Tag Archives: UK

Easter Week Recap

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At the front of a local Catholic primary school are several statues that depict the crucifixion scene. It’s been there like, forever. For the entire life (around seventy years) of the estate on which I live, children would take it in on the way into school; people in cars would glimpse it illuminated at night as they passed. It’s an iconic part of the neighbourhood. Show a photograph of it to any current or former local and they’ll recognise it.

My German Shepherd, Max, circa 1990, was seriously spooked by it. He’d stop and stare at the figure of Christ, hanging motionless above him, before emitting a throaty growl. I’d have to drag him away much to the amusement of onlookers.

Snowy Scene

The week before Easter, the town was rocked by an early morning discovery on the site.

It seems that the first suspicion was: mindless vandalism, probably kids. This was swiftly followed, because of this period in the Christian calendar, by the idea of more sinister motives, along on the lines of a hate crime.

But after more considered reflection, it was believed that the cross being sawn right through discounted kids, while the fact that both Jesus and Mary had been taken suggested that the motive was theft. It was further speculated that John the Beloved, being upended, was perhaps the next in line to be taken until the unknown culprits had been disturbed.

Who would want to steal these figures? Surely anyone acquiring a new novelty garden feature would draw attention to themselves? Can the material that the statues were cast in be weighed in for financial gain? Just a few months before, another statue – this one a hundred years old, had been taken from the grounds of a church in nearby Salford.

Today people will do anything to make money. It seems that nothing – literally – is sacred.

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It wasn’t exactly glorious Bank Holiday weather, but we managed to get a few matches in. For what is a Bank Holiday without football? (My son often asks.)

Easter Football

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I’ve already mentioned a former dog, Max, My current one is a Welsh Springer Spaniel, named Bryn. He has already made his debut on City Jackdaw, having featured a few times. Limelight stealer that he is.

As the day was gradually ceding the ground to evening, I took him for a walk in a local park (about five minutes from the ‘former’ crucifixion scene). I let him off the lead, and as I followed his route I came across a scene that I thought would make a nice ‘arty’ shot.

Bryn soon showed me what he thought of such pretension.

Everyone’s a critic.

Following The Scent Of The Seasons

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We’ve been on the cusp for a while, but I think when things are finely balanced it can go either way. We either enter the threshold of that which awaits, or take a step back into what we are leaving behind. Teetering slightly before we find ourselves on firmer ground.

Here in the North of England we’ve been besieged by some cold winds lately, winds that could be the last gasps of winter.

But I’m pleased to report that my tracker dog, Bryn, has found a little bit of spring today. It was in a local park – a small patch of colour. The vanguard of all that will follow.

Look at him, sat there all pleased with himself. Maybe it was meant to be – he is a spring(er) after all.

Or maybe that’s not smugness, it’s just the knowing:

there’s better things on the way.

From The 2023 Notebooks

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I’m not done with 2023 just yet.

Alien Buddha, the publisher of my last poetry collection, Fifty, has brought out an anthology featuring some of the art, fiction and poetry that it brought into the world last year.

I’m pleased to say that my poem, From The Notebooks, features.

I’ve only just started reading the collection, but I’m evidently in good company. And before you ask – no, that’s not me on the front cover!

That Which Resonates/The Corvids Call Me Out

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I’ve not posted for a fortnight, which is a long time for me.

Sometimes the universe sends me reminders. You guys know that I’m Jackdaw – City Jackdaw, of course, and since choosing that title for my blog the bird itself has become somewhat totemic for me.

Sometimes the local jackdaws call me out from my inertia, showing up as if to say Come on! Get on with things!

I was walking today to my town centre, and three of them were hopping alongside me on the grass verge, regarding me noticeably with those pale blue eyes of theirs.

Foolishly shrugging off any possible omen, I called into the local Wetherspoons to be confronted by this guest ale – Jay, by Magpie Brewery.

Now I know that jays and magpies aren’t jackdaws, but they all belong to the corvid family, and so I took on board the message delivered by these cousins all working together on my behalf. I conceded to make a blog post later that day. On what I had no idea.

I bought a pint (not Jay) and took a seat by the door. I took out my phone and, on scrolling through my Facebook feed, almost immediately came across this poem by the American poet Sara Teasdale, who committed suicide in 1933, aged just 48.

The birds that feature in it might not be corvids (if you’re looking to stretch this series of coincidences to breaking point), but it does finish with a sentiment that I think resonates well with these current times.

And so here you go: today’s City Jackdaw post.

Hopefully the birds will leave me alone for a while now.

I Think I Love Sugar

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I have a daughter who does something similar when it’s time to get up for college.

Somebody commented on the Sugar post on Facebook:

We had a Shetland pony growing up, named Impy. He would rub you off on trees or go under an electric barbed wire fence. I have scars on my legs from his antics.

Impy was obviously more badass. College hasn’t become that bad yet.

Memory Almost Full

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about absence.

And memory. Or memories, plural.

Can anyone be truly absent when they are still remembered? Can memories fill the vacuum caused by absence?

I’ve just finished reading this book.

In it, McCartney says that he recently bought a lot of writings and drawings by John Lennon. He’s put them on the wall, and so he looks at them all of the time. You get the sense of how much he still misses his old creative partner. And how he holds those memories close.

These dark, winter months seem to provoke feelings of longing. There is a Welsh word, hiraeth, that doesn’t have a single, perfect translation in English, but means something along the lines of ‘homesickness’.

But it is more than that. It’s a yearning and (yes) a longing, tinged with grief and sadness, for a place we are now removed from.

And everything connected with it.

And through that longing these lines came to me, provoked by these ‘dark, winter months’. Absence and memories. Memories and absence.

Andrew James Murray