Ireland - youth hostel

We're in Ireland, some miles from Bray in a youth hostel, here to celebrate the 40th wedding anniversary of some university friends. Tonight we're berthed in the "honeymoon" suite. May be it's called that for its splendidly large double bed - the sort that comes with two single mattresses that fit onto one slotted wooden frame, like you get in Germany. It promises to be very comfortable. But even more impressive is the view. (Wait for photo - not allowed uploading from hostel). Lying on the bed, I look out across rolling green hills, pine trees and deciduous, dells, dales a farm house and a pair of serious walkers with big back packs.

But I'm hungry! We left home before eleven, so well after breakfast, drove to the airport where we ate our packed sandwiches, tomatoes and apples while waiting to board. The airport was the usual unpleasant experience, bombarded with warnings about liquids having to be in plastic bags, and anecdotes from fellow travellers on being allowed only one bag and squashing a handbag into your on board bag. If they hadn't killed themselves in the tower, I could thump those terrorists that have caused all this hassle round the world. And I guess so would everyone else in that queue.

We ate nothing on the plane, landed and caught a city bus straight into Dublin.

On the city bus, husband took suitcase upstairs. So we're looking out from the top deck, when he suddenly decided it was our stop, hurled himself and suitcase at the stairs just as the bus jolted away. Husband and suitcase tumbled down stairs, he splitting his nose open as his head hit the wall at the bottom. The whole incident made a whopping big noise and upset everybody on both desks. The driver was most concerned - bless her - it wasn't her fault. But at least it meant the bus stopped again for us to get off at the station.

At the station, we don't break for tea, nor even for plasters, but jump onto the DART (rapid transit) to Bray. At Bray I drag behind him, pointing out the tea stall as we're leaving the station but he says we'll look outside. Then he looks for a bus, not for tea. Not for plasters - you should see his bloody nose - wait for the photo. We catch the bus. I put the suitcase on the luggage rack and we stay downstairs.

At the end of the bus line, we have to walk for 40 minutes along a peaceful and increasingly narrow country lane. It's a nice walk apart from the din that his suitcase wheels make on the tarmac. By six o'clock we arrive at the hostel. The hostel doesn't do food.

Bah! Husband's in the doghouse.

He's arranging a taxi now, to take us back the seven miles to the nearest pub for supper. Good.

European geography

I've found a new site to distract myself on. It lets you model directing planes to land in certain countries at certain cities. Try it http://www.lufthansa-vp.com/vp1/play.html.

Maths

If you like maths, then look at the site that gives a theorem for the day, here: http://www.theoremoftheday.org/. If you were a maths teacher, you could collect all the pdf files in a folder, ready for use.

Leprechauns, fairies and elves in the garden

One evening I hear a knock at the door. It's the second one of the evening my husband who'd answered the first one is now at the bottom of the garden collecting blackberries.

"My brother, he came here and, I don't know his name, he .."
"You don't know your brother's name?"
"No, the man, here, he told my brother he could collect apples and my brother didn't know we was collecting apples so he said 'no', and we are collecting apples, and we've come to collect apples".

They're local children. A few minutes earlier they'd lost a wooden 'sword' over our wall, and their brother had come to retrieve it.

So I let them down the garden, giving them bags for collecting apples and they were so happy that they went and called the brother back and another friend and they all went round saying the garden was wonderful, and look at the rubber horse, and swinging on the swing as high as possible till the birch tree rocked, and they'd filled their bags. Then they scuttled away, promising to come back for more, and they came back. They picked and played and climbed trees till dusk, then scampered off with their apples and plums, looking like mischievous and happy elves in the evening gloom.

England People Very Nice

England People Very Nice
Just been to see this play at the National Theatre - it's so rude! It says what you wouldn't dare say in every day life about each other. Like, someone going off with a pack of fags, and

"I hope it does what it says on the packet!"

shouts someone else. Lots of clever lines I wish I could remember said by working class immigrants, but written by an intelligent playwright, Richard Bean.

OU on BBC

Did you see this programme last night? You've got a week to watch it. Remember how in the sixties people didn't go to university. The Open University was controversially new.

In the sixties lots of people didn't expect to get a degree. People didn't expect and weren't expected to get a degree. Lenny Henry, who presents the programme, is an OU graduate and he tells you what it was like when you saw all these people around you with degrees and you hadn't.

The Open University was controversially new, an opportunity helped by the advent of television, and Michael Young realising that in the USSR they were using radio to educate people and telling Harold Wilson. Fancy that! The OU came out of soviet Russia.

There was hostility. But Jennie Lee argued for it. Thank goodness for these people. I suspect in today's climate we'd never get the OU going because there aren't politicians who would take it as seriously.

BBC Childrens prom

Husband and I took two grandchildren up to London to the children's prom, which was great. Big bangs and videos and music (of course).

The excitement was before we even arrived at the Albert Hall because grandson jumped into an overcrowded tube train just as the doors were closing and gran'pa didn't jump in fast enough but something was stuck in the doors, and grandson was all worried because the train would go with him and he'd be all on his own and gran'pa was trying to heave the doors open and every one was getting very excited. Fortunately the doors opened again, and grandson got out and waited with us for the next train, and I had a go at gran'pa for scaring us all.

Golf 1.4

I test drove a Golf 1.4, and like it, and its price.

Barbecue and gliding

Friends from a local gliding club (localish) have invited us to a barbecue in August. It will be nice to see them again as it's some years since we last went. They sent us a link to some of their pictures on another club's site, here, in Scotland. They have some wonderful videos of gliding flights. And they put up photos by other well remembered names, one of whom works with a neighbour. Small world.

Anyhow, I've asked for three tickets as husband and perhaps son will come too. I may need more tickets as we will have Austrian visitors in August again, and daughter is coming home to help look after them. Hurray!

