Last Blast

Last blast of the school holidays for me is the Greenbelt festival. 

This year was one of the best – Josie Long, James Acaster, The Barely Methodical Troupe, Vanessa Kisuule all blasted it.

At the open-air communion, thousands of us were led by 20 kids, the Archbishop of Canterbury and a host of kazoos.

All weekend, I wandered the festival, sometimes with Nigel or other mates, but often on my own – it’s the kind of place where people strike up conversations easily and help each other out.

The best bit was on the last night when Ster, a senior steward, hurried up to me in the dark and said,

“Your purse has been handed in, Clare.  You can pick it up from the information desk.”

I hadn’t even had time to realise that I’d dropped my purse.

When I collected it, I didn’t bother to check the contents – they would be fine -  this was Greenbelt.

Down to Earth Diet

Following Nigel’s angina earlier this year our diet has shifted again.

We have to avoid salt, trans-fats and saturated fats even more ardently than before.

Plus Carenza gave up meat (though not fish) at the start of the year.

Perran is vegan (which, as I keep forgetting, includes a ban on honey).

Pascoe has given up meat and can’t eat milk products. 

I, like Carenza, am a simple pescetarian.

Obviously, family catering has become a little complex.

My simple solution is to serve up garden soil. 

Much wholesome food (chocolate, marmite, gravy) is brown, and so is soil.

If served slightly damp, soil can be moulded into any shape so diners can sculpt a replica of the food they would most like to be eating.

Only snag – check carefully for earthworms before serving  - goodness knows whether they are high or low in cholesterol.

Departure

I have discovered a way to feel immoral without actually technically doing anything wrong. 

1                     Go camping in Cornwall.

2                     Have a great time.  Talk loudly and heartily about fresh air and sleeping well.

3                     Check the weather forecast.

4                      Discover that torrential rain is forecast for just when you will be taking down your tent next morning.

5                     Go very quiet as you imagine driving all the way back to Hertfordshire with a car full of wet stuff and spending the following day drying it out.

6                     * Bottle out and book Saltash Travelodge

7                     Take the tent down a day early.

* The immoral bit.

This is the second time I have done something similar and each time I have felt guilty about following my head rather than my heart and deserting the campsite early.

That evening, Carenza and I walked into Saltash to admire Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s amazing rail bridge across the Tamar.  I said to Carenza, “It’s not raining yet.  Maybe I made a mistake, bottling out early.”

But the following morning, as we toured the grounds of Cotehele House in the pouring rain, I knew that even though I may have lost the moral high ground, at least I had been right to pack up early.

If only I had been equally decisive about the journey home.

I had misgivings about leaving  Cornwall at lunch time on a High Season Friday, but did it anyway and spent eight hours crawling along in heavy traffic.  Perhaps Divine Justice was punishing me for my flaky attitude to camping.

Looe

We camped at Bay View Farm.

It did exactly what it said on the can.   The only thing between our tent and the sea was a paddock with two Shire Horses clopping placidly about. 

My Granddad bred Shire horses and our family name means horse or horseman in Cornish.  The presence of the horses was comforting.

In the morning, I was awoken by wild geese – I don’t mean that they’d broken into our tent - but I could hear their calls from two fields away.

Why on earth then did we leave this rural idyll and walk across the cliffs to the nearby town of Looe?

Because Looe is a cultural centre for Cornish bad behaviour of the historical type.

Think pirates and smugglers. (Professions with which my family has absolutely no connection, of course!)

Neither Carenza nor I had been there before and we were impressed by the prettiness of the place, but as we stepped onto the main street we were nearly trampled by the crowds. 

We didn’t see any pirates or smugglers, but we did see a family who were so desperate to gobble their pasties that instead of walking 200 yards to the sea front, they had merely sat down on the narrow pavement just outside the bakers and tucked in right there.

High Season in Cornwall does strange things to people.

Despite its name, Looe was in some ways disappointing.

