Clarissa et al.

It's not always easy when some members of the household try to help.

Maybe Albert wants a blog of his own, but what would he put in it?

Monday
Got up.
Ate breakfast.
Went for a short walk in the garden.
Came in and went back to bed till tea time.
Ate tea.
Went for another little walk.
Slept in turn on the laps of any humans in the sitting room.
Divertingly walked along the top of the piano, along the mantelpiece and anywhere else there are photos or ornaments.
Slept in front of the fire.
Demanded unscheduled supper and ate some of it.
Went to bed; trampled all over Lissa before finding warmest spot on the bed (in the bed if a really cold night) and went to sleep.
Got up at sometime in the night to finish supper and use litter tray.
Went back to bed.

Tuesday
Got up.
Ate breakfast.
Etc.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday
ditto.

This morning my father received a present, and promptly sent this e-mail to the Chief Executive of the County Council

[Sorry about the presentation – my father thinks (rightly) that using nothing but lower-case looks illiterate, but found using shift rather difficult when first learning to use a computer never having previously learned to type, so he opted for all upper-case which to me looks like a visual version of SHOUTING.]

I HAVE TO-DAY RECEIVED A STICK OF ROCK FROM THE LINCOLNSHIRE PUBLIC ART NETWORK. IT IS ABOUT 6" (15CMS) LONG AND IS COLOURED GREEN, YELLOW, BLUE AND WHITE IN A SPIRAL STRIPE. IF IT IS SIMPLY CONFECTIONARY I WOULD NOT PUT ITS VALUE IN EXCESS OF 50p. HOWEVER, REMEMBERING THE VALUE THAT AN UNMADE BED OR STACK OF BRICKS CAN REACH IF DESIGNATED ART AND NOT KNOWING THE VALUE OF ROCK ART, I BELIEVE I SHOULD DECLARE THIS GIFT IN CASE IT EXCEEDS THE £25 LIMIT. I AM, OF COURSE, PREPARED TO DONATE IT TO THE COUNTY COUNCIL ON CONDITION IT IS PUT ON PUBLIC DISPLAY AND THAT MY GIFT IS ACKNOWLEDGED ON A PLAQUE OR SIMILAR.

I AM SURE, OTHER MEMBERS HAVING RECEIVED THIS GENEROUS GIFT, YOU WILL BE ASKED AGAIN FOR THE SAME ADVICE.

He received this reply:

I have no doubt you are entirely correct, and wise to recognise the dilemma.

My suggestion, which I think would resolve the matter conclusively, is to eat it. Rock as art may gain you pounds (£s), but rock as food can only gain you pounds (lbs)...

I bought the ingredients for the Christmas cake today. The first time I made this particular recipe in 1974 the ingredients for a 5lb cake (uniced) cost £1.20: today the same ingredients cost £4.60.

Saturday
Made the cakes - one for me, one for my sister, and a little one to eat now as fruit loaf.

Made the mincemeat - possibly not enough. I may do a second batch. When my nephews and niece were at primary school they tended to come home with pots of mincemeat which they had 'cooked'.

I have a pudding left from last year - in the freezer once it had matured sufficiently.

Checked over Christmas presents: I seem to have bought three best suited to Becky - 2 of which I shall have to reassign, one which duplicates something Glen already has so that will need reassigning too, and one brilliant choice for Liz and Ed has gone walkabout. I have wrapped Rick's silly to post.

Bishop Blesses Road Gritters

Gritting lorries across Lincolnshire are being blessed as part of the county's road safety campaign.

The Bishop of Lincoln, the Right Reverand Dr John Saxbee, has led services taking place at all nine gritter depots in Lincolnshire. Dr Saxbee has written a special prayer for the ceremonies, and ministers from churches of other denominations will then repeat the prayer at the other depots.

Organisers said the spreading of grit and salt by the gritters will symbolically extend this road safety blessing upon the roads of Lincolnshire. It is hoped the services will remind people to take care when driving at this time of year.

My father (a Lincolnshire County Councillor) received this wonderful response from our West Lindsey District Councillor,

"I feel the need to note this Cof E gesture towards road safety with the Clergy blessing the gritters.

