It's been exactly a year since I wrote my sad tale about the frogs we were "losing" in our pond, which I'd started referring to as the Dead Pool.
Since then the rate of loss has decreased, but the reason for the deaths has become graphically clear. It's a bit of a give-away when you look out of your study window to see the heron stood atop the lych-gate with a pair of frog's legs sticking out of its beak.
It was too late for that one, but I did rush out flapping my arms and yelling when I saw the damn bird hoik another out of the pond. This second frog was luckier, as the heron dropped it and flew off in a fright. The dazed frog managed to hop away into the bushes so I like to think it survived. At least for the time being.
The really good news is that the pond is presently full of tadpoles. Not as full as it was - when they first hatched it looked as though there were thousands; the water was black with them. Well, OK, it always looks black, what with having a black pond liner at the bottom, but you know what I mean. But fuller than it might have been had Nikki not come running in to fetch me after one of the local cats had pulled a massive blob of spawn out of the water and was proceeding to munch through it. I tipped it back in. I don't think we lost much.
Having thousands (OK, hundreds) of tadpoles wriggling about in the pond has been a bit of a conundrum. On the one hand we love having them, and waiting for all the little froglets to come hopping out. On the other hand we don't really like having the pond totally submerged under a carpet of pondweed, but we haven't been able to do anything about it because each handful of pondweed removed comes complete with half-a-dozen little wrigglers, all caught up in the tendrils. So we've left it, mostly. Not sure if the lack of light is slowing their development though. Online resources suggest they should start growing legs 6-9 weeks after hatching. This lot hatched at the beginning of May and are only now starting to show signs of legginess. We continue to wait for the first hopper.
At which point I probably won't be able to cut the grass for a couple of weeks O_O.
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Friday, August 15, 2014
Saturday, November 03, 2012
100TWC - Day 99: Friendship
This post has a lot of tags. It started off with more but I blew Blogger's limit. I didn't even know there was a limit! See, friendship touches so many areas of my life that Blogger can't cope. I'm half expecting it to seize up in the middle of this post. Let's see how we get on...
With the last post of my 100-day (aka 100-theme) writing challenge in sight, friendship has been much on my mind. I've had some really nice comments and feedback on here, but what's been even better, and more surprising, is the feedback I've had in real life. Whenever I've met up with friends at least one of them has commented on each occasion how much they've been enjoying the writing. I've been enjoying it too, of course, in fact that's one of the things I'll be including in the "lessons learned" follow-up post I'll be writing over the weekend. But it's one thing to gain enjoyment from something yourself, and totally another thing to find out that you've been giving enjoyment to others. Writing can be a solitary experience (all writers say this, at least those who speak/write/email to me) with -- often -- not much in the way of validation or appreciation, so it's really cool to hear the opinions of readers, which posts they liked best and why, etc.
I'd also be really interested to hear which ones folk thought didn't work out so well. To see how this matches my own feelings, for one thing, but also because it's all part of the learning experience. Just doing this stuff has helped me improve enormously, but really good feedback that mentions the bad as well as the good, is also a huge help.
I appear to have drifted off topic somewhat, so to drag it back to friendship: I've been lucky. When I talk about the times we have with mates -- the trips to the Lakes, weekends away, meals out (and in) -- the single most common response is how unusual it is for a bunch of guys to have kept a communal friendship going for so long. I'm not sure how rare it is in the great scheme of things, but those who comment on it seem to think it's pretty rare. Much more common for women to have a "girly group of friends"; less so for guys to have a "blokey group", apparently.
I've known for many years that social groups depend on key individuals to hold them together. I had an old colleagues network at one time -- around two dozen people who all used to work together in the same part of the organisation until one dark day a reorganisation came along and scattered us all across the company. Some left for other jobs, some took the opportunity for early retirement, most split up into three or four units, separated by geography, department and skill set. For several years after the split, we would get together two or three times a year (Christmas, obviously, and then one or two other meals or social events like bowling, walking, pub crawls). These were all marvellous events, well attended and very popular, but they all had a single individual -- the same guy in every case -- as the instigator. And then one day he stopped doing it. And none of us have ever met up again since that day.
The small group of friends I always refer to as my "Nottingham" mates (even though only two of them live there now) have strength in depth when it comes to organising get-togethers. It's not driven by just one of us. Once a few weeks, or a months, have gone by since our last meet, one or other of us will get in touch to set something else up. Often we don't need to do this, as we arrange it in advance at the previous one. It's a source of infinite variety, pleasure, amusement and fun to Nikki and I to be able to be part of this, as I'm sure anyone who is lucky enough to have their own strong ties of friendship will understand. Friends, they say, are the family you choose, and I would tag that with "lines I wish I'd written" if there was any space left in the tag list :0)
As I've discovered (and blogged about before), friends come at you from all parts of life, and another group that I've been blessed to reconnect with -- a few years back now -- has been the curry crew. We may only meet once a month, but I find myself looking forward to those evenings immensely. The conversation always flows, it's always stimulating and amusing, and the food is only the icing on the cake (if curry can be said to be any kind of icing).
I have a small number of friends that fall into another different category. All of the aforementioned might be classed as "regular" friends, and if such a term fits then this small number I'm talking about now might correspondingly be referred to as "irregular" friends. People who, over the years, have meandered in and out of my life seemingly at random, but who whenever we meet will pick up the threads of friendship (and even conversation!) and knit them back into something recognisable within a few hours. I met one such person outside a hotel once, a few years back. Having not seen him for more than five years, suddenly there he was, leaving a hotel at which I had arrived to meet someone else. We only had chance for twenty minutes frantic catching up and exchanging of current contact details, but it rekindled some long-buried memories and the spark of yet another friendship stretching back to the mid 1970s. We originally met at university and the names of other uni friends crop up regularly in the strangest places. Naturally the Internet is the perfect medium for this and over the years I've had the occasional email from old friends who've read this blog, or seen my profile on LinkedIn, or Friends Reunited, or found my website through Google.
There is a downside to this though. The reality of how easy it is to lose touch with people was brought home to me when I attended a school reunion about 15 years ago. It was such a strange experience I vowed never to attend one again (although I was tempted a couple of years back when they held a 25th -- or was it 30th? -- reunion). Not only the experience -- spending 3 or 4 hours in a function room with 50 people who at one time I saw on a daily basis but who, with one exception, I hadn't seen for 15 years -- but the aftermath. The impact of the realisation that I had completely lost touch with all of them, even those I'd thought of as close friends, really hit me surprisingly hard. I guess it just shows that friends are more than simply people you spend time with. Just as it's easy to be lonely in a crowded room, rubbing shoulders with a bunch of people every day for six years doesn't necessarily make them your friends. It knocked me for six a bit, did that.
With the last post of my 100-day (aka 100-theme) writing challenge in sight, friendship has been much on my mind. I've had some really nice comments and feedback on here, but what's been even better, and more surprising, is the feedback I've had in real life. Whenever I've met up with friends at least one of them has commented on each occasion how much they've been enjoying the writing. I've been enjoying it too, of course, in fact that's one of the things I'll be including in the "lessons learned" follow-up post I'll be writing over the weekend. But it's one thing to gain enjoyment from something yourself, and totally another thing to find out that you've been giving enjoyment to others. Writing can be a solitary experience (all writers say this, at least those who speak/write/email to me) with -- often -- not much in the way of validation or appreciation, so it's really cool to hear the opinions of readers, which posts they liked best and why, etc.
I'd also be really interested to hear which ones folk thought didn't work out so well. To see how this matches my own feelings, for one thing, but also because it's all part of the learning experience. Just doing this stuff has helped me improve enormously, but really good feedback that mentions the bad as well as the good, is also a huge help.
I appear to have drifted off topic somewhat, so to drag it back to friendship: I've been lucky. When I talk about the times we have with mates -- the trips to the Lakes, weekends away, meals out (and in) -- the single most common response is how unusual it is for a bunch of guys to have kept a communal friendship going for so long. I'm not sure how rare it is in the great scheme of things, but those who comment on it seem to think it's pretty rare. Much more common for women to have a "girly group of friends"; less so for guys to have a "blokey group", apparently.
I've known for many years that social groups depend on key individuals to hold them together. I had an old colleagues network at one time -- around two dozen people who all used to work together in the same part of the organisation until one dark day a reorganisation came along and scattered us all across the company. Some left for other jobs, some took the opportunity for early retirement, most split up into three or four units, separated by geography, department and skill set. For several years after the split, we would get together two or three times a year (Christmas, obviously, and then one or two other meals or social events like bowling, walking, pub crawls). These were all marvellous events, well attended and very popular, but they all had a single individual -- the same guy in every case -- as the instigator. And then one day he stopped doing it. And none of us have ever met up again since that day.
The small group of friends I always refer to as my "Nottingham" mates (even though only two of them live there now) have strength in depth when it comes to organising get-togethers. It's not driven by just one of us. Once a few weeks, or a months, have gone by since our last meet, one or other of us will get in touch to set something else up. Often we don't need to do this, as we arrange it in advance at the previous one. It's a source of infinite variety, pleasure, amusement and fun to Nikki and I to be able to be part of this, as I'm sure anyone who is lucky enough to have their own strong ties of friendship will understand. Friends, they say, are the family you choose, and I would tag that with "lines I wish I'd written" if there was any space left in the tag list :0)
As I've discovered (and blogged about before), friends come at you from all parts of life, and another group that I've been blessed to reconnect with -- a few years back now -- has been the curry crew. We may only meet once a month, but I find myself looking forward to those evenings immensely. The conversation always flows, it's always stimulating and amusing, and the food is only the icing on the cake (if curry can be said to be any kind of icing).
