Life goes on

I’m feeling a bit – hmm. It’s been a busy week – back to work on Tuesday, feeling that I hadn’t had a holiday. Yes, I know: no one apart from teachers gets two weeks off at Easter. And of course those terrible events in Virginia cast a long shadow over all the world. My heart goes out to all those bereaved parents.

While my dad's life was drawing to a close, our son spent a lot of time at his bedside, and the contrast between my dad - 87 and almost finished - and the boy - 22 and glowing with health -was both poignant and comforting.

His girlfriend took this picture of him on his phone a few days ago. I saw it and liked it, so he emailed it to me, entitled, "Some bloke with a big elbow". He's a cheering lad.

Daughter 2 came home from work with a huge bunch of flowers for me: daffodils and tulips and roses. She's a darling too.

I spent all Monday battling with the weeds in my mother’s garden. It has been much neglected of recent months. She’s supposed to have a chap who comes to tidy it once a week, but he seems to have vanished. Five hours’ work improved about 20% of it. Then I had my evening class after work on Tuesday, choir on Wednesday evening, another evening duty at college last night. Lots of visits to my mum, and three nights spent in her house. Tomorrow I must visit my elder’s district in the morning and on Sunday, the choir is rehearsing all afternoon and performing in the evening.

Haydn’s “Creation”. Glorious music. Wednesday’s practice was the first with the orchestra and soloists. The tenor was a young Oriental chap with a beautiful, soaring voice. I found myself walking up the road beside him afterwards and said how much I’d enjoyed his singing. “Oh,” he said, “I’m really exhausted. It was such hard work.” I’d just been thinking how fantastic it would be to be able to open one’s mouth and hear such a sublime sound emerge. Of course, it should be obvious that anything that wonderful isn’t achieved without effort. But it sounded effortless. Balm to the soul.

I haven’t had much time to read my usual blogs apart from the odd one at lunchtime, at work, and for some reason I don’t seem to be able to comment on them there. I don’t think the weekend is going to have a lot of time to spare either. But I shall get back on track eventually. Hello to all blog friends, and especially to those lurkers in Dublin, Norfolk, Ohio, New Jersey... and of course, Salford.

Goodbye to my father

The day before yesterday was my father’s funeral. It seems very weird indeed to be typing these words. I don’t think that I’ve really taken in that he’s gone. It also seems a bit strange to be writing about him into the cybervoid, but on the other hand, blogging has come to feel a bit like talking to friends. It fulfils part of the need to communicate.

Wednesday was a long day. Mum had decided that she wanted a family cremation service in the morning followed by a thanksgiving service for friends in the church in the afternoon. I wasn’t sure about this – I thought it might be too much – but in fact it worked out well. Somehow the saddest part seemed to be over after the cremation service, and by the afternoon we were able to be much more positive.

My brother, Daughter 1 and I all spoke in tribute. I wasn’t at all sure that either Daughter 1 or I would be able to do so; funerals can be very emotional. But in fact we were all right. And it went very well; lots of people have told me how nice it was. Many people came, from many stages of his life.

Dad was no saint. He could be very unreasonable and difficult, even in his youth. On the other hand, he was a remarkable person. He won a scholarship to a famous school and went on to be dux of it. He then won a scholarship to university to study maths and physics, but after his first year, the war broke out, and he joined the Royal Engineers. He was sent to Egypt as the British Army's first bomb disposal officer outside the UK – he was 20! – and spent much of the war defusing bombs from instruction manuals. He won the George Medal (very prestigious) for his work there, and was later mentioned in dispatches for his work bridging rivers between Normandy and Berlin under heavy fire.

After the war, he returned to university and was awarded three degrees in three consecutive years. He spent his working life with a big electronics company, ending as one of their top managers. In his own time, he did a lot of work for various organisations such as Edinburgh University, who gave him an honorary fellowship.

He was a very hard act to follow.

He was very musical, playing the piano and organ to a very high standard. He was also very interested in words and used long ones to us even when we were small children, which gave us a good vocabulary. He used to make up bedtime stories for us when we were little, draw funny pictures and quote large lumps of poetry. For example, when he came to tuck us in at night, he would declaim, from Gray’s “Elegy in a Country Churchyard”,

“The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.”

The “to me” was very dramatic: “TO ME!!!!”

He could continue for several verses. And frequently did.

In the mornings, he would tend to fling open the curtains to the accompaniment of the beginning of the Fitzgerald “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam”:

“Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.”

Again, you have to imagine being asleep and then being woken by a very loud, bass, “AWAKE!!!!!” Quite startling.

He was a character.

This is what I said about him at his funeral:





"Dad was a lot of different things, as you’ve heard. He was a scientist but he was also a musician, a linguist and a very literate man. He could also be a lot of fun. As my brother told you, he made up very fine stories for us when we were little. Many of these were about the Poff family, who had lots of children: Angela, Beatrice, Clara, Dorothy, Ethel, Freddie, George, Henry, Ian and James.

He also used to write – maybe poems would be overstating the case, but occasional verses.

These were written over a more than 20 year period when he and a friend sent each other holiday postcards - in verse. Dad kept copies. We were reading these the other day and I thought I’d let you hear one.

The poem I’m going to read is actually the last one he wrote: the series came to an end in 1999, when his friend died. Mum and Dad went on a lot of holidays to warm places. This poem is called “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” - which tells you Dad’s attitude to hot sunshine. It’s very characteristic of him. It starts with that literary allusion – to the Noel Coward song. Then it’s got science in it, a bit of religion, it’s very logical and – it’s quite forward thinking for 1999 – it ends with a very topical bit of advice.

I also suspect that this may be one of the few postcards ever written to feature the word “sapient”.


Crete 1999

Mad Dogs and Englishmen



Solar radiation may offer benefits
To such as maladjusted hounds or Deeply Southern Brits.

Those of us who favour a climate less intense
Feel long exposure to the sun makes little or no sense.

Sapient creation, when first the Earth was made,
Decreed that when the sun was bright, it generated shade.

Don’t rely on ozone; it’s thinner every day.
Relaxing in the cooling shade is much the safer way.



So that was Dad, getting (more or less) the last word. He would probably have liked that. "

Happy Anniversary, Daughter 1!

A year ago today was such a happy day: the wedding of Daughter 1 to her lovely young man. They spent the day with us today, which was very pleasant indeed. These are our three beloved children on that day. They are such nice young people: kind and loving and funny.

My dad wasn’t very well, but as you can see, he got to the wedding all right. Here he is with my mum. Isn’t she glamorous for a nearly-84-year-old? Unfortunately, I don’t look very like her…

Very good memories.

Dad and other observations

Thank you so much for all the kind comments.

Yesterday I registered my father’s death. This seemed a very grown-up thing to do. Of course, one should be grown-up at my age.

I had to stay in the house in the morning for the gas man to come and try to stop our heating system sounding like an aircraft taking off. Then I went up town. As I got to the top of our street, there was a nice shiny van belonging to a car-valeting service. It was parked half on the pavement, near to a hedge, so I walked round it on the road. The side of the van announced that the company was “commited to excellence”. Though I was in a bit of a daze, I obsessively proof-read this in my English-teachery way and wondered vaguely if it said the same on the other side. Popping my head round between the van and the hedge in pursuit of this thought, I came face-to-face with a startled young man, the car-valeter.

