September. I need a holiday. I know it’s not long since I was in Italy in the boiling heat, but as the leaves start to turn brown and the duvet goes back in its cover, I feel the need to go somewhere brighter before the proper onset of winter. As previously mentioned, I turn this yearning into reality, jump on the British Airways website like a many-fingered demon, and book to go to the Canaries.
Lanzarote – a completely volcanic island
I’ve never visited the Canaries. Friends have recommended all of the various islands at different times. I settle on Lanzarote, primarily because there are suitable flights on the dates which are my only option to escape, but also because I find a couple of small-group walks that I can join to allow me to explore volcanoes and cliff paths.
I have the inevitable wrestle with my conscience and my still-pretty-tight pursestrings (neither of which stand a chance, really) as I choose my seat – and karma visits on the outward flight as I am positioned immediately in front of a large and grumpy man with a most unpleasant cough and alongside a family including a screamy toddler. Serves me right, of course. But I make the best of it – I read a whole paperback in self-defence.
My flight is slightly delayed which means I arrive at the same time as several other plane-loads of Brits, causing a shuffle/stop melee in the arrivals hall as we wend our way disconsolately around the plastic barriers like sheep at a market, towards the automatic passport gates for Non-EU arrivals and the little man in his hutch with his rubber stamp and suspicious glare. All the while gazing sadly at the tiny dribble of people waltzing through the EU channel.
Strangely, once I leave the airport building, I don’t interact with any other English people until it is time to catch the transport back to the airport from outside my hotel four days later. There are a couple of Scots on a tour coach and some sweary Northern Irish lads on a camel – but I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m guessing that the British by and large prefer the resorts whilst I am staying in the capital Arrecife, conveniently close to the airport and ideal for day-trip pick-ups.
Day 1 – Breakfast in the hotel. It dawns on me immediately that the small amount of Italian I have learned on Duolingo will be of absolutely no use at all here, because this is a Spanish island and the people speak Spanish which is not the same as Italian, even if I thought it might be similar. (If I had thought at all, which I truly hadn’t.) My exposure to Spanish has been limited to Daughter J’s now-quite-a-long-time-ago GCSE vocabulary tests, usually done whilst trying to complete umpteen other domestic tasks at the same time – and to the occasional corporate hotel where I would have been conversing in efficient business English with an occasional “Si” or “Gracias” for effect.
My feeble attempts throughout the week are generally greeted with smiles and an English menu/calculator showing price. I manage but am somewhat ashamed.
This first morning, I eagerly strut around the town of Arrecife. There is not a huge amount to see (or I miss it, if there is) but I visit the castle which is free because their computer isn’t working (I leave a few pesetas – I mean Euros), and take a look at the marina and a few shops. It is then time to take a dip in the sea. I wonder if I can “borrow” a towel from the hotel’s rooftop pool? No, they don’t seem to have them, so I purchase the least lurid beach-towel I can find in the little shops along the front and, ready swimming-costumed, I strip off my modesty layers and sandals and fair race my way to the sea. Where I stop. The sand ends at the edge of the sea and underfoot in the shallows it is sharp volcanic rock; pointy bits and slippery bits and other nasty bits in-between. Furtive glances left and right reveal other hesitant bathers, hopping or swaying or retreating at the discomfort. And, of course, a couple of clever-clogs who have come equipped with rubber shoes. As if I was going to add those to my already heavy suitcase, what with the walking boots and all.
My over-active imagination already has me in hospital with a broken wrist or two and severe abrasions – on the first day, with none of my trips completed. Foolish old bat – why didn’t you just stay safely at home? Or take a dip in the tiny hotel pool? Well, that’s because you like travelling and you enjoy swimming in the sea far more than in a pool – and for goodness sake, just get a grip, crawl if you have to (I do) and lunge into full immersion as soon as depth allows.
I confess to staying in the water somewhat longer than is necessary to achieve the distance of remedial-level breaststroke originally intended, simply because I cannot work out how to make a graceful exit. The Atlantic is not particularly warm, and eventually of course I have to emerge, so I opt not to wait “gracefully” for the tide to rise onto the sandy bit of beach (just as well because said tide is still on the way out and it will be dark by then) but rather to adopt a peculiar crab-like scuttling manoeuvre. By devious sleight of all my extremities, I make my exit completely unobserved (achieved in my mind by closing my own eyes, so I cannot see anyone observing me) and saunter nonchalantly to my rather eye-catching turquoise (but definitely not emblazoned with multicoloured LANZAROTE! maps, monsters or other ridiculous motifs) towel and throw myself face-down to dry off – thus once again making myself invisible to others. I find this is the best, nay the only, way of operating on a solo beach visit when both over-weight and over-white.
I repeat the sea-swimming twice more later in the week, timing it better to ensure launching can be done from sand. A facility with tide-tables is always useful – meaning that Mr J, annoyingly, is right again.
Day 1 continued – I return from the beach, tired but pleased to be all in one piece and ever-so-slightly bronzed – and a little less-slightly sandy – after my antics. As I pour myself a glass of chilled water, my phone rings. I am still in my cossie, with a light wrap on top, and also still a little damp. Nevertheless, like an idiot I take the call. And within seconds I am in a four-way conference call, with all sorts of legal and tax terms flying hither and thither as an urgent deadline looms and decisions need making. In the moment, my business head makes a fortunate reappearance and we take the decisions we need to take in a calm professional way, whilst I thank my lucky stars that this is not a video call (at least, I think it isn’t) and that I am no longer actually dripping.
Beautiful evening – but if I’d waited for the tide, I’d still be swimming…
Exhausted now with all the keeping up appearances I have done, I send a few choice emojis of bikinis and palm trees etc to one of the other conference call participants (my vet friend who has persuaded me to take this new Trustee role), then send a sensible email to another, and decide to eat in the hotel after all, despite earlier plans to go and explore the restaurants on the other side of town. I then double check I sent the emojis and the sensible email to the right people…
The rest of the week – goes mostly to plan.
I join a volcano walk with a small group led by a brilliant guide called Raquel who gives explanations in French (for 8 walkers) and then in English (for me and an Irishman) – this is a great way for me to test my understanding of the French and I am rather pleased with the result.
Small group walk in Timanfaya Natural Park
I reward myself in the afternoon with a more decorous swim and then supper in a lovely tapas bar where, in my attempts to discover a local dish, I somehow manage to eat half my body-weight in fried cheese.
I have reluctantly pre-booked a coach trip for Day 3. I prefer small groups in minibuses but have been unable to find one which will take me all over the island. My fears are well-founded: it takes an age to pick everyone up; the coach is full to bursting; the guide is annoyingly jokey; I don’t want to ride on the camels – but the aforementioned unusually screamy Northern Irish teenagers do, so I watch from a safe distance;
Camels, once essential transport in Lanzarote, are now just a tourist attraction. Looked well cared for, but still…
I don’t want to eat in the touristy restaurant on our lunch stop, but there is nowhere else to go apart from the car-park where I eventually eat my banana; the roads are in amazing condition, and there are some spectacular switch-backs to ascend and descend the volcanic slopes in the Natural Park, but the roads were made for cars and not socking great coaches – I manage not to whimper noticeably I think. This now sounds a tad unfair in the telling. By the end of the day I have seen most of the island, sampled (and purchased) some rather lovely local dessert wine, enjoyed a demonstration of the heat lurking just below the surface on one of the volcanoes with fire and steam in spectacular evidence, and gazed in awe at a beautiful lava tunnel Jameos del Agua
Jameos del Aqua. Look closely and there are tiny blind albino crabs in the water
– a definite highlight. I cannot complain, and I even warm (or at least defrost) to the guide by the time I am dropped off.
El Golfo – a volcano right beside the sea with its own pool
Full day trips are tiring and I am unfortunately not able to take my weary self any further than the corner shop afterwards, resulting in a balanced supper of crisps, chocolate and fizzy pop.
I make up for my failings in the Spanish lingo by opting to join a French group on the second of my volcano walks. The alternative is to be the only English-speaking person in an otherwise entirely German group – so I feel I am being generous in allowing them to avoid listening to everything in English as well as Deutsche just because of me.
A misty Corona volcano
I find myself limited in small talk with my French companions – the words simply don’t come quickly enough to me these days – but we rub along ok and I have no trouble understanding the guide as there is considerable repetition from my first tour where I had been able to acquire the necessary volcanological vocab. The Corona volcano is shrouded in mist, but the Famara cliff walk is spectacular.
View from Famara cliffs north Lanzarote towards La Graciosa island
A great experience.
I make a second attempt to find a local restaurant serving local delicacies. Sardines, perhaps? Catch of the day? Sadly, but deliciously, I end up with Canarian potatoes and yet more cheese (this time disguised as a salad, but once again, vast quantities of baked queso). I stagger the mile back to my hotel, and ponder my clothing choices for the return flight – a size larger than on arrival perhaps.
My return flight puts me with the same family as on the outward journey. This time they are behind me, which starts badly with exuberant kicking of my seat, but they are good sorts and this stops after a while. I manage the other inconveniences by donning my headphones and playing white noise while I devour another paperback – so I have double aeroplane noise to block out the toddler’s squawks. I also experience one of the least visually appetising dishes I have ever been served anywhere. A mushroom risotto which has to be prised from the edges of the china dish on which it is served and is mostly the consistency of rubber and the colour of a moulting otter – but of course I eat it and it tastes rather good. Plus, there is plenty of cheese on the tray for afters. In for a penny…
Home now.
I realise that I have not sung out loud for the entire time I have been away. At home I never stop. It’s weird that I seem to switch off the singing except when at home.
Three fried cheeses. With coloured (but otherwise unidentifiable) Canarian sauces
And more importantly – Diet begins now! Pass (on) the cheese.
I’ve just deleted a draft blog in its entirety. Sometimes I’m just not feeling it!
Re-energised by last night’s well-received public performance of a couple of my songs, sung previously only amongst friends, I have knuckled down and captured instead a couple of musical anecdotes from the past couple of months.
(1) The builders ruined our hallway floor in their haste to be helpful and shift our piano from one room to another. We are determined not to repeat the mistake on its necessary return journey. So, with an unusual degree of marital agreement, we determine to engage a specialist with the right equipment to execute the reverse manoeuvre without further damage. I am almost immediately on the internet sending a message to a likely looking outfit and in no time at all, I get a phone call and make a booking. This is a small local firm and we are patting ourselves on the back for keeping the suburban economy going. (We were recently saved by a local carpet shop and fitter, having been badly let down by John Lewis, so our focus is even more local than before.)
And I am pleased to say that not only does the job get done faultlessly, but it also provides a joyful comedy skit. At the appointed hour, our doorbell rings and my recent telephone correspondent announces himself as “Steve – come to move the piano.” His pal is in the van, procuring the necessary large-wheeled transportation implement. It turns out that both these operatives are called Steve. Boss Steve and Other ‘big friendly giant’ Steve. Chuckle Brothers? Certainly of a bygone age somehow. Worryingly probably both older than either of the regular inhabitants of Jillings Towers. But they have their Dolly. I mention that this impressive wheeled contraption is not dissimilar from the cut-away skateboard Mr J likes to employ in other furniture removals, but this just meets with confused expressions, and they set their minds to the logistics exercise they have been employed to carry out.
And so it begins. “You got your end Steve?”
“Yes Steve”
“Here we go. You got it Steve?”
“Yes Steve”
“Through this doorway Steve. You OK there Steve?
“Right Steve, yes Steve”
“Round to your left Steve.”
“Yes Steve.”
“Have you got it Steve?”
“Got it Steve”
“Watch for that door Steve”
“Got it Steve”
“To me”
“To you Steve”
“To you”
“To me Steve”
Back in its rightful place thanks to Dolly
I retire, unable to contain myself and cry a little, hopefully unseen, in the kitchen.
I fortunately manage to pull myself together sufficiently to adopt a coquettish (or perhaps faux-pleading) stance and suggest to the Steves that, were I to find a tenner about my person, they might be persuaded to move the sofa as well? Well, that worked marvellously and with no more ado (but quite a few more “To me, to you, Steve”s) my house was almost all back in the right place.
They packed up their Dolly and, clutching their hard-earned dosh, made their jolly departure.
(2) Continuing the Dolly theme (see what I did there?), I managed to find a cheap ticket for the highly-rated musical Hello Dolly! for a night when I was responsible for Daughter J’s cat and had access to her central-London flat. This was a ‘living the dream’ sort of evening – walk from “my” Charing Cross-adjacent apartment to the London Palladium clutching my absolute-bargain-ticket-containing App, breeze through bag-check, explore the bar and other facilities and discover my excellent Stalls seat – halting only briefly for a breath-stopping moment of realisation that although I have a cheap ticket, I am paying almost half as much again for the glossy programme! More fool me, I suppose, but having started collecting programmes for all my theatrical events, I struggle to give up this somewhat ridiculous habit. I try to disguise my annoyance, fearing public branding as a cheapskate.
This is a magnificent production. I have never before been to the Palladium, nor have I seen Hello Dolly so this is a proper treat. Imelda Staunton is superb and the whole company are at the top of their game. I treat myself to an ice-cream in the interval and, once that is finished, I am just settling back into my seat when I am showered with liquid from behind. Not just a small spray, a proper half-pint of something – on my head, on my neck and down my back. I register my disappointment in typically British fashion: a tiny gasp, an irritated shrug and a slight sideways nodding of the head. I do not turn around – the lights have just gone down and the action is recommencing on stage.
The shock settles as the music swells. I touch the crown of my head – please let this not be sticky as well as wet! Reassured, I try to concentrate on the on-stage action, but there is such dribblage down my back, that I silently grab a tissue from my pocket and gently – then in fact much more firmly – dab my neck and back to try and absorb as much of the liquid as possible. Whilst earlier I had been rather impressed and pleased that there was such good air-conditioning in this old theatre, I am now rather regretting my lack of forethought in not bringing a blanket with me!
Shivering calms after a while and I am immersed instead in the on-stage action. The well-known strains of the Hello Dolly number begin, but to my horror, there is an unwelcome accompaniment from the row behind me. I shudder (those damp-back shivers returning) as I try to reconcile myself to the modern trend of singing along at West End musicals that I have read about in stage press articles. It seems, however, that the rest of this audience are more in my own camp and someone further along the row makes a subtle attempt at ‘shushing’ the two ladies immediately behind me – yes, the very same drink-spillers.
Another reprieve and my shoulders are nearly dry now. But this reprieve is rapidly followed by a reprise of the Hello Dolly number, and this time my rear neighbours are not only singing but clearly sobbing snottily along to the music at the same time. Yes, there is pathos on-stage, but mucus-filled bathos surrounds me. No amount of shushing can deal with this, and my fellow audience members stiffen their upper lips anew, face forward and ride out this latest assault on decorum.
Of course, the production rolls on unhindered and we reach the curtain call at which point there is no hesitation to stand for an ovation that is surely expected these days but in this case probably more than deserved. Clapping and photo-snapping completed, I turn to exit the row – and a clearly-inebriated woman in the row behind me slurs -“I’m SHOW shorry I ruined your evening! I’m SHOW shorry. It was only water – I’m SHOW shorry tho” – as she appears to be about to fall over the seat-back towards me. ‘No, no, it’s fine!” I lie through gritted teeth and no attempt at a smile, as I redouble my efforts to get out of the end of the row without engaging further. Her friend grabs her, also wobbling, and I make my escape. I am halfway down Regents Street on my walk back to Daughter J’s flat before I calm down, and then – naturally – my default of ‘oh well, it will make a blog-post’ kicks in and I switch to jaunty girl-about-town mode for the remainder of my walk. Ho hum.
The cat greets me and I genuinely feel that he is less disappointed today that I am not his usual mistress than he has been earlier in the week. He proves this later by joining me in the bedroom to sleep on my feet and snuggle (purrs and all!!!) on my shoulder only when it is an appropriate time to wake up in the morning. This, I feel, is a completely wonderful breakthrough. *
I’ve just booked a little trip away to the Canaries to indulge my need for travel and exploration. I have never been to any of these islands before, so I will class it as a new country even though technically and officially it is just yer common or garden Spain. Just further away.
Hurrah for that, and here’s to the anticipated postponement of the early-dark evenings.
*This was not a breakthrough at all. The cat later left an unwelcome present on the bed without my noticing, to be discovered on Daughter J’s return. When she told me, this made me very cross indeed, more with myself for closing the bedroom door so quickly when he emerged to prevent him getting back in there and proving impossible to eject when it came to be time for me to leave. I don’t think there has yet been a completely successful cat-sit and we were so close this time!
Yes, I banged on about it so much after last year, I had to go back and do it all again!
To my delight, I am asked for my availability for this year’s Cutty Sark Singers tour to Italy and in due course am added to the 2024 WhatsApp group, indicating that I am indeed one of the chosen few. Odds are always better if one is a Tenor, I realise that, but I can at least say that I am better qualified this year than last, having executed three concerts with Twickenham Choral in the intervening period.
I may be overdoing the gratefulness here, but not only am I pleased to have passed whatever mysterious tests the choir may have surreptitiously or unwittingly set for me last year, but I am pretty desperate for a holiday, having not been anywhere for longer than one night since the August 2023 Italy tour.
In true ‘make the most of it’ style, I book a flight which will give me a day of sightseeing before tour begins, and arrange to meet one of my fellow choir members, and long-standing friend, B in Verona. B is spending several weeks in Europe using Interrail. I am very jealous of this and am quite determined to indulge similarly next year.
I of course spend hours and hours checking which flights are best value, taking into account that getting to either Heathrow or Gatwick can be free (or very nearly) by Public Transport with my old person’s Oyster card (yay for old age and London boroughs – there has to be a silver lining somewhere to this ageing business I suppose) which skews me further towards British Airways – and I confess I still cannot kick the habit of accumulating points with BA and using their lounges if I can snag a bargain Club fare. I am a tiny bit ashamed of this, and yet…not.
So it is that July arrives and I find myself on a train to Gatwick, everything running smoothly at a civilised time of day – early afternoon – a modest suitcase full of sleeveless and legless items by my side, the Italian weather forecast being unrelentingly hot, and my music tucked neatly in my rucksack for safekeeping by my side at all times. Not a care in the world (if you believe that, you don’t know me very well, but all things are relative) when I receive a message that my flight will be delayed by two hours. Sigh. But the message still advises me to check in on time and anyway, there’s no point going back home now, having got this far trouble-free.
View from Gatwick lounge – one of my happy places
Ensconced in the BA lounge (yes, yes, mea culpa), I congratulate myself that I am saving money on the inevitable snackery in which I would have indulged during any such long wait in the consumer’s paradise that is Departures at this, and any, major airport. I have an excellent view of the runway (nerd!) and a pleasing variety of free biscuits, soft drinks and coffee. Fortunately I don’t relax too much, nor indeed avail myself of the ‘come-hither’ Whispering Angel, and am rewarded for my attention to the departures board by not missing the rescheduling of my flight – back to the original time! Hurrah. Of course, there are a few late arrivals on-board, but everyone is finally accounted for and the child-steward and stewardess (is it me? they truly look about twelve years old apiece) happily confirm we will soon be away.
And then … the captain appears from the cockpit. I note he’s slightly older than the aforementioned juniors stewarding our cabin – probably a good sign. He jauntily takes the microphone and proceeds to make an announcement. He starts with what he refers to as ‘the good news’ – “We managed to find this plane to replace the one which was running so late. This one was due to go in for engineering works this evening” (a few nervously surprised looks are exchanged amongst the passengers) – “Oh, don’t worry, its certificate doesn’t run out until tomorrow!” (not sure that’s helped, to be honest). “But, now for the not-so-good news. We seem to have a puncture in one of the tyres, so we’re going to have to change the wheel before we can set off.” Of course, we can’t now deplane (yes folks, that IS a word) or they’d lose people, so I am left musing to myself whether a little AA van will arrive with an enormous jack and we’ll find ourselves leaning gently over onto one wing-tip while they make the change. At least we’re not in an active hard-shoulder lane on the side of the runway. Strange how the mind wanders when all there is for immediate distraction is the tiniest packet of salted rosemary-flavoured nuts …
Sadly I fail to detect any of the repair activity and for all I know they remove a wheel altogether, but within an hour we are airborne and, by dint of flying faster, or taking a magical shortcut, we land all our remaining wheels on Italian soil less than 40 minutes later than scheduled.
My Verona cell
I rapidly negotiate the passport e-gates (stopping only to allow the nice border guard to stamp my document) and then miraculously master the ticket machine for the bus, brandishing my Apple Pay rather more deftly than the young person ahead of me (how very modern I am!) and woman-handle my baggage aboard the next bus to arrive. I am thus whisked into Verona and deposited outside the Railway Station which is purportedly just a 12-minute walk from my hotel. It’s almost dark by now though, and my nerve fails me at this eleventh (ok, tenth) hour. I join the queue for a taxi. I beat myself up for being a wimp, but then congratulate my common sense as I notice how dark and featureless the short 10 euro trip seems to be. Besides, I have brought some euro notes and cash with me – probably originally purchased several years ago – and am therefore able to persuade myself that handing a tenner over has not really eaten into my current year’s holiday budget at all. I seem to be able to persuade myself all sorts of convenient things when pushed. With hindsight, I made the right decision here.
