Numbers and conversations

I understand that rather a lot of people got married on Friday which was the 11th of November. While to most of us this meant Remembrance Day, to some people, especially in far Eastern countries, it meant a palindromic date, this being the 11th day of the 11th month of the 11th year of the century, an auspicious day to be married on apparently.

Numbers are funny things. I can remember my son being amused and pleased on his eleventh birthday. He was born on July 6th and the date of his eleventh birthday was 6-7-89. Now his niece was born on his birthday but she won’t be able to manage that nice sequence of numbers for the date of her birthday until she is 86. So it goes.

Yesterday I spotted a lorry unloading Christmas trees in our village centre. There’s always a huge one in the centre itself, another large one at one end of the village and small ones set up on the walls at intervals along the main street. So, Christmas decorations are clearly on the way. This reminded me of a conversation in my daughter’s house. She has the habit of finding odd bits of information masquerading as news on the internet. On this occasion the conversation went like this:

Daughter: “Oh, that’s awful. Someone has stolen all the Christmas lights that were stored in a lorry overnight ready to decorate ..... town centre. How dreadful!”

Granddaughter (the one who shares her birthday with her uncle – 14 and bright as a button): “Well, they’ll soon spot the thief’s house once he puts all those lights up!”

We discovered amusing women by accident on BBC2 late on Thursday evening. This was a series of short sketches in French, featuring women taking a wry look at all sorts of things. Here is a link to a sample of their wares. It’s on BBC2 for the next few weeks if anyone else wants to catch it.

Here’s another link, this time to La Voz de Galicia. Catching up with news from my favourite bit of Spain online the other day, I thought I recognised a young man in a still from a video clip. The item was all about a young woman walking through the streets of Vigo wearing a Celta de Vigo football strip and getting reactions from people. Either the young man in the diamond pattern hoodie is Phil’s young chess playing buddy Samuel or Samuel has a double. It certainly sounded like him as well.

Finally, here’s a conversation I had with a postman. I spent Thursday morning waiting at my daughter’s house for the postman to arrive. She had been expecting a parcel. The post office had attempted to deliver it earlier on the week when there was no-one in. Now, this was what they call a “tracked item”. I am unsure exactly what this means; presumably it’s something to do with the post office keeping tabs on where it has got to. However, in the event of it not being delivered a tracked item is not left at the nearest local post office to the parcel’s destination. Oh, no, it has to go back to a main sorting office, open only Monday to Friday and closing at 5pm. Consequently my daughter could not just go and pick it up because of work and child-collecting commitments. So she tried to rearrange delivery. Thursday was the best offer so I was asked to house-sit.

Eventually the postman arrived. He did not knock but, having been forewarned of his arrival by the dog, I was ready and whipped the door open as he moved on to the next house. He following dialogue ensued:

Me: Shouldn’t you also have a parcel for us?

Postie: Oh, yes. It’s in the van.

Me: Could you get it for me?

Postie: Are you staying in? It’s going to be about 15 minutes.

Me: That’s fine, I’ll be here.

And lo and behold, the parcel was brought to the house ... and left on the doorstep! It’s a good job I was in. I did wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t opened the door to speak to him.

Porridge, pay-outs and platforms: why make life difficult?

In yesterday’s Guardian I found an article about porridge. I took a look at it because my Phil likes the occasional bowl of porridge for breakfast. It appears that as well as being very good for you – slow release of energy and keeps your bad cholesterol at bay – porridge has become popular among the rich and famous, among whom are Nicole Kidman and David Cameron. Mind you, I’m pretty sure my Phil won’t appreciate having much in common with Mr Cameron.

There are even porridge making competitions such as the Golden Spurtle World Porridge Making Championship, which takes place every October in Carrbridge, Inverness-shire. What a wonderful notion! Its name comes from "spurtle", a traditional Scottish stirring stick shaped like half an elongated cricket bail. Now, me, I just use a wooden spoon and my porridge tastes fine.

The main content of the Guardian article was how to make the perfect porridge. This includes such things as toasting the oats to give it a "nutty flavour", leaving the oats to soak overnight, steaming the porridge, cooking it in a bain-marie and all sorts of other complicated stuff about the fineness or otherwise of the oats used. The executive chef at the Balmoral, according to the Guardian, claims that "one of the most important things is once the porridge is cooked, to turn off the hob, put a lid on it, and just let it sit there for 10-15 minutes".

