First jobs

Coffee group people were discussing when we started first working and what our first jobs were. The men said they'd done paper rounds. You were allowed to do those even before you were 15 but I couldn't because I had to get an early bus to school five miles away. One of us, JH, went straight into an accounting firm and trained as an accountant. Most of us didn't go to university. I didn't.

My first job was as soon as I was allowed, immediately after my GCEs. I went down the high street, starting at the garage because friends had got jobs in petrol stations, going in every shop and asking. You didn't have to take a CV with you then, just ask. I think I went to my favourite shops first, like the art supplies, but I didn't have to ask in many because the supermarket took me. Silly thing was they knew I'd done maths GCSE and thought I could do arithmetic so put me on the veg counter. Can you work out how much a quarter pound of apples is if they're one and six a pound? Remember it was pre decimal. 1/6!

They moved me on to check out where the till did the arithmetic. I still managed to mess up though. Because every time someone asked me for carrier bag at the end of the transaction, I'd input the whole cost and then the thruppence extra for the bag. How many times did I do that? But it made the till not balance at the end of the day. For some reason, they still kept me on for five weeks of that summer, and then I stayed there doing Saturdays throughout sixth form. Patient and optimistic manager.

I was naive and vulnerable to the more worldly workers there. At 17, I passed my driving test, and my parents would let me drive the multi seater Bedford Utilabrake around. I must have told someone at the supermarket what I was driving. Anyhow, after a few weeks, I got a message that the lad working on the butcher's counter would like a date with me, which was a compliment but a surprise as we hadn't talked much, if at all, and I had no idea what we had in common or what we'd do on a date. Fortunately, one of the older women warned me off, that he was going to ask me to come with the Utilabrake and drive him and a load of mates. So I made an excuse and refused that first ever date!

In the second year at college, I was too far away to work at the supermarket, but one day some friends were interested in finding Saturday jobs, and a few of us went job hunting together. We asked in Harrods. They like Lorrie who already had retail skills, and took her on, but wouldn't put me in fashion. They offered me a job in their posh Swedish sandwich bar on the fifth floor and I worked there for about a pound a day for nearly a year. You got a free lunch with the option of the most enormous creamy gateaux. But the clientele were not always very nice. One of my fellow waitresses (we only cleared tables because it was self-service), was nearly 16 and in a children's home about to be thrown out to live on her own. A customer called her over and told her that his wife had dropped a shilling and she could have it if she liked (to pick it up).

Then the Irish girls at college told me that William Hill, the bookmakers paid something like £1.50 a day and I went there instead. Nicer work and easier than being on your feet. I worked there till I left college, including working at their offices in my home city in the holidays, even being given the responsibility for opening the offices. You meet a variety of interesting people in a bookies.

This is why I sing

I now sing with two f2f choirs and an online one. Why? because I was born Catholic.

I sing in the local Anglican church because it's high mass, which means we learn a lot of ancient choral music. Someone who used to sing there told me they needed sops so I joined for the Friday rehearsals. That was someone in Next Stage Choir who knew I live near this church. I was in NSC because Fionnuala used to play the piano for its director, and she told me he was opening an Aylesbury branch. F plays the organ at the local RC church, and my daughter was there at a service when Fionnuala told her that the church choir needed singers, whereupon my daughter volunteered me. I'd given up going to services years earlier but I like to sing, so I let them twist my arm and I sang at the Saturday evening mass (A view from the pew) until lockdown when the choir atrophied and never restarted. But by then I'd joined NSC Singing it's a wonderful Christmas)). In lockdown someone in a locl choir told me of a newly formed online choir, (https://ejh2.blogspot.com/2020/10/singing-in-isolation-and-singing-in.html) now called HomeChoir, which is fun and amateur and lighthearted and you learn a few songs, folk, and pop, and church and made up and maybe send in recordings. HomeChoir spawned Choir of the Earth, which encouraged us to sing parts, record and upload them so their techie people can make a concert performance of all our voices. Choir of the Earth has taught me the Messiah and Memories of music: the Hallelujah chorus), Elijah, Bach, Beatles, Abba songs, Haydn's the Creation, opera choruses, Rutter, Bryd's Mass in five voices, and recently, we're learning Joanna L'Estrange's beautiful adaptation of Vivali's Four Seasons.

Both choirs, NSC and Choir of the Earth and arrange trips to perform in various places. NSC has been to the US & Canada, Arizona, Germany and is planning a trip to Finland in November. Choir of the Earth is planning a performance in Leipzig and is advertising a course in Lincoln cathedral next January - I might sign up.

But I wouldn't be in CotE and NSC and St M's choir, if my daughter hadn't been talking to the RC church organist because I'd been born a Catholic.

