Family Walk

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On a Sunday afternoon, I used to say cheerily to the twins,

“Who’s coming out for a family walk then?”

Neither was enthusiastic.  In fact, they’d do pretty much anything to get out of it, only just short of cutting their own leg off with a blunt handsaw.

The other day, I came in from work:

“Hi, would you chaps like a little walk in the woods?”

“Yep. Fine.”

“Sure.  Just a mo. While I put my boots on.”

What was going on?  Were they being ironic?

Sadly not.  It was a sign of the times – family walks are now in such shortage that it is possible to be nostalgic about them and to look forward to them as rare and special occasions.

Sure enough, we had a rare and special family walk and I took some nostalgic photos.

Maybe we’ll do it again during the Christmas hols.

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Scottish Independence

Separation threatens.

I feel like a mother polar bear standing on one piece of an ice floe as her baby floats away on another. 

I recall the horrible time when Pascoe was only seven.  We were boarding a London tube train and he hung back.  Suddenly the doors shut and I was swept away. 

“Wait there!” I mouthed, and signalled through the window to my tiny son, his eyes enormous with fear as he was left behind on the platform.

And today?

In January, Pascoe went to Scotland to undertake his PhD, Edinburgh to be precise. 

He is asserting his independence as a young adult, living many miles from us.

His quest for autonomy is mapping precisely onto Scotland’s own rites of passage.

However, I have to say that although he enjoys substantial devolution, he has never attempted to cut all ties.  He agrees that our family, spread from Cornwall to London to Northumberland, to Edinburgh is better  together.

So Scotland, don’t go.  Don’t make me take a passport and foreign currency when I visit my son.
Stay with us.

Freshers

All those worries we had about a year ago.

Would our twins feed themselves a balanced diet?

Would they attend all their lectures?

Would they hand in their assignments on time?

Would they resist getting completely slaughtered on the horrendous pressurised freshers’ drinking events?

Would they manage their finances sensibly?

You are probably expecting me to say that it was all fine, that they accomplished everything that we hoped they would.

But the truth is, I don’t know. 

I know they passed their end-of-year exams respectably, that they appear to be in good health and that they have good friends.

But the mistakes they’ve made, I don’t know about.  And that’s how it should be, surely.

The defining feature of being an adult is the power to decide who you enlist to help sort out your problems. 

There have probably been times when they locked themselves out, or were nauseous after one too many, or needed something to eat but their cupboard was empty.   Possibly all of these on the same night.

But they got through.

What will they do now in their second year?

Will they start to form ideas about their future careers? Will they take on new responsibilities within their universities?

I don’t know, and that’s just as it should be.

And they’re off

As I write this, we’re driving down the M4 with a boot stuffed full of I’m-not-sure-what.  

Actually Nigel is driving, not me.  Typing on a laptop while coasting at seventy would probably be frowned upon by the traffic police.

Every so often, we pass a car where the back window is stuffed with duvets and cheap saucepans and a bike hangs off the back.

“There’s another one,” we chorus.

Another student going to university for the first time.  This is a big weekend for freshers.

Just a year ago, that was us.

Next year, we thought, we won’t have to take Perran quite so early because he’ll be a second year.

In fact, however, we’re travelling on the same weekend again.  I glance into the back of the car and catch sight of a brightly-coloured throw from Marrakesh, an earthernware plate from Spain.  Perran has had a good summer.

But although the car is very full of Perran’s belongings, Perran is not with us. 

He couldn’t wait to get back, and took the train earlier this week.  We’re just making sure his gear catches up with him today.

I guess you’d call that a successful launch.

Autumn Makes Parents Essential

In the Autumn, long-legged spiders start striding across our walls and floors.  They are males and they are looking for mates. 

In the Autumn, our independent daughter who, over the summer, fixed passports currency and tickets on her own suddenly needs us.

In case you can’t read it, the note reads:

“I know I’m a bad person for leaving this spider here, but SHIT is it big and I just can’t face it on my own,,,

(a very frightened) Carenza xx"

Twins Back Together

After a couple of months apart on student summer experiences, the twins are happy to be back together again.  So happy that Perran threw a bucket of icy water over Carenza and I almost filmed it.

Carenza succeeds where Obama failed - the Icebucket Nomination.

"Thanks Sinéad for the nomination. I've done the ice bucket challenge and donated.
Due to a technical problem (my mum's iphone skills) there's a slight problem with the footage...
Ah well, get soaked Pascoe, Lauren, Hannah, Lilah, Betsy and Bethany. Enjoy!"

