Helsinki

Four tranquil days by the sea, even on the sea too, sailing round the islands, like Isosaari we spent this week.  'Iso' is the Finnish for 'big and once I lived on Big Robert's Street - Isorobertinkatu.  'Katu', the Finnish equivalent of the Swedish word 'Gatu', means gate or street.
Daughter and I wandered the streets of Helsinki
and the market

Red cathedral, Helsinki

and the cathedrals, red and white.
We had a lovely evening meal with a Sibelius concert - we should have stayed there longer.

Finland is full of trees, pine trees and delicate silver birch trees. And water seems to make up half its land in lakes, not rivers.  In the fields of Suomenalinnea (an island off Helsinki where the Russians built a Finnish fortress - the Gibraltar of the North), we saw no cows or sheep or signs of rabbits, though I noticed that several Helsinki women walked poodles or dogs that looked a bit like poodles.  The streets were clean and clear, and pavements were wide for pedestrians and separate tracks for cyclists.


We ate reindeer meat, and berries - lingonberries and something like blue berries that were very palatable.
The ligon berries were however so tart that your cheeks watered.  I found a use for them by mixing them in with the butter-fired mushrooms I cooked in the evenings at the YHA hostel.
In the hostel, we met the usual friendly sort of foreigners.  An Indian couple from Ahmedabad advised me to visit again, and a very English gentleman with bottle-bottom thick spectacles introduced himself with "how do you do?"  After the usual pleasantries about where we came from he started a long story about how he came to lose his driving licence, a story that entailed him drawing my attention to the braces that held up his yellow knee length dungarees that he'd made for himself so he could attach his wooden leg more easily. Eccentric?

Eurokangas fabric store

Helsinki train station

Daughter found the most magnificently well stocked fabric shop and had a whale of a time examining various cloths to turn into coats, capes and costumes.

Damp Devon

Each year for some seven or eight years, husband and I have taken two or three grandchildren youth hostelling.  This year we aimed to do it again, but this time two parents came with us, and my daughter. This year the company made up for the rainy weather.
We visited SS Great Britain in Bristol on the way down there, the most fascinating old ship I've been on.  I've been on older ships (in Stockholm and in Portsmouth) but this one related to relatives that I could imagine in the 19th century who might have travelled to Australia on such a ship. Its engineering is amazing.  How did they work out the maths to create those structures?  They must have applied calculus and had the machinery to create the propellor and the bows.
On the Monday,  thought we'd hide from the rain by investigating the hidden underground passages of Exeter.  Unfortunately too many others had had the same idea and it was fully booked.  So we paddled around,saw the outside of the cathedral, picked some blackberries at the park and ride car park and went to see my revered first mother-in-law.
Later in the week some of us walked up Dunkery Beacon, and we visited Dunster Mill and went round  Dunster Castle, which was probably the most exciting event of the break - husband left his brolly there.  Yes we needed umbrellas all week.

Wedding hats

One of our daughters is marrying and we're told we have to wear hats.   Here are some hats that daughter and I have made.

Last week, granddaughter #1 turned up at tae kwon do in her new silver hat!  And here are inspirations:
https://uk.pinterest.com/rowleypolybird/hatspiration/
I think I'll photo hats at the wedding.

Fine art - first class print making

My sister's been awarded a first class honours in her fine arts degree after eight years balancing part time study with part time work.  Her final exhibition was a couple of months ago - introduced here https://audioboom.com/boos/3275106-ba-fine-arts-final-exhibition-2015.

My sister specialised in print-making Exploring through print-making.   Some of her papier mache look like death masks, and that's on purpose because she was exploring the theme of mortality.  Mortality interested her because of a number of deaths in our family over the last few years while she was studying. Hear her describe her work on this theme at https://audioboom.com/boos/3276557-fine-art-mortality-with-cath-hartnett.


The last photo is of a papier mache of our mother's hand, frail with age. Even through the paper, you can  see the wedding ring on her fourth finger.

Up, not about

My father is out of hospital after several weeks.  He and my mother are together to celebrate their 65 wedding anniversary.    But their spirits are not up.  Mum is happier now that Dad is with her, but he's bed bound, not only can't get up and out of bed but can hardly turn himself in the bed.  His only comfort is listening to audio books.  Mum was eating with other people in the care home till he came out, and now her only company is him.
As aged Aunty E keeps saying "it's old age and dry rot!" And Mum and Dad feel rotten.
Nevertheless, their loyal younger friends in the parish gathered today for their anniversary mass, signed a card for them, iced a cake and sent sweet smelling jasmine.  Mum and Dad must have done something special to have so many people care.

First Holy Communion

Allelulia, sing to Jesus

We sang as the last hymn of the First Communion mass today.  Most of the time, most of us did not sing because the choir sang, and because we didn't know the words of the hymns.  But this hymn, "Allelulia, sing to Jesus", is a hymn that a couple of my singing relatives know, and did they sing out with grins on their faces at the words

"thunder like a mighty flood"

They loved it. Mind you, I love their singing.

It was a lovely ceremony, with just ten children taking their First Communion at a Blackfriars family mass in Oxford.  The children concentrated on the mass, not sitting with their families but at the front, like guests of honour.  After the mass, they were presented not only with certificates, but also with a set of rosary beads each, and advised to bring them the next two visits because one of the Dominicans was going to do something with them.  I love that idea, not just giving a relevant gift, but helping the children to see it as more than just a pretty trinket, but as something to help them develop further spiritually.

What a lucky little relative we have who belongs to such a church community.

