Travelling

Travelling was the order of the day that first Christmas. The priest at Christmas mass reminded us of those travellers to Bethlehem. And I remembered that we'd travelled to see my parents, my daughter had travelled to get home to us, that the roads of England were chockablock with travellers for Christmas.

Last year we fetched my parents to us, but this year they are too frail to make the journey, even if we fetch them, so devoted husband suggested that we went up there and did Christmas for them, and aged aunty. Husband loves baking Christmas cake, mince pies, plum pudding, and willingly did the turkey, trimmings and vegetables. Then on Boxing Day we went to watch Mother Goose in the Georgian theatre with aged aunty. Aged aunty enjoyed it - it was her suggestion that we went to the pantomime, though she complained the fun was spoilt by an older woman who wanted her to come in the lift with her as if aunty were a hundred!

And now we've travelled home again, leaving parents quiet for a few days before my brother visits them.

National Health (service?)

I am so not impressed. Since I hurt my wrist over a month ago, I've been attending the local A&E, where they've x-rayed it a dozen times, and found no break. The swelling's gone down, the yellow bruising on both side has faded, but since the wrist is weak (can't do press ups on it), and the thumb and outer fingers feel a bit woolly, I'm following doctor's advice and continue to wear the splint, and not driving.

But now I'm out of A&E and under the care of orthopaedics, it's getting silly. Orthopaedics doctor said that he'd like a scan of the ligament, and that's fine. Having to wait a couple of weeks for the scan is okay too, even though I'd like the go ahead to drive again. Then I'm supposed to see the orthopedic doctor again a week after the scan, but apparently he has no appointments available until the end of April. APRIL! Now that is totally ludicrous. Ridiculous. Why waste money on a scan, an expensive MRI scan, if you can't use the information within days if not weeks?

Maybe the orthopaedics department will bring the appointment forward, but in the meantime, this wrist aches no more than other parts of my body that I haven't taken to A&E, so I'm going to drive again next week.

Uncle died

Less than a week after Aunty Grace's funeral, Uncle Les also died. When I saw him at A Grace's funeral, he invited us back to their house because we don't often have a family get-together. He never got back to his house from the funeral, and we all met up again for his funeral.

My aunt first married in 1942. The best man was Les Jones. Her husband was killed at Arnhem and in 1995, my aunt, having been a war widow for years, married Les Jones. My cousin emailed:

"They do say that it is the best man's duty to look after the bride, should anything befall the bridegroom. It took him a while, but he did eventually perform that duty."

When they married they'd hoped, they'd have ten years of companionship before one died, but they managed fifteen.

Les was bright, but confined to a wheelchair. He had problems which made eating and talking at the same time impossible. During the refreshments after my aunt's funeral Les choked on some food. My god daughter, a nurse, kept him alive until the first paramedic arrived, within 7½ minutes of my cousin's 999 call. Les was taken to hospital where, suffering from inhalation pneumonia and a collapsed lung, he arrested again, was resuscitated, but died peacefully with friends and relatives around him. My cousin emailed:

"Had he recovered sufficiently to be discharged from hospital he would have had very poor quality of life, and would almost certainly have had to go into residential care, which he had long resisted with all his not inconsiderable power. He was 93, so once again I believe it was his time to go and be reunited with my mother."

Dolls

My godmother made this brown cloak for my doll, Susan, many years ago. The cloak must have shrunk because now it fits only Marigold. The corners are gone because my Aunty Grace's dog, Kim, chewed one of them, and Aunty Grace mended it by making them match. The stitches are tiny.

I still have my godmother, but Aunty Grace has gone.

Aunty Grace's funeral

My much loved and beautiful Aunty Grace died in her sleep a week ago on Friday. She was an inspiration to single mothers because she had been widowed during the war.

She had a career as a chiropodist - she advised my mother on my flat feet. She was a haven from home, when my parents weren't around, somewhere else to go in the school holidays. In my twenties, she told me I could have her gold sleepers if I ever had my ears pierced, so within 24 hours I'd got her to take me to the jeweller's shop where they pierced my ears.

Aunty Grace has lots of grandchildren and even some great grandchildren too. She remarried in 1995, and that was a tale, because when she married her late husband's best man, she insisted that a woman of 80 couldn't be getting married, so they brought the wedding forward before her birthday.

They had the funeral and requiem mass for her today, and it was pleasant to meet her grandchildren and see how many of their neighbours were there too. She and her husband have neighbours who are been incredibly helpful and supportive for years. That's the big society - neighbours like theirs.

Grace was the eldest of four children. My mother mourned:

"I'm the only apple left on the tree"

Life again

Son facebooks me to ask why I'm not blogging, but I've still been writing, writing my PhD thesis. I've just given my supervisors a full draft, all 80,000 words of it, which is the size of a book. Who knows? I may yet submit the final thing, and face the viva next spring and get through with only minor corrections! And get to be a doctor by summer!

Here's hoping.

Hurt hand

Damaged wrist playing tae two do badly. Bad typing. No blog

Newly married nephew

We went down to Folkestone for a night, via Canterbury register office where we saw my nephew happily married to his lovely new wife.


Newly married nephew and wife will live in Folkestone.

Made in Dagenham

I went to see this film, Made in Dagenham, with a neighbour. We were growing up around the time these women machinists at the Ford factory were striking for equal pay after management had regraded them as unskilled, with consequent low pay. After weeks on strike, the women met Barbara Castle, who in getting them back to work, also initiated the equal pay act. That was May 1968.

On Friday 13 May 1968, I took my maths GCE. In May 1968, my neighbour received a letter about an accounting apprenticeship she'd applied for. It read,

"Dear Miss R, thank you for your application. The vacancy is for a male."

It was attitudes from similar managers of such organisations that limited my choice of career. It's thanks to the women of Dagenham that we have the Equal Pay Act, and that women now expect to be able to apply for all sorts of jobs, not limited by their sex. And, if it hadn't been for that Labour government, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now at the Open University.

Son to son

I'm a bit chuffed to see step son and son speaking to each other via the auspices of the Financial Times. Step son shines at economics, and son, having just finished his degree requires a reference, so of course the elder can advise the younger here.

Trudging

My PhD research trudges on. Or I trudge. Slowly. It's time it were finished, and

"progress is slow"

so said my supervisor this week, so I'm abandoning everything (well almost everything) in order to submit by Christmas. I've just postponed this drama course I was going on in October, and am doing it in January instead. I will have have submitted by then.

Won't I?

Growing up

Both my children recently contacted me, asking me about computing problems. How nice! At last they can talk about technical subjects I understand.

I was at teacher training college in the seventies, and one Sunday lunch at home my mother, also a teacher, and I were discussing how children learn. She exclaimed

"At last! Someone I can talk with about Piaget."

