Thursday, July 19, 2012

Heart of the Home

Today

At last I have a definite date for the fitting of my new kitchen. I've a space 3X6m to play with and am looking forward to finding homes for all my kitchen stuff. And I have to find space for the washer-dryer, dishwasher, microwave, fridge-freezer and bread-maker.

Most people with whom I discuss this are full of enthusiasm. "Most important," they say. "The kitchen's the heart of the home."

In My Day

Given that 4Bh was a twenty-roomed four-storey Victorian mansion, I wonder why my parents chose to use as a kitchen a space very little larger than a cupboard.

Access to the front door was up a substantial flight of steps, through a glazed porch into a very graceful octagonal hall. The kitchen was a tiny room to the left. I'm not even sure that it had a door; maybe just a curtain.

There was access to a back porch at the head of precipitous steps leading down to the back garden and another sliding door that gave directly onto a toilet. Daddy was convinced that having a toilet leading straight off the kitchen was illegal in some way and we were charged not to divulge its location to any non-family member.

In between was the kitchen. There was a gas cooker (I seem to remember Mamma acquiring a Cannon cooker later on, which had a very new-fangled "eye-level" grill). This was tucked in to the right of the entrance.

On the other side of the back porch door was a diminutive worktop with open shelves beneath which housed saucepans. Then there was a sink with wooden draining board and some more shelves tucked up on the left.

There was also a small folding table grandly called the "kitchen table" which I suppose it was but no meals were ever taken there.

Hot water was supplied by a gas heater which was rather tricky to use.

There was no fridge, washing machine or dishwasher. All cooking and washing (except of sheets which were washed in the bath or sent to the laundry) was done in this space.

Somehow in this dark, small and inconvenient space Mamma managed to produce daily fresh-cooked meals, roast Sunday lunches, elaborate Christmas dinners, birthday cakes of all kinds, an array of mouth-watering German cakes and biscuits, bottle fruit, make jam and cream cheese.

Much later a washing machine, spin-dryer and fridge were all acquired. Accommodating them necessitated the knocking through of an "alcove" into the octagonal hall.

Now that would be considered illegal nowadays.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Toadie

Today

Engaged in the somewhat Sisyphean process of digging up the roots of our Bamboo yesterday, Wesz dislodged a toad. The toad tried hard to get back into what it clearly perceived as a safe, cool & moist place to relax. Eventually, Wesz eased it onto the edge of his spade and popped it under the Red Cedar, from where it swam across the stream to find (I hope) a more permanent home.

"Paul thinks that toads are such gentlemen" I said to Wesz.

In My Day

My first experience with what I positively knew to be a toad was in Mead Close back in the hot summer of 1989. The weather had been pretty dry for some weeks and I was in the habit of pottering out into the garden in the gloaming. One evening, enjoying the stillness, I suddenly heard rustling. Investigation showed a small toad perched near the wall. I called Paul and the girls. Paul picked up the toad (how does he do that?) and we all crowded to look. It was a very dull brown and very warty.

Having spent much of that summer waging war on slugs, I greeted the toad's presence in the garden warmly. Lizzie named him Telemachus and he became a more or less permanent addition.

Over the years we have seen many toads in the garden. One year our somewhat flighty neighbour knocked on the door. "Can you tell me," she asked breathlessly "Do toads carry their young on their backs?" "Well", I replied "I think they lay spawn like frogs, but the male of the species is much smaller than the female...."

She was horrified and refused to go back into her garden unless the toads were removed. This Paul did, gently lifting up the couple, who were locked in an embrace and didn't seem to notice they were being moved. So they also became welcome guests in our garden.

So, greetings, Mr Toad. Although your habit of pee-ing on the hands of whoever picks you up is far from gentlemanly, in my opinion.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

War Hero

Today

On Saturday my choir gave a concert of a mixed programme of 17th and 20th century pieces.

Two of the 20th century pieces were setting of poems by, respectively, Edmund Blunden and James Kirkup. There was a curious connection between them. Blunden was a bona fide war poet; he fought in the trenches, knew Siegfried Sassoon and his poetry won much acclaim. Kirkup, by contrast, was a conscientious objector during the First World War.

"Like my Father," I commented to our Music Director.

In My Day

The story of how Daddy was a conscientious objector at the time of conscription during the 1914-18 war was often told in my family. Daddy would describe how he went to court and said "Fight your own bloody war". For which act of defiance he was sent to prison for the duration.

He was imprisoned for about three years, much of it solitary, and he talked about how the experience gave him a lasting difficulty with authority. He told me how he and his fellow-prisoners decided to hold a labour strike one day. When the morning arrived, Daddy refused to work as had been agreed, only discover that every single other prisoner had backed out of the deal. There was a lot of bitterness in the story and he learnt to trust only himself in future.

