Walks in the foothills of the Pyrenees

Our holiday was here in Cathar land. The Cathars were a heretical sect that flourished in these foothills in the 12th and 13th centuries. The sect built some of these romantically sited castles, some ruins of which still exist on rocky desolate mountain tops.

Husband walked and explored them. He took these pictures.

Lastours - group of 4 'castles' in the Montagne Noir north of Carcassone

On the path to Montsegur - well into the walk but there's a big climb yet

Peyrepertuse Lower - looking down on the lower part of the castle perched on a ridge of rock

Queribus from Peyrepertuse - then on to the next castle to look back




Queribus from Cucugnan - having walked down from the castle to the nearest village

Roquefixade from village - we're going up there!

Montsegur

I visited Montsegur with the group. They went walking; I went on the bus down to the village, chatted over coffee in French with the driver, visited the museum and all but fell asleep in the sunshire. The others came down from the castle covered in mud, smelly and dirty and they loved it.

From Foix to Carcassonne

We been on a week long Ramblers tour in the foothills of the Pyrenees, landed at Toulouse on Friday, the last day of my radiotherapy. I had the last treatment at 8.30 in Oxford, and we caught the plane from Heathrow at 2.30.

We spent four nights at Foix, and four at Carcassonne, stopping en route at the picturesque village of Mirepoix, where I had my usual espresso and glass of water.

French colonies de vacances threatened

Today's French paper says that fewer children are going to colonies de vacances - a holidaying tradition of the French for decades, perhaps for nearly a century. These camps, lasting three to four weeks , are organised and run on a day-to-day basis by moniteurs and monitrices, themselves young people on the cusp of adulthood, people who love children, love enlivening their holidays with games, crafts and songs and are willing to spend 24 hours a day, seven days a week with them for all the holiday, eating with them, sleeping in their dormitories. The only break the moniteurs get is a half day off once a week.

It's hard work, and you have to enjoy it. If you're English, you get a unique opportunity to live and speak the young French culture. I know. I did it in the 1970s. Watch "Nos jours heureuse" for a reflection of the episodes of frustration, worry, joy and love that being a monitor on a colo can bring you. Excerpts of it are on YouTube and it was a hit movie in France in 2006.

But now fewer French children go to colo as more parents take them on more exciting trips.

An even bigger threat is European employment law that requires minimum wage (SMIC) and longer breaks.

It's arguable that the provision of board and lodging makes up some of the wage, but even so, it is appallingly low for the 24/7 job that monos do.

Worse than the wage, to my mind and memory is the time off - hardly time to go anywhere (if you had the transport, money or remaining energy) or to sleep (if it were quiet enough). But the French 35 hour work week might put paid finally to this unique tradition.

Radiotherapy

Seven treatments down, thirteen to go.

They told me the side effects would mean that I'd be tired and lethargic, but the tiredness is only because I'm driving so much. I'm out of bed half an hour earlier to get to work twenty miles away an hour earlier, eat my lunch at my desk, and then drive 44 miles to the hospital for the treatment, which is nearly always late. The lethargy is because you sit around lethargically waiting, fifteen, thirty, forty-five minutes until your machine is ready for you. It takes five minutes or more for the radiographers to position you exactly right, with the tattoos and their latest felt tip pens marks lined up with the green laser lines, and then two minutes for the treatment. Then I drive 20 miles home again, in the rush hour.

These radiographers work long and intensely without a break, from eight o'clock in the morning until 6.30 in the evening, hoping to reduce the waiting lists. In the mid-afternoon, there are more people to chat. The men agonise over how long they have to wait and just how full their bladders have to be before they have the therapy - they've got prostate cancer - and they have to have a full bladder and an empty bowel so that the full bladder pushes the bowel out of way of the radiation that would otherwise give nasty side effects.

Waiting, we read, chat, do suduku puzzles. I take a research paper to peruse. I'm making a lot of progress on my reading, and I drive home calmly, usually later than I'd hoped but in time for evening activities like tae kwo do.

Race for life

Daughter ran in the Race for Life - well she walked it actually, but still completed her five kilometres in less than an hour despite predicting she was going to take two hours. Well done her, and well done that she raised nearly all the money that she targeted.

