Junk in the loft

At the weekend, we started on a task that we've been meaning to do for a while -- tidy the loft. Over the space of twelve years in this house, we've put things up there without thinking too hard (we may need them again at some point in the future, you never know...) and so the space has been getting fuller and fuller.

We did a first pass and removed quite a few things -- old baby clothes, cardboard boxes, broken lamps and lampshades, old rugs that had seen better days. But the funniest thing was that we brought down seven (yes, seven!) child car seats. These were for various ages -- full baby seat, toddler seats, booster cushions -- and were used in our two cars for our two children, but it still seemed like a ridiculous number. And, what's more, it's not the total number that we owned -- we got rid of one or two a few years ago!

Things are definitely looking clearer in the loft, but we still haven't finished the job -- we'll do a second pass next weekend. Hopefully we won't find any more car seats lurking up there, though!

Life without kids

Every summer, our kids spend a few days staying with their grandparents. They always have a great time and, although we miss them hugely, it's a good opportunity for us to be a couple and do lots of nice things by ourselves.

Here's what we got up to last week:

• We popped down to the riverside Nag's Head pub in Abingdon and sat in the lovely evening sunshine enjoying a glass of wine and a pizza.
• We visited our local Thai restaurant, the Zabb Thai, and had a delicious (as always) dinner. We love this restaurant: the food's great, the owner is so friendly, and the restaurant is small and intimate.
• We went to the cinema to see the latest Woody Allen film, Cafe Society.

All of this was great, but probably the best thing of all was what we did together with the kids when we picked them up. We we went to see Macbeth at Shakespeare's Globe. We really enjoyed the play -- it was imaginative and well acted and the setting was stunning.

And, of course, it was wonderful to see the kids again!

Teenagers

We have two gorgeous kids -- one teenager and one almost teenager. They are lovely (and pretty damned good as people of this age go, I think), but all the things they say about teenagers really are true:

• They don't come out of their rooms unless prevailed upon to do so, or unless food is on offer.
• They don't like to leave the house, or not with their parents, at least. Although, see above, if it involves food, they can quite easily be enticed out.
• They will grunt if they don't want to answer your questions.
• They will only tidy their rooms if asked to do so.
• If you suggest going for a walk in the countryside, they interpret this as a fate worse than death.
• They will get upset if you nag them or disagree with them.

The funny thing is, I distinctly remember being just like this as a teenager. Do you?

Time and time and time

Like many parents, I can’t believe how fast my children are growing up. Remember how, when they were babies, everyone said: ‘Enjoy it while you can – they grow up so quickly!’ You don’t believe it at the time, of course, when you simply can’t see beyond the feeding and the nappies and the nights…

But, I can testify that it really does go fast. And this was brought home to me with a bang this week when I attended my eldest’s GCSE information evening. She makes her GCSE choices in just a few weeks’ time – how on earth did that happen?! I then did a quick calculation and realised that she would be leaving home in just over four years, which is simply stunning.

In another two years, both my children will have left home and my husband and I will have to find new (or rediscover old) ways of filling our time. By then, we will both be in our fifties – something else which I find very hard to believe…

Pumpkin hunt

Today, my daughters and I followed our usual half-term tradition of doing the pumpkin hunt in the beautiful Waterperry Gardens, just outside Oxford.

At 11 and 13, I thought the kids might consider themselves too old for this kind of thing, but no. A few weeks ago, my youngest asked if we would be doing the hunt this year (she thought her sister may not want to, being a teenager now), but my oldest confirmed that she would be happy to do it too. And so we did.

We worked out that we have now done the Waterperry pumpkin hunt for nine years in a row, since the kids were tiny tots. The only difference is that we are now super-speedy at finding the pumpkins. It took us just 20 minutes today!

As usual, we wound up with a treat in the cafe.

On the way out, we noticed that Waterperry is running a reindeer hunt in the gardens during the Christmas holidays. Guess what? My youngest declared that she wanted to do that too! Talk about tradition!

