After Tim died I joined a bereavement counselling group at the local hospice. There were about eight of us I think, all with school age children, all who had lost a partner and we met every Thursday for about two months. It was raw and painful and I didn’t want to go, but the counsellor was patiently persistent and called me up so many times that I finally gave in  and went. And I’m glad I did because it saved my life in that awful miserable Spring when I struggled to imagine how we would all survive. There is nothing like being with others who do know absolutely what you are going through to make you count your blessings, because there were people in that group who were in desperately lonely sad situations. One in particular was a rather glamorous  man, a bit of a high flyer, who had by his own admission spent too much of his time at the office, in the gym or on the golf course, with his wife at home with their three young daughters. Then one day she was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of breast cancer and in less than a year was dead. So there he was, isolated because he had always been working too hard to build up much of a social life in the village or  to make many close friends, and overwhelmed by the pies and cakes that were piling up in his freezer made by his wife’s chums and concerned neighbours.  I remember him weeping as he told us that he didnt know how to plait the girls hair for  school each day.

Probably the last question I ever asked Tim was that he gave  me  the combination to his bike lock..it’s one of those things that you simply don’t even  think about in normal day to day life,  but believe me, these little things are a nightmare. By then he was past speaking,  so for months  his bike stood locked firmly to our front railings. Finally a friend came and sawed through the chain and I am pleased to say Reggie racer is still much loved and much used, a little less these days with the addition of a scooter to L’s life but he lives on. As do the trombones and numerous musical instruments. Less so the hub caps that he swore he had thrown away and the boxes of papers, posters, diaries, letters etc  that despite several culls over the years, we  have never quite been able to get rid of. And probably never will because all three kids seems to have inherited the “don’t throw it away, it might come in useful ” gene.  Along with the genetic malfunction that means at the precise moment of departure, car packed, cat fed, about to leave for holiday/party/family lunch/ meeting/theatre visit one of them will suddenly announce that they are going to play their trombone/practise the piano/have a shower/ bath/ iron some clothes/make a large complicated sandwich. This is most annoying and even more annoying for the rest of the street who over the years have had to put  up with a great deal of shouting and door slamming,  usually followed by me flouncing  off yelling that I will never ever go on holiday/to a party/family lunch/meeting/theatre visit with any of them ever again.  

 Parents evenings as a newly bereaved mum were pretty awful, and even more terminal because there was only one of me, which made it seem to go on for hours, and then there was the time when I was stuck in traffic and got there too late to see a single teacher. For about three weeks I attempted to show some support and stick around for Sunday rugby club, but to be honest I still don’t really understand the rules,  and standing next to a gaggle of red faced shouting rugby dads was territfying. I usually retreated to cry in the car after about fifteen minutes feeling totally useless. And then I remembered that actually Tim only ever went to about  one or two matches in his entire life so I reverted back to the drop and run system. Luckily we have a maths genius next door which avoided  homework meltdown as I have always run for the hills when confronted with fractions and percentages. School concerts and plays were unbearably sad but luckily there was always a cocoon of dear ones to sit and snivel with and a gaggle of cheery souls more than happy to bolt to the nearest pub afterwards. And for ages I kept thinking I could hear his keys in the door and that I saw him cycling past me out of the corner of my eye. 

It took a long time for all of us to adjust to being four rather than five and in many ways we never will, we have just learnt how to move onwards, a bit like shifting your position on the old comfortable worn sofa to accommodate everyone. Together we weathered storms and dark moments, days when it was hard to imagine we would ever laugh again and we were floored by the bleakest blackest misery that took our breath away . But gradually, the storms became calmer and less frequent, the sun came out and we did indeed start to laugh. And argue and fight, and love each other, and do all the things that families do. And even though next Monday it will be eleven years,  we continue to do so. 

