It all began with making marmalade. Well, actually it didn't - it began with the news that, along with a great many others, my services were no longer required. For the past few years I've been writing freelance and one of my regular customers has been my local newspaper. The writing, so to speak, had been on the wall for a while now. Many of us had been told to cut back on our submissions, full-time employees were being laid off - it was clearly only a matter of time. And sure enough, yesterday as it happens, the axe fell on my last remaining contribution. Now normally we writers - particularly the freelance ones - have fragile egos. Our professional 'worth' horribly yo-yoing from week to week but, given the times in which we live, and the cut-backs every industry seems to be struggling through, my ego has remained, more or less, intact. After all, it was one knock-back that was more of a redundancy than a rejection.
So, as I started to regroup I returned to my personal therapy of choice - cooking. Being a freelance writer means I'm used to the ebbs and floes of work, to the intensity of producing a book and the contrasting calm in between times. For me, it's time in the kitchen that fills those gaps and finds our pantry piled high with preserves, the freezer topped up with pies and the fridge laden with soups. But the thing about that kind of cooking is that it requires attention, it occupies your mind and body, it isn't particularly difficult, and it reaps wonderful, delicious rewards.
Of course all that stirring gives you time to think and, by the time I had finished over my cauldron (there is, after all, just a touch of magic in cooking!), I had put all the day's disappointment behind me and begun to see, not a loss or an end, but a new, fresh beginning. And jars and jars of marmalade!
12 February 2009
11 February 2009
Bag ladies and bus rage!
IT was in danger of turning into the bus journey from hell, several passengers glaring at each other, others quietly seething. Yet it had all started out so smoothly: a routine trip from the city centre to the suburbs; shoppers of all ages clutching their packages; a rare British sunny day, all was well with the world. Until, that is, an encounter between two of my fellow passengers.
The pleasant weather had brought out more Derbeians than usual at that time of day and the bus was almost full. Anxious to sit down as quickly as possible, one woman spotted an empty seat beside a window, just in front of me.
When I say empty, it was occupied by a huge paper bag; the kind you get from designer boutiques. It would certainly have been no burden for the person who had plopped it there to place it on her lap. Or at least you wouldn’t have thought so. As it happened, that person was a young lady, although there was nothing remotely ladylike about her reaction when the other passenger politely asked her to remove the bag so she might sit down.
She stared at the woman as if she’d just suggested she cut off her own arm, while, all around her, astonished passengers (some still waiting to sit down further along the bus) looked on.
Surely she wouldn’t refuse? Well, no, she didn’t; but only after an exaggerated roll of the eyes and an audible sigh did she theatrically stand up, lift the bag, move to the seat beside her and sit down with the bag on her lap.
By this time those waiting were getting more than a little impatient. They were also getting hot because the bus’s heating was switched on full blast, carbon footprint be damned, apparently.
As one male passenger was finally able to pass, he directed an extremely rude remark at the girl with the apparently immovable bag. Another female passenger, with whom he had now drawn level, assumed he was addressing her and turned to insult him back. Fortunately, for the remainder of the journey the pair limited themselves to exchanging angry glares.
As it turned out, the young lady with the bag hadn’t yet finished exercising her right to be stroppy. As we approached her stop, she stood, barked: “Getting off here!” at her neighbour and shoved her aside, accidentally whacking three or four people with her designer carrier on her way to the front.
Of course, selfishness is a sad trait in people of every generation and by no means only the preserve of teenagers. I’ve seen as many older people push in, or grumble about standing, as I have younger ones refuse to stand up.
I have to admit that I don’t automatically stand up for everyone. I like to think I’m pretty egalitarian and use a simple rule of thumb: if someone, whatever their age or their reason, is less able or more inconvenienced to stand than I am, then they are welcome to my seat. Otherwise I stay put. I don’t expect men to stand up for me, nor children for that matter. But I’m not insulted if they offer; and believe me I’ve been on the receiving end of that one.
Nor, should I come to be a hale and hearty pensioner, shall I complain when a teenager doesn’t jump to their feet for me. I have a feeling, though, that one young lady might.
Because, while most people are always polite, friendly and considerate of others – and we wouldn’t notice incidents like this if they weren’t – some people don’t give it a second thought. And that’s a shame because it’s those people we remember and by whom we judge everyone else of their generation.
