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Letters to a Sister : 40

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How was your week? I am feeling hassled! It’s mainly to do with not having enough time at the moment. I have started writing about Joanna (my psychopath) and I’m loving it. I spend all my time thinking about her, imagining what she is like and I am desperate to write her story. But real life keeps getting in the way. I notice dirt I ought to clean up, husband wants dinners, the animals need looking after, I still have all my commitments at church, I have friends to keep in touch with. It all feels like too much sometimes.

I know it’s better than having an empty life – sometimes I’ve had those phases too, when I have too much time, life is lonely and boring – but right now it’s too full. Then I wrote a whole chapter of my book and realised afterwards that it was wrong. I had my psychopath stalking victims on Facebook but actually she was active before 2004, so social media wouldn’t have been available for her. Very annoying. I had to think back to those days when we didn’t have computers and we actually read newspapers for our news and had absolutely no idea what aunty Flossy was up to.

I do find that I get stressed very easily now – do you? I have actually started having proper panic attacks over the tiniest thing. I thought for a while that it was due to my brain surgery, they cut through the bit that controls stress in the body, so I was blaming all my worries on that.

However, when I mentioned it to my hairdresser (no, do NOT laugh at me – hairdressers see more of real life than most other people, plus when you are stuck in a chair for ages, it’s natural to chat, you get to know each other) she assured me that many women of my age start to feel nervous about things. I have been asking around and I am amazed at just how many people do get anxious about situations that they know are ‘safe’. Things like having coffee with a friend or going somewhere that I go regularly, all now cause these anxiety feelings. Really, I would much rather just stay home with my animals and never go anywhere. But that would be odd. Even for us ‘women of a funny age’ I feel there should be limits.

It made me wonder though if it is just a natural part of aging. If worrying about things that never bothered us before is so that we do start to cut back, we become less adventurous at a time of life when perhaps we should be thinking twice before we bungee jump or trek through a rainforest.

At our church group this week we were asked to consider how we could build bridges with people, to be involved at a deeper level with people. I told them that actually I wanted to blow up a few bridges. I don’t think it was quite the response they were hoping for.

It’s true though isn’t it, sometimes we can feel stretched too much, as if we have become like that stretchy man in The Incredibles. A bit too thin.

They have also changed the name of the church group. It is now called a ‘Life Group’. Not sure what I think about that. It sounds like the religious equivalent of ‘AA’, some sort of support group. Or perhaps that’s the idea, maybe it is a kind of support group, meeting friends to share how we’re getting on with trying to live good lives. Not very well in some cases (but you’re only allowed to say that about yourself.)

Take care,
Anne x

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My sister’s letters can be found at : http://ruthdalyauthor.blogspot.co.uk

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Letters to a Sister :38

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Image (1)                                                                                     Dustbins and psychopaths…

 

Hi R,

Remind me to never go to a sushi restaurant with you. I think you are meant to put the food in whole, definitely no knives and forks allowed. I did take Mum once, to one of those bars where the dishes go round and round on a conveyor belt and you have to pick off the ones you want. It didn’t work very well as a mother/daughter bonding experience. She found perching on a high stool to be uncomfortable. And she doesn’t eat raw fish (which I didn’t know when I took her.)

My trip up North was okay thanks. Mainly I was just really proud of myself for driving that far! We went to Nottingham first. My SatNav did well in getting us to Nottingham, not so well at finding the right road (it is a really rubbish SatNav. It only takes the first four digits of a postcode, so directs you to almost the right place and then abandons you. You drive into a large industrial estate full of mass murderers and it helpfully chants, “You have reached your destination.“)

Son 2 had to take over and direct me to his road. I then used his loo – much to Son 1’s disgust (it only had single ply paper. Shocking) before we set off to Leeds.

Leeds was stressful. Son 1 was very good and kept me calm. Our conversation went along the lines of:
Me: “The road is splitting and I don’t know which lane we want. Aaargh, we’re going onto a motorway. We’re heading for York. York! I don’t know what to do.”
Son: “It’s okay Mum, Leeds and York are the same place really, they’re just different bits of the same town. Just keep going and I’ll tell you where to go.
And try to breathe.
And don’t clench the wheel so tightly, you’ll get cramp.”

