Half Term

Thank God. I really need this break.

Nine days of freedom - and three of them have already flown by.

The days are going to get shorter and shorter from now on, because the clocks went back yesterday. Soon I'll be teaching the last period of the day, and notice that it's pitch black outside...But on the plus side, I love the whole run up to Christmas, all the lights and the decorations, and the carols...

Yesterday was fun, albeit tiring. We went into London, because Bobby needed to take his poor drowned iPhone into the Apple store (you can read about his emotional trauma at his blog). We thought we'd make a day of it - do a bit of shopping (winter coats for the girls), and take Stephen out for a meal. It was a good day, but I was knackered when we got home. Oxford Street was heaving, and it's tiring fighting for pavement space with so many other people. The meal - very late lunch or very early supper - was absolutely delicious, and revived us all. But then, we got on the world's slowest train for the return trip. Instead of the journey taking the usual 30 minutes, it took us more than half an hour just to get to East Croydon. We stopped - for ages - at stations I'd never heard of before. And we had to change three times. This, as Bobby pointed out endlessly, is what happens when one travels without an iPhone.

Today has been pleasant too. I have cleaned the house (no more of that this half-term), eaten cookies baked by Emily, done the ironing (I love the smell of ironing water) and finished my book. Ian McEwan is now officially my current favourite author.

Not sure what we'll do tomorrow, but I'm going to try to make myself go for a run before breakfast. The weather is absolutely stunning at the moment, and I know it won't last. This was Sheffield Park Gardens last weekend ... beautiful colours...



My parents will be spending this weekend with us, so I should get my marking and prep out of the way before they arrive. Then, we have a big family gathering happening on Sunday - a combination welcome party for my cousin's new baby girl, and a surprise 70th birthday party for my uncle. It will be interesting to meet up with all the cousins again. Bobby won't be able to join us, though - he's going to be working all weekend. I will miss him - at events like that, it is so nice to be to catch his eye at certain moments and know that we're both thinking the same sort of thing... I am glad we are still in love. Someone I work with - actually, two people I work with - really seem to dislike their partners, and see them as nothing more than income sources. It's depressing listening to them - it must be grim to have annoyance as the primary emotion that you feel towards your spouse.

The movie last night was really good. I don't usually enjoy thrillers all that much, but I found this one gripping. I could actually feel my heart racing during the tense bits - so odd, that watching something that I knew was not real could affect my body so dramatically.

I've been tired today, though. I think having a full teaching load, and teaching on three courses, is catching up with me. So I am treating myself to an afternoon and evening off. I left work as soon as I'd finished teaching today (and of course, I will pay for that on the weekend, as Wednesday afternoons are my prep times) but I think it'll be worth it. So this afternoon, instead of working, I had my hair cut - and by a decent hairdresser, not by gruesome leaves-bald-patches girl - and then I bought myself a new sweater, and the new Nick Hornby book. So tonight after dinner there'll be no marking, and no lesson preparation. And also no run. Instead, there'll be a hot bath, snuggly pjs, a cup of tea and maybe a biscuit or two, and my new book. Aaaah.

Last hurrah

Bobby's mum and sister left for South Africa on Friday. It was lovely having them visit, and it still feels odd without them here - the house feels much emptier, and cooking meals for five instead of seven feels wrong. Hopefully it won't be too long before we see them again...




And today was my first day back at work after the summer holidays. Interestingly, I have noticed that the more holiday I have, the more I want. Apparently, for me, there is no such thing as enough free time. It's not that I don't like my job - I do, and I can't imagine a nicer one - but I like being on holiday with the kids more. Presumably I will get back into the swing of the work week, but I was shattered when I got home today, and it wasn't even a proper work day - just meetings and such!

Since yesterday was my final day of freedom we decided to have as full a day as possible. So we took the train to Waterloo early, and went to see Stephen's hall of residence. (He starts university on the 19th - eek!) He is so lucky - he'll be able to walk to his lectures along the Thames, looking at views like this one!




Then we went to Covent Garden Market, and looked at a variety of tat, and watched a guy on a unicycle.

Then on to Camden Market...




...for lunch next to the lock.



The food stalls there are amazing - everything from Ethiopian to Chinese.

Then to Regent's Park, for a lie down on the grass, a cup of tea, and a walk though the gardens...