Now, this all seems unnecessarily complicated for a breakfast activity, even for a retired ladylike myself with plenty of time to spend seeking perfection. Quaker Oats, who must know a bit about porridge as they have been producing porridge oats for ages and ages, produce a perfectly nice quick-cook porridge which takes about three minutes to produce. Why make life difficult?

One thing I did like in the article was the mention of a superstition concerning which way you stir your porridge. It must be clockwise as ''stirring anti-clockwise invokes the Devil." Goodness me! Life can be hard enough at times without stirring the Devil into your breakfast.

Away from the breakfast table, the difficulty of some people’s lives continues. There’s that very earnest-looking Mr Murdoch trying to convince us all that he had no idea than phone hacking was endemic at the News of the World. The £750,000 paid out to keep a certain person quiet? He knew nothing about that. Well, all I can say is that if he could approve a payment of that amount of money without batting an eyelid and asking what it was for, he really must have more money than sense. Maybe he treats the whole of life as a monopoly game.

We, on the other hand, have just been having a cultural time. On Wednesday, having spent the afternoon watching George Clooney get himself nominated as the Democratic candidate for the presidency of the USA in the film “The Ides of March” – well worth seeing, by the way – we followed it up with an evening of classical music.

We met some friends and went to the Bridgewater Hall in central Manchester, the rather fine modern building looking strangely eerie in the evening gloom. There we heard the Halle Orchestra play some Vaughan Williams, a bit of Dvorak and some rousing Elgar to finish off with, the latter conducted very enthusiastically by Sir Mark Elder.

At various points of the evening, however, my attention was distracted by the shoes of one of the lady violinists. She wore a pair of extremely shiny black patent shoes with a platform at least one inch thick and needle sharp stiletto heels that must have been six inches high. How she walked onto the stage, I cannot imagine. It’s a very good job she didn’t have to play standing up; she would have been in serious danger of wobbling off to one side and breaking an ankle.

Don’t get me wrong, I like an elegant pair of shoes as much as anyone and these were certainly very elegant, at least when she was sitting down. I can’t vouch for the elegance of the walking style they must have induced. However, as I said about porridge making, why make life difficult?

Long weeks and small worlds.

It’s only Tuesday but this week seems to have been going on for a good while already. Maybe it’s the weather. After all, we appear to have gone from crisp and clear on Sunday to bleak and drizzly ever since. Maybe it’s having got up at the crack of dawn on Monday to defrost my daughter’s car and then drive it to her house before the rest of the world was awake.

Whatever the reason, I am surprised to find it is only Tuesday evening now. Of course, some of it is having been busy, once again. After dealing with the Monday morning get-up-and-take-the-kids-to-school routine, I came home, got us both organised and set off with my Phil to go to Huddersfield. Why Huddersfield (Or Oddersfeldt as it was originally called, apparently)? Well, we were meeting our friend Colin there for lunch.

I say Huddersfield but in reality I should just say Huddersfield railway station. It was so cold and damp that when we did stick our noses outside the station complex we felt frostbite coming on and scuttled back inside again. This was no bad thing, however, as the station pub, The Head of Steam, was well worth a visit. The interior had been very nicely maintained as a good old traditional station pub with station decor to match.










Better still, though, they have a collection of real ales and serve home-made food of high quality at a very reasonable price. Definitely worth visiting. I remember being mildly amused when some friends of ours went for a day out to have lunch at Stalybridge Station where I am given to understand the pub food is also very good. But now I have joined the ranks of those who go to eat in station pubs and can no longer scoff.

Today has been marginally less cold but just as damp as yesterday. Nonetheless I ventured out to my Italian conversation class and serendipitously came across a friend at the local station and was able to catch up with gossip and family news.

In the Italian class last week we discussed traditions in Italy to celebrate All Saints. This week we had been asked to talk about traditions, national, regional, local, family and personal, that we regretted seeing the back of. At some point in the discussion I prefaced my remarks with, “I was brought up in Southport...”. Before I could continue my classroom neighbour chipped in with, “So was I”. The discussion continued but during the coffee break we did that catch-up thing.

It transpired that she had lived about 10 minutes away from me and had attended the same girls’ grammar school, albeit a few years behind me. So we had a happy chat about teachers we remembered and the excessively stupid rules and regulations we had suffered from.

And then we got onto our old Spanish teacher, the inimitable Miss Phyllis Brown who my class believed had had an unhappy love affair with a Spaniard, possibly having her heart broken when he went to fight in the Spanish Civil War and she had to return to England. We never did find out the truth of the matter. My new friend Joy had no memories of such things. Maybe her class was less romantic than mine.

