Roman saddles are amazing! Hearing about Charlie!

Monday January 5^th.

Today is the first day of a new working week for most people, but not for us! We mustn’t be gleeful about it, it is unseemly. I did notice a slightly busier feel to the village this morning as the rush back to work hit West Cumbria. OK, there were five cars driving through the village as I walked the wolf pack up past the Bush Inn before branching off up the road to Tallentire Hill, that’s probably four more than usual. It hardly constitutes a potential grid lock situation, though. LOL

After a languorous breakfast we decided to head for the Tullie House museum in Carlisle. Gran has never been and both Laura and Mum went so long ago they can’t actually remember when it was. I told them it was disgraceful that they were ignoring their cultural heritage like that; they should be ashamed of themselves. Did you know that a chair cushion striking you on the back of the head is quite a surprise? Especially when wielded by an Aged Parent who should know better. Gran said, “Can I hit her as well?” Mum told her that although she, personally, hadn’t been insulted she didn’t she why not. I responded with, “I have the anti-bacterial spray gun, and I am prepared to use it!” I squirted it in their general direction and fled to the safety of the lounge.

Silliness over, Mum drove us into Carlisle, in her car, and we parked up in the Lanes multi-storey carpark. This meant that Laura and I were like the naughty kids sat in the back! The first part of our cultural heritage tour took a bit longer than expected as Gran wanted to go into Debenhams. We ended up visiting a few more shops in the Lanes itself before striking out westwards to Tullie House Museum and Art gallery.

I have been here more than a few times and I always find it fascinating, especially the Roman stuff. I particularly love the have-a-go Roman saddle. This is a full-size facsimile of a real saddle mounted on a mock horse and you are allowed to sit on it and see how good it was, even without stirrups. This is because the saddles were designed with a pommel at each of the four corners which act incredibly as a restraining influence on the rider. In fact you are encouraged to see how well you can perform manoeuvres in the saddle, such as: pretending to fire a bow and arrow; impaling a lowly foot-soldier on your lance / spear; cleaving an enemy’s head from his shoulders with one swish of your cavalry sword. All of these actions, and more, can be performed remarkably well by the simple expedient of placing your weight against one of the pommels and gripping with your knees and thighs. It allows so much freedom of movement it would be entirely possible to ride the horse almost hands free. When you first clamber onto the saddle, you think, “No. This will never work!” But it does. Good old Roman ingenuity for you again! [Even Gran had a go, although she refrained from decapitating anyone.]

There is a weird truth about ingesting museum knowledge; it makes your brain hurt. After a couple of hours we were all experiencing ‘Museum Fatigue’; an interesting condition which can only be cured by visiting the Museum’s café for some food and drink! The Tullie House café is excellent. It has a wide selection of delicious meals and snacks, the majority of which is locally sourced and all cooked fresh as you wait. I was torn between the salmon and the tray bake steak pie. The fish won, my trio of companions opted for the pie. I had the cherry pie and custard for dessert while the others had a variety of stickiness. Do you know, this is the third meal we have eaten out since Saturday? It’s only Monday!

The museum was put aside after lunch and we continued our retail therapy in Carlisle centre, searching for bargains. There were many to be had but it would be too boring to list them all here. We did spend some time in the Waterstones Bookshop, so long in fact, we were forced by incipient dehydration to have another cuppa in their café. I found a new book on Ancient Rome by Mary Beard [my old professor], all about Roman humour; which is extremely ribald at times. Gran said she was surprised at how scruffy Dr Beard looked in her cover photograph; that made me smile. She was always a very unkempt and ‘unusual’ dresser around Cambridge, whether it was an affectation or just the way she was, we never found out. Nobody was ever cheeky, or rude, enough to ask her.

We headed back to Dad’s mid-afternoon and had a quiet evening at home after demolishing one of my Fasta Pasta dishes. Well, as quiet as is possible when one of your company is an avid TV viewer and insists on watching her favourite programmes. As it isn’t even my house, who am I to complain?

Tuesday 6^th January.

