Thank you

Today

Had a spiffing Christmas. The girls were there, together with a friend of Becky's and we had fun, food and friendliness the whole time. None of this quarrelling after 2 days together in the same house, which is what the magazines tell us will happen.

After the Christmas apart last year and with all this year's troubles it was just lovely.

And I got some splendid gifts. Many of them showed a reference to my "Dear Santa" blog which does tell me who pays attention.

I shall sit down and write out "Thank you" letters early in the New Year. Even if you've been able to say thanks in person, nothing quite beats a written letter.

In My Day

When I was little, I rarely received gifts from outside the immediate family. I had no aunts and uncles (at least none whom we spent time with), nor a bundle of cousins. And our Christmases were always spent in the bosom of the family.

So I was never taught about sending thank you letters as it did seem rather pointless when the givers were right next to you at the breakfast table each morning.

Over the years I've much enjoyed the thank you letters sent to me by my neices. I say neices, because my nephews only sporadically thank me formally although the advent of email and texting has made it easier.

But the little cards I've received from the girls! Here are some examples:

After 2 consecutive years of managing to choose the right garments as gifts for one niece:

"If I were royal, I'd make you my official clothes buyer..."

From another, following a gift of a cool Monsoon bag:

"This bag is so cool that at school I've been making money by allowing my friends to hire it..."

And from another neice to whom I'd given a rather nice skirt and top, a somewhat belated card explaining that she'd spent a considerable amount of time videoing herself, using her phone, doing a sort ot catwalk display, but had failed to send it to me. (Later, when we were together, she showed it me on the actual phone, where she was doing a delighted twirl).

The thought counts, but the resulting gift shows just how much the givers understand you. Thank you all for your imaginatively chosen gifts.

Mrs Frosty

Today

Well, I've actually put the first layer of icing on the Christmas cake. Not what you might call a professional job (how do cake icers get that smooth layer? Perhaps they use a sander when the icing's dry.

Hopefully, when I've covered it with jolly little decorations, no-one will notice the poor foundation, so to speak.

In My Day

Mamma was a great cake-maker for birthdays and Christmas. The Christmas cake would be made several weeks in advance. She would double line the tin and wrap the whole thing in brown paper before putting it in the oven to cook for 4 or 5 hours. I can still remember that slight burnt raisin smell that told us it was done.

Later she would marzipan the cake (she bought this and it was always a bright yellow colour) and a few days before Christmas put on the base icing. This took quite a long time and there were always debates about how much lemon juice in relation to how much glycerine went into the icing.

I think that, like me, Mamma always dreamt of finishing the cake well before Christmas, but what usually happened was that she was frantically icing at 1 in the morning on Christmas eve.

This is how she did it:

First the design was worked out and transferred onto greasproof or tracing paper. Then the paper was laid on the cake and the design pricked out with a pin on the base icing. Mamma mixed up the icing and separated it into bowls, one for each colour. Each bowl was covered with a wet tea towel to keep it workable. Mamma used an icing gun rather than forcing bag (in my own forays, I've found the bag easier, but chacun etc....).

The the real work would start. We would help by finding the right nozzle or cleaning the coloured icing out of one so that she could use it with a different colour. (I can remember the taste of icing mixed with cochineal)

The most magnificent design was conceived by my brother Chris and Mamma gallantly laboured over it until it was done. We hardly dared to cut and eat it.

I wouldn't dare to imagine that mine will come anything close!

Frozen Assets

Today

In a burst of enthusiam this afternoon I made the red cabbage and cranberry sauce for Christmas lunch. "Easy to freeze", thought I, "and less to do on Christmas Eve".

They're sitting on the worktop, cooling slightly before I bung them in the freezer. Apart from a contretemps when one container of red cabbage sprang a leak (a little of the that red juice does go a long way), they're all done and dusted. And I'll do the same with the Brazil nut loaf mix.

In My Day

It was Paul's father who first enthused about getting a freezer, back in the early 70s. They were on offer at Debenham's and he worked out that he was better off getting credit to buy it, rather than waiting till he had the money when the price would have gone up.

When we moved to Rowan Avenue (our first proper house) we decided that we could do with one as well. We measured up the front porch and decided that a chest freezer would just fit in. To raise the cash we signed up with Barclaycard (our first credit card - what a lot of firsts).

The freezer was put into the porch and we discovered the first law of chest freezers - they need feeding. We celebrated the dubious joys of vegetable freezing. Beatrice worked for a vegetable auctioneers and we bought sacks of beans, parsnips, carrots and nets of cabbages at a knock down price. We didn't count the cost of a) travelling to Wisbech to get them (we'd have probably visited Beatrice anyway) or b) the time cost of laboriously scalding, cooling, bagging and labelling every single piece of produce.

We never got into the side of beef-type purchases but we did buy packs of various cuts of meat etc. We regularly trotted off to the cash and carry and returned with huge amounts of food which was duly decanted into the freezer's capacious stomach.

When Becky was a baby I used to freeze ice-cube trays with pureed vegetables and get out so many a day to give to the childminder.

The purchase of the freezer meant that we were unable to buy a washing machine, so we shared these appliances with our neighbours and best friends. They popped over to get out their frozen goods (it seemed as though they only had ice-cream in there!) while we used their kitchen like a launderette.

Shortly before we left no 33 the freezer died, having first deposited a huge gobbet of ice on the carpet.

Since then, no longer needing to store meaty things and preferring our veg fresh, we've relied on a fridge-freezer and eschewed rapacious chest freezers.

Anyway, I'd better go downstairs and sort things out.

Bat out of Hell

Today

Last night, having done about half of the Christmas Cards, Paul & I settled down to watch "Love Actually" Great film - I always feel that, if the Americans had got hold of it, it would have been sugary, but with Richard Curtis there's always an element of the ironic, sad or even bitter.

Quite a lot of the film was devoted to showing people running towards their love in a variety of ways, from the little boy living out a fantasy in the airport to the more sedate journey made by the PM.

In My Day

I first met Paul at a party and we had a couple of dates following that. I can't say that they set off fireworks for me. On one occasion I even tried to end it but Paul pleaded so much that I agreed to another meeting. (Well, he had spent a good deal of that occasion talking to an ex-girlfriend!).

Paul had just joined the Sussex police and about 3 weeks after we met, had to go to Sandgate for his training. "I'll see you on Friday" were his parting words.

He wrote me a light-hearted letter during the week, describing the horrors of life at a police training centre. Otherwise life went on as usual.

On the Friday, I came home from college, had a bite to eat, changed. 7.00 pm - no phone call, 7.30 pm - no phone call, 8.00 pm - no phone call. "Never mind, Julia," I told myself, "Pleasant enough while it lasted but no big deal."

I decided to wash my hair, which was very long and straight in studenty fashion. About 8.30 pm, just wrapped the towel around when the phone rang. It was Paul. "So sorry I didn't call sooner, the traffic was grim - I didn't get home till after 7.00 and Mum had cooked a big meal etc etc. Would you like to meet in town?"

Would I!! I bunged on my coat and ran all the way into town. It was downhill, about a mile and a half and the temperature was freezing. By the time I met Paul I actually had icicles in my hair.

We walked along the seafront, talking and talking and the rest, as they say, is history.

What the people in the film discover is that you should never let false pride get in the way of finding your love - and I would agree.

Please, Santa

Today

I’ve received instructions from Becky to publish a “what I want for Christmas” blog. Traditionally, in our family, we don’t write present lists, preferring to place our trust in the hope that our nearest & dearest have being paying attention for the past year.

It’s also true that as you get older you can be harder to buy for – it’s no longer a question of buying you things you couldn’t afford or that you desperately need.

The flat in Brighton provides some inspiration, of course.

Well, here goes, Becky!

1 For the bedroom at the flat,

a. A nice little jewellery holder
b. A pot to put my makeup brushes etc

2. Books

a. Novels
b. Cochineal Red
c. Books on the geography and history of Peru
d. Surprise me……

3. Makeup

4. Self-improvement

a. Swimming lessons
b. Advanced driving lessons

5. Music

a. Tchaikovsky symphonies
b. Surprise me….

6. Clothes
a. Tops

b. Scarves & Pashminas
c. Interesting tights and popsocks

7. For the flat

a. Vases
b. Egg cups & spoons (we’ve only got two)
(Actually, we could do with some egg cups for home as well)

8. Food

a. Florentines
b. Panforte
c. Surprise me….

9. Jewellery

a. Earrings (no pierced ears, me)
b. Bracelets (not bangles)

10. Surprise me…..

In My Day

When we were children I think that we did write Christmas lists. These were generally available and you could pick anything off the list. We preserved secrecy over presents and I, at least, respected it. Christmas was so much more fun, if it was full of surprises.

We didn’t have Christmas stockings. One reason was that David woke up at St Paul’s where he was a chorister, on Christmas morning, so it would have been rather horrible if he couldn’t join in the fun. Also, we celebrated the German festival of St Nicholas on 5th December, when we put our shoes out on the windowsill and woke to find them full of sweets…

On Christmas day we waited, therefore, until after Christmas lunch with no presents at all. David would have arrived at about 3.00 pm, following evensong (it must have been hard for those choristers whose families didn’t live in London; perhaps they didn’t go home on Christmas Day at all…). We had a long and jolly lunch.

