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.