OU fortieth

The Open Unlimited photos are on their flickr page here. If you look very carefully, you will see me in some of them.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40682471@N05/

Lost in England; found in Italy

Eighteen months ago, I lost an earring, a large hoop amethyst earring. I'd tossed it a yard across the room, with its partner, aiming at the pile in or next to my suitcase when packing to go to India. It disappeared. I couldn't find it anywhere, and it was too big to just disappear, or to go up the vacuum cleaner without noticing it. I couldn't understand how I'd lost it.

I found it in Italy!

I was packing to come home from holiday, flicked one the internal straps over, walked away to pick something up, came back and there was the earring in the empty suitcase.

What is it with earrings? I did this once before when I dropped a small earring in an office, when working abroad in Denmark. Weeks later at home, I found it again, in the washing machine.

May be Mary Norton's borrowers travel between countries, borrowing from me in this country and letting me have my things back in another country.

Ceiling fell in

The roof fell in. We go away for a few days leaving a visitor in the house and our roof falls in. My mother always used to complain about my father, who wouldn't wake up when the children cried "He wouldn't wake up if the roof fell in", she used to complain. And then one night the roof did fall in. Well, it wasn't the roof; like our house it was the ceiling fell down, all over the set breakfast table. The plaster fell and my father heard and went to investigate while my mother slept.

Our hall ceiling fell down. We knew there was a crack in the plaster, but it would have to fall when we were away. I hadn't warned our visitor, who was naturally a bit upset. Our wonderful son-in-law came and cleared up and found a prop to keep the remaining plaster in place. The floor and my beautiful new expensive stair carpet are dusty. The glass shade on the Perseus lamp is broken, the banister a bit scratched, but not my grandmother's hall stand, because I'd left some spare carpet on it.

We've called in a plasterer.

Buskers

Bascherdeis means busker festival. In Vernasca, they have this festival with twenty or thirty street artists performing over two days. Like Afro Jungle Jeegs.

Watch some of my videos of the performers.
One man band
2. Ready for the acrobats

3. Afro jumbo jeegs
but this is the end of the show, which was 20 minutes, so too long to put on youtube until I've edited it.

4. Jugglers

Parma parking

We went to Parma - it was far too hot, but parking was impressive - yes sad, I know, I'm supposed to admire the cultural treasures. But at the car park entry barrier, the sign told us how many parking spaces were free on the floor we were entering. As we drove round, we realised that each bay had a red light above the car that occupied it. If we looked for a green light, hanging from the ceiling, we could see from twenty cars away where there was a free space. And there was calming music (Greensleeves) to soothe stressed drivers - not a bad experience considering it was only a boring functional place.

We did also go and see the cathedral and the baptistery.

The paintings in the cathedral were wonderful. See the videos too.


and this video

Italian holiday

We've spent a week on holiday in Italy at an agritourismo here called Cergallina with family. Lovely.

"We" is husband and his son and family, so I got the chance to know them better. Their two little girls are five and nearly three, so interested in everything and interesting, but needing a lot of time and attention. Their mother seems a tad tired, having two pre-school children, when nearly all her time is devoted to them. I think a mother needs the friends and family who share that time with her because for a couple of years there's hardly any time for an adult life.

Husband and I stayed for a week. Son and family stay two weeks.

"Here" is a hamlet, where it's quiet except for the buzzing of flies off the cows, chirping crickets the shouting workers watering the vegetable patch, and occasional braying donkey. But it's not an isolated place. From the bench under the fruit trees I can see a village in the valley. At night I can see lights in various different directions, like Vernasca to the north on the other side of the hill ridge. This page shows you where. But it's quiet enough for son and family to have visited her at least three times. His wife's sister-in-law comes from a village twenty minutes walk away. The quiet pleases them, and the animals and swimming pool please the children. The animals include at least two cats, a cow and her calf, two mules, a donkey, some horses, geese, hens and ducks. Granddaughter tells me that last year she rode on the horses, and I have a video of her riding them this year.

Italy - food

On holiday in Cergallina, we had some lovely meals, simple and delicious. And we didn't have to plan, shop, serve or wash up, let alone cook.

Yum - simple pasta with a tomato sauce one day. Another day we had a sort of ratatouille mainly of peppers fried up with garlic and onions, not bioled, with "zapped" potatoes. The potatios are not cooked; they're "zapped" in the mixer (whatever that means!). But the potatoes add a kind of thickness to the stew of vegetables. Findally Juidth adds aubergines, but they are peeled so you don't notice their purple skins, not salted, just added last. Yum.

Then there's the beef made from last year's cow, named Valeria. She made lovely meals.

See their ideas for food here.

Disappointment - no ice-cream

We went to Castell'Arquato, a village, a short drive from here in Cergallina. LIke many Italian villages it is on a hill with the church at the top. We parked in a low car park, promised the little girls gelati (ice-creams) and walked into the town, through the narrow streets, but past the first cafe. The next one too had a big sign "GELATI" but we walked past that too. Their parents revealed their intention to walk all the way to the top of the village to get the ciecreams from the cafe opposite the church, at the very top of the village. So we walked, marched and sang:

"One rainy day at the battle of Waterloo,
the brigade made a glorious charge to see what they could do."

You can find the words here. Granddaughter was pretty plucky, and kept going for at least three full renderings of this, but marching up a hill, encouraging a five-year old and singing too, I was flagging by the time we arrived at six flights of eight steps and needed her daddy to encourage.

We arrived, sat at a table, ordered coffees and ice-creams.
No ice-creams!

What a disappointment. The girls were great and settle for biscuits.

Italy - azienda agrituristica

An azienda agrituristica is an Italian holiday place to stay where it's agricultural. It's like a farm holiday. We're staying at Cergallina, which you won't find on your GPS because it's not been uploaded on the database. In fact, Judith, the proprietor tells us, Cergallina is a name that she made up. Then the authorities told her that she lived on Via Cergallina, which she didn't like, so she asked how to register Cergallina as a locality. the town hall said she could change it to a locality because Via Cergallina was the name that post office held, so she toodled along to the PO and told them that they'd got it, wrong, that it wasn't Via locality, but the locality locality. Then the people at the PO said sorry for getting it wrong, changed their records, and Judith could go back to the town hall, who now agreed, because the PO said so, that locality was a locality.

