Super Powers

In Edinburgh Botanic Gardens, resting my Super Powers

At half term I returned to being full-time mother and daughter in a disorienting programme of visits to see my sons in Edinburgh and Bristol and my parents in Cornwall.  On Monday, however, I pinned my hair back into a bun, perched my glasses on my nose, donned a work jacket and returned to being old Dr Hobba the crusty Latin teacher at a local school. 

It’s a bit like being a superhero.  Inside, I find some of the things the pupils say hilarious.  In my head, I use some choice words, when I am thwarted.  But I must keep these super powers hidden.  Pupils like to think that teachers are completely unable to access their in-jokes, and actually probably don’t even know any swear words. 

It’s all about boundaries.  The only time one crosses them is to reprimand a pupil who is covertly (ha!) being mean to a classmate.  At this point, the selective deafness has to break down, rather like one of those old-fashioned hearing-aids which would unpredictably pick up a private aside on the other side of the room.

The pupils look at each other with amazement: it is as if Clarke Kent just morphed into Superman before their very eyes.  Not only did old Dr Hobba hear what they just said, she even appeared to understand it.

Catwalk

As I've said before, the enthusiasms of your children take you to places you would never have predicted.

So last night Nigel and I attended Fuze 2015 at Bristol, the largest student-led fashion show in the country. 

Perran texted us excellent advice on which were the best seats, but due to his inclusion of an ambiguous comma (hotly debated between Nigel and me), we ended up in the second best seats.  However, they were still pretty darn good, right on the front row.  
Next to me was a friendly young woman representing the D1 modelling agency and it all felt very exciting.  Although when the models stalked on in swimwear it got a bit too exciting as we had an unimpeded gusset view.  Nigel modestly averted his eyes. 

But you would have been proud of me: never once did I say in an over-loud voice “Nobody would ever wear that!” Although one collection which employed not only heavy brocades, but also those tassel trims that you sometimes see on lampshades did look a bit…..curtainy.
But we weren’t really there for the fashion.  Fuze is so called because it fuses catwalk fashion with numbers belted out by local singers and with fizzing dance routines, and the dance included Perran.  He looked fabulous and danced powerfully.  “Your son is so good,” whispered the woman from D1. 

All Over the Place

With Pascoe in Edinburgh

“That’s a rubbish pentacle you’re drawing,” commented Nigel.

“It’s not a pentacle – I’m plotting my half term journeys on a map of the UK.”

It could be more complicated.  But, since we saw Carenza in Oxford last weekend and Nigel is visiting the Northumberland grandparents next month, all I had to do was visit Pascoe in Edinburgh, my parents and brother in Cornwall and Perran in Bristol.

That’s fine then.

Bristol and Cornwall are by car, and Edinburgh was supposed to be by train, but since the plane was both cheaper and quicker, Nigel and I guiltily broke our own rules and arrived in Edinburgh reeling not from jet-lag but from severe cognitive dissonance.

Some teachers are probably having a rest and a catch up with those bits of domestic admin that never seem to get done, but it appears I’m not, although of course I did mean to. 

The idea of parallel universes came as no surprise to me as I regularly plan several different versions of how I will spend my time without fully acknowledging that I will be forced to choose between them.

My main worry this week is that as I go south west on the motorway, I will peer into a car in the opposite carriageway returning north east, and my own face will look out at me.  I will finally have “met myself coming back”.

The Mummy Car

I have to take everything out of the Ford Galaxy.  I find sweet wrappers (expected), old apple cores (suspected), the odd mouldy sandwich (dreaded).  I also discover spare gloves and a bottle of sun lotion – to keep my tribe safe both in winter and summer.  There are road maps so old that the Icknield Way is marked in dotted lines as a road under development.  In the pocket, an audiotape of “Three Men in a Boat” and a Paloma Faith CD.  Next to them is my Latin dictionary. And let’s not forget the strong, leak-resistant plastic bag in case of vomit incidents. 

I put them all in a holdall, these items telling the story of six years of family life, then I heft them into my beat-up Fiesta, and drive away, abandoning the Galaxy at the Garage. 

I have had a nasty prang on the way to work – my fault – and the Galaxy has been written off.

I don’t look back, but I have a lump in my throat. 

