Bike Helmet

Nigel and I have always been sticklers for bike helmets. 

Because how could we insist that our children wear them if we didn’t ourselves.

Sometimes, my helmet has been joggling around on the top of my up-do, but I still wore it so I could be self-righteous with the offspring.

On Thursday, when a nice paramedic delivered Nigel home, we were very glad he had been wearing one.

He has a memory blank for the actual incident, but his last recollection is of a car trying to overtake him on a mini-roundabout.

He came to with a circle of faces above him.  Always a sign that something has gone badly wrong for you.

From the bits of him that hurt, we think he skidded on the corner and hit his head on the curb.

If he hadn’t been wearing the helmet….

So, in this blog, no jokes or special thoughts.  Just one message – wear the helmet.

Guiilotined

Over the last two weeks, through coincidence, I have been formally assessed twice at work.  The first time it was myself personally, the second, as a member of my department.

The garnish on the whole nut roast (to subtly alter the icing/cake metaphor) is that over the whole two weeks I have been suffering from a nasty head cold.

Probably brought on by the stress of assessment.

It is not just our department which is being assessed and the indications are plain in the staff room.

One sign of a very new teacher is that they spend a disproportionate amount of time around the school guillotine.

For that is where one makes exciting resources –little puzzles and top trumps cards.

Now in my third year of teaching, my relationship with the cutting machine has rather cooled.

But this week it is the old lags who are clustered round the guillotine once more in some sort of nostalgie de coup, preparing fascinating lessons for the assessment.

At this point, it becomes noticeable that while we have three large hi-tech photocopiers, we have only one guillotine.

What with the stress and the jostling, it is only a matter of time before somebody loses all the fingertips on their left hand.  I bet they didn’t put that in the health and safety assessment for all these inspections.

And on the lesson assessment form, there will probably be a criticism for getting blood all over the children’s work sheets. Ho hum.

Mother’s Day with added bacteria

I thought Pascoe had forgotten Mother's Day, but it seems not.  These arrived via WhatsApp.

"I've made you a hand made card out of genetically modified bacteria but unfortunately it's illegal to send it in the post, so I thought I'd send you the pictures instead."

Left - "Happy Mother's Day" in Latin (apparently)
Right - our family

A sea anemone smiling - long story, but highly significant to me.

Star

Last year Perran was thrilled to be selected as a dancer in Bristol’s FUZE show – catwalk fashion, dance numbers and songs by local musicians, with profits to charity.  This year he was back as a dance director. 

Nigel, Carenza, Perran’s great friend Amy and I all converged on the show.   As an older person, I still get a frisson when attending anything trendy enough to warrant a wristband.  Will I be forced to cut it off when I go to school on Monday?

I was also wearing a new top to look cool - a velvet tunic with an ethnic pattern.  So far, so good.  But it also had a deep, looped fringe.  Which caught on: Ercol chairs at home, the gear stick in the car, my own coat buttons, the handle in the ladies’ toilet. 

I t seems being cool is quite hard work.  

And I needn’t have bothered. Nobody was looking at me – the models were exquisite, the dance numbers, whether sassy or moody, were ambitious and consummately performed.

I cannot say how impressed I was at Perran’s choreography and performance.  And those of his friends.

I was even more impressed that he found time before his Saturday performance to have brunch with us and follow a trail around historic Bristol.

He’s clearly got it all under control.

Floored

Our previous wooden floor -visible again as we packed up
to move house last year.

Perran - happy with carpet in his new bedroom.

It was exciting doing up our first flat thirty years ago, the very tight budget made it a real challenge. 

However, now on our sixth house, the thrill has palled. 

From the moment we bought this house, we knew we didn’t like the floor – a worn laminate with a loud pattern mimicking badly distressed wood.  It badly distressed us.

Yet I was prepared to put up with it rather than suffer more upheaval.  But it wasn’t to be.  The floor was standing in the way of progress.

“We could build in a coats cupboard under the stairs.”

“Although we’ll have to do the floor first.”

“We need to build in some shelves in the sitting room.”

“Can’t do that until we’ve done the floor.”

So  it looks like now we’re doing the floor.  

Once, we would have asked detailed questions and examined each quote minutely.  Now, as soon as we get what seems like a fair price from somebody with an honest face, we give the go-ahead. 