You couldn't do that in England!

Break for a week

Family calls. I must away.

Mystery garden

I just loved the light and shade as I went down the garden this morning.

Test drive Golf

I've tried a Volvo C30, a Skoda Fabia, a Toyota Yaris and this Golf TSE something, which is way beyond my price range, so in around 10 days I'm going to try a Golf 1.4 80bhp.

Lost lots

I've lost things this week:

• mobile phone - I switched it off when I came home, and put it down,... somewhere
• end of my in-car mp3 player so it can't connect. I'll have to get a new one like it if I want to listen to my radio podcasts when I'm driving to work
  
• grey cap - left it at my brother & sister in-law's house

It's been a week for losing things. Bother.

Long holiday

Son's gone to the USA for five weeks, with friends, to visit California, and Las Vegas and Yosemite amongst others. He should have a memorable time.

Tae kwon do grading

I got my next belt this evening after Sunday's grading. The easy bit was the Korean. You have to know some Korean terminology for this grade, like makgi (block), chagi (kick). It's easy to say you're a student (jeja) in the dojang (training hall), wearing a dobok(suit) and talking to the subum (teacher). The hard bit is accelerating in the moves, and getting the detail of the stances perfect. Despite freezing half way through a pattern and having start again, thus finishing ten moves after everyone else, and being extra noticeable, somehow I got through and caught up with my daughter. Hurray.

This kup (grade) is red tag, meaning blue with a red strip. The next belt is red, and red is for danger, so perhaps I'm now a little bit dangerous. However, red also indicates someone who is in control, and that means someone is dangerous enough to hit when they want, but in control enough to miss by a fraction of an inch when practising, and I'm not sure I'm that much in control, so perhaps I'm dangerous that way - I might hit someone accidently.

But it's fun. And this evening we did some padwork, some throws, and then practised breaking bricks with our elbows and feet.

Son's surprise birthday party

I like my son's friends. His friends from school turned up this week with a birthday cake for his 21st birthday, to celebrate as a surprise now in the holiday because they couldn't do it in April when they were all at university.

Visitors here

For the first time in ages, we've got some visitors for Saturday supper. Hurray!

Borat

Have you seen the new film? The trailers for it here are hilarious.

Test drive Toyota Yaris

Test drove one of these today. It's all right. The gears are a bit close together so I keep getting them mixed up, but the display is clear and readable, although not right in front of you like a dial is. I could get used it to it. You get used to any car if you drive it long enough, I guess.

The only thing I want extra is a place to plug in my mp3 player so I can listen to radio 4 podcasts. Now it's really easy: plug into cigarette lighter socket, my player is tuned to one of the radio frequencies, press the button and it goes. Apparently in the Yaris, and in the Skoda too, I have to have wire as well. That's an extra thing to plug in, not something you can do as you drive along, but fiddly, and there'd be a wire stretching several inches in the Yaris.

I don't think I really want a new car.

Test drive Skoda

Husband and I went out in a Skoda Fabia 2. I drove it around. It's all right. Salesman was pointing out the wonderful boot to put all your shopping in. I don't use my car for shopping though because I get the vegetables delivered, and buy meat from the farmers' market, and husband does the supermarket shop for heavy things like cat food because he likes the cat. So I don't need a boot like the Skoda's.

Test drive

I've driven a Volvo estate for decades, but I don't need an estate now. I used to have to trail a glider trailer, and then in the last few years for moving teenage children to university, and still have to do that another few years, but husband can do that. So I might take advantage of the government scrappage scheme and get a new car.

I test drove a Volvo C30 today. It feels comfortable, but then I suppose it would being as it's just another Volvo. I've booked a test drive in a Toyota.

Daughter moves

Daughter moved from university hall to shared flat today. She's got a lease on it for a year starting 1st July. Son and husband went to help her move. Apparently she now has so much stuff that they had to make two trips, and I had thought she was the less acquisitive of my children. But she was minding suitcases and boxes for her friends who'd left uni for the vacation and hadn't been able to move their stuff to the flat.

Open gardens

We're opening our garden today. Hope we have lots of visitors for our charities.

Whitecurrants

Usually our currant bushes are picked bare by now, but daughter hasn't come home from university and there are still many currants on the bushes, both black and white.

Home again

Son's back from uni for summer, or for some of it as he has plans to travel. Daughter's staying away in her new flat. Other daughter (step-daughter #3) is well ensconced in her university town. So it'll be a quiet summer. Perhaps I'll do my research work at home.

OU's 40th birthday

The OU celebrates its fortieth birthday this year. There's to be an open day on campus this Saturday. See http://www.open.ac.uk/platform/campus/events/open-unlimited-anniversary-open-day. And here.

Last time I came to an open day here was 15 years ago with my two small children and husband in tow, my first visit to my university although I'd finished my degree by then and started tutoring. Daughter got photographed in an OU magazine, playing maths with the maths clown. This time it looks full of interesting activities again, and what's unusual is that some of them seemed aimed at teenagers rather than small children. I'll be there. I might have husband with me, but I don't know about large son. Pity daughter won't be around.

Cinema

We went to look for Eric at the Oxford Phoenix. I hadn't paid much attention to Cantona before, but rather liked what I saw in this film. See an excerpt here.

What car?

Shall I take advantage of the government scrappage scheme and trade in my trusty not rusty Volvo, the only car I've ever owned? I wouldn't change it otherwise for another couple of years. If I change it now, I get a brand new one now for the cost of buying a second hand one in a couple of years, and get one that should be cheaper to run.

What shall I get? A red mini like my mother drove when I was ten years old, or the two-CV that delighted me in my teens, a yellow Beetle with character or the little green sports car someone once wanted to buy me. Years ago I was advised to get a Ford Fiesta or a Polo, but they were uninspiring cars that reflected the personality of the advisers. Now I might consider the insurance costs, particularly if I put my children on the insurance. Or how long will I need a big car to move students' stuff between university and home or flats? And do I care? Perhaps I'll get a Skoda. Perhaps I'll stick to the secure and reliable Volvo.

