I think my blogs

have been getting too long, so this one will be short.

Playbox Biscuits

I’ve just discovered a hoard of Playbox biscuits in the office. They are my most favourite biscuit in the world. I am in gratitude to the jolly coloured icing brightening up an otherwise monochrome childhood. Playbox biscuits meant a friend was coming to tea and there might be a sludgy looking chocolate cake with Smarties dotted around to go with them. The Smarties went a bit white round the edges as the colour seeped into the wet cake topping. The edges of the chocolate cake would always be a bit crusty and dry – I don’t think my mother’s oven worked too well back then. The icing wouldn’t make it right to the edge, so plates were always left with a handle of disappointing sponge. We had a jelly mould which came out for special occasions. Sadly, my mother never left the jelly long enough to set properly and we would have to scoop bright red, droopy globules of tepid slops onto our plates. I never did see the promised voluptuous structure with domes and columns.

The cake and biscuits were laid out on the dining room table, which was huge. It had been a conference table in a previous life, and a large crank could wheel open a yawning gap in the middle, where extra mahogany slats could be fitted in. I enjoyed turning the handle, like the starting handle on an old car, and seeing the table drift open on its castors. It was always a bit annoying that the slats, having been kept in the darkness of a cupboard, never properly matched the rest of the wood.

The table was so big, that you couldn’t reach food laid out in the middle without more or less standing on your chair. In the middle was ceremoniously placed a pair of ‘Willow Pattern’ candlesticks containing two rather bent candles. We were never allowed to light these candles, which always seemed a bit odd to me, and they became yellow and jaded as well as knock-kneed over the years.

My father was a devotee of classical music, and meals were accompanied by tapes of warbling, opera-singing women. My father, fancying himself as a singer, would add to the ambience by singing along, humming and ta ta di da-ing. If he stopped singing, it would be to ‘twang’ whoever was present. This involved making deliberately antagonistic statements - aimed at the jugular - and when the target became riled, he would laugh and say, ‘Only twanging, why are you getting so terse?’. This meant meal times quite often sank into a simmering silence of resentment.

There was a gas fire in the room, but the table was so big that anyone sitting on the wrong side of the table was likely to get burned. The organ bench was placed this side, as there were never enough chairs, and the smallest children crammed on to roast. Anyone sitting round the other sides would be cold – such is the magic of gas fires.

The youngest child present would get the worst seat, the plate that didn’t match, the bent fork and the scrag ends of the meals. You can see why the Playbox biscuits were so popular – they didn’t discriminate, they were bright and jolly for everyone.

Make your own bed and lie in it

I hate making my bed. You need seriously long arms to cope with a king size duvet and cover. The pillows are too billowy to fit easily into their cases and have to be scrunched up. The elasticated sheet pings off the diagonal corners. I end up grumpy. I can't help it, I just do. It's like pumping up my bike tyres with a hand pump, I end up in tears. Some things just do that. (I have had my wheel rims drilled to take a foot pump now, so no sympathy necessary, thank you anyway).

I wish I was taller, I wish I had arms like an orangutan. The duvet cover is always still a bit damp in one place, but then I quite like that. It's cooling, and I'm always hot. I have to have my feet sticking out of the end to achieve the right temperature. Perhaps my hypothalamus is trying to tell me something.

The good thing about making your bed is you can have a sneaky little lie down when you've finished. It is exhausting work and you deserve to collapse in a bit of a heap. Strangely, when collapsing onto the bed after making it, I always end up at a jaunty angle. It seems a shame to dent the newly billowed pillows. There is something rather pleasant about dangling my head over the edge and staring at the wall, upside down. I wait for all the blood to rush to my head and then decide to get up. There's that slightly giddy feeling, which I quite enjoy, like I've just been on a roundabout without the vomity feeling.

It is then essential to forget about changing the bed, so that you have a lovely surprise at night time, slithering into crispy, cool sheets and letting the fluffy pillows take the strain. I adopt the starfish pose and let the day sink into the mattress. It's a starfish with one limb missing though. But I'm not going to let that bother me. Somewhere on the planet will be a four legged starfish, it's just that no-one has found it yet.

