Tuesday 12 March 2024

Mother's Day Restored



Last year, I failed to establish a quorum for Mother’s Day.

My powers of emotional blackmail were clearly beginning to wane.

However, this year, Nigel and the twins turned out for a Mother’s Day outing.  This despite Carenza having run a half marathon (involving 630m of elevation) just the morning before, and Perran having his bags packed for a fortnight’s work trip to Europe, leaving that afternoon.

Pascoe gets out of Mother’s Day on account of living in Edinburgh, although he did put in a lovely phone call.

We went to Kenwood House in Hampstead (English Heritage, free admission) where there is a stunning art collection.  It took my breath away.

Perran and Carenza incidentally recreated moments which recalled their childhood: 

·       They both supplied me with handmade cards (although nowadays elegantly lino-printed).

·       Due to a London Transport event, they arrived and left on by old-fashioned bus with a proper conductor and paper tickets – the kind of vehicle which used to fascinate younger Perran (and still does).

·       On encountering a dressing up opportunity in Kenwood house, they did not hesitate!

However, even I had to acknowledge they are very much adults as nowadays they are the ones who pay for Mother’s Day lunch.  There are some compensations in one’s babies growing up!

Thank you for a great day, Perran, Carenza, Pascoe and Nigel.
















Wednesday 28 February 2024

Danger, Unexploded Bomb

I was to spend part of the half term week at my parents. Over the preceding weekend I isolated to ensure I didn't take any illness with me.  

It was the perfect time to experiment in the kitchen and I made three jars of red cabbage sauerkraut (which is two jars more than I meant to make - seems like cabbage gets bigger when you grate it).

Sauerkraut ferments, meaning it needs to be 'burped' each day. By the time I departed for my parents it was becoming very lively and needed to be burped twice a day. I left Nigel with instructions...

The visit to my parents went ok, with me getting through a number of the things on the parental to-do list. So, by the time I was sitting in Truro station waiting for the 14.54 to Paddington, I felt quite pleased with myself. 

The last thing I expected was the announcement that all trains were cancelled owing to an unexploded WW2 bomb at Plymouth. I made my way back to my parents. 

It is was only as I returned to my childhood bed that night that I remembered the sauerkraut. 
Nigel probably thought his cabbage-related duties ended on Thursday and would not have set himself a phone reminder for Friday. 

I lay awake in the darkness, ears straining for a distant explosion. Not the WW2 bomb at Plymouth - the sauerkraut in St Albans.

Tuesday 20 February 2024

Mudlarking

I had often squinted over the railings at the muddy foreshore of the Thames and speculated on what I might find there.  So when Sharon told me she sometimes went mudlarking (like beachcombing, but along the Thames), I asked if I could come. 

To introduce some dramatic tension, this was the week when the police made an announcement about the man who had deplorably thrown corrosive liquid over his wife and daughters. His body was thought to be somewhere in the Thames.

We went with a licensed guide.  She could identify all the different animal bones which littered the mud, but asked 'Please don't find any human remains as it involves too much paperwork. Haha!'
Those of us who had been listening to the news exchanged furtive worried glances.

Between us, Sharon and I found pottery from the Mediaeval, Tudor, Georgian and Victorian eras, a metal hook from a boat, and large chunks of eighteenth century wine bottles. In fact, almost everything on the foreshore was an artefact of human habitation in one way or another.

My favourite find was a small square of Roman tile (centre of the pic below). The tile had been left on the ground to dry before being baked in a kiln and, while there, a cat had walked across it. Maybe 1600 years later, its paw print was still clearly visible. Magic.

And to our immense relief, no grim discoveries!


Sunday 11 February 2024

Beware the split-level patio


Carolyn and David travelled from the North East, Nigel and I from the South East, and we met up in the Peak District. As usual the agenda for the weekend was long walks, pubs, a bit of culture and a trawl of charity shops.

However, this time our attention was grabbed by the landlord of our accommodation.

