Mad again

Remembering

2011-09-11T10:12:00.002+01:00

What were you doing? Where were you? Who were you with?

I can, of course, only be talking about one day, one event. one date.

At 2 pm, I was booked for a conference call with a supplier in Midtown. 9 am their time. Just before 2, I got my team together and we filed into the meeting room, dialed the number and waited. No-one came on the line. I was about to give them a hard time for failing to live up to expectations. At ten past, we gave up and I went back to the desk and I started to call them. No answer. I wrote a short, salty email.

A few moments later someone came onto the floor from the dealing room where there were television screens scattered around the room. The horrible news started to filter through.

I phoned home. My son had just sat his A levels and was at home at the start of his gap year. He put the television on and watched all afternoon.

Three colleagues were 3 blocks away on their way to a 9 am meeting when the first plane hit. No-one knew where they were or if they were safe. Their families were ringing the office desperate for news.

At 3, a friend called. She had flown back in from New York overnight and had gone to bed for a few hours sleep. Turning on the television, she couldn't make sense of it all. The day before she and her fiance had been in the Windows on the World restaurant planning their wedding. He worked next door to the World Trade Center.

We had just seen the South Tower collapse.

A colleague came in from the dealing room. Tearfully, he told us how they had closed the lines to Cantor Fitzgerald, in the North Tower. How could you bear to listen to what was happening?

Mobile phone and landlines were haphzard in London. My daughter was planning to go to London that evening to visit a school friend. Eventually, I got a message through to her not to travel.

At 4pm, our local chief exec closed our office for the day. The Underground was closed so I walked to Waterloo. Hardly anyone was talking. Some people were holding hands. All the way home on the train, people were pale and quiet.

My three colleagues were safe. They had carried on towards their meeting after the first plane hit. With the second impact, they headed back up through Manhattan on foot. My friend's fiance was safe. He was travelling to Seattle later that day so was on his way to the airport.

My colleague who had listened to the Cantor Fitzgerald staff who knew they were about to die was never the same, closing in on himself.

At home that night, I just wanted to hug my son and daughter. And I have had the privilege of ten more years of loving them, unlike thoese poor people who died that day.

Going postal

2011-06-10T19:31:00.003+01:00

Sorry - I'm rubbish.

I have this wonky back. Had it for years. Four years ago it was diagnosed and some treatment sorted me out for a while. Last autumn, it started to be very painful again and by the turn of the year every step was painful. Every night it woke me up and every day I was tired. Too tired to be bothered with much in the way of pleasure, like writing a blog. Sleep, eat, walk Spot and work. Crap, eh?

A couple of months ago, a lady took herself to Dignitas because she could not face the remaining years of pain from arthritis. On the radio, the presenter said "Only arthritis". I would love to be able to clip him round the ear with one of my wonky hands.

Anyway, I've had some more treatment which is a bit of a curate's egg just at the moment. Some days I am full of buzz and energy and others are not so good.

But this isn't about me. Sir Terry Pratchett has made a documentary about assisted dying and it will be shown on television next week. Go and look it up on the BBC website. He doesn't have wonky hands and a wonky back. Makes me ashamed to bleat.

But, I am so proud to have met him and shaken his hand and thanked him. What for?

Well, if you remember, at the end of last year, Junior Mad became Dr Junior Mad. The little boy who was labelled as "nice in his own way". Code for thick. Without the ability to read, his life would be so diminished. And he didn't get that from his first school.

When Junior Mad got to about 10, he COULD read, just DIDN'T. He saw no pleasure in the experience. One day, totally out of the blue, he picked up "Guards, guards". We overheard this wonderful chuckling. He was hooked. He is never without a book to keep him company.

About 11 years ago, I queued for about 2 hours at a book signing. Sir Terry's latest book for my son's Christmas present. I managed to tell him how grateful I was for the door that he had opened to the world of the imagination. He was charming and gracious and told me how pleased he was.

What a smashing man. And the world will be a lesser place without him.

And thanks for asking. Just old, miserable and grumpy. But still glad to be alive.

It wasn't me!

2011-02-10T15:16:00.002Z

Well, I've got the Red Coat but it wasn't me. Honest.

Though I'd like to think that I'd be up for handbagging the yobs.

The Red Coat

2011-01-19T18:30:00.004Z

I'm a touch high maintenance mixed with an inclination to be careful with the pennies. So I tend to wind up with beautiful expensive coats that have to last.

My current heavy winter coat for work has been around a few years. Alright, I confess. Nine years. It's classic, black and simple. Looks good wherever you go in it. But it is nine years old and the lining (yes the lining) is beginning to wear out.

I've been looking at those wonderful red coats. Hobbs had a nice one and the Austin Reed was even more me. And the sales have been on ...

As I drove back from the supermarket last week, I had the following conversation with myself:

"That red is smashing, isn't it?"

"Yes, but how practical is red?"

"Who cares? And it goes with the, ahem, blonde, hair."

"How much wear will you get out of it?"

"Who cares. It's gorgeous"

"But you need a black winter coat ... you know for black coat events"

"Maybe no-one will die in the winter"

"Who said funerals?"

"You just did ... it's still gorgeous"

"Well, you know ... it wouldn't look too good at a f..f..funeral"

"You've got the black Hobbs trench and the Max Mara three-quarters in black. That'll do for your black coat events "

"That would sort out my practical needs, wouldn't it?"

"FGS. It's gorgeous. And the sales are still on. But if you don't get a move on they'll only have one tiddly one and a circus tent left".

So here it is ...

Oh. By the way. At my funeral, you'll all have to wear your brightest and sassiest clothes. Not planning on going yet, you understand. But just remember.

My Ann

2011-01-14T11:04:00.003Z

Ann was an old lady by the time I was born. She continued to be an old lady for the next 13 years. Widowed at forty-five, she spent the next ten years in poverty until her youngest child was grown up. This took its toll and she rapidly became the white haired old lady of my childhood.

This was taken in 1936, when she was fifty-five. When I first looked at the back of the photograph, I thought it said 1956. You would easily believe she was seventy-five, wouldn't you?

I remember her wedding ring – a typically thick Edwardian band that never left her hand. One day, my mother’s wedding ring slipped from her finger and disappeared inside the sofa. Ann was so angry with her. “Your wedding ring should never leave your hand. Don’t you understand, you silly young woman?”

My mother made all my clothes and I would be required to stand on the table while the hem was pinned. One day, when I was whining quietly, Ann told her to take me down from the table. It wasn’t perfect. My mother was a perfectionist. “No king will get off his horse to look at it”. Hard times had taught Ann that good enough was good enough sometimes.

When she was confused and “going home”, I would sometimes sit with her while my mother and aunts rushed around shopping and cleaning. As a twelve year old, I didn’t really know what to say to this old lady. We would sit quietly, either side of the range. I would mainly have my head in a book just on the look out from the corner of my eye for hat-coat-hatpins and out-of-the-door. She would gaze into the distance, probably somewhere before 1927. But sometimes, she would say. “Let’s have some coffee” and we would make a little pot to share. My mother firmly held to the belief that coffee stunted the growth of the young. I remember Ann laughing at her, “So what’s your excuse, then?” My mother was (just) 5’. No inches. Ann was a stately 5’5". I'm 5' 4". So who was right?

Ann died on July 15th 1965. The funeral was about a week later. I was sent to school and returned to the house after it was all over. All that was left was the scent of lilies.

My Hugh

2011-01-13T17:34:00.004Z

Back last year, I started to tell the story of my grandparents, sarting with Hugh and I need to finish off my recollections of them.

Hugh died thirty-five years before I was born. I glimpse the boy and man through the photographs. Earnest and good looking leaving Merionethsire to make his way in the south. The proud newly-wed. Hands on hips grinning broadly from over his work bench. The father with young children. That photograph is taken about three years before he died. Was he already aware of his own mortality?

Most of his story is pieced together from family memories. Eluned, his third child, was my mother. She adored her strong, clever father and treasured memories of days with him. But, of course, her memories stopped when she was twelve. Did he have a temper? The family have what we call the “Evans temper”. Was he a perfectionist? That seems to be in the family too.

There are no more photographs of him. They are all in last year's blogs. But this was the little stool that he made for my mother. Touching the wood that he carved is the nearest I get to him.

I look at his photographs and see a keen resemblance with my son. So my Hugh is a shadow, a chimera that I did not know. I would love to have an hour in his company to know what he was really like. But the Hugh that I have to settle for is from other people’s memories. And maybe that’s all we really are, once we’re gone.

Happy New New

2011-01-05T07:06:00.006Z

Did you have a good Christmas and New Year holiday?

Mine was wonderful; family and friends filled the house. Highlights included trekking across the fields to collect the turkey, the Boxing Day walk where the temperature got UP to -9C and watching the kite overhead against the crisp blue winter sky.

Best wishes for 2011 to you all out there in the blogosphere.

The survival of curiosity

2010-12-03T09:48:00.007Z

“It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.”

Madette turned rapidly from a tiny premature scrap to a hollering monster to a sharp intellectual pebble, never content with a "that's how it is" explanation. Clever and determined, she commanded input from all around her. Junior Mad was a placid, easy baby with a cheerful disposition and a wicked smile. Separated by only twenty-three months, they rapdily became playmates. He had keen knack for winding up his big sister. She would patronise him with her superior language and understanding and he would retaliate with a tease. "You're a mushroom, you're a teapot, you're a mushpot", he would sing. They both loved to sit and listen to stories, reading being a passion in the Mad household.

Madette howled at being abandoned at nursery school. Junior Mad howled because he was too young to stay. A sociable, jolly little boy he joined in all the activities with enthusiasm once he was old enough to stay.

When Madette went to school, she could read a little and write her name. Within a few weeks, she was composing grand stories about monsters and dragons in a neat script. By seven, she had read "Swallows and Amazons". Junior Mad was fascinated by how the world worked. His first visit to the Science Museum at three left him breathless and pink-cheeked with excitement. When our two hour slot in the Launch Pad was up, I had to carry him out under my arm because he was desperate to stay. He'd probably still be there now.

So when he started school at four and a half, I had few worries about him. Sociable, sparky and cheery, I expected a period of settling in as he got the hang of the routine and while reading and writing embedded. There was no settling in. It started bad and got worse. "Is it a school day, Mummy?", he would ask. If I said yes, then he turned his face to the wall.

We asked if he could see the Educational Psychologist. No point, said the school. He's just immature and not very motivated. He was, after all, barely five! But he was so deeply interested in everything outside school. In desperation, we saw a private Ed Psych. The school refused to read the report. "A waste of time". A pity really. She had found a very bright little boy with some writing difficulties. School managed to lose the writing aid that she recommended.

Months went by and the situation did not improve. He got into trouble because he lost his temper. Each child had been asked to give a little talk to the class. He chose satellites. When he got to the bit explaining how a satellite was in geostationary orbit, the other children became a bit bored, so the teacher stopped him. He was furious and telling her so earned him the punishment of losing break-time. He was six.

Parents evening was torture. The little heap of books showed almost no achievements, a few tatty sentences painfully scribed at the top of the first page in most books and nothing else. "It's very difficult, Mrs Mad. You shouldn't compare him to Madette. He can be lovely in his own way". "You are telling me that he's thick, aren't you?", I questioned angrily. "This is something very hard for educated middle-class parents to accept". Just who are you calling effing middle-class?

Eventually, another mother came to talk to me in the playground. She had seen Junior Mad reduced to tears in the class by the carelessly cruel remarks of his teacher. She had labelled him lazy and ignorant. That was the last time they had the opportunity to hurt him. He left that day.

But they had done such a lot of damage in the time he was there. His confidence was knocked sideways and he never quite regained the easy manner which allowed him to make friends readily. The next school peeled back the protective outer layer and provided him with the support he needed. Choices around senior school were hard. I couldn't bear the idea of sending him away to board so senior school was a curate's egg. Not all bad, although it was dispiriting to have to explain dyslexia to some teachers. But we were very fortunate to have the resources to provide support that he didn't get in school.

Sixth-form was mainly a good experience since he had a nice group of friends and he focused on the sciences where he excelled. An inspirational teacher encouraged him to take a Nuffield Bursary with a placement at a space science laboratory. His curiosity continued to unfurl. After a gap year, he set off to university. One of those Russell Group institutions, not normally renowned for taking students who are "lovely in their own way". He got a First.

So what's he doing now? Well, today he's probably nursing a bit of a hangover. But yesterday, he was awarded his PhD.

That's right Dr Junior Mad. Ha! I can say, "My son, the doctor". Don't go to him if you're bleeding or the like ... he's not that sort of a doctor.

And just in case you're wondering why my son is wearing a colander in the first picture ... it was so he could look at the lights through the holes. He'd noticed they looked different with / without the holes.

This is not a dish best served cold. Yes , I bit of me would like to string some of his early teachers up by their toes but, hey, it's in the past.

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day."

Both quotations are from Albert Einstein. They said he was a bit thick too.

Shaken from white wash buckets down the sky ...

2010-12-01T11:15:00.005Z

A bit chilly, eh? Sunday afternoon it was -10C. And that was when the sun was out. Last January, they said that the weather was "a once in a generation event". Hey-ho.

And, I heard a punter on Radio 4 declaiming that it was "time that this country stopped being so insular". For an island, that may be a challenge. Anyone feel like getting out and giving us a push?

I never quite know whether I like the white stuff. The sensible bit of me sees the chaos and danger and the bone-chilling hard work for the farmers and other outdoor workers. It was much easier being ten.

In 1963, I had just turned ten and loved the stuff. The pleasure was heightened by the fact that school was closed for weeks. The ancient pipes had burst and we had to go in every day for 6 weeks, sign the register and then go home.

We had no running water for two months and drinking water had to be collected from a standpipe a quarter of a mile away. Snow was gathered in big pans and heated on the Rayburn to give us water to wash. Ten year olds don't need much washing anyway.

My mother frantically tried to keep the house clean against melted slush trailing through. Dad delivered milk every day and always checked on the old and frail on his milkround. I would help him carry freezing bottles up grey stone paths. He trudged with icy cold metal milk crates, his hands chilled to the bone in fingerless gloves. The gloves would be put in the slow oven to dry and warm up before he went out again.

My dad's friend was the undertaker and he made me a sledge out of a failed coffin side. Dad polished it up and fixed a box seat and ropes for steering. The final embellishment was the runners. Two stair-rods were screwed in place and we buffed the monster up a bit to give it extra whizz. It certainly had extra whizz and I trudged up the hill valiantly until my legs were like jelly. The descent was a few moments of squealing delight.

Ten was just the age to be, eh?

"Our snow was not only shaken from white wash buckets down the sky, it came shawling out of the ground and swam and drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees; snow grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely ivied the walls and settled on the postman, opening the gate, like a dumb, numb thunder-storm of white, torn Christmas cards."

Dylan Thomas

Back again

2010-11-26T14:21:00.003Z

Apologies for the disappearing act. Nothing sinister. Just busy with work, painting, a small holiday, putting the garden to bed for the winter and stuff.

Anyway, I haven't gone away.

Happy Birthday, Madette

2010-10-08T10:53:00.002+01:00

Today I've had my quota of believing six impossible things before breakfast.

First, it was my birthday yesterday and I cannot believe my age. But I downed it before breakfast.

Secondly, I share my birthday (date and year) with Vladimir Putin. What was that strange and bitter taste?

Thirdly, that Spottie the Git decided to wake me up at 02:31 to have a wander outside. Needed a cup of tea for that one.

Fourthly, the Labour party had a choice of two Millipedes and chose the wrong one. I swallowed that one with a banana which may have something to do with the decision.

Fifthly, Madette is 29 years old today. Gulp.

Lastly, and this really is hard to chew. A bit like Shredded Wheat. You can chew it for hours but it will never get past the tonsils. Tomorrow, Madette will be exactly the same age I was when she was born.

Chance made you my daughter;
love made you my friend

Happy Birthday, Vlad

2010-10-07T13:40:00.002+01:00

Yes... it is my big day too. And no, it's not me posing with him.

My morning as Joseph K

2010-10-01T11:52:00.002+01:00

My fridge freezer is dying. One bit of the freezer is hot. This is not the normal state of affairs.
But I have a 5 year warranty - paid for it when I bought the house in 2006.
I have all the paperwork because I am just that sort of person.

Phoned manufacturer - directed to an 0844 number for service department.
Get through to muppet #1 who asked for my warranty number.
No such number on the paperwork. But I have an invoice number. Not interested, says muppet#1.
Muppet #1 says can't help without warranty number and hangs up.

Phoned back. Got muppet #2
Searches database, Can't find me, Says therefore I do not have warranty, argues that my paperwork can't be valid and hangs up.

Phoned back. Got muppet #3
Searches database, Can't find me, Says therefore I do not have warranty. "Stop" I squeak. Muppet #3 agrees to email manufacturer and will call me back IF I have a valid warranty. Says no point in taking my phone number since, if I have warranty, it will be on the system. Hangs up.

Phoned manufacturer again. Hit random set of numbers until I got a human bean. "Don't hang up," I plead.
HB#1 searches database using my name, address and invoice number on the warranty document. The latter finds me. They have me as "Again Mad" not "Mad Again".
HB#1 tells me to call 0844 number for service department and give them the information about the name and the invoice number since they are using the same database. HB#1 tells me to give them her name as well.

Phoned back to service department. Got muppet #4.
Explain it ALL again. Muppet #4 searches system and says can't find me. Says they've never heard of HB#1. Hangs up.

Phoned manufacturer. Hit random set of numbers until I got HB#2. "Don't hang up", I plead. "Please can I speak to HB#1".
I wait on hold while listening to music interspersed with spiel about how reliable their products are ...
HB#1 comes back on phone. Listens patiently and says she will put me through to another HB who will sort it out.
I wait on hold while listening to music interspersed with spiel about how reliable their products are ... and then I'm cut off.

Phoned manufacturer. Hit random set of numbers until I got HB#3. "Don't hang up, I plead". Please can I speak to HB#1.
HB#3 says that HB#1 is on the phone but can she call me back.

Twenty minutes later, HB#1 calls back and says that she will put me through to HB#4 who will sort the problem out.
I wait on hold while listening to music interspersed with spiel about how reliable their products are ...
Just when I think that it's all gone wrong again, HB#4 comes on the line with all the background. An engineer will call me today.

None of this has actually fixed the darned thing.

And I will be spending the weekend making strange and interesting dishes. Vegetarian bolognese sauce with a garnish of gooseberries. Blackberry and gammon crumble. Bread pudding and German sausage. Any takers?

An arrow from a bow

2010-09-20T09:55:00.005+01:00

Saturday morning at 5 o'clock as the day begins ...
... she's leaving home, bye bye

Ok, so not like the Beatles Wednesday morning and she didn't exactly creep out. Rather, my more than slightly not-sensible car was stuffed to the gunwhales with books, pots and pans, new bed linen as we set out for the long journey North. We smiled at all the cars filled to the brim with the things that Freshers need: duvets, tea bags and a surreptiously packed teddy bear. We grabbed breakfast at a service station and watched an anxious family. Pa re-checking the map, Ma looking in the M&S food shop for one last item of grocery and Son shrugging in depair while he explained that they could probably buy food in Sheffield.

This was different. Madette has been there and done the undergraduate thing, even the post-grad thing. When she was in "that distant marsh town", meeting up for a weekend or even a day trip was easy. This last year has been full of ups and downs for her and in this strange hiatus she has been back home. Despite the frustrations of unemployment and dashed hopes, there have been some very nice times. Weekends in Wales, dog-walks and sharing books. Now, she is a long way North starting an academic career in one of our great universities. We won't mark the ebb and flow of university terms any longer. Yes, she will see the students come and go and the city will be quieter during the Long Vac but her work and research will fit around it not rush with the same tide. Weekends will need planning, many hours of travel punctuated with the misery of motorway journeys or long train journeys. Just why were there pedestrians on the M1 yesterday?

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

On children - Kahlil Gibran

The fingers, so tightly gripped all those years ago, have been relinquished. And I'm so pleased for her. Now, it's just me, the Collie and the Jam mountain.

Green and golden

2010-08-30T09:40:00.005+01:00

I've listened to all my European colleagues yattering on about the long weeks that they've spent down on the Med while I've been waiting. Smugly, you know. Through the long not very nice summer, I've taken long weekends to watch progress on the building work on the house. As the showers came and went, and building was slowed down, my smug smile withered slightly but still hovered a bit Cheshire cat-like.
Last week, as the school holidays trickled away, I watched the fields and gardens turn to mud. Still a bit smug but also fearful that those forecasts of wet until November might be true.

But now here I am smug, SMUG, SMUG. On holiday, in Wales with Fern Hill weather.

Happy Birthday, Junior Mad

2010-08-25T13:33:00.004+01:00

Twenty-seven ... every blessed year for the last twenty-seven years. Wide awake in the middle of the night. 04:04 found me sitting up in bed with a cup of tea and a book.

