Yet Another One Hundred Waiting Words

I’m sitting at my desk at work, waiting for a meeting to start. We come in to college early every year, to enrol students, have meetings, dissecting last years results and plan for this year’s courses. Essentially we are just waiting for the college year to begin.

Next Wednesday I meet my new tutor group for the first time and next Thursday I start teaching the first year students. There is a relaxed, holiday atmosphere around my colleagues that talk about their summer trips but I'm not listening, I'm waiting.

We move into our new home on Saturday.

Another One Hundred Waiting Words

Every Sunday we were expected to attend Hebrew classes. My dad took us on the bus every week and we made our own way back three hours later. Eventually I decided I did not want to go any more but instead of pleading with my parents as I did every week with no success we decided to skip the classes and make a long slow three hour walk home. We developed a routine, stopped outside shop windows, spent our bus money on sweets and checked out the local cinema, until eventually, cold, full of lies and guilt, we arrived home.

One Hundred Words While Waiting

I’ve done a lot of waiting in my life and I am embarrassed and a little humiliated to admit it, ashamed also for writing this, waiting, in an empty corner of a pub with my back to the door, out of sight, trying to make myself invisible until the right moment arrives to come out of the shadows and play my part.

But I am grateful for this moment of freedom, a cloak of invisibility where people think I’m somewhere else. Here is a little space alone, a way from the stresses that surround us and threaten to overwhelm me.

One Hundred Photographic Words

There are photographs in the lounge, hallways and study of the family that live here. There are family portraits, five of them huddled tight together, parents arms opened out in an embrace. And single portraits of the girls, carefully framed and hung. They smile, strong and confident, looking at the camera.

The photographs are like mirrors reflecting the people they once were, a way of measuring themselves, like notches carved into a doorframe – but measuring more then height or physical shape. The photographs connect each other to themselves, the rest of the family the the home where these portraits hang.

One Hundred Busy Words

The kitchen in our new home is being built and the bathroom just needs a floor and a couple of handles on the doors. On Tuesday the gas supply will be connected and we will have hot water. Also on Tuesday John will fit our new floor in kitchen and bathroom.

But there is still other work to do.

A new horizon is emerging that includes arranging for carpets to be chosen, bought and laid, removers to be booked, school and college is looming. And we have to find another place to camp out until we can move in.

One Hundred Homely Words

There is something strong and healthy about the house we are staying in while the owners are away.

A family lives here and every object and piece of furniture connects the people to themselves, each other and the outside world. For example, the dinning room is not a stuffy room for best, but light and airy, connecting each family member to each other.

The two bathrooms are fitted with showers and large thick towels. There is such care taken over the tiling and the colour schemes.

The sitting room is warm and embracing with large deep sofas, we love it.

A Time For Change

Tonight we’re sleeping our second night in our new incomplete house. The first was the day we bought the house. Since then we’ve been “camping out.”

We moved out of the flat we were staying in this afternoon, a day early. Our daughter is going on holiday tomorrow . And our son returns from camp tomorrow afternoon.

Tomorrow we begin house sitting for two weeks . We hope to move from there to the new house. On Monday the builders start the final stages of the work at our house.

I’ve booked the removers for the twenty ninth of August.

One Hundred Weary Words

Tired. At first it is the shop, inconvenient, under staffed and lacking variety. I’m feeling hot and a little claustrophobic. I want to leave, give up and go back to the car. But the car feels miles away. So I trudge on and find a wall to perch on for a few moments. It is too bright. My legs feel heavy, a strain to lift each one. I’m walking slower. The camber of the pavement is awkward and the road feels as if it is rising – slow tortuous gradient. And then the head pressure – continuous drilling, a dizzy, numb, incoherent fumbling.