I’m on holiday, OK?

Climbing the old lighthouse at Torungen

Somebody, [Moo], said it would be a good idea to write a post saying we were going to be on holiday so don’t go looking for a post over the summer because there wouldn’t be one.

This is fine in theory, and I agreed. And here it is. The only problem as far as I can see is that nobody reads our posts anyway, so they don’t know that there won’t be one for them to miss.

But because I’m the youngest and I always, usually, sometimes when it suits me follow the advice of my elder sister, I am writing this post. I am in Norway atm, on the Oslo Fjord. I don’t know where Moo is exactly but she will be chilling [1]. We have learnt to chill. It wasn’t invented when we were young but we are making up for lost time now.

I’m not going to start a rant about what life used to be like in the 60’s and 70’s, though frankly I could and I might make it interesting. But now we are nearing our dotage it’s about time we had a bit of chill, I mean we have been busy girls all our lives so, you know...

‘Chilling’ is a bit of a funny expression to be honest, particularly now when the weather is so hot. The other reason I find it odd is that I constitutionally do not like to get cold, so no, I don’t want to chill – I want a nice stable temperature.  I presume it means to take the heat off the situation in an emotional rather than a literal physical sense, but even here I prefer emotional warmth to chilly cold. Suffice it to say I will accept the word in the sense of slow down and stop working, relax and drink tea, especially if it comes with toast and marmite or at a pinch chocolate digestives.

Somebody said to me yesterday that they thought I was a very busy person. This cheered me up no end as I have always secretly worried that I am lazy. I think I am a lazy person actually, but one with a lot to do. But, I’m thinking that if I have been labelled a ‘busy person’ then by rights I deserve a chill time.

Fishing near Arundel. I caught a cod....

So, back to the Oslo Fjord: that’s where we are based but I drove three hours down to the south of Norway this morning. and I am sitting in a cabin in the shade. My husband is sitting outside in the hot midday sun reading a book [he will regret this later, trust me], while our Norwegian friend is getting the boat ready for an outing [2], while our friend’s wife is cooking us lunch. She is frying chicken fillets and tossing a crisp green salad. I spied a couple of bottles of red in the kitchen earlier, so although they DON’T HAVE ANY TEA [let alone completely no digestives and even less Marmite] I might just survive.

How’s that for chilling?

Notes:

1 Moo would like it to be known that she is not actually chilling. No. She is working out how to use her new camera so she can be a super duper photographer [my expression not hers] and fill ours and other pages with exquisite, cool images. So good luck with that, sis.

2 Our trip was to the Arundel region, and we climbed the old lighthouse, manned by the uncle of Morten Morland who is a cartoonist in London for the Times etc [by the way] and we went on a fishing trip and I caught a cod. Which the Norsk friend can clean and gut [thank you very much] and we will eat...

A POCKET FULL OF HARD BOILED EGGS

We used to call him the 'mad uncle' in the West Wing.

I should be clear that, even though we lived in half a manor house at the time, it wasn’t grand, and it definitely didn’t have ‘wings’. But the Uncle in question was, well, not entirely sane though it may be unkind to label him as ‘mad’.

He wouldn’t smoke a cigarette at Christmas until it had been thrown over the garlands hanging from the ceiling in festive loops. He wore his slippers on the bus. He sung us Goon songs, and he drew funny cartoons.

Uncle was our father’s identical twin brother and they knew how to play tricks. He didn’t have a moustache and our Dad did. When we were little he visited us at bedtime, and we said goodnight and went upstairs. I think you can guess what’s coming. My Dad came up [with moustache] to say goodnight. Then he went out and came back [sans moustache] and pretended to be Uncle.  But even with identical twins there are minute differences that family members know, these little habits and inflections of speech that separate out identical people to their families. I think we were traumatised when we felt we didn’t really know if our Dad was our uncle pretending to be our Dad. Or if our uncle was our Dad pretending to be our uncle. This sort of thing scars kids.

It was never clear if it was Uncle’s idea to collect names on graves, but it provided one of the most interesting and enduring activities of our childhood. ‘Uncle Hunting’ must surely have come from him though; especially as it meant going out after dark in the country side, armed with torches, and involved his sons, nephew and nieces roaming around looking for him.

