On travelling - part two

So - now we have to collect DD from Heathrow, having travelled back from NZ.  Easy-peasy, no?

First, decide which day she's actually coming back on.  For a month we have thought 29th January, a Friday.  But then when she still appears to be doing things in NZ on Thursday, her "last full day in NZ", I start to think that logistically she cannot then arrive at Heathrow on Friday morning.  So, after much hunting around, I find that the travel document actually says "+1 day" in very small writing, in red which doesn't show up very well in b/w printing, so we decide that actually she won't be back till Saturday our time.

Before that we have spent a considerable amount of time measuring cars trying to find out whether anything we have access to can actually carry back a bike bag and a bike box, plus various other bags, and three people.  There is much consideration given as to how much the bike box can be cut down.

So.  Now we're at Saturday morning.  We need to leave at 08.30.  I've gone to the loo when OH opens door and says, "Er, actually it's 9.00 now."  After several "Oh, shit"s (not literally), I suggest we better get on with it then.

Rapid washing, dressing, eating breakfasts.  We ditch the idea of taking bacon sarnies for sustenance on the way back.  I look at the planetracker site and say, "her plane is 20 minutes away".  Bear in mind that from Bristol to Heathrow is around 90 minutes.  By the time we're ready to leave the planetracker says her plane is "taxi-ing to the terminal".

Right, well let's get going.  We'll probably have to make excuses about traffic.  After all, she has got to retrieve all the baggage.

We're about two-thirds of the way there when DD rings to say she's waiting by the Costa outlet.  Tell her to go and get a coffee as we might be a while yet.  We still have to make a fuel/loo stop at Reading.

Eventually we arrive and park in the car park.  Make sure we remember where we have parked.  Find daughter. 

Okay, now on to the easy bit.  Take all baggage upstairs.  Cut bike box down to fit in car (this is not the quickest of jobs).  I shall have to sit in what's left of the back seat with a box hard up against me and things on my lap/round my feet.  I can handle that.

Go to pay for parking ticket.  Nearly on our way home now, no? 

Well no, not exactly.  Look at phone and say, "we've got six minutes before we go over the first, and cheapest, tariff".  That should be alright.  OH stuffs ticket into slot.  Nothing happens.  Display still reads "insert ticket".  I look at machine more closely.  There is a big yellow slot in centre of machine where you should insert ticket, but no, OH has put it into another slot.  It was reluctant to take it so he pushed it in harder.  That slot says "insert notes".  Ticket is only just visible, but no apparent way to get it out again.

Push button that says "help".  Nothing happens.  Press it again.  Still nothing.  Does this surprise me?  No.

"Okay, so now we've lost the ticket."  Tariff says lost ticket will cost you £75.  "So we've lost the ticket, we can't get out the car park or it will cost us £75."

Hunt in handbag.  Find multi-tool which has a nail file on it with a serrated surface.  After multiple attempts manage to tease the ticket out of the slot.  No, we do not put it into the correct slot on that machine - after all, that machine is still asking for help, which hasn't been responded to.

Move over to another machine.  Put ticket in.  Attempt to pay money.  By now, of course, it's the next higher price.  Haven't got that much cash on me.  Attempt to pay by debit card.  Machine refuses to acknowledge my debit card.  

OH says he'll run back to car as there's more cash in glove pocket.  DD says "how long is this taking.  I need to go to the toilet."  Pay cash.  Aah, at last, we have managed to pay to leave the car park.  We have ticket to leave.  It says "you have 15 minutes to leave the car park otherwise you have to pay full whack".

Go back to car.  DD is nowhere in sight.  Pace up and down looking for her.  Absolutely no sign.  Minutes tick past.  OH gets increasingly wound up.  Still no sign. 

I go back to ticket machines and find three (Eastern European) LHR employees emptying the machines.  Assume 'poor little old me, don't understand these things, my daughter has disappeared and we've only got 15 minutes to exit the premises and time's nearly up' attitude and ask for their help.  They say "no problem.  Just say that Marc has said we're okay and they'll let you out".  They then take registration number.

Finally DD turns up, we head towards outbound barrier, expecting to be quizzed, and the guy behind the checkout desk just lifts the barrier.  He must have recognised the licence plate.  Thanks Marc!

No wonder we don't want to travel abroad!

On travelling - part one

Us oldies have had a little adventure recently.  We've been to Heathrow Airport.  Twice.  I've never been there before although OH has many times in his days as a film sound recordist.  Things have changed though.

