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Theatre trip: The Holly and The Ivy

My recent relationship with Malvern Theatre is a bit like Samuel Johnson’s description of a second marriage: “A triumph of hope over experience”. I don’t think I’ve had a totally satisfactory or wholly enjoyable trip there since before Christopher died. I suspect that’s partly down to me – I’m hardly finding life a bundle of fun at the moment – but I keep persevering. Partly because it gets me out of the house at the weekends, but mostly because going to the theatre used to be an important part of our lives, and I don’t want to give all that up.

I tried again yesterday, going to the matinée of “The Holly and The Ivy”. It was a play I didn’t know at all, set in a vicarage in a small country town on Christmas Eve / Christmas Day 1947. It centred around an elderly, recently widowed vicar, whose family gathered for Christmas  – including some very difficult aunts, a long-suffering daughter, a slightly unsatisfactory son, and a heavy-drinking prodigal daughter who was a fashion journalist in London and rarely came home. Cue lots of soul-searching, home-truths, debates about love vs duty, and secrets hidden for years.

At least this time, in contrast to the Ayckbourn I went to a few weeks ago, the characters were all sympathetic people and actually seemed to like and support each other. However, there was rather too much harping on about bereavement and grief for my current mood so I didn’t enjoy it as much as I’d hoped. I could really have done with something rather lighter. But it was very well done, and probably one of the best plays I’ve seen there this year.

04 12 2011 Gillian Day out Comments (1) Permalink

Sorting out the telephone

I have a day off again today. Just as well really, it’s been a manic week at work with two long days out visiting customer sites, and I’m shattered. I’m meeting a friend and ex-colleague for lunch in a few hours time, and have spent the morning doing my Christmas shopping. Having signally failed to buy anything in Worcester last week, I’ve decided that it’s going to be easier and less stressful to do the bulk of it by mail order – either online or over the phone.

So I was making a number of phone calls this morning,  and decided it was about time I did some housekeeping on the phone, and delete numbers that I no longer need. My late father-in-law is one such; I can’t imagine needing to phone there again now. But I also took the opportunity to delete a load of numbers I used regularly when Christopher was ill – including the 24 hour Chemotherapy hotline at Cheltenham hospital, the Worcester Royal Hospital switchboard, and the hospice reception. I sincerely hope I don’t need to use any of those again in a hurry. And I really don’t need to keep them hanging around in my phone, reminding me of last year every time I scroll through the address book looking for a number.

02 12 2011 Gillian status Comments Off on Sorting out the telephone Permalink

The mice are back….

I’ve been sleeping very badly lately, which has been at least partly due to mice returning to the loft. Just as I’m about to drop off, there is a “scrabble scrabble scrabble” sound as a mouse runs from one end of the loft above my bedroom to the other end – right above my head. In the middle of the night that’s very loud, and enough to jerk me right awake. Then, just as I relax again, it runs back in the other direction. This can go on all night – to my certain knowledge from 10:30pm through to 3am. Which is extremely frustrating – particularly if I have to be up early the next day to get to a meeting the other end of the country.

I have the local pest control company on an annual contract, so it should have been a simple matter to call out Tim to deal with the infestation. Usually, he will fit me in the next day if I have mouse trouble. But I’ve been working away from home a lot recently, with early morning starts and not getting home until late, so I just haven’t been home to let a tradesman in. Another disadvantage of being on my own – when Chris was alive we rarely were away on business the same day, so it was more straightforward to arrange to cover house calls. However, I had a Malvern-based day today, so Tim was able to come over this morning before work and do his stuff. I’m hopeful that will fix things for a while, though it’s not instantaneous. In fact, things tend to get worse (i.e. louder) before the sounds stop altogether. So I think it’s going to have to be ear plugs tonight – at least I don’t have an early start tomorrow, so it won’t matter too much if I fail to hear my alarm!

