-be explorer, but rather a waste of time when it comes to business) who will join Willomena Woodmouse, (chief seamstress) who has already received the Sarah makeover and who just this week wrote her first letter to a client which caused much excitement here at The Willows.

I think there will be just one more character, the water vole who ferries the other animals across the stream on their way to post the KnitWillo parcels. Once I have the illustrations, I will be starting Willow Tales, the story of the little folk who live in my garden here at Stambourne Green.

Hope this update finds you well. I will write again very soon.

Alicia

2010-03-27T02:42:00.000-07:00

The Willows
27th March, 2010

Dear Reader

I feel as though I've been on a great adventure inside my head. Over the past few months, it's become increasingly apparent that, try as I might, I don't have time for everything I wish that I had time for. There's the writing, the knitting and then there's the bread-and-butter admin work.

I should've written to you properly and told you that I would be leaving for a while. Not just run off from my blogging responsibilities, leaving a tea stain where my words should be and a heavy scum line around the bath, (for the bath is where I've done my best thinking). I just hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me? And that we can start again?

From now on, this blog will be very much a postcard from the backstage of all that is Alicia Mortlock and KnitWillo, while KnitWillo (the kingdom of) will be getting it's own blog (and an appropriate title) with tales of Willomena Woodmouse and King Freddie. My writer's voice can now be found at 'And Dogs Still Bark' together with any updates on my progress towards being published as a children's writer and accompanied occasionally by some inspirational photography from Robline Forsythe.

KnitWillo, the online shop will be launched later this year on Etsy at the same time as I further develop the existing KnitWillo shop on Folksy here in the UK. I will be phasing out both Willo and Willotoo on Etsy, robbing them of the best of both to create the new shop which, by its very nature will have to be mainly custom work with the promise of a fast turnaround, helped greatly by the introduction of my new members of staff. In fact, Willomena Woodmouse is working hard with Fenella (wife of King Freddie) on the new styles as I type and I will be bringing you more details of the designs in a later posting (while the finished lovelies will be featured in the storybook Kingdom of KnitWillo blog). My photographer friend, Rebecca Plotnick will be visiting us here at KnitWillo next week and we all have our fingers and paws crossed that she will agree to help us again with some more wonderful photos of our work. And talking of paws, Willomena's pulling at my skirt and squeaking something about a French Knot combo...

It's as though I've been on a great adventure inside my head, but in the end, there's no place like home and it's been great to talk with you again. I hope that we will speak again very soon.

Alicia x

Thinking allowed?

2009-12-15T01:22:00.000-08:00

I have always loved the ocean. Standing at the shoreline, hypnotised by the incessant waves, knowing that a thousand people have watched those waves before. It’s the darned eternity of it all. And yet it’s not unmoving. That's the real magic. Because even as I watch the waves, the coastline is eroding; ever changing. I guess it’s one of the reasons I write about it so often. Why the constant wanderer in me continues to build my house on shifting sands.

When I was small and visiting family in Norfolk, we would go to the docks at Great Yarmouth to watch the ships come in. Rusting metal, drying seaweed and men speaking in languages I didn’t understand. It always made me feel as though my tongue was swelling in my mouth and I was shrinking, getting smaller and smaller until I was a tiny dot, a grain of sand in a huge universe. And knowing my place, understanding my unimportance, I always vowed that I would try my hardest to be a remembered speck in the world. Maybe that’s why I still get a thrill when I get some money from the PLR (Public Lending Rights)? Knowing that someone, somewhere is still borrowing my book from the public library. Still reading what I write even though the book was pulped several years ago.

Lately, I’ve been having doubts about whether I can really afford to continue with the writing, my knitting too, because I am probably the poorest I have ever been, in monetary terms anyway. And that wondrous childhood dream, all rusting metal, drying seaweed and unlearned languages has started to fade. Real life and the knowledge that most of my peers are at a stage in their lives where they’re buying second homes, retiring on a decent pension, well... to continue the ocean metaphor, you kind’ve realise that you’re swimming against the tide.

But you see, it's like... well...have I mentioned before that I love the ocean? The eternity of it all and yet, it's not unmoving. I know that I could get in my car this morning and within the hour be close to the ocean. I could stand at the shoreline, hypnotised by the incessant waves, knowing that a thousand people have watched those waves before. And some of those people will have had huge, fat pensions. While others, like me, won't even have any savings; I don't even have my own house and yet...

