Adrian's Monday in Ahmedabad

A little tenderly, I got up and we went out shopping with our host, K, as a guide. His mother-in-law had a range of womens clothes to see in her house (where some tame, if still fearful, monkeys came for peanuts).

Then we walked to a mens clothing shop to get some more goods to take home.

Monday shopping

It's siesta time (after 4 local time, nearly 11 at home) and we're in the hotel reading, writing and will say our 'goodbyes' this evening.

K picked us up this morning along with his Auntie Beris to go shopping for kurti (short tops) and kurtas (long tops). His mother-in-law sells them from her home, and we arrived to find choices of clothing already arranged on hangers in the sitting room. There were several of us women there, trying on various colours and sizes. I saw colours like turquoise that daughter would like, and wanted something for SD#2 too. Her father recommended a red one, and we will have to find out if it will fit her. I chose a turquoise blue cotton one with Hindu patterns on for daughter but they didn't really have anything small enough for her, and a blue one with Parsi markings for me, as well as a pair of trousers with lace round the base of the legs. I'd paid and we were about to leave, when M-i-L showed me a lovely black kurti with patterns including green. I tried it on, as she assured me that it would fit, but it was too tight round the arms, so I was about to discard it when I realised it is bound to fit daughter. So I got out my purse ...

Then K walked us up the road for about half a mile to a men's outfitters where husband bought himself a kurtus (a long one) and we got a blue one with special patterns on for son. K says he guarantees he will like it.

Then it was back to the compound for a cup of tea and a parsee cake made of dal paste - lovely - and to say goodbyes to a lot of the family, such as the little boys, the auntie, Z's sister, K's cousin, and even the servants, who were very friendly and kind. There were invitations to New Zealand where K lives, and to come back in 2010 for the younger boy's Navjote. I think we might come.

Navjote - Adrian's report

We started with even more difficulty than yesterday before K with his elder son Z (whose Navjote was to take place that evening) came to take us to the hall where there was to be another communal lunch.

I was able to spend time watching the kites - coming to the idea that they occupied the ecological niche that seagulls do in England - when a couple of vultures appeared and took up residence in the trees surrounding the property. Dhun told me they were white backed vultures (they had large white patches on the under wings) and that vultures were under threat. The use of Diclofenac in the cattle herds was the culprit (the eggs did not hatch?). This in turn affected the Parsis who leave their dead on towers for the vultures to reduce to bones. Green parrots and a type of starling (?) with a yellow beak and white/yellow flashes on the edge of its wings appeared, and in the evening there were cormorants and a heron in flight.


We returned early in the evening so that we could see the public part of the ceremony (the private part involved something to do with the purified/concentrated urine of a cow of spotless white coat, and a ceremonial cleansing bath).


The public ceremony took place on a stage backed with a semi-circular structure draped with cloth representing the sun's rays, decorated with flowers and a large Z.




An urn was burning a fire lit from the perpetual fire maintained in the holy temple since Parsis came to India. Four white garbed and hatted priests, looking more like surgeons ready to perform an operation, led him onto the stage to kneel on a white cloth. Prayers, etc, were said, petals scattered and finally a long white thread was unravelled and tied around Z's waist. This took about twenty minutes and public interest diminished as the ceremony was inaudible, and probably in Sanskrit so would have been unintelligible to most anyway.

An orgy of photo-opportunities then ensued before the band (with leader/drummer and guitarist from the family) started to perform, at much the same time as dinner service started. More Parsi food served on banana leaf plates, with a fish wrapped in a chutney paste and steamed as a new (to us) offering.

The band were still going, but were offering music to dance to, so we joined the group to shake our limbs about, during which a makeshift turban was wrapped around my head (see embarrassing photos)


We were told, during the evening, how the Parsis who fled persia (though there are still some there) came to part of India where the king said his country was too full to take any more people and illustrated his point by showing a full bowl of milk. The Parsi leader sprinkled sugar into the milk without it spilling to prove that they could sweeten life, and would not overcrowd the country, in the same way as the sweetened milk was still within the bowl. They were then permitted to stay, as long as they married only within their community and adopted local customs (such as the wearing of saris by the women).

The Navjote

It's around 10.30 pm, and we've just got back from the Navjote - around 400 people at the Zorastian Hall.

We went in time for the ceremony, though we must have been the first non-Parsees to arrive. If you aren't a Parsi, then you can't go into the temple, but after the ceremony, they come out and the new Navjote (nav means new) repeats the prayers as the priest says them.

He arrived in a procession with his very proud parents and grandparents, garlanded in flowers, newly bathed as the ceremony requires, wrapped in red to be dressed in new garments.

We watched as the priest ran the thread round his waist several times. In future he will have to do this every time he washes. I thought the thread was of 27 threads, but Mr Gai tells me that it is 72 and the number represents 72 scriptures.

We had a lot of photo taking, and video taking, then a meal - a Parsi fish dish for the non-vegetarians.

Then there was music, with Khaizad's uncle Vispee on the drums and his cousin, Harmony singing. Watch out for the recordings I made - I'll put them on our home site. People started to dance, Khaizad with exhuberance and so I tried to photo him, but found myself on the patio dancing too. Next I looked up to find husband, not only dancing, but dancing with a red shawl wrapped round his head like a turban. Everyone was high with happiness, enthusiam and gaiety. Toddlers, teenagers, parents and grandparents danced.

Finally, the music ended, and people drifted off. Khaized put us in a rickshaw to make our own way back to the hotel.

Saturday 29th December - Adrian

We struggled to get out of bed as our bodies still said that we were in the small hours and went downstairs to the small room which called itself a restaurant for continental breakfast - tea/coffe, pineapple juice and toast. Almost as soon as we were finished we were taken off for lunch at the Zoroastrian Hall (1929), a large building like a church hall, with lawn in front and terraces or patios at the front and sides. One of these had long tables laid out for lunch, where we sat as large platters were filled with a first course of chappatis, pickle and a meat curry, followed by a second spicy dish with rice.

After lunch four adults and two children piled into a rickshaw (a 2 or 4 stroke 3-wheeled vehicle in green and yellow with an old-style convertible hood. I sat in the front alongside the driver - a dubious privilege as the horrors of the traffic are even closer there, and, as the small front wheel is almost underneath you, even closer to the wheels of bicycles, scooters, and the backs and legs of pedestrians, the hand carts and the monstrous fume belching buses.

I should have mentioned that we stopped first at the apartment of Zenobia and Noshir, the grand parents of the small boy whose navjote ceremony (a sort of first-comnmunion) was the cause of all the celebrations.