How nice to have adult children.

Peg's funeral

My nearly 90-year-old Aunty Peggy died on 16 September, probably while she was watching the Pope's arrival here - they found her with the television on.

Today was her funeral, well attended. Her surviving four children, along with her eight grandchildren arrived from three continents to celebrate her life at the parish church that she and Uncle Jack had attended since around 1968 when they moved to that small town. My #5 cousin said that Peg had been the heart of the family, that many had seen her as a mother, and indeed she was. When I was very small, I had to stay with her although she already had four children, for three weeks because my father was seriously ill in hospital. Aunty Peggy treated me like one of her own, even though I was her husband's niece, not hers. Years later she reminded me how's she'd washed my hair, and been startled by my screaming - I was always scared that the soap would go in my eyes and sting. She brought up five children, carried on mothering them till she was in her eighties.

My octogenarian mother came to the funeral, saw her sister-in-law buried with Jack. Of that generation, my mother and her sister remain, both frail, saddened and becoming lonelier. Aunty Peggy was active, not frail, but planning another trip to follow her three holidays last year, including a cruise with my cousin round Norway, getting trapped by the Icelandic volcanic eruption and choosing to trek for two days overland home. She had to get home; she had a wedding to go to.

She was inspiring! I hope when I'm ninety I can do as much.

Children gone

Since both the youngest have now gone on a more permanent basis than before, the house feels a bit empty and large. Before, I could expect one or both of them back at university vacations because they got thrown out of their accommodation, which is a particular problem at Oxford. But now both of them have signed long term leases.

Weird.

But then, I've known grown children come home before, like my brother. One year married daughter with husband and two children came here for six months. I liked that because I got to know them well, and I could take the toddler out to story time in the library and toddler groups.

Husband has had a good idea for curtaining off part of the house to keep the heat in the part we use. I'd show you a photo but have lost my battery charger.

Intelligent husband

Happy husband has passed his Open University photography course. Maybe he'll give me some good photos of his trains to show on Facebook, now

Son settled

Son has found a flatmate for the year of his MSc (in electronic engineering here)

Sunday, spent several hours in son's flat waiting to meet potential flatmates and feeling 'de trop', that his mother should not be there now he's an adult, but he had asked me, and the landlord is a family friend. So the three of us sat and waited.

Many students come to the UK to study at masters level - I think there are more foreigners than English students and son had been emailing several people from various parts of the world - Ireland, India, Switzerland, and we'd had discussions about names, where they might come from and what sex a name might be. So it would be an interesting afternoon meeting these strangers, and it was interesting.

One student walked in with her father, and immediately I felt I had a part to play - I was no longer 'de trop' because I represented son's background and family. Student With Father had lots of pertinent and sensible questions to ask, texted a few hours later to express interest in flat, and asked to meet again, which they did. Father and I discussed our families, our jobs, our religions - they are Jains from India - whilst SWF and son agreed bills, whether they'd keep the television, when they'd move in and how to draw up a contract.

Son sorted and settled. And daughter too - see her new blog here. Happy mother.

Devils

Husband took two grandchildren youth hostelling earlier this week in Snowdonia. They went up Snowden, the highest mountain in England and Wales, so can be proud of their walking abilities and energy.

In this photo, husband or grandchild is in the "Devil's chair". If the weather is so bad that you can't see the chair, they say the devil's sitting in it.

She's leaving home

Daughter left early this morning, away for a year to study maths in a foreign country, on the Erasmus programme. The Erasmus programme encourages European students to take a year abroad to continue their studies. It's a great idea, and daughter has been delighted to be at a university that lets her do this.

Daughter has nowhere to live yet and is spending the first three nights in a youth hostel. My friends tell me she'll be fine and she rang a few minutes ago to say that she's arrived and fine and at the hostel, and met another Erasmus student, one that she might share a flat with for a year, a stranger that she doesn't yet know.

Lucky girl.

Happy anniversary

Today is brother and wife's pearl wedding anniversary. That's thirty years of marriage and cool! Congratulations.

Aerialists entertainment

At this academic conference activities were not just academic. I did have a link to my video on YouTube of an aerialist performance in the last session of the conference.  But in 2012 or 2013, through LinkedIn, the performer asked me to take it down because it was no longer representative of her work.

Sillery

We stayed three nights in a very comfortable bed and breakfast outside Quebec city (blogged here earlier), in a suburb called Sillery. This is a very pleasant, quiet, and well off suburb with some lovely detached houses together with big old houses, schools, churches and and old cemetery. But the area is under threat of major building. A lot of land on the top of the cliff that has been religious property for centuries is being sold, and the purchasers expect to build lots of blocks of flats, which rather upsets the locals. They have created a coalition to preserve the historic environment of Sillery (CAHDS), and they have a rather nice looking web site here. It is, of course, all in French, but still worth a look.

Our landlady is the voice of the CAHDS group and told us a lot about Quebec history and politics.

Tromp d'oeil

This wall painting in Quebec is across the road from a cafe in Sillery, on Avenue Maguire. See map here. As you sit and drink, you see a balcony and next to it a same coloured balcony. But it takes a minute to realise what you're looking at is painted.

I wonder if we could get someone to paint our wall like this, next to our balcony!

Montreal bikes

Husband explored Montreal, mainly on foot, but also hired bixis, which a cross between bikes and taxis. You put your credit card in the machine and you can then pull out a bike to borrow. It costs nothing if you use it for less than half an hour, so great for commuting, then the cost goes up the longer you have it, so not for touring really. However, if you return it to a stand in less than half an hour, wait five minutes and you can take a bike out again. That way, keep borrowing a bike, and you can take longer to get across the city and explore.

Where NOT to stay

Here's where we shouldn't have stayed! It's next door to this Erotika shop, and there's a building site outside. The whole of the street, St Catherine's street was being dug up and rebuilt, so our taxi driver couldn't drop us off right at the door, which was probably just as well seeing as how horrified he was to drop us at the corner of St Catherine St and St Laurent. He'd have been even more upset to leave us in front of such a shop.

But the studio was big, and light, and the desk was manned 24 hours, so you felt secure. The bed was awful - you wouldn't want a bed like that for long, but tolerable and within work budget if I had to go again, and I was only there because work encouraged me to go to this academic conference. It was an opportunity too good to miss just because of low budgets and high costs.

Flew home

We left Montreal around one in the morning, English time, had dinner, 'slept' until we flew into the eastern dawn.

Old bikes

We found this wonderful museum of bikes in Quebec.
They even had a penny-farthing in there.

If you'd like to see more of husband's photos, including those of trains, then look at my flickr photos here.