I have a small number of friends that fall into another different category. All of the aforementioned might be classed as "regular" friends, and if such a term fits then this small number I'm talking about now might correspondingly be referred to as "irregular" friends. People who, over the years, have meandered in and out of my life seemingly at random, but who whenever we meet will pick up the threads of friendship (and even conversation!) and knit them back into something recognisable within a few hours. I met one such person outside a hotel once, a few years back. Having not seen him for more than five years, suddenly there he was, leaving a hotel at which I had arrived to meet someone else. We only had chance for twenty minutes frantic catching up and exchanging of current contact details, but it rekindled some long-buried memories and the spark of yet another friendship stretching back to the mid 1970s. We originally met at university and the names of other uni friends crop up regularly in the strangest places. Naturally the Internet is the perfect medium for this and over the years I've had the occasional email from old friends who've read this blog, or seen my profile on LinkedIn, or Friends Reunited, or found my website through Google.
There is a downside to this though. The reality of how easy it is to lose touch with people was brought home to me when I attended a school reunion about 15 years ago. It was such a strange experience I vowed never to attend one again (although I was tempted a couple of years back when they held a 25th -- or was it 30th? -- reunion). Not only the experience -- spending 3 or 4 hours in a function room with 50 people who at one time I saw on a daily basis but who, with one exception, I hadn't seen for 15 years -- but the aftermath. The impact of the realisation that I had completely lost touch with all of them, even those I'd thought of as close friends, really hit me surprisingly hard. I guess it just shows that friends are more than simply people you spend time with. Just as it's easy to be lonely in a crowded room, rubbing shoulders with a bunch of people every day for six years doesn't necessarily make them your friends. It knocked me for six a bit, did that.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
100TWC - Day 64: Frost
Around this time of year as a boy, or maybe just a week or two later, I used to expect that on really cold days I'd wake up to frost on my bedroom windows. On the inside. Double glazing and central heating were unknown concepts to me growing up. My bedroom windows (there were two, one on each outside wall, which made my room probably the coldest room in the house and certainly the coldest bedroom. Even the bathroom, which also had two exterior walls, only had one window) were single-glazed, with metal frames, and hence particularly susceptible to the cold.
Interestingly (it has just occurred to me) when we sold that house in April of this year, those single glazed metal framed windows -- the original ones with which the house was built in the 1940s -- were still in place, still intact. I've no doubt they will have been replaced now, but they lasted almost 70 years.
My parents only got around to investing in central heating after I moved out. And even then, because they "didn't like hot bedrooms", the system they installed was only partial. A radiator beside the boiler in the kitchen, which I always thought was completely redundant since the boiler, being a 1970s vintage, was not particularly well insulated. One at the bottom of the stairs to warm the hall. One at the top to service the landing. If you wanted any heat in a bedroom you had to leave the door open. And that was it. Three single, narrow radiators for an entire 3-bedroom semi-detached house. The "through" lounge/ dining room had a gas fire.
But such luxury was unknown to me as a child. The only source of heat in my room was a two-bar portable electric fire. It smelt, when on, in that way old metal electric fires have. Especially the first time it was used each year in the run-up to Christmas. Having been gathering dust for something approaching nine months, the first time you switched it on all that dust would burn off the element and stink the room out for days. It wasn't just dust, of course. There would be the odd dead fly in there too. And possibly a few strands of hair that had found their way through the grille. I hated that fire, ugly brown dumpy little monstrosity that it was, but it didn't stop me from turning it on every night an hour or so before I went to bed.
No such luxury in the mornings, of course. Time switches were another technology denied to us in the 1960s and early 70s. Hence the frost on the windows. I could see my breath most mornings too, in that room. It's a wonder I ever plucked up the courage to get out of bed, especially once my folks had gone all modern and replaced our traditional bedding with those new-fangled "continental quilts" (duvets, to modern readers). Toasty warm it was, under my "quilt", and hence by comparison, even colder in the bedroom.
On school mornings it was a mad dash to the bathroom, once my Dad had whistled his signal that he'd finished at the washbasin. The bathroom had one of those ceiling lights with a heater in it, and on really cold mornings Dad would have turned it on when he first got up. So the bathroom (again, by comparison) was warmer than the bedroom. Warmer even than the landing which, being in the middle of the house, never got as cold as the outer rooms.
On weekend mornings I didn't need to be quite so brave. I could laze around in bed until the sun was up, and melted the frost on the windows. At least then it didn't look as cold in my room.
When I got a bit older, I found myself wondering exactly how cold it got in that room. I'd acquired a thermometer from somewhere and I hung it on the wall. Being of an analytical bent (OK, OK, I was a spod. I admit it), it was not enough for me to just glance at the reading every morning and evening on my way out of, and into bed. I had to write the temperatures down. And then, having written them down, I had to graph them up. And so it was that, by the age of 15, I had a year's worth of bedroom temperature readings on a graph on my wall, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that the coldest it ever got in my room one winter's morning, was 44°F.
I saw my breath THAT morning, I can tell you!
The graph spiked a lot where the electric fire was on in the evening, and not in the morning, but the trend of temperatures was still visible, as were the maxima and minima. Attentive readers will have noticed that even this glaring evidence of incipient frostbite in my room was not enough to persuade my parents that central heating was necessary, until after I'd moved out. Whether or not this constitutes child abuse I will leave it up to the reader to decide.
The frost on the inside of my windows did make exceedingly pretty patterns though. Which was, naturally, some small compensation for the discomfort.
Interestingly (it has just occurred to me) when we sold that house in April of this year, those single glazed metal framed windows -- the original ones with which the house was built in the 1940s -- were still in place, still intact. I've no doubt they will have been replaced now, but they lasted almost 70 years.
My parents only got around to investing in central heating after I moved out. And even then, because they "didn't like hot bedrooms", the system they installed was only partial. A radiator beside the boiler in the kitchen, which I always thought was completely redundant since the boiler, being a 1970s vintage, was not particularly well insulated. One at the bottom of the stairs to warm the hall. One at the top to service the landing. If you wanted any heat in a bedroom you had to leave the door open. And that was it. Three single, narrow radiators for an entire 3-bedroom semi-detached house. The "through" lounge/ dining room had a gas fire.
But such luxury was unknown to me as a child. The only source of heat in my room was a two-bar portable electric fire. It smelt, when on, in that way old metal electric fires have. Especially the first time it was used each year in the run-up to Christmas. Having been gathering dust for something approaching nine months, the first time you switched it on all that dust would burn off the element and stink the room out for days. It wasn't just dust, of course. There would be the odd dead fly in there too. And possibly a few strands of hair that had found their way through the grille. I hated that fire, ugly brown dumpy little monstrosity that it was, but it didn't stop me from turning it on every night an hour or so before I went to bed.
No such luxury in the mornings, of course. Time switches were another technology denied to us in the 1960s and early 70s. Hence the frost on the windows. I could see my breath most mornings too, in that room. It's a wonder I ever plucked up the courage to get out of bed, especially once my folks had gone all modern and replaced our traditional bedding with those new-fangled "continental quilts" (duvets, to modern readers). Toasty warm it was, under my "quilt", and hence by comparison, even colder in the bedroom.
On school mornings it was a mad dash to the bathroom, once my Dad had whistled his signal that he'd finished at the washbasin. The bathroom had one of those ceiling lights with a heater in it, and on really cold mornings Dad would have turned it on when he first got up. So the bathroom (again, by comparison) was warmer than the bedroom. Warmer even than the landing which, being in the middle of the house, never got as cold as the outer rooms.
On weekend mornings I didn't need to be quite so brave. I could laze around in bed until the sun was up, and melted the frost on the windows. At least then it didn't look as cold in my room.
When I got a bit older, I found myself wondering exactly how cold it got in that room. I'd acquired a thermometer from somewhere and I hung it on the wall. Being of an analytical bent (OK, OK, I was a spod. I admit it), it was not enough for me to just glance at the reading every morning and evening on my way out of, and into bed. I had to write the temperatures down. And then, having written them down, I had to graph them up. And so it was that, by the age of 15, I had a year's worth of bedroom temperature readings on a graph on my wall, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that the coldest it ever got in my room one winter's morning, was 44°F.
I saw my breath THAT morning, I can tell you!
The graph spiked a lot where the electric fire was on in the evening, and not in the morning, but the trend of temperatures was still visible, as were the maxima and minima. Attentive readers will have noticed that even this glaring evidence of incipient frostbite in my room was not enough to persuade my parents that central heating was necessary, until after I'd moved out. Whether or not this constitutes child abuse I will leave it up to the reader to decide.
The frost on the inside of my windows did make exceedingly pretty patterns though. Which was, naturally, some small compensation for the discomfort.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
100TWC - Day 58: Heartfelt Apology
This is a hard one. Hard to write, almost certainly hard to read. Hard to even think about. Because there's an apology - a heartfelt apology - that I have needed to make for a long time, and I can never make it.
Do you think about it much? I bet you do. In those quiet moments, perhaps, before you go to sleep. Or if you're feeling down for any reason. Or sometimes does it hit you at the most surprising times, when everything is sunshine and warmth and happiness. And then you remember with a sudden jolt and a lump in the throat. I do.
But for me -- and I know this isn't about me, but this is how I still feel about it; the only way I can express it -- for me the worst times are whenever I see or hear stories of abandonment. Of children left behind. They always make me cry. I'm crying now, thinking about it. Writing about it. There are some scenes, in some movies, that I simply cannot watch.
Even now, with the perspective of all these years, it's still there. Like a stain on my soul. One that I can never scrub off no matter what I do to repair that old wound. It bears a scar, you see. I knew it would. I talked it over and over with people who had been through it. Talking about it like that was, partly, just a way of postponing the inevitable, but it was also a way of validating the hard decision. I needed to be certain that, of all the bad choices I could make, the one I ended up with was the least bad for the most number of people. Which is why it took me so long to go. Even though I knew for a long time I had to, I couldn't bring myself to do it for years. Because I would always, always rather hurt myself than hurt you.