In the afternoon, while wife caught up with her sleep, I went for a walk, first of all to the completely misnamed 'Italian Bakery' (I asked what Italian bread they had but the Indian girl at the counter told me they had none).

I carried on walking, along the line of the old-city walls (brick-built and extensive but in disrepair) as I felt that the river which flows through Ahmedabad (dividing it into and old and a new town by its considerable width), lay behind the buildings on the opposite side of the road. As I walked, the new buildings opposite the wall (hotels, apartments, the Mount Carmel primary school and the Ahmedabad Rifle Club which was now degorging contestants from a National competition) thinned out and the spaces betweeen occupied by shanty settlements of increasing squalor as I approached a cross-road and turned left to find a bridge crossing the river (Sabarmati?)

Rusi Uncle - how we met

Nilu & I were reminiscing how Rusi Uncle and I came to meet. He had to work in Leyland for six months, and we used to catch the same bus home in the afternoon, me home from junior school, he after work.
He used to talk to me and offer me sweets - Rowntrees fruit gums - so I knew they were all right, but puzzled at my parents' instruction, which I obeyed:

"Never take sweets from strangers."

And I sensed that he was a kind gentleman, knowing also that he missed his own daughter. He missed her and I reminded him of her. When it turned out that she was two years younger than me, at the age of 8, I was even more puzzled; how could I, such a big girl, be like a little girl?

I wanted to show him where I lived. In order to do this, I would get off the bus the stop before my home, then run the 100-150 yards as fast as I could so I could point it out to him as the bus passed , carrying him on to his digs. As I usually couldn't beat the bus, it took me a week of these sprints before I got near enough to point it out.

N tells me the background to RU's emotions at that time. She was convinced that she was going to England with him, and at the airport was saying goodbye to everyone else, not to him, because she was going to go with him. It was only when he walked off without her that she realised. He turned and looked back as she cried. He cried.

When he returned to India, he sent me photos of the family - I think this one must be of Nilufer's Navjote, and a present of India coins, which started my coin collection.

Now talking to Nilufer, watching her with her own daughter, I miss my daughter - there must be some thing in the K and our family that reminds us of ourselves.

Adrian's first impressions

Ahmedabad 28th December
We flew into Mumbai airport by Jet Airways - noticing the shanty town by its side as we landed. International airports are usually a prestige monument to the host nation, but Mumbai airport fails to impress and as we transferred by bus to the domestic terminal, with closer contact to the neighbouring shanties, and the building work on the warehouses (unfinished so that cardboard packaged goods were out in the open) with women carrying building materials on their heads, the impression worsened. The domestic terminal is new but the expected electronic announcement boards were absent so that boarding was organised by announcements and rail way style destination boards at the gates - onto another bus to the plane on the tarmac.

We were met by Kaizad and one of his sons, with a cousin to drive a small and battered four-seat er into which we five and luggage were piled - seat belts ? - no! Nothing but the experience can prepare you for the horror of traffic in Ahmedabad - traffic in Palermo was peaceful and well-regulated by comparison. There is a continual beeping of horns to the extent that as a warning signal this exercise is pointless through indecipherability in the overall noise. There are no lanes marked - even in the few places where an all but indistinguishable mark exists it is ignored entirely - there is often no directional discipline, and crossing, entrances and exits are a complete free for all - with people and vehicles dashing into and across any free spaces. Bicycles, pedestrians from the fleet to almost lame, hand and horse cats, scooters and three-wheeled ''rickshaws' jostle with cars, lorries and buses, all without regard for each other. Not to mention ubiquitous dogs and the odd bullock grazing on greenery in the central reservation as additional hazards to be negotiated. No wonder the sky is filled with kites wheeling away in their dozens.


January 14th is the festival day or competition for the flying of man-made kites, when the sky becomes almost invisible with them, it is said. Remnants of unsuccessful kites are wrapped around every overhead wire and by the side of the road from the airport, boys were laying out lengths of white and fluorescent red threads on poles in preparation for the big day.

We were deposited at a small hotel. Across the road was an opulent 'Le Meridien' which we went into when ours did not know how to deal with travellers cheques. They couldn't deal with ours as we were not resident there, but phoned across the road with the necessary information and half an hour later a banker and his driver turned up so that we could perform a transaction in the hotel restaurant, sealed with a cup of tea and some social conversation.

Also across the road was a building labelled 'The Zoroastian Womens Ind. Coop' indicating the Parsee community of whom we were guests, and behind our hotel was a mosque, the PA system amplified muezzin of which woke us at dawn local time (1 am ish GMT).

First Impressions

Husband asks how you'd give this hotel Host-Inn, opp le Meridien, a star rating, but adds

"perhaps you'd give it an asteroid rating?"

However, at Rs1460/- per night for a double room, it costs only about 19 pounds sterling. Moreover, it is clean and friendly.

Last night we went to a party, just friends and family, but perhaps a hundred people. Zenobia wrote to me years ago about her friends Ferose and Farida, so I'm pleased to meet them. And Kaizad's friends from catering and management school and Noshir's friends from the bank where he worked. I should have remembered that when I had to change my travellers cheques.

We were introduced to everyone, initially formally as we went round a semi circle of chairs, but everyone was pleased to come and talk to us and make us feel welcome and tell us about themselves too. We met Z's brother from Bombay, who explained something about the Parsee religion. I hadn't realised how conservatively religious the family was, and that Rusi Uncle was a priest.

The party was on the grounds of a school, well out of the city centre, in the countryside - the 'jungle' is what Behzad, Z's 4 year -old grandson called it - lit by lots of tiny lights hanging from the trees that surrounded the 'playground' where we sat and ate and drank and chatted. We had lots of lovely nibbles, followed by a main course of rice and dal, washed down with sprite (or some sort of local home made concoction - this is a dry state).

Dhun (Noshir's brother) told us a lot about his media work, including with the Wild Fowl and Wetland trust in the UK and how that is influencing and improving tourist access to a mangrove park. He also told me about how Rusi Uncle passed away in 1994.

Beris, Zenobia's mother's sister-in-law told me how good the shopping was in Ahmedabad, and we've agreed to go together on 31st.

At around 11.30 we piled (7 of us) into a car, and they brought us back to our hotel with a promise to pick us up the next day (this morning) for another party.

This morning we had a cup of tea at Zenobya and Noshir's flat - I've been writing to this address for years, and at last get to see it.

Later we were driven in a rather grander car to the Zorastian temple, - you can't go right into the centre if you are not a parsi, - where there was another fine meal. We sat outside under an awning at long tables, one side only, so that the waiters could serve you down the other side.


Inside you could see them making the chappattis, and they were lovely and light and small. Then a monkey jumped on to and ran across the awning - you couldn't see it - just it's shadow, and then a long grey tail hanging from the tree where it stopped.