So once again I’ve failed in the challenge I’ve been set to have 10 consecutive tradesman-free days before Christmas………

30 11 2011 Gillian house Comments Off on The mice are back…. Permalink

The Worcestershire Hoard

I’ve got tons of annual leave to use up before Christmas, and an edict has come down from on high at work to “use it or lose it”, so I booked the day off today. The main task of the day was to get the car serviced and through its MOT test, so I couldn’t have a lie in but instead needed to get the car to the garage for soon after 9:30. In the past, when we had two cars, Chris and I would drive in convoy to the garage, drop off the one that needed servicing, and still have the other car to use for the rest of the day. That’s obviously not possible now, so I had to think what to do for a day off work with no car.

The garage I use is just around the corner from Malvern Link station, so I decided to catch the train into Worcester for the day. I totally failed to do any Christmas shopping – I had a complete lack of inspiration – but did have a rather nice lunch in a little brasserie which Christopher and I used to favour. I was pleased to see that it was still there. I then walked along to the library to kill some time somewhere warm. Worcester City library has a small museum on the top floor, which I remember from growing up in Worcester as being dull and very provincial. But I decided to have a look around it anyway, and was very pleased that I did.

The Worcestershire Hoard

There was a temporary exhibition, which finishes tomorrow, about the Worcestershire Hoard. This is a hoard of 3874 Roman coins, dating from the middle of the 3rd Century, which was found over the summer on Bredon Hill. It was found by a couple of metal detectorists, who thankfully did the right thing and contacted the appropriate authorities, so that a proper excavation could be carried out. It turns out to be by far the biggest hoard ever found in Worcestershire, and to be of national importance. Most of the coins are now at the British Museum for cleaning and conservation, but a small selection are on display at the museum for us locals to see what all the fuss is about. Just last week the coroner declared the find Treasure Trove, which means that it becomes Crown property, but the finders and the landowner will share the market value. The hoard is currently being valued, and then Worcester Museum will have four months to raise that sum to buy it.  They had already started the fund-raising, and I was happy to contribute to it.

The Worcestershire Hoard is by no means as exciting to look at as the Anglo-Saxon gold in the Staffordshire Hoard which Chris and I had a memorable trip to see last year. But I still found it interesting to see, and the museum had gone to a lot of trouble to present it well. I was pleased that I’d managed to catch the exhibition before it finishes. And my car passed its MOT, so all in all it was a good day!

25 11 2011 Gillian Day out Comments (1) Permalink

Able to see out again

One of the unexpected side-effects now that Christopher is no longer here is that I’m having to get my hair cut more often. I absolutely hate spending time and money at the hairdressers (that’s probably obvious to anyone who has ever met me……) and Chris was always happy to trim my fringe when it got too long, thus saving me from a trip to the hairdressers when it was only my fringe that really needed attention. He even bought me a pair of proper hairdressing scissors for Christmas a few years ago, as he was a firm believer in any job being easier if you had the proper tools. He got pretty good at it over the years, and could be relied upon to cut it at least reasonably straight.

Since he died I have had to face up to the unwelcome fact that my fringe is very fast-growing, and if I don’t do something about it, it soon gets too long and gets into my eyes. I’ve tried cutting it myself, but that was very unsatisfactory. I did think about asking my mother to have a go at it when I’ve been visiting my parents, but I’m still deeply traumatised by her efforts at trimming my fringe when I was a child! There are photos of me aged about seven with the most amazingly crooked fringe, and I really don’t want to be reminded of that……..

But then I discovered that the hairdressers that I have been going to for the past fifteen years or more are very happy to see their regular customers in between formal haircuts, and trim their fringe for free, without an appointment, just as long as one of the hairdressers has a few minutes free! I popped in last Friday afternoon and it was done – quickly, professionally and with the minimum of fuss. So all those years of being a skinflint and getting Chris to cut my fringe were completely unnecessary!

23 11 2011 Gillian status Comments Off on Able to see out again Permalink

Another day at the pottery

I spent most of today at Eastnor Pottery, practising my throwing. I don’t actually need any more plates/bowls/mugs at the moment – I have a house full of them already and haven’t broken any recently to necessitate making more. And it’s too close to Christmas now for me to be able to get anything thrown, turned, decorated and fired in time to be Christmas presents.