Capital

Carenza and I were leaving Mum and Dad and moving on again.

There is a Norman Castle from which, for a while, Cornwall was ruled.  Beneath it, an ancient town where government moved later.

The castle is Restormel, the town Lostwithiel.

We planned to park at Lostwithiel and walk to the ruins of Restormel.

But we hadn’t taken into account the wet-morning high-season traffic, which was vile.  It was lunch time by the time we got to Lostwithiel and we had to “invent” a parking space at the far end of the car park.  The single public toilet was so popular that a queue stretched across the street.

Sometimes I wish I still lived in Cornwall – sometimes not.

As we strode out into the countryside, things got better.  At Restormel Castle, we discovered that the Black Prince had once been the first Duke of Cornwall and had resided there. 

It was hard for us to visualise the former grandeur of the castle.  But it might have been even harder for the Black Prince to imagine the castle as it is today – a tourist attraction.  Alongside us, several Asian women were exploring, their peach and pink headscarves and salwar kameez providing welcome colour as they walked the grey-brown battlements.

Back in Lostwithiel, the crowds had abated and we drifted round several of the antiques shops.  Lostwithiel had once been an administrative centre – the tin that was mined was assayed here for tax purposes.  But the fate of Lostwithiel seems symbolic of the rest of Cornwall, forced to live off its past for the tourist market.

The part of me that was a tourist adored Lostwithiel: the part of me that is Cornish hopes for a better economic future.

Old Haunts

Then

Now

I’m not good with routines.  I tend to seek novelty. 

But my parents, with whom Carenza and I are staying are quite the reverse. 

Today was to be dedicated to them and what they wanted to do, so the only question I had to ask was,

“Remind me, what time does Trelissick open?”

We have worn a groove around the paths of this NT garden and have admired it at every time of year. 

I would like to say I know every inch of it, but my parents have a particular, unvarying route they prefer, so acres remain unexplored.

Although some things have changed – Mum can no longer manage the long flight of steps so we no longer see the penny tree – a dead trunk into which my children would slot coins. 

But the high point of our walk remains an old hut with pine cones decorating its interior and a breath-taking view of the estuary.  I can’t remember the first time I came here, but an old photo proves I once breast-fed Carenza here. I send the boys a Whatsapp photo of us here again.  No caption – all of them will know exactly where we are.

On the floor hops the robin, as ever, hoping for crumbs.  What is amazing is that down the generations of robins, no ancestral memory has developed that the Hobbas always intend to bring bird food, but always forget!

Old Times’ Sake

Carenza and I are exploring Cornwall together.

We’re focusing on bits that I don’t know so well, but of course, Cornwall is also where I grew up and have returned to countless times. 

At this point, we’re staying with my parents.

Yesterday, we spent the morning with them, the afternoon with my brother, but today, I wanted to revisit the beach which I remember calling “perfect” – the one where I took my small children whenever I could. 

Carenza couldn’t remember Porthcurnick Beach, near Portscatho.  My friend Fiona had warned me that it had now been ‘discovered’ - the tiny shack which used to sell paper cups of tea had become a gourmet café.  It would be hard to grab a space in the car park.

It was true: as Carenza and I approached along the cliff, the beach was tessellated with colourful windbreaks, and a slew of people lounged at the café. 

But there were fertile rock pools at the West of the beach, and drifts of tiny shells at the East.  Carenza and I each found a pink cowry and solemnly made a gift of it to one another. 

But we didn’t linger – as the incoming tide herded holiday-makers up the beach, it congealed into people jam.

Then in the evening, Jennie, who has been one of my best friends for over forty years, had invited us to a barbecue.  As vegetarians, Carenza and I are used to being about as welcome at a barbecue as an unexpected item in the bagging area.  So we took along halloumi and cherry tomatoes, to make kebabs.  But it turned out that it wasn’t that kind of barbecue – Jennie had purchased an astonishing rack from Argentina and was roasting huge sections of beast.  It wasn’t a problem though – her salads were to-die-for.  And her friends were charming.