Carolyn had very kindly made the booking, and soon began to receive very long emails with detailed instructions for the house.  Amid the many paragraphs were concealed vital information like the postcode, keycode and wifi password.  It was like a very inconvenient wordsearch puzzle.

When we entered the (very pleasant) house, the folder which was left out for visitors did not disappoint.

There was a lengthy screed on how to raise and lower the (perfectly normal) blinds.

The patio was on two levels and there was a whole page about not tripping or falling down the four-inch-high step, and outside, an outsize yellow traffic cone to mark the hazard.

The section on using the wood-burning stove was positively Dickensian in its detail.

After all this, I saw Nigel hesitating in the hallway, a frown on his face.

‘Anything the matter?’

‘Yes.  I couldn’t find the instructions for how to walk up the stairs.’

 

Monday 5 February 2024

The Cult of Beauty

We were meeting Perran and Carenza in London to celebrate their birthday.
But what would we do together? 
Nigel, Carenza and I were interested in  The Cult of Beauty exhibition at the Wellcome Collection. 
'No' said Perran, 'I've never liked the Wellcome Collection, ever since you took us there as kids. It smells weird and medical, and some of the exhibits are always gross.'
However, we failed to achieve consensus on anything else and ended up at the Wellcome. Surely an exhibition on Beauty would be fine!
I watched Perran steel himself at the entrance. In the exhibition he was breathing shallowly. In fact, I couldn't detect unpleasant smells and there was even an art installation which replicated the beauty potions made by mediaeval women and emitted scents of rose and herbs.
With beauty as the subject, many of the images were colourful and attractive. So far, so good.
We were nearly at the end of the exhibition, when it happened. My eye was caught by two jars of fluid containing round, peach-like objects. What were they? I looked closer. 
The photo above and the label informed me they were the surgically removed breasts of a trans man. Complete with tattoos.
Rapidly I moved on.
The weird thing was that afterwards, when we compared notes, the only other person who'd spotted this challenging exhibit was Perran. 
Sorry son. 
Happy birthday anyway!

 

Tuesday 30 January 2024

My hero

Following COVID, Nigel and I are just getting our mojo back.  
Something that helped to stir our blood were these facts about private jet flights:
  • Up to 50 times more emissions per passenger mile than an ordinary commercial flight.
  • Average number of passengers per private jet flight last year was 2.5 with 40% of flights taking off empty. People are even using private jets to ferry their pampered pets about.
  • There's an illusion these flights are for VIPs on very important state business. But the busiest day at private jet terminals is Valentine's Day. Hmm.
So when we got the call to march through Farnborough and demonstrate outside the private jet terminal there, we said yes.
Our role on the march was to step out in the road and hold up a banner to stop traffic just while the marchers passed swiftly through.
This meant we were ahead of the rest of the march.
The guy beside me said, 'Have you seen who we are holding up the traffic for?'
I looked behind me at the head of the march.  'Who is it?  I can't see anybody I recognise.'
'Look again, on the right.'
And when I peered closely an unassuming young woman in a plain grey coat turned out to be Greta Thunberg.
I learned later that she was in the UK for her trial, following her arrest in October.  She sat down in the road in front of the Intercontinental Hotel in London where oil bosses and bankers were meeting to discuss how to make the most possible money out of fossil fuels while frying our planet to death. 
(Nigel was sitting there too, but the police didn't get around to arresting him.)
It was definitely worth making the effort to get out and march.  Seeing our young hero made it even more special.

Monday 22 January 2024

Beating the January Blues


Having been ill over Christmas and then back at work before fully better, I'd got into a weird trogladitic existence where most of my time was either working at my desk, or resting up in bed. 
 My inbox alerted me to the fact that the Frans Hals exhibition at the National Gallery was finishing soon. 
I can remember that the first time I saw his Laughing Cavalier - it blew me away. I'd always wanted to see more Hals. What was I doing missing it? It was the final days though, so surely there would be no tickets.
However, I would try. 
And I got one!
The next problem was the freezing temperatures. Was this wise when I had been so unwell? 
But I donned a ridiculous furry hat and set off.
It was a timed ticket so I needed to catch a particular train.
The footpath to the station was blocked off for maintenance.
I backtracked and found another route. 
At the station the ticket machine was grudgingly unresponsive and I was out of time. 
But I encouraged myself to run over the footbridge and succeeded in jumping onto the train.
At the gallery I'd prepurchased an audioguide, but discovered on arrival I hadn't got the right phone equipment to access it. I felt stupid. 
But looking round, I could see others in the same position. It wasn't my fault! So I went and got my money back.