... before going to Trafalgar Square, on to China Town, and to the book shops in Charing Cross Road.

This is a reflection in the mirrored surface of a bridge as we came up from a tube station.



While we were at Foyles, I bought myself a copy of Margaret Atwood's new book. I feel slightly guilty about it - normally I'd wait for the paperback or just get it out of the library - but the cover was so beautiful and it felt so satisfyingly heavy when I picked it up that I couldn't resist. The girls got books too. Sophie got Forever Rose, by Hilary McKay. I absolutely love her books, they are funny and honest and intelligent and also very charming. And Ems got Tell Me No Lies, by Malorie Blackman. Bobby is still working his way through a programming book he bought when he went into London with his sister last week, and Stephen is tackling some of the books he'll be studying, so they didn't get anything...

The weather was so gorgeous that we couldn't bear to go back home, so we went back to the South Bank and had supper outside at Wagamama.




We lingered for as long as we decently could, watching the people go by, and then wandered down onto the pebbles next to the Thames.




One thing about the British and the sun ... when it shines, the men tend to take their shirts off, and it's not always an appealing site.




This view, on the other hand, was truly beautiful...




We walked a roundabout way back to the station, and were well and truly tired by the time we got on the train. Not in as bad a way as the drunk guy who got on the train at East Croydon, though, and staggered up from his seat after a few minutes when he realised that he had no idea where he was, or where he was trying to go. He alternated by saying "Oh dearie, dearie me!" and "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" Lucky conductor, getting to deal with him...

Lazy afternoon

I have spent this afternoon lying on the bed, enjoying the afternoon sun coming through the loft windows, and reading Tea Time for the Traditionally Built. It has been extremely pleasant to spend a whole afternoon doing nothing much. I think the last time I enjoyed this particular luxury must have been in the summer.

I did get up early this morning though - early enough that the ducks and swans were all still asleep when I ran around the pond - and I tackled the last run of week 6 of the couch to 5k program. (That's the day that requires you to run for 25 minutes without stopping.) And I did it! Slowly, mind you ... but still, there's absolutely no way I could have done that six weeks ago. So I'm pleased about that, and looking forward to next week's runs.

After breakfast I had to go shopping for a new interview outfit. On the plus side, I did eventually manage to find an outfit I liked. I couldn't have done it without the girls - they were a great source of moral support and helpful advice during the choosing process. I'm so glad I have daughters as well as a son. On the minus side, the shopping took up the whole morning. Ugh. Oh the stress... I have an interview, not this Tuesday but the next one, and I would very much like to get the job. I feel anxious and butterfly-y and sweaty palmed just thinking about it...

Anyway, so this afternoon has been a much-needed antidote to all the work stress.

Tomorrow's going to have to be a work-day, I think; I have masses of prep to do...

Jacqueline Wilson and the T word

Well, this is a new one on me.

I've heard of parents who try to prevent libraries from stocking books that they feel are objectionable. (Oddly enough, usually the books that I think are most worth reading).

But this is the first time that I've come across a parent who tries to force an author to change part of her work.

Jacqueline Wilson is a prolific writer.



She's sold literally millions of copies of her books here in the UK, and won several awards. Her books are quite gritty; she deals with tough issues that British children might have to contend with - things like being in foster care, or coping with an irresponsible mother, or becoming homeless. After you've read a few, the books begin feel a bit samey and formulaic (the child is always imaginative and creative, the parents always lack insight and are generally hopeless), but Emily loved them when she was 10 or so, and Sophie really enjoys them now.

The book in question is her latest book, My Sister Jodie. Coincidentally, Sophie had this one out of the library last week, and read it over the weekend. (She enjoyed it very much). It's about sisters, and class, and new beginnings, and death - some quite intense stuff, which I can see that some children would find upsetting. But a woman named Anne Dixon doesn't object to that. What she objects to is the use of the word "twat". (A word which was originally slang for "vagina", but which is now generally thought of as not much more than a coarser version of "twit".) And because she, along with two other people, has complained about the fact that this word is used three times in the book, Random House is going to replace the word with "twit" in the next edition, and Asda (Walmart owned chain of supermarkets) won't be stocking the book until the new edition comes out.