Then we adjourned into the next room. There would be the tree, 10ft high, – Mamma would start to light the candles (we would help). Then some carols were sung and, later, the family hymn. There was a folding card table for each of us, covered with a cloth. The cloth was intriguingly lumpy as it concealed our presents.

Then it was “go!” and we were all allowed to open our presents. I guess we all opened them in our own fashion. I suspect that I was rather fast and sometimes wished that I’d gone more slowly to enjoy them more.

By the time we’d finished and thanked everyone, it was about 7.00 O’clock so the rest of the evening was spent in enjoying our presents or in playing whatever new board game hade been bought by Mamma & Daddy.

After what 2006 has brought, what I actually want for Christmas is my family all around me.

Thanks for the memories

Today

During the past few weeks, I have, for a range of reasons, some of them unpleasant & difficult, been examining my memories of the past, especially childhood. I discovered a number of things.

Firstly that memories have different qualities. Some are sensory - those where you can feel or hear or taste the memory. - the feel of a garment or the smell of someone's hair. They take you back to actually feeling whatever age you were at the time and are not usually linked to a specific event.

Some are of a quite specific one-off event - these you can recount like a story.

Others are of the "this used to happen" variety. With these you know that there were events that happened similarly a number of times, It's hard to say "this was on this date or that", only that there were a number of occasions.

Then there are those that you suspect are the memories of someone telling you about the event, rather than of your own experience.

Sometimes you have a very vivid memory, only to discover, when presented with the facts, that you were actually wrong. I don't know how these memories ever take root.

Finally, you find out that, where you have shared an event with others, their memory is often quite different from yours.

In My Day

Here are 4 memories of a single event during our childhood:

I and my siblings were playing hide-and-seek. Our great Victorian pile was ideal for this purpose. I was "it".

Chris remembers that he had a great idea for a place for Beatrice to hide - in the dressing up drawer in the great chest of drawers on the landing. He tucked her in and went off to hide himself. Mamma called us to lunch. During the meal Mamma suddenly says "Where's Beatrice?" Chris, horrified, thinking he's killed her, volunteers to find her. Which he does and finds she's all right if more than a little traumatised.

Beatrice remembers the first part, and being afraid that she'll suffocate in the drawer (which she can't get out of) and the trauma.

I remember being in the garden, searching and being called into lunch, thus abandoning the game. I also remember Mamma asking the question, but mainly that Beatrice arrived late to the meal with such a feeble excuse for her lateness and traumatised state (she clearly didn't drop Chris in it) that I despised her for it.

And David doesn't appear to remember it at all.

At least, that is my memory of the discussion we had about it a couple of years ago.

Which makes you realise why witness statement following incidents often don't agree with each other, although nobody's lying.

Drive me Crazy

Today

We've just come back from Yorkshire where Paul completed his Performance Driving Course, which I'd bought him for his birthday. I'd originally thought that he would do it while I was in S America but he wanted me to come along.

So he booked me into the Monk Fryston Hall hotel. As he was on a driving course, I, naturally, had no car. So I walked the amazingly flat lanes of Yorkshire, near Selby, while Paul relearnt the art of motoring.

In my Day

I put off driving for many years. Somehow, when I was 17, it didn't feel right, and, anyway, I couldn't afford it.

When I met Paul, he was, of course, car mad (some things never change!) and always drove. We lived in Sussex, always in places with good transport systems.

Paul did have one attempt to teach me in the (once criminally active) Humber Hawk, but after I panicked on a narrow bridge, and went into reverse at speed, he desisted.

In 1985 I had the opportunity to take up a post to do the training for the Computerisation of PAYE. However, it was made clear that there would be much travelling and that driving skills were really essential.

By a combination of suggestion and sloppily asked questions (by the interviewers) I got the job. I had 10 months in which to learn to drive. Paul's brother in law, who was a driving instructor, gave me some lessons, but practice was what was needed. So Paul simply allowed me to drive our Morris Marina whenever we went out.

He was calm, methodical and clear, I must say. And we never rowed while he taught me. He took me to empty carparks so that I could practice maneuvering and clutch control.

I passed my test at the 3rd attempt and was driving on the motorway alone, in the dark,within 5 days.

Paul spent much of the drive home yesterday re-teaching me, but, despite that, I owe him a debt for teaching me in the first place that I can never really repay. Although, he's driving to Wine circle tonight!

Tongue Twister

Today

On Friday Paul and I went to very nice concert given by OpusIII and the Selwood Strings at Marston House. A very civilised event and typical of many such occasions in musical Somerset.

I used to sing with OpusIII and it was good to see the gang again and have the opportunity for a chat.

It's an all-female choir and many of the pieces they sing are arrangements of popular songs - "Autumn Leaves", "How can I Keep from Singing" etc, but there are one or two pieces especially written for female choirs. One of these was a jolly interpretation of "Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers" by Frank Bridge. ("I remember singing this when I was at school, aged about 12", I whispered to Paul.)

In My Day

When I went to grammar School, one of my most exciting early experiences was listening to the Madrigal Group. I set about finding out how you joined. Easy - you had to be in the main choir and be either in the 5th or 6th form.

The first was easily accomplished and the second just a matter of hanging on. Music was taught in my school much like reading is in primary schools, so I soon learnt my "every good boy deserves fruit" and, as there was much singing, was able to put it into practice.

By the time I was 15 I was a reasonably accomplished sight reader with a pretty top soprano voice. So I was in! In the elite group known as the madrigal group.

We did sing madrigals and a host of other songs as well. We were the ones who sang the more unusual Christmas carols at the nine lessons service and entered competitions. As this was a London School, competition was quite fierce, but we won prizes. And I liked very much the opportunity to get out of school and visit other London schools and venues for these events.

One of the songs we sang was "Peter Piper" by Frank Bridge, which I've never forgotten.

Bought some pickled peppers at a market stall the other day. They were horrible.

It's Plastic

Today

This morning Paul woke up and demanded toast & marmalade & frothy coffee for breakfast. "We've no bread", I warned "But I'll pop up to the shop to get some. Do they sell bread?" "Yes, as it's a Saturday", replied Paul. Not waiting to find out why the residents of the village only seem to want bread on Saturday I duly popped.

Started to prepare the toast. Paul complained that the bread was plastic. "All they had, I'm afraid," I replied and got on with the job.

In My Day

On one occasion, when I was about 10, we had a jaunt to the Maritime Museum at Greenwich. Greenwich was a little out of our normal beat and it was quite a lengthy journey by bus to get there.

I remember little about the museum, save that it was in quite grand surroundings, but I do remember stopping at a little cafe for afternoon tea.

That was in the days when they gave you bread and butter with your tea. The bread was composed of pretty well perfect rectangles, soft, thin and uniformly sliced. Mamma marvelled. "This bread is wonderful", she enthused "Where did you get it?"

"Ah!", said the waitress, "It's Wonderloaf." And she brought out a packet to show us. Mamma touched the waxy packaging and the softness - not a hint of a crust. And so beautifully thin. Wonderful for cucumber sandwiches, no crusty bits to struggle with, no bread knife to wield. Wonderloaf indeed.

Which is what we ate from from that time on.

Despite the snobbery (and I can put away a bit of sundried tomato ciabata with the best of them), I rather enjoyed my plastic bread, toasted, with low-fat butter and extremely good French plum jam.

Curtain Raiser

Today

On Thursday, Paul & I went to the Theatre Royal, Bath to see a performance of "Entertaining Angels", starring Penelope Keith. It was an excellent performance of a play with just the right combination of humour, suspense and passion.

We love going to the theatre and, as part of our retirement plan, have joined the associates of the Theatre Royal in Bath.

This gives us advance booking rights, free programmes and access to an exclusive lounge bar, the 1805 rooms. So, when the prospectus arrives, we're inclined to buy ticket for most things, and take a chance on their being some good.

So, I slept through the first act of Habeus Corpus (easy to catch up with the action in the 2nd half), was enthralled by the Rambert Dance Company and enchanted by Cole Porter's Anything Goes.

In My Day

Early memories of theatre-going are more centred round the opera. When the Carl Rosa Opera company came to the Streatham Hill Theatre, Daddy bought a whole batch of tickets. The theatre was so close to us and, being south of the river, tickets were cheap. So, by the age of 10, I'd seen La Boheme and Aida certainly. We regularly used to go to see the D'Oyley Carte Gilbert & Sullivan operettas and I remember at a relatively early age seeing Tannhauser, Die Meistersingers, Rosenkavalier and Hansel & Gretel, either at Covent Garden or Sadlers Wells.

My experience was further broadened when I became friendly, at the age of about 14, with a girl at school who had an absolute theatre passion Her name was Jill Strudwick and we used to save up our paper round pocket money to travel to the West End for Saturday matinees. We saw "Oliver", "Stop the World I want to Get Off", "The Sound of Music", and many more musicals. Perhaps it was that that has made me, unlike my siblings, so fond of Cole Porter, Gershwin etc. Jill developed crushes on various actors and was one of those people that knew all the details of their lives. (She probably now adores Hello! magazine.)