Summer?

I think I spoke too soon about the summer. I'm sitting here at my desk in Prefab Towers (note to manager: it's my lunchtime), the wind is howling through the air conditioning vents and whistling round the building. This building actually moans in the wind, 'I want a holiday! I want to get away from the three lane gyratory system that makes me dizzy all the time!, Let me free from my footings!'.

The noises are quite spooky, and all that is needed to convert the whole working day experience into a Gothic horror movie would be the squadron of bats I saw in India that had the wing span of light aircraft. During the day they could hang upside down from the air conditioning vents. In quiet moments, employees could get up and tickle their tummies as a stress busting exercise. We could throw in a couple of rabid dogs slathering at the bottom of the stairwells and lifts that go up and down without picking up any passengers (hang on a minute, I think we've got that effect already).

My slightly grubby-from-pollution net curtains are straining at the rail, billowing out as if allowing access to unseen entities. Time seems to have stood still (sorry, that's just how it feels at the new photocopying/printing machine) and the electrical equipment in the office is acting strangely (no change there either, come to think of it).

This is of course all an effort to take my mind off the yearning I am currently experiencing for a large, iced currant bun. I've had a couple of boiled sweets, but they're just not hitting the spot. I've also eaten all my favourite orangey ones, and am feeling depressed at the thought of succombing, in desperation, to pineapple. If you eat too many boiled sweets, your teeth get a bit furry. You can spend a bit of time deciding whether to suck or crunch (no comments please, I know what you're like now). Sucking gives longer lasting pleasure, the crunch gives a lovely burst of flavour, but runs the risk of follow up appointments with the 'Butcher of Teddington', sorry, I mean my dentist.

Maybe that's the where the real terror lies.

Beach Life

Ah, the summer.

Spent yesterday lying on a beach, looking through the gaps in my straw hat carefully positioned over my face (I know what you're saying, and its not funny) at the cotton wool clouds drifting past. My favourite skies are the ones that look like the title frame for 'The Simpsons', and this one didn't disappoint. I could hear my breathing echoing around the inside of my hat, as well as the lazy inhalation and exhalation of the sea rolling over the pebbles. Someone had a baggy panel in their windbreak that rattled in the occasional breeze. Every so often there would be the scrunching of footsteps in the stones - 'Keep going, keep going, don't sit near me'. In the distance excited children's voices called to each other, and once or twice an admonishing adult's tone.

When the level of relaxation became too strenuous, a cup of tea would be sought from the kiosk nearby. A good cup of tea, that excused it's nasty little expanded polystyrene container. I was even quite glad of the plastic lid as it did arrive pleasantly hot.

There is a knack to getting comfy on a stony beach, it never works at the first attempt, and once you acknowledge this, things become easier. There is the little ceremony of trying to tack the rug down in the breeze, making sure you go for the stones that look too big first off (saves effort in the end). When you lie down you will undoubtedly find that one or two stones are a bit pointy, and catch you in that tender area around your kidneys. Remember that they have been around for several million years so have earned their place on the beach as well. A small amount of shuffling, or even a kneel up and pat movement should sort this out. You can then enjoy several hours of worrying only about whether to have a Magnum or a Ninety Nine. Actually, you HAVE to have the Ninety Nine if you are a serious beach person. Magnums (Magna/Magnii?) just don't dribble down your forearm in the traditional manner, rather like modern candles don't dribble wax down the Liebfraumilch bottle any more (and not just because no-one buys cheap white these days).

The best finale to a beach day is the take away curry. This means you don't have to retain a vertical position for too long while slaving over a hot stove. You can phone from the sitting position and just move sideways onto a comfy couch when the doorbell rings with the chicken tickler masala. ALWAYS remember that however careful you are, the oil from the curry containers will trickle out onto the nearest surface. Forego any Feng Shui concerns and just keep a bin liner propped open at the ready.