I find this depressing. Jacqueline Wilson is clearly a thoughtful and intelligent person. If she chose to use a particular word in her book, she did so for a reason. As a spokesman from Random House says, "The word 'twat' was used in context. It
was meant to be a nasty word on purpose, because this is a nasty character." Nevertheless, however, Jacqueline Wilson has agreed to change the word to the more benign "twit". Which I think is a shame. As far as I'm concerned, if you don't like what an author writes, then by all means, don't buy their books. But don't try to force them to change to be in accordance with your views.

Interlude

The house is clean, because my parents will be arriving any minute, to spend the next few days with us. They'll be using Steve's room (since he has a double bed and an ensuite). I think I should ensure that they make overnight stays here at least once a month, as their visits seem to be the only time that Stephen ever cleans his domain.

Emily's (or Millie's, as she now wants to be known) room looks lovely too; we bought her a new bed frame and got rid of the horrible pine bunk bed set she's been using. The room looks so spacious and airy now! (Well, when I say spacious, I'm using spacious in the property-in-England sense - ie "barely has room for a single bed and a small desk".) We bought the bed frame (and a new desk chair) at Ikea the night before last. I'm quite proud of my allen wrench skills, as I put it all together on my own yesterday. And nothing's collapsed so far...

It's awfully quiet right now; Bobby's fiddling with his plane in the garage, Stephen is using his computer, and the girls are up in their rooms reading their new books. We went to Charing Cross Road on Thursday so Sophie could spend her two £5 book tokens. (She got one for coming first in the Science SATS in her school, and one for perfect attendance for the year. And they're particularly nice book tokens because you can redeem them at any book store). She found two books she wanted in Foyles; Knife Edge, the follow-on to the book we listened to in the car, and Sara's Face, by Melvyn Burgess. Both possibly a bit gritty for a just-turned-eleven year old; however, based on her previous track record with books, I think she'll probably enjoy them. It'll be interesting to hear what she has to say about them when she's through.

Now if only it would stop raining...

Home from the Highlands

I loved our recent camping trip. The Highlands are beautiful. Mountainous and remote; it's not often that one gets a feeling of space and emptiness in the United Kingdom, so we relished it. I wish we could have stayed longer. Scenery aside, the kids always get on so well when we're outdoors, and life is so uncomplicated. Meals, for instance, are so quick and easy, and we're always so hungry that they taste fabulous. Am toying with the idea of getting rid of all our current kitchen equipment and sticking to using the gas primus and the five enamel plates and cups that we use on camping trips.




We didn't book any campsites before we left, but the ones we stumbled across were lovely.





Aside from the midges. At first we didn't think they were too bad, but after a while ... aaargh! Horrible burny itchy bites that stick around for days. Midges in your hair are horrible; we now understand why people buy these funny looking helmet thingies. And the thought of using Midge as a pet name (as in The Various, a book which Sophie read recently), seems completely inappropriate.

My natural tendency is to want to sort everything out before we go on a trip, and book ahead; I'm coming around to doing things more spontaneously though, as the campsites we've booked online have often been disappointing compared to the ones we've found serendipitously.

The first campsite was at Glencoe; this picture was taken during a walk up the mountain. They filmed some of the Harry Potter movies here; I can see why.





This is Castle Stalker - for Monty Python fans, it's Castle Aaargggghhh, from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.





And this is Stephen, on the rather scary wire bridge at the base of Ben Nevis. We didn't climb Ben Nevis, much to Bobby's disappointment - since the kids just had trainers on, and we didn't have any cold weather gear, I vetoed it. Next time we'll come better prepared.





Two more castles - Castle Urquhart, on the shores of Loch Ness





and Castle Cawdor. Many bad Macbeth-inspired jokes were made.





More pictures of the second campsite we stayed at, as well as Oban and various family members, are here.

The road trip itself went well, largely because I made a giant sacrifice, and let Stephen and his long legs travel in the front with Bobby while I went in the back with girls. Hence, the car was a squabble and shove-free zone. We also all really got into the book-on-tape which we'd taken with us - Noughts and Crosses, by Malorie Blackman. It's aimed at young adults I think; a very good way of getting people to realise what apartheid was like. Some parts of it were almost too adult for Sophie but I think she was okay with it. Malorie Blackman does not seem to be the most subtle writer in the world, but the book certainly held everyone's attention, and sparked a lot of discussion. And it made Bobby and me remember how things used to be in South Africa... So odd to think that when I was pregnant with Stephen we were doing things like go to Free The Beaches protests. Seems like another world.