In the end though, I knew there was nothing else for it. I had to do it. Because staying, in the long term, would have caused more hurt than going. I tried to explain, even though I knew I never would be able to. Even though I knew the message would be garbled, and infected with lies and half-truths by those more interested in serving their own agenda. You couldn't possibly have understood, back then. And knowing that you understand now, now that you're all grown up and out there, doing your own things and living your own lives and, no doubt, making your own mistakes the way all of us do. Stumbling around in the dark looking for the way forward. Now I know you understand, it helps. A little. But you didn't understand at the time. You were bewildered, frightened, angry, and lost.
And that's the hurt I can never mend, no matter how many times I apologise. I can't go back there and be there for you, help you through it the way I always had up to that point. The way I started to again, much later. So this isn't only an apology to you today, though you surely deserve one. It is also -- or even mainly, perhaps -- an apology to the 11-year-old you, and the 6-year-old you. The frightened, tearful girls I left behind who grew up, in spite of all the pain and loss, to be the most wonderful, talented, beautiful daughters a man could ever dream of. Love you.
Do you think about it much? I bet you do. In those quiet moments, perhaps, before you go to sleep. Or if you're feeling down for any reason. Or sometimes does it hit you at the most surprising times, when everything is sunshine and warmth and happiness. And then you remember with a sudden jolt and a lump in the throat. I do.
But for me -- and I know this isn't about me, but this is how I still feel about it; the only way I can express it -- for me the worst times are whenever I see or hear stories of abandonment. Of children left behind. They always make me cry. I'm crying now, thinking about it. Writing about it. There are some scenes, in some movies, that I simply cannot watch.
Even now, with the perspective of all these years, it's still there. Like a stain on my soul. One that I can never scrub off no matter what I do to repair that old wound. It bears a scar, you see. I knew it would. I talked it over and over with people who had been through it. Talking about it like that was, partly, just a way of postponing the inevitable, but it was also a way of validating the hard decision. I needed to be certain that, of all the bad choices I could make, the one I ended up with was the least bad for the most number of people. Which is why it took me so long to go. Even though I knew for a long time I had to, I couldn't bring myself to do it for years. Because I would always, always rather hurt myself than hurt you.
In the end though, I knew there was nothing else for it. I had to do it. Because staying, in the long term, would have caused more hurt than going. I tried to explain, even though I knew I never would be able to. Even though I knew the message would be garbled, and infected with lies and half-truths by those more interested in serving their own agenda. You couldn't possibly have understood, back then. And knowing that you understand now, now that you're all grown up and out there, doing your own things and living your own lives and, no doubt, making your own mistakes the way all of us do. Stumbling around in the dark looking for the way forward. Now I know you understand, it helps. A little. But you didn't understand at the time. You were bewildered, frightened, angry, and lost.
And that's the hurt I can never mend, no matter how many times I apologise. I can't go back there and be there for you, help you through it the way I always had up to that point. The way I started to again, much later. So this isn't only an apology to you today, though you surely deserve one. It is also -- or even mainly, perhaps -- an apology to the 11-year-old you, and the 6-year-old you. The frightened, tearful girls I left behind who grew up, in spite of all the pain and loss, to be the most wonderful, talented, beautiful daughters a man could ever dream of. Love you.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
100TWC - Day 18: Love
wow love i mean such an overused word i love you like in the song those three words they're said too much and not enough i love it where it could be anything you vaguely like or you're trying to impress the person who has it whatever it is and you don't really like it all that much but you're all oh yeah i love it baby i love it you love your friends that's a different kind of love to the love you have for your mum or your dog or your favourite pencil and then there's those weird kinds of love that some people have but other people that's most of us think are icky or embarrassing or just plain wrong those kinds of love have to be hidden away in special words with philia in them like necrophilia or coprophilia look it up or paedophilia not the kind of love i really want to talk about but then there's the usual kind and that comes in all different flavours too like love of your life and unrequited love usually love for the girl next door i used to think i loved the girl next door but it was just an adolescent thing really i only wanted to see her tits and she just thought it was kinda handy to have someone her own age living next door who she could play silly games with she never really loved me and in the end she moved away anyway and i never even heard from her again but i think about her from time to time but even that wasn't my first experience of love oh no i was only six years old when i fell in love the first time and my parents were all oh don't be so silly boys of your age don't fall in love but it sure felt like it to me when i was feeling all sick in my stomach and thinking about her all the time and making sure my fingernails were clean when i went to school and deliberately putting my tie on crooked so she could straighten it for me because she was a proper little girl who wanted to grow up to be a wife and mother and she'd seen her mother straighten her dad's tie so obviously that's the kind of thing you did when you loved somebody so she used to do it for me too made my head tingle anyway we only ever kissed a few times and then it all kinda blew over i never did really find out why she went off me for that other guy he even had dirty fingernails and she always told me she couldn't stand that i guess that's the thing about love you can have all these rules about the kind of person who's ideal and all that but when the right one comes along all those rules go out the window i used to ask my mum how will i know when i'm really in love and she used to say you'll just know that didn't really help me very much cos every time it happened to me i thought i knew but then it turned out i didn't know after all especially with that helen i used to let her do all sorts of stupid stuff to me just to try and spend time around her but then it turned out she was just making fun of me and talking about me behind my back saying how dumb i was to let her do all that stuff i used to get that sick feeling in my stomach when i was with her too but later on it turned into a different kind of sick anyway that was all a long time ago when i was only a little kid things got even worse when i was an older kid and i started getting all these urges i never realised it was so easy to mix up love and lust i spent a long time trying to sort that one out and it got me in one whole heap of a heck of a lot of trouble i can tell you i don't know what it was but when a girl kissed me i went kinda mad i think i remember reading once that love is a kind of madness or at least that hormonal buzz that comes with it you can get addicted to that a lot of people stay that way their whole life like rock stars and film stars and other folk with a lot of money they always say they're looking for love in their songs and films but really they're just addicted to hormones or the thrill of the chase or something i don't think that's real love at all but then when you get to thinking about real love and comparing it to that flirty kind of young love and chasing about all over the place it can seem kinda boring from the outside you know when two people have been together a long time like them old folk you see walking along holding hands and people will say oh look at that old couple isn't that wonderful and all the young people start to feel a bit sick not the kind of sick that i mentioned earlier but you know kind of embarrassed and ewww and like that because all they can think about the young people that is all they can think about is the old people doing it and i think it's universally recognised that the thought of old people doing it is kinda yucky until you're an old person that is and then i guess it's perfect natural even though you don't do it as often as you used to but that's because by the time you're that old you've discovered that love really isn't about doing it at all that's only one very small part of it and all the rest the stuff that sounds boring to the youngsters well that's the stuff that love is really about caring and sharing and understanding and being gentle and kind and doing stuff for each other because you want to make their lives easier and taking pleasure from simple things like a warm sunny morning or a kitten playing or your grandchildren bringing you a daisy chain so all in all i reckon love means different things to different people at different times of their lives but it always means something to somebody at every time of their life and that's why they say it makes the world go round.
Monday, August 06, 2012
100TWC - Day 10: Opportunities
Opportunity is a master of disguise. Sometimes it is so good that you don't see it at all. At other times you might see it, but believe it to be a threat, to be avoided at all costs. Often its disguise is polarised so that from the present it doesn't look anything like an opportunity but once you've sailed past it and are looking at it from the future (so that the opportunity is in the past) you can see that it really was an opportunity after all.
Many years ago my father was offered a dream job in another city. I was around 9 at the time and I remember my parents going for a long walk to discuss whether or not he should take it. Because I had no alternative child care they took me along with them. I didn't understand much of the conversation and in any case a lot of it was spoken in hushed voices, but I heard enough to know that if the decision went in favour of this new job it would involve moving. At that age, it was an uncomfortable prospect for me. I've never really been one to embrace change wholeheartedly. My instinct is more usually to avoid it in case it turns out badly rather than welcome it on the chance that it will be great. I'm like that now, with all my adult armour and skills. At age 9 I was just a bundle of no.
As the conversation came to a conclusion I remember them asking my opinion. It's only really come home to me now, at this point of writing about it and with both of them now dead, what a wonderful gesture that was. To give a 9-year-old a vote on such a momentous family decision. I do hope my opinion wasn't the only thing that swayed them because I voted no, and the decision in the end was no, so my father continued in his unsatisfying job working for a boss who rarely showed his appreciation for the diamond he had working for him.
For years my recollection of this incident was that the city in question was Birmingham. However in conversation with my Mum many years ago it turned out I had misremembered. The opportunity was to move to Manchester. Thinking about that now still gives me a small tingle. How I - effectively - turned down the chance to move to Manchester at age 9, but that fate had very definitely inked Manchester into my future and was determined to get me here one way or another. I didn't get the grades I needed for my first choice of University course, but the college who had the best offer of an alternative place was in... Manchester. So I moved here anyway when I was 18, and moved back again permanently when I was 44. What would have been different had I come when I first had the chance? Who knows. That's the thing with opportunity: it's often a one-time, one-way offer.
In 1984 or 85, when I was enjoying one of the most successful points of my career - responsible for 19 people all engaged in the world-wide 3rd line support of what was widely regarded as one of the best (if not the best) operating systems in the world - I was offered a job working as a full-time contracted employee for a major government department, doing a similar role but with a much larger team, and on "the other side of the fence" - working for a customer. The job would have entailed moving to Lytham St Annes (or commuting from Staffordshire - not THAT much of a stretch). Once again my aversion to change kicked in. I'd just bought a house that I was very pleased with, felt on top of my game in my job - I knew everyone; how to get the job done quickly and efficiently; I was good at it and yet it still challenged me daily - so as far as I could see the only incentive to move was the offer of more money.
