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.

Mindless destruction

On Sunday morning we took an early stroll around the public open space near our house. This is what the young people had left after their Saturday evening.

A neighbour heard them at one o'clock in the morning. Ten of them, boys and girls were kicking the wall attempting to knock it over, and ignored his remonstrations. He called the police but they didn't come. It took the teenagers an hour to knock down the wall, but in that hour the police didn't come.

Now the local newspaper knows and so does one of the local radios who interviewed our neighbour about what he heard. It was broadcast on Tuesday morning, the day I took off to paint our garden wall with anti-climb paint.

Daughter is 17

Her birthday today meant a quiet celebration because she went bowling last weekend with a couple of friends and seems quite content with what she has. Aunty L sent her some nail varnish. "Ooh! I don't think I've ever had red nail varnish" she glowed.

Her SDad took us out for an evening meal. He nearly fainted when he saw her bright red nails. Here they are.

Model trains

Husband's hobby is building model trains.

Sick smelly cat

We have a cat called Dinka. But she is old, very, very old. We reckon being at least 17 years old makes her the equivalent of 88 human years old, and she moves and walks old. She used to scratch the mites in her ear, but she doesn't do that very much any more, thank goodness because the bits flew out over the sofa, cushions and carpets. Unfortunately she is totally deaf, so jumps when someone comes up behind her.

For the last year she has being having epileptic fits. Sometimes she doesn't have one for weeks, at least not when we are in the house to know. She had one last week at ten to nine in the morning. My mobile beeped as I got a text message:

"Dinka has had a fit on the new carpet. Where's something to clean it?"

And now, this last week, she has started to stink. She still cleans herself a bit, but her wind is horrible. Poor old Dinka.

In the above photo, she had been watching her territory out of the window. There's a young and bouncy tom that lives in our garden. He appeared at the bottom of the garden, near the rented houses, about a year ago. Husband and he got on very well together. Husband is a soppy thing for cats and started to feed him, delighted with his response to the interest and his purrrrr-rr-rr. Originally he fed him only once a day, but over the winter it got to be twice a day, and at the top of the garden and the cat (Whisper or Jack Flash - we can't agree his name) moved into the laundry house. So now that spring has come, Dinka notices Whisper out on the patio in the sun. Her patio. Here's a photo of him peeping in at the conservatory door, like he does the moment you go in there.

Family bliss (not)

This morning A got up to find the cat stuck in the dining room with the doors closed. We dashed out to work, leaving teenagers in bed. We weren't too happy when we came home to find the b* cat had deposited something nasty on the dining room floor. Husband grumpily cleared it up, and I snapped at him to eat something, and stalked off.

I informed teenagers that if things didn't get sorted out, the right doors locked or left open, then they were going to have to be in their bedrooms before we go to bed. Consequently son sulked all the way through his supper.

Bah! Families! Who'd have 'em?

Older teens

When they get to be teenagers we have different night-time problems.

This week, our-nearly-19 son went babysitting, and since I mustn't now worry about him, we went to bed before he came in. He unlocked the door, noted that the lodger's light was still on, and so he went to bed. He left the door unlocked. All night. It was still unlocked at 6 o'clock in the morning when we got up. Fortunately we were not murdered in our beds, and unfortunately son did not learn his lesson as no one burgled the house, crept in and stole his laptop. Bah! Pity. but probably just as well.

On the other hand, last night, step-daughter #3 hadn't been seen. We hadn't seen her come in, nor heard her. Mind you, she doesn't say anything when she comes in, no "hello!", she just tramps upstairs to her room. So we wondered if she were home or gone to Bristol a day earlier than she had planned. Father stuck his head round her door late at night, and found her tucked in and fast asleep in bed. Not so fast asleep unfortunately that he didn't wake her. He reminded her in the morning, gently chiding her for not acknowledging his existence in the same house and not letting him know that she was around and okay. "I was confused!", she complained.

Pain in the neck

Busy day I planned for today. Having been not too successful in finishing what I meant to finish yesterday, today I intended to:

• go to the market
• write up yesterday's notes
• prepare a paper for the afternoon tutorial
  
• get to work in time for group photos for the web site
• attend the systems seminar
• be at the B852 business research methods tutorial
• Tae Kwondo this evening.

