Who wants to go Dutch?

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Grace Lessageing

There are joys too numerous to count about being retired. I know that for many, financial demands mean that they must continue to work, and that yes, we were lucky to be able to stop slogging and take our public sector pensions, but I’ve never felt, as some do, that I needed to work for my own wellbeing. On the contrary it is only now, without the constraints of daily routine, that I can do the things I like.

Some, of course are obvious. I only ever had a chance to read novels when on holiday and now I am able to sit down and read a book when I choose. I read a lot. I can spend vast amounts of time nurturing the garden, weather permitting, and even grow things to eat! I can go out for a walk-on a weekday-during the daytime. I can go to the gym-in the daytime. I can have coffee with friends, or a meal, during the day, or spend an afternoon perusing the shops [not necessarily purchasing anything]. When the weather improves we tootle off in our small camper van for unspecified periods of time.

Some activities I’ve come to hate less, however, are a little unexpected. There are a number of chores that I used to find sheer drudgery when I went out to work. Cleaning was one; so much so that we resorted to getting someone else to do it [and a lovely job she made of it, too]. We’d been spending every weekend hoovering, polishing, mopping etc, leaving no time for anything else [like reading a book]. Nowadays I regard cleaning the house as satisfying, relaxing and good exercise [and I can listen to excellent Radio 4 at the same time!].

Cooking is another task I’ve warmed to, and one which has benefited from the extra time and effort put in. Even the food shopping is not unpleasant. I feel soothed by hanging up washing on the clothes line outside, folding it and putting it away or ironing things. I’m not unhappy to stand at the kitchen sink washing up.

What all this says to me, is that the more ‘work’ is created to fill up the hours, the more people will cut corners by buying convenience meals and using expensive appliances. I have a conviction, based on my own working years that a lot of ‘work’ [especially administration-type tasks] is not only unnecessary but deliberately handed out for the sake of appearances. I wonder if it is really necessary for workers to spend all lunchtimes at their desks and keep later and later hours? Years ago shops closed for lunch, had half days on Wednesdays and weren’t open on Sundays. No one starved or went without anything because of it. I’d have thought the current economic squeeze would be the ideal time to get back to shorter working hours, proper weekends etc.

The Netherlands, who have some of the shortest working weeks in the world, have made wholesale moves into the 4-day week. Employees, for the most part may choose to work longer for 4 days and take an extra day off! Wonderful! A whole day to catch up on chores, or spend time with children, or cook things, or exercise, pursue a hobby…or even sleep! How much more rested, rounded and motivated everyone would be!

Too Much, Too Little, Too Late…

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Grace Lessageing

Aside from pop stars, sports stars, film stars, artists and so on, I wonder how many people could say they are honestly doing the job of which they always dreamt? Indeed, did all the people in the aforementioned categories dream of being what they ended up as? I expect a great many people could say they ‘love’ what they do, but is it what they’d have all selected, given the chance? Achieving a successful career in a chosen field must be becoming more difficult as economic constraints tighten and job seekers must take whatever they can find. Little wonder so many queue for competitions like ‘X Factor’, when there are situations like 1,700 applicants for 8 jobs in ‘Costa’! Costa may well be the most wonderful employer in the world [I wouldn’t know], but I’m guessing it would hardly be the pinnacle of achievement for most to be serving behind the counter in one.

I know I certainly didn’t follow the career path I really wanted, even forty five years ago. What I’d have loved to do at that time was to go to Art School and study graphic design. At my conservative girls’ grammar school this was considered far too alternative and risqué, resulting in careers guidance to the effect that I was ‘not good enough’ and should go into teaching! No one considered that I might not be ‘good enough’ for teaching [and looking back at my lacklustre teaching years this was probably the case].

In the event I did quite enjoy a substantial portion of the teaching years, although this enjoyable time was mostly before governments began meddling seriously with what and how we taught. But I was never so besotted with education that I rushed headlong up the ladder into an elevated position, preferring to footle along as an ‘Indian’.