And great though it was to see Frans Hals' vivacious portraits and virtuoso brushwork,  the most nourishing thing about the day was overcoming all the tiny difficulties which nearly prevented me.
Now, like the laughing cavalier, I have a twinkle in my eye once more.

Tuesday 9 January 2024

The Navy Lark

Once again, Christmas got scuppered by Covid but we did have a memorable outing just before disaster struck. The whole family visited the amazingly preserved wreck of the Mary Rose at Portsmouth Docks. The Mary Rose blew our socks off with detailed information on Tudor life and warfare. It was impressive that certain skeletons (such as the chief bowman or master surgeon) had been identified by their physical traits and scraps of clothing and matched to the wooden chests which contained their belongings. Afterwards, Pascoe was keen to see the submarines. We took a water taxi across the harbour, watched from above by a peregrine falcon. It was the 1946 A Class submarine which really captured our imagination. About twelve of us tourists squeezed into the stranded sub and a guide gave us a tour. When in service, it would be hundreds of feet beneath the surface, and contain 65 men. Just the thought broke me out in a claustrophobic sweat (although even as I write this, I’m now wondering whether it was the virus). Also guaranteed to induce panic was our guide’s repeated reference to the escape procedure, which I really couldn’t believe would ever work. It turned out our softly spoken guide had served 18 years in submarines, thereafter running emergency escape training in a nearby 100 ft tower of water. He was very informative, but I also had a feeling there was a lot he wasn’t telling us. ‘Did it create tension – so many of you in such a cramped space?’ ‘Well…mostly, we got along.’ We caught the last water taxi of the day and returned, with sunset blazing behind the historic ships. Despite the disappointment of getting Covid, that day at the Mary Rose still means Christmas 2024 will be one to remember.

Thursday 21 December 2023

Standing on one leg in a muddy field

The friends with whom I go walking planned to add a Christmas pub lunch to our December hike.  
I'm not a great fan of festive meals - memories of sitting round a littered table late at night, trying to make a large bill add up while slightly squiffy.
And would it even happen? Any of us might get flu, and we are each responsible for grandchildren or grandparents. 
Miraculously, we were all available on the day, but it was raining torrents.
 We brought our walking boots but more in hope than expectation. 
The meal was pleasant, but more than mince pies, we had hoped for a walk.  
The rain lessened, but still we loitered in the cosy pub. 
Finally Carol galvanized us and we set off across sodden fields, chatting.
On the topic of exercise regimes, Diane suggested that standing on one leg was good for mind and body. Like a bunch of middle-aged flamingos, we stopped amid the cabbages and tried it out.
Afterwards we carried on, climbed a ridge and looped back through beech woods. The clouds cleared and the embers of  sunset glowed along the horizon. 
It was a pleasant pub meal, and I'm glad I went. But standing on one leg in a muddy field with my friends was even better.

Saturday 9 December 2023

The Christmas scenes they deleted from Love Actually

In pursuit of the spirit of Christmas, Nigel and I met up with Carenza for outdoor carols at Columbia Road in Bethnal Green.  The vicar of St Peter’s church here is famed for wheeling a piano out onto the street and standing on it to conduct carols while a colleague bashes out the tunes below. 

It turned out to be far from a well-kept secret as every single twenty-something in London was already there.  Every one of them was taller than me, but I just about managed to keep my feet on the ground in the good-natured jostle, just hoping that none of the high notes started a stampede.  Nigel didn’t mind at all, as several of the young lovelies complimented him on his ‘beautiful voice’.  Pah!

