One of the traditions of my childhood Christmases was that first thing on Christmas morning my mother would go into the kitchen, make pastry and turn out a batch of a dozen mince pies.
Her pastry was wonderful beyond imagination - I watched her make it countless times, she gave me the recipe, she even stood over me while I made it, and mine has never even come close. I think the secret lay partly in the lard and partly in her very cold hands - Trex is the nearest vegetarian equivalent to lard, but it isn't the same, and now we have central heating my kitchen is never as cold as hers always was - but even with the exact same ingredients and conditions I could never make it as well.
Anyway, no later than mid-morning a dozen mince-pies with the flakiest pastry stood cooling on the rack. And as soon as they were cool enough to eat, she would sit down with a glass of sherry and enjoy one of them, before getting on with the business of preparing the Christmas lunch.
We always had mince-pies after dinner on Christmas Day, the family believing that noone could do justice to a pudding after a full roast dinner (which wasn't much more than an ordinary Sunday lunch with the addition of bread sauce, in fact), and we had the pudding on Boxing Day, after cold meat. But the mince-pies we had after dinner were never as good, never as mouth-watering, as the one we had mid-morning, still warm.
My mother died thirteen years ago and my family now don't care for Christmas cake, pudding or mincemeat, so the festivities are nothing like they were when I was a child. But if I have time on Christmas morning, or even on one of the other days over the Christmas holiday, I still have a (shop-bought) mince-pie and/or a glass of sherry, remember my mother and wish I could have one of her home-made ones again.
Thursday, 24 December 2009
Saturday, 28 November 2009
Tunnock's caramel wafers
Regular readers - are there any? - will know that Tunnock's caramel wafers are something of a fetish in this household. We almost never eat them during the year, but never go on holiday without them, and they have saved us on many a cheap package holiday, when we arrived at our destination in the small hours and they provided the only sustenance until shops and cafes opened again with daylight.
So, imagine my delight when I found in Morrisons this morning:
So, imagine my delight when I found in Morrisons this morning:
!!Tunnock's caramel wafers in dark chocolate!!
Truly God is good.
Truly God is good.
Chinese
We went out for a Chinese meal last night. I was surprised when Husband suggested the local Chinese restaurant, as we'd eaten there before and although the food is really quite good, it isn't a great dining experience. Like many such places, it concentrates mostly on the take-away trade. However, it is close and convenient so I didn't protest. A meal out is a meal out, after all, and it was an opportunity to wear my new boots on a short walk.
As soon as we walked in it was clear that they had more or less abandoned the restaurant side of the business. There were just a couple of tables set up at the back, one of which we took, and noone else came in all evening. We were given menus and shortly afterwards the waitress came back to take the drinks order, apologising that there wasn't a wine list at the moment. We ordered a bottle of the house white, notwithstanding. Off she went, to come back a couple of minutes later to apologise that there was only one bottle of white wine, that had already been opened. We could have a couple of glasses out of it, or all of what was left - which did we want? She was very sorry. The wine delivery was expected tomorrow. So that was the first set-back - we had managed to find a restaurant without any wine. The restaurant is next door to a wine merchant, for goodness' sake! (Although it had closed for the evening by the time we needed it). We ordered two glasses, and the vegetarian set menu for two.
Some consternation arose and our poor waitress came back to ask, did we eat prawn crackers? We said that yes, we did. (We're not very strict vegetarians and anyway, are there any prawns in prawn crackers?)
Take-away and delivery trade was fairly brisk, while we sat alone in the back. The back door (which led goodness knows where - to the toilets or the bins, presumably) didn't shut tight, so banged every time the front door was opened.
The food was excellent and there was masses of it, lots of courses and, as always, more than we could eat. Given its limitations - I don't think our waitress was really a waitress, though she was very sweet and polite and helpful - service was fine and we weren't hurried. This became something of a problem because the restaurant was glacial. Husband was sat back to the wall with a radiator beside him, but he said it was dead cold. Each time the front door opened a blast of cold air came in, and rolled down the room, where a very small part of it dissipated through the crack in the banging back door, and the rest of it washed over us and settled round our feet. I thought about putting my coat back on and wished I had worn a vest.
I find it hard to be cross with places like this. After all, the food was good, hot and well-made. I've no idea how they make a living, and I'm sure they barely make one at all, so it would be churlish to expect that a Chinese take-away out in the suburbs is going to be able to provide a dining experience like the Dorchester. But I did wonder what the newspaper restaurant critics would have made of it.
As soon as we walked in it was clear that they had more or less abandoned the restaurant side of the business. There were just a couple of tables set up at the back, one of which we took, and noone else came in all evening. We were given menus and shortly afterwards the waitress came back to take the drinks order, apologising that there wasn't a wine list at the moment. We ordered a bottle of the house white, notwithstanding. Off she went, to come back a couple of minutes later to apologise that there was only one bottle of white wine, that had already been opened. We could have a couple of glasses out of it, or all of what was left - which did we want? She was very sorry. The wine delivery was expected tomorrow. So that was the first set-back - we had managed to find a restaurant without any wine. The restaurant is next door to a wine merchant, for goodness' sake! (Although it had closed for the evening by the time we needed it). We ordered two glasses, and the vegetarian set menu for two.
Some consternation arose and our poor waitress came back to ask, did we eat prawn crackers? We said that yes, we did. (We're not very strict vegetarians and anyway, are there any prawns in prawn crackers?)
Take-away and delivery trade was fairly brisk, while we sat alone in the back. The back door (which led goodness knows where - to the toilets or the bins, presumably) didn't shut tight, so banged every time the front door was opened.
The food was excellent and there was masses of it, lots of courses and, as always, more than we could eat. Given its limitations - I don't think our waitress was really a waitress, though she was very sweet and polite and helpful - service was fine and we weren't hurried. This became something of a problem because the restaurant was glacial. Husband was sat back to the wall with a radiator beside him, but he said it was dead cold. Each time the front door opened a blast of cold air came in, and rolled down the room, where a very small part of it dissipated through the crack in the banging back door, and the rest of it washed over us and settled round our feet. I thought about putting my coat back on and wished I had worn a vest.
I find it hard to be cross with places like this. After all, the food was good, hot and well-made. I've no idea how they make a living, and I'm sure they barely make one at all, so it would be churlish to expect that a Chinese take-away out in the suburbs is going to be able to provide a dining experience like the Dorchester. But I did wonder what the newspaper restaurant critics would have made of it.
Taxidermy
You have very little choice, on a busy commuter train, about where to sit, but you have absolutely no choice about who sits next to you, which is how I found myself sitting next to a couple of young chaps on the way home last night - one next to me, and one opposite. I never did get a good look at the one next to me, because it would be inexcusably rude to turn your head that far round to stare, but he and his friend were in their twenties, at a guess, clean and well-spoken, obviously well-off and, as it turned out from their conversation, on their way to spend the weekend together in St Albans. Whether they had been at school together, or at university together, or what, I don't know, but they had a large circle of mutual friends, plus families, and they were busy catching up on what they had all been doing.
Their conversation was the problem. It wasn't loud, or foul-mouthed, or anything like that, but it is quite unusual for people to have such long conversations and it is very difficult indeed not to listen when they do. Noone else was talking, there were no other distractions, I didn't have a book (I doubt if I could have concentrated on it if I had) - and the conversation became increasingly bizarre. It reached a culmination like this.
"So, is he still into that taxidermy thing, then?"
"Yes. He's just bought two golden eagles. Shot in 1910. And they're in these huge cases. Six foot square. He's had to have the doors taken off the house to get them in. One of them has got its claws in a badger."
Their conversation was the problem. It wasn't loud, or foul-mouthed, or anything like that, but it is quite unusual for people to have such long conversations and it is very difficult indeed not to listen when they do. Noone else was talking, there were no other distractions, I didn't have a book (I doubt if I could have concentrated on it if I had) - and the conversation became increasingly bizarre. It reached a culmination like this.
"So, is he still into that taxidermy thing, then?"
"Yes. He's just bought two golden eagles. Shot in 1910. And they're in these huge cases. Six foot square. He's had to have the doors taken off the house to get them in. One of them has got its claws in a badger."
Monday, 16 November 2009
Cisterns
I had lunch today with some friends in a vegetarian restaurant north of the Barbican, a rather odd place, as it had very plain pine tables and chairs, like a caff, but linen napkins and a bread basket. Anyway, the food was good and the house wine was organic, but none of that is the point of this post.
After the meal I went to use the toilet and it was amazing. A tiny room, more like a corridor, no more than three feet wide and very long, with one wall being an old blackened brick wall which gave it something of the air of a grotto, the effect being heightened by a dark basin and white flowers. What spoiled it was the plastic low-level cistern, when what the room needed was an old cast-iron high-level one with a chain.
I can't remember the last time I saw a high-level cistern with a chain (or even with a length of string, which I recall as being quite common in public toilets where I suppose the chains had been stolen). Is this another piece of my childhood that has disappeared into history? Would modern day children look askance at being asked, as my mother never failed to ask me, "Did you pull the chain?"
After the meal I went to use the toilet and it was amazing. A tiny room, more like a corridor, no more than three feet wide and very long, with one wall being an old blackened brick wall which gave it something of the air of a grotto, the effect being heightened by a dark basin and white flowers. What spoiled it was the plastic low-level cistern, when what the room needed was an old cast-iron high-level one with a chain.
I can't remember the last time I saw a high-level cistern with a chain (or even with a length of string, which I recall as being quite common in public toilets where I suppose the chains had been stolen). Is this another piece of my childhood that has disappeared into history? Would modern day children look askance at being asked, as my mother never failed to ask me, "Did you pull the chain?"
Friday, 13 November 2009
Keeping my arms warm in bed
These thoughts were prompted by a friend's email gleefully announcing that she had bought herself a long-sleeved brushed cotton nightgown (half-price in M&S). My first thought was that this was a bit sad. After all, while we are none of us getting any younger, I associate brushed cotton nightgowns of any kind, let alone long-sleeved ones, with my mother and grandmother.
And then I started to think about it.
After all, how many ways are there to keep my arms warm? They always get bitterly cold when I am reading in bed - there's nothing like newsprint to make your hands cold, so why tramps sleep under newspapers to keep warm I can't imagine. I like a cold bedroom - a hot bed but a cold bedroom - because although the rest of me is tucked up snug I do like my nose outside breathing cold fresh air. I can never sleep in hotels and places where the heating is on all night. And this is just as well, as our central heating is always timed to go off a while before our normal bedtime. Polar bears on diminishing ice floes may be glad of this, but I am not. Anyway, by the time I am sitting up in bed with my magazine or review section of Saturday's Guardian (and I have a heap of these going back years as bedtime reading), no matter how warm the rest of me may be, my hands and arms are bitterly cold.