Check-in complete at the hotel, I take the tiny glass lift up to the third floor where I discover that my inexpensive single room resembles, in my over-excitable imagination, a monastic cell! I think it is the fully closed shutters, the small bed and simple furniture and the red-tiled floor that suggest this to me. I update the family WhatsApp group so they can all either laugh or be glad that I am at least not living the high life without them.
Friend B is staying at a similarly priced establishment about a mile away. He apparently has a more luxurious room, with a fridge containing his breakfast. I am slightly envious of this as I go searching for the advertised coffee machine in my own hotel’s Reception and fork out a few of my ‘free’ eurocents on a decent espresso (even out of a godawful vending machine, Italian coffee is always better than expected) and – in order to spend the unrefundable 10c change – a cup of hot and slightly brown water into which I dunk a fruit tea-bag I discover in the depths of my handbag. Knew that would come in handy one day. I am perhaps lucky to survive the night after this, but all is well and the hotel more than compensates for its spartan rooms next morning with an excellent buffet breakfast in a delightful courtyard. Better than a box in the minibar B!
I stomp around some beautiful churches in the blistering heat of the morning, and then meet B for lunch before we find a mutually interesting (and hopefully air-conditioned) museum around which to potter until siesta time.
Chiesa di San FermoVerona Arena in the downpour
Later, as I set off from my Veronese cell to rendezvous for supper, I wonder at the gusting wind and the strange vision of a pavement-restaurant apparently moving towards me apace, napkins and parasols flapping and waiters chasing haphazardly behind. A quick glance at the lowering skies induces an urgent trot as I try to remember where the first lovely colonnade is to be found. I am only slightly wetted by the time I reach shelter, and there follows a stair-rodding hiatus in proceedings whilst I play sardines with fellow tourists and gawp at the lightning and puddles. I resist spending another ‘free’ €10 on a plastic poncho from the many touts who have appeared from the damp night and eventually make my way to an indoor restaurant at which B decides to order raw horse-meat. It takes all sorts, I guess. I stick to pasta.
On the morrow, untroubled by adverse equine after-effects, we converge on the Railway Station and begin our choral adventure proper. We congratulate ourselves on how very cleverly we managed to negotiate two different rail booking systems months ago to ensure that we now have seats next to each other on our train from Verona. As we progress, we hear from fellow choir-members on different trains, and an impromptu lunch meeting miraculously occurs in a restaurant near to Florence station. Oh here we are again – mwah, mwah! – so good to reacquaint ourselves.
Back at the station, B and I find a seat in first class (yes, that is what he has booked for possibly two whole extra euros) and settle back to await departure. We then realise that yet three others of our party are on the same train, so invite them to come and join us. Much excited prattle ensues, before we are unceremoniously ejected from first class (except B, of course) and have to rough it in an altogether identical (but more crowded) carriage. B joins us after all and we congenially clutch our luggage and prattle on.
Beautiful Villa Caselle, near Cortona
And so to the villa. I have the same mezzanine space as last year and immediately empty my suitcase onto the floor, the bed and the balcony rail where glorious chaos will reign for the next week. Not a single day goes by when I don’t mislay at least one item of clothing/make-up/medication/device charger. Whilst this is sporadically annoying, I somehow don’t care. I am romanticising this I suppose. Perhaps I need to get out more.
On the first evening, there is a sudden downpour. I am still in the process of distributing my belongings as it begins, and am horrified to see that water is pouring down the wall behind my bed-head, and a thin stream is falling directly onto my bed, precisely where I plan to sleep. Ever-resourceful, I whip out from my case the large plastic clothes-bag I brought with me (for return-home laundry purposes) and spread this under the stream – mopping madly around it with one of the many towels which are fortunately to hand. The shower is over almost before it has begun, but I am now nervous about midnight soakings. Perhaps I should sleep on the other side of the bed? Strangely enough, later on and after an evening’s carousing, I forget this thought and sleep in the same position I did last year. Anyway, I believe it is a generally known fact that sleeping on the damp side of the bed is more adventurous, and I like to think of myself as intrepid! There is apparently thunder, lightning and more rain during the night, but I sleep obliviously through. After several days of precautionary towel and plastic bag arrangements when leaving the villa (and yes, I work out that plastic bag underneath the towel is more practical. I should have been a scientist after all), I conclude that the water-ingress was a one-off. Had it happened in the middle of my slumbers I would be tempted to say I dreamt it, but I honestly don’t think I’ve even exaggerated it for the purposes of this account. Bizarre.
Clearly I could bang on and on again about how wonderful this tour is, but perhaps it’s better just to list the year’s most notable moments in an attempt to shorten this piece:
The appearance in the pool at the villa of a crustacean which we conclude must
Not big enough for supper
have been deposited there by a passing bird. We rescue it and it is released in a nearby lake, despite mild protestations from some that we should barbecue it. In fairness, it would not have gone far between 26 hungry choir-mouths.
The revelation that using two hands on a pair of kitchen scissors to chop a large bowl of fresh herbs is actually a thing, resulting in the success of my second attempt at presenting the results of my endeavours to chef (after the ignominious one-handed initial failure). Chef, for those of you not already familiar with the set-up of this choir tour week, is one of our basses, the husband of chief organiser big Alice (who is petite but hugely important to the smooth running of this event) and an absolute genius when it comes to creating wonderful dishes from Italian ingredients, with enlisted help each day from fellow choir-members.
The embarrassment of admitting to my fellow kitchen workers that I am Googling “How to hard-boil an egg” – I am perfectly capable of producing 6 hard-boiled eggs without even thinking about it when I cook my signature Fish Pie at least once every year, but nerves get the better of me here and I don’t want to let myself down on this one. You can’t usually go wrong with Delia. Oddly, I am then required to create egg ‘crumb’ by wielding the kitchen scissors again – but having learned that two-handed was the way to go, I romp through this bit to glorious first-time approval. The crumb is used as a sprinkle topping (on I forget what) at table, just showing what high level of cuisine we are producing here. 100% worth the effort and huge respect to Chef R once again.
Being the only Lady Tenor this year (there were two of us last year) has its pros and cons. On the plus side, I have an absolute ball in the concerts alongside my much more accomplished (and very much LOUDER) male counterparts. There is nothing like a Tenor showboating session and I join in with all the gusto I can muster. I cannot describe quite how fantastic this feels. (As mentioned already, perhaps I should get out more!) I have definitely got louder and more confident this year. There are however a few moments in rehearsal where I fret I will never be heard in this company, and is it really worth having me here at all. In the end though I reassure myself that they would be completely lost without me and my marking pencil! Each note we are asked to make in our scores, I find myself handing my stubby little pencil left, then right, before demanding it back to mark up my own copy. I am nothing if not prepared! Perhaps this is why they let me come back.
A sublime soprano solo – only heard properly for the first time in our opening concert rehearsal. Chills indeed. And this particular young singer is less experienced than I am at this choral lark, which I find heartening somehow.
Meeting with friends who have an Italian summer home nearby – they come to our first concert in Arezzo and it’s wonderful to have a drink with them in their Italian habitat and join our two worlds a little.
A quick drink with friends outside Arezzo Duomo
For the second year running, we watch the sun set behind the Tuscan hills from a Montepulciano bar sipping chilled rosé and celebrating the success of our second concert. Doesn’t get a lot better than this.
Relentlessly fantastico meals at the villa, including the annual (fully home-made) pizza evening using the wood-fired oven in the villa grounds, preceded by wine-tasting conducted by our very own young sommelier, and followed by a beautiful moonrise and much additional lubrication
Moonrise during our pizza event
Charging around the beautiful countryside and dreadful Italian roads in a slightly-too-small car with an even smaller engine. This small Lancia, affectionately known as Lance, conveys us between villa and the various Duomo venues. With five of us aboard, we helpfully cheer “Come on Lance! You can do it!” as our driver floors the pedal to tackle the steeper gradients.
I am encouraged by one of my friends on tour to perform a song of my own. I initially refuse – I can’t imagine anyone would want to hear some of the silly efforts I make. But… I realise that the Italian folk-song Bella Ciao, which we sing in folk choir, is crying out for an update, and I worry away at this for a day or two in my bed-space and by the pool. On the last evening, egged on by others and possibly encouraged by wine, I rise to my feet and sing my new version which is peppered with silly references of our week together. What am I thinking? (Got away with it though. Phew! Calm down woman. You’re 62! Well, actually, that’s my excuse. Too old to care now.)
Maybe this is all a little rose-tinted – certainly rosé-tinted – but who cares?
I am sad to say goodbye to everyone, but we have to be out of the villa by 10am – quite a feat when most have been up until at least 2.30am – and a group of us gathers in a bar across the road from the small local rail station to stoke up on coffee and pastries before embarking on a train to Florence, where we mostly say our farewells and head off to our respective airports or further adventures. Roll on the next one! Hic!!
Still leaningPisa – Baptistry, Cathedral & TowerNearly there – sunset over London on the flightpath to Heathrow
I have a return ticket from Pisa to Heathrow (a very inexpensive ticket this time), and have judged that, with an extra boost of stamina, I can just manage to see the famous leaning tower before check-in. Leaving my suitcase and rucksack in the Bagagli office at the rail station, I march efficiently – if slightly perspiringly – from the station to the touristy area which does not disappoint. I have no wish to go up the Tower (just as well, as there are no time-slots available to me), but I can wander round the Cathedral and the Baptistry and get a feel of the place on the walk there and back. Another traveller’s tick in a box I suppose.
And now I have to get back to reality for a while and deal with our carpet supplier going bust and other such delights. Arrivederci tutti!
It appears to be seven weeks since I last attempted to commit my silly little life events to the blogosphere. In previous literary gaps, I have usually started several possible drivellings: perhaps a whimsical list, or a choice anecdote or the jocular retelling of an eventful day – one of which would make it, with editing and mild titivation, onto the website and into the inboxes of my awaiting public.
This time – absolutely nothing. The laptop has been used solely for sourcing essential items for our ‘great build’, the accompanying endless spreadsheeting required to keep track of same, and some TV streaming because our only ‘smart’ television is out of action for the duration until we get our ground floor spaces back.
Yes, we ended up with no fully usable downstairs room, apart from the new understairs cloakroom which whilst being fully operational, had to be shared with the builders and is a tad too small for two armchairs and a telly.
But I am relieved to report a significant milestone. The builders have gone!
Yay, hallelujah and THANK GOD!
They were sweary and untidy to the end, although in fairness they tidied up and retrieved all their belongings before waving us a last goodbye. Their parting shot was to remind us that we could leave them a review. “You’ll have to lie, of course,” they joshed. “Obviously!” was my immediate response. “Hmm – you said that too effing quickly there boss…” “Byeee”
We miss them already. Two quiet weeks later, I am trying valiantly – but possibly unsuccessfully – to return to more moderate language and a less gritty way of life. Sadly there is more grit (or dust anyway) to come, as the painter has now arrived to decorate the whole of the ground floor, but our chosen team for this job does not seem to include loud or sweary types (and if we have misjudged that, as we have misjudged so much over the past few months, I suspect these so-far charming Polish men will cuss in their own language which will hopefully not be quite as immediately offensive as the Anglo-Saxon to which we have almost become inured).
Before asking for a review, Builder P quipped – “Goodbye. It’s been emotional.” He’s not wrong. Oh dear, more than helpfully emotional in my case it seems.
Now, Mr J and I are not generally demonstrative types. Neither of us is naturally argumentative, combative or hotheaded. Whilst we disagree on plenty of things and I admit I can be quite grumpy, we have never had a proper row* and I can think of no more than two occasions on which I have lost it and shouted at him. In nearly 40 years. But I am full of shame to admit that I completely lost it with one of the builders.
It had nothing to do with building and much to do with his endless need to bang on about immigration, ULEZ, the role of women, politics and anything else that might be grabbing the headlines that day. On this particular day it was tax – and specifically pension tax rules – that had got his goat. As it happens, I know a thing or two about tax. I know how it works because I was trained by the UK tax authorities and then worked as a corporate tax practitioner for many years. I also know quite a bit about pension tax, having studied this for my own old-lady purposes in the last 6 years. So, unlike my usual quiet “Er, yes, I suppose so, ” or “Well, I’m not sure about that” before escaping to another room to do more dementia-postponing puzzles or go out for an invigorating walk, this time I decided I would engage and explain how the tax treatment of pension contributions and then pension payments actually works.
Well, I tried. But somehow the conclusion was still that the government just effing lies and effing robs us (his words, not mine). There may have been a further comment or several about “you rich people” or the awful “middle classes” or perhaps these had been along the way beforehand, but I couldn’t take any more of the apparent lack of listening to anything I had said and determined that I would walk away from all this before I got even more upset. I admit I may have been muttering my newly learned vernacular on my exit. And then…
… I fear I may have misheard. Recollections may vary – as someone once said – but for some reason I understood there to be amusement as Builder P claimed success in his bet that boss lady would say the effing F-word before they were done.
That was it. I may have been half-way up the stairs with my dignity just intact, but this was a red rag I simply could not ignore and I stormed back downstairs. There followed a veritable torrent of that F-word – “if you’re going to win your effing bet, I might as well effing do it properly, to your effing face”. Hmm. The look on the other builder’s face said it all. I had misheard, or at least slightly misjudged. (Perhaps… this one I tended to believe and he looked genuinely startled and leapt immediately to his pal’s defence.)
Once again muttering incoherently I made another undignified exit.
No more than one hour later, we shook hands and made up and jointly took some practical patio-related decisions. The discovery of an engraved stone panel underneath the old patio provided a much welcome distraction for the rest of the day.
Oh God, how awkward.
When Mr J much later returned from his day’s sailing (volunteering, not just for his own enjoyment, lest you think he is abandoning me unfairly to the dangers of the building trade), I confessed tearfully to my shameful behaviour. He claimed never to have been so proud! I don’t think he said this to make me feel better – although it most certainly did. My weeks-later recounting of the incident to Daughter J elicited the exact same reaction. Note to self – I’m clearly too meek and have left it far too long to assert myself. Just a shame I chose to do so on a dodgy mis-hearing. Ah well, move on.
I determined to keep this embarrassment to myself – I am still more ashamed than angry. But, the retelling to friends thus far has proved cathartic – and I am also a little ashamed to admit that I have enjoyed the laughter the story has provoked – so I have relented and written this down for posterity.
The inscription that calmed us down, listing the many languages into which Byron’s works are translated. Rest assured, I will not be translating my shame into ANY other languages!
But so far, I have been unable to begin the promised builders’ review. Where the eff should I start???
*to row – meaning to have a heated argument/disagreement. But please note that the more usual meaning in Jillings’ world would be “to propel with oars.”
Mouth-breathing. A most unattractive and uncomfortable activity. Especially with accompanying dribble.
What started as a strange and mildly irritating dry cough more than two weeks ago turned into the mother of all head-and-chest colds, the like of which I do not readily recall. Exactly where all this unpleasant mucus comes from I cannot begin to understand. I can only hope that its creation is using up the vast number of additional chocolatey calories I have consumed in my quest for comfort since the onslaught began.
I choose to blame the builders for my ailment. As mentioned here before, they were generous in their liberal spreading of virus(-and expletive)-laden breath in recent weeks and it would perhaps have been a stronger constitution than mine to resist hosting a few of their friendly little bugs. Initially though, I blamed the chap sitting next to me when singing the St John Passion as he had seemed to cough every few bars in the dress rehearsal and the onset of my own little cough (little did I know…) seemed to fit the timing of such acquisition. We’ll never know, and the blaming of others hardly helps the wheezing.
The developing ailment meant that I was not bothered about the long and featureless Easter weekend. The only remotely exciting part of Easter this year was a drive down to a small industrial estate at the end of a lane in deepest Surrey countryside to view some paving for our new patio area. The flagstones, for which we had received a very competitive quote on the telephone, were very brown (the clue was probably in the name “Autumn Brown” but the pictures on the website had looked to be just what we wanted) and we immediately and unanimously disliked them. No wonder they were cheap.
Of course, we found something much nicer and made a quick purchase at a much higher price. Ah well, I suppose we will have to look at the patio – through our wonderful new glass doors if they ever arrive – for the rest of our days, so they definitely need not to be horrid!
As I continue to hack and sniff around the house, I slowly realise that the new appliances in the emerging kitchen space are connected to the mains and can be activated. I sift through the enormous pile of booklets and paperwork in the smaller of my two sparkling ovens in search of a few simple operating instructions. It rapidly becomes apparent that the manuals are so lengthy they require an entire magazine-length format, and – unlike the usual multi-lingual pamphlets to which we have grown accustomed over the years of occasional electrical goods replacement – English is not to be found at the front, the middle or the end of the first mag I pick up which appears to be entirely in… Danish! The next is in French, then come German, Dutch and a fourth un-immediately-identifiable language before I give up and decide to do something altogether else for a while.
Of course, being a linguist by training, I could attempt two of these brochures if I were showing off, but sadly – in the privacy of my own incompetence – I realise that supper would be after midnight if I went that route. My preference is therefore to look online. There will almost certainly be a whole section of Youtube devoted to the woe-begone digitally-impaired housewife searching for an on-switch on her shiny new and completely flat-surfaced appliance.
There is.
I watch for a few minutes and conclude that life is too short to endure any more of this cheerful so-called guidance. The urge to create a few spoof reels of my own is almost overwhelming, but is nipped in the bud by a more existential hunger. Actual hunger.
Naturally, when it comes to it, I muddle through the extremely straightforward controls in no time at all and the heating of a ready meal is achieved without a hitch. (Note/excuse: Ready meals are pretty much all there is to hand at present. Some weaning off these may be required at the end of this building process, but now is not the time.)
Once my snottiness settles to no more than a persistent chesty rattle, the days become sunnier and – on the rare breaks between effing builderly joshing and interminable (and largely ineffective) vacuuming – birdsong can be heard in the garden. I venture out for an hour’s weeding in the still-sodden flower beds, and am rewarded by the company of two fluttering robins (known in my mind as Emma and Dad – even though, of course, this is nonsense) who cannot wait for me to retreat indoors before seizing on the plentiful worms wriggling in the overturned soil.
Energised by this unaccustomed burst of Vitamin D, I decide to put the larger new oven to the test and cook up one of the few proper dishes I had been in the habit of creating before all this Grand Designs palaver took over our lives. No matter that the kitchen surfaces are temporary chipboard with oodles of sawdust and plaster residue. Don’t care that the tap has been unfixed and wobbles perilously if I forget and the hob is currently on the floor pending a worktop templating visit which I thought was happening on Friday but was an incorrect diary entry (my bad). I don’t mind at all that I will have to totter back and forth along the corridor to our temporary kitchen room to fetch all the ingredients from the temporary larder and the old fridge freezer. This will achieve much-needed “healthy” steps.
I am nearly ready to begin, when I remember why I did not do this earlier in the week. I cannot locate the tray-bake dish. I have looked in several cardboard boxes in the spare bedroom – twice in fact, which is annoying given that they are just that tiny bit too heavy for me to move safely but I do it anyway – and thoroughly in the cupboards in our temporary kitchen, and under our bed (where other trays are located, but not this one), and in the loft-roof-spaces (where all sorts of interesting things are hoarded, but no kitchen equipment) and I begin to wonder whether the ingredients I had optimistically purchased yesterday will go to waste after all. Of course, the possibility of creating something else with these same standard ingredients in a different receptacle is entirely beyond my addled brain even though, uselessly, it occurs to me now in the comfort of my temporary office (the previously unused armchair in our bedroom).
I do a Sudoku to calm down.
One more search. I contemplate the cardboard boxes in the spare bedroom. Maybe a third look? But this is a large earthenware dish I’m looking for, and I surely cannot have missed it twice already? Aha, perhaps it’s under the bed in this room rather than our own bed? I’m quickly on my stomach on the rug before I remember that there is an “extra” spare bed stuffed under the main spare bed, thus leaving no room for anything else at all. I bet I’ve just not looked properly under our own bed. So, up another flight and I fling myself unceremoniously into sniper-crawl position on the carpet and rummage once more under the bed – to no avail. I lie for a moment longer approaching quiet (and hungry) despair, when I glance – at mouse level – across to the wardrobe. Under which is lurking not only the elusive tray-bake receptacle but also a forgotten lasagne dish. Double hurrah – although of course by this stage I’d rather have a pasty.
Proof! In amongst the dust is a beautifully clean oven cooking my supper. With windows still not installed, this is a brilliant space for unobserved dancing too, if only I had the breath!
Dear reader, in fact the traybake was a small triumph – actually, not so small and there are leftovers for tonight – and I delighted in watching it almost silently bubble and brown through the wonderfully clean glass door, but all the dusty searching has not helped my elderly lungs and I’m still honking, creaking and rattling like a veteran miner *. Clichéd ending = “Ah well, onward and upward!”