Now, though, at a time when it is undoubtedly too late for great financial success or even much in the way of acknowledgement, I wish I’d been in a position to support myself while I learned how to write; because those writers who have achieved success began at a younger age. Many came via the journalism route, or through a degree in creative writing, but some managed to get published from writing a debut novel whilst holding down a day job. I don’t know, but I have a hunch that few of these dedicated, talented and [to a certain extent lucky] people can have been teachers. Why? Because teaching, along with a number of similar careers allows for very little time, energy or creativity left over to do anything much else.

It isn’t helping that the likes of Michael Gove are pushing only subjects that lead to productive employment in manufacturing and allowing creative areas such as drama and music to fall by the wayside.

There is a saying that goes, ‘Those that can, do. Those that can’t, teach’. It is a harsh adage, but one that, in my case held a grain of truth. But I prefer to put it another way. ‘Those that teach, can’t’. I’m looking forward to a time when the young can follow their instincts and pursue subjects that they love, whether it makes their fortune or not, but I’m not holding my breath…

The obesity mountain just gets BIGGER

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Grace Lessageing

We British, apparently, are the porkers of Europe; and not far behind [excuse inadvertent pun] the US in world fatness tables. Horrors! Why are we all so fat? And what is to be done about it? ‘Too much access to fast, fatty, sweet, calorific junk!’ shriek the health gurus. ‘Not enough activity!’ scream MacDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried, Cadbury’s et al. Blame the schools! Blame the parents! Blame food manufacturers! Blame the fast food outlets!

Film clips accompanying news about obesity are always shots of portly, overspilling pedestrians on the street, usually their middle portions, showing how their flabby tummies are barely contained by their clothing and their bottoms and thighs wobble as they lumber along, or seated at cafes tucking into clandestine mountains of chips.

I’ve always wanted to know whether anyone recognises themselves when these clips appear. For instance, take the young woman in picture 1, pushing the pushchair. She is wearing a very distinctive, eye-catching ensemble…a spotty pink tee shirt and hot pink, ‘GOLDIGGA’ trousers-not hard to identify.

The gentleman in picture 2 seems, from his outfit, to be about to take part in a sporting event, although it is difficult to imagine which one. Can he have checked his look in the mirror before leaving home? Indeed, might he have reconsidered his wardrobe choice had he realised he’d be caught on camera?

I’ve more sympathy with number 3, given that she is, in all likelihood in transit, hence her choice of clothing [and the surrounding luggage]. She also clearly has no idea of how she looks from the rear view, particularly posed on a small chair [or perhaps a normal sized chair that is dwarfed by her ample derriere]. How can it be comfortable for her to be bulging over the edges in that way? She presents the overall impression of a string of grey, budget sausages.

Number 4 has been captured in the very act of scoffing! What did she say to her loved ones when her image was broadcast to the nation? That it was a case of mistaken identity? That she never eats lunch?

No, I’m sure that unless these unlucky portrait subjects were exhibitionists they would have been unlikely to sanction the use of their corpulent bods to illustrate negative reports on obesity. So it follows that they were the unwitting victims of the papparazi lens, which is a discomforting thought-because today, or tomorrow, or next week it could be you or me. And I don’t know about you, but though I do not consider myself to be obese, I am not the whip-thin little wraith I once was…but then…as I said in a previous post…I never look in mirrors, so I might not recognise myself after all.

The 24 hour overkill

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Grace Lessageing

Due to the wonders of modern technology there is no excuse for ignorance about current affairs, politics, the weather forecast, who is doing what to whom in the Big Brother House [is it on at the moment?…I make no excuse for my ignorance except for lack of interest], a shock football result or what Kate and William had for breakfast. The news is available 24 hours a day, every day. It comes around and around, the same stories, the same clips, the same correspondent in Delhi or Jo’berg or Kabul telling us the same things they told us fifteen minutes ago.

Occasionally we get a reprieve with a piece of ‘breaking’ news. ‘Oscar Pistorius has been charged with a murder’. We gasp, or tut, or shake our heads. Then the story starts to revolve in the loop. There is Oscar running on the track. There is Oscar strapping on his famous blades. There is his house. We see the images. We see them again next time. Oscar’s tragic, or sordid, or ghastly drama is re-enacted ad infinitum along with all the other news stories.