Whilst this might make the Christian motorists feel secure, rest assured the Jewish community in this County will not venture on to icy roads until such time as each gritter has had an inch circumcised from the vehicles exhaust pipe.

Who notices a blessing after the vehicle leaves the depot BUT...............a circumcised gritter is sight to behold.

I feel sure you will share my thoughts with [the appropriate LCC officer]. Let me know when the service is: I shall turn up with prayer shawl & little black cap and a ritual angle-grinder.

Alan "

Christmas is coming and the shops are now full of Christmas Giftes. In church, although Advent is still two weeks away, we are planning the Christmas rotation of services, making lists of who is responsible for the pre-Christmas greeenery and the Christmas day flowers, and those of us who have not already made our cakes, puddings and mincemeat, look forward to hearing the prompt given by the collect which begins "Stir up . . ."

I was thinking about Christmas presents. Quite a lot of mine have been bought on various trips over the summer when I have noticed things in various sales which I think my friends would like. But then there are the difficult ones - the teenage boys whose hobbies, tastes and interests are so obscure that it is almost impossible to gauge what they will want, and the teen-age girls whose tastes are almost equally hard to follow. Not that my father is easy - it is so hard to find something for the man who has everything and - more especially - could get it mush cheaper somewhere else.

Me? I'm easy to buy things for, aren't I?

I have very simple tastes: I don't wear jewellery. Mostly I don't like scented things. I hardly eat chocolate and dislike most other sweets. I probably drink two or three bottles of wine in a year.

I can think of various things I do want for Christmas - a paella (the pan - not the rice, fish, chicken etc.), a giant pink bath sheet (my favourite has worn out after twenty-five years), some small lidded cassseroles . . . as I have already told those who asked.

I like cooking, but on the whole I don't like those fancy prepared things they sell at Christmas in Gifte Packs. I like cooking basic ingredients from scratch: can you imagine turning up and saying "Happy Christmas, Lissa, I've bought you a nice stalk of sprouts for your present."? Well actually, I'd be quite pleased; I love sprouts and they are much better home-grown on a stalk than in a net from the supermarket.

What I really want is a kitten. I think Albert needs a companion and on the whole I think it is cruel to keep animals isolated from their own species. We are going to have to talk to the Cat Protection League soon - just waiting for the school holidays when I can guarantee the time for gentling it properly.

I have just finished reading the Da Vinci Code which was our Swallow Bookworms choice this month.

Did I enjoy it?
No, not a lot.

Would I have finished it if it hadn't been a club choice?
Yes, probably.

Was I disturbed by it?
No, not really.

I was told by a fellow book club member that, once you got past all the hype and controversy, it was just a Dick Francis without the horses.

No, it wasn't that good.

I found the narrative technique reminded me of nothing so much as a Famous Five type adventure where each little section of the story leads rapidly through a false trail to the correct solution before the next set-up is revealed. All very well in 150 pages of rapidly read large print, but rather wearing over 600 pages.

The character drawing was rudimentary in the extreme - a group of plot hangers rather than people. Even in the most basic thriller one needs to care about the people involved.

And the MacGuffin itself - the source of all the controversy - it just doesn't hold water because, once you deny the divinity of Christ, the grail - whether it be the actual vessel used at the last supper or the blood-line from Christ and Mary Magdalene - becomes meaningless, no more than an historical curiosity.

I am not saying that it is a particularly bad book, just not a very good one. I have heard scholars on the radio discussing it and dismissing Dan Brown's claims and his so called detailed research. What amazes me is that such a mediocre thriller ever reached a level of fame deserving to be discussed in these terms in the first place. After all it is classified as fiction, not theology or history.

So, I'll stop discussing it until our next Bookworms meeting, and just add that the film, if faithful to the book, will need all Mr. Hanks' considerable charm to get me to watch it when it turns up on television.

Another silly quiz - Who what where when why?
by lizdavies @ 16 Nov. 2006 - 22:27:23

I am assuming Liz put this on her blog to encourage her friends to do it too. Did she find it or make it up? And why?

Who is in the house with you?
Father and the cat.

Who was the last person to send you a text?
Never received a text.

