Guest Blogs

She opens up the fridge on a cold Christmas Eve 
Stands on tippy toes but no carrots can be seen
Opens up the milk that smells green and strange
No milk for Santa on tomorrows Christmas Day 

No decorations, the walls look bare and grey
She tries to open the jar of cookies, that have been locked away

Its so hard to sleep she prays and prays,
Praying for presents on Santa’s sleigh 

No presents from Santa in her stocking makes it harder to believe,
No presents for her under the imaginary tree

A different knock to the door,
words are not needed no more.

Send the kids out to play,
for they will not return children today.

No need for pen nor paper to write the date,
take away the empty plate.

Hear a silence not heard before,
as you close the microwave door.

Thoughts that never leave your head,
say goodnight to the empty bed.
Tomorrow will echo the same refrain—
the start of the quiet, endless pain.

I lost you once before but now I will never leave your side
Now I’m there for every birthday and every time you have cried

I waved you away on your first day at school
I told you that boy was a fool

I was there when you thought I wasn’t
and with you when you thought I was

Together we chose the bouquet
I walked with you down the aisle on your wedding day
I sit with you and watch the grandchildren play

Now it is your time
Your spirit leaves you as you climb
You smile and pass me as you shine
As you disappear, I will have no fear
Because a smile from you is all I need
To last me till eternity

by Jake Jones

Looking through unfinished albums on how our lives used to be
The work around the house was meant for you, we would always agree.

So I hang the pictures high where it was just empty space
I hang the pictures high to liven up the place
I will open up the curtains so the sun shines on you its gaze
I will decorate you with tinsel on a lonely Christmas Day
I might not always remember the words you used to say
So I hang the pictures high in pride of place.

I hang the pictures high for all to see
You reply with a smile while I make just one cup of tea.

I will talk with you until the walls fall down
Then rebuild them with my old weathered hands.

So hang the pictures high
Watch them age
Remember all the good old days.

Now its my time to go.
The pictures will show how I loved you so
So hang my picture next to yours
Around the person I adore.

Stand at the wall and you will see
That there’s a place for you and a place for me
Adding till eternity
On the great wall of family.

The birds talk to me, I just heard my name,
Flying up so high they will not be tamed,
Not scared of the creature,
but of what it can say, 
Can you work out what the chirps convey?

A coincidence too many times, 
The same bird ‘song’, line after line,
“Twit, twit, twit, it’s you” 
I can hear the voices, 
Can you hear them too?

Flaps in my ear, then the noise disappears,
They follow me everywhere I go,
Tune into the tune of the predictions of doom, 
Then life will go more with the flow,

The chirps of threes and fives, 
Tell me how to live my life
Pecking at my brain in a rhythmic way
Make sure you listen to what they have to say

But now I know they’re coming for you!
The birds told me and they will tell you too…

In the morning the sun was shining from a blue, blue sky, but the shadows were deadly cold and the wind like a flat blade of ice. Eliza had to pull up the collar of her sheepskin coat even further to keep out the wind. She had parked her car and was now looking out over the
landscape. Was it as she had remembered? She saw flat grass rising up into sand dunes that hid the pebbly beach. If she looked in another direction she could see over the river to the line of black fishermen’s huts. She looked behind her and saw the part of the village she remembered the best. The line of cottages, including the ferryman’s cottage, and the pub.

Eliza wanted to feel the same freedom she had felt the last time she had been here. They had taken nets, lines and baits and had sat on the wooden bridge with the intention of catching crabs from the muddy river. She had laughed as he had teased her about her fear as she picked off the crab from the bait and put it into a bucket. She had later screamed as they watched the side ways marching as he had tipped the bucket of crabs back into the river.

Eliza again wanted to play hide and seek in the dunes. She wanted to feel the laughter rising into her throat as she watched his latest trick of falling flat into the sand. They had then cautiously walked on the pebbles down to the water to swim in the freezing water. He would glide, then splash, while she paddled and kicked the icy cold sea.

She left the car and walked up in the direction of the village. She could see the glow of fires in the front rooms of the small cottages. The smell of the wood smoke was comforting. Where should she leave him? He had enjoyed the years of holidays they had spent here. She returned to the ferryman’s cottage and nervously knocked on the weather beaten
door. A man answered. She recognised him immediately.

‘I heard your sad news Eliza, I was hoping you would pay us a visit.’

He looked at the urn in her hands and led her down again to the water’s edge.

When I turned 50, I started to keep account of the things that happened to me during that year. The list included great happiness and deep sadness.

I hosted a party. DJ Ron was requested to play all my favourite tracks and I was stuck to the dance floor only to leave for a quick visit to the pie van for a cheeky sausage roll.

Due to the encouragement of many, and determined hard work, my physical health improved. As a result I was able to tackle walking up hills with ease. On one of these hills lived some sheep and I bottle-fed one of the offspring – a first time encounter. The bottle was comfortingly warm and I had to keep a firm grip to avoid it being taken with force by the hungry lamb.