*Note to self: Fact checking not always a good idea. Do not Google ‘miner lung disease’ again, at least not until coughing has ceased. I almost certainly don’t have pneumoconiosis…
The dust fairy continues to sprinkle her brick- and wood-based charms liberally around Jillings Towers, reaching parts heretofore pristine (well, that’s a lie if ever I wrote one – there’s never been a great deal of ‘pristine’ about this place – but please forgive such nervous hyperbole in a tired and dust-ridden bloggist) and gradually lowering our already unimpressive hygiene standards. Added to this expected construction grime, the builders’ ‘team cold’ has ensured that any idea at all of maintaining a hygienic household has been firmly ejected from the yet-to-be-completed fenestration, with more sniffing, sneezing, hawking and (not to put too fine a point on it) gobbing than you could shake a plague-doctor’s stick at.
I’m now confused at my own mangling of the English language and apologise for same – along with the unpleasant imagery (hopefully, or the words were pointless as well as mangled – sigh) it evokes. As I say, I’m a bit tired…
However, I will try to be more positive in my project update. Here goes:
We are about to take delivery of the kitchen units. Astonishingly, on precisely the date estimated at the beginning of this project.
The old understairs cupboard is shaping up nicely as a cloakroom after much entertaining measuring up using pretend toilets and sinks (in fact, I’ve never forgotten our previous builder demonstrating exactly where the toilet roll holder should be fixed in one of our bathrooms – there are some things that are seared on one’s memory for life, I fear). Sanitary wear also expected to arrive this week
The carpentry required for the understairs area means that the sweariest and sing-iest of the building trio is ensconced at the very centre of our home for hours on end – out of sight perhaps, but very much NOT out of earshot. Perhaps we are slowly becoming immune to his profanity and bursts of Elvis/Sinatra. (Hmm. Are we f***!)
Sorry. Moving on
We quite quickly choose some nice tiles for the cloakroom floor. I think some of our best design decisions over the years have been where Mr J sees something he likes and I don’t hate it/think it’s ridiculous/believe it’s a completely different colour from what he claims it to be. These tiles are a small example and I eagerly rubber-stamp the choice.
Naturally, the store turns out to have just the one tile remaining and, even for our smallest room, one tile will not suffice. The tile has no label on it but, if you set me a challenge like that, I do not rest until I hunt that thing down. Two days later, we travel to Sutton to Collect what I’ve Clicked and celebrate on the way home with a rather nice (and surprisingly inexpensive) lunch in Cheam, another good idea from Mr J (annoying, huh?)
Daughter J and cat have, sensibly, relocated themselves to somewhere altogether quieter, much-much-much closer to work and infinitely less dusty than our guest room. The cat, ungratefully in my view, has taken an immediate shine to his new home. Despite our collective fears that the move would stress him and that he would be lonely without his “grandparents” (ugh!) whilst his mistress is out putting in the long shifts to keep him in swanky litter and Dreamies, he has made himself completely at home and shows no signs of recognition let alone fondness when I turn up for an inspection of the new abode. Traitor.
The heating at JT, which was reconnected for a few weeks, has been switched off again temporarily to allow the newly poured concrete floor to set evenly. This floor is important, as it contains – excitement of excitements – underfloor heating, which of course means that in future I will be able to lie down on the kitchen floor whilst waiting for supper to cook itself in my new hi-tech ovens. Perhaps more likely (?) it will provide a soothing surface on which to lie when I’ve exhausted myself trying to learn how to use all this new hi-techery, and am waiting for the take-away to arrive
Shame there’s still no back wall on the house, but the lighter evenings are giving us greater positivity, and we slip easily back into our layers.
In amongst all the dust and mess and ‘language’ of the building work has been a small St John Passion oasis, in which I have been endeavouring to master the tenor line of this magnificent piece over the past two and a half months. The concert was last night and seems to have been carried off pretty well. Certainly no obvious disasters and I acquitted myself as well as I could have hoped.
Human nature being what it is, the key take-aways from the concert are – in no particular order
The tenor soloist (Evangelist – Jeremy Budd) had the most wonderful voice – completely beautiful, even from behind but especially lovely when he sang towards the choir in rehearsals
I took the train to and from the afternoon rehearsal and the performance itself. All worked perfectly. More miraculous than getting most of the notes right, to be honest
A friend came to watch/listen and it was great to catch up in the interval and on the walk to the station afterwards
Another choir member told me I have a lovely voice. I had never spoken to her before, nor do I remember ever sitting near her, so I have no idea how she might have formed this view – but it briefly made me happy all the same
I switched my phone off and turned my fitness tracker watch to ‘Cinema’ mode – but part-way through singing the first energetic number my wrist was being wildly vibrated beneath my smart black shirt-cuff. This happened several more times during the performance. In Cinema mode the watch is silent and does not light up so I was the only one to be aware. I later checked the app on my phone, and saw that the messages this vibration had been trying to impart included an offer to call the Emergency Services! This is on the basis that I did not appear to be active but my heart rate was above 120 bpm. Clearly I need to find an activity to programme into the watch which involves no steps but allows other exertion, or I risk inadvertently summoning an ambulance whenever I let rip a lusty chorus.
A brief exchange with the leader of my voice-group as we dismounted the stage: Me “I think that went off quite well, don’t you?” Him “Yes, but I was really worried just before the end because you hadn’t turned to the final number.” Oh, that’s how to burst a bubble! How had he seen from two rows behind me? It clearly hadn’t mattered, as I was completely ready – and obediently watching the conductor – when we started singing. I don’t even remember being late turning the page, or being any different from those either side of me. Did he mean another time? But I was fully prepared throughout – I even had judiciously placed paper clips for non-choral sections and had done my homework thoroughly, still feeling new and inexperienced. Why did this matter? Isn’t this his problem rather than mine……??
I’ll give you one guess as to which of the above has stayed with me the most.
But colder. Also a little older, but none the wiser. And ‘delighting’ in my new profession as a tea-lady. (Note: my choice of the ‘bon mot’ seems to be leaning towards the cliché rather than reality – since when have I found anything to do with the dreadful brown sludge that is apparently my nation’s favourite beverage delightful?)
I should explain. Followers of this blog will probably be aware that Jillings Towers has been due a makeover for some considerable time, and our aim to upgrade the kitchen has been something of an on-off frustrating journey ever since I left work five years ago and realised how grotty everything had become.
Well, now we are finally putting that right.
“The Build” seems to have taken all my focus and energy, and I realise I have failed to update this blog for weeks. But here are a few thoughts which I have been diligently thinking, but casually failing to write down over the first phase of these works.
Week 1
On the fourth day, to remind myself of the progress that has been made by the builders, I poke my chilly nose out of the living room. This room, formerly little used (as the ceiling has been threatening to fall down for years, and we have retained its manky sofas purely for the use of itinerant musicians wishing to rehearse somewhere off the street) which is now mostly our daytime ‘home’ because it contains all the survival elements, the most important being the microwave and our enormous fridge freezer. Even the fridge-freezer has gone quiet in awe at the sound of destruction all around – or perhaps it’s just full of dust, like everything else, and is conserving its voice in preparation for imminent pegging out.
I have reluctantly re-learned to make tea in order to provide a seemingly endless supply to our trio of builders. As on our previous big build, we seem to have hired a salt-of-the-earth outfit: local men who have been in business together since their teenage years who, now they are in their middle years seem never happier than when wielding sledgehammers, mixing cement, haranguing their clients in unimaginatively profane joshing and drinking their tea – regularly pointing out how generously provisioned their previous clients’ biscuit tins had been. I quickly remember that Asda is cheaper than my local Sainsburys and, as a bonus, by walking that little bit further for my bargain biscuits I can ensure I can no longer hear the swearing.
Re-entering the house, I wonder if my glasses have steamed up with the exertion of those extra steps to Asda, but eventually realise that this is the new indoor environment. A haze of dust from the demolition work which has happened extraordinarily early in this lengthy project penetrates into even the darkest corners, and of course eventually settles – over ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING.
I stagger under the weight of biscuits and teabags and fumble my half-blind way to the works canteen (our living room) and through the fog of descending brick-dust I clumsily make a brew.
As I vacuum after the men have departed, I recall that 18 years ago, the third man of our first building trio ran his cement-flecked Henry around every day before going home. Hmm – how times have changed, and I begin to mutter gently under my breath – effity, effity, eff – etc.
Week 2
My ludicrous over-excitement at our first major, and long-coveted, kitchen appliance purchase at a stonking discount (a genuine discount, as disbelievingly verified by another independent supplier), wanes as we stumble through a double quagmire – firstly that of the enormous and bewildering choice of ovens, hobs, extractors, floor coverings, blinds, and technology-enabled items we’ve barely heard of, and secondly the actual quagmire that is our poor old garden now the builders have churned up the part nearest the house and the rest has turned into some sort of boggy lake. (Ok, the lake I will concede is due to the weather, as the UK has sadly revolved into a permanent rainy season.)
It is exciting though. At last, the plans we have been worrying away at for years are coming to fruition. We cannot complain about the speed with which it is all happening in the end. Builders suddenly became available, and clearly wanted to start as soon as possible. So, after taking up references (you can take the couple out of the Civil Service, but you can’t take old-fashioned due diligence out of the couple!) at super-speed, we gave the green light and within two days we were living in a building site.
I spend most of my time wearing a minimum of five body-core layers (thank the good Lord for Uniqlo, Mr Marks and Mr Spencer – the holy trinity of thermals!). As a result, I think I am currently winning the “Who’s the hardest!” competition and, when our one modest electric heater is not required in our Home room, I graciously allow it to follow Mr J rather than myself. When the situation becomes severe and even an extra sixth layer fails to raise my temperature to an acceptable level, I leave the house at speed with my trusty shopping bag (sometimes filled with yet more items for the charity shop) and schlep around a bit, usually returning with treats of one sort or another and a slightly healthier glow.
This is the first time I have written my blog wearing gloves. I have been trialling my splendid (and extremely cheap in Superdry, of all places) bright orange knitted fingerless gloves on outdoor fuel-voucher issuing duty for the past two months and I’m not sure my fingertips are any warmer sitting in my bedroom today than they were outdoors at the last event. Please therefore excuse any typos which slip through. Accuracy has never been my strong point, but fat orange-clad fingers are not helping one bit.
I have also never been more keen to spend time at choir practices (even if I have to keep my coat on for the one in the church) and Pilates in the pub, although I have slightly regretted leaving on at least one too many base layers on more than one such occasion. I can empathise now with the generations of old who sewed themselves into their winter undergarments until the arrival of Spring. I don’t much fancy the goose-grease or whale oil with which they were often smeared though. I need to try and remain at least outwardly civilised! (Opinions on whether I am achieving this may differ.) Not sure the rising f*** count in my vocabulary is helping with the façade of gentility…
On Saturday, next-door’s five- and three-year-old children turn up at our front door in high-vis vests and with a clip-board and pen. They are here for inspection of the building site and the elder one (Boy) takes it all extremely seriously. Where he has learned the impressively builder-like sucking of teeth I do not know, but he has it down pat. He strides around the devastation, scribbling as he goes, and eventually pronounces that we have failed the inspection and must do better. His mother hastily shepherds him away, along with his only-ever-so-slightly muddied sister.
It may have been a mistake to send a report to this effect to the builders. Unsure if they will return on Monday now.
Week 3
We experience a new low on the swearing front as an existing RSJ is somehow raised 6 inches, into the underfloor space of my currently inaccessible first-floor office. In fact, there is a burst of blood-curdling screams followed by the best-yet stream of effing and blinding, such that both Mr J and I emerge at speed from our respective hiding places in anticipation of calling an ambulance pronto. However, by the time we have reached the scene, the decibel level of f*cks has lowered and there is even a resumption of the random snatches of song which we are growing to expect as light relief from the invective.
We retreat quietly to our respective heater and blankets.
Our old kitchen and breakfast room are now unrecognisable and mostly carted away in a skip. A new patio area is being built up, and bricks for a decorative garden wall have been delivered. We are cheered to see the progress and jump around a bit in excitement (actually, largely to warm up).
Week 4
We have arranged a final planning meeting with the kitchen company who will supply our units. I have had a change of heart about the style of the cupboards after one of the builders comment that the handles are those which the kitchen company always fit to ‘council hahzes’. Hmm. I had honestly already felt unsure about the handles although for a different reason, and I nervously ask the nice kitchen lady if we can change the style to a handle-less alternative range. I expect this to affect the price in an upwardly direction from our original quote, but it seems that, taken together with other small changes we are making, the new quote is a little bit lower. Aside from looking better in the mock-up pictures, I can revel in the slight easing of the stressful number-crunching on my project spreadsheet.
Yes, I’m back in the land of project-management and spreadsheet nirvana. Just like the old days, but with less commuting and fewer foreign trips (or none ever again if my budget spreadsheet is currently to be believed! Ah well…)
In an idle moment, I wonder briefly if I could institute a swear-box on-site? Would this perhaps go some way to offsetting the enormous amounts I am transferring to the builders’ bank account each week? “Don’t you f***ing believe it Missus!”
Week 5
Having reduced our two old rooms to one chilly shell, opened up the far end and raised the roof, bricked up a superfluous window and created a new doorway in a new position, the builders are starting to focus on electrics and plumbing. The most exciting bit of this is the installation of a new boiler by their mate Ian the plumber early on Saturday morning. More tea-making ensues, but this time the pay-off is more immediate and we are warmer again in the main part of the house. Hurrah!
I have gradually decreased the energy I expend on daily cleaning. Initially, and to be fair in the most dusty days, I waited no more than a couple of minutes after the team had gone before plugging in my trusty Miele and bashing around the ground floor, first floor and stairs to minimise the grinding in of particles. I now brush or vacuum the hallway most days, but have largely ceased to expect to see any shiny surfaces and have reduced the time spent on this thankless task to the bare minimum. How quickly standards fall.
The chaps now have endless questions about where we need lights, powerpoints, switches etc. And what height are those doors really supposed to be? And where is the fridge-freezer going? After detailed consultation with Mr J, I draw up a printed document and a colour-coded diagram based on an old copy of the kitchen company’s floorplan. I carefully, and in clear blue felt pen, amend the plan to reflect the final changes we have made in our order. I am quietly proud of this.
Within 5 minutes, the swearier of the builders has not only tea-stained my lovely diagram, but rubbished it by seemingly being entirely unable to notice my bold amendments and simply following the old design which has the fridge-freezer and larder switched, the sink in the wrong place, and the worktops the wrong depth etc. No amount of vociferous arguing on my part seems to help.
Builder “You need to give us the most up-to-date effing plans!”
Client (cowering) “Yes, I know, but we only have this one and I’ve made it really clear what changes there are.”
Builder “So, this is the effing fridge?”
Client (bewildered) “No, look I’ve scribbled that out and written in capitals ‘LARDER’. The fridge is here.”
Builder “So, with the fridge there, what the eff is this supposed to be?”
Client (tetchy) “That’s NOT where the fridge goes. I just showed you. And wrote it clearly on the diagram. And that bit there hasn’t changed at all – it’s the oven stack.”
Builder “So the effing fridge is next to the effing ovens, right?”
Client (having lost the plot completely – it is still not yet 9am!) “Oh FFS! No. You’re taking the p*** now right?”
And I honestly cannot tell if he is or not. I retreat to a safe (and now warm) space and await the next onslaught.
Subsequent inspection of where they have placed powerpoints etc seems to indicate that either I have made my point in the end, or the non-sweary one has quietly been absorbing the necessary information – and CAN READ AN EFFING DIAGRAM!
My apologies. It has been a long week. And I can no longer find a way to upload photographs to this blog to prove I’ve not made up all of the above. (Sticks upgrading WordPress and/or laptop onto the already creakingly long to-do list.)
My alarm hasn’t woken me, but I somehow struggle to consciousness and notice that it is precisely nothing-o’clock. My bedside timepiece is black. Faceless.
The world has clearly ended. I might as well go back to sleee…
Aha! Brain begins to engage. Power cut.
Prompted by a timeless curiosity, I stagger to the far corner of the bedroom to retrieve my phone. Eleventy hundred WhatsApp messages from my entire street who have variously suffered, or not suffered, the same fate as Jillings Towers, and are variously offering each other hot drinks, links to the UK Power Net website, moral support and general life-saving advice. And have been doing so for fully two hours whilst I have blissfully – and in this case, completely appropriately – slept through the drama thus far.
Not so Daughter J. Beneath my peaceful haven, all merry hell is let loose. Not for many years have we witnessed such tantrumming – quite unnerving so early in the day. Any thoughts I may have of descending the stairs are quickly placed on hold as I await a gap in audible remonstrations before I whizz past and on down to where Mr J sits at the breakfast table, bereft of his porridge but proudly drinking coffee brewed using water boiled in his camping kettle on our gas hob lit by an olde-worlde match and casually reading his book to the light of every man’s best gadget, an uber-stylish head-torch.
I am, of course, glad of the kettle. Less so the head-torch which somehow taunts me from the far end of the table. My iPad is, fortuitously, fully charged and using my phone as a hotspot (oh, how tech savvy I truly am!) I am able to devour the news headlines whilst trying to avoid the occasional nodding strobe-effect across the penumbral expanse of newspapers and wood.
Later, as the lights flicker back on, there are whoops of veritable joy to be heard above, where loud singing has replaced the swearing. Daughter J’s busy day, when she absolutely cannot be seen with dirty, wet or frizzy hair (apparently it frizzes uncontrollably if not dried and straightened – news to me, who spent almost a decade of commuter morning half-hours in a train-carriage corner with wet hair, trusting in the personal invisibility of middle age) could now begin.
I venture upstairs and commiserate briefly, possibly not (with hindsight) helping enormously by agreeing that current hair-styling does indeed resemble the cat. Also, my suggestion that hair could have been dried at a kind neighbour’s house meets with a withering look such as would fell an oak.
I am about to leave the house – late myself by this stage – when the glorious return to power abruptly comes to an end.
In no time at all, the WhatsApping neighbours – should they be able to tear themselves away from their devices – could observe a wildly cantering and mercifully dry- and straight-haired woman, escaping the screams emanating from the mid-reaches of Jillings Towers and trusting that Mr J will be safe enough hiding under the table (as long as he remembers to extinguish the flipping head-torch).
Post script. Apparently the power was restored once more in the nick of time and the world did not have to experience the affront of scuzzy locks or sweary mouths. At least, not on our account.
Post post script. This was a delightful start to an otherwise dodgy week which subsequently
lurched through the coldest ever outdoor fuel-voucher issuance (how can it be right that volunteers sit in hundreds of layers of thermal clothing at a too-small table in a howling icy gale, trying to prevent the paper vouchers flying away by careful shuffling beneath weighty literary tomes grabbed at the last minute as paperweights (thank goodness for that forethought), writing names on said vouchers with freezing fingers and pens that keep failing due to the cold, running down the batteries in iPads and phones to zero again due to the freezing temperature and prompting the summoning of power-packs from home, whilst the legs of the plastic bucket seats borrowed from the foodbank sink relentlessly into the sucking mud? I am not a political person, but there must be a better way than this. And if you think I am exaggerating – well, really, you could not actually make this up. Ok, apart from the ‘hundreds of layers’ bit – full-disclosure, I was only wearing nine.)
succumbed to persuasion from a friend to undertake a ‘compare and contrast’ exercise between versions of the St John Passion – a line by line musical notation ‘spot the difference’ which, whilst somehow soothing, was strangely time-consuming and seemed to result in aches and a slight fever, particularly when painstakingly and cross-eye-makingly completing the reporting spreadsheet for submission to our conductorly oracle
resulted in the eventual realisation that the aches and fever were not of Bach’s making, but more prosaically a bout of Covid.
Post post post script. Im on the mend now and we hope the power cuts are ended, but there is worryingly still a hole in the road with the power company logo on it.
In the blink of an eye, the panic of this most recent Yule recedes and the relative austerity of January looms outside in the miserable wintry murk.
The last of the guests depart from a blustery Heathrow, and a previous departee lands on some windswept island in the Indian ocean – both events causing me huge travel-envy, and propelling me onto tourist websites and into my Europe by Rail (Christmas gift) book before I can even think of tackling the much-needed housework.
In fact, I wonder how long I can make this “The world/my family owe me a complete rest” vibe last? Until the weekend? Until the end of the month/year? Twelfth night? – might be pushing it a bit there!
In fact, after wondering for a short time, and wandering for a slightly longer time in the park, I determine that I would rather relax in a clean and tidy house, and set to with the vacuum cleaner and the mop. At least an hour of domestic whirlwind-ing passes, resulting in fewer crumbs and glittery bits around the place, a much more hygienic kitchen and dining table, and a wonderful feeling of entitlement…entitlement to replace those skivvy-expended calories with a few (ok, more than a few!) of the festive cheese and mincemeat varieties.
After an enormous plateful of cheese and crackers, and my third mince pie, I am almost unable to move, but take to pondering this year’s Christmas highlights.