On the way back from carols we got caught by train cancellations. We spent an hour at Farringdon with nothing to sustain us except a massive chocolate advent calendar Nigel was given at work.  We managed to call a halt at day six.

When we finally got on the train it was packed and a previous passenger had vomited. Then another drunk bloke skidded in it and fell over. Twice.

Explaining to a horrified onlooker, his mates said that it wasn't him who had been sick. 'It's legacy vomit'.

Nigel and I agreed that these might very well be scenes from a typical British Christmas.  So why on earth had they been left out of the final cut of Love Actually?  There’s simply no explanation.

Thanks to Carenza for the pics


Saturday 2 December 2023

Jack the Ripper hijacked our birthday

To celebrate Nigel's birthday we went for a self-guided walk around Spitalfields, Whitechapel and Brick Lane.
It was fascinating to learn of the silk weavers, the Jewish synagogues and the Moorish market.
However, we kept coinciding with other guided tours. Punters in lanyards clustered around leaders with flags. We must have crossed paths with at least five such groups.
Eavesdropping revealed that the others were all Jack the Ripper tours. When there was so much fascinating culture in that part of London, this particular ghoulish preoccupation seemed uncalled for. 
I have always been keen to avoid finding out exactly what the deranged serial killer did to his wretched victims but on Saturday I overheard far too much about entrails. There even appears to be a difference in status between 'official' victims of Jack the Ripper and 'unofficial' ones whose grisly deaths have not been conclusively attributed to him.
We then began to notice other manifestations of this gruesome tale. The local barber was Jack the Clipper, the fast food van was entitled Jack the Chipper. We imagined other local businesses we might set up in Whitechapel. Jack the flipper (selling burgers). Jack the nipper (selling cosmetic surgery). Jack the tripper, selling...well, you get it.

Monday 27 November 2023

A weekend away in a time machine

It was time for a break. Our family had been afflicted by various illnesses, crises and illness-crises (a dramatic combination of the above). Half term had therefore been a washout. Somewhere inside I'm still expecting the September we never had. 
Some loyalty card points bought us a weekend in a hotel in Birmingham. I was looking forward to the Pre-Raphaelite collection at the big municipal art gallery. However, we arrived to find the gallery shut for refurbishment.
Instead, we visited a Christmas craft market, the Christmas light switch on in the Jewellery Quarter and a massive German-style Christmas market. All when we were still twelve days even from the start of December. 

There was a lovely atmosphere of chatting to friendly strangers. The live music and gluhwein helped! It felt like being at the jostling crowded heart of the festive season.

But returning home, it was odd to discover we are still a long way off Christmas. It is as if we had  travelled not just many miles, but many days. Here I am, back home and back in time again, looking forward to the eventual start of Advent and the run-up to Christmas. 


Friday 17 November 2023

Remembrance of a different kind of courage.

This year I pinned on a red poppy but it felt inappropriate -  I wished that it was white, not red. White poppies express a wish for peace, and this year that seems more important than ever.

My friend John Compton who died just over a year ago was a pacifist and used to wear a white poppy.  During World War II he refused to fight, serving instead as a London hospital porter, in danger of his life during the Blitz. It is a different definition of bravery.
It was only as I put my red poppy in a drawer (as a spare for next year) that I saw that all along I had possessed a white poppy. John's daughter Elizabeth had thoughtfully sent off for one each for Nigel and I the year before he died. 
I have put a reminder in my diary for next November so that on Remembrance Day I will wear the white poppy in memory of a man who was courageous enough not to fight. 

