Mr Ludwig the Flower Man

Checking in at the Silvery Tay Poetry Competition site today, to see whether there’s any housekeeping needed before I go and do a foolish 3am caution-to-the-wind type of thing like mention it in David Bullard’s comment threads, I found that I must either have forgotten to post the “Short Exceptance Speech” that Melodi Bloggs emailed to Mr Clarke and me; or I did put it in but it got eaten by a passing flock of jubjub birds, which are known to be attracted by bright multicoloured party lights like Melodi. If I forgot, I’m sorry, and if it was eaten, I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did. Well I’ve put it up there now so that’s all right then.

It went like this:

Short Exceptance Speech

Dear Ms Pandora and Mr James Small
It is with great humbility that I accept this onerous award.
I’ve never won anything like this before and I hope it won’t go to my head.
In honour of the honour I will be decorating my second bathroom in the same classical tones as my Pandora’s Poet Laureate certificate of 2007. After which I will be approaching Mr Ludwig (the flower man, not the composter) about having a rose named after myself.
And in the words of the intrepid Jesus, “I’ll be back”.

Yours poetically
Melodi Bloggs

Pandora’s Poet Laureate 2007


Re the housekeeping, I’m relieved to report that none was needed. This is because as yet I have not mentioned the STPC on David Bullard’s blog, of course. I have been sending emails to myself and sticking post-its all over my desk, loo door and kettle, with lists of reasons to remind me why I should not do it. I hope it keeps working.

Girl Stuff

Melodi Bloggs, as you ought to know, was the winner of the Silvery Tay Poetry Competition 2007. She is a beloved friend of mine and I have begun compiling an anthology of her bons mots, gathered from emails and conversations around the edges of board games. Here is a sample:

Melodi Bloggs on ‘Fruition’: “By fruition, do you mean headgear a la Carmen Miranda? I don’t mind going this route, but it’s not strictly Geisha, and I always end up losing my bananas.”

Melodi Bloggs on dating: “My innards are those of a fifteen year old. My outers, sadly not.”

There's a lady, Ellie, who has an eponymous knitting shop in Edenvale. I can remember going there with my Ma when I was a kid. So I coveted my sister's scarf last winter, and not being able to find a similar one anywhere, went to Ellie's in hopes of finding a way to make one for myself - how difficult can it be to make a long thin woolly thing with wispy pompoms on? I found Ellie unchanged, she’s like an ancient china shepherdess. She showed me how to cast on and how to do a lovely lacy dropped-stitch thing, and I asked, "So, do you have a book with, like, stitches and patterns and stuff?" The other customers, most of them magnificent old ladies, each with a life's worth of unpicked things, started laughing and I had an epiphany: This woman IS the book. Well it’s now next winter and I still don’t have my scarf - I never got past knit-two-rows-unpick-three. I miss my granny.

For a Barbarian woman to offer help in a Greek Cypriot woman’s kitchen on Greek Easter (or any other time in fact) is foolish. Maria and Stalla and Thea Eleni will go pale for a moment, exchange panicked glances and then chorus something to the effect that everything’s almost done, ok can you take this spanakopita out to the men? Don’t drop eh?
Yes, I am Barbarian, my compound crime not only to do with not being Greek but also to do with having mostly Viking ancestors (you cannot hide that sort of thing from a Greek), which is as bahrrr-bahrr-ee-yun as it ever gets, with as much emphasis as you can muster on that second syllable. After years of wondering why they still invite you to these gatherings at all, you learn to just be very grateful that they do, and you sit quietly and eat, and eat, and eat, and you don’t argue anymore with Stellios about that dessert with the rose-cordial actually being Turkish. He’s getting on now anyway and doesn’t need the stress. When they send you off at the end of it all with a stack of tinfoiled leftovers enough to last two weeks, you don’t joke, “Do you think I can’t feed my own family or something?” You just say “Thank you,” with relish, and look forward to next year.