Dancing with shadows

Early this morning I pondered the pampas grass which decorates our railway station. As I waited I enjoyed the shadows dancing. It reminded me of pantomime cries of the children "He's behind you! He's behind you!". And of course the shadow is never seen or caught.

This evening I cut a jacket pattern from a roll of wallpaper. I had carefully pinned an old and worn out woollen jacket to the paper, measured it, lengthened it, tweaked and pulled, then gingerly cut it out. The shape had been "pricked with a pin" through the existing jacket, to form the design. As I did this, it was as if my mum was behind me, like she was forty years ago when she first taught me to sew.

So with encroaching darkness the overhead light was turned on, I cut and I pinned and a shadow was cast on the carpet, my mum guiding nervous hands over polka dot wool.