A hundred years after my dot has been extinguished, someone will still read a piece of my writing. I'd love to think that they will find some meaning in my words. And you never know, someone somewhere might even rediscover a Willo hat.

With all this in mind, I finally planted my first 'Ifs and Maybes' bean* this week. We've had some sharp frosts so I've decided to keep it on the windowsill for the time being.This bean, the first of five, will hopefully grow into a range of embellishments, something Willo-sassy for you to add to your own hat, shoes or scarf. There are already some wonderful people offering luscious lovelies for you to add to your own creations, especially in the Etsyknitters team of which I am a member.So I will be sticking just to the bits which I know best, starting with the starfish which should be in all my shops by January 2010.

*Huge thanks to Jenny of TinyMinds who gifted me the Willo beans. Jenny’s shop on Etsy (www.etsy.com/shop/tinyminds) is filled with steampunk pretties, kitschy charm bracelets and wonderful little solar powered robots.

Ship cleaning photo by Jack Harrison at http://s214580749.websitehome.co.uk/Gt.Yarmouth/Gt.Yarmouth-04.html

Chasing the Rainbow with a Handful of Beans in My Pocket

2009-11-29T03:22:00.000-08:00

“Once upon a time, there was a writer who sold her castle for a handful of beans. But her fairy godmother got eaten by an ogre and now the writer is all alone. She has planted the beans in her Willo garden and invites you to watch her garden grow.”

When I was four or five, I found the end of the rainbow in our back garden. Not in the easily-dug vegetable garden or even the damp patch at the bottom where the wood behind our bungalow began, but on the well-worn path, compacted by years of walking. My child’s spade got bent before I reached the pot of gold. I asked my mum a few months ago why they didn’t try to stop me. “We tried”, she said. “But you just wouldn’t be told.”

Many of you will know by now why I’m actually selling my knitting nowadays rather than just giving it away to family and friends. I’ve always wanted to be a ‘proper’ writer and in 2001, the compensation from a work-related injury meant that I could actually give up my steady job working with young people with emotional and behavioural problems, and begin to write. 2001 was a year of change for me. I got divorced, moved house and began work on my first novel, Enid Blyton Summers which was published in 2004. It was all too low-key; I was completely naive about the self-promotion involved in being a successful author. And the book was a troubled one, the story of a woman's descent into madness at a time when I was losing my mind. My publishers had first option on my next two books for adults. I began to write for older children and young adults instead.

I sent ‘Dead Black’ to every other agent in The Writers’ Handbook before sending it to Maggie Noach. I didn’t know her although I was in awe of her formidable reputation and one of her children’s authors, David Almond was a hero of mine. His novel, Skellig remains one of my favourite books of all time. I first read the book in school with a group of reluctant readers, understanding for the first time, the true wonder of an author connecting with his readers. I knew that it was something I wanted too. Anyway, to cut a long story shorter, Maggie Noach liked ‘Dead Black’ although not enough to represent me. Instead, she asked that she could have first read of my future work. But, by this time, the compensation was running out and with a young daughter to support, I was faced with having to put the writing aside for a while in order to get a ‘real job’ Instead, I sold our house, for a pocketful of ‘ifs and maybes beans’ so that I could continue to chase the rainbow. I’m not the first person to do it and some people succeed in finding a fairytale pot of gold at the end of their story. We hear a lot less about the people who don’t succeed. Or the people like me, who just carry on digging; the ‘Can’t Be Tolds’.

In November 2006, just weeks before ‘Monsters’ was ready to show Maggie Noach, she died during a routine operation. My fairy godmother had gone and her agency decided not to take on any more children’s writers. Her assistant tried valiantly to help me get a foot in the door at another agency without success, but subsequently a literary consultancy took me under their wing. Literary consultants pretty much do the work that a literary agent might have done some years back. Literary agents prefer to see a book nowadays which is ready for them to show to publishers and the like. The literary consultants worked with me, unpaid, on ‘Monsters’ for almost two years on the informal understanding that they would get a percentage of any advance I might eventually get, before they took the decision that the book wasn’t commercially viable. They have agreed to look at anything else I write but I will need to pay them this time. The alternative is to begin again with someone else, but that still involves money.