Maple cake

Just treated myself to afternoon tea of a maple syrup cake. The cherry on top is a ground cherry, a fruit of the Physalis family. It tastes something like a delicate tomato with a pineapple under taste and is quite pleasant. It's not sweet and goes well with the very sweet maple syrup that is in the cake.

Chez Pierre

We've moved to from the suburbs to the centre of Old Quebec, staying at Chez Pierre for our last few nights.

Thieves

Friday the thirteenth - not a good day. Our hostess here at La California has lost all her reservation records.

Over breakfast this morning, she gave us the bad news.

Yesterday afternoon her Apple laptop was stolen, stolen by the other guests that we'd shared breakfast with. This couple, Patrick and Sylvie, had come for one night, at little notice, referred from somewhere else, and it was easy for them to move about because she had her car. Our hostess has never had anything stolen in ten years of B&Bing, but had enough doubts about this couple to get cash from them. They came with a large metallic pale-green car, the size of a small caravette, with a couple of bikes on the back, and I seem to remember at breakfast that they said something about cycling, though they didn't look as muscular or tanned as some cyclists. They spoke some English, she more than he, and said they worked in Montreal but lived in its suburbs, and that he worked in aircraft simulation, whatever that is. We chatted over breakfast, talked about blonde jokes, and she, an apparent redhead, with a mane thick enough to be a wig, said that she used to be blonde. We didn't find out much more about them but learned a lot about Montreal from our hostess who chatted lots. Later they came into our room to say goodbye - surprisingly friendly since we'd hardly talked.

Our hostess tells us that they left without returning one of her keys, came back in the afternoon, let themselves in and took the laptop. That they didn't take more was because she had a friend staying who was in the shower for fifteen minutes and they couldn't have told where in the house she was and when she would appear and catch them. If caught, they could have said that they were just returning the key. However, I think, that only one of them came in the house, that the other remained on the other side of the road, watching and ready to warn of the hostess returning. I suspect that they returned on their bikes, that one bike would have been parked right outside the house, ready for a hasty exit, without leaving number plate evidence, without making a noise on the gravel. The one who came in would have had a back pack, stuffed the Apple in the bag, and cycled off on the bike very quickly to wherever the other was waiting in the car. That's what someone did at work about a year ago.

So our hostess has lost her computer, a ten year old one with a bug on it, and with all her B&B reservations, and no back up. Now she doesn't know who's coming when, though fortunately she doesn't keep peoples' credit card numbers on there, thank goodness. If you booked here, then contact her to help her record her reservations again.

We have a sadder, wiser hostess.

Quebec people

Quebecois, Quebecians? These people of Quebec are amazingly friendly. I'm not too surprised that our B&B hostess chats, because people who run B&Bs usually like to talk with their guests, but to find some stranger on the bus who goes out of his way to help us is amazing.

Looking at the bus plan as it carried us back from the city to our B&B, the gentleman across the aisle asked me if I knew my way and offered to hep. He spoke in French of course and I answered inn French then turned to husband to confirm our stop in English. The gentleman realised we were tourists, told us we were a long way from our stop, but that he was local, his car was nearby, to get off with him and he would drive us to our destination, which was very kind of him, but we, or rather husband, knew just how far we had to go and where we were. The problem was a confusion of the the name of the bus stop that husband was referring to by the name of a supermarket and gentleman understood as the name of a road somewhere else. So gentleman insisted on staying on the bus, accompanied us to our stop and then missing his own stop walked back to get his car.

In the evening, waiting to catch a bus again, the same gentleman was at the supermarket and insisted on giving us a lift, taking us on a detour to see the river front and admire the view. When he dropped us off, he gave us his phone number and offered to drive us into Quebec old town this evening, to give us a tour. He said that as a young man, he had wanted to be a tourist guide but at that time didn't have enough English, and now he could at last be a tourist guide. What an amazing person.

Quebec city bed and breakfast

We're spending a few nights in this bed and breakfast. In contrast to the plastic covered mattresses of our last place, this is luxury. The mattresses are huge, firm and soft. The floor has a thick rug, the shower is sparkling with fresh paint. And our hostess is so willing to talk to us, as if we're guests, not just paying guests. She offered to fetch us from the train station, is willing to lend us her bicycle, tells us we can sit in her garden, and I've even been picking her raspberries.

Over breakfast she tells us (there is another couple here) that Quebec is a very safe city, of only seven million people and that people leave their doors open because they have nothing worth stealing. So it sounds great until she tells us how high the taxes are, and they sound high. However the country does provide free health care and university education. She knows and tells us about Quebec history, and is passionately proud of her heritage. She is also very sociable because there are always people in her house, friends, a sister, a mother with her new baby, a neighbour.

Our hostess is busy petitioning the local authority to conserve the local area where many plots of land are up for sale, almost all to be sold by local religious bodies to pay off fines for the pedophilia scandals. The problem is that the plots will then be used to build a thousand condominiums, which will loose the character of the area, not to mention what it will do for house prices.

Conspirations to confuse

Daughter and I skyped last night. She told me that auntie's district council had rung about some problem of aunty ringing people and asking them for money. Now it's sorted, I can see aunty would be confused

Preconditions
The previous tenant had speed dialing to a Jane C
Aunty rings a different Jane (G) to ask where her bank book is because she wants cash

Consequences
Jane C answers the phone, realises she has a confused old lady asking for money so warns the council.
Council check records for the person with legal power of attorney and rings me (or daughter because I'm not there)

Now we understand the problem, someone is going to aunty's to change the speed dial numbers.

Moral
Learn phone numbers by heart and don't use speed dial

Speaking French in Montreal

In Montreal, if you speak French, the francophones are pleased, yet if you get stuck and speak English, they are happy to speak English. And they speak English without the accent that French people have.

English is my mother tongue, but the reason I learned French is because of Montreal, and the story goes back over a hundred years to a little Scottish village where my great grandfather became "the carpenter who drowned in the moss".

This drowned carpenter left a widow with four children, two teenage daughters and two little boys. The elder daughter, Margaret Jean, set out at the age of 16 to find a new life in Canada, at Montreal with "a pound in her pocket". When she had settled, and found work, she sent for her mother and two little brothers, while her sister, stayed in Glasgow, looked after by her grandmother's cousin.

Some ten years later, friends of my Aunty Jean visited her when their ship docked in Canada, and she asked one of them to take a parcel back to her sister in Glasgow, another port. Thus, that ship's engineer met and married my grandmother.

My grandfather was a seasick sailor whose family hailed from Liverpool. At that time, his ship often went to Le Havre, a small port on the north coast of Normandy, too small to load and unload the ships very quickly, so he tended to spend more time in France than in Liverpool. So he moved his young wife and first born child to live at Le Havre for a few years before world war I, which is how our family came to know two sisters from La famille Moulin.