Then daughter got up for breakfast. She came down complaining about a pain in her neck. "How long will it last, Mum?" "Oh, until about bed-time!" I cheerily assured her. "Ow!" She got herself some milk, and sat down for her porridge. "Ow!" I decided I didn't want to listen so left the table and went to the sink. "Ow!" and then, "Help, Mum!", and she collapsed side ways, breathing stentoriously, which kind of scared me. I thought of meningitis, and rushed over to her. Her eyes were open but odd, and her body twitched as I pulled her up, banging her head on something. "Ow!" she complained again. We had some discussion about whether she had fainted, blacked out, knew what she was doing, and then she lay down on the floor and refused to get up. Mind you, she was as white as this page, so that fainting bit was quite genuine.

We couldn't move her with the stiff neck, she wouldn't get up, I couldn't get her to the doctor, or in my car, so we called an ambulance. The paramedics and nurses checked her (pulse, blood sugar, eyes, nerves) and found nothing. When we saw the doctor, he was concerned when we mentioned that she had fainted before at Tae Kwondo, so he ran hemoglobin tests (ok) and ECG (ok) on her, and said that she's got to come into cardiology clinic sometime to test her on a running machine.

She's sort of all right now, back from A&E, a bit pale and had the rest of the day off school.

Consequently, I didn't get to work till lunch time. Off now to kick someone at Tae Kwondo, without daughter.

Proud to do what I do

Yesterday's experience made me proud of being a mother, a step mother, a twice happily married woman. I think I'll rewrite my business cards to announce these as my qualifications, along with my voluntary unpaid experience in the public sector. There were a couple of women yesterday who were a bit diffident about what they did. Unlike the majority they were not bankers or involved in finance. One insisted sternly "I don't do anything". With patience I found out that one had left banking and now runs her own bespoke jewellers, and another not only has raised a family but has worked as a magistrate for so long that she is on the advisory panel for recruiting new magistrates. And I met another recently through the schools appeal panel, who has been a local councillor for over twenty years, but insists "I do nothing." It is a sort of contrast with those who identify themselves by their career experience. I think I'll create a scrap book or a web pages of such women who do nothing.

E J H

mother, step-mother, wife

ex-Community Health Council member, school governor ..

Clay pigeon shooting

I've had a fantastic day. I occasionally tend to write to or talk to interesting people but people I've not been introduced to. About a month ago, I cheekily wrote to just such an Interesting Woman and she unexpectedly invited me to go clay pigeon shooting with 75 other women, and I have loved the experience.

The format of the day was:

• train from London
• arrival, coffee and bacon rolls
• lessons in groups
• coffee
• competition
• lunch and fashion show
• carriages

Walking along the platform to the train at ten to eight in the monring, I knew that I'd find other women who were going, and around the middle carriages of the train, I spotted a lively group. I got into the carriage and turned right, with the lively group on the left, and heard chatter, chatter, chatter for the whole of the journey. Later someone mentioned St Trinians schoolgirls.

On the train, over breakfast, on the ranges, during coffee and lunch people chatted, shared information and interests, usually starting with a question about how we came to be there, and what our connection was with IW. Some knew her through work, one has a child in the same school as one of hers, someone else edits on the paper she writes a column for and her sister was there. Sister doesn't shoot much, unlike our host, but I think everyone enjoyed the experience.

Out on the ranges, despite the sleet and hail, I learned to shoot a little, though I mostly missed. I must put my feet in a short L stance, weight almost all on the left and front foot, leaning forward into the position with my right check on the cheek of the gun. It seems that men and women see in different ways and that women should perhaps close their left eye if they shoot with their right hand.. Certainly, I did better when I close it. I kept the gun close into my shoulder but still bruised it from the recoil. The technique seemed to vary depending on what I ws trying to hit: a "rabbit" bouncing along the ground or a bird flying across, towards or way or into the sun. they all seemed to need something slightly different.

At lunch we were asked to donate to a charity, which Sarah Brown came to speak about and ask us for donations. I am very happy to donate to any charity that supports children.

As for our host, I'm most impressed because she seems to be one of the nicest people around. I'm honoured that she invited me. Such pleasant experiences encourage me to keep talking to interesting strangers.