Happy Birthday, my smashing son.

And the little blue lion in the corner ... she's 27 today too.

Paradise Lost

2010-08-23T13:40:00.002+01:00

Tap me with your finger,
rub me with your sleeve,
hold me, sniff me, peel me
curling round and round
till I burst out white and cold
from my tight red coat
and tingle in your palm

as if I’d melt and breathe
a living pomander
waiting for the minute
of joy when you lift me
to your mouth and crush me
and in taste and fragrance
I race through your head
in my dizzy dissolve.

I sit in the bowl
in my cool corner
and watch you as you pass
smoothing your apron.
Are you thirsty yet?
My eyes are shining

The Apple Song Edwin Morgan 1920 - 2010

William and Rachel's story

2010-08-16T11:05:00.003+01:00

If you're looking for a happy ever after story, I'm sorry but this will disappoint you.

They moved from Rachel’s aunt’s home to a rented house as a young married couple. William tolerated the fat, ugly baby who, anyway, spent a deal of time with his great-aunt.

In the late Summer of 1916, Rachel fell pregnant again. This wasn’t in the Great Plan. She had not wanted another baby and was terrified of going through days of labour. As far as possible, she ignored her pregnancy and tried to hide it from everyone especially William. Far from rejecting her, he was delighted to have another baby of his own. This still did not mollify her. Taking no notice of nagging backache, she set off for the Spring Fair with her sister. Throughout the day, the pains increased and eventually, they got home moments before the baby boy was born nearly two months early. A tiny scrap, Rachel hoped he would not survive. She had given all her love to one son and had none left for this red, angry baby who ruined her figure and her plans.

William persuaded his sister-in-law to help him bottle feed the little reject who refused to die. Reluctantly, Rachel came round to the baby,Eric, but made sure that there would be no further mistakes. She put a bolster down the middle of the bed and this stayed in place for the next forty-five years.

But love did not deepen for William and Rachel; they endured each other. The household eventually fractured into two separate parts. Rachel loved the first baby forever and tried to give him every opportunity, saving pennies to buy him small treats. William’s indifference to his stepson turned to stone when the boy showed no aptitude to learn how the world worked. By contrast, his own son showed a keen understanding of everything mechanical. In 1925, they sent off for a kit and instruction book to make a cat’s whisker radio. Everything that William lavished on Eric was denied to his stepson. At three years old, Eric became desperately ill leaving him almost totally deaf. William sent him to private school and when he was nineteen, he bought a car for him to learn to drive. The other son was allowed nowhere near the car. Eric took his lead from William and learned to despise his half brother. The common currency between William and Eric describing the older boy was "that silly bugger".

In 1921, William and Rachel and Rachel’s sister and brother-in-law bought a plot of land and built two houses with large gardens. Rachel and Hannah were close companions and Eric played with his young cousins who could follow his awkward speech.

Every Summer, when William’s holiday came round, Rachel would take his holiday pay and buy wallpaper and paint. He spent the next week decorating while she went away with her sister. One year, William returned the materials and, stripping off the wallpaper on the stairwell, he painted a fresco of a remarkably evil looking horse. Since it was applied directly to the plaster, it remains to this day, hidden under wallpaper.

Rachel was furious and they had one of their infamous rows where she hurled a kettle of boiling water followed by a flat iron. He fended her off with the ironing board. That was the last year of decorating summer holidays. William had achieved what he wanted and he and Eric took off on their own travels every summer.

After Eric had learned to drive in 1936, they went to Devon and Dorset just following their fancy. The ferry from Weymouth to the Channel Islands caught their eye and then it was just a short hop to St Malo where they meandered along the north coast of Brittany for a few days. Lord knows what the Bretons made of this strange pair.

Rachel developed a taste for charabanc trips to Scarborough and Blackpool with her sister and best friend. She became a pillar of the Church and, when war broke out, she joined the Red Cross as a volunteer nurse in a local convalescent home.

Both sons married in the 1950s leaving William and Rachel to rub along on their own.

In 1961, William’s health began to fail and in November, he and Rachel made a momentous decision. They got married. William was eighty-two and Rachel was sixty-eight.

You’ve probably done a double-take at this point. No, go back up and re-read it. William and Rachel set up home “as a young married couple”. Just without the getting married bit.

William and Florence were married in 1905 and by the Summer of 1914, they had parted. I don’t know exactly when or why. But by 1914 he was no longer with Florence. Rachel was said to have given him this watch on their wedding day in June 1914. It’s inscribed.

But there was no wedding. William was still married to Florence.

Moreover, there was no divorce either. When Florence married Abraham in 1921, she was still married to William. William certainly lost touch with Violet and Felix.

Rachel sported a modest wedding ring and a band of diamond chips but had never been married. Her first son had no father named on his birth certificate and carried Rachel’s surname. But William is named on Eric’s birth certificate and he carried his father’s surname.

So just why did they marry? Was it just to be respectable? Certainly, there was a grat risk that the whole sorry tale it would have come out when William died.

Was it because Florence had died and there would have been no hindrance? No. Florence went on until 1979 when she was ninety-five. Abraham had died in the sixties but, of course, their "marriage" remained irregular too.

William knew that, since he and Rachel were not actually married, Rachel had no property rights over his estate. He intended to leave his whole estate to Eric and therby exclude her first son. But Rachel knew William’s secret. Somewhere, there was his wife and legitimate children. She could bring the whole poisonous ediface down around the one person whom William truly loved. Eric would be exposed as illegitimate. It’s hard to understand how terrible that was before the swinging sixties. Anyway, the swinging sixties took a bit longer to reach the South Wales valleys and even in the mid seventies people were still shocked by illegitimacy. In a contradiction of double standards, in the late fifties in some areas more than 50% of brides were pregnant when they married. The dishonour was in the illegitimacy.

So, back to William and Rachel. They owned up to Eric that they had never married and that they planned to have a civil ceremony from his sister’s home. Hurt and shocked, he drove them to Swansea on a cold day in November for the wedding.

His old will was destroyed when they “married” and he left everything to Rachel. He declined over the Spring and Summer of 1962. In his last days, Rachel saw what a miserable life they had created. Holding his hand as he lay dying, she wept for the bitter years. “Don’t go Will. Don’t leave me”. He died a few days before his eighty-third birthday. Make of her pleading what you like.

After his death, Rachel did her best to obliterate his presence from the house. All his artist’s materials, jewellery making tools, violin and harp were thrown out. Eric rescued a few pieces but most of it was lost. All the photographs were destroyed.

William had intended leaving the large garden to Eric so that he could build a house. During the shady dealings of sham marriages and wills, this never took place. Rachel gave Eric the land and he built the home of his modest dreams. Next door to Rachel, he and his family were on hand.

Old age was reasonably kind to Rachel. Her first son was married with one son and they visited occasionally. Eric continued to love and care for her despite everything. Occasionally, she would lash out at him with the spiteful reminder that he was the child she had never wanted. She didn’t get on with his wife who found Rachel’s bitterness and duplicity loathsome. Sometimes there were nasty rows and Rachel and her daughter-in-law did not speak for months and in one case for more than a year. But mainly she accepted the kindnesses with or without thanks; the Sunday lunches, the laundry and the jams and preserves went on even when they didn’t speak.

At the start of 1982, Rachel went downhill rapidly. Through the hard snows of January 1982, Eric struggled to carry on working while caring for his mother. By March she needed 24 hour care. Eric drove to the local hospital nearly every day. On April 8th, he spent the afternoon in the garden planning to go for evening visiting. But he didn’t make it that day. Finishing in the garden, he lit a cigarette, leaned on the garden fork and died.

Telling Rachel that he had died was hard. “Not my Eric. Not my boy”. Ah yes, Rachel. The boy you didn’t want, who spent his life trying to please you. Rachel died three weeks later.

And what about her will? She left it all to her two sons. Eric’s half went to his widow. There was a deal of confusion and solicitor’s fees spent resolving the fact that, although Rachel had given Eric the land for building, no legal paperwork had ever been completed. Eric’s half brother disputed the title claiming that, although they owned the bricks and mortar, they did not own the land on which it was built. Eventually, common sense won.

William and Rachel were my paternal grandparents.

Like I said, no happy ever after.

William's story

2010-08-12T22:30:00.006+01:00

William was born on the longest day of 1879, one of the younger children of a large and chaotic family in Merthyr Tydfil. Frank was a woodworker, his sister Jessie became a suffragette, Lizzie was a communist councillor, John set off to fight in the Spanish civil war. All the brothers and sisters were political radicals in the People’s Republic of Merthyr Tydfil. William was an artist and musician. He painted, drew and made jewellery winning first prize for jewellery making in the national Eisteddfod in 1950. He played the violin. Deciding to that he wanted to learn to play the harp and so started from first principles, making his own harp. But for everyday living, he worked in the pit as a coal hewer.

In 1905, he married Florence and in 1906 Violet was born. They moved to Aberfan where their son, Felix was born in 1910. New technology was coming to the mines; they were being electrified. William’s quick understanding of how things worked took him into the heart of this new technology. Florence took the children to live with her parents while William travelled around different coal mines, moving on again once electricity had been installed.

By 1914, he was lodging with a middle-aged woman and her pretty young niece and illegitimate baby. William became captivated by this young girl, fourteen years his junior.

Felix and Violet remained with Florence who married Abraham in 1921.

William's life took a different course. He had met Rachel.

Rachel's story

2010-08-09T19:30:00.003+01:00

Rachel was born in 1893, the eldest of three children. Her father had a small farm, mixing farming with open-cast mining. By the time she was sixteen, he had sold the farm for good money. Deep mining was eating its way through the valleys. Daniel spent the money on buying a pub. Sadly for Rachel and her brother and sister, their parents enjoyed the pub far too much and the money disappeared rapidly. She left home to work as a kitchen maid in a local manor farm.

Willow pattern blue eyes, strawberry blonde hair and her delicate build caught the attention of a young man in the house. By the spring of 1912, she was pregnant and by the summer, jobless. Returning home to her parents, she found herself unwanted there as well. Utterly rejected and homeless, she was found wandering the lanes by her widowed aunt who took her in. Her aunt was childless with no experience of childbirth. Rachel’s tiny frame struggled with the large baby for days of agonising and frightening labour. Rachel was nineteen and this was January 1913. Defiantly, she named her baby after his father who never acknowledged the kitchen maid and her unwanted baby.

Large, square and ugly, she adored him. But she knew that she had to provide a living and a home for them both. Her aunt ran a boot round, collecting and returning boots and shoes door to door for mending and Rachel joined her, expanding the business walking many miles pushing the perambulator with the boots piled in with the baby. Her brother and sister came to visit and, gradually, her parents allowed their daughter to visit.

Rachel looked for more than lodging in her aunt’s home. She wanted security and, at barely twenty-one was still young and pretty.

Meeting William put Rachel’s life on a completely different course. They met in 1914 and were together for the next forty-seven years. She had found a step-father for her baby and a man who could provide a good living for the little family. She settled into respectability and domesticity.

Hugh and Ann's Story

2010-08-02T21:56:00.006+01:00

After marrying, they moved into a small flat above a shop. All Ann’s family except her brother were at the wedding. James was in the navy and hadn’t been able to make it back in time.

After saying goodbye to the family, they retired for the night. Trembling with anticipation, they lay in bed, chastely side-by-side. Hugh unwound Ann's hair and she threaded her fingers into his curls. Suddenly, a clatter and shout were heard outside. “A drunk, take no notice”, he whispered. “Ann, Hugh, c’mon. It’s me … James”. It was her brother. His ship had arrived at Cardiff docks and he had gifts for the newlyweds. His sailor’s bag was slung over his shoulder and balanced in his arms were a set of eggshell delicate bone china and a large wall clock. Realising that he had missed the wedding breakfast, he had enjoyed a glass or two before catching the last train up the valley. He spent the night on their sofa, snoring. They held hands all through a long unconsummated night.

The presence of an unexpected guest didn’t damper their ardour for long. Morfydd was born in August 1910, Mair in 1912, Eluned in 1914 and Iorwerth in 1916. In 1918 a still-born baby broke into their happiness. Eluned was so excited that there was going to be a baby and ran upstairs. Hugh stood on the landing glassy-eyed with tears and wouldn’t let the little girl go in. “I want to see the baby”, she bellowed. “There isn’t a baby for us today”, he murmured hugging her. Another baby girl, Irene, arrived safely in 1919. Glennys was born in the summer of 1921 but died at seven months. Eluned had knitted a dolly for her baby sister and hugged it on the day of the funeral.

But mostly, it was a happy home. Ann worked hard to keep a good house, blacking the range and scrubbing the front step. Cleanliness and godliness were level pegging in the home. By 1919 Hugh was the foreman-builder on a new development of council houses. He earned a good wage and they could afford a few luxuries. Shelves began to fill with books and occasional toys for the children. Hugh and Ann loved coffee and they would mill the beans for fresh coffee in the evening when the children went to bed. Little Eluned would beg for a sip of coffee but grimaced at the taste every time.

Hugh would bring home his account book and a bag of money to pay the workmen. Eluned and Iorwerth would be given the money to count while Morfydd and Mair bagged up and labelled each wage. Later, when Eluned proved to be adept with numbers, she would be given the columns of figures to check.

Two dogs trotted in and out of the house. There was always a spaniel and a terrier. Each Whit Monday and on the first Monday in August, Hugh would hire a pony and trap and take them to the seaside. A long day with Eluned and Iorwerth on the perch by the side of Hugh and the dogs sandwiched between them. Ann and the other girls would sit in the back with the baskets of provisions and the blankets. Eluned didn’t care whether they ever got to the sea; sitting up in the cart looking at the fields and hedges was the thing. Hugh was a fine horseman having been a teamster before leaving home. He would let the little ones stand between his knees and hold the reins as they trotted along the lanes. On the journey home, the two postillions would be adamant that they weren’t tired enough to need to travel behind but they often found themselves waking up under blankets by the end of the journey.

After Glennys, there were no more babies and Hugh and Ann looked forward to the children growing up. He was making a good living and thinking about throwing his lot in with his brother Robert who had started his own building firm. Robert’s wife still looked down on the shop girl and Alice was busily inculcating her nieces with the “we might be poor, but we’re not common” mantra. In 1924, Morfydd left school to work in the local Corn Stores, a sensible reliable girl. 1926 was a year of great change for the family. Mair left school to work in a dress shop. Eluned passed her scholarship exam to go to the grammar school and Hugh fell ill.

The cancer quickly took hold and one day in the Spring of 1927, the younger children were taken to the hospital to see their father one last time. They arrived too late. He had just just died and they couldn’t recognise the old man in the bed. He was forty-four.

Life changed completely for Ann and the children. The two elder girls became the breadwinners. Irene spent many months with her aunts and Eluned with her uncle and aunt. Iorwerth became the man of the family. He was ten. The light had truly gone out of Ann’s life. Scrimping and saving to keep the family together took away her sense of joy and was replaced by overwhelming sadness occasionally spliced with bitterness and anger.

In 1962, Ann had a small stroke leaving her permanently confused. She wanted to go home – to the house where she had lived with Hugh and their young family. Every day, she would dress her hair, put on her coat and hat and carefully put the two hatpins in place ready to go home. Eventually, she went home in June 1965.

Hugh and Ann were my maternal grandparents.

Ann's Story

2010-07-30T14:51:00.005+01:00

Benjamin and Charlotte lived on the edge of coal mining with Charlotte bringing a little bit of money and some pretension to the household. They ran a shop passed to them by Charlotte’s parents. Benjamin was an occasional coal haulier, or “Haulier of Coal” as Charlotte would have it.

Sons and daughters filled the home, worked in the shop and contributed to a comfortable but not luxurious existence. Some of the older sons worked in the local brewery. James went to sea. The daughters who were not working in the shop became seamstresses. All except Hannah. Tall, elegant and sharp, Hannah went into service where she became the housekeeper in a grand house. On her visits home she brought magazines relaying the latest styles and comme il faut to her sisters. She taught Alice, Esther and Gwenllian how to trim the edges of skirts and blouses according to the magazines. She taught Ann how to twist her beautiful dark hair on to the top of her head and to wear a hat at a fashionable angle.

Ann is on the far left in the photograph and Hannah on the right. Their mother, Charlotte is next to Ann, followed by Alice and Gwenllian who is holding baby Morfydd. Esther is not in the photograph. Please note Hannah's crisp black dress with the leg-o-mutton sleeves and immaculate over pinny. A woman not to be messed with.

Ann was born in 1881. A late summer baby with dark hair and eyes. At three years old she had an eye injury. Playing around with a pencil, one of her brothers poked it into her eye. It took a while for Ann's eye to recover and it was kept bandaged over for months. She developed the habit of looking down and then fixing you with a fierce glare, mainly through the good eye. You remember when your mother said "you'll take someone's eye out"? Well they nearly did.

Hugh was captivated by Ann’s dark intense looks and she adored his curls and swift smile. After the Peeping Tom incident, he had a gift for her: two hatpins. To keep her hat neatly on her head and "just in case". She wore them for the rest of her life. One was tipped with a crystal finial and the other with jet.

Hugh’s young sister-in-law looked down her rather pointed nose at the shop-girl who was being brought into the family. She showed off the fine embroidery, cut glass, pianola and fish knives that graced their home, compared with the modest trappings of Ann’s family. Robert and his wife invited Ann to tea. Hannah was invited to accompany her sister. A bone china miserable affair, Ann sat through the agony of scrutiny and put downs. Alice politely admired the finery. When the tea of thinly cut bread-and-butter and dry cake was served, Alice smiled, arched one eyebrow, looked carefully at the tea-set and said “Ah, Mrs Lloyd-Jenkins has something very like for the second best set”.

The Boer War and the Great War took brothers away to fight and potential suitors to a distant death. Only Ann married. The sisters stayed kept a neat home, never marrying. Hannah kept them in order after their parents’ days, reminding them “We might be poor, but we’re not common”.

Hugh’s story

2010-07-29T13:37:00.005+01:00

In the mid 1870s, Evan and Jane met. They were both in their twenties living on the coast. North Cardigan bay where the salt marshes make a boundary between the sea and the mountains. He was a younger son of a local farmer and Jane was the youngest daughter of a prosperous adjoining farm. Not quite the Montagues and Capulets, but not much love lost between the two families. They married in the summer of 1878.

Jane’s father carved out a portion of land for them to farm. Evan loved the land and Jane was capable and organised. The first son, Robert came along in 1879 followed by Lewis in early 1881. Hugh was born in 1882 just as Summer tips over into Autumn and warm days give way to cool nights. A combination of cold nights and warm affection saw the next decade filled with babies. John was born in 1884, Evan in 1886 and David in 1888. At last a daughter arrived; Ellen was born in 1893. They were comfortable and settled but the land was not theirs to hold and would never be passed down to their sons. Robert left in the late 1890s to search for work in South Wales, taking two of his younger brothers with him. Hugh stayed home on the farm but by 1901 his parents’ health was failing. His father was now a farm worker for his brother-in-law and Hugh worked the horses on his uncle’s farm. By the mid 1900s, both parents had died and the sons dispersed. Evan loathed the industrial south and became a shepherd for his uncle, living the rest of his life in a tiny cottage on the top of a hill with his lovely wife, Mary, who never quite got English. Lewis went to India and David went to work for his farming uncle. Robert took Hugh under his wing and returned south to look for work in the burgeoning construction industry.

A hard worker with a serious view on the world, Hugh quickly found that he was respected and trusted by his employer and by twenty-six he was a foreman. Social life revolved around the chapel where he could relax out of formal workaday English and be comfortable in Welsh. His passion was singing and attendance at chapel was for the hwyl and companionship of singing as much as the observance.

Hugh hated hypocrisy and double-standards. Chapel was part of his life but, when the minister asked an elderly member of the congregation not to sing because his lack of a tune was spoiling it for everyone else, Hugh argued that a tuneless voice was raised no less in praise of God than a tuneful one. When the elders of the chapel demurred, he left, proclaiming that his sort of God was rather different to theirs.

Robert married in 1905 and Hugh lodged with them. Good looking with a head of neatly flattened curls and sea blue-green eyes, he was quite a catch. His new sister-in-law was determined to introduce him to a suitable match but he’d spotted his girl. Heavy dark hair was wound into a complicated up-do. Dark brows and eyes made gave her an intense look and she would follow his gaze and then look away under dark lashes. His sister-in-law wasn’t impressed. Ann was only the shopkeeper’s daughter but they were bowled over by each other.

Walking out together took them along a country path and a stile was a favourite place to stop, hold hands and kiss. He would lift her up to sit on the stile and they would spend sweetly tender minutes there before he walked her home. An infamously dirty old man used to wait for courting couples so that he could spy on them. One day, they overheard a noise in the bushes and knew it was the old man. Hugh put his fingers to his lips to signal to Ann to stay quietly perched on the stile while he sidled around the edge of the bushes. She heard a couple of swift blows and saw the Peeping Tom running away. Hugh came back to her grinning to himself while slipping something back into his breast pocket. Ann demanded to know what it was. He pulled his jacket open to reveal a knuckleduster. It was never seen or mentioned again.

