The best thing that can be said for February is that it has only 28 days. It’s always been my least favourite month. So I shall be very glad when the March parish mag drops onto my doormat. Not so my husband: as he was born on 1st March, the end of February heralds that he’s aged another year. But for me there is NOTHING good about February.
By contrast, what’s not to love about March? The official start of spring, daffodils, green buds on trees, primroses, lambs. Simple but satisfying traditional celebrations: Pancake Day, Mother’s Day, and the Spring Solstice. And none of them will break the bank.
The Spring Solstice, incidentally, is my parents’ wedding anniversary. 21st March has always struck me as such a hopeful, optimistic date for a wedding, and it’s served them well for 58 years so far.
Then at the end of the month, the icing on the cake: the clocks spring forward – the moment we’ve been waiting for all winter.
But if the thought of March cheers you up, just wait till we get to April. Suddenly, it’ll feel like the summer. And I’m not talking about the weather. With so many public holidays, April will be the new August. A full fortnight off school will segue into the two Easter bank holidays, then the children will be back at school for just three days before another four day weekend courtesy of Prince William. It’s so considerate of him to book his wedding adjacent to the May Day holiday. Now there’s a man intent on restoring the Royal Family’s popularity.
Well, after the winter we’ve just had, we certainly deserve a decent summer. Bring it on!
(This post originally appeared in the March 2011 Hawkesbury Parish News)
When I logged into Facebook early in December, I was invited to create “My Year in Status”. At the press of a button, there appeared a single page showing a selection of the posts that I’d made during the whole of 2010. (For those who aren’t familiar with Facebook, a “post” is a message that you type into your Facebook page to update your friends about what you are doing or thinking.)
The result was surprising. Some things I remembered as if they were yesterday, but others I’d completely forgotten. Parts of my year I barely recognised. I wasn’t the only one taken aback. Some friends were startled to find that Facebook appeared to think they’d spent the whole year watching telly or boozing.
My Year in Status experience made me realise (a) how quickly a year goes (b) how short life is (c) that to achieve a more favourable Year in Status for 2011, I’d better start planning it now. So here is how I hope it might read, if all goes according to plan.
“Debbie Young ….has finally eradicated dandelions and couch grass from her my garden, making way for a bumper crop of home-grown vegetables …has just completed her first half-marathon within her target time (so the very thorough training paid off) ….feels calm and refreshed after her daughter’s 8th birthday party ….has renewed her acquaintance with the bottom of the ironing basket ….earned a fine collection of rosettes in this year’s Village Show …has a house so clean and tidy that there’s absolutely no more housework she can do …has completed her Christmas shopping before the end of August ….feels younger and fresher with every passing year ….is very pleased with her new pet: a flying pig”
Happy New Year, everyone – may 2011 bring you yourheart’s desire.
(This post originally appeared in Hawkesbury Parish News, January 2011.)
Checking my inbox today, I find it peppered with emails from clothing suppliers trying to persuade me to buy a new winter wardrobe. The thermometer having plummeted in the last few days, we’re all going to need our winter woollies by the time we come back from half term, so I take a look at what they’re offering.First on the list is a message from Marks and Spencer highlighting their new “coatigan” – a combination of a coat and a cardigan. It sounds just right for inbetweeny, Halloweeny weather.
I’ve never seen a coatigan, but I don’t need to. This portmanteau word conjures up a precise vision. I’m intrigued by the cross-breeding that fashion retailers believe is going on in our wardrobes. First came the skort (is it a skirt? Is it shorts?). Then last year the shoe-boot (no explanation necessary). This was swiftly followed by jeggings: the spawn of jeans and leggings. Whatever next?
If the trend continues, here are my predictions for your warmer winter wardrobe this season….
The Jumpover – as sleek as a jumpsuit but practical as an overall, this all-in-one outfit will keep the fashion-conscious woman clean but elegant while working around the house.
The Underall – not dissimilar to old-fashioned combinations, this underwear features the added benefit of practical overall-style pockets for storing essential tools.
The Shocking – a seamless, streamlined cross between high-heeled shoes and fishnet stockings for the girl who really wants to get noticed at the office Christmas party.
The Harf or Scat – a hat with scarf attached around the lower edge to avoid the annoying gap that lets the draught in between conventional hat and scarf sets.
But my favourite this winter will be Pyjippers – ending chilly ankles when I go down to make the tea first thing in the morning. I wonder if I can get them patented in time for Christmas?
(This post originally appeared in the November edition of the Hawkesbury Parish News.)
Hallowe’en in our village seems to have had an identity crisis this year, disguising itself as the season of goodwill. By the time we return from my small daughter’s first venture into trick-or-treating, we are overwhelmed by our neighbours’ generosity. Laura is positively radiant – and not just because of the fluorescent nail polish applied earlier by her best friend’s mum.
“I just LOVE trick-or-treating!” she breathes ecstatically as we trek round the village.
We bump into most of her schoolfriends en route, plus quite a few teenagers, all impressively attired. Not for our village the media stereotype of big kids in half-hearted costumes harassing old ladies. A group of teenage witches welcomes my little black cat to tag along with them at a couple of houses. Some big boys in ambitious costumes, one apparently a wild animal in a tardis-like cage, politely offer her a biscuit. The packet had just been cheerfully dispensed by a man whose greeting was “Sorry, I’ve run out of sweets and I’ve run out of money, but here, have these cookies instead”.