Wash down with copious amounts of red and when your eyelids get heavy, fall into bed.

Job done.

Coming Home

I've been shouting, 'Yeah Baby!' quite often since I got back; on feeling my pillow, on my first cup of tea, on washing my malaria tablets down with white wine, on turning the cold tap and DRINKING THE WATER, on leaving the back door open and not worrying about the mosquitos coming in, on eating meals that aren’t curried - but mostly on having completed such an amazing adventure.

India II

For the last week in India we went to help out in a rural orphanage. This is where children from the city slums come for sanctuary when their home life is considered unsafe, or when one or both parents have died – usually from AIDS. The orphanage houses 45 boys and 5 girls aged between 6 and 18. They had an assembly hall, called the Temple of Peace, a dining area with kitchen, and small houses to live in. The little ones had house-mothers to help with washing and cleaning. The older ones performed these chores themselves. The women who worked there had also been offered sanctuary from destitution.

The children had clothes, presumably donated, and virtually nothing else. There were some well-thumbed books available, three worn out tennis balls and a broken cricket set. A volley ball net was strung out over some rough ground.

The electricity only worked for twelve hours each day, a week of daytime power, followed by a week of night-time power. When the children settled to do their homework, they were limited in how long they could write by the setting sun. Some of them would gather round two solar powered street lights to continue their studies.

The campus was delightful. There was a lovely playground with swings and climbing equipment - something of a luxury in India. The area around the buildings had an abundance of banana trees, lemon bushes, palm trees heavy with coconuts and neatly tilled fields of grain, maize and vegetables. The ploughing was done by a very elderly man and a pair of white oxen. It seemed quite medieval, as did the local village, with basic thatched huts and women sitting outside cooking over open fires. There was a properly covered well, donated by visiting doctors who had serious concerns about the health implications of the old water supply. The village housed the primary and high schools. Both buildings were Victorian in their facilities – benches built into double desks, bare floors, chalk boards around the room and very little else. One board had the seasons written on it; summer, monsoon and winter. The children sat quietly and attentively. When we asked a class of teenagers what they dreamed of, the answers were about being doctors, teachers or lawyers. One boy wanted to be a software engineer, which I found particularly poignant, given that the school was probably about 5 miles away from the nearest internet connection. The contrast between these well motivated young people and their equivalent in this country was quite startling. None of them gave evasive ‘dunno’ style answers, they all had strong self esteem and ambition that would put their Western counterparts to shame.

There was no furniture to speak of in the orphanage. The children slept on mats on the floor (as they did in the slums) and sat on mats in the dining area to eat. Each meal consisted of chapatti, dhal, rice and a delicately spiced vegetable curry, washed down with sugary chai. The children each had a tin plate and mug, which they washed up after the meals. No cutlery was needed as the chapattis were used in traditional style to scoop the food off the plate.

The community was warm, loving and extremely happy. All the children shared the chores and never seemed to argue or complain. The timetable was well structured, the day starting with outdoor exercises at 6am, followed by washing and cleaning duties, assembly at 8am. The assembly quite often broke into vibrant drumming and dancing, a proper celebration for a new day. Breakfast was at 9am and then school or other activities on holidays. In the evenings they did their homework and ate dinner at 8pm. After dinner the children had to make their way to their houses to sleep, it was too dangerous for them to walk around in the dark on a campus that was visited regularly by cobras and the occasional anaconda. The snakes were seen to by what must be one of the bravest men around, a gentle giant of a man, who could spot the snakes tens of metres away, stalk them and throttle them with his bare hands. He had to do this once or twice a week to protect the children. We were advised to take our torches to the toilet block in the night, to check for cobras. This was extremely worrying, but luckily the cobras stayed out of the way while we were there. To think that before being warned about the snakes, I had been worried by the size of the ants. Somehow they paled into insignificance as I lay in bed trying to convince myself that I didn’t need to go to the bathroom after all.