That wasn't enough to persuade me. I turned them down.
A colleague of mine, who ran the support team for a different part of the OS, took up the offer in my stead. Months later it was reported that she had been spotted as a rising star and had quickly been promoted into a much more senior role with an even more advanced salary. Moreover she was working 14 hour days, 6 days a week, and even at that senior level the job still paid overtime. We huddled round our calculators and worked out that she must have been pulling in around a quarter of a million pounds a year - back in 1985!!
I think it would be true to say she made the most of her opportunity. I think it may also be true to say she made the most of MY opportunity. Would I have been able to follow it up to the same degree? Who knows. We had similar skills, but if I'm honest where we differed was in outlook. I've never been driven by money (even though I've been fortunate to only rarely be "short" of it), but I don't think I'd have been prepared to put in those kind of hours no matter what the remuneration.
So in conclusion - opportunities come and go. Sometimes - as in the example of moving to Manchester - they will revisit you at a later date, wearing a different disguise. But in the same way that opportunities can appear to be threats, their dark siblings threats are also able to dress themselves up as opportunities. Knowing how to tell them apart is a clever trick that no-one can pull off 100% of the time. But while you're trying desperately to avoid jumping from the frying pan into the fire, it's worth bearing in mind that what looks like a fire may in fact be the magic alchemist's forge that can transform you from base metal into gold.
Many years ago my father was offered a dream job in another city. I was around 9 at the time and I remember my parents going for a long walk to discuss whether or not he should take it. Because I had no alternative child care they took me along with them. I didn't understand much of the conversation and in any case a lot of it was spoken in hushed voices, but I heard enough to know that if the decision went in favour of this new job it would involve moving. At that age, it was an uncomfortable prospect for me. I've never really been one to embrace change wholeheartedly. My instinct is more usually to avoid it in case it turns out badly rather than welcome it on the chance that it will be great. I'm like that now, with all my adult armour and skills. At age 9 I was just a bundle of no.
As the conversation came to a conclusion I remember them asking my opinion. It's only really come home to me now, at this point of writing about it and with both of them now dead, what a wonderful gesture that was. To give a 9-year-old a vote on such a momentous family decision. I do hope my opinion wasn't the only thing that swayed them because I voted no, and the decision in the end was no, so my father continued in his unsatisfying job working for a boss who rarely showed his appreciation for the diamond he had working for him.
For years my recollection of this incident was that the city in question was Birmingham. However in conversation with my Mum many years ago it turned out I had misremembered. The opportunity was to move to Manchester. Thinking about that now still gives me a small tingle. How I - effectively - turned down the chance to move to Manchester at age 9, but that fate had very definitely inked Manchester into my future and was determined to get me here one way or another. I didn't get the grades I needed for my first choice of University course, but the college who had the best offer of an alternative place was in... Manchester. So I moved here anyway when I was 18, and moved back again permanently when I was 44. What would have been different had I come when I first had the chance? Who knows. That's the thing with opportunity: it's often a one-time, one-way offer.
In 1984 or 85, when I was enjoying one of the most successful points of my career - responsible for 19 people all engaged in the world-wide 3rd line support of what was widely regarded as one of the best (if not the best) operating systems in the world - I was offered a job working as a full-time contracted employee for a major government department, doing a similar role but with a much larger team, and on "the other side of the fence" - working for a customer. The job would have entailed moving to Lytham St Annes (or commuting from Staffordshire - not THAT much of a stretch). Once again my aversion to change kicked in. I'd just bought a house that I was very pleased with, felt on top of my game in my job - I knew everyone; how to get the job done quickly and efficiently; I was good at it and yet it still challenged me daily - so as far as I could see the only incentive to move was the offer of more money.
That wasn't enough to persuade me. I turned them down.
A colleague of mine, who ran the support team for a different part of the OS, took up the offer in my stead. Months later it was reported that she had been spotted as a rising star and had quickly been promoted into a much more senior role with an even more advanced salary. Moreover she was working 14 hour days, 6 days a week, and even at that senior level the job still paid overtime. We huddled round our calculators and worked out that she must have been pulling in around a quarter of a million pounds a year - back in 1985!!
I think it would be true to say she made the most of her opportunity. I think it may also be true to say she made the most of MY opportunity. Would I have been able to follow it up to the same degree? Who knows. We had similar skills, but if I'm honest where we differed was in outlook. I've never been driven by money (even though I've been fortunate to only rarely be "short" of it), but I don't think I'd have been prepared to put in those kind of hours no matter what the remuneration.
So in conclusion - opportunities come and go. Sometimes - as in the example of moving to Manchester - they will revisit you at a later date, wearing a different disguise. But in the same way that opportunities can appear to be threats, their dark siblings threats are also able to dress themselves up as opportunities. Knowing how to tell them apart is a clever trick that no-one can pull off 100% of the time. But while you're trying desperately to avoid jumping from the frying pan into the fire, it's worth bearing in mind that what looks like a fire may in fact be the magic alchemist's forge that can transform you from base metal into gold.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
So farewell then, 20 Ridgway
Don't know how to describe my feelings right now, if I'm honest, except "weird." The house I lived in for the first 21 years of my life (I officially moved out three days after my 21st birthday), which has been in my family since 1953, and which has always been there in my mind as a place of refuge in the bad times, solace in the sad times and celebration in the glad times, as of today belongs to someone else.
By the time we left it for the last time - last Saturday afternoon - it did feel more like "just a house" than it has ever felt. No longer a home. And truth be told it hasn't been my home for all of those 30+ years since I moved out, except in the sense of "going home" to visit Mum, as we often did. After 8 months of intermittent trips to throw away old things, collect treasured things and rearrange remaining things to present the house at its best for the purposes of sale, it looked and felt like an empty shell. Only faint echoes lingered of the happy times spent there. Lifetimes. I learned to walk there. I learned to ride a bike there. I learned to drive there. I read my 'O' and 'A' Level results over breakfast there. I found out I'd got into university there. I had my first sex there. And my first broken heart, stood by the sideboard reading that letter. My Dad died there. My Mum turned into an old lady there.
And now someone else will build memories there and put down roots - perhaps even 60 years deep like our family did. They'll put their own stamp on the place until almost every trace of the planning and saving and working and painting and tiling and building my Mum & Dad did is erased; replaced with something newer, bigger, brighter and not ours.
Well... not quite erased. It will still be there in my memory. My old family home. And that's why I'll never drive down to Ridgway Close again. Or at least, never intend to. I want that house - that home - to stay as it is in my memory. The happy, sunny, carefree home of my childhood.
By the time we left it for the last time - last Saturday afternoon - it did feel more like "just a house" than it has ever felt. No longer a home. And truth be told it hasn't been my home for all of those 30+ years since I moved out, except in the sense of "going home" to visit Mum, as we often did. After 8 months of intermittent trips to throw away old things, collect treasured things and rearrange remaining things to present the house at its best for the purposes of sale, it looked and felt like an empty shell. Only faint echoes lingered of the happy times spent there. Lifetimes. I learned to walk there. I learned to ride a bike there. I learned to drive there. I read my 'O' and 'A' Level results over breakfast there. I found out I'd got into university there. I had my first sex there. And my first broken heart, stood by the sideboard reading that letter. My Dad died there. My Mum turned into an old lady there.
And now someone else will build memories there and put down roots - perhaps even 60 years deep like our family did. They'll put their own stamp on the place until almost every trace of the planning and saving and working and painting and tiling and building my Mum & Dad did is erased; replaced with something newer, bigger, brighter and not ours.
Well... not quite erased. It will still be there in my memory. My old family home. And that's why I'll never drive down to Ridgway Close again. Or at least, never intend to. I want that house - that home - to stay as it is in my memory. The happy, sunny, carefree home of my childhood.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Shirley Margaret Fletcher
I've been thinking (worrying) about this post since before we flew to Toronto. Knowing I should write something, knowing that it would be hard. That it could be upsetting, both to write and to read. The best I can do - ALL I can do - is to relate how she appeared to me. I knew her for a little over ten years. We first met in 2000 when I visited Toronto. Meeting your partner's parents for the first time is never easy, no matter how old and experienced you are. But in this case the circumstances were perhaps even less auspicious than normal, there being the unspoken possibility that I would be spiriting her daughter off to live with me in England. It came back to me later that Shirley had said something like "I wanted to hate him, but I couldn't. He's such a nice guy."
So the first thing I learned about Shirley was that she was a very astute judge of character ;o)
Some people are an open book, others more guarded. Shirley could appear quite abrasive, but if I were to continue with the book analogy I'd say she was like a book that was bound in cactus, but turned out to be a heartwarming story of infinite warmth and humanity when you eventually read it. Whether on this side of the Atlantic or that she was always pleased to see us, always generous to a tee (paying for the overwhelming majority of our meals out no matter where we were, and brooking no argument on the subject), and always made sure we had a full supply of breakfast bagels and coffee when we went there, and that she brought a good supply of Riceroni and pumpkin pie mix when she came here. And marmalade. Oh that homemade marmalade! There's nothing like it on Earth, and the frighteningly meagre supply now sitting in our fridge is the last there will ever be. I hardly dare spread it on a single slice of toast, but when I do - and for as many times as I do - I'll offer up a silent prayer of thanks. I tried many times without success to persuade Nikki to make it while Shirley was still with us. Now I just have to hope that the recipe is one of those that "just works" without her magic touch. What are the chances?
My Inbox is considerably less busy these days too. Shirley was well-connected, email-wise, and the constant stream of jokes, funny photos, or inspiring PowerPoint slide decks that flowed from her was a regular and welcome source of laughs, gasps and awwwwws.