Husband suggested I wear a cardigan, but a cardigan in bed is really only a bed-jacket and if I'm not old enough for nightgowns I am certainly not old enough for bed-jackets. I am not going to go down the road of shampoos and sets, and boudoir caps [go look it up, those readers who don't know what I am talking about] and Teasmades, and those wheeled tables that pull over the bed.
I used to have a shawl, which someone crocheted for me at the time when it was fashionable to have crocheted shawls, and which I used to wear in bed. Goodness knows where it is now - I doubt I ever got rid of it, so it is probably in a suitcase in the loft. But shawls aren't really the thing any more, and now that I am older, I would look like Red Riding Hood's grandma if I sat up in bed wrapped in a shawl, and a wolf in drag isn't a good look.
Perhaps it is time to think about a long-sleeved brushed cotton nightgown.
And then I started to think about it.
After all, how many ways are there to keep my arms warm? They always get bitterly cold when I am reading in bed - there's nothing like newsprint to make your hands cold, so why tramps sleep under newspapers to keep warm I can't imagine. I like a cold bedroom - a hot bed but a cold bedroom - because although the rest of me is tucked up snug I do like my nose outside breathing cold fresh air. I can never sleep in hotels and places where the heating is on all night. And this is just as well, as our central heating is always timed to go off a while before our normal bedtime. Polar bears on diminishing ice floes may be glad of this, but I am not. Anyway, by the time I am sitting up in bed with my magazine or review section of Saturday's Guardian (and I have a heap of these going back years as bedtime reading), no matter how warm the rest of me may be, my hands and arms are bitterly cold.
Husband suggested I wear a cardigan, but a cardigan in bed is really only a bed-jacket and if I'm not old enough for nightgowns I am certainly not old enough for bed-jackets. I am not going to go down the road of shampoos and sets, and boudoir caps [go look it up, those readers who don't know what I am talking about] and Teasmades, and those wheeled tables that pull over the bed.
I used to have a shawl, which someone crocheted for me at the time when it was fashionable to have crocheted shawls, and which I used to wear in bed. Goodness knows where it is now - I doubt I ever got rid of it, so it is probably in a suitcase in the loft. But shawls aren't really the thing any more, and now that I am older, I would look like Red Riding Hood's grandma if I sat up in bed wrapped in a shawl, and a wolf in drag isn't a good look.
Perhaps it is time to think about a long-sleeved brushed cotton nightgown.
Monday, 9 November 2009
Ruddles has a bad day
It started badly when he slipped on the side of the sink and fell into the (very hot, very soapy) washing-up.
It got worse when he was fossicking about in the hall, and climbed into a plastic carrier bag with his head through the handle. When he stood up, it rustled behind him and spooked him, so off he went, 100 mph, to go out into the garden but didn't notice the back door was shut and so CRUNCH. One cut nose.
Life must be so exciting - and so dangerous - when everything is new and for the first time.
It got worse when he was fossicking about in the hall, and climbed into a plastic carrier bag with his head through the handle. When he stood up, it rustled behind him and spooked him, so off he went, 100 mph, to go out into the garden but didn't notice the back door was shut and so CRUNCH. One cut nose.
Life must be so exciting - and so dangerous - when everything is new and for the first time.
Sunday, 25 October 2009
Cuyp
While I was pottering round Kenwood with the 3CC (see previous post), I was keeping an eye open for paintings by Cuyp. He's a Dutch painter, I think, eighteenth century, who painted mostly pastoral scenes of cows standing in fields. Albert Cuyp.
One of my first bosses was an elderly lady who was utterly entranced by Cuyp and said she could stand and look at his paintings for hours. I never heard her mention any other painters. She was very old-fashioned, and proper, and it was all Miss This, and Miss That, no Christian names ever to be used in the office. I vividly remember her explaining to me that it was the duty of all the senior staff to keep an eye on the juniors at Christmas and make sure that they didn't take too much sherry. She was quite serious, and I am sure that she said this from the best of motives and out of the kindness of her heart. (I am also sure that the juniors not only could, but did, take a great deal more alcohol than she ever did and none of it was sherry).
She was enormously kind, and encouraging, and supportive and, in my youth, while appreciating and understanding her goodness, I neither cared nor knew how to acknowledge it. I thought she was rather foolish, and that she had little idea of what the world was really like. When I left my job for what I was sure was a much more exciting one, I didn't keep in touch.
She probably wasn't as old as I thought she was, but this was thirty years ago and more, and she will certainly have retired and is probably dead. I don't think she had much in the way of freinds or family, and I doubt she is remembered.
But I still look out for Cuyp.
One of my first bosses was an elderly lady who was utterly entranced by Cuyp and said she could stand and look at his paintings for hours. I never heard her mention any other painters. She was very old-fashioned, and proper, and it was all Miss This, and Miss That, no Christian names ever to be used in the office. I vividly remember her explaining to me that it was the duty of all the senior staff to keep an eye on the juniors at Christmas and make sure that they didn't take too much sherry. She was quite serious, and I am sure that she said this from the best of motives and out of the kindness of her heart. (I am also sure that the juniors not only could, but did, take a great deal more alcohol than she ever did and none of it was sherry).
She was enormously kind, and encouraging, and supportive and, in my youth, while appreciating and understanding her goodness, I neither cared nor knew how to acknowledge it. I thought she was rather foolish, and that she had little idea of what the world was really like. When I left my job for what I was sure was a much more exciting one, I didn't keep in touch.
She probably wasn't as old as I thought she was, but this was thirty years ago and more, and she will certainly have retired and is probably dead. I don't think she had much in the way of freinds or family, and I doubt she is remembered.
But I still look out for Cuyp.
Hampstead
I had a good day out last Wednesday in Hampstead. It was another trip for the "Three Chief Cataloguers" - now, two ex-chief cataloguers (because they have recently retired) and me. We all have regular partners but it is nice, sometimes, to go out with somebody different and although we don't have everything in common, we are sufficiently on the same wavelength to enjoy the same sort of things. Coffee and buns, mostly.
So we met at 10.30 at Hampstead Heath station and wandered round the corner to the tea-rooms and settled in for an hour of coffee and croissants. By the end of that, we were wondering where to have lunch, and decided on Kenwood, which should have been a reasonable walk across the Heath. It turned into something of a marathon, because (shameful to say) the 3CC got a bit lost. We weren't helped by the boys of Highgate School who were organising a charity walk and had tables set up at intervals to record progress. Their directions were hopeless - they clearly had no idea where they were, or where anything else was. And I have been tasked with writing a stiff note to the Director in charge of the Heath, decrying the lack of signposts. (We don't want great flashing neon signs, but tiny little fingerposts in a discreet and tasteful colour would have been most welcome).
Anyway, we eventually reached Kenwood and went straight to the cafe, and sat down with hot soup and got back into the conversation - for another hour or more. Then a walk round the collection (we had been meaning to go to Fenton House, but we felt that we had walked quite far enough) - and I hadn't seen the pictures for at least twenty years, and probably nearer thirty. It's a great collection. And free.
Then back across the Heath and another cup of tea and back to the station. Not a wild day, by any means, but a pleasant walk, a pleasant talk.
I suppose this is the sort of thing that retired people do every day.
So we met at 10.30 at Hampstead Heath station and wandered round the corner to the tea-rooms and settled in for an hour of coffee and croissants. By the end of that, we were wondering where to have lunch, and decided on Kenwood, which should have been a reasonable walk across the Heath. It turned into something of a marathon, because (shameful to say) the 3CC got a bit lost. We weren't helped by the boys of Highgate School who were organising a charity walk and had tables set up at intervals to record progress. Their directions were hopeless - they clearly had no idea where they were, or where anything else was. And I have been tasked with writing a stiff note to the Director in charge of the Heath, decrying the lack of signposts. (We don't want great flashing neon signs, but tiny little fingerposts in a discreet and tasteful colour would have been most welcome).
Anyway, we eventually reached Kenwood and went straight to the cafe, and sat down with hot soup and got back into the conversation - for another hour or more. Then a walk round the collection (we had been meaning to go to Fenton House, but we felt that we had walked quite far enough) - and I hadn't seen the pictures for at least twenty years, and probably nearer thirty. It's a great collection. And free.
Then back across the Heath and another cup of tea and back to the station. Not a wild day, by any means, but a pleasant walk, a pleasant talk.
I suppose this is the sort of thing that retired people do every day.
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
Ruddles is lost
When I got home last night, about half past six, noone knew where Ruddles was. He had been around in the kitchen at five o'clock and had been fed then, but after that he just disappeared. For a while, noone was too worried - after all, he often slides off for a nap. But by the time I arrived back from work, Husband and Son were getting anxious. They had looked all round the house, in all his usual hidey-holes, and found no sign of him. Quite soon, Daughter and I were joining in, all of us wandering about and all of us, no doubt, looking in the same places.
The search would have been much easier if the house had been tidy (as it never is). Piles of clothes (clean and dirty), unmade beds, kit bags, school bags, open doors to all the cupboards and wardrobes, all meant that searching was protracted and bad-tempered. We looked everywhere, even in the oven and the dishwasher (his particular fascination). And there was no sign of Ruddles.
From time to time we would all sit down, or go about our normal business, pretending that if we didn't look too hard he would just turn up. But we couldn't settle. He is only three months old, after all - anything could have happened to him. Even Star - whose life he has turned into a misery by mercilessly bouncing on her - was starting to look concerned.
We looked outside, up and down the street, terrified of what we might find - his little white and tabby body lying in a gutter. He shouldn't have been able to get out to the front and on to the road, as the front door hadn't been left open and the side gate has had its hole blocked especially to thwart his wandering.
We went up and down the back garden, each of us, looking, listening, banging his dish and rattling the box of biscuits. He has been out in the garden often, but has never gone far away, and isn't left alone - someone always keeps an eye on what he is doing. He has got a loud voice and yowls and yowls for attention or food - surely he would have squealed out if he had been trapped or hurt?
It got dark and we sat down to dinner with no appetite.
Then we went all round the house again, looking in all the same places; and up and down the garden again; and up and down the street. And we still pretended that we weren't really worried, but we weren't fooling ourselves or each other.
And then round the back door came Ruddles, a very sad and sorry Ruddles, with his tail all fluffed up and his back up, a terrified Ruddles, a dirty and damp Ruddles with a dirty bottom and a dreadful smell about him - and we picked him up and cuddled him and cleaned him and asked him where he had been and he didn't tell us. And he went upstairs and climbed onto Son's lap and purred and purred and purred.
