In a surreal moment I decided to write a poem about my Mum's old mixing bowl that I'm pretty sure is older than me. It's glass, with the initial JAJ on the bottom. Looks very Pyrex-y, but I think it probably predate Pyrex by a few years...

So here ya go...

Mum’s Mixing Bowl

A thousand scratches side by side

Meeting points like railway lines

Across the glass a tale to tell

Every line a different smell

Stirring, scratching, stir and grind

Bowl and food and tales entwined

Fingers sliding around the sides

Picking up the gritty prize –

Remnants left to my devour

Butter, sugar, eggs and flour

Stirring, scratching, stir and grind

Bowl and food and tales entwined

All at once, the garage floor

Drip, drip, drip and then to pour

The Mini’s oil, all spent and black

My mother’s face? A mirror cracked

Stirring, scratching, stir and grind

Bowl and food and tales entwined

Back to kitchen, lemons juiced with

Citric acid, heated through

To boiling point and then to cool

For lemonade to take to school

Stirring, scratching, stir and grind

Bowl and food and tales entwined

Then currants dropped in, raisins too

Cherries, almond flakes for you

Tinsel wrapped and tinned to keep

For Christmas, then ‘til Easter week

Stirring, scratching, stir and grind

Bowl and food and tales entwined

Forward thirty years and more

The bowl still holds and just keeps score

The owner gone, but left behind

This bowl with centre scratched and lined

Stirring, scratching, stir and grind

Bowl and food and tales entwined

A whole 11 days has passed since me last update and I'm sitting here not really knowing what to write...

Should I sing the praises of being bathed in sunshine for the past two weeks, or moan about the blue badge terrorists who've pitched so close to me I can only just open my door?

As far as the sunshine goes, I think it's pretty much the story for everyone. The only advantage I have is watching the sun drop into the sea. I don't think that'll happen today. I have the heating on at the moment as it is ridiculously windy out there and it's trying to rain too. I don't mind, to be honest - I quite like the sound of rain bouncing off the skylight. It reminds me of days in the conservatory on Plantation Rd, listening to the rain thunder onto the plastic roof, drinking hot ginger and peppermint cordial, eating cheese and onion crisps...

I'm sure it'll have a lot to do with all the upheaval of the past few months, but I've been having a lot of 'moving' dreams lately. No, smart arse, my dreams are not usually a series of black and white, cardboard cut-out vignettes. One of these dreams was in a house that I didn't recognise, but Ma and Pa were there. We were all packing the house up, but every time I went back into my room, everything was unpacked again. Another dream had my friend Kate's mum Pamela-June packing up Netherwood, except Netherwood had a huge lake outside and Kate was jet-skiing on it. Weird, weird, weird...

Still on the subject of moving, I remember the first time my family moved house from 72, to 97, Blaen-y-Pant Crescent. Yes, Blaen-y-Pant. I believe it means 'top end of the valley' in my national tongue. Number 72 was the last house before the bushes and hedges that surrounded Blaen-y-Pant House - the childhood home of Desmond Llewelyn, the chap who played gadget man Q in most of the Bond films. I don't know if it still was a private house when I lived next door to it, but we used to play in the garden. Tisty tosty fights were the usual game. Pine cones, in case you're wondering. We used to chuck them at each other. The place is a nursing home now.

Anyway, we moved from a semi on one side of the road, to a house my Dad helped to design and build on the bank of the canal on the other. I vividly remember all the furniture and stuff being carried from one house to the other. It was one of those weird houses that was on a steep bank - from the front it looked like a bungalow. Inside, all the bedrooms were on the ground floor, the living areas 'upstairs' and a garden that ran along the canal bank for about 50 yards. Yes, I fell in plenty of times...

And that was Wales, really. Left there for Harrogate in 1973. We lived in a flat while we were waiting for Southway to be carpeted etc and the only thing I remember about the flat was that it had a rubbish chute. Tell you what, I was utterly obsessed by it and I'm surprised I didn't end up taking a trip down it...

Right, that's enough reminiscing.

The blue badge terrorists can wait until a later edition...

Over and out