They married in the Autumn of 1909. A love affair for the rest of their lives.

Living the dream

2010-07-29T10:57:00.011+01:00

I've been a bit otherwise engaged recently and neglectful of the blogworld. I have been keeping up with you all but there's been a lot going on.

First of all, we had Hay Week. Friends, culture and the odd glass of wine.

Then building work There. My smashing builder doubles as the local undertaker and so you have to fit the projects in between building emergencies and the occasional stiff. And he can't estimate for toffee so we're about 50% behind schedule.

And jam, of course.

I became White Van woman for a weekend to help Junior Mad move house.

Poor old Humbug has been diagnosed with diabetes so we've been investing heavily in trips to the vet's practice.

And then we have had an office move. The new office is in a nicer area with some attractive little City gardens to eat a sandwich or to wander round. Here are some of the things you might not expect to see in the City of London:

This has coincided with some changes in management at work. I won't bore you with the details, but my boss flounced out in a huff - it's great seeing a bald 40 something year old man behaving like a teenager. So I grabbed the opportunity to suggest to my new boss that I could work from home some of the time. And some of the time that means There. Like today ... I'm eating my lunch, sitting in my study and catching up.

And the other thing I've been doing, is tracking down some family history and that's what I'll be blogging about next.

Whooooosh

2010-06-17T12:30:00.007+01:00

Megan, over at Sixty-Five Roses is planning to do a zip slide on the Tyne Bridge.

Here's the BBC webcam of the Tyne bridges . If you watch closely you might see her zip past on the weekend.

It's a charity thing. Apparently some people do this for fun. Hands in wallets, please folks.

Megan at Just Giving

Oh, yes. She has cystic fibrosis. Do I have to Geldof you?

Hands and hearts

2010-05-27T11:54:00.003+01:00

It takes hands to build a house, but only hearts can build a home ... apparently the same is true of quilts.

Juno says "I've been a bit busy for the past 2 days something at the weekend inspired me to get on with it"

Madette too ...

Think it might be a virus?

Such a perfect day ...

2010-05-24T13:44:00.015+01:00

The V&A is running an exhibition "Quilts 1700- 2010". A great day out, even if the atmosphere was redolent of HRT with a touch of crimplene. I liked this quilt by Anne West. There is a sad Australian piece made by the women on the convict ship, HMS Rajah in 1841. A poignant piece of Australian history. You can have your sensibilities challenged by Tracy Emin and Grayson Perry. Inevitably, some parts enchant, some parts sadden and others annoy.

Anne West's quilt at the V&A

For my last birthday requiring the use of zeroes, my cousin made me a quilt. A beautiful, inspired piece of stitchery that hangs on my sitting room wall There. She makes stunning art quilts and leads a group helping them find their own creative thread.

Juno has creativity through her like a stick of rock. Everything that she makes from her famous upside down pineapple Christmas cake to the exquisitely decorated photograph albums are little works of art.

Sometime back, Madette revealed a dark secret. Tucked under her arm was a little quilt. Since then,there has been a proliferation of quilts. Madette is not one of those people who spent their childhood with a needle and thread, or even a pot of paint and paper. From the moment she could read, she disappeared into a book. Her chosen look is more black and purple sub-goth than country girl. Now beds, settees and chairs are each covered with a quilted offering. Beautiful, every one.

So here they are, sitting in the sunshine after our day out.

And what could make it more perfect? A surprise visit from Junior Mad. Just for dinner and an overnight stop.

Such a perfect day ... I'm glad I spent it with you. Lou Reed

Just as well really, since the car service albatross has just flown over and crapped on me.

Mumbling Roast Rhubarb Tart

2010-05-18T13:30:00.007+01:00

Back in April Mountainear published a fab recipe for new season's rhubarb. A roasted tart with a crême fraiche custard. It looked so delicious that I borrowed it. Trouble is that you need to make it to share, don't you?

So this last weekend, we had visitors.

And when they went there was a small leftover slice ... and obviously the Collie won't eat it, will he?

My friends are keen walkers so we went out to do one of the local hills.

First of all, we had the debate about the definition of what makes a mountain. I had always been told that it needed to be 3000ft above sea level. That means that none of the peaks in the southern half of Wales count. But there was a view that it was only 1000ft. I think that's a bit of a cheat.

Anyway, this was 663m or 2155ft. Fan Nedd.

The Collie complained all the way up. I was the one carrying the pack not him. Anyway, at the top, I remembered that my camera was on the kitchen table, so these are their photographs. The line running between my ears is Sarn Helen, a Roman road.

Our reward when we got to the top ...

... this wonderful view all the way to the sea. The Bristol Channel and the Mumbles.

Mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful

2010-05-12T10:09:00.004+01:00

"The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful." - e.e. cummings on Spring

Grab a dog and wellies and go for a walk.

The Company of Strangers

2010-05-05T11:16:00.004+01:00

I spent yesterday in my least-favourite European city. There seems to be more unwashed people on the streets and in the stations every time I go. Groups of young men huddle in corners and glance over their shoulders. The hostility is tangible. My colleagues are solicitous to make sure that I know where is safe to walk and where my bag is likely to be snatched. An incautious foreigner is likely to find their purse lifted in the bustle on a street corner.

I've always enjoyed hopping on and off public transport wherever I travel and even this miserable city has a reasonably efficient metro. Providing I keep my bags tucked in, I'm happy to miss the taxis.

Opposite me on the metro was a young Muslim mother with her hair neatly tucked into her headscarf. Her baby daughter sat on her lap, wide-eyed with interest in everything about the journey. Next to me was a beautiful leggy black girl with clattering bling that jingled with every movement of her wrist.

The mother battled constantly to stop her daughter putting her hands on the germ covered seat, walls and windows and then stuffing them joyfully into her mouth to rub against her gums. As we pulled into a station, she spotted a dog on the other platform. Desperate to distract the tot, she pointed out the “Ouff, ouff “ to the baby. “Ouff, ouff “echoed the baby. As we pulled out of the station the baby glimpsed an advertisement for a Lion chocolate bar. I followed the direction of her gaze and smiled at her. Immediately, she responded with “Ouaarrrrr”. “Ouaaarrrr”, I agreed back. The black girl chuckled and her bangles laughed too.

The baby was fascinated and the girl unhooked one of the bangles and twirled it round her finger. And then peepo-ed with the baby with her mega-sunglasses that had been perched on her hair. The baby climbed over to sit between us, eyeing my watch as she did so. I flicked my wrist and held it to her ear. It’s a traditional sort of watch and ticks. She sat leaning against the watch and spinning the girl’s bangles.

Pretty soon, we were at my station. We all smiled and baby-waved “bye, bye”, "au revoir", "tot ziens".

Mothers, daughters, sisters.

ROMANES EUNT DOMUS

2010-04-23T09:36:00.007+01:00

The BNP have elaborated on their policies. I can't even write "BNP" without feeling ashamed. Let's get it right. The Fascists.

They are planning to offer grants for people to voluntarily resettle in the lands of their ethnic origin. Right: hand over the money and I'll be back over the Severn Bridge as quick as a flash. Ah no. On closer reading, it's about foreigners.

I am deeply ashamed that my country (yes, MY COUNTRY) can countenance the claptrap spouted by these people. I am proud of the fact that we can give homes to people who are oppressed in their own country. My son and daughter would never have been born if their father's family hadn't fled to Britain from the pogroms of Eastern Europe.

And the economic migrants. They come to our country and work in our hospital and offices and CLEAN them. I confess that I nicked that line from Jeremy Hardy on last week's News Quiz.

If we believe in our freedoms, then I suppose that the BNP are entitled to hold and promote their opinions. But we really do need to look critically at their data. Looking at information from the Office of National Statistics, rather than the Daily Mail, it is likely that approximately 10% of people living in Britain were not born here. That's about 6 million people, give or take. And how many British people choose to live or work abroad. About 5.5 million. So the net is about half a million. This number is subject to some churn as people return to their country and others travel abroad but, overall, there is a net inflow of about half a million. It's reckoned that this may have reversed in the current economic climate.

The problem is about ghettoisation and disaffection. That applies to young men being redicalised by strange and undesirable religious leaders but much more so to the underclass of uneducated young white males. Yes, it's not easy but I am proud that I belong to a tolerant country that has been enriched not diminished by migration.

Now then, about sorting out these foreigners. Who would they be? Damn, it'll only be a handful of us Beaker Folk left. All you Celts and Angles and Vikings can bugger off back to where you came from. And apparently, it'll be us Beaker Folk stuck up a few hills that will be sending you on your way.

And as for you Romans....

Romanes eunt domus ...er no... Romani ite domum.*

*Monty Python : "Life of Brian" Latin lesson by centurion for Brian daubing graffiti

P P B B D

2010-04-09T10:41:00.016+01:00

Look away now if you’re easily offended.

I’ve just been reading Alright Tit and it made me think about the cussing I’ve known.

A little while ago,
Some mothers do ave em made me laugh with tales of her potty mouth experience. Have a read … howl with laughter and squirm with embarrassment for her.

We've all been there.

I used to call them "driving words" in front of the children because my bad language was mainly heard when we were in the car. I carefully explained that sometimes Mummy needed to use bad words but you can only use them when you are driving. When you are grown up and you can drive blah, blah... you get it.

Some friends had the driving word rule too. They were driving to the West Country for a family holiday. Somewhere around Honiton, there was a humungous traffic jam and someone decided to create new traffic rules. My hot and bothered friend expressed the opinion that the perpetrator’s parents were unlikely to have been married. They looked guiltily at the back seat but the children were engrossed in the Thomas the Tank Engine tape. Phew. Eventually they got to their destination in the heat of the day with the windows wound down. Someone cut in front as they drove into the car park. Their four year old son was quick off the mark and hollered “BASTARD” at the holidaymakers.

I thought I had it nailed on the driving word front. Felt really proud of myself. It all unravelled horribly when I took Madette and Junior Mad to visit my mother. We had a truly awful journey culminating in a puncture on the M4. It required the full quota of driving words. They were so impressed when we got there that they spilled out of the car full of excitement, dead keen to tell their grandmother about the vicissitudes of the journey. Junior Mad explained that Mummy had used all sorts of driving words in many and varied combinations. She asked them WHAT were driving words. Madette, alert to the fact that this might need editing said "Oh things like bloody and bugger, Nain" but Junior Mad added "And fuck". We had a great day. My mother tore my ear off.

In 1991, an interesting combination of circumstances brought a boy from Czechoslovakia to stay. He was a monster; more of that another time. At the time, the wonderful Juno was our nanny. It was a hot summer’s afternoon and we were going to Sport’s Day at school. Czech-monster-boy had already had a run in with Juno when he refused to get into appropriate summer clothes and had sulked because we weren’t going to let him sit in front of the television all afternoon. Everyone was loading stuff into the car. CMB stomped out of the front door and slammed it behind him. Locking my house keys and car keys indoors. I quickly discovered that my children would have made good apprentices for Fagin and we broke in after about half an hour. CMB was vile all afternoon, spitting out the picnic on the lawn. By the time we got home, I was frazzled beyond. Madette and Junior Mad went to play and Juno took CMB off for a little pep talk. As I unpacked the remains of the picnic, CMB appeared by my side. “I’m sorry Mrs Mad”. “That’s alright, CMB”. “No, Mrs Mad, I’m a total fucking prat”.

So back to my mother. Dad swore like punctuation. Mainly “bloody hell”. If it was bad, “Duw, bloody hell”. Mam didn’t really do the swearing thing and I got a sharp slap if I indulged. Bad language on television had her shooting across the room to hit the off button. When I was about twelve, someone had graffitied “Fuck” on a bridge near home. I’m not sure if it was a statement or a command, but she insisted that I cross the road and not look at it. Sometime in the mid 1990s, we were visited by the Jehovah’s Witnesses when she was staying with us. The JW had waylaid one of the household at the front door and would not leave, despite pleas of belonging to another faith, lack of interest etc. By this time, my mother was everyone’s idea of a grandmother : eightyish, white curls, apple cheeked and rather round. She trotted to the door, took in the “Watch Tower” clutched in the JW’s paw and bellowed “BUGGER OFF”. The JW fled, leaving an umbrella abandoned in the porch. We left it there for a few days in case they felt brave enough to sneak back up the drive to collect it. Fifteen years on, it’s still in my umbrella stand. Clearly, hell’s grandma was sufficient deterrent.

And if you’re wondering about the title … the fabulous Flanders and Swann wrote a song that starts “Ma’s out, Pa’s out, Lets talk rude: Pee Po, Belly, Bum, Drawers”.

Recession bites

2010-03-30T09:29:00.013+01:00

Almost exactly one year ago, I gave up the fight and succumbed to having another dog in my life. Beautiful Bella had been a princess in every sense of the word and was loved every day of her long and wonderful life. A very short time later, Mossie arrived. Old, battered and scared, he only lived for another 15 months and I swore that I wouldn't have another old dog. After three months of absolute misery without a dog to come home to, I gave in and, would you believe it ... this one was older, blind and had been been brought from an Irish rescue where he had been attacked by the other dogs.

This was Spot, almost a year ago. His back was a mess and look at those troubled ears. It may be the scary bint hugging him that was making his ears lie back, of course.

He still sometimes gets troubled by odd things but his back is completely healed and he is a happy family boy who gives such a lot of love.

And to my point. He came from a rescue that works in collaboration with Rescue Remedies. They take on the un-cute dogs. The difficult to home dogs. Have another look at Spot and you'll see what I mean. Even in the good times it's hard to raise funds and now ...

So, if you've got a quid or so to spare, they would be very grateful. I know that there are so many good causes, human as well as animal, but even one pound would help support them.

Rescue Remedies Donation Page

The Fab Four and Me

2010-03-27T13:38:00.013Z

It all started in 1962. "Love me do" came out round about my tenth birthday. It was occasionally played on the Light Programme. That was what we called Radio 2 in the olden days. If you twiddled the knobs on the valve radio in the kitchen you could get Radio Luxembourg on 208m medium wave but only in the evenings. Wall to wall popular music even if it did fade in and out a bit.

I was listening to Radio Luxembourg on November 22nd 1963 when the news broke that JFK had been killed.

They must have got fed up of me sitting with my head flat against the speaker case because for Christmas 1963, they bought me one of those new fangled transistor radios. My mother didn't really approve and thought that I wouldn't look after it. It's just had its 47th birthday and it's still going strong. No FM tuner obviously. They no longer make batteries to fit so the new sized batteries are wedged in place with a bit of Lego.

I screamed my way through 1963 and 64, expanding my knowledge of the whereabouts of the Beatles through Radio Caroline and my purchase of the Beatles Monthly Magazine. I knew all the lyrics to every song. I had all the lingo. "Fab", "Groovy", "Gear". I can tell you this for certain because I wrote them down in my diary and used every opportunity to use them to the complete bafflement of my parents.

The Royal Variety Performance of 1963 was the best thing ever broadcast on the BBC. And I was prepared to put anyone straight who dared contradict me. Lennon's remark on how the royals could rattle their jewellry in time to the music was devastatingly witty. And so daring. Go on, I was only eleven.

The radio was great but the thing to have was a Dansette record player. That way you could spend all your pocket money on records and play them till they wore thin.

I was desperate for one. My birthday had come and gone without one appearing. But my Christmas stocking in 1964 was a bit thin: a nice soap, a tube of smarties, some tangerines and nuts. Because, there was my record player. Pale blue, with a stacking spindle so you could play up to six records and a latch on the turntable so you could secure it to transport the whole thing like a small suitcase. And records. They had agonised over music. Dad wanted me to have a selection of good music and "none of that rubbish". So there were some classical albums, a selection of the number 1s from the autumn, the current number 1 "I feel fine" and my very first Beatles album. Mono, thick plastic with a heavy rim that the pickup arm hopped onto with a hiss and a scratch.

In November 1964, they played in Cardiff. I sent my postal order in for tickets. Bitterly disappointed, my money was returned. They were overwhelmed by hopefuls.

Each month I bought my copy of Beatles Monthly and in 1965, I entered a competition run by the magazine to win a ticket to one of the venues in their 1965 tour. The December 12th 1965 performance was in Cardiff at the Capitol Theatre, which mainly showed films. Dad didn't want me to go but after many tears they were persuaded that I would be chaperoned by someone from the magazine.

There were several support acts but really I couldn't have cared less. I watched spellbound as their short set flashed by. "Nowhere Man" has been my favourite song ever since. At the end we were ushered out to wave at the Fab Four as they were escorted to their limousine and then they left. That was their last proper UK gig.

I can remember exactly where I was when I heard that John had been shot. Thirty years, this December. I know he became bit strange and developed some bonkers ideas and offended a lot of people. Poor George. A sad end but with a wife who loved him and even defended him against a dangerous intruder with a fireplace poker. Go, Olivia. Ringo. Yes. Well I forgive him for Thomas the Tank engine because it kept my children quiet for many hours. Paul. Marrying Heather was perhaps not his brightest decision and he should give up on the hair colour. But, what fabulous music they've left us with. I'm hoping to see Macca this summer, back in Cardiff again.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A wound that never heals

2010-03-22T14:11:00.002Z

Love is the sweetest thing
What else on earth could ever bring
Such happiness to ev'rything
As Love's old story.

Love is the strangest thing
No song of birds upon the wing
Shall in our hearts more sweetly sing
Than Love's old story.

Whatever heart may desire
Whatever fate may send
This is the tale that never will tire.
This is the song without end.

Love is the greatest thing
The oldest yet, the latest thing
I only hope that fate may bring
Love's story to you.

This last week I've had the chance to reflect on love. I've had an alliterative weekend visitng friends with alarmingly similar names.

C&C Somerset met in later life and are blissfully happy. They live in a wonderful dog-filled home with a garden that keeps them busy most days. They visibly cherish the privilege of love.

C&C Cornwall look forward to their silver wedding this year. Retirement beckons with a home looking out over the Atlantic in a village that has become home. Half a lifetime and three daughters have brought them a familiarity but never losing respect. Tender moments pass between them like little private starbursts.

C&C Devon have been married for over thirty-five years. Life has dealt them a cruel blow. With three sons just grown up, they looked forward to a retirement of dog-walking and National Trusting with the occasional treat for big birthdays. Last Autumn, she was taken desperately ill suddenly and continues to have brutal treatment to keep the illness at bay. Suddenly, they are conscious of the need to blend practicality with loving moments. The freezer is well stocked and they have made sure that the words are not left unsaid.

My path is single with a dog to keep me company. My footprints, his pawprints. But still love.

Here is a wound that never will heal, I know,
Being wrought not of a dearness and a death,
But of a love turned ashes and the breath
Gone out of beauty; never again will grow
The grass on that scarred acre, though I sow
Young seed there yearly and the sky bequeath
Its friendly weathers down, far Underneath
Shall be such bitterness of an old woe.
That April should be shattered by a gust,
That August should be levelled by a rain,
I can endure, and that the lifted dust
Of man should settle to the earth again;
But that a dream can die, will be a thrust
Between my ribs forever of hot pain.

Gardening for collies

2010-03-18T14:00:00.002Z

You just lie there in the sunshine and wait for the woman to get on with it, evidently!

Trumpet of a prophecy

2010-03-02T14:00:00.006Z

If Winter comes ...

... can Spring be far behind?

Dydd Gwŷl Dewi Sant hapus

2010-03-01T13:57:00.003Z

Happy St David’s Day

Driving for the deaf

2010-02-26T14:10:00.014Z

In 1936, my grandfather bought the first family car from Alfred Chaston’s in Blackwood. New cars were great novelties and it was assumed that you wouldn’t know how to drive. So they chucked in a set of lessons with the car.

Grandpa was 57 years old and had no intention of learning to drive. Too old, by far: my age now!. My father, aged 19, was to be the family driver.

Driving had become a dangerous pastime. In 1934, 7,343 people were killed on Britain’s roads. There were only 2.4 million vehicles on the road, 1.5 million of which were cars. The driving test was introduced in 1935. Initially, the test was voluntary. Another world, eh?

The second edition of the Highway Code had just been published. It was 24 pages long and there were only 10 road signs to learn. It cost 1d. No, I don’t mean 1p, I mean 1d, there were 12 in a shilling and 240 in a £. It still included advice to drivers of horse drawn vehicles to ‘rotate the whip above the head; then incline the whip to the right or left to show the direction in which the turn is to be made.’

