Life at Hepworth Towers

 I have been lying in bed since 4.30 am worrying about what to do about our car. We need to replace the one we have, and the most sensible thing in the current world situation seems to be to buy an electric one. This means change. At the same time, I’m wondering what to do about the heating. Should we ditch our oil boiler (we have no gas on our lane) and buy a heat exchange pump? More expense and change. And will it keep us warm?

We currently need to buy 1200 litres of domestic heating oil to fill up our tank, but the price has almost trebled since this horror began in the Middle East. A month ago it would have cost us £670, and the last time I checked, it would cost us £1632. Therefore we are not using the heating. Yesterday we had snow, sleet and hail and this morning there is a heavy frost.

The first thing I do after having my morning shower is light the log burning stove in my studio. In the afternoon, before teatime, we light the one in the sitting room. This is all fine. But yesterday when I went in the kitchen at five o clock to make my tea it was perishing; and the cold makes me miserable. Dave came in and saw me and switched in the heating for an hour because, he said, I looked so miserable.

So this morning in bed, to stop myself pondering all of this, I listened to the audiobook of Alan Bennet’s new set of diaries from 2016-2024. I have listened to his other diaries and enjoyed them, but this is a mixed pleasure, because he is not reading them himself, and for me, it makes a huge difference. Alex Jennings, who is reading them, has managed to adopt the same gentle style as Bennet, and he remarkably gets the right cadence, but he does not get the Leeds accent (i.e. the flat vowels)and just as I am slipping into forgetting it’s not Bennet, Jennings will come out with a southern ‘a’ and say ‘barsket’ instead of ‘basket’ or ‘charnce’ instead of ‘chance’ and I shout out the correct (to me) pronunciation. It is not an unalloyed pleasure.

But the sun is shining 

The sun shining through the condensation on the bedroom window this morning 

And my sweet peas have all germinated, and tomorrow I am going to get together with all my four siblings for the weekend in Wensleydale, which I am so looking forward to.

Even more exciting was my trip on Tuesday to meet up with a University friend I haven’t seen for 25 years. Wot larks. (as Het said.) We both remembered the first time we met in freshers week, but M remembered so many details - so MANY  details - that I had forgotten. We were both studying for a psychology degree but at the end of the second year I got pregnant, Dave and I got married, and I took a sabbatical. The prof said I could go back and do my finals after that, and I did, and M was by that time doing a PhD and oh so kindly looked after the baby in her room or the developmental psychology lab, while I popped into lectures. I am so indebted to her. Actually, I only realise now how indebted to her I am.

When I went for my viva with the professor after my final exam, he said “I thought you’d bring the baby with you.” I had made a conscious choice not to, as I didn’t want to be accused of special pleading. As it was, I had mentioned her in my developmental exam, in the question about Piaget, and got a first in that particular paper.

But I’ve now had my breakfast in bed, texted Het about something, popped down and laid the fire, and I must get up and go to Aldi. I feel better for the breakfast, and Dave has put the heating on for another odd hour, because he said I looked so miserable. I must try to mask my cold-misery or we won’t have any oil left for next winter. But hooray! I can have a shower in a warm bathroom today. What joy!

Coasting or dancing

I came across an old interview with Roger McGough this week in which I thought he said, at the age of 75, that he was “coasting.” I then talked to Dave about the definition of the word coasting with reference to our own lives in retirement, and he and I disagreed - as you might expect.

Then I texted Het who said this:

This morning I tried to find the interview where McGough had said he was “coasting” and I couldn’t. I was baffled because why would I have embarked in a discussion of the word with Dave and later with Het? Where had the word come from?

Was it actually from an interview with Alan Bennet, talking about aging?

I asked ChatGPT and it couldn’t find the word coasting either, though I wouldn’t take the first no for an answer.

OK, so this is what RM did say… 

All of this came about because I was wondering why I was exhausted when I got back from my lightning trip to London. I went on Monday morning and came home on Tuesday afternoon. Het met me at St Pancras at 11.30 and we talked until we sat down in the Royal Opera House at 7.30 to watch Giselle.

Giselle was out of this world - music and dancing. I have never seen it before and it was a beautiful production and I loved it. Loved it.

The next morning we went to see the Tracey Emin retrospective A Second Life, at Tate Modern. When Emin burst into the public consciousness with her bed…

…I knew little about her, and wasn’t impressed with her bed. But since I heard an interview with her a couple of years ago, I have been impressed with her, (and I like her bed.) This is why I wanted to see her exhibition. It’s huge, and includes paintings, tapestries, quilts, the bed, her studio, bronzes, documents, films and interviews. My favourite exhibits were the interview about her abortion, and the film of her dancing. Here is the Arts Council description of it.

She dances beautifully, and joyfully, and I love her message.