We had a discussion this morning about what we were going to do about driving back down to Sheffield for the Ballet on Thursday night. I suggested that we all went down in one car, stayed at mine for Swan Lake and then drove back up here to Dad’s, from whence Mum could drive Gran back to Hawick. I thought it was a sound idea but Mum, who has been away from home since before New Year wanted to go home for a few days and Gran was quite looking forward to the train journey from Sheffield to Berwick Upon Tweed. Plus she’d already bought a cheap ticket for the journey and arranged for Mr Woodward to collect her from Berwick Station on Friday afternoon. Ah well, the best laid plans o’ mice and men… as the Bard said once. That’s the Scots Bard, of course, not Bill Waggledagger.

This lead on to us deciding when we should go down to Sheffield; I was all for driving down on Wednesday and back on Friday so that the woofies weren’t in the kennels over long, Mum & Gran wanted to go sooner. So we agreed that they would set off as soon as they were packed and we’d meet them at the theatre bar on Thursday evening. That is what they did. I suppose from making the decision, to their driving through Dad’s front gate must have been less than an hour and a half. Mum phoned when they got back to Holmesfield to let me know they were there safe and sound.

Loll and I took the wolf pack up beyond Silloth, to Skinburnness, where we walked them round Grune Point. It was howling a gale and we kept getting lashed with squally bursts of wet stuff too. We were, however, dressed up for severe weather and it didn’t bother us in the slightest. The view from Grune Point back over the fells is quite spectacular. It wasn’t today, though, as the bank of cloud whose rain was trying to dilute our essence on the shoreline, was also attempting to wash away the Lake District fells. If you didn’t know they were there, you’d have no idea they even existed. I bet Laura that there would be some foolhardy souls attempting to climb the giants even in weather as atrocious as this. She knows the Lakes well enough not to take the bet.

The downside of walking in the rain with dogs is drying them off afterwards. Izzy, Dad’s long haired Weimaraner, needs a lot of rubbing down as she has masses of fur which gets absolutely soaked. She needed two towels just to herself; Dad’s two chocolate labs and my Weimaraner are a doddle to dry off in comparison. We peeled out of our waterproofs to reveal dry but slightly sweaty creatures underneath. I said I desperately needed a shower when we got in, and Laura said, “I’ll wash you, if you wash me.” If ever there is an excuse for not really washing in the shower that is it. We must have wasted nearly two hours getting wet and then getting wet again!

We had a lazy evening spent watching the copy of ‘Hugo’ I recorded on my PVR. I really enjoyed it, but I have read the book, so I knew the story. Laura, who didn’t know it was a book, thought it was enchanting. We had an early night as we wanted to zoom off to Sunny Sheffield fairly pronto in the morning.

Wednesday Jan 7^th.

Our whizzing off early didn’t work as the pups and I got drenched again this morning, out walking, and I felt honour bound to make sure they weren’t in a complete state when I dropped them off at the kennels. So I spent an eternity drying them and making sure they looked presentable before I had my breakfast. This was a delayed breakfast and by the time I had driven the dogs down and got back it was about 10.30.

Fortunately the Lollster hadn’t been doing nothing in my absence, she had packed our small collection of stuff into the car so all I had to do on returning was park up Dad’s Land Rover, lock up the house and drive off.

The news of the terrible events in Paris started to filter through on the radio as we drove down the M61. We just couldn’t believe it. We listened in growing horror as each news update brought more and more details of the tragedy. I said to Laura, I bet it was Algerians at the heart of the affair but, to date, there has been no news on that. She wanted to know why and I told her about the bloody and brutal colonial French regime in Algiers after WW2 and the revolution which took place there and whose scars are still prevalent in France today.

The way to end imperialistic rule was the way the Brits left India. The French end of imperialism in Algeria is a text-book example of how not to do it! She’d also never heard of Charlie Hebdo. However, she is a dedicated mathematician and I do spend a lot of my working time with a mad Frenchwoman!

Back home, my little house was just as I had left it with the exception of the mountain of mail on the dining table in my kitchen, Julie sees to it for me when I am away. I called Mum and we had a mutual update about the carnage in France. We had a takeaway from the Chinese Restaurant in the village for the evening meal and had a relatively early night.

Thursday 8^th Jan

We wandered to the pool after Callie’s walk this morning to find Sarah was on holiday until next week. This was a change. The relief person didn’t know where she’d gone or for how long. We found approaching 60 lengths of the pool was quite a challenge. It is surprising how quickly you lose tone when you don’t exercise every day! 100 lengths will be beyond us tomorrow as well, I think

More and more revelations kept coming through on the radio news during the day about Paris, with new twists and more, different, murders. There was no mention, yet again, of Algeria although when they announced the names of the perpetrators they did say they were of Algerian origin.

