Before it snowed...

What a good job I took this photo earlier of our nearest pub, where the thatch has been beautifully adorned along the top with a contrasting colour/pattern.  And also, I suppose, what a good job they finished it before the snow started!

  The OH had suggested popping out for a drink after dinner so that he could chat to the landlord about the thatchers - not that we have a thatched roof, you understand, he just likes to know about these things - but since looking out of the window, he has decided that by the time he has wrapped up sufficiently and located his wellies, it will be closing time.  He'll just have to wander round tomorrow when at least it should be light enough to see the drifts!

Excuses excuses!

   Just before I head out to work (!), a couple of small things to make you laugh.
 
  Firstly, the OH has just asked me how to operate the vacuum cleaner.  Since I'm out so much more, I don't have time to clean the house every day, and he's a bit picky about these things.  We had  - well, not exactly a blistering row, but a mildly pustular one, of which the upshot was that he agreed that while he is not working, he will do some of the vacuuming.  Hence his request.  I don't expect it to happen very often, mind you.

   And the second thing is from last night's writing group.  My villanelle (see last entry) was quite well received and was deemed to constitute a completed 'homework' (we set ourselves tasks to complete between meetings, so that we should all do at least one poem during the month or so).  Other people had done a variety of Christmas poems, family poems, free verse and sonnets.  But Andi had brought nothing. 

   "I did write a poem, honestly!  It was quite good, well, sort of, probably needed a bit of work, but..."

   So what happened to it?

   "The dog ate it.  Really!"

   Really!  And they say children come up with feeble excuses.

All Change!

In case you were wondering why I haven't written a blog for a while, it's because I've been driven out of the house.  Now I know why so many women are out jogging/shopping/volunteering at the weekends - it's because their menfolk are cluttering up the family home so they need to escape.

It may sound a little harsh, but you should know I do feel bad for my OH, who has suffered from his company's latest rif - no, not a musical production but a Reduction In Force.  Financially he's had a reasonable pay-off, but emotionally obviously he is stunned.  Which means he's spending a lot of time around the house, either bemoaning the state of the universe or grumping about how he'll never get another job ever.  This is patent rubbish as he has already had two phone-calls trying to arrange interviews, but in the meantime I have chosen to go and help out again at the local school.  One of the teachers is Felicity's sister-in-law and knows about the blog, so I have been forbidden from writing anything at all about what goes on there, under threat of the child protection act, but since there's little of interest about the children themselves (their parents are another matter!) it's not a problem.

The OH also threw Joe out.  Well, not exactly threw him out, but suggested that if he was going to use the room on a regular basis, he should pay rent.  This is completely unreasonable in my opinion as we're not using it ourselves, but when you've just been made redundant, I suppose allowances have to be made for unreasonable behaviour.

"I'd pack up for now and then, if you want to come back when he's calmed down, I'll let you know," I told Joe, who just smiled weakly without answering one way or another.  Though there was a large bouquet of flowers delivered the following day with a simple 'Thanks' written on the note, which can't have come from anyone else.

In other news, one of my presents at Christmas was from David, in the poetry group, which was very sweet of him, and was the Stephen Fry book, 'The Ode Less Travelled'.  I have been trying to follow it properly - Fry gives very specific instructions - but I was inspired by one of the comments in the introduction to write the following villanelle.  Let me know if you like it!

On Writing Poetry (with thanks to Stephen Fry!)

I have no inkling how to start,

And listen to these words in vain:

"Technique is just the Greek for art."

The moment when true lovers part,

A wartime death, a drop of rain -

I have no inkling how to start.

I seek the words to set apart

A poem sure to bring me fame,

With no technique to make it art.

An idea's there within my heart;

Thesauruses must take the strain

For I've no inkling how to start

And clogged up rhyme, and counterpart

Strict rhythm, make themselves the bane

Of technique, just the Greek for art!

Heroic couplets won't impart

Enough to fool my struggling brain.

I have no inkling how to start

And technique's all just Greek for art.

Clearing Out the Old Year

Well, thank goodness that's over!  Finally finished with Christmas, though the tree won't come down until Friday, despite its needles littering the floor already.  We're very traditional...  But at least the holiday guests have now departed and I spent most of yesterday doing the laundry they generated and re-arranging the rooms they disorganised.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Christmas, and I enjoy entertaining, it's just rather intense when the OH's distant cousin and family (all seven of them!) more or less invite themselves on Christmas Eve eve to stay for what felt like months.  It was hard to say no when Celeste wasn't even here, and George only dropped in for a couple of days, though even he brought two friends with him.  Fortunately, they were happy to sleep on the floor of George's room with sleeping bags, otherwise I'm not sure where we would have put them.  We already had bedding in the living room for the duration.  Joe was less impressed, I'm sure, though he didn't say anything, as he had to move all his writing stuff out of Celeste's room to make way for two large loud Americans and their toddler.

