Posts filed under 'Family'
It’s that post-Christmas time when you are allowed, nay encouraged, to do some thinning of your possessions. Spring may feel far off - it certainly did this morning when I was soaked by hail at the bus stop - but it is clearly never too early for spring cleaning.
Charity shops have long been on our high streets, and certainly within my sights for second hand books. Now they seem to be getting bigger business, or perhaps rather, understanding how to make things easier for people to donate.
This week saw two different bags put through the door to encourage us to donate items. Usually it’s clothes, shoes, linen. You can safely watch any amount of clothes shows that encourage you to have a good sort-out of your wardrobe, smug in the knowledge that you didn’t need prompting.
The second was one of a newer type - they are open to you putting in other items, and even include the fateful words ‘bric-a-brac’, just in case you were in doubt as to how much in the way of household junk you could include. They also included a useful bag design so you could a) get lots in and b) tie the handles at the top. all for the good in encouraging you to put in lots.
I’m starting to think that, for all of local councils encouraging recycling, charity shops are filling many of the remaining gaps. I’m not saying that we should give them our dross - we shouldn’t - but there are always items that are not quite packaging for regular recycling, but that could find a new life somewhere else.
However, the key touch today, when I came home from work, was finding a card through the letterbox from the charity which did today’s collection. They said thank you for the items, and they indicated just what a local charity shop could hope to achieve in a day, week, month, year, through our contributions.
Importantly, they encouraged me to keep going. I’m sure I could choose to sell some of my stuff on eBay, but I’m now all the more excited to find out how much of a PhD I am indirectly funding to help with cancer research. That’s better than a quality seller’s record - and much easier than all those trips to the post office to send off the items.
On the principle of awarding merit where it’s due, support Cancer Research, folks. They know what they want, they declutter you better than an article in a woman’s magazine will do - and they remember to tell you why it matters.
January 24th, 2008
So, firstly, I’m on holiday (but I’m not allowed to be smug about it, given that others are still working). Which secondly means a chance to catch up on things that don’t often happen during ‘term time’ (despite the fact I’m not at school).
One of is the option of meeting up with family. Had the chance to meet Mum for lunch, look round the shops in Bruntsfield, then head on together to see Granny. Now I know you think I could be doing this at the weekend too, and that does happen too. But there’s something particularly nice about doing these things on a week day, as though you had all the time in the world, or at least enough to choose how to spend the day.
One way and another, the combination of buses to get around between these various points in town meant that I was travelling particular routes that I hadn’t done for a while. When we lived in Inverleith, we would frequently get buses that went up the Mound, so I was able to catch up on what has been happening up and down that route. I used to walk home that way when I worked in Bruntsfield, and you skirt the university area between the two, so got a glimpse again of that.
Bruntsfield itself is familiar from a couple of years working there, so the chance to go out for lunch in a familiar area, and see what had changed, was good. Discovered a new children’s book shop, Fidra Press, which both sells their own books - reissuing classic school stories, amongst others - and others. It has a comfy armchair in the window. I can only say it’s a good job for my bank account that I am no longer working in Bruntsfield…
Coming back on the bus from Juniper Green, happened to get one which goes through Colinton. This is the route of my memories as a little girl, visiting my grandparents in Edinburgh, and on occasion, going into town on a double decker bus. Colinton is a good place for overhanging branches, so if you sit upstairs at the front, they fairly thwack the top of the bus, which is exciting when you’re six, and still quite interesting when you’re thirtysomething…
All these buses pass through Tollcross, where we used to live when we were first married. Again, with the emergence of both German and Polish master baker shops, it is again helpful for my purse, and my waistline, that we are no longer living there…but worth a thought for a return visit.
Now I could do all this on a regular day, it’s true. But travelling at this time of year, with thick frost, with mistiness as you come down the hill into Edinburgh and see the lights below, with shop windows lit up and families out and about having pre-Christmas treats at the theatre or cinema…It’s not so different to being six again. The warmth of the bus, the extended journeys on each route, lull you into a state of observing, watching though drowsy, like a child on a long trip home.