How do the presenters do it? How do they manage to present the same items of ‘news’ so many times over? I imagine I would want to run screaming from the building after about ten renditions of ‘over to our South Africa correspondent…’ but they sit there calmly adjusting their expressions to suit the stories, consummate professionals all.

The scandal of the imposter horse meat was never riveting to begin with, and now we are all up to the top of our trash cans with it. Of course it is very naughty of the suppliers or whoever slipped it into the chain to try and make a few extra bucks from any cheap carcass they happen to have on hand, and they shouldn’t be calling horse meat beef. Shame on them! But perhaps those who’ve unwittingly bought the products and now feel betrayed, ill, shocked, sick, terrified, horrified or any other Daily Mail type adjective have themselves to blame. Because how hard is it to put together a cottage pie or a lasagne anyway? And no one dies, or even gets ill from eating horse. I’ve eaten it myself in France, having mistakenly bought it in supermarkets [and yes, it was labelled correctly!]. It is inexpensive, and though it takes longer to cook is a reasonable substitute for beef.

But now I’m tired, even of the jokes about it all. ‘Next!’ I want to say to the television news. ‘Enough of the horse meat’, ‘enough of Oscar’, ‘enough of Kate’s bikini pictures’, ‘enough of the recession’, ‘enough about Chris Huhne’s speeding points’, ‘the Eastleigh by-election’ and ‘dipping retail sales’. Enough!

February 14th and all that…

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Grace Lessageing

Happy Valentine’s Day! It is a day we like to mark in our house, by cards, small gifts and dining out, and judging by all the marketing that’s going on, supermarkets, card outlets, underwear manufacturers and restaurants intend to enjoy it too.

However commercialised it has become, it is an opportunity to remind ourselves of why we are with the partner we chose and it helps to cement the foundations, so to speak!

But while we’re raising our glasses to each other and putting our cards on the mantelpiece we should also remember that in many parts of the world partners are not necessarily ‘chosen’, that marriages are not, and can never be happy and are, in fact an institution wrought with subjugation and violence for large numbers of women and girls. Around the world, women have chosen this day, February 14^th, to stage a peaceful protest to denounce violence against women. This campaign is called ‘One Billion Rising’.

We may consider ourselves lucky, here in our cosy, westernised corner that we live in a more lawful, emancipated society, but the UK is not without its own incidents of domestic violence. While women continue to be objectified the element of disrespect will also continue, which is why it is a small step of progress that Murdoch is ‘considering’ swapping topless girls on page 3 of the sun for ‘fashionistas’. Are there to be both men and women in this section, then? And are they to be clothed? Or by labelling it ‘fashion’ will it be a [barely [!]] concealed version of the topless models that have graced the pages for so long?

When labour MP Clare Short was campaigning against the portrayal of page 3 models in the 1980s she had to put up with horrible insults to the effect that she was jealous, being unattractive herself. I wonder what has changed? Of course, for one thing, porn of any sort is readily available on the internet. In fact all proclivities are catered for. If you have a hankering for Alsatians, yiaourtiphilia [sexual attraction to yoghurt] or get excited about teddy bears [yes, there exists such a penchant] it can be sought out on a computer.

Having never been of a prudish nature, I’m all for anyone pursuing their own desires, however odd to others, provided it does no harm to anyone else. Internet porn is here to stay, and undoubtedly addresses the needs of many. But don’t tell us, Sun readers, that Page 3 nudity is ‘harmless fun’, because it does devalue women and puts over a message to young girls that this is what they are worth.

Lecture over. I’m off to try on my lingerie.

How Rude!

Posted on February 10, 2013 by Grace Lessageing

Now I’m aware, as I begin this post, that this one is going to come across as very GOW [Grumpy Old Woman], but I’m going ahead with it anyway. Is my perception somehow skewed, or am I correct in noticing that general politeness, manners and consideration are on the decline? Could it be my heightened sensitivity due to becoming a geriatric? [most senses become rather more dull as one progresses towards expiry, don’t they?] Perhaps in the previous life of gainful employment [gainful to me financially rather than in any other respect] I was too knackered to notice anything much at all.

