Clarissa et al.

I was dozing on the very brink of proper sleep when the earthquake struck, and the cat was more alarmed than I. My first thought was that father had fallen out of bed, then that a lorry, taking a shortcut up the lane between the two A roads, had gone over. When neither of these proved to be the case (father was sleeping peacefully and the lane was as traffic free as it usually is at one o'clock in the morning) I finally came to the conclusion that something had exploded on the Humber Bank. That it was an earthquake never crossed my mind, until I had the news on while eating breakfast. I gather it was 5.2 on the Richter scale and that the epicentre was about 12 miles away near Market Rasen.

This morning I discovered that the metal buckets I use in the Florence Nightingale workshop had fallen over on the back seat of the car spilling out the scrubbing brushes, and I now find that one silver platter has slipped slightly in the china cabinet. Dianne tells me that she thought the earthquake had knocked open a cupboard door in the kitchen, but it turned out to be Kevin seeking a nocturnal drink after a supper of kippers.

The AA having sent me on a simple and easy route to Bawtry yesterday, today sent me on a terrible route to Auckley near Doncaster. I had to pick up Dianne on the way so it took me from Scunthorpe on the motorway (which was fine) but it kept me on the motorway far too long and thence the route threaded through a large proportion of the trading estates and suburbs which surround Doncaster, in the morning rush-hour traffic, on the route to Robin Hood airport, driving (needlessly) into the sun (so circuitous was the route) and very slowly past some road works.

Leaving the school, I looked at the map, saw a B road leading straight to Haxey where we could join the A road through Epworth, and thence join the motorway for a mile or two to Scunthorpe. Up to the motorway this was a plesantly pretty route, and all the way it was very easy and much faster than the AA's efforts. Of course, I should have asked Hilary as I asked Veronica about yesterday's route and not assumed that because the AA got it right once meant that it would strike lucky a second time.

In between the traumatic and the easy journey, I taught the Florence Nightingale workshop to two groups of children, both well behaved, but for the younger (Year 1) group this was right at the beginning of their Victorian topic so the explanations about Florence Nightigale had to start from scratch. These little ones had a male teacher which is very unusual.

I was at a school in Bawtry today. Veronica, friend in the village, used to live there so I checked with her about times, distances and suitable routes (the AA can be somewhat eccentric), and it was the same school her children attended many years ago.

I got into conversation with the teacher of one of the groups doing the workshop, and she went to the same school both Veronica and I attended - sometime after Veronica, but overlapping with me when she was in the fifth and sixth forms, and I was in the first to third forms.

The first child I picked out was called Veronica which is very unusual nowadays, although she is from Poland and the spelling is different.

Last night I was also chatting with Linda at the book group, and it turns out that she used to lead Trixie, the pony I went on for sixpenny rides along the beach when I was four or five years old, with my legs so short that my feet were put in the leathers rather than the stirups (very dangerous) and so young that a slow trot satisfed me that I had been for a gallop. Yesterday I had forgotten the name of the grey which was Helen's favourite, but remembering the name Tinkerbell actually woke me up at 2 o'clock this morning.

Saturday Lunchtime

'Winter Warmers' at the Village Hall. The inclusiveness of Swallow's social events tends to come as quite a surprise to newcomers to the village, and this is one of the nicer ideas when several people make their own favourite soups (I chose Sue's leek and potato - very nice) and everyone can turn up and have a good chat over a hot lunch with the neighbours they don't always get to see. Of course, Swallow is a good size for this: at 150ish population it is perfectly possible to know everyone in the village, but it is large enough to support a village hall. I had a good chat with Dot (who lived in Swallow until she moved into a retirement home in Market Rasen), with Kathy, Kath, Bob and Margaret (who have just moved into one of the new houses), and Bob and Margaret (who have been here about eight years). Introducing these two couples to each other was almost as much fun as introducing Mr. and Mrs. Peter Hill to Mr. and Mrs. Peter Hill at a music festival a few years ago - I know, 'little things please little minds'.

Saturday Evening

A Supper Party at Carolyn's; she served tapas style food which tends to be too seasoned for my taste, but I avoided the chillis and nothing was eye-wateringly hot. A combination of Lent and driving meant that I was on fruit juice all evening, but all the other guests live in Thoresway and had walked: nobody got drunk, but several were at the stage where they believe they are wittier than they actually are, and their opinions are somewhat more incontavertably true than is the case.