Furry Kettles

Carenza, Lila and Hannah

Just this time last year, Perran and Carenza’s A level results came out.  Suddenly it was the end of suspended animation.   At last Perran and Carenza knew where they were going to study and where they would be living.  I felt like I had a licence to go out and by duvets, desk lamps and waste paper bins. 

It seems so much more than a year ago that the twins got their results.  In fact, it appears to have been a full generation ago – Carenza now has sons and daughters.  These are her “college children”.  Second year undergraduates, are assigned freshers to support with helpful advice (and presumably hangover cures). 

Carenza herself, when she was a new college daughter emailed a question which caused her college parents some confusion:

“Will I need to de-fur my kettle?”

De-furring kettles is an everyday problem in the hard-water area in which we live.  However, her college parents were not familiar with the challenge of hard water so Carenza’s query caused some consternation, especially when they shared it with lots of their fellow undergraduates.  People still mention the furry kettle today...

I wonder what unexpected questions Carenza’s college children will ask her.

Ben Nevis on a Unicycle 2

He got to the top!  Now waiting to hear that he has got to the bottom - but hopefully not too quickly.

https://www.justgiving.com/Unicycle-Ben-Nevis

Ben Nevis on a Unicycle

For Ben Nevis today (Saturday), heavy rain is forecast and temperatures of 5 degrees.  For Sunday, thunderstorms; for Monday, snow.

If, like Pascoe, you intend to attempt to climb the UK’s highest mountain by unicycle, today is probably the best day of the weekend then.

The trip says a lot about Pascoe’s time at the University of East Anglia, because his fellow unicyclists in the attempt are Caroline and Ian, his housemates from last year.  University should be the kind of place where you discover people you can unicycle up Ben Nevis with.

Meanwhile, as I write, Pascoe has already encountered his first obstacle.  He was told that unicycles weren’t allowed on the bus.  He overcame it with a highly devious ruse – he wrapped the unicycle in a black bin bag.  Apparently, odd, dog-bone-shaped parcels are allowed.

In all seriousness, the thought of my son risking his neck on the mountain makes me worried, but also proud, because he’s raising money for an essential fund:-

 https://www.justgiving.com/Unicycle-Ben-Nevis

Edinburgh Fringe

John Kearns in his show 'Schtick'

One of the benefits of having children at university in other parts of the country is that you get to visit those places.  

Carenza and I set off on a girls’ trip to visit her godmother Charlotte in Glasgow and Pascoe in Edinburgh.  It was great to catch up with Charlotte and Robert, and when we reached Edinburgh, Pascoe with huge generosity gave us his room and bedded down in the shared sitting room. 

However, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival hijacked the trip.  

None of us had been before, although Nigel and I did once set off in a mini which broke down half an hour from home.  The Edinburgh Fringe is a matter of such complexity that at first we were overwhelmed by the multiple telephone-directory-sized programmes, the hundreds of venues, and the constant press of people shoving flyers into our hands.  

But we soon got the hang of it.

Pascoe is an obliging person, prepared to play along with a joke, so it was inevitable he would end up on stage:  I guess when you’ve been up in front of an audience, sitting on a bar stool, wearing a blonde wig, sipping a tia maria and lucozade with comedian John Kearns sitting on your knee you definitely can say you’ve been to the Fringe. 

Declutter

Guess we'd better get rid of that plastic spear then.

Spending a year on my PGCE gave me the perfect excuse for avoiding my most hated task – clearing out. 

A day spent clearing out always feels like a day wasted.  And what do I have to show for an entire day of clearing? – a square foot of floor, or a yard of shelf. 

Curiously it is not only essential but also not worth it, both at the same time.

What makes the process last so long are the emotional booby traps.  Sandwiched between the strata of unloved school exercise books will be a hand-drawn fathers’ day card or a painting of our long-deceased guinea pig.  Little explosions of affection and nostalgia detonate in my heart.  My judgement begins to falter – how can I throw out anything from my children’s infancy when it was such a precious time?  I should treasure each sacred artefact.

But my nearly-grown-up children still come home and when they do, they don’t want to find their rooms like museums stuffed with ancient objects – they want somewhere to sling their rucksack and a shelf to store their shot glasses until next term.

So I scoop up another armful of physics notes and pile them into the recycling box.

