Clarissa et al.

Yesterday, despite having been to church on Ash Wednesday so he can't claim that he didn't know it was Lent, Joe bought me a fruit cake from Brigg market. I was somewhat less grateful than he had expected, but his brother, sister, mother and grandfather have all helped themselves to pieces of it so it has gone without intervention from me.

For the last few years we have been going to Grasby for the Ash Wednesday service - it's in the evening which is convenient for me. Ian's services on this occasion have been a very plain, very Anglican spoken communion. This year, however, Ian was in the congregation and Judy took the service which included burning our sins which we had written invisibly on pieces of paper, and mixing those ashes with those from last year's burned palm crosses before annointing our foreheads with the resulting mix. Although we used to do this last with both George and Lisbet when they were here, I could feel Joe turning into Mrs. Beamish as he stood beside me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc80G6Yzu04

He had been Mrs. Beamish once already this week when we were at Nettleton and the final hymn on Sunday was the one with the chorus
Shine, Jesus, shine,
Fill this land with the Father's glory;
Blaze, Spirit, blaze,
Set our hearts on fire.
Flow, river, flow,
Flood the nations with grace and mercy;
Send forth Your word,
Lord, and let there be light.
and afterwards I was unwise enough to say that just occasionally I wish we weren't all so very Anglican in our singing and with hymns such as this wouldn't it be nice to clap our hands, tap our feet and even let loose with a tambourine. From his reaction you would think that I had suggested doing the dance of the seven veils in front of the altar. I didn't even suggest that we should, as Nettleton has, replace our old hymn books. I like our nice Ancient and Modern hymns, but the twentieth century also produced some good ones which it wouldn't hurt us to sing from time to time and possibly even in a manner suited to their style of composition.

My nephews' pony died yesterday. He had, after a long life schoolmastering generations of children into some sort of horsemanship, been retired since Jess grew into something larger, younger, faster and more challenging. Too old to move on to fresh pastures and further pupils, he remained a senior member of the herd in the field and a beloved pet, occasionally taking the youngest members of the Thompson clan and other very small people for short leading-rein rides - nothing too taxing for either horse or rider. Nobody knows exactly how old he was: he was sold to Joe and Jacob as 'over 20' when those young men were very little boys and anecdotal evidence puts him at something over forty. Not a bad life for a pony.

A while back I speculated about how a little girl called Centime got her name. http://swallowedwhole.blog.co.uk/2008/10/17/what-s-in-a-name-4885669/
I was back with Centime and the rest of her class the other day - still very small, very sweet and beautifully behaved. Then today I went to another school and among names, ranging from Lucy and Jacob to the highly unusual, was one little girl called Charisma. Some names are very difficult to live up to, but this has to be one of the hardest.

Swallow Book Worms meeting here last night, and the general consensus of opinion on Narrow Dog to Carcassone was not dissimilar to my own - enjoyable enough, but a touch disappointing.

At some point during the evening Joe asked the person sitting nearest the fire to make it up and instead of putting on a few lumps (the sitting room fire is largely decorative in that the room has two radiators in it anyway) she emptied half a bucket and I spent the evening a) sweltering and b) fearing the chimney would catch fire. I have just cleared the grate this morning - the ash was hot, and the cinders have reignited now they have some air underneath them!

Our book for March is Hunting Unicorns by Bella Pollen. The first three chapters have not filled me with confidence that it is going to be my kind of book, but it's too early to make up my mind.

THANK YOU

to everyone who sent me
Happy Birthday Messages

Well, that's sorted! (see yesterday's blog Lost Touch)

I worked out which church Don and Betty were likely to have attended, and got in touch with the minister. She didn't know them, but the organist did as Betty had been a member of his choir, and through church membership lists they were able to give me Betty's sister Nina's phone number.

This evening (their tomorrow morning) Pa phoned her, and she gave him not only David's and John's phone numbers, but also the welcome news that Don is not dead but just a rubbish correspondent. To be fair, he is not in the best of health and is now living in sheltered accomodation.

Because I was looking for these cousins I visited the Friends Reunited website which I have not looked at for a long time, and found that two people from primary school had left messages for me in January. I got in touch with both of them. Alan, who is by coincidence involved with a choir as its accompanist, sent me a lovely newsy email, and Janet has added herself to my friends list on Facebook.

