autumn term

The autumn is well and truly upon us: we have finally finished the runner beans and are deluged with apples instead, and upholstery classes have begun again.
My latest piece is a commision which will cover the materials and tuition, so I get to learn for free and the owner gets her chair revamped.
Youngest is now a sixth former with a lengthy reading list and Eldest is back in Oxford though not quite back at university yet - we deliver the rest of her stuff when she moves back into hall next week, always assuming I've found and packed her requirements!

Prom frock

Ready to roll! It's tonight and she's going in a friend's father's Jaguar - hopefully it is a better plan than Eldest's fire-engine which was fun but late.

Vintage family

These are the wedding outfits, one dress suit made (by me) for a wedding in 2007 and one (by mother) for a wedding in the 1960s! (Luckily Youngest has no pre-conceived ideas about Crimplene.) A beautiful, intimate late afternoon and evening affair the wedding was a privilege to attend.

I have no pictures for the Church Fete. The weather, which had been promised to be fair all week, was in fact chilly and overcast, but luckily people turned out in goodly numbers and it remained dry such that we sold out of food and booze and a jolly good time was had by all. I maintain that this is a village party first and a church fund raiser second, but it was pleasing to make the second best grand total to date.

“I don’t realise how much I miss you guys until I see you,” said Eldest as we shared a picnic on Saturday evening. Husband and I travelled to Oxford to attend the last night of a play performed in the grounds of Worcester College – on their lake! – for which Eldest was Stage Manager. She is thoroughly engaged in life at university, but in Maths and backstage management – not parties and boys! She might be home in September, and will manage a few days of the family holiday in France, but is otherwise engaged over the summer with a university production that they are taking to the Edinburgh Fringe…

We are happy that she is happy, but, may I say to those of you who have yet to get to this stage, it comes as something of a shock that your offspring have other things to do and you are pretty much irrelevant! Make the most of the time you have with them because it flies by. As my mother remarked: “And…?!”

Update

I am of course busy with a chair, a sixties version of the fifties one I did recently. I think it may become a wedding present for Husband’s friend and godfather to Youngest. (A happy second marriage for both parties.) And today I was asked by an acquaintance to look at a chair with the prospect of my reupholstering it – though she’s only after a quote having already had one which she presumably considers too much!

I have put an advertisement in the parish mag offering two sewing workshops at the end of June with the view to starting classes in September. No idea if anyone will bite.

Eldest, a clever girl, has had two parcels delivered home this week that she needed in college. She promises to look at delivery addresses more carefully next time.

Youngest starts her GCSEs tomorrow with Religious Studies. I have no idea whether she’s done enough revision, questions from her parents result in much eye-rolling but little information.

Our hall is looking terrific but there is still decorating to do and the sewing room and girls’ room are overflowing with extraneous furniture, papers and donations to the church fête – which is still a month away!

A happy accident

Got a call from Youngest’s School on Wednesday: she’d fallen in PE, couldn’t put weight on her foot and needed to be fetched home. Mummy to the rescue, of course, but what to do with her? Called at the local GPs to be told we’d have to wait for someone to be free and then a doctor would have to fill in a form and send us to Swindon for an x-ray. They suggested we’d be better going to A&E. Feeling rather guilty I drove to Tetbury, where there is a little part time department. They were very welcoming (despite our Wiltshire address in a Gloucestershire hospital) and within ten minutes we were sat in a room with a very efficient but friendly nurse poking Youngest’s foot. We came away with instructions to keep her foot up and rested for at least 24 hours, to take lots of pills and to walk only with the (demonstrated) crutches provided.
Today she has gone to school, clearly fine in herself, but on crutches and putting no weight on her damaged ankle. It would seem the nurse knew what she was doing when she decided not to send the patient for an x-ray; she certainly convinced us it wasn’t necessary.

The hospital was marvelous. They had the time and all was well and Tetbury is only a 15 minute drive from the GP surgery. Although I am slightly puzzled by the advice… I suppose they’d argue there was no guarantee she wouldn’t need an x-ray and as soon as she did they’d made extra work for themselves, but it does seem a bit mad. With GPs running businesses I guess they don’t want anyone hanging about waiting for the possibility of people turning up needing advice now, appointments today are rarely available.

Wash day blues

I have failed in my motherly duties!