He said that on the day of release there were soldiers outside who said "they are the real heroes". I don't know how many people at the time would have agreed; many families lost all their male offspring in the war. I also think that, as time went on, Daddy explored more fully his underlying reasons for objecting. Yes, it wasn't a war he could believe in, but he wasn't ever a pacifist and felt strongly that the Second World War needed to be fought. He was a young and vigorous man, just escaping from a dark and dreary past and now he was being asked to throw away all his opportunities and risk a gruesome death for something that seemed to have nothing to do with him.

So he was disinclined to regard himself as a hero; more of a pragmatist, and for many years I hesitated to tell others his story, not being sure whether he would be regarded as a hero or coward and traitor.

Now, of course, with the passage of years, we can take a less extreme view and I can accept his actions with their mixed motives intact.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Ergo

Today

I can quite accept that some people want to paint their walls dull yellow ochre, have a predilection for putting frilly flounces over their blinds or seem to need to put brass picture lights everywhere, even where there were no pictures.

But why anyone would live with a shower screen that's too short and narrow to stop water going over the floor, a kitchen where the sink is placed at the opposite end from the dishwasher or tolerate wardrobe doors whose hinging mechanism obscures over half of the shelf space and whose rail heights are too close together to hang up a jacket or man's shirt is more beyond my comprehension.

"The first is a matter of taste, " I expounded knowledgeably to Paul "the other is ergonomics."

In My Day

7 Mead close was pretty bare when we moved in, back in 1986. There was the rudimentary kitchen that had been put in when the house was built and some half-hearted attempts at wardrobes in the two larger bedrooms.

I surveyed our pile of belongings. How were we going to fit in all our stuff, ourselves, two teenagers, a dog and two cats, let alone find space outside for two cars?

Storage, that was the answer! Over the following years I developed rather a knack of designing really efficient storage. In Becky's tiny room, we dispensed with the door altogether as taking up too much floor space, substituting a curtain, and cannibalised the "Captain's" bed to give her cupboards, a small wardrobe, desk, bed and underbed storage. And this in a room that was barely 2000mm X 2000mm.

Eventually the too small-for-any-car-we-possessed garage had to go, to be replaced with a kitchen that is a miracle of storage. We built a similarly equipped utility room, put fitted wardrobes in the bedrooms and kitted out the upstairs extension as a really functional study/office. By hinging the bathroom door outwards we gained much useful space.

The teapots found a home on some shelves that Paul built high up in the dining room.

Even the dog was tidied away into a kennel which he loved so much we wondered why we hadn't done it years before.

And ergonomics played a big part in the design. I had a shoe cupboard built that was precisely the length of one of Paul's shoes and with shelf heights just right for a pair of high heels. There wasn't a wasted centimetre. Wardrobes had hanging rails exactly designed for trousers, long dresses or jackets.

Unfortunately, even with all this miracle of storage design, we still had too much stuff which is why we had to move. And I now have the challenge of casting my ergonomically trained eye over Spencer House.

But I still can't think where to put the teapots.....

Sunday, July 08, 2012

Pond Life

Today

One of the mixed blessings of Spencer House is the acquisition of an ornamental stream and Victorian lake.We share the lake with our neighbours but both are charged with the duty of preserving its antique loveliness.

Quite how we are supposed to do this with overgrown rhododendrons, ubiquitous duckweed and the unrelenting rain, I'm not sure.

These waters are, of course, full of life; some kind of carp swim around hopelessly and I'm sure I've seen leeches. The barrowloads of duckweed I remove are full of tiny crayfish, water beetles and water boatmen. One insect, I feel sure, was preparing to become a dragonfly.

And there are thousands of tadpoles. A close-up view suggests not only frogs but also newts might emerge from these creatures - we just need some warmer weather to help them along.

In My Day

When I was a child tadpoles were at the heart of learning about how life develops from the egg. Even in London it was fairly easy to find a bit of water, maybe a puddle in a bombed site, that was full of frog spawn.

Teachers just loved this practical lesson, You could see so clearly the eggs in the translucent spawn. As you watched these hatched into tiny, black, wriggling tadpoles. They had long tails to help them wriggle along and no legs.

As the days went by you watched, fascinated, as legs appeared and the tails got shorter. You could see each stage of the progress towards being a frog. Since the similar progress in human development is hidden deep within the body this was very exciting.

Eventually, your tadpoles became frogs and, like all children, embraced their maturity by leaping out of the water into adult life, never to be seen again.

We have been told that there are sometimes also ducklings on the lake, but this year we have only seen two rather lonely-looking drakes.