Who are you thinking about now?
Daft friend Liz on whose blog I found this quiz.

Who did you last talk to on the phone?
Rachel at work. No - I answered the phone to Uncle Steve who wanted to talk to Pa.

Who's birthday is next?
Glen: Brother-in-law: 50: December 12th

Who was the last person you told you love them?
Daddy, when we said goodnight in our customary Waltons style.

Who do you wish you were with right now?
My mother: this was our talking time late at night.

Who's your favourite relative?
I don't do favourites, but if pushed into a corner probably Jess.

What's the last thing you ate?
A conference pear out of the garden.

What was the last thing you drank?
Cup of tea.

What colour pants are you wearing?
White.

What is the closest item near you that is blue?
The sitting room sofa.

What is your favourite colour?
Green.

What is your favourite website?
Multimap

What is your favourite shoe brand?
Anything comfy in the sales.

What do you wear more, jeans or shorts?
Neither ever.

What is the last movie you watched?
Master and Commander.

What song do you currently hear?
Silent Worship (Handel) if you mean what goes round and round in my head and I find myself humming at odd times.

Where is your phone?
House - on the wall by the desk.
Mobile - in the glove compartment of my car.

Where are your parents?
Father: in bed watching "Question Time".

Where do you sleep?
In the same bed I have slept in since I was two years old when I inherited it from my great-aunt Ethel - usually with the cat.

Where do you shop the most?
Morrisons.

Where did you get the shirt you're wearing?
Second hand shop in Conwy.

Where did you last take a car ride to?
To work today (outreach workshop at a school on the Isle of Axholme), then home.

Where in the house are you?
In the hall under the stairs, with the cat.

When did you start school?
September 1959 - same as Liz.

When did you last burn a candle?
Earlier this year (March, I think), when we had a customary power cut.
(Unless you count those in church in which case - excluding lighting the altar candles - it was an individual prayer candle at the church in Llanffestiniog in September)

When were you last at school?
Noon today. (see above)

When did you last see your Dad?
2 minutes ago when he went up to bed.

When did you last take a shower?
7.15 this morning.

Why do the people on the news repeat the same stuff over and over?
The only do if you watch it over and over.

Why are your best friends your best friends?
Because they always have been.

Why are you taking this survey?
It's been a long day, I just thought I would.

I watched part of a Channel 4 programme called 100% English about 8 people who believe themselves to be truly English because they are English by blood.

DNA testing showed that they were largely wrong in this assertion, but it seems strange that anyone should hold being descended from just one of the many immigrant groups to come to these islands over the last three or four millennia confers some sort of superior right upon them to regard themselves as the true English people.

On the whole I think that I am quintessentially English in that just one half of my traceable ancestry is English, one quarter Belgian and one eighth each Irish and Welsh; added to that there are unconfirmed family legends that some part of my Belgian ancestry was Jewish, while the names on the Irish branch would suggest Scottish origins.

There has been a lot of talk this year about red and white poppies.

I am a life-long pacifist and erstwhile CND member, as well as being a Christian, and I wear my poppy with pride. I may believe that no war should ever be allowed to happen, but it does not alter the sacrifice made by two generations, and I see no glorification of war in the wearing of a red poppy - that symbol of new and bright life growing in the shattered and blood-soaked fields of Flanders.

The Turner family is fortunate - nobody closer than a third cousin of my grandfather's has ever been killed in any conflict (unless you count a nazi uncle by marriage being disappeared by the Russians in his native Czechoslovakia); my mother's parents, on the other hand, each lost a brother in the Great War. It is too distant a loss for personal mourning, but not too distant to acknowledge.

The Chairman of our Parish Council is a Quaker who invariably attends the Remembrance Sunday service at the War Memorial in the village on which are inscribed just three names (it is a very small village where the majority of the men were farmworkers and thus in a reserved occupation) -

Lieutenant CECIL WALTER HENRY ASKEY
8th Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment
Who died in the Great War, aged 19 on 5th April 1918
The son of the Rev’d A.H.Askey and Mrs. Askey

Gunner WALTER DAY (821200)
"B" Battery. 155th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery
Who died in the Great War on 25th September 1918
The husband of Charlotte Day and father of Cyril Walter Day

Stoker KERDON WILKIN (297698)
H.M.S. "Coquette."
Who died in the Great War aged 33 on 7th March 1916
Born 1883, the son of Thomas William and Sarah Wilkin

There were 24 people at the Remembrance Service this morning in an age range of 14 to 88, plus a small dog tied to the churchyard railings waiting for his master. I don't know about the dog, but the vast majority of the humans are committed Christians of various denominations who, like me, think it right to wear a red poppy at this time of the year as a sign of remembrance and to support the excellent work of the British Legion.