Lovely Lola lost

This young, elegant little cat, an adventurous beastie, has been living next door to us for nearly a year, getting bolder and bolder, tripping across our patio every day to leap over the next wall, into the court and out to the street.  She caught a pigeon on our lawn earlier in the spring, taking it down to the bottom of garden to eat it.  Twice I've found her in my hens' run, causing a lot of clucking, fortunately hens 1:Lola 0. Initially she teased our old cat Cheeky by pouncing on her sleeping, but gradually they reached a truce so Lola would pass without the pair of them spatting and she would eat Cheeky's food only when Cheeky had had enough.  Yesterday evening, Lola was surprised by big black Torres passing and they had a cat fight, which she lost, being trapped between two large plant pots. This morning I watched Lola chasing the flies on the lawn in the sunshine, and later sitting lady-like on the patio, perhaps smelling where she and Torres had been.
This afternoon she was knocked down in the street, and then run over by two or three more cars.  I've seen a squirrel killed in the same spot. I wish the council would put a speed bump just at that angle in the street where it bends slightly and if you go too fast you can't see quickly enough if there's an obstacle.  One day it'll be a child runs down the steps and under a car.

Holiday topics

Toastmaster topics master this week asked us to speak about holidays, e.g.

• "What is the best holiday you have ever had?"  
• "Do you prefer to holiday on the beach, or have a more active holiday like cycling?  Explain"
• "Would you holiday in the UK or go overseas?    Why"

One of us had to speak to, "Have you ever had a disaster on holiday", which should elicit a humorous litany of woes, but had she asked me to speak, it would have upset the room. The most disastrous holiday I ever had ended at a quarter to one on 23 August 1996. When the disaster happened, the holiday ended. Another of the topic questions was, "would you take out holiday insurance?" That August we had insurance as usual, but only for the usual four out of the five of our party, and I had to pay out a couple of hundred pounds to get one of us home!  Do I need to assure you that now I always have insurance?

The last topic was open to the room, "has anyone gone abroad on Xmas day?".  Yes - and that was probably one of my most memorable holiday, if only because it was the first one I had away from my parents and family when I was 22.  Booked in summer, whilst suffering from a party-induced hangover, my housemate and I flew to an Austrian skiing resort, Mayerhofen.  Housemate got all the gear, onesie ski-suit, gloves, hat, and I, not knowing if I'd like it, wore my English weather water-proofs.  Housemate put on her skis for the first time in our first class, faced up the hill, stood up, and slid backwards, thus promptly falling over.  She went back to the hotel where she spent the rest of the week, kindly donating me her fantastic onesie, a  garment I wore there and then, and for many years after both skiing and later on winter gliding fields.  I discovered I loved skiing and had some aptitude for it. I spent Christmas lunch alone on the top of a mountain, outside an Austrian ski restaurant, eating my sandwich and enjoying the cold crisp wonderful Alpine air - a good Christmas holiday.

Family favourites talking

It is so nice to have grown up children who can talk to you adult-to-adult.  Over supper, husband, daughter and I were discussing showers, the difference between showers and baths, and the hygiene of showers.  This involved explaining fluid dynamics with reference to Bernoulli.  Have you heard of his work? He studied and explained how differences on pressure affected water and air flow and his theories are relevant to gliding, and to shower curtain hygiene. This principle explains why gliders fly, and why shower curtains gather germs, and it's fluid mechanics  that you would study at honours level in mathematics or physics.  Daughter did not wince a moment when husband explained the theory and he gave me a thumbs up when I asked, "when you have a shower, what does the shower curtain do?   Does it move in or out? That's the effect that Bernoulli models"
Similarly, decades ago, at meal time, I mentioned something about educational theory - Piaget's ideas of how a child saw and compared volumes when asked. My teacher mother exclaimed in delight that now there was someone in the family who knew what she was talking about. Isn't a pleasure to be able to discuss ideas with your grown-up family?

Life's not good

Life isn't too promising at the moment.
So sad and upset.
Saw parents and aunty just before Christmas, though I had been thinking of going up perhaps with husband this weekend, but son said he was going, and then my sister.  Trouble is now my sister can't go because her car wheels got broke in a ditch.
Mum, who used to read this blog, now can't see and not being able to see can't remember what she can't see, like the cup of coffee we've just put in front of her, and told her it's there.  But she has to see to know it, so she forgets we told her it is there.  To add to her misery, she's losing her hearing, so mis-hears and then can't make sense of what she thinks she heard, like "I've got a table in this document", she misheard as "I've got a cable in this document".
Aged Auntie has a different form of forgetfulness, and a stoic attitude that her local priest described as "Here day, go day, soon come Sunday" attitude  her.  Not only is she cheerful and accepting of life's restrictions, though she would like to stop falling, forgetting where she is and go out without having to have company to stop her falling and getting lost, but she is eating well, smiling, remembering better than she was and is philosophically accepting of life's trials.  She's our father's sister, and I can see the stoicism in them both, the stoicism that he is drawing on in his need to support our ailing mother.

At least son and new wife will be going for a few hours.  Mum doesn't welcome people for too long because she can't play the host any more, see the food in the freezer or what the dial on the microwave says.  She can't see other peoples' problems, like catching wheelchair wheels in a grubby rug, or an iron that is too clogged to steam any more. And she can't see what work her cleaner of 17 years does, an enthusiastic, honest and loyal worker.  Listen to her saying happy Christmas: https://audioboom.com/boos/2754739-carol

She's the salt of the earth, and like salt, a little cheer goes a long way.

Christmas lunch out

We went out for Christmas lunch, just husband, self and daughter, the fewest I've been with since ever.  Husband arranged it only last week, at the last minute, after I'd suggested we go and stay in hotel like his brother and family has done for years, perhaps join brother but his brother has been travelling to foreign places this year, like Venice, so perhaps didn't fancy another hotel for Christmas.  Then husband found this lovely local place, run by people who run our nearest wine bar, great food, even if you do silly diets - it's still great food, run by great hosts who deal with you in a friendly and tolerant fashion even if you can't make your mind up and there's a queue behind you.  If I did food photos, I'd show you, but here instead is the menu.