Back home we contacted Phil and Jane and had a chat with them all. They are going shopping in Leeds this weekend as the kids want to spend their Christmas money. I asked how much they’d got and it seems they both had over £100! Phew. They have been invited down to Mum’s at the weekend as Gran would love to see Baby Sophie again. They are fulfilling Gran’s dream of extending the family line and so are always in favour, whilst their renegade sister continues to defy convention and therefore doesn’t always receive her Grandmother’s undying, unconditional love. As soon as I become a mother I imagine the change will be spectacular. (Am I being cynical? Probably! LOL)

We wandered round to Julie’s and had a long gossip and giggle with her and a huge wodge of home-made cake. We were offered wine but as we were going out later we settled for a cup of tea [which became about three cups in the end]. She is really a god send as a neighbour and so selfless. The family and her loved their presents but thought we shouldn’t have. Why does everyone say that?

After our evening meal we dolled ourselves up for the evening and Laura did the sunrise effect on my eyelids again. I really will have to learn how to do this, it looks magnificent. We decide to shun the ‘butch & femme’ look tonight and just go in what we grabbed from the wardrobe. Hmmm…. That didn’t work. I tried on at least three items before settling on a tulip dress similar to Loll’s red one, in a powder blue, that has a pleat which looks like a wrap in the skirt, and she went for a skater dress in an emerald green colour. I thought we looked pretty damned hot. Loll pinched my stiletto ankle boots and I wore ballet pumps which seemed rather appropriate.

Mum and Gran greeted us in the upstairs bar at the Lyceum and both were shocked about the events in Paris. Gran said she thought that people shouldn’t insult other peoples’ religions; I had to disagree and thought everything should be open to insult, derision and ridicule. If the subject of the attack was valid and strong it would suffer no harm; if it was false, or spurious, the faults would be revealed by the criticism. It seems to me the problem with Islam is the same problem which Christianity had centuries past when schism and division caused all sorts of troubles. The main problem in Islam, though, is the lack of disestablishment and the totally specious Sharia Law. The west could do with being disestablished too, but at least we have secular laws to govern society. Good old Medie0aval Brits, again!

The ballet was brilliant. The sets were simple but effective. The Sorcerer’s owl-face was a very good touch, I thought, and I loved the gauze screen effects. They were used really well in The Woman in Black, which we saw earlier in the year. You couldn’t fault the dancers or the choreography, although in places the piece has become so familiar it would be easy to descend into cliché. This version didn’t.

What was encouraging was the Lyceum was packed (again) and the number of youngsters inside was quite large. Mainly little girls, of course, but we need to start them off somewhere. I think Angela would have loved it, I know Peter wouldn’t!

We had another drink in the bar afterwards and discussed the dancing. Gran was impressed and said she missed going to things like this, I told her she was welcome to come and stay with us anytime to go and see things at our two theatres. I reeled off a list of our new year’s ‘ents’ and it is huge! We have 18 more events booked between now and mid May alone! Most are Classical Music concerts either here, in Sheffield, or in Carlisle. There are several theatre productions but, up to now, there is no more ballet on the horizon. We may have to spread our orbit to include Manchester and Nottingham.

We headed home with even more revelations about the attack in Paris. Gran had wondered what the world was coming to, I’d told her it had probably always been like this but now we just heard about it quicker and in more detail. The details we heard on The World Tonight (BBC Radio 4) were pretty harrowing.  

It was really bloody windy walking Callie for her last walk of the day, I snuggled into my jeans and a baggy sweater in deference to the weather. Laura changed too, and joined me for the stroll up through Hill Top Woods and back through Onesacre. We almost were hit by a small branch which came wanging past us, out of nowhere, as we arrived at Cockshutts Lane again. Callie was very skittish in the wind – she often is. I think we were really lucky to have escaped being hit by the branch. I went to move it out of the road, so that a car wouldn’t be damaged if it ran over it.

We finally hit the charp at midnight. It had been quite a busy day really. As a post script to this entry, we heard on the news on Friday morning that High Bradfield (just over the hill from us, about 2 miles away) had been hit by a gust of 93 mph wind! Bloody hell. We could have been blown away, never mind branches from trees. As my bedroom faces east, we had no idea just how windy it had got overnight at all!