Even though he could be a challenge in later years my parents valiantly took him on holiday with them; they flew to the Channel Islands, they went to Germany, and they included him on one of their cruises. The point of cruises is they have masses of food, at point of need, all round the clock. Breakfast was a highlight for Uncle, and he had a particular passion for hard boiled eggs; I think the war generation never got over rationing. Uncle would go to the breakfast buffet and after consuming a normal breakfast he would stuff every available pocket with hard boiled eggs ‘for later’.

He was not the most moral of men, but we knew nothing of this when we were young. And though we thought he was funny, as we became older it became clear that often adults in the family found him a bit irritating…

And this is how I remember him: as two people really – a weirdly funny half-mad Uncle – and a man that got a bit lost towards the end of his life, where the close bond that should have tied him to his twin got so strained it broke. A warning for me to take care with relationships that I am not found guilty of harming those I love by taking them for granted or being selfish.

Uncle on left with beard. Dad on right without.

LIFE IN A RED HAT

Woke up this morning thinking thank goodness I won't be getting any more electioneering junk mail through the letterbox. Does anybody actually read this stuff anyway? I was getting to screaming point as every day I had to wade knee deep through leaflets to get out of the front door.

Why do these little things annoy me? A sign of your age, I hear you say. Well, maybe. I have noticed a certain tendency to irritation sometimes. It's only the little things though – litter louts, people walking their dogs on the beach where it's not allowed, people who park inconsiderately – that sort of thing. But the things that matter I take calmly. Anyhow, on the whole I do feel I'm entering a new free and easy phase of life.

Here are a few tell-tale signs I've noticed recently…

1. I’ve started muttering. This is the next stage on from talking to yourself. I know what I'm saying but anybody listening won't understand a word. And I don't care if nobody listens or understand either.

2. I don’t mind going out in scruffy clothes. In fact, I do it on purpose most mornings. I get dressed into what I call my dog walking clothes (because that's what they are). I deliberately do my hair how I think a mad dog lady would do it, as close as you can get without chopping it off in a straight line at chin level. I put on battered old trainers and a raincoat I've had for over ten years and I'm good to go. I don't give a tuppenny toot if people think I'm a bit odd. In fact, I rather hope they do. It's my way of enjoying myself.

3. I’ve started to Say Something if necessary. Yesterday a cyclist whizzed up behind me and the dog on a shared pedestrian/cyclist path and made me jump out of my skin. I found myself calling out after him, you've got a bell, why don't you ring it? Luckily, he didn't stop and thump me. I find myself Saying Something before I've had time to think. This is happening quite often now.

4. I'm prepared to take my camera out and about and take photos from strange angles and not care if I look silly! And I probably DO look silly, believe me.

 So I realise I must be practically into Red Hat* territory now. This brings a new freedom and its great! I've been looking forward to this for years, and I intend to enjoy it.

*See the poem by Jenny Joseph ‘Warning’ 

I MADE A PLAN....

Friday morning was supposed to be sunny until 9.00. Thinking of all the good advice I give people about planning their day [see The Back of an Envelope and an Eyebrow Pencil] I made a plan. I wrote what I had to do down and attached a time limit to them, and then ranked them in order of importance urgency. Note: this generally entails getting up early so it might put some people off.

6.00am Get up, have breakfast, clear up, make bed*, get dressed. Pack boot of car with bean plants for my allotment and Althea officinalis for the herb allotment. Plus a boot full of cardboard because Charles Dowding told me to, in preparation for 2 tonnes of compost.

*[If husband not still in it].

7.00 Drive to allotment, unpack car and plant bean plants and Althea officinalis plants, do some weeding, tie up some canes. Try to avoid glances from other allotmenteers who are probably wondering where I have been for the last three weeks. Easy to avoid glances if I hide behind weeds…

9.00 Head back home. Shower. Hair wash. Oh, divine! Clear up kitchen and answer emails. Put a wash on.

10.00 Work on assignment for college. It’s about resources. I’m nearly at 3,000 words and I must say it is not inspiring. Two hours should crack it…

12.00 I’m a good girl. I spent 2 solid hours writing and researching and I’m ready for a break. Have an early lunch. Clear up kitchen and make a plan for Alice to follow so she can cook dinner for 17.00

13.00 Out in the garden, hanging up wash, potting on courgettes and squash into bigger pots, writing a ‘sowing and planting’ list. Whatever month it is I always have just missed something. When I first look it is too early, so I wait and then it is too late. How does this happen every time? Take carrots and parsnip; I avoid the frost, then I miss the opportunity – where did it go?