Half a century later, one of these sisters and her nephew's family taught me to speak French. What goes around comes around, and now I speak French in Montreal, where my grandmother's sister spoke only English.

Touring Montreal

Montreal is a nice city for walking round and lots going on. Today we paid a quick visit to the Adler art exhibition, where the theme related to business.

The conference organised a trip round three Montreal businesses, (see my Phd blog here for details) and in the evening husband and I went on a boat tour though it was too wet to see much out of the boat.

Seedy side of Montreal

Husband is discovering aspects of Montreal that perhaps the organisers of this conference hadn't intended us to discover.

For instance, he went out early Friday morning, early Canadian time, but we're still on UK body clock, to look for breakfast, when a black woman came up to him and asked him if he wanted 'company'.

Then, today, when he tried to negotiate the steps into the hotel, there were some youngsters sitting there smoking. One announced, "Hey man! We're just smoking a bit of weed." and the stubs on the step are the evidence of that activity.

So these stories tell of a more interesting side of the city.

Not salubrious

"This area is full of drugs and prostitutes!"

remonstrated our taxi driver as he dropped us off at our hotel, Abri du Voyageur

This is not an auspicious start to our stay in Montreal. we have a studio flat for a week. The flat is ok, (I have internet access on my eeePC) but it's the sort of area I wouldn't want my son or daughter to stay, but they are not with me. Daughter is alone at home - again a tad worrying and son is staying on at uni on a grant to build a fusion reactor this summer - quite exciting. Husband will explore, and cycle while I attend an academic conference.

60th Wedding Anniversary

My parents celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary. Too old to organise it, too tired, too fragile, they weren't going to do anything, and when my brother #2 asked told him so, and said,

"You want something, you organise it."

And he did. He and his lovely wife organised us getting up there, booked our hotel, contacted our cousin to borrow her holiday cottage for some of us, arranged the evening meal, ferried elderly parents and aunt to and fro. He even told the Queen and she sent a card of congratulations.

We had a celebratory mass in the morning, followed by lunch on the church lawn with the St Vincent de Paul Society people helping. (Did you know how much this charity does for old people and others that are excluded? They work quietly, behind the scenes, visiting, liaising with families, driving people to events or doctors when they can't get there themselves.)

In the evening, the family shared a meal at a local hostelry, toasted the happy couple. It's nearly my brother #1 and his wife's 30th anniversary, and they brought out the card that my parents had given them 30 years ago, where they'd written,

The first thirty years are the worst

Brother and wife brought original card, and added their annotation:

You were right
The first thirty years were terrible. Any tips for the next thirty years?

My cousin wrote and sang a song for us.

Happy anniversary
to a couple most fair
to Jean and Joe
a diamond pair!

It was great seeing my family together, my family that lives in America and came over for the occasion, my cousin and his wife, my sister and every one. We exchanged casual news over Yorkshire beers, learned where we are with our jobs at the moment, and who has a new partner and where people are living or planning to move to, or what people are studying at the moment. I miss some of them, living far away.

This was a lovely opportunity and a happy occasion. And I hope that my brother #1 and his wife have a lovely 30th (pearl) wedding anniversary next month.

Ruby wedding anniversary

Husband's university friends have been married much longer than us. Today a couple celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary by inviting loads of their long term friends for a trip on the River Isis from Oxford. The boat was covered with ruby red balloons and streamers, with around 80 friends. We ate, we drank, we talked. The weather was great, neither too hot nor too cold.

One of husband's friends from college (see reunion here) is partner to a fellow post-graduate student at the Open University, so we spent some time happily comparing notes on our progress, our supervisors, theory (Bourdieu if you're interested), and we admonished anyone who dared ask, "When are you finishing?" That sort of question is one you just do not ask a post grad student - it's as rude as asking a woman how old she is - as this grad comic illustrates.

And just to add to that insult, someone asked me if I'd used my bus pass to get there today. I'm not only too young to get a bus pass yet, but they've raised the age at which I'll be eligible for it. So insults, unintentional insults flew round the boat.

These insults were not as bad though as those in today's Times Style magazine, in which AA Gill slated The Oxford Ashmolean restaurant and Oxford people - calling its female students "lesbians in blue stocking", and the restaurant "full of very old people. A sea of thin white hair." As the director of the Ashmolean met fellow PG and FPG's partner this morning, he was railing about the review. FPG's partner has something to do with the Ashmolean museum so the encounter meant they nearly missed the boat, and then they wouldn't have been able to tell me how rude the Times was.

It was a lovely day with lots of lovely intelligent and cheerful people to talk to. Perhaps AA Gill of the Times doesn't know what intelligent conversation can be about.

I wonder which college rejected him.

Tenth wedding anniversary

Husband wins brownie points for wedding anniversary present. Ten is tin or pewter, and I once had champagne glasses with pewter stems. He's got two silver stemmed (with hearts) champagne glasses engraved for us.

Magic afternoon

We celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary with lots of family. Step-son reminded us of who has joined us in the ten years that we've been married. We've gained a son-in-law and a daughter-in-law and five more grandchildren. They're all lovely.

Tenth wedding anniversary

Ten years and still together. Hurrah!

Tin for ten.

Austrian visitors

A few years ago we had some Austrian girls stay with us for a couple of weeks. This evening one of them is coming back with two friends for the night, and in August, two others are coming back with their friends, when we'll have five girls staying for a few weeks. August will be busy.

Guitar hero mum

Here's a first for me. I've at last played my first PS2 game even though it was around 1998 that son first bought a second hand play station. He had to plug it in himself to the video and TV system and I've not had control of its programming ever since.

Recently he got a game called Guitar Hero, and daughter, back from uni, has been playing it. She decided to get a second controller and persuaded me to leave my sewing to join in. I've been playing something of Blur's and Coldplay. It's fun, heaps easier than real guitar and a new way of listening to the music because you can move with it, which I like.

Wow! Go me!

Tiny frogs

My tadpoles are growing into recognisable but tiny frogs. Look! He's still got his tail.

Queen bee

We were sitting in the garden having a quiet evening drink when we heard this bee making the most almighty noise. On the plants next to us was this pair, and the smaller bee's wings were making this huge buzzing noise. As the top bee seemed to be trying to leave but was stuck, the noise got more frantic. Then another noise added to it, as if the queen were screeching. And they pulled apart and went their separate ways.

I thought mating killed the male bee. From the noise, it sounded like murder.

And now I suppose there'll be a bees nest in the garden somewhere.

Secret gardens

Today is "Secret Gardens of Aylesbury Old Town", and this afternoon around 15 of us are opening our gardens to those who want to see what lies behind the terraced houses that have not even a front yard. So my husband is outside now, polishing the stones, and mowing the lawn, which means my hay fever is about to start. If you want to come and can, do. Get your tickets and map at the County Museum. The money goes to charities.