11.00 a.m.

After two days in which we have quietly got on with our work, the first of the weekend birthday greeters arrived this morning. I don't think it's likely to be the constant flow of Wednesday, but I'd better get a few nibbles ready just in case, and we'll see how it goes.

5.30 p.m.

No, not quantity today so much as quality. This afternoon brought one of Pa's oldest friends, Bill Turner, (no relation despite the name) and, together with Bill's wife Nora, they spent the afternoon in happy remembrance recalling (so far as I could tell) every policeman, lawyer, magistrate etc. in North Lincolnshire since Robert Peel was a lad. Things apparently are not what they used to be, but - in my opinion - they probably never were.

10.00 p.m.
The library table is covered in cards including one from a cheeky so-and-so who claims to have misheard the age. Congratulations on your 18th birthday!!! Most people seem to have guessed the right age despite my promise to reveal it to nobody, although guesses 5, 10 and 15 years younger were made. It is now no longer a secret (see heading)

Every glass and mug in the house has been used. The first phone-call came at 8.15 a.m., the last and youngest visitors have just now left. Large parts of Lincolnshire were unpoliced this afternoon while every officer in the area was here drinking tea with the birthday boy. His youngest visitor was just a few months old, and the rest covered all of the next 8 decades.

Miseryguts has had a lovely day, and even admits it.

My beautiful Cally died this morning.

Unlike my other cats, she was not with me from kittenhood.
Unlike my other cats, I know exactly when and where she was born, and who her parents were.
Unlike my other cats she had long hair.
Unlike my other cats she was tortoiseshell and white, not black and white.

I talk as if she was one among hundreds, but in fact she was just the fourth of the five cats in my life. Because we had a very fierce terrier into whose home no new kitten could be introduced after Fred (the first) died, my twenties were cat-free, but for most of the last half century there has always been a cat - usually two. Both Freds were allotment cats rescued from the jaws of death (cat flu and drowning respectively) who came to us aged somewhere between two and three months old, while Annie and Albert were ferral kittens aged three and six weeks.

Cally came to me from Becky who had had her from the very start - she was actually present at the birth. he neighbour felt safer with a qualified midwife in attendance.) When Becky's marriage broke up, she found herself unable to care for her and a new baby, and Cally came to me for a few weeks while she got sorted out. The 'new baby' is now fifteen (and about nine feet tall!) and Cally remained with me for the rest of her long life.

In her youth she was a mighty hunter: uninterested in small birds and mice, her chosen prey was rabbits and pheasants. Once, much to my embarrassment, she chose to kill and eat a rabbit in full view of a group of children I was teaching at the time. On another occasion she was to be found on the grass verge plucking a pheasant when his lordship (owner of all the pheasants around here) came to call.

She was more-or-less unaquainted with vets since she never had a day's illness in her life and only ever visited them for routine injections and once long ago when she was spayed.

When she came to live with me I had two cats, Fred 2nd and Annie. Fred ever the parfait gentilcat welcomed her with open paws. Annie was vociferous in her dislike and suspicion of another female in her territory. Eight and a half years ago Annie was run over, and Fred went into a decline and died of grief three weeks later. Albert (from the same ferral colony as Annie and probably a great-great-great etc.-nephew) joined the household, although I feared for his safety remembering how Cally and Annie had carried on. Cally's reaction was amazing "Oh a kitten, a dear little kitten: is he mine? Can I keep him? Let me love him, and groom him, and teach him everything I know." And she remained his devoted aunt and foster mother ever after.