Lent also meant that I had to refuse an absolutely delicious looking and smelling orange and almond pudding. Another of the guests also refused it; apparently he never eats pudding which is a shocking waste as his sister is a celebrity TV chef whose puddings (among other things) are to die for! Their mother is an equally talented cook, and Joe is seriously considering asking them to adopt him! My little sister is not a good cook, but I notice that - as well as those provided by nature - Joe has made sure that all the aunts he has chosen to adopt are distinctly better than average cooks, but this would be the first time he has chosen any on those grounds alone.

Sunday Lunch

Maureen's seventieth birthday, and her daughters gave a birthday luncheon for twenty-five of her closest family members and friends. I didn't actually know that I fitted into either category since Issy and Becky are my friends rather than their mother, but I'm flattered to be included.

We were seated at a long table in the drawing room (which is twice the size of the dining room) and moved round between courses so that everyone would have a turn near the birthday girl. Here she is cutting the cake, and with her daughters and grandchildren (not a great photo, but the only one with all the faces visible - compare the children with their younger selves in my first blog over two years ago - they have so grown up in that time.)

In all the musical chairs I found myself regularly opposite Linda and next to her husband David, neither of whom I had ever met before but with both of whom I had a very interesting conversation about the arts in Grimsby. Next to Linda was Peggy who seems to know all the people who used to teach me and all my distant cousins in Cleethorpes going right back to her days as an infant member of the same Sunday School class as my father. I was also next but one to Nigel who back in the late 1970s was going out with Glen's cousin Mandy before he married Maureen's sister Bobby, and has been a friend of Glen's ever since those days - so we did a bit of catching up there too.

Another very pleasant social occasion.

Monday Evening

Swallow Bookworms: We had been reading "Unnatural Murder" by Anne Somerset. Nobody had managed to finish it, so apart from expressing a dislike of the style, content and sheer bulk of the book there wasn't much to say. My main grouse was that you start a paragraph reading about Fred Bloggs and by the end of it he has become the Duke of Clutterbuck with three intervening titles in 150 or so words of text: as a book to study it may work well enough, but for light reading having to keep track of a cast of hundreds each of whom is referred to by at least three names is too much like hard work.

Our next book is the biography of John Peel which I gather started as an autobiography and was finished after his death by his wife. I'm not very keen on showbiz biographies in the first place and, not being a Radio 1 fan, I had never really heard of the subject before his death. I am told that he also had a Radio 4 programme, but it was on Saturday, and I only know radio programmes on weekdays between 8.30 and 9.15 and 3.15 and 4.00 when I am driving. It is Lincolnshire Libraries book of the month for March, and Radio Lincolnshire wants someone from Swallow Bookworms to talk about it on air. A few were shy, two will be on holiday, and the rest (like me) felt that they should know more about the man than just the one book to be able to add anything of interest to the discussion. In the end we elected Veronica to the task although she knows as little of John Peel as I, because she has a certain amount of radio experience, and she was the one who received the original request.

It is very cold, and we have freezing fog which is very beautiful with all the trees and bushes outlined in frost and nothing visible beyond the garden except a whiteness which fills the air and cloaks the prospect. Sadly these pictures don't really capture that loveliness.

Beautiful it may be, but also very scary to drive in. Fortunately it is half-term so I don't have to go anywhere in particular until next weekend when I am going to supper with Carolyn on Saturday and to Maureen's (Issy's and Becky's mother) 70th birthday lunch on Sunday, although we are running out of catfood and sooner or later I shall have to brave the road to the supermarket.

I have been occupying my time with getting the photographs for the Church Festival exhibitionn ready. This year our theme is Swallow People, and I have been printing and laminating pictures of the school children from the 1930s to the 1960s when the school closed and became the Village Hall. Oddly we have nearly every child identfied up to 1958, but not those from the 1960s. I have asked my brother-in-law who was the oldest child in the school when it closed in 1967, but he didn't move there from his previous school until quite late in his primary career and is not a lot of help.

Here are the photos, and this is a list of all the children who were in the school at the time it closed:
1. Glenvyl Arthur Thompson
2. Michael Melton
3. Paul Hammond
4. Michael Goddard
5. Paul Whillock
6. Mark Richards
7. Timothy James Winn
8. Andrew Keith Dixon
9. Frazer Matthew Melton
10. David John Ritson
11. Valerie Ann Hammond
12. Elaine Hewson
13. Ruth Lidgett
14. Pat Welton
15. Susan Dixon
16. Caroline Ann Baldock
17. Jacqueline Karen Newsom
18. Marie Ann Ritson
19. Pauline Janet Metcalf
20. Susan Margaret Baldock
21. Deborah Elizabeth Dixon
22. Rosemary Baldock
23. Susan Ann Metcalf
24. Sharon Redfearn
However it is, in terms of children's lives at primary school, a whole generation from 1960 to 1967. Nonetheless, as well as Glen, there are still members of the Metcalf, Baldock and Dixon families in the village, so that's a start, but I am going to have to get this off to the local papers to get all the information I need.