After his eight lessons, Dad was test-ready. The examiner met him at Chaston’s, Dad handed over his 7/6d (37.5 p) and off they went. The test involved:
• Eyesight - he could see the birds on the trees on the other side of the valley.
• Highway Code Questions – with only 10 road signs, that was easy too
• Emergency stop – the examiner banged the dashboard with his clipboard and you stood on the brake. The little car halted eventually. You prayed that there was no-one under the car, or even worse, behind …
• Hand / arm signals – rigid (right turn), rotating (left turn), and slowly up and down (slowing down)
• Reverse left – round a corner watching out for the person you nearly got in the emergency stop
• Turn in the road – not as easy as it sounds. No power steering and if you stalled, you had to get out and start it with a starting handle.
• General driving – this was all over in thirty minutes and, anyway, he could turn the car on a sixpence.

Nearly done … except. Applying for your licence, you had to state whether you had any disabilities. When he was three years old, he had been seriously ill and this left him profoundly deaf. No hearing aids gave him anything approaching normal hearing.

The examiner hopped out of the car and produced one of these. Standing in front of the car he squeezed the bulb end and then jumped back in. Fresh-faced and eager, Dad turned to him. The examiner hollered “Did you hear that?” “Yes!” he replied enthusiastically. He never worked out whether the air horn had indeed made a noise.

Tick.

Passed.

He drove every day for the rest of his life, more or less. My mother never failed to remind him that she had learned to drive before him (1933). And he never failed to remind her that, unlike her, he had taken and passed his driving test.
So, Megan . What are you waiting for? It’s much safer now. In 2008, there were 2538 road deaths but with over 30 million vehicles. Still, drive carefully.

For Renee

2010-02-24T16:22:00.010Z

One of the last times that Renee posted on my blog she said that she would like a piece of pie. She hasn't been up to eating much of late so this is all for her.

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead mean naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Through they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

No place for a decent woman

2010-02-15T12:46:00.010Z

My grandfather died in 1927 leaving his widow to bring up five children. The eldest daughter was already in work and the next eldest had to leave school immediately. My mother was nearly twelve and in grammar school. She dreamed of a life outdoors and longed to go to agricultural college in Usk which had just started to admit women. She was crushed when she was told that she would be able to stay in school until sixteen to study book-keeping, shorthand and typing. In 1931, she set off to work in Hampton Court, living as a lodger. Lonely, she missed the family home and hated the suburban environment.

When war broke out in September 1939, my mother had just celebrated her 25th birthday. Girlfriends joined the WAAF and the WRENS, but she knew what she was going to do: she was going to join the Women's Land Army.

Farmers were incentivised to grow more to avoid food shortages, Between May and September 1939, they were paid £2 for every acre of grassland that they ploughed up, for the Battle for Wheat. Two million acres of additional grassland were ploughed in time for the 1940 harvest. The shortfall of 50,000 agricultural workers was to be filled by women and the WLA was formed on June 1st 1939. The farming community thought it was a joke.

Girls were interviewed to see if they were suitable, given a medical examination and enrolled. The official minimum age was 17. Some lied and became Land Girls at 16 or even younger. It wasn't hard to get into the WLA. One girl who wore glasses, was asked to read a sheet of letters of diminishing size. As she struggled with the smaller letters, the doctor said Never mind, I suspect you'd see a charging bull and passed her.

Land Girls had a uniform for healthy, outdoor living. Not for them the smart jackets and nylons. In fact, nothing attractive and everything too big. For "walking out" they wore laced brown brogue shoes, baggy brown corduroy breeches and knee length fawn socks. A green V-necked long-sleeved ribbed jumper was worn over a fawn aertex shirt, with the WLA tie for formal wear! On their heads they wore brown felt pork-pie style hats. A three-quarter length waterproof brown overcoat finished the outfit. At five foot tall, my mother looked like a mobile brown paper package.

Brown dungarees, a matching jacket and wellington boots were issued for work clothes. The dungarees served in the garden through the 1950s and I had all the spare bits of uniform for dressing up. I cut a fine figure in the WLA jacket, breeches with her gas mask on back to front as I yomped through the undergrowth at the end of the garden. The socks were particularly hard-wearing and they survived to be Christmas stockings.

Land Girls were paid a minimum wage of 28 shillings (£1.40) a week, half of which was normally deducted for board and lodgings. If a girl was working more than 20 miles from home, she was entitled to a free journey home after six months. There was no holiday entitlement, paid or unpaid. It was left up to individual farmers to decide when a girl could take time off. They were expected to work 48 hours a week in winter and 50 hours a week in summer, but most girls worked many more, especially during harvest.

Mainly, Land Girls lived in lodgings near or on the farms where they'd been allocated. Mam was sent to Treberfydd Estate next to Llangorse Lake. It was a grand house with a home farm and several tenant farms. They thought that these Land Girls would be just extra pairs of hands in the garden or milking parlour. She was housed in a dormitory with the maids at the top of the house and put to work with the Head Gardener. On her first day he sent her to mow the lawn and the mower ran away with her. He stopped her just before she landed in the lake. Just another silly girl who knew nothing about the countryside.

Farm machinery was made for and operated by fit men, used to the physical requirements of the job. She was so petite that she struggled to even get onto a horse, needing an orange box on top of the mounting box .
This was Kit and he was her best friend until she made friends with a local family at Cathedine. But this was going to be the best of times: she determined to make the best of life in the countryside and her friends were friends for life.

While away in the 1930s, she had learned to drive, unusual for a woman. She took to the tractor like a duck to water and could turn in awkward field ends and get through gates without mishap. By the harvest of 1941, she was the main tractor driver on the farm. The brand new Massey was hers!

At the end of the war, the WLA was still required for several years until the male agricultural workers returned to the land. On October 21st 1950, the WLA was officially disbanded. The National Farmers' Union protested. The women had turned out not to be such a joke after all.

In 2008, the Land Girls were recognised with a special badge. Surviving Land Girls were eligible to apply for the badge or their relatives could apply on their behalf if they had died after the badge was announced.

Sadly, my mother died in 2002 so I was not able to apply for her badge.

So this is for her.

My sky

2010-02-12T14:19:00.005Z

Inspired by Saz at Fab, Feisty and Fifty , I thought that I'd dig this old photograph out.

Bolt Head, taken from Bolberry Down with the Ham Stone in the foreground. December 28th 2003, just after dawn.

Lat 50:14:17N Lon 3:50:16W

Something for the weekend, eh?

Carbon Pawprint

2010-02-09T20:45:00.004Z

One tonne of CO2 a year. Just for one old collie. It's all that meat he eats apparently.

The average human in the developed world generates 14 tonnes and an, by contrast, only one tonne in the developing world.

A study published last week seemed to cover all the ins and outs of keeping cats and dogs in modern Britain There used to be six million of each and now there are ten million of each.

People with degrees are more likely to have cats. The reason is unknown but it's conjectured that people with degrees are more likely to have serious jobs and so don't have the time to give to a dog. Hey ho. Most of my friends are dog owners so that must make us a bunch of thickos. Nice thickos, though.

Anyway, who would need a degree when you can have a collie? A blind collie who can open kitchen doors. Shame he didn't know how to switch off the burglar alarm.

So, one tonne of CO2. They said nothing about the methane.

Second City Sadness

2010-01-25T11:18:00.003Z

A walk followed by a pub lunch. My son and the collie. Smashing.

We chose a pub where we’ve eaten several times. Not a fabulous gastropub but a friendly place where you can get a respectable lunch, even slightly later on a Saturday lunchtime. Reliable pub grub.

We ordered our drinks and wandered over to a table, grabbing the menu as we went. Settling ourselves down, I needed to manoeuvre around a young man in a wheelchair with his leg extended on a support. He was sitting with his girlfriend and some friends. I glanced across again and saw that there was another young man at their table, also in a wheelchair.

We made our selection from the menu and I went to the bar to order. Turning round, I realised that there was another man in a wheelchair at another table, also with family. As I sat down at our table, I took in the table to our right. There were four young men sitting there, all in wheelchairs.

Each wheelchair carried the paraphernalia needed for its occupant. The urine bag, the wound drain, the pain relief drip.

The least injured had lost a foot. Most had lost one leg, chiefly above the knee. Some had both legs missing. One young man had a stump remaining for his right leg and, it appeared nothing left at all on the left, including his hip. His wheelchair sported a greater selection of tubes and bags and he had a foam support keeping him upright.

Dark humour all around. They chatted casually about where they had been injured and who had died alongside them. One talked about feeling that he was lying in cold water when his leg had been blown off. He was wounded on the last day of 2009. Throwaway references to places I hear on the news each morning. Camp Bastion. Lashkhar Gah. Helmand. The pain killers and the morphine needed to bring them back on the long flight. “I never expected to come back without a bum”.

Junior Mad and I ate our lunch quietly. When it was time to go, the Warrant Officer accompanying these young men looked across at me and smiled. Did he see the sadness in my look? It seemed feeble to sit there with tears pricking my eyes. What did I have to be sad about? I was sitting there with my son, both legs intact, older than any of those boys.

As we left, they were setting off for their return journey to the West Midlands Rehabiliation Centre. Each one donned wheelchair gloves and they were lining themselves up to wheel themselves back. No ambulances or mini-buses. Just learning to get on with the rest of their lives.

Don’t bother telling me that we have a professional army and these young soldiers signed up for this very job. They chiefly come from the parts of the country where there is no longer a manufacturing base, they have minimal educational qualifications and their only expectation is a life on benefits.

Perhaps Brown or Blair can explain what the hell we're doing there. We've been there since October 7th 2001. Such little progress has been made that they cannot afford to run parliamentary elections.

Have a look at the map. Do you think it's worth it?

Free and simple pleasures

2010-01-11T14:01:00.018Z

I've been tagged by The Wife of Bold . My top ten simple pleasures. Ha! Simple pleasures. Me? The High Maintenance Woman?

Well here they are...

1) Reading in bed, with a cup of tea. Complete bliss.

Not complete without a collie, of course.

2) Going to sleep.
This is such a luxurious, indulgent feeling that I will sometimes shake myself back awake, just to enjoy it all over again.

3) Climbing to the top of one of the hills There and enjoying the 360 degree view.

4) Waking up and remembering that Madette or Junior Mad has come to stay. Even better: both.

5) Bach's Goldberg Variations, played by Murray Perahia.

From the first note to the last, it is sublime.

6) Radio 4. Melvyn Bragg's "In our time", "I'm sorry I haven't a clue", "The Archers" and so much more.

God's own radio station.

7) Cooking for friends. Maybe not free but it doesn't have to be expensive ingredients. Such a pleasure to make a meal to share.

8) Watching the red kite. I could watch their graceful flight for hours. And usually do.

9) A moment of sheer vanity. The colour of my eyes. They're green. Proper green. Not a bit green with some blue or grey. Just green. As a teenager, I hated most bits of my body. My shape, my hair, my skin. Yeuch. At about the age of twenty, someone commented on the colour of my eyes. Taking off the glasses and looking hard into the mirror (one of those "Goodness, Miss Jones" moments), I realised that they really are green. I've liked them ever since.

The colour green hidden in this icicle, in fact.

10) Sitting with a collie head resting on my knee.

Love given and received.

And I have an eleventh pleasure. Reading your blogs. Keep them coming. They are such an enjoyable experience. And if you've got this far ... what are your ten free and simple pleasures?

Ring in the valiant ... ring out the darkness of the land

2010-01-01T07:52:00.006Z

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson. In Memoriam.

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda .... Happy New Year

Fewer wolves, but still bears

2009-12-31T13:17:00.004Z

By the time I was born, there were fewer wolves in Wales than in Dylan Thomas' day. But even so, you had to be careful with the bears.

In November, my parents had moved into the ramshackle farmhouse that was to be their home for the next fifteen years. Cold and draughty, they struggled to make it a cosy home for their first Christmas in their own home with their baby. My mother battled to keep it and me clean with little hot water heated in the copper. A neat and proper woman, she liked everything to be "tidy" as we say. She ironed everything with the flat iron, warmed on the top of the range. It was a cold and icy December and every day my father worked long hours, outdoors. His gloves and socks hung over the warming oven of the rayburn to dry off. By December 24th, they were tired to the bone. She dressed the tree and hung up some paper chains but was was exhausted and went to bed before he came home that night. He had been working until nearly midnight to have Christmas Day off.

She was disappointed that he hadn't been there to lay the baby's stocking in the inglenook and put the cheerful presents under the tree. But at least they would be together on Christmas morning and he wouldn't have to get up at five o'clock.

Waking early, she tiptoed downstairs to make him a cup of tea. The doorway at the bottom of the stone staircase opened into the sitting room and the latch was noisy so she left the door open to make her way back upstairs quietly. Boiling the kettle in the kitchen, she heard the baby stir. A snuffly cry that turned into a good morning moan. By the time she'd got back to the latch door, he'd wrapped the baby up and come downstairs. A warm lie-in was not on the small tyrant's agenda.

Anyway, he seemed happy to stay in the sitting room. Strangely happy. Enthusiastic, you might say.

He edged her towards the tree and, amongst the jolly, colourful presents, she saw two parcels wrapped in brown paper. When she asked what they were, he simply shrugged and gave a little sly smile. Opening the first parcel she found an electric iron. Bliss. This wonder of technology lasted over twenty years, flattening all our clothes into obedience.

And in the other parcel was The Bear.

His paws went thin about thirty-five years ago and so I gave him velvet re-treads. His eyes have lost a little of their sparkle but they are original. One ear was chewed by a dog and needed to be stitched back. His fur isn't what it was and so I knitted him this sweater in the sixties. When I was about five, I gave him a bit of a haircut. His nose has worn away to a little snub. In the late fifties, he stopped growling and only said "clunk". Revising for finals in the summer of 1974, I leaned against him as I yawned my way through Lipsey's "Positive Economics". Suddenly, he found his voice. "Clunk ... errrrr", he said. A Keynesian comment, I think.

He celebrated his fifty-seventh birthday on Christmas Day. He's led a great life.

"Clunk ... errrrr"

Bring out the tall tales now

2009-12-18T10:21:00.006Z

"Years and years ago ... when there were wolves in Wales, and birds the color of red-flannel petticoats whisked past the harp-shaped hills, when we sang and wallowed all night and day in caves that smelt like Sunday afternoons in damp front farmhouse parlors, and we chased, with the jawbones of deacons, the English and the bears, before the motor car, before the wheel, before the duchess-faced horse, when we rode the daft and happy hills bareback, it snowed and it snowed.

Ghosts whooed like owls in the long nights when I dared not look over my shoulder; animals lurked in the cubbyhole under the stairs and the gas meter ticked. And I remember that we went singing carols once, when there wasn't the shaving of a moon to light the flying streets. At the end of a long road was a drive that led to a large house, and we stumbled up the darkness of the drive that night, each one of us afraid, each one holding a stone in his hand in case, and all of us too brave to say a word. The wind through the trees made noises as of old and unpleasant and maybe webfooted men wheezing in caves. We reached the black bulk of the house. "What shall we give them? Hark the Herald?"

"No," Jack said, "Good King Wencelas. I'll count three." One, two three, and we began to sing, our voices high and seemingly distant in the snow-felted darkness round the house that was occupied by nobody we knew. We stood close together, near the dark door. Good King Wencelas looked out On the Feast of Stephen ... And then a small, dry voice, like the voice of someone who has not spoken for a long time, joined our singing: a small, dry, eggshell voice from the other side of the door: a small dry voice through the keyhole.

And when we stopped running we were outside our house; the front room was lovely; balloons floated under the hot-water-bottle-gulping gas; everything was good again and shone over the town."

"A Child's Christmas in Wales" by Dylan Thomas

It snowed last night but as he would have said, not the same snow. Not a dumb, numb thunder-storm of white, torn Christmas cards. I did my best this morning walking my blind more-than-slightly wolfy-looking boy through the snow. We walked the first footsteps across the field and he romped through the snow as playful as a pup.

But still not the same snow. Perhaps it will when I'm There.

Entreat me not to leave thee or to return from following after thee

2009-12-14T16:21:00.006Z

After their marriage in July 1951, they moved into “rooms”, a common enough experience for a young married couple at the time. Maintaining modesty while edging past your neighbour on the landing was excruciating. There was little privacy for a shy and virginal couple to get to know each other. Despite this, by the Spring of 1952, she was pregnant. They were now desperate to have their own front door but they needed somewhere with premises for his business. Not just as simple as renting a two-up, two-down.

In the Summer, they found a farmhouse. Enough space for a growing family and the business. It was cold, even in August and had no electricity or indoor sanitation. They made a hard decision and went for it. It would need a couple of months of work to make it habitable but by the time the baby arrived, they would be in. A warm kitchen with a range, one bedroom that would serve and the sitting room with a cosy inglenook. The rest would come in time.

They couldn’t afford the rent on the house and the rooms so they each moved back with their parents while the work was done. Every day when work finished, he started all over again to plumb cold water into the house and to connect mains electricity. They reckoned that it would be alright by the end of October. The baby was due on October 19th and they would be ready to move in by the time she was out of hospital. A touch of impatience brought the baby in early October. In between rushing up and down to the hospital he struggled to have everything ready to move in but it wasn’t right. She came home and went back to her mother to wait. Gradually, through November, he made it habitable and moved his possessions in and camped praying the house would warm up to bring his family home. Every day, she would push the pram up the hill and check it out as the small pieces of furniture arrived.

Eventually, the range was reliable and would stay in all night. Masonry stopped falling down the inglenook and the sitting room was marginally warmer than the outside world. There was still frost on the inside of the bedroom window but hot water bottles in the bed and the 2-bar on for thirty minutes before bedtime made getting to bed a short but acceptable dash. It was a cold and dampish Autumn, like most years. Perhaps a bit colder.

They set a date to move back in together. Friday 28th November. He made arrangements to get help with the business so that he could finish early and, with the Morris 8 loaded to the brim, he took all her clothes, linen and the baby’s layette. It was very cold and overcast, a miserable day but, at least, not raining. His parents were there so that there was tea, ham sandwiches and cake when she arrived. She said she could push the pram up the hill and would be there within the hour. The baby was wrapped up well. Anyway, it didn’t seem as cold now.

As they said their last, fleeting goodbyes, the overcast sky whitened and the first snowflakes started to fall.
“I’ll come back”.
“No, I’ll walk”.
“I’ll come back, please don’t walk”.

She lifted the baby out of the pram and climbed back up the steps into her mother’s house and then went back for the pram. Tears rolling down her face, she hugged the baby, refusing to accept that they would have to stay another day. Her mother and sister silently made up the spare bed.
Outside, the snow swirled and impertinently peered in at the window and fell away mockingly to settle on the ground.
Tea was made and refused.

A squeaky car horn peeped. Outside was the little black car, its tyre tracks the only marks in the snow. With no time to argue or debate, the pram was folded up and bundled into the back of the car. And she was in, still holding the baby tightly. The tiny engine raced as they slipped and slid up the hill. Turning into the yard of the farmhouse, they skated to a halt, home at last.

The in-laws had left the tea on the table and set off for home leaving the young couple and their baby on their own for the first time.

Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge.

From zero to hero

2009-12-09T16:24:00.004Z

It's been just over 9 months since Spot arrived to live with me.

Yes, that was a great big bald bum. Criss-crossed with scars. He was shaved to the top of his tail which made it look detachable.

Soon the hair began to grow over the scars but he had a saddle-back of shorter hair where the shaved bits were growing back. By the autumn, there was a good covering of hair but you can see where the shaved patch was, even around the top of the tail. It wasn't as waterproof either and if it rained, it would get properly wet. Real, outdoorsy collies are waxed, like barbours. All they do is have a shake and all the water is off them and onto the kitchen floor.

Now that it's winter, I'm pleased to report that he's completely covered with a winter coat.

Let's face it, you can't go out annoying the cat without your coat on.

A bit winterish, eh?

2009-11-30T20:17:00.004Z

Gone a bit chilly and damp while I've been away, hasn't it?

Thank you for the enquiries about my disappearing act. Not in prison, banged up Mdnight Express style. Morocco was wonderful. Thoroughly enjoyed my trip. The people, the country and the cuisine were great. I've been a bit busy since I've been back and every time I've been on the point of blogging something else has come up. Work, trying to complete the 2009 project There, a bit of an eyesight issue and a friend knocked sideways by illness are some of my feeble excuses for not doing my homework.

Whle I've been blogged off, I've made the Christmas cakes and done some preparation for next month. How about you?

I remember really looking forward to Christmas. Writing to Father Christmas. Helping my parents hang the decorations. Trimmings we called them. Putting out the crib with cotton wool snow around the scene. I don't think that we had worked out that it wasn't likely that there wouldn't have been much snow in first century Judea. Then there were the in between years of not quite liking and not being indifferent to Christmas. Small children make it a happy time though, don't they? But then the world shifted and I was the jam in the Christmas sandwich. Torn between my husband and mother as she became more confused and needy, I needed to be cloned. Exhausted, miserable, I dreaded the event. Too much food, money spent on toys that no-one needed. Horrible.

