“How dare you give my daughter such filth?” & Bryan Adams...

Monday November 17^th.

My tummy ache proved to be totally inconsequential; maybe I was just panicking after seeing Laura laid low with hers on the weekend. We managed a reduced speed at the pool this morning and amused Sarah with details of projectile vomiting. I was amazed that such a thing can really happen and isn’t just a film cliché. Laura said she was disappointed that the aforementioned evacuation of stomach was totally lacking in carrots!

We rearranged Olivia’s tutoring session for tonight as we are off the Sheffield Arena for a concert with Dad and Louisa tomorrow. I get the impression that Olivia may think we lead really glamorous lifestyles. She is sadly mistaken. We have masses of common toil interrupted once in a while with sprinklings of hedonistic pleasure. We are being treated to the tickets to see Bryan Adams because Dad uses it as currency to pay for his lodgings with us, as if he needed to pay at all. I stay at his house almost every other weekend and he never asks me for anything in return. I do cook, bake, clean, do the washing and ironing, and house-sit for him and Louisa, though, plus I exercise all the dogs together when I am there too. If he asked for a donation I would willingly give something although maybe I should ask him if he wants one?

Work was much as usual. My erstwhile colleague and serial flirt, Felice, has broken off her relationship with the science bod who did the photographic magic with our palimpsests. According to her he had outlived his usefulness! This usually means she has got eyes on another guy already. Perhaps I am being unkind. She has given me (and Laura) an invitation to two parties over the vacation, the first we will be able to attend – this is at her place – the second is while we are house sitting for Dad so we may have to cry off that one. Missing the second one would be a pity as it is their faculty bash which has always sounded interesting, from past reports. Perhaps we could whizz down, party like mad, and whizz back the next day. I could use Dad’s new car to bring all the dogs with us. Although the thought of Izzy, Charlie Dog and Moss rampaging through my spotless house give me shivers just contemplating the idea.

Louisa and Dad did some retail therapy at Meadow Hell before they got to ours but they were still inside waiting as we rolled in at 6pm. (He has his own key.) I had to berate Dad severely when we got in as he had done the Times crossword! He grinned and gave me a second copy of the paper, “This one’s yours. I filled in my own!” The bugger. He does stuff like this from time to time to wind me up (not just me it seems, as Louisa said he did the same things to her too). I think your response to this behaviour is a gauge on how much you love or loathe him. I love this jokey, silliness and so does Louisa. For Mum it got to be thoroughly exasperating and one of the reasons he was given the boot. [OK, maybe sleeping with his students was a much more serious factor in their divorce… Technically, Louisa is one of his students too (a mature one) although she didn’t actually begin an affair with him until after she graduated.]

As we hadn’t even had time to consider food for tonight Dad suggested we order a Chinese from the take-away in the village. Always a winner. I paid Kim at the door, when he delivered our bag of foil boxes filled with delights. I thought 28 quid for four main meals and masses of side orders was very reasonable. I told him to keep the change (it was only £30 I handed over.) My stewed chicken with pineapple was a veritable delight. I will seriously have to learn how to make this dish for myself.

We had only just finished when first Trevor and then Olivia and her Mum arrived for their lessons. Dad kept us supplied with tea during our sessions but Olivia and I had to swap locations with Laura and Trevor (who were in the study). This was because Olivia’s Mum and my Dad and Louisa were swapping baby stories about their offspring. It is quite embarrassing to hear people hooting with laughter at your childish exploits. Especially the ones you’d rather weren’t divulged! In the end I dragged Liv upstairs and explained to Loll why we just had to get out of the kitchen. She and Trevor quite happily took our place at the kitchen table; they were quite amused by tales of our past.

After our students had gone I brought out the last of my, experimental, cherry meringue pies as a late dessert to our meal. It received universal approbation and I was entreated to produce some more as quickly as was humanly possible. The bitterness of the cherries does make a good substitute for the sharp lemon filling you usually use. Dad asked what we had in mind for tea tomorrow. I said I had two meat and potato pies defrosting on a shelf in the cellar as we spoke. His eyes lit up. My meat and tater pie tastes just like Mum’s (she taught me how to make it) and it used to be Dad’s all-time favourite. He has had several attempts to make it himself but is always disappointed because it “doesn’t ever taste like Helena’s did”. (Helena is Mum, BTW.)

I told him if he put them in the oven at 4.00 they’d be ready for when we rolled up at around five o’clock. He started to fret about parking at the Arena and whether there would be enough time. I reassured him that we would have masses of time, as I was planning on us taking the tram all the way there instead. Sometimes he is just like an old woman!

