Life's a bum - but at least I'm still here

I went up to the surgery this morning as my leg ulcer (despite being officially signed off) was not quite as it should be.  I think my skin is so fragile now that anything will set it off. But I can cope with that.  I'd quite like a skin graft, preferably of some industrially hardened plastic skin, but that's not going to happen. 

Anyway, the lovely Kate (my nurse) who I've known for the best part of 20 years asked if I knew Maggie R, who of course I did know because my daughter went to school with her son and they are sort of friends.  For as long as I've known her, Maggie has had MS and latterly she's been riding round in a motorised scooter thing, but I haven't seen her that recently.  I've often seen her husband Brian chatting with friends in local coffee shops (of which we have more than a few).

So today Kate said that this afternoon there was a memorial service for Maggie.  It would seem that the MS had deteriorated so far that she had no control over her bodily functions and that, whilst she wasn't in pain, she had got to the point where the loss of dignity was too much.  So two weeks ago she did the one-way trip to Switzerland.

Her children knew (20/21 year old son and 24-ish daughter).  But I can't even begin to imagine the anguish that all of them went through.

I'm glad Kate told me about it.  I wouldn't want to see Brian and say something totally inappropriate.  I'm really bad at funerals, I cry at the slightest emotional bit.

And it just set me thinking.  My sister-in-law died (of bowel cancer) six years ago a week before Christmas.  Jo Yeates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Joanna_Yeates her body was discovered on Christmas Day (of all days!) three years ago.  And that was at spitting distance almost.  And we had lots of snow which really didn't help.

This 'everybody being jolly ho ho ho' over Christmas is actually the worst time of the year for some folks.

Oh, and in case you're thinking I'm being overly schmaltzy - my washing machine has died (I do at least ten washes a week) and needs a new outlet pump and a new soap hose - total cost in the region of £180 plus VAT.  And that's not to mention all the other crap things I have to pay for.

What should you allow a 15-year-old to do?

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.”

William Shakespeare, “Hamlet” (Prince of Denmark – but strangely enough not a tragedy in this case)

 

 

Several months ago, younger son (R) who is fifteen started corresponding (if that’s the correct word) via Skype with a girl called Anna who is Danish.  At first he told me that she went to the same junior school as him but moved to Denmark when she was seven, however he has subsequently admitted that she is Danish through and through.  Now, by walking into rooms unannounced. I have caught sight of her on Skype and she is a genuine teenager and quite pretty.

 

A couple of months ago they hatched a plan.  She was coming to London with her school on a trip and they arranged they would meet up.  By chance British teachers were going on strike on the day they had arranged to meet and so therefore R’s school would be closed.  Well, that’s lucky, otherwise I’d have had to ring up and pretend he was sick.

 

And then her friends also started Skype-ing R so now he had three Danish girlfriends and he started saying he had to bring them all presents, not just one each but TWO each.  One girl wanted pink and green nail varnish.  One was very into Harry Potter and we happened to have two copies of one of them so she was given that so she could practice her English plus a bookmark/light.  And Anna was given a Union Jack hipflask (as being very English) and a horse’s head mask (no, I don’t know, either).

 

I was a bit concerned about the Danish teachers’ reactions, how they would take to a 15-yr-old English boy stalking them but the only way for me to contact them would be through the kids so I couldn’t see that happening.

 

He wanted to go by train but that would have cost £51 return (at least) whereas the coach was only £18.50.  He wanted to catch the 5.00am coach which would get to London by 8.00am to give him time to meet them at their hotel by 9.00am.  On the Saturday before I sent him down to walk to the coach station to make sure he knew where it was and which bay his coach would go from.

 

Print out tube map, bus map, map of Victoria coach station, printout of birth certificate (on the coach 14-yr-olds have to be accompanied, 16-yr-olds have to buy adult ticket, so therefore he needs to prove he’s 15 to get a child’s ticket but not need to be accompanied, gosh this is so complicated!).  Give him letter “to whom it may concern” saying who he is, how old he is, how I’ve given permission for this tomfoolery, etc and here’s all my phone numbers.

 

The night before he had various phone calls from the girls in London which indicated that the following day’s itinerary was being reorganised.  Jokingly I said they must have got wind of R turning up, but he said the girls had told their teacher he was coming and he was going to be an honorary Danish student for the day!  In retrospect I think this was to avoid teachers’ rallies going on in London, but it meant he didn’t know where they were going (the original first stop was St Pauls).

 

We checked his bank card the night before in case I had to transfer money to him in an emergency.  He hadn’t used the card for several months and it appears to have been cancelled.  Whatever – it didn’t work.  Okay – here’s some cash, it’s for an emergency (I’ve yet to see this come back by the way).

 

Get up at 4.00am.  Make bacon sandwich.  Take your travel sickness tablets.  Bye.  There are so many things that could go wrong from this point.

