Saturday, March 31, 2012

Feline Felicity

Today

The next stage in the new home purchase has been reached and we are beginning to make proper plans.

While we have the luxury of not having to move out of here before moving into Spencer House, there will still be a day or two of activity involving removal trucks and strangers stomping about carting furniture.

So, thinking about Abby's happiness, we've decided she'll be best off in the cattery for a couple of days during the worst of it. Then we can settle her more easily into her new environment.

In My Day

Of course, we haven't always had either the option of having staged moving or of being able to afford a cattery.

When we moved to Montfort Close in 1982, I couldn't even find the cat basket and a terrified Amelia tore the cardboard cat box to shreds in minutes. I seem to remember moving them in a unibox with a board over the top to prevent egress. Fortunately the journey was only about five miles so it wasn't too difficult.

When we arrived. Amelia quite quickly set about exploring, but Agamemnon was simply furious and wouldn't leave the utility room where he slept uncomfortably  on  some dismantled metal shelving and forced us to give him a litter tray. After five days I'd had enough of this sulky behaviour. He was eating normally, wasn't he? So this was just a mind game which I was determined to win. In was high summer and I chucked him into the garden, where he found that it was much more fun than the pocket-handkerchief he was used and promptly forgot his bad temper in the fun of climbing up trees.

Moving here was far worse. There was a lengthy period when we were homeless, staying with Chris at Glenthorne. As this was a home that boasted three German Shepherd dogs we clearly had to accommodate the animals in a local kennel/cattery. The cats (and Caspian the dog) were there for eight long weeks. We visited them a few times and they looked so miserable. When we were eventually reunited there was no sulking. They were all far too delighted to have found us again and to have their freedom.

It's fine, Abby, you'll be just fine. Altho' I think a new collar with address tag might be in order, just in case.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Comfort Food

Today

I've just made that old veggie stand-by, cauliflower cheese, for supper. Very good it was too.

And it's a great comfort food.

In My Day

With a mixture of hope and anxiety we moved into 7 Mead Close on 23 December 1986. The weather was dull and droopy and I couldn't figure out how to get the central heating working. My new neighbour, up to her floury elbows in mincepie making, promised that her husband would come over and explain it all later.

I went back to check that all the furniture was roughly in the right place. As Stoke at that time was a gas-free village I'd had to leave my nearly new gas cooker behind and had bought in the sales a top of the range halogen ceramic hob cooker. This had been faithfully delivered but was too large to fit into the space allocated for cookers in my new kitchen. I couldn't even heat up soup.

This felt like some kind of final straw. Here we were, embarking on a new life, and it seemed to be going wrong in a chilly and dull kind of way. I bucked myself up and when Paul came home we all flossied ourselves up and piled into the car to see what Shepton Mallet could offer in the way of supper.

After walking rather hopelessly up the Main Street (where I fell over on the cobbles) we discovered Cousin's Restaurant just opposite the police station. It didn't look too prepossessing but we were cold and hungry and went in.

Veggie food they did not do, but they did offer cauliflower cheese. Seeing that Becky's eyes glistened as they brought a dish in, they fetched another larger one just for her and piles of very good chips.

Suddenly, everything seemed a little better as we worked our way through the tasty veg. We went home and my neighbour turned up and fixed the heating as promised and the house slowly warmed up. Maybe it was going to be all right after all.

Talking to Lizzie the other day about that evening her main memory seemed to be the cauliflower cheese. Comfort food, indeed.

Monday, March 26, 2012

A Whole World Away

Today

Paul and I have recently returned from our South and Central American holiday. We visited Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia and Honduras.

My brother Chris prefers the world's wilder places as destinations because he thinks that all cities are pretty much the same, and in fact in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay the cities had so much in common with Europe that we hardly felt we were abroad.

