Culture Vultures Ride Again

Friday 24^th October.

When I entered the cramped and claustrophobic space that is the Fortune Theatre, in London’s Covent Garden, one Saturday afternoon about 16 years ago I had no idea what to expect but, because Mum had brought me with her, I had an inkling it would be a theatrical delight. You will not be surprised to learn that by the time the show was over I was terrified and a little bit weepy after what I had seen. (OK, very weepy!)

My Mum was mortified. I don’t think she had any idea of the impact that The Woman in Black was going to have on this intelligent 10 year old girl. I was convinced we were all doomed to repeat the tragedy of Kipps and his family because we had all seen a ghost in the theatre. A ghost that was visible to everyone and who wasn’t an actress because there was no mention of her in the programme at all! I, and my Mum and everyone else had been haunted that afternoon. Owing to the nature of the haunting our families were going to suffer a major and calamitous tragedy pretty soon afterwards.

It took my Mum ages and ages to convince me that it was all make-believe. The ghost was an actress and the reason she wasn’t mentioned in the programme was to add verisimilitude to the performance we had just seen. She explained she had seen the performance at the theatre in Scarborough some years before and it was exactly the same and she hadn’t had anything happen to her, nor had the entire audience. By the time our train arrived back in Norwich I had stopped my tears and begun appreciate that I had been a witness to the absolute magic of the theatre, which presents make-believe as reality. She told me I ought to write to Stephen Mallatrat and explain how I had felt after the show and he would be both very pleased (that his dramatization had worked) and alarmed that a little girl had been traumatised by it. I never did write that letter. I did go to masses more shows in both Norwich and London (with my Mum and with my Mum and her school trips –she was Head of English at my school).

I saw a play about an all-white painting. I saw a play version of the Hobbit. I saw a play about a robot actress who becomes human (like Pinocchio). I saw a play with characters all in masks, who made up their own language to tell the story. I saw three men tell all the plays of Shakespeare in one hour and forty minutes. The same three people (although one was a woman) did a musical about the turn of the Millennium – and I got squirted at by a giant water pistol. I saw Sean Bean and Samantha Bond in Macbeth.  The list goes on and on. All because of my Mum.

This Friday Mum, Laura and I sat in front of an empty stage, except for a wicker costume basket and a gauze curtain to watch The Woman in Black again. It was brilliant once more. I didn’t sob my eyes out afterwards (I am 27 now) but I did jump and scream along with the rest of the audience, including Laura and my Mum. Laura, who has not been to as many shows as I have (probably about 10% of my total) was so blown away by it, she thought it was the most wonderful show she has seen with me so far. She is right. The play is the very essence of true theatre (IMHO). It has two people, no set, a minimum of props yet between them they conjure a world that is believable and frightening at the same time. If you wanted to show people what makes “true theatre” take them to see this show. They will be blown away by it. If they aren’t, then they have no imagination at all and can be left to vegetate in front of crappy reality television – they deserve each other (mindless pap for morons).

Mum was still aghast as I explained to Laura how the play had made me sob buckets almost all the way from London to Norwich. I did lay it on a bit thick at her expense, I must admit. She did say that it was my intelligence and imagination which had made me so upset, a compliment she tried at the time but which cut no ice with a sobbing 10 year old. As a ‘mature’ adult I can understand what she means now.

So, if anyone out in the ether is actually reading this drivel then call up the interweb and search for the Woman in Black tour and get yourselves tickets. Say I sent you. I promise you, you will not regret it.

Saturday 25^th October.

We had a second cultural event this evening with the second of our Halle Orchestra concerts in the International Concert Season at the City Hall. (In fact it was the very same ‘we’ who had their bums on the plush seats at the Lyceum yesterday.) The programme was Schumann, Mozart and Sibelius, but I bet the majority of the bums on the plush this time were there for the Mozart. It was the Clarinet Concerto which is one of his more sublime pieces (IMHO again). The other two pieces were very well done, including the Sibelius Symphony 2 which is by no means his best – that accolade I feel can safely be laid at the feet of his 7^th Symphony.

We often meet Lynn Briggs at the concerts; she’s my boss and has become an avid concert goer again since I started working at XXX & Y Solicitors in Sheffield (in 2010). I think I sort of piqued her interest in the genre by my lively descriptions of what I had been to see. (She has even been known to come to concerts at The University’s Firth Hall venue, which was a real leap in the dark for her!)  She and her partner have gone to North Wales for the weekend, which is something she has not been known to do since I have been working there! I just hope she didn’t get washed away in all the rain when she could have been swept away by the excellent playing of the clarinet in the Mozart.

I am not going to go overboard about the concert, in the way I got a little over-enthusiastic about TWIB form yesterday but… I think that seeing music played live has to be the best way to experience it. My version of the Clarinet Concerto and Symphony No 2 which I have on CD don’t hold a candle to seeing and hearing them being played live by real, concentrating, sweating musicians who obviously enjoy the feedback from an appreciative audience. (I don’t have a copy of the Schumann at all, in case you’re wondering.)

Earlier in the day we went for a mega grocery shop and I was appalled at the size of the bill for the amount (or lack of it) in the trolley. Over £130! I was dumbfounded. OK, I did spend nearly £30 on food for Callie as she needed a new sack of Autarky dried food and I always buy her a packet of cooked ham and some cheese to sprinkle on the top of her meal (I am mad, I know). This is despite Laura and me sitting down and devising our week’s menu before we go shopping and not being extravagant at all. I am shocked, TBH. I wonder how someone like Laura would cope (she is not earning really, being an undergraduate in her finals year) if she was having to do this by herself. What really annoys me is the fact we spend a mint on sodding tampons and the like every month whether we want to or not. I bet if men f*cking bled every 28 days they’d have made these items FREE centuries ago!

Sunday 26^th October.