Student Food Instagram

Typical Foodie Instagram

Just now, a meal in a smart restaurant begins not with tucking in your napkin or pouring a glass of water.  Instead, when your food arrives, beautifully presented, you are supposed to take a photo of it and upload it to Instagram. 

Some people are very scathing about this, others see it as a chance to celebrate some food art whose existence is fleeting.

I recently found a picture Pascoe took of some proper student food.  It is clearly a superior meal – exactly what the metabolism of the growing young male requires – a large heap of filling, brown-coloured food.    And as to presentation, I think the whole roast pigeon perched on top makes it look rather special – don’t you?

Student Food Photo

Student Travel

This summer, Perran has plumped for travel rather than work experience.  He set off to Spain looking for a casual job.  In doing so he was unfortunately joining many thousands of Spanish people who are also looking for jobs, due to Spain’s economic down turn.

I have tacked a large map of Spain to the kitchen wall and whenever anybody reports hearing anything of Perran, I mark his rumoured location with a pin.

So far, I have reports of him from the following places:

Madrid

Malaga

Benicassim music festival

Why hasn’t somebody invented a GPS Teen-Tracker App for anxious parents?

Perran bought a cheap phone to take with him, but even so, communication is kept at a minimum, which in many ways is good as it means worry is also kept to a minimum, except for one occasion when there was a long silence. 

I checked with friends and family – nobody had heard from him more recently than five days ago.

When he finally replied to our anguished requests to let us know he was still alive, it turned out that, being unused to such a basic phone, he had not spotted that the memory had filled up and he was unable to receive more texts.

But later, my favourite text from him went:

“Off tomorrow to volunteer at a Hare Krishna, self-sustaining bio-farm in return for food and a place to stay.  You’ve just been out-hippied, Mum.”

Student Summer

There’s a clear agenda for student summer holidays. 

The most pressing goal is a holiday job to earn money so that there’ll be enough for the occasional night out next term (wry parental smile).

The next aim is to get work experience, or as it’s poshly known, an internship.  The student can start gaining CV points for their future career.

The third objective is to have an adventure, the kind of adventure that you can only have when you’re young and skint – after all, you don’t end up spending the night on the beach if you can afford a good hotel and you don’t accept a lift from a truck driver if you can afford a train ticket.

I know, as a parent, I should espouse the first two objectives, but there’s a part of me that most of all wants my children to have the third type of experience.  When in their lives will they ever again have such long summers?  And it’s also to do with being that particular age – if you set out one midsummer morning, you will meet other nineteen-year-olds to travel with, and older people will show you kindness.  Make the most of this charmed time.

Hugh

When Nigel and I were undergraduates, we made friends to last us the rest of our lives.  You know who you are.  Thanks for bearing with us.

One of those was Hugh.   

After university, we saw each other regularly including going to stay on the houseboat he was renovating in Cambridgeshire and where, for a time, the loo lacked not just a door but even a wall.

We got on well with his wife, Morag, and when kids came along, ours were a similar age to theirs.  In particular, Pascoe and Calum enjoyed making things together.  

Hugh’s work took them to Lyons where memorably one of our kids rode a bicycle down their apartment balcony (Why?) and knocked their carefully-aligned satellite dish flying.  How were they going to access BBC news now? 

But later, Hugh moved his family to “Silicon Valley”, California, (hopefully not just to avoid more home-wrecking visits from us, but for his work, designing microchips).  Hugh was no letter-writer and neither were we.

However, I’d thought we might catch up again now that we were becoming empty nesters.  It was on my To Do List.

But the other day, Morag sent us bad news.  Hugh had been overtaken by a fatal heart attack while out with his local hiking group. 

What can I say, except that if there is some dear old friend that you’ve been meaning to get in touch with, do it now.

The Key

Often, the place where your child goes to university is a long way away; in order to deliver them there you will have driven several hundred miles using only your wing mirrors because the car is so full of belongings that the rear-view shows only a teetering heap of books about to fall on your child’s head.

So when you get there, you want to be able to pick up the key, and you want the key to work.

In early January, having driven to Edinburgh we called at the office where Pascoe had arranged to pick up his keys only to discover that it was so soon after Hogmanay that nobody had turned up.  It was raining stair rods as Pascoe ran from office to office. 

Finally he demanded that the accommodation department pay for a B&B for him until the key was supplied.  Magically somebody agreed to break into the office and extract his key.