All the fight has gone out of us.

So we have driven out for the day, leaving  Brakow and Alexandrov laying the floor.

“Should we have specified thicker planks?”

“Not sure.  Should we have asked them what they’ll do around the fireplace?”

We have “Bought floor in haste”.

We are now “repenting at leisure.”

However, it’ll all come out in the wash.  When we moved into our last house, we were the first of our friends to put in a wooden floor.  We went to great trouble and expense and installed beautiful, high-spec solid oak boards. 

When our friends came round, one of them tutted and said, “Still bare boards?  I’d have thought you’d have got your carpets down by now.”

Too old for selfies?

First attempt, with Fiona - not good.

It is important to learn new skills,

Apparently, it keeps the brain active and slows the onset of dementia.

So I am learning to take selfies. 

My grumpy friends say that people who take selfies look ridiculous.

But I think they look jolly.

“Look at me – I’m in front of one of the seven wonders of the world, but all that really matters is getting me and my mate in the frame.  Smiiiile!”

So far, I have taken two selfies with old friends of mine and one with Perran.  I enjoyed best the ones with people my age as we none of us know how to position ourselves for the camera and a lot of cuddling up and uneasy shifting about is involved.  Then we have to remember not to peer worriedly into the lens.  “Cheese.”

Second attempt, with Jen - getting better

Whereas youngsters are merely embarrassed at my parental incompetence.

With Perran - nearly got it -nope - finger over the lens

The only limitation I can see on my valuable new skill is that I shall never be very good at it.

I have short arms and a large face.

My selfies are doomed.

Perhaps forthcoming generations will evolve with longer arms.  And at the end of those long arms they can keep their ultra-mobile thumbs whose dexterity has developed from texting.

Ash Wednesday

The bit of dirt on my forehead is the ashen cross -
hope it doesn't give me excema like it did Alice last year.

Went to the Ash Wednesday service last night.

One of my favourite services of the year.  The other is Good Friday.

Possibly I’m better at doing the gloomy contemplative bits of my faith than the jolly rejoicing.

Lent is a time when I, along with so many others, focus on my spiritual life.  The turn of the seasons reflects my spiritual progression.  We start Lent when the branches are still bare, when fresh produce is not yet being harvested in Northern Europe and the pickles and salted meat of the Autumn before are running low. 

As the early spring swells into being, spiritual strength glows like a bank of crocuses then  gets flattened by a gail of doubt.

Like a well-plotted novel, we move inexorably toward the greatest crisis – the death of the Saviour.  Also like a great novel, there is a twist – on Palm Sunday, Jesus enters Jerusalem in triumph – the children in church lay down palm leaves in the aisle and one of their number, with the obligatory tea towel on his/her head,  processes over them on a toy donkey.  We all cheer. Surely it’s all going to be alright after all.

But by Good Friday, we know it isn’t – the worst has happened. 

Then Easter Sunday and, if we are lucky, blue skies and blossom.  Only with the possibility of the worst  can the best happen.  The Resurrection and the promise of a life to come, to hold onto through the trials of this world.

More than any straightforward religious text, TS Elliot’s Ash Wednesday speaks to me

Blessed sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated
And let my cry come unto Thee.

This is an extract.  For the full poem Ash Wednesday by T.S. Eliot

Grown-ups

Just got back from the twins’ 21^st. 

The party was last night and today we had lunch with them and a bunch of their dear old friends at the Jericho Cafe.

People mourn as their offspring cease to be children. 

But I feel that I now have two more grown-up friends.

Except that they are younger and trendier than my other grown-up friends.

Except of course Pascoe, who is also young and trendy.

Twenty-First

The day my younger children turned eighteen was a major milestone.

For me.

For many years, I had identified myself primarily as a mother.  Everything else I did (whether paid, voluntary, or just for the hell of it) had to “fit round”.

But when they hit eighteen, I found my wings again, took off, gained a PGCE in Classics at Cambridge and got a job in a great school teaching Latin and Classical Civilisation to amazing pupils.

And we all lived happily ever after.

Except today they are turning twenty-one.  Another major milestone.

Who knows what will happen next.