The Edible Woman

I had a weird Edible Woman type moment this morning, when I had to abandon my breakfast because the raspberries which I'd spooned over my porridge suddenly started looking like blood clots instead of like my favourite fruit. Disconcerting. I'll only really start to worry if I get the urge to make a woman-shaped cake and serve it up to Bobby, though.

Even though Emily and Stephen think it's a desperately bad idea (but mom, what if someone sees you?) and I too have slight qualms about helmet-hair, I have signed up for the cycle-to-work scheme which the college has offered us. It's a really cool system - if you buy a bicycle through cyclescheme, you take a salary sacrifice that allows you to pay the loan back over the course of a year from your gross, rather than your net, salary. And because you don't pay tax on the bicycle, you save about 43% of the cost of the bike. So you can get £300 worth of bike and accessories for well under £20 a month. The guidelines say that at least 50% of your use of the bike should be in getting to and from work, but that you can use it for leisure purposes as well. (Practically speaking, though, I don't really see that they can check up on how you often you actually end up riding to work.) I'm quite excited about it; went and chose a bicycle today and emailed the details off to the cyclescheme people, so now all I have to do is wait for them to send me the voucher than means I can go and collect my bike from the shop!

Other good things from today were the movie we just watched - Akeelah and the Bee, which all five of us enjoyed very much, and my new book, which arrived this morning, courtesy of an amazon gift voucher. I plan to spend a good chunk of tomorrow with it. I hope it rains (rather a safe hope, in England in January), so that I can listen to rain on the windows while I read. And I hope it's really chilly, so we can light the fire with a clear conscience.

The fittings for the new bathroom up in the loft arrived today. Yesterday, Homebase phoned to narrow the delivery time down to "between nine and four". Thanks for that, getting that specific time slot really helped me plan my day. We would have all had to stay at home all day today (my folks are spending a couple of days with us), except that Stephen kindly volunteered to be on delivery duty so that the rest of us could go out. The fact that we were going to spend the morning wandering through the antique shops in the rather picturesque, if oddly named, neighbouring town of Dorking may have had something to do with this display of altruism... Can't imagine why a teenage boy wouldn't want to spend a morning looking at furniture with his mother, sisters, and grandparents...

I bought a couple of books in the Oxfam bookshop while we were out; it's always nice shopping there because you know the money is going to a good cause, and - which sort of negates my first point - you're not spending very much. So right now I am reading The Oxford Murders, by Guillermo Martinez, and, as a fellow foreigner from a warm climate living in England, I'm finding it very amusing. Here is the passage I've just read :

"It was the beginning of April but I was glad I'd kept my coat on: there was an icy, cutting wind, and the pallid sun wasn't much help. Even so I noticed that almost everyone at at the fair occupying the square, as well as the Pakistani driver who opened his taxi door for me, was in short sleeves. I gave him Mrs Eagleton's address and as we drove off I asked him if he wasn't cold. 'Oh no, it's Spring,' he said, waving towards the pallid sun as if this were irrefutable proof'.

That said, even I am enjoying the weather today. Beautifully warm, yet crisp and clear ... like the best possible winter's Durban day, really.

Em's cortisol test tomorrow... It'll be good to get that out of the way...

So my darling Sophie is 10. A whole decade old.

This time ten years ago, she and I were tucked up in bed together. She'd been born about three hours before; a beautiful, calm birth in the bath tub in the little Durban duplex where we lived. She was an tranquil little baby, and she's still pretty much that way. She gets along with most people, and she makes the best of whatever circumstances life throws at her. She's funny - she has quite an acid sense of humour at times - and kind, and tough ... and very level-headed. I love her very much.

She enjoyed her day today, I think. It's sometimes hard to tell with her, because she doesn't like to hurt anyone's feelings, so she doesn't always let on if she's disappointed about something. When she found out we couldn't do the Go Ape thing, for instance, she didn't fuss or complain, she just accepted it, even though she was sad. But, the day went according to the new plan she'd mapped out, and she certainly seemed to enjoy it a lot.