Eldest bakes like a professional most of the time although she rarely cooks savoury food; but she can follow a recipe: she’ll be fine. And it’s catered accommodation anyway. She’ll not starve.
Last week we purchased a collapsing laundry bin. She is going to accumulate her own washing from now and have a go at sorting and laundering for herself. Apparently this will be “more fun” than doing the families laundry… I feel guilty that she doesn’t know the first thing about sorting, choosing the right programme, pegging out on the line or programming the tumble dryer; but more so that she thinks this might be fun.
I am a passionate sorter and a user of all the varied programmes on my washing machine. I get an immense satisfaction from smoothing and folding clean clothes. (Regular readers may remember that I do not iron.) But: fun?
We’ll see.

The photo is of Eldest's 18th birthday cake, by special request because "It's not fair, I never had a pink castle."

No need to translate flapjack!

When little French girls came to stay I developed an e-mailing habit with Maman, based on my O level French, long before they arrived. If the girls didn’t understand I fished out ancient vocab and we managed. At midnight yesterday we greeted Youngest’s Spanish exchange girl. My Spanish is minimal, of the hola/gracia variety. I am hoping her English will be good enough for us to manage the week. I have had no contact with Madre…

We do know she was very pleased to discover flapjack which you may remember Youngest took as a gift to her hosts. Spanishgirl had hot chocolate and flapjack on arrival and has had the same for breakfast – and taken some to school for snack. She left with Eldest to catch the bus; some careful organization has resulted in a clash of the Spanish exchange with the Work Experience week so Youngest is not at school to be followed today.

This week has been all about my taxi. Youngest has had to be in Chippenham for work from 9 to 4.30. She is loving working in the Swindon and Wiltshire History Centre where she’s been tasked with writing a timeline for our village for their website. I did look at the bus, but it takes an hour and she'd be leaving at 7.30... so that means two round trips a day for me. And then I do the ballet run three nights a week for Eldest.

We will go again tomorrow to catch the train to London to show off the capital and visit the Hockney exhibition. I’m hoping Husband might drive.

Being a Happy Mother

I may not be doing well at keeping an interesting and informative commentary on the life of this hausfrau, but I have had a busy week:

I have turned 10 sad, pilled cushion covers into 5 revamped ones for  Friendwithmatchinggirls for a small fee.

I have cleaned and tidied the bits of the house that show for a fete meeting on Friday and a supper party last night; making apple and walnut muffins for one and liver parfait, beetroot and orange soup, chocolate, chilli and walnut braised beef and an iced raspberry soufflé in a chocolate case for the other.

I have bought fabric for my new upholstery project, finished stripping back the chair so I could mend the springs and started the refurbishing task.


Oh, and I’ve promised the chair to Oldschoolfriend for the cost of the components. She has just embarked on a major upgrade of her house and is feeling down at the enormity of the disturbance to her home which is such that it makes relaxing at the end of the day impossible.

Today I have received cards from my girls and rather different rewards for being their mother: Youngest gave me two bars of chocolate that she’s rather hoping I’ll share and deigned to provide quality time by helping me to clean and tidy (her mess from) the room in which her Spanish Exchange student will be sleeping come Thursday. Eldest, on the other hand, has taken over the kitchen today. We were given eggy bread with fried apples followed by ginger and pear muffins for brunch; are shortly to be called to treacle soda bread and honey for tea and are to be treated this evening to a three course supper that she has been planning all week!

Consequences

Once upon a time I could pinpoint events in my life by where I was living. I can still do this with the past of course, just not with the last eight years. Every time we moved we reviewed our possessions and cleaned behind all the furniture… But that’s another story.

