Today
An exchange on Facebook today with David about artichokes. He mentioned that he'd just eaten the first one of the season and it was really tough. I commented that there's so little on an artichoke I'm surprised we bother. David said that soon they'll be delicious.
Agreed, but still not a hearty meal.
In My Day
It's 2003, the year of "Diet Trials", so I'm pretty skinny. Becky had managed to book us into London's Ivy restaurant for her and Beatrice's birthday celebrations. (She later said that she was sure she'd seen Helena Bonham-Carter there, but that's another story.)
We glammed up and went off the the restaurant. Birthday time so we start with champagne. The menu was a mixture of schoolboy basics like steak and kidney pie, fancy modern dishes and meals designed to keep size zero stars happy.
I ordered a nice tomato and onion salad for starters. We also ordered more champagne. For my main course I chose a globe artichoke with a light port wine dip. Artichokes look impressively huge. This one was no exception. I started to peel off the leaves, dip and eat the fleshy bits. Delicious! We ordered some rose Sancerre.
Half an hour went by and I was still pulling off leaves. As I eventually unearthed the "choke" the others ordered another bottle of Sancerre. Because it took so long to eat this object my brain was fooled into thinking that I was having a proper meal, not about 60 calories' worth of main course.
Only later did it catch up with this idea and the fact that I'd had my fair share of celebratory wine. The rest, as they say, is history, except not really part of my history as I forgot everything after that (including the Helena Bonham-Carter moment). But I'm sure I kept everyone amused. And The Ivy must be used to teetering customers trying to get into taxis.
If theses artichokes are from your garden, David, I'd really like to taste one - but I'll team it with some potatoes or something.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Snail Mail
Today
The past was threatening to overwhelm the present, in that I had several large and totally unorganised boxes of cards, letters and other memorabilia going back to 1964 cluttering up the study.
So I've spent the last three days trying to get them all into some sort of order before the lot is popped into the loft.
There are greetings cards, Christmas cards, some with nice little notes, thank yous, invitations, baby arrival notes, pieces of work, certificates and school reports belonging to the girls. And letters.
In My Day
Once upon a time we actually used to write letters. Postcards from holiday, letters of congratulations, commiseration or just to say "hello".
Tricia, it seems, used to write to Paul regularly, on all sorts of topics. Her letters rarely give the full date so the year has to be surmised from content. We have the minutiae of her life; catching the bus, cleaning her flat, caring for her great-grand-daughter. She apologises about being tiresome or grumbling and sends meticulous thanks, remembering that the girls would share a room so that there was somewhere for her to sleep or that I had driven a long journey to collect her.
I have a letter written by Daddy after his stroke, struggling to get down a few shaky lines. "What you didn't see" wrote Mamma "is the sheet on which he practised writing 'Dear Julia'". And when I broke my ankle in 1977, he just had to write, but couldn't get the whole phrase down before his co-ordination gave way. I have a letter from Mamma from the Westminster hospital where her lungs were being drained to give her, literally, breathing space before succumbing to lung-cancer.
I wrote postcards from various locations on my great European hitch-hiking tour, mainly, I think, to reassure the folks that I was still alive. And people have sent me postcards from all over the world, although the who & when are pretty random.
There is much correspondence between me & Beatrice; I wonder if she's kept my letters? If she has, the parts can be put together, jigsaw-style. Once we had computers, I wrote many letters on the word-processor. It's true that such letters lack the personality of handwriting, but on the other hand, it enabled me to keep a copy. So many letters to the girls, enclosing cheques and the letter to Becky enclosing the infamous refried beans recipe!
There are those that think that letter-writing had the effect of undermining social interaction because distance is a pre-requisite. But letters also give you time to reflect and order your thoughts and are a lasting reminder of the care that someone else pays to you.
I very much like the lively exchanges that take place of Facebook and MSN, but they are utterly ephemeral and will never be there in the future to revisit and cause one a smile or tear.
In fact, I think I'm going to get my pen out today.
The past was threatening to overwhelm the present, in that I had several large and totally unorganised boxes of cards, letters and other memorabilia going back to 1964 cluttering up the study.
So I've spent the last three days trying to get them all into some sort of order before the lot is popped into the loft.
There are greetings cards, Christmas cards, some with nice little notes, thank yous, invitations, baby arrival notes, pieces of work, certificates and school reports belonging to the girls. And letters.
In My Day
Once upon a time we actually used to write letters. Postcards from holiday, letters of congratulations, commiseration or just to say "hello".