Over the past year or so I have dabbled in selling my knitting online, often to the detriment of my writing. Not that I’m complaining. I still have electric bills and the council tax to pay. And during that time, something magical's been happening. Those 'Ifs and Maybes Beans' have started to sprout.

I want to make 2010 the year in which I develop my knitting and get the first fifty pages of ‘Chasing Cars’ to the literary consultants. I want to revisit ‘Dead Black’ as well as having another go at making ‘Monsters’ commercially viable. That’s where Knitwillo.com comes in because every penny I make on Knitwillo will go towards financing my writing.

At the moment, I'm still working on developing the site alongside finishing the last of the pre-Christmas custom orders for Willo woollies and realistically it will be the New Year before I get it even remotely right. But I’ve been digging for the end of the rainbow for years now and it’s time to plant those ‘ifs and maybes’ beans.

What exactly they will grow into, nobody quite knows. I know it will be something knitting related: maybe knitting patterns, accessories or a truly custom service? And I know the profits from any crop will be going towards that first 'Chasing Cars' report. Today, I’m inviting you all to join me in some gardening. Next week, we plant the first bean and I share with you what I’m hoping will grow.

I’d like to give a huge thanks to Jenny of TinyMinds who gifted me the Willo beans. Jenny’s shop on Etsy (www.etsy.com/shop/tinyminds) is filled with steampunk pretties, kitschy charm bracelets and wonderful little solar powered robots.

Enid Versus Elizabeth the Second has been postponed...

2009-11-22T04:39:00.000-08:00

.. because of a sudden rush of inspiration to my head. Later today, I will be adding the first of the Belle cloche hats to Etsy, Folksy and Coriandr as well as working on two other cloche hats. Thanks to daughter, Charlie for modelling the hat so wonderfully.

I hope to have these two hats ready to list on Monday or Tuesday at the latest.
In keeping with the half-finished theme of this week's almost-blog, I'm finishing with an excerpt from one of my short stories called 'The Swan Child'. It's fair to say that it's a little less near completion than the two hats pictured above!

"She felt disloyal to admit it, but she loved Aunt Aggie more than she could ever love her mum. Aggie wore tight cheesecloth blouses which emphasised the fact that she didn't wear a bra. When Aggie laughed, her breasts would jiggle in a sensual dance of freedom. Her mum hardly ever laughed at all, as though her happiness was bound up and imprisoned within the stiff white nylon which made her breasts point accusingly at anyone who dared to look in their direction.

Leah knew her dad loved Aunt Aggie too. She had seen them once. On that warm summer evening when she was hiding in the summer house in Aggie’s garden. Her dad sat with his back against the trunk of the wych elm watching Aggie kneel to pick the tiny strawberries she grew in wooden tubs beside the summer house. Aggie said something and threw him a strawberry. He tried to catch it but squashed the berry against his shirt, a red kiss against his chest, which made Aggie laugh and throw back her head. He ran to her and lifted her to her feet and for a moment they both swayed unsteadily, Aggie grabbing his arm for support while he rested the other hand in the small of her back. Her white cheesecloth top scrunched up so that his pale hand touched her golden skin.* Aunt Aggie looked up at him and he bent to kiss her neck; whispering something that made her hold his arms even tighter. And then she kissed him, softly at first, their lips just touching so that Leah could taste strawberries."

* Did you ever do that thing as a child when you put a buttercup under someone's chin to see whether they liked butter? If they did, the buttercup shone yellow on their chin. When Leah looks at her dad and aunt embracing, she's reminded of the 'buttercup' test. Her aunt is like a golden buttercup.

Copyright Alicia Mortlock 2009

Enchanted Places...

2009-11-15T04:36:00.001-08:00

“By the time it came to the edge of the Forest the stream had grown up, so that it was almost a river, and, being grown-up, it did not run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved more slowly. For it knew now where it was going, and it said to itself, “There is no hurry. We shall get there some day." But all the little streams higher up in the Forest went this way and that, quickly, eagerly, having so much to find out before it was too late.”

And so, in Chapter Six of The House at Pooh Corner, “Pooh invents a new game and Eeyore joins in” and the reader is introduced to Poohsticks. Many of the enchanted spots where Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin had their adventures can still be found in Ashdown Forest in East Sussex. It was there, at Cotchford Farm in Hartfield, that Milne's son and his stuffed animals became models for the characters in the Winnie the Pooh stories (see below for link to a wonderful website which will tell you more).