This is my city. I may not always have lived here. But I have been here for over a third of my life now, and I love the fact that I have memories of it before that. I remember Slateford Road before all the new developments were built. When you could park on a muddy bit of land where the Western approach road now hums between banks and leisure centres in order to visit Princes Street. When there was still a cafe at the top of Habitat on Shandwick Place.
Yesterday, standing by Tollcross, waiting to change buses, a car swung by, and someone leaned out of the window to shout “Merry Christmas!” I can still feel the size of my smile about it, writing today.
December 20th, 2007
Just written another post about how to prepare for Christmas. Grant you, it won’t get the turkey bought, or the crackers pulled. But here’s another option.
Back in my teens, I came across a book called “A Formal Feeling”, by the American author Zibby Oneal. The book tells the story of Anne, coming home for Christmas from boarding school. The home she comes to is not quite home - her mother is dead, and a new stepmother is there. Traditions have changed.
Anne struggles with the changes, not just in the home, but in her father and brother, who seem happy with the new arrangements. Slowly, Anne starts to remember that not every Christmas was perfect…
For some reason, perhaps because of the way the book builds up the details of Christmas - choosing the tree, singing carols in the choir, making the adjustment from being at school to being at home all day - it became part of my preparation for Christmas for many years. Somewhat like an advent calendar, I would read a chapter a day, building up the picture of Christmas, building up the picture of Anne, and her mother.
This year, I’m starting late. 17th already. But having lost five different people this year, friends and family, somehow I hope I can use reading this book to reflect on those I want to remember. In some cases, there are shared memories of Christmases, and times after Christmas and into New Year, together. In others, I don’t know how they spent their time.
Christmas is a time of repetition. We start a way of doing things, and soon build up our own traditions, that are almost easier to keep than to question. But Christmas soon turns to New Year, and new beginnings, even if we don’t want the resolutions that might go with them.
Somehow, I trust that reading this book will help me remember the repetitions, and look for new beginnings too. And, like Anne, that it will help me tease out what I think I remember, and what else was part of those relationships.
Perhaps, one of the best presents is being able to accept life as we and others have lived it, good and bad, cut short or lived longer. The title of the book comes from an Emily Dickinson poem, which ends:
“This is the Hour of Lead-
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the snow-
First - Chill - then Stupor - then the letting go-”
December 17th, 2007
Another Christmas party today, combined with a house warming do. Our friends Alison and David have recently moved to Dunfermline, and had a general open house party.
So far, so good. We drank the mulled wine, admired the large greenhouse, views of the golf course behind, and tried to stop their (currently) youngest from eating the entire contents of the coffee table. (Actually, if he ate the lot, that would be worrying, given the toys stored in the boxes that are part of the table. Anyway, you get the picture.)
In good pedestrian mode, we got there by public transport, and trecked up through town from the train station. Dunfermline needs to market its ownership of a Primark to inhabitants of Edinburgh. Why go to Glasgow, and pay lots more on the train, when you can go to Dunfermline? And, indeed, continue your shopping in Peacocks next door? (Peacocks is particularly favoured by 9 year old girls who have an eye for current fashion trends, but I’m pretty sure it would say its appeal is wider than that.)
Heading back, all going fine, until we hear that points failure a couple of stops up the line mean that trains are all quite delayed. The nice station guard arranges taxis, and by the time we are at the head of the queue, they are running them all the way through to Edinburgh. However, this move, while generous, means that all but two of Dunfermline’s taxi fleet has been pressed into service to get people back over to Edinburgh. On a Saturday night in December (a rather chilly one by that time), this would probably not be popular among other evening party goers.
On our way over to Edinburgh, the lady on the taxi radio service was heard to enquire who was ‘back over the water yet?’ Clearly we will have to learn the lingo for further visits. But it was quite a reminder that it is quite a journey between the two toons, and that we have two mighty bridges that allow us to take these things for granted.
On the train over the rail bridge, it is rather ominous looking at the girders, some showing paint, and some clearly showing rust that bit more. Hopefully they’ll hold out a bit longer, even for the sake of keeping up auld aquaintances.
December 15th, 2007
Dan’s mum has got a mobile phone. And I managed to teach her how to use it!
Made me realise how far I’ve come, being able to do so. Only a bit over a year ago, I was still getting my head round texting, remembering to check for messages, that kind of thing. I still jump when my mobile rings, text bound as I tend to be.
