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…

Busy blog

OhgoodnessIammuchtoobusy.

Huge quantities of marking at the moment; plus visiting my Dad in hospital. My week goes:

Sunday: take my Mum to church; visit my Dad in afternoon; have Mum and Daughter 1 and SIL to meal in evening with rest of family and then marking/preparation.

I work full-time during the week but in the evenings:

Monday: marking/preparation
Tuesday: teach evening class and then marking/preparation
Wednesday: sing in choir and then… as above
Thursday: take Mum to visit Dad and then…
Friday: take Mum to visit Dad.

On Saturday mornings, I always take Mum out for a little expedition, and then we visit Dad in the afternoon.

And I do spend some time with my dear husband and lovely offspring. And I dust, and so on. Iron. Cook. That kind of thing.

Doesn’t leave much time for writing Christmas cards and letters. As for shopping… and blogging…

So I’m behind with my blog-reading/commenting.

However, on a brighter note, I’ve won a competition! No talent required – it was a prize draw - a blog prize draw. Kirsty from Two Lime Leaves -http://twolimeleaves.blogspot.com/ - made some lovely Christmas decorations and I’ve got one! What fun.

And – even better – Daughter 1 has got a new job – which she needs. She’s a trainee archivist, and when her previous job came to an end (it was a fixed-term one) some weeks ago, there were no archive posts to apply for. She’s been temping as a secretary, but this job sounds very suitable. It’s only till May, but still, it’s fine for now.

So there. I feel cheerier than of late. And we’ve had no frost to speak of yet so there are still flowers – like this fuchsia – blooming in the garden.

Our students have been doing assessments – textual analysis. One was of a poem in which oystercatchers fuss round rocks, crying “Weep! Weep!”

Oystercatchers are birds, by the way (not sure if they have non-British cousins, and I don’t know whether they actually eat oysters. Certainly not exclusively). Our students hadn’t, on the whole, heard of them.

The most interesting guess by a student was that oystercatchers are like clams, and they run around the beach, catching oysters.

Running clams… hmm. And indeed, oysters pelting away across the sand…

More apple sauce cake talk

By popular demand – well, four of you asked – here is the recipe:

My sister-in-law, Steffi, is American and she gave me this recipe many years ago. Her mother is of Irish and her father of Greek descent, so I don’t know whether the recipe is authentically American, but anyway, this is why it exists in terms of cups and spoonfuls. We Brits don’t do those. We do ounces and pounds if we’re over 30ish; otherwise grams. Britain is now officially metric so I have trouble with grams when I’ve written down on a shopping list the ingredients I need to make some tried and tested recipe. I know that a kilogram is a little over two pounds, so I stand in the supermarket going, “I need six ounces of desiccated coconut and this packet is 325 grams, so…”.

Some of the cake ingredients (eg plain flour, icing sugar) may be called something different in America. Steffi sometimes has to translate American recipes for me (she and my brother live near London, so she’s bilingual). If anyone needs me to, I can ask her the American terms. But I feel you can work out the ounce thing. If I can do grams, you can do ounces.

Anyway, I long ago bought baking cups to make this recipe, but translated the butter into ounces because who would want to cram butter into a cup and then have to wash it when you can just cut what used to be an 8 ounce packet of butter in half? Of course, a packet is now slightly more than 8 ounces because it’s some number of grams instead (I suppose 250ish) but you know – cooking’s an art, not a science.

You might know my artistic cooking from previous posts if you’ve read them.

Similarly, this recipe originally had half a cup of nuts (unspecified) in it, but I myself put sultanas instead, since we prefer this. On the other hand, Son’s girlfriend doesn’t like dried fruit, so he makes it without. Even when he’s making it for her flatmate…


Steffi’s apple sauce cake

Ingredients

4 ounces butter
Half cup each of caster sugar and soft brown sugar
1 and three quarter cups plain flour (ie without rising agent)
I cup sultanas or half cups nuts or whatever. Or neither. Or both.
Half teaspoon salt (but I never actually put this in)
I teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
I teaspoon cinnamon
Half teaspoon ground cloves
2 eggs
I cup apple sauce, bought or made yourself. (I usually just use bought stuff and don’t bother about the amount. Just a jar of whatever size comes to hand.)

Method

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, and cream again. Fold in flour and other dry ingredients and add fruit/nuts.

Bake in two sandwich tins for half an hour at 150 degrees.

Icing

Ingredients

3 cups icing sugar
9 ounces cream cheese
Dash cinnamon if you like it
Dash brandy if you like it, but then you may have to add a bit more icing sugar, depending on how generous your dash is.

Method

Cream all together, getting very sticky in the process.

Put two cakes together with icing in the middle and on the top. If you really like getting thoroughly sticky, you can, of course, cut each cake in half horizontally and then put the icing in four smaller layers.

Make sure icing is spreadable but quite firm. If it’s too sloshy then when you put the cake together the icing will gradually flow out the sides. I speak from experience.


I've just made two Christmas cakes, one for my mum and one for us. They're in the oven now. This is the sum total of my Christmas preparations. It's a start.