Where I’m up to in my research

In my non-domestic, other life, I’m researching public accountability for the use of external consultants. That is, I want to know something about how public services use, justify and account for employment of consultants that are bought in from outside. They could be independent consultants, or people from a big consultancy company.

This research follows from my study 14 years ago of the use of consultants and the market for consultancy services in the NHS. Since the 1990s, consultancy services have boomed from £3.7 billion in 1998 to £8.7 billion in 2005 (MCA) and the UK market is the largest outside the US. In 2005-6, central government spent £1.8 billion on consulting (NAO). Yet there is little obvious explanation or public justification for this use. After the event, if something has gone wrong, then the newspapers publish how much was spent, how over budget a project is or what a new system can’t do that it should have been able to do. There may be a public enquiry (e.g. tax credits) and perhaps a government department will write some new guidelines, but it seems government ministers and managers will still be able to ignore those guidelines. At least, that is what the media seem to say, at for example the transcript of a File on 4 programme on management consultants in 2006. It’s a problem because if it cannot be justified, then more money will worthlessly.

However, I want to find out if at least some public sectors have managers who are able to account for their use of consultants.

So what I am doing is:

1. Reading up the literature on accountability and consultants to make sure that I know what is already known and discussed
2. Looking for managers in UK public services (e.g. councils, fire services, NHS) who are willing to share their experience of using and working with external consultants.

I don’t know what uses will emerge. There may be several findings:

1. Evidence that accountability does exist for such use of consultants, so there’s no story
2. Evidence in some form of accountability but not specifically for the use of consultants
3. No evidence of any sort of any accountability.

These findings could mean:

1. that my volunteer managers are a self picked bunch who want to prove that they’re good, and to justify their decision making
2. the lines of accountability don’t cater for use of consultants
3. there is some accountability but I just haven’t found it.

So there may be few lessons from all this effort and it’s a waste of time.

No - I remember: "Never ever give up". I'm writing this now because I'm half way through writing the literature review and finding it difficult, so on the basis that any writing is better than none, I'm telling you (family and friends) what I'm doing and where I'm up to, even if I'm not up to where I want to be. Yet.

Affy's first visit

Africa Elizabeth is to be baptised in a couple of weeks and we have a lot of champagne suitable for wetting her head so her parents are visiting tomorrow to collect it. It will be the first time she'll have been here. I'd put up photos but they are so much better on her own web site.

Children around

We had a couple of the grandchildren for a sleepover last week whilst their parents celebrated their wedding anniversary. I was reminded of the time when our male au-pair gave 6 year-old daughter the green paint. "Can I have the paint?" she requested, pointing at the pot on the top shelf. Ever willing, he passed her the pot and went back to watching Wimbledon (he had dreams of sporting fame) and 6 year old painted the kitchen table, the work surface, the drawers, the floor, the wall, her clothes, face and hair.

Last week eldest granddaughter wanted Marmite sandwiches, and grandson wanted Ribena. The Ribena glass somehow missed the table and still half-full, smashed on the floor. His sister was so absorbed in other things that the Marmite missed her bread so I'm still finding it on the chairs, dresser and cushions. Then, grandson desperately wanted to find the dymo to check how it worked, and pulled out the stationery drawer so far that it fell on the floor.

I must appreciate my now 16-year old daughter being so tidy, clean and unsticky.

Grown up children in need

Daughter went back to school. Although she is in lower sixth, she still has to take public exams, and had her first one last week. I got a text:

"Mum, I've forgotten my candidate number, and my statement (for extra time). It's in my draw[sic] in ..."

So what am I supposed to do? I'm twenty miles away at university studying my own problems, and can't get back to sort out hers. She managed.

The next day I have a tutorial, but Son says that he has to be back at Oxford between 9 and 12, not later in case he has an exam, and not allowed in earlier. Tough. I'm not missing my tutorial, so I say that I'll come the next day when I'm more relaxed, or even better, I'll come on Saturday when I'm in Oxford anyhow for work. So Son packs his bags, leaves most of them in the hall and taking a backpack with his laptop, a suitcase and some other bag, toodles off on the bus. Come lunch time I get a text message:

"Mum, I need my stuff today. I've got exams first thing tomorrow and on Saturday but there's a rumour that we take collections in sub-fusc and its in the big suitcase...."

