Calling All Teachers

Calling All Teachers.

A reasoned and reasonable response to the wilful ignoring of unpalatable facts by our Department of Education.

Polar bear

this is an hours worth of working on the head to refine the features. Sometimes needle felting is a frustratingly slow process

On the desk right now

I have been working on a new polar bear for some months, needle felting a little bit here and there in my spare time.  He is based on Jackie Morris’ paintings in East of the Sun West of the Moon.  A retelling of one of my favourite stories from childhood.  This time I have a core of solid wool in the head and body but wire armature in the legs.  The latter may be a mistake, judging by the number of needles I have broken.

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A story in the making.

This is a duplicate of the post on my blogspot  blog, I would welcome comments and ideas for improvements.  

Come closer my dears, for the wind is stirring the sea tonight.  Listen; you can hear the whispering of the lost souls, all those whose lives have been eaten up by the greedy ocean.

 Peep through the curtains, look at the cliff top, there… did you catch the shadow?  There in the glimmer of the moon?  He haunts the heights on nights like this, searching the sea for the love he threw away.  Careless, thoughtless, cruel.  Hopeless now as he looks for his discarded jewel. 

The north west wind blew on that night too; not night exactly but twilight with its darkling sky and deeper shadows.  He proud, angry, marching along the cliff top path.  She desperate and weeping, clutching fingers into the coat he wore, trying to slow him down.  Pleading with him for a kind word or loving look, anything to heal the fracturing words they had hurled at each other.   Onward, upward,  higher he strode, shaking of her hands as he reached the topmost point.  Abruptly he stopped and turned.  His eyes were blinded by the rage in his head. As she stumbled into him the anger swelled; he grappled her arms, her neck, her hair, flinging her away from him.

In that moment she slipped.  Tumbling away, slipping out of his reach, anger turning to horror in that moment of madness.  Mouth open but voiceless as the wind stole her screams, she fell away from him towards the unforgiving stones.  He stretched, uselessly trying to reach forward, fingertips brushing the wind.  Her last breath stretched the seconds, until all that remained was a splayed, broken doll on the rock.  Cradled by seaweed and stroked by foam, she lay unmoving and lifeless.

With a howl he sank to his knees.  This angry man imploring the body below to return to him so that he could beg forgiveness, put right the wrongs  and fill the hole that she had left under his heart.  As he watched the sea grasped at her, took her gently and pulled her with it into the waters.  Slowly her dress billowed, ebbing and flowing with the tide until its sodden masses dragged at the dancing body.  With a last swirl of her skirts the waters swallowed  the girl up and sucked her down into the darkness.

What was that my lovelies?  When did this happen? Why many, many years ago. 

The young man, you ask?  He lived on,  haunting the cliff paths, begging the ocean to return his love. Year on year, until death took pity and released him, a broken old man.  Yet the sea never gave him back his love… no, she wasn’t given back to him at all.