Caught naked in the shower.

Monday 24^th November

Today continues much as last week did. The usual routine before breakfast, then a drive into Uni where I head off in one direction and Laura goes in another. Sarah at the pool is still excited about the quiz on Thursday – I think she needs to get out more. I recounted the tale of Annie Oakley Laura and her shotgun prowess over the weekend; this was another surprising thing about us in Sarah’s eyes. I thought she’d understood what I meant when I said I was going picking up, some Saturdays after our swim. It turns out she had no idea at all. She loved the sound of The Snowman at the Lyceum. It was an amazing show and ideal for getting kids into theatre going. The more they actually experience real people performing for them before their very eyes instead of receiving sanitised and sterile pap through a screen the better our country would be. Sadly it will never happen because the western world has become a society of lazy, slobby, lowest common denominator gits! If that is you, then be offended, because offence was my intent. Good old Peter Handke, say I. (I bet less than 1% of any readers will understand that illusion.)

We moved Olivia’s class to tonight instead of tomorrow (she couldn’t do Wednesday which was the other alternative) and she arrived just before Trevor. We tossed a coin for the use of the study and I lost, so we worked in the kitchen once again. This time though we weren’t subjected to tales of our own childhoods wafting through from the front room. In fact Olivia’s Mum left her and went off leaving her by herself. Perhaps we have passed some sort of test? I am pleased with the way she is getting much more confident with her work and her ability. She was helped by getting a B+ for her stupidly titled Macbeth essay. The teacher’s comments illustrated, to me, that the idiotic teacher had no idea how stupid a title it was. She certainly offered no different suggestions as to how to handle it from the way that Olivia had done.

She is now worried about her creative writing task saying she can never think up exciting stories. I told her that the teacher / examiner isn’t looking for excitement, they are looking for a well told tale written with proper use of English which will engage the reader. It doesn’t have to be like a published author’s work. In fact of it looked like that they would probably suspect you’d copied it as pupils shouldn’t be able to write that well. (As a one off that is… a good teacher will have noted their pupils writing style over the years and should be able to tell if it is: a) the pupil’s own work and b) a logical progression of what they have previously done if it seems much better than before.

I explained how I wrote a brilliant essay (A*) all about how I had been spotted taking a shower by a group of cub scout who were staying in the same youth hostel we were. It didn’t happen to me at all. I happened to my Dad when he was a student and the cub scouts had been girl guides. He had told us this tale a few times so it was already in my head, all I had to do was alter the genders and my age.

What happened was this: Dad and a girlfriend had gone on a cycling holiday from Oxford (where they were both students) around the Cotswolds. On a rather narrow bit of the road Dad had chosen to drive into a road side ditch rather than by wiped out by a French lorry which seemed to have forgotten which side of the road he should be driving on. He was drenched and muddy and cold, but alive. Luckily the bike was OK so they staggered on to their Youth Hostel destination where they met with the warden, by accident who saw the state Dad was in and kindly agreed to let him use the shower block to clean up. His wife was cleaning the old block so the warden let him use the new one. This was a room with a series of cubicles around it but each cubicle was currently lacking a shower curtain. The warden’s task that afternoon was to hang the new curtains.

Dad happily went into the shower room but forgot to lock the outer door (this is crucial). He was blithely showering away and soaping his important little place when he heard a noise at the door and the wardens wife burst through followed by a gaggle of girl guides, she said, “And this is the new block which will be ready by tonight…. Oh!”  

Dad attempted to cover his modesty and the warden’s wife ushered the girls out as quickly as she could but several were reluctant to leave, probably hoping to cop an eyeful of Dad’s… you get the picture?

Anyway, Dad, Dad’s GF, the Warden and his wife had a good old laugh about this and all concluded it was unfortunate but no harm done. Dad discovered there was harm later that evening when lots of the girl guides, who were also staying at the hostel, would see him, point at him and giggle. As they were no longer in their uniform but in civvies he found that this kept happening regularly throughout the evening until bed time. He found it the most excruciatingly embarrassing ordeal of his short life to that date. (He has had more embarrassing incidents but he has refused to divulge them, to me at least.)

I was able to show how, with careful tweaking and writing it in the past tense, feeling acutely embarrassed by what had happened, I was able to turn Dad’s tale about him into a convincing tale about me. It fooled my English teacher in to believing it really happened (which it did in a way, of course). Plus I got an A* for it.

She thought for a while and then brightened up as she remembered something her Mum had told her about when she was at school. She and I discussed it and she could see how it would be an interesting tale. It wasn’t exciting or thrilling, but it would be compelling and based in truth (even if it was someone else’s truth). She left feeling much happier and with a fairly detailed plan sketched out already. I asked her to send me a copy of the finished piece by e-mail and I would look through it for technical errors. She has to hand it in a week today. She promised she would and I am sure she will.