Me (feebly): Oh. I was just looking at the spelling on your van.
SYM (looking at writing): Is it not right?
Me: Umm. Well, “committed” should have two “t”s.
SYM: Should it?
Me: The way it’s written would be pronounced “co-might-ed”.
SYM: That’s my designer’s fault.
Me (wishing I’d never started this conversation): Well, I’m sure your car-valeting is excellent, anyway. That’s the important thing.
SYM: Thanks. (Pause) What does “co-might-ed” mean, then?

It was a lovely sunny day. There were lots of tourists on the bus. One tourist looked at Donaldson’s School for the Deaf – a beautiful, castle-like building - and asked a fellow-passenger what it was. “That’s Fettes College,” she replied confidently. I considered putting her right but then decided I wouldn't.

The registrar was lovely. She must have to register people’s deaths all the time, but she sympathised, asking what Dad was like and how Mum was coping. She told me that her father died when she was 11, and that she was the oldest of six children. Wow. But they had a happy childhood, she said, and have all done well. I asked her if she liked being a registrar and I admired her neat handwriting. She said that it was an interesting job, and that she’s careful to sign the certificates legibly, because she likes to think of people in the future seeing her signature and wondering who she was and what she was like.

Very nice, that’s what she's like. I wished I could add a bit on to the certificate to tell this to any future researchers into our family history.

And then I came home. The sun was still shining. Later we noticed that, since the gas man’s visit, we no longer had any heating or any hot water.

Dad again

My dad died in the early hours of yesterday morning. We were summoned to his bedside on Thursday morning but he held on for several days. His heart was very strong; not always a good thing. It was horrendous seeing him struggle for breath all that time; though he was on morphine and apparently unconscious.

We’re all a bit dazed by the rapidity of his descent from not-very-well to dying; and by lack of sleep; and by sadness. He could be very difficult; but on the other hand, he could be really good fun as well. He was an original; full of good ideas for entertaining little children. And I thought about all this while watching him over three long days.

He was 87 so of course it’s not surprising that he’s come to the end of his life. But it’s still very sad. Life is too short.

Thanks so much to all of you who sent good wishes. It's much appreciated and very kind. I will be back in due course.

Dad

My father, in hospital since September, took a turn for the worse on Wednesday and has now been unconscious for more than two days. We sat by his bedside all yesterday and today; I'm currently having a little break to organise a meal and check emails. I've been absent from work yesterday and today. Luckily it's the last day of term today and we had no students. I must now return to the hospital, where I've left my brother and mother. It's just a matter of waiting till the end. My dad is 87, had little quality of life left and has had what might be called a good innings. That's easy to say. But it's harder to feel. It's all very emotional. Meanwhile, his heart beats firmly on.

Something beginning with G

Suse (http://peasoupoftheday.blogspot.com/) posted a letter meme the other day and asked if anyone would like to be allocated a letter. Hence I got G.

I’ve never particularly liked G as a letter. Is it just me, or do other people think that some letters have nicer personalities than others? I’ve always particularly liked K and D and S, but G… hmm. So at first I thought that I wouldn’t be particularly inspired by it. And then I started thinking. It was quite diverting, really, going about the daily round while vaguely looking out for G things that meant something to me.

Here are some of them.

Girls

See above. We’re so lucky to have two daughters. I remember being in the maternity hospital when I'd just had my first child, Daughter 1, and feeling genuinely sorry for mothers who had boy babies. I knew that there must be a tiny flaw in my reasoning but nevertheless it really seemed that these mums must realise that their babies were just slightly inferior…. ( I saw things a bit differently once we’d had a boy ourselves.) Daughters 1 and 2 are very unlike in personality but as you can see from the picture of Daughter 1’s wedding, they’re very fond of each other. Daughter 1 and I share a lot of interests – we both did English and French at university, for example, and are very keen readers – and I love her to bits. However, Daughter 2 and I are more similar as people. We agree that we’re more or less the same person, except that it’s clear to me that she’s the improved version.

Giggles

Very much related to the girls, particularly to Daughter 2 and me, who are very prone to giggling in unsuitable circumstances such as church services and other solemn ceremonies. We set each other off just by a glance. It’s as well that she didn’t attend Daughter 1’s graduation at Oxford. The entire occasion was conducted in Latin, with the graduands queuing up twice to have Latin sentences intoned at them and to be greeted by various dons removing and replacing their hats in a ceremonial fashion. It was very giggle-inducing indeed and Daughter 1’s gaze met mine several times during this, with unfortunate results. Fortunately she is more adult than her mum and managed not to disgrace herself.

Granny

My Granny was such a sweetheart. She was very loving – my brother and I were her only grandchildren and she thought we were simply perfect. Indeed, she always thought the best of everyone. I’m like her in her ability to get a lot of pleasure from simple things, which I think is one secret of happiness. She loved her garden and enjoyed watching the bees on her crocuses and seeing things grow. I remember her cutting open a cabbage and saying, “Look at it. All of that out of one tiny seed.” And it is indeed amazing.

Gardens

Our garden is small but it’s very loved. I would hate to live in a flat. It’s so wonderful to be able to step outside and breathe in the fresh earthy air. I love the colours and textures and scents of leaves and flowers and shrubs. I don’t love slugs, though. Here’s a view of what our garden should look like in about a fortnight.

Green

Meggie of “Life’s Free Treats” doesn’t like green. (Later amendment - Meggie says that she does! Apologies. It must have been someone else.) This seems very odd to me but then I don’t like orange AT ALL, which may seem equally peculiar to other people. I’m glad that grass isn’t orange. Books with advice about small modern gardens often urge one to replace one’s lawn with paving slabs, decking or pebbles but I think lovely green, soft, fragrant grass is the thing to set off plants. And to walk on with bare feet. And to lie down on.

Golden daffodils

All right, maybe this is more D than G, but if it’s good enough for Wordsworth, I think it’s allowable. And it’s spring! This is what Daughter 2 and I saw when we went out for a walk last weekend. How all that goldenness lifts the spirits.

Glass

I’m very fond of glass. I love the colours (not orange, though) and the shapes that can be made out of it. This is a pot of glass anemones that we bought one year at the Strathearn Gallery in Crieff. I have various bits of stained glass round the house and enjoy seeing the light shining through them.

Grand Designs

I’m not a great watcher of television but my husband, Daughter 2 and I really like “Grand Designs”, in which people self-build their dream houses. The presenter, Kevin McCloud, is splendidly predictable: in each programme, he visits a house at various stages in its building and foresees doom. The design will never work; the rooms are too small/big; it’ll never be finished in time for winter; it won’t fit in with its surroundings; it’ll cost far too much. And then by the end he’s amazed: it’s really successful; it looks good with its neighbouring buildings; the windows make it seem bigger/ lighter/ sleeker than he’d expected. It does always cost more than planned, though. Whenever we watch it, I’m dying to sell our house and get Daughter 2 to design us a new one, somewhere with a fantastic sea view. Maybe we should wait till she’s been an architect for more than six months, though.

Thanks, Suse.

If anyone would like a letter allocated randomly to him/her, please ask. And since you're not going to ask, Person from Salford - how about taking S and thinking about S things you like as you go through your day at the university? Sandwiches might feature. Students. Spreadsheets. Go on, think of some more.

Random scenes from family life on Mother’s Day

This was my Mother's Day card from Daughter 2 and Son. Subtle, what? By the way, Son does say that he’d take this possible cat with him when he leaves home. Hmm.