Monday 13 November 2023

Fireworks

Fireworks night has always been a special occasion for Nigel and I. Forty  years ago we spent it apart. At that point, Nigel and I were good friends but he was considering whether to ask me out or not. 
The reason for his hesitation, he told me later, was that he had a conviction that if he asked me out, he would someday marry me. 
Having missed the municipal display at Cambridge that year, we vowed not to miss one again. 
In our forty years together we have been to some spectaculars at Saltburn Park, the Tyne Bridge and Verulamium Park. We love to oooh and aaah.
A memorable one was Dove Holes in Derbyshire where the amateur pyrotechnician decided to set off the fireworks one at a time leading to a display that was very long indeed but at no point spectacular. We left before the end.
This year, we shunned our usual display at Verulamium to attend Alexandra Palace with Perran, Carenza and friends. 
How did it go? Carenza felt there had been a lack of communal oohs and aaahs.
However, the fireworks coordinated brilliantly with the music.   And at the end their was a man dancing on a podium with lightning coming out of his head. 
But even that was not as special as the fact that I spent the evening with Nigel.

Saturday 4 November 2023

foraging discipline

A rich variety of family illness and other crises has disrupted our autumn. I feel like I'm in a time travel movie, surfacing to find that another fortnight has somehow zipped past.

However foraging has anchored my feet to the ground once more. The best time for chestnuts and mushrooms is now.

Nigel and I were busy catching up on neglected chores.   Yet if we did not go now to the woods, we would miss the harvest.

We went up to Ashridge and sure enough the ground in the woods was scattered with sweet chestnut cases like green sea urchins. To save my fingers, I've learned to open them with my booted feet, and imagine this must be similar to what deer do with their hooves, as they too are clearly partial to the odd chestnut. 

I filled my pockets with the gleaming prizes until it was hard to walk. 

Meanwhile Nigel was stooping to gather puffballs. We've become cautious about mushrooms, but puffballs are completely unlike anything poisonous.

The chestnuts form part of our Christmas meal each year, but the puffballs were delicious right away with gnocchi. 

But even more than the food we gain, I value the therapeutic effect of foraging. After a morning in the rust and amber woods, rhythmically hunting and collecting, I was restored and ready to deal with whatever happens next.

Thursday 19 October 2023

Hit over the head with a rubber hammer


Following his emergency operation, Pascoe is making a steady recovery – I speak to him on the phone and am reassured.

He said ‘I can’t wait for the training montage to start.’  I imagine a clip from the ‘Rocky’ movies.

I, on the other hand, have felt like I’d been hit over the head with a rubber hammer. 

There was one week where Carenza had given up a week’s holiday in France to nurse Pascoe in Edinburgh and I was off-duty in St Albans.  I was so grateful for her selflessness, but it also felt very wrong not being there.

I distracted myself with some undemanding household tasks.  I took up some winter trousers, but when I looked at them afterwards was puzzled by my approach – are asymmetric trousers in fashion this Autumn?  What had I been thinking?

The only thing which went well was making forty jars of various chutneys.  I have been doing this for nearly four decades, so auto-pilot kicked in.  Okay, so my mild apple chutney is much hotter than my hot apple chutney this year, but apart from that, all is well.

So when I think of that week when I was good for nothing, at least I was good for chutney.



Friday 29 September 2023

A bit of an emergency

I looked back at my last blog and saw that it came from a different world, one where I was revving up for the Autumn term in relaxed mode. Much has happened.

As I write this, I’m on the train returning from Edinburgh Waverley to King’s Cross for the third time in a month.  The first time was a social visit to Pascoe.  The consequent trips have been due to his medical emergency.  Since May, Pascoe had been repeatedly visiting his GP with stabbing pains in his abdomen, and been sent away with indigestion medicine.  Eventually he paid for a private scan - he had a massive gall stone and inflamed gall bladder, endangering his liver.  It should have been operated on long before it got to this. The emergency operation which ensued required a huge incision (25 staples long), rather than keyhole, a couple of days afterwards when it looked like he might not make it and then a sudden and dramatic upturn on Sunday following prayer by not just our church at St Luke’s but also the church of one of the hospital doctors. 

Today I leave him in his flat, supported by Perran, well on the road to recovery, but still weak.  Yesterday, I was talking to Pascoe’s friend Kritika about the strength of love she felt when she gave birth to her baby daughter.  There is nothing like nearly losing your child to revive the strength of that bond. 

