I (sometimes) call myself Mr. Pondersome. I'm a rather wordy, weirdy person. I say hullo a lot. I write a lot more. While you're here, why not give some of it a read?

Thursday 4 March 2021

The Fluffy Book Above the Pool (a.k.a. A Textured Anecdote for World Book Day)


During my early work days, I attended a course to become a Reading Friend. This was held at a local sports centre.

In order to get to the session, we had to notify the front desk and then turn abruptly up an unexpected stairwell. As I ascended, the lights became more artificial and the smell of sweat and chlorine was smothered by lavender carpet cleaner.

When I arrived at the necessary floor, I had to cross a long thin burgundy walkway with windows on the left, looking down on the swimming pool below. Every now and then, I turned to observe a hasty splash of some childish swimmer, hoping to startle an adult who was focusing hard on her butterfly stroke.

At the end of the walkway was a conference room with white tables, at the centre of which sat a man and a woman amid an assortment of board books and picture books. The most important book of all was at the centre: the one in which we signed our attendance.

Throughout the two-hour session, the man and woman held up different books and showed how to coax the interest of a young child, the importance of asking questions about what they think might happen next and drawing attention to the background detail of the consistently impressive illustration. Then, when they both ran out of puff, the man and the woman told us to turn to the person immediately to the right of us and practice. Pretending that another grown-up was a baby was immensely weird until you had to be the baby yourself. I had fun with it until I heard myself actually say, ‘goo-goo ga-ga’.

Then after a quick and energetic feedback, the man and woman brought out the pièce de résistance: a pink fluffy board book. This was to show the tactile nature of reading with babies and how it helps early development. We all got to stroke the woolly cover and flip a couple of fabric pages before hastily passing it on, fearing that a thorough inspection might seem like outright fetishism. It was just a shame that the dyslexic teenagers I would be dealing with wouldn’t benefit from such soft tomes.

Once everyone had tickled their fingertips with book fluff, the man and woman moved the precious touchy-feely book out of sight, never to be used again. When I left the session, I glanced under the table and noticed a thin metal case between them, the kind you expect to carry precious cargo. I imagined the book inside, strawberry-scented wool and feathers pressed between two pads of protective foam.

Years later, after working in libraries, I learnt more about tactile baby books and how well they last. A metal case isn't nearly enough.


Friday 1 January 2021

Little Daunting (a.k.a. A Guide to a Place We All See at the Start of a New Year)

So you’re off to Little Daunting.

A lot to take in for such a small village. Some might call it a hamlet though they’ve had their chance to go up and down all its paths and trails, taken in the full scale of this awe-inspiring place.

It’s hard to say what’s so intimidating about Little Daunting. All you or anyone else can really know for sure is what you see on arrival, how the village appears to you. It has been described as crammed full of towering structures, having deceptive proportions when you're stood at the road sign. This sign reads ‘welcome’ but that’s not quite the meaning conveyed. All descriptions of the place from returning travellers vary but remain at some level indecipherable and untrustworthy. You distrust your own faculties most of all.

Little Daunting messes with the head but there’s a reason why it’s called ‘Little’. Any fear you might have drains away as you tread its grass, dissipates with every echoing footstep along the modest cobbles. It’s true when they say this place doesn’t quite look the same with every hour you pass within its limits.

Whether you stay or not depends on how easily you feel settled. As such it’s rarely crowded for long.

You may or may not return from Little Daunting. This village might even break you down but know that we have all been there for a while and some of us can remember it well.