The search would have been much easier if the house had been tidy (as it never is). Piles of clothes (clean and dirty), unmade beds, kit bags, school bags, open doors to all the cupboards and wardrobes, all meant that searching was protracted and bad-tempered. We looked everywhere, even in the oven and the dishwasher (his particular fascination). And there was no sign of Ruddles.
From time to time we would all sit down, or go about our normal business, pretending that if we didn't look too hard he would just turn up. But we couldn't settle. He is only three months old, after all - anything could have happened to him. Even Star - whose life he has turned into a misery by mercilessly bouncing on her - was starting to look concerned.
We looked outside, up and down the street, terrified of what we might find - his little white and tabby body lying in a gutter. He shouldn't have been able to get out to the front and on to the road, as the front door hadn't been left open and the side gate has had its hole blocked especially to thwart his wandering.
We went up and down the back garden, each of us, looking, listening, banging his dish and rattling the box of biscuits. He has been out in the garden often, but has never gone far away, and isn't left alone - someone always keeps an eye on what he is doing. He has got a loud voice and yowls and yowls for attention or food - surely he would have squealed out if he had been trapped or hurt?
It got dark and we sat down to dinner with no appetite.
Then we went all round the house again, looking in all the same places; and up and down the garden again; and up and down the street. And we still pretended that we weren't really worried, but we weren't fooling ourselves or each other.
And then round the back door came Ruddles, a very sad and sorry Ruddles, with his tail all fluffed up and his back up, a terrified Ruddles, a dirty and damp Ruddles with a dirty bottom and a dreadful smell about him - and we picked him up and cuddled him and cleaned him and asked him where he had been and he didn't tell us. And he went upstairs and climbed onto Son's lap and purred and purred and purred.
Noel Coward
I have been listening to a CD of Noel Coward's speeches and songs and - I hadn't realised, or had forgotten, how racist he was. Of course he is the product of his age, and of course there are plenty of people even now who would say the same, but the casual off-hand nature of his offensiveness quite takes the breath away. There is hardly a song that isn't marked by it. The whole product comes from a different world, and yet there are books and songs of the same age that recognisably inhabit the modern world with us. I wonder if he knew that his views would fade and his art be intolerable to us now?
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
Dark morning
Yesterday was the worst morning. It was Monday, which didn't help, but it was also the first morning we had to put the light on before we got out of bed. It's been getting slowly darker in the mornings but up to now we have managed. It wasn't even bad weather - quite nice, in fact - so we can't pretend that it was just one dismal dreary morning and tomorrow will be brighter.
From now on it will be all downhill until March. First of all it will be too dark to go down the garden when I get home from work; then it will be dark when I get home; then it will be dark when I leave work. Soon we'll have to put the heating on, and that means shutting the bedroom window for six months. And working in the kitchen without the back door to the garden open, and the windows steaming up.
Yes, it also means nice cosy evenings round the fire. But I'd rather have the sun.
From now on it will be all downhill until March. First of all it will be too dark to go down the garden when I get home from work; then it will be dark when I get home; then it will be dark when I leave work. Soon we'll have to put the heating on, and that means shutting the bedroom window for six months. And working in the kitchen without the back door to the garden open, and the windows steaming up.
Yes, it also means nice cosy evenings round the fire. But I'd rather have the sun.
Tall Boy is back
I have blogged before about the kids going in on my train to school in London and what fun it is to watch them and their little dramas. I had thought that most of them must have left school at the end of last term and that I wouldn't see them again come this September, but I'm very pleased to say that they all seem to be back again. Tall Boy is back, and so is Blonde Bits, even blonder and curlier and wearing a one-shoulder top with a teeny tiny white spaghetti strap over her bare shoulder. He still isn't noticing the nice plain girl.
There is another group as well, much younger, who get off at a different station and obviously go to a different school and one of them is the most obnoxious brat I've ever seen. I've had glimpses of her for a while but she is getting harder to ignore. She seems to be spoilt rotten, and acts as if she was ten years older than she is, with airs and graces that she must have learnt from television. She has also got the loudest voice I have ever heard, so all the awful platitudes and inanities come out at full volume. Maybe it is all attention-seeking, maybe she comes from a shocking home and is pitifully neglected. Even so, I can't think that a good slap would do her any real harm, and it would do me an awful lot of good to administer it.
There is another group as well, much younger, who get off at a different station and obviously go to a different school and one of them is the most obnoxious brat I've ever seen. I've had glimpses of her for a while but she is getting harder to ignore. She seems to be spoilt rotten, and acts as if she was ten years older than she is, with airs and graces that she must have learnt from television. She has also got the loudest voice I have ever heard, so all the awful platitudes and inanities come out at full volume. Maybe it is all attention-seeking, maybe she comes from a shocking home and is pitifully neglected. Even so, I can't think that a good slap would do her any real harm, and it would do me an awful lot of good to administer it.
York
I haven't blogged for ages and that is only because I just haven't had time. Which is a shame, because it means that I haven't had time to stop and think about what is going on and how I feel about it, or even to remember all the good things that have happened.
The first of these was three days in York, nearly two weeks ago now. A good journey up and back on the train, a nice B&B, fine weather, enjoyable days wandering about with lots of stops to eat and drink.
And when we got back home, what did we say? How on earth are we going to catch up with all the things we should have done over the last three days? Somehow, somewhere, a holiday turned into a backlog.
The first of these was three days in York, nearly two weeks ago now. A good journey up and back on the train, a nice B&B, fine weather, enjoyable days wandering about with lots of stops to eat and drink.
And when we got back home, what did we say? How on earth are we going to catch up with all the things we should have done over the last three days? Somehow, somewhere, a holiday turned into a backlog.
Wednesday, 9 September 2009
4 ways of going to sleep
Time was when I could lay my head on the pillow and sleep for twelve hours. Those good times have gone and now, more often than not, I need tricks to get me off to sleep. Here are four of the best.
1. Try to stay awake. This is an old tried and tested piece of advice - when you can't get to sleep, don't even try. Instead, try to stay awake. The easiest way is to have a chiming clock within hearing and force yourself to stay awake to hear the next quarter strike, then the next hour, and so on. It doesn't help when Son has switched the clock to silent, but it can be done even by watching a digital clock ticking over. And staying awake is harder than you think.
2. Dead lions. Much of the impediment to sleep is the tossing and turning. So, instead, stretch yourself out straight - on your back, legs straight out, arms by your side, like an effigy on a tomb. Make sure that you are quite comfortable. Then don't move. Quite soon the desire to turn over and go to sleep will be impossible to resist.
3. Get really cold. (Not so easy in the summer, I admit). Kick off the duvet, all but a little flap to cover your middle and guard against chills. Make sure that arms, shoulders, legs and feet are all exposed. Then wait until you start to feel really cold. And then wait a bit longer. As soon as you weaken and snuggle back into the nice warm bedclothes, you will drift off to sleep.
For really bad nights, methods 2 and 3 can be combined. But the absolute winner is,
4. Monday morning at 6.13. I guarantee that when the alarm goes off on Monday morning, that's when you will infallibly be able to sleep.
1. Try to stay awake. This is an old tried and tested piece of advice - when you can't get to sleep, don't even try. Instead, try to stay awake. The easiest way is to have a chiming clock within hearing and force yourself to stay awake to hear the next quarter strike, then the next hour, and so on. It doesn't help when Son has switched the clock to silent, but it can be done even by watching a digital clock ticking over. And staying awake is harder than you think.
2. Dead lions. Much of the impediment to sleep is the tossing and turning. So, instead, stretch yourself out straight - on your back, legs straight out, arms by your side, like an effigy on a tomb. Make sure that you are quite comfortable. Then don't move. Quite soon the desire to turn over and go to sleep will be impossible to resist.
3. Get really cold. (Not so easy in the summer, I admit). Kick off the duvet, all but a little flap to cover your middle and guard against chills. Make sure that arms, shoulders, legs and feet are all exposed. Then wait until you start to feel really cold. And then wait a bit longer. As soon as you weaken and snuggle back into the nice warm bedclothes, you will drift off to sleep.
For really bad nights, methods 2 and 3 can be combined. But the absolute winner is,
4. Monday morning at 6.13. I guarantee that when the alarm goes off on Monday morning, that's when you will infallibly be able to sleep.
Sunday, 6 September 2009
Middlemarch to Deptford
Finally! I've finished Middlemarch. And what a slog it was, too. I'm still not sure that I understand the plot and I don't really care what happened to everyone. But at least I got to the end.
Now I've started on Fifth business, by Robertson Davies, advertised on the back cover as, "the first novel in the celebrated Deptford trilogy". So I was expecting a dour Scots novel set in East London. And it isn't - it's Canadian. And it's really really good. I was hooked from the beginning.
Sample: "... Dr McAusland was compelled to read the Riot Act to him, in such terms as a tight-lipped Presbyterian uses when reading the Riot Act to an emotional Baptist".
Yes, it's funny as well. Beats George Eliot into a cocked hat.
Now I've started on Fifth business, by Robertson Davies, advertised on the back cover as, "the first novel in the celebrated Deptford trilogy". So I was expecting a dour Scots novel set in East London. And it isn't - it's Canadian. And it's really really good. I was hooked from the beginning.
Sample: "... Dr McAusland was compelled to read the Riot Act to him, in such terms as a tight-lipped Presbyterian uses when reading the Riot Act to an emotional Baptist".
Yes, it's funny as well. Beats George Eliot into a cocked hat.
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi
Why do we feel we have to justify an act of compassion? As if it was a bad thing?
Just because some people can't tell the difference between justice and vengeance.
Just because some people can't tell the difference between justice and vengeance.
Thursday, 20 August 2009
Middlemarch
I am struggling with Middlemarch. I read it once before, when I was a student and had an essay to write on George Eliot, and I read Middlemarch one night and Daniel Deronda the next, and unsurprisingly neither of them left much of an impression. But I've always thought that I ought to have another go. So I took it on holiday with me this year.
Usually I take four or five books, to give a bit of variety and allow for disappointment, and expect to read them all or mostly all. This year I decided just to take Middlemarch, figuring that it was a good thick book, that I was bound to enjoy it and that it would be pleasant to be reading about life in a small town in nineteenth-century England, while I was sitting in the Portuguese sun. I thought it would make a piquant contrast.
But I found that I couldn't get on with it. For a start, I couldn't find anywhere comfortable to sit and read. I used to lie and read on the beach, but I'm getting too old and stiff to find it comfortable to be lying flat and reading; back at the apartment, the roof terrace was too hot and it was too stuffy to sit indoors; and anyway, to be able to settle and read happily I have to be either on my own or with someone else who is also reading companionably and silently (isn't it enraging to be trying to read beside someone who keeps laughing out loud at their book? But that's by the way). So circumstances conspired to make reading difficult.