"I'm really sorry, Joe, but if little Kenobi got hold of your notes, you probably wouldn't have them anymore," I said, when I told him what was going to happen.

"Really, it's no problem.  I don't think Alison's home much over the Christmas period anyway.  Family comes first, after all." 

I don't think Alison's been home much full stop since they moved in, and certainly not since the Royal Wedding fiasco, but from the little Joe has said about it, I think she spends most of her time arguing with him when she is here.  I did ask Joe if he wanted to join us for Christmas dinner, since one more would hardly make any difference once I was in double figures, but he said he'd rather have a quiet day watching old-fashioned movies and eating a microwave meal.  I'm not sure if he was joking or not as I haven't had an opportunity to ask him what he did in the end.  He gave me a beautiful bracelet for Christmas, with some matching earrings, that look far too expensive and all I gave him was some notebooks.  He seemed pleased enough with them when I saw him at in the pub when we went down to welcome in the New Year, along, it seemed, with most of the village as the place was heaving, but we didn't have much chance to talk.  I shall pop down tomorrow at coffee break time and see how he really is.

Talking of how people really are, I must mention Janet and Brian.  Janet has spent most of her waking hours at the hospital but Brian has been home a few times to pick up clothes, post, etc, and dropped in briefly to thank me for the offer.  The surviving twin is holding on for the moment but they're not taking anything for granted and they're not making plans as such.  "Later in January, maybe.  And am I right in thinking that you're the biscuit lady?"

I wondered briefly what he meant and then realised that he must have seen some of my biscuits at the deli.  "As a business idea, it didn't really work, so my New Year's resolution is to only make biscuits when someone places an order.  My hips can't take it otherwise."

"Okay, well, when I've had a chance to talk to Janet about it, perhaps you can do some chocolate cherry cookies for us? For the funeral? It'll be a pretty small affair, but we ought to have something.  And I know Janet really loved them when she tried them."

My other New Year's resolutions, for what it's worth, are to contact Chloe and try to get fit again (haven't called her yet) and to try writing a mini-poem a day, using 'A River of Stones' as an inspiration.  There has to be more to life than cleaning the house and worrying about your children!

Happy Christmas in our village? Perhaps.

   It’s been incredibly busy around the village lately as we all catch up on Christmas shopping and the purchase of sufficient alcohol to sink the proverbial battleship, but we have now lapsed into a mulled haze of pleasantries and goodwill.  Work is officially over for the OH this afternoon but he’s managed to arrange to work from home today, which is just as well as we went carol-singing round the village last night.  This is generally a very pleasant evening out, aided by the unseasonably mild weather which meant we were all sweating buckets by the time we got into the pub that was our final stop, but no-one seemed to either notice or mind.

    There was only one downer in the entire evening, in fact.  Most houses in the village now have at least a wreath on the door or a visible Christmas tree lit up in the front room, but quite a few have illuminated icicles, rippling snow-flurries or even Santas in their sleighs.  I hate to think what the electricity bill is for some people as not everyone fitted solar panels...  However, one house had a wide array of lights attached to its front and planted in the garden but none had been switched on.

  “Oh look,” I said to one of my fellow singers, “they’ve realised how much electricity they’re using and have decided not to turn them on yet.”

  “Didn’t you know? That’s Janet and Brian’s house.”  I shrugged in my ignorance, so my informant continued, “She was pregnant with twins? Tall woman with blonde hair?”

    I thought back over some of the larger people I had seen around the village lately and could faintly recall an attractive blonde who was clearly finding pregnancy very tiring.  “Has she had them then?”

  “They weren’t due until January 17^th, but she went into labour last week.  Both babies went into a special care unit but one of them didn’t survive and it’s touch and go for the other.  They’re probably at the hospital.”

  It was sobering information through all the merriment.  How does anyone celebrate Christmas under such circumstances?   It made the words of ‘Away in a Manger’ far more poignant when we sang it at the next stop, whatever one’s religious beliefs.  And I had a chat with our ‘head chorister’, Les.  He was going to donate the money we collected to the Parkinson’s Society for family reasons, but now it’s all going to go to Sands, a support group for people like Janet and Brian.  And I shall pop a note through their door this afternoon, asking if they want to drop in for some cake when they get back from the hospital.  I can’t imagine they will, but the least I can do is offer.  Merry Christmas indeed.

Bring me sunshine...