Big school beckons

I can't quite believe it -- my youngest child started secondary school this week. Yet it seems like only yesterday that she was a tiny tot starting primary school.

And my oldest child is already starting on GCSE work!

Where does the time go?

Summer holidays!

Ah, the joy of the summer holidays! I have become a taxi service for my eldest, it seems...

For example, the other day I found myself driving around the countryside picking up a whole gaggle of teenagers before delivering them for an afternoon out in a neighbouring town. One of the other mothers was on pick up duty a few hours later.

My eldest was doing directions for me and, to give her her due, she was pretty good. But I noticed that the quality of the directions decreased as each new friend got into the car...

The conversation amongst the young was riveting. Lots about texting. Lots about fashion. Lots of gossip. All discussed at high volume.

When we reached the other end, excitement levels were so high that everyone forgot to say goodbye to me.

Do you remember being a teenager?!

Le Creuset

We had an interesting mealtime incident the other day. We were celebrating a family birthday with a fondue at home. At the end of the meal, one of the children present at the table looked at the fondue pot and commented, 'That's Le Creuset, isn't it?'

It was.

It struck me as amusing somehow that this young person was familiar with Le Creuset tableware. I mean, how middle class is that?!

The end of term -- and the end of primary school

We finally reached the end of term on Friday. Not only was it the end of term, but it was also the end of primary school for my youngest. So, no more primary school, ever. Hurrah!

However, it's been a hectic run up to the end of primary school. Over the past two weeks, we have had the following: the school disco, sports day, the leavers' performance (two nights), Fun on the Field (a social event that takes place on the school field on a Saturday evening and involves brining a picnic supper and listening to local bands playing), the leavers' picnic, the leavers' service, and the leavers' party (an evening event at the local open air pool, requiring a parent to be present with each child).

I think we're going to need the six weeks' break to recover from the welter of primary school leaving events... Here we come, secondary school -- refreshed, I hope!

Springtime sandal shopping

It's spring which means...time to shop for sandals for the kids again.

I have never been a great fan of shoe shopping for myself -- a legacy of having large feet and it being impossible to find shoes in my size when I was young. I have memories of being dragged from shop to shop with assistants making increasingly cutting remarks about the size of my feet. That wouldn't happen these days, of course -- people actually seem to care about kids and their feelings now! But not so back in the 70s.

My kids have quite large feet too, but at least shops have now tumbled to the fact that not all girls possess petite tootsies and it is possible to purchase larger sizes. However, my oldest is now at the age where Clarks is a no-no and Schuh is much more the thing, whereas my youngest still prefers the offering from Clarks, so we now have to visit twice as many shops. Schuh is also expensive, which rather limits the choices for my oldest, as I (perhaps unreasonably?) baulk at paying over £40 for a pair of kids' sandals.

So, we headed into our local town a couple of days ago and visited the requisite shops. My oldest identified some sandals that she liked, but which were expensive. My youngest was measured up in Clarks, but when the assistant returned from the stock room she declared that they had no sandals whatsoever in my daughter's size. So, we came home empty handed on both fronts.

The problem is that the kids still need their sandals. So, I started up my laptop and managed to find the expensive sandals for sale significantly cheaper with a reputable online supplier. Hurrah! And we managed to find some sandals that my youngest liked the look of in the Clarks online shop. These are now on order for delivery to our local store.

Let's just hope they fit when they arrive, otherwise it'll be back to the drawing board again!

Valentine's Day

I had a lovely Valentine's celebration last weekend.

The week before, I received an invitation through the letterbox from 'a mysterious admirer' inviting me to dinner at my own house. Of course, it was from my husband. He cooked a beautiful meal for me on Saturday evening complete with champagne, roses and chocolates. I felt very spoilt.

The kids were complicit, refusing to tell me anything about the invitation in advance, despite me asking, and very considerately watching TV in the snug on the night while we ate our meal together.