When we dropped Perran off at Bristol in the heat of July, he picked up the key all right, yet when he tried to open the door, the lock revolved but nothing happened.  The office was now closed.  

Low on options, we stood on the baking doorstep with each family member in turn rotating the key.  Perhaps one of us had magic hands?

Then housemate Juliette arrived.  Would her key do better?  Nope.  Round it went without catching on anything. 

 After a couple of hours of phone calls and championship relay grumbling, we located the landlord and he came along. 

If he had complimented us on our sun tans we would have punched him.

His key didn’t work either, so he broke in.  It was disconcertingly easy.

For a moment, we were glad to be in the house, but the pleasure was fleeting.  It turned out Perran’s room was on the second floor and that was where all his things needed to be.  All his winter clothes are now in there, so let’s hope his key works in September.

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Removals

Today, I just squeezed on to a packed train to London.  I was crushed kneecap to kneecap with a bunch of other people… in the middle of a heatwave.  We eyeballed each other.  Either we could get tense and irritable…

 …or we could chat.

Luckily, three massive suitcases  on the floor created a slight clearing.  It turned out that two of them belonged to a family on their way to Istanbul and fellow passengers suggested they visit the Spice Market, the Blue Mosque.

But that still left one enormous suitcase unaccounted for.  A woman my age had her hand on it.

“Going somewhere nice?”

“Actually, there’s nothing in this suitcase,” she replied, “It’s empty.” 

People were listening now.

“My daughter has split up with her boyfriend.  I’m going to his flat to pick up her stuff.   Then I’m going to bring this case back on the train again, full.”

“In this heat?”

“What a horrible job.”

“Your daughter is lucky to have you.”

“These things happen,” she said.

When her stop came up, we all wished her good luck and watched her small figure trundling her suitcase resolutely up the platform.

I sometimes grumble about driving for two or three hours each way to shift the goods and chattels of one or other child at university.  I’m going to try to grumble less.

Bag of Poo

Not the best photo, but then the butterfly was up a tree.

On Saturday afternoon, some of our friends were at weddings, others sitting in their in their summer gardens. But Nigel, Carenza and I were traipsing round a nearby wood, carrying a bag of poo.  Or rather I was.   Carrying, that is.  And before you ask, it was horse poo. 

We were on a butterfly safari.  Why the poo?  Because, although we appreciate all butterflies, we were after big game – the purple emperor.  And the purple emperor lives in the treetops, only dropping to earth for especially tasty morsels like carrion or poo. 

We walked to a bench in the wood, laid out an enticing sample and waited.  We saw a red admiral, ringlets, meadow browns, hedge browns.  And a man, lurking in the bushes.  

After a while, we strolled on and laid out another poo picnic.  This time, we saw a small tortoiseshell, a green fritillary, two different kinds of skipper and a marbled white.  And that man, lurking in the bushes again.  Like me, he had binoculars round his neck.

“Are you, um, looking for wildlife?”

“Yes.  I’m here for white admirals, but I haven’t seen any yet.”

So there were white admirals about were there?   Not quite as magnificent as the purple emperor, but still a fabulous creature.

After an hour, all the poo was gone.  

In a slightly rubbish way, we decided to give up and go home. 

And there, above our heads, perched halfway up a hornbeam, was a white admiral.  For some time we watched it chasing other butterflies out of its territory, then settling again, on guard.  This spirited, rare butterfly was very nearly what we had come for. 

But more than that.  If I ever get so old that I don’t fancy taking a chance on carrying a steamy bag of poo round a wood on a hot day, the end will be nigh.  It will mean I’ve grown up, and I so don’t want to do that.  

Black and White

“You’d better hang on to some of that old uniform,” I told Carenza.

That was a year ago when she was gleefully bagging up the whole lot ready to pass on to younger inmates, er, pupils.

“White blouse, black skirt – could be useful for jobs like waitressing.”

Or, as it turns out, formal exams and getting “trashed” afterwards.

(Apparently the pointy hats weren’t part of the uniform.)

Beach Barbecue

In St Ives there were a lot of notices about things one shouldn’t do (see earlier post), so I wondered if barbecuing on the beach might be prohibited too.

In the local co-op, I asked the shop assistant,

“Is there any problem with having a barbecue on the beach?”

“Yes,” he replied, “You’ll get sand in everything.”