Anyhow, we made it unscathed. (York is about 25 miles from Leeds, in case you didn’t know.) I managed the journey home on my own. The boys are good to me actually. As long as I don’t ask anything too unreasonable of them – like not leaving socks in the lounge, then they are very kind to me.

They are tougher on Husband (must be a male thing.) When they were home they commented on his car, which I do not think has ever been washed. Ever. We are surrounded by lanes full of mud, most of which now covers his car. One of them remarked, “Hey, like what you’ve done with the car Dad.” The other one asked why he had spent quite so long choosing the colour when he bought it, as all you can see is mud.

I think you are right about the fears of publishing a book. It is all so scary. I keep being reassured by hearing that books like The Martian and John Grisham’s first book were initially self-published because no one wanted to take a risk on them. Counting Stars is all ready now, so I am going to put that on Kindle as soon as it’s been edited. My book, Hidden Faces, should be published later this year. I am now busy researching for my next novel.

As I’ve mentioned previously, it will be called Joanna and is about a serial killer (well, it’s a bit more complicated than that, is more about making choices in life.) Anyway, I have been reading lots of studies about psychopathy. Did you know that most psychopaths are NOT killers? That actually the traits of psychopathy (being focussed, unemotional, charming, risk takers) enable them to often be successful politicians, CEOs of major companies, work in the media. It sort of makes sense when you think about it. If you are in the army and have to send boys off to fight, it wouldn’t do if you broke down in tears every time they were killed.

There was one really interesting study. A neuro scientist was studying MRIs of convicted killers, trying to find a physical trait of psychopathy (which he did.) The following week, he was doing research on Alzheimers, looking at MRIs to see if there was a link that could be used for early detection. He needed a control, so was comparing them to MRIs of his family. They were all anonymous. He noticed that one MRI strongly showed the same things that the psychopath’s had, so he checked the code, in case it had got muddled up with his previous work. He found that it was his own MRI. When he mentioned it to colleagues, they told him that he did display many of the traits of a psychopath!

Psychopathy is a spectrum, a bit like autism (though that seems to be the only similarity.) There is a list of traits, devised by someone called Hare. I have been busy checking people. Am pretty sure the dustbin men in Surrey are all psychopaths (they never move their truck to let people pass.) And the women in a nearby post-office show clear psychopathic traits (are always delighted to send you away because you’ve brought the wrong forms.) Will let you know if I discover any in the family……

Take care,
Love, Anne x

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My sister’s letter can be found at :
http://ruthdalyauthor.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/writer-problems-sushi-and-rats.html

Thank you for reading.

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Letters to a Sister : 36

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You can read my sister’s letter at:

http://ruthdalyauthor.blogspot.ca/2015/12/swearing-soap-and-2-minute-meals.html

Here is my reply:

Dear R,

I miss you too at Christmas. I also can’t believe it has gone already, I love it, it makes me remember being little again.

When I was a little girl, I loved looking through people’s handbags – do you remember? If we had visitors, I would sometimes sneak out of the room with their bag, so I could search it in peace. It was possibly embarrassing for Mum, though I never took anything, I was just very curious (I refuse to use the ‘nosey’ word.) The bag I remember the most clearly was the midwife’s bag when she came after brother was born. It was black and VERY heavy and Mum shouted at me for hiding behind the sofa with it. I was misunderstood as a child.

Then we were given handbags by Great Aunt Nell one Christmas. Her presents were always slightly on the unexpected side weren’t they. I remember being given old Christmas cards one year. We loved her dearly (I’m sure not just because she gave us sixpences) but her gifts were somewhat random. So Mum (very naughtily) used to unwrap them before Christmas day, to check what was inside. I found this very exciting, especially as she always told me to not tell Dad (hence confirming it was completely against the rules. Mum has never really done rules.)

Anyway, that year it was handbags. Not sure if they had belonged to Aunty Nell or to one of her long deceased friends. I was very excited by the brown knobbly one with the snappy clip at the top but that was addressed to you (I did try to persuade Mum to switch the name labels but she didn’t break the rules that much.) I was given a basket. With no snappy top.

Mum has not, as far as I remember, ever used a handbag. Perhaps because I always searched it. Or maybe her lack of bag accounts for my fascination with them. Her pockets always have the same things in: a short pencil, an old shopping list, a tissue, some coins and now – which is my reason for writing this – those plastic coins from Waitrose.