Today we had a quiet day. The weather was grotty and so windy. I was scared we might get blown away at one point when we walked Callie this morning. Luckily, like a crab, we can go sideways and still forwards, so at one point we were facing into the wind but going sideways down the lane to avoid being buffeted uncontrollably along. It is lucky Lumb Lane is so infrequently used by vehicles; we could have been part of a road traffic accident as we wouldn’t have seen an oncoming vehicle.

Rachel Harrison and her BF came round for Sunday lunch, she is a colleague from XXX & Y Solicitors and has never been for a meal at my place, I discovered after looking through my old diaries last week (I sometimes get an idea in my head and as I keep very meticulous records of all sorts of stupid items – rainfall days; amounts spent on groceries, when I do gardening etc – I was looking up previous rainfall amounts and found a note saying ‘Ask Rachel’ to lunch. That was dated September 2012! So last week I asked her if she fancied coming round for Sunday lunch.

She asked if she could bring Mitchell, her boyfriend round as well, so I said, ‘OK’. I have never met the aforementioned Mitchell and when I was going to ask her way back in 2012 I was sure she was dating another guy altogether! Still, in the interests of making the workplace a friendlier place I was prepared for anything.

In the end he turned out to be a bit innocuous and instantly forgettable. I asked her why she was dating Mitchell (when he’d gone to the ablution) and she said that she wasn’t really sure. He was a nice enough guy but lacked and sort of get up and go. Laura had the brass neck to say, ‘He must be good in bed then?’ and Rache answered, ‘Well not especially…”

It seems that at 31 she was getting worried that she might be leaving things too late and he seemed like a good idea at the time. (!!!) In a previous lifestyle and existence I might have offered to have a threesome with her and Mitchell to see if would inject a bit of spice in his life but I decided that might not be a good idea any more. We didn’t have time for any more Mitchell related chatter as he came back from the loo and we moved to less dangerous ground.

On visiting the lavatory myself a little later on I was appalled to see that we had left a dildo in the bottom of the shower! It goes to show how wimpy this Mitchell guy is that he never even alluded to it all the rest of the afternoon. When I pointed it out to the Lollster after they had left she collapsed into giggles and said he probably hadn’t said anything as he might have been scared we’d get it and use it on him! I said I had a much better idea.

I went and fetched it and showed Laura the better idea, she agreed (after about an hour and a half) that it was definitely a better idea. We lay on the bed afterwards cuddling and wondered if when Rachel and Mitchell got home they’d indulge in sex too. Laura doubted it very much, I have to agree with her assessment. Why do women chose such unsuitable attachments? 

Private and Public tutoring. Rain stopped sex! LOL

Monday 20^th October.

When I was at Dad’s this weekend (just passed), for some reason  - probably connected to my OCD – I decided to clean out one of my chests of drawers. I wanted to see what delights I had lurking in there, you know the sort of thing. I found some items of clothing I hadn’t worn for ages but I could still get into them! In one of the drawers I found a whole load of Derwentwater Ferry timetables. There was a whole stack of these folded A4 leaflets dating back from 2013 all the way to 1993! That means I must have been collecting them since I was six. I know they are mine and not the ones Dad gets every year and pins to the notice board in the kitchen as none of them had pin holes in them!

This discovery got me thinking… Have I always been as obsessive? The drawers themselves have the clothes inside arranged by colour. Is that normal? Looking at the books on the big bookshelf in my room, I know that  inside each one is an “ex-libris” stamp (which Dad bought for me when I was about 8) and every book has a number and the date I bought it (or acquired it some other way) written inside the cover. The number refers to its place in my collection and the date is self-explanatory. Perhaps even more disturbing is the fact the books are arranged alphabetically by author, and then by date of publication in that sub-section. Again, this could be worrying.

I asked the Lollster, who was watching all this with amused disinterest from the sofa bed, if I was weird for doing stuff like this. She asked if I wanted the truth or a white lie. I asked for the truth. She said it was weird. But weird in a charming and cute and non-threatening or worrying way. She thought it was unbelievably quirky but in a way which comes from a place where quirk is wonderful and the commonplace is boring and dullsville extra-ordinaire! She bet that my brother didn’t do anything like this and if he found out about it he would say it proved what an odd-ball I was. This was so the answer I wanted to hear. Plus it shows what a handle she has on my family. She was even prepared to bet that if she checked my Dad’s study she would find a pattern repeated in there but probably exaggerated to the nth degree.

We sneaked in an looked. He has a filing system for his CDs and books which is even more OCD than mine. They are arranged by their titles alone, both books and CDs. So unless you know the title of the CD (or book) you are looking for, you are absolutely stumped. I thought this was even barmier than my system. Laura was inclined to agree.

[Later that weekend we asked Dad why he had his books and CDs arranged the way he did. His reply was very surprising. He told us he had done it when he and Mum first moved in together as a way to annoy her. She could never remember the titles of LPs (in those days) or books and therefore found Dad’s system aggravating in the extreme. He said it was worth having to rack your own brains to find what you wanted if it meant Mum was annoyed. The trouble with Dad is you can’t always tell if he is serious or joking so we resolved to ask my Mum about it when we saw her on Friday night at the theatre. (One of the many troubles with Dad, I should have said… LOL)]

Back to Monday:

This morning, continuing my desire for order and control we were up with the larks as usual and straight into the usual routine. After the walk, swim and breakfast we went into work early so I could get on with my prep for Thursday. I spent a lot of the morning on that and part of the time discussing, with Felice, which document to tackle next from our cache.  We have been trying to tackle them systematically but today decided to just go for one at random. We grabbed a passing gaggle of undergraduates and asked them to choose a document from a selection we had laid out on Felice’s desk. They thought we were messing about at first, but once we explained what and why to them they finally settled on our next choice. (Hope it proves interesting.)