Yesterday I was sitting upstairs on a bus heading to a meeting in town. It was a bit like being on a conference call with my fellow travellers,  though  none of them were actually talking to me. The man directly in front was having what can only be described as a shouting Skype with a large fierce looking woman,  who simply couldn’t say anything without yelling at the top of her voice. I and the other passengers learnt  that he in front was a lazy bastard, never took her anywhere, dressed like a tramp  and had managed to break her phone, (though this fact didnt seem to deter her).   Possibly all the shouting may have contributed to phone malfunction but who am I to intervene? The woman in the next row seemed to be having some kind of crisis conversation with her friend who was sitting right next to her,  but in the same breath was on full volume speakerphone to someone else who had in turn being sleeping with someone else’s boyfriend. And then the boys behind me were playing pumping bass with a boom that  made the seats throb. And behind them the girls were shrieking like demented hyenas, as they flirted and giggled trying to provoke a reaction from the  bass boys who in turn sneered and preened as they did their best to pretend they were far too cool to notice.
Now as you know, I am not one to shut up at the best of times , and I would be lying if I said I do not enjoy a jolly good gossip as much as the next person. Even Mrs Bradshaw our ancient needlework teacher recognised  this in her legendary school report which stated ” Theresa is not much interested in needlework but she enjoys talking “. Luckily her handwriting was so awful that I managed to persuade my parents that in fact she meant tacking. In fact she was so unbelievably ancient that it was a mystery as to why she was still teaching. Along with  Miss Chard one of the music teachers who was blind as a bat and used to fall asleep during lessons. Once during the summer, my friend was having a piano lesson as we happened to pass by the window of the music room and we could see that she had indeed dropped off while her student  bravely tackled some complicated scales . For some reason that escapes me now we had a large lump of cheese with us ( we were terminally bored and hungry at boarding school so we made much out of very little) and we hurled the cheese through the open window . Miss Chard  woke up with a start and exclaimed to my friend ” the bats are rather big this year”. 

I do find peoples ability to share  every detail  of their lives as they shout their dirty laundry across the bus gangway quite amazing. Its almost as if they are oblivious to the fact that the entire population of the number 12 heading to Oxford street knows that they got stood up the previous night, or that they dumped their lying cheating no good boyfriend, have terrible thrush, and that actually they havent had a good shag for months. Sometimes it’s hugely amusing, sometimes its really sad or even a bit scary, but mostly its just plain in your face annoying. But maybe thats the whole point. That perhaps  there is an assumption that because you are shouting into a phone and not into someone’s actual real face  it is somehow different and therefore doesn’t matter, and  if people are listening in then that’s their problem. The fact that you would have to be totally deaf or have 5 earplugs stuffed in each ear not to listen is beside the point. 

And on that note I am going outside to shout at my chickens 

At the weekend we went to Ely in Cambridgeshire,  and on Saturday lunchtime we joined a tour and climbed to the top of the tower of the cathedral. There would have been the most amazing view ( if it hadn’t been so foggy) , but it was still worth it, all 288 steps of it. On the way up,  the tour guide asked that anyone who was carrying rucksacks left them at the bottom landing, which we duly did. I imagined this must because there was a chance that some lunatic might attempt to hold everyone hostage up there ( yes, I have always had a vivid imagination) but no, it was because a year or so ago a group  of base jumpers joined the tour, went up to the top with everyone else, and when they got there they all jumped off , at which point I imagine the poor tour guide must have had a heart attack. I mean, can you imagine what it must have been like having to explain to your boss that half of the  the 11am tour had actually jumped over the edge?

In the 70’s we all had a craze for “clackers”, 2 hard balls of plastic on a string that you clicked together to make an annoying but very satisfying noise.. it must have driven the teachers completely mad . Anyway, apparently one set exploded somewhere so there was a total ban on them and anyone who was caught with them immediately had them confiscated. I remember this ban was even reported on the news. I think it was probably just a campaign by someone who simply couldnt bear another second of the incessant clacking,  but we were completely gutted almost to the point of arranging a march on Whitehall. Another item very popular in the 6th form was the mini boiler. This was basically a large single element that you switched on, put in your mug and it heated your coffee, tea, or in our case, cuppa soup. I dont know why we bothered with different flavours of cuppa soup as they all tasted exactly the same, of cardboard and over powering stock cubes. Again, mini boilers were eventually banned because they were prone to giving off electric shocks, but by then we had mostly realised that there were things called kettles. 

