Irony, irony, they’ve all got it in for …wait, that isn’t right.

It isn’t indeed.  We’ve been awaiting the Ofsted call for an inspection for the last three weeks and have still not received it.  The village school, Al says, has.  They are to be inspected next Tuesday and Wednesday.

They will do well, it’s a jolly good little school and has been for at least the last 23 years – I became a governor there in September 1988 and Ro started there as a pupil in April 1989.  18 years, I retired in 2006, and I still refer to myself as part of it; that is, I say “we” rather than “I.” I probably always will.  I’m ludicrously tenacious.  Interestingly, though it’ll be the first inspection in the new school buildings and there isn’t a permanent Head at present.  The excellent Head left in February and they interviewed for a replacement, but no one came nearly up to scratch.  One of the teachers was asked to be acting head for the time being, rather than bring in someone temporary, a mark of how well the staff all work together.

Tomorrow, I’m going to London to meet my sister.  We’re meeting for lunch and then going to the Albert Hall to see this – which, actually, I’ve only just looked up, I wasn’t at all sure what we were going to.  She rang a few weeks ago to suggest it, I’m happy to go and will enjoy it, though I’m not big on dance in particular.  Probably because I’m not the most ‘visual’ person, unless it’s printed – for example, I forgot to put in my contact lens this morning and I only noticed a few minutes ago that things were a bit soft-focus.

The other day, I was at a lecture (about Goldsmiths Hall, it’s brilliant, do go to one of their exhibitions or to the Fair in September/October if you have an opportunity) and the person in front of me was partly obscuring the speaker some of the time.  I was looking at the pictures on the screen and then at her and so was he, and I realised that, depending on whether I was able to see her with both eyes or just my left one, she was clear or fuzzy, and yet I was quite unable to tell when the right eye was taking over except by that.

This afternoon, I unpacked the dishwasher and started to remove the filter at the bottom to rinse it clean, but not all the water had drained.  I checked that the programme had finished (not entirely daft, darlings) and then that the drainage hose hadn’t kinked, and then put on a rinse programme to see if it was a one-off.  It wasn’t.  I phoned John Lewis where we bought it from, and got a call-out number to give the service people.  I was in a queue when I rang that number so decided to do it online – but while I was looking at the website, I noticed instruction manuals.  On that, it said that the pump might have just blocked and to try resetting it.  Well whoopee.  Glad I did, and so saved myself from looking an idiot with a service engineer call-out.  I’ve got the instruction book here somewhere, of course, but I’ve put it away very, very securely.

Last night’s was a short post, because I was completely distracted by the news I’d had at around 6 o’clock.  I had been making minestrone soup – how is it, by the way, that I never seem to be able to make a small amount of minestrone?  Nearly 8 pints, and I’ve added more stock to the leftovers today.  I should say, that we packed away a lot of it last night and had more for lunch today.  I left the soup to cook in the bottom oven for a final half hour, poured a glass of wine and came in here to check emails, and found one from the school business manager.  The title was Fwd: Academy Order approval (*name of school*).

Do you know, I almost cried.  A huge smile on my face, I had a swig of wine and read the message.  From her, it just said ‘Sent from my iPhone’.  Beneath,  it started “Dear Lynn, I am delighted to tell you that the Secretary of State and Lord Hill have approved your application to convert to academy status.”  It was a warm and friendly letter and, I must say, that our project lead at the Department of Education is very helpful and reassuring whenever we get in touch with him.

We are on track, having done a great deal of preliminary work (engaged solicitors, obtaining land deeds, engaged financial, pension and HR services, obtained quotes for insurance, accountants and so on, but there’s still a lot to do.  Ironically, the least to do is in school.  The thing is, the school is great.  We have excellent staff who work together really well, an exceptional Head and governors are shrewd and knowledgeable managers who monitor what’s going on.  The students are great, and I know that because I go into lessons regularly and get to know them.  We have a very wide curriculum; being in a rural and not a wealthy area, we need to provide both sound academic education as well as arts and vocational courses.  We want to protect this against the push to narrow the curriculum in schools.  We will transfer all the terms and conditions of all the staff (as we’re required to do) but, although we could change them afterwards, we do not intend to.  Why would we?