But inevitably our opportunities to get better acquainted were limited by both time and distance. Listening to Nikki, Paul and Stewart relate tales of their childhood in her house, reading the emails of condolence from her widespread friends and acquaintances met on her many cruises, seeing the effect of her passing on everyone we came into contact with on our visit, brought it home just how much she was loved by everyone who knew her, or whose lives she touched.
"It's a great life, John, if you don't weaken," she regularly said to me. And until the very end, she never did. A remarkable woman in every way.
So the first thing I learned about Shirley was that she was a very astute judge of character ;o)
Some people are an open book, others more guarded. Shirley could appear quite abrasive, but if I were to continue with the book analogy I'd say she was like a book that was bound in cactus, but turned out to be a heartwarming story of infinite warmth and humanity when you eventually read it. Whether on this side of the Atlantic or that she was always pleased to see us, always generous to a tee (paying for the overwhelming majority of our meals out no matter where we were, and brooking no argument on the subject), and always made sure we had a full supply of breakfast bagels and coffee when we went there, and that she brought a good supply of Riceroni and pumpkin pie mix when she came here. And marmalade. Oh that homemade marmalade! There's nothing like it on Earth, and the frighteningly meagre supply now sitting in our fridge is the last there will ever be. I hardly dare spread it on a single slice of toast, but when I do - and for as many times as I do - I'll offer up a silent prayer of thanks. I tried many times without success to persuade Nikki to make it while Shirley was still with us. Now I just have to hope that the recipe is one of those that "just works" without her magic touch. What are the chances?
My Inbox is considerably less busy these days too. Shirley was well-connected, email-wise, and the constant stream of jokes, funny photos, or inspiring PowerPoint slide decks that flowed from her was a regular and welcome source of laughs, gasps and awwwwws.
But inevitably our opportunities to get better acquainted were limited by both time and distance. Listening to Nikki, Paul and Stewart relate tales of their childhood in her house, reading the emails of condolence from her widespread friends and acquaintances met on her many cruises, seeing the effect of her passing on everyone we came into contact with on our visit, brought it home just how much she was loved by everyone who knew her, or whose lives she touched.
"It's a great life, John, if you don't weaken," she regularly said to me. And until the very end, she never did. A remarkable woman in every way.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Should Not Have Got On This Flight Tonight
Not being one to like a lot of fuss, Shirley had always said she didn't want Nikki to fly over in "emergency mode" whenever she shuffled off the mortal coil. Since she wasn't here to argue, we went anyway. The first flight we could book, Tuesday 11 October, arrived at Toronto Pearson mid-afternoon. A few seconds of Neil's reaction to Nikki's arrival would have been enough to convince anyone we'd done the right thing going over. We stayed 5 days, flying back Saturday night on the red-eye and arriving back in Manchester on Sunday morning.
The trip was a surreal mix of doing the things we would have done on a normal visit, only without Shirley, and in the midst of dealing with our grief as best we could, trying to help in any small way to organise lawyers, Neil's long-term care, Shirley's possessions, and comply with her last wishes. One of the most unusual of these was to donate her body to medical research. She'd been inspired to do this by a friend who passed before her, and although not having the closure of a formal funeral service proved a little hard for Neil to deal with, everyone was very glad that Shirley's final generous gesture was accepted by the University of Toronto medical research centre (not all are).
In my experience people often talk, or joke, about "donating their body to science" but very few have the courage or conviction to really do it.
The trip was a surreal mix of doing the things we would have done on a normal visit, only without Shirley, and in the midst of dealing with our grief as best we could, trying to help in any small way to organise lawyers, Neil's long-term care, Shirley's possessions, and comply with her last wishes. One of the most unusual of these was to donate her body to medical research. She'd been inspired to do this by a friend who passed before her, and although not having the closure of a formal funeral service proved a little hard for Neil to deal with, everyone was very glad that Shirley's final generous gesture was accepted by the University of Toronto medical research centre (not all are).
In my experience people often talk, or joke, about "donating their body to science" but very few have the courage or conviction to really do it.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Ups and Downs
I'm in danger of writing more apologies for hiatuses (and possibly apologies for incorrect plurals of 'hiatus') on here than 'real' blog posts this year. It's been a year for interruptions. Or to put it another way, a shit year. One with the usual ups and downs, but where the downs have tended to overshadow the ups. Which only underlines the seriousness of the downs, because the ups - especially where our house is concerned - have been huge. First the shed (whose saga fell in the middle of the Great Blogging Hiatus and hence has never been told) and now the kitchen.
So when we left the kitchen, we were knobless but otherwise to all intents and purposes complete. The appliances plumbed in and working; cooker and hob connected and working; fridge and freezer back where they belong; lights all shining brightly. All that remained was to empty the contents of the dozen or so plastic crates piled up in the dining room which comprised the totality of The Kitchen Before (crockery, dry & tinned goods, etc), decide where it would live in the new scheme, and follow it up with everything else we own that could possibly, legitimately, live in a kitchen (glasses, decanters, bottles of booze, candle supplies, the old Kenwood chef - hardly ever used - that has been languishing in a forgotten cupboard since we moved in, ...) thus freeing up space in the last ground floor room to be given The Treatment.
And that's how we spent our time for the whole weekend following completion. In between cooking on The New Hob, we washed and dusted, carried and discussed and packed away, opened and closed the cupboards and drawers with their temporary handles (wood screws covered with masking tape) until by Sunday afternoon the dining room was looking much more like a dining room than it has for the last three months, and everything was put away. Not that I could find anything, but it WAS all put away.
Inevitably there was some jousting for position. No, we can't put the bean-to-cup coffee machine under there because we can't get to the reservoir to fill it with water. No, we can't put in on that side either, because the water level indicator is against the wall and we can't see how full it is. And so on.
That was an Up, that weekend. We got a lot done, felt very happy with it all, and excited about the new kitchen. The following morning, Monday 10 October, just after I'd returned from ferrying Nikki to work I took a phone call from Paul to say their Mum had passed away. Downs don't get much bigger, or come much quicker, than that.
So when we left the kitchen, we were knobless but otherwise to all intents and purposes complete. The appliances plumbed in and working; cooker and hob connected and working; fridge and freezer back where they belong; lights all shining brightly. All that remained was to empty the contents of the dozen or so plastic crates piled up in the dining room which comprised the totality of The Kitchen Before (crockery, dry & tinned goods, etc), decide where it would live in the new scheme, and follow it up with everything else we own that could possibly, legitimately, live in a kitchen (glasses, decanters, bottles of booze, candle supplies, the old Kenwood chef - hardly ever used - that has been languishing in a forgotten cupboard since we moved in, ...) thus freeing up space in the last ground floor room to be given The Treatment.
And that's how we spent our time for the whole weekend following completion. In between cooking on The New Hob, we washed and dusted, carried and discussed and packed away, opened and closed the cupboards and drawers with their temporary handles (wood screws covered with masking tape) until by Sunday afternoon the dining room was looking much more like a dining room than it has for the last three months, and everything was put away. Not that I could find anything, but it WAS all put away.
That was an Up, that weekend. We got a lot done, felt very happy with it all, and excited about the new kitchen. The following morning, Monday 10 October, just after I'd returned from ferrying Nikki to work I took a phone call from Paul to say their Mum had passed away. Downs don't get much bigger, or come much quicker, than that.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Not bad, as funerals go
Kind of ironic, having a funeral on "the glorious twelfth," but knowing both my parents' sense of humour I'm sure they will have appreciated it.
Yes, I have the tense of that sentence correct. Sitting up there, on their cloud (or whatever imagery you prefer), they are still present, and have a future, both in grammatical and spiritual terms.
It was a very nice service, even though the lady who took it was in (or near to) tears for most of the time. She knew Mum very well. Let no-one ever try to tell me there’s nothing “in” Spiritualism. When we originally met with the funeral director, he asked if Mum belonged to any particular religious denomination, and naturally I told him she was a Spiritualist. This didn’t faze him in the slightest. He told us he had several contacts from that neck of the ecclesiastical woods who might be prepared to hold the service, and called me the next day to say he’d found someone and she would be phoning me shortly to go over what we wanted in the service, gather some anecdotes etc to mention in the address – the usual sort of thing.
Anyway this lady called me the next day when we were back at home. She was the first name on his list (of five) that the funeral director had called. When he told her who the service was for, she said she got chills down her back. Because Mum had asked her FOUR YEARS AGO if she would give the eulogy. And they’d sat down for half an hour with a tape recorder running, discussing all the memories and music she wanted at the service.
Some people would no doubt say “coincidence.” I think different.
I have that tape albeit with nothing to play it on. I'll be arranging to have it transferred onto CD soon. So thanks for asking how I am, but really... I’m fine. I’ve been fine all along. My Dad’s passing back in 1993 was a shock – unexpected, and traumatic because it separated him and my Mum. Mum’s passing was not unexpected. More: it was wished for (by her). They are reunited now, and happy. I have nothing to be sad about...
Since the "family seat" had been tarnished by years of living downstairs - bed in the dining room, clothes, pharmaceutical supplies and medical notes everywhere, etc - it wasn't really suitable for "keeping up" the funeral, so we repaired to the Test Match where the new landlord laid on a fine buffet lunch for the 20 of us and we sat and chatted and reminisced in the usual way of these things. No-one stayed much past 3pm, which suited us as it meant we could hit the road back to Manchester before the Friday afternoon rush started. Something else Mum would have approved of :o)
Yes, I have the tense of that sentence correct. Sitting up there, on their cloud (or whatever imagery you prefer), they are still present, and have a future, both in grammatical and spiritual terms.