Not a birthday

Today he doesn't celebrate his birthday

Old age

My father skyped me. My octogenarian parents are computer savvy. They were using word processors in the nineteen eighties and have been using email for years. They like using Skype, and my mother bought me a video camera so she could see me when she skypes.

But Dad said that his eyesight has got very much worse, very quickly over the last few weeks, and now he can't read a newspaper. When he eventually got his camera working on Skype, I could see him peering over it with his magnifying glass. I hope there are lots of web sites with big print that says, 'press here for automatic text reading.'

And he's grown a beard! Last time he had a beard was in the 1970s, though he had a red moustache in the 1950s. He looks good with his grey beard.

Sunday summer flowers

The flowers are beautiful now, but when we have open gardens at the end of the month they'll all be past their best.


Squeals above me. I look up to see a crow harassing a red kite. They wheel around, attacking and protesting. I've no camera ready.

Smoky sunlounge

The garden is lovely. Husband is out there now, mowing the lawn, getting everything ready for the open gardens day. I look out on pink valerian, yellow Alchemilla (Lady's Mantle) and a beautiful blue Ceanothus bush. I love their blue flowers.

But the leaky windows of the sunlounge let me know that husband is burning a bonfire at the bottom of the garden. I hope the neighbours haven't got their washing out on this sunny Saturday morning, and that the local police community support officer (PCSO) isn't walking round on the other side of the park wall. I don't want husband done for anti-social behaviour.

Chocolate

I like dark chocolate, organic dark chocolate, 70% plus dark.

But I get cold sores, and I know they appear when I've eaten chocolate (or lots of nuts). So since I've had too, far too many cold sores for months now, I've stopped chocolate. Two weeks with no chocolate. And now I also have no coldsores. So I'm happy.

The funny thing is that I don't have itchy eyes either. I've had those on and off for three or four years and remember having them one Christmas, so it wasn't just hayfever. The doctor said they were dry and it was my age. But now I reckon, that getting itchy eyes at Christmas and Easter, times when I do eat a lot of chocolate, is more than co-incidence. Chocolate made my eyes hurt. So now I must eschew chocolate.

Why doesn't the doctor know that?

Facebook

I use Facebook. My teenagers were on it and weren't keen on me joining in too, but when a young colleague and fellow post grad encouraged me, I joined it. Then, I found several of my fellow associate lecturers, the techie ones, were on Facebook too and I quite like the companionship and the opportunity to get to know my distance tutoring colleagues a bit better through Facebook postings. It's not as good as FirstClass and you can't have long threads of conversations in real discussions, but it gets us by.

Now I read that people like us are leaving Facebook, it says here.

http://mashable.com/2009/05/27/facebook-baby-boomers/

Council polls

Today we vote for our county councillors. The parties all sent leaflets, but the Conservatives had a leaflet that said that at a council meeting, the Conservatives had voted for lower taxes, and the Lib Dems had walked out in protest. That sounded so weird that I tried to contact them to ask them to explain. But I haven't heard back yet. I also emailed the local Lib Dems, and again, I've not yet heard back, but I did meet a little lib Dem bird in the street who told me that the debate was whether to use the money on hospital services or whether to save the council tax money, that the Chair wouldn't let the Liberals speak so they walked out. That sounds likely, given that I witnessed the Chair not letting Liberals speak at the council meeting in November (recorded here) and blogged it then. The minutes of the meeting when the Lib Dems didn't vote is kept at the County Council site, and the incident reads much less contentiously than the way the Conservatives reported it.

So I went to the polling booth this morning, and asked the lone Conservative. But he didn't know anything about it! Didn't he even read his own party's leaflet? To me, it looks like the local Conservatives are acting underhand, immorally, don't brief each other of the line they are taking so some of them are ignorant of what is going on in their own party.

Voluntary work

I've got three days of voluntary work coming up, on one particular task. There's a lot of reading to do in advance as well. A lot of people are involved and it's quite a responsible job. Sometimes I wonder why I do it, but together with my colleagues we provide an independent view, so it's worthwhile.

Blessings

Amongst my blessings are my children - more than my fair share perhaps because I have my children, my husband's children and the grandchildren too.

One child gave me this rose bush some years ago. Look how it's blossomed, like the children blossom as they grow up.

Safe vehicles, safe riders

A cyclist was killed on Exchange Street, Aylesbury this morning. They say a lorry driver has been arrested and charged with dangerous driving. People tell me bikes are dangerous, but I reckon it's more the bigger faster vehicles that are dangerous.

But I have two men in my life who insist / insisted that they are /were safe and know /knew what they were doing. One is still alive and confident in his ability to control his vehicle, but like the other man, doesn't realise what prats other people can be, doesn't realise that someone else can make mistakes. People

• load their van with a loose ladder that will fall off in the street (as I witnessed this week),
• not tighten their car wheel nuts, so it could roll along the road and into your car,
• overload their glider, so spin onto you
• get distracted by barking dogs, so drive into you (as happened to this family in 2005)
  

You need three mistakes to have an accident. That was Ann Welch's assessment in her book, 'Accidents happen'. She's right.

Knightshayes

Having videoed cat, and recorded Shakespeare, was a full enough weekend, but also we fitted in a walk round the Knightshayes garden.

Visiting Devon

Mother-in-law has a little cat, an old little cat, a slightly potty, old little cat that walks round and round her arm chair. Old little cat is called Sooty, has only one eye (accident when a kitten) and may be has a neurological problem. Last time I saw her, she was shy and hid, but this time she didn't run away from me, just plodded round and round.

Dancing

I do a dancing class once a week lunchtimes at work. We're practising to do a performance in June. Scary!

New Greek restaurant in town

Husband and I have just eaten here, and enjoyed a good meal, with enthusiastic service.