Wedding news

The hotel fire alarm went off at half past midnight on Sunday morning, just after most people had left the wedding party and gone to bed.  Left standing were the bride and groom, the bride's family, and many of the younger groovier lot, who I'd left jiving on the dance floor, taking selfies and drinking the remains of the champagne (cava) from the magnum bottles. So who would you expect to have let the fire alarm off?
The wedding took place in lovely surrounds in the Gilstrap Registration Office at Lincoln, next to the ruins of the castle. The groom was white with nerves before the ceremony, but you can see from this photo that now the vows have been made, the registrar's mispronunciation of his surname corrected, and the deed done, he's smiling proudly. His bride, who avows she does not want to be the centre of attention, quietly took the visual attention for the day, looking beautiful, - see her happy smile - but saying little.
The best man did my son proud, racing round the country to fetch the last-minute arrived bridesmaids' dresses, which all fitted each bridesmaid perfectly.  The best man also ran around getting people to sign a memory book against the polaroid pictures that a pair of friends had been taking of everyone.  And he made a great speech starting from how he first noticed my son at school in maths class, when one poked the other.  He described how he'd introduced the couple, and in explaining the couple's gradual revelation to their friends of their relationship, apologised to me that I was the last to know, for which he proposed a toast to me!  Well that's a first - a somewhat untraditional toast, but this best man has endeared himself to me for some time. He was the one a few years ago who helped my son to buy a new car.
At the reception, I met the bride's family at last.  I'd met her maternal grandparents, and her little brother, but now I had the pleasure of meeting her other, rather older grandparents, and her lively younger sisters. Her grandparents had stalwartly remained in the dancing room despite the deafening music, whilst my siblings and I had removed ourselves to a place where we could talk and tease each other.  Every now and again, I'd go back in for a dance. At midnight, most of us retired, including the bride's grandfather and grandmother.  They decided to have a shower before bed, but the shower would not turn off.  They had to call the hotel staff, who also could not turn it off. The water got hotter and hotter, until eventually the steam set the fire alarm off and woke most of those who had just gone to bed (not my sleepy husband who admitted that he'd only thought he'd heard it).  Fortunately, it went off again almost immediately and we did not have to leave our rooms, except the bride's grandparents. They had to change bedrooms because the hotel staff could not sort it out.  It was not the bride or the groom or the best man who set the fire alarm off. Nor her lively sisters.  It was the oldest guest - her grandfather!

Story - what I did at the weekend

Once upon a time, two or three decades ago, a poorly fertile woman, after ten years of marriage, in her mid thirties at last became an elderly mother.  She and her husband were overjoyed at the arrival of their healthy, blue eyed blond baby boy who immediately opened his eyes and gazed intelligently at his delighted Daddy.

His father and I, for I was that mother, gave him a loving home, nurtured and nourished him, planned his education, and our son went to a good school, then a good university, and found himself a good job.  What does a young man do then?

He found himself a good girlfriend, a gorgeous girl, a princess to dream of, someone who thinks my son is one of the best guys in the world.

So what was I doing last weekend?  I was welcoming his girlfriend to our house for the last weekend as his fiancée because next weekend he marries her.  Last weekend, she and I went to the dressmakers to alter the wedding dress, to make it fit perfectly for the wedding.
And as all good stories go,....
May they live happily ever after.

Gone to roost

And a vine lot of trouble

It's interesting how many poultry derived idioms we have in the language, isn't it?  And now so few of us have hens, we've forgotten or don't realise where they came from:

• gone to roost,
• pecking order
• flown the coop
• hens' teeth (they don't have any)

We went out yesterday to old gliding and Oxford friends' 40th wedding anniversary.

 "You need tolerance, perseverance and wisdom"

 to keep a marriage that long said a friend who raised a toast. May my son and his fiancée, marrying on Oct 25th at Newark, have those gifts too.

When we came home, it was past dusk and the hens had flown the coop and gone to roost. I had had to hunt the garden in the dark, till I found two of the three in the vine. "Vine lot of trouble" remarked my husband! The third hen, Lady Grey, didn't turn up till this morning, and now all three are happily eating left over rice curry from a few days ago. Cluck, cluck, clllcckk! Happy hens.

Countries reunited

Over a hundred years ago, an English ship's engineer knocked on the door of a Glasgow house, where its owner, a Miss Maggie Bowman took paying guests, and for the last ten years had provided a home for her cousin's granddaughter.  That wee Scottish lass married that young English engineer, becoming my grandparents.  If we'd not been united countries, would they ever have met?   Would I be? 

I'm so glad we're staying united because we've done so much together, economically, in sport, in academia, and socially.   Why oh why have our English politicians been acting like this was an abusive relationship promising to stop beating up the minor partner and to behave better? This was an opportunity to renew the courtship.

Here's the Donald tartan tam o'shanter my lovely Scottish born neighbour gave me years ago.

23 rd August

I remember

Youth hostelling again

Youth hostelling provides such social fun: the grand children, the other guests, the people running the youth hostel, and the kitten that the people running the youth hostel have.  This year, we went to Cornwall, to Boswinger, hiring a family room as usual, but for a day longer than usual because it takes so long to get there.
Getting there, we went via Devon, and popped in to eat our picnic lunch at my MiL's, where the children enjoyed playing her square piano, the one that used to be in the Green Room at the Old Vic, and sounds great when you play Bach on it.
Then we had three days to explore:

• the Lost Gardens of Heligan
• the beach at Porthcurnick, where the grandchildren built such a splendid sandcastle that the tide took six minutes to wreck it.
• a day at the Eden Project

Hatching hens

Ever seen a cat and a hen together?  Do they get on?  We're kitten sitting, minding son and fiancée's (yes, they're engaged  and marrying in October) two cats, one of whom, Diana, has had a litter of four only a couple of weeks ago and we're minding them for the bank holiday weekend.