Friday 1 September 2023

How to bring a festival home

 


This summer I was privileged to attend three very different festivals and I ask what I can take from them back into everyday life. 

Primadonna – a literature festival, with the emphasis on women.

Edinburgh Fringe – a massive festival comprised of over 3k shows in a huge variety of venues.

GreenbeltFestival - arts, faith, activism. In a world on fire, we’re somewhere to believe in.

There’s a glorious ‘festival’ way of being - which elements will enhance my everyday life?

Trying new things

Because a festival is time-limited, it helps make your mind up.  This kind of thinking found me trying out a women’s urinal for the first time, and (less bizarrely) a workshop on cyanotype printing.

Fresh air

Wouldn’t work life be less fraught if one had to potter across a grassy field to get to every meeting?  I need to incorporate more little strolls into my working life.

Chat

At each of the festivals, the best thing was people – the friends/family we went with and the strangers with whom we chatted while queueing for the loo/ bar/ show.  I definitely want to spend more time idly passing the time of day with friends, old and brand new.

What won’t I miss?

You’d expect me to say the toilets – but the ‘mobile thrones’ at Primadonna and the composting loos at Greenbelt were fab.

I guess I might say ‘burning the candle at both ends’ but in fact a level of tiredness softens me up and readies me for revelations both intellectual and emotional – festivals make me cry…and that’s not a bad thing.

Picture by Pascoe Harvey - me at Edinburgh with the wonderful Katy Berry

Tuesday 15 August 2023

Birds don’t live for ever


Since 2018 we have kept doves, but it took until the 2020 lockdowns for them to become part of the rhythm of our days with Nigel feeding them by hand and talking to them as they snaffled their dried peas and corn.

Being completely white, doves are difficult to distinguish from one another.  However, this anonymity has surely saved us some heartbreak. Doves are vulnerable to predators - their pale plumage makes them an easy target for our local sparrowhawks and peregrines and cats. Yet when we see feathers scattered on the ground (carnivore confetti) it is often hard to tell exactly which dove had been taken. 

One bird, however, has been our particular favourite - an excellent mother she has raised many chicks in our dovecote.  Over the years she has had two long-term partners with whom she has billed and cooed.  We could tell her from the others by a black feather below her eye, giving her the name Tear.  Every so often, Tear would vanish for a few days to incubate eggs, but now, for several weeks, she has not reappeared.

Similarly, it was during the Covid lockdowns that Nigel encouraged our garden robin to feed from his hand, and soon mine too.  The robin was always particularly friendly when feeding chicks.  He would look about him cautiously then swoop towards me.  Fluttering in midair, onto my fingers he would place his feet, looking as if they had been drawn with a sharp pencil. Swiftly he would tilt to peck a strand of suet from my palm, then make off with his haul to his nest in the bushes.

This year, he had raised one brood of round speckled robin chicks and was on his second.  As the nesting season wore on, he looked increasingly tired and shabby, and now he too has disappeared.

In both cases, we’ll never know for certain how they met their end, and there is a kindness in that.  It is good to remember both Tear and Robin as we last saw them, waiting on the patio for us to come out and bring them food.  To catch our attention Tear would peck at the window and Robin would tweet loudly. 

And now I think about it, perhaps it was they who had trained us, rather than the other way about.

Saturday 5 August 2023

A Camp and Windy Weekend


I love camping.  It is an utter idyll to sit by a firepit with a glass of wine and good company.  You don’t have to go out because you are already out and in prime position to watch the sunset, hear the dusk chorus, spot the bats flitter past and catch sight of the first star.

Last summer Perran and I camped near Avebury.  This July, Carenza and I were to stay at the excellent Woodfire Camping site at Westlands, East Sussex. 

We planned walks on the South Downs Way and Serpent Trail and sightseeing at Petworth House.  However, most unfortunately, we forgot to book good weather.

The forecast said fair on Friday night, downpour Saturday. 

‘We have to pack all my favourite bits of camping into Friday night,’ I said. 

