Friday 31 August 2012

"PAPRIKA LAMB!"

Yesterday I was at work. My colleague and I were just hanging around looking for things to do as it was a bit quiet. We had a little look in the fridge of homemade food and saw a stew of some sort. We didn't know for definite what it was, as the paprika lamb and the pork goulash often look quite similar. There was only one thing for it - the taste test (I sometimes have to do this on the cake, purely in the interests of the customer, you understand..). It tasted like pork. So we put a label on it and got on with other stuff.

Then the world arrived and wanted a sandwich. And they wanted things heated up and they wanted coffees and the wanted to buy this and that. So we woke ourselves up a little and got into 'military mode.' I was heating, wrapping, toasting and washing dishes in the kitchen. My colleague was making coffee, taking payments, taking orders and bagging things up in front of the shop. Due to this intensity of action, there was less time for niceties.

I would tear out of kitchen at 100 miles an hour, yelling "CALIFORNIAN CLUB SANDWICH!" and thrust it at the first person who looked up. "THANKS! HAVE A GOOD DAY!" I would yell, with equal ferocity, before disappearing back into the kitchen to deal with the next order. I'm not sure whether they felt I really meant that last statement...

Anyway, there were pans on hobs all over the place, heating soups and stews and whatever else found its way to me. At one point, I noticed something on a hob which had finished heating. I whipped out the rice, which was also finished and got it ready for take-out. I picked it up and raced out into the shop. I had forgotten how hot it was. My fingers started noticing the heat. Ignore it, I thought. Get the food out now, nurse the cuts and burns later.

I rushed into the shop at some speed, given the finger-burning situation and shouted, "PAPRIKA LAMB!"

.... There was no reaction. What was wrong with these people? My fingers are burning here, OW OW! Pay attention. It must be someone's.

"PAPRIKA LAMB!" shouted the crazy kitchen lady, again.

Again, no reaction. Some people were talking in the corner and I presumed it must be one of them. Why aren't they listening out for their food? I thought, impatiently.

"DID ANYONE ORDER A PAPRIKA LAMB WITH RICE TO TAKE AWAY?!" I yelled, raising my voice to get their attention. They all looked briefly at me, shook their heads, then went back to their conversation.

My patience was running low by this point. I needed to get back into the kitchen, I was busy and important, couldn't these people tell?! Someone needs to take this paprika lamb from me. I tried again.

"PAPRIKA LAMB!"

Nothing. I turned to my colleague, who was making a coffee, and asked her, "Do you know who's paprika lamb this is?"

(Has anyone else spotted the mistake yet?)

She said (wait for it.....), she said, "O, is that the pork goulash?"

Yes. Yes, it is. Because we don't have paprika lamb, do we....

A pause. I figure out how to deal with the situation.

"Is anyone waiting for pork goulash?" I said, voice lowered significantly.

The man in front of me stepped forward, thanked me and took his pork goulash.....

Crazy kitchen lady returned to her kitchen cave at the back of the shop and quietly got on with the next order.....

Thursday 30 August 2012

A book review or two

In my quest to Finish All The Books I'm In The Middle Of Reading, I have found a few gems that I thought I'd tell you about.

First up is Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie by Andrew Sykes. This is the story of a man who, after resolving to spend his summer doing next to nothing, gets a little bored and dreams of adventure. He decides to travel from his home in Reading to the southern tip of Italy, following a route known as the Via Francigena. He covers France, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Italy.

For five weeks, he heads determinedly toward southern Italy and the book details the hours spend on the bike each day and the distance covered. Once you have seen a few of these, you start to understand the massive task that he is carrying out. His writing is extremely readable. I'd often intend to read a few pages while on the bus or before work and find myself transported to a campsite where Andrew and Reggie searched for somewhere away from the noisy midnight fishers or party people. Suddenly I was late for work or had almost missed my stop.

Andrew makes sure we are privy to everything his trip threw at him. Rarely are we left with a quick summing up of an entire day in a few sentences. I really love the diary style of this book. It puts you right there in the scene with him and Reggie and connects you to his journey in a way that, upon finishing it with him, you experience a sense of achievement.

Various things stick out in my memory on finishing the book. The scene where Andrew and Reggie cross the lake near Buochs in Switzerland and we are given a detailed explanation of how one "lashes" a bike to boat had me laughing out loud. When Andrew stops for lunch near the end of his journey, in Valrano Scala, and finds something called a "chip pizza" I was utterly mystified. The entire Italy section was very exciting reading for me anyway, given that I have had a preoccupation with Italian cuisine for quite some time and I am also going to Rome in a few weeks. So I read with anticipation and soaked up every bit of it. Then the scene with the chip pizza occurred. And it made me doubt everything. It make me doubt my trip, the Italians, and the future of food in general. What was this madness?! I have since been assured that chip pizzas are very tasty.... I remain sceptical.

Another thing which struck me about this trip is people's willingness to offer a helping hand. Andrew finds a welcoming face every so often on his trip and these people always show such kindness, it makes you feel good about people in general (the chip pizza inventor excepted).

It is a lovely lovely book. A little while ago I read a book about a man who cycles to India, called You've Gone To Far This Time, Sir and love love loved it. Therefore, when I saw this book, about another cycling journey, I came to it with high expectations, having had such a great read last time. I was thankfully not disappointed. It is well written and fascinating. In light of epic journeys being taken, I have start making more solid plans for a walking adventure. Given that I can be quite lazy though, I think Andrew and Reggie will put me to shame as I'll probably just walk to the shops for some chocolate and back....

(I read this book on the Kindle app on my phone.)

I thought I'd do another quick book review as I recently finished listening to The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivy on Audible.com and it was very good. It was read beautifully, the story was beautiful and it's one of those books I keep telling people to listen to if I hear they have the Audible.com app.

An older couple decide to move to Alaska and buy some farming land, against the advice of their families. They are childless and it has always been an unspoken heartache between them. Their first few months are hard but one day, with wild abandon, they play outside in the snow and build a snowman. Well, more precisely a snow-girl. They put a scarf on it and carve a face. When they wake up, the scarf is gone and for a long time afterwards, they catch glimpses of a little girl running in the woods outside their home.

The development of this story is handled with such skill that your thoughts on first hearing about the 'girl' they see are a world away from your thoughts when the story concludes. It's a story that creeps up on you. First you're just listening every so often, thinking that the book is quite good. Then suddenly, you can't wait to take your break at work, in order to listen to a few more minutes of it.

Finishing this book was something that took a few days of recovery. My initial thoughts about the final scene changed over time and I still feel uncertain about exactly what happened.

It is a book of uncertainties and therein lies the beauty of it. It is intriguing and enticing. It draws you in steadily until every twist and turn occupies your thoughts long after you have stopped listening/reading.

It is also read very well. When I downloaded and listened to a few other books, I realised how lucky I had been with the reader of The Snow Child. If you are already with Audible.com, listen to this book.

Wednesday 29 August 2012

Are you going to Scarborough Fair? No!

It's Wednesday so it's over to the guest blogger again for a visit to Scarborough...

I suppose the title gives it away. Yep, I visited Scarborough. I didn’t go to the fair and I didn’t see one. I didn’t see any parsley, sage, rosemary or thyme and no-one lives there who’s a true love of mine!

Let’s start with the accommodation: a Youth Hostel (means any age allowed, in fact). Here’s the approach road (lane?) and the hostel at the far end.
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Arriving somewhat hungrily around 5pm, I decided to go for the full monty and booked an evening meal and a breakfast for the morning to go along with my plush bunk bed. Both were well cooked and I enjoyed someone else cooking for me. There were two of us for evening meal; the rest self-catered or went to the nearby pub. My co-eater, it turned out, was a cyclist down from Tyneside to do some trips out on the Moors. This 70 year old had cycled over 35 miles up hill and down dale that day!

So if I didn’t go to the fair, had I found it, and I didn’t get any spices, why was I there?