The most startling and profound revelation about the orphanage was how well balanced, happy and enthusiastic the children were. They all shared a love of life and eagerness to learn that was infectious. When given some art materials they were astonishingly creative, and when some basic percussion instruments were brought out, their dancing and drumming took wings and soared. They worked together really well, being used to community life, sharing and caring for each other.

The children all looked lean and fit on their high carbohydrate diet. Their food was all organically grown and locally sourced, much from the fields around them. There was no junk food within miles and no money to buy it had it been. Some of the children however were smaller than you would expect for their ages, a sad reflection of their malnourished start in life.

The work the charity is doing for these children and adults is almost miraculous, giving a chance in life to so many who would otherwise have languished in the slums. The fact that they are happy and caring individuals is testimony to the love and commitment shown to them by the staff running the orphanage.

The term ‘poor’ had no meaning in this place.

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India

I've been wizzing around in little motorised rickshaws in India, which once you get used to the fact that no-one follows any sort of highway code, gets quite exciting. You cling on for your life as traffic drives straight at you from every angle. I am surprised to still be alive.

Sad things greet you when you look beyond the bus that is threatening to kill you. Some people sleep on the traffic islands, some children come begging (and can then be seen to give their procured goods and money to a Fagin character in the background).

From the trains you can see men defaecating, but oddly enough, this seems to be quite a chatty, communal time. The train facility dumps its effluent straight onto the line anyway, so not much difference in the end (those of us with Delhi Belly got quite chatty too as we kept bumping into each other on the frequent trudges to the toilet).

More offputting was the sight of rats happily frolicking on the railway lines, but this was made up for by seeing a couple of elephants frolicking in some fields outside Delhi.

Attempting to use squat toilets while suffering from the runs and wearing floaty, Indian costume is a bit of a bother. I am full of admiration for Indian women, who always look totally composed and almost regal, while I have been dragging various bits of my clothes back out of the U bend only just in the nick of time - I have been keen to avoid being strangled as the scarf disappears into the sump of the train.

When we were staying in Poona there were pigs wandering around, and ferral dogs with their ribs sticking out. At night you could hear when the dogs formed packs to hunt some poor pig, the squealing was something out of a horror movie. Cows wander around freely too, but they seem quite relaxed and can be seen drinking from the taps in the street (that the locals also drink from).

The mosquitos haven't been as bad as the midges I have become aquainted with on trips to Scotland, but it's quite hard to remember to take the anti-malaria tablets when on the move so much.

The food is delicious, really simple rice and dhal for most meals, but all home-made from local produce. It is interesting to see the chippatties being cooked, I think I've forgotten how to use a knife and fork.

The children we have been working with are delightful, and so enthusiastic about anything we do. The people running the charity here are inspirational, and as is often the case, inspirational people attract other incredible people to work with them - so all the charity workers we have met have been amazing. The work they are doing to help the children here is so valuable, literally changing the lives of many and saving lives with the AIDS awareness project they are also running. One memorable moment was going to watch some beautiful Indian women dressed in elegant red sarees peforming a play about AIDS in a truckers yard, where oil tankers were coming and going, interspersed with ox drawn carts. The sight of the elegant women bravely tackling such a sensitive issue in front of the tough truckers was very moving. It was made all the more fascinating when one of the women couldn't then sit in the minibus home next to a man - but had been party to a condom demonstration in the yard. Whoever had the idea to promote AIDS awareness to truckers is a genius, as the drivers are encouraged to spread the word at each truck stop they go to - spreading the knowledge across the whole of India via the transport network. As they say in the charity office, the battle for AIDS will be won or lost in India.