Tattoos

I now sport three tattoos.

What?! Me have tattoos?

It's not a well-known side effect of treatment for cancer that you can get tattooed, but if the treatment is radiotherapy, then they have to measure you very carefully to be sure to aim the radiotherapy in the right place, and you have repeated doses of radiation day after day after day. So when they measure you, when they know just where to aim, they tattoo you so that they can use the tattoo marks to place you and to aim the radiation just right every day.

Another advantage of tattooing is that if years later you need to explain where you had the radiotherapy, the record is there on you in the tattoos, warning medical people that you've already had radiation to that spot.

I wonder what they do when they get patients in who are already so well tattooed that there's no room for a radiotherapy tattoo.

The tattoos are tiny - the size of a full stop on this page - my husband kindly tells me that one of mine looks like a blackhead. Thank you husband.

A good friend

What's a good friend? What can you talk to a friend about? It used to be that you couldn't at polite dinner parties discuss

• sex
• religion
• politics

But I think I've discussed all these with my best friends. I had some fantastic friends in the town where I lived for twenty years, and they helped me crystallise ideas on many aspects of life. One friend - a mother of four children - had her youngest son at the same time as I had my first born. She was so helpful and sensible on bringing up children, just being there doing it in front of me, advising if I asked.

Another friend wanted to talk about religion and gave me the opportunity to attend an Alpha course at our local Anglican church, something I'd have liked to have done through the Catholic church, but there wasn't the opportunity. I see Alpha courses are discussed on Mumsnet here.

And only good friends can talk to you when you've got cancer. Servan-Schreiber writes that the evidence is that women with good friends (girl friends, not husband) survive breast cancer better. And I know from the reaction of my women friends that they're supporting me. Aren't I lucky with my friends?

Party preparation

The house smells of jam tarts. Girlish laughter sounds from various rooms as daughter and her friend prepare notices, food and dresses for tomorrow's fancy dress party. This is a belated 21st party now that daughter has returned from France, and it's on the theme of

Alice in Wonderland.

I've been volunteered into sewing an Alice style white pinny with a lace and a big bow, and somewhat to my surprise, I find my sewing skills are up to it, despite having no pattern. I've cut the material to size, gathered the waist, tacked hems, and sash, and am about to hand sew the last seams.

Daughter and friend have produced some wonderful cut-out and carefully lettered signs, such as

"Down the rabbit hole"
and
"Caterpillar's lair"

The atmosphere is fun and anticipatory, and the raspberry jam tart smell whets the appetite for the fun tomorrow.

Amsterdam

We've been to Amsterdam for an academic conference held at the Vu University in the suburbs of the city. It's a city of wide flat streets and cycles, the main streets separated into several lanes for each category of user, s tarting from the outside,

• a path for pedestrians on each side, then
  
• a cycle track with cyclists (nearly) always on the right hand side of the road, so single direction, then
  
• a lane for vehicles, and
  
• in the centre perhaps two more lanes for trams.

Yet despite so much apparent traffic, few cyclists wear helmets, even when transporting one or two children in seats in front and behind them. Perhaps this is because each type of traffic is physically separated, and cyclists feel safer than amongst the aggressive, arrogant pompous road-owning drivers of the UK. But on the other hand, husband didn't know which way to look where when he cycled through Amsterdam.

On the trams, friendly Dutch people made eye contact, sometimes chatting briefly and smiling when I attempted to read Dutch, "Houd uw karte hier" meaning "hold your travel ticket here" so it can be checked as you get on and off the tram.
Dutch food had not held much to invite me, but I discovered two delicacies:

• karne milch
• haring

Karne milch is akin to a drinking yogurt, slightly source, very liquid and thirst quenching. I think it's a drink made with the rennet that we used to have in England until the 1970s when it disappeared with the marketing invasion of yogurt from Europe. We called it buttermilk.

Haring is herring and new herring arrives in Holland in early June. It's a soft fish to be eaten raw with plenty of finely chopped onion, the idea being that you pick it up by the tail and lower it into your upturned mouth. It is so revered and delicious that our conference host treated us to new herring one evening. Yum.

