celebrate, good times

I was woken by beaming children bearing gifts. Gifts they’d spent hours on, over weeks. Their thoughtfulness moved me to tears; they were so excited to be doing something special for me. (I must save that warm fuzzy feeling for the next homework time when we’re all cantakerous and baffled by multiplication…)

creativity runs in the family don't you think?

There were special pictures in colourful frames, a bangle and a key ring, and a backscratcher. Yes, a backscratcher. You didn’t think that was just a common or garden wooden spoon did you?

Then I got my fancy new toy. Soon (when I read the instructions) you will see the benefit of improved technology. Actually, you’ll probably not see any difference, but I’ll benefit from a rechargable battery rather than replacing them every turn round. I’m going to use the same technique to improve my photography as my writing- just keep bombarding you with it…

sleek, stylish and mysterious

When I chose this, one of the deciding amazon reviews was from a woman who said she’d bought it for her 9 year old. If a 9 year old could use it, surely it wouldn’t be totally beyond me? (Conveniently, I’d forgotten about the Nintendo DS and the Wii that I don’t really understand.) So, imagine my anxiety levels rising when I went to register the machine and discovered that it wasn’t from the ‘easy’ range; it’s from the ‘smart’ range. I’ve no idea if that’s a good thing or not. If I never speak of it again, you can draw your own conclusions.

taken with new camera- hurrah!

In the spirit of happy homemaking I used a gift to buy these

do these make me a proper mummy?

I seemed to be thinking that since Herself and the grandmothers had bowls like these, then the very bowls would pass on domestic skills. Never mind the secret of the Black Magic box, I’m expecting the secret of the baking bowls! Brain fog? I wonder how long it will be before I think I should have put it all towards a handbag fund?

So many skills to improve, so many happy challenges. So many gifts.

None of them as special as the excitement on little faces yesterday morning.

comfort reads

There’s always something I go back to. Books, falling apart at the seams, that need to be close by as a reassurance. Good humour, good writing, and a mixture of images from my own imagination and old TV programmes or films. Maybe it’s simply the freedom to revisit the depths of youthful emotion…

Anne of Green Gables, LM Montgomery

1974 edition

This edition tied in with the 1974 BBC production. Yes, I am that old. I was totally enthralled by the imaginative, flighty, dramatic, thoughtful Anne, her friendships and her rivalries. The relationships with Matthew and Marilla, her adoptive family, have lasted long in my imagination. How the elderly brother and sister adapted to the red haired whirlwind who unexpectedly entered their lives (they’d been expecting the orphanage to send a boy), and how Avonlea adapated. There are stories about green hair, accidental teenage drunkenness, academic competition. And there is devastating, life changing, grief. I watched the Megan Fellows as Anne production about 2 years ago, and was still in floods of tears. Excellent stuff!

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

1980 edition

You’re probably thinking about Gregory Peck now. No bad thing; he does a wonderful job of recreating Atticus Finch and his belief in Justice, respect and love for family. The book is full of believable characters and is told through the eyes of a child in the 1930s South. Scout tells the story as an adult, so we get a sense of what she now knows, but didn’t recognise then. The story is full of warmth and humour, despite the issues of rape and racial inequality, and the loss of innocence of the children and the town.  The childhood ‘bogeyman’ is called ‘Boo’. Simple, and brilliant. Two of my favourite lines are right at the end of the book

‘As I made my way home, I thought Jem and I would get grown but there wasn’t much else left for us to learn, except possibly algebra.’

‘Besides, nothin’s real scary except in books.’

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

1980 edition

Now  I suppose you’re thinking of Colin Firth, in either of his Mr Darcy roles…

Pride and Prejudice is both funny and sobering- a comedy of manners, wordy and articulate, but biting on the choices facing women. Mr Bennet has five daughters, and no way of supporting them or his wife after his death, so they need to get married. However, the Bennets don’t have the social standing, or the social know how, to make them the most attractive of options for society. Social settings are largely formal, and full of unspoken rules, from the set pieces of dances, to playing cards. The two eldest, Jane and Elizabeth, do have some social skills, albeit tempered by shyness or temper.  The story is about how they develop those skills and their relationships, in particular how Elizabeth and Darcy achieve respect for each other and reach agreement. Jane and Elizabeth are then in a position to look after the rest of the family. It’s great, cringemaking, and entertaining.

These are books that I return to time and again. There are others (come in Marian Keyes), and there seems to be a bit of a pattern emerging- it looks like I gravitate to humour, warmth and a bit of social commentary. Anyone surprised by that?

old friends

I spent some time with a group of old friends and former colleagues recently. Some of these folk I’ve known for nearly 20 years. I hadn’t seen most of them for years.

These are the people I used to see most days. The people I worked with and socialised with. We shared early morning coffee and lunch. We drove the length and breadth of Northern Ireland, and beyond. We partied. We disagreed. We complained about work. We figured out how to make it better. We complained about something else. We supported each other. We disagreed some more. We partied some more. We spent lots of time looking for funding to do the work we felt needed done. We held each others’ hands and dried tears. Difficult decisions were made. Some of us moved on.

These were the people who gave me confidence in my skills, who taught me all I know about working with clients and about paperwork, the folk who introduced me to long term work subtleties and politics. The people who helped me to keep on going, putting one foot in front of the other, when my father died, when my marriage broke up, when I miscarried. The people who helped lift me, and who joined me in celebrating two weddings, and two fine healthy lumps of babies. We laughed a lot, at ourselves, at ridiculous tv programmes from the night before, at life. We gossiped and we cared.

Image from here

When we met this week we hugged, showed pictures of much grown children and caught up. It was exhausting, yet energising. It was tearful. We were there, former colleagues, some still working there, all still friends, to gather round and support one of our number. One of us has lost her much loved husband, after a brief, but long, battle with illness. We still haven’t found a magic wand, but we were there, helping her put one foot in front of the other. That’s what old friends do.

exams

It’s exam time. The coffee shop is full of young people with papers, notebooks and highlighter pens. Studying seems to be so much fun than it used to be. Although it must be said that some of these conversations do actually seem to be about course work.

Kileen and I spent many long hours in the library, thinking we were studying. We managed to spend a fair bit of time organising our social lives, eyeing up the men, and gossiping. Would it be different now that we’re grown up, responsible and uninterested in young men? We’d work more effectively. We’d know to spend less time reading and more time thinking. We’d write essays that actually made sense, develop arguements, make confident presentations.

Now that I’m grown up I wouldn’t choose a degree subject simply because I’d quite liked it at school. I’d find out a bit more about the outside world, what interested me, what I’d like to do for years ahead. Without ever planning to do so, I ended up working  for a criminal justice charity for 15 years. Had health permitted I may have been there yet. Kileen, sharper than I, is still has a career she actually trained for! Dawnriser knew the value of focus and determination even then, while I, flighty Gemini, remain curious but easily bored and in possession of only a superficial knowledge of a range of things.

A quick glance at the website of the local university let me identify the course I’d like to do now. It’d be fascinating- time to consider issues around crime, welfare, benefits, disability, gender. Helping me to explain what interests me and put that into a wider context. Helping me to understand something about the ‘system’, so I can learn to influence it.  Not that I have energy, money or serious inclination to do it, but had I, that’s what I’d do now.

The opportunities for development outside the limits of the course or university confines are much greater than in Belfast of the 1980s. I look at the young people in the coffee shop and hope that they are grabbing all the chances they can, aiming high and  choosing not to be confined.

Wouldn’t you love to say that to them and freak them out?

“Why do I always get the weird old woman to, like, talk to me?”