Scene 1

Daughter 2 [to Son]: It would be a shame to leave a kitten alone all day. You could get one of those baby sling things and take it to university with you.

Son: That sounds like a good idea. [Pause] A bit tricky when I’m in theatre, though.

Daughter 2 [meditatively]: The kitten would have to scrub up.

[Daughter 2 and Son make kitten-objecting-to-being-scrubbed noises.}



Scene 2

[Daughter 2 takes the sticker off a bunch of Mother’s Day lilies and attaches it to her brother’s sweatshirt.]

Son [reading upside down]: “Guaranteed to last 9 days”. What happens to me after that?

Daughter 2 [firmly but sympathetically]: Well, after that you begin to smell.




Scene 3

Son: You know those two cats we’re getting?

Me: What??

Son: Cataract and Glaucoma…

My helpful boy

"If we were to get a guide cat for you ..." said Son.

"Mmm?" I said.

"... I've thought of a good name for it."

"Oh?"

"Cataract."

Sulk

Ok, now. I’m stamping my feet petulantly for a little while, so you might want to skip this post.

1) My dad, now moved permanently from the hospital he’s been in since September to another hospital for old people who need a lot of nursing care, is upset by the move and much more confused than he was before. He seems to think that he’s back in the army during the war and is trying to organise all the other old chaps into springing into action and… well, it’s not quite clear what he wants them to do, but they’re equally away with the fairies and are ignoring him, much to his fury. Not good.

2) My mum hasn’t been very well this week and I’m back staying every night with her, having got down to three nights per week. This is all right in its way but I’m worried about her too.

3) My son-in-law isn’t well again. Poor chap. Send him some prayers or good wishes or whatever you have available, please.

4) Daughter 2, whom we love and adore, is going out with an actor. This may not seem a problem to you, but it is to us. To be more precise, she’s going out at a distance with a mostly unemployed actor, and I’m sure that eventually she’ll have to move down to London to be with him. While I know that this would be perfectly natural, and we wouldn't stop her, we will miss her so much. And she doesn’t want to go to London anyway, except that of course he’s there. Or at least, he would be if he could get enough work to afford to live there, instead of in the Midlands with his parents.

5) I went to the optician today because I have a funny pink spot in the middle of the vision of my right eye. He spent an hour and forty minutes shining lights into my eyes, puffing air at them and showing me photos of my eyeballs on a computer screen (and if there’s anything that makes me feel more squeamish than veins, it’s anything to do with eyes apart from the view one normally gets of them; and as for veiny eyeballs….!!!) and then told me that I have the beginnings of cataracts in both eyes and also appear to have a hole at the back of my right eye. He’s referred me to the eye hospital. He says that it might not matter, but – sorry if this seems fussy - I prefer my eyes unperforated. Up till this afternoon, I thought that the only parts of my body that weren’t showing signs of late middle age were my eyes, since unlike most of my contemporaries I don’t need glasses apart from to read the phone directory in poor light.

6) Salford Person has abandoned me, or at least she hasn’t read me today. SP, I hope my speculations haven’t offended you. Come back!

I know everyone has problems, and some people have much worse ones than my family. But – that’ll do for the moment, thanks. Enough is enough.

Ah well. Above you see some wonderfully blue hyacinths and below, some lovely flowering plum blossom. Better concentrate on the good things in life. Like spring.

As I typed that, Son arrived home. “I’ve had an exciting day,” he said. “I got to stick my finger up someone’s bottom and feel his prostate.” (He’s a medical student. I hope you were taking this for granted.) I told him my eye news and he was sympathetic. “Maybe you need to get a cat,” he said. (This is part of a continuing get-a-cat campaign.) “Then if you can’t see, the cat can go and find you things. Like… mice. Have you ever felt a dead mouse? You could, if you got a cat.” He’s definitely one of the good things.

*****************************

Post script the next day:

Thank you so much, fellow bloggers, for your sympathy. I particularly enjoyed Thimbleanna's comment that I should be thankful that it wasn't I who had to put my finger up someone's bottom. How very true. I mentioned this to my husband.

"It would be even worse," he said sagely, "to be the owner of the bottom."

Yes, indeed. Suddenly my life feels quite lucky.

eBay and childbirth

Most of the following will be of interest only if you use eBay. This happened to my husband, but on the day that it did, I read a blog which detailed the same sort of event.

A few days ago, my husband, an occasional eBay user, got an email from them reminding him of his password, because he’d apparently requested this. Only he hadn’t, so he just deleted the email. Then on Saturday evening he checked his emails to find three from irate people asking why he hadn’t paid for the items he’d bid for and threatening to give him negative feedback on his record. Only he hadn’t bid for anything for months.

He tried to go into his eBay account to see what was what, but was told that his password was invalid.

Clearly someone had somehow requested the password and then intercepted the email reply; and put in some bids purporting to be him, using the password. He reported all this to eBay.

He then spent a sleepless night worrying that, if a hacker could do this, maybe he could gain access to my husband’s PayPal account and withdraw money from his bank account.

And the next day he signed into PayPal, to be told that access was restricted because of a potential problem with two transactions. These were two payments, of £500 and 60 Euros, which had been requested (but, of course, not by him) and not paid – he doesn’t quite know how PayPal knew there was something fishy about them. He then changed his password and security details and reported the whole thing to PayPal.

So do beware if you get the email reminding you of your password.

It’s rather unsettling, isn’t it?

However, there’s always something to cheer one up, such as daffodils and this, from a student’s essay. Again, she’s in my adult Access to University class.

“Up till then, my only experience of childbirth was when my mother gave birth to my teenage brother when I was seven.”

Kelvingrove Museum

Yesterday we had our first Saturday off since my father went into hospital in September. We visited friends who live in Kilbarchan, a village over in the west. After lunch, we all went to the Glasgow Kelvingrove Museum, which has fairly recently undergone major renovation. The collections are now organised in what seemed to us quite an interesting way: at least partly in what I suppose you might call themed areas. For example, there was a butterfly section which had actual butterflies but also pictures, ceramics, embroidery and so on with butterflies on them or inspired by butterflies. Maybe not so useful for the ceramics scholar who might not think of looking there, but fun for the casual wandering browser. I keep seeing wonderful quilts on people’s blogs; wouldn’t a butterfly quilt be lovely?… A project for my retirement? Ah, the number of wonders I’m going to achieve in my retirement!

In one section, there were faces: mainly lots of busts from various eras sitting around companionably on shoulder-height plinths as if having a chat. An Australian girl put a toy kangaroo beside a bust of Queen Victoria and took their photo. I wonder if Her Majesty would have been amused? There were other face-type exhibits and also these fibreglass heads (designed by Sophy Cave) hanging down from the (very high) ceiling, which as far as we could see were all the same chap with different expressions. I’m not quite sure whether they were creepy or funny; anyway, they were quite striking. (The photo above is a bit blurry because it was taken on my husband's phone. )

It was so refreshing: having a day off, catching up with friends, seeing beautiful and interesting things and not giving too much thought to hospitals, work or housework.

(P. S. I've just noticed from the Blogger Dashboard that this was my 100th post. Do I get a telegram from the Queen?)

The Salford mystery thickens

Thank you so much for all those comments. My record so far (though of course 2 of them were mine...). Several of the commenters are also visited by Salford Person. I wonder what he/she is like... .