So we ate looking out over acres of woodland, I painted a watercolour and Carenza read. As night fell, we lit the firepit, opened a bottle of wine and switched on my bat detector (pipistrelles were passing).  Even the air stayed in our airbeds and we were woken early by a family of noisy woodpeckers. (Outside the tent, not in it.)

We also had a solid plan for the rainy Saturday evening.

1)      Go to pub

2)      Stay in pub

3)      Return to tent at bedtime

BUT I had not paid sufficient attention to the forecast – not only was there to be rain.  A MIGHTY WIND was on its way.

The blasts bent the tent poles double and forced rain in through the seams.  I could not see Carenza in the dark, but I imagined her lying like me with eyes wide open, listening to the buffeting of the storm and wishing we’d checked the guy ropes before turning in…  Every time I fell asleep, the side of the tent blew in and slapped me awake. 

In the morning our tent was still standing, but we couldn’t help noticing not all the other tents were where they had been the night before. Some gazebos were missing altogether.

At the time, we enjoyed the first night way more, but it is the second night we will still be enjoying years from now as we continue to recount the tale of the scary gale. 

Thursday 20 July 2023

Who was that masked medic?


The school holidays have started and I had plans.  Things to achieve, friends to catch up with.

But a week ago, on a nocturnal trip to the loo, I trod on something sharp. I felt to see if anything was sticking out from the wound, but found nothing.

Being half asleep, I went back to bed, but in the morning the trail of blood alerted me.

‘Nigel, can you look and see if there’s something still in there.’

He probed with my eyebrow tweezers but found nothing.

After a week which included two country hikes and dancing at the Folk by the Oak Festival, I was of the opinion there was definitely still something in there.

I had tickets for an exhibition in Oxford on Tuesday and was supposed to be driving a friend, so needed to sort it quickly.

Monday saw me at Minor Injuries.  The medic could spot nothing and was clearly sceptical.  He sent me to the X-ray department without telling me it was on the far side of the hospital.  After walking all that way on the side of my foot, my knee and hip were now throbbing.

The x-ray showed nothing, but I was unwilling meekly to give up.  So the medic had a probe with a large needle and pointy tweezers. Ouch. But then he had it! A 3mm razor-sharp flake of glass embedded in the ball of my right foot. He was not prepared to dig deep but that was ‘probably all the glass.’  He gave me a tetanus shot.

That evening, while I was glad to be vindicated, my foot was tender, my knee and hip ached and then unexpectedly, my left arm stopped working.  Maybe the tetanus jab hit a nerve?

After a night’s sleep, however, I was able to drive to Oxford.  Phew.

But, haunted by the sensation there was still some glass in my foot, I prepared for another trip to minor injuries, and in doing so managed to shrink my beloved Crocs clogs in the washing machine (don’t ask).

I saw a different medic this time.  I explained what happened before but she looked puzzled ‘Who saw you?’

I described him.  She shook her head as if not recognising this person. ‘It’s just that it’s not our policy to dig around looking for glass in people’s feet.  The body will naturally expel the object.’

Whoever that bogus medic-impersonator was, I’m glad he had a go – the glass had been cutting away in there for over a week without being ‘naturally expelled’.

And I hope that if there’s any glass left, my body gets rid of it soon…

 

 

Thursday 6 July 2023

Ordained by God


 Jenny and I met and became friends in our first week at Cambridge.  One thing we had in common was an interest in matters spiritual.  Within a term, we had both committed to Christianity.  The slightly older student who led us to the Lord later moved on to devote herself to Feng Shui, but we have both stayed on the path.

We live in different parts of the country now and see each other together with our respective families at the annual Greenbelt festival, capturing a freeze-frame vision of one another’s lives.

 

Jenny has grown via a number of roles to flower at last as a priest in the church of England and her ordination was this Saturday near Manchester.

It was very important to be there but also a really long way to travel. 

With Annabel (the erstwhile bridesmaid of both Jenny and I) riding shotgun, Nigel drove us all three hours each way. (I did offer, but he prefers to drive.)

