Today
Christmas is nearly on us and people are talking about their lunch plans and whether it includes turkey. Not in this house, of course.
In My Day
Paul always gamely eats whatever I cook him and turkey hasn't graced out Christmas table since 1987. One year, I think it might have been about 1995, he said wistfully, "Couldn't I just have a turkey breast or something?"
Well, I didn't think that that sounded very festive, so I went to the supermarket and bought a little "poussin" - a complete baby fowl. To my eyes it looked like a miniature turkey.
Fired with wifely love and devotion, I gathered my courage and prepared this diminutive creature. I put stuffing in its insides, tiny strips of bacon over its breast and surrounded it with tiny potatoes. Perfect! I popped it in the oven, sure that Paul would be delighted.
I triumphantly brought out this culinary delicacy and put it before Paul. Maybe it shouldn't have been a surprise. He stared at his plate. "I can't eat that!" he exclaimed "It looks like somebody's budgie!" "But it looks just the same as a turkey" I protested "only smaller. How can that make a difference?"
But it did and Paul refused to eat it. Which made that last time I tried such an experiment. Nut loaf from now on!
When you look at this handsome beast that struts around the local smallholding, you do wonder how anyone could end its life.
Merry Christmas all!
Today
A rather horrible story this week about a three-year old who was badly beaten up by a two-year old at her nursery. The extent of her injuries makes one wonder what on earth the nursery assistants were doing.
In My Day
Lizzie used to go to a little nursery school in Eastbourne, named "Fledglings". It was a family-run affair where the children had lots of scope to play in the large garden and cook jam tarts in the kitchen.
One day we went to collect Lizzie and the owner told us that another child had attacked her, inflicting some scratches on her face.
This other child, a boy, was known to have some social problems, including an aversion to being hugged or touched. He was also a very beautiful child with big brown eyes, glossy dark hair and a beautiful sun-kissed skin. Liz found him irresistible and decided that she wanted to kiss him. Before anyone could stop her, she'd flung her arms around him. The inevitable panic-driven response occurred and his nails were out.
The difference between this story and that of Katie-Anne, above, is that the teachers were right there, pulling the children apart before real damage could be done.
Although it may have something to do with Lizzie's extreme caution these days about giving kisses to anyone but family.
Today
As usual, the cold has affected Stoke St Michael more than the surrounding towns and villages. I walked up to the shop yesterday and managed to avoid the slidey bits. There was ice in the puddles, though, and this morning is dry and frosty.
In My Day
Our personal name for the event I'm about to describe is "The Great Ice". The year was 1995. Mum was spending Christmas with us and the weather was dry and very cold. The effect of this was to chill the ground deeply.
On 30th December we awoke to a gentle rain. "Oh good!" I thought "That means it'll be warmer." What it actually meant was that the gentle drizzle froze on contact with the cold ground and a layer of clear ice formed over everything. Liz and I tried to break up the ice on the front step, first with salt and then with shovels. but we couldn't shift it.
Now, we had a much looked-forward to invitation to spend the afternoon with our friends in Shepton Mallet. Liz shrieked at me "We can't go out! everyone in Shepton has already got broken legs from the ice!" Hmmm. I weighed everything up. Paul was game, we wanted to see our friends and Mum was all dressed up and ready to go. We slithered out to the car which was coated in the same sheet ice as everything else. Quite pretty, really.
Somehow he got up the close and we drove carefully to Shepton. We stumbled up our friends' steep drive, half carrying Tricia, and had a jolly good afternoon. I went out several time to see how the weather was doing. It didn't improve and, when I saw that a light fog was descending I decided it was time to go.
We arrived back at the Close which is quite a steep little road, facing North. As we started down it, I spoke, sotto voce to Paul. "will you be able to stop?" "I don't know; I tried the brakes and nothing happened." "How about using reverse gear?" I muttered. "It may come to that!"
It is a massive tribute to Paul's driving skills that he succeeded in steering the car into the turning bay and reversing successfully up our iced-over narrow driveway. And we all got indoors without broken legs.
We later heard that this weather event had affected most of Southern Britain and that many people did, indeed, suffer broken limbs.
The Met Office warns people not make unnecessary journeys, but of course we all have our own ideas about "unnecessary".
Today
This morning Paul & I were talking about grandchildren and the question of discipline. Do you follow your own heart or the rules laid down by their own parents?
A bit of both, I guess, is the answer.
In My Day
Our children started out with two full sets and a great-grandparent (altho' Nan was pretty far gone by the time Becky was born). Their grandmothers couldn't have been more temperamentally different and I think this was reflected in how they treated their grandchildren. Tricia was the Gran who told silly jokes, cuddled them and surprised them with her emotional variability. Mamma was altogether a more didactic and measured influence; her enjoyment in their company was obvious.
Their attitude to my mothering also differed. While Tricia criticised me for my relaxed attitude to bedtimes ("My niece's daughter is in bed by 6.00pm - beautifully brought up, beautifully brought up!"). In vain for me to protest that I was barely home from work until 6 and wanted to spend time with my girls; her beliefs were rooted in an age of nannies and children being seen and not heard. On the other hand she respected our rules concerning diet and health concerns.
Mamma, being largely my role model for mothering, had fewer issues with this. But I do think she had a rather "stuff and nonsense" attitude to modern health and diet concerns.