This afternoon just flew by and we seemed to be heading home almost as soon as we’d arrived. Having a free night, as it were, we decided to catch up with the backlog of TV programmes we’d set up to record over the weekend. Dr who, not bad; The Code episodes 3 & 4 much better although the emphasis on Canberra as the film location was a bit depressing; it is one of the most boring places in the whole of Australia.  I think the show and its premise were quite good although it doesn’t hold a candle to the Wallander made by Yellow Bird. That has to be my all time favourite.

Tuesday 21^st October.

A full day at Uni of both of us and I thought I managed to get masses done with the random choice of document. Initially it is an inventory, I think, but on the back someone has written a proper, real letter! I was hoping there would be a clue to the person who wrote it but there was none at all. Still, it was a change from the repetitive lists we have unearthed so far. TBH, without a context they are almost meaningless.

Olivia’s English session went much better than last time and she actually said she thought she understood something tonight! That has to be a result. Laura’s Trevor used the study tonight and Olivia and I worked at the kitchen table. Livvy’s Mum kept everyone supplied with a seemingly endless supply of mugs of tea. It brought home to us how useful it would be to have a second toilet installed somewhere. But where? However, the number of times that there are more than two of us in the house means the expense wouldn’t really be justified, would it?

We do actually have another loo, the row of houses all have an outside closet. Ours is in a block of four just as you come under the archway to the back garden. In the past century each house had internal sanitation installed and so the outside toilets have all become extra sheds. In mine there is my old bike from my Cambridge days. I will probably never use it up here, though, as it is way too hilly. I would be knackered within minutes.

Because we used the full span of hours we got paid the full whack tonight (£50 each) woo hoo! Laura is convinced that it beats working in the restaurant but she does miss the banter among the staff and customers. She is convinced she will lose weight because of it, though, as there is no Dominic at hand to tempt her with morsels of what has been cooked. She claims to have put on weight since last September. I told her if she thought that she must have put it on in her head! This led to a brief cushion fight followed by a rather impromptu session by the cunning linguists on the kitchen table.

Wednesday October 22^nd

We had a call from Mum this morning asking if we fancied coming round to hers for our meal tonight. We had to explain about our tutoring and the fact that Laura’s 6^th former would here at our at 7pm. She said that was no problem, she would bring the meat and potato pie round to us and we could scoff it there instead. I sort of expected farmer John to be included in the invite but he wasn’t mentioned at all.

I asked her, what about John? She gave a huge sigh and said why did she have such smart Alec children? Yes, could she bring him round too? Would we mind? I thought it was hilarious that Mum was asking my permission to bring her date round to my house! She was fine with the fact that Sally’s Mum would be there as well and maybe would rather wait with me in the lounge instead of up in the study with Laura and her daughter. That was OK too.

Mrs B,at work found the idea that my Mum was asking me for permission to bring her beau was funny too. She asked Laura if I was a right little madam when I was a girl for my Mother to be in awe of me. Laura began to make up silly stories of me scaring the whole of the village as child and bending them to my will. Mrs B said something that I thought was really sweet and quite astute. It went along the lines of: “Do you know, I have only known you for a short while compared to Miss Jay here but, it seems to me you are so like each other. Are you sure you aren’t secretly related somehow?”

Loll said it was just an example of great minds thinking alike. I replied that I thought it was more a case of fools seldom differ. Mrs Briggs simply said, “I rest my case.”

She is really great is Mrs B. I am so glad I was able to wangle some time back at XXX & Y to fit in with my PhD.

We found Mum, Farmer John and Callie already ensconced at the kitchen table when we arrived home. They were busy reading the newspapers (we get The Times and The i delivered daily – having a subscription to each). Farmer J asked, in a tone that sounded quite disbelieving, if it was true what my Mum had said about me being able to do the Times crossword in about 15 minutes. I nodded. He asked, quite kindly this time, if I would care to give him a demonstration. (If he had said “Prove it!” I was quite ready to swear at him and refuse, even if it would rouse Mum’s anger.)

What he didn’t know was that I had done Felice’s copy this morning whilst waiting in her office for her to reappear from wherever she had wandered off to. I read each clue out, pretended to ponder for a moment then said the answer and wrote it in. The whole process took me about 8 minutes. Laura said, “Don’t you hate a show off?” So I whacked with a cushion. This time we forbore the ensuing fight and reconciliation on the table top, it might not have gone down all that well. (Yes, that was intentional!)

I love Mum’s meat and potato pie. Mine is made using her instructions but somehow it never quite tastes the same. We cracked open one of the last of Uncle Hilmar’s Dornfelders to go with it and John did the usual comment (which most people make on tasting Dornfelder for the first time), “Goodness me, what kind of grape is this?” I explained about Hilmar, Reinhardt, Cochem and Neustadt and the vineyards. He was impressed. Mum contributed by saying it was lovely along the Rhine and the visits to Germany were things she missed after the divorce (is that the right thing to be saying when you are with a new bloke, Mum? I was trying to telepathically tell her).

Laura vanished up to the study with Sally at 7pm and we sat in my lounge having a good old gossip with Sal’s Mum, for a couple of hours. You can’t beat having a chin wag about everything and anything once in a while. I am not sure what Farmer John made of it, especially as we cackled and squawked and laughed and generally behaved like a set of school girls for two hours. We did try to include him in the fray but he couldn’t keep up and he had no shared reference points either.

At 9 all four of them left and the house fell silent and calm again. As I closed the door after seeing them all off I gave Laura a huge smackerooni and when we had finished she said, “Mmmm….. Nice. What was that for?” I told her it was because I just loved her. She suggested we take Callie for a walk immediately so we could get up to naughty things together in the woods. (She has taken to al fresco sex in a big way.) We did this but were denied by the weather. We had just walked up, past the last bungalow before the wood, as the sky decided to lighten its moisture content on us and all of North Sheffield. We spent ages sheltering under a pair of beech trees at the entrance to the wood proper, which afforded some shelter but the rain obviously didn’t look like abating so we bit the bullet and retraced our steps (the quickest way back home from this point). We were as drenched as we had been last Friday in Cumbria when we got back.