It didn't help that you have to put an awful lot of effort into the beginning of a book like Middlemarch. There are so many characters in it, and they are all related in all sorts of complicated family ways, and all those intricate relationships affect the plot so you can't just ignore them. You can't afford to get Mr Featherstone mixed up with Mr Farebrother, or forget who is whose sister-in-law. It is all a lot more difficult than The Archers, and even in The Archers I sometimes forget who is who, despite the writers giving me a lot more reminders than George Eliot does. Perhaps it would have been easier to sit and read it in one huge burst. As it was, struggling through a dozen or twenty pages and then putting it aside for a day, by the time I came back to it I had forgotten who everyone was and what had happened.
And I started not to care. None of the characters are very engaging, being variously vacuous, vicious, naive, deluded or just plain dull. There's nothing like a bit of social comedy, but you have to like at least some of the people some of the time. Otherwise it is just like real life.
So of course I started playing truant from Middlemarch and reading other things instead, Dawn French's autobiography for one, which was more fun than Middlemarch as well as being shorter. It certainly has better jokes.
I'm still reading Middlemarch on the train. I don't like to be beaten by a book and it would be just too shaming to have to give up on George Eliot. I'm about halfway through, which still leaves me 400 and more pages. I am trying not to spend the journey looking out of the window instead...
Usually I take four or five books, to give a bit of variety and allow for disappointment, and expect to read them all or mostly all. This year I decided just to take Middlemarch, figuring that it was a good thick book, that I was bound to enjoy it and that it would be pleasant to be reading about life in a small town in nineteenth-century England, while I was sitting in the Portuguese sun. I thought it would make a piquant contrast.
But I found that I couldn't get on with it. For a start, I couldn't find anywhere comfortable to sit and read. I used to lie and read on the beach, but I'm getting too old and stiff to find it comfortable to be lying flat and reading; back at the apartment, the roof terrace was too hot and it was too stuffy to sit indoors; and anyway, to be able to settle and read happily I have to be either on my own or with someone else who is also reading companionably and silently (isn't it enraging to be trying to read beside someone who keeps laughing out loud at their book? But that's by the way). So circumstances conspired to make reading difficult.
It didn't help that you have to put an awful lot of effort into the beginning of a book like Middlemarch. There are so many characters in it, and they are all related in all sorts of complicated family ways, and all those intricate relationships affect the plot so you can't just ignore them. You can't afford to get Mr Featherstone mixed up with Mr Farebrother, or forget who is whose sister-in-law. It is all a lot more difficult than The Archers, and even in The Archers I sometimes forget who is who, despite the writers giving me a lot more reminders than George Eliot does. Perhaps it would have been easier to sit and read it in one huge burst. As it was, struggling through a dozen or twenty pages and then putting it aside for a day, by the time I came back to it I had forgotten who everyone was and what had happened.
And I started not to care. None of the characters are very engaging, being variously vacuous, vicious, naive, deluded or just plain dull. There's nothing like a bit of social comedy, but you have to like at least some of the people some of the time. Otherwise it is just like real life.
So of course I started playing truant from Middlemarch and reading other things instead, Dawn French's autobiography for one, which was more fun than Middlemarch as well as being shorter. It certainly has better jokes.
I'm still reading Middlemarch on the train. I don't like to be beaten by a book and it would be just too shaming to have to give up on George Eliot. I'm about halfway through, which still leaves me 400 and more pages. I am trying not to spend the journey looking out of the window instead...
Wednesday, 19 August 2009
Lasagne
There were grandparents on the train yesterday morning, making the most of the whole grey-haired twinkly grandparent thing. They had a mound of luggage and their two grandsons, and obviously, from the overheard conversation, they were taking them on holiday. The boys weren't being bad, but appeared to be chafing already against the constraints - no doubt their parents had impressed upon them the importance of behaving really well with granny and grandpa - and there was the teeniest hint that the grandparents were beginning to rue the whole idea of the holiday. In particular, grandpa seemed very keen to stand by himself, in order to keep an eye on the luggage...
But what struck me was the question one of the boys asked granny - in bewilderment, "Can you make lasagne from scratch?"
But what struck me was the question one of the boys asked granny - in bewilderment, "Can you make lasagne from scratch?"
Monday, 17 August 2009
Sprinting
I had to run for the bus this morning and it made me wonder...
Greyhounds chase a little stuffed rabbit round the track. Would our sprinters run faster if a bus was driven along just in front of them?
Greyhounds chase a little stuffed rabbit round the track. Would our sprinters run faster if a bus was driven along just in front of them?
Friday, 7 August 2009
Dressing gown
Of all my clothes, my dressing gown is the one love the best and the one that works hardest. I have pretty little wraps in the wardrobe, simple white cotton ones for summer and slinky ones with matching nighties for weekends away, but a dressing gown isn't a wrap. A dressing gown is for comfort, and you can't be comfortable in something that is constantly coming undone. A dressing gown isn't for display. It's for concealment and warmth and protection.
My dressing gown is big and grey and fleecy. It's pretty much like what Friar Tuck would have worn, but without the constraint of a rope round the middle. It goes from throat to wrist and to ankle. It's baggy and hides everything underneath - the wobbly bits and the tatty underwear and, on cold days, all the other bits and pieces put on for warmth rather than fashion.
When I've been out in the evening - especially if it's been somewhere posh, or for work rather than pleasure - then the dressing gown is the second thing to go on when I get back, after the kettle, and before I make the tea and the fried egg sandwich.
The dressing gown is not only coverall, but also overall. Being grey, it doesn't show the dirt (not too badly) and the sleeves come in very handy when you notice dust on the dado rail, or smears around the light switch that need a bit of spit and a rub. It doesn't snag, so it's pretty good when you have to comb the cat and get the fleas out. A bit of fur doesn't show. In fact, even quite a lot of fur doesn't show. Not much. It's just what's wanted when there is a fried breakfast to cook (no point doing that in some flimsy little negligee that's always falling open). It does for running down the garden and getting the washing in when it suddenly starts to rain, or in the middle of the night when the caterwauling starts.
But more than all the practical stuff, my dressing gown is a great big comfort blanket. Forget about breastplates of righteousness, if I'm in my dressing-gown I am safe from evil of all kinds.
My dressing gown is big and grey and fleecy. It's pretty much like what Friar Tuck would have worn, but without the constraint of a rope round the middle. It goes from throat to wrist and to ankle. It's baggy and hides everything underneath - the wobbly bits and the tatty underwear and, on cold days, all the other bits and pieces put on for warmth rather than fashion.
When I've been out in the evening - especially if it's been somewhere posh, or for work rather than pleasure - then the dressing gown is the second thing to go on when I get back, after the kettle, and before I make the tea and the fried egg sandwich.
The dressing gown is not only coverall, but also overall. Being grey, it doesn't show the dirt (not too badly) and the sleeves come in very handy when you notice dust on the dado rail, or smears around the light switch that need a bit of spit and a rub. It doesn't snag, so it's pretty good when you have to comb the cat and get the fleas out. A bit of fur doesn't show. In fact, even quite a lot of fur doesn't show. Not much. It's just what's wanted when there is a fried breakfast to cook (no point doing that in some flimsy little negligee that's always falling open). It does for running down the garden and getting the washing in when it suddenly starts to rain, or in the middle of the night when the caterwauling starts.
But more than all the practical stuff, my dressing gown is a great big comfort blanket. Forget about breastplates of righteousness, if I'm in my dressing-gown I am safe from evil of all kinds.
Saturday, 1 August 2009
Mrs Charming
We have just come back home after a fortnight in a holiday apartment near Lagos, in Portugal. This was a palatial apartment - huge rooms, designer sofas, massive rooftop terrace, en-suite bathrooms, all top-of-the-range equipment (Bosch this, Siemens that) - and on a small gated development with Moorish-inspired grounds, kept impeccably manicured by an army of gardeners.
Nothing like home, which is dusty, untidy, cluttered, smells of cat and is surrounded by an equally untidy and louche garden. No maids, no gardeners. The hot tap on the bath is temperamental, which makes showers exciting, and one of the armchairs (the one I still haven't got round to covering) is draped in an old sheet with rips from the cat's claws.
Having said which, it is nice to be home, back on the battered sofa that noone minds if you put your feet up on, and the saggy old bed with its comfy duvet, much more comfortable than the brand new divan with its stiff white Egyptian cotton sheets.
I wonder if Cinderella felt the same. I expect she was thrilled to be whisked away from her hovel by the impossibly romantic Prince, and set up in the palace with handmaids and wardrobes full of frocks and delicious banquets every night. I bet she had three baths a day, and bossed the servants about, and complained to the cook if her breakfast egg wasn't boiled just right, and wore a different pair of shoes every time she went out in her BMW convertible coach.
But I wonder how long it was before she got bored, and fed up with the maids tidying things away that she hadn't finished with. I bet the time came when she would have liked to go out into the garden and done a bit of weeding, or pottered down to the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea. Six months on, I bet she would have swapped Prince Charming for Buttons and the palace for a starter home.
Nothing like home, which is dusty, untidy, cluttered, smells of cat and is surrounded by an equally untidy and louche garden. No maids, no gardeners. The hot tap on the bath is temperamental, which makes showers exciting, and one of the armchairs (the one I still haven't got round to covering) is draped in an old sheet with rips from the cat's claws.
Having said which, it is nice to be home, back on the battered sofa that noone minds if you put your feet up on, and the saggy old bed with its comfy duvet, much more comfortable than the brand new divan with its stiff white Egyptian cotton sheets.
I wonder if Cinderella felt the same. I expect she was thrilled to be whisked away from her hovel by the impossibly romantic Prince, and set up in the palace with handmaids and wardrobes full of frocks and delicious banquets every night. I bet she had three baths a day, and bossed the servants about, and complained to the cook if her breakfast egg wasn't boiled just right, and wore a different pair of shoes every time she went out in her BMW convertible coach.
But I wonder how long it was before she got bored, and fed up with the maids tidying things away that she hadn't finished with. I bet the time came when she would have liked to go out into the garden and done a bit of weeding, or pottered down to the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea. Six months on, I bet she would have swapped Prince Charming for Buttons and the palace for a starter home.
Thursday, 16 July 2009
Changing rooms
I went into M&S this afternoon and came out with nothing but self-loathing. What is it with those changing rooms that means that you go in feeling normal and come out feeling like some kind of freak?