At boarding school,  a great deal of our time was spent in returning items ( ie chocolate and sweets) back to the manufacturers claiming that they were mouldy/inedible/stale. For a couple of years this went extremely well and we became experts at ageing bars of chocolate and Mars bars  by putting them in the airing cupboard/on the radiator/ hanging them out of the window etc.  We would then send off the defective items to the makers along with an indignant letter of complaint. Lo and behold, it was not unusual to receive a package containing numerous bars of chocolate, sweets, sherbert  fountains and apologies. After a while the manufacturers got wise and actually wrote to our school and so sadly this rather lucrative and satisfying pastime came to an end.

And who remembers that witches hat ride in the playground? The most dangerous piece of  equipment in the local park and by that very fact, the most fun. Obviously it too was banned. Years later, as adults, we found one in a tiny playground  in Cornwall. Precisely ten minutes after we had been swinging on it and saying how it wasnt in the least bit dangerous, my friend fell off it and broke his arm.

On the drive  back to London last night we were remembering  the days when we were kids , before official speed limits and when cars didnt have seat belts. In Japan we were driven to school by a long suffering Embassy  driver who must surely have lost at cards or something,  because without doubt it must have been absolutely the worst job of the week. There would be at least four of us in the back, two in the front on the shiny slippery bench seat alongside the driver.  I do remember  once going round a corner rather fast and the door swinging open ( I think we were performing some tug of war sequence st the time) , narrowly missing spilling anyone out into the Tokyo rush hour traffic. It does seem extraordinary that none  of our parents ever realised what a miracle it was  that we all survived to the end of each school day. 

It’s easy to look back on the 60’s / 70’s while wearing rose tinted glasses and coming over all nostalgic. Yes, there were times when we were bored with nothing to do other than invent things to do but we had a freedom that has been lost  today. We improvised, we built dens, rode  our bikes, played  40/40 and knock down ginger, made  rope swings, fell in love, fell out of love,climbed  trees, fell out of trees, fought, played French skipping, football and hopscotch, put on plays and endless musicals (that was  mostly me I have to admit). And in the holidays we pretty much went out to play when it was light and came home when it was dark with very little parental  intervention in between.

And it was absolutely the best fun and I wouldnt have changed it for anything. 

I saw a show once where a man drank a glass of milk. So far so good. Then he cried tears of the milk  down his cheeks and collected them in the glass and offered them around. Strangely nobody took his offer of such a tasty tipple. In the same show another man attached a harness to his penis and then dragged various pieces of furniture across the stage with it, and then in the finale  pulled even more furniture with the addition of a a very large person from the audience sitting in a wheely office chair as we all sat there wondering what on earth was the point. Not sure where I’m going with this, oh yes, alright, I do..to the infamous willy bar.

When we were in Tokyo,  rumours were abound about a bar where the staff performed a cabaret show around the table, performing tricks with their willys. Obviously in the interests of research we went. Finding  ourselves in a typical Tokyo bar, tiny and cramped with a few business men propping up the bar and absolutely no sign of any performers  we were convinced it had all been a mistake. But lo and behold, two sweet smiling young men in Happi coats appeared and started talking to us,  asking us where we were from, how long we had lived in Japan, did we kow the Queen personally , usual stuff. Then without much warning they switched into show mode. One of them whipped out a small torch from his pocket and shouted ” Ok, showtime” and shone the torch on to the other ones genitals. This was generally much funnier to us women, the men of our group sat there open mouthed in horror, with a lot of wincing and shifting about on their stools, a bit like when you’re watching a really gruesome operation, actually I have never watched a gruesome operation but you get my drift. We were then entertained ( not exactly the right word but couldnt think of an alternative) with all sorts of tricks mangling, and contortions,  and to keep things simple I shall just list the titles of the ones I can remember , some of which are better left without any accompanying description. 