We used the shower as the setting for our playtime instead of the woods which had the added bonus of being able to walk a mere few yards to tumble into bed. Here we continued for quite a while listening to the rain batter against the bedroom window as we did.

Thursday 23^rd Oct.

Today was our normal, usual, half and half day with the double tutoring session in the evening; except for the reality of my second tutorial / lecture session at Uni this morning that is. I was all prepped up and ready to go well before the event, as usual. And, as usual I had the deepest, hollow, doom feeling in the pit of my stomach before walking into the room to get started. I don't know why. It went like a dream (again) they were attentive, amused and asked sensible questions during the  Q & A. 

Felice dragged me and Loll down to Lokanta for a celebratory lunch. If I can get past the horrible feeling before I start, I think I could enjoy what I am doing. I wonder if everyone feels like I do before hand or is it because I am a newbie?

 Jenny-Leigh and Bobbi’s parents decided it would be better all round if they just abandoned their daughters to our care and came to collect them at 9 pm. That made sense to me and Laura. I had the study tonight, Laura had the dining table. Amusingly, afterwards we both said that the girls are much better than they or their parents think when they had left, but we don’t mind the lucrative cash we are making. Loll had a bit of a panic and asked if we ought to declare this extra income. I wasn’t sure what we needed to do, so we both resolved to ask the co-ordinator of the whole thing at Uni in the morning.

One thing which did surprise us though was the fact Mrs B isn’t going to see the Woman in Black or the Halle this weekend. We had mentioned it in passing as we were leaving tonight and she told us she was spending a weekend away in North Wales. I can’t wait to get the gossip. She doesn’t normally do things like this at all.

To add insult to injury, after last night’s almost bonking in the woods debacle, when I took the woofie (on my own) round the circuit tonight, the sky was a clear as anything over my head. Are the gods trying to give me a message? LOL

We take our mad French friend to Cumbria again. No sex this time!

Friday October 17^th.

Yaay, we’re at Dad’s! We skived off Friday arvo and whizzed up here instead of having lunch. We have brought a shell shocked Felice with us too. She was given a choice of coming or not and she just dithered about so we told her unless she had a 100%, cast iron solid reason why she had to stay put she was coming to Dad’s as well. [I did phone him this morning to OK it first, just to be on the safe side.]

She left ours this morning when we went to the pool. We told her we’d use strong arm tactics if she baulked at the idea, and she had better find herself some stout footwear too. At Uni I found she had walked down from home carrying the single rucksack of packing, as instructed, and her handbag. When we finished at 12, a swift rendezvous with Loll later, we were off to pick up Callie and then zoom up the M1 to the promised land. Even with Feli’s one bag and Laura’s one bag the back of my car seemed a bit squashed for Felice in the back. That is the only downside of giving Callie the entire boot space in the car, it means when you have passengers and their luggage it can be cramped. Still, with Laura pulling her seat forward I think she had enough room.

Felice has met Dad and Louisa but has only been to my old Holiday Home, just north of Cockermouth the once, last November. Dad had sorted out the spare room off my landing for Felice’s room – that is usually used as a dumping room and guests have the bigger bedroom in the new extension. Dad reasoned that Feli might like to be close to YT and Laura which is either quite understanding of him or perhaps he doesn’t want her to end up sleeping with any of his guests again! That sounded so scathing but I didn’t mean it that way.

(The guy she slept with was one of Dad' s colleagues, Michael, who would have actually slept with Dad's precious daughter a year or so earlier if she hadn't come to her senses and locked him out of her bedroom! My excuse, and probably Felice's too, was that I was very drunk at the time.)

We stopped at Sedbury Layby (Scotch Corner) for a bacon butty and a cuppa (and to let Callie answer the call of nature in the woods by the paint ball village), then Laura took over the driving across the A66. This has to be my favourite stretch of road in England, especially on a day like today when it was really clear, if a little cloudy overhead. I think Felice was still impressed by the wild, rugged grandeur of the route, especially at the Stainmore Summit where I pointed out the old railway line marker. She was surprised that there used to be a railway line so high up the mountains. (They are only piddling mountains compared to what the French have, though.)

Once we hit the edge of the National Park proper Felice started asking me the names of the fell tops. The Lake District might just be a collection of hills and valleys and lakes but the way nature has arranged them in such a compact area makes them outstandingly beautiful and a Mecca for hill walkers and other outdoorsy types. Each of the fell tops is quite distinct and with a practised eye you can quickly get to know them all by sight from almost every angle. What Felice was really doing was checking out whether my boast of last year was actually true, I had told her that I could name every single fell top we passed and tell her roughly when I had last climbed each one. (Even the tiny weeny ones on the way to Cockermouth like Sale Fell or Harrot Fell or even Slatefell, which is a bump just to the east of Cockermouth itself.) I was able to prove it and point out each one because Loll was at the wheel.

Laura dropped herself off at her Mum’s (like she usually does) and said she see us in an hour so I finished off the three hundred yards or so to Dad’s house. I may have mentioned this was our old Holiday Home, bought before I was even born. Mum & Dad had it extended just before my appearance (up into the loft) and Dad had another extension added after his Mum (my Gran) died and left him a wodge of cash in her will. She did that for all of us, to be honest, and we never even knew she was loaded. Good old Granny Gertrude has certain made all our lives a lost more comfortable because of her secret stock market dabblings over the last forty years!

