Creative Scribbles
Here is where all my short stories and silly creative writings are for you to easily read. Each one is separated by a black line, so should you want to skip to the next one, just scroll down to the next line.
I hope you enjoy 
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I am no literary genius, by far, but I do enjoy writing even though I may not be a great speller or graphic linguist! but on the occasion I do try. So here I want to start putting up some stories and poetry I wrote not so long ago in what I thought was an angst teenage flight of fancy but I have found the want to share stories grow in me. Especially this year in particular.
My grandmother had quiet an influence on my early childhood. This year, should she still be with us, she would have been a century old, there isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t think of her and as of late I have been thinking heavily about her and thought it would be nice to share some memories of her with you. What I am about to write is all true and I will do it in short chapters every few days to make it easier on everyone to read.
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Chapter One:
I was no more than five years old, sitting cross legged on the double bed between my parents. As I let their idle conversation pass over me, I absent mindedly played with my teddy bear.
I recall the room was painted an ugly but bright shade of green upon wood chipped paper. the ceiling was a brilliant white, tinged only in a brownish yellow of aging cigarette smoke that had settled in random places up there. They were smoking now too. I never took notice of their smoking habit until much older, for now, it was just something my mammy and daddy enjoyed doing and I knew nothing really about it or what it was doing to them.
My father laid upon the bed sitting up, back propped up against some pillows and casually billowing out smoke rings for me to put my fingers through with much excitement. He was a handsome man, rarely without a fag in his mouth, slim, with a recognisable sideways dimple across his chin, which was actually a scar from when he was thrown through a windscreen in a car accident where he had been a passenger a few years before. He had been so proud of that previously perfect dimple on his chin, he really and truly loved it and frequently commented upon its deformity after the accident. He also lost the use of his right eye in that accident and was lucky to be with us.
He turned to me and lifted me from the center of the bed perching me atop his raised up knees and holding securely to my hands with his. I immediately started giggling knowing what he was about to do.
“Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall…”
bouncing his knees up and down to each word as he sang, mum then joined in and I started to squeal.
“Humpty Dumpty had a great…”
on the word, ‘Fall’, he would open his knees and I would fall through onto the soft bed bellow with a roar of laughter from all three of us.
As I sat there trying to catch my breath mum asked me to make a decision, the first decision I have ever had to make.
“Love I know you share this room with us, but we were wondering if you wanted and only if your ready” she paused with a slight grin, “would you like to move upstairs into your own room with nana?”
I was so excited at the idea that I could make a decision on my own, I took my time, about one and a half seconds, and yelped, “YES!”
This is where our story and the true relationship with my Grandmother begins.
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When I walked out into the sitting room she was already up. I ran over and hugged her with as much force as I could muster. She reciprocated the same with a kiss on the cheek, we giggled as she nearly knocked off her glasses. She turned back to lighting the fire.
She was a short woman, about 5′1 with an entire age of lifelong experience carved into her soft face, square glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, their arms dissolved into her blue rinse short perm of tight curls and her deep and smiling watery blue eyes sheltered behind them.
She broke a stick across her frail looking knee effortlessly with a sharp ’snap’, she was fresh woman, always on the go and a chore to do.
Once the fire was alight and the guard in front of it, she sat back into the chair and allowed me to climb on top of her. She sang softly, an old traditional ballad I had never heard before and I lay into her shoulder and begin to tell her the decision I was allowed to make just minutes before. I am excited and a little scared as I tell her for fear she would not want to share her room with me. The more I tell her the tighter the hug of her arm around me as I lay upon her, she is delighted and so too am I.
The sitting room was open back then, the stairs was visible from within the room and was painted a gloss blue, The walls of the room were a primrose colour. There was always an open fire roaring even in the summer and two small windows that left in much light draped in long white curtains with red blooming roses scattered across them. The floor consisted of red and blue vinyl square tiles glued to the floor. The furniture dark and 70’s looking.
You entered the little cottage through the porch at the front of the house. There was no hall then and the sitting room was immediate as you entered through the old mahogany door which had one square beveled piece of amber glass that caught the morning light and saturated the room in orange. My parents bedroom was directly attached to the sitting room to the right as you came in, also on that wall was the open fire and beside that was the chair where we sat.
Mum came out of the bedroom where I would no longer sleep, leaned down to where I lay and kissed me on the forehead, she said good morning to nana and stood talking briefly as I began to lull back into a sleep, sucking my finger and enjoying both the fire’s and my grandmothers warmth.
My mother didn’t work back then, she was a hard working housewife. She had a brunette perm to her shoulders and Beautiful blue eyes, 5′7 and a strong woman both in will and spirit.
This was a Saturday, I was 5 years old and tonight would be the first night of my life sleeping away from my parents.
