Ringing The Changes
Entry by: ajones
3rd January 2025
The key to the house is
under
the moss green stone
beside the pond where a thousand tadpoles were
scooped out
fed
and grown.
The outside tap is where the boy’s teenage trainers were kept fresh - kept bright
white
scrubbed before school, then muddied by night.
Later it got used for the dog’s mucky feet -
paw -
paw - good boy there’s a treat.
In the kitchen, the chicken tiles lived long - gone now but not forgotten.
And there’s the kitchen perch where I’d drink my tea every morning and watch
the Robin
Fox head watched over everything.
Every bowl of porridge
Every coffee time chat
Every biscuit tin steal
Every Saturday night stir fry with jazz record requests
Every one of Mum’s Sunday roasts - after the antiques roadshow, with tiny cups of sherry, with candles burning and Carla Bruni and
Cat Stevens. Then wash up with
The Archers.
It was where Dad came home from his conferences and emptied his bag of goodies. Where we got out the skeleton, inspecting it while eating dried fruit and nuts.
It’s where we did our maths homework
Where we ate Mum’s fresh jam tarts and fruit cake. Where we talked to our mates on the house phone.
Where we spun the lazy Susan. Where we watched the birds.
In the cupboard there are kitkats in the tin, and Crunchy Nut, and that’s where the Christmas decorations are up top, and
the dog towel below.
The kitchen door used to show articles about the dangers of smoking
Sorry Dad - we never took heed.
Mum’s room - butterflies petrified in their beauty.
Books
Piled
high
in
theirs.
Ready for duty - to build lectures -
Which were artworks in their own right.
Into the hall where that big old bell would ring out every night - dinner’s ready! And eight feet would hurtle
down
stairs
Hungry
The porch (which once held a whole Mad Hatter’s tea party) was the hatch to summer -
the parasol,
Outside it we’d sit for lunch under who needs Italy?
Look out to the lawn where we played croquet,
ate strawberries on a picnic blanket, played badminton for days
shuttle
cock
every
the dog chasing
and frothing at the mouth.
Don’t eat the crab apples kids!
This garden is where the tiny strawberries grow, amid the rocks. The sweetest that I’ve ever known.
In the living room
there are many delicate sculptures and ming vases.
It is a test every morning and night to make sure the curtains open and close without something breaking. Somehow, they all made it through.
Sofas are for three bums atleast - and giant teddy castles. It’s where Mum hides the Roses, slipped far underneath and hidden by tassels.
The sofa is where we spent sick days
under a blanket
drinking hot Ribena, watching cash in the attic.
That fire warmed our feet a hundred times a year, where Pip would sit, too close, and peer into the flames. And then there were:
T
H
E
B
O
O
K
S
Who needs wallpaper when you have books?
Warmth, stories, talk, play- that room is where you taught us life every day. Wriggling snakes and flowery-seasony-things and being
all together.
Stairs
The
Up the stairs that we used
to whizz
down
with record bumpy
speed
in our sleeping bags.
The bathroom - so baths
many
So many bums washed in that tub.
Mum always put the radiator on for bathtime, towels warmed, Sudocream at the ready, talcum powder
before beddy.
That day Princess Diana died and the rain it P
O
U
R
E
D
and Dad took us out on our bikes and I S O A R E D
straight on into
the river
Rode home with one welly - SHIVER
back to my Mum in the doorway
straight into the bath that day.
And my little room - where I grew and grew and grew.
Where I had every night - a once upon a time
and a happily ever after.
Where Dad sang twinkle twinkle little star on repeat for me
and Mum tucked me in so perfectly, over and over.
And in the summer, Pip would meow from the kitchen roof, and make that
giant leap in to me.
Now Mum and Dad’s room, but
back then, Esme’s - filled with lovely pink things, flower fairy alphabet around the walls, then Ben Affleck instead, when teenager life called.
But when little, me and Mez, we’d sit for hours with raisins and apples and biscuits and my naughty little sister cassettes - under the cover of Esme’s duvet.
Real life called
but we did that instead.
That room is whereI learnt how to put mascara on
How to use Esme’s cut passport as a fake ID.
And when she left,
it felt so very very empty.
The big room, once Mum and Dad’s -
where we would only venture to sit like stars
in front of the big mirror to have our hair dried
or to come into the bed in the middle of the night, if we’d had a fright- a little one in for Mummy cuddles, one Dad out.
But now - the room is one long brilliant stretch of Mum.
It’s big, but not big enough for her pictures that seemed to bubble boil
and
over
into the space
once they had begun to cook.
This room is now filled with her -
She has coloured
it in.
Upstairs the boys lived
Lynx and hair gel, stale spliff smell,
Tim’s territory
alligator heads and Jim Morrison cassettes
hamster empire - long live Hercules!