But a beach barbecue on a warm evening looks magical.  What could be better?   Usually, our family is fairly quiet about it.  It probably looks as if we are enjoying sunset over the waves.  In fact, the shop assistant is right - we are concentrating very hard on not letting our courgette kebab slither off our bendy paper plate and into the sand.

This time, we found some convenient flattish rocks and perched at the sea’s edge.  But we were a tad uncomfortable, aware that for the nearby diners in one of St Ives’ trendy, faux-casual seafood restaurants we were The View. 

And to add to our self-consciousness, we were pretty sure that a family we knew were in there looking out at us.

Bravely, I sliced up a water melon in mid-air.  One false move and it would get covered in grit. 

Perhaps we should have paid up and gone to the trendy restaurant too.

But as I stood up to wash my hands in the sea, I saw we had guests – two curious seals had arrived and were bobbing only a few feet away, regarding us with great liquid eyes. 

However good the ambience in the restaurant, it couldn’t compete with that.

School Trip Flashback

 We just had our family holiday in St Ives.  My schoolfriend Jennie came over to visit and we reminisced.

Our year at school had very few  trips. I like to think that it was because we got ‘lost’ in the process of going comprehensive.  Not at all that we had a reputation for being a bit “lively”. 

However, just as we were about to leave school, it was as if somebody had said,

“Hey – those sixth formers – why are they so pale and pastey looking?”

“It’s because they’ve never been allowed out.”

So at last we had a trip to St Ives.  We could go to the beach or the shops but there was just one thing we must not on any account do.

We must not take a motor boat out into the bay. 

Hadn’t Mrs Stansfield seen any horror movies?  As soon as she had said that, it became…inevitable.

It wasn’t me.  I was with Gill worthily visiting the newly opened Barbara Hepworth studio, where the thing that left the biggest impression on me was an enormous spider with an abdomen like an unripe cherry tomato which lurked in the conservatory. So much for Modernism.

Meanwhile, by the harbour a lifeboatman was donning his sou’wester.  Apparently a couple of schoolgirls had taken a motor boat out into the bay, the engine had cut out and they were in some sort of distress. 

As the lifeboat slid down the slipway, Mrs Stansfield stood by looking thoughtful.

“Has anybody seen Jennie recently?”

In fact, everybody who was watching the drama in the bay could see Jennie and her friend Sheila frantically attempting to restart their engine.

Since then, Jennie’s been on hundreds of school trips, but has never got into quite so much trouble again.  After all, she is the deputy head. 

Beast?

From Google Images: Beast of Bodmin Moor Skit,
or should I say, Kit.
Sadly we didn't get a picture.

Surely the advantage of being on holiday in Cornwall with a husband and son who have biology degrees is that when you spot a British mammal, they will identify it easily.

In fact, we saw and admired a number of seals relaxing in the surf.  “Look,” we cried, “Seals.”

Then,  coming back late at night from the Minack Theatre, we had to slow down to allow a badger to chug across the road (appropriately, just outside the hamlet of Badger’s Cross).  “Look,” we remarked, “A Badger.”

But then on the footpath from St Ives to Zennor, we looked up and saw on a rise above us, about twenty metres away, a black creature.

 “What the hell is that?” we asked one another.

It was feline, but too large to be a domestic cat and had a big head and tufted ears.

Could it be The Beast?

Rumours have abounded for years that following closures of private menageries in the 1970s, some type of black big cat has been roaming wild in Cornwall where the climate is mild and there are stretches of untamed countryside.  Most publicity goes to the Beast of Bodmin Moor but I have also met two people who claim to have seen them near Zennor.

Whether we saw The Beast or not, I now at least have an explanation for why there are so few photos of The Beast – people are so busy trying to work out what it is that they are seeing that by the time the creature takes fright and lopes away, they still haven’t got their camera out.

The "Stupid" Pier

So when you live in a shared student house and hand-written signs start to appear in the kitchen, it's a sure sign that relationships have started to break down.
"Please do not take my food out of the fridge."
"Will whoever borrowed my cherry stoner please return it."
"Please make sure you turn the oven off when you leave the kitchen.  Please."
While on holiday in St Ives, we found another prominent case of relationship breakdown.
The notices on Smeaton's Pier made us ask "Who on earth would do that?"
"Holiday makers - that's who."

Railway

This time last year, I was wondering if that family holiday might be our last.  And it looked as if I had been right.  Due to Pascoe, Perran and Carenza’s  travel plans and summer jobs, we could not holiday together this year.

Not that their plans ever ceased to shift.  In the end, we booked a house for a fortnight in St Ives.  