Erasmus students

Interest, experience and money - what appeals?

Daughter has been an Erasmus student at Bordeaux for the last year, blogged here. How exciting to live abroad for a year, to learn the culture and language, and still to be making progress in your chosen university subject.

And financially, the year abroad becomes appealing because you do not pay any tuition fees to the university you are visiting.

On top of that, UK Erasmus students receive a top-up grant.

So daughter is literally quids in.

Arcachon - dune of Pilat

This is the breath taking view from the top of the highest sand dune in Europe. Decades ago, I came here at midday and climbed to the top of the dune. I can still remember the heat and exhaustion of such a silly escapade. This time, I came at five in the afternoon, with a hat, and found that now there are steps to take you up to the top, so it's much easier.

However, once you start to walk across the sand, it's easier if you take off your sandals else you sink into fine dry sand, which fills up the soles of your footwear and drags your feet.

Earlier in the heat of the day, we spent time on the beach at Arachon, sun bathing and bathing, collecting shells and suntan, with a pleasant lunch in the sun at a local cafe and finished with too too filling gaufres (waffles). Only as the shadows grew longer did we climb the dune.

Beautiful Bordeaux

Bordeaux is a lovely European city to live in, a city we visited about 18 months ago, and have just revisited because daughter has been living and studying there as an Erasmus student. She has a flat near the market and every day can go, look at and buy this beautiful French fish, saucisse, oysters, fruit.

Close by the market is the best bakery, one that is open 24 hours a day.

We stayed in a lovely bed and breakfast, called Maison d'Amarante, where our hostess was so kind that she even invited our daughter for breakfast too. Bordeaux is not just a beautiful town, but its people, the Bordelais are so friendly too. Visit it if you can.

Les aires de France

We've been to Bordeaux, travelling by car from St Malo, a long drive but with frequent stops at aires.

Les aires are the motorway breaks on French autoroutes. They tend to occur every 10 to 20 kilometres, more frequently than British motorway stops, but also much much smaller. Some aires provide only toilets, benches and a few tables in the shade, but are frequent enough and pleasant enough to encourage you to stop.

Some aires have fuel, toilets, a small shop that sells coffee and sandwiches, and a terrasse with shade and a few chairs and tables, set in the shade, perhaps with a glass roof in case it rains. The flowers and shrubs are frequented by birds, and small animals living on the crumbs that people drop. We sat at a table in the shade, listening to the sparrows, watching them chase each other through the trees or attempting to hover around car fronts wanting to pick the dead insects off.

PhD viva done

Now what shall I do?

Six years ago as I applied for a PhD scholarship, the last of the children were on the point of leaving home, one going to university, another starting sixth form. I'd completed that job and had to relinquish it.

On Tuesday 17th May, I successfully defended my thesis against my examiners' questions to be awarded the PhD with minor corrections.

Today I have to do

• no PhD work
• no tutorial preparation or assignment marking
• no research for my new job
• no children to mind

In the next few months I shall tidy up a few ends, enjoy my temporary job and sort out further cancer treatment. I have to relinquish the research that has become my baby, and find a new project.

Royal wedding

The church bells are ringing, the blackbirds are singing and people are hanging out the bunting. It's a great day for a lovely wedding.

microlight

Went microlighting - never done it before - at a local airfield here. It's not like gliding because the controls feel different, but it is like gliding in an open top glider like the Baby Grunau I used to have. You can feel the wind on your face and whether you're flying straight or there's a slip wind. You also have to wrap up in a way you don't need to in an enclosed glider, so they lent me this amazingly cosy flying suit, all lined and zippable. You sit behind the pilot (in a glider you sit in front) and you talk via headphones under your helmet, so it's more technologically enabled than is gliding.
It's nice weather now to fly like this, though I don't reckon I'd want to go very high or fly in winter weather.

Rotten Romans

We took two grandchildren (and son) to see the stage performance of The Rotten Romans today at the local theatre. I have to recommend the 3-D visual effects in the second act. They lend you these plastic lenses that polarise the visual effects and then they start the second act with doves flying through the air, and apparently right up into the circle where we were sitting, which was very effective. But more effective was the later hurdling of posts and arrows and other lethal armaments - the children in the row in front of me jumped so much they nearly sat back a row and onto our knees.