My love of drama really took off when I was doing A-levels and, later, theatre design. Living in London was like being in a vast drama treasure box and students were treated very well. My friends and I queued at the Old Vic for standing only tickets and in that way saw most of the National Theatre productions (Uncle Vanya, Hedda Gabler, Hamlet, all the classics) for a tiny price.

More adventurous was the Alwych Theatre. My brother David and I joined the RSC youth association and got concessionary tickets to all their productions. And we used to go to the World Theatre festival. With the aid of instantaneous translation headphones we experienced: "The Insect Play" in Polish, Pirandelli in Italian, a Russian dramatisation of "Crime & Punishment" (put me off actually reading the book) and saw Japanese Noh and Kabuki theatre.

At the more raw end, we used to go to the Vanbrugh Theatre to see RADA productions.

I find it hard to keep away from the theatre and marvel that it's outside the experience of so many people.

Painting by numbers

Today

Yesterday Paul & I travelled up to London to see a Beryl Cook exhibition at the Portal Gallery. We've always enjoyed Beryl Cook paintings with their apparent innocence belying a very acute and enthusiastic observation of ordinary people.

They are such a celebration of late 20th and early 21st century life.

We're toying with the idea of actually buying one for the flat in Brighton - out first proper foray into buying original art.

In My Day

I was the "arty" one of the family. I drew pictures from the time I could hold a pencil (at about 15 months) on any paper I could find. My parents were uncomprehending admirers of this talent; there being little other acknowledged skill in the family (tho' when I look at my mother's freehand cake icing, there had to be something there).

Christmas and birthday presents often took the form of painting by numbers kits, some of which I dutifully completed. They were really a sort of grown up colouring book, were boring to do and flat to look at. I was given books on "how to draw". There was an artist living on the first floor who also talked to me.

I do have the priviledge of having my original work displayed. The first one of these is a pastel abstract. I did this in response to hearing "Dessins Eternel" by Messiaen at Westminster Cathedral. It's all swirly oranges and yellows and lives on the wall at my sister's flat.

The 2nd one also hangs on my sister's wall and was done while I was at art college and had mastered the craft of oil painting. It was derived from some drawings I'd done while visiting Saffron Hill in London. It's one of those pieces which says a lot, but not what you intended. The most noticeable bit of the work is a huge "No Entry" sign. It's generated a lot of passion in its time; including having my sister's 1st husband take a knife to it.

Nice to know that my work has something in common with the Mona Lisa.

Gi'us a job

Today

I've just read Becky's blog on being unemployed. She & Lizzie seem remarkably calm about it - as well they might be as they have many skills and we aren't in a time of serious unemployment.

Becky made a comment about how strange it is not to have external demands made on one and I sympathise with this. Retirement brings this sort of strangeness too. I know that I owned and ran my own company (and remember one very crass friend who thought that, as MD I simply "made it up" as I went along), but there were still a lot of pressures, many of them external. And there were a lot of people whose lives depended on my decisions.

In My Day

Once we were married, I found out that this instantly affected my grant entitlement (as though being married meant that I was now a kept woman) and I no longer received even enough to cover my bus fare to college. We struggled on for a while, with the overdraft mounting up. Then one day, while I was working at home on some sewing project, the man from the rates dept turned up. Seemed we hadn't paid any.

Something had to give and that was my college (and with it teaching) career. I got the paper and applied for the first job I could find - as an auxiliary nurse in an old people's home. Well, I'd spent one summer cleaning in an old people's home so was qualified, surely?

They weren't very exacting in the interview and the job was mine. Day after day of blanket baths, cleaning up old ladies' poo and serving meals. It was rivetting. I did it as well as I could.

The a friend of mine told me that the Inland Revenue were recruiting temporary staff to deal with the early redemption of post-war credits. Just as rivetting as the old ladies, but cleaner and more money. So off I went and was duly recruited.

This actually led to a career in the Inland Revenue which led to my joining Flare which led to my owning it which led to my selling it which led me to where I am now.........

Which just goes to show that things you don't plan sometimes work out the best. It's just a question of seizing the opportunity.

Pump up the volume

Today

When we were at last able to stay at the flat in Brighton, we were delighted to discover just how tranquil it is.

No funny noises (except when the newly fitted intruder alarm tried to go off), no floorboards talking.

We couldn't hear the neighbours moving about, so assume they couldn't hear us.

The bedroom's at the back overlooking a side street and there were hardly any cars.

We weren't even troubled by the seagulls!

In My Day

When we lived at the flat in Belmont in Brighton we had a very different experience. Our flat was on the top floor of a building that was opposite a British Rail working man's club.

External noises consisted of pigeons and seagulls on the sloping roof outside the bedroom window, the roar of traffic from Dyke Road and, on Friday and Saturdays nights, drunks issuing from the club.

What was even worse was the noise we ourselves made. We couldn't afford very thick carpet which probably made it hard for the lady in the flat beneath us. She was a single lady, called Miss Steele who worked in a clerical role at the Brighton & Hove police station.

Her recourse when we made a noise was to bang on the ceiling (we always assumed she used a broom handle, but it could have been a shotgun for all I know). This was particularly irritating when Lizzie was learning to walk as she fell over quite a bit. So we spent quite a lot of time taking Lizzie to parks so that she could run and jump freely without percussion accompaniment.

One night, at about 3.00 am, we were deeply asleep, when the doorbell rang furiously. Paul staggered to the door in his hastily donned dressing gown. There was Miss Steele, face screwed up with rage. "You're playing a guitar" she accused. Paul pointed out that he had been in bed asleep, that the room from which she'd thought she'd heard it was Lizzie's (I know she's talented, but she was only about a year old) and that, anyway, he didn't have a guitar.

We were furious, but decided with youthful arrogance, that she was probably going potty from being an old maid.

On the day we left the flat, she actually banged on the ceiling as we removed the carpet!

At the new flat there is someone on the ground floor who practises the piano occasionally, but I'd call that a civilised noise.

Spondulicks

Today

The work on the Brighton flat is just about finished. Over the past month we've gone down a couple of times to sort out last minute details.

Because our friend John who's been managing the project, was in France, it fell to us to pay the builders, plumber, and various other rude mechanicals in this drama.

Now builders take a dim view of cheques and direct transfers. No, they want cash. However, I take a dim view of walking through busy city centres with wads of the readies. I realise that I'm probably no more likely to get mugged than if I'm only carrying 50p, but the loss would be greater!

However, I did want the radiators to work and the rubbish to be cleared, didn't I? Well, then.

These things have to be managed. Firstly I had to make sure that there was enough cash in the cheque account as my other account is web-based only and doesn't do cash (does do high interest, tho' so there's a trade-off).

Secondly, I had to find out where the nearest branch in Brighton was.

Thirdly, I had to phone the bank's telephone hotline to arrange for the cash to be available at the branch.

The money would be available after 2.00 pm, they said. So Paul & I set off in the car. I had my passport, just in case they wanted proof of who I was.

The money was ready and I was taken into an inner room to count it (Rather a good precaution, I thought).

A quick dash to the car, clutching the bulging envelope, then up to the flat to hand it over.

In My Day

In 1972, Paul & I could at last take a belated honeymoon. I was very pregnant with Lizzie and had been working at my new job for about 3 months. We were always utterly broke. The arrangements in the Civil Service at that time were that you could draw your salary fortnightly for the first 3 months, then move to monthly pay. The salaries were paid either by cheque or in cash. I had just moved onto the monthly pay arrangement but realised that I would be away on payday. We absolutely couldn't afford to wait until we got back - if we did there'd be no holiday - so I arranged to have a payable order that I could cash at the post office in Brendon.

I trotted into the post office. It took the form of a rickety lean-to against an ancient cottage. I walked in confidently, shoving out of the way some sheep who appeared to have wandered in to collect their pensions. An equally ancient old crone appeared and I handed her the cheque.

She broke into grin quite worthy of the witch in Disney's Snow White and cackled "Oi think you be in for a baad marning!". She started rummaging around in drawers, biscuit tins, teapots etc for enough money to cash the cheque.

At that moment I was saved! A Post Office van arrived with the cash for the day. I had my money, but I expect that all the pensioners in Brendon had a bad morning instead.

Anyway, that's the last time I'm walking around Brighton with several £1000s in my pocket!

Today

I've just got back from a jolly weekend in Edinburgh to celebrate both Becky & Beatrice's birthdays and to sample the festival.

We saw all sorts of Fringe dance, acrobatic and musical events.

After we returned from the "Walk of the Dead" around the City graveyard and covenanters' prison, we didn't feel like sleeping, so we played our own version of room 101, only limited to pop stars. I was upset to find that I couldn't persuade the others to dump Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan, but they did agree that Roy Orbison had to go. This then moved on to the worst pop songs. Was anything worse than "My Boy Lollipop"? Unless it was "I Like 'lectric Motors". Finally, we turned the game on its head with "pedestals". And everyone agreed with my choices - Queen, Annie Lennox (well, we were in Scotland) and Joan Armatrading.

This kept us going till after 2.00 am; we laughed a lot and learnt a good deal about each other's passions.

