synelg

As summer reluctantly kicks in in London, this is the time of year when looking out over the kitchen sink at my little palm and bamboo garden is not enough.  I should be packing my rucksack, (these days a MD wheelie) digging out my trusty sandals, and comparing the passport picture with the elderly relative in the mirror.  I just want to lock up and go travelling.  The world literally became my oyster when my marriage ended, the kids were safe at uni and I had my first credit card. Back then, as a teacher, I was tied to school holidays, but the exhilarating freedom of choosing a destination which suited me outweighed crowded airports.  I fully embrace the concept 'To travel hopefully is better than to arrive' and enjoy every bit of a journey, including queues.  Retirement means I can travel anytime, and age brings experience (and concessions) and slightly more appreciation of 'being in the moment' in foreign parts...I still have some bits of Australia to explore.  So, this morning it is wallpapering v. getting the map out -  no contest really!

Today, I am working on the front door.  Last year the Son helped replace the old flimsy version with glass panels which rattled with every passing car and had neat 1"gaps top and bottom to allow in more fresh air than I actually needed.  It was a bit of a hassle getting the new door to fit as, a) it was made of unusually sturdy, lead-based but re-sourcible wood, b) my house has no right angles (real builders don't need them) and c) at 4ft 11-ish, I was not the ideal joiner's mate on a job like this.   I chose to change doors in the middle of winter, so the wind, rain, etc. added to the need for speed- that, and the thought which became more obvious as we struggled, that I needed to be able to lock up that night.  There was a point after the first four hours when we did contemplate dragging the original door back inside and re-establishing it.  But deep down we knew that had we done this- the new door would become a piece of hall furniture, and an admission of failure.  So we we swore, we whittled and sawed bits off - top, bottom and sides, and put locks on and then off again, and eventually we got the bastard to fit.  When we finished, like god, we stood back, looked upon our work, and thought it was good...  Well, it was until recently, when I noticed that the wooden panels in the door seem to have a life of their own and wax and wain like the moon- so I am on a mission to find the right combination of glue and paint and phase of the moon to keep the paint from cracking round the seams and the panels falling out...then I can get back up the ladder and finish papering the hall. Time for a chocolate break.

The Dottir is due to come over to London at the end of the month, and I was looking for something for a theatre night out when I came across a production of 'They're Playing Our Song' at Menier Chocolate Factory.  I hope she gives this musical the green light as I have great memories of working on a production of 'Song' in 1983.  My second career was in theatre, and I spent three happy years working in design at Perth Rep. On this production the quick-changes were  brutal for the leading lady and I ended up doing them myself.  The technology for body mikes was not as evolved and dinky as it is today, and racing against the clock with every kind of fastening, boho-chic layers, sweaty skin, feral battery packs and in 90% darkness in the wings, I was just soooo glad that, the female lead, Cindy Wells, was more brilliant trouper than diva, and that the unseen adrenalin-fuelled frenzy (and silent swearing) accompanying each exit and entrance went well.  Happy days...

I have a lot of work left to do on my house, and am getting through the d.i.y. list painfully slowly this year.  My heart is not really into finishing all the jobs still to do, as I appear to have let the housing price boom (soooo last year) slip from my grasp.  Too busy biggin' it up with the Freedom Pass and cheaper cinema and theatre tickets, and cruising slowly past my old school during lesson time with all my windows down and belting out Bruce's 'Born To Run' and 'Thunder Road' at 'stun' decibel level ...  I think I have the potential for far more irresponsible behaviour in my old age than I ever had in my teens, and I find that thought really comforting.  In today's paper (on line) there is an article on the dearth of activities for today's and tomorrow's o.a.p.'s 'within the community'-  old punks and rockers, etc. as if we came from a generation unable to entertain ourselves.  But, we could take up some modern and apparently acceptable pastimes.  I must admit, I have contemplated taking a hammer up to the phone box at the top of my street and smashing the glass to piss off the local hoodies (they are late risers and usually don't get round to this until well into the afternoon).  Likewise, I have mooted with some of the other retirees if they would like to commandeer the big recyling bin beside the phone box, for a spot of freewheeling it down the hill- so the hoodies would have to wait their turn- and have at least one taker on that idea as it brings out the spirit of competition.   Our local youth are too stoned to complete the full length of the hill and successfully bang it into our cars as by half way down they have either fallen off or out of the bin.  I think that if my neighbour does attempt the Bin of Doom Run we will have to move a few cars first as he fancies his chances and bets may be laid...

