Flowers. And the difficulty of following my own advice.

Edinburgh in general, and my garden in particular, are one huge meringue of cherry blossom at the moment. (I mistyped this just now as “cheery blossom” – quite appropriate, really.) So pretty! And the lilac makes the air smell heavenly.

Fifi commented after my last post that St Cloud sounds like an imaginary place. Gosh, surely not. That suggests that Lake Wobegon might be imaginary too and I want to go there some day: the town where it’s always been a quiet week, where everyone is nice underneath a tiny bit of grumpiness and where things are bound to turn out right in the end. Oh, and Molly – Garrison Keillor has a weekly column? And you get to hear his radio programme? (Or, program, I suppose.) Not fair!

I don’t know quite what came over me in the previous post where I decided to give the world (or a very small part of it) the benefit of my accumulated wisdom, including the part about not handing out advice… . Apart from that little irony, I can imagine a quiet guffaw echoing round Scotland from my dearly beloved children. Well, I did say that I wasn’t actually the best at following my own principles, didn’t I? I’m quite good at biting my tongue for a little while… and then a tiny bit (ok, a great big bit) of advice just tends to burst out like the water from a dam. (Not that I’ve ever seen a bursting dam. But I can imagine.) This advice is usually on the subject of the girls’ significant others: the lovely son-in-law (whom I love to bits, but who has depression (though he currently seems to be improving again, fingers crossed)) and Daughter 2’s boyfriend, who is trying to get work as an actor. Hmm. Nice enough chap but… . Hmm.

Will try to be a better person from now on.

My workmates gave me these flowers

and this hydrangea on Thursday as a sympathy present. How lovely!

Hello, St Cloud

I've just noticed that someone from St Cloud, Minnesota is or at least recently was reading my blog. How exciting! Garrison Keillor country!

Thoughts from this life.

Daughter 2 is in Seville, visiting her last year's flatmate, Danielle. They'll soon be joined by their friend Anna. Here are the flowers she bought me. Have fun in Spain, D2!

Son is in Livingston, a few miles away, on duty in the maternity ward. He hopes to deliver his first baby soon. He's not going to tell the mother that he's never done it before... . The house is very quiet.

There should be some advantages in growing older, because there are certainly quite a few disadvantages. I wouldn’t claim to have acquired wisdom but I thought I might list a few things that have perhaps become clearer to me with advancing years. Unfortunately I don’t always remember to order my life by these little insights at the right times.

1. Most things that upset you will one day be a distant memory.

2. People aren’t thinking about you nearly as much as, when you’re young, you think they are.

3. Your children will never remember much that you do with them before they were about 5 despite the fact that it’s awfully hard work.

4. When they’re little, you need to feed them, cuddle them, talk to them, read to them, sing to them, keep them safe and play with them from time to time. They don’t need ballet lessons, gym classes, music appreciation groups… . Let them play.

5. Emails need to be worded very carefully. You can’t retrieve them from the hall table if you think better of them.

6. Similarly, when in doubt, it’s probably better not to tell people what you think. People don’t really want advice most of the time. Especially unsolicited advice.

7. It’s much easier to get fatter than to get thinner.

8. “Do it now” is a good maxim to apply to filling in forms, washing dishes, writing letters, making phone calls, travelling the world. (Why does America spell this with one “l”?)

9. There some things which, if you postpone them long enough, never have to be done at all. But then, there are others that you’ll never get round to doing and wish you had.

10. Life is short. It really is.

That bloke again

I have marking to do. Naturally, therefore, I'm looking for some displacement activity.



Thank you for your kind admiration of my boy and his elbow. Actually, he sent me three cheering photos in the Some Bloke series, of which I blogged only the one. I now offer you, above:

Some Bloke with Sheepcat (not so good of the Bloke but splendid, I think you’ll agree, of the Cat. Does he have any bones? Or is he simply stuffed? By the way, there is now a Sheepcat Appreciation Society on Facebook).

And finally:

Some Scary Bloke. (He was at a fancy dress party. You may have guessed that. He looks in this photo as if he has a big bulgy nose, but actually he doesn't. The elbow phenomenon again. Neither does he have a tiny right arm. )

Marking, here I come.

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.