Update - Thursday Morning
Just had a long conversation with cousin David Turner. As usual with family information, what I had been given was muddled - in this case the wrong university which was why I turned up nothing on the staff list. Google 'David Turner Flinders' and you are swamped with information!

A couple of weeks back I wrote about the two pots of daffodils Joe and I bought in Brigg.

These are those I bought for 87p at Lidl - still going strong with five new flowers and several buds to come.

These are those Joe bought for £1.99 from a florist - one sad little bloom left and no buds to come.

Inge bought me a lovely bunch of flowers for my birthday - let's see how they compare with the last lot which were amazing in their longevity.

By the way, after a day one of the roses had decided to droop at the neck the way they do sometimes; with great trepidation I decided to try a remedy I had heard of but never dared attempt. First I did what I would always do with drooping flowers: I cut an inch from the end of the stem. Then I put that cut end onto the hot plate of my cooker (which apparently forces out any airlock in the stem) and plunged it straight into water. The effect was miraculous!

I am on the whole pretty good at keeping track of my cousins.

On Saturday my father received a solicitor's letter about a small legacy (and I bet it is small judging by how many people there are on the list) from his cousin Peter's estate.

Peter's will left equal shares to all his first cousins. Sadly my father and his younger brother and sister are all that are now left of that generation, which means that the solicitor needs to trace the next generation. It was easy enough to give them names, and easy enough to give them contact details for those living in England, but we have long since lost touch with John and David Turner.

Don with his older brother John in 1924 or 1925

Father's cousin Don went to Australia with his wife, Betty, and their young sons as £10 Poms. Don and Betty kept in touch and visited from time to time. A few years ago we heard that Betty was seriously ill, and, despite sending several letters and cards, we have heard nothing since and assume that both Betty and Don must have died. No cousin on this side of the world including Don's nephews seems to know any more than we do.

I know quite a bit about David and John. I know the names of their wives and children. I know about their academic success and a bit about where they worked (just too little to contact them by that route especially as the chances are that at 63/64 and 60/61 they will have retired). I know that they were brought up in Blackwood, Adelaide. I know that both of them worked at universities.

I don't have any addresses, and I can't find them by any of the obvious internet routes.

St. Valntine's Day over, I at last got round to recycling my Christmas cards and I had a quick count up:

44% were what I would call genuine cards from friends and family who live far away, whom we do not see often or, in some cases, ever and for whom the Christmas card is a way of saying anything from "Not dead yet: how about you?" to giving a lengthy update on the family. One in three of these cards contained a letter or note, which was nice.

30% of cards were from colleagues rather than personal friends. (Father's more than mine as mine are better trained and more ecologically aware.) One sees these people regularly, so why send cards?

22% were from neighbours, friends and family whom we would certainly see within a week either side of Christmas. In some years I suppose one or two of these may be by way of an olive branch after high words at the last meeting and therefore of genuine value, but that isn't likely to happen very often.

3% were from businesses, not real people.

1 card was unsigned, but at a guess it was from someone we only ever hear from at Christmas.

OK, cards are nice to receive and I am happy about those from the 44%, even though about a third of them could have saved both money and resources by sending an e-card. But what is it with the rest? Balancing out the cards bought in bargain boxes against those overprinted with the senders' names, addresses and - even - crests, those sent scout post against those sent first class, it's going to average about £1 per card which could have been saved or better still given to charity.

Sorry to sound like Scrooge, but I am now seriously fed up as Inge has just rung up to say that her afternoon off has just been cancelled as a colleague has gone off sick so she won't be coming to lunch.

Yesterday afternoon the snow came down thickly and fast.

By early evening the main road to the south was blocked with an accident, and the main road to the north of us was blocked with lorries stuck in the snow. A slow stream of vehicles was coming past us on the minor road between the two in an attempt to avoid the blockages and get home.

On the main road one local farmer was using tractors and a snow plough to free the lorries, and on our minor road my nephews were also towing stuck motorists with their landrovers, and giving them a lead along the switchback.

At sbout 9 o'clock a very large lorry became very stuck, and my nephews and their friends spent more than three hours helping him to get on his way.