Do you know what I mean? -Those plastic counter things that Waitrose have by the door, so you can vote for your favourite charity and then Waitrose will donate money to the one with the most votes? (Not sure if they have these the other side of the Atlantic but you may have noticed them when you were here.) I believe the aim is that every shopper has one vote, uses one counter with each load of shopping, dropped through the slot into the clear plastic container, watching the charity of their choice collect votes. I am sure the aim is NOT for old ladies, who happen to know that a charity of their choice is soon to be appearing, to hoard the plastic counters in their pockets. Nor to collect them from other stores and save them until they are next in their own one. I just hope she never finds a shop that sells the same kind of counter – even Waitrose staff might notice if two thousand extra counters suddenly appear. I have broached this subject with her but I feel it needs reinforcement – when are you next here?

Actually, Waitrose has been brilliant for Mum. She loves the free coffee that you get with their loyalty card and the free ‘samples’ of cakes that sometimes are left on the counter. (I wont mention the unfortunate incident when the baker left a tray of freshly baked muffins on the same counter and someone tucked in thinking they were free….)

I like our supermarkets. I like that they reduce food towards the end of the day. All the students learn what time this happens and loiter near the door waiting for the ‘Half Price Man’ to do his rounds so they can snaffle up the bargains. I like that they sell lots of ethnically diverse foods (the US supermarkets only really stocked US food) and that they donate left over food to charities for the homeless.

I am finding the 5p carrier bags bit of a challenge (they recently stopped providing free ones.) – I like the idea in principle but I do find it hard to remember to take a bag with me when I shop, too many years of being lazy/wasteful. My own bags are now stuffed with reuseable bags, just in case. Which with old receipts and pens that don’t work, just about fills my bag. Not very exciting should a child want to explore.

Take care,
Anne xxx

PS: I always show these to people who are mentioned before I post them, just in case they will be embarrassed/sue me. Mum assures me that it was Great Aunt Queenie, not Nell, who gave us the handbags. (I am not entirely sure if I have spelt Queenie correctly, or even if that was her real name or just what we called her. I have certainly never met another Queenie – have you? It wasn’t one of our name choices when we had daughter, though I quite like Nell as a name.)

Letters to a Sister 33

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I took Mum Christmas shopping in Crawley. It started as expected with many laps of the car park looking for a space. We could, of course, have avoided this by following the signs that a dodgy bloke was holding up outside the car park, directing us to a £2 car parking place. I think he had written it on an old cardboard box. He looked like he eats small children for breakfast, wasn’t sure I entirely trusted that his ‘car park’ would be legal. Or near the shops. Or safe. But perhaps I’m just cynical.

Next adventure was trying to reach shop level. We were parked on level three. There was a lift but it didn’t seem to prioritise going to the top floor. So we would watch it leave ground floor, rise to level one, then level two, then pause (while we held our breath) then drop to level one. We joined two women who looked annoyed. They had been waiting four days already. I decided to go down the stairs. I left Mum, promising I would return by tea time with food and water (I could have done with those Jaffa cakes you took back to Canada) and walked down.

There were stairs down to level two. Then the staircase ended. Unexpected design flaw I felt, when designing a shopping centre one should assume the people parking want to access the shops. I had to go back into the car park and walk to the end to find stairs that took me to the shops. A sign would have been a kind thought. Then, on level two, there were escalators, which made me quite hopeful of reaching shops. Unfortunately, all the escalators from floor one to ground were broken, except for one in the far corner. Considered sliding down bannister, felt it would be undignified. Spotted Mum emerging from lift. Finally reached her. Felt maybe mass-murderer car park might have been good option.

There were decorations in the shopping centre. Somewhat naff ones, it looked like half were missing. I am guessing the person sent to find the box of decorations in the loft who was not a great lover of Christmas decorations, had told them, “this is the only box I could find.” I have the same problem in my own house. The decorations were silver shapes and were hung from the high ceilings. At an angle. At least, some were, some were straight. Hard to tell if there was a plan. Maybe they ran out of time, they are clearly not entering any shopping centre decoration competitions this year, if such things exist. Perhaps they had trouble getting from top floor. Am sympathetic.