Call it anecdotal, but it seems that going back to old haunts can be disappointing, going back to old friends, never.

Halcyon

For this part of my Cornish trip with Carenza, we are staying with my parents.

Our priority is to get along to St Clements for a walk along the estuary.  Oaks hang over the path and graze the water.  Herons and egrets stalk the great muddy banks.

This walk is such a well-rehearsed tradition in my family that it has accumulated rules  and expectations.

It has also been a way to mark my parents’ ageing.

Once upon a time, we might walk all the way to Tresillian, and Dad would tease us kids that there were crocodiles in the reeds.

Nowadays, a successful trip is defined by reaching the Pond which is about a third of the way along.  Getting to the bench at the far end of the pond would be a triumph if we were ever to make it.

And the other prize is for my parents to defy cataracts and short sight by spotting the kingfisher.

How do we do today?

We reach the Pond with grit, determination and walking sticks.

But the kingfishers….

There’s one there alright. 

But can my parents see it?

They peer through binoculars.

“To the left of the dead tree,” says Carenza.

“To the left of the dead tree and up a bit,” I add.

My parents are motionless – they can’t see it, but know that I’ll be disappointed too if they say so.

Eventually they say – “Let’s go for a sit on the bench.”

And there we are, finally at the bench which Mum and Dad find it so hard to walk to now, watching the water broken by the ripples of grey mullet.

I guess this will have to be enough, that we reached the bench.

Rested, Mum and Dad rise to return.

And there, on the Pond, is a whole noisy family of young kingfishers, peeping, fluttering about, diving for fish.

This time, it’s hard for Mum and Dad to miss the gleam of the blue wings, the chestnut of their breast. 

Each of them has a clear view of a kingfisher.

Let me consult the time-honoured criteria again.

Yes, it has been a perfect walk.

A Bad Day for Crabs

Padstow Obby Oss on Mayday

After yesterday’s myth and prehistory epic, I was ready for more, but Carenza, being more grown-up than me, suggested that we have a more chilled day and recover. 

So we planned an amble around Padstow. 

After all, there WAS a cultural connection to my name – the Padstow Obby Oss (Hobba = horse/horseman) gave a famous dance round the town each May, possibly for ancient fertility reasons.  Or equally ancient beer reasons.

Only snag was, it was time for us to leave Boscastle.

We had to pack the tent away.

In the rain!

“Rain wasn’t forecast!” Even though I know the forecast is often wrong in Cornwall, I still experience 21^st Century indignation.

Luckily the 21^st Century has also provided a synthetic tent fabric which doesn’t rot if you put it away wet.

However, tetchiness was not completely circumvented.

On our way to Padstow, we rediscovered the sheer traffic-jamminess of a wet high-season Saturday in Cornwall. 

After our early set-off we still didn’t get to Padstow until midday. Grumpiness hovered.

But once there, the clouds parted, golden sunshine poured through and suddenly we were getting our chilled day by the sea.

Only thing was, there seemed to be a horrendous crab-fishing marathon at the harbour. 

All over the place, kids and parents were letting down crablines with bits of bacon attached.

“Did anybody warn the crabs?”

“Hopefully, they’ll think it’s the Rapture, but for crabs.”

“Yeah. ‘Look – Auntie Shelley’s being taken up to Heaven!’ “

“’Uncle Claus is being taken too.’”

Luckily, at the end of the day, we saw many crabs being returned to the water.

“But imagine the social embarrassment when Auntie Shelley and Uncle Claus reappear – not taken up to Heaven after all.”

“They’re probably so relieved to be put back that they don’t care.”

And actually, that evening, when we get to Mum and Dad’s in Truro, we do miss the amazing views from the campsite, but we’re so relieved to have access to their shower and toilet that we don’t care either.