However, she did remember the singing and asked me if Miss Brown had regularly made my class sing “the song about the squirrel” at the start or the end of almost every lesson. Yes, indeed! And we delighted the rest of our Italian class with a very tuneful rendition of this delightful little song:

Yo soy una pobre ardilla.
Chiquitilla, débil soy.
Soy pequeña mas risueña.
(Now I’ve forgotten the rest of the words. )

We are probably members of a small but select group who know this little ditty. Some might say that that is all for the best but we felt a certain satisfaction at having found the past in common. As I have said on many previous occasions, it’s a small world – el mundo es un pañuelo.

As for the outside world and the events going on there at present, this evening I am expecting to find some comment on Facebook from my Italian teacher, probably overjoyed at the prospect of Mr Berlusconi finally talking about resigning!!

Time and seasons and such.

This week has begun strangely. Yesterday I was up at the crack of dawn. Today I more or less overslept.

Since my daughter decided to return to university on a part-time basis in September we have had to make complicated arrangements for childcare. On Sunday her car stays overnight parked outside my house. I then get up at silly o’clock on Monday morning to drive to her house before the buses have started running so that she can set off for Ormskirk at around 6.30. (Eventually I get the kids up, make sure they have some breakfast and get them all to school on the bus.)

It’s quite interesting (if tiring) being up at that time of day. In Spain you are regularly woken in the small hours by dustbin men emptying the huge rubbish containers on the street corners. This does not happen as a rule in the UK. Instead, when you drive in the early hours you have to weave around all the milk floats as deliveries are being made. You get to see all the dedicated joggers who are up and about running in the dark: quite disturbing! And then there are the loonies who think that as they are driving in the early hours when there is relatively little traffic (apart from milk floats), they don’t need to bother with such things as signalling. Now, I would have thought signalling was more necessary at a time when drivers might still be half asleep but, well, that’s just my opinion.

Today, either I slept through my alarm or switched it off without remembering it. Or maybe I never set it at all. Whatever the truth of the matter, I was woken by the sound of the phone ringing, assumed it was an early morning panic call from my daughter – which of the grandchildren was not well this time??? – and leapt out of bed to answer it only to discover that it was in fact 10.15 and that this was a friend calling. Goodness knows what time I might have woken without the phone call!!

So it was a hasty morning routine today and just over an hour later I was on my way to Manchester. I was due to begin my Italian conversation class, of which more later, but first I wanted to return some library books to the college which had cancelled the Portuguese class because of low numbers. Half way into Manchester I remembered the library books, still on the bedside table. Botheration!!! Still it was a lovely day for a stroll around Manchester before hunting out the new venue for Italian class.

The aforementioned Italian class was making a late start because of the economic crisis, I believe. Several weeks ago I went along to what I understood to be the first of this year’s classes, only to be told that the Italians had left the building and that I should have received an e-mail letting me know this. It transpired that the Italian government had suddenly decided to close their consulate in Manchester. The organisation which provides Italian classes, not only for interested English people but also free classes for the children of Italian families based in Manchester, had been given a week’s notice to find somewhere new. They considered staying where they were but the rent was too high and they needed to find somewhere cheaper. So, reading between the lines, it would seem that closing the consulate may be part of Mr Berlusconi’s economy drive.

Anyway, classes started again today and we had fun discovering what they did in Italy to celebrate All Saints’ Day before the invasion of their country by the American tradition of Hallowe’en.

“Trick or Treat” seems to have taken over just about everywhere; I’ve seen it in Spain as well, another country where Todos los Santos (All Saints’ Day) was what they used to celebrate. It’s a great excuse for children to collect lots of sweets and for adults to throw parties, mostly over the weekend.

On Sunday morning our local village centre was strewn with bits of purple net. Some witch or vampire had clearly shredded her costume on her way home. Children seem to have gone Trick-or-Treating on Saturday, Sunday AND Monday evenings and a friend of mine described having traumatised his small children by making a pumpkin lantern and then switching off the main lights so that they could better see the scary face. Result: two screaming toddlers, too scared to go to bed!!!

I was amused to discover that in Italy, as in Spain they have the tradition of “fare il ponte” (“hacer el puente” in Spanish) according to which if there is a public holiday on a Thursday, for example, you take Friday off as well, making a “bridge” to the weekend and thus extending your free time. This is not skiving. There is no need to phone in sick. It is standard practice.