I have seen more flattering images of myself in the Hall Of Mirrors at the fair.
I looked like a deflated souffle.
A blow-torched lilo.
Shrek in a thong.
How do retailers expect to sell clothes to people who look at them under glaring light, in distorting mirrors and with the lingering smell of other people's feet? They put mirrors behind you as well, so that when you turn away in horror it is only to see the tier of bulges from another angle.
For goodness' sake, even when you put your own clothes back on, you still look awful. You wonder how you dared to walk the streets, let alone go to work, looking like that. Ten minutes in front of the mirror in a M&S changing room and any dictator - Mugabe, Hitler, Pol Pot, any of them - would be so consumed with doubt and loathing that they would come out and immediately relinquish power and retire to the remote countryside to keep chickens.
So I didn't buy anything. We've got some old paper potato sacks in the shed. I'll cut three holes in one of them and wear that instead. After all, I won't be venturing out in daylight again, will I?
I have seen more flattering images of myself in the Hall Of Mirrors at the fair.
I looked like a deflated souffle.
A blow-torched lilo.
Shrek in a thong.
How do retailers expect to sell clothes to people who look at them under glaring light, in distorting mirrors and with the lingering smell of other people's feet? They put mirrors behind you as well, so that when you turn away in horror it is only to see the tier of bulges from another angle.
For goodness' sake, even when you put your own clothes back on, you still look awful. You wonder how you dared to walk the streets, let alone go to work, looking like that. Ten minutes in front of the mirror in a M&S changing room and any dictator - Mugabe, Hitler, Pol Pot, any of them - would be so consumed with doubt and loathing that they would come out and immediately relinquish power and retire to the remote countryside to keep chickens.
So I didn't buy anything. We've got some old paper potato sacks in the shed. I'll cut three holes in one of them and wear that instead. After all, I won't be venturing out in daylight again, will I?
Saturday, 4 July 2009
Privet
The privet beside the bus stop is in flower, and I love the smell - it's one of those "madeleine" moments that take you back.
When I was quite young we lived in a house with long privet hedges down each side of the front garden. I don't suppose they were as long in reality as they are in memory, but cutting them was quite a big job, especially for my father, who hated gardening, only had hand tools to use and cursed those privet hedges (almost certainly more colourfully when I wasn't listening than when I was).
So, the smell of the privet takes me back to long hot sunny summer days, my dad getting cross (but pleased and satisfied when it was all done and raked up) and me with not a care in the world and all my life ahead.
I bought a privet bush for my garden last summer, but it's going to be a long time before I have to trim it, or until I can enjoy the smell.
When I was quite young we lived in a house with long privet hedges down each side of the front garden. I don't suppose they were as long in reality as they are in memory, but cutting them was quite a big job, especially for my father, who hated gardening, only had hand tools to use and cursed those privet hedges (almost certainly more colourfully when I wasn't listening than when I was).
So, the smell of the privet takes me back to long hot sunny summer days, my dad getting cross (but pleased and satisfied when it was all done and raked up) and me with not a care in the world and all my life ahead.
I bought a privet bush for my garden last summer, but it's going to be a long time before I have to trim it, or until I can enjoy the smell.
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
Chills
Does noone catch a chill any more?
When I was a child, every vague and non-specific illness was always attributed to a chill. "I expect you've caught a bit of a chill", my mother would say. If the complaint was located in any particular part of the body, then that was where the chill would be - a chill on the tummy, or a chill on the kidneys. The remedy was always the same, to keep warm and rest. Make no mistake about it, chills could be serious, especially if you were weak or elderly. You had to wrap up warm and take care not to catch one.
Nobody nowadays ever seems to catch chills. Perhaps it's because of cars and central heating, although you'd think that would just make us more susceptible. In twenty-odd years I've only once known someone ring in sick and give the excuse of a chill - and she was an odd girl anyway.
The only alternative ailment to a chill was a bilious attack. Noone gets them any more, either. You didn't catch these off someone else, nor were they the result of poor hygiene - they were always the result of something you had eaten not agreeing with you. This wasn't your fault, it was just a fact, and it meant you could never ever eat it again. By the time I left home, I had a list as long as my arm of things I couldn't eat. I particularly remember pilchards in tomato sauce as being forbidden. (Pilchards in any other form were just fine). My mother couldn't eat anything flavoured with orange. It was years before I realised that I could eat them all with impunity, even the pilchards (not that I particularly wanted to).
When I was a child, every vague and non-specific illness was always attributed to a chill. "I expect you've caught a bit of a chill", my mother would say. If the complaint was located in any particular part of the body, then that was where the chill would be - a chill on the tummy, or a chill on the kidneys. The remedy was always the same, to keep warm and rest. Make no mistake about it, chills could be serious, especially if you were weak or elderly. You had to wrap up warm and take care not to catch one.
Nobody nowadays ever seems to catch chills. Perhaps it's because of cars and central heating, although you'd think that would just make us more susceptible. In twenty-odd years I've only once known someone ring in sick and give the excuse of a chill - and she was an odd girl anyway.
The only alternative ailment to a chill was a bilious attack. Noone gets them any more, either. You didn't catch these off someone else, nor were they the result of poor hygiene - they were always the result of something you had eaten not agreeing with you. This wasn't your fault, it was just a fact, and it meant you could never ever eat it again. By the time I left home, I had a list as long as my arm of things I couldn't eat. I particularly remember pilchards in tomato sauce as being forbidden. (Pilchards in any other form were just fine). My mother couldn't eat anything flavoured with orange. It was years before I realised that I could eat them all with impunity, even the pilchards (not that I particularly wanted to).
AIDS. And rape
Sitting in the sun on Saturday, idly half-watching the morris dancing, and two women came and sat next to me. They were obviously friends, one visiting the other for the weekend perhaps. One was telling the other about her daughter.
She had come to her mother and said how glad she was that she hadn't had a gap year. She had wanted to go to Cambodia.
Her mother had told her, "I'm just going to say two words to you. AIDS. And, rape. Look at you - if you go out there you are going to be first in line to be raped and murdered".
When did we all get so scared and selfish? Is it the effect of mindless television or the rantings of the Daily Beast? What has happened to curiosity and an open mind and a sense of adventure?
If these are the kind of people left behind, I'd rather take my chance in Cambodia.
She had come to her mother and said how glad she was that she hadn't had a gap year. She had wanted to go to Cambodia.
Her mother had told her, "I'm just going to say two words to you. AIDS. And, rape. Look at you - if you go out there you are going to be first in line to be raped and murdered".
When did we all get so scared and selfish? Is it the effect of mindless television or the rantings of the Daily Beast? What has happened to curiosity and an open mind and a sense of adventure?
If these are the kind of people left behind, I'd rather take my chance in Cambodia.
Thursday, 25 June 2009
Pink
I bought the most beautiful jacket last Saturday. Bright pink at the top and dip-dyed to a toe-curling scarlet at the bottom. Not exactly a shrinking-violet of a jacket. More - well, screaming out loud fantabulous.
I was going to wear it to work on Monday, had it out and hanging ready. Looked at it in the morning light and didn't feel brave enough. I always feel blue on Mondays. And tired and bad-tempered and scratchy. So it stayed on the hanger and I wore something boring and inconspicuous instead - black, probably.
I'm going to get it out again, ready for tomorrow. Will I be brave enough?
I was going to wear it to work on Monday, had it out and hanging ready. Looked at it in the morning light and didn't feel brave enough. I always feel blue on Mondays. And tired and bad-tempered and scratchy. So it stayed on the hanger and I wore something boring and inconspicuous instead - black, probably.
I'm going to get it out again, ready for tomorrow. Will I be brave enough?
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
Green
I'm not sure it can get better than this. It's a June evening, clear blue sky. The garden is lush and healthy and really really green. There are new potatoes, and broad beans, and more strawberries than we shall ever eat. With a bit more rain the peapods will swell. There's a decent crop of blackcurrants coming and the raspberries are nearly ripe.
Husband is downstairs watching something violent on the television with Cat contentedly asleep beside him. Son is crouched over i-Player in the back room, hooting over a puerile comedy; Daughter splashing happily in the bath.
I'm listening to early Dylan and wondering why and how it can make me feel young again.
Does it get better than this?
Husband is downstairs watching something violent on the television with Cat contentedly asleep beside him. Son is crouched over i-Player in the back room, hooting over a puerile comedy; Daughter splashing happily in the bath.
I'm listening to early Dylan and wondering why and how it can make me feel young again.
Does it get better than this?
Sunday, 14 June 2009
Holiday ends
I reckon my week off as having ended about 5.30 on Friday evening - the point where I would usually have been leaving work and coming home. The rest of it is just the weekend that I would have had anyway.
On the basis of the last week, I'm not ready for retirement yet. Even though the weather has been a bit iffy, it hasn't justified the amount of aimless drifting and time-wasting that has been going on. I've been bored and fretful and unable to focus on anything. Retirement will be a disaster if it's going to be like this.
Things cheered up on Friday when Daughter and I went into London - somewhere to go! Something to do!
And now, as the weekend starts to run out as well, suddenly I'm busy trying to finish all the things I could have done days ago if I had been motivated enough and, being busy, I'm much happier.
Somewhere around 5 or 6 o'clock tonight the usual Sunday gloom will descend, as I clear up stuff in the garden and start to get ready for Monday and the working week. It was undeniably nice last Sunday when there wasn't the same gloom. And then I'll start to think that retirement might be nice after all.
On the basis of the last week, I'm not ready for retirement yet. Even though the weather has been a bit iffy, it hasn't justified the amount of aimless drifting and time-wasting that has been going on. I've been bored and fretful and unable to focus on anything. Retirement will be a disaster if it's going to be like this.
Things cheered up on Friday when Daughter and I went into London - somewhere to go! Something to do!
And now, as the weekend starts to run out as well, suddenly I'm busy trying to finish all the things I could have done days ago if I had been motivated enough and, being busy, I'm much happier.
Somewhere around 5 or 6 o'clock tonight the usual Sunday gloom will descend, as I clear up stuff in the garden and start to get ready for Monday and the working week. It was undeniably nice last Sunday when there wasn't the same gloom. And then I'll start to think that retirement might be nice after all.
Monday, 8 June 2009
Dogs
I went across to the local college yesterday afternoon - it's just across the main road from us - for their "Summe Fayre". It used to be an agricultural college, but it's trying to rebrand itself and get rid of the image of being full of students doing gardening because they are too thick to do anything else. It still concentrates on animal care and floristry and beauty and is still full of students who flunked their GCSEs. Anyway. I've been to their events before, and they were quite fun when the children were small, but I haven't been for ages, so I thought I'd give it another go.
