3: Stucco

[pudsey] Rabbit Stew ----------- my wife sets the clay pot down before me and raises the lid swiping wisps of steam away from my face what's this i bellow maybe it's you she says i inhaled sharply raising my eyebrows and set my gaze upon my two sons pilot faces returning a mixture of fear and expectation rabbits chew every mark quizzically keeping my sight fixed firmly on the plane faces staring back at me playing cause the balls before them then pray tell wife believers thou that which be tuned by hair or to be fit the mouth of man as is her custom in this routine she keeps her tongue at rest and doubles the inquisitive parental gaze upon our sons ralphie is four and ralph will be two in four weeks neither them yet understand the key pun in this gerard it would afford the latter the quality of lighthearted merriment before supper instead each of him endures the hostile rubric of patriarchy as he subs timidly at his stew after this it is mostly the soft clinking of spoons and the gentle subbing of fluids occasionally interrupted by the twitching of gabrielle relic's wings she ruffles her feathers Wombledom --------- i used to dress up as a womble and do the kiddies parties sometimes i'd even get a fee if i was booked by the parents the other times well it was the 70s the 1470s the common of wimbledon back then was still very much thriving with the semi-autonomous activity of wombledom you could buy a pewter tankard with the harley-davidson coat of arms etched into the mug floor that symbol of freedom and the open road would greet your squiffy eyes as you drained the last dregs of your mugwort and thistle porter you could buy a tiny tapestry of pete townsend's face well i say face but of course it was more of a crew silhouette a hurriedly stitched profile in black lambswool but you had to hand it to them the wombles of wimbledon common in the late 15th century were an industrious lot especially by today's standards you could buy a hairnet woven by a genuine courtesy spider and they would have it done for you there on the spot the spider would ostentatiously devenomize its fangs you would sign a disclaimer and it would start to weave a lattice over your actual head as you sat on the stump of a willow and replated the leather straps of your axe handle you could buy replacement billiard tables weird wooden mushroom things carved from the soft trunk of a local elm you could buy a pair of gardening gloves with the traitor flavian titch marshes severed hands still inside keeping their form nobody really believed they were the genuine traitors hands because every third gardening stall had a pair but shoppers were prepared to entertain the fantasy especially considering what that bastard had done you could buy a bird calling whistle that was guaranteed to never work imported as it was from the equally industrious courts of lawrestan between which and wimbledon common however no migratory species had ever been recorded you could buy a first edition of lord sax's seminal work what am a woman bound in the reconstituted scrotal tissue of the sumatran rhinoceros but you have to realize that the wombles of the 15th century were fairly respected and though not quite socially integrated they were largely due to the dainty class's appetite for focus handicrafts nobly tolerated as long as they continued to pay their special levy to the crown their weekly fee to the borough of wimbledon's parks and open spaces commission and forfeit any aspirations they might have of owning any property whatsoever other than their wretched and filthy subterranean stench holes the point is wobbling up for the kitty's party scene in the 1470s was a dignified endeavor when you went into the room the kitty's faces would light up they'd almost be immobilized with reverence whether you'd come as bungo orinoco or great uncle bulgaria these days you'd be lucky if a kid even knew what a wombat was