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Camera Obscura and Chaos

I had an idea that I could set up a camera obscura in my back room at the weekend. It should have been easy I reasoned, as I tried to black out the (mainly glazed) back door and pin the large curtains back as best I could. Achieving a black out is quite tricky I discovered as the hours passed, and the navy blue plastic table covers I thought would do the trick weren't up to the task. I had to pin layer upon layer of blankets all over the place. The drawing pins were straining at the task, and just as I stepped down from the ladder for what felt like the millionth time, the blankets fell in a crumpled heap on the floor and I was left in bright sunshine again. After quite a lot of grumpiness, but with a strong, 'I've started so I'll finish' mentality, I managed to get the room mainly dark. I then realised I'd have to bore a hole through a blanket to get the pin hole that is needed. That didn't seem sensible, so it was back to pinning bits of blanket up in a rough 'hem' and trying to jigsaw puzzle bits of cardboard to the relevant cracks. This was further complicated by the fact that as the room did become darker, I kept losing the scissors, drawing pins and sellotape. The room might not have been going black, but the air was certainly going blue.

At last I was able to make the pin hole, and realised with dismay that the sunny side of the house is actually the front. The sun did come out for a few minutes and I was able to see a very small, and admittedly rather disappointing, image of some clouds on the side of my bookcase. The next stage should have been to get a mirror to reflect the image through a lens onto another mirror on the floor. By this time I was feeling quite depressed and decided to just admire my 2p sized image of clouds. The only good thing about this, I thought ruefully to myself, was that at least you couldn't tell they were upside down.

Apparently Leonardo Da Vinci used this method to paint some pictures. Sadly the clouds were in fuzzy vision, so that combined with my limited artistic skills, wasn't going to produce a 'master' anytime soon - Leo can rest easy in his grave.

Black Mould and Tap Dancing Spiders

It’s all rather exciting, there is a new bath in the bathroom and a rather smart toilet which is a bit like one you’d find in a five star hotel, except the hotel wouldn’t have bare walls with lumps missing (the plumber said the walls were 'really terrible' – I think he was worried that if he leant too heavily in the wrong place, he would find himself in the back garden). I tentatively experienced the new bath this morning and enjoyed the view that notably lacked any black mould. There seem to be several bits of flooring missing, which is a bit creepy as I am fairly sure that Brother-of-the-Biggest-Spider-in-the-Universe will be procreating somewhere under the planks. I walk around rather gingerly as I am still suffering from a touch of paranoia about the fearsome furry fiends. I console myself with the thought that he and his clan might be tap dancing – their eight legs each working away on a new routine, ready to perform on my faucet(?) when I am next relaxing in foaming, five star luxury.

Master of all he Surveys

I popped downstairs into the kitchen to get a cup of tea last night, but patrolling the basement floor was The Biggest Spider in the Universe. He was just sitting there, glaring at me, daring me to walk past him to the kettle without the password. His long legs were bent at careful angles to keep his bloated, furry body suspended, ready to pounce. He actually had horns, which was quite scary. I decided to be brave and do the glass and card trick, but by the time I had got them ready, braced myself for the battle and turned to get him, the floor was empty. I almost fancied that I heard the clatter of eight jack booted feet as he ran to hide. It's all a bit disconcerting as every time I go into the kitchen, I feel like I'm being watched. I make sure I put shoes on now, I wouldn't want to step on anything that big, and I go wriggly down my spine when I think about his spindly, hairy legs interwoven between my toes, with the mush of spider abdomen stuck onto the ball of my foot. It didn't help when I found Son of the Universe in the bath this morning. I think having the bathroom done has sent various wildlife scurrying round the house in search of new abodes. It reminded me of cycling down the towpath of the Thames past a building development once, and rats were dashing across the path as their nests were disturbed. I've gone all yucky thinking about it.

Perhaps if I give the spider a name other than Master of the Universe I won't feel so bad. I'll call him Bob the Spider, which has friendly overtones of tool belts, primary colours and jolly songs. It's a shame he can't hold a paintbrush in each hairy leg - the bathroom would be finished in no time at all.

Taupe, ecru, beige

My bathroom is going to be replaced from tomorrow. This is particularly exciting as the plumber has been promising to come for several months. This had lead to a rather long period of not really bothering to clean the bathroom properly 'as its going to be gutted soon'. As a result it's been a place of less than welcoming demeanour. I had to go to a DIY shop (and I still feel slightly phobic about these places) to choose complicated things like floor and wall tiles and paint. I’m no interior decorator, but am quite pleased with a colour scheme of marbled white tiles with a hint of ‘granite’ and ‘granite’ floor tiles (non-slip luckily) and ‘Arctic white’ for the walls. It won’t be a warm and cosy room, but it might be a nice, clean room soon. I’m looking forward to waving goodbye to the black mould that has been depressing me for sometime, that even the spray-on sulphuric acid stuff couldn't help with, and the carefully positioned house plant wilted away from.