I love A A Milne’s writing. The Complete Winnie-the-Pooh is my constant companion, nestling amongst the scrawled-upon sheets of A4 lined paper which are my knitting patterns and the ‘interviews’ with characters from would-be novels that fight for co-existence within my muddled brain. Why do I love it? I guess because within its pages I see so much of myself and Life in general. Everyone who knows me will recognise the Tigger inside me, but they will know my Eeyore too. When I look in the mirror I see Pooh, the bear who wishes he had a “Real Brain which could tell you things”. I wish so much that I could properly understand our world and its beginnings, to see beyond my bear-brained theory that the universe is some sort of giant snow globe.

The final chapter of The House at Pooh Corner is my favourite bit of writing ever, in which “Christopher Robin and Pooh come to an enchanted place, and we leave them there.” It’s about moving on, and is particularly pertinent to me for the second time in my life. It gave me huge comfort when I lost my son, Edward and now I re-read it for the umpteenth time as I prepare for my own Christopher Robin, my daughter Charlie, to leave home to go to university. “So they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest a little boy and his Bear will always be playing”. Please take time out to read the chapter. You’ll find a link below.

My childhood was pretty much a big adventure. I inherit my Tigger/Eeyore personality from my dad which made for an interesting childhood. He was a builder and we lived in a big house, converted from three small farm workers’ cottages, yet sometimes Dad couldn’t afford to pay the bills and the electricity would be cut off. Without money to buy heating oil, the house was cold and so was the water. In a cold, dark house with candles and torches lighting our way along the long landing, I would sometimes be visited by the neighbour, a brutal ghost of a man who, local legend says, was hanged for killing his wife and her lover many centuries before.

Depending on how business was going, we would drive around in a big car, eating out in restaurants. Other times, we would eat cans of beans heated up over the blow lamp Dad used for welding pipes and travel in a battered van with a passenger door that wouldn't shut properly. We'd take it in turns to hold it shut with a length of rope.

I’ve knocked myself unconscious climbing Romany Gipsy Caravans parked up in the back garden by one of Dad’s customers and smoked pipes of dried cow mumble, the Suffolk name for cow parsley, (see below for link to photo) and baked cooking apples in Sunday afternoon autumn bonfires.

I’ve sat in some of the best seats in the West End watching the top London shows and I’ve hidden behind chairs, hardly daring to breathe when Dad couldn’t afford to pay the suppliers and they sent the salesmen round to the house. And when things got too much, we had our own small wood beyond the end of the garden where I would spend hours lying in the dappled shade of the trees, listening to the water in the brook.

I admit to struggling a bit with Willotoo’s sense of identity. It’s an attempt for me to capture the best of my childhood with a touch of Winnie the Pooh but it hasn’t come easily to me. Partly, no... hugely due to the fact that I have lacked a little Willotoo model to show off my creations to the world.

A few weeks’ ago, a very special photographer, Rebecca Plotnick came into my life via an Etsy convo. I’ve had offers from photographers before, but I knew I needed something more than just a portrait photographer. I needed someone with their own sense of adventure, someone who could tell a story with a single snapshot, in the way that I tell a story with a thousand words.

Rebecca brought with her my three Little Willos, my adventurers in an enchanted place. We are working on some new adventures for the trio, think The Great Gatsby, Bonnie and Clyde meets Christopher Robin and you’ll begin to get some idea of the new patterns I’m designing. The patterns have been held back this week by some custom orders, not that I’m complaining, but it means that I can’t show you any photos of the work in progress but I promise you I will add some as I begin knitting up the yarns. Oh, and make sure you have a look at Rebecca's wonderful photos. Details of all sites referred to in this blog can be found below

http://www.just-pooh.com/ashdown.html
flickr.com/photos/94906324@N00/216942594/
http://lib.ru/MILN/pooh2.txt
http://www.etsy.com/shop/rebeccaplotnick

This week, I’m showing you a few chapters from an earlier version of ‘Monsters’, the story of Marnie, a teenage girl struggling to come to terms with the loss of her father, a man with whom she shared her own adventures.