Coat Hangers

 

If there is one thing that will always remind me of my children’s student years, it is coathangers.  When we delivered Carenza to her student room recently, the first thing out of the box was a Gordian knot of cheap plastic coathangers.

For without coathangers there is muddle.

Of course, if one espouses the floordrobe method , there is no need for them.  And indeed, I cannot see any disadvantage in having the floor continually strewn with layers of partially worn clothing, now irredeemably crumpled.  It probably helps to attract friends and partners too. And is also a good place to store snack crumbs.

However, for us less enlightened beings who persist in using coathangers, we experience a tidal flow situation.  When the children return to university, suddenly there are hordes of hangers, clinging to the knobs of chests of drawers, scaling the front of wardrobes. 

The first time this happened, Nigel scooped up a bundle and delivered them to Oxfam.  But when the children returned there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.  With the coathangers gone, they would HAVE to leave their clothes in an enormous jumble on the floor.  Something they would never normally do. (!)

Now I have commandeered the Black Sock Hamper (a different story – later) and we fill it with the surplus hangers.  Over the months of term time the hangers must pine for their former owners, as they emerge looking thin and wiry, but they are soon taken away and employed. 

When the coathanger drought arrives and the hamper is empty, we will know that at last our children are home for the holidays.

Frock

You shouldn’t go shopping for a particular occasion. Unless you are, say, the bride.

New is not necessarily better.  

But an occasion is coming up. A certain pair of people are turning 21 and we shall celebrate.

For me, the same simple black velvet dress has done duty for about fifteen years. But it is sleeveless and I suspect  that is no longer a good look for me.

So I scrambled the Ford Fiesta and set off to raid the end of the sale at Monsoon. Everything I tried on looked frumpy. The designer seemed to think that if you wanted sleeves you must also wish to hide your cleavage. And probably your legs too. Bah!

There were however hods of one promising sequinned number in just my size. In the changing room I saved it until last. Then I discovered the reason so many were left. They were smaller than their declared size.  Stuck with my arms over my head I called to the assistant to cut me out. But it was the sale. There was no assistant. 

So I spent some time writhing free. Like an anaconda shedding its skin. To add insult to injury, the nylon lining had electrified my hair and it was standing  on end (see pic).

I gave up. It would have to be the old dress and a shrug.  Yummy.

Then on Saturday I was on my lunch break, nipped into M&S, and spotted  the “will anybody please take this off our hands” rail.  Gleaming at me was a black dress with a bronze sheen. It had sleeves AND a deep neckline.   It cost less than £20, but it makes me feel like a princess (albeit an elderly one, like maybe Princess Ann).

Perhaps that is why people go shopping for new outfits.  

Transport

Today the last child is being delivered back to university.

Come to that, she is the ONLY child that we actually deliver.  Carenza has more luggage than the boys as she has to clear out her belongings each holiday so that her college room can be let for conferences.

But it’s not easy for the boys either – by the time Perran got home for Christmas, the wheels had come off his enormous holdall and because his phone was broken, he couldn’t ring us from the station.  What a drag!

Plus, Perran always seems to have less stuff with him when he arrives home than he does when he leaves. The “stuff” must be accumulating in Bristol.  I haven’t yet seen Perran’s accommodation this year.  However, I have a mental picture of it as a huge repository of interesting curios – the kind of place Harry Potter might go to pick up a second-hand wand.

The kind of place which we shall have to clear out over the summer when he moves.

Poor Pascoe returned to Edinburgh a week ago at the end of a family visit to the Northumberland grandparents.  He left after the rest of us which meant he had to carry with him a very bulky sleeping bag that we had accidentally failed to shove in the car. Given how much stuff he was already carrying,  I have no idea how he managed it.

And I kind of wish he hadn’t.  

Because Nigel and I will be visiting him in February and will have to bring it back on the train.

Where is my goat?

Rather than bemoaning Christmas as a commercial feeding frenzy with a heartless vacuum at its core, many of my friends see it as an opportunity to support the organisations they care about and express their values.

As ever some of the best Christmas gifts this year came via Oxfam.  Pascoe bought me a training package for a teacher in the developing world, and John, a friend whom I help get to church, got me a goat.