I met Z's cousin Rose, who lives in England, and Farida. She introduced me to her father, who said "Don't you remember me?" It was Mr Gai, the gentleman in Delhi who had so looked after Vera (McNamara) and me in 1975.

Now we are finishing a siesta in the hotel, to be picked up for the first of the celebrations for the Navjote, that takes place tomorrow.

Arrived

It's nearly seven o'clock and it's dark. We reached Ahmedabad with only a slight delay in planes when we changed at Mumbai. You fly in over the shanty towns to the international airport, go through customs and wait in a rather unofficial unair-conditioned corridor while airport staff bustle about until a bus trundles you round to the domestic airport.

We are staying in the Host Inn Hotel, which announces that it is opposite Le Hotel Meridien (that's a posh one) in the district of Khanpur. K and his cousin met us at the airport and got a taxi to bring us here. We've changed some travellers cheques and any minute are leaving to join a family gathering.

We've changed some travellers cheques, which involved quite a palaver. First we asked here, then we asked in the Meridien, who asked if we were staying there. It transpires that hotels can change travellers cheques for their own guests only. But the Meridien reception very kindly rang our reception and explained everything he had to do. And when we got back to our hotel, he looked the cheques, and my passport, and made another phone call to get the instructions repeated. Then we had to wait half an hour. Eventually, we were lead into the dining room where two Muslim men were waiting with a calculator, a black bag and a list of exchange rates. We agreed the calculation, counted it out and waited while someone was sent to take photocopies of passport and visa. We drank tea. It was all very leisurely.

I'm worrying about

• BA strikes at British airports
• missing the connections at Mumbai
• missing the connection at Paddington
  
• being inadvertently rude
• itchy insect bites
• not having a hotel booked
• not getting the travellers cheques changed and having no money for a taxi to a hotel
• malaria
• Japanese encephalitis
• camera battery going flat
• losing camera
• losing passports
• losing anything
• daughter at home may be lonely or hungry
• forget to pack something
• threat of bombs at Indian airports in January
• seeing a tiger
• not seeing a tiger,
• getting too close to the tigers in Kerala.

We leave on the 16:38 train...

Christmas passed

It passed well, hit all the right buttons, filled all the tummies and stockings, and no arguments (yet).

Post-Christmas plans

Mosquitoes!

That's what I'm now worrying about - do I need citronella or mosquito nets to supplement the malaria tablets for our two weeks in India? Will the hotel have taken measures to keep the wee beasties at bay?

Our hotel at Cochin looks a bit posh. We're there for two nights and on Thursday 3rd January we move to Munnar to stay in a standard cottage at the Tall Tree. Then into the 'wild' to see tigers at Periyar staying in a cottage. I imagine the houseboat at Alleppey will have the most mosquitoes. The final stop is at Kumarakom in a cottage at Radisson Plaza Resort & Spa for two nights before catching a plane from Cochin back to Mumbai where we stop overnight - I don't know where - we haven't heard back from the Indian friend who suggested that we stay in the NSCI club. She emailed that it might be full because of the wedding season.

We fly home Thursday 10th. And I hope we do fly, as now I've found, to add to my worrying, that there's been an email threat to blow up India airports on 12th January. Together with BA threats to strike 7th and 14th January, the trip gets a bit worrying. I hope we miss all the excitement.

Tae Kwondo demo

What am I going to do? We've had our last session till after the new year, yet the first day back we have to demonstrate something. I'm going to be jet lagged and unfit.

Daughter and grandson can work something out to demonstrate together while I'm away. Tonight I'm going to meet fellow tae kwondie over a drink to plan - can't see us practising in the pub though.

Christmas food & visitors

We have visitors on Sunday and on Christmas Day too. There are only 12 for lunch on Sunday - us five at home plus husband's brother's family and our son and his family. When the local grandchildren visit after lunch, we'll be a few more to play.

On Christmas Day we are 15. Us five plus visiting Italian in-laws and 5/6 children with their respective partners and offspring.

The menu includes a stuffed bird from Heal Farm and the usual accompaniments. I especially like their Grande Marnier tart. Yum! And I expect there'll be a little champagne.

Christmas plans

People ask me when daughter is coming home for Christmas, so I ask her father.

"When I pick her up."

And

"When's that going to be?"
"I don't know - when she tells me."

I speak to daughter:

"When are you coming home?"
"I don't know - when Daddy picks me up."

Stalemate. I'll see her when I'm looking at her.

AOTRA dinner

Aylesbury Old Town Residents Association held their Christmas dinner in the Rockwood.





I took some photos.

And some more.

Facebook

I've joined Facebook.

Facebook is a social networking electronic thing. It seems to be the fashionable update of what I've been using through Friends Reunited to catch up with people from my past (and then forget them again) and the First Class software that the OU uses to organise conferences/forums where I get so much through 'meeting' my fellow tutors and students.

Son and daughter talk about Facebook, but weren't too enthusiastic about my joining. Nevertheless, since it seems to be for university students and I'm a university student, I thought I ought to investigate it. So I've joined and now I've got three friends. One is a fellow post-grad and son and daughter have acknowledged me and agreed to be my friend. Son seems to be delighted to be the first to write on my wall - is there a competition to write on people's walls?

If you are Facebook, will you send me a message?

Vaccinations

Had various vaccinations yesterday ready for trip to India. Apparently my surgery needed six weeks notice and five and half weeks was too short, so I had to drive up to a private clinic 20 miles away, while husband got his vaccines free on the NHS through a different surgery.

It takes ages to get an appointment at our surgery. A week-next-Monday isn't unusual, but at least when I got referred to the hospital for an x-ray that happened within 24 hours.

Photographing London

I went up to London yesterday to meet fellow T189 students for a photo shoot. I took loads of photos, none of which are worth showing anyone, but I enjoyed meeting the other students and discussing the difficulties of F-stops and apertures and which way meant they were bigger or smaller and what ISO we were using.

A colleague took this photo of such a discussion. And here is a comprehensive description of where we went.
http://blogs.open.ac.uk/h807/kmb22/

Arianna's thread

You can see the latest photos of the new baby at ariannasthread.com. But even if you aren't interested in babies, it's a nice web site.

Breakfast

Breakfast - the quietest time of the day. I love the muslei I make with pumpkin and sunflower seeds. I soak them overnight in fruit juice so that they just start to sprout at breakfast time, crunchy but delicate with extra flavour. I chew them a little bit longer to get all the flavour. mmm. I take a big spoonful.

"Mum!"