Tricia, it seems, used to write to Paul regularly, on all sorts of topics. Her letters rarely give the full date so the year has to be surmised from content. We have the minutiae of her life; catching the bus, cleaning her flat, caring for her great-grand-daughter. She apologises about being tiresome or grumbling and sends meticulous thanks, remembering that the girls would share a room so that there was somewhere for her to sleep or that I had driven a long journey to collect her.
I have a letter written by Daddy after his stroke, struggling to get down a few shaky lines. "What you didn't see" wrote Mamma "is the sheet on which he practised writing 'Dear Julia'". And when I broke my ankle in 1977, he just had to write, but couldn't get the whole phrase down before his co-ordination gave way. I have a letter from Mamma from the Westminster hospital where her lungs were being drained to give her, literally, breathing space before succumbing to lung-cancer.
I wrote postcards from various locations on my great European hitch-hiking tour, mainly, I think, to reassure the folks that I was still alive. And people have sent me postcards from all over the world, although the who & when are pretty random.
There is much correspondence between me & Beatrice; I wonder if she's kept my letters? If she has, the parts can be put together, jigsaw-style. Once we had computers, I wrote many letters on the word-processor. It's true that such letters lack the personality of handwriting, but on the other hand, it enabled me to keep a copy. So many letters to the girls, enclosing cheques and the letter to Becky enclosing the infamous refried beans recipe!
There are those that think that letter-writing had the effect of undermining social interaction because distance is a pre-requisite. But letters also give you time to reflect and order your thoughts and are a lasting reminder of the care that someone else pays to you.
I very much like the lively exchanges that take place of Facebook and MSN, but they are utterly ephemeral and will never be there in the future to revisit and cause one a smile or tear.
In fact, I think I'm going to get my pen out today.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Ashes
Today
Yesterday was Paul's 60th birthday and a day for which he'd been saving a special treat for twenty years. A bottle of Eldridge Pope Hardy's Ale. According to the brewery it can be kept of 25 years.
I wasn't there when the moment occurred. "How was the beer?" I asked Paul. "Flat as a pancake and smelling of old men's socks," he replied.
Not good then.
In My Day
Beatrice was married, at the age of 18. Mamma made her a traditional rich fruit cake in two layers, one for the wedding and one for the first christening. She made the hardest sort of royal icing, designed to last for ever and sealed both cakes. I can't remember what the cake eaten at the wedding tasted like. The other cake was carefully wrapped and put away in a box in one of Mamma's cupboards.
The christening never came round and, after about eight bad years of marriage, Beatrice's decree absolute came through.
The best way to celebrate, we decided, was to eat the christening cake as a divorce cake. Mamma took the cake out of its wrappings, covered it with fresh icing and sent it to us .
With great ceremony this cake was lifted out of its box and cut. We each took a bite. It tasted dreadful; all that lovely fruit had turned into a dry substance that tasted like ash. A fitting metaphor for the marriage, maybe, but no cause for celebration.
This story reminds us that deferred pleasure doesn't always live up to expectations and can turn to ash in our mouths.
At least Paul had a more recently purchased bottle of Hardy's to enjoy,
Yesterday was Paul's 60th birthday and a day for which he'd been saving a special treat for twenty years. A bottle of Eldridge Pope Hardy's Ale. According to the brewery it can be kept of 25 years.
I wasn't there when the moment occurred. "How was the beer?" I asked Paul. "Flat as a pancake and smelling of old men's socks," he replied.
Not good then.
In My Day
Beatrice was married, at the age of 18. Mamma made her a traditional rich fruit cake in two layers, one for the wedding and one for the first christening. She made the hardest sort of royal icing, designed to last for ever and sealed both cakes. I can't remember what the cake eaten at the wedding tasted like. The other cake was carefully wrapped and put away in a box in one of Mamma's cupboards.
The christening never came round and, after about eight bad years of marriage, Beatrice's decree absolute came through.
The best way to celebrate, we decided, was to eat the christening cake as a divorce cake. Mamma took the cake out of its wrappings, covered it with fresh icing and sent it to us .
With great ceremony this cake was lifted out of its box and cut. We each took a bite. It tasted dreadful; all that lovely fruit had turned into a dry substance that tasted like ash. A fitting metaphor for the marriage, maybe, but no cause for celebration.
This story reminds us that deferred pleasure doesn't always live up to expectations and can turn to ash in our mouths.
At least Paul had a more recently purchased bottle of Hardy's to enjoy,
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Bed in Summer
Today
After a jolly week in which we celebrated at several parties, including Paul's 60th, I just about ran out of steam yesterday. I settled down last night to watch CSI and realised that I'd reached an end.
So, after a bath, during which I dozed off twice, I was in bed and snuggling down by 9.00. Outside the sun was still shining, the birds were singing and the normal noises of the evening went on.