I celebrated my 26th birthday again today, with three of my five 'A' list friends. (Liz is at home in Kenley doing the decorating, and Inge was hanging around in the cold waiting for her first born to get back from a ski-ing trip*.)

So Becky, Issy, Carolyn and I sat down to lunch as soon as Becky got here (the other two live in near-by villages, but Becky has to drive right across the country from Preston.

Starter
Antipasto, salad, olives, avocado and feta cheese dressing, and olive and basil bread rolls

Main Course
Mackerel with a Florentine sauce, new potatoes and mushrooms

Pudding
Creme brulée (made by me)
Sticky toffee cake and date slices (brought by Becky)
Chocolate birthday cake (made by Issy)

Cheese, biscuits and celery.

Coffee before while we were waiting for Becky, gallons of tea afterwards, and some very nice Italian red with the meal.

We talked all through the meal and for the rest of the afternoon just for once without any interruptions from men or kids (bless their cotton socks!). Quite a lot of the conversation was about Issy's and Becky's plans for their mother's 70th birthday party next week, and how much easier it would be if she just let them get on with it and didn't come up with helpful suggestions. They want to give their mother a good do, and apparently she keeps coming up with ideas to save them money, or - worse - to pay for the lunch herself. I am, rather surprisingly since I am Issy's and Becky's friend rather than Maureen's, invited, particularly as nearly everyone else is family.

Here they are with the cake

This is my favourite photo taken when they were still adjusting three mature, but still reasonably trim bums onto a two seater sofa and before they were poised and smiling.

And here they are poised and smiling.

* Joel's School Ski-ing Trip: Why, instead of keeping parents hanging around for hours waiting for the bus to arrive don't they tell the children to use their mobiles to text/phone their parents when they get to Lincoln? Or, if all those mobiles used at once is more than the teachers can stand, have a pre-arranged system of contacting one lot of parents who each contact several more until all are informed that the bus is now about half-an-hour from home? This way Inge would have been able to come to lunch.

I asked Jess why she wasn't going since she has mentioned that she would like to try ski-ing. She replied that she didn't want to be stuck on a bus for hours and hours with all those anti-social psychos. "Surely," I said, "the staff would stop them getting out of hand?" "I meant the staff," she replied. Esther (Issy's baby) is also away on a ski trip from her school, while Hannah (Becky's baby) is in Rome with her friend Hannah and that Hannah's parents.

At last we have our computer back online! Let's hope it stays that way now.

It is Joe's 22nd birthday and he has taken three friends out for lunch.

As you will notice NOT dinner - not on St. Valentine's day when tables are set for couples and top prices are charged. I have always thought the whole Valentine thing is a nonsense anyway, but as someone who doesn't wear jewellery, hates champagne and is only moderately fond of chocolates (very dark and no cream centres) maybe my view is idiosyncratic.

However cuddly toys given by adults to adults strike me as symptomatic of one of the biggest problems with modern society: we are all being pushed into permanent childhood with ever increasing nanny regulations for our own safety, but is there any need to rush to embrace infantilism?

Hilary and I drove down to Stickney (near Boston) to help them celebrate their school’s 150th anniversary by giving the children a taste of Victorian education – in short, our regular schoolroom workshop within their own school setting. The weather smiled on us, and the drive down the county – first across the wolds and then through the fens – was truly beautiful, and – being Lincolnshire and too early in the year to be stuck behind heavy farm machinery – there was hardly any traffic.

In the morning we were somewhat dismayed to discover that we had 49 year 3 and 4 pupils; the year three pupils were squashed tight on to gym forms and they were sharing one slate and pencil between two – so that was very realistic. In the afternoon we had 27 year 6s followed by 20 year 5s who were more comfortably spaced and supplied.

The school is a good Victorian building with a number of additions in the last ten years which have been very well and sympathetically done to blend in with the original in their scale and window shapes. The children were well behaved, and clearly enjoyed their day. I wish we had an infant class workshop to offer, but this will presumably come to pass later this year when the Wilderspin school in Barton opens. (See my Heritage Open Days 3 blog on 9th September 2007)

There was one little girl - not so little actually as she was one of those 11 year old girls who are suddenly women - who came up and talked to me afterwards (having been the first with her hand up both as a Victorian and in the pleniary session) who is quite clearly a reader, an historian and an actress. I really warmed to her.