My guess is that it's a she, probably in her forties, very intelligent and with excellent taste (naturally), married with two children, interested in reading (we don't need to be Sherlock Holmes there). She quite possibly doesn't have a blog herself; if she does, she's not going to be outed unless she wants to be (and indeed, there's no reason why she should be. Stand firm, Salford Person). I think she's elegantly blonde, the colour possibly assisted a little by modern technology, she's blue-eyed and she works... well, obviously at Salford University but maybe on the admin side rather than as an academic. She drives a blue car and is semi-vegetarian. She likes flowers and has a dog.

Am I telepathic at all? I never have been in my life up till now, so I apologise, SP, if you're a dark-haired male teenager who loves cats and Big Macs.

Salford, for the information of any non-British readers, is near Manchester, which is on the west side of England, north-ish, just above Wales.


On another subject: here follows an email exchange between me and a student in my adult Access to University class. I have been trying since August to improve the technical accuracy of her writing.


Student: hi isabelle,

thus is to let you know that ill not be in college today Anything that i have missed i will try and catch up with during the week


Me: Ok, thank you for letting me know. But don’t write emails with mistakes such as missing apostrophes and capitals, even if you’re not well!!!



Student: sorry i wont do it next time

Hello Salford!

It occurred to me this morning that yesterday was my blog’s first birthday. And I'm a year older too. Obviously.

I’m very ashamed to say that, despite starting out a year ago with good intentions (again) of losing weight, I didn’t.

I’m sitting here more or less the same weight as a year ago. A little of it has been lost and then regained.

Hmmm.

Still, to cheer me up in my shame, how about commenting on my blog, some of you people who show up in the site meter but who lurk furtively in the shadows? For example, someone at Salford University (I assume it’s one person rather than a vast horde of occasional readers) regularly has a look. Hello. Who are you? How are you? Are you having a nice day? And how are you, person in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland? Has it been sunny with you?

Four people in China tuned in yesterday – very unusual, and four, in different towns? How did that happen? I’d love to go to China.

I used to wonder how it was that so many people turned to my blog for 0 seconds, but then very recently I read the site meter FAQs and discovered that unless people go to a second page, the meter can’t tell how long they’ve been on the one page, and so this counts as 0 seconds. This is quite cheering. I myself often have a quick peek at blogs to see if there’s anything new and go on my way if not, but I couldn’t ever understand how anyone could do this in no time flat. (I did admit a few weeks ago that I had a habit of not reading the instructions unless there was no other way of working things out.)

I’ve been spending some time today saving my early blogs for posterity, in case Blogger decides to delete me. (Like Sheepcat.) Goodness, it’s been boring, and I’ve only done March, April and May last year. I suppose I should save them as I write them. Maybe I will in future. I ask myself precisely why I’m saving them, and I’m not sure. Poor old posterity will actually have far too many of my words of wisdom when I’m gone, since I write a lot of letters and have also been writing a diary – not every day, but quite often – since I was 15.

I’m off to read “Slaughterhouse Five”, lent to me by an insistent student. The title’s very offputting, but then so is “Pride and Prejudice”.

Crocuses and lovely singing

Well, that last entry was a case of speaking too soon. I kind of knew, as I typed it, that I was tempting fate. There was a definite mid-week wobble in the son-in-law department. Thanks to the commenters; he’s had many, many courses of medication over the years and nothing seems to make any difference. Except - well, who knows? Sometimes he's fine.

However, to be more cheerful… I know I tend to write about our students’ little mishaps with the English language, but this week our music and drama department put on two performances of Purcell’s short opera “Dido and Aeneas” and the students were just FANTASTIC. One or two staff members, including me, have been going along to sing in the chorus and it’s been such fun. The music is lovely and the choir and orchestra, mainly music students, put their hearts into it and sounded really excellent. The soloists were spectacularly good. Our Dido has a sweet, rich voice that flows like cream, and the others were almost as impressive. When Dido is dying of a broken heart – Aeneas having left her, instructed to do so by an evil spirit pretending to be Mercury – she sings such a beautiful song and every time I heard it - “Remember me” - in rehearsals or performances, my eyes welled up.

This was mainly because of the beauty of her singing, and partly because she was so young to die… which I know is silly, because the Dido in the story wasn't really 20 and our Dido isn’t, of course, really dead… and partly because, a mum myself, I kept thinking how proud her mum and dad were going to be when they heard her. Motherhood makes one sentimental. But anyway, it was a wonderful, uplifting experience.

Often in college I pass rooms in which young men are bashing the daylights out of drum kits or twanging away at electric guitars as if trying to loosen the hinges on the classroom door. And my inner music snob mutters away, “Call that music? It’s just a lot of noise.” So it’s been lovely to see all those young singers and instrumentalists mastering – and really enjoying – this music of Purcell, who died at the age of 36 in 1695. At my age, 50 years is beginning to seem not a very long time, and 300 years is just 6 times 50. The music bridges that gap without difficulty.

My head’s still full of it: a much-needed transfusion of joy.

Feeling better

Our-in-law is feeling better; great news. He’s a lovely lad and the cleverest person I know. He got the starriest first class degree of his year in German from Oxford University, despite having decided early on that he should have done something scientific instead. Then he did a Master’s in Computer Science at Birmingham and again came out very much top. They sent him a letter to say that his project “far surpassed any that has been submitted during the 15 years that the course has been running”.

This would all be fine if he didn’t suffer from depression. Not that he has anything obvious to be depressed about. He has a lovely family, and he’s clever, funny, kind, popular, good-looking, musical, artistic… . But this is all dust and ashes if he’s depressed. Luckily, Daughter 1 is saintly and is so good with him. But it’s very hard.

He has hardly been at work this year and we’ve been really worried. However, on Thursday at 4.30 pm he suddenly felt better – completely normal. I don’t know whether this is the power of prayer or a chemical change in him, but… anyway, he’s still cheerful. He’s planning to go back to work tomorrow, afternoons only, and to return full time next week. Keep your fingers crossed for him.

Today, at a family lunch, the subject of Sheepcat’s Facebook page was mentioned. “Maybe I could make him a Live Journal page,” mused Daughter 1.

“Or a MiceSpace,” son-in-law offered with his cheeky grin.

Ah, it’s so good to have the boy back to normal.

RequiesCat in pacem

Son heard a rumour last week that the powers behind Facebook were going round deleting pages belonging to anyone whose second name was Cat. Spoilsports! And sure enough Sheepcat’s page (or Sheep Cat, as he was designated to fit the form) has gone! Wiped out! And he had 64 friends all over the world! (You may have to look at a few posts ago to know what I'm talking about.)

Son sighed, disappointed at the killjoy nature of cyberspace.

“I could make him another page,” he mused. “I could call him Sheepcat Edinburgh, or Sheepcat Again…”. Pause. “On the other hand, now I’m not revising any more, the matter doesn’t seem so urgent.”

He passed his exams, by the way. I give the credit to Sheepcat. The fluffy chap himself is quite well, you’ll be glad to hear. I gave him a pat yesterday. He seemed untraumatised by being deleted.

Look at my new computer!

I have a new whizzy computer! So exciting – well, actually, not all that exciting, since I’m not really interested in machines apart from what they can do for me. But the previous computer wouldn’t let me blog, which was a grave displeasure. This one is much better… so far. Thank you, dear husband, for setting it all up for me, despite being gravely ill with a cold. And I can add pictures, so this is one of the garden ten days ago: our only snow of the winter, and it lasted all of about six hours.