The Galaxy has been my mother ship.  The car before it was a Galaxy, and the car before that. Capacious, big enough to separate squabbling children, big enough to take our massive tent (the tent looked smaller in the showroom, I tell you), big enough to shift the children’s junk to university.

But nowadays, there is often nobody in the car besides Nigel and I, so we have decided to put the insurance money towards a second-hand Ford Focus.  Yet again, life has become more streamlined.

Outgoing

 "If you wish to leave a message for Nigel, Clare, Pascoe, Perran or Carenza, please do so after the tone.”

I was never quite sure about that outgoing message - thought I sounded rather Hyacinth Bucket posh. 

We bought our current phone system at the same time as we moved into our family house. There were four handsets so that we could always find one.  Except we always couldn’t, so in the end we pulled the old phone down from the loft. With the handset attached by a cable it couldn't migrate up to the children's rooms.

Over the years, one handset had been entirely disabled as the result of an inaccurate lob from one end of the sitting room to the other : "It's for you. CRASH."

On the other sets, sections of LCD screen had ceased to function making the numbers we dialled appear like the dingbats round in pub quiz.  One set has lately started wheezing like an asthmatic as it strains to recharge its worn-out batteries.

Did we need to replace the landline phones at all? Well they do provide a last resort for friends who can’t reach me any other way.  So we agreed to replace the phones only to be faced with a new Empty Nest rite of passage. The outgoing message.  If a friend who is fed up of waiting on the doorstep rings now, what they will hear is merely, "If you wish to leave a message for Clare or Nigel, please do so after the tone.”

Perran challenges firework safety code.

You tell your child not to play with fireworks, but do they listen?

Click here to see evidence of firework safety infringement.

End of Teen-age

There have been tantrums, slamming doors, sulks, heart-stopping failures to return home on time after parties.

We located the obligatory bottle of cheap vodka in the sock drawer.

On a couple of occasions certain people have gone out for the day to Camden Market and returned with more piercings than they set out with.

We have discovered in dark corners outdated detention slips or disastrous exam results.  We even once had one of the twins ring us to come and get them at the police station.

But sometimes I have had conversations with other careworn women and realised that actually our household scored quite low on the Richter scale of teenagerhood. 

Since 2004 we have been the parents of teen-agers.  Now, eleven years later, this is the week when that ends.  In truth I haven’t thought of Perran or Carenza as teenagers for a couple of years, but technically they still were.

I’d like to thank them for worrying us just the right amount.

If there had been no jolts at all, we’d have felt we hadn’t had the full parenthood experience.  But on the other hand, there has been nothing life-wrecking either.

So far as I know.

Four Women and a Map 1: If a Thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly.

My friends, Cath, Cecily, Dee and I are hitting that empty nest territory.   Between us, we have raised nine daughters and two sons, surely a great contribution to the UK and its future, but we have earned little money or glory.

And now, it must be the case that we are free at last to take our time in our own hands and do what we want to do.  It will keep our minds off the absence of our offspring.  We all know people who have bought a new sports car or taken up marathon running.

Our aspirations are more limited.  In September, we decided we would walk the Ridgeway, an ancient, long-distance foot path which stretches for 85 miles between Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire and Overton Hill in Wiltshire. 

Not a major ambition, achieved by perhaps thousands each year in the course of a long weekend.  We should do it easily.

But we are not quite as free as we thought: aged parents require more and more care, and none of them live on our doorsteps.

Our children arrive back from university or fledgling jobs and we must seize these precious opportunities to spend time.

Plus, the routine responsibilities of house, garden and married life remain. Not to mention, part-time jobs and efforts for charity.

And then our bodies are showing wear and tear – carrying a heavy rucksack for many miles is beyond us.  

Maybe we should put the whole thing off and wait for a moment when all four of us are free from domestic emergencies and injuries.  

But maybe that moment will never come. 

We decide that we will be the best kind of hero and walk the Ridgeway anyway, inch by inch if we have to.  In a slightly crap and much interrupted manner, we embark. 

We agree with GK Chesterton that if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.  

The Secret of Good Parenting

People fret about how to be good parents, particularly during the troublesome late teenage years, so Nigel and I have established one simple criterion.

Our parenting tip came to light when I was out hiking with Carol, Caroline and Diane. 

“You know,” Diane said, “Even though the girls are grown up now, I can’t rest at night until I know they’ve got home safe.”

“Yes,” agreed Carol, “I often find myself listening for the key in the door.”

