Hasta luego!

The MM and I are off for a few days of sunshine and relaxation. Back soon with photos, if I can remember where I have left the camera and without pictures if I can't.

Rumpeta, rumpeta

The very best children's books are those that everyone enjoys, from baby to great grandma. Phrases from them are absorbed and become part of a family's shared experience, triggering laughter that cannot be explained to anyone outside the magic circle of that particular memory.

One of our family favourites is The Elephant and the Bad Baby by Elfrida Vipont, with wonderful illustrations by Raymond Briggs. My children loved it when they were small and we all still pick up on anyone in a restaurant, shop or on TV who fails to ask politely for anything by chorusing, "But you haven't once said please! You haven't ONCE said please!" Now it is granddaughter Millie's turn to love the book. She doesn't understand about manners yet but she loves rumpeta, rumpeta, rumpeta all down the road, joining in with gusto as I turn the pages.

I know that Millie will go on to find more and more to interest and amuse her in the illustrations and that sooner or later she will think the Baby is naughty and then begin to wonder about the morality of the Elephant. (I have a feeling that this book might be responsible for the increase in interest in philosophy among young people, since 1967.)

A few years ago, I was asked to speak at a conference of clergy and catechists. There were about 120 of them, from all over the south west of England. They had come, I'm sure, to enjoy a peaceful weekend in sunny North Devon, only to find the worst freak storm in years.

I was used to speaking to groups of teachers and medical practitioners in my professional life but to speak about the gospel to a bishop and crowd of Catholic priests was a real challenge. Who would want to preach to preachers? The gospel reading I had to speak about was John 4:3-30, the story of the woman at the well. After tearing up all attempts at writing something spiritual or intellectual (and most of my hair!) I decided to speak from a place that would be entirely unknown to my listeners - my experience as a mother. And I used my battered old copy of The Elephant and the Bad Baby as my visual aid.

I picked out the words of Jesus to the woman, "Give me a drink" and said how my family, listening to this story, would have cried in unison, "He never ONCE said please." I went through the Bad Baby book, linking the demands of the baby with the many demands that are made on priests and teachers, who frequently feel unappreciated. They loved it! I wasn't challenging their position in any way, I was being a Mum, recognising their tiredness and hurts and comforting them with a story. And, like all good mothers, I finished with a message of hope, if they were to take time over the weekend to listen, even amid the sound of those 12 foot waves crashing onto the rocks outside, they might just hear a "Please."

I bet Elfrida Vipont never expected her children's book to provide the basis of a homily! Or, as the Episcopal Vicar for Formation referred to it - a homilette. Well, he had to draw the distinction, I am a woman after all.

Life-changing innovations

This week's Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4 is the delightful and funny Dear Mr Bigelow by Frances Woodsford. The book is the collected letters that Frances wrote from England to the father of her American friend between 1949 and 1961. (If any of my family members happen to see this, the book is top of my birthday wishlist!)

This morning, there was an extract from the letter of 7 November 1959. Frances writes of a television programme she has just seen in which first American and then English housewives are were asked, "What do you think is the innovation which has made the greatest difference to your standard of living in the last ten years?"

She is astonished by the responses from the US:

1. Barbecue cooking
2. Polythene hairspray (perhaps I didn't hear that right!)
3. Power brakes

But she is almost overcome when she hears the English responses:

1. Artificial flowers with electric lights inside
2. Tinned cat food
3. Composition soles for shoes
4. Childbirth - today it is quite painless
5. Plastic mirrors for budgerigars 

I wonder what answers we would hear if that poll were to be taken today?

Frances Woodsford is now 95 years old but she is as witty and articulate as she was when she wrote the letters. You can listen to an interview with her here.

The tale of the pricey ricer

This is the sad story of my potato ricer.

It all began on 6 October, a day like any other until I checked my bank statement. There I discovered two small withdrawals that were not mine. My bank acted swiftly to block further activity on my debit card, refunded my account and sent me a new card, which duly arrived on 8 October.

In the meantime, on 7 October, I had a hospital appointment in Exeter (approx 130 mile round trip). It was raining so heavily that I abandoned my car and, not having a canoe, took the train. After three hours in the hospital and a wet walk back to the railway station, there was nothing for it but a little retail therapy. Book shops were out of the question in my dripping rainwear but just around the corner from the station is that emporium of kitchenalia, Lakeland.