That, translated, means that he has to wear special academic dress to be allowed into the exams room. He can't sort that out by himself and I have to go over there. Why didn't he know he needed sub-fusc! I knew. Youngest step daughter (YSD) knew! and neither of us have been to Oxford. So YSD and I heave everything but his bike into the back of my car, I drive over, unload, he buys me a smoothie, I buy him supper and spend money on books. I go over again on Saturday after teaching, with his bike and spend more on books. So I've plenty to read now, both detective (Rankin and Paretsky) and PhD (Reading Critically at University).

So far we haven't had any urgent texts from YSD, who went back to Loughborough on Saturday. Yesterday we had a text just from Middle SD (MSD) to say that she was safely back from skiing.

Boiler broke

On Christmas Day I noticed water round the base of the hot water tank, so yesterday we called a plumber. Water and heating went off for the whole day while the leaky tank got replaced. I had to wrap up in the two scarves I was given for Christmas, and curl up in a cosy corner with my four new books, three boxes of chocolates and listen to my three new CDs.

Grump and brr!

MY BLESSINGS ON YOU FALL

I don't want:

• a book - my shelves are full of books
• a CD - ditto
• chocolate - my waist is full enough, thank you, though I might be tempted by Rumsey's chocolates
  
• music - I don't play my guitar or the piano much these days
• scarves - my drawers are full of lovely scarves
• plants - got a house and garden full
• a child - got 6 children between us and a few grand children to boot
• a husband - on to my second, and he's very nice as well

I would like an antidote to grumpiness. I suppose that might be something that cleaned my house, sparkled the windows, swept my garage or washed my car. Or perhaps a massage when my shoulders ache, or a Tae Kwondo weekend (the one in Spain!)

But when I've finished having my grumpy little ways, then like bad King John said, 'MY BLESSINGS ON YOU FALL'.

Juggling work and home

I came home thinking I could type up my work this evening, but by the time I'd fed teenagers before they went out babysitting or socialising, and dealt with answering personal email, and Christmas cards, dear old husband was back from keep fit and needed feeding too. And now, look at the time - past10 o'clock and time for wine time, and camomile tea. Too late to type.

Things going well. Husband well and got over that month of illness in October. Teenagers studying okay. My study - great - big smile :)) Enjoying it though only submitted a couple of assignments as yet. See my other blog at mres-ejh2 about it if you want detail.

Tae Kwondo classes good - I feel stiff a couple of days later though. Why does fighting make me laugh? It is the best medicine for making me feel better when I am feeling miserable.

Rumpelstiltskin and maths quiz.

Daughter is finding her mixed sixth form is a different culture from her convent boarding school. She is not displeased that some boys have been asking for her phone number, but doesn't want them to have it. So she is devising a quiz for them. Her phone number is a combination of the answers to clues such as:

• a number that the Romans didn't know about
• the third digit is two to the power 3, minus 1
• another number is the 4th prime number

If any lad goes the trouble of working these out, then they are suited to each other!

Moving research

I've decided as I get more into the research that I should set up a separate blog. If you really want to know about what I'm researching then do read it at http://mres-ejh2.blogspot.com/

In the meantime, in here I'll continue to write about ordinary every day things that I mustn't ever give up on - like:

• husband - he's better than he's been over the last few weeks;
• son - he's discovered that university means a lot of studying;
• daughter - she's enjoying sixth form;
• youngest step-daughter who is now an experienced ultimate frisbee player;
• step-daughter #2 who's enjoying newly married life;
• step-daughter #1 and her husband and children - today 5 year-old grandson proudly read to me from his first reading book from school
  
• step-son and his book and his tv series and his two daughters
• cat
• death watch beetles
• cleaner
• lodgers
  

Manifest limitations

I'm a late developer. I got my degree in my 30s, and my masters in my forties. Will I get my doctorate in my fifties? Tim Harford quotes his tutor in The Independent:

"You seem to have everybody out there fooled about your abilities, so I don't think you should come here to demonstrate your manifest limitations."