It’s a story that goes back over 200 years. I’m doing some family history research and have traced a set of great-great-great grandparents to an address in Scarborough. Now just so you get the idea on these relatives think of this: biologically, we each have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, 16 great-great grandparents & 32 great-great-great grandparents. So I’ve found 2 of those 32! I had an address from the Census of 1841 and I wanted to see if anything remained of the area or even the street. Also I wondered if there might be any other local info about the time when they lived there.

My research day started with a walk from the Youth Hostel up the hill to the bus stop. I arrived in plenty of time and checked with the local who was already there that I was on the correct side of the road for where I wanted to go. The bus route was a circular one so I wanted to make sure I was not going to go the long way round. Then surprise, surprise we just started talking and ended up talking the whole time we were waiting for the bus to arrive. Seems like a friendly place I thought.

Once I’d arrived in the town centre, my first stop was the library for the academic research. I gave the lady in the library the name I was looking for and told her that I’d rung about 18 months ago to make some inquiries. She said she remembered the call! When I sounded surprised she said the name I’d asked about was very unusual for the town and that’s why she remembered it. I had a good 3 hours digging about in the old records and then set off for some sight-seeing looking for some of the places which would have been familiar to my distant relatives.

First stop was street where the folks from long ago lived. It was still there although the original housing has gone. However some features are still there and it was interesting to see that the steps leading to the upper part of town and to the church where they got married are still there. They must have walked them many times. It somehow felt as if I had some connection although I’d never been there before and no-one in the family knew of this link to Scarborough all those years ago.
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This picture is Edwardian so is about 60 years later than when my ancestors were there but it gives a feel for the place. This upper part of the street is called Church Stairs St. for obvious reasons. The original flight of steps dates back to the 14th cent but they were replaced later with stone and there are 199 of them. Why didn’t they make one more? Just off the bottom of the picture the street crosses a junction and on the other side becomes St Mary’s St which is the street where my far off ancestors lived for a while. Here’s a present day view of the lower part of the street.
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Using the birth records of their children, I know they moved out of this street to London some time between 1841-1846. It seems they moved there to find work and settled on the western side of Isle of Dogs. The street they lived in there is described as “a narrow way with a lay-by to enable two carts to pass each other; it was little more than an access to the iron works on either side.” That has to be narrow if they had to make a lay-by for carts to pass each other. And it has to be for very poor families. I looked on an old map of the area and it looked like living on an industrial estate between two factories. Anyway I stood in St Mary’s St for a few minutes just thinking about the conditions they left and what they thought they were going to and what I know they might have found in such an industrial area. I saw this plaque on the wall of a far newer property in the street where they had lived. I wondered if their parents had possibly heard the man himself preach.
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John Wesley had preached at a chapel on the site 14 times between 1759-1790. It means he must have visited the town a number of times as he travelled extensively about the country on horseback. Sometimes he preached in the fields outside of towns because some churches would not let him into their pulpits and sometimes because there were just too many people to fit inside one building.

I went up to St Mary’s Church at the top of the steps, in the old pic, and made my way to the grave yard where I sat down on a bench seat to take in the view across the bay. I ate my sandwiches and looked at the grave I’d sat next to.
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And here’s the transcription as the original gravestone was badly decayed
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As you can see by the correction on the plain slate version, the original stone mason actually carved the wrong age for Anne. She was born 17.1.1820 & died 28.5.1849 so was definitely 29 years old not 28 as on the original stone. Interesting. Anne wrote the two novels Agnes Grey (which I’ve not read) & The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (which I have, and it’s good).

The Brontës endured tragedy after tragedy. Look below at the ages at death of their mother Maria and all six children:

Maria, mother of 6 Brontë children, aged 38 (Sep 1821)
Maria, aged 11 (6th June 1825)
Elizabeth, aged 10 (15th June 1825)
Branwell, aged 31 (Sep 1848)
Emily, aged 30 (Dec 1848)
Anne, aged 29 (May 1849)
Charlotte, aged almost 39 (Mar 1855)

So in the space of 8 short months Charlotte, having already lost her mother in 1821 & 2 sisters in the space of 10 days in 1825, lost two more of her sisters and brother in the period 1848-9; she survived them by just 6 years. Charlotte’s husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls, lived to 3rd Dec 1906 surviving Charlotte by 51 years!
In this next pic, look at where the church decided to put the refreshments notice. Yep, that’s right, next to the most visited grave of the most famous person in the graveyard! I couldn’t help feeling it looked out of place and perhaps shouldn’t have been there.
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I did, though, go and look inside the church, where my ancestors married, and then ended up buying a cup of tea and scone and chatting to the two ladies serving. I wondered if some kind of subliminal message had reached me from that notice in the graveyard! It was here that I got my old photo postcard. As I walked back down the hill I came to this scene and fully expected the sea gulls to fly away as I approached. They didn’t. It meant I got close enough for this photo. As I went into the shop just to the left of the blue car, I was surprised to hear a voice say, “I hope you’re not disturbing my friends.”

Friends? Yes apparently the lady who owns the shop has been feeding one of these birds since he was a baby! He comes every day, sometimes with a friend, to get some food from her. She calls them her “boys”. I’m not that good on determining the gender of gulls so I didn’t know if they were “boys” or “girls”. I’ll bet she shop lady is not popular with the car owners. Remember the post about bird droppings; the birds are standing on a silver car and silver formed only 3% of car colours which get hit. They appear to have ignored the blue one and yet blue comes second in the table of colours most hit. Perhaps my photo disproves the theory although when I looked at the roofs they hadn’t done any droppings so I wasn’t sure what to conclude.
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As I walked back towards the town centre I saw this little alleyway with its name carved into the stone arch. I’ve not seen that done before. Didn’t seem like a route to be taken during the hours of darkness even today. Despite its name implying some delusion of grandeur (palace) I did wonder just what kind of life existed in alleyways like this 200 years ago.
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A little bit further back into the town centre, at the top of the cliffs overlooking the beach was this.
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To the right of the pic is the steeply-angled railway down to the beach and here is one of the carriages. It’s called a cliff railway or funicular railway.





Here’s the entrance just to the right of the picture above. Thanks to Wikipedia for this one as mine didn’t come out.
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And so it was time to hit the road. I had to return to the Youth Hostel to pick up my gear and drive home. It had been a good day. I liked Scarborough. I will go back.

Tuesday 28 August 2012

A revolution in my swimming world

Now this may seem quite silly to most. It's a tiny thing that does not deserve its own post. The majority will wonder why I have not been doing it all along. But I haven't. And now I am. And it's a revolution of epic proportions.

I swam with my face UNDER the water yesterday!

Usually I don't need to, if I'm doing back stroke for example. But when I do breast stroke, I just stay above water. The whole water-rushing-up-nose thing didn't really appeal. This is also the sole reason I do not do front crawl.

I was quite happy in my little back stroke and breast stroke world. I knew I still had four years to train for the next Olympics so there was no real rush.

Then yesterday, someone told me to just go under and stop being a baby. Just breathe out through your nose and mouth and no water can get in, they told me. I was sceptical. I dipped under a few times, panicked, and breathed water hard into my throat. A ha! It was proved! My fear of water-up-nose was justified as I had water up my nose.

Breathe out, not in, silly.

So I tried again breathing out and it was fine. I did it a few more times. Then I did breast stroke with my head under. Amazing! You can see everything under the pool through your goggles and it's really wierd. Cool. But wierd. The noise of splashing and voices cuts off and suddenly you're in a silent world of legs and blue.

Then I approached a stroke I never do. Never ever. Because I see so many other people doing it extremely inelegantly and wish they'd stop. And I also see so many people doing it brilliantly and know I'll never look like them.

It was time.... For front crawl....

My front crawl currently looks a little like a drowning cat so I only do it for short bursts, until I can no longer stand doing something so unOlympicy and then I stop. But it's a revolution! I'm breaking new ground here. It's very exciting.