Mother Christmas and her tiny helper – after a disastrous substitute Santa last year, we were informed by our 11-year-old niece that there was no need to ask Father Christmas to call with his large sack during the daytime, as has been his wont, but that perhaps Cousin K (confusingly known as Daughter J elsewhere in my meanderings) would like to play the role of Mother Christmas with Niece H helping to hand out the pressies (which were already amassing around the tree and encroaching dangerously ever further across the floor) to the assembled family members. And so it came to pass that, as we contemplated a second go at the Mimosas (I later found that this is simply the American name for Bucks Fizz and I feel cheated), a cheesy grin and a flash of red-and-white appeared at the front room window, presaging the arrival not of wise men but of two intrepid women of the J tribe, gloriously accoutred and (hilariously) bewailing that they had come to bring us presents but had somehow forgotten to pack any or even to bring a sack at all! Although lacking in double-entendre opportunity this year (Santa’s sac having almost always reduced the supposedly adult members of the family to veritable chuckle-jelly), the appearance of a normally responsible 28-year-old businesswoman in an oversized Santa suit alongside her young cousin also in red but with reindeer hair bunches and shuffling on her knees on an old pair of gardening shoes provoked much merriment.
Where’s yer sack Santa?
Of course, there were the usual suggestions of locking them outside to parade up and down the street, but despite their apparent lack of presents, we wanted their help in dismantling the living room parcel mountain before the cat beat us to it.
The aforementioned Santa suit has more than proved to be money well spent. It has previously been modelled by ALL Daughter J’s immediate family members at different times – a rite of passage for each, perhaps, although Mr J is showing worrying signs of attachment to it, having once again this year been co-opted to dress up and hand out presents to neighbouring children, this time at the local refugee hotel. A highlight I missed by contriving to be in a pub drinking wine and eating pizza with Pilates friends.
Panto!!!
Splendidly ugly sisters
Oh no it wasn’t! But, oh yes it was, and possibly the best one for a few years. We think it was our sixth visit to the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford en extended famille and this year’s Cinderella was just the right mix of traditional story and format, Guildford panto regular features, and good quality singing and dancing. And pump-action water pistols. (We would have asked for our money back if the Twelve Days of Christmas custard-pie and water fest had been missing, but I made sure to seat myself well away from the aisle – a definite benefit of repeat attendances)
A veritable farmyard of pigs in blankets. Apparently Daughter J had eaten 35 pigs in blankets on her last shift before Christmas. This was a worry, as I only had 42 in the freezer, but as she pointed out, that was still sufficient for each of the other Christmas diners to have at least one.
Homemade Christmas pudding – another advance worry, as we had forgotten to eat the ‘test’ one so had no idea whether this might be a dismal failure. At the last minute, after over an hour of steaming, Mr J stuffed a coin into the pudding for one of us to find, only for it to pop out as soon as I cut the first slice. I needn’t have fretted; it was every bit as good as a Waitrose one and had only taken 10 hours or so to produce.
A perfectly decent lunch! There was to be no grilling of things that should have been roasted (a past faux pas), nor annihilation-grade boiling of sprouts,
A surplus sprout
nor leaving of vital elements of the meal in the microwave to be discovered on Boxing Day. Somehow everything fell into place just fine. Not the best result from a blog-posting point of view – ahem, must try harder next year.
The Boxing Day walk. This year, it was decided we should visit an ornate chapel in deepest Surrey and then drive to Leith Hill for a brisk walk up to the Tower where a lovely little café would reward us with cake (as if we didn’t have enough of the sweet stuff at home). The chapel was closed. The Tower café was closed. Rellies now suing under the Trades Description Act (does that still exist? apparently so, at least in part).
A clear lack of cake hereI see no cake!!!
We pointed out that the ‘walk’ part of the deal had been achieved as planned – but somehow this was not enough. Until we provided cake at home, at which point all was forgiven (we think).
Daughter J has been back at work for days now. Her brother is safely ensconced in The Maldives, also working (so he says). I’m already half-way through the washing of bed-linen and we are confident that all surplus calories will have been consumed before the final stroke of midnight on NYE.
All of the above pales into insignificance however on hearing that Mr J’s longest-standing friend, whose mother served alongside Mr J’s own mother in Suffolk’s National Childbirth Trust when their boys were tiny together, died unexpectedly two days before Christmas. The news didn’t reach us until our guests were leaving. To say this is a shock doesn’t begin to cover it.
As a result of this dreadful information, the highlights of our Christmas do not feel guilty or hollow now, but richer and more gratefully recorded.
“I don’t like Mondays!” – as Bob Geldof once shrieked.
In fact, that is not true of me, but rather it is the case that I don’t like mornings, and Monday morning used to be the most brutal of the a.ms when I was still on the employee treadmill. Even at almost five years’ remove (how can that be???), I am still relieved to realise on a Sunday evening that I won’t have to gird any part of my anatomy to face the new week.
In order to help me wake up of a morning, I have developed a habit of reading a few articles in the online newspaper, and then completing several different puzzles – simple crosswords, and various word and number tests. This is to ensure my enduring mental agility, and – full disclosure – is a bit of an excuse to sit for longer over my mug of black coffee. However, it is not a reliable way of raising my mood, should that be needed. Indeed, it is with some degree of irritation that I have to report the stark “You have failed” notice that flashed on my screen once again this morning. Do these online games people have no sensitivity? Do they not realise the enormous weight of disappointment already accrued at the realisation my 6-day successful streak has now been broken? Now made worse by a bald and damningly cruel accusation of failure. Before 9 o’clock.
I HAVE FAILED. AND IT IS NOT YET DECENT O’CLOCK. Might as well go back to bed then.
Not just any cat…an occasional distraction from my hard work rehearsing Brahms.
Still reeling and licking my metaphorical wounds, I am foolishly tempted to essay yet again to raise a purr from Daughter J’s still-resident cat – ONCE he has purred for me, in nearly eight months, ONCE! – to be treated instead to some steadfastly regular feline heavy breathing, a look of disdain, and a lingering odour which suggests he was mostly aiming to use me as toilet paper. Ah well. Another fail.
Why do I fail? There’s a big question for a Saturday. I apologise for the following pseudo-philosophical meanderings that have emerged as a result.
Sometimes I just can’t do a thing. I try to persuade myself that failure is a great way to learn – I spent several months’ worth of Richmond Park walks dedicated to Elizabeth Day’s popular podcast ‘How to Fail’ listening to a range of celebrities and other worthies discussing how their failings had made them stronger/better/happier-in-the-long-run etc – and I still think this is an excellent theory (and podcast). But, if I’m totally honest, I give up too easily and just beat myself up for the failure and move on. I am only just now confirming to myself that, with a bit more effort, I can achieve a little more than I have been accustomed to accepting from myself. Except, maybe, in areas of dexterity where I fear this old dog will remain totally unable to acquire new fine-motor-skill-related tricks.
There has been some recent evidence to support the notion that there is merit in trying that little bit harder. A big example this year was taking the risk to join the choir tour in Italy this summer. As documented in this very blog, it showed me that I could take myself out of my comfort zone and not make a complete pratt of myself. I somehow forced myself to try harder at learning the music. Fear of falling completely flat on my face led me to work extremely hard at learning the music beforehand. Endlessly, repeatedly, over and over until my eyes boggled and my throat was sore.
Last year, this was also proved on a smaller scale in a different, but related, way when I was quite sure I would not be able to learn all the words for a folk concert but in fact, when it came to it, I managed perfectly well. I truly thought that, never having been very good at learning stuff by rote, and struggling even in my forties to remember lines and song lyrics for Parents’ Panto (even when I’d written the stupid lines myself), I was incapable of word retention.
But, when really knuckling down and forcing myself to concentrate – because I had promised someone else that I would, or because I’d foolishly committed to something I was actually unsure I could deliver – I have found a modicum of success. We are not talking miracles here, but definitely better results than I might have expected. Maybe this word-learning encouraged me to think big with the choral stuff. I don’t know.
I have often wondered about my work ethic. At school, people would call me a swot. This upset me, because I didn’t think I was a swot. I was initially just very able for my age. I was also obedient so I would make sure I completed any set tasks by the time they were supposed to be completed and I was always well-behaved in class (which I’m sorry to say I made up for at home, but that’s a different story). So, I handed work in on time although would try not to make that too obvious to classmates who hadn’t, and didn’t mess about in class – hence, I was a swot. Perhaps that sounds a fair description at this remove – hmm – and of course we can’t rule out the possibility that I was a deeply unpleasant child in other ways, although I’m fairly sure I kept that part of me exclusively for home. Apart from when I scratched a small chunk out of the school tearaway, but then, naturally, I became much more popular as a result. Life, eh?
Anyhow, I only did the bare minimum to get by. I didn’t spend any more time than I had to on anything. In primary school, I loved learning and found everything easy. I was the oldest in my year, which helped, and easily finished the curriculum as far as I was allowed to progress, but the authorities refused to let me move up a year – and I have been blaming that for my laziness ever since! In my third year at the local Infants’ School, I heard other children read, marked papers and helped the school secretary type and Roneo the letters to parents. I still recall with shame a typo I made in one of the letters. I was seven, for goodness sake!
But, although I provided some useful help and in so doing must have acquired some extra skills for myself, I was not pushed much beyond my classmates, or stretched or challenged. So, when I got to Senior school – the local comprehensive – I was still able to pick things up quickly and breezed through the first few years, still never expecting to work too hard. When inevitably it got harder, I didn’t like having to spend time working things out. Or researching subjects and spending ages poring over books to embellish my answers and stretch myself. Or learn facts which weren’t immediately interesting to me. Gradually, this reflected in my results and also in the choice of subjects I decided to take. I dropped History as soon as I possibly could. All that learning of dates and extra reading! (I’d rather read novels.) Also, Physics which seemed far too complicated after a year or two. Maths was great – but only up to a point, beyond which I reckoned my grey matter would never be able to compute anything at all. I laughed when they asked me to do A-level. I one-hundred-and-ten-percent knew that I had reached my limit and preferred to bumble along in the Arts.
I’m not saying that I could have got a first at university if I’d worked a bit harder, or had a more glittering career if I’d pulled my finger out, nor do I think I wanted or needed either of those things, but I probably should have put more effort in from time to time. I came to realise I was not that bright after all, and didn’t have the tools to knuckle down and make the best of what skills I actually did have. I sometimes wonder whether, with a bit more perseverance and practice perhaps I’d still be able to play the piano. Or speak Russian (or even understand a bit – how can I have forgotten so much?). Or be a published writer. I fear it is too late for the first two of those, although I am determined to learn at least one song at which I can accompany myself at the keyboard. But maybe I should make a bigger attempt at the writing. Given the ever-increasing length of time between these blog-posts, maybe this too is a lost cause, but I won’t give up just yet.
In other ways, I need to cut myself a bit more slack though. Despite not trying very hard, I often set myself stupidly high standards. A recent example: I was horrified to find myself completely wiped out, after a mere four hours sitting outside in the cold, rain and wind issuing fuel vouchers to more than thirty people, with only a short break to run (yes, run) the few hundred yards home to print some more vouchers when my generous pre-printed supply ran out (stuffing down a muesli bar to stave off hunger pains whilst the printer did its churning) and then lolloping back to sit in splendid isolation for a further hour still interviewing and issuing vouchers whilst colleagues cleared up around me. ‘I’m being ridiculous and dramatic’, I told myself as I staggered through my front door again, leaving others to finish the tidying. And then I thought for a few minutes, and decided that actually most people would surely be feeling the same. I’m in my sixties not a teenager, I’ve had almost no food and just a few sips of water, and many others would have given up or not even volunteered in the first place. (Now, of course, I’m simply showing off. Sigh! Give yourself a break, woman!) I allowed myself a larger than normal snack and an extended sit-down – but no nap. Not going to Napland yet.
Just last Sunday, there was an article in the newspaper about our collective failure of concentration and our ever-shortening attention spans, what with the internet, YouTube and … well, I read most of it… got the gist… Probably means I’m normal…
…but let’s not be complacent. I reckon I’m going to try to buck the trend and focus more, concentrate for longer and try harder to see what I can achieve.
And so, by 2025 (not rushing things, but equally being mindful of my already short personal shelf-life) I will either be the highly acclaimed writer of a dazzling new musical*, an improbable comedy TikTok star (although that would mean reinstating TikTok on my elderly phone which might kill it altogether) or your next Prime Minister.
Clearly, there’s a decision yet to be made about exact direction of travel.
*Am in one of those ridiculous phases where a show has sparked a small obsession. A group visit to Operation Mincemeat at the Fortune Theatre in London was so good that I have been playing the soundtrack on repeat on Spotify ever since. The show was written by its cast and has worked its way up from the fringes to the West End. It is so clever, and at the moment what I would most like to be able to do is to write something equally amazing (then perform it, of course – hahahahahahahahaha)
It was the best of times, it was the best of times.
A late October weekend, I mean – a very good time indeed.
And no, I was not in Paris, nor in fact in London. As it happens, I was careering around Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and the Cotswolds in the pursuit of Aunts.
Ok, I’ve milked this rather weak misquote enough now. Especially as I propose to refer to more than two aunts anyway. Cheating, I suppose, but just too good to miss.
My short trip was a multi-purpose adventure, including a need to get away (I know, any excuse to book a B&B – and nice this time that Mr J would be with me) but it was very much an Aunt Theme weekend. A prime objective was to visit my two aunties, and also to be an aunt, and indeed a great-aunt, myself.
What is it about aunts?
Aunt: Noun. ‘The sister of someone’s father or mother or the wife of someone’s uncle…’ (Cambridge Dictionary)
Nothing very special there, one would think. As with family more broadly, you get what you get with an aunt. The relationship could be remote or even unknown; it could be comfortingly familiar and everyday, or it could be strangely more than that. In my case, I have been very lucky.
My father and my mother had one sibling apiece – in both cases a sister. Dad’s was younger than him; Mum’s was her ‘big’ sis. Both these sisters have outlived my parents, already by some considerable years, and I try to keep in touch. Flowers on their birthdays and at Christmas, and every few months a lengthy phone call. I can witter on with my Mum’s sister Daph for hours and have been known to complete a full hour’s Richmond Park wandering plus full meal preparation whilst chatting with her on my phone. Thank goodness we no longer have to sit under the stairs with a land-line, and hurrah for unlimited minutes.
Before we renewed our acquaintance in person with these two octogenarians, I had an auntly duty to fulfil myself: a visit to my brother’s place to meet his grandson for the first time. Shamefully, the child is already in sight of his second birthday and I had so far failed to clap eyes on him other than in the multiple Facebook and WhatsApp images that have been shared since his birth. My brother is besotted, which is rather lovely to see, and – now that I’ve got over the effrontery at making me a ‘great-aunt’ and thus desperately old – I thought I should have a vicarious share of this.
I’m not sure I prepared properly for the encounter. A serious role model for me was a Great Aunt who lived to be 103 and was gloriously independent and strong-willed, enduringly glamorous (at least by my family’s standards), exotically well-travelled (as a children’s governess to a wealthy family, she had lived on three non-European continents) and often spectacularly rude. I would like to think that some of this might rub off on me in my new aunticular capacity (apart from the glamorous element, clearly, and anyway my sister-in-law’s sister can probably tick that box for him).
Nephew and great-nephew
But when confronted with a toddling strawberry blond with a cheeky face and a propensity to play for hours with toy cars, there was little I felt I could do to impress. Witty and scathing one-liners, even if I had been able to summon up such things at the pre-midday visit time, would have entirely passed the little chap by, so a few gentle encouragements and references to “your aged grandfather” (the latter for my own silly amusement) were the best I could do. Perfectly reasonable, after our ambitiously early start to the day, due to the ridiculous geographical position of my brother’s Herefordshire abode (“Practically in Wales! Haha.” “No it’s not, you insufferable townie.” Etc. Forever.)
Great-nephew ran out of steam after an hour or so of extended family time and was taken away so that he (and his ever-so-slightly hungover father to whom I am, of course, also an aunt, generally of a rather remote sort oI guess) could have a sleep, while the rest of us repaired to the pub for an extended natter at which most of my family members excel when given the chance.
After treating ourselves to an overnight stay in a rather nice Bed & Breakfast establishment in the relative civilisation (in comparison to the wilds of Herefordshire) of Gloucestershire, Mr J and I were up and readying ourselves to pay visits to both of my elderly Aunties. Enjoying an unaccustomed hearty breakfast with the one other pair of overnighters, a bonus entertainment was the surprise arrival of an actual shooting party of eight gents in proper huntin’/shootin’/fishin’ garb who turned up claiming they had booked a breakfast party. This was news to the B&B staff who had expected to cater for just 4 people on this quiet Monday morning, but they clearly rallied round splendidly and no-one went away hungry. (Best porridge I’ve had in quite a while – we stayed at The Beckford Inn if you’re interested.)
Replete and back in our room to pack up, I received a message from my brother which informed me that there had been some sort of mix-up and my Auntie Daph had gone to work rather than waiting at home for our visit. Now, at 89 you would perhaps not expect someone to be out working, but this one is still only cautiously contemplating retirement. Anyhow, I rang her work number which mysteriously I found in my phone contacts, and we worked out that neither I nor she had done anything wrong (phew!), but the young girl who provides a lift to work had forgotten she was not supposed to come, and this (and my unsurprising inability to answer my home phone, when she rang to check) flummoxed Daph into agreeing to go to work after all from which she had called my brother in case he knew what was going on. Never mind, all was well and by the time Mr J and I had taken a nostalgic drive around some of my childhood haunts, she was back at home and ready to be picked up by us and whisked to a nearby Worcestershire village hostelry for lunch.
Auntie Daph was surprised I had her work phone number, as was I, but I told her I would have been able to find the number online anyway. “But how do you know the name of the business?” “Daph! You’ve worked there pretty much all my life, of course I know the name.” And it’s true; she’s worked for the same company since 1969. Even when the boss died a couple of years ago, his son and heir to the business couldn’t do without Daph and her younger colleague who has worked there even longer but is now only in her seventies, so is still ‘the girl’ in my mind despite there being an actual girl in training now. My mother died at the age of 80, having lived with dementia for her last 7+ years and this older sister is endlessly saddened by that, but I have to hope, with both my ageing aunts, that I have somehow acquired some of their genes for longevity rather than those of their siblings, my parents.
More nattering ensued and a happy lunchtime was spent. We returned Daph to her house where she showed us her elderly cockatiel in his cage. Aged thirty, he has apparently outlived normal life expectancy and, although he no longer talks and is not really able to fly properly, he seems to be carrying on regardless like his owner. Maybe it’s something in the water. Daph claims the first thing she says on arrival downstairs each day is “Morning Bertie! We’re both still alive then.” Magic. Bertie quite literally falls off his perch from time to time, and when the window-cleaner comes he’s so scared he occasionally tumbles completely out of his cage (left open during the daytime) and is unable to get himself back in until Daph gets home from work. Although he seems largely obsessed with his cage-mate – his own reflection in a dinky mirror – I suppose he is company of a kind.
We had to tear ourselves away, as we were due at Auntie #2 for a late tea in Oxfordshire. It was a beautiful drive through the Cotswolds. I grew up on the western edge of this area, looking up at the first of the hills and had regularly visited the nearer parts, including the tourist honeytraps of Bourton-on-the-Water and Broadway, but our journey today took us through several previously unvisited places and we thought perhaps an excursion would be in order another day. Our final destination today was a retirement complex in the centre of Bicester (not the famous Bicester Village of shopping fame – the thought of which always fills me with horror) – but the Oxfordshire town, where my aunt has a small self-contained flat with access to shared facilities such as catered meals, laundry and 24 hour emergency help – with the gigantic service charge to cover, although she makes the absolute most of the benefits. Today those benefits had extended to having the kitchen conjure up plated sandwiches and scones for our tea – my aunt having declined our invitation to a local pub for early supper in favour of her usual £5 communal lunch with her friends, Fair enough.
Although in many ways my father’s sister Pam is very different from Mum’s sister Daph, (Daph still goes out to work, cooks all her own meals and only allows herself a ‘ready’ meal from ‘Mr Marks’ once a week, goes line dancing, minds and walks other people’s dogs and has only given up driving because her son borrowed her car and knackered it somehow, whereas Pam doesn’t go out much), they both have their wits very much about them. Daph will pick us up on comments about news items and has plenty to say about the youth of today, the state of the town in which she has lived all her adult life and modern life in general. Pam, at 87 a full two years younger, is much less physically active and will tend to opt for an easier life if she can, but is not averse to pulling people’s legs (as reported here previously in fact) and enjoys regaling us with anecdotes of her own youthful misbehaviour as well as updates on her vast and ever-growing clutch of great-grandchildren – an area of my family that I tend to ignore when claiming how tiny my remaining clan has become. My bad, but I will almost certainly never meet any of them.
Aunties – me with Pam. I’m annoyed we forgot to take a pic with Daph.
Auntie Pam reminds me of my Nan (her mother, whom she now resembles quite strikingly I feel) but also of my great-auntie Dee. Dee (Edith) was not my aforementioned role-model great aunt (who was a sister of my Grandpa), but my Nan’s sister whom I recall fondly from my childhood as being witty and silly, and endlessly undermining my Nan, often with ridiculous acts – my favourite of which has to be the hiding of plates of dinner in the sideboard after they had been served to the table thus fooling Nannie into thinking she’d forgotten someone. I’m sure I saw her do this more than once. Maybe this will be something I could copy one day, although I doubt I’ll get the chance, and it’s not really a bucket-list contender.