14.00 Tidy office/pharmacy and dispensary ready for students at the weekend

15.00 Spend an hour writing part of a module study guide for the herbal medicine course.

16.00 Make a spelt bread sourdough and a rye sourdough and feel like I’m ‘back to basics’ in a rustic kinda way. Just don’t ask me what happened to my chickens last week.

16.30 Tidy garden room, just a bit.

17.30 Have dinner. Organise clear up. Work day is done. Now I get to relax with a book or laptop feeling smug that I have motored through the day getting things done. It works because I don’t have to make choices, the list tells me what to do. If I don’t have a list I get distracted and don’t achieve so much.

TBH, the smuggest feeling is that 2 hours at the beginning of the day. …

KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON RELAXING

I did think, when looking forward to the prospect of a whole week off, that we would be going out for days, relaxing at home, taking the dog out somewhere new. Possibly pottering about in the garden, maybe getting a few jobs done. You know, the sort of thing you put off for months until either you miraculously find the time or it's too late to bother. Our wedding anniversary was on Monday, and we promised ourselves lunch out somewhere nice.

Oh, there was the small matter of the conservatory roof. We had booked up to have it replaced this week. It would only be a couple of days. Plenty of time for other things. At least that's what we thought back in March. From that distance it didn't look like a problem…

Unexpected event #1
Internet connection lost last Thursday.
You don't realise how much you use the internet until you haven't got it. Had to work up the cheek to ask my parents if I could go round and use their internet. Very limited as to what I could get done in time available though.

Unexpected event #2
Phone call on Sunday afternoon from Roof Guy. Materials for job being delivered midday Monday. Well, that'll be ok. We’ll go out for lunch when they've been. But Roof Guy arrives midday on Monday as well as materials and asks if it's ok to take the roof off. So we stayed in. Good job we had moved the furniture out of conservatory already. New router arrives from Sky and with surprisingly little bother, we are reconnected to the World. Hurrah!
And never mind about lunch out, my Dad cooked us a delicious dinner, bless him! Gordon goes and fetches it home – chicken in korma sauce. Thanks Dad, you're a darling!




Archie wonders what is happening to his house.

A restless night follows, as I feel uneasy about our roofless conservatory. What if it rains?
It doesn't, it just drizzles.

On waking the next day, we hear the dreadful news of the terror attack in Manchester and all our little niggles pale into insignificance.

Tuesday is spent keeping Roof Guy topped up with tea and taking photos to record progress. I don't know why.
By Wednesday afternoon the roof is on and all is finished, and a very good job he made of it too.

Sam the cat takes it all in his stride

But there's a lot to do putting things back and clearing up. Too late to go out for lunch.
Thursday is full of things we meant to do earlier in the week but didn't have time for. Didn't expect to feel quite so tired!

Unexpected event #3
I'm up early on Friday and take Archie out for his walk as usual. It's a beautiful day, already too hot to wear a coat or jumper. All is fine until time to go home and I go to put his lead on and find he's been rolling in a hefty dollop of dog poo. It's all stuck into his collar and harness, not to mention all over his neck and shoulders. Oh yuk!
I get off what I can with baby wipes but he has to be bathed when we get home. Archie is less than keen on this. His collar, harness and lead have to be scrubbed and disinfected. I give up on the old blanket from the car, and throw it away. There's only so much dog poo we can face before breakfast.

Later there's shopping to do, and a trip to B&Q to buy a new rainwater butt. Must get my new plants in too. The grass has to be cut, we're expecting rainstorms tonight! No time for lunch out again. I'm not too bothered about it. We’ll get round to it one day.

Back to work for a rest next week. But now it's the weekend, time to put my feet up and get my nose in a good book. Bliss!

THIS IS WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR...

Yesterday was a dull old day in Somerset. Grey skies. Intermittent rain. A bit like the first few pages of My Family and Other Animals….

And it was very quiet: my husband is in Poland with some friends having a jolly, where it is warm and sunny, where they are having saunas and sightseeing, where they are staying up at night sipping cognac and singing. And yesterday he phoned me up and told me all about it.

He mentioned that his friends had been chatting about why they get away with their mates as a group, but their wives don’t seem to do it.

Guys! What would you do then?

Yup!

I was on the phone…

See that photo up there ↑ that is when I went to Portugal with a friend last year. Magical. Eating grilled squid in fish restaurants by the harbour, walking through olive groves, nipping into Spain to get a Wi-Fi signal.