P.S. I fully understand if some of you leave this post in disgust. What kind of swimmer goes swimming almost every day for over two months before putting their face under? In my defence, I will say that I was just taking it slowly, ok?

Monday 27 August 2012

You really must stop with all the awards...! (Not really, I love it)

My award for Very Inspiring Blogger comes from cimplicityrockss and was awarded to me last month. As I got another award on the same day, I thought I'd space them out, to prevent an award onslaught (look, I didn't ask to be this cool, it just came naturally, so don't blame me).

 

Cimplicityrockss writes a fantastic blog which does what it says on the tin, it's simple lessons learned and shared. There's always something lovely to read there. Thanks so much for the award!

 

Next, I have to share seven facts about myself. Ok, here goes... Ermm....

 

1. I used to have a crush on Arnold Schwarzenegger. I know. I know. Please don't tease me. I was young.

2. Despite being from Liverpool, my entire interaction with football has been a crush on Ryan Giggs when I was about 8 years old.

3. The other night, instead of eating dinner, I had a chocolate and orange cake. Don't judge me. I was trapped in the house because of the torrential rain. I wanted to get out and get real food but I couldn't! It wasn't my fault! Well, I did manage get out for a minute in between downpours. To get the chocolate cake.

4. I have quite an obsessive nature. I just discovered a singer called Jessie Ware and have been listening to two of her songs on repeat for the past week. Still not bored.

5. One my worst habits is, when I have figured out that I don't really like someone, or am not interested in being friends with them, I just tune out. I'm not rude, I just don't take an interest. It can lead to awkward social situations where I find myself chatting to someone who's name I don't know, even though I've met them loads, and who I can't remember anything about. Conversation is limited when they're talking to you about something they think you understand but you don't.

6. I often wish I was a centaur.

7. I am a girl who likes rules. For example, every Christmas I read the entire Chronicles of Narnia. Every time I go on holiday I read Little Women. When I get sick I read Winnie The Pooh. This is also why I like filing and paperwork.

 

Now I nominate seven blogs I find inspiring. So here they are, in no particular order...

1. uvfitnesssuzie - She's new to the blogging scene and already she's fabulous. Common sense advice (from someone who's done it themselves) on getting fitter and losing weight, without the point-counting nonsense you find some places.

2. My Far Away Places - Great little snapshots from travels around the world. Today's post on Albania was interesting due to its unfamiliarity. Recenet travel posts about this area of the world have all been great too.

3. As Time Goes... Buy - There's always something pretty to look at in this blog. As a not-very-fashion-conscious girl myself, I stumbled upon this blog, not expecting to be that interested in its content but actually it's good fun. I loved the recent metallic-clothing posts and even debated whether to hunt down a shiny bag for myself.

4. From A Tuscan Villa - What's not to love? This Tuscan villa is in Bagni di Lucca and the blog features little snapshots of life from around the town. In another world, it would be MY Tuscan villa and my blog!

5. Not So Skinny Genes - Anything and everything, and all of it interesting, well-written and extremely readable. My favourite recent post was about lessons being learned in a new (male-dominated) workplace.

6. Photography Journal Blog - Fantastic photos of all different things and commentary on what it is, how the photo was taken, etc. There is also a great attitude to improving and asking advice on pictures. I like dipping into this blog every few days to see what's been posted lately.

7. Grumpy Comments - I'm pretty sure I've nominated this blog before but I'm going to nominate it again, for plenty of reasons (centred around general fabulousness and a painfully acute awareness of self) but mainly because of the hilarious post this morning about being stroked on the wrist and finger-squeezed by a stranger whilst at work!

Sunday 26 August 2012

Fun with eggs

I can just imagine the search terms people will enter today and end up here. Things like, 'how to bake a cake with eggs' or 'how many eggs should I use in a quiche' or something. And do you know what they'll get? They'll get a silly story about my first year of living in halls at university.

There were five of us girls, all sitting around, day in, day out, being all free and away from home. Actually, we started as a six-peice but one of us, we'll call her Smelly, opted for a life of not washing or being present. We'd find old unwashed pots and pans hidden in her wardrobe when we entered to find all our stuff she had borrowed and never returned. It was like entering a dungeon.

Anyway, I procrastinate, as usual. So we were a five-peice. We spent a lot of time dancematting. I think I have skated over this issue briefly. Now is the time to explain what was really going on. I would play dance mat every day. Every single day. For hours. Hours and hours and hours. I would shower two, sometimes three, times a day following yet another sweat-filled session jumping around in front of the tv. I often had a bit of a limp when I walked. I had blisters on my big toes and my calves were so tight, I couldn't walk down stairs properly. I had to turn sideways and step gingerly down, both feet on one stair, before being able to move to the next one. As I lived on the first floor and my walk to work took an hour, this became quite a problem.

Another thing we did to pass the time was to play The Egg Game. I don't know who came up with it. I think it was the product of one of those discussions about wierd facts that surely can't be true. Do eggs really cook in the microwave, was the discussion at hand.

We took eggs from the fridge, as clearly, the theory must be tested. We each had one. We each drew a face on our egg. We each placed our egg on the glass plate inside the microwave. We closed the door. We set the time going. And we watched. And we sang. And we sang louder in excitement until the singing was screams. We watched. And we screamed.

And nothing happened.

We stopped screaming. We watched. We got bored.

BANG!!

The door of the microwave was thrown open violently and cooked egg nonsense hurled itself out at us all. We SCREAMED and ran as though under attack. Then we laughed nervously, pretending we hadn't been scared.

Were you scared? No, I wasn't! Haha! Were you? Was I? No, of course not. No. I wasn't. Not me.... Definitely not me.... Noooo... Nope.

We approached the eggy microwave and peered in. Only one had gone. Another was squealing threateningly and another had leaked a little and the leakage had cooked white.

There was only one thing for it. We removed the suicide bomber, closed the door and continued the experiment, gripping each other, nervously. One after another, each went. Some barely making a noise. Some throwing their entire contents against the walls of the microwave.

A brief clean up and breather got our heart rates back to normal and now we knew. The next time we were bored, we had a game to play. The Egg Game.

One time, we found a egg which has become legendary in the history of our friendship. The Long Egg. As the name suggests, it was an egg which was longer than your average. I forget exactly how the egg went, but I'm sure that, during it's time on the battlefields of The Egg Game, it fought valiantly and with great courage. It left a little of itself forever ingrained into the nooks and crannies on the ceiling of it's fighting arena, the bits you can't get to with the cleaning wipes, you know.

We salute you, Long Egg. You have a special place in our hearts. Love from the inhabitants of Flat D.

(P.S. We also tried testing another rumour, that if you put a carrot in the microwave for ages then take it out and snap it in half, flames shoot out! This one, sadly, did not work.)

Saturday 25 August 2012

Listening to children talk

Yaya: "Are you five?"
Friend: "No. I'm just four."
Yaya: "I'M FOUR!"
Friend: "I'll be five soon."
Yaya: "O... I won't be five soon. I'm a little bit littler than you."
Friend: "Yeh, I'm the biggest."
Yaya: "BUT! But when I'm five, I'll be REALLY big!"
Friend: "You can come to my party. It will be at my house. You can come."
Yaya: "I had a party when I was four. It was at my house. We had cake in the garden."
Friend: "Look at my picture. It's of you. Laura, I did a picture of Yaya."
Me: "Oo, very nice."
Yaya: "Mine's green. Cause you know what? Green's my favourite colour."
Friend: "And that's the hair."
Silence while they colour in.
Friend: "Ok! Let's play babies! I'm the Mummy and you're the Daddy."
Yaya: "Yeh. The mummies are in charge, aren't they?"
*sounds of me snickering in the corner*
Friend: "Come on. Let's take our baby out for a walk."
Yaya: "Let's play hide and seek! I'll count. Four. Six. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve!"
*a little look behind the door reveals Friend*
Yaya: "I'm going to colour in now. I need the green pen. Look! Look at my picture."
Friend: "I've got a book about princesses. I'll get it."
Yaya: "I'm wearing a Buzz Lightyear t-shirt."