Nobody wants to profit by others' misfortunes, but these boys spent more than three long cold hours out there, crawling about under his lorry while he sat snug in his cab, as well as gallons of their own diesel. A simple 'thank you' would have been nice, and an offer of some small reimbursement for their time, trouble and fuel would have been even nicer. But, no, the moment they say that they think he is free and to give it a go, he rushes off without so much as a "Ta, chaps."

So if anyone knows of someone driving from Bristol to Grimsby for a firm called Leonard or Lennard on Thursday 12th February, let him know that next time he gets stuck there are quite a few people who hope he stays that way because he won't be getting any help from them again.

Narrow Dog to Carcassonne was Swallow Bookworms' February choice.
 

Actually it has been on our choice list for ages, but it seems that a lot of other book groups were of the same mind so it has taken two, if not three years to reach us, and we were all very much looking forward to it.

Maybe it is a mistake to look forward too much to anything since the reality seldom lives up to the expectations. Anyway, for whatever reason, I was just a bit disappointed. Expecting something in the way of a cross between Three Men in a Boat and A Year in Provence, I felt it did not live up to either. Before I give my reasons, I will say that it is not at all a bad book - pleasantly readable - just the sort of thing you would want to read on a slow relaxed holiday - possibly one taken on a narrow boat.

Well, my reservations about it come in three categories:

Style: It doesn't read like a completed, polished narrative, but has the feel of a blog or a series of emails. There is too much mixing of tenses from present to past and back. There are to many sentences without a main verb. There is too much second person narrative around an unspecified 'you', before it switches back to the normal first and third person mix.

Tone: This may be just me, but I did not warm to Mr. Darlington. I love the word 'gongoozler', but he first introduces these people who stand on the banks and bridges and chat to people on passing boats as if they were the enemy, and that persists throughout the book so that I felt no warmth for his fellow man. His whole attitude including that towards his wife and his dog seemed to me wholly self-centred: that of the kind of man who pats you on the head (literally or metaphorically) and tells you that you are too young or too female to understand things which are clear to his superior older male mind. Nor did he really seem to be enjoying his adventure, and found fault with everything along the way. There are lots of blogs like this (and I hope that mine isn't one) some of which have the sole purpose of pointing out the folly of people in the media, in government, in authority of any kind . . . but in this book I hoped for - nay, expected - a celebration of a wonderful adventure; of course there would be some downs along the way, but this seemed to me to be one long moan with a few highs by way of contrast.

At this point I have to admit a third objection:-

Pure Prejudice: I have a deep dislike of the names Terry and Monica, and by extension have to fight my prejudice against any owners of these names. 

Explanation: When I was a child we had a teacher whose first name was Terry who was one of the pettiest people I have ever encountered. He built himself up as the big 'I AM', and to do this belittled the children in his class and their families. I won't bother with examples, but believe me they were numerous. He also had it in for me and took every opportunity he could to put me down. Most of the time it was water off a duck's back and at nine years old I had his measure and made sure that he knew it. I won't say that being in his class was a good time in my young life, but I emerged from that year unscathed and ready to take up my due place as a House Captain in my final year of primary school. What I have never forgiven him for is the damage he did to my little sister (and it is damage that exists to this day) in doing to her (a much less confident and forthright person than me) the the things he either didn't think of with me or couldn't manage. He cast the nativity play on the one half day she was off all year so she arrived back from the dentist in the afternoon to discover that she was not even an angel while every other child in the top two groups had been given a proper role. (These plays were always cast on academic rather than thespian ability which was wrong but the accepted tradition of the school and she had every right to expect a proper part.) He moved a girl (a teacher's daughter) from one house to another (against all the traditions of the school) on purpose to make sure that she, not my sister, would be the House Captain the next year. He told her that she had only a slim chance of passing the 11+ when he knew perfectly well that in the initial test which decided who would sit the exam her IQ had not merely been the highest in the school but the highest in the county. And, to add insult to injury, she was stuck with him for two years instead of the usual one as the deputy head who usually took the top class was ill and decided to take the lesser pressure of not having the exam class. Anyway that is why I have a deep rooted prejudice against people called Terry, and I am sorry if any perfectly lovely Terry happens to read this, but that's how prejudice works.