As I was walking down to the post office last Friday, attempting to post all my overseas cards before the last posting date, I could have sworn that I saw Verity's Max speeding by in his car, the indicator flashing as though he was heading back to his former home.  I haven't seen him in the village since Verity threw him out back in April, so I wasn't entirely certain, but the car was definitely familiar. I speeded up my steps to the post office,  joined the lengthy queue of like-minded people and eventually returned home only to discover I'd left Celeste's presents on the kitchen table, and she has now decided she will be staying in Switzerland after all since it has snowed, so it was back to the Post Office again before they closed for lunch...

All of which meant that by the time I was able to phone Verity to ask if she knew Max was driving through the village, there was no answer.  I think she had said she would be at a planning lunch for next year's Diamond Jubilee celebrations in our local town, though it was probably a Christmas lunch for the planning committee without any actual work being done.   Either way, I wasn't able to get hold of her that day, or over the weekend.  Finally, yesterday, she returned one of my calls.  She was unusually vague about where she had been over the weekend, but she was able to confirm that it had indeed been Max who I had seen on Friday.

"Wretched solar panel people, couldn't actually pick a day to turn up and then keep to it," she said, "so I asked Max to be there and make sure they didn't leave a hole in the roof."

"I didn't realise you were even talking to Max," I said.

"Well, it wasn't ideal, but he at least knows where all the various switches are in the house that they might have needed access to," she admitted.  The words came in a rush, as though I wasn't the first person she'd had to explain to.

 "Why couldn't they come back today instead, when you could be there?"

"Oh, I'm not staying at home today, I have some book thing to go to and then some Christmas shopping to do.  Besides, it would be too late for the deadline - haven't you been following the news? I thought you were going to get solar panels yourselves."

We had looked into solar panels at one point, but the outlay needed was horrific and I thought the subject had been dropped.  I asked the OH when he got home, though.

"Oh, there was a good deal on the price you could sell the electricity back, and they're halving it from tomorrow.  That's what she meant about the deadline.  Still haven't ruled it out, though.  As technology improves, the price of the panels and their installation will probably come down, we can do it then. Seems the decent thing to do."  And he went back to reading the post while the TV was still on, wasting more electricity.

I'm going to have to invite Verity for lunch at some point, I think, to find out exactly what's going on, because she's far too keen to rush through phone calls and dash off at present.  It can't all be because she has to finish her Christmas shopping!

News of the World I'm Not

You're probably wondering what happened about Fiona's flowers.  Well, actually, if you've been as busy as I have over the last couple of weeks, you've had too much to think about to wonder about the mendacious Fiona and her envy-inducing flowers.  I've been trying to shop for Christmas presents, without much success - nothing looks terribly appealing, or if it does, I'm rather put off by the price tag.  Still, I bought some lovely earmuffs and matching scarf and gloves for Celeste, since she was going to be a chalet maid for the time being, at which point she phoned and said that since there hadn't been much snow, it was possible she would be home for Christmas after all.  Perhaps it will be cold and snowy again here? 

Anyway, I went round to Fiona's as soon as I'd finished doing the washing-up after dinner that night (grilled pork chop with a stir-fry vegetable medley and some steamed cabbage, in case you're interested) to hand over the flowers and challenge her on her lack of honesty.  Not that I really care, you understand, just to see what she said.  I was very disappointed.

"Oh, thanks for taking those in.  I'd taken my little charges up to town to see the new art exhibition.  You can't start introducing children to culture too soon, in my opinion." (The children she looks after are all under three.  I doubt they know what an art gallery is, other than a place to run around. I bet she was intensely unpopular and didn't care an ounce.) "It never occurred to me that there might be a delivery."

"I was a little surprised you were out," I told her, keeping as straight as face as I could manage before dropping my little bombshell.  "Though I was even more surprised that someone could be under the illusion that you've just turned forty."

Fiona turned very slightly pink before retorting with a reasonably-well aimed barb of, "Taken to reading other people's cards, now, have you? I suppose with nothing interesting in your own life, you have to resort to invading others'."

I tried to point out that the card had fallen out of the flowers but not wanting to have a full-blown argument on the doorstep at a time when other people are still out and about, I stopped defending myself and went, without even asking who D was.  I'd make a terrible tabloid reporter and an even worse witness at that Leveson enquiry, crumbling at the first refusal.

Meanwhile, I have found an old recipe for Christmas pudding, so I thought this year I would have a go at making my own.  The only disadvantage is that even once the quantity has been reduced down as far as I can, it makes about 20 pounds of pudding.  Consequently I've been boiling small puddings every night for the last week and plan to give them as Christmas presents to some of the older residents in the village.  It's a good recipe and there's something lovely about home-made, so I hope the recipients appreciate my efforts.  The house is developing a lingering odour of Guinness and currants; the OH is talking about getting it redecorated next year and I don't think it's a coincidence.