City of Angels

Went to see this musical "City of Angels" yesterday, put on by Songbird Productions. It's an adventurous enterprise produced with skill and intelligence by South Bucks teenagers.

The web site immediately tells you there's professional ability here - what other volunteer, amateur production gets a web site together in only a few months, and a web site that competently takes your bookings, lets you pay and sends you the tickets? That augured well for the musical.

The musical didn't disappoint. Despite the occasional spot light of a foot rather than a head, and the too loud music so I couldn't hear the words, the acting, the set design, the costume and the singing were a very high standard.

Donna/ Oolie was played by Becky Harrison who has as big and beautiful a voice as her bosoms. Stine was played by Ed Bernstone whose acting stood out as totally professional - you believed he was the character and couldn't imagine him being someone else ever, although he was only a few feet away from us on the stage, or the floor actually, because this was in the school hall.

Oh and watch Matt Goodwin. This Queen's scout is a many talented man. There's this scene where the trollops are mooching around and a big blonde bird in a long black dress strides across the room too, perhaps in charge, then you do a double take and wonder what sort of woman that is. Then he scratches his balls!

There are some photos in the Bucks Herald. Hope more towns get teenagers that do this sort of thing. May Songbird Productions last!

things for bright boys

DON'T give this book to a boy! I bought "211 things a bright boy can do" anticipating it as a present for my 11 year old nephew, thinking that things like skimming stones and making sledges would be good occupations. However, when my 19-year-old son borrowed it, I learned what a mistake it would be to give it to a younger chap.

Why? Take for example as early as page 13 where the writer explains how and why to take snuff - not something I should encourage my nephew to do. Another activity is to guess a woman's bra size, something that my son has now been practising.

It'll be brilliant for the older boy or nearly young man - hence my son's pleasure in it (and I hope he follows its advice on how to mow the perfect lawn for us). It would delight a smutty-thinking 14-year-old but I'll be in trouble with his parents if I give it to their 11-year-old.

Eye of the needle

We visited the Forbidden Corner, taking aged Aunty E with us.

But we hadn't really realised just what a complicated maze it is. It's not just a maze where you wander round hedges, shouting to get out, and it's more than a garden where you admire the scent of the lavender. The whole thing is a maze and a puzzle, so if you wander out of the woods or away from the gardens you could find yourself paddling in streams, or exploring caves. It wasn't really where we should have gone with aged Aunty.

We found the underground world with a cobbled passage, lit only by the light in a door way at the end of the passage. It seemed a bit damp, so deeming it wiser to avoid AA falling we turned round and tried another route, but only ended up coming back to this cobbled passage. This second time, nobody else was blocking the light from the doorway at the end, so we carefully went down, down, down... Er. It was an illusion! As you got closer, the roof came lower, the passage narrower, you couldn't turn round, you had to go single file, and you had to bend down, then s q u e e z e through this doorway, which I duly did. And when I got out, I realised it was really a window. And there was AA behind me, trying to get through. She bent down, she stuck her walking stick through, handed me her handbag, and rearranged her limbs. By now, we had a queue of people behind AA, who didn't realise that you couldn't get out of this hole. My husband behind her, was making helpful suggestions, like "Legs first!" But that works no better than when you're having a baby that decides to come legs first and she just got more jammed. No. It had to be head and shoulders first, and Aunty's shoulders were just not going to go through. So there was husband pushing her bum, and me pulling her stick!

In the end, we all realised that the only way we would get her through would have been turn her sideways and post her like a letter through a letterbox. So I gave her back her handbag, and she and husband reversed back up the tunnel. I don't know how they got all the people out of the way, because I wasn't going back in that way, thank you and it took me nearly an hour to find them again. If you look at this web page, you'll find a picture of the hole.

They call that particular folly "The Eye of the Needle" so now we are joking about what AA has in common with camels, that she can't get through the eye of the needle! Fortunately, she was laughing as much as me. Great fun!

Great place. Teenage son and daughter explored and found all the clues.

Richmond

We've come up to Richmond to visit my parents. The town still has a selection of small shops, privately owned and run, though we are sad to see that Mr Coleman and Mr Morris's has closed and is to be reopened as a WH Smith's. That will ring the death knell for the little paper shop further up the square.

I see there are plans to twin the town with an American one at Annapolis. Mayor Ellen Moyer nicely describes our Richmond at her blogspot.

Visitors from Austria

We have two teenage girls from Austria staying with us for a fortnight. They are with a group of about 30 teenagers who get farmed out to a number of host families around the town. We provide them with bed, breakfast, packed lunch and supper. Each day they go either to English classes or out on trips with their flamboyant teacher. FT arrived yesterday in big white hat, bright red suit with mini skirt, bare brown legs, shod in high heels, with pink fish net tight ankle socks.