The problem with shops (well, one of the problems – there are many actually) is that they are too hot. Especially Debenhams. I worked for Debenhams once, before I went to college. We were given blue and white spotty blouses to wear that tied in a bow at the neck and we had to wear navy skirts. I didn’t have a navy skirt so wore a vaguely blue one but no one seemed to mind. It was always too hot even then. I do not find being hot, especially when wearing a heavy winter coat, encourages me to shop. If Mr Debenham is reading this, he might like to take note and turn down the thermostat in his shops.

Anyway, despite being a shopping trip, it was relatively successful. I bought gifts for my nieces and even remembered that one has a birthday right before Christmas. Usually this catches me out and I have to rewrap her Christmas present in birthday paper and then buy something else.

I like Christmas presents actually. Maybe not so much the actual gift, but I love seeing them all wrapped up, lumpy and mysterious. My children still have a stocking, a heap of smaller gifts that they open Christmas eve. Every year now I suggest that they might be too old for this but they tell me it is the “funnest part of Christmas.” Clearly I should buy them some grammar books.

Last Christmas was especially good. I was just a few months post op, so had no idea what I had wrapped, it was an exciting surprise for me too to see them open their presents. It was nearly not so fun for daughter. A couple of days before Christmas, husband asked to check which gifts I had bought (he likes to help each year.) I proudly showed him the stack of wrapped gifts. He asked which one was for daughter, as it wasn’t there. I knew I had bought her a coat but couldn’t actually find it. He enquired if it was the coat I had bought and given her the year before, which would explain why I couldn’t find it – she was probably wearing it. We did a hasty trip to the shops and all was well.

Hope you haven’t frozen yet. Mainly rain here.

Take care,
Anne xxx

PS. I was somewhat perturbed by your postscript. I am assuming that the most precious ornaments go on the back of your tree to ensure they’re safe. I have this year NOT put the Angels you made for me on my tree (because people kept asking why I had ghosts hanging on my tree.) But they took pride of place for many years. Just saying.

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This letter is written in reply to one from my sister.  You can read her reply (to an earlier letter, number 32) at :

 http://ruthdalyauthor.blogspot.ca/2015/12/sisters-should-live-on-same-continent.html

Thank you for reading

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Letters to a Sister : 32

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I’ve been reading through my old diaries. Found this entry from 1997. It’s during the time I looked after my nephew (aged 18 months) while his Mum worked, so everyone thought I had twins in the double buggy.

“A Day in November
Husband’s cousin is coming for the weekend. Hope he enjoys it. It’s always worrying having people to stay who don’t have children. They don’t really understand why we have shoes in the bathroom and towels in the hall.

J was awful Tues night and kept crying – every twenty minutes (ears or teeth or both.) I took him downstairs at 11:30, then husband took over at 3am. We were really tired the next day. Husband phoned from work to say he’d gone with no cuff-links or watch, not combed his hair and his flies had been down all morning.

Last week, J bit nephew’s finger (they were arguing over a toy.) Usually they play really well together, though they take off each other’s slippers a hundred times a day. They also both love watching Teletubies (I love them watching Teletubbies – it gives me 20 minutes peace.) I have had to unplug the television because they keep going in the lounge and turning it on to watch – they don’t believe me that it isn’t always on!

Today was ‘Dilip Day’ at R’s school – a fete thing full of smelly second-hand toys. M bought a plastic crocodile which he’s named ‘Tina’ (no idea why.) I’ve already confiscated it twice, once because it was being used as a bashing stick and once because it ‘ate’ all R’s felt-pen lids.

I gave everyone straws at tea-time. Bad idea, they all blew milk over each other.

J is being very naughty at the moment. Yesterday he splashed toilet water all over the bathroom, then took my best china plates out of the dishwasher and threw them on the floor (only one broke).
He also opened the fridge and left a trail of orange juice across the kitchen to where he poured it into two plastic saucepans. He can now climb/fall out of his cot, so I have put a big mattress on the floor.

Went to the shops – always a struggle with the double buggy. It’s too wide for the aisles so I have to block the whole shop while I quickly grab what I need, pay and leave. Today the boys were swinging their legs and J realised he could kick off his red wellie. It sailed straight up and hit someone on the head, which sent him and nephew into peals of giggles. Embarrassing. I did apologize but it’s hard to sound sorry with two toddlers in fits of giggles behind you.