I still don’t understand why critics like her paintings, though Het thought this one beautiful:

Is Tracey coasting now? No. She has to spend three days in bed every week because of her poor health, following radical and extensive surgery for bladder cancer, but she is still working, and she is still pursuing her philanthropic work in Margate, supporting young artists, and doing so much more.

I’ve been coasting for three days, which has included two bike rides, one walk and lunch with a friend.

I’m not coasting this morning. It’s not yet eight o’clock, and I’ve already written this blog post and a letter to my “Labour” MP.

Cold

 We’re saving our domestic heating oil for next winter so I am sitting here in bed doing NYT puzzles and wearing three jumpers on top of my pyjamas. Dave just walked in and said “Imagine what it’s been like for Ukrainians all winter with no heating, and temperatures of -20 degrees C.” And he’s right. I have nothing to moan about.

Even so…I’m going to London today and looking forward to waking up in Het’s warm flat tomorrow, and seeing Het of course (!), never mind going to see the Tracey Emin exhibition. 

 

Spending time

Dave and I were at our favourite café yesterday morning having breakfast: it was a treat. I love going out for breakfast. Dave never eats. He just has a coffee while I eat my bacon and tomato breadcake. (It just took three goes to get the text to accept ‘breadcake.’ You can tell this iPad doesn’t know Yorkshire lingo.)

I love going out for breakfast or lunch with Dave. We seem to have more interesting conversations than we do at home. This morning, amongst other things, he explained (at my request) how minesweepers work, we talked about politeness, and I told him that our small granddaughter, MsX, had said she loved me. 

“I shouldn’t take any notice,” Dave said. “Three year olds don’t know what love means.”

This is the kind of robust remark you have to get used to if you’re married to an Aspie.

“I’m certainly not going to discount it,” I said. “Not many people tell me they love me.” A few people do who I wouldn’t expect to, and a few I would expect to never do. There can’t be too many people saying they love me. I’ll take all the love I can get. 

Like most people, I’ve been feeling low on account of the war and the suffering caused by it. It’s so black and so bleak. Not satisfied with flattening Gaza, the bloody Israelis are now doing the same thing to Lebanon. As Marmee pointed out yesterday in the blog comments, 700,000 Lebanese civilians have been displaced. It’s also quite scary. It’s easy to see how a madman could bring on the end of the world if he decided to get frisky with nuclear weapons.

And then there is this “Labour” government of ours which is constantly thinking up new cruel ways to make the lives of refugees and asylum seekers even more difficult.

Dave said “You can do nothing to stop it or change it. You have to focus on your own life.”

And when I was getting upset about the genocide, Het told me “They want you to care, not to suffer.”

Good advice.

So when we got home from the café I painted, planted my sweet pea seeds, went for a walk, then did some gardening. Then I sat in the sunshine in my fleece and woolly hat and read The Shepherd’s Life by James Rebanks.

The view from the bench:

My latest large painting:

Our kitchen sink

A friend asked me recently if I worry about planning for the future, and about death. I don’t worry, but I seem to be thinking a lot about being my age, 76. How am I supposed to spend my time at this age? Is the meaning of life different from when I was 26? Do I spend too much time thinking?

Ramblings

Here I am in bed eating an exceptionally moist pain-aux-raisins for breakfast, which was a weekend treat I forgot to eat yesterday. How lucky am I?

I finished this book yesterday

so I will have to find something else to read. I really enjoyed it, and found it gripping, despite the fact that it’s non-fiction.

The heating is on. We have it on for only two hours a day now, because of the price of domestic heating oil. Three weeks ago it was 56 pence per litre, last week it was 76 pence per litre, and this morning they are severely restricting how much each customer can have and the price is 139 pence per litre. We are not restocking, though we do need to. I am so thankful for the piles of logs that Dave has collected. I am so thankful I have a log burning stove in the room where I paint, as well as in our sitting room. I am sitting pretty.

The people of Iran and Lebanon are not, and my heart aches for them. Southern Lebanon is beginning to look like another Gaza.

Back on the home front, last night was the last episode of the last series of Call the Midwife.* It’s been on the telly for 15 years, though I only discovered it about 8 years ago. I have now watched all the old episodes on BBCiPlayer. This drama has everything that a Sue likes - social reality, social problems, personal problems and dilemmas, medical issues (thalidomide, abortion) all set in a historical context, humour, kindness, compassion, romance, friendship, community, and a cast of interesting characters. I have loved it. And I have loved the childbirth scenes. They are so moving and uplifting. Does anyone know, can anyone suggest to me, a series that I might like as much? A drama of sweetness and substance?

That last phrase reminds me of this poem, which I have shared on the blog before:

* I have found out that there will be more of Call the Midwife though not in its current form.

A blog in two parts

A blog in two parts. 