These days I enjoy the event again. I ignore most of the material nonsense. Yes, there's too much food around but I don't shop like there'll never be any more food. Yes, there are gifts. But not like an Argos-fest. Quiet and contemplative. The children's service. Nine lessons and carols with my god-daughter's family. Friends and family. Cold walks, warm fires. I hope I'm not a Scrooge. But I might be.

Bah humbug.

Like Webster's Dictionary ...

2009-10-09T10:53:00.004+01:00

.... we're Morocco bound.

Back soon.

Twenty-eight

2009-10-08T09:17:00.008+01:00

I was great at getting pregnant, brilliant at being pregnant, just not so clever at staying pregnant. But here we were, within spitting distance of the end, providing you can spit as far as two months or so.

We were very earnest young parents, determined to do everything right. So, instead of going out for my birthday we went to a “Parentcraft” class. All the other parents in the class were nearer the due date, some of them wondering if they would complete the course. We were worried that we might have forgotten something between the end date and the arrival.

My father-in-law’s birthday was at the end of November and my brother-in-law in early December. They were both smitten by the idea that the baby would arrive on either of their birthdays. I was more alarmed that we would go late and get perilously close to Christmas. Daft tart.

After the excitement of our Parentcraft session, I was ready for bed. My husband fell asleep in front of the television and didn’t wake till after midnight. Just as well, it was the only sleep he got that night.

As he came to bed, I woke with a start. Heaving myself off the side of the bed, I realised that something was amiss. Labour was in full swing.

Going through the ambulance bay, there was an ambulance waiting, doors open, lights on ready to go. It was for us. They’d called a London teaching hospital to see if they could take us. A quick check in the ante-natal suite sent us to the delivery room not the ambulance bay. It was all going too quickly.

“We normally ask parents if they would like to have their baby baptised”. No. No. NO. I was never going to admit that I might lose her.

The ups and downs of the next days and weeks will stay with me forever. I remember the intense blueness of the sky as I gazed out of the hospital window on October 8th. The day before had been summer-ish. I had taken a day off and sat in the garden for my lunch. Autumn crept in as we trudged through each agonising day. When people say “one day at a time”, that’s exactly how we lived. Life developed a new rhythm of days in the hospital, sitting by the side of her incubator. Stroking her back when her ears turned blue-ish. Learning to handle her delicate, downy limbs.

Gradually, she grew. Each 5g gained was a triumph to record. The sucking reflex came and her little tongue would curl and stick out as the feeding tube filled her tiny belly. I could cradle her shoulders between my thumb and forefinger, her arm running along the length of my forefinger.

I watched other babies come and go. The big babies who needed to recover from a difficult labour. One such babe was over 3 times the size of my little elf. Other babies needed a day or so of help and then went home. Some were very ill and needed the privacy of a cubicle. Shocked parents with faces bruised from crying as the hospital chaplain stayed with them.

Gradually she grew. 10g increments. At 1.8kg, they moved her to a crib. All her energy went in keeping warm and we hovered on the brink of returning to the incubator. But then she made progress again. Wakeful and alert, she would fix her eyes wide open and would gaze, small and furious, into my face.

Home. I remember dressing her in this little outfit. A friend’s mother had knitted the jacket and bonnet from a doll’s pattern.

Home. Chaos. We never did finish those Parentcraft classes. Do you suppose it’s too late to go now?

Happy Birthday, Madette.

May you live all the days of your life

What every woman wants ....

2009-10-07T23:46:00.004+01:00

So I went out for dinner. Rather a trendy restaurant. A glass of fizz. Shared a bottle of wine. After all, I wasn't driving, was I?

Arrive home, to see the house lit up like Blackpool illuminations. As I get out of the car, a fire engine, all blues and twos pulls up on the drive. Followed by another one.

My alarm system has been playing up. It phoned the mother ship and they phoned me. I was out, having a birthday. It said that the smoke alarm was sending out a signal. So they called out these hunky firemen.

Tomorrow, ADT will be sending out an engineer to check out the system. I'll bet he's drop dead gorgeous too.

Woo hoo.

Heinz Variety Birthday

2009-10-07T10:53:00.003+01:00

Oh dear ... how could I have got this old? There's still a 23 year old lurking inside.

Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.

Like a fish needs a bicycle

2009-09-25T16:34:00.011+01:00

Love. Not much of an expert. I’ve been in love a couple of times. I loved my husband truly, madly, deeply and then dearly, solidly, faithfully but when love receded, we were left, two people in middle years with no common ground. Two people locked in separate towers. The loving companionship that I’d looked forward to once our children were grown wasn’t there. No shared interest, unless you counted a whopping great mortgage. I fell in love with the man who promised to share the rest of my life with me. To love and care for me. Beyond the physical, we shared so many things. Books, music, ideas. I never stopped loving him. He buggered off.

So here I am, on my own and enjoying the equilibrium. Happy enough. Not enough of an expert in being in a happy relationship to dare to offer any advice to anyone. I do know a bit about unhappiness and, umm, being middle-aged. And I can smell and taste unhappiness in a house made miserable with a toxic relationship.

Once the passion draws back and we’re left looking into the distance, there has to be more than love to keep us going. Once the children are grown and the mortgage paid off, there has to be a sustaining friendship. Knowing what will interest the other. Taking pleasure in surprising the other with small treats. Sitting companionably in the car not needing to talk. Respecting each other’s independence as well as anticipating their needs.

I have friends who have enjoyed long, loving, faithful and respectful marriages. I read many blogs where people find companionship and solace so I know that it’s doable. They have willingly given up the hurly-burly of the chaise-longue for the deep, deep peace of the marriage bed.

So this brings me to my friend. Her husband is rude and disagreeable. He makes no effort to be welcoming and polite to people. If you don't agree with him, you are automatically labelled as stupid. He feels no awkwardness in shouting at visitors.

But much worse is the way that he treats my friend, his wife. The person he promised to love and honour.

He belittles her at every opportunity. She appeases him. He denigrates her looks and figure. She worships him. He criticises every opinion that is not his own. She brings him titbits and morsels to please. He drives her friends away by his foul moods. She excuses him.

I read a quotation by Nietzsche “It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages."

Watching them, I see no friendship, only an abuser and victim. For years, I've kept my, admittedly mouthy, gob shut. Of late, other mutual friends have deliberately taken me aside to talk about the situation. Indeed, I gave a stranger (to me) a lift and within 10 minutes, she had brought the subject up.

Someone asked me if there is any likelihood that my friend will read this. Not bloody likely. He supervises her use of the internet and filters her emails.

This fish don't need a bicycle like that.

Middle Earth

2009-09-23T15:10:00.006+01:00

For all of you who have wondered whether I'd disappeared, here are some photographs that I took a couple of weeks ago. The support stocking being off and the holes in the leg just looking ugly but not hurting, I joined a fabulous walk.

The Shire

JRRT stayed near here and this landscape is believed to have been the inspiration for some of his Middle Earth passages. In the distance, you can see the highest point in the Brecon Beacons. The river meandering through is the Usk. The sky really was that blue and the greens were that green. Of course, the only way you get a really green landscape involves quite a lot of rain. Shame about July and August, or the monsoon season as we've learnt to call it.

A harebell - campanula rotundifolia

Also called witches' thimbles, fairy bells and Old Man's bells (where the old man is the Devil). This little clump was at the top of the hill. Maybe Tolkien saw elves there as well.

Spottie Boy enjoying a rest at the top

Look, he's got fur on his back again. Isn't he handsome? Not the poor, bald and scarred / scared boy who arrived last April.

See I knew that I'd stop being a whining old git. Some of the crap has diminished and when I read other people's blogs, I know that I have a lot to be happy about.

A mountain of poo

2009-09-07T09:21:00.005+01:00

I'd like to apologise for the image. I hope you weren't eating or suffer from a delicate constitution.

Just lately, I haven't felt much like blogging. Or at least, not blogging without whining.

Rather than making me happy relaxed, my holiday ended up being cut in half and I just seemed to be stressed and miserable. Lots of stuff got in the way of it being a happy time. Only stuff, but just adding to the small hillock of manure.

Partly, this was down to the fact that I sussed out a month or so back that the legs weren't all they were cracked up to be. In the hot weather back in June (yes, there was some but it was before the school holidays), the right one started to swell up. Only a little bit to start with and you probably wouldn't have noticed. Except, my shoe was too tight. Then there was this tell-tale vein snaking its ugly way down my shin. And a big bruised area that hung around under the skin and was just slightly uncomfortable. Someone dropped a carrier bag containing ring binders onto my leg and immediately it started to swell up with even more bruising under the skin. And just didn't go away. A trip back to see the consultant was already planned and I knew what he'd say. So last Wednesday, off I went for a bit more embroidery. More messing about with support stockings. The dressings came off on the weekend and, as I expected it all looks horrible. Yes, yes, I know it's transient and even today the bruising is much less. But just at the moment, the support stocking has worn a raw patch at the back of my knee and my leg throbs like bloody hell if I'm not either walking or resting it up. I've had it all done before, so why am I so down in the dumps this time?

Madette, my lovely clever baby, has been bitterly disappointed. Something that she wanted so much hasn't worked out. The letter arrived and it was a thin letter. We knew that if it was good news, it would be a fat letter. She asked me to open it. It was kind and thoughtful beyond the need to just give the news. But it didn't stop it breaking her heart. And there is nothing I can do to make it better. All I can do is hug and talk and listen but I can't make it different.

On Saturday evening we went out for a little while and when we came back, lovely blind Spottie Boy had emptied the partly full washing machine. And strewn the laundry all over the floor. When he'd finished that, he had a little chew at the washing machine seal. And pulled it out with some little nibbles. It took me nearly three hours yesterday morning to get it back in place (and work out that the seal wasn't ruptured). My finger tips are raw. My arthritic knuckles are swollen. Last night I couldn't use the knife and fork properly at dinner.

Yes, I know that this is a bleat. Any one of these little turds of unhappiness could be dealt with. All together, they have just overwhelmed the regular mountain of poo. Normally, I can just get on with the daily dose of poo. In fact, I'm the one that turns up with a shovel to help out for other people. But just at the moment, I've lost the ability to keep shovelling.

My fingers will mend. My leg will mend. My Madette's heart will mend.

I just didn't need any of it to be broken in the first place.

Anyone got one of these to lend out? I'm all composted out.

Twenty-six

2009-08-25T14:44:00.005+01:00

Summer 1983 was wonderful. Long sunny days spent playing in the garden waiting for the arrival of Junior Mad. Madette was a delicious little animal who loved to fill her sunhat up with water and hurl it at her resting mother.

After all the scares of Madette's early arrival, I was desperate to avoid seeing the inside of another neonatal intensive care unit. At 27 weeks, we had a few contractions. They subdued them and put me on ventolin for the duration. A scan at 33 weeks showed everything going according to plan. I was just ecstatic to have reached 33 weeks. They talked about an elective C-section at 37 weeks given the size of the monster versus my small frame. Ha! 37 weeks. If only.

At 34 weeks, I talked to the team at the hospital. Cut a deal. If I could get beyond 36 weeks and the baby was in good general health and it all went well, they would treat us as a normal full-term delivery. I bargained with the Devil to get to the end with a lovely healthy baby.

The sand drained through the hour-glass and I reached 35 weeks. One more week to go. Just hang on in there, little one. Monday I saw the midwife. She said you're not going to be here this time next week, are you? No. I knew that already.

Wednesday, the last day of week 36, was filled with low level back-ache. Just ignore it. Wait till it becomes more interesting before registering it. By the early evening, I'd tidied the house into submission and made sure The Bag was packed and repacked.

Staying with my "keeping it normal" plan, we went to the swimming pool for Madette to have a splash with her dad. I opted out. We hadn't planned a water birth.

After the swim, Madette went off for bedtime to a friend. We watched the clock move slowly through midnight. I'd won. I'd kept my part of the deal. We'd made it through the 36 week barrier. Old Harry smiled over my shoulder.

Junior Mad was born at 04:04. At just under 3kg he weighed nearly twice his sister's birth weight. No high tech delivery. No audience of medical staff and students. I screamed bloody hell and then pop. There he was. Small, peaceful man left in my arms while the midwife cleared away. I unwrapped the blanket and stroked his small perfect hands. Slim fingers, oval nails. Just like my dad, who would never see him.

We moved to the post-natal ward to wait out our time before going home. Babies were kept in the main nursery overnight so he would be there until 8 o'clock. Just before 8, a nurse appeared and said that they were going to move him to special care since he was a bit cold in the main nursery. No. I struggled out of bed. No. Angry, tearful, I composed myself and explained that I'd kept my side of the deal. They had no right to fuck it up by letting him get cold. Ignoring the remonstrations that I hadn't rested for my required four hours, I whirled off to the special care unit, flinching at the sound of the apnoea mattress alarms. Get out of my face, Beelzebub. This wasn't part of the deal.

Holding my babe close, I refused to move. His temperature returned to normal almost immediately. The main nursery had a large window thrown open and the first cool autumn morning air was filling the room. All the babies were a bit chilled. Junior Mad just happened to be the newest one to arrive. Grudgingly, I accepted some breakfast but wouldn't let him out of my sight.

The consultant arrived for the ward round. Perhaps, he should stay in for the day? The consultant saw my jaw set and had another flick through the notes. Feeding normally ... lots of experience with a small baby ... healthy in every respect... no reason not to go home. I swallowed the urge to make a sharp comment about knowing how to keep new babies warm as well. A call to the post-natal ward for a quick check over by a doctor for me and that was it.

Home. Watching the small pulse at the top of his head. Skin against skin. Home. Time to keep my bargain with the Devil. He came to extract his payment. No, not my other child. Not even my immortal soul.

Into the hands of Madette, he thrust a small battery operated dog. A consolation for the baby brother who had just invaded her life. It walked, it barked. It enchanted Madette. It drove me nuts. Every time I settled down to feed Junior Mad, she picked the thing up and off it would go. Twenty-six years on, I can still hear it.

Thanks, Satan. You're a mate. I took the batteries out.

Happy Birthday, Junior Mad

The Wrong Vampire

2009-08-19T09:37:00.005+01:00

In 1967, Roman Polanski directed "Dance of the Vampires". A comedy. Yes, THAT Roman Polanski. You know, the one who directed family films like Rosemary's Baby. The synopsis of the plot of Dance of the Vampires runs "The old bat researcher, professor Abronsius and his assistant, Alfred, go to a remote Transylvanian village looking for vampires. Alfred falls in love with the inn-keeper's young daughter Sarah. However, she has been spotted by the mysterious Count Krolock who lives in a dark and creepy castle outside the village ". Along the way they encounter Shagal, the inn-keeper, played by Alfie Bass . Shagal also happens to be a vampire. A Jewish vampire. When a young woman tries to fend off Shagal with a crucifix, he responds "Oy Vey, have you got the wrong vampire".

One of the classic moments of film comedy.

If you've never seen the film, then wait for a lovely cold Saturday evening to hire it. Stay in with a bottle of wine and your favourite sit-in-front-of-a-movie munchies. And prepare to shed tears. It's an absolute hoot.

In the meantime, get out there and give blood. No excuses.

Do something amazing today

Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon

2009-08-06T09:47:00.007+01:00

After my misanthropic, jaundiced eye on the world yesterday, I offer you something a little bit different.

In addition to all the claptrap angels type of email, I also regularly get the ones that warn you about the people who will offer you perfume and drug and steal from you or the ones that tell you about another health scare. There's a lovely load of rubbish going around about red lipstick. The redder the lipstick, the more deadly it is. Between that and the new deadly computer virus that none of the anti-virus vendors can detect, my mailbox gets about 10 of these emails every week.

I'm a bit of skeptic if not an outright cynic. I look at these things and start with the assumption that that they're not true. If you go to the snopes site, you'll see these urban myths and scare stories deconstructed. Invariably, these emails exhort you to send them on to other people and thus save their lives.

But the fact that our friends and families send these things on tells us a couple of interesting things about our interaction with other people, doesn't it? Firstly, we tend to believe what we are told in good faith by those who love and care for us. Secondly, that they care enough to send these things on. Isn't that good? So I try to keep my cynical gob shut or point them at a reasoned explanation. Of course, it doesn't always work and I may get a flea in my ear.

Back in my consequences post, I suggested that we have an obligation to care for ourselves, body and mind. Don't waste your doctor's time with the trivia. If an aspirin and a lie down will get rid of the problem, then take the bloody aspirin. But when we find an irritating little lump or suddenly active mole or blood where there shouldn't be any, we should take it seriously. And go to the doctor. And not be fobbed off. Don't assume that your GP is lazy or an idiot, but they're busy. And only you know your body. And if you really believe that there is a problem, be persistent. It may be comforting to be told that it's probably nothing. But it's not comforting to find out that "probably nothing" is now acute or worse.

So where is this leading? I followed a link and found myself at an amazing blog. Renee . This lovely lady has breast cancer. No lump. Did you hear me? No lump. But she knew that there was a problem and had this horrible nagging doubt for the months that it took for the correct diagnosis to be made. She doesn't castigate her GP because it's a rare form and the GP had never seen it before. Of all the breast cancers, it only makes up 1 to 5%. If you read one of her early posts, she describes the symptoms and so on. Don't read it if you're a hypochondriac. It's very rare. But if you or someone you know, has unexpected changes in a breast, then have a look at her post you don't need a lump .

This being persistent thing is particularly important for those of us in the "Invisible Generation". Fiftysomethings and onwards. We're supposed to be saggy and wrinkly. Everything's gone south. We get aches and pains. We may have to get up to pee in the night (you know I mean you chaps here). We're supposed to get tired. We're a bit more round in the middle than before. Ha! So some little reminders:

Blood coming out of any orifice
Big clue here: blood belongs on the inside. If we cut ourselves, it comes out. For the girlies, remember we get periods about every 4 weeks. More often may happen once in a while. Once you've been through the menopause, they don't come back. We may get a second childhood, but we don't get a second puberty.
That roll of soft white paper hanging on the wall in the bog should not have any red stuff on it once you've used it.

Lumps
Tits, balls, come on, you must know what they feel like by now. No lumps.

Bumps
Strange little things that pop up on our skins. Probably nothing but if you spent every summer in the 60s and 70s lying on a beach covered in chip oil and reading a bonkbuster, check it out.

Getting fat, getting thin
Ok, we may get a bit rounder but not enormous. And if a guy looks like the baby is due any day, don't start knitting. Thin. How desirable. Not if you have no appetite or feel full up or feel queasy. Indigestion after a normal meal? And we may be back to the blood thing too.

Pain
This is NOT the default option for middle and old age. Pain is insidious. What was a minor ache may creep towards agony but we forget that pain is not normal and we just learn to live with it. There may be a certain amount of pain associated with the knees, hips, hands because of wear and tear but this should not be a reason to stop doing anything in your life. And that includes a good shag. And if you're on your own, then your hands need to be your best friends not agonising little claws. How the devil will you operate the vibrator otherwise?

Tiredness and sleep
Sleep is lovely isn't it? I adore that moment of slipping into unconscious warmth. Sleeping as an Olympic sport is not lovely. It means we're missing out on such a lot of life. Being awake at 2 am with only your hands to keep you company is not such a good thing either.
Waking up over and over again for a pee is not so good. And for the gentlemen, when you go, you should go. Not stand in the chilly bathroom for 20 minutes, go back to bed and repeat the same thing over again.

Marbles
My memory started to wobble when I was pregnant with Madette. I'm not sure that it ever came back properly. My mother had dementia. I know the difference. We should still have the same reasoning power and memory. It's not normal to lose your marbles. It's a terrifying prospect, isn't it? But it could be made better by treatment or, tragically, worse by other medication.

Having checked out that you can pee normally, haven't left any telltale streaks of blood anywhere, enjoyed a good meal, can still see the scales when you get on, don't need WD40 on any of the joints, are lump and bump-free and can still manage the crossword, get out there and have fun. Hang-gliding, track-day driving, mountaineering, dancing, shopping. Whatever. None of this is about immortality, it's about avoiding premature death.

Angels and Demons

2009-08-05T09:42:00.006+01:00

Are you pissed off with those sweet, tender emails (usually with flying angels) telling you how to live life and inviting you to send them on to 3, 5, 7 or whatever number people you have in your address book. No? Well, it must just be grumpy old me then.

So in lieu of that stuff, here are some words of wisdom from Scott Adams.

"Dance like it hurts, love like you need the money, work when people are watching"

The Wrong Stuff

2009-07-27T13:18:00.004+01:00

Not so long after the tragic and early death of my brother tragic and early death of my brother , my mother decided that I needed to mix more with children of my own age, preferably little girls.

I really knew boys better than girls, except for school. The boys went to Cubs where they did dramatic stuff like tracking in the woods, cooking over camp fires and, most exciting of all, used penknives. I couldn’t wait.

The first blow was that I couldn’t be a cub. Missing the vital Y chromosome, I was excluded from the Masonic life of woggles, dib-dib-dib, and bob-a-jobbing. I howled with rage. I wanted to be a boy.