 

Empty dishwasher.  Empty washing machine.  Put another load on.  Wait until 5.00am to get a text saying “I’m on coach.  It’s moving.”  Go back to bed.  Takes another hour to get back to sleep.

 

Get up at 8.00am because I have an appointment at doctor’s at 09.00am and by now he should have arrived at Victoria Coach Station and needs to walk up to Victoria Rail Station to buy a one-day Travelcard.  It’s then going to take him 45 minutes to walk across Hyde Park to meet them at their hotel.

 

No text.

 

Look at travel website.  M4 closed between Swindon and Hungerford due to accident involving car transporter.  Long delays expected.

 

08.35am R calls to say he’s just arrived at the coach station and where is the rail station?  Give him directions.  He says he’ll have to run once he’s got the Travelcard as he’ll only have half the time to get to their hotel.  I can see him playing catch-up all day.

 

08.45am – having left map of area on computer screen, tell his father he’ll have to give him directions if he rings up and set off for doctor’s.

 

08.55am – En-route to doctor’s I get a call saying “I’m not quite sure where I am”.  Tell him to ring home and speak to his father.

 

09.25am – Get home from doctor’s to find that the girls have rung R and said they’re setting off from their hotel but don’t quite know where they’re going yet so will ring him when they know.  Dad thinks he’s just waiting at Hyde Park Corner to find out where to go next. 

 

Ring R who is actually somewhere in the middle of Hyde Park but doesn’t quite know where.  We are reduced to can you see the sun, where is it? to ascertain that he is heading north.

 

R says Anna’s phone number doesn’t work so he can’t ring her and she hasn’t rung him yet.  Take her phone number and say I will try and ring her.  This is great, isn’t it?  Son somewhere in the middle of Hyde Park, girls have gone somewhere (who knows where) and they seem to be un-contactable by phone.

 

I now realise that the phone number isn’t long enough so understandable that it doesn’t work – but what to add?  It starts 45… and I wonder whether that’s the equivalent of us being +44…  Try adding a couple of 00s on the front and it rings and a girl with a foreign accent answers.  Phew!  She says that R is not answering his phone (hope that’s just because he’s in the middle of the Park) and that they’re going to Camden Market shopping.

 

Ring R back and tell him her real number and to ring me once he’s reached the edge of the Park.

 

09.55 – Okay he’s got as far as Lancaster Gate and has rung the girls who will be in Camden for three hours and will meet him “under the blue sign”.  Give him instructions to get the Central Line (the red one) to Tottenham Court Road and then change to the Northern Line (the black one) to Camden Town.  No, you can’t ring me when you’ve done the first bit because there won’t be any signal down there.  The boy’s never done Tubes before.

 

10.25 – He’s made it to Camden and the girls have found him. 

 

And breathe.  At last I can get on with my day.

 

15.45 – Text R “where are you?” 

 “London Eye”.

 “You ought to start thinking about saying goodbye and finding your way back to Victoria”.

“I think I’d like to stay here for a few hours more.  What time’s the last coach?”

“About seven” (I lie.  There’s no way he’s catching the last coach)

“Well can you check?”

“Yes, there’s one at seven”

 

17.45 Ring R.  I can hear girls giggling in the background.  “Where are you?”  “In their hotel room”.  Now R has done two school trips to Germany and one of the golden rules was no mixed sexes in rooms, let alone foreigners who have only just turned up on the day.  Apparently Leif (the teacher) is fine with him, has been chatting with him all day.  The trip seems to consist of 13 girls and 2 boys so probably quite keen to get a male take on things by now.

 

18.00 R rings to say he’s outside in the street now – how do you get to Victoria? Tell him to get on Central Line at Queensway, go west for one junction to Notting Hill Gate and get Circle Line anticlockwise to Victoria.  He can’t see tube station.  Well what can you see?  Eventually him doing real life and me doing Google Streetview coincide and he finds the station.  (That’s the trouble with Streetview, you don’t know how old it is and how much has changed since then.  Scaffolding certainly has.)

 

18.30  He’s got to Notting Hill Gate, can’t find Circle Line.  Has come up to street level to phone.  Tell him to find a station person and ask how to get to Victoria.  There’s really not much else I can do to help him.  When he gets to Victoria rail/tube station he’s still got to get to the coach station and then get his return ticket validated.  (I booked an open return because I knew there was no way I could guarantee he’d get a specific coach.)

 

18.50  Text him to say “Guess you’re getting the 8pm coach then”.  Answer “yup”.

 

Arrange that his older brother will pick him up at coach station at 10.30pm which still doesn’t work as by then his phone had run out of charge and they missed each other.  Finally picked up halfway home which is where he’d walked to.

 

Postscript:  I have just been told  “You know at the end of year 11, people go on holiday?”  “What, you mean they go to Newquay, get pissed and their parents are called by the police to pick them up at two in the morning, or else they’ve jumped off a cliff and are in hospital?”  (I’d just like to add at this point that my two elder children went to Newquay and this didn’t happen to either of them).