I mumble a response. "Is it d-tunnel, that proxy?" "mm-mm", I reply, still savouring but teenage daughter blithely carries on.
"How do you spell it?"
I try to gesticulate at her that my mouth is full, but her back is turned!
"How do you spell it?" she insists as she butters her bread.
"Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mnte" (meaning "I'll tell you in a minute")) I answer hopefully, but she goes "What?"

I'm now stressed and not enjoying what remains of this poorly chewed mouthful. She doesn't get a contentful answer. I think she'll probably ask me another question so there's no point in continuing eating now, so I go and tidy and wipe the kitchen. Neither of us talk for 10 minutes. She takes my newspaper and reads it while I clear up.

Now she's gone to school, I'll go and finish breakfast in solitary peace.

Poppies

Granddaughter's year group at Elmhurst school embroidered a plate of poppies and displayed it in our local church.

Divali

Knock at door at 8.30 this morning. Nice neighbour, Kenyan Asian lady with her two younger children on their way to school smilingly offered me a present and "Happy Divali!". I've never had a Divali present before. Aren't I lucky?

They are sweet cakes and I've brought them into the office to share around. There are never many people in on a Friday so it's nice to be sociable and have something to share.

Paying for university

I thought it was bad enough that the government gave so few years warning that my children would have to pay to go to university. I don't see it as unfair to have to pay, but would have liked to have known when they were much younger. Son is now building up his debt, having a living expenses loan of £3000 a year, and £3000 a year paid to the university. So that's a lot at the end of a four year course.

He applied to five universities, and now his sister is going through the UCAS process and applying to study maths at Oxford, Bristol, Bath, Warwick and Surrey. Their aunt in the states has just emailed to ask

"Do you have to pay to apply to universities in Britain? (Son) paid about $300.00 per application."

Thank goodness that's one expense that we don't have to pay yet.

Daughter has an interview at Surrey next week, an acknowledgement from Bristol and Oxford, but not yet Warwick and the offer of an interview at Bath in January.

Essay writing

Son might come home this weekend to see the new baby, but he says he has heaps of work, including an essay to write. He informs me he needs a day to write this essay:

"No, two days because I have to get the books."

Middle Step Daughter is also studying part time for her surveyor qualifications, and she tells me she's taking a day off work next week to write and essay.

I'm impressed by their discipline and the speed with which they write essays.

Baby born

The phone rang at 7 o'clock this morning. Baby born at 1.45 a.m. She weighs 8lb 11oz. Mother and father are home and resting. We didn't tell J&R immediately, cos they were still in bed asleep but the phone woke J so she came down and asked what the news was.


Lunch time: there are photos of mother and baby on the family web site. It appears near the top of a google search list if you put in two of our surnames. Big brother and sister have gone home to meet their new sister.

No news of baby

Baby is now more than 10 days overdue, so eldest step daughter went into Stoke Mandeville hospital this morning to have it induced, while older sister and brother stay with us but we still have no news.

India trip booked

We've booked to visit Ahmedabad in time for Zenobya's grandchild's navjote on 30th December this year. That's a parsi thread ceremony that happens when the child is around 7 to 12 years old. Her son, Kaizad, emailed about a year ago:

"see if u can make it to india in december next year, would be grt to have u with us on such an occasion."

It's 31 years since I was there with Vera McNamara - I wonder where she is now - I lost touch when Australia had its postal strike.

Husband and I will fly out to Ahmedabad 27th December, leaving the 'children' in charge of the house and each other. Son and daughter will have to get themselves back to uni in January as we shall still be away. After the ceremony, we are going to Kerala for a tour round Kochin, Munnar, Periyar and other places, staying in hotels, a cottage on a tea estate and a houseboat. I think it looks wonderful on this web page.

And I get ayuvedic massages, any massage pleases me, and husband will have the chance for massages too, and we get to see the wild life. (I could give the tigers a miss though - I'm quite happy to see them from a distance).

Our trip isn't quite the same because we are arranging our own transport (and a right hassle that has been - the JetAirways web site doesn't show you everything so we got down the wrong names on the tickets twice and had to cancel and rebook. And we couldn't book the internal flights on line, but only over the phone, but they don't take credit cards over the phone. It is cheaper to arrange your own flights but easier if you get an agent to take on the hassle.

More or less

Step son Tim is about to start a radio programme called "More or Less" on radio 4 from Monday. Do listen.

No news

For those of you who know that there's a baby due, there's no news. As soon as there is, I'll let you know.

Bedtime rituals

I wonder what people do when it's time to leave company and go to bed.

Yesterday son-in-law, eldest step-daughter and I had this discussion about how we say good night.

• I now like to sneak off without bothering anyone, not draw attention to myself, but there was a time when I'd say 'goodnight'. My parents brought me up to say 'goodnight and god bless'.
• Late husband used say, "I'm going to bed now; you can come if you like."
• ESD says that when she was little, her mother used to get the three of them to say good night prayers, but that somehow that habit disappeared when they were older, perhaps when they moved house. That reminded me that we used to do something similar: prayers next to the bed when I was very small, and later we used to kneel in the sitting room to say family prayers. Like ESD's family they were along the lines of "God bless Nanna and Aunty Thing and ...", so almost a ritual.
• S-in-L says that he has to say 'good night' to everyone, and may be hug them. The conversation started from his expression of love and care for his son.
• S-in-L's Italian father gets very upset if someone goes to bed without saying 'goodnight', perhaps because his own father was so undemonstrative, and would retire without a word.
  
  These rituals might be a continuation of a family tradition, or a reaction to a tradition that someone didn't like. What did you do? What do you do for a bedtime ritual?

Autumn

The garden is beautiful. Here are our first vine crops. Son tasted one of the grapes last weekend and said they were really sour, but then they were still green. He understood the term 'sour grapes'.

Holiday photos

Here is the promised photo of the fountain of shame, with the various figures, which I assume are Roman and Greek gods.

Then, something that didn't get into husband's diaries earlier, was the puppet show. Apparently puppet making is a dying skill in Sicily, but there was a time when the makers vied to make the biggest puppets, which they then used to tell old Sicilian tales, such as this one that we went to see about brave knights who killed a dragon and all sorts of other invading baddies - probably not now politically correct - the story of Rinaldo and Orlando (Roland and Oliver).

See this blog for a good description.

And here is a very short video of one of the many fights in the story.

Adrian's diary again

Sept 25 (Tuesday)
Transferred to Palermo by coach; a rainy day with the mountains obscured - we went back past Enna where the inhabitants must live in the clouds for much of the year.

In the afternoon we had a guided tour, by Paolo Lungo, of the main sites of Palermo. Fontana Pretoria, just opposite our hotel, is also known as the 'Fountain of shame' (di vergogna) for the many nude statues next to a convent. photos later

Then on to the Cathedral via back streets - a Norman-Arabic exterior with a much remodelled interior now in Spanish Baroque. Heard story of Saint Rosalia whose bones 'saved' Palermo from the plague and who is celebrated in Palermo in mid July.