Eventually, I was offered Brownies. When we arrived that first evening, Brown Owl was busy with all the dun-coloured little girls. Tawny Owl explained that, if everything went well, then I could make my Brownie Promise and have my own shapeless little brown sack to wear, complete with beret. Effort and application would lead to badges, she beamed. Yes, but what about the weaponry? I wondered. When would I be able to have a penknife? Her smile slipped slightly sideways as she steered me towards the group of little girls. My mother shot out of the door as fast as possible. She’d see me afterwards. Glancing over her shoulder, she gave me a hard stare and a reminder to behave myself.

Instead of setting off for the woods, we went into a big hall. Not on the plan. Which Six would I like to sit with? The Elves, The Pixies? Ok, no knives at the moment but a bit of magick. Oh, yesss. I could do that.

I sat cross-legged on the floor waiting for the incantations to start. Nothing doing. We did some dancing, hopping around on one foot and holding hands. This was getting tedious. There were some badges to award. Handicrafts involving sewing and knitting, demonstrating you could stand on one leg or skip, service requiring you to serve tea and cakes. Boy, was I getting pissed off by now.

Next up was a senior Brownie making the passage to Guides. We all sat in a circle around the Toadstool as this poor galumphing child was hauled over the plaster toadstool by a huffing and puffing Brown Owl and Tawny Owl. The members of the troop all sang, except me.

To be fair, I had no idea what was going on.
To be honest, I didn’t much care, either.

The child next to me asked why I wasn’t singing. I could have said it was because I didn’t know the words. Too easy. I said that I wasn’t singing because it was silly. No, it’s not hissed the knowledgeable one. I turned my complete disdain on her and announced loudly that the whole darned thing was silly.

The next thing I was skimming along the floor with my toes barely touching the floorboards. Was this the promised magick? Nope. Just me being hauled out of the hall at top speed by Tawny Owl. The full anger that can only be generated by a menopausal woman dressed up in a paramilitary uniform came blasting my way. When she paused for breath, I yelled back. Not only was it silly, but I was there under false pretences. There was none of the promised knife wielding and I wanted nothing to do with the stupid, stupid Pixies and Elves. My torrent of rage was brought to a halt by a stinging across the legs. She’d slapped me. Grabbing me by my upper arms, she pushed me down to sit on the steps. Sit there till your mother comes back.

By the time she returned, my fury had slipped away leaving tears and a large red weal on my legs. “Not the right time ..”, “ Perhaps when she’s older …”. Fragments of rejection.

We walked home in silence, my mother rigid with humiliation. She explained to my father that I wouldn’t be going back. She turned to me and asked what I had to say for myself. Hugging the dog, I explained that none of this would have happened if I could only be a boy.

He picked up his cap and a bucket. “Coming to feed the chickens, lovely?”

Another throw of the dice

2009-07-21T14:28:00.007+01:00

A little probability conundrum.

About twenty years ago, I worked in a very sociable office. The camaraderie was great and we tended to do team dinners and so on. One of the team was a young man, a delightful carrot-top, in the "sandwich" year of his degree. He went back to university but stayed in touch. We bumped into each other occasionally in the nineties but lost touch by about 1997.

Last week we made contact through a business social networking site. We exchanged a few catch up emails and shared family photographs. Carrot-top remembers my children when they were youngsters and was stunned to see photographs of them all grown up. I was delighted to see his wonderful red haired genes have appeared in both his daughters.

He suggested that, the next time I was in his neck of the woods, we should catch up for lunch. Turns out we share the same neck of the woods. In fact, the same tree. Carrot-top works at Number 55 and I work at Number 82.
We laughed. A coincidence.

We met for lunch and rabbited away like crazy with a dozen years' of catch up. I brought him up to date on my children's growing up years. My son, a physicist, studied for his first degree at the same university as his brother teaches. Physics.
We laughed. A coincidence.

Carrot-top enquired if Junior Mad had ever had anything to do with the particle physics side of the department. Not for his first degree, I replied, but funnily enough ... The penny dropped. Dr Carrot-top. Carrot-top's older brother. Senior Research Fellow. Dr Carrot-top. Supervising Junior Mad's PhD.
We laughed. A coincidence.

Care to work out the probabilities? Some of these factors are independent and have no link at all to each other and others are connected.

The likelihood that, if we met again, we would work out the coincidence, would be close to 100%. Not definite, but close. Say 95%

That my son went to university in the first place? Probably close to 100% again, given his background. It's close to 40% for the wider population but we know that children of parents with degrees are more likely to go into higher education. Let's call it 75%.

That my son chose to study Physics? A relatively unpopular subject. Say 5% out of the total of subjects studied.

That his brother and my son are are at the same university? There are 85 universities in the UK teaching some sort of Physics. Slightly less than 1%

That his brother supervises my son? About 10% of Physics graduates go on to do a PhD. Quite often they stay at the same insititution. Say about a quarter. Again connected to the whole university and physics thing above.

That we should work so close to each other? We were in the same field twenty years ago so we would be more likely to be working in the same area. There are roughly 120 streets / zones where we would be likely to work. Less than a 1% chance.

Just on my fingers and toes, it's about 1 in eleven million. Still, better odds than doing the National Lottery.

You didn't know I had that many toes did you?

Madette

2009-07-19T10:41:00.005+01:00

MPhil (Cantab)

Thassorl!

In case of an oink

2009-07-16T10:24:00.002+01:00
Ok, not a joke but it got your attention, eh?

I've filched this from Family Affairs , since she has some concise and sensible words on Swine Flu for UK residents, in case you need them sharpish.

Symptoms
Symptoms include a high temperature (38C/100F or higher) and two or more of the following:
cough
sore throat
runny nose
limb or joint pain
headache
vomiting
diarrhoea.

Advice
Follow advice at www.nhs.uk or call NHS Direct on 0845 4647 (08454 242424 in Scotland).

If you are still worried, contact your GP who can prescribe Tamiflu if required.

Do not go to your pharmacy, surgery or A&E without first speaking to your doctor. A friend or relative should collect Tamiflu for you if you are the one that is not well. So beforehand, make sure that you know someone who can be your "flu buddy".

Let's also keep some perspective on this. It still seems to be a mild type of flu. Yes, we see reports in the media of deaths. And these are very sad for those families. But in a bad year, seasonal flu contributes to an extra 20,000 premature deaths. Swine flu like seasonal flu will be worse for people in poor health.

So, Mr Mainwaring, don't panic.

A game of consequences

2009-07-15T13:56:00.010+01:00

My mother believed in Causality, especially when it came to Blame. When something happened it was the direct result of an action. A fine example of Newtonion Physics operating in real life. So when I went into premature labour and Madette popped out some two months ahead of schedule, the first question my mother asked “What did you do?”. Labour had started in the early hours of the morning. It woke me up. So the answer to the question was, “Nothing”. It just belonged in the “stuff happens” category. Probably if you had the diagnostic tools, you could trace it back to something defective in my physiology but there was nothing about the days or even months before that would have given the game away.

A friend, not part of Explaining Nothing , is given to burbling on about Fate. They mumble about Fate having a hand in our lives. We were meant to do something, go somewhere because of Fate. No it wasn’t. Some things just happen at the same time. They’re called coincidences. Sometimes they’re good and sometimes they’re bad. Sometimes we take control of our own lives and don’t pass the buck to poor old Fate.

It’s written in the Stars. Pre-ordained. I share my birthday (date and year) with Vladimir Putin. So we are supposed to share the same love of justice, being even-handed and diplomatic. Well, we both seem to be running to fat in middle age. That’s because we’re Librans. I haven't asked Vlad recently but I put it down to cake. Which one of us would you be most afraid of? Just because I don’t have the ironmongery to hand, doesn’t make me nicer. But it’s got nothing to do with our birthdays.

Rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has a lot of useful pointers for everyday life. “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” I suppose it’s at least a statement of good intent. Isn’t it a shame that we are having such a both turning them into reality. They are known as mitzvahs to the Jews. They've got 613 of them to help the individual and the nation come closer to God and to holiness. However, being closer to the Palestinians seems to be giving the state of Israel a devil of a time with the whole reality of rights. While I’m on the subject, I happened to notice which states hadn’t got round to signing or ratifying the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Amongst the usual suspects are Saudi Arabia, Brunei, Singapore. And the Vatican. Yes, you read that correctly. The Vatican. Please someone explain that to me. Or better still, go and explain it to them.

But these rights. Yes, some of them are in the bleeding obvious category. Born free and equal in dignity and rights. Right to life, liberty and security of person. Not subject to to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. It almost makes you weep for humanity that we have to write these things down.

Perhaps it’s not rights that we need but some obligations. For someone to enjoy their rights, someone else needs to be fulfilling their obligations. So here is my “Declaration of Obligations”:

The obligation to care for your parents when they are old and frail. To sit with them as they leave this life behind. To argue with the bureaucracy for them to give them dignity and comfort.

The obligation to care for your children from the moment of their conception. They did not ask to be conceived. Give them unconditional love while helping them to understand their obligations and realise their potential. To help them grow into fully capable adults able to manage their own lives when you have gone.

The obligation to care for your partner, to support and love so that they can be happy and fulfilled. And through thick and thin.
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds

The obligation to see everyone as individuals because, if you recognise them as each one precious and unique, you will know that you have no right to torture or degrade them or treat them less than yourself.

The obligation to care for the planet so that you don't diminish other people's rights to security, shelter, food.

The obligation to care for your animals. Feed, love, tend with compassion, even when it means letting them go.

The obligation to care for yourself so that you do not diminish the total of human happiness and well-being. By failing to look after your body and mind you deny someone else the possibility for care.

So, not Blame, Fate, the Stars or even Rights. Stuff happens. Deal with it. And remember your Obligations.

What are yours?

The Wrinkled Lemon

2009-07-02T10:04:00.009+01:00

Last week I picked up the "Eat up your leftovers" campaign from Home Mum of Two and I have tried to keep a diary of what I cooked or prepared or bought and what happened to any leftovers.

But before we get into the finer points of my food diary, you should know that I am very boring and, therefore, on work days breakfast is invariably porridge and lunch is always a salad and fruit. The only leftovers are the apple cores, banana peels, orange pith and tea bags. Even I struggle to eat them up. We now have a green bin in the office so that we can dispose of food waste.

Monday
Asparagus spears with a slice of ham and a lump (not a slice, I'm afraid) of homemade bread.

Munched a few strawberries. Strawberries in season are such a treat. To have strawberries and asparagus in the same meal. Heaven. I try to avoid these out of season since, though they look good, they rarely taste of much. Hulls and calixes went on the compost.

Leftovers The end bits of the asparagus. But since this is new season's asparagus, the whole spears are still quite tender and the ends have been diced up and put in the freezer to make soup.

Tuesday
Jacket potato with homemade vegetarian chilli. A few weeks ago I made a pot of this for visitors who couldn't come because I had some kind of flu. Probably not pig flu, but since one of my visitors is not in good health, we gave it a miss. Leaving me with a bucket of the stuff. It's quite tasty but I find it impossible to cook a dish like that for less than six. And I'm mainly on my own these days so I save up this kind of cooking for visitors and then I can have a few small, individual leftover portions. This has been frozen in individual portions. I'll likely be still eating it for the London Olympics. There's a thought. Do you suppose they've got catering sorted out?

Ate up the remaining strawberries.

Wednesday
Salad with grilled mackerel.

Leftovers The mackerel skeleton had quite a lot of flesh so I boiled it up quickly to create a fish stock. Look away now if you're squeamish. The bits of head meat detached beautifully and a patient Spottie Boy was rewarded by his Omega-3 treat. The stock is in freezer for make a fishy risotto. The now naked skeleton was wrapped in newspaper and binned.

Thursday
Went to see the National Theatre's "outside broadcast" of Phedre at my local cinema. It started at 7pm so I had to dash in, walk and sort out dinner for Spottie Boy and then get to the cinema.
Thought I'd grab a pot of yoghurt before I went out and then have something to eat when I got in after the performance. It wasn't going to be too late and I'd be back by 9:30 when I'd have some Marmite on toast.
It's probably not the sort of play that goes well with your dinner. I went with a friend who brought a box of chocs. There's very little that can put me off chocolates. Phedre is more like Eastenders than the Archers. In fact, they knock the Windsors into a cocked hat when it comes to dysfunctional. It's about an older woman who falls for a younger man. Not just an "Am I having a hot flush or is he really cute" kind of a thing. A howling and shrieking and tearing her hair and throwing off all her bling kind of a thing. And did I mention that he's her husband's son from an earlier marriage? And it gets worse ... her husband goes missing and she thinks he's dead. Result. She can chuck away her big knickers, put the bling back on and throw herself at the young man. Who, by the way, has the hots for a pretty young girlie who's been forbidden by his father to marry anyone so that her family will die out. You might gather he is not that keen on the menopausal baggage. In fact, he's a bit of a po-faced prig. He's been "saving himself". Ha! So when he thinks his father is dead, he thinks "Result, me and pretty young girlie can be happy ever after". Then his father returns. Bugger. Not dedded after all. As you might guess, it's all downhill from there. Lies and plots and counter plots. Quite shouty too. Blood and guts trailed across the stage.

Leftovers Box of chocolates. In fridge for a less messy evening.

Friday
There for dinner since I sloped off early from work. Collected Red&Gold Woman in Swindon where she'd been showing off. Alright, working. Dinner was nicoise salad with a liberal trail of anchovies. R&G woman is a caring and compassionate sort but she'd kill for anchovies. Probably with her bare hands. Nice bottle of High Tide Chardonnay. I'm a bit resistant to the New World chardonnays but the High Tide is light and aromatic, more like a Sauvignon Blanc.

A couple of the Phedred chocs. Yum. So much nicer without entrails.

Leftovers a smidge of salad stripped of its anchovies. What, the wine? Leftover?

Saturday
After a quick no-leftovers sort of breakfast we were off to meet up with Cousin J who was also coming to stay for the weekend. Lunch was homemade bread (already made and in the freezer) and cheese, followed by fruit. We ate up the leftover salad.

Leftovers We didn't manage to eat all the bread and cheese and there were a couple of pickled onions to fight another day. Bread will do for toast on Sunday morning. Cheese back in fridge. Cheese rind in dog.

Dinner was my signature dish. Dead deer dinner Casserole vension marinaded in Guinness with a splash of port and some walnuts. Served with Pembrokeshire new potatoes and local Savoy cabbage, stir fried in a whisk of walnut oil and a grating of nutmeg. Ok, I know it's summer but when I offered the Visitors seasonal light produce or Dead Deer Dinner, they wanted DDD.
Pudding was locally produced ginger ice cream.

Did I mention a glass of wine? Whenever, my smashing neighbour comes to dinner, she always stumps up with a delicious bottle of red even if I'm offering her cheese on toast.

Leftovers Enough DDD to feed two people. It's in the freezer waiting for someone to share it with me. A couple of new spuds and a bit of the green stuff remain. This is not the kind of cabbage that Dave Pie & Mash would recognise. Still al dente, it'll fight back. Combined with the potatoes, it made a superior form of bubble and squeak for Monday night.

Sunday
Leftover bread toasted for breakfast. Stumpy end of it now remains. Turned into breadcrumbs to make stuffing at some future date.

Once we had scraped the explosion off the walls and many other surfaces, it was almost time for lunch. We tried our best to earn it by climbing to the top of the hill and then had Sunday lunch in the pub.

Roast beef, Yorkshire pud, roast potatoes, carrots, swede, cabbage. Portions were boy-sized.

Leftovers We admitted defeat and so I whipped out a handy bag and salvaged the meat, veg and potatoes. When you have a dog, you've always got a bag secreted about your person for one reason or another. That's two Sundays on the trot that Spottie Boy has enjoyed a proper roast dinner.

If you didn't eat up all your leftovers for the week of the challenge, you were to suffer the "eat a lemon" punishment. So here's the lemon ... aha more leftovers!

The scent of summer

2009-06-29T09:55:00.003+01:00

If you come a little closer to the screen and sniff, you'll catch the honeysuckle on the evening breeze.

Perfect, eh?

Who ya gonna call?

2009-06-29T09:38:00.004+01:00
Someone overlooked the need to keep this potent mixture (M&S orange and raspberry juice) in the fridge. The ectoplasm got the walls, ceiling, carpet, curtains, duvet cover, sheet, pillowcase and spare blanket. It took 45 minutes to exorcise. But if you look carefully, there's plenty left for later.

Seen in the supermarket, fun-sized version of the fizzy drink called Irn-Bru.

Best comment on it was, "Once you've emptied it, you can fill it back up yourself".
I'd be off to the doctor if I was peeing that colour.

Explaining nothing

2009-06-23T14:56:00.006+01:00

Cousin J was fourteen when I was born. She had an older sister, elegant, witty, clever and very grown up. But J didn’t yet have that scary, sophisticated edge. She had plaits instead. I loved the plaits and would try to twist my crop into what I thought was plaiting. When I was six, we went on holiday and she came too. Her fingers must have been out of their sockets by the end of our holiday since I hung onto them all the time. Then she came back from college a teacher. Miss H while I turned into a repellent teenager without her grace and kindness. She developed a talent for teaching children with special needs. ESN as they were called then. Or backward, or retarded, or thick. She found the little special things that opened the doors in their lives. Caring for her own mother, she spent a huge amount of her time looking out for mine as well. A patient and loving daughter and niece. Both of our mothers are gone and we are still good friends. When I’m There, we spend ages together. I never did have plaits, but thanks to my cousin, I did inflict them on Madette.

Thirty-eight years ago, I arrived at university, wide-eyed and innocent. Dumb and clueless, if you like. My parents dropped me off and I stood at the entrance to the Hall and wondered what to do with my evening. Standing there, suddenly feeling not very grown-up, I looked briefly into my future and saw the next three years as lonely, friendless and very studious. Bugger that, I thought. I had met a girl briefly at an open day and discovered that we were going to be on the same floor. Remembering that she was petite and blonde, I set off to find her. There were only a thousand other freshers so needle and haystack comes to mind. Remarkably, I found her. We had a fabulous three years and stayed close friends after we each married but when Madette was born, we drifted apart and suddenly we hadn’t seen each other for half a dozen years and she was in Egypt with a little girl. We descended into Christmas card exchanges with a one year lag between our news. She rang me up one evening but I was in the middle of Madette and Junior Mad bedtime and didn’t ring back. Her Christmas letter told me that her father had died. She had worshipped her Poppa. I wrote but she didn’t write back. Serves me right for not calling her. In 2000, she sent me a Christmas card with a photograph of her daughter, then eleven. Looking at the picture, I realised I had never seen that child. Heart in my mouth, I picked up the phone and called her. “Hi, it’s Mad. Don’t hang up.” She didn’t. We haven’t.

In 1974, I started work in London. In those far-off days, you could live in a private hostel when you started work while you made some friends and found a place to live. If you were under twenty-one, you could have a bed in a dormitory and if you were over twenty-five, you had to have a single room. Falling in the gap, I was given a shared room with a girl I had never met before. After initial awkwardness on the first evening, we started to chat. I think we dropped off to sleep at about three am. I’m a proud god-mother to her son. She and her husband were the only non-family visitors to see Madette in the Special Care Baby Unit. In 1987 we were flooded out. While her husband baled, she took the children and gave them beds. Calm, gentle and re-assuring, she’s given me all the support I needed without asking questions. Thirty-five years on, we live five minutes apart. The nicest Sundays are spent with her and the family, dog-walking.

Spring 1983, was lovely. Junior Mad was due in September and Madette was a delicious little savage. One weekend, I watched two remarkably good-looking young guys moving into the house four doors away. Shame, I thought. Two fabulous looking blokes. What a waste. They toiled all weekend. At the end of the Sunday, a vast pregnant lady billowed up the path. She was married to the older of the two guys. The other one was his brother. The next day, I knocked on the door and introduced myself, Madette and the Junior Mad bump. Our sons were born a few months apart. She is tougher than almost anyone I know and gives her time and love without reserve. Whether it’s Childline, or the growing menagerie of rescue creatures, she’s always there. When you’re with her, you can’t help smiling. Seeing in the New Year is always outrageous. Somehow, while faintly plastered, I agreed to join her on one of her “things to do before you’re fifty”. A tattoo. A bloody tattoo! Mind, we haven’t done it yet … Life’s not fair, is it? She’s a widow.

