Because everything’s coming up lovely. Having spent the autumn digging round for writing commissions and hard pruning some ideas and dreaming over seed catalogues, things started to happen. But like all those dinky seeds, everything had to stay buried under non disclosure agreements. All I could do was walk round with a warm smile, rather like a compost heap steaming on a frosty morning: definitely good things going on.
Much is still to blossom but (Weren’t the flowers lovely this spring?) you should be able to see the first fruits later this month when CBeebies broadcast BING BUNNY. Actually this was a series that I wrote for last year and I think my scripts were all locked before Christmas. I’ve desperately wanted to talk about it because the show is so lovely. It was initially described to me as a reality show for preschool. And it is. Using a beautifully animated black bunny rabbit and his friends and family, the episodes show real time moments from a child’s life: the fun, the wonder and the mess. It’s brilliant. It’s bouncy. It’s a BING thing.
Back to my ‘gardenese’: I’m sure the series will blossom and grow in the hearts of its young audience and bear much fruit in their lives. And also prove fruitful for the lovely people that I worked with at Acamar Films Ltd.
As I said, much of what I’ve done this spring is still to blossom: still under a mulch of creative compost and non disclosure agreements. Nevertheless, things are developing nicely: I’ve been working with broadcasters and independent producers on more preschool projects and grown up features, a major international conservation project and, and, and… poetry! Can’t wait for the day I can show you those literary specimens: I’ll be as proud as a gold medal winner at Chelsea. Blooming marvelous.
I’ve just remembered a brilliant thing someone said last Saturday. Rather fascinated by bees at the moment. As is everyone apparently. Hating to follow the herd, I can smugly say that I’m not interested in keeping them because it’s trendy – my big sister inherited a hive and I like being like her.
Whatever, the lovely ancient apiarist in Stroud market, advised me to wait a few years “When there will be lots of second hand equipment for sale as the herd move on. First it was chickens…” he said.
Then he said something else, and this is why I am writing before I forget it and fill my silly head with other chattery nonsense.
He said, “My primary school teacher taught me to keep bees.”
“Oh,” I gushed, picturing an Edwardian lady filling her country diary with bee keeping notes and thinking ‘how quaint, he must have grown up with Laurie Lee’.
The elderly bee keeper clearly knew I was filling my head with bucollocks (that’s rustic nonsense) so added, “She taught me to read.”
Once upon a seabed, there lived a sponge. Giving a home to lots of tiny creatures, it felt happy and important wafting in the waters. Then along came a net, which scooped it up and dumped it onto a boat with lots of wriggling fish. Some big hairy hands had picked it out. But instead of throwing it back into the sea, the big hairy hands left it on deck in the sun. The boat sailed home and now the sponge was miles away from its home, snatched from its family and friends, all dried out and very grumpy.
“I don’t deserve this! Why me?” thought the grumpy sponge. “Thing’s can’t possibly get worse.” He heard some sloshing and thought, “Ah good, at least I can soak up some water.” But it wasn’t water: he suddenly found himself dunked in vinegar! Vinegar! Somebody said it was wine but it tasted horrid. All the little houses where the tiny creatures had lived filled up and the sponge felt horribly tingly, like being stung by a thousand sea anemones, which he was once, when he’d made a rude remark about their tentacles.
“I don’t deserve this! Why me?” hiccupped the grumpy sponge. “Things can’t possibly get worse.” But then they stuck him on a stick! He’d once been poked by an inquisitive swordfish, and been very cross about it. But at least the swordfish hadn’t hoiked him into the air and waved him about! The sponge didn’t like air at the best of times. Now he was swaying to and fro, this way and that, as he was raised higher and higher, dripping vinegar.
“I don’t deserve this! Why me?” swooned the grumpy sponge. “Things can’t possibly get worse.” But then he came face to face with a man nailed onto some bits of a tree. This man had been snatched from his family and friends, poked and pierced and now been hoiked into the air.
The people below pushed the sponge up to the man’s lips for him to take a drink. The man’s face was full of pain and pressure, as if he’d been stung by a hundred thousand sea anemones, poked by all the swordfishes in the sea and had the weight of all the water in the world pressing down on him. But the sponge saw that this man wasn’t angry or even grumpy, even though he was in agony. In fact this man was full of love: love for the people that had snatched him away, or had laughed at him, even the ones that had hoiked him into the air. Despite the pain and pressure, this man’s face was full of love for everyone.
As the sponge was lowered, he didn’t feel grumpy anymore. When he had touched this man’s lips, he’d been kissed by the greatest love in the world. “I don’t deserve this! Why me?”
There’s a big boiled egg
Sitting in the Quiet Carriage.
And he’s loud and he’s rude
And in a very bad mood;
For this train is going to Bristol
And he wants to go to Harwich.
So he shouts and has a moan
To his friend on his phone,
And forgets he’s not alone,
Sitting in the Quiet Carriage.
“Shush and hush,”
Whispers the friendly guard.
But the boiled egg is hard
And intimidates the guard.
So politely we all make
A stand, in the Quiet Carriage,
Till he cracks and backtracks;
‘Cause he’s really soft and runny.
And it’s very very funny
When a big boiled egg
Who wants to go to Harwich,
Gets on the wrong train
And sits in the quiet carriage.
15.3.13
Winston the cat
Is big, black and fat.
But his mew is so cute,
You’d never guess he’s a brute
Who likes to kill rats
And other tom cats.
He curls on the chair
With a warm sleepy stare.
But when you think he’s at rest,
He’s at his cruel, vicious best.
So little shrew beware:
Winston knows that you’re there.
He’s watching you peep
And feel safe and then creep
To the fridg- Bam! goes his paw
As he strikes with his claw
And sinks his teeth deep
And eats even your squeap!
Please note: ‘Squeap’ is the sound a shrew makes as it disappears in one big gollop into a big black fat cat. There’s no time for squealing and or squeaking – the k gets swallowed. Trust me.
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