Tonight, I went out for dinner and wore stilettos, for the first time in ages.  Since having my hip done, I’ve been able to wear heels, though best not everyday, but they’ve mostly been reasonably substantial; wedges or, at least, chunky.  But I put on my pale pink stilettos, that I bought for Weeza’s wedding six years ago (so are practically new, especially as they haven’t been worn for three or four years) and they felt comfortable, if I was a little tottery.

All we need now is Ofsted.  Ahem.

The Sage and I went out together today.  It was largely a business meeting, but the person has a china collection which the Sage was invited to see, and he asked if I might come too, which was thoughtful of him.  However, it indicates an alarming degree of togetherness.  This is the third time in five days that he has included me in something he’s doing and it’s quite uncommon.  Not sure if it’s good for us.  How am I to surprise and delight him in the evening if we have spent the day in each other’s company?

It’s his birthday next week, and my sister announced her intention of coming to visit for the celebrations.  The Sage has never particularly celebrated his birthday and has never encouraged me to arrange anything beyond an invitation to the immediate family.  However, this time, I thought that something should be done, and Weeza had the smart notion that I suggest we celebrate his fifty years as an auctioneer, and that we invite some of his oldest friends and also his fellow-collectors.  Remarkably, this worked and he’s quite keen.  So, on Saturday week, we shall have a party.  Another party, that is.  And we have two invitations pending.  We’ve not had such a social whirl for a long time – whirl being a relative term, of course.  More like a slow twist than a dizzying twirl, but at this rate we might get back to the old days, when we had a circle of friends whom we often saw.  I’d love it.  I like cooking for a lot of people.

I should make it very clear, there were some excellent teachers at that school, though there were also some poor and indifferent ones.  I may go back to the topic – in fact I’d like to, if only to think it through for myself.  I was quite happy there, and if I was unstimulated I didn’t mind, I preferred to be left alone. My sister, however, was not happy at all and, looking back, it’s hard to understand why our parents didn’t move her to another school.

Today, I spent at the high school, first with a meeting between me, the head and the financial manager.  There’s a lot happening, in preparation for becoming independent of the local authority.  We’ve not had our application accepted yet, but have been told that we’ve passed the preliminary stages.

After that, I spent the rest of the day in Year 9 music.  It’s at the limit of what I can help with, sometimes a bit beyond, as it involves composition and I don’t have the knowledge.  I was better with the afternoon group than the morning one, having picked up some useful tips.  In addition, the afternoon group are very friendly, if, on occasion, slightly too much so.  I’m too old and experienced to get myself into difficulties, and they are fine.  Teenagers are great, and it’s interesting to see how a tricky personality can get drawn into a lesson and do some really good work.

This evening, I went round the Common on a trailer, drawn by a tractor.  There is an annual inspection, where a couple of dozen owners see what’s going on and how it’s being maintained.  It is a privately-owned common, where 400 acres are owned in 300 shares, known as ‘goings’, mainly by private individuals, but also by charities and the town council.  The Sage, who is a Common Reeve (voluntary management committee member) owns 10 goings; I went as a representative for his cousin.

A large part of the common is rented by the golf club, much of the rest is let for cattle grazing, and the rest is open to the public for walking on.  More management is required than you’d think; a lot of birch and oak saplings grow from seed and have to be cut down, as does gorse and various wild flowers, when in the wrong place.  At present, the main problem is dog-walkers on the golf course, who seem oblivious to the danger of beetling into the line of fire of a driven ball.  There’s plenty of space for them to walk, it seems perverse to trot along the fairways.

Afterwards, we went for a drink at the golf club.  It was a lovely sociable atmosphere and I rather wished I played, or had the least inclination to, for the pleasure of going there.  When we finally rolled home, I couldn’t be bothered to cook.  I put a frozen pizza in the oven.

The school I went to was pretty poor, frankly.  It was a nice little school for nice girls, especially Catholic ones, which I wasn’t.  The reasons for us going there were – well, it’s easy to come up with a theory, but how am I to know whether it’s accurate?  My sister, who is five years older than I, was down to go to Sherborne, but my mother reckoned that Lowestoft was better for her health (she had sinus problems and still suffers from severe hay fever;  Lowestoft was reckoned to be good for lungs and there had been a TB hospital on the sea front) so cancelled that.  Then she met a girl who went to the local private school, in Southwold, and didn’t find her manners up to scratch, so decided that she’d rather we went to day school.