The restaurant has been open only a few days, and the staff are nervously keen to please. They hover almost too much, asking if everything is all right. It is. The starter dolmades were delicious and my husband was happy with his pitta bread and taramasalata. My lamb kebab was fine, and the rice cooked just right. I thought the Greek salad might have included black olives, but it didn't. Husband was happy with his delicious sea bass, but the rice that was supposed to come with it never did - an oversight I'm sure from new staff, just beginning to get into their new job.

The retsina wine that accompanied the meal was just right in pine tree flavour and temperature. And it is rare that you can get a retsina.

The setting is clean and fresh, with pictures from films like 'Mama Mia' and 'Zorba the Greek' on the walls. I'd have liked the music a little more discrete.

The proprietor took a couple of us out the back to see the courtyard that is nearly ready. It is entirely enclosed with a huge tree in one corner. Paved and collecting the sun from morning to evening, surrounded by trellis and will have lemon trees, it could appeal to families who don't want their children to be able to run out of sight, but also to office workers, because this restaurant is right in the middle of town, over looked by the council offices. In fact it is so overlooked that you can guarantee the owner won't put a foot wrong. For example, he had someone fixing his roof, and within minutes he had a phone call from people in the neighbouring building, saying "Get him off that roof now or we're closing you down." And he hadn't even opened yet!

If you're in Aylesbury, go down Walton Street from Market Street and try this restaurant. It's worth it. It has been a nice end to the bank holiday weekend for us.

Facebook phishing

Son has fallen for a Facebook phishing scam, and he's sent 200 emails to people when he wasn't even at his computer. However, he's very sensibly not sent me one.

Good old son!

Son is now off Facebook until exams are over.

New gardener

Our garden looks something smashing now, with trimmed lawn, and bushes. Even the climbing rose that hasn't bloomed for years under the shade of the weeping birch, is now coming out with lovely blooms.

Why the change?

Husband has retired and is spending hours in the garden. While the garden improves, husband is getting covered with scratches, and grazes, as he catches his hands on sharp grasses, and bangs his head on dangling branches, or even on the garden table today when he was weeding underneath it.

Irish scandal

Years ago, at school in north west England I had a left-handed friend. LHF was very shy and under confident. When she blushed, and she blushed often, she blushed well. The pink would visibly rise up her face. Years later, she told me how when she was in reception class at her Catholic convent, the headmistress nun used to smack her across the back of her left hand with the wooden ruler. Try it on yourself. It stings with a plastic ruler. The headmistress was so cross that my friend was left handed that she kept her down a year before letting her into the next infant class.

That nun accused me of 'dragon-tears', and answering back, but didn't smack me. I can't remember if she was Irish, but there were a lot of Irish Catholics in the north-west. Nuns and clergy were held in great respect, and had much power. So I'm not surprised, though I'm sad to see here how much worse it was in Ireland.

---

Dragon-tears were false tears - putting it on - crying to impress a hard-hearted nun - and I didn't know what she meant

Driving somewhere

Son and others intend to go to the States in the long vacation at the end of third year university. They intend to hire a car, but son hasn't been able to drive since he passed his test years ago because he hasn't had access to an insured car. However, he wants to take his share of driving in the States. Now he is twenty-one he is statistically a safer driver than when he was younger, so despite being his worried mother, I guess he's okay.

Son and friend found a means of borrowing a car for a day, so they've been driving round at the weekend to various places. Son has taken the opportunity to practise driving and do his PassPlus sessions and today he and friend drove over here for Sunday lunch. Then son took me out for a Sunday afternoon drive, which was pleasant, despite the rain.

Now he's safely back in Oxford and I can stop worrying about him. (I know - he's safer in a car than on that b* bicycle of his!)

Shakespeare and children

Husband and I took two grandchildren over to Oxford to see Midsummer Night's Dream here. We were in a sunlit, windswept quad. The two fairies, Pease Blossom and Mustard Seed were scantily clad and must have been freezing. We'd brought blankets.

Eldest grandchild thoroughly enjoyed it, though grandson was more amused by the labourers attempts at the thespian arts, and his attention wandered when Titania was speaking, though I was impressed by his concentration throughout, given he's only seven, and bilingual, so following Shakespearean English wouldn't be a sinecure for him.

An academic, David Leal, wandered over to us afterwards, after watching our granddaughter rapt in the play. He asked her what part she would play (a giggling fairy), and encouraged her to get her school to do some Shakespeare next year when she's in year 6. I'd forgotten I'd done some Shakespeare with my year 4-5 class years ago - acted it, not read it. Shakespeare's for acting and for watching, not reading. Grandson knew that when he said he'd like to play Bottom.

There was no programme, so I have no idea who the actors were, nor the name of the director.

Shopping - hate it

I went shopping this morning because it's nephew's birthday and I want to get him a present. His parents are giving him a mobile phone because he's moving on to the secondary school in September, so I thought I'd get him something to go with that, an eco friendly charger. I was able to buy one a couple of years ago. You wind it up and it charges your phone. But I couldn't get hold of one. I tried the Eco shop in Wendover, but they only do the expensive Freeloader photovoltaic chargers. I tried the Car Phone Warehouse, but they suggested an in-car charger. How many eleven-year-olds do you know who have a car! Eventually, I thought of the camping shop. They didn't have exactly what I wanted. The wind up version that I have is great. I put husband's grand children in the back of our car with the charger and they wind and they wind and they wind. My mobile is charged, and so is the wind-up torch that goes with the winder. Their grand father is also wound up because he gets fed up with noise, but that's a minor disadvantage.

But they did have something: a pull-string charger, so it fits in with the eco approach, and the lack of access to a power socket. So my shopping expedition almost ended well.

I thought I'd celebrate by going into the Coffee Tree and ordering a decaf espresso with a glass of water. I made my order, received the cup and saucer and the glass, and stepped back with them to find a table. The glass wobbled. As I tried to steady it, the hot coffee wobbled, splashed my hand, so I wobbled more, then the whole lot went over, every single drop, over the counter, down the counter, over the floor and over my clothes. I saved only the excellent piece of Venezuelan chocolate that Barry had just given me to try.

