Godfrey

I'm a dingle, dangle scarecrow

With a flippy, floppy hat.

I can shake my hands like this,

I can shake my feet like that.

My mother, Doreen, died in September 2007. Apart from anything else she was a gifted craftswoman. It was as if she could turn her hand to anything - especially when it involved fabrics. In fact, when I was a lad she was often absent on weekday evenings teaching mixed crafts  in various locations in East Yorkshire. She called these weekly appointments "evening classes".

She specialised in lampshade making, glove making and basket weaving but she was also a prolific knitter and could knit jumpers swiftly while watching television. Can you imagine her knitting four identical red jumpers for her four sons? And then four navy blue jumpers too? She had so much energy.

Like me. mum was a night owl. As a teenager, many was the time I kept her company when the rest of the family was in bed. I can see her now with the sidelight above her chair as she beavered away at yet another project, sometimes with her electric sewing machine whirring in front of her.

Today, Shirley was up in our attic sorting out suitcases when she came across the happy scarecrow you can see in the pictures that accompany this blogpost. He is a little moth-eaten now but I remember Mum knitting him for our Frances in the early nineties. Can you see how the knitting has kind of burst open below his neck? Shirley says she is going to try to repair him.

Let's call him Godfrey - a name you don't hear very often these days. He went for a walk in our garden. Godfrey had a little rest close to Foxy Loxy's hiding place. Godfrey also went to pay homage to The Lord Buddha. 

It's nice that something of Mum remains, fifteen years after she left us. She was a force of nature and in her  own way, unforgettable. She would have been heartbroken to observe the situation my brother Simon is in now for though he caused her a lot of grief, she still loved him with all her heart.

from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/dw0n4eW