The Poetry Bus.

Well, sadly, I am not waiting in advance at the Bus Stop this week. I have had visitors all weekend and have been very busy. I thought I was not going to post anything at all. And then, just a few minutes ago, I had a vivid memory from childhood - sparked off by something the farmer said about wild plums in one of our fields. So - this is not a poem - it is a memory dashed off the top of my head - but I hope it brings a smile to your faces.

I'll set the scene. As a small child I lived out on the edge of the Lincolnshire fens, and we rarely went further than Lincoln, or occasionally through on the train the thirty or so miles to the Lincolnshire Coast. I had a very happy country childhood but experiences of the wider world were not there.
When I was quite young I made friends with a girl from Lincoln, called Anne. Her father worked managing a Betting Office for someone who lived in Cambridgeshire - close to Newmarket. They went to Newmarket on holiday and took me with them. We stayed in a pub called The Carpenter's Arms and one day we went to see the man who owned the Betting Shop. He lived at a Manor House and you can imagine my eyes were very wide - silver, cream cakes, a maid, a big car - all those things come to mind.
But the thing I remember most was that in the walled garden there was a big mulberry tree - and that is the memory I want to share with you.

We danced
under the mulberry tree,
our bare feet squashing
the too-ripe berries.

We lay
under the mulberry tree,
our lips wet and purple,
our faces stained.

In Winter
the washed-out stains
on my cotton knickers
revived the memory.

Have a good day - the sun is shining here and the washing is flapping on the line.