Usually I would be happy to think of people in some developing country with great big smiles on their faces, lives transformed by the gift of a goat or teaching resources.

But just this year, I feel slightly peeved not to have access to the goat.  The weather has been so warm that our grass has kept on growing.  I could really do with that goat to mow the lawn.

Mystery Christmas Card

One of our Christmas cards arrived damaged.

Was that a bite out of the envelope?

Weirdly, when we opened it, it wasn't even signed.

But then I took another look at the shape of the bite mark and it all became clear.

It was obviously a Christmas card sent to Nigel by his beloved koi carp.  He had been forced to leave them behind in the pond of our previous house, but they had not forgotten him.

Of course the card wasn't signed - fish can't write!

Maybe lovely Geraldine - to whom they belong now- had helped them with the address. Thanks Geraldine.

Christmas Stockings

For years I gave the kids little novelties and scraps of this and that in their Christmas  stockings only to see them go straight out when we did the post Christmas charity shop trip. It has taken me time to learn that the enjoyment  we share over a wind-up hedgehog or (this year) a yodelling flamingo will already have peaked in the shop and will not be increased by our bringing the item home.

However, this year our Christmas stockings are showing TWO signs of my increasing maturity.

Firstly, this Santa has been planning to fill those stockings with truly useful items like socks and toothbrushes.  Hopefully nobody will be yearning after the yodelling flamingo or the windscreen wiper specs.

But the second sign of my growing “maturity” is not so good.  

Where is the bag full of everybody’s favourite toiletries?  Where have I hidden it? 

It was quite large.  It can’t just have disappeared. 

  Maybe I left it in the shop and never brought it home?

By this time next year my family may have packed me off to a residential home for Santas who can no longer remember where they parked their sleigh.

Christmas Drama

We have had a Christmas drama. I didn’t say much about it as I was ashamed of my own selfishness. 

At Christmas, the prospect of relaxing in your own sitting room is far more potent than the  idea of an exotic holiday.

But we have been having a chimney breast and wood-burning stove installed. 

Everything in our sitting  room has been covered in sheets of plastic as if we had  made the decor choice ‘murder investigation ‘.  

The Christmas tree was queueing outside the back door, the unused fairy-lights clustering  on the landing.  

I am so callous that in this era of displaced families and refugees I just really wanted my fireplace finished by the time that Pascoe, Perran and Carenza got home for Christmas.

The fireplace guy suffered various setbacks, becoming  grimmer as the weeks passed. Finally with Pascoe and Carenza already here and Perran on his way the woodburner went in last Friday. 

Okay, so the glass is broken and we can’t use it until  we get a replacement.

Okay, so there’s still a gap that needs filling down the side of the fireplace.

But the plastic has come off the furniture, the tree has gone up. We are home.

Now all that we need to do is not switch on the TV news.

Wise men follow the star...

Following last year's adventures when we were out of the house, the wise men have once again stumbled into difficulties, courtesy of Carenza.

Black Friday

I think of myself as an ex-shopper. 

I got caught up in the rampant enjoyment of shopping in the 90s especially as we lived near the new, glitzy and vast Gateshead MetroCentre.

I soon realised that the happiness gained from shopping is at best fleeting, and I stopped. 

But recently my girlfriends were reminiscing about a trip we made to the Cotwolds. 

“I liked Bourton on the Water.”

“Is that where Clare got the cake-icing nozzle?”

“No, that was Stow on the Wold.  Bourton on the Water was where she got that pottery dish.”

“I thought Stow on the Wold was where she got that metal sign to go on her house.”

“No, I can’t remember where that was.”

I listened in silence. Clearly still more of a shopper than I realised then.

And just in case I thought I was cured, along comes Black Friday.

I meant to support “Buy Nothing Friday”.  So much more in tune with my anti-shopping  ideals.

But the notion that I could be in town filling Christmas stockings at a huge discount was having its effect on me.  It was as if the shops were a giant magnet and I was wearing a brace on my teeth.

I whizzed in and bought five carefully-chosen items.  I was nearly back at the car park when I ran into Georgia who looked impressed and said

“Wow – you’ve bought loads.”

Not really, I thought.  But then, when I caught sight of myself in Wilko’s window -  I could see that the two bags I was carrying looked huge.  In fact, it was just two very bulky fleece blankets, not the dazzling stash of dozens of items that it appeared to be.