Barry was very nice and got me another espresso (I don't think it was decaf by then). The Coffee Tree in Aylesbury is worth a visit.

Cleaners

Today's news reveals that some politicians have a lot of cleaning done. Mr Brown has been claiming about £240 a month for cleaning.

What bugs me, is why can politicians have a cleaner on tax payers' money and I can't?

At university, the students get rooms in hall, or college. At Oxbridge, they have colleges that own their own premises and rent them out to the students. Cleaners come as part of the deal. No-one has to buy their own sofas, or arrange 'essential maintenance' because that's the colleges' problem, not the students', and it shouldn't be an MP's problem either. Why can't MPs have the same arrangement? Parliament should buy and own accommodation that is available to MPs, so there's none of this nonsense of expense claiming for second homes.

Ashridge walk

I skived off this afternoon for a couple of hours walk with retired husband round the Ashridge estate. The bluebells enticed me over there, especially as even the newspaper had a photo of them yesterday. There are other flowers there, like this white one - what is it?

If you know what you're looking for, you'll know where to find wild garlic leaves. This is the only time of the year to get them and they are delicious. We found them. I picked and ate about half a dozen. Yum.

Sunday spring flowers

Our bluebell walk is in our own garden. These are real English bluebells. Aren't we lucky?

Brasenose reunion lunch

Husband arranged with his university friends to have a reunion now that they've all retired (more or less). They all seem pretty active for retirees, but now they are doing what they want to do, rather than for the sake of supporting family, mortgage or pleasing an employer.



We had a champagne starter. Then moved to a private room for the meal. The food was splendid, with wine to match.





Even better, I realised that one of the other women is a research student in the same year as me at the OU.


I love meals with people, long slow meals with good company, food and wine. This is the style to which I hope my husband accustoms me.

RAF HW

I went to an exhilarating meeting of the Institute of Chartered Managers at RAF High Wycombe, for a behind the scenes view of Air command. The fascinating talk was on leadership and was an MBA useful?

The charismatic speaker - a squadron leader with 2500+ hours of Tornado flying, after a tour of duty, leaving Basra, viewing the Euphrates and the Tigris and thinking he might want to come back and visit later, meaning in five or six years, finds himself back in weeks but this time in charge of the airport and airfield. This squadron leader becomes Group Captain Dean Andrew.

The brief is to get the airfield ready to hand over to the Americans at an unknown date, and the airport ready to hand back to the Iraqis at some unknown date, and not to let each party know when about each other. In the meantime, the insurgents are launching 125+ rocket attacks a week at the airfield, an area one and a half times as big as Heathrow airport.

The airport had been built in 1983, but never had air traffic through because the Iran-Iraq war happened soon after, and there were the two gulf wars. Group Capt Andrew used a variety of resources - the ground force (I didn't realise the RAF had one) to defined the no man's land by the airfields and make sure no rockets got launched there. Every day these men worked in 66F in the heat of the midday sun - "mad dogs and English men ..."

He mapped out the stakeholders with high/low power against ability to influence, so he could identify people he really needed to work with. He recognised the cultural challenges of difference between English, American and Iraqi. The cultural difference probably saved his life. The RAF was not exactly very welcome; the insurgents bombed their offices two weeks after he arrived. The insurgents chose a Sunday morning, which is an ordinary working day for Iraqis, but a day for church (or whatever) for the British, so the office was empty.

He prioritised his day by working hard from 7am to 11 pm, but spent the first couple of hours doing the most important things - allocating jobs and trusting people to do what they had to do.

"Understanding culture builds trust"

He built trust. Having some spare money he could have spent it on something important to Westerners, like fixing the luggage carousels,but he asked the Iraqi airport manager, who wanted pot plants, because that what made an impression in Iraqis eyes. Dean Andrew got someone in the UK to fly out such pot plants within 48 hours - thus earning the trust of the Iraqi manager, who was so grateful that he invited Dean Andrew to break the end of the Ramadan fast with him and has invited him to return with his wife.

He handed over the airport to the Iraqis in January 2009. And did the MBA help?
This was about leadership, not management, so depends on personality. The RAF didn't know he had an MBA when he put in there - he was put in because they'd already seen his leadership qualities, and whilst he used knowledge from his MBA studies (e.g. case studies of other airports), it was the leadership that mattered.

Last of Isle of Wight

On Friday we visited Dimbola, a photographic museum commemorating Mrs Julia Cameron, an early portrait photographer of the mid nineteenth century. She worked with Tennyson too, to illustrate some of his romantic poetry. Tennyson had lived on the IoW, so I read some of the "Lady of Shallot" to grand daughter, glanced at Ulysses and enjoyed the rhythm of the "The Charge of the Light Brigade".

We came back via Winchester stopping off to visit the cathedral, and heard before we saw some wonderful drummers.

Isle of Wight visit

Thursday was our nicest day on the island, starting with a gentle walk over the Downs to the battery, somewhat slowly because grand daughter had a tummy ache so bent double like an old lady with osteoporosis and a sack of potatoes on her back. We sang "The Battle of Waterloo" to get us marching. She cheered up when we reached the chairlifts (videoed when I can get YouTube to accept my upload) and she sketched the needles while her brother threw stones into the sea. Grandpa searched for different coloured chalks from the cliff for her to experiment sketching with. Then we walked back over the downs. We met a man with a bouncy dog. It ran circles round grandson, whilst the man announced that the dog was frightened of children. It didn't look frightened of grandson; it looked like it wanted to play and it ran more circles round him, while he got more and more nervous. Then the poor child fell over. Man called dog, stroked his nose gently and murmured lovingly "bad dog". Grandson picked himself up, covered with dusty chalk, a bit bruised and he bit his lip. He nearly cried, but he is so plucky, and we told him so. Plucky was another new word that we'd collected that day. Plucky grandson.