In My Day

We played a lot of games as children (no telly, you see), and not only board games like monopoly. We had our own precursor of Just a Minute, in which you had to talk for 2 minutes on a subject not of your choosing and with some words which you weren't allowed to introduce (these you didn't know in advance). (Such as "car" if you had to talk about driving etc.)

We played definitions, where a given word was written down one side of the page and up the other. You then had to fill in each gap with a word and give only the definition to the group. This worked well if there were a lot of possibilities; but we heard of a game where the only possibility seemed to be "emu". One player did try postulating a bird with (presumably) bird flu that called itself an "ebu"......

We had a whole book of limericks written by the family. This worked a bit like consequences, in that all but the line immediately above were concealed (you had to know what word you had to rhyme with).

"Won't you come up and look at my etchings
And my collection of beautiful sketchings
And if you should tire
There's a couch by the fire
That you can use for your stretchings"

Is an approximate memory of one.

Paul and I continued this with our family with Paul's version of "Call My Bluff" and our hilarious version of Noel Coward's "Adverbs". I remember one word "joyfully" - Paul was asked to remove our cat. Amelia from the arm of the chair in this fashion, which he did, vigorously and with a whoop of joy. I don't think she ever forgave him. And we puzzled Izzie for a long time with "deafly" as we ignored all her questions till she thought to write them down.....

Anyway I was very tired the next day what with all this frivolity,

Today

What a spendid week! I've just returned from a "5 day slimaway" break at my favourite health hydro the lorrens in Babbacombe.

I've been going with the girls for some years now. It's a family run place for ladies only and the package manages to fit in 35 treatments of different types to help kick start your slimming programme.

I've been exercised, pummelled, massaged, electrified, vacuumed and fed extremely carefully calorie-counted meals. I've sauna-ed, jacuzzi-ed, steamed, baked, scrubbed, showered, exfoliated. I even did some running and walking.

By so doing I managed to lose 6 1/2 lbs and 15 1/2 inches.

Result!

In My Day

I was a fattish child from the start, weighing in at 10lbs. I didn't much like exercise, and never made the connection between eating and weight gain. I was permitted to eat crisp sandwiches, even sugar sandwiches (white bread, butter, white caster sugar). There were no particular restrictions on the consumption of biscuits or bread.

I don't know that I was a very greedy child, but no-one then seemed to talk about diet. I ate my school dinner every day, including pudding (blancmange & jelly or chocolate sponge with chocolate custard featured) as well as a full cooked evening meal.

If you were fat, people veered between sympathy and sarcasm, but no-body suggested that you would be better off without sugar sandwiches or second helpings.

It wasn't till I was about 17 that I began to think about these things. I was put on a diet by my doctor (it would make amusing reading today) but thought I would help things along by lunching on liquorice sticks and drinking a lot of black coffee. It seemed a rather arty sort of thing to do!

I did lose some weight, but have spent the rest of my life trying to be very careful. Sometimes things go awry, such as when I somehow hit 14 1/2 stone in 2001.

The trouble is I have this fantasy, that if I'm very careful for a whole day, I will wake up the next morning with all the weight dropped off.

Now, where's that glass of wine?

Today

I've just got back from taking my cat Abby to the vet for her flea treatment. In order to get her there I have to plan a little campaign, Firstly she has to be lured indoors the night before. Then, while she eats her supper, I block up the catflap and put out cat litter. She is then confined to the utility room for the night.

Excursions to the kitchen during the night or next morning have to be carefully managed or she'll dart out and scarper, not to be seen for 2 days.

This isn't always successful and we have more than once had to cancel appointments with the vet or cattery because she's simply hidden herself somewhere.

Putting out the cat litter is more of a precaution than anything else, since she hates using a tray and by the time morning comes is holding it all in! No wonder she looks cross. Then I have to pop her in the basket and I'm all set. She's been having the flea treatment all her life so has no idea what it feels like to be eaten alive by fleas. Otherwise she'd be more grateful.

In My Day

I had my first proper cat when I was at art school. I think my flatmate actually thought of the idea but then couldn't cope with the house training and had made no provision for weekends and holidays. So Ariadne became mine by default.

She was a little stubby tabby with bight eyes and placid temperament. Because of my flatmate's attitude, when I went home for the weekend, Ariadne came with me. This involved a journey by train and bus. She became very relaxed about journeys in the cat basket. At holiday times, I had to manage suitcase, sewing machine, sewing box (I was a costume design student) and Ariadne at Worthing stations, sometimes changing at Brighton, and getting the bus at East Croydon.

On one occasion my half-brother invited me to spend a week with him and his family in a chalet at Blue Anchor Bay in Somerset. I enquired of British Rail about tickets for a cat. Learning that I would have to pay half fare if she travelled in the compartment and unwilling simply to leave her in the luggage van, I bought a ticket for me and hoped for the best.

I got on the train at Paddington. In 1970, the train took 4 hours to get to Taunton, then you changed to the local line (later closed and then reopened as the preserved West Somerset railway). I climbed into my compartment - there was only one spare seat. I took Ariadne out of her basket (which I then put in the luggage rack) and sat her on my lap. The ticket man came round "Got a ticket for that cat?" he said. I looked suitably blank and he probably decided he hadn't got time for the paperwork, because he said no more.

At one time I had visit the loo. I put Ariadne down on my seat and went off. When I got back she was still there, calmly keeping my seat warm. And not a single person in the compartment said a word. The journey home was a repeat.

Anyway, Ariadne had a lovely time at Blue Anchor Bay, hunting under the chalet (which was a stilts on the beach).

I'd like to teach Abby to travel to Brighton with us.

Today

Yesterday it rained for much of the day and evening. Which justified Murphy's Law ("if anything can go wrong it will") because we'd been invited to two barbecues. The first was with our wine circle friends and was in the afternoon. The second was the regular neighbours' gathering in the Close in the evening.

We trotted off to the first one, clutching wine. Somehow the rain held off and we chatted, drank wine and feasted moderately - Paul on barbecued chicken and burgers, me on some very nice stuffed peppers. We made regretful early farewells and went home for the next one. The rain was now looking rather settled and it soon became clear, by some sort of telepathy between neighbours, that the Close BBQ wasn't going to happen.

We also went to a BBQ at Becky's following her non-sky-diving event, two weeks ago. It was very hot and there was a lot of Veggie food on the grill. The next day we went back to Becky's for lunch. We found an unused throwaway BBQ so had grilled sweetcorn and veggie kebabs.

Many pubs round here also have regular BBQ nights throughout the summer so there's never a shortage of charred meat to eat.

In My Day

I don't know who invented the word barbecue, but I'd never heard of it when I was a child. Eating outdoors in the Summer was pretty well always a cold picnic or salads brought out from the kitchen. Mamma would prepare lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers on a plate. Sometimes there was watercress, spring onions or radishes. There was always Heinz salad cream. The lettuces, for many years, would have just been the round variety. They took a deal of cleaning and you could never be confident that there would be no slugs. There might be potato salad and Mamma would add cold meat - corned beef or ham.

If we going on one of our walks, we might take a picnic. This would usually mean sandwiches and some fruit. As I rarely remember ever having good weather on these walks, picnics were often taken sheltering under a dripping tree, fending off spiders and earwigs.

Cooking hot food outdoors in the Summer usually was reserved for Boy Scouts (my brother was one) and meant sausages and beans cooked over a campfire. Very dubious fare, and certainly a boy-thing.

On Guy Fawkes night we always had a huge bonfire (that was one advantage our great big Victorian garden). After the fireworks were over, baking potatoes and roasting chestnuts would be suggested (probably by Chris, who presumably felt the need to demonstrate his scouting expertise). The potatoes would be shoved in the embers (there was always knowledgeable talk of wrapping them in mud which somehow was meant to confer special properties, but we never put this into practice) and chestnuts put onto a shovel. These culinary efforts usually resulted in half-cooked potatoes and fragments of chestnut, all of them tasting very strongly of ash & smoke. Though it tasted vile, it made you feel as though you'd gone back to some primordial roots.

Perhaps that's why it's usually the men that love to do the barbecuing,

Today

Paul has devoted much of this Summer to getting a nice tan on his chest and arms. Given that it's been one of the hottest Summers for years and that he's had the time to sit, bare-chested, in the garden, one could assume that he's well on his way to target.

However, he's not satisfied. He still feels too pale. He's planning a jaunt to Sicily in September with a friend and is worried about having the "white Brit" look. So he's bought a fake tan spray to top up. I explained to him about exfoliation and lent him my exfoliating mitt. It's something that you spray on daily so that the colour builds up.

Can't see the need myself - he's already a lot darker that me, but chacun etc....

It's probably all part and parcel of his growing his hair long and buying a sharp little sports car. So long as he doesn't add a leggy blonde....

In My Day

When I was a teenager, getting tanned involved slapping on oil so that you basically fried. (I believe my sister tried that a few times.) I, however, discovered early on that I came out in a rash after about 1/4 hour in the sun.

As SPF was future technology I found the Summers often very troubling. On holiday with David, walking in Exmoor one hot Summer, my hands and arms itched so badly with the rash that I had to wear long sleeves and I walked with the maps rolled up around my poor hands. I slapped on Calomine - again anti-histamine technology was not available - so that I also looked ridiculous with pinkish -white splodged all over me. People probably thought I had leprosy.