Oh well, my reputation as a big shopper continues……

Bird House

For some, coming home to a waggy dog is the perfect end to the day. For others, a cat which entwines itself.

As for me, I’m happy with my own company.

Almost.

Since the weather got colder I have had a strong urge to put out the bird feeders.

And the birds, previously aloof, have been reminding me too. 

From my desk I see our local flock of starlings eating berries from our yew; the blackbirds from the cotoneaster.

Finally at the weekend, I hung out the birdfeeders.

The first time in our new home.

It took just one day for the birds to discover them.  To robins, blue tits, great tits and coal tits, we are now the local Tescos.

It also took just one day for two squirrels to unhook the squirrel-proof feeder (name on the pack – “the Fortress”), and then carefully unscrew the lid. 

They then scooped out the peanuts with their little hands.

BUT instead of eating them, they began to bury them in various parts of the lawn.

And now I’m sitting here worrying that it is a metaphor for something.

Maybe I should get a dog.

Cold

I had plans for the weekend.

I had to cancel them.

After work next week, I was supposed to be driving to Cornwall for my mum’s birthday.

I’ve had to tell her that I’ve postponed.

By Sunday evening, I have even had to acknowledge that I am not going to manage to get up at crack of dawn and do the 45 minute rush hour drive tomorrow morning. I have rung in sick.

I have a cold.

I haven’t had a bad cold for ages.

I had begun to think I was invulnerable.  Working in a school of over 1,000 boys, I believed I had developed a cast iron immune system.

I was wrong. 

And now I am achey and shivery and sniffly.

Bah!

Bedside Cabinet

Very conscious that Carenza is now in her third and last year of university, I took the opportunity to visit her.  I had asked her if I should bring anything.  The request was for a bedside table.  I obtained one for a tenner from Emmaus.  It was heavy.

When Carenza was a tiny baby, my friend Jennie asked “Where’d you get this little fairy one?”

It felt a bit like that as I followed Carenza round college.   I could see people wondering what this dark, stumpy woman had to do with Carenza.  I grinned at them in a friendly and witless manner.  But in the end I proved my worth, managing to purchase a sandwich in Hall in spite of a melee of Diwali celebrations and Indian dancing.  Nobody else could have done it.

But we still hadn’t managed to get the bedside cabinet up to her room.

Accompanying Carenza, I discovered the story of her day.  There had been the elections for the new president of the college.  I met the soon-to-be new president.  She was lovely.  Carenza’s time as president was nearly at a close.  And running the elections had been a great deal of work.

Her friend, Chris, told her to get a rest.

I said, “Umm.  There’s this bedside cabinet…”

He got it out of the back of my car and carried it to the lift.  The lift was broken.  He carried it to the third floor.  He even offered to carry with it the bottle of spirits I was clutching (long story).  While carrying the cabinet he also attempted to hold doors for us and was flawlessly polite.

Thank you, Chris.  While there are people like you, the Spirit of Hugh Grant will never die.

Fireworks

One of my earliest non-dates with Nigel, back in the days when we were just good friends, was to attend a firework display together.  It was fun.  A year and a half later, Nigel and I started going out together around fireworks night (1983).  

We never missed a fireworks night.

Then we had babies.  

People said they would be terrified by the loud explosions and bright flashes.  

But we tried it.  

The twins in their backpacks and Pascoe caught safely by a mittened hand, they loved it, eyes open like saucers.

“Ooooh.”

“Aaaaaah.”

We used to go to the magnificent display at Saltwell Park in Gateshead, then, when we moved to the South East, to Verulamium Park. 

Then came the teen-age years.  

We had to find pyromaniac grown-up friends to go with as our children wanted to go with their mates.  Twice in the pitch black melee of thousands of people we found ourselves standing right next to an outraged Perran with his pals looking shifty.

Pascoe would still sometimes humour us and come with us, and we would hear through the (to us) impenetrable blackness, other youngsters calling “Hello Pascoe”.

Last night, he was back from Edinburgh and came with us again.  Dan travelled up from London and joined us too.

“Ooooooh.”

“Aaaaaaaah.”