But clearly I’ve learned something. What pleased me most was feeling confident enough to check all the options, search for what we needed, as her phone was a bit different to mine. Normally this level of experimentation with technology is not really me. But perhaps a little, now and then, is manageable. Onward and upward.
December 9th, 2007
Now if memory jogging counted as exercise, I’d be well away…Currently trying to house several years’ worth of photos. There’s a certain amount of memory jogging taking place, as I try to remember what order things happened in, which year we visited whom, and so on.
Inevitably, you get drawn into the subject matter even as you file them away in albums. Looking at ones from our two trips to the States, in 2002 and 2003, it’s easy to step back into that world a little. Buildings, people, views, cafes, that kind of thing. When the kettle boils, or the letter box goes, it’s odd popping back into the ‘real world’.
I certainly couldn’t have related to you what was in the photos until I looked at them again. Some would see that as a reason to junk them - in the way that if you’ve not worn something for six months, it should go out. (As global warming increases, and the seasons feel fairly similar in Scotland, I guess the argument holds even more. It’s not like you’re keeping it for ‘the summer’, after all.)
But there again, some would say they are there all the time anyway. It’s estimated that we do actually retain large amounts of what we see, even if we’re not consciously aware of it. The regular comments of those who face near-death experiences is that images do seem to flash in front of your eyes - your life speeded up, a self-loading picture gallery, a lifetime’s worth of photo albums.
Oliver Sachs, in his book “The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat”, goes further - after some brain malfunctions, it can be as though we relive earlier episodes in real time. One of his chapters deals with someone who, as her illness increases, spends longer and longer in earlier, and happier, parts of her childhood. When she dies, the nurses suggest that she has finally “gone home”, to the country she grew up in.
Enticing though it would be to spend time on the same holidays again (and what a money saver eh? two for the price of one!), it’s also good to be reminded of time edging on in the present day. Who knows - maybe prices would have gone up since you were away? Maybe you would now question the relevance of the particular day trip you’d looked forward to? And would we feel like we were having deja vu, returning to the same experiences?
The real world we blink back into has pots and pans, bills and budgets. But it also has sunsets that occur in real time. Plenty of new material for the memory to work on.
December 1st, 2007
Having spent a week with 4 children, felt the need to capture a few of this year’s catch phrases from them.
As we now see them (and their parents) about once a year, what they can say and do moves on a lot. We continue to use last year’s phrases, brush them off and bring them out again when we’re there, and then the parents realise that they’ve forgotten all about them saying that.
The eldest is now reading fluently in English and Italian. However, we were able to teach her ’sausages and chips’ as a game for saying things with a straight face. She’s hugely enjoying jokes at the moment, and we also taught her ‘life is but a melancholy flower’ (try singing it to the tune of Frere Jacques, and you’ll see what we mean). Her favourite knock knock joke is the Irish stew one…yes, you know you remember it.
(What’s scary, or probably reassuring, is how many of the jokes in her joke books I remember from my own childhood, and how they are still funny to her.)
Next in line is now into horses as well as ponies…and is starting to read a bit in English. She is also inventing her own jokes, though these don’t really quite work yet. She is very clear on music, and refers to particular songs as “X’s song” because they are no. 7 on the CD, and that’s the age of her sister! Any queries on Womble themed songs should be addressed here, except when she has the “Womble Tidybag Blues”.
The boy of the troupe is now 3, and is fluent in mechanical machinery. When I suggested one of his toys was a digger, he told me no, it was a snow plough…Another good one was when we all went out for a walk around a hill town an hour away. Seeing woods nearby, his dad asked him if he thought there were wolves nearby. “Oh yes” came the cheerful reply, as he toddled off.
The youngest is only 2 and a half months old, so can’t really be held to much in language. Never the less, there are good amounts of arm waving, and making noises back several times so that it sounds like a conversation. She was also introduced to being read to, by dint of being wedged against me while I read ‘Mr Tickle’ to her brother. We reprised this later with ‘Elmer’ and all 3 older children on the sofa, which seemed to go down well!
As for our own achievements, we have become acquainted with “Dora the Explorer” (We did it! We did it!). It’s not as good as last year’s “Chicken in a school” quote, but I’m sure we’ll remember more from this year as we settle back in to life with fewer small but cheerful distractions.
