I’m listening to a CD of Dinu Lipatti playing Bach, Mozart, Scarlatti and Schubert. It is a total pleasure. He has a rare lightness and delicacy of touch; he charms without sentimentality and his selflessly superb technique lets you absorb every note of the music, which is played with great feeling but without an intrusion of himself. So many musicians let you know that it is them who matters most, not the piece being played.

Until recently, he was only a name to me. I knew that he was a pianist who died young and that was all. Until I was given a Mountain Goats CD for Christmas, on which Dinu Lipatti’s Bones is one of the tracks, so I looked him up and ordered a disc, which includes some Schubert from his last recital. He was dying and knew it, and the piece is played as if he’s without a care in the world.

I took a few photos yesterday of early spring flowers in the garden. I’d say winter flowers, but the birds think it is spring and it does feel like it. Anyway, I’ll post them later.

This one’s mostly for B@dgerd@ddy…

A bloke went into the computer shop on Thursday to buy a laptop. He paid by credit card. The assistant, upon putting the card through the machine, was notified that it was stolen. He played it cool. “Thanks, that’s fine,” he said. “If you call back later, I’ll have your laptop ready for you.”

The bloke toddled off trustingly, and duly returned an hour or two later to fetch the computer. The police were waiting, hardly able to believe their luck. The young man in the computer shop has had a smile from ear to there ever since.

The road was blocked all afternoon, by the market traders’ vans as they packed up and the police car on the other side of the road, as they spent a long time getting the shopkeeper’s statement. It’s a one-way street, so everyone had to back down and drive around the town.

Oh, and still for BD, RightPrice has been shut for a couple of weeks for refurbishment – Peter has taken it on himself now; it used to belong to his parents. He decided to give it a good clearout and repaint. On Wednesday, he was painting the shop front. Very slowly. Everyone who passed by wanted to stop for a chat…well, we’ve missed him, we need him for our bargain shopping.

Apparently, he intends to change the name of the shop, but we don’t know yet what to. Jean favours ‘Pete’s Bazaar’ to go with the Gay Shopper. If that’s what he chooses, I do hope he asks Al how to spell Bizarre…

I have lost a notebook. It is a large, hard-covered, ring-bound black book, A4 size, that I use for meetings to take notes and minutes if necessary. I last used it on 16th January. I know where and that I drove straight home afterwards. I assumed that I’d brought it in the house and it is only now, when I need it again, that I can’t find it.

I remember where I put it at the lecture, in the theatre on the floor beside me with my handbag on top. I don’t remember not having it when I left, but in any case have phoned the theatre to ask. I have checked the car. Three times (it is too large to miss even once) and the Sage has looked too. I could have put it in the kitchen, I should have put it in the study, I might have left it in the drawing room. I can’t find it. I have also checked the dining room and the cloakroom. I would not have taken it upstairs, I’m not so far gone that I’m even looking there.

I’m a bit screwed without it. Hell and damn. Blast. Whatever expletive comes to mind, please think it, loudly, on my behalf.

I have not given up hope, but I don’t know why not – it’s the simple impossibility of it being lost, I presume. But it’s not here.

I learned by heart, when I was doing French A Level, one short passage of L’Avare, by Molière. It goes something like this (and I’m a bit too agitated to think about spelling, sorry)

‘Où est-il? Où se cache-t-il? Que ferai-je pour le trouver? N’est-il point çi? N’est-il point la? Qui est-il*?”

*At this point, he realises his money is stolen, not lost. But I have no one to blame but myself.

———————————–

Ro was sympathetic but pretty uninterested, until I mentioned the £20 reward that is offered to whomsoever finds the book. He has gone to look in the car. If, by the way, I find it myself, £20 goes in the church plate tomorrow.

Ro said, last night, that he had come the closest ever to losing his temper at work yesterday. He, like my other son Al, gets angry about twice a year, so I was curious.

Apparently, some middle-management little tin god called him in because his printer wasn’t working. Ro found that the problem was that he needed toner. “I’ll speak to H” he offered, “get her to order you some.” “No, that’s all right, I’ll tell A to get it, I’ll enjoy that,” said the ltg. He rang her up at once, on speakerphone, and laid the law down at length, telling her that it was her job to see to that sort of thing, man of his importance should not have to wait, da-de-da – laying the law down because he could, you know.

Ro can’t bear this sort of thing. “It was the worst thing I’ve listened to since I was mending a computer in an office where they were making racist jokes” he said. “That time, I blanked them out and got on with the job. I was just the IT bloke, they didn’t even notice I was there.”
“I went to commiserate with A and apologise that I’d had to hear it. She said he is always an arsehole, don’t worry, she blanks it out too.”
Fortunately, Ro’s immediate boss, in his department of two, is a good bloke and they get on well, and it’s a good company to work for.

El is even happier in her job. She is going on a work trip soon, that is so cool that I am beside myself with envy. “What is it, a team-building exercise?” I asked. This is her return email:-

“I know – it’s TOO BLOODY BRILLIANT!!

They’ve promised it’s not going to be ‘team building’ as such – just a hoopla cos the office has had a brilliant 2006. But I do love them all the more for it ;-)”

I am jealous. I want to go too. I can’t even tell you what it is, can I. Damn.