I'm not sure why 'granite' is a selling point - it doesn't look particularly special. The only thing I can think of worthy of note is its radon emitting properties (forget going to A&E for your suspected broken bone, just hold it over the draining board for a while). However, the paint colours were reassuringly pretentious as always; 'crushed cotton' and 'freyed hessian' giving a whole new dimension to Adrian Mole's sock drawer.

The pretentious colour names remind me of those menus that talk about freshly harvested sea vegetables from under the wild waves of the Atlantic or the rice that is grown in the flood waters of the Himalayan foothills. I used to think prawns on a bed of lettuce was bad enough, but reading these menus is like reading the pompous information notices next to paintings in art galleries; 'Trystan used gouache mixed with mud from the bottom of his Barbour boots and his own pubic hair to create this evocative scene reflecting the enduring power of democracy'.

Perhaps I'm going to the wrong art galleries.

Can You Glue Sequins onto a Recorder?

I'm jealous of Vanessa Mae. We went to see her at an outdoor concert last night. She was wearing an amazingly blingy dress and shoes that sparkled like diamonds in the spotlight. She was also fabulously talented and could command the stage just by posing with her violin and brandishing her bow, sending clouds of rosin flying off it.

The choice of music was a bit variable - she tried some 'popular' pieces which included a variation of something that sounded like a hoe-down which was a bit dull, but luckily went into the finale with the stunning jazzed up toccata and fugue and one of the Vivaldi 'Seasons'. I wasn't sure which one (is anyone sure which is which?) but not the whingy one, the one that makes you feel agitated and want to change the world. Luckily it's a short piece so the feeling passes quickly and you can relax again. It was made all the more stunning by having fireworks exploding in time to the music - I can't remember seeing and hearing anything so spectacular for ages (Handel is just so yesterday). All our jaws had to be scooped off the grass at the end.

I don't think I can achieve the same effect with my descant recorder, however many sequins I glue onto myself - although I do have some 'mirror on a role' which I could wrap myself up in (or at least stick onto my old trainers). There are some disco lights somewhere in the basement cupboard. I'll go and practice a few poses with my recorder this evening, and strut around before launching into 'Lord of the Dance' (most of the notes are there now). I'll have to be careful flinging it around, if I'm too flamboyant spittle will fly off. Some fussy members of my audience might be upset.

Watch this space for the stadium tour and album coming soon!

....and cue the 37 Shot Surgical Strike!

Expanded Polystyrene and Tombolas

I'm staring at the wreckage of my healthy eating lunch. I had a problem with it, balsamic vinegar dressing looks too much like gravy, and who wants salad with gravy? The remnants are looking rather sad, scattered around messily in one of those horrid expanded polystyrene containers that destroy the world. If you use a real knife and fork, they 'carve' indentations across the bottom. It's a bit strange, not hitting a china plate when you cut your tatty, just a squidgy experience of slicing the soft container. This probably releases minute particles of polystyrene into the salad and has probably given me cancer. So, my lunch has probably helped destroy the world and given me cancer, and it didn't even taste that good.