The pleasant weather had brought out more Derbeians than usual at that time of day and the bus was almost full. Anxious to sit down as quickly as possible, one woman spotted an empty seat beside a window, just in front of me.
When I say empty, it was occupied by a huge paper bag; the kind you get from designer boutiques. It would certainly have been no burden for the person who had plopped it there to place it on her lap. Or at least you wouldn’t have thought so. As it happened, that person was a young lady, although there was nothing remotely ladylike about her reaction when the other passenger politely asked her to remove the bag so she might sit down.
She stared at the woman as if she’d just suggested she cut off her own arm, while, all around her, astonished passengers (some still waiting to sit down further along the bus) looked on.
Surely she wouldn’t refuse? Well, no, she didn’t; but only after an exaggerated roll of the eyes and an audible sigh did she theatrically stand up, lift the bag, move to the seat beside her and sit down with the bag on her lap.
By this time those waiting were getting more than a little impatient. They were also getting hot because the bus’s heating was switched on full blast, carbon footprint be damned, apparently.
As one male passenger was finally able to pass, he directed an extremely rude remark at the girl with the apparently immovable bag. Another female passenger, with whom he had now drawn level, assumed he was addressing her and turned to insult him back. Fortunately, for the remainder of the journey the pair limited themselves to exchanging angry glares.
As it turned out, the young lady with the bag hadn’t yet finished exercising her right to be stroppy. As we approached her stop, she stood, barked: “Getting off here!” at her neighbour and shoved her aside, accidentally whacking three or four people with her designer carrier on her way to the front.
Of course, selfishness is a sad trait in people of every generation and by no means only the preserve of teenagers. I’ve seen as many older people push in, or grumble about standing, as I have younger ones refuse to stand up.
I have to admit that I don’t automatically stand up for everyone. I like to think I’m pretty egalitarian and use a simple rule of thumb: if someone, whatever their age or their reason, is less able or more inconvenienced to stand than I am, then they are welcome to my seat. Otherwise I stay put. I don’t expect men to stand up for me, nor children for that matter. But I’m not insulted if they offer; and believe me I’ve been on the receiving end of that one.
Nor, should I come to be a hale and hearty pensioner, shall I complain when a teenager doesn’t jump to their feet for me. I have a feeling, though, that one young lady might.
Because, while most people are always polite, friendly and considerate of others – and we wouldn’t notice incidents like this if they weren’t – some people don’t give it a second thought. And that’s a shame because it’s those people we remember and by whom we judge everyone else of their generation.
6 December 2008
When the lights went out ...
THERE I was on Saturday, fresh from the shower and looking forward to a day of recreation. Then the lights went out. And it wasn’t just the lights. The house was silent. No chugging fridge or whirring Sky box. Nothing. And, judging by the twitching curtains down the road, the rest of the street was in the same boat.
It turned out that Pylons-R-Us, or whoever controls our electricity supplies these days, had decided to switch off the power without so much as a by your leave, a card through the letterbox or a polite knock on the door. This was not particularly helpful, especially to the neighbour who had been enjoying a leisurely shower when the deed was done.
Meanwhile, I had my own mini crisis because, towel wrapped around my head, I had been about to blow-dry my hair. OK, to most people having soaking wet hair might not rate very high on the scale of human suffering, but if you’d ever been unfortunate enough to see my hair without the aid of volumising blow-drying and ceramic straighteners, you’d think otherwise.
And, the thing is, until all the power goes out, you don’t realise just how hamstrung you are without electricity. And I don’t just mean the discovery that nowhere in the house do we have a mirror placed near any natural light source, hampering my attempts to put in emergency Velcro-rollers.
You soon discover it’s very near impossible to do anything in a modern house without the aid of electricity.
Now I’ve experienced plenty of power cuts. Back in the 1970s, when I was very little, power cuts were a regular occurrence. In fact, thanks to a long and drawn-out power worker’s dispute, we had regular, even scheduled, power cuts. You’d look in that day’s paper to find out at what time, and for how long, yours would be. And then you just got on with it.