I really am very fortunate to have such a lovely husband and children. My husband and I have been married for 18 years and together for 25 years, so this just goes to show that romance doesn't have to die, no matter now long your relationship has been going!

Walking with children

My husband and I love walking. Pre-children, we would go out every Sunday, come rain or shine, and do a brisk five or six miles. We would always come back happy, refreshed, and with the satisfaction of having seen things that we could never have seen from a car window.

When our oldest was born, almost thirteen years ago now, we carried on the tradition for a bit. While it was still possible to transport her in a front or back carrier, she came with us. But then she became too heavy. Once she could toddle by herself, there was no way she had the stamina to do long country walks. And then we had a second baby.

So, you get the picture. No more walks.

A decade later, now that the kids are grown and perfectly capable of walking, we occasionally try to do a family walk. But it's always a struggle. The problem is lack of inclination on their part. They moan about the car journey to get to the walk's starting point, the exertion, the mud, the cows...and, surprise, surprise, a walk suddenly becomes much less appealing.

Last weekend I made scones. We went out on a walk with the promise of returning to a home-baked cream tea, and that made quite a difference. The kids barely complained once. However, they did, from time to time, start chanting 'stile, scones; stile, scones'. Apparently the several stiles that they had to climb coupled with the scones that were waiting for them back home were the only things that made the walk bearable!

Result...I think.

The optimism of the young and the cynicism of the middle-aged

When I was out and about the other day I overheard two young shop assistants discussing their futures. They were talking about the degrees that they were currently studying for and how much they were looking forward to joining the world of work. One of them was hoping to enter the publishing industry, working with art books (her degree was in history of art, I think). “I just love the look and feel of those books,” she said. She sounded so excited, so enthusiastic, so full of energy.

I wonder what happens to us in middle age? Of course, some people still love their jobs, but many (at least those who I know) do not. Work is a means to earning money, to maintaining a certain standard of living, but the day-to-day grind is, well...a grind. I spent many years working in the publishing industry (and still freelance in the field). The work is fine, but certainly not glamorous. The reality is all about the bottom line, rather than the books, trying to get as much done with as little resource as possible. It’s much the same in most industries today, I think.

I look at the up-and-coming generation with awe. My oldest daughter is a case in point. She already, at the age of twelve, knows what she wants to do career-wise. And she is enthusiastic, articulate, confident, as are all her friends. I just don’t remember my own generation possessing such maturity and poise at such a young age. As middle-aged parents we need to be careful not to dampen our children’s spirits, not to tarnish their optimism with our cynicism.

Paddington

We went to see the Paddington film last weekend. I really wanted to go as I remember very fondly watching Paddington on TV after school back in the 1970s. I also love the dry, oh-so-British understated humour that Paddington delivers. And it is all just so improbable, a bear from darkest Peru who is quintessentially English. I love it.

The film was certainly good, but not much like the old TV series. For a start, the film fell into the adventure genre. It didn't just bumble gently along, rather it was full-throttle action for much of the ninety minutes. But maybe that’s how it has to be in order to hold the audience's attention for that length of time. And it was perfect, of course, all computer graphics and no flaws. I rather missed the cardboard sets and pencil drawings of old, but I don’t suppose that would impress an audience nowadays. It really is just my nostalgia kicking into play. There was quite a bit of humour in the film, but it didn't take the form of Paddington being ironic (he was actually quite naive), rather it was largely situational, with a number of amusing references to other blockbuster films, presumably to keep the adult viewers on board.

It sounds like I'm being negative about Paddington, but I'm not. I really enjoyed the film; it was very nicely done—but it just wasn't quite how I had expected it might be. My kids really enjoyed it too, so I’d definitely recommend Paddington as a good, fun family outing. But when you get home, fire up your computer and watch a couple of the old TV episodes on YouTube. You may just find yourself addicted.