Artists have chosen to reside in St Ives for the wonderful light created by the special sand.  Holiday makers have come for the beaches, the many galleries, the sub-tropical gardens. 

But we were won over by the fact that it had its own railway station.  As our children’s dates of arrival and departure changed with the ebb and flow of the tide, we remained impassive.  

We would not be driving miles to drop off/pick up.  They could just catch the train. 

In the end, we saw more of our children than I had predicted.  Only Carenza missed out on the first week.  Her absence gave us the welcome opportunity to entertain our friends Nick and Jackie.  And when she arrived, all we had to do was to go and meet the train.

What I learnt

This time last year, I was revising my Latin and reading teetering montains of books in order to be ready for the start of my PGCE course to teach Classics. 

I was apprehensive because I knew the year would test me.

And so it did.

More than once I cried. And I’m not a weepy person. 

However, I had an expectation that if I worked hard, I would succeed. 

Like a sportswoman investing in equipment, I had prepared for the course: in particular, I finally submitted to wearing glasses. (Okay, so not very much like a sportswoman investing in equipment really.)

It wasn’t so much that I had felt my eyesight was poor, it was more that once I had the glasses, I realised how much I had been missing. 

Similarly as I blundered through new challenges, I discovered my thinking had become sharper once more.

I had to be well-organised too – younger colleagues could pull an all-nighter to get an assignment out of the way, but if I did that there was no way I could have dragged myself into the classroom to face my pupils the next day.  So I had to plan ahead to make sure I got to bed in good time with my cup of cocoa.

But mainly what I’ve learnt is that as my children fly the nest my life is taking off in a different direction and I have a whole new era of usefulness ahead of me.

Two Down

Carenza, Lila and Hannah just before their prelim. exams

And finally, tonight, Carenza will be with us and our happiness will be complete.  She has finished her first year exams and has apparently been “trashed” afterwards, a process where black and white formal clothing meet with chocolate sauce and “silly string”.  This will present a laundry challenge that any promoter of washing powder might be glad to meet, but possibly a tough call for me. 

Perran and Pascoe both arrived earlier to attend my graduation, and I was much prouder of them than of the diploma in my hand.  Luckily “trashing” was not part of the scene.  They have been with Nigel and me all this week, and as ever, it’s hard to recall that it’s only a temporary state of affairs. 

Perran will soon be off travelling on a shoestring (as an undergraduate must) whereas Pascoe will return to shoulder the responsibilities of his PhD in Edinburgh. 

Carenza will have just a week with us before the boys leave.  Perhaps the only week of the summer where we’ll be a complete family.

I wonder if Carenza’s “trashing” laundry disaster will be coming with her in a plastic bag.

Even if it is, I forgive her – it will be brilliant to have her home.

Graduation

Finally, I graduated from my PGCE course. 

There was a ceremony held at the Faculty of Education.  The best thing about the day was something that none of us could have arranged no matter how hard we tried – the sun shone on the perfect lawns and cascades of roses.

 Nigel, Pascoe and Perran came along to support me and unwittingly introduced a comedy aspect to the day.  Pascoe and Perran were close in age to the other trainees while I more resembled their parents. 

How many times was it explained that day that I was the graduande, and not Pascoe?

After the speeches, the master of ceremonies asked us to applaud the families who had supported us.  The younger trainees who had perhaps received financial help and who had sometimes popped home to be pampered with proper cooking, clapped enthusiastically.

I joined in with the applause and saw both my sons looking back at me slightly quizzically.  Hadn’t I been the one supporting them in their academic endeavours?

But actually, they deserved my thanks. 

When they have returned home from University, they and their sister have cooked for Nigel and me, done their own washing, mounted war on the impressive spiders who now outnumber us.  And over and over again, they have told me they are proud of me. 

Thanks guys.

Ancient Teenagers

On Friday, the Classics PGCE students were assigned an important mission.

As prospective secondary school teachers, it was important that we understood how to introduce Classical Art to young people.

Our task was to explore the Museum of Classical Archaeology in Cambridge, and consider ways of approaching the many replicas of statues there.

We had expected semi-naked gods, goddesses and warriors, but what we actually discovered amazed us.

“The term teenager wasn’t coined until the 1950s was it?”

“I don’t think so.  Why?”

“Over there.  Look!”

“Well I never.”