Part 1

I continue to be horrified and appalled on a daily basis by the headlines. A hatred of war lies deep in my genes. It’s hard to say more online, as although I have not been to visit the family in the USA for eighteen months because I am wary of immigration, there might be an emergency when I need to go. Let me instead quote from Barack Obama’s speech at Jesse Jackson’s funeral:

“We are living in a time when it can be hard to hope,” Obama said. “Each day we wake up to some new assault on our democratic institutions, another setback to the idea of the rule of law, an offense to common decency. Every day you wake up to things you just didn’t think were possible. Each day, we’re told by those in high office to fear each other and to turn on each other, and that some Americans count more than others, and that some don’t even count at all. Everywhere we see greed and bigotry being celebrated and bullying and mockery masquerading as strength, we see science and expertise denigrated while ignorance and dishonesty and cruelty and corruption are reaping untold rewards. Every single day we see that, and it’s hard to hope in those moments. So it may be tempting to get discouraged, to give into cynicism. It may be tempting for some to compromise with power, and grab what you can, or even for good people to maybe just put your head down and wait for the storm to pass.”

But, Obama said, Jackson’s life “inspires us to take a harder path. His voice calls on each of us to be heralds of change, to be messengers of hope…. Wherever we have a chance to make an impact, whether it’s in our school or our workplaces or our neighborhoods or our cities, not for fame, not for glory, or because success is guaranteed, but because it gives our life purpose, because it aligns with what our faith tells us God demands, and because if we don’t step up, no one else will.”

Part 2

It has been a busy week at Hepworth Towers…flinching at the news; playing Dress to Impress with 13 year old Cece (in Colorado) online - that’s me in second place, with the harvest theme; 

bike rides, walks, gardening, attendance at a portrait group, finishing this painting

and yesterday, a visit to a local child-friendly museum with 3 year old MsX and the lovely Jaine. (The week of sunshine had disappeared and it was bitterly cold and grey.)

MsX had been to the museum before and was very excited. The first thing she wanted to do was go to the Egyptian room because there are ancient Egyptian costumes to dress up in. Then - while she still wore her costume, which oh how I wish I was allowed to show you! - we spent ten minutes in the hall outside, still in costume, admiring a life-sized fibre glass cow called Rita, decorated in bright colours with fruits painted on, and jewels stuck all over it. 

Then we went to the animal room. Three minutes was spent looking at the rabbits, mice, moles, worms and badgers hiding underground, but the animal costumes were waiting to be tried on. So she wore a deer costume for two minutes, admired herself in the mirror, and then took it off and spent twenty minutes playing in the corner with three bean bags. “Where is she? I don’t know where she’s gone? Do you know, Jaine? Oh dear, I think she must have gone back to the Egyptian room. I’ll go and look for her…” 

Spot MsX

Her mum tried to lure her over to see the exotic butterflies in the drawers, and that lasted for two minutes, but then the bean bags were dragged over for more hiding.

Next a ride in a toy bus with two other little girls and their dad, then the cafe for rainbow cake and hot chocolate, and last a £1 ride on a fairground horse, with MsX being the ice horse from Frozen 2.

I find museums hard to take. I love art galleries, but not museums. So yesterday was huge fun for me because (at least for the present) it seems that MsX has inherited my disdain for looking at old things in glass boxes. 

Resurrection

It is very strange, and I feel awkward admitting it, but yesterday, when the Middle East was on fire, and my despair at certain men’s viciousness deepened, the spring seemed to arrive at Hepworth Towers, both physically and metaphorically.

When I went out to the shed in my pyjamas to bring in more apples I wasn’t cold. (It was 10 degreesC.) When I went out on my bike for just the second ride of the year, I didn’t shiver. And I came back amazed at my realisation of how much I have missed cycling because of the two months of rain. No wonder I’ve been depressed. No wonder I haven’t been able to paint.

There was something about the air that was springlike. All but two of our daffodils are still in bud but the soil was dry enough to work with, and I did my first spell of gardening this year. My sweet pea seeds should arrive in the post this week, so out will come the yoghurt cartons.  

I felt better yesterday than I have in months, simply because it was such a pleasure to be outside. I haven’t heard the blackbird yet, but I’m listening.

What do you know?

Liz has just this minute (6.35 am) texted me a recording of her blackbird singing this morning. 

Here it is.

Finally, in fairness to Starmer…I welcome his refusal to aid the Americans in bombing the Middle East.

Starmer is a dead loss

 All I have to say this morning is that Keir Starmer continues to be a disappointment. But actually, that’s not true. I never expected anything of him because I never trusted him, so I didn’t vote for him, so how can he be a disappointment?

Not content with supporting Israel in its genocide, now he has taken us into an illegal war by letting the US use our air bases for their bombing missions.

I went to a conflict resolution workshop on Saturday morning organised by my Quaker Meeting, and run by an external, skilled facilitator. The morning was titled “How to settle arguments kindly and constructively.” One morning is not enough time to learn all the skills involved, so the facilitator focused on what constitutes good listening. It was so worthwhile.