I love hyacinths so much. The scent transports me back to my childhood and somehow to school, where presumably we must have had hyacinths in the classroom. Though I wouldn't like to be a child again. Doing sums; how boring.

Another extract from a student’s essay which made me smile. Again, it took me a few seconds to work this one out: “Uncle Peter deserts from the army and goes a wall.”

Honestly, I’m not making these up.

How to use a dictionary and still get it wrong

Another little gem from my marking. It took me a few moments to understand what had gone wrong.

It's from a correspondence course for Higher English.


Question: What are runes? (You may like to use a dictionary to help you answer this question.)

Student's answer: Runes are remnants of a dwelling or building that are no longer kept mended.

Life and other problems

My computer is giving me lots of problems and I’ve been trying to post for days, without success. I don’t think it’s New Blogger’s fault; I think it’s my computer’s. So I’m doing this on my husband’s – which is why I haven’t put a photo on the top. I’m on holiday (mid-term) and he’s not here to show me how to send his computer one of my photos. Technologically challenged and deeply frustrated is how you find me. Also amazed at the whizziness of his computer. Wow.

However… deep breathing, sense of proportion and other such sensible reactions…

I’ve been having lots of chats recently with my mother, and when I compare my her life to my own, I’m aware of huge differences. She was born in 1922 and was 17 when the war broke out. She had just gone down to London to work as a Civil Servant (government worker) and was there throughout the Blitz. She had many long-distant friendships with young men who were in the forces but life was so uncertain that she didn’t commit to any relationship till the war was over. That must have been a hugely difficult time in her life.

Then she got married to my father and they returned to Edinburgh. They had actually known each other since their mid-teens, since my mother and his sister were good friends.

After marriage, she never worked outside the home. My brother and I came along quite soon and of course housework was much more time-consuming then. But later, when we were off to school and when labour-saving devices were available, she had a lot of freedom to do as she wanted, which turned out to be church committee work and coffees with friends. She says, however, that she would have liked a job. She’s a very intelligent woman. When my dad retired, they took a lot of holidays.

I also met my husband in my mid-teens; I started going out with him when I was 17. I continued to live at home while I was at university and teacher training college. Indeed we lived with my parents for a year after we were married at (23 and 25) because we couldn’t afford to buy a house. Having taught at a tough comprehensive school (never again) for six years, I was then a stay-at-home mum for the next nine, though did some tutoring and taught evening classes. When our son, the youngest, was four and went to nursery, I started teaching at college part-time and then steadily increased my hours. I’ve been teaching full-time plus an evening class for years now, which means lots of marking and preparation. Life is very busy, ridiculously so; like the lives of so many of our friends.

I enjoy my job most of the time but would rather not have gone back to work – or so I think. Life has been far too busy and I believe that I’d have been happier as a housewife, doing the job properly and having free time for my own projects. But maybe I’m fooling myself. Maybe I’d have been bored.

My generation of women had working lives pressed upon us; it was possible for us to go back to work and it therefore became expected and indeed necessary for most women. House prices soared but dual-income couples could afford to pay more, which meant that it became hard to buy a house on one normal income. It was stressful then, as it is now, to be a working mother when the children were small; lots of guilt and lots of juggling, especially when they were ill.

However, I do feel very lucky that I had those years with them when they were little. I wish I could think that my own daughters will have that privilege. Young women now seem to have to take a few months off and then go back to work. Of course, being at home with toddlers isn’t a picnic – I do remember a lot of days mainly spent picking things off the floor. But ah, the little chubby arms round one’s neck…

Would I have my mother’s life if given the choice? Would she have mine? And my daughters – what sort of lives would they choose?

Sheepcat

Our son has been revising for exams in opthalmology, dermatology and ailments of the ear, nose and throat. He’s been sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by large books with horrid pictures of pustuled skin, diseased eyes and deformed noses. These don’t seem to bother him at all, but he’s been rather bored. To make things worse, his girlfriend, to whom he is devoted, has been studying the same books 100 miles away.

So he’s been keeping a keen eye on his Facebook page.

(In case you don’t know, Facebook is a website on which young people have a page about themselves on which they can post news, photos, short videos and so on. Their friends volunteer themselves to be listed on this page and can leave little messages. It’s a way of keeping in contact with school and university friends – and also the friends of the friends. It’s very diverting and a splendid waste of time; thus ideal for a bored student.)

Not being able to while away quite enough time on his own Facebook page or that of his acquaintances, he naturally decided to create a page for Sheepcat, the extremely fluffy feline who lives round the corner from us. Son and his girlfriend are extremely partial to having a quick word and cuddle with Sheepcat (probably not his real name) whenever they pass his house. Sheepcat is not a shy animal and is happy to be stroked by anyone who is willing to spend a few minutes in his company.

Within hours of getting his own Facebook page, Sheepcat had acquired various “friends” – either Son’s friends or their pets – who left him messages. There are clearly a lot of revising students around at the moment. “Hmm,” said Son this morning. “I’ve had two messages this morning and Sheepcat’s had sixteen!”

We don’t know Sheepcat’s owners except by sight. They might be quite surprised at his sudden rise to prominence and popularity. And his name, come to that.



You can see a four –second video of Sheepcat here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdLkNavEESw

MeMe

Weeks ago, I was tagged by Aunty Evil of Evil Manor (what fun!) and through a combination of not being at home enough (it's a long one) and absentmindedness, never got around to doing it. Here it is. Sorry about the ramblingness of my answers.

I'm fascinated, by the way, by her spelling of MeMe. I had never realised that it was called a meme because it's about Me! Me!

Anyway, this post is long enough already, so...

A - Available/Single? – Can hardly remember what single was like. I fell for my (now) husband when I was sixteen and even though he took a year to get the hint, that was over 39 years ago. He’s a nice chap – I still think so.

B - Best Friend? – That’s a trickier one. I think of my friend Pam as my best friend, since this was definitely the case from the age of ten and all through university. But when we were 23, she moved away down to London and we don’t meet very often, though when we do, it’s just the same. We were part of a group of four girls and I still see another of them, Beryl, a lot, so maybe her. And I have other very good friends. Pathetically, though, a part of me would still like a “best” – I think this might be because I don’t have a sister and would always have liked one. But I have two daughters, who are sister-equivalents. And a son. And my husband. All very good.

C - Cake or Pie? – Alas, I do like a nice piece of cake, yes, though because of constantly trying not to get any fatter, don’t eat it much. Chocolate cake is best, though fruit is good too. Pie – not so tempting.

D - Drink Of Choice? Tea or coffee, depending on the time of day. I’m not much of a one for alcohol. If I’m going to consume empty calories, then I’d go for cake or chocolate.

E – Essential Item You Use Everyday? – My computer (though ideally not the very very s-l-o-w one I’m using now). Never thought a few years ago that I’d be a computer fan. I love writing, even if it’s just notes for students. And it’s so much more fun answering emails than actually doing any work.

F - Favourite Colour? – Probably blue. But I really hate orange and don’t like purple much either. I won’t even have orange flowers in the garden, though quite like purple ones, in moderation. (I make an exception for orange oranges, by the way.) I like all other colours, depending on context.

G - Gummy Bears Or Worms? – I think I quite like Gummy Bears if they’re those little chewy sweets, though probably wouldn’t bother with them as against nice dark chocolate. WORMS??? Baffled here.

