When You're Not Looking

Greetings, all! The second week of February is upon us, and every day I get more excited about the progress made by the tiny crocus plant sitting on my kitchen table. Stan doesn't really understand why I find it necessary to come bouncing in, clutching the purple tissue-papered pot in my hand, exclaiming 'Look! Look!' as he battles the forces of evil in the DC Universe... but he good-naturedly obliges, and peers at the growing yellow bulb. Okay, so it's not exactly a unique miracle; there are hundreds of the things up and down our road, hiding in the unmown grass of people's front lawns and sneaking up on kerbside patches of grass. But for some reason I can't explain, every Spring takes me delightfully by surprise, which is why when I went for a walk with my friend Anne last week, we ended up kicking leaves and giggling like a pair of schoolgirls because we found snowdrops in Jephson Gardens.

All this Spring, well, springing, got me thinking about the unexpected expected - the things we know will happen but which we fail to anticipate, and the things which we hope for or imagine which sometimes, just sometimes, fall into our laps. It's such a strange part of the human experience, that shock of recognition when the unexpected expected comes and hits us in the face and we don't know what to do with it. Usually I have a little crazy dance all by myself (this generally worked well when I was at university and had a room of my own, but on one occasion I was caught mid-leap by the friend who lived across the corridor, and it was a bit difficult to explain...). Lately I don't have so much space for dancing - it endangers the surrounding cables, bookcase, and marmalade jars - so if I have to bounce I do so in a strictly vertical direction, and add some singing if necessary. I know it's weird, but there has to be an outlet, and I'm not much for running... though I'm trying my hand (or legs) at it again. But I digress.

About this time two years ago I was spending a lot of my time on trains, visiting Stan (who had only attained boyfriend status at the time) and my family, so I observed a lot of the Spring landscape from the inside of a rapidly-moving metal tube. The swiftly-passing fields of sheep and marshy floodlands seemed like a metaphor for the stage of life I was in - nothing was static, and as each week opened new buds and blooms I was running to keep up to the standard set for me. I felt like if I closed my eyes for even a moment I would miss something crucial and get knocked over by it the next second, but it never happened. Instead, the forced movement opened parts of my mind I'd barely had time to explore, and on those long train journeys I created whole worlds to play with - worlds in which anything could take me by surprise, and the delightfully frivolous unknown was hiding just under the surface. Which is why, sat by my crocus and among the many cupcakes I baked this afternoon, I want to tell you a short story, and one story every day next week. I call them the When You're Not Looking series, and each one was written on a train in the spring on 2009. Hope you enjoy.

When You're Not Looking...

...PIGS do a mud-dance - their own equivalent of some tribal rain dances. The little ones spring in the air, enthusiastically shaking their floppy ears and wrinkling their speckled snouts, spattering mud about them with carefree abandonment. The older pigs march around them solemnly, proud porky heads held high, but occasionally dipping to fling clods with their noses. They plod in firm and stately manner, kicking every four steps with the right front trotter, creating a work of modern art in the pig-in-front's behind. When all are suitably bespattered, the great pigs take to rolling from side to side, while the little pigs continue their springing, leaping, frenzied dance, uttering high-pitched oinks to the grumbling undertones of the great pigs' grunts and snorts.

Eventually, when there is no inch of pink pig to be seen amidst all the mud, the now-disguised glooping creatures group in V formation, and begin their skulking approach to the farmhouse. Intent on silent ambush, they move as one squelching brown body, low to the ground, great pigs flanking little pigs who run with a mixture of youthful bravado and sheer terror in and out of their legs. Just as it appears there is no hope for the besieged farmhouse, one small pig, overcome, gives a loud squeal - the farmer appears, and in a confused and dripping rabble the would-be commando pigs tumble instead toward the feed trough.