Tag: writing

The Joy of Sex Education

There were only two times I remember there being sex education at our school. The first time was in biology class. My biology teacher looked like a cross between Magnus Pyke and Dr Snuggles. He was a decent man and a competent teacher. Normally we talked about animals or plants or we dissected frogs but this day was different.

For reasons I don’t quite understand, to this day, our biology teacher decided to forgo our usual lesson on things like photosynthesis and osmosis and decided to talk about how humans procreate, from start to finish with all the icky bits. Perhaps someone in charge of the cirriculum had decided we knew nothing about sex and needed teaching. We were eleven, so most of us knew something about sex in varying degrees. Maybe he decided to talk about this off his own bat. Was it improvised? Had he been up all night rehearsing? Was this the one lesson in the year he had been dreading for months, or looking forward to?

No. He hadn’t been looking forward to it at all. That fact showed in his whole demeanour. I’ve never seen a man get through a talk with such obvious awkwardness. During some moments, he looked like he was in physical pain.

The lesson stands out for two reasons, the strained seriousness and extreme effort of Pyke Snuggles to convey the basic biological processes of procreation and the doubled over please stop making us laugh, it really hurts now, no seriously, please stop sir, but he wouldn’t. We were not emotionally mature enough for this talk, not in a class setting. I like to think I was. For the first fifteen minutes, I sat there very composed and attentive and straight faced. After a while though, I was as bad ad the rest of them, who were practically rolling around on the floor clutching the stomachs.

It began with embarrassed sniggers but just got worse. Laughter and perhaps embarrassment is contagious. If he only knew, we were in pain too, trying to stifle our laughter but as with all these things, the more you try to stop doing something, the more you sometimes can’t stop doing it. Eventually, we gave in and let it all out. We drowned out his voice with our laughter. Perhaps that was deliberate.

I felt a combination of sympathy and distress for Pyke Snuggles. On one hand, I was sensitive to his extreme discomfort and frequent red face. On the other, I wanted him to continue, as this was the most fun I’d had in years. Even Fawlty Towers didn’t make me laugh this much. It was very conflicting. It was also painful to laugh so much.

At one point, he got cross with us and started shouting. This just made us laugh even more. It was at that point in mirth evolvement when everything he said and everything he did made us explode. We were far too over stimulated to back down now. It was like he was suddenly the best stand up comedian in the world and we’d paid good money to be entertained.

He gave up and we ended class early. As Pyke Snuggles exhausted stooped frame exited the classroom, I couldn’t help thinking he was going for a much earned lie down with a couple of Valium.

The Joy of Cows, or Bulls, or whatever it was that did that thing

When I was sixteen, I went to a petting farm with my two best friends, Elaine and Renee. We enjoyed looking at the rabbits and the guinea pigs, horses, ponies, goats, lambs and sheep and eventually cows. The cows were in a shed. One cow. Actually, I can’t remember if it had horns, obviously if it had horns, it was a bull.

It was all on its own in the shed and there seemed to be a few waist high metal bars between us and the cow/bull, so it was a casual but significant separation. We gathered round as it chewed the cud, or grass. It was chewing furiously and while it chewed, it focused on me.

We were like fans round a pop star, admiring it while it chewed and stared. It continued to fix its gaze on me and gave me an evil look. Next minute, it opened its mouth and projectile vomited what it was chewing, straight at me, from about two metres away.

The copious vile smelling substance landed on my upper chest, with a splat. It had the consistency and smell of liquid poo, but it was worse than that. It wasn’t like any human diarrhoea that I’ve ever smelled. Did I happen to mention I was wearing a thick mohair jumper?

The smell was so foul my friends immediately sprang away from me, as if I was a leper. They thought it was hilariously funny. The faeces that had come from the cows/bulls mouth didn’t drip thankfully. Instead, it adhered to my jumper beautifully. Thank God for small mercies.

My friends acted as if I’d vomited onto my own jumper instead of being the victim of an oral assault from a psycho bovine stranger.