The local one was okay, but not great, at primary level and fairly rubbish later on.  I suggested, really quite politely, in later years that my parents weren’t too bothered about education for girls, it would have been different if we were boys.  My mother was affronted, but it was true.  It was a different world, half a century ago.  I have additional thoughts on the subject, but they are better kept to myself.  I am frank, but rarely disloyal.

Having said that, I didn’t mind my school, and was perfectly content there.  I wasn’t stretched, but I read a lot – I read encyclopaedias for pleasure, which I’m sure some of you did, but I doubt that many do now – and I did okay.  Science was almost non-existent, which confirms my view that my parents didn’t think that education for girls mattered (my father studied science at university and was a mathematician too – in fact, he was that person that may not exist any more, a polymath, as his knowledge of literature and the arts was wide-ranging too) and the maths teachers were rubbish.  Anything I knew was learned from my father.  I remember one Geometry lesson where the teacher got stuck in the middle of a problem and, finally, a kind and clever girl (not me) finally got up and solved it on the blackboard.  We were such nice girls (I’m not kidding, my class had the reputation of being the least trouble in the whole school) that we didn’t even hold it against the teacher – not so much through kindness as because we didn’t really care.

I’m talking about the late 1960s.  It wasn’t cool to be too enthusiastic, and we must have not been easy to teach.  Well, I wasn’t, at any rate.  I was dreadfully shy, but I was also pretty arrogant, and not a team player in the least.  I listened and thought, but I didn’t join in.  Actually, the Head of the high school says of me now that I listen without saying much, and then come in with a killer comment at the end.  I dunno about that, but I am better joining in with a small group than a large one, and I do like to think around the subject.  However, the reason, in those days – and this is a confession, darlings, one that will be the despair of the teachers among you – that I thought that it was daft to give away a good idea.  Listen to the others, think of a different angle and then put it in an essay.  No one else would get the credit.  Hah!  But also, a lack of pushiness came in.  Even if I’d wanted to say something, I’d have been talked down by someone else.  Maybe (this refers back to an earlier post, asking what would have brought out the best in Z), if a teacher had cultivated me slowly and carefully, giving me confidence and not letting me get away with silence, it might have worked.  What I said to the Head was, get me to write it down.  I think better through my fingers, though nowadays it’s typing rather than via a pen.

PS – A rival for Woolydogs? – double take

In today’s post, Christopher refers to the Latin writer Horace, whose Odes he studied for Latin A Level.  I read Ars Poetica for mine, and loved it.  I still mutter quotations from it at pertinent moments, although it’s better not to do so out loud, because that would be very irritating.

Another writer we studied was Pliny, who wrote a lot of letters and then published them.  I’ve forgotten most of the ones we read and translated, but there are a few that still stand out in my memory.

Pliny the younger was the nephew of the elder Pliny, who died in the eruption of Vesuvius.  He wasn’t there when the volcano erupted, but dutifully went to see what was going on, and also to attempt to rescue people in his boat, and was overcome by fumes. Pliny wrote a very interesting account of what went on, brought back to him by survivors.

I joined the class in its second year, having left school with two A levels (English and History) because my school, on the verge of closing down, had a severely limited range of subjects to choose from.  I had flunked Latin and chosen to learn to type instead of taking French, but in the Upper Sixth I changed my mind, took up both of them again and passed, and then decided I wanted to take A levels in both subjects.  I had, years earlier, skipped a year so I was not quite 18 at the start of the school year and went to the local high school for an extra crack at exam-taking.

I struggled to keep up, I have to confess, especially in Latin where there were several very clever girls specialising in languages – how anyone can learn Russian and Ancient Greek at the same time beats me, I couldn’t have attempted it – but when you don’t know your limitations, you are less daunted by them and I persevered.

At the start of one lesson, I observed some chuckling going on.  The teacher was going round the class and each girl (it was a co-ed school, but it so happened that Latin, that year, was only being taken by girls) had to translate a couple of lines.  Since I always sat near the back, I’d only bothered to prepare the second half of the epistle – well, I say bothered, but I was being pragmatic.  It took me longer than everyone else to do half the work – so I didn’t know why, but they’d worked out that the embarrassing line was going to be translated by the most unsophisticated girl in the class.  I’d had to make an effort to be less shy, joining a new school, and I had reasonable social skills in any case, which were the reasons that was not me.