Dad and Louisa weren’t back from Lancaster when we pulled on to the driveway. I let us in and showed Feli which was her room and she unpacked and came into my room to admire the view again (no not me, out of the window). Once we’d unpacked, we went out into the garden and unleashed the storm from the kennel. The trio in there don’t usually bark at my arrival and they were quiet when we let them out but they made a bee-line for Feli who wasn’t sure what to do with three large hounds bounding straight at her. Callie came skidding out from the kitchen to join them and the whole pack swerved round Feli and began a rough and tumble on the lawn and paddock (where I let them go and let off steam).

There was a pile of veggies on the worktop in the kitchen and a note from Dad. “How about one of your lovely chunky soups for tea?” He’s a cheeky bugger. However, I set to and between us Felice and I prepped a mini mountain of veg and then set the whole concoction going on top of Dad’s aga. I whipped the temp gauge round on the oven to warm up it from tick over while the soup was coming to the boil and we let it simmer for a good thirty minutes before sticking the tureen into the oven. Felice, quite rightly said, that if we added meat it would be like the stew and dumplings I did last night. She was right, but Dad wasn’t to know that.

By the time all this was done, the Lollster rolled up and told us her gossip from home. Eric is doing a long haul with the lorry and won’t be back until Monday (which can be a blessing as he is sometimes a bit funny about Laura and me being a ‘couple’ even though it’s over two years since it happened).

I decided we ought to crack open a bottle of Hilmar’s wine to help reduce the amount in Dad’s cellar before he drives off to Cochem again in November to get some more from our erstwhile cousin. We had a bottle of Spatburgunder before Dad and Louisa turned up. Louisa does look blooming. I know some people say that all women look at their best when pregnant but this is so patently not the case with all of us. Just look around. But Louisa looked positively radiant. She is due in late January and she and Dad are still talking about going to Australia for Christmas! I think they are mad. [I actually believe that Dad is secretly hoping the baby will be born in Australia.]

After the meal and dessert (one of my apple cakes from Dad’s freezer – he needs to eat them up) we sat round and gossiped about LTUAE (Life The Universe And Everything) until it was time for HIGNFY on TV. That is a must for Dad and I quite like it too.

After the idiot box I decided that I would take the woofies up Tallentire Hil and then hit the charp. To my surprise everyone thought this would be a good idea and they would come too. I’d planned to sit on the bench near the mini underground reservoir and watch the lights of West Cumbria for a bit. We all ended up trying to squash on to the bench. Felice was surprised at how noisy the wind turbines are. (There are three on our side of the hill and three more on the Gilcrux side of the hill.) I had known they were noisy – even though they aren’t audible in the village – but I guess Felice’s pointing it out brought home just how VERY NOISY they actually are.

The noise wasn’t to be a problem for long though. Dad informed everyone it had been really dry up here for weeks apart from the odd spot once in a while, however it chose tonight to decide to end the drought. The first few drops fell as we were still at the seat and as we started back down the hill (it’s over half a mile from the seat back to Dad’s) the heavens opened and we were drenched with in minutes! I mean seriously drenched. I was soaked through to my underwear and I guess everyone but Louisa was too! She’d had the foresight to put on a lightweight waterproof coat and so only her legs had got wet.

At Dad’s he told us to bring our wet stuff to the boiler / utility room once we had dried off and we arranged them over the huge ceiling drying rack in there. (I have a smaller version in my kitchen at home – it’s invaluable). We finished off with mugs of hot chocolate before hitting the charp.

We half expected Feli to join us again in our bed, after last night in Sheffield, but she didn’t.

Saturday October 18^th.

Last night’s rain continued through the wee small hours and was still being a nuisance this morning too. It kind of put paid to any plans for a Fell Walking expedition. All of the ones visible though the landing window were covered with a huge blanket of cloud.

We sat in the kitchen over breakfast and discussed our options for the day. Dad said he thought the forecast was for it all to lift and brighten up by lunchtime. I suggested that we head to Keswick, to show Feli the tourist centre of the northern Lakes and then take a ferry to Lodore. If it was fine, walk round the lake but if not have a bite at the Shepherd’s Crag café and then catch the ferry back round to Keswick again. This was agreed on as a sensible plan so we all drove off in Dad’s new car. He has kept this quiet! It’s a one year old VW Passat Estate. I thought his Citroen C5 Estate was huge, well this is even bigger! It managed to take all three of us on the back seat (nursing our rucksacks) and all four dogs in the boot!

We parked up at the theatre car park and strolled back into town. We kept having flurries of rain which flew over quite quickly and the sky to the west gradually grew less and less ominous as we shopped in the town. Keswick was packed with tourists, as it often is on rainy days, and they all wanted to fuss Dad’s dog Izzy (they do that all the time!) We had a good look round the market; went into millions of shops and even had a bag of roasted almonds each from a street vendor (they were delicious). I think the sum total of our spend was the cost of the Almonds.

This is not to say there weren’t masses of beautiful things to buy we have just gone into austerity mode for some reason [I think Laura is trying to save up to pay me back some of her airfare to Australia!] so we were quite miserly with the money. Felice was impressed by the lack of national chain shops in the town, it still feels quite individual and unique I suppose. When you visit somewhere as regularly as we do Keswick, you can get a bit blasé about what it has to offer. It was refreshing to see it all afresh through the prism of Felice’s eyes.

The weather turned even nicer as we hit the lake shore but we had to queue for the next ferry! The dogs were beside themselves at the prospect of a walk and possibly a swim, especially after they had been paraded through town on their leads! We squashed into the front section of the boat, but avoided the spray and alighted at Lodore. We gave the hounds a run around the landing stage area before re-leading them for the stroll to the café.

As usual the café didn’t disappoint with its tray baked savoury meals or desserts. We had one of each and washed it all down with gallons of hot tea. As the weather had brightened even more (with even a glimmer of sunshine attempting to peek through the clouds) we decided to walk round the lake to Hawes End and catch the ferry back from there. The dogs had a whale of a time chasing each other about; jumping into the river which feeds the lake; bounding up and down from the board walk into the muddy fields it crosses. They were really happy puppies.