On 29th December 2015 DD was due to fly to New Zealand for the holiday of a lifetime.  She was going with the 2014 Downhill Mountain Biking champion and BBC Wales Sportsperson of the Year (MC) who has been a good friend of hers for a long time.

MC was taking the bikes as she was going via Essex so that her friend could take the van and not leave it (expensively) at Heathrow.  We were taking DD with her hand luggage and a few things which needed to be packed in the bike bag/box.

At this point I should say that DD was taking 2 bikes and MC was taking 3.  As you do.  Here's a picture of their luggage when they finally arrived at Auckland:

 

 

DD's is on the left.  Just think in terms of what a normal airport trolley for a family looks like.

 

So we arrive at Heathrow a good 2½ hours before departure because we know it will take time to book all the luggage in.

 

 

Wait 15 mins for MC to turn up with the bikes.  OH has gone off to park in neighbouring suburbia so that we're not paying a fortune for car parks.

 

DD and I then spend the next 45 minutes packing and repacking the bag/box.  Both are overweight (ie will cost extra).  Re-pack box so that it's within weight.  Check bag.  Now over maximum permitted weight.  "Right", I say, "what can you not take that you don't really need."  First off, she takes off the lightweight shoes she's wearing and replaces them with the 'clip shoes' which are a lot heavier.  Then she removes a set of pedals as she will only be using one set of pedals at a time.  She removes a rucksack that is containing clothes as she already has another rucksack.  Still over limit.  So then she removes the leg hair removal cream (do you really need that?).  Finally the bag is within the limits.

 

Go to check-on desk.  They're not actually going to weigh anything because there is a bar across and neither box nor bag will fit beneath it.  So they can't weigh them.  Girl on check-in desk is fine with that.  So what have we spent the last 45 minutes doing????

 

Then comes the final blow (and this is after months' planning and quite a lot of pounds spent):  "The system won't let me issue a boarding pass because you haven't got a US visa".  But she's just transit-ing via LA and will be airside the whole time.  No, you need a visa.  I am ageing visibly.

 

I now have visions of spending hours at the American embassy in London trying to get a visa.  And who knows how much re-booking the flight is going to cost.

 

All the while OH is trying to phone me to find out how much longer this is going to take, because (let's face it) he's completely in the dark as to what's going on.  His phone won't connect to me, and I can't phone him back.  We end up corresponding via Eldest Son (in Bristol) who somehow has a connection to the both of us.

 

"It's okay", says airport desk girl.  "You just need to go onto 'ESTA' on your phone and you can get a travel permit.  It'll cost you 14 dollars but they'll do it almost straightaway."

 

So DD goes off to get this ESTA thing and I try and maintain a  place in the queue whilst she does it.

 

Fifteen minutes (or indeed, half a lifetime) later she comes back with the requisite authorisation.  By now, I've let half the plane take my place in the queue.

 

Yes!!!!!

 

Now we just need to find a nice baggage handler to take her box and her bag.  This is so the easy bit!

 

Finally I can kiss her goodbye and hope she has a lovely time.  By now, any tears will be tears of relief that she has finally gone, rather than tears that my baby is going to the other side of the world!

So now we know the truth

 

Strawberry and redcurrant meringue pie - do you like it?  In true Masterchef tradition it will take 15 minutes (for the meringue to cook).

Verdict:
Younger son (16): it looks like a big tart.  (Who are you calling a big tart?)
Daughter (20): Lush.  (Should have been gert lush, she is Bristolian after all)
OH:  It was okay.  What was it supposed to be?

Why do I bother?

Ratzilla!!!!

Yesterday evening I first saw the story of Ratzilla. 

Now, as some of you may know, I have more than a passing acquaintance with unwanted rodents, and do actually know what dead ones smell like.  So when I smelled something slightly unpleasant whilst reading this story, I went to investigate.

Fortunately it turned out it was just the smell of the cauliflower I was cooking to make cauliflower cheese for lunch the next day.  Phew!  Narrow escape, that one!

Was it ever dry once?

The Bristol to Bath cycle path has been closed due to flooding.  This shouldn't come as a great surprise as it runs along what used to be a railway line, and as we all know the default position of railway lines these days is under water.

Look - this chap's child has been washed away, but still he's managing to get their bike home safely.

Just be careful what you call yourself

Looking at today's news pictures of flooding, I was struck by the thought "When did Staines become Staines-upon-Thames?"

Seems like it did a couple of years ago, mostly in order to disassociate itself from Ali G who allegedly lived in Staines, but also to boost its riverside image.  Not a universally popular move - the local football club described it as "pretentious", but they had a day of celebrations including a regatta.