The subject of the epistle was a shocking incident that had happened at the baths.  There was a rich, elderly Roman who was notoriously cruel to his slaves and some of them attacked and tried to kill him. It described how one slave seized him while others hit him in his face and private parts.  I can’t remember the Latin for private parts, but that’s the direct translation.  Poor Elaine stammered and stopped when she got to that bit and couldn’t carry on.  “Groin, translate it as groin,” said the teacher, kindly.

As I remember, for I’m sure you will want to know, the Roman survived the attack for a few days, but then died and the slaves were put to death horribly, although some of them escaped.  Interestingly, the rich Roman’s father had been a freed slave (as was Horace’s father) and it’s perhaps surprising that he was so unpleasant to his own slaves.

The third epistle that I remember was unintentionally hilarious if meant solemnly, but still entertaining if written as a tease (which it probably was, no one could be that pompous and not mean to be).  He had invited a friend to dinner, but the friend didn’t show up.  Pliny wrote to reprimand him, saying that he had to pay up the not inconsiderable value of the feast – which included a whole lettuce.  Each!  As well as three snails and two eggs!  Presumably, the no-show had preferred to watch dancing girls and eat sea-urchins than have intelligent conversation and listen to a poetry recital, scolded Pliny.

No wonder one’s schooldays are remembered with such fondness, hem hem.  I did scrape through the exams, but with no glory at all, getting Es.

I’m spending the weekend catching up on work, so that Monday won’t catch me unawares.  I’m up with most of it now, but have run out of steam.  Still have a rousing hymn to choose for tomorrow,  Once I’ve got my piano back, I’ll have no excuse not to practise.  Choosing hymns, I look at the type of service, the time of church year, the theme of the service, I look up the readings – I’m very conscientious.

I should have been going to a funeral on Monday, but I found out that I’ve been included in a lunch for 24 people, which will be on 3 tables and I’m supposed to be hosting one of the tables.  The organiser had forgotten to give me the date – it had been cancelled because of a power cut and rearranged, but I wasn’t there when the others were told.  I feel badly about missing the funeral, but I did have a long chat with her son today and the Sage will go, you can’t fit in everything and I don’t want to disappoint my friend.

I also had a chat with my doctor, at the same social event.  He told me that he is retiring in November – he’d already told the Sage a while ago, but is politely telling each person that he can individually.  He’s been my doctor for 25 years and I’ll be sorry to see him go.  I like him very much, we understand each other.  He has high standards, which might seem an odd thing to say – that is, if I went along for a vague whinge, he’d be slightly disappointed, because he’d expect something more specific from me.  If I were needy or frail, he’d amend his expectations.  He said, if all his patients visited him as often as I did, he’d not have been very busy.  Once every five years is about the norm, which shows how fortunate I am with my health.  I did go more often for a couple of years about my hip, and it was actually quite hard not to whinge then, so I always made sure that I had something practical to suggest.  He has arthritis in his knees and was limping slightly but noticeably.  I’m glad I’ve got hips rather than knees – though would rather not have it at all, of course.  Bloody arthritis.  He asked me how my hip is (doctors usually avoid asking after one’s health when off duty, I took it as a compliment, that he knew I wouldn’t turn it into a consultation!) and I said it’s fine.  “Glad you had it done?”  “Yes, I am,”  I said, simply.

I slept thoroughly last night and caught up on the previous night’s insomnia.  It’s a nuisance, though.  I’m drinking strong black coffee right now.  I hope that coffee doesn’t start to affect me.  I don’t mind decaff, but one doesn’t normally have a choice of blend or roast and, although I don’t have the number of coffees that I do of teas, I do like to choose what sort I feel like drinking.

I heard birds calling in a warning tone, looked out and there was a cat in the garden.  I went out to tell it to leave, and there was a branch of a broom lying on the ground, though still attached to the trunk.  I grew it from seed over 20 years ago and it grew unexpectedly tall, small tree sized rather than bushy.  I think that some major lopping will be needed.