It was a great service with the sermon delivered, confusingly, by an arch deacon whose surname was Bishop. Apparently he is soon to become a bishop. Bishop Bishop.

The sermon was encouraging, the hymns excellent, and the church welcoming. But the thing that most justified our long drive was the beam on Jenny's face.

And it's a smile which will go on to bless the lucky church at Bollington where she is to be curate.

Monday 26 June 2023

Friends you can take a risk with


 David and Carolyn are Pascoe’s godparents.  When we lived in the North East we saw them every week.  Now we live hundreds of miles apart, but still see them a couple of treasured times each year.

We wanted to take them to the Odyssey, our wonderful local independent cinema, but the choice was a predictable Rom Com, OR ‘Beau is afraid’  - a psychedelic journey of weirdness concerning the painful relationship between a man and his mother. 

We chose the latter and at the end of the three-hour film, another audience member said loudly ‘Well that wasn’t worth staying up late for!’

But the four of us found ourselves returning to ‘What did it all mean?’ throughout the weekend.  We certainly got our money’s worth.

On Saturday, we met the twins in London.  They wanted to go to ‘Healing King Herod’, a show previewing before the Edinburgh Fringe at the Soho Theatre.

‘King Herod, famed for his Massacre of the Innocents, now leads a self-development pyramid scheme. Ancient soldiers become modern clients in an interactive, drag-clown therapy session.’

I didn’t even know there was a genre called drag clown. 

After a little hesitation, we all went along and raised the average age of the audience considerably. 

The show did end with the star, Riss Obolensky wearing nothing but a nappy and rolling on the ground smeared all-over with jam, but it certainly made us laugh and Obolensky managed to pack her weirdness into one hour, which was certainly a better decision than three!

But the best thing about both shows was going along with friends who are up for something a bit different.

 

 

 

Saturday 10 June 2023

Seeking Asylum on Holiday


 When the real world is troubling, my impulse is to get away from it all.

In the last year, we were hosting a Ukrainian family.  They were bereaved in the war and although they were perfect guests, there was a weight of sadness on the house.  We found ourselves going away a lot at weekends. But each time we turned on the radio, the news from Ukraine found us again.

Likewise, on our holiday to Cornwall, I was prepared to be faced with our own family problems, such as dealing with ageing grandparents, but not the social issues which ravage our nation.  However, as we took a morning stroll around Pendennis Point above the shipyards and looked down into the dry dock, we spotted something which looked like a block of flats on a barge. 

We were curious so Perran googled the name on its side, Bibby Stockholm, only to discover that this barge was being fitted out as floating accommodation for 500 plus asylum seekers.  Suddenly the Cornish sun seemed less warm.

If we can’t escape the problems of our age by going on holiday, then I guess we just have to go on demonstrating and signing petitions and helping out voluntary organisations with extra fervour, and at least that is one thing that a holiday gives us - we return home with the energy to do just that.



 

 

Monday 5 June 2023

Family Holiday

We just had a family holiday. In many ways it was excellent - we stayed in a capacious holiday-let overlooking the Fal River. The weather was brilliant, so we walked and swam the coast every

day and cooked wholesome meals together in the evening. 

 

However, a family holiday always ends up as a microcosm of what is going on in the family.

 

Pascoe, Carenza and Perran are all busy at work so we made sure the house had good wi-fi in order to accommodate a certain amount of working from home, also great train links in order to allow anybody who had to arrive late (Pascoe), or leave early (Perran).  


We stayed close to Truro to allow us several visits to my elderly parents who have had a tough year.  


We were late departing on changeover day because one person had an important phone meeting, plus we had to take something to the dump for my dad, which meant we then hit heavy traffic all the way home, exacerbated by a train strike.  


Which in turn meant it was a close thing for Nigel to catch the train north to support his mother in the act of moving house from the north to the south on the following day.


When I look back, however, I shall choose to forget all the stresses and to remember only the sun-filled days and the evenings sharing plentiful food and wine. After all, there's nothing to beat a family holiday.