I've been brooding on the idea of having hens for some time.  I first had the thought put into my head years ago, when daughter's nursery school teacher commented that since we'd extended the garden, we now had enough room to have a few hens.  More recently I've been working with a colleague who keeps hens, http://connectedpeasant.blogspot.co.uk/ and recommends them.  

After watching this video, I realised I had never held a hen, so I went on a chicken keeping course (a hen party) where I got to see all sorts of breeds of hens, lots of hutches, learned what to feed them, and held hens.
Then, I had to get something for them to live in.  That took a lot of thought, with people advising me to go for a cheap but less easy to clean option - the wooden hutch. Such people don't realise that we don't have running water and a hose pipe in our garden.  We do have a well but it's not usable because the pump handle's broken, and we make do with the modern fad for water barrels, some of which collect old ivy leaves or breed mosquito larva.

I wanted an Omlet Eglu but someone advised us to get a hutch that we didn't have to bend down for.  Then Omlet brought out this high rise one.  So that's what we got.  Here is how you might put it together:

Then we went to a local breeder and selected some chickens. So now we have three young hens, red, white and blue.  We'll wait for them to settle and we're told they'll start to lay eggs in a few weeks.

The adventures start.  Yesterday evening, I wanted to put them away, and they haven't yet learnt to go up their ladder into their hutch so I have to put them in.  I caught the blue and put her in round the back, then the red, and put her in, but before I got the back door shut the blue was out!  More adventurous than I'd realised, she was off!  I grabbed the white, put her away and closed all doors before I went in chase of Belle the blue.  First she went off down the bottom of the garden, which could have been a disaster for catching her, but I managed to head her off again towards the house and the top pond, where I realised was fenced (to stop grandchildren falling in).  With husband's help, we chased her into a corner, pulling the fencing round behind her, until she was stuck between a water barrel and a window.  On the other side of the window, Diana, the cat was watching.   Diana was up on the glass, hen and cat were scared and intrigued by each other.  I grabbed the hen. "Squarhelp!" What a squawk!

I guess hens and cats have a mutual agreement - they watch each other, but keep away - that way, they'll get on.

Daughter's commencement

We went to Dublin to see daughter at her Commencement - that's what they call it when you begin or commence into academic status as a Master.  She's commenced her mastery of linguistics.  Now she's going to combine her maths and linguistics in researching and analysing computationally.  Well done her.  She's going to be a useful woman.

It's interesting that she's in Dublin, the place where her great grandfather came from. Like daughter, he was interested in languages, apparently winning a medal for Gaelic as a child, being the first in Ireland.  I wonder how his mother would react, watching her descendant, sewing like she did, but in this university, the one that the arch bishop told them not to go to!

IN the evening, daughter had arranged for us to attend the common supper at the university as a celebration.  We were puzzled when we arrived to find only two tables listed for the guests who had been at the Commencement, but when we entered the hall we found it full.  At most benches, sat a hundred or more undergraduates and graduates (scholars), at the top table sat begowned fellows, and we guests sat at these two tables that white table cloths, wine glasses, and red material covered (hard) chairs.  Prompt at six, one of the servants strode from the top table to the huge entrance door and slammed it shut, whereupon all the scholars and fellows rose to their feet with a shout.  Then someone at the top table said grace in Latin.  It was a rather longer grace than I heard at Oxford and not in words that I recognised. When grace was over, we all sat and supped.  After the main course was over, a similar routine took place in that something banged, everyone stood, grace was said, the door opened and scholars and fellows trooped out leaving us guests to have sweet course and a coffee.  Very nice.

A word on the scholars at Trinity.  It seems that in their second year, some undergraduates are invited to sit the scholarship exam.  Achieving it, gives the student status as a scholar, which comes with free fees, free accommodation and a free meal once a day for the rest of their time studying there, including not only their undergraduate studies but subsequent masters and PhD work too!  Doesn't that encourage the best to stay on to research!

Wisteria

This year our wisteria has bloomed more than it ever has before, more than several years together, and it smells gorgeous too.  It's not good blooming in comparison to most wisteria plants but it's good this year.  It's not a happy plant in that conservatory; it would be better exposed to the elements again, and goodness knows how it get enough water because though it leaks in there, it's not like there's ever a deluge of rain water.  However, since we have a well in the garden and a well in the house, I wouldn't be surprised if there's an underground stream from which this wisteria can feed.
Apparently, Victorians used to plant a wisteria next to a new house - I wonder why. I suppose this wisteria was planted circa 1902 when the sitting room was added to the older part of the house.

Black belt achieved

Here's what my son gave me for my birthday - a black training dobok, because I'd got through my tae kwon do black belt grading the week before, after nine years.

Black belt & dobok, with training book

I might have done it sooner if I hadn't devoted so much time to my doctorate, and then had the breast cancer. But, I never planned to get a black belt in anything.  I just took my daughter along and found I could train with her.  Most times when a parent takes a child out - to ballet, karate, swimming or piano lessons, - they have to sit there and wait patiently.  I'm not so patient.  Sooner or later my child was going to have to get herself there, or not go.  But once I realised I could join in, I also found that playing tag for the first time in decades made me laugh - another first in a while when you're a woman in your early fifties.  Then I tried to catch up with my rapidly improving daughter, so I went to more classes, got to an intermediate grade and got fitter.