This morning the class was off to Thorpe Park for the day. Daughter packed their lunches and we walked the girls to the bus stop. When the coach arrived, FT gave me a big hug, and then invited daughter to go to Thorpe Park with them! And she's gone. She's got no sandwiches, no mobile, no money, probably no handkerchief - and she does have hay fever. I hope she has a wonderful time.

Funeral

Yesterday I went to my cousin's funeral.

The burial service was before the memorial service, and only immediate family were at that. At the memorial however, there were more than 70 people. They included family: cousins (my brother, me & my son), his ex-brother-in-law who had worked in his business with him for years, his wife's family, school friends from the 60s, parents of children that their children had gone to school with, skiing friends, including the president or head or chief of the British skiing institution. I thought that showed how much they cared.

People talk about celebrating someone's life, but this service really did start as a celebration. It started with the hymn that they'd started their married life with in 1976, Praise my soul, the king of heaven. It makes me smile to think of it. Lucky them - they had thirty years together. His brother described him faffing about with his first car, then read a poem of Gerald Manley Hopkins, The Windhover. Hopkin's poetry is so difficult to read; He'd tried to learn it by heart.

There was a slide show of pictures of him from baby to child to man, husband and father and ended rather splendidly with films of him skiing, stopping to face the camera, then skiing down the hill away from us. His brother-in-law talked about him and a friend played a guitar piece - I recognised it from the sixties or seventies but would someone who was there please tell me what it is called.

The readings were two of my favourites: Ecclesiastes 3: 1-9 and the prayer of St Francis read by his elder daughter.

The sit-down meal was with a full menu including red or white wine. Someone must have been very busy and organised to have arranged all that. Thank you to them because it was good to see my relatives.

The grave is in the non-conformist, not the Catholic section, of the graveyard. This means that the magnificent view is out over the hill sides, towards the sea, which you can just see between the hills.

Later I'll put a couple of other photos in our family web site.

Great teenagers

Isn't it wonderful what questions your children can ask?

At lunch table 17 year old asked how I was analysing the data so I explained that I'd transcribed the interviews and then had devised some codes to put against chunks of speech, but that when I came to apply them they didn't work so I created other codes of climate, process and structure and subdivided those when I came across ideas that reminded me of something in the literature, like conflict suggesting political elements. I didn't know I could verbalise what I was doing and it was great to have to answer the question.

Then the 17-Y-O, was saying something about "but that's only opinion, not facts" so she and 19-year-old brother got into debate of researching opinions and facts.

I'm so glad they're interested. They are going to have three more years of me doing this, and someone has to read my work before I give it to my supervisors.

Cheeky cat

Husband took cat to vet, but found nothing wrong. However he does have a chip, and he is a she, registered in Putney in 1998. She is called Cheeky.

Her name suits.

Scheherazade

Son and I went to see my nephew's year 6 leaving play at his school.

Here he is.

And here are some features from programmes, which came in different designs, a skill that would put some year 9 ICT students to shame.







and acknowledgments were due to:

Grief

My cousin is seriously not well. Some years ago he survived cancer of the kidney, but last week he was in hospital in London for a long operation, then moved to Christie's in Manchester, closer to where he lives. Now the family is asking for prayers for him and for his family, so I fear the worst.

If I hadn't been widowed 11 years ago, perhaps his death would be just a fact to me, and I would feel only sadness, but my experience means that I now care more that his wife-to-be-widow will lose him, and his children, especially his 17 year old son will be unfathered. His wife will become the sole decision maker, independent, lonely with no one to share with, the single carer for their third and youngest child. My husband's wife died when step-daughter #2 was about the same age. She never knew her mother as an adult, a companion and friend. She couldn't show off to her mother all the things that she got to do when she was grown up. I look at my 17 year-old daughter now and know that I must live some more years so that she can live happily, and grow up to what she should grow to be.

Cousin's son should be applying to university next year, perhaps like one of his sisters be considering Oxford. I wonder if he came for the June open days that daughter and I went to. Perhaps the family was too busy dealing with his father's illness. Perhaps he'll delay applying for a year. I don't know if he plans a gap year anyhow. His big sister and I never got to meet in the time that she was at Oxford, but it would be nice to meet him and perhaps offer home comforts if he wants to know. That might add in a more practical way to the prayers.

Promenade concert & cat

We went out to a prom concert last night. If you saw it on BBC 4 you'll know how smashing it was. The theme was French with music from the ilks of Rameau, but the difference was that there were dancers too, dancing to this 18th century French music, which must have been written to dance to. Initially these were classical ballet dancers, but even so, they danced to the audience, making us laugh, not being serious. However, the energy came from the Soweto dancers, who drummed and danced and played the violin too. With steps like the Russian one where you put your hands on the floor and spin round your legs so you have to jump over your own legs, and leaps high into the air, with the occasional squawk the audience was enraptured. The enthusiasm and energy grew throughout the second half of the performance, with the Monteverdi choir encouraging by doing Mexican waves. It was a most memorable concert for a wedding anniversary.