1. Kebab ( with the added prop of a chopstick) 

2. Loch ness monster ( good to cater to all nationalities )

3. Snail ( with added toothpicks for horns)

4. Woman

5. Elephants head 

6. Full moon/half moon ( a small ritz cracker like biscuit pushed inside end of willy, and with cunning torch action the shadows make it look like either a full or half moon..yes I know it is hard to imagine the circumstances when that one was  thought up.. obviously someone was reaching for the biscuit tin and slipped, while naked..you know how these things happen)

7.Fire throwing. Yes, you read correctly..lighter fuel inserted inside foreskin, lighter fuel let out, lighter lit..you get the picture

8.And the grand finale..karate chops chopsticks balanced between two beer glasses 

The funniest thing about the whole evening ( which is up there in the top ten of the funniest of my entire life) was that in between tricks they came and chatted with us about normal things like the fact that they actually wanted to be surfers, while clearing glasses and emptying ashtrays, which in hindsight is also really quite sad,  but at the time made the whole thing feel even more like a bizarre dream. Only in Japan..and I really hope that very soone after our visit they abandoned their torches and headed for the surf somewhere. 

And hoping I haven’t offended anyone with this story I’m off to have a kebab ( that was a joke) 

When I got my Mums old  jam pan down from the shelf this morning in order to make marmalade, I suddenly realised that I couldn’t remember what her voice sounded like anymore. And this got me thinking about family and the bonds that tie us together.

When we were kids there was a radiator in my bedroom which made a weird clicking noise that started off quickly and  gradually faded to nothing. This was obviously something to do with the water pressure. However when you are six you will believe anything your older brother tells you. He convinced  me that a little monkey lived inside it with a pile of stones and that he spent  his nights tapping these stones with a tiny hammer. Another  snippet was that the best way to get rid of a mosquito when it crept up on you was to growl at it like an angry lion. And that if you threw your pocket money over the fence it would come back. Wrong. It just gets lost in the bushes. 

My brother loved insects as much as  I hated them. His particular favourites were cicadas, monstrous bejewelled creatures that sat on the verandah mesmerised by the lights , making them very easy to catch. He used to collect dead ones and keep them in an old Black Magic tin. Now there were two of these tins in  our family. One was  innocently full of photographs and his, the box of horrors, a collection of  decaying greying wings and bodies. More than once he fooled me into thinking I was opening  the one full of photos and then realising too late that I wasn’t. I remember him weeping with laughter once when a cockroach actually flew off the curtains ON TO MY HEAD. A bit like when cats make a beeline for the one person in the room who really hates them. Of all the heads in all the rooms..

His piece de resistance was to hang cicadas from pieces of cotton and dangle them over the banisters so that effectively I was trapped on the middle landing, unable to go back  upstairs or down. Looking back on it I must have been pretty good comedy value and to be honest I can’t really blame him, but I have to admit to shuddering at the thought of the contents of that tin, even now. 

And now we are both grown up and have children of our own who themselves are grown up and all have their own versions of nightmare tins and horror stories and made up stories between them. Like my lot believing that Jeremy next door actually did eat a slug and that Jonny is half Italian. And that I really did find a bear in the allotment on April fools day.

When I first met my half brother  M I was already an adult with three small children. And M looked like Eric Cantona and was wild and lovely and we just knew we belonged to the same tribe. My fearless little brother. I cant imagine what life would have been like had we grown up together,  but imagine it would have been of the I dare you to jump off that cliff and how long can you lie in the middle of the road or cuddle a seal variety. 

During our first week together L made us both sit down at the table in silence and listen to a recording he had made of one of the last surviving foghorns, I can’t  remember where it was from but may well have been off Arran. A great mournful yearning boom of a sound, comforting as felt slippers. Some people might think this was rather a strange thing to do. But for me, on that first visit,  it seemed perfectly wonderfully exactly right. 