Mastering full-time study

Spent the week, like my son, trying to work out new life and new work. Unlike him I don't get lectures, but the Masters in Research does involve a lot of reading and writing. I have to study

• Module A - basics about research methods
• Module B - qualitative methods
• Module C - quantitative methods

and a choice of advanced qualitative or quantitative. There are two 3000-word assignments to write for each module, and two two-hour F2F tutorials.

I also have to study a specific course for the OUBS on business research methods, and that looks really interesting, plus the university provides a set of work shops on the basic skills that a post-graduate needs. That has three assignments.

Finally, I have to write my 12,000-14,000 word dissertation (Public Accountability for the Use of External Consultants) by next September.

So lots to do. And I still have some OU work to finish, so must go now. Sort out out car, and drive to brother's before training to Leeds for work tomorrow.

Master in Research

Mixed emotions: glee and trepidation.

I registered on Monday, and there was induction on Tuesday and Wednesday. Now, Thursday, I'm left to my own devices, with my first meeting with my supervisor in half an hour. I've planned a very flexible agenda hoping to discuss literature but also having a thousand mixed up ideas, and a lot of doubt that anything is every possible.

Watch this space.

At least watch it until I decide to set up a separate blog for reflections on this study because I really want to share ideas and experiences with other trainee researchers.

Grumpy Granny goes to Rome.

First day, Monday, was horrendous.

• Plane late.


• Rome airport loos queued full and dirty.


• Baggage an hour late, and on wrong carousel.

Bad start.

Bus journey into city past rubbly graffiti daubed hovels to more intense traffic jams. Find bullying receptionist who wants my signature on a blank form, and then shows us to the tiniest room, above the roar and fumes of traffic at the roundabout below.


Have headache. It rains. Go to St Peter's square to find more queues and an ice cream. Fall asleep. Walk. Have coffee. Fall asleep again.


Conclusion : bad first 12 hours.

Recommendations :

1. Don't come to Rome


2. Try another hotel.


3. Avoid planes


4. Allow more time for breakfast at airport.

Tuesday was almost as exhausting as we visited:
Bookshop, Florence paper shop, Trevi fountain, Vittoriana for coffee, Piazza Colonna, Via Corso, Forum, the Piazza Navona, theatre for a guitar concert (Amadeus duo) and the Pantheon - a big circle with a roof with a hole in it.

Photos below:

Roman ruins. There were lots of ruins.	Roman graffiti was everywhere.
They use an old sewer pipe as a passage way.	There were too many people around to get near enough to throw coins into the Trevi Fountain, so I guess I'll not be coming back.
You needed the fan in our hotel room. It was too hot to close the window against the noise and pollution of the traffic three floors below.	See the scooters in the traffic jam one evening outside the hotel.
Took this photo when we had already got half way through the queue for the Vatican museum.	This was a copy of the Laocoon sculpture.
The queue to see the Sistine Chapel was long and slow, but you could sit in there for as long as you liked, and just look, and listen to your audio lecture. The blue of the frescos was beautiful. The Last Judgement was impressive, and the matching pictures of Jesus life opposite scenes from Moses life were fascinating.	Queue again, this time for old Roman graves, aka the catacombs.
Stop sight seeing and taste the local produce.	The weather was warm. The transport was frequent. The food was delicious especially at the Taverna Romana, and we found two guitar concerts to go to, including one with John Williams!

Wedding well

Step daughter number 2 married last week. She looked so happy. See our family web site for photos.

Carrying on

Son has wonderful results and is going to Oxford, Hertford College. Daughter did well at GCSEs: 7 As, 2 A* and a B. She was almost surprised, despite the enormous amount of work she put in, especially to English and geography after Hockerill offered her that place. My many thanks go to that school, just for encouraging her. Although I am happy that she be in a local school, Hockerill, as a state boarding school (state boarding schools are awell-kept secret ) would have been good for her. However, it was high risk:

1. the International Baccalaureate required a wider spread of effort than I thought D would do,
2. the universities (until June this year) required more points from the IB,
   
3. the £8000 a year was money I needed for S to go to uni, and for me to do my doctorate.

S is enjoying the late summer, planning a camping trip, and working on some of the maths that Oxford have sent him to do before he starts.