Now they may wish they didn't have such a riverside image.

 
 

Rain, rain, go away, come again another day

Oh, so now the Thames is flooding, and (without wishing to be at all denigrating to those affected) the precious Home Counties constituencies are under threat of excess water, King Canute Cameron is out in his hi-viz jacket promising unlimited money to deal with all this unnecessary water.

Interestingly, one of his own party has been less than complimentary about the Environment Agency.  On his blog I found the following post:

"In 2012-13 the EA spent £1207.4m compared to £1166.6m the year  before. It ended the year with £95.8m cash in the bank. We are told the “cuts” stopped it doing a good job on flooding. How big an increase in spending would it take to qualify as no cut?"

Oh, and I'm not a Tory.

If you look at this site, a whistle-blowing site, you will find countless examples of how money is squandered by office-bound (this seems to be a very loose term) employees whilst those actually out in "the environment" don't get the back-up they need.  The sheer scale of self-certifying hours worked, mileage, abuse of flexitime is stupendous.  There seems to be in excess of one vehicle for every two employees and no fuel cards or suchlike so no checks on when and where fuel is bought.  I'm sure if I tried this HM Revenue & Customs would be down on me like a ton of bricks.

And at the top are figures earning six figure salaries who clearly are not earning them.  These figures are from 2 years ago, but give an idea of the scale of top salaries:

Lord Chris Smith     Chairman                      Environment Agency     £109,999
Graham Ledward    Director of Resources   Environment Agency     £154,999
David Jordan           Director of Operations  Environment Agency     £164,999
Paul Leinster           Chief Executive Officer Environment Agency     £199,999

And then there's the South-West which still has very limited rail links, standing water even on the motorway, and very little prospect of anything changing.

Now, one of my friends spent Christmas Day with wellies on.  I know people whose friends have been isolated, cut off, for over six weeks.  It has become difficult to even talk to some of these people because the sheer scale of lack of sense of help arriving is, quite literally, "doing their heads in".

And to put things into perspective this is what we thought last week.

(I'm just grateful I live half-way up a big hill although, guess what, it's raining again)

How to remain optimistic

By and large I think we're lucky that we've been self-employed for more than twenty years.  In that time we've re-invented ourselves more times than I care to remember.  We have had to immerse ourselves in new technology several times but kept our standards high.  We have never advertised as such, although we do have a website which still (inexplicably) we get queries through, but most of them are people who can't find our actual e-mail address but can remember our company name, which is quite distinctive.  But there are still some from complete strangers (fortunately genuine).

Over the last four years we have diversified, we have been a bit more aggressive in following up potential leads that we have never had to do before.  Previously all our work came through word of mouth.  We are now quite adept at ringing people and giving a lot of very good advice, obviously in the hope of getting some work but without any overt pressure.  We still have loyal customers.  But times are a-changing yet again. 

Again and again, budgets are being cut.  Technology is moving ahead of itself.  Some things become so unrealistically expensive that the costs just don't add up.   So I need to e-mail all our previous contacts and tell them the truth as it is now.  It's not really a problem, it's more getting people to be able to deliver in an acceptable format whilst they still can, before the main production team move onto another project.

It's okay.  January has always been a pretty lean month.  One year we only turned over  £75 (including VAT).

I have two other jobs - one regular, one irregular. 

I invigilate exams at my youngest's school which is irregular.  Obviously this depends on there being exams, although now there are a lot of mocks because official exams have been condensed (!) into virtually the whole of May and June.  And there is the opportunity of helping out in other ways, such as being a scribe/reader, and I also help out with filming the drama controlled assessments.  And along the way, I realise that even at a pretty pukka school there are students who are quite needy (I find these more interesting, by the way).

My regular job is for two mornings a week (by and large, my choice of which days).  I'm in charge of the archive for a charitable foundation which gives out big money (over a million a year).  I'm conserving the records because the trustees think this is worthwhile and one day people will want to know more about the man who, at one point, gave away a million pounds a week.  The foundation gives money to three main areas - health, education and the elderly.  I may post at some future point more about this.  Suffice to say, it is a good thing.

The fact is, last week I rang the building society to say that I couldn't afford to pay the whole mortgage this month - although I did in fact pay nearly half of it. 

But in the last week I have spoken at length to two of the grandchildren of said foundation man, who have flown in from America and New Zealand (mostly because they are concerned about their parents' health), but who have been more than happy to have their memories recorded.  They've never wanted for money.  They went to private schools.  And perfectly lovely, both of them were. 