Not being the sort of person who would as a rule remember such things  I do know for a fact that today is Gollum the cats 15th birthday. Yes, a Valentine kitten and I remember going over the road to see him being born.  We will be celebrating in true Blue Peter style with an elaborate cake made from cat food ( actually we will be doing no such thing). But happy Valentine birthday you dear sweet furry friend.

Last night I kept waking up and wasn’t sure why. Then I realised. It was too quiet. It reminded me of a book about a boy called Grimble by Clement Freud ( not sure if we are still meant to admit we ever had a children’s book by him) but anyway Grimble was a latchkey kid and  his parents would leave him notes on the kitchen table each day with instructions as to whose house to visit next and who would cook him supper, so it was a mixture of a story and a cookery book. The one that we used to make was the recipe for potato pancakes which were delicious.Anyway the book starts with Grimble waking up because the trains that usually thundered past his window were not running so he was woken by the lack of noise which is a bit strange seeing as we mostly strive for silence in order to get a good nights sleep. Nowadays my nights normally consist of Radio 4 interspersed with snoring interludes ( not mine)
and then as we get towards morning the sound of birds, bin men, cars and schoolkids. The normal sounds of Camberwell. And I don’t know if anyone else was up and about last night but there was the most amazing moon last night.

When we lived in Japan the woman opposite played the shamisen.For those of you lucky enough never to have heard this instrument it is a bit like a twangy ukulele. Im sure if played to a very high standard and in a room very far away it is perfectly wonderful but at 6am opposite your bedroom window it is not in the least amusing. To the point that I’m afraid we called the noise people round. Being very Japanese ( ie doing things absolutely by the book) they arrived  in starched overalls, with clip boards, recording equipment and ladders. They instructed our neighbour to play again and again, first quietly, then medium, then loud and once more and over again while they all muttered and bowed and wrote notes after walking up and down the road while she practised away and we banged nails into our heads. After hours of this torture they came to the conclusion that yes, it was rather annoying and from then on they said she could only play for half an hour. Between 6am – 6.30am. You can imagine.

Our house is old and creaky and seems to shift and sigh in the middle of the night after years of door slamming and thundering up and down the stairs by a generation of  children and friends. When they were teenagers and out getting up to goodness knows what I would fall asleep with half an ear open for their safe return. The jangle of keys at the front steps and the thunk of the bathroom light being pulled on meant that they had survived the night.And the times when it sounded like a herd of elephants had arrived home with the smell of tobacco wafting up to my attic to the thud of music and laughter.

And now they have all grown and the house is quiet I rather miss all that noise

As long as I can remember I always wanted to go to Tibet. That and seeing killer whales. 

We used to have a large glossy nature book at home which had a photo of a killer whale sticking its head through a hole in the ice with its mouth wide open and  a row of sharp pointed teeth. I was both terrified and fascinated, and just looking at it sent a shiver down my spine, a bit like loving and hating a horror film, wanting to hide under the sofa but not being able quite to stop watching. In those days there used to be a killer whale show at Windsor safari park. Much  to my shame now  I begged and begged to go,  and in the end we did. I remember how absolutely enormous he was and thought it was one of the most exciting things I had ever seen. Obviously now I would never set foot in such a place. As we have all come to our senses  we all know that  Dolphins and killer whales belong in the sea,  not in tanks and for anyone who hasnt seen ‘Blackfish’ please do. Thankfully places like Seaworld are becoming the pariahs  of the theme park world and one would hope that one day they will simply cease to exist. 

And then I got to go to Tibet. We left Japan to travel back home  and took a boat to Shanghai. Our original plan had been to get into Tibet,but we were told in no certain terms that the border was closed again and it was impossible, particularly if you were individuals and not part of a Chinese financed supervised tour group. Also, there was snow, so much snow that a lot of the roads were impassable. 