So I phoned-the-friend and I said let’s get a bunch of us together to go away like the guys are doing. I said let’s book a holiday and get away. Let’s find somewhere sunny near the sea and get away from the routine of, well, whatever…

And she didn’t say calm down and think again in the morning, or that she couldn’t afford it, or that she didn’t have time, or that she was too busy, or that she’d think about it. No, she said come over and let’s plan.

So I took the nearly full bottle of Shiraz that I’d started the night before, and some 70% dark chocolate [the ‘healthy’ kind] and was straight over there. Out came the laptop and the wine glasses and we trolled through pages of Italy before we decided that it was too expensive, so we went back to trusty cheap old Portugal and found a beach house where you BBQ on the terrace and walk out of the back door onto the sandy beach. And the first mate we contacted said 'I'm in!'.

That’s what friends are for – not to say ‘we can’t’, but to say – ‘Go for it!’

THE OLD LADY ON THE HILL

                 

I didn't set out to be a carer. 

Having got a first class honours degree in Psychology under my belt at the age of 51, I was setting off merrily on course to become a Psychotherapist. I was just completing the first year of training when it became necessary for me to get some money coming in. Anyway, long story short, I applied for a job as a community carer. Just for a year or so, until I find something else, I thought...

But you know what?

I found I enjoyed having a job where I could make a difference to people. I loved working with older folk and listening to their life stories. I find them fascinating. I have met so many characters over the last ten years. 

Let me tell you about one of them ... 

The house stands grey and forbidding in the untended garden, alone and aloof like the old lady I am about to visit. I make my way down the garden path and see a face, also grey and forbidding, staring stonily at me from the downstairs window. 

I approach the dilapidated back door –  front doors belonging to some old country folk are never used except perhaps for funerals – and knock with more confidence than I'm feeling. There eventually follows some scuffling sounds, then muttering as the old lady struggles with the key in the lock. After a few minutes the door creaks open.

“Who are you?” She demands threateningly. She looks exactly like a witch, minus the broomstick and pointy hat. I expect to have the hounds of hell set on me if I don't give a satisfactory answer. 

“I've come to help you get some breakfast and light the fire”

“You'd better come in. Where's Gordon? I usually have Gordon. I don't know if you can light a fire. Don't expect you can do it properly. Not like Gordon. One match he uses. That girl who came yesterday took three matches to light my fire. I can't afford to be wasting matches like that”.

I try not to bridle at her remarks. Sybil doesn't know it but I have had years of experience lighting open fires. But for her it doesn't matter how good a carer you are, in her eyes there is nobody like Gordon. You just have to do your best and hope Sybil is in a good mood.

 There’s a cat, her pride and joy, which must not be inconvenienced in any way. If the cat has chosen to take a nap on the bed, then you must not make the bed. 

I get Sybil some breakfast and a cup of tea while she sits on a rickety chair complaining about her back and watching me like a hawk while I haul a load of coal in from the outhouse. And I manage to light the fire with one match.

Then I turn to make the bed which is in the same downstairs room. Dammit, the cat is sleeping on it. If I don't make the bed Sybil will grumble even though she doesn't want the cat disturbed.  Anyway, I can't win unless I can get the cat off the bed and make it look like that's what it was going to do anyway.

Hooray, Sybil shambles off into the kitchen, probably to find a poisoned apple to give me, and I ‘encourage’ the cat to move while the coast is clear. I make the bed while the cat gets its own back by using its litter tray, just so I have to empty it.

After her breakfast, mollified by having been sent someone who can light a fire efficiently with one match [despite not being Gordon], Sybil becomes almost chatty and pleasant. She tells me she was born in this house and talks about her father who used to ring the local church bells. There is an undercurrent of resentment in her conversation, and I listen to her with great interest.

Later, I learn that Sybil was kept at home as a young woman in order to look after her ageing parents. She was never allowed to go out, especially with men in case she got married and moved out. She was needed to do the work at home. It's hard to imagine what her life was like, trapped in that dark depressing house all her days. She is a thorn in the side of social services, always pleading poverty, saying she doesn't get enough help, complaining about those who they send.

After Sybil’s death, when they came to sort out her house, they discovered a bin bag stuffed with thousands of pounds. 

She had drawn her pension and benefits every week and lived on a shoestring, complaining that she didn't have enough of anything and counting her matches one by one…