My brother accompanied me to some gigs as we are huge fans of live music. We saw the Happy Mondays ( a maraca was possibly featured) and Orbital at Dreamland in Margate. We still laugh about dancing all evening, chatting with friendly strangers and the downside of queueing for drinks and the toilet.

My sad times included the death of a neighbour. I loved her so much. She was a beautiful person – the children in the opposite house, sweetly named her ‘the garden lady’ as she spent much time tending her flowers. When the ‘love your garden’ TV team came to transform a well-deserved Gurkha’s garden in the street she took up home-made chocolate brownies for the film crew.

During the year my mum‘s physical health deteriorated greatly. I felt an overwhelming wash of melancholy for her as she had, in the past, played tennis and hockey for her home county of Essex.

Out of the many happy experiences included watching the whole of 2001 A Space Odyssey, celebrating 28 years of marriage, and supporting my amazing pupils in their music exams.

My 50th year was only 365 days out of a lifetime. A year, like any other year, of taking the rough with the smooth. Yet those days I can remember as my special yesterdays to treasure, like a gift, forever.

Personally, I don’t think adults know what it’s like to be a teenager anymore.

It’s a controversial statement, I know, but it’s just my opinion.

They may understand key terminology, such as peer pressure and bullying, but I don’t think they really understand what it’s like in this day and age. When I say that telling us “I was a teenager once too you know,” is one of the most aggravating sentences you can say – I mean it. We know you were our age once, but you aren’t our age now and there’s a huge difference between the two.

It’s almost impossible to find a group of friends where at least one of them doesn’t vape or has tried a vape at some point. Groups of girls and boys gather in single cubicles to vape with each other as if it’s a social activity. If you don’t vape, you’re left out of conversations and plans because you’re choosing to protect your body over your reputation.

The same goes with drinking. If you don’t drink, you don’t get invited to parties. If you don’t get invited to parties, you start to lose friends. If you lose friends, you become a social outcast. Of course, you can watch the parties online, and see what you miss out on, but then you just get fomo (fear of missing out). However, if you don’t watch the footage, you can’t join in on conversations at school which also gives you fomo. In the end, you’re left with the choice of going to the parties and forcing yourself to be in situations where you may make some stupid mistakes, or stay at home and be in a situation where you feel miserable and lonely.

For those of us that prefer to focus on our grades don’t have it easy either. Obviously, adults know what it’s like to feel the pressure of work and exams, but I don’t think they realise how much worse it has become. Failure is not an option to us unless we’ve got rich parents, and our schools remind us of that daily. We’re told constantly that our grades are terrible and we’re the worst classes our teachers have ever seen in their 17 years of teaching, making us feel useless and demotivated. We work our hardest, can spend hours studying and yet it’s still not good enough. They show us the grades of the past 8 years of students and tell us if we don’t get better grades than this, then we’re letting down the school, our parents and ourselves, as if we weren’t already drowning in the stress of work and exams.

We’re surrounded constantly by reminders of school through advertisements of revision websites on platforms such as TikTok. We surrounded by drugs, self-harm, eating disorders and sex. We see it online as well as at school. Where home once was a safe space, it’s now as much a prison as the four walls of a classroom. We can never escape the expectations of modern society, and if we don’t succumb to it then we’re considered ‘undesirable’ and are shunned by our peers.

I’m not saying adults were never teenagers themselves, I’m only saying that next time a teenager makes a mistake or does something dangerous, you don’t immediately get angry at them. You just listen to them and understand that many of us are struggling. Even if we can paint a smile on our faces, there’s always a small part of us that holds their breath every time they open their phone – worried about what they’re going to find.

The days are long. Everything is done happily, properly, with talking for hours and hours about the past and its people. This is interlaced with breakfast, washing up, then a cup of tea – Earl Grey or PG.

Take a walk, take in the warm air, the clouds seem whiter, the sky feels bluer. Listen. Maybe catching a woodpecker, a Skylark, if we’re lucky, as we smell the pure fields of Easter. We return for a simple lunch, brought to the table, covered in a white cloth, on a trolley with gold edges and legs.

She sits in her favourite chair, flowery, and soft, in the afternoon, in the conservatory, a cigarette burning to the end, as she talks, just talks. We listen, just listen.

Out of all the Favourites, she is our Favourite. She speaks elegantly only pausing at times to cough into a cotton handkerchief. Her mind for detail is exquisite, every word like a drip of silver. She picks up the telephone and requests, “a table for three, please. Yes, that’s correct. For Mrs Jenkins”.

We let the afternoon slide into the evening.

The evening is long, and everything is done properly.

This is not enough
Walking to the end, but not the end of the night
Air foggy as I stay in the gaze of sight
The same looks from the night before are thrown
As I stand so very much on my own
As I stand and wait for my fate
Another day where comfort comes late.

Counting coins, I hear a noise, assessing every shadow,
Fingers frozen feel the chill and the burn from old tobacco.

My day is finally done
The long awaited time has come.

As I hold it up to the light,
This won’t last me through the night.
This is not enough.