Father's day

Shopping

Our parents are coming up to their diamond wedding anniversary but our father thinks he won't get our mother a diamond because she can't see any more, so he emailed round us siblings for alternative ideas. My brother promptly volunteered his sisters, wife and sister-in-law to take our mother on a shopping trip.

Now that's a nice idea to have a girls' day out. I can't remember going on a shopping trip with my sister ever, nor with my sisters-in-law. I remember going shopping with my mother, particularly when I was a teenager, though not with my little sister. I like going shopping with my daughter (bookshops) and with my step-daughters too. SD#2 was my style specialist when I went out to buy my first new pair of spectacles in over ten years. And granddaughter #1 is fun to go shopping with - we went to the jewellers together to choose something for her mother.

I suspect my sisters-in-law would be fun to shop with, though my brothers might be a bit nervous. Years ago, sister-in-law #1 arrived at some evening do in a most splendid bright orange trouser suit (it was the eighties). She explained that it had been half price so a bargain, but even the half price was horrendously high. I love her choice of colours, design and outfits. I'd enjoy the experience of going clothes shopping with her.

I'll wait and see what my sisters (and SiL) say.

a Good Day

June 17th
Both my children today are having good days. Although neither has spoken to me, I've heard from them electronically. One texted that she's:

"Off to Bordeaux! :))"

which means she's got good end of second year university exam results. The other has Facebooked:

"Done"

which means he has taken his last university exam this morning and is relieved.

It's beautiful weather.

And a Good Day.

Daughter in Hong Kong

Daughter at university has made new friends, and one consequence is that between exams last month and results next week, she's nipped off to Hong Kong this week where she's meeting a friend and discovering Asian heat and humidity. She writes:

You should see the lights and the shopping malls! It truly is a city that never sleeps. There are so many lights and skyscrapers! Closing at 12 seems early! I had octopus balls that night for supper, which were a new experience. But I figured that if I was going to another country, I might as well take every opportunity on offer. But even the supermarkets are different! The fruits on offer are so different to what you would find in England; and those that are similar are massive. Like an apple the size of a large orange, larger than a tennis ball.

I'm almost jealous that I've never been. But I've had other things in my life, and more to go. It's a wonderful life.

BBC

"What! You've never been to Broadcasting House?"

teased my colleague this morning when I asked him about our meeting tomorrow.

When I'd finished berating him for behaving like a teenage lad, he grinned and we sorted the details. You can tell, I'm excited to be visiting the BBC Broadcasting House to watch them record The Bottom Line for Thursday. My colleague does a two-minute talk on something related to the topic of the week and also writes a blog for it. I'm going to see who's involved and how they do it.

This visit is related to my research work, and it's work I love doing, finding out, learning is so exciting. If you want to know about it in detail you'd have to look at my work blog here.

Asset inflation

Assets - like my house and other things I've got - inflate, but my house has inflated more than anything else, and I don't like that because it means that it's too expensive for most people to afford. This situation is fine for the middle-aged people who already have homes, but tough on the younger ones. With easier access to mortgages than we used to have, and with two incomes counting towards mortgages instead of several multiples of the husband's salary and a fraction of the wife's, people get loaned more money, so can offer more money. Consequently, small houses perhaps have inflated even more than big houses, so people who can't afford very much find it even more difficult to get on the housing ladder.

The Telegraph has a campaign against the governments proposal to increase capital gains tax on second homes, because lots of people would flood the market with their buy-to-let properties and this would damage the property market, which is just recovering, that is, prices are going up again.

Now who benefits from house prices going up? Not me, and not the house owner who if buying another house just has to find more money.

• The government benefits from more frequent stamp duty.
  
• Surveyors benefit from the extra work each time a house is checked.
  
• Estate agents take a percentage of each sale.

This churn benefits those who get a cut of the changing houses, and house price inflation means they get a bigger cut, but it doesn't benefit people who aren't buying and selling or involved in this chain of business. In fact, it works to the detriment of young people who find small houses too expensive to buy. So a cut in CGT that causes a flood of houses on the market, might also help reduce the housing market, and house (i.e asset) inflation.

I can hear the surveyors and estate agents and the The Telegraph complaining that lots of jobs would be lost. But so what? What jobs are these? They don't bring money into the country, but just move money from one place to another within the country. So they don't increase the economy, (though the extra stamp duty paid will help to reduce the government debt).

So I want this CGT increase because it seems like its consequences will be a good thing for wider society, like bring down house price inflation so our children can afford houses again.

Work!

Stepdaughter #3 has been offered a job locally, a proper job in engineering, a job that uses both her degrees, she tells me:

"I have received employment"
"if anyone needs me, I'll be in the having a job dome"
"lalala i win"

She's delighted to inform her landlord and all the utilities that she's "moving shacks".

She starts next month, and they'll put her up in a hotel during the week for a couple of months while the lease on their Loughborough house finishes. In the meantime, she and her partner are getting a place done up to live in, partner having a teaching job in a local school, starting September.

"productive, innit"

Relatives everywhere

Amazing connections!

Husband's granddaughter #2 has a Great Little Friend and they go to each others parties, but didn't know they were related. Why should they? It's only because GD#2's father is becoming rather well known that someone made the connection and asked about the surname. GLF is the granddaughter of husband's cousin, making GLF and GD#2 third cousins.

GLF is delighted to find she is related to GD#2. And her grandmother remembers GD#2 well as she has been to GLF's parties and vice versa.

I've never met husband's cousin - I don't think they've seen each other for years, so their children's children meeting like this is extra amazing.

Old friends in Bath

We picked up daughter and went to Bath to meet friends we haven't seen for more than ten years, lovely people that I've known for more than thirty years, who gave us our visitors' book.

We had a lovely time, including a meal by the river.

Warm weather

Today is so warm that my Facebook friends comment:

Friend #1 Hello sandals, goodbye boots!

That's a nice positive way to move from winter to summer

Friend #2 has just conducted a phone tutorial wearing a swimsuit and a face pack. Thank god we don't have a video link!
Her friend: I bet many people would disagree!
Another of her friends: roflmao I often think that when I am doing an online grocery shop in my PJs.

(roflmao means "roll on floor laughing my backside off")

Friend #3 please put on a shirt, I do not want to see your wobbley moobs. It's really not that hot.

Says she! It's too hot for me in the sun, where my garden thermometer says it's 30 degrees. I like it in the low to mid twenties.

Friend #4 beautiful day for cycle ride round our new home and BBQ with the fam :)

It's nice to know that the family is together this weekend, and that their part of the country is good weather too.

And this morning in London:

Friend #5: Beautiful day, but a way too crowded lido so I was dreaming of Lake Windermere!