It was a very nice service, even though the lady who took it was in (or near to) tears for most of the time. She knew Mum very well. Let no-one ever try to tell me there’s nothing “in” Spiritualism. When we originally met with the funeral director, he asked if Mum belonged to any particular religious denomination, and naturally I told him she was a Spiritualist. This didn’t faze him in the slightest. He told us he had several contacts from that neck of the ecclesiastical woods who might be prepared to hold the service, and called me the next day to say he’d found someone and she would be phoning me shortly to go over what we wanted in the service, gather some anecdotes etc to mention in the address – the usual sort of thing.
Anyway this lady called me the next day when we were back at home. She was the first name on his list (of five) that the funeral director had called. When he told her who the service was for, she said she got chills down her back. Because Mum had asked her FOUR YEARS AGO if she would give the eulogy. And they’d sat down for half an hour with a tape recorder running, discussing all the memories and music she wanted at the service.
Some people would no doubt say “coincidence.” I think different.
I have that tape albeit with nothing to play it on. I'll be arranging to have it transferred onto CD soon. So thanks for asking how I am, but really... I’m fine. I’ve been fine all along. My Dad’s passing back in 1993 was a shock – unexpected, and traumatic because it separated him and my Mum. Mum’s passing was not unexpected. More: it was wished for (by her). They are reunited now, and happy. I have nothing to be sad about...
Since the "family seat" had been tarnished by years of living downstairs - bed in the dining room, clothes, pharmaceutical supplies and medical notes everywhere, etc - it wasn't really suitable for "keeping up" the funeral, so we repaired to the Test Match where the new landlord laid on a fine buffet lunch for the 20 of us and we sat and chatted and reminisced in the usual way of these things. No-one stayed much past 3pm, which suited us as it meant we could hit the road back to Manchester before the Friday afternoon rush started. Something else Mum would have approved of :o)
Wednesday, August 03, 2011
For once, I have no clever title
Woke at 1.01am for yet another nocturnal "visit" and, still wide awake more than an hour later, I finally decided I might as well get up. The clock check was 2.22. I experience a lot of these nicely patterned times, especially at night (I've written several times about them before under the 'spookiness' tag) and I have no idea why. Maybe seeing patterns in things is a sign of mental illness. But there again, being able to wonder if it is is probably a sign that I'm alright. :o) But this post isn't about spooky patterns on the clock, or insomnia.
My Mum died on Sunday night.
Didn't get much sleep that night either, but more a case of never getting to sleep in the first place. At least, not until after 3.30. And then I was up again two hours later. Last night was a bit better (being knackered helps) but tonight it looks like I'm back on the merry-go-round of thinking of everything I need to do, and things I already did. Things I didn't do that maybe I should have.
I've been telling people it wasn't unexpected, and it wasn't. She had COPD, and everyone knows that's a one-way street, but more than that - after the events of recent weeks we would have to have been abnormally ostrich-like not to expect "the worst." But can you ever be prepared for it? Maybe on an intellectual level. Perhaps that intellectual preparation allows you to skip the traditional first stage of grief - i.e. denial. Although, you know, the irony of denying that I'm in denial is not lost on me. I seem to be missing out on the 'anger' part as well. Who would I be angry with? Mum? It's hardly her fault (apart from the smoking of course, but it feels like it's always been decades too late to do anything about that). The care home? They did what they could. God? Let's not even go there. And what would I be angry about? That she's free from pain? No longer has to fight to get every breath? That - the next few weeks of estate management aside - I'm absolved from the duty of those five-hour round trips to visit someone who had become unrecognisable as the woman most often referred to as "awesome" by my friends, old and new, and those of my in-laws that met her. Whose failing memory left her incapable of remembering conversations we'd repeated four times since our arrival not half an hour earlier? And, perhaps more significantly, of remembering that we had visited at all. Or telephoned, on the weeks we couldn't visit.
I'd rather friends remembered her as the vibrant capable welcoming whirlwind who cooked up a full fried English breakfast for eight when we dropped in unannounced one Bank Holiday Monday morning after an all-night party. That breakfast is still fondly remembered more than thirty years later by all who partook.
There's a lot more to say, but I have that happy memory in my mind so I'll stop for now.
My Mum died on Sunday night.
Didn't get much sleep that night either, but more a case of never getting to sleep in the first place. At least, not until after 3.30. And then I was up again two hours later. Last night was a bit better (being knackered helps) but tonight it looks like I'm back on the merry-go-round of thinking of everything I need to do, and things I already did. Things I didn't do that maybe I should have.
I've been telling people it wasn't unexpected, and it wasn't. She had COPD, and everyone knows that's a one-way street, but more than that - after the events of recent weeks we would have to have been abnormally ostrich-like not to expect "the worst." But can you ever be prepared for it? Maybe on an intellectual level. Perhaps that intellectual preparation allows you to skip the traditional first stage of grief - i.e. denial. Although, you know, the irony of denying that I'm in denial is not lost on me. I seem to be missing out on the 'anger' part as well. Who would I be angry with? Mum? It's hardly her fault (apart from the smoking of course, but it feels like it's always been decades too late to do anything about that). The care home? They did what they could. God? Let's not even go there. And what would I be angry about? That she's free from pain? No longer has to fight to get every breath? That - the next few weeks of estate management aside - I'm absolved from the duty of those five-hour round trips to visit someone who had become unrecognisable as the woman most often referred to as "awesome" by my friends, old and new, and those of my in-laws that met her. Whose failing memory left her incapable of remembering conversations we'd repeated four times since our arrival not half an hour earlier? And, perhaps more significantly, of remembering that we had visited at all. Or telephoned, on the weeks we couldn't visit.
I'd rather friends remembered her as the vibrant capable welcoming whirlwind who cooked up a full fried English breakfast for eight when we dropped in unannounced one Bank Holiday Monday morning after an all-night party. That breakfast is still fondly remembered more than thirty years later by all who partook.
There's a lot more to say, but I have that happy memory in my mind so I'll stop for now.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Manchester calling...
*tap* *tap*
This thing on?
*cough*
Hello!
Welcome back. To me, that is. You've probably been here all along, wondering where I was. Turns out *I* was here all along too. Just not saying much. Shit happens, they say. And shit is pretty much what has been happening. I might even write about it one day, but not right now.
So, when last we spoke, Nikki & I were in Toronto. April 26. Good grief! Was that really the last entry? That's almost three months ago!! *slaps wrist* Well that pretty much puts the mockers on my usual "chronological" approach to blogging. As regular readers (if I have any left!) will know, I like to keep things in order. Even if I'm writing the entry two or three weeks behind the event, it'll still have the real date on it. The date it actually happened. That's not so bad if I'm only three weeks behind, but three months? No. I'd never catch up, and besides one of the reasons for blowing the dust off this cobwebby part of the Intertubes is a pointed request for pictures of our CURRENT project. If I wrote up everything (significant) that has happened in the interim then the kitchen would be finished before it even got started, if you see what I mean.
No the only way to do this is to package up the last three months into a little box and leave it over there in the corner. Over the next few months I might open up the box and take one or two choice pieces out for display purposes, but for the time being we need to get started with what's going on right now.
Although perhaps, before we get to that, I should tidy up the news from our Toronto trip. I wouldn't want to leave us hanging there, so to speak, having apparently only just been lunching in the distillery district and then magically transplanted three months into the future back in Manchester. Here, then, are the rudimentary details of the few draft entries I'd queued up covering the remainder of that trip, with their prospective titles drummed into service as headings:
Man-daRIN
(Family joke). Shirley & Neil took us for dinner at the Mandarin all-you-can-eat restaurant. Now, we have AYCE outlets in Manchester - the ones we visit most often being the No. 1 Chinese buffet, and the Nawaab Indian - but even though they are both firm favourites and very good value for money the quality is nothing like Mandarin. Wow. Absolutely fabulous Chinese food, lots of it, masses of choice, and everything tastes as fresh as if it had been cooked to order. This place became a firm favourite almost on the first mouthful. We'll definitely be back.
This thing on?
*cough*
Hello!
Welcome back. To me, that is. You've probably been here all along, wondering where I was. Turns out *I* was here all along too. Just not saying much. Shit happens, they say. And shit is pretty much what has been happening. I might even write about it one day, but not right now.
So, when last we spoke, Nikki & I were in Toronto. April 26. Good grief! Was that really the last entry? That's almost three months ago!! *slaps wrist* Well that pretty much puts the mockers on my usual "chronological" approach to blogging. As regular readers (if I have any left!) will know, I like to keep things in order. Even if I'm writing the entry two or three weeks behind the event, it'll still have the real date on it. The date it actually happened. That's not so bad if I'm only three weeks behind, but three months? No. I'd never catch up, and besides one of the reasons for blowing the dust off this cobwebby part of the Intertubes is a pointed request for pictures of our CURRENT project. If I wrote up everything (significant) that has happened in the interim then the kitchen would be finished before it even got started, if you see what I mean.
No the only way to do this is to package up the last three months into a little box and leave it over there in the corner. Over the next few months I might open up the box and take one or two choice pieces out for display purposes, but for the time being we need to get started with what's going on right now.
Although perhaps, before we get to that, I should tidy up the news from our Toronto trip. I wouldn't want to leave us hanging there, so to speak, having apparently only just been lunching in the distillery district and then magically transplanted three months into the future back in Manchester. Here, then, are the rudimentary details of the few draft entries I'd queued up covering the remainder of that trip, with their prospective titles drummed into service as headings:
Man-daRIN
(Family joke). Shirley & Neil took us for dinner at the Mandarin all-you-can-eat restaurant. Now, we have AYCE outlets in Manchester - the ones we visit most often being the No. 1 Chinese buffet, and the Nawaab Indian - but even though they are both firm favourites and very good value for money the quality is nothing like Mandarin. Wow. Absolutely fabulous Chinese food, lots of it, masses of choice, and everything tastes as fresh as if it had been cooked to order. This place became a firm favourite almost on the first mouthful. We'll definitely be back.