I decided that I could really do with sharpening up my throwing technique.  So I spent several hours repetitively throwing the same basic shape on the wheel, with a standard-sized lump of clay (~600g), throwing cylinder after cylinder. Once I had finished each one, I cut it in half with a cheese-wire to look at the cross section, so that I could see how even (or otherwise) I was getting the base and walls of the pot.  As the day progressed, the pots got taller and thinner from the same sized starting lump, so I could see that my technique was improving.

I’ve come home pretty tired from all the concentration, and with a stiff back from hunching over the wheel. It’s surprisingly physical, and I’ll feel it in my legs and upper arms tomorrow. But I feel that it was a day well spent, and I always enjoy spending time at the pottery. It’s a very peaceful atmosphere, and the time just flies by.

19 11 2011 Gillian Day out Comments Off on Another day at the pottery Permalink

Covering up the water stains

This cold is getting worse, and has now moved decisively to my chest, giving me a hacking cough that is keeping me awake at night. I’m feeling pretty sorry for myself, even though I know it’s just a bog-standard winter cold. But I’ve had a strong incentive to get up and get going the last few mornings, as I’m using my tried-and-tested tactic of getting someone in to do work on the house, thus ensuring that I’m up and decent (if not technically dressed!) first thing  in the morning. Once I’m up, it’s then much easier to keep going.

Rob, my trusty decorator, came around yesterday morning while I was having my breakfast and slapped a coat of sealant over the dodgy brown water stain on the hall ceiling – the one that was due to the leaking valve on the hot water cylinder. That bit of the job took him literally ten minutes, and he was gone again by the time I’d finished my toast, but it needed a full day to dry out thoroughly before he could top-coat it. He then came back today and spent the day painting the hall ceiling, and it looks so much better – you can’t tell now that there was a problem.

While he was here, I asked Rob to also paint the ceiling in the shower room in the extension. I’m a bit annoyed that it needed doing at all, as it’s only a few years old. However, it has the best shower in the house by far, so I use it every day, and hence it needs de-moulding from time to time. But when I went to wipe the mould-stains off the ceiling, the paint came away too, like a layer of dust! Rob says it’s because the builder will have used “contractors’ emulsion” which is suitable for putting onto fresh damp plaster, but has very little vinyl in it. So it doesn’t form a good strong layer. It looked good initially, but wasn’t properly bonded to anything. He’s put three coats of proper paint onto the ceiling, and that should be more permanent.

So, all in all, he’s done a good day’s work today, and the ceilings look a lot fresher. That’s another job to cross off the list…….

15 11 2011 Gillian house Comments Off on Covering up the water stains Permalink

Theatre trip: Season’s Greetings

Yesterday I went to the matinée performance of Alan Ayckbourn’s 1980s Christmas classic,  Season’s Greetings. It seems to come around every few years, and I’d seen it before with Christopher, so I thought I’d enjoy it. I had forgotten just how black the comedy is in this particular play. It is an uncompromising portrait of a severely dysfunctional family – including alcoholism, implied domestic violence, loveless marriages, sibling rivalry, deep-seated personal failures on many levels, adultery and madness, and culminates in an attempted murder.

Because it was an Ayckbourn classic, the theatre was full, with coach parties from all over the Three Counties. Even though I bought my ticket weeks ago, it was so busy that I could only get a seat about ten rows back from where I normally like to sit. That wasn’t a problem from the point of view of seeing the stage – Malvern Theatre is very well laid out and the sight-lines are excellent from the whole auditorium. But I found it hard to hear what was going on. The actors were pretty much all TV soap stars, from Eastenders, The Royal, Emmerdale etc, and most of them seemed to have forgotten the core competence of a stage actor – the ability to project their voices to the back of the auditorium. Christopher Timothy, in particular, spoke so quietly that I strained to hear him. The old dears surrounding me, who had travelled from miles away, could hardly hear a thing, even with their hearing aids turned up to maximum. They spent the interval trying to work out what was going on, and it was obvious from their discussions that they had missed most of the dialogue. The old woman four seats to my right heard so little of the first half that she fell asleep after the first scene, and her gentle snores made it even harder for her friends to follow the speeches!