We went for a cycle ride after tea, with J strapped onto the seat on my bike. R went very slowly and carefully and screamed when she banged her shins. M went very fast, couldn’t work the brake, ran into me 50 times, fell off twice and thought it was wonderful. They are very different……

A Day in December
All the Christmas activities have started. R was an inn-keeper’s wife and M was a king in their respective Nativity plays.

R’s ballet show was hard work – lots of rehearsals at inconvenient times. I did try staying to watch one rehearsal but the boys moved two thousand times in the half hour, culminating with J’s chair folding up with him stuck inside it. Not sure we were suitably still and quiet enough to watch again.

R now busy reenacting the Nativity. She’s having a hard time. J wont wear his crown and M is objecting to wearing a pink dressing gown.

It snowed yesterday. M told J, ‘God opened his arms in the night and made snow as a surprise for us.’ They loved it. Every single pair of trousers is now soaked.

My birthday was nice. Husband let me have a lie in, then they all gave me gifts. A mug from M, a plate (to replace the one he smashed) from J and chocolates from R.
Husband invited the family round for tea. He bought a black spider cake, which was hideous.”

Reading the memories made me smile. It seems so weird that there was a day that was the last time I ever picked them up and I didn’t even realise. They are grown up now, but I still love them to bits. Am so glad they grew out of the biting phase.
Take care,
Anne xx

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Who do you trust?

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What do you trust? As in, really trust, not the ‘wearing my lucky socks for an interview’ kind of trust but the kind of trust we had when we were tiny. I’ve been thinking about it recently.

When we were little, Mum and Dad always took us on those camping holidays didn’t they. We never had any input into where we went or what we did, we just trusted that we would be safe and have a nice time. I remember we used to load the car with all our stuff and sit on heaps of blankets, driving for hours through the country to a windy campsite where we would all help to put up the tent and unload the car. I think, when I was small, I looked forward to them. When I was bigger, I longed for a caravan. (I have now promised myself that I will never have to camp again. Ever.) But when we were tiny, we loved it. We also had complete, unquestioning trust in Mum and Dad. That’s the kind of trust I’m thinking about.

I started thinking about it because I was reading the bit in the Bible about Jesus in Gethsemane, just before he is arrested and then killed, the bit where he is praying. He prays, “….not as I will but as you will.” That is complete trust. He has told God that he does not want to die, to go through all the suffering. Then he says that what he wants more than anything is that God’s will be done. He knows that ultimately, that is for the best. Have you ever felt that? Ever had complete trust in God or someone else? Since we were tiny I mean (little children are good at trust. Perhaps because they don’t see the dangers or perhaps because they have no choice.)

The only time I’ve come even slightly close was just before I had brain surgery. I was sitting in the rocking chair on the landing, praying about it. All the doctors had talked to me about the possibility of dying or waking up disabled – not in a ‘worst case scenario, not likely to happen’ sort of way but in a ‘this is possible (but you’ll die if we don’t do it, so there is no option but to take the risk)’ sort of way. It was a real possibility and that REALLY helps you to focus on God and praying and asking for his help.

Anyway, there I was, praying, asking God to make sure I didn’t die and I felt him talking to me. That doesn’t happen very often, but I guess he knew this was important. He told me I needed to trust him. Not trust him that I wouldn’t die, but trust him that whatever his will was, it was for the best. I felt he was asking me what I would choose. If my dying meant that my children would be saved, would I choose that? Of course I would, any mother would. Then I realised that I don’t see the whole picture, only God does. Maybe my dying or being left paralysed would be what was best – not in the short term for me, but in the long term, in the eternal picture sort of way. I had to trust not that God would let me live but that God’s will, whatever that was, would be done.

Just as I was having these thoughts/prayers, the phone rang. It was a friend phoning to say he would be praying that I would have a successful operation. I told him that instead he should pray that God’s will should be done. I find that happens sometimes, God never forgets that we are human, physical beings, sometimes we need to say and do things to make them definite, real, so we don’t forget them.

As you know, I didn’t die. But I think the trust bit was important.

