Bite each day to the core

As I left my daughter Emily at her student house, I felt the usual natural feelings of slight sadness and loss. However, as I drove home, I realised that I was also pray to another emotion- nostalgia.
Emily is blissfully happy in her second year, sharing a house with five other drama students. The tales of their antics, the photographs I get to see and the very smell of their home, transported me back to a golden time in my life. In 1982 I was living in Ferncroft Avenue in North London, reading English at London University and making the most of every minute, day and night.

My reminiscent mood has stayed with me, so today I dug out my old photograph albums and brought together two happy lives- thirty years apart.

To start with, I should let you know that our house was known as "The House of Ill Repute"



( in our costumes for a Brecht play, before you get too worried)

Theirs is simply called "Brian"...

We seemed to spend most of our lives in fancy dress- going to dozens of parties




Stone Age Vamp

As do they.

Halloween

Goodness knows the theme of this one!



I think we can guess this party

Every day brought a new chance to dress up and laugh at ourselves. This next photograph is my closest friend and room-mate Gillie, who we dressed up in an approximation of the extremes of 1980 fashion- all because she was dyeing her hair and had wrapped a rather large towel around it as a turban...

One evening Emily's housemates dug out every hat they could find...and wore them in character.

As always, there are private jokes-

The contents of a cupboard cling-filmed and guarded by an ancient Nan bread at Emily's house

 And rituals

Gillie and I set up a chess board. Each and every man we knew was on that board and we solemnly moved the pieces every day, depending upon their conduct towards us!

One day we made a huge poster but were disconcerted to find that the paint we used was permanent.

One riotous evening, Emily somehow ended up balancing most of the kitchen's utensils on her head...

Emily and her gang are lucky to have a garden to enjoy the recent snow

We did not but that didn't stop us sitting out on the window sills to enjoy the cool of the summer nights

We were always up to something. One of my most memorable pranks was holding a Christmas Dinner in the middle of Whitestone Pond on a very cold day in March. This event was complete with butler, wind-up gramophone and carol singers...

Emily has had her chilly moments- the boiler broke down for several days over the last freezing spell

We too were such close friends, there was nothing we didn't share or do together

There was often a gathering together at supper time

And it is the same at 'Brian' too

The decor may have changed




Ellen and Gillie in our room



Ems in their home-made fort

But there is so much the same.

One of my strongest memories is awakening early to the bright sunshine of an early summer morning. I lay in bed and realised that this was a unique period in my life. I had been given a one-off chance to live without care, to study and mix with so many like-minded people. I asked myself  "was I making the most of this wonderful gift". I lay and pondered and finally came up with the answer "yes, I was".

I could honestly say I was making the most of every single moment, on all levels. I have never quite been able to say the same since but I'm so glad I 'seized the day' during that wonderful, magical year of 1982.

My friend Gillie and I enjoyed every minute

And, from the looks of things-

Emily does too!

(With many thanks to Emily and her friends for the photographs I've snaffled- please don't borrow or re-use  them or any of mine! )

A Secure Home

I nearly called this post 'The Healing Power of Laughter'. Emily, Sam and I have just laughed until we cried and it has made me feel so much better!
But to start at the beginning.
Emily (with new purple hair) is back for the weekend from university to celebrate her forthcoming 21st Birthday

I have been battling with the most revolting fluey cold and Emily caught it too. Sam was away working at his Saturday job and so feeling rather horrid,  Emily and I decided to take to our beds.
I awoke to the sound of the kitchen door opening and called out ' Hi Sam'. When he came upstairs to my bedroom, he was doubled up laughing. Emily came down and then Sam explained what had happened...
( Emily and I made him show us what he'd done and I took photographs)
On arriving home he realised he had forgotten to put the spare key back in it's hiding place and despite ringing and calling out got no reply. The house was in darkness so he assumed we'd gone out and he was locked out. After 20 chilly minutes waiting outside for us to return he decided to be a little enterprising...

Firstly he tried to reach through the cat-flap to open the door-

Nearly there but not quite.... so he tried something else...

