Son's blog

Son has started a blog, and started coxing, so his first posting is on that, unless he's procrastinated it.

Thirty years ago today

Thirty years ago today, I saw my Aunty and Uncle - the uncle who died earlier this year. It's their wedding anniversary today and this is the first one she'll have without him. I tried to find a photo of them together that day, but can't, so here is one of my parents that day instead.

Trains & grandchildren

Husband & I took two grandchildren over to Didcot railway centre. They're really happy in the car, don't get sick & don't squabble. They sang:

Tic tac toe
Give me high, give me low.
Give me three in a row.
Danny got shot by a UFO

(then you have to do rock-paper-scissors but you don't say anything)

Snaky creepy crawly up your back.
What letter is that?
You lose, get a bruise!

While husband/gran'pa took photos of engines, we explored a newly opened air-raid shelter, then went on the exhibition coach for lots of hands-on experimentation with steam, coal and oxygen.

The photo is of leaves on the line's gravel.

Blogging

The Today programme on radio 4 today had a discussion suggesting that blogging was passé & dying and that the cool thing to do now was twitter.

Twitter! No. Twittering isn't an alternative to blogging - it's different for different purposes. Blogging is for writing, and twittering is for - just that - twittering - nothing special while you faff about and say in a hundred words what you're faffing about it. Twittering is what an excited flock of stupid birds does. Suggesting twittering could replace blogging is like suggesting using a bicycle instead of a car.

Bah! Humbug!

Surprise walk

My posting on the planned walk to see a white horse was a trick.

I told husband I wanted to see a white horse, and I pointed at Ashbury. He then 'planned' the day including lunch at a local pub. However, he wanted to start walking at 10 o'clock, and I wanted to start at 11. I had to slow him down. SoI

• lay in late
• showered
• remembered I'd forgotten my mobile phone.
• asked to stop in Stanford-in-the-Vale to look for the grave stones of distant relatives
• complained about the bumpy roads
  
• burped as if about to be sick
• asked for the loo.

But we still got to the empty car park before eleven o'clock.

Then step daughter #3 turned up. She beamed and announced that she thought she'd like a walk. We slowly put our boots on to delay a little longer. Step-daughter #1 with her husband and three children arrived too.

"Happy Birthday, Daddy!" "Hello Granpa!"

Step-daughter #3 & partner arrived next. And finally step son with his wife and two children.

Then he realised that he'd been set up and all the family were arriving to walk with him, and someone else had booked the pub for the 16 of us.

They all had their stories. One had started early then had to go back to fetch something for a niece; one had left Loughborough at 8 o'clock but had gone round every which way.

Husband thought that he was setting up the day, but actually it was his four children who were setting it up to give him a belated birthday surprise. The idea was to get him to the car park at Ashbury for 11 o'clock so they'd all be there to greet him, and it was my job to get him there.

Between them all they'd planned and organised a lovely day for their dad. He was surprised and pleased by his lovely four children.

Where's a white horse?

One afternoon in 1990 I walked a bit of the Ridgeway with 3 friends. I'd love to go again.

Husband is planning to take me walking the Ridgeway and Ashbury to see a white horse on Sunday. He says that he's found a nice pub to go to too, for lunch. It sounds good, except that he wants to be at Ashbury for 10 o'clock, and that's a tad early for me.

We'll have a discussion.

When did our house get built?

Followed husband round Swanbourne with the archeology society. Discovered that houses in the 17th century got built with a lobby front door. This means that the chimney was right behind the draft-preventing lobby round the front door, and divided the house into two parts, one larger - the main room, and a smaller, perhaps not heated room.

Our house's front door was originally directly onto the street and we had two rooms with one side smaller than the other. So although it's listed as a Victorian house there's evidence that it's older.

The walk round Swanbourne was interesting and the autumn weather was lovely.

Towcester races

Gorgeous day to skive off to the races. Husband and I nipped out of work after lunch and drove up the A5 to Towcester racecourse. Husband got his money back on one race but otherwise we lost our bets.

But it was a lovely day to leave the office, to enjoy the autumn colours and the fluffy clouds skidding across a cold blue sky. The horses were beautiful. You could admire them not just on the race course but in the paddock parading before each race so you can see what they were like before you laid your bet.

All the children gone

Husband and I took son back to uni this afternoon, and now the house has no children living here all the time any more. I suggested going round to step daughter #1 for a dose of children and a cup of tea, but husband declined suggestion.

I know they've not quite all flown the nest; they'll be back from university during holidays, and there's the boomerang child. My brother came home in his late twenties. Step daughter #1 came back for six months with her husband and children and that was nice. But now my two are teetering out of the nest on their own. I've managed to get them this far, with help from their father for eight years, on my own for four years and their step father for the last eight . Here's hoping they'll all fly.

Sartorial advisor

On Saturday, daughter wore these really nice jeans. They look smashing on her, so I asked her advice on buying jeans. We tootled out together, and bought me a pair, which I'm wearing today. My Chinese friend, Gorgeous, commented:

"You are presenting really nice today, dressed like an 18 year old!"

Isn't that nice? I think daughter would be pleased.

Odd advice

My father was a responsible teacher and headteacher, who cared for children and adults. Thirty years ago my father gave my brothers his only advice to them on sex:

"Never get yourself in a room by yourself with a woman"

Then, my bothers and I thought it odd advice, but now I read that our priest is jailed for what he did thirty years ago. My father would never have done what that priest did. And he would never have let his staff do that either. What sort of school looked after its students and staff as badly as those Salesians did thirty years ago? How awful. How sad. How irresponsible.