Phantom Christmas

I have heard of the concept of a phantom pregnancy, where, perhaps because she longs for a baby, a woman develops the symptoms of pregnancy, yet there is no baby to be born.

This year, I had a phantom Christmas.  I made all the preparations – cards, gifts, food, sleeping arrangements.  Even though I try not to over-complicate, there’s still more than enough to do.

Pascoe, Perran and Carenza had all arrived home, much to our delight.

Then on the morning of Christmas Eve, I woke to find I could not get out of bed – I was gripped by a fever and aches and pains. Even my eyes hurt too much to read my novel.

On Christmas morning itself,  I got up for just long enough to see Pascoe, Perran and Carenza open their gifts.  I tried to be glad for everybody else’s sake that the sun was shining for the annual Christmas walk.  I got the makings of dinner out of the fridge and, led by Carenza, the rest of the family cooked and ate them.

By Boxing Day Nigel had the flu too. 

Gradually, over the next couple of days, we began to feel more ourselves again and had some good moments with our lovely children.  However, by Sunday lunch time, they were all gone, back to work, or celebrations with friends. 

Now there is bedding to wash and leftovers to use up, evidence that the festival took place, but I kind of have this weird feeling that I’m short by one Christmas.

Perhaps I’m due two next year!

When you thought you knew somebody and then….

I’m in pre-Christmas headless chicken/blue-bottom fly mode.

Rushing round shopping, wrapping, posting.

But something this week made me come to a complete stand still.

It was a totally unexpected find, and it is taking me a while to process.

Whether it is good or bad I have not yet decided.

Let me explain---

I was just putting away some gloves when I opened Nigel’s hat/glove/scarf drawer in the hall cupboard.

There, carefully arranged in Marie Kondo style were all Nigel’s scarves.

“Nigel, did you do this?”

“Errr, yes.”

“And is it working well for you?”

“Yep.”

And there I left it.  But in my depths, I am troubled that after thirty-five years of marriage, he can still surprise me.

Better to light a single candle

In October, I wrote that I had been out protesting/demonstrating and that it made me feel empowered in the face of a scary world.

Things have since got even scarier. 

But: “It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.”

So in the days running up to the election, in between working hours, I leafleted a couple of streets on behalf of the People’s Vote Campaign (suggesting tactical voting) and another four streets on behalf of the Lib Dems.  I also helped to collect dozens of letters aimed at stopping the expansion of our local airport (if it happens, it will greatly increase carbon emissions) and also sewed logos on a few tee shirts for Extinction Rebellion.

It was better to be doing something than sitting and fretting.  Or at least it would have been, if I hadn’t run myself into the ground and succumbed to a heavy cold.

And now, the national election has gone against everything I’d prayed for. 

As Annabel said “Woe, woe, and three times woe”.

But on the bright side, in St Albans we got a brilliant new Lib Dem MP, Daisy Cooper.

And concerning the National Tragedy, all the campaigning work I put in means I now have a copper- bottomed excuse to ‘curse the darkness’ or grumble.

But being a positive person, I’ll probably do something more constructive instead…

…like tunneling all the way to the Continent and leading the rest of my life there.

Lost Babies

All year round, I take photos of lost things.

I’m not sure why – perhaps it is because of the stories they suggest.

Sometimes the lost things are lying on the ground, sometimes perched on a fence for the owner to spot.

The commonest item is hats, the second commonest, gloves.  So no surprises there.

At the Greenbelt festival, I found a whole get-together of lost items

And recently a lost moustache made me smile.

Another memorable find was some abandoned underpants, just outside a public toilet which had been permanently closed and chained up.  Fill in the story for yourself.

But the most amazing things this Autumn were two lost babies, both in the same week.

Anthony Gormley’s sculpture of his own baby was left in the courtyard of the RA, making passers by marvel at its statement of vulnerability.

And on a school carpet, somebody’s tiny plastic baby doll, sadly not intentionally abandoned, I suspect.  I hope it found a new and loving owner.

What will I find next year?

Lots of hats and gloves, no doubt, but also, maybe something else to make me marvel.

A Proud Day

Just like with every PhD, there were moments when Pascoe, and even Nigel and I, thought the end would never come.  Around the end, progress slowed to a very slow sloth crawling up a steep tree bough in a leisurely fashion.

But finally on Saturday, graduation day had arrived and to cap it all, the letter appointing Pascoe senior scientist at a biotech start-up arrived through his door at about the same moment we did.  So we were all in ebullient mood.

The firm which was hiring out the academic gowns for the ceremony clearly had a plan – a very tight route from the hire-stand into McKewan Hall for the ceremony and then straight back out to the stand again.  

But Pascoe reasoned that he had paid good money for the hire and was going to take his robes out for a spin.