Legends

On our first full day in Cornwall, Carenza and I took the bus to Tintagel.

But it turned out that King Arthur was not the only legend. 

Carenza and I also demonstrated determination of mythical proportions.

Having scrambled up and down hundreds of steps to see the ruins of the castle on the cliff, Carenza and I took the rugged coast path back to Boscastle.

The coast was punctuated by valleys so steep that the NT had provided staircases.

By the time we finished our journey it was 6pm and we were footsore and dehydrated. 

But the reason it had taken so long was because we had detoured to see some amazing sights.  We saw, in order:

Merlin’s Cave, open to the sea at both ends beneath the castle;

The Iron Gate where seafarers once entered Tintagel Castle;

A carving of a marigold cross and the ancient font of St Julitta at St Materiana’s Church;

A dolmen in the churchyard;

An Iron Age cliff fort;

Two Bronze Age labyrinths, carved into a rocky outcrop in a little valley;

The Forrabury Stitches – a field pattern, relic of Celtic agriculture;

The Celtic cross at Forrabury Church;

And best of all, the last two Cornish pasties in Boscastle, just waiting for us as the bakery shut for the day.

Merlin's Cave

Marigold Cross

Tintagel Castle

Bronze Age Labyrinth

Celtic Cross at Forrabury

On the road

On the drive to Cornwall, we flexed our literary muscles - Carenza read me some of Thomas Hardy’s poems and we listened to Virginia Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse” on Audible.

But mostly, we chatted.

The campsite at Trebyla Farm was exactly what I’d been hoping for: small, quiet, with generous pitches.  No ping-pong table or fast food kiosk.  A view of fields in one direction and a deep valley down to the sea in the other.

And the feeling that there should have been a few more loo/shower cubicles.

Within an hour of arriving, we had erected the tent and got organised.   There was time for a walk around Beeny Head before sunset, one of the places where Thomas Hardy courted Emma Gifford, his first wife.

The coast was rugged – a kestrel hovered; a waterfall poured out over rocks; the salt wind blew in our faces.

“It’s amazing that just this morning we were setting off from Hertfordshire and now it feels we’re a whole world away.”

“Really?” says Carenza, “What I think is amazing is that we managed to get the tent up without arguing.”

Adventure

We thought about inter-railing.

“Yeah,” we said, “Yeah. Great.” not quite meeting each other’s eyes.

We even got as far as getting out a map of Europe and stabbing our fingers at it.

By this time next year Carenza will be in some serious grown-up job and it could be our last chance for a mother and daughter road trip.

But traipsing round European cities in the heat of August and doing what? Going to student hostels or going to grown up hotels…Were we students, were we a family?  And where was the meaning?  What were we doing it for?

The next day, Carenza says  – “You know, Mum, although you’re Cornish, and I’ve got a Cornish name, I don’t feel I know Cornwall very well at all.  It feels like my friends who go there on holiday know it better.”

It’s true.  Nowadays, visits to Cornwall mean sitting in my parents’ living room, punctuated only by the walk to Sainsbury’s for the daily paper.

There are so many amazing places in Cornwall that I haven’t seen for years.

Quickly we agree on a Cornish Odyssey. 

The themes will be history and mythology. Basically any stuff that interests US.

We will take the tent.

We look each other in the eye and smile.

Edinburgh Fringe

Pascoe lives in Edinburgh and once again, Nigel and I visited him for the Fringe Festival.

There’s only one show that we book in advance – the amazing Mark Thomas.  His new show, Red Shed, is a trip down Memory Lane to the Miners’ Strike of 1984/5.  It so happened I have vivid memories of this since I was living in Newcastle upon Tyne at the time.  Mark Thomas was involved in Yorkshire and that’s where the Red Shed is – in Wakefield. 

Mark Thomas was exploring to what extent he had embellished his memories:  “You know how it happens – you get your old, well-loved story down off the mantelpiece to polish it, a bit of truth drops off and you just kick it under the sofa.”