Felice loved the huge wooden hands in Brandelhow Woods. It is only to be expected, they are quite a surprise and very impressive. Naturally we had to take several photo’s of her standing in them, they were too wet for lying in (which I have done in the past). She is going to text one to her Mum in Arcachon. The ferry back from Hawes End was packed so we had to split up with a dog each to avoid congestion. Luckily, it is only two stops back to Keswick, but Izzy had managed to make a friend for life with a little boy sat next to her. She is a very sweet puppy dog [she is 12 and so laid back, very un-like a Weimaraner] and everyone falls for her soppy expression.

Back home we had a freshen-up, showers all round it seemed, then a cuppa and biscuit and at 6pm we decamped to the pub for a meal. Dad is a regular and well-known. I am a semi-regular and a little less well known. Laura is a villager by birth and everyone knows her. Felice was remembered as being the foreign glamour puss who visited Dad last year and she attracted the attention of the pool playing crowd of lads, especially when she went across to have a game. We lost her for quite a while by the pool table.

Eventually, very well fed and a little worse for alcohol, we wended our weary way westward to Dad’s and had a swift night-cap before hitting the charp.

Sunday October 19^th

Had a mini-lie in again this morning courtesy of Callie, she doesn’t really do early when at Dad’s for some reason. Usually we are up with the larks at about 5.45 but here she slugs out until 7 or even 7.30!

At 7 I took the pack back up Tall. Hill for their first walk and was blown away by a very strong wind at the top. I sometimes go all the way up to the trig point but more often I turn round at the seat on the Gilcrux road. Today we went to the trig point which was where I almost lost Dad’s baseball cap. I had slipped it on, with my hair pony-tailed through the hole at the back to keep it in place, as I thought it would keep my head warm but the wind up high had different ideas. Normally I would have been tempted to let it disappear over the rolling hills towards Scotland but it was a new one and hardly worn (which was why I had deigned to slip it on in the first place) so I knew he’d be less than chuffed if I lost for him.

I had to scramble over a fence and run like a demented woman after it. Eventually I caught up and grabbed it. I decided not to put it back on until we were out of the gale.  This was a mistake as, holding the offending millinery in one hand made me slip as I climbed back and I snagged my bloody jacket on the barbed wire putting a smallish L shaped cut in the sleeve. I could have wept! It is my bloody Paramo jacket! It cost me an absolute arm and a leg and now I have a tear in the sleeve. I was so annoyed I was sorely tempted to fling Dad’s sodding hat back into the field.

Back home my anger had subsided and I was calm enough to accept my cooked breakfast from Louisa with the grace and dignity that is my hallmark behaviour (LOL).

This morning Dad suggested we take Felice to the centre of the Universe and have another bite out. We readily agreed, Laura, Louisa and me because we love Crummockwater; Felice because she was being treated like an honoured guest, again.

We left a little later to Lanthwaite Woods because the stroll, even up to the top of My Fell included, can take less than an hour and the pub doesn’t serve food on Sunday until 12. On arrival it seemed everyone else hadn’t waited as the car park was very busy. We took our Gallic Girl up to the summit of My Fell, which she remembered from her last visit, too. 

The Lorton Valley (in which it stands) is one of the quietest in the Lakes and is surrounded on three sides by magnificent peaks starting with Greystones in the north east and circling round, clockwise, to Mosser Fell in the west, taking in Great Gable at the bottom of the circuit and the head of the valley. I did my naming of parts again for Felice and told her roughly when I had first climbed each of them. Dad corrected me about Rannerdale Knotts though; apparently I had first gone up that fell as a baby in a back pack when I was about 10 months! I didn’t know that.

Sunday lunch with all the trimming cooked by someone else is a great treat and the Kirkstile Inn is a great place to eat it. Especially as they let dogs in to the bar until 6pm so we grabbed the two tables by the open fire and we ate whilst the dogs gently cooked themselves in front of the flames.

The stroll back, avoiding Vicki’s Fell, is flat all the way, just ideal for a small post-prandial exercise regimen. Back in the car park, at Dad’s new bus, we found ourselves almost blocked in by some very inconsiderate parking. We had to guide him doing a 68 point turn to get out. We filled the offending motorist’s windscreen with scribbled post it notes complaining about his inconsiderate parking. Felice wrote one in French which told him he was the bastard son of a pox-ridden, cock sucking whore. I bet he doesn’t understand that one at all.

We left Dad’s for our journey back to Sunny Sheff just as the threatened rain arrived. Which I thought was jolly good timing. Felice thanked Dad and Louisa profusely for the stay and was invited back at any time, she didn’t need to come up with bugger-lugs! (It is hard to explain how bugger-lugs can be a term of endearment from an Australian father to his daughter to an uncomprehending French woman.)

We hit Oughtibridge at about 5pm and Felice opted to zoom back home immediately, so Laura and I dumped all our gear in the kitchen, slumped in the lounge on the sofa and celebrated both of our monthlies finishing by making love for the next couple of hours.

Felice attacked by her boyfriend!

Monday October 13^th

Typical Monday morning; dog walking; swimming; chatting with Sarah; breakfast; drive into Uni with the prospect of work this arvo at XXX & Y. Work there was much the same, although being a bit slack I ended up back on the task of digitising the archive, which is generally quite diverting but can be really tedious too. This avro’s fell into the latter category. I was glad to zoom off home for our evening meal and then play host to Laura’s second pupil. This is another guy, called Trevor. Does anyone seriously call their child Trevor these days? He’s an A level student and Laura finished at 9 o’clock with her faith in the ability of some school pupils restored. In fact she said she couldn’t really see why his folks wanted extra tuition for him.

