171 Everything’s coming up Roses…
And what season is it? asks Julia.
The painting is called ‘The Last Day in the Old Home’. Through the window on its left, we can see leaves turning golden and brown and branches starting to bare. It’s Autumn. The answer’s Autumn. Pick me, Miss. Fifty years ago, I’d have stuck up my hand.
170. To me, to you…
Forty years ago this week, lucky travellers on the Liverpool Street Line were treated to the sight of Ma and I manoeuvring a sizeable, empty metal trunk on and off the train. I was about to start at Exeter and the trunk would soon be sent ahead with all that I considered precious: radio/cassette player, gold table-lamp with orange shade and books from the reading list, some of which still sit on my shelves, spines barely creased.
169. You in your small corner…
This weekend, I have been trying to blog about the refugee crisis. Indeed, I actually finished a blog this morning, but when I read it back it was just too trite and banal for something so horribly complex and difficult. So I deleted it.
And blogging about anything else at the moment feels like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.
Shall we talk about The Archers instead?
Or I could tell you about trying to stem the flow of blood from Marigold’s nose this afternoon, while we waited for the Welfare Officer.
168. What I did in my summer holidays…
1. This summer, I wittered on a bit…
“I’ve got this clear memory of being at school – it must have been more than 65 years ago – and our teacher said something about Parkinson’s. I went home and asked my mum what it was. She frowned a little, then told me it was a brand of cigarettes. So when the teacher asked the next day what we remembered about Parkinson’s…”
There is a chortle across the room from the thirty-odd Rotarians who are listening to Colin thanking me for my first ‘after-lunch’ speech. They seem an affable bunch of chaps – they are all chaps, so just me and the waitress holding up the distaff side of things. Which is a slightly strange experience, vaguely reminiscent of taking Physics A Level.
167. Blue, blue, my Elsan’s blue…
“Is Mrs Vestibule coming to camp?” asks an Elfin, over the washing-up.
I’m at the other end of the trestle tables, in arm to arm combat with a hefty pan which is coated with industrial quantities of baked bean sauce. So the question is picked up by Brian’s mate, Graham, who has taken a week’s leave from pen-pushing at the Civic Centre to be here, washing dishes in a cold, wet field with the Woodcraft Folk.
“No, she’s afraid of camping.” The entire rota group stops to gawp at this news. As does Sheila.
166. Leap and sing in all you do …
“She likes patterns.”
“She does?”
There is a general nodding, particularly from the distaff side of the class. “She wears a lot of patterns,” confirms one ten year old fashionista.
“And stripes,” adds another.
“And chunky jewellery.”
I write ‘patterns and stripes’ on the white board and the class won’t let me rest until I have added ‘chunky jewellery’. Then we try and think of further inspiration for our dormant muses. For, while Mrs Berry is at her daughter’s graduation, Class Five and I are sneakily preparing the farewell book which we will be her present at the end of term, when she sets sail to become Deputy Head of Woolly Meadows Primary School.
165. First, catch your Parkie Part Two…
“I’m a glass half-full person… I spill the rest.”
We laughed. A lot. “It’s an old joke,” said Tom Isaacs, a little apologetically. Well yes, it probably is. But given a whole new life from being told by someone with severe dyskinesia who is wrestling with their glass of water. A joke repurposed, in fact, and all the funnier for it.
164. Rage against the machine…
“Now, when someone joins the department you write their name, date of birth and reference number on this card. It’s called an M11.” I nod and try to look intelligent. It’s my first proper graduate job and I’m being shown the ropes by an old hand in the staffing department.
“What’s the purpose of the card?” I ask.
“Oh, it’s not for us: it’s used by other people in the department. We just make them and put them into this index box.”
163. Down these mean streets…
Leave my iPod in the car? Are you mad?
For one thing, the best technique I know for surviving IKEA on a Saturday afternoon is to be plugged into a good audiobook. In my case, that cosy celebration of country life “Slaughter in the Cotswolds.”
As Thea started her new house-sitting assignment, she hoped that she wouldn’t get caught up in the ghastly murders which had made the previous twelve so difficult.
Great stuff. Whisks you past any amount of unpronounceable furniture.
162. “Oh no,” said Jellywoman, “I can’t stand this…”
Probably, my own fault, to begin with. Shouldn’t have had the tea. Shouldn’t have gone online.
Last night to our local flea-pit to see ‘Carmen’, streamed live from the ENO. Brilliant: sultry, sensuous and edgy. Matched the weather, which has been hotter than Spain.
“Well she’s no better than she should be,” was ActorLaddie’s verdict. How true.
The Jelly Chronicles 