Haibun 5 Poem by Jacqui Thewless

At my age, I am often surprised. I count this willingness to wonder about changes as one of the blessings which came naturally when I tumbled ‘over the hill’.
As in many villages and small towns, the Pembroke Post Office is an important place, far more personally so than any other institution. From here, folk deliver hand-written letters and parcelled gifts to friends and family who live so far away. There is a curious solemnity about the ritual weighing of packets at the threshold of the Post Office counter, and in the liturgy of questions as to their appointed ‘class’ and value. Oddly, I’ve never seen two of the three persons who sit behind the counter anywhere else in the town. If I were a child, I might believe that they lived and worked under house arrest! Maurice is the exception.

Maurice’s local is ‘The Waterman’s Arms’, a fine old pub at the far end of the bridge across Pembroke millpond, which has outdoor seating from which you can watch the swans pass or congregate - or see otters, if you are lucky. Inside, on weekend nights, I’ve seen Maurice ‘let down his hair’, propping up the bar with pints and conversation. Tie-less, in mufti, he loses his influential air: one of the rest of us on this side of the barman’s counter. On Monday mornings, however, his long face framed by a neatly parted hairstyle which features a short, thin, straight, fine fringe, Maurice represents all that is enduring about one of the oldest British social institutions. His droll, dark, voice and melancholy features, the laconic tilt of his head and shrugged shoulders which answer to questions as to the scale of his hangover, are as familiar as the sight of one’s own right hand curved round a pen.

En route to the train station last week, I noticed that the Post Office was locked except to workmen, whose large white van was parked outside. On Wednesday of this week, after shopping for groceries and flowers, I went to fetch some money from my Post Office account. At the entrance, I stopped; surprised. A doorway to the right had disappeared! Now, the blank entrance porch – without familiar posters or notices – gave into a new door to the left. Inside – more strange chaos! The whole interior had been gutted, deepened, and re-vamped, reminding me - in a disconcerting way - of the bland and featureless Post Office in Tenby. There were now three counters: two at the far right and one at the far left, and the back wall - which had used to lie behind the single Post Office counter, lined with shelving, bearing Post Office equipment and the Post Office clock – now served for fixed-display of infants’ clothing, toys and fancy-dress costumes. Islands of turnable cards-racks, like free-floating icebergs in the post-deluge Post Office landscape, confused a unanimously disoriented queue. As each new-comer entered through the door, a look of bafflement and disbelief fell swiftly on her face. Glancing round the room, eyes straining to take in multiple counters, soon afterwards would come the question: which one is the Post Office? One of the staff – flustered, but anxious to inform us that it had been ‘high time for the changes’ - acted as an usher, directing bewildered folk towards the next vacant window or base. Mercifully, I found myself being sent to Maurice’s counter, his unchanged appearance a welcome haven in the newly obliterating flood.

Later, I received an email from my sister in Orkney, enquiring, among other things, about our Pembroke weather. I told her: here, primulas are already thickly budded, snowdrops are in bloom, leeks - like fleurs de lis - are fully grown. The weather is mild and we are on the cusp of spring.

Maurice’s parting
divides flat hair to the right;
his fringe, a staple