Back in the hazy mists of time there used to be a sitcom called ‘Citizen Smith’, starring Robert Lindsay as a young, urban anarchist type attempting to change the world. Faced with anyone whose behaviour he disapproved of he’d write their name in a notebook and promise, ‘Come the revolution, they’d be up against the wall’. I can often find myself sympathising with his ideals. Whether a recent phenomenon or not, there are glaring and unacceptable behaviours out there in society, in all spheres. This is just a random selection of them.

Yacking shop assistants.

This is ignorant. They gas to each other while they are serving you, failing to even so much as look your way as they pass your change. Pointed and loud ‘thank yous’ rarely have any effect. I’ve experienced this in supermarkets, small shops, cafes and bars.

Pedestrians.

Two or more people are walking along a pavement together, side by side. They are coming towards you. The width of the pavement does not allow for more than two. What happens? They continue to walk towards you as if you were invisible, causing you to flatten yourself against the wall or step into the road to avoid being trampled underfoot. Nothing ever induces anyone to walk single file to enable someone to pass. And similarly…

Drivers.

Where only one column of traffic may access the road due to parked cars etc it is polite to wait. Most do not wait. If you are the waiting car, how often does anyone wave their thanks? Then there are the people who push into a queue uninvited, or drive across a ‘keep clear’ box and sit there, studiously looking ahead to avoid your wrath.

Public Transport.

Shouting on mobile phones [often explicit details of sexual exploits], screeching to accompanying passengers, throwing rubbish on the floor-these are the least offensive activities on the bus. Worse are actual assaults. I’ve been fortunate so far not to experience too much of this but know those who have.

Doors.

Sailing through a held door and ignoring the kind holder of it, bullishly pushing through and letting it swing back in the next person’s face etc etc. You know what I mean.

The Cinema.[or theatre, or concert-any performance really]

Eating noisily [and malodorously], chattering, commenting, shrieking, talking on mobile phones, wearing big hats, putting feet up on back of seats.

Planes.

All of the above plus reclining the seat back as far as it will go so it squeezes the person in front to a pulp, spreading out over everyone else’s seat [and both armrests].

Supermarkets.

Trolley wars. Need I say more?

There’s no room in the curriculum for etiquette lessons. In any case the rudiments need to be learned before the onset of school. So come on Mums and Dads, ‘teach your children well’ [Crosby, Stills and Nash]. You’ll be doing them [and us!] a big favour.

To keep up or not to keep up, that is the question…

Posted on February 7, 2013 by Grace Lessageing

If there is one, nasty, insidious, creeping element to ageing I’ve noticed, it is the necessity to complete ever more actions in order to appear presentable in public. This is one of the things your mother never tells you; that seemingly every day that goes by brings another challenge to be faced in front of the mirror! Indeed, the mirror itself is a challenge! These days, if I can actually find something I might wish to try on in the changing room of a clothing outlet I am in the habit of facing the door rather than the mirror. The overall result of this behaviour is that I return home with any garment that I can get on and do up, regardless of how it looks.

Gone are the days when I could get out of the shower, towel off, drag something on and go. Now it is more a case of completing a checklist of fabrications, falsehoods and concealments, all designed to fool everyone [including myself] that I look ok. Starting at the top, it goes something like this:

Hair [of the head kind]

Having originally been a very dark, almost black shade of brown, I’ve been undertaking a stealthy transformation over the last fifteen or so years to lighten to a shade which will blend seamlessly into grey. Progress continues to be slow. I’ve lacked the courage, thus far, to go ‘cold turkey’. I’ve always been hopeless with hair styling, so at least that is one area that does not change.

Hair [Face]

It grows where it is not wanted and disappears from where it used to be. This anomaly has to be addressed on a depressingly frequent basis.

Skin [Face]

Dry, blotchy, wrinkly, spotty etc etc. It requires the use of ‘product’. ‘Product’ occupies increasing amounts of space and time and is also a drain on resources. It is also of dubious expediency. QED.