Have any of our world leaders every heard of peace and reconciliation? Of diplomacy? Of morality, even?

Taking part in our last Quaker peace vigil, holding as many placards as possible.

Happy Friday

The Greens won the by-election! Hooray! There is hope for the future.

And I am well again after being ill since last Saturday.

But we’re still in entertainment fortnight so here is the next instalment…my Times article from 2003 about Dave's addiction to yoghurt.

The history of a habit

If a medical researcher ever discovers that yoghurt is carcinogenic then my husband is doomed.

His passion for yoghurt began in 1971, when he began to dabble in hazelnut yoghurt, made by Ski. He was just becoming hooked on the stuff, and therefore thinking that he ought to stop eating it, when Ski ran a special offer. If you sent them six yoghurt carton lids they would send you a teaspoon with a long handle, a design which enabled the yoghurt fancier to scrape the last trace of yoghurt from the distinctive cartons, which were shaped like miniature cooling towers. Dave cannot resist a bargain, nor can he resist interesting tools, and what is a long handled spoon, after all, but a tool?

Unfortunately he had never heard the saying "He needs a long spoon who sups with the Devil." All too soon we had twelve long handled teaspoons; and Dave was a yogaholic.

When we moved to Sheffield two years later, he switched to natural yoghurt. He says he abandoned the hazelnut variety because it was too fattening, but I know it's because it only comes in 150gram cartons. Longley Farm Natural Yoghurt is available in larger cartons and is powerful stuff - a Class A yoghurt that gives him a high like no other.

At one point he decided he was spending too much money on yoghurt and started to make his own, first in the warming section of our Rayburn and then in a yoghurt maker. But soon he could not make it in sufficient quantities, and we had to supplement it with Longley Farm Natural Yoghurt from the deli down the road. Reintroduced to LFNY, Dave remembered its superiority and he gave up making his own.

By 1979, he was slurping a 450gram carton of LFNY daily. I had to go to the deli every day, because if I bought more than one carton, then more got eaten.

When we went on our annual holiday to Northumberland, the week was taken up in the pursuit of LFNY. Visits to the beach, tours round castles and boat trips to the Farne Islands were interleaved with yoghurt hunts.

We found a source in a Bamburgh greengrocers, and another - though only in small cartons - at a caravan site near Dunstanburgh Castle. But they didn't have enough. There must be dealers in Northumberland with supplies big enough to feed Dave's habit but we never managed to map out a definitive, reliable network. In the end, we resorted to buying a week's supply from the deli and taking it with us.

By 1984 Dave had persuaded the deli to supply him with catering cartons of LFNY. Each of these cartons, made of tough white plastic, with a bright orange screw top lid, has an integral handle. A good job, as these caterers cartons contain 5 kilograms of the stuff.

In 1994, when we moved to the Peak District it was my job to ask the man in the village shop if he could get us two 5 kg cartons every week. He made no comment. He is a discreet man. He gets it from the driver every Tuesday afternoon and stashes it safely in the bottom shelf of his fridge behind the counter, away from prying eyes.

Dave is now consuming three catering cartons of LFNY a week. Every Monday morning the last carton has been cut in half and licked clean (and not by the cat) and he has more than 24 hours to wait for the next delivery on Tuesday afternoon. Sometimes I will make an emergency dash down to Bakewell's Monday market on my bike, where it is possible to buy LFNY, though the price is high.

Sometimes the Tuesday delivery fails to arrive and I scour the Derbyshire Dales for shops that stay open late and have LFNY, an odd 150 gm carton, the normal size for normal people.

 If on a Tuesday we are not home until after the village shop has closed, the shop man swathes a carton in carrier bags and hides it behind the old milk churn outside his shop, for us to collect.

At Christmas when the shop is closed and Dave has to pre-buy his LFNY in bulk, and yet I also need extra fridge space for family entertaining, he keeps his extra cartons cool by floating them in the water barrel behind the shed. This year he put them in the pond, tethering the carton handles to the garden seat.

When he is working away from home and staying in hotels, the LFNY goes with him. The 5 kg carton is too big to fit in the minibar, so he fills the bath with cold water and stands the carton in there to keep it cool.

You might think that I am an indulgent woman. Not true. If you could see Dave on Monday nights vainly searching the fridge for a hidden cache of liquid snow, your heart would melt.

And if you could see his pleasure on a Tuesday afternoon when he unscrews the orange cap and discovers that this week the LFNY is prime vintage, so thick that it is difficult to shake it through the spout, so thick that it comes out with a glug and swirls in the dish, and keeps its shape, just like egg whites whisked for meringue… you would understand.