One tag at a time, one new colour at a time, I went up.

As I got higher, I realised more and more people were helping me, not only the subum (teacher) but also lots of black belts, particularly the junior black belts, who courteously showed me how to do something better, and despite my poor and slow technique were willing to partner with me, thus demonstrating that getting to black belt isn't a solo achievement.  Then I realised that middle-aged, middle-grade women were seeing me a a role model, and that spurred me on too. And Christie Bytom was there in the background cheering for me.

The BBC Radio 4 programme iPM: Share What You Know asks for one sentence items of listeners' news, which they then select and read out over the air. I wrote:

"After nine years of training, including a year when I had breast cancer, I've been awarded my tae kwon do black belt" 

On 16 November, they got Dame Jenni Murray to read them and she read my sentence too - she who herself had breast cancer. The podcasts are at http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/ipm and the listeners' news is towards the last couple of minutes of the programme.

Birthday frog!

Dear Step Daughters - two of them left me presents for my birthday last week, then #3 turned up with a slightly bigger parcel, requiring that I opened it there and then.  Look at this cross-stitch!

It's so fine; she must have worked for hours.  And she chose the frog because she knows I like frogs.

Today I'm in Luxembourg presenting our company's   (Catcher Media)  work package as part of the EU JuxtaLearn project. so she brought it round at the weekend.

Dublin visit

We visited daughter in Dublin, youngest of our combined children, and took the eldest of the grandchildren.

Daughter did us proud in hosting us, escorting us, showing us interesting places:

• Kilmainham gaol, 
• Dublin castle, 
• museum - there was ever so much gold jewellery in Ireland thousands of years ago
• Trinity College Library where we saw the book of Kells
• Guinness Storehouse mmm - I don't normally drink Guinness, but there it tastes different, creamy and less bitter
• St Stephen's Green - a relaxing park of beauty

and eateries: Queen of Tarts, Joy of Chai.

We met up with an old friend, saw the marathon, and went to the theatre (Brecht's 'The Threepenny Opera'). All in three days.

Of great interest to daughter and me was the house in Grafton Street where my grandfather and his six siblings grew up.  It's a shop, as it was in 1900 and something, but no one lives above it any more

Scent from Rhodes

Pine, bay, sage and thyme... The air is full of herbal scents. Sun,sea and sand, architecture and archaeology we're rambling through Rhodes sampling them all.

Aylesbury mosque

"Oh Prophet, truly we have sent thee as a witness, a bearer of glad tidings, and a warner."

Thus read one of the admonitions (or is it a prayer?) on a wall at our local mosque, the Aylesbury Ghausia Mosque.
This view of the lovely carpet (a good reason for removing your shoes) is from one side of the room and that was the side where the women sat, slightly behind a rather wobbly screen.
The president of the masjid ('mosque') welcomed us, and a school student recited some of the Qur'an in that odd singing tonal chant you hear from minarets.  Perhaps that's just the way that Arabic sounds.  The boy stood at the centre of the room so both men and women could hear and see.   I guess they were pleased with and proud of the young man, but the Arabic language passed most of us by, even though someone then translated it.
An imam gave a key note speech about peace, which was short and to the point, then there was a lo-oong speech about the relationship between Islam and Christianity and the law.  I should like the speaker to join our local Toastmasters, come along one Monday evening to the meetings at Stoke Mandeville Stadium.  Finally our local MP gave a short message.
Then we were free to tour the majid, examine the exhibition, watch a hajj film and take refreshments, but we had stayed too long and had to forgo the food.   I'd like my own church to be as inviting (though it probably doesn't have the curiosity value).  Thank you to those who invited us, showed us what is important to them and how we share important values.

Garden room

Isn't this room gorgeous?  Look at the door that allows you out onto the patio, the light reflecting off the tiled floor, the hops shading the room.  We've just had the decorators in, taken out the green fitted carpet and one of the nine huge windows.  We've turned that window into doors, and replaced the carpet with these parquet tiles under which there's wired heating, so the room is now warmer in winter, but cooler in summer.  I use it as a study - you can see my desks - but it now feels like a garden room - a transition between house and garden.  It's lovely.

Sedentary sixties

This photo shows I've stepped over 11,000 steps today, the first time I've managed that many this week.  But then, today, we rehearsed and performed the Red Kite women's dance in the Vale Park, and then I did tae kwon do too.

I got the counting device a week ago after watching the BBC Horizon programme, Monitor Me.  Apparently you should aim at 10,000 steps a day, but in my sedentary work I'm lucky if I do 3000 and on one day this week did only 2000 because I was writing, at home, and didn't go out even for a stroll.

I made up for a lot of steps today.

Bureaucracy Tuesday

Not a punday Monday, but bureaucratic Tuesday!

I did a little work today between 7.30 and 10 o'clock, before the bureaucrats reared their ugly 9-5 heads.

1. Then my boss rang.  He's okay this boss - get that clear - but he has to explain to the EU bureaucrats what hours we've been doing in order to get the EU bureaucrats to pay the company.  The discussion on the implications and ramifications of the forms he needs to fill with what hours and what information on who, how long, for how much, took about an hour.  It's not democracy to have so much bureaucracy that the work doesn't get done.
2. Then I had to ring the company that delivers ready made meals to aged aunty because her bit of plastic won't go through.  I agreed to send them a cheque then rang the bank.  Turns out that EU regulations say the bank can't stay like it is but must split into two banks and that means they have to issue a new card, which they've sent out and they've stopped the old one.  Those phone calls took an hour.  I don't feel in charge; they changed the bank without me asking; it's bureaucracy not democracy
3. Then I trotted down to the charity shop to deliver some specialist books for recycling.  "Thank you.  Are you a tax-payer?"   Oh, no!  I'm not filling out one of their forms today, and I've probably filled it out before, so now I feel guilty for not helping them get their extra tax free amount.  But it's more form filling and bureaucracy. Charity depends on bureaucracy now.