My fortune cookie for the evening: Accept no other definition of your life, accept only your own.
How apt.
Kensington
Shortly before our return, Paul took us for a wander around Kensington market. We lunched at Big Fat Burrito (delicious) and picked up some cool Christmas presents from the various shops and stalls.
How apt.
Kensington
Shortly before our return, Paul took us for a wander around Kensington market. We lunched at Big Fat Burrito (delicious) and picked up some cool Christmas presents from the various shops and stalls.
That evening we had dinner at the Tulip steak house, which surprisingly (the place looks a little run-down and basic) proved by popular acclaim to be the best steak we had all holiday. And also, after a little persuasion, the best rack of lamb!! (*ahem*)
JB @ JB
After a last minute trudge around Walmarts to pick up those few essential items that just aren't available in the UK, we returned to Jawny Bakers for dinner. Hard to beat for atmosphere and quality (in my opinion - but I admit to being completely biased since this place holds very fond memories for me), it ran the Tulip a close second for steak quality but it's somewhere I couldn't imagine visiting Toronto without going.
Pack it in
Packing for the return trip became interesting, and a little Dickensian:
JB @ JB
After a last minute trudge around Walmarts to pick up those few essential items that just aren't available in the UK, we returned to Jawny Bakers for dinner. Hard to beat for atmosphere and quality (in my opinion - but I admit to being completely biased since this place holds very fond memories for me), it ran the Tulip a close second for steak quality but it's somewhere I couldn't imagine visiting Toronto without going.
Pack it in
Packing for the return trip became interesting, and a little Dickensian:
Suitcase #1: 25kgs
Suitcase #2: 20kgs
Allowance: 40kgs.
Result: misery.
Result: misery.
Ah, but... at this stage, Carry on #1 weighed 2kgs and carry on #2: 2kgs, with a carry-on allowance of 10kgs. So after some judicious redistribution of contents...
Suitcase #1: 20kgs
Suitcase #2: 20kgs
Carry-on #1: 4.5kgs
Carry-on #2: 4.5kgs
Result: happiness.
Suitcase #1: 20kgs
Suitcase #2: 20kgs
Carry-on #1: 4.5kgs
Carry-on #2: 4.5kgs
Result: happiness.
I was also going to post something humorous about the pharma ads on Canadian/US TV. Honestly, if you haven't seen one check it out. Little beats them for unintentional black humour. I might still do a post on that at some stage. (Probably during our next trip, when I'll be exposed to them again :o))
And finally...
I just read this back and realised that I've waxed lyrical about all the wonderful meals we had OUT, but nary a mention of all the many wonderful meals we had IN. So many grateful thanks to Shirley for repeatedly proving that home cooking easily beats bought. Amongst numerous other successes, a roast turkey dinner to die for - or, at least, worth travelling 3,000 miles for!
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
White Rabbits
This time, notwithstanding the tag, it's actually shit my Dad said. "White Rabbits," he'd say, on the first of the month, before he said anything else, allegedly for good luck. As with most things from my childhood this one has stuck with me forever.
No idea where it comes from, or how many other people are similarly afflicted, but even now - with my sane, scientific, logical, unsuperstitious head on, and happily walking under ladders and spilling salt all over the place (especially when I drop the salt grinder into my soup, but that's another story) - I still get an involuntary twinge every 1st of the month when I remember I didn't say "white rabbits."
I wasn't at all surprised to discover Wikipedia has quite a long diatribe on the subject. That entry has quite a few variations I'd never heard of, but strangely doesn't record our family variation, which declares months without an "R" in their name as rabbit-free zones.
Naturally, a common unwanted side effect of that is to ALWAYS forget to start up the rabbiting again in September, having had all of May, June, July and August off.
No idea where it comes from, or how many other people are similarly afflicted, but even now - with my sane, scientific, logical, unsuperstitious head on, and happily walking under ladders and spilling salt all over the place (especially when I drop the salt grinder into my soup, but that's another story) - I still get an involuntary twinge every 1st of the month when I remember I didn't say "white rabbits."
I wasn't at all surprised to discover Wikipedia has quite a long diatribe on the subject. That entry has quite a few variations I'd never heard of, but strangely doesn't record our family variation, which declares months without an "R" in their name as rabbit-free zones.
Naturally, a common unwanted side effect of that is to ALWAYS forget to start up the rabbiting again in September, having had all of May, June, July and August off.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Good morning! This is your early morning call
Sunday. 7.45am. Not the time of day (or even day of week) you'd normally expect to receive a phone call from your mother. Especially one that goes: "I tried to call you yesterday and got a message saying 'the number you have dialled is not recognised' so I thought you'd emigrated to Canada and not told me."
Closely followed by the recently popular "I thought I was going to have to change my will."
Not sure if this is deliberate, but there's been an awful lot of talk of changing wills lately. As if the spectre of the loss of my (almost certainly enormous - *koff*) inheritance will be enough to make me toe the line and behave in a more dutiful fashion (by her reckoning).
Sheesh.
Closely followed by the recently popular "I thought I was going to have to change my will."
Not sure if this is deliberate, but there's been an awful lot of talk of changing wills lately. As if the spectre of the loss of my (almost certainly enormous - *koff*) inheritance will be enough to make me toe the line and behave in a more dutiful fashion (by her reckoning).
Sheesh.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Used Dust Collectors
One of the most depressing aspects of our recent trip to Toronto was discovering how devalued an extensive array of "collectible" plates can become over a period of 30 or so years. It's not the intrinsic value - or lack of it - that depressed me. I hardly gave a second thought to the money side of it. What I found much more upsetting was how easy it is for someone, even someone of above average intelligence, to be convinced by well-meaning friends that something is worth collecting, and will appreciate in value. And thinking how disillusioned he must have been as the reality of their value slowly dawned.
eBay is saturated with these things, more often than not being offered at around 5 dollars (for something that could have originally cost anything from 50 to 150 dollars) and with no bids. To be sure of a sale at the best price, collectors are forced to keep all the original boxes (I found three large cartons full of them in the garage) and paperwork. This paperwork, tricked out in full Reader's Digest or Franklin Mint stylee, declares their "certification" of being part of a "limited edition" the limit, in most cases, being a run of 150 firing days. Imagine how many plates a modern ceramics factory is capable of churning out in 150 days and you'll get an idea of just how limited these editions were. Or not. Even with all the appropriate certification and authentic packaging the value, 20-30 years on, is on average less than a quarter of what you paid, assuming you can find a buyer at all.
I did eventually find a dealer who advertised that they were prepared to take on plate collections from estate sales. I emailed them a list and received a reply a couple of days after returning home, to the effect that they were already "fully stocked" with those items.
I did enjoy one moment of delicious irony though. While I was searching for some idea of how to get rid of the collection in the simplest way that would maximise the return, one of the pages I ended up at carried an ad for used dust collectors. Lower down I found a second ad, this time for "quality" dust collectors. Yes, I thought, I'm clearly in the right place.
eBay is saturated with these things, more often than not being offered at around 5 dollars (for something that could have originally cost anything from 50 to 150 dollars) and with no bids. To be sure of a sale at the best price, collectors are forced to keep all the original boxes (I found three large cartons full of them in the garage) and paperwork. This paperwork, tricked out in full Reader's Digest or Franklin Mint stylee, declares their "certification" of being part of a "limited edition" the limit, in most cases, being a run of 150 firing days. Imagine how many plates a modern ceramics factory is capable of churning out in 150 days and you'll get an idea of just how limited these editions were. Or not. Even with all the appropriate certification and authentic packaging the value, 20-30 years on, is on average less than a quarter of what you paid, assuming you can find a buyer at all.
I did eventually find a dealer who advertised that they were prepared to take on plate collections from estate sales. I emailed them a list and received a reply a couple of days after returning home, to the effect that they were already "fully stocked" with those items.
I did enjoy one moment of delicious irony though. While I was searching for some idea of how to get rid of the collection in the simplest way that would maximise the return, one of the pages I ended up at carried an ad for used dust collectors. Lower down I found a second ad, this time for "quality" dust collectors. Yes, I thought, I'm clearly in the right place.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Notes on a trip to Toronto
I've been away. We've been away. I did have access to a puter during this hiatus, but I didn't feel much like blogging (apart from that piece about Bob Edwards), and to be honest I haven't felt much like it since we got back (a week ago last Tuesday - October 12 - in the early hours of the morning. Jet lag? Maybe, a little. Holiday? Maybe, a little. Blogging can feel like work at times, which since I still entertain aspirations to be a full-time writer should probably be classed as A Good Thing, but who wants to work when they're on holiday? Especially when there's all that Coronation Street, EastEnders, Casualty, X Factor, Strictly and Spooks on the PVR that needs catching up with?
I wouldn't want to give the impression that we spent the whole of our remaining six holiday days in front of the TV. No, we went for the occasional walk. Did a bit of grocery shopping. Had lunch. But there was an awful lot of telly, it's true.
I think I might have been in awe of the raw *quality* of it all. After 12 days of Canadian TV I was starting to feel a bit like a vegetable. After being in a pressure cooker. And then a blender. And having been forced through a sieve. The chance to watch some British TV was like stepping into cool water after the burning heat of the desert.
So I made some notes in here while I was there (hence the title of this post) about my general impression of things that have changed in the five or six years since I was last in Toronto. Some of these will eventually be fully fledged posts in their own right. What remains in here is just jottings really.
The Americanisation of Canadian news - oh my GAAAHHD. I don't ever remember it being so breathless and repetitive. Maybe I was watching a US cable channel. Can't remember. Actually a lot of the really bad stuff I sat through WAS American. Endless sport, gameshows where the contestants are forced to clap incessantly like performing seals (Wheel of Fortune), adverts repeated twice in quick succession in the same break, breaks five minutes apart.