D started at her new sixth form today. I'm waiting for her to come home any minute....

15 August 1987

Nineteen years ago we (R & I) were doing this pregnancy test after six years of trying, drugs, operations and infertility.


The test proved positive. :)

Expected results

Son is so nervous. The A level results come out on Thursday and he is dying to know, and so worried that perhaps he'll have a B on his history and he won't be able to go to Oxford to read physics and philosophy.

So what? His second choice is Imperial to read physics - and that is really good; it's first choice for a lot of people. Nevertheless, I think he'd enjoy doing the philosophy component if he can get into Oxford. And then he'll be nearer home, and Oxford must be cheaper than London. He likes the easy access to the country from there too. If he just misses the history, he should ring the tutor at Oxford to see what can be negotiated.

We're away the following week when daughter's GCSE results come out. At least, assuming no more cancelled plane flights, we're away. I wish I'd booked the train but I didn't think of the train going to Grenoble until a month after I'd booked the plane. It's a bit odd, flying to go camping. We have to have very light luggage and now have lost the 10kg that we'd normally be allowed as hand luggage. Ah well! It must be safer now, for all this fuss.

And we are luckier than the Lebanese. Imagine if the Americans said that for their security they were going to bomb the parts of Britain where the terrorists were, like Israel bombs Hezbollah in the Lebanon.

New Forest - Xmas round robin report

Had one fun day on Wednesday. Camping in the New Forest with daughter, at breakfast, two ponies came to inspect - walked right between daughter and me, then strolled over to a neighbouring huge tent, where they'd left the back open as well as the front. Pony thought 'that looks interesting', bent its head and walked right in! Squeals of 'Mum!' emanated from tent, and dad came to shoo pony out! "I ate orses" the mum told me.

Daughter took me for a long walk through the forest - must have been six or seven miles, and she was quite happy. Hot, I bent to cool my hands in a stream. "Wait!" she warned. "There's an animal." It was a slim brown snake with a yellow marking on its head that slid out from the sandy bank and across the stream.

Then we drove over to the Moors Valley 'GoApe' adventure course. That was terrific. They give you lots of instruction, dress you up with the ropes and the carbiners (or something), get you to practise, let you back out or GO FOR IT! We went. We zipped down wires into nets, we traversed at a hundred feet above ground on a wire, or on trapezes. My mouth was dry with fear, but I knew it was okay. Daughter showed no fear at all - in fact a lad that we were going round with said, "Your daughter isn't afraid at all." He was quite impressed.

Okay - no boring Xmas round letter is coming, but this one day of the summer holiday would have made my news.

I didn't give up

I applied for a place on an Open University Business School Masters in Research Methods, which is a one year course, and then you do three more to do a doctorate. I've just received an email:

I'm very pleased to tell you that, following your chat with CC and the receipt of two excellent references, we would like to make you an informal offer of a place on our full-time MSc programme. The programme will start on 1 October 2006 and you will receive a maintenance grant of £13,300 and you will not need to pay fees.

I am so thrilled. And incredibly grateful to my referees for their encouragement. I've wanted to do this for years and they pointed me in the right direction to take this first step towards a doctorate.

Stress

Son is soooo stressed. He has had two exams today, both at 9.30, so had to take one, then go into isolation and take the other in the afternoon. You could see at breakfast that he was too tense to do himself justice. And this is the exam that his offer at Oxford depends on so I wasn't surprised when he came home saying how bad he felt. He keeps remembering things that he didn't write on his history paper, tells me how he mistimed questions and looks really glum.

Leaving school

Son has only four more weeks of school. In 1994 when he started, he was fairly happy at first, but after a week or two, thought that perhaps he'd had enough now. He asked:
"Mum, do I have to go to school tomorrow?"
"Yes."
"And the next day?"
"Yes."
"And the next?"
"And the next?"
"Yes."
"And the one after that?"
"No, it's the weekend. You don't have to go for two days."
"Then do I have to go to school?"
"Yes."
"And the next day?"
"Yes."

He gave up asking. School looked like a life sentence to him. Yet now we can count the weeks until he leaves.