When I said that we always booked Mark Thomas, you might assume that it was my idea – I’ve been watching his performances most of my adult life.  However, Mark Thomas is Pascoe’s enthusiasm.  But I don’t think his nostalgic Red Shed show will have answered any of Pascoe’s current questions.

It’s a more complicated world now than in 1984.

Today’s youth are also fighting battles they will one day look back on with pride and nostalgia. 

I see Pascoe waging war on consumerism and climate change.  But for all our sakes, I have to hope that, unlike the miners, he wins.

Goodbye to all that

Carenza has completed her degree and left Oxford.

When I started writing this blog, the twins were in their last year at school and I was getting maudlin about a whole landslide of “last”s.  Last school concert,  last parents’ evening.

Some of the lasts weren’t lasts at all. We have continued to rally the complete set of offspring for summer holidays.  Until now, anyway. 

However, as Carenza’s undergraduate life came to an end, I was experiencing another set of lasts.

The question is, were they mine or hers?

I had to confess that it was like saying farewell to my own university days once more.

After a mere deluge of hints, Carenza graciously invited me for a last sleepover earlier in the spring and we went to a cocktail bar on a roof overlooking twinkling Oxford.  Fortunately afterwards I didn’t have to re-enact my student experience of sleeping on other people’s floors as Carenza let me have her bed.

A few weeks ago, Nigel, Perran and I had moved Carenza’s worldly goods from the highest, furthest corner of her accommodation block out to our car and she was about to lock up for the last time.

“Don’t you want to go back in and say good-bye to your room?”

“No, Mum, I did all that last night.”

So it was me who quickly darted back in and said, “Good bye, little room. It’s been fun.”

Dancing in the Rain

On our family holiday this year, we rented a house near Carcassonne for several days.  The house was homely and welcoming but there was one aspect I disliked.  Hanging from every hook were wooden signs with bons mots. 

“Home is where the heart is.”

“Live, laugh, love.”

However, on the door to our balcony was one I hadn’t seen before.  It struck me as being so true that at dinner in the garden I repeated it to the rest of the family:

“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass – it’s about learning to dance in the rain.”

“That’s so true,” agreed Carenza, “You just have to get on with your life even when things aren’t perfect.”

Flash forward three days –  

A stroll by a lake has been curtailed by a thundery downpour. 

Luckily, there is a bird hide to shelter in.

We have been there twenty minutes and are beginning to lose faith that it is a passing shower. 

Tetchiness is rearing its ugly head.

“Shouldn’t you go out and ‘dance in the rain’, Mum?” asks Perran.

“I didn’t expect the rain to be this er heavy.”

Twenty minutes later and I’m feeling distinctly under-dressed and cold.

“Come here,” says Pascoe, “We can practise Scottish reels – that’ll warm us up.”

And that’s what we do.

“Look Nigel, I AM dancing in the rain.”

But Nigel isn’t there – he can stand it no more and is jogging the half mile back to fetch the car.

Probably more useful than dancing in the rain.

Clare’s Knee

Blue, purple, green and yellow – just some of the colours my knee has turned.  

Every summer, I seem to do violence to my knee, right at the start of the holidays.

I have knapped my kneecap on a boulder in Cappadocia and  plonked my patella on a rock at Kaikoura. 

Two years ago was the most spectacular: on our first day in Cornwall I fell down down a step going into a pub.  (“Into”, I tell you.) I landed on both knees on concrete and was writhing on the ground with agony.  

The children tell me I wasn’t very polite to people trying to help me up.   A kind bystander disappeared and returned with plasters from her house, but I had skinned my knees so thoroughly that there was nothing left for the sticky bit of the plaster to adhere to.

This year we were in a wood in Languedoc.  We had just climbed a hill by means of a track slippery with smooth limestone.  The ascent was arduous in the heat and the descent treacherous.  As it levelled out at the bottom, I relaxed, took my eye off the ball and slipped over.