So we decided to head to Hong Kong instead. We spent  a couple of weeks travelling around China, visiting the terracotta warriors, the opera, endless villages, pagodas and gardens, on trains and buses,  bikes  and on foot, staying in hostels and dormitories. After Japan everything felt khaki and noisy and bleak and in your face. I  secretly wanted to go somewhere else. Anywhere else. One evening we were sitting in a bar in Chengdu. An American couple came and sat next to us. We got talking. They had just come back from Tibet. And they said it was amazing. And possible. So we went

On their advise we bought  flights from Chengdu to Lhasa. The plane was full of  tribesmen in big coats with scarlet braids entwined in their matted dreadlocked hair. Before the plane took off,  the air stewardess walked down the aisle with a large basket. She stopped at each row of seats and everyone unloaded their knives, daggers and swords which were put into the basket for safe keeping. Tim felt a little inadequate when all he had to offer was his Swiss army penknife. 

The first building you see when you get into Lhasa is the Potala Palace. Huge, towering over the city, yet squat and fat and very square in the Tibetan tradition with pointed golden roofs and balconys and hundreds of steep steps as if you are climbing into the clouds. And surrounded by mountains and sky that is the bluest blue you could ever imagine, to the point that no photo could ever do it justice

We booked into the Yak Inn. For the first couple of days we struggled with terrible headaches as our bodies acclimatised to the altitude and to the clean pure mountain air. We wandered through  the markets, past the endless streams of pilgrims, with their bells, and prayer flags , chanting and  singing, prostrating themselves as they made their way round the main square and into the Jokhang palace. Inside the palace   was dark and gloomy, the air thick with the smell of lacquer and damp, chanting, incense and burning bowls of fat , the clanging of bells and lines of shuffling sniffeling Tibetans with their rosy cheeks and filthy sheepskin coats. We sat in the street and watched the butchers stripping carcasses down to strips of meat, the old women knitting socks ( I still have a pair, a bit mouthy and too scratchy to wear ) and the Khampas who came down from the hills with their turquoise earrings and flashing smiles with leopard skins casually slung over their shoulders. We saw one with an enormous eagle perched on his arm as he trotted through town on an impossibly strong tiny pony. We walked to the Dalai  Lhamas summer palace, with its brightly painted timbers and embroidered wall hangings, gardens full of deer and birds, the old 50’s radio  and record player still in the sitting room. We were ferried over over the river in coracles, hired bikes and cycled out to monasteries and tiny hamlets where smiling children came out to greet us, and dogs sometimes chased us. The Tibetans believe that monks are re incarnated into dogs so packs of them  wander everywhere. We were told grisly stories of people having been bitten and catching rabies etc but luckily no such incidents befell us. 

It was colder than anywhere I have ever been, bone numbingly freezing. We bought Chinese army coats, ankle length padded coats like duvets with fur collars ( we called them the blue blob and the green blob). With our padded trousers, sheepskin lined boots and fur hats we waddled around like deranged penguins and life became a never ending session of getting dressed then going indoors, dying of heat, dying for the loo, undressing, dressing again and so it went on. 

We met up with other travellers and began to think about the next step. Could we drive across the Tibetan plateau, past Everest and down into Nepal? Some said we couldn’t, others said we could but that we would end up getting stuck in the snow, others that we would be stopped and sent back. In the end we decided to hire a rickety old bus from an extremely unreliable looking driver who smelt of sheep aftershave and cigarettes. . He and his slightly deranged looking  chum agreed to drive us to the border, a journey that would end up taking the best part of a month

And we had many adventures on that incredible journey across the roof of the world. Unbelievably beautiful, hilarious, sad, life affirming, and a couple of incidents  so terrifying I never told my parents. And I will tell you about them all another time. 