Where Gabriel studied to start his path to medicine, first gruelling steps
Where Tim built matchstick kingdoms and read philosophy, where they both slept
and slept
and slept.
Later, this space was for me, when the others left I moved on up to the penthouse suite. And I learnt in that space about anger - hurled my radio at the wall,
I learnt about heartbreak, I learnt to study - and to plan
and to read books - properly
It’s where Pip and me snuggled all night, keeping the chilblains at bay.
I learnt about the magic of dusk from that window - hearing the starlings sing as the day closed, I was up high with the treetops there.
I went to sleep hearing owls.
I turned 18 there, and practised being an adult, in an utterly uncivilised way I learnt:
binge drinking
kissing boys
tiny skirts
the taxi number (still with me) - 2696969
How to go and to come back
I learnt how to be me
And from my window I could see……
The garden.
Where we picked so many gooseberries
and apples
and raspberries
and where the rhubarb
overflowed.
This is where the forget me nots sit over Rosie
Where the birds are, every season
where we used to pass messages
beneath the hole in the fence to the girls next door.
It’s where we hid army men
in the soil
it’s where a hundred pairs of socks were hung to dry,
getting bigger and bigger, and then less and less, over the years.
And here is
Dad’s studio
it is filled with years of oil
of faces
There are always oatcakes.
There’s an old plastic bottle filled with fresh water
there are signs telling of impending doom and crisis
and there are bikes.
And then there is the garage -
where we would sit sometimes on a Saturday
and listen to All Saints
Dad in his overalls, fixing
getting black streaks on his head, a spanner in his hand.
It was where the motorbike lived - that engine that we could hear from the living room when it roared up from the road, and then we’d know! Dad’s home!
And we’d turn off the tele
and reach for a book instead-
but we were so happy to see him,
Clunking
down the steps.
And outside this house, along the way, are the woods, and the stream
and the horse fields.
And it’s like a dream to me now.
What a luxury that I had passage to them every day, with my dog and got to
crunch through the leaves
squish through the mud
ride bikes through the river and off to Jacob’s Ladder
or to where ever
we wanted to go.
But the thing that always made it
home
is the orange sick bowl in the cupboard.
Used for every illness, and for baking delights, now it oozes with
Dad's sourdough.
And it will be in a cupboard in a new house soon,
and in that house will be the
same feet that have been treading these floorboards for years
and we will come to that house to see them
We will come with our children
and that will be home.
Home is where the sick bowl is.
under
the moss green stone
beside the pond where a thousand tadpoles were
scooped out
fed
and grown.
The outside tap is where the boy’s teenage trainers were kept fresh - kept bright
white
scrubbed before school, then muddied by night.
Later it got used for the dog’s mucky feet -
paw -
paw - good boy there’s a treat.
In the kitchen, the chicken tiles lived long - gone now but not forgotten.
And there’s the kitchen perch where I’d drink my tea every morning and watch
the Robin
Fox head watched over everything.
Every bowl of porridge
Every coffee time chat
Every biscuit tin steal
Every Saturday night stir fry with jazz record requests
Every one of Mum’s Sunday roasts - after the antiques roadshow, with tiny cups of sherry, with candles burning and Carla Bruni and
Cat Stevens. Then wash up with
The Archers.
It was where Dad came home from his conferences and emptied his bag of goodies. Where we got out the skeleton, inspecting it while eating dried fruit and nuts.
It’s where we did our maths homework
Where we ate Mum’s fresh jam tarts and fruit cake. Where we talked to our mates on the house phone.
Where we spun the lazy Susan. Where we watched the birds.
In the cupboard there are kitkats in the tin, and Crunchy Nut, and that’s where the Christmas decorations are up top, and
the dog towel below.
The kitchen door used to show articles about the dangers of smoking
Sorry Dad - we never took heed.
Mum’s room - butterflies petrified in their beauty.
Books
Piled
high
in
theirs.
Ready for duty - to build lectures -
Which were artworks in their own right.
Into the hall where that big old bell would ring out every night - dinner’s ready! And eight feet would hurtle
down
stairs
Hungry
The porch (which once held a whole Mad Hatter’s tea party) was the hatch to summer -
the parasol,
Outside it we’d sit for lunch under who needs Italy?
Look out to the lawn where we played croquet,
ate strawberries on a picnic blanket, played badminton for days
shuttle
cock
every
the dog chasing
and frothing at the mouth.
Don’t eat the crab apples kids!
This garden is where the tiny strawberries grow, amid the rocks. The sweetest that I’ve ever known.
In the living room
there are many delicate sculptures and ming vases.
It is a test every morning and night to make sure the curtains open and close without something breaking. Somehow, they all made it through.
Sofas are for three bums atleast - and giant teddy castles. It’s where Mum hides the Roses, slipped far underneath and hidden by tassels.