“It’s so worrying,” said Caroline, “When they’ve said they’ll be home at a particular time and then they’re not.”

I hadn’t said anything.

“What about you, Clare?”
I hesitate, then:

“Actually, we have trouble remembering who’s at home and who’s not and who’s out and who’s in.  Quite a few times now, we’ve double-locked the front door and gone to bed.  And it’s only at breakfast we discover we’re one short.”

Silence.  Rapid blinking.

“I mean, their friends’ parents usually give them a bed for the night.”

Silence continues.

“So now it’s a joke in our house.  When Nigel says ‘I’ve been a Good Parent tonight’, it means he hasn’t locked any of the kids out.   Ha ha ha ha ha.”

But none of them joined in.

Funny, you’d think they’d be grateful that we’ve distilled the mystery of parenting into one clear principle.

Hobbits and Old Friends

"If only I was in the Theory of Everything instead."

Last January about eight of us met up to remember Malcolm Mladenovic who died of a heart attack in 2008. 

The outing we usually undertake together is one that would have been his choice – a sci-fi/fantasy film then a meal.  Wine is raised in a toast to him, which is inappropriate as he was always teetotal.

This year there were twelve of us, blinking, astonished that a whole year had passed in a flash.  

We must be getting old.  

Last year’s film was The Hobbit 2, and one advantage of time passing so quickly is that Nigel and I clearly remembered how terrible it was.

So this year, as our friends passed into the maw of The Hobbit 3, we quietly filtered off right and went to see The Theory of Everything instead. 

The only down side was that afterwards, when we met up with our friends in the pub, we could not join in the head-shaking and giggles over the Hapless Hobbit.  But at least we could raise a glass to Malcolm.  It is a tribute to him that so many were prepared to turn up and sit through the Tolkien Travesty III in his honour. 

But then, it only seems like yesterday that he was still with us.  

Packing away the perfect Christmas

All through the merriment of Christmas dinner, opening gifts, muddy walks, meeting up with friends there was a moment looming that I was dreading.  On the eleventh day of Christmas, Nigel, Perran and I were to drive home from our visit to the Northumberland grandparents.  But Pascoe would head straight back to Edinburgh and Carenza with him.  And Perran was booked on the 5pm train back to Bristol. 

One moment there had been five of us, eating mince pies round an open fire, the next just two. The house that we came back to was freezing cold and an evil smell wafted from the compost bin which we had forgotten to empty.  

And to add insult to injury we had to take down  the Christmas decorations. 

If anything can add gloom to an already desolate scene, it is the sweeping up of glinting shreds of tinsel.  If anything can make a cold day colder, it is the stacking away of Christmas cards full of warm greetings. 

I sank into a post-yule Slough of Despond.

But then my phone lit up.  Pascoe and Carenza were visiting Edinburgh zoo and were busy on WhatsApp.  They were posting pictures of animals that reminded them of us. 

And they had picked quite cuddly ones.

Thank heavens for the virtual world.

Diabolical drive

If I roll out of bed at 6am, and straight into the car, I can be with my parents in Cornwall by late morning.  That is at any rate the theory.

This morning however, the M4-M5 junction was shut and the tail-backs immense, so instead I navigated through Bristol.  All this took time, so I needed a rest break at Exeter.  If I hadn’t had the rest break, I wouldn’t have ended up stuck five cars behind a house.  Yes, that’s right, somebody was transporting a whole house on the back of a lorry, taking up both lanes of the A30.  I see I have already used the phrase “immense tail-backs” and I don’t want to over-use it. 

In addition, there were long stretches of M4 and M5 had been traffic-coned down to two lanes, often, it seemed, just for the hell of it as no roadworks were to be seen.

So it wasn’t until 1.30 that I arrived at the house where I was born.  After over seven hours of driving, you might have expected me to be wrecked, but instead I was ready to take my parents out for a stroll along the river. 

What had kept me in such good spirits? 

Carenza was with me, coming to visit her grandparents, stopping me from stressing with her desultory banter. 

And now we are side by side on the sofa in front of the fire.

The terrifying journey of the three wise men

From Mapshelfshire

 Carenza has arrived back from uni, but my term continues.  Left in the house on her own to put up the Christmas decorations, she appears to have got bored and texts began arriving on my phone.
"The terrifying journey of the three wise men:"

to the Bead Mines of Masterbedroomia

to the burning embers of Sittingroom 

to the frozen Jarstack of Fridge

to the seal colony of Mantelpiece

through the jungles of Windowsill

to the Herb Corridor of Death

Will those Wise Men EVER get there?