When we have a crisis of health, or someone we love dies or when awful things happen, like the terrorists actions in Paris, it makes us realise that trusting ourselves isn’t enough, we need someone bigger to rely on. It is important that we place our trust wisely. Bad things happen. Do we trust God to bring some good out of it? That his plan is bigger than all the nasty stuff that we see in life?

It was fairly recent, but I have already lost that ability to completely trust. I am thinking about my book, my hope to be an author. I am praying that God will help me get published. But what if that isn’t his will? Do I trust him that his way is better? That’s pretty hard in normal everyday life. Plus, how do we know what his will is? I guess sometimes (usually in my case) we don’t. I didn’t know what his will was when I had the operation, I had to take the advice of people who knew better than me about physical things (the surgeons) and trust that God would be in control of the outcome.

Sometimes we have to walk along the route that seems to be laid out and just trust and pray that God’s will be done.

 

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Letters to a Sister : 29

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Do you think this is healthy? Every day when he gets home from work, Husband drinks a mug of tea (300ml) and adds 6 teaspoonfuls of sugar.

Now, I am not a dietician but this seems to me to be an unhealthy amount of sugar to be drinking every day. What do you think? Actually, I have mislead you slightly – he actually drinks the same sized glass of orange juice and doesn’t add any extra sugar. That much juice contains all that sugar as it is. I was REALLY surprised when he pointed this out to me. It doesn’t seem to matter if it’s the cheap ‘store own’ brand or something you actually enjoy drinking, like Tropicana. That is a lot of sugar. For someone who doesn’t use up a lot of energy doing physical work or a sport, I think it’s too much. Not sure I was popular when I told him this. Discussions continue……

Another discussion point was his annual stressful event at work. No, not a performance appraisal but his need to bake something for the ‘Team Baking Competition’. The competition has rounds, so it’s quite a knack to find something that meets both his competitive need to not fail miserably but also not good enough to win and go through to the next round.

I absolutely refuse to do the cooking for him (I tell him it wouldn’t be morally right but actually I just don’t want to get lumbered with it every year.) This year he made flapjacks. I wrote out a ‘fool-proof’ recipe, the sort of thing I used to write for the children when they were very small. It was almost foolproof.

Small children (who I have trained) know things like “do not hold the cat when cooking, however much he mews for attention it is unhygienic.” Or, “if you weigh the syrup on one work surface and then carry the spoon to the saucepan on the cooker, you will leave a sticky trail on the floor.” Even the basics, like “wash your hands before you start” seemed to be a new idea. Though of course, if cooking while holding a cat there does seem very little point.

However, kitchen survived and I am hoping that cooking the flapjack will have killed all the germs (plus I will never meet the people who devised this activity in the first place) so I am hoping it’s all good. Husband informs me that ‘international business executives’ do not need to know how to bake flapjacks. Except clearly they do.

It is actually quite hard for husband to be careful about what he eats. His job often involves dinners : dinners with clients to improve relations, dinners with staff to show that he cares, dinners with partners from overseas to be a good host, etc. Last week he told me that he had four dinners arranged. I was disappointed, thinking that was four evenings when I would eat alone. Then he checked and told me that they were all scheduled for the same night. That’s good, I thought, he’ll only have to go to one of them. But no. Apparently it is possible to attend four dinners on the same night – starter at one, main course at the other. Reminded me of the ‘Vicar of Dibley’. Not quite sure which character he would be………

Take care,
Anne xx

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Letters to a Sister : 28

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Did you do anything exciting for Bonfire Night? We didn’t on the 5th, although we did go to a parade on the Saturday. Edenbridge in Kent has an evening parade with flaming torches and small children wearing flammable costumes on floats. I watched with a mix of horrible fascination and fear. No one got hurt. It is actually very atmospheric, you stand in the dark High Street and watch as the flaming torches come nearer, the marching bands drumming, the children all waving frantically at everyone they know, the crowd shouting abuse when Guy Fawkes passes. (Bleary photos below. I am no photographer….)

They also each year burn an effigy of a generally disliked person, which I’m not quite sure about. One year it was Jimmy Savile, complete with ‘Jim’ll Fix It’ badge. This year it was Sepp Blatter (I am slightly unsure of the spelling here. On UK social media it’s spelt Seb, on foreign sites it’s Sepp. Apologies if it’s wrong. Though frankly, that seems less bad than burning him.)