Many adults have gone to as much trouble as the children to get into a spooky mood. They’ve festooned their houses with paper bats and ghosts, they answer the door in costume and character. One kind couple has made up goody bags of assorted chews that includes a set of plastic vampire teeth. “I’ve always wanted one of those!” my daughter squeals with delight. She’ll need new teeth if she’s going to eat her way through tonight’s haul.
Another lady has set up a grisly pick-and-mix in her front porch, chocolate eyeballs and bloody jelly fingers dispensed from dishes proffered by severed hands.
“She’s so kind,” my daughter remarks, slipping her hand into mine as we walk on down the lane. “Someone really ought to give her special treat too.”
At the next stop, we’re invited in for some jokes, a chocolate biscuit and an interesting lesson on the Celtic origins of the Hallowe’en tradition. The adults are clearly having as much fun as the kids.
We head back towards home, looking out for lit pumpkins, the accepted indicator of a household that welcomes trick-or-treaters. We pass by the home of one of the oldest ladies in the village.
“She hasn’t got a pumpkin, but do you think we should call on her anyway? She’s a very kind lady and always smiles and waves to us.”
Laura’s clearly convinced that Hallowe’en is all about generosity of spirit. I shake my head. “No pumpkin, no visit,” I remind her.
But what pumpkins we have seen! Hours of carving must have gone into many of those on display. Their fine fretwork depicted cheery toothy grins with varying degrees of menace, witches on broomsticks, moon-lit landscapes, angry cats arch-backed with vertical fur. How many more ended up as soup following a slip of the knife in these artists’ quests for perfection?
Our own pumpkin, less elaborately carved, gave me a fright the night before. Having nurtured it to a vast size in the garden all summer, we placed it proudly on the front wall in readiness at dusk, only to find it had vanished by the time night fell. I was devastated. How could someone stoop so low as to steal a pumpkin the night before Hallowe’en? What sort of person does that? Someone warming up to pinch our Christmas tree a few weeks later?
My outraged SOS on Facebook triggered a sympathetic search. By mid-morning a kind neighbour has discovered it on his front drive. It’s too far for it to have rolled, so how on earth did it get there? Why did the pumpkin cross the road? I can’t help but wonder. Well, I suppose this ancient festival has had the last laugh. For all the outpouring of generosity in our village, Hallowe’en has still kept a trick up its flowing black sleeve.
“Why isn’t our village mentioned on television more often?” asks my small daughter, Laura, as we’re watching the weather forecast. “They mention Bristol all the time.”
The swooping BBC weather map has just reached the city where her grandparents live. Our airspace, as ever, they have passed over without a mention.
For Laura, rural Gloucestershireis the centre of the world. Now and again she seeks my reassurance that we will live here forever. She worries that I may sell the house. When I gently suggest that she may one day want to move away to university, or in pursuit of a career or a husband, she gives me an old-fashioned look.
I understand. I still feel a gravitational pull towards my own roots in London suburbia. I was born not far from the Greenwich Meridian, by which the whole world set its clocks – proof, to my childish mind, that I lived at the centre of the world. Any mention on the telly of Sidcup still makes me feel proprietorial, even though it’s likely to be in the context of a comedy show. “Porridge” and “Rab C Nesbitt” both used Sidcup to raise an easy laugh.
In my subconscious there lies a world map. A large pin marks Sidcup as the focal point. Radiating out, in pastel colours, are the territories I’ve explored, while large tracts of uncharted land remain dark. Even today I take pleasure in visiting places I’ve never been, so that I can mentally colour them in. My map looks pretty colourful these days, but Sidcup’s central pin remains in place.
Few people feel no pull towards their roots. We are all like tethered goats, though some have longer ropes. My Scottish husband, an economic migrant to England at the age of 20, has lived and worked in many English towns and travelled as far India for holidays, but every summer he heads north, as compelled as a homing swallow, to conquer another few Munros (Scottish mountains over 3,000 feet high). Avidly he records his conquests on a vast mountain map that fills our kitchen table. If Laura had been a boy, he’d have insisted on naming her Munro. Both she and I are very glad she is a girl.
About the time I was busy being born in Sidcup, a Tetbury-born friend of mine left home for university. His career took him all over the country before he eventually settled in Norfolk – about as far east of his roots as he could get without leaving England. Yet in retirement, what should be at the centre of his thoughts but the area in which he was raised? He’s now penning a series of whimsical stories1 based on the tiny territory of his boyhood, meticulously remembering every hill, every field and every lane.
Laura’s personal map is already of conquistadorial proportions: not many seven year olds have travelled as widely. Before she was four, she’d been to Albania: her first kiss, at the age of three, was from a small Greek boy in Athens. This summer she added the Outer Hebrides to her empire. She’s now set her sights on Mexico.
“How many countries are there in the world, Mummy?” she asked the other day, wondering how many she has yet to visit.
“194,” advised the internet.
“And which one is the most popular?”
For a moment I’m stumped, till I consider a democratic approach.
“If you asked everyone in the world, the most votes would probably go to China,” I suggest.
She frowned disapproval, patting her “Team England” t-shirt to indicate where she’d cast hers. (Later, doing the laundry, I check where her t-shirt was made. No prizes for guessing its country of origin. I decide I’d better not tell her.)
But no matter how far Laura travels, I’m sure her rural Gloucestershire home will always be her favourite destination. And now, as the autumn nights start to draw in, we are both very happy to be here.
(This post originally appeared in the Tetbury Advertiser, October 2010.)