In Italy both the 1st and 2nd of November are public holidays to commemorate the dear departed and this year, obviously, they fall today and tomorrow. So most places took Mondayoff as well and have had a very long weekend indeed. So why not, I wondered aloud in the class, just take the whole week off? Well, in many places that is exactly what has happened, especially in schools. There you go: half term!!

So, we’ve got Hallowe’en out of the way and now, without even bothering with Bonfire Night, we can move straight on to Christmas. ALL the shops and supermarkets have Christmas displays up, witches and pumpkins having disappeared by magic overnight. When we went to the local Ikea store on Saturday I noted that Ashton town centre has stolen a march on other places as regards seasonal street decoration. They have Divali lights up everywhere, thus ticking the multicultural box. However, both Oldham and city centre Manchester are advertising the switching on if the Christmas lights on Thursday 10th November: that’s Thursday of next week!!!!

It’s time I thought about baking a Christmas cake, laying in stocks of mince pies and buying a Christmas tree!!!

Getting out and about.

As the rest of my family had arranged to do a variety of separate things without me today and as it was, incidentally, a very nice crisp, sunny autumn day, I decided to go for a long walk around one of my favourite local beauty spots. I am sure I have mentioned this place before.

They call it Dovestone Reservoir because, so I am given to understand, of a rock formation which is said to look like a dove. Personally I have always thought it bore more of a likeness to a duck but I suppose Duckstone Reservoir lacks a certain something.

Be that as it may, I had a happy stomp around both the lower and the upper reservoirs, trying to avoid an annoying family being bossed about by a mother who felt that she had to train her children to ride their bikes and her dog to walk properly to heel in ringing tones which I am sure could be heard from the other side of the water.

The local birdlife was sunning itself very confidently – so confidently that I wondered for a while whether I had taken a picture of a bird that had just accidentally popped its clogs in a photogenic perching posture. But no, I think it was just resting.

On my way round the upper reservoir I was just reflecting that it was a good job we had had a few days of dry weather to get rid of some of the larger mud puddles which were still there in reduced form on the path when I successfully put my foot in one of them up to the ankle. This led to some rude words being said, not I hasten to add in ringing tones which could be heard from the other side of the water, and gave rise to a “Which shoe has had the mud bath?” photo.

Fortunately I had already rolled my trousers up so I did not end up with muddy trousers as well.

By the time I reached the end of my walk my shoe and sock had dried off nicely so, despite this small mishap, a good time was had on the whole and I returned home without further incident.

Earlier today I read with only a modicum of interest that aging French singing star Johnny Hallyday is making his UK debut next year, coming to perform in the Albert Hall. Not that I have a burning desire to see this man who was a star in France when I went there for the very first time while studying A Level French more years ago than I care to remember. I am just rather surprised that he has not been here before.

I suppose it’s a measure of the insularity of the British that most people here have never heard of him. But then, unlike la Bruni (aka Mrs Sarkozy) he was not able to marry a French president to promote himself internationally. Mind you, I suspect many people still don’t know who Carla Bruni is either.

I do wonder about the advisability of dressing in all that glittery gear at the age of 68 but he does still seem to have all his hair which is more than can be said for some of his age. Of course, if he were British he would be now be Sir Johnny and would probably appear alongside Sir Cliff (Richard), Sir Elton (John), Sir Paul (McCartney) and even Sir Mick Jagger.

That's how it goes; you start off as a rebel and end up a pillar of the establishment. I suspect that on theo ther side of the Channel you have to do something rather intellectually challenging beofre they give you honours and titles.

Back to the blogging board.

Having been reminded by my friend Colin that I’ve not blogged for a while, I decided it was time I got going again before the world collapses around me. And collapsing is certainly what it seems to be intent on doing.

There’s the Eurozone going strangely berserk and looking as though it’s about to implode. The sums of money talked about stop having meaning for me and when they discuss “buying” countries’ debts, well, my mind just gives up on the whole thing. And just where is all this “extra” money to shore up failing economies and guarantee loans going to come from. A part of me wants to run to the bank, demand all my money and then go home and hide it under the bed.