Stately Home

As becomes a couple of sad old empty nesters, Nigel and I have joined the National Trust

“Look at this one, he says as he peruses the website, “It’s got a knot garden and a Jacobean gallery,”

“But has it got a tea shop?” I ask anxiously.

“…and a corbelled garderobe and gargoyles…”

“What exactly are the opening hours of the café?”

Over the last two weeks I have visited five National Trust properties ranging from the woodland of the Ashridge Estate to the splendidly unchanged Chastleton House, used for filming “Wolf Hall”. 

“To think, that lovely Mark Rylance may have stood on this very spot.  I should think that he was as disappointed as I am that there isn’t a tea room!”

But the historic property where I had most fun was not National Trust at all.  It was the Red Lodge Museum in Bristol, where Perran took me.  The fact that there was no tea room there nearly ruined everything, but the day was saved by an unexpected opportunity to play Boogie Woogie harpsichord.

Conservationist

We have not yet been six months in our new house.  But one of the things we couldn’t fail to notice was the wasps’ nest in the roof.  The other thing we couldn’t fail to notice was that we had a second wasps’ nest in another part of the roof.

In a time when bees are in short supply, wasps are useful pollinators.   Pollinators or not, we didn’t want to get stung.  So bravely I sent Nigel up to investigate.  The nests were within the construction of the roof and not in the loft space, and therefore not a threat.

We decided to leave them to thrive.  

We would plug the holes in the Autumn after they had left.  

And not eat any jam in the garden.  

It would not cause any problems.

However, the wasps were entering the house through a loophole in a window frame.  Quite soon, they died and dropped down without causing any trouble.  

Earlier in the summer, the wasps were tiny and quite cute. No threat at all.

But as the season draws to its close, the beasts have become more substantial with now record-sized wasps zipping about the house in an unpredictable and threatening manner.  

They behave as if they are outraged that mammals have built a nest in THEIR house.

I no longer feel quite so much of a conservationist.  

Now, where’s the Raid?

Mrs Bean and the Greek Tragedy

As a birthday treat, Caroline kindly took me to a local production of the Burial at Thebes.

We carried drinks in plastic glasses to our excellent seats in the second row of the intimate studio theatre.

 Antigone was determined to bury her dead brother, but he had been a traitor so her uncle/ great uncle (sadly they were relations of Oedipus) threatened to execute her. Emotions ran high.

In the intimate theatre space, things began to get a little warm.

Creon and Antigone faced off, just inches from each other.  Just feet from us. Perspiration stood out on their foreheads.

I could feel a flush coming on.

Inch by inch I removed my jacket.  My chair-back put up a fight. Just as I thought I had succeeded, I kicked over my wine glass.  There was a plasticky clatter but I did my best innocent face.  It wasn’t only on stage that great acting was happening.

Creon was condemning Antigone to death.

Things were still too warm.  I felt in my back pocket for my hair band.  My seated position meant I couldn’t reach.   I squirmed in my seat as I tried to hook the hair tie.  People were beginning to look.

Antigone was saying she would rather be dead than betray her brother.

Finally I pulled the band out triumphantly and began to haul my hair into it when it snapped and pinged into the person behind me.

Enough!  

Antigone was about to be buried alive.  I would just have to put up with my flush.

Follow me on Twitter   @ClareFHobba

Bake Off

Until now I have resisted it.  All my friends have been talking about it.  Many were visibly cheered when it reappeared. 

Finally, I gave in and watched it too.

The Great British Bake Off.

I assumed it would improve my baking.

IN FACT…

It gave me something to talk about with friendly acquaintances.

It gave a heart-warming picture of multicultural Britain (a three-cheers, two-fingered salute to UKIP).

It offered an engaging picture of the different personalities involved.

HOWEVER…

When Nick and Jackie were coming to lunch, I thought about the delicacies to which I had recently been a spectator – chocolate soufflé, three-tier religieuse, macarons.

And I bottled it.

After all, even the mighty Nadia’s soufflé had not been fluffy enough.

I would just make something with which I felt comfortable.   Something which I had baked successfully many times before-

- I would use the apples Chris and Christine gave us and the blackberries we gleaned from the hedgerow and make a wholesome Autumn crumble.