Bye bye daughter, till next week

Took daughter back to school this evening. This is the last trip back after a holiday; she leaves this year and won't be boarding for sixth form. Just as well, since her suit case was so heavy. She said it was full of books and she has been revising this holiday, which is admirable and a a relief for a worrying mother. However, she hasn't organised herself any work experience, and I haven't managed to find anything for her through my contacts, she'll be bored in the last week of June when the rest of her year are out experiencing work.

Busy

I'm so busy this year, but having 'flu has meant more pressure from family:
"Mum, can you ...?"
"You don't phone me any more." (This from my mum - sorry Mum).
"I've got you some xyz to cook for supper." (Kind, when I've just got in from work.)
"Mum's too busy to ..."

But

• two days a week of teaching,


• a day a week of advisory work,


• a day of studying and


• a day of tutoring

is a full time week, and leaves little time for mothering and housewife duties.

I'll do better soon because I'm losing three work contracts. Then I'll be time rich again.

Worst time of the year

Got flu at the start of March, so no posting for a bit while I catch up. There's something about March that makes people ill, depressed or just plain fed up. A number of staff at JCS were off sick, so those left got even more stressed at having to cover. What's the research that demonstrates how rotten people feel in March?

Moving neighbours

We went over to F, yesterday to a good bye party for A&D. They are retiring to Australia, to live somewhere 800 miles away from Perth. I hope the new life suits them, but I'm sorry they'll be so far away. It's like losing them for ever.

University union action

Over 17 years I've seen the OU change and change many things for the better;
I'll list them later.

But the OU has also changed my contract, and changed it for the worse. After 17 years tutoring with the OU, only my experience since 2002 counts. And for 16 of those years I could not contribute to a pension. Eventually, being so fed up, I joined the OUAUT and now the AUT is calling for strike action:

What is so ridiculous is that I'm teaching again, in a school, after 27 years . With less than three years teaching experience and those in a primary school, I am at the top of the main scale because my school recognises my 17 years of tutoring with the OU, years that the OU won't recognise. School teaching pays better than university tutoring.

My Not So Interesting Life

Son showed me this blog, written by a girl from the school next door to his. http://www.mynotsointerestinglife.blogspot.com/ It reflects son's life, his peer and age group, revealing sharp intelligence and the beginnings of maturity. It is highly amusing and presented using the right format for the medium. Enjoy.

Endoscopy

Son has now had letter from hospital telling him to contact hospital to arrange appointment to see consultant to discuss another appointment for the endoscopy. Son hasn't contacted anyone about going private because he's been very busy during the half term holiday. He's spent

• all mornings catching up with his sleep,


• most afternoons writing a very long piece of physics course work,


• some afternoons stripping the hall of wall paper or painting the bared walls, and


• the evenings watching the box.

Something else to worry about

Son has to have an endoscopy. Just as he is coming up to taking his A levels, he has to have an endoscopy. Not a blood test, not a breathe test, but an endoscopy. I am not happy.

He's been complaining about tummy and digestion problems for some months, went to see the GP in the autumn and got given antibiotics, which worked while he was taking them, but when he stopped taking them the problem returned, and muttering about H Pylori, the GP gave him more and stronger antibiotics, which worked while he was taking them, but when he stopped taking them the problem returned. So now the GP is getting him to see a consultant and booking him in for an endoscopy.

I wish I'd gone with him to the surgery so I could ask questions about alternatives and side effects. P said he didn't ask any questions because, "He's a professional, Mum!" "You ask questions of your teachers all the time! You don't believe them." "That's different."

Pensions again

Husband has a similar pension at Unisys to R's at EDS, so he started asking questions yesterday. CR, presumably in the same role as JB at EDS, said that this change was as a result of the Finance Act 2004 and she believed it would apply to the Unisys Pension Scheme.

Not satisfied with that, husband had already started talking to his colleagues, who have similar pension arrangements, and haven't been told that anything is changing. Similarly, son talked to friends at school, who were as indignant as him.

JB rang me this morning to say that it was 'good news'. Son can keep the pension up to 25. It only impacts on people who are not yet receiving a pension.