The sofa is where we spent sick days
under a blanket
drinking hot Ribena, watching cash in the attic.
That fire warmed our feet a hundred times a year, where Pip would sit, too close, and peer into the flames. And then there were:
T
H
E
B
O
O
K
S
Who needs wallpaper when you have books?
Warmth, stories, talk, play- that room is where you taught us life every day. Wriggling snakes and flowery-seasony-things and being
all together.
Stairs
The
Up the stairs that we used
to whizz
down
with record bumpy
speed
in our sleeping bags.
The bathroom - so baths
many
So many bums washed in that tub.
Mum always put the radiator on for bathtime, towels warmed, Sudocream at the ready, talcum powder
before beddy.
That day Princess Diana died and the rain it P
O
U
R
E
D
and Dad took us out on our bikes and I S O A R E D
straight on into
the river
Rode home with one welly - SHIVER
back to my Mum in the doorway
straight into the bath that day.
And my little room - where I grew and grew and grew.
Where I had every night - a once upon a time
and a happily ever after.
Where Dad sang twinkle twinkle little star on repeat for me
and Mum tucked me in so perfectly, over and over.
And in the summer, Pip would meow from the kitchen roof, and make that
giant leap in to me.
Now Mum and Dad’s room, but
back then, Esme’s - filled with lovely pink things, flower fairy alphabet around the walls, then Ben Affleck instead, when teenager life called.
But when little, me and Mez, we’d sit for hours with raisins and apples and biscuits and my naughty little sister cassettes - under the cover of Esme’s duvet.
Real life called
but we did that instead.
That room is whereI learnt how to put mascara on
How to use Esme’s cut passport as a fake ID.
And when she left,
it felt so very very empty.
The big room, once Mum and Dad’s -
where we would only venture to sit like stars
in front of the big mirror to have our hair dried
or to come into the bed in the middle of the night, if we’d had a fright- a little one in for Mummy cuddles, one Dad out.
But now - the room is one long brilliant stretch of Mum.
It’s big, but not big enough for her pictures that seemed to bubble boil
and
over
into the space
once they had begun to cook.
This room is now filled with her -
She has coloured
it in.
Upstairs the boys lived
Lynx and hair gel, stale spliff smell,
Tim’s territory
alligator heads and Jim Morrison cassettes
hamster empire - long live Hercules!
Where Gabriel studied to start his path to medicine, first gruelling steps
Where Tim built matchstick kingdoms and read philosophy, where they both slept
and slept
and slept.
Later, this space was for me, when the others left I moved on up to the penthouse suite. And I learnt in that space about anger - hurled my radio at the wall,
I learnt about heartbreak, I learnt to study - and to plan
and to read books - properly
It’s where Pip and me snuggled all night, keeping the chilblains at bay.
I learnt about the magic of dusk from that window - hearing the starlings sing as the day closed, I was up high with the treetops there.
I went to sleep hearing owls.
I turned 18 there, and practised being an adult, in an utterly uncivilised way I learnt:
binge drinking
kissing boys
tiny skirts
the taxi number (still with me) - 2696969
How to go and to come back
I learnt how to be me
And from my window I could see……
The garden.
Where we picked so many gooseberries
and apples
and raspberries
and where the rhubarb
overflowed.
This is where the forget me nots sit over Rosie
Where the birds are, every season
where we used to pass messages
beneath the hole in the fence to the girls next door.
It’s where we hid army men
in the soil
it’s where a hundred pairs of socks were hung to dry,
getting bigger and bigger, and then less and less, over the years.
And here is
Dad’s studio
it is filled with years of oil
of faces
There are always oatcakes.
There’s an old plastic bottle filled with fresh water
there are signs telling of impending doom and crisis
and there are bikes.
And then there is the garage -
where we would sit sometimes on a Saturday
and listen to All Saints
Dad in his overalls, fixing
getting black streaks on his head, a spanner in his hand.
It was where the motorbike lived - that engine that we could hear from the living room when it roared up from the road, and then we’d know! Dad’s home!
And we’d turn off the tele
and reach for a book instead-
but we were so happy to see him,
Clunking
down the steps.
And outside this house, along the way, are the woods, and the stream
and the horse fields.
And it’s like a dream to me now.
What a luxury that I had passage to them every day, with my dog and got to
crunch through the leaves
squish through the mud
ride bikes through the river and off to Jacob’s Ladder
or to where ever
we wanted to go.
But the thing that always made it
home
is the orange sick bowl in the cupboard.
Used for every illness, and for baking delights, now it oozes with
Dad's sourdough.
And it will be in a cupboard in a new house soon,
and in that house will be the
same feet that have been treading these floorboards for years
and we will come to that house to see them
We will come with our children
and that will be home.
Home is where the sick bowl is.
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