End of Term

Whenever your term ends, it is the rule that you feel it should have ended a week earlier.  Those last few days stretch into eternity.

Is my throat sore?  I feel a bit achey.

Tell yourself you don’t!

 Swallow crates of vitamin C tablets and chug Echinacea.  The end of term is coming and you will survive.

Don’t picture the soft bed, the warm central heating, the decadence of a lie-in.  It will soften;  with near fatal consequences.

Instead, greet the predawn gloom, shunt the car into first gear and keep going. 

Oh, sorry.  Up until now, I’d been writing this piece for both commuting schoolteachers like myself and university students like my children, but I now realise I need to re-write that last bit for students:

“Instead, get up when it’s well and truly light.  On December days when this doesn’t happen, don’t bother to get up.

If you do get up, saunter along to the railings where you last chained your bike and discern whether it’s still there.  If it is, meander into lectures; if not, go back to bed (default setting).”

And this, my friend, is why a degree is a bad thing – it means that adult life never looks good, by comparison.  Never again will you have so much fun, or so many lie-ins.

Enjoy.

Mind the Gap

The other evening in the pub, about ten of us were sitting round, the majority of us parents of children in their late teens or early twenties.  Comfortably over our beer or J2O (driving) or white wine (just letting the side down, really), we agreed that there was less difference between ourselves and our children’s generation than there had been between us and our parents’ generation.

We reached a consensus on that.

But then, our children weren’t there. 

From a material culture point of view, the thesis stands:  Perran clacks through my CD collection more often than I do, and Carenza now rocks the few surviving frocks in which I once painted the town red.  Likewise, Pascoe has been sighted at parties wearing my kaftan which a friend brought me back from Syria in better days.

On the other hand, the current range of relationships now on offer bemuses me.  If somebody had been my “Friend with Benefits”, it would probably have meant a purely platonic relationship in which he allowed me access to his toaster, possibly his electric food mixer. 

When my children raise LGBT issues, I have to get past my confusion with BLT – a kind of sandwich, and certainly not the appropriate mental image.  Hopefully, they think the long silence is because I’m considering their point deeply.

So if you’re reading this, and you know of a point where communication between the generations is difficult, please do email me and let me know.

Feet under the table

When I started this blog, the twins were polishing their applications to apply for university.  Only two years on, I have just popped in on Perran who is now happily ensconced in Bristol at the top of a Georgian house full of students.  From his palatial room, he surveys the university he has come to love.  

He had not told us that he’d had the bravery to join the 150 dancers auditioning for a few places in the much-hyped Fuze fashion and dance event.  

But he did tell us once he’d been selected.

 

Meanwhile, Carenza had casually mentioned that she also had a fish to fry.  After harsh parental interrogation, she divulged that she had launched a bid to become president of the JCR at St Hugh’s College.  

Even to stand demanded grit.  She has published a focused manifesto and spoken at hustings in a packed and beery bar.  She also had to eat a punishing number of burritos (apparently). 

On the night when the votes came in, I was visiting my parents in Cornwall, Nigel was with his in Northumberland.  Perran was waiting in Bristol and Pascoe had joined Nigel in Northumberland.  Over the course of the evening, we each, in our separate locations, kept taking out our mobiles and frowning at them thoughtfully.  Finally, at around 9pm, Carenza sent us her news.  

She was president.  

It was only a text, but we could definitely hear the chink of champagne glasses in the background.

Two years on, the twins could be said to have their feet under the table.

Face-painting

I used to have a face-painting kit and regularly appeared at school and church fetes to depict spider man, a tiger, or butterflies on chubby cheeks.    Conversation-wise it was as challenging as being a hairdresser,

“So, have you had a go on the tombola…?  I see.  No I wouldn’t want old bubble-bath either.  But you’ve had some sweets from the sweet stall then?  Lots of sweets.  Lots of sugary sweets.  Please do try to sit still for just a bit longer.” 

I’d have been very happy to continue face-painting – I thought I did it well.  But once my children reached eleven and left primary school, nobody asked me again.

The thing I had not realised about this art-form is that it is genetically determined. 