ONLY THING WAS…

I was so relaxed with my unambitious choice that I kinda forgot it was in the oven. 

Put it this way – I now have a new carbonised prop to use in my lessons about Pompeii and Herculaneum.

My baking actually appears to have become worse.

I don’t know if I can blame it on the Great British Bake Off, but I certainly intend to try.

Follow me on Twitter   @ClareFHobba

Speed Awareness

I got caught speeding. 

Everybody always has a very good reason for why they got caught speeding, generously peppered with mitigating circumstances.

But my story is simply general dopiness, with a little joie de vivre thrown in.

At the speed awareness course,  I and my fellow criminals queued to be registered.  There was the low hum of restrained British indignation.  The Indian Summer sun pulsed through the hotel blinds.  To have to give up a day like this!

Several of us stole glances at an extremely elderly woman, bent with age and with very sparse soft white hair.  Speeding eh?

When the policeman/driving instructor (I never disambiguated) looked at my licence he said,

“Oh, a doctor, what kind of a doctor!”

And I heard myself replying,

“Well clearly I was on my way to an organ transplant when I got caught speeding.”

The guy was staring at me. 

Fearing that I might be clapped in irons, I quickly amended,

“Just an academic doctor.”

Obviously, I then got picked on to answer a few questions in the session.  Smartarse!

At tea break (criminals get tea breaks?) everybody switched on their mobile phone like divers coming up for air.  Except me.  I call it mindfulness.  My family call it inconvenient.

Oh, and except the very elderly lady.  She told me her story in a cut glass accent.

“I was just leaving a wedding when it happened.  I hadn’t had anything to drink, you know – well, not very much.  I just felt light-hearted.  Light-hearted.  I think that was it.”

We went on to discuss the beautiful weather, then time was called.

As we made our way, she smiled up at me and said,

“It is wonderful though, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“Speeding!” she replied happily.

Into the Woods

The worst thing about decorating is thinking about it.  Just contemplating the upheaval  makes me feel like a lie down.

Carenza was very young when we decorated her last bedroom.  Together, she and I painted her tall bed lipstick pink.  Together we got drips and dribbles on tummies and sleeves.  Together we smeared it all around the house. 
  

For some reason, this time Carenza favours neutrals.

She picked colours more grown-up than I ever had.  We spent half an hour in Homebase squinting at paints which should have been called magnolia or cream, but, due to the vagaries of fashion, weren’t.

If only her father was as mature as she is. 

However, following touching scenes of Father-Daughter cooperation her new bedroom has been beautifully decorated.

Even the far end of her walk in wardrobe has been papered with trees.  Now all we need to complete the look is a lamppost, some snow, and Mr Tumnus.

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Apple Surprise

When we arrived in St Albans it was an Indian Summer and we had inherited a bramley apple tree which showered us with its abundance.  I spent dreamlike weeks in the garden peeling apples and watching our three tiny children scampering about in the sun. 

Eight years later, we moved to another neighbourhood and we had an apple tree again, but it bore fruit only grudgingly.  Then Nigel pruned it and it began to flourish.

In October, we would sometimes have a dessert called Apple Surprise.  Apple Surprise was any pudding which actually contained no apples.  That was the surprise.

But this year we have moved again. 

As yet our garden is a featureless rectangle.  We are focusing on the house so the garden must wait until next year.

Except for one thing – the apple tree.  I came home last week to see a very long cardboard box on the drive.

Bert the Bramley had arrived and Nigel spent much of Saturday planting him. He then lavished him with compost and flooded him lovingly with water.

 But it will still be two or three years until we can eat apple surprise again.

Which is why it was particularly welcome when Chris and Christine appeared at our door on Sunday with a generous bucket of windfall apples.

Rest assured Chris & Christine, Bert the Bramley was watching and one day he will reward your kindness.

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Surprise

Ellie is surprised!

As you get older you are harder to surprise, but on the other hand, more and more people seem eager to try.

Last Friday, Ellie thought she was picking her mother up from choir practice to go for a birthday meal.  But we all jumped out from a darkened hall shouting “Happy Birthday”.

She was happy and astounded.  A successful surprise.

On Saturday, Chip, whose surprise we could not attend, went to the same hall to run through a church service.  Then everybody yelled “Happy Birthday”.