No really, I didn’t sleep.  Ten minutes, sometime between 1.40 and 2.00 am.  I got up at 3.20 and roamed around the house disgustedly until the blackbirds started to sing.  I’ve nearly fallen asleep a couple of times today, but I’d rather not, now it’s this late, and hope I’ll sleep tonight.

Enough about a singularly boring subject.  I did get a cuddle with Hadrian today, he was awake and tranquil – he doesn’t really cry, which is just like his father was as a baby.  Last night, he didn’t go to sleep until 1, but only woke once during the night so they felt they’d had a good night’s rest.

I phoned Charlotte this evening – you may remember, she’s my half-Dutch friend who visited a couple of months ago.  She was very over-stressed at the time, which I didn’t say, and she’s been in hospital, recovering.  She’s fine now, and has decided to live in England again, which will be good.  I rang to tell her about Hadrian.

The front field was cut for hay yesterday and baled today.  Those huge, 6 foot diameter bales.  The grass was short, but full of good seed so will be nutritious.  However, hay will be in short supply, the bales are worth £80 each, but Graham needs them for winter feed, he won’t be selling them.  Mind you, that small amount of rain we had has made the grass green up surprisingly.  Big Pinkie, the friendly and elderly cow, will not join us yet.  She is in with a field of heifers, teaching them to take life slow.  400 is quite happy on her own, Jonny phoned earlier, and suggested bringing 77 back now she had settled down.  We said no…frankly, if she wanted to leave again, I’d not stand in her way.

What a beautiful day.  The showers of the last week have made me appreciate sunny days again.  Richard brought his mini-digger and has been widening the drive again; the gravelled area, for those of you who have been here.  The big heap of aggregate is nearly gone and we will have as much parking area as we want in another day or two.

That isn’t to say that the drive is nearly finished.  That’s going to take ages.  The Sage loves a project, but he’s not so good at finishing one.  Planning and putting into action is what he’s good at, but then he gets bored and wants to move on to the next thing.  I’m more of a plodder.  I am not spectacular, but I stick at it, once I’ve started.

Dilly is feeling quite well, but she hasn’t had the easiest time.  In medicine, as in so many spheres, things go in fashions and in cycles.  The latest anxiety is clots.  Since her first two babies were born by Caesarean section, the third had to be, and this time she has had to have blood-thinning injections for a week afterwards, which Al has administered.  However, she’s had quite a lot of bleeding from the wound.  It transpires that this is not at all unusual, if you have blood-thinning medication, but no one warned her, so it was very worrying when it first happened and they called a paramedic in to check her.  It builds up in a sort of blister and then pops – you can imagine how scary that is.  It is still happening, though less, and her final injection is tomorrow, so hopefully it will clear up after that.

Luckily, everything is absolutely fine with Hadrian and he is a tranquil and cheery baby.  I’ve only seen him awake but not feeding a couple of times, and hardly held him at all, which is a bit tough on a doting granny, but my time will come, no doubt, probably when I should be busy with other things.  Squiffany and Pugsley have gone to spend the night with their other grandparents, which they were very excited about.

I listened to A Good Read on Radio 4 the other day, I turned on the radio on the way home from Dave’s and it was part-way through the programme.  One of the selected books was A High Wind In Jamaica, by Richard Hughes.  I read that, some 45 years ago, because it was a set book at school, and I hated it.  But I’ve always remembered it fairly clearly, which means it must have been … well, memorable.  I suppose I should read it again and see if I admire it after all, these many years later.

What I remember is, there was a group of children and a great storm.  I remember a description of a short fat black woman losing her footing and being bowled over and over by the wind.  I remember the children having a discussion about sorting clothes for the wash and someone saying they could be sorted by each person’s smell (and Emily thinking, dur, of course), and a mention that you should never ride a horse bareback for fear of catching ringworm (this was in Jamaica, then, not necessarily now or anywhere else).  They were all sent back to England for safety and were captured by pirates – who had not expected to find themselves saddled with children.  John, a boy I liked, leaned over too far (they had landed somewhere and gone to a theatrical show of some kind) and he fell and was killed.  Emily was the main character and I didn’t like her at all.  The pirates caught another ship and a man – the captain – Dutch, perhaps? – was in a cabin with her and he spoke to her in a foreign and gutteral tongue and she was so frightened that she hit or stabbed him and killed him.  Shocked, the pirate captain dropped her overboard, but she was rescued.  Later, they were captured and brought to justice, and she was asked about the death of the man, and she remembered the incident and cried, and it was assumed that she had witnessed his murder.  The pirates were sentenced to death.  At the end of the book, Emily, with the surviving children, went back to England and, if a group of little girls was watched playing, it would not be possible to pick out Emily, who was just like all the others.