...And so on and so forth....

Friday 24 August 2012

The bits of London you won't find in a guidebook

The other day, I had a day off and didn't quite know what to do with myself. I decided to go swimming but wanted something a little more exciting than my local pool. A few people had suggested the lido in Tooting, an area I'm unfamiliar with. So I took the plunge and decided to get myself acquainted with Balham and Tooting. 

Each part of London is kind of like a little world of it's own. There's a distinctly different feel to Brixton than there is to Kensington, or from Richmond (where the bus I was on starts) than there is to Tooting (where the bus route ends). As soon as I got off the bus, I was in the teeming, bustling crowds of Tooting High Street. As opposed to the gentle quietness of Highgate, this was the busy, noisy sounds of life being lived in a small space. The shops immediately in front of me were an Indian greengrocers, a South Asian restaurant and (strangely enough) a 'Caribbean and Bagel takeaway'!
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Getting into the spirit of things, I grabbed some fruit at the greengrocers and was persuaded by the man at the till to buy some freshly baked naan breads. They were still warm so instead of waiting for a Naan Stop later, I got one out and munched as I walked. 

I got to Balham train station before long, where frightened locals hid on the platforms during the war. Some were killed and I was guessing that the big pictures outside were some kind of memorial to them, although I couldn't find anything to confirm this. 

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I was on Tooting Common before long, a lovely open space where children played rounders and mums/nannies with buggies looked glamorous and bored. On one section of the path which leads across the Common to the lido, there is an old by-law which says that one must hop. Just this section, mind you. As the law has not been repealed, and I didn't want to be arrested, I got hopping. I mistakenly thought it would be a funny thing to do for ten seconds or so, but the section of path was quite lengthy. I guess now is the time to admit that I still had slightly sore calves from my vigorous dance mat session in Bognor Regis so my leg was pretty upset with me after quite some time of hopping. I checked for policemen and, as there were none about, risked my luck and walked the final section. 

I crossed over a road and plunged into thick trees and bushes. There is an unkempt attractiveness to Tooting Common. Like once a year, someone comes and has a quick tidy-up, just makes sure the paths are still walkable, then leaves it alone again.
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It gives you the impression that you're first discovering something unseen for centuries, just a small pathway to prove that people once walked here. It is mostly unpopulated too, so I spent the majority of my walk on the Common without seeing other people.

 All of a sudden, noises and splashed invaded my solitude. Through a fence I could see the blue of the lido. After finally working out the way in, I paid my £6 and picked one of the many colourful changing room doors to put my stuff in. This lido is pretty well renowned for being one of the largest open air pools in Europe. It is 100 yards long and 30 yards wide. There is a million gallons of (cold) water in it! When lots of outdoor pools were closed down, this one clung on, thanks in large part to the South London Swimming Club, who's home is at the lido. They swim every morning of the year, even Christmas Day! 

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Despite there being a lot of people there, only about half were in the water and all at the shallow end. I had the deep end mostly to myself apart from a few who were doing lengths. Lots of people were sitting around the pool on the benches or playing on the grassy area by the shallow kids' pool. I approached a set of stairs and gingerly put a foot in, inhaling sharply when the cold hit me. The other foot went in. Down a step, up to my knees. More inhaling and telling myself to breathe slowly. Down again, thighs in. Cold! I paused here. I realised that if I didn't want to spent two hours getting in, there was only one thing for it. I got out, walked to the side of the pool, and jumped! And it wasn't as bad as I thought. It was cold, of course, but did not induce the heart attack I had feared it would. I got moving straight away, to warm up. 

I'll do ten lengths, just a quick one. Maybe twenty if I feel energetic after just ten. I had forgot.... 'just ten' in my local pool took about ten minutes, maybe fifteen. Ten lengths in this pool was going to take waaaaay longer. By the time I'd done one length, I was panting a bit. I had forgotten about the 100 yards thing. But I had paid £6 so was determined to get my money's worth. I powered up and down, doing backstroke to go faster at the top end, and breaststroke at the bottom, to avoid knocking out any children. Ten lengths later, I was a lot more breathless than I'd expected to be and went off to the showers, congratulating myself on 'getting my money's worth' but hoping the rest of my walk wouldn't be too energetic. 

Post-swim extreme hunger set in and I grabbed another naan bread, while sitting at the side of the pool, drying my feet and putting my shoes on. A man with a Spanish accent, pranced about on the edge of the pool, jumped (belly-flopped) in, looking to me for approval as soon as his head came back up. He then came over and attempted small talk. Given his unimpressive jumping style, I smiled politely but finished putting on my shoes and left. Back on to Tooting Common I went, and headed for a duck pond I knew was around here somewhere. 

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One winter day, about five years ago, my friend Joe and I came to Tooting to look round and explore the Common. We found this duck pond, frozen over. I was checking how thick the ice was by pressing my foot on the surface. Of course it took my weight so I pressed a little harder, leaned more heavily with my shoe. Of course it then cracked and in went the foot, right up to the ankle. I was wearing mid-calf length boots and this little 'dip' left me with a freezing cold, wet foot, for the rest of the day. One of my less clever moments in life...!

There was also a little cafe, where Joe and I had sat, taking in the view. I forget what we ate/drank then, but to commemorate being back after so long, I got an ice cream. It seemed like the right thing to do. My ice cream and I then left the Common and walked back toward Balham train station. On the way there, I passed a massive apartment building called Du Cane Court.
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According to legend, this was a landmark for German bombers during the war, leading to rumours about German spies living on the top floor and the building looking like the shape of the swastika from above. I walked around it to check the rumour and it seems to be a giant E shape. I'm not sure whether the rumour-spreaders ever went to the trouble of doing this because it honestly took me about ten minutes to figure out that it was not a swastika shape. Anyway, maybe they know something I don't. 

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Inside the foyer, there is an old-school glamour to everything. I wouldn't have been surprised if I'd learned that it had been used in films. 

 

Shortly after this apartment block, I wound my way around some side streets to Wandsworth Common, the far side of which was Oscar Wilde's one-time residence, the ominous-looking prison behind the high walls. More bored, glamorous mums/nannies were gathered in a huge circle, chitchatting. An ice-cream van played tunes loudly and there was a bowling green hidden away in a far corner. Around the edge of the Common, where I stopped to wait for the bus, was a restaurant called Chez Bruce, where Marco Pierre White first made his name in London. This is Bellevue Road, a total step out of what the rest of my walk has been like. Bellevue Road is fashionable, trendy and littered with young professionals, supping their lattes outside high-end delis and expensive bistros. A flower shop had spilled some of its goodies out onto the pavement and, in the spirit of summer and my walk, I bought a potted sunflower, which is currently enjoying its new home in a bigger pot, on my patio.

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Thursday 23 August 2012

The bus journey of memories

I get on, beep my Oyster card and sit down. I have a magazine with me, intending to read it, but I know deep down I won't actually read it. Because this bus journey is one which runs through the memories I have made since coming to London. I'm always drawn to look out of the window.

It starts by the pharmacy where I would come and get Bio Oil every week or so after my operation last year. To try and make my huge hideous scar fade a little. Next I'm at the garage I used to walk to when I was allowed off bedrest, to try and get my energy back. There's the bike shop where I wheeled my bike in despair one day when I had a puncture while cycling to work. It was a brand new bike and I felt very protective of it. I hung around nervously while they took it in the back to fix, trying to catch a glimpse of it. And there's the shoe shop where I worked for six weeks before leaving because the manager was awful. And opposite is the Waitrose I don't like because it's laid out differently to the one I usually go to. There's the pub I once went on a date to. One of those dates where you realise that someone is much more likeable from a distance. Moving on to the getting-to-know-you stage had been a mistake. The Oliver Bonas shop is next. I've never been in there. I had a friend who worked at one of their other shops. On the left is the running shop which used to be a running and cycling shop. I lost faith in them when they got rid of the cycling part of the shop. I was quite a regular visitor, used to get kitted out in my lycra there. Then here's the garden centre on my right. I used to cycle down here for compost and seeds etc, when I started keeping an allotment in my final year at uni. Next is the Memories of Mortlake shop. I always look at it from my bike or from a bus window and think it looks lovely but have never been in. Next, we are at the traffic lights and the bus stop on the other side of the road is where I used to wait when I worked at a coffee shop where the shifts started at 5.30am. Once, while waiting for the bus there, an old man started mumbling and shuffling over to me and when I listened to his mumbles, he was asking me what colour my knickers were! I promptly set off walking fast for the next bus stop. Next we come onto a road which is flooded with early London memories. We're passing my old university on my right and the council estate where I lived for two and a half years having loads of fun but with the worst landlord in the history of the world.