Abingdon open air pool

With this lovely weather and with it being school holidays, the kids and I having been partaking in al fresco activities as much as we can.

We are very lucky to live close to the Abingdon open air pool, which we recently visited. This is a lovely swimming pool on the banks of the Thames, which is open during the summer months. It boasts a large L-shaped pool, a baby pool, free sun loungers, and an ice cream and drinks concession -- all set in grassy grounds, surrounded by trees.

We were fortunate enough to visit during a very quiet session -- there were only five other families and us. This is pretty unusual -- usually, as soon as the sun comes out, the pool is mobbed, even more so during the holidays. I overheard the lifeguards chatting and they reckoned that the low numbers that day were due to the prolonged sunny weather. They thought that people were bored of so much sun and had 'done' the open air pool. Lucky us!

The open air pool is a great Abingdon asset. It has a long and interesting history too, which you can find out about here.

Baggage

As I noted in my blog post of a couple of weeks ago, we had a lovely weekend away in Suffolk over the May half term.

One thing that struck me when packing for the weekend was the amount of baggage that we managed to accumulate. We were only going for three nights, but we collected a suitcase, a hefty tote bag, a bag of food (we were self catering), a day rucksack for each of the four of us, a pile of coats and shoes (suitable for all possible permutations of the English weather), games and books, water bottles for all of us for the journey...

We had intended taking our smaller car for this trip, but in the end we had to take the car with the bigger boot due to sheer volume. I thought that as kids approached teenager-hood you were meant to have less stuff to pack, but in fact we seem to have the same amount -- just a different type of stuff!

Lovely Easter weekend away

We had a great Easter weekend away last week in Suffolk, where we rented a barn conversion for three nights. The barn, called Middleton Granary, was really stunning—beautifully appointed, very clean and furnished to an extremely high standard. The owners even left us a homemade coffee and walnut cake, which we particularly enjoyed with our afternoon tea! You can check out photos of the barn on the owners’ website.

Suffolk is a very beautiful part of the UK—largely rural and very unspoilt in parts—and we thoroughly enjoyed the peace, quiet and resident wildlife. We also managed to fit in visits to several local attractions. Things that we particularly enjoyed were: Thelnetham Windmill—a windmill dating from 1891 which has been restored, is now working again, and can sometimes be visited. We were given a guided tour by a couple of very knowledgeable local volunteers. Ickworth—a beautiful Italianate mansion run by the National Trust. We particularly enjoyed the extensive 'below stairs' exhibition which really gave you an insight into the workings of a grand stately home. We also enjoyed eating our lunch in the sunshine on the terrace overlooking the croquet lawn. And, one especially for the kids, Bressingham Steam and Gardens—where you can ride on narrow gauge steam engines, play on the adventure playground, ride on a carousel, and enjoy 17 acres of beautifully planted gardens.

At the same time as all of this, I was running a free promotion for my latest novel, "Travels on a Greyhound Bus", and so keeping an eagle eye on its chart position and sales figures. Happily, it did really well—visit the post on my News page for details!

Video cassettes and beyond

I recently had an interesting conversation with my daughter, which reinforced just how different the experience of people from different generations can be – and also indicated how much technology has changed over the last 30+ years.

She was telling me about her geography lesson. She was currently learning about plate tectonics, she said, and had watched a film on the subject. ‘It was from about 2000 BC,’ she quipped. ‘Is it called a...cassette?’ I burst out laughing. Yep, a video cassette. Unknown to my daughter’s generation.

The pace of change is amazing, if you think about it. Videos were new-fangled in my generation. Remember the hours spent finding a blank tape, checking the time of the programme, punching in the relevant times and programme duration... Even then the programme didn’t always record for some unfathomable reason, despite the fact that you were sure you had done everything right. And if the programme time was changed last minute due to, say, a sporting event overrunning, then you really were stuffed. The only hope of seeing the programme then was if the channel chose to repeat it at some point. The technology improved, of course, and became more reliable. It even became possible to programme the later model VCRs to record multiple programmes at different times.