I came across Summer Heights High mockumentary by accident- locked into the first three episodes and was greedy for more.  Chris Lilley was not someone I had heard of, and if BBC3 scheduling is going to put his show on in rubbish time-slots, I am going to have to work harder on learning to use my new recording machine.  Lilley plays three characters in an Australian high school:  Mr G, a totally egoistic theatre and performing arts teacher; a vain, celebrity obsessed, p.c-lite, rich girl exchange student from a private school, Jaimie (or Ja'mie), and Jonah, a Tongan, SEN/ADHD, breakdancing obsessed foul-mouthed tearaway.  Filmed in a real school with real pupils, real teachers and real Head teacher, it is funny, outrageous and poignant, and I was a few minutes into it before I realised it was a spoof. Lilley's observationally brilliant Jonah is a gem-  every twitch, disruptive exhibition and rude come-back all too truthful a teacher's classroom nightmare, brilliant.  Lilley has won Oz Logie awards already for his comedy and series We Can Be Heroes, and hopefully we will be able to see more of his work over here.  I would recommend an earlier version of Mr G character on YouTube, 'Mr G:Titanic' (watch the non-fuzzy recording) a sketch on his ideas for Titanic the musical, and another of Ja'mie with her photo wall display of Third World children she sponsors, but some of whom don't write to her enough and may have funding removed:  also, good extracts online for We Can Be Heroes (finding the good Australian of the year).  If you like Spinal Tap/The Office et al, this one is for you, and if you are a weary and battle worn teacher- it is a must.

The ex Queen's Hotel

Have you ever heard the good advice 'never go back' in the sense of 'you will only find change/no change/dire disappointment, anti-climax, confusion or despair, etc.'?  I had this saying in mind recently, when the Dottir was over here for the annual Exam Pilgrimage.  These visits for lofty educational purpose are used by the Dottir, to cram in as much of the London theatre/film scene, museum visits, meetups with old friends, meals out, as is humanly possible in her two week sojourn. 

As a long-distance mum, I am suitably grateful for the opportunity of these visits (especially the chance to force-feed her while her mind is on a higher plane) and willingly chum her to some (to be frank) rather depressing plays. This year I put a moratorium on 'intense and worthy' and we went for 'lighthearted' instead and enjoyed 'The Dream' at the Globe and - God of Carnage... which was French and philosophical but funny, so it counts.  We also fitted in a couple of days in Paris (Babylonian Exhibition) - and put in about 15 miles worth of walking (the Dottir was wearing her pedometer as she is after $150 of Amazon tokens prize at work) which was good exercise for my little fat legs.  We stayed in a little boutique hotel; basic but Paris Chic, which had such beautiful taps in the little bathroom that I had to resist requesting a side trip to the French version of B&Q...  We walked to the Eiffel tower in the morning and strolled back along the Seine embankment to Notre Dame, and were stopped only briefly by a teenage con artiste trying the 'dropped gold ring' scam on us- but we are streetwise city girls and were not to be so easily hooked.  I don't know Paris well, but I am getting to know the Louvre and the South Bank better on account of the Dottir and her short but tightly-packed itineraries, and this was a relaxed and enjoyable visit for both of us as she had finished her last exam three days before, and on that Friday evening, we had travelled up to Leeds on a quest.

I had been surprised that the Dottir had actually been enthusiastic about my suggestion for a quick trip up to Yorkshire  to reconnect with what was left of that side of the family and have a look at a town she hadn't visited since she was three, albeit that it had almost mythical status in the tales told to she and her brother by 'Granny Moth'.  I was apprehensive on the way up- after all, we were heading for Pontefract, and I could offer her nothing in the way of 'cool' distractions in advance, but she had forseen this and had booked us into Malmaison in Leeds on the flimsy 'It's central' excuse, and the trendy bolthole plus museums/abbeys/Harvey Nicks, etc. would obviously off-set the trip to the boondocks.  Memories of coming to Leeds from Ponte for the market, or Christmas trips to the theatre, were of no use at all (thank god for maps)as I found that I had no idea of the geography of the city any more- so much change.

The train to Ponte arrived at the only one of three stations that I did not recognise or remember, and we walked into the town in thick drizzle and by way of a landmark church spire.  The centre of town was at once reassuringly familiar and quite changed.  Pedestrianisation had hit Ponte as it had done Leeds, and the shoppers in the Market square no longer had to risk being picked off by busy traffic as they shopped at stalls.  The market was not as big as I remembered- some landmark shops had gone, and others had survived, including the very non-pc Blackamoor pub.  Ponte is not big, and luckily, the old family haunts were only minutes' walk away, and the Dottir was patient and funny and pointed out the irony as I took pictures of places that were 'no longer there'- the car show room and parking lot that was 'Grandad's house, the Queen's Hotel next door, which was now flats, and the area across the new junction, which had been (Anglo-Saxon) Tanshelf, made up of cobbled streets of red brick back-to-back miners' and spicemakers' houses, all gone.  When I was young, the building that had been the Alexandra theatre, and then a  cinema stood over the busy main road from grandad's house.  Four generations of Crossley women had sought escape and refuge from the reality of life in a mining town in the plush art deco interior of the  Alex'- and when it was pulled down, in the 60s, I  had been  furious to see it be replaced by Kiko's  'nightclub'.  Now, in teeming monsoon rain, I  was almost happy to see that Kiko's had survived both the Maggie and Blair years.  So much change- roads, buildings, malls, developments, and all for the better no doubt.  At my last visit the town was still in the limbo between the closing down of the local pits and the recession, and I felt it would need a lot of resilience to regenerate and survive, and it had. 