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The university buildings cover the whole right side of the road until it ends at the road I used to cycle down when going into the park. I went through a phase of cycling around Richmond Park twice every morning first thing, before I did anything else. Next is the little cobbled road on my left where my uni friends and I would get a takeaway from Dong Phuong's at least once a week, minimum. Next, up the road to the motorway and on my right is the other council estate where my friend, Sophie, and I viewed a flat before ending up at the one we passed earlier. We pass by Putney Heath and another council estate where Sophie and I viewed a flat with a girl we didn't know, who never got back to us about whether she wanted to move in. It was a bit of a walk from uni anyway, so we opted for the one just over the road! Turn left and follow the motorway through Wimbledon Common, which I used to cycle across when the coffee company I worked for, needed me to cover shifts at the Wimbledon branch. I once got very very lost on the common for over an hour. I was quite frantic by the time I found a dog walker and asked him for directions. We're now in Wimbledon Village and the bar where my friend, Robyn, brought me years ago, when I first came to her house and we had gone out dancing. We danced to Kylie's Can't Get You Out Of My Head. I had learned the dance moves from the video and we did them, over and over. Down the hill and approaching Wimbledon station, where we dropped Joe off to get the train, before going to the bar I just passed. We turn before the station and it starts to get into unchartered territory. We pass through Southfields, where I thought for years that my friend Jay lived. She would always leave early in the evening to get home on time and I wondered why she was being so over-cautious. After all, she just needed to jump on the one bus.... I think it was Sophie who pointed out that she did not live down the road in Southfields. She lived significantly further away in Southall.... Oops! Well it's all south, that's what I say. We go through lots of areas which are unfamiliar until we hit Tooting, and the cafe on my left where I once met Joe so we could go and explore Tooting, to report back to a friend who was soon to move to a campus there from abroad. And the restaurant shortly after where I met an old uni friend for dinner a few months after my operation, still feeling a bit fragile. This is where I get off, to do a bit of exploring and to make some more memories.

Wednesday 22 August 2012

A walk with mad dogs and Englishmen....

I'm handing over to the guest blogger today, for his last post about his holiday walks.


This was my 3rd and last holiday walk. It was overcast. I packed my rain gear. I began by heading north through the village. What I witnessed next seemed somewhat ominous.
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It looked a bit like that scene from the Hitchcock film and I looked behind just in case I was going to turn into Tippi Hedren II. (Tippi, by the way, is Melanie Griffith’s mother.)
However just 15 mins later the sky began to clear a bit and I came across this.
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As I was walking through the next village I saw this little chap
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One of those horses with little legs. I didn’t have my tape measure with me to see if it qualified as a miniature horse but I thought it should be one. Apparently it would have to be 34-38ins (86-97cms) to the last hairs of the mane in order to be called a miniature horse.
A bit further on and I was down another one of those narrow pathways.
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Through the gap in the trees in the distance, across a golf course and a bit further on I came to this
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It was one of those things that there is always a waiting list for here in the UK – a beach hut! This one is about 15ft (4.57m) x 10ft (3.05m). The gentleman told me he’d bought his in the 1960s for a few hundred pounds and that recently one was sold for £22,000 ($34,500). Sounds a big increase but I suppose you have to bear in mind it’s probably a 50 year gap. Had he bought it from the council? No, from the LeStrange Estate which owns the land. The family can trace their ancestry back to around 1100AD when the first LeStrange, a Breton who emigrated from northern France, inherited the land through marriage. The name, not unsurprisingly, means ‘the foreigner’ or ‘the stranger’. There are no service facilities to the huts. Water is available via a tap nearby. When offered a cup of tea I was asked to fill the kettle. “The tap’s behind the hut near the path,” he said. Off I went. Unable to locate the tap I returned and he showed me where it was. Can you see it? It’s near the fence post in the grass!
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A barrier of sand dunes means that this is the view from the hut.
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The sea is over the other side and a long walk out. I didn’t.
I set off continuing my exploration and in a mile or so came to the local lifeboat station. Because of the nature of the coast, the sand dunes and the fact that the water could be a long way out a conventional “launch” down a slipway is not possible. The lifeboat is not really a lifeboat – it’s a “lifehovercraft” - Problem solved! I’ve never seen one of those before.
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After an ice-cream stop it was time to return to the cottage and as with many routes around there it was off across the fields again for another couple of miles. Then through the Downs area and back along the road. As you can see by this pic the day which had begun overcast now had bright sunshine. Time to mop that brow again as the heat really rose. I was the Englishman out with the “mad dogs”!
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Fancy having this as your walk home from the office each day? Summer yes! Winter, maybe not.
Just before arriving back at the cottage I passed the sign I mentioned a couple of weeks ago by the duck pond:
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Tuesday 21 August 2012

Songs that remind me of stuff

Mariah Carey - Heartbreaker album
I was big into Mariah when I was younger. I'd sit warbling away to My All or Always Be My Baby, imagining a life where I was christened The Voice and asked to sing for the Queen and made people get a little teary with my beautiful singing. In my late teens, I still listened to anything and everything she sung but kept it a little quiet and pretended I was listening to Destiny's Child. When I started learning to drive, my instructor was a slightly older gentleman who was a bit of a pushover. I wasn't supposed to have any music on but knew he would let me, so made a mixtape of all my favourite Mariah hits, mostly from the Heartbreaker album and would listen to it on my driving lessons. There's an area of Liverpool called Garston, that we drove through a lot so I always think of Garston when I hear that album.

Leaving on a Jet Plane by Peter, Paul and Mary (or Bjork)
When the gap year organisation that I went away with did the training session I was on, there were a few country groups being trained together. Us Namibia volunteers had been put with the two Mozambique volunteers, the two Bolivia volunteers and the really huge China group. There were about thirty of them going to different projects. Two of these volunteers, a boy called Joe and a girl called Robyn became my new favourite people. We were glued together most of the time, find everything ridiculously funny and just generally having fun. Somehow, a discussion of our favourite songs came up and Joe and I had the sane favourite song - Leaving on a Jet Plane. And we all were about to leave in jet planes for our gap years! I loved the original by Peter, Paul and Mary. He loved the cover by Bjork. So this confirmed it. We were destined to be best friends forever. In case you were wondering, Robyn and Joe and I are still good friends. It must have been the mutual song-love.

Dispatch - The General
When I was on my gap year, my friend Lucy used to listen to this song all the time. This reminds me of foolish nights out when we had first arrived and didn't quite know what we were doing and had a load of friends over, post-pub, talking nonsense for hours, despite the fact that we would be teaching a few hours later.

Lauryn Hill and Bob Marley - Turn Your Lights Down Low
We were on the longest bus journey in the world, my friend and I, travelling from Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh. It was Cambodian New Year so the traffic on the roads was horrendous. Instead of taking six hours, it took twelve. My friend had a combination of things wrong, an ear infection, really bad bites, vomiting. It was really worrying but there was nothing we could do except wait to get to Phnom Penh. Being the non-doctor I am, I had diagnosed possible malaria. It was all quite scary. He was sleepy so I leaned awkwardly and lay his head on my chest and stroked his arm in an attempt to comfort him. After an hour or two, I had extreme backache, sideache, neckache, shoulderache and everything else but couldn't move as Chennour was finally sleeping. I gingerly leaned around him and got his iPod and plugged myself in, hoping to tune out from the pain for a bit. Somehow, Lauryn Hill and Bob Marley had been set to repeat and I couldn't figure out how to stop it. So I spent the last few hours of that journey extremely uncomfortable and listening to Turn Your Lights Down Low on repeat. Painful/humorous memories.