I thought that Al1ce M1les’s article in the Times, a couple of days ago, had some interesting points but she lost me entirely when, three paragraphs from the end, she said “If you are in a couple, it may make sense for one of you to look after the children while the other does paid work. That is sort of a luxury but also sort of a hell; I wouldn’t advise any mother to give up work: before you know it you are trapped in unemployment and crawling the walls with boredom.”

Am I being oversensitive in suggesting that she has, in public and in print, thoroughly insulted her own children? I don’t know how many children she has, or what age they are, but I’d be a bit hurt to find that my mother had found motherhood a boring trap, rather than a joy, if not an unmitigated one.

Alice has the luxury of a job she, presumably enjoys, where she is paid to give her opinion (we give ours for free) and can make sweeping statements, with or without research to back them up. Many jobs are not so fulfilling. Good childcare is expensive, as this article in the same paper pointed out the other day and surely many parents find that most of their wages are being taken up by this cost and they still have to do all their cooking, shopping and housework, as well as cope when the children are unwell. And give time and love to their partner.

I’m not saying that a parent of young children should not go out to work. I’m not suggesting that looking after two or three pre-school children is easy – it can be hard work, it can be isolating unless you have friends in the same situation and, sometimes, being with a toddler or two all day can make you feel as if you are defined by mummyness or daddyness. However, Alice’s sweeping statement surely is unfeeling and risks offending, not only those parents who think bringing up children is an important and fulfilling job in itself, but also those childcare workers who feel the same way.

Joe Khouri, of Tokyo, wrote this comment on Alice’s article
“Yesterday The Times noted that childcare costs rose by several times the rate of inflation. The Times carries weekly, if not daily, stories that describe the gamut of underage drinking, drug-taking, criminality and sex that currently entertains many of Britain’s youth.
Ms Miles’ solution: Take the one parent a child has and put them to work.
Does she read as well as she writes? Instead of bunging a few quid at single parents, who are after all just “crawling the walls with boredom” for something useful to do, perhaps use this money to encourage parents to bring up children properly and develop their child’s education beyond what the rapidly degrading school system provides. You know, some proper parenting skills. Maybe spend a bit on a decent, clean, affordable local sports complex. After-school groups, police on the streets. When a parent believes that their child is entertained, happy, healthy and safe, maybe THEN they might be comfortable getting a job. Isn’t this obvious?”

The question of single parents is not one I’m looking at here, there are too many considerations and pitfalls. It’s the value we no longer put on parenting. I’m not saying that a parent should or should not give up their job and stay home while the children are small. There are all sorts of things to take into account. I’m just saying that bringing up children well matters. It’s fulfilling and important. Not all people, by any means, have an aptitude for it and presumably Alice is one of those, so has done the best she can by her children by working to provide care for them by someone who wants to give it. Others have trained hard to get a great job and want to have a fulfilling career as well as motherhood. Others again have to work whether they want to or not. I know many people who have used this career break as an opportunity to change paths altogether. I know some who have never gone back to full-time paid work, myself included. Some people, indeed, are ‘trapped in unemployment’ for various reasons – often the poverty trap, rather than the parenthood trap. But full-time mums are not all frustrated, unhappy housewives.

PS Take a look over the pond, hey. Gotta love ’em.

“I just popped in for a couple of onions and some mushrooms,” she said. “Spaghetti Bolognese for tea. I fetched the vegetables for her and weighed them. “My son-in-law is coming round this evening and he’s vegetarian and I’ve already got some corn, so I thought ‘Spaghetti Bolognese’.”

Add to that a presentation on the shape of things to come in secondary education, and it’s not surprising I feel a little brain-weary tonight. Right now, I’m wondering just for how long my sense of social responsibility will last before I quit as a school governor. I’m honestly not sure if I want to relearn it all for the umpteenth time. I just thank goodness that I’m not paid and so a salary and pension doesn’t come into the equation.

It’s not that it’s not interesting, and I admire the work that the school is doing. But it’s all going pretty well now – is this, therefore, a good time to go? I’ve a couple more years before I’m up for reappointment, but it might not be so good then and I’d not quit if I were needed. But governor recruitment is not easy, and I have a good working relationship with the staff. And, to me (yeah, pathetic, I’d laugh too if I felt like it), it’s been a way of giving something to the community. It’s why I’ve put much of my energy into Special Educational Needs. Help the underdogs, even the angry and disaffected ones.

I’m feeling dispirited. I’ll feel better tomorrow.

I read Jane, as I always do. Who took me to Billy*, whom I hadn’t met before. And that led me to this. The bit that made me laugh most was in the comments “My grandaughter was convinced to try this “googling” of which you speak by a schoolfriend and now she is pregnant.”

I should like to make it clear that I always, if I know it, acknowledge original authorship. But I do acknowledge that I have not the imagination for original thought. I’m not quite as opinionated as Mr Waterhouse, but then I’m not paid to be.

*Sorry, I’ve found that the link doesn’t work. If you’d like to visit Billy, he has left a comment on this post.