Gus O'Donnell argued on Radio 4 that "an efficient bureaucracy isn't only a symptom of a mature democracy - it's a fundamental prerequisite."  Can we note the word 'efficient' please, and let me get back to doing productive work?

Never ever give up

Remember.

The end of another gliding day.

Caring for ageing aunty

Dear aged Aunty even forgets to eat.  She sits and stares out of the window at the windows and walls of rooms of other sheltered residents.  Even when food is next to her, she doesn't eat it unless reminded.
A month ago she fell, breaking her hip.  Or maybe she fell because her hip spontaneously broke. Whatever.  She stayed in hospital a remarkably short time and last week came home - minus her zimmer frame because the hospital forgot, or may she left it in the ambulance ... whatever.  She can't walk without it - what care is that?

So the really caring people, the volunteers from the local St Vincent de Paul Society ran around, one getting her a zimmer frame in the next few hours, which meant that volunteer didn't get to eat supper with her husband.  That's wrong.  You have to get your priorities sorted and that means voluntary work comes after family, but that caring volunteer said quite reasonably that you couldn't leave an old lady alone with no means of moving.  When she came back with the frame, Aunty was in bed, with the door unlocked. We have to get a key safe, so that we can lock the door safely, yet get in to help her.

Then, on Monday, the new carers who deliver food, forgot lunch, and Aunty sat there staring out of the window at the walls and windows with no food until, again, the same SVdP caring person arrived and realised what had happened and whipped her up an omelette in the microwave.

Aunty can't do the shopping herself, or ring the news agent to deliver her papers, or organise the delivery of the drugs she must take every day, or feed herself, let alone cook.  She hasn't unpacked her boxes from when she moved in there in 2009, and doesn't know where her clothes are.  She doesn't do her own laundry but someone else must come and fetch it and take it away and do it for her, and then put it back in her drawers.

Her drawers are mixed and muddled.  When she went into hospital, one of the SVdP people couldn't find her nighties.  I found them when I visited last weekend; they were in the wardrobe under her outdoor hats and gloves, with some cassette tapes.  I've put them in the drawers next to her bed.

If you have a child, a toddler, you know you have to mind them.  You give them food, wash their clothes, wash them, and put them to bed.  Aunty now needs minding like that.  She even asked me to cut her nails.  And volunteers can't be doing all that for a non-family member.  Soon Aunty will have to move from her sheltered flat to a room in a care home.

Visual memories

We spent a few days last week with three grandchildren at the Cheddar Youth Hostel here.   Previous years we've stayed at Totland Bay on the Isle of Wight, Wilderthorpe Manor and Pembrokeshire, Wales.

I checked back in this blog to find at the Isle of Wight http://ejh2.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/isle-of-wight-youth-hostel.html youth hostel grand daughter #1 lost her tooth and we needed to call the tooth fairy.  This time her little sister, only five, had a wobbly tooth, but nothing was lost.

The blog reminds that husband had planned the trip telling me we were going but omitting to mention that we were staying in a youth hostel with grandchildren.  Now I might know better and be less surprised.

In August 2009 we went to Shropshire here and I took photos, photos of the birds nesting in the youth hostel, and photos of the gliding site we visited.  Last year at Pembrokeshire, when I had a great time surfing I didn't blog, and husband didn't get much in the way of photos of the surfing.  I had an unforgettable time surfing, yet I remember little of the hostel.  I remember going round a castle and someone falling and not being able to get down a narrow staircase so a helicopter came to rescue her.  I took photos but didn't blog the holiday.  A blog helps me retrieve these memories.  This trip I would have taken my camera but it is being mended.  The visual memories are

• walking over the hill top the first morning, and sheltering under trees with another family under the next trees waiting for the rain to stop;
• watching rain coming in over Cheddar reservoir and we are already pretty wet, and hoping the others will hurry up but we're about to become thoroughly drenched. 
• the high roof of the Cheddar cave
• the huge cliffs of the gorge
• the soft sleeping face of granddaughter #4 on her bunk in the morning

Gliding weekends (sunny Sunday with friends)

Gliding incidents used to be the staple of my social conversation.  Sunday evenings would be spent in the pub reviewing the weekend's gliding activities: who'd gone solo, who'd earned a medal, who'd landed out.

My gliding club friend, having finished her Open University studies, is returning to normal sociability.  She invited husband and me, along with several others from gliding days for lunch on what must have been the first warm Sunday of the year.

Her dog, Hendrix, hid in the shade beneath our table, while we compared notes on our now grown children, our waning careers, and pension prospects. the mortgages we've paid off, and the 16% interest rates we started with.  Gliding we hardly mentioned, apart from remembering the scandal when an early solo pilot misjudged his height so badly that he failed to return to the air-field, attempted to land on a local parade ground, yet was so low he missed that too, and as he glided into a street, wrapped the K7 glider round a lamp post so that his cockpit nose ended up in the first floor  bathroom of a local house, whence the owner dragged him to safety.

It was a memorably embarrassing incident at a politically difficult time because the MOD was trying to sell the airfield, and despite a question about our airfield's safety consequently being asked in Parliament, the incident was effectively hushed up, forgotten and the airfield sold.  But, though we didn't know the culprit, we were all ab-initios or early solo pilots too at the time, and we remember it.  I expect culprit and house-owner remember it too - a talking point for their Sunday reminiscences.

Photo (by Terry Morgan) from the local paper 1982.