Faith Hill
This is another Namibia memory. We were trying to get to Cape Town for our Christmas holidays. We had bought bus tickets and needed to switch buses in a town called Keetmanshoop (pronounced Keet-mans-hoop, not Keet-man-shoop, which we did for an embarrassingly long time until someone corrected us). We got off the first bus and waited for the second bus. And waited. And waited. Two hours late, the bus arrived, everyone else got on, Lucy and I, ever the Brits, queued politely at the edge of the crowd and were last to get on. There was only one seat left, we were told. We got ready to fume, we had been sold tickets, we demanded to be allowed on! Not to worry, we were told, there's one a few minutes behind. Ok, that's fine then. We sat down and waited. We looked up and down the road, we took turns falling asleep on our bags, we ate everything we had brought for the journey, shops closed for the night then opened for the morning again, 9pm turned into 7am. We were two 18 years olds, in a town in the middle of nowhere, with bus tickets we couldn't use and no other mode of transport available. Then a man approached. Your typical prematurely-balding, pale, wide-eyed, plays-the-psychotic-murderer-in-a-film type. And offered us a lift. We jumped at it. Bags were grabbed, common sense was left behind, and we jumped into the car with this potential torturer. He asked if we wanted any music on. The silence was a bit awkward. All I could find was a Faith Hill album, so I put it on and played it all the way through. Then pressed play when it ended, to keep the silence at bay. And pressed play again. And again. For the entire seven hour journey.....

Damien Rice
I've forgotten what his first album was called. I got it in first year at Glasgow Uni and would listen to it every night to try and block out the booming noises from the floor above. I don't know whether the banging upstairs was music, I could only hear extremely loud thuds, like someone bashing the floor with a hammer. Awful. I hated them. Every time I hear a Damien Rice song, I can still feel the annoyance of the bangs from upstairs but also see the view of the park out of my window, which was nice.

Gwen Stefani - Cool. And James Blunt - Goodbye My Lover
These were both out around the time I was in China climbing the Great Wall. When I'd finished, I stayed with my friend Joe (same one as before) in Beijing for a bit. He was living there, studying. These two songs became about the distant nature of our friendship. We'd spent so little time together but still had an amazing time whenever we did see each other. These songs always remind me of those early days of our friendship, when we had to travel the world to see each other. Nowadays we just have to travel across London. Much easier.

Monday 20 August 2012

Search terms 2

I've had a few interesting search terms recently so thought I'd do a second part to my previous Search Terms post. The last search term in this list worries me a bit, although I am pleased that people are stopping here to learn about social etiquette....

baobob
highgate bookshop roof
book maze festival hall lego
my first bikram
wealthymatters
london eye chairoplane
"unspoken rules if social etiquette"
first bikram class
yoga "notify me"
first hot yoga class
i ve made my first wedding cake
cows for brides
evil peppa pig
lasy son resit university
portmanteau words sandwich
gary barlow neighbour
smiking
bikram tickling legs
i can be a worst manager
is big mag cow or pig
all embracing naked photos on olympics
yggdrasil afghan for sale
preschool watermelon temple
renegade squats
sun glasses one direction in eygpt
national estimayed costs bird droppings
the emptiest swimming pool in sf
sexy peppa pig

As a P.S., I've tried checking whether big mag is a cow or a pig but the truth is, I may never know....

Sunday 19 August 2012

Welcome to Blognor Regis

I spent quite a while thinking up the witty title to this post, which is going to be about my day at the seaside, in a little town called Bognor Regis.... Writing about Bognor.... In my blog.... Blog... Bognor.... BLOGNOR! Blognor Regis. I was quite impressed with myself for thinking this up so just humour me, ok?

Spending a day in Bognor Regis was rather a spare of the moment thing. Had I forward-planned, I probably wouldn't have chosen to go there. It doesn't sound particularly attractive, does it? Bognor. I'd heard good things though so took the plunge and decided to go for the first time.

The first thing I did was marvel at this cutesy little food stall.

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Cockles and whelks! Amazing! I doubled checked that I was still in 2012 and had not accidentally stepped back in time to the 1950s. I was indeed still in the present but the town itself was pleasantly somewhere back in the 1900s.

The next thing I reached was crazy golf. I obviously had to have a go. Obviously. I love a bit of crazy golf. It's one of those things that I'm very rubbish at but insist on playing anyway (same with table tennis).

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The euphoria of a round of crazy golf reached new heights when I spotted the amusements on the other side of the road. Omygoodness! 2p machines! I hadn't played on a 2p machine in years. I was VERY excited. If you're not sure what a 2p machine is, I will explain briefly. There are slots for you to put your 2p into. They slide down onto a drawer full of coins, which is moving back and forth. If you're lucky, your 2p will push a coin or two off the drawer and onto the section below which has loads more coins on it and, should any coins fall from this section, they come out into a little tray and are your winnings.

Clutching my pound coin, I found a change machine and got me fifty 2 pence coins. Inevitably, I pumped all the coins into one machine, the logic being that the more I put in, the more would come out. This logic failed me, as it always had. My pound disappeared rapidly, plus any winnings, which I put straight back in.

While leaving, though, I heard a sound that made the coolness factor of my day increase by 200%. I heard the unmistakable song of a dance mat machine! Now I don't mean to boast, but I have dancematted in Asia against a local dancematting expert and won. Considering Asia is the part of the world which is thought of as the dancematting home, I'm still quite proud of this fact. I spent most of my first year at university with blisters on my toes and legs that were constantly sore in my mission to be good at dance mat.

So of course, when I heard the dance mat machine, I was right there, pound coin in hand, selecting my favourite tune. I started out by getting an A on my first go. Of course I got an A. Second song, another A. Last song, I made a foolish choice and came out with a miserable E. I had chosen one which was much too fast.

Defeated, I left the amusements and went and sat on the beach. I had a really great magazine with me full of really great facts about stuff and sat marvelling. For example, Christopher Columbus was a Knight of Christ, an organisation which was the reincarnation of the Knights Templar after they were destroyed and a few escaped to Portugal. Also, dragonflies can see 175 images per second (humans can see 16).

After my being-amazed session, the sea was calling...

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...so I had me a little (freezing cold) swim. I could hear loud splashes every so often and couldn't work out what it was. It was like the sound of people hitting water at speed. Intrigued, I went exploring and found a group of teenagers hurling themselves off the end of the pier!

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One girl had a cut on one foot and after jumping they would all climb up the rusty poles underneath to get back on top and jump again and it all seemed a little bit dangerous. They were having fun though and it was nice to see proof that young people still know how to have fun outside. I've never doubted it but there are a lot of grumpy people, who like moaning, who talk about how 'kids these days' don't know how to have fun anymore and they just stay inside on Facebook all the time.

Next, I went to have a look round the town. There was a lovely little market, which consisted of clothes aimed at 60+ ladies, sunglasses stalls and sticks of Bognor Regis rock. Past this market there was a lovely old cinema which has been there for over 50 years. The sign outside let me know that 'We Ar Emore Than Justa Cinema' and I wondered if the person proofreading the signs had been there the same amount of time. 'Yeh, there are loads of mistakes but I'm so bored, I don't care....'

While walking back to the beach, I saw a bowling green and had to have a game. This is bowls, as opposed to bowling, which is played inside, in a lane, with skittle things that you knock down. Bowls is played on a green and you first roll a little white ball until it stops then try to get as close to it as possible with your four balls. Here's a picture of me taking the game really seriously and concentrating hard.