November 10th, 2007
This post is dedicated to Nico van Loenen, who died on Wednesday. Nico and his family lived two doors up from us when I was at secondary school. Our families became friends soon after we moved to Malvern.
Nico and my dad would hang out together on Tuesdays, when I, my mum and Nico’s wife Daphne went off to choir. Their evenings involved wine, sometimes gruesome films, arguments that they both enjoyed a lot. And probably much more…I wasn’t there to see.
After Mum and Dad moved up to Scotland, Dad would still phone Nico. In the last few months, when we knew that Nico had terminal cancer, Dad continued to phone on Tuesday nights.
No one wants an ending, but we all have one anyway. In Nico’s case, huge numbers of family and friends came to say goodbye, from many different countries. We had time with him in April, and had to say our goodbyes face to face at that point, but I’m glad Dad continued to speak to him.
“Hello my girl…” was Nico’s regular greeting. It seems strange to think that I won’t be greeted in that way again - I even hear him say it when I think of him tonight. Goodbye, my father’s friend, and also mine, I say. Hail and farewell, ave atque vale.
October 25th, 2007
All of a sudden, quite a lot of new stuff coming up all at the same time…
I’ve been on the singing team at church for quite a while - not bad as a way to be involved, and more creative than cleaning the loos. (If you’ve come up with a creative way of cleaning loos, let me know. Although it may depend on what state the loo was in to start with. Maybe we’ll leave that one there…) This means I turn up around once a month, practise the songs with the band, learn any new ones, and sing with the rest of the band during the morning service.
This morning, things felt a big sluggish, and I could feel myself getting a bit miffed, because we were singing some good stuff about God. There are usually gaps for people to sing out their own songs to God (ie made up on the spot, though usually familiar words), and all of a sudden I found myself doing this.
Now you might think that if I could sing into a microphone in front of others, it wouldn’t be such a big deal to do this. But it’s bit nerve wracking, particularly with the thought “Is this right? Is this what God wants to say at this point?” And I don’t want to sing platitudes for the sake of it, just because there’s a gap.
I was almost literally shaking by the end of it…but I also knew that it had all come from God. Because the uncertainty went, the words were there, the tune was there, and somehow, I also knew how to lead it back in so that others could sing bits of it too.
Why write about this? Because it’s another mark of what God has been changing in me. I love music, I’ve sung or played for ages. But it’s taken nearly ten years to break through to this in what is my familiar church, the place where all the significant things have happened since I became a Christian.
Coming home afterwards, I spoke on the phone to Dan’s mum, and was mentioning a group I’ve been to one life stages. Talking to another person in the group, they had also experienced changes, confusion, but a greater creativity coming with it. It’s something I’ve found too, that’s moved me on to getting this laptop and writing. But to gain this for something else that’s important to me…I didn’t hope for it. I didn’t ask for it. But I’m certainly grateful.
Will I do it again? Perhaps the more important issue is: am I prepared for God to do it again? I think the answer has to be yes.
Will I go along with Him? If He can help me, and show me now, the hardest step has already been done.
October 21st, 2007
So, it’s that time of year again; heading off to somewhere sunny and/or friendly for my birthday. How I’ve managed to escape having a 30-something birthday party is mainly down to getting out of the country. Perhaps I’ll stick around for number 35 (Oct 31st 2008 - will take bookings online), and we can celebrate then.
As we’re due to be in the South of France from next weekend for a week, Alison suggested that we head to Monte Carlo - the seat of the principality of Monaco - for my birthday. Top idea and somewhere that I’ve wanted to visit since I was 12 and heard all about it from my best friend at school.
He had lived there from 7-11 while his dad worked for Barclays. The enduring image was that his school playground was on the roof of a fifteen storey building and I’m going to try and seek it out. Google Earth may be useful too.
At the age of 12 my over-active, unrealistic expectation would have had me relaxing on a motor yacht in the harbour and living it up by my mid-30s. Life is harder than that, though a picnic on the side quayside is fine. The challenge will be finding a baguette that doesn’t break the bank.
This time next week, we’ll be looking out over the Med. If that doesn’t keep me going this week, I don’t know what will.
October 20th, 2007
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