In later versions, the novel is much changed. In order to reach out to the teenage reader, my literary consultants advised me to drop much of the descriptive writing and change the body of the writing to present tense. We’ve lost all reference to stars and I lost the deep purple velvetiness of the novel. It makes for a more immediate, engaging read but it’s a version with which I’ve struggled. I put the novel aside at the beginning of 2008 and haven’t had the courage to revisit it since. Oh, and if you’ve read that Chapter Ten of The House of Pooh Corner I mentioned earlier, you might find a similarity to A A Milne within this work.

Here goes, excerpts from an earlier draft of Monsters by me, Alicia Mortlock.

The first journey: “It was eight years ago, and she had been just seven, when Marnie and her dad first made the journey on a warm summer’s evening at the end of July.

As they walked, hand in hand, a deep purple darkness had fallen around them, making monsters of everyday dips and shadows, and turning the water in the brook at the bottom of the garden to a thick black ink, which flowed like the life-blood of Earth itself. The eerie scream of a fox in the distance had made Marnie hold her dad’s hand a little tighter and he had squeezed her fingers gently to let her know that she needn’t be afraid.

At the bottom of the garden at Hambledown, stood an old oak tree. Stiffened by age and obstinacy, too old and set in its ways to sway in the breeze like the younger trees, it possessed a peace, a sense of being cradled by the world that allowed a father and his daughter the time and space to think and dream. It was there that Marnie’s dad had first taken her on a journey to the stars.

At first, the night sky had looked to her like a silver-speckled darkness, but as her dad began to trace the constellations with his finger, he had made a dot-to-dot of the sky. She had watched in awe as he slipped from his pocket, a twinkling jewel that glistened with starlight.

“I wish for a starry journey,” he said as he threw the star into the deep purple velvet of the heavens. And suddenly, they were slipping effortlessly into the indigo sky.”

Marnie’s dad’s final illness: “From that day on, it was as though his deteriorating health could be measured by the ever-decreasing distances he could comfortably travel. Until, during the last few weeks of his life, he had seemed content to sit in his chair in his makeshift bedroom in the dining room, half-watching, half-sleeping as the house was filled with family and friends all coming to say their final goodbyes. Although none of them quite understood why it should be happening or indeed, what was happening and they all tried their hardest not to feel awkward about it all.

In was in those last few weeks that Marnie had witnessed her dad’s quiet acceptance of what was happening to him. Like a worn out star, gently fading, he retreated slowly, gradually, away from them as though preparing them for the day when he wouldn’t be there at all. A quiet calm seemed to settle about him. She could feel it about her too as soon as she walked into the room.

“I feel so happy Marnie,” he told her one evening, his currant-brown eyes filled with a deep and shiny understanding. “I know I’m about to go on a really special journey. And it feels as though everyone is coming to wish me a safe voyage and say their goodbyes.””

Marnie returns to the beach for the first time since her dad’s death: “The waves that rolled over the shingle seemed to whisper to her. They spoke of the little girl she had once been. The child who had walked hand in hand with her dad, his pockets filled with pebbles that she had picked from the beach for him, as she listened to his enchanted stories about the medieval city that had fallen, bit by bit, year after year, into the sea.

“Listen,” he would whisper. “They say that if you listen hard enough, you
can still hear the church bells ringing.”

And she would listen and she would be sure that she could hear them ringing under the sea. How she wished that she could hear them ringing now.”

© Alicia Mortlock 2009

Willo Does Glamour

2009-11-08T00:57:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the raggle-taggle of words and images that fight for space inside my head. This blog will be a bit of a scrapbook. My attempt to show what Willo's doing next. Along with a few words from her alter ego, Alicia Mortlock. Oh, and don't worry if it doesn't quite make sense to you, sometimes it doesn't quite make sense to me either!

A man removes sand from the eye of a woman in one of the most romantic film scenes in history. Brief Encounter is a self-told social melodrama about an illicit, extra-marital love affair between two married, middle-class people played by Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard. Set mostly against the backdrop of a railway station, it’s a tale of doomed, unfulfilled and frustrated love which takes place in rain-slicked streets, dimly-lit interiors and dark train passageways. I love this film and this week, I've watched it twice.

My latest range of hats is a bit of a move away from flowers, but all I'm actually doing is adding another of my obsessions to the range. It's cold outside and while most of my garden lies dormant, I'm sitting indoors, knitting and watching lots of movies on my laptop. My favourite hat-wearing glamorous woman is Garbo. That's where, or should I say 'with whom', my obsession with the latest hat started.