 

“Well I’d like to go to ….”  (Yes, you guessed it.  Denmark – or as his father would say ‘Pastryland’)

 

 

 

As I said when I was at my doctor’s appointment that morning, “just don’t take my blood pressure”.

How to ruin your child's life

Despite our school "bucking the trend" and gaining a record number of As and A*s this year, the number of students (or their parents) who have applied for a re-mark has increased dramatically.

In the last couple of weeks I've been updating a spreadsheet in school recording the results of re-marks.  Despite costing £35 or £45 a time, parents with cash are willing to splash out to boost their offspring's grades. Some of them are spending well over £100. 

And do you know what - hardly any of them have gained as a result.  If you've got a B, then no amount of re-marking is going to make you an A* student.  Most of them stay absolutely the same, or maybe they gain one or two extra marks which makes no difference to the grade.

But the worst one of all I heard about was a mother who absolutely insisted that one of her daughter's 'A' level papers was re-marked because she only had an A.  It was re-marked and dropped to a 'B'. 

As a result she has now lost her place at medical school.

Race day

Sorry, this is crap positioning of pics and you probably can't even read the start list on the right, but this is my daughter, Jess (on the left), and her friend Cara who have just qualified to ride in the 2013 4X World Championships tomorrow in Leogang, Austria.  You can watch it here:

http://live.redbull.tv/events/296/uci-mtb-championships-2013-4x/

although, to be honest, she's qualified 16th out of 16 so may not last much longer than the first race which will take about a minute, so blink and you've missed it, but even so it's the biggest race of her life and as you can see she's really excited.  I think she's probably also the youngest female rider there, so - hey, scope for development.

And I'm her proud mum.

Time for a holiday (at home)

Daughter has finally left to go and race in Leogang in Austria (or at least I had a text this morning to say they were on the ferry, which is good enough for me).  I now know that staples such as bread and milk won't suddenly disappear whilst I'm not looking, that I don't need to buy any cranberry juice for a fortnight, and I shall have to completely re-think my laundry schedules.

She's gone to race in the 4X World Champs, having been picked by Team GB:
http://www.vitalmtb.com/news/news/4X-World-Championships-to-be-Held-in-Leogang-at-World-Cup-Finals,555

This may sound good, and it is indeed the biggest race of her life, but British Cycling are only paying the entry fee and providing some pit support there, the rest is self funded (by her, I can't afford it).  I'm sure she'll have the time of her life.  And it means I can get out the back door now without climbing over several bicycles.

Younger son has gone to his first ever gig tonight (yes, I know, and he's got school tomorrow) but he's been planning this for months.  Although I know the mother of the friend he went with, I've never phoned her so when he set off to meet up at his friend's house we arranged that he'd phone me from there and that way we'd both have each other's number.  Half an hour later (it's only a ten minute walk away) I texted him and got the reply "On our way to the gig, they didn't have a home phone".  Is this common now, do you think?

Apparently they're walking back when it's finished.  The last time I can remember him walking back from town he got through Stokes Croft about 15 minutes before the police closed the road.  Let's hope it's less busy this time. 

Somehow, this being my third child, I'm less concerned about him.  When he was little I wanted one of those Lichtenstein T-shirts that said "oh no, I've left the baby on the bus".



Update:  he's just walked through the door, soaked with water which he has apparently applied himself as they were giving out free water and it was very hot, and says he crowd surfed.  (There's one for you, Z, if you're reading this, although I suspect the hips may preclude it.)

Signs of advancing age

Now that I've reached another decade, the first public acknowledgement of this arrived today - an invitation to take part in the bowel cancer screening programme, in the privacy of my own home.  Oh joy!   I'm glad that didn't say in the comfort of my own home. 

What other excitements can I look forward to, now that I've passed the magic 6-0?

I can cheat but I'm not going to PAY to cheat

Back in 2008 I made DVD copies (legitimately) for "Delia's How To Cheat At Cooking". 

One of the recipes was for Shepherd's Pie and when she got to the mashed potato topping she revealed the cheat for that particular dish.  It involved using frozen discs of mashed potato which you placed on top of the mince.  The next week I discovered they were part of a new range of her frozen food and that they cost an inordinate amount of dosh. 

Ever since then I've been making my own.  It's dead easy and means I always have mashed potato available at the touch of a microwave button.  I've been doing quite a bit of that recently as we are now into potato digging up season and I rather overdid the seed potato ordering at the beginning of the year.

Suffice to say that last weekend I dug up 35lb of potatoes (the result of one bag of seed potatoes) and that there's rather more to come.  When I sort them through all the ones that have been accidentally speared by the fork, or which don't look like they'll keep I turn into either mash or sauté (wow, that accent appeared like magic) and then freeze them.

What cheats do you have?