And then the technology changed. In the 1990s, DVDs superseded video cassettes as the medium of choice for pre-recorded material. Now we have digital set-top boxes for recording. We can record what we like, when we like, multiple programmes at a time, all with an easy-to-use visual interface. And, of course, we also have catch-up services, meaning we no longer have to remember to record the programmes that we want to watch. Nor indeed remember to watch them at the time when they are first screened.

Turning the tables, my kids are completely au fait with video on demand and catch-up in a way that I’m just not. It’s no problem at all for them to use iPlayer – and it’s not as though my husband or I have even taught them. They just work it out. Whereas I frequently find myself helpless when the HUMAX has crashed yet again and I can’t even switch on live TV. At times like these I find myself pining for the simplicity of the 1970s and 80s when there were only four channels and when, if you pushed the relevant channel button, the TV just came on.

It’s called getting older, I guess.

War Horse

We recently went to see an ‘as live’ showing of the play of Michael Morpurgo’s ‘War Horse’. For those of you who don’t know, the National Theatre Live is a scheme that broadcasts real-time performances of National Theatre productions to cinemas worldwide. The ‘as live’ extension is when those broadcasts (or films) are replayed at times after the live performance.

We very much enjoy going to the theatre, but when the show that we want to see is in London and we want to go en famille, it can be a very expensive pastime. For this reason we jumped at the chance of seeing an as live broadcast of ‘War Horse’ in our local cinema. We didn't know quite what to expect – would it be like being at the theatre or more like a standard cinema experience? Well, there was some attempt at making it seem like you were at the theatre – the cinema screen showed the audience and the speaker system played the sounds of the audience coming from the theatre auditorium before the performance started – but in fact, it really was just like being at the cinema. The view was not straight on to the stage, rather there were a number of different cameras and the view cut between these, much like watching a film. This worked well and must have been difficult to do technically, given the issue of having to work round the audience.

However, what I really enjoyed was the story. I haven’t read any of Michael Morpurgo’s novels before (although my kids have), assuming that they were aimed squarely at children only. ‘War Horse’ tells the story of (aspects of) the First World War through the experience of the horses who were put to work on the battlefield, and it resonates on many levels, highlighting the futility of war, the desperation of those caught up in it, and the effect that war can have on people’s sanity. All are issues very much worthy of adult attention. ‘War Horse’, rather to my surprise, is now on my to read pile.

Cultural weekend away

I had a lovely birthday weekend a couple of weeks ago, spending a cultural two days in and around London.

We visited two impressive stately homes:

Kenwood, in north London, has recently been refurbished. It is a beautiful Robert Adam-modelled mansion which houses a stunning collection of paintings. The grounds are very pleasant, too, and lead out to Hampstead Heath. We were lucky enough to have bright, sunny weather and so were able to take advantage of the outside tables in the restaurant area to eat lunch. Just about warm enough in the February sunshine if you kept your coats on! Kenwood is managed by English Heritage but, unusually, doesn’t charge for admission, so is great for family days out.

Hall Place and Gardens in Kent is a beautiful Tudor house with magnificent gardens displaying Tudor-style topiary. The house has an interactive display area in which both adults and children can learn a lot about everyday Tudor life. The house also hosts a programme of exhibitions. When we visited, there was an exhibition about the (now defunct) local textile printing industry. We also enjoyed lunch in the onsite cafe (not outside this time!). Once again, this was a good value day out for us – as National Trust members, we qualified for half-price admission and only paid £10 in total for the four of us.

The final element of my birthday weekend was an adult-only treat. The parents-in-law babysat while my husband and I enjoyed dinner out in London, followed by a trip to St. Martin's Theatre to see ‘The Mousetrap’ – great light-hearted fun, and very well acted and produced to boot. Highly recommended!