Cigarettes behind the wall. Apparently they've passed a law now preventing the display of tobacco products in corner shops, newsagents, convenience stores, etc. So instead they have row upon row of little grey plastic shutters behind the counter, which the cigarettes hide behind until the shop keeper rescues them at the request of the customer. I'd be interested to see the statistics on what effect this has on smoker numbers and consumption.
Maybe I'm getting old, or maybe the reason for our trip hung over our entire stay, leeching out much of the fun, but whatever the cause, this time round, I found Canada lacked a lot of the magic that I've come to expect from it.
I wouldn't want to give the impression that we spent the whole of our remaining six holiday days in front of the TV. No, we went for the occasional walk. Did a bit of grocery shopping. Had lunch. But there was an awful lot of telly, it's true.
I think I might have been in awe of the raw *quality* of it all. After 12 days of Canadian TV I was starting to feel a bit like a vegetable. After being in a pressure cooker. And then a blender. And having been forced through a sieve. The chance to watch some British TV was like stepping into cool water after the burning heat of the desert.
So I made some notes in here while I was there (hence the title of this post) about my general impression of things that have changed in the five or six years since I was last in Toronto. Some of these will eventually be fully fledged posts in their own right. What remains in here is just jottings really.
The Americanisation of Canadian news - oh my GAAAHHD. I don't ever remember it being so breathless and repetitive. Maybe I was watching a US cable channel. Can't remember. Actually a lot of the really bad stuff I sat through WAS American. Endless sport, gameshows where the contestants are forced to clap incessantly like performing seals (Wheel of Fortune), adverts repeated twice in quick succession in the same break, breaks five minutes apart.
The litter. We've had this problem in the UK for as long as I can remember, but I always had this mental image of Canada being *clean*. I don't know if they've had to cut expenditure on street cleaners, or whether the younger generation is going the same way as much of England's youth - dropping their drinks cans and candy wrappers as soon as they've consumed the contents, no matter where that happens to be (I drove behind a carful of youths the other day, who seemed to think it was great fun to continue scouring the inside of the vehicle for bits of rubbish which they then dumped out of the windows) - or a combination of the two, but the streets around where we stayed were definitely besmirched.
Maybe I'm getting old, or maybe the reason for our trip hung over our entire stay, leeching out much of the fun, but whatever the cause, this time round, I found Canada lacked a lot of the magic that I've come to expect from it.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Silent Key VE3QF
I've never known much about amateur radio, but the little I do know has always interested me. Whenever I think about it, it's with a feeling that if I'd been born one generation earlier it would have been something I'd have been into. My existing penchant for chat, on IRC and now more modern alternatives, is easily interpretable as a leaning towards communication with new and interesting people in exotic places all over the world, and amateur radio was always the best - indeed only - way to do this in the years before the Internet.
I've never known much about the man who I liked to think of as my father-in-law, but the little I do know has always interested me. Whenever I think about him, it's with a feeling that if I'd been able to spend more time with him, through an imagined combination of meeting Nikki earlier and living closer than 3,000 miles away, he would have been someone I'd have got along with really well, what with our shared background in computing, our tendency to geekiness, the chat thing, ...
But now, after one of those traumatic late evening phone calls and a poignant Facebook status update, I'll never have that chance. "Silent Key VE3QF" was Paul's brief message, and although I knew the background to it, knew that VE3QF was Tony's call sign and I could work out what "silent key" meant, I still looked it up. What I found was a clear explanation of a simple yet profound message for the amateur radio community that I found unexpectedly moving.
Part of the explanation reads: You may hear a silent key referred to as an SK in Morse Code, although "SK" can also signal "end transmission."
End transmission. What a perfect expression for any geek at the end of their life, especially one steeped in the lore of the amateur radio enthusiast and who had a well-developed appreciation of irony. Sleep well Tony.
I've never known much about the man who I liked to think of as my father-in-law, but the little I do know has always interested me. Whenever I think about him, it's with a feeling that if I'd been able to spend more time with him, through an imagined combination of meeting Nikki earlier and living closer than 3,000 miles away, he would have been someone I'd have got along with really well, what with our shared background in computing, our tendency to geekiness, the chat thing, ...
But now, after one of those traumatic late evening phone calls and a poignant Facebook status update, I'll never have that chance. "Silent Key VE3QF" was Paul's brief message, and although I knew the background to it, knew that VE3QF was Tony's call sign and I could work out what "silent key" meant, I still looked it up. What I found was a clear explanation of a simple yet profound message for the amateur radio community that I found unexpectedly moving.
Part of the explanation reads: You may hear a silent key referred to as an SK in Morse Code, although "SK" can also signal "end transmission."
End transmission. What a perfect expression for any geek at the end of their life, especially one steeped in the lore of the amateur radio enthusiast and who had a well-developed appreciation of irony. Sleep well Tony.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Family milestones
A little while ago I wrote a proud Dad post about my elder daughter, and today it's the turn of my younger daughter. For today is GCSE Results Day and all over the UK year 11s are opening envelopes, or reading notice boards, and either slumping or jumping.
In Blythe's case, there was much jumping involved I suspect. There certainly was here when she revealed her results - all passes with a highly creditable smattering of As and A*s in all the important subjects.
That's her passport to college, and her future mapped out for the next two years, which in these uncertain times is a welcome wedge of certainty. One other certainty is that there'll be a celebratory meal happening next time we see her.
In Blythe's case, there was much jumping involved I suspect. There certainly was here when she revealed her results - all passes with a highly creditable smattering of As and A*s in all the important subjects.
That's her passport to college, and her future mapped out for the next two years, which in these uncertain times is a welcome wedge of certainty. One other certainty is that there'll be a celebratory meal happening next time we see her.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
The Graduand
I always remember it being "The Graduate" but I guess that means someone who has already graduated. What I learned today, and the first time I'd ever heard the term, is that someone in the act of going through the process of graduation is a graduand.
And how do I know this?
Because I attended Nat's graduation ceremony this morning.
I always hesitate to say that any one particular event or occasion has made me proud of either or both of my daughters, because the simple fact is that never a day goes by without me thinking how proud I am of them. I used to get really pissed off when someone would say to my mother "oooh he's a credit to you, Kath." I remember thinking "hang on, this is me. I've done this, not her." So I'm not going to fall into the trap of taking any credit for the wonderful people they've turned into. They're a credit to themselves, which is way, way more important than being a credit to me. In everything they do, write, or say. In every joke they crack, every kind word or deed, every mistake corrected or lesson learned, they fill their old Dad with wonder and pride and joy.
So, before this turns into a total gushfest of fatherly sentiment (too late! LOL) I'll bring it back to today, which if you like was a crystallisation of all of that, and more. The ceremony was relatively short, which was a blessing. A little of the Vice Chancellor and his soporific tones goes a long way, and on top of that I had... er... company. It was... not exactly comfortable, but, well, let's just say it could have been worse. Before we knew it the first of the 204 graduands was mounting the stage to collect their faux certificate (yes folks, that's a fake scroll they collect - it has to look good for the cameras) and I knew Nat would be concentrating on one thing - getting up and down those stairs without having a pratfall in full view of the assembled throng and those darned cameras.
I soon worked out that the ceremony was proceeding in alphabetical order of degree which meant we'd have the longest possible wait for the Zoology grads, but they zipped through the other 180-odd in record time and pretty soon I was on my feet trying to get a decent shot of The Handshake. I'd been practising with burst mode on my camera expecting that to give me four or five decent shots of the crucial moment. Big mistake. Rather than the one decent shot I would have been guaranteed had I stuck with the tried and trusted method, I ended up with four blurry snapshots on which Nat is barely recognisable. I redeemed myself (somewhat) later by capturing on video the replay of the "graduation DVD" footage that was being repeated on a loop in the other building.
And then suddenly... it was all over. Mother jumped a cab back to the train station and as neither Nat nor I really fancied sticking our little fingers out at the champagne reception, we drove home, stopping on the way to collect a celebratory Sub sandwich, which I reckon must taste even better when you're eating it as a fully fledged Bachelor of Science :o)
And how do I know this?
Because I attended Nat's graduation ceremony this morning.
I always hesitate to say that any one particular event or occasion has made me proud of either or both of my daughters, because the simple fact is that never a day goes by without me thinking how proud I am of them. I used to get really pissed off when someone would say to my mother "oooh he's a credit to you, Kath." I remember thinking "hang on, this is me. I've done this, not her." So I'm not going to fall into the trap of taking any credit for the wonderful people they've turned into. They're a credit to themselves, which is way, way more important than being a credit to me. In everything they do, write, or say. In every joke they crack, every kind word or deed, every mistake corrected or lesson learned, they fill their old Dad with wonder and pride and joy.
I soon worked out that the ceremony was proceeding in alphabetical order of degree which meant we'd have the longest possible wait for the Zoology grads, but they zipped through the other 180-odd in record time and pretty soon I was on my feet trying to get a decent shot of The Handshake. I'd been practising with burst mode on my camera expecting that to give me four or five decent shots of the crucial moment. Big mistake. Rather than the one decent shot I would have been guaranteed had I stuck with the tried and trusted method, I ended up with four blurry snapshots on which Nat is barely recognisable. I redeemed myself (somewhat) later by capturing on video the replay of the "graduation DVD" footage that was being repeated on a loop in the other building.
And then suddenly... it was all over. Mother jumped a cab back to the train station and as neither Nat nor I really fancied sticking our little fingers out at the champagne reception, we drove home, stopping on the way to collect a celebratory Sub sandwich, which I reckon must taste even better when you're eating it as a fully fledged Bachelor of Science :o)
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