H - Hometown? – Edinburgh, Scotland

I – Indulgence – Time to myself. Doesn’t happen much.

J - January Or February? Well, neither, particularly, since they’re both winter here. Certainly not January, which is cold, dark, usually wet and a long time till the next college holidays.

K - Kids & Their Names? Three, but I haven’t quite reached the stage of feeling able to blog their names. Daughter 1’s name is quite Scottish, Daughter 2’s isn’t particularly and Son’s name is the same as my brother’s. None are cutely original. Don’t like cutely original names. I think you have to call your children names that are ok for 85-year-olds in due course. “I'll put you
on the commode now, Rainbow.” Not good.

L - Life Is Incomplete Without? It’s got to be my lovely family, but a garden comes a close second. And singing. And music in general. And friends. And books. And my computer, or at least some means of writing. And things made out of coloured glass. I’m really not a minimalist.

M - Marriage date? 1973. I didn’t really enjoy my own wedding because I was quite shy, but I loved Daughter 1’s, last year.

N - Number Of Siblings? One brother. We get on fine, but we’re very different. I always wanted a sister (see above). I do have a sister-in-law, and again, we get on very well but aren’t soulmates.

O - Oranges Or Apples? Both are nice, though I can’t be bothered with proper oranges that take 20 minutes to peel. Satsumas and the like are fine.

P - Phobias/Fears – Blood. I know this is entirely ridiculous, since we’re all full of it, but I am so phobic that I once not only passed out, but had an actual fit, when I was having blood taken. In fact, just thinking about it now….

Q - Favourite Quote? – What a hard question! My mind is full of quotes. But maybe, from “Cliff top, East coast” by my favourite poet, Norman MacCaig,

“Girl
I’ll write you a poem
that praises you so well
It’ll glow in the dark.”

My husband is splendid but not poetic. If he has a fault, that might be it. On the other hand, he removes dead birds from the garden, unblocks toilets and so on. Who needs a poet in the house?

R - Reason to Smile? Again, my lovely family. Of course, they worry me sometimes, as I’ve recently blogged, but oh! the fun, the cuddles, the love.

S - Season? – Summer. I love herbaceous borders in June or July, but of course as a British teacher, I don’t have to work in July, so – no contest!

T - Tag people? Molly. I don’t know how to do that underlining thing but her blog is The Molly Bawn Chronicles.It's wonderful.

U - Unknown Fact About Me? I had a children’s novel published when I was in my twenties. Then our children came along, combined with work, and the years whizzed by, and somehow I haven’t quite got around to writing another one. Yet.

V - Vegetable you don’t like? Turnip. I’m a vegetarian, so there’s not much future in disliking vegetables.

W - Worst Habit? My husband has just walked in so I asked him. He said, “You don’t have any.” (You can see why I’ve stayed married to him for 33 years.) But maybe… I have a tendency to read the instructions on things only as a last resort. Not really very sensible.

X - X-rays You’ve Had? – Some of these questions are hard! Teeth, certainly. I’ve had scans when pregnant for the third time and also of my gall bladder – does this count? Can’t think of any others.

Y - Your Favourite Food? – Inevitably, chocolate comes high on the list, but I’m also very fond of sweetcorn, peas and raspberries.

Z - Zodiac Sign ? - Cancer. I was born on July 4. Does this make me an honorary American?

Plants and worries

I’m not interested in clothes, but plants – now that’s retail therapy, and yes, Australians, I paid good money for an agapanthus.

Things are still the same with my parents – father lying skeletal and confused on a hospital bed, mother tired and rather sad – and I’m still rushing up and down between our house and hers and also the hospital.

To add to the general worry of life, my lovely son-in-law, who suffers from depression, has been unable to go to work for most of January. I have huge fears for his future and, of course, that of our equally lovely Daughter 1. She married him in full knowledge of his problems and is wonderful with him, but we can’t help wishing for a miracle cure.

And that’s without taking into account the fact that Daughter 2’s boyfriend is trying to be an actor. Which isn’t on our list of preferred occupations for our children’s significant others.

Still, here is another cheering extract from an essay – again, not written by one of my students, but marked by me:

“Capital punishment is less expensive than imprisonment and it certainly lessens the chances of an offender re-offending.”

One really can’t argue with that.

Winter cyclamen

Oh, I have had no time in the last week! Our Higher English students have all had to do assessments – reflective, argumentative or persuasive essays – and it’s fallen to my lot to mark most of them, not just my own students’. 120 essays or something. And since they’re not always that good, I have to mark every mistake as well as giving detailed commentary so that the students can improve them for reassessment if necessary.

Of course, some of the essays are good. It’s just that those ones aren’t so funny. I tend to record the bad ones. I know one shouldn’t laugh – and believe me, I’m nice to the students themselves. But really, marking is so deeply boring that one has to take pleasure where one can.

By the way, our students aren’t college students by American standards, or at least, many of them aren’t. The ones whose howlers I’ve blogged are 16 or 17-year-olds who have come to college as an alternative to finishing (high) school. Often this is because they’re not very academic.

I should perhaps state – to dilute the smug effect that my recent posts have undoubtedly created – that there are lots of things that I’m not clever at doing. I was never remarkably good at maths, for example. I sort of understood it, in a surface sort of way. And I’m not technically- minded at all. I can do only easy things on computers. And I’m hopeless at all sports.

I’ve been out every evening this week apart from tonight. And I’m still sleeping at my mother’s house to keep her company. This means that, when not out, I'm spending some of the evening at home with my beloved family before going round to Mum’s about 9.30 or 10 pm. She then chats to me at length – she’s a sociable person and is rather starved of social life at the moment. She’s still not very well but visits my father in hospital nearly every day, which isn’t necessarily fun. I don’t grudge time spent with her – I’m very fond of her. But all the same I miss being at home. And there’s nothing like a nice cosy man to warm up one’s feet. A hot water bottle isn’t the same.

My normal emailing and blogging time was often late at night, but at the moment I’m parted from my computer by then. My Dad does have an ancient computer, but I don’t know how to work it.

The result is that I’m having only the most occasional reads of my usual blogs. However, I hope to catch up soon. Don’t write too much, people!

A brief post - and a pot

This pot is in my dining room and I really like it.

As a postscript to the previous post – I do hope everyone realises that I DIDN’T tell my class that the Second World War was between the Germans and the Jews. The apostrophes weren’t good, but the general sentiment was what really had me groaning.

I’m deep in marking, but the following gem seemed worth sharing – from an essay about whether prisons are useful as a deterrent:

“There are around 63,000 people living behind bars in Britain alone, costing the nation £37,000 per head a year. You don’t need to be good at maths to know that this comes to a total of £2,3331 billion a year.”

Umm…

Nice roses and an unsuccessful bit of teaching

I've been studying "Spies" by Michael Frayn with one of my classes. This is a novel set in the Second World War.

Also, intermittently, I've been trying to improve the students' use of the apostrophe.

An essay, yesterday: "The Second World War was between the German's and the Jew's."

There's really not a lot for me, as the teacher, to feel smug about here, is there?

The first (rather weedy) snowdrop of 2007

It’s sometimes interesting to contemplate the effect of people’s professional areas. For example, I presume that dentists are unable to resist looking at their friends’ teeth as they converse, while hairdressers probably consider what improvements they could make to the hair of people they travel with in lifts.