When I went on my European hitchhiking adventure I approached my doctor, who said that I had an allergy to UV light and he gave me some cream to apply. It certainly seemed to help.

I've since discovered that the condition is called "polymorphous light eruption" which makes it sound very grand. Having the condition has made me review the whole question of tanning, which, after all, isn't very good for your skin.

I like to think that, when the rest of my generation has wrinkled, leathery skin, I'll have smooth, soft skin like our Victorian forebears, who knew a thing or two.

Thank the medical profession for SFP60, I say!

Today

Last weekend was a weekend of feasting and frolicking. What with Becky jumping out of an aeroplane, Lizzie graduating and us celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary, much champagne was drunk.

A good deal of it was drunk at the Fete Champetre at Stourhead. This is a regular party with music, fireworks and a range of events around this beautiful Capability Brown garden. We go every time, if we can. The theme was "A Night with the Stars". As always, the Barretts dressed up. Liz & Becky took the whole b-list celebrity look very seriously with too much blonde hair, too much tan, overlarge handbags and oversmall dogs. Paul took it seriously with a jacket covered with shooting stars and the legend "Star Struck" on the back. And I put a posh frock on a teetered around the grass in high heels.

We had a picnic and, as always, the most beautiful weather. We sauntered around the gardens and I was invited to join in with a small choir singing "Dream a little dream of me" of Mama's & Papa's fame.

In My Day

There were always opportunities to dress up at home. On the landing there was a huge chest of
drawers which contained, among other things, dressing up clothes and curtains (which were always useful as cloaks etc). There is a picture in the family album of my brother Chris wearing a satin curtain as a skirt.

We were all dressed up as chessmen for the chess club's carnival float and it took me no effort at all to dress up as a fairy queen at any time.

The album shows Mamma dressed up variously, as a medieval lady in wimple, Victorian mother for the Croydon Millennium and Daddy dressed up as a schoolboy for no reason, it seems, other than a laugh.

For Christmas, when I was the Angel Gabriel in the school play, I had a plain white shift, but the most magnificent pair of cardboard and crepe paper wings which I had to carry on the bus. Beatrice was dressed up as a Christmas tree, also in cardboard and crepe paper and she, too, had to travel on the bus, in full paraphernalia. She was unable to sit down....

Perhaps the crowning achievement was when we put on a performance of the Mikado using only the forces the family could muster, that is, 6 of us. We mimed to the music. Problem, though - there are 3 little maids from school and we were only 2. No problem! Mamma put Beatrice in a double-sided costume and painted a Japanese face on a paper plate and affixed it to the back on her head. When the, moment came, she had to do a twirl and show the audience the back of her head!

Does this explain why I took a course in costume design - so that I could do in properly?

Today

Went to London for the weekend and forgot to take my diary. My diary is my constant companion. I always use plain A4 hardback lined notebooks so that I am not constrained by only having so much space for an entry (my brother's diary, apparently, gives him 12 lines per day..). So I can pour out writing for pages, scribble down something in 2 lines or catch up when I've forgotten to take it with me somewhere

I started this sequence in 1990, originally deciding that I would eschew the very personal "dear diary" stuff.

With the first half of this year being so peculiar, I started making some more personal commentary on my feelings - otherwise I would have burst.

However, when I read other's diaries, it's often the little day-to-day details that resonate, so I don't forget those.

In My Day

I started keeping a diary when I was about 15. As now, they were plain hardback books which I then decorated with pictures from magazines. In 1963, that meant the Beatles, the Rolling Stones etc.

I also peppered my entries with drawings, some of which were none too realistic. I recorded my school life and my vibrant family life. I had, as always, a close, if quirky relationship with my brother David and he obviously influenced me a great deal.

The diary records David's plan to let each other know when were out and that we'd left the key in an agreed place by leaving a note (where? I presume on the front door) saying "ching bop". I am not, and have never been clever enough to work out if there significance in this, outside of our agreed meaning, or whether it was just complete rubbish.

One can track, over the 3 diaries that represent me from 1963-1966, how I became more self-conscious, more serious, if you like, less innocently exuberant.

Lizzie owns that diary now and treasures it as a picture of me at 16 and because it makes her laugh so much.

Today

Recently returned from a very enjoyable visit to Sussex where we excitedly reviewed progress on the flat in Brighton. The bedrooms and hall are papered, the tiles are down in the kitchen and we've ordered the curtains and carpets.

Paul & I went to Lewes where there's an amazing 4-storey antiques emporium, and bought useful things like a wonderful sideboard, a truly useful 12 seater table and chairs and some delightfully mad furniture for the bedrooms.

So looking forward to actually being able to stay there.

I was talking to my brother about it and he said "it's a bit like a dolls' house - it's all going to be furnished in advance. With your home you furnish it as you go along."

In My Day

When Lizzie was four years' old we thought that she would like a dolls' house. We were rather broke at the time so decided to make it. As she was only four it had to be fairly robust. So Paul design a square 2-up 2-down with stairs, made out of batten-reinforced hardboard. He hinged the entire front to provide easy access.

Then he papered the house with a sort of white stone effect wallpaper, put in a little cottagy front door and wrote "rose cottage" over the door. The windows were made out of clear plastic.

Next he set to and made some furniture out of clothes pegs.

Meanwhile, I painted the roses around the door and made carpets and curtains out of scraps. I cut some potatoes and made potato print wallpaper, different for each room.

The process was not without some pain - at one time Paul, a little too enthusiastic with the Stanley blade, cut off the top of his thumb. He gathered up the bit (all covered with sawdust) and dashed to the hospital. They didn't want the bit and he had a slightly flattened thumb for a long time although it's grown back now.

When it was finished it stood about three foot high and four foot wide. Took up a lot of space in the bedroom.

Lizzie loved the dolls' house and it was used by her and all her friends until it fell apart about 10 years later.

I do rather love my full-sized dolls' house, though!

Today

Taking advantage of my retired status to spend some time lolling in the garden in the sun. We bought some new comfy loungers, 2 bottles of Pimm's, lemonade (diet, of course) and all the necessary accoutrements. We'd already had a pub lunch (shocking life I lead) and I'd had some wine. Paul had had some beer.

Got home, made a huge jug of Pimm's with lemonade, strawberries, cucumber, mint. Put up the comfy loungers and sunshades, slapped on the factor 60, got out my not-too demanding book and lounged. So did Paul. After a while, dozed off. Woke to find Paul topping up the jug.

Drank some more. So did Paul. Later Paul had some wine. Later still, some Archer's. While enjoying the dying embers of the chimenea, he had some port.

Middle of the night he wasn't too good at all. Paracetamol and a couple of hasty visits to the bathroom and he went off to sleep again. A bit delicate in the morning.

In My Day

I remember a visit once, back in 1975, to my friend Sue . She'd got a new boyfriend who had a couple of children aged about 9 or 10 and they lived in one of those little 2-up, 2-down houses behind Kemptown in Brighton.

Had a lovely meal and good chat. Boyfriend suggested that he and Paul go for a drink at the local corner pub. Sue and I stayed behind to keep an eye on kids and to chat.

Paul always insisted that it was the pickled eggs that did it - not the several pints of Newcastle Brown followed by a goodly number of shots of Old Crow Bourbon. And who am I to argue?

What I do know is that he had a rather disturbed night.

The following morning we had to return to Eastbourne. I was not a driver in those days so nothing for it - Paul had to drive. I'm absolutely sure that his alcohol levels were still well beyond legal.

As we drove through Lewes (no bypass in those days) Paul felt the urgent call that most of us experience with a shocking hangover. We were in a line of slow-moving cars; couldn't stop. I think a vest of Paul's, dragged from our overnight bag, did the duty. He clutched it with one hand over his mouth, clutched the steering wheel with the other. And we don't think that the policemen noticed.

I suppose life would be a lot more dull if we always learnt from our mistakes.

Today

Just returned from a week in Ireland on the Sheeps Head peninsula. We've been there many times now and feel really at home. We flew Ryanair to Shannon for the princely sum of £4.99 + taxes each, were in Ireland in 50 minutes. A 3 hour drive over the Killarney mountains and we were there. The roads were mostly good or being improved with 80% grants from the EU. After a rainy start, which made us wonder if we'd done the right thing, we had a beautiful time and allowed the place to exert its healing influence on us.

We generally stay in the same cottage; when we first went there, in 1997, there only about 1/2 a dozen cottages in the village. Now there must be 50 or 60, with more going up. Ireland has not been slow to recognise its potential as a holiday venue. Plus, as the population expands, homes are needed. Let's hope they don't kill the goose.

So far, the building has not spoiled the beauty or essential wildness of the place. And, after a trying year for all of us, we needed to experience the benefits of its physical and spiritual qualities.

In My Day

We first went to Ireland in 1990. We took the girls and Paul's Mother who had convinced herself that her family came from Tipperary and that all she had to do was walk into Tipperary and people would instantly recognise her and take her to the home of her fathers.