And when we got home, we found one of our children had left a bowl of cat food out, so we were asking ourselves which of them didn't know that the cat had gone, lost, dead. But it turned out that youngest had seen the cat. He isn't dead, but thin and slow but back again.

Wedding anniversary

July 15th is our seventh wedding anniversary. I think this is quite a good number for starters, though not a reason for resting on our laurels. You have to work at a relationship to keep it going well. Nevertheless, between us we notch up over 50 years of good marriages because husband was married for 27 years and I was married for 17 years before. So

27+17+7 > 50

Perhaps one year we'll have a big party to celebrate lots of years in total even if he and I won't make ruby together.

Cat gone

That bouncy young tom cat that adopted husband has gone. Just disappeared. He was around at our family barbecue last week, trying to snaffle the sausages, but on the Monday, husband said that he wasn't interested in food, was shivering, and was sleeping a lot. I saw him on Friday, sitting under the bushes, with no energy. By the time husband got home to take him to the vet, he'd disappeared and we haven't seen him since. He must have eaten something poisonous. I think that in winter his body will turn up under the bushes when the leaves drop off.

Grading

Passed the grading after all those dire prognostications. Ha! Got my blue tag.

And, like my GCE maths teacher insulted me with, "you've done better than I expected" the subum said, "I was pleasantly surprised!"

Na-na-na-na-na.

Taekwon Do grading

Taekwon Do grading is tomorrow. Subum says that he hasn't used the word 'fail', just the word 'retake', and has talked about September.

End of term wet weather

Youngest daughter is away on a school trip to Buxton, but I texted her about the PhD offer. It's nice having encouraging children - here's her reply.

"Wow, go you!" Been raining cats and dogs here, but still fun. Was 1st to get hurt and got pulled in water. Got too much to eat, even with budget. Go celebrate!"

It's succinct but full, isn't it? What does she mean that she got hurt? How? Why? And does "pulled in water" mean that she was shoulder high, drenched and half drowned, or what? If she was the first, then that implies others go hurt too. Oh dear!

The reference to the budget is because the school is giving them a limited amount of money from which they have to plan and purchase and prepare their meals together, so I think there are lots of lessons about resources, and social negotiation going on here.

Today she texted:

"Need to wash/dry sleeping bag. Our tent collapsed this morning while we were still inside. We've made a few new records for the centre challenges."

Oh dear again! Does she mean that the centre doesn't usually have collapsed tents or is there some unnamed challenge that she and others have beaten?

Doctoral progress

People who read this might want to know and be as pleased as I am to hear that the OUBS has offered me a place to continue with the doctoral programme for the next years.

:)

So I am a late developer who got her degree in her thirties, her masters in her forties and now .. working for my doctorate.

Home comings

Both Youngest Step Daughter and Son are due home soon from university. YSD was hoping to be able to stay in her present house but it transpires that the landlord isn't letting them stay and she has the hassle of finding somewhere else. But she's doing well and looks like she'll come out with a respectable degree.

S is still taking exams - I think they're called collections.

And the lodger is still with us, with a bit of an overlap, so we have to have negotiations over bedrooms.

For a few days it will be nicely busy as Son is bring home a couple of friends too - Oliver and Qu, so we'll have people in all the rooms.

Tae Kwondo

I've got a grading soon, and about time too, since it is months since I took a grading. But I muddle the moves.

Each grade or kup has an associated pattern of moves. At my kup, I should know a pattern called Won Yo, which I do, but the earlier kup has a pattern called Do San, and the one before is Dan Gun, and for nearly two years, I've confused them. Now I'm finding that when I do Do San, I'm even trying to mix in moves from Won Yo. :(

But despite my lack of kinesthetic or haptic memory, tae kwondo makes me smile so I shall keep doing it. I play tag, like I did in the playground. The small boys, when I get partnered with them, wonder why I don't keep up the same! And they cheat. Even when I do tag them, they don't perform their penalty, 3 press-ups or a sit up or something, but the warm-up game still makes me smile.

And there was the time I was partnered with big cockney accent - lovely chap, twice my weight. We had to face each other in press-up position, and attempt to knock each other's arms away so we'd collapse. He won of course, but I just kept laughing.

Baby all right, and mother too

My mother skyped me to ask how baby was; I didn't know.

But then today, Sdaughter#2 rang to tell me, since she was there at the time and helped with the ferrying to the hospital 15 minutes away, and minding big sister. Her mother did stay in hospital with her, and fed her and looked after her in the children's ward, while her daddy and aunty minded BS. Hospital did various checks and scans, and found a cracked skull and a bruised brain, but nevertheless baby is perky again, and happily enjoying the attention.

I think her mummy and daddy are working out how to make the floor less slippery and hard.