It wasn't great, to be honest, not least because I couldn't find the tea tent. Three ice-cream vans and a barbecue, but nowhere it was possible to get just a cup of tea. A summer fair (or even, fayre) and no tea tent? Mad.
But I was riveted by the dog agility team doing a demonstration in the main arena (or, roped off bit of field). Good grief, they were awful. They followed the cattle show (which looked to me like five or six calves being led round on pieces of string although the MC was assuring us that this was an impressive demonstration of a marketable skill - and I'm afraid you could tell that the students weren't the brightest when the girl with the shovel and bucket ended up at the FRONT of the parade). They spent the first half-hour erecting the course. There must have been a dozen people doing this, apparently without any pre-conceived plan. So by the time the dogs appeared I was already bored.
If I were to be involved in dog agility classes (and admittedly this is pretty unlikely) the first thing I would want to do is to make sure my dog was obedient. Taking a dog into an arena full of equipment, and surrounded by people, without having any control over it, is not a good idea. The MC (a different one from the MC that had managed the cattle show) seemed to think it was enormously funny and expected us to think so too but, as no dog lover myself, I was a little nervous when it became clear that with the larger dogs there were extra handlers posted around the arena in case the dogs ran wild and started eating the small children. (And why do small children offer their hands so keenly to vast brutes with enormous teeth? I keep my hands in my pockets).
Even more frightening than the dogs were their handlers. Or owners. Or "mummies and daddies" as the MC called them. For a start, as I've already said, they appeared to have little control over their dogs. And many of them seemd to have selected the most unattractive dogs they could find. I am no purist when it comes to animals - I don't particularly value pedigree - but I swear to God there were two dogs there which had front legs longer than their back legs. But it was the size of them that was startling. (The size of the owners, that is). I would have thought that one of the reasons for dog-owning is to give you a reason for going out each day and taking exercise. Some of these owners could barely waddle, which is quite a disadvantage when you are supposed to be racing round the ring with your dog as it goes flying up and over and through all manner of obstacles. As a dog-owners agility demonstration it was pitiful.
So the whole thing only supported my belief that intellectuals prefer cats.
It wasn't great, to be honest, not least because I couldn't find the tea tent. Three ice-cream vans and a barbecue, but nowhere it was possible to get just a cup of tea. A summer fair (or even, fayre) and no tea tent? Mad.
But I was riveted by the dog agility team doing a demonstration in the main arena (or, roped off bit of field). Good grief, they were awful. They followed the cattle show (which looked to me like five or six calves being led round on pieces of string although the MC was assuring us that this was an impressive demonstration of a marketable skill - and I'm afraid you could tell that the students weren't the brightest when the girl with the shovel and bucket ended up at the FRONT of the parade). They spent the first half-hour erecting the course. There must have been a dozen people doing this, apparently without any pre-conceived plan. So by the time the dogs appeared I was already bored.
If I were to be involved in dog agility classes (and admittedly this is pretty unlikely) the first thing I would want to do is to make sure my dog was obedient. Taking a dog into an arena full of equipment, and surrounded by people, without having any control over it, is not a good idea. The MC (a different one from the MC that had managed the cattle show) seemed to think it was enormously funny and expected us to think so too but, as no dog lover myself, I was a little nervous when it became clear that with the larger dogs there were extra handlers posted around the arena in case the dogs ran wild and started eating the small children. (And why do small children offer their hands so keenly to vast brutes with enormous teeth? I keep my hands in my pockets).
Even more frightening than the dogs were their handlers. Or owners. Or "mummies and daddies" as the MC called them. For a start, as I've already said, they appeared to have little control over their dogs. And many of them seemd to have selected the most unattractive dogs they could find. I am no purist when it comes to animals - I don't particularly value pedigree - but I swear to God there were two dogs there which had front legs longer than their back legs. But it was the size of them that was startling. (The size of the owners, that is). I would have thought that one of the reasons for dog-owning is to give you a reason for going out each day and taking exercise. Some of these owners could barely waddle, which is quite a disadvantage when you are supposed to be racing round the ring with your dog as it goes flying up and over and through all manner of obstacles. As a dog-owners agility demonstration it was pitiful.
So the whole thing only supported my belief that intellectuals prefer cats.
Saturday, 6 June 2009
Holiday begins
I am at the start of a week off - no plans to go anywhere, just a few days at home. I need a break - it's been grind grind grind at work lately and not enough laughs. So, not having any plans, I have the illusion of lots of time and nothing much to do, and this first day have pretty much frittered my time away.
I walked down to the supermarket and back this morning, so I've had some exercise, and bought the ingredients for the weekend meals. Even that was a bit unfocussed, because although I have a concept for tonight's supper I don't really have a recipe, and it'll either be a triumph or a disaster.
I've done a bit of cleaning, including changing sheets and pushing the hoover into corners of the bedroom where it doesn't usually go, and I've also had a bit of a go at the kitchen. I cleaned the fridge (the inside of it, anyway) and found some quite remarkable unpleasantnesses. Believe me that marzipan goes really hard when it is six years past its use-by date. There were also some pots of things that I'm not sure what they used to be, but I doubt it was as fizzy as they are now. Some rancid nastinesses have been liberated into landfill and some foul encrustations have been picked off (by fingernail where necessary). Whoever designed that fridge had no thought for the people who would have to clean it, or he wouldn't have put in so many grooves and crevices. At least it is clean now, and no fear that a green greasy hand is going to come at you when you open the door, and drag you inside.
Then I attacked the sink and scoured it - even the bit underneath the thing that fits into the drain (does it have a name?) - and scrubbed the draining rack and the washing-up bowl, and put soda down the drain. It all looks very shiny now, but it won't last. Cleaning really is a complete waste of time.
There are all sorts of things that I could be doing, but I don't think I feel like doing any of them.Husband has just suggested going to the pub, so I'm off.
I walked down to the supermarket and back this morning, so I've had some exercise, and bought the ingredients for the weekend meals. Even that was a bit unfocussed, because although I have a concept for tonight's supper I don't really have a recipe, and it'll either be a triumph or a disaster.
I've done a bit of cleaning, including changing sheets and pushing the hoover into corners of the bedroom where it doesn't usually go, and I've also had a bit of a go at the kitchen. I cleaned the fridge (the inside of it, anyway) and found some quite remarkable unpleasantnesses. Believe me that marzipan goes really hard when it is six years past its use-by date. There were also some pots of things that I'm not sure what they used to be, but I doubt it was as fizzy as they are now. Some rancid nastinesses have been liberated into landfill and some foul encrustations have been picked off (by fingernail where necessary). Whoever designed that fridge had no thought for the people who would have to clean it, or he wouldn't have put in so many grooves and crevices. At least it is clean now, and no fear that a green greasy hand is going to come at you when you open the door, and drag you inside.
Then I attacked the sink and scoured it - even the bit underneath the thing that fits into the drain (does it have a name?) - and scrubbed the draining rack and the washing-up bowl, and put soda down the drain. It all looks very shiny now, but it won't last. Cleaning really is a complete waste of time.
There are all sorts of things that I could be doing, but I don't think I feel like doing any of them.Husband has just suggested going to the pub, so I'm off.
Monday, 25 May 2009
On the way to Elephant and Castle
This is another story from the train, but this one has no ending.
I was already settled in my usual seat beside the window, when these two got on at Elstree. The man sat across from me and the girl beside me.
He was in his forties, probably, and casually dressed, in pale trousers and a blue fleece. Cropped grey hair. Obviously not an office worker. He drew attention because he was carrying, in addition to an exceptionally large rucksack and a large tube that must have contained some sort of equipment, a step ladder. At least, I think it was step ladder - it might have been a folding bar stool, but that seems unlikely. Anyway, it was metal and unwieldy and he kept dropping it with an enormous crash. So, by the time he finally sat down, we were all covertly watching him from behind our books and newspapers.
She was very much younger - late teens, I would guess - and wearing a strappy vest which wasn't suitable for a cold morning. She had spent a lot of time on her appearance and kept flicking her long dark hair. Let's hope she didn't have nits because if she had, we would all have had them by our journey's end.
I've no idea what the relationship was between them, but I'd lay money that she wasn't his daughter.
He then proceeded to give a performance - I can't describe it as anything else, as it was plainly meant for the rest of us to watch and listen to. I think he meant us to admire him. He had an American accent and a very loud voice, and started by hectoring the girl about her having been late that morning, and he had wanted to be away at seven and she hadn't come downstairs until quarter to eight. If she did it again, he declared, he would go without her. She didn't seem to react much. It wasn't obvious who needed the other more.
A bit later, she asked (she had an American accent as well) how many more stops it was until they got there. He said that he could find out, but he couldn't be bothered. So it was clear that he hadn't a clue, for all his blustering. It turned out later that they were going to Elephant and Castle.
Then she asked about the newspapers that people were reading - Metro. He told her (and all of us) that it was a free newspaper, very bland, because it couldn't afford to risk losing advertising revenue by alienating anyone. I caught the eye of the man immediately opposite, who was reading it.
Then he suddently battened on a passenger who was using an e-book reader. How much did it cost, he wanted to know, and how many titles were available and how were they downloaded. The young man tried to explain, saying that he would rather read this than the propaganda peddled by Metro. Again, I caught the eye of the man opposite. He rootled in his rucksack, pulled out a notebook and insisted the young man wrote down his email address. He was meaning to get an e-book reader, apparently, and wanted to ask this young man any further questions that occurred to him. And the young man wrote down his email address.
All the time, he was behaving as if he were on stage, compelling us to listen to his conversation and apparently trying to convey an image of worldly wisdom and power. He didn't speak to any of us directly, apart from the young man, but everything he said was for us all to hear.
Was he somebody famous? How would I know. What I would like to know is: what was the relationship between him and the girl? Why were they going to Elephant and Castle? And, was it really a step-ladder?
I was already settled in my usual seat beside the window, when these two got on at Elstree. The man sat across from me and the girl beside me.
He was in his forties, probably, and casually dressed, in pale trousers and a blue fleece. Cropped grey hair. Obviously not an office worker. He drew attention because he was carrying, in addition to an exceptionally large rucksack and a large tube that must have contained some sort of equipment, a step ladder. At least, I think it was step ladder - it might have been a folding bar stool, but that seems unlikely. Anyway, it was metal and unwieldy and he kept dropping it with an enormous crash. So, by the time he finally sat down, we were all covertly watching him from behind our books and newspapers.
She was very much younger - late teens, I would guess - and wearing a strappy vest which wasn't suitable for a cold morning. She had spent a lot of time on her appearance and kept flicking her long dark hair. Let's hope she didn't have nits because if she had, we would all have had them by our journey's end.