Next stop was the Royal Palace with its Palace Chapel rich in biblical mosaics - still visible in part under a restoration programme following a recent earthquake. After losing our guide momentarily we continued through the narrow streets or alleys of old Palermo, now being refashioned after damage and desertion following WWII. We arrived at a street marked 'Mercato Ballaro, with tempting displays of fresh produce (bought some black olives before catching up with the group). There followed several more churches at which we were competing with bridal ceremonies, comings and goings; at one we stopped to watch the bride's arrival amid a veritable scrummage of cars coming and gong. Before that there was already a ceremony.

and finally to the church of the Marterano (inventors of marzipan).

Sept 25 Wednesday
By public transport to Monreale - after a walk up to the Piazzi Indipendenza via a puppet theatre with a show promised for the evening. l ater see pictures and home web for sound and film

Monreale is a fabulous Norman Cathedral decorated all over the interior in mosaics telling the biblical stories. We also explored a bit of the roof which afforded a panorama of a lovely cloister area with elegant colonnades, before taking us over the roof of the cathedral for a panorama of the Conca d'Ora in which Palermo nestles. On the return journey we detoured to the Cappucina Catacombs, a rather ghoulish display of relatively recent corpses (less that 200 years in most cases) in their funeral garb. They were classified: priests, monks, professional people, women, babies. Without explanation or obvious historical significance, the point of the display escaped us.

Selinunte, Agrigento, Siracuse, Palermo

Found an internet cafe so thought I would use it. Here is what husband has diaried:

Selinunte 17-18th September

We took the train to get to Stansted as the flight was at 11.45 and made contact with the Ramblers rep at check in to reassure ourselves as we had booked to travel separately. Some of the flight was a bit turbulent, but we arrived ahead of time and joined the group (24) for the bus journey to Selinunte. We found a few members younger than ourselves - we had been concerned at first sight, that we'd be the babies of the group by 10-15 years. We arrived at about11pm local time and ate and went straight to bed - no we didn't - we chatted up the barman and drank limoncello for a while.

The following day we were briefed and went off to view the Greek temples and remains of Selinunte: one reasonably complete (re-erected?), one with most of one wall standing and several piles of huge stones after earthquakes. (H climbed some and got told off by a guard, so he was luckier than one of us, who climbed and fell and scraped her leg). A very small museum also indicated use of the site as watch tower during the 17th-18th century as a warning mechanism against Barbary pirates. We ate a picnic lunch and then returned to the bay outside before returning to the hotel via a walk along the (oily) beach and a short cut through olive groves, courtesy of a helpful farmer.

Agrigento 19th September

A bit of rain overnight, same still around in the morning when we assembled by the coach for transfer to Agrigento. Arriving before the hotel would let us in to our rooms, we spent time by the pool having coffee and discussing the plant life ' (see photos later) before wandering off to have lunch in the Tratoria al Templi. After lunch, we went up into the 'old' town stopping at a convent (Santi Spiritu) to admire the stucco and partake of the sisters' almond cakes. The second stop waqs at Sta Maria du Greci, where the Greek building which was the preceding building was visible around and below the glass floor. The cathedral was closed!

In the evening we found an enoteca nearby (we had to escape a noisy crowded wedding reception at the hotel).

Sept 20

Went down to the temple area by bus and browsed for a couple of hours before returning to the town. We bought water etc at the supermarket and a bottle of red wine made by Sedara at Donnafugato (q.v. The Leopard) (I'll add links later) Then retired to sample the wares at Spizzulio, the enoteca we had visited last night, where we again had the sole attention of Carmelo, the sommelier. Had a wonderful plate of Sicilian cheeses arranged in clockwise order of piquancy see photo , a shrimp risotto with a rose and a moscalo di Siracusa, grace à Carmelo.

Sept 21

A bus trip to Eraclea Minoa, a Greek - even Minoan settlement with a wonderful position on a headland of white rock. Wandered round the site with lovely butterflies (Scarce Swallowtail, which is neither scarce nor possessed of a tail) and an orange winged specimen where the tip of the wings shaded to brown with a pure white stripe. Also enjoyed watching the shepherd with his flock of big-eared sheep.

Then went down to the beach for an excellent lunch at a beach cafe (Sabbia d'Oro) followed by a stroll or paddle along the beach to the headland- white chalk, banded, and sculpted into smooth waves by sand and wind. (Some strolled but others stayed and swam and sunbathed on the clean sandy, almost empty beach).

Sept 22

Transfer to Siracuso via Enna and Villa Romana di Caslae (vicino Piazza Armerina). The first stop, Enna, was a town situated on a hill top miles above everywhere, accessed by a vertiginous round with much advance warning from the bus-drivers horn.

The Roman villa was an enormous building with extensive mosaics including a famous erotic one. The mosaics were superb but ongoing restoration work meant that the presentation left something to be desired.

Went for a locational walk around the Teardrop Church - a modern concrete landmark following the acceptance as miraculous of the tears of a panted Madonna.

Sept 23

Strolled with wife to see and go into the Madonna delle Lacrima church before breakfast. Then spent the morning at the Archeological Park opposite the hotel ' Springs, Greek theatre, the quarry area (Chatonmie, roman theatre, etc. Found a place for the group to eat in the evening before a quick look at the arch museum and lunch.

After lunching walked (because all the places we tried to buy bus tickets from were closed) into Ortigia, the island which was the centre of the ancient Greek city. The cathedral - the oldest continuously used place of worship - was built into a Greek temple, the columns of which now formed the outside wall of the church - the nave had columns cut from the continuous inner wall of the temple.

Then staggered from cafe to cafe along the streets and promenade of the old town which would take a day or more to explore fully.

Finding a bus back was problematical and I was in the dog-house for waving on a bus full of fellow ramblers and having to wait 10 minutes for another - but we got back before the rest because they were on the wrong bus.

We had a good sociable meal in the evening at the restaurant on the other side of the archaeological park.

Sept 24 Monday

An outing by train (return by bus) to Noto, a small town rebuild in the Sicilian Baroque style after the earthquake of 1693 by Rosario Gaghàrdi. A rather cramped hillside ridge location meant a shortage of places to sit and wonder at the ornate unity of the buildings in a strongly coloured sandstone. We then recirculated looking for the most ridiculously ornate set of balcony supports, see photos later, but quickly found a place near the Duomo which had no real competitor.