Then nature is going a little crazy as well. We’ve had a period of continuous rain which reduced everything around her to one huge muddy puddle. Then, in a surprising reversal of what usually happens, we had about a week of sunshine (well, part of the time) and fine if windy weather while other often more weather-fortunate parts of the country still had rain. This meant that we have been able to take ourselves off on long walks, admiring the autumn scenery. And then, as the autumn leaves pile up everywhere I noticed something odd about one of the bushes in the garden. Having gone through flowering in the spring, produced its crop of little white berries and lost most of its leaves, it is now flowering once again. Madness.

We saw a different aspect of nature’s crazy diversity the other night. We had spent the evening at the home of some old friends of ours where we had been very well fed and watered and then sat around talking and listening to music until the small hours. Eventually we decided that it was time to call it a night and as the night was clear and fine we opted to walk off the alcohol instead of spending an extortionate amount of money on a short taxi ride. So off we went, staggering slightly but definitely not rowdily drunk. Imagine our surprise as we got a shortish way down the road and discovered we had company of sorts. On the opposite side of the road a fox was busily scavenging in the bins in a pub car park. He looked up, weighted up our threat-potential, clearly judged it to be absolute zero, finished his rummaging in the rubbish and went on his way with scarcely a backward glance. I half expected him to swish his tail at us disparagingly.

With all this exciting stuff going on in Europe, my life seems very pedestrian: a fair amount of babysitting (including some amateur nursing as ALL the grandchildren managed to be ill at the same time) while my daughter discovers the delights of combining work, studying AND motherhood; some very pleasant early morning runs and later in the day long walks; a good deal of DIY (I have become an expert painter and decorator); and making clothes for teddy bears and producing strange woolly animals for the aforementioned grandchildren.

I am not complaining. We have managed the odd lunch with friends and we have been to the cinema to see Woody Allen’s latest offering, “Midnight in Paris”. Very good it was too. We really enjoyed it, even the cameo of Mrs Sarkozy as a sort of travel guide. This was still slender Mrs Sarkozy before she started to reproduce. Since then she has done her bit to boost her hubby’s popularity by being the first President’s wife to give birth in France. Jolly good show, Carla! Now let’s see if she can keep that little girl out of the public eye. Don’t get me wrong, I quite like Carla Bruni and discovered her as a singer long before she set her sights on the Elysée Palace.

All in all, life could be a lot more difficult and unpleasant. My friends in Vigo were complaining of storms yesterday. And then Ireland and Italy have had to suffer floods on top of their monetary problems. And then, the poor Italians have to suffer the embarrassment of Berlusconi on top of everything else.

That’s all for now. I have to get ready for the arrival of a number of small people who need entertaining for the afternoon.

Is it really so bad?

Is it really so bad? OK, so now it’s official: the UK is the worst place to live in Europe, well at least in the countries included in the uSwitch quality of life index. Apparently we have the worst weather, the second lowest hours of sunshine, the highest cost of living, the fourth highest retirement age and fewer days holiday than other places. (Once again, I have occasion to be glad to be born when I was and so to have been able to retire at 60. Phew, what a relief to be old enough to do these things.)

We even die sooner than the French do and our government spends less on health and education than many other places. We even come behind the Irish with all their current economic problems. And still we’re not out on the street protesting?

(At least we don’t live somewhere like Saudi Arabia where you can be punished for protesting, not just with time in a cell or a fine but with a number of lashes. Women are banned from driving because freedom of movement puts them in danger of sinning – just by giving them the opportunity to do so – and so they need protecting. Men of course don’t need such protection. Is it because they are all strong enough to resist temptation? A woman who protested by getting in her car and driving around was sentenced to 10 lashes. Her sentence was removed by order of the king who is described as “gently pushing for reform”. There has been no official confirmation of the ruling but it seems that Princess Amira al-Taweel, wife of the Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, tweeted: “Thank God, the lashing of Shaima is cancelled. Thanks to our beloved king. I am sure all Saudi women will be so happy. I know I am.” Maybe she should also get in a car and go for a drive instead of being so very grateful!!!)

Despite all the talk of how awful it is to live in the UK, it really doesn’t seem so bad at the moment. The sun has been shining nicely all week. So what have I and all the other ladies on our row of houses done? Washed everything that wasn’t pinned down, of course. There’s nothing like a bit of good weather to get us filling those washing machines and pegging stuff on the line. It’s just as if it will stop you having to wash it all on dull, wet days.

But that’s not all I’ve done. We’ve been out and about, taking the kids to paddle in the sea last weekend – only the British paddle in September, I’m sure.

And yesterday we were off having lunch with friends in Manchester where we saw that the deck chairs were out so that the workers could catch some midday sun. Splendid.