I've no idea what the relationship was between them, but I'd lay money that she wasn't his daughter.
He then proceeded to give a performance - I can't describe it as anything else, as it was plainly meant for the rest of us to watch and listen to. I think he meant us to admire him. He had an American accent and a very loud voice, and started by hectoring the girl about her having been late that morning, and he had wanted to be away at seven and she hadn't come downstairs until quarter to eight. If she did it again, he declared, he would go without her. She didn't seem to react much. It wasn't obvious who needed the other more.
A bit later, she asked (she had an American accent as well) how many more stops it was until they got there. He said that he could find out, but he couldn't be bothered. So it was clear that he hadn't a clue, for all his blustering. It turned out later that they were going to Elephant and Castle.
Then she asked about the newspapers that people were reading - Metro. He told her (and all of us) that it was a free newspaper, very bland, because it couldn't afford to risk losing advertising revenue by alienating anyone. I caught the eye of the man immediately opposite, who was reading it.
Then he suddently battened on a passenger who was using an e-book reader. How much did it cost, he wanted to know, and how many titles were available and how were they downloaded. The young man tried to explain, saying that he would rather read this than the propaganda peddled by Metro. Again, I caught the eye of the man opposite. He rootled in his rucksack, pulled out a notebook and insisted the young man wrote down his email address. He was meaning to get an e-book reader, apparently, and wanted to ask this young man any further questions that occurred to him. And the young man wrote down his email address.
All the time, he was behaving as if he were on stage, compelling us to listen to his conversation and apparently trying to convey an image of worldly wisdom and power. He didn't speak to any of us directly, apart from the young man, but everything he said was for us all to hear.
Was he somebody famous? How would I know. What I would like to know is: what was the relationship between him and the girl? Why were they going to Elephant and Castle? And, was it really a step-ladder?
Monday, 18 May 2009
Talking to yourself
I suppose I'm getting old - well, I am getting old - but I cannot get used to people walking the streets apparently talking to themselves. When I was young, if you saw someone doing this, you quickly and unobtrusively put as much space between you as possible. Nowadays everyone is doing it, and only in some cases can you see that they are holding a phone.
There was a young chap sitting opposite me on the train this evening and he was mumbling away. He had all sorts of wires draped about his person, as most young people do, and I assumed he was on a hands-free phone. But after a little while I began to wonder, as whoever was on the other end didn't seem to be saying much. I still don't know whether he was talking to himself or not, but he seemed fairly tranquil.
There was a young chap sitting opposite me on the train this evening and he was mumbling away. He had all sorts of wires draped about his person, as most young people do, and I assumed he was on a hands-free phone. But after a little while I began to wonder, as whoever was on the other end didn't seem to be saying much. I still don't know whether he was talking to himself or not, but he seemed fairly tranquil.
Thursday, 14 May 2009
Three things men can't do
1. Draw the curtains properly
2. Lay the tablecloth straight
3. Carry anything upstairs that has been left on the bottom step.
2. Lay the tablecloth straight
3. Carry anything upstairs that has been left on the bottom step.
Monday, 11 May 2009
River
I had a really good day today, taking the boat up the Thames from Westminster to Hampton Court. Our planned sailing, at 11 o'clock, had been revised and only went as far as Kew, where we got off, had a coffee and got on the later service to complete the journey. Without the break it would have taken three and a half hours; with the break it took four and a half. So it isn't the form of transport for the (wo)man in a hurry. But when the journey is pretty much the point of the day, when you are sitting and talking and having a leisurely picnic, it is just about perfect. Enough to see to keep conversation flowing but not so much as to excite and distract. All the expected sights at the beginning - the Houses of Parliament, the Tate - but as we went on, from about Hammersmith, the banks getting greener and an increasing sense of seeing London from a different angle entirely; after Teddington, no sense of city at all, just lush banks, big quiet houses with gardens down to the bank, willows, herons, and the wide smooth river.
And yes, the sun shone and yes, my nose has caught it.
And yes, the sun shone and yes, my nose has caught it.
Sunday, 10 May 2009
Shoes
Having thought about it, I need a new pair of shoes too (though I'm not about to spend £300). A pair of shoes to take account of this ridiculous season where whatever you wear in the morning turns out to be hopelessly wrong by the evening. There are people on the platform in the morning wearing flip-flops, alongside other people wearing knee-length boots.I am so so bored by wearing boots (and they are all falling to bits anyway); and it just isn't warm enough for sandals, as I discovered the day it rained on my bare toes.
So what do I want? A pair of shoes, with covered toes, low heels, not black. And comfortable. So what's the chance of that happening?
So what do I want? A pair of shoes, with covered toes, low heels, not black. And comfortable. So what's the chance of that happening?
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
Dressing thoughtfully
I've just started reading Linda Grant's "The thoughtful dresser"- and there's a matching blog. All good and interesting stuff, though it's hard to feel kinship with someone who goes out in chapter one and buys a £300 pair of shoes. I can never decide whether I want more clothes or fewer clothes. An effortlessly chic capsule wardrobe denies the pleasure of buying something just because you really really want it; giving in to caprice means never having anything which goes with anything else. But, after all, what can you aspire to, other than the shabby-glam English eccentric look, when the only interesting place to buy clothes is the charity shop?
Saturday, 2 May 2009
Trains
I like trains. I like looking out of the window into other people's kitchen windows and gardens, and seeing their washing on the line. And I like the places where, if you travel a route often, you know you will see rabbits, and maybe a fox or a heron. You don't see the same things from a road. All you see is the front respectable face of everything. And if you are map-reading, you don't see anything at all. I don't like map-reading, I always get distracted by something more interesting, and then we miss the turning, and then calamity. Wouldn't it be easier if they painted the roads the same colours that they are on the map so you could see at a glance whether it is the red road you are looking for, or just another yellow road that you've lost count of?
I've always liked trains. Because we didn't have a car at home when I was growing up, we always went on holiday by train. And days out, and days up to London, they were all done by train. So the train was always exciting, it was the start of a treat, it was an adventure. When I went away from home for the first time to work, I went by train; I went to and from university by train, sending a trunk ahead each way each time.
Travelling by car is all very well, all very comfortable, all very convenient, but it isn't exciting and it isn't interesting. I like trains.
I've always liked trains. Because we didn't have a car at home when I was growing up, we always went on holiday by train. And days out, and days up to London, they were all done by train. So the train was always exciting, it was the start of a treat, it was an adventure. When I went away from home for the first time to work, I went by train; I went to and from university by train, sending a trunk ahead each way each time.
Travelling by car is all very well, all very comfortable, all very convenient, but it isn't exciting and it isn't interesting. I like trains.
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
Travel notes
I don't know what people do who don't use public transport - they can't have any excitement in their lives at all.
The only exciting thing that happened to me yesterday (and this tells you how tedious my life is) was catching a number 621 bus home. I've never seen a 621 bus before, and the driver told one of the other passengers, who told me, that it was a new route. Imagine! It goes to Hatfield in one direction, but I don't know where it goes in the other.
And then this evening, if I didn't see a 620 bus going to Harpenden. That must be a new route too. We've never had a bus that goes to Harpenden. Why anyone would want to go to Harpenden is beyond me, but it's nice to know that we can if we ever have to.
And the schoolkids are back on the morning train, which is nice. I've watched them grow up from bratty Year 7's and they are must be in Sixth Form now. But I was sorry to see that the tall boy - he's got a nice face, although he is blonde, and I've never been one for blondes - is still wasting his time and attention on that little blonde bit, who tosses her curls at him and clutches her folders to her chest to make her tits look bigger. Can't he see that the nice girl - OK, she's plain, but - would be so much better for him than the blonde bit? He is pleasant to her, but doesn't seem to regard her at all. She sits there quietly and does her physics homework and just looks at him sometimes. I do wish he'd see sense.
The only exciting thing that happened to me yesterday (and this tells you how tedious my life is) was catching a number 621 bus home. I've never seen a 621 bus before, and the driver told one of the other passengers, who told me, that it was a new route. Imagine! It goes to Hatfield in one direction, but I don't know where it goes in the other.
And then this evening, if I didn't see a 620 bus going to Harpenden. That must be a new route too. We've never had a bus that goes to Harpenden. Why anyone would want to go to Harpenden is beyond me, but it's nice to know that we can if we ever have to.
And the schoolkids are back on the morning train, which is nice. I've watched them grow up from bratty Year 7's and they are must be in Sixth Form now. But I was sorry to see that the tall boy - he's got a nice face, although he is blonde, and I've never been one for blondes - is still wasting his time and attention on that little blonde bit, who tosses her curls at him and clutches her folders to her chest to make her tits look bigger. Can't he see that the nice girl - OK, she's plain, but - would be so much better for him than the blonde bit? He is pleasant to her, but doesn't seem to regard her at all. She sits there quietly and does her physics homework and just looks at him sometimes. I do wish he'd see sense.
Wednesday, 15 April 2009
Froggie mortis
There's a dead frog in the greenhouse.
How did it get there? Obviously it can't have got there after it died. There are no gaps for an animal big enough to carry a dead frog to get in through, not with the door shut, which it has been. And a heron isn't likely to have deliberately posted it in through the ventilator.
If it was alive when it got in, what killed it? Frogs have lived happily in there all through previous summers. I hope it died peacefully of old age, rich in honour and happy memories. But if it had, I would have expected it to have been settled comfortably in a dark cool corner, not squatting right in the middle, as if death surprised it.
It's not mangled, so I didn't tread on it, or squash it with the watering can. Believe me, I'm not giving it too close a look, but there are no obvious signs of violence.
Was it something that it ate? That's the really scary thought. The greenhouse is where I grow all my salad stuff at this time of year.
Is my lettuce poisoned? Will we all be discovered at the weekend sitting dead around the salad bowl with the ants crawling over us?
Anyway, I'm going to pretend I haven't seen it and hope that Ian finds it and clears it away. He's a country boy, he's good at that sort of thing.
Now I see that there's a bat flying round outside. That's nice.
How did it get there? Obviously it can't have got there after it died. There are no gaps for an animal big enough to carry a dead frog to get in through, not with the door shut, which it has been. And a heron isn't likely to have deliberately posted it in through the ventilator.
If it was alive when it got in, what killed it? Frogs have lived happily in there all through previous summers. I hope it died peacefully of old age, rich in honour and happy memories. But if it had, I would have expected it to have been settled comfortably in a dark cool corner, not squatting right in the middle, as if death surprised it.
It's not mangled, so I didn't tread on it, or squash it with the watering can. Believe me, I'm not giving it too close a look, but there are no obvious signs of violence.