And a fellow OUer:

Friend #6: sun, lounger on balcony and catching up with S189 course book.

Aunt's electricity

Sometimes these interactions with authorities on behalf of my aunt do work.

Aunt had a bill from Southern Electric - she doesn't remember getting her electricity from them, because she wasn't - she was getting her electricity from another provider when she lived somewhere else. So her memory's good there. But Southern Electric addressed the bill to the district council and was charging for the weeks when the flat was empty before she moved in.

So I decided to

1. set up a direct debit for the electricity
2. pay the extra rather than explain the whole situation in order to get the bill sent to the district council

But when I rang Southern Electric, Tracy wanted to sort out the name on the bill, to change it from the district council to my aunt's. So she passed me to Sean, who

• amended the bills to charge aunt only from the day she moved in
• changed the name on the bill
• took the district council address and will send the missing weeks bill to the council
• set up the direct debit
• arranged the bills to come to me, not aunt
  

I'm well pleased with the service.

Distant relative

I note this Fulbright prize winner because her uncle (sort of) is my uncle (sort of). It's pretty good anyhow that she's a professor of English and poetry, let alone win such a prestigious prize. Our mutual uncle points out that our family came from Ireland at the time of the great hunger, through the Liverpool court slums where twenty to thirty families shared a yard with one pump and one toilet. In 1866 our great great grandparents, Charles and Mary, were too illiterate to sign their names on their wedding certificate.

Four generations later, life has improved for us.

Tadpoles

I've got some new pets! I've got tadpoles for the first time in years.

In late March, I was passing a pond when I noticed it bubbling all over, like it had lots of aerators in it, but on a closer look, I saw the bubbles came from lots of mating frogs. Mating frogs means frog spawn, so I grabbed a bag I'd been keeping in the car for this, and scooped out a handful of spawn. Now, weeks later, the tadpoles are wriggling round in a stone sink in our garden.

Watch and I'll post photos as they grew.

Voting day

I have voted.

It wasn't easy. The choice isn't great. Today's paper has a Matt cartoon of someone in a polling booth chewing his pencil and thinking while the officer looks at his watch and says, "You know we close at 10pm, don't you"

Although my polling station was quiet mid afternoon when I went, that doesn't surprise me because more people can get there first thing in the morning or in the evening after work. What is interesting, even exciting is the people on Facebook who are talking about voting at Democracy UK. The news tonight is that people were queuing late this evening to vote.

I think my family members have all voted. At least one of them is choosing to vote tactically by voting in her university town rather than here where we've little choice.

Wait now and see what tomorrow what we have done.

Way to vote

Lib Dems have wound me up by declaring they'll make Catholic schools take non-Catholics if they live close to the school.

"We will ensure that all faith schools develop an inclusive admissions policy and end unfair discrimination on grounds of faith when recruiting staff," (Lib Dem manifesto page 37)

But such people, eschewing the faith, can refuse to attend the religious assembly, so take the education but not the culture that comes with a faith. And yet the Catholic communitypays towards the school. Yes, I know faith schools take public money too, but since the Catholic community contributes, local non-Catholics shouldn't get priority over more distant Catholic children. That's not right or fair.

So how do I vote? Our alternative is the Conservative candidate, David Lidington, but he apparently (according to the Lib Dem literature) has claimed £12,000 for dry cleaning expenses. £12,000!. Husband and self together in decades couldn't spend so much on dry cleaning - and why on expenses? That's what a salary is for. And then when you retire, you save money because you don't need to spend on dry cleaning, so you can live on your little pension.

So how do I vote?

Scuola Cantorum

We avoided the mayhem in Aylesbury by going out:

• morning coffee in Princes Risborough at the Field Mouse cheese store
  
• lunch in Oxford at the Nosebag, a cafe I've been going to for decades
• a lovely afternoon meeting old friends from the Oxford University tape-recording society for tea at the Ashmolean rooftop restaurant
  
• sharing supper with friends at Browns
  
• finally an evening at a concert of Handel and Bach in the Sheldonian. See http://www.schola-cantorum.net/ who were having their 50th anniversary

Aylesbury under siege

There are protests in Aylesbury. The English Defence League has a protest, and the Union Against Fascists have a counter protest and the Muslim have a protest against the protests.

Mounted police, roads closed, empty streets and Kingsbury not usable.

Sounds like martial law...

Aunty's post

Aunt's post is still coming to her old address, so my father asked me to get it forwarded. I went on-line - that's easy- see here. You have to give

• the old address,
  
• the new address,
  
• the date of the move,
  
• the date when you want to start forwarding,
  
• the old phone number for security
  
• the new phone number.

I can give aunt's phone number because if they ring her, the sort of question they ask, like

"have you moved?"

isn't going to confuse her, apart from

"why are they ringing me?"

But I fell at the last hurdle, because they want a payment card and it must be a card with the old address on, again for security, but it's months since she moved so the card has the wrong address on it. Besides which, it now has my address on it.

So I've passed the problem back to my dad, to fill in the form from the post office, which isn't terribly easy for him. It's a pity I didn't think to do it when I was up there a couple of weeks ago.

Fusor reactor

I went to a staff development event for work yesterday (yes, Saturday). Amongst other things we had a lecture from Dave Elliot, a professor of engineering on renewable energy. He has just retired but his web site is still here on the OU site, otherwise find him on wikipedia.

A couple of things stick in mind:

1. there's no point in building nuclear reactors because we've only got enough fuel for it to last a few years, then we'll have to find something else and have to deal with the nuclear waste for thousands of years.
2. fusor reactors are absorbing 50% of research money on renewable energy, but it will take up to a hundred years to build something useful

He mentioned this newsletter web site http://www.natta-renew.org/ if you want to keep up to date, which I'll have to do because son is planning to build a fusor reactor over the summer and his university is supporting him.

Lost a friend

An email today tells me my friend's husband died yesterday while out on a bike ride with friends from work. He was her best friend.

She's my age. She has children the same age as mine. We did our OU degrees together. We both tutor OU courses. Four years ago our paths split as she took on the role of staff tutor and I started my research studies.

Her husband's died. I remember how she feels.

Volcanic sticking

The Icelandic volcano ash has affected British based people who travel by plane:

• Step son is stuck in Finland. Fortunately his wife and children are happily holidaying in the lakes with her parents
  
• Colleague's husband is stuck in Serbia, which means she can't go out this weekend because she has to mind their two boys.
• Our French lodger booked a return plane flight.
  

Fortunately, step daughter #1 is home, having travelled to Italy by car and ferry - how wise!