And today I heard (purely as a random memory) that in the early '70s their grandfather had taken out insurance to pay the ransom in case they were kidnapped.  (This is the era of Paul Getty III kidnapping - with the cut-off ear sent back - and Patty Hearst.)

I'm living in two completely different worlds here.  It's lucky I walk home so I have time to re-adjust (although I spend most of that time trying to work out what to cook for lunch/tea).

But at the end of the day, however bad it seems to be, however much I'm going round scraping up odd £1 coins, 50ps, whatever that have been put aside, I have to consider that if I/we had had a "permanent job" and I/we had been made redundant (having worked there for x years) we wouldn't have a chance of re-inventing ourselves.  At least we've had the practice.

The difference between boys and girls

Earlier this week I invigilated a mock Product Design GCSE exam. 

Question: Design a child's lunchbox to contain the following items: an apple, a drink, a cereal bar, a savoury snack and a dairy snack. The lunchbox should protect the items but also display them attractively.

The girls all drew very pretty lunchboxes in all sorts of shapes and sizes.  They were decorated with pretty pictures or interesting facts.  They spent a lot of time colouring them in and using shading to make them look realistic.

The boys all drew "man boxes".  They were all rectangular with precision drawn compartments.  This was very difficult and involved a lot of rubbing out.  There were dimensions and "not drawn to scale".  They looked very functional. 

Interestingly, a large number of the boys took their jackets off and rolled their sleeves up.  This designing lark is obviously VERY SERIOUS BUSINESS.

Is eggs eggs?

The price this week of Cadbury's Crème Eggs in the Co-op:



55p

£1 for two

£1.45 for a 3-pack

 

£1.50 for a 6-pack

So which to buy?






Wrong!  None of them, they're all fattening.

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?

Shrinking wrinklies

Before they changed the rules, I could have retired next Tuesday.  Now I have to wait another 4 years, 2 months and 17 days.

As they're slowing down the rate at which people retire, but not also slowing down the rate at which those at the other end die, does that mean the grey voting population will diminish, and does that mean the politicians will care less about them?

A quick catch-up

I have been very remiss in this posting lark.  But then I have been a bit busy.

I have spent eight days filming an archaeological dig, in the very hottest days of the year, in the middle of a field, lots of yards/metres (depending on your age) from the nearest trees.  Fortunately we did have a gazebo affair over the actual hole but still absolutely wilting weather. 

They had to go down two metres to find what they were looking for - the remains of an Augustinian abbey which was pulled down by Henry VIII's mob.  On the way they dug through several cess pits - full of broken potties and animal bones and hundreds of oyster shells.  It would seem that in days gone by oysters were actually cheap food consumed by the working classes.

One day we climbed over 100 feet up to the top of the adjoining church tower to film from up there. 


 Sorry, I should be able to find a better picture than that, but at least you get an idea. It did have rather splendid views but was a tad lacking in shade from the sun.

And then, following on from my previous post, I have been making strawberry ice-cream in industrial quantities, digging up potatoes in sackfuls and making redcurrant jelly and blackcurrant jam.  Not to mention the bottles full of "Ribena".  Those currant bushes were just groaning under the weight of fruit - the redcurrants especially just looked like glistening with jewels.

When I went to get more sugar and met Polish Charlie, one of the waiters in my son's caff, I said I was making jam and he said "Really?  Home-made jam?  Can I have some?" so of course I said yes.  And he made pancakes and put the jam on and said it was delicious.  So 48 hours from bush to plate.

In other news it would appear my daughter has been selected for Team GB in the 4X  World Champs in Leogang in September and has also been interviewed for hardtailnation:

http://www.hardtailnation.co.uk/2013/08/who-are-you-the-fastest-gun-in-the-west-the-jessica-greaves-interview/

Right, things to do ....

It's hot work, this harvesting lark

Yesterday, it being the hottest day of the year, I spent much of the day indoors wrestling with a webpage I was writing that constantly went wrong.  So by the time I'd finally got it working properly it was nearly five o'clock.  Hoping that the temperature might have  fallen ever so slightly (no of course it hadn't) I set off for the allotment as I knew there was some fruit that needed picking.  This took me two hours:

comprising:

670g redcurrants (and that was just a fraction of what I could have picked, never mind the blackcurrants)
208g raspberries
523g gooseberries (and still plenty of those left)
2..66 kg (that's nearly 6lb in old money) strawberries.

I could have picked more but I'd run out of tubs - and I had to cook the tea.