Was it something that it ate? That's the really scary thought. The greenhouse is where I grow all my salad stuff at this time of year.
Is my lettuce poisoned? Will we all be discovered at the weekend sitting dead around the salad bowl with the ants crawling over us?
Anyway, I'm going to pretend I haven't seen it and hope that Ian finds it and clears it away. He's a country boy, he's good at that sort of thing.
Now I see that there's a bat flying round outside. That's nice.
Sunday, 12 April 2009
Dear Lord
The title of the post below comes from a hymn, "Dear Lord and Father of mankind", which was very popular, and maybe still is, for all I know. Every word is seared into my damaged subconcious as the result of horrible humiliation dealt upon my 12-year-old self.
I had been warned throughout primary school never ever to sing, having a voice like a bullfrog that could be detected amongst massed tuneful tinies. I was "one of the droners" who was told to stand neatly in the front row and mouth the words in time to the music.
Unfortunately when I came to the secondary school, my music teacher had an unshakeable belief that there was music in each one of us, to which we should thrillingly give voice. Some way into the second year she either noticed for the first time, or decided she could no longer ignore, the fact that I was noiselessly mouthing along. And I was hauled out to the front of the class.
It was in one of the wooden prefabs that had been thrown down after the War as a temporary measure and which was still in the same place the last time I visited the school (probably in the 90's). The class sat on those folding wooden chairs that I have always associated with Sunday School. At the front was an upright piano and to this I was bidden, the teacher, sensing my terror, putting her arm around me and encouraging me in a way which I am sure she intended to help but which only deepened the panic. I was told to start at the second verse. I think I managed two lines. By that time the teacher's musical sensibilities were shredded and the entire class was giving vent to unstoppable hysterical laughter.
I have never sung since, not even to my children, although I occasionally threatened it if they didn't behave.
I have, I am pretty sure, no innate musical sense. I cannot recall a tune unless it has words set to it - in which case it is easy to remember as I can remember the shape and sound and speed of the words. Play me two notes and I would struggle to tell you which was the higher. Much later in my life I met a man whose task it was to teach would-be members of the clergy to sing, and who maintained that no matter how tuneless and musically incompetent they were, he could teach them to perform well enough to fulfill their offices. Perhaps if I had met him earlier he could have taught me. As it is, and thanks in part to that idealistic music teacher, I avoid places where they sing and if I cannot, I am the one silently mouthing along.
I had been warned throughout primary school never ever to sing, having a voice like a bullfrog that could be detected amongst massed tuneful tinies. I was "one of the droners" who was told to stand neatly in the front row and mouth the words in time to the music.
Unfortunately when I came to the secondary school, my music teacher had an unshakeable belief that there was music in each one of us, to which we should thrillingly give voice. Some way into the second year she either noticed for the first time, or decided she could no longer ignore, the fact that I was noiselessly mouthing along. And I was hauled out to the front of the class.
It was in one of the wooden prefabs that had been thrown down after the War as a temporary measure and which was still in the same place the last time I visited the school (probably in the 90's). The class sat on those folding wooden chairs that I have always associated with Sunday School. At the front was an upright piano and to this I was bidden, the teacher, sensing my terror, putting her arm around me and encouraging me in a way which I am sure she intended to help but which only deepened the panic. I was told to start at the second verse. I think I managed two lines. By that time the teacher's musical sensibilities were shredded and the entire class was giving vent to unstoppable hysterical laughter.
I have never sung since, not even to my children, although I occasionally threatened it if they didn't behave.
I have, I am pretty sure, no innate musical sense. I cannot recall a tune unless it has words set to it - in which case it is easy to remember as I can remember the shape and sound and speed of the words. Play me two notes and I would struggle to tell you which was the higher. Much later in my life I met a man whose task it was to teach would-be members of the clergy to sing, and who maintained that no matter how tuneless and musically incompetent they were, he could teach them to perform well enough to fulfill their offices. Perhaps if I had met him earlier he could have taught me. As it is, and thanks in part to that idealistic music teacher, I avoid places where they sing and if I cannot, I am the one silently mouthing along.
Saturday, 11 April 2009
Till all our strivings cease
We got back from Grandma's yesterday afternoon.
I now believe that the only way to survive a trip to Grandma's is to regard it as a spiritual exercise. People pay thousands of pounds to spend time in remote retreats, cut off from society and without their usual comforts, learning to put aside their customs and practices, their assumptions, and discovering inner tranquillity and the great universal truths. We can do that twice a year, and for free. We are always just that bit chillier than is comfortable, there isn't enough hot water, and we sleep on a thin mattress with only that privacy afforded by a curtain. There is only enough room to take the minimum of personal belongings. And our expectations are constantly challenged. All those things that make life what it usually is - gin, and Radio 4, the Guardian, and access to the Wonderweb - are stripped away. In their place come the Sun TV mag, Bargain Hunt (and believe me it takes enormous reserves of spiritual strength to watch Bargain Hunt without squirming like a slug in salt) and meals in random order and at unexpected times.
In the past I have struggled and railed and fought to establish those values I came with. This time I learnt that the real value lies in acceptance, in laying the self open to all people and all experiences. Only if you expect nothing, want nothing can you never be disappointed or surprised.
There's no other way. Sanity could not otherwise survive being told, "She paid £400 for that dog. It's one of those hairless ones - only this one's got hair".
Ommm, people. And, Happy Easter. It's so good to be home.
I now believe that the only way to survive a trip to Grandma's is to regard it as a spiritual exercise. People pay thousands of pounds to spend time in remote retreats, cut off from society and without their usual comforts, learning to put aside their customs and practices, their assumptions, and discovering inner tranquillity and the great universal truths. We can do that twice a year, and for free. We are always just that bit chillier than is comfortable, there isn't enough hot water, and we sleep on a thin mattress with only that privacy afforded by a curtain. There is only enough room to take the minimum of personal belongings. And our expectations are constantly challenged. All those things that make life what it usually is - gin, and Radio 4, the Guardian, and access to the Wonderweb - are stripped away. In their place come the Sun TV mag, Bargain Hunt (and believe me it takes enormous reserves of spiritual strength to watch Bargain Hunt without squirming like a slug in salt) and meals in random order and at unexpected times.
In the past I have struggled and railed and fought to establish those values I came with. This time I learnt that the real value lies in acceptance, in laying the self open to all people and all experiences. Only if you expect nothing, want nothing can you never be disappointed or surprised.
There's no other way. Sanity could not otherwise survive being told, "She paid £400 for that dog. It's one of those hairless ones - only this one's got hair".
Ommm, people. And, Happy Easter. It's so good to be home.
Saturday, 4 April 2009
Loading the dishwasher
I was very surprised - and a little bit distressed - to find myself talking to someone during the week who doesn't re-load the dishwasher if it hasn't been done properly. He's a regular guy with high professional standards and irreproachable personal morality, but he admits to just pulling the racks out and stuffing his dirty crocks in wherever they will fit. To my mind that is about as bad as picking your socks out of the dirty washing basket, giving them a quick sniff and putting them back on.
Whereas we all know that:
Which is why, every time I come to the dishwasher and find that it hasn't been stacked properly (which is just about every time I come to the dishwasher), I get everything out onto the side and stack it all back as it should be done.
Come on, there's nothing unhealthily obsessive about it at all. It's only like hanging the washing on the line with the socks in pairs, toes pointing the same way.
What do you mean, you don't do that either?
Whereas we all know that:
- mugs must be put in with their handles facing the same way
- glasses must be put in between the mugs so that no two glasses are adjacent
- cereal bowls must be arranged in ascending order of size (working from front to back)
- no two pieces of cutlery of the same size must be put in the same compartment (e.g. not two teaspoons together, although a teaspoon and a dessert spoon will be fine)
- plates from the same set and with the same pattern must be stacked together (I'll be honest, dear reader, and admit that we use all sorts of odds and ends of crockery - that's all we've got, apart from the posh set that only comes out at Christmas and wouldn't be put in the dishwasher at all - which is why it only comes out at Christmas - although I am comforted to have read somewhere sometime that it is irredeemably bourgeois to have matching crockery, so I consider us let off the hook, style-wise).
Which is why, every time I come to the dishwasher and find that it hasn't been stacked properly (which is just about every time I come to the dishwasher), I get everything out onto the side and stack it all back as it should be done.
Come on, there's nothing unhealthily obsessive about it at all. It's only like hanging the washing on the line with the socks in pairs, toes pointing the same way.
What do you mean, you don't do that either?
Monday, 30 March 2009
Saving the world
Lying in the bath last night, morosely contemplating the extra kilo that has arrived since last week, it occurred to me that it should be celebrated. The fatter I am, the less hot water it takes to fill the bath. The less hot water, the fewer of the earth's resources are being depleted. Therefore, every Twix bar saves the world.
Sunday, 29 March 2009
Hello, world!
It's funny how the words dry up when you're faced with a blank screen.
What I shall find to say in the future - well, who knows? For now, I'm just happy to have my beautiful blue* laptop and be connected to the world.
Yes, it is blue. And it matters to me that it is blue. Maybe this is because I'm a fluffy-headed girlie, but I don't think so. Of course the colour is the thing about it that I can easily grasp and understand. I'm not too sure about RAM and ROM and REM. But I am as knowledgeable as the most knowledgeable geek when it comes to colour. I understand blue-ness.
And, what I want is a laptop that doesn't look like every other boring black or silver laptop in the world. I don't want to be like all the boring men on the train. To have a boring laptop is to be a boring person. I'm not boring and my laptop is BLUE.
OK, world, I'm sure you're gagging for more but that's all my shattered nerves can give you today. I'll be back, as and when, by and by.
My thanks go to Jane, for not laughing too much (just NEARLY too much) and showing me what to do.
What I shall find to say in the future - well, who knows? For now, I'm just happy to have my beautiful blue* laptop and be connected to the world.
Yes, it is blue. And it matters to me that it is blue. Maybe this is because I'm a fluffy-headed girlie, but I don't think so. Of course the colour is the thing about it that I can easily grasp and understand. I'm not too sure about RAM and ROM and REM. But I am as knowledgeable as the most knowledgeable geek when it comes to colour. I understand blue-ness.
And, what I want is a laptop that doesn't look like every other boring black or silver laptop in the world. I don't want to be like all the boring men on the train. To have a boring laptop is to be a boring person. I'm not boring and my laptop is BLUE.
OK, world, I'm sure you're gagging for more but that's all my shattered nerves can give you today. I'll be back, as and when, by and by.
My thanks go to Jane, for not laughing too much (just NEARLY too much) and showing me what to do.
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