Nowhere was this more obvious than on the subject of chocolate. Early on, we'd noticed a connection between the consumption of even small amounts of chocolate and Lizzie's complexion and behaviour, both becoming heated and patchy at the same time. So we banned the consumption of chocolate. Not so hard, surely? Tricia would scour shops at Easter time to find chocolate-free eggs for Lizzie.
I remember one occasion; I guess it must have been in about 1979. Mamma was staying with us at Rowan Avenue, Becky was two, Liz seven. Paul and I took advantage of her presence to take a day Christmas shopping in London. We had a splendid day and arrived home late in the evening, laden with goodies
Liz was a little fractious and her colour was high, to be sure, but the hour was late and we greeted Mamma and the girls as usual. Mamma and Lizzie proudly said that they'd been cooking together and showed us their efforts, a little plate of pretty pinwheel biscuits. "Do they have chocolate in them, Mamma?" I demanded. "Well, only about three ounces..." said Mamma defensively. "Mamma, just look at her!" I responded. Lizzie's bright red, blotched cheeks and hyperactive behaviour were plain to see. "Well!" Mamma climbed down fairly graciously "I see now, but I wouldn't have believed it."
I think, that, just because we are older and have had children ourselves, we don't have a monopoly in the understanding of childcare. And our children do eventually grow up and there's a chance they might in some areas be wiser than we are.
Today
I suppose you could describe Paul and me as "tea bores". We like to use china pots and proper tea leaves. The pot should be warmed and the freshly drawn water properly boiling. And so on and so forth.
In England tea is offered as a restorative, stimulant, relaxant, social lubricant, accompaniment to disasters, both emotional and physical. What was the first thing you had if your house was bombed in the War? A nice cup of tea. Policemen bearing bad news put the kettle on. It wakes you up in the morning and settles you down at night.
So it's quite clearly more than just a mildly stimulating herbal drink and. quite frankly, Red Bush, chamomile and herbal teas just don't cut the mustard. And offering tea is innocent; it doesn't have the double-entendre of "would you like to come in for a coffee?".
Even so, it also seems that tea's ability to hit the spot is also affected by time of day, mood etc. Today, my lunchtime tea tasted so good that I had another one, which is unusual. And it even tasted nearly as good as the first
In My Day
This is never so true as with the tea you're offered after childbirth. Hospital tea follows none of the rules I laid out above and has probably been made with water boiled for hours in an urn, uses industrial sized teabags, is stewed in a giant metal teapot and poured into a hospital cup (with a totally redundant saucer).
After struggling to produce Lizzie for hours and hours, after they wheeled her off for a well-earned rest and after they'd patched me up, they brought me a cup of tea. It was proper NHS tea in all its glory and didn't it taste like nectar!
Suddenly all the pain and anxiety receded for a few minutes and Paul and I smiled at each other over the rims of our chunky china cups.
When I had Becky, the whole job took less time and was altogether less of a struggle. But the worst part was that, after they'd brought me my tea, I felt so sleepy that I dozed off and didn't awake until it was stone cold. And ever since I've felt a bit deprived as though I was cheated out of a basic human right.
How people cope who don't drink tea is beyond me, since, quite clearly, it's the backbone of Britain and an essential part of ones moral fibre.
Today
We had our annual drinks party at the flat yesterday. This is probably the last time we'll do this so there was a bit of nostalgia hanging around. My gorgeous, very tall nephew Jacob was there with his two little ones. Max slept right through, but four-year old Evie (together with her constant companion, Bear-Bear, was the life and soul to the bitter end. Although there were no other children at the party, there were enough familiar faces to keep her comfortable and I believe she had a really good time. We sent her home with a box of crackers (with strict instructions to save them until Xmas day) and a paper-chain making kit.
In My Day
When we were first married we could never see why the fact that we had children should conflict with our desire to go to parties. In the early days it was simply a question of popping the babies into a bed where, like Max, they slept the occasion away. Very soon, we developed a sort of compromise. The girls would be allowed up for a while and indulged with crisps and lemonade. At a given signal, they would then go to bed, usually in our host's spare room. The girls understood very soon that the first indulgence would be taken away if they didn't comply with the second part.
And I think they really rather enjoyed is. While they were still awake enough to make the most of it, they were feted and fussed over by any number of grown ups. Then when bedtime came and they were really anyway getting too tired to have fun, they could snuggle up together and giggle till they fell asleep. Only the being woken at two am on what were sometimes cold nights was less appealing.
And there were unexpected bonuses. On one occasion, it was the day before Lizzie's ninth birthday. As midnight approached and we were sitting beside our host's inglenook fireplace, Lizzie was woken, as she thought, as usual. But this time she was ushered into the living room and saw her birthday in by toasting marsmallows over the fire and being given a gift of a very nice purple and grey striped dress which I believe she wore until it dropped to pieces.
I have never been much of a believer in maintaining a strict division between children's and adult's social occasions and last night Evie conducted herself with charm and decorum. Merry Christmas, Evie!
I triumphantly brought out this culinary delicacy and put it before Paul. Maybe it shouldn't have been a surprise. He stared at his plate. "I can't eat that!" he exclaimed "It looks like somebody's budgie!" "But it looks just the same as a turkey" I protested "only smaller. How can that make a difference?"