When Junior Mad was a baby, I went to my one and only National Childbirth Trust coffee morning. It was full of Yummy Mummies with their delightful Laura Ashley and Osh Kosh dressed tots. And then the Stepford Wives chatter started: what did our husbands do? I sat there feeling my teeth dissolving with the acid reply that was bursting to spew out of my mouth. I met the eye of another mother. Red-and-gold-woman is a clever clogs of the highest order and is blessed with the kind of intellect that attracts rather than repels. She is an encyclopedia of interesting stuff, radiating energy and enthusiasm. A wonderful, generous hostess, she also brings a lovely level of chaos into the lives of her friends. She conned us into travelling to Eurodisney on a coach trip together shortly after it opened. Her husband had declared that he would not go. So she persuaded him that it would be a great hoot for the two families. Reluctantly, he caved in. The travel company was about to go bust, the drivers had never left the UK before, the bus (luxury charabanc, huh!) likewise and we had to have a whip round to get enough petrol for the return journey. We loved every minute of it. R&GW sat with me at my mother’s bedside before she died, understanding the terrible course of my mother’s last days. And next weekend, she will be visiting me There and we’ll walk, and read, and visit beautiful gardens. And enjoy a small glass of wine.

In 1990, we had a nanny who was stealing. I sacked the thieving trollop and we had a lovely temp for a month while I found a new permanent nanny. Just as the new nanny was about to start work, something came up in her personal life and we were back in the soup again. Our temp came back for a week but by now we were desperate. Providing she didn’t actually have a criminal record, we’d have taken anyone. The agency came up with someone who, they implied, was a bit out of our league. She had worked as a rather posh nanny but now that she was married, she didn’t want a live-in post and it was hard to find a role for her rather superior skill-set. Gulp. This remarkable, Juno-like creature arrived. She towered over me. But then everyone does. A no-nonsense, officer's lady. She scared the crap out of my husband and most of my neighbours. Madette and Junior Mad adored her. Like Junior Mad, she’s dyslexic and her formidable talents have been channelled into beautiful crafts and cookery. At Christmas, she asked if I would like a gingerbread house. I duly handed over some wonga and came home to find that she and the children had made this beautiful house, dripping with snowy icing. When I came home the next day, it had gone. She just knew that I would have wanted to give it to the local Children’s Centre. However, if I handed over the same amount of wonga, she’d make another one. Ever stupid, I handed over a fresh lump of cash and, the next day, there was another one sitting on the dresser. You just know where this is going, don’t you? When I came home from work the following day, she’d handed that one over to another charity. My revenge is that I am god-mother to her daughter. You wait, Juno.

I always felt that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship, was that one had to explain nothing.
Katherine Masefield

A feast in the cupboard

2009-06-22T14:25:00.006+01:00

This post started as a comment on "Not Waving" but by the time it had turned into three paragraphs, I realised I should clutter up my own blog with my rant on food wastage and the tyranny of the "best before" tag. Before I get in my stride, let's be clear that I'm not advocating eating anything that has gone off or is so old that its nutritional value has disappeared completely. But really ...

Home Mum of Two informs us that 6.7 million tonnes of food are thrown out every year and she is passing on a "food wastage tag", where the tagee has to agree to use up all left overs for a week, or suffer the "eat a lemon" punishment.

Well I know where quite a bit of the 6.7 million tonnes has ended up.

Last week, one of my neighbours had their bin bag ransacked by the local foxes, cats and magpies. When I took Spot out for his morning walk I had to haul him away from all the delights strewn over the road. While it's not my normal habit to inspect my neighbours bins (honestly), I was aghast to see how much food had just been thrown away. No wonder the wildlife had found it such a feast. What I saw were their leavings. Meat, cheese, bread, yoghurt, fruit. Lord knows what was there before. Foie gras, presumably.

When I mentioned this to friends, they commented that they had thrown out a cheese because it was out of date. For a start, I can't imagine having food around that I forgot about till it had gone off. And if it was getting near to the limit, it would be put to some good use. Cheese would be grated up and frozen ready to stick on some future Mad special.

"Best before date". Gah. When I had to clear out my mother's house, we found some interesting archaeological finds in the larder. The furry dates. The Nescafe granules that had turned into a small tar-like lump. Madette and Junior Mad were helping and they kept reading the "best before" and out-bidding each other on how old things were. This was 2001 and we found many things that were supposed to have been out of date in the mid 1990s. The prize was won by Junior Mad who had found something that was out of date before he was born. That would be 1983.

But, of course, there were loads of things that had no best before date at all. They even pre-dated "best before". They would have all been out if we hadn't applied some common sense into what we were doing. Honestly, bi-carb (NaHCO3) doesn't really need a best before.

I grew up in a simple working-class home where there was very little cash for luxuries. My maternal grandmother had been widowed with five children to feed so my mother grew up knowing how to stretch the meat and to create yet another meal from the left-overs, combined with a few more vegetables and a pie-crust. My father liked simple plain food and we ate seasonal food and homegrown vegetables. Left-overs were tomorrow's meal.

This was not a perfect world. I had never seen a pepper until I left home. Sometimes food was bland since neither of my parents would have knowingly eaten garlic or much in the way of other seasoning. The only herbs I ever encountered were parsley and thyme. Foreign food was exactly that: foreign. But there was no waste food.

I still remember being sent outside in the middle of the winter to eat my dinner (what we called the meal eaten in the middle of the day). The rule was that if you put food on your plate, you had to eat it up. On this occasion, I didn't eat it up. Then I compounded my error by alleging it was yuck. It possibly was yuck since I recollect that it was a dark green and part of the cabbage family. My mother had cooked it into submission. But out I went and had to stay there until I had finished it.

Socially and professionally, I have been privileged to travel to some of the most amazing places on the planet and eat in wonderful restaurants. From a modest home, I learnt to enjoy the good life but the lessons of the hearth tend to stick. A few years ago, I found myself needing to watch the pennies very, very carefully. As long as I was careful, everything would be ok but I couldn't afford to let anything slip. I set myself a frugal housekeeping budget and planned meals to fit the budget. All the left-over habits all came back. And I've never let them go again.

Having a dog helps ... Spottie Boy and I visited Madette yesterday. Lunch in a smashing pub looking out over the Cam. A lovely young couple sitting opposite failed to clear their plates and asked if he would like the roast beef. And the veggies too!

Between the compost, the left-overs and the wormery, there's nothing to put in the kitchen macerator. It sits there with its evil jaws hanging open, starved.

Yes, I'd be cheating if I took on the challenge too. If you feel inspired to take it on, then I can offer a slightly wrinkled lemon to encourage you to stick with it.

Bloggortunity

2009-06-15T10:12:00.002+01:00

I have just been reading one of my favourite blogs and I had a small, insignificant thought about the kind, gentle and supportive community of bloggers that I have stumbled upon in the last couple of years of blogging.

Occasionally, I read tales of spiteful attacks in the social networking world and this is such a contrast to the bloggers that I read. Some are angry and deeply pissed off with the world and their own situation. Some blog to tell the tale of their daily routine with a wry, sideways glance. Some blog to blog.

Alrightit is twenty-nine years old and has blogged her way through breast cancer. She is so entitled to be pissed off. I occasionally feel brave enough to post a comment but really, what can I say to her? I'm old enough to be her mother and I've still got a complete pair? Why didn't the Bullshit pick on someone its own age?

Not waving is blogging her life in France with family highs and lows. Her highs are delightful vignettes of family life and the joys of her expat life. Her lows are heart-achingly familiar to many of her readers ... women of a certain age, mainly. I am so struck by the honesty of her posts and the compassionate practicality of her readers. I try hard to be one of the latter but feel distant and useless, like someone standing on the far shore.

Henry the Leaphound is blogged by a lovely emanuensis called Catherine. I have been reading tales of Henry and his housemates for ages. He leads a busy non-cyber life and so I'm always eager to read a new Henry post. If you've never seen a dog on a trampoline, you should drop by Henry's place. They live hundreds of miles away but I feel like I've just popped in for a cup of tea.

@Eloh blogs with such a powerful voice that I hear her reading her posts aloud in my head. She's had a much more exciting life than most of us; have a look if you don't believe me. Her mother died recently from Alzheimers disease and the blogs are raw and painful. Should be mandatory reading for anyone with a family member, friend, lover or even ourselves who will live through this. That would be all of us then.

Sixty-five roses blogs through cystic fibrosis. Her blog catalogues the drugs and treatments she has just to plod from one day to another while trying to do all the normal teenage stuff. Yup, sometimes she gets miserable and moany and has a blogging snarl at some of her peers at school. But she's seventeen. She's allowed to be miserable and moany. In fact, it's probably mandatory. Well, it was in 1969. And her cf-supporters post practical comments on how to live with the disease. If you drop by, you'll see a translucently beautiful girl who has just started to run to keep herself well.

Dagenham Dave blogs as an Englishman in the US. His blogs are like sitcoms. Like the very best sitcoms, they have the occasional touch of pathos. The story of the false teeth made me howl with laughter and the death of the Colonel made me weep. If you drop in for a read take a handerkerchief since you'll need it for either the laughter or tears.

And there are all the others: Some Mothers blogs her life with two young sons against a hinterland of divorce, Fat and Frumpy blogs beautiful, elliptical prose, Reasons blogs cheerfully despite obvious reasons not to be, Valleys Mam blogs bring me closer to home, with all its faults, still home.

And, and, and ... all the wonderful, insightful, tender and funny blogs. They're all there on the right. Go and waste a bit of time. You'll have a smile on your face at the end of it.

A love letter

2009-06-08T22:21:00.008+01:00

6th August 1950

Dear Eluned
I do hope you arrived safely and without trouble. I was so sorry to see you going by yourself. My life has been terrible without you. If I had not seen you on Friday I don't know how I would be feeling today. I will stick it this time, but never again, darling.
My train will leave Maesycwmmer at 11:43 arriving at Tal-y-Bont at 1:28 on Tuesday.
I will try now to make the remainder of my letter interesting to you. At 8:45 pm on Saturday, I called for your mother, Mair and Irene [sisters].
9:00 pm we arrived in Caerphilly. I parked the car and walked around the Eisteddfod grounds. We also visited the Pavillion and at 9:30 we returned to the car and drove slowly through Caerphilly up to the mountain top.
NOW, at 10:00 pm, coming back down the mountain, I was stopped by MY mother, her sister and Mrs Meade. So I had the job of introducing the in-laws. After getting over this shock, I continued on my way home with your people. I had now promised to return after taking your people home; so I was back in Caerphilly at 10:45 picking up my own crowd. This, I think, is the end of Act One.
When I got near the Royal Oak, I was stopped by a police officer who was holding two men, one on each arm and standing near a Vauxhall 14 hp saloon. He asked me to go to the police station for help. So mother and the rest had to get out for Sgt Davies and another to return with me to the scene of the trouble. Upon arrival, we found that the driver of the car was drunk, so I had to drive the car up to the police station. It was half past one when I got to bed. I think that I may get a few shillings for my trouble when the case comes off.
That is the end of Act Two.
Well darling, I have not much more to tell you except that Dad has won the first prize in the Arts & Crafts Section at the Eisteddfod and he has to attend on Monday to receive his prize so we will not be going to Aberystwyth and, to tell you the truth, I am not sorry.
I have nothing more to add darling except that I love you. Give a little bit of it to Mr and Mrs Thomas [where she was living] if you like, but for my part, it is all for you.
So goodbye for now dear. Hurry up Tuesday.
Your future husband
Eric xxxxxxx

After she had told him to push off and mind his own business, I know nothing of the progress of their courtship. But evidently, he wasn't put off by her brusque manner and she succumbed to his wooing. How could you not love someone who clearly loves you so much? At the end of July 1950, he proposed. She didn't want an engagement ring and persuaded him to save the money since she was set on having a Welsh gold wedding ring.

Despite having grown up in the same village, their parents had never been introduced so my father was horrified to find that he was forced to do the honours on his own.

She was working away from home and they saw each other every few weeks travelling on the remarkable pre-Beeching railway system. In between, they sent each other many, many letters. When he died, I found the collection of letters in a tin trunk. She could not bear to keep them and they all went. Except, a few years ago, clearing out a cupboard, I found an envelope tucked under a drawer liner at the back. In the envelope was this letter. It is the only one left.

The ring is closed. The rolling dice we cast
So long ago still roll but not so fast.
The colours fade that we nailed to the mast.
We lose the future but we own the past.
We own the past?
From our first kiss, a lifetime to the last.

They married in July 1951. I still wear the ring.

An essay on suffrage

2009-06-03T12:55:00.004+01:00

One day a florist goes to a barber for a haircut. After the cut he
asked about his bill and the barber replies, cannot accept money from
you. I'm doing community service this week.' The florist was pleased
and left the shop.

When the barber goes to open his shop the next morning there is a '
thank you' card and a dozen roses waiting for him at his door.

Later, a policeman comes in for a haircut, and when he tries to pay his bill,
the barber again replies, 'I cannot accept money from you. I'm doing
community service this week.' The policeman is happy and leaves the shop.

The next morning when the barber goes to open up there is a 'thank you'
card and a dozen donuts waiting for him at his door.

Later that day, a professor comes in for a haircut, and when he
tries to pay his bill, the barber again replies, 'I cannot accept money
from you; I'm doing community service this week.' The professor is very
happy and leaves the shop.

The next morning when the barber opens his shop, there is a 'thank you'
card and a dozen different books, such as 'How to Improve Your Business'
and 'Becoming More Successful.'

Then, a Member of Parliament comes in for a haircut and when he goes to
pay his bill the barber again replies, 'I cannot accept money from you.
I'm doing community service this week.' The Member of Parliament is
very happy and leaves the shop.

The next morning when the barber goes to open up, there are a dozen
Members of Parliament lined up waiting for a free haircut.

And that, my friends, illustrates the fundamental difference between the
citizens of our country and the Members of Parliament.

My great aunt, Jess, was a suffragette. A member of the Women's Social and Political Union, she protested, was arrested, force fed, beaten and humiliated. So that women could vote. Even for the people who need to have their moats cleaned, can't remember that they've paid off their mortgages or even where they live. I'm enormously proud of Jess.

Tomorrow we have elections in the UK. Parish, county and European.

I have voted in every election since I turned eighteen. I'll be voting tomorrow. Don't let the sleaze disenfranchise us.

A little light hairdressing

2009-06-02T09:40:00.007+01:00
Ever since I can remember I've spent a fortune on my hair. Shaping, colouring. you name it. Only once did I ever get a perm. The children laughed and mercifully, it fell out after about two weeks. Ever since the grey stuff started appearing, I've become a one-woman supporter of the British chemical industry. And I get to read "Hello" magazine.

I had a shampoo and set once. I got married in 1976 when long curved bobs were fashionable. Yes, before Jennifer Aniston. I wanted to have the long fringe gently curled so that it swept away from my face. The hairdresser picked up strands of my hair and, after sucking in her cheeks, muttered that it was very fine and probably wouldn't take a curl. I suggested that a little curl would do and that she could glue it in place with some hairspray. No, wouldn't do she said. So she trussed my hair up in large rollers at the back and five small ones at the front. And then she stuck me under the dryer. When I emerged, hot and bothered my hair felt crisp . The hairdresser teased the rollers out but my hair didn't change shape. At the back there were four large hairy turds and the front sported five frizzy chipolatas. The hairdresser tried bravely to hide her dismay and announced that it would all brush out. So, she set to work to beat it with a brush. Ten minutes in she had to pause for a rest. While she stood there panting, they rebounded into their respective poo/sausage shapes. Mercifully, it was only the practice run.

My mother was grey by the time I can remember her clearly. It may, of course, have had something to do with my arrival. But anyway, there she was, grey and permed all my life. In between perms, she would have a shampoo and set. She was always horrified by the amount of time and money I spent to end up with essentially straight hair. At least she was paying for it to be curly.

In the early nineties, we were going to a family "do". My mother was staying and we were a houseful for dinner the night before. We had all been to the hairdresser and were sitting at the table beautifully coiffed. My hair was smooth and sculpted; my mother's shiny and curly. A fine example of the art of the shampoo and set. As we chatted over dinner, she remarked about the cost of the shampoo and set and how it was much more expensive than at home. Once she'd started this theme, she wasn't going to let it go. The indignation synapse had been triggered and she was on a roll.

She moved on to the amount I had paid for my not-curly hair. Since there was much less artistry and no curlers, she was aghast that my visit had cost more than hers. By now, she had the attention of everyone around the table.

"Go on," she spluttered, "tell us how much you pay for a cut and blow job"

Madette nearly inhaled her salad. The other guests snorted and immediately sprang into polite embarrassed conversation. Junior Mad looked baffled.

Later, in the kitchen, she gave me a hard stare and asked why everyone had smirked and looked awkward. I shuffled my feet a bit and then muttered "You said blow job not blow dry".

Eighty years of limpid innocence gazed back at me.

"Are they different?", she asked.

Right. I'm off to the hairdresser. A rather lovely Japanese place with a super stylist. I'll just ask them to leave it to dry on its own ...

Guide Person for a Blind Dog

2009-06-01T13:53:00.007+01:00
Eleven days of happiness. There. Friends and family, coming and going. Perfect weather, apart from the day that I did have to stay indoors and tidy up. Every day out walking in our wonderful green gold Taliesin bright landscape.

We see the kite most mornings and afternoons. One comes very low over the roof and we speculate that there are chicks to be fed.

The Hay Festival has given me treat after treat. Sandi Toksvig talking about the joys of being 50 something, Alan Bennett telling the story of the mantlepiece, Clive James asking where are Western intellectual women defending our sisters in countries where oppression is still the norm, Jon Snow singing "Do wah diddy diddy", Danny Abse reading Epithalamion.

Morning tea and a book to read. And Spot ... a dog to complete my world.

He is full of energy and affection. When he arrived, I assumed that we would never be able to walk off-lead. Blind dog might go dashing off to who knows where. But in the house, he is very good with commands and has adapted to the Here and There as if he's been doing it all his life. A few weeks ago out on a walk, I took the plunge and bravely let him off the lead. He loves to run and dashes across the field as if he knows exactly where he's going. You can hear the Chariots of Fire theme tune in the background.

When I call him back, he charges back towards me. Heathcliff, Cathy, Heathcliff, Cathy. Crunch. A learning experience for both of us as we pick ourselves up off the ground.

So now I know that I have to remind him to come to a stop. He still bounces off me regularly and I can be heard yelling "Head" at him if we walk where there are obstacles. I started off shouting "Mind your head" but sometimes he's going at such a pace that there's not enough time to veer off if I get the whole phrase out. Heaven knows what people think. That I'm shouting for a lavatory or worse ... Perhaps I should try hollering "Mind" instead.

But there are upsides to being a guide person for a blind dog.

The F-Word

2009-05-25T17:07:00.004+01:00

My thirties and forties were busy. Madette arrived one day into my 30th year. Junior Mad came along about two years later. After the death of my father, my mother settled into being old and demanding. As someone once said, "your mother enjoys bad health". She lived in daily expectation of death.

I returned to work and somehow found the groove. As opportunities came along in work, I took them on and relished the challenge. I found a confidence that was missing in my twenties. Professional qualifications were collected like Green Shield stamps. If you get that, you're really old too. We joked that I needed a fold-up business card.

Just after my mother died, I became a member a professional body and I did put the M word on the card. Every year I renew the membership but, to be honest, in the last couple of years I have fallen out of love with the world of work and spend a deal of time plotting the escape.

This year I received the membership renewals and, tucked in the envelope was a note about applying for fellowship. I ummed a bit since it seems pointless to do that if I don't really want to stay around in my field. But I thought, what the heck. You've got all the qualifications and experience so it is just a case of collating the evidence and submitting it. So after the right amount of faffing about, I sent it all off. The certificates all came back after about three days with a "we'll get round to considering" proforma letter. Yeah, right. That's gone in the bin. Forget about it. And I did.

When I got back from work on Wednesday I was all set up to head There. Loading the car, dog, garden chair (another story) and enough junk to keep me happy for a week. Grabbed the post and stuffed it into my bag, having sifted the obvious junk mail. I chucked one letter into the recyling and then retrieved it.

Over breakfast on Thursday morning, I remembered the maybe junk mail. Fumbling with the envelope, trying to avoid dragging it into the porridge, I edged out a letter. "I am pleased to inform you .... invites you to become a Fellow of the Institute". You will be entitled to use the designation Fellow.

Blimey. The F-word.

Now here's a thing. There's another four letter word: "Work". It's made me realise that it's not the work that I hate. It's the dismal organisation.

So I'm going to have to deal with the situation. It may involve another F-word.

Fratricide

2009-05-20T10:10:00.002+01:00

Desperate for a sibling, I did the only thing possible. I made one up. A brother. Clearly, having made him up I could choose all the characteristics: dark hair and blue eyes, like Dad and brave beyond belief. Tall! He was tall. No-one in my family is tall. They all think I'm tall and I'm 5'4"!

Obviously, I had to make him a good bit older since he couldn't go to the same school. That trumped the Evil Little Witch in our class who had a brother who was four years older. ELW was the most spiteful child I have ever encountered both as a child and a parent. She took it on herself to tell us a lie about Father Christmas, explaining that we were all stupid babies. I was terrified to tell my parents in case I didn't get any more presents. Another child, from a very poor home, was told that she had ruined ELW's birthday because she hadn't come in the right clothes. The little girl ran home sobbing. ELW had a gang and she instructed all the wannabe ELWs in pinching, shoving, tripping up. ELW grew up to be a teacher and has a look of permanent dissatisfaction on her face. A mouth like a dog's bottom, if you know your Roald Dahl.