New job

I have a job, a new job, a job that starts on Thursday, a job I can do, a job that uses my research skills, my experience of teaching in Higher Education, and my computing skills. How's that!

It's a job that requires me to focus on communications and usability of a web-site, and to bring in more participants, specifically doctoral students as a pilot study round a particular part of the site. It's a part-time temporary job, partly because they're working on renewing the funding, partly because we don't yet know each other, partly because I'm still preparing for my viva, and don't know when that will be, and partly because I want some spare time in case I need extra treatment.

So how's that! I'm cancer-rid, and stitch free since yesterday and I have a job. Go me!

Yeuchy

I feel yeuchy, but I guess all is well.

Team of medics

I saw fourteen medical professionals yesterday:

1. staff nurse, Stef, who took blood pressure, pulse, temperature
   
2. a reassuring junior surgeon who likes her job because she sees people get better and that's what she went into medicine for. She drew in black felt tip pen on my breast, marking it with a big black arrow and the acronyms WLE and SLN for wide local excision and sentinel lymph node biopsy
   
3. a senior surgeon, but not my own, who told me they'd get me on the conveyor belt
4. a breast care nurse who told me that surgery was the first step to recovery and my cancer is oestrogen positive and that means I'll probably get hormone therapy tablets rather than chemo.
   
5. an anaesthetist who wanted to know about my dentures and crowns
6. three people in x-ray to do ultra-sound, insert a wire into the cancer, then x-ray it
   
7. two people in nuclear medicine, one to inject a radio isotope and one to photograph it reaching the first (sentinel) node of the lymph glands
   
8. another nurse to fetch us from one place in the hospital to another
   
9. another anaesthetist or nurse when I walked down to the operating theatre
10. my own surgeon - we made eye contact, not conversation
    
11. three anaesthetists as I went to sleep
12. two different anaesthetists when I woke up, one shouting "It's negative"
    
13. a different staff nurse on the new shift
14. a different breast care nurse who left me with a leaflet on arm exercises

I suppose that they all work together as one team.

Surgery

Tomorrow I go for day surgery, the start of the treatment for cancer. The surgery scares me less than anticipating chemotherapy making me unable to do things, like not being able to prepare for my viva, not being able to get the new job I want now I've finished my thesis. I want to travel abroad, but chemo makes insurance difficult I read. I have read loads of leaflets on breast cancer and its treatment and the side effects of the treatment, and it sounds a horror story that I don't want to know.

• Lymphodema in the affected arm because they take out your lymph nodes and your arms swells,
• Travel insurance companies turning you down because you're on chemo and might pick up any infection.

Pretty miserable really.

Competitions

Funny that competition thing.

On Thursday I found myself in the company of seventy high-flying women, courtesy of an invitation from Mrs Moneypenny to a shooting day. The beginners were grouped together - I'm a beginner - to learn to shoot clay pigeons, and while one of us shot, the other four chatted, or 'networked'. These were lovely women who knew how to talk, who wanted to know about each other, how we knew Mrs Moneypenny and if we'd shot before. It was quite a contrast to my experience on Monday at a London School of Economics workshop on Information Systems and the Financial Crisis, where people just did not mingle and talk. Yet most of these women were in finance or investment banking. We cheered each other when we managed to hit our target, and perhaps we gradually improved.

After coffee we were rearranged into teams to shoot a flush as a competition for the highest scoring team, and to my delight I began to hit the clays, including hitting two at once! Wey-hey! Go me! I think I was just as competitive as all the other women, even though I don't have a high-flying job.

Competitions and competing

I am not competitive.

Around 18 months ago, anticipating my viva when I'll have to talk coherently about my research, I joined our local Toastmasters, a speech making club. I enjoy it because I meet pleasant people, listen to speeches about topics I know nothing about and learn from, and I only have a few minutes walk on a Monday night to get there. It's not competitive; it is supportive. We're all there to learn to speak better in public. The format of the evening is usually:

• introductions to club, visitors and procedures
• table topics
• prepared speeches
• break
• evaluation of table topics and speeches
• wind up

Occasionally club members compete with other clubs, but I don't do that. I don't want to compete, and that was what yesterday's table topics session was about - competing.