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After bowls, evening was setting in and there was only one thing for it - fish and chips on the beach. The sky changed from clear blue, to yellowy orange to pale pink and grey until most of the colour had faded and it was hometime.

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Saturday 18 August 2012

The time we defrosted a freezer

I was 18. I was living in Africa. I wasn't that good at being a grown up but I was good at convincing myself I was.

One time my friend Lucy and I had noticed that we couldn't fit stuff in our freezer anymore because it was full of ice. We thought we should defrost it but just made a vague guess about how exactly you did this. We had a fridge freezer thing so left the door open for a while but in the stifling heat of the coast town where we lived, all our milk and butter was having a bad reaction. We sat and puzzled for a bit about how to go about defrosting in a shorter time.

Then Lucy had an idea. Lovely Lucy, one of those people in life who you want to be like, who's so easy to love. Lovely Lucy. She picked up a hammer and approached the fridge freezer. I stood by, a little uncertain about what she was going to do with it.....

Then Lovely Lucy used the hammer to smash all the ice to bits and get it out off the freezer. Mid-smashing session, me hovering nervously around, there was a noise. A hissing sound. Ssssssssssssssssss....

On. And on. And on. Went the hissing noise. Until, eventually, it stopped.

We didn't know what it was but I had the distinct impression that my being-an-adult attempt had failed miserably.

There was a funny gas smell and we giggled nervously as I ran off to email my Dad about what we should do. That's right. I was in Africa, holding my own as a teacher in a classroom, running the local town newspaper, making my living as an editor/journalist, and at the first hint of something electronic that I couldn't figure out, I was running off to email my Dad.

The return email essentially said, "GET THAT THING OUT OF YOUR HOUSE NOW!"

Obediently, we unplugged it and got it into the garden and consumed everything which had been in the fridge, to save it going off, not because we're greedy. Honest.

And there it sat for a few days while we pondered what to do. In those few days, the maggots found it. That's right. The maggots. We opener the door one day to see if it still smelled gassy, and there they were! Whoops! We quickly shut the door, pretended we hadn't seen anything and called a friend to ask him if we could put the fridge freezer in his car to take it to the repair shop. He said he'd come the next day.

That evening, something happened. Something which only happened three times the entire year we lived there. Something that pretty much never happens in a desert so you wouldn't even think about it happening (we were basically living on the edge of a desert). Something that when it did happen, was so much worse for only happening a few times a year.

It rained.

The most torrential rain we'd seen since arriving. The wind and rain whipped the fridge door about furiously. It banged and crashed all evening. The rainwater got into every nook and cranny on that fridge. Inside, in the back, into the plug. Everywhere.

The plus side of this rainstorm was that the gassy smell and maggots had disappeared. Yehhhhh!

The down side, however, was that the fridge was SMASHED TO PEICES. Noooooooo.....

Our friend, George, arrived the next day and looked at it in shock. We pretended all was fine and piled it into the car and off we went to the repair shop. He also looked at it in shock and we just smiled a bit and convinced him to try and fix it.

A week or so later, Lovely hammer-wielding Lucy was passing by the repair shop with another teacher from the school and mentioned that they'd had our fridge for a week and we hadn't heard anything from them.

"O yeh," said the other teacher, knowingly. "They've had my dishwasher for about four years now."

We spent the rest of the year without a fridge or freezer.

Friday 17 August 2012

Wedding goats and dog training

Ok. It's time to revisit everyone's favourite magazine again. That's right. Chat. The best magazine in the world. I shall now prove this by sharing some of the amazing titbits I found inside this week's offering.

Firstly, I had to buy it when I saw it because in the top left hand corner were the words 'You've goat to be kidding me.' I just knew it was going to be amazing. Sure enough, when you flip to the back page, there's a picture of a lady in a wedding dress with some goats on leads and the words 'Me and the kids.' The goat puns don't stop there though. There's a picture of the bride with her bridesmaids and goats, with the caption 'Say (goat's) cheese everyone!'

The story is about a woman who works at an animal rescue centre and loves the goats. The way she talks about them in the article is hilarious. She says to her fiance one day, 'I met a wonderful goat at the centre today.'

She met a goat? She met it? Really? As though she was at her local, having a pint, and she saw someone also alone, so sidled over and gave it her best chat-up line. Then came home and said she'd met a wonderful goat.

Anyway, fiance proposes, they're planning the wedding. By this point she's 'met' another really great goat called Geoff. She says to fiance she wants the goats involved in the wedding - 'I want Geoff to be ringbearer and Fuschia to be maid of honour - no butts!' She then tells us about getting big gold satin bows for the goats and little thingys for their hooves and finishes off by saying, 'Yes, it's an odd love story, mine and Martin's. But you know what? I bleatin' love it that way!' Fabulous.

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Ok, another great story is a little short one at the end. The basic outline goes like this - my daughter is 14, I like her hair long so she's never ever had it cut, she decided the other day to get it all cut off, look, here it is her cut-off hair. Fascinating stuff.

One of the letters written in to the problem page is pretty good. It's about something really serious. A real problem that is unable to be resolved through any other channels. Good job Chat is here to help people who have real emergencies.... 'I've got two cats. My partner has a dog. We've just moved in together but his dog hates one of my cats. He snarls and chases her whenever he sees her. How do we resolve this?'

And the advice? Tell the dog 'No!' when he starts chasing the cat.

Phew! Thanks, Chat! They're so helpful. If it weren't for them, how would Frances, 40, have ever worked out what to do when the dog is chasing the cat around. I imagine her sitting on the sofa, blankly staring at the dog chasing the cat around the front room and thinking, in despair, 'I'm sure there's something I should be doing here to prevent this from happening. I just can't think what it is. I know, I'll write to Chat.' She buys Chat the following week, eagerly flips to the letters page and there it is, the answer to all her problems! At last! She can hear the dog growling and chasing the cat in the back garden and she runs out there, Chat in hand, a light switch has gone on in her world. She sees the dog and the cat and yells 'NO! NO!' The dog looks up, surprised. What is this word he's never heard before? Something tells him he's being shouted at. He slopes off to hide somewhere and the cat potters away, free from the constant torture, happy at last. Frances' world is transformed. Chat has saved her. Thank god for Chat.

Another letter is the 'Facebook photo of the week' which is just of a little boy in swimming trunks. He's just standing there in his trunks, smiling. Nothing to merit being photo of the week. His name, we are told, is Noah-Freddie. Poor child.

Ok, one last bit of amazingness for you. A top tip. Are you ready? This could really help you at home actually, transform your life even. Ok. Here goes.

Use a peice of dry bread to clean your lampshades.

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Thursday 16 August 2012

The French teacher

When I was about fifteen, we got a new French teacher at school. I went to a girls' school so anything male was an object of interest. Boys were accepted in the sixth form (the final two years of school) so there were groups of girls dedicated to spotting their boy of choice and reporting back on his activities. Brushing past one's favourite boy in the corridor was sublime in our fifteen year old minds. Talking to them was a dream come true.

The teachers were slightly different. You couldn't fantasise about potentially falling in love with them in the same way. Instead of being a few years older, they were twice or three times our age and in charge. There was the Maths teacher who a few girls fancied but it was generally accepted that he was not up there with the best. There was the Music teacher who was lovely and friendly and a great teacher but not fanciable. But then there was his son who came in a few times to help him with something, who looked like Seth Green and had quite a following. The rest of the male teachers made for slim pickings. All great and liked a lot by the students, but not attractive to 15 year olds.

Then along came the French teacher. Cue some atmospheric French music (Joe Le Taxi by Vanessa Paradis, for example) and in strolls Monsieur Perais through a haze of clouds and fuzziness, to the cheers of adoring schoolgirls.

Monsieur Perais was perfect for our cause, ideal for someone predisposed to fixating on things for long periods of time. He divided the girls into those who ridiculed him for his body shape and those who wanted his children.