I love Garbo! Although I also revisited Angelina
Jolie in The Changeling this week. You might see a polystyrene head in the listing but I see Angelina wearing this range, my interpretation of vintage glamour. A collection of half a dozen vintage patterns to which I’ve added my own twist and gorgeous yarns. In the first hat, that twist is a thin band knitted in the same yarn as the body of the hat, a couple of D rings and a luscious silky ribbon in a colour which complements the hat.

I’m not saying that this has been a pain free exercise, my designing days rarely are, and there were a few false starts. I intend to return to this one later this week because I know I can do something with it.The main body of the hat is knitted in a horizontal strip. I then pick up stitches along both long sides to create the crown and the brim. Rather surprisingly, to me anyway, it's the crown which is causing me problems.

But back to the hat which you will soon be seeing on your screens. In an homage to Garbo, I've called it Beau. It's knitted in double thickness Rowan Classic Cashsoft DK and Cashsoft Baby DK which makes it a bit extravagant but I love this yarn and using two lengths of yarn makes for a slightly firmer hat. The yarn is a blend of 57% extra fine merino, 33% acrylic and 10% cashmere so it's wonderfully soft with a good amount of give which is essential if you like to block the hats after knitting as I do. The colours I've been working with this week are Lichen, Borage and Savannah although I have hats in Black, Cashew and Crocus on my circular needles as I type with some Donkey (brown) yarn on order.

Before I reveal the hat to you, and I'd like to thank two people who have made this hat possible. Jannette at www.jannettesrareyarns.co.uk for her continuing help and support. And my daughter, Charlie who ties the bows and is always there for me. I love her more than words can ever say.

So here it is, the Beau hat in Borage. Visit my Etsy shop at www.willo.etsy.com for further details. Lichen and Savannah to follow.

I will finish with a bit of my writing. It was written five or six years ago now for a short story competition and won second prize. It combines my borderline obssesion for all things Marilyn Monroe with my experiences of working with young people with emtional difficulties. My writing has moved on a bit in the past couple of years and I was sorely attempted to update it, but this was me in the early noughties and I've kept it as it was written at the time.
For those of you, who don't want to stay for the story, next week, I'll be explaining why I want Willotoo to be more Winnie the Pooh and more about my collaboration with photographer, Rebecca Plotnick.