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That evening came just as quick as the morning had flown and before I knew it, it was time for bed. I was so excited I could hardly contain myself. Up the narrow dark stairs I climbed making sure to stamp loudly on the old wooden steps, I had always loved the echo it created in the tiny stairwell.
At the top of the stairs was the ‘Landing’, I always wondered why they called it that… It was a very small space less than 1 meter square and had an old fashioned latted wooden door at either side, one to my brother Keith’s room and one that led into my new resting place.
I had been upstairs many times with nana prior to this but at this moment it felt like my first time all over again, this time it was mine and nanas room.
The small room contained little furniture, a double bed at the right of the room, a single to the left with a tiny window in between the two. The wall level to the door as I entered had a chest of drawers to my left. It had a look of antiquity to it, dark mahogany brown, old ornamental drawer handles and on top lay a big old oval mirror, all riddled with woodworm!
further left to that at the foot of nana’s double bed was an old wardrobe in even less of a condition than that of the the chest of drawers. It was all wonderful I thought as I dived onto my new single bed.
I gave mammy the task of going back down stairs to retrieve all my teddies that I normally slept with, 15 of them to be exact and all with an individual name and most of which I had since I was a newborn, still in great condition.
While mum was downstairs I watched nana undress and get ready for bed. She had a routine, the same every night of which I was soon about to see. A
although there was a perfectly good bathroom in which to prepare, nana preferred to bring up a basin of soapy water and a sponge into the bedroom where she would start with her hands and move the sponge up her left arm, down her right, over her chest and stomach, around her back where she could comfortably reach and onto her legs.
The smell of the lavender scented soap filled the room and the sound of gentle splashing water as she squeezed out the sponge into the basin had me lulling into a deep sleep before mammy could return with all my teddies.
I dreamed a child’s dream… bright colours, caterpillars, baby animals, floating, numbers, lots of numbers…
“6 miles, Rising slowly. Loop Head…”
When I opened my eyes it was not completely dark, a tiny red dot came from nanas bed, and a crackling, humming noise.
“Belmullet, 28 knots, 7…”
I realised she was listening to her ‘wireless’ as she liked to call it.
“Nana?” I asked while shutting my eyes again in fear of the dark around me. “Yes Dear?”
“Are you awake?” taking little notice of the fact that she had already answered me, she giggled as she did with a little ‘heu heu’
“I am love” she said and I could tell she was smiling.
“Nana whats Belmullagh?”
“Belmullet is a light house dear”
“oh… Why is he counting?”
“Its not counting, he is reading the weather for the sailors, its the shipping news…”
Her voice was already trailing off as I was falling back to sleep but her voice stayed with me and got tangled up in my dreams.
I stood beside a lighthouse, upon a dark pebble beach,
I could hear nanas voice but it was just out of reach
The bay was filled with little boats and each one had a face,
Every time I’d blink some would vanish without a trace
One was wearing glasses and reading out the news,
The other boats listened attentively while lining up in two’s
I walked upon the pebble shore idley kicking stones,
The trees they danced and they did sway and in the wind they gently moaned
Beyond the boats something moved it was big, large and black,
I strained to see and when I did I took a few steps back
The sea it swelled, the boats bobbed back, I then saw it was a whale,
Coming toward me, mouth open wide and splashing with its tail
I put up my hand in fear of my life and then it took a turn,
Toward the lighthouse it did speed, there was something I was about to learn
The whale reared up and nashed its teeth and took a giant bite
It ate the lighthouse, swallowed it whole and blackened out the night
I stood in shock not knowing where to look, then it simply talked!
“When I swim at night I can not see, ill open up my mouth
the lighthouse is safe in my belly and light will come spilling out
Ill bring it back, its just a borrow, I need it for tonight,
it will stand as it always does as soon as the morning is bright”
The whale swam off waving to me as I stood gobsmacked on the shore,
Then I woke in the light of day and the whale, he was no more!
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To Be Continued…
Karen said,
June 8, 2009 @ 4:12 pm
When did you write this?
My granny whom I was very close to died in March. It’s very strange not having her around… it was nice to read this so keep writing
letteapplejuice said,
June 8, 2009 @ 4:33 pm
cheers Karen
I started writing it back in April and on and off sence, its still not finished but iv been so busy, hope to get back into it soon 
thank you for popping by 
Memories Of A Relation Passed Part 3 « Lette’s Raving Rantings said,
July 3, 2009 @ 4:15 pm
[...] Creative Scribbles [...]
Mikael Fernstrom said,
July 24, 2010 @ 12:51 pm
Great story!
Lette Moloney said,
July 24, 2010 @ 7:45 pm
Thanks Mikael
I hope to write this into something more substantial later on after the MA, I hope it works out 
Pat Eaves said,
January 14, 2011 @ 7:14 pm
Am so enjoying this picture of your grandmother. Please continue; I’d love to know more about her! She made a great impression on me when I visited your family.