What we had found was not merely a way for our pupils to relate to ancient marble sculpture – it was tangible proof that teenagers had existed far earlier than was previously thought.  The pictures confirm it:

Young discus-thrower texting

Satyr taking selfie

Back!

“Are yours back from uni yet?” ask my friends.

Some of theirs have been back for weeks.  I feel I have to give complex explanations about why my children are not back.   And actually, it is just a matter of when their exams take place and when term ends, but even so, I feel like a bit of a Nobby-no-mates.

Then suddenly through the door appeared Perran. 

We hadn’t snapchatted for some time, because I had lost interest rather:

From them – glamorous selfies in exciting venues.

From me – worried expression in front of computer.

So when he arrived, I didn’t even recognise him – I thought we were being burgled.

Happy, happy, happy.

The novelty hasn’t worn off yet.  When there’s no hot water left in the shower, I say contentedly,

“Ah – Perran is home.”

I’ve even been road-testing the vegan recipes Elizabeth gave me and the kitchen is currently stacked with cakes that haven’t risen properly and rather cracked, dry quiches – “Look everybody - no eggs.”

For his part, he’s going to have to work hard to stand in for all three of my children - not just himself but also Pascoe (who I won’t see until next week) and Carenza (two weeks). 

I hope he doesn’t get threadbare with all the hugging, like his old teddy.

Placement Over

I try not to be superstitious, but as my PGCE placement drew to a close last week, I became increasingly worried that some disaster might stop me from successful completion.

What if I dropped a heavy bundle of textbooks on my toe and shouted out expletives that would shrivel the ears of my tender charges?

What if I contracted one of those sudden and violent stomach bugs and chundered on a Year Seven, (particularly if it was one of the girls with very long curly hair)?

What if, in trying to Google a picture of the goddess Venus for the interactive whiteboard, I accidentally clicked on an unsuitable image and accidentally taught the class something that was definitely not on the syllabus?

And that re-enactment of Odysseus putting out Cyclops’s eye could have gone horribly wrong too.

But none of this happened. 

The placement is completed.

Now I have only two weeks left in faculty before the end of my course.

But what if I get a violent stomach bug and chunder on a lecturer?  What if I drop a pile of library books on a professor’s toe?  What if I….?

College Life

Since September, I have been undertaking a PGCE in Classics.  It would be an opportunity for a trip down memory lane and a taste of college life again after so many years.

The quiet of the library, the scent of polish in the corridors and a big cooked dinner in hall.

My children are all getting a crack at the hallowed halls of academia - why shouldn't I?

But it hasn't worked out.  The fact that I elected to live at home meant I had a marathon commute, so I didn't want to hang around in Cambridge at the end of lectures. 

And the location of the Education Faculty, a long way from the centre of town, prevented any casual revisiting of old haunts. 

And soon the course will be over. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had placements in wonderful schools, met literally hundreds of new people and learnt more than I knew my brain could hold. 

But perhaps I’ll allow myself to rent a room in college just for a couple of nights before the term is over, and my second chance at college life completely gone.

Frankenstein

On seeing my rave reviews for a student play in Cambridge (see previous blog – Exclusive Club), Carenza told me indignantly that the plays at Oxford were just as good. An appropriate piece was coming up – Bluestockings about the pioneers of women’s education. 

It was half term, so I was able to get to Oxford and I would meet Carenza just after her tutorial when she would naturally be taking a break anyway.   Great timing.

So great that we missed the fact that Bluestockings had actually been in performance the week before and was over.

What would we do now?

A student version of Frankenstein offered, with a devised script. 

“And devised means?”

“Means they made it up.”

The other thing I discovered about devised scripts is that they take quite a long time to perform.

But it was a true student play – they had tried stuff out and much of it had worked. 

Frankenstein meets We Need to Talk about Kevin.

Bravo.

But what I most enjoyed were the passages of high drama.  As the young actors lost themselves in the moment, their lovely posh accents, previously played-down, reasserted themselves.

Frankenstein meets Made in Chelsea.

Hmmmm.

Meet the Great Grandparents

Meet the Great Grandparents

 Pascoe can tell you that the reward for reaching maturity is to be considered trustworthy by members of older generations.  And that the consequence of this new esteem is…horrible jobs.

Recently he has braved poisonous spiders in his Cornish grandparents’ shed, and got up to his armpits in mud to mend his parents’ (our) pond.

The other day he met up with with his father at the home of his Northumberland grandparents.  No horrible jobs were scheduled.