She was delighted and stunned.  A successful surprise.

We couldn't be at Chip’s because I had already booked yet another surprise.  This one was for my family plus old friends David and Carolyn. Would it be successful?

Photo ID was necessary, so Nigel guessed at the Houses of Parliament; Perran, a day out in Calais(!).  Those destinations sounded more interesting than what I actually had planned.  I hoped there would be no disappointment.

Then we took the tube into the City.  Carenza guessed we were going on a tour of ancient Guild Meeting Halls. Oh dear.

We gazed on the outlines of the Gherkin and the Cheese-grater and the Walkie Talkie.  Did we like them or not, dwarfing the much older surrounds?

Then suddenly, we were entering the Walkie Talkie.  Happy as we took the slick lift to the thirty-fifth floor.  Delighted as we poured out into the light of the SkyGarden, a lush public park high above London.  A successful  surprise then.

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Sleepless

One disadvantage of middle age is that I sleep poorly.

I long for the far off days when I woke up to a sore ear  - I slept so deeply that I didn’t stir, and my ear would suffer from pressure.

I wake nowadays fractious and craving more kip.

My sleep is shallow and restless.

Or so I thought.

Today I have knocked on four of my neighbours’ doors  to apologise: my car alarm went off in the wee small hours.

Piecing together the neighbours’ politely tetchy comments, it went on for maybe two hours.

I wouldn’t know – I didn’t wake up.

And this is not the first incident: three weeks ago young Kit, who was staying with us, finished his late shift at the restaurant only to find he had no house key with him.  The neighbours heard him banging on our front door, but we didn’t. 

Nor the doorbell.

Nor our mobiles.

He cleverly used social media to locate a friend who was still awake and went to sleep at their house.

“Well,” I said to Nigel, “On the bright side, at least this means I must be getting more sleep than I realised.”

“Yes.  And you’ll be needing it.  You’ve got another seven more neighbours to apologise to.  Off you go.”

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Sca Fell by Unicycle

Last Friday, Pascoe was leaving us for Cambridge where Caroline would pick him up in her car and drive him and Ian and Michael to camp at Wasdale Head in the Lake District. Camping at Wasdale Head would have been enough by itself for me, but they were planning to unicycle up Scafell with its screes and precipitous drops.

I had scheduled in some fretting, but barely found the time due to starting back to school where I teach Latin.

Confused dreams with Caecilius and Metella unicycling through Pompeii.

The unicycle ride should have been completed on Saturday, but belatedly we discovered that our heroes should never have ventured out in a vehicle with four wheels instead of just one – Caroline’s clutch had gone. 

A day later, they were able to set off again, but we at home did not know that.  Jolly big hills blocked the signal and strangely, internet was not available in the mountains. 

So it was a while before we discovered  that they had achieved their objective safely. 

  

I would like to say I had been on tenterhooks, but instead I had been worrying about how to explain Quintus’s very short skirt to my year sevens. 

Hopefully, he will never, even in my nightmares, attempt to ride a unicycle in that tunic.

At it Again

This time last year, I encouraged Pascoe in his attempt to ascend Ben Nevis by unicycle.  It reminded me of the TV Ripping Yarn, “Crossing the Andes by Frog”.

And then on the day when it actually happened, I sat and worried.  I had encouraged him.  And now his life was in danger.

But it was okay – he and Caroline and Ian survived.  Triumphed.

When he said that this year it was Scafell, I worried more.  England’s highest mountain is not as tall as Scotland’s, but it is more extreme.  There are screes, gorges, sheer drops.

I shall spend tomorrow distracting myself.

Probably by packing up a parcel of Pascoe’s possessions to send back to him.  Ten days ago he set off for camping with us at Greenbelt, then a conference, at which he was giving a talk about his research.  Then off to camp again in the Lake District.

Funnily enough, by the end of it, his various sets of clothing and equipment had got the better of him and now need posting.

The one thing he was adamant should always go with him was his unicycle – wrapped in a massive bag made out of a long skirt he got from a charity shop – apparently, buses don’t let one travel with a naked unicycle.

May God bless your unicycle, Pascoe, and all who sail in her.  him.  it.   whatever.

I pray it goes well tomorrow.