Auntie Dee also had daft names for things and would make up stories for us. She never married and I now wonder if this was entirely because she was the younger daughter and had to stay at home to look after her parents (although it was certainly the case that she did this) or whether there were other reasons, but whatever the reason, she was great value to her nephews and nieces. My dad certainly did a good line in aunts.
Back home and a few weeks further into wintry season, I am still buoyed up by the visit (“Oh no you aunt!” I hear you cry – oh dear, sorry) and just embarking on a chaotic month of theatre visits, concerts and other jolly social events. Deep breath!
Thinks – perhaps I could be known as the theatrical aunt?
I am clearing out my bedside drawer. Oh yes, the excitement is verging on the insane for an autumn afternoon. I might need a lie-down now (under a blanket; it’s so cold!)
(Instead, she wraps a woollen shawl round her hunched shoulders and tries some keyboard exercise to keep the blood pumping – and to recall, for posterity and of course for your edification, the thrilling contents of said drawer.)
Well…
There are 25 pens. Hotel pens (Marriott particularly prevalent), conference pens, cheap emergency-purchase Bics, employee (ahem) ‘loan’ fibre-tips, a couple of smarter engraved (but not personalised) ballpoints and one solitary and sadly dried-out cartridge pen. Four of these fail to work – a further brief but nicely warming scribbling exercise is required to ascertain this – but the others can surely find better homes elsewhere in this establishment.
There is a stash of buttons, mostly corralled into two small plastic wallets which have partially self-shredded, meaning that colourful bits of wood, metal and fabric-covered plastic reach variously into the four dusty corners. So that’s where they’ve been hiding. I have looked more than once in other likely drawers in the past when the lockdown sewing group made appeals for buttons – to no avail. And they were so close!
Separate from the buttons are several lapel badges – your standard Red Cross and British Legion Poppy ones, but also a couple of Ernst & Young Africa Tax conference badges. (Oh the memories of the several visits I made to these lavish events over the years. There are many other mementoes around the house, including a small folding table I once managed to ram into my suitcase – but I’d forgotten these little yellow Africa-shaped pins. I don’t need them all though – just one will suffice.)
Carefully filed at one side of the drawer are numerous ancient store and hotel loyalty cards and a couple of extinct gift cards. Most of these are now carefully cut in half and filed in the bin.
Here are my defunct BA Gold cards (sigh). Don’t get me started.
Three watches, kept for sentimental reasons as I no longer wear a watch, are randomly distributed around the drawer. One is a long-ago present from my parents and I keep it even though I don’t much like it. Another is, I think, my mother’s which I keep for similarly sentimental reasons. The third I like and it will doubtless be fashionable again one day. (Not one of them is of monetary value, I hasten to add.)
Here’s an empty ring case which should house my engagement ring, but I have not taken it off since I once thought I’d lost it on stage when in pantomime. “Oh no I hadn’t!” (Sorry.) It was safely in my purse all along. But I don’t risk it anymore and am fairly sure that I have not removed it now for the past 18 years. There is a second ring-case which contains two battered and completely worthless rings which belonged to my Great-Aunt Stella (my hero). Hilariously I once took these to a jeweller (in Hatton Garden, because that was near to where I was working at the time) to check “just in case”. They were very polite…
Also lurking unprotected are three pairs of prescription spectacles, all of which would still be useful if my current pairs were lost or broken. Why I need all three I am not sure. One pair is almost invisible from a distance when worn, so these are useful for dressing up when singing in the folk choir when I still need to read. Of course, if I could learn all the words…
Much of the drawer space is taken up by several tubes of hand cream and foot restorer. I admit that these are slightly stockpiled, as I purchase them only when I can get a discount. I deem them ridiculously expensive otherwise. The surplus reveals that I succumb to rather more come-ons than I had thought – sucker! – or that I am very sparing in my use of these necessary skin-savers. Guilty on both counts methinks.
Inevitably for a drawer of any sort, there are coins of all varieties, some of which still have actual currency (LOL) and I have filed these in my purse to moulder there instead, or in the relocated hidden swag bag labelled ‘foreign’. Whilst I like to see a small representative sample of loose change from my globetrotting days and enjoy unearthing these from time to time, it is mostly annoying that I have accumulated so much now-useless coinage. I will one day get round to taking it to a charity collection or something.
Usefully, there are a couple of suitcase padlocks. I used one of these this summer when I realised that my suitcase didn’t close properly any more. Sometimes keeping old stuff can come in handy.
Oh, here are some keys. House keys – not for this house. Not sure whose house really. Defer decision.
Car keys! I think these must be to my mother’s long-gone VW Polo and have only been kept because of the hilarious key fobs sporting pictures of yours truly and little brother, each school-age with our gormless mugshots captured forever in moulded plastic. Definite keep.
And now for the medication: painkillers of many types including my current prescription stuff which seems to be working better than anything else so far (yay!). Surprisingly, nothing is past its safety date. This perhaps simply reflects on the enormous quantities of ibuprofen and paracetamol consumed until very recently.
At the bottom I unearth my own birth certificate. A horrible reminder of my great age. And the names I still don’t like. Should probably not be in here but in a strong box somewhere else in the house.
At the very back I find two tiny plastic wrist-bands, become brittle with age, which I saved from my two babies. These actually make me cry as I inspect them. Each has my name and hospital number on it, plus the date and time of birth of each of the offspring. The first one says BOY and reminds me he made his appearance – finally on the third day – at mid-afternoon tea-time. The second fails to record the femininity of the child, but it was the middle of the night and the staff were probably tired (huh! THEY were tired??). Or they had changed the hospital protocols in the intervening 2 years 10 days 10 hours and 40 minutes. Who knows?
There should be two sets of baby teeth in here somewhere too – but I don’t find them which means either that I have carefully stowed them elsewhere to make an emotional and mildly macabre appearance at some future clearing-out session, or that the tooth fairy has finally reclaimed what was rightfully hers!
Aside from the meds and the items which could still be used, much of the above has now been jettisoned or relocated. What remains has been carefully regimented which I am hoping will engender a calm and orderly feeling when I need to retrieve pills or creams.
There are two other drawers in my bedside table. One has a selection of scarves and wraps, and has been gently winnowed over the years. The other houses a sad collection of funeral notices, eulogies and other mementoes including all the cards and letters received after my mother’s death six years ago. I can’t bring myself to sort through this lot right now. It may be where those baby teeth are lurking though.
I’ll wait for a warmer day…
Post script: I left the house after writing the above to attend a Pilates class. When I returned, the heating was on. I am not one to question or overrule, and will admit to being quietly pleased that I am now absolved from all heating-related decision-making, so hurrah and welcome to winter.
With the arrival of October comes the excitement of a dark evening, the thrill of a chilly morning and the feverish contemplation of approaching … Yuletide!
Full disclosure, I truly don’t mind a dark evening and I have clothing (layers! – layers are the trick) to deal with those shivery mornings, but I truly can’t bring myself to contemplate the dreaded C word just yet.
More than one Facebook friend will soon need to be ‘hidden’ as the holly and glitter descend from their attics and taunt me from my phone-screen. I reckon I have only been spared full-on fairy lights, holly swags and reindeer models thus far this year because witchy-pumpkin-ey baubles seem to be having a moment and pre-Hallowe-en is clogging up the posts instead. Some of this is quite inventive and even, dare I admit, occasionally aesthetically pleasing, although of course the attraction is often buried pretty deep in swathes of tat. This depends on the artistic skill of the home-owner and I’m not going to diss someone’s genuine creative eye just because I cannot share their excitement for endless media-driven seasonal prettifying. But…
…whilst I hope I am broadminded and generous enough to accept other people’s preferences – I’m also selfish enough to want to keep their Noelitude at arm’s length for as long as possible. And at least until December! Pretty please.
One friend has already sent out invitations for a low-key early December dinner, using a combination of code and a small trigger warning to get me to reply. Haha she knows me so well. I have graciously accepted on the basis that this will just be an overdue catch-up with friends at a time of year when it can get tricky to find a table. And I believe that whilst I may prefer to keep Winterval Holibobs at bay, others hate the darkening and coldifying so much that they need a few tangible festive bookings to spur them through the next few weeks. It takes all sorts.
This year, as with many before, it is also the personal build up which can be problematic. Now that my family is so small, the ridiculous present-buying saga has quietened to a manageable level. I generally refuse to buy gifts until December comes around, but by this time in the year when my offspring were small, I would have received multiple requests for ‘ideas’ from one side of the family (the very word ‘ideas’ could induce full-on headbanging gloom at the very mention, which would inevitably also include a request for full details of what on earth the requests from my children actually were, and which shops might conceivably stock them before the odds-on certainty of them selling out in mid-November) and be told by the other side of the family that they had already purchased most of the gifts regardless. Indeed, when my mother-in-law died completely unexpectedly in the middle of November a few years ago, there was already an almost full clutch of pressies neatly laid out on the bed in her spare room.
So, it is not the gifting pressure any more, and neither is it really the planning around guests and entertainment as we will be doing exactly the same as we have done in the past few years (Covid excepted) and I could probably manage this in my sleep (and most certainly in the fog of a brandy-butter and pudding-wine-induced trance – for which there may be a precedent in the not-so-distant-past).
BUT… I had really thought we would have a bright new kitchen and eating space for our familial festivities this year, and once again it is not to be. Once again, I will add our tired and ever-fading decorations to the yet-more-tired and even scruffier downstairs of Jillings Towers and power up the failing oven to cook, at enormous decibels (because the stupid fan mechanism is terminally knackered) for hours on end, a similarly enormous free-range super-duper Waitrose bird. And with daughter J and His Feline Highness N still in residence in our guest room (where they are truly very welcome to be), there is the knotty question of where to put everyone else this time as the previously ‘little girl’ American niece is rapidly approaching an age when she may not wish to squash up with her Dad of a nighttime. Fortunately, the other brother-in-law seems resigned to pitch his fishing-overnight-camping chair anywhere. Maybe we’ll have to somehow persuade him that, with the possibility of record global warming Santa-time temperatures, the garden would be his best spot this year. Seems harsh – and is maybe why he decided at the last minute not to come at all last year. Hmm.
Along with all the festive forebodings, I have been wrestling with my wanderlust and making the sensible but disappointing decision not to jet off anywhere in what remains of 2023. I have to resign myself to failure over my ‘visit at least one new country each year’ objective (or was it originally ‘at least two’? I think it was.) In my current state of melancholy, my visit to Madeira earlier this year definitely doesn’t count – it is just a further-away bit of Portugal where I have been before, and my Italian choir tour this summer may have been amazing but I even went to Italy when I was eleven (Show off!) so that’s not a new country either.
BA tempted me with a Sale and the lure of achieving one of their shiny lounge passes if I travelled far enough, but if I’m to pay for the even shinier new kitchen next year it will have to be ‘instead of’ rather than ‘as well as’. (Until someone invites me somewhere marvellous, that is…)
I’ve even turned down my new Choir’s Spanish tour next April! Once again, it was a country I have visited before (huh!) and as a newbie I would have to share a room. Ahem, I think we know where I stand on room-sharing already. So, “No”.
However, going against all the foregoing humbuggery, last week I could be found making my own Christmas Puddings. Years ago, when I worked four days a week and had two sprogs to wrangle, I somehow found time to do this but have failed to do so for a long while now. For some reason, I suddenly decided it was time to try this again and added the ingredients to my shopping list as I set off for my monthly mega-visit.
I set aside a whole day in my busy lady-of-leisure schedule for this feat of domesticity and marvelled at what a superwoman I must have been to achieve this back in the day. I can only assume that the ‘spare’ time I managed to create in order to achieve this task back then, including as it does a huge amount of fiddly chopping and awkward stirring before a full eight hours of steaming, was possible because there was no Facebook, no Twitter/X, no work emails or breaking news on my phone – and there might possibly have been a trade-off for some peace and quiet. Of course, it would have served as a diversion from worrying about the availability of particular Star Wars figures or Pokémon toys – and in those days there was no silly blog to finish!
After every significant achievement, there can be some satisfaction, some happy reflection and then the perhaps inevitable pondering over future activity? On the back of her most recent glorious success, otherwise known as the encouraging absence of humiliating failure in Italian choral activity (as documented last time), your blogging heroine is once again pondering “What next?” You may recall her very same question after completion of the South West Coast Path in April/May.
What stupendous achievement can we expect in what remains of 2023, as the months gallop towards another Yule, and yet another birthday recedes in the rear-view mirror?
Naturally, the hours spent painfully attempting to embed a tenor line into a Tena-lady’s soggy brain-cells with any lasting effect are already long forgotten. As indeed are most of those melodious tenor lines; space is needed in the grey soup for shopping lists, home admin tasks and the seemingly endless psychodrama of healthcare appointments.
Yet still an interesting confidence hovers for a while. Enthusiastic internet searches for prestigious London chamber choirs are conducted. Websites are explored and samples played on YouTube. Eventually, a greater grip on reality is achieved and emails are exchanged with a view to singing in a much larger local but still very well-regarded choir which will require an actual audition. Momentum and a brief surplus of positivity spurs her on.
I can do this! I can also now – hurrah, you say – dispense with the daft theoretical third-person ponderosity (side note – I checked to see if I had really made this word up, and I had not – but it may rather mean ‘heaviness’ or ‘heftiness’ which is possibly more appropriate given my increasing girth) and get on with more practical stuff.
I am invited to attend a rehearsal to ‘see how we get on’.
The first of this season’s rehearsals for the choir I have contacted duly arrives and I set off, by train, with a sense more of purpose than trepidation. Arriving in good time, I am greeted by several people I know who are already members, including (sigh) a fearsome couple I had conveniently forgotten would be there. During the course of the evening, most of these people are helpful and encouraging; the ‘couple’, however, hone in on me in a pincer movement at break time to remind me of weirdnesses past, seemingly competing with each other to effect a peculiar but relentless sanctification of my son for his support of their own offspring at school many years ago. Don’t get me wrong, my son is a wonderful man and was perhaps an amusingly talented teenager – but a saint he is, and was, not. Slightly unnerved, I return to my seat for the second half of the rehearsal wondering whether this might not be a good idea after all. Will I be mobbed every week? (Thinks – is this what fame is like? – hahaha! Get over yourself woman!)
My immediate tenor neighbours at this rehearsal are more appropriately friendly. The only other ‘lady’ tenor has already advised me that if I am offered an audition tonight, I should take it and get it over with. Whilst I had not expected to audition so soon, it makes a lot of sense. What would be the point of trying to decide whether to join if I don’t yet know if they will have me? So when the five newbies are asked if they would like to take the audition this evening, I am the first to volunteer and thus the first to find myself standing nervously alongside the grand piano in the middle of the rehearsal hall (a private school’s sports-hall I think), with the old-school choir director poised at the keyboard with my musical fate in his gift.
He has managed to get a story exhibiting his Oxford organ-scholar origins into the evening’s proceedings and on more than one occasion during the rehearsal has referred to the tenors and basses as ‘Gentlemen’ – which of course makes me smile and wince simultaneously (and, if I’m honest, make a mental note that this will be good blog-fodder, which as you see has indeed come to pass – a rare feat of recall on my part, given that I refrained from making an immediate note on my phone for fear of marking me out as some kind of mole with the potential to find myself chorally blackballed).
Now faced with this nervous-looking applicant who, despite first appearances is brazenly claiming a place amongst the ‘men’, he expresses surprise and also amusement at my list of choral experience (which of course simply makes me wish I had invented something completely spurious instead). Perhaps this makes me more inclined to belt out the requested scales with more braggadocio than coloratura but the rehearsal has warmed up the vocal chords and I don’t care. I am rather pleased with the result.
Hmm, pride comes before a fall, as they say. I am for some reason reminded of a driving test and recall my misplaced positivity on at least two such occasions. And, perhaps predictably, I fail at the next task – singing back the middle note in a chord of three. At least I pick one of the other two notes played, just not the correct one. I am duly and drily informed of this and all remnants of confidence leave me. Back to that driving test, I might as well reverse into a wall now because I won’t have passed anyway.
Although I easily sing back the four notes he plays next, I am now firmly in quaking-kneed teenage music oral exam territory as well as behind the L-plates on my mother’s Vauxhall Viva, and fear that even an exquisite hill-start is not going to help me. I am presented with some sheet music and asked to sing the tenor line. I think at this point there were some gentler comments that it was ok, he was going to play the accompaniment rather than just stare at me while I muddled through, but I did a short impression of a rabbit in the learner-driver headlights (sorry – I am getting tired of this mixed metaphor myself – will stop) and after completing the first line on autopilot (ok, mixing beyond metaphor now) I find myself on the wrong line entirely and grind to a halt. Assuming this is curtains and I have at last been thoroughly found out, I prepare to make my exit, but no – the ignominy is to continue a little longer. “Well, you’ve missed your cue there – but carry on.” I glance more carefully, find the correct second line, restart and the next thing I know the piano ceases and I am informed that “ok, well you found your way again there”. Weakly smiling – it’s nice of him to try and cheer me up a little I suppose – I thank him, hoping that this is the end and wondering whether I will have a long time to wait at the station for the next train.
“You’re in!”
Effusive thanks and I make my escape. Well…hurrah, I suppose. I have just missed a train so it is indeed a long wait at the almost-deserted station. A jubilant wait though.
A balmy, though autumnally, early-dark evening is later spent with my a capella singing friends attempting, reasonably successfully, to harmonise a few good choons. In fact, the evening brings me down to earth somehow, especially as my relief, surprise and relative cheeriness at my recent audition success is swiftly punctured by the comment ‘Ah, they’re desperate at the moment – they’d take anyone!’ Not much more to say on that really. And, along the lines of what someone (Marx? Not Karl!) once said – ‘I don’t want to be part of any club that would have me as a member.’ – I decide to drink wine rather than the grape juice I had intended to quaff and proceed to enjoy my evening anyway.
However, on the morrow I am if anything even less inclined to join, despite (or maybe even partly because of) being bombarded with all the ‘paperwork’ in my email inbox resulting from my audition success. I never was much of a morning person.
Of course, I will join. I’m just keeping them (and myself!) guessing. I’m possibly experiencing a bit of SAD (seasonal affective disorder) and using it as an excuse for prevarication and grumpiness. Once again, get over yourself!!!
And so I obediently get over myself. Proving that my attention span is fortunately as short for low mood as it is for everything else these days, I am almost immediately cheered up by the chance re-discovery, during a rare five-minute cleaning burst, of a Conservative Party sticker lurking on an inside flap of my trusty Mickey Mouse shoulder bag – approaching its 22nd birthday which is a joy in itself. I ‘acquired’ this true blue memento/prop as the result of a ridiculous (and sadly unbroadcast) performance as a Tory faithful lady in The Crown back in 2021. When affixing the sticker shortly thereafter, I wryly imagined what consternation its discovery might cause amongst my left-leaning friends should it be mistaken as genuinely mine. Of course, it is so well-hidden that I have not even noticed it myself for most of the intervening period. So that worked out about as well as the many witty comments I’ve come up with after events but never actually uttered.
I am cheered even more by a trip up to North London – the still-alien-to-me hinterland that is Kentish Town despite Daughter J’s brief inhabitance thereof – to attend the launch gig of Little A’s music EP at a café performance venue. Little A, you may recall, is the daughter of a good friend and was a fellow ‘lady’ tenor (definitely not a Tena-lady) on the recent Italian tour.
I arrive early due to a combination of my distrust of public transport (always take one train earlier than the timetable would suggest) and a mistaken assumption that because there were start and finish times on my tickets I would need to be in place for the start. On arrival with twenty-five minutes to spare and after a nonchalant saunter-past to see if I could risk going in, I spot a man I recognise who appears to be queuing for a drink at the front of the venue. I tentatively approach, realising as I get closer that he is the only punter there. I am too close to back off now, and it is only 20 minutes before advertised kick-off time, so I go in and introduce myself. I know we have many mutual friends who will be along shortly, and we attended the same college years ago, so I am unusually sociable (by my own standards). He has ordered coffee which is taking forever to make. No-one else arrives, although I eventually spot Mr J motorcycling past – first in one direction, then back in the other direction. I explain to my new acquaintance that Mr J and I rarely arrive by the same mode of transport, then I increase my own order at the bar and we find seats at a table as it becomes apparent that the performers are still rehearsing upstairs.
I introduce Mr J to my new friend, and explain that this is the guy whose place I recently took on the Italy singing tour (am I mentioning Italy too often? Yes? I know. I will grow out of it.) Mr J knows that this new chum is a professional musician and was unable to go to Italy this year because he was singing in an actual Prom. So my claim is deliberately ludicrous (at least, I hope it is seen as such and not as ridiculously misplaced boasting) and we move on. As retribution for any perceived self-aggrandisement, my chair later collapses beneath me to great hilarity all round, our mutual friends having by now joined us to witness my unceremonious descent to table level. Fortunately no injuries are sustained and we proceed upstairs where my public transport pessimism is vindicated by the delayed start of the gig due largely to a 20-strong party of Little A’s friends being stuck on the underground.