His body shape. Let me explain. He was a bit short and obviously had worked out a lot in the gym or been a rower or something because he had very muscular shoulders and his upper arms were quite big. From his shoulders down, he got slimmer and slimmer. His waist was quite small and his legs and feet even smaller. There were unfortunate comparisons to Johnny Bravo and quite a few of us took to calling him The Dairylea Triangle.

The crescendo of this Dairylea Triangle love came one evening when I was listening to the radio. It was Sunday and I was waiting for a regular feature with a local Liverpool presenter called Pete Price. One of my claims to fame is that I once called into the Pete Price Show and offered an opinion about whatever he was talking about that day.

Anyway, back to this Sunday evening when I was waiting for Pete Price to come on. It was the section of the show where people can request songs. As I listened the presenter said, "And this next one is a request for Nelly Furtado, I'm Like A Bird, and it's dedicated to Monsieur Perais."

One of the girls from school had called in to dedicate a song to the French teacher! I remember thinking, if you're hoping he's listening and you're telling him how you feel, you've chosen the wrong song to do so. How does 'I'm like a bird, I'll only fly away, I don't know where my home is, I don't know where my soul is,' let the French teacher at school know how you feel about him? If he was listening to it, he must have thought, 'Ok, well there's someone out there who telling me she won't be around for long... Ok. Wierd.'

We all talked about it in school the next day and giggled. Someone had dedicated a song to the Dairylea Triangle! Teehee! I'm going to take a guess that that 'relationship' didn't come to fruition as hoped following the song dedication....

Wednesday 15 August 2012

Walking into history

It's Wednesday again and time for Rambler5319, my guest blogger, to take over....

Last week’s pics from my holiday were really mostly about signs. I did take some others (and a few more signs). These are from the walks I did in an area which is steeped in history. Parts of it go back to the time of the Romans and beyond.
As you approach the village from one direction, you see this magnificent hand-crafted sign. (It took over 8 months to make.)
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Each element in the sign has some local significance and I was curious to find out what they all represented. Local village history gave me the answer:
The cross-keys representing St Peter’s Church (now ruined).
The white cross (blue background) represents the existing St Andrew’s Church.
The beige area represents the main cereal crop – barley.
The green area represents the other main crop – sugar beet.
The white pathway between them represents an old footpath called Peddars Way which passes through the village.
The black symbols on the left middle represent churches & chapel. To the right middle, the tree is Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee Tree and the windmill is also local to the area. A lot of thought definitely went into this impressive creation.
As you approach from another side of the village you are greeted by this one
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They definitely like you to feel welcome.
I found this next structure in a garden in the main street of the village. Talk about plush multi-storey avian apartments!! Ever seen one of these before?
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WALK NO.1
This was about 6 miles round, mostly on paths away from the roads. The route I travelled, to the next village (Sedgeford), is a small part of what is a much longer (46 miles!) ancient path called Peddars Way. Some believe its existence actually pre-dates the Romans and that they just extended and improved it. So here I was walking on a path that Roman soldiers probably marched along almost 2,000 years ago! I’m glad I wasn’t wearing armour and carrying a heavy shield as the sun was very warm and my brow was wiped many times on this walk. Here’s a section of it but can you tell which direction my compass needle was pointing if I tell you it was about 11.00am?

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I came across this notice just half a mile along the path.
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In case text in pic too small to read, at the bottom it says: “This roadside verge is being positively managed to conserve wild plants and animals in a joint project between Norfolk County Council and Norfolk Wildlife Trust. Note it’s just the “verge”; it was only a metre or so wide.
Just before joining the main road, leading into Sedgeford, the path emerged from its agrarian setting into a narrow road called Magazine Lane; also nearby were Magazine Farm & Magazine Wood. Seemed to me like an odd name to find out in the countryside. The mystery was solved a bit further along when I found this building
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It is called Magazine Cottage and is believed to have been used as a store for gunpowder during the Civil War. It was built by the LeStrange family who we will find out more about next week. As I walked past the village pub (King William IV), and down a side road, I saw a sign for a local archaeological project:
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I was intrigued. I decided to visit. As well as the actual dig site there were a number of displays and talks about the finds and other general info about life in Anglo Saxon times. Volunteer diggers camp in the next field to the excavation site:
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And some site facilities are what might be termed primitive. Note, in the pic below, only one tap can be used for drinking water:
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Here are some of the displays, starting with the skulls:
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And here are three Action Men but each item they are wearing has been hand made by a guy who is very interested in the period. He’d also made models of some of the “machines” (e.g. boulder launching catapults) the Romans used in sieges and attacks in battle.
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Next was a display of what they believe may have been types of food from Anglo Saxon times. The front page of the booklet to the right of pic (sorry chopped off due to trying to get all the food dishes in) says “Dishes made on the day course – Cooking up an Anglo-Saxon feast”:
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I also attended one of the 20 minute talks in a side tent. Time to put thinking cap on! Amongst other things, I learnt that an analysis of the chemicals in bones can suggest an area of the country where the individual lived. How? This is because the mix of certain elements in the water in different parts of the country can be quite specific to that area. Apparently, if you live in an area for 10 years or more, your bones will have levels of certain chemicals that have been absorbed from drinking the water in that area that will be the same as the water itself. The archaeologists compare the levels of two particular chemicals, strontium & oxygen, in the water, with the levels in the bones they find. They can then tell whether the people had lived in that area for about 10 years before their death or had moved to it from another part of the country.
Soon it was off to retrace the 3 miles back to the cottage and give my brain, as well as my legs, a rest; it had been a fascinating and very instructive time at the site. As I made my way across the field behind the site, to begin the trek home, I came across this unusual sight:
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Starting with the standing white horse look left to the brown standing horse and then to, what seems to be, a brown “blob” on the floor. This “blob” really was a horse lying on its side. Every so often its tail would flick up and down but it remained in this position the whole time I was crossing the field. Was it tired or maybe sunbathing? Do horses lie down if they’re tired? Do horses sunbathe?
The following day I did a short walk, along the sea front, in the nearby town of Hunstanton. Apparently it is the only resort on the East Coast of England which actually faces west! (You’d have to look at a map to see why.) The town motto (in Latin of course) is Alios delectare iuvat, which translates to “It is our pleasure to please”. I was pleased after my visit so I suppose they succeeded. I sat down on a bench for a quick sandwich and drink. I found it was one of those which had been erected in memory of someone who’d died. Here’s the plaque:
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Paul Richard Moore was not famous; I, you and lots of other people, will have never heard of him but clearly he was, and still is, VERY special to those who’d put the bench there in his memory. We don’t know how he died but look at his age - just under 30 years old. Now pause for a moment and think about that. Perhaps many readers of this post are younger or just coming up to it or some maybe past that age. Imagine if that was to be all time you would have. It’s always a great sadness when parents outlive their children as it’s one of those things, like this lad’s parents, you just don’t expect to happen. I spent a few minutes in quiet reflection: each moment we’re alive we’re making withdrawals from “The Bank of Time” but without knowing the balance left in our account! Of course, no deposits are possible and you can’t be overdrawn – but your account will be closed at some point! How we “spend” our time is important.
Walking just a short distance from the bench, I saw this. It was time to put that thinking cap on again.
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Closer inspection of the info board revealed some interesting stuff.
The wall in the pic is what is left of a chapel built in 1272AD in memory of King Edmund. Apparently he’d landed, from Germany, in 855AD and, a few years later, was crowned King of East Anglia whilst still only a boy. There was peace for a while but then invaders came from Denmark. The king was captured and, when pressed, refused to give up his Christian faith. He was tied to a tree and shot by Danish archers in 870AD aged about 29. He was interred at a place called Beodericsworth which later became known as St Edmunds Bury and finally the town we know today as Bury St Edmunds. He became the first patron saint of England and remained so for about 400 years. The current patron saint (George) was not adopted until the end of the 14th cent. Not a lot of people know that!
I came across this (Latin) motto: Alis Aptar Scientis. It means “Ready for the wings of knowing”. Well are you?