So all in all, it wasn’t a particularly successful trip to the theatre. I was in a bleak mood anyway, as my heavy cold is making me feel pretty miserable. I did laugh aloud at some of the set pieces which were genuinely funny, but overall I cringed more than laughed.

13 11 2011 Gillian Day out Comments (1) Permalink

Restocking the fridge

Waitrose reopened today! What a relief!  I said to the woman on the till that it was great to have them back, but that they seemed to have moved absolutely everything. Nothing is where it was and even finding something as basic as milk wasn’t straightforward. No doubt I’ll get used to it in time.

I got through the week on a combination of leftovers (from last weekend’s larger than otherwise strictly necessary lamb joint), storecupboard basics and improvisation, plus buying two emergency pints of milk from the canteen at work. It was all going well until lunch time yesterday. I’ve got a stinking cold, so decided to work from home yesterday rather than spread my germs around the open plan office. From a work point of view that was a good call, and I got a lot done. But at lunch time I realised that, since I hadn’t expected last weekend to be at home on Friday, I hadn’t planned ahead and got any ingredients for lunch. I was reduced to raiding the fridge for any odds and ends of left-overs (half a yellow pepper, a slice of ham, a tomato and a few green beans) which I could put in a frying pan with a couple of eggs and call an omelette.

I had intended to do a big shop today to restock the fridge, which was very nearly empty. But I didn’t get to Waitrose until nearly 5pm today (I’d been to a matinée at the theatre. But a review of the play will have to wait until tomorrow. Waitrose reopening is much more important!) and the store was absolutely heaving. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it so busy, except perhaps just before Christmas. I was too tired and hungry to have the patience to do a big shop, especially since it would require hunting for for each and every thing and hence take much longer than it should.  So I just bought the basics, enough to get me through the weekend, and I’ll do a proper restocking exercise later in the week when it’s less busy.

12 11 2011 Gillian status Comments (1) Permalink

Oxytocin Levels

Our workplace used to have a pretty good Occupational Health service. There was an on-site nurse who knew the staff, knew our problems, and was able to make sensible recommendations about how to overcome them, or at least to make reasonable adjustments to our work so that we could cope better. She was very helpful when Chris had a bout of serious depression several years ago, and I found her advice very useful when I was trying to juggle work and handling his illness and death last year. In fact, I credit her with helping me to set up the sustainable working pattern that I’m still working to and building on now.

So I felt it was a real shame when she retired last autumn and was not replaced – too expensive I suspect. Instead, we have a remotely-managed service which sends out jolly one-size-fits-all emails. This month’s was a particularly choice one about stress awareness. I quote:

Did you know?  A hug can be good for your health. Hugging instigates an elevated release of oxytocin which researchers have shown is associated with reduced levels of stress hormones, promotion of growth and healing and social bonding.

Well! What on earth am I supposed to do with that information? Especially in a work context? Instigate group hugs at the weekly team meetings? I can see the sexual harassment suits already – in fact I’d probably launch one myself!

I am well aware that I am considerably under-hugged, but now that my husband is dead I don’t have a ready supplier of hugs to hand. I did get a year’s worth of hugs at the funeral, but that’s over a year ago now. However, I’m not a very tactile person, and neither are most of my friends. We’re all scientists and engineers for goodness sake; we don’t do touchy-feely! There is one exception – an old college friend of Christopher’s – who has the most comprehensive bear-hug I’ve ever come across, and I take full advantage of it when I see her. But otherwise, that so-called advice is useless to me, and (I suspect) to the large numbers of single scientists with whom I work. In fact, it’s worse than useless – it’s actively upsetting, as it reminds me of what I’ve lost.

Would you like to guess who was the corporation behind this insensitive and patronising newsletter? It was AXA ICAS Healthcare. AXA really do seem to be doing their level best to annoy me with their email communications recently!

10 11 2011 Gillian invective Comments (3) Permalink