The Four Seasons Chapter Six ~ First Frosts
It is October 2009, and yet the coldness of winter arrived on Britain’s northwest court as early as September’s first day. Now Winter returns, intent on mischief. It is now a month since she passed through the sheets of the bed in 19 Warton Street.
Monday 25 January 2021
Part VI
7.30 am on a Train
from
Blackpool North to Preston
via
Poulton le Fylde
13th October 2009
The first frosts in the
hollow of the meadow,
hides steaming
train teeming,
ice blue skies over
Poulton le Fylde,
a warm start though
back at 16 Lord Street
twenty minutes ago.
Winter has turned her
back on 19 now,
freeze-grips gloveless hands
along the coast in Blackpool North,
her vice of ice on last night’s
momentarily redundant
illuminations.
The spires of Preston
on the grim horizon,
on this cold and cheerless
October morning;
Autumn now disdains
to trail her skirts,
yielding to her
objectionable sister.
No winds today!
Their brothers have departed,
leaving the air solid, immoveable
on the morning commuters,
Winter freezing their breath
before their eyes.
Autumn yields.
No scurrying around people’s
feet,
just cold and crisp
and biting into every bone,
that onslaught
against winter garments
bought in haste at Primark
to ease one’s conscience
for other purchases at
Debenhams, M&S and that
over-priced hosiery
on Blackpool’s seafront
if but this Recession allows it.
Girls regret
that indecisive moment
not to put on tights this morning;
in retrospect grasping Grandma’s
commonsense and wisdom!
They won’t be caught napping again
they wisely discern
regardless of what their men-folk
trumpet;
most are three sheets to the wind
by the time its time for taxis anyway!
Travelling inland,
Frosted fields increasing;
a yellow star in the eastern sky arising
with wisps of cloud
and elongated vapour trails,
the hint of wings
converging on
the Port of Liverpool.
Yes! That’s how I like to see them.
They must be nine-thousand metres high!
Cold terraced rooves
with endless chimney stacks,
and walls beloved by rail engineers
of yester-year.
Preston here!
Part VII
Thamasha Blackpool
20th October 2009
Winter snaps her vice-like-grip
about the feet and ankles of
a 7am jogger,
chilling him as he runs beneath
the cold dank wires
and lifeless bulbs on
Blackpool’s Illuminations. . .
two miles done
and four to run. . .
Blackpool Tower
- black and cold -
dominating the horizon
on this cold and lifeless
bitter, bitter, ‘evil’ morning.
A lone tram scrapes
tarmac,
metal on metal screeching,
and Winter espies a
shivering cyclist,
pulls her with a
sense of glee to
entrap her wheels
in the frosted tramline!
Picking herself up
she questions afresh
the wisdom of her morning’s plan
to hire a Blackpool public bicycle.
No wind this morning
just still air;
a stillness that belies
her trickery
as She prepares to ensnare
another unsuspecting
pedestrian on her way
to work.
‘Let’s trip her up!
Let’s show her how
dangerous I can be!’
And a besuited woman
brief-case in hand
long coat trailing,
steps back in the nick of time
as Winter blasts beside her.
She sidesteps into the
doorway
and by one stiletto heel
misses the ice patch laying
in wait.
And Winter departs
furious!
Outmanoeuvred!!
‘But fear not young woman
I will be back and have you
at my fancy’
Quietly the Spirit intones
No you won’t. I forbid it!
25 January 2021
All Rights Reserved
© Kenneth Thomas Webb 2022
Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.
He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.
Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.
In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.