Her next two pupils are both A Level students as well; Roberta on Wednesday and Sally on Thursday, then back to GCSE Josh on Friday, if he shows up. She has had a cryptic text which seems to imply he won’t be coming. She’s going to phone his Mum on Wednesday to check what’s happening.

There are now two girls menstruating at this address, I told you the longer we live together the more synchronised we are becoming. This didn’t prevent some frantic, non-penetrative, activity after lights out though!

Tuesday October 14^th.

Swim and dog walk in the rain this morning, seems like the first real stuff for ages. In fact it was so real it lasted all day. I spent a full day at Uni with still no Felice. I am beginning to get a little concerned, it is so unlike her. I mean I know she comes across as a scatty, mercurial and brainless type but she is a PhD student, FFS. All her seemingly unorganised demeanour is just a sham, she is very meticulous and thorough, she just doesn’t want to appear like a blue stocking. [I know this because we chatted about it once.]

Olivia came round tonight and I made her read her essay to me. She made her Mum go and sit in the lounge so she couldn’t hear her reading aloud. It sounded quite good. A little wobbly in places but definitely better than the one I have read before. I re-read it carefully and marked any errors with a little pencil line in the margin and then made her explain to me what they were. I don’t think anyone has done this with her before. She was a bit nervous and hesitant but I promised I wouldn’t be unkind or ridiculing if she didn’t know, however she had to tell me if she didn’t know because, “I don’t know what you don’t know!”

Once she got over her initial scepticism we got on with it really well. I explained the solution to the error and I made her write it down in her note book rather than try and correct it there and then, this way she’ll have to think about it again when she comes to revise her piece. This was a well tried and tested method in my household; Mum & Dad used to do it with me and my school work. I seriously believe it is what helped me get the grades I did. You couldn’t pretend you understood, if you didn’t, as you couldn’t revise the work afterwards because you wouldn’t understand how to make the necessary corrections.

She was really chuffed with what we did and thought this was one of the best English lessons she’d had because I had explained the fault and then talked her through the answer. She asked if my Mum did this with all her pupils when she was teaching, I explained she did it for those who wanted but a lot of the girls were so snooty and superior (being a private school) they thought they knew better. The ones who used Mum’s method got the better exam results, though.

Olivia’s Mum was very pleased that Olivia was pleased and said if she got stuck could she text or phone with any questions, I told her that was perfectly fine, but I thought Olivia’s notes would be sufficient to get her essay just right. I praised up her initial essay draft, telling her I was especially pleased by the way she had used her quotations from the play, letting them flow into her sentences when making her points. This is the way you need to work for A Level and a Degree so getting the method nailed early is a bonus. Our two hours seemed to whizz by and the £50 seemed like a bit of a con for doing something that I found so enjoyable. I am putting all my earnings in to my Gromit money box to splash out on something after Christmas. (I have no idea what, yet, however.)

After she and her Mum had gone Laura and I lay and cuddled on the sofa for ages and just snogged. I quite like doing that. No sex or anything, just kissing and kissing.

Wednesday October 15^th.

Felice is back! Whoo Hoo! She is looking grim though. She got back on Monday and just hid from the world, including me, which was a bit concerning. I discovered her moving quite delicately and carefully round her office and she didn’t give me her usual welcoming hug and peck on the cheek. I came right out and asked what the matter was?

She started to cry and said she had a cracked rib. I tried to give her a cuddle but she flinched and pulled away. It was still quite sore. I sat her down and made a cuppa and slowly and gradually I got the details out of her. The message she’d sent to me about her pregnancy might or might not have been true, she didn’t know. What she did know was that she had taken the morning after pill to make absolutely sure she was safe. Naturally I asked about the guy and it seems he was someone she had met in Bordeaux and had got on very well with. She wasn’t sure who had picked who up, but they seemed to be having fun and he appeared to be a really nice guy. She began to think her luck was beginning to change with this one.

They didn’t have sex straight away (I was tempted to make a comment at this point, but I sort of knew that would stop the confession) they did things that ‘normal’ dating couples did, meals out, cinema (twice) a music concert. It seemed that she was playing it quite seriously. He didn’t seem to pressure her or anything but they did snog quite passionately but never went further until after about a month and a half (mid August). She gave him a blowjob in his car and he fingered her to orgasm (like a pair of school kids) but no full sex. She did describe his cock but I won’t repeat that. She did say it was his cock that made her decide to let him.

They had sex the first time later that week. She made him use a condom. They continued like this for a few days until she allowed herself to be persuaded by him that sex without one was much better – God, they always say that! So she let him. He shot so much inside her, it trickled out for ages. She was convinced that she was bound to get pregnant by such a huge amount so, literally the next day, she went to her GP and got the morning after pill. (Why the hell she isn’t on oral contraceptives or the implant I have no idea.)

Anyway, for some reason to do with his job he was away for the next few days but when they met up again she asked him to wear a condom again. He baulked at the idea and she told him that she was scared of becoming pregnant and after their last time she had taken the MAP to make sure she wasn’t. He started to lose the plot and get angry. He called her ‘une petite pute sale’ and then began to hit her. She covered her face so she didn’t get it mashed but he whacked her about the body several times including the blow which broke her rib! She did get a black eye in the process but he didn’t try to have sex with her but dressed again and stormed off.

She went back home and her Mum and Dad went spare; they took her to the hospital and called the police. The hospital found the broken rib; the police took a statement and some pictures. Nothing much has happened yet on that front and she seemed reluctant to speak about it. The French justice system is pretty weird and she has seen a prosecuting magistrate already.

I was able to give her a semi hug and kissed her. She was so relieved that I just was there to listen not pass judgement (good job telepathy doesn’t exist) and she said she felt so stupid and foolish and had thought about staying away for good. I told her I was so glad she hadn’t. Her folks had said that almost all of her friends were in Sheffield so why not go back and she realised they were right, so here she was. Ready to face the consequences but pleased to be in familiar surroundings.