The morning after Tim had died (at home) I had to go down to our local GPs surgery and get a death certificate. As I sat in the waiting room befuddled with lack of sleep and shock, one of our elderly neighbours who was also waiting to see the doctor came up to me. ” I am so sorry to hear of your loss” she said “and I know exactly what you are going through because we lost our old Alsatian at Christmas”. This was extremely heartfelt and she really meant it in the kindest and most genuine way, and this  would have made Tim roar with laughter.  Indeed it made  me chuckle  on the way home on a day when there was actually very little to laugh about. 

I was once teaching a man to juggle. He kept making a funny expression as he tried to catch each bean bag one after the other. I commented on this and he said ” I’m actually blind in one eye”. Another time I went to our local dump ( or recycling centre to give its correct title). I had some wood from an old shed in the back that was pretty filthy and when the man came over to help my empty my boot I offered  him my spare pair of gloves. Then I looked down and realised that instead of hands he had iron hooks. What can you do? 

There was a story on the radio the other day about people who suffer from locked in syndrome. This really does seem like a living hell and I cannot imagine what it must be like to go through this, both as the patient and and also for the family. In this programme they  had managed to communicate with a number of people in this state who replied to a selection of questions by blinking. The most tragic was the family who asked if  the father was happy in his daughters choice of fiancée and he blinked no. Nine times. Where could they possibly go after that? Not to the altar I imagine.

Years ago we were in a bar ( just for a change ) in Japan, up in the mountains somewhere. Positioned on top of the bar (which was run by an ancient old crone) was a sculpture of what we assumed was ET. M remarked on it. ” Yes, that is my grandmother” said the owner. Talking of bars,  one day we set off to pay our rent  to our landlord who ran the local mah jong parlour down the road. Previously that week we had bought some pet terrapins from the pet shop in the shopping mall. While Bishop Watanabe seemed to be thriving,  Mole did not and had died. Outraged at the poor quality of our purchase we popped her in the freezer overnight and then set off with him/her in a paper cup to the pet shop, stopping off at the mahjong parlour on the way. Our landlord was very fat and very jolly  and always plied us with a drink or two whenever he saw us. An hour or so later we left. Halfway home we remembered we had left the paper cup with the dead terrapin in it sitting on the counter. Neither of us had the nerve to go back and try and explain why we had left a corpse on his bar. He probably assumed it was just what strange foreigners do. 

But I think the best of these put your foot in it story awards goes to TD. One day he  bumped into a man he used to work with but hadnt seen for ages. Now TD has a terrible memory at the best of times. But that day he surpassed himself. He vaguely remembered who this man was,  and started off with a long list of people he imagined that they must have known  from various jobs over the years. It was going well and then he mentioned  a PA  who had been around at the same time and who was by all accounts a bit of a one,  and was famous for having slept with pretty much the whole production team. In a flash of clarity he even remembered her name. “Yes” said the man” She is my wife”. 

If I see anyone using a plate that has another one stacked underneath it I immediately get them to remove it. Do they not know that eating from a pile of plates kills a sailor? I have no idea where this comes from but it makes me very twitchy indeed. My friend J gets very agitated if anyone lights a cigarette directly from a candle,  as once again this puts seafaring folk  in grave danger

Apart from my plate issue I am not particularly superstitious, though I do always look for the second magpie and will avoid walking under ladders if at all possible,  and have even been known to throw salt over my left shoulder while touching wood. But these are more rituals than superstition and  I don’t do that shouting and walking backwards  thing you are meant to do if you see a bird, or take to my bed if a black cat walks across my path. I once had a huge mirror fall on to my head resulting in five stitches and my neighbour having a funny turn at the sight of all the blood, but no significantly bad luck befell me for the next seven years. Some people think leaving  your shoes on the table makes you unstable and brings doom and gloom upon your household . Personally I think shoes on the table just get mud on the table. Umbrellas being open in the house don’t bother me.  I never mange to keep hold of one for more than a day or so before I leave it somewhere so chances of having one to open are very slight. I had a friend whose father once received a birthday present of a set of beautiful kitchen knives. In his view this brought such terrible  bad luck that he wrapped them back up, put them in the attic and never opened them again. And the old wives tale that women in boats bring bad luck is complete nonsense. The fact that on a trip down the river last summer I managed singlehandedly to capsize the supposedly unsinkable canoe,  causing my partners socks and shoes to go floating downstream along with the paddle was pure coincidence. 

