Revels and Rebels V

Dear Santa,

Between you, me and this carrot I'm leaving for Rudoph, I'm beginning to wonder if you're getting my post.

For this Christmas, Santa, I'd like another revolution. Not one where people lay bleeding on the streets with placards sticking out of their skull. I'm not the kinda girl that rolls that way. But, I do want a revolution in our thinking.

I think it begins with going to a different supplier for our daily bread. Rather than accepting the government and media's daily slops of headlines and reality tv programmes that put nail varnish and knickers over thinking about what we are doing with this world. We could, for example, find another supplier. One that doesn't make headlines out of the poverty line in the UK. But rather finds a way to lower the line and release our nation's potential.

So this Christmas, please can you build a firewall to stop the government and media reducing our thinking to the ambitions of a lifestyle magazine. This way, we can start to build a better future where a nation's potential flies free.

With festive hopes and wishes, coupled with a tinge of disillusionment,

Louise x

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Reference
Reflections on the year that was 2012

Revels and Rebels XIV

Dear Santa, It's Epiphany. Twelfth Night. You're about to hang up your Christmas sack for the festive season and here I am writing to you with my last-minute request. I know, I'm as irritating as a Christmas Pudding that refuses to light no matter how much warm brandy you pour on it. Soggy Christmas Pudding aside, there is a reason why this letter is late. I've been ruminating over what to wish for. And the thing is this - I still don't know what to wish for. My current plan, or hope, is that in writing to you I might write myself into my wish. The thing is this, since the pandemic began, I'm having trouble finding a way to live in the world. Working out what I must suffer, what I can change. How to navigate sorrow and joy. And how to live with the conflicts within whilst the noise of division and marginalisation rage all around. Sometimes, they become one of the same. Sounds confusing, right? And fuelling this confusion is the general level of fear we have to

Revels and Rebels XV

Dear Santa, When I was kid, I created a make believe village. Do you remember it? Every Christmas, between the ages of eight to twelve, I asked for Philip Laureston village figurines – perfectly detailed buildings complete with climbing roses and house signs. My village started with a cottage, the Rose and Crown pub and an oak tree. Over the years it was extended to include a farm, a school, a church, a village hall, shops and a duck pond. Each week I visited the villagers and had delightful conversations and arguments, and in the messiness of my imagination I understood what made their imagined lives happier. I remember one heated debate where the parents demanded a school house because they thought it was inappropriate to educate their children in the Rose and Crown pub. The children rather liked their lessons in the snooker room. The parents won. Since the Pandemic began, I can honestly say that I’ve truly understood what life was really like for my imagined villagers. This idea of

The last jam sandwich

Alpha (Left) and Omega (Right), London 2020 It’s how you knew breakfast time was over. You and your sister, sitting like bookends At the top of the garden steps. Us, at the bottom, throwing Chicken strip, mini-burger, liver biscuit And then – the jam sandwich – presented. You’d sit down, eyes thinning to a slit. A moment of meditation before the second arrived And Paradise fell into your mouth. Foxes. Born into our garden amid a pandemic spring. Accepting of the new world, whilst we could barely stand. We named you, Alpha and Omega, In respect of your wildness, Your status in the earth. A menace others called you. We took a breath as you approached Mange-stricken, injury-ridden, motherless. And so our routine began – chicken strip, Mini-burger, liver biscuit and a jam sandwich Sprinkled with magic dust to heal. This spring, you’re all grown up. Teenagers who know how to catch. Playing together, risking it all on the The trajectory of sliced bread. As teeth meets jam, you run wi

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