Tuesday November 18^th

Dad and Louisa declined the invitation to join us at the pool this morning, although Louisa was up and about as we left, just before six am. “It’s the baby…” were her whispered words.

I thanked the baby no end as when we returned we were greeted with a proper cooked breakfast. I was half concerned that Laura might not want one after her bacon incident of Friday but she tucked in with gusto. Dad was miffed that we had scoffed without him but cheered up when Louisa placed a full plate on the table before him.

Their plans for the day were to do some more Christmas shopping, but this time in the town centre rather than out at Meadow Hell. We left them with a promise to take Callie out if they got the time as I knew they appreciated little strolls in and around Sheffield. I left out a route which would take them up past the Lower Rivelin Dams, which is quite gentle and which Callie loves.

A full Uni day meant we had uninterrupted brain engagement for once on our chosen fields of study. I am lying of course, I am still only part way through my pastoral meetings with my student mentees. I spent most of the morning catching up or waiting to catch up with the last few of my freshers.

We had a sandwich lunch in the refec and headed back for more brain work!

Our chosen method of transport to the Arena was a good idea, although it did get crowded past Park Square.

Mr Adams (lump in throat time, I would have been Mrs Adams if fate hadn’t dealt that blow in 2009) was on for ages. The show was in two halves, the first of which was mainly him and “Reckless”. He wielded an acoustic guitar and was accompanied by a pianist for some numbers, a band for others and I was surprised that I knew a lot of the songs. It was sort of an acoustic set. His banter and chat between numbers was quite revealing. More so than other concerts I have been to (which for Rock Music is hardly any really). I suppose Kathryn Tickell spent ages between songs talking about the next one, too.

After the interval he came out and did a sort of greatest hits selection mixed with covers of old classics, some of which I knew others I had no idea about. I asked Dad how they could be old classics if I’d never heard of them? He said it was because I was musically perverse (but that was good because it meant I was my own woman). I didn’t know whether to hit him or hug him. Laura knew more of the old classics than I did!

I was so pleased we were at the side in the banked seating because the floor seats were abandoned after the opening number as people just stood up. I think Louisa would have had a hard time standing for all that time. We must have been there for a good three hours all in all. Dad pronounced it a hit. I said it was a triumph of enthusiasm over the banal. He wanted to know what that meant and I had to defend myself by saying that quite a lot of the songs, honestly, were banal, really. He was singing homespun tales of small town life which, by their very nature, appealed to a large audience because people’s lives, in general, are also banal. That didn’t make them any less valid, it just wasn’t culture with a capital C.

I was told that I missed the point. The culture of the ordinary people didn’t need a capital C. It was only the intelligentsia who tried to force everyone into thinking that Art and Literature were supreme and everything else trite and or worthless.

I was really pleased when Louisa asked, “Did you like it?” I answered, “Yes.” She continued with, “Well, what’s the problem then? That’s all that matters. You liked it.”

Dad tried to explain that we weren’t being serious. We just try to challenge each other’s intellectual stance on things from time to time. I have been known to argue the opposite case equally as rigorously. It didn’t mean we believed any of it at all, we just enjoyed the mental challenge. Laura and Louisa exchanged a looked which needed no words but summed exactly what they thought about our ‘airy fairy nonsense’. (Laura’s words, later in bed.)

I did enjoy the concert. It brought back lots of good memories of my childhood. Surely, in the end that is all music is supposed to do? Remind us of our past and the things we enjoy? Apart from that bloody awful Robin Hood music! Arrggghhh! That got one of the biggest cheers of the night. (Trite and banal wins the day?)

Wednesday 19^th Nov.

Sarah thinks Bryan Adams is good. Laura told her I thought a lot of his stuff was trite and banal but she said he was singing about real things that happen to people. I give up!

Our half work, half Uni day went by swiftly and Mrs Briggs was surprised to hear we’d been to the Arena for a rock concert. I spared her my critic of the man and his music and just said we’d enjoyed it. Dad texted to say they were leaving this morning and could I pass on the carrier bag of presents to Phil and Jane at the weekend, in case they didn’t catch up with each other before he and Louisa fly off to Aus for Chrimbo.

When we got home the carrier bag turned out to be three bags and not the usual sized ones either, but carrier bags gone large! Pangs of jealousy touched my feeble brain for a second or two until I realised I spend too much on my nieces and nephews so why should I criticise Dad for spending dosh on his grand kids?

Laura’s Bobbi was on time and keen to work so I left them to it and did some more work on my embroidery. I don’t seem to have touched it for a while. Been busy, busy, busy. As if to reinforce this point Steve knocked on my door not long after I had started and asked if I fancied coming to a clay shoot they were having on Saturday morning. There is no picking up for some reason, and so the syndicate has organised a clay event for anyone who shoots or helps out. Isn’t that good? They are going to charge a fiver to enter and the prizes will be made from the entry fee plus some booze.