Being an English teacher, I’m naturally obsessive about spelling, sentence structure and grammar. I spend much of my day correcting students’ use of English and so can’t switch off. I have been known to correct apostrophes on notices. Our college, for instance, held a “Fresher’s Fair” in September. For one student, presumably. (It was actually a “Fayre”, but I really can’t bear to type that, except – oh dear – I’ve just done so.)

Now, there are various things that occur to me about this.

1. It’s much easier to notice other people’s errors than one’s own.

2. Nobody’s perfect – no, not even me - and I would be so embarrassed to find that I’d blogged a howler. I would much rather be told, so that I could change it.

3. Many of the blogs I read – and some are written very well indeed – contain an occasional mistake. Sometimes people misspell “definite” or “independent” or “fuchsia” (called after Mr Fuchs), or forget that “it’s” means “it is” or “it has”, while “its” means “belonging to it”. And I itch to point out these little… typos.

4. But I don’t think I will. Blogging isn’t homework. Nobody likes a smartypants. And in writing this, I'm probably dooming myself to write something really stupid, really soon.

Names

It’s all a matter of taste, of course, but personally I don’t go for naming children something hugely original such as Honey or Apple or Moon Unit or Zowie. This may be partly out of sympathy on my part for the teacher who has to pronounce or decipher or simply not laugh at these names in a few years’ time; but I do also feel for the children in question.

In the Style section of last Sunday’s paper was a rather fine example of names that I wouldn’t personally recommend. The topic of one article was a rather expensively presented flat in London – part of a former leather factory. The owners have now produced offspring, and “… although not designed for children, this is a brilliant place for them. What was to have become a cinema became a bedroom for four-year-old Dauphine, and the guest room is now home to Orient, nearly two”.

I once saw, in the birth announcements of “The Scotsman” newspaper, that a Mr and Mrs Ball had produced a daughter. Honestly – I saw it with my own eyes – they were naming her Crystal. Could it have been a joke? This was in 1978 – I remember that we were on our way to the Lake District the summer before Daughter 1 was born – and I have hoped ever since that she might turn up in one of my classes. Alas, not so far.

Undeck the halls

Well, it’s Twelfth Night, folks, and actually I’m quite glad. It hasn’t been the best ever Christmas holiday, though it’s had its moments.

One of the moments was the arrival of this lovely decoration, incorporated into a card, from Kirsty in Australia. (I won it against fierce opposition from fellow-bloggers. Well, my name got drawn out of a hat.) How nice to have good wishes from a perfect stranger; it fairly gives one hope for the human race. Thanks a lot, Kirsty. I shall treasure it.

Maybe now that my winning streak has begun, the lottery will be next. Not that I particularly wants lots of money, but, you know. I would use it wisely. Not let it change my life.

That’s not true, actually. I would retire. And buy a house with a big garden. (And do some less selfish things too.)

Anyway, the decorations are cleared away, most of the pine needles are vacuumed up – though some turned up later in the bathroom and I’m aware of one in my sock – and I’ve helped my mum to check off her Christmas cards. She has a list which, sensibly enough, has a page for foreign friends, another for English ones, another for non-Edinburgh Scottish ones and another for Edinburgh ones.

Mum: Ah, now, here’s one – let’s see – from… Beth.
Me: Who’s Beth?
Mum: Well, now, I can’t think. She must be the widow of one of Dad’s colleagues.
Me: (after searching the lists) How about Mrs E Wilson of Milngavie?
Mum: That’ll be her. Yes, Harry Wilson’s wife was Beth, I think.
Me: Right.
Mum: It’s a nice card, isn’t it? Oh, it’s a Tesco one, with 25 pence donated to charity. And you can recycle them at Tesco too, it says, till January 12th.
Me: Yes. What does the next one say?
Mum: Ah, this is from Lorna and Ian.
Me: What’s their surname?
Mum: (Pause while she reads the information on the card). They’ve renamed their house. It’s a pity they don’t live in Edinburgh any more.
Me: Mmm. What’s their surname? Where do they live?

It all took quite a while, but we did it.

I’ll probably get round to checking our cards off by about April, going by previous years. Funny, isn’t it, how doing other people’s chores is more interesting than doing your own?

January rose

Things are still not fantastically good. Thank you to those who have commented kindly. It’s lovely to have sympathy!

My mother is a bit better – no longer confused, but still very weak and shaky, and I’m sleeping at her house and spending much of my time there with her. Fortunately she lives only about five minutes’ drive away and I’m zooming up and down. Luckily I’m still on holiday but have quite a lot of work to do before I go back on Monday.

My parents have a grandfather clock that strikes every hour right outside the room where I sleep. It’s loud. “BOINNNGGG!” at 1 am; BOINNNGGG!” BOINNNGGG!” at 2 am; BOINNNGGG!” BOINNNGGG!” BOINNNGGG!” at 3 am… you get the picture. My mum says that she never notices it. Hmm.

My dad has had an operation to clear out an infected sinus but is still in a pretty poor state otherwise. I’m visiting him every afternoon at the moment since no one else is available. Brother and family back down south; mother and husband ill; Daughter 2 back at work; Son visiting girlfriend’s family north of here.

My husband has a bad cold and is having to fend for himself quite a lot – poor old chap comes at the end of the line at the moment.

On the positive side, Daughter 2 had a nice social time over New Year when not visiting grandparents. She had some of her (high) school friends and their husbands/boyfriends/girlfriends over to dinner one evening, and then various of her friends from Sheffield University came to stay with us and were here for New Year dinner with our family. Which was lovely. It’s so nice to see young folk, all full of life and optimism.

Above you see a rose, which is blooming in our garden in Scotland, in January. I like to think of it as a symbol of hope, but have a nasty feeling that instead it’s a symbol of global warming. It shouldn’t be blooming; nor should all the tender plants such as pelargoniums and begonias be still clinging to life, as they are. Where’s the frost?

Still, let’s go for the hope idea.

What happened at Christmas

I got a new digital camera for Christmas so here are some moderately seasonal photos.

We had all the family around for Christmas Day – Daughter 1 and her husband came over from their house; my husband, Daughter 2 and Son were here anyway; and my mother came for dinner along with my brother (my only sibling), his wife and my lovely nephew and niece; also my aunt. That’s just about my whole family. I only have one more aunt; no cousins. My husband is an only child and his parents died some years ago, though he does have an uncle and some cousins.

The missing member was of course my father, who’s still in hospital because he can’t walk – or at least, can’t get up by himself, though is allowed to use a walking frame occasionally with assistance. He’s also pretty confused. This didn’t stop us feeling very guilty that he wasn’t with us. Apart from this, we had a lovely day except that my mother wasn’t at all well. She had a bad cough and was unusually quiet.

Because my mum’s house has more spare rooms than ours, my brother and family (who live in the south of England) are staying with her, though they all eat with us. On Boxing Day, my sister-in-law came down in the morning to find my mother lying on the kitchen floor, semi-conscious. My sister-in-law and brother phoned for a doctor and for me. The doctor did various tests and decided that she’d just fainted, so we got her into bed, but during the course of the day, Mum passed out several more times, was very feverish and at times delirious, and, in brief, we ended up calling an ambulance and she was taken into hospital.

This was the third time since September that our son has accompanied a grandparent in an ambulance to the Accident and Emergency Department of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and I have gone behind the ambulance in my car. It’s actually the fourth time this year that I’ve done this – the first time, my mum was in the ambulance with my dad when he fainted when out to dinner, while the next two occasions were when my dad fractured a bone in his pelvis and then broke his hip.