Friends

My son asked if I had any friends because he didn't know them.  Children don't always know their parents' friends, and I have sometimes wondered who were my grandparents' friends.  But children don't  know them, not only because they are absorbed in their own lives but also because they are physically in different places.  My friends were in the places where I grew up, where I went to school, college and worked, and I'm not in those places any more, and neither are they.  You lose touch.

Best friends, 1966 including Sheila, her sister, Cathy, and Anne.

Thank goodness for FriendsReunited some years ago.  Through that I found one of my very earliest friends (VEF), someone I knew when I was nine, and she now lives not far from me, a lovely intelligent woman, shy - the nuns battered any confidence out of her.  I made some good friends at that school, but not at my second secondary school because our family moved when I was around 14 and all the girls in the new school seemed to have paired up into best-friend relationships and there was nothing spare for me.

My best friend from my first secondary school came to live not far from me when our children were born.  We've kept in touch, but our sons don't remember playing together.  It didn't help that when I remarried I moved away so it was more difficult to keep in touch.  I made friends with other women through our children, playgroup and nursery school more than through primary school, and I missed them when I left.  When we meet, I know why they're friends because we talk for ages about things that are important to us.

Third year, 1966, including Madeleine, two Annes, Penny C and me.

A few weeks ago, a gliding-club friend contacted me to say that she'd finished her Open University degree and at last had time to spare, so we spent a day together catching up, comparing notes on work and life.  Her son went to the same university as my son, but they don't remembering playing together when they were little, and never had cause to meet again at uni.

Then there are the girl friends or play or have played tae kwon do.  I meet one who doesn't play any more for coffee occasionally.  Our latest point for comparison has been cancer treatment because she had breast cancer diagnosed a year after I did.  Another tae kwon do friend, who invited husband and I to her fiftieth birthday party, is a garden designer, and at the moment I have 40 of her plants nestling warmly in my greenhouse, ready to bloom we hope in time for her design display at Chelsea.

Recently, researching away from home for a couple of days, I stayed with an old college friend who lives in Worcestershire.  We had a wonderful time talking about, for example, books we've both read - Dervla Murphy's "To India on a Bicycle".   We don't see each other for decades and then meet twice in a year  - we met in summer last year for a mutual friend's sixtieth, when we sang and laughed as if we were still in college.

For my sixtieth birthday, I wanted to invite sixty girl friends but I ended up inviting men too.  I have a few men friends, not just husbands of girlfriends.  I have an old work friend who lives in America.  We'd lost touch but he's got such an unusual name that when I googled him (and his wife who has a different name) it was possible to get back in touch.  And he came and stayed with us for a night last year.  Many of the friends I've made in the last few years through my PhD are men, and several are from other countries: Canada, Ireland, Germany, China, India.  One PhD colleague who comes from Syria was very supportive and caring when I was diagnosed with cancer - his father had recently died of cancer.

And my best friend?  I asked my mother when I was around 14, so sad that I couldn't make friends in my new school, "Who's your best friend, Mum?"  She looked surprised that I didn't know.  "Why, your father of course!"  There you are - your best friend must be your spouse.

Icy spawn

So cold, went in garden, saw ice in pond, thought to photo it to compare with previous years, years when I could find frog spawn in ponds, would collect it and hope I'd get tadpoles.   Not this year.  Too cold to spawn.  I thought.

But my tadpoles last year must have grown into frogs when I wasn't looking, because amongst the ice I saw spawn in the pond, my pond!  Hope springs.

Judo champ trains tae kwon do shorties

Do I look short?  Have I shrunk?  No - I have osteoporosis thanks to the aromatase inhibitor drugs I'm on, but I'm not shrinking yet. I'm standing between a couple of judo champions: Karina Bryant, whose Olympic bronze medal I'm holding, and a potential Olympic champion whom she's training up, Frazer Chamberlain.  Our tae kwon do instructors arranged a two-hour session with her in which we practised rolls, side falls, back falls, forward falls, throws and chokes,  all practice that I need so that if I do fall, I don't break anything.

 I hoped Karina would try tae kwon do too. She knows Sarah Stevenson, the tae kwon do champion. Imagine Karina against Sarah.  Who'd win? Karina says that she would win, if she could get close enough to Sarah to throw her, but Sarah would kick her first!  Yes - that's what I'd do against someone as big and as skilled as Karina - keep her away from me.

And she's nice too.

Tattooist's parlour

In the tattooist's parlour, the piercer thought he recognised me.

Now, I'm a middle-class, middle-aged (more or less - well okay, rather more than less), white, educated woman that doesn't usually frequent tattooing parlours, let alone get recognised in them.  In fact, this was, I must admit, my first visit to a tattooing parlour. So if you look at me, would you think that a tattooist would recognise me, like do I hang out with tattooists  or with people that are covered with tattoos, or with people who have just a few tattoos?  Well, yes to that one because I've got a tattooed step-daughter and a tattooed PhD colleague.  But to look at me with my white hair, my middle-of-the-road if not somewhat conventional clothes, you wouldn't assume I have much acquaintance with tattoos.  Yes okay okay, so I've got three tattoos, but they're my radiotherapy tattoos and don't count.

What am I doing in a tattooist's parlour?  I'm escorting, chaperoning, encouraging - well she asked me to come - some female who is about to get her ears pierced.  Nowadays, you don't get your ears pierced like I got mine done at 22, in a back room sitting on a chair at a jeweller's shop.  You can get them done in bling shops like Accessorize, by some shop assistant while you sit in the window being watched by the world.  When I asked at the jeweller's about getting ears pierced, they said they don't do that any more but they advised me that a tattooist would be much more reliable and sensible about piercing ears than a shop assistant.   And indeed, I'm well impressed.