It being Ash Wednesday Joe and I went to church in Grasby in the evening. It was a simple said communion service with no anointing with ashes. Afterwards Joe felt it necessary to come back with me to rescue his cream-cake from our fridge where he had left it after gorging himself on Tuesday. I have a feeling that he may just very slightly be missing the point and that the symbolical giving up of sweets and/or cakes and/or alcohol for Lent should be there to serve as a constant reminder of deeper spiritual matters.

With the computer being out of action last week, I never go round to posting about last month's Swallow Bookworms' choice which was Black Dog by Stephen Booth.

It was an OK police thriller with less than convincing psychological overtones. It was the writer's first book so I'll probably give him another go at some later date, but the general opinion of those of us who finished it was that the book was about 200 pages too long for the material. This opinion was echoed by those who didn't reach the end. (Copies on Amazon start at 1p so presumably there is a bit of a glut.) It was unusual in that there was no division of opinion between the male and female members.

Last night Thoresway held their Parish Funding Supper at which they hoped to persuade villagers who don't regularly attend church to contribute to the upkeep of the church building. I was there partly as Carolyn's guest and partly to observe how it is done in order to advance a similar scheme in Swallow.

Thoresway Church

Unfortunately the best laid plans of mice and men gand aft aglay, and last evening was no exception. Thoresway (population somewhere around 70) has no village hall, so they came to Swallow for their supper. (One of their plans - outside the remit of this particular funding scheme - which is about regular income rather than capital projects - is to adapt their church, the only public building in the village, so that the part of the nave can serve as a village hall.) Anyway, the supper was due to start at 7.30, and at about 6.30 (just as the pans were heating up in the kitchen) the electricity went off (as it did for half the village).

By the time I arrived - a guest, not a helper - the blitz mentality had taken over and I had been asked to bring an oil lamp and a gas ring to augment those already borrowed, a man was struggling with the fire (they should have asked me to bring kindling and logs as well, but nobody had thought of that and the coal store at the hall was locked), and a decision had been taken to start with the speeches while the delayed cooking was completed.

My feeling was that the guest speaker had a somewhat unfortunate manner just bordering on the hectoring, but that what she and the home-grown speakers said made good sense. I worked out that if just those present at the meal, without making any further visits to villagers, each promised £1 a week in addition to anything they put in the collection etc. they would have sufficient to meet all their regular financial obligations.

Despite the cold and dark it was a good evening and the meal - bangers and mash - was nice and hot. They even managed coffee at the end, although I declined and went home since I had seen what I needed to see, and will naturally be involved in Swallow's funding scheme rather than Thoresway's.

Apparently the electricity came back on just as they were locking up, by which time it was too late to wait for the water to heat up and make a start on the washing up and clearing any mess they had been unable to see in the half-light. When we went by the hall on the wy to church this morning at eleven there were at least half-a-dozen cars outside, and the workers had presumably finished their clear up by the time I drove back at about half-past twelve.

I have been without a computer all week - no email, no blogging, no googling for cast lists, maps, obscure trivia, not even writing a letter or backing up my blog with a diary entry: I have been bereft! The hard-drive died on Saturday, and - when we got the computer back on Thursday - it wouldn't connect to broadband. The boffin/nerd came yesterday, but he couldn't find the problem. Yesterday evening I managed to sort the problem sufficiently to connect via dial-up which is slow.

In the meantime we were promised snow - blizzards - by three o'clock yesterday afternoon.

About lunchtime the wheely bins blew over, and by three we had driving rain. This turned to sleety rain and eventually to snowy sleet. Joe, who just two weeks short of his twenty-second birthday should know better, kept looking out of the window and saying things like "It's really snowing now" and "I think it's beginning to settle"; to which I invariably had to reply "No, Joe, it's sleet" and "No, Joe, it's far too wet for that."

Father came in about four, and the IT man followed shortly thereafter - both saying that the weather was getting worse. By five the worst of the weather had clearly passed us by, although the BBC was still promising heavy snowfalls over the Lincolnshire Wolds during the evening.

Rain gave way to dry, and clouds gave way to a clear sky. This morning I was woken by sunshine so bright I really did wonder whether it might be reflecting off snow, but no, this was the view from the bathroom window.

I suppose an optimistic five year old (or Joe) might believe that the faint dusting of white on the cars and the grass is snow, but it looks suspiciously like frost to me, and it certainly isn't up to snowman standard.

Later
I drove into Caistor at lunch time: two miles to the west of us there was a very thin sprinkling of snow standing on the fields, and on arriving home I noticed a few pockets of snow caught between the roof and the gable end of the house on the north side - the whole of it might have made one smalling snowball.

More importantly we have broadband back, and things are back to normal.