In the afternoon we went down to Freshwater Bay, a pebbly but pleasant beach and the sun came out. An elderly woman was collecting seaweed. Yesterday on 'The Apprentice' the competitors had been collecting seaweed to make soaps. I wondered to husband how to do it. He suggested I ask elderly lady. "Excuse me." She told me she was collecting the bright green weed to eat. You had tow ash it very carefully and well, put it in the microwave for 30 secs and it was good with pasta. She also had been collecting rock samphire and gave me some to taste. Delicious, like a succulent parley. I went where she suggested to collect some, which I mixed with tomatoes for a salad. Husband and I liked it but not the grand children. Someone told me how her grandmother in law used to have it in a soup with hot milk.

The seaweed was even less successful, so I think I'll find out how to use it in soap instead of eating it.

Isle of Wight Youth Hostel

We're at this lovely Victorian place. I love the big rooms, the bare polished floor boards, the way people talk to you, are happy that you've got children. The first I noticed of this little girl was her feet flying past the window as she was practising her cartwheels. Granddaughter and little girl made friends being in same year at school.

Youth hostels have changed. They provide sheets for your bed so you don't have to take your sleeping bag like you used to. This one offers an evening meal and breakfast, English or continental. Continental is affordable and filling: muesli, cereal, jam, butter, toast, white rolls, croissant, pain au chocolat, cheese, ham, yoghurt, boiled egg. No-one has asked me to sweep the floor, but you do have to clear your washing up, and you have clear your place, sort your cutlery and crockery into piles, and scrape your plates.

This hostel has a TV room and a quiet room with lots of books and magazines, and sofas with enough good light to read by. It's peaceful with deep blue on the wall and sofa covers, brightened by deep red cushions. But don't bring in alcohol. Not allowed.

Tooth fairy on the Isle of Wight

What's the going rate for the tooth fairy?

Granddaughter #1 had a wobbly tooth and it's come out and she's carefully placed it in the window so the tooth fairy can get it

"She shouldn't have too much trouble getting in the window"

suggests GD#1.

No - but I might have a problem.

I rush off to phone her mother worrying of impending disaster due to insufficient briefing on modern day tooth fairies - daughter lost her last tooth nearly ten years ago, and I don't know the current rate!

Apparently it's a pound.

Tooth fairy duly arrives, removes tooth, which had been carefully placed in Zeus's hand - see model that GD#1 had created only the previous day in Portsmouth naval museum.

To the Isle of Wight

Here's husband and grandchild enjoying a trip round HMS Victory.

With two pleasant children, husband and I are youth hostelling in the Isle of Wight. We arrived from Portsmouth on an almost empty ferry. The whole island is so quiet that you'd think it a permanent holiday. A little girl asked her mother if there were no schools on the island because she thought it a permanent holiday island.

On the ferry to the Isle of Wight, with a calm sea green sea, grandson persuades Grandpa into buying fruit drinks from a machine. Grand daughter Joy draws. Grandpa teases grandson, "I hope that ferry isn't going to bump into that container ship over there." Grandson leaping up to look. The ferry goes round the stern.

Grandson and grand daughter wander off to read the posters. "Donning instructions" "Donning", what's that? It's not a usual word is it - to don your life jacket. We're collecting unusual words. "Muster station" you get buses at a bus station and trains at a train station. Do you get musters at a muster station?

Hens' bottoms

I'm sure I can take better photos.

Daughter and I visited an old and trusted gliding friend and wife. They keep hens - hilarious creatures. Feed them and suddenly a loud clucking and another hen rushes out of the hen house to see what she's missing. Heads down, bottoms up. I can't get a good photo of hens with their heads facing.

Daughter now wants me to keep hens.

Just a mum

When I was doing my MBA, I did a thesis with a research element. I had to arrange interviews from home with a toddler and baby around while I phoned. If I had a fellow mum around when a call came through unexpectedly, I'd apologise that I was in a meeting at the moment.

One of my British Computer Society colleagues occasionally has problems when she says she's a mother. She posted this on the BCS women's forum:

A woman, renewing her driver's licence was asked by the woman at Registry to state her occupation. She hesitated, uncertain how to classify herself. 'What I mean is, ' explained the woman at Registry, 'do you have a job or are you just a ...?'

'Of course I have a job,' snapped the woman. 'I'm a Mum.'

'We don't list 'Mum' as an occupation, 'housewife' covers it,' said the recorder emphatically.

I forgot all about her story until one day I found myself in the same situation. The Clerk was obviously a career woman, poised, efficient, and possessed of a high sounding title like, 'Official Interrogator' or 'City Registrar.'

'What is your occupation?' she probed. What made me say it? I do not know. The words simply popped out:

'I'm a Research Associate in the field of Child Development and Human Relations.'

The clerk paused, ball-point pen frozen in midair and looked up as though she had not heard right. I repeated the title slowly emphasizing the most significant words. Then I stared with wonder as my pronouncement was written, in bold, black ink on the official questionnaire.

'Might I ask,' said the clerk with new interest, 'just what you do in your field?'

Coolly, without any trace of fluster in my voice, I heard myself reply, 'I have a continuing program of research, (what mother doesn't) in the laboratory and in the field, (normally I would have said indoors and out) 'I'm working for my Masters, (first the Lord and then the whole family) And already have four credits (all daughters). Of course, the job is one of the most demanding in the humanities, (any mother care to disagree?) And I often work 14 hours a day, (24 is more like it). But the job is more challenging than most run-of-the-mill careers and the rewards are more of a satisfaction rather than just money.'

There was an increasing note of respect in the clerk's voice as she completed the form, stood up, and personally ushered me to the door.

As I drove into our driveway, buoyed up by my glamorous new career, I was greeted by my lab assistants -- ages 13, 7, and 3. Upstairs I could hear our new experimental model, (a 6 month old baby) in the child development program, testing out a new vocal pattern.

