Joined up writing

I was with friends at an outdoor café.

Sunshine meant a busy day and as I queued with Carol, a young waitress came out and wrote on the chalk board,

'No more soup.  Sorry for the inconveniance.'

She stood back, and surveyed her handiwork: 'That’s not right is it?'

'It’s an 'e',' offered a helpful bystander.

She rewrote it

'…inconveneance' her hand trailed off- she knew it still wasn’t right.

Other people in the queue began to voice their opinions. She started again, but in the face of contradictory advice, she soon froze, unable to proceed.

By this time the queue had advanced and I was right next to her. If a teacher has one super-power, then it is to write things clearly on boards.

'Would you like me to…?'

Gratefully she handed me the chalk.  I used my best teacher hand-writing to complete the notice and, resisting the urge to bow, passed on happily to order my food at the hatch.

'Well done,' said Carol, 'Inconvenience is a tricky one.'

I didn’t need soup to warm me, I had the smug glow of the accurate speller. 

But when we joined the others with our sandwiches, Diane nudged me to look back at the board. 

The young woman was painstakingly rewriting my inscription in an adult hand with loops and flourishes. 

'Alright – so I can spell – I just can’t do joined up writing.'

A very inconvenient piggy-bank

Coming back from work, I could see Nigel’s coat in the hall.  But no Nigel.

“Helloooo!”

“Gnnnn….”

The strange noise led me through to the kitchen.

On its side was the washing machine.  Wedged between it and the wall was Nigel.  Dirty suds stained the floor and he was up to his elbows in the device, like James Herriot delivering a problem calf.

I had nonchalantly put the sheets to wash before I went to work, but he had come home to find it all gone wrong.

With gritted teeth, and a pair of pliers, he was tugging at something caught in the pipe.  Again and again there was a clunk as he lost his grip on the object.

Eventually he wrestled out 71p’s worth of change. 

Unfortunately the machine was still making a weird sound afterwards so I now need to get it fixed.

The whole thing reminded me of a childhood gift that a relation once gave me.  It was a ceramic piggy bank where the only way to access my savings was to break the pig.

(And by the way, who on earth would do that to a child?!?)

All in all, I’m not sure 71p was worth taking the machine apart for. 

But at least I’m not emotionally attached to it in the way I was to poor Porky.

Gnomes threatened by high winds

Nigel’s family is a bit posher than mine and it doesn't usually matter.

But recently a divide has opened up between us.

It is over a little thing. To be precise, two little things.

We’ve been in our current post-kids home for four years now.  The garden has matured nicely. 

However, when I looked around, it seemed clear something was missing.

“I want gnomes!”

“Gnomes are awful.  You can’t have them.”

“Not even in an ironic, Post-Modern way?”

“Maybe just one…”

“But he would be lonely.  There have to be at least two!”

At this point, our memories of the conversation diverge.  Nigel seems to think he said “Over my dead body,” but I somehow heard it as “That would be fine.”

Carenza very kindly gave me two little cylindrical parcels for Christmas.  My gnomes.

I asked Nigel where I might place them in the garden.  His suggestions always seemed to include the word “behind” – “behind the rockery”, “behind the pittosporum”

That didn’t seem sensible to me.  Nobody would be able to see them.  Instead, I found a nice open spot in our front garden where they could greet any passing neighbours.

Only problem is, there’s no shelter from the wind and last time we had a gale, it knocked one of them over.

At least, I guess it was the wind…

Saved by the School Bell

Three years ago, Christmas finished but Carenza was still living with us and not in proper work yet.

Two years ago, Christmas finished and both Perran and Carenza were living with us.

One year ago, Pascoe was home.  “We could have an adventure, Mum,” he said, and we did – a short trip to meltingly beautiful Lisbon.

This year, however, after what was for me an unsatisfactory Christmas (flu) all the children left to go back to their own flats and working lives.  Nigel returned to work too.

Still feeling rather sorry for myself, I found myself with several days before teaching started and a to-do list which, though long, contained no task that I found in any way tempting.

Instead I sat around wondering what my whole life had been about, whether the good times were all over.  Whether all that was left was decline and inevitable decay.

Luckily, work started again this week.

I now know what life is about – it is about printing out registers, marking stray exercise books, making sure the info on my PowerPoints is correct and that everything is uploaded to my USB stick.

I feel much more myself again.

So that’s alright then.