Family and friends will know I like to bake the odd cake. My most frequent cake is a chocolate one – a family favourite with reliable results. The trouble is that baking is an art, not a science, and while you can follow the recipe and control the variables fairly well, no two home-made cakes are identical. (Not even this pair I cooked up with a friend recently, though they came pretty close...)
Things go wrong sometimes (that’s life). And the last time I made my usual cake, the poor sponge couldn’t quite take the weight of the icing I poured on the top.
The icing on the cake was the straw that broke the camel’s back, I thought. Which just goes to show that I don’t actually think about the things I put into words. If George Orwell was alive today he’d be turning in his grave. (I wish I had come up with this line, but it’s actually a misquote from the film Brassed Off.) Orwell lamented the decline of the English language, noting (amongst other things) that “incompatible metaphors are frequently mixed, a sure sign that the writer is not interested in what he is saying”.
But isn’t that part of what makes language fun?
Some days it’s hard to climb the stairs.
Each step seems far too high,
My legs too weak
To carry me.
Some days it’s hard to finish a task.
I struggle to see a reason why
I should not put it off
Until tomorrow.
Some days it’s hard to keep worry at bay,
The anxious thoughts,
The nervous tension,
Panic, guilt and shame.
Some days it’s hard to stand up tall,
Pinned to the bed or couch
By a small voice of fear that says
There is no point at all.
Some days it’s hard to climb the stairs,
And some days I bounce up them
Two at a time.
