Thursday 28 November 2013

Catching the Post


When I was at uni, every so often, I’d ring my mum and once we’d got the tiresome “How are you?” bit out of the way, I’d demand she sent me my warm jumper or my mittens or such like in a parcel.  In those days, the royal mail was cheap, efficient, but brutal, so the parcel normally arrived mummified in brown tape to prevent the escape of its contents. 
I thought that as the mother of new undergraduates I would be sending an assortment of similarly over-wrapped parcels through the post, but times have changed.  Thirty years ago, “stuff” cost more than postage.  Nowadays, however, for the price of posting a small second class parcel, one could buy an entire new wardrobe.
But this week I finally found myself trekking twice to the special post box nearly a mile away which has a nice wide mouth.  Perran needed his proper dance gear for a competition on Saturday, and I also posted Carenza a pair of woolly tights to make her smile.
Of course, I was expecting conventional thank you notes to arrive by post through our own letter box, but what did I get in return?  Just two texts:-
:D
:-)
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Thursday 21 November 2013

Twin Telepathy

When I spoke to Perran recently, I wanted to know how much he and Carenza were talking to one another now they were at separate universities, and the answer was “Not much”.
I asked Carenza the same question.  She replied – “Well we’re twins, so we have this natural telepathy.”
Hmmmm.
I guess there are lots of other exciting things to do, new people to get to know and old friends to stay in touch with.  Perran and Carenza are close enough to know they won’t lose each other, and they’ll both be back under the same roof at Christmas, after all.
 “How’s that going then, Carenza?  The telepathy?”
“I don’t know: I’m still waiting for a reply.”

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Sunday 17 November 2013

Sexist Fox Hunt Thwarted

Oxford Student Fashion Shoot
After a traumatic week, the “Fox Hunt” did not take place in Oxford due to a united front by St Hugh’s authorities and student body.  The chaps concerned have now apologised, as no doubt they did when reprimanded in 2008 and 2012.
Before all this blew up, Carenza had also been in a (terribly repectable) fashion shoot for the Oxford Student and that was also published this week.
But Carenza had a much needed change of focus yesterday when Sasoon visited Oxford and took her to see the fabulous Loucin Moskofian, singing with Leeds Uni Big Band - her rendition of Etta James’ At Last was stunning. 
But after an eventful week, there’s no denying that the main thing for Carenza is to get her Monday essay in on time.  Easier if she hadn’t succumbed to a bad bout of the Week Five Flu.  Get well soon love – you’re my hero.

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Thursday 14 November 2013

A Blow against Misogyny


St Hugh's JCR overwhelmingly supported Carenza's motion to disassociate themselves from the Black Cygnets secret drinking society.
Hooray.
Tellingly, the small but inevitable backlash of bitchy comments on student sites is almost entirely anonymous and based on the dreary, flaccid argument "it's just a bit of fun".
What I really want to know is why my wonderful daughter is still having to face very much the same male chauvinist types that I did a generation earlier at Cambridge - jolly buffoons on the surface, but in reality ruthlessly enforcing a pernicious set of mysoginist values through the inclusion/exclusion techniques of bullying.
Well done, Carenza.
The full story in Cherwell
The Telegraph
Daily Mail

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Wednesday 13 November 2013

Sexist Drinkers Hit on the Wrong Feminist

Invitation to an event designed to flatter pretty female freshers,
then get them drunk and "capture" them.
Carenza is now just in her fifth week at Oxford, but it's never too early to take a stand.
She applied to St Hugh's because she loved its history as a college founded to educate women from non-wealthy backgrounds.
A reprehensible minority has been threatening the college ethos.  Despite having been banned by the college authorities, a secret all-male drinking society continues to operate at St Hugh's.  They call themselves the Black Cygnets, presumably because they're not mature enough to be considered swans.
With support from the responsible majority of undergraduates, both male and female, Carenza has spoken out against them.
Read more: Oxford Student Article on Black Cygnets