My older brother could do everything. Climbed the tallest trees, told the best stories, kept me supplied with the best sweets (Sherbet Dabs, if you're interested). And he never found his little squirt of a sister boring or too slow or too babyish. I was never lonely when he was around since we did all the exciting things together involving climbing trees, jumping off dangerous places, tracking and using pen knives. Let's face it he was the greatest. He may have learned to drive by the time he was twelve and was certainly a pilot by the age of fifteen. I was always a bit hazy about his exact age. It sort of depended on who I was talking to.

As he became more interesting, the other children became more curious about him. By the time he'd flown to the USA on his own, they were gagging to see him. I tried to protect him from their prying eyes by sending him off on secret missions . But nothing worked.

So I did the only thing possible.

I killed him.

So there, that sweet faced little girl is really a murderer.

The End of the World is Nigh ...

2009-05-20T10:06:00.002+01:00
It's true! It says so outside Tate Modern. It's happening on September 21st.

Thassorl

It's a family affair ...

2009-05-11T13:26:00.006+01:00

Note Bella's complete engagement with the task at hand (or at head?)and ensuring that her ears saved a little for later ...

... whereas Mossie was more delicately engaged in cleaning the pot ...

... and Spot is so impressed at what his nose found that his ears are in the complete Jodrell Bank position.

Tagged or eight things you never needed to know about me

2009-05-04T14:48:00.008+01:00
Oh dear. Not waving but drowning got me.

1. What are your current obsessions?
Getting 36 mpg out of the car. It all started when petrol was about 113p a litre. I started this hypermiling thing to see if I could do better than the 32-ish I was getting. Staying at the speed limit, watching the gear changes, floating to junctions. I've reached a steady 35.8 edging to 36 on long runs. God, it's so boring.

2. Which item from your wardrobe do you wear most often?
Jeans, jeans and more jeans. Accesorised with gorgeous crushed raspberry suede jacket and posh totty sunglasses when I want to look good and incredibly tatty ancient waxed jacket when the only one to appreciate me is the dog. No, it's not a Barbour; I am short enough and mean enough to wear M&S children's gear.

3. Last dream you had?
This was really difficult. I rarely remember my dreams. I do remember dreaming about driving in the snow a few nights ago. This may be the long range weather forecast for the UK.

4. Last thing you bought?
Tickets for the Hay Festival. Yippee. I'm going to see Alan Bennett, Steve Jones, Jeremy Paxman, Desmond Tutu, Danny Abse, Clive James and, and, and.

5. What are you listening to?
Supertramp. I'm sitting at the kitchen table and I've just listened to The Logical Song.

6. If you were a god/goddess who would you be?
Arianrhod. The goddess of feminine power. What else?

7. Favourite holiday spots?
Florence, Bow Creek, There (when There becomes Here). When I'm There, I just don't want to be anywhere else.

8. Reading right now?
Blake by Peter Ackroyd. It's been sitting in the book box by the side of the bed for a few months and I've only just settled down to read it because it's the kind of book that demands your attention.

9. Four words to describe yourself.
Well, it has to be five words doesn't it?
Mad
But
Not
Actually
Dangerous

Take out the one you don't like, but I suggest you leave in the end two!

10. Guilty pleasure?
The Archers

11. Who or what makes you laugh until you’re weak?
Tom and Jerry. I can't remember a time when I wasn't hooked.

12. Favourite spring thing to do?
Spot the first lamb of the year. When I was a child , the neighbouring farm used the field next to us for lambing. Not those cute white fluffy lambs. The small, hardy ones with black faces and legs. And attitude.

13. Planning to travel to next?
Back across the border, later today. Humph.

14. Best thing you ate or drank lately?
Breakfast yesterday. Homemade bread, toasted. Local butter and homemade marmalade. Doesn't get better.

15. When did you last get tipsy?
New Year's Eve. Comfortably numb.

16. Favourite ever film?
The Italian Job. Original version. It never fails to make me laugh. Other stuff comes and goes but that just sticks.

17. Care to share some wisdom?
Wisdom? If only I had some for myself... but here goes:

Work like you don't need the money, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching.

18. Song you can't get out of your head?
Up on the roof. James Taylor.

19. Thing you are looking forward to?
Friends and family coming to stay for the Hay Festival in a couple of weeks, including my smashing son. Next week, visiting my daughter, hoping for good weather to sit by the Cam and enjoy a picnic.

20 If money were no object, where would you choose to live?
There would become Here faster than the speed of light.

Now, there need to be another eight victims.

65 Roses

The Dog's Blog

Bruce

Henry the Leaphound

Swearing Mother

My boyfriend is a twat

Reasons to be cheerful 1,2,3

Some mothers do ave em

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote

2009-04-26T07:09:00.005+01:00
My mother hated April. My sister was born on April 28th 1955, a tiny premature girl with only a few days of life. My mother only saw her for precious moments before she was rushed away to hospital where she died on April 30th. If her prematurity had been survivable, the bizarre and barbaric treatment thought suitable for premature babies was not.

Each year, as we approached the end of March, the April cloud appeared in our family sky and my father and I learned to tread carefully. It never worked and more often than not she would descend into grief and anger. Slammed doors, afternoons spent sobbing behind closed doors and long hurt silences. My father was as excluded from her loss as much as I was and he would take me out of her way to the garden.

Throughout my childhood, a single baby photograph sat on the sideboard. I hated it. As a young teenager, in a whingy teenagerish way, I moaned that I hated it. A sharp angry slap taught me that, although the photograph was of me, the baby looking out was her.

Where I was real, flesh-and-blood imperfect, Rhian was forever the perfect child. In my mother's last weeks, a kind, well-meaning neighbour remarked that it was such a shame that I was an only child with no-one to share responsibility for caring for my mother.

Too bloody right, I thought. Where are you now, sideboard sister?

I grew up with no patience for the tyrant on the sideboard, this child who had never lived. She had never been a playmate, a companion, a sharer of family memories. Toboganning in the snows of 1963, grandpa making little gold wire animals, planting rapberry canes.

The garden was my father's refuge. No matter how hard he hard worked in the day, there was always time to prick out the tomatoes or walk the row of runner beans. He saw no point in flowers but didn't mind if vegetables were decorative. They compromised: lettuces sat underneath rose bushes, courgettes climbed the rockery, peas and sweetpeas alternated. It was a place of peace and beauty for him. When he retired in March 1982, he told everyone that he would live in the garden. And he did. On April 8th, three weeks after he retired, pausing for a rest, he leaned on the garden fork, lit a cigarette and died.

My mother lived another 20 years. Frail and confused in her last days, she asked "What did you do with that other baby?". In clear moments, we talked about how she had met my father. Waiting at the railway station, he had admired her car. She had told him tartly to mind his own business. And they fell in love.

And now I'm the only one left to remember them. My small hurts and humiliation and pain are small in comparison but I can see why she was glad when April was over. I'm glad that anniversaries are out of the way but I can't find it in my heart to hold it against the month itself. The yonge sonne hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne. Friends have remembered and been kind and quietly generous with their time. Sunshine and the garden. Dog walking. The small delights.

Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth.

A small wave

2009-04-18T03:03:00.002+01:00
In October 2007, I started writing Mossie's story. At the time, all sorts of stuff was going on in my [un]real world which I could not write about. It was so painful and, even with the privacy afforded by blogging anonymity, I could not set it down.

A little while earlier, our much loved and very old dog had died. Because of all the other rubbish, I felt so completely alone, betrayed and lost. Mossie filled the gap in the way that human contact could not. And so I wrote about the days with him, the small delights. Writing from his perspective gave me another layer to protect myself. A cloak of invisibility.

Writing brought its own joy. And blogging brought friends.

North, South, East and West

2009-04-14T16:20:00.008+01:00
A couple of weeks ago, while There, I walked to the top of a local hill where there is an iron age hillfort. The views are breathtaking.

At the top, there were three red kite, wheeling and swooping. Ignoring me completely. That's the moment when remembered that I'm still alive. They're carrion eaters, you see. If I wasn't alive, then I'd have been their Sunday lunch. I laughed aloud. Mad woman, laughing to herself at the top of the hill.

At the turn of the year, a couple of days before Mossie died, I looked out at 2009 and thought, "Am I happy?" A great philosopher (alright, Graham Norton) said: Happiness isn't getting what you want, it's wanting what you get. So no, not happy but learning to get there. Content, if not happy yet. Having lived through the misery of losing the most treasured relationship that I have known with another adult, I am not brave enough to risk betrayal and pain again. But looking into the future, I could see a route through to contentment. The companionship that was lost when Mossie died was part of that contentment. Sitting on the rock in the middle of the hillfort, I decided that three months was enough. I would get another dog. And the next time I would climb this hill, I would have a dog to share the views.

So here we are, enjoying the views.

That would be a blind dog then. Like I said, happiness is wanting what you get.

Pass the kleenex

2009-04-08T23:08:00.004+01:00
Tomorrow is my last day before heading off There. Ten days. Daughter for some of it, Son [possibly], friends, Humbug and Spot. As my son would have it, I have to leave the house tidy for the burglars, so I've spent the evening tidying up, doing a bit of ironing, putting stuff away and filing away some paperwork. Well, you can't bank on the burglars to come in and do that. After all, they're hardly Elves to my Shoemaker, are they?

Spot sits and watches and listens, dozing happily by my feet as if he's lived here forever. Occasionally, he rests his head on my knee for a hug. What an old shmooze.

There's a Jacob fleece over the back of the settee. While I'm tidying up, Spot follows me and brushes past it. Stops, sniffs and then, proving that there's life in the old boy yet, grabs it gleefully and promptly tries to show it a good time. "Gerroff!", I holler. Guilty, he drops it to the floor and I replace it on the back of the settee and return to the kitchen. He doesn't follow. That sixth sense, the one that becomes finely tuned by small children when they're silent, kicks in.

Back to the sitting room. He drops the fleece immediately and tries to claim that it was coming on to him. But there's a small tuft of wool sticking out of the side of his mouth.

I'll be glad when the hormones wear off. No soft furnishings are safe from Don Spotivani till then. And I'm hoping we don't get a cold snap over Easter since I'm not putting my sheepskin coat back on while he's still frisky.

A la recherche du temps perdu

2009-04-06T11:28:00.008+01:00

You know how it is with small dogs (emphasis on dog)? They'll shag anything. Legs, cushions, handbags. Big dogs need something a bit more ... Spot has decided that he really can't be bothered to sleep on Mossie's bed but it'll do nicely as a shag toy. Except, it's not quite the same as it was. Every so often, he wanders up to it and hunkers down to give it a good seeing to. But clearly, things ain't quite like they were and he turns round to give me a puzzled stare. Is this the male menopause? Nope. It's permanent. And pretty soon, you'll have forgotten all about it.

He picks up the bed in his mouth and hurls it into the corner in disgust.

Yesterday afternoon, I carried the box of Mossie's ashes to the Pooh-Sticks-Bridge and Spot and I said goodbye to him. Stood on the bridge snivelling while Spot lay on the bridge looking at me with a worried look. He probably thought that the loss of gonads was a small price to pay.

In the US, when you have a dog 'done', they can put little implants in so that they hang right. Evidently, it's the men who mainly choose this. I wonder why?

A post-modern ironic sort of Spot

2009-04-04T08:53:00.008+01:00
I passed. I passed. It's as good as getting your "O" levels with an A*++ whatever.

A kindly lady came and interviewed me and looked at the house and garden. Explained about Here and There. That'll be okay as long as you don't move the furniture around. Hmmmm... well not often. And I don't explain about the building projects there. She checks out that I'm relaxed about the mess of having a dog. Well possibly, I have had some experience ...

And we can always look for continuing development on fox poo, chicken poo, badger poo and wonderful red mud from Bruce

Unlike a phone call to another rescue, she didn't feel the need to make a snarky comment and, in fact, seemed to think that I would be just right for him. Thank heavens she didn't want to go upstairs since I'm not sure that she would be convinced that white cotton bed linen goes well with border collies.

A quick phone call to the rescue centre and we're on. Booked. Collect on Friday evening. Worked flat out all day so I didn't have time to think about it and then left the office with palpitations. M25 on a Friday night is not a good place to be. Apparently there was an accident at Junction 18 meaning they had closed it between 17 and 19. And the queue goes from Junction 10 to 17. But that's clockwise and I'm going anti-clockwise. But the queue going clockwise of rubber-neckers is from the M11 through to Junction 17. And so the stop-start queue going anti-clockwise is from Junction 8. It seems that everyone going clockwise is queuing to get past an accident and everyone going anti-clockwise is queueing to look at it. At least I won't get done for speeding. Arrive on time, just.

He's "watching" everything. Listening, sniffing. Not sure about me at all. I'm so shocked when I see his back. He's shaved from just below his shoulders to his tail. A sort of tonsure. Just below his shoulders is a huge puncture mark and across his rump are criss-crosses of gouges and claw marks. It's all healing but it makes me flinch to see it and tears prick my eyes. I can hear my mother's voice telling me not to stare. The women with rickets, the polio boys in calipers, the FLKs. "If you don't stop staring, young lady, there'll be trouble". I reckon that we're in for a lot of staring in the next few weeks. He crouches by a wall, feeling the security of an edge.

Spot has been a much loved pet so he won't have the uncertainty of an abused dog. The injuries are shocking but he has settled well in the rescue here. He has very mature cataracts and can see very little. I reckon that he's going to be a combined Bella / Mossie in terms of care needs.

Dinner, a walk. He falls over the plant pots in the garden and I just keep him out of the just-about-to-bloom-really-rather-expensive tulips. He sits neatly in the kitchen watching me cooking my dinner. By 10, we're both ready for bed. Thankfully he shows no interest in coming up the stairs and I settle him in the kitchen for the night. At 1am I hear him snuffling at the front door so let him out for a quick pee. Then we both settle back down and the next thing I know it's morning. I can't hear him and hurl out of bed to go downstairs to check him out. Except, I don't need to go downstairs since there he is, on the landing, fast asleep.

We spend the day walking and learning going downstairs. In the morning, he finds the Bella step on the turn on the stairs and settles down there to sleep while I'm tidying up.

Thanks, Bella. He's a bit big and paws dangle over the edge.

When I'm in the shower, he pokes his head round the doorway and puts the front two paws in but is not coming any further. When I come out, he's gone downstairs on his own and is sitting by the front door. Thanks, Mossie. I'm not going to work today.

But there are no spots, unless you count the tiny white tip on his tail.

Where's Spot?

2009-04-02T11:55:00.005+01:00
As it says on the top... mad again. So here I am waiting to be "home-checked". A nice lady is going to come and check out my house to see if I'm suitable.

We're just shy of 3 months since Mossie died. I've missed him more than I can say. I stopped writing his blog after two weeks because it was, well, his blog. A few weeks later, I took his Christmas presents to a local rescue and signed up to be a walker for them. And then I had to leave in tears. Then I thought about a cat. I went along to a local rescue. There were two suitable mogs. One took one look, bit me and stomped off to her bed. The other one let me stroke him and was lovely. A real big cuddle. Then he looked at me, turned back to his bed letting me know I wasn't going home with him. And then I had to leave in tears.

All too soon. When Bella died, she left such a strong presence. And not just the excess of spaniel fluff everywhere. I could see her out of the corner of my eye and hear the occasional small sigh. After Mossie arrived, she didn't leave but hung around to explain about living indoors to him. Even on his last day, she still seemed to be there. As I drove to meet my Daughter at the station, there was a soft "shrnuffle" from the back seat of the car. But in January, he was so absent. My heart ached for him and there was no comfort in anything.

The house is neat and tidy. You could eat off any surface you like. The vases of flowers are immaculate. The garden looks like a picture. And it is all so empty.

This time last year, my life was full. My two fantastic children come and go as is appropriate to being growed. Life was busy-ish at work. I was in a relationship that I thought would last forever. And there was Mossie to give each day a rhythm. Daughter and Son still come and go. Work is less than satisfying but the bills are paid, and I should be grateful for that. The relationship ... well, it didn't last forever. In fact, it was over by the end of April. The despair of the next few weeks hurt more than I could have ever imagined. Only the rhythm of life with Mossie kept me going.

And writing his blog. Through the blog, he let me vent some of the spleen about the way I had been treated and to find joy in the small things. I remembered how much I enjoyed writing. Story-telling. As the months passed, I had a great deal of fun telling the The Mossiestory. Watching his confidence build and him settling into life with me.

When I'm in Wales (There, as opposed to Here), I have a favourite walk, up the hill past the farm to where the kite nest. Whenever, I can, I make this my just-before-leaving-walk. On the bend, by the farm, we would encounter the sheepdogs. Two little, smooth haired girls who work for a living. They always dash out of the barn shouting abuse at you and sidle up to your ankles just in case you need herding. A swift turn-around and hard stare is all it takes to make them come back to you grovelling for affection. When Mossie first arrived, he was terrified of them and would cower behind my legs to make sure that I was between him and them. Memorably, he lay flat on the floor refusing to move and my son had to carry him. Twenty-five kilos. As the months passed, he would stand, uncertain as they came up to him. As long as I stood next to him he was fine and no longer needed to hide behind me. Gradually, he became confident enough to just walk normally past them. Then one weekend, we walked up past the barn and they weren't there. Being a boy, of course, he liked to pee on every post and he looked around, cocked a leg and then thought better of it. Waited till we walked up the hill and then found another post. A few weeks later, as we walked past and the girls came bundling out, he just ambled past them up to the post, cocked his leg and, giving them a long hard stare, had a good pee. Look at me, I am the dude. Not scared of you lot.

Bella was nearly sixteen when she died and I had hoped to share more years with Mossie than we had. But what a time we had together and I don't regret a single moment. Not even his last day because it was right to let him go then. And I've grown used to the total absence of him.

So I've been looking out for the right rescue. A puppy would be great but my life doesn't allow that at the moment. There are so many abandoned dogs and a rescue is the only thing to do.

And there he was. Exactly what I didn't want - old, unwanted, failing eyesight and beaten up. Oh Lord, another Irish boy. His owner died leaving him to the family. They immediately put him up for rescue and were told he would be best put to sleep since he would be unlikely to find a home given his age and eye-sight. He was taken in by a rescue but was attacked by one of the other dogs and has had to be patched up. From there he came to the UK to a wonderful rescue where they gave him another reason to hope. Maybe not mad, just stupid.

I phoned the rescue and got no answer. Just the answermachine. Cowardly, I hung up. Through the day, I came back to the website. Hovered over the phone several times. Coward.

While putting away the washing, a grumbly voice said "He's got a bald bum". And another softer musical one said "Well, you were no picture either, AND you ponged." I laughed out loud and went downstairs and phoned. This time, no answermachine.

"Hello, I'd like to talk to you about Spot ...."

In praise of the older man

2009-04-01T19:42:00.000+01:00
So there you are, one lonely evening with your fingers poised over the search bar. Internet dating. A big step. But you know what you want: a mature guy, good-looking, naturally. Been around the block so he knows how to please. And there are some really dishy ones out there. Dark and handsome. Slim-hipped, broad-shouldered. A devilish glint in the eye. Where to start?

On the other hand, you don’t want an old one, do you? Or one who looks like he’s been in a few brawls. Or one that’s going to trash your rose-scented bedroom and leave hair in the plughole.

Brown eyes, greying temples. But he’s old. With a scar on the nose, he must have a sad tale to tell. Keep flirting with the others. But as the weeks go by, they each meet someone, just right and he’s still there. So you read his story. No longer useful. No longer able to work. No longer wanted. A quick email, just to enquire. Can’t do any harm. Just one phone call. No commitments.

So there you are, a cold October morning, waiting for a van to arrive. When the door opens, you recognise the profile from the internet picture. He gingerly jumps down from the travel crate and looks bewildered. But his over-riding need is a tree and then, you’re on your own. Together.

He rests his head against your leg and gazes up, trusting that you won’t let him down. So how can you? Suddenly, you have become the centre of his world.

Can’t teach an old dog new tricks? His world is full of new things which impress him: jacket potatoes, playing with frisbees, a soft cuddly bed, a good brushing, a cup of tea, big hugs, trips to the country, Christmas, a loving family. And some things that bother him and you don’t know why: the hoover, other sheepdogs, going through gates first. But as the months pass, these stop worrying him so much and then suddenly, he’s cool. He’s the dude. People stop you to admire this good-looking boy and he doesn’t hide behind your legs. And you see the magnificent dog and there’s no sad old man. And when you go out to play every evening after work, you see the pup.

So you know that he’s old and maybe you won’t have so many years together. But, it’s not the years, it’s the mileage. You fill each day with love and fun. And when it’s over, you remember all the days.