Plastic is horrid stuff. I've given up drinking wine in plastic cups, finally realising that part of the lovely thing about wine is seeing how the light reflects the colour through the glass, either honeyed shades of white, or blackcurranty red. Holding a plastic cup with an opaque plastic tint doesn't do it for me anymore (unless on a picnic, where different rules apply). If you are at an event where the wine is proffered in plastic, my advice is to ask for a cup of tea in a mug. Someone will probably be quite pleased to have an opportunity to put their feet up in the kitchen while the kettle boils anyway. Make sure you state the 'mug' part, otherwise you are in danger of having more disappointing expanded polystyrene. While you wait for the tea, you can have another couple of goes at losing money on the tombola (you knew you were going to lose anyway, so don't get upset). Which reminds me, once I won a jar of something on a tombola, and my cynical friend smirked (which I attributed to jealousy at the time) and said it was bound to be past its sell by date. She was right. I think there are trolley loads of out-of- date tins and jars going around the country doing tombolas. Suspended in a never- land of backs of cupboards, a year at a time, but at least getting to see the world, albeit slowly.

650 million people can't be wrong

I've started to prepare for a trip to India in a couple of weeks time. The ratio of planning that has to be done in relation to the humble mosquito is out of all proportion. My main worry is that if there is a mozzie within about 10 miles, it usually decides to head straight for me, and to tell his mates to come and join the party. I think I must be particularly tasty to mozzies. I've packed a mosquito net, mosquito repellent, another Avon product that the SAS apparently use, lots of long sleeved tops and more tablets than I've ever seen in one place before. So when I saw an advert for a wide brimmed hat with black netting covering it, and helpful drawstring around the neck to prevent the little pests getting in, I was sorely tempted. I am not usually interested in fashion, but even I was worried that it wouldn't be a good look. I also have a worry that if the mozzies were particularly irksome and made me grumpy, I might accidentally yank the drawstring too hard and garrot myself, which wouldn't be a good look either. Maybe a boater, veil and ribbon combo (think Katherine Hepburn) would enhance my appearance more than the Harrison Ford effect? Shame the boater probably wouldn't make it in one piece through the airport luggage handling system.

So, the mosquito, what's the point - apart from being particularly kind and helpful to the protozoan parasite?

'Why all the fuss? I love mosquitos!'

Wet Leaves and Swear Words

I was on my usual Sunday morning wander round to the newsagent to get the papers, wearing my favourite wedgy heeled sandals with silly, smooth soles when I slipped on a wet leaf by the bus stop. My legs were thrust well out of their usual loci of movement, and I found myself kneeling on the pavement in a pose not unlike those seen on 'Strictly Come Dancing'. The passengers on the 281 seemed surprised that someone was so desperate for a bus to come, they they had got to their knees. As I was flung to the ground by the evil leaf, I have to confess I emitted a yell of 'f**k' (I don't usually swear, it was the surprise element). I felt quite abashed when I realised that this particular bus stop is immediately outside a convent, and that, being a warm July morning, several windows were open.

My favourite sandals are now too grimy to wear and my favourite knee is feeling a bit sore. My trousers were covered in bits of leaf and dirty puddle water too.

I just hope that no one on the 281 knew me and that the nuns Sunday morning prayers weren't disturbed. Today I will be going out to buy some sensible, flat shoes with laces and soles that can take me up Everest.

It looks harmless enough, but really it wants to break your legs

Encompassing the World

I'm thinking of freeing myself from TV ownership. So many programmes are about doing up your house, moving house or sharing a house with lots of weird people it's become boring. I'm so in love with my radio that I think I'm nearly ready to tell the telly to leave. It's not paying its way, its not funny anymore, it wastes my time and keeps staring at me when I'm lying on the settee. It doesn't do any housework, can't do the gardening and won't clean the car.

I'm going to buy some good speakers for the computer and buy a comfy chair for maximum slumpage comfort (I'm seeing an executive leather affair that tilts back and maybe even has one of those foot rests that pings out when you achieve 45 degrees).

That's just reminded me of one of the most fascinating things I ever did see on TV, back when I was about four. It was on 'Play School' and I think it was through the 'Round Window' - a cunning device to disguise the educational element (I was fooled, were you?). It was a short black and white film of a double decker bus doing the 'tilt-test'. I was transfixed by the bus leaning over, but mostly transfixed by the over sized protractor attached to it, with a swinging arrow indicating the angle of tilt. It is a seriously geeky admission I know, but I think it started an early interest in geometry. I went on to enjoy shopping for maths sets. Other girls wanted matching bra and pant sets, I wanted a matching compass and set square set.