A web site "Watch Air Traffic" that shows you air traffic in Europe shows very little movement today. It also says "Users on line: too many"

LOL

Husband's new toy

Husband likes to go to MK to have lunch with working and retired colleagues, but then he has a pint and can't drive home, so he goes on the bus instead, but the bus station is miles from the pub. Once he cycled up there, but it's a forty mile round trip and he's exhausted by the time he gets back.

So
he's got a new bicycle, a folding bicycle. And is he pleased!

Election issues

What have we learned in 2,065 years?

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."

-- Cicero - 55 BC

Nothing, apparently.

(With thanks to an OU colleague for drawing this to my attention)

Daughter grown up

Daughter has had a birthday - no more teenagers in my house now.

Ultimate frisbee

Step daughter #3 plays Ultimate Frisbee, a game that has gradually got to mean more to me - though I'm still not sure what the 'ultimate' bit is about. This week's Telegraph explains the game in detail, including the lack of referee. Whoever heard of any game without a referee? But ultimate frisbee has no referee. I like that approach because it means that people have to be honest instead of abrogating moral responsibility.

So next time I watch her playing in the garden with the grandchildren I may have a better idea what to expect.

Insuring Aunty

Now I need to insure Aunty's contents in her sheltered accommodation, but that's not simple.

• one insurer said they'd wouldn't insure her because she's in sheltered accommodation and other people like the warden can access her room
• I rang the council to see if they do insurance but they've gone home for the weekend
• Tesco won't insure aunty's stuff over the phone unless they can speak to her first. They offered to ring her and then ring me back, which would be okay if someone were there with her so she's not confused by a phone call out of the blue.

I can insure her contents on the web and no one will know it's not me. I might have to do that.

Baby photo

Welcome new baby girl, the first for step-daughter #2 and her husband.

Aunt's affairs, LPA and my NI

When I took out Legal Power of Attorney for my aged aunt, the process required my witnessed signature along with the witnessed signature of at least two other people, which is important because it's a legal document.

Taking over my aunt’s affairs has elicited a bit of bureaucracy from some banks, and councils. However, the Pension Service is bureaucratic par excellence, because before accepting the registered power of attorney the Pension Service insisted it required my National Insurance number.

I can’t understand why the Service needs my NI number, when it's got the witnessed LPA and because there’s nothing to stop the LPA being held by someone who doesn’t work or live in England, or it could be held by a professional, such as a lawyer working for a large organisation.

Sadly, the Pension Service has already proved its intrusion into my affairs by now writing to me, not under the name in which I registered the LPA and that I use for almost all my affairs, and the name I used when I wrote to the service but under my married name. This proves the Pension Service has accessed information about me when it should be concerned only with information about my aunt.

Joined up government might be a worthy aspiration but this is inappropriate, intrusive joined up government that implies spying and surveillance of its citizens.

New baby

Middle step daughter had a baby girl yesterday morning around five o'clock. All well. She writes in Facebook:

"Team Flood are home. And going to bed."

I like this 'team' business - start as you mean to go on.

Thought for the day

In two and a half minutes some people can argue convincingly and fluently.

Today's Today Programme Thought for the day on Radio 4 was Anne Atkins. She argues theology controversially. She starts from the recently discovered Shakespeare play, discusses how the script has moved on from what it was to modern literature criticism. Lit crit can't improve with time, so she asks:

Who's going to know more about a playwright, scholarly editors 400 years later or contemporary actors who shared a play with him?

Theology can suffer a similar lag of logic on the lines of 'They believed that sort of thing in those days' and Atkins reminds of gospel stories, as if a fisherman couldn't tell without the second law of thermodynamics that you can't walk on water or that Lazarus sister didn't know you can't raise a man that's been four days dead and lies in his tomb. Yet she and her community saw Lazarus walk out alive.

Members of the jury do you want in your witness box an eminent man of letters with a sophisticated intellectual theory of how the crime could have been committed
or the eye witness who saw it happen?

Stones of the sky

I see Robin Richmond has an exhibition in London this month, at the Curwen Gallery. The web site here shows some interesting and soulful paintings, of skies. I like them. I wouldn't mind having one, though I don't know which nor where I'd hang it. I just know that these paintings appeal to me.

Robin's speaking on Thursday 18th. It might be fun to listen and Robin is a relative so would be chance to meet up again for a few moments.

Robin has her own web site with video, reviews and collections here.

Tube tap dancer

I'm on the London underground when a big man gets on, on his own, but talking. uh-oh! We all ignore him, put our heads down - and watch carefully. Is he drunk? At nine o'clock in the morning? No, so recheck. He's healthy looking, too healthy to be drunk at that time of day. He's tall, mixed West Indian perhaps, and his dialect might be West Indian - not my English accent anyhow.

I've done that assessment in the seconds it's taken him to walk past me to one end of the carriage and back to a space by the doors. I'm assessing his mental health now as he continues to talk loudly - he's addressing the carriage. Wey! Then he commences to tap dance.

Tap dance?!

Yes, tap dance. Wey hey! This is different and this man is no drunk. I dare to look up and people start to smile though they still avoid eye contact with strangers. I wonder about getting up and joining in, and take off my gloves as just the thought makes me too hot.

But it's too late! He announces that he's the tube tapper, - waves a small black money sack- says we can give him some money if we want to but we don't have to. And now there's no time because we've arrived at the next station and he wanders off.

The interesting interlude is over, but you can see a few pictures and videos of him on Facebook if you look for "tube tapper". If you've logged in to Facebook, I found it here.

Bumbling banks

It's taken five weeks to get telephone banking on Aunty's account.

1. I first went into the local bank and completed their form in January, after Lloyd's telephone service was so bureaucratically useless.
2. When I received the letter saying to ring to register, it wasn't easy, and I had to complete their form again.
3. Their letter arrived again today. So I rang to complete registration again. They passed me to a local branch, in the wrong county.
4. I rang again. They passed me to the right branch, but branches are not the place to complete a telephone registration.
5. I rang again. Alleluia! I got someone who knew what to do, and passed me to the person who could check their secret word, and set up a password.

Those three calls took only half an hour. If they'd got it right three weeks ago, the whole process should have taken less than ten minutes.

Liquid nitrogen demonstration

Husband and I took a couple of grandchildren to a demonstration of lovely liquid nitrogen at http://www.scienceoxfordlive.com/

The young demonstrator showed how some strange things happen to everyday objects when they get really cold. He experimented with shrinking balloons, shattering yellow chrysanthemeums and blu tac as hard as nails.

Liquid nitrogen is so exciting. but you can't put your hand in it, not even a finger because it's minus 200 degrees C and your finger will drop off, but you can pour it over your hand, because by the time it's reached your hand, it's boiling off into gas and there's only a tiny drop at a time, just don't wear rings where it might get trapped and damage you.

He used tongs to put a bit of blutac in the nitrogen, then it was as hard as a nail, so hard that he could hammer it into a piece of wood.

