Clarissa et al.

I did my new museum outreach workshop "A Visit from Florence Nightingale" at a village school in mid Lincolnshire today. It went amazingly well for a first attempt, aided by a teacher who was really interested and a beautifully behaved year 2 class.

The premise is that Florence Nightingale has travelled through time to visit them. She talks about her childhood and her struggle to be allowed to train as a nurse. Then the children do a role-play of the hospital at Scutari, followed by questions and answers based of Florence's trunk of souvenirs.

I'm doing it another 3 times at 2 schools this week and then it's properly part of the museum syllabus of workshops and will stop being mine alone as I teach it to my colleagues. Let's hope it proves popular.

This is the day that Christmas really ends because today we ate the last piece of Christmas cake.

Never mind - less than a month to my birthday, and then spring follows.

Yesterday was my first day back at work. I spent the morning in 1897 as the frightening Miss Jones, the schoolmistress, and the afternoon in 1891 as the equally terrifying Mrs. Harding, the housekeeper. Great fun, but quite tiring: niceness is much less wearing.

The school was from Hull, which has a very bad reputation educationally, but I can only speak as I find and the schools I have visited and those which have sent parties to us have behaved beautifully. Yesterday's school (St. Vincents) was no exception, and the children were attentive, polite, well-informed and friendly. Moreover, they left the lunch room spotless and tidy, even double bagging their litter. They have set a very high standard for the rest of this term's schools.

We had our Twelfth Night Party which we started at 6.30 on the basis of drop in for ten minutes or stay all evening: people did both, so that worked.

Living out in the country, I am always fairly cautious where drinks are concerned. Negus*, which according to Mrs. Beeton is suitable for children's parties, is always a favourite. As well as this I had the usual array of wines and juice, and as usual we ended the party with a net gain on the wine front as people arrived with bottles, said they were driving and stuck to soft drinks.

It was a really good evening - mostly conversation as nobody much seemed to fancy playing games - but with one delightful interlude when Leo played the piano introducing us to his amazing Jewish version of "As With Gladness Men of Old . . ." and "Jingle Bells" in the style of several major composers. Later Basil showed us a trick with cut paper which gives you passports to heaven and hell: it doesn't sound very interesting, but is really clever.

So, now let's join in a final chorus of
"12 churchwardens
11 old schoolfriends
10 councillors counselling
9 men in wellies
8 hungry hunters
7 farmers farming
6 former teachers
5 ex-mayors
4 total strangers
3 mad nephews
2 dumb blondes
And a vicar who doesn't eat meat."

I don't swear that the numbers are all strictly accurate, and I apologise to Jenni and Jessie for the 'dumb' which is libel, but it is an epithet used frequently by Jessie's three big brothers and probably also by Jenni's three even bigger (older, not necessarily larger) brothers.

Just a little thought:-
You watch films and television dramas and, with the exception of soaps (so I believe), most of the characters might just as well have hatched out of eggs for all the family they seem to have. In my world, being friends with one person usually means becoming friendly with the whole family, usually three generations, but quite often four or five, and out as far as second - even third - cousins.

*RECIPE for NEGUS
Bottle of port (or sherry)
A thinly sliced lemon,
Two tablespoons of sugar
Teaspoon of ground nutmeg
Boiling water (double to four times the amount of port)
I keep mine warm in the slow cooker, but this wasn't available to Mrs. B.

Next Party - Jacob's 18th in May.> Heaven help us all!

I offer the first word in the calendar of forgotten English which Becky gave me for Christmas:-

SCURRYFUNGE - a hasty tidying of the house between the time you see a neighbour and the time she knocks on the door.

Maybe avoiding this could be a new year's resolution? Maybe not.