Even his trusty cricket bat couldn't help!
He was getting desperate now so this was his last and equally unsuccesful attempt-

By now Emily and I were crying with laughter.
Can you imagine the shock I would have had if I'd tottered downstairs all weak and light-headed and seen THAT coming through the cat-flap? A true " Honey I'm Home" moment!

Sam was not daunted. He is made of sterner mettle and extremely bendy and skinny, so-

He decided to climb through the tiny kitchen window, first prising it open with a pair of garden shears.

Because he is a good boy, he spent some time leaning in and moving everything he could from the window ledge and surrounding area, so nothing would get broken- I've brought up my house-breaking boy well!

You see, it's easy when you know how!

What made him laugh was the irony of him opening the back door to pick up his bag and coat left outside and on slamming it shut, hearing a weak voice from upstairs saying   " Hi Sam, you're back late" and realising that I'd been at home all the time.

The morals of this tale are
1) Make sure you close every window ( however small) properly
2) Listen to your Mother when she tells you to return the spare key to its proper place
3) If feeling ill and sorry for yourself, get your son to break into your house and you will be much cheered up

Love not numbers

In honour of St Valentine's Day I'm posting a poem.
It's a bit of nonsense and a little risque' so if you are of a delicate disposition, please read no further...
It's sub-title is ' There's no accounting for taste' or ' The accountant's girlfriend' and it is for anybody who's partner is more keen on talking about their work, than whispering sweet nothings.

Love not Numbers



I'm in love with the lines at the edge of your eyes

and I lust at the feel of your bum.

So I suppose it might come as a slight surprise

(despite sexy thighs) that I sometimes feel glum

when your lips talk of numbers. It's such a waste

But there's no accounting for taste

I can cope with you doing a masters degree

with your exhaustion and cumulative stress

I'm quite supportive, as I'm sure you agree

when with housewifely glee, I come and clean up your mess.

I'll wear silk stockings, be the keenest of cooks

But don't talk of balancing the books.

In bed you are all that I've ever desired

playful, passionate, masterful or gentle.

Your slightest touch sometimes gets me all fired

so I'm inspired to be wicked and experimental

But one thing dear is elementary

Don't even mention 'double entry'...

I enjoy playing with rhyming schemes, so had great fun trying to fit in the double rhyme at the beginning of each forth line and I could never resist a truly dreadful pun.

May you all have a more tasteful and much more Romantic Valentine's day!

Absolutely my last post about 'Come Dine With Me' !

   

Winter Poems

I have to start with a poem about snow as our delight in the snow has been unbounded!

Snow in the Suburbs

Every branch big with it,

Bent every twig with it;

Every fork like a white web foot;

Every street and pavement mute:

Some flakes have lost their way, and grope back upward, when

meeting those meandering down they turn and descend again.

The palings are glued together like a wall,

And there is no waft of wind with the fleecy fall

A Spellbound Palace

On this kindly yellow day of mild

low travelling winter sun

The stirless depth of the yews

Are vague with misty blues

Across the spacious pathways stretching

spires of shadow run,

And the wind gnawed walls of ancient

brick are fired vermilion

Provence

I remember a red wall with pigeons perching,

where a breeze lifts from the valley below

through bare trees hung with mistletoe.

For a while I'm at peace and stop my searching

for happiness, that now comes only gently

almost wistfully

and taunts me of the times it was a rich and unsought flow

London Snow

Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling

They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze

Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing

Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to their knees;

Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder.

'O look at the trees' they cried, 'O look at the trees!'

The winter seems complete now we have had a taste of the beauty that snow and ice brings. I can never decide whether I love most the surprising colours found in the countryside on the mild days, or the sheer joy of the snow. I also love the quiet of winter when the memories of the past feel close.
As a last note, my favourite sight has been the snow lady copy of  Elizabeth Frink's 'Walking Madonna' in the Cathedral close!

The poems chosen are from the works of Thomas Hardy, Robert Bridges and J.A.