Trevor and she left at about the same time and Loll leant against me as he left. He does her head in, apparently. He says he doesn’t get it and then goes ahead with exercise and gets everything right. She says she is going to slap him! I told her next time to mark everything her does wrong and see what happens. She thinks that is a brilliant idea!

Tuesday November 25^th

I jokingly said, “Is The New Zealand String Quartet the only one there is in New Zealand then?” A soft voice behind us piped up with a wealth of knowledge and details about string quartets in NZ. I wished I had kept my mouth shut. Mrs Briggs actually sniggered. I asked her what was so funny? She said I had been hoist by my own petard. I can see what she means. I am guilty as charged. I go off into long and detailed explanations or descriptions (or even opinions) at the drop of a hat. Oh, who am I to pull a face when some undergraduate music student behind us in the Firth Hall decides to educate and inform me.

I knew I shouldn’t have but I asked the zealous young lady, “If it is a string quartet, why are there five chairs?”

Mistake. I was given the lowdown on Peter Cropper and why he was there and what he would be playing and how Kartsigar was a work based on Greek folk music and and and…..

Kartsigar was based on folk tunes but it seemed to me to lack a formal structure around the melodies, catchy as some of them were. I suppose it was only the first movement and would have perhaps found a resolution in later ones. That was my internal dialogue, I decided against voicing other comments in case I was given more insight into tonight’s proceedings.

At the interval, the buzzing in my ears manifested herself (should that be womanifested then?) at our side and it said she had seen Laura and I around the uni during last year and even at a couple of things in here before. What did our mother think to the performance so far? I wasn’t sure what to expect from Mrs B. She can be icy to the point of flash freezing or extremely amused. She was obviously amused as she told our buzzing little undergrad that spec savers were doing a two for one deal at the moment. “Do I look old enough to be HER mother?” pointing at me! (Well, thanks a bunch I was thinking.) Our little buzzing student was unflappable. She said she didn’t know; people were having children at younger and younger ages. She was totally ingenuous and totally without guile. I suppose that is what stopped her from getting a blast of the arctic directed her way.

Lily is a music student she plays the clarinet. She had seen the NZ SQ play the Brahams Clarinet Quintet and was blown away and just had to see them again even through there was no clarinet music in tonight’s concert.

I had to confess I hadn’t heard it but I had heard the Brahms quintet we would hear in the second half and I thought it was divine. I must admit that I didn’t realise it was only a string quintet when I heard it on the radio and was surprised when the continuity person announced it as such. I told Lily this and she launched into a paen for BBC Radio 3 compared to Classic FM. I could tell this must be an argument she has a lot with her fellow students. I tried to deflect it by talking about how I often discovered things when listening to Essential Classics (9am to 12am) which I have never heard before. I mentioned the Hershel 8^th Symphony and, guess what? She’d heard that too and had done what I did, went out and bought a copy. (Amazon for both of us.)

By the time we’d finished talking and headed back to our seats I was beginning to think there might be more than just irritating buzzing to Lily after all. Laura’s whispered comment was funny though, “She can’t half talk, can’t she?”

After the concert the three of us wandered off to the bar we use along Broomhill for a swift libation and a chat about the playing without Lily’s presence. As we left, she came and said goodbye and pressed a post it in my hand with her e-mail, twitter and facebook details. I may e-mail her sometime. Maybe. That way I will not have to buy ear protectors and body armour!

I forgot to mention Lily was actually with a guy. He was rather skinny and awkward looking (if you know what I mean?) and I am sorry to say that he looked a bit hen-pecked and timid. I am not surprised really.

Mrs Briggs and my actual, real, mother are out with us to our next cultural event; The Northern Ballet’s ‘Cinderella’ at the Lyceum again on Friday night. We also had more pupil juggling with Sally and Jenny-Leigh coming tomorrow night instead of Thursday for their lessons Although this is because both teams of Scampi Tails are descending on my local pub for its monthly quiz night, which this month is its Christmas Special. Sally and Bobbi have agreed to double up for once, which is good.

The Halle did ‘Scenes from Cinderella’ as part of the opening concert in the International Classics season way back in September. The production does not use the Prokofiev, though, as the theatre brochure says it is with a ‘new score’ by Philip Feeny. Let’s hope it isn’t a disappointment. I am really looking forward to it, regardless of which score is used.

Wednesday November 26^th

At XXX & Y this afternoon the other ‘girl’ in Archives were amused by the fact that Mrs Briggs had been thought to be my mother. She had been regaling with the tales of our meeting with strident Lily and her wallflower boyfriend. They thought it was a hoot.