Went for a solo stroll in the evening to snap an abandoned steam loco at the station and make another tour of Ortigia in a successful search for us, of a place to eat in the evening although perilously short of cash to pay for it. (it didn't take plastic)

Abandoning my babies

I finished my 16000 word dissertation on time, just, despite some last minute traumas. Now I can relax - no I can't because I still have some tutoring work to mark and some to prepare, and when we get back from holiday I have a viva on my research.

Husband and I are having a 10 day holiday in Sicily soon, abandoning teenagers at home. Please would any kind mature relative / friend ring them /drop in on them / check them.

Or rather please check the house, that they aren't going to leave it wide open to that cheeky cat or opportunistic burglars. Or may be they'll burn it down, or just run the water or electricity uneconomically. Or they don't answer the door to the post man, or do answer the door to someone who isn't the gas meter man.

Wish I weren't going away....

Cooking efforts

My 19-year-old son pays rent when he's home from university, but hasn't been able to get a job and is feeling poor. He's also bored. So we have negotiated that he should do some of the cooking. This pleases him as he wants to learn to cook, and he gets a reduced rent in exchange. It pleases me as I have a full time occupation and don't want to have to rush home to cook.

Today was the first meal - shepherd's pie and it tasted delicious. Congratulations, son!

When I got in at about 7.30 I found hungry husband prowling about like jungle cat about to pounce while he watched his food s-l-o-w-l-y cooking. Poor old son started preparing at six o'clock because he hasn't done it before and didn't know how long potatoes would take to boil, especially when you don't cut them down first. If husband hadn't been so hungry he would have enjoyed the show.

This goes to show that there's more to preparing a meal than getting the right ingredients, right size of pan or dish and right recipe. You also have to remember the people you intend to feed, and recognise that persons prowling in the kitchen are likely to be hungry and hungry people get cross. And teachers of learner cooks probably have to have something to nibble in the corner.

City of Angels

Went to see this musical "City of Angels" yesterday, put on by Songbird Productions. It's an adventurous enterprise produced with skill and intelligence by South Bucks teenagers.

The web site immediately tells you there's professional ability here - what other volunteer, amateur production gets a web site together in only a few months, and a web site that competently takes your bookings, lets you pay and sends you the tickets? That augured well for the musical.

The musical didn't disappoint. Despite the occasional spot light of a foot rather than a head, and the too loud music so I couldn't hear the words, the acting, the set design, the costume and the singing were a very high standard.

Donna/ Oolie was played by Becky Harrison who has as big and beautiful a voice as her bosoms. Stine was played by Ed Bernstone whose acting stood out as totally professional - you believed he was the character and couldn't imagine him being someone else ever, although he was only a few feet away from us on the stage, or the floor actually, because this was in the school hall.

Oh and watch Matt Goodwin. This Queen's scout is a many talented man. There's this scene where the trollops are mooching around and a big blonde bird in a long black dress strides across the room too, perhaps in charge, then you do a double take and wonder what sort of woman that is. Then he scratches his balls!

There are some photos in the Bucks Herald. Hope more towns get teenagers that do this sort of thing. May Songbird Productions last!

things for bright boys

DON'T give this book to a boy! I bought "211 things a bright boy can do" anticipating it as a present for my 11 year old nephew, thinking that things like skimming stones and making sledges would be good occupations. However, when my 19-year-old son borrowed it, I learned what a mistake it would be to give it to a younger chap.

Why? Take for example as early as page 13 where the writer explains how and why to take snuff - not something I should encourage my nephew to do. Another activity is to guess a woman's bra size, something that my son has now been practising.

It'll be brilliant for the older boy or nearly young man - hence my son's pleasure in it (and I hope he follows its advice on how to mow the perfect lawn for us). It would delight a smutty-thinking 14-year-old but I'll be in trouble with his parents if I give it to their 11-year-old.

Eye of the needle

We visited the Forbidden Corner, taking aged Aunty E with us.

But we hadn't really realised just what a complicated maze it is. It's not just a maze where you wander round hedges, shouting to get out, and it's more than a garden where you admire the scent of the lavender. The whole thing is a maze and a puzzle, so if you wander out of the woods or away from the gardens you could find yourself paddling in streams, or exploring caves. It wasn't really where we should have gone with aged Aunty.

We found the underground world with a cobbled passage, lit only by the light in a door way at the end of the passage. It seemed a bit damp, so deeming it wiser to avoid AA falling we turned round and tried another route, but only ended up coming back to this cobbled passage. This second time, nobody else was blocking the light from the doorway at the end, so we carefully went down, down, down... Er. It was an illusion! As you got closer, the roof came lower, the passage narrower, you couldn't turn round, you had to go single file, and you had to bend down, then s q u e e z e through this doorway, which I duly did. And when I got out, I realised it was really a window. And there was AA behind me, trying to get through. She bent down, she stuck her walking stick through, handed me her handbag, and rearranged her limbs. By now, we had a queue of people behind AA, who didn't realise that you couldn't get out of this hole. My husband behind her, was making helpful suggestions, like "Legs first!" But that works no better than when you're having a baby that decides to come legs first and she just got more jammed. No. It had to be head and shoulders first, and Aunty's shoulders were just not going to go through. So there was husband pushing her bum, and me pulling her stick!

In the end, we all realised that the only way we would get her through would have been turn her sideways and post her like a letter through a letterbox. So I gave her back her handbag, and she and husband reversed back up the tunnel. I don't know how they got all the people out of the way, because I wasn't going back in that way, thank you and it took me nearly an hour to find them again. If you look at this web page, you'll find a picture of the hole.

They call that particular folly "The Eye of the Needle" so now we are joking about what AA has in common with camels, that she can't get through the eye of the needle! Fortunately, she was laughing as much as me. Great fun!

Great place. Teenage son and daughter explored and found all the clues.

Richmond

We've come up to Richmond to visit my parents. The town still has a selection of small shops, privately owned and run, though we are sad to see that Mr Coleman and Mr Morris's has closed and is to be reopened as a WH Smith's. That will ring the death knell for the little paper shop further up the square.

I see there are plans to twin the town with an American one at Annapolis. Mayor Ellen Moyer nicely describes our Richmond at her blogspot.

Visitors from Austria

We have two teenage girls from Austria staying with us for a fortnight. They are with a group of about 30 teenagers who get farmed out to a number of host families around the town. We provide them with bed, breakfast, packed lunch and supper. Each day they go either to English classes or out on trips with their flamboyant teacher. FT arrived yesterday in big white hat, bright red suit with mini skirt, bare brown legs, shod in high heels, with pink fish net tight ankle socks.