But on spotting Pascoe, his grandfather decided that he needed the loft clearing.  Nigel and Pascoe girded their loins.  At least life-threatening fauna were unlikely to be involved this time.

In trip after trip, they heaved out boxes of junk and treasure, including the tools and chemicals that Granddad used to use for DIY. 

Nearing the end of the task, Pascoe levered out yet another  box of chemicals from behind the water cistern.  By this time, he had passed the point of curiosity, and was about to sling them when Nigel noticed that two large brown plastic canisters had names on the lid.  Familiar names.

“Pascoe, I think this could be….”

It was.

Pascoe was meeting his great grandparents. 
In ash form.

There followed an interval of thoughtful silence und unasked questions.

It was decided that they would be scattered from the local bridge into the Tyne which goes down into the sea, the same sea that carried them from England to their life’s work in Africa, and home again to retirement in Surrey.

One last job to be done for them.

Bank Hol

I used to love days out.  They were my contribution to educating my children.  I would speed-read museum information boards and regurgitate them in a form appropriate to whatever age my children  were at the time. 

If we were out on a country walk, I’d point out the flowers and birds, whether or not anybody was listening.

And we couldn’t afford a café lunch for all five of us, so the prelude to any outing was a sandwich-making epic.  I have broken the world speed record for tuna baps.

Nigel and I have continued to visit museums and galleries and to tramp off on edifying country walks,  Nowadays, we even sit down to lunch in the café, instead of heaving a backpack full of sandwiches for miles. Yet it has been somehow hollow since the children left.

But on today’s trip to Fishbourne Roman Palace, I got out my camera and notebook enthusisatically, and even purchased the children’s version of the guidebook.  As we watched a re-enactment of Celtic fighting, I videoed it on my camera.

“The kids will love this,” I said to myself.

Of course, I didn’t mean our children, I meant the children that I shall be teaching next year.  I looked up to see Nigel grinning to himself. 

“I know,” I agreed.  “I’ve found more children”.

Woman in Parliament

Bored by my inability to get everything in the frame,
a uniformed policeman kindly offered to take our photo.

My children are growing up and their interests are taking a more definite shape.  And so are those of their friends.
Dan, who has appeared regularly in this blog, currently has an internship at Westminster.  Nigel and I were completely chuffed to be taken by him on a tour of the Houses of Parliament.
In the House of Commons, we traced with our fingers the places where the despatch boxes had been rubbed shiny by the elbows of politicians.  In the House of Lords, we put on our sunglasses to view the gilded throne of the monarch, so magnificent it is almost camp.  We touched, with our own hands, the dent where Black Rod has damaged the door to the Commons with his vigorous knocking.

Emily Wilding Davison's broom cupboard.

Best of all was Dan's favourite spot  - the broom cupboard where Emily Wilding Davison concealed herself overnight so that the 1911 Census was forced to record that there was a woman in Parliament.
All around us was Puginesque detail, gilded, painted and carved, but we spent the most time photographing one another in the cleaners' cupboard.
Thanks for a wonderful evening, Dan.

Exclusive Club

Currently, at Oxbridge there is an outcry against men’s private drinking clubs and the way power is brokered there, while women are admitted only as sex objects. 

However, over the last few years, I have been delighted to discover an exclusive club for middle-aged women, where men are not admitted and where woman speaks only to woman.  I was there again at Cambridge University on Saturday night. 

The context was an extraordinary student production  of Euripides’ devastating tragedy, “The Trojan Women”.  All this was at close quarters in the tiny space of Corpus playroom.  Bethany and I happened to notice that Carol Ann Duffy was in the row in front, but in a very British way, we left her unmolested.  However, I should say that I love her poetry so much that it is actually pinned to my kitchen cupboards, so I did kinda yearn to speak to her.

The production was so intense that I wept.  Afterwards, I had to ask young Bethany, “Are you alright?”

She could only nod.

“What you’re feeling right now – that’s catharsis.”

Reeling from catharsis myself, I went to the ladies’ loo.  When I came out of my cubicle, Carol Ann Duffy was there, queueing as a middle-aged woman must.  I had my two minute conversation with her after all.  Her daughter had been one of the actors.

“Amazing production.”

“Yes, wonderful.”

Nor is she the first well-known woman I have met under similar circumstances.  So there you have it. Our exclusive club.   How soon before privileged young males start to complain about being excluded from the women’s  loos where the Wise Women hang out?