However, it could be worse – and at least now I have a grazed knee, I know that it is truly the summer holiday.

Resigned

I have quit my job.  I am moving on to become a freelance Latin teacher offering twilight sessions at four state-maintained secondary schools locally.

It is an exciting prospect to offer Latin to a new set of students who have not previously had the chance to study it and I am already working on plans to make the lessons interesting and varied.

It’s been a bit nerve-wracking – the date by which I had to hand in my notice at school raced up before I had secured my work for next year. 

I asked friends their advice.  And I prayed.  Then I took the step of faith and certainly, now, next year looks bright.

Plus, when I quit my job, I also quit a very congested and very early commute.

The new work should suit my biorhythms better.

I am not a morning person.

The question that colleagues most frequently ask me in the mornings is “Are you all right?”

I think I must present as rather silent and stary, early in the day.

For me to drive a long distance in the mornings is tempting fate and has not been without incident (see 2015 posts, Speed Awareness & The Mummy Car).

Hopefully the pupils whom I teach in the late afternoon will see me at my finest.

And maybe I can even cycle to my new schools.

But let’s not get carried away.

House Wine

Sadly, Helen’s elderly father died.  As we all shall, he left some things unfinished.  Every so often, Helen comes across a batch of his wine which still needs some work.

When this happens, she passes it on to Nigel for completion and we share the result.

The latest was a batch of cherry wine which she handed over in church on Sunday.

After the service, everybody crowded into the church hall for coffee and Nigel was just looking at the bottles of wine when he noticed a lump in the bottom of one.  He brought it close to his specs.

“Sh*t.”

When I arrived with my coffee, he showed it to me.

“Sh*t.”

“How did a large mouse like that, get in through the tiny bottle neck?”

“At least it must have died happy.”

Then Nigel said; “I’ll go and show Helen.”

“Don’t! Don’t!” I cried, “She’ll be so embarrassed she gave you wine with a mouse in it.”

“It’s a bit late for that,” he said – I’ve already shown William.  (William is her brother-in-law who attends the same church.)

I looked across the crowded hall – William was talking to Helen.  Would she be upset?

I could see her shoulders shaking.

Oh dear.

But then she turned and called across to us,

“I just told William it must be a mistake – I said I ordered a bottle of the House Wine – not a bottle of the Mouse Wine!”

Nice one, Helen.

Aftermath

On Friday 24^th June, Nigel and I were sitting in the acute admissions waiting room of the hospital.  It was Nigel who was waiting to be acutely admitted. 

We had thought that by exercise and a largely vegetarian diet he might have outrun his family’s long-running flirtation with angina.

 But finally the condition had caught up with him.  As we sat in the waiting room we didn’t know whether Nigel would be facing the insertion of a stent, a life-saving operation which is undertaken under local anaesthetic, or whether he would need full bypass surgery.

There was a TV there.  It was the morning after the referendum and it looked as if it was not only Nigel, but our country itself whose heart was in danger.

A young couple were being interviewed in Manchester.

The guy said, “I’m studying economics, so I voted to stay in.”

His partner said, “I voted to leave.  I don’t know why really.  And now I wish I hadn’t.”

 I can only draw a veil over Nigel’s  response to this.

On Monday, they examined Nigel  and inserted a stent into his coronary artery there and then.  The threat had been grave but the process of recovery is now straight forward.

Can our country be fixed with some straightforward procedure, or do we need bypass surgery?  And if so, just who should we be bypassing?

Moving On

Post referendum, my incredulity has given way to mourning.
It is likely now that my children will leave this backward country in order to make a living.
And I wouldn't blame them.

But any day now I am going to rally and begin once more to blog about domestic trivia.
As if our world had not been shattered.

Diamond

I kinda missed the Queen’s birthday.

Which is a shame, because she was kind enough to send a card to my parents.

They were celebrating their Diamond Wedding.