We decided to stay in Banagher, which is in county Offaly on the Shannon. Getting there was more of a palaver than it is now, via drive to Fishguard, ferry to Rosslare and long drive along shocking roads through worsening rain. Eventually we arrived in Banagher. It had taken us all day and it was now 10 at night. We went to the address of the cottage - all was dark and we had no idea how to find our landlady. No mobile phones. With some nervousness we knocked on the neighbours' front door - after all it was now 10.30. "Ah!" they said "you want Mrs...... at ....... address just down the road. No, no problem; we were just popping out for a Guiness."

We found our landlady who let us in. "Would you be going to bed right now?" she asked. "Well, we've a few things to unpack yes and we need to unwind." "Only I've just baked you a fresh pan of soda bread and I'll be right back." So our real introduction to Ireland was to be greeted with hot soda bread which we ate at 11.00 pm with Kerrygold butter and strawberry jam.

Like many people new to Ireland we tried to take in too much that week, with drives to Connemara etc, and learnt that getting a meal outside the towns was nearly impossible. We discovered Haughey's Bar in Banagher, which was by far the dirtiest, liveliest, most crowded bar I've ever visited. There was a regular Irish folk duo - a woman with 3 teeth, the blackest hair and largest bottom who could play five chords on the piano and sing "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" in a basso profundo that shook your boots like the notes from an ocean liner and a female demon fiddler who was aged about 80. We loved it and laughed almost continually.

Ireland was still pretty poor in those days - 15 years of EU grants and the rise of IT have utterly changed it in many ways - but we had a wonderful time and didn't mind the rain.

Mum never found her relatives who, I suspect, were largely figments of her mother's imagination, but this didn't shake her faith.

I hope that the Irish stay the Irish, regardless of the new-found wealth that is coming their way, because the place and people have something irreplaceable.

Today

Took a quick spin to Brighton yesterday to view progress on the flat. The sun was shining and the temperature was in 20s.

Hopped into the Lexus - off with its top. The way in which it folds into the boot is impressive and it's fun just to press the buttons.

Slapped on some factor 60 (some for Paul, too, on his head and forehead) and set off. There was much less windiness that I'd expected, even at 70 mph, and my hair survived the experience rather well.

An unexpected pleasure were the smells - newmown hay, philadelphus blossom and so on. Going through tunnels was a very noisy experience. And we were tempted to play thumpy music - which we did, although belonging to our generation - Deep Purple.

In My Day

When I lived at the Wilmington crossing gate house, my landlords, Eileen & Andy, had an Austin Healy in which they used to whizz around. Like the Lexus, strictly 2-seater. I had no transport and either had to walk to Eastbourne (quite a trek that) or get the bus. As Eileen and I were at the same college it made sense for me to be given a lift in the Austin. Trouble was, Eileen didn't drive and anyway, Andy had to get to work too.

No real problems if the hood was down - I just use to sit up on the back parcel shelf. In this position there was nothing to hold on to. I was much higher than driver or passenger, so had the full force of the wind in may face and hair. My hair used to get impossibly tangled.

Add to this the fact that Andy drove like the 24 year old he was and that the car wasn't exactly the newest car on the road and you have to wonder how I'm here to tell the tale.

It also makes you realise that you took risks during your youth that would have made your parents hair stand on end, so there's no point in railing at the things your children do. Just have to keep fingers crossed.

Today

Wandering along North Street in Brighton today, I noticed a Bravissimo store. Those of us women who are well-endowed in the chest department know how difficult it is to get a good and pretty bra. And Bravissimo bras start at a D cup.

The standard measurement mechanisms don't seem to work well at the non-average ends of the scale - M&S came up with a 40 B which anyone with 1/2 an eye can see isn't right. I've assumed D cup and have gone for 38D which seemed OK, although variable.

So, thinking that Bravissimo must know their stuff, I went in and asked to be measured. They didn't use a tape; just looked at me in my bra and decided that I must be either 34E or 34F. Tried on a couple and it seems that they are right.

In My Day

I had the embarrassing misfortune to have a 36 inch bust by the time I was 11. My mother thought that it was bad for the bust to have a bra too early (I don't think she was right there), but eventually took pity on my embarrassment at school and elsewhere and took me off to Dorothy Perkins to buy some bras. Sure enough, a 36 C cup was recommended and several tried on and bought.

One bra remained on - "Can she keep it on - it's her 1st bra", said my mother. "36C and never worn a bra?" giggled the teenage shop assistant. Which added to my shame. She needed slapping, but perhaps Mamma was wise to ignore the remark and sailed out of the shop.

Bra technology was inferior in those days, and straps regularly broke and hooks got detached. So I suffered in a different way from actually wearing a bra. I envied the other, smaller girls who could buy pretty little flowery bras. It took me until I was well into my 20s to learn to be proud of what nature had decreed.

What I can't understand is why some women choose the trauma of plastic surgery to give themselves J cups, when I would have been delighted to have remained a C cup.

Today

Pouring with rain today, so what better thing to do than sort out your paperwork? I sorted mine out after Paul's stuff was transported to Sussex, but after his return, we got sort of drowned in paper.

It appears that we have enough paperclips, rubber bands, fountain pen cartridges, drawing pins, pens, and punched plastic wallets to last us until we die. Punched plastic wallets are like wire coat hangers: they breed and take over the world when your back's turned.

I've a policy which is never leave a hotel, function etc without pocketing the free pen or pencil, so we also have pots, drawers and packets of these things, of variable quality.

Then there are the bank statements going back 10 years, out of date insurance policies and all those cheap loan, 0% credit transfer and accidental death insurance offers that you don't throw out the minute you get them.

We've at least 6 briefcases, some girlie, like my powder blue one, some smart, like Paul's silver one and some frankly frightful. I've found 4 clipboards and 7 document holders, zipped and unzipped. In fact we could equip an entire conference with assorted freebies.

And as for phone battery chargers - even though Paul can't bear to throw out his old phones, we still don't need 7 Nokia chargers as they're all the same.

In My Day

My father had a desk in the corner of our living room. The room was large, so it didn't exactly crowd us. He had boxes of pencils, from which we borrowed freely. For some reason I often couldn't find a pencil sharpener and many times used the kitchen bread knife for the purpose. Later Daddy bought one of those fancy desk-mounted ones.

We didn't have pen cartridges in those days; instead there were bottles of ink: Watermans and Quink. Daddy had a tall cylindrical tin full of paper clips. One of my pleasures during idle moments was to string them together in long chains. How Daddy must have been pleased when he wanted one in a hurry!

For paper we used drafts of parliamentary questions. On the back was plain paper for drawing or playing consequences, or keeping scores. On the front were fragments like this: "In view of the recent upsurge in... would the right honourable member for East Cheam like to assure the house that....." etc etc.

There was no such thing as punched plastic wallets and Daddy kept essential documents in manilla envelopes, secured with rubber bands and labelled on the outside.

Daddy just couldn't resist buying stationery and could go mad in WH Smiths.

Like father, like daughter actually - shopping in Staples brings out the worst in me. How is it then, that you can never find a drawing pin when you want one?

Today

At last it's warm enough to sit outside without woollies. Yesterday, being now retired, I took full advantage. I slapped on some factor 60, poured myself a glass of water and another of Madeira, took out my Harry Potter book and soaked up the sun.

Our garden is entirely patio, so there's no stretching on grass. Until we've replaced the mouse-nibbled loungers, there's really no stretching at all. However, we have our lovely cast iron furniture - and sunshades, of course.

Paul and I frequently take lunch outside; when the weather really warms up breakfast also. We like to sit out in the warm evenings with wine, candles and the chimenea (although that was irreparably cracked over the winter).

In My Day

When I was a child, garden furniture always involved striped canvas and wood. There were deckchairs whose construction required greater problem-solving skills than I had and which, even when erected properly, could collapse suddenly. Sometimes the canvas tore or the wood broke - I treated these contraptions with respect and fear and preferred to sit on the grass on a blanket.

We didn't have sunshades, although Daddy had a personal deckchair that had its own parasol attached. For the rest of us when Mamma or Daddy decided that tea would be taken outside, we had the "shelter". This was a canvas and wooden structure, which, when erected, looked like a stripey lean-to. It was orangey in shade and had a small fringed overhang at the front to keep off the sun and was tall enough for an adult to stand up in.

One could have made a good Laurel & Hardy type film of the struggles and arguments we had when trying to put it up. Once you'd got it up, you always hoped that no-one had been watching.....

Doing the job properly meant some tent pegs to hold it in place. We were often too lazy and many times had to scramble madly to catch it as the wind threatened to send it sailing off above the trees.

You could put the tea table in it to stop the butter melting too quickly or the milk curdling, or you could just sit in it, protected from the sun. It was such a job, getting it out and erected that the tea always tasted a little better, as though you'd really earned it. And the garden was a long way from the kitchen.

So we have it easy, Paul and I, with the garden table 4 paces away from the wine bottle and corkscrew.

Today

The shed arrived yesterday. The van driver dumped the pieces in the driveway. It was pouring with rain. "Manana" we said and left it there. It poured all day and the thought of the whole task became larger and larger. First, the pieces have to be dragged through the house into the back garden. Next, we need to check that they're all there. Then we have to attempt to assemble it, following the, no doubt lucid, instructions provided by Focus DIY. And we have to do this without getting our hands full of splinters, putting our backs out or having a major row.