We processed through Edinburgh Christmas market where I had been drawn to the twinkly lights like a consumerist moth, and then as the cold rain grew heavier, into the National Gallery of Scotland where Pascoe posed with the great art. 

It was a lovely experience as a number of strangers congratulated him and stopped for a chat. 

And Pascoe certainly got the value out of his robes.

The Impossible Dream

I hanker after a little place in Cornwall. However, it is a complex category of dream since we don't have the money and we don't actually believe it's the right thing to do.

Yet, my vague wish for a pied a terre in my homeland of Cornwall remains since it is an emotional impulse, not a logical one. In Welsh and Cornish there is a term 'hireth' which means something like 'the longing for one's homeland'.

Partly it is the love of my homeland which tells me I should not aspire to a second home there. It is to snatch a dwelling from a young family who might make their lives there and contribute to the economy.

But this week a huge chunk of logic was also added to the scales. I had to be home to open the door to tradesmen to repair a broken window, a leaky roof and a blocked drain. All the routine aggravations of house ownership in one week. If we were lucky enough to own another property it would be house maintenance times two.

No thank you.

I shall stick to dreaming and looking wistful, like so many displaced Celts before me.

Rosy-fingered dawn

If there's one thing I try to avoid, it is the Dawn. 

When I rearranged my teaching life I was keen to swap early morning commutes for evening classes. I simply am not a morning person.

So when something is important enough to get me up early, the dawn seems like a foreign country to me. 

Saturday morning, I was travelling to the Saatchi gallery where Perran had bought us tickets for the Tutankhamun.

The footpath to the train station was deserted.  Silence.  A huge grey heron flapped noiselessly over my head. Some chickens murmured nervously behind a garden fence.  And when a black crow took off just in front of me, I could hear the taffeta rustle of its black wings.

But then came the best of all. As I turned onto the road beside the old prison, the trees blazed with golden leaves and a little robin was perched on the railings. As I drew closer though the bird grew less familiar. I was expecting to see a red breast but instead the whole bird was a sooty black. As I neared, it turned and fluttered to a nearby tree and its tail flashed orange. 

I was looking at a black redstart,  an uncommon sight in the South East. 

If I had set out later, would I even have noticed the redstart in all the bustle? Would it already have fled to somewhere quieter?

Maybe I do like dawn after all.

If you love them, let them go

I don’t like to see birds held captive in an aviary.

Small zoo cages also bother me.

For a long time, we talked of keeping doves, then finally we took the plunge.

But the first stage in keeping doves is to keep them netted in for six weeks while they decide that your dovecote is home.

Nigel carefully put up a net that was as spacious as possible, but still I did not like to see them trapped inside. 

Whenever somebody visited I felt I had to explain our apparent cruelty.  One friend jumped to the conclusion that the net was permanent and scolded me.

However, the only thing worse than keeping the net on was the day when it was time to remove it.  

You cannot be certain the doves will return.  Like adolescent children they will be exposed to the dangers of road traffic and evil strangers – although in the case of the doves, the evil stranger is a sparrowhawk. 

It was my birthday when we removed the nets and our children were there.  The doves sped off into the blue as fast as their wings would carry them before the nets were even down properly.

“They buzzed right off!” said Carenza.

Only at dusk, when the urge to roost came over them would we know for sure if they would return.

That night, as the sun lowered in the sky, through the clear evening light, first came winging one dove, then several more, plopped into their pigeonholes, turned and looked out at us. That first night, we were two short, but another came and rejoined the second night. 

One down.

We would have to be content with that.

Supernatural Bird Activities

We had netted in a batch of new doves – to keep them in our dovecote for six weeks while they came to accept it as home.

Now, we were only one week off releasing them so they could fly free.

We returned home one night in the dark. 

I looked up and said goodnight to the roosting doves.

But then I stopped in my tracks.

On the floor of the enclosure lay a still white shape.

“One of our doves is dead.”

But when I looked up at the dovecote where the rest were roosting, I counted the same number as ever.

We looked again at the dead dove and saw it had some black markings unlike any of ours.

“So the one on the ground is from outside?  But how did it get in?”

Nigel hazarded, “Perhaps it was trying to get in through the net and it died.”

“But then it would still be stuck in the net.”

It was like Sherlock Holmes – The Mystery of the Dead Dove. Or is that a Henry James?

I decided that a neighbour had found an injured or sick bird and tucked it into our enclosure, out of the way of cats.  Where, unfortunately, it had died.

One day soon a neighbour would come up to me and explain.  However, a fortnight later I am still waiting.

Spooked by the event, we un-netted the doves a week early.  So for them it was a good outcome.

I’m now wondering whether, in the interests of freedom, they somehow managed to rig up this “dead dove scam” themselves.

Our house with "doves"

Protesting is good for you

In the week that I turned fifty-seven, I protested with Extinction Rebellion and marched for a People’s Vote on Brexit.