He demonstrated smashing rubber when it was normal temperature and then after he'd dunked it in the nitrogen, when it was all hard and brittle and flew into lots of pieces.

His last trick was to make icecream with nitrogen, and all the children lined up to taste it.

In the meantime, husband's trick was to leave the car lights on, so the battery was flat when we got back to the car, in the rain.

• First husband pushed.
• Then a friendly Iranian man helped us push.
• Then we gave up.

So they pushed the car (me reversing) into a spot then friendly Iranian man tried his jump leads but they didn't make good contact, so we left G'pa in the rain waiting for the rescue man.

We paddled thro the puddles to Cafe Toscano and had coke and hot chocolate with marshmallows and cream.

I've got leaky boots, so I got wet feet, and husband was a little stressed. The g'children were happy with the day, and thanked us unprompted. They're really nice children.

Research on colon cancer

We lost a family member to cancer years ago, so any news that suggests advances in preventing it is importnat. The Open University (OU) has some here, sucggesting it's something in the diet.

http://www.open.ac.uk/alumni/news-events/publications/openeye-bulletins/july-2007/diet-holds-clues-to-cancer-risk.php

Civilised tea

We went out for tea at Waddesdon Manor and had scones and strawberry jam and clotted cream with Earl Grey tea.

Very civilised.

Pension credit

If you get pension credit, you don't have to pay rent for your sheltered housing. But the council first thought that aunty did have to pay her rent, so I set up a standing order to pay it. Then the assessment officer rang me, and said that she was getting credit, so she didn't have to pay the rent, The estates manager also wrote and told me to stop the standing order, and she'll send a cheque to pay back what was overpaid.

So now I've written to the bank again (I still can't ring them because they haven't set up the telephone account) to tell them to stop the standing order.

This is so confusing that it is no wonder aunty is confused.

Banking idiots

Aunty's bank has registered the Legal Power of Attorney, so wrote to me telling me I could now start telephoning banking. I rang them up. They didn't ask for aunty's details but asked for my password.

But I don't have a password yet.
The computer in front of me is asking for a password.
How can it be doing that?
Do you have an account with us?
No I closed it in 2002.
I think they haven't closed down the old telephone password. I'll have to speak to my manager.

How awful is that! What security of information is that! And doesn't it break the 1998 Data Protection Act that says data should be

• Adequate, relevant and not excessive
• Accurate and up to date
• Not kept for longer than is necessary?
  

The bank is going to send me a new form to complete again, now they've deleted the old password. But it's horribly bad service, and it's as well that I closed the account with them years ago.

Wish list for a room

I have a large sitting room in which I'd love to have:

• Rich royal Roman purple velvet curtains thermal lined with matching tiebacks and cushions
• Silvery white paint work, including dado rail
• Pale yellow walls, papered or painted
• Parquet floor at least in the sun-lounge if not the sitting room too
• Under-floor heating
• Hot air heating
  
• Rich large rug on floor
• Roller blinds outside of all windows.

What have I got? Off-pink and green with a beige sofa that matches the 1930s beige tiled fireplace and a concrete floor covered with dirty green fitted carpet.

My study corner of this sitting room, summer-sun-hot freezing-cold-in-winter, has nine large windows with no curtains.

• In winter, it's freezing.
• In summer, it's too hot to work.

Double glazing is fine, but doesn't stop the draughts through poorly fitted windows. There's even a joint in a non opening window where the rain comes in when the wind blows against it.

I've painted one transom with emerald-green glass paint to stop the early morning spring sun dazzling. I've tried painting other transoms with green-house paint to reduce the heat but that looks horrid. On wooden poles I've hung tin-foil sheets that reflect the sun back very effectively. They also allow me to see outside in the daylight but not others to see in. However, they're not very robust, so they crumple, stick to condensation and tear. I need to get new ones, like some I saw on a door in France in 2006 and I've seen in Sicily. I also need them to be obviously reversible so that they reflect in in the winter and out in the summer.

One of the best solutions to the summer heat is growing hops outside the window. Husband has trained them along a wire at transom height, so in summer there's a thick green mass of leaves shading the room, but in winter they've died down again, and let in the light.

Now I've splashed out on new curtains, cherry red in chenille. I guess chenille is the poor man's velvet. They're lined, but not thermally lined. They're okay because they'll do the job so I'll be warmer, though I don't know what they'll do to help keep the sun out in summer, when I need cool and light to work by.

Boo to bureaucratic banks

I've just made two phone calls about paying for aunty's new sheltered housing, one to a county housing office about rent, and one to a bank about paying things.

1. The county officer was helpful. :-) Despite already owing rent, she's going to send me forms, and will let the rent officer know, so they won't hassle aunty.
   
2. The bank phone call was automated. :-( It took two tries to get a human. He said he knew what Legal Power of Attorney was, but then told me to go into aunty's branch with a letter of authorisation from aunty, some id for me and some id of hers. I explained I couldn't go into her branch as I live a long way away. He didn't know where the two towns were. (How can you sound gormless? I always thought it was the way someone looked.) So tomorrow I'll go into the local branch armed with all the documentation and ask for what I want to run her account.
   

So which organisation was efficient and helpful? The public sector one or the private one? People malign the public sector, but it was the public organisation that was efficient, human, friendly and understood my problem, not the bank.

Boo to banks.

Snowy sunset

This is the pretty view from one of the nine enormous windows in my study. Pretty cold too.

Snowed in town

We're snowed into town. Traffic can't get up the hill into the town, but pedestrians can. And since all the schools are closed, but being local, the children and their parents all live near their school, people are out together enjoying the snow, like the family that walked in from Turnfurlong bringing their daughters on a sled. Fun!

Shop workers have got in, but don't have enough to do, so to entice people to talk, those in and near Market Square are building snowmen, enough to have a competition. There's a snowman with a bowling ball near Jardines ten pin bowling alley, a snowman with a ribbon from C&G and a ticket to travel from Adams, a snowman with a mobile phone outside the phone shop, and, my favourite, a snowman with a top hat outside Suits You, which was so good that he had the local paparazzi photoing.

Thank you letters

At work, we're having coffee and comparing notes on Xmas experiences. One young man is whinging about having to send thank you notes to his girlfriend's mother. And somehow starts to complain about his mother. Young man gets little sympathy from the two mothers in the group. And our revered ex-director-of-studies advises him to do whatever his mother says, tells him to use only three words:

"Yes, mother dear!"

And always to use them, varying only to

"Yes, dearest mother!"

Revered ex-DoS says to do what his mother says, always, and be courteous, even though he's also muttering to himself,

"Mother, I'm an adult, I'm over 60 and drawing my pension soon."

My son has sent his thank you letters, and he's not whinged at all.