This morning the class was off to Thorpe Park for the day. Daughter packed their lunches and we walked the girls to the bus stop. When the coach arrived, FT gave me a big hug, and then invited daughter to go to Thorpe Park with them! And she's gone. She's got no sandwiches, no mobile, no money, probably no handkerchief - and she does have hay fever. I hope she has a wonderful time.

Funeral

Yesterday I went to my cousin's funeral.

The burial service was before the memorial service, and only immediate family were at that. At the memorial however, there were more than 70 people. They included family: cousins (my brother, me & my son), his ex-brother-in-law who had worked in his business with him for years, his wife's family, school friends from the 60s, parents of children that their children had gone to school with, skiing friends, including the president or head or chief of the British skiing institution. I thought that showed how much they cared.

People talk about celebrating someone's life, but this service really did start as a celebration. It started with the hymn that they'd started their married life with in 1976, Praise my soul, the king of heaven. It makes me smile to think of it. Lucky them - they had thirty years together. His brother described him faffing about with his first car, then read a poem of Gerald Manley Hopkins, The Windhover. Hopkin's poetry is so difficult to read; He'd tried to learn it by heart.

There was a slide show of pictures of him from baby to child to man, husband and father and ended rather splendidly with films of him skiing, stopping to face the camera, then skiing down the hill away from us. His brother-in-law talked about him and a friend played a guitar piece - I recognised it from the sixties or seventies but would someone who was there please tell me what it is called.

The readings were two of my favourites: Ecclesiastes 3: 1-9 and the prayer of St Francis read by his elder daughter.

The sit-down meal was with a full menu including red or white wine. Someone must have been very busy and organised to have arranged all that. Thank you to them because it was good to see my relatives.

The grave is in the non-conformist, not the Catholic section, of the graveyard. This means that the magnificent view is out over the hill sides, towards the sea, which you can just see between the hills.

Later I'll put a couple of other photos in our family web site.

Great teenagers

Isn't it wonderful what questions your children can ask?

At lunch table 17 year old asked how I was analysing the data so I explained that I'd transcribed the interviews and then had devised some codes to put against chunks of speech, but that when I came to apply them they didn't work so I created other codes of climate, process and structure and subdivided those when I came across ideas that reminded me of something in the literature, like conflict suggesting political elements. I didn't know I could verbalise what I was doing and it was great to have to answer the question.

Then the 17-Y-O, was saying something about "but that's only opinion, not facts" so she and 19-year-old brother got into debate of researching opinions and facts.

I'm so glad they're interested. They are going to have three more years of me doing this, and someone has to read my work before I give it to my supervisors.

Cheeky cat

Husband took cat to vet, but found nothing wrong. However he does have a chip, and he is a she, registered in Putney in 1998. She is called Cheeky.

Her name suits.

Scheherazade

Son and I went to see my nephew's year 6 leaving play at his school.

Here he is.

And here are some features from programmes, which came in different designs, a skill that would put some year 9 ICT students to shame.







and acknowledgments were due to:

Grief

My cousin is seriously not well. Some years ago he survived cancer of the kidney, but last week he was in hospital in London for a long operation, then moved to Christie's in Manchester, closer to where he lives. Now the family is asking for prayers for him and for his family, so I fear the worst.

If I hadn't been widowed 11 years ago, perhaps his death would be just a fact to me, and I would feel only sadness, but my experience means that I now care more that his wife-to-be-widow will lose him, and his children, especially his 17 year old son will be unfathered. His wife will become the sole decision maker, independent, lonely with no one to share with, the single carer for their third and youngest child. My husband's wife died when step-daughter #2 was about the same age. She never knew her mother as an adult, a companion and friend. She couldn't show off to her mother all the things that she got to do when she was grown up. I look at my 17 year-old daughter now and know that I must live some more years so that she can live happily, and grow up to what she should grow to be.

Cousin's son should be applying to university next year, perhaps like one of his sisters be considering Oxford. I wonder if he came for the June open days that daughter and I went to. Perhaps the family was too busy dealing with his father's illness. Perhaps he'll delay applying for a year. I don't know if he plans a gap year anyhow. His big sister and I never got to meet in the time that she was at Oxford, but it would be nice to meet him and perhaps offer home comforts if he wants to know. That might add in a more practical way to the prayers.

Promenade concert & cat

We went out to a prom concert last night. If you saw it on BBC 4 you'll know how smashing it was. The theme was French with music from the ilks of Rameau, but the difference was that there were dancers too, dancing to this 18th century French music, which must have been written to dance to. Initially these were classical ballet dancers, but even so, they danced to the audience, making us laugh, not being serious. However, the energy came from the Soweto dancers, who drummed and danced and played the violin too. With steps like the Russian one where you put your hands on the floor and spin round your legs so you have to jump over your own legs, and leaps high into the air, with the occasional squawk the audience was enraptured. The enthusiasm and energy grew throughout the second half of the performance, with the Monteverdi choir encouraging by doing Mexican waves. It was a most memorable concert for a wedding anniversary.

And when we got home, we found one of our children had left a bowl of cat food out, so we were asking ourselves which of them didn't know that the cat had gone, lost, dead. But it turned out that youngest had seen the cat. He isn't dead, but thin and slow but back again.

Wedding anniversary

July 15th is our seventh wedding anniversary. I think this is quite a good number for starters, though not a reason for resting on our laurels. You have to work at a relationship to keep it going well. Nevertheless, between us we notch up over 50 years of good marriages because husband was married for 27 years and I was married for 17 years before. So

27+17+7 > 50

Perhaps one year we'll have a big party to celebrate lots of years in total even if he and I won't make ruby together.

Cat gone

That bouncy young tom cat that adopted husband has gone. Just disappeared. He was around at our family barbecue last week, trying to snaffle the sausages, but on the Monday, husband said that he wasn't interested in food, was shivering, and was sleeping a lot. I saw him on Friday, sitting under the bushes, with no energy. By the time husband got home to take him to the vet, he'd disappeared and we haven't seen him since. He must have eaten something poisonous. I think that in winter his body will turn up under the bushes when the leaves drop off.

Grading

Passed the grading after all those dire prognostications. Ha! Got my blue tag.

And, like my GCE maths teacher insulted me with, "you've done better than I expected" the subum said, "I was pleasantly surprised!"

Na-na-na-na-na.

Taekwon Do grading

Taekwon Do grading is tomorrow. Subum says that he hasn't used the word 'fail', just the word 'retake', and has talked about September.

End of term wet weather

Youngest daughter is away on a school trip to Buxton, but I texted her about the PhD offer. It's nice having encouraging children - here's her reply.

"Wow, go you!" Been raining cats and dogs here, but still fun. Was 1st to get hurt and got pulled in water. Got too much to eat, even with budget. Go celebrate!"