Table topics is where a member stands up, introduces a topic and then calls on other members to speak ad hoc for up to two minutes on a question of the table topics master's choice. Yesterday's questions were:

1. "Why do we compete?"
2. "It's the taking part that counts"
3. "You have taken part in"
4. "How competitive are you you?"
5. "What does taking part in competitions do for us?"

Paul said we compete because it's fun - but I think that's a man's approach. Sue said that the taking part counts and argued for a competitive spirit to win the team business or the whatever you're after. I kind of agree with her there, because when I play tae kwon do, if I have a soppy partner, it's no fun, and I'm not doing much. But then I drew the third question.

"Tell us about a competition that you have taken part in, or won"

Now I don't want to do tae kwo do competitions, but I'll take part. I'll have a go, like I'll have a go at table topics, but there's no way I'm going to win in tae kwon do because I'm too slow, too old and too weak and the only people I can beat up are the youngsters with a namby-pamby character. But I might make a decent attempt at a pattern, even though I dislike the sparring and apologise if I hit someone! So that's what I said at Toastmasters yesterday, and they liked my speech enough to vote me the best table topics speaker of the evening!

Am I competitive?

No hugs - I'm a big girl

Have you ever noticed that when you tell some people your personal bad news, they want to hug you? Why do they hug you? Does it make them feel better, or you? Or does it just make you cry more?

I like cuddles and hugs in the right place, at the right time.

My mother tells me I was a very cuddly baby, but when I was a toddler I started to refuse cuddles and she couldn't understand why, but I remember crying and an adult telling me,

"Big girls don't cry"

If big girls don't cry, then if I'm being cuddled, I must be crying and so I'm not a big girl, but being a big girl is something I want to be, so don't cuddle me because I'm not crying, (even if I am). So I used to struggle out of the cuddle!

I don't react like that now, but I still don't always need the cuddle that someone else needs to give away.

Stress coped with

What a stressful week that was.

On the same day that my supervisor gave me back the final comments for my thesis at one o'clock, I went to hospital for the results of the x-rays, ultra-sound and biopsy.

"Unfortunately, ..."

started the doctor as she told me that the lump is cancerous, just a tiny 7 millimetre crab-like lump, creeping round my breast, a silent uninvited invader despite my excellent diet, and exercise regime. I spent the next three days desperately writing the final parts of my thesis, getting up at four in the morning to write because I couldn't sleep for thinking of my thesis and my cancer, and

I have to rewrite that bit, but I've got cancer so now what do I do?

The thesis is in. I win.

PhD work

I've submitted my PhD thesis, here, and that's taken some stress off me. Of course, life comes up and hits you with other things, but I've written the thesis and am strong enough to cope with the rest of life, even when it's out of control.

I'm going to do lots of tae kwon do over the next three weeks and get really fit. I'm going on my first black belt patterns tae kwo do session on Sunday, and kinda looking forward to it. The hesitation is because if we spar, I don't like getting hit! I'm going to relax a bit for a few weeks even if I still also have to

• catch up assignment marking
• write a paper for a conference
• follow an electronic seminar on tutoring with elluminate
• work through a Higher Education teaching skills workshop
• and oh yes! Prepare for the viva
  

LPA & banks agin

A very nice bank assistant now rings me and tells me that it is not possible to have two cards on a single named account, so if I have a card, then aunty can't have a card. Now that I've put the phone down, I think

"but we've had two cards for a year so why not now?"

Lloyds-TSB does not seem to have co-ordinated systems.

Theatrical digs

We've got lodgers now and again. This is a new venture we've only started since the new Aylesbury Waterside Theatre opened, and the old town residents learned that casts and crews would need temporary lodgings for the few days or weeks that they were here. We have a house big enough for all our children, and are keeping it - who knows when a child is going to rebound? We r-at-tle in its empty rooms, so we do theatrical digs.