She opened her gifts, and then had her current favourite breakfast (pancakes, and french toast ... both) - and then we went to Bluewater to do some shopping. With her sister's help, she picked out a new outfit and some new trainers and ... somewhat against my better judgement - got her ears pierced.

I have (possibly irrational) issues with little girls and pierced ears - it smacks of kiddy exploitation to me, somehow. But, she's been wanting them pierced for absolute ages, and since she has to take out any studs on PE days at school, it's either do it now, right at the start of the summer holidays, or wait another year till the next 6 week period where her ears can heal uninterruptedly.

Anyway, she was determined, and she didn't flinch at all during the piercing process, and she was thrilled with the end result. And even I have to admit that she looks awfully sweet with her little gold studs. So that's done.

Shopping and piercing done, we ate out before we headed over to see The Simpsons Movie. (Hilarious, I highly recommend it). Came home, played Clue, ate birthday cake ... and then I felt Soph's forehead and realised she was running a temperature. She is adamant that she feels fine, but I think we may have to go to the doctor's tomorrow - obviously she's not over the bug she had earlier in the week.

More birthday pictures here...

Oh, I almost forgot - I had a moment of sheer outrage in the cinema this afternoon, when I realised that the trashy preview I was watching was for the film version of one of my all-time favourite books - Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising. Coincidentally, one of Sophie's gifts from us this morning was the set of all five books in the series. The film version looks pathetic, though. It's all kick boxing and flames and American accents. Just Not Right.

Going up to bed just now (that's a South Africanism I still have - "just now" to us means "in a bit" or "later" or sometimes even "never", depending on context...) and it is nice that I'm going to get under the same duvet cover that was on our bed the night Sophie was born. It's one of the few possessions that has travelled along with us this past decade...

The sun has been shining for the past few days and our loft conversion is coming on apace. The stairs are in, the floor is half-done, and today three new windows went in. It's all very exciting.

The builders have put a big yellow skip out in the street in front of our house, and it's filling up with chunks of old boards, pipes and so on. Today I noticed that some of our neighbours must have been sneaking stuff into our skip - there's a set of golf clubs, some bright green kiddy chairs, and an old bicycle in there too. I am sort of annoyed by this, which is a bit mean-spirited of me, as it does me no harm...

Am still reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and am enjoying it a lot, though I find the bits written by Camille Kingsolver, Barbara's daughter, slightly sanctimonious. I suppose it is the fervour of youth; all that eagerness to convert.

Work is winding down; just one more week to go before the holidays start. We've got our faculty day out tomorrow; going to Sheffield Park (a National Trust property). Should be enjoyable, so long as the rain holds off for one more day.

This past week...

Barbara Kingsolver was great. She seems like such an interesting person; and likeable too. We are now inspired to make a real effort to eat locally. We won't be eating much out of our own garden, though, as all we currently have are herbs and potatoes. We have planted some other things (peppers, marrows, eggplant) , but they've not yet got to the edible stage. And with our track record, it's entirely possible that they'll never get there.

Last night was good too. I went to a pub with work friends where we played skittles, which I guess must have been the fore-runner of ten pin bowling. Nine wooden skittles which you have to pick up yourself after they've been knocked down. It was fun, and it got more fun the more Pimms I drank.

Haven't done much today (aside from weed the vegetable patch). Bobby and Stephen drove all the way to North Wales today to do some climbing; got a call at 6pm to say they were at the top of the climb (it's a multi-pitch climb and probably quite dramatic) so I shudder to think what time they'll arrive home - I can't see them getting back before 1 or 2 in the morning. Wish I could have gone too but Emily's paper round makes it impossible for all of us to make an early Saturday-morning start, and, aside from that, I still don't feel very well.

Thogh I think I am finally starting to feel a bit better. Am having more blood tests done next week and have a referral to a neurologist; the doctor said that I'd probably be better by the time that came through but that she'd make it "just in case". Told a friend this and she said, encouragingly, "well, either better or dead".

I still feel horrible.

However, on the assumption that I will eventually recover, I have booked tickets for us to go and hear one of our favourite authors, Barbara Kingsolver, speaking about her new book at the South Bank's London Literature Festival on Wednesday night. Can't wait!