We walk in to a small dark, very full and very busy shop in the Aylesbury gyratory - that means it doesn't have exorbitant rents like the shopping malls demand, but from the outside it seems a bit seedy.  Inside the walls are covered with beautiful drawings of flowers, and fancy letters and flowing drapes on feminine forms.  The piercer, a strong beefy man in his thirties, tattoos peeping out at the end of his shirt sleeves, asks me if I'm worried about female friend and I assure him I'm not, that I had my ears done at the same age, and she's old enough to make up her own mind.  As female friend fills a form about her health and name and what she's having done, I chat with an assistant.  He tells me that he's only been there for six weeks, but that he's learned more about drawing in six weeks here than he had in four years in school - he has an A-level in art.  I'm impressed.

The piercer calls me into a back room to check that the marks he's put on female friend's ears are acceptably even. They look okay to me.  He tells her what he's going to do and how.  That's when he comments that he's recognised me.  Female friend lies down on the couch - I notice cleaning equipment round the room - this is a hygienic procedure. He tells her how to breathe, leans over, and that's one ear pierced.  She has to turn over, move to the other end of the couch so he can reach her.  I see some interesting models of body parts with various piercings.  The other ear is already pierced and it's bleeding a bit.  The piercer inquires if she drank any alcohol the previous evening because alcohol can cause the blood to flow a bit more but she hasn't drunk - it's just her.

It's all done; she can pay and leave.  I'm further impressed as a gaggle of giggling girls pile in and the piercer tells them that they are not all coming in his clinic at the back because he doesn't want any peer pressure on the youngster that says she wants her tongue pierced.  This man does a psychological assessment on his customers before he provides the service.

And yes, he and I do have something in common.  We both play tae kwon do and he's seen me at the black belt training sessions.

Furtling about with vehicles in San Francisco

Here's husband ineffectually fiddling around with his hand-me down camera in China Town, San Francisco, photographing an exciting trolley bus - interesting NOT.

We spent four nights here, a lovely city for its steeply angled streets, its characterful transport and its shops (I'd love to come here with a daughter), and stayed in this wonderful bed and breakfast, at the Golden Gate Hotel.  I loved the way their cat sat on the desk by the front door to welcome us.  Their dining room is tiny; although they must have around seven rooms on each of three floors, there are only two large round tables and one small one in the breakfast area, so you have to talk to other guests, which is lovely.  We met people who were also on holiday, from all over the States, or from Holland, or from Australia, and people who were here for conferences, or with a spouse at a conference.  In the afternoon, the hotel proprietors provide tea in this same area, and whilst not as busy as at breakfast time that gives you a break, a light fruity tea, and the most delicious cookies, something like my mother-in-law used to make.  Yummy.

And did I mention San Francisco's vehicles?  It has trolley buses, buses, tram cars and cable cars, not to mention the BART - Bay Area Rapid Transport.  We bought a 3-day ticket and travelled on most of the vehicles.  People talked to each other on these vehicles and we saw a variety of  San Franciscan life.  On one trolley bus, there were forty small boys, a class of eight-year-olds all very smartly dressed in school uniform with blazer and pressed trousers, and white shirts and ties - obviously a private school (Sacred Heart).  On  another trolley bus, wheelchairs were easily and readily accepted and stowed, in a way that I've never seen in the UK.

 I even made a sound recording of the cable car bells to share with my mother when I get back.  You can see one coming up the hill here.  I didn't fancy hanging on a pole on the outside, but even getting on and off can be a bit scary as they stop, on the tracks, right in the middle of a junction, and you have to check what traffic is around you, and that it has stopped like it's meant to!

Husband is less stressed since he bought a new camera.  Now he can effectively shoot a series of photos of the trolley buses and might use them to illustrate a piece for his model railway club magazine.  

Trains at the Grand Canyon

Last weekend we visited the Grand Canyon. Here's husband ineffectually faffing about with his camera, taking photos of a train, for goodness sake. We had half a day in that Grand Canyon park, and we spent a hour of it walking to this station, waiting to see and photo the blooming train. Was I grumpy!

We got back up to the rim (south) to glimpse the view, though husband stressed about other tourists who were off the track, near the cliff.

Poolside

Why leave home?  If you had a home like this, you'd stay.  This is my brother's back yard, with wisteria shading the veranda by the pool, and a couple of affectionate, animated shaggy hearthrugs, Wheatens, to bark at intruding birds.

Jet lagged for the first few days, we unwound here in the mornings, in the afternoon hiking in nearby mountains.  Here we've reached the top of Fletcher Canyon, a gain of height from around 6600 feet to 7700 I think.  We need to be fit.

Then we went to Yosemite with brother and sister-in-law, staying in a huge cabin - bigger than the first house I had.  Each of the four days, we went on a hike round somewhere, Nevada Falls, Glacier point, Panorama view, Vernal falls, Yosemite falls, seeing lakes, meadows and the Mist Trail.  At least the mist wasn't there that day, dampening the steps.

Rocks, like El Capitan,are enormous and even using binoculars the climbers were still tiny pinpricks.   One evening we watched the sun set over another famous rock,  Half Dome.  Another evening we came past El Capitan in the dark and could see the flashlights where the climbers were stopping for the night - it takes days to climb these rocks.  For a light hike, we thought we'd visit the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias, but it turned out to be another four mile trek up hill, as usual and we got back to the cabin hungry for our lunch and a siesta. 

On the final evening, we had a talk from the Search and Rescue Team http://www.friendsofyosar.org/.  This speaker told wonderful tales of the perils in the park, and afterwards we realised that the scary steps down by the Mist Trail were just as dangerous as we'd felt when we were negotiating them. 

Now we're home again, resting, catching up with news, blogs, photos, and audio diary, just relaxing by the pool again.