This spring I planted my sweet pea seeds in catering size LFNY cartons cut in half and filled with compost. As I was drilling the cartons with drainage holes Dave said "Good job I eat yoghurt when you need so many sweet pea pots."

"Yes dear, at £19.80 a week it's a bargain."

p.s. this account is now out of date, as he gets his yoghurt from Aldi these days. It’s not as good as LFNY but it’s much cheaper.

Entertainment fortnight no. 5

 Today's ancient piece from The Times about Dave and me...

Every couple needs one

Just as every newly married couple should have a shed on their wedding list if they want their marriage to survive, so there is something every older couple needs, and I know what it is.

It’s not just retired people who need it, such as those poor wives whose husbands – bereft of work - follow them around all day asking “What are you doing? What are you doing now? Where are you going? What time will you be back?”

It can also be couples who work from home, like my husband and I, who have a room and a computer each and who have, you would think, no need to argue.

Our problem is our different styles of working. He works in short bursts, sharp and efficient, sure footed and sound. He cuts through work like a man with a machete hacking through brambles.

I am slow and woolly headed. I need to go to my room and shut the door and be left alone for hours at a time. I am like the author who, when she was asked if there were words she tended to overuse, said “Yes - two words: go away.”

But machete man does half an hour here, and gets up for a drink; half an hour there, and gets up to stroke the cat. Then as he’s on his feet he will come and ask if I remembered to ring the plumber. He’ll do ten minute’s writing, then look outside the door to see if there’s enough blue sky to make a sailor a pair of trousers, so he can go out cycling later. But then as there’s only enough blue sky for one leg, he will come and ask if I think it’s going to rain. Then it’s fifteen minutes on the phone, and a shout to ask where his stapler is. He does half an hour of planning, then feels peckish and slopes into the kitchen for a bowl of yoghurt, and while he’s there he may as well listen to the headlines. Then he comes up to rage about what he’s just heard. Aarghh !

This was all true until a month ago. That’s when he bought the router, which (for the uninitiated) is a power tool used for precise cutting and shaping of timber.

Routers are wonderful. Every couple should have one. The router has revolutionised our lives, which I now divide up into BR and AR ( Before Router and After Router ). Now, in the AR epoch, I have no excuse not to get on with my work, because he sits in his room as if nailed to his chair until all of his work is done: the sooner it’s done, the sooner he can play with his router.

He started with picture frames. Everything in the house that’s vaguely rectangular has now been framed. Luckily, a router isn’t just useful for framing. It can do decorative edging for shelves, cupboard doors, engraved wooden signs, etched patterns and pictures, dovetails – anything in wood that needs shaping or grooving, cutting or profiling.

And in the evening when his back aches from bending over the workbench, and his fingers are numb with vibration, he sits and flicks through his catalogues of router attachments and cutters. All is quiet except for occasional exclamations, such as “I’m going to get some pronged teenuts. They’re a joy.” Or he may read one of his routing magazines - the sort of publication that features in the missing words round on Have I got news for you -  with headlines like “Power up!” or “Beautiful Beast! The new big Bosch router is here.”

 It’s not just my husband who is besotted with his router. Believe me, there is a routing fraternity, with ramifications way beyond woodwork. Last week my brother ( who has a “tasty” Elu router ) asked my husband’s view on some abstruse etymological question and on hearing the reply said “Yes, of course. Anyone with a router talks sense.”

As well as improving domestic harmony, the router has solved the Christmas present problem: from now on I’ll buy presents for his router. There is an infinite variety of cutters: no man could live long enough to try them all. I’ve just been down to get his catalogue to count them, but my husband had gone, and on his study door was a new wooden sign “Gone routing.”

Entertainment fortnight No. 4

Continuing this entertainment fortnight when I'm sharing old pieces I had in The Times, here, by special request from my brother Pete, is this one:

He loves me!

         Here comes Valentine’s Day again. How many of you with long-term partners are expecting to receive a card oozing with loving feelings and brimming with compliments?

         The publication of Ronald Reagan’s letters to Nancy last year prompted a Times reader to write to the paper quoting some of her husband’s offerings in contrast. “You may be an old goat,” he had written, “but you’re my old goat.” Women all over the country must have laughed grimly in recognition. I did.

         Can you top this gem that my husband delivered as we sat in the late summer sunshine ? "You know, sitting there with the light behind you, you look quite attractive. For your age. From this angle." Or this one, said as I was trying on a new jumper: “You look quite slim in that garb – it must be an optical illusion.”

         What is it with long term partners? Do they have an automatic complimentectomy after two years of cohabitation? Being more charitable, maybe they think it undermines the integrity of the relationship to be anything other than completely honest at all times. And if they do find themselves slipping into rave revue mode they feel they have to tone down the comment by qualifying it. Yesterday, I found a note my husband had sent with some flowers when I was in hospital after a mastectomy, and I quote:

These look terrific, but not as terrific as you.