So currently my dad is in the Royal Victoria Hospital, about 15 minutes’ drive north of our house and until this morning my mum was in the Royal Infirmary, about 30 minutes’ drive south. A lot of hospital visiting has been going on. We also heard today that my dad is having a small operation about now, to clear out an infected sinus on his behind.

Mum isn’t too bad. They think that all the fainting was due to low blood pressure combined with a high fever – though she normally has high blood pressure. Mercifully, there are plenty of us around at the moment to look after her. But I dread to think what would have happened if she’d been lying on the kitchen floor at 9 am on term-time morning. I always phone her during the day from work as well as in the evening if I’m not seeing her, but she could have lain there for hours.

My husband and I have been feeling for a while that she shouldn’t be living on her own. So we’ve offered to move in with her and I think she’ll accept. I’m feeling very low about this, since we love being at home with beloved Daughter 2, who is just perfect, like the ideal sister I never had, and lovely Son, who is also the best boy in the world, and cheery and cuddly. (We also adore Daughter 1, but she has her own house now.) But what can we do? I don’t think Mum would want to live in our house, though this is just about possible to manage now that Daughter 1 has left home. Our bedroom is downstairs, and there’s also a downstairs bathroom, so my husband and I could move into Daughter 1’s vacated bedroom, leaving our room for Mum. But I think she’d prefer to be in her own house, with her own things.

Sigh. Poor Mum, poor Dad. They’re 84 and a half and nearly 87, so have done well to live independently so far. But it’s so sad to see them frail and wobbly. It seems no time since they were strong and capable. Tempus fugit, folks. Gather ye rosebuds and that sort of thing.

Happy Christmas

I went up town this morning at 9 am to finish my Christmas shopping. I was up yesterday at 9 am also, and the previous Saturday, both times staying up till 2.30 pm, at which time I had to go and pick up my mum to take her to visit my dad. I am not an enthusiastic shopper.

Today, however, I was finished by 10 am. I bought three boxes of chocolates, three long rolls of wrapping paper, two orchids in glass pots, a hyacinth in bloom, a bunch of bananas, a lemon, a litre of milk, some sunflower oil spread, and a lettuce. No partridges or pear trees, but it was quite tricky not to bash the whippy orchid stems, smash the glass pots, squash the hyacinths or drop anything. While I was in the queue for the food items, balancing the delicate items with difficulty, a lady marched to the head of the queue and took her purchases to an assistant, while the law-abiding queuers just gazed at her and each other and sighed Britishly. Why did none of us say anything?

I then staggered to the bus stop and along came a man talking on a mobile phone. He had one carrier bag and was saying as he passed me, “So that’s the way to do Christmas shopping.”

Do share your secret with me, sir.

Then along came another chap, in his running gear, loping athletically along. Why choose Edinburgh’s main shopping street, two days before Christmas, for a running track? Granted, he was on the non-shop side of the road – the side where there are gardens a bit further along from where we were, and where he was presumably headed. But still. Why wasn’t he laden with shopping?

Ho hum. But still, it’s Christmas. The picture at the top isn’t of our tree, since my little camera has given up the ghost, and I didn’t take the one below either, but it’s Edinburgh, looking as it does. (I'm sorry the pictures are so tiny.I don't know why they are.)

I haven’t wrapped anything yet, but the fridge is full of food, the house is clean and decorated and my brother and his family, who live in the south of England, have reached my mum’s house safely. I feel very lucky. Happy Christmas to you all and God bless us every one!

An ideal gift

Our son bought his girlfriend a gun the other day. For her rather difficult flatmate. Not a real gun. One that shoots little foam discs a few feet across the room. He then covered the label on the packet that contained the gun with this replacement one.



This is a joke, please understand. No flatmate will be injured, even in her feelings. The flatmate in question will never see this label, or even the gun, since it’s going as a Christmas present to the girlfriend’s home, which isn’t in Edinburgh.

This is the full, unfolded version. If it's too small to read, you can click it to enlarge it.
He’s also got her some more romantic gifts, you’ll be relieved to hear.

Thoughts on a Sunday

I’d like to be able to post nice Christmassy pictures of our tree in the sitting room, which is now dripping with decorations – I believe in overkill, not subtlety, for Christmas trees (and they have to be real ones). However, my little digital camera has died. Sob. My husband pointed out hopefully that there’s a much better camera currently “hidden” on top of the wardrobe - but no, Husband. Kind of you to mention this, but you can’t have your present early.

So instead this is one of several photos I had already taken of my orchid, none of which is very good because the flash causes a shadow on the wall, making the photo look out of focus. Annoying, but the orchid is spectacular, which pleases me because this is its second year. (Pause for Australian bloggers to tell me that orchids grow like weeds in their gardens...)

However, the house is now half festively decorated and by the time this evening is out, it will be fully so. The cards and Christmas letters are all written and posted and I even did quite a lot of present shopping yesterday. It’s really hard to feel particularly celebratory, however, with my dad in the state he’s in, which includes

a) unable to get to his feet
b) extremely confused and
c) either sad or very irascible.

Though he had his good points too, he was always irascible and at times very unreasonable but it’s so pathetic and so odd to hear and see him as he is. He was formerly very competent, intelligent and energetic and now he’s in his pyjamas, unable to rise from a chair and no longer does his daily cryptic crossword or Sudoko or reads anything but the paper. And he’s always been very authoritative and imperious and he still is, but is now talking nonsense quite a lot of the time.

The other day he was telling my mum and me about a funeral he’d been at earlier (he hadn’t) and how he’d had to run up and downstairs all day collecting his things from the room where they keep the sports equipment (he hasn’t run for years and all his things are in his bedside cabinet). Then he was fulminating, as he so often does, about the poor organisation in the hospital.

“They’ve had no cornflakes for two weeks,” he fumed. “I suggested that they should order some more, but they said no, it was complicated and it would take several weeks to get any.”

“Oh dear,” I said. “What did you have for breakfast, then?”

“Cornflakes,” he snorted indignantly.

It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

But then, Daughter 2 sang with her choir in a lovely carol concert last night, which lifted the spirits. Afterwards she was chatting to a fellow choir member, who had been phoned at work by someone claiming to be returning the call of a chap called Bentley Slopp.

Daughter 2’s friend assured the caller that there was no one called Bentley Slopp in their organisation. They discussed the mystery for a few moments before the friend’s gaze fell on his colleague on the other side of the room… Ben Hislop.

Right then, I’m off to do things with holly.

The Christmas Elf

I’ve been writing Christmas cards and letters, and now I must go and mark students’ work, so I really don’t have time to blog. However, it’s maybe about time I started joining in with the Christmas spirit, so – let me introduce you – briefly – to the Christmas Elf. He lives in our house at this time of year.

Every day in December, he brings little chocolate presents to the children who live here. He leaves a little note – usually a short poem, often with a little drawing - in the relevantly numbered box in this extremely bashed and scruffy Advent chimney. The note holds a clue as to the whereabouts of the chocolate. I - sorry, the Elf - bought and filled this chimney for the first time about twenty years ago.

The children still with us are now 22 and 25 and they still enjoy finding the little presents. Or to put in another way, they strongly feel that the presents should still be left. "Insist" might not be too strong a word. After all, we wouldn’t want the Elf to feel redundant, would we?

Beware, o young parents, of starting these traditions…