I felt I had scored a beat on bureaucracy! And I had gone on the official records as someone more distinguished and indispensable to mankind than 'just another Mum.'

Motherhood! What a glorious career! Especially when there's a title on the door.

Does this make grandmothers 'Senior Research associates in the field of Child Development and Human Relations' And great grandmothers 'Executive Senior Research Associates?' I think so!!!

I also think it makes Aunts 'Associate Research Assistants.'

I'd answer my colleague, but the forum's on yahoo and a pain to read, especially as I frequently forget my password.

Consorting

I'm reading a book on "The Feminine in Management Consulting" by Sheila Marsh. I notice she says she's drawn on material from key figures, with key roles, and on material about and from women and

"those in key roles such as queens consort"

What does that mean "queens consort". Not "consort of queen" because it's not apostrophe 's'. But I like the term, so I think in future rather than refer to "husband", I'll blog him as "the consort".

---

PS
Reading a bit further, I deduce that "queens consort" means those women who were queens and so consorted with their kings.

Jack's jokes

My auntie has been clearing out some of my uncle's papers. He died last year. I blogged it then.

Auntie has sent me some of his jokes. On the paper he's written:

The official ebonics medical terms dictionary

Benign: what you be after you be eight
Bacteria: back door to cafeteria
Barium: what doctors do when patients die (shouldn't that be what grave diggers do?)
Casarean section: a neighbourhood in Rome
Cauterize: made eye contact with her
Colic: a sheep dog (groan)
Coma: a punctuation mark (some of students do think this)
D&C: where Washington is
Dilate: to live long (what my uncle did)
Enema: not a friend
Fester: quicker than someone else
Fibula: a small like
GI series: world series of military baseball (from this line and other spelling I guess Uncle Jack got this from the states)
Hangnail: what you hang your coat on
Impotent: distinguished, well known
Labour pain: getting hurt at work
Medical staff: a doctor's cane
Morbid: a higher offer than I bid
Nitrates: cheaper than day rates
Node: I knew it
Outpatient: a person who has fainted
Pap smear: a fatherhood test
Pelvis: second cousin to elvis
Post operative: a letter carrier
Recovery room: place to do upholstery
Rectum: damn near killed him
Secretion: hiding something
Seizure: Roman emperor
Tablet: a small table (which is logical)
Terminal illness: getting sick at the airport (Uncle J did get sick once, flying to Italy, I think he had a heart attack)
Tumor: more than one
Urine: opposite of mine
Varicose: near by/ close by

I think his brother, Bill, would have laughed at these too.

GoApe

Daughter spent yesterday afternoon at the local GoApe with seven friends. She and I did this a couple of years ago (see old blog posting), and it was just great, exhilarating, one of the best things of that year for me.



She came home very happy, and talked about her friends who'd gone with her, who'd not turned up, who'd been afraid of heights, and who'd made her a birthday cake. Exhausted girl is still in bed this morning.

Easter break

I have a few days to work at home,

• marking TMAs,
  
• catching up with the story I'm trying to write,
  
• enjoying company of retired husband,
  
• children home from university.
  

Perhaps the weather will be nice and I'll enjoy the garden. Perhaps the weather will be nice but I'll sneeze as the hayfever season starts.

Happiness

Carlyle wrote:

What is Hope? A smiling rainbow
Children follow through the wet;

'Tis not here, still yonder, yonder:

Never urchin found it yet.

from this web site. A pessimistic professor quoted it to me when we were thinking about a stressed and grumpy mutual colleague.

We need hope. I keep finding bad things at the moment:

• three people with senile dementia
• someone going blind
• someone getting very forgetful
• a miscarriage
• a grumpy colleague
• a stressed colleague whose research isn't coming together
  

Carlyle cheerfully asks:

What is Life? A thawing iceboard

On a sea with sunny shore; --

Gay we sail; it melts beneath us;

We are sunk, and seen no more.

I'm feeling sunk. Great.

Procrastination

"Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday and avoiding today" (Wayne Dyer)

The Class

We went to see The Class (Entre les murs) at Oxford. Interesting discussion with husband on way home because he thought that perhaps it didn't represent a real class. Daughter and I assured him that this was normal behaviour in a year nine classroom, unfortunately. Then he expressed dissatisfaction with the 'plot', which is fair enough because there isn't really a plot, just a film of a year in the life of a class of French 14 year olds.

It was worth seeing.

Legalities and paperwork

Daughter and I are spending a few days with parents in Yorkshire. They're encouraging and helping me to sort out legal power of attorney for someone. Do you realise what a pain this legal procedure now is! There's a twenty six page document to complete with signatures from at least three different people. No wonder the radio had a File on Four enquiry about it a few weeks ago. It's almost more trouble than it's worth because the people who most need to set one up have trouble accessing, reading and absorbing all the information that they have to know in order to protect themselves.

You can find out about it from the Office of the Public Guardian.

Recording life

Found a few interesting pictures here that give the technology and history of those quadrophonic speakers I have (or had if I've sold them). Scroll down for photos, and explore the site for photos of other people and technology. I like some of this one about the concert. But the one about what's wrong with quadrophonics shows the fun they had messing about.

Elderly

We know a lovely old lady, mother of several daughters and lots of grandchildren. Her husband died some years ago, an intelligent and interesting man who contributed much to the community and was a great support for her in every way. Now widowed and alone, she's so old that she forgets things. She knows people and places but forgets what she was doing and if she ate what she ate. So for some months she stayed with one of her daughters. Now she's home again but worrying and tearful and not eating. And her daughters are just as worried because they can't help her until she agrees to accept help.

Tomorrow I'm seeing an elderly relative who has her own problems, so I've looked up the Lasting Power of Attorney forms from the government web site. They are horrendously long and complicated, twenty plus pages to fill in, sign by the correct people and pay over a hundred pounds. Still, that is cheaper than renewing an attorney every year. But I don't live near enough to my relatives to help. I'll have to depend on the NHS. But news like this doesn't inspire me with confidence.