However, there are still issues:

• people (e.g. at EDS & at Unisys) running pensions haven't told the pensioners nor the prospective pensioners


• people paying into their pensions will have a reduced deal for their dependants


• EDS, if I hadn't queried it, might have carried on refusing to pay after the age of 23.
  

So where do we go from here?

Pensions

NEGU: I need the Never Ever Give Up thought today. Over ten years ago, R had an agreement with his company, EDS, that laid out the rules for the pension scheme. Part of the agreement was that if he died before retirement, as he did, then a pension would be paid to his children while they were in full-time education, up to the age of 25. However, now we learn that a regulation changes this agreement, and the pension will be up to the age of 23. The EDS pensions people have written to P asking him if he is still in full-time education, but telling him that the pension must stop at 23.

I do not see how it can be changed retrospectively, unless we agree. If someone can take away my children’s right to a pension, then someone could take away the pension that I receive, and could take it at any time, maybe when I’m 79, 84, when ever. It’s too late for me to do much to improve my pension prospects now.

I rang EDS to ask. JB told me that new regulations to simplify pension arrangements mean that anyone who receives a pension and is 18 after 6th April 2006, can receive the pension only until they are 23, not 25. I looked up the Inland Revenue web site http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/pensionschemes/draftregs.htm that refers to this simplification, but I can’t see where it says anything about being 23 and losing your pension.

P is so cross that he's already written and posted his letter to our MP.

Partying

Parents go partying and teenagers stay in.

J had a party and lives some 40 miles away, so I wanted to stay the night. However, the same evening A was booked to go to a gaudy. (That's a party in an Oxford college, to which only the college members or ex-members may go). Dilemma! If we both went out, then we left our teenage children on their own, all night.

We went our separate ways. We left our teenagers. When my slightly-the-worse-for-wear husband got back the next morning they were still alive and squabbling.

The Producers

A asked me, "Do you want to go and see 'The Producers'?"
"What's that then?"
"It's a film about a musical."
"Not a film about a musical, about a film about a musical about a film about a book?"
"We ell...It's about two producers who make a musical about a book. It was a film, years ago."
"No, thanks."

So he went out and got us four tickets, came back beaming, and showed them to me. "I've got them for Monday night", he said. "Look, 7.30."
"Why does it say 'Narnia'?"
Slow thoughtful response, "I'm sure I asked for 'The Producers'."

So he went back to the cinema and got four tickets for 'The Producers', for 8.45 on Monday evening. That's a bit late when there's school and work the next day.

We enjoyed the outing, partly because there were hardly any people out on January 2nd and the cinema was almost empty. Perhaps everyone had partied enough. I'm not sure how my nicely convent educated daughter managed to laugh at so many of the naughty bits in the film. Even though I was really tired on Tuesday, it was a relaxing end to the holiday,

Success comes in halves

9/18 of my OU MT262 tutor group gained distinctions this year. I'm chuffed.

Juggling

Juggling is a mother's life. Balance the needs of teenagers against husband. Remember that old story about the mother who had to be sure that her baby got its bottle and that her husband didn't.

Tuesday I planned supper to be early at 5 o'clock so that I could get teenager to Tae Kwondo without indigestion at 7, but at 4 o'clock, when I should have been preparing the food, happy husband was icing the Christmas cake in the kitchen, so I popped out muttering about getting scones and having tea at 5.30 instead of supper. I duly returned with sweet food, tapped on ceiling to call teenager down, got ignored so ate with husband. At 6.30 went to tell teenager, "I'm getting changed now" to be told that she was too hungry to come to Tae Kwondo. I threw a wobbly and stalked off, returned a few minutes later with my hat and coat on, and found she was half dressed, so I waited in the car until a neighbour wanted to get out and I was blocking her. Left without b* teenager.

Tae Kwondo was great. I had a lovely time. Being the last day of term we didn't practise patterns or sparring but played tag: pair tag, walk the white line tag, chain tag. There were penalties for being tagged, like 3 press ups if you're green belt but 5 if you're above. And we finished with a competition where each team had to learn a pattern composed by the leader, of 12 moves and with a Christmas theme. Our included me doing break dancing, or a form of Russian leap frog. It went down very well, and G probably would have been embarrassed had she been there.

Our team won and we had to do an encore.

See http://www.btkd.co.uk/