Poor news, dim thoughts

 CBA in March, nothing to write about. Well I could write about two cousins dying, and another cousin putting himself in a care home. Mmm.

What is romance?

Is my DS romantic? CQ asked me. Her son isn’t unless he’s told. At coffee one man, P, suggested that putting your socks in the laundry basket was romantic. He teases. Old J had no suggestions. T told a tale of a friend whose wife had been away. “Thank goodness you’re home” he'd greeted her. “I was about to go out to M&S and buy some underpants. He’d walked past the clean pile every day but couldn't see them because she’d not put them in his drawer. He could take an engine apart but not see a pile of his own clean underwear! My first dead husband, Richard wouldn’t have known romance if it hit him in the face. At best he’d tease like P. On an early date with him, he stared into my eyes, then said, "hang on, you've got something on your eyelash" - it was mascara. T told a story of him and his late wife…. On an early date, her hand crept across the table so he moved to put his hand over hers when she grabbed an asparagus stick. No romance in her either!

Jane’s late husband sounds as romantic as my Adrian giving her flowers and chocolates. I'd come back from the campus to find a pile of G&B chocolate on my desk so would have to stay there and write my thesis. Adrian would leave chocolates on my desk - why is chocolate symbolic of romance?

When I was between husbands, courting, I sent postcards from my skiing trip to three men. One never mentioned it, another thanked me for it, but Adrian replied, not by post or phone, but by email, pretty new and technical for most people in 1999. And the content of his email? He replied with a poem, and a poem in French. So not only was he romantic, and courteous, but also was educated and enjoyed new experiences. No wonder he was marriable.

Burns night

I haven't blogged about Burns night for years: https://ejh2.blogspot.com/2009/01/burns-night-nanna.html

Burns night each January - it's an excuse for me to get me a haggis. However, haggis is too peppery for me unless I have bland neeps with it. I may or may not have mash - I often have no potatoes in the house because I rarely eat them.  We used to go round our neighbours on Burns night because she was Scottish and would encourage the celebration. But I don't remember any such BN parties here where I live now.

However, son and DiL get the chance to go to their club to celebrate each year. As far as I can see, it's one of the rare evenings they go out together, so I happily babysit their two bairns. They come back v late - I suspect Scottish whiskey has been drunk. This year son got to read a Robbie Burns poem, "For a' that" to the assembled club members. He'd had time to practise its rhythm and pronounciation this year so was confident. I think he enjoyed the performance. DiL enjoyed the company - she's sociable. They got home rather late but the bairns had gone to sleep hours earlier and all was quite quiet and I drove home along an almost empty A road.

Christmas in the Mendips

I spent four nights over Christmas at a hotel in Loxton, December walks in wind that blows you over, dripping nose and despite good walking boots that I’ve worn before, I got a blister and couldn’t do the third day of walking. I spent it wandering around Wells, its cathedral and bishop's palace moat.

The hotel food was like school dinners - sloppy. No fruit, no cheese course. The last dinner offered pork casserole, but when it came it not only had little pork but looked like a gelatinous mess. Dee said she would write to the hotel to complain. Nevertheless, I’m grateful someone else planned, someone else cooked, and served, and someone else is washing up.

I’ve people to talk to, 24 ramblers, Justin was here last year and Sue. Not here not in Loxton but with RWW at Malvern in the Abbey hotel.  Deb from London though born in Blackpool has had BC and so has Gwen. Gwen has done the Zoe programme and we had a long discussion about its benefits and what we'd learned from it. Her partner / husband Ray, worked at the RAE in the seventies and eighties. He was a scientist who counts, a metrologist. Metrologist not a meteorologist. I thought that was combinatorics. It’s not statistics. Dee works in Scotland. Helen couldn't walk because she'd broken her foot. When one of the leaders, Jon, asked her about gluten-free bread she explained about good food and unprocessed food and timing of meals - all the things that Gwen had reported on from learning on her Zoe programme. In the morning, Jon said he'd looked it up and would follow up.

November is the time to plan for December. The first half of November is boringly empty; the second is too busy with TMA marking, emailing to agree extensions, buying stamps, planning presents, attending grandchildren’s school events: concerts, fairs, nativity plays.

Why do people suddenly get sociable when I’m so busy? I went to lunch with friends twice in the last fortnight. I’ve extra choir rehearsals for Christmas performances and the BCS has an interesting Christmas lecture next week. Aylesbury speakers were short of a speech so I’ve volunteered and prepared one.
And it’s cold but I’ve got the boiler people coming in next week so can’t go to see  #1 grandson’s school play.
No wonder I end up a bit stressed with a sore throat. Hope it doesn’t make a cold. But I don’t think I’ll be fit enough to give that speech.