My back hurts a bit, but my spirits are in good shape. 

I’m frightened about what will happen to the economy of this country and to the welfare of our citizens should Brexit occur.  I’m terrified of what will happen to our planet as Global Heating ramps up.

Many of my friends lie awake at night fretting about the future of their children and grand-children.  They are right to do so. 

But my way to be at peace with my conscience and get a good night’s sleep is to protest.  I  am signing the petitions, writing the letters to MPs and I’m getting out there with flags and banners and demonstrating and marching.

Feeling powerless is destructive to the body and mind, but grasping whatever agency we have is empowering.  It has been better for me to take action than to sit at home following the newsfeeds and gnashing my teeth in impotent rage.

I’ve had challenging conversations while handing out leaflets, and I’ve also been touched by the kindness of others, handing me home-baked flapjack.

So in trying to keep my country and my planet alive, I’ve come to feel more alive too.

Annabel with her beautiful banner

A businesslike approach to the threat of extinction

Greta Thunberg asked why she should go to school if everything she would learn there is irrelevant in the face of catastrophic climate change.

But what if you’ve already spent decades in business earning a living and working towards a great future for your employees and for your own family? How do you react when you are confronted by the looming climate change disaster?

Two St Albans businessmen who did not previously know each other took similar action. 

Alex Paul is owner/director of a sportswear company employing fifty.  He has been with Extinction Rebellion since its inception. 

“I asked myself the question In ten years time when my children ask me what I did to prevent the catastrophe what will I say? I now have an answer for that question.”

Nigel Harvey, CEO of a company which coordinates recycling joined Extinction Rebellion over the summer.  His motivation was strikingly similar to Alex’s.  

“One day I hope to have grandchildren.  When they ask me whether I did anything to prevent this crisis, I’ll have some sort of answer for them.”

Both are busy running their businesses and annual leave is limited so each picked the means to make the maximum contribution to Extinction Rebellion in the shortest time. 

They each attended training sessions on the rights of arrestees, then booked a day off work, travelled into London, and headed for the high-vis jackets of the police cordon.

On Monday 7^th October Nigel sat on the road in Trafalgar Square in defence of a scaffolding tower which Extinction Rebellion members had erected, climbed and then superglued themselves to.  In no time, he was being carried off into a police van.

On Tuesday 8^th October Alex went to Downing St.  Seeing that the police were clearing the protesters’ tents, he went and sat in an empty one and refused to budge.  He was arrested almost immediately.

Both were released after a number of hours and able to resume work the next day.  Both now have a cogent story which makes clear to their colleagues and friends the depth of their concern for the future of the planet and the need to act.

Job done.  For both Alex and Nigel a businesslike approach to climate protest has proved effective.

It should also be said that Alex is not the first arrestee in his family. In the April protests, his wife, Emily Spry, GP, decided to be arrested in order to spread awareness of the climate change emergency.  If Alex’s response is anything to go by, it certainly had an effect.

Extinction Rebellion

When is being arrested a good thing?

When you are doing it deliberately to raise awareness of the looming threat of climate change.

On Monday Nigel  sat on the road in Trafalgar Square in defence of a scaffolding tower which Extinction Rebellion members had erected, climbed and then superglued themselves to.  

The protesters are following the example of Greta Thunberg and the school strikes in asking the government to act urgently to save the planet from irreversible climate change.

Far from being one of the “crusties” dismissed by Boris Johnson, Nigel is CEO of a company which coordinates recycling and he has a science degree from Cambridge University.  Many of the Extinction Rebellion protesters are educated professionals who have seen the data on climate change and are terrified by the implications.

“The great mistake is to imagine that the UK will be okay.  The changes that are affecting the planet will wipe out millions of hectares of agricultural land and dispossess many millions of people across the globe.  You can be certain the repercussions will damage the UK.”

Nigel was keen to allow himself to be arrested to show how important this issue was to him.

“Extinction Rebellion follows the models of the Suffragettes and the American Civil Rights Movement led by Martin Luther King. Allowing myself to be arrested is a great way of showing how important this is to me.  One day I hope to have grandchildren.  When they ask me whether I did anything to prevent this crisis, I’ll have some sort of answer for them.”

The Capture

We've been watching The Capture, the cleverly plotted BBC drama. 

It's made me think - how many times each day as I go about my work routines, pics/footage of me is captured.  I teach in several different schools which have adopted a new visitor system.  On arrival, I go to a touch screen and enter my details.  Then it takes a pic.
Even though it's a head shot, I can't help sucking in my stomach.

The photo is then printed out with my name, inserted in a little plastic wallet and hung round my neck on a lanyard.
 
I had presumed that this was in case, under the stress of modern teaching, I was found wondering the corridors, unable to remember my own name. 