Despite that, I fell asleep and, with only a couple of wakeful periods, surfaced at about 8.00 this morning.
In My Day
When I was small bedtime was fairly sacrosanct. In Summertime this meant trotting off to bed by about 7.00 when the day still seemed to be in full swing. Older members of the family were still moving about; outside buses and cars roared up and down the road. I don't remember protesting much about this; it seemed simply to be the natural order of things.
My bedroom curtains weren't particularly light-excluding and I found that I could read my books quite well in the half-light. This I would do until the words were faintly visible and started to jump about in front of my eyes as the dusk deepened.
At the other end of the night, I would often be awake at 5.00 as the first sunshine seeped between the gap in the curtains. I sometime used to get up and go into the garden to play at skipping or playing ball, before the rest of the household awoke.
Of course, in winter, the opposite happened. I'd be rudely jerked out of sleep while it was still dark and dressed in layer upon layer of clothing to keep out the cold. The sleep stuck to my eyes, I shivered in the cold bedroom and was most reluctant to wash.
Learning about people of earlier time, before there was artificial lighting, I realised that we've lost the diurnal rhythms which should govern our sleep. If you can't see a thing, there's no point in staying up; if the light is too bright, there's no point in trying to sleep. This point seems entirely lost on parents.
There's a poem from Robert Louis Stephenson's "Child's Garden of Verses" which I read as a child and entirely understood. "Bed in Summer". "In winter I get up by night/ and dress by yellow candlelight/ In summer quite the other way/ I have to go to bed by day". Quite.
Although I do still feel a little bit tired this morning.
After a jolly week in which we celebrated at several parties, including Paul's 60th, I just about ran out of steam yesterday. I settled down last night to watch CSI and realised that I'd reached an end.
So, after a bath, during which I dozed off twice, I was in bed and snuggling down by 9.00. Outside the sun was still shining, the birds were singing and the normal noises of the evening went on.
Despite that, I fell asleep and, with only a couple of wakeful periods, surfaced at about 8.00 this morning.
In My Day
When I was small bedtime was fairly sacrosanct. In Summertime this meant trotting off to bed by about 7.00 when the day still seemed to be in full swing. Older members of the family were still moving about; outside buses and cars roared up and down the road. I don't remember protesting much about this; it seemed simply to be the natural order of things.
My bedroom curtains weren't particularly light-excluding and I found that I could read my books quite well in the half-light. This I would do until the words were faintly visible and started to jump about in front of my eyes as the dusk deepened.
At the other end of the night, I would often be awake at 5.00 as the first sunshine seeped between the gap in the curtains. I sometime used to get up and go into the garden to play at skipping or playing ball, before the rest of the household awoke.
Of course, in winter, the opposite happened. I'd be rudely jerked out of sleep while it was still dark and dressed in layer upon layer of clothing to keep out the cold. The sleep stuck to my eyes, I shivered in the cold bedroom and was most reluctant to wash.
Learning about people of earlier time, before there was artificial lighting, I realised that we've lost the diurnal rhythms which should govern our sleep. If you can't see a thing, there's no point in staying up; if the light is too bright, there's no point in trying to sleep. This point seems entirely lost on parents.
There's a poem from Robert Louis Stephenson's "Child's Garden of Verses" which I read as a child and entirely understood. "Bed in Summer". "In winter I get up by night/ and dress by yellow candlelight/ In summer quite the other way/ I have to go to bed by day". Quite.
Although I do still feel a little bit tired this morning.
Monday, June 07, 2010
Apple pie order
Today
Back to the flat today via the London-Brighton Classic car run. Becky had been to the flat the previous week and I'd asked her to make our bed up for us.
With some instruction from me "cotton beneath and linen above" she did - "I don't know if it's right, Madre", she said "I'll never make a chambermaid."
"So long as you haven't made an apple pie bed," joked Paul. Becky and Richard looked puzzled. "The trouble is," I said "is that this generation's been brought up with duvets rather than sheets and blankets".
In My Day
We were brought up with sheets and blankets - top, bottom, two blankets and an "eiderdown". This last conformed to a standard design of paisley patterned quilted covering with frilled edges and was quite weighty.
Apple-pie beds were a normal part of having an older brother. You trot off to bed, looking forward to snuggling down with your Hans Christian Andersen book. You fail to notice that the bed looks suspiciously well-made or that the blankets seem very well-tucked in. You climb into bed, slide your feet down and come up short against the doubled-back sheet. Sometimes you accidentally tear the sheet in the struggle.
Knowing that your mother will just ignore your protests and possibly be annoyed with you for having damaged the sheet, you groan, get up and remake the bed. By which time you're wide-awake.