When we were young we used to go and stay  in Cornwall with my mothers sister and my cousins. In the village there lived an ancient old lady called Mrs Povey. She had, according to local gossip, never been further than Penzance ( all of about 20 miles) and was still convinced that the world was flat. Much to our excitement it was alleged that when it was full moon she used to scratch on her windows and howl. She was also very superstitious. She had all sorts of strange remedies for various illnesses and complaints  that  included passing a small child underneath the belly of a piebald horse to cure a cough,  and for measles she recommended hanging a live chicken upside down in your bedroom. After 24 hours the spots and infection would pass to the chicken who would eventually die,  and the patient would then hop out of bed and skip downstairs miraculously cured.  Nobody seemed to be able to verify she had actually ever done any of these, but its a great story.

I do believe,  on the whole, you make your own luck,  to pick yourself up, dust yourself down and head towards the sun believing that good things are just around the corner and that things can only, and will get better. If you are of the glass half empty persuasion I think doom and gloom are far more likely to come knocking at your door than if your glass is annoyingly, cheerfully,  brimmingly almost full. But maybe that’s just me . 

Then again I have just seen two magpies hopping across the fence at the end of the garden. 

In yesterdays post  ( liar liar pants on fire)  I  let slip that in fact it was me who left my brothers new bike in the road, only for it to be crushed by the bin lorry ( he took the news quite well when he read it last night 50 odd years later) . So in the light of new beginnings and relief that no longer will I have sleepless nights thinking about how I wronged him, we move onwards in the spirit of honesty being the best policy

I remember reading in one of the Sunday magazines about a chef ( cant remember who,  but very well known) After serving amazing foodie food all day he said when he went home the one thing he loved more than anything else  was a fishfinger sandwich with salad cream on white sliced bread. If hungover ( obviously a rare and unusual state of affairs) my food of choice is tinned grapefruit and those miniature Scotch eggs with a dollop of Hellmans. And there there is my friend the staunch strict healthy eater who once a year escapes without her children  to McDonalds where she wolfs down a big Mac in the car park ( hopefully) without anyone seeing her. I know this because I happened once to be in the same car park at the same time (not also partaking it has to be said, she said smugly). 

And then there are the  foods of the you will never eat again as long as you live variety. I had a friend who had a summer job in a Walkers crisp factory. Imagine the smell of cheese and onion crisps then multiply it, putting it in enormous cauldrons full of the sickly feet smelling flavouring. From that day onwards he never ate another crisp. He then went on to work in a place where they made sandwiches for British rail. Again, such a sandwich has not passed through his lips since ( though frankly thats not difficult to imagine). Someone else in the same year at college worked in the Bowyers sausage factory. He worked alongside an old man whose nickname was Fingers. Yes, you guessed it, he had none, lost them in the mincer. Near where we work there is a large Covent Garden soup unit. Apparantly somebody fell in and drowned in a large vat of their chicken soup though I’m not sure if this is really true. 

Our boarding school was next to Harris’s sausage factory ,a large Victorian dungeon of a place full of shouting and clanging. You could hear the pigs squealing as we walked through the town to church. Every now and then a brave pig would make a run for it. I remember a particularly horrible episode when one managed to escape and get on to our games pitch and was chased by a pair of men who looked just like the baddies from 101 Dalmatians with sticks with nails in the end which they whacked it with and made its head bleed, as we all stood and watched in horror. As is the way of these places, they had a glue factory nearby where they boiled up all the bones to make glue and Haribos. The smell was foul, pervading every crevice of the town  and must surely have affected the local house prices. 

Luckily for the pig population and the ears of the schoolgirls on their way to church Harris’s is no longer there and is now a shopping mall.