We had some cool lodgers last week - Miguel Angel and Steve Dorsett alias Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper from the Buddy Holly Story, reviewed here. I went with a friend to watch the show. The cast are musicians as well as actors. I was fascinated by the audience, mainly women in their sixties and a few men, who got up to dance in their seats, to the annoyance of my height challenged friend. Like her I couldn't see past these dancers and eventually we changed seats so we could stand to see without bothering anyone behind us. We both enjoyed ourselves - it was well worth seeing.

Banks & legal power of attorney

Remember I've got legal power of attorney to run my aunt's affairs.

Aunty's bank has stopped me using her debit card, which means I can't pay for her services by card until they send me a new one. I did not ask the bank to stop it. We even had a discussion about aunt's card and the card I use. I rang and checked with the bank and they said the card was working at the beginning of the month, but now they've stopped it. The first I knew was when people started to ring me to ask for cheques because the card wouldn't go through. So now I have to write letters to the bank to get the card sorted again. Otherwise I'll have to write at least five cheques a month, and envelopes to go with them and cover notes to identify the invoice that the cheques are paying.

It really is a pain working with these banks - they don't understand Power of Attorney

I like it in the glory hole

"I like it in the glory hole"

was the status I wrote in Facebook a few months ago. The women were playing a game that involved changing your status to something intriguing that didn't refer to the actual object. Last year's game referred to where you kept your handbag, but the statuses, like

"I like it hanging off the end of the bed"

of course had double entendres.

The year before we'd played a similar game where you had to change your status to what what colour your bra was: black, yellow with white stripes, pink spotted. The ostensible aim was to raise awareness of breast cancer.

I've got a lump.

I had a routine screening a couple of weeks ago, but got a recall. An hour ago I was diagnosed with a lump in my right breast - too small to feel and picked up on routine check 2 weeks ago. I am now x-rayed, ultra-sounded and biopsied. Am to go back for results of biopsy next week.

So I'll write this blog, but not publish it yet.

Itch scratched

I've just completed this four day acting school, reviewed here. I learned about breathing, presentation, voice control, posture and movement in exercises I've never done before and worked more with people than I have done for years.

Singing: Thanks to Grantley Buck, we sang from 'Some Enchanted Evening' and 'A Cockeyed Optimist ' from South Pacific, we sang 'A Real Nice Clambake' from Carousel. I haven't had singing lessons since I left school, and I'll swear they didn't teach me to open my throat like a foot-long dentist's syringe was coming at it. We all loved the singing classes, coming out buzzing with energy and happiness.

Fighting: we practised punching our partners with sound effects like we'd made contact. That's call a knap and is a method of making the sound without actually touching your partner. We learned strangling, another lesson was fighting with swords. This is how to do team work.

Moving: Marcelle Davies started the first day's movement class with a clapping exercise when we passed a clap around us, between us, across a circle, and extended it to call our names - a new way of learning a classes names. Another movement exercise with Jenni had us falling to the floor to a count of ten, and rising to a count of ten, but then reducing the count to six, to four, to two, to one. You have to be fit to do this course.

We learned to dance and perfected a pavane, enjoyed dancing jazz, & the training was professional for professionals. For instance, in the jazz class, first our teacher had us stand like professionals. "Now" she announced, "you look employable." Like we amateurs, and several would-be professionals, could ever be paid to dance professionally.

And Shakespeare, which was the class where we learned the least, perhaps because at least for the first session, the director was having a bad day. We didn't learn much about Shakespeare, or his work, just watched and listened to each other perform. If we rattled off the words by heart with no meaning to them, we got little help on interpretation - but learned we should have worked harder. If we hadn't learned the lines well enough to say them without more than a couple of prompts, even if too nervous, then we were told we could sit down again. Sometimes the director asked us why we chose to present characters in a particular way, and that usually seemed to mean that we didn't understand the character - like we were acting Cassius young when he was old.

Voice: Clare Davidson had us spouting Shakespeare with our tongues out and our heads between our legs, but it is amazing what a difference the exercise can make to the timbre and clarity of your voice.