When you think about it, it’s a rather bizarre festival. I didn’t give it much thought until we were living in the US and I explained to a friend how we commemorate the near blowing-up of Parliament in 1606 by Guy Fawkes by exploding fireworks and burning effigies of him. She just sort of looked at me, clearly wondering if I belonged to a sect similar to the KKK.

Do you remember when we were children and dressed up A, (younger cousin) as a guy and wheeled him to the shops? Actually, I think I wheeled him in your very special doll’s push-chair that I wasn’t allowed to touch, so possibly you didn’t know at the time. Anyway, he wore Dad’s old clothes and a wig and looked exactly like a real Guy and then every so often he would move and give old ladies a shock. Hugely funny and thankfully no one had a heart attack. Husband assures me that Disney probably didn’t copy our idea for all the ‘human statues’ that you now see in cities around the world, but I feel we were ahead of our time.

Had a pretty ordinary week this week. Saturday we went to the supermarket, which is always bit of an adventure. Especially now they have stopped giving away free bags. I love watching all the men (it is always men) trying to carry twenty-seven individual items without a bag. I think clothes with massive pockets are soon to make a come-back.

Animals all pretty stable. Hens are now kept in until midday, so I do actually get some eggs in their nesting boxes. They are then free to roam the garden until they take themselves back to their perch at dusk. It is the only good thing about changing the clocks – the chickens go to bed nice and early and I can shut the door to keep out the fox before I go out for the evening.
Mungo, the inside cat, escaped a few times. I found him having fun with the outside cats and felt too mean to keep him inside. So now he’s allowed out the cat-flap at night, when we have hardly any cars in the lane. He must party all night because he’s completely exhausted now in the daytime and mews very crossly if I disturb him by picking him up. Makes for a nice peaceful house. Kia, the GSD, is certainly grateful that the ‘chase a noisy plastic egg for hours non stop’ game seems to have ended.
I haven’t seen a rat at the pond for ages now. Not sure if they’ve moved on due to all the cats or if they hibernate. Will need to do a google search.
Still no duck eggs but they’re all getting a bit old now, plus ducks are moody and wont lay if the weather’s wrong.

I am enjoying some long evenings reading next to the fire before the whole Christmas rush starts.

Take care,
Anne xxx

 

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Letters to a Sister : 22

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So, I was asked if I would consider helping with the Sunday School. Actually, it’s not called Sunday School, it’s called Boulders, but everyone knows what I mean if I give it the old fashioned title. If it happens, it will be hugely exciting. I did help with the group about a year ago, before I was ill. It was tremendous fun, I (and I think the kids) enjoyed it immensely. This might be my second chance.

When we were children, did you enjoy it? Mum and Dad dutifully sent us every week, but I think for me it was a bit too much like school. I did learn though, much of my Bible knowledge today is based on what I learnt as a child in those classes, despite my main aim being to kick off the shoe of the teacher when she crossed her legs. I remember one teacher who I loved because she let us draw stick-men instead of writing the story. We were simple souls.

Of course, if I am the teacher, I can be as imaginative as I want. Last year I taught about the plagues in Egypt, Moses, Pharaoh, God leading his people to the promised land. I was very keen that it shouldn’t be like school, a ‘sit down and write’ lesson. So I made it as real as I could. I felt it was important to source some of the plagues. Husband (somewhat reluctantly, I must say) helped with this.

First was blood – I did wonder about asking cousin the nurse if she could get me some but thought that maybe there would be health risks with using human blood. So we used food colouring and coloured some water red. It was more pink to be honest. Fear the children may now think all Jewish people were anaemic.

Next was frogs. I tried the local ponds but they were very hard to catch. Father-in-law came up trumps. Apparently his pond had too many and he needed to lose some. Gave me a tupperware box full of bouncing amphibians. I put them in the garage in a very big box covered in netting with a ‘pond’ in an empty ice cream container. Was getting excited now.

Flies were easier than you might think – my window sills had a good supply of dead ones that could be put into an envelope. The joys of living on farm land. I decided the smaller ones could double up as gnats.

Locusts were also easily sorted. The local ‘exotic pets’ shop sold them in boxes as food for the lizards and things. They were alive (apparently lizards and things do not like to eat dead things.) We put them into another big crate in the garage. You would be amazed by how much green stuff a locust can eat. We had about twenty of them. Husband then got rather enthusiastic. He ‘decorated’ the crate to make a nice environment for them. Lots of leaves and branches, areas of soil, etc.