Little A is eventually magnificent and her audience warmly, raucously and even rapturously squeal, whoop and applaud. Many are doubtless making a mental note for future reference that they were there at the start of her incredible career. Who knows, but it’s always good to be able to say completely genuinely to a performer’s parent, proud tears in their maternal eyes, that their offspring is truly remarkable. [Link to Little A’s EP on Spotify ] And 20 of the audience make a mental note never to trust public transport timings and take an earlier train – perhaps. They have collectively done wonders for the bar takings though. I think I had three ginger beers as well as my coffee. Others were most definitely less restrained.
Ginger beers and coffee may be restrained, but they must also be relieved, especially before a potentially lengthy public transport return to the safety of South West London. Facilities for such relief in this establishment are advertised as Unisex and to my slightly different form of relief my pre-train investigation reveals two private cubicles, one helpfully vacant. Naturally this is a part of life over which your intrepid blogger would normally draw a decency veil. However, it may be of passing (or ‘p*ssing’ – sorry) interest to report that the lighting in this cubicle ranged from none at all (careful setting of door lock to Engaged whilst propping handbag against its slight a-jarred-ness to allow a little light but prevent stranger ingress) to occasional manic strobe-effect bursts (resulting protective eye-closure rendering even greater inability to see). We are fortunate to have many inbuilt or learned life reflexes and I counted myself personally fortunate at this point also to be unimpaired by alcohol. Others were perhaps less fortunate on the alcohol front and as I avail myself of the rather better-lit washbasin facilities (for washing my hands! What were you thinking?) I conduct a bizarre conversation with my previously-unknown-to-me successor in the cubicle as to the optimum time to close the door in relation to rear-end location of loo-seat and related activities. Continuing ‘technical’ discussion through the now-almost-but-not-quite-closed door proves too much for my mounting hysteria – perhaps ginger beer has more of an effect than I realise – and I make a hasty retreat to say my goodbyes to performer and proud parents before dashing to the nearby Overground station.
Having suitably lowered the tone there, I will leave you as I continue to ponder my future.
Hmm – the immediate future involves BBC’s iPlayer and a packet of Maltesers – a cure for almost everything, I find – and I’ll return to the weightier issues tomorrow.
Thus hums my tiny mind, as I compulsively throw every summery clothing item I own into a suitcase a size larger than originally intended, along with several changes of black performance outfit in a sealed bag in case of I-don’t-know-what-kind-of transit spillage disaster.
How could I have thought that learning seventeen choral pieces plus a mass setting would be a good midsummer activity? It has dominated my waking hours – and that of my housemates – for the past four weeks. Not only that, but travelling at antisocial times of day (yes, another stupidly early start – do I never learn?) in peak holiday season to a country where the temperature is unlikely to dip below 30 degrees C (I don’t like the heat), to spend a week with a bunch of talented singers most of whom I’ve never met who have being doing this for years. Although I sing regularly, I have done very little choral work in the recent past, and never to the exacting standards of the Cutty Sark Singers, who have now taken an un-auditioned punt on me in order to boost the Tenor line for their annual one-week choir tour in Italy. Indeed, all they have heard is a phone recording of me singing in a pub garden, and it is perfectly possible that my voice has been confused with my vocal partner on that occasion (yes, E, that would be you!) But, nothing ventured, nothing gained eh?
My new black A4 folder containing the music over which I have pored so diligently, slots carefully into my old work rucksack, never to leave my side for fear of losing it in any apocalyptic airport baggage fiasco which may occur. If I lose it, I may have to use someone else’s spare copy, which would be catastrophic because, amateur that I am, I have used highlighter pen to ensure I can always follow which line I am supposed to be singing – ‘supposed’ being an important element of this statement. I am, in fact, wondering how I will hide this shameful fact from my fellow choir-members. Funny how I obsess over this, whilst worrying far less about the complicated travelling arrangements ahead of me.
I realise I am erring on the side of exaggeration; in fact, a strange calm has settled inside me and I am just going through the motions of panic to keep up appearances. (Weirdly true.)
The improbably named Zedcarz car appears exactly at stupid o’clock and I am pleased to see it is a smart Mercedes, with rather lovely interior mood lighting. Somewhat despite myself, I am already enjoying this ‘not-going-on-the-bus-it’s-too-early’ luxury and continue the theme through to the BA lounge which I have once again somehow justified to my bank balance and my failing eco-creds. As penance I walk, in splendid isolation and humming one of the trickier pieces, through the underground tunnel to the Heathrow Terminal 5 B-gates for my flight to Bologna, rather than take the crowded shuttle. Of course, this is not a penance at all but a joy. I have never yet met another person down here and my step-count ticks up nicely. (Saddo!)
I actually think there is something wrong with me. Lack of headache and such clear-headed cheerfulness as I am experiencing is ever-so-slightly unnerving. Heading for a fall perhaps?
Aside from a small bird-strike incident with the plane ahead of us, which requires a change of mind about our own imminent landing and an aggressive power up-up-and-away for an additional sky circuit of Bologna, the journey passes uneventfully and, rather than fret over what the accommodation will be like at the villa or whether I will be able to remember any of the notes I’m supposed to sing, I allow myself to read a large chunk of paperback when I’m not gawping at the Swiss Alps out of the window.
Emerging finally from the tiny Macaroni monorail (properly called the Marconi, but everyone I spoke to on tour independently chose the pasta version), the link from airport to Bologna Central Rail station, the heat hits me and I hope that the six minutes estimated to walk to my hotel will actually be shorter. It is. Five minutes later I am persuading the nice man on Reception to find me a room which is ready (it is not yet midday) and he very kindly does so. The same man allows me to stay until 1.15pm the next day too – ‘exceptionally at no extra cost’ – I decide I like Italians.
Bologna colonnades
I sit in my room and wonder whether I should practise my singing. I decide that it’s too late for that now, and set off on my usual random stomping around the sights of a new city. After all, this was partly the point of arriving a day early – that and a grace day in case of strikes.
BolognaMy favourite Bologna chemist sign
It is so hot that I fear I will not get far, but am pleased to find that Bologna is the capital of colonnades and everywhere I wish to go has a sheltered walkway with impressive pillars and cracked terracotta paving. It’s all beautiful, even the tired bits, and I manage to catch a few snaps and grab a snack for late lunch in a delicatessen with street tables – convincing myself that I am properly in the Italian vibe (current offspring speak for mood or atmosphere) because I have chosen to eat something with artichokes in it and I can remember the Italian words to ask the waiter for the check (‘check’ being, annoyingly, the ‘English’ word used for ‘conto’ in my recent Duolingo lessons instead of the correct word which is ‘bill’).
No perambulation of a new city is complete without a stop in a supermarket or corner shop. I make the splendid discovery of an Aldi, which I plunder for biscuits and bottled water – startlingly adding up to less than 1 euro which I only realise when I have already proffered my credit card! Ridiculous. I seek out other more authentic Italian food shops but still only buy crisps and chocolate, albeit at higher cost than Aldi. I’m tired, and old habits die hard.
On the morrow, after a successful investigation of the hotel breakfast arrangements and another brief stomp around, I trundle back to the train station. The train is packed and there is nowhere to put my medium-sized suitcase. Several different people assist me – kindly and wordlessly – and I end up forfeiting my booked window seat in some kind of swap for my luggage. My disappointment at lack of view dissipates rapidly as it transpires most of this leg of my journey – to Florence – is underground, so I plough on with my paperback.
I change at Florence, which is hotter than a hot place, and the second train is just as punctual, but much less busy and with better views.
I have been corresponding on What’sApp with A, the multi-talented choir group member who: makes all the villa bookings; tells us what we are singing and what we should wear; provides a Spotify list and folders if required; coordinates arrivals and departures etc (and will at some point send me a conto/bill/check for the week when she’s added everything up). She is waiting on the platform at Terontola-Cortona station and greets me in a business-like fashion as I stagger to her car with my luggage. My friends have referred to her as Big A. She is tiny. I realise that this is not just a title given because there is also another A, a child of one of my friends who has attended every one of these longstanding tours since babyhood and was inevitably known as Little A, but a typical British joke (possibly the next thing to be ‘woked’).
As we pull into the villa grounds, and I marvel at the scale and beauty, I suddenly focus on what Big A is saying. ‘You’re sharing a room with B; I assume that’s ok?’ What??? B is an old friend of mine, for sure, and we have shared a few things over the years but… Has he agreed to this? Is he aware at all? What do I say to Mr J?
I confess that my other old friend (S) on this tour did ask me, weeks ago on WA, if I would consider sharing with B. My response, I now realise, may have been misleading. I recalled a boozy evening in our early twenties where several of us all crashed out in one room after a party – and replied that ‘it’s years since I shared a room with B lol.’ It appears this has been taken as acceptance. I had wondered in advance – indeed wondered out loud to some non-singing friends who were now eagerly awaiting tales of nocturnal B and bossy Big A. Oh dear. Note to self – don’t try this throwaway humour again without sending a qualifying sensible and incontrovertible follow-up, and don’t make a joke of it if it might actually come true!
Fortunately, as I stutter apologetically, Big A is immediately understanding and admits to having been surprised at the suggestion, and she steams into action changing the handwritten notes on doors replacing me with someone else (a man) to sleep alongside B and freeing up a delightful mezzanine space for me – which I transform, over the course of the ensuing week, into what can only be described as a TIP! To be fair, the apparently capacious wardrobe taking up about a third of the space on this mezzanine level is half stacked with thick, heavy and entirely unnecessary (in August) blankets, has no hanging rail and precisely one ancient coat-hanger tucked behind the blankets, so is next to useless. The lighting is also exceedingly poor up here, so grubbing around in cupboards or suitcase is tricky – much better to leave everything on the bed or floor where there is a chance that what little light there is will reveal its whereabouts. Also, draping towels and larger clothing over the banister rail provides a little privacy from the room below.
Others arrive. There are 24 of us in total. Three are good friends of mine, a further two I recognise from my university days although they don’t remember me, another I thought I would recognise but don’t (and he definitely doesn’t know me) and Little A, the youngest daughter of my good friends S&J, I have met a few times before so I set to to try and learn everyone else’s name.
Glorious al fresco eveningsWine tasting
The week begins with the first of seven outstanding communal suppers, a great deal of chat and even more alcohol. These musicians can certainly drink. At this point, I decide I will avoid alcohol completely, on the basis that the blurb on my latest headache medication advises against it, and I really don’t need to drink to enjoy myself. (This is true, but …) I hold strong this first evening as a headache gathers anyway without the help of any addictive substances – a fact which encourages me to ignore my rule on five out of six later evenings. On the last evening I am congratulated by our resident wine-merchant and sommelier J (who knows me well from our recent walking holiday) for my ability to abstain or at least drink a tiny fraction of everyone else’s consumption. I’ve always thought this made me a lightweight, but I realise that in fact it may genuinely be something that people admire these days. Who knew? (Or perhaps in fact he was just teasing me – but I’ll take it anyway.)
As for headaches, I largely banish them by taking a strong cup of coffee to bed with me each night – drinking half before going to sleep and the other half cold on waking up in the morning. This sounds ridiculous, but I am convinced it helped.
Rehearsals, of which there are three scheduled before our first performance, are initially terrifying. We never sing through an entire piece – apart from the mad and tricky one which lasts less than a minute – and it is assumed that we know all the notes. Well, I do know all the notes, but it’s taken a while. Thank goodness for preparation. It is fairly clear that two of my fellow Tenors are pretty much sight-reading – although they have sung several of the pieces before. And this is how they work. Precisely what I was worried about for myself; years of experience and training are not easily caught up.
A brief note on the Tenors. We have one ‘proper’ Tenor (who stays up longer than anyone else, probably drinks as much as or more than anyone – see more below – but has a glorious voice) and the other who is a professional Baritone singing ‘up’ (he sang in the Coronation earlier this year and, knowing I would be singing with him, I had spent much of the service scanning the choir to see if I could make him out, without actually knowing what he looked like). Little A – currently a Choral Scholar at Cambridge, singing alto there – is the third member (I am fourth I guess, although will sing Tenor 1 just to confuse you) and this means that we are 50% female, a fact pointed out quite proudly by our choir leader as being surprising and unusual. Given that Little A is no more than twenty years of age, I refrain from my usual Tena Ladies joke and simply smile.
My voice is hardly going to feature alongside these three, and in one sense this makes me feel better. I only need to avoid obvious mistakes, rather than try to be outstandingly brilliant (which of course is what I had been aiming for originally – haha). I have decided I will just quietly (or moderately loudly) blend with the rest of them.
I opt also to blend sartorially, with the men more generally, by wearing black instead of the ladies’ ‘long, single-coloured non-strappy dress – any colour’ which, despite even briefly entering a local Kingston bridesmaid shop (!!!!), has proved too complex for me to procure in any case. In the end, for Mass we wear Sunday best (on a Tuesday, which is mind-blowing and turns out a bit scrappy imho) and although I wear one of my black outfits for the first evening concert, I am persuaded to wear a light blue midi-length strappy sun-dress for the second one – thus proving that dress codes are just there for the breaking and that flattery will make me change my mind every time. (But don’t push it!)
I’m getting ahead of myself.
Whilst the villa is not overly luxurious, it has indoor space suitable for rehearsals and, most importantly, sports a restaurant standard kitchen which allows chef R (husband of Big A, and a key member of the gang, as well as singing Bass) to create some stunning dishes with the help of all of us on chopping, stirring, serving etc duty. I have never eaten a better risotto, and discover the delights of bread stew on leftovers day (this was likely a version of ‘ribollita’ – I have just looked this up but it is a Tuscan speciality, and R was trying to produce local dishes wherever possible, so that’s likely correct). My friends told me in advance that the food was good, but I did not expect such a standard. R is not a chef in real life – I think he’s a retired teacher – but he may have missed his calling.
I delight in the somehow carefree and almost other-worldly atmosphere; it is a strangely relaxing week. Yes, I have to rehearse, yes, I have to help in the kitchen and yes, there are people I barely know all around me, yet the schedule rumbles on and I fit around it with almost no mental effort, other than the musical effort which is specific and all laid out for me to follow. I am tied to the villa by the rehearsal and meal schedule and can’t go out exploring, so my usually itchy feet are becalmed (apart from their numerous insect bites). Having no independent means of transport helps on this front too, although for the concerts there is always a space in the back of someone’s car for me – usually squished up against others companionably and taking turns to sit in the middle seat, with no clue where we are but somehow confident that we will get there and glad of the air-con. Our glorious soprano soloist doubles as Navigatrix in the co-pilot seat and encourages us to guess which number road we are on at any given time, whilst – for some reason in French – she acts as rally co-driver for our cheerful Second Soprano chauffeur who seems unfazed by pretty much anything. To the carefully modulated cries of ‘Continuez, continuez!’ we five ladies hurtle to and from the venues, with barely a care. And to reiterate – the aircon definitely helps.
Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta, Cortona – where we sang on her feast day
Our first performance is a Mass in Cortona for Ferragosto (Feast of the Assumption). This is slightly seat of the pants stuff because we are only loosely briefed by the Priest beforehand. He is very jolly, but clearly on edge due to the presence of the Bishop of Arrezzo, and an ever-growing congregation, in his church for this feast day Tuesday morning. We muddle through, taking our cues in the Mass mostly correctly, and only slightly blot our copybooks by causing the congregation to break into spontaneous applause with our ‘Biebl’ (the final anthem we have chosen, with splendid soloists – see attached99EF79EF-86A5-4423-9B89-3758E4C2D039 small video), rather to the Bishop’s distaste (the applause, not the singing, we hope). He forgives us though, and even speaks a little in English at the end of his address, to anticipate our future heavenly joy ‘up in the sky with Mary’ – a phrase we will inevitably repeat to each other for the rest of the tour.
Concert venue at Montepulciano – Il Tempio Di San BiaggioMy Tenor buddies in the evening sun at Montepulciano
The second concert location in Montepulciano is sublime and the concert goes well. We are rewarded with a beautiful sunset and a conveniently located bar, before returning to the villa for yet another splendid meal.
It is a long time since I have sat around in a swimming costume, but the heat entices even this usually body-ashamed damsel to disrobe and spend time in and around the generous pool. At one point the day after our first concert, I even loll on the steps for the best part of an hour, half submerged, to debate with my fellow Tenors how it was that on the previous evening all four of us had somehow managed to miss a key Tenor entry, leaving a complete silence and our comrades in confusion, but then all four of us miraculously recommenced our singing together precisely one bar late. We decide it simply added to the tension of what was already a very slow and atmospheric piece, the audience would never know any different and our colleagues had by now, incredulously, forgiven us. I am simply relieved that I didn’t attempt to start up on my own, and we all agree (sure, they are humouring me, but once again, I’ll take it) that it proves how much of an instinctive musical team we are. Time for another couple of lengths of the pool to knock some of this nonsense out.
Not yer actual Pope
The heat is relentless. All week, we are above 30 degrees and often with little breeze. The evenings are blissful; eating, drinking and chatting al fresco, sometimes until 3 in the AM, with no need for a cardigan, is fantastic. On just one occasion the temperature gets to us.
Our second concert is in Citta della Pieve on Friday early evening. On arrival at the Duomo, we find that even the stout stone walls are insufficient to cool the interior, and our rehearsal is meltingly exhausting. My fellow first Tenor is feeling lightheaded and we seek out extra-large bottles of water for him. After a concerted aqua-glugging session and a brief sit-down on the priest’s throne before the audience arrives (“I’d make an excellent Pope!” – the non-Catholics among us tend to agree, but it is perhaps unwise to encourage him), he rallies and we’re off.
Part-way through our first set, I realise that ‘il Papa’ is straying from the beat and swaying more erratically than usual. I catastrophise – is he about to plummet off the side of our altar steps perch? I’ll then be the sole Tenor 1 or, even more likely, follow suit (I have a black-belt in copy-fainting) and join him sprawled in the side aisle. I look steadfastly at the conductor and sing a little louder to cover. His Holiness somehow rallies and we reach the interval still upright. Aqua-replenished, we complete our performance to a standing ovation, followed by much congratulation, a quick change and a dash to the nearest bar.
We’ve made it.
And despite a few (hopefully unnoticeable) slips, I too have made it to the end of my week unscathed and happy. The risk has paid off. I have not embarrassed myself. I may have been the weakest musical link, but I may not have been,* at least not by too great a margin, and I’ve had a truly wonderful time. As you see, I have been lured into hyperbole and begun to use words such as wonderful and glorious – believe me, ‘fantastic’, ‘life-affirming’, and ‘splendiferous’ etc are also lurking at my fingertips.
On another level though, it is just a huge great big relief`!!!!
I have no idea if they will ask me again. It would be nice to think so, but it doesn’t really matter.
View at CortonaView at Montepulciano
Post script: Back in the UK, it seems that Mr J has had a somewhat different holiday, sailing in sometimes ‘exciting’ waters off Cornwall, sharing a tiny cabin with an old friend and coming home unencumbered by sticks of rock, pasties, or fillets of Cornish mackerel, but nursing instead his first-ever dose of Covid.
So not only did we holiday apart, but we have just spent a further week avoiding each other at home.
*there may not have been a weakest link at all. I am most certainly not suggesting that someone else was the weakest link.
Preamble (note, this is not the cheeriest start, but I’ll get to the fun bit eventually)
My mum was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in her early seventies. She completely forgot my dad, her husband of 51 years, within a year of his death. She soon became unable to live at home even with a full-time carer and reverted to a childlike or teenage approximation of her former self: she climbed out of windows when she felt trapped; she was once picked up by the police when walking into town (4.5 miles) when the bus didn’t come, (because it was 4 in the morning and not the afternoon as she had thought); and she finally attacked her carer in Tesco’s café prompting hospitalisation (for Mum, fortunately not the carer) and the sad but sensible advice to look for a nursing home where she deteriorated gently (and mercifully fairly happily) for a further five years.
Mum had always feared dementia because her own mother and at least two of her aunties had succumbed to it. She practised puzzles and word-games, and was physically active; she often walked more than five miles a day. But her fears were well-founded and it seemed that nothing could prevent her decline, particularly after my father’s illness and death.
Do I have that gene? I don’t know, and despite my occasional worrying forgetfulness and intermittent general stupidity, I push the thought away and try to make the most of life ‘in the now’ – because after all, I could go under the proverbial bus tomorrow with or without a diagnosis.
So, I walk and I sing and I travel. I go to the theatre and meet friends for meals and of course I drivel into this blog when I can find the time between all the above and the endless daily puzzles that I make myself do.
Just now, I am pushing myself harder – learning Italian and trying to wind myself up to concert pitch for a singing holiday in Cortona in a week’s time. On the singing front I can honestly say I am working harder than I have done since the last mega-translation I took on a few years ago and I think this may have to be a one-off – they will either write me off as a bad job if I’m not good enough, or if I triumph I will baulk at such commitment a second time around. I fear that, be it Alzheimer’s or simple ageing, my poor brain is resistant to concentrated learning these days. Or maybe I really am not as musical as I thought? Hmm, I think I’m trying to prove a point one way or the other – to myself – having dodged serious challenges thus far.
