93. With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nony no…
I’ve come over all pastoral and may descend into madrigals at any minute. You have been warned.
92. It was the spring of hope…
You might have come across the ‘boiling frog’ model of how people cope with change.
The idea is that if you put a frog in a deep pan of water, it sits around doing happy frog stuff and saying ‘it’s not so bad once you’re in’. Then the pan is put on to heat. The frog adjusts to the gradual rise in temperature – sending out for the odd Ben and Jerry’s perhaps, but basically staying put. It adjusts and adjusts. Then it can adjust no more but, by then, it is no longer physically able to jump out of the pan. And so it goes to the great lily pad in the sky.
No frogs were actually harmed in the making of this metaphor. Hold that thought.
91. Fly away Peter, fly away Paul. Come back Peter…
In the beginning of years, when the world was so new and all, a trip to the pictures gave you much, much more than a main feature.
Not being quite as old as my class imagine, I don’t personally remember cinema-organists; although ActorLaddie had a great-uncle who, rather romantically, met his wife when they were both playing in the pit orchestra for a silent movie.
All I can offer in comparison is a very close relative who met her husband while bunking into a cinema. She was, apparently, the designated chump who paid for a ticket and then opened the back door for the others. She denies it now, of course, and claims they met in a coffee bar. But then she would, wouldn’t she?
90. Working title…
“That can’t be right!” said the girl who was training me. “45 new p for half of lard?” I looked again at the price-sticker. Oh. I should have rung up 4 ½p. “I’ll have to get the manager to come and sort this out,” she sighed.
Oh dear. And the previous customer had gone so well. I’d already got plans for my first pay-packet: Chelsea Girl had a red short-sleeved V-neck jumper which was crying out to be teamed with my puffy white nylon blouse. Did they sack you if you made mistakes? I was fifteen – what did I know?
Continue reading →
Take that, eggboy!
Circular saw, woman with Parkinson’s … What’s not to like?
89. Running through the open door Part 2… this time it’s personal…
The Agricultural Correspondent has been wheeled out again. Just as we get to an exciting bit in the storyline – has Helen Archer finally seen through Rotten Rob? – we are kept on tenterhooks by some bit of farming nonsense. So Tony and David Archer mooch around the cattle market discussing the merits of buying organic suckler cows and we are made to wait for the resolution of the TunaGate affair.
What’s good enough for The Archers is good enough for you lot. So before I tell you what was in the letter from Hammersmith Hospital, I’m going to share some gardening news. If by any chance you didn’t read Wednesday’s blog – number eighty eight – now would be a good time to nip off and do so; otherwise what follows will make no sense. We’ll wait for you by discussing fencing.
88. I see me running through that open door…
I don’t remember anything about the film itself, though of course I have seen Dumbo again since then. The only memory of my first trip to the pictures is Pa trying to hurry me off the double-decker bus while I’m busy being travel sick over the conductor. So perhaps not the magical night he’d intended.
If only I’d had Dumbo’s feather, we could have flown home.
87. Always something there to remind me…
Thursday afternoon saw me tucked away in the non-contact room, ploughing through assessment results. Depressingly, half the children still remain below the class average, despite Mr Gove’s exhortations. I fear for my salary.
Entering results onto a spreadsheet is a mundane job, so I switched on the wireless; partly to drown out the sound of children in the playground – they do keep turning up at school – but also because I knew that Clare Balding was going to be talking to Tom Isaacs as part of her ‘Ramblings’ series on Radio 4.
86: Man, you been a naughty boy; you let your face grow long…
Until last summer, we lived at the end of a cul-de-sac. Beside our house was a small alley; backing onto this alley were garages belonging to the houses in the adjoining street.
Like this:
When we moved in, the garage closest us belonged to a sweet old lady who’d owned her house since it was built in the thirties. She didn’t have a car but kept the paintwork looking nice: green and cream – probably the same as when she moved in. Continue reading →
85. Font of all knowledge…
So it turns out that the company which publishes my ebook randomly changed the font for a slightly bigger one. Which means that, if you have bought it, you just might have had some words falling off the sides of the pages and slithering all over the table.
If that has happened to you, I can only apologise. The problem is now sorted so if you let me know, I can send you a replacement.
Anyway, the link to the new revised e-book of the Jelly Chronicles 2012-13 is here. I’ve also updated the old links.
The Jelly Chronicles 