Your only recourse is to try to visit the same kind of horror on your younger sister, but you'll probably get caught in the act, and anyway Beatrice has by now become suspicious and will turn back the covers to check. So in the end you don't bother.
Just think what fun the younger generation have been missing.
Back to the flat today via the London-Brighton Classic car run. Becky had been to the flat the previous week and I'd asked her to make our bed up for us.
With some instruction from me "cotton beneath and linen above" she did - "I don't know if it's right, Madre", she said "I'll never make a chambermaid."
"So long as you haven't made an apple pie bed," joked Paul. Becky and Richard looked puzzled. "The trouble is," I said "is that this generation's been brought up with duvets rather than sheets and blankets".
In My Day
We were brought up with sheets and blankets - top, bottom, two blankets and an "eiderdown". This last conformed to a standard design of paisley patterned quilted covering with frilled edges and was quite weighty.
Apple-pie beds were a normal part of having an older brother. You trot off to bed, looking forward to snuggling down with your Hans Christian Andersen book. You fail to notice that the bed looks suspiciously well-made or that the blankets seem very well-tucked in. You climb into bed, slide your feet down and come up short against the doubled-back sheet. Sometimes you accidentally tear the sheet in the struggle.
Knowing that your mother will just ignore your protests and possibly be annoyed with you for having damaged the sheet, you groan, get up and remake the bed. By which time you're wide-awake.
Your only recourse is to try to visit the same kind of horror on your younger sister, but you'll probably get caught in the act, and anyway Beatrice has by now become suspicious and will turn back the covers to check. So in the end you don't bother.
Just think what fun the younger generation have been missing.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Practise, practise
Today
Paul & I idled away some time watching "Voyager" last night. Neelix is leaving to become a Starfleet ambassador and Mr Tuvok gives him the traditional Vulcan farewell "Live Long & Prosper".
"I rather like that," I said to Paul "It's a very graceful thing to say. We should adopt it" "Ah!" he replied "but can you do the gesture?" "Of course!" I said, demonstrating.
In My Day
It's astonishing just how much time we spend, as children, practising a whole range of actions for no real reason. If you have older brothers, as I did, you have some catching up to do, but I expect most children are the same.
I used to practise turning round and round as fast as I could to see at which point falling over became inevitable. I practised hopping, standing on one leg, and whistling. (I am now unable to whistle, having originally learnt how at about six years of age). I'm not talking about the things that you have to learn, like reading & writing, nor about those things that come naturally such as walking & talking, but completely unnecessary things just to prove you can. How many times you can repeat some foolish rhyme on a single intake of breath. Rubbing your stomach and patting your head simultaneously. Juggling two or more tennis balls. Trying to imitate the silly smile that Daddy used to do (I can still do that too, much to Paul's annoyance).
And practising all sorts of things with your fingers "Church and Steeple" which I practised and practised until my fingers were nimble. And I used to practise splaying my fingers. Just why it's very easy to splay them out unevenly (and it doesn't seem to matter whether it's the little or index that's splayed), while splaying them two-by-two is so hard and takes so much practice and concentration I really don't know.
And I don't know why I worked so hard to achieve it, but I did and can still do it.
Although it does make my elderly joints ache a bit!
Paul & I idled away some time watching "Voyager" last night. Neelix is leaving to become a Starfleet ambassador and Mr Tuvok gives him the traditional Vulcan farewell "Live Long & Prosper".
"I rather like that," I said to Paul "It's a very graceful thing to say. We should adopt it" "Ah!" he replied "but can you do the gesture?" "Of course!" I said, demonstrating.
It's astonishing just how much time we spend, as children, practising a whole range of actions for no real reason. If you have older brothers, as I did, you have some catching up to do, but I expect most children are the same.
I used to practise turning round and round as fast as I could to see at which point falling over became inevitable. I practised hopping, standing on one leg, and whistling. (I am now unable to whistle, having originally learnt how at about six years of age). I'm not talking about the things that you have to learn, like reading & writing, nor about those things that come naturally such as walking & talking, but completely unnecessary things just to prove you can. How many times you can repeat some foolish rhyme on a single intake of breath. Rubbing your stomach and patting your head simultaneously. Juggling two or more tennis balls. Trying to imitate the silly smile that Daddy used to do (I can still do that too, much to Paul's annoyance).
And practising all sorts of things with your fingers "Church and Steeple" which I practised and practised until my fingers were nimble. And I used to practise splaying my fingers. Just why it's very easy to splay them out unevenly (and it doesn't seem to matter whether it's the little or index that's splayed), while splaying them two-by-two is so hard and takes so much practice and concentration I really don't know.
And I don't know why I worked so hard to achieve it, but I did and can still do it.
Although it does make my elderly joints ache a bit!
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