It was therefore a delight to find something else that challenged me, provided some sociability and would benefit research into and support for Alzheimer’s. I signed up months ago to walk 13 miles on an Alzheimer’s Society Trek, choosing a far-flung location by the sea which I had never previously visited and persuading three of my old friends to come with me. As it was such a long distance from home, we decided to make a long weekend of it and booked a convenient-looking Airbnb (‘sigh’ – I know, evil takeover of property everywhere), plus the cheapest train tickets available. And we thought no more about it for a while.The Alzheimer’s Society pestered us good-naturedly by email from time to time and even succeeded in making me more aggressive in my self-publicising, ensuring an early hitting of my basic target which then ticked up gently.
The weather and the rail strikes conspired somewhat against us, but we are made of stern stuff. With the train refund in my bank, I drove my lovely new red car all the six hours up to Yorkshire. My London-based friend B sat in the passenger seat and operated the Sat-nav, heating/aircon and audio choices for me, while I concentrated on missing turn-offs and failing to use cruise-control. He had brought home-made ragu and lemon drizzle cake – a precious cargo, which we steadfastly left in its protective bag whilst we snacked on motorway service-station sarnies and biscuits which, sadly, shed crumbs in the beautifully valeted car (mea culpa here, B being clearly less dexterously challenged – or messy – than I am. I’m going to have to pick some of the more enduring crumbs out of the tiny air-con holes in the leather when I get round to it).
The 199 steps down into Whitby
It seemed not to matter how many turnings I failed to take off the motorway; there was always another one in a few miles. We eventually found a gloriously sweeping A-road which led to Whitby and, with little bother, we reached a small car-park at the famous Whitby Abbey. The Sat-nav told us we had arrived at our destination and we laughed. Really? Up here? Our property’s website gave some vague arrival instructions and a link which led to somewhere 20 minutes’ walk away. We set off on foot – ragu and cake in hand – to see if we could magically locate the property in our immediate vicinity next to the abbey ruins before driving elsewhere. The magic worked – we found the place and worked out which narrow stone archways (marked Private) we needed to navigate to park the car safely in front of it.
And so began a wonderful weekend away from reality. Yes, it rained more than half the time, but our stern stuff prevailed. In the interests of brevity (not one of my strong points!) here are random highlights.
We may have stolen a bottle of wine from Whitby’s fine Co-op on Day 1. Too complicated to explain, but if we did, then it was not for want of trying to pay.
The 13-mile walk was easier than expected. The outward half took us along a disused railway (flat) to Robin Hood’s Bay and, apart from a few slippery ups and downs on the cliff path back, there was nothing as strenuous as much of the South West Coast Path with which all four of us are familiar. It rained on and off, but not too heavily. Lunch was in a village hall – everything provided. The organisation of this event was excellent.
Triumphant!
My nearly 20-year-old left walking boot decided to shed part of its sole at the half-way stage. I believe this is because I had made the ridiculous decision before this event to clean my boots and treat them with an ancient waterproofing spray I found under our sink. Clearly, they had been held together with Cornish mud for so many years that the shock was terminal.
I hopped the rest of the way. (Ok, that’s an out and out lie, but I did have to be careful that the flapping sole didn’t catch on rocky bits. I had no wish to take a tumble again. My left knee is still not right. (Sorry))
We visited the Dracula Museum, which provided a few scares especially for those of us (me) who see extremely badly in the dark. Without Mr J to hold on to, my fear levels were higher than normal, but I managed not to cry or cling pathetically to my friends, and only screamed once (I think).
The museum, whilst mostly corny, did include a short film explaining the myths behind Dracula (Whitby stories and also the Bram Stoker history). The cottage we were staying in was situated at the top of 199 steps up which we were informed the ‘black dog with red eyes’ had galloped. We thought little of this until, at midnight, we finished watching an unexpectedly bloodthirsty film on Netflix (or some other streaming site) and all looked nervily at each other before retiring to our respective rooms, checking the windows for signs of fearsome canine antics as we went.
Whitby’s wet abbey
The Magpie Café is rightly famous for its fish dishes. Pre-booking was a good idea – thanks S. Best light batter I’ve ever had. (Can’t call it ‘batsman’ any more – apols, irrelevant cricket reference.)
Nearby ‘brewery and pizza’ outfit were doubtful when we rang to enquire for a table, told us that they were very busy and didn’t take bookings so we would just need to turn up, and then – when we did turn up – sported a sign on the door saying they had run out of pizza. At 7pm.
Deciding it was too risky to sample a whole brewery without pizza, we rushed down our adjacent 199 steps to a much-praised Pie ‘n’ Mash joint … where we were informed that they had just run out of mash! Short of nipping to the Co-op (but afeared lest we were on their Most Wanted list) to buy them some more potatoes, at 7.20pm we were now unsure what to do. However, we were assured there were plenty of pies left, so we opted to have those anyway and as it happened, they found some mash lying around somewhere and gave it to us on a sharing plate, which we struggled to finish between four of us. Lord knows how much they had expected to serve! This still left us room to try their jam roly-poly though, three portions between four of us, which may not have been the best fuel for the walk back up the 199 steps, but at least a 13 miles walk made some inroads.
The day after the walk it rained unrelentingly and soakingly ALL DAY.
S wanted to swim. She has a wetsuit. I don’t have a wetsuit, but fancied going to the beach anyway. We walked for 15 minutes in the unrelenting and soaking rain to reach the beach. It was too windy for my umbrella. By the time we knocked on the lifeguard’s car window to ask if S could go in the sea, we were both in wet suits anyway.
S was immediately swept to the edge of the ‘safe’ area between the lifeguard’s flags. Any feelings that I had made the wrong decision to avoid the swim were immediately lost on the wind, as was her swearing.
Bandstand nuptials – in the rain
S’s sea ‘dip’ achieved, she quickly wrapped herself in various voluminous garments (here, I was much more envious and indeed properly coveted her dry-bag rucksack which, honourably, I resisted the urge to purloin and sneak into my car boot later that night) and we set off back to the cottage, but as we passed the harbour bandstand, it became clear that a raggle-taggle gathering was in fact a wedding-in-waiting. We sheltered in the lee of a nearby burger shack, and I positioned my inadequate umbrella against the worst of the unrelenting and soaking rain (and wind), and watched someone’s big day unfold.
Whitby, with its Dracula associations, is a magnet for all things goth and Steampunk. This was a Steampunk wedding, but with a rather mixed congregation. Some guests were in full Steampunk regalia, but others were in Sunday best plus anoraks, cagoules or plastic capes and many looked as bewildered as they were windswept.
The perfect wedding day – at least there were facilities to hand
A cream convertible Morris Minor arrived and disgorged not one, not two, but three gloriously attired ladies. With much heaving and flounce-coordination, the bride and her chief bridesmaid – both of a certain age and in fearsome bodice-grippers with enormous bustles – emerged and were sheltered (inadequately) under billowing brollies while the third occupant – in a less showy outfit altogether (and about half the circumference of either of her fellow passengers, possibly the adult daughter of the bride) – stepped miserably in her first puddle of the day and failed to raise any sort of a smile as they all prepared to walk the 10 paces to the bandstand steps.
For some reason, S and I were unable to drag ourselves away and stayed in place throughout the short service which ensued. About halfway through, the local tourist open-topped bus arrived, half full of passengers, and parked up alongside our burger shelter. We noticed the driver was in full Victorian uniform. Perhaps that’s normal round here, at least for the visitors’ sake? Once the ceremony was over, the guests seemed keen to move on and to our surprise, most of them scurried in our direction and formed a queue to climb aboard the bus. Indeed, eventually all but the bride and groom were accommodated on board (perhaps it was chartered, but there was no sign of that). This left the bride and groom, having a couple of final photographs taken beside the wedding Moggy – with the TOILETS sign unavoidably prominent behind them. As S and I took our leave, we caught the bridegroom’s anguished “How the f*** am I supposed to get my gut in there?” as the bus pulled away and his only option to get out of the rain was to squeeze his enormous dress-uniform-clad self into the tiny ceremonial car with his radiant bride.
After the excitement and romance of the wedding, we remembered how chilly and damp we were and (not-so) hot-footed it back up the 199 steps to our cottage, where we stripped off much of our dripping clothing in the large glazed entry hall. S was still decent in her wetsuit, but I am ashamed to say that I caught myself practically mooning at the Abbey – my comment as such to S prompting our complete dissolving into shrieks of laughter at which the chaps (who had remained in the cottage throughout, no doubt busy with their assiduous musical studies – or Sunday morning snoozing more like) became concerned that we had perhaps spent the last two hours in the pub. As if!
We all ventured out a further two times on this Sunday and as a result most of our clothing was still damp for our return journey on the Monday. No-one cared. We had a proper laugh and all vowed to return to Whitby again someday, and also to participate in another Alzheimer’s Trek because we had been so impressed with it. In fact, we raised over £2000 between us which was satisfying. There’s always that nagging doubt when asking people to sponsor me for something I’m clearly going to enjoy doing, but in fact, we’re not asking for money for us but for the charity and in this case, it was close to all our hearts for our own personal reasons – and no doubt our family members gave particularly generously because, of course, those reasons are the same for them too.
On the sunnier first day. Our cottage just to the left.
Haha – So much for brevity. Using bullet points makes no difference at all. Ah well.
I am triumphant. Daughter J’s cat is purring. Not just a passing breathiness or momentary hum, but a full five-minute rib-jangling thrumble as I cradle him tightly in my office.
In the interests of privacy, so important these days, let’s refer to this animal as Feline N, as he is the nth cat for which I have had some degree of responsibility. This time the relationship is purely temporary and thus even more tenuous in nature than in the traditionally ‘only just tolerated’ cat versus human/owner/carer/guardian/gaoler/chef/cleaner etc. standoff that exists in so many British families.
Feline N is not blessed with enormous intelligence. In fact, he may be more blessed than most of us in having almost none whatsoever, thus making his life stupendously simple.
This is a cat who has been known to burn his tongue on hair-straightening tongs (not mine! I wouldn’t know where to start, although I do know that you don’t lick them) and then come back for another lick. He looks astonished every time the doorbell rings, or the front door opens and he ‘seems’ to forget where his litter tray is or what it is for!
For more than four years he apparently fooled his doting owner into believing that he could only drink from a running tap in the presence of a condescendingly cooing and attentive human. Some of us have even secretly demonstrated to him at our own kitchen tap how he might improve his enormously ineffectual-looking technique of mid-stream water-lapping, but then we realised he’d been quaffing from a nearby porridge bowl perfectly competently when our backs were turned.
Perhaps he is cleverer than we think. He has lived in our house for more than three months now and spends most of his time in Daughter J’s room, but has worked out which are the places we least want him to go and makes a beeline for those rooms as soon as he hears the relevant door open. But now I consider more carefully, I think this is just innate cunning.
I caught him a few days ago, focussed intently on a piece of skirting board in the kitchen, from which eventually appeared a sizeable black spider. I’m pretty sure he ate it (I’m informed that this is a favourite delicacy of his), but since then I have caught him several times a day sitting pointlessly beside the same tiny gap in the woodwork (sudden memories of Tom & Jerry cartoons now! Oh, for a startled mouse with spinning legs, that would show him), presumably imagining the spider will reappear. I may be doing him a disservice of course; there might be a whole spider family whispering away in there, just waiting to emerge as dinner.
Unlike our own previous pets, this chap is essentially built for cuddling and, even when withholding purrs, he is always willing to be scooped up and carried around, or draped on a shoulder for a while. He never stays put though, preferring his own company unless he can have actual Daughter J. She who can do no wrong. She who provides and cares (and leaves him for hours on end and sometimes days, but always comes back to him to clean up whatever bodily offering he may have left for her) and cuddles him into an immediate purring state.
So, it really is something of a coup to have made him purr, even if I now believe it was entirely accidental on his part and may never be repeated. It won’t stop me trying.
Feline N is not the only article purring around here though. I have previously mentioned the acquisition of a new car. And no, I am not referring to my own smug purring at the idea of a new set of wheels, but at the engine noise of the new beast, or rather, the strange lack of it when in electric mode.
We have acquired a four-year-old Hybrid. We have not gone the full electric because we have no-where obvious to charge such a vehicle, especially as the newly-arrived charging points on the Avenue’s lamp-posts are unhelpfully filled with pastry, or Play-Doh or some other such amusing substance.
Yes, we have given in to the London Mayoral edict that all comfortable old diesels should be banished or charged an arm-and-a-leg each time someone dares to drive them, and offloaded our 10-year-old Landrover to my brother to sell in rural Herefordshire. He assures me that nobody has heard of air-quality ‘down in the forest’ and my friendly old car will undoubtedly be run on unfriendly red diesel by its new owner. I’ll admit that this makes me feel ever so slightly less virtuous at my own conversion. Perhaps that’s what it means by Hybrid (ie of mixed virtue?)
Mr J informs me that despite our ever-increasing ages, we are not yet ready for an old-person’s car, so no little runabout for us just yet. Nor can we go upmarket and indulge in a jaunty soft-top for those Sunday trips along country lanes. (Surely this never happens any more – at least, not if you live anywhere near me.) No, we need a car with 4-wheel drive which can be fitted with a tow-bar and a roof-rack, for boat trailer and sculling boat duty, and enormous inner capacity to take a full set of drums plus various amps, guitars and band-members. And random bits of boat paraphernalia of course. And the monthly Sainsburys shop (I thought I should have at least one requirement, other than simply a veto on unacceptable colours.)
In a surprisingly forward-looking initiative, we began looking for our replacement vehicle several months in advance of the Mayoral deadline (which has still not yet quite arrived) and after a couple of test-drives and garage visits had somehow narrowed the search to one particular model. On previous form, I would have expected this to mean that no such vehicle would come on the market for at least the next three years, but we struck lucky (or perhaps I should attribute this luck to Mr J’s unaccustomed diligence with Internet searches, it most certainly was not attributed to the diligence of local car salesmen who failed to alert us to anything useful and generally proved less knowledgeable about the cars on their forecourts than we were, and that surely must take some doing).
The downside of this do-it-yourself luck was that the car we found was located in Sidcup, a place I had heard of but never visited, it being on the wrong side of Sarf London. Once I had discovered that I could get there for free on one of the same Mayor’s old people’s trains (or rather two trains there and a bus and two trains back) I was off – and the motorcycling Mr J and I rendezvoused at the showroom to test-drive a rather attractive red car.
Successfully back from the backstreets of Sidcup and a bit of the nearby motorway, we swung into buying mode. With a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, and a small threat of Mr J hopping back on his motorcycle home without a deal, we reached an agreement with the salesman. Part of the deal was to pick the car up before the end of the calendar month, even though that would mean that the tow-bar fitting (which was included in the deal) would not have been done before we took delivery. With a keen eye for a financial advantage, we accepted this even though it meant an extra trip to return the car a few weeks later, and for a short time we would need to keep TWO cars (because there was some scheduled towage coming up). The extra trip did, of course, allow Mr J to play with all the exciting buttons and switches on an extra solo journey meaning that he will have an everlasting superiority in this regard, which I will endeavour to ignore.
But, to my point (at last!), this car purrs. A rumble rather than a rev. A rolling sort of swoosh. And, rather like the cat, it is not as easy to achieve as one might at first think. These self-charging hybrids don’t pretend to go far using just the battery, but for small manoeuvres and slow local travel it should be possible to avoid the engine cutting in. So of course, always up for a challenge, I try my best to get to Sainsburys at a battery-only purr. This requires both skill and luck, for there is a short piece of 30-mile-an-hour road en route and crawling just below 20 mph would no doubt cause massive irritation to other drivers, so I need to pick a really quiet time if I am to continue so slowly. There is also a bit of a hill on the way back, and the engine always kicks in then. I’m not sure if there is an alternative route which would work better. So far, an entirely purr-tastic journey has not yet been achieved (I am putting this down to lack of luck rather than lack of skill) but I only allow myself one vehicular Sainsbury trip per month, so I’ll have to work up to it for August.
With grand-pet-loving dedication, I may be more likely to achieve purr-fection at home in the meantime.
Post script – Due to rail strikes, I have just had to switch from the train to the car for my upcoming walking weekend away, which will provide me with more than 500 miles of practice. Apparently there are all sorts of clever gizmos for keeping me in lane, out of the car in front’s exhaust pipe and within the speed limit. On my long list of things to do this week there is ‘spend an hour or two sitting in the car and trying to work out what everything means’. (I’ve already found the air-conditioned seats though – hurrah!!) I haven’t yet worked out how many hours it will take me at 20mph – or informed my unsuspecting passenger that this is part of the deal.
It is 4.30am. Midsummer morn. Already light, although the sun is yet to rise. I silence my alarm, grab the waiting pile of clothes and head downstairs for coffee, with a remarkably spirited step for this time o’clock.
Odd.
Is the aim to reach Stonehenge before the dawn for an uplifting sing? Or an alternative pagan ritual on a more local common?
Well, no. I am bound for that alternative well-known hippy-land – Shoreditch – instead.
Maybe the godforsaken wedge-shaped carpark for which I have a postcode, a road name, some confusing instructions and an apparently definitive ‘three words’ (What?) will yield some uplifting solstice magic? I can but dream, but if I sit still for too long I will indeed drift back to dreamland all too readily, so I abandon my jumbled ponderings in favour of getting a move on, brushing my teeth, shoving many pre-gathered bits and pieces into my trusty Mickey-Mouse shoulder bag, and leaving the house, gently closing the door behind me.
I find myself at my local railway station on a clear-blue-sky Wednesday morning waiting for the 05.50 train into London. I have a reasonably clear plan for the onward journey to Shoreditch and am determined to be phased neither by the unaccustomed hour nor the shortness of train. I fear that my old person’s freebie travel pass doesn’t work until much much much much later in the day, and to avoid the ignominy of refusal at the first hurdle, I reluctantly deploy an actual payment card. I realise that I no longer know the cost of this familiar journey, but my pride (and relief) at having successfully made it this far despite my ferociously uncooperative body-clock, overcomes any financial qualms and I veritably spring onto the carriage and bag a window seat.
I am already too hot. I am wearing jeans and winter walking shoes and beginning to regret the vest under my T-shirt. Never mind – in no time at all, I am navigating the subterranean walkways at Waterloo, down to what I have always known as the Drain (I don’t know if today’s commuters still refer to the Waterloo and City Line as the Drain but, if not, I don’t really care – I know what I mean, and it’s not a Bazalgette sewer) and thence to Bank, then onward to Liverpool Street Station where I emerge into full-on morning sun.
Shortly after, I find myself bravely striding down a graffiti-strewn alleyway, the crunch of broken glass at my feet adding to the atmosphere of bohemian adventure. Just as my nerves are beginning to fail me slightly, I catch a waft of fried bacon and, sure enough, there is my destination: neither hipster café nor druid encampment, but a huddle of assorted trailers and gazebos stuffed into the promised car-park and a slightly overheated, but also somehow chilled, Assistant Director with a clip-board to greet me. Yes, I am once again scratching my Supporting Artist (SA) itch; this time the fourth series of a successful Apple-TV series which I have never seen (although I have read all the books). I am not allowed to say what the production is or give away too many details – it says this in the contract (which at this point in the proceedings I had not seen or signed, but they are always the same on this).
I am whisked to the make-up trailer where my hair is plaited and the usual less-is-more approach is taken to my face. In the past, I have been left without make-up at all, although this time I’m not sure whether to be proud or a little bit sad when they choose to accentuate my bad points rather than disguise them. I am reprimanded mildly when I tell them the brief from my fitting last week was just to make me look “like me… only worse”. As they rapidly apply dark browns and blacks, I realise this is teaching me which bits I need to hide if I want to look presentable or at least a bit less hag-like. The finishing touch is a generous spray of oil on my hair to make it look greasy. Hallelujah.
I am ushered into a small trailer to change into my costume, part of which I am already wearing (those jeans and walking shoes), including a large roll-neck sweater and a padded jacket. It is, I think, an unwritten rule that SAs work exclusively in the season opposite to the one being depicted on camera. Thus, today’s action takes place in a chilly on-screen January, whilst we pretend not to notice the reality of 30-degree June heat. SAs are known to compete with each other over how many thermal layers they can secretly conceal beneath summery outfits when shooting summer fetes in the depths of winter (‘I’ve got three vests and two pairs of tights on and cardboard liners in my shoes’; ‘Well, I’ve got a couple of lithium-battery-powered hand warmers in my bra*.’ etc), but other than risking the ‘commando’ option, there is less one can do this way round (‘I’ve got no knickers on’; ‘Me Too!’ might of course be misinterpreted). [*Don’t try this.]
Next is breakfast, at which I successfully fail to dribble or smear anything onto my costume, whilst hearing from a fellow SA how he had attempted Graffiti Alley, but thought better of it when spotting some drug-dealing up ahead and taken a much longer route instead. Hmm. I’d obviously been lucky. Shudder.