And then he’d written

( This may be overstating the case. )   

He’s not insensitive though. He does realise that ageing is difficult to come to terms with, and that couples should give each other kindly, supportive boosts from time to time. One day, as we sat doing the crossword, he said, "The inside of your eyebrow looks youthful."

"What?" I spluttered. 

"If I squint, the inside of your left eyebrow looks quite youthful. It's wrinkle free." Then he smiled, and his imaginary tact lights started flashing. He thought he’d done so well.

His latest attempt was - “Your back is one of your best remaining bits”- but it just made me feel like an ancient ruin.

Working from home, I rarely have to brave the world of power dressing. Unfortunately, living in an empty nest, I have to depend on my husband’s feeble efforts if I need reassurance about my appearance. On going to a festival where I was due to give a presentation, I asked if I looked OK to stand up in front of a lot of people. He replied rather anxiously: "How far away are they going to be?"

         Last week, when I was going to an important meeting he asked me what I had on my eyes.    "Eye make-up" I explained.

"Why ?" he said.

"So that I don't feel like such an old hag," I said.

"Why aren't you covered in it?"      

         I used to feel sorry for my teenage children when they had unsightly pimples in very obvious places. On coming down to breakfast, mortified at the new blemish, and desperately wondering how to disguise it for a day at school, my daughter would be greeted with: "Did you know you had a huge, nasty spot right on the end of your nose?"

         Living with an incorrigibly candid man can be psychologically bracing, but at least when he says something complimentary you know he means it. In our house we have a game where we go through each member of the family and say, if they were an animal, what animal would they be? Or alternatively, what piece of furniture, or what type of house?

One day we used cars as our reference point, and I was delighted to be described, not as a Morgan, or a Mercedes, but a Land Rover. The pile of magazines my husband keeps under the bed to leaf through last thing at night are well-thumbed back copies of Land Rover International. In his eyes a Land Rover is reliable, versatile, unbeatable, fun and, above all, an object of desire.

P.S.

Me: "What did you think of my article in the Times about your compliments?"

Him: "Well, it wasn't nearly as boring as I was expecting."

 

 

Entertainment fortnight 3

 This is my very favourite piece that I wrote for The Times, in my former life as a writer.

There we were, quaking in our boots

Derbyshire. Monday morning 12.54 a.m. We wake to a sound like a bowling ball rolling across the wooden floorboards of our bedroom. My husband switches on the light and sits up, “What the hell was that?”

“Don’t know,” I say. “Weird. Let’s go back to sleep.”

But he is sitting up, fretting. Is it settlement? Subsidence? Last year we built an extension and now we are sleeping in it. “What the hell was that noise?” says DIY man again.

I want to sleep, but I need a pee. My adult daughter – who is staying with us – hears me out of bed and calls out, petrified: “What’s happening? The walls were shaking. The roof was rumbling. The wardrobe doors came open and now they won’t shut.”

She had been lying in bed unable to sleep, so was writing a to-do list for the following day. I give her a hug, thinking Silly billy, fussing again: she lives her life on the margins of hysteria. Then I remember her ringing me on September 11^th telling me to turn on the telly, and my refusing because I had to post a birthday card.

I return to our bedroom to find DIY man getting up. He has heard daughter speak of the shaking walls, and thinks the house is falling down. He dons a dressing gown and wellington boots (the mission is too urgent to find the beloved boiler suit) and prowls around outside for fifteen minutes with a torch, looking for cracks, subsidence, disaster.

He finds nothing. He comes back inside and engages in anxious discussions with daughter while I retreat under the duvet and long for sleep. The front door opens: it’s our younger son. He has been sitting on the village recreation ground under the full moon, having a philosophical discussion with his friend.

Only on arrival at our garden gate did he become unnerved – not by unusual shakes or rumbles, having felt nothing and heard nothing - but by the freakishness of all the house lights being on after half past ten. A rarer sight is DIY man still up and about. Younger son is phlegmatic, but he is also an X files fan, and suggests to DIY man and sister that the noise was supernatural.

DIY man comes back to bed and props himself up in worry mode, arms tense, head twitching. His next theory is that something has happened to our older son, who was flying to Denver and arriving there in the middle of our night. You hear stories, he says, of people dying and doors opening in family houses miles away. He gets up and leaves a message on our son’s mobile: “Are you safe?”

More effectively, younger son (in the UK) logs onto the internet, gets instant messaging and immediately contacts older son (in the US.)

[01:40] son in UK: isaac. say something

[01:40] son in US: hello. wozzup?

[01:40] son in UK: thank god for that

[01:40] son in US: :S?

[01:40] son in UK: theres some weird shit goin down here

[01:40] son in US: o no... what?

[01:40] son in UK: hang on, let me tell peeps youre ok. brb

 

Younger son tells aged parents that older son is safe, then returns to the computer.

