Whispering Smith Column published in the Littlehampton Gazette July 30th. 2015

SUNNY day in the garden with my laptop and surrounded by flowers I have tended all summer. Ok so it is my birthday today and I am not happy about it. Who needs to be, annually, reminded that you are one year older and closer to ‘…knock, knock knocking on Heaven’s door.’  After 45 all birthdays should be ignored and that dreadful question of ‘is this the big one?’ posed by well-meaning friends confined to the scrap heap. Hello, people, after 45 they are all big ones! Still, I’ll try to get into the spirit of it, a spirit generated by my children. I’ll ask a few friends around for a sundowner, wine and nibbles. Maybe sit in the garden, watch the sun go down behind the monstrosity of an extension Arun allowed my absentee neighbour to build and cast its long shadow over my life telling me it would ‘have no impact on my environment.’ Moan about that for a bit then break out the ukulele and sing a miserable song or two. I find it very difficult to imagine a miserable song on a ukulele but if anyone could do it on just two chords, I could, then send them all home. My mood deepens. Then, quite suddenly I speculate that God is hacking my computer because a darkened sky wraps itself around me like a cloak and the heavens open tossing down stair rods of rain, making me dash for cover with only the  morning’s newspaper to protect the IT centre of my universe. Not all party darkness though. My long suffering son will be there to patiently answer any IT questions that have arisen since we last met. He is a great support even though, tiring of trying to explain ‘cloud’ to me just saying that I should  think of it as a galaxy far, far away. My lovely daughter will not make party but sent me a card that made me cry. Birthdays, who needs ‘em?

SUMMER activities nearly at an end and I wonder how dreary and dull it would have been without the time and effort put in by Litlehampton Organisation of Contemporary Arts. Galleries, photography, festivals, music and sculpture,Chalk on the Prom- great fun, hundreds of parents and children, drawings galore and not a single phallic symbol or curse word anywhere to be seen. THANK YOU LOCA.