Scenes: The director, Jeanette, started us with introductions. We had to pass round a box of matches, light a match and tell the story of our life in the time it took the match to burn. We watched each other, but the drama was in the lighted match. Then we were given a synopsis of the play, and the parts we were to take. Each of the three groups presented scenes from a different play

• 'My mother never told me',
• 'Old Times' by Pinter
• 'Closer' by Patrick Marber
  

In the last hour of the last day, we played our scenes to the other groups, and to the director, Paul Caister. And I finished the course in a love scene from Patrick Marber's 'Closer'.

Graft craft

Graft - tales of an actor is a one-man show that neighbours and we went to see locally last week. It's horrendously depressing from the black stage, the black costume, the black theme, and the shouts and struts of the actor, George Dillon. The theme is the career of a dedicated actor from start to sad end. The warning is "don't join the theatre".

I spoke to George Dillon afterwards, commenting that he had warned me off going to The Poor School next week for a short acting course. He said, "Good". He goes into schools aiming to put off the young and beautiful from an acting career. I pointed out that I was not young and beautiful, and he relooked at me, then asked if I had put enough money behind me to support myself! Then sighed, as if to say "well, can't persuade that one!"

Years ago I had acting training at college, and loved the experience enough to do amateur dramatics for a few years after, until gliding and husband took over all my time. I never seriously thought of going on stage. But I'm treating myself to this acting course next week, putting PhD thesis aside (all written, almost all done) and scratching my Thespian itch for the first time in thirty years.

Life, death and start again

Last year I had four funerals to go to - two nonagenarian aunties, an uncle, and the much younger husband of a long standing friend and colleague, so it was all rather sad. I'm delighted to report that this year starts with the announcement of an expected birth. One of my much loved step children rang me yesterday to announce the expected arrival of a new grandchild in July.

Hurrah! The more the merrier. I love big families - I always wanted one. The bigger the happier becuase there's always someone you'll get on with and find support from sometime, whether as a child or as an adult.

Cost of coffee

I like espresso, just the one cup a day. Other coffee is all right, but not the same. So in the office, each morning, I get myself a cup of espresso. This week, I toodled along, handed over my pound and waited for my usual five pence back (the university must be subsidising our coffee because it isn't expensive), but they said it is now 97p and gave me back only 3p. I guess it's the new rate of VAT and 2p on 95p is only a bit more than 2.5% extra VAT. Then I realised that the black coffee, which had also been 95p is now 105p. So someone is adding more than the VAT increase.

Grump!

Travelling

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

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

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

National Health (service?)

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

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

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

Uncle died

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dolls

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

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

Aunty Grace's funeral

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

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

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

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

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

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

Life again

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

Here's hoping.

Hurt hand

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

Newly married nephew

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


Newly married nephew and wife will live in Folkestone.

Made in Dagenham

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

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

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

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

Son to son

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

Trudging

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

"progress is slow"

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

Won't I?

Growing up

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

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

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

How nice to have adult children.

Peg's funeral

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

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

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

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

Children gone

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

Weird.

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

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

Intelligent husband

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

Son settled

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

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

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

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

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

Devils

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

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

She's leaving home

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

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

Lucky girl.

Happy anniversary

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

Aerialists entertainment

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

Sillery

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

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

Tromp d'oeil

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

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

Montreal bikes

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

Where NOT to stay

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

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

Flew home

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

Old bikes

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

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

Maple cake

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

Chez Pierre

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

Thieves

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

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

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

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

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

We have a sadder, wiser hostess.

Quebec people

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

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

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

Quebec city bed and breakfast

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

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

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

Conspirations to confuse

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

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

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

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

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

Speaking French in Montreal

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

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

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

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

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

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

Touring Montreal

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

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

Seedy side of Montreal

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

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

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

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

Not salubrious

"This area is full of drugs and prostitutes!"

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

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

60th Wedding Anniversary

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

"You want something, you organise it."

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

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

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

The first thirty years are the worst

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

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

My cousin wrote and sang a song for us.

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

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

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

Ruby wedding anniversary

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

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

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

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

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

I wonder which college rejected him.

Tenth wedding anniversary

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

Magic afternoon

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

Tenth wedding anniversary

Ten years and still together. Hurrah!

Tin for ten.

Austrian visitors

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

Guitar hero mum

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

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

Wow! Go me!