The same reaction was had by Felice, this morning at Uni when I told her too. She did say that Mrs B. acted like a mother towards me though, so it is hardly a surprise. I am amazed at her observational skills having only met with Mrs B. on a handful of occasions. Maybe she is more perceptive than I have given her credit for.

I met with the last of my tutees this morning, so that is the pastoral part of my work done until next semester unless any of the little darlings has a crisis between now and then. It has been known. This year I have had no limpets like the redoubtable Ms Scothern, I seem to have had my fair share of ‘so laid back they’re horizontal’ guys though, which is probably worse. It is like trying to motivate concrete. One of them asked me what would happen if he didn’t attend any more sessions and I answered honestly that I didn’t know, but I am sure it would amount to nothing much. So he told me he wouldn’t be seeing me again, in that case. Charming!

Our evening class pupils were on time and raring to go. Jenny-Leigh and I continued where we left off with the poetry. She is beginning to see the logic behind my methods of poetic analysis. She was impressed with the Marvell we did today, after being daunted by it at first, she eventually said, “OMG, were they all obsessed with bonking?” (Bonking was my word, she used an F instead). I told her that they were simply reflecting the nature of the male in our society since time immemorial. Men have three basic desires, Eat, Bonk, Sleep. With bonk appearing three times in that list, at the front and at the end as well!

J-L said I was a cynic because of me and Laura being a couple. I explained that I had thought this long before I had been introduced to the joys of Sapphic love.

Down in the kitchen, the experiment with Bobbi and Sally together was a success. They go to different secondary schools and they compared the different methods of teaching at each establishment and decided that no matter what they were doing in class at either place, Laura’s tuition made it all a lot clearer than their respective teachers. She was a very happy bunny when they had gone.

We spent the rest of the evening chilling out on the sofa. So much so that Laura woke me at ten to midnight with the immortal words, “Wake up. It’s time to go to bed.” We had a giggle at that and on Callie’s last walk of the day we attempted to make up some more absurd sounding phrases. Laura remembered one from the top of an e-mail which said “If you can’t read this e-mail, click here!” That was the best of the bunch.

Thursday 27^th November.

Sarah joined Scampi Tails Two this evening and would you believe it, they won! We were beaten for the first time in ages by our second stringers. What let us down was a round on Television Soap Operas. I mean what a bloody subject for a general knowledge quiz. (Am I being an intellectual snob? Probably, to be honest.)

Out of a possible 20 points in that round we scored 2! Two. They asked questions about which we had no clue at all. Even if our lives had depended on it we’d have been unable to give the right answer. It was an education for us, in a way, as I suppose it made us feel how the other teams must feel when they haven’t an inkling of the right answer and we sit there all smug and self-righteous because we know it. It was humbling and probably very good for us too! Eva was really amused. (The Landlady) I can’t say I blame her. We have been a thorn in the other contestants’ sides for a year or more now!

Earlier in the day we had searched through the notes we’d been making on our translations and work on the documents in general only to discover that a whole section of them weren’t there! OK, it is work on only a half a dozen documents at most but out logs and records show we have at least thirty pieces of paper relating to the documents but none of them are in the relevant box-file.

We spent the morning turning my office and Felice’s inside out. This is not difficult, in the case of my room, because it is like a reverse Tardis, bigger on the outside than it is on the inside. Owing to this restricted space (and possibly because of my OCD) I am excessively tidy about everything and it took less than 15 minutes to make absolutely, 100% sure that the wayward papers were not in my office.

Decamping to the Gallic Gorgeousness’ office was more of a challenge. She has a more cavalier attitude to life in general and filing in particular. She has to be one of the most disorganised people I know. However, even after an hour and a half’s searching, rootling and ferreting through the assorted detritus in her office we know the elusive papers are not there either.

After a cuppa and a bun, always conducive to creative thought, I find, we drew up an action plan. These are very good for making it look like you are doing something serious and grown up when in fact you are merely pissing in the wind! To be fair our action plan listed places to look, people to visit, and what to do if it the bloody things remained undiscovered. It would have been catastrophic if we had lost some of the documents themselves but papers can be rewritten.

The idea of a catastrophic loss seemed to hit us at about the same time, so we spent the last hour before lunch checking that everything on the inventory for the casket was actually in the casket. This was all ship shape and Bristol Fashion. (Never use idiomatic, eponymous expressions to French people. They ask for an explanation and that can take ages and ages. Especially when they know, for some weird reason, that Bristols is also slang for tits! We could have written a comedy sketch around my explanation and Felice’s reaction.)

A post script to the day. Arriving home after the quiz defeat I found a text on my phone. They (mobile phones) are banned from the quiz, as people have been caught cheating with them. So anyone with a phone out during the questioning gets points deducted. I left mine at home. Anyway, it was from Felice who had searched her entire flat and no sign of the papers were there either. That means a search of Yours Truly’s will be on the cards for the weekend.