I asked Laura if she fancied coming along and having a go, and she agreed! I haven’t done any clay shooting for nearly two years. I wandered off to the gun safe and altered the chokes on my Beretta, while I remembered to do it, and gave the thing a jolly good clean and oil. It had been done the last time I went picking up but it doesn’t hurt. I also checked my claying cartridges, I have about 250 left. They give a different, wider, spread pattern to game cartridges and use more, tinier, shot. I realised I am looking forward to this more than I would have any picking up.

I’ll check with the farmer who owns the back field behind our house and, if he’s agreeable, I’ll get Loll to have a practice firing the gun in the field before we head over to Rotherham on Saturday morning. I will inform the neighbours too. The farmer is a pretty friendly chap who we have beaten in the monthly pub quiz over the last two years on a regular basis. [There is a special “Christmas Edition” next Thursday, for which the Scampi Tails are already primed.]

When Steve had gone I managed quite a lot of work on the new scene for my casket before Bobbi left. Laura has started to have doubts about entering the Clay Shoot already. I was able to reassure her that they were having three sections, Men, Women and Novice of either gender. I had told Steve to enter her in Novice. She seemed a bit more cheered about it after that. She should cope with my gun easily enough, I have a slightly shorter barrel  length and it is not as heavy as some guns I have fired in the past. Watch her go and do something mad, and win her group.

She came with me on the final walk of the day and we were able to see the mist starting to rise in the valley floor. I love it when it does that. All of the buildings get obscured and it looks like we are in the real countryside, not in a village on the edge of a city. I am also inspired by the way the stars are still as clear as anything yet below us the village is obscured by the rising water vapour. We even had a final, finger nail paring, waning crescent moon in the sky. No owls though, tonight.

Thursday November 20^th.

Sarah is surprised about the Clay Shoot. I thought she knew all about my game shooting activities but it has come as a complete surprise to her. We spent ages after the swimming talking about how I got into it. My rifle shooting at University. Winning the best woman shot three years in a row for the rifle. All of which added an extra level of interest to my already bulging at the seams lifestyle. I reminded her about the Christmas Quiz next week (she is now an Honorary Scampi too) and she said she was looking forward to it.

Jenny-Leigh, tonight was doing Seamus Heaney! Doing is the right word. She is definitely not enamoured of him at all. I suppose he can be an acquired taste. Actually, I think a lot of poetry is an acquired taste (or even an affectation on the part of some people). I think the Flax-dam has festered for J-L to be honest.

“All year the flax-dam festered in the heart
Of the townland; green and heavy headed
Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.”

She considered Seamus himself to be one of the huge sods! Which I thought was quite funny, for her. Once I had got her thinking along the right lines she seemed to understand her task so much more. Once she had finished we talked about poetry in general and she asked if I really read the stuff for pleasure. I got up and showed her shelves of poetry books in the study (attic bedroom where we were working) all of which were well thumbed.

She asked which poet was my favourite and I told her John Donne. She was intrigued by my potted biography of him, so I got her to read ‘The Flea’. She couldn’t make head nor tail of it. So I explained it’s theme to her then I read again out loud. Once I had done that (pun intended) and she understood what it was about she was really shocked that such ideas could be written down in poetry. This led naturally on to Sonnet 135. An explanation of the use of the word ‘will’ resulted in her being even more shocked. I think I may just have opened her eyes to the potential wonders and sexuality to be found in the poetry of our nation. I did have to concede that sexually Heaney was probably a dead fish though!

Here’s Sonnet 135 for those who don’t know it:

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will,
And Will to boot, and Will in overplus; 
More than enough am I that vex thee still, 
To thy sweet will making addition thus. 
Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine? 
Shall will in others seem right gracious, 
And in my will no fair acceptance shine? 
The sea all water, yet receives rain still 
And in abundance addeth to his store; 
So thou, being rich in Will, add to thy Will
One will of mine, to make thy large Will more. 
Let no unkind no fair beseechers kill; 
Think all but one, and me in that one Will.

She left clutching a copy of John Donne’s Selected Poems and a new found interest in the long neglected art form. Well, long neglected by the general public, that is. I felt quite pleased with my evening’s endeavour.

No doubt I will get an angry call from her parents, “How dare you give my daughter such filth?” They often do. (Not to me, but to Mum when she was Head of English.)  Yet I bet they read The Sun and ogle naked women daily, thinking nothing of it!