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?

Bank holiday weekend

We had a busy bank holiday weekend. Here are a few of the things that we enjoyed doing.

We tried out a newly-opened restaurant in our home town -- Wildwood Kitchen. This is a chain, we know, but not one that we have tried before, so we were eager to see what it was like. We were pretty impressed. The food was good -- fresh and tasty, our waitress was very pleasant, and as it was a Sunday evening, the restaurant was quiet -- we had the half of the restaurant in which we were seated entirely to ourselves! The only negative point is that Wildwood's menu is not great for veggies. There are very few veggie dishes on the menu, and the night that we went, the vegetarian risotto wasn't available, leaving an extremely limited non-meat choice.

On the bank holiday Monday, we visited relatives in London and were taken to see a film at the Everyman Cinema in Belsize Park. The cinema was amazing -- quite unlike anything we had seen before. The seats reclined, and you could order nuts and nibbles before the performance, which were delivered to you in your cinema seat on a tray by a waiter! Wow! Posh, or what? Rather a far cry from our local Cineworld, where you're lucky if they have cleared the floor of popcorn from the previous showing...

Before going to the film, we ate lunch at Chez Bob, which is right next to the Everyman. We had a good meal there, with pleasant service. The menu was wide-ranging and the food freshly made. We enjoyed it.

Milton Manor: a lovely stately home in Oxfordshire

We had an interesting trip out over the bank holiday weekend. We went to visit Milton Manor, which is a small stately home, situated in Milton village, not far from where we live.

The house is privately owned and is only open for 30 days a year. We have visited once before—probably around eleven years ago now—but it was when the children were very young and so we didn't actually go into the house, but just enjoyed the grounds. We have been keen to visit the inside of the house for a while now and so were pleased to see that it was open on a day that we were free.

The guided tour was given by (who we took to be) the lady of the house. There were very few visitors (maybe ten of us in total), so it was all rather lovely and intimate. You were free to ask questions and positively invited to sit on the chairs. As our hostess said: ‘Well, they are made for sitting on!’

The house is very beautiful, if rather dilapidated (peeling exterior paintwork, silverfish in the wallpaper, a broken pane of glass in one of the windows, etc.). It was built in the eighteenth century by Inigo Jones, and the Gothic library and the private chapel are particularly impressive.

There are things to see and do in the grounds too. You can pet the ponies and the llama, cross the stream on the rope bridge, visit the tree house and walk in the surrounding woods. When we visited there were pony rides for children and teas for sale in the stables.

We had a lovely time, and it was good to see a small(ish) private home open to the public and run in such a relaxed and friendly way.

Jobs, pay and the future

I had an interesting discussion with my youngest daughter the other day about the future, job opportunities, etc.—the kinds of things we all worry about for our kids.

My daughter was clear that she wanted a good job. ‘What constitutes a good job?’ I asked. ‘One that pays well,’ was her reply. Well, that’s a valid answer. It’s great to have a well-paid job, but is that what makes it a good job? And what about being well paid? As I tried to explain to my daughter, ‘well paid’ is  a relative concept. You may work in the public sector and be lucky enough to have  a ‘well-paid’ job. If so, your notion of ‘well paid’ will be quite different from that of someone who works in the private sector and has a ‘well-paid’ job, simply because salaries are higher in the private sector than in the public sector. ‘Yes, but as I said, my definition of a good job is one that it is well paid,’ replied my daughter, coming right back at me. She’s not a fan of shades of grey!

When you’re young and don’t have any experience of the workplace, it’s easy to think that the ride will be straightforward. Good school education. University. Good degree. A good, well-paid job should follow, shouldn’t it? But that’s not always the case, of course. It can be difficult to get your foot on the first rung of the ladder, let alone end up in a position where you are senior enough to earn a good salary. Furthermore, it’s not just a case of getting a good degree; which degree is highly significant as well. As we all know, a degree in a science or engineering subject is a much surer route to a high earning job than is a degree in the arts or humanities. My daughter would like to do something that involves writing and pointed out to me that I had said that medical writing is well paid. That’s true—it is. But what she’d failed to take on board was my additional point that in order to be a medical writer you need at least a first degree (preferably a PhD) in the life sciences. So, medical writing isn’t an accessible career for someone with a degree in English.

On second thoughts, perhaps it’s better that we’re not aware of all this stuff when we’re young. Maybe it is just best to aim for what you love, in the belief that things will come together exactly as you would wish them to. After all, there’s always the chance that they will—and, if not, maybe it’s best to save up the disappointment and negativity for later!

Colouring for adults

For my birthday back in February, my kids gave me a rather unusual present -- a colouring book and some pencils. It wasn't a child's colouring book, of course, but one specially for adults -- a beautiful volume full of intricate designs of gardens and flowers. You've probably seen this kind of thing in W. H. Smith. It seems to have become quite popular now.

I thought this was a great present. I was sure it would do me good to relax a bit and do something quite different from the kinds of things I usually do (work at the computer, sit in meetings, do laundry, etc., etc.). It took a while for me to make a start on the colouring book, but when I did, I found I really enjoyed it. I started with quite a simple design, and as soon as I'd finished, I moved on to a highly complex, double-spread garden scene. I've still not quite finished that one.

The whole thing is highly addictive. You have a few minutes to spare, so you get out the pencils, but then you find that you can't stop. You think, 'Oh, I'll just colour that flower and then I'll go and do x,' but before you know it, you've coloured a whole meadow of flowers and you've forgotten all about x.

I'm even going to buy myself another set of pencils so that I have a wider range of colours to work with...

So, the colouring book did turn out to be a good present. And if you're looking for something a bit different and a bit creative, I'd certainly recommend colouring for adults.

"The Importance of Being Earnest" with the Pantaloons

We enjoyed a great, laugh-a-minute evening yesterday, watching The Pantaloons' production of "The Importance of Being Earnest" at the Cornerstone Theatre in Didcot.

We first came across the Pantaloons last summer doing an open-air production of "Pride and Prejudice". We enjoyed that show so much that we decided to book to see them again as soon as they were performing something in our neck of the woods.

For those of you who don't know, the Pantaloons are a young, touring theatre company who put on productions that are high quality and incredibly funny. They are masters of improvisation, engineering inspired audience participation, and physical comedic theatre.

"The Importance of Being Earnest" is a funny play in its own right, but the Pantaloons' magic made it simply hilarious. We particularly loved the crass relationship between Miss Prism and Dr Chasuble, the deliberate set up and downplaying of the "A handbag..." line, and the American-style recap scene (with multiple movie references) after the interval.

If you enjoy clever, funny theatre with an irreverent twist, then I would recommend booking up for the Pantaloons now!

New book "Six Months in Paris" now available on Amazon!

After a long wait, my new book, Six Months in Paris, is finally available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk!

It's a fun, entertaining coming-of-age story about a young woman who travels to Paris and finds that her experiences there change the course of her life for good.

Here is the complete blurb:

Anna Chaliss has her life all mapped out…or so she thinks.

Taking a gap year before university, Anna heads off to Paris for six months to work as an au pair. A nice French family. Two lovely girls. A beautiful house in the suburbs. What could be better?

But things don’t quite turn out as planned. Instead of having the time of her life, Anna finds herself on a voyage of self-discovery which changes her future irrevocably.

I hope you enjoy it!