[01:43] son in US: what gives?

[01:44] son in UK: i got back at 130 to find everyone up and wandering around the house looking worried

[01:45] son in US: there's been an earthquake

[01:45] son in UK: where?

[01:45] son in US: uk. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2275158.stm

[01:45] son in UK: haha  coool

 

The lights are off and I am just dropping off – oh bliss - when younger son brings us the printout from BBC news online: an earth tremor shakes the Midlands – 4.8 on the Richter scale.

“Great. Can we go to sleep now?” I say.

“Are we insured for earthquake damage?” says DIY man.

Morning breaks and I go downstairs to find him outside, checking the drains. He has heard of damaged drains and wants no truck with them. 

If something needs fixing he will fix it. If the earth moves, he will steady it. Failing that there’s always the BBC. (But yes. The drains are fine.)

DIY man

 

 

Entertainment Fortnight Episode 2

This is the second offering from my writing annals...published in The Times twenty plus years ago. 

Can spend, won’t spend

I am considering offering up my husband as a guinea pig for trainee salespeople.

He wants a new bicycle, he needs a new bicycle, he can afford a new bicycle. He just cannot bring himself to buy one. The current one has already been rebuilt and resprayed once, but after 120,000 miles the formerly elegant frame is suffering from metal fatigue. If he doesn’t buy a replacement soon, the bottom bracket will snap on a ride and he and the bike will suffer the ignominy of a lift home in the car.

The problem is that whilst he is passionate about cycling, he hates spending money on himself. It’s a puzzle how he managed to buy the bike in the first place. He bought it on the day our younger son  was born, eighteen years ago. I don’t know whether this was by way of a celebration, or a don’t think I’m going to give up cycling and spend more time at home gesture, or a panicky I’d better buy it now while there’s still some money in the bank purchase.

Whichever it was, he needs a new bike now, yet he remains immobile. Thriftiness is a welcome virtue in a family man, but my man is so parsimonious that he would be the only guest ever on Alvin Hall’s Your Money or Your Life programme to be told to go out and spend more money.

         Years ago, the first time he asked if I wanted to go shopping I naively imagined that this would mean entering shops and handing over money for purchases. What it actually meant was walking disconsolately up and down the high street, looking in shop windows. We never stepped over a threshold because, either the desired item wasn’t in the window so they obviously didn’t have it, or, if it was in a display visible from the street it was always too expensive. “They don’t know what to charge” should be embossed on his wallet.

Consequently, for the last thirty years I have done all the shopping. This has definite advantages. It’s easy to smuggle an unjustifiable purchase into the house, hide it in the back of the wardrobe, and get it out to wear a month later. Then when he says “Is that new ?” I can honestly say “No, I’ve had it for ages,” which happily forestalls any questions about price. ( He is not up to date on clothing prices: the last garment he bought for himself was a hippy Afghan coat.)

I have to buy all his clothes as well as anything he actually wants – from guitar strings to books to spare parts for his bike. It only takes two months to rev himself up to shell out £5.99 for a set of new guitar strings, and it’s easy to take written instructions on brand and type. But only he could choose and buy the bike, and it takes more like five years to change into a high enough gear to hand over the money for that.

We have passed the first stage: three months of complaints about the fact that each and every component needs replacing, and three months on how it’s not worth doing because the frame is rusting and the transmission is as slack as his eighteen year old sweatband. We are now into the 2 years of weekend forays to local bike shops. He has weathered the shock at the increase in prices since 1984, but has so far not spotted his platonic ideal of a bike.

When he does, we will enter the period where I try to persuade him to do the deed, and he says no, he wouldn’t get the value out of the purchase because he only has a few years left to live. He is 51 and in good health; his only ailment is pessimism. He used to worry about buying shoes until I suggested that if he died before his Ecco lace-ups did, our son could wear them. (Said son was out of earshot at the time.)

I’m starting to get desperate about this bike business, though. I’ve just remembered that he bought his guitar when our daughter was born. I hope he doesn’t have some strange yet-to-be-labelled syndrome which means he can only buy things when in a new surge of fatherhood. I love him dearly, but if he won’t buy a bike till we have a new baby, he can take up running instead.

Wearing a hand me down cycling jersey - from a generous friend

 

 

 

 

Entertainment fortnight

I recently came across this old article of mine I had in The Times over 20 years ago, and it gave me an idea.

For a couple of weeks I'm going to post a series of these old pieces instead of posting about my quiet life, the things Dave says and does,  my painting travails, petty gripes and difficulties, bad weather, politics, etcetera etcetera.

Here it is.

And below it is a photo my sister Jen took of me in 2008. I used to have it as the header of the blog, and I am fond of it. 

At the beginning of January, as I helped my mother take down her Christmas decorations I asked her what she would like me to do on my next visit, in a few weeks time. “The spring cleaning, please.”