I drove down after work the day before. On the Diamond Day, I took them out to Trelissick National Trust  property and we watched house martins nesting in the eaves.  We had our lunch there in the mild Cornish air of the courtyard.

Mark and Helen invited us for a hearty roast dinner, and Mum and Dad enjoyed the company of their grandson, Dan, and his cockapoo dog, Scout. My kids phoned, wrote and texted their best wishes.

For me, the day might have seemed a little quiet, but Mum and Dad thought it was perfect.

If ever I am lucky enough to reach the day when I am in my eighties and have been married for sixty years, perhaps I shall feel the same.

IN

I have to say it.

I’m IN and so is my family.

IN isn’t perfect, but if you want to change things in our favour, IN is the place to be.

It’s not immigrants that are causing “shortages”, it’s austerity measures following the financial crisis.

I’m with David Cameron, Barack Obama, the Labour leadership, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Captains of Industry, not self-seeking Bullingdon Boris.

I want a future for my children.  And actually, I’m not done yet – I want a future for me.

Exorcise your racism, paranoia and xenophobia.

And if we do end up subsidising poorer European countries, it’s to make a better environment for all of us.  Acting as a larger community is in our own self interest.

Vote IN for the sake of your country – you have far more to gain than to lose.

A different kind of trip

Perran was staying with Carenza at Oxford for a couple of days and I drove over to catch them both for lunch.

Not only had I not seen the twins since Easter, I also wanted to remind myself of the amazing halcyon of sunshine and socialising that follows Finals.

Unfortunately there appears to be a fly in Carenza’s ointment.  I arrived just after she returned from hospital with a sprained ankle.

“How did it happen?”

“Well, I was just coming out after the History Dinner, and I was wearing heels, and I came down this step.”

“That step there?  It’s not very big is it?”

“No, but there was darkness and I tripped on it.”

“You tripped up on darkness?  Well all I can say is, I’m relieved to hear it had nothing at all to do with alcohol.”

 

School Trip

If you noticed a gap in my blogs it was for a reason.  I was one of four teachers accompanying 43 fourteen and fifteen year-old boys to Classical sites in Italy for 8 days. 

We came back a few days ago, but I have found it challenging enough to take my school classes and wash all my dirty clothes.  I’ve also spent a fair amount of time staring blankly into the middle distance.  

It is only now that I feel half human again.

The pupils, however, were very much themselves after a good night’s sleep. 

And  that, my friend, is the difference between being fourteen and fifty-three.

Although I did discover another difference – teenagers overwhelmingly have an eerie sixth sense for detecting free wi-fi , even on the beach.

As a parent, I have often helped to pack bags for my own children’s residential trips, but never seen the outcome at the other end. 

I can now say with certainty that “less is more”.  The less they take, the easier it is to keep track of, particularly when mingled promiscuously with the socks and sun cream of others on the floor of a shared room.

It reminded me of the story of my friend picking up her eleven-year old daughter after her first away trip.

“Mum, I’m afraid I had to put on dirty pants this morning.”

“That’s perfectly alright, love.”

“And I’m pretty sure they’re not my pants either.”

Unplanned Garden

We moved to this house a year ago, and the back garden was a recently-turfed green rectangle.  It was without features.

We really needed to plan carefully what we did with it, not just rush in with a shovel.

As a result, we have done nothing.

We attempted to watch the Chelsea Flower Show footage for inspiration, but were overwhelmed with shame and guilt when we saw the achievements of others.

On our patio is a crowd of around 30 plants in pots, cuttings brought from our last garden . 

One by one they are beginning to fall be the wayside – too wet or too dry or too sluggy.

And it matters because so many of our plants are gifts from friends and relations, so our garden will grow layers not just of colour, but also of meaning.

But Nigel has saved the day by rushing in with a shovel.  He has established a holiday camp in a sunny corner of the garden. 

Here our plants will be able to spread their roots and thrive, before we divide them up and move them on once again to new carefully-planned positions.