Because we were living in a particular house with metal framed windows that Mother used to seal up with sheets of plastic in the winter to provide crude double glazing, and I wasn’t yet at boarding school, I know that I must have been about ten. Our quarter had four bedrooms, two of them tiny, but, for the first time, we all had rooms of our own. My room contained a set of bunk beds, a small table and a single cupboard. It is this bed from which I famously leapt (I slept on the top) when, glancing up from my Puffin Post, which I was reading by the light on the landing, I saw an enormous spider dangling above me. My screams brought my parents to the rescue - though Father disappeared when he realized from what I needed rescuing!
I cannot tell you how long my parents were out, or where they had gone, but, one sunny day I produced the candles I had been given for Christmas, found the matches in the kitchen, and demonstrated lighting them in one of my younger brothers’ bedrooms. I have a sense of the awe we felt at such daring, we’d never been told not to light candles, but it had never previously occurred to us. Of course the smell of extinguished candle reached the nostrils of our parents as soon as they returned. The boys were sent to their rooms, and I, as the leader and chief culprit, was put over Father’s knee and spanked with the back of a hairbrush.
I was humiliated but not physically hurt. I have not been permanently scarred, but I certainly thought twice before leading those little boys into scrapes! I am quite certain that for my parents it wasn’t really about punishment but about just how frightened they were: the ‘what might have been’. The Consequences. I bear no grudge: he was absolutely right! The short, sharp shock of the spanking has stayed with me – though my parents claim to have forgotten the incident.
I cannot remember smacking either of my girls, but I do remember the odd slap around the nappy accompanied by a sharp ‘No!’ to warn of unacceptable behaviour –pinching or biting as I recall, usually of each other. I’d be surprised if they remember. Smacking is not something I have felt necessary, but then Eldest never showed Youngest where to find the matches and how to use them!

Playing Favourites

Would you admit to having a favourite child?

Both my girls’ godmothers claim I favour the other child so I’m hoping that means I’ve got it right, but how do I know?
I am currently engaged in trying to be proud when Youngest comes home to announce she’s got a B grade… I am not doing well.
I don’t want you to misunderstand! Youngest is an adorable child whose greatest need has always been to be regularly hugged. She is bright, articulate, beautiful and artistic. She is also surly, determined she is right, shockingly untidy and not interested in personal hygiene but likes make-up, nail varnish and perfume. At our first parent teacher meeting at Secondary school we were told that she had scored highly in aptitude tests and was thus expected to be in top sets with top target grades. Thus I can only conclude that, were she at either of her parents’ schools, she would receive reports that stated ‘could do better’. (She does not: her reports are glowing.)
She is not helped by her scary academic sister. Eldest is good at everything – well, if she isn’t good at it she doesn’t try. I believe I have previously recorded the tears over Art homework in Yr 7 because she couldn’t draw realistically (she draws wonderful cartoony concepts for birthday cards). Eldest is in her final year of school, engrossed in A levels, dance and baking. She is on target to achieve good grades and has received offers from all the universities to which she has applied to do Maths. She is pretty, getting better at showing affection and can join in amusing conversation when she chooses to leave her tidy room.
They are my pride and joy. They are my pleasure and my biggest worry. I love them both but recognize that I like different things about them. Inevitably I feel I have probably treated them differently, after all, I learned from the first one, and adapted my methods for the second! Each thinks I favour the other – Eldest’s activities get first dibs on my taxi and use of the front seat; Youngest doesn’t have to eat vegetables, or finish her main course in order to get pudding; and I tidy her room for her (when it all gets too much for me!)… All this is true and, I would argue, shows balance, though others might say I am being unreasonable. Certainly I am guilty of different expectations of their behaviour. Isn’t that what we do with everyone we meet? The relationship is an interactive one informed by previous interactions. I don’t suppose I treat anyone like anyone else. How about you?

A Tale of Two Cakes

Last weekend Youngest was spoilt lovingly by her grand and godparents. Today she’s being indulged by us and, once she’s been to school and taken a Physics test (“How unfair is that?”) , we will have a giggle of teenage girls to pizza and a movie at our house. She is 15 today.


Sunday’s cake was a large version of Delia’s Lemon Curd cake: melting, lemony and tasteful.

Tonight’s is Barbie dressed in a coffee flavoured confection and dripping in Smarties. I haven’t made a Barbie cake since they were small, and never before for Youngest – a fact which she clearly felt I should put right! She’s not seen it yet. Barbie is hiding in the (cold) spare room. I think she will go down well - despite Eldest helpfully remarking that "She looks like a pineapple".

Not quite Christmas

I went to Manchester on Wednesday for reasons explained further down the page. Despite decorations and signs to the contrary it turned out they weren't quite ready for Christmas!

Youngest, as predicted, had a ball in Spain last week.