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Thursday 7 November 2013

Visit

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Having visited Perran earlier in half term week, today was Carenza’s turn. 
She is not the only wildlife in her room under the eaves.  As she showed us, there are also spiders and wasps.  But nothing compared to a student we once met as we toured an open day at Hull University.  This girl had been unable to resist the fee offered for opening her room up to visitors, but had failed to take into account the difficulty of keeping secret her pet rabbit, strictly illegal according to Hull rules.
Remembering that it was the wardrobe where that Hull student had stashed her rabbit, I did take a stealthy peek in Carenza’s.
“Why are you looking in my wardrobe, Mum?”
*casually* “Just wanted to see your clothes, dear.”
“They’re the same as before, Mum.”
Note to self: never peek in daughter’s wardrobe while she is actually watching you.

BUT, it was a pleasure to see Carenza snug in a cosy room with a great view across the grounds and to meet some of Carenza’s new friends including Toby, Betsy, Olivia, Taylor and Dave.

Tuesday 5 November 2013

Fireworks

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It’s the time of year when we usually play our annual game of Where’s Wally.  To make it more interesting, we do it in the dark.
On a windy hillside.
Next to a lake.
Surrounded by many thousands of people.
All there to watch the huge municipal firework display.
In spite of the fact that vast crowds of spectators are there, milling about in the pitch dark, we have often been amazed to find ourselves standing next to either Perran or Carenza and their group of friends.
Even when we haven’t, Nigel has still made it his business to text them saying “Hi – we can see you!” just to foster a healthy degree of paranoia in our offspring.
This year, we attended the event with Pascoe and friends Dan, Pippa, Graham and Ollie.  But , however much we played “Where’s Wally”, there were no twins to be seen, of course. 
Nigel asked “Shall I send them the ‘We can see you’ text anyway?”

“Oh, go on then.  At least, if they’ve reached the stage of term where they feel a bit homesick, it’ll remind them how good it is to be at university miles and miles away from their parents.”

Sunday 3 November 2013

Agenda

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I am driving down the M4 with an agenda.
It’s not going to be the kind of meeting where it would be acceptable to lay down a bullet-pointed schedule of items to be covered, but in my head, I definitely have a list.
The main points are:
Nutrition
Finance
IT backups
Transport
Date of Next Meeting.

In fact, the occasion is a visit to Perran in Bristol. 
He meets me from lectures looking handsome and happy; we have a delicious lunch at the Boston Tea Party, a wander round the museum, trawl a few charity shops for vintage clothing (Perran) and Latin books (me), then go back to his flat.
There is only one functioning light bulb in the kitchen.  Perran tells me they’re waiting for the maintenance man, but I secretly wonder if he has carefully removed the bulbs so I can’t see the true state of the kitchen – which actually looks fine by twilight.
We’ve had a lovely afternoon, but it’s time to go.  And the agenda? 

All points covered satisfactorily.

Friday 1 November 2013

Halloween

2012 Perran carved a potato after I forgot the pumpkin
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Every year, I have bought a large pumpkin and it has magically turned into a lantern.  This year I bought one and left it on the kitchen surface as usual, but nothing happened.  Even a day after Halloween, it still has no grin.
And this year, there was no gaggle of blood-spattered teens congregating at my house to polish up their scars before going on to some zombie social event.  Instead, they will have been plastering white face paint on each other in the comfort of their own student accommodation.
“You look really undead, Perran.”
“Aw, thanks.”
However, as night fell, a new generation of tiny witches did find their way to our door.  Some years we have hardly any visitations and are left sucking the Halloween lollies moodily on our own.  But this year, we had loads.  The sweets were soon used up and we were forced, lamely, to open a pack of biscuits.  Thank goodness they were chocolate and not rich tea – we might have been turned into frogs by our disgusted callers.

Oh well, time to start magically transforming the pumpkin into soup for the weekend.