It's succinct but full, isn't it? What does she mean that she got hurt? How? Why? And does "pulled in water" mean that she was shoulder high, drenched and half drowned, or what? If she was the first, then that implies others go hurt too. Oh dear!

The reference to the budget is because the school is giving them a limited amount of money from which they have to plan and purchase and prepare their meals together, so I think there are lots of lessons about resources, and social negotiation going on here.

Today she texted:

"Need to wash/dry sleeping bag. Our tent collapsed this morning while we were still inside. We've made a few new records for the centre challenges."

Oh dear again! Does she mean that the centre doesn't usually have collapsed tents or is there some unnamed challenge that she and others have beaten?

Doctoral progress

People who read this might want to know and be as pleased as I am to hear that the OUBS has offered me a place to continue with the doctoral programme for the next years.

:)

So I am a late developer who got her degree in her thirties, her masters in her forties and now .. working for my doctorate.

Home comings

Both Youngest Step Daughter and Son are due home soon from university. YSD was hoping to be able to stay in her present house but it transpires that the landlord isn't letting them stay and she has the hassle of finding somewhere else. But she's doing well and looks like she'll come out with a respectable degree.

S is still taking exams - I think they're called collections.

And the lodger is still with us, with a bit of an overlap, so we have to have negotiations over bedrooms.

For a few days it will be nicely busy as Son is bring home a couple of friends too - Oliver and Qu, so we'll have people in all the rooms.

Tae Kwondo

I've got a grading soon, and about time too, since it is months since I took a grading. But I muddle the moves.

Each grade or kup has an associated pattern of moves. At my kup, I should know a pattern called Won Yo, which I do, but the earlier kup has a pattern called Do San, and the one before is Dan Gun, and for nearly two years, I've confused them. Now I'm finding that when I do Do San, I'm even trying to mix in moves from Won Yo. :(

But despite my lack of kinesthetic or haptic memory, tae kwondo makes me smile so I shall keep doing it. I play tag, like I did in the playground. The small boys, when I get partnered with them, wonder why I don't keep up the same! And they cheat. Even when I do tag them, they don't perform their penalty, 3 press-ups or a sit up or something, but the warm-up game still makes me smile.

And there was the time I was partnered with big cockney accent - lovely chap, twice my weight. We had to face each other in press-up position, and attempt to knock each other's arms away so we'd collapse. He won of course, but I just kept laughing.

Baby all right, and mother too

My mother skyped me to ask how baby was; I didn't know.

But then today, Sdaughter#2 rang to tell me, since she was there at the time and helped with the ferrying to the hospital 15 minutes away, and minding big sister. Her mother did stay in hospital with her, and fed her and looked after her in the children's ward, while her daddy and aunty minded BS. Hospital did various checks and scans, and found a cracked skull and a bruised brain, but nevertheless baby is perky again, and happily enjoying the attention.

I think her mummy and daddy are working out how to make the floor less slippery and hard.

Falling grandchildren

We've just had a phone call from son#1. He and family are coming over for lunch in a couple of weeks, but his younger daughter has just had a fall and been in hospital for two days! Apparently hospital was just keeping an eye on her, and I don't know the details because husband took the call. But son#1 is about to take family out - mother requires something stronger than a coffee. And I'm not surprised. I'd be worried about my baby daughter being away from me for two days, be demanding to sleep on the floor in the hospital next to her, and then worrying that the authorities would be saying I'm a bad mother. She's a lovely mother.

Watching the model trains

Grandparenting

Husband wanted to see the model trains at Seaton, Pecorama and thought he could take grandchildren #1 & #2, but it's more than a four-hour car journey, so needs a sleep-over somewhere. I rang mother-in-law #1 to ask if there were any places to rent but they were all booked up - of course. MiL#1 offered to have us stay, which is specially good of her when these aren't her great-grandchildren. May MiL#2 bless her from heaven.

So husband, daughter, GC#1 and GC#2 all traipsed down to Devon this week. On the way we visited Glastonbury, and climbed all the way up to the Tor.


GC#2 enjoyed throwing pebbles in the waves at Seaton, while we munched his sandwiches.


We had a lovely time. The children were cheerful, playful, fun to be with. The teenager was helpful and fun. MiL#1 was well and enjoyed our company, and husband didn't act stressed at all.

Here's MiL#1 in front of her house last month when the clematis and wisteria were in full bloom.

Freshers' Parents Lunch

We had an unanticipated invitation to Hertford College this month. It read:

The Principal and Fellows of Hertford College, Oxford
request the pleasure of your company at
THE FRESHERS' PARENTS LUNCH
On Saturday 12th May 2007
Drinks in the The Principal's Lodgings - 11.30 - 1.00pm
Lunch in Hall - 1.00pm

Son was pleased to meet us, and we had the chance to meet his fellow student who comes from the town where my parents now live. Husband and I had interesting chat with him and his parents. The meal was lovely, the wine appropriate, the company good. After the meal, son gave us a tour of the college, before we wandered off to the covered market to pick up something interesting for supper. What luck! How nice.

It seems that the university is making new efforts to open itself to the world, so others can better understand it.

'Twas on a Wednesday morning, the gas man...

Never ever give up, remember.

The man from British Gas came to do a service. Previous years we've had a local chap, but he's retired. The BG man first looked at the ventilation. It used to be 'not to standard', but Corgi have changed their ideas, and now the ventilation is 'at risk'. Why? Because the holes are too small.
The ventilation requires 33 square ins or 212 square cms, and these little holes mean we get only about 64 square centimeters so we will have to change this vent to a louvered one or make a bigger hole in the brickwork. Fail #1.

We also have a non-standard terminal on the chimney.
We need something suitable for a gas flue and over 150mil diameter, and what we have might have once been 'non-standard', but is now 'at risk. Fail #2.

Then the BG man got on with checking that the boiler actually worked. Yes. Hurray. and he changed the thermocouple. Good. Unfortunately, then he checked burner pressure which although clean, should have been 12 millibars, and the maximum pressure that we are getting is only 7.5 millibars, because the old gas pipes are too small, and this big boiler should never have been fitted with such small pipes and all the pipe work should be changed to something bigger. Fail #3.

Three strikes and the boiler's out! His instructions, and to ensure he is being responsible, are to switch off the boiler and put a safety notice on it, which he has done. It's not locked off and it's not immediately dangerous, but we are going to have to do something about the b* thing.

I can see some expense coming on. It'll be a hundred to get someone to come and sort out the ventilation, hundreds to get the scaffolding up to change the terminal, which BG man says is the priority, and I suppose thousands to sort out the pipes. And there was me thinking I might spend some money going to India for the first time in 30 years!

Never ever give up.