Skin [Elsewhere]

Dealing with elsewhere skin demands a regime consisting of a combination of the two above. I am hampered in the execution of these tasks, however by a lack of flexibility [eg twisting around to access lower part of back of leg] and failing eyesight. The result is to go out and about with unsightly hairy patches like a mammal undergoing a moult, not a problem during the winter months but an obstacle to baring flesh in the summer. Elsewhere skin also soaks up ‘product’ like a sponge. The choice is to keep slathering it everywhere in industrial quantities or take on the appearance of a crocodile.

Shape

Where do I begin? It changes. I cavort about at the gym, walk, do active things, eat sensible things, eschew the demon chocolate. Despite all this effort and deprivation, stubborn, squidgy bits appear where there were none.

I know women who deal with the outward signs of ageing by concentrating all their efforts into the extremities. They spend vast sums on nail beautification or the purchase of designer handbags, thus avoiding the proverbial ‘elephant’. If it works for them, great! I am neither a nail person [being more of the Carol Klein type…gardening nails] nor a bag-o-phile. I fail to understand the allure of bags, especially when changing bag to suit outfit requires decanting all items from one to the other. I use a rucksack. When it wears out I get another.

I also sense a certain inequality here, between the sexes. Men can embrace ageing and become all those desirable things like ‘distinguished’ without so much as nod to Grecian 2000. This is much discussed in the media, where male presenters, newsreaders and the like can carry on into their dotage without a worry.

So how old do I have to be before I may sit down, relax and let it all go the way it will without my intervention? Like I said, my mother never told me! Answers on a postcard please….. [or in the comments section!]

What not to do with your GUKAPs

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Grace Lessageing

Not insignificant amongst recent events in our household has been the return of an adult offspring to reside with us. During the intervening ten years that has been child free we have, as one does, fallen into what we had considered to be our default, retirement, do-as-we-wish lifestyle, involving eating when and what we like, coming and going when we please, becoming pernickety about some habits and lackadaisical about others and considering that we have despatched our duty towards our progeny. In other words we have been gradually evolving into ancient, dotty creatures like our parents used to be.

Now we’ve all had to make adjustments, and although I must add that this is not the first time it has happened, or even with the same child, I find I am regressing to a former self; one who was a parent, with all the accompanying, irritating, overbearing, suffocating tendencies that such a role carries.

I say, ‘You can’t be warm enough like that’, or ‘Aren’t you going to eat before you go out?’, or ‘How are you getting home?’ or ‘Oh dear’. Being aware of this foible and its annoyance factor does nothing to prevent these pseudo-maternal utterances. They are out of my mouth before you can say ‘empty nest’, just as if I’m running on an automatic mummy circuit.

All this would be much more understandable if I’d been a natural, a homely ‘earth mother’ type when they were small. But motherly I was not. Oh, I loved them of course! But I’d been unprepared for the relentless clamour that babies and toddlers create; unaware that no minute of any day belonged to me, not to sit down and have a coffee, read a newspaper, browse in a shop, weed a garden border, have a bath or even to sit on a lavatory alone and uninterrupted.

Looking after babies and toddlers can be fun and rewarding. They are sweet and funny. It can also be exhausting, frustrating, lonely and boring. They demand all your time. They are messy and not always happy. I took a number of years off to tend to mine. I enjoyed seeing them grow and develop, but the loss of salary led to a Spartan quality of life. Whilst there were probably benefits to my being their sole carer I don’t think they’d have been worse off if I’d worked part-time.

Quality child care is essential to families these days. I fail to see how anyone is going to be able to look after 6 toddlers on their own. Two was hard enough for me [and they were my own children!]. Where is the connection between a less advantageous ratio of child to adult and it costing less? Or staff getting paid more? It is a demanding and a skilled job and the people doing it should receive the pay and status they deserve without compromising their conditions.

And as for grown up children? I shall probably continue in my bumbling attempts to be a mother until I croak. Do we have a term for them, an acronym [like SKIers or DINKies?]? Some call them Boomerang kids, but I thought GUKAPs might do. [Grown Up Kids At Parents].

Sailing too Close to the Wind?

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Grace Lessageing

So in this rapidly changing world, what will the transport of the future look like? What will fuel it? Will it be air, land or water based [or something else? Virtual?]? Who will travel? What will it cost? Will it be a luxury? Is it a luxury now?

