Mother-Son trip

 

Nigel was taking his mum away for the weekend – they would stroll along Great Yarmouth prom and visit tea shops.

Pascoe and I were going hill walking in the Lakes.

Because the trips were so dissimilar it took a while to spot that they were parallel mother-son trips.

But then the trips developed another theme in common - knees.

Nigel and his Mum had an enjoyable first day but had to return early due to knee trouble. Pascoe and I set off up the Langdales and I was proud to climb Harrison's Stickle and Pavey Ark.  However, during the descent, my knees began to complain.

On the following two days we tackled much smaller hills.

 

Later, Nigel's Mum said how even though they'd had to leave early Nigel's cheerfulness and kindness made it a good weekend.

I certainly could not have climbed even one mountain without Pascoe who carried our rucksack and encouraged me.

 

I do my very best to keep my knees going by using knee supports and hiking poles. But if one day I lose the the battle, I'm sure Pascoe will also be kind and cheerful and take me to a tea shop.

 

In the meantime though, just let me at those hills!

Somebody was taking care of me

I already told how my lost bag was returned to me intact. But there were two other things that same week which made me feel I was being taken care of. 

On Sunday I came down with a cold, probably caught in school. 

On Friday we were to attend the musical Hadestown. I had wanted to see this standout musical for ages so we had purchased the expensive non-refundable tickets months before. I HAD to be well in time

 In the mean time, I went to work, but when it came time to teach, I'd lost my voice. 

I found a quiet task for my pupils but was unsure whether it would work out.

In fact my lovely students were especially helpful, obeyed mimed instructions and answered each other's questions on my behalf.

I was delighted.

However. As Friday and Hadestown grew close, I'd developed an irritating cough. I have a horror of coughing during a live performance.  

'I do hope we're sitting on the end of a row so I can leave if I need to. '

'We won't,' said Nigel. 'I always try to book the middle of a row.'

But when we arrived we were actually at the very end of a row, bang next to an exit door. When a coughing fit came on I was able to withdraw discreetly and come back when done. 

All in all, it was a very much better week than I was expecting. I felt Somebody had been taking care of me.

Lost property

The other week I had a crazy time where a lot of things were in play.

I was preoccupied.

I had just been doing a printing course with Carenza and it was the end of a long day and I was heading home.

As the train pulled out of St Pancras I looked out of the window and had the shock of recognition - that familiar backpack under the bench was mine.

I stood up and said ‘No’ and everybody in the coach looked at me.

I managed to refrain from pulling the emergency cord.

I patted myself down – purse phone and keys were in my pockets. 

Should I get off at the next stop and go back?

 But the trains were very sparse due to engineering works – I had already had a long wait.   I would just resign myself to the loss of the bag, now quite old and faded.

However, as soon as I passed the point of no return, I began to recall the things in the bag which I valued.

My Swiss army credit card (like a pen knife but cooler)

A compact backup phone battery Nigel had sourced

But the thing that had me saying ‘Oh’ (to the further alarm of my fellow passengers) was the gift Carenza had just given - a craft-market hairslide in my colours and a card she had made me herself.

Once home, I gloomily registered with lost property.

There were no matches.

A whole ten days later, I received an email saying the bag had been handed in. It didn't refer to the contents.  

Nigel would pick it up on his way back from work.   But when he got to Lost Property it was shut. 

Eventually, nearly two weeks after losing it, I could bear the suspense no longer, took the train and picked it up myself. I could barely wait to unzip it. 

Everything was still there. Including my lovely card and hairslide. 

I asked about the person who handed it in, but their details were not available. 

Whoever you are, thank you. You've restored my faith in human nature. X

 

Better Adventures

 

We are currently not flying anywhere since it's a major contributor to climate change.

So when the grey days of late winter are crowding in and those friends who can afford it are taking airborne flights to warm shores, how do I get a break?

Last weekend I got a very different kind of break.

On Saturday I went with Extinction Rebellion friends and made 3D models of deep sea creatures like sea angels, dragon fish and Dumbo octopus. These models will be used in a spectacular parade to protest against the damage done by deep sea mining.

On Sunday I joined Carenza and took a beginner's course on screen printing. I came away with ten moody prints of an image I made of the Primaporta Augustus.

At the end of the weekend I had learned several new skills and worked closely with a new set of people. 

And I came away with a sense of wellbeing that will hopefully last longer than an out-of-season suntan.

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.

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.

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!

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.’

 

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!

 

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.

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.

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.