Now, I realise it is for security. 

Or maybe for blackmail purposes - if I ever threatened to quit a particular school they could post the world's most unflattering photo on facebook/insta/twitter.

At the first school this week, I was too short for their set-up and my photo was only of my glasses and the top of my head. 

In the second school, I had cycled and my hair was frizzy and my glasses misted.

In the third school, the set-up takes photos against the light, so as always, I was represented by a silhouette, specs glinting in a sinister manner.

Think I'm going to invest in a stick-on moustache to see if I can go one better next week.
After that - some false goofy teeth.

And when I run out of ideas - a hand-stand of course.

New nests

In the last couple of months, all of my children have moved house into proper civilised flats. Still rentals rather than the distant glittering dream of a mortgage. But definitely smarter than in the past. 

It seems like just yesterday we were dragging new bedding into university halls of residence (or not, in the case of Carenza who forgot hers).  I had a really bad back at that point, so while Nigel hauled a massive suitcase of clothes I would carry a pack of paperclips.

Perhaps because of such past uselessness, none of the children involved me in their move this time.

It felt weird.

 

I wanted to see where they were living.  Help them settle in.  It is a basic Mum function. 

At a very primitive level, I have a need to interfere with their interior design.

I have now managed to blag my way into Perran and Carenza’s flat, and mighty fine it is.  I think they wanted to hold off until it was perfect – being new householders, they don’t realise yet that it will never be perfect. But I was still impressed.

And I have a ticket to go to Edinburgh in November. Pascoe thinks I am coming to see him, but in fact, it is his flat that I am interested in.

On Skype, Pascoe tells me he has been enjoying watching the antlike continuous parade of new Edinburgh students entering Wilkinsons and leaving with an armful of essentials which ALWAYS includes a clothes airer.

“That was us once,” I say.

The Dove and the Passion Flower

The last few weeks have been about trying again.

A year ago we attempted to establish our own flock of doves but failed to source bonded pairs of birds as we should have. 

Over winter we appeared to be running an all-you-can-eat buffet for the local sparrowhawk. In the spring the two remaining pairs nested but magpies raided them persistently. Finally they drifted off to join a bigger flock just down the road.

Three weeks ago we got new birds and netted them in so they would learn to think of our dove cote as home. Then on the night of a dear friend's funeral, a fox broke in, killed one dove and made a hole big enough for others to get out.

Now we are trying once more with four new pairs of doves.

Meanwhile in the back garden, we just planted a passion flower for the fourth time. We're usually good with flowers, but clearly not passion flowers. Maybe this time.

In both cases, we think it's worth trying again because we have a vision. A flock of doves wheeling above our house and landing on the roof.  A sunny back wall bursting into life with the exotic green and violet blooms of the passion flower.

With both flowers and birds, we've taken note of what went wrong and tried to improve our chances of success this time.

Wish us luck

Extinction Rebellion

A really potent army recruitment poster of 1915 had a child asking his father, “Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?”

There is nothing more powerful than the thought that we will be called to account for our actions.  Especially if it our own children and grandchildren who are suffering as a result. 

So Nigel and I joined Extinction Rebellion.  It’s not like we have an excess of spare time or a shortage of hobbies.  It just seems incredibly urgent.

Many people would like to carry on the way we are - "If we ignore climate change, maybe it'll go away." Plus there is a strong mesh of business interests which does not want us to consume fewer resources. 

However, I have studied history and archaeology and I know that mighty civilisations like ours have fallen and that sometimes it has been for environmental reasons.

It is devastatingly inaccurate for us Brits to say, "We'll be okay." 

Actually global climate crisis will affect all of us. The millions who are being drowned and scorched will strive for survival. Society will break down on an unprecedented level.

Ours is the last generation that can prevent this. I am haunted by the vision of my someday grandchildren asking me what I did to ensure the planet was habitable for them. I want to have some sort of answer for them.

The death of a friend

When we downsized to our new house four years ago, Ann and Helen kindly came to help me unpack the kitchen.  We worked hard for several hours and at the end of the day we were all tired.

“I think that’s enough for today,” I said.

But I had reckoned without Ann’s characteristic of being a completer/finisher.  It was one of the things that made her so effective, but at that moment, I could have done without it.

“Let’s just leave it now.”

But she was determined to finish the job.  And because she was tired, a dish slipped from her fingers and got chipped.

The dish was part of a set, so I kept it.  But every time I used it, the chip annoyed me a little.

However, this summer, Ann suffered a terrible horse-riding accident, and after three weeks in a coma, she died.

She leaves a great gap in all our lives and when her funeral took place, four hundred and fifty people arrived from all over the country to pay tribute to the extraordinary person she was.

It has been too hard to write about, but suffice it to say, that chipped dish is now the most precious one in my house.