Less explicable is my equally deep dislike of the name Monica. There was a teacher called Monica in the infant department when I was an upper junior, but she was lovely. (I often saw her visiting next door to us. She and our neighbour sang in musicals and quite often practised together. Some romantics liked to think that she was his girlfriend, but the neighbour was gay, and, though such things were not mentioned at that time, most people knew.) She was the only Monica I knew - in fact I think she is the only Monica I have ever known - but for some reason in Helen's and my games and stories the nastiest girl in the school, the wicked step-sister, the sort of girl who tortured kittens was always called Monica.

Terry Darlington's wife, clearly a long-suffering woman, is called Monica which didn't help endear me to the couple though it is not their fault that they have the pair of names right at the bottom of my pile.

While we are on names, my prejudice extends even to the dog 'Jim': I tend to like Jameses known as James or Jamie better than those known as Jim or Jimmy.

Anyway, away from my prejudices and back to the book. I read it. I quite liked it. I just didn't like it as much or in the way I expected I would, which disappointed me.

Last week when shopping in Brigg Joe and I walked past a florist's shop with a display of potted daffs on the pavement outside.

"They look nice," I said, and Joe went in and bought a pot at £1.99.

We went on to Lidl and, just inside the door there was a large display of potted daffs at something like £2.80 a pot.

"Yours were a good buy," I said, but then we noticed that the Lidl pots were nice ones for display, not bog standard plastic ones.

Next to the daffs in the nice pots were bulbs in bog standard pots at 87p. I bought a pot.

Here they are.

Joe's are on the left, and mine are on the right. Both are tete-a-tete variety. Both pots contain four bulbs and a bulblet. Let's see whether there is any difference in how well they last and how many flowers they produce. So far mine are 2.28 times better value.

Ignore the brass containers: they are mine, and have been in the family for four generations (five counting Joe) the one on the left belonged to great-granny Jones, and the one on the right to great-grandma Turner. And I must remember to put brass polish on my shopping list.

Now we have snow.

The same view as in 'Candlemas' below, but as it is today.

Jess's school is closed, although the roads are perfectly passable especially in the 4x4s and Toyota trucks most of the local farmers drive - not that I begrudge her a day off.

Yesterday I decided that, rather than break into a free day, I would do my grocery shopping on my way home from work although it was only Wednesday. I don't drive a 4x4 and am a windy driver in adverse weather conditions, so I'm happy. So is the cat who didn't like the last lot of cat food I bought him (it was the same as the one he liked the time before, but this week he wants fish flavours).

I am doubly happy, because my father did all the routine housework yesterday, so I can enjoy this day off. He is also better at cleaning than I am (except for windows) as hoovers suck for him instead of vomit, and he can reach six inches higher than I can as well as seeing dirt on top of things the tops of which I don't see. And he had prepared the vegetables for dinner which was good because by the time I got home I was thinking of chops with tinned sweetcorn and oven chips. Chops with carrots, mash and onion gravy was a much nicer option. Good old Daddy!

If Candlemas be bright and fair
We'll have two winters in one year.

or

If Candlemas be fair and bright
Winter will take another flight.
(Or possibly 'another bite' You can take your pick which version you like best.)

Today is intermittently bright and fair, but the promised snow arrived yesterday afternoon and is today what the fair and bright is intermittent with. And very funny snow it is too. It is fine - so fine that it seems to blow through the bushes without settling on them at all, and the ground is covered, but so lightly that the grass, which father was cutting right into October, shows through. Moreover it is coming from the east. Our weather hardly ever comes from the east, and snow never!

Apparently 125 schools are close across the Lincolnshire and Humber region, but this does not include those in Caistor despite Jessie's efforts this morning to convince granddad (today's taxi) that they were.

Update: February 3rd

Well, that about says it all - yesterday's snow just about covered the ground, and it all melted in the night.

Worst snowfall this century? Well, that's global warming for you, though for us last Easter's was much better - sorry, worse.

Last week there was the national bird census, and there wasn't a bird to be seen in our garden from dawn to dusk.

Today in the space of ten minutes while drinking coffee I have seen from the patio doors two woodpeckers, a pair of pheasants, an assorted flock of thrushes, blackbirds, fieldfares etc., a wren, at least one robin, and small groups of bluetits, coaltits, great-tits, chaffinches, greenfinches, sparrows and dunnocks - oh, and a kestrel and several seagulls going over.

They do it on purpose!