We are then herded into a mini-bus for transportation to the ‘set’, a City of London council estate next to the Barbican. Most of my fellow SAs are not much more than a quarter of my age and only a couple are of my own ethnic origin. Even at this time of day, they are a lively bunch, and I confess to being relieved when the youngsters are taken off en masse to film a scene for which the remaining five ‘adults’ are not required. Relief increases on realising that our filming base for the day is a pub, with a modicum of cooling from an old-fashioned ceiling fan and proper facilities to boot.
Considerable time passes. We exchange a few stories, mostly about layers of clothing on winter shoots of course, before lapsing into phone-surfing or – in my case, hurrah – reading our books. The youngsters have not returned, so we have peace until the caterers arrive from their earlier car-park duties and begin to set up lunch in the middle of the pub (which is closed to the public). We are finally escorted outside and along a walkway towards the Action. A chap of similar age to me is walking towards me – a very familiar face and I automatically smile hello, which he returns as we pass by each other. Oh FFS I’ve done it again! He’s not an acquaintance, but an actor (yes you daft woman, there will be actors here!) and, weirdly, one I watched storm offstage at the National Theatre just two evenings ago (and then stride back in and make a very funny unscripted comment as it became clear the revolving stage had broken and the play could not continue with all the techies digging it up – it’s ok, I’m rebooked for July). Of course, this prompts me to tell everyone around me the story of the aborted play – to no-one’s interest whatsoever.
It turns out the adults are not needed, but we’re held nearby just in case they want some human scene-dressing (they don’t) and thus are able to watch from afar as the ‘talent’ (the friendly actor) works with the youngsters and the scene is shot from different angles, some of which require us to crouch down behind a parapet so we cannot be seen. I love all this. It is so completely unglamorous, but fascinating. I would, naturally, love it a whole lot less if we were standing, or crouching, in the sun rather than the shade, or if it was pouring with rain, but it’s great today.
The scene is wrapped and we return to the pub. Lunch smells good. They’ve already taken our orders. However, before we can get our clammy mitts on the food, three of us ladies are asked to line up for a photograph. This happens regularly throughout these shoots and we dutifully oblige. This time it seems that another SA with a later call-time has failed to turn up. They called her when she failed to show and she told them she was just 10 minutes away, but still never arrived. She was booked to play ‘lady working in launderette’. They need to replace her urgently. And, from the photo just taken, the team have decided I’m the woman for the job.
I am immediately dispatched by minibus (alone, this is surely star treatment now) back to Crowd Base in the car park, wondering nervily whether I may be replacing the latest Graffiti Alley stab victim, if only someone cared to look, and fretting only slightly that I am missing my lunch. I should not have worried. There are no subsequent reports of Shoreditch murders, and – most important – my lunch is waiting for me in its recycled cardboard box in my very own trailer! OK, I exaggerate, but I am indeed installed alone in an air-conditioned trailer, because no-one else is around and it is the only place with a chair.
My make-up is deemed already perfect (‘sigh’), and I swap into the other SA’s clothes, which are a size too big for me, but that simply renders them even less flattering, which is probably a good thing. Who wears clothes that always fit properly anyway? (Oh, do you? Oops, must just be me then.) Miraculously the strangely-hued trainers she was supposed to wear are a perfect fit, and a little less warm than my own walking shoes, so that’s a bonus.
Critically, I have a tabard. A tabard!!! Victoria Wood in Dinnerladies springs to mind. But I think those were flowery and this one is plain. The late great Dot Cotton in Eastenders? Of course. (In fact, subsequent research shows that Dot wore a sleeved apron or coverall, so my excitement and icon-channeling are largely misplaced, but once I mention to the Assistant Director that I am now Dot Cotton, he laughingly confirms I very much look the part (harsh, but I’m sure he means well) and proceeds to reference her throughout the scene.)
I instantly take to my tabard. It has capacious pockets in which to hide my inactivated phone and the Fitbit they won’t let me wear even under long sleeves because it looks too ‘nice’ (Too nice? That’s a first for me – haha). I practice shoving my hands into the pockets and slouching a bit more than usual. Oh, what fun.
Back across London in the minibus, whose driver becomes confused and drops us a good 15-minute walk away from the estate – ‘us’ being me (Dot Cotton), one of the many Assistant Directors, and an unidentified other person who exchanges not a word with me, so is perhaps a VIP of some sort (but I don’t think so, just a mardy bu**er who relies on Dot and the AD to navigate on our phones).
Lurking outside the launderette, which is a real launderette on the estate and has been closed for the day for the filming, I realise that I am to be playing background to the show’s main character. No pressure then! I am ushered inside and installed behind the counter, where my new-found chum AD suggests a few little actions ‘Dot’ can do when the camera is rolling. He shows me on a film monitor, the small part of the shot that I will occupy (probably but not necessarily out of focus, I reckon) which is fascinating and not at all nerve-wracking. ‘I’ve got this’, as someone in the biz might say.
After several rehearsals and a couple of takes, there is a short break which leaves me in the launderette alone with the main ‘talent’. SAs are not allowed to talk to the ‘talent’ unless spoken to first, and no words were exchanged, although a raised eyebrow and small shrug apiece seemed pleasantry enough. I could not help but feel a bizarre otherness though. This guy has an Oscar. An actual Academy Award. And he’s sitting here in ‘my’ not-so-beautiful launderette, with his scruffy overcoat and scarf and his skanky locks treated with the same spray-in grease as I am sporting (or perhaps a more expensive and industrial strength version as he surely/hopefully looks skankier than me) waiting to make a pretend phone-call and a rapid exit.
Once he has made this hasty exit for the umpteenth and final time, I am left completely alone with the eternally turning driers – which have been fed endlessly by yet another AD from a stash of one-pound coins hidden under the (my) counter – until even they run out of steam. I watch proprietorially through the glass as my fellow SAs walk past several times in character filming the outside scene. It is only when an elderly couple come in with a large service wash that I am brought back to earth. Sadly, before I can take their money, the actual owner arrives and points out that he is closed (and earning far more from Apple than he would get in a week from the punters – he doesn’t say this, of course, but it is surely true) and chases them grumpily away.
A quick change back into my first set of clothes, and we are taken further up the street and I find myself walking away from camera and towards the Academy-awarded scruff as he continues a phone conversation with a pretend colleague. I excel myself here, managing quite magnificently to set off on cue (mostly) and not to smirk, poke out my tongue or full-on collide with him at all. We probably do this seven or eight times. It is then a wrap – and we are bundled into the minibus back to base. We don’t see the ‘talent’ again; he has perhaps retired to the pub, or hopped in a passing limo. We change and are dispatched with as much haste as the crew can instil in us because we are already well into overtime time and every fifteen minutes costs them more.
I risk the alley and am relieved to see no evidence of drugs or dead bodies, although the broken glass remains, and there is a chap on an upturned box adding to the copious graffiti. Presumably paid by the council in this hip-neighbourhood– who knows?
Commuters are perhaps surprised to see Dot Cotton as she scuttles through Old Spitalfields Market and along Threadneedle Street to Bank, even though she thinks she is incognito having left her tabard behind. And then this old lady leaves The Old Lady behind as she descends to the Drain to meet her Waterloo, where Mrs J ascends to the concourse to board her (now free!) train home.
Thus, another day of ridiculous work comes to an end.
Now that my epic walk is ended, a few grand plans are lurking in the back of my muddled mind: noble initiatives; exciting (but sustainable) travel ideas; thespian and musical dreams. Quite a list, for sure, if somewhat vague as yet.
But, in the short term, it’s back to reality and a few rather more prosaic hurdles to leap.
A follow up from a recent routine health-check provides me with some some light relief. I know I should take these things seriously, but…
In the interests of decorum I won’t describe the first procedure I undergo – suffice to say that I am not at my most elegant, although to my credit I am triumphantly less screamy than I may have been with similar episodes in the past. However, it is always something of a challenge when I have to go into a hospital environment for any reason at all, and this is no exception. The scheduled appointment having been cancelled at short notice a couple of days earlier, a new appointment is made for me in Teddington, the scene of my recent knee investigation. No longer limping, I present myself at the self-same counter and am this time directed to the Blue Zone. I didn’t notice the colour-coding on my previous visit, and am immediately grateful that I am not destined for a Black Zone, as that would be far too sinister with its pestilential connotations. Although I notice in passing that the Urgent Treatment waiting room appears to be Green and with its proliferation of disposable masks and plastic chairs I’m not sure how green (eco) it actually is. (Writing this, I’m briefly now thrown back to Green Wing one of my all-time favourite TV shows – a hospital-based comedy from the early 2000s. I’ve had to stop myself watching an episode in the interests of ever publishing this post.)
Back in the Teddington Memorial Hospital Blue Zone with fifteen minutes in hand, I retrieve my latest paperback read from my trusty handbag and throw myself into Salman Rushdie’s 1950s India (Midnight’s Children – my long-overdue first reading of this author) to take my mind off matters corporeal.
This is no criticism of Mr Rushdie, but I am insufficiently immersed in his protagonist’s world to ignore the NHS world immediately around me. After a couple of minutes, a door opens across the corridor and my interest is piqued further. A nervous young lady on the other side of the waiting room is summoned to Room 1, leaving her male companion supportively chewing his nails.
Back to Bombay, but no sooner do I turn a page than the nearby double doors noisily open and a youngish chap plonks himself down on the chair just in front of mine. His hand is bandaged enormously as though in a comedy sketch show and he carefully wields it above head height. Oh lord, this is just what we need. Try hard to ignore, fearing another Boots’ floor episode. Rushdie’s powers of description draw me back – phew!
However, I relax too soon. A passer-by recognises Mr Bandage-fist and comes over to enquire what he’s been up to now? I have been telling myself it’s nothing, although clearly it’s not just a more serious version of the nail-chewing going on opposite. He proceeds to cheerily explain how he has removed the tops of three fingers with one of those macho carpenter-y tools which appeal so much to Mr J on his visits to B&Q. OK, this is not ideal. I am, fortunately (?) distracted by the reappearance of the young lady from Room 1, as she scurries through the double doors looking straight ahead and with sobs welling visibly. Her cuticle-nibbling friend lopes concernedly after her, and I debate whether I feel better or worse now – when I am summoned by my full name (nearly always a bad sign)… to Room 1. Deep breath.
Although I don’t wish to go into this further, I would like to point out that, in place of fainting, or screaming, or crying, I keep up a constant patter of inanities during my procedure, until in desperation the radiographer – if that is her correct moniker – asks me if I am enjoying Midnight’s Children which shocks me so much that I cease all fretting. Good call, doctor! I suppose these people are trained to be eagle-eyed. Here’s hoping her perusal of my insides is as thorough as her general observation. And also that she isn’t expecting degree-level lit-crit right now. (I could have made this section a great deal funnier if I could bring myself to be more graphic, but I don’t think I could look you in the eye again. You’ll have to trust me on this – and be grateful!)
Results are not immediate, so I return home and resume my routine, unconcerned until I receive a phone-call the next day from my GP surgery and I begin to quiver. However, this is something else – a follow-up from a routine health check at which I had delivered a blood-pressure reading marginally above the ideal for my age etc. This getting older malarkey is tedious sometimes I find. The fact that I’d just galloped up the hill to the surgery where others my age would have strolled or arrived by car counts for nothing of course. But it’s always best to humour them, and I am prepared to undergo some investigations if it brings peace of mind. This particular follow-up quite intrigued me – a 24-hour blood-pressure monitor. I imagined this would be some exciting electronic gizmo akin to my Fitbit, and my only concern was that I might have to abandon said Fitbit for a day and thus lose valuable data. However, I have been told that I can continue to do everything I would normally do, including my Pilates class, so curiosity conquers any worries and I accept an appointment.
I present myself at the surgery to see the nurse and am called bang on time. This will be a good day, methinks. But within seconds my heart sinks (and my blood-pressure probably rises). There on the desk is a blood-pressure cuff which looks exactly like the Boots version we have at home, alongside a monitor which is only a fraction smaller than the Boots one and housed in a shoulder bag. I have a theatre ticket for a sold-out show this afternoon. I am told that the cuff will inflate every thirty minutes throughout the day and take a reading. Hopefully it will not make that irritating ner-ner-ner sound the Boots one makes when inflating the cuff. We try it on for size and the nurse takes an initial reading. Ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner… And a loud deflating exhalation hiss. All preceded by three high-pitched beeps.
I’m afraid to say that whilst I am prepared to undergo tests in the interests of my health, I can’t see how I can sit through nearly three hours of top-class drama as part of a capacity audience whilst intermittently making these intrusive sounds. Especially when I don’t believe I have a problem with high blood-pressure. As a result, and rather unusually for such an obedient soul as me, I refuse to take the monitor. I am hugely apologetic, but the statement that I can go about my usual activities is clearly a mis-selling of the situation, and I won’t get another chance to see this particular play which closes in three days’ time. I can also not imagine how I could do my Pilates class with the monitor over my shoulder, but this is perhaps more a (justified!) lack of confidence in my personal coordination skills.
A somewhat bemused nurse accepts my bleatings and – wonder of wonders – simply tells me to come back at the same time next day. For which I am most grateful and scuttle away to ready myself for the afternoon’s matinee. As penance, I deny myself ice-cream in the interval. (Disappointingly, the play Dancing at Lughnasa at the National Theatre was not my cup of tea and whilst I appreciated the quality of the production and acting – and particularly loved the luscious set – I found myself close to nodding off more than once. Perhaps after all I could have used a few beeps and ner-ner-ners to keep me awake.)
And so it is that I return to collect my monitor the following morning and am strapped in, with rudimentary instructions not to get the device wet and a reminder to be careful when going to bed at night to place the monitor under my pillow so as not to strangle myself with the connecting tube. I don’t know why I find this funny, but the thought that people are being issued with devices which could easily strangle them if not used sensibly just touches a funny bone.
I stride off from the surgery in a positive frame of mind. Although I am a clumsy person, I suspect I will manage not to tie the tube around my neck, and I’m nerdishly (or ner-ner-ner-dishly) looking forward to seeing my results which can be glimpsed briefly on the monitor each time a reading is taken. Before I am even at home, the beeps beep out and the cuff inflates – exciting stuff. The silly noise is not too noticeable out of doors, so I don’t get any more strange looks than I normally do as I strut around the local area. I surreptitiously check the reading. Hmm, I think that’s quite low actually. Of course, as soon as I am home, I fire up the lap-top and ask Mr Google if this reading is ok. I am informed it is at the low end of normal.
Each thirty minutes throughout my mainly sedentary morning I get the same readings. Maybe if I worry about it more, the pressure will rise?
Instead of worrying, I decide to be more active and I march off to the other side of town to do a supermarket shop. Aside from a self-conscious ner-ner-ner moment in the cereals aisle, and some discomfort as the cuff squeezes my overactive bicep whilst carrying the too-much-purchased-as-usual load home, all goes well and I am energised to mow the lawn. Of course, by this stage I have lost interest in the readings which have become tediously unremarkable, and I throw myself into lawn-mower wrangling – a pastime which seems somehow unusually complex with the addition of a tube emerging from my left sleeve and a swinging shoulder-bag. It’s bad enough having to be careful not to tie myself in knots with the mower’s electric cable, but added tubing threatens to blow my mind completely. (I know, I exaggerate, but this was a genuine concern at the time and I hope I was not observed making the tricky rearrangements at each end of what I pompously refer to as the ‘lawn’.)
Fancy lawn art
Mr J obligingly ignores my sofa-bound ner-ner-ners whilst watching TV and I suggest I should occupy a spare room for the night to avoid possible sleep disturbance for both of us. I am surprised that my Fitbit, which has been allowed to remain on my wrist throughout and seems to have weathered any potential jealousy of the larger and more showy device I have temporarily adopted, records my sleep as pretty much as good as ever, and I can only recall waking briefly a couple of times to experience the mildly painful squeezing of my upper arm.
I find I have not strangled myself during the night either, a cheery bonus for the morning. I eagerly rush up to the GP’s practice to drop off the device. The only instruction from the nurse, apart from the strangle- or water-related warnings, was to press a small blue button once my 24 hours was up to store all the data. Despite attempting this three times, I cannot see that anything is happening and the device continues to ner-ner-ner gently to itself every half-hour. The receptionists en-masse are none the wiser and between us we conclude that my success in the other two instructions should not be wiped out by failure to store/download/not-wipe-out the data I have diligently collected and the final task should be reassigned to the nurse herself. Blood-pressure now free to rise unobserved, I scuttle away from the surgery before any definitive discovery is made, and leap excitedly onto a train to buy myself a new car*
One week later, I am summoned to the GP and offered an immediate appointment to discuss my blood pressure results (which I have already reviewed online in my medical records – how very modern). Goodness, perhaps I’ve misread them and need urgent treatment after all!
Arriving at the surgery with minutes to spare, I am instantly called in to see the doctor – a young chap I’ve never met before. This is making me nervous now, but not for long. He’s confused as to why I need to be seen at all, but gamely studies the blood-pressure results and confirms that I have borderline low blood-pressure, and that perhaps I might need to be concerned if it stays like this until I’m in my eighties when I might find I fall over a bit.
In relief, I determine that I should at least try and salvage something from this otherwise rather wasted encounter and point out to him (gently – this is the first time he’s ever had anything to do with me – I am scrupulously fair) that we still have not cracked the chronic migraine situation, nor – despite finding nothing sinister in my hospital investigations, which he has just re-confirmed for me – determined what is causing the slight abdominal symptoms I have been experiencing. Ha – I’m on form today I think. I explain that I have an extensive headache spreadsheet which I could talk anyone through at the drop of a hat. Sensing panic behind the doctor’s tired eyes – and likely a consequential raising of his own blood-pressure – I walk away with the promise of a re-referral to a migraine specialist.
So, I skip off home happy in the knowledge that my marginally high blood-pressure is in fact marginally low, the odd pain in my abdomen is neither of the scary things we thought it might be (although it could be one of many marginally less scary ones but let’s wait a bit longer and see if anyone suggests another exciting procedure to rule those out) and the medication I am still taking for my headaches is still putting me at increased risk of a stroke even though my health check gave me a very low risk. Just thinking about it threatens to raise my blood-pressure…
Best not think about it then. (No pressure!)
Time to book another holiday instead. Simples.
*New car!!! (Not new new, but newer and greener even though it’s red.) I know this sounds odd just hanging here, but I may write about this more another time so this is just a teaser. I’ve banged on enough for today already.
Is it perhaps the new and exciting Carolean age we have entered? Is it the pleasing late evening sunshine that has begun to tease us that summer may be around the corner?
Has this defined me in the past few years?
No – it is the fact that I have finally finished my everlasting traipsing around the far-flung west-country cliff paths of England (ie. I have now completed all 630 miles of the official South West Coast Path), proving (a) that it wasn’t everlasting after all, and (b) that I seem to need another project to rumble along in the background of my day-to-day existence.
I have just written up an account of the final 54 miles of the SouthWest Coast Path (see here on my holiday blog) and suddenly it hit me – I am bereft! Nay, I exaggerate, but I am most certainly confused. One of my foundations has shifted. That silly walk has been an ever-present ‘to-do’ on my conscious and subconscious list for the most recent third of my life, always an option when thinking about holidays, an excuse for a short escape on the train (especially since I got my old person’s discount) and sometimes just another reason to beat myself up about how ridiculously slow I’ve been. It has almost been a defining part of me in the last few years at least. And now it’s not there any more.
I am proud to have completed it all, with no cheating and with considerable enjoyment in most parts.
As ever, it seems I can’t just enjoy the fact that I have completed it. I have to write up the holiday blog (tick) of course, and now wring yet more material from the experience here in this blog. I have also determined that I should write an account of the entire walk for submission to the South West Coast Path Association – whose lifetime membership I purchased many years ago (one of my more prescient decisions it seems). They publish Finishers’ stories in their newsletters so, as a writer, it would seem lazy not to contribute my own sorry, but ultimately triumphant, tale.
Everyone to whom I have imparted the momentous knowledge that I have completed the SWCP has asked me what I am going to do next. I don’t have a ready answer, although I will certainly walk more of the Great Britain Coastal Path because I love being beside the sea. I intend to buy a map which I can colour in with each section I complete.
Aside from that, I do of course have endless vague plans for train trips in Europe and the USA, and an addict’s weakness for the British Airways ‘Where We Fly’ web-page.
I am simply relieved that I didn’t attempt to start up on my own, and we all agree (sure, they are humouring me, but once again, I’ll take it) that it proves how much of an instinctive musical team we are. Time for another couple of lengths of the pool to knock some of this nonsense out.
the crunch of broken glass at my feet adding to the atmosphere of bohemian adventure. Just as my nerves are beginning to fail me slightly, I catch a waft of fried bacon and, sure enough, there is my destination: neither hipster café nor druid encampment, but a huddle of assorted trailers and gazebos stuffed into the promised car-park and a slightly overheated, but also somehow chilled, Assistant Director with a clip-board to greet me. Yes, I am once again scratching my Supporting Artist (SA) itch; this time the fourth series of a successful Apple-TV series which I have never seen (although I have read all the books). I am not allowed to say what the production is or give away too many details – it says this in the contract (which at this point in the proceedings I had not seen or signed, but they are always the same on this).