I ran her through all that had happened, at Uni, since the semester began and she was pleased about my Uni tutorials and intrigued by my pupil tutoring as well. Laura has her second one tonight and I start again tomorrow. I brought her up to speed on the work I’d done on the cache and how we’d missed a lecture and exhibition at the Ashmolean which would have been brilliant for our casket book.

We spent an absolute age just chatting and getting Feli back up to speed. She had a teary hug with Laura at lunchtime and then we had to say good bye as we headed off to XXX & Y for the afternoon. (She is amazed that we have managed to wangle that for both of us.)

We invited Felice round for a meal tomorrow, she will come straight across from Uni to ours and we will eat early. In readiness I prepped a huge beef stew to which I will add some dumplings when we get home tomorrow.

Tonight’s student was Roberta. She out-goths Jenny-Leigh if that is possible. She was so black, hair, make-up, lips, clothing – even her bag and stuff were all black and covered with graffiti that made you think she might be the Queen of the Damned. She is a science bod who finds the maths tricky, she didn’t like maths at GCSE and so didn’t opt for it at A Level but now she is sometimes stunned by how much maths is involved in her science classes. They spent their two hours on problems to do with physics which Laura said were easy peasy really but then an expert always thinks their subject is simple, don’t they?

Her Mum and I sat and gossiped all the two hours and I got to know all about Roberta’s brothers and sisters and what they were doing with their lives. I am fascinated by how other people organise themselves once they have children. I know I have experienced it as the child and a little as the live in ‘nanny’ for my sister’s brood but hearing other people’s routines and systems makes me realise just how diverse the ways of raising children are. I suppose most Mums just go along with what their parents did. I know that was what I based my pseudo-parenting of Jill, Annabelle and Jeff on, anyway. They seemed to go along with it.

After Roberta had left Laura and I sat and discussed the same topic. It is weird that we have never even talked about something like this before. She thinks she will be an awful mother because she just wants to strangle any brat she sees misbehaving when we’re out. She even confessed to hating her kid brother at times because of the way he behaved as a little one. She says that is one reason she doesn’t want to have any children.

I started laughing and she asked what was so funny and what had she said? I told her it was just the situation two lesbians sitting discussing being mother. The absurdity of it just sort of hit me as we were talking. That led us on the practicalities of how we’d go about getting pregnant if we ever did decide to become mothers. This caused a great deal of mirth. Especially Laura saying she would try and seduce the head of the Maths faculty as that way she’d be sure of having brainy brats. This got us giggling even more, firstly because he looks old enough to be our grandfather then, even more childishly, we joked about whether Prof Biggins had a big ‘un!

She is now fearful of meeting him and calling him Professor Biggun! LOL.

Thursday October 16^th.

When Felice discovered we’d both have pupils for tutoring at home she wanted to cry off coming round for an evening meal, but I insisted that she did and if she wanted to, she could leave when Sally and Jenny-Leigh arrived she could, or she could stay and chat with their Mums if she wanted.

We drove back down to Uni after we’d finished at XXX & Y and made sure our vanishing Frenchwoman didn’t do another vanishing act on us. She followed us back to ours in her car (a battered old style Twingo – with the really cute headlights) and was surprised to find there was almost no room on our front garden to park.

Inside, I put the dumplings on to the top of the stew and set some potatoes to cook in the microwave to go with the stew. We broke open a bottle of wine and heard the full and gory details about Mr Abusive. I won’t go into the nasty bits here but it seems she thought he’d be alright but turned out that his initial rough play was the way he always wanted sex.

We entertained her with our tales of Australia and Laura showed her the travelogue film she has made from all the clips we took on our phones and tablet whilst out there. She has put it on a memory stick so was able to play it through the TV which makes it look even better than it does on the laptop. She loved her goody bag of things Australian (all of the people we have given them to, have loved them) I also bought her one of the Gum Nut Plaques from Aus Bush Art in Fremantle market (I bought loads of these back last year for family and friends as they are so gorgeous) Felice fell for it too. They do look unbelievably good. We have one which is about a foot in diameter, hers is about 7”.

After the meal we chatted some more and learned that Felice was thinking of going home when the casket project is finished as she realised that she was breaking so many ties with people she had grown up with; gone to school with and been to University with, that if she didn’t she may end up as a stranger in her own country. I was aghast but she reassured me that it wouldn’t happen until after we had the work finished and published but she was going to put out feelers for jobs back across La Manche during the final year of the project.

When the two girls and their Mums arrived Felice decided to stay as they were both enchanted by this gallic vision of sophistication and charm (hah!). We promised her a bed for the night if she wanted to continue drinking and we even offered the Mums some wine, which they both (sensibly) refused.  Feli played the perfect hostess, offering the Mums hot drinks and even some of our own cake (apple and cinnamon, for our meal). She also showed them Laura’s travelogue film of our summer in Australia.

Jenny-Leigh and I continued to work through her past paper and Laura got to discover that Sally was completely ditzy, and boy obsessed! They had both asked for just an hour and a half instead of the full two hours and Laura actually did say that they had agreed on paying the full price even if the time was cut short but she was willing to reduce the amount pro-rata. They thought that was a very nice gesture but paid us both full whack anyway! Laura said it was reverse psychology. I said it was bloody genius.

Felice kipped the night with us, in my spare bedroom, which was fine. It was still fine, even when at about 1pm we heard a knock at the bedroom door and a voice asked if she could come in and sleep with us guys if there was room. Laura whispered that she was OK with it if I was, so we ended up cuddling a still troubled Frenchwoman to sleep, who despite her bravado and strong words on what had happened to her, was still obviously very upset. I couldn’t help thinking that it was a good job we were both on our monthlies and relatively covered up or who knows what could have happened? Normally we sleep naked and that may have been a temptation too far for the Mademoiselle from Archacon!