On May 1st this year she celebrated her 18th birthday with my nephew Jacob (just an hour younger than she). Since then she has been gradually failing as her sight and hearing faded. Until yesterday, however, she clung tenaciously to life, eating her food with obvious enjoyment, as well as remaining pretty well in contol of her bodily functions - it has only been in the last few weeks that a few mistakes have been made which, after more than eighteen years of immaculate cleanliness, can easily be forgiven.

Yesterday she didn't want to eat. She took a few steps and fell over. I put her on her cushion close under the radiator late last night. She was still there this morning, breathing but insensible. I went shopping for father's birthday, and when I came back she was still lying in the same position, but no longer breathing.

This afternoon Jacob (her human twin) buried her, wrapped in the shawl Becky knitted for her to sleep on when she was a kitten, under the laurel with the other cats.

Yesterday the sun was shining, and there were people eating picnics in the park and children playing coatless in the playground. I woke up in the night and there was a thin covering of snow everywhere. This morning the snow has gone, but all is cold, grey and damp.

Last night when the fireworks were over and everyone had gone home, Jess rang me in desperation. Cookery first lesson on Monday morning and she needed a pizza base. Now I don't have things like pizza bases (neither does Helen) - on the rare occasions when I want a pizza I start from scratch, while Helen regards pizza as something bought ready assembled and kept in the freezer until needed. So this is what I did at about 10 p.m.: I set to and made a loaf of bread (which was quite useful for my pack-up for lunch today) and a pizza base for Jess.

So this morning I sent up a baked pizza base, a pot of passata, some basil, some chopped boiled bacon, some pineapple chunks, and some grated cheddar. Hardly a classic pizza: Jess's choice of topping, and she likes cheddar better than the mozzarella which I offered her.

Now, as I understand it, the idea of school cookery is to teach children about proper nutritional values and how to cook. I cannot see that assembling a pizza from prepared ingredients fulfils either of these criteria.

For the last couple of years (since the boys were old enough to take these things into their own hands) my nephews have organised a small firework party on the field behind our house - well away from their horses, dogs, chickens, guinea-pigs, ferrets, cat, mother and any other creatures of a nervous disposition. My cats are a) not nervous and b) perfectly willing to be rounded up into a bedroom.

This year it became a much bigger event with little William (their cousin Joy's elder son and the oldest Thompson great-grandchild) celebrating his fourth birthday, and most of the extended family willing to contribute fireworks to this event.

So, here is the birthday boy with Josh and Jess although looking at the picture I'm not sure quite how much the fireworks were appreciated . . .

and also the two grandads in conference.

Personally I have never been a great fireworks fan, so I did a different sort of banger for the party.

Working this week in the Victorian School (KS2) and with Toys Outreach (KS1) - nice children, well-behaved, interested, rewarding.

Monday Evening the Swallow Bookworms met here. Joe did his usual slightly over-elaborate catering (much appreciated) and we discussed "The Mammoth Cheese" which some of us thought rather good, and others hadn't managed to finish. My own feeling was that it was a rather lumpy read as it moved from character to character, and a serious indictment of two modern behaviour patterns.

The one of very public emotions over people who are in reality strangers - in this case the pledging of support for the family of eleven babies at one birth and the very public grief when the first of them dies, but the total lack of support - even hostility - as the number of babies dwindles to eight, and the parents desperately short of money, sleep and support are in dire need of help.

The other theme was that of obsession: how a woman can become so taken up with a particular project that it blinds her to all else in her life and to the fact that what started admirably has narrowed so much that the original cause has almost vanished in pursuit of perfection of the detail.

I found the book a fascinating though not particularly enjoyable read.

Our next book is "The da Vinci Code" - we have one person who won't read it on principle, and two or three more (including myself) who are wary of its reputation for blasphemy, but wish to find out for ourselves especially after all the hoo-ha over the filming at Lincoln. So that should be another intersting discussion.

Wednesday brought a meeting of churchwardens with the Rural Dean for us to discuss how all our services and pastoral care are to be managed during the interregnum. The Rural Dean and another priest with a group of nine parishes in his care will add a further 4 and 3 respectively to their already overladen schedules. And we - some of us, at least - will do whatever we can to offer support and try to get to grips with lay led non-eucharistic worship.