We didn't feel like this in Tegucigalpa. What with armed guards at every supermarket and cafe, the necessity for even well-to-do families to have their water delivered twice weekly, and the injunction not to enter into the city wearing anything resembling jewellery, we felt we were stepping into an alien place.

My Honduran cousin Ernesto pointed out to me rather tartly that most of the world lives the same way or worse than Honduras; the way we live in Western Europe being reserved for a very small and privileged sector of the human race.

In My Day

When did foreign places stop feeling foreign? Was it as a result of our desire to travel without being inconvenienced by the strange? Or are we simply all subject to globalisation?

When I did my great hitch-hiking tour back in 1969 many places even on mainland Europe did feel very foreign indeed. There were not the ubiquitous fast-food chains in every city, nor were there supermarkets selling roughly the same food everywhere.

This made for an experience that was unsettling, challenging and exciting. In Florence we tasted Pizza for the first time; bought from local pizzerias in large square slabs. In Athens we bought Souvlaki from roadside stalls - full of fresh tomatoes and flat-leaved parsley. Even eating parsley, usually at that time in England a throw-away garnish, was new. Plumbing was different and we became accustomed to the hole-in-the-floor variety. And, of course, you took your life in your hands if you drank the water!

When we arrived in Crete, courtesy of an overnight tramp ferry from Piraeus, the difference was even more marked. Crete is now a playground for holidaying Brits and bristles with high-rise and Macdonalds. Then it was a dusty, forgotten  corner of Greece. One day, eating our lunch and awaiting our bus to Matala, we were invited into a little local cafe. It was dark, dingy and pretty well empty. The owners offered us a bottle of local red wine to go with our sandwiches, indicating that it was on the house. As we finished, music started up and we were drawn into a circle of dancing locals, where they kicked up their heels in true Greek fashion. When we got to Matala we found that the local cafe did amazing omelettes for a few Drachma and had no objection if we took in tomatoes and onions bought in the market to slice over them. We often brought in our own wine as well. People picking over fruit for sale in the market place would offer us bunches of grapes as gifts.

And we slept on the beach or in the artificial caves without hindrance or fear.

I seriously doubt that that would happen today; Matala boasts luxury hotels and restaurants whose owners would be much too keen on their profits and too used to foreigners to spend time on a Sunday, leisurely picking over grapes and handing them out to hippies.

I'm in a poor position to judge whether what is gained by adopting the Western European way of life is greater than what is lost. Perhaps it's possible to have potable water without adopting global blandness. I hope so.

Friday, March 23, 2012

A House is not a Home

Today

After much agonising and searching, we have settled on the house we want to buy. It's called Spencer House and is in Oakhill, a village about two  miles away. It's a very gracious house and offers all the accommodation we need.

However, I can't help feeling anxious; we have lived here at No 7 for over twenty-five years and I find myself worrying about the new location, the unknown night-noises and how long it will be before it becomes our home.

In My Day

I can't say that our first glimpse of 7 Mead Close in 1986 gave us the tingle factor. We had come to Somerset to follow up the opportunity at Flare, and needed somewhere to live. The weather seemed persistently gloomy and the house rather dreary. The carpets were dingy and of an awful design; decorations were scruffy and the whole house was cold with a heating system out of the ark, whose peculiarities required much effort to unravel. It was, however, within our limited budget.

There were barely three bedrooms and Becky was stuffed into a tiny room over the stairs and we had to take the door off to give her some floor space.

It was a long time before we could start to do any work. I was driving all over the country for my job and weekends represented recovery with little time for decoration and remodelling. The isolation of the village meant that we spent much time driving the girls to various places and we had little cash to spare.

Over the years we gradually turned the space into somewhere that was truly ours. As soon we could afford it the old heating system was replaced and we fitted a proper fireplace. The house was extended and we grew to love its calmness and the surroundings of the Close.

Quietly and in its own time no 7 became a home.

I'm sure that we are doing the right thing; it's just that we have to allow ourselves the time to make Spencer House as much truly our home.