I wish I could have coffee with Marilyn Monroe. We'd sit at the small table by the window in the cafe on the other side of the street where I could watch the world go by while Marilyn let them see just how beautiful she was. Because she was beautiful. They say that even after death she was still beautiful.
The waitress would come over to take our order. The waitress with blonde and copper streaks in her mousy brown hair. I can see her now as I stand in the doorway waiting for Mrs Brinkley to return from the cash and carry so that I can restock the canned goods shelves. She is taking an order from the old couple who are sitting at the table by the window, although they are too busy staring lovingly at each other over the green and yellow, daisy-splattered menu, to notice the blonde and copper streaks in her mousy brown hair.
I dyed my hair once. To look like Marilyn. The box said platinum blonde but my reddy-brown hair turned out a ginger yellow that made it look like I'd rubbed my head against the rust on the corrugated fence at the side of our house.
"I don’t know why you think so much of her," my mum said, when she’d finished ‘Oh My God'ing and clapping her hands to her face after seeing my hair for the first time. "She was a no-good actress who made her name flaunting her tits and sleeping around."
I flinched. I hated the way my mum said words like tits especially when she was talking about Marilyn. I closed my eyes and tried not to listen; the peroxide searing my scalp, my cheeks burning with indignation.
The waitress would probably recognise Marilyn straight away. She would smile her extra special smile; the one she has always dreamed of smiling at a film star or reality TV celebrity who might, one day, come into The Cafe Violette. Then she would smile at me too as she realised that I must be a very special person to be having coffee with Marilyn Monroe.
And Marilyn would smile at the waitress and say, "Hi," in that famous soft and breathless voice, and would hesitate for a moment before ordering a latte or a cappuccino or a dark and bitter espresso, and would ask me what I wanted in a way that made me feel like the most important person in the world, and I would say that I would have whatever she was having and she would order two cappuccinos or she might order lattes or espressos instead.
So what would we talk about, me and Marilyn, as we sat drinking coffee at the small table by the window? Perhaps she would talk to me about her life? I’d like to think that she would feel able to talk to me about her life and everything that had happened in it. Even those things that had made her want to end it all on that warm evening under a sickle moon, long ago in the August of 1962, ten years before I was even born. If she had wanted to end it all, that is. Because that's still a mystery isn't it? Whether Marilyn actually ended her own life. Whether she really wanted to die.
Did you end it all Marilyn? Was it all too much? The failed relationships. The might-have-been babies. Or were you just too bright and beautiful for the human eye to be able to bear? Is that why they all let you die Marilyn? Because you were an earthbound star that twinkled too brightly?
If I had been there I wouldn't have let you die. I would have listened. To your plans for the future. How you wanted to get out of Hollywood. For the sake of your sanity, you had to get out of Hollywood.
"In Hollywood, Susie," you would whisper in that breathless baby voice, "In Hollywood, they pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul."
I know I could have nodded in all the right places as you spoke to me of your plans to find yourself a decent man. And as you talked, you would smile that radiant smile of yours, although in your eyes I would see that wistful yearning to be Norma Jean again and live in the country with lots of animals and a handful of children and a decent man who would love you for who you really are.
I could tell you of my plans too, Marilyn. Would you like to hear of my plans? How I want to be an actress in a popular soap, the most popular soap, playing the owner of a whole chain of grocery stores.
Can you imagine it Marilyn? When the showbiz reporters ask me why I am so good at playing the owner of a chain of grocery stores, I can tell them the story of how I had been discovered stacking shelves in Brinkley’s Eight 'til Late Store by the television producer who had called in for a packet of chocolate digestives on her way home from work.
And I would win awards. Oh how I would win awards. And all those people who have ever teased or bullied me, or told me that I would amount to nothing, would watch me receive those well-deserved accolades and wish that they had treated me better.
“Is that little Susie Martin,” Mrs Bennett, our next door neighbour would say, talking to the cat because Mr Bennett never listened. She would point her knitting needle at the screen, the ball of bottle green wool with which she was knitting a jumper for her husband tangled about her feet, so that by the time she managed to free her slippers from the double knit and turn up the volume on the television, they had moved on to the next award for Lifetime Achievement. “She never was the brightest button in the tin,” she would add. “Just goes to show what you can do if you try hard enough.”
I wonder Marilyn, should I tell you about Mark too? I think you'd understand. But maybe we should order another coffee first? Then I can tell you just how much I loved Mark once, how a part of me loves him still, even after he has treated me so badly. And what about the other men? Oh yes Marilyn, there have been other men. In the alleyway at the side of Brinkley’s. In their cars in the coach park at night. Anywhere dark. Anywhere deserted. Anywhere there was no chance we would be seen, because no man would want anyone to know that they were fucking not-quite-right-in-the-head Susie Martin would they?
I know you’d understand Marilyn. You would touch my hand across the table and say, "Poor you," in that famous whisper with a catch of that famous breath, and I would see the sadness etched on your beautiful face as you remembered the men who had used you too and I would do anything to take away your sadness.
You know Marilyn, Joe DiMaggio really loved you. He spent the night before the funeral with your body. Alone. And then wept throughout the ceremony. That all-American baseball-playing hero, he wept throughout the ceremony and said, "I love you," again and again. Does that make you smile; take away your sadness, to know how much Joe DiMaggio loved you? Perhaps, one day, I will find my own Joe DiMaggio too? A man who will put his arm about my shoulder and tell me that he loves me and not demand sex in return.
If only I could have talked with you Marilyn. You didn't have to die. I could have been your friend. A real friend. Because I understand. And you would understand me too. If only I could have held your hand and told you that it would work out all right in the end. Because it does always work out all right in the end. Doesn't it Marilyn?
Oh Marilyn, I wish that we could meet up for coffee. We could sit at the small table near the window in The Cafe Violette and talk with each other over the green and yellow, daisy-splattered menu. I could watch the world go by and you could let them see how beautiful you are. Because I know you will be beautiful still. Even after death. Perhaps that’s when I will be beautiful too?
Coffee with Marilyn© Alicia Mortlock 2004

2009-11-06T10:30:00.000-08:00

Coming soon, knitting glamour with double knit and 4mm needles.