One day, the technology will be developed that will detect the noises plants make.  And when that happens, it will be able to prove that our now happy flowers are purring.

Worried

Our family usually says a little prayer before meals.

On Sunday Nigel and I are thanking God for our soup and go on to ask a blessing on Carenza taking her finals and Perran his end-of-year exams.

We have just looked up and raised our spoons when Nigel’s mobile gives the bright sound of a text arriving.

It says, “Avalanche has blocked path.  Having to go around the long way.”

Our eyes meet.

Amid the exam stress we have forgotten that Pascoe and Matt are climbing the UK’s second highest mountain, Ben Macdui.

Now we recall only too clearly the twenty mile walk to the foot of the mountain, the camping over night, the snowbound ascent and descent, the ten mile walk back to public transport.

We put down our soup spoons and add another prayer.

Sunday night we are relieved to receive a photo of Pascoe still with the full complement of limbs and without frostbite.

Guess we can go back to worrying about exams now.

Family Motto

Hannah once said, “The Harveys always go too far.”

Probably it was after one of our joint family outings where somebody (usually David) got water thrown over them.  Or maybe Nigel or I had made a joke about s_x.  Maybe one of us had done a little dance in a public place.  Possibly all of the above.

Pascoe, Perran and Carenza felt that it would make an appropriate family motto.

It remained only for me to translate it into Latin.

“semper longius”

semper means always.  But longius can mean either further or too far.

So a stranger will believe we have a wholesome aspirational family motto, “always further”

Only those who are acquainted with us will know the true meaning: “always too far.”

But then, they could probably have guessed that anyway.

Foraging

Nigel and I started foraging as newly weds on the slopes of Penshaw Hill above the River Wear. We had very little money and the wild blackberries and crabapples were frankly welcome.

And a forager can always tell who their friends are.

Autumns past, we have fried up a bunch of knobbly, unfamiliar toad stools and served them up on toast to a group of… “But wait – where did everybody go?  They were here a minute ago.”

At least Spring foraging is less controversial.

Recently, I’ve made a load of wild garlic pesto (not to be eaten the night before a big meeting).

And pictured is my variation on saag aloo, made with three cornered leek.

So thirty years after we began, foraging has become fashionable. 

Now, in one fell swoop, we can boost not only our diet, but also our smug middle class credentials.

Fair Weather Friends

Last weekend I had composed a careful To-Do List of work tasks and household chores.  But, as ever, the sight of a long list of jobs did not make me wish to gird my loins (whatever that means). In fact, the opposite.  (Is it possible, or even decent, to UNgird one’s loins?)

And then the weather was gorgeous.  All blue and green and Mayey.  And there was every possibility that this actually was the only British Summer that we would get. 

Tossing the To-Do List over my shoulder, I got out the OS map.

I rang friends.

I had a great walk with Rosie and she gave me a tutorial which would be valuable in taking my Selfie Project forward.

And on Sunday, Nigel and I joined Jenny and Terry (with spaniels, Hamish and Boris) at Wendover Woods.  Jenny  proved that even though the car park was jam packed, we only had to walk for ten minutes to completely evade the milling Spring crowds.

This weekend, sure enough, temperatures had dropped by nearly 10 degrees and I began to snivel with an unseasonal cold. 

But by next weekend I aim to be well again.

So that I can tidy up my To-Do list?

Nope, so that if the sun shines again, we can get out in the countryside for another walk with our friends.

Projects

My great worry is that my children do not have enough to do.  After all, revising for degree exams can’t be that hard.

And FaceBook’s gone awful quiet so they really can’t be doing that much.

What they need is wholesome projects.

In order to give them a worthwhile occupation and fill all that spare time, I have posted them crystal trees, cress farms, a cress hedgehog and a magic bean.

All they have to do is add water.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, the washing up awaits me.

All I have to do is just add water, but suddenly I am far too busy too.