The benefits are plain to see - our garden will be better organised, the lawnmower can come in out of the rain. And anyway we've paid for it.

This morning, after my run, I still had some energy, so, solo, I heaved the shed pieces through into the back garden. Noticed that one panel was a little damaged - can we repair it? Don't think I'll mention it Paul - it'll be amusing to see his face when he goes out the front and sees it gone!

Another instance of me seizing the carpe diem.

In My Day

When we bought the house in Montfort Close the owners were proud to tell us that there was a greenhouse, complete with vine. Well, when we took a look, we saw that the vine was pretty complete but that it had destroyed the greenhouse in the process.

So, at the end of the summer we bought a new one. Like the shed (above) it was delivered in anonymous flat pack form. So we stuck it in the back garden and tried to pretend that we'd never bought it.

One weekend, early the next spring which we were spending with our best mates, we all sized the proverbial on the Sunday morning. Cold, wet and windy though it was, the 4 of us unwrapped, read instructions, laid a brick base, lost and found screws, bolts etc and got up the greenhouse without so much as cracking a single pane.

I grew tomatoes and courgettes in the greenhouse, having hacked away the vine, as an unproductive things that wouldn't even give us a single bottle of Merlot .

And our best mates are still our best mates.

Today

Have to face it, the shed is knackered. The floor has disintegrated after x years of being subjected to Somerset winters. I heaved out the cushions for the garden furniture - showers of foam cascaded onto the patio. Cushion covers full of little nibbled holes. The cushions had obviously provided very comfortable winter quarters for probably several generations of mice.

Some of the cushions appeared undamaged but Paul wasn't taking any risks - "mice have very weak bladders, they've probably pee-ed on all of them." So out they all went. I have to say, we never saw any sign of mice while Arietty was alive - Abby's altogether less of a threat, it seems.

In My Day

Our house was overrun with mice. Droppings on the kitchen worktop, scurryings in the basement; once I saw one in my bedroom. Daddy tried everything: ordinary mousetraps they laughed at. There were a couple of cats in the house but the house was so big that no cats could keep them under control. He tried poison - the mice seemed to like it for breakfast. He even tried the horrible sticky boards - placed outside the holes, they certainly caught the mice who then either died a long and painful death trying to get off the stickiness, or my father had to bludgeon them to death in the morning. This was not a job he relished, and anyway, they made new holes and mice breed at a horrifying rate, so that there were always plenty more in the walls.

Eventually we became resigned to living with these creatures.

During the 50's we became intrigued with the building of 2 television transmitter masts; one for the BBC at Crystal Palace, one for ITV, just up the road by All Saints' church. I don't think we acted like the "no mobile transmitter in my backyard" brigade; it was rather exciting. Even more exciting was to hear that they had both been switched on. We didn't have TV, so why the excitement? Because from that day, we never saw a single mouse again.

Which just proves that radio waves do addle your brain - at least mice brains.

Today

I've really actually done it. Retired, that is. I left work in a flurry of flowers and champagne at the end of March. Given the state of flux of the rest of my life and that I've had two weeks' holiday since then, it's only now that I'm thinking about what it really means.

I had to fill in some form last week "occupation?" "retired". Well, that could mean any damn thing. You are defined in life by a number of things. For me, my marriage, my home and my occupation were the key planks on which I rested. One of those has completely gone away. The other two are still rather inclined to wobble if I rest my whole weight on them and threaten to tip me into the void.

So, I have to wonder whether I need to find new defining things and whether it really matters. Of course, there are plenty of things that I can do, but I don't just want to fill the time. When you are working you are achieving precise objectives as well as putting food on the table, so to speak. You also can say, when people ask you what you do, "I'm a......." and put a marker down as to where you belong. As a retired person, I could be any age from 55-105, I could be rich or poor, important or insignificant.

Of course, my lovely friends and family say "Oh, but you'll still be lovely, special you, whatever happens!" Thanks. But your occupation also shapes how you express your nature and I have no idea what'll happen now.

And it does make you sympathetic to women, whose whole lives are defined by being mothers, who become so depressed when the children leave home.

In my day

Paul retired, on health grounds, at the age of 48. He'd had recurring back problems as a result of 20 years of ambulance work and could take no more. To begin with, all was delight. He enjoyed cooking my meals when I came home, became obsessive about vacuum cleaning and doing his hobbies. He could also rest his back.

But when the back pain became less obtrusive and the reality of the smallness of his pension hit home he began to be restless. He explained that having hobbies as a way of unwinding from work was one thing, but to expect the model railway to fill one's horizons was another. And he got fed up waiting for me all day.

He found some ways to contribute: Youth offender panels and school governorships enabled him to find a position in society that had been taken away with his retirement. So it's really about being able to contribute something, whether it's creative or supportive.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to my posh retirement dinner tonight!

Today

Actually a little after the event, but a treatise on recipes and cooking. Last week it was Shrove Tuesday. I decided not to go to choir but to make some pancakes. Easy - one ounce of flour per pancake, one egg and enough milk.

Mixed away merrily, made four lovely thin pancakes, which I filled with a scrummy garlic mushroom and creme fraiche filling, topped with melted cheese and dinner was done.

Becky phones - "can I just confirm the recipe for pancakes - I've got Charl, Shona and Cat coming round soon". "Yes - 8 oz flour, 1 egg and a pint of milk will give you 8-10 pancakes".

The next day we have the post-mortem - "I realised that we didn't put in enough eggs", says Becky. "You won't need more than 1", says I, "how did it go?" "Well, we had a lot of failures, but eventually did get our pancakes....."

In My Day

My sister was married at the tender age of 18, to a man 7 years' her senior who expected to see his dinner, hot, ready as he walked in the door. A domestic goddess she was not.

Decided to make a chicken casserole one day. Gave me a call - "how do I start?" "well, I suggest you chop and brown some onions". "OK". A bit later "what do you mean, "Brown"?" I explained. She phoned every few minutes to ask what to do with the chicken, the stock, the vegetables, the oven temperature, the cooking time. I've no idea whether Dave ever got his first home-cooked meal on time. Perhaps it was a symbol of their marriage, that she accidentally threw an entire (piping hot) spaghetti bolognese into his lap on a later occasion.

I have a staple recipe called cottage cheese loaf which I make again and again. My sister gave me the recipe. A year or so ago she called. "Can you give me the recipe for cottage cheese loaf?"
"Well, you gave it to me", says I "but here it is."

I think that Mamma and my school between them gave me what I would describe as a repertoire for cooking. The rest comes with actually reading the recipe and having an ability to imagine flavours so that you can combine them well.

Anyway, my sister still doesn't do domestic goddess, but has found herself a husband who cooks and cleans.

Today

In (to paraphrase "The Weakest Link") a reversal of fortune, we went to Sussex to bring all Paul's stuff back.

Paul hired a transit van and we set off for Sussex. It was empty, of course, and reverberated a bit in anticipation of having a full load.

Unable to sleep, we'd set of at a ridiculously early hour. Utterly ridiculous, because we still hit 8.30 rush hour traffic at Worthing and 9.00 rush hour traffic at Brighton. Still, we stopped off at Flat 2 and admired the work that had been done on the ceiling.

Then off to collect the stuff. It had been fairly neatly arranged and, after all, Paul hadn't unpacked very much, All loaded in 1/2 an hour (all those sessions at the gym do have some effect, you know) and we were on our way back home in 40 minutes.

In My Day

It was so exciting when we moved from the flat in Belmont to our first house in Eastbourne. Even the fact that the mortgage repayment was 3 times the rent (that was in the days of 16% interest rates) couldn't damp our enthusiasm.

We were told that the house would be ready in March and started to get organised. We were so poor that we had hardly anything. The carpet wouldn't fit as the new house was open-plan, nor would the curtains. Paul decided to hire a Bedford van and we asked a friend to help. On the great day, Paul couldn't get away from work till the evening, so I started packing on my own. (Where was Lizzy? Perhaps at the childminders'...)

It's surprising how many boxes you can fill, even when you've very little furniture. I flogged up and down the stairs, taking stuff down in readiness. It didn't help that my period started that day - I had to lie down at one point.

Eventually Paul and friend turned up; were delighted at how much I'd managed to do solo and got the van loaded. We collected Lizzy and drove, in pouring rain, to Eastbourne.

The layout of the property was with the back garden, surrounded by a high wall, facing the road. There was a high wooden gate into the garden. As it was a new house there was no lawn and the garden was a sea of mud. We slipped and staggered into the house (good thing there were no carpets); the pieces of planking we'd laid over the mud being more of a hindrance than a help.

Paul & friend drove back to get another load. I tried to keep Lizzy, aged 2, entertained and to sort a few things out. There were a couple of cards and gifts at the house. Mamma, bless her, had sent a box which had tea and loo roll - the sort of things that tend to buried in a box labelled "Christmas Decorations".

The following day we went back to lift the carpet which we giving to Mum (it turned out to be full of pins as a result of all my sewing and fitted nothing at their flat).

Ever since using removal firms has seemed like a good idea.

My arms ache from lifting.