Indeed, will there be travel at all? Why will anyone need to?

During a trawl for research into climate change, for a novel I’m attempting to write, I came across this website:

http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=48.3416,14.6777&z=13&m=7

It shows the extent to which the land will flood over progressively higher sea levels, which prompts speculation about the repercussions of such floods. We are already beginning to see the effects of flooding, with disruption to housing and transport. There must surely come a time when, as usable land shrinks, people will need to move higher. It may also be necessary to rethink the way we, and our goods, travel.

On large waterways, such as the Thames, or the French Seine, barges are a normal sight, but in the future, when land is at [even more of] a premium, why not capitalise by restoring the waterways and even building more? For instance, looking at the flood map it seems that North Somerset and South Devon may shrink to the point where Cornwall is almost an island, making it a fairly simple operation to build a transport waterway between the existing Bristol and the English Channels.

In thirty years’ time I imagine there will have not only been developments in vehicles and fuels, but in communications technology. Why, then are we going to be spending 33 billion pounds on a land-based transport project that may not even be needed? The intention to take traffic off roads is laudable, but who knows whether road traffic will be the same in 30 years time? It may all be electric, we may not need to travel so much, or maybe a completely new system will get invented.

Maybe we will even be re-thinking our attitudes to goods transport. We may have to limit imports and exports, grow more [and a greater variety] of foods, make more of what we need, perhaps think about using less. Radical? It’s beginning to happen already.

In the meantime I’d like to know who is going to be travelling up and down the country by railway on a regular basis and for what reasons? And how on earth this is meant to ‘generate’ wealth and business? If it’s only about shopping outlets at stations then there’s no hope, because how can that succeed where all over the country, high streets are failing?

Any answers? Chances are that I won’t be around in 30 years, but I’m still interested to know!

Reasons to be Cheerful…[part 1]

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Grace Lessageing

January is a gloomy month. Once the gluttonous, exuberant, over-consumption of Christmas and New Year is over there is little to recommend it. TV channels have exhausted their supply of money and ideas. It is long, cold, dark, often penurious…in the aftermath of all the spending…, and frequently marked by periods of nasty weather. Many are prompted to comment, ‘We are always caught out in this country’, ‘why aren’t we prepared?’ etc when airport runways and motorways are unusable, or ‘look at Norway’, ‘look at Canada’; ‘they don’t get caught out’! They don’t. But the reason we aren’t prepared in the way that they are, is that our climate has always been unpredictable, and getting more so.

In January we are bombarded with alluring offers: ‘Two for one on main courses for dining between 11 am and 12.30pm, choosing from the 2 for 1 menu’ [ie ponyburger and chips with garlic bread].

‘One extra night free during weekdays’ [at the Travel Inn Express, Uttoxeter motorway services…on the M6…you might be lucky and get a 2 for 1 at Little Chef [see above]].

‘Ryanair’s £8 winter seat sale’; [fly from Stansted, Luton or Manchester on a Tuesday or Thursday morning at 5.20am to an obscure airport fifty miles from eg Barcelona, Alicante or Marbella].

‘Cruise in the Med’ [I’ve made my feelings clear about cruising in the previous post], ‘from £199 [for two nights] or upgrade to an ‘exterior’ cabin for just an additional £50 each’. This extra £50 each is for a window. For two nights!

No, I’m not tempted by any of this. When I venture out into my back garden and scrape away some of the grey slush that is covering it I can detect some new, green spikes of growth where bulbs are beginning to show. There are fat buds on the camellia bush. It is all there, waiting in the wings of winter. In a couple of weeks the snowdrops will be up. I come back in and warm up with the wood burner. I make vast pots of soup. Curl up. Read.

At this time of year there is nowhere in Europe that is truly warm. So I prefer to wait, accept the vagaries of the weather and plan what we will do when the weather does, finally come out of hibernation. And be glad…because despite the miserable, cold, dark and wet conditions this is winter, doing what it is supposed to do. With any luck, then it will be spring. These are the seasons and we are fortunate to have them!

Anecdotage

Views from the Descent

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