To be fair, I was ‘allowed’ back into my friends car. They couldn’t very well leave me at the petting farm, it was miles from anywhere but it wasn’t a pleasant journey home.

When I got home my mum was non too pleased about the stains from a sociopathic bull on my mohair but she put it in a hot wash all the same. I don’t even think it was the hot wash that ruined it, although I’m sure it didn’t help. The vomit and the heat had a debilitating effect on the delicate fibres. The projectile was like acid and seemed to dissolve the cloth. If the vomit didn’t kill my beautiful jumper then the hot wash certainly did. The jumper was never quite the same after that. It was rather bald and thin and exhausted where it should have been delightfully hairy. It was a traumatised mohair.

I learned to distrust cows and young bulls after that. The only other time, I was attacked by an animal in such a way was when I was at Southport Zoo many years later, passing by the chimpanzee quarters with my mum and my husband. The chimps threw their excrement at us, among indulging in other recreational activities. It still wasn’t anywhere as bad as having liquid poo spat at me, exorcist style, at a petting farm. We managed to dodge the chimp poo very successfully. They didn’t have the element of surprise on their side like the young bull.

Now, where’s the joy in this you might say, well, it’s all in the anecdote. I realised I haven’t thought about it in almost forty years, not once, until just now and it made me smile and I suppose it might be funny to an outsider, in a schadenfreud kind of way.

Libraries Week

Last week was Libraries Week and I was invited to celebrate at Live Poets ‘15 Progressive Poetry Years’ party at Blackpool Central Library on Friday. They were having a Poetry Party with poetry readings, mocktails and cake.

They were also celebrating National Poetry Day with a limerick competition and a prize giving ceremony for the best three limericks.

I entered the competition and didn’t think anymore about it, until I received a phone call from a very nice lady informing me that my poem was in the top three selected winners and would I be available to come to the party? I was already going, so that wasn’t a problem and she said what an added bonus it was. I agreed.

When I got there, the three winners were called up on stage and had to read out their poem. Third prize was called out, a beautiful poem read by Steven, or Stephen, but me and Thelma insisted it be read out again because me and Thelma didn’t hear it. (Well, I’m hard of hearing, not sure about Thelma. I linked arms with Thelma and I think we’ve bonded, through fear) Second prize by Thelma, again, lovely poem. I was mortified by this time. Can’t tell you how embarressed I felt. I have social anxiety, so this was painful. It shouldn’t have been, but it was.

So I discovered that I won first prize in this poetry competition. It was only a local thing but it was a nice surprise, or rather shock.

The theme was Change, which was also the theme of this years National Poetry Day but also, I believe it was about putting a positive slant on change and at the same time following the structure of a limerick. Beforehand,  I did a bit of research and discovered that it doesn’t have to be, ‘There was an old man from wherever…’

So here is my poem

Change

Change can be a good thing

It’s a bit like a song that you sing

The tune never ends

It turns and it bends

And there’s so much joy it can bring

 

I don’t like change and struggle against it at every opportunity and I thought, I have to change. I have to embrace change. I have discovered to my cost, that resisting change is not only traumatic but also destructive. So I decided to be positive, for once. Just being positive, forcing myself to be positive, brings positive changes.  If you act a certain way, you become it.

‘At Live Poets, we encourage writng skills. Just bring biros, PC’s or quills. Monday plans rearrange – And join us for a change- Pioneering – Poetry fulfils!’

The poetry and writing group are having a positive impact in my life, even though I’ve only been going for a few months.  It’s great meeting other creative people. That’s what I love about word press and the blogging world too. It’s very inspiring.

I also think it’s wonderful that Blackpool Library, in connection with Blackpool Council, are supporting, inspiring and encouraging creative people in the community with these events.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quote Of The Week

‘In order to be able to write, I’ve always felt that I had to somehow convince myself that I never had parents. I needed to erase their images and presence, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to write a single word.’

The Fetish Room – The Education Of A Naturalist by Redmond O’Hanlon and Rudi Rotthier