Today

Having a go at snowing today. The temperature doesn't seem low enough and there's been no long cold spell. However, on my way home tonight, it got worse and worse - visibility shocking and, once I got to Holcombe, some snow was lying. Don't think it will last.

The Met office warned us that, because of the antics of the North Atlantic Oscillator, we would be having a shocking winter. Doesn't seem to be true - a few chilly days and a poor attempt at does not a bad winter make.

In My Day

I remember the great cold winter of 1962/3. The first part was a prolonged period of freezing smog. This was before the clean air act, so London was still full of coal fires churning out sooty smoke which mixed with the fog to produce air which killed babies and old people.

I was doing a paper round at the time. I used to cycle from Upper Norwood to the paper shop in Thornton Heath. Each day I saw the frosty particles grow like stalactites on the garden walls. Sometimes I was too scared to actually ride my bike, it was so icy.

On boxing day 1962 it started to snow and snow and snow. I now really couldn't ride my bike. So I had to get up even earlier and walk, pushing the bike (it was very helpful in actually carrying the papers) down to Thornton Heath at about 5.30 in the morning.

On December 30th (a Sunday) it really began to blizzard. I got to the shop at some godawful time and picked up my bag. Even in 1962 Sunday papers were full of supplements so were always heavy. What was worse was having to scrape away snow from letter boxes and thrust the papers in, section by section. Why did so many people have these doors with letter boxes at ground level? It took ages and some papers got damaged (a fact that some customers actually complained about).

Eventually, two and a half hours later, I staggered back to the shop, frozen. "Don't stay, luv, you're dripping on the mat", says my sympathetic boss. I left and trudged back up the hill, longing for a cup of hot tea and my bed.

No such luck; when I got home I found that the snow had brought a tree down over the road, blocking the traffic (see blog 22/5/2005) and I simply had to help with carting away the logs.

It'll take more than a flurry of poor wet snow to stop me doing what I want.

Today

I've made the decision: it's going to be a Lexus Cabriolet. My company car goes back at the end of March. I want a car that gives me a sense of comfort and security while turning a couple of heads.

I test drove the Lexus a couple of weeks ago. There are really only 2 seats and Becky complained that I wouldn't be able to take her & Lizzy places. Tough - we'll go in her boring grey Toyota instead (once she's got the dents sorted).

It's blue with a cream leather interior. Everyone tells me that I'll get fantastic service from Lexus and that, anyway, it'll never go wrong.

In My Day

A new car was a concept utterly foreign to me until I began to have company cars.

When I met Paul, back in 1971, he had an ancient Sunbeam Rapier. One of those whose air conditioning consisted of rust holes in the floor. That died one night after we'd been out on a date, so he trotted off to a place on a very nasty Eastbourne council estate and bought an Austin Westminster for £25 from a man called Mr Fox (should have been our warning, really).

Paul was undergoing his police training at that time and was mortified to be stopped by the police. Turned out that the car had a forged tax disc and dodgy MOT. Paul stormed over to Foxy's, showed his warrant card and demanded his money back. Which he got and put down as a part payment on the Vauxhall Victor Estate that featured in an earlier blog.

I'm going to place my order in a couple of weeks - just love that new car smell.

Today

This week I announced my retirement from the company where I've worked for the past 19 years and of which I've been MD for 5.

Reactions were mixed - some didn't seem to notice, some congratulated me, some were cross, some in tears.

Given how my life has changed recently, this is just one more to roll with.

I've lots of plans, which include a visit to Machu Picchu in September, among other things. Odd to be doing much of it alone - but I'll sure I'll find lots of friends.

In My Day

My father was terrified of retirement. He used to read the obituaries involving other journalists. "Drank too much, of course, but it was retirement that actually killed him", he'd say. He was convinced that you had about 18 months after retirement.

When his own retirement from Hansard, at 65, approached, he begged, and was given, a stay of execution for 1 year. Once he'd retired, he took jobs travelling Europe reporting at the United Nations, NATO etc (this was before the use of tape recorders, when a crack journalist with top-notch shorhand skills was at a premium). He went to Paris, Strasbourg, Geneva. When that dried up he worked for the Press Association, still in the Houses of Parliament, on a freelance basis. He also did some shorthand teaching at Pitman's College in Holborn.

He didn't give up until he had a stroke that impaired his hearing, at the age of 74. And he lived to be 86.

I've no intention of going before my time. There's plenty to do and I'm going to do it. Flying lessons, anybody?

Today

This has been an odd week which has seen the end of my 35 year-old marriage. Having done the deed, I had to phone to tell friends and family. Without exception they were loving and supportive. I realised that I have many friends - it was easy to tell those who were handing out routine sympathy and those who really wanted me to know that they regarded me with love.

I found out that I haven't been the extra in what they saw as a friendship with Paul - it's true that you can't see yourself as others see you. I shan't test their patience - I feel confident in my decision, but it's so nice to know that they're there.

In My Day

At school I generally felt friendless, On my 1st day I sat next to a child who pinched and kicked me all day long. It became clear that my family were rather unusual, so that the views and ideas I assumed were normal were seen by many as odd. So my certainties were rocked. Plus I had to wear glasses - pink wire framed NHS glasses. I remember sitting on the playground wall, feeling very self-conscious and isolated. I broke or lost those specs as soon as I could.

Looking back, I realise that I did have some friends - there was a boy called Phillip and a girl called Christine. And another nice chap who welshed on his friends who were planning to pull some stunt on me involving bubble gum and mud.

Friendship is a gift, not a right. And I'm not about to throw it away.

This blog is a catch up blog as we've been in Canada for the past 10 days. So I'm going to divide it into 2 sections. I also find that Blogspot on my Nephew's iMac doesn't seem to give me the font options that I get on Windows.

GETTING THERE

Today

We travelled from Heathrow to Toronto via BA. The flight was at 11.00 am so we went up the night before and stayed at the Sheraton. Becky joined us for supper and we had a lovely evening.

I'd already checked in online so we whizzed through rapid baggage drop and soon were ensconced in our traveller plus slightly larger seats (makes a massive difference). They remembered my vegetarian meal as well.

We had stacks of luggage, what with snow boots, Christmas presents and all.

At Toronto there was Mark to meet us and take us the shortish drive to his house in Acton.

In My Day

We first went to Toronto back in 1980. It was out of the question to afford a flight direct. My Sister Carol had offered to pay for the trip but we wanted to be independent if we could.

Therefore we decided to fly Freddie Laker to JFK, where Carol and co would collect us. Freddie Laker offered
the first cut-price air journeys. What you did was scan the papers for ticket availability for the flight you wanted and then frantically go and buy them.

The day came; My brother told me that he'd seen tickets for the day we wanted advertised in "The Telegraph". He lent me the money till I could get mine out of my savings account, we bundled the kids next door and drove up to the booking office at Victoria from Eastbourne. Arrived, breathless, at the counter. Could they see our passports? Passports? Why do we need passports to buy a ticket? Well we did. Straight back into the car to go and get them.

At Uckfield the car broke down (regular readers of this blog will know all about our shocking cars). Finally took a taxi to get the passports and get back to London. Back by train the next day.

Whew!

Then packed up the girls, sandwiches and baggage. Caught the flight.

At JFK there was Carol to meet us in a big camper van. We drove through the night to get to their town house in Toronto.

It's true that being broke gives you more hassle and in an odd way, can cost you more.


CHRISTMAS

Today

This has been the first Christmas we've spent without the girls. We've spent a few away from home before, but always together. We set up the house with tree and presents and left it to the girls. We left out food for cuzzmas (the cousin's Christmas), decided to leave most of the gifts we'd been given at home to open later.

Our Nephew and family couldn't have been more welcoming. My Niece is Jewish so the festivity has had a definite multi religious feel with Chanakah menorah being lit and there being plenty of latkes, herring, and beetroot (for breakfast?),. along with stockings, turkey and crackers. My sister was there, my other niece and all of my Nephew's in-laws.

We worked away at the food - I cheered up all those of English extraction by bringing Christmas Pud and making custard and roast potatoes. There were about 20 guests and we had a loud and jolly time.

Boxing Day was a repeat at Suzee's house, with some of the same relatives and a host more.

In My Day

Daddy never wanted visitors at Christmas. I only remember one on one occasion - my French Penfriend Anne Davis. He felt that Christmas was strictly for the immediate bosom of the family. We had some strict traditions; some of them were based around the fact that David, being a St Paul's chorister, didn't arrive util about 4.00 pm.

Daddy wrote a family hymn, which David set to music. We sang this every year - "take the friendly hand, love and understand, stand together in a ring, lift your voices up and sing, lomg live the ......." I found it embarrassing at one time - now it makes me weep to remember it.

The moring was spent in preparation. The house was tidied, the fires lad, the table decorated. The meal never varied:

Tomato soup
Turkey, stuffing, ham, red cabbage, chestnuts, sprouts, roast potatoes, gravy
Christmas Pudding

We lit candles on the tree and opened gifts after dinner. Sometimes we sang carols as well.

Boxing day was quiet, with us enjoying our gifts and taking a chilly walk somewhere - probably Crystal Palace Park.

What is clear is that both events were full of a sense of family belonging. How wonderful to know that there's a whole family 3000 miles away with their arms held out.