You lit a few candles and played Ludo – it really wasn’t that much of a hardship and was quite an adventure for a toddler. But we’ve come a long way since then and we rely on electricity for practically everything. Back in the 70s, you might have only had heating on one floor but it was a gas fire lit by a match and unaffected by power cuts.
So, on a Saturday morning in 2008, not only do we find ourselves with no lighting and – heaven help us – no television, we also have no heating. There’s no chance of a cheering cuppa because we have no way to boil a kettle. Even the hob needs electricity to light. Although the laptop is charged, there is little point in switching it on; no power means no Internet. And with every minute that passes, you can just hear your frozen food thawing out.
As it turned out, the power was out for less than an hour so I didn’t have to break out the Trevor Bayliss wind-up radio/torch/beacon/siren combination we had bought “in case of emergencies”. Quite what this emergency might be I’m not sure – perhaps an 8.3 earthquake hitting Mickleover? But, with the first-aid box, tins of soup and bottles of water stashed in the pantry, it constitutes our emergency kit as suggested by that government booklet sent out a couple of years ago. Of course it didn’t suggest just how we are supposed to heat said soup. But then I am beginning to suspect that the real point of the leaflet was to give us something to do rather than actually help us.
What I really needed on Saturday was a leaflet entitled: “20 Ways To Style Your Hair When the Power’s Off.” Or, better still, a wind-up blow-dryer.
I might just drop Mr Bayliss a line about that one.
THERE I was on Saturday, fresh from the shower and looking forward to a day of recreation. Then the lights went out. And it wasn’t just the lights. The house was silent. No chugging fridge or whirring Sky box. Nothing. And, judging by the twitching curtains down the road, the rest of the street was in the same boat.
It turned out that Pylons-R-Us, or whoever controls our electricity supplies these days, had decided to switch off the power without so much as a by your leave, a card through the letterbox or a polite knock on the door. This was not particularly helpful, especially to the neighbour who had been enjoying a leisurely shower when the deed was done.
Meanwhile, I had my own mini crisis because, towel wrapped around my head, I had been about to blow-dry my hair. OK, to most people having soaking wet hair might not rate very high on the scale of human suffering, but if you’d ever been unfortunate enough to see my hair without the aid of volumising blow-drying and ceramic straighteners, you’d think otherwise.
And, the thing is, until all the power goes out, you don’t realise just how hamstrung you are without electricity. And I don’t just mean the discovery that nowhere in the house do we have a mirror placed near any natural light source, hampering my attempts to put in emergency Velcro-rollers.
You soon discover it’s very near impossible to do anything in a modern house without the aid of electricity.
Now I’ve experienced plenty of power cuts. Back in the 1970s, when I was very little, power cuts were a regular occurrence. In fact, thanks to a long and drawn-out power worker’s dispute, we had regular, even scheduled, power cuts. You’d look in that day’s paper to find out at what time, and for how long, yours would be. And then you just got on with it.
You lit a few candles and played Ludo – it really wasn’t that much of a hardship and was quite an adventure for a toddler. But we’ve come a long way since then and we rely on electricity for practically everything. Back in the 70s, you might have only had heating on one floor but it was a gas fire lit by a match and unaffected by power cuts.
So, on a Saturday morning in 2008, not only do we find ourselves with no lighting and – heaven help us – no television, we also have no heating. There’s no chance of a cheering cuppa because we have no way to boil a kettle. Even the hob needs electricity to light. Although the laptop is charged, there is little point in switching it on; no power means no Internet. And with every minute that passes, you can just hear your frozen food thawing out.
As it turned out, the power was out for less than an hour so I didn’t have to break out the Trevor Bayliss wind-up radio/torch/beacon/siren combination we had bought “in case of emergencies”. Quite what this emergency might be I’m not sure – perhaps an 8.3 earthquake hitting Mickleover? But, with the first-aid box, tins of soup and bottles of water stashed in the pantry, it constitutes our emergency kit as suggested by that government booklet sent out a couple of years ago. Of course it didn’t suggest just how we are supposed to heat said soup. But then I am beginning to suspect that the real point of the leaflet was to give us something to do rather than actually help us.
What I really needed on Saturday was a leaflet entitled: “20 Ways To Style Your Hair When the Power’s Off.” Or, better still, a wind-up blow-dryer.
I might just drop Mr Bayliss a line about that one.
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