We took shelter in the museum behind the Butter Cross in the market square.  There was an exhibition of the local sweet factories- Dunhills and Barratts.  My mother had worked at the Dunhills' liquorice works after leaving school, in spite of passing the exam for grammar school.  Grandad was a miner, and knew that 'Lasses 'll only get married' and was more concerned to see that his three sons did not go down the pit like him.  My mother's escape route from factory  life was WWII-  when she joined the ATS and saw the world (well, Britain at least).  The liquorice fields and the  liquorice works have disappeared now, and the  museum curator pointed out that the German Haribor company had replaced the old family firms.  I wondered whether this factory was allowed to belch out the glorious smell of boiled liquorice that we used to relish on the way to the swimming pool, when I was a child.  I grew up in a small, clean, picturesque Scottish border town, and loved escaping to Ponte for the long summer holidays or Christmas.  An aunt once asked me why I liked coming there so much, and had been annoyed when I said it was because Ponte was 'so mucky', but it was true. Even on a clear day there was an invisible airborne presence from the collieries and brick works, the washing often came in bespeckled and dusting was a daily must- but to me the town was exciting, busy and alive and there was always some robust Yorkshire humour to be got out of any situation.  Peebles, on the other hand, was bonny but too quiet and straitlaced, a Presbyterian backwater  of  niceness and very little traffic.

It had been seventeen years since I had been back to Ponte for a family funeral, but we had kept in touch with the usual annual phone call and Christmas cards, but any apprehensions I had  were swept asside with the warmth of our welcome.  We caught up with and reminisced with family, and the years in between my last visit were filled in and cemented firmly in place with tea, food, tears and laughter and more tea.  And the Dottir and her new-met cousin watched as their mothers knitted past, present and future together into family, and it was all right.  I had gone back, briefly, and reclaimed some of my past, renewed family ties, and introduced the Dottir to the landscape and territory of Granny Moth, whose tales could out-Tolkein Tolkein.  And so, next day, we found ourselves lolloping around Paris- the Dottir relaxed and free of studies for a few months, and me, relieved that my liquorice roots trip had been a sweet one.

I have now been a 'pensioner' for just over a year, and lordy how the time has flown.  The Vox blog has lain silent while I have been out and about enjoying freedom from the daily grind and having '...far too much fun for someone on a 'Cranford' pension...' said the Dottir.  She threatened to get me a bonnet and shawl- and this week I have felt like taking her up on the offer. 
One of the new enjoyments of having a week consisting of Sunday and six Saturdays, is being let loose on the internet.  I have no computer skills, and it really is all 'magic' to me- all this 'invisible stuff' bobbing about in the ether- and I really admire those who actually have a clue about not only what they are doing on a computer, but also- what a computer can do.  Whereas before retirement I would only use a computer when prodded with a stick and my job required it- now I am Queen of the Timewasters- sucked into the machine at any excuse.
This week I have seen two days go by, blogging every national Newspaper online re the 10p tax fiasco, and swapping inky spit with other 'Irate of Little Ditchings'- and what fun it has been to see today a bit of nifty back-tracking by the Man In Charge. 
I should have been up a ladder scraping the devil's wallpaper (woodchip) off the hall ceiling in the race to get the house ready for the Dottir's visit- but it was too much fun logging in to put in my personal twopennworth and reading hundreds of others.  That takes up time, tea and biscuits, and means a double shift on the scraping today in pennance.  It is good exercise, scraping, but the blood drains out of your arms and you have to climb down for a bit and it is easy to get distracted - hence this post...
Another source of glorious timewasting is 'looking things up'- any excuse to source information- it is all there- on the net.  Ask the machine anything, anything- and up information comes in droves to the power of 10.  Then there is 'Youtube'...and newspapers online...no end to it, a universe of information to explore.  I am trying to develop self-control and limit myself to certain times of day in an effort to get the d.i.y. task list done, but it is hard and I am only a weak woman.
I started two writing projects:  'The Novel' and 'The Film Script'.  They are serious projects, and supposed to be Plan B - Supplements for the Smallest Pension in Christendom, but I tend to give them sporadic bursts of attention and then just token looks, a bit like keeping pet rabbits.  At first I felt guilty about not taking these projects seriously, but I haved learned to manage my guilt, and am quite good at brushing off enquiries as to how the book/script is going- because, obviously, if you are doing some really serious writing- it is not going to be done in a week, is it?
Now that I have self-medicated my achey arms with tea and biscuit, I must climb back up the ladder so that when the plasterer cometh next week he will be well impressed by quality o.a.p. power scraping. 

As someone who regards the workings of computers as proof of the existence of magic, (and no one can convince me otherwise) starting a blog is almost as momentous as my first email.  The Dottir set it up in time for my birthday, some months ago now, but I have not felt quite ready until now.