She’s been taken all over Madrid, but also to Toledo and Segovia and indulged with a variety of gifts – from a calendar of teenage fairies through a variety of sweet treats to a copy of Don Quixote (in English) and a Peanuts sweatshirt. She was exhausted when collected on Friday at midnight but also too excited to go to bed until we’d been told more news than we could be expected to absorb. We didn’t see her ‘til lunchtime on Saturday. The gifts we sent went down well. The flapjack was a particular success: they want the recipe! We'll teach Spanishgirl to make it when she visits in March.


Eldest received a conditional offer from Nottingham and an invitation to Manchester for an interview last week. I was requested to accompany her (joy!) and Wednesday was the day we went up. We left the house at 7.25am and parked at the station in time for the train to Cheltenham Spa. There we waited for 40 minutes before getting on a train to Manchester arriving at midday. A hasty 20 minute walk across town took us to the Alan Turing Building for a buffet lunch (pastries with a variety of fillings, rather dry) where we were invited to listen to a lecture on the delights of studying Maths at said university plus a taster lecture. This was to be followed by a tour where parents would be taken off separately. We agreed I didn’t need to hear the lecture and had pretty much had a tour marching through from the station so I decanted at that point for a little retail therapy. Eldest, meanwhile, got on with the programme.
She and Husband had visited earlier in the year. The lecture was the same as the one she’d heard, though the taster was interesting (but perhaps not useful?). The tour was also the same and, as last time, failed to show them any accommodation: apparently you have to come on a different day for that… Her interview lasted little more than ten minutes and, apart from a Maths problem, consisted of a chap asking questions whose answers could have been found on her UCAS form. I hope she made a better impression on her interviewer than he did on her!
We met up again at 3.30 and pottered around the town centre before heading for the station and some supper. I reduced the cost of the day by booking a 7pm train home so we had a certain amount of hanging about to do. The same route back brought us to our front door just after 11pm. I had good company for my outing, we enjoyed the occasion, but I’m not at all convinced it was worth the cost or the time! When I described the day to Husband he declared me 'Mrs. Grumpy', I dispute this: the day was a novelty and the only other time I went to Manchester I saw no more than the station the inside of a taxi and a meeting room, so I enjoyed my exploration… but I do think the university got the plan wrong, and I am cross about the £130.

Pinkification

Does it matter if girls like pink? Are they programmed to love pink or do they learn from everyone around them that pink is for girls and blue is for boys? Kat Arney in her programme on Radio 4 last week talked about pinkification, nature and nurture. You can read her article here or listen to the programme here, but I’m afraid the bit that I latched on to was that apparently you can buy a Snow White pink vacuum cleaner that sings ‘Some Day My Prince Will Come’ as you play – is he going to free you from chores or keep you doing it I wonder?!


When my girls were little it was certainly possible to buy them pink clothes and toys, but there were plenty of ‘unisex’ items: their ride on car was yellow and red as I recall, but now you can buy the same car in the ‘right’ colour for your child.
I didn’t know what Eldest would be, but blue is my favourite colour so I bought blue baby clothes. I was regularly asked what he was called. I knew Youngest was a girl, but I still bought her a Peter Rabbit babygrow and recycled Eldest’s outgrown blue clothing. Oh they’ve both been through their ‘pink’ phase and were indulged (within reason) at the time, but they also both grew out of it! Both still have the odd pink item in their wardrobes, generally ‘hot’ not pastel. And they both had dolls, but also a Duplo train set and Harry Potter Lego. My girls are definitely girls. Since I only have girls I don't know if I have treated them differently to how I might have treated boys. I guess I would have looked for a football club instead of a ballet school, but only if he'd expressed a preference as Eldest did. Youngest did ballet too for a while: she thought it was what big girls did, and I couldn't face pursuing a different after school club. (To be fair they both did swimming largely because Youngest wanted to.)
When they were very small they had lots of dresses but more often wore dungarees. From about 3-8 they demanded pink dresses, fairy costumes, Barbie dolls and pink bedclothes. Now they mostly wear jeans, many of the dressing-up clothes have been passed down to younger cousins, the Barbies live in a box waiting for small visitors and only Youngest still has pink bedding - her room is black, white and pink when you get under the rubble.
I am glad that I offered them cars, trains and Lego, I am glad I dressed them in blue. I'd rather see little girls go through a pink phase that probably won't last than see them dressed as 'adults' in much of the 'tarty' clothing now available! At the end of the day they are children and I'd rather see pink frills than padded bras and mini skirts. How about you?