That’s as I remember it, anyway.  Odd, that I recall all that, and didn’t like the book or the story.  Of course, my memory may be at fault – there were a couple of incidents mentioned in the radio programme that I haven’t said, although they did trigger my recollection when I was reminded.  Can anyone tell me whether I should remain with a memory of a book I didn’t like, or else return to it and appreciate it after all these years?

Other books I had to read at school and didn’t like were Redgauntlet, by Sir Walter Scott, and Nada, the Lily, by H. Rider Haggard.  I remember nothing, not a word, of the former.  I thought the latter was horrid.  There, the narrator was obliged to put his hand into fire as a test of his honesty.  He was lying, but endured the torture and so was assumed to be telling the truth, but he had a withered hand for the rest of his life.  At the end, Nada was walled up in a cave and Umslopogaas, her lover, was too injured to move the stone and they died there together, touching hands.  I have never read any Rider Haggard since, I thought it was horrid and gruesome.  This is slightly awkward, as I know his granddaughter (whose name is Nada) and some of her family, and can hardly say so. However, since I remember the book, it was evidently better written than Redgauntlet.  I’ve never read any other Scott either, not even Ivanhoe, although I enjoyed the dramatisation as a Sunday evening serial when I was a child.

The afternoon was not what I’d hoped for.  I arrived home from the hairdresser to find bantams clustered around the door and, as I unlocked it, I heard the phone ringing.  It was a neighbour the other side of the field saying that the two cows that were brought here this morning were out.  I left a note for the Sage and went to find them.

They were in a field where some men were working, painting an old tractor and cutting some grass.  I said I’d see if I could find where the cows had got out, mend it and come back to drive them back to the field.  I phoned Jonny to tell him and he said that it was the second time they’d got out, he’d been over once already, so I said that I’d get them back in.  The Sage wasn’t home, so I asked Al to help me.  They were reasonably biddable, we got them back, fastened up the wire and then chivvied them onto the Ups and Downs where, I knew, the fencing was very secure and there were no weak spots.  And yet, I was mistrustful, so I went back out again – sure enough, one of the cows was about to barge down the barrier across the stream which divides the fields.  I spoke sharply to her and they both moved away.

The next forty minutes was frankly not very nice at all.  No. 77 was, I soon realised, the breaker-out.  She was very annoyed about being thwarted and set off round the field to find a weak spot.  No. 400 followed for a while, but then settled down to chew the cud.  77 came towards me, trying to go around towards the stream, but I headed her off.  Every few minutes she approached again, each time getting bolder and I had to wave my arms and shout, whereas to start with just a stern word was enough.  Finally, the Sage arrived home and came to find out what was going on.  I said that we had to tie up the gate to make it more secure and he said he’d go for rope – at that moment, 77 ran at me.  Half a ton of pregnant dairy cow coming at you is scary, I can tell you.  I shouted loudly and waved my arms and she veered away and … the Sage saw that I wasn’t exaggerating when I had told him what was going on.

Anyway, he tied up the gate and we left, but she has still barged it down again.  We’ve phoned Graham, the farmer and Jonny’s dad, and he said that she’s very attached to her friends and misses them.  There’s a very narrow bridge back towards the farm and if she dares brave that, she may arrive home of her own accord.  The Sage has gone to see if he can find her, and asked me to stay by the phone.  I know that he actually doesn’t want to see me having another run-in with 77, I suspect it was just as scary for him to watch as it was for me, but I’m anxious about him.  I’ve given him my phone, as I know it’ll get a signal down there, in case he needs any help.

Ah.  He’s just got back and says he’s driven her on to another field.  She might find her own way home, in any case, they will find her in the morning.  No. 400 seems quite relieved to have our field to herself for a while.  Hopefully, they’ll bring Big Pinkie tomorrow and the two of them can settle down together.