What could they have that I had not already purchased from them via mail order or online? Listen closely and you might hear my family say "Nothing!"  There, however, just inside the door, I spotted the Oxo Good Grips Potato Ricer. Just the thing for making the nursery style meals I now have to produce for my aged mother-in-law. And yes, I did find a few more items that I don't really need but retail therapy has to be applied liberally to be effective.

Many shops now will not accept cheques, so I no longer carry a cheque book; my new bank card had not arrived and so I used that old-fashioned stuff: cash. And that proved to be the next stage in my sorry tale: out of practice in using this commodity, I failed to keep the till receipt!

I made some very fluffy mashed potatoes with the ricer yesterday. I put the ricer in the washing up bowl and I took out not one piece but three!

A frantic scrabble through bags, pockets and piles of paper failed to produce the receipt but I rang Lakeland's customer service and explained. The pleasant voice at the other end checked my account details and must have seen my long record of loyal consumerism. (My kids call my kitchen Lakeland.) But no - no receipt, no refund. I could take the broken ricer back to the store and get a replacement. Mmm, 130 miles, £30 in fuel? Perhaps not.

The morals of the tale:

1. Never do cash transactions.
2. Never buy Oxo products.
3. Never depend on goodwill from Lakeland.
4. Mash potatoes like you've always done.

GMT blues

British Summer Time ended last night, we turned the clocks back an hour and this evening feels very wintry with the lights on at 5pm. We have had some blustery weather for a few days and the last of the apples came down along with the leaves from the trees and the Virginia creeper. I was beginning to feel gloomy but a passage from Carel Kapek's The Gardener's Year came to mind:

Bare trees are not such a forlorn sight; they look a bit like brooms or besoms and a bit like scaffolding ready for building. But if there is a last leaf on one of these bare trees, quivering in the wind, it is like the last flag flying on a battlefield, like a standard which a dead man's hand is clutching on the field of the slain. We fell, but we did not surrender; our colours are still flying.

So, having put the last of those apples to stew gently on the stove, I went out again to look at the bare trees and found that there were, indeed, a few leaves fluttering nobly in the wind. Heartened, I came back inside and read Ecclesiastes - a very good book to help one put things into perspective! And then I listened to Eva Cassidy singing Who knows where the time goes?

Time to shake off the end of summer melancholy and think of the positive aspects of long evenings by the fire: the knitting and sewing needles have already made a start on the mound of projects I have to get through in the next few weeks. Did you see the snug neck warmer over on Rattling On a few weeks ago? Here is my version, knitted in Sirdar Click Chunky yarn, with a large wooden button to finish it off.

Thanks, RO, it really was quick and easy and will make a lovely present for someone if I can bear to part with it!

I've also made Christmas stockings for my two granddaughters:

and here is my work in progress:

Gloomy moods don't last long around here. A few hours of sunshine would help to dispel this one, especially as it is the half-term holiday and there are lots of visitors in the area, hoping to spend a few days on the beaches before winter arrives. If the weather forecast is accurate, they'll have to settle for brollies and boots instead of buckets and spades, but the rock pools can be just as exciting as building sandcastles.

Reading

Reading is the theme of the pictures that Margaretha is exploring on It's always teatime. We can be sure that she will find many treasures to share with us but I am fairly certain that she will not be familiar with the picture I have on my wall, by local artist Walter Elliott:

I had admired the painting for several years but it was not for sale and the artist did not plan to have prints made. Then, as my 50th birthday approached, my husband managed to persuade him to make an exception and my copy of the picture of the young deaf girl learning to read and speak has pride of place in my living room. The sentence she is studying is "many achieve worldly honours, but the greatest achievements are usually unrecognised."  Few people understand the enormous concentration and effort that deaf children have to put into learning basic language skills but I think Walter Elliott depicts is very well here.

Beside the seaside

We had some really good weather while baby Charlotte was visiting, so we introduced her to the seaside.

Day 1. Basic vocabulary

 sand

  puddles

 surf

"And that," said Mummy and Daddy, "is the sea."

Charlotte made such good progress in her lesson at Croyde Bay that next day we ventured a little further:

Day 2. Advanced concepts

great tourist attraction

 great seaside tradition

great seaside nuisance

On her next visit, Charlotte will learn about boats and angling and later on we'll tackle farming and wildlife in the region.

(Charlotte's photos appear on her own blog. My son is happy to send invitations to any of my online friends to view them - just send me an email address to monix123@gmail.com)