The boils were lipstick spots with ‘tumours’ of lumps of cold porridge. The hail was crushed ice cubes. The dead animals were found in my daughter’s long forgotten farm set in the loft. The darkness was a big blanket everyone could hide under.

Death was harder, we had to just act that. Even I felt that using a corpse might be going too far. And be illegal. And damage the children beyond repair.

Anyway, we had a terrific time. We learned about the story, then made a short film, using mobile phones. It would probably win some Oscars if I released it. I will send you a copy.

Afterwards, the frogs went into my pond (still see them occasionally) and the rest of the stuff went back into cupboards.

The locusts were a problem. They had grown huge (we only had them a week) and husband had bonded with them. Super. Son 1 did suggest we could release them into crops next door but that was clearly wrong. Eventually we found someone with a big lizard thing which ate big locusts, so we gave them to him. Think husband was rather sad but we coped.

Am very much hoping it happens. Husband has banned me from teaching about Noah’s Ark. But I think it has potential.

Take care,
Anne x

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Letters to a Sister : 15

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So, the week began with a visit from my friend who is from Iran and studying over here for a few years. We took her to an Indian restaurant. The waiter asked if she was Indian. I am guessing, from her reaction, that for an Iranian that is not a compliment.

The boys then thought it something of a challenge to encourage her to drink shots with them. Hmm, can always rely on them to not let me down when I’m trying to make a good impression.

We also had a “men’s social/bloke’s night” at our house. I do think to be male and attend church you need to be man enough to cope with some pretty naff names. They had a croquet tournament. For the uninitiated, this might seem like a nice polite game. It is not. I promised myself I would never have to play it again when I was dating my husband and we played with his family, who all thought it hilarious to send my ball spinning off into a garden several houses away while they all had a nice social time and finished together. It is a nasty, competitive mean game. My family are all very good at it. Enough said.

The winner of this particular event, which we host every year, gets a trophy to sit on their mantelpiece for the year. You might think this would be a small cup or a replica of croquet mallets, but no. It is a very large and ugly china hand which was originally used as a mould for rubber gloves. Husband found it in a junk shop when in New York. I am not sure if the men actually try to win it or not. I suspect that they cannot help being competitive. You will be surprised at how often the wife of the winner sidles up to me afterwards in church and confesses that they really do not have room for it in their house, would I mind looking after it for the rest of the year.

My husband then hides it. Otherwise a nasty accident might befall it when I am dusting. (Actually, I rarely dust, but I might make an exception in this case.)

I bought a hat for nephew’s wedding. I know you will be pleased, knowing just how much I hate shopping. Fifteen minutes, half price, John Lewis. AND it came with a box. A triumph. It is slightly big. If it slips down I will have to peer at bride and groom from under the rim. But was too good a bargain to miss.

Then shopped for boy clothes with boys. This was painful. I suggested to boy with large toe protruding from canvas shoe that perhaps shoes would be a good item for list.
We went to the same shop he went to last time and tried on exactly the same pair of shoes in exactly the same size. He informed me they were fine, just a little tight over one toe, but as they were the same shoe/size as last time, this was not a problem. I was almost fooled.
Then I realised that the toe it was ‘a bit tight over’ was the same toe that protruded from the old shoes.
Suggested a bigger size might be a good idea. Was told this would not work as other foot was a lot smaller.
I felt wearing one new shoe (in bigger size) and one old shoe (on small foot) was ideal solution. Son told me I was “hilarious” (in the kind of voice that told me I was far from funny in a good way.)
We bought the bigger shoes. (I was paying.)

Journey home uneventful. Boys sat in back and debated intensely all the way home. Sentences such as, “what if a man kills a dog and then just keeps killing dogs for fun” and, “well no, I think all animals are equal so perhaps murder is not so wrong. I could probably eat a human,” floated to the front. I was going to ask what they wanted for dinner. Decided not to.

Take care,
Anne

PS, We collected son’s duvet from Morrison’s washing service (the one with a hole in, remember?) All was good – we were not charged for any breakage due to feathers and he can still use the duvet. As a pillow perhaps.