Hadn’t she seen the correspondence in The Times in December, where readers were asking whether the grass they were cutting was the last of the autumn or the first of the spring? Didn’t she realise that as global warming is blurring the seasons into one, spring cleaning can be classed as an outmoded practice, and moved from the conceptual broom cupboard to the conceptual attic?

When I told my husband – a man raised with a lavatory brush in one hand and a bottle of Windolene in the other – that my mother had asked me to do her spring cleaning, he turned the colour of his rubber gloves. He knows I am still working in Key Stage One in dusting the bookshelves. And he blames my mother.

Funny that, because I blame his mother for giving him unreasonable expectations. She would spend all morning every morning, cleaning the house from top to bottom, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays would have a cleaning lady round to mop up the speck she had missed. Hers was the only house I have been where, if you dropped a biscuit under the bed, you could pick it up and eat it without first checking it for fluff.

My mother, on the other hand, had her priorities right. For her, reading the paper, helping us furnish our dolls houses, making us cowboy suits on her sewing machine, or taking us out to fly our kites, were all activities preferable to cleaning. She would clear the kitchen floor not to wash it, but so that we had space for roller skating.

Now she is 84 she has no children to entertain, but she has trophies for bridge, and she is the only granny we know whose bedtime reading includes Stephen Hawking, J.K.Rowling, and Matthew Parris. She is still, like me, a slattern, but she is a wonderful conversationalist.

Slatterns fulfil a socially useful role: they allow others to feel superior, even other slatterns. (“My cooker may need cleaning, but you should see the state of her fridge.”)  I get immense pleasure from eyeing my mother’s bathroom with disgust, and getting out the Jif to clean the washbasin. Similarly, my daughter loves to come home and chide me about the state of my dishcloth.

Admittedly, some of my mother’s housekeeping habits were beyond the pale. Her most memorable misdemeanour was the time she was making breakfast and dropped a bacon rasher on the kitchen floor. She picked it up, dunked it in the washing up water and slung it back in the pan, and then  pooh-poohed our protests with “A bit of dirt will build up your resistance.” Recent research lends weight to her view ( though that specific practice remains dubious. )

          But all this chat does not get the skirting boards washed. However warm the winter, you cannot escape the fact that at this time of year the sun shines low in the sky to expose dirty windows and grimy walls. But how can I do my mother’s spring cleaning when she has never shown me how ?

          I asked my husband to explain the process. Through gritted teeth he spelt out the major rules: everything moveable in the house must be moved; everything must be cleaned; and it is vital you start at the top of the house and work your way down. Also, you throw out a lot of clutter. It sounds to me like a load of old Feng Shui.

          In the last few years, parenting classes have become de rigeur for people struggling with a task that earlier generations launched into without a whimper. Perhaps the next thing to catch on will be courses in housework, with a specialist module in bottoming the bedrooms, and an advanced one in spring cleaning ?

          Maybe not. Those eccentric people who see housework as the new sex won’t need classes in it, and the rest of us won’t want to waste time and money on learning to do something we hate. Personally, I shall rely on the global warming excuse, and take my mother to the library instead.

A trying week at Hepworth Towers

It has been a trying week at Hepworth Towers.

It’s been a bad tempered week - not Dave, but me.

It’s been a dark week - not just the interminable rain, or the horizon to horizon wet grey murk out there, but it’s been like that in my head. I’ve been miserable and bad tempered, and only because I am feeling a little better this morning, am I able to tell you. This long wet winter, coupled with the interminable dreadful news, brought me down so I was intolerable to live with.

Meanwhile Dave has been a patient saint. He knows what it’s like to have wall to wall blackness inside your head, and he couldn’t have been kinder. 

I have not been enthused about painting for weeks and weeks, and I have had no inspiration. That’s why I painted that sickly sweet painting called Cheerfulness. I thought it expressed Cheerfulness perfectly, but I hated it aesthetically.

Yesterday, I did this to it and felt temporarily better.

One of the reasons I’ve been so fed up is that I have had no inspiration for painting. Another is feeling guilty in top of the despair because I have nothing to complain about…I am very fortunate. 

Yesterday Liz came for a coffee and a long walk and she broke the spell of my gloom. After she’d gone I lit the fire, played my sax, tweaked the current, so far unsuccessful, painting, and then lay on the sofa and read my poetry anthology Staying Human.

Dave came home with a bag of my favourite samosas, and we watched The Repair Shop, did a crossword together, and then looked on Google Maps for a photo of the place where we lived when we first got married. Our daughter had asked for the address - I think she is going to look for it (she was a baby there). It looked very different - actually unrecognisable, really - and I had wanted it to look just the same. 

Whatever…I think this poem by Mary Oliver fits the bill this morning:

(It’s not in the anthology I mentioned, btw.)