I loved making those flower patterns using only a compass and totally was engrossed by drawing perpendicular lines by marking out little arcs. I know the Greeks (is this where the word 'geek' comes from?) and Egyptians managed to measure the circumference of the earth and probably the distance to the moon with little more, but I was happy drawing a flower.

Love to Love Me Baby

Driving to work this morning, I was listening to a compilation tape that has spent a lot of time hidden away under a bed. It was quite odd to find out it was the music from my 18th birthday party. 'Whatever happened to the Alessi Brothers?' I mused as I waited for the lights to change. Then Donna Summer started warbling 'Love to Love You Baby' (I hasten to point out this was an already an 'old' track at the point of my 18th birthday) and I remembered that this was the really, really long version. A friend of mine once recalled going to join the toilet queue when it started (remember pre en-suite toilet queues at parties?), waiting ages to go, and coming back down to hear Donna still doing her stuff. I had completely forgotten how naughty her stuff was. I had the passenger window completely open (driver's window still not mended) and was held up in traffic just level with a bus stop where several old ladies were waiting for the 131. Donna was just reaching the 'climax' (and I use the word carefully here) of the lyrics, which caused some surprise to the bus stop people, who must have thought I was doing something quite inappropriate in the car. I tried to make the window go up, but the button on the driver's side doesn't work either, so I smiled bleakly and made sure both hands were visible on the steering wheel.

The person who had made the tape for me was a one eyed ex Hell's Angel, who had quite a lot of metal bits holding his bones together. Once, while giving me and a friend a lift back from some dodgy club in London in his Triumph Spitfire, he exhibited signs of early road rage, waving a monkey wrench around on the slip road of the A3. I spent the rest of the journey thinking about the conundrum of him liking the Alessi Brothers, but ended up singing along anyway.

Playing to the Camera

The advent of the digital camera appears to have made everyone see everything as a potential photo shoot. We are no longer limited to 24 shots on a film, everyone can click away taking endless pictures of everything. I've seen people taking photos at the end or beginnings of church services, with no respect for the congregation. One thought that some specially arranged candles were set up as a photo opportunity rather than an aid to quiet contemplation before prayer. In a concert recently a couple of members of the audience kept bobbing up and down to photograph the musicians with flash at odd intervals throughout the performance. I also went to a wedding a while ago, and as the bride walked in to the room for the ceremony, all the guests turned round and rather than greeting her with smiles, held up their cameras and took pictures. It was an odd and rather disturbing sight. I've also seen lots of families on holiday where fathers instead of joining in, stand to one side and endlessly point camcorders at their brood, who then become self conscious.

Are we all in danger of never actually living important memories, being so busily tied up in recording them? As you stand aside with your camera, are you actually taking yourself out of the frame in more ways than one?

Mapping Your Life

I like ordnance survey maps, it's a bit geeky I know, but I love all the information displayed in the twirly contours and winding roads of different colours. There was something quite enjoyable about finding a new symbol on the map and checking the key to find out what it meant. I used to enjoy geography lessons where you had to draw a cross section of land from the map and make a lovely little diagram - which was always a river valley. There is something soothing about rummaging in a pencil case to find the right coloured pencil and doing a bit of careful colouring in and ending up with the predictable blob of blue at the bottom of the valley.

As I flipped through the maps, I realised they reflected most of the summer holidays I had been on from childhood through to recent years. The North coast of Scotland (honeymoon), the New Forest (with the children), the French OS equivalent (cycling in Brittany with friend) and so on. I hadn't realised how much of my holiday history was reflected in the maps. The old maps that my parents owned are a bit brittle and faded, but the cartography looks nicer somehow - they lack the over perfect polish of computer generated artwork. There is also the guaranteed moment of frustration with OS maps when you try to fold them up again in the right way. It's all part of the vibe.

Forget the digital holiday snaps, just have a look at your old maps and enjoy memories of train journeys and tricky bends in roads and beautiful views.