Yet just last weekend, I received solid proof that both of the twins have inherited a talent for face-painting.  

Are Pumpkins Essential?

Perran and a pumpkin of Yore.

Last year, the family pumpkin had hung around for a week with me muttering “must get round to that…” but not actually getting round to it.   

Finally, Pascoe heroically took up a Sabatier and hacked a toothy grin into the orange lantern, setting it outside with its candle just minutes before dusk fell.

This year, with our children all away at university, I didn’t bother with a pumpkin.  So not only did I not have to carve it, I didn’t have to pretend I enjoyed the pumpkin soup afterwards.

BUT, this evening, as Nigel and I tapped away on our laptops, we could hear outside the shrieks and giggles of children.  

I’d invested in sweets and put them by the front door.  But without the sign of the pumpkin lantern, the giggles passed by our door.  Nobody was knocking.

“How does one lure small children?” I asked Nigel.

“Perhaps a gingerbread house?” he suggested.

As we met eachother’s eye, we decided to stop.  After all, one doesn’t want to sound TOO much like a witch.

Instead, Nigel looked out some dinner party candles and set them ablaze outside.  Within seconds, tiny witches and skeletons had knocked at our door.  Within minutes, the first pack of sweets had gone and we were scratching about for more treats.   

And I was glad – who would want to miss out on so much fun?

Pastimes Past

In the dark recesses of many lofts are musical instruments, hockey sticks, tap-dance shoes.

When did they get put there?

Often, the answer is during the owner’s time at university.

School days are packed full of parent-pleasing, CV building activities that get slotted into the routine.  Often Mum/Dad pays any fees, encourages practice, acts as chauffeur and proudly attends performances.

But one day, the youngster wakes up in their stoutly built undergraduate bed, nursing a hangover  and says,

“You know what, I’ve quite enjoyed playing the euphonium, and I’ve gotten pretty good at it, but it was really Mum’s idea, not mine. In fact, I think she projected all her own euphonium-playing hopes and aspirations on to me.  I’ve been living somebody else’s glittering dream.”

As they trudge to the kettle for their first cup of coffee, they realise that if they ditched the euphonium, they might have time for what they really want to do. 

Smiling to themselves, they cram the musical instrument as far into the back of their wardrobe as it will go, pack their fire-eating torch and box of matches into a hold-all and head off for Circus Skills club.

So it was with great pleasure that last weekend, Nigel and I went to Bristol to watch Perran in a performance of the Nutcracker, and discovered how much, after all these years he still loves ballet.

Downsize the house

Not really our house

Sometimes, during university term time, I walk into a bedroom and feel the fine strand of a spider web across my face.  It feels a little chilly and smells only of air-freshener. 

It makes no sense to pay a mortgage on space that we’re not using, so we’re downsizing  to smaller premises.  Friends who are a few years ahead of us warn,

“But they’ll come back – it’s tough to get on the property ladder nowadays.”

But we’re taking a calculated bet that not all three will want to live with us at the same time.  Risky, I know, but the parts of us that yearn to be greener are rejoicing.  We will consume less heat and take up less space on this crowded planet.

And the cleaning, the house maintenance, the lawn-mowing will all be delightfully lighter.

The to-do list pinned up in the kitchen could be halved, our free time doubled. 

We shall have less, but we shall be and do more. 

Count Your Chickens

Plans shift like the sands.

“Were we this bad when we were their age?”

Probably not, simply because before the advent of mobile phones, last minute changes tended to result in somebody being left standing on a corner in the rain.

On the positive side, you don’t even hear the term “stood up” so much any more because a person who has changed their mind about a date will often at least text rather than simply not turn up.

It is now so easy to change social arrangements that they swirl and shift like sands sculpted by the tide.

Having three young people in my family, I keep my diary in pencil only.  Who knows when staying in for a family dinner will morph into the youngsters going out clubbing until 3 am.

So when I heard that all three of them would be at home for a whole weekend, I did not count my chickens.  As it got closer to the weekend, those chickens were positively jumping up and down squawking “count me, count me.” Yet still I did not enumerate.

But actually, the weekend arrived and we reached the desired total of three chickens at home with us for one whole day.